Why We Chose to Opt Out | Jason Endacott

Why We Chose to Opt Out | Jason Endacott:

Why We Chose to Opt Out

Posted: 04/16/2014 5:01 pm EDT Updated: 04/16/2014 5:59 pm EDT

unitedoptout.com/

OPT OUT GUIDES BY STATE

 Thousands of children in our state are headed into schools today to take standardized tests mandated by the federal government under No Child Left Behind. Our fourth grade son won't be one of them.

Opting your children out of standardized tests is a very personal decision, and one that has been far more difficult to make than we originally thought it would be. There has been a lot of attention given in the media lately to children who won't be taking standardized tests and the parents who have chosen to opt them out. In response to this attention, those who have the most to gain from high stakes testing have begun to push back, even chastising parents for their personal choices.

Today's post is dedicated to explaining the personal decision we made to opt our son out of standardized testing. In writing this I don't hope to convince you to opt your own children out of future testing. In fact, that's why I waited until today to post this, to provide some food for future thought.

I'm an educator, an academic and a parent. In the current climate of education in the U.S. I have very little power over my kids' education in any of these three roles. As an educator I have watched politicians, corporations and wealthy philanthropists take more and more control over K-12 schools. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Common Core State Standards are all examples of how education is guided by those with wealth and power rather than those with wealth of knowledge.

No Child Left Behind started us down this path in 2002 by tying federal money to standardized tests. Give the tests or lose out on millions in Title I funds that go to schools with the neediest children. President Obama used the billions of dollars that were part of his Race to the Top to program to double down on NCLB by enticing Why We Chose to Opt Out | Jason Endacott:

Wage theft is wage theft regardless of the ages of the teachers. | Reclaim Reform

Wage theft is wage theft regardless of the ages of the teachers. | Reclaim Reform:

Wage theft is wage theft regardless of the ages of the teachers.

Posted on April 27, 2014by Ken Previti

The legislative mandate of taking money as deferred compensation to keep it safe as a future pension while promising that it will not be there when it is needed is wage theft. Active teachers across America have this occur with every paycheck.

Retired teachers are having their constitutionally and contractually protected payment agreements re-legislated after the legal agreement. Law suits are presently underway across America to stop both forms of wage theft. The main court battles are in Republican dominated New Jersey and Democrat dominated Illinois. To be perfectly clear, it’s not about political issues; it’s about corporate greed and control.

“The courts will decide,” according to same state legislatures who have systematically stolen from public pension funds for decades.

So, the Koch Brothers, Wal-Mart, Dow Chemical, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, and other major corporations and billionaire owners are attempting to influence the judges who will make these and similar future interpretive decisions. Yes, it bought enough legislators from both political parties to pass the legislation violating the legislators’ oaths of office to protect Wage theft is wage theft regardless of the ages of the teachers. | Reclaim Reform:

Deeper Than Deep Learning | InterACT

Deeper Than Deep Learning | InterACT:

Deeper Than Deep Learning

APRIL 27, 2014

by David B. Cohen

A more philosophical post than usual – for what it’s worth.

This morning I had the opportunity to listen to a talk by Elane Geller, a Holocaust survivor originally from Poland, and now a resident of Southern California. I’ve heard Holocaust survivors speak a number of times in my life, and it’s always a profound experience, but there were two particular take-away ideas I thought would be worth sharing in this space. 

The first was an observation Geller offered about Holocaust education, particularly for Jewish children. She commented that any learning about the Holocaust should be considered in a wider context (my words, not hers), when she talked about a cycle, “from joy, to pain, and back to joy again.” In other words, Holocaust education would not be a starting point for Jewish education; instead, you should start with the positivity of traditions and living culture. Then, yes, it is necessary to understand the negative history of the Holocaust, to confront evil directly and name it. And finally, you wouldn’t want to neglect the importance of closure that brings the child back to a sense of joy and positivity about the future.

It struck me that this cycle could apply to any learning experience, within the span of  day, week, month or years. If academics are relevant to our students’ lives as members of a challenged society, then we must confront challenges openly, honestly, in ways that are sensitive to individuals and cultures while also academically focused. On the personal side, it makes sense to establish a sense of joy about learning, a degree of comfort among people in an academic community. Then, it should be safe to move into content that may be uncomfortable for some, but absolutely necessary. Such work can be done in an age-appropriate way that is still academically “honest” and true to the core of an academic discipline, and able to respect and honor the personal, emotional side of learning. The cycle is complete when our uncomfortable or challenging learning experiences are brought to a positive conclusion, with a sense of agency and purpose, and clear evidence of new learning.

The second observation that stuck with me this morning occurred when Geller talked about a sense of mutual responsibility, and even a sense of mutual peril in looking at world events. It’s a sentiment that has been expressed many times in many cultures, that a threat to human rights anywhere is a threat to human rights everywhere. The word ubuntu, found in multiple languages and dialects in southern Africa, identifies a similar concept – that my humanity is bound up in your humanity.

Given the scope of the humanitarian crises right now in places like Syria, South Sudan, central Africa, and North Korea, American education policy debates begin to look relatively minor. But on the other hand, the United States is not exactly leading the world in efforts to avoid a humanitarian crisis of its own (though of a different nature). The overall poverty rate in the United States is shameful, given our overall economic output. The childhood poverty rate is an embarrassment, and a blight that should speak to all of us on a personal, moral level. The Deeper Than Deep Learning | InterACT:

About the Book | A Fighting Chance By Elizabeth Warren

About the Book | A Fighting Chance By Elizabeth Warren:

About the Book

Click here to read the prologue for free (PDF)

Listen to an excerpt or download:

An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works—and really doesn’t

As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher—an ambitious goal, given her family’s modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but fifteen years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington DC to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws?

Thus began an impolite education into the bare-knuckled, often dysfunctional ways of Washington. She fought for better bankruptcy laws for ten years and lost. She tried to hold the federal government accountable during the financial crisis but became a target of the big banks. She came up with the idea for a new agency designed to protect consumers from predatory bankers and was denied the opportunity to run it. Finally, at age 62, she decided to run for elective office and won the most competitive—and watched—Senate race in the country.

In this passionate, funny, rabble-rousing book, Warren shows why she has chosen to fight tooth and nail for the middle class—and why she has become a hero to all those who believe that America’s government can and must do better for working families.

A Fighting Chance

BY ELIZABETH WARREN

ORDER NOW

Left-Right Alliance for Education: Multi-Partisan Opposition

Left-Right Alliance for Education: Multi-Partisan Opposition:

Multi-Partisan Opposition

The Left-Right Alliance was formed as a spontaneous gathering of education advocates. Each of the participants volunteered their time to work toward our purpose and process, the effort received no funding. Our hope is that the work we have completed here will be a message that Stop Common Core efforts nationwide can endorse and utilize. The report below is the result of our efforts. (For more on our purpose and process see our "About Us" and "Purpose and Process" tabs)
We oppose the CCSSI because it continues the failed education reforms of the past and violates privacy rights as it builds a system for centrally managed student training for the future workforce of the “Global Economy.” This central goal will dismantle liberal arts education, which most contributes to the development of mature thinkers who are prepared to thrive in any chosen life path and sustain a free civilization.

After weeks of deliberate, methodical discussions on key points of current education reforms in the U.S., the Left-Right Alliance for Education has concluded that there is a solid foundation for multi-partisan opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Below are our statements of opposition to the CCSSI and the rationales for them.

1. We oppose the philosophy of standardization built into all federal education initiatives, including the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
2. We oppose high-stakes testing.
3. We oppose a national student data system.

Our Rationale:

1. We oppose the philosophy of standardization built into all federal education initiatives, including the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

• The CCSSI will expand the failed philosophy of standardization in an attempt to build a workforce-oriented school system at the expense of the greater characteristics of sound education.
• Education policies based on the philosophy of standardization lead to a hyper-focus on quantifiable skills that fail to provide students with the instructional supports that develop mature thinkers prepared to thrive in any chosen life path.
• These policies ignore accepted scientific research on human development and correlate education with the processes applied in the manufacturing sector; deluge kids with test taking and assignment rubrics; bore and frustrate; squash the love of learning; impede quality teaching; pit schools against parents, and fail to develop creative, mature human beings.
• The standardization intrinsic in the CCSSI, and others like it, causes great harm to the development of children and is especially detrimental to disadvantaged children.
• Local decision making for education and educational choice serve both students and teachers better, facilitating individualized learning and teaching styles instead of putting every child and teacher in the same box.

2. We oppose high-stakes testing.

• The CCSSI high-stakes assessments lead to a hyper-focus on a narrow set of quantifiable skills at the expense of the greater characteristics of education founded in a broad curriculum.
• These assessments rely on computer-generated testing, excludes other ways students demonstrate proficiency and progress, and ignore the fact that teachers and parents are best able to judge a student's progress.
• The infrastructure and technology demands divert school and classroom resources away from those components that most impact student success.
• High-stakes testing has transformed schools into centers for test preparation and chip away at a child’s innate love of learning.
• Federal and state mandated high-stakes tests lead to excessive pressure on students and teachers and to bullying and punitive actions when parents choose to opt their children out of testing.

3. We oppose national student data systems.

• We oppose the CCSSI P-20 State Longitudinal Data Systems being integrated across state lines with some data available to government agencies and research organizations without parental consent via U.S. DOE regulatory change.
• We are concerned that these databases are not secure and unnecessarily expose student data to hacking, misuse, and publication, and violate the intent of protecting student privacy provided under FERPA.
• The rush to implementation is enticing for-profit companies to provide products and services without accountability to parents, individual students, and taxpayers.
• When coupled with highly predictive computer testing and learning data, which includes physiological and behavioral profiles, the database will store a “learning profile” that will follow students into their adult lives and may negatively impact future opportunities.
• When commercial interests are combined with the core vision of the CCSSI to build a system for centrally managed student training with the purpose of fitting the future generation in a managed workforce for the “Global Economy,” the data systems may be the component that most concerns parents.Left-Right Alliance for Education: Multi-Partisan Opposition:

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 4-27-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit:

smf RADIO INTERVIEW RE: TEACHER JAIL

4LAKids’ Scott Folsom interviewed by KPFK host John Cromshow for a special report on Teacher Jail for “Politics or Pedagogy”, analysis of education, policy and practice affecting our public schools. LISTEN HERE Note: This interview was recorded on Thursday, April 24th before Greg Schiller was released – and was broadcast Saturday, April 26, 2014  at 10:57 am

by smf / 6min 

Greg Schiller Radio Interview

Interview with teacher Greg Schiller by John & Ken, KFI Talk Radio hosts on Friday April 25th, after his first day back to school from Deasy Jail. CLICK HERE  -  listen from 1:35-10:05

1 by smf / 35min 

Photo: OBAMA & THE MARSHMALLOW GUN

photo from Getty Images by Sal Loeb I wonder we could get a grant from the National Rifle Association …or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Foundation – to mount one of these puppies in the balcony of the Beaudry Boardroom?

by smf / 7min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 4-26-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit:4LAKIDS - SOME OF THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT  Board District 3: TWO CANDIDATES FILE TO SEEK GALATZAN SCHOOL BOARD SEAT …AND THEN TAMAR DOES TOO!Two candidates file to seek Galatzan school board seat by Michael Janofsky, L.A.  School Report | http://bit.ly/1fBhfgN Posted on April 24, 2014 11:30 am Whether LA Unified board member Tamar Galatzan runs for ree

by mike simpson / 1h 

4-27-14 Jersey Jazzman Jammin'

Jersey Jazzman:

Two Questions For Arne Duncan

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gave an interview to Andrea Mitchell this past week that once again attempts to shift the blame for America's inequitable education outcomes on to everything and anything except the most obvious thing:Yeah, sure, that's the problem: the schools of education. I mean, what else could possibly explain this:Obviously, the difference in student outcomes between afflue

by Duke / 13min 

4-26-14 Jersey Jazzman Jammin' All Week

Jersey Jazzman:Jersey Jazzman Jammin' All WeekCami Anderson's Rusty KnifeNewark's state-appointed superintendent, Cami Anderson, is so hard at work fighting against "adult interests" that she doesn't have time to attend public meetings of her elected school board. She doesn't even have time to explain herself to the NJ Legislature.But she apparently does have time to hobnob with a bunch

by mike simpson / 14min 

The Great Big Lovin’ Walheart | EduShyster

The Great Big Lovin’ Walheart | EduShyster:

The Great Big Lovin’ Walheart

 The Walton family hearts America’s poor kids. Their parents? Not so much.

When we last paid a call on our good friends the Waltons, we found them in a fine, beneficent fettle indeed. Armed with Walmart profits equivalent to the wealth of the bottom 42% of American families combined, the Waltons felt moved to wrap their arms around the nation’s burgeoning population of low-income children and hug them into college readiness and 21st century success. And I’ve got great, heartwarming news, reader. As thisNew York Times feature reveals, the Waltons’ great big lovin’ Walheart beats stronger than ever—and there is nary an education reform group nor a charter school that is not ententacled in the family’s tender embrace.

A family affair  
Just how warm is that embrace? According to the New York Times, the Walton Family Foundation has hugged its extended family members in the education reform movement to the tune of $1 billion since 2000, including $163 million last year alone. Among the The Great Big Lovin’ Walheart | EduShyster:

States on the VAMwagon Most Likely to Receive Race to the Top Funds |

States on the VAMwagon Most Likely to Receive Race to the Top Funds |:

States on the VAMwagon Most Likely to Receive Race to the Top Funds



 Since 2009, the US Department of Education via its Race to the Top initiative has given literally billions in federal, taxpayer funds to incentivize states to adopt its various educational policies, as based on many non-research-based or research-informed reforms. As pertinent here, the main “reform” being VAMs, with funding going to states that have them, are willing to adopt them, and are willing to use them for low- and preferably high-stakes decisions about teachers, schools, and districts.

Diane Ravitch recently posted a piece about the Education Law Center finding that there was an interesting pattern to the distribution of Race to the Top grants. The Education Law Center, in an Education Justice article, found that the states and districts with the least fair and equitable state school finance systems were the states that won a large share of RTTT grants.

Interesting, indeed, but not surprising. There is an underlying reason for this, as based on standard correlations anybody can run or calculate using state-level demographics and some basic descriptive statistics.

In this case, correlational analyses reveal that state-level policies that rely at least in part on VAMs are indeed more common in states that allocate less money than the national average for schooling as compared to the nation. More specifically, they are more likely found in states in which yearly per pupil expenditures are lower than the national average (as demonstrated in the aforementioned post). They are more likely found in states that have more centralized governments, rather than those with more powerful counties and districts as per local control. They are more likely to be found in more highly populated States on the VAMwagon Most Likely to Receive Race to the Top Funds |:

Better Prepared Teachers? Coffee Chat with Arne and Andrea:

Better Prepared Teachers? Coffee Chat with Arne and Andrea

APRIL 27, 2014 BY NANCY BAILEY LEAVE A COMMENT

The other day I watched  Andrea Mitchell interview Arne Duncan. It’s always difficult for me to listen to authorities on teaching who have never been teachers, or who have never even studied what it takes to be a teacher. When they bloviate what the government needs to do to make good teachers, I want to ask how do they know? Unless you have walked in their shoes….

I also don’t think Arne and the Obama administration are paying any attention to what really keeps parents up at night when it comes to their children’s schooling. They are focused on all the wrong things.

But I realized a long time ago that today’s reality concerning teaching and education is warped. So I just try to make sense of it, and this is my attempt to decipher Arne’s gibberish (it is critical) about teacher preparation and the colleges of education.

First and foremost…When they say they want to overhaul undergraduate teacher preparatory programs, my guess is they really want to get rid of these schools. They will do it like they get rid of teachers in real public schools—tying success to test scores.

A teacher’s success, they say, will be determined by the kind of future scores their students Better Prepared Teachers? Coffee Chat with Arne and Andrea:

Sacrificing Our Children | educarenow

Sacrificing Our Children | educarenow:

Sacrificing Our Children

Posted on April 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

Can we finally move beyond the illusion that the privatization of public schools is for the benefit of kids?

All of the empirical evidence says we should.

Can we finally be honest about that fact that for profit charters simply move money from that which is set aside for the common good to corporate profits at the expense of children, particularly those in poverty and of color?

A new study, Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Schools Than Rich Kids? Evaluating School Privatization Proposals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,  by Gordon Lafer, says yes.

Ruth Conniff, in her article, Scathing Report Finds Rocketship, School Privatization Hurt Poor Kids, shows how this study excavates the way in which the Milwaukee school system, “ground zero for school privatization,” uses children as fodder for corporate profits.

“Lafer’s research…is a sweeping indictment of the growing private charter school industry–and other schemes backed by rightwing groups and big business–that siphon public funds out of public schools and enrich corporate investors at the expense of quality education for poor children.”

Let’s be clear- despite what you hear from the right, from Michelle Rhee Jeb Bush, and Bill Gates, etc., despite their lofty rhetoric of offering choices for poor families, despite their stated intentions of helping lift families out of poverty,the fact of the matter is that the corporate education reform movement functions in way that the educational quality Sacrificing Our Children | educarenow:

Storified Charters and Traditional Schools Debate: Michelle Rhee vs. Julian Vasquez Heilig et al. | Cloaking Inequity

Storified Charters and Traditional Schools Debate: Michelle Rhee vs. Julian Vasquez Heilig et al. | Cloaking Inequity:

Storified Charters and Traditional Schools Debate: Michelle Rhee vs. Julian Vasquez Heilig et al.

A debate/conversation started Friday evening with my response to a @MichelleRhee tweet about her tiredness with the traditional school versus charter school debate. I tweeted that I was “totally tired too” of people “ignoring data” that traditional schools outperform charters. Debates on Twitter usually get lost in the annals of twitter history— so I turned to Storify to log the debate/conversation. What is Storify? It “helps making sense of what people post on social media.” Users curate voices and turn them into stories.

Click the link below to follow the Storified conversation about charters versus traditional public schools with Michelle Rhee et al. It’s worth the click. Enjoy.

https://storify.com/ProfessorJVH/charter-schools-michelle-rhee-julian-vasquez-heili

For all post mentioning Michelle Rhee click here.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Want to know about Cloaking Inequity’s freshly pressed conversations about educational policy? Click the “Follow blog by email” button in the upper left hand corner of this page.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Please blame Siri for any typos.

Henry A. Giroux: Neoliberalism, Democracy and the University as a Public Sphere

Henry A. Giroux: Neoliberalism, Democracy and the University as a Public Sphere:

Henry A. Giroux: Neoliberalism, Democracy and the University as a Public Sphere

Tuesday, 22 April 2014 09:44By Victoria Harper, Truthout | Interview

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Henry A. Giroux. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)This story wasn't funded by corporate advertising, but by readers like you. Can you help sustain our work with a tax-deductible donation?

Public Intellectual Henry Giroux speaks with Truthout about his new book and its exploration of how neoliberalism makes it harder for poor children to attend college and forces debt-ridden students into an intellectual and moral dead zone devoid of imagination.

Truthout contributor, director of Truthout's Public Intellectual Project and Truthout Board member Henry A. Giroux responds to questions about how the excesses of neoliberal politics have reshaped and subverted the democratic mission of higher education, as expressed in his new book.

Henry A. Giroux | Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education                                        Haymarket Books (March 18, 2014) Chicago, Illinois, 240 pages

Victoria Harper: Welcome, Henry. In your latest book, Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education, neoliberalism is a central organizing idea in shaping your view of education. Can you provide a general working definition of what it is and how it threatens higher education? 

Henry A. Giroux: Neoliberalism has many forms, but these forms share a number of characteristics.  Not only is it the latest stage of predatory capitalism, but it is also part of a broader project of restoring class power and consolidating the rapid concentration of capital, particularly financial capital. More specifically, it is a political, economic and political project that constitutes an ideology, mode of governance, policy and form of public pedagogy. As an ideology, it construes profit making as the essence of democracy, consuming as the only operable form of citizenship, and upholds the irrational belief that the market cannot only solve all problems but serve as a model for structuring all social relations. It is steeped in the language of self-help, individual responsibility and is purposely blind to inequalities in power, wealth and income and how they bear down on the fate of individuals and groups. As such, it supports a theater of cruelty that is scornful of any notion of compassion and concern for others.  As a mode of governance, it produces identities, subjects, and ways of life driven by a survival of the fittest ethic, grounded in the idea of the free, possessive individual, and committed to the right of ruling groups and institutions to accrue wealth removed from matters of ethics and social costs. 

Under neoliberalism, desire is wedded to commodities and the private addictions of the market. As a policy and political project, neoliberalism is wedded to the privatization of public services, the dismantling of the connection of private issues and public problems, the selling off of state functions, the elimination of government regulation of financial institutions and corporations, the elimination of the welfare state and unions, liberalization of trade in goods and capital investment, and the marketization and commodification of society.  

As a form of public pedagogy, neoliberalism casts all dimensions of life in terms of market rationality. One consequence is that as a form of casino capitalism it Henry A. Giroux: Neoliberalism, Democracy and the University as a Public Sphere: