Now we get MaryEllen Elia from Florida, fired just months ago from Hillsborough, Florida district (which includes Tampa), in a 4-3 vote, as their schools superintendent. Chancellor Tisch dismissed the flap (To her credit she has more classroom and schools leadership experience than King had.)
[Update: Tampa Tribune, September 19, 2013, on how she got an F.]
Yet, she got a unanimous nod from the New York State Board of Regents, from the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor. As with NYC principals, you can fall on your face, and rise to the top. But for teachers? Once you slip, never forgiven.
The controversy with Elia? This piece today in the Diane Ravitch blog gives important clues, and her points of controversy put her very well in sync with NYSED chancellor Tisch (pro-high stakes tests, pro-Common Core, pro-test-based evaluations of teachers, pro-merit pay of teachers --see this profile by the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss):
Parent activists are wary of Elia because of her past support for high-stakes testing. To win their confidence, she must clarify her views about testing, about the Opt Out movement, about detaching test scores from teacher evaluations, about merit pay, and about Common Core.
And for the anxiety factor: the New York teachers unions are rumored to like her. But who exactly is that (UFT? also NYSUT?) and why do they like her? Ravitch says that Elia was in the rightist Gov. Rick Scott's transition team.
*Several Supreme Court decisions
could supply bases for opposing Duncan's threats
In his Apr 21
statement that the federal government is obliged to intervene if states fail to address the growing number of students that are boycotting federally mandated annual exams. (Federal law in Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandate annulized testing. However, the form of the test is up to respective state authorities. New York has opted for a Common Core State Standards (CCSS) -based test that is outside of the SBAC or the PARCC test consortia.) It is estimated that over 184,000 students opted out of the CCSS based English tests in New York last week. (Essential Update: See also this issue covered at Diane Ravitch's blog, on 4/22/15, "State May Have Power to Withhold Federal Funding to Punish Opt-Outs." Talk about collective punishment!)
Orders to be
followed without question are in two places: in militaries, and in
authoritarian regimes.
Duncan and the U.S. DOE is demanding compliance without question with his new statement.
Duncan has truly
crossed the line with his threat of sanctions for non-compliance.
Further disturbing is his expectation that districts directly address
the non-compliers. Of course, we must realize what this leads to. If
districts must investigate and curtail opt-outing activity, they must
find, document and punish non-complying students and their parents. And note below how he is attempting to enlist state authorities in addressing non-compliance this month with the Common Core tests.
A federal education department spokeswoman said last week that the agency could withhold funding from states if some of their districts have too few students take the exams, but that it has not yet done so because states have addressed the issue on their own.
State education department spokesman Jonathan Burman said in an email Tuesday that the “the feds are discussing the possibility of imposing penalties for failing to hit participation rate targets.” He added that the state is also expected to “consider imposing sanctions” on districts that fail to meet the 95 percent threshold, which could include withholding money “in the most egregious cases.” (Opt-out advocates have questioned the state’s interpretation of the testing law, and say that sanctions are only allowed after a district falls below the 95 percent level for three years.)
Duncan, unless he reverses his statements, is handing the
2016 election to Republicans. How could someone expect Democrats to
continue to get popular support from liberals? And wouldn't
Independents lean closer to Republicans after this threat?
*Supreme Court case precedence would make fighting Duncan easy
Duncan's demands
for compliance, echoed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, could be
easily challenged in federal court. For, Supreme Court precedent
maintains that parental rights are held highly, above concerns for
other matters such as property rights. For example, see
Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990) which notes that parental rights are
protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. Parental rights figured in
the decision, Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) which upheld the right of
Amish parents not to send their children to public schools past
eighth grade. And of course, Duncan's actions over the past six years have been riddled with Tenth Amendment violations.
Consider also the
matter of compulsory student signing of silence oaths on state tests,
which would seem to violate the First Amendment. Easily, precedential
case law could render these mandates unconstitutional. West Virginia
State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) established that it was
unconstitutional to expect students to recite the Pledge of
Allegiance; Engel v. Vitale (1962) barred state mandates that
students recite prayers in school. Certainly, a lawyer could soundly
argue that from these cases it can be argued that children cannot be
compelled to sign oaths to be silent about test contents. Additionally, we have seen at least one well-known instance of the disciplining of a New Mexico student over informing other students of opt-out rights.
Easily, litigants
could bring case against Duncan, Cuomo and any other government
officials seeking to enforce cooperation with state tests and silence
oaths on test contents.
How would Duncan
achieve his goal of identifying and reprimanding opponents and
opposition leaders? Existing staff
would take on new investigative and police powers.
This would give
people an ugly taste in their mouth when hearing “Democrat.” If
Hillary Clinton or other presidential contender of any political
party have any sense of savvy they would run in the other direction
from Duncan and Cuomo and their talk of sanctions over opt-outs.
*Test opt-outs from Western New York to Suffolk County in Long Island
*Disproportionately low opt-out numbers in New York City --legacy of Bloomberg & Mulgrew
The people are speaking. They know education. They know worth of education, of children, of what is inappropriate testing. They realize spirit deadening high-stakes testing. They realize the inappropriateness of the Common Core. They recognize that the Common Core was imposed on the people without the people asking for it, without public hearings on the Common Core. They realize that the Common Core and its attendant test-prep regimen is deadening the spirit and joy of a generation of school children. THEY ARE SAYING "NO MORE!"
They remember when tests were cheaply produced, mainly in-house New York State affairs. They see the wholesale selling of the people's state schools to Pearson and Governor Cuomo's friends.
There was no public outcry for the selling of schools and children for corporations' gain. Yet, this is the incessant demand of Cuomo, State Education Department Chancellor Merryl Tisch (who has lied with claims that opting out will jeopardize millions in federal money), and those quisling superintendents that blindly follow the demand for the invalid tests. (Of course, kudos to Joseph Rella, a superintendent of strong conscience.)
Parents are seeing that their children are being exploited in being used as political footballs in a shallow battle against teachers. Parents see through the selling out of the schools to privateers. Parents are refusing to allow their children to be pawns in this education war.
Teachers tip their hat to parents, as in the opt-out movement parents are showing solidarity with teacher: they refusing to allow their children to be fodder against teachers.
So, we see test-opt outs across the state: Refusal rates from the 30s to 70s percent.
The Buffalo News reports: "Two thousand kids in West Seneca schools opt out," as students in the Buffalo Niagara district opt out.
The News' recent article reported:
The number of students refusing to participate is expected to grow significantly over the 60,000 statewide who refused to take the tests last year.
The rate reached 70 percent Tuesday in the West Seneca School District, where 2,074 of 2,976 eligible students refused testing. Rates at individual schools ranged from 50 percent at Northwood Elementary School to 83 percent at Allendale Elementary.
In Nassau and Suffolk county, opt-outs were also high, with one town reaching an 82 percent opt-out rate. Headlines from the last 24 hours reverberate with resistance to the high-stakes tests.
Alas, with mayoral control, popular speech, popular expression by parents in an elected board of education, has been deligitimized in New York City.
Shamefully, the New York City media, the public radio station WNYC included, continually has pressed for mayoral control and its renewal. In this era, there is a paucity of parent activism and involvement. So, there has been proportionately very low resistance in New York City. The low level of resistance also has its roots in the repression of teachers over the past twelve years, and in the collaboration of the union, the United Federation of Teachers, whose leader, Michael Mulgrew, has supported the Common Core, and has opposed the opt-out movement. The UFT has defeated opt-out resolutions proposed by the Movement of Rank and File Educators caucus (MORE). Most recently, Monday, in the Mulgrew-dominated Executive Board, Unity aligned UFT leaders dug in their heels against the opt-out movement.
And, of course, "The revolution won't be televised": note that you cannot find this news covered in the New York Times. I will bet my paycheck that if WNYC runs a story they WILL put Merryl Tisch in the driver's seat and they will NOT interview anyone from Change the Stakes.
This is how to fight back. Today, I received an email from one of our guidance counselors. It is a forward from his sister, a teacher, who received it from Eric DeCarlo, president of the Scotia-Glenville Teachers Association, who gave me permission to share it. He received, and adapted it, from Mike Mosal, president of the Burnt Hills Teachers Association. The president of my local, Clint Wagner of The Gloversville Teachers Association, forwarded it to everyone in the district.
You need to do the same. This is it in black and white. This is Cuomo's endgame and the careers of every educator in this state, especially those in FOCUS school districts, are at stake. Our public school system is at stake. Our children's education is at stake.
This is it. This is the moment of truth.
Please read, memorize and share, share, share.
Then DO something.
Recently, the Governor’s office and Regents Chancellor Tisch exchanged letters about the future of education in New York. The links to these letters was sent out in an email last week to the Association. You can read the full letters at those links. The conversation between these two can be broken down into the following “reforms” that could be implemented this spring.
1.40% of teacher evaluation should be tied to growth scores. The local 20% achievement (SLO) should be eliminated.
2.Any teacher deemed “ineffective” on the new 40% state score would be deemed ineffective overall(no matter their scores on the local observation 60%).
3.Any teacher who receives two consecutive ineffective ratings would not be allowed back into the classroom (apparently without a 3020-A hearing or due process. Additionally, all of the current 3020-A hearing officers would be replaced with “state employees”. The Regents seek to replace the last gatekeepers of due process with their own appointees.
4.No student could be scheduled to have an “ineffective” teacher two years in a row (by proposed changes to state education law). This would likely require disclosure of which teachers are “ineffective” for scheduling purposes (and possibly to parents). This is a massive invasion of privacy that was already legislated. Such information is currently not shared outside of the administration and impacted teacher. Parents can only gain this information through a district determined process and, even then, the parents can only know where their student’s teacher falls on the “HEDI” range.
5.Merit pay would be established and, apparently, would not be collectively bargained. Districts would be empowered to “design innovative compensation models based on educator performance”. According to Chancellor Tisch’s letter, our Association would not be privy to the process for how this “compensation” would be doled out and what the criteria would be for merit pay.
6.Teachers would be required to wait five years before they could be granted tenure. Additionally, teacher certification tests would become vastly more challenging.
7.Schools who do not meet the Governor and Chancellor Tisch’s performance expectations, would be closed and replaced with “institutions that are up to the task” which would likely be for-profit charter schools. Additionally, Chancellor Tisch is effectively asking the state legislature for unfettered authority to open and close schools based on metrics (state test scores) that she controls. The Regents and the State Education Department can raise or lower cut scores, and therefore “achievement” gains or losses, at a whim. We have seen this over the past two years as the Common Core assessments become integrated into the APPR. This is, without question, unlimited power for Tisch, the Regents, and the enemies of public education. Furthermore, Tisch seeks to uncap the limit on for-profit charter schools.
These changes are not speculative or “what if’s”. Read the letters linked above, read what NYSUT is saying. This is our FUTURE!!!!
In 2010, all of us (NYSUT included) were caught off guard at the scope and scale of Race to the Top, the Common Core standards, and the APPR law 3012-c. These initiatives completely changed education as we know it. These changes, with very few exceptions, were wholly negative for teachers and bad for children.
Here we are, four years later, with two of the most important figures in state politics and education having an open discussion about how to unequivocally destroy public education in the state of New York. They have become our enemies and our students enemies. They are brash, unencumbered, and openly declaring war on our profession. They seek to eliminate collective bargaining’s impact in the areas of evaluation. They ignore mandatory subjects of negotiation, like compensation. They have so little respect for teachers, and the institutions that represent us, that they openly write about changing due process tenure. This would have been unthinkable five years ago. They do not care about what’s best for kids, teachers, or schools; only headlines and perception. There is no subterfuge here. Governor Cuomo and Chancellor Tisch seek to end public education as we know it. They want to break the back of NYSUT. They want to make our loca irrelevant. If we do not act now, all will be lost.
Simply put, we are at war!
I say to you now, we must become part of the solution. We must take up this cause as we never have before. We cannot be blind to what is about to occur in this state budget cycle.
The first step is to pay very close attention to Wednesday's (1/21/15) State of the State address (held at 1:30). This is an important speech. Governor Cuomo will unveil his budgetary agenda and we will have a clearer picture of what we are facing. Please make every effort to learn about what type of proposals involving education he makes today.
If we do not act now, we accept these changes with our passivity. There will be no one to complain to about “what has happened to education” if you sit on the sidelines now. We are all busy. We are all exhausted. I have three children (one of which is currently in the hospital) and there is not a week that goes by when I do not ask myself, “is leading this Association worth the sacrifices my family makes?” I say, we say, that it is. I love teaching and seeing the impact that I have on my students. I have seen some of the most dedicated professionals I have ever met here in our district That is worth protecting. We are facing unprecedented threats. You must be part of our local’s response to this new threat or you become part of the problem.
In Unity,
Ric
Ric DeCarlo, President
Scotia-Glenville Teachers Association
As that guidance counselor's sister has done, so must you do. Send this to friends and colleagues in other districts, or if you are a parent send this to all of your friends.
*New research on data systems gives parents strong reason to remain fearful of data breaches of children's data in inBloom
NYSED Commissioner John King and Merryl Tisch's faith-based (as opposed to tried, tested and honestly internationally benchmarked) standards promo campaign gospel ("I believe in the Common Core" -John King) Common Core States (sic) Standards tour came to Manhattan Wednesday night. The event was clearly exploited by astroturf groups such as the rabidly anti-union and anti-professional teacher Educators4 (sic) Excellence. With their canned use of high school graduates or high school students that have nary been impacted by the Core as have fourth graders, this was a night for promoting the Core in a fashion that had many of the hallmarks of a Madison Avenue or Frank Luntz-managed campaign.
And as Perdido Street School blog reports, this was indeed orchestrated, as he indicated with Epoch Times Thursday in "In Oddly Similar Terms, Parents Exalt the Common Core" reports of scripts and suspiciously well-timed cheers. And in contrast to the Common Core gospel tour of the last few weeks we hear John King react to the audience, indeed, responding to certain concerns of audience speakers.
For a frank, first hand account, read, "John King’s Flying Circus Lands in Lower Manhattan."
As of Sunday, December 15, NYSED still is holding off on giving dates or locations of the Queens or Staten Island meetings. Guess E4E and StudentsFirst need more time to rehearse their talking points. Defiance: Adamantly for inBloom
A speaker blasted New York State and its commitment to contiuning the contract with inBloom, with a specific question pointed to King. The commissioner, in words that he will surely eat at some point in the next two years was adamant, albeit in his usual genteel (somnolent) soft-spoken way, insisting that inBloom is secure, that New York is going forward.
A study, which is expected to be released on Friday, by the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham Law School in New York, found weaknesses in the protection of student information in the contracts that school districts sign when outsourcing web-based tasks to service companies.
Many contracts, the study found, failed to list the type of information collected while others did not prohibit vendors from selling personal details — like names, contact information or health status — or using that information for marketing purposes.
“We found that when school districts are transferring student information to cloud service providers, by and large key privacy protections are absent from those arrangements,” said Joel R. Reidenberg, a law professor at Fordham who led the study. “We’re worried about the implications for students over time, how their personal information may be used or misused.”
But aside from a few parents from Change the Stakes and teachers from the United Federation of Teachers new Movement of Rank and File (MORE) caucus, we heard from few parents critical of the Common Core standards and their ancillary high stakes tests. The lack of parental participation is sadly not too shocking in the city. For the shift away from Board of Education to mayoral control under the Department of Education, has meant a shift from popular, democratic input and thus engagement in the educational policy of the city. Furthermore, with mayor Michael Bloomberg's smoke and mirrors "school choice" program, tens of thousands of students are traveling far from home, with 90 or 120 minute commutes not uncommon. With the effectual destruction of the neighborhood school at the high school level and increasingly the lower grades, far fewer children are going to district schools. All of this adds up to parents' being less involved in school-level educational concerns.
So with the essential disenfranchisement of New Yorkers is it any wonder that fewer parents were involved in the schools. Another scandal, which we hope that incoming mayor Bill deBlasio will rectify.
It is critical that pressure must be put on the New York State Board of Regents to do the right thing regarding education policy and removing Commissioner John King, more specifically. However, the Regents, the body that appointed King, are not directly answerable to the public. They are elected to five-year terms by state legislature. Thus, the following list zeroes in strategically upon certain critically important state legislators. I applaud the authors of the webpage that composed the list below. For they have performed an important civic service.
From the New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) site:
ACTION ALERT: The following Board of Regents members have terms that are set to expire, and we MUST affect the appointment process:
• Christine Cea (Staten Island) • James Jackson (Albany, Columbia, Greene, Rensselaer, Schoharie, Sullivan, Ulster) • James Cottrell (at-large) • Wade Norwood (at-large)
Never before has the Board of Regents appointment process been held to public scrutiny. But this year WE WILL MAKE AN IMPACT. The interests of our children MUST be represented by our elected NYS Assembly Members.
Here are 4 steps that we all must do on a weekly basis:
2.) Call and email Assembly Education Committee Chairpersons: Catherine Nolan (D) Phone: 718-784-3194 and 518-455-4851 nolanc@assembly.state.ny.us Deborah Glick (D) Phone: 212-674-5153 and 518-455-4818 glickd@assembly.state.ny.us
3.) Call and email each of the following Assembly members: To affect Christine Cea appointment: Matthew Titone (D) Phone: 718-442-9932 and 518-455-4677 titonem@assembly.state.ny.us Michael Cusick (D) Phone: 718-370-1384 and 518-455-5526 cusickm@assembly.state.ny.us
4.) Use the guidelines here to tell them that we need NEW Board of Regents members: - Tell them there are 4 Regents up for re-appointment. - Tell them you demand the appointment of Regents who support an immediate moratorium on Common Core, high stakes testing, and data sharing. - Tell them the public will hold NYS Assembly members accountable for their votes for or against the appointment of the NYS Board of Regents members.
Here is a sample letter to email that you can also use as a script to guide you on the phone: Dear__________________________________ This year 4 members of the NYS Board of Regents are up for re-appointment, Cea, Jackson, Cotrell, and Norwood. New candidates will be interviewed by the Education Committees in February, and you will be voting on these re-appointments in March of 2014. I am writing to let you know that I am very concerned about the damaging effects of Regents Reform Agenda, and that this year, the public will hold NYS legislators accountable for their votes for or against the appointment of individual Regents. Therefore, I am asking that you please appoint Regents who support an immediate moratorium on Common Core, high stakes testing, and the uploading of student information to the inBloom cloud. The Regent’s Reform agenda in NYS is destroying public education and violating student privacy. As an elected NYS legislator, you MUST represent the interests of our children and the will of the people. Sincerely,
Background Information on the NYS Board of Regents:
- Candidates wishing to apply to become a Board of Regents member must send a resume to the Assembly Education and Higher Education Committees before January 31. In-person interviews are conducted by Assemblywomen Catherine Nolan and Debra Glick in February.
- Legislators vote in early March, but they are generally given one or two nominees to vote on, less than 24 hours before the election, that are selected by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Although the public is told that the entire legislation votes, in reality it is Sheldon Silver that chooses. Many legislators abstain because the process is so dysfunctional.
WE MUST CONTACT THE ELECTED OFFICIALS ABOVE SO THAT WE CAN INFLUENCE THE BOARD OR REGENTS APPOINTMENTS. - The Regents preside over the New York State Education Department and SUNY.
- The Board consists of 17 members; 1 from each of the State's 13 judicial districts and 4 members who serve at large.
- The Board is headed by the Chancellor of the Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch.
- Those serving on the Board of Regents come from diverse backgrounds and fields. Some are former educators but most are not.
- The duties of the Board of Regents include: setting graduation requirements, testing regimens and curriculum and approval of the State Education Department's budget.
- The regents are not paid a salary and are not required to have any educational training or background.
- While Commissioner King may have proposed the haphazard and incompetent implementation of the Common Core and subsequent testing, The Board of Regents approved this rollout.
-The process by which one becomes a regent is not widely understood. Members of the NYS Assembly may nominate a potential regent. Their appointment is confirmed by a joint vote of the legislature. The Democratic Majority in the State Assembly currently controls the selection process.
- Although a regent’s term expires after 5 years, historically a current regent is automatically re-appointed and will serve until they resign or retire. We must change this.
The Board of Regents wields a great deal of power, and they must be held responsible for their actions. Many parents have appealed to individual Regents and asked for their support of parent efforts to resist harmful education reforms. Likewise, powerful advocacy representing parents, teachers and school administers have also appealed to the Board of Regents but they are not listening.
UPDATED: *Rank and file teachers chafe under Common Core's scripted lessons, test prep *Buffalo Teachers Federation Blasts Common Core Test Prep *UFT Should Show Same Solidarity and Attend Comm. King's Appearance At Elementary School *How Conditions Will Change Little in the Change from Bloomberg to deBlasio *Change the Stakes Calls for Bronx Cheer vs. King at his NYC tour *Burris: NYSED has lost its moral authority *UFT should support NYSAPE's 4 point action plan *Postscript: Disgraceful Pavlovian math lesson for Kindergarteners
Progressive teacher unionists have sought an alliance with parents. Chicago teachers built alliances with parents over school closings and other issues. In New York City teachers have an important opportunity to build a broad alliance with parents. The New York City appearance of New York State Education Commissioner John King and New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, Wednesday, December 11, 5:00 to 7:00 at P.S. 397, the Spruce Street School, 12 Spruce Street, between Nassau and William Streets, a block from City Hall park, Manhattan, is an important occasion for teachers and parents to stand shoulder to shoulder against Common Core, the associated test prep regimen, inBloom and APPR.
Principal Carol Burris in NSAPE video
At the beginning of November, 22 Unions across New York State backed NYSAPE's position on King's resignation. From Long Island to the North Country, from Western New York to the MidHudson, and from Central New York to the Capital Region. In addition, one of the state's largest teachers' unions, the Buffalo Teachers Federation (in the state's second largest city), has independently called on King to step down. The impetus for King to step down is his obstinate support for New York's continuation of implementation of the Common Core State Standards [more properly called the Common Core national standards or Common Core Gates Standards], constant test-prep, and the 400 data point collection inBloom, a Murdoch-run system for student data collection in a cloud hosted by Amazon.
(NYSAPE's video on NYSED officials' failure to listen to parents) The New York State Allies for Public Education, whose Steering Committee includes Carol Burris, Chris Cerrone and Leonie Haimson, has a four point plan of action, 1) for King's resignation, 2) for legislators to vote for better Regents, 3) against inBloom and excessive testing, 4) for alerting local school boards that parents do not want their children's information to be stored by inBloom.
[Postscript: Change the Stakes calls for a NYC welcome and a Bronx cheer for Comm. King as he makes his NYC tour Tuesday and Wednesday --details below. They noted that as of Dec. 8 there still is no word on how to address questions for the events
Class Size Matters has an update in anticipation of a Jan. 3 State Supreme Court session on their legal appeal for an injunction on any more children's information being uploaded onto the inBloom cloud.]
Buffalo's teacher union president Phil Rumore said, in announcing the union's call for his resignation, as reported in the Buffalo News:
By having them take a test that they weren't prepared for, hurt them. His focus on standardized testing is just ruining our kids. It's ruining our kids joy of learning, and the teachers joy of teaching.
The newspaper further reported:
Rumore said teachers across the state are under tremendous pressure to have their students perform on standardized tests. He sited the implementation of teacher and administrator evaluations based on those tests as another reason for the motion.
The News added that the last straw for the BTF was when King walked out on a parent's forum on the Common Core.
Already, mental health professionals are saying that Common Core and its curriculum is detrimental to the emotional well-being of students. See videos of statements by Mary Calamia, LICSW here and Dr. Gary Thompson here. In forum after forum in New York State, students speak of their lost enthusiasm for school, parents speak of confusing curriculum modules, teachers speak of alienation from their profession. Some of the curricular materials are culturally insensitive. The principal of a Mohawk nation elementary school reports that some of the Common Core curricular modules depict native Americans in culturally insensitive ways.
It's Not Just Common Core, How Conditions Might Change Little in the Transition from Bloomberg to deBlasio
King, Tisch, sitting impassively, but are they listening?
Beyond the issue of Common Core, King's
corporate-minded education "reform" policies drive a metrics-crazed regimen of myriad imposition of conditions driving teachers' alienation and exhaustion. The quantification and documentation mania that teachers are chafing under seem to come from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, but really they are dictated by state laws and regulations, all coming from Race to the Top compliance with the Common Core. New York City teachers are not the only ones suffering; and it is critical that teachers remember that their working conditions stem from Albany, not simply from Bloomberg, and so they will continue under de Blasio, unless there is significant popular pressure directed at state education policy-makers.
Read the letter of resignation of Kathleen Knauth, a New York State principal that quit, seeking early retirement, due to the state's policies. The policies driving her to quit stem from APPR and other laws supporting New York's Race to the Top compliance.
View this video of a star teacher that also sought early retirement over the work conditions. Implicitly, the changes he cites stem from New York State's Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR).
Tisch's circular argument in Brian Lehrer's 8/15 radio show
The Common Core is only law in New York State because he and State Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch aggressively pushed for it along with other changes to comply with New York's Race to the Top, which states supported to get federal monies, in the wake of the 2008 Grand Recession. Effectually, the Obama administration is pushing something close to a national curriculum. Multiple federal statutes prohibit the exercise of such authority. As teachers learn in their American education history classes, such authority is the preserve of individual states.
King and other Common Core backers tell us that it is internationally bench-marked and essential for making all students college and career-ready. He is diverting education from education for the sake of being a well-rounded, independent thinker, healthy and creative young person. He cannot point to any nation that edges out fictional literature with a maximum 50 percent figure, that side-lines science and social studies, subordinating those topics to incidental discussion in English classes. He argues for the Common Core math standards, but skips over how the lead math author of the Common Core, Jason Zimba concedes that its level of math preparation would prepare students for a non-competitive community college, lopping off a high school year of math.
The Common Core's English component was written by David Coleman, someone who failed to get a teaching job and his Achieve, Inc. colleague Sue Pimentel, a lawyer by training and a test assessment professional. The math authors (including Zimba, a fellow alum of Coleman) have no kindergarten through 12 teaching experience. The lack of school experience and first hand understanding of young minds and personalities is a parallel to our modern era's replacing of a public voice with private institutions' shaping public policy.
Recent public attention has been given to how King and Tisch spearheaded the education policy setting role in New York State by the privately funded Regents Fellows, who in their founding years were provided $1 million by Tisch herself. Read "Regents Pay a Political Price for Their Free Advisers, Dissenters Warn
" by the New York Times. ALEC and too many other shadowy non-governmental organizations are driving public policy. We do not need an education commissioner who actively supports a private group shaping public education policy.
The UFT should re-schedule its December 11 Delegate Assembly business for another date and should attend the Wednesday forum at the Spruce Street School at Spruce and Nassau Streets, by the Brooklyn Bridge, supporting parents and teachers wishing to express the daily, lived experience of the Common Core and other misguided New York State education policies. Then again, this would be an about face, as the NYS PTA and the UFT-dominated NYSUT this fall uploaded a puff piece for parents promoting the Common Core, sounding all the stock buzzwords to rally the flock to Common Core compliance. (Their shilling for the Core is not surprising, as the NYSUT's national parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers and the national PTA received $5.4 million and $500,000 respectively from the Gates Foundation, which initiated the Common Core.)
Too bad, because the UFT members in an online poll do not like Common Core's curriculum at all. The poll is buried deep in the UFT website, at pages such as this one. The numbers are actually a little worse for CCSS from when I captured the poll image.
Further, it should encourage state legislators, Assembly Education Committee members listed here, to pledge to vote for Regents that oppose King's policies.
King and Tisch's NYC tour of their faith-based Common Core (backed into a corner, King says that he has faith in the Common Core). (Still no details on Queens or Staten Island meetings. Do King and Tisch consider them pesky suburbanites?) Tuesday, December 10 in Brooklyn
Medgar Evers College 1650 Bedford Avenue (map here) 6:30-8:30 PM
Tuesday, December 10 in The Bronx
Evander Childs Campus 800 East Gun Hill Road (map here) 6:00-8:00 PM
[Postscript: Controversial Kindergarten math video shared by Chris Cerrone:
What is even more troubleing is that this robotic lesson is actually on the New York State Education Department engageny.org website as a Common Core math module ideal. Parents, do you want your children to be educated like trained animals? Teachers, do you want this to be the vision of model teaching? I hardly think that this flies for progressive teaching at the Montessori School of the King's children.]
*Prussian NYS ed leadership *Doing right CTU, contrasted against Petainesque UFT *Heroes or vulnerable incumbents?: the members of the Assembly's Education Committee
First, in Illinois the political leaders listen a little bit more to the people. But in New York State it is like 19th Century Prussia with Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and NYS Education Commissioner John King not deigning to listen to those outside the privileged top class. Tisch, King, Governor Andrew Cuomo know they can get away with this. King and Tisch are only accountable to Regents. And the latter themselves are insulated, only accountable to the legislature, and only up for re-election in 2015, a year after the 2014 state elections. As the New York Times indicated in an article on the influence of the shadowy Regents Fellows, an unaccountable private clique that sets education policy behind the scenes, the Regents are split into a Bloombergian metrics-faith-based faction, and a more traditionally educator faction. The lag time between now and 2015 will give them time to regroup or at least plot to thwart a popular mobilization against them.
NYS Assembly Education Committee chair Catherine Nolan has distinguished her self in speaking for the public schools at out-going New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's sham Panel for Educational Policy hearings. Surely, she must smell the acrid stench of the Common Core cafe. Thus, if she leads the Assembly charge against the Common Core and assists in the formation of a Senate caucus against the Core (in that chamber the parties are more evenly divided and it is there that the CCSS might be thwarted more quickly), she will be well positioned to catapult to the next political level, a US House of Representatives seat.
But which seat would she want? Not her own turf, her ally Joseph Crowley is there; not the Forest Hills/Flushing seat, new frosh Grace Meng is there. Money bags Carolyn Maloney of Upper East Side/Astoria would be a tough one to beat with her resources. Yet, the perniciously anti-Muslim Peter King would be a perfect target to challenge. Nolan, start shopping for a home in his district!
Sadly, while the Chicago Teachers Union has taken wise stands on inBloom and Common Core, in New York City we have the United Federation of Teachers leadership which as recently as this summer staunchly supported the Common Core. The UFT's president Michael Mulgrew's approach to co-opt the Common Core anxiety: just complain about missing curriculum and call for postponing associated high-stakes tests, note: not calling out of principle to reject the standards and the ancillary high stakes tests. Mulgrew, will you call on the next mayor to pull New York City out of inBloom's jaws?
Postscript: a Congressional seat is Nolan's to walk away with. The following are members of the New York State Assembly Education Committee, their district number and main communities in their district. Note how --aside from New York City, Long Island, as well as (by coincidence or design?) communities that were the site of tumultous town halls over the Common Core, figures prominently in the locales represented by the education committee. And to underscore the salience of this issue, we call attention to Perdido Street School's report that the Common Core has become a lightning from for voter discomfort and some state politicians are already running scared. The legislature members are sitting ducks for challenges, as the legislature failed to pass provisions that would have protected student privacy. Challengers, you want and issue to take down representatives? Study the Common Core and inBloom fiascos.
Catherine Nolan, Chair, 37 – Long Island City, Sunnyside and Ridgewood
Carmen Arroy, 84 - Bronx
Michael Benedetto, 82 - Bronx
James Brennan, 44 - Brooklyn
Karim Camara, 43 - Brooklyn
Barbara Clark, 33 - Queens Village and SE Queens
Jane Corwin, 144 – Clarence & NE suburbs of Niagara Falls and Buffalo
Steve Englebright, 4 – Coram, East Setauket, Stony Brook, Port Jefferson
Al Graf, 5 – Centereach, Farmingville, Holbrook, Ronkonkoma
Carl Heastie, 83 - Bronx
Earlene Hooper, 18 – Hempstead, Roosevelt, Freeport
Kieran Michael Lalor, 105 – hamlets east of Poughkeepsie: Wappinger Falls, Fishkill, Hopewell Junction
Peter Lopez, 102 – Cobleskill, Catskill, Saugerties
William Magnarelli, 102 – Syracuse and NW suburbs
Alan Maisel, 59 - Brooklyn
Shelley Mayer, 90 – Yonkers and towns to the east
David McDonough, 14 – Bellmore and Wantagh
Steven McLaughlin, 107 – Troy and most of Renssalear County
Michael Miller, 38 – Ridgewood and Woodhaven
Joan Millman, 52 - Brooklyn
Daniel O'Donnell, 69 - Manhattan
Amy Paulin, 88 – south White Plains, Scarsdale to New Rochelle
Edward Ra, 19 – Glen Head, Westbury, Mineola, Garden City
Phil Ramos, 6 - Brentwood, Islip and North Bay Shore
Robert Sweeney, 11 – Lindenhurst and other SW Suffolk County towns
Claudia Tenney, 101 – Utica to Walden in Orange County
Fred Thiele, Jr., 1 – Hamptons and Montauk
Matthew Titone, 61 – Staten Island
Michele Titus, 31 – South Ozone Park to Far Rockaway
Harvey Weisenberg- 5 towns, Oceanside and Long Beach
*Tech experts not confident with data cloud security *School boards developing discipline score to feed to colleges *Data breach is third for the Sachem district *Where does deBlasio stand on inBloom?
Not making the headlines of major media was the breach of approximately 15,000 student records in 18 elementary, middle and high schools in the Sachem school district in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York a couple of weeks ago. In fact, briefly, confidential information was posted on an external website "Sachem Unspun", as reported on the News 12 television station. A Holbrook 17 year old was arrested on November 22 in connection with the hacking of student data. For parents and other activists, this incident should serve as a matter of concern as to whether families can school systems can rest assured that student records wold be secure. That this has happened, even before the ambitious aggregation and indexing of data under inBloom, is a matter of concern for the security of future databases.
New York Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch summarily dismissed Regent Roger Tille's concerns that she was too close to Joel Klein, that it led to favoritism in the New York State Education Department's contract with Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Generation (today WG's unit tending to inBloom is renamed Amplify, as Andrea Gabor reported in "Will Rupert Murdoch's Media Empire End Up Owning Your Child's Student Data?"), the company handling inBloom; education commissioner John King dismissed no-bid contract concerns about the deal, saying that New York was under time pressure from Race to the Top deadlines. InBloom represents a big project objective of the shadowy, unaccountable Regents Fellows that set NYS education policies behind the scenes. The King-Tisch duo, deaf to parent security concerns, are being consistent with their tone of contemptuous disregard for parent, educator and student opinion on Common Core. See the videos at the right on parent and student reactions to the Common Core and their test regimen. Their tests data will be a central data point in the inBloom database.
Is it that urgent that inBloom be imposed on the people of New York State? Consider the variety of ways that the data could be misused. From bullying to extortion, it is risky to have so much data that could be stored in clouds, information that could be exploited. We have already seen how seen how many fragile many teens are, in the face of cyber-harassment, a number of students have taken their own lives. Are taxpayers comfortable with prospect of footing legal bills when parents (understandably) sue the state or districts following breaches of student data security? And never forget how Murdoch's News of the World was engaged in scandalous hacking of people's private information, as revealed in press reports last year? See this video in which New York State superintendents themselves say that many of the 400 data points have little relation to assisting students with learning.
Roughly 15,000 students enrolled in 18 Long Island elementary,
middle and high schools – comprising the Sachem School District – may
have had personal data compromised by an unidentified individual who posted the information on an online forum.
How many victims? Roughly 15,000. What type of personal information? Posted on the forum was a
list of 15,000 names with student ID numbers and school lunch
designations, student records on 360 students who graduated Sachem High
School East in 2008, and a report relating to approximately 130 students
who attended Sachem High School North who were receiving instructional
services in an alternate setting in the 2010-2011 year, the district
confirmed.
On a separate forum, a concerned user posted
about having seen medical records, doctor's letters, report cards,
district registration documents that include names, addresses, dates of
birth and parent information, and disciplinary records. What happened? On separate occasions, student documents were
posted on an online forum by someone who claimed the Sachem School
District database had been hacked. What was the response? Sachem School District audited its
firewalls and intrusion detection systems. The website that hosted the
forum has been contacted and has removed any posts containing school
data. The school district is mailing letters to affected families. An
investigation is ongoing with local and federal law enforcement. Details: Sachem School District first became aware in July
that school documents were being posted online. An official
investigation into the schools' firewalls and intrusion detection
systems revealed that a breach did not originate from the outside.
Additional information was posted online in August and again a breach
was not deemed to have originated from the outside. Student information
was posted most recently on Nov. 8. Quote: “The district has devoted every available resource to
cooperate with and to assist law enforcement,” according to a post on
the Sachem School District website. “Access to student records is an
important daily internal function of any school district. This is a
necessity, but can unfortunately render our data vulnerable to a
determined criminal actor willing to misuse access to our systems.”
The bipartisan "Moms Against Duncan" Facebook group ("a NONPARTISAN, NONPOLITICAL, PRO-PUBLIC EDUCATION, ANTI-COMMON CORE place for parents to connect, find local groups and actively fight for their children" --caps in original) had this statement in recent weeks. It gets to concerns about the ultimate governmental and commercial uses of student personal data:
As the co-founder of MAD (Moms Against Duncan) we are linking groups of parents all over this country together. Our ultimate goal is a 10% standardized test opt out rate in every school K-8. We will corrupt the data so it is useless. No school scores, no teacher scores, no student scores. No databases, no prison planning data, no economic development data. Pearson, Gates and Duncan can kiss our multicolored backsides. Our children are NOT data. We want all this wasted money back in the hands of our teachers.
Patrick Sullivan, noted for his civic integrity on New York City's Panel for Educational Policy, drew attention this week to how the New York State School Boards Association is planning to develop an "inBloom score" on student to inform colleges on how students behaved in school. The school board's plan is troubling, because many students grow up to be responsible and academically proficient in college, despite having discipline issues in their school careers as minors. It is for this issue that student discipline records until recently have been sealed, off-limits after graduation.
deBlasio, Which Side Are You On?
[Postscript: NYC Public School Parents has a piece on the opposition in Chicago against the inBloom system. Leonie Haimson wrote on how Herricks Superintendent John Bierwith reported that all the Nassau superintendents are solidly against inBloom, “I don’t think there’s a person in Nassau County who thinks InBloom is a good idea." . So, how do things stand for next year in New York City? "Which Side Are You On?" Will de Blasio's chancellor support or oppose inBloom? Also, will deBlasio disband the private arm working inside of New York City education that Haimson referred to, Fund for Public Schools, that just in last year received $1.8 million from the Gates Foundation? We do not need the continuation of private, unaccountable operations setting government policy.
"I'm Your Puppet":
