Friday, October 25, 2013
NYS Department of Education and PTA Collude in Silencing Parents
Whoops. A State Department of Education event designed to recruit parents into the new Common Core agenda in schools has instead triggered a parent revolt. Echoing Rochester's late August protests over Common Core, parents downstate have discovered that they too are being shut out of education policy discussions. When parents came to a packed PTA Town Hall meeting in Poughkeepsie recently to talk about Common Core with NYS Education Commissioner King, they discovered it was not a Town Hall meeting at all. Instead, King monopolized the microphone for over an hour and a half, pushing Common Core merits until parents' opportunity to speak during the two hours was reduced to a mere 23 minutes. In between parents who were able to voice their opinions, King interjected his own comments, reducing speakers' comment time even further. The few parents allowed to speak did so respectfully, but all were clearly against the Common Core. See for yourself. Within hours of this first meeting, New York State PTA suspended the remainder of Commissioner King's series of Town Hall meetings across the state. They declared that the Commissioner had "concluded the outcome was not constructive for those who chose to attend" and that it was hijacked by "special interests".
Let's look at this more closely. The New York State PTA, whose mission is to empower families and communities to advocate for all children, has canceled a series of meetings where many parents want to advocate for their children. How do meeting cancellations of important and controversial education policy align with the PTA's mission to support parents? King, who scheduled a series of Town Hall meetings - a term given to public meetings whose purpose is to voice opinions - dismissed the outcome as "unconstructive". How are such meetings unconstructive for a public that wishes to speak about education policies that were adopted and implemented without field-testing or democratic process? Clearly the goal of listening to people was not King's aim or else he would have been delighted at the strong parent turn out and sharing.
What's happening here is much more worrisome than is at first evident. Although the national PTA has officially passed resolutions against the kind of high stakes testing that Common Core requires, sponsoring and canceling Town Hall Common Core discussion meetings at King's request indicates that the New York State PTA is more beholden to the State Education Department's agenda than to their own mission of supporting parents' voice and advocacy for their own children. Why? Perhaps it is the millions of dollars in special interest money paid to the national PTA by the Gates Foundation several years ago to help position it as a "key player at the front line of education reform" (in case readers are unfamiliar with the lingo, "education reform" is shorthand for pro-Common Core, high stakes testing, and teacher evaluation tied to students' scores). Interestingly, a visit to the PTA website shows that the press release describing Gates foundation award monies to the national PTA has been removed, although the reference is easily found on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation site.
We'll see how far the Gates financial inducements can go. Commissioner King has his Common Core sales work cut out for him because PTA parents are furious and now planning actions all over the state.
Article published in Smugtown Beacon October 15, 2013. Smugtown Beacon
Let's look at this more closely. The New York State PTA, whose mission is to empower families and communities to advocate for all children, has canceled a series of meetings where many parents want to advocate for their children. How do meeting cancellations of important and controversial education policy align with the PTA's mission to support parents? King, who scheduled a series of Town Hall meetings - a term given to public meetings whose purpose is to voice opinions - dismissed the outcome as "unconstructive". How are such meetings unconstructive for a public that wishes to speak about education policies that were adopted and implemented without field-testing or democratic process? Clearly the goal of listening to people was not King's aim or else he would have been delighted at the strong parent turn out and sharing.
What's happening here is much more worrisome than is at first evident. Although the national PTA has officially passed resolutions against the kind of high stakes testing that Common Core requires, sponsoring and canceling Town Hall Common Core discussion meetings at King's request indicates that the New York State PTA is more beholden to the State Education Department's agenda than to their own mission of supporting parents' voice and advocacy for their own children. Why? Perhaps it is the millions of dollars in special interest money paid to the national PTA by the Gates Foundation several years ago to help position it as a "key player at the front line of education reform" (in case readers are unfamiliar with the lingo, "education reform" is shorthand for pro-Common Core, high stakes testing, and teacher evaluation tied to students' scores). Interestingly, a visit to the PTA website shows that the press release describing Gates foundation award monies to the national PTA has been removed, although the reference is easily found on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation site.
We'll see how far the Gates financial inducements can go. Commissioner King has his Common Core sales work cut out for him because PTA parents are furious and now planning actions all over the state.
Article published in Smugtown Beacon October 15, 2013. Smugtown Beacon
Friday, October 11, 2013
No shortcuts to learning
Protesters against high-stakes testing and its relationship to Common Core State Standards gathered in Rochester last Wednesday. What was the commotion about?”
Common Core is a set of grade-specific expectations that were funded with $60 million from the Gates and Broad Foundations. A major concern is that opponents of public education are now using high-stakes testing to legitimize the wholesale closure of our urban schools and their replacement by profit-oriented private initiatives.
While raising standards sounds like a good idea for improving achievement, goal-setting only addresses part of the problem. To be truly successful, we need more focus on how learning happens.
Students learn through a combination of habits, discipline and engagement, but they don’t learn just because the bar is suddenly set higher. One common theory of learning describes a “zone of proximal development”: students learn at the edges of their knowledge but need peer and teacher support to stretch toward those edges. If a teacher pitches material beyond a student’s learning zone, then the student becomes frustrated with failure.
Good teaching practices should include giving students regular experiences of success that build confidence for harder material rather than starting with material that is too far beyond students’ capacities. This approach is common with any kind of learning: a good way to learn to play tennis is to be partnered with others at or slightly above one’s level, but never too far beyond that level.
If we want seventh-grade students with fourth-grade reading skills to improve, we build from where they are, going from fourth, fifth, sixth, to seventh, rather than demanding they start with seventh grade materials because Common Core mandates this as a grade-level expectation. We certainly want students to reach grade level expectations, but demanding compliance and labeling students as failures when they don’t meet expectations immediately won’t make that happen.
Common Core should be offered as a set of goals that help teachers better target students’ learning needs and the district should offer support that helps improve teachers’ abilities to stretch their students’ learning edges.
In Rochester, implementation of the Common Core must not simply be the provision of lesson modules that narrow teachers’ options for reaching students “where they’re at.” Strict fidelity to Common Core modules should not trump the main goal of allowing students’ learning needs to drive instruction. The district should help teachers work creatively with the modules, not as stark scripts, but as inspiring guidelines for learning and instruction. Test results should form the basis for improving schools and identifying areas to work on, not for closing them down and vilifying teachers, students and their parents.
Web essay published in Democrat and Chronicle, September 5, 2013
No shortcuts to learning
Common Core is a set of grade-specific expectations that were funded with $60 million from the Gates and Broad Foundations. A major concern is that opponents of public education are now using high-stakes testing to legitimize the wholesale closure of our urban schools and their replacement by profit-oriented private initiatives.
While raising standards sounds like a good idea for improving achievement, goal-setting only addresses part of the problem. To be truly successful, we need more focus on how learning happens.
Students learn through a combination of habits, discipline and engagement, but they don’t learn just because the bar is suddenly set higher. One common theory of learning describes a “zone of proximal development”: students learn at the edges of their knowledge but need peer and teacher support to stretch toward those edges. If a teacher pitches material beyond a student’s learning zone, then the student becomes frustrated with failure.
Good teaching practices should include giving students regular experiences of success that build confidence for harder material rather than starting with material that is too far beyond students’ capacities. This approach is common with any kind of learning: a good way to learn to play tennis is to be partnered with others at or slightly above one’s level, but never too far beyond that level.
If we want seventh-grade students with fourth-grade reading skills to improve, we build from where they are, going from fourth, fifth, sixth, to seventh, rather than demanding they start with seventh grade materials because Common Core mandates this as a grade-level expectation. We certainly want students to reach grade level expectations, but demanding compliance and labeling students as failures when they don’t meet expectations immediately won’t make that happen.
Common Core should be offered as a set of goals that help teachers better target students’ learning needs and the district should offer support that helps improve teachers’ abilities to stretch their students’ learning edges.
In Rochester, implementation of the Common Core must not simply be the provision of lesson modules that narrow teachers’ options for reaching students “where they’re at.” Strict fidelity to Common Core modules should not trump the main goal of allowing students’ learning needs to drive instruction. The district should help teachers work creatively with the modules, not as stark scripts, but as inspiring guidelines for learning and instruction. Test results should form the basis for improving schools and identifying areas to work on, not for closing them down and vilifying teachers, students and their parents.
Web essay published in Democrat and Chronicle, September 5, 2013
No shortcuts to learning
Letter to Cuomo
Re: Failing schools put on notice
After underfunding the state’s most impoverished schools and pushing through a high-stakes testing agenda, Governor Cuomo said this week “There’s going to have to be a death penalty for failing schools…we’ll give (the schools) a short window to repair themselves.” His State Education Department advocates shutting down democratically elected local school boards and replacing them with three hand-picked Albany appointees.
Let’s call his bluster. Rather than a struggle between local boards and Albany, what if we were to give Cuomo and his power-appointees a “short window of time” themselves? As of the first day of school let them take charge. If Cuomo cannot repair the damage in one year’s time, he and his appointees would be given an equivalent penalty: replacement. The schools’ problems are deep, and will require more than a “short window” to repair. Gubernatorial grandstanding is not a solution.
Unpublished letter in response to August 30, 2013, Democrat and Chronicle article: Cuomo floats 'death penalty' for failing schools.
Cuomo and 'failing schools'
After underfunding the state’s most impoverished schools and pushing through a high-stakes testing agenda, Governor Cuomo said this week “There’s going to have to be a death penalty for failing schools…we’ll give (the schools) a short window to repair themselves.” His State Education Department advocates shutting down democratically elected local school boards and replacing them with three hand-picked Albany appointees.
Let’s call his bluster. Rather than a struggle between local boards and Albany, what if we were to give Cuomo and his power-appointees a “short window of time” themselves? As of the first day of school let them take charge. If Cuomo cannot repair the damage in one year’s time, he and his appointees would be given an equivalent penalty: replacement. The schools’ problems are deep, and will require more than a “short window” to repair. Gubernatorial grandstanding is not a solution.
Unpublished letter in response to August 30, 2013, Democrat and Chronicle article: Cuomo floats 'death penalty' for failing schools.
Cuomo and 'failing schools'
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