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A concerned member of the human race

Sunday, November 30, 2014

At the Common Core, One Size Fits All!

one-size-fits-all 450
After Thanksgiving, you might have worried that you ate too much.  Perhaps you needed to loosen your belt a little.  No worry if you shop at the Common Core Store.  One size fits all.  Do you remember the buzzword "Differentiation"?  It applies only to your classroom.  Banish the thought of applying it to common standards, standardized tests or measures of teacher evaluation. 

While capitalists may readily agree that the free market trumps central planning, those who look longingly at the school system with dollar signs in their eyes dare not risk applying that same train of thought to the sphere of education.  With centrally planned common standards coming at us from behind closed doors, one can open the door to mass marketing national textbooks, national review books, national tests and so much else.  Ka-ching!  Ka-ching!  Ka-ching!  

But, wait, there's more...  Imagine a vast database of student information to open cyber doors to meeting the unsolicited "needs" of "failing" students.  Close failing schools (there will be a lot of them, if the test is hard enough); open charters and direct more money to the private sphere.  Why not put some in your pockets, perhaps half a million per year, all in the good name of helping the less fortunate?  Central planning is starting to look way too attractive now!

Forget the joy of letting millions of minds across the country work to meet the needs of their local populations.  When one size fits all, whether following a hefty Thanksgiving dinner or burdensome Common Core, things can be made so much more comfortable...for some.  

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Mr. Wallace, Where Are You Now?



Michelle Rhee has disappeared from the frontlines of educational reform although one still senses her lurking in the wings.  She once spouted praise for a certain Mr. Wallace.   He was the ideal teacher, a marked contrast from those older, tired, cynical, tenured teachers who would deride him at the workplace.  He came in early, worked late and regularly fed students at McDonald's while he coached them in math, all in his spare time and on his meager salary.  Superman!

It is genuinely nice that Mr. Wallace worked so hard and donated so much free time and fries to his students.  Oddly enough, it is much in the same vein as Rhee, herself, who tells of volunteering the time of her aunts, sweatshop-style, to help her prep for math lessons.  But, Mr. Wallace, where are you now?  Are you married with a family?  Can you still afford all the free time and fries at McDonalds?  Has a student keeled over from an allergic reaction or a diabetic seizure?  Have you been brought up on charges of impropriety for meeting with children after school without signed permission slips, albeit less severe than your mentor's self-proclaimed faux pas of taping students' mouths shut?  Are you sitting in one of those nonexistent rubber rooms somewhere?

Mr. Wallace, have you or Mr. Wallet suffered burnout?  Are you still Superman?  Do you love your VAM scores?  Or, have you followed in the footsteps of Rhee?  Have you quit the profession for a higher salary that affords you the opportunity to chastise other teachers for failing to do more with less?  Have you joined the ranks of those in the media who would assault public-school teachers for a living?  Mr. Wallace, if you can hear me, where are you now?

For many years, I, too, Mr. Wallace, put in extra hours at work.  I cannot afford to do so anymore.  Even if I could, teachers are blocked today from coming to work early or staying past school hours unless the proper form is completed and approved.  Teachers cannot be trusted in a quiet building under the pretense of grading a huge pile of papers.  It's a wonder that teachers are even let into schools these days, Mr. Wallace!  Please, Mr. Wallace, if you can hear me, where are you now?  Are you on the inside or out?

Friday, November 28, 2014

On Tragedies and Doors



It would have been hard not to have felt the horror of the 2012 Sandy Hook tragedy.  It was the holiday season.  It was supposed to be the best time of year in young people's lives.  It is supposed to be a time marking a birth, not death.  Hope turned to terror and unutterable tragedy.  Teachers and aides interposed themselves, as if they could block bullets with their bodies.  Empty spaces.  A mother lying in her daughter's bed, feeling the last warmth that her child had left in this world fade.

After the incident, school safety came under close scrutiny.  Schools were pressured to develop policies to give the veneer of security.  Few wanted to come to terms with the fact that Adam Lanza blasted his way into the school through a glass window.  The doors had been locked.  No one wanted to recognize that if this incident could have been prevented, the intervention would have had to take place much earlier.  By the time Lanza approached the school with his mother's rifle, it was pretty much guaranteed people would die.  All he needed was a window.

In the wake of the tragedy, our school developed a new door policy.  Teachers could no longer enter or exit from any side door of the building.  The actions of a single madman had led to the loss of freedom for all.  Given that teachers and aides had sacrificed their lives to try to save the children, I found the policy insulting to those who had sacrificed their lives.  Even if told, teachers could not be trusted to shut the door.  Better to force everyone to leave through the front in a school with thousands.  One more stab at teachers, the scapegoats for so many of society's ills.

Then, came the 2013 tragedy of Avonte Oquendo, the autistic child who was not properly watched.  He ran from the building, never to be seen alive in it again.  His mother had explicitly noted in a letter to a teacher that her son needed to be watched at all times.  But this critical piece of information was not widely shared.  It is a tragedy when you have to learn from a mistake of these proportions.  A door was left open by an anonymous individual, the security guards called out to the mute boy, probably not recognizing his condition.  They stopped short of apprehending him.  Avonte continued to run and, somehow, the unthinkable happened.  He made it to the door and bolted.  Another mother faced a tragedy of unutterable proportions.

Given the horror of these incidents, it is understandable that door policies are once again subject to intense scrutiny.   The City Council passed Avonte's Law unanimously.  The bill paves the way for the D.o.E. and NYPD to install alarms in City elementary and special-education schools as a means to boost security.  

In the wake of the new concerns, it appears, there have been squads of undercover persons sent around the City to try to breach the security of schools.  They didn't need a Bushmaster rifle to make it into our building.  Students and staff were observed exiting from various egresses.  In one case, a kindly staff member politely held the door open, allowing an individual to enter the building.  I don't know much about it, but it wasn't me.

Given the tragedies of Sandy Hook and Avonte, I certainly see the need to protect students.  I do feel though that a simple serious statement of door protocol given to all teachers might ultimately go much farther than forbidding all teachers from using side exits in buildings that do not demand alarms.  Teachers need to be trusted.  They need to be part of the solution, not pegged as part of the problem.  After all, if staff is allowed to exit from the side doors, realizing the importance of locking the doors in their wake, there will be more eyes on the perimeters of our building.  If the staff sees something, they can say something. 

On weekday mornings, I drop my kids off at their school.  It is very early.  I watch some of their teachers arrive to prepare for the day.  These are people whom I trust with my children and I would equally well trust with as simple a task as ensuring that a door shuts in their wake.  They are professionals.  I would wish to be treated in the same manner, but apparently I ask for too much.

I grieve for Avonte.  Yet, even if every door in the building has an alarm, it is a false sense of hope.  There will always be windows for the desperate.  Avonte needed to be better watched.  There was a failure in the communication and carry through on this simple idea.  "When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window" and, so, too, can a student.  Teachers need to be trusted.  Teachers need to be treated as part of the solution, not part of the problem.  This is the basic, underlying flaw of educational "reform" today.

Thursday, November 27, 2014

A Sneak Peek at Walmart's Black Friday Christmas Sales for School Reform

Exclusively at Walmart, Baby Alive can be purchased with school voucher in hand.  Tell the world your doll is no dummy!


Education "reform" may look like a strange new world to you at times, but while you can why not take advantage of Walmart's Christmas Layaway plan?  When you can't afford the simple things in life, don't blame your employer for low wages (and certainly don't blame Walmart!); just layaway as you blame your teachers!

"Find the right doll for your little doll."  Then find the right school for your little doll.  It's as easy as putting a charter school on every corner!

Enjoy Transformers this season, accompanied by a free copy of Ms. Moskowitz's Mission Possible.  Each transformer now has the capability to convert itself into a charter school!


With this Nitron Nerf gun in hand, you will be able to join the media in taking aim at public schools.  Fire away!

In all seriousness, Happy Thanksgiving 2014!


Wednesday, November 26, 2014

On Waiting to Be VAMed Alive in These Migrant Times



According to the N.Y.C. D.o.E, 5,000 of 63,000 migrant kids apprehended in their attempt to cross the border will be released to sponsors in N.Y. state.  The D.o.E. expects to place 2,350 migrant children in City schools.  Many more may be on their way.  The greatest part of that number will land in Queens, N.Y.  Many of these children have escaped dire circumstances in their own countries.  Many of the children will need special services, including free and reduced lunches, English language classes, medical care and counseling.  

I will try to help every child who crosses into my classroom with needs, regardless of any other factors.  Given that Thanksgiving is upon us, it is a reminder of the many things for which we must be thankful and the many ways in which we may be able to help others.  Yet, I sadly know teachers will be asked to do more with less.  I wouldn't mind, only given the current climate of educational reform, by virtue of the fact that I try to help these students overcome obstacles in their young lives, I will be branded as that obstacle.  

I will be held accountable for their test scores, as if that is the best measure of humanity.  I will be branded as a one of many "rotten apples" by the media, VAM, charter advocates, "anti-tenurites" and that whole pack of ed. deformers whose logic is based upon the simple, but mistaken, premise that public-school teachers need to be stripped of the last vestiges of professionalism.  It's strange days, indeed, when you find yourself waiting to be VAMed alive.   So, what will "reformers" be thankful for tomorrow?  If you think they are not thankful for public-school teachers, think again.  They must surely be happy to serve teachers as scapegoats as they carve up public education!  

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Turkey, Stuffing and Uniform Assessments



We are approaching our quarterly exams almost as quickly as we are approaching Thanksgiving.  I am truly thankful for one, even though I, myself, primarily provide the feast, and the other, I tolerate--even though it is handed to me on a platter.

When I reminded students of the dates of their exam, they invariably ask me if I will tell them the essay question in advance.  Since NYS doesn't believe in doing so, I hold the line.  Next, a student asks, "Are you making up the exam?"  Suspicions jumped to the fore.  If I tell him it's uniform, he can easily ask several periods of students (prior to his own) about content.  One year I rearranged question numbers so as to frustrate would-be cheaters.  As it turned out, I seemed to frustrate our department stat man more.   

So, how should I have answered the student's question?  I made my own essay.  I am thankful for that.  I had a voice, along with the rest of my colleagues, in offering suggestions for the multiple choice, but it is not my test.  It's not a bad exam and if I didn't care about trends that force me to relinquish control over my classroom and march along to someone else's tune, I might be happy to be handed a feast of questions on a platter.  Let me just tell the student not to worry about as silly a question as who made the test.   Just study.  Yet, whatever I tell students, the simple fact remains:  I would rather create a meal in my own kitchen and call it my own, be it test questions or turkey, fit to the tastes of my guests or, at the very least, what we have learned in our classroom.  Alas, I will have to wait until Thursday for that.  Pass the stuffing, please, and hopefully the students, too...

Monday, November 24, 2014

I'm Proud to Be a Common-Cored Man (Set to the Tune of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American")




"Proud to Be a Common-Cored Man"
Fondly Dedicated to the Walton Family of Walmart Fame, Proudly Leading the Way in Ed. Reform

If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd studied through the strife,
And I had to start again with just my textbooks and no life.
I'd thank my lucky stars to be testing here today,
‘Cause the Core still brands us as dumb and they won't take that away.

And I'm proud to be a Common-Cored Man despite there's no pay for me.
And I won't forget the men who lied, who sent jobs overseas.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and test prep some more each day.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this Core, God bless the T.F.A.

From the lakes of Minnesota, to the hills of Tennessee,
across the plains of Texas, from sea to shining sea,

From Detroit down to Houston and New York to LA,
Well, there's pride in every Common-Cored Man's Heart,
and it's time to stand and say:

I'm proud to be a Common-Cored Man despite there's no pay for me.
And I won't forget the men who lied, who sent jobs overseas.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and test prep some more each day.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this Core, God bless the T.F.A.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Teaching "Stuff" vs. Teaching Kids



When I first became a teacher, I was pretty young.  I thought it was pretty much all about "the stuff."  "The stuff" was history.  And that stuff seemed to be my calling.  I could feel my ancestors across the pages of history and even when I couldn't find a name or a date or a place, my imagination filled in some of the details.  I love that "stuff."  It surely wasn't all sunshine (people were expulsed, banned and such), but it's the reason I'm here today.  History and how our ancestors coped with it, or forged it ahead, is the reason we're all here today.  History is more than the famous battles of kings.  It's more than the struggles of the common people.  To me, it's everything under the sun (that has been done), all that is human, including music, art, technology and ideas. One day, it will become what we are living today.  Time marches on.

It wasn't long after I started teaching that it struck me that one of the reasons why I love history so much is because it is all about people.  I love the kids in front of me.  Occasionally, someone makes trouble, but thankfully not in a malicious way.  One of two things usually happens.  Either another kid says something to the instigator or we all share in a harmless laugh, aimed at no one.  I have been very lucky in my career.  The kids are alright.  And, given I grew up with two older brothers with the best sense of humor, I may be better equipped than most to handle some situations.  

Now, although I know as much and probably more about history than ever (I say this even as I continue to learn and grow), and I teach it with all the vigor I had when I first set foot in the classroom, it is more about the kids.  I will hold the kids up to the standards of the Regents, as it is in their best interests to graduate.  Yet, I am under no false impression that all of that information will be retained for life or that it will be of much use to them in the wider world.  

I think the people who promote the Core Tests fail to realize the most important and underlying purposes of education, purposes which will ultimately elude measures of standardized testing.  They have shifted the balance to make education exclusively about "rigorous" material and punitive tests.  They will beat down students.  They will turn students away from school.  They will brand a generation as failures.  They will pull the threads from the fabric of society.  

So, "the stuff" is there, I teach it, but it is not my bottom line.  Hopefully, I will teach students how to think, not what to think.  Hopefully, I will teach them how to question, not just how to answer multiple choice.  Hopefully, some of my God-given optimism will be contagious.  Hopefully, students will feel comfortable in my classroom.  Hopefully, they will make new friends.  Hopefully, we will find some humor along the way.  Hopefully, together we will build a community.  Hopefully, some of that will follow them into the wider world long after many of the facts have faded from their memory. The older I get, the more I am sure we must teach kids more so than teach "stuff"--no matter what any reformer or his high-stakes test would tell us.  

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Shall the Common Core Forge the New World Order?


The Common Core sometimes strikes me as a twenty-first century Cultural Revolution.  I don't mean that in any positive sense.  It sweeps in like a tsunami and takes out everything in its way.  It seems to be a Kulturkampf with the potential to enrich some.




Out with the old and in with the new may be advantageous when a Communist state wishes to foist a new-world order on people or when a Capitalist system wishes to generate profits by foisting a must-sell product upon the market, but it won't do for education and its underlying foundations of diverse communities with different traditions.  

Friday, November 21, 2014

Will MATH x 4 Equal a Happy, Healthy Kid in Our House?

The Only Math "Sine" Allowed In My Daughter's Room!
My oldest daughter was asked to join an after-school fourth-grade Math Olympiad team this year.  I was a little surprised, remembering that her love of reading is equaled only by her mistrust of math.  

She didn't want to go.  Once again, the eternal tug of war between parent and child.  It won't be a high-pressured test with an overwhelming number of problems to be completed in an insufficient amount of time.  They'll be questions that require creativity and original thought.  Imagine puzzles in a world with no outside pressure!  Try it--at least once.  We agreed.

The morning of the Math Olympiad meeting, my daughter woke up claiming that it was the second night in a row she had suffered through a testing-based math nightmare.  It did not bode well.  So, when I arrived home in the late afternoon, I was eager to hear how things went.  The house was quiet, save for two dogs.  The family had been shuffled off to an after-school activity.  I mounted the steps.  I couldn't have missed the note.  It was there waiting for me, on the banister where one might naturally grasp to prevent a fall.  It wasn't pretty.  Dare I say, it was downright ugly?

It read as follows--

"I HATE math olimpiad.  my room is now a math free zone.  no more: 

  • Talk of math
  • math probloms
  • math sines
  • not even the word math
Do You Need To See It To Believe It?
Amid the general air of confusion, I guessed she meant math signs (for multiplication, division and such), not sines.  After all, she's only a fourth grader...

Had I done something wrong?  Was it all the stress and tension built into prepping for high-stakes, Common-Core aligned standardized tests--even though we had opted her out?  Somewhere along the line, something went mathematically wrong for this kid.  Who is to say if the Common-Core math prep had increased the probabilities?  Whereas the reading took off and she steadily devours book after book after book, doubling the size of my childhood library, the math fizzled.  Oddly enough, her youngest sister loves math.  And for that reason alone, nothing more, she has been banished twice from her older sister's room for spouting something mathematical. I know not what.

When my oldest arrived home, I confessed that I had found her note and read her most private thoughts.  She admitted, "No, Mom, I put it there so you would find it."  She showed me her page of math problems.  We even discussed the last problem.*  They are clearly meant to boggle the mind of a fourth grader.  They came with suggested time limits per problem--which the school generously overlooked, allowing students to work on the page of problems in any order for the hour while gently helping to guide them.  It looked like fun to me, but then I hadn't entered the room with mathophobia.  

I agreed to let her bow out gracefully with the caveat that I will continue to beg for a few minutes every Sunday to show her some cool mathematical concept (like the perimeters of tall vs. long rectangles with equal areas the other week).   I will not force her to take on extra math given her sentiments.  There would be no surer way to ruin the possibility that she and math might one day be reunited on more amicable terms.  I want her to like math.  She will find it in so many ways in her future: music, computers, economics, science, etc.   Let me end by saying, despite the disinterest now, I'm pretty sure there'll come a time when she discovers that she is better at math than she thinks.  And she may even see some beauty in it.

*For any interested, here is the last problem on her math page:

MATH x 4=HTAM (hint, if you don't have a math teacher or a mother to call: try to solve M first.  When it came to A and T, trial and error worked for me, but--just for reassurance--I also called Mom).

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Selections from the Scantron of Omar Khayyam



A Book of Barron's atop of your Desk
Sips of Kool Aid, some Merit Pay--and Thou
Beside me prepping in the Bleak Classroom--
Oh, Bleak Classroom were Paradise enow!

The Moving Scantron grades; and, when graded,
Moves on:  nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel any score,
Nor all your Tears erase a single Test.

Prep!  for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Prep! for you know not why you go, nor where.

When the Doctors Won't Take Their Own Medicine


If Common-Core tests are truly the measure of college and career readiness, don't you wonder how many current ed. "reformers" could actually meet their own standards without going into prepping overdrive?  If they believe so strongly in the stuff, shouldn't they be on the front lines, with their families, sacrificing themselves, so to speak, to science?  Why don't we ask the "reformers" and their kids some of the obtuse questions of their own making, and force them to work from review books and sit through endless hours of test prep.  When 65-70% of them fail by their own standards, see how long it will be before ed. reform withers in their eyes? 

"Reformers" push this stuff, but only upon other people.  Some profit from it...but only at the cost of other people's misery.  They largely shield their children in private schools.  Test the "reformers" and those who work for them.  Test their children.  Ask them a Sasquatch question or two; then, see how much they like it and whether or not they put their Big Foot in their mouth!  Is it too radical to suggest that reforms should also apply to those who make them?

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

When Class Size is Allowed to Go Through the Roof

No Longer With a Circular 6 Assignment, the Rabbit Need Not Scurry So Fast--While Alice Looks On...
A Queens arbitrator recently ruled against high schools with classes in excess of thirty-four students.  One would naturally assume that given the ruling class sizes would be reduced as speedily as possible.  One might guess the problem would not recur.  It seems, however, that instead of prioritizing the reduction in class size, the parties involved agreed to allow teachers of over-sized classes to bow out of their Circular 6 assignments (hall duties, club sponsorship, tutoring, grant-writing, etc).  Some teachers are satisfied with the remedy.  Granted that reducing class size is difficult (it would be easier to prevent the growth of an over-sized class), I object in principle to the remedy.

Imagine if I were a parent.   Would I want my kid in a class with forty students--even if the teacher has an extra free period every day to grade two more papers?  Probably not.  How much attention will my child receive during his forty minute period?  Will there even be a minute per child?  Will there be enough seats for all the students?  Will everyone's voice be heard?

Suppose I was a new teacher, I might not mind the additional students; but then again, I might.  Would I tell anyone?  Without tenure, I would have to suck it up, lest I lose my job.  Can you imagine life in a world without tenure?  It rots for teachers.  It rots for students.  If I have fifteen extra students in three classes, shouldn't I receive more remuneration than the teacher with one extra student in one class?  How fair is this system to anyone?  The more teachers who teach over-sized classes, the fewer teachers are needed.  Someone has lost a job.  When teachers lose their Circular 6 assignments, the remainder of the teaching body may be asked to take up the slack or the whole school may suffer.  There is a potential for far more stress in the system.  

Has a dangerous precedent been set?  Will the class sizes ever be reduced?  Are we reneging on our basic rights and the quality education we owe our students?  Will schools have any incentive to downsize classes in the future if the worst punishment for violations is a few teachers lose their C6 and can no longer tutor students or perform other professional activities?  Is there any hope that class sizes will be reduced further in the future when they are creeping up in violation of current agreements?  Who are the real losers?  Will more over-sized classes be coming at us all down the road?  Where is our sense that education is for the students and students deserve individual attention?  These decisions are not in the best interest of students and, ultimately, I feel they will not be in the best interest of teachers.    

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

On Studying for the Wrong Test?



Some of the high profile Success Academies seem to shine with their Common-Core aligned test scores.  And on barely more than that, and ne'er an in-depth inquiry into attrition or the lack of space for the students with the greatest language or special needs, some would steamroll over the truly public schools.  But what do you say when your students fail to make the grade for entrance into any one of the elite NYC public high schools last Spring?

Perhaps you gloss over it.  Perhaps you hope no one finds out.  Perhaps you charge foul play.  Perhaps you contemplate buying a bus to Albany.   Perhaps you wonder if the students have succumbed to public schoolitis.  Perhaps you wonder if your teachers have become rotten apples.  Perhaps you wonder whether a former NYC public-school teacher managed to sneak into your barrel and spoil it for you?  Should your schools now be shuttered?

If truth be told, it's as simple as this:  Your students prepped in overdrive for another test, the high stakes one critical to your survival and the proliferation of your species.  Their gains are not reflected in other measures or, for that matter, probably much in life.  You prepped your students to near perfection on a test that matters to you, not the one that might matter to only them.  

Monday, November 17, 2014

The Ed. Deform Game


Based on Dominic Behan's "The Patriot Game" and presented with sincere apologies to Old Ireland and the Original Lyrics of this song... 

Come all ye young teachers, and list while I sing,
For the love of one's test scores is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And it makes us all part of the Ed. Deform game.

My name is Yo Teacher, and I'm just very green.
My home is in N-Y-C, and where I was weaned
I learned all my life cruel Tenure to blame,
So now I am part of the Ed. Deform game.


It's nearly two years since I wandered away
With the local battalion of the bold T-F-A,
For I read of our heroes, and wanted the same
To play out my part in the Ed. Deform game.

This System of ours has too long been half free.
Some students fail under public school tyranny.
So I gave up my teaching to prep and to train
To play my own part in the Ed. Deform game.

They told me how ATRs were daft in the head,
Their lack of teaching has too long been fed.
Their weak thoughts so twisted, all scattered and lame
They soon made me part of the Ed. Deform game.

And now as I lie here, my brain is all holes 
I think of those teachers who bargained and sold
And I wish that the VAM scores had given the same
To those Quislings who sold out the Ed. Deform game.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

If You're "Mad About Music," You Might Be Madder About Ed. Reform!


Have you ever met a kid who disliked music?  I don't mean one song or another, one artist or another, one genre or another.  I mean Music, with a capital "m," the kind kids learn in school.

I was pleased to spend five and a half extra-curricular hours yesterday watching kids revel in music, including my oldest.  I witnessed my daughter learn how to communicate via African drums.  Ever since she was about five and nearly gave Santa Claus a heart attack by asking for bongo drums at the very last moment, I knew that she had an interest in drums.  And, despite the fact that Mom was holding three bags and two coats, Mom had the luck to be handed a drum.  How fast do you think Mom dropped those coats and bags?

Then, I got to watch my daughter learn a Bollywood dance.  I kept thinking it looked a little difficult.  When kids were invited to bring their parents to join, my daughter, of course, dragged me across the room.  So, I did a fine mixture of Bolly and bungle.



  

Then, of course, there was the highlight.  The kids had been rehearsing original songs.  Now, they got the opportunity to put it together for a grand finale with two hundred and ninety more kids.  Where music and words meet, I'm pretty sure there's something that transcends this earth.  Music soars and takes the soul with it.  And, little kids can sound like angels, especially when they've been practicing hard!

So, when I feel the testing-based culture eating at the heart of the arts or even trying to find statistical measures to quantify the arts and measure its teachers as well as its students, I am naturally horrified.  Let little kids sing.  Let little kids experience that joy.  And let them do it for the pure fun of it.

What could some of these current-day reformers have lacked in their own educations that so warps their world?  What could they have lacked that causes them to fail so miserably in understanding humanity and its humanities, to close down the arts in some schools and put up impediments in others?  Surely if these reformers are not tone deaf, they are deaf to something else, the pleas of kids, parents, educators and so much of that which makes us human.  

Saturday, November 15, 2014

On Aging Gracefully in an Era of Ed. Deform



I would like to think that teachers in their golden years could enjoy some of their best lessons ever.  They have all the knowledge and experience gained with time.  They have insights others may lack.  They can see a little further ahead on the horizon.  They have put the many roles of teacher into perspective as their canvas nears completion.

In this new era of ed. deform, have you noticed it becomes increasingly difficult to age gracefully?  Perhaps with the advantage of a double mirror, you've spied a target upon your back.  War may be waged against older teachers.  They are expensive to hire, especially if schools must individually pay their salaries from their limited budgets.  No wonder so many older NYC teachers opted to retire given the incentives of last June.  If they had waited much longer, given the battles waged against tenure, the sunset might have ridden off without them.  

Danielson provides ample ground for labeling anyone as ineffective.    Perhaps the older teacher lacks the highly-effective vigor of a twenty-year old.  Perhaps they no longer manage to stand on their feet six hours a day.  Perhaps they no longer can stay to coach activities until 7 p.m.  Perhaps they served their time doing all these activities once, but that time counts for nothing now.  It is long forgotten.  Every year you must start from scratch.

Perhaps they are not afraid to speak their mind.  Perhaps they question current educational policies.  Perhaps they are a thorn in someone's conscience.  Perhaps they remember a time before the new policies came down the line, when teachers were treated as true professionals.  In this new and exciting era of ed. deform, one can never be sure where one will be tomorrow, multiply this many times over if you have the particular fortune to land a gig as an ATR.  It may be goodbye and good riddance to your less than pliable body and spirit.  If you do get the adieu, it's pretty safe to bet there will be no golden watch for you in your golden years.  

Friday, November 14, 2014

Should Definitions of "Success" Include Separate Schools for Rejects?



It has been my impression that some of the high profile charter schools dump students who don't "make the grade."  They are forced back into the truly public-school system.  Now, we learn that at least one public school has been practicing the same in the name of creating its own "Success"--at the expense of some of its students.

It seems that "Successful" schools do not so much have a solution to help those who need the most help as a strategy to show them the door.  I may be wrong and, if I am, I would really like to know.  What accounts for the high attrition at these schools, paving the way for "perfect" graduation rates?  Do they merely shift the problem to the shoulders of other schools?  Do they further segregate society?  Should we set up a School of Rejects?

The City's "School Renewal" Plan is keen to focus attention in the right direction, albeit without any reduction in class size.  Many are skeptical of the plan and, indeed, skepticism these days seems merited.  Yet, I am hoping instead of shifting the students who need the most serious help, we can start directly addressing their needs.  Leaving aside students who pose the risk of injury to others and students who risk being injured by others, in my mind, there do not seem to be a great many reasons for moving students.  

Common sense tells me helping the students most in need of help will be no easy task.  Common sense tells me that it will require caring people with the ability to give much one-on-one attention, perhaps, in some cases a personal mentor or trainer.  Common sense tells me no single approach will work for all students.  Common sense tells me that the Common Core will fall far short of meeting these people's needs.  Common sense tells me that shifting a problem is not solving it.  Most simply put, common sense tells me we need a better definition of "Success."

Thursday, November 13, 2014

On Searching for One Correct Answer, Common-Core Style: Election Day 2014



Two Tuesdays back, we went off to vote.  Much has changed in voter technology over the last decade.  We no longer have the booth with levers and curtains.  I suppose the technology represents an upgrade, but I can't be sure.

We were given large ballots.  Now, instead of flicking levers, we must bubble in answers--like on any old standardized test.  We chose our answers at tables, providing only a minimal degree of privacy.  If anyone cared to employ espionage to determine my picks, it wouldn't have been difficult.  In fact, my seven-year old enjoyed a high degree of success; let us call that degree post graduate.  

We carried the ballot, cleverly concealed within a folder, to the scan machine.  I felt like a teacher getting ready to grade a class.   The scan machine as well offered only a minimal degree of security.  My scan was readily vaporized.  I saw others shamefully spit back at the would-be voters.

Voting has become testing.  You might say there are no correct answers, but not all agree.  After visiting with Daddy, my seven-year old returned to my side, ready to engage in de facto cheating.  She dropped a none-to-subtle hint.  Pointing at one of my bubbles, she said, "Mom, I think you have the wrong answer for that one."  She has effectively learned that in the world of high-stakes, Common-Core bubbling, there can be only one correct answer.  In the same vein, the Common Core has been bubbled in for us all and citizens cannot exercise their right to an eraser.  

Was There Really Life Before Tests?

As test-based accountability expands, the development of creative thought, individual initiative and well-rounded individuals declines.  

What kinds of minds are we raising?  People must bubble all the right answers at any cost-or click it, lest they be labeled by reformers who have no compunction about branding a generation of children (minus their own) as failures.  

What kind of people do the reformers want?  Since they are self-declared reformers, entirely pleased with their brainy ideas, they would like nothing better than a cadre of administrators who follow orders unquestioningly. Successful teachers will test prep to the tune of their dictates with all the loyalty of an automaton.  

Teachers cannot be trusted to craft their own lessons, or so says "Success." Teachers can hardly be trusted to craft their own tests any more.  What if their questions don't mimic closely enough those of the almighty testing gods.  Teachers cannot be trusted to score their own students.  Administrators must echo this tune.  To act differently would show too much independence of thought and we, of course, can't have that in academia.  Students' and teachers' lives must be circumscribed by test and test prep.  Was there really life before high-stakes tests?

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Are Returns Accepted at the Common-Core Store?


Have you shopped for kid's toys recently?  It may not be so very different, in some ways, than shopping for kid's curricula or schools.  Last weekend, I found myself in a toy shop in search of that elusive gift for an eight-year-old birthday boy.  When you specialize in little girls, this task takes on monumental proportions.  They no longer make the toys with which your brothers played forty and fifty years back.  Then, you see a glow-hockey box and you begin to glow.  

Too cool to believe!  Flashbacks of a table-sized Air Hockey game, much thanks owed to Santa in December of '79.  It warmed your house in those weeks leading up to the amazing Lake Placid games of February 1980.  You remember the Miracle on Air Hockey.

I pulled the hockey game from the shelf, examined it from all sides and leaned towards the register.  Then, I heard that little voice in my ear:  "If it's too good to be true, it probably is."  I pulled out my phone and Googled the reviews.  

Some liked the toy, but there seemed to be a dominant thread of thought running through several reviews.  It went something like this:  "Spent 35 mins trying to install batteries.. Screws stripped.. Finally got installed and attempted to play.. Not enough air power, discs wouldn't go from one end of court to the other.. neon effects ok.. but not worth the money in long run."

So, it seems the product has obvious flaws from the viewpoint of some concerned and coherent consumers.  What a let down!  An ice rink has melted before your eyes.  It is only one in a string of product reviews which you have found wholly unsettling in your career as part-time Santa Claus.  With patented technology and trademarks to support these products, they still sit on store shelves, ready to fool even Santa Claus himself.  Kind of like the Common Core with its copyright and all?

Businessmen can design a product that sounds super.  It might be a common curriculum, and it might be packaged right with a lot of advertising, but the real test comes in consumer satisfaction.  If it's minimal and you keep pushing your product, helping to overcome its shortcomings with gigantic grants to make some people's heads spin, then it's a pretty sad commentary on the mentality of the business world.  It reflects an inability or unwillingness to listen to consumers and a degree of desperation to buy a market.  It may be a new form of educational imperialism.  Pull out all the money from underneath the Core.  You will find it is no magic carpet.

And, yes, charters get some mighty fine reviews and I am sure that good things happen in many charter classrooms.  But how many reviews have you read from the disappointed parents and students who have been shunned, overly suspended and then counseled to leave by third grade?  I, for one, would like to know the truth behind the attrition rates at charter schools.  Do most students leave amicably after changing residence, as the charters would have us believe, or is something far more pernicious happening?  Let me see the reviews of those who quietly disappear from the class registers.  Let me see how many stars on average they give KIPP or Success or the Harlem Children's Zone.  I fear their worst policies have now rubbed off on schools like Boys and Girls.  I am afraid we are working with new and demented formulas for achieving Success.  

6 of 6 people found the following review of this charter school helpful

The Common Core may sound great to those who profit by it, send their kids to private schools or have no young children, but in most other people's world, it flops.  Perhaps the people who love the Core are like the people who pick a toy off a shelf, hear about the child's delight after unwrapping it, perhaps even see it, and assume five stars.  But they don't stick around long enough to have much first-hand experience with the product.  They never hear about the motor breaking after an hour of use--or some other malfunction. 

"Gave this to my nephew for his 5th Birthday on 8/9 and just found out from my brother-in-law that the game was great but after about an hour of play the motor burned out. Can a replacement be sent??"

I don't expect a refund on the Core and I definitely don't want a replacement.  I don't even want a rewrite if it means one curriculum imposed upon all nationwide--even if teachers can have their hand in creating the product and now share in the blame.  How about just a return?  You can even keep any and all store credits!