Somebody Tell The UFT And NYSUT They're STILL Using Test Scores In Teacher Evaluations

If you see the ads the unions are putting out, you'd think the test scores are gone from teacher evaluations.

They're not, as James Eterno at ICEUFT blog points out in his latest post.

Are the unions heads stupid, do they not know that Regents scores are still being used on teachers, that local tests are going to take the place of state tests for other teachers?

Nahh - the union heads are not stupid.

They think you are.

And they're kinda right.

How it is that teachers don't rise up en masse in the UFT and call Mulgrew on his shit is beyond me.

Same goes with the debt-riddled NYSUT.

How it is that the union heads get to call war peace and peace war in their ads (member dues-paid ads, btw) without the vast majority of the rank and file reacting in outrage is why this the sell-outs keep happening over and over.

I know some people think Friedrichs is going to change all of this, that once the unions lose 35%+ of their membership, they'll become more responsive with the rank and file and stop the lying, the condescension, the deception, the sell-outs.

But watching them pre-Friedrichs, I doubt that's the case.

The leaders running the unions wouldn't know how to run the union honestly, how to deal with the rank and file without condescension or deception, wouldn't be able to think of strategies to deal with management that aren't sell-outs.

These ads from the UFT and NYSUT proclaiming a four year test score moratorium in APPR are an outrage and an insult and just one more example why, when Friedrichs takes away the leadership's ability to take dues from people's paychecks, that many are going to take that opportunity to say goodbye to the unions.

It's a shame, it doesn't have to be this way.

The union heads could actually try and shift the way they run things, become more responsive to member concerns, less deceptive with and condescending to the rank and file, develop strategies that protect members instead of selling them out.

Alas, watching how they're doing things in the months before the Friedrichs decision comes down it's clear that the people in charge do not intend to do that.

Cuomo Says Test Scores For Students Are "Meaningless" - So Why Do Students Have To Take The Tests?

As I posted earlier, Governor Cuomo has gone on record today calling New York State Common Core test scores "meaningless" for students.

No, seriously:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was questioned earlier Friday about news that school districts are likely to request delays in implementing the new teacher evaluation program he inserted in this year’s budget. He stressed that the tests used in the evaluations don’t affect the students grades.

“The grades are meaningless to the students,” Cuomo said in a brief press gaggle following an Association for a Better New York breakfast event in New York City.

...

Cuomo said he believes they haven’t done a good job of publicizing the fact that the tests, for at least the next five years, won’t count at all for the students.

Michael Fiorillo responded:

Wait, if "the grades are meaningless to the students," as our Reptilian Governor contends, then how can they also be a vehicle for "the civil rights movement of our time?"

The legacy civil rights organizations, leaning on Gates Foundation money, preposterously claim that high stakes tests are necessary to illuminate "the achievement gap," a propaganda term used to scapegoat teachers and public education, while ignoring systemic inequality and poverty. They do this despite the origins and long history of these exams being used to "prove" the "inferiority" of darker races.

This so-called education reform is one leaky boat, with everyone expected to maintain a perpetual state of Doublethink, whereby the tests are meaningless, except when they are integral to civil rights.

Someday, when the so-called reformers have been driven back under their rocks, historians and teachers will use the entire sorry episode of the past 20+ years to instruct their students about the dangers of propaganda and fallacies.

Unless, of course, the so-called reformers win, in which case the brutal Common Core/Testing regime will not permit that kind of teaching.

Michael's right - you have to be in a perpetual state of Doublethink in order to buy education reform tenets.

The test scores are "meaningless" for students, but they're also the "civil rights movement of our time" and essential for ensuring teacher and school quality.

Horse hockey.

If the test scores are"meaningless," then the test-taking exercise is meaningless and so are the tests.

More Hypocrisy From Cuomo

From State of Politics:

Cuomo, through his aides, has given a chilly response to Senate Republicans for proposing that some financial data regarding live-in girlfriends of elected officials – such as Cuomo’s girlfriend, Sandra Lee – be subject to the same ethics disclosures required for spouses of elected officials. But back in 2009, then-Attorney General Cuomo made that connection himself.

This dovetails nicely with Cuomo's hypocrisy over his administration's email deletion policy.

As attorney general, Cuomo said the following about email deletions:

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, is no stranger to the consequences of a paper trail. Before becoming governor, he spent four years as state attorney general, a perch from which he witnessed how long-forgotten e-mails could become pivotal during investigations. In 2008, he even accused a top official at the New York Power Authority of “extremely troubling conduct” for deleting e-mails from his BlackBerry as word leaked that he was likely to be investigated by the attorney general’s office.

Now as governor, Cuomo has broadened a 90 day email deletion policy started for the executive chamber in 2007 to the entire state government.

His IT hack said deleting emails as quickly as possible is "a matter of, actually, encouraging good behavior, prudent and responsible use of state resources.”

Ah, yes - the kind of behavior AG Cuomo called "extremely troubling conduct" becomes standard operating procedure for state government under Governor Cuomo because it's "encouraging good behavior" and prudence.

This kind of prudence will now be par for the course when it comes to trying to get any information out of state agencies.

Maybe we can change the name of the state from New York to Oceania.

Common Core Texts Students Are Sure To Learn From

I left the following reply to a tweet by NYSED Commissioner John King:

@JohnKingNYSED My favorite CC$$ text? Meeting minutes from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Kids love 'em too!
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) July 19, 2014

It's not the first time I've taken this jab at King or other Common Core supporters when they talk about all the exciting reading teachers can have students do under the informational text-heavy Common Core Federal Standards.

And the reason why it's not the first time I've taken those jabs is because Common Core supporters actually listed Fed Views, the publication page of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, as recommended reading for the informational text category of the Common Core Federal Standards for 11th and 12th students.

Today I went over to Fed Views to see just what I could use for my 11th and 12th graders.

Here's what I found in the latest piece of writing posted, July 10, 2014:

John Fernald, senior research advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, states his views on the current economy and the outlook.

• The first-quarter decline in GDP was revised to be even steeper than previously announced. The new data indicate that health-care spending fell in the first quarter, in contrast to earlier estimates that showed an increase. Nevertheless, the first-quarter dip appears transitory. In addition to the anomalous decline in health spending, other temporary factors include harsh weather in much of the country, a reduced pace of inventory accumulation by businesses, and weak net exports.
• We expect growth to bounce back over the remainder of this year and next. Indeed, available data already suggest a second-quarter rebound. For example, business surveys show an ongoing healthy expansion in the manufacturing and services sectors. Also, light-vehicle sales in June reached their highest level since 2006.
• The labor market report for June was strong—consistent with an economy that continues to improve. Employment gains have been solid in recent months, averaging 231,000 new jobs per month so far this year. The unemployment rate in June fell to 6.1%, the lowest level since September 2008. Nevertheless, the unemployment rate remains above our estimate of the natural rate, suggesting that economic slack remains.
• Inflation has been running well below the Federal Reserve’s 2% objective. In recent months, inflation has run closer to the objective, in part reflecting higher food and energy prices. However, underlying inflation pressures still appear to be subdued. Hence, we expect only a gradual return to a sustained 2% inflation rate as the economy continues its recovery and slack diminishes.
• A recovering economy has prompted a steady reduction this year in the pace of monthly asset purchases by the Federal Reserve. Nevertheless, with persistent economic slack and low inflation, monetary policy remains highly accommodative. 
• Labor productivity, or inflation-adjusted output per hour worked, is an important factor underpinning the sustainable speed limit for the economy. From the early 1970s through 1995, productivity in the business sector rose only about 1½% per year. In the next eight years, through 2003, that pace more than doubled. Considerable evidence links that acceleration to the production and use of information technology (IT). However, over the past decade, productivity growth has returned to roughly its pre-1995 pace of about 1½%.
• The early-2000s slowdown in productivity growth predated the Great Recession of 2007–09. Hence, it does not appear related to financial or other disruptions associated with the recession. Rather, it appears to mark a pause—if not the end—of exceptional productivity growth associated with IT. Many transformative IT-related innovations showed up in the productivity statistics in the second half of the 1990s and early 2000s. Over the past decade, however, the gains may have become more incremental. 
• Productivity also fluctuates around its trend, with many of the most pronounced movements around recessions. For example, productivity growth was weak relative to trend early in the Great Recession. At the end of the recession and early in the recovery, productivity rebounded sharply. 
• An important reason for these short-run cyclical fluctuations in productivity is variation in the intensity with which firms use capital and labor. For example, when the economy goes into recession and firms see a reduction in demand, they may want to maintain much of their existing workforce if they believe the reduced demand is temporary. In that case, firms may have a larger workforce than is ideal from a short-term perspective, and so measured productivity falls. When demand recovers, firms have excess capacity and can quickly ramp up production without needing substantial investment or hiring. 
• Over the period of a decade, these short-term cyclical movements are probably not a key factor explaining weak productivity growth. Measures of capacity utilization, for example, are close to where they were a decade ago.
• Since 2007, hours worked in the business sector have declined. Fewer hours combined with slow trend productivity growth means that output growth in the business sector has been very slow relative to the previous 60 years. As the economy continues its recovery, hours worked are likely to rise. But, with population growth slowing, future increases are likely to be muted relative to the historical experience since World War II. Assuming productivity growth continues at a pace similar to the past decade, output growth will remain slow relative to its historical performance.
• Uncertainty about future productivity growth remains high. Pessimists argue that IT is less important than great innovations of the past that dramatically boosted productivity, such as electricity or the internal combustion engine. Optimists point to the possibilities offered by robots and machine learning. Economic history suggests that it is hard to know until after the fact how revolutionary any particular innovation will turn out to be.

Now if you're an economics teacher, there might be something useful from Fed Views, but I see not much of use for me as an ELA teacher.

Washington Post reporter Lyndsey Layton reported that the architects of the Common Core also recommended students read some government studies:

Proponents of the new standards, including the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, say U.S. students have suffered from a diet of easy reading and lack the ability to digest complex nonfiction, including studies, reports and primary documents. That has left too many students unprepared for the rigors of college and demands of the workplace, experts say.

The new standards, which are slowly rolling out now and will be in place by 2014, require that nonfiction texts represent 50 percent of reading assignments in elementary schools, and the requirement grows to 70 percent by grade 12.

Among the suggested non­fiction pieces for high school juniors and seniors are Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” “FedViews,” by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2009) and “Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management,” published by the General Services Administration.

Here's a little bit “Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management,” for your reading enjoyment:

Executive Order (EO) 13423, "Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management," was signed by President Bush on January 24, 2007. EO 13423 instructs Federal agencies to conduct their environmental, transportation, and energy-related activities under the law in support of their respective missions in an environmentally, economically and fiscally sound, integrated, continuously improving, efficient, and sustainable manner. The Order sets goals in the following areas:

energy efficiency acquisition renewable energy toxic chemical reduction recycling

sustainable buildings electronics stewardship fleets water conservation

E.O. 13423 rescinds several previous EOs, including E.O. 13101, E.O. 13123, E.O. 13134, E.O. 13148, and E.O. 13149. In addition, the order requires more widespread use of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) as the framework in which to manage and continually improve these sustainable practices. It is supplemented by implementing instructions, issued on March 29, 2007 by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).
OMB is also integral in the execution of E.O. 13423. The E.O. requires the OMB Director to issue instructions concerning periodic evaluation, budget matter, and acquisition relating to agency implementation of the E.O. OMB issues budget guidance through updates to Circular No. A-11. OMB will also continue to track agencies' progress on EO and EPACT goals through the three management scorecards on environmental stewardship, energy, and transportation.
Information relating to EO 13423 can be obtained through the following links below:

• Regulations, Guidance, and Policy
  • EO 13423
  • EO 13423 Implementing Instructions
  • EO 13423 Scorecards
  • Reporting Under EO 13423
• Supporting Information and Tools
  • Databases/Software Tools
  • Organizations/Programs
• Lessons Learned
  • EO 13423 Implementing Instruction Support
  • Priority Chemicals
  • Status Reports
• Training, Presentations, and Briefings
• Conferences and Events

CCSS architect David Coleman says the emphasis on informational text and non-fiction reading that Common Core pushes is not limited to just the ELA classroom - much of this reading can be done in math, science, social studies, physical education and CTE classes.

And certainly the two texts above do not lend themselves to ELA classrooms, that's for sure.

I can imagine the Fed Views site could have some use in an economics class and Executive Order (EO) 13423, "Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management" could be discussed in a science or sustainability class.

But the thing is, I'm not sure how useful these texts would be even in those classes.

These are the kinds of texts that best show how the Common Core Standards and many of the people who wrote them and push them fetishize difficult reading, complex language, and jargon often for what seems like their own sake.

This is silly to me.

The older I get, the simpler I like to keep things - including in the language that I speak and use to communicate.

My thinking is, life and communication are complex enough without adding to it by purposely using complex language and jargon.

That doesn't mean you can't ever use either - sometimes you need to use complex language or jargon to communicate something.

But more often than not complex language and jargon does more to obfuscate (sorry!) meaning rather than clarify it.

Whenever I'm writing something or thinking about something I want to teach in class, I ask myself "What would the two Georges think?"

By that, I mean George Orwell and George Carlin, two people who have been influential on my own thinking and teaching.

Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" has stuck with me since I first read it in, yes, high school - especially this part:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable.

Truth is, I'm guilty of sins on Rule (i) and Rule (iii) more than I would like - some of that is out of laziness, some of it out of sheer necessity (blogging half a dozen posts a day while holding down a full-time job sometimes requires letting go of perfection!)

But I try my best to subscribe to these rules as best I can as a writer and I don't go out of my way to look for reading material for classes based on the Lexile Framework or anything like that.

On the point of jargon, something that I have posted before is how much contempt I have for people in the education world who throw jargon around.

Let's be frank here - the education world is full of jargon lovers and cliche-meisters who really dig throwing this kind of language around:

across content areas
across spatial and temporal scales
across the curricular areas
across cognitive and affective domains
for high-performing seats
for our 21st Century learners
in authentic, "real world" scenarios
in closing the achievement gap
in data-driven schools
outside the box
throughout the Big Ideas
through cognitive disequilibrium
through the collaborative process
through the experiential based learning process
through the use of centers
throughout multiple modalities
via self-reflection
with a laser-like focus
within a balanced literacy program
within professional learning communities
within the core curriculum
within the new paradigm
within the Zone of Proximity
with synergistic effects

You can find that exact language - and much more of it - at the education jargon generator website that can help you too put together a combination of jargon and cliches that will amaze and terrify your friends and neighbors.

It seems to me that people often use jargon when they want to obscure meaning, want to fool people into thinking they know stuff they don't really know, or just generally do things without people actually understanding what it is they're doing.

George Carlin's work on language hits on this idea often, but I think this one gets at it best:




"Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins, it's as simple as that" - indeed, it is as simple as that.

And now that language is codified in the Common Core Federal Standards, those "higher" standards brought to us by David Coleman, Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama and a host of other ed reformers.

Frankly, I think we could better raise the standards by taking Fed Views and Executive Order (EO) 13423, "Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management" off the CCSS reading list and putting some George Carlin - along with more George Orwell - on it.

Sure, the Lexile Framework might not like the "level" of the language (not complex enough!) and the jargon festishists might not like the absence of jargon (unless you consider the "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say On TV" jargon), but I'll tell you what, I bet students would learn a whole hell of a lot more from Carlin and Orwell than the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco and the General Services Administration.

The Daily News Can't Wait For The Security State To Replace Unionized Doormen

The Daily News has a propaganda piece cheerleading for technology that will replace doormen while still making sure the riff-raff don't get where they don't belong:

An Israeli general is at work on a “biometric security” system that he believes will have New Yorkers tossing out their keys and maybe ditching their doormen, too.

Using sophisticated scanners that can recognize a person’s face, voice, build and stride, the system can unlock your door in under two seconds. Any strangers not in the database will be denied access. 

“This is only the beginning,” says General Aharon Farkash, the founder and president of the firm FST21. “This is the way people will enter buildings in the 21st century.”

To help establish FST21 in the states, Farkash opened a North American office earlier this month at 7 World Trade Center. Should you drop by, you’ll be greeted by one of its security devices. But unless he’s beamed a code to your phone or you work there already, there’s no convincing the small 8-inch scanner to let you in.

...

“Cities are crowded, often dangerous places, with the gap between rich and poor growing,” Farkash says. “We need a way to live safely but also comfortably next door to one another.”

For those worried about privacy as well as security, Farkash stresses that the system is self-contained, so it is impossible to hack from outside. It also stores no data of users coming and going beyond two weeks.

“I was the Israeli NSA, so I can tell you I know privacy, and the best effort is being made to keep things private,” Farkash says.

Gee, sounds fabulous.

Except I don't buy that part about keeping things private and anybody who has even scanned an article in the last year about NSA spying shouldn't either - they'll be tracking everywhere you go via this "biometric security" apparatus, the cell phone you carry and the credit cards you use to purchase items.

Such is life in the 21st century.

But besides our privacy and humanity, what else do we lose in the tradeoff when every building starts using "biometric security"?

Why, unionized jobs of course!

For individual homeowners, it offers the convenience — and cool factor — of not having to fumble for the keys anymore, especially with the kids and groceries in hand. For condo and co-op boards, it could mean serious savings.

“It’s much cheaper than a doorman,” Farkash says. “To have 24-seven coverage, that’s four shifts a day, at least $250,000 a year. Our system is 70% less to install, and 90% less to maintain each year after that.”

Oh, goodie - another technological advance that will replace jobs humans do.

On the plus side, when the people who used to have jobs but can no longer find them in our increasingly globalized, technology-laden economy start to steal to eat, the "biometric security" will keep them out of your condo.

On the negative side, you (or I) may be the one the security is looking to keep out.

More plutocratic propaganda from the Daily News masking itself as "journalism".

Common Core Proponents Have Bright Idea To End Opposition To The Standards - Change The Name From "Common Core" To Something Else

Can't get any more Orwellian than this:

Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction wants to take the politics out of the Arizona Common Core Standards without loosening any requirements of the state’s tough new academic program.

On Tuesday, John Huppenthal said the term “Common Core” has become so politically charged it has become nearly impossible to explain the state’s new academic standards to parents and voters.

So, he will ask the State Board of Education to approve a name change, replacing Common Core with “Arizona College and Career Ready Standards.” He also wants the state to withdraw from a national coalition that developed the standards but has since become a political lightning rod for conservatives.

Huppenthal emphasized that nothing would change in Arizona classrooms. Teachers will stick with the new Common Core lessons rolled out at the start of this school year, and students will still take an annual assessment to measure what they have learned, he said.

Huppenthal, a Republican, is up for re-election in 2014, and many conservative voters are against Common Core, saying states, not the federal government, should be able to draft their own education standards.

Michelle Udall, a Common Core supporter and Mesa Public Schools governing board member, said that she frequently encounters Common Core opponents and contends that the “vast majority” of critics are misinformed.

She said she was not sure whether a name change would resolve the issue.

“If we keep the same standards, change the name and that makes people happier, I guess that is OK,” Udall said. “It seems to border on the absurd to do that, but it’s fine if it makes the standards more acceptable.”

It does seem to border on the absurd, but Arizona is not the only place where Common Core proponents are toying with a name change to throw off the opposition.

In a piece in Politico today about the rising opposition to the Common Core, we learn they're trying to do the name change thing in Maryland too:

Promoting the standards requires such a delicate balance that the Maryland Business Roundtable is seeking to write up scripts for a PR campaign that won’t use the word “standards.” Or “common.” Or “core.” The group is hoping to get sports stars to make the pitch, executive director June Streckfus said.

Oh, yeah, that'll work.

Get some sports stars willing to take a paycheck to the sell the Common Core State (sic) Standards, only don't use the words "common," "core," or "standards" in the p.r. campaign.

You know that Common Core proponents have lost the war when they have to hire sports stars for pro-Common Core p.r. campaigns that will try and sell the Common Core State (sic) Standards to the public without the words "common," "core," or "standards" in the ads.

Or when they think they can fool a public increasingly opposed to the Common Core State (sic) Standards by simply changing the name and going on full speed ahead like the newly named "College and Career Readiness Standards" are something completely different.

I'm sure the opposition will never catch on to that strategy.

The Politico article quotes some proponents as saying they got cocky and thought the Core implementation was a done deal, that there was no way to put the toothpaste back into the tube on the Core.

But they're quickly learning that the more they promote these standards, the more people hate them.

They'll learn this even more when the Common Core "assessments" come and parents discover their kids are doing nothing but prepping for tests and taking tests.

And wait until the data-tracking thing becomes common knowledge.

If you're opposed to the Common Core and you enjoy Common Core proponents spluttering about how "ignorant" and "conspiracy-laden" the opposition to the Core is, the next year is going to be fun, fun, fun. 

Anybody Sick Of These Education Deform Buzz Words And Phrases?

Robust.

Research Shows...

Rigor.

Flipped Classrooms.

MOOC.

Assessment (if there are high stakes attached to it, it's a "Test".)

21st Century Skills.

RIB.

Domain.

Any others I'm missing from this year?

Barack Obama, Warrantless Surveillance And Classroom Technology

Two stories about Barack Obama I want to look at today.

The first is an education story:

President Barack Obama imagines a country where teachers know what's happening in their students' brains.

He wants "teachers to have an ability to assess learning hour by hour and day by day," a senior White House official said Wednesday. "That vision ... is really not possible with the connectivity we have today."

That's why on Thursday Obama will speak at a school in Mooresville, N.C., to unveil an initiative that aims to give 99 percent of America's public schools high-speed connectivity over the next five years.

The project, called ConnectED, also seeks to get devices into the hands of teachers and students so they can experience digital lessons and software designed for the classroom. Districts will be in control of their own purchasing. The plan would also use existing money within the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to fund professional development to "help teachers keep pace with changing ... demands," according to a background memo provided by the White House.

The second story is this:

Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights. 

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers. 

Based on an article in The Guardian published Wednesday night, we now know the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency used the Patriot Act to obtain a secret warrant to compel Verizon’s business services division to turn over data on every single call that went through its system. We know that this particular order was a routine extension of surveillance that has been going on for years, and it seems very likely that it extends beyond Verizon’s business division. There is every reason to believe the federal government has been collecting every bit of information about every American’s phone calls except the words actually exchanged in those calls. 

A senior administration official quoted in The Times offered the lame observation that the information does not include the name of any caller, as though there would be the slightest difficulty in matching numbers to names. He said the information “has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” because it allows the government “to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.” 

That is a vital goal, but how is it served by collecting everyone’s call data? The government can easily collect phone records (including the actual content of those calls) on “known or suspected terrorists” without logging every call made. In fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was expanded in 2008 for that very purpose. Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where. 

This sort of tracking can reveal a lot of personal and intimate information about an individual. To casually permit this surveillance — with the American public having no idea that the executive branch is now exercising this power — fundamentally shifts power between the individual and the state, and repudiates constitutional principles governing search, seizure and privacy. 

Does anyone else see the connection between the Obama education policy, the data tracking, the technologizing of everything, and the Obama surveillance system?

Mr. Obama can keep his ESEA money for increased technology and bandwidth.

At this point, given the realities of data tracking both by private enterprise and the federal government, I'll take a couple of bucks for pens, pencils, paper and chalk, thanks.

Bloomberg, NYPD, and Microsoft Go Into The Crime-Fighting Business Together

Sounds like a story from The Onion - but it's not:

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has unveiled a new crime-fighting system developed with Microsoft – and revealed that the city will take a cut of the profits if it is sold to other administrations.

The innovation, which bears a passing resemblance to the futuristic hologram data screens used by Tom Cruise in the science fiction film Minority Report, will allow police to quickly collate and visualise vast amounts of data from cameras, licence plate readers, 911 calls, police databases and other sources.

It will then display the information in real time, both visually and chronologically, allowing investigators to centralise information about crimes as they happen or are reported. "It is a one-stop shop for law enforcement," Bloomberg said at a City Hall press conference unveiling the new technology.

But, though it has many screens, maps, and flashing visuals that make it look like science fiction, the new technology has a distinctly un-Hollywood name: the Domain Awareness System. Developed by Microsoft engineers working with New York police officers, DAS will allow a host of activities to be carried out, such as spotting a suspicious vehicle and being able to track its recent movements or use cameras to track back and see who left a suspicious package.

It features live video feeds, huge databases of recent crime patterns and can take input direct from the field in real time via things like 911 calls or police radios. "All the information is presented visually and geographically and in chronological context," said police commissioner Ray Kelly.

If other cities purchase this system, Microsoft will share 30% of the profit with NYC.

Given how shoddy Microsoft products generally are, I doubt this thing will work as Bloomberg and Microsoft are advertising it, so we'll just have to see if any other municipality signs on to it.

Even so, I am a little disturbed that Microsoft and the NYPD are partnering on a crime tracking system.

Maybe the Gates Foundation can add a test score/teacher evaluation and really bring the school-to-prison complex together into one huge database?

Oops - maybe I shouldn't give Uncle Bill any ideas - he's been known to steal them before and make them into a core component of his Microsoft business model.

Although as I noted above, if this thing is as bad as Microsoft ME, Vista, Zune or Windows 8, I suspect it will spend more time freezing up and causing frustration than actually helping police track "criminals."

Why Not Call Them "Tests"?

Have you noticed how the new buzzword in education is "assessments"?

We never give tests anymore - just assessments.

Never mind that the assessments look, smell, and feel just like tests.

They are NOT tests.

Do you want to know why we cannot call these things tests anymore?

Because ever since NCLB, education reformers and testmeisters have discovered that people HATE tests and worry that there are too many high-stakes tests for their children at school.

They worry that because the stakes for these tests are so high for schools, administrators, and teachers that their children will be short-changed a real education and given test prep ad nauseum.

They are right to worry about this, of course, and the ed deformers know this, so they decided to go Orwellian on us and change the name from tests to assessments.

Assessments is such a more friendly word.

There is no hard "t" sound.

Instead there is that very soft, very friendly "s" sound.

So much friendlier than the "t" for test.

But make no mistake, a test by any other name (like assessment) is still a test and the Obama administration has ushered in an era of high stakes testing that is a Jeb Bush wet dream.

Here in NY State, teachers are going to see "a staggering amount of new assessments."

But the Regents said we have to be careful to not "overtest."

And Obama also said last week that overtesting makes education boring so we have to be careful not to do this.

Lucky for us we don't use the word test anymore, eh?

These are just assessments!

It's a different thing, you know?

Except, of course, it's not.