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Monday, April 6, 2015

NYC families to boycott state math, reading exams: activists - NY Daily News

NYC families to boycott state math, reading exams: activists - NY Daily News:

Thousands of NYC families will boycott state math, reading exams: activists



Thousands of city families will boycott the state’s math and reading exams, according to activists who oppose testing.
SUSAN WATTS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thousands of city families will boycott the state’s math and reading exams, according to activists who oppose testing.


 Thousands of city families will boycott the state’s math and reading exams, which begin April 14, according to activists who oppose standardized testing in the public schools.

The exams are used in decisions to promote students, rate teachers and evaluate schools. They are not mandatory, but many teachers spend weeks preparing students for them.
But critics say the tests are too difficult to accurately measure academic achievement and they take up too much valuable teaching time.
“More and more parents are interested and aware and talking about opting out,” said Leonie Haimson, founder of the education advocacy group Class Size Matters.
“More and more parents are interested and aware and talking about opting out,” said Leonie Haimson, founder of the education advocacy group Class Size Matters.
“More and more parents are interested and aware and talking about opting out,” said Leonie Haimson, founder of the education advocacy group Class Size Matters. “We’re certainly encouraging parents to opt out.”
State reading and math exams are administered to grades three-through-eight over six days in April. Students who opt out of the tests are given alternate lessons.
There are no penalties for refusing the tests, but relatively few parents have opted for their children to skip the exams, city Education Department officials said.
In 2014, just 1,925 city students opted out of either one of the state reading or math tests given to students in grade three to eight.
That number represented less than 1% of all students tested that year, but it included only kids who attended school on the days of the exams and formally refused them.
Activists don’t yet know how many families will opt out of the tests this year, but at some schools large portions of families have said they’ll boycott the tests.
At influential Public School 321 in Park Slope, parent activists said a quarter of families have signed letters saying they would refuse the tests this year.
NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpi
Chancellor Carmen Fariña has encouraged students to participate in the exams but has also said the decision to take a test or not is a family matter.
Chancellor Carmen Fariña has encouraged students to participate in the exams but has also said the decision to take a test or not is a family matter.
David Rosenberg said his daughter Julia, who attends fifth grade Public School 3 in the West Village, will be sitting out the state exams this year.
“We are emphatically refusing to test,” said Rosenberg, who works in IT. “Any politician who says they are doing this to save the kids is a liar. It’s all political. It’s not about the kids.”NYC families to boycott state math, reading exams: activists - NY Daily News:

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Atlanta Is Burning | A Day In the Life

Atlanta Is Burning | A Day In the Life:
Atlanta Is Burning




So I've had my blog off line for a long time.

No one actually asked me why, or seemed to notice, one person told me I had poor editing I should work on, but I noticed how often-at first-I wanted to write to something, and then as months passed eventually I noticed that the world went on without me.

I would like to comment NOW as a teacher, comment emotionally on the coming sentencing of educators in the Atlanta testing scandal, where it looks like they might get twenty years. This the result of fancy Georgia style prosecuting, the use of the RICO laws, test based punitive testing systems, their own mistakes, and an increasingly strong wave of criminalizing that has taken a hold of our country.

I remember when Diane Ravitch commented in remarkable insight, " just don't cheat- ever." I remember thinking that was probably sound advise that would help obscure the real issue in play in THIS particular mess. Never cheat. Black and white.

I also remember a federal government guy in the region I work in telling a group of administrators in an NCLB meeting I was sent to, "kick the teacher's in the ass" if necessary to achieve the unachievable when NCLB mandates brought into play the BIG legislated lie that 100% of children, no matter what, were to perform proficient or above on their state tests. Turns out no one, absolutely no one, will be held "accountable" for a testing system built on a lie.

That to me challenges my notions of fairness and legality.

That, for me, remains the main "crime" in the Atlanta situation.
Perhaps we need to use something other than RICO as a device to unwind and understand and frame that real situation, and the dynamics in play that came to result in an ugly time with erasers and "better results. "
By 2014 every child, no matter what proficient and above was not set as a goal-it was set as a truth, a mandate, and a punishable offense, and the mechanisms to achieve it were "ass kicking" and other forms of debasement. I know-I lived it. I saw it, and I saw how people behaved in schools in poverty reacting to that mandate and law and carrying it out.

Atlanta, it seems had plenty of spineless acceptance of this overarching system.
Guess what? Some of us said way back in 2006- writing and hurting ourselves- that the saddest part were those that "bought in" and actually beat themselves up doing this-those that now champion marching kids around in CHAMPS failing to see exactly what kids get marched and whose kids do not. (I call these folks the ones that are always hoping to one day cross over and be the elite....saddest of all. ) We made puns of the "collaborative" demand back then, and we documented our peers having cheerleading assemblies before tests, "We Can Do It", we noted the "No Excuses" banners and we silently witnessed the fact that the tests had "issues" we can never discuss because now we were forced to sign pledges that stated we could never discuss the tests. EVER.  The "bad teacher" entered the forum as the real shadow to defeat. And the gap in achievement that was 100% tied to economic status, just stayed smiling, and showed us how effective these new ideas really were. There must be more straw bad teachers left out there-things still look like money gets you something a free, fair public education does not.

Apparently in Atlanta principals lost jobs because of these damned educators who are manacled and awaiting their jail term, people erased scan sheets, bubbles got bubbled for kids too poorly taught to bubble in for themselves,  but nationally it was seen as a great "good" people began teaching to the test at least 50% of the time in a year, with Atlanta Is Burning | A Day In the Life:
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School closings inevitable if Emanuel wins second term ‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎DumpRahm

Chicago Teachers Union | School closings inevitable if Emanuel wins second term:






School closings inevitable if Emanuel wins second term

BY CTU COMMUNICATIONS  |  04/06/2015
CHICAGO—Rahm Emanuel’s refusal to seriously pursue any meaningful, progressive revenue solutions for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) funding needs will without question lead to further mass school closings in the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods if he wins re-election on April 7. As Emanuel’s economic policies prioritize the financial interests of billionaire campaign donors like Ken Griffin and other big business supporters, at the expense of public education in Chicago, the mayor is making a clear choice to drive the district into even further dire financial straits that he will use to justify additional school closings.
Griffin, one of the top contributors to Emanuel’s re-election campaign and the richest man in Illinois, has accused Chicago’s mayor of being “lackluster” for not closing 125 schools instead of 50, and recently reiterated to the New York Times that the number of closings, which disproportionately affected African American and Latino students and their families, “should’ve been 125.” Griffin also has claimed that the top 1 percent of income earners have too little influence in politics, which is seemingly why he has backed Emanuel with more than $1 million in campaign contributions. As Griffin’s influence on City Hall grows, future school closings are inevitable if Emanuel is re-elected.

“Rahm’s pledge not to close additional schools for five years, which he refused to put into writing or pass into law, will conveniently run out if he wins a second term,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. “In Ken Griffin, who is among the top donors to both Emanuel and his friend, Bruce Rauner, he has a billionaire puppet master for whom he’ll have to do a lot of dancing if he is fortunate enough to retain his office.”
In return for Griffin’s generosity, Emanuel has rejected holding the city’s most wealthy accountable for their growing untaxed income while he simultaneously fleeces working class families with regressive taxes. Emanuel also has committed millions of dollars in tax increment financing to one of Griffin’s hotel investments and remains silent on suggestions for a millionaire tax that nearly 2/3 of the state of Illinois voted to support.
In deference to his central contributors, Emanuel has refused to claw back losses from toxic swaps, capital appreciation bonds, TIFs and other forms of predatory finance that will cost the city $3 billion—money that would be better used in meeting pension obligations and expanding city services.
If Griffin himself were taxed at the individual income tax rate before it declined from 5 percent to 3.75 percent on January 1, 2015, his $1.2 billion annual income would have garnered $60 million. That amount alone would have saved 30 neighborhood public schools from closing, according to the Chicago Board of Education’s own calculations. If this same formula was applied to members of the Pritzker family, Grosvenor Capital Management CEO Michael Sacks and other financial titans financing Emanuel’s campaign, there would be substantially more resources available to the district to offset its projected $1 billion shortfall.
“If the mayor had the courage to take on the banks’ toxic swaps for market manipulation, unfair dealing and misinformation—along the lines of what the Department of Justice has done federally—we could recoup nearly $1.2 billion for our schools and the city, eradicating the current deficit,” Sharkey said. “Instead, CPS will face more mass school closings, more layoffs, more losses of retirement security for educators and more students in our already overcrowded classrooms.”

If the district closed the additional 75 schools that Griffin has called for, Emanuel’s handpicked Board of Education would have to layoff approximately 9,000 teachers, which would result in class sizes of 50 or more in most schools. Emanuel has threatened such actions in the past. If Chicago had a mayor who chose the city’s residents, their schools and communities over the interests of wealthy benefactors, the pain and suffering that Emanuel has caused can be avoided in the future.
Emanuel is the bankers’ candidate, for it is the bankers who are most enthusiastic about his willingness to defend their interests. His refusal to hold them accountable is an indication that future budget cuts and school closures are a certainty.





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The gap between rich and poor schools grew 44 percent over a decade. - The Hechinger Report

The gap between rich and poor schools grew 44 percent over a decade. - The Hechinger Report:



The gap between rich and poor schools grew 44 percent over a decade.

Growing money gap across 30 states






The growing gap between rich and poor is affecting many aspects of life in the United States, from health to work to home life. Now the one place that’s supposed to give Americans an equal chance at life — the schoolhouse — is becoming increasingly unequal as well. I’ve already documented the startling increase since 2000 in the number of extremely poor schools, where three-fourths of the students or more are poor enough to qualify for free or discounted meals (see here), and I’ve noted the general increase in poverty in all schools here.

But now there’s new evidence that poor schools are getting increasingly short-changed by the states and localities that fund them. The richest 25 percent of school districts receive 15.6 percent more funds from state and local governments per student than the poorest 25 percent of school districts, the federal Department of Education pointed out last month (March, 2015).  That’s a national funding gap of $1,500 per student, on average, according to the most recent data, from 2011-12. The gap has grown 44 percent since 2001-02, when a student in a rich district had only a 10.8 percent resource advantage over a student in a poor district.

The funding gap between the poorest and richest 25% of school districts in each state during the 2011-12 school year. Red and orange states are where students in rich districts receive more funds than students in poor districts.

(Use arrows to navigate and click on any state to see student spending data. Interactive map created by Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report. Source data: School district current expenditures per pupil Table A-1 FY2012, NCES)
I keep specifying “state” and “local” funding because the picture gets more complicated when you factor in federal funding. Once you do, almost all of the funding gaps disappear. But the Department of Education says that’s a problem. “Federal dollars were never intended to act as an equalizer for an unfair playing field set by state and local dollars,” said a U.S. Department of Education official, who said she was required to speak anonymously. “They are explicitly intended to supplement.”
Dating from President Johnson’s War on Poverty, federal education dollars are meant to give needy children (along with non-native English speakers and those with special needs) extra resources to help them catch up to their wealthier peers.
But most states have never created a level playing field, and new data show that it’s getting worse at a time when we’re asking schools to raise standards and demonstrate test score gains.

Change in the funding gap between 2001-02 and 2011-12. Red and orange states are where the gap widened to the benefit of students in rich districts.

(Use arrows to navigate and click on any state to see student spending data. Interactive map created by Jill Barshay of The Hechinger Report. Calculated from School district current expenditures per pupilTable A-1 FY 2012 and FY 2002, NCES)
To be sure, there’s a certain amount of quibbling over the data and how spending per student is calculated. Each state crunches the numbers differently and it’s often difficult, especially with administrators and technology that are shared across districts, to figure out exactly how to attribute dollars to each student.  An advocacy group, The Education Trust, released its own report in March, 2015, calculating that the state-and-local funding gap between rich and poor districts was only 10 percent, after adjusting for cost of living differences. Yet in another, more controversial calculation, it found an 18 percent funding gap between rich and poor.
Even within states, there are methodological changes from year to year. So it’s hard to say with certainty, for example, if the funding gap between rich and poor in Nevada more than doubled from 7 percent in 2001-02 to 15 percent in 2011-12, as the National Center for Education statistics reports. But the national trend is clear, when across 30 states you see a growing money gap between rich and poor The gap between rich and poor schools grew 44 percent over a decade. - The Hechinger Report:
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Chicago needs a mayor for the people! The people need to Tweet & VOTE #Chuy2015! Twitter Storm tonight 7-9 CT!


Chicago needs a mayor for the people! The people need to Tweet & VOTE #Chuy2015! Twitter Storm tonight 7-9 CT!











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NEA - Educators to spring into Wave of Action on eve of 50th anniversary of ESEA

NEA - Educators to spring into Wave of Action on eve of 50th anniversary of ESEA:

Educators to spring into Wave of Action on eve of 50th anniversary of ESEA

Nationwide actions to reaffirm LBJ’s ‘fierce commitment to the ideal of education for everyone’








 WASHINGTON - April 06, 2015 -

Families, students, educators, and communities across the nation will spring into an April Wave of Action to inject their voices into the reauthorization process of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), now more commonly known as No Child Left Behind, with a series of public events, teach-ins, rallies and digital engagements. This campaign coincides with Congress’ Easter recess. Leading the Wave of Action is a new six-figure television and digital ad buy that will run in select media markets home to 13 U.S. senators who will play a key role in deciding the future of the law. A cable ad buy also will air in the Washington, D.C. media market starting the week of April 13, which coincides with the Senate education committee’s expected mark up of their version of ESEA.
“Fifty years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the most sweeping education legislation of its time, the future of public education stands at a critical crossroads,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “Today, more than 50 percent of the nation’s public school students now qualify to receive free and reduced-priced meals. Fifteen million children in the United States — 20 percent of all children — live with families whose incomes are below the federal poverty level.”
On April 11, 1965, President Johnson cemented ESEA as a critical cornerstone of his War on Poverty programs, establishing the federal footprint in K-12 public education, and putting in place programs to level the playing field for the most vulnerable students: children living in poverty, students with disabilities and English-language learners.
“Under No Child Left Behind, the focus has shifted away from helping those most in need and moved towards testing, labeling and punishing schools, with no significant closure of achievement or opportunity gaps. Today, we call on all Americans to join us and take action, to speak up, to raise their hands, to reaffirm President Johnson’s ‘fierce commitment to the ideal of education for everyone,’” said Eskelsen García.
The 50th anniversary of ESEA comes as Congress is in earnest considering ways to rewrite the law. In fact, the U.S. Senate education committee is scheduled to begin marking up its version of ESEA on April 14, just a few days after the law’s anniversary. Educators, students, and families are demanding that Congress get ESEA right this time by ushering in a new and improved vision for our nation’s public schools—a vision that promotes opportunity, equity and excellence for all students regardless of the zip code in which they live.
“We will continue to fight until we have a new federal education bill signed into law that focuses on students and includes the voices of educators,” emphasized Eskelsen García. “The only way to achieve that is to make sure that our members and the public are fully engaged. The stakes are high for our students and their future. That’s why we are springing into action again to make sure lawmakers hear directly from educators about what hasn’t worked and what needs to happen in order to get the law right this time.”
In February, NEA launched a successful nationwide campaign, “Get ESEA Right,” to get the public and educators engaged in the ESEA reauthorization process. The campaign included a six-figure ad, titled “Fix ESEA.” NEA has sent more than 1.5 million emails to its members about ESEA. NEA cyber advocates have sent nearly 130,000 emails to Congress about ESEA reauthorization. More than 500,000 NEA members received a piece of direct mail from NEA to raise awareness about ESEA and urge them to take action. And during just one week in February, NEA members visited 245 House of Representatives and 79 Senate offices.
During the April Wave of Action nationwide campaign, educators will reach out to parents, community partners, and the general public to raise their voices. They will leaflet parents at schools or in public places, attend community forums, host teach-ins, and write letters to the editor or opinion pieces in their local papers, among other proactive actions.
In Oklahoma, educators are holding “common sense testing” tours. Educators in St. Louis, Mo., are conducting teach-ins. Maine educators are putting forward “time to teach” resolutions before school boards. These actions are just the beginning of many more to come.
The TV ads are running in select media markets in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia., Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington state.
To view the generic television ad, please click here or visit http://bit.ly/1yKlUX6.
Ad title: Educators Tell Congress: Fix the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Ad script:
Graphic: Educators speak out for students: It’s time to fix the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
TIKEILA: 3rd grade teacher

You shouldn’t be able to define a person by their zip code
MARIA: Education paraprofessional

Testing cannot close the gap between wealthy schools and poor schools.
JEREMY: H.S. physics teacher

And when we focus on standardized tests, and not on what the kid can actually do, we’re doing a disservice to the kid.
PAMELA: 2nd grade teacher

We need to lower the class sizes so that each student can get that one on one attention that they need.
JEREMY:

They need access to art and to music, they need to be in P.E. classes.
MAGGIE:

What are we not teaching when we’re teaching to the test?
NARRATOR:

Tell Congress: Stand up for students. Fix ESEA. 866-331-7233
Follow us @NEAMedia #getESEAright
The National Education Association (www.nea.org) is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing more than 3 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers.
CONTACT: Miguel A. Gonzalez  202-822-7823, mgonzalez@nea.org
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Jersey Jazzman: Camden State Superintendent Confirms: There's ALWAYS Money for Charter Schools

Jersey Jazzman: Camden State Superintendent Confirms: There's ALWAYS Money for Charter Schools:

Camden State Superintendent Confirms: There's ALWAYS Money for Charter Schools - 







Earlier this week, Stephen Danley posted a remarkable piece of video. Camden's State Superintendent, Paymon Rouhanifard, met with parents to discuss the fate of McGraw Elementary School, one of five schools scheduled to be either closed or turned over to charter school operators under Rouhanifard's plan.



For nearly 40 minutes, Rouhanifard is intensely cross-examined by parents who are against the conversion of McGraw into a charter school run by the Philadelphia-based charter chain, Mastery. Understand that these parents had absolutely no say whatsoever in the takeover of their neighborhood school: Rouhanifard is free to do whatever he wants in Camden, including abdicating his responsibility to the district's schools.



Rouhanifard, like the superintendents in Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson, serves entirely at the pleasure of Governor Chris Christie. He has no need to answer to the parents, students, and taxpayers of Camden, as they have no ability to remove him through the political process if he ignores their wishes. In New Jersey, local accountability through democratic action is reserved for the suburbs; people of color in the large cities do not enjoy the same privileges:





As you can imagine, the parents in this video are clearly fed up with this state of affairs. What follows is a passionate yet ultimately unsurprising confrontation between people who - See more at: Jersey Jazzman: Camden State Superintendent Confirms: There's ALWAYS Money for Charter Schools:
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‘Opting Haven out of the state-mandated tests is our family’s act of civil disobedience’ - The Washington Post

‘Opting Haven out of the state-mandated tests is our family’s act of civil disobedience’ - The Washington Post:

‘Opting Haven out of the state-mandated tests is our family’s act of civil disobedience’



Parents Can Opt Out - United Opt Out National

Click Here to go to United Opt Out National: 


Click Here to go to the Website- United Opt Out Team
Home
Click Here to go to the Website FairTest




 New York has been at the center of a national “opt-out” movement in which thousands of parents have refused to allow their children to take new standardized tests aligned to the Common Core standards or to similar standards in states that had originally adopted the Core but dropped them and designed their own. New York officials had signed on several years ago to a multi-state consortium known as PARCC, which developed new tests aligned to the Common Core, which public schools in the state have been implementing. But New York decided not to administer PARCC for various reasons and contracted with Pearson to design its own set of tests, which students have taken for a few years and will take again this month.  The state now wants to design yet another new test and is seeking proposals from test companies.

Last year some 60,000 students declined to take the tests in New York, and this year many more are expected. In this post, one mother explains in a letter to her daughter’s teacher why she is opting her child out of New York tests being given this month. The author is Britt Hamre, a lecturer in the Elementary Inclusive Program and co-odirector of the Inclusive Classrooms Project at Teachers College, Columbia University. She wrote the following letter to her daughter’s teacher about why she will not her child to take the state of New York’s Common Core tests this month. Here it is, with her permission.
Here’s the letter from Britt Hamre to her daughter’s teacher:
Dear Grace,
It is with the highest level of respect for you that I’m writing to inform you that Haven will not participate in the state mandated standardized tests this April. Using student test scores to rate and rank students and teachers is an ethically unsound practice and is degrading to the profession of teaching.
This year I have been in awe of your incredible skills as Haven’s teacher, and I know that no standardized test can come even close to capturing what she has learned in your classroom. Furthermore, your bravery and resolve in the face of the top down pressures from the State of New York may weigh on you, but you do not let that determine your curricular decisions. Instead you teach with your heart and soul, and your excitement has ignited Haven’s passion for social studies, reading, writing, and mathematics. No standardized test can measure the spirited dinner conversations Haven has initiated this year about immigration, thanks to your elaborately designed integrated social studies curriculum. I listen carefully as Haven describes class field trips in New York City, her excitement about historical fiction, and her deep analysis of primary sources and questions regarding privilege, prejudice and access. I cannot count the number of times Haven has greeted me at the door with, “Mom, did you know…?!” No test could possibly be designed to measure the multitude of ways in which she extends the investigations you start in class, or document the initiation she has taken to write her own books at home about the immigrants living in her mind. Her learning is demonstrated in her written work, performance of role-plays, various conversations, not to mention your regular curriculum newsletters, extensive and detailed narrative reports, and personal emails. Watching Haven learn this year has deepened my own commitment to preparing teachers to design integrated curriculum that examines enduring questions and takes up multiple perspectives. Haven’s learning is travelling far beyond the walls of your single classroom. I do not need a test score to 
‘Opting Haven out of the state-mandated tests is our family’s act of civil disobedience’ - The Washington Post:
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A case for cutting foreign languages from US schools - Quartz

A case for cutting foreign languages from US schools - Quartz:

A case for cutting foreign languages from US schools



 Eva Moskowitz is the CEO and founder of Success Academy Charter Schools, responsible for about 9,000 students in 32 charter schools around New York City. Moskowitz sat down for an interview with the American Enterprise Institute this week, and talked about how to fit everything she deems important for students—coding, recess, science five days a week—into the school day. One recent solution, Moskowitz said, was to cut foreign languages.



From the interview:
So something’s got to go. We picked—and you know this may be shocking to this audience—we picked foreign languages. People say “Don’t you believe in foreign languages?” I love multilingualism. I speak French, but something had to go. … We can’t do everything. And by the way, Americans don’t tend to do foreign languages very well. I think if I were doing schools in Europe I might feel differently. But my son took three years of French and he could barely say, “How are you?” … I really believe whatever we do we should do it exceptionally well and I wasn’t sure that I could find foreign language instructors that were really really good and could do it at a very very high level.

Indeed, foreign language instruction has been on the decline around the US, at least in elementary and middle schools—which is Success Academy’s sweet spot. (High schools remained steady at 91%, and Success only has one high school so far.) Here’s the change in the percentage of US schools offering foreign language instruction in 2008 versus 1997, according to a study funded by the US Department of Education


In Moskowitz’s defense, English continues to assert its dominance as the language of the global economy, though some would argue that just relying on everyone else to speak English could be detrimental to American business growth—while potentially sacrificing the benefits of bilingualism and of foreign language study (pdf).A case for cutting foreign languages from US schools - Quartz:
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