Hello out there! Yes, there has been a long hiatus for this Public Education Matters blog! I've just been terribly busy! Which is not to say I've been any busier than the Indiana legislature with their slash and burn Education agenda; but here's the thing, while they got to run in, do their damage, and then go home and rest without giving it nary another thought, I (like every other public school teacher in Indiana) have been stuck here trying to live with and clean up the mess they've made. And so I hope you'll excuse me if I've gotten a bit behind in my writing.
Today's blog is actually a letter to the editor of my local newspaper, The Bluffton News-Banner. The letter printed here on this blog is actually twice of what I've submitted to the paper and I'm not even sure if the shortened version will be printed as it's still quite long. I will also say that this letter is not even half of what it really should be; it doesn't cover near enough, but given that I've been out of commission for some time, let's consider it a start. (-:
Dear Editor,
This letter is responding to two separate items in Saturday’s Bluffton News-Banner. The first is Chet Baumgartner’s article “What’s the Best Test?” and the second is the letter written by Lee Coleman and Representative Jeff Espich’s response to him. The common theme of these two items is the so-called reform of education in our state. (Indiana) Also, while it may not be readily apparent, another common theme I'd like to tie in is Democracy. On this Memorial Day, I find this fitting to address. After all, Democracy, with all it's rights and freedoms, is the cause for which our war veterans have offered and given their lives.
Mr. Coleman’s letter asks whether or not the provision of vouchers to parochial schools is constitutional. It’s a very good question. Perhaps though, it’s a question better addressed to our court system than to Representative Espich. Because while there are many who might agree with him that it sometimes seems the moral fabric of our society is unraveling, the thought that vouchers might be a partial remedy to that, is, in a word, unnerving. Plain and simple, leaders in our nation’s history set up a PUBLIC school system funded through PUBLIC dollars, thereby assuring all of our country’s citizens, no matter what race, creed, gender, or religion they practiced, the right of and privilege to a free public education.
And while it’s tempting to follow Representative Espich’s line of reasoning that a voucher’s intention is to help the child, not the institution it goes to; you must also realize that this money you siphon AWAY from the public schools and give to the “child” to give to private interests (no matter who they are) is a BLOW to public education. I’m curious as to how many more blows public education can take before it’s completely decimated and education is no longer available to the masses but only exists for those whose parents take an interest or those who can afford it.
Moreover, it kind of scares me that for all his good intentions, Representative Espich, seems to have fallen into illogic regarding the separation of church and state. He and many others seem to think that the separation is something that is hurting religion rather than the ultimate protection of it. If we don’t hold onto that protection, then sooner or later, the Taxpayer dollar goes to majority rule. I would think that those who are Christian would be particularly interested in this protection these days, because as we become a more diverse nation and a globally linked world, we might note that Christianity may someday lose status as the most practiced religion in this country. Even Representative Espich notes that the media is reporting that fewer and fewer people are attending church.
But whether Christianity is your concern or not, a look back at the history of public education in the United States tells us that giants such as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Noah Webster believed that education should be under the control of the government, free from religious biases, and available to all people irrespective of their status in society.
This brings us to Mr. Baumgartner’s article, where he cites Bluffton Principal Steve Baker’s update on the consideration of PARCC by the Indiana Education Roundtable as a further means of testing our students. I’ll skip the arguments for now (although if you'd like to read further please take a look-see at this report by a blue ribbon panel of the National Academy of Science which says that our testing craze has been of no real benefit to student achievement http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12521 ) as to whether more of any kind of testing is necessary at this time to better serve our students, but I think it is important for the public to know that the real impetus behind the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers is not really just a consortium of education officials from 25 states (as Mr. Baumgartner states,) but rather an organization called Achieve.
Achieve was started in 1996 not by educators but by the nation’s governors and corporate leaders. According to Achieve’s website it is funded by the following organizations: The Battelle Foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Boeing Company, the BrookhillFoundation, The Carnegie Corp. of New York, The GE Foundation, IBM Corporation, Intel Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Lumina, Nationwide, Noyce Foundation, The Prudential Foundation, State Farm Insurance Companies, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
This “consortium” of corporate or moneyed interests is hardly representative of the general population of this country or this state or this county and hardly representative of the educational leaders and researchers in this country.
It is of great concern to me that our PUBLIC education system still currently available to ALL (students with disabilities, students going to college, and students directly entering the workforce) and the current “reform” efforts are not being driven by the voters (parents, teachers, small business owners etc) with a huge stake in survival of democracy with guidance by true educational leaders, but rather, being manipulated by a number of corporations and individuals who seem intent on turning over the public’s school system one voucher and one disregard of
democratic principles at a time.
On this Memorial Day, I sincerely hope that the very sincerely intended Mr. Baker will consider all this as he participates in the Indiana Education Roundtable. Because at best, all of this seems to me a complete distortion of the democratic system and the freedoms that were fought for by our country’s war heroes.
I'd also like to offer an opportunity to participate in a movement that I believe represents the best of what our nation's historic leaders had in mind when it comes to PUBLIC Education in this country! Please join with us at www.saveourschoolsmarch.org
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Heads in the Clouds- Let's Not Get Fooled Again!
Via www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and the miracles of technology, I was privileged to listen to Dr. Yong Zhao speak last evening.
Dr. Zhao, if you’re not familiar, was until recently, University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education at Michigan State University. He has now assumed the Presidential Chair of Global Education and Online Learning at the University of Oregon, where he also will serve as the Associate Dean for Global Education and Online Learning and the Director of Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE ). He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education.
Dr. Zhao is a speaker, researcher and author of “Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization” (ASCD, 2009). One of his speeches is “What knowledge is of most worth in the age of globalization and digital revolution.” A biography of Dr. Zhao states that he is passionately involved in the U.S. education reform debate and wants to bring his unique global perspective to the conversation. He is strongly opposed to what is being done in the U.S.
An introduction of Dr. Zhao: “At a time when globalization and technology are dramatically altering the world we live in, is education reform in the United States headed down the right path? Are schools emphasizing the knowledge and skills that students need in a global society—or are they actually undermining their strengths by overemphasizing highstakes testing and standardization? Are education systems in China and other countries really as superior as some people claim?
In this presentation, Dr. Yong Zhao addresses these and other questions based on his new book of the same title. Born and raised in China……, Zhao bases many of his observations on extensive research and firsthand experience as a student in China and as a parent of children attending school in the United States. His unique perspective leads him to conclude that “American education is at a crossroads” and “we need to change course” to maintain leadership in a rapidly changing world.”
As we listened to Dr. Zhao speak to our group , one of my insightful colleagues asked the question “Why, do you think, when testing and merit pay and removal of collective bargaining and punishment of teachers is so clearly contra-indicted to improvements in education, are the so-called educational leaders of this country moving in those directions?”
To answer Dr. Zhao related a Chinese concept- “Yinzhenzhike” - “You drink the poison to quench the thirst.”
I understood this to mean that as the educational “leaders” and the politicians are pressured by media forces, the misled voters, the whiny billionaires, and the business people about what they perceive is the state of education and they become anxious to jump on to any solution bandwagon or drink any Kool-aid that sounds good.
They are especially anxious to jump on if the people with the money are driving that bandwagon. That kind of Kool-Aid can look extra yummy you know, especially when cookies (read: lots of money) are served with it. No reason to bother to see if the Kool-Aid or the cookies have any real nutritional value.
And it has to be extra comforting to know that if the Kool-Aid does turn out to be poison, it won’t affect you or your job or your re-election campaign. If it turns out down the line to be toxic, you’ll have no direct line of responsibility and you can say you were only trying to help. And after all, it will only poison children.
Yeah, it’s an insidious insanity. So many are fooled by it.
I’ve got friends on Facebook and in real life who cringe and protest every time I post something pro- teachers union or in support of the House Democrats in Indiana who are staying away to prevent more Kool-Aid from being consumed in our state. They write me off as a radical. They want to know why I spend my time and energy on these issues and not directly (all the time) on the students that I have.
And I can understand them for thinking that way. I used to be quite isolationist in my thinking too. I just wanted to stay in the classroom and do my best and hide from the world.
But you see, the “real” world kept creeping in- in the form of unwise and unresearched mandates and policies- that started getting in the way of my ability to teach and my students' abilities to learn. And also you see, I too, have been fooled by the people holding the Kool-Aid pitchers sometimes. I actually cried in joy the night Obama was elected over the good days in education that were going to come. Only to find out later, that Arne Duncan might as well have been George Bush’s right hand man. So yeah, I drank some Kool-Aid too. I was so very thirsty you know.
Dr. Zhao explained that the “cure” that Obama, Duncan, Gates and others are pushing on us in education is only going to make “us” sicker. He spoke about how we need to start looking at schools as training grounds for entrepreneurs rather than producers of blind followers and accomplished test takers. He indicated that we in education actually need to be instilling confidence, encouraging creativity and risk taking, and strong social skills. He indicated that these were all things that were lacking in the Chinese educational system and that this is why despite the manipulation of facts and data by many, the Chinese are not really producing the most productive and successful mathematicians, scientists and engineers and citizens.
He also spoke about the type of environment you need to create to encourage budding entrepreneurs. He related that a diversity of talents need to be encouraged to develop a melting pot effect and that we need to allow people autonomy.
Hmm. This is not exactly what we encourage when we tell teachers how they must teach and it’s not exactly what we encourage when we bludgeon kids with tests and then use those tests to rank and rate them or their teachers.
While Dr. Zhao was speaking, I kept remembering a man from my very own small rural county that my father wrote about once. His name was C. Carey Cloud. http://www.c-carey-cloud.com/news-articles/reception-for-artist-carey-cloud.htm. He wrote a book called Cloud Nine: The Dreamer and the Realist. Interesting title, huh?
You may not have heard of Mr. Cloud, but I can bet you that you’ve heard of one of his contributions to the world- the Cracker Jack prize. Mr. Cloud was an artist by profession and from poor and humble beginnings he became quite successful. Let me re-print here what my father wrote about him (Keep in mind that when this was written they hadn’t even dreamed up the ISTEP yet, but my father seemed to know it was coming and he does not seem to appreciate it much):
“It may be enlightening to know that Carey Cloud recalls being something of a slow learner in the Jackson Center School of Wells County, where he was supposed to be absorbing the "basics" but wanted to draw all the time.
The fortunate thing, as he now recalls, is that he found teachers who could extract the best from this without kicking him out of school for dragging down any SAT standing. They really encouraged his art, while pushing him along in other subjects sufficiently to graduate.
Math apparently never became Cloud's top subject, nor did he seem to catch on to the computer or calculator age. When this writer bought books from him last summer, he used longhand pencil computation to figure that the 5 percent sales tax on an exact $20 purchase would be $1.”
Mr. Cloud just doesn’t sound like the kind of person who might be successful in today’s educational world, does he? Can you picture it, if his teachers had consumed today’s Kool-Aid? He’d have been discouraged from wasting his time drawing and doodling. He’d have never have passed ISTEP or a Math End of Course Assessment. He and his parents would have been told he was a “loser” and worth pretty much nothing to society. He’d have been lucky just to find employment and stay employed at the local Piano factory until it went out of business. Instead, because no one had drunk the Kool-Aid yet, he became something of an entrepreneur.
Because, while you might not think that Cracker Jack prizes are an important contribution to the world, you maybe ought to think again. How many jobs were created in order to manufacture those toys? How many people were employed because Cracker Jack sales were increased by the simple marketing ploy of including those little trinkets? Mr. Cloud himself was an employed, tax paying citizen rather than a welfare case or a person struggling to keep a minimum wage job.
Personally I’d call that a success in the world and of the world of education. And it’s why when we are all so seemingly thirsty for educational reform we really ought to be thinking before we drink from the Billionaire Boy’s club cups. We should not let ourselves get fooled again.
Please join us at www.saveourschoolsmarch.org this April Fool’s Day and help us try to stop our country from all of this tom-foolery that will destroy so much of the good in PUBLIC education. Dr. Zhao is a strong supporter and I believe that if Mr. Cloud were still alive, he would be as well.
Dr. Zhao, if you’re not familiar, was until recently, University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education at Michigan State University. He has now assumed the Presidential Chair of Global Education and Online Learning at the University of Oregon, where he also will serve as the Associate Dean for Global Education and Online Learning and the Director of Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE ). He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education.
Dr. Zhao is a speaker, researcher and author of “Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization” (ASCD, 2009). One of his speeches is “What knowledge is of most worth in the age of globalization and digital revolution.” A biography of Dr. Zhao states that he is passionately involved in the U.S. education reform debate and wants to bring his unique global perspective to the conversation. He is strongly opposed to what is being done in the U.S.
An introduction of Dr. Zhao: “At a time when globalization and technology are dramatically altering the world we live in, is education reform in the United States headed down the right path? Are schools emphasizing the knowledge and skills that students need in a global society—or are they actually undermining their strengths by overemphasizing highstakes testing and standardization? Are education systems in China and other countries really as superior as some people claim?
In this presentation, Dr. Yong Zhao addresses these and other questions based on his new book of the same title. Born and raised in China……, Zhao bases many of his observations on extensive research and firsthand experience as a student in China and as a parent of children attending school in the United States. His unique perspective leads him to conclude that “American education is at a crossroads” and “we need to change course” to maintain leadership in a rapidly changing world.”
As we listened to Dr. Zhao speak to our group , one of my insightful colleagues asked the question “Why, do you think, when testing and merit pay and removal of collective bargaining and punishment of teachers is so clearly contra-indicted to improvements in education, are the so-called educational leaders of this country moving in those directions?”
To answer Dr. Zhao related a Chinese concept- “Yinzhenzhike” - “You drink the poison to quench the thirst.”
I understood this to mean that as the educational “leaders” and the politicians are pressured by media forces, the misled voters, the whiny billionaires, and the business people about what they perceive is the state of education and they become anxious to jump on to any solution bandwagon or drink any Kool-aid that sounds good.
They are especially anxious to jump on if the people with the money are driving that bandwagon. That kind of Kool-Aid can look extra yummy you know, especially when cookies (read: lots of money) are served with it. No reason to bother to see if the Kool-Aid or the cookies have any real nutritional value.
And it has to be extra comforting to know that if the Kool-Aid does turn out to be poison, it won’t affect you or your job or your re-election campaign. If it turns out down the line to be toxic, you’ll have no direct line of responsibility and you can say you were only trying to help. And after all, it will only poison children.
Yeah, it’s an insidious insanity. So many are fooled by it.
I’ve got friends on Facebook and in real life who cringe and protest every time I post something pro- teachers union or in support of the House Democrats in Indiana who are staying away to prevent more Kool-Aid from being consumed in our state. They write me off as a radical. They want to know why I spend my time and energy on these issues and not directly (all the time) on the students that I have.
And I can understand them for thinking that way. I used to be quite isolationist in my thinking too. I just wanted to stay in the classroom and do my best and hide from the world.
But you see, the “real” world kept creeping in- in the form of unwise and unresearched mandates and policies- that started getting in the way of my ability to teach and my students' abilities to learn. And also you see, I too, have been fooled by the people holding the Kool-Aid pitchers sometimes. I actually cried in joy the night Obama was elected over the good days in education that were going to come. Only to find out later, that Arne Duncan might as well have been George Bush’s right hand man. So yeah, I drank some Kool-Aid too. I was so very thirsty you know.
Dr. Zhao explained that the “cure” that Obama, Duncan, Gates and others are pushing on us in education is only going to make “us” sicker. He spoke about how we need to start looking at schools as training grounds for entrepreneurs rather than producers of blind followers and accomplished test takers. He indicated that we in education actually need to be instilling confidence, encouraging creativity and risk taking, and strong social skills. He indicated that these were all things that were lacking in the Chinese educational system and that this is why despite the manipulation of facts and data by many, the Chinese are not really producing the most productive and successful mathematicians, scientists and engineers and citizens.
He also spoke about the type of environment you need to create to encourage budding entrepreneurs. He related that a diversity of talents need to be encouraged to develop a melting pot effect and that we need to allow people autonomy.
Hmm. This is not exactly what we encourage when we tell teachers how they must teach and it’s not exactly what we encourage when we bludgeon kids with tests and then use those tests to rank and rate them or their teachers.
While Dr. Zhao was speaking, I kept remembering a man from my very own small rural county that my father wrote about once. His name was C. Carey Cloud. http://www.c-carey-cloud.com/news-articles/reception-for-artist-carey-cloud.htm. He wrote a book called Cloud Nine: The Dreamer and the Realist. Interesting title, huh?
You may not have heard of Mr. Cloud, but I can bet you that you’ve heard of one of his contributions to the world- the Cracker Jack prize. Mr. Cloud was an artist by profession and from poor and humble beginnings he became quite successful. Let me re-print here what my father wrote about him (Keep in mind that when this was written they hadn’t even dreamed up the ISTEP yet, but my father seemed to know it was coming and he does not seem to appreciate it much):
“It may be enlightening to know that Carey Cloud recalls being something of a slow learner in the Jackson Center School of Wells County, where he was supposed to be absorbing the "basics" but wanted to draw all the time.
The fortunate thing, as he now recalls, is that he found teachers who could extract the best from this without kicking him out of school for dragging down any SAT standing. They really encouraged his art, while pushing him along in other subjects sufficiently to graduate.
Math apparently never became Cloud's top subject, nor did he seem to catch on to the computer or calculator age. When this writer bought books from him last summer, he used longhand pencil computation to figure that the 5 percent sales tax on an exact $20 purchase would be $1.”
Mr. Cloud just doesn’t sound like the kind of person who might be successful in today’s educational world, does he? Can you picture it, if his teachers had consumed today’s Kool-Aid? He’d have been discouraged from wasting his time drawing and doodling. He’d have never have passed ISTEP or a Math End of Course Assessment. He and his parents would have been told he was a “loser” and worth pretty much nothing to society. He’d have been lucky just to find employment and stay employed at the local Piano factory until it went out of business. Instead, because no one had drunk the Kool-Aid yet, he became something of an entrepreneur.
Because, while you might not think that Cracker Jack prizes are an important contribution to the world, you maybe ought to think again. How many jobs were created in order to manufacture those toys? How many people were employed because Cracker Jack sales were increased by the simple marketing ploy of including those little trinkets? Mr. Cloud himself was an employed, tax paying citizen rather than a welfare case or a person struggling to keep a minimum wage job.
Personally I’d call that a success in the world and of the world of education. And it’s why when we are all so seemingly thirsty for educational reform we really ought to be thinking before we drink from the Billionaire Boy’s club cups. We should not let ourselves get fooled again.
Please join us at www.saveourschoolsmarch.org this April Fool’s Day and help us try to stop our country from all of this tom-foolery that will destroy so much of the good in PUBLIC education. Dr. Zhao is a strong supporter and I believe that if Mr. Cloud were still alive, he would be as well.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
AWAKENING The SLEEPING GIANT!!
Awakening the Sleeping Giant!
Some of you may know that my daughter, a product of PUBLIC schools, lives and works in Japan. She currently works in the translation department of a rather large international brokerage firm, but when she first landed in Japan she taught conversational English at one of the many English Language Schools that operate(d) in the country. Her immediate boss was an American whose wife is a Japanese native and they had a son who was just born when my daughter arrived there and almost 2 when I first visited there and now is 5 going on a very important 6.
His name is Seth and he’s a very bright young man and has been this year enrolled in Kindergarten. Just the other day his mother reported on her Facebook page that his class had put on a play of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and that the children in the class had rewritten the tale so that the ending was happy. This prompted me to reply and say “Wait, I thought the ending of Jack and the Beanstalk was already happy. Am I wrong?” Didn’t it end with Jack and his mother going from desperately poor to wildly rich? I wondered “Have I been reading a sanitized version?”
Seth’s mother replied that the kids had wanted to end the tale so that it didn’t just happen that Jack and his poor mother came out well-to-do in the end but that the Giant and Jack became actual friends too.
I thought to myself “Wow, leave it to children to have the audacity to want peace and harmony and everyone to get along and share bean paste cookies at the end of a tale!” (Incidentally, I don’t personally recommend bean paste cookies, I’ll stick with Oreos.)
At any rate, with this altered version of the Giant’s tale in mind, I started dreaming that perhaps the brave efforts of the Wisconsin 14 and the House Democrats in Indiana and all the other protesters in all the other states against the assaults on education and worker’s rights might actually have a happy ending! - An ending where the “light” is seen by all who have the fates of our children in their hands. And we will all sit down in the end, achieve some actual progress and share the wealth and some milk and cookies. Happily Ever After-like.
In my dream, I saw “us” ( the Nation’s educators and workers) as poor Jack trying to make something out of our magic beans and the Governors of Wisconsin and Indiana and New Jersey (and elsewhere) as well as Arne Duncan, as the Evil Giants trying to kick us off of their cloud. I envisioned us climbing the beanpole up into the higher atmosphere to the Giants’ castle and somehow actually having a real dialogue with them and them realizing the truth of what we were saying and saying “oh, we’re sorry, Let’s work together!”
Ah. But that’s a fairy tale, is it not? Instead we see the Governor of Wisconsin calling out the National Guard on the Wisconsin 14. We hear him call for the crushing of the “bastards.” We hear an Indiana Deputy Attorney General calling for the protesters to worker’s rights to be shot. (In all fairness, I need to report that this man was fired.) But also, we hear Indiana’s Governor calling those of us belonging to Unions “Elite” and insinuating that all we teachers care about is money. I laughed heartily when one of my colleagues spoke up and said “Yes, i live in a very elite mobile home on my teacher’s salary.” I myself contributed that I drive a very elite Ford Focus. We then heard our State Superintendent of Public Schools issues a statement calling the Indiana State Teacher’s Association “liars” for relating to us the very real effects of the proposed Senate Bill 1 will have on our pay.
All in all, It’s not exactly the lions lying down with the lambs here. It feels much more like the lambs being led to the slaughter to me. Or in continuing our “Jack in the Beanstalk” theme, it sounds a lot more like the thunder of “FE FI FO FUM” and “I’ll GRIND your bones to make my bread” on the Governors’ parts to me.
Ah. Giants, they are not exactly likeable characters, I’m thinking. But then as often happens in real life and in fairy tales, there is a twist to the whole story-line here. I open up my email and I read of a Blog Campaign entitled “Waking Up the Sleeping Giant!” And instead of the Giant being cast as the EVIL character in this play, it’s framing the Nation’s educators as Sleeping Giants! Not evil giants but POWERFUL GIANTS! POWERFUL and AWESOME ENOUGH to band together and finally be heard over the top of the sound bites and the rhetoric about educational reform as spoken through the mouths of people (such as the Governors of Wisconsin and Indiana) who actually know very little about education and children and such things as poverty and need.
I had not thought about it all this way- that we ourselves, the educators are POWERFUL if we UNITE and STAND UP TOGETHER! It is true, we have been sleeping for far too long and living in a dream world that everyone has good intent towards education. And It is time for us to WAKE UP and realize the power we have and to stand up for ourselves and our students! Here is how you can realize that GIGANTIC POWER too- Open up your browser and type in “http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and RISE UP with us!
And maybe the ending of the tale won’t be that we will all sit down someday with our milk and cookies on a cloud and find a way to come together. Perhaps that “happily ever after” ending is only possible in the minds of children, but we at least owe it to them to WAKE UP and RISE TO MIGHTY heights for them, do we not?
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Anyone Who's Ever Had A Heart- I HEART PUBLIC EDUCATION!
This Lou Reed/Velvet Underground song performed here by the Cowboy Junkies is clearly an emotional plea. Just read the lines:
"Anyone who's ever had a heart
Wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who's ever played a part
Wouldn't turn around and hate it"
And I'm not gonna lie, It's Valentine's Day, so I'm really just trying to tug at your heartstrings. I'm also trying to tug at the heartstrings of our Government Leaders (Barak Obama, Mitch Daniels, etc) and Educational Leaders (Arne Duncan, Tony Bennett etc.) and our Senators and our Representaives, the media, and the public, many of whom are buying into rhetoric and lies. I'm asking them "Could you maybe? Could you maybe stop this runaway train political agenda you have regarding Public Education and for one second LISTEN?
LISTEN TO YOUR HEART? or maybe more importantly- listen to the HEARTBEATS of our children in this country? Children (rich or poor, gifted, average, or challenged) who deserve your understanding that to destroy PUBLIC education not only destroys their chances in life but their future of living in a democratic society. Do you see that those are the hearts you have in your hands?
Because really, "Anyone who's ever had a heart" and "played a part" for PUBLIC Edcuation, really wouldn't turn around and vote for charters, for vouchers, for merit pay for educators, for the end of collective bargaining for teachers etc and so on. They really wouldn't turn around and break CHILDRENS' HEARTS that way.
Now I could spend the rest of this post giving you facts, figures, statistics about why I feel the way I do and why I think those in positions of power should believe and act on those realities instead of following political agendas. I could cite for you all kinds of reputable and respectable sources who are speaking up about it all. I would write more in depth about why the survival and the health of our democracy depends on PUBLIC education. I could do that.
But today? Well, it's (almost) Valentine's Day and so I'll leave that to past and future posts and to the thousands and thousands of other people with more credentials in education than I have. Today I'm just going to tug at your heartstrings. That's all.
And I'm going to tell you about an organization that is FIGHTING against this Heartlessness going on in our country regarding PUBLIC education and I'm participating in their "I (HEART) PUBLIC EDUCATION" Blog Campaign. That organization is SAVE OUR SCHOOLS MARCH AND NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION. Their website is http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and here is their message for you this Valentine's Day:
"Everyone who cares about young people cares about our schools. Our best schools nurture children, make them feel safe, and able to take the risks they need in order to learn. But our schools are in danger of becoming even more narrowly focused on test preparation, while class sizes rise, and teachers are blamed for the ravages povery inflicts on their students.
We are responding. We LOVE our schools. We declare Valentine's Day. 2011, to be "I LOVE PUBLIC EDUCATION" blog day. On this day we will write our hearts ou, about why it is that public education is so important to us, our children, and our democratic society. Join us and tells us why you love public education too, send your comments and posts to saveourschoolsmarch@gmail.com. Writing will be displayed at the www.SaveOurSchoolsmarch.org website, and will be tweeted with the hashtag #LovePublicEd. We offer the march and events of July 28 to 31st in Washington, DC, as a focal point for this movement, and we ask participants to link to this event, so we can build momentum for our efforts. If your readers wish to repeat this post on their own blog, we would LOVE it."
I really feel that "Anyone Who Has a HEART" would join the cause.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Following the Yellow-Brick Road!!
2.6.11
Unlike these days of the Redbox, movies on demand, and downloading flicks instantly to your computer, unless one of the (3) networks decided to broadcast a film, you were out of luck and at the mercy of their schedule to see a movie at home in the comfort of your living room.
In a way, I suppose it made it seem just a little more special. It became a big deal to get out the cokes and the popcorn and cozy up under a blanket in front of the glowing screen when a movie was aired into your living room. It wasn’t everyday. It was a big deal.
And there was NO bigger deal than the annual showing of “The Wizard of Oz.” I think everyone of my vintage fondly remembers this yearly event: partly because the story had everything- from frightening flying monkeys to apple-throwing trees to terrifying twisters to witches (good & bad) to a wizard to munchkins; and partly because IF you had a color TV then when Dorothy’s house crashed down on the Witch, she opens the door to a wondrous and multi-colored world. I’m telling you- THAT, was SOMETHING!
Of course you know the story, “everyone” does. It’s how Dorothy (played by a tightly bound-in-gingham Judy Garland) in a concussive dream visits the land of Oz and meets up with a Scarecrow that needs brains and a Tinman that needs a heart and a Lion in dire need of some gumption and they skip off down a yellow-brick road to find the Wizard, perform some Wizard-appointed tasks, and return to claim their promised rewards from him, only to find out that the Wizard is not really a wizard, but instead a humbug- simply a Midwestern man pulling levers and throwing projections on a screen. Then in the end, the curtain is pulled back on the so-called Wizard and the truth is brought to light and everyone sees that they’ve had everything they’ve needed all along. What a WONDERFUL story!
Ah memories. I have to note that in the years before my family had a color TV, I remember being especially excited one year when taken in by the claims of the advertising, I danced around and announced “THIS YEAR it’s going to be IN COLOR!” only to be told lovingly by “Mr. Know-it-all” (aka my brother) that it didn’t matter what the commercials said- “We don’t have a color TV, you idiot.”
So yeah, I was kind of a stupid little kid. It took me years to catch on to the double casting of the characters of the Wicked Witch, the Wizard, the Lion, the Tinman, and the Scarecrow with their Kansas counterparts. I’d like to think however, that as an adult, I’ve got a few more brains.
And if you’re wondering what my little trip down the yellow-brick memory lane is about, It’s that it’s starting to appear to me that my Governor and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction here in Indiana are either glad or banking on that I am (and YOU are) still that ignorant kid who wouldn’t dare look behind a curtain to expose their lack of wizardry.
Today I went to my state’s education website to read about the new teacher evaluation rubric my Governor and State Superintendent want Indiana school boards to implement and read the following:
"Too often it’s not a lack of money or resources that keeps individuals, states and nations from achieving their goals—it’s a lack of courage. ( bolding is mine) This is the moment for Indiana to emerge as a national leader for innovative and aggressive education initiatives that put student success first. We cannot afford to keep doing what we've been doing. We must truly hold the best interest of students at heart, and we must not fail to act now."
I read those words and I’m suddenly angrier than Dorothy when the Wicked Witch takes Toto from her. If ONLY I had a bucket of water to melt the subject of my ire!
This man (Dr. Bennett) is throwing levers and projecting voices and hiding behind a curtain pretending to be a great wizard and helping the students in my state but really sending us all on wild goose chases trying to prove our worth, just as Dorothy and her friends were sent to fetch a broomstick.
Maybe you don’t see why this seemingly innocuous, supposedly inspiring passage about courage would set me off. Those of you that know me or have read this blog before will know it’s because I feel there is a different intent behind Dr. Bennett’s words. I feel that while putting in, once again, a “small” dig at the “inadequacy” of the state’s teachers, he’s trying to rally people around the implementation of proposed house and senate bills that he’s pretending will be the solutions to what he says are Indiana’s educational woes. He’s pulling levers and using his microphone diligently and furiously trying to influence public opinion to get his “reform” legislation passed. He’s trying very hard to control to obfuscate the public with erroneous propaganda, just like the Wizard in the beloved movie was trying to do to Dorothy and her friends to hide the fact that he didn’t really have the answers.
In so many words on the IDOE post, Dr. Bennett is citing that teacher resistance to his reforms are due not just to our lack of brains and heart, but also to cowardice. We educators are afraid of change. We’re cowardly. First, No heart, No brains, and NOW- No courage. Wow. That feels like quite a slam to me. Like a pelting of apples raining down on me and my colleagues.
If you follow Dr. Bennett and Mr. Daniels agendas, just like their compatriots in other states across the country, you might see that they have either insinuated or downright stated that many of us working in the PUBLIC schools are rotten- apples and incompetent. Never mind that his very own chart lists the top 10 schools in Indiana as “ISTA” schools and of the bottom 10, only ONE is.
Bennett and Daniel’s plans to remedy the supposedly dire situation is by weeding educators out- using take-over tactics with no respect to the staff or the real issues behind any failures of schools. What they really want is control so that they can more easily balance the state budget. They want to do this with no respect to the effects it will have on Indiana’s students. Under the guise of “putting students first” they plan to unleash more charter schools and implement a merit pay system with merit being based on the evaluation rubric http://www.doe.in.gov/puttingstudentsfirst/ (or one similar) that I went to look up, ignoring all unbiased research on the connection between teacher experience and education on student achievement. They plan to reduce collective bargaining rights to such innocuousness that they might as well not even exist even while the top ten schools in the state ARE what they term ISTA (Indiana State Teacher Association) schools. They to use PUBLIC education dollars for Vouchers for private interests, never-mind that this sucks away precious resources from PUBLIC schools who accept EVERYONE as surely as a tornado sucks objects up into it’s funnel.
But before you believe their pontifications, please listen to this man - Tony Lux, Superintendent of Merrillville Community School Corporation. In a guest editorial at nwitimes.com, he is standing up and calling the Governor and Tony Bennett- “Snake Oil Salesmen.” For the full text with real facts about the state’s agenda that they are trying to push through with legislation, please go to http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/guest-commentary/article_7e1f20dd-08c6-5755-bb8e-fb030bea8b2b.html?mode=storyHere is a quote from his commentary: “Snake oil salesmen, like the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City, don't want anyone looking behind the curtain to see their illusion. They also want to be out of town before the pubic realizes the illusion.”
Hmm. See how the theme of the Wizard of Oz is coming through here? And if you still don’t see it, let’s look behind that curtain a little bit. Here is a comment that was left on Mr. Lux’s commentary by a poster named Rat Region 11: said on: February 1, 2011, 6:38 am
“Heres a little data for everyone that was provided by the IDOE.
ISTEP
Per the IDOE data, 331 school corporations are listed as taking the ISTEP last year. Of the 331, 284 are Traditional Public schools and 45 are Charter Schools, 2 are State Run Schools.
Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 70% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 5 or 11.1% of total
Traditional Public: 138 or 48.6% of total
Schools Scoring 69% to 51% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 15 or 33.3% of total
Traditional Public: 139 or 48.9% of total
Schools Scoring Less Than 50% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 25 or 55.6% of total
Traditional Public: 7 or 2.5% of total
The numbers don’t lie. 97.5% of all Traditional Public School Corporations are scoring above a 50% Pass Rate compared to 44.4% of Charter Schools. If we need more Charter Schools to boost our scores and the education of our children shouldn’t these numbers be reversed.
End of Course Assessments
Algebra
Per the IDOE data, 1011 schools took the ECA for Algebra 1. Of the 1011, 981 were Traditional Public Schools and 30 were Charter Schools
The State Average for the ECA for Algebra 1 was 61%
Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 60%
Charter Schools: 5 or 16.7% of total
Traditional Public: 602 or 61.4% of total
Schools Scoring Less Than 60% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 19 or 63.3% of total
Traditional Public: 363 or 37.0% of total
Schools With No Scoring Due to Not Meeting Minimum Number of Participation
Charter Schools: 6 or 20.0% of total
Traditional Public: 16 or 1.6% of total
By this data for Algebra 1, you can see that the Charter Schools have in essence actually brought down the State average for the ECA in Algebra 1. I also looked at those schools scoring greater than or equal to 90% since the state likes to through that number around. Here are the results:
Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 90%
Charter Schools: 1 or 3.3% of total
Traditional Public: 252 or 25.7% of total
Looks like yet again the numbers show that our Indiana Traditional Public schools, as a whole, are far out-performing our Charter School counterparts.”
Hmm. Isn’t this a horse of a different color than what Mr. Bennett and Mr. Daniels seem to be riding? Hmm. Do I see someone pulling back the curtains and opening the door to a more beautiful and multi-colored educational world?
Some other entities who are daring to look behind the curtain are the Indiana State Teacher’s Association http://www.ista-in.org/dynamic.aspx?id=304 and the Save Our Schools march and National Call to Action group at http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org. Please join up with them and fight against the impending “reforms” if you want to follow a yellow-brick road a happy ending.
As you probably know, when the Wizard in the movie is revealed to be just a man and Dorothy chastises for being a very bad man. He corrects her and says “no, I’m a very good man, just a very bad wizard.”
Oh, if only real life were more like the movies! Then I’d truly be able to say “There is no place like home.” I might even click my heels together!
Unlike these days of the Redbox, movies on demand, and downloading flicks instantly to your computer, unless one of the (3) networks decided to broadcast a film, you were out of luck and at the mercy of their schedule to see a movie at home in the comfort of your living room.
In a way, I suppose it made it seem just a little more special. It became a big deal to get out the cokes and the popcorn and cozy up under a blanket in front of the glowing screen when a movie was aired into your living room. It wasn’t everyday. It was a big deal.
And there was NO bigger deal than the annual showing of “The Wizard of Oz.” I think everyone of my vintage fondly remembers this yearly event: partly because the story had everything- from frightening flying monkeys to apple-throwing trees to terrifying twisters to witches (good & bad) to a wizard to munchkins; and partly because IF you had a color TV then when Dorothy’s house crashed down on the Witch, she opens the door to a wondrous and multi-colored world. I’m telling you- THAT, was SOMETHING!
Of course you know the story, “everyone” does. It’s how Dorothy (played by a tightly bound-in-gingham Judy Garland) in a concussive dream visits the land of Oz and meets up with a Scarecrow that needs brains and a Tinman that needs a heart and a Lion in dire need of some gumption and they skip off down a yellow-brick road to find the Wizard, perform some Wizard-appointed tasks, and return to claim their promised rewards from him, only to find out that the Wizard is not really a wizard, but instead a humbug- simply a Midwestern man pulling levers and throwing projections on a screen. Then in the end, the curtain is pulled back on the so-called Wizard and the truth is brought to light and everyone sees that they’ve had everything they’ve needed all along. What a WONDERFUL story!
Ah memories. I have to note that in the years before my family had a color TV, I remember being especially excited one year when taken in by the claims of the advertising, I danced around and announced “THIS YEAR it’s going to be IN COLOR!” only to be told lovingly by “Mr. Know-it-all” (aka my brother) that it didn’t matter what the commercials said- “We don’t have a color TV, you idiot.”
So yeah, I was kind of a stupid little kid. It took me years to catch on to the double casting of the characters of the Wicked Witch, the Wizard, the Lion, the Tinman, and the Scarecrow with their Kansas counterparts. I’d like to think however, that as an adult, I’ve got a few more brains.
And if you’re wondering what my little trip down the yellow-brick memory lane is about, It’s that it’s starting to appear to me that my Governor and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction here in Indiana are either glad or banking on that I am (and YOU are) still that ignorant kid who wouldn’t dare look behind a curtain to expose their lack of wizardry.
Today I went to my state’s education website to read about the new teacher evaluation rubric my Governor and State Superintendent want Indiana school boards to implement and read the following:
"Too often it’s not a lack of money or resources that keeps individuals, states and nations from achieving their goals—it’s a lack of courage. ( bolding is mine) This is the moment for Indiana to emerge as a national leader for innovative and aggressive education initiatives that put student success first. We cannot afford to keep doing what we've been doing. We must truly hold the best interest of students at heart, and we must not fail to act now."
I read those words and I’m suddenly angrier than Dorothy when the Wicked Witch takes Toto from her. If ONLY I had a bucket of water to melt the subject of my ire!
This man (Dr. Bennett) is throwing levers and projecting voices and hiding behind a curtain pretending to be a great wizard and helping the students in my state but really sending us all on wild goose chases trying to prove our worth, just as Dorothy and her friends were sent to fetch a broomstick.
Maybe you don’t see why this seemingly innocuous, supposedly inspiring passage about courage would set me off. Those of you that know me or have read this blog before will know it’s because I feel there is a different intent behind Dr. Bennett’s words. I feel that while putting in, once again, a “small” dig at the “inadequacy” of the state’s teachers, he’s trying to rally people around the implementation of proposed house and senate bills that he’s pretending will be the solutions to what he says are Indiana’s educational woes. He’s pulling levers and using his microphone diligently and furiously trying to influence public opinion to get his “reform” legislation passed. He’s trying very hard to control to obfuscate the public with erroneous propaganda, just like the Wizard in the beloved movie was trying to do to Dorothy and her friends to hide the fact that he didn’t really have the answers.
In so many words on the IDOE post, Dr. Bennett is citing that teacher resistance to his reforms are due not just to our lack of brains and heart, but also to cowardice. We educators are afraid of change. We’re cowardly. First, No heart, No brains, and NOW- No courage. Wow. That feels like quite a slam to me. Like a pelting of apples raining down on me and my colleagues.
If you follow Dr. Bennett and Mr. Daniels agendas, just like their compatriots in other states across the country, you might see that they have either insinuated or downright stated that many of us working in the PUBLIC schools are rotten- apples and incompetent. Never mind that his very own chart lists the top 10 schools in Indiana as “ISTA” schools and of the bottom 10, only ONE is.
Bennett and Daniel’s plans to remedy the supposedly dire situation is by weeding educators out- using take-over tactics with no respect to the staff or the real issues behind any failures of schools. What they really want is control so that they can more easily balance the state budget. They want to do this with no respect to the effects it will have on Indiana’s students. Under the guise of “putting students first” they plan to unleash more charter schools and implement a merit pay system with merit being based on the evaluation rubric http://www.doe.in.gov/puttingstudentsfirst/ (or one similar) that I went to look up, ignoring all unbiased research on the connection between teacher experience and education on student achievement. They plan to reduce collective bargaining rights to such innocuousness that they might as well not even exist even while the top ten schools in the state ARE what they term ISTA (Indiana State Teacher Association) schools. They to use PUBLIC education dollars for Vouchers for private interests, never-mind that this sucks away precious resources from PUBLIC schools who accept EVERYONE as surely as a tornado sucks objects up into it’s funnel.
But before you believe their pontifications, please listen to this man - Tony Lux, Superintendent of Merrillville Community School Corporation. In a guest editorial at nwitimes.com, he is standing up and calling the Governor and Tony Bennett- “Snake Oil Salesmen.” For the full text with real facts about the state’s agenda that they are trying to push through with legislation, please go to http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/guest-commentary/article_7e1f20dd-08c6-5755-bb8e-fb030bea8b2b.html?mode=storyHere is a quote from his commentary: “Snake oil salesmen, like the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City, don't want anyone looking behind the curtain to see their illusion. They also want to be out of town before the pubic realizes the illusion.”
Hmm. See how the theme of the Wizard of Oz is coming through here? And if you still don’t see it, let’s look behind that curtain a little bit. Here is a comment that was left on Mr. Lux’s commentary by a poster named Rat Region 11: said on: February 1, 2011, 6:38 am
“Heres a little data for everyone that was provided by the IDOE.
ISTEP
Per the IDOE data, 331 school corporations are listed as taking the ISTEP last year. Of the 331, 284 are Traditional Public schools and 45 are Charter Schools, 2 are State Run Schools.
Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 70% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 5 or 11.1% of total
Traditional Public: 138 or 48.6% of total
Schools Scoring 69% to 51% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 15 or 33.3% of total
Traditional Public: 139 or 48.9% of total
Schools Scoring Less Than 50% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 25 or 55.6% of total
Traditional Public: 7 or 2.5% of total
The numbers don’t lie. 97.5% of all Traditional Public School Corporations are scoring above a 50% Pass Rate compared to 44.4% of Charter Schools. If we need more Charter Schools to boost our scores and the education of our children shouldn’t these numbers be reversed.
End of Course Assessments
Algebra
Per the IDOE data, 1011 schools took the ECA for Algebra 1. Of the 1011, 981 were Traditional Public Schools and 30 were Charter Schools
The State Average for the ECA for Algebra 1 was 61%
Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 60%
Charter Schools: 5 or 16.7% of total
Traditional Public: 602 or 61.4% of total
Schools Scoring Less Than 60% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 19 or 63.3% of total
Traditional Public: 363 or 37.0% of total
Schools With No Scoring Due to Not Meeting Minimum Number of Participation
Charter Schools: 6 or 20.0% of total
Traditional Public: 16 or 1.6% of total
By this data for Algebra 1, you can see that the Charter Schools have in essence actually brought down the State average for the ECA in Algebra 1. I also looked at those schools scoring greater than or equal to 90% since the state likes to through that number around. Here are the results:
Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 90%
Charter Schools: 1 or 3.3% of total
Traditional Public: 252 or 25.7% of total
Looks like yet again the numbers show that our Indiana Traditional Public schools, as a whole, are far out-performing our Charter School counterparts.”
Hmm. Isn’t this a horse of a different color than what Mr. Bennett and Mr. Daniels seem to be riding? Hmm. Do I see someone pulling back the curtains and opening the door to a more beautiful and multi-colored educational world?
Some other entities who are daring to look behind the curtain are the Indiana State Teacher’s Association http://www.ista-in.org/dynamic.aspx?id=304 and the Save Our Schools march and National Call to Action group at http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org. Please join up with them and fight against the impending “reforms” if you want to follow a yellow-brick road a happy ending.
As you probably know, when the Wizard in the movie is revealed to be just a man and Dorothy chastises for being a very bad man. He corrects her and says “no, I’m a very good man, just a very bad wizard.”
Oh, if only real life were more like the movies! Then I’d truly be able to say “There is no place like home.” I might even click my heels together!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
A Sunday in the Life of a Teacher
Let me tell you about my day. It's a Sunday. First I got up and answered WORK emails. Then I got dressed and I went to church to see my grandson "star" as a shepherd in the postponed Christmas pageant (The church had a fire over Christmas time.) Then I took my mother, my daughter in law, and my grandson out to lunch. (My son was ill with the flu.) While at lunch, I watch "our" five year old practice letters on the placemat. I worried (as I always worry now) that his knowing all his ABC's and being able to count to 25 and write his first name just won't be enough when he enters Kindergarten this Fall. He's right on target (perhaps even a shade advanced) developmentally, but you know- these days in Kindergarten "we" don't hold much truck with developmental appropriateness. That's not enough. That won't keep us up with Korea or China.
After we left the restaurant, I went to a local store to pick up some yarn, 4 packages of noodles and some masking tape. I paid with my own money, even while these supplies were not for me. When I came home, I mixed several concoctions of isopropyl alcohol and food coloring in large cups and then put the noodles in the cups to dye the noodles. I now have 4 freezer bags full of yellow, blue, green, and red noodles. I also have yellow, blue, green, and orange stained fingers now. These noodles will be used to string "Nine Noodle Necklaces" in honor of "N" week in a pre-school that I'm working in.
Between batches of noodles, I taped masking tape onto the ends of 25 yarn pieces I had cut so that little fingers could "thread" the noodles to make their necklaces. I also reviewed the story "Too Much Noise" by Ann McGovern. I've chosen that book to do on "N" week because obviously Noise starts with the letter "N" but also because it has great participatory opportunities and because it has some repetitive phrasing. This is important because the reason I'm working in this pre-school in the first place is because I'm teaching a little 4 year old to use an eye gaze communication system as well as voice out-put switches. I need the repetive phrases to allow her a way to take part. I'm trying to get her ready for Kindergarten. Keeping her communicating and involved and included with the "typical" peers in the classroom will make or break her future. I take my work with her (and the other students I case-manage) very seriously. I'm teaching her and I'm teaching her peers and I'm teaching her teachers. And just as I fear with my grandson, I fear what I'm doing no matter how far "we" get will not be enough.
Next up in my "leisurely" Sunday, I answered some more WORK emails while I was watching "Men in Black" re-run on TV. I also worked a bit on making some contacts with fellow bloggers regarding education issues currently at hand in our country.
Following the defeat of the evil aliens by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, I then entered information into our state's IEP program in preparation for a conference tomorrow afternoon. I did some student updates while I was logged in.
At 5:30 I stopped for a dinner break. (In case you are interested, I had a whole wheat tortilla filled with avocado, onion, and lettuce.) Following dinner I did an hour's worth of exercising on the wii fit system that my family gave me for Christmas. (If you are interested, I am a "fantastic runner" and a "little unbalanced." But, I do have a perfect bmi.)
After this, I worked on a report for a student that I evaluated.
Now, I'm done for the day. And I decided to post this blog. And the REASON I bored you all with the accounting of my day is to illustrate why I'm angry. Why I'm frustrated. And also why I'm incensed on this quiet Sunday.
I'm angry, frustrated and incensed at how very little respect my profession is being given by the "powers that be" these days. I've worked over 50% of my day (on my day off) as I often do, and yet "they" not only take this all for granted, "they" throw a veil of disdain right over the top of it. Never mind research. Nevermind the protests of education heavyweights such as Diane Ravitch. Nevermind that none of the "reforms" they are suggesting have ever worked before in any scalable way. Nevermind all that! "THEY" know best.
"They" know that charters and vouchers will solve the issue of "failing" schools. "They" know that firing teachers and school staff will get rid of the "losers." "They" know that following a business model of competition will bolster the strength of our schools. "They" know that merit pay based on growth models and test scores will get better teachers in the field and retain them.
I'd say "they" know all this. I'd go so far to say that "they" know it in their hearts, except for at this point I do not believe they have any hearts. Or brains for that matter.
I'm sorry for my attitude, but it's how I feel. I feel that Arne Duncan and Barak Obama are letting our children down and actually using them to bond bi-partisanly with business interests. I feel that my Governor and his Superintendent of Public Instruction are trying to destroy my state's educational system. I feel like nothing I say or any of my colleagues say matters one whit to them. I feel like even my Union is not standing up strongly enough against all this. I'm feeling more than I ever have in my entire life, the urge to retire.
It makes me sad, because I've loved this field and this career. I love children. But I am starting to feel like I won't be able to make a living at it anymore and moreover I'm starting to feel like with all the "hoops" of alleged accountability taking up my time, that not only am I always working on Sundays (and Saturdays) to keep up, that I'm beating my head against the wall. I'm starting to wonder how on earth anyone with a family still at home (My children are grown up) can possibly even get their work done without it all spilling into family time. I'm starting to believe that "they" don't care about any families or any children at all.
I feel sometimes on these lonely Sundays that I walk all alone.
I'm starting to wonder if there's any hope at all for our nation's education system. And thankfully, I do see a glimmer of hope on the horizon. I'd like to tell you about it. It's a grassroots uprising of sorts. It's called "Save Our Schools" and it's organizing what is being called the "Save our Schools march and National Call to Action." I encourage you to go to the website www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and read about it and volunteer your own blood, sweat, tears, time, and even money towards this cause of saving our PUBLIC schools. There are some wonderful and heavy-hitting people there helping and hoping to lead the way out of this terrible quagmire that I feel we are in. They are organizing a march in Washington D.C. this coming July 30th.
And so on this lonely, working Sunday I'm thinking "maybe there is hope? Maybe all together we can walk to make a difference!" Please join with us!
Again the website is - www.saveourschoolsmarch.org
After we left the restaurant, I went to a local store to pick up some yarn, 4 packages of noodles and some masking tape. I paid with my own money, even while these supplies were not for me. When I came home, I mixed several concoctions of isopropyl alcohol and food coloring in large cups and then put the noodles in the cups to dye the noodles. I now have 4 freezer bags full of yellow, blue, green, and red noodles. I also have yellow, blue, green, and orange stained fingers now. These noodles will be used to string "Nine Noodle Necklaces" in honor of "N" week in a pre-school that I'm working in.
Between batches of noodles, I taped masking tape onto the ends of 25 yarn pieces I had cut so that little fingers could "thread" the noodles to make their necklaces. I also reviewed the story "Too Much Noise" by Ann McGovern. I've chosen that book to do on "N" week because obviously Noise starts with the letter "N" but also because it has great participatory opportunities and because it has some repetitive phrasing. This is important because the reason I'm working in this pre-school in the first place is because I'm teaching a little 4 year old to use an eye gaze communication system as well as voice out-put switches. I need the repetive phrases to allow her a way to take part. I'm trying to get her ready for Kindergarten. Keeping her communicating and involved and included with the "typical" peers in the classroom will make or break her future. I take my work with her (and the other students I case-manage) very seriously. I'm teaching her and I'm teaching her peers and I'm teaching her teachers. And just as I fear with my grandson, I fear what I'm doing no matter how far "we" get will not be enough.
Next up in my "leisurely" Sunday, I answered some more WORK emails while I was watching "Men in Black" re-run on TV. I also worked a bit on making some contacts with fellow bloggers regarding education issues currently at hand in our country.
Following the defeat of the evil aliens by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, I then entered information into our state's IEP program in preparation for a conference tomorrow afternoon. I did some student updates while I was logged in.
At 5:30 I stopped for a dinner break. (In case you are interested, I had a whole wheat tortilla filled with avocado, onion, and lettuce.) Following dinner I did an hour's worth of exercising on the wii fit system that my family gave me for Christmas. (If you are interested, I am a "fantastic runner" and a "little unbalanced." But, I do have a perfect bmi.)
After this, I worked on a report for a student that I evaluated.
Now, I'm done for the day. And I decided to post this blog. And the REASON I bored you all with the accounting of my day is to illustrate why I'm angry. Why I'm frustrated. And also why I'm incensed on this quiet Sunday.
I'm angry, frustrated and incensed at how very little respect my profession is being given by the "powers that be" these days. I've worked over 50% of my day (on my day off) as I often do, and yet "they" not only take this all for granted, "they" throw a veil of disdain right over the top of it. Never mind research. Nevermind the protests of education heavyweights such as Diane Ravitch. Nevermind that none of the "reforms" they are suggesting have ever worked before in any scalable way. Nevermind all that! "THEY" know best.
"They" know that charters and vouchers will solve the issue of "failing" schools. "They" know that firing teachers and school staff will get rid of the "losers." "They" know that following a business model of competition will bolster the strength of our schools. "They" know that merit pay based on growth models and test scores will get better teachers in the field and retain them.
I'd say "they" know all this. I'd go so far to say that "they" know it in their hearts, except for at this point I do not believe they have any hearts. Or brains for that matter.
I'm sorry for my attitude, but it's how I feel. I feel that Arne Duncan and Barak Obama are letting our children down and actually using them to bond bi-partisanly with business interests. I feel that my Governor and his Superintendent of Public Instruction are trying to destroy my state's educational system. I feel like nothing I say or any of my colleagues say matters one whit to them. I feel like even my Union is not standing up strongly enough against all this. I'm feeling more than I ever have in my entire life, the urge to retire.
It makes me sad, because I've loved this field and this career. I love children. But I am starting to feel like I won't be able to make a living at it anymore and moreover I'm starting to feel like with all the "hoops" of alleged accountability taking up my time, that not only am I always working on Sundays (and Saturdays) to keep up, that I'm beating my head against the wall. I'm starting to wonder how on earth anyone with a family still at home (My children are grown up) can possibly even get their work done without it all spilling into family time. I'm starting to believe that "they" don't care about any families or any children at all.
I feel sometimes on these lonely Sundays that I walk all alone.
I'm starting to wonder if there's any hope at all for our nation's education system. And thankfully, I do see a glimmer of hope on the horizon. I'd like to tell you about it. It's a grassroots uprising of sorts. It's called "Save Our Schools" and it's organizing what is being called the "Save our Schools march and National Call to Action." I encourage you to go to the website www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and read about it and volunteer your own blood, sweat, tears, time, and even money towards this cause of saving our PUBLIC schools. There are some wonderful and heavy-hitting people there helping and hoping to lead the way out of this terrible quagmire that I feel we are in. They are organizing a march in Washington D.C. this coming July 30th.
And so on this lonely, working Sunday I'm thinking "maybe there is hope? Maybe all together we can walk to make a difference!" Please join with us!
Again the website is - www.saveourschoolsmarch.org
Thursday, November 18, 2010
I AM NOT A STEPFORD TEACHER!
This is a letter to the editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. I just finished penning it and submitting it. I'm well aware that it will be considered too long for publication but what I'm hoping is that at the very least it will provide the editor with another side of the story and will perhaps cause him or her to seek out other opinions from other teachers. I really felt that the Journal Gazette article almost inferred that by the end of our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Bennett's talk and the discussion at Waynedale Elementary School in Fort Wayne that he'd pacified us all into being "Stepford Teachers." I just wanted to say "NOT SO!"
First, this is the article: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20101118/LOCAL04/311189984
Here is my letter:
Dear Editor,
I would like to thank the Journal Gazette for covering State Superintendent Tony Bennett’s visit to Waynedale Elementary School. I appreciated that the article indicated that the “air” was tense and that the teachers present were leery of Dr. Bennett and his initiatives. However, I was dismayed to see that the close of the article seemed to infer that the teachers who were present were pacified after listening to Dr. Bennett. There was even a quote from a woman who stated she didn’t believe Dr. Bennett was “the bogeyman” anymore.
I can assure you that none of the other five teachers who were with me were, or are, pacified. I can assure you that all of us remain committed to opposing Dr. Bennett’s plan to sanction more charter schools, his plan to have teacher salaries based on a merit system, and for that merit system to be based primarily on student evaluations. We oppose Mitch Daniel’s plans to do away with collective bargaining and seniority rights. I do not believe that we were (or are) in the minority of those teachers who attended the Waynedale talk or in the minority amongst our colleagues who were not in attendance.
To start, we oppose charter schools because only 1 in 5 in the nation has been proven to be effective and those that are effective have had huge infusions of private capital and support, they usually only have to serve a “motivated” constituency, and they have not had to “play” by the same rules as “regular” public schools. But most importantly, we oppose them because they siphon off money from an increasingly limited pool of funds for the public schools leaving schools that are already in trouble in more of a lurch.
In a study of successful charter schools, the things that have been identified as making them successful were parent participation/interest, adequate resources, the number of motivated students enrolled, TIME in school for students and collaborative educational teams that have TIME to collaborate. All these things could already happen and often do already happen in the public schools with the teachers we have, if our educational leadership and our legislature would provide for those things to happen.
Substantiating my belief that I am not alone amongst my colleagues in my opinions on this is that a woman at Wednesday’s event got the ONLY spontaneous and resounding applause of the day for challenging Dr. Bennett about his interest in charter schools.
Secondly, we oppose merit pay. We oppose this because despite what Dr. Bennett presented on Wednesday, he still could not indicate any real definitive and fair plans to administrate such a system. He indicated that it hadn’t all been worked out and that much of it would be up to local control (except for the achievement pay factor ) and we wonder how subjective that’s going to be without the teachers having any input into the evaluation system.
Dr. Bennett spoke a good deal about how the growth model evaluations would make this type of teacher evaluation fair, yet he still has no plan in place for how he would evaluate special class (art, music, p.e. etc.) teachers or K-2 teachers (whose students are not tested) or special education teachers. When asked about special education teachers, Dr. Bennett again pointed to the growth model and he thought that these could show progress fairly and be a fair representation of a special education teacher’s effectiveness. All this, while the Economic Policy Institute (orginated by 7 prominent professional educators and associations) has issued a policy statement and petition to OPPOSE heavy reliance on test scores for teacher evaluation. The petition specifically cites that there are specific dangers in using value added or growth models to evaluate teachers.
We oppose our evaluations being based on student achievement because it would cause teacher’s rankings to be based on the particular population of students in their classrooms. What teacher is going to want to have student’s with special needs or behavioral problems or even special circumstances (such as a family going through a divorce or a death) in his or her classroom? Can we expect those children to make the predicted growth or even comparative growth against their cohorts?
We oppose eliminating collective bargaining rights and seniority based pay systems. There is much information to be found about these subjects in the media, however I will cite a Washington Post Answer sheet indicating that 9 of the 10 of the highest achieving states for highest average student rankings on the NAEP are Unionized states. Perhaps that’s a coincidence but I don’t believe so. As for a continual claim that union- backed tenure prevents bad teachers from being fired, I will answer that tenure is ONLY a guarantee of due process awarded to teachers after an initial period of employment and all it really means is that teachers cannot be fired for arbitrary reasons. A school can get rid of ANY teacher it wants to at ANY point IF they follow due process procedures.
Speaking to Dr. Bennett’s promotion of the Growth model we cite an article by Kevin Welner, (Associate Professor of education policy and director of the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado) for the American Association of School Administrators entitled “The Overselling of Growth Modeling.” In it he lists 5 limitations to growth models especially when they are used for cohort comparisons such as Dr. Bennett’s presentation indicated that Indiana’s growth model system of evaluation would do. The five limitations cited are 1. If used for cohort-comparisons, they cannot provide a true measure of individual growth. 2. Growth expectations can be just as unrealistic as the current AYP expectations. 3. Mobility of students, multiple teachers per student each year and untested subjects all introduce further confusion into the model, and there is no perfect way to adjust. 4. Any growth must be based on assumptions about the ongoing effects of a given teacher in subsequent years and about the ability of a prior year’s score to fully adjust for student, family and community resources as well as school and classroom resources. (Simply put- this is saying that you can’t determine what the outside factors or reason might be for a student’s growth or achievement or lack there-of.) 5. The switch from a proficiency-threshold system to a growth model would not address core concerns about test-based accountability, such as narrowed curriculum, teaching to the test, measurement error and reliance on one type of assessment rather than multiple factors.
To sum up, while the growth model might be better than the current AYP system of judging schools and or educators, we simply do not feel that this will be the panacea that Dr. Bennett is suggesting it will be and we certainly do not agree with him that it should have any place in the evaluation of teachers and or principals.
Dr. Bennett encouraged those of us who questioned and challenged him that instead of fighting him we should instead join with him in improving the educational system in Indiana. He indicated that if we had better ideas or plans, should have (or should) let him know of them. My answer to that is “That’s a nice sentiment, Mr. Bennett, but it’s a little late in coming especially after you shut the ISTA out of any opportunity for meaningful input into your plans when you submitted your unsuccessful Race to the Top plans and there is no confidence on my part, based on your past performance, that my opinions or those of my colleagues would have any impact on your agendas.”
At the beginning of Dr. Bennett’s talk on Wednesday he posed the question to us “Why would I want to destroy the public schools as so many of you think I do?” He said he was a father of kids who went to public schools and he indicated he would not want to leave that kind of legacy behind him. There was a ready answer in my head as to why Dr. Bennett might want to destroy public schools and that is that he would do it for political gain, his own and for Mitch Daniel’s.
Sincerely,
Cindi Pastore
Note: I am a special education teacher for the Adams Wells Specials Services Cooperative of Adams and Wells Counties.
(Also incidentally, while I did not include this in my already lengthy letter, I was sitting in the front row and I could swear that I heard Dr. Bennett to say “Many of you have came today…” rather than the correct “Many of you came…” or “Many of you have come..” That may sound trivial but wow, he’s our state superintendent of schools. Perhaps I heard wrong but if you would happen to have a recording of the event, I’d sure like to listen for that. )
Perhaps i should have added- "I AM NOT A STEPFORD TEACHER!"
First, this is the article: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20101118/LOCAL04/311189984
Here is my letter:
Dear Editor,
I would like to thank the Journal Gazette for covering State Superintendent Tony Bennett’s visit to Waynedale Elementary School. I appreciated that the article indicated that the “air” was tense and that the teachers present were leery of Dr. Bennett and his initiatives. However, I was dismayed to see that the close of the article seemed to infer that the teachers who were present were pacified after listening to Dr. Bennett. There was even a quote from a woman who stated she didn’t believe Dr. Bennett was “the bogeyman” anymore.
I can assure you that none of the other five teachers who were with me were, or are, pacified. I can assure you that all of us remain committed to opposing Dr. Bennett’s plan to sanction more charter schools, his plan to have teacher salaries based on a merit system, and for that merit system to be based primarily on student evaluations. We oppose Mitch Daniel’s plans to do away with collective bargaining and seniority rights. I do not believe that we were (or are) in the minority of those teachers who attended the Waynedale talk or in the minority amongst our colleagues who were not in attendance.
To start, we oppose charter schools because only 1 in 5 in the nation has been proven to be effective and those that are effective have had huge infusions of private capital and support, they usually only have to serve a “motivated” constituency, and they have not had to “play” by the same rules as “regular” public schools. But most importantly, we oppose them because they siphon off money from an increasingly limited pool of funds for the public schools leaving schools that are already in trouble in more of a lurch.
In a study of successful charter schools, the things that have been identified as making them successful were parent participation/interest, adequate resources, the number of motivated students enrolled, TIME in school for students and collaborative educational teams that have TIME to collaborate. All these things could already happen and often do already happen in the public schools with the teachers we have, if our educational leadership and our legislature would provide for those things to happen.
Substantiating my belief that I am not alone amongst my colleagues in my opinions on this is that a woman at Wednesday’s event got the ONLY spontaneous and resounding applause of the day for challenging Dr. Bennett about his interest in charter schools.
Secondly, we oppose merit pay. We oppose this because despite what Dr. Bennett presented on Wednesday, he still could not indicate any real definitive and fair plans to administrate such a system. He indicated that it hadn’t all been worked out and that much of it would be up to local control (except for the achievement pay factor ) and we wonder how subjective that’s going to be without the teachers having any input into the evaluation system.
Dr. Bennett spoke a good deal about how the growth model evaluations would make this type of teacher evaluation fair, yet he still has no plan in place for how he would evaluate special class (art, music, p.e. etc.) teachers or K-2 teachers (whose students are not tested) or special education teachers. When asked about special education teachers, Dr. Bennett again pointed to the growth model and he thought that these could show progress fairly and be a fair representation of a special education teacher’s effectiveness. All this, while the Economic Policy Institute (orginated by 7 prominent professional educators and associations) has issued a policy statement and petition to OPPOSE heavy reliance on test scores for teacher evaluation. The petition specifically cites that there are specific dangers in using value added or growth models to evaluate teachers.
We oppose our evaluations being based on student achievement because it would cause teacher’s rankings to be based on the particular population of students in their classrooms. What teacher is going to want to have student’s with special needs or behavioral problems or even special circumstances (such as a family going through a divorce or a death) in his or her classroom? Can we expect those children to make the predicted growth or even comparative growth against their cohorts?
We oppose eliminating collective bargaining rights and seniority based pay systems. There is much information to be found about these subjects in the media, however I will cite a Washington Post Answer sheet indicating that 9 of the 10 of the highest achieving states for highest average student rankings on the NAEP are Unionized states. Perhaps that’s a coincidence but I don’t believe so. As for a continual claim that union- backed tenure prevents bad teachers from being fired, I will answer that tenure is ONLY a guarantee of due process awarded to teachers after an initial period of employment and all it really means is that teachers cannot be fired for arbitrary reasons. A school can get rid of ANY teacher it wants to at ANY point IF they follow due process procedures.
Speaking to Dr. Bennett’s promotion of the Growth model we cite an article by Kevin Welner, (Associate Professor of education policy and director of the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado) for the American Association of School Administrators entitled “The Overselling of Growth Modeling.” In it he lists 5 limitations to growth models especially when they are used for cohort comparisons such as Dr. Bennett’s presentation indicated that Indiana’s growth model system of evaluation would do. The five limitations cited are 1. If used for cohort-comparisons, they cannot provide a true measure of individual growth. 2. Growth expectations can be just as unrealistic as the current AYP expectations. 3. Mobility of students, multiple teachers per student each year and untested subjects all introduce further confusion into the model, and there is no perfect way to adjust. 4. Any growth must be based on assumptions about the ongoing effects of a given teacher in subsequent years and about the ability of a prior year’s score to fully adjust for student, family and community resources as well as school and classroom resources. (Simply put- this is saying that you can’t determine what the outside factors or reason might be for a student’s growth or achievement or lack there-of.) 5. The switch from a proficiency-threshold system to a growth model would not address core concerns about test-based accountability, such as narrowed curriculum, teaching to the test, measurement error and reliance on one type of assessment rather than multiple factors.
To sum up, while the growth model might be better than the current AYP system of judging schools and or educators, we simply do not feel that this will be the panacea that Dr. Bennett is suggesting it will be and we certainly do not agree with him that it should have any place in the evaluation of teachers and or principals.
Dr. Bennett encouraged those of us who questioned and challenged him that instead of fighting him we should instead join with him in improving the educational system in Indiana. He indicated that if we had better ideas or plans, should have (or should) let him know of them. My answer to that is “That’s a nice sentiment, Mr. Bennett, but it’s a little late in coming especially after you shut the ISTA out of any opportunity for meaningful input into your plans when you submitted your unsuccessful Race to the Top plans and there is no confidence on my part, based on your past performance, that my opinions or those of my colleagues would have any impact on your agendas.”
At the beginning of Dr. Bennett’s talk on Wednesday he posed the question to us “Why would I want to destroy the public schools as so many of you think I do?” He said he was a father of kids who went to public schools and he indicated he would not want to leave that kind of legacy behind him. There was a ready answer in my head as to why Dr. Bennett might want to destroy public schools and that is that he would do it for political gain, his own and for Mitch Daniel’s.
Sincerely,
Cindi Pastore
Note: I am a special education teacher for the Adams Wells Specials Services Cooperative of Adams and Wells Counties.
(Also incidentally, while I did not include this in my already lengthy letter, I was sitting in the front row and I could swear that I heard Dr. Bennett to say “Many of you have came today…” rather than the correct “Many of you came…” or “Many of you have come..” That may sound trivial but wow, he’s our state superintendent of schools. Perhaps I heard wrong but if you would happen to have a recording of the event, I’d sure like to listen for that. )
Perhaps i should have added- "I AM NOT A STEPFORD TEACHER!"
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