Thursday, November 14, 2013

Ed Reform is Vietnam War of Our Day; Resistance vs. King is Tet Offensive of Our Day

Common Core is a key weapon in the Vietnam War of today. It is the guns rather than butter issue of our day.

Which side is Bill de Blasio on? --Obama, Coleman, Cuomo's or the side of parents, students and teachers?

Even the New York Times took notice of the resistance against John King.

Vietnam War	Education in NYS today
Containment; hawks stayed with this script; prevailed from McNamara to Nixon's years Mobilization and radicalization of millions of draft age youth happened. Yet, it took years of this to make presidents shift their stances on the war.	Fixed tautology: All should go to college, but education is in crisis, and teachers caused the crisis as they are the only ones to be held responsible. Metrics-driven reform is imperative for turning out the teachers. Students must be tested 'til they drop, to root out the teachers. No hope for leaders like NYS Education Commissioner John King or Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch to change their minds on Common Core. Expecting them to listen to the people is like expecting McNamara to turn into an absolute dove. Moreover, check for any flow of Gates Foundation money going their way.
Carpet-bombing	Speaker at 4:30 speaks, in the video Commissioner King Scorned in Port Chester, to how the Common Core mandates will scuttle programs such as music in order to meet those mandates. The above video, this video and this blogpost report that children are becoming ill and depressed from the Common Core.
Tet Offensive- set of Vietnamese rebel offensive caught the war leaders off guard.	The rolling protests will continue from Suffolk County to greater Buffalo. But tin-ear Tisch and King won't get it. As noted by other bloggers here, here, here the more the public protests, the more the Tisch and King sing the same reformy script. The more they ignore the people, the more the people will become enraged. The town halls and the mass PTA meetings across NYS will be the Tet Offensive of 2011-2014. What they (Tisch and King) worry? They're not directly accountable to voters. Besides, the Regents that appointed them to their posts are themselves in their own five year posts until 2015 (NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver 2010 announcement of their appointments). What the Regents worry about either? Legislative appointment insulates them from popular opinion. Already one Regent outright wrote that they will not depose King, whom they appointed in 2011. It'll take a lot of popular rage to get the legislature to make sure that the halls of the Regents get rattled. Now, even the Times took notice on Nov. 18, alas coupling with quotes of a TNTP reformer's insinuating that the parents venting at Comm. King are racists.
After Tet Offensive, worn-down president Johnson threw in the towel.	When will sheriff Cuomo or reformer-in-chief Obama throw in the towel and hear the people? Unimaginable at this point. Definitely not 'til after 2014 elections. Watch for big Democratic losses as voters soundly reject these Common Core at the polls, taking out their rage on Democrats. Backlash against Obama over Affordable Care Act? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

When would Commissioner King ever make this concession? Could he ever make this concession?

The war against teachers, parents, students will rage on.

Tisch and King, listen up well. In the words of Bob Dylan:

What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters [the parents of New York State schoolchildren]
Are beyond your command

The people are speaking:

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

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NYC Education Activism Calendar

Get involved with the fight to defend public education!

Oppose & resist Cuomo, DeBlasio, DeVos, Farina!

- The MORE caucus UFT's important upcoming events:
  
  Friday 1/5/18 4:30-6:30pm
  City As School
  16 Clarkson St
  Manhattan
  We will strategize about resisting DeBlasio's plans to close or merge 14 Renewal Schools.
- Map: https://www.google.com/maps/place/16+Clarkson+St,+New+York,+NY+10014/@40.7291091,-74.0082884,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c25992ac002507:0x68aa91fb40bff351!8m2!3d40.7291091!4d-74.0060997

Sign the Petition: Terminate Comm. John King's Employment

New York State Board of Regents: Terminate the Employment of State Education Commissioner, John King

2. Petition by
  Coalition for Justice in Education

PETITION TO TERMINATE THE EMPLOYMENT OF NYS EDUCATION COMMISSIONER, JOHN KING
(references substantiating each charge available at www.coalitionforjusticeineducation.com)

John King has served as New York State Commissioner of Education since 2011. During his tenure, the quality of education in NY has continued to decline; particularly in poor and rural districts.

1 The Commissioner’s solutions rely upon blindly accepting NCLB, RTTT and Common Core policies and implementing more high-stakes, standardized testing for evaluation of students and teachers,

2 implementation of an untested national curriculum,

3 undemocratic corporate management strategies for operating schools,

4 more privatization of schools

5 and insistence that poverty-related conditions are not an excuse for low student achievement.

6 Furthermore, Commissioner King: · Refuses to lend credibility to staff and community-voiced concerns that much of Common Core curriculum and testing is developmentally inappropriate for students, and that NYS teachers received no significant training for the implementation of Common Core,

7 Refuses to allow meaningful dialogue about Common Core tests by imposing a “gag order” on teachers and administrators, preventing them from discussing test questions among themselves or with students,

8 Supports policy to allow private corporate vendors to have access to personal student data, without parental consent, for the purpose of marketing educational services,

9 and ·Remains silent on the stress-related suffering by many students taking recent Common Core tests,

10 Promotes the reduction of the reading of fiction in favor of an increase in informational texts (50% informational texts in elementary school, and 70% for 12th grade readings by 2014)

11 with the generally predicted impact of a further reduction in the joy of reading and learning for all students especially those with learning challenges,

12 Continues to advocate more high-stakes, standardized testing, despite research concluding that it is ineffective for motivating students and increasing their learning,

13· Continues to ignore positive research results for the use of performance-based assessment, such as portfolios, performances, presentations and exhibitions, by more NYS schools,

14· Advocates for more closings and privatization of low-performing schools,

15 despite research indicating that charter schools are generally less effective than public schools,

16 and promote more racial and class-based segregation,

17 and create negative impact on community morale, motivation and development,

18· Advocates the use of poorly designed, ineffective corporate strategies, such as APPR, which de-professionalize teaching,

19 We, the undersigned, strongly believe that New York State’s education reform agenda is fundamentally flawed and must be re-directed in a humanistic, research-based manner; directly counter to the direction Commissioner King has taken. New York State children, parents and teachers need an education commissioner who passionately supports and actively works for:
· De-concentrating the impact of poverty in classrooms and schools,
· Institutionalizing performance-based assessments,
· Ending the obsessive use of high-stakes, standardized testing,
· Developing creative, alternative curriculum, assessments and schools,
· Assisting poverty-stricken, low-performing schools through collaboration with teachers, parents community members and students, rather than through closures and privatization,
· Ending corporate reform,
· Using school practitioners and constructivist-oriented consultants for developing and implementing curriculum & assessments,
· Implementing a moratorium on the Common Core Curriculum,
· Transforming the NYSED to serve as helpful consultants to schools and school districts, rather than enforcers of top-down policies that are disrespectful to teachers and harmful to students.

Therefore, we, the undersigned respectfully urge the NYS Board of Regents to terminate the employment of John King as NYS Education Commissioner, and immediately search for, and hire a candidate who strongly reflects the characteristics described above.

Cent. NY English Teacher's Lament: 'I am a teacher, and I am tired'

By Savanna Kucerak, English teacher, Homer C.S.D., as published by NYSUT:

"I am a teacher, and I am tired"

Tired of coming home every night angry, abused, and insulted.

Tired of being treated as a child, as a robot, as a stepping stone for politician$ and publi$hing companie$ to make more money.

Tired of ignorance littering the air: “the Common Core is an exciting time in education!” or “APPR is just showing off the wonderful work you already do!”

Tired of being told to “wait it out,” that the “pendulum will swing the other way eventually” while witnessing the casualties pile up — casualties with names and dreams and futures and the RIGHT to the BEST EDUCATION we can give them.

Tired of being afraid to stand up for what I know is right for our kids and our country because I am afraid of losing my job and being unable to pay my bills.

Tired of my superiors being afraid to stand up for what they know is right for our kids and our country because they, too, are afraid of losing their livelihood.

Tired of wanting to be better, volunteering to do additional work, and watching helplessly as any progress I have made is brushed aside by the newest educational reform acronym.

Tired of being told, “Ohh, sorry, but my hands are tied,” accompanied by a half smile, a shrug of the shoulders.

Tired of spending hours of my life documenting and sorting and filing instead of revising and learning and improving.

Tired of wasting taxpayer money on binders and tabs and computer paper and ink.

Tired of being a taxpayer, watching as my money is spent on binders and tabs and computer paper and ink instead of STUDENTS and STUDENTS and STUDENTS and STUDENTS.

Tired of paying my student loan bills and nostalgically remembering that I chose to be a teacher, that I wanted to teach, blissfully ignorant of what lay ahead.

Tired of my two degrees and experience and individuality being ignored and devalued.

Tired of knowing what’s best for my students, but being told NOT to do it.

Tired of telling the best and brightest young people NOT to be teachers — and meaning it.

Tired of being told that if I love literature, then I’d better choose another profession.

Tired of Googling “what can I do besides teach?” only to close out of the browser every time, knowing there is nothing I’d be better at or love more than what was formerly known as “teaching.”

Tired of living in a country where my dream job no longer exists – where “teacher” is now synonymous with data-collector, test-prepper, script-reader, automaton.

Tired of grappling with the notion that I now have a job instead of a life or even a career.

Tired of disillusionment poisoning even the best of days.

Tired of telling my students that they will be heard if they support their arguments with evidence, yet knowing in my heart that that is a lie.

Tired of worrying about my own future children, who will either be numbers under this developing “educational” system – or dealing with the wreckage of a failed, expensive national tragedy in which all the best teachers have either abandoned this sinking ship or remain on board as empty shells, whispered voices, gasping for air.

I am tired, but I am still here – and there are many of me.

Join us. Say something. Do something.

Our collective future depends on it.”

S.I. parents chafing under the Common Core perversion of curriculum

The Common Core - that's that toxic result of ill-minded state and federal policy plus a tone-deaf collaborationist union leadership.

"My son made a comment to me the other day. He asked, 'Did I become stupid?'" said his father, James Hardison. "We're supposed to be inspiring students, and giving them what they need to be successful. For a 10-year-old child to feel discouraged like this, something is not right." --from SILive.com, 3/28/13, powered by the Staten Island Advance.

Culture of testing takes a toll on Staten Island pupils and their families (photos/video). [Ed.: It's not mere testing, it's testing to support the Common Core, foisted upon America by the unelected, non-educator, David Coleman.]

MORE -Our working conditions are our students' learning conditions

Check Out New Yorker's App on Inequality and the Subway

This cool app at the New Yorker's website, "Inequality and New York's Subway," takes each MTA subway/elevated line and matches stations with U.S. Census-provided household income.

The results are stark. Along the 6 train in the upper half of Manhattan, the results vary from over $150,000 to under $25,000.

New York City has a problem with income inequality. And it’s getting worse—the top of the spectrum is gaining and the bottom is losing. Along individual subway lines, earnings range from poverty to considerable wealth. The interactive infographic here charts these shifts, using data on median household income, from the U.S. Census Bureau, for census tracts with subway stations.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Ed Reform is Vietnam War of Our Day; Resistance vs. King is Tet Offensive of Our Day

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