Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: In the mailbox

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: In the mailbox:

In the mailbox

by Mike Klonsky

This Open Letter to the New York State Regents from New York State Professors Against High Stakes Testing follows on the heels of Chicago CReATE statement on the poor use of standardized test scores as teacher evaluation measures. 

Open Letter to the New York State Regents from 
New York State Professors Against High Stakes Testing

March 30, 2012 

As lifelong educators and researchers, from across the State of New York, we 
strongly oppose New York State's continued reliance on high stakes standardized 
testing in public schools as the primary criterion for assessing student 
achievement, evaluating teacher effectiveness, and determining school quality. 
We write to express our professional consensus and concern, and to offer our 
assistance to the Regents in generating educationally sound alternatives to 
high-stakes testing as the primary strategy for assessment in New York State. 

Researchers and educational organizations have consistently documented, and a 
nine-year study by the National Research Council has recently confirmed, that 

How School Administrators Tried to Bully My Daughter into Taking a Meaningless Test | | AlterNet

How School Administrators Tried to Bully My Daughter into Taking a Meaningless Test | | AlterNet:

How School Administrators Tried to Bully My Daughter into Taking a Meaningless Test

What really happens when a student decides to opt-out of statewide exams? One parent-teacher's perspective on the backlash her daughter experienced when she said no to the test.

To Those It May Concern:

I have dual roles in the work force. I am a teacher who, this year, received my National Board accreditation and was recently honored by legislators for this achievement and my commitment to high quality education. I am also a parent who takes 

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » California is like the rest of the country…only sooner

Reflections on Teaching » Blog Archive » California is like the rest of the country…only sooner:

California is like the rest of the country…only sooner

 A few weeks ago, a post about an exemplar lesson from Common Core led to my writing a series of posts on the standards. This led to a whole series of posts about how the exemplars suck, with the only variation being on whether this was endemic to the standards, or that it was just a poor example–but the standards themselves are still A-OK.  Tom Hoffman at Tuttle-SVC blog has the play-by-play, and still remains an outstanding source for Common Core hilarity. He has a nice statement at the end:

I wouldn’t go that far, but yes, the example sucks, and Common Core advocates are going to have to consider whether David Coleman is doing their movement more harm than good, and if defending his slipshod work is worth their time.

The question at the end of the day is can these standards work? One of the things that has been noted about the standards is that they are about skills, and not content. The problem is that they purport to be standards for “English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects” so they are covering subject matter 

Video shows chaotic scene of Santa Monica College pepper spraying - latimes.com

Video shows chaotic scene of Santa Monica College pepper spraying - latimes.com:

Video shows chaotic scene of Santa Monica College pepper spraying

Popout
New video was being posted online Wednesday from on-the-ground eyewitnesses of the pepper spraying incident at Santa Monica College, where at least two people were hospitalized and several others injured when the aerosol was dispersed into a crowd of protesting students.
Santa Monica College officials said Wednesday they planned to launch an investigation into the clash outside a Board of Trustees meeting, City News Service reported.
About 30 students were treated for pepper spray exposure outside the board meeting room Tuesday evening, 

Seattle Schools Community Forum: News Round-Up (And Look Who's Boycotting State Tests)

Seattle Schools Community Forum: News Round-Up (And Look Who's Boycotting State Tests):

News Round-Up (And Look Who's Boycotting State Tests)

by Melissa Westbrook

From the Times' Danny Westneat, his take on some parents in Mill Creek and Snohomish who have decided  their children will not be taking the state test.  About 70 parents are participating and for one school, that includes 25% of students.

From his column:

They'll be in another room, doing art or science projects.
  
Parents have the right to opt their kids out of the tests. There's no punishment, though the kids get a zero. Handfuls have opted out over the years, often at alternative schools. A few years back a Seattle science teacher refused to give the test, saying it was harmful to students.
  
But state officials say parents have never pulled their kids on this large a scale.

"We're kind of shocked at the size of it," said Nathan Olson, spokesman for the state superintendent of public 

CPS teachers ready and willing to walk. « Fred Klonsky

CPS teachers ready and willing to walk. « Fred Klonsky:

CPS teachers ready and willing to walk.

by Fred Klonsky

Stand for Children’s Jonah Edelman thought he had outfoxed the CTU with SB7 strike requirements. He never understood unions.
When Jonah Edelman and Stand for Children came to Illinois, one of their main agenda items was to make our teacher unions impotent. He targeted Chicago teachers’ right to strike.
He was helped by some of our own IEA leadership who sat on the committee that led to Senate Bill 7.
Senate Bill 7, among other things, set a high bar for Chicago teachers to Strike.
75% had to vote yes.
It shows how little Edelman understand unions. When we took a strike vote in 2003, we knew before the vote exactly how many teachers would vote yes. We had no intention of walking out if we only had a simple majority

Tell Scott Walker he’s not welcome in Illinois.

by Fred Klonsky

The in box. False truths and scapegoating. IFT’s Montgomery responds to Ingram and Cross.

by Fred Klonsky

I am disappointed that Mr. Ingram has decided to advocate for diminishing the reasonable, Constitutional retirement 
benefits of tens of thousands of Illinois educators and retirees. For TRS this is, indeed, a new direction that embraces 
a politically expedient approach while providing significant cover to politicians determined to welch on the state’s 
decades-long promise to workers and retirees.
There is no denying that our pension systems are in serious need of stabilization. The combination of politicians’ 
schemes to skip payments and the creation of an unrealistic repayment plan, combined with the recent deep recession, are all factors that have created the funding challenges we face. But let’s be clear: benefits are not to blame. What’s more, teachers have always faultlessly paid their portion of their contribution toward the retirement systems…and they still do. 
For many years teachers have watched as politicians, corporate executives and editorial page 

Opt-in data base in now on IEA website.

by Fred Klonsky

A note from Tim Crawford of the IEA staff informs me that they have placed a link to  the Illinois Teachers and Neighbors United site on the IEA Back Home Lobbying page of the IEA website.

Illinois Teachers and Neighbors United database (Read below before entering)
The Illinois Teachers and Neighbors United database offers users the opportunity to opt-in for the purpose of finding pro-public education individuals with whom you can choose to coordinate local, political activity. This link does not imply IEA endorsement but is a notification of some of its members’ activities. NOTE: IEA does not own or operate this database and accepts no responsibility for what happens to personal information that users input into the database, including whether that information may be shared or sold.
Please read the databases’ Policies and Terms disclaimer carefully before opting in.

While we wanted the IEA to actually create the site and host it, thanks to Tim for following up in a way that the 

Education Top-Tier 2012 Election Issue In Swing States, Survey Shows

Education Top-Tier 2012 Election Issue In Swing States, Survey Shows:

Joy Resmovits

Joy.resmovits@huffingtonpost.com

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Education Top-Tier 2012 Election Issue In Swing States, Survey Shows

After a presidential primary campaign so far largely devoid of debate on education, the topic could be a decisive one in 2012, according to a new survey sponsored by the College Board.

And the focus on education -- an issue that doesn't cut neatly between Democrats and Republicans -- might prove tricky for former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, whose education policies are similar in substance, if not in tone, to those of President Barack Obama.

So far, education has only arisen on the campaign trail when candidates try to bolstertheir conservative credentials. According to an analysis by The Guardian, education 

The Newsroom’s View of Education Reform : Education Next

The Newsroom’s View of Education Reform : Education Next:

The Newsroom’s View of Education Reform

Surprise! The press paints a distorted picture

By Michael Petrilli 

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SUMMER 2012 / VOL. 12, NO. 3

Imagine that you’re a casual follower of the education policy debate. You read the major national outlets—theNew York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today—and you might come across national Associated Press (AP) stories in your local paper or online news aggregator, too. What would be your view of American education, circa 2011?

In a nutshell: cheating is rampant, national test scores are abysmal, school policy is set in Washington, and teacher tenure is on its last legs. That’s the image implied by the 250-odd education stories published by leading news organizations last year, according to an analysis my team and I did for Education Next. Let us take a closer look.

As declared by the press, 2011 was “the year of the cheating scandal.” (See Greg Toppo’s year-end story in USA Today, “Schools flunked inquiries into suspicious scores in 2011,” or Dorie Turner’s AP roundup, “2011 marred by test cheating scandals across U.S.”) And sure enough, the media covered the story extensively, with 18 articles published by the national outlets (see Figure 1).

And how could they resist? 

New York's Fight for Quality Public Education Continues

Alliance for Quality Education of New York - The state's lead community-based organization in the fight for high quality public education:

Founded only in 2000, the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) has quickly become New York state’s lead community-based organization in the fight for high quality public education. A statewide non-profit, AQE unites a coalition of parents, children’s advocates, schools, teachers, clergy, and others.

AQE believes it will take fair funding and smarter spending to support better schools and give every child in New York State a quality education from pre-K to high school graduation. Truly statewide, AQE has active community-based education coalitions in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, the Capital District (Albany), New York City and Long Island.

Working with all stakeholders, but emphasizing the involvement of parents and youth, AQE combines leadership development, community organizing, electronic activism, extensive media relations, policy work, and lobbying within a cohesive campaign for fundamental education reform. This recipe has successfully made adequate funding to create quality schools for every child a high profile issue throughout the state.

This Week In Education: Quotes: "I Don't Live In Other Nations"

This Week In Education: Quotes: "I Don't Live In Other Nations":

Quotes: "I Don't Live In Other Nations"

by Alexander Russo

Ravitch: Interesting that top-performing and most equitable nations in world do not have vouchers or charters.
Fuller: I don't live in other nations I live here & I believe we need choice for poor families. If this is Diane u used to believe it too.
Exchange between Diane Ravitch and Howard Fuller, via Whitney Tilson.  See full Tilson clip below.

Fuller: Diane, how long has the traditional system been failing kids? Would u suggest it is now time to end it?

Ravitch: All kids regardless of race, income, etc should get a good education but poverty is a huge burden for children.

Fuller: No one in their right mind would say it is not a burden. It has always been a burden. It was for my mother &grandmother but my mother and grandmother knew an educ would give me any hope. When did some of y'all

Bruno: Boot Camp For Bloated Teacher Prep Programs

As someone who finished his own two-year MA/credential program at an ed school fairly recently, I was heartened to readthis story from U.S. News about " institutions retooling their graduate education programs" with stronger focuses on efficiency and quality. To some extent this is a response to "pressure from the government", but equally telling in my mind is that some schools want to compete with the "highly streamlined training" of Teach for America-like programs.

Criticism of TfA-style reforms sometimes focuses on "replicability" or "scalability", but I think what we're seeing is that those concerns sort of miss the point. It's improbable that TfA would be able to completely staff all of our schools even if we wanted them to. What TfA and other alternative programs 

Just When I Almost Forget I Live in LA, the State Senate Slaps up a Reminder | The G Bitch Spot

Just When I Almost Forget I Live in LA, the State Senate Slaps up a Reminder | The G Bitch Spot:

Just When I Almost Forget I Live in LA, the State Senate Slaps up a Reminder

by G Bitch

Limit to contract clauses proposed, The (Baton Rouge, LA) Advocate, 4/2/12
The headline is oddly flat and uninformative, considering what the bill was sparked by and is aimed at: anti-discrimination language in charter school contracts. I think the answer to this “dilemma” is that the organization or individual like Ms. Ellison who balks [or complains or sues] has no business running a publicly-funded school of any kind and should start a new private school, if that person should be in charge of the education and care of young people at all and I have deep doubts.

A state Senate committee approved legislation Thursday that would allow charter schools to refuse to admit students on the basis of their ability to speak English, their sexual orientation or other factors.
State Sen. A.G. Crowe, R-Slidell, said his bill is designed to ensure that executive branch agencies and local governments stop including bans on discrimination against characteristics not listed in state law as a condition for private companies to do business with their agencies.
The state Department of Education contracts with those seeking charter schools were the chief