The National Resolution Against High-Stakes Testing | Seattle Education

The National Resolution Against High-Stakes Testing | Seattle Education:

The National Resolution Against High-Stakes Testing

by seattleducation2011

Originally posted on the Parents Across America website.
The following resolution is modeled on a resolution passed by 405 Texas school boards as of April 25, 2012. It was written by Parents Across America, in collaboration with the Advancement Project; Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; FairTest; Forum for Education and Democracy; MecklenburgACTS; Deborah Meier; NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.; National Education Association; New York Performance Standards Consortium; Tracy Novick;  Parents United for Responsible Education – Chicago; Diane Ravitch; Race to Nowhere; Time Out From Testing; and United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries.  Diane Ravitch has written about it here; and Valerie Straus of the Washington Post here.
We encourage organizations and individuals to publicly endorse it here; and please urge your school boards to do so as well.   You should feel free to modify or add to the resolution, as needed, to fit your community’s needs and circumstances, while also endorsing this national version.  As of April 26, one day after it was publicly released, it had been endorsed by more than 100 organizations and more than 2000 individuals.
If your school board does pass it, please let us know by emailing us at info@parentsacrossamerica.org with national resolution in the subject line; thanks!

WHEREAS, our nation’s future well-being relies on a high-quality public education system that prepares all students for college, careers, citizenship and lifelong learning, and strengthens the nation’s social and economic well-being; and
WHEREAS, our nation’s school systems have been spending growing amounts of time, money and energy on high-stakes standardized testing, in which student performance on standardized tests is used to make major decisions affecting individual students, educators and schools; and
WHEREAS, the over-reliance on high-stakes standardized testing in state and federal accountability systems is undermining educational quality and equity in U.S. public schools by hampering educators’ efforts to focus on the broad range of learning experiences that promote the innovation, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and deep subject-matter knowledge that will allow students to thrive in a democracy and an increasingly global society and economy; and
WHEREAS, it is widely recognized that standardized testing is an inadequate and often unreliable measure of both student learning and educator effectiveness; and
WHEREAS, the over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in too many schools, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing love of learning, pushing students out of school, driving excellent teachers out of the profession, and undermining school climate; and
WHEREAS, high-stakes standardized testing has negative effects for students from all backgrounds, and especially for low-income students, English language learners, children of color, and those with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, the culture and structure of the systems in which students learn must change in order to foster engaging school experiences that promote joy in learning, depth of thought and breadth of knowledge for students; therefore be it
RESOLVED, that [your organization name] calls on the governor, state legislature and state education boards and administrators to reexamine public school accountability systems in this state, and to develop a system based on multiple forms of assessment which does not require extensive standardized testing, more accurately reflects the broad range of student learning, and is used to support students and improve schools; and
RESOLVED, that [your organization name] calls on the U.S. Congress and Administration to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the “No Child Left Behind Act,” reduce the testing mandates, promote multiple forms of evidence of student learning and school quality in accountability, and not mandate any fixed role for the use of student test scores in evaluating educators.
To sign the resolution as an individual or an organization, go to National Resolution on High Stakes Testing.
Dora

When a 30:1 student teacher ratio seems normal, have we reached an extreme? | OregonLive.com

When a 30:1 student teacher ratio seems normal, have we reached an extreme? | OregonLive.com:

When a 30:1 student teacher ratio seems normal, have we reached an extreme?

Published: Thursday, April 26, 2012, 7:22 AM

 By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian 

View full sizeFaith Cathcart/The OregonianThis math class at Happy Valley Middle School included more than 40 students. Big classes will be the norm this fall after districts cut lots of teaching positions to balance budget. Oregon is far from the national mainstream in this regard.

As I read my colleague Wendy Owen's article about yet another school district planning to staff many of its schools with one teacher for every 30 students next fall, I had to wonder: How strange is this?

Basic math suggests we are, indeed, far, far outside the mainstream. (Dividing the number of students in a state by the number of teachers yields a pupil-teacher ratio, similar to the staffing ratios that local districts are spelling out in their budget plans.)

The most current state-by-state statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics are from 2009-10. That was before Oregon school districts contemplated their latest round of deep teacher cuts.

Even back then, they show, our pupil-teacher ratios were sky-high compared to most states. Only Utah and Arizona piled on more students per teacher.

If Oregon had staffed its schools during 2009-10 at the national average of one teacher for every 15.4 students, schools would have had to hire an 

Chaos in the streets: Riot police disperse student protest:

Chaos in the streets: Riot police disperse student protest

 

 

BY THE GAZETTE, THE GAZETTE APRIL 26, 2012 9:54 AM

 

2

 

• STORY
• VIDEO ( 1 )

 

 

Anger over a short-lived effort to put an end to the tuition crisis through negotiations bubbled over Wednesday night when a hastily-organized demonstration turned ugly and police used batons, pepper spray and percussion bombs to disperse the crowd. Video by Peter McCabe.

MONTREAL - Montreal is waking up to a morning of smashed windows, vandalized cars and questions about how a protest degenerated into yet another violent clash between police and demonstrators.

Anger over a short-lived effort to put an end to the tuition crisis through negotiations bubbled over Wednesday night when a hastily-organized demonstration turned ugly and police used batons, pepper spray and percussion bombs to disperse the crowd.

After two hours of peaceful protest, police declared the m

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Chaos+streets+Riot+police+disperse+student+protest/6522255/story.html#ixzz1t9wrG6wm

Rahm’s poll numbers tanking. Confrontation with teachers is pulling him down. « Fred Klonsky

Rahm’s poll numbers tanking. Confrontation with teachers is pulling him down. « Fred Klonsky:

Rahm’s poll numbers tanking. Confrontation with teachers is pulling him down.

by Fred Klonsky

Rahm may control the city council like a Soviet commisar.
But his honeymoon with the city’s voters has ended. His reputation for controlling the message is fading.
Blame it on his confrontational approach to the teacher union, teachers, parents and schools.

“I’m not making the case that people hate Rahm right now, but they have clearly shifted their thinking,’’ Gotoff said. “His negative job performance ratings are where the most precipitous movement is.’’

Chicago Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard’s job performance was viewed as 

Celebrating the Teachers of the Year | ED.gov Blog

Celebrating the Teachers of the Year | ED.gov Blog:

Celebrating the Teachers of the Year

by Cameron Brenchley

Secretary Duncan joined the State and National Teachers of the Year at the Council of State School Officers gala dinner. Official Department of Education photo by Leslie Williams.

“A teacher is the key to a child reaching their potential,” President Obama said this week during a White House ceremony to recognize the State Teachers of the Year and to present the 2012 National Teacher of the Year Award to Rebecca Mieliwocki, a 7th grade teacher English teacher from Burbank, California.
“I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for teachers like these who challenged me, and pushed me, and put up with me, and inspired me — and set me straight when they had to,” President Obama said.  Watch the video.
The White House ceremony is just one of many activities the National State Teachers of the Year will participate in while in Washington this week. Last night Secretary Duncan joined the teachers at the Council of State School Officers gala dinner for the State and National Teachers of the Year. “Our country needs great teachers like you,” he told the teachers.
Today, the teachers will visit the Department of Education to discuss ways to elevate the teaching profession and ED’s RESPECT project.
The RESPECT Project (Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching), is a national conversation led by active classroom teachers working temporarily for the Department to help provide input on the administration’s 2013 budget proposal, and on the broader effort to reform teaching. Learn more here.
Everyone here at the Department of Education would like to congratulate Rebecca Mieliwocki, all of the State Teachers of the Year, and thank all teachers for their dedication to one of our country’s most important professions.

Women’s Well-Being: Ranking America’s Top 25 Metro Areas — Measure of America: American Human Development Project

Women’s Well-Being: Ranking America’s Top 25 Metro Areas — Measure of America: American Human Development Project:

Women’s Well-Being: Ranking America’s Top 25 Metro Areas

JUST LAUNCHED! DOWNLOAD A COPY

WHAT’S NEW IN THIS REPORT?

Women living in the country’s twenty-five most populous metropolitan areas account for one in every five Americans. Their well-being and access to opportunity is critical not just to them and their families but also to the prospects of the United States as a whole.

This large swath of the U.S. population is anything but a monolithic group. Yet while we often see comparisons between women and men as well as among different groups of men when it comes to earnings and education, less attention is paid to differences among women. This analysis shows that the well-being of women living in metropolitan America varies tremendously by place as well as by race, ethnicity, age, and martial status.

The analysis is built around the results of the American Human Development Index, a composite measure of well-being made up of health, education, and income indicators; the Index is expressed as a single number on a scale from zero to ten, and the data that make it up come from official government sources.

Some findings include:

• Women in Washington D.C. earn the most money (median personal earnings: $37,700), and have the highest levels of education, with an American Human Development Index score of 6.8 (overall U.S. score: 5.03; overall U.S. women’s score: 5.0), better than residents of Connecticut, the state with the highest overall levels of well-being.

• Women in San Francisco, with an American Human Development Index score of 6.72, have the highest life expectancy, 84.5 years.

• In bottom-ranked Riverside-San Bernardino, with an American Human Development Index score of 4.54, one in five adult women never completed high school, and the typical female worker earns about $22,300 a year. Women here can expect to live 81.7 years.

The study finds that, on the whole, women living in major metro areas are doing better than the typical American woman. However, not all urban and suburban women have the same choices and opportunities; the study shows how basic indicators in health, education, and income intersect with other important factors, among them race, ethnicity, age, the opportunities of the marketplace, and marital status, to form a more complete picture of the critical factors that shape the ability of different groups of women to live freely chosen lives of value.

Visit our publications page for a complete list of national, state, county and thematic reports

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm's priorities

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rahm's priorities:

Rahm's priorities

by Mike Klonsky

“I’m not making the case that people hate Rahm right now, but they have clearly shifted their thinking. His negative job performance ratings are where the most precipitous movement is.’’ --Daniel Gotoff of Lake Research Partners

My hat's off to the 7 out of 48 City Council members (I hope they don't find a horse head n their beds) who dared to vote against the mayor's $7.2 billion Infrastructure Trust scam. That's the one where the city borrows billions of dollars from Rahm's billionaire pals, like (Bill Daley's J.P. Morgan bank) who get a healthy return on their investment from the taxpayers. That way Rahm doesn't have to look like he's raising taxes. Paying back the loans is different -- get it? Brilliant!

The money can be spent, with little or no oversight, on any project mayor wishes. It's what the Sun-Times calls, Rahm's Trust Me Plan. You can bet on one thing. All those projects will put big 

Pineapples, Police, and Trust in Schools - Bridging Differences - Education Week

Pineapples, Police, and Trust in Schools - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

Pineapples, Police, and Trust in Schools

by Deborah Meier

Dear Diane,
When I got home from Ohio last week The New York Times called, as "pineapples" went viral. Of course, any time a group of people respond to the same cues we learn something. I even wonder about what the answers to the hare and the pineapple story could tell us! But one thing for sure, it wouldn't tell us anything about reading "achievement."
"They don't want us to have any judgment. Every message is that the department doesn't trust us," said by ... No, not by teachers, but by New York City police officers. New York Magazine had a fascinating story ("What's Eating the NYPD?") by reporter Chris Smith last week. Smith describes conversations with NYC's police that might have taken place in the teachers' lounge of most schools.
"I love being a teacher, but I hate being in the school system," say many teachers and principals I interview locally. Word for word—just replace teacher with cop. This is what Chris Smith heard, too. They are, under the current Kelly (Klein/Rhee/Duncan) regime, "so focused on data that nobody cares for each other." Caring is a

Radical Scholarship: Politics and Education Don't Mix (The Atlantic)

Radical Scholarship: Politics and Education Don't Mix (The Atlantic):

Politics and Education Don't Mix (The Atlantic)

by P. L. Thomas

Politics and Education Don't Mix
[original submission with hyperlinks below]

From Franz Kafka’s nightmare of human existence in The Metamorphosis and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to Scott Adams’ Dilbert and TV’s The Office, a central flaw of corporate paradigms is the mind-numbing and dehumanizing effects of bureaucracy. Sometimes we are horrified and sometimes we laugh, but arguments for or against the free market may be misguided if we fail to address bureaucracy’s corrosive role in the business model.

In the education reform movement, stretching back into the mid-nineteenth century, claims about private, public, or charter schools may also be masking a much more important call to confront and even dismantle the bureaucracy that currently cripples universal public education in the U.S.: “Successful teaching and good school cultures don't have a formula, but they have a necessary condition: teachers and principals must feel free to act on their best instincts….This is why we 

Blue Jersey:: Big Education Stories Brewing in NJ

Blue Jersey:: Big Education Stories Brewing in NJ:

Big Education Stories Brewing in NJ

by Jersey Jazzman

Looks like the Garden State is taking center stage in the education world. Two of the biggest stories in the nation around schools are happening right here.Start with this astonishing story in Cherry Hill:

After receiving reports that his son had become prone to violent outbursts, Stuart Chaifetz sent autistic 10-year-old Aikan to Horace Mann Elementary School with a recording device.Akian came back with 6.5 hours of tape filled with verbal and emotional abuse from his classroom aide and teacher. Stuart Chaifetz documented the tape and published it in a YouTube video.
According to Collingswood Patch, Chaifetz replays portions of audio with his son's special education teacher Kelly Altenburg and aide Jodi Sgouros. In the recording, voices tell Akian that he is "such a bastard," order him to "shut his mouth," and tell the child "no" when he asks for reassurances that he will see his father soon.
Stuart Chaifetz has started a website, a Facebook page, and placed a petition on Change.org asking New Jersey legislators to enact a zero tolerance policy for bullying by teachers or 

Louisiana Educator: state takeover schools in the Baton Rouge area are dismal failures

Louisiana Educator: Takeover Schools Fail:

Takeover Schools Fail

by Michael Deshotels

Click here to read the Baton Rouge Advocate article on yet another school takeover in Baton Rouge. My question is how in the world can this action be justified considering the following recent revelations?

It is now official. The State Department of Education has finally admitted that all of the state takeover schools in the Baton Rouge area are dismal failures. (The same can be said of all takeover schools in Pointe Coupee, St Helena, and Caddo) Patrick Dobard, RSD Superintendent admitted that the schools in the Baton Rouge area after almost 4 years in the RSD have failed to make any progress. In fact the LEAP and ILEAP results show a decline in student performance in almost all testing areas. (see our earlier post on this)  In addition, most of the schools have suffered major losses in student enrollment. It looks like parents have been utilizing “choice” even before the major choice legislation was passed by the legislature this year. Dobard wants to form an "Achievement Zone" for 20 Baton Rouge schools patterned after the Harlem Children's Zone. (I guess they are be giving up on modeling after the New Orleans RSD)

Many of the takeover schools in Baton Rouge have been run as charter schools by Advance Baton Rouge, a community organization comprised mostly of “do gooder” junior league types and heavily supported by the business community in Baton Rouge including major blow hards like Rolfe McCollister, editor of the Baton 

Take the Next Step, Governor Cuomo « Diane Ravitch's blog

Take the Next Step, Governor Cuomo « Diane Ravitch's blog:

Take the Next Step, Governor Cuomo

by dianerav

I read in the Daily News this morning that Governor Cuomo will oppose the public release of teacher ratings (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/teachers/gov-andrew-cuomo-approve-making-teacher-evaluations-public-article-1.1067628#ixzz1t98iGb9q). I am glad he realizes that teachers’ evaluation should not be published for all to see, but I wish he had taken the next step, which is to shield such evaluations as part of every teacher’s personnel file. No member of the public has the right to see the job evaluations of police or firefighters or corrections officers, yet their jobs are no less important than those of teachers.
The Governor’s position is that parents have a “right to know” the job evaluations of their child’s teacher. I disagree, and I’ll explain why.
The first reason that I think this is wrong is that the ratings themselves, as we learned when they were released by New York City, are inaccurate. Why should parents have the right to know a rating that is wrong? We saw examples of teachers who were assigned students they never taught; teachers who got ratings for years when they were on maternity leave. Given the city’s insistence that teachers be compared to other teachers and 

Good old Divisive Michelle Rhee Strikes again : Blocking preschool project funding doesn't put students first

Editorial: Blocking preschool project funding doesn't put students first:

Editorial: Blocking preschool project funding doesn't put students first

When national school reform movement leader Michelle Rhee visited with Post-Dispatch editors and reporters last week, she told us that she never had met state Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield.

Ms. Cunningham has been leading the school reform charge at the Missouri Capitol. Ms. Rhee's group, StudentsFirst, added some national heft, and money, to that debate when the organization set up a Missouri chapter. And yet Ms. Rhee, who is advocating for many of the same solutions to poor public school performance, hasn't met with Ms. Cunningham.

They should meet. And Ms. Cunningham should ask Ms. Rhee what she thinks about early childhood education.

She'd get an earful.

Ms. Rhee rightly believes that increasing access to quality early childhood education is one of the most significant steps urban school districts can take to

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-blocking-preschool-project-funding-doesn-t-put-students-first/article_3ce8229c-8c9d-578c-af3a-cb347bd3af49.html#ixzz1t9NkgIrQ

Beware of AstroTurf Ed Reformers  
Just Like Michelle Rhee's Students first only BETTER

Astroturf lobbying refers to political organizations or campaigns that appear to be made up of grassroots activists but are actually organized and run by corporate interests seeking to further their own agendas. Such groups are often typified by innocent-sounding names that have been chosen specifically to disguise the group's true backers