NYSUT And The UFT, Allied Again With Cuomo, Spend Millions On Propaganda To Fool Their Members And The Public

Had some fun on Twitter yesterday with a couple of union hacks, one the PR guy from NYSUT, that went something like this:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @nysut Why do deliberately misstate our position and communications? Hard to debate nonsense.

— Carl Korn (@CarlKornNYSUT) January 23, 2016

My response:

@CarlKornNYSUT @edbobgreen @nysut Who's misstating? You say no state tests in evals. Regents exams are in evals.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

@CarlKornNYSUT @edbobgreen @nysut When you say there's a moratorium on state tests in APPR, you are wrong.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

There was no response from Carl Korn, but another union hack jumped in with this bit of genius:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT 3-8 NYS tests in my eval this year? Zilch, nada, bubkis. Union still supports my kids #optout.

— Don C. (@TchrNORPAC) January 23, 2016

My response to that:

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT You do know CCSS Regents exams are in APPR, yes? Those don't count?

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

Lace To The Top jumped in with this very relevant fact:

@perdidostschool @TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT and 3-8 Eval scores will still be generated and be used as "advisory"

— lacetothetop (@lacetothetop) January 23, 2016

Which got this response from said union hack:

@perdidostschool @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT Got it. Get it. Still work to do. Still making progress.

— Don C. (@TchrNORPAC) January 23, 2016

To which I responded:

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT No, you get zilch, bupkis, nada - to use your own words back at you.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

@TchrNORPAC @edbobgreen @CarlKornNYSUT The victory rhetoric from both the UFT and NYSUT show how little leaders get.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) January 23, 2016

Here's the truth of things - Cuomo is sucking up to the union these days, what with his poll numbers in the toilet overall (39% job approval in the last Siena poll) and especially negative on education issues (68% of New Yorkers disapprove of the job he is doing handling education.)

The hacks running the union could care less about whether their members are harmed by APPR or not, they care only for their own power, prestige and perks.

They're happy to have the governor back on board, sounding almost like Mike Mulgrew when he talks about community schooling, well, that is progress indeed!

Unless you're a teacher affected by Cuomo's odious 2015 education law that requires 50% of a teacher's evaluation come from test scores - a law which Cuomo says does not need to be amended or repealed, a law which neither the UFT nor NYSUT plan to work to repeal.

So now, with Cuomo friendly with the union leadership again, the union heads have allied with the governor against their own members, spending millions of member dues on ads that are full of lies and propaganda (here's the UFT ad, here's the NYSUT ad.)

Even the governor himself has contradicted what the union ads are telling the public, saying back in December that test scores are indeed STILL part of APPR evaluations:

“There are teacher evaluations that are in the report and they are connected to tests, either state tests or locally approved tests,” Cuomo said on Sunday in Syracuse.

In case you're not willing to believe me or the governor, here's NYSED, via James Eterno at ICEUFTblog:

Footnote 10 in the SED Q & A states:
Teachers with SLOs that are based on Regents assessments will not be impacted and must continue to use SLOs with such assessments.

This is footnote 3 from the Q & A from SED:

Please note that teachers and principals whose APPRs do not include the grades 3-8 ELA and math State assessments or State-provided growth scores on Regents examinations are not impacted by the transition regulations and their evaluations shall be calculated pursuant to their district’s/BOCES’ approved APPR Plan without any changes. For example, a building principal of a CTE program whose APPR utilizes CTE assessments as part of the student performance component of their APPR will not be impacted by the transition regulations.

Yet the union ads - and the union hacks on Twitter - tell us differently, that the number of test scores in APPR evals this year is "zilch, nada, bupkis..."

I dunno about you, but I have had enough of the lies and propaganda out of NYSUT and the UFT, the harm they are doing to teaching, teachers and schools with the games they play with their ed deformer allies (see here for more of the games Mulgrew has played with Cuomo over the years.)

And if you think this is all hyperbole, that there's no way the union heads are playing a pro-wrestling "Good Guy/Bad Guy/Good Guy Game" with Cuomo - check out who's Number 4 on the all-time Cuomo meeting list and who enjoys late lunches with the governor to, you know, talk things over.

That would be one Michael Mulgrew of the UFT, the largest local in the state that can literally whack NYSUT leaders when they don't like what they're doing.

As I said above, I've had it with the games the union leaders play, the lies and deception they send out with every ad, every social media piece.

NYSAPE sent out this very informative tweet about where things stand today regarding state tests, the opt out movement and APPR teacher evaluations - you should send this tweet wide and far to cut through the self-serving jive and propaganda emanating out of NYSUT and the UFT, all of it using YOUR money to pay for it.

Do not be fooled, NOTHING has changed. Here is what you need to know: pic.twitter.com/cAKteQLtZI

— NYS Allies 4 Pub Ed (@NYSAPE) January 24, 2016

Newsday Editorial Says State MUST Get Kids To Take Their State Tests This School Year Or Else!

The shrillness of the deformers continues:

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week of actions it may take, including financial penalties, if the percentage of students taking the tests falls below 95 percent. Of course, in New York in Spring 2015 that percentage fell to about 80 percent, and to about 50 percent on Long Island. The timing serves notice to those who have supported opt-out to oppose excessive testing and test prep and the fear they claim comes from tying student scores to teacher evaluations: students must take tests so that schools, districts and states can be assessed. Washington will not budge on this.

In New York, education reformers also have taken a huge step back, decoupling tests from teacher evaluations for four years and promising new achievement standards and better exams. Now the state must convince unions, parents and teachers that they have been accommodated as much as possible, and must get students to take the tests this spring. And they must get participation percentages up in districts that get little federal funding, because the whole state could lose funding if New York participation doesn’t reach 95 percent.

If poorer districts with generally low opt-out numbers lose federal money because richer districts with high opt-out percentages pull down the state numbers, Albany can and should make up that shortfall. It should take state aid away from high opt-out districts and award it to high-needs districts where nearly all the kids take the exams.

The threat that money will be taken away by the feds is as much jive this year as it was last year.

Does anyone really think that the Obama administration is going to take away school aid because of opt out in an election year?

Please...

The desperation of the deformers is clear as they use FEAR to try and stem the opt out movement.

The curtain has been pulled back on the Endless Testing regime and exposed for the empty compliance measure it is.

Deformers are desperately trying to get people back to believing that there's some meaning to the state testing regime.

If FEAR over their own kids won't work, then they'll use FEAR over the funding.

But given the political realities of the Obama administration thankfully sunsetting next year with an election held in November, their threats are empty ones.

That won't stop the fear-meisters at Newsday from trying to sow discord, of course.

But we can call this Newsday editorial what it is - fear-mongering - and the Newsday editors who published what they are - fear-meisters.

Regents Exam Scores Still Part Of APPR Teacher Evaluations

Remember that jive about there being a "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR that upset the deform shills at the Wall Street Journal yesterday?

As many of us have suspected, there's a lot less than meets the eye to the "moratorium":

The moratorium removes state-provided growth scores based on the state standardized, Common Core-aligned third- through eighth-grade math and English language arts exams from the calculations for teacher and principal evaluations.

...

The Regents exams and fourth- and eighth-grade science tests would still be factored in.

But wait - I thought there was a "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR?

Turns out it's a special Cuomo "moratorium" in which some state test scores are still used - you know, like Regents scores for high school teachers.

The devil, as always, is in the details, so we'll see for sure in January when Cuomo gives his state of the state/budget address - assuming he's not under indictment, that is.

Fred LeBrun: Cuomo May Cave On Common Core/Testing Because His Poll Numbers Suck

Governor Cuomo's poll numbers are not only underwater, they're deep underwater.

In the last Siena poll, Cuomo stands with 40% job approval, 58% disapproval.

 On individual issues, the numbers are even worse.

On public education, 68% disapprove of the job he is doing, 27% approve.

On corruption, 69% disapprove of the job he is doing, 23% approve.

On the economy, 63% disapprove of the job he is doing, 35% approve.

On improving the state's infrastructure, 65% disapprove of the job he is doing, 29% approve.

These are not good poll numbers.

And the numbers have been this way for a while - last December, Cuomo was at 42% job approval in the Siena poll and the numbers have languished all year.

So what's a governor to do but try and juice those numbers, starting with education

Cue Fred LeBrun: 

Things are at long last looking up for beleaguered public education in this state, probably.

I'd like to say the likelihood of significant corrections coming to Common Core, excessive and inappropriate standardized testing, and a hard-wired connection between those tests and teachers' jobs, is because the politician most responsible for the total mess we're in, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has finally seen the light.

His infatuation with data driven education ''reform,'' fueled by millionaire political donors, has been a disaster, for him and for our children. It's his law that's codified the problem. It's his law that needs amending.

But I have a hunch closer to the truth would be the sobering recognition by the governor that what desperately needs fixing and quick are persistently in-the-toilet poll numbers over his intrusive handling of education issues.

Voters get it.

Especially with Judgment Day a mere five months away, when the next round of standardized tests are mandated in English and math for grades 4 to 8. That's also about the time we are apt to see a parental opt-out uprising across the state of a scary magnitude if big changes aren't already made or in the works.

So Cuomo needs to distance himself from his own mess pronto and be part of the solution rather than the problem for a change.

LeBrun sees cause for optimism that Cuomo's Common Core task force - completely controlled by the governor (as all things are in this state) - has allowed dissenting voices this time around while previous Cuomo-controlled education commissions did not (see here.)

LeBrun is also encouraged by the appointment of a critic of the state's education policies, Jere Hochman, to work as Cuomo's top education adviser and by the news that more than 3/4s of school districts in the state are going to get waivers from Cuomo's latest iteration of APPR.

And LeBrun sees Testing Doyenne Merryl Tisch's departure as cause for smiling, since so much of the damage done to the system was wrought by Tisch herself.

But like all savvy Cuomo-watchers, LeBrun remains skeptical:

Now, the devil remains in the details, and forgive the state's teachers, educators — and parents — for being skeptical. The last five years has been a horror show. At the very least sole reliance on the flawed ''growth score'' from standardized tests in evaluating teacher performance has to change. It's written in the law. Student performance, and an appropriate level of teacher accountability, can be measured in a number of different ways, and alternatives need to be part of the dialogue. Common Core standards need new flexibilities, and a total rethink down in the lower grades where serious issues of developmentally inappropriate testing, questions, and frequency are recurring criticisms.

It won't be all that hard to torque the law back to reasonable. Now let's see it happen before we break out the confetti.

To be frank, I'm not ready to buy the confetti, let alone get it out and begin celebrating just yet.

NYSED Commissioner Elia told us she wants to repaint the Common Core standards so that people will like them better.

I'm not so sure all of what we're seeing out of Cuomo and NYSED is anything other than a repainting job meant to fool parents and educators into thinking state pols and educrats are listening to their concerns while really not listening to their concerns.

Tisch herself said one of her biggest regrets as Regents Chancellor was not communicating with parents the wonders of Common Core and testing well enough so that there wouldn't have been the rebellion the state has seen over both.

Call me cynical, call me jaded, but I haven't yet seen any tangible policy change that says to me the Endless Testing regime and the damaging Common Core State (sic) Standards are going anywhere.

What I see so far is a change in messaging, not a change in policy or agenda.

Calls for limiting testing from either President Obama or Governor Cuomo are jive when teachers and schools are rated (and fired or closed) based upon test scores.

So long as the tests carry so much weight, the system will be rife with test prep and test anxiety.

As for the Common Core, until these standards are revisited and the insane focus on "rigor" all the time is changed, schools will continue to be misery factories for both children and teachers.

In many schools, students do the same thing in every class, day after day - close reading informational texts that are several grade levels above in difficulty, responding to text-based questions and writing evidence-based argumentative essays on these texts.

This is happening not just in English class but in social studies, science, health - even art, music and vocational classes.

Teachers who deviate from what is considered "rigorous" are punished -  administrators enforce total compliance through the APPR teacher evaluation system and the Danielson rubric.

Until some teacher autonomy is returned, some creativity and allowance to deviate from the "One Way To Teach Them All" approach that we have now, many children are going to continue to hate school and learning.

And if you doubt this, ask some who go to schools where it's "All Rigor All The Time" - ask them how they like close reading day after day, writing argumentative essays day after day, spending three weeks on one short story and close reading it over and over until they don't care anything about it.

Cuomo said change is coming to the system - but given this is the same guy who said he wants to "break" the public school monopoly, I'm not ready to declare whatever "change" he plans to bring good change.

So far, all I see is a change to the messaging.

Arizona Attorney General Says Parents Have No Legal Right To Opt Children Out Of State Standardized Tests

From the Arizona Capital Times:

Parents of students in public schools have no legal right to withdraw their children or opt out of statewide standardized tests, Attorney General Mark Brnovich concluded today.

In a formal opinion, Brnovich acknowledged that state law does permit parents to exempt their children from certain learning materials and activities they find objectionable. That even includes keeping them out of a class or lesson where the material is being used or discussed.

But Brnovich, in response to a question raised by state schools chief Diane Douglas, said standardized tests are “separate and distinct” from such materials or activities. And he said nothing in the exemption law specifically includes a right to withdraw from standardized tests.

The attorney general also rejected Douglas’ suggestion that parents gained new rights in 2010 when the Legislature passed a “Parents Bill of Rights.”

That law, he said details the obligation of local school boards to ensure they inform parents about their rights to opt out of certain assignments. It also includes the ability to refuse to have children immunized and the right not to have children taught about AIDS.

But nowhere in that law, Brnovich said, did lawmakers include testing.

“The Legislature’s failure to include such a right is especially telling because the statute specifically mentions the ‘right to review test results’ and the `right to receive a school report card,’” he wrote.

Yet Brnovich pointed out that, even in amending the law in 2010, the Legislature did not see fit to include opting out of testing in that list. And he said that when lawmakers make an extensive list like this, it is presumed they know what is not on it.

So in Arizona a parent has a right to opt their children out of immunization and AIDS education but not the state tests.

Think about that - think about the values inherent in such a "law".

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia Threatens Legal Action Against Educators Who Support Opt Out

Just as some commenters on Perdido Street School blog pointed out would happen, NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia is going to target educators who support the Opt Out movement with legal action:

ALBANY — Education commissioner MaryEllen Elia already has begun a battle to stop the rapidly growing opt-out movement before next year’s state tests, reaching out to department attorneys and meeting with superintendents, she told POLITICO New York.

“We’re trying to pull together a tool kit, if you will, to support superintendents in how we can communicate in a much more effective way to people across the state,” Elia said.

That kit will include legal information, which is why she has reached out to lawyers, Elia said.

“I want the superintendents to understand the reflections and law that they can use as an information piece when they talk to people in their community … It’s important for them to be able to say, ‘Listen, it’s the law.’”

Ooh, it's the law!

I am so impressed by that statement.

Segregation and slavery were the law too, but that didn't make those laws right or just.

Many states continue to have sodomy laws on the books too, but that doesn't make those laws right or just either.

Same goes with the "law" regarding standardized testing in New York State.

Giving standardized tests that have been rigged to fail 70% of the children in the state may be the law, but that doesn't make that law right or just.

Implicit in her statement that giving the tests is "the law" is that legal action can be used against people who flout that law.

She has already said any educator who supports or encourages opt outs is "unethical," so you know when she dangles legal threats around over opt out, that's who she's aiming at.

If Elia wants to threaten legal action against teachers who support the Opt Out movement - go for it.

With opt out rates going from 5% in 2014 to 20% in 2015, I can understand why Elia feels threatened over the Opt Out movement.

But threatening legal action against teachers who support opt out, I don't think that's going to be a winning proposition for her.

When push comes to shove, will she get back-up from the Legislature or the governor in a battle over the tests?

Governor Cuomo is a huge fan of bashing and scapegoating teachers, but even he has tread lightly around the testing and opt out issue, knowing that there is a growing opt out movement in the state that can hurt him politically.

It remains to be seen what Elia can do to teachers other than threaten them for supporting opt out - unless she wants NYSED to engage in thousands of 3020a disciplinary cases over opt out, that is.

Is that the plan?

If so, it will be interesting to see how that goes.

Another thing that's not a winning proposition for Elia - equating support for opt out with ignorance on the part of parents.

Elia keeps saying (echoing Regents Chancellor Tisch) that NYSED has to get the message out to parents why testing is swell and kids should shut up and take their tests.

Elia even said last week that support for opt out is "not reasonable" - a statement that equates parent support for opt out with insanity.

This isn't sitting well with some parents:

When asked if she thinks opt out will continue to grow, Elia replied: “It’s incumbent upon us to get information and support out to those educators and leaders across New York … I think we have a lot of work to do in terms of communication and we have to do it a multiple levels.”

Some parents, like Jessica McNair, say they already are informed about Common Core and the opt-out movement should not be dismissed as a lack of information.

“I think she has a lot to learn about the parents in New York State,” McNair said. “We’re not going to back down until we see tests that are developmentally appropriate, and tests that are decoupled from the teacher evaluations.”

Opt Out CNY, which has 4,120 members, already has a 2015-16 refusal letter available to parents on its website — and some already have it signed and in their child’s book bags for the first day of school, McNair said.

Elia was supposedly hired because she is a "listener" and "consensus-builder."

From what I see so far, we've got John King Part Deaux, another a tone deaf corporate education reform water carrier for an NYSED Commissioner who reflexively attacks parents and teachers when they don't agree with her.

Let's see how that show plays over the next school year.

How Are Teachers Handling The Opt Out Issue?

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

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

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

In a reply to that comment, another commenter wrote:

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

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

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

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

How do teachers out there handle the opt out issue?

LoHud: Teachers Union Not Behind Opt Out Movement

I keep seeing this allegation that the Opt Out movement was started, nurtured and spread by the teachers union.

The latest incarnation of that was from some woman arguing with Assemblyman Ed Ra on twitter about the wonders of Common Core and Common Core testing (Assemblyman Ra wasn't convinced of the the wonders of either) who claimed the Opt Out movement was "astroturf" created by the unions, including the UFT.

In an editorial today, The Journal-News dispenses with this myth that the union started opt out:

Many advocates and commentators continue to insist that the opt-out movement was surreptitiously created and nurtured by teachers unions, sort of like Frankenstein. This is simply not the case. At least in New York, the movement was built over several years — slowly, in stops and starts — by parent groups using social media. Local teachers unions started to publicly back the opt-out idea only in the final months before April's tests. And NYSUT, the statewide union, did not jump in until the final weeks, after it was clear that Gov. Andrew Cuomo would not allow lawmakers to topple his much-despised teacher-evaluation system.

I would add that the UFT has continued to support the state's testing regime despite NYSUT leadership showing support for the opt out movement right before the state tests were given in April.

This came after UFT President Michael Mulgrew said he'd punch anybody who took his Common Core away last year.

When it comes to Common Core and Common Core testing, the UFT is squarely on board with the program.

So, to reiterate:

The Opt Out movement was parent-created, parent-nurtured and parent-supported - a true grassroots movement.

Assemblyman Ra himself said it:

@CharmianAgain @JamesTedisco 1 of the biggest falsehoods is that this is a teacher union thing, parents started this movement and spread it

— Assemblyman Ed Ra (@EdwardRa19) August 21, 2015

Next time you see or hear some CCSS and/or Endless Testing regime supporter claiming the Opt Out movement is an astroturf thing started by the teachers unions, dispense with that jive using the LoHud editorial and Assemblyman Ra's statement that parents started opt out and spread it.

Opt Out Poses Serious Threat To Elites

You can hear how threatened the elites are by the Opt Out movement in the shrillness of this NY Times editorial attacking opt out as "an alarming...ill-conceived boycott."

The shriller the elites get in their pushback against ordinary citizens stepping up to protect themselves against the abuses of the state, the more you know how threatening that movement really is

The elites know they are stuck between a rock and a hard place with the Opt Out movement.

They have paid lip service to parent and teacher concerns over the Endless Testing regime but in the end have gone full steam ahead with it anyway.

Numerous complaints have been made about the badly designed Common Core tests based upon the fundamentally flawed Common Core "State" (Sic) Standards tied to the irrationality of the APPR teacher evaluation system, but the response from the elites has been "Shut up and take your tests - we know what is best for you!"

With the opt out numbers hitting the 20% benchmark (reformers love benchmarks) from 5% the year before, the elites know this "Shut up and take your test!" response isn't playing anymore, so they trot out the race card (the Opt Out movement is racist because it deprives children of color their civil right to a standardized test), they trot out the class card (they attack the movement as mostly white and affluent, though the opt out numbers from this year show that many of the districts where opt out was greatest were middle class) - anything to attack the movement and put an end to it.

Again, the elites know they are stuck between a rock and a hard place with the Opt Out movement.

They used to ignore the movement, then mock it, as small and marginal, but that's hard to do now that the opt out rate has hit 20% and threatens to go higher next year.

They can try and hit districts with high opt out rates with sanctions, taking resources away from schools and children, but that doesn't seem like a politically palatable thing to do.

One thing they are loathe to do - actually listen to the criticism of parents and teachers and come to some real and legitimate compromise on education policy (not one of those phony Arne Duncan compromises that work like this - agree with Arne and now we have compromise!)

It will be interesting to see where the elites go now.

The threat is real, the threat is growing and shrillness in response isn't going to put an end to it, that's for sure.

NY Test Question Stumps Writer Of Passage Used On The Test

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

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

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

...

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

NYSED Commissioner Elia Threatens "Ramifications" For Opt Outs

The Buffalo News reports the state will report the 2014-2015 test score data, including the number of opt outs around the state, next week, and explores how new NYSED Commissioner Elia will respond to the Opt Out Movement:

“Opt-out is potentially a political movement that needs to be reckoned with,” said Donald A. Ogilvie, a former superintendent in Buffalo and Erie 1 BOCES. “As the numbers grow, it adds to the movement.”

Added to the mix is a new state education commissioner, who already has made it clear she sees the opt-out movement as a problem and intends to work with districts to put an end to it.

Whether that will come with mere persuasion, or a hammer, is yet to be seen.

“We have an issue we have to address,” Commissioner MaryEllen Elia told educators in Sweet Home last month. “The opt-out issue is very problematic.”

...

In meetings with parents and educators in Sweet Home, she suggested that she will first take a more persuasive approach, communicating the purpose and value of the tests to teachers, and recruiting them to get the message out to parents.

She took a similar approach when she was superintendent of the Hillsborough County schools in Florida, hosting a series of community forums prior to the implementation of the Common Core.

“We have to get to the point that people are accepting,” she said.

She also mentioned the possibility of repercussions.

“The law exists so that there could be ramifications,” Elia said.

Ah, yes - the fabled "communication" of the importance of testing, followed by "ramifications" if the communication attempts don't win parents over.

That's where this is heading - Elia has already shown that her idea of compromise is that other groups come to her side of the issues.

Frankly, I think whatever "ramifications" Elia and her merry men and women in reform in Albany cook up will come back to bite them, but we'll have to see.

NY Times Covers National Teacher Shortage, But Misses Point Of Why It's Happening

And so we've gone from "How do we fire teachers!" to "Gee, we can't find teachers!" in a pretty short period of time - even the education reporter at the NY Times noticed:

ROHNERT PARK, Calif. — In a stark about-face from just a few years ago, school districts have gone from handing out pink slips to scrambling to hire teachers.

Across the country, districts are struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science and special education — a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers.

...

Louisville, Ky.; Nashville; Oklahoma City; and Providence, R.I., are among the large urban school districts having trouble finding teachers, according to the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents large urban districts. Just one month before the opening of classes, Charlotte, N.C., was desperately trying to fill 200 vacancies. 

But as is usual with the Times ed coverage, they screw up the story and miss why the shortage is happening:

Educators say that during the recession and its aftermath prospective teachers became wary of accumulating debt or training for jobs that might not exist. As the economy has recovered, college graduates have more employment options with better pay and a more glamorous image, like in a rebounding technology sector.

In California, the number of people entering teacher preparation programs dropped by more than 55 percent between 2008 and 2012, according to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Nationally, the drop was 30 percent between 2010 and 2014, according to federal data. Alternative programs like Teach for America, which will place about 4,000 teachers in schools across the country this fall, have also experienced recruitment problems.

Yes, it's true that a rebounding economy leads fewer people to go into teaching - there are more opportunities available for other kinds of work with "better pay and a more glamorous image."

But unexplored in the Motiko Rich Times piece is one big reason why teaching isn't a job with a glamorous image. - the consequences of 10+ years of corporate education reforms.

Every day you open the newspaper or turn on the TV, you see or hear some teacher-bashing crap, some politician like Christie saying he wants to punch teachers in the face, some rag like the Post blaming teachers for destroying the lives of children by using the Three Little Pigs as a DO NOW exercise to teach POV and bias.

Then there are the new "accountability rules" - the constant observations, the evaluation ratings tied to test scores (as high as 50%), the increased work load and stress for the same (or less) money, the decreased benefits, gutted pensions, and diminished work protections like tenure (Kansas is an emblem of this, but it's happening nationwide too.)

I'd say if kids are looking around at the job landscape and saying "Hell, I can do better than be a teacher!", they're right - and smart for saying it.

I teach seniors and I tell the ones who say they want to be teachers to think twice about the major - that teacher bashing and odious accountability measures (most of which simply add more work to a teacher's load without making them better teachers) make the job miserable these days.

I also tell them that teaching isn't really a career anymore, that the politicians and educrats and oligarchs who fund education reform see it as a McJob that can be filled by untrained temps who do it for a couple of years and move on (or get moved on by accountability measures) to something else.

To that end, the Times again:

Ms. Cavins, 31, who once worked as a paralegal and a nanny, began a credentialing program at Sonoma State University here in Rohnert Park less than a year ago. She still has a semester to finish before she graduates. But later this month she will begin teaching third grade — in both English and Spanish — at Flowery Elementary School in Sonoma. Ms. Cavins said she would lean on mentors at her new school as well as her professors. “You are not on that island all alone,” she said.

Esmeralda Sanchez Moseley, the principal at Flowery, said she could not find a fully credentialed — let alone experienced — teacher to fill the opening. “The applicant pool was next to nothing,” she said. “It’s crazy. Six years ago, this would not have happened, but now that is the landscape we are in.”

Before taking over a classroom solo in California, a candidate typically must complete a post-baccalaureate credentialing program, including stints as a supervised student teacher. But in 2013-14, the last year for which figures are available, nearly a quarter of all new teaching credentials issued in California were for internships that allow candidates to work full time as teachers while simultaneously enrolling in training courses at night or on weekends.

In addition, the number of emergency temporary permits issued to allow non-credentialed staff members to fill teaching posts jumped by more than 36 percent between 2012 and 2013.

At California State University, Fresno, 100 of the 700 candidates enrolled in the teacher credentialing program this year will teach full time while completing their degree.

“We don’t like it,” said Paul Beare, dean of the Fresno State school of education. “But we do it.”

Mission accomplished for education reformers - a cheap untrained temp workforce is soon going to be commonplace in schools, this will lead to an even bigger "teaching quality crisis" and allow reformers to promote privatization as the answer to the "education crisis."

Shame Motiko Rich missed the part of the story about how education reform has helped bring about the national teacher shortage.

But alas, this is another example of a Times ed article that only gets half the story: the "national teaching shortage" is reformer-generated and will serve the ultimate goal of may education reformers - to destroy the public school "monopoly" and privatize the public school system.

Canning Pearson Doesn't End The Endless Testing Regime

There was general relief around New York yesterday, from teachers and parents to the teachers union to reform organizations, that Pearson is out as the state test vendor.

The relief came in part from the statement by NYSED that teachers would be more involved in the creation of state tests under the Questar deal than they were with Pearson, though details about that remain scarce.

Pearson had a tumultuous tenure as the state's 3-8 grade test creator - the infamous Pineapple and the Hare debacle cystallizing it all into one big mess.

But as many parent and teacher activists have been pointing out since Questar Assessment was announced as the new state 3-8 grade test vendor, the problem with the Endless testing regime in New York State isn't which company is overseeing the test creation - it's the Endless Testing regime itself:

Sorry @highachieveny,parent concerns about NYS Assessment program do not stop at Pearson's missteps,#optout continues http://t.co/utlU2Wltgt

— Chris Cerrone (@Stoptesting15) July 10, 2015

Pearson or Questar, testing will still drive & narrow instruction to ELA/math as long as educator & school evals are tied to tests. #optout

— Chris Cerrone (@Stoptesting15) July 10, 2015

@leoniehaimson @SOTHVNY @perdidostschool @NYSAPE Important Q: what's in contract in terms of student data collection, privacy, security?

— Allison M. White (@allionthemove) July 10, 2015

NYSED having Questar Assessment replace Pearson is not a change to the Endless testing regime - it's simply a change to the face of the Endless Testing regime.

This is a "rebrand" of the Endless Testing regime, a (perhaps) more friendly face to it with Questar taking the reins from Pearson - but make no mistake, not much is really going to change.

As Chris Ceronne put it so well, so long as evaluations and school ratings are based upon the scores, high stakes testing will drive and narrow classroom instruction to only what is tested.

New York Is Paying Both Pearson And Questar For State Tests Through June 2016 (UPDATED - 10:00 AM)

UPDATED - 10 AM: Correction made to post regarding amount of January 2015 contract extension - was $2.6 million, not $6 million.

Leonie Haimson caught this part of the state test deal:

Pearson 'disappointed' by losing NY contract but still gets paid thru June 2016 http://t.co/GRjz84YtzJ

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) July 10, 2015

.@allionthemove @SOTHVNY any articles re @pearson overlap Questar mention waste of overlapping contracts?

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) July 10, 2015

Jon Campbell reported:

Pearson, which has developed the state’s grade 3-8 tests since 2011, was passed over for a new, five-year contract by the state Education Department, which announced Thursday it would award the $44 million deal to Minneapolis-based Questar Assessment Inc.

...

The Questar contract still has to be approved by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

The state’s current contract with Pearson runs through June 2016 after it was granted a short-term extension early this year, which pushed the contract total to $38 million. It was first signed in 2011.

So Pearson was granted a short-term extension at the beginning of the year, then NYSED signed a deal with Questar that runs concurrent with Pearson for one year.

The original contract was for $32 million.

The extension added a few million more to the deal.

NYSED paid Pearson $2,626,780 in January 2015 for the contract extension after paying them an additional $1,237,828 for "additional deliverables" in December 2014.

In total, Pearson got $6 million more than the original $32 million contract, with an additional $3,864,608 coming between December 2014 and January 2015.

Why was Pearson given an extension at the beginning of the year if the state was planning on dumping them later this year?

And why was Questar chosen?

Did anybody else bid for the contract?

Yes, but good luck finding out the details:

Four firms bid on the most recent contract, although the names of the other bidders weren't released on Thursday.

There was general relief around the state yesterday, from teachers and parents to the teachers union to reform organizations, that Pearson is out as the state test vendor.

The relief came in part from the statement by SED that teachers would be more involved in the creation of state tests under the Questar deal than they were with Pearson.

But given the lack of transparency around the Questar deal, the rumored problems with Questar itself (see here and here), and now the news that both Questar and Pearson are getting paid for the next year to make state tests, I'm not sure relief is the right emotion.

Someone at NYSED need to answer some questions:

Why was Pearson given an extension of the contract earlier this year that added $2.6 million to the contract if NYSED was planning on dumping them later in the year?

Why was Questar given a contract that starts paying out concurrent to the Pearson extension?

Who else bid on the contract and what were the figures?

Questar saw a 49.25% bump in trading yesterday.

Good for them and their stockholders.

But as for the tax payers of New York, as well as the students, parents and teachers, something smells rotten about this deal

Questar Assessment Up 49% In Trading Today

At yesterday's close, Questar Assessment was trading at $0.10.

It opened the day at $0.11.

It finished the trading day at $0.15.

Questar financial details here.

Just for some comparison, Pearson was up 1.53% today, opened high but traded a little lower as the day went on.

Pearson closed the day at $18.55. 

Pearson's a much larger company than Questar, of course, but gives you a sense of the type of company we're dealing with here that the stock was up 49% today - 5 cents.

NYSUT Declares Victory In Questar Testing Announcement

Another NYSUT victory:

The statewide teachers union on Thursday is cheering the decision by state education officials to dump controversial test publisher Pearson, Inc., in favor of the Minnesota-based firm Questar.

“Pearson offered a bad product and today Pearson got fired,” New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee said. “Teachers have called for this for years.”

The Department of Education on Thursday announced Questar Assessment, Inc. was awarded a $44 million contract to develop tests in English-Language Arts and math for grades three through eight.

Pearson has come under fire from both teachers and parents, in part, for its examination questions some considered too opaque as well as monitoring and collection of student data.

But the company was also the most prominent publisher nationally of Common Core-based examinations as the controversial standards were rolled out with hiccups in states like New York.

“It is a first step along the road toward ending New York’s failed testing policies, Magee said. “The Questar contract, in its promise to emulate New York’s successful test-development process for Regents exams, begins to restore the trust and confidence in teachers to do the job right. It says New York is going to trust its own teachers, not a corporation, to develop state tests.”

It remains to be seen if dumping Pearson for Questar is "a first step along the road toward ending New York’s failed testing policies" or a continuation on the same road.

I've seen some crowing on the Internet about Pearson losing the contract (and btw, this isn't the first contract Pearson has lost to Questar in the past few months), but my feeling about this best gets summed up in this twitter conversation with Mary Ahern:

@leoniehaimson Maybe have just gotten cynical, but this feels like state trying to "rebrand" Endless Testing regime.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) July 9, 2015

.@mayread3 @perdidostschool @leoniehaimson Pearson is just a company doing what it's paid to do. How tests are used is the bigger problem.

— Mary Ahern (@mma718) July 9, 2015

And therein lies the problem - Pearson's been replaced by Questar but the Endless Testing regime remains in place, doing as much destruction as ever.

Of course, NYSUT supports the Endless testing regime, so no wonder they're declaring victory with the Questar contract.

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

From Rich Karlin at Capitol Confidential:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Advice to Management

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

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

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

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

Making State Tests 40% Of A Teacher's Evaluation Does NOT Reduce Testing Stress

Jessica Bakeman in Capital NY:

ALBANY—A coalition of Common Core supporters that includes the Business Council of New York and advocacy group StudentsFirstNY wrote to state education leaders on Thursday in support of a proposal to reduce local testing in schools by increasing reliance on state assessments aligned to the more rigorous standards.

The letter, from High Achievement New York, a group that last year advertised in support of the controversial English and math curriculum guidelines, “endorse[d] the goals” of a recent 20-page letter from Board of Regents chancellor Merryl Tisch to a Cuomo administration top aide advocating for extensive changes to education law.

The coalition focused on Tisch’s proposal to amend the state-mandated teacher evaluation law by eliminating a component that relies on students’ scores on locally designed tests. Instead, Tisch recommended in the letter that performance evaluations should rely more heavily on state testing, removing the need for some local tests that districts have been administering solely for the purpose of rating teachers.

The jive we're getting out of the Regents, SED and the education reformer PR is that getting rid of the local assessments that are used for 20% of a teacher's evaluation will reduce the number of tests in the system and thus reduce the stress around testring.

This is NOT the case.

Making state tests count for 40% of a teacher's overall evaluation - and then saying if a teacher comes up "ineffective" on that 40% they MUST be declared "ineffective" overall - will NOT reduce the time, energy and resources spent on testing and test prep in schools.

If anything, it will INCREASE the time, energy and resources spent on test prep and testing in schools.

If Tisch and her merry reformer advocates want to increase the test component of the evaluation to 40%, then force an "ineffective" rating overall if a teacher comes up "ineffective" on that 40%, they should be honest about what the consequences of that policy will be (especially since they also want to make two "ineffective" ratings in a row cause to pull a teacher from the classroom.)

The changes proposed by Tisch, SED and the reformers will turn New York State schools into the Hunger Games, with then state tests and the VAM SED attaches to them as the weapons for battle.

It will be all testing all the time as th e40% test component of the APPR teacher evaluation systmem becomes, in effect, 100%.

Will Tony Award-Winning Teachers Be "Effective" At Raising Student Test Scores?

From Patrick Healy at the NY Times:

A new Tony Award will be given annually to a theater teacher who has made a “monumental impact” on the lives of students, executives who oversee the Tonys and officials at Carnegie Mellon University announced on Sunday. The honor is intended to reflect the appreciation that many Tony winners — actors, writers, directors — have expressed for drama teachers who guided or inspired them. The award is the first new Tony since 2009. Through March 31, anyone can nominate a teacher for the new Excellence in Theater Education Award. Nominees must be current teachers at an accredited elementary, middle or high school or community theater organization in the United States. (College professors and retired teachers are not eligible.) A panel of judges comprising members of the American Theater Wing and the Broadway League, which oversee the Tonys, and Carnegie Mellon officials and theater industry executives will choose the winner, who will receive the award onstage at the annual Tonys ceremony in June.

If Governor Cuomo and Regents Chancellor Tisch get their way, a teacher in NY State will have 40% of their annual performance rating based on how well their students do on state standardized exams.

If the teacher is deemed "ineffective" on that 40% component of the APPR evaluation system based upon student test scores, they must be declared "ineffective" overall as teachers.

Notice the language for the new Tony award:

A new Tony Award will be given annually to a theater teacher who has made a “monumental impact” on the lives of students.

Nothing there about adding value to their test scores.

How can the executives who oversee the Tonys dare to create a new Tony Award for educators without adding a test score component?

Given the importance of test scores as hailed by Cuomo, Tisch, Secretary of Education Privatization Arne Duncan and countless other education reformers, shouldn't the executives who oversee the Tonys amend the language for the new Tony Award for Teachers to say

A new Tony Award will be given annually to a theater teacher who has made a “monumental impact” on the lives of students and raised their test scores.

I mean, so long as we're talking "monumental impact" on students, how can we not be talking about test scores?

So Long As Tests Are Used For High Stakes, Endless Test Prep In Schools Will Continue

Secretary of Education Privatization Arne Duncan plans to "draw a line in the sand" in a speech calling for a NCLB revision, demanding that students still be tested every year in math and reading (3rd-8th grade) and he's going to add three tests in science during those years.

But it is said Duncan will call for an end to "unnecessary tests" in his speech:

Duncan won't back away from policies the Obama administration has embraced from the get-go. Those include investing in teacher quality—and teacher evaluations; a state-federal partnership on accountability akin to the NCLB waivers the administration granted; and, yes, maintaining NCLB's annual summative tests. As he's said before, Duncan sees annual statewide assessments as an important part of the picture when it comes to ensuring that all students, especially disadvantaged kids, are making academic progress.

...

The secretary is open to changes in how standardized tests are used. The administration also wants to allow states to incorporate measures other than test scores into their accountability systems—flexibility that's largely already offered to states through the NCLB waivers (even though many haven't taken advantage of it).

And the secretary wants to ensure that states and districts aren't going overboard with a lot of unnecessary or redundant tests, something he's signaled before by applauding efforts by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Council of the Great City Schools to help their members take a hard look at their assessment systems and weed out unnecessary or low-quality tests.

Okay, here's the deal.

So long as state tests are used for high stakes decisions to close schools, evaluate teachers, etc., an unhealthy emphasis on testing and test prep will remain in operation.

That's the deal.

Duncan and other ed deformers can say "Oh, we want to lessen testing by getting rid of unnecessary tests or "low-quality tests" (whatever the hell that means - as far as I an tell, they're all "low-quality"), but the truth is, so long as state tests are used to bludgeon teachers, close schools, etc., there will be an inordinate amount of time, energy, and resources spent on making sure as many students as possible pass the state tests.

That means the Era of Endless Test Prep will continue unabated in most schools despite Duncan's call for an end to "unnecessary tests."

And btw, the Education Privatization Secretary knows this, as do all the other reformers calling for an end to "unnecessary tests."

Duncan is trying to respond to the growing anti-testing movement, but he's simply paying lip service to it and not really listening.

Deformers need the testing to continue as high stakes because this is the weapon they use to destroy schools, teachers and public education.

You can see that in New York, where Cuomo complained about the Common Core roll-out and hammered NYSED and the Board of Regents over it, but still used the CCSS test scores as proof positive for why teachers suck and need to be fired.

Deformers need the tests to remain and they need the high stakes to remain to carry out their destructive plans to "break" the public school "monopoly."

It's a cynical ploy by Duncan and other deformers here to call for an end to "unnecessary tests" when they know that really won't change the obsessive testing culture in the system at all.

They need to be called on that cynical ploy.