Our Students' Voice

In my last post, I took Lily Eskelsen Garcia and the NEA to task for not acting in the best interest of children, teachers, and American public schools.

Today, however, I'd like to thank Lily for her words of support and her understanding of what it actually means to spend a year in a classroom. Here is the story of her flight encounter with a businessman, the "man in the middle seat," who challenged her to tell him what we really need in public education. Her answer was a simple sentence, and you can click on the link below to hear it, but her deeper answer was something that is important for all teachers to hear and understand.

She said to her audience...

I'm an educator. It's up to me to educate the "man in the middle seat..."

All public school educators should adopt that attitude. We are the political voice of our students. Without us they are silenced, disenfranchised, and at the mercy of policy makers, most of whom have never taught a day in a public school, who think that privatization is the simple answer to improving our schools.

It's up to us, America's educators, to educate our fellow citizens. We can't make them listen, but they will never hear us if we are silent. American public education is being dismantled and sold off to the highest bidder and it's our responsibility to shout "STOP!"

Lily listed what public education does for America's children. Her list is long, but it's still just a partial list. She didn't include that we serve some kids two meals a day, provide grief counseling, clothe children who come to school without shoes or coats, help them across the street, give them the opportunity to express themselves through the arts, and provide some with the only safe environment they experience. I'm sure there are more...

She talked very fast, and I think that she stumbled over a few words while she was racing through the list, but to the best of my ability, here is her list..

A plane passenger asked a teacher a kind of rude question about her job. She responded eloquently!

I'm an educator. It's up to me to educate the "man in the middle seat" as much as to educate a politician about what happens in any given typical school on any given typical day...

• we serve kids a hot meal,

• we put bandaids on boo boos,

• we diversify our curriculum instruction to meet the personal and individual needs of all our students, the blind, the hearing impaired, the physically challenged, the gifted and talented, the chronically tardy, and the medically annoying,

• we make sure they've had their immunizations,

• we make sure they understand disease control,

• we teach them to resist drugs, alcohol, tobacco,

• we give career counseling, pregnancy counseling, mental health counseling,

• we get them on the bus safely. we take them off the bus safely,

• we provide computer instruction, sex education,

• we stop bullying and teach them to say, "I'm sorry" and mean it,

• we instill an understanding of civil rights, the political process, challenge racism, foster social tolerance, and an appreciation of our cultural and religious diversity,

• we teach the principles of free enterprise, how to be a good sport,

• we develop personal responsibility, practice bicycle safety and check for head lice,

• we provide bilingual education, teach metrics, how to be a wise consumer, exercise for weight control, how to drive a car,

• we teach the impact of wars, develop collaborative skills, how to tune a violin, how to use reason and evidence to protect the future,

• we teach them to revere their environment and how to manage their money, how to access information, how to make wise choices, how to balance a checkbook,

• we teach loyalty to the ideals of a democracy,

• we build patriotism, good oral hygiene, a respect for the worth and dignity of every individual,

• we nurture curiosity, encourage a good question, build self esteem,

...and then we teach reading, writing and arithmetic.

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Support Teachers of Conscience

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

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Stop the Testing Insanity!

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A Manifesto for a Revolution in Public Education
Click here to sign the petition.

For over a decade...“reformers” have proclaimed that the solution to the purported crisis in education lies in more high stakes testing, more surveillance, more number crunching, more school closings, more charter schools, and more cutbacks in school resources and academic and extra-curricular opportunities for students, particularly students of color. As our public schools become skeletons of what they once were, they are forced to spend their last dollars on the data systems, test guides, and tests meant to help implement the “reforms” but that do little more than line the coffers of corporations, like Pearson, Inc. and Microsoft, Inc.

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NEA: Acting Against Its Own Interest

I've never been particularly easy on NEA on this blog...and once again I find myself shaking my head because the NEA seems to be acting against its own best interest.

NO ENDORSEMENT

In 2011 I came out against an NEA endorsement of President Obama.

I urge the NEA not to endorse anyone...unless someone comes along who supports public education. As an individual, I will vote for the candidate who, on other issues, most closely fits my beliefs about where the United States should go as a nation, but as an educator I can't, and won't, support any of them.

They didn't listen to me, of course. After the endorsement they came out against Arne Duncan seemingly unaware that Duncan's work was either directed or approved by the same President Obama they just endorsed for reelection.

The NEA Representative Assembly directs the NEA President to communicate aggressively, forcefully, and immediately to President Barack Obama and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that NEA is appalled with Secretary Duncan’s practice of:

...insert a list of things Arne has done such as supporting local decisions to fire all school staff indiscriminately, focusing too heavily on competitive grants that by design leave most students behind, and focusing so heavily on charter schools...

NO TO TFA

Then, a few months later, I objected to then NEA President Dennis Van Roekel's op-ed written jointly with TFA's Wendy Kopp which called for the "best preparation possible" for America's teachers. Did Van Roekel think that TFA's 5 week training qualified as "best preparation" for teachers?

The presence of Kopp's name on the editorial implies acceptance of TFA as one of those "best preparation possible" routes.

NO TO GATES MONEY

In June of this year I was pleased to hear NEA President Lily Eskelsen-Garcia say, at the NPE conference, that NEA would not accept money from the Gates Foundation. The cheers from the NPE attendees was loud and long. A few days later she walked back that affirmation. Mercedes Schneider wrote...

But Lily Eskelsen Garcia is willing to defend NEA’s continued receiving of Gates funding on a technicality:

NEA doesn’t directly receive the Gates funding. The NEA Foundation does.

And she completely glosses over her verbal agreement at the NPE conference to no longer even collaborate with Gates.

ANOTHER ENDORSEMENT

Where does Hillary Clinton stand on public education issues? NEA has, with Lily's approval, already endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination despite her ties to corporate "reformers." We have learned that she is all for reducing testing...

Reducing the role of testing is something I would like to see, but what about teachers being evaluated by test scores, loss of due process, and loss of collective bargaining rights? What about the connection between poverty and low achievement?

What about Charters? What about Race to the Top, Vouchers, and inequity in funding?

NEA shouldn't endorse anyone until their positions on public education issues are clear. NEA shouldn't endorse anyone until the NEA-RA approves. I know that the NEA rules allows the Board to endorse a candidate for a primary...and it's time to change that. Last election cycle, we endorsed someone whose education policy, Race to the Top, was as destructive to public schools and student learning as was NCLB. Haven't we learned anything from that?

NOW WHAT?

NEA has joined with other groups to "launch a joint campaign to Elevate Educators." The fact that Campbell Brown loves it makes me nervous!

I'm also concerned because, aside from NEA and AFT, and a few other groups, the "Partners" in TeachStrong are a collection of "reformers" like

• Relay Graduate School of Education: a "teacher preparation institution" established by three charter school chains

• Teach For America: another "teacher preparation" group. Five weeks of training makes a teacher? See NO TO TFA, above and more here

• Stand for Children: a corporate reform group

• The National Council on Teacher Quality: a group that "rates" teacher training institutions based on course offerings, and other artifacts rather than site visits and actual research

• Groups such as CCSSO, Deans for Impact, Education Post, TNTP, and others discussed by Peter Greene, in Teach Strong: Real Wrong
  

It concerns me that NEA has joined with these other groups whose goals include the destruction of public education and the teaching profession.

The Badass Teachers Association had this to say,

A Challenge To The TeachStrong Campaign By: Marla Kilfoyle, Executive Director, The Badass Teachers Association

To sum it up the #TeachStrong Campaign is just another corporate education reform coalition that ignores

• Child poverty
• Institutional racism
• Destruction of the local school board
• Destruction of the teaching profession (specifically targeted at Teachers of Color and Veteran Teachers)
• Destruction of public education

On its surface, the "campaign" might be something which NEA could, or should support, but when you look who is actually participating it becomes just another group of "reformers" trying to increase their bottom line.

For more on #TeachStrong...

• Teach Strong: More of the Same, But with a Game Board

• Teach Strong: Real Wrong

• TeachStrong's Nine Steps (To Teacher Awesomeness)

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Support Teachers of Conscience

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

~~~

A Manifesto for a Revolution in Public Education
Click here to sign the petition.

For over a decade...“reformers” have proclaimed that the solution to the purported crisis in education lies in more high stakes testing, more surveillance, more number crunching, more school closings, more charter schools, and more cutbacks in school resources and academic and extra-curricular opportunities for students, particularly students of color. As our public schools become skeletons of what they once were, they are forced to spend their last dollars on the data systems, test guides, and tests meant to help implement the “reforms” but that do little more than line the coffers of corporations, like Pearson, Inc. and Microsoft, Inc.

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2015 Medley #35

Testing (ISTEP), Politics,
Early Childhood Education,
Poverty, Vermont, Charters

ISTEP CUT SCORES

It looks like far fewer Indiana schools could earn an A after ISTEP changes

Cut scores for ISTEP are arbitrary. The new, more difficult, ISTEP, has not been proven to be better than the old ISTEP. Governor Pence and his mouthpieces in the legislature and state board of education are determined to undermine public schools and public school teachers. They confuse the public into thinking that public schools are unsuccessful and deflect attention away from the real problems of public education: inequitable funding and a 22% child poverty rate. Lower scores also mean fewer "merit pay" bonuses, and therefore less money spent on public schools. The article below predicts a 20 percent rise in the number of D and F schools.

Yet Indiana students continue to do well on NAEP...Go figure!

...the Indiana State Board of Education has set the passing cut-off scores for the ISTEP exams...

On average, a 20 percentage point drop in ISTEP scores could move the state from almost 54 percent of schools earning A’s last year to as few as 7 percent earning an A for 2015. Consequently, D’s and F’s could rise from about 8 percent and 5 percent last year to just over 27 percent for both in 2015.

Two key legislative leaders, House education committee chairman Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, and Senate education committee chairman Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, said earlier this week that they didn’t support a “pause” in the state’s accountability system. The state board has been similarly opposed to such a move.

...Indiana students are still showing progress based on newly released scores on the National Assessment for Educational Progress at the same time ISTEP scores are expected to come in much lower. Indiana did as well or better than 2013 on NAEP when it came to math and reading scores. It also outranked most other states, most notably in fourth grade math where Indiana ranked fourth.

ISTEP POINT ADJUSTMENT NEEDED

Online ISTEP+ Scores Could See As Much As A Nine-Point Boost

The ISTEP was not ready last year. There were too many problems and it was too long, yet the state forced schools to go ahead and give it. Now, because the difficulty levels differed so much between various forms of the test, the taxpayers had to pay an "expert" to come in and figure out a way to balance the scores so they would be comparable.

People who don't know what they are doing are damaging the education of our children, wasting instructional time with useless standardized tests, and allowing their friends in the test-and-punish industry to pocket more of our tax money which ought to have been used for instruction. It's past time to end the reliance on standardized tests for high stakes decisions like grading schools, evaluating teachers, determining educator pay, and student promotion.

...expert Derek Briggs recommended the board consider awarding bonus points to students who completed the more difficult mode. And that’s what the board voted to do.

In most cases, adjustments will be made for students who completed the online exam, or those who completed paper versions with more complicated math problems. Indiana Department of Education testing director Michele Walker says no student’s score should go down as a result, but some could see a boost of up to nine points.

POLITICS

Eight K-12 Education Questions Every Candidate Needs to Answer

The Network for Public Education has posed eight questions about K-12 education for presidential candidates. Will any of them, Democratic or Republican, respond?

1. TESTING: Will you end the federal mandate for annual high-stakes testing?
2. SCHOOL CLOSURES: Will you put an end to school closures based on test scores?
3. PRIVATIZATION: Will you put an end to the privatization of public education?
4. FUNDING: Will you ensure public schools are equitably funded?
5. EQUITY: Will you ensure that all students have equal access the services and resources they need?
6. TEACHER PROFESSIONALISM: What is your position on the deprofessionalization of teachers?
7. DEMOCRATICALLY CONTROLLED SCHOOLS: Will you ensure equity in education without eroding democratic control at the state and local level?
8. STUDENT PRIVACY: Will you defend student privacy?

TOO LITTLE AND TOO LATE

How Kindergarten Teachers Carry Tax Burden of Billionaires • BRAVE NEW FILMS

The video below highlights the extreme income inequity in the US.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Preschoolers working memory forecasts teenage dropout risk

Here is more research proving that we need a greater investment in early childhood education. This, at least, is being given lip-service by some major party candidates. Many of those same candidates, however, also insist on lowering taxes for the wealthy. The question is, then, how are we going to lower taxes and pay for early childhood education at the same time?

Preschoolers who score lower on a working memory task are likely to score higher on a dropout risk scale at the age of 13, researchers at Université Sainte-Anne and the University of Montreal revealed today. "Dropout risk is calculated from student engagement in school, their grade point average, and whether or not they previously repeated a year in school. Previous research has confirmed that this scale can successfully identify which 12 year olds will fail to complete high school by the age of 21," explained Caroline Fitzpatrick, who led the study as first author. "These findings underscore the importance of early intervention," added Linda Pagani, co-senior author. "Parents are able to help their children develop strong working memory skills in the home and this can have a positive impact." [Emphasis added]

POVERTY

America's Exceptional Child Poverty

Instead of concentrating on ways to reduce poverty in the US, we hear arguments claiming that the poor in our country are better off than the poor in other countries and at least as well off as the poor in the social-democracies of Sweden and Denmark.

This week has turned out to be the week of low-hanging fruit for me. On Monday, we had a misleading Cato post that falsely claimed that the US poor are as well off as the poor in Sweden and Denmark. In fact, the poorest Swedes and poorest Danes have 48% and 63% more income than the poorest Americans, and that's not even counting their free health care and child care. Now, the National Review has decided to walk into the same trap as Cato, claiming that child poverty in the US is not worse than child poverty in other developed countries, so long as you count it in absolute terms.

This claim should strike you as strange. As I pointed out above, the poor in many developed countries are overall better off than the poor in the US. And the US also has a remarkably low level of child benefits, especially benefits that reach the poorest. Together, then, the US should stand out even more in its level of child deprivation than it stands out in its level of overall deprivation. And, of course, it does.

THE "PRIVATE SECTOR"

Philanthropy Doesn’t Compensate for State Education Cuts, Study Finds

The Federal government and the various states need to support public education. We can't count on the rich to make up the difference between adequate funding and our current level of funding. Education is a legitimate responsibility of government and we need to get serious about supporting it instead privatizing it.

"There has been a lot of popular press around the issue of parents’ out-of-pocket spending [on education], and kids having to sell candy bars to raise money in recent years," she said. "We wanted to see if we could link it to a loss in revenue at the state level."

Ms. Nelson’s new research didn’t find a causal connection between spending cuts and private fundraising. And the surge of fundraising for public schools appeared to deliver the greatest benefit in communities that needed it the least. Parents in wealthy districts are more likely to have the resources and the will to give their public schools a big boost.

Meanwhile, Ms. Nelson said, "that’s just not happening in poor districts," leading to a wider inequality gap in education.

VERMONT

Vermont to parents: Don’t worry about your child’s Common Core test scores. They don’t mean much.

Vermont gets it...

We call your attention to the box labeled “scale score and overall performance.” These levels give too simplistic and too negative a message to students and parents. The tests are at a very high level. In fact, no nation has ever achieved at such a level. Do not let the results wrongly discourage your child from pursuing his or her talents, ambitions, hopes or dreams.

These tests are based on a narrow definition of “college and career ready.” In truth, there are many different careers and colleges and there are just as many different definitions of essential skills. In fact, many (if not most) successful adults fail to score well on standardized tests. If your child’s scores show that they are not yet proficient, this does not mean that they are not doing well or will not do well in the future.

We also recommend that you not place a great deal of emphasis on the “claims” or sub-scores. There are just not enough test items to give you reliable information.

MOSKOWITZ AGAIN

Eva Moskowitz and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month

More articles about Moskowitz and her drive to expand her private education empire.

The simple fact is that Moskowitz absolutely cannot keep total control over what people say and know anymore, and it is her own policies of driving away students she does not want and burning out teachers that has put her in this position. So even if she fully recovers from this month, I think it is likely we will see many more months like this.

BLAME THE VICTIMS

Moskowitz, Petrilli, and the Hard Truth About America's Schools

Which brings us to a third point: why would we ever be surprised that there is friction in our urban schools given the way we ignore the needs of their students? This nation purposefully segregated its citizens. It then refused to adequately fund its urban schools, even as it ignored the needs of children outside of their schools. It then installed into those schools a hidden curriculum of obedience, even as affluent suburban children benefitted from schools that served as engines of social replication.

All this, and then we're shocked -- shocked, I say! -- to find that students in urban schools think they're getting a raw deal. Most channel their frustration in positive ways; are we surprised that some do not?

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Support Teachers of Conscience

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

~~~

A Manifesto for a Revolution in Public Education
Click here to sign the petition.

For over a decade...“reformers” have proclaimed that the solution to the purported crisis in education lies in more high stakes testing, more surveillance, more number crunching, more school closings, more charter schools, and more cutbacks in school resources and academic and extra-curricular opportunities for students, particularly students of color. As our public schools become skeletons of what they once were, they are forced to spend their last dollars on the data systems, test guides, and tests meant to help implement the “reforms” but that do little more than line the coffers of corporations, like Pearson, Inc. and Microsoft, Inc.

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Random Quotes – November 2015

NOT QUITTING

A Not Quitting Letter

I post "I'm quitting" letters because I think it's important to let parents and the public know why the teachers their students learned from (sometimes more than one generation) can't take the fake-reform that is swallowing public education. It's important to highlight the reasons teachers are leaving the profession in such great numbers.

However, it's also important, as Peter Greene shows us, to highlight the fact that millions of teachers are facing the "test and punish" insanity and continue to fight against it while staying in the classroom.

From Peter Greene

So I will stay here, and I will do what I consider-- in my professional opinion-- to do what is best for my students and my community. When I am told to implement a bad policy, I will circumvent it by any means at my disposal. I will disregard directives to commit malpractice. I will question, I will challenge, and I will push back. I will speak at every board meeting. I will talk to every parent.

DOES ANYBODY REALLY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?

Daylight Savings Cut Scores

Time is a social construct. We use clocks and time zones to make our interactions with each other more convenient. The change to and from Daylight Savings time isn't a natural occurrence.

Neither are cut scores. When it comes to standardized tests, percentiles tell us where someone compares to a national or local norm. Percentages tell us how much material was answered correctly. Cut scores, the point at which a student's score moves from passing to failing, is, just like Time, an artificial construct. Why was last year's cut score for the state standardized test set at 50? Why is this year's cut score set at 80? Peter Greene schools us in how cut scores really work.

From Peter Greene

Many folks make fun of daylight savings time because it doesn't really change a thing. Sun is still up for the same number of hours, and we stumble around in the dark for the same number of hours. Nothing really changes except the label we install. If I have the authority, I can make this moment 3:00 or 4:00 or 9:00 or 13:00. It won't change the reality of the moment-- just what we call it. Standardized test results, predictably draped across the bell curve, are the same. If I have the authority, I can label the parts of the curve anything I like. But it won't change reality a bit.

OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE NOT FAILING

Campbell Brown Calls for Elimination of All Public Schools

"Reformer's" and their followers frequently claim that our public schools are "failing" so public money ought to go to private and privately-run organizations which, by virtue of "the market" will provide a better education. That belief is based on the assumption that public schools are "failing" and that "the market" makes everything better.

From Diane Ravitch

Our public schools are not failing.

Our society is failing to address the root causes of school performance, which are the conditions in which children and families are living, such as their access to good jobs, medical care, food security, and decent housing.

DO WHAT'S RiGHT

“How to ruin or Revive Public Education”

A fourth grade teacher asked Diane Ravitch what she could do to help fight so-called "ed reform." "Join with others," Ravitch replied, and she added the following.

From Diane Ravitch at Wellesley College

“Keep within yourself the vision of what is right and what is ethical so that no matter what they tell you to do, even if you're forced to do it, know that it's wrong and don't ever forget what's right.”

CHILDREN ARE SOMETIMES IMMATURE

Blame the Victim – America’s Favorite Pastime

Steven Singer writes about watching a young girl act like a petulant teenager and get pulled out of her seat and tackled by a police officer. He discusses the fact that different people can see the same thing and come to different conclusions. The child was at fault. The police officer was at fault.

Children should not be manhandled because they act like children. If they pose an actual threat to life and property, then extreme measures might be taken to stop them from acting. However, silly, immature, childish behavior is not sufficient cause for adults to hurt children.

If your daughter mouthed off to adults in school, would you expect her to be pulled out of her chair and thrown to the ground by a police officer?

From Steven Singer

It takes a kind of intellectual and moral honesty to look the world in the face and accept that which is uncomfortable but true. Sometimes those charged with protecting us actually do harm. Sometimes adults know less than children. Sometimes actions are racially motivated.

Because when we watch the world, the world looks back. We reveal ourselves. And sometimes we show the world exactly how ugly and depraved we can be as a nation.

FALSE DICHOTOMY

What’s Scary to Kids: Having Dyslexia and Being Held Back in Third Grade!

Children are retained in grade because teachers "don't know what else to do, but we have to do something." Yet, more often than not, retention in grade does more harm than good.

Frequently, however, retention in grade is paired with social promotion as the second option of a false dichotomy. We don't have to do either. Sometimes we are forced to choose because the only other alternatives are expensive. How much are our children's educations worth? How much is our future worth?

From Nancy Bailey

Retention, making students sit through the same instruction they had the year earlier, is not going to fix reading problems. Moving these students forward, with no consideration, however, won’t help either. These students need special attention for needs that are different from usual readers.

WHITE PRIVILEGE IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Reading While White is a blog that seeks to understand and call out white privilege in children's literature. In the blog mission statement, the authors write,

We are White librarians organizing to confront racism in the field of children’s and young adult literature. We are allies in the ongoing struggle for authenticity and visibility in books; for opportunities for people of color and First/Native Nations people in all aspects of the children’s and young adult book world; and for accountability among publishers, book creators, reviewers, librarians, teachers, and others. We are learning, and hold ourselves responsible for understanding how our whiteness impacts our perspectives and our behavior.

Reviewing While White: The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch

I remembered seeing comedian Chris Rock break down and cry when he learned that his great-great-grandfather had been elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives during this same era. He explained his emotional reaction:

"If I had known this it would have taken away the inevitability that I was going to be nothing."

EVALUATIONS

Teachers choose education because they want to teach, not because they needed a job and couldn't find anything else. Coercive evaluations aren't applicable.

From Anthony Cody

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Support Teachers of Conscience

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

~~~

A Manifesto for a Revolution in Public Education
Click here to sign the petition.

For over a decade...“reformers” have proclaimed that the solution to the purported crisis in education lies in more high stakes testing, more surveillance, more number crunching, more school closings, more charter schools, and more cutbacks in school resources and academic and extra-curricular opportunities for students, particularly students of color. As our public schools become skeletons of what they once were, they are forced to spend their last dollars on the data systems, test guides, and tests meant to help implement the “reforms” but that do little more than line the coffers of corporations, like Pearson, Inc. and Microsoft, Inc.

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