Public Education Is All About Compliance: Obey Or Else!

From the Daily News:

A teacher at an Upper West Side high school was fired for creating a curriculum with lessons about the Central Park Five that administrators feared would “rile up” black students, according to a new federal lawsuit.

English teacher Jeena Lee-Walker said her bosses at the High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry urged her in November 2013 to be more “balanced” in her approach to the racially charged Central Park jogger case that ended with five black and Latino teens being exonerated after spending several years in prison for the attack.

They told her the lessons could create little “riots,” according to court papers.

Although Lee-Walker, 37, agreed to soften her approach, she argued “that students in general, and black students in particular, should be riled up.”

“I kind of wanted to hook them in, engage them, win them over,” she said. “I thought that this material was not only engaging but important.”

...

After several tense exchanges with supervisors, Lee-Walker received a series of bad performance reviews over the next 18 months that ultimately led to her dismissal, the suit said.

Lee-Walker said she was accused of insubordination and given poor evaluations not just because of the material, but because she pushed back.

She was fired in May, roughly two years after joining the High School for the Arts and six years after she began teaching in city public schools.

“I felt abandoned and mistreated,” Lee-Walker said of the ordeal. “I think a lot of teachers in the system feel the same way.”

There's still all this talk in the media and from politicians about the need to fire "bad" teachers and close "failing" schools.

The environment for education is toxic and poisoned these days by all the compliance mandates we have that are supposed to handle the firing of "bad" teachers and the closing of "failing" schools.

Danielson drive-bys, where administrators come into your room with the Danielson rubric and ensure that you're jumping through every hoop on the rubric, are meant to control and contain teachers.

They're also meant to give dismissal tools to administrators who want to get rid of teachers they don't want - regardless of whether they're "bad" or not.

There's nothing "objective" about the Danielson rubric - administrators can ignore all the great stuff a teacher does, focus on one or two supposed "flaws" in a lesson and give enough developings and ineffectives in an evaluation to get the teacher either put on a PIP or sent packing.

You can see how this worked with Lee-Walker - they wanted her to tone down her lessons, she agreed, but the "softening" wasn't enough for administrators at the school and she was targeted for dismissal and successfully canned after a period of so-called "objective documentation."

The message for teachers in the DOE - obey or else! - is also the message for students when they see what happens to their teachers who try and step out of the uniform and give something of themselves in the classroom.

That message is underscored by the EngageNY curriculum and Regents exams, which punish any thoughts that do not come "from the text" and so teach students that they are not to think for themselves, only learn what their betters think and figure out how to parrot that back in the endless "text-based argumentative essays" they have to write across classes.

Lee-Walker's lawyer puts this all into perspective for us:

“Ms. Lee-Walker is the type of teacher we want in a classroom,” her lawyer, Ambrose Wotorson, told The News.

“We’re not looking to turn our students into automatons. We’re looking to turn out independent thinkers — and she got fired for that, and that's just wrong,” Wotorson said.

Actually it's quite the opposite.

What education reformers want are compliant teachers who obey the rules, teach only what is supposed to be taught in the way the system wants it taught and students who learn to be automatons who are just smart enough to be able to figure out what their betters want but not smart enough to know how badly they're getting screwed by the system.

21st Century public education is all about compliance - from the system as a whole right down to the individual classrooms and the teachers and students in each one.

Opt Out Parents Will Not Be Fooled By Rhetoric Shifts On Testing

The Obama administration issues some meaningless rhetoric yesterday about there being too much emphasis on testing in schools, an announcement that was hailed in some quarters (e.g., the professional shill class - the unions) and met with skepticism in others (e.g., many parents and teachers in the blogosphere and twitterverse.)

Here at Perdido Street School the announcement was met with a shrug.

The testing cap the Obama administration talked about yesterday (limiting testing to 2% of school time) is meaningless so long as teachers and schools are rated and either fired or closed based upon test scores.

Educrats can put some arbitrary cap in place all they want - the insane emphasis on testing and test prep will remain so long as the tests are used as bludgeons against teachers and schools.

And in fact, the Obama administration has ensured that teachers will be rated via test scores because they threatened to take NCLB waivers away from any state that didn't follow that Obama administration dictate on test score-based teacher evaluations - and did take away Washington State's waiver for not following it.

So the Obama educrats can talk about seeing the light on testing all they want - their actions speak much differently than their words and show that the emphasis on testing is not changing at all.

Same goes with Governor Andrew "I will break the public school monopoly" Cuomo in New York State.

Cuomo hailed the announcement on testing yesterday even as has moved to increase the weight of test scores in teacher evaluations to 50% and put into place a receivership program that hands schools that are "struggling" on their test scores to charter school operators.

In addition, Cuomo refused to let his test-centric teacher evaluation system be part of his Common Core review, ensuring that no changes would come to the system (even though it's currently being challenged in court because of irrational swings in the test score component.)

Like Obama, Cuomo says one thing about testing but contradicts those words with his actions.

The Endless Testing regime lives on despite the rhetoric shifts from the Obama and Cuomo administrations.

Politicians think voters are stupid and easily misled but as Chris Cerrone pointed out yesterday, this is not so with opt out parents:

#optout parents are VIGILANT. We know what changes must occur to our children's education. pic.twitter.com/yNisLOngmI

— Chris Cerrone (@Stoptesting15) October 24, 2015

The politicians and educrats are trying to knock off the number of test opt outs by issuing some meaningless rhetoric around testing, but we will NOT be fooled by their words.

The proof will be in what happens in schools - and currently, the insane emphasis on testing remains because tests continue to be used as bludgeons against both teachers and schools.

Albany Catholic Schools Reject Common Core, Return To Student-Centered learning

The rejection of Common Core continues:

Catholic elementary and middle schools in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany are stepping back from the Common Core-New York State Assessments and shifting instead to a more student-focused approach to standardized testing, the diocesan Catholic Schools Office announced Oct. 2 at a news conference at St. Madeleine Sophie School in Schenectady.

"Long before the advent of Common Core, Catholic schools in this diocese were known for their high academic standards, and today’s announcement signals a recommitment to and recognition of what we have always done best: educating the whole child – body, mind, and spirit,” said Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger.

At the news conference, Catholic Schools Superintendent Michael Pizzingrillo explained that over the past two years, the Catholic Schools Office along with a variety of stakeholders have evaluated participation in the New York State Assessments and found that although its schools have used test results appropriately, the negative perception of its potential use did not allow parents and teachers the ability to benefit from its participation in all grades.

“The end result is a stepping back from the New York State Assessments coupled with a stepping forward with an achievement-based assessment we have chosen for ourselves,” Pizzingrillo said. “Although the standards of the Common Core itself are good, the collateral pieces have caused great strife for families and teachers alike. It’s time to put a renewed focus back on our students where it belongs.”

They're still going to administer state tests, but only three times from K-8:

Beginning this year, diocesan Catholic elementary and middle schools will administer the New York State Assessments only in grades 3, 5, and 7, meaning the tests will not serve as annual evaluations of student performance, but rather as benchmarks of longitudinal student progress over a set number of years. Catholic schools will administer the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (recently renamed the Iowa Assessments), a nationally normed multiple-choice assessment, to all students in grades 3 through 8 in November.

Putting a renewed focus back on the students instead of rote teaching/learning and standardized testing...

Imagine that.

Many Students Return To School Without Their Common Core Test Results

You know how educrats, education reformers and civil rights activists living off the Gates/Broad Foundation dole like to say we must have standardized testing or otherwise we'll never know how the kids are doing in school?

This past spring saw the rollout of new tests based on the Common Core standards. The reading and math tests replace traditional spring standardized tests. About 12 million students in 29 states and the District of Columbia took the tests developed by two groups — the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC).

According to Smarter Balanced, only a few states have released scores from the spring — Connecticut, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Missouri, West Virginia, and Vermont. Most states have not been able to put out test scores before the start of classes. The delay was expected in the exam's first year, but it's still frustrating for some teachers and parents.

Scores for the almost 5 million students who took the PARCC tests still have yet to be released. PAARC is still setting benchmarks for each performance level. The partnership says they're due for release this fall, and that the goal in future years of the tests is to release the results as close to the end of the school year as possible.

Just as with the New York Common Core tests, the benchmarks aren't set until long after the students  take their tests.

With the old New York State Regents exams, the benchmark scores were set before students took their tests and were posted right after the test ended.

That seems like a fair and honest way to do things - set the passing mark before students take the test.

But in the Era of Common Core, when educrats and reformers wanted to rig the tests for 70% failure rates, all of these Common Core tests, including the high school tests, are benchmarked long after students take their tests and the results are in.

Rigged?

You betcha!

If not, why not set the benchmarks before, the way they used to with the Regents exams?

Simple - they're playing with the numbers, manipulating them for their own political ends.

But as we've seen with the opposition to testing growing over the past few years, the more games the educrats and reformers play with the Endless Testing regime, the more the opposition to testing grows.

So keep playing games, folks.

You are fooling fewer and fewer with the manipulation and lies.

How Are Teachers Handling The Opt Out Issue?

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said any educator who supports or encourages the Opt Out movement is "unethical".

A commenter on a previous Perdido Street School post said she/he never encourages parents to opt children out of tests:

I am a teacher and I totally support the opt out movement. However, I do not believe it is ethical for teachers to ENCOURAGE parents to opt out. On the flip side I have no problem whatsoever for teachers to give information to parents who ASK for opt out information. It is the same with cops. They might not support a certain law like drinking in public but they can't encourage people to just brown bag it in dark corners.

In a reply to that comment, another commenter wrote:

At my school the principal asked us NOT to discuss opt out with parents, even if they ask. If a parent brings it up we have to tell them to speak to the principal. Talking to parents about opt out is a good way to get rated ineffective.

There is some conjecture that going forward, NYSED will go after educators with high opt rates, from superintendents leading districts to principals leading schools to teachers in individual classrooms.

Both Regents Chancellor Tisch and NYSED Commissioner Elia have made some not-so-subtle comments to back up that conjecture that they will look to punish educators over opt out rates.

So, there's an important question to ask here:

How do teachers out there handle the opt out issue?

Wealthy Political Donors Are Sad Some Republican Candidates Are Running Away From Common Core

Some Common Core shills seem unaware that Common Core is about as popular as Ebola these days with a good segment of the population.

Take the editorial boards at the Washington Post and NY Times, both of whom recently wrote up glowing assessments (yeah, I'm using that word on purpose) to talk about the wonders of Common Core and the ancillary tests that go with them and tow warn about the dangers of opposition to the Core (and the tests).

In reading the Washington Post editorial, you'd think it was still 2011 and Common Core opposition was "fringe" instead of increasing by the year.

It's not just clueless newspaper editorial board shills who don't get what's happening with Common Core with the general populace.

The Wall Street Journal today has a piece that says wealthy GOP donors are getting bummed out that Republican presidential candidates are trashing the Common Core.

The Journal reports that wealthy donors are sticking by the Core and pulling support away from candidates like Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker who initially supported the Core but now oppose it.

Candidates who continue to support Common Core are getting love - and dollars - from the Wall Street Common Core-lovers:

Mr. Bush’s approach is drawing a section of donors who have previously backed education accountability efforts in New York and New Jersey. Daniel Loeb, a New York City hedge-fund manager who encouraged Mr. Christie to run for president in 2012, has given $2,700 to Mr. Bush’s campaign, according to the Bush campaign’s financial disclosure. New Jersey education-minded donors that have given to Mr. Bush include Rick Rieder, of BlackRock Capital, Joseph Amato of Neuberger Berman, and Richard Pechter, the past chairman of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, the filing shows.

In July, a fundraiser for Mr. Bush was co-hosted by Mr. Lilley and David Tepper, a billionaire hedge-fund manager who helped cofound the Better Education for Kids organization in New Jersey. Members of the organization that advocates for high education standards have donated to Mr. Christie previously.

Alan Fournier, founder of Pennant Capital Management and co-founder of the New Jersey education organization, gave at least $14,400 to past Christie campaigns, records show. Mr. Fournier gave $50,000 to a super PAC supporting Mr. Bush, disclosure reports show. Mr. Tepper has also given $250,000 to the pro-Bush group, Right to Rise.

Mr. Lilley said his support for Mr. Bush is separate from his official role with Better Education for Kids. A spokesman for Mr. Tepper declined to comment. Mr. Fournier didn’t respond to a request for comment.

So even as opposition to Common Core continues to mount around the country, our "betters" - wealthy Wall Street and hedge fund donors, the newspaper editorial boards that shill for them, and at least two GOP presidential candidates - continue to support it.

As a sidenote, some of those donors backing Bush also back Andrew Cuomo, another lover of Common Core and Common Core testing.

Until the politicians who support the Core are made to pay a political price for that support, we're going to continue to see the political establishment push it.

Christie, Jindal and Walker made political calculations that they would pay a political price for continued support of the Core in a GOP presidential primary race and dropped their support it, with Jindal the strongest in opposition.

There are a whole host of reasons why Christie is losing the backing of donors that have nothing to do with education - he has plummeted in polls (indeed, he may not even qualify for the top ten in the next GOP debate), Bridgegate and other scandals hang around his neck further weighing him down and New Jersey's poor financial health and quality of life have made him a target of barbs from other candidates.

But as the money starts to dry up from CCSS-supporting donors, Christie may start to wonder if he made the wrong calculation in turning rhetorically against the Common Core.

Ironic thing is, since New Jersey still gives the Common Core tests, even though Christie claims he's against the Core, the practical effect is that CCSS will still be taught in schools to ready students for the state tests.

So Christie has the worst of both worlds with the Core - he's really not dropped support for Common Core in effect, since the state tests are still CCSS-tied and schools will have to teach it, but since he's talking trash about CCSS, he's losing some wealthy donors over it.

Jindal was never really a top tier candidate, so I'm not sure his opposition to the Core matters in the GOP money race one way or the other.

Walker, on the other hand, was top tier but has seen his brand and poll numbers drop since Donald Trump entered the race.

He's the guy to watch to see what happens as a result of his "turning" against the Core (I put "turning" in quotes because like Christie, his opposition is more rhetorical than practical in consequence.)

Does Walker pay a political consequence - i.e., have trouble raising money from wealthy donors - because of his turning on the Core?

I'm skeptical that Common Core will be a big reason why Walker has potential money problems, given how the rest of his politics cohabits quite well with the GOP donor base.

If Walker has money problems in the future, it will more likely be due to his poor debate performances and rote campaign stump appearances that give him the reputation of being overly calculated and unable to generate real excitement for his candidacy.

In any case, the Journal piece goes to show that the politics around Common Core remain dicey even for Republicans, where opposition to Common Core is strongest.

The base hates Common Core but the moneyed classes love it and that dichotomy has got even Jeb Bush twisting himself in circles trying to please both.

NY Test Question Stumps Writer Of Passage Used On The Test

Not exactly the "Pineapple and the Hare" debacle but still a telling tale about the quality of questions that are on the state tests in New York:

The East African fable goes like this: A man frees a snake that is trapped between two rocks, and as a reward the snake gives him a charm that will allow him to hear what animals say, but only if the man keeps it a secret. The man betrays his new power by giggling at the things he hears, arousing his wife’s curiosity. He eventually tells her about the charm, and it stops working.

This story, which was included on this year’s New York State third-grade reading test, is easy to read. But a couple of the questions that went along with it on the test were trickier, stumping many third graders and, perhaps, even a few much older readers.

...

 

Reached at home in northern England, the author of the passage, Saviour Pirotta, said that he did not know that his story, part of a book he wrote called “Around the World in 80 Tales,” was being used on the New York tests, but that he was not displeased. (His publisher, Macmillan, granted permission for its use.)

He was initially stumped by the same question Dr. Afflerbach took issue with, but when told the answer, he said it made sense.

Mr. Pirotta described the moral of the story as that keeping secrets is hard but a skill worth learning. On the final question, which was answered correctly by 48 percent of students, the test-writers suggested there was another lesson, and Mr. Pirotta said he agreed with that interpretation, too.

“You can sort of read different things into it,” he said.

Sure, you can read different things into - but you can only get one correct answer on a standardized test.

If the author if the passage couldn't get some of the questions about the passage he wrote right, how good could those questions be?

MaryEllen Elia And Her "Conversations With Parents"

From Politics on the Hudson:

“I’m a teacher, I’m an educator and I’m not a politician,” Elia told reporters Thursday. (Video was provided by WGRZ.) “I understand the difference in those roles. I want to work very productively with the legislators and with the governor to improve what’s happening every day for the kids in the classrooms in New York state.”

She continued: “That’s going to be my goal and I anticipate that children will win out and it will be certainly my intent to have children win in the whole process of education in New York.”

...

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Elia said she intends to involve parents and teachers in the conversations over education policy. Thousands of parents opted their children out of state standardized tests the past two years as a form of protest over the Common Core and what they see as the state’s over-reliance on testing.

“My plan would be to No. 1 go out and get feedback through various ways to find out exactly what parents are concerned about so we can address those issues and get understanding to them,” Elia said. “But also to have an ongoing kind of opportunity to have parents to be part of the conversations. I think that’s a really critical part.”

Let's say Elia has that conversation with parents and what she hears conflicts with what she thinks it will take, as an "educator," to "have children win in the whole process of education in New York."

What does she do then?

Her track record in Florida shows her to be a big fan of high stakes standardized tests and Common Core standards
.
If she has honest conversations with parents around the state, she is going to hear many say they want an end to high stakes standardized testing and Common Core-driven classroom instruction.

Want to bet she ignores those parent conversations and goes with her own policies?

Pearson Out As NY's Test Provider For 3rd-8th Grade Common Core Tests

From Rich Karlin at Capitol Confidential:

The state Education Department is dropping its provider of standardized tests, Pearson LLC and has awarded the job to a competing firm, Questar Assessment (Not to be confused with the Rensselaer County-based Questar BOCES).

Notably, announcement of the bid states that teachers will play a role in developing the questions in the new Math and English assessments given to students in Grades 3-8.

And the new tests will move toward computer-based administrations if schools want that.

This comes amid ongoing anger over the way these test results will be used in part to rate teachers under a new employee evaluation program for schools across the state. And it comes amid continued criticism over the amount of standardized tests that students are being asked to take.

New York is not the first contract Questar Assessment took from Pearson - in April, Mississippi awarded a $122 million contract to Questar to develop 3rd-8th grade state tests, replacing Pearson there as well.

I don't have much insight into this company but there are some interesting findings if you search around the Internet.

This, for example, is an "assessment" of Questar Assessment by an employee on Glassdoor.com:

Questar gives disheveled new meaning. The disconnect between departments is worse than ever, despite the assurance from top brass that we've been moving in a positive direction. Employees have been quitting left and right from Fall '14 to Summer '15.

Most departments are short-staffed and greatly overworked with little to no resolution (or mostly ineffectual resolutions) being provided by the responsible management staff. Frustration is rampant. We are told that upward mobility is quick and easy within the company, when the reality is that you will be largely left to your own devices when applying and offered little to no support from direct superiors - best of luck to you if that's your goal. They sure talk the talk with regard to this.

The benefits are quite poor in spite of a recent overhaul (even worse prior to 2015).

Procedures and certain important information is still compartmentalized amongst departments, making most collaboration supremely frustrating - Interdepartmental communication leaves much to be desired.

Short-staffed and overworked, disconnect between departments, huge turnover, gives disheveled new meaning - gee, sounds swell.

Here's how the test scorers are treated, courtesy of another reviewer at Glassdoor.com:

The people scheduling the temp scorers are not very competent. Perhaps someone needs to write them some better software? I noted that I could not possibly work in June. I then received an assignment letter with a little sticker attached saying that the assignment had been switched to June.

-Scorers are treated like kindergarteners - you sit in an assigned spot, aren't allowed to get up to go to the bathroom very often, are talked down to.

-Regular staff looks at scorers like they are cattle - barely acknowledges them.

-Scoring is surprisingly imprecise - managers weren't able to answer many of scorers' questions about how to score things and, on one occasion, really coached the scorers in how to pass the qualifying exam.

-Many scheduling glitches - tests often aren't scanned quickly enough, so that scorers are sent home early for lack of work.

Advice to Management

I guess it stands to reason that, in a company that tries to create standardized widgets out of schoolchildren, you manage your employees as standardized entities as well. But really - could you even give some minimum acknowledgement that we're human?

Test scorers treated like cattle, imprecise scoring, managers who can't answer scorers questions, scanning glitches, incompetent schedulers - sounds even better.

Meet the new company for 3rd-8th grade testing.

Sounds a lot like the old company, doesn't it?

Vacation Bible Schools Become Common Core-Aligned

This sounds like a story from The Onion but it's actually from the Journal-Courier:

This summer, Vacation Bible School instructors at Midwest Church of Christ took a somewhat different tactic in teaching about Noah's Ark and the Gospel: They aligned their lessons to Common Core standards.

It's a move seen increasingly at Vacation Bible School and Bible study classes in Louisville and surrounding areas.

"We're still using Bible stories but we're asking questions that are tied to Common Core," said Olivia Hanley, who helps develop the curriculum for Vacation Bible School at Midwest Church of Christ. "What we're trying to do is ask questions in a different way, a way that's aligned ... to the critical thinking and other questions in Common Core."

Common Core and Bible stories - love it!

I see the possibilities already.

How about some Common Core-aligned Bible math:

Jesus had five loaves of bread, two fish and a crowd of thousands to feed.

Using cubes, explain how Jesus fed the crowd with peanut butter and jelly.

Or how about a close reading of the rigorous Book of Revelations along with some text-based questions getting at exactly what the author meant.

For centuries, humans have struggled to read and comprehend religious texts, but those struggles will fall to a David Coleman-approved close reading strategy.

And hey, why miss out on any opportunity for college- and career-readiness.

Even the baby Jesus understands that there can be no time lost to getting the kiddies college- and career-ready, so everything - including religious studies - should be Common Core-aligned.

Alas, not everyone is with the program:

The Archdiocese of Louisville reviewed the Common Core standards for its schools, finding that some of what its schools were doing in English and math were already in line with the standards. But it said it also noticed some areas it thought were deficient or missing in the new standards and decided to maintain what it had in those areas.

Yet the idea of using these standards in Bible studies or Vacation Bible School has not been as widely discussed.

Archdiocesan spokeswoman Cecelia Price said that Vacation Bible Schools — which are run by church parishes and not the schools — "have a faith-based content and approach. Therefore, I do not believe the (Common Core standards) would be applicable."

Others also seem flummoxed by the idea of aligning Vacation Bible School with Common Core.

"The focus of Vacation Bible School is to fulfill hearts, for young people and young children to know the Lord in a deeper way," said Denise Donohue, deputy director of the K-12 education program at the Cardinal Newman Society, a conservative advocacy group for greater orthodoxy in Catholic schools.

She asked why math and English language arts standards focused on college and career readiness would have any place in Vacation Bible School.

What's next after Common Core-aligned religion?

How about Common Core-aligned family therapy?

Common Core-aligned Twelve Step Groups?

Gee, we've got so much work to do to get the world more "rigorous" and "standards-based."

God help us - this is what a crumbling empire looks like at the end.

Families For Excellent Schools Want More Students Held Back Or In Summer School

From the Daily News:

Pro-charter school group Families for Excellent Schools ripped Mayor de Blasio on Thursday after city Education Department officials revealed a steep decline in the number of kids held back a grade or forced to go to summer school.

“Socially promoting tens of thousands of students, and depriving them of critical learning, promises to deepen New York City’s failing schools crisis,” said Families for Excellent Schools CEO Jeremiah Kittredge.

Education Department officials Wednesday said city principals referred 19,422 students to summer school classes in 2015, down from 32,205 in 2013.

The officials also revealed that the percentage of students held back a grade fell from 2.5% in 2013 to 1.2% in 2014.

State test scores are often used to decide which students get left back a grade or have to attend summer school.

We know the Common Core tests were rigged for failure, with NYSED setting the scores such that failure rates would sky-rocket from the pre-Common Core tests.

And lo and behold, many more students failed the Common Core tests than the pre-Common Core tests.

Nonetheless, if you look at the chart linked above, you'll see there's progress, albeit incremental, in the test scores from 2013 to 2014.

Should the rates of students being held back improve along with the scores or should they stay the same because, you know, ed reformers think kids need to learn a little grit?

As for summer school, FES may not know that Governor Cuomo pushed through and continues to tout a rule that says the Common Core tests will not be used against students for a couple of years (although they are being used on teachers.)

Indeed, the NYCDOE pointed this out in their pushback:

Schools officials said de Blasio's policies are in accordance with a change in state law that requires educators consider multiple criteria in decisions to promote students or hold them back.

In fact, Cuomo called the test scores "meaningless" for students back in April as the opt-out movement against the state's tests was gaining steam:

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday said parents who have chosen to have their children “opt out” of taking this month’s state exams don’t understand that the scores are “meaningless” in terms of students' grades.

“That’s their option,” Cuomo, referring to parents who have participated in the unprecedented boycott of state exams, told reporters after an Association for a Better New York breakfast in Manhattan. “What I don’t think has been adequately communicated is, we passed a law that stops the use of the grades on the test for the student. So the grades are meaningless to the student.”

Cuomo was referring to provisions in the 2014-15 state budget that prohibited Common Core-aligned tests from being included on students’ permanent records or used in grade promotion decisions. He said that action was necessary because of the flawed rollout of the Common Core standards in New York, which he has blamed on the State Board of Regents and Education Department.

“My position was, the department of education had not done a good job in introducing the Common Core, and they had rushed it, so we said, for a period of five years, the test scores won’t count,” Cuomo continued. “So they can opt out if they want to, but on the other hand, if the child takes the test as practice, then the score doesn't count anyway.”

Would have been nice if the DN could have gotten into the story the part about Cuomo insisting that Common Core test scores were "meaningless" and would not be used in any punitive way against them.

Instead the DN story just makes it into a they said/they said thing, with FES vs. the DOE.

Nonetheless, that's another reason for fewer students going to summer school than in the past.

The media's got a bias here, to make de Blasio's NYCDOE look less "rigorous" than the Bloomberg NYVDOE, so they're happy to give Families For Excellent Schools the press to bash the NYCDOE and de Blasio, then half-ass the pushback.

Gag Order On Educators Discussing Contents Of Common Core Tests Remains

 From State of Politics:

Contrary to lawmakers’ claims, the Big Ugly did not end the State Education Department’s so-called “gag order” policy that prevents administrators and teachers from discussing the contents of state exams.

The Capital NY piece is behind a paywall, but here's the gist:

"Big ugly" doesn't actually eliminate "gag order" preventing teachers from discussing state exams http://t.co/D4ApMfyqH1

— Jessica Bakeman (@jessicabakeman) June 26, 2015

Under "big ugly," teachers may talk about exam questions ONLY AFTER the questions are released publicly—big catch http://t.co/D4ApMfyqH1

— Jessica Bakeman (@jessicabakeman) June 26, 2015

Flanagan's earlier versions of bills ending "gag order" did not include the after-questions-are-released clause http://t.co/D4ApMfyqH1

— Jessica Bakeman (@jessicabakeman) June 26, 2015

It had been rumored that the end of session legislation bill would allow teachers and administrators  to talk about the tests after they were over.

But the gag order, in essence, remains.

You can talk about the tests after they have been released.

Gee, thanks.

That's...no change at all, really...

Few Details On Common Core Test Transparency For Parents, Teachers

The Buffalo News on one of the items in the still-not-written "framework" between Cuomo, Heastie and Flanagan agreeing on end-of-the-session business:

Details also were fuzzy about a tentative agreement calling for more transparency for teachers and parents about state tests based on the Common Core Learning Standards. Flanagan said more information on the tests will be provided to teachers and parents.

Fuzzy details on transparency.

That's Cuomo's governing style in a nutshell.

Want to see the details?

You'll have to wait until after it's law.

Cuomo transparency.

NY Times Doesn't Get That Full Literary Works Aren't Read In English Class Anymore

There's a pro-Common Core article in the NY Times today that makes the claim that Common Core has forced English teachers to teach something other than fiction and literature in English class and by golly, it's good.

The piece sets up a straw man argument that teachers only taught literature in English class before - and often badly at that, but Common Core forces them to teach lots of much more informative non-fictional texts in concert with literature:

Some teachers have resisted the changes. At Midwood High School in Brooklyn this year, the new assistant principal for English, Suzane Thomas, made the English teachers use the Common Core lesson plans offered by New York State, and some were not happy.

“There are several teachers who accused me of destroying the English department,” Ms. Thomas said. Previously, she said, teachers had been able to choose which books they wanted to teach, and many of them taught only literature. (She also noted that some teachers had taught the same books each year, no matter which grade they were teaching, so some students were being assigned the same books over and over again.)

Ms. Thomas said she believed many students were more interested in talking about real-world issues like genetic testing than about how a character changed over the course of a novel.

“I was in a class once and the bell rang, and the kids wouldn’t leave, because they were having a strong debate about whether privacy was more important than security,” she said.

That's right - before Common Core, teachers never paired non-fiction texts with the literature their classes were reading, they just taught the same books over and over again whether the students had already read them or not.

The Times reporter notes that because students are reading much more non-fiction in English class, some fiction has been cut, but she glosses over the real problem here -  that some students are going to come through the Common Core Era having read little or no full-length literary works at all.

Many schools are closely following the EngageNY ELA curriculum to get students ready for the ELA Common Core state test next year.

EngageNY does not value reading whole works of fiction at all - it picks and chooses parts of larger works, couples these excerpts with poetry, literary non-fiction or informational non-fiction, then focuses on close reading, annotation and evidence-based discussion and writing lessons that take the life out of the literature.

Back in 2013, I posted about an EngageNY module for 9th graders that spent 17 class days on one short story, Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.”

Here is how students "engaged" with the text:

The first day, they're excited to start a new lesson and read a story that seems to be about werewolves.

By the third day, they're bored by reading and discussing the same story for three days straight and starting to get antsy.

By the sixth day, they're outwardly hostile to the lessons and the teacher for teaching the lessons.

By the ninth day, they're totally disengaged from class and talk openly about how much they hate English.

By the twelve day, they no longer give a shit about anything - not the class, not the story, not the teacher, not the "assessment" (i.e., "test" for those of you who aren't fluent in reformy geekspeak) that is coming up on Day Seventeen.

By the seventeenth day, students complete the "assessment" with little regard to how they do on it because they stopped caring about the entire process somewhere between the end of Day Four and the beginning of Day Five.

Talk about taking the life out of the art - EngageNY certainly does that.

But what's worse, students who've been taught straight up from the EngageNY curriculum haven't read a full work of literature in high school.

Here was how one high school ELA teacher described the EngageNY curriculum and its approach to full works:

As a 9th grade ELA teacher following the Engage NY Curriculum, I have seen first hand how destructive it really is. For three weeks we have been close reading one story! For the first time, my 9th grade students are completely disengaged. How many times can you annotate the same passage?

I also believe now that these units are actually lowering the rigor of my class. We are now into the second marking period and have read one story and written zero essays. At this point last year my 9th grade class had written two essays, read 5 short stories, and were halfway through their first novel, and we were having fun doing it.

The end of the opening unit has students reading (only key scenes) from Romeo and Juliet and then showing the Baz Lerhman film to supplement. How is reading 5 scenes from Romeo and Juliet, rather than the whole play, more rigorous?

That same teacher has told me he has taught that same cohort of students in 10th grade and will be following them into 11th grade.

Students have been taught one EngageNY module each semester for a total of four EngageNY modules.

They have read a full work of literature only because the teachers revolted and pointed out that if they kept following the EngageNY modules, students wouldn't be reading a full work of literature ever in high school English class.

They would have read about 20% of Romeo and Juliet, but that's not reading the full work.

They would have read part of The Joy Luck Club, but that's not reading the full work.

They would have read most of Macbeth, but not quite all, as EngageNY jumps around a bit to focus on skills-based learning like close reading and argumentative writing on different parts of the play.

Reading a whole work of literature to nourish the soul, engage the spirit, encourage thought and reflection, jar some memory of shared experienced or, God forbid, take an opinion upon that isn't "rigorously" based in a close reading of the text - that's not part of high school English class anymore.

If it's not skills-based with an eye toward work-based skills, it pretty much isn't taught.

That's because the New York State ELA Common Core test contains lots of reading, 24 difficult multiple choice questions based upon those readings, an argumentative essay based upon four difficult (often arcane) informational texts, and one literary non-fiction reading that requires students to find a "central idea" in the text and show how it's developed through some literary device.

With teachers now having their careers tied to the scores from these tests, schools slated for state takeover if the test scores are bad, and students needing a 75 or higher in order to attend a four year CUNY school, it behooves to focus only on the skills that are tested and leave everything else out.

Reading full works of literature for pleasure and wonder?

Gone from the curriculum - at least if it's the NY State EngageNY curriculum. 

Students writing personal responses to the literature they've read so that they can make some connections between themselves and the characters?

Gone from the curriculum - at least if it's the NY State EngageNY curriculum. 

Students writing their own creative works to express themselves?

Gone from the curriculum - at least if it's the NY State EngageNY curriculum.

As an ELA teacher, I have no problem teaching non-fiction texts, either on their own or in concert with literature.

I do resent when a reporter for the NY Times writes a piece that is so full of pro-Common Core propaganda and PR bits that it sounds as if ELA Common Core architect David Coleman wrote it.

This Times piece makes it sound like the reason why some children and parents are finding Common Core English Language Arts dreary and soul-sucking is because schools and teachers aren't finding the right kinds of non-fiction to pair with literature to give students a broad experience with reading and writing.

The truth is, because the Common Core test in NY State assesses a certain kind of learning - close reading, mostly nonfiction reading, and argumentative writing (the argumentative essay on the CCSS test is worth a lot more than the literary analysis essay) - and because there are so many high stakes attached to the tests for students, teachers and schools, much of the wonder, excitement and allure of English class of old has been replaced by dreary, rote skills-based learning.

As an ELA teacher, I'm not opposed to teaching skills-based learning, indeed, I actually enjoy this and think it's a very important part of education, but it's also nice to have the freedom to teach a full work of literature that helps students to develop socially, emotionally and creatively too.

In the Era of the Common Core and the high stakes Common Core tests, that cannot be done anymore

Would have been nice if the NY Times reporter could have gotten into the story that we're going to have a whole generation of children come of age who haven't read much - or any - full length literature.

It will be interesting to see what the consequences of that will be in the decades to come.

Judge Rules NY Teacher Exam Is Racially Biased And Discriminatory - What About NY's Common Core Tests?

From the NY Times:

A federal judge on Friday found that an exam for New York teaching candidates was racially discriminatory because it did not measure skills necessary to do the job, the latest step in a court battle over teacher qualifications that has spanned nearly 20 years.

The exam, the second incarnation of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, called the LAST-2, was administered from 2004 through 2012 and was designed to test an applicant’s knowledge of liberal arts and science.

But the test was found to fail minority teaching candidates at a higher rate than white candidates. According to Friday’s decision, written by Judge Kimba M. Wood of Federal District Court in Manhattan, the pass rate for African-American and Latino candidates was between 54 percent and 75 percent of the pass rate for white candidates. Once it was established that minority applicants were failing at a disproportionately high rate, the burden shifted to education officials to prove that the skills being tested were necessary to do the job; otherwise, the test would be ruled discriminatory.

In creating the test, the company, National Evaluation Systems, sent surveys to educators around New York State to determine if the test’s “content objectives” were relevant and important to teaching. The samples for both surveys were small, however, Judge Wood said.

The judge found that National Evaluation Systems, now called Evaluation Systems, part of Pearson Education, went about the process backward.

“Instead of beginning with ascertaining the job tasks of New York teachers, the two LAST examinations began with the premise that all New York teachers should be required to demonstrate an understanding of the liberal arts,” Judge Wood wrote.

Joshua Sohn, a partner at the firm Mishcon de Reya, who represents the prospective teachers in the case, echoed the that sentiment.

“They started with the conclusion, without any support, that this is what you actually needed to know to be an effective teacher,” Mr. Sohn said.

With this ruling, the LAST-2 meets the same fate of the LAST-1, an earlier version of the test, given from 1993 to 2004, that was also found to be discriminatory.

The third iteration of New York's teacher test, named the Academic Literacy Skills Test, or the ALST, is next on the case docket.  A hearing is scheduled for later this month in from of Judge Wood for that test as well.

Lace to the Top applies the judge's decision to the LAST-2 to the Common Core tests:

Judge finds Pearson's NY teacher exam to be racially biased. Sure to find the same in all Common Core tests: http://t.co/rKYyGDv4Ta

— lacetothetop (@lacetothetop) June 6, 2015

I dunno if the New York State Common Core tests are racially biased and discriminatory, but they sure are developmentally inappropriate, as Anthony Cardinale, a third grade teacher in the Carmel district, points out:

Testing. It has become a dirty word. Last year, between 55,000 and 65,000 families refused to have their children take the New York State Common Core assessments. Those numbers are likely to increase in the coming weeks.

Parents and educators continue to voice their concerns regarding the vagueness of questions, a lack of transparency, the sheer length of the exams, and the recent monitoring of students' social media accounts by Pearson. However, one of my major concerns is text complexity.

The best example of this can be found on the EngageNY website. "The Gray Hare," by Leo Tolstoy, is included as a third grade sample reading passage. According to the Fry Readability Formula, this short story is written on a 7th grade reading level. As a teacher who has administered the last two Common Core ELA assessments, I can tell you that the passages presented to my students were just as difficult.

In addition to being unfair to students, the inclusion of these passages is in complete violation of Common Core Standard RL.3.10, which states that students should be reading material on their grade level. As a teacher and a parent, I know this is unjust.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will tell you the scores can be used by educators to improve instruction. But when the reading passages are this far above grade level, the scores become invalid. The only thing these tests tell me is that my third-graders cannot read on a seventh-grade level. I don't need a test to tell me that.

This situation is not unique to third grade, either. All students in grades 3-8 have been placed in a similar situation for the past two years.

The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld the rights of parents to direct the education of their children. As parents, this means we can choose to have our children take part in these assessments or we can refuse on their behalf. Luckily, I have several more years until my daughter is in third grade. But if these tests continue to be as inappropriate as they are now, I will have my refusal letter ready.

Opting out is a great weapon against the Common Core tests and the Endless Testing agenda.

But so is suing.

Perhaps it's time to take on the Common Core tests in the judicial system over the issue of developmental appropriateness the way the last two LAST tests were taken on over racial bias and discrimination?

John Flanagan's Another One Of Those "Blame Teachers" Politicians

Tom Precious in tha Buffalo News looks at John Flanagan and his education "expertise":

Flanagan, 54, has a long reputation with Albany insiders as a student of the issues. Some lawmakers spend little time actually reading bills, but Flanagan, following in the path of his father, a former assemblyman, has a voracious appetite for reading up on and talking policy matters.

As chairman of the committee on education, Flanagan has spent much of his time on the subject in the last four years. He understands, as much as anyone, the state’s extraordinarily complex annual maze that devises the school funding formula. He understands the problems related to Common Core-based standardized tests but insists that better training for teachers is the key to improving student performance.

Ah, yes - teacher training is the key to improving student performance.

Not funding, not smaller class sizes, not moving away from a test-centric education system for one where that attempts to reach the whole child.

Nope - teacher training.

In short, problems in the education system are the fault of teachers and can be addressed by focusing on "improving" teachers via training (and if that "fails," firing.)

I wouldn't expect any other take from a politican squarely on the StudentsFirst payroll.

The last five senate majority leaders have been arrested on criminal charges.

I look forward to the day when #6 gets carted out.

New York State Tests More Difficult Than The National Assessment Of Educational Progress Exams

How's this for rigged?

New York is one of only two states where more students are earning proficient scores on the “nation’s report card” than are passing the state’s own standardized tests.

That’s according to a new analysis from the nonprofit Achieve, which advocates for tougher standards and tests. The organization compared passing rates on each state’s exams in 2013-14 with its students’ scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, given to a representative sample of students in fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade nationwide.

Typically, the score gaps are reversed: States say most of their students are proficient, while NAEP scores paint a grimmer picture. But two years after introducing new, tougher state tests, New York appears to have moved the furthest in the other direction.

In eighth-grade math, 22 percent of students earned what New York state called a passing score last school year, while 32 percent were deemed proficient on the NAEP exams. In fourth-grade reading, 33 percent passed the state test, while 37 percent of students earned a proficient score on the NAEP test. (Massachusetts was the other outlier, with more students earning a proficient score on the eighth-grade math NAEP test than on the state’s own tests.)

New York is “at a level of rigor that NAEP is, in terms of what it means to be proficient,” Achieve President Michael Cohen said. “And that’s a pretty significant shift for any state, and a shift for New York, and it says they set the bar pretty high.”

The secod part of the reform equation after rigging the tests?

Declare the results proof positive the system sucks:

NEW YORK –A new education report today found that New York State gets a poor return on its education investment – ranking first in the nation for per-student spending, but 31st in reading and 33rd in math. The analysis, released by High Achievement New York, detailed New York’s history of high education spending and its disconnect from student achievement. HANY is calling for spending to match high education standards in order to be a sound investment.

Fred Smith puts the whole sham into perspective for us:

In the magical Alice in Wonderland world of Common Core-aligned testing, built on indefensible stand-alone field tests, the law of gravity is suspended and Down is the new Up! We are finally underperforming the NAEP. Clearly a triumph of rigor and a return to the days of higher standards. The evidence is underwhelming.

Also, this comment:

This is no surprise. It is obvious that the newest state tests by Pearson were designed to fail a high number of students. It's very important to convince middle class parents to stop supporting public education and simply telling them that their kids' teachers were greedy, awful, incompetent people wasn't working. Their next step was to prove to parents that their kids weren't learning -- see, look how many kids "failed". And yet as this article shows, a good many of those failing students weren't failing at all.

Does it really matter what any teacher does or whether students cram for 60 hour weeks/ 52 weeks a year? In the end, whatever results are desired will be determined with the setting of a cut score. If the people in power want 75% of the students to fail, they will fail. No wonder so many parents are opting out. They have the critical reasoning skills that so many politicians lack. But no problem -- I'm sure if politicians were ever given a competency exam, the cut score would be set so that 99% of them pass.

The problem for the education reformers is that enough parents see through the reform scam and are calling them on it.

The state will try and hide the official opt-out numbers as best it can, will tout the number of students who took the exam (especially in urban areas where the percentage of opt outs was small), but the reality is, the more they rig the exams for failure, the more the opt out movement will grow.

Honesty is not a trait of the education reform movement - manipulation and expediency is.

Alas, the manipulation and expediency the movement exhibits will ultimately be its undoing.

Contradictory Findings On Testing, Teacher Evaluations In New Quinnipiac Poll, But Not On Charter Schools

The Quinnipiac poll out this afternoon finds New York City voters are opposed to evaluating teachers via test scores 57%-37%.

It also finds 59% of New York City voters saying that standardized tests do not accurately measure student learning while 34% say they do.

Seems New York City voters are squarely skeptical on the value and use of standardized testing.

Yet when asked "How much should these tests count in a teacher's evaluation: 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, or not at all?", they respond:

100% - 7%
75%   - 13%
50%   - 26%
25%   - 27%
Not     - 22%

Wait - I thought NYers were opposed to evaluating teachers via test scores 57%-37%...how is it that 74% of the respondents also say that teachers should be evaluated via test scores somewhere between 25% and 100%?

A contradiction for sure. 

Similarly, when asked if students should be allowed to refuse to take the "standardized tests to measure how well they're learning", the poll finds 47% say they should be allowed to refuse, 49% say they shouldn't be allowed to refuse.

Odd, that - 59% say the tests do not accurately measure student learning, but 49% want to force students to take them anyway.

Perhaps the issue with the refusal question comes in how it's asked - the tests are described as measuring "how well students learn," though many critics of the state testing regime dispute that.

It would be interesting to see what the responses would be if the tests were either not described or if there were something along the lines of "Proponents say these tests measure how well students learn while critics say they are badly designed and show no such thing."

In any case, in many ways polling is reductionist, taking complex issues and sticking them into a few round peg responses.

The biggest value to me in polling is the trends you see with a particular politician or issue over the course of a few polls.

The testing and evaluation questions are new, so we don't have trend lines, but we do with charter schools.

On the issue of paying rent if they're co-located, here are the trend lines:

March 2014: Yes - 44%   No - 47%
Nov    2014   Yes - 50%   No - 41%
May    2015   Yes - 52%  No  - 40%

There's a clear trend here - support for making charters pay rent is up 8 points to a majority 52%, opposition to making charters pay rent is down 7 percent.  A 12 margin yes/no is pretty significant.

On raising the charter cap, here are the trend lines:

March 2014: Increase - 40% Decrease - 14% Keep the same - 39%
Nov     2014: Increase - 43% Decrease - 17% Keep the same - 31%
May     2015: Increase - 39% Decrease - 17% Keep the same - 35%

Here the trend is not so pronounced, but it is constant - there is no growing clamor for more charter schools. 

The support for increasing the number of charters is at the lowest level in the last three polls, the support for decreasing the number of charters remains where it was last time and the support for keeping things as they are is halfway between the last two poll findings.

Charter entrepreneurs and operators like to say there is a huge demand for more charters, but the last three Q polls don't show that at all.

In March 2014, 53% of NYers said they either wanted to keep the number of charters the same or decrease them while 40% said they wanted more.

In November 2014, 49% of NYers said they either wanted to keep the number of charters the same or decrease them while 43% said they wanted more.

In May 2015, 52% of NYers say they want to keep the number of charters the same or decrease them while 39% say they want more.

I hope Quinnipiac continues to ask the testing and evaluation questions over the next few years so we can see trends with those issues the way we can with charters.

What I see in the charter trend lines is growing support for making co-located charters pay their own way and no growing clamor to increase the number of charters.

Merryl Tisch Gives Herself A Medal For Getting CCSS Test Scores Out Six Weeks Earlier (UPDATED - 3:55 PM)

Methinks Regents Chancellor Tisch sets the bar far too low for herself:

The Department of Education plans to release the results of the most recent round of standardized tests by July 1, following a vocal push to have students opt out of the Common Core-based examinations.

“One of the most important benefits of assessments is their use to inform instruction and strengthen student learning,” state Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said in a statement released Thursday. “The early release of these reports will give districts the time they need to adjust curriculum and focus on improving learning outcomes for students in the upcoming year.”

Explain to me how releasing the Common Core test scores two-and-a-half months after students took the tests helps to "inform instruction and strengthen student learning" when the school year is over and students are on summer vacation?

In high school, Regents exams are given in January and June and the results are known days after students take the exams.

Frankly, I think the process for how those exams are graded is problematic, but you can argue that those exams (at least the January ones) might help "inform instruction and strengthen student learning" because the results are known right afterward, the tests themselves are published publicly and if students fail those exams, they can find out what they need to work on before they take the test again.

The CCSS 3rd-8th grade test results come out far too late for anything other than to use the score as a bldugeon for teachers, schools and, after the CCSS moratorium on using student scores ends, students.

I love that Tisch is patting herself on the back for getting the scores out a little earlier than normal this year but still not early enough to actually matter.

It's like she wanted a medal or a new set of pearls or something for doing what's not all that extraordinary.

UPDATED - 3:55 PM:

State of Politics blog offers the following update on this:

SED clarifies that the state is releasing instructional reports in July based on raw scores. The results won’t include new scale scores or performance levels.

So what initially wasn't much of a change is now even less of one.

Questions For Governor Cuomo Over The "Meaningless" Common Core Tests

NY Teacher has some questions for Andrew Cuomo now that the governor's on record declaring New York State Common Core tests "meaningless" for students:

This quote should be the battle cry of the NY Resistance.

Why are students taking meaningless tests?

Why are taxpayer funding ($32 M) meaningless tests?

Why are teachers evaluated using meaningless tests?

Even more important: Why are the tests meaningless?

 Cuomo is going to choke on these damning words.

One more question:

Why isn't this headline blaring from the NY Post, Daily News, and Newsday?

"CUOMO DECLARES COMMON CORE TESTS "MEANINGLESS"!

Great questions.

Let's start putting them to Assembly Members, State Senators, members of the Board of Regents, the educrats at NYSED and the newspapers editorial writers.