Let the Kids Learn Through Play - NYTimes.com

Let the Kids Learn Through Play - NYTimes.com:

Let the Kids Learn Through Play

TWENTY years ago, kids in preschool, kindergarten and even first and second grade spent much of their time playing: building with blocks, drawing or creating imaginary worlds, in their own heads or with classmates. But increasingly, these activities are being abandoned for the teacher-led, didactic instruction typically used in higher grades. In many schools, formal education now starts at age 4 or 5. Without this early start, the thinking goes, kids risk falling behind in crucial subjects such as reading and math, and may never catch up.

The idea seems obvious: Starting sooner means learning more; the early bird catches the worm.

But a growing group of scientists, education researchers and educators say there is little evidence that this approach improves long-term achievement; in fact, it may have the opposite effect, potentially slowing emotional and cognitive development, causing unnecessary stress and perhaps even souring kids’ desire to learn.

One expert I talked to recently, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor emerita of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass., describes this trend as a “profound misunderstanding of how children learn.” She regularly tours schools, and sees younger students floundering to comprehend instruction: “I’ve seen it many, many times in many, many classrooms — kids being told to sit at a table and just copy letters. They don’t know what they’re doing. It’s heartbreaking.”

The stakes in this debate are considerable. As the skeptics of teacher-led early learning see it, that kind of education will fail to produce people who can discover and innovate, and will merely produce people who are likely to be passive consumers of information, followers rather than inventors. Which kind of citizen do we want for the 21st century?

In the United States, more academic early education has spread rapidly in the past decade. Programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have contributed to more testing and more teacher-directed instruction.

Another reason: the Common Core State Standards, a detailed set of educational guidelines meant to ensure that students reach certain benchmarks between kindergarten and 12th grade. Currently, 43 states and the District of Columbia have adopted both the math and language standards.

The shift toward didactic approaches is an attempt to solve two pressing problems.

By many measures, American educational achievement lags behind that of other countries; at the same time, millions of American students, many of them poor and from minority backgrounds, remain far below national norms. Advocates say that starting formal education earlier will help close these dual gaps.

But these moves, while well intentioned, are misguided. Several countries, including Finland and Estonia, don’t start compulsory education until the age of 7. In the most recent comparison of national educational levels, the Program for International Student Assessment, both countries ranked significantly higher than the United States on math, science and reading.

Of course, these countries are smaller, less unequal and less diverse than the United States. In such circumstances, education poses fewer challenges. It’s unlikely that starting school at 7 would work here: too many young kids, disadvantaged or otherwise, would probably end up watching hours of TV a day, not an activity that promotes future educational achievement. But the complexities of the task in this country don’t erase a fundamental fact that overly structured classrooms do not benefit many young children.

Some research indicates that early instruction in reading and other areas may help some students, but these boosts appear to be temporary. A 2009 study by Sebastian P. Suggate, an education researcher at Alanus University in Germany, looked at about 400,000 15-year-olds in more than 50 countries and found that early school entry provided no advantage. Another study by Dr. Suggate, published in 2012, looked at a group of 83 students over several years and found that those who started at age 5 had lower reading comprehension than those who began learning later.

Other research has found that early didactic instruction might actually worsen academic performance. Rebecca A. Marcon, a psychology professor at the University of North Florida, studied 343 children who had attended a preschool class that was “academically oriented,” one that encouraged “child initiated” learning, or one in between. She looked at the students’ performance several years later, in third and fourth grade, and found that by the end of the fourth grade those who had received more didactic Let the Kids Learn Through Play - NYTimes.com: 

The Alleged Public School Monopoly and the Fraudulent Civil Rights Movement of our Time | Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé

The Alleged Public School Monopoly and the Fraudulent Civil Rights Movement of our Time | Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé:

The Alleged Public School Monopoly and the Fraudulent Civil Rights Movement of our Time

It is highly arguable with evidence and data that the corporate education reform movement mostly funded by a handful of billionaire oligarchs is driven by endless oxymorons. For instance, the oxymoron of a movement that claims it’s the Civil Right Movement of our time while Corporate Charters practice segregation on a grand scale (click the link to learn more), and the other major oxymoron alleges the public schools are a monopoly that must be destroyed.

For instance, in New York State, Governor Cuomo (The Crook) characterized public education as a ‘monopoly’ that he vowed to break. For the rest of this post, I will focus on Governor Cuomo’s claim that the public schools are a ‘monopoly’ that must be broken.

First, the public schools are supported by taxes paid by the public, and they are non-profit, transparent and held accountable through that transparency. In addition, they are governed by democratic values—except where reformers like Cuomo the Crook have used their executive power to hijack entire school districts and remove the democratically elected school boards. Because of the transparency and democratic nature of these schools, every public dollar spent is tracked to make sure it was spent to support the education of children.

A monopoly by definition, would be John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, and his Standard Oil (with an emphasis on his) incorporated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing into one single behemoth which grew both vertically and horizontally (he bought the producers and distributors). In 1882, all of Standard Oil’s properties were merged into the Standard Oil Trust, and by the end of the decade (1890), it controlled 88% of the refined oil flows in the United States.

To be clear: John D. Rockefeller was ONE man who controlled 88% of the refined oil that flowed in the United States, and he answered to no one until President Teddy Roosevelt went after his monopoly to break it up.

How does that compare to the corporate education reform movement’s claim that public education is a monopoly that must be broken?

Even though the Obama Administration—with help from, for instance, mostly Bill Gates in addition to the Walton family, Eli Broad and a squad of other powerful private sector corporate oligarchs—did all they could to make Arne Duncan the John D. Rockefeller of the alleged public education monopoly, when we sweep away all the lies and allegations, what’s left is almost 14,000 individual public school districts. Most of these school districts are managed by their own democratically elected school boards and each district has its own CEO who often comes with the title of superintendent, who is hired and can be fired by those elected school boards. Those superintendents answer to the elected school boards and nothing can be hidden because of the transparency, and through that transparency every state and territory in the United States watches over those almost 14,000 public school districts to make sure they are not breaking any laws or legislation that applies to public education.

If you’re interested, you might want to read:

• Charter exectuve pay: How much is too much?
• Charter School Gravy Train Runs Express To Fat City

When that alleged public school monopoly is broken as Cuomo has pledged, what is already taking its place?

The answer: opaque, often fraudulent, often worse or the same as the public schools they are replacing, segregated, private sector, for-profit corporate charter schools that are not democratic and not answerable to The Alleged Public School Monopoly and the Fraudulent Civil Rights Movement of our Time | Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé:

Why Teachers Teach - Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

Why Teachers Teach

BY MARLA KILFOYLE AND MELISSA TOMLINSONORIGINALLY POSTED ON L.A. PROGRESSIVE  HTTPS://WWW.LAPROGRESSIVE.COM/WHY-TEACHERS-TEACH/

Marla: I became a teacher 29 years ago. In my family this was an astounding accomplishment because I was the first to go to college. My mother, who was a single mother my whole life, worked hard to keep food on the table and pay the bills. We lived with my grandmother for most of my life. School for me was a sanctuary, full of amazing role models, and a path for me to follow so that I would not have to struggle the way that my mother did. The fight to save public education is a personal fight for me. It is about giving opportunity to children, like me, who grew up with financial hardship. It is also about giving opportunity to children who are disabled, like my son. The fight for great public education for all children, is the fight for every child to have an opportunity to be what they want to be.

Melissa: I became a teacher thirteen years ago. This is my second career, one I chose as an adult, knowing completely in my heart that this was the career that I should have chosen for myself when I first left for college. In my family, for my generation, college was a requirement. My parents worked hard to give my brother and I the opportunity to continue our education after high school. My childhood was the typical example of the American Dream, the dream that entails you working hard so that you can give more to your children and they can have a better life than you had. I grew up believing in that dream, determined to give my future children an even better life. I went to a school that provided an educational plan that allowed me to get the most out of my education. I tested at an early age with a higher IQ. In elementary school I was placed in a gifted and talented classroom within my district and provided the type of curriculum that I needed to grow academically. The fight to save public education is a personal fight for me. It is about giving opportunity to children, opportunity like I had. It is about fighting for public schools to have the funding and the autonomy to provide children with what they need. It is about fighting for our responsibility to meet the the needs of all children.

Marla: Despite growing up in a home that didn’t have much, my schools were well-funded and had all the resources they needed to help children. The staff in my elementary school was plentiful. Anything a child needed we had: nurses, librarians, custodial staff, café staff, clubs, sports, and after-school programs. I remember walking to school one day in the pouring rain. My mother had to leave early for work each morning because she did not drive and had to walk to work. It was my job, at the young age of 7, to get my brother and I off to school. Our school was a block from our house and on this day we had to walk to school in the pouring rain. We ended up at school soaking wet. My teacher, Mrs. Carlson, sent me to the Café to get my clothes dry by the oven. When I went to the Café the staff, busy making lunch for the day, let me stand by the oven to dry my clothes. They gave me several of their world famous biscuits to eat while I dried. I was there for about 45 minutes, got dry, and returned back to class a very satisfied child. Now, I am not saying this would not happen in any school across America today, but my point in that story was the idea of Badass Teachers Association:

Badass Teacher Association Web Site

Selling Solutions Is Not the Same As Solving Problems | WagTheDog

Selling Solutions Is Not the Same As Solving Problems | WagTheDog:

Selling Solutions Is Not the Same As Solving Problems

Back in 1994, Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich supported sweeping changes andcontroversial reforms to U.S. welfare policy;

“The GOP’s Contract With America would give states the authority to deny Aid to Families with Dependent Children to mothers under age 21 and use the presumed savings to provide federal block grants for orphanages and homes for unwed mothers.”

Responding to criticism from Hillary Clinton, Gingrich suggested she head over “to Blockbuster and rent the Mickey Rooney movie about Boys Town.” Others challenged Gingrich’s plan and questioned the wisdom of “Hollywood” informing government policyand helping to shape short term solutions rather than solve serious social and economic problems.

“There seems to be some romanticizing about orphanages these days,” says Joan Reeves, commissioner of Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services. “I remember Boys Town. I liked the movie. I cried a lot. But I don’t look to movies for help in solving social problems.”

In 2011, presidential candidate Gingrich suggested that “stupid” child labor laws be relaxed as part of his job placement program to remedy poverty and provide poor children with the opportunity to “rise rapidly” and “pursue happiness”…

“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine,” Mr. Gingrich said. “You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

2013 comments made by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan during a visit to schools in the impoverished nation of Haiti indicate that the ed reform movement here in the United States and abroad is clearly more focused on selling data collection solutions than solving societal problems;

“In an interview with The Associated Press, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he believes that easier access to information can help improve education standards in Haiti by letting people know more about student and teacher enrollment and by letting them track student progress.

“One of the many needs here are clear data systems, having transparency, knowing basic things, like how many children we have, how many schools there are, how many teachers we have,” Duncan said.

“I think it’s so important that everybody be transparent and honest on the good, the bad and the ugly.” These data networks would also help educators know how many college graduates are staying in Haiti, which has one of the highest rates of brain drain the world, Duncan said.”

On his two-day trip, Duncan visited a school where the children sleep on the streets at night. He also saw a seventh-grade class with more than a 

Selling Solutions Is Not the Same As Solving Problems | WagTheDog:

There Is No Protection For Student Data » Missouri Education Watchdog

There Is No Protection For Student Data » Missouri Education Watchdog:

There Is No Protection For Student Data

“The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.” – Tom Clancy

Electronic information certainly hurt Missouri Republicans this week. We all got to see how dangerous and powerful digitized information is and how little control over it we have once it is digitized.  And though Clancy’s quote above refers to powerful governments, in today’s world the line between business and government has become extremely blurred. The Supreme Court ruled that NSA collection of private phone information violated the constitution. But phone companies’ collection of that data as part of their normal course of business was not questioned. All the NSA will have to do is subpoena that information from the phone companies if they have probable cause to investigate those records. In fact, they don’t even need to have the subpoena. Companies like Google regularly turn over data without being legally required to. Government now has an incentive to make sure that private companies hold on to data for longer periods, too.

Phone and internet companies are not the only ones collecting data. Why  should you be concerned?

Ed Week – Millions of Student Records Sold in Bankruptcy Case

Data in education is the wild wild west. Technology and business are moving so fast that public policy has not been able to keep up. The ConnectEDU case provides the ultimate cautionary tale to districts and individuals who think their data is safe because there are policies and contractual terms in place to protect it. Those policies and procedures failed in the end at ConnectEDU, even with conscious knowledge of the situation.

ConnectEDU had amassed, in its college- and career-ready technology platform for students from middle school through college, millions of data records. The company filed for bankruptcy this year. Of course, in bankruptcy, part of the process is to liquidate assets to satisfy debt. Those data records were a tremendous asset. As Silicon Valley is likely to say, “If the software is free, you are the product.” Not that ConnectEDU’s products were free, unlike Google’s education apps, but the greater value to many of these companies is the data that those products can collect from users. What happened in the bankruptcy case was the sale of that data to two other companies, a sale which violated ConnectEDU’s own privacy policies and ignored federal warnings.

The Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Protection Bureau was aware of the potential exposure of the millions of records while the case was working its way through the court. They sent a letter to the court that states that, “the terms of the sale of the company and its subsidiary Academic Management Systems, Inc., in bankruptcy do not provide consumers the notice and choice set forth in the privacy policy and could potentially run afoul of both the FTC Act and the Bankruptcy Code.”    They asked the court to have ConnectEDU  “1) provided users with notice of the sale of their personal information and opportunity for its removal; or (2) destroyed the personal information. Alternatively, under Section 363(b)(1)(B), the Court could appoint a privacy ombudsman to ensure that the privacy interests of ConnectEDU’s customers are protected.”

Sadly for the millions of students and their families who potentially had their student’s test scores, grade point average, learning disability, email and home addresses, phone number,  date of birth and more collected by There Is No Protection For Student Data » Missouri Education Watchdog:

When an Education Reformer says “Turnaround” - Don’t! - Wait What?

When an Education Reformer says “Turnaround” - Don’t! - Wait What?:

When an Education Reformer says “Turnaround” — Don’t!

Education Advocate Wendy Lecker has another column out and it is once again in the “MUST READ” category.

Her latest piece is part one of a multi-series takedown of those who use fiction rather than facts to fancifully present the term “school turnaround” as if it was a magic bullet.

This particular chapter begins with the Can Can Team from ConnCAN who recently performed a dog and pony show for Connecticut state legislators where they crowed about the “success” of various “school turnaround” projects.

Using their traditional corporate education reform rhetoric, rather than facts, the charter school front group performed magic that would have made a “three card Monte” aficionado proud. [Three card Monte being a card trick in which the mark can’t win because trick cards are used.]

The well-documented corporate education reform failures of New Orleans and Philadelphia were incredibly heralded as successes and that was before they got out their shovels and really started throwing IT around.

Here is Wendy Lecker’s latest MUST READ commentary piece, which first appeared in the Stamford Advocate.   

Failure as a model for Connecticut (By Wendy Lecker)

A recent large-scale federal study revealed that most states lack expertise to turn around struggling schools and are rarely successful. It’s no wonder. Legislators who write turnaround laws never turn to the experts: educators. Connecticut is no exception. Last month, the General Assembly’s Education Committee held a day-long session on school turnarounds. Instead of relying on education experts, it turned to ConnCan, the charter lobby known for its evidence-free reports that push one agenda: Taking power away from school districts to pave the way for privatization.

ConnCan brought in three examples of turnaround to push the idea that the key to success is handing schools or entire districts over to outside operators.

The most startling choice for a presentation was Hartford’s Milner school. Recall that Milner was one of the first commissioner’s network schools. Milner suffered through a failed turnaround in 2008 under then-Superintendent Steven Adamowski. It also had a persistent and severe lack of resources. Rather than providing Milner the necessary resources, the State Board of Education decided to turn it around again in 2012, handing it over to When an Education Reformer says “Turnaround” - Don’t! - Wait What?:

CURMUDGUCATION: Get the New Orleans Story Out

CURMUDGUCATION: Get the New Orleans Story Out:

Get the New Orleans Story Out

I have even more interest in the New Orleans Recovery School District than ever, because while nobody was looking, the idea of such a school district seems to have skulked its way into Pennsylvania.

New Orleans is a reformster's dream, a school district where all of that messy democratically-controlled local public school system could be swept away, clearing the ground for edupreneurs to start sweeping up some of that sweet, sweet money.

The idea has spread. I've probably spent the most space here on Tennessee's Achievement School District. The idea of these districts is to set up a system in which local control and democratically-elected boards can be completely circumvented and some bureaucratic-corporate entity gets to decide which eduprofiteer gets to cash in. These kind of districts are truly the privatizers' dream, a happy land where students and families are simply conduits for generating tax-based revenue without regard for community, democracy, educational quality-- well, anything at all except those sweet, sweet piles of cash.

Not every location has been so fortunate as to be hit by a deadly and destructive hurricane, so in every place that's not New Orleans, crafting a narrative of public school disaster has taken a little longer. It takes a while to slowly starve a school district into submission or to generate the kind of BS Test scores that allow little boys to cry out about public school wolves. But reformster efforts to create disaster have begun to pay off.

In the meantime, reformsters have also done their best to sell a narrative of NOLA success. The RSD is awesome! Everyone is happy! Student scores are way up! It has been both horrifying and depressing to see how thoroughly this narrative has been adopted, leaving people like Mercedes Schneider and Crazy Crawfish to get out the story of what is really happening down there. This is a critical talking point-- New Orleans is the test of every reformster idea and they must sell it as a crown jewel in order to keep moving their programs forward. What Americans come to believe CURMUDGUCATION: Get the New Orleans Story Out:

Russ on Reading: Derailing the Public Schools

Russ on Reading: Derailing the Public Schools:

 Derailing the Public Schools

 As yet we don’t know what caused the horrific crash of the Amtrak train in Philadelphia this week. Human error? Mechanical malfunction? Delayed technology? The crash happened less than 20 miles from my home on a stretch of track that I travel regularly into Philly or Washington. As a frequent traveler, I can assure one and all of something certain: our train infrastructure has been allowed to fall into ignominious disrepair. A trip on the train these days is like traveling through the pages of a history book detailing the once glorious system of public works in this country, which has then been allowed to fall into a mess of barely functional tracks, dilapidated train stations, rusting bridges and routine lengthy delays. Why has this happened? Why in the age of European and Japanese bullet trains, does it take longer to take the train from Philadelphia to Washington today than it did 50 years ago?

Adam Gopnick, writing in The New Yorker, has the answer I believe. In a piece called The Plot Against Trains, he says:

What we have, uniquely in America, is a political class, and an entire political party, devoted to the idea that any money spent on public goods is money misplaced, not because the state goods might not be good but because they would distract us from the larger principle that no ultimate good can be found in the state. Ride a fast train to Washington today and you’ll start thinking about national health insurance tomorrow.

That train that derailed travelled right past the crumbling hulk of the junior high school my mother attended. In fact in travelling through Philadelphia the train passed dozens of crumbling dilapidated schools that were once pointed to with pride by the citizens and civic leaders of my home town. At one time we were justly proud of the fine edifices we constructed for our children to go to school and at one time those buildings housed the very best that public education had to offer in this country.

What happened? Many things happened, of course. There was the Russ on Reading: Derailing the Public Schools:

The Selling of New Orleans | EduShyster

The Selling of New Orleans | EduShyster:

The Selling of New Orleans

New Orleans-style education reform is being touted as a model for other cities. But should it be?

As the 10th anniversary of Katrina approaches, we’ll be awash in claims that the replacement of New Orleans’ public schools with a market-based, all charter school system is a model for other cities. I aim to challenge this narrative with my own grass-roots style journalism. But I can’t do it without you!

This summer is the 10 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. But it also marks the start of an ambitious – many would say audacious – effort to break up New Orleans’ long-beleaguered public school system and replace it with a *market-based* system in which charter schools compete for customers, in this case students and parents, and for top test scores. Neighborhood schools are no more. In fact, some of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the hurricane have few schools at all. Instead, students spend hours crisscrossing the city on school buses to attend charter schools that virtually all embrace the same approach: long days, strict discipline and a heavy focus on test prep. And while New Orleans’ great education experiment remains highly controversial, what is indisputable is that education reform is helping to transform the Crescent City, into a richer, whiter city, as young *edupreneurs* flock here.

As the anniversary of Katrina approaches, we’ll be awash in claims that the makeover of New Orleans’ schools is a miracle. I aim to challenge this narrative with my own grass-roots style journalism. I’ve found that if you go to a place like New Orleans, talk to as many people as will talk to you, and really listen to what they have to say, you learn the kind of things that don’t show up in official accounts or sensationalist sales jobs. That’s why I’m asking for your help. Support my travels, research and writing, and I’ll do my part to get you the stories that no one is telling about New Orleans-style education reform.

Thanks for your help!

Jennifer

I’m partnering with Beacon Reader, which helps journalists raise money to support their work. You can read more about my project, and support my work (hint, hint!) here.

The Selling of New Orleans | EduShyster:

El SNTE y AFT firman declaración conjunta en defensa de la educación

El SNTE y AFT firman declaración conjunta en defensa de la educación:

El SNTE y AFT firman declaración conjunta en defensa de la educación

Enfrentamos los mismos desafíos preservar y fortalecer la escuela pública

 El Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE) y la American Federation of Teachers (AFT) acordaron defender la escuela pública y la profesión docente.


Los presidentes de ambos sindicatos, Juan Díaz de la Torre y Randi Weingarten, firmaron en la Ciudad de México una Declaración Conjunta en Defensa de la Escuela Pública y un memorándum de entendimiento para desarrollar programas de beneficio recíproco para sus afiliados.

Durante la ceremonia, Díaz de la Torre destacó que la escuela pública “es el espacio privilegiado en el que la igualdad adquiere carta de naturalización” y corresponde a los maestros defenderla y a sus sindicatos ser guardianes de la profesión docente. De ahí la intención de los acuerdos firmados por estas dos organizaciones que tienen la legítima representación de los profesionales de la educación en sus respectivos países.

“En el fondo de esta colaboración subyace la defensa y promoción de una profesión de Estado que ha moldeado y seguirá moldeando el perfil de nuestros pueblos, subyace también la irreductible lucha de los trabajadores de la educación por la defensa de la educación y la escuela pública, patrimonio y herencia de los más desprotegidos, de los que nada tienen y que mucho necesitan.

En su oportunidad, Randi Weingarten reconoció a Juan Díaz de la Torre por su liderazgo en el magisterio mexicano y luego de afirmar que los maestros son los custodios del futuro, externó su beneplácito por los acuerdos alcanzados entre el SNTE y la AFT, que permitirán a ambos sindicatos unirse en una sola voz.

“De eso se tratan estos acuerdos, porque cuando nosotros trabajamos juntos por las comunidades, trabajamos por las familias, trabajamos por los niños, trabajamos por mejores condiciones de trabajo para los profesores, por un sistema de evaluación que nos ayuda a mejorar, no únicamente a examinar y castigar; para asegurarnos que las familias y comunidades puedan tener una mejor vida. Eso es lo que nosotros representamos, de eso se trata esta alianza y por eso me siento honrada de estar aquí. Estamos unidos en la lucha para una educación pública de alta calidad para los estudiantes”.

Señaló también que para lograr el propósito de una mayor calidad educativa es necesaria la participación de diversos actores y atender los múltiples desafíos que enfrenta el sector.

“Para que nosotros podamos hacer frente a los problemas de los niños, el reto por ejemplo de la pobreza, de tener algunas veces que viajar horas para poder llegar a las instalaciones escolares, el desafío de que no puedan comer algunas veces los niños, los desafíos de los papás peleando, lo que queremos decir es que no hay que ignorar esos desafíos, pero no nos culpen a nosotros de ellos, sino de hecho, trabajemos todos juntos para resolver estos desafíos y el gobierno tiene la responsabilidad de ayudarnos a resolver esos desafíos también”.

Juan Díaz de la Torre y Randi Weingarten coincidieron en que los maestros deben empoderarse y ser los actores estratégicos en la búsqueda de un mejor destino para los alumnos y una mejor calidad de vida para los docentes.

Durante la ceremonia, la Profesora Silvia Luna Rodríguez, Presidenta del Comité Nacional de Vinculación Social, sostuvo que el SNTE y la AFT determinaron unir esfuerzos porque comparten los mismos retos.

“Enfrentamos los mismos desafíos, preservar y fortalecer la escuela pública de calidad para todos; es decir, la educación pública como un derecho humano tutelado por el Estado y defender la profesión docente. Hemos decidido unir la defensa gremial sin importar las fronteras”.

En la Declaración Conjunta por la Defensa de la Escuela Pública, las partes señalan, entre otros aspectos, que una educación de calidad debe ser impartida por maestros comprometidos, respetados y estimulados; que la educación pública no es un mercado, sino un bien público, garantizado por el Estado para todos los niños, niñas y jóvenes.

El Memorándum de Entendimiento sienta las bases para que los agremiados del SNTE y de la AFT puedan gozar de diversos beneficios recíprocos como descuentos en paquetes turísticos, renta de casas y de vehículos, así como rebajas en la compra de diversos productos. 
- See more at: http://diarioalmomento.com/noticias

El SNTE y AFT firman declaración conjunta en defensa de la educación:

What happens when students boycott a standardized test - Business Insider

What happens when students boycott a standardized test - Business Insider:

What happens when students boycott a standardized test

Standardized tests have been an integral part of the American school routine since the 1970s, the protocol changing very little.

Children were told to put away their books; to fill in the bubbles, with No. 2 pencils, completely; and, when the time was up, to immediately put down their writing utensils. However, those ubiquitous (and ever-dreaded) tests have evolved dramatically as of late—and deliberations over their purpose have become increasingly urgent.

This semester, students in roughly three dozen states and the District of Columbia are taking one of two new standardized tests that are known by their consonant-riddled acronyms: PARCC, which is part of the Pearson family, and SBAC, which was developed by a consortium of states.

The force behind these assessments is the Common Core State Standards, the set of highly controversial universal learning benchmarks that, the thinking goes, would’ve been difficult to implement without new-and-improved standardized tests. (Students in the remaining states are taking other exams; under No Child Left Behind, the federal government requires that every state gives its kids some form of assessment, but it doesn’t stipulate a specific one.)

Like the hodgepodge of older tests used over the past five decades, these new assessments are designed to gauge students' proficiency in math and English via series of multiple-choice questions.

The days of booklets and pencils, however, are long gone; these tests are administered on computers and come with fancy resources such as virtual rulers and protractors and can be customized to students with, say, special needs.

Some sections feature "drop-and-drag" options and even adaptive questioning that responds to individual students’ abilities. The Common Core standards, which have been adopted by more than 40 states, emphasize critical thinking. That means the English tests include essay sections, for example, while those for math at times ask students to explain how they found their answers. Compared with the previous assessments, the results from these tests generate more information for officials and parents about student proficiency and progress. 

But perhaps the most obvious distinction from years past, at least now, is that significant resistance to the standardized tests has organized in a growing number of states—to the point of mass boycotts in certain communities. This movement was jumpstarted by parents and has since garnered the support of the teachers’ unions. And now it’s getting some ammunition from the students themselves.

This campaign isn’t only raising pressing concerns about the validity of standardized tests, it’s also revealing the extent to which the foray into a new era of test-driven accountability and debates surrounding this reform could end up damaging the country’s public education system. After all, the consequences of an exam boycott could be just as severe as those that come with over-testing; finding a compromise is certainly preferable to too much or too little.

While states generally have not released exact numbers on the opt-outs, school officials and local newspapers report that growing numbers of students, with their parents’ blessing, have not taken (or will not take) their standardized tests this spring.

In New Jersey, for example, at least 46,000—or 5 percent—of the roughly 896,000 public-school students in grade levels subject to the exam are estimated to have opted out of the first installment of the PARCC test, which was conducted in March; greater numbers are expected refuse to take the second one in May. (Similar statistics are predicted in Colorado, Florida, and New York, too.)

And while the vast majority of students are still taking their tests, the number of refusals is hard to ignore—as are the specific areas in which refusals are most prevalent. At least in New Jersey, the opt-outs are largely concentrated in wealthy communities, according to an analysis of compiled data.

Here in New Jersey, I witnessed the anti-testing politics evolve over the past few months. It appeared to begin with a small number of parents expressing diverse concerns, sharing information at school board meetings and through social media. Opposition started to increase, however, as the teachers unions helped parents organize.

The teachers reversed their initial support of the new testing guidelines once the Legislature, similar to those in many other states, passed legislation tying teacher evaluations—and thus their pay—to assessment results. Some of the unions’ local branches even arranged parties to view the film Standardized (Lies, Money, & Civil Rights: How Testing Is Ruining Public Education) or set up websites informing parents how to complete the necessary paperwork to release their children from the testing.

Then, just weeks before the March segment of the PARCC, the NJEA, New Jersey’s largest teachers union, aired a series of widely viewed television commercials that denounced the exam. One ad features a middle-aged dad with a goatee telling a group of fellow parents that his first-grader cried when he came home from school, apparently too tired to go to karate practice. The goateed dad despairs, "What are we doing to our kids?"

The advocacy continued after the test, too, when the NJEA compiled a spreadsheet of each town’s alleged refusals numbers that was based on information in local newspapers, at least one of which affirmed that union's figures corresponded with its own reporting. Still, Mike Yaple, the spokesman for the state Department of Education, said he could not comment on the "accuracy of another organization’s list," and a number of other towns' papers cited slightly different statistics than those contained in the spreadsheet.

Exact figures aside, the students themselves have been largely responsible for the opt-out surge—the rallying among adults is just part of the picture. As kids saw their peers get permission to opt out of the exam, many of them urged their parents to exempt them, too. After all, how many children actually want to take an exam—particularly one that doesn’t leave a mark on their report cards? And when the choice is between algebra questions and a few extra hours of sleep, predicting how students will respond is a no-brainer. Even my kid was in on the action.

Indeed, my 15-year-old son used every weapon in his teenage arsenal—eye rolls, deep sighs, guilt-tripping, and even logic—to pressure my husband and me to write a letter to the school opting him out of the test. None of his friends were taking it, he reasoned; it wouldn’t be fair if he had to stress out about boring math problems while his friends were eating bagels in town—and gleefully texting him about their fun morning.

His classmates, he added, would be better prepared for their afternoon exams or classwork (which actually count) because they would be well-rested and have two extra hours to prepare for them. He rightfully pointed out that the PARCC was not required for graduation.

While my son did ultimately take the PARCC exam, other students were more successful in pressuring their parents. Many of the students who couldn't get  waivers took to Twitter to express their annoyance, tweeting things like, "PARCC spelled backwards is CCRAP." Some reportedly filled in their answer sheets with gibberish. Though the opt-out campaign began as a parent protest, in some ways it developed into a student-led movement.

State officials and district administrators, education advocacy groups and test proponents appeared completely unprepared for the protests in New Jersey and elsewhere. Schools scrambled to find separate rooms and teachers so that they could monitor both test takers and non-test takers (assuming the latter weren’t off somewhere eating bagels).

Some schools were said to tell parents that the non-testing children should stay at home during the exam. Districts across the country embroiled in opt-out movements had to develop policies on the fly in a few short weeks before test day; some are still trying to come up with a game plan.

As these problems unfolded, education leaders failed to put forward one concise justification for these tests. Some emphasized that the time had come for a new assessment because the old ones were too easy; harder tests would force improvement in mediocre school districts. Others said that the new version would provide parents with better information about a child’s strengths and weaknesses. Still others said the test generated nationwide data on schools that could then be used to better inform public policy. But many parents said they heard nothing informative enough to change their minds.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools where at least 5 percent of the students fail to participate in testing face sanctions from the federal government, even theoretically losing Title I funding for low-income students. They may also be sanctioned by their states, which could mean increased monitoring by Department of Education bureaucrats. And of course, the opt-outs could also distort a school's overall score for student proficiency, making it seem more or less effective than it actually is. At this time, the long-term ramifications from this unprecedented protest are unclear.

In the U.S. News and World Report, Andrew Rotherham recently described the opt-out movement as both "ridiculous, selfish and more than a little hypocritical"and an opportunity for exploring options outside of the default public-school system—charter schools, for example.

These protests should also serve as a reminder for decision-makers that parents and students are stakeholders in education policy and that community outreach must be part of any reform. Just as third-grade students need to explain why, for example, three-fourths equals six-eighths on the PARCC, education leaders should also answer the "why?" question: Why should students take standardized tests?

Read the original article on The Atlantic. Check out The Atlantic's Facebook, newsletters and feeds. Copyright 2015. Follow The Atlantic on Twitter.

Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/04/what-happens-when-students-boycott-a-standardized-test/390087/?utm_source=SFFB#ixzz3aJzV4osP