Q&A: Exit Interview With A Nationally Known School Leader : NPR Ed : NPR

Q&A: Exit Interview With A Nationally Known School Leader : NPR Ed : NPR:

Q&A: Exit Interview With A Nationally Known School Leader

Joshua Starr, a nationally prominent superintendent with the Montgomery County schools in Rockville, Md., this month was granted early release from his contract after 3 1/2 years.

Starr, 45, a father of three, is the former superintendent of the Stamford, Conn., schools and director of accountability for the New York City public schools. He is known as a bit of a maverick. As the head of the 154,000 student district in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, he gained notoriety in 2012 by calling for a three-year moratorium on standardized testing. And he's incorporated measures of student and employee engagement and well-being into school report cards.

But Starr lost the confidence of his board. Opinions differed as to why: because of his rising national profile, or stubborn achievement problems in the district; questions about the administrative handling of some school sex abuse cases, or a controversial debate over whether to change school start times. We caught up with him for an exit interview.

What are you most proud of from your time as superintendent?

Well, I'm proud of our results. Graduation rates are up across the board, and we've also narrowed the gap in graduation. SAT and AP scores continue to be high. I'm proud of that. We also reduced suspensions pretty significantly.

The second thing is the way that we've redefined what public education should look like, to include creative problem solving and social and emotional well-being to be as important as academic success.

We saw the biggest one-year increase in graduation rates at Wheaton High School, where we reframed what teaching and learning looks like by focusing on project-based learning.

How did you become convinced of the importance of these "squishier" concepts like creativity or even emotional well-being — that these are central to the mission of a public school?

I like to say the problem we are trying to solve in public education today is the democratization of information.

I ask teachers all the time, if you can Google it, why teach it? Because we have so much information today. How do you help kids navigate that? That's critical thinking and creative problem solving.

And when I talk to the business community, they always talk about the fact that they want kids who have good academics, of course, but more importantly they want kids who can solve problems and think critically.

And what about the social and emotional stuff?

When it comes to social and emotional well-being, we mean that kids should value and respect diversity, make healthy good personal decisions, and build resilience. We believe kids should be good people.

Hard work is the most important thing in life. That means learning from failure, setting goals, having a vision of your future, a sense of hope those things are really Q&A: Exit Interview With A Nationally Known School Leader : NPR Ed : NPR:

Policy kicking out students with low grades comes under scrutiny | 89.3 KPCC

Policy kicking out students with low grades comes under scrutiny | 89.3 KPCC:



Policy kicking out students with low grades comes under scrutiny

 To enroll in the Public Safety Academy in San Bernardino, students had to submit satisfactory scores from California standardized English and math tests and, to stay in, maintain a 2.0 grade point average.

Both policies violate state law because the academy is a public charter school, according to lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Charter schools are exempt from most laws in the Education Code, but the laws that apply say they have to admit all students,” said ACLU lawyer Jessica Price, and they must “serve all students who wish to attend.”

The admission policies of the school, which prepares students for public safety careers such as police work, are found in the student handbook. Efforts to dismiss students with low grades were evident in school documents obtained by the ACLU.

The school did not immediately respond when asked how many students had been dismissed since its founding in 2000. But in 2013, the school said it sent letters to families of 23 students whose grade-point average had fallen below 2.0 for one semester. The letters advised students to enroll in another school and turn in their books.

However, after the ACLU brought the violation to the school's attention, those letters were rescinded, according to Principal Jennifer Stickel.

The school “wants all of its students to succeed academically so they can graduate from high school and build a bright future. To that end, PSA has in place many supports to assist students who are struggling academically,” Stickel wrote in a December 2014 letter to the ACLU.

“It is important to note that PSA does not expel students for unsatisfactory academics. This means that students removed and remanded to their home school district for failure to make academic improvement may immediately enroll in another public school, with no delay in their education,” Stickel wrote.

Soon after that correspondence, both sides met and the school agreed to remove the minimum grade and Policy kicking out students with low grades comes under scrutiny | 89.3 KPCC:

Petrilli’s Common Core “North Star” for Atheistic, “Choice” Moms | deutsch29

Petrilli’s Common Core “North Star” for Atheistic, “Choice” Moms | deutsch29:



Petrilli’s Common Core “North Star” for Atheistic, “Choice” Moms

Fordham Institute President Michael Petrilli sells the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for a living.

Petrilli has a bachelors degree in political science. He is not a teacher. He is a guy who landed on the soft fluffery of a think tank living.

He has testified in CCSS’ favor before lawmakers in Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and Arkansas.

His Fordham Institute associate, Kathleen Porter-Magee, testified in their favor in Wisconsin, and Fordham Institute founder Chester Finn has testified in their favor in Michigan.

Fordham Institute even has a webpage, Common Core Watch, which might be more accurately named, Common Core Defense and Promotion.

The bottom line for Fordham Institute is that it views itself as standards-grading experts. In their formal testimony in favor of CCSS, their “evidence” centers on their own skewed standards-grading “findings.” And even there, Fordham Institute did not “grade” CCSS as superior to all state standards. Nevertheless, Fordham Institute adamantly sells CCSS as though CCSS has been empirically tested and proven to deliver on some miracle promise of American Global Competitiveness brought about by nothing more than “standards sameness”– or, as Fordham Institute gravy trainBill Gates pushes, the “unleashing” of “powerful market forces” to produce “an large base of customers eager to buy products.”

Petrilli’s testimony in Indiana is particularly telling. I have cited it before.

In true Fordham Institute form, Petrilli urges Indiana to keep CCSS– even though Fordham Institute did not “grade” CCSS as “superior” to Indiana state standards:

First, you have already invested time and money into implementing the new standards. They have momentum. Calling for a do-over would waste the millions of man hours already invested — and potentially cost the state of Indiana more money than proceeding with the Common Core.

Second, it’s not clear that returning to your old standards would put Indiana on a path toward higher student achievement. For while you had some of the best standards in the country for over a decade, you also had one of the worst student achievement records on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Indiana was a classic case of good standards not actually having an impact in the classroom. You need a different way forward.

Third, if you decide to opt out of the Common Core, you will be opting Indiana’s teachers and students out of an opportunity to participate in the incredible wave of innovation that these standards are unleashing. It’s as if the whole world is moving to smart phones and tablets while you’re sticking with a rotary. [Emphasis added.]

Sure, says Petrilli, Indiana had great standards, “some of the best in the country,” but Petrilli’s Common Core “North Star” for Atheistic, “Choice” Moms | deutsch29:

ESEA at 50: AFT, Shanker Institute Hold ESEA Panel with Civil Rights Leaders | Shanker Institute

ESEA at 50: The Federal Government and Equity in American Education | Shanker Institute:

AFT, Shanker Institute Hold ESEA Panel with Civil Rights Leaders Big Education Ape: Twitter Call to Action! Tweet your trouble with NCLB rewrite! The Network For Public Education | http://bit.ly/1AjngfH

WASHINGTON—The transformation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act from an integral part of the War on Poverty to No Child Left Behind’s test-and-punish strategy is now taking a new turn on Capitol Hill. The American Federation of Teachers and the Albert Shanker Institute are sponsoring a conversation on Wednesday, Feb. 18, about the stakes involved in a reauthorized ESEA bill and what it will mean for students. Joining AFT President Randi Weingarten are two of the nation’s top civil rights leaders. Lunch will be served for those who attend. The conversation will be live-streamed here. WHAT:      ESEA at 50: The Federal Government and Equity in American Education WHEN:     Wednesday, Feb. 18, noon-2 p.m. WHERE:   AFT Headquarters, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., 4th-floor conference room WHO:        Randi Weingarten, president, American Federation of Teachers                    Wade Henderson, president & CEO, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights                    Judith Browne Dianis, co-director, Advancement Project The panel will be moderated by Michelle Ringuette, assistant to the AFT president for labor, government relations and political affairs. ESEA at 50: The Federal Government and Equity in American Education Wednesday, Feb 18, 2015 | 12:00pm Reclaiming the Promise of Education Conversation Series 555 New Jersey Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20001 Fifty years ago, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was first enacted into law as part of the “war against poverty,” bringing the federal government into American education as a force for equity and educational opportunity. Today, thirteen years after its transformation into No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the debates over the reauthorization of ESEA have posed questions that go to the heart of federal government’s role as a force for educational equity. Will Title One funds be diverted from high poverty students and public schools? Will those funds end up in vouchers and other privatization schemes that undermine the public schools serving the students with the greatest needs? Will the failed NCLB accountability regime be replaced with an approach that supports and improves public schools serving students with the greatest needs? Our panel will discuss these questions and more. Panelists: Judith Browne Dianis, co-director, Advancement Project Wade Henderson, President and CEO, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA (invited) Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers and Albert Shanker Institute. THE LIVESTREAM WILL BE HERE AVAILABLE ON FEB. 18. Sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute and the American Federation of Teachers, this conversation series is designed to engender lively and informative discussions on important educational issues. We deliberately invite speakers with diverse perspectives, including views other than those of the AFT and the Albert Shanker Institute. What is important is that these participants are committed to genuine engagement with each other. Register HereESEA at 50: The Federal Government and Equity in American Education | Shanker Institute: Big Education Ape: Twitter Call to Action! Tweet your trouble with NCLB rewrite! The Network For Public Education | http://bit.ly/1AjngfH

Arizona Has No Concept of a "Conflict of Interest" Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds:

Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds:

Arizona Has No Concept of a "Conflict of Interest"

Last Friday, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber resigned from office because of allegations that he used his influence to get employment for his fiancee. In Arizona, such conflicts of interest would not even raise an eyebrow. A few years back, Arizonans saw the Chairperson of the State Charter School Board award a charter to a non-profit foundation (which was really K12 Inc., the online school provider), then be hired by the foundation to head the Arizona Virtual Academy, and then be hired by K12 Inc. as a vice-president for something-or-other. She continues to occupy the latter two posts.

Arizona simply doesn't recognize things called conflicts of interest. I could list dozens concerning public education. A staff member the Board of Regents once told me that in Arizona if you declare your connections, then you can no longer be accused of having a conflict of interest. Perhaps this qualifies as some minimal level of ethical behavior.

A new flagrant conflict of interest has just become apparent to me. A man named Greg Miller is president of the Arizona State Board of Education. There is also a man named Greg Miller who is CEO of Challenge Charter School in Glendale, AZ, a suburb of Phoenix. Matching up photos of the Board president and the charter CEO leaves no doubt that these two individuals are one in the same Greg Miller. Mr. Miller, a civil engineer for 25 years, founded Challenge Charter School in the late 1990s and for a while served as principal. His current title is CEO. Mrs. Pam Miller, his wife, once served on a school board; the Challenge Charter Schools website lists no current duties for Mrs. Miller. But daughter Wendy Miller was appointed Principal of Challenge Charter School the same year in which she earned her MBA.

Challenge Charter School Inc. is registered as a non-profit organization so it must file an IRS 990 form, which is publicly available. Here's what that form shows as salaries of the top management for 2013.

Greg Miller, the CEO of a school "system" with about 650 students, is being compensated to the tune of $145,000 annually. His wife receives the same salary, though her duties are never enumerated at the website and her position is only described as "Executive Director/Vice-PR," whatever Vice-PR is. The Miller's daughter Wendy, who has degrees in Public Administration and Business, receives a salary of more than $120,000 for acting as Principal/Secretary. Basically, the Miller family, while working assiduously 60 hours a week each as reported on their IRS form, is taking about $425,000 a Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds:

How Hard It Is To Translate Policy into Practice: The Broad Superintendency Academy (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How Hard It Is To Translate Policy into Practice: The Broad Superintendency Academy (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

How Hard It Is To Translate Policy into Practice: The Broad Superintendency Academy (Part 1)

One would think that top decision-makers and philanthropists would learn a few lessons after these many years they have struggled in negotiating the pot-holed strewn road from adopting policies to changes in school and classroom practice. Perhaps a touch of humility in face of the complexity they face in improving urban schools. Or more consideration of the professional expertise that practitioners have. Not yet. Consider the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation’s Broad Superintendents Academy (BSA).

Eli Broad made it clear that he knew how to run successful businesses. He wanted customer-driven knowledge to be applied to urban public schools. At one conference, he said, “We don’t know anything about how to teach or reading curriculum or any of that, but what we do know about is management and governance.” What Broad did not say was that managing and governing are not the same as converting key policies into classroom lessons.[i]

The BSA was created to prepare a new breed of market-aware district leaders to raise student academic achievement and reduce the test score gap between minorities and whites. BSA, however, has quietly struggled with the trip from policy to practice. It is an 18-month program of extended weekends and internships for educators and non-educators (for example, ex-military officers, business leaders, and government officials). But determining how many graduates have become urban superintendents and how long they have served is difficult because of fragmentary and biased data salted liberally with conflicting accounts from Broad and its critics.[ii]

In attracting fresh recruits from the military, businesses, and government to enter urban education posts, the Academy has, to a small degree, altered the administrative workforce in urban settings. But whether Broad graduates stay longer or perform better as school chiefs than those trained in traditional university administration programs, I do not know. I do not know because since 2002 when BSA began, none of its nearly 200 graduates have stayed in a district superintendency for over seven years—a term that some observers believe is sufficient to show signs of student success. Broad officials say five years is the minimum, but I could still only find two BSA graduates who served that long: How Hard It Is To Translate Policy into Practice: The Broad Superintendency Academy (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Be sure to check out this Great blog:

-THE BROAD REPORT (as in Eli)

Same People Better Uniforms

Pelto Challenges Connecticut’s Corporate Education Reform Industry Leaders to debate - Wait What?

Pelto Challenges Connecticut’s Corporate Education Reform Industry Leaders to debate - Wait What?:

Pelto Challenges Connecticut’s Corporate Education Reform Industry Leaders to debate

Pelto Challenges Connecticut’s Corporate Education Reform Industry Leaders to debate

After spending record amounts of money lobbying for Governor Dannel Malloy’s Corporate Education Reform Industry Initiatives, Connecticut’s corporate funded education reform advocacy groups continue to spend millions of dollars misleading parents and policy makers, denigrating teachers and the teaching profession and promoting the discriminatory, inappropriate and unfair Common Core and Common Core Testing Scheme.

Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, Inc. (ConnCAN) and the Connecticut Council for Education Reform Inc. (CCER) are two of the leading entities behind the wholesale assault on public education in Connecticut.

As the paid ambassadors for those seeking to profit off of our children and our public schools, these so-called “education reformers” have constantly and consistently resorted to misleading statements and outright lies to back up their anti-public education agenda and rhetoric.

Unfortunately for Connecticut’s students, parents, teachers, public schools and taxpayers, these apologists for Governor Malloy and his corporate education reform agenda have gone unchallenged.

That situation has got to stop.

Today I am asking WNPR’s Where We Live, WFSB’s Face the State, FOXCT’s The Real Story, CT Report with Steve Kotchko and other appropriate news forums to host a debate between myself and any one of the leaders of these corporate advocacy fronts such as Jeffrey Villar, the Executive Director of Connecticut Council for Education Reform and Jennifer Alexander, the Chief Executive Officer of ConnCAN.

The people of Connecticut deserves the truth and a discussion on television or radio about the truth behind the corporate education reform industry’s efforts will provide Connecticut’s citizens with the information they need to tell fact from fiction.

Jonathan Pelto

Education Advocate

Education BloggerPelto Challenges Connecticut’s Corporate Education Reform Industry Leaders to debate - Wait What?: 

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Dedicated to truth-telling for democracy.

Charter schools struggling to meet academic growth | Star Tribune

Charter schools struggling to meet academic growth | Star Tribune:

Charter schools struggling to meet academic growth

• Article by: KIM MCGUIRE , Star Tribune 
• Updated: February 17, 2015 - 5:35 AM

Students in most Minnesota charter schools are failing to hit learning targets and are not achieving adequate academic growth, according to a Star Tribune analysis of school performance data.

The analysis of 128 of the state’s 157 charter schools show that the gulf between the academic success of its white and minority students widened at nearly two-thirds of those schools last year. Slightly more than half of charter schools students were proficient in reading, dramatically worse than traditional public schools, where 72 percent were proficient.

Between 2011 and 2014, 20 charter schools failed every year to meet the state’s expectations for academic growth each year, signaling that some of Minnesota’s most vulnerable students had stagnated academically.

A top official with the Minnesota Department of Education says she is troubled by the data, which runs counter to “the public narrative” that charter schools are generally superior to public schools.

“We hear, as we should, about the highfliers and the schools that are beating the odds, but I think we need to pay even more attention to the schools that are persistently failing to meet expectations,” said Charlene Briner, the Minnesota Department of Education’s chief of staff. Charter school advocates strongly defend their performance. They say the vast majority of schools that aren’t showing enough improvement serve at-risk populations, students who are poor, homeless, with limited English proficiency, or are in danger of dropping out.

“Our students, they’re coming from different environments, both home and school, where they’ve never had the chance to be successful,” said April Harrison, executive director of LoveWorks Academy, a Minneapolis charter school that has the state’s lowest rating. “No one has ever taken the time to say, ‘What’s going on with you? How can I help you?’ That’s what we do.”

Minnesota is the birthplace of the charter school movement and a handful of schools have received national acclaim for their accomplishments, particularly when it comes to making strong academic gains with low-income students of color. But the new information is fueling critics who say the charter school experiment has failed to deliver on teaching innovation.

“Schools promised they were going to help turn around things for these very challenging student populations,” said Kyle Serrette, director of education for the New York City-based Center for Popular Democracy. “Now, here we are 20 years later and they’re realizing that they have the same troubles of public schools systems.”

More than half of schools analyzed from 2011 to 2014 were also failing to meet the department’s expectations for academic growth, the gains made from year to year in reading and math.

Of the 20 schools that failed to meet the state goals for improvement every year, Pillsbury United Communities is the authorizer for six of those schools: Dugsi Academy, LoveWorks Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, Connections Academy, Learning for Leadership Charter School, and the Minnesota Transitions Charter School’s elementary, Connections Academy and Virtual High School. Those schools also missed annual achievement gap targets.

Officials with the Urban Institute for Service and Learning, which oversees Pillsbury’s charters, say most of their schools cater to students at risk of dropping out, those who have been kicked out of other schools, and many who are learning to speak English.

“We intentionally work with students that most other people would really not want to work with,” said Antonio Cardona, director of the institute.

Two years ago, Pillsbury closed Quest Academy, a small St. Louis Park charter school that consistently failed to meet state performance goals.

Cardona said Pillsbury would consider closing more chronically low-performing schools, or more likely, adopt new turnaround strategies. They also want to add some high-performing schools to their portfolio so that some of their low-performing schools might be able to absorb successful teaching strategies.

At LoveWorks Academy in Minneapolis, about 85 percent of the school’s students qualify for free and reduced-price lunches. About 13 percent of its students were proficient in math and 12 percent are Charter schools struggling to meet academic growth | Star Tribune:

Pressure builds on SRC to approve new charter schools

Pressure builds on SRC to approve new charter schools:



Pressure builds on SRC to approve new charter schools

Gov. Wolf, sources said, has told the SRC he wants it to approve no new charters because the School District cannot afford them.

Just days before the fate of 39 new charter-school applications is decided, pressure on the School Reform Commission is building from all sides.



Top state Senate Republicans have sent Chairman Bill Green a letter saying they were "confident" that the SRC would approve strong charter schools.



The letter, obtained by The Inquirer and sent Friday by Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson), Majority Leader Jake Corman (R., Centre), and Education Committee Chairman Lloyd Smucker (R., Lancaster), said the leaders were "hopeful that the SRC will approve these qualified charter schools in the very near future."



The SRC is scheduled to vote on the charter applications, the first new proposals considered in seven years, on Wednesday. If the commission approves 15,000 new seats, the six-year price to the financially troubled school system could be close to $500 million, district officials say.

A powerful education nonprofit group has offered the district $35 million - $25 million of it to offset new charter costs - but the SRC has given no indication whether it intends to accept the controversial gift. The senators, however, hailed the offer from the Philadelphia School Partnership, which is bankrolled by donors who have not been named.

The senators said they would also work toward "meaningful public pension reform" that would help the SRC, and changes to the traditional teacher seniority structure, which the SRC has already challenged.

Their "approve charters" message echoes one sent publicly by House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny), who has spent significant time in Philadelphia recently. Turzai has said the SRC should approve between 16 and 27 charters.

All the lawmakers have reminded the SRC that they helped get a $2-per-pack cigarette tax passed last summer. That legislation included language that required the commission to consider new charter applications. But others have sent the opposite message.

Gov. Wolf, sources said, has told the SRC he wants it to approve no new charters because the School District cannot afford them.

Asked about the governor's position on charter schools, Wolf's press secretary, Jeffrey Sheridan, wrote in an e-mail: "The Wolf administration believes the SRC must stabilize, not worsen, the district's finances. It cannot spend money it does not have for new charters or other expenses. It is past time we reaffirm our commitment to high quality public education for all children."

Caught between two powerful and diametrically opposed camps, what is the SRC to do? "Regardless of the political pressure from anybody," Green said, "I think this SRC has demonstrated that it is going to call balls and strikes in accordance with the law. We're simply going to follow the law."

Charter-school law, Green said, holds that if a provider meets all requirements, "it appears to require us to approve applications."

In the past, financial concerns have made the commission hold off on approving new stand-alone charter schools - though it has more than doubled the charter-school population through expansions and turning district schools over to charter-school operators.

But the legislation that allowed the cigarette tax, which gave the district the cash it needed to open schools on time in September, also required the SRC to open applications for new charters, and gave applicants turned down by the

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20150217_Pressure_builds_on_SRC_to_approve_new_charters.html#GbDGrLdCzq5p70MW.99

How Useful Are Standardized Tests? - NYTimes.com

How Useful Are Standardized Tests? - NYTimes.com

How Useful Are Standardized Tests?

To the Editor:

“In Defense of Annual School Testing,” by Chad Aldeman (Op-Ed, Feb. 7), argues that Washington should continue to require states to give each student standardized tests each year.

Federal and state governments have a legitimate interest in knowing whether cohorts of students are making appropriate progress as they go through school. It’s possible to gather that information by testing less frequently and by using sampling techniques similar to those employed by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Districts, schools and teachers all have a responsibility to measure students’ learning frequently — far more often than once a year — in order to help them grow. Standardized tests are among the measures they use. But the same ones aren’t equally useful or necessary in every school or district; different measures can provide different kinds of information, offering more or less insight into the needs of a particular student or group of children.

Information about student progress, including test results, should be readily available to parents and communities. Federal and state testing can be significantly less invasive than it is and still provide accountability. There’s no reason to require that all children in a state take the same standardized exams every year.

MICHAEL V. McGILL

Morris, Conn.

The writer is director of the district leadership and reform program at Bank Street College of Education and former superintendent of schools in Scarsdale, N.Y.

To the Editor:

Chad Aldeman praises standardized tests for allowing for “a much more nuanced look at student performance.” I’m a teacher, and the only thing I know about the test is what my students scored on it. We receive no feedback at all. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong as a teacher, or what I could do differently next year. My students don’t get that feedback either.

Nobody ever comes away from the testing knowing what he or she did wrong or how to improve. Shouldn’t they?

JOSH MAROWITZ

Burlington, N.C.

To the Editor:

Chad Aldeman says he wants to keep the status quo — high-stakes annual testing in grades three to eight and once in high school.

In January, the American Federation of Teachers and the Center for American Progress issued a set of principles for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. At its core was a commitment to equity, and a robust accountability system that uses multiple measures and counts standardized tests once each in elementary, middle and high school.

Such a system would limit the high-stakes testing that is taking the joy out of learning and the innovation out of teaching, and frankly did not accomplish the intended purpose — to ensure that every child would be proficient in reading and math by 2014.

We believe that annual testing has a role: to provide information and diagnostics on student progress, but not as a basis for imposing high-stakes, punitive consequences. High-stakes testing shouldn’t drive federal policy; the needs of our children should. That’s why our plan takes the focus off high-stakes tests and returns the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to its original goal — equity.

Half of public school students live in poverty. More than 30 states fund public education below pre-recession levels. We need to level the playing field and ensure that all kids have equal access to things like computers, smaller class sizes, nurses and counselors — even when their communities can’t afford them.

RANDI WEINGARTEN

President

American Federation of Teachers

Washington

To the Editor:

Chad Aldeman defends annual school testing as the way to assess school quality. In a recent Times article, the New York City schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, was quoted as saying, “I know a good quality school when I’m in the building.”

I agree with Ms. Fariña. An experienced educator can determine the quality of a school by observing the students’ demeanor, looking at the displays in the classrooms and common areas, peering into the classrooms, checking out routines and activities, and other criteria.

A competent principal knows who the most effective teachers are, which ones would be effective with more support and those who would benefit from changing careers. Most of the teachers, pupils and informed parents in the school could give you the same information.

Rather than relying on commercial testing, teachers can and do devise their own tests to determine how to focus their instruction. Teachers usually keep folders with samples of children’s work, so that parents can observe growth throughout the school year.

I believe that students would benefit greatly if the enormous amount of How Useful Are Standardized Tests? - NYTimes.com

Teachers, parents to protest 'toxic standardized testing':

Teachers, parents to protest 'toxic standardized testing'

 OLYMPIA, Wash. – Teachers and parents will gather in Olympia Monday to protest what they call "toxic standardized testing."

The Teachers Association is a group of educators, parents and concerned citizens who believe that the current model of evaluation for student learning is broken. They are encouraging parents to opt-out of the testing for their students so that, little-by-little, they can bring to an end what they believe is a broken system.

"Now that we've arbitrarily raised the standards, because that's what the federal government has decided to do, the anxiety among teachers is at an all-time high and we know that kids are going to massively fail this upcoming test and there's nothing that's OK about that," Renton teacher Julianna Dauble said.

Dauble said if a group of adults took the test that will soon be given to her 5th graders, she believes most would not pass.

"When adults take this test and we don't know if we pass or not, that's a clear indicator that something is wrong and maybe we should slow down this train," Dauble said.

Some parents think that the government is on the right track with the evaluation system.

"I see value in the students being tested to see how much they are achieving or if they are not achieving, and that gives us some data that we could try to address the problems and make improvements," Joe Virzi said. "Teachers are only one piece of the puzzle, but they are a big piece and I think that that can be used to judge how well they are doing in the classroom."

Dauble said that she believes taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent, but she thinks the testing model needs to be put together by educators and not people outside the classroom. She said she has no problem with accountability, but before accountability, she needs support and funding.

"Kids' basic needs are being ignored for the sake of a policy that was designed by people that never taught, ever, in a school and have fully ignored teacher's voices along the way," Dauble saidTeachers, parents to protest 'toxic standardized testing':