Some Students Spent Between 6 And 13 And A 1/2 Hours On Testing Yesterday

Yesterday three Regents exams were given - Global History, English and Geometry.

All over the city, high school juniors who had previously failed the Global History and/or Geometry exams were taking those tests again.

Many were also taking the English exam.

Here's how the schedule went yesterday for students slated to take the ELA Regents exam and one or two more exams:

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM - Global History Regents Exam
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM - English Language Arts Exam
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM - Geometry Regents Exam

A student taking two exams yesterday spent six hours on the tests.

A student taking all three exams yesterday spent nine hours on the tests.

And some students from the special education department who receive extended time testing accommodations spent as long as 13 and a 1/2 hours on the tests.

Think about that for a moment.

Think about how much is riding on these tests for the students (who need them to graduate), for the teachers (many of whom are tied to the scores for their APPR teacher evaluation rating despite the claims of the UFT and NYSUT to the contrary) and for the schools (which can end up in receivership or closed based upon those scores.)

I keep hearing from Carl Korn of NYSUT that test scores don't count for teachers anymore, that the pressure is off for students and schools too.

I've heard similar from some of the UFT and NYSUT shills on Twitter (one of whom told me that there was "zilch, nada, bupkis" in his rating tied to test scores.)

Apparently the union hacks at NYSUT and the UFT are unaware of the stakes tied to tests that continue to ride high in high schools for students, teachers and the schools themselves.

Does anybody want to guess how well a student who took two tests back-to-back for six hours yesterday did on those tests?

How about students who took all three for a nine hour testing extravaganza?

How about special education students who had extended time and could have been taking the tests for as long as 13 and 1/2 hours?

Does anybody want to guess what the test component/teacher evaluation ratings for teachers whose student took three tests in one day are going to look like?

It's absurd to think that the geniuses at the Board of Regents and the State Education Department decided to shove as many tests as possible into as small a window as possible, knowing that some students would have to take more than one test a day, some as many as three.

But it's not a surprise.

Because these people DO NOT CARE about children or teachers or schools.

They care only about test scores, expediency and compliance.

And by that gauge, everything yesterday was swell - three tests knocked off, grading starts today for those three, some more tests today, with that grading to begin on tomorrow and so on until it's all done by Sunday.

And there you have it - testing on a tight schedule, all done so that schools can get the scores in by the weekend, the next semester's scheduling completed by Monday and the Spring Semester off to  a start by next Tuesday.

Now if you ask, does this system serve children, teachers or schools, the answer would have to be no.

But remember, the members of the Board of Regents and the educrats at NYSED don't really care about that.

Scores, expediency, compliance - that's what matters.

They ought to be brought up on child abuse charges for what was done yesterday and what will continue to be done this week.

But they won't be.

Hell, they won't even be taken to task by the union leaders at NYSUT or the UFT since the union heads are too busy claiming there's a test score moratorium in APPR and attacking any teachers who point out how wrong they are.

How much has changed as a consequence of Governor Cuomo's Common Core Task Force?

In high schools just about nothing has changed.

What will it take for NYSUT and the UFT to admit this?

I dunno, but it certainly will take more than my efforts, since I keep telling NYSUT's Carl Korn this and he keeps ignoring me.

In fact it seems politicians, the unions and reporters all keep saying so much has changed in education when, in reality, little has changed at all.

Yesterday's insane Regents exam scheduling was the latest iteration of that.

Governor Cuomo keeps telling us he's reduced testing in schools.

I wonder how well he would have fared taking 13 and a 1/2 hours of history, math and English tests yesterday?

Common Core Is Doing Its Job - Anxiety Increasing In Children

Mission Accomplished for Common Core:

Six in 10 school psychologists said the Common Core learning standards, which includes state exams for students in third through eighth grades each April, has increased students’ anxiety.

The anxiety hasn’t, for the most part, led to physical ailments, the school psychologists said, but the new Common Core testing has translated into students feeling more stressed.

“This report should make all education stakeholders — from state policymakers to local teachers to parents — aware of the profound impact that they can have, both positive and negative, on student test anxiety,” Timothy Kremer, executive director of the School Boards Association, said in a statement.

... 

The report contended that the test anxiety is more common at the elementary-school level, saying students more often showed “internalized” symptoms such as excessive worry and withdrawal rather than demonstrating “externalized” symptoms, such as increased irritability, frustration and acting out.

One of the goals of the education reform movement is to create a compliant class of dutiful order-takers - nothing like having kids internalize symptoms of worry and withdrawal to do just that.

I would argue that at older ages, the children are beginning to act out.

I have been told by counselors that they're seeing increased cases of alcohol use, drug use, eating disorders and self-harm like cutting themselves.

That's anecdotal of course, but I've seen some of this in my work too.

Exacerbating all of this is how teachers are forced to make every class "rigorous" and "text-based," with children given very few opportunities to express their own thoughts or feelings through art, writing or speaking.

We truly have a system where "no one gives a shit what you think or feel - just can you do the market analysis by Monday."

Lawsuit Alleges Achievement First Punished Special Education Student Because Of His Disabilities

Coming on the heels of the "Got To Go" list that Success Academies put together for students they wanted out of SA comes this news:

Special education students at a Brooklyn charter school did not get mandated services and were punished for behavior that arose from their disabilities, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday.

The suit, filed on behalf of five students at Achievement First Crown Heights, described a “systemic failure to provide them a free appropriate public education, in violation of their rights.” It said that students did not get physical therapy and other services for weeks at a time, and that a student with autism was disciplined for not looking in the direction a teacher instructed or for hiding under his desk.

In addition to the charter network and the school, the suit also named the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Education Department, asserting they failed to make Achievement First, a network with schools in Connecticut and Rhode Island as well as in New York City, live up to its responsibilities.

“Kids with special needs not only should be granted accommodations for their needs, but they must be under federal and state law,” said Michelle Movahed, a senior staff attorney at New York Legal Assistance Group, a nonprofit organization that is representing the students and their families. “This is not just a question of doing the right thing.”

What kind of cretins would discipline a child with autism for not looking in the direction of the teacher?

The kind who run and/or work at Achievement First.

Oh, btw, they're hiring, so if you're in the market for a job where you get to abuse kids, especially special education students, head on over to Idealist and send the Achievement First cretins your resume...

Why Wasn't Michelle Rhee Investigated For Assault And Endangering The Welfare Of Children?

From the NY Times:

The popular leader of an after-school band program in Brooklyn has been charged with assault after putting duct tape over the mouth of a 9-year-old student, the police said on Wednesday.

The program leader, Kenyatte Hughes, 39, revived the Soul Tigers Marching Band, based at Intermediate School 292 in the East New York neighborhood, more than a decade ago with the goal of steering children away from violence by teaching them music.

Mr. Hughes, whom officials said was a volunteer, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with assault, endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of a weapon (the duct tape), the police said. He was arraigned in Criminal Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday and released without having to post bail, despite prosecutors’ request that bail be set at $20,000.

Law enforcement officials said Mr. Hughes put tape over a male student’s mouth on Monday, and that after it was removed, the boy’s lip was cracked and bloody and his face was swollen.

Devora Kaye, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, called the charges “deeply troubling” and said, “Mr. Hughes will no longer be allowed in I.S. 292 or any of our schools.” The school principal, Evelyn Maxfield, declined to comment.

Bill Turque in the Washington Post in August 2010:

Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's talk to the new DCPS teachers Wednesday included two anecdotes I had not heard before -- one remarkable for its content, the other for its delivery. They described her struggles 18 years ago as a fledgling second grade teacher at Baltimore's Harlem Park Elementary.
"The worst and in many ways definitely the toughest year of my entire life," she said.

Rhee had poor class management skills, she said, recalling that her class "was very well known in the school because you could hear them traveling anywhere because they were so out of control." On one particularly rowdy day, she said she decided to place little pieces of masking tape on their lips for the trip to the school cafeteria for lunch.

"OK kids, we're going to do something special today!" she said she told them.

Rhee said it worked well until they actually arrived at the cafeteria. "I was like, 'OK, take the tape off. I realized I had not told the kids to lick their lips beforehand...The skin is coming off their lips and they're bleeding. Thirty-five kids were crying."

Hughes arrested for taping child's mouth shut, Rhee tells the mouth tape story for laughs.

She ought to be investigated for assault and endangerment of children's welfare as well.

Success Academy Raises $9.3 Million In One Night

From the Capital NY morning email:

SUCCESS ACADEMY RAISES $9.3 MILLION AT SPRING BENEFIT -- Capital’s Eliza Shapiro and Conor Skelding: The Success Academy charter school network raised $9.3 million at its third annual spring benefit on Monday night, according to an attendee, up from $7.7 million at last year's benefit. The figure was announced by Dan Loeb, a hedge fund manager who serves as the chairman of Success' board of directors. The event was held at Cipriani in midtown Manhattan.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries delivered the keynote address in lieu of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was to give the keynote before his trade visit to Cuba was planned for the same day. …

“I stand here because I unequivocally support quality public education and that's what Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy provide,” Jeffries said, according to a quote posted on Success' Twitter account. “It’s easier to raise strong children than it is to repair broken men.”

Television host Katie Couric, Weekly Standard founder William Kristol, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Gregory Meeks of Queens and former Department of Education chancellor Joel Klein also attended the benefit, according to the attendee and Twitter posts. http://goo.gl/Mt1bSH

Governor Cuomo had been advertised as headlining the bash, but decided to go to Cuba instead.

Success does not seem to have suffered from Cuomo's absence.

Over $9 million in one night.

Not a bad take.

Tell me again why they need more money and free rent?

Eva Moskowitz, Doing What She Does Best, Plays Victim

Eliza Shapiro and Conor Skelding at Capital NY:

Success Academy C.E.O. Eva Moskowitz says this week's New York Times feature about her network of schools is "slanted" and "unfair."

"The article contains many inaccurate statements and unfair portrayals of our schools—scenes that could come straight out of a Dickens novel," Moskowitz wrote in an email to Success employees on Wednesday night, a copy of which was obtained by Capital.

...

"The reporter constructed a story around unverified but titillating anecdotes from anonymous sources," Moskowitz wrote.

Moskowitz and Success have regularly sparred with the reporters that cover her, including Capital reporters, often accusing them of bias. Press representatives have been known to call reporters "anti-Success" and to decline interviews and comment for articles.

It was a sentiment echoed in Moskowitz's email.

"This is not the first attack on Success Academy, nor will it be the last," she wrote.

Moskowitz wrote that "attacks" on her schools derive from an entrenched system driven by special interests, specifically the teachers' union, suggesting that news outlets are functionaries of that system. That claim has also been made by her spokespeople in response to stories that contain criticism.

"Let's keep perspective," Moskowitz wrote. "We are disrupters, we are changing the status quo, and that threatens a system that has existed more or less unchanged for decades."

She loves to play victim, doesn't she?

But the victims in this tale are the children soiling themselves at their desks because they're too scared to go to the bathroom during the all-mighty Sucess test prep.

The victims in this tale are the children sent to "effort academy" (i.e., detention and extra test prep) because their eyes didn't snap to attention quick enough when one of the teachers snapped her fingers.

The victims in this tale are the children who are meant to feel "misery" when their teachers feels they're not trying hard enough.

The NY Times article did read like something out of Dickens, as I wrote when I first posted about this story.

But that's not because the author, Kate Taylor, was making things up or "slanting" the piece, as Eva charges.

That's because Success Academy is a Dickensian nightmare where the children are subject to stress, misery and physical and emotional abuse.

With that part of the "Success" story getting out into the mainstream, Eva is finding it harder and harder to play the victim.

Not that she won't try.

But notice how the media coverage of Eva is changing these days.

The Albany rally in March didn't get the same vaunted coverage it got last year.

Now she's got a front page Times story she needs to spin away.

Looks like Eva's just going to have to double down on her spin efforts.

Lucky for her Campbell Brown, Governor Cuomo and a whole host of Wall Street/hedge fund people are going to raise millions for her in a couple of weeks.

A Conversation With Governor Cuomo - Tuesday 4/7 At 320 Park Av (50th-51st Streets)

From Norm Scott:

Hey - looking for a fun evening with some fellow merry makers? Cuomo is the most hated man in NY State.

Let’s have a Conversation with Cuomo! 

Come to a Rally this Tuesday to greet Cuomo and his friends-

Dinner and Conversation Fundraiser for Andrew Cuomo
When: Tuesday, April 7 at 6:00pm
Where: 320 Park Ave. NYC (Between 50 & 51st Sts.)
Why: To get more money from his friends - $15,000 a ticket so he can do more harm to our schools!

We’ll be giving out free tickets. They may not get you into Cuomo’s event, but you can attend ours! Arrive by 6:00pm, bring your favorite signs and dress up as your favorite hedgefund celebrity!

We need to keep the fight against the corporate assault on public education strong. We must let our elected officials who “voted YES with a heavy heart” for Cuomo’s budget know that they did the wrong thing! 

Come on out on Tuesday!

A question I have for Governor Cuomo:

Why does he support a sadistic charter school network where the children are subjected to humiliation, shaming and physical/verbal abuse?

Why is he going to help these child abusers raise money in two weeks?

NY Times Reports On Eva Moskowitz, Success Academies: Stress, Misery And Urine

One of the big takeaways from a NY Times report on Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies that went up today:

Send your child there if you want them to experience stress, misery and sitting in their urine.

In a rare look inside the network, including visits to several schools and interviews with dozens of current and former employees, The New York Times chronicled a system driven by the relentless pursuit of better results, one that can be exhilarating for teachers and students who keep up with its demands and agonizing for those who do not.

...

One consequence of the competitive environment is a high rate of teacher turnover. Some teachers who left said that the job was too stressful. Others said they left because they disagreed with the network’s approach, particularly when they believed it was taken to extremes. In an internal email that some former teachers said typified the attitude at some schools, one school leader said that students who were lagging should be made to feel “misery.” Suspension rates at Success schools, compared with public schools, are higher.

Former staff members described students in third grade and above wetting themselves during practice tests, either because teachers did not allow them to go to the restroom, which Ms. Moskowitz disputed, or because the students themselves felt so much pressure that they did not want to lose time on the test.

Jasmine Araujo, 25, who joined Success through the Teach for America program, quit after half a year as a special-education teacher at Success Academy Harlem 3. She now teaches at a charter school in New Orleans. “I would cry almost every night thinking about the way I was treating these kids, and thinking that that’s not the kind of teacher I wanted to be,” Ms. Araujo said.

More:

Most of the former teachers interviewed, however, said that they left not because of the workload, but because they disagreed with Success’s approach, which they found punitive.

One teacher complained that she was expected to announce all of her students’ scores on practice tests, by asking those who had scored a four to stand up, followed by those with a three and then those with a two. The teacher and her colleagues persuaded their supervisors not to make students with a score of one stand up, but those students were still left conspicuously sitting down, she said.

At one point, her leadership resident — what the network calls assistant principals — criticized her for not responding strongly enough when a student made a mistake. The leadership resident told her that she should have taken the student’s paper and ripped it up in front of her. Students were not supposed to go to the restroom during practice tests, she said, and she heard a leader from another school praise the dedication of a child who had wet his pants rather than take a break.

“I dreaded going into work,” the teacher, who now teaches in a public school, said.

Other former staff members also described students having wet themselves, in some cases during practice tests. Two former staff members who worked at Success Academy Harlem West, a middle school, in the 2013-14 school year, said that they recalled having to go to the supply closet to get extra underwear and sweatpants, which were always on hand, for students who had wet themselves.

Even more:

On April 1, 2012, a leadership resident at Success Academy Harlem 2, Lauren Jonas, sent an email to her fourth grade teachers.

The email, provided by a former staff member, said that the results on a recent, three-day practice test were “not what we had hoped for.”

“You must demand every single minute,” Ms. Jonas wrote. “You must have higher behavioral and academic expectations than ever before.” Every letter was capitalized.

Nine to 12 students had failed to use the test-taking strategies they had been taught, known as the “plan of attack,” Ms. Jonas wrote.

“We can NOT let up on them,” she continued. “Any scholar who is not using the plan of attack will go to effort academy, have their parent called, and will miss electives. This is serious business, and there has to be misery felt for the kids who are not doing what is expected of them.”

This is the charter network that Governor Cuomo and Campbell Brown are going to raise money for in a couple of weeks. 

This is what "excellence" looks like to our elites.

Sounds more like a Dickensian nightmare to me.

Andrew Cuomo Needs To Put The Homeless Shelter Overseen By His Sister Into His Vaunted APPR Evaluation System

Imagine the following story is about a public school in New York City and not a homeless shelter run by a non-profit started by Andrew Cuomo in the 1980's and currently overseen by Cuomo's sister, Maria Cuomo Cole:

A Manhattan homeless shelter overseen by Gov. Cuomo’s sister has been repeatedly cited for deteriorating safety and health conditions — culminating last year with the death of an infant, records show.

The Hamilton Family Residence in upper Manhattan, which houses 155 families headed by single mothers, is run by HELP USA, a nonprofit group founded by Andrew Cuomo in the 1980s. His sister Maria Cuomo Cole chairs the group’s board.

Beginning in 2013, the shelter — which currently has a $23 million contract with the city — has repeatedly received low marks from the city for health and safety issues, including damaged walls, poor housekeeping and crib-related problems, city records show.

A key issue has been potentially dangerous conditions for children, since the city-funded shelter serves only families with kids.

The low point came on Feb. 19, 2014, when a 3-month-old girl was rushed from the shelter to Harlem Hospital in cardiac arrest.

OK, now imagine this shelter was part of the vaunted APPR teacher evaluation plan Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to impose on teachers across the state, with unannounced evaluations being conducted by outside observers, and this is what they found:

The infant’s death occurred after HELP’s performance ratings had slipped, records show.

The city monitors these programs and issues ratings on a regular basis. The HELP contract that covers Hamilton was rated “good” in overall performance in 2009, but dropped to “fair” by 2013 and continued at “fair” through June. It’s “quality of programs” ratings dropped to “poor” in 2013 but rose to “fair” as of last year.

Problems are spelled out in regular city inspections, examining physical conditions and the quality of services to families.

During several announced visits in April 2013, homeless services inspectors randomly selected 15 apartments and found health and safety problems in each one.

That included missing child-proof electrical outlets in several units, roaches in one kitchen sink, fruit flies in another, a toilet that didn’t flush, walls with holes, and lots of busted floor tiles, records show.

In his report, the inspector warned HELP that apartment inspections “must be conducted weekly for units in a deplorable manner.”

He also emphasized the need for more “supervisory oversight” to ensure timely repairs and adoption of a plan of action to “address all major physical deficiencies found.”

The inspector noted that case files were a mess, and when inspectors returned six months later for an unannounced visit, they found “no observable improvement with the quality of the case files.”

HELP is on notice to improve the Hamilton Family Residence after several announced visits in 2013 - but conditions actually deteriorate:

By April 2014, it was worse. During six visits, DHS Inspector Pierre found problems throughout, including 45 “crib-related issues,” 35 units with damaged walls, 21 units with sinks not securely fastened to walls, 11 units with “problems with vermin (roaches and flies),” and 10 units with “evidence of mold” in bathroom walls and ceilings.

Pierre said the case files had gotten even worse, writing, “The social service delivery appeared to be regressing.”

“All throughout this unit inspection, damaged walls and ceilings, poor housekeeping and crib-related deficiencies were frequently found,” he wrote. ”There is a lack of sense of urgency from facility staff to ensure that these issues are addressed.”

HELP then missed its July 13 deadline to submit a “corrective report” explaining how they would address the problems. It arrived a month later, and was rejected. Finally on Sept. 12, DHS approved HELP’s plan.

Again I ask you to imagine Hamilton Family Residence were a school in Buffalo, Rochester or New York City - what rhetoric would we hear out of Cuomo about the "failure" of this kind of school (and rightfully so!)

But instead this is a homeless shelter run by HELP USA, a non-profit Andrew Cuomo himself started and currently overseen by his sister.

What rhetoric do we hear out of Cuomo about the "failure" of HELP?

Cricket, cricket...

Here is a shelter that received poor evaluation ratings in 2013 that got worse in 2014, with the DHS inspector writing that “The social service delivery appeared to be regressing.”

The shelter is cited for vermin, mold, damaged walls, sinks not properly fastened to the walls and crib-related issues.

If anything calls for state intervention (like Cuomo is calling for with "failing" schools and "failing" school districts), it's the Hamilton Family Residence run by HELP USA, the Cuomo-run non-profit.

I won't hold my breath waiting for a broadside from Cuomo himself or any of his flying monkey minions on this.

As a side note, Maria Cuomo Cole is married to famed designer, sweatshop overseer and teacher-basher, Kenneth Cole.

You can see Cole's record on safety issues here.

Common Core As Child Abuse

From the Christian Post:

Parents in New York state described the anxiety and depression experienced by their children after the state began implementing testing tied to the Common Core in part two of Home School Legal Defense Association's documentary, "Building the Machine: A Movie About the Common Core."

The children are "blaming themselves and saying there is something defective with them and school is making them feel defective," Mary Calamia, a licensed clinical social worker who works with children and teachers in the New York state school system says in the film.

"They're blaming themselves, they're saying they're at fault. They're calling themselves stupid. ... Thus we get anxiety and depression," she added.

Rachel Gibson, a special education teacher and parent in Westchester County, New York, recalled that one child carved the word "stupid" into her wrist after receiving her test scores.

...

Calamia recalled that around October 2012, after teachers had switched to the Common Core, she began noticing an unusually large number of students going to her with anxiety, depression and self-mutilating behavior.

As a social worker, she had dealt with those issues before. What was unusual was the sheer number of new cases.

"The numbers of kids coming in were off the charts, and that's when I first heard about Common Core," she said.

The Common Core curriculum is developmentally inappropriate, parents and experts in the film argued.

Yvonne Gasperino, a parent in Westchester County, New York, could not understand why her children's school was adopting the Common Core, given that it is a private Catholic school.

"This is cognitive child abuse," she said.

One of the architects of Common Core, former McKinsey consultant/current College Board President David Coleman, famously told New York parents that no one gave a shit what their children thought or felt, all that mattered was whether they could get a market analysis done for their bosses.

That's the spirit behind Common Core - no thoughts or feelings, just get the widget work done.

No wonder some children are crying, falling into depression and hurting themselves - they're being abused in school.

Education Reformers Should Be Brought Up On Child Abuse Charges

Nothing infuriates me more than seeing how the corporate education reform agenda has changed pre-k and kindergarten for children.

Gone are the days when children were given the opportunity to learn through play, and experimentation - all of that has been replaced with hours and hours  of "academic" skills and drills work and Common Core learning.

I've covered this issue before in a piece entitled How Is Common Core For Kindergartners Not Child Abuse? but the topic came up again this morning in a Valerie Strauss piece at the Washington Post in which she writes how much more effective play-based education is for young children:

Anybody paying attention to school reform knows that kindergarten today is nothing like it used to be. Kindergarten schedules used to be dominated by play, but there’s not much time — if any — for that any more in many programs.  Play has been replaced with reading, writing and arithmetic — and a slew of tests on reading, writing and arithmetic. There is so much pressure on teachers to get kids in kindergarten — who can be 4, 5 or 6 — academically oriented that some teachers have stopped offering a snack because there just isn’t any time. Recess? That’s gone in some places too.

Play, you may be surprised to learn, is actually the way young kids learn best. According to this report titled “Crisis in the Kindergarten” by the non-profit Alliance for Childhood:

Long-term research casts doubt on the assumption that starting earlier on the teaching of phonics and other discrete skills leads to better results. For example, most of the play-based kindergartens in Germany were changed into centers for cognitive achievement during a wave of educational “reform” in the 1970s. But research comparing 50 play-based classes with 50 early-learning centers found that by age ten the children who had played excelled over the others in a host of ways. They were more advanced in reading and mathematics and they were better adjusted socially and emotionally in school. They excelled in creativity and intelligence, oral expression, and “industry.”  As a result of this study German kindergartens returned to being play-based again.

Strauss goes on to post some kindergarten schedules from around the country to show how little "official" play is programmed into kindergarten these days, then notes that there may by be even less play happening in kindergarten classrooms than what is officially scheduled "because academics often runs into non-academic blocks, meaning that kids sometimes can’t go to recess or paint a picture because there is no time."

Last year, the NY Post reported that many kindergarten children are feeling stressed out over the Common Core standards and academic learning that is being forced on them:

“For the most part, it’s way over their heads,” a Brooklyn teacher said. “It’s too much for them. They’re babies!”

In a kindergarten class in Red Hook, Brooklyn, three children broke down and sobbed on separate days last week, another teacher told The Post.

When one girl cried, “I can’t do it,” classmates rubbed her back, telling her, “That’s OK.”

“This is causing a lot of anxiety,” the teacher said. “Kindergarten should be happy and playful. It should be art and dancing and singing and learning how to take turns. Instead, it’s frustrating and disheartening.”

At the time, the DOE spokesperson responded that it was just too damned bad if the children were getting stressed out and anxious over their classes - this is WHAT they needed to do in order to be competitive in a global marketplace in the future:

DOE spokeswoman Erin Hughes said, “These are the types of activities and exercises that students need to work on to acquire the skills they need to be ready for middle school, high school, college and careers.” 

But of course we know from much research - including that cited by Valerie Strauss in her Washington Post column - that what children need in order to be successful is play-based kindergarten.

Children who attended the play-based kindergartens over the kindergartens that stressed academic skills were, by the age of ten:

more advanced in reading and mathematics and they were better adjusted socially and emotionally in school. They excelled in creativity and intelligence, oral expression, and “industry.”

Here in the United States, we have gone in the opposite direction, at least for the vast majority of children.

The offspring of the elite continue to attend play-based kindergartens, of course, where they get to play and experiment to their heart's content and soak up all the play-based learning they need.

It's the rest of the country's children - the 99% who can't afford the elite schools - who are being subjected to the Common Core reform agenda that is stressing out and sickening children.

I think it is high time we begin to charge the education reformers who push this kind of academic malfeasance on little children with child abuse.

Last year I wrote:

Remember the Robert Fulghum book from years ago called "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten?

In that book, Fulghum wrote that every lesson that you really need from life is taught to you when you're in kindergarten:

Most of what I really need
To know about how to live
And what to do and how to be
I learned in kindergarten.
Wisdom was not at the top
Of the graduate school mountain,
But there in the sandpile at Sunday school.

These are the things I learned:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life -
Learn some and think some
And draw and paint and sing and dance
And play and work everyday some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world,
Watch out for traffic,
Hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.

That's what used to be taught in kindergarten.

Now under the Gates/Broad/Murdoch/Obama/Bloomberg/Cuomo/Klein/Rhee/Duncan/Bush education reform movement, they don't teach any of those things anymore.

Instead they teach how to get an eating disorder or a drug habit or an alcohol problem or workaholism or a shopping compulsion or OCD or a sex addiction or neurosis or any number of other issues because your kindergarten years have had all the joy and fun taken out of them and have been replaced with high stakes testing, higher order math and language lessons, and cutthroat competition with your peers.

It's not a mistake that the same oligarchs who have brought this insane Common Core to fruition do not send their kids to schools that use Common Core.

They send them to Waldorf schools.

Or Quaker schools.

Or Montessiori schools.

Or the Lab School.

You know, the kinds of schools that aren't run like army drill camps, where the teachers aren't graded using test scores, where the kids don't take high stakes standardized tests all throughout the year, where students get to explore meaningful subjects and lessons rather than endless test prep and drills.

The Common Core Federal Standards are tantamount to child abuse and we need to take the people promoting these things to court and charge them with crimes against humanity.

Seriously.

It's not a mistake either that the people who promote this abusive and authoritarian education system are the kind of people who would fail a standardized test based upon Robert Fulghum's book.

They never learned how to get along with others.

They never learned how to share.

They always need to win.

They always need things their way.

They like to hurt people (or fire them publicly on TV.)

And they never clean up their own messes.

Fred Rogers is dead but I really wish he were around today so that he could take the lead in exposing these Common Core Federal Standards for the garbage they are.

And I believe he would do just that.

Let's channel Fred Rogers and Robert Fulghum and John Dewey and Charles Dickens and Howard Zinn and George Carlin and all the other people who taught us that education is about more than testing and drilling, who taught us that education does not come out of a book but comes out of real world experiences with other people and other beings.

Let's start by charging NYSED Commissioner John King, the education reformer who sent his own children to play-based schools even as he works overtime to make sure your kids have no time for play, just skills and drills, with child abuse for the state's education reform agenda.

Let's charge Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch with child abuse as well.

And while we're at it, let's charge Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, the man who told us he would be the "students' lobbyist" a few years back during a State of the State speech, with child abuse as well.

These three people have instituted policies that are harming the children of this state and they need to be held accountable for them.

I know there are plenty of other reformers that ought to be brought up on charges too - from Obama to Duncan, Broad to Gates, Bloomberg to Klein.

But let's start with the three most powerful education reformers in this state and take it from there.

Wouldn't you like to see these three people in prison where they can have their play privileges taken from them?

And maybe then we can get the message across that harming children in the name of so called education reform will no longer be tolerated in this country.

The NYSED Common Core Modules - Meant To Dumb Down A Whole Generation Of Children

Here's a comment NYCDOEnuts left on this Perdido Street School post yesterday on the NYSED modules:

At my school, I have two 9th grade classes where I am required to teach to the modules. They are so dry and tedious, that on days when I follow the curriculum (knowing I could be popped in on for an informal eval) my classroom is completely lifeless. Imagine spending a whole period asking almost the same question 10 times, while covering only 5 sentences of a story students clearly get and are ready to move forward with. The insane part is, that the lessons are so rigid and scaffolded that they are in fact not challenging at all. The lessons are designed to get students to see stories in such a specific way and with no room for interpretation, so that when a unit finally finished you get 34 of the exact same essay. We are not teaching students to analyze literature, or even to form arguments, we are teaching them how to be drones who follow tedious step by step processes that require no critical or independent thought whatsoever. Also, Module 1 for 10th grade is out now, and it is more of the same crap.

Here's another comment on the same post:

I can tell that the same is true for the middle school modules. My daughter sat through five weeks of a speech by Caesar Chavez. She said that after the first few days, everyone in the class, including the teacher, just tuned out. She felt like they just kept doing the same lesson over and over and over.

The supposed rigor of the Common Core is that children spend more time learning fewer topics, but the topics they do learn about, they learn in depth.

Take a look at the SED modules and see the "depth" of the Common Core in action in NY State schools.

Students spend weeks on one short story answering the same kinds of text-based questions over and over and over that lead them to all write the same essay response for the ending assessment.

Students read one speech by a famous American over and over and over until they no longer care about the issue, the speech, or English class.

Students read one scene from each of the five acts of Romeo and Juliet, spending weeks on each of the scenes, then watch the film with Leonardo DiCaprio for the parts of the play they're not reading.

This is rote, mind-numbing, soul-sapping drudge work meant to dumb down an entire generation of American children to grow into mindless adults able to follow orders and instructions and little else.

The purveyors of the Common Core belong in jail for child abuse - John King, Merryl Tisch, every member of the Board of Regents who supports this agenda, every functionary at SED who hoists this toxic reform onto NY State children (including the Gates Foundation-funded "Regents Fellows"), every member of the NY State legislature who supports Common Core as a reform and finally the state's First Lobbyist for children, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, who currently is running a campaign advertisement about what a great idea the Common Core is (even as he criticizes the implementation of it by SED.)

The Common Core NYSED modules are indefensible and the proof of that is in how much the children who are being taught with these modules have learned to hate school.

KIPP Plans To Keep Padded Cell To Punish Students

Yesterday the Daily News reported a KIPP school in NYC uses a padded cell for "time outs" for children who act out in school.

One child was so distraught by the experience that an ambulance was called.

There has been much outrage about the KIPP padded cell story, but the DN reports today that KIPP plans to keep the practice going:

The tot cell stays.

Officials at an uptown New York charter school on Wednesday refused to back down from their controversial use of a padded cell to confine problem students after a Daily News investigation exposed the practice Tuesday.

Two young boys, 5 and 7, were repeatedly detained in the tiny, so-called “calm-down room” at KIPP Star Washington Heights Elementary School for acting up. The parents of both kids recently removed their boys from the school, saying they suffered panic attacks from the experience.

Despite opposition from angry parents, charter school officials said Wednesday they would still put uncontrollable students into the converted closet.

“We will review all situations on a case-by-case basis and continue to obtain prior parental approval if the use of the calm-down room becomes necessary to protect the safety of a child,” KIPP NYC Superintendent Josh Zoia told the Daily News.
In an open letter to parents posted on the school’s website, Zoia said “only a small handful of students have used the calm-down room and only in emergency situations.”

But the parents of the two boys placed there say the practice should end.

“It’s not working,” said Teneka Hall, 28, a full-time Washington Heights mom whose son, Xavier, was rushed to the hospital after he had a panic attack and wet himself while in the room. “It’s hurting the kids.”

Hurting the kids has always been the point at a "No Excuses!" charter school like KIPP where the entire structure of the school is built around breaking the will of the children, beating them into submission with rules, regulations and punishment, and finally remaking them into the compliant little "scholars" the KIPPsters want.

The padded cell for time outs fits right in with the KIPP philosophy of beat 'em til they're compliant.

No wonder they refuse to get rid of it.

The Insanity Of Close Reading A Text Without Context Or Personal Connections

@leoniehaimson To teach without contact & context is bizarre, pointless, ineffective. Learning doesn't exist in a vacuum. Connection is all.
— JosieHolford (@JosieHolford) November 20, 2013

Read the whole Valerie Strauss post on Close Reading that they are talking about here - it is a horrifying tale of what is so wrong with Common Core and why kids and teachers hate it so much.

I am teaching annotation and close reading to seniors today.

In my department, it was strongly urged that we take the SED modules for 9th grade and adapt lessons for the 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

So today we practice close reading of a text over and over and over.

I cannot give students any historical context for the text, I cannot explain any words they do not know, and I cannot ask them to make personal connections to the text (after all, as Common Core ELA standards architect David Coleman said, no one gives a shit what students think or feel about anything, only that they can do the office work.)

The 9th graders hate school - the Common Core lessons they are being taught ensure that.

Today, I suspect the 12th graders will hate it too.

I know I will hate it.

In my experience, the foundation of education is helping students to learn new ideas and concepts by helping them to draw on prior knowledge and make connection to their own experiences.

The Common Core architects, in their words, don't give a shit about any of that.

They care only that students can read a text and make text to text connections.

As Josie Holford said, this kind of teaching is bizarre, pointless and ineffective - and yet it is being forced on us in NY State by the NYSED, the Regents, and Governor Cuomo.

This is why parents and teachers are up in arms all over the state.

These are not higher standards we work with here.

These are insane standards that are meant to make school into drudge work, teach kids just enough skills to do the office work, but not enough to help them to grow into emotionally aware and conscious human beings.

This is child abuse, plain and simple.

The state bureaucrats and Regents board members should be up on charges for forcing these harmful and damaging reforms on children.

Common Core Child Abuse

Newest Pearson/Common Core/NYCDOE innovation - multiple choice standardized tests for four and five year olds:

Goodbye Play-Doh, hello No. 2 pencils.

Because of a tough new curriculum and teacher evaluations, 4- and 5-year-olds are learning how to fill in bubbles on standardized math tests to show how much they know about numbers, shapes and order.
...
One of three tests obtained by the Daily News is created by Pearson — which made the New York State third- through eighth-grade exams, including a ridiculously worded question about a talking pineapple last year. Pearson also makes the Common Core materials that most city schools have recently adopted.

Administering the exams is a complete headache, teachers said. “They don’t know how to hold pencils,” said a Bronx kindergarten teacher whose class recently took the Pearson exam. “They don’t know letters, and you have answers that say A, B, C or D and you’re asking them to bubble in . . . They break down; they cry.”

Because the little test-takers don’t know their numbers, teachers direct them to find each question by an image printed next to the answers.

The NYCDOE defended itself by saying the 32 schools giving these multiple choice standardized tests to four and five years olds don't have to actually give the tests until spring.

That's not exactly a winning defense in my book.

The education deformers want to make kids hate learning and school as early as possible, don't they?

Well, they're doing a damned good job of that.

And of course part of the reason these tests will be given is so that the kids' teachers can be evaluated.

Another part is so that they can track the data for these kids all throughout their schooling and sell it off to the edu-entrepreneurs and other vultures.

This is insanity and it is child abuse.

Mayor Bloomberg ought to be brought up on child abuse charges for this travesty.

Same goes for NYCDOE Chancellor Walcott, NY State Regents Chancellor Tisch and NYSED Commissioner King.

These people belong in jail for a long, long time for the harm they're doing to children.

We covered this back in January here at Perdido Street School.

But nothing has changed since then.

The Common Core child abuse continues unabated.

NYSED/Regents Instill FEAR With State Tests

Read this teacher's descriptions of the NY State test guidelines as required by the NYSED and the Board of Regents and tell me this high stakes testing isn't child abuse:

This week, as the English Language Arts state test are administered across the state, elementary and middle schools will be on testing lockdown.

Teachers are not allowed to be near a pencil or pen when the test is in the room; cell phones must be off our persons and in the off position; students must be escorted through the hallways; teachers are not allowed to do anything but “actively proctor,” which means wandering around the room without stopping for the whole 90 minutes; teachers are not allowed to really speak to children while the test is in the room, and in their active proctoring, they are not to linger too long by one student since it may mean the teacher is cheating.

The state of New York will send random test monitors to schools across the state to make sure everyone is adhering to these guidelines. Entire rooms full of tests can be invalidated if a monitor witnesses a violation. Teachers have been sternly warned about all of these procedures.

It’s kind of scary.

For kids, the days are equally miserable and scary. All students from third through eighth grade will be taking a 90-minute test (135 minutes for those with extended time) all three days. During the time the test is in the room kids are not allowed to have anything on their desks except the test and a pencil. They may not talk or get up and wander around. They must be still and focused and working. When they are done, we must tell them to sit quietly and put their heads down. Under no circumstances can they talk.

I would like to remind you that third graders are eight years old. People somewhere thought these were good and viable directions to give eight year olds. The teachers and principals must be stern and serious during the time the test is in the room. If you are a kid, and you are taking the test, you can’t ask your teacher any questions, you can’t expect encouraging words. Your teachers seem stressed and mad. You know it’s serious. The test is long and hard and scary. Bad things will happen if you don’t do well. Everyone, your teachers, the principal, your parents, even the news on TV, tells you this.
Sometimes the kids cry. Or they look really mad. Or they put their heads down or stare into space. They kind of give up. They get antsy. They don’t smile or laugh or seem happy. They are worried. Being a teacher on state test days feels a little like committing child abuse.

I remember from Regents administration, when the kids were done with the test, they left school for the day. Not so with this test, the kids have to stay, sitting still and quiet until the tests have left the room. Then they can draw or do puzzles until all the tests in the school are collected and secured. Then the rest of the school day happens, like everything is normal.

It makes me weary to think about this week. The kids and teachers at my school look haggard, everyone feels crazy and exhausted. I suspect we are not alone.

This year, we know from all we’ve been told by the state, and from the practice materials, that the tests will be much more difficult. While reading a practice passage aloud last week, I thought surely I read this weird article about alternative fuel sources for cars before. I had. It was a Day One Regents passage from several years ago, for 11th graders. Now it’s being used for eighth graders; that’s what we’re up against. We keep telling kids, “You’re smart! You got this!” And that makes them feel better.

But we could all use more encouragement.

Please join me, in offering all our elementary and middle school colleagues and kids raucous cheers and huzzahs, war cries, if you will, as they survive this challenging testing season. And remember that after the tests this week, and before the math tests next week, we have Friday. On Friday, we will resume the excellent teaching we love to do, and that we know makes differences in kids’ lives.

What is it, exactly, that the New York State Education Department and the New York State Board of Regents are trying to do with this kind of testing?

It is quite simple:

They are trying to instill FEAR into the children and into the adults.

FEAR of failing, FEAR of being left back, FEAR of the value-added measurement, FEAR of closure, FEAR of non-compliance.

F-E-A-R - FEAR!!!!!

That's it - that's all this is about.

It's top-down control, it's authoritarian and it is, quite frankly, undemocratic and dare I say, bordering on the fascist.

All hail the Great Tests!

Let's wear uniforms and rally around the Great Tests!

Let's treat the children like political prisoners and infuse them with fear, anxiety and terror.

No moving!

No talking!

No eye contact with anybody!

One false move and we invalidate your test and fire your teacher!

And these are children we are talking about here.

Eight to thirteen year olds.

This is insane.

Seriously, it's insane.

And just wait until they add the PARCC tests and the Student Learning Objectives to the school year, on top of these state tests, so that teachers can be evaluated using APPR.

All the children are going to do is take tests and perform growth tasks so that their teachers can be evaluated using the scores.

I say again, this is insane.

Call your legislator and tell them how insane this is.

Tell them that the education "leaders" in this state are hurting children, damaging public education, and creating a whole generation of students who are going to grow up with anxiety disorders and other problems caused by this kind of high stakes education system.

Parents Accuse DOE Of Lying, Covering Up PCB Problems

From DNAinfo:

UPPER WEST SIDE — PCB leaked in another two Upper West Side schools in the past two months, education officials said — adding to a growing list of affected schools and concern among parents.

P.S. 242, the Young Diplomats Magnet Academy on West 120th Street, had leaks of the carcinogenic chemical polychlorinated biphenyl last month, according to the Department of Education.

P.S. 185, The Early Childhood Discovery and Design Magnet School on West 112th Street, had a leak in early March, the DOE said.

The reaction of parents?

The recent incidents add to a brewing distrust in the district, particularly at P.S. 242. 

Parent Angela Jenkins has taken her second grade daughter out of school for the remainder of the year and is homeschooling her after the PCB leak convinced her the school was unsafe, she said.

"I don’t trust the DOE with my daughter. There’s so much lying and cover-up," said Jenkins, adding the school was evasive about the leak and its remediation plan. "I have to really ask my self, 'Do I want to send my daughter there?'"

And why isn't the DOE doing more air testing, taking additional safety precautions?

Why cost, of course:

Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal is working on a bill that would force the DOE to speed up the remediation timeline.

“Once again, lighting ballasts leak PCBs in schools and the Department of Education recklessly dithers...The DOE must stop making parents choose between their children’s health and their education. I renew my demand that the City remove all toxic PCB lighting ballasts from classrooms immediately,” Rosenthal said.

The DOE does not conduct air quality testing after a PCB leak, which is one way to ensure chemicals aren't leaching into the air, said District 3 Superintendent Ilene Altschul. The United Federation of Teachers, however, performed air quality testing at P.S. 242, Altschul said.

Air testing is "incredibly expensive and it requires a space be completely shut down," said Community Education Council member Michelle Ciulla Lipkin of testing. "It’s a very cumbersome process.

"It’s absurd that we’re not doing more air testing," she added, "but it’s a much more expensive proposition." 

It seems Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE are only in favor of standardized testing.

 

When it comes to testing the air in a school for safety, whether from PCB's or mold, Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE are MIA.

You can bet the DOE has not divulged full information on these leaks even as they claim that they put "Children First".

At least the UFT has helped conducted some air testing to ensure safety.

But the UFT shouldn't have to conduct the testing.

That is Bloomberg's and Walcott's job.

How many children come down with cancer in the future because these two callous men refuse to make the schools safe for children, refuse to test schools when there have been leaks and other safety issues, have delayed as long as they could on fixing the leaking lights?

How Damaging Will Common Core Be To Young Children?

I posted earlier about the NY Post article that describes how the Common Core curriculum is being used on four and five years olds in NYC public schools.

The Common Core requires "high standards" even in kindergarten, replaces fictional stories with non-fiction, adds high stakes tests, and is causing much stress, anxiety and fear in the children.

This section of the Post article best sums up Common Core for four and five year olds:

“For the most part, it’s way over their heads,” a Brooklyn teacher said. “It’s too much for them. They’re babies!”

In a kindergarten class in Red Hook, Brooklyn, three children broke down and sobbed on separate days last week, another teacher told The Post.

When one girl cried, “I can’t do it,” classmates rubbed her back, telling her, “That’s OK.”

“This is causing a lot of anxiety,” the teacher said. “Kindergarten should be happy and playful. It should be art and dancing and singing and learning how to take turns. Instead, it’s frustrating and disheartening.”

Teachers really do know what's best for their students, but the education reformers who developed the Common Core Federal Standards (and make no mistake, they are federal standards) and the politicians who put them into place don't particularly respect what educators have to say or think about anything important.

According to Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige (published in Valerie Strauss's blog in the Washington Post), the people who developed the Common Core and put them into place didn't include teachers in any of their discussions about how these standards would affect students nor did they base the new standards for K-3 on any research.

They write:

Recent critiques of the Common Core Standards by Marion Brady and John T. Spencer have noted that the process for creating the new K-12 standards involved too little research, public dialogue, or input from educators.

Nowhere was this more startlingly true than in the case of the early childhood standards—those imposed on kindergarten through grade 3. We reviewed the makeup of the committees that wrote and reviewed the Common Core Standards. In all, there were 135 people on those panels. Not a single one of them was a K-3 classroom teacher or early childhood professional.

It appears that early childhood teachers and child development experts were excluded from the K-3 standards-writing process.

When the standards were first revealed in March 2010, many early childhood educators and researchers were shocked. “The people who wrote these standards do not appear to have any background in child development or early childhood education,” wrote Stephanie Feeney of the University of Hawaii, chair of the Advocacy Committee of the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.

The promoters of the standards claim they are based in research. They are not. There is no convincing research, for example, showing that certain skills or bits of knowledge (such as counting to 100 or being able to read a certain number of words) if mastered in kindergarten will lead to later success in school. Two recent studies show that direct instruction can actually limit young children’s learning. At best, the standards reflect guesswork, not cognitive or developmental science.

Moreover, the Common Core Standards do not provide for ongoing research or review of the outcomes of their adoption—a bedrock principle of any truly research-based endeavor.

How ironic that the education reformers who claim high school students must be able to write argumentative essays with a convincing thesis that is backed up with facts and data did not seem to do their research or homework on child development for K-3 nor did they seek out the opinions or thoughts of the child development professionals who might have helped guide them in a different direction for the standards.

Had the Common Core developers sought out the opinions and thoughts of those professionals, they would have learned the following:

The Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative was signed by educators, pediatricians, developmental psychologists, and researchers, including many of the most prominent members of those fields.

Their statement reads in part:

 We have grave concerns about the core standards for young children…. The proposed standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades….

The statement’s four main arguments, below, are grounded in what we know about child development—facts that all education policymakers need to be aware of:

1.  The K-3 standards will lead to long hours of direct instruction in literacy and math. This kind of “drill and grill” teaching has already pushed active, play-based learning out of many kindergartens.

2. The standards will intensify the push for more standardized testing, which is highly unreliable for children under age eight.

3. Didactic instruction and testing will crowd out other crucial areas of young children’s learning: active, hands-on exploration, and developing social, emotional, problem-solving, and self-regulation skills—all of which are difficult to standardize or measure but are the essential building blocks for academic and social accomplishment and responsible citizenship.

4. There is little evidence that standards for young children lead to later success. The research is inconclusive; many countries with top-performing high-school students provide rich play-based, nonacademic experiences—not standardized instruction—until age six or seven.

Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige write that the Common Core developers were aware of the Joint Statement well before they published a summary of feedback they claimed they received from the public about the new standards.  That summary ignored the Joint Statement critique and instead published only glowing reviews of the new standards.

That's ironic, too, considering Common Core is very big on students being able to acknowledge conflicting viewpoints in their argumentative essays and push back against them with research, facts and data.

In the case of the Common Core developers, they simply ignored the critiques and made believe that the acclaim for the new K-3 standards was universal.

Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige ask the following:

Why were early childhood professionals excluded from the Common Core Standards project? Why were the grave doubts of our most knowledgeable education and health experts missing from the official record of this undertaking? Would including them have forced the people driving this juggernaut to face serious criticism and questions about the legitimacy of the entire project?

The education reform movement in general likes to exclude criticism and varying opinions from its view.  Charter schools are always more successful than public schools, even though the research shows that most are about the same as public schools and many perform far worse.  Merit pay always works to improve student achievement even though research shows that is not the case and even Bloomberg's Great Merit Pay Experiment in NYC failed to show the results the education reformers claim merit pay will bring.

There are many other examples of the education reform movement simply promoting their own agenda, regardless of facts, data, research, community views or reality - and that is certainly what happened here with the K-3 standards.

Edward Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Paige say we must do this:

The Common Core Standards are now the law in 46 states. But it’s not too late to unearth the facts about how and why they were created, and to raise an alarm about the threat they represent.

The stakes are enormous. Dr. Carla Horwitz of the Yale Child Study Center notes that many of our most experienced and gifted teachers of young children are giving up in despair. “They are leaving the profession,” says Horwitz, “because they can no longer do what they know will ensure learning and growth in the broadest, deepest way. The Core Standards will cause suffering, not learning, for many, many young children.”

Our first task as a society is to protect our children. The imposition of these standards endangers them. To learn more about how early childhood educators are working to defend young children, see Defending the Early Years.

When even the education reform-friendly NY Post publishes articles showing the damage that Common Core is causing to children in K-3, you know that a groundswell against Common Core can build when people, particularly parents, see what Common Core is going to do to their children.

Common Core proponents can ignore the critiques, as they did with the Joint Statement, or they can go on the attack against them, as they sometimes do, but because these standards are so damaging to children, are completely bereft of any research support, and defy common sense for how we should treat and educate young children, they are going to increasingly find themselves on the spot trying to defend their new standards.

They did all their work in secret and thus were able to ram these standards through with little opposition.

But the opposition to these damaging standards will mount as people see just what they are and what they are doing to children.

How Is Common Core For Kindergartners Not Child Abuse?

The NY Post has a horrifying article about the new Common Core expectations for four and five year olds in NYC schools.

Here's a taste:

Kindergarten has come a long way, baby — too far, some say.

Way beyond the ABCs, crayons and building blocks, the city Department of Education now wants 4- and 5-year-olds to write “informative/explanatory reports” and demonstrate “algebraic thinking.”

Children who barely know how to write the alphabet or add 2 and 2 are expected to write topic sentences and use diagrams to illustrate math equations.

...

The city has adopted national standards called the Common Core, which dramatically raise the bar on what kids in grades K through 12 should know.

The jargon is new, too. Teachers rate each student’s performance as “novice,” “apprentice,” “practitioner” or “expert.”

Kindergartners are introduced to “informational texts” read aloud, such as “Garden Helpers,” a National Geographic tale about useful pests.

After three weeks, kids have to “write a book about what they’ve learned,” with a drawing and sentences explaining the topic.

In math, kids tackle concepts like “tally chart,” “combination,” and “commutative property,” DOE records show.

The big test: “Miguel has two shelves. Miguel has six books . . . How many different ways can Miguel put books on the two shelves? Show and tell how you know.”

An “expert” would draw a diagram with a key, show all five combinations, write number sentences for each equation, and explain his or her conclusions using math terms, the DOE says. 

The consequences of these so-called "higher standards" on the four and five years blessed to have come of school age during the Great Common Core Movement is predictable - they're stressed, full of anxiety and scared:
 

“For the most part, it’s way over their heads,” a Brooklyn teacher said. “It’s too much for them. They’re babies!”

In a kindergarten class in Red Hook, Brooklyn, three children broke down and sobbed on separate days last week, another teacher told The Post.

When one girl cried, “I can’t do it,” classmates rubbed her back, telling her, “That’s OK.”

“This is causing a lot of anxiety,” the teacher said. “Kindergarten should be happy and playful. It should be art and dancing and singing and learning how to take turns. Instead, it’s frustrating and disheartening.”

The DOE spokesperson was less than empathetic about the horrific consequences of the new Common Core on kindergartners:

DOE spokeswoman Erin Hughes said, “These are the types of activities and exercises that students need to work on to acquire the skills they need to be ready for middle school, high school, college and careers.” 

Wow - this Erin Hughes person seems to have grown up under some similar kind of education system where getting along with others and learning the wonders of life were shelved in her kindergarten and replaced with physics and genome explorations.

Remember the Robert Fulghum book from years ago called "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten?

In that book, Fulghum wrote that every lesson that you really need from life is taught to you when you're in kindergarten:

Most of what I really need
To know about how to live
And what to do and how to be
I learned in kindergarten.
Wisdom was not at the top
Of the graduate school mountain,
But there in the sandpile at Sunday school.

These are the things I learned:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life -
Learn some and think some
And draw and paint and sing and dance
And play and work everyday some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world,
Watch out for traffic,
Hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.

That's what used to be taught in kindergarten.

Now under the Gates/Broad/Murdoch/Obama/Bloomberg/Cuomo/Klein/Rhee/Duncan/Bush education reform movement, they don't teach any of those things anymore.

Instead they teach how to get an eating disorder or a drug habit or an alcohol problem or workaholism or a shopping compulsion or OCD or a sex addiction or neurosis or any number of other issues because your kindergarten years have had all the joy and fun taken out of them and have been replaced with high stakes testing, higher order math and language lessons, and cutthroat competition with your peers.

It's not a mistake that the same oligarchs who have brought this insane Common Core to fruition do not send their kids to schools that use Common Core.

They send them to Waldorf schools.

Or Quaker schools.

Or Montessiori schools.

Or the Lab School.

You know, the kinds of schools that aren't run like army drill camps, where the teachers aren't graded using test scores, where the kids don't take high stakes standardized tests all throughout the year, where students get to explore meaningful subjects and lessons rather than endless test prep and drills.

The Common Core Federal Standards are tantamount to child abuse and we need to take the people promoting these things to court and charge them with crimes against humanity.

Seriously.

It's not a mistake either that the people who promote this abusive and authoritarian education system are the kind of people who would fail a standardized test based upon Robert Fulghum's book.

They never learned how to get along with others.

They never learned how to share.

They always need to win.

They always need things their way.

They like to hurt people (or fire them publicly on TV.)

And they never clean up their own messes.

Fred Rogers is dead but I really wish he were around today so that he could take the lead in exposing these Common Core Federal Standards for the garbage they are.

And I believe he would do just that.

Let's channel Fred Rogers and Robert Fulghum and John Dewey and Charles Dickens and Howard Zinn and George Carlin and all the other people who taught us that education is about more than testing and drilling, who taught us that education does not come out of a book but comes out of real world experiences with other people and other beings.

The Common Core as carried out by the NYCDOE is an abomination because we have a vindictive petty tyrant in charge of the city who wants to enforce compliance and obedience from the masses and thinks this kind of education system is the best way to do just that, but please know that the rest of the country is going to get similar treatment as these standards get implemented.

These standards are not meant to get kids up to speed with what they should really know.

These standards are meant to scare kids, parents, teachers and principals that what they're doing isn't good enough, that they need to work longer, harder and faster because omigod the Russians are beating us, er, I mean the Japanese are beating us, what I mean is, the Koreans are beating us, or the Chinese are...ah, screw it, SOMEBODY is beating us and we MUST take action to be Number 1 again!

The reality is, the only people who are beating us are the oligarchs and members of the 1% who have stolen most of the wealth in this country and now want the rest of it.

These wealthy, greedy oligarchs are using this education reform movement to educate the next generation of kids to expect to have to work longer and harder for less, to never get vacations or time off, to lead lives that are about drudgery and nothing else.

Most of all, these wealthy, greedy oligarchs want children to grow up rife with fear and anxiety, the earlier the better, so that they will grow into obedient and compliant adults, good workers who do what the bosses say and good consumers who buy what the advertisers tell them to buy.

As a side note, when you infuse a generation of children with the kind of fear and anxiety that the education reformers are infusing this current generation with, you are going to get a whole bunch of people with a lot of emotional issues that corporations can make a lot of money from - and I'm sure Big Pharma, the casino industry, the alcohol industry, the fast food industry, etc. are licking their corporate logos at that thought.

That's intentional on the part of the education reform oligarchs too - don't think they haven't thought that stuff through.

The only thing they like better than obedient workers is compliant consumers.

And so, I will say again, we not only need to kill the Common Core Federal Standards deader than a minimum wage hike in Mississippi, we need to take the people who promoted this crap - from the education think tankers who developed it and sold it to the politicians who put it into place to the education system functionaries who are carrying it out - and make sure they never get any power over anybody or anything ever again.

Because anybody who thinks four and five years need to learn permutations over sharing, test prep over play, and fear over wonder shouldn't be in charge of anybody or anything.