2014: The Year Grassroots Actions Stop Corporate Intentions

Public education reform felt like abuse and oppression to those aware that they were being reformed in 2013. The reformers, like Robbie Cano, stated they were motivated to make their moves by intentions other than the enormous sums of money dangled by someone in Washington State.

Maybe the reformers do not intend to federalize public education. Maybe some superintendents and principals do think modules are the best thing they have seen in over 30 years in education. Maybe they really think that visiting museums will improve student test scores. Maybe they do think if students perform better on bubble tests, they will be more college and career ready. Maybe they really believe the correlation between poverty and poor student performance on test scores is coincidental, but the distribution of the worst teachers to the poorest districts is not. Maybe they really believe an over-emphasis on high stakes testing will not force teachers to teach to the test. Maybe they think the solution for the problems in public education can be solved by a committee of people causing the parental outrage. No one can know another’s intentions, but we can review their actions.

The reformers have created a system where the implementation at the local level relies on individuals promoting Common Core testing for their economic and/or political survival. Criticisms of the Core by those who work with it are either threatened to be punished or ignored. This puts good people within the public schools at odds with what they know is right and what they have to do. Subsequently, those who follow what they know is right are at odds with those that follow their orders. The resulting dynamic looks alarmingly similar to what a corporation undergoing a take-over looks like from the perspective of the people in the crosshairs.

Abusers minimalize their abuse, oppressors mask their oppression, and reformers manipulate their reform for the same reason: to control the abused, oppressed, and reformed and make money in the process. In the case of public education reform, higher standards yield enormous profits for the wealthiest corporations and “death penalties” for the poorest schools

We judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. A successful corporation’s intention is to generate profit and their actions during this reform have followed true. Teachers and parents share the same intentions: love kids, protect kids, and help kids. The reformers’ actions will create enormous wealth for the wealthy and reduce the control communities have over their schools. Parents and educators’ actions in 2014 will be a united defense of children because we love our kids and we will not watch them be standardized, demoralized, or marginalized.

As we enter 2014, know that the numbers of people involved in this fight will rise and the million whispers will be heard. Propaganda intended to minimalize, mask, and manipulate opposition to testing and Common Core implementation will be abundant and coercive. But it will not work because our intention is to love, protect, and help our children. Lace to the Top and keep fighting to remind others that children are more than a score.

Thank you for a great 2013. See you in 2014, the year the grassroots movements stop the corporate agendas.

As one.

Advertisement

Something is inherently wrong when we have to clarify directions about what happens to children becoming ill during high-stakes tests.  These rules are in place for one simple truth- THESE TESTS MAKE CHILDREN SICK! 

 For the infinitesimal value these tests give us, are they are really worth getting sick over????  NYSED seems to think so. 

 

 http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/sam/ei-samcc13rev.pdf

Illness

If a student becomes ill during a part of the tests, the student should be excused until well enough to continue. The principal should estimate the time that the student had remaining to complete that part of the test. When the student is well enough to complete the test (and as long as the testing or make-up period has not ended), the student may be given the remaining time for that part. Other unadministered parts of the test should also be administered according to the Teacher’s Directions as long as the testing or make-up period has not ended. When the student is taking a partially completed part of the test, the student must be closely supervised so that the student does not go back to previously completed questions on the test.

 

 

 

Lace to the Top

 

On Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/lacetothetop/

Twitter:  @lacetothetop.com

http://nebula.wsimg.com/e4784f7726751a0a7f408a890af85b8d?AccessKeyId=03FBDADF90E8EBFE9C94&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

http://nebula.wsimg.com/e4784f7726751a0a7f408a890af85b8d?AccessKeyId=03FBDADF90E8EBFE9C94&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

Test prep your way to an “A” with Tony Bennett!

‘Twas the Night Before Testing

Tags

education, parents, testing

Twas the night before testing, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The laces were placed in the sneakers with care,
In hopes that the teacher would, too, wear a pair.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Scantrons danced in their heads. 
The teacher, in a state of serious duress,
Had just prepped her class for a standardized test.

When back at the school there arose such a clatter,
The teacher was told to see what was the matter.
Away to the school she flew like a flash,
Then towards her classroom she made a mad dash.

The light showed each desk in its nice ordered row,
Waiting for teachers to arrive, kids in tow.
When, what to the teacher’s eyes should appear,
But a mighty Green Lacer, without hint of fear.

With his shoes all laced up and glowing with green,
The teacher knew in a moment what this would mean
More rapid than eagles his children they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Chloe! Now, Zoey! Now, Joey and Terrence!
On, Daniel! On, Mitchell! On Bradley and Clarence!
To all of the classes! Through all of the halls!
Throw tests away! Tests away! Tests away all!”

As fast as can be and with no hint of sorrow,
They got rid of tests that would greet kids tomorrow.
Then back to the classrooms they ran with delight,
With so much to do, this would be a long night.

The Green Lacer stood smiling as he gave out supplies.
What the teacher was watching brought tears to her eyes.
The children drew pictures and hung them around,
From as high as the ceiling to as low as the ground.

He said, “Students, not scores,” to each child alike
And marveled at their drawings; a puppy, a bike.
He was proud of their work and he knew in his heart,
That each of these kids was their own work of art.

His eyes– how they twinkled! He truly felt joy,
As he saw the potential of each girl and each boy.
The teacher remembered when she felt the same way
But now scripts and modules told her what to say.

She walked around slowly and thought of tomorrow
When her class sees the room it will erase all their sorrow.
It had been so long since they had really been free,
To know that answers are more than just A, B, or C.

She thought of her students and their dread of the test,
She knew what the Lacer brought was a rest.
A rest from the failure, frustration and fear,
A rest from the shackles that bound them this year.

She looked at her shoes that by magic turned green,
And wondered who would believe what she had seen.
She looked for the Lacer, whom she wanted to thank,
But alas, he was gone; her heart dropped, her face blank.
Then she remembered that her lace was green too.
To prepare for her class, she knew just what to do.
She declared loud and clear, and with all of her might,
“Children are not scores! And for all I will fight!”

https://www.facebook.com/groups/lacetothetop/

 

L’s over C’s: Life and Love Ready over College and Career Ready

Schools should follow the philosophy of independent art studios. The goal each day should be to supply materials, history, challenges, opportunities, space, audience, motivation, inspiration, silence, comfort, belonging, community, laughter, tears, lessons, and many other human possibilities that reveal truths to students and opportunities for them to share their discoveries. This would inspire children to create loving relationships.

The antithesis of the art studio philosophy is the lithograph factory. Its goal is to produce limitless copies of a pre-determined and arbitrary images that can be assessed and monitored by the number of prints made and their resemblance to the original drawing regardless of the color of the paper, amount of ink, quality of the machines, and workers in the local factories. This will condition children to accept unfulfilling relationships.

The College and Career Ready Crisis is well-documented as a manufactured. We need to close the factories creating the crisis and work for better studios that value living and loving, not testing and punishing.

Our children are not test scores. If you value what is inside of a child, the child will value it as well.

Lace to the Top. As one.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/lacetothetop/

Mission Accomplished???

Tags

education, parents, teachers, testing

The reformers, John King and company, would have you believe that they have solved our problems and their path is the only way.  Their path starts with labeling children as failures through poorly constructed assessments.  In the name of poor tests scores, schools are then forced to subscribe to rushed curricula that are filled with errors and have no long-term data to support their claims.

Pretending we have reached the destination only detracts from reaching our goal of a quality education for all.  We have seen the curricula and the tests- they are not the answer to college and career readiness.  We are wasting our time believing that this system is working.

The children sitting in classrooms across the nation will have to solve real problems.  They face a $ 20 trillion deficit, global warming and staggering levels of poverty.  We cannot afford to waste their time and have them sit through meaningless tests at the cost of opportunities to learn.  The solutions to the world’s problems do not live in a test or in the preparation for these tests.

We do not have the answers yet; let’s stop pretending we do!!!

“He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” Jefferson

https://www.facebook.com/groups/lacetothetop/ 

@lacetothetop

www.lacetothetop.com

Feel Good About Tomorrow

“Compassion is not hard to come by when the heart is not filled with the cunning things of the mind.” Krishnamurti

The battle for public education is between reformers’ cunning minds and people’s noble hearts. Reformers covet wealth and political power. They are using a business model geared toward profit and control to complete a corporate takeover of public education. However, schools, like homes, can only be successful with loving relationships from within, not punitive plans from without.

The “reformers’” agenda is rejected by parents whose children are abused by developmentally inappropriate curricula, teachers whose relationships with students and communities are replaced by scripts and tests, and true educational leaders whose vision of right education is being supplanted by a misguided attempt “save” education from a “crisis.” The singular unifying factor that sparked their opposition to the agenda is the compassionate instinct of good people to protect children from abuse. The cunning minds have money, power, and media on their side. The noble hearts have truth, love, and numbers on theirs.

There are steps we need to take to win this battle.
1. Inform: Share experiences and information to unite people and end suffering in silence.
2. Advocate: Speak up and take action to protect kids against the negative effects of Common Core testing.
3. Vote: Remove elected officials who do not actively support children with opposition to Common Core testing.
4. Rebuild: Make the Regents elected positions. Many people in the New York State Education Department have compassion, experience, and yet they are silenced. That has to stop.
5. Assemble: Parents, teachers, and community members need open dialogue with PTAs that reflect the thoughts of real parents to the leadership.

Like a healthy body we need to replace cunning thoughts with positive vision. This crisis has revealed there is no shortage of leaders and visionaries. I feel good about tomorrow!

Lace to the Top

https://www.facebook.com/groups/lacetothetop/

@lacetothetop.com

www.lacetothetop.com

Suffolk County’s One & Only Charter School

Tags

charter schools, education, parents, taxes, testing

Riverhead Charter School was owned by a for-profit company-Edison.  After one too many issues the school was turned over.  We are unaware of the new owners at the moment.  Unlike other companies in the private sector, Riverhead Charter Schools receives all their revenue directly from the taxpayers.  While there is no cost to the students’ families, their home district pays the cost – over $15,000 per student.  There are currently 14 districts sending their students and taxes to the Riverhead Charter School.  The Riverhead School District sent their students along with 1.7 million of their tax dollars.

In the time of two percent tax caps and increasing class sizes, the Riverhead Charter  School (of only 500 students) was given a bond for $14.1 million to expand.     http://www.longisland.com/news/10-04-13/construction-begins-on-new-141-million-riverhead-charter-school-building.html

I understand the logic, if there is a better school out there why not fund it and send our children?  In the long term, Edison has proven to be extremely costly and extremely ineffective.   This is a bit startling given the per pupil spending and selective admission/aggressive discipline process.  As in example, Edison is bleeding the residents of Las Vegas dry and they have nothing to show for it:

“Edison came to town in 2001 promising to boost achievement among minority students from low-income families. Eleven years and three contract renewals later, the district has forked over more than $30 million with little student achievement.”

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jun/22/despite-less–stellar-student-results-edison-score/

 

While we find no value in high-stakes tests, in the post Edison days RCS scores were abysmal.

As districts are preparing their budgets, please be mindful of the Riverhead Charter School line item.  We are operating under a tax cap, subject to unfunded mandates, and the sky rocketing cost of assessments are draining all of our resources.  Can we really afford another leach on the taxpayers’ wallets?

Lace to the Top

www.lacetothetop.com

FB:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/lacetothetop/

Twitter: @lacetothetop

taxes

If Disney Follows the Path of American Girl Doll…

Tags

education, parents, testing, Toys

American Girl Doll is now aligned with Pearson Education (test maker and publisher).   

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/01/amazing-product-placement-american-girl-backpack-comes-with-mini-pearson-math-book/

 

Lace to the Top member Mauro Bruno predicts if Disney buys into CCSS, we can expect:

 • Snow White and the Seven Percentage Points

• Dumbi and Bambo Get AIS

• Kingocchio

• Close Reading of the South

• Mary Poopout on Her APPR

• Peter Panned

• The Story of Rigor Hood and His Merrie Modules

• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Represented as an Array

• Alice Left Back in No-Wonderland

• Framework and the Tramp

• One Hundred and One College and Career Ready Canines

• The Absent Minded Commisioner

• “Just a Spoonfull of Rigor Helps the APPR Stay Down”

• That Jungle Text Complexity Band

• The Scaffolding Express

• Herbie Fails Again

• Honey, I Cited Several Places of Textual Evidence to Support Analysis of What the Kids Say Explicitly as Well as Inferences Drawn from the Kids

• Plausible Deniability This Way Comes

• The Rescuers Down Under 3, Again

• Operation Dumbing Down

• James and the Giant Pearson

• Test Everlasting

• The Adventures of WHST the Pooh

• The Princess Domains

• Remember the Strands

• Race to Tisch Mountain

• Monsters University-Ready

• Wreck-It Bill & Melinda

• The God Life of David Coleman

• The Chancellor’s Apprentice

• A Mesopotamian Family Robinson

 and, of course:

 • Pirates of the Curriculum: The Curse of the Green Lace

 

Join Lace to the Top

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/lacetothetop/

Twitter @lacetothetop

www.lacetothetop.com

 

 

 

Growth in 2012 & Failure in 2013

Tags

education, parents, testing

In 2011, NYSED Commissioner John King fired NYSED head of testing (David Abrams) because he released a memo prematurely.  The memo correctly stated that the days and hours of testing would skyrocket for grades 3-8.  NYSED claimed that the memo wasn’t vetted through educators before being sent.  In the article, it was clear that Abrams was fired because the testing system became too predictable and students results were growing far too rapidly.

http://nypost.com/2011/12/01/schools-test-chief-booted-in-memo-flap/

Fast forward 2 years, the state test scores were reset once again.  King has been on the podium claiming 70% of the state is failing.  John King and BoR President Tisch  sang a different tune last year.  King and Tisch both touted small incremental growth on last year’s test scores.  What was the point of showing growth in 2012 if the plan was to have students crash in 2013?  THESE ARE THE SAME STUDENTS AND THE SAME COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION!  King either lied in 2012 or he is lying now.  King should suffer the same consequence as David Abrams.

http://www.oms.nysed.gov/press/3-8MathELATestScores.2012.html

 

Join Lace to the Top:

On FB:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/lacetothetop/