Common Schools in a Fractured World - Bloomberg View

Common Schools in a Fractured World - Bloomberg View:

Common Schools in a Fractured World

 “Are we still making citizens?” That’s the title of an important essay by Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, in the spring issue of the journal Democracy. Botstein worries that we nowadays “defend education in purely economic terms, linking education to work and productivity.” Instead, we should embrace afresh Horace Mann’s ideal of the common school, where education transforms “private individuals with diverse faiths and origins into equal citizens in a democracy.”

Botstein’s celebration of Mann’s vision is one I wish I could embrace. But it’s too late. The fracturing of the educational system is real, and accelerating. As Botstein notes, the victims are children -- poor and minority children in particular. The question is what to do about it.

Although Botstein identifies many causes -- relativism and the Internet, for example -- his principal villain is the private school. Here, I fear, he and I must agree to disagree.

First, enrollment in private elementary and secondary schools isfalling, not rising. Second, although Botstein is correct to note the continuing challenge of school segregation, it’s nowadays largely unrelated to the lily-white academies in the South that he discusses. Schools are more segregated outside the South. The top offenders are New York, California and Illinois – all blue states.

More important, the private school movement in the U.S. begins not (as Botstein suggests) in the opposition to integration in the 1960s, but with the rise of Catholic schools a century earlier. That phenomenon grew out of a perception -- as it happens, a correct one -- that the common schools were dedicated to turning the children of Catholic immigrants into Protestants.

Today’s constitutional understanding that public money cannot be used to support religious education stems largely from that era, as Nativist politicians searched for ways to keep Catholic children in the public schools. And although compulsory education laws grew from a mixture of ideals, many of them admirable, they were also fired in part by a determination to keep the Protestantization movement on track. It took a Supreme Court decision before Catholic parents could escape.

I’m not saying that the common school isn’t a good idea in principle -- only that its history is more complex than what Botstein suggests. And in that history we find a second, larger difficulty. Mann, the great apostle of the common school, was actually rather modest in his ambition. Botstein notes that Mann believed that the common school existed first and foremost to build good citizens, and this is true. But the architecture of that construction mattered.

For Mann, the common school was an extension of, not a competitor to, existing sources of moral authority: the church, the community and the family. He argued for preserving “the Christian element in education,” and worried that Sunday school was available only one day a week. The common school was the place where the lessons of “the Maker” would be reinforced. But the lessons Mann actually proposed were nonsectarian, reflecting values, he seemed to think, on which all could agree. The most important among them, he contended in his 1857 baccalaureate address at Antioch College, was “a subjugation of the bodily appetites and desires.” Good citizens, Mann argued, should be ruled by their heads, not their bodies.

He also saw the common school as an extension of community -- local community. In his 1839 essay “To Teachers,” he suggested that parents sit in the classrooms as often as possible, so that they might be persuaded to approve what their children were being taught. He didn’t envision compulsory attendance. If the curriculum was “odious,” children would quite properly be kept away. The school’s task was to make education attractive.

Moreover, the interests of the family were paramount. Schools, Mann wrote in 1846, must not be in the business of “usurping” from parents “a portion of their rightful authority.” The teacher must not be “a rival” to parents but “their helper, their friend.” The teacher was the agent of the parents, exercising authority on their behalf, much as an upper-class family might assign the same role to a governess or tutor.

In short, Mann’s vision of the common school was very different from what advocates on the left or right tend to think of today. Schools were run by communities, and would subordinate the agenda of the educators to the agenda of the families they served.

This model is rather old-fashioned for today’s conversations. Schools, we tend to think, should serve national, not local, purposes. The controversial Common Core standards are intended to further that goal. I share Botstein’s dismay at our tendency to think of schools (colleges included) as stepping stones on the path to employment and income -- in short, vocational training -- rather than places to nurture good citizens. If the common school could be restored on Mann’s model of localism, of fundamentally serving families rather than Common Schools in a Fractured World - Bloomberg View:

Common Core tests take the imagination out of education | New York Post

Common Core tests take the imagination out of education | New York Post:

Common Core tests take the imagination out of education

 The Common Core was never a good idea.

It was a sneaky idea — and sneaky ideas in American public policy tend to have exactly the life span that Common Core has had.

The core sneakiness of the Common Core is that it was (and still is) presented as a state-level project when it was from the get-go intended to be a national project.

The proponents of the Common Core insist, often vehemently, that it is simply a set of “standards” and not a “curriculum.” It is, in fact, very much a curriculum. The sneakiness in this case is again aimed at getting around legal barriers that prohibit federal efforts to establish curricula, but the sneakiness is also aimed at diverting teachers and the public from the truth. The Common Core standards are finely detailed, grade-by-grade specifications for what should be taught, how it should be taught and when it should be taught.

Perhaps the strongest proof that the “standards” are a curriculum in disguise comes at the next layer of sneakiness, the Common Core-aligned tests. For no matter how creative teachers are in supplementing what the Common Core standards mandate, in the end, they have to prepare their students for the tests, and the testmakers have no interest in anything teachers add to the Core.

The content of the exams, of course, inevitably drives what the teachers teach. That’s because the teachers want their students to succeed, but it is also because the teachers themselves will be rewarded or punished on the basis of how well their students perform on the tests.

And what is on those tests?

The creators of Common Core said that mathematics should be matched to “pragmatic analysis” of what people actually need when they enter the workforce. We shouldn’t waste time and efort teaching math that people won’t use later.

Mathematics standards should be chosen to “dramatically” raise “the number and diversity of students performing at the highest levels.” To accomplish this would require lowering the definition of “the highest levels.”

The rhetorical trickery is immediately recognizable. If we define mountains to be elevations of 100 feet above sea level, lots more people can proudly declare themselves to be living on mountaintops. What drove this chicanery was the search for a shortcut to solving the achievement gap between various ethnic groups.

In other words, the Common Core takes its origins in what President George W. Bush once called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” If our primary concern should be to boost the numbers of students who pass eighth-grade mathematics, then the Common Core could well be the ticket. If our primary concern should be to foster the intellectual achievement of all students to the highest levels they are capable of attaining, then the Common Core is probably not the route forward.

When it comes to reading, meanwhile, the Common Core puts a huge emphasis on teaching children to read for “information.” It does that by putting literature in Common Core tests take the imagination out of education | New York Post:

California voters take a dim view of teacher tenure - LA Times

California voters take a dim view of teacher tenure - LA Times:

California voters take a dim view of teacher tenure

Gisela Aviles is a 49-year-old real estate agent in Corona. Henry Yoshikawa is a 71-year-old former administrator for a tiny school district in Placer County. And Arianna Rivera is a 23-year-old bank teller in East Los Angeles.

Although strikingly different, they are among an overwhelming majority of California voters who shared remarkably similar views about teachers in a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. They agree that teachers receive tenure much too quickly. And they believe that performance should matter more than seniority when teachers are laid off.

They also favor making it easier to fire instructors — although, at the same time, they think highly of teachers and want more resources for public schools that serve disadvantaged children.

"There is a very important lesson here for California politicians," said Dan Schnur, director of USC's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics. The poll findings indicate that voters "want to help teachers and support them ... but they're also more than willing to take stronger steps to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom."

Issues affecting teachers' job protections are at the center of a national debate over how best to improve schools.

On one side are foundations, business interests and the Obama administration, which have said students will benefit if teachers are held more accountable. To them, that includes making it easier to fire teachers who fail to deliver results, such as improvement on student standardized tests.

Teachers unions and other critics counter that targeting instructors weakens labor's ability to counteract proposals they believe are undermining public education. They want more focus on other factors that affect students, such as poverty, school resources and class sizes.

In California, nearly half of voters surveyed in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/Los Angeles Times poll favored a longer period to earn tenure than the two years granted under state law. Among those who favored some form of tenure, the largest group wanted teachers to earn it after seven to 10 years. More than a third opposed any form of tenure.

Voters also placed little faith in the seniority system that governs most layoffs in tough economic times. When given a list of options, only 8% said seniority should be the primary factor driving which teachers are let go.

More than half, 53%, instead said that teachers who have low marks when they are observed in their classrooms should be the first dismissed. And 26%, the next largest group, said that layoffs should first affect teachers whose students aren't progressing on standardized tests.

Seniority — the main yardstick currently used to determine which teachers to dismiss during budget crises — fell far back in the poll, followed by teachers who have less advanced training than others.

Although these opinions don't coincide with state law, they line up with advocates who sued the state in last year's landmark litigation, Vergara vs. California. In that case, an L.A. County Superior Court judge threw out tenure, seniority and other traditional job protections. That ruling is on appeal.

Rivera came by her views about teachers through experience as a student in both traditional and independently operated, public charter schools. At the charters, which don't have to follow seniority and tenure rules, she remembers young, enthusiastic, hardworking teachers.

By contrast, at the traditional schools, "there were older teachers with tenure who don't care. They were not there mentally and emotionally," said Rivera, who is registered with the Peace and Freedom Party and describes her politics as liberal.

If tenure were earned after 10 to 15 years, schools would have time to weed out the less dedicated, she said. Overall, she said, performance should matter when layoffs must occur.

Pollsters found such opinions widespread in a telephone survey of 1,504 voters from March 28 through April 7.

The "last in, first out" system for handling layoffs is "rejected by overwhelming margins regardless of what group you are," said Dave Kanevsky of American Viewpoint, the Republican half of the bipartisan team that conducted the poll.

"The average voter may not know the name Vergara, but they tend to affirm the basic tenet of accountability," said Drew Lieberman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, the Democratic half of the polling team. Voters "realize that not all teachers are created equal and that separating the good from the bad is part of the calculus."

Public school teachers without tenure currently can be fired at the will of their school district. Tenured teachers can be removed immediately for gross misconduct or pending an investigation of serious allegations. But dismissing an instructor for ineffective teaching typically is lengthy and expensive.

In the poll, nearly three-quarters of voters said it was very or somewhat important to make California voters take a dim view of teacher tenure - LA Times:

Voters' views on teachers

 

Why Has Teacher Morale Plummeted?

Why Has Teacher Morale Plummeted?:

Why Has Teacher Morale Plummeted?

A slew of policies and technologies promising to dramatically revolutionize teaching and education over the past decade has not only failed to produce desired results, it has also led to a decline in teacher morale, with large numbers leaving the profession.

A recent report for the Alliance for Excellent Education, a policy and advocacy organization, found that about "13 percent of the nation’s 3.4 million teachers move schools or leave the profession every year."

The question is how did this happen? While the answers to the current problems are long and complex, some of them can be traced back to the road to reform starting in the 1980s when measurable academic standards were set up for students.

As a researcher and author of a 2012 book on education reforms in the U.S. on top of being the father of children who are attending public schools, I have seen how these reforms have led to a situation in which teacher job satisfaction is at an all-time low and university graduates are less inclined to join the profession.

Teachers lost control of curricula

Over the past few decades, teacher professionalism and morale declined as education was turned into a market with a push for high-stakes testing and a centralized control of education.

Since the beginning of the latest rounds of education reform in the early 2000s,billions of dollars have been spent at the local, state and national levels on programs such as “No Child Left Behind,” “Race to the Top” and “Common Core.”

Supported by a wide variety of “reformist” groups, which include foundations, consulting firms, charter school and voucher advocates, neoliberal think-tanksand teacher-bashing politicians of both political parties, education reforms ended up making way for privatization, charter schools or voucher systems.

As a result teachers no longer control the curriculum as they should. This vacuum has been filled by a host of commercial companies that have developed products to be used both inside and outside the classroom.

They range from Professional Learning Communities, Competency-Based Education, Smart Boards, Khan Academy, Flipped Classrooms andPersonalized Learning to name but a few on a very long list. Teachers in school have seen a variety of such ‘edu-fashions’ in the form of reforms, flicker and fade.

Despite this there is little evidence to show that any of this has worked, even by the reformers' criteria for success in testing and evaluation methods such as,“valued added measures” and standardized tests scores. In fact, years of these“disruptive innovations” have resulted in a situation today of poor job satisfaction for teachers.

Highly stressed school teachers

The 2012 MetLife Survey of Teachers found that teacher job satisfaction declined from 62 percent of teachers feeling “very satisfied" in 2008 to 39 percent by 2012. This was the lowest in the 25-year history of the survey.

The survey also showed how stressed teachers in America were. It found that over "half (51 percent) of teachers report feeling under great stress several days a week," an increase of 70 percent from teachers reporting stress in 1985.

It is not surprising then that the turnover rate in the teaching profession is on the rise. The report for the Alliance for Excellent Education estimated that “over 1 million teachers move in and out of schools annually, and between 40 and 50 percent quit within five years.”

Enrollment declining in teaching programs

In addition to these rather grim statistics, fewer university students are, unsurprisingly, going into the field of education.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Education “enrollments in university teacher-preparation programs have fallen by about 10 percent from 2004 to 2012.” In California alone, enrollment in teaching education programsdeclined by 53 percent over the past five years.

Indeed, we are now in the early days of the “Great Common Core Gold Rush”as companies dash about trying to provide the curricular and testing materials for Common Core, much as they did for the earlier state-based testing demanded by No Child Left Behind.

However, the time is now long overdue to begin an entirely new path of education reform—to rediscover the road to reform that was not taken. This path seeks to support teachers, re-establish their autonomy and rebuild the more general trust in institutions.

As a system like Finland’s illustrates, the key to effective schools does not reside in the interventionist strategies and think-tank polished ideas, but in the way teachers and schools are supported, both financially and publicly.

Steven C. Ward is professor of sociology at Western Connecticut State University. He is the author of Reconfiguring Truth: Postmodernism, Science Studies and the Search for a New Model of Knowledge (Rowman & Littlefield); Modernizing the Mind: Psychological Knowledge and the Remaking of Society (Praeger) and Neoliberalism and the Global Restructuring of Knowledge and Education (Routledge). This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.Why Has Teacher Morale Plummeted?:

New York Activists Organize a RoboCall for Opting Out - Living in Dialogue

New York Activists Organize a RoboCall for Opting Out - Living in Dialogue:

New York Activists Organize a RoboCall for Opting Out 

 “It always seems impossible until it is done.” ~Nelson Mandela

By Deb Escobar, Lorri Gumanow, Lisa Kollmer, and Lily Alayne Owen.

Refuse the Test Robocall Committee: Katherine Brezler, Deb Escobar, Lorri Gumanow, Lisa Kollmer, and Lily Alayne Owen, along with several other education activists, parents, and grandparents who are committed to our cause.

Ten days ago, several members of the New York Badass Teachers Association had a brainstorm on Facebook, which resulted in a crazy and powerful idea. Could a small group of teachers organize a grassroots robocall to reach ALL the parents in NY State, and ask them to refuse the state ELA and math tests? Could this be done in less than two weeks? What happened next was amazing and empowering, so we thought that our experience might be helpful to those who want to organize grassroots action campaigns of their own.

Common Core has destroyed children’s self-confidence and their zest for learning. Our children are being forced to do test preparation out of workbooks instead of enjoying the thrill of discovering by experimentation and constructive inquiry. There is no time for growth of minds or the joy of invention. Music, art, social studies, and yes, even science is crowded out to make room for language arts and math, the only two subjects that matter on the tests. Teachers are not script readers; we are innovators, honing our craft to give wings to the ideas of our young. But in this world of high-stakes testing, imagination is wilting. Dreams are disappearing. Hope is dying. And our best teachers are leaving the profession or being forced out, while enrollment in teacher preparation programs is down 20-50%!

Here in New York State, Governor Cuomo has openly vowed to “break the monopoly” of public education. Though he signed a moratorium against using test results in decisions about students, he is using those same scores to declare our schools failures. He advocates an evaluation system for teachers that is heavily based on faulty Value Added Modeling (VAM). VAM purports to show the growth of students based on their test scores, and thereby rank the effectiveness of teachers. Cuomo, and the NYS Legislature, chose to ignore the criticisms of VAM that come from such esteemed organizations as the American Statistical Association, the Economic Policy Institute, the National Academy of Education, and the American Educational Research Association. Studies indicate that one-third of teachers move from one effectiveness rating to another from year to year, proving that VAM scores are highly unstable, yet Cuomo’s APPR scheme will fire teachers after receiving “ineffective” two years in a row. For-profit charter schools will take the place of our public education. Nonunion teachers will be hired who will work for less pay, fewer benefits, and longer hours, in order to make more money for the investors. This is what privatization looks like. It is not hard to understand that this is behind Cuomo’s “reforms” for schools. He gathers millions from hedge fund investors and speaks at exclusive $1,500 a plate fundraisers for charter schools.

In the meantime, it is our children who are the pawns in this political game. The tests are impossibly hard, with questions that are written grade levels beyond the student’s age, “equally plausible” answer choices, and an undisclosed formula that establishes cut scores, with a proficiency rate that is calibrated to a 1630 on the SAT. How do our children feel about their ability to learn when they face such an impossibly difficult test?   They go home crying and defeated because rigor has made their minds turn to stone.

Students with disabilities are especially hurt by this system. Only 5% of special education students, and 3% of English language learners, score proficient on state exams. Poor test scores correlate to zip codes. And now that the NY State Alternate Assessment for students with severe cognitive disabilities is aligned to the Common Core standards, the tasks required on this revised assessment do not correlate with their cognitive abilities. Children in impoverished communities also experience failure on the tests and give up. Is this the civil rights issue of this generation? Having “full and equal access” to failure on tests does not seem a path to becoming “college or career ready.” It may take years to fully understand the repercussions of the psychological and social effects of this test obsession on children. But teachers and parents stand witness to the tears, the vomiting during tests, the pulling out of hair, and the threats of bodily harm.

Those of us that met in that first BATS discussion shared a common understanding that it is critical to increase the number of test refusals, and believed that a robocall would make a difference. We brought others that we encountered through networking to the project, and also posted invitations on group Facebook pages. We ended up with a core committee of very dedicated people, each with their own talents, contacts, and abilities. Some of those who attended the first meeting did not stay actively involved, but their energy and enthusiasm for the idea helped to propel us forward.

We met frequently (about every other day) in Google hangouts, a video chat app. We divvied up tasks and kept track with group minutes. The group stayed in almost constant communication through Facebook messenger. We posted the link to the crowdsourcing site on about 20 Facebook group pages. We registered the #morethanatestscore hashtag and scheduled a twitter party to help publicize. We tweeted at a number New York Activists Organize a RoboCall for Opting Out - Living in Dialogue:

Charter schools bill hurts children, helps corporations

Charter schools bill hurts children, helps corporations:

Charter schools bill hurts children, helps corporations

There is a new bill that is being pushed by the Florida House of Representatives aimed at bailing out another group of corporations.

However, unlike the banking and auto industry bailouts, this one negatively impacts your children in Lee County. HB 7037 proposes changes in the use of local capital outlay millage levy (COML) to require a portion of the revenue to be redirected to charter schools.

Statewide, the language entitles charter schools to about $137 million of funding from the state and local sources (the House proposed budget currently has $100 million for charter capital outlay, the Senate proposed budget has $0 for that purpose). HB7037 provides that for any shortfall of this entitlement funding by the legislature, local taxpayers would have to make up the difference by funding the shortfall. In Lee County, that language could cost our taxpayers as much as $8 million per year from the already stressed public schools capital outlay budget.

HB7037 would give taxpayer money to private entities in the similar way the federal government bailed out the auto industry and the banks. Taxpayers will never recover a single penny of charter capital outlay dollars because these not-for-profit charter boards hold all of their physical assets in for-profit corporations that the not-for-profit charter school leases from them so they can claim not-for-profit status for the actual school. This nuance is made abundantly clear when a charter closes — all of the assets purchased by the taxpayers remain with the forprofit entity, thereby giving taxpayer money to for-profit corporations with absolutely no recourse or recovery.

School Districts need capital funding, not only to build schools to provide seats to our growing population, but also to maintain assets that the citizens and taxpayers own in the form of existing schools, capital equipment and other support buildings. The formulaic allocation of funding present in the bill directly pays money to a charter school ignoring any evaluation of need. Since many charter schools are in newer facilities, they do not require additional capital funding. Conversely, failing to adequately fund existing assets already paid for by the taxpayers could result in rapid deterioration in already existing, taxpayer funded, assets.

In sum, this direct funding to charter schools does not consider the value of long-term ownership of educational assets by the public and provides a windfall to for-profit entities at the taxpayer’s cost.

The proposed legislation will not only reduce our already lacking capital funding, it will have a negative impact on the financial credit ratings of the school districts across the state.

Credit ratings are the primary factor that impacts the cost of financing new school construction.

On an operational level, HB7037 will directly impact operations and negatively impact children due the liquidity issues that it creates due to several timing issues inherent in the legislation. Charter school capital outlay payments are due in February, before districts receive ad valorem tax revenues.

Also, Districts will not know the amount due to charter schools when the district is creating the annual budget. Therefore, when notified in December regarding the amount due in February, the district may need to amend the budget to be able to make payment to the charter schools. This will typically require cutting other budget items Charter schools bill hurts children, helps corporations:

Examining That Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part III | deutsch29

Examining That Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part III | deutsch29:

Examining That Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part III

 This is my third post on contents of the Alexander-Murray, Senate reauthorization draft of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) scheduled to be presented to the Senate education committee on April 14, 2015.

(The first post is here, and the second, here.)

Alexander and Murray call their 601-page draft, Every Child Achieves Act of 2015.

This ESEA reauthorization draft is not light reading; however, I am trying to produce a digest that is as easy to “digest” as is possible.

Let us abruptly dive in from this legislative precipice from the point at which I ended my second installment: ESEA funding for eligible private school students.

Page 162: Private schools can receive funding for eligible students (see my second, April 9, 2015, post for categories of eligible students). The Alexander-Murray draft stipulates that the ESEA funding allotted for children attending private school must proportionally equal the funding for qualified children attending public schools. This is not a statement endorsing fiscal portability of funding; it is only an assurance that the amount of funding per child is constant regardless if the ESEA-funding-eligible child attends public or private school.

The statement about federal funds “supplementing not supplanting” other funding is repeated in connection with ESEA funding paid to private schools for eligible students (see page 164). In other words, federal funding cannot replace other funding, such as tuition. For example, neither states nor local education agencies (LEAs) can use ESEA funding as a tuition substitute/ back door funding for a voucher program for public students to attend private schools.

As to compliance: ESEA funds for eligible children attending private school cannot include mandating “a particular instructional method” or “a particular instructional setting” (pg. 165). Furthermore, the US Secretary of Education cannot micromanage the criteria set by an LEA for determining funding eligibility to any school:

(4) PROHIBITION.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize or permit the Secretary to establish any criterion that specifies, defines, or prescribes the specific methodology a local educational agency uses to allocate State and local funds to each school receiving assistance under this part.

Regarding states’ not using federal funds to replace state educational budgets, the Alexander-Murray reauthorization includes the stipulation that for states to receive its “full allotment of funds …for any fiscal year,” that state must budget in a given fiscal year not less than 90 percent of funding as compared to the previous fiscal year’s education budget. This stipulation also helps guarantee against general slashing of a state education budget: If the state budget drops more than 10 percent from one fiscal year to the next, that state will not receive its full allotment of ESEA funding for the upcoming year.

The penalty is proportional (pg. 167):

(2) REDUCTION IN CASE OF FAILURE TO MEET.—

            (A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall reduce the amount of the allotment of funds under this section in any fiscal year in the exact proportion by which a State fails to meet the requirement of paragraph (1) by falling below 90 percent of both the fiscal effort per student and aggregate expenditures (using the measure most favorable to the State), if such State has also failed to meet such requirement (as determined using the measure most favorable to the State) for 1 or more of the 5 immediately preceding fiscal years.

However, this is one situation over which the US secretary could issue a waiver:

(3) WAIVER.—The Secretary may waive the requirements of this subsection if the Secretary determines that a waiver would be equitable due to—

            (A) exceptional or uncontrollable circumstances, such as a natural disaster or a change in the organizational structure of the State; or

            (B) a precipitous decline in the financial resources of the State. (pgs. 167-8)

Page 168: Moving on to ESEA funding of assessments/standards: ESEA money can be used to fund assessments developed in “voluntary partnerships with other States, at the sole discretion of each such State.” ESEA funds can also be used for “developing or improving balanced assessment systems that include summative, interim, and formative assessments, including supporting local educational agencies in developing or improving such assessments” (pg. 170); however, there is no federal mandate that ESEA money be used to develop such assessment systems.

Federal funding per state for state assessments will be at least $3,000,000 (pg. 170).

Section 1203 is entitled, “Innovative Assessment and Accountability Demonstration Authority,” is an invitation for up to 5 states to apply to develop new, “innovative” assessment systems over an “initial period” of 3 years (with a possible 2-year renewal) as approved by the US secretary of education. The “innovative” systems must lead to “improved academic outcomes, including increased high school graduation rates for high schools” (pg. 173), and LEAs serving to pilot the “innovative” system may use it as a substitute for the annual assessments being used by the rest of the state (pg. 182). If the “innovative” system is deemed to be a success, then an entire state could use it to replace previously-approved annual assessments (pg. 184).

Concerning general provisions of Title I (section 1012, pg. 208): Several parts that were part of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have been removed: NCLB Part E (“National Assessment of Title I”), NCLB Part F (“Comprehensive School Reform”), NCLB Part G (“Advanced Placement Programs”), and NCLB Part H (“School Dropout Prevention”). Also, removed were NCLB section 1904 (“Local education agency spending audits”), NCLB section 1907 (“State report on dropout data”), and NCLB section 1908 (“Regulation for sections 1111 through 1116, among the “basic program requirements” for “improving basic programs operated by LEAs”).

The cutting of these sections appears to be an attempt to reduce the federal control over how states spend Title I money.

NCLB included a section on “emergency situations” (section 1901(b)(5)) regarding the US secretary’s authority to act quickly in situations “in which regulations to carry out this title must be issued within a very limited time to assist State educational agencies and local educational agencies with the operation of a program under this title.”  The NCLB language includes requiring the secretary to conduct regional meetings to review such proposed regulations”; however, the section offers no additional details.

The Alexander-Murray reauthorization adds to this “emergency” process the requirement that the secretary present the emergency issue in detail before Congress (including evidence that the secretary sought, received, and addressed LEA input and concerns, as well as a detailing of the “time, cost, and paperwork burden that the regulation will impose on State educational agencies, local educational agencies, schools, and other entities that may be impacted by the regulation”– pg. 213) and Examining That Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part III | deutsch29:

10 Reasons Why NO Child Should Take New York State's Common Core Tests | Alternet

10 Reasons Why NO Child Should Take New York State's Common Core Tests | Alternet:

10 Reasons Why NO Child Should Take New York State's Common Core Tests

Administering these tests is bad pedagogical practice.

 Dear parents and educators of New York,

I teach elementary school in the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York.  In 2013 and 2014, I administered Pearson’s New York State Common Core tests to English-language learners (ELLs). There is nothing meaningful about these assessments; no teacher I know supports them and I will not allow my child to take the tests when she enters third grade (even if the high-stakes are removed).  Here are ten reasons why Pearson’s NYS Common Core tests should never see the light of day.

1.) They are too long, especially for students in grades 3-5. Over the course of six days, my 5th grade ELLs spent a total 13.5 hours sitting for the ELA (English-language arts) and math assessments. Here is what the 5th grade ELA assessment looked like last year (2014):

Day ONE: 27 pages long, 6 unrelated reading passages, 42 multiple choice questions

Day TWO: 3 unrelated reading passages, 7 multiple choice questions, 3 short response questions (written), 1 extended response question (written)

Day THREE: 3 reading passages, 5 short response questions (written), 1 extended response question (written)

Additionally, the below graph – created byLace to the Top – shows that the third grade Common Core tests are twice as time-consuming as the SAT.

2.) They are developmentally inappropriate.  Lace to the Top recently analyzed third grade Common Core test samples and determined that Pearson’s NYS Common Core test questions are 2-3 grade levels above the grade being tested.  The reading passage used for third grade was shown to have a readability average of 7.3 (7th grade)!

3.) Pearson’s NYS Common Core standardized tests, which are costing the state $32 million, are not teacher-created, nor do they accurately reflect the contextualized skills and knowledge that students gain in the classroom.  The tests are poorly constructed and uninspiring, and they contain ambiguous questions.  557 New York State principals signed this letterdenouncing the tests.

4.) With Pearson’s Common Core state tests at the center of K-8 education in New York State, curriculum has narrowed, particularly in schools in low-income areas whose test scores tend to be low.  Fearing increased scrutiny and potential closure, raising test scores has become the main focus in many schools.  Some schools are little more than test prep factories with diminishing enrichment and project-based learning opportunities. Beginning in kindergarten, students are being taught test-taking strategies, most notably through the context-lacking close reading technique used in Common Core-aligned English-language arts.  Pearson’s developmentally inappropriate and poorly constructed scripted reading program – ReadyGEN – is test prep for the NYS Common Core ELA test.

5.) The Common Core’s testing program encourages standardized testing in grades K-2. Title I schools in particular feel pressured to show – through periodic data collection – that students are learning the skills needed to perform well on the grades 3-8 Common Core state tests. This is what the standardized testing program looks like in my Title I first grade classroom this school year:

• Sept/Oct 2014 Common Core-aligned NYC Baseline Performance Tasksin ELA and Math (MOSLs used for teacher evaluation purposes only).
• Running Records administered one-on-one 4-5 times per year (they test reading levels).
• 12 Common Core-aligned end-of-unit GO Math! assessments (each comprised of 24 multiple choice questions and a multi-step extended response question).
• Monthly Common Core-aligned ReadyGEN writing assessments testing students’ understanding of narrative, persuasive and informative writing.
• Mid-year benchmark assessment in ELA – End of unit 2 ReadyGEN test comprised of 5 multiple choice comprehension questions, 5 multiple choice vocabulary questions and 1 written response.
• Mid-year benchmark assessment in Math – GO Math! test comprised on 40 multiple choice questions; 15 questions on skills not yet learned.
• May/June 2015 Common Core-aligned NYC Performance Tasks in ELA and Math (MOSLs used for teacher evaluation purposes only).

6.) The New York State Education Department (NYSED) lacks transparency and ethics.  In upholding the corporate education reform agenda, which seeks to privatize public education, the NYSED’s intention is to perpetuate the false narrative that our schools are failing.  Fred Smith, a NYS testing expert and statistician, and Lace to the Top have reported at length about Pearson’s poor quality tests and the NYSED’s unreliable test data, specifically its delayed release of technical reports, which evaluate the Common Core tests, missing test questions and predetermined test scores.  The NYSED manipulates cut scores in order to legitimize its above-mentioned agenda; not only are cut scores constantly changing but the NYSED sets them AFTER the tests have been scored. Thus, the NYSED’s claim that 70% of our students are failing is invalid.  

7.) An inordinate amount of planning and organizing time is devoted to preparing for the state tests. Giving the state tests is an administrative and logistical nightmare at the school level. Out-of-classroom teachers are pulled from their regular teaching program to administer and score the tests. Countless hours are spent bubbling testing grids and organizing them alphabetically by class. IEPs (individualized education program) are examined closely to ensure that students with special needs receive the correct testing accommodation(s). These include directions read and re-read, extended time, separate location, on-task focusing prompts, revised test directions, questions read and re-read. ELLs and some former ELLs are pulled from their regular classrooms for testing because they are entitled to extended time in a separate location. Also, there is professional development for teachers on testing policies and procedures including “reporting prohibited conduct by adults, student cheating, and other testing irregularities.”

8.) English-language learners (ELLs) must take Pearson’s NYS Common Core ELA test after just one year in the system.  Students with IEPs are also required to take the tests unless they qualify for the New York State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA), which too is flawed. For a variety of reasons, it is misleading, insulting and grossly irresponsible of the NYSED to claim that97% of ELLs and 95% of students with IEPs in grades 3-8 are “failures” in ELA.  These figures completely disregard the growth students make in our classrooms.

9.) Our students are suffering. I’ve heard countless stories of kids who are sickened – both physically and emotionally – from New York State’s toxic Common Core testing program. I’ve personally witnessed students’ tears, anger and despair, and it’s heartbreaking. There is nothing humane, nothing redeeming about these tests.  Morale is plummeting as teachers and administrators feel complicit in the state’s abuse of our children.

10.) Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed basing 50% of a teacher’s evaluation on test scores from these highly flawed Common Core state assessments.  Not only are these test scores unreliable but the American Statistical Association has warned against using the value-added model (VAM) to rate teachers and schools.

As you can see, the negative impact of NYSED’s punitive Common Core testing program is far-reaching. But we – as parents and educators working together – can take back power by refusing these tests.  In order to save public education, a cornerstone of democracy in the United States, we must start thinking communally rather than individually.

Taking these tests is not “good practice” for our young learners; in fact, administering the tests is bad pedagogical practice.  In addition, high test scores do not guarantee admission to selective NYC middle schools.  Contrary to popular belief, opting-out does not hurt schools.  With regards to opt-out’s impact on teachers, Change the Stakes, a NYC-based organization that opposes the NYSED’s testing program, writes,

It is not helpful to speculate about which students should or should not opt out in order to protect teachers’ evaluations. The bottom line is that the current teacher evaluation system is flawed. Opting out in large numbers is the most powerful way for parents to let policymakers know that we do not want our children, teachers and schools evaluated based on standardized test scores.

Our students and teachers are not failures; rather the NYSED has failed us.

– Katie

Here are some useful resources about the Common Core testing program:

• NYC-based Change the Stakes has updated their FAQ!
• NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)
• Teachers of Conscience 
• United Opt Out: The Movement to End Corporate Education Reform
• Network for Public Education (NPE)
• Lace to the Top

Katie Lapham is an ESL and bilingual teacher at a public elementary school in East New York, Brooklyn.10 Reasons Why NO Child Should Take New York State's Common Core Tests | Alternet: