Thursday, March 12, 2015

Howard Dean endorses Garcia over Rahm for Chicago mayor | ‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Howard Dean endorses Garcia over Rahm for Chicago mayor | Chicago:

Howard Dean endorses Garcia over Rahm for Chicago mayor

WASHINGTON – Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, Democratic National Committee chairman and presidential candidate endorsed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia over Rahm Emanuel for Chicago mayor on Thursday.

Important back story: When Emanuel was the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he stuck it to Dean in 2006 – when Dean was the DNC chair. Emanuel wanted Dean to funnel millions of dollars to help House candidates. Emanuel taunted Dean’s “50 State Strategy” and a leaked story about how little Emanuel thought of Dean found its way into print.

Now, back to the present: Enough with the payback. What could this mean?

Dean throwing himself in the mix adds a high profile progressive voice to Garcia’s team and hits at Emanuel’s vulnerability that was so apparent in the February primary – Emanuel’s lack of a strong ground game to spur turnout in wards where he had supporters.

Dean can help mobilize and energize grass-root Garcia backers.

While the organization Dean founded, Democracy for America already was backing Garcia, having Dean himself speak up takes it up a few notches, even as his endorsement comes as no surprise.

In a statement Dean said, “When I ran for president in 2004, I told supporters in my stump speech that I represented the ‘Democratic wing of the Democratic Party’ — a line inspired by Paul Wellstone that captured the spirit of my grassroots campaign.

“Jesús ‘Chuy’ García is running a similar people-powered campaign in Chicago and that’s why I am proud to announce that I Howard Dean endorses Garcia over Rahm for Chicago mayor | Chicago:

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

How income inequality is impacting American children - The Cycle

The Cycle - Ari Melber, Krystal Ball, Toure & Abby Huntsman on msnbc:

How income inequality is impacting American children

How income inequality is impacting American children

Are America’s kids in crisis? One of the great social thinkers of our time Robert Putnam who is the author of “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis” joined the table to discuss.

Duration: 6:01

Why some students are refusing to take the Common Core test

Why some students are refusing to take the Common Core test:

Why some students are refusing to take the Common Core test

TRANSCRIPT

In rural towns like Hartsville, S.C., school ‘choice’ doesn’t make sense. Here’s why. - The Washington Post

In rural towns like Hartsville, S.C., school ‘choice’ doesn’t make sense. Here’s why. - The Washington Post:

In rural towns like Hartsville, S.C., school ‘choice’ doesn’t make sense. Here’s why.

School “choice” — charter schools, vouchers, etc. — is one of the hallmarks of modern school reform, especially in urban areas. But one issue that never seems to get much, if any, attention, is how it would work in rural areas. According to a new PBS documentary film, 180 Days: Hartsville,the answer is not at all well.

This post about what the film shows was written by one of its producers, Sam Chaltain, a former teacher and D.C.-based writer and strategic communications consultant whose work focuses on the changing nature of teaching and learning in America. He was the National Director of the Forum for Education & Democracy, an education advocacy organization, and the founding director of the Five Freedoms Project, a national program that helps K-12 educators create more democratic learning communities. He also spent five years at the First Amendment Center as the co-director of the First Amendment Schools program. He has taught in public and private schools in New York, and was a visiting lecturer at Beijing Normal University in China.

Here’s the trailer:

In the small town of Hartsville, South Carolina, which sits just about two hours from anywhere you’ve ever heard of, Monay Parran and her two young sons – 8-year-old Ja’quez, and 11-year-old Rashon – begin each day in the darkness of the pre-dawn hours.

Parran, a single parent who works two minimum-wage jobs in two towns that are almost an hour apart, must drop her boys off at the bus stop early enough to make it to her first job on time. By the time she sees her sons again, after her second shift wraps up, it will be almost midnight.

This is the daily cycle for scores of families, who must make ends meet while living below the poverty line. It’s a cycle that results in young people who are often overtired and undernourished. It’s also a widespread reality that is largely invisible to most Americans, and made more complex by the distances rural families must traverse to access foundational resources like a school, a hospital – or even a minimum-wage job.

Beginning March 17, the particular struggles – and successes – of families like Ms. Parran’s will be given close attention via a new PBS documentary film, 180 Days: Hartsville (I am one of its producers), a project that was funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s American Graduate: Let’s Make it Happen initiative. Viewers will experience a year in the life of one small Southern town, two schools that work primarily with low-income children, and one family’s efforts to break the generational cycle of poverty.

What the film will also make visible, albeit indirectly, is our national preoccupation with the needs of cities, and the extent to which many of our most hotly debated national strategies for school reform – from charter schools to online learning – simply aren’t viable in towns like Hartsville, where transportation costs alone circumscribe the choices many rural families can make, and where many residents still have no Internet access. In places like these, if you want to transform the schools, you are going to In rural towns like Hartsville, S.C., school ‘choice’ doesn’t make sense. Here’s why. - The Washington Post:

Good Intentions, Political Realities, Privileged Cluelessness: On Education Reform and Poverty | the becoming radical

Good Intentions, Political Realities, Privileged Cluelessness: On Education Reform and Poverty | the becoming radical:

GOOD INTENTIONS, POLITICAL REALITIES, PRIVILEGED CLUELESSNESS: ON EDUCATION REFORM AND POVERTY

Education and education reform are vibrant examples of the wide spectrum of good people with good intentions and then all the way to the other extreme, spurious people with dubious intentions.

When my home state of South Carolina began sliding down that slippery slope of adopting (flawed and misrepresented) reading policy modeled on Florida, I came face to face (actually, voice to voice) with the harsh realization that good people with good intentions can be as harmful as spurious people with dubious intentions: Good people with whom I had been talking suddenly brushed me off, citing political expediency—better to get the money for reading and swallow the horrible grade retention element than to get no money at all, I was told.

I thought of this when I saw associate editor at The State Cindi Scoppe’s To fix SC schools, start with governance. Scoppe, for full disclosure, has published a number of my Op-Eds in The State, notable is that my positions are decidedly not in line with the politics or ideology of my home state.

Also, I am certain Scoppe is a good person with good intentions; she genuinely wants equitable and effective schools for all children in SC.

However, I also know good intentions (even mine) are not enough.

Scoppe opens with admitting she isn’t an expert on educating students, and then offers a relatively modest plan for education reform—ones she characterizes as “commonsense reforms that come from across the political spectrum.” Scoppe endorses the “best ideas from the right and left,” including:

Making it easier to fire bad teachers (right);
increasing teacher pay to teach impoverished students, and freeing teachers from non-teaching tasks (left);
increasing charter schools, magnet schools, and parental choice, and giving schools more freedom in spending (right);
implementing a better school funding formula, with more equity, and pursuing, possibly, district/school consolidation (left).

My immediate response was to share on Twitter my argument that we need not simply appease the political right and left, or the public, but instead should endorse evidence-based reform addressing equity.

So that leaves these questions:

Are bad teachers, and the difficulty firing them, major (or even minor) hurdles to high-quality education for all children in SC? I have never seen anyone making this claim show evidence that this is true. I am deeply skeptical of these claims, also, in a right-to-work state where teachers’ unions have no legal power and very limited buy-in by K-12 teachers in the state. The real teacher quality problem in SC (and across the U.S.) is a tremendous inequity of teacher assignment: affluent and white students disproportionately have experienced and certified/qualified teachers while impoverished, minority, ELL, and special needs students disproportionately have beginning/inexperienced and un-/under-certified/qualified teachers.
Would targeted merit pay for teaching high-needs students and relief from non-teaching tasks help improve education for high-poverty, majority-minority schools (notably along the Corridor of Shame)? Unlikely, since Good Intentions, Political Realities, Privileged Cluelessness: On Education Reform and Poverty | the becoming radical:

New York Hedge Funds Pour Millions of Dollars into Cuomo-Led Bid to Expand Charter Schools | Democracy Now!

New York Hedge Funds Pour Millions of Dollars into Cuomo-Led Bid to Expand Charter Schools | Democracy Now!:

New York Hedge Funds Pour Millions of Dollars into Cuomo-Led Bid to Expand Charter Schools

In his latest column for the New York Daily News, Democracy Now! co-host Juan González reports on the tens of millions of dollars in hedge fund donations behind the push for charter schools in New York state. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is the single biggest recipient, hauling in $4.8 million. After winning approval for up to $2,600 more per pupil for charter school facilities, Cuomo is calling on the state Legislature to increase the state limit on charter schools.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan, before we move on with our first segment, you have a very interesting piece in the New York Daily News today, "Hedge fund executives give ’til it hurts to politicians, especially Cuomo, to get more charter schools."

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes. Well, I wrote about an interesting symposium that was held at the Harvard Club yesterday, an all-day symposium titled "Bonds & Blackboards: Investing in Charter Schools." And it was a meeting, basically, of hedge fund types sponsored by the Gates Foundation and by the Walton Foundation, basically—

AMY GOODMAN: Of Wal-Mart.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Of the Wal-Mart family—basically enticing more investors to begin to see how they can make money off of charter schools. An all-day symposium with a small protest of parents outside. But it really has marked the enormous change that’s occurred in New York politics and, I think, around the country, as a new report showed that hedge fund executives over the last decade have poured nearly $40 million into political contributions just in New York state. The prime beneficiary over the last few years has been Governor Cuomo, who has received almost $5 million. We’re talking about Carl Icahn, you know, the famous "corporate raider"; we’re talking about Paul Singer of the vulture fund, hedge fund guy; we’re talking about Julian Robertson of Tiger Management—some of the richest people in New York City. And they’re also, most of them, also major backers of charter schools.

AMY GOODMAN: How do they make money from charter schools?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, that’s—I think a lot of it now is going to be coming in with the facilities financing that’s going to occur. Governor Cuomo pressed the Legislature, for instance, in New York state to begin providing what will be the equivalent of about $2,600 per child to build new facilities for charter schools, forcing Mayor de Blasio in New York City to share some of this cost. So there’s going to be a new revenue stream: In addition to direct funding from the state for pupil education, there’s now going to be a charter facilities fund that’s been set up. And, of course, the governor wants to lift the cap on charter schools to allow many more charter schools to be started in New York. And the amount of money is not just in the direct contributions; it’s also in money being given to new groups, the dark money that we’ve seen after the Citizens United case, where folks like Robertson and Dan Loeb have contributed as much as a million dollars apiece last year to a new group funding ads promoting Republicans for Senate seats in New York state, which would assure, again, support for charter schools. So it’s an enormous amount of money that’s being poured into these political campaigns specifically by hedge fund folks who are very close to charter schools. In fact, one charter network alone, the Success Academy, which I’ve reported on repeatedly, 19 members of the board of directors, or their family members, gave $600,000 to Governor Cuomo’s campaigns in the last—for his last two election campaigns. It’s an enormous amount of money, and it’s not getting much attention.

New York Hedge Funds Pour Millions of Dollars into Cuomo-Led Bid to Expand Charter Schools | Democracy Now!:

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Who is Muneer Satter and why is he throwing more money at Rahm? ‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Who is Muneer Satter and why is he throwing more money at Rahm?:

Who is Muneer Satter and why is he throwing more money at Rahm?

Muneer Satter - Financial Times via Flickr.com

Muneer Satter, the man from Goldman Sachs

I could easily cross-post this at Schooling in the Ownership Society. I'll tell you why down below.

Greg Hinz at Crains describes how Rahm's hedge-fund patrons and those who are after more city contracts are over-stuffing the mayor's campaign war chest with more money than can possibly be spent in the short time remaining until election day. More importantly, they are also contributing to the climate of fear by promoting the racist notion that a Chuy Garcia victory on April 7th, will lead to Chicago becoming "Detroit" the following day.

Another check came from prominent GOP donor and investor Muneer Satter. He's given before and reportedly is quite a big Emanuel fan, but he accompanied this donation with a personal email that went to quite a few execs around town. The note says that Chicago is at a "critical" point and risks "becoming Detroit." It then goes on to urge recipients to vote and donate.

Who is Muneer Satter? Among other things, he's one of the creeps who ran Goldman Sachs. He's now the Chairman of Satter Investment Management LLC. He also serves as Chairman of Restorsea Holdings, LLC., Co-chairman of Aerpio Therapeutics, Inc., Co-Chairman at Akebia Therapeutics, Inc. and has been its Director since 2012. He has been a Co-Chairman and Lead Director of Vital Therapies, Inc..

Muneer's mansion.

He's also Vice Chairman of the Board of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, GS Gives and the Satter Foundation. Oh, did I mention that he's on the Board of Trustees for Northwestern University?

In other words, Muneer is a player. He's also a Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Who is Muneer Satter and why is he throwing more money at Rahm?:

Click here to go to Jesus "Chuy" Garcia for Mayor of Chicago Website

‪#‎Chuy2015‬ ‪#‎imwithchuy‬

The Disruption Machine: What the gospel of innovation gets wrong - The New Yorker

The Disruption Machine - The New Yorker:

The Disruption Machine

What the gospel of innovation gets wrong.

BY JILL LEPORE

Disruption is a theory of change founded on panic, anxiety, and shaky evidence.

CREDIT

ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN STAUFFER

In the last years of the nineteen-eighties, I worked not at startups but at what might be called finish-downs. Tech companies that were dying would hire temps—college students and new graduates—to do what little was left of the work of the employees they’d laid off. This was in Cambridge, near M.I.T. I’d type users’ manuals, save them onto 5.25-inch floppy disks, and send them to a line printer that yammered like a set of prank-shop chatter teeth, but, by the time the last perforated page coiled out of it, the equipment whose functions those manuals explained had been discontinued. We’d work a month here, a week there. There wasn’t much to do. Mainly, we sat at our desks and wrote wishy-washy poems on keyboards manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation, left one another sly messages on pink While You Were Out sticky notes, swapped paperback novels—Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, that kind of thing—and, during lunch hour, had assignations in empty, unlocked offices. At Polaroid, I once found a Bantam Books edition of “Steppenwolf” in a clogged sink in an employees’ bathroom, floating like a raft. “In his heart he was not a man, but a wolf of the steppes,” it said on the bloated cover. The rest was unreadable.

Not long after that, I got a better assignment: answering the phone for Michael Porter, a professor at the Harvard Business School. I was an assistant to his assistant. In 1985, Porter had published a book called “Competitive Advantage,” in which he elaborated on the three strategies—cost leadership, differentiation, and focus—that he’d described in his 1980 book, “Competitive Strategy.” I almost never saw Porter, and, when I did, he was dashing, affably, out the door, suitcase in hand. My job was to field inquiries from companies that wanted to book him for speaking engagements. “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” appeared in 1990. Porter’s ideas about business strategy reached executives all over the world.

Porter was interested in how companies succeed. The scholar who in some respects became his successor, Clayton M. Christensen, entered a doctoral program at the Harvard Business School in 1989 and joined the faculty in 1992. Christensen was interested in why companies fail. In his 1997 book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” he argued that, very often, it isn’t because their executives made bad decisions but because they made good decisions, the same kind of good decisions that had made those companies successful for decades. (The “innovator’s dilemma” is that “doing the right thing is the wrong thing.”) As Christensen saw it, the problem was the velocity of history, and it wasn’t so much a problem as a missed opportunity, like a plane that takes off without you, except that you didn’t even know there was a plane, and had wandered onto the airfield, which you thought was a meadow, and the plane ran you over during takeoff. Manufacturers of mainframe computers made good decisions about making and selling mainframe computers and devising important refinements to them in their R. & D. departments—“sustaining innovations,” Christensen called them—but, busy pleasing their mainframe customers, one tinker at a time, they missed what an entirely untapped customer wanted, personal computers, the market for which was created by what Christensen called “disruptive innovation”: the selling of a cheaper, poorer-quality product that initially reaches less profitable customers but eventually takes over and devours an entire industry.

Ever since “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” everyone is either disrupting or being disrupted. There are disruption consultants, disruption conferences, and disruption seminars. This fall, the University of Southern California is opening a new program: “The degree is in disruption,” the university announced. “Disrupt or be disrupted,” the venture capitalist Josh Linkner warns in a new book, “The Road to Reinvention,” in which he argues that “fickle consumer trends, friction-free markets, and political unrest,” along with “dizzying speed, exponential complexity, and mind-numbing technology advances,” mean that The Disruption Machine - The New Yorker:

Kentucky students get hard lesson in politics from lawmakers - Yahoo News

Kentucky students get hard lesson in politics from lawmakers - Yahoo News:

Kentucky students get hard lesson in politics from lawmakers

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A group of bright-eyed, clean-cut high school students whose ideas of government were shaped by "Schoolhouse Rock" wrote a bill and watched it sail through the Kentucky state legislature this year in the type of feel-good story that had parents beaming.

But politics can ruin anything.

The bill would let high school students be appointed to committees that screen new school superintendents. But at the last moment, a Republican state senator pulled an old legislative trick, tacking a controversial amendment he wants passed to their widely supported bill. Then another added a contentious amendment of his own.

Now, with two more days left in the 2015 legislative session, the students who were expecting "Schoolhouse Rock" were instead being confronted with "House of Cards."

"That's the way it works," said Republican Sen. C.B. Embry, who filed the first amendment, which would force transgender students to use separate bathrooms in public schools. That amendment had previously passed the Republican-controlled Senate but died in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

"The ball is in the House's court. If it doesn't (pass), it's not my fault, it's theirs for not giving it a hearing or allowing it to go to a conference committee," he said.

A second amendment, similarly unpopular in the House, would let students "voluntarily express religious or political viewpoints" in schools without fear of discrimination.

The students have fought back, but with little success. Three of them skipped school Wednesday — with permission — to travel to Frankfort, where they earnestly roamed the halls of the Capitol carrying signs that say "#student voice matters." They texted, tweeted and posted nonstop while setting up an impromptu news conference with reporters via Twitter.

"I took AP government a couple of years ago and definitely did not learn about this side of politics," said 16-year-old Eliza Jane Schaeffer, a junior at Henry Clay High School in Lexington.

The students are members of the Student Voice Team, organized through the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, an education advocacy group. Their goal is to "collaborate with other student and adult leaders to create ways to share student perspectives on education issues."

When the Fayette County Public Schools began looking for a new superintendent last year, the students wanted a seat on the screening committee. But state law would not allow it.

So the students decided to change the law. They persuaded Democratic State Rep. Derrick Kentucky students get hard lesson in politics from lawmakers - Yahoo News:

Immense Unease Over Advertisers Nabbing Student Data: Poll

Immense Unease Over Advertisers Nabbing Student Data: Poll:

Immense Unease Over Advertisers Nabbing Student Data: Poll

As technology continues to seep into U.S. classrooms, an overwhelming number of parents and others worry that children's private information may not be secure.

A whopping 89 percent of Americans reported they are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about "advertisers using personal data about children to market to them," according to a nationally representative survey conducted by the Benenson Strategy Group on behalf of Common Sense Media, an advocacy group for children and families. The survey asked questions of 800 registered voters, including 227 parents, by phone earlier this month, and has a 3.5 percent margin of error.

The poll found that while only 37 percent of the public has "seen, read, or heard" "some" or "a great deal" about schools collecting, storing and sharing information, including age, weight and grades, 90 percent are "somewhat" or "very" concerned about private companies having access to student data.

"Student privacy and the protection of data is about to explode as an issue in the United States," said James Steyer, who heads Common Sense Media. "The numbers are off the charts. It's clear that students' personal and private information must not be for sale. Period."

Over the last few years, "data-driven instruction" has become a buzzword in education, with the idea behind it included in the pitches of education technology vendors and the federal government's Race to the Top -- District competition, in which school districts vie for cash in part by tailoring education plans to individual students (the Department used the phrase "personalized learning"). Proponents see technology that uses data collection as key to showing teachers which skills students are missing and what motivates learning. School districts are increasingly using cloud computing to store thousands of digital records for each student.

Because the field is new, it's largely unregulated.

Ninety-five percent of school districts in the U.S. rely on cloud computing, storing data on remote servers connected to the Internet, according to recent report from the Fordham University School of Law. The Fordham paper found that only one-fourth of districts tell parents about these services and one-fifth of districts don't have policies explicitly governing their use. Many contracts between districts and technology vendors don't have privacy policies, and less than 7 percent of the contracts restrict vendors from selling student information. The agreements rarely address security, according to the Fordham research.

Even advocates of increasing the use of data to inform education acknowledged the survey's implications.

"The survey points to the need for states, districts and schools to not only follow existing laws and regulations that govern the appropriate use of student data, and to make every effort to safeguard student privacy," said Dakarai Aarons, director of communications and external affairs for the Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit that advocates using student information to improve instruction. "It's imperative that transparency exist so parents know what data is collected, who has access and for what purpose."

Common Sense Media is a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps families navigate the world of technology and lists Chelsea Clinton, Ezekiel Emanuel, Robert Fisher and Geoffrey Canada as board members. The group has received major grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Anschutz Foundation.

In October, Common Sense Media sent a letter to 16 education technology vendorsasking them to restrict the use of student data to instructional purposes -- not commercial ones.

Steyer said in an interview that he first came across the privacy issue as co-chair of the LEAD Commission, a group President Barack Obama assembled to explore education technology. The LEAD Commission evolved into ConnectED, an Obama initiative that Immense Unease Over Advertisers Nabbing Student Data: Poll:

4 things to know: Standardized testing in grades K to 2

4 things to know: Standardized testing in grades K to 2:

4 things to know: Standardized testing in grades K to 2

Standardized test season is upon New Jersey schools. As the first statewide run of the PARCC — the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers — gets underway for students in third through 11th grade, state legislators are considering a bill that would prohibit standardized testing of children in kindergarten through second grade.

Here are four things to know about standardized testing for young children:

1) Standardized testing is not a state or federal requirement for children in grades K to 2.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 provides federal funding to schools with poor and at-risk children if those schools show accountability through standardized testing. Under the act, students in grades 3 to 8 must be tested annually in reading and math, and once more between grades 10 and 12.

The New Jersey Department of Education does not require any standardized testing in younger grades, but there is no legal prohibition against it.

2) Legislators are moving to block early childhood testing

Assembly bill A3079, which would prohibit testing of students in kindergarten through second grade, was approved unanimously on Monday and now will be considered by the Senate Education Committee.

Julia Rubin, volunteer and founding member of Save Our Schools New Jersey, says some school districts across the state have instituted standardized tests in kindergarten through second grade to gauge student skills before they take the PARCC in third grade.

"Right now, there's absolutely nothing that's preventing it," Rubin said.

In the past, many legislators supported standardized testing as a way to hold schools and teachers accountable for student achievement. In recent months, many have shifted their support to favor parents who say testing and test prep have overtaken schools.

3) No consensus on usefulness of tests

Standardized tests are popular among some agencies who seek to measure the success of early childhood programs.

The federal government now requires testing of the nation's preschoolers who are enrolled in Head Start, a program designed to give poor and at-risk children ages 5 and younger a firm educational foundation. The test, called Teaching Standards GOLD, sets "school readiness" benchmarks on social skills, creative expression, and English language skills, among others.

Those tests can be difficult for children who speak languages other than English at home, said Cathrine Beaunae, a professor at Georgian Court University's School of Education.

Standardized tests "are absolutely not a good idea for young children," said Beaunae. "It's not a way to measure children's progress."

Beaunae, who sits on the board of Lakewood's Head Start program, said that young children are particularly sensitive to the emotions of the adults around them, and that sensitivity affects their responses on standardized tests. In Lakewood, where many students in Head Start speak languages other than English, the tests are a struggle, she said.

"It creates anxiety in children because it creates anxiety in the adults who are doing the testing," said Beaunae. "If the teachers are anxious, the students will be anxious. If the parents are anxious, the children will be anxious."

Kerry Carley Rizzuto, assistant professor of early childhood education and literacy at Monmouth University, said that anxiety and stress can damage the minds of young children.

"I think it's abhorrent. I think it's developmentally inappropriate," she said. "Even the most confident, school ready (child)... is going to feel overwhelmed."

There is no consensus on the value of standardized tests for young learners. The Association for Childhood Education International has called for a moratorium on standardized testing of young children since 1991, saying testing affects children's learning and motivation to learn.

Other organizations, such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education, say early childhood assessment is one component in determining when to cut funding to ineffective programs.

4) Parents are pushing back

Thousands of parents are uniting to put the brakes on the growing tide of testing. They are taking their fight to their local school boards, Trenton and social media to spread the word that they want less testing in New Jersey schools.

"You really need to let kids develop at their own pace," said Rubin, who's Save Our 4 things to know: Standardized testing in grades K to 2:

Why reports of progress on No Child Left Behind rewrite may not be a good sign - The Washington Post

Why reports of progress on No Child Left Behind rewrite may not be a good sign - The Washington Post:

Why reports of progress on No Child Left Behind rewrite may not be a good sign

There are reports on Capitol Hill that some progress is being made on the rewrite of No Child Left Behind, at least between the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate education committee. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Republican committee chairman, and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, recently issued a statement saying:

“During the last several weeks we have been working together to build the base for legislation to fix the problems with No Child Left Behind. We are making significant progress in our negotiations. We are aiming to consider and mark up legislation to fix the law during the week of April 13th.”

Is this good news? Arthur H. Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., isn’t so sure, as he explains in the following post. Camins has taught and been an administrator in New York City, Massachusetts and Louisville, Kentucky. The ideas expressed in this article are his alone and do not represent Stevens Institute. His other writing can be found here.

By Arthur Camins

Reports of progress on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) may not be a good sign as both parties ignore better ways to improve education.

Bipartisan agreement makes for strange bellows as seeming opponents engage in an uncomfortable collective embrace of federal mandates of yearly, high stakes assessment. In the absence of obvious political alternatives some civil rights groups fear that without the harsh light of disaggregated data poor performance will be ignored. Those whose ideology bends their policy choices toward privatization see inevitable failure in the face unreasonable demands as a means to undermine faith in public education. Some are in the campaign contribution thrall of testing companies that stand to gain or loose billions from publically funded testing expenditures. Still others have an abiding faith in the power of rewards and punishments to compel behavior.

The continued focus of high-stakes assessment is the education equivalent of building inspectors requiring pipe wrenches to be used by all plumbers, framers, electricians, roofers and tile-setters, while bypassing the advice and needs of contractors and workers. For education, the sure losers are deep sustainable learning and equity.

Like building a home, creating an education system is a complex endeavor. As anyone who has undertaken it knows, significant remodeling may be even more challenging. When building or remodeling a complex system, it’s best to have a large, varied set of tools. Choosing the right tool for the right purpose is an obvious but often ignored principle- not least in education assessment policy. Pipe wrenches are great for large plumbing valves, but wreak havoc on smaller nuts. They have nasty teeth that rip and apply too much torque. Selection from a full set of open-ended wrenches would be a far better choice. Needle nose pliers are just the right tool for bending wires for electrical connections, but far too imprecise for removing the accidental building-related splinter. So it is with large scale standardized testing in education. The right tool can get the job done. The wrong tool fails and often causes damage.

In education, assessment is essential for real answers to former New York City Mayor Ed Koch’s question, “How’m I doin’?” While Koch’s question was a rhetorical crowd pleaser, in education we need honest, precise answers.

The key questions for selecting appropriate assessment tools are, “Assessment for what, when and whom?” The modern homebuilder has a set of design specifications with particular occupants in mind and a team of workers with diverse expertise in various aspects of home construction. Multiple tasks require different tools for different workers with different purposes and, of course, cooperation.

The same is true in education. When it comes to assessment, choosing the right tool depends on purpose, values and precision.

Let’s start with the big picture. Education has three equally important purposes: Preparation for students for life, work and citizenship.

The values principle of equity implies that the design of our education system should accommodate and address the diverse needs of all students. To be clear, equity as used here has two meanings: opportunity equity and Why reports of progress on No Child Left Behind rewrite may not be a good sign - The Washington Post:

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Thursday, March 12, 2015