Car Decals for the Common-Core World

Editorial Note:  Kudos to NYSUT President Magee for calling upon parents to opt out of this insane test-based system the other day!  But if you should choose to disregard that option and you are in the market...

Looking for family decals for the back of your car, but just can't seem to find any that really represent the interface between your family and current educational reform?  Have no fear.  Here are samples to fit your needs, no matter what side of the educational testway you drive.

Are you and your family among the chosen few, college-and-career ready, or do you work for Pearson?  Do you support high-stakes testing, ed.-reform style, yet send your kids to test-free private institutes?  Choose items like the one below to display your pride, decal-style, as you drive by in the fast lane.

Has the current educational reform left your family feeling deflated?  Dad doesn't know what to do.  Mom throws her hands up in disgust.  Your daughter is subject to crying fits while your son suffered an exam two hours prior to surgery for catastrophic brain trauma.  Fido does his best to hold the family together despite the fact that he's been playing dead more than usual.  While your engine is on idle, pick up a decal like the one below.  Let the world know you are not, nor will you ever be, college-or-career ready!

Stealing the Impossible?: On the Near-Media Silence on Saturday's Rally

Zephyr Teachout at the Rally

A certain Educator from NYC pointed out to me the other day that there was next-to-no news coverage of the March 28th protest to protect our public schools (the exception being news at Common Dreams and CBS Local).  Although the relative silence is unnerving, given the media biases throughout the Bloomberg years, one is hardly surprised.  Not only does Success buy a lot of advertising time (thanks to the generous donations of sponsors largely unlike us), they seem to get much more for free.

Let us look back at the coverage of the "dueling rallies" on March 4th in Albany.  Eva carted her students there and conducted the rally during class time, something which could never happen with our more than a million district children.  Her sea of red shirts captured the attention of the media.

On the Day of the Dueling Rallies, the NY Post clearly favored the Success Academy students.  The Post reinforced this fact with editorials.  To top it off, the Post exclusively used images of Success Academy kids.  

Both the NY Times and the NY Daily News referred to the dueling March 4th rallies.  Both news sources balanced the viewpoints from both sides, but both, again, relied solely upon the red images of Success.  

In "A Charter School Rally Duels With Teachers' Unions in Albany," the Times chose to use the image below.  In its defense, it noted that "The far flashier of the dueling demonstrations was the charter event, held in a park just outside the Capitol, where video screens and banks of speakers created a rock-concert atmosphere, despite gray skies and thousands of out-of-school children milling on snow-covered lawns."  The Success kids even danced in their red shirts.    


The Daily News featured a story on the March 4th rally entitled "City charter kids, teachers union participate in dueling education rallies at Capitol."  The News included two pictures of the Success Academy rally, one of Ashanti performing before a sea of red and another picture of a few kids in red holding up a sign.  They could just have easily balanced their reporting by showing a public-school defender holding up his or her sign.  They did not.

When push comes to shove with the presentation of public schools in the media, one is far more likely to find a story on one aberrant teacher than a story on thousands of people holding signs and chanting to defend the interests of public-school children.  In this spirit, the media turned a near-deaf ear to the March 28th protest.

I once asked my union rep. if he might not ask the next up the line to see if public-school teachers might designate one color citywide on one day of the protest week, March 9-13.  I told him it would be much more powerful than having each school designate differing colors on different days.  

He checked up the line.  He reported back to me that he was told each school is free to choose its own color--as if it were a good thing.  This seemed to me to be a cop out on a grand scale at a time when we are fighting for our very existence.  Although I would never want to force anyone to wear a shirt of one specific color, there is great power in encouraging thousands of concerned members to voluntarily act as one.  It would make our presence seem vast and strong, and only at the cost of our choice of wardrobe for a day.  Yet, our Union seemed unwilling to do so.  Someone lacks imagination.

Imagine more than a million kids and teachers all on the same page.  Do you think for one moment our million District kids cannot dance or sing?  Our best could show Eva's best a thing or two.  When you have a million, despite underfunding, talent not only shines, it blazes.  What if we put all our kids in shirts of the same color?  Do you think for one moment it wouldn't overwhelm her puny sea of red?  "Success" then might be counted as no more than a drop in the bucket.  Might it not be harder for the media and our opponents to look the other way then?

The March 28th Big-Apple Rally to Protect Our Public Schools

From my perspective, it was a fine day in the Big Apple.  With snow falling round us "like angels in flight," teachers, students, parents, administrators, religious leaders and other community activists, union reps and some elected representatives turned out to protest Cuomo's bizarre plans to rip the heart out of public education.  Cars and big trucks honked with thumbs up, as they passed.

It was hard to get a lot of pictures (but others did) because I held my own oak tag, 

but from where I stood, I saw and heard many great sentiments.  Et tu, Cuomo!

Will There Be a Class-Action Suit Someday Against Those Who Would Destroy Classrooms Full of Children?

Watch Out for the Brick Wall of Testing Ahead!

What is the cost of all this ed. "reform."  I'm not talking about currently quantifiable costs--like the generous contracts awarded to Pearson despite its flawed exams ($33 million in N.Y. last year and $108 million in N.J.).

I am talking about the cost in terms of human life, specifically children.  They are repeatedly branded as failures, high-stakes-testing style.  They are told their teachers and their schools are failing.  

The teachers and schools must teach to flawed tests.  Children lose their love of learning.  How much harm has already been done to young people?  How much more harm is in store before sanity returns?  What are the long-term costs of all this harm?  Does anyone even care to make some calculations?  

Once childhood is gone, it is gone.  You cannot get it back again.  The effects of childhood are lasting on an individual.  If we brand 65%-70% of our children as failures how could it not come back to haunt us?  If school becomes a source of dread for our children, how can they succeed in life?  If good teachers turn away with disgust from the profession, who will teach our children?

Our innocent children have become the pawns of Privatizers.  Will there be any legal redress if the effects are irreversible?  Can we have a class-action suit for those who would with so much carelessness or hubris destroy our classrooms and all the children in them?

Creating Creativity Amid a World of Standardized Tests

I tried a new assignment this year.  I asked all of my students to create works of original art based on some form of Asian art.  First question up to bat: "Can I do Japanese - style anime?" 

The answer:  I don't see why not.   You can use art from any part of Asia, from any time period, only do not copy and avoid pornography or disturbing images at all costs (after all, do we really want to be on the front page of the Daily News?).  And, briefly explain your choice.

I received a variety of styles.  It was great fun.  In my early days, I use to happily roam the halls of the Met, my home away from home.  Now, I can bid some art come to me.  

As expected, I received many lovely landscapes.  

Many pictures included Chinese and Japanese characters, a few, Arabic script.  

I received some three-dimensional art, including several Japanese cranes, referencing Sadako. 

As I examined the artwork, I learned a few things.  I received a beautiful medicine ball made as origami.  My student provided me with a detailed explanation.  What creativity!  What color!

We held an art competition.  I asked each of my five classes to choose their overall favorites.   Then, each class voted on their two favorites from all of my classes.   Here are the two runners up.  

Second Runner Up

First Runner Up,  As Voted by the Students. 

The winners received some extra credit and art supplies (the sort mothers with creative children seek to keep around their house) to encourage their talents.   Note:  the art supplies were not purchased through teacher's choice.  Sometimes (in fact, many times), teachers do good deeds just because they can.  It's one of my favorite fringe benefits of teaching.   "Random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty" beat standardized testing any day!

Although we only chose several winners, I witnessed in this assignment what I already knew.  Many students have artistic skills which far surpass my own.  

Too bad standardized test makers don't count that type of talent worth much.  If they did, it might turn their world upside down.   Dare I say, they might feel like a fish out of water? 



A good many of standardized test makers who lack imagination might discover that they are only successful when they alone define success.   But what do you do in life when most questions have more than one correct answer?

Our First Place Winner!

The Myth of Failing Schools and Success Academies

Ny.chalkbeat.org recently posted a piece entitled "In interview Eva Moskowitz addresses backfill and test prep critiques."  Moskowitz described backfill, the policy of schools filling vacated seats with new students, as a "long, complicated debate."  She apparently now backfills her schools through the 4th grade. 

In my opinion, backfill is not a "long, complicated debate."  Although it seems a responsibility of public schools, short, simple and sweet, backfill is a threat to Eva's Success.  If new students were accepted in her schools, they would pull down her already "weeded" and highly-prepped population.  In Eva's words, "We have an obligation to the parents in middle and high school, and the kids in middle and high school, that until the district schools are able to do a better job, it's not really fair for the seventh grader or high school student to have to be educated with a child who's reading at a second or third grade level."

In my mind, if you "counsel out" sub-par students, you could "do a better job."  And, if you hesitate to take on new students, including those who have arrived from the far reaches of the earth, speaking, perhaps, very limited English, "it's not really fair."  And when the Success of her kids prepped in overdrive for the State tests can't even transer over into a single passing grade on the test for elite City public high schools, it really says a lot about her definition of "Success."

Blogger with Doggers...and Once a Cat!

 

You might imagine that I comfortably settle down to ed. blogging after the children are in bed.  True.  You might think the house is relatively quiet then.  Here, you are wrong.  As I type, I am often in the violent throes of tug of war with a spry pup named Midnight, Middy, for short, formerly of North Shore Animal League.  When his elderly and gigantic cousin, boarding in our house and heart for two years, is too tired to play, I serve as a close second.  

And just to prove to you memories never die, twenty-one years ago to this day, March 26th, I adopted my first pet from North Shore Animal League, a cat named Chelsea ("Woke up, it was a Chelsea Morning and the first thing that I heard...").  In memory of that day and that cat, here is a poem written for her many years ago by my father.  

Rockwell Revisited: The Evolution of Ed. Deform

With the right diet before baby, you will soon be able to squarely look him in his little round face and let him know if he is truly college-and-career ready.

But just remember, if you don't manipulate those cut scores more, the endangered species now known as college-and-career ready kids may soon become extinct!

Your Breath Stinks, Your Body Smells...and Now Your Teachers and Schools Have Made You Stupid: Advertising and the World of Privatizing Education

It's a simple trick of advertising, dating back to Odo-Ro-No!  If you want people to buy your product, generate a crisis.  Play up personal anxieties.  If you sell body deodorant, you might want to develop an "Armhole Odor Test."  Good luck with this test.  Your dog may love your smell, but it is no longer acceptable to humans.  Now, the world around you reeks of bad odors!  Let the crusade begin!  Purchase some spiffy Odo-Ro-No and do your part to save humanity--from itself!

“you, yourself, rarely know when you have it. And even your closest friends won’t tell you.”

Is it any different with ed. "reform"?  Advertisers rely upon the same principles.  Were you just fine a few years back?  Now, do you fail tests uncontrollably?  Do your teachers fail to prep you to perfection?  Do your schools deserve to be closed?  

Whereas the role of teacher has been to provide manifold ways for students to rise and shine, the role of ed. "reformer" is largely to beat people to a pulp through standardized tests, engineered specifically for that result, and then to promise a solution via avenues profitable to only themselves.  

Don't worry.  There are simple solutions for you.  You can buy any one of a number of products, including new and improved tests to assess your children at younger ages.  Don't let your brain rot.  Fire your tenured teachers.  There are now Success Academies.  The brand name says it all.  Just buy into it*!  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$...

*satisfaction far from guaranteed!

What Do You Say When a Student Asks, "Why We Gotta Learn This?"

"In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I am the very model of a modern Major-General."

It doesn't happen as much as you might think, but occasionally some kid asks, "So, why do we have to learn this?"  I don't mind the question.  Sometimes, I wonder the very same thing myself.

Come May when teachers are asked to commence their month-and-a-half long trudge through Regents test prep, it is clear to me that my students must learn certain things for the sake of the test.  The Regents have deemed some material noteworthy and other material less so.  Sometimes, I don't understand why students need to know one thing and not the other.  If there is a logic to it, it eludes me.

Instead of saying they need to know it for the Regents, I would prefer to tell students we are learning because

1.  it is current events.  
2.  it relates to current events.
3.  it is a foundation for the principles that guide us today.
4.  we can learn from past mistakes.
5.  you need to know how to evaluate information to understand biases, including your own.
6.  we need to consider other options people had at points in time.
7.  we need to be well-rounded individuals.
8.  we need to learn how to listen to other people.
9.  we need to learn how to voice our views and offer constructive criticism.
10.  we need to appreciate differences. 

But tests don't really care for much of that.  Given the current climate and for the sake of honesty, let them know they must learn stuff to pass a test designed to fail the majority.  They'll need to learn this stuff to graduate, protect the jobs of their teachers and save our school from closing!  Then, they can quickly forget it.  They will have little, if any, use for it in the future.  

So, tell them not to feel too pressured, but gently remind them if they don't bake their brains, we'll all be sitting on the street in cardboard boxes!

What Is the Most Important Takeaway from an Education?

"Strength doesn't lie in numbers" because sometimes the numbers lie, especially if they're from standardized tests with predetermined cut scores.

Some would argue the most important takeaway from an education is the ability to perform well on standardized tests.  I would argue it is not.

I would argue standardized tests fail to accurately assess students.  I would argue they are overly narrow in their recognition of multiple forms of intelligence.  I would argue the tests not only have inherent biases, they often fail to understand how different minds work.  They certainly fail to capture the budding imagination of young minds.

Despite Rhee, Duncan and the like who argue we over-coddle our kids, I would argue the most important thing a person can take away from school is self-esteem, a sense of self worth and confidence, a faith in oneself built on hard work and accomplishments, not necessarily upon studying for standardized tests or taking after-school classes to ace them.

Exit the human teacher.  He or she is no longer trusted to assess the multiple forms of intelligence witnessed in the classroom.  Enter the standardized test, elevated on the pedestal of educational deformity.  Given the increasing emphasis on tests, it is less possible these days to give students projects which allow them to shine in diverse ways.  Much is lost in preparation for tests, preparation that will ultimately prove pretty meaningless for most in life.  

In a better world, some students would shine through working on a project to help the community.  Others would gain self confidence through debating.  Some would exhibit talents through writing creative stories, others through the spoken word.  Some would gain self esteem through their musical ability.  Some would shine in a production, on a team, as an editor of a newspaper or a leader of student government.

Yes, students must also master basic skills and content knowledge.  This is where Common Core tests fail.  They hold students to a level of proficiency which the test creators themselves most likely would have failed at a young age.  

These tests beat down students in their earliest years.  They teach students--who each develop at different rates--that they are failures in life.  They kill self-esteem before some students have ever had a chance to build it.  They turn students away from learning.  They turn students away from trying.  And this is why the tests themselves fail.

So, we would do best to teach students to find their their strengths and grow at their own speeds.  We must build their confidence in themselves, not in test makers or their politically engineered, profit-generating exams.  If we don't help build the confidence of the next generation and give them opportunities through which they can work to succeed in life, our world will fast become a far worse place.  So, as you can see, "I have confidence in confidence alone!"


  

When You Pick a Cuomo Pic

A Postcard from El U.F.T.

Some anti-Cuomo sites tend to choose some pretty frightening pictures of the Governor to highlight their concerns.

Doubtless, all of us have suffered through some pretty unpleasant photo shoots in our time.  The Governor cannot be alone in this.  Think of past experiences at the Department of Motor Vehicles and try to show some mercy!

No matter how strongly you disagree with someone's ideas, try, if at all possible, to find a flattering picture.  I always do!

Some Students Respond to Cuomo

Given our fourth marking period was incredibly short and we had time for only one test, I presented my students with an extra-credit option.  I asked them to consider Cuomo's plans for education.  I placed pamphlet facts from the Cuomo camp side by side with facts from the U.F.T.  I asked the students to undertake research to write a paper expressing their own views on Cuomo's plans.  They were free to agree with some points and disagree with others or completely take one side.

Although a few students were convinced by Cuomo, particularly with the hopes of lower taxes, overwhelmingly, students objected to testing and its uses.  They realized that a student's performance on one day is a poor indicator of a student's abilities overall.  They realized that adding weight to tests in teacher evaluations only adds more prep to an already stressed system.

Here are some quotes I pulled from their papers:

"Governor Cuomo wants more Common Core.  ...I am so against it.  The tests are so stressful on the students and teachers.  It's not just about a test.  There is more to learning about the world."  --a 10th grade, resource-room student

"...what hope has the teacher of the class of delinquents?" --another 10th grader

"We should be safe in schools and feel like we belonged [sic] instead of being sorted and ranked by test scores."  --yet another 10th grader

"This is NONSENSE!  Now you wanna out rule all those grades with just one test!"  -- a 9th grader

Here's my favorite:

"To me, the person in charge of cleaning the floors in the school, has a more secure job than a young teacher out of college."  --a very wise 10th grader, wise beyond his years!

Bring Your Dog to Work Day

On February 8th of this year, my girls first inquired about the date for Bring Your Kids to Work Day 2015.  Mark April 23rd on your calendar.  Label it creative disruption of the most beautiful kind.  It promises to bring out the best in everyone.

My dogs haven't inquired yet, but there is, indeed, a "Take Your Dog to Work Day," June 26, 2015.  My working breed dogs, with all the best qualities of Shepherds, Labradors and Retrievers, would naturally wish to assist me at work.  For this reason alone, I'm sure they'd better stay at home, no matter what the day.



If I ask them to fetch homework, it is entirely possible they might eat it in the most proverbial sense.  I occasionally ask my overzealous Sheprador pup if he's seen my missing pencil.  He's too busy chomping to answer.


My dogs might corral students into the room for me.  It'd be a good thing 'til they make a dive for the ankles.

They'd be sniffing students' backpacks all day.  A few late afternoon snacks might go missing.  In the worst case scenario, they'd make a citizen's arrest either in the building or on its perimeters.

The cafeteria would love them as they keep coming back for more--until there is no more.

And, if Cuomo's "outside observers" or some ed. "reformer" came to my door, I just hate to think what might happen.  The imagination could run wild!

On Patrolling Group Work

We sometimes ask our students to work in groups.  According to Danielson and all who follow in her footsteps, in the best of all possible worlds, students should generate their own ideas.  Of course, any seasoned teacher knows the risks of putting students together even with the most wonderful of tasks set before them.  So many students are social creatures.  In particular, I can affirm that teenagers will want to be teenagers.  And, most people who were teenagers will understand this.  Thus, the job of the teacher during group work is not so much that of a facilitator as that of a cop.  

As a teacher, it probably doesn't surprise you that I often wander up and down the aisles of my classroom looking over the shoulders of my students to check out their answers.  Oddly enough, it often surprises my students.  There are those who see you coming.  Some of them have not been doing their work.  Danieson be damned.  Asking students to self-direct their work doesn't always work when you're dealing with social beings.  As you approach, a student usually clears her voice and raises it to say, "And, as I was saying."  But, you know, what she was saying, she will very well not repeat.  And she knows you know.  So, all you can do is smile at one other.

Then, there are those good kids.  They have been faithfully completing your task.  They are engulfed in the middle of it.  They are fully absorbed.  As a teacher, you feel it your responsibility to interrupt.  You must raise a point.  You do so above the shoulder of a student.  It is then that you first realize that the student had absolutely no idea that you have been standing there for half a minute.  She receives the fright of her life.  And, you feel mildly guilty after recovering from seeing her bounce a good half foot up from her seat.  You have been doing your job and so has she.  This is group work at its best!

A Homework Assignment Which May Not Be Common-Core Aligned

My youngest daughter came home with an assignment last week.  It asked her to work with an adult and switch places.  She had to name five things she would do if she were an adult.

Here is what she said (without any corrections):

First I would got the Doctor's ofice if I was having a baby.

Second I would go home and feed my baby.

Third, I would take my baby to the zoo.

Fourth, I would then give my child a Hug.

Fifth, I would my child a kiss say farwell.

Then, I had to write what I would do if I was a child again.  I included everything from asking for a play date with my three children, on the condition that their dogs do not bite me, to asking Mom for a banjolele.  None of my points and none of my daughter's points had anything to do with aligning ourselves for college or career.  

As my daughter grows older, she will realize the importance of earning money to support a family, and she will acquire the necessary skills, possibly without ever knowing it, but I hope she never forgets that college and career readiness are means to another end.  For some of us, life is primarily about caring for those you love.  College and career are something to do on the way to that.   I hope my daughter will always value creating a safe and nurturing environment for others.  This is something ed. "reformers" seem to feel is unneccesary.  

How Does One Really Become "Career Ready"?

In the U.S., success in life, as defined by the majority, doesn't always correlate to academic success.  If you are not top of the line, you can readily compensate.  All you need is connections.  Then, even if you have few credentials, you can quickly climb the ladder. 

The Common Core claims to make kids college and career ready.  In this day and age, if we truly wish to make our students career ready, yes, let them pass tests, but let them know their scores will soon be buried by time.  It is more about the people you know, the acquaintances you cultivate, the connections you make. 

You cannot, of course, succeed by total ineptitude.  In most cases, you will need to meet some basic level of competency.  There is only so much anyone can shield a person from his own incompetence--unless his employer is his mother or he is an ed "reformer."

So, as you prep along the road of life, remember for ultimate success, the business world works largely upon favors granted and favors returned.  So, "sell" yourself, hopefully not in the worst sense, and cultivate friends.  If you want to be "career ready," put down that #2 pencil and align yourself before it is too late. 

When "Reformers" Think With Their Pocketbooks

They say most new teachers don't last five years.  They say most old teachers are waiting to retire.  Many pulled out last June.  A mid-career teacher once told me she had it the worst.  She was too far in to get out and retirement too far away--given all the changes to her profession.  She was trapped.   

What does this say about the future of teaching?  There may be ed. companies who will step in, happily thrust the remaining humans aside and move their technologies center stage.  These people know little to nothing about education.  They think with their pocketbooks.

There may be people who would glady replace experienced teachers by a cheaper, pensionless, rotating bottom.  There may be people who think any teacher can succeed if fed a strict diet of scripts.  They may forget that teaching requires unpredictable interactions with young audiences.  They may forget that experience cannot be manufactured out of thin air.  They may forget that creativity, with a gentle hand and an active mind, counts for something.  These people who would say good riddance to teachers are not educators.  They think largely with their pocketbooks.  They make money as they deplete humanity.