Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé

Anthony Cody gives us an overview of the past 14 years, in which the common theme is that teachers cannot be trusted to grade or assess their students.

Having survived the onerous and intrusive NCLB and the teacher-bashing of Race to the Top, educators and a growing part of the public realize that it is not the schools that are failing, it is the “reforms” of Bush and Obama.

So with the failure of test-based accountability, the next wave of disruptive innovation is upon us. Led by former Gates executive Tom Vanderbilt Ark, the latest thing is competency based learning and competency based assessment. The idea is even embedded in the President’s “Testing Action Plan.”

Cody writes:

“We have been badgered for the past 14 years by reformers insisting on the fierce urgency of change, and they have had their way – twice! First, seven years of NCLB, followed by…

Gail Robinson writes in the HECHINGER Report about the success of the New York Performance Sttandards Consortium. The Consortium has operated for more than 20 years,flying under the radar of the test zealots.

Robinson writes:

“While most New York students must pass state exams in five subjects to graduate, the consortium’s 38 schools have a state waiver allowing their students to earn a diploma by passing just one exam: comprehensive English. (An additional nine schools have a partial waiver.) Instead, in all subjects including English, the students must demonstrate skill mastery in practical terms. They design experiments, make presentations, write reports and defend their work to outside experts.
Getting a waiver is not easy. The number the state grants is limited, and the alternative methods of assessing students can mean far more work for teachers. The schools’ funding is not affected.

“Proponents say the alternative system is worth the…

Common Core is dying a well-deserved death.

The very idea that we need the same academic standards in public schools from coast-to-coast is unpopular, expensive, ineffective and politically suicidal.

The Wall Street Journal reports at least $7 billion taxpayer dollars have been wasted implementing this plan, and it would cost significantly more to finish the job.

“Five years into the biggest transformation of U.S. public education in recent history, Common Core is far from common. Though 45 states initially adopted the shared academic standards in English and math, seven have since repealed or amended them. Among the remaining 38, big disparities remain in what and how students are taught, the materials and technology they use, the preparation of teachers and the tests they are given. A dozen more states are considering revising or abandoning Common Core.”

Meanwhile public support drops precipitously with each passing year. Less than half of…

This was a big week for news about standardized testing and test scores.

Two major stories dominated the week’s news. President Obama’s belated recognition of standardized exam overkill and another federal government report documenting academic stagnation during the “test-and-punish” era provided more ammunition for the country’s rapidly growing assessment reform movement. In many states parents, educators, local officials and community leaders are gearing up for major campaigns to significantly reduce testing volume, eliminate high-stakes, and open the door to better ways to assess student learning.

Please join FairTest in honoring two assessment reform leaders — Nancy Carlsson-Paige and Lani Guinier — by supporting next week’s “Heroes in Education” award reception:
http://fairtest.org/FairTest-to-honor-LaniGuinier-and-NancyCarlssonPaige
Your contribution will help build an even stronger testing resistance and reform movement.

National NAEP Results Add to Evidence of Test-and-Punish Failure
http://fairtest.org/fairtest-reaction-latest-naep-results-add-evidence
National Can the Obama Administration Really Pare Back Standardized Testing:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/schooled/2015/10/30/obama_wants_fewer_standardized_tests_how_serious_is_he.html
National Ed Groups to Congress:…

On October 26, 2015, the Walton Foundation sent this email to subscribers of its Walton Family Foundation (WFF) list, wffnews@wffmail.com.  Here is an excerpt:

Dear [Name],

Bobby White graduated from Frayser High School in Memphis in 1990. Last fall, he came back — not just as an alumnus but as the school’s leader.

In the time since White’s graduation, the school had become “chaotic,” and the students’ achievement was suffering. The school was in the bottom 5% of schools in the state of Tennessee, and so were many of the other schools in the local community.

“There needed to be a lightning bolt to kind of shock the school into a new state of thinking,” White told us.

Because of its low performance, the school (now renamed MLK Prep) had been designated as part of the Achievement School District (ASD) — a special district created in Tennessee to dramatically improve the bottom…

The New York Times recently published a blockbuster report about a leaked sixteen student “got to go” list created at a Success Academy school in New York City.  The school, Success Academy, Fort Greene opened in September 2013.  In a press conference, Eva Moskowitz apologized for the “got to go list’ scandal, said it was an anomaly, and the principal who created it, Candido Brown, offered a teary eyed ‘mea culpa.’  What caught my attention was this paragraph from the New York Times follow up article published a day after the initial report where Moskowitz, the ultimate ‘No Excuses’ proponent, offered this bizarre excuse for the principal’s decision:

Ms. Moskowitz said the school, which then went through second grade, had severe disciplinary problems.  Mr. Brown previously said in an email that he believed he could not turn the school around if the 16 students remained.

When I think of a…

Film-makers Jack Paar and Ron Halpern are making a film about the corporate assault on public education.

It will be called “Corporatized.”

There are a growing number of videos about the corporate assault on public education. More are on the way. Videos are an important way of awakening the public to the well-coordinated threat to privatize public schools.

Here are some films and short videos that you should see and that you should show at community events

Standardized

Race to Nowhere

Inequality for All

Rise above the mark

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Standardized Testing

Refuse tests: a short film (3:33)

Change the Stakes

Go Public: A Day in the Life of an American School District

Beyond Measure

Standardized testing is not teaching

The Other PARCC

The Public School Wars

Hear Our Teachers

Heal Our Schools

http://theinconvenienttruthbehindwaitingforsuperman.com

Education Inc.

This moving article by Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times is a tribute to Alan Kaplan, a high school teacher of the humanities, who died at the end of August.

Some 500 former students attended his funeral, driving or flying from wherever they were.

One week ago, very early Sunday morning, Harvard University graduate student Jimmy Biblarz boarded a plane and flew from Boston to Los Angeles to attend a memorial service.

He knew he would have to fly back to Boston later that evening, which made for a grueling day, but Biblarz never had a second thought about making the trip.

The provocative, maddening, abrasive, endearing, passionate, controversial Hamilton High School teacher who tormented, challenged and ultimately inspired him, had died. So Biblarz and hundreds of other students who got the same treatment from history and philosophy teacher Alan Kaplan crowded into the un-air-conditioned school auditorium on a…

Sometimes events happen that seem to be disconnected, but after a few days or weeks, the pattern emerges. Consider this: On October 2, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that he was resigning and planned to return to Chicago. Former New York Commissioner of Education John King, who is a clone of Duncan in terms of his belief in testing and charter schools, was designated to take Duncan’s place. On October 23, the Obama administration held a surprise news conference to declare that testing was out of control and should be reduced to not more than 2% of classroom time. Actually, that wasn’t a true reduction, because 2% translates into between 18-24 hours of testing, which is a staggering amount of annual testing for children in grades 3-8 and not different from the status quo in most states.

Disconnected events?

Not at all. Here comes the pattern-maker: the federal tests…