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.

Cuomo Administration Hack Defends His Boss Over Common Core, Education Policy

Remember Jim Malatras, the Cuomo administration hack/director of state operations who "wrote" to Merryl Tisch about education policy right before Governor Cuomo unveiled education reforms for the state budget that included a school receivership program and increasing the weight of test scores in teacher evaluations to 50%?

Well, he's back with another piece of writing, this in the Times Union, defending Boss Cuomo over those very education policies, which are very unpopular (as is his boss.)

In his commentary, Malatras claims Cuomo has "led the nation" in limiting testing time in schools (a bogus claim since Cuomo has increased the weight of test scores on teacher ratings which means the official "testing time" does not include the Endless Test Prep kids undergo all the year through so that their schools are not closed and their teachers aren't fired based upon their state test scores) and has provided the highest funding for schools in state history (another bogus claim which ignores all the new state mandates Cuomo and NYSED have thrown onto school districts that eats up gobs of that money as well as the property cap that limits the ability of districts to increase funding.)

In addition, Malatras takes a victory lap that the feds have followed suit with the 2% limit on testing, writing that "rather than following the lead of the U.S. Department of Education, New York has led the way for other states and was highlighted in a recent federal announcement as a model for other states looking to move this work forward."

This ignores that the 2% rule was instituted at the federal level by the same guy who pushed it here (former NYSED Commissioner, now acting-Secretary of Education John King) and that, in the end, it's meaningless because it still means kids will spend at least 22 hours a year on standardized testing.
If you add in all the Endless Test Prep that must be done during the Endless Testing regime to the 2% testing time so that teachers don't get fired or schools don't get closed, you can see how the rule changes little.

That Cuomo has taken to having his hack Malatras write rebuttals to op-ed pieces in the Times Union tells you how defensive Cuomo is over his education polices.

Given that he's engaging in another dog and pony show with his Common Core Review task force (which appears to want to hear as little as possible from anybody who doesn't already agree with the governor) and is trying to make it look like he's making changes to the Common Core/Endless Testing regime in New York State without actually making any changes, he should be on the defensive.

His defensive actions are fruitless - parents and teachers are fed up with his reform agenda, are fed up with him and are not going to be fooled by any dog and pony show that makes minor tweaks to the state's education policies but essentially leaves the damaging Common Core/Endless Testing regime in place.

StudentsFirstNY Attempts to Mobilize Parents In 100 "Failing" NYC Schools

Lisa Colangelo in the Daily News:

A group of education advocates spent the first days of classes trying to mobilize parents at the city's 100 worst-performing schools, saying Mayor de Blasio's recently unveiled agenda is not enough.

Community organizers from StudentsFirstNY said they mapped out and then visited each of 100 sites where few or no students passed vital statewide tests.

"The students in these schools deserve action now and frankly, the mayor's recently announced programs are just not enough," said Tenicka Boyd, director of organizing for StudentsFirstNY. "They do nothing to improve the quality of teachers in the classrooms and nothing to give families access to better school choices."

You see, the plan doesn't fire teachers and close schools, so it's no good.

This is why StudentsFirstNY will no doubt be one of the backers of Governor Cuomo's efforts to knock de Blasio off in a primary and elect a pro-charter, anti-union alternative. 

Some of the names bandied about as potential opponents include Hakeem Jeffries and Scott Stringer.

There will be a concerted effort in 2017 to put somebody into City Hall who brings back the First Teachers/Close Schools program Bloomberg pursued.

Education System Indoctrinates Children For A Life Of Stress, Pressure And Fear

One of the goals of education reform is to have both students and teachers under constant stress and pressure, working long hours with little free time to think "Hey, is this good for me?"

Mission accomplished:

Many American high school students don't sleep enough. They're tested too often and overburdened with homework and activities. They're stressed out.

So says "Overloaded and Underprepared," the latest book to chronicle how teenage life has changed. Rarely do today's high schoolers engage in unstructured activities, the book says. Rarely do they get to let their imaginations or bodies wander.

...

Recently, a parent of a Bethlehem Central High School student told me that many kids there no longer take a lunch break. They skip it to stuff an extra class into the day and instead eat at their desks.

...

"There's a large number of our students who do take advantage of that option," said Sabre Sarnataro, a spokewoman for the Bethlehem school district, who added that students could only forgo their lunch period with parental permission.

...

But allowing kids to multitask through a meal doesn't encourage healthy eating habits. Plus, we need time to decompress. Our brains work better when they're not overloaded.

"Students of all ages need times during the day to switch gears, take much-needed breaks and refuel," say Denise Pope, Maureen Brown and Sarah Miles, authors of "Overloaded and Unprepared," which urges schools to consider schedules that are more humane.

Breaks? Time to refuel?

No!!!!!!

That's time that could be used for academic activities, test prep or after school activities:

The authors sketch a typical day for students at high-achieving high schools. It begins at 6:15 a.m., when many students awake for a school day that starts before 8 a.m.

Then it's go, go, go, with extracurricular activities and three to four hours of homework filling the time after classes. Many teens, the authors say, don't get to sleep until almost midnight.

Which means they're perpetually sleep-deprived.

"Studies show that 80 percent of teenagers don't get the recommended amount of sleep," the authors write. "At least 28 percent fall asleep in school and 22 percent fall asleep doing homework."

The piece notes that this is about "high-achieving students" in "high-performing schools," that students in "low-performing schools" might actually need a little "pressure to succeed."

The truth is, these days in many so-called "low-achieving schools," that pressure is there for kids, it's just that they may not respond to it the same way the kids in the "high-performing schools" do.

I see it every work day, students behind in credits and/or state tests given a 7 and 1/2 hour class schedule, no lunch (instead they take a class), test prep both during and after school five days a week.

A very, very small number of those students are able to succeed at that schedule (sometimes after doing it for a year or more), but many just simply give up, stop coming to school or continue to come to school but walk through the day like a zombie.

You see it in charter schools too, with the ten hour school day and the intense pressure to "succeed" such that students fear going to the bathroom during the school day and soil themselves instead.

The idea that it's only "high-achieving students" in "high-performing schools" who are "overburdened" yet "unprepared" for life is erroneous.

The pressures and stresses in schools across the spectrum might be variegated, but they're there.

And this has always been one of the goals of education reform - to use FEAR (of success, of failure, of the future, of economic opportunity) to have students and staff stress themselves out overworking and overburdening themselves such that they can't wonder why the system is the way it is and whether it can be changed or not.

What's the value of a culture that privileges a sociopath like Eva Moskowitz who makes kids so fear asking to go to the bathroom during the school day that they soil themselves or a sociopath like KIPP's David Levin who brags about working 80 hour+ work weeks and only seeing his kid on Sundays?

Oh, but this is "high-achieving," right?

High-achieving at what?

What kind of life do Americans live these days, in FEAR for their careers, their livelihoods, their financial stability, their financial futures, their retirements?

The primary force behind education reform is Wall Street, which, not coincidentally, is also the primary force behind the economic instability and uncertainty that Americans face in 2015.

As the Masters of the Universe suck up more and more of the money and resources in this country, they leave less for the rest of us, forcing more and more people to struggle to get their part of a smaller and smaller pot.

Then these same Masters of the Universe fund an education reform movement that brainwashes children to see that struggle as the natural order of things without giving them the time or critical thinking skills to challenge it.

Gee, isn't that convenient?

It's all rigged, folks, it's all rigged.

The wealthy sociopaths and Wall Street criminals have got many people thinking this is the only way things can be so of course they must play the game even if it's killing them.

And you can bet it's killing lots of people - first on the inside, in their souls, and then later physically, with health ailments.

Luckily the Masters of the Universe run Big Pharma, so they've got a plethora of pills you can take to get you through those physical and emotional health ailments.

And isn't that convenient too?

Oh, but if you'd rather just stuff your FEAR with an addiction, well, the Masters will have no problem if you use food, alcohol, sex, gambling, shopping, or credit cards to stuff your feelings.

They make money off that stuff too.

Isn't that convenient?

It's all rigged, from the b.s. about the inevitability of globalization (we just can't fight it, we must join it!) to the jive behind education reform, to socialize Americans to believe this is the only way things can be, this is the natural order of things, and by golly, you had better start fighting for yourself and your family now or you'll be left behind.

What a screwed up culture America is.

All this "rigor" in the school system, yet most kids grow up without the critical thinking skills to see how badly they're getting screwed or the ability to step outside the system even if they do have an epiphany.

For, what real skills get taught in the Era of Education Reform?

What really gets taught in schools these days except indoctrination into a system that is killing us?

But on the plus side, at least kids will know how to eat lunch at their desks.

I mean, there's a skill that will come in handy in 21st Century America.

The Goal Of Education Reform Is To Exert Power And Control Over All

Education reformers love adding stress and pressure to the education system, ensuring people's livelihoods and reputations are tied to the high stakes testing scores.

Given the stress and pressure people are under, this kind of thing was inevitable:

The principal of an innovative West Harlem public school killed herself the day after her students took the state Common Core exams — which were later tossed out because she cheated, The Post has learned.

Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, 49, of Teachers College Community School, jumped in front of a B train in the 135th Street station on St. Nicholas Avenue on April 17, police said.

She was pulled out from under the train and taken to Harlem Hospital, where she died eight days later. The city Medical Examiner’s Office ruled it a suicide.

The leap came at 9:20 a.m., less than 24 hours after her 47 third-graders wrapped up three days sweating over the high-stakes English exam — the first ever given at the fledgling school.

It was also the same day a whistleblower reported the cheating to DOE officials.

Parents were shocked and saddened to learn Worrell-Breeden died but were given no details at the time. It was rumored she was killed in a car crash.

Parents were in for another shock in June. Superintendent Gale Reeves told them in a meeting that all the third-grade English exams had been “red-flagged” and “invalidated.”

Worrell-Breeden had some challenges outside of her work life according to the Post, including the death of a parent and a marriage break-up.

And there is some funkiness around the way the story was released - with details of the death dribbling out over time - to make you wonder if the DOE isn't just scapegoating Worrell-Breeden now that's she dead and can't defend herself.

To that end, the Post makes sure they get in how Worrell-Breeden had been caught falsifying her time cards in a previous gig before the Teachers College Community School and docked two weeks pay for those actions.

Nonetheless, the stress and pressure educators in public education are under these days is real, which even the Post article acknowledges:

The tough Common Core exams have raised anxiety. In 2014, only 34.5 percent of city students passed the math tests, and 29.4 percent passed English tests.

“A lot of people are getting sick and leaving the system because of the pressure the high-stakes tests are putting on them,” a veteran educator said.

It's not just the high stakes testing, it's the constant concern over drive-by Danielson observations, the micromanaging that's going on in many schools, the despair many feel as they see their autonomy torn from them and replaced with EngageNY scripts.

All these stresses and pressures are real, here for good and getting worse by the year.

And that's the way the education reformers want it.

The goal of education reform is FEAR.

They want a system in which everybody, from the students to the teachers to the administrators to the district officials are in constant FEAR, worried about grades, test scores, observations, and the myriad other accountability measures used to gauge so-called student, teacher, school  and district performance and they do not care about the human cost of any of this.

When the USDOE tells NY State it must test every student, even students with severe disabilities who have no chance to pass the high stakes exams, and count every test score in the accountability measures for teachers, schools and districts, you know the message is "We do not care about children or you, we care only about our political agenda!"

When Governor Cuomo imposes an evaluation system that ties 50% of a teacher's rating to test scores of students they don't teach in classes they don't teach, you know the message is "We do not care about children or you, we care only about our political agenda!"

When NYSED rigs the Common Core tests for 70% failure rates in order to prove how "failing" schools and teachers in this state are, you know the message is "We do not care about children or you, we care only about our political agenda!"

When the Board of Regents hires a new "reformy" NYSED commissioner whose callousness and incompetence led to the deaths of three children in her former school district, you know the message is "We do not care about children or you, we care only about our political agenda!"

I don't know whether this principal from the Teachers College Community School killed herself because she was worried she had been caught trying to cheat on the ELA Common Core exams or not, but I do know that given the stresses and pressure in the system, it's quite possible that's what happened and moreover, the education reformers who have imposed their reform agenda, the Endless Testing regime onto the system, want it that way.

If there are sick children throwing up on exams, teachers smeared as "ineffective" based upon similar test scores results that declared them "effective" the previous year, educators at all levels of the system in constant FEAR and anxiety over the data - well, that's exactly the point of education reform.

And if someone takes her life because of the stress and pressure in the system, you can bet reformers see that as a small price to pay for so-called accountability as well.

This is a toxic system devised by toxic people who do not care about anything other than power and control over others - and FEAR is the primary tool they use to exert power and control over all.

Assembly Dems Say They Won't Let Cuomo Impose His Will On Them

State of Politics:

Assembly Democrats insist they won’t get squeezed like they were in the budget talks, when Gov. Andrew Cuomo was able to link an increase in school aid to education reform measures many lawmakers didn’t want to approve.

But as Cuomo finds ways to force state lawmakers into backing the education tax credit by a variety of linkages and packages, Democratic lawmakers say the dynamic is different.
“I think there’s an important distinction between the budget negotiations and what’s going on now,” said Assemblyman James Skoufis in a Capital Tonight interview.

...

“We as a Legislature in the budget negotiations were up against a wall,” Skoufis said. “The option that could have taken place was, we pass everything the governor wants or we shut down the government. In this case, we don’t have that option, that sort of false dichotomy where we don’t want to choose either of them.”

...

“We’re not being forced into a corner to accept things we don’t want unlike the situation that presented itself during the budget negotiations,” he said.

Ever since the heavy hearts caved to Cuomo in the budget negotiations and gave him nearly everything he wanted in his education reform agenda, I remain skeptical when I hear Assembly Dems say they'll hold tough against the governor.

Nonetheless, if they roll now at the end of the legislative session when Cuomo doesn't have the same leverage on them as he did during budget negotiations, they're essentially saying they have no power any longer and the governor gets to impose whatever he wants whenever he wants.

We'll see - never underestimate Democrats to surrender or snatch defeat when victory can be had.

Just Another Sign Of Toxic Schooling

From the NY Times:

Anxiety has now surpassed depression as the most common mental health diagnosis among college students, though depression, too, is on the rise. More than half of students visiting campus clinics cite anxiety as a health concern, according to a recent study of more than 100,000 students nationwide by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State.

Nearly one in six college students has been diagnosed with or treated for anxiety within the last 12 months, according to the annual national survey by the American College Health Association.

The causes range widely, experts say, from mounting academic pressure at earlier ages to overprotective parents to compulsive engagement with social media. Anxiety has always played a role in the developmental drama of a student’s life, but now more students experience anxiety so intense and overwhelming that they are seeking professional counseling.

As students finish a college year during which these cases continued to spike, the consensus among therapists is that treating anxiety has become an enormous challenge for campus mental health centers.

And guess where all that anxiety starts?

Anxiety has become emblematic of the current generation of college students, said Dan Jones, the director of counseling and psychological services at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.

Because of escalating pressures during high school, he and other experts say, students arrive at college preloaded with stress. Accustomed to extreme parental oversight, many seem unable to steer themselves. And with parents so accessible, students have had less incentive to develop life skills.

“A lot are coming to school who don’t have the resilience of previous generations,” Dr. Jones said. “They can’t tolerate discomfort or having to struggle. A primary symptom is worrying, and they don’t have the ability to soothe themselves.”

Oh - and guess what exacerbates the problem?

Social media is a gnawing, roiling constant. As students see posts about everyone else’s fabulous experiences, the inevitable comparisons erode their self-esteem. The popular term is “FOMO” — fear of missing out.

You know what would be a great way to solve this growing problem?

Ratcheting up the level of anxiety at school with some new "tough" standards and new "tough" tests tied to those estandards.

You know what would be even better?

Force teachers to use rubrics for every assignment so that students always know what the expectations are and they never ever have to live with any uncertainty.

And you know what would make for the hat trick?

Stick the kids in front of computers all day for some "personalized learning" so that their interactions with their fellow human beings, both peers and adults, are as minimal as possible.

Oy.

Education reform, helicopter parenting and technology - wrecking an entire generation.

The Arrogance, Hubris And Pathology Of The Education Reform Movement

I want to play a game.

I'm going to list education reformers from different professions.

See if you can figure out what they all have in common:

Oligarchs: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch, Mort Zuckerman, Reed Hastings, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, various members of the Walton Family, Merryl Tisch, hedge fundies backing DFER, StudentsFirst, etc.

Politicians: Barack Obama, Andrew Cuomo, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, George W Bush, Rahm Emanuel, Harold Ford, Cory Booker, Kevin Johnson

Political functionaries: Joel Klein, John King, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Kaya Henderson, Cami Anderson, John White, David Coleman, Chris Cerf, Tony Bennett, John Deasy

Charter entrepreneurs: Eva Moskowitz, Steve Perry, David Levin, Andre Agassi, Pitbull

Celebrities who publicly identify as education reformers: Bill Cosby, John Legend, Isiah Thomas

Media members who publicly identify as education reformers: Joe Scarborough and the entire cast of the Morning Joe Clown Show, a good part of the NY Times columnist corner (Brooks, Friedman, Kristof, Bruni), Jonathan Alter, Campbell Brown

That's just a partial list above - I know there are a whole host of names of reformers from all the categories I've missed (you can add the names in the comments section of the post.)

They are all different people with different personalities and different experiences from different walks of life.

But they all share one thing besides an interest in education reform.

And that's hubris, arrogance and certitude that they are RIGHT.

What is it about education reformers that they can't ever admit to being wrong?

John King never makes mistakes at NYSED, nor Merryl Tisch at the Board of Regents, even when they hand over a charter school to a con man who has lied about everything on his resume except for his birthday.

Andrew Cuomo never makes mistakes either, not with Common Core (which he assures us is great if only the NYSED and Regents would implement it better) nor with his APPR teacher evaluation (which only needs to be "strengthened" to ensure more teachers are fired to make it better.)

Barack Obama never makes mistakes, which is why he wants his education reforms enshrined into law well past the sunset of his administration (No Child Left Behind waivers are going to try and maintain the Obama deforms into 2019.)

Eva Moskowitz is so right that she refuses to allow anybody to audit her charter network if she can help it.

David Coleman knows everything about everything.

Michael Bloomberg is so egocentric he needs to put his name on everything he owns.

Go through the list - find me a reformer who isn't arrogant or hubristic.

Then go through the list and count how many narcissists and sociopaths are on it.

When the people behind the education reform movement are such an unsavory lot of sociopaths, narcissists, and pathological know-it-all's, can there be anything good that comes from that movement?

Cuomo Says He's Imposed His APPR Teacher Evaluation System On Teachers "Out Of Respect"

It's only love if it hurts - that's Cuomo's message.

In his 245 page blueprint for the "new" New York released yesterday, Cuomo spends a few pages talking about "teacher excellence."

Here's my favorite part:

Out of respect for the critical role of teachers and to enhance the teaching profession, Governor Cuomo has made teacher excellence a centerpiece of his education policy.

Cuomo's plan goes on to say that's why teacher evaluations have been a centerpiece of his education reform agenda.

That' right - forcing teachers to be rated on their students' test scores via the voodoo VAM that NYSED puts together is a sign of respect and a desire to "enhance the teaching profession."

Never mind that actual educators - teachers and administrators - hate the system and say it doesn't work (see here.)

Cuomo says the evaluation system is the best in the country, but he has plans to "strengthen" it in the next term because far too many teachers are getting "effective" and "highly effective" ratings.

So "out of respect" for you teachers, Cuomo plans to make sure more of you are rated "developing" and given performance improvement plans or rated"ineffective" and fired.

There's some "respect" I can do without.

Howie Hawkins: Get Rid Of Common Core - And Standardized Testing

Here's why I am supporting Howie Hawkins for governor in next month's election:

ALBANY—Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins has entered the fight among liberals and conservatives over which side is more opposed to the Common Core standards.

Hawkins, during a conference call with reporters on Monday morning, said he wants New York to ditch the curriculum standards that New York adopted with the majority of U.S. states. But he also wants to get rid of statewide standards—and standardized testing—altogether, a position that he says sets him apart from his Republican opponent, Rob Astorino, who is running on a third-party line entitled “Stop Common Core.”

“My position is we need to opt out of Common Core because it’s dumbing down education,” Hawkins said. “It’s forcing our teachers to teach to the test. That whole high-stakes testing regime, which is part of Common Core, is a big drain on time and money in schools.

“We should let the local teachers and parents and school boards make the decisions about standards, curriculum and assessment,” he continued.

When asked about Astorino, Hawkins said: “He’s talking about setting up our own standardized assessments in New York. I think we’ve got to get away from that and let the teachers teach.”

During that conference call, a reporter noted that many of the state tests are part of a federal mandate:

“If the law says you gotta do it, you gotta do it,” Hawkins said, responding to a question about the federal requirements. “But we are adding to the tests by opting into the Race to the Top money.”

Hawkins' reference was to the Obama administration’s signature education initiative, a grant competition through which New York won $700 million in 2010. The funds required the state to adopt curriculum standards that aimed to boost college- and career-readiness, such as the Common Core.

The grant program also required New York to develop a statewide teacher-evaluation system that rates educators partly based on students' test scores. The evaluation system has resulted in more local testing in some districts, although some confuse that testing as being tied to the adoption of the Common Core.

Indeed, the mandates were made much worse by Race to the Top.

APPR?

Tied to Race to the Top.

inBloom?

Tied to Race to the Top.

Common Core?
 
Tied to Race to the Top.

All that testing added to every subject in nearly every grade in New York schools?

Consequence of APPR which is tied to Race to the Top.

It's true, the Obama administration has now tied some of the worst reforms to No Child Left Behind waivers, so even sending the RttT money back to the feds won't make some of the worst stuff go away overnight.

But the sun is getting ready to set on the Obama administration in a couple of years, so Arne Duncan and the rest of his merry men and women in reform aren't going to be in power forever.

There can be some post-RttT/post-NCLB waiver sanity.

Vote Howie Hawkins on Election Day.

Like Summer Never Happened

Someone at school said to me today "We've been back 11 days and it feels like we've been back for months."

I said I felt the same way.

Anybody else out there feeling like summer never happened?

Bloomberg's gone, Cuomo's going to be lucky to escape prison, Obama's education reform agenda is coming apart, and yet so much of the nonsense at school continued unabated.

Meeting after meeting, evaluations starting already, PD that makes you want to poke a fork in your eye - so much soul-sucking activity that takes away the time and energy teachers need to teach, work on lessons, grade papers, and work with students.

It's September 16th.

It feels like April.

Education Reform's Dirty Secret: Reformers Target Black And Brown Teachers For Replacement

Glenn Sullivan, a recent graduate from New Orleans’ Lake Area New Tech Early College High School, writes the following in the Washington Post:

In my school, as in many schools — especially in reform-oriented school districts — a lot of the good, black teachers have been replaced by younger white teachers. Before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, nearly 75 percent of the city’s public school teachers were black. That began to change after Katrina, when charter schools began to grow in number. The percentage of minority teachers across New Orleans public schools dropped from 60 percent to 54 percent between 2010 and 2013, according to data compiled by Tulane University’s Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives.

This troubles me. Particularly upsetting to me was the departure of the music teacher, a veteran black educator who helped run the New Tech school choir and put together trips for students.

When I talked to administrators about the departures of good black teachers, I was told that students need diversity in order to receive a high quality education. The school principal, who is black, has pointed out that a majority of the teachers are still black — a higher percentage than at some other New Orleans charter schools. He also pointed out that students are not always privy to the reasons teachers depart, and some might have chosen to leave.

Students do need diverse educational experiences, but that diversity doesn’t need to be about a teacher’s race. Hiring more white teachers is not the best way to improve education for students, particularly students of color.

In city after city, education reformers have gone after teachers of color and replaced them with young white people who work a couple of years, then head on to greener pastures.

Those in turn are replaced with more young white men and women.

New Orleans, a district that has been completely charterized, is one of the most egregious examples.

But there are a lot of others, including NYC, where the Bloomberg DOE made the teaching corps. a lot whiter than before they took power.

Next time you hear some jive ass education reformers link education reforms, particularly reforms that give districts the power to fire large numbers of teachers, to civil rights, remember that many districts are using these initiatives to fire lots of black and brown people.

The Insanity Of The Chinese Education System

This is the education system that Barack Obama and Arne Duncan admire so much:

Nearly 9.8 million Chinese high school students took the National College Entrance Exam, called gaokao, on June 7 and 8.

The emphasis on a two-day test has sparked criticism from some educators because of the incredible amount of pressure it places on students leading up to just one test. Gaokao has also been linked to China's rising suicide rate because of mounted pressure and poor test results.

Hengshui High School, the highest achieving secondary schools in gaokao over the last 14 years, has these as its two mottos:  “Life is not a rehearsal, because you won’t have the chance to live it all over again,” and “If you haven’t died from hard work, just work harder." At Hengshui, students study from 5:30 a.m. to 9:50 p.m., cannot have cell phones and are allowed just one day of vacation every month. Cameras are placed in each classroom to monitor students for laziness. These types of tactics are increasingly common at what many are calling gaokao-sweatshops — schools that exclusively prepare students for gaokao.

“I usually spent three to five minutes eating dinner,” a former student of Hengshui told China Daily.

Needless to say, the stakes are insanely high. 

Check out the photos in this Business Insider piece, along with the captions, and then ask yourself, why would anybody admire this kind of education system?

Wall Street Journal Covers ATR's

The Wall Street Journal reports that the ATR issue is a major part of the contract discussion:

As negotiations drag on over a new contract for the city's teachers, one sticky issue involves how to handle teachers who lost permanent jobs during cutbacks but keep getting full paychecks as they bounce around schools for brief stints, filling in for absent staff.

Hundreds spend years in limbo. A city Department of Education analysis in July said the group's size fluctuates but totaled 1,186 teachers last spring and cost at least $105 million last year in salaries and benefits—after counting the savings from not hiring regular substitutes.

...

 

Representatives for Mayor Bill de Blasio and the United Federation of Teachers confirmed that how to treat the group, called the Absent Teacher Reserve, is under discussion as they hammer out a contract to replace one that expired in 2009. They declined to comment further. Other major issues include back pay and raises.

The WSJ goes to the famed Educators4Excellence, an astroturf group of dozens of mostly ex-teachers now on the Gates Foundation payroll, for context on the ATR issue early in the article:

Educators 4 Excellence-New York, an advocacy group of more than 8,000 teachers, plans to release a policy brief Wednesday recommending that teachers in the pool get two April-to-August hiring seasons to find jobs. The brief argues that if they don't get hired within that period, they should be put on unpaid leave.

"Two hiring cycles strikes a balance between providing a fair opportunity for teachers to find a new teaching position and at the same time provides schools and the system the autonomy they need," said Jonathan Schleifer, executive director.

They get a couple of statements from ATR's, one of which seems to back up the E4E argument:

David Levin, a 13-year teacher in his fourth year in the pool in the Bronx, said it isn't his fault principals usually prefer to hire cheaper "newbies." He makes $80,987 a year.

Mr. Levin said the system should be fixed somehow—perhaps by deploying these teachers as mentors or extra help in difficult classrooms. It is hard for substitute teachers to keep students under control because there is little time to learn their names and behavior, he said. In one class, rowdy teenagers turned off the lights and started throwing chairs. "I don't know the students, the culture or the school," he said. "The kids act out."

Pasqual Pelosi, a language arts teacher in the Bronx pool who makes $75,937 a year, said his 12 years of experience were being squandered. He said at times he thinks shuttling teachers to different schools weekly is designed to wear them down so they quit in disgust.

"There's plenty of frustration," he said.

Among the frustrations over his career, Pelosi acknowledged facing several accusations, including an instance of alleged corporal punishment. 

"Any teacher who has been around for as long as I have is bound to have had some sort of allegations lodged," he said, adding that was especially true for a "disciplinarian" such as himself. "Nothing has been proven against me," he said.

And of course the Journal provides the two page Educators4Excellence "policy paper" putting forth the "Fire The ATR's" policy, along with quotes from education reform shills at StudentsFirstNY and The New Teacher Project, to slam home the idea that the ATR's are valueless employees.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew is given the last word, however:

The union's Mr. Mulgrew said nearly three-quarters of the teachers in the pool get permanent jobs within three years. "Our studies show that the most important single factor is money," he said. "The least experienced (and thus cheaper) teachers are the first to be selected."

If they ended the "fair funding" system that had schools paying for teacher salaries dollar for dollar out of their own budgets and went back to the system at large covering the salaries of teachers, many of the ATR's would be hire.

The truth is, so long as the dollars come straight out of the individual school budget, an administrators is always going to look to hire the $50,000 candidate over the $80,000 candidate.

Jeb Bush Channels David Coleman In A Defense Of The Common Core

College Board President David Coleman, one of the architects of the Common Core State Standards, famously told an audience in New York State that one of the things you learn in life when you get older is that nobody gives a shit what you think or feel about stuff.

Jeb Bush channeled that Coleman sentiment in a recent defense of Common Core:

Bush has repeatedly explained the standards, implemented and controlled by the states, are designed to make the United States more competitive with the rest of the world. He said those who oppose the standards support the “status quo,” oppose testing and are worried too much about children’s self-esteem.

“Let me tell you something. In Asia today, they don’t care about children’s self esteem. They care about math, whether they can read – in English – whether they understand why science is important, whether they have the grit and determination to be successful,” Bush said.

“You tell me which society is going to be the winner in this 21st Century: The one that worries about how they feel, or the one that worries about making sure the next generation has the capacity to eat everybody’s lunch?”

We've covered how the education system is in China just a bit here at Perdido Street School blog, but I'm going to revisit two recent posts as a rebuttal to Jeb Bush's jive:

Tell Me Again Why The U.S. Should Mimic The Chinese Education System?

A lot of these suicide stories are coming from South Korea, another country with a high stakes education system that leads to an awful lot of stress and pressure on children and teens, but this one's from China:

Surveillance cameras have caught the shocking moment an under-pressure Chinese student jumped to his death during class.

Heart-stopping footage claims to show the at first motionless boy suddenly leaving his desk, running over to a ledge and leaping out.

His actual jump occurs out of shot, and was not filmed due to the camera's angle.

But the devastated reaction of his fellow classmates, who sprint over to see what's happened before pacing up and down with their heads in their hands, appears to suggest he had tried to commit suicide.

A commenter at the Daily News writes:

How much longer are we going to pretend that children are something to ignore, mistreat, and mis-educate..... This child was coerced into believing this test was so important that combined with the rest of the stress he was feeling he ended his life. Here in the US the children are equally mistreated but they are ignored and mistreated along with being misled.

The older you get the more you realize it's not that big of a deal, and that you should be focusing on aspects of education that actually aren't in the curriculum. This common core crap and the overstressing of test results are completely destroying our children's futures.

And that's absolutely what the plutocrats in power want.

 

And this one:

Many In China Hate The Chinese Education System - Even If Arne And Barack Love It!

From The Guardian:

The streets surrounding Shijia primary school in Beijing were mobbed by a crowd of parents so dense that cars were obliged to beat a retreat.

At 3.45pm on Friday, 11-year-old Zou Tingting, five minutes late, bounded through the school's west gate and into her waiting mother's arms. Tingting's classes were over, but her day was just beginning – she had an hour of homework, plus lessons in ping pong, swimming, art, calligraphy and piano.

Tingting's mother, Huang Chunhua, said that, like many Chinese mothers, she once considered Tingting's academic performance her top priority; now she realises the importance of a well-rounded education. "I've seen British curricular materials, and I'm actually kind of jealous," she said. "British teachers guide students to discover things on their own – they don't just feed them the answers, like in China."

In recent weeks British parents and educators have been in a panic about the discrepancy between the Chinese education system and the UK's. In December the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released the 2012 results for its triennial Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) test – a reading, maths and science examination administered to half a million 15-year-olds in 65 countries. Shanghai students topped the rankings; the UK ranked 26th.

Next week education minister Elizabeth Truss will lead a "fact-finding mission" to Shanghai to learn the secrets of China's success. She plans to adjust the UK's education policy accordingly.

Yet Chinese parents and educators see their own system as corrupt, dehumanising, pressurised and unfair. In fact, many are looking to the west for answers. Huang said that some parents bribe Shijia primary school to admit their children (though she declined to say whether she had done so herself).

Tingting attends an expensive cramming school at weekends, leaving her tired. She will probably have to abandon extracurricular activities in high school to devote more time to the college admission exam, called the gaokao. Many parents consider the gruelling nine-hour test a sorting mechanism that will determine the trajectory of their children's lives.

Chinese experts are also less impressed than Truss by the Pisa scores. "Even though Shanghai students scored well on the test, this doesn't mean that Shanghai's education system doesn't have any problems," said Lao Kaisheng, a professor in the education department of Beijing Normal University. "In fact, it's the opposite."

As long as China's education system remains vast but resource-constrained, Lao added, its schools will default to testing as a reliable indicator of competence. "The education system here puts a heavy emphasis on rote memorisation, which is great for students' test-taking ability but not for their problem-solving and leadership abilities or their interpersonal skills," he said. "Chinese schools just ignore these things."

Read the whole article - this is an important piece of journalism that gets at the lie that Asian education systems like the one's in China or South Korea, are vastly outperforming public schools in the United States or Britain.

We keep hearing from Duncan, Obama, et al. that the Chinese or the South Koreans are vastly outperforming us.

We hear the same from Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein et al.

But the truth is much more complex than the test scores these deformers hawk.

Later we'll take a look at the epidemic of suicides in South Korea and the misery many children in the South Korean education system feel over their circumstances.

I've asked this before, I'll as it again - is this the kind of education system we want to mimic here in the United States?

How Education Reform Is Harming The Health Of Children

There is a horrific story in the NY Post this morning about a rash of suicides involving NYC school children over the last seven weeks:

The city’s public schools are in the grip of a suicide epidemic.

Ten students have taken their own lives in the past seven weeks, according to remarks made Saturday by Chancellor Carmen Fariña.

“As chancellor, I’ve been on the job seven weeks, and there have already been 10 reported suicides. We cannot allow those,” she told 250 new principals at Stuyvesant HS during a private meeting.

“I get those e-mails all the time. And it makes me heartsick.”

The tragic statistic — which amounts to more than one suicide per week — has not been released publicly. The Post obtained a recording of Fariña’s address.

None of the suicides occurred on school property, Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said later Saturday. She could not immediately provide the ages or schools of the children.

Chancellor Farina is responding to this epidemic of suicides:

In her remarks, Fariña implored principals to identify lonely and troubled kids. She related how, as a principal, she’d single out such students for Principal for a Day activities, taking them on her Friday rounds and giving them individual encouragement.

“The DOE is taking this very seriously and has provided information recently to principals and networks to help prepare and support school communities for these traumatic times, in addition to training provided each school year,” Feinberg said.

A spokeswoman for the city’s principals union said the outbreak was a shock to her.

“I’m surprised,” said Chiara Coletti, of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators. “If I heard of one or two in the last couple of years, that would be a lot. [Ten] sounds like a lot to me.”

City Health Department stats show youth suicides are rising, with suicide the third leading cause of death for New Yorkers ages 15 to 24. In 2010, 58 people in that age group took their lives. In 2011, the toll was up to 64, and in 2012 it reached 66.

The stresses on children these days have hit pressure cooker levels.

Many NYC school children come from families still struggling mightily with the effects of the recession and the economy and all the problems that come with that struggle.

It's a dog eat dog economy out there, with many people being tossed by the wayside and left there for good.

When children come to school, there is no change from the dog eat dog world - it's all Common Core rigor and assessments and argumentative writing and the like all the day long, with children being told over and over that in order to be "college and career ready" they must get their test scores as high as they can go.

The message at school in the Era Of Education Reform is "You Are Your Data Points" - in some cases, this is the subtle message, but when kids have their test scores placed on data walls in the classrooms or school hallways, it's as overt a message as can be.

In the best of times, children can be mean to each other, but you add the pressure cooker stresses of a bad economy with high stakes schooling and you can bet half a dozen foreclosed mortgages that children are going to act out in response.

This means more instances of bullying, cyber bullying, and fighting when they're acting out against each other.

It means more problems with alcohol or drug use, eating disorders, cutting (physical harm) when they're acting out on themselves.

Many children are starving from a lack of physical, emotional and spiritual nourishment and one of  the very places where they should be getting that nourishment - school - has turned into a toxic environment of rote Common Core learning and high stakes assessment for students, teachers and the school itself.

And don't kid yourself about how much damage education reform is doing to children - when they no longer do art in art class or no longer do physical activity in gym because school administrations are enforcing "Common Core rigor" in those classes and kids are spending the time reading informational texts and writing argumentative essays even in art and gym class, there is damage being done.

In English class, there is no more text-to-self writing or discussion.  The NYSED ELA modules do not allow for any of that sort of learning - everything is rote text-to-text learning, rote close reading exercises, rote assessments after every lesson.

Children are expressing despair over the direction schools have gone in the past few years (with Internet memes of children crying over their Common Core homework making the rounds all the time), but there is little that school staff can do to mitigate the problems.

Many counselors no longer have time to counsel students on anything except academics and grades.  Many teachers no longer have time to spend talking with children outside of class because of the extra compliance work associated with Governor Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system. With all the extra meetings, obsessive lesson planning, curriculum mapping, focus groups, professional learning community meetings, Common Core professional development and artifact collecting, there is no time to just talk to kids and find out what's going on with them.

APPR has done damage beyond the taking of time from teachers that could be spent working with students - it has added more testing and more high stakes to the school year, with added performance assessments coming in fall and spring and the stresses of those assessments falling onto students as they know if they don't do well, their teachers might get fired by the "student lobbyist" in Albany.

So given all of this insanity going on these days, it is not a surprise to me that more and more children are suffering from depression and a lack of physical, emotional and spiritual nourishment.

It would be nice to say that Chancellor Farina's directive that administrators scrutinize students in their schools in order to catch those who are falling prey to depression and despair, but the truth is, there are so many that I have seen over the past few years that I'm not sure how principals, teachers and counselors address the epidemic given how poisoned the school system is with high stakes so-called rigor and reform.

Until the insanity of the high stakes around testing is ended, until the rote learning of the Common Core is replaced with individual-centered learning that allows for personal growth, until the obsession with argumentative writing and close reading of complex texts is replaced with a broad arts, humanities and science curriculum that allows for children to express themselves in many different ways, the despair and depression that is now rife in the school system is not going to end.

There isn't much educators can do about the economy at large that causes stress on children.

But there is something we can do about the education reforms that are harming millions of children around this state and a million+ in this city.

Let us take back our education system from the emotionally-stunted misanthropic education reformers who tell us that no one gives a shit what children think and feel and return it to people who know that children are whole beings who must be nourished physically, emotionally and spiritually with a rich, broad, diverse curriculum in a school environment that is welcoming and nurturing.

Anthony Cody on The Standardization Of Schooling

Why turn school into drudge work for the overwhelming majority of children in this country via the Common Core and the Common Core testing?

Here's why:

In practice what this is likely to yield is an intensification of factory-style education for these low-scoring populations. Students who perform well may be somewhat relieved of this, but those in the low-scoring schools and social classes will get ever an more prescriptive curriculum, closely aligned with the tests.

The cynical among us might begin to suspect that this is exactly the sort of education one might impose on people whose destiny is low-level drudgery-filled jobs - while the elite reserves for itself the small classes, the rich interactive curriculum described on the websites of schools like Lakeside, where the Gates children attend.

The meme about Common Core is that it "raises" standards so that children can better "compete" in a global economy.

The reality is, it is a emotionally-devoid drudge work that is quickly making many children hate school, check out of their lessons, and in the very near future drop out completely.

That's what happens when you teach lessons devoid of content and focuses only on skills over and over and over.

People need to care about what they are learning.

CCSS - and the people who designed them - do not give a shit what anybody thinks or feels about anything.

All they care about is whether the children can do the market analysis by Friday.

That's ELA CCSS designer David Coleman's famous quote to the Regents at a meeting about the standards.

It is emblematic of the reform movement as a whole these days.

Education Reform In Trouble

Anthony Cody at Gates Foundation Week:

From coast to coast, the billionaire-backed education reform project is back-pedaling, and there are signs of desperation showing up all over. At Education Nation there was little attention paid to the fractured fairytale that corporate reform has become, but the cracks are appearing everywhere now.

At a recent conference of mayors, few would even utter the words "education reform."  In Los Angeles today, there has been a hastily organized rally in support of Superintendent John Deasy, who has coyly suggested he "might" resign. This rally was organized by the Gates-funded Educators for Excellence, Teach Plus, and Los Angeles' chapter of the United Way, which distinguished itself a few months ago by hosting a school reform summit on the eve of a school board election.

This minor furor temporarily takes attention away from the much more significant questions being raised about the billion dollars in construction funds that Los Angeles Unified has invested in iPads and related curricular materials, at Deasy's urging. Deasy has remained adamant in the face of the controversy, insisting that the iPads are a "civil rights issue."  Where have we heard that before?

In the state of New York, the on again off again Department of Education hearings were back on again, and Commissioner John King has apparently been instructed to actually allow the public to speak without interrupting and arguing with them, as he had done at his last outing in Poughkeepsie. He has still not found the nerve to schedule any hearings in New York city, however.

There seems to be a dawning awareness on the part of the backers of corporate reform that their project is in real trouble, and that this battle is unfolding on the ground, even if they command the corporate boardrooms.

The public is now awake to the damage the reformers are causing to students, teachers and schools.

The reformers plotted Common Core and the PARCC assessments and the teacher evaluation changes and the data collection programs in their backrooms.

They got no pushback from anybody because they surround themselves with their own reform-friendly acolytes only, so it seems to have never occurred to them that there might be a mass uprising of parents when the reform movement started implementing their radical agenda.

This battle is far from over because the reformers are wealthier than anybody ought to be and they are willing to use that money to buy politicians, buy law changes, buy the media and authoritatively impose their agenda on cities, states and the nation.

But the rising opposition to Common Core, the increasing anger of teachers over the standards and evaluation changes, the hostility toward the testing from students, parents and teachers, the skepticism over the data collection - these are all good signs that education reform isn't going to get a "reboot" the way the billionaire reformers want.

Rather it's going to get "the boot" as students, parents and teachers all across this country send this agenda where it belongs - in the garbage.

Lots of work to do and there are no assurances that the public can beat the plutocrats and their functionaries on this.

But if I had said to you last year that the Common Core reforms would be under major attack here in NY State, that John King would be a punch line, that Andrew Cuomo would look to distance himself from his own reforms and that a new mayor would be coming into office who so far has not backed down from his pledge to make charters pay rent and put a moratorium on charter openings, would you have believed me?

Commissioner King's Firing Won't Solve The Problems With Common Core And The State's Education Reform Agenda

Techydad points out how getting John King fired from NYSED won't solve the problems that we're having in the NY State public education system:

Even now, people are calling for King’s resignation.  Sadly, I don’t think this will cause real change.  Instead Commissioner King will likely become a scapegoat.  He will be publicly fired and blamed for the fiasco.  Then, they will appoint a new commissioner to continue on the same over testing path hoping that parents and teachers will be placated by this token gesture.

Don’t fall for it.

The goal here is not Commissioner King getting the boot.  The goal here is to ensure a good educational future for our children.  The goal is to make sure that our kids don’t dread going to school because they’ve got test after test to take.  The goal is to stop punishing creative students because their answer doesn’t fit into the box that Pearson has drawn for them.  The goal is to allow teachers to assess how their particular students will learn best instead of forcing them to follow a "one size fits all" plan that actually fits nobody.  We cannot be distracted by a show firing because what is riding on this is our children’s future.

Demand educational accountability from the New York State Department of Education now!

I completely agree.

Let's dial the clock back to the Cathie Black days when there was a large and loud clamor to get Cathie Black fired from her chancellorship position at the NYCDOE.

Many people pointed out how unqualified she was, how little she knew (or seemed to care) about education, how we needed an educator to run the system.

They were right on all those counts.

But I said at the time, I didn't think getting Cathie Black fired would help make the public education system in NYC better.

The problem was Michael Bloomberg, the autocrat with dictatorial control of the school system, not Cathie Black (or Joel Klein, Dennis Walcott, Shael Polakow-Suransky or any of the other top functionaries at Tweed.)

Bloomberg has a privatization agenda and no matter who he hired to run Tweed and the NYC school system, that privatization agenda was going to be carried out.

In the end, a more competent deformer in the figure of Dennis Walcott took over the system after Black resigned and the pro-privatization agenda continued on unabated.

At the state level, the problem with the system goes well beyond SED and John King.

King was simply hired to carry out the privatization plans of the plutocrats in this state (like Merryl Tisch) and their functionaries in government (like Andrew Cuomo.)

When Andrew Cuomo was first running for governor, the NY Times ran a story about how he met in a hotel room with some hedge fund managers/education reformers, took a suitcase full of cash from them, and began promoting their education reform/privatization agenda the very next day.

We can get rid of John King all we want, but so long as Andrew Cuomo is still in power and still taking the cash from the hedge fund managers/education reformers to promote their policies, so long as plutocrat Merryl Tisch continues to run policy at the Board of Regents, the damaging corporate education reform policies students, parents and teachers are suffering under will continue unabated.

As Techydad notes, we cannot get distracted with the "Fire John King!" show.

Yes, I'd love to see him fired and forced to leave Albany in disgrace.

The arrogant King deserves no better.

And given how no prominent deformer has come to King's defense since the Poughkeepsie meltdown, I suspect the powers that be may be getting ready to toss Commissioner King to the sharks.

But alas, the corporate education reform policies will continue after King is gone if we do not take aim at Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, DFER-supported Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the rest in the legislature who appoint the reform functionaries at the Board of Regents and pass reformy laws like the Race to the Top law and the APPR teacher evaluation law.

So sure, let's see Commissioner King fired for his disgraceful Poughkeepsie performance and his calling parents "special interests."

But let's put pressure on both Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Governor Cuomo to force them to end their authoritarian imposition of the corporate education reform agenda.

Common Core, Common Core tests, inBloom data tracking and the like isn't just John King's agenda.

It is Merryl Tisch's and Andrew Cuomo's agenda as well.

Does Commissioner John King Have SED Officials Monitoring The Internet For Education Reform Heresy?

Apparently the informational text reading police are unfamiliar with literary techniques like figurative language:

The Niagara County Sheriff's Office was asked by Albany police on Friday to investigate a perceived threatening comment made on social media by a teacher at George Southard Elementary School.

An Albany detective who contacted the sheriff's office said the teacher had posted "can't wait for Sept. 24th, dead man walking."

Deputies were sent to the school Friday to interview the teacher who stated he made the comment in regard to the commissioner of education's reception at an educational meeting in Poughkeepsie.

The teacher said the comment was make in poor judgment and he had no intention, nor the means, to harm the commissioner. 

Albany police were contacted and video of the interview with the teacher was provided.

In Baltimore, they arrested a man for making derogatory statements about the Common Core at a town hall meeting.

Here in NY State, they try and intimidate a teacher for making what is clearly a hyperbolic comment about Commissioner King's tenure at SED on Facebook.

It is interesting to note that the complaint over the Facebook comment came from Albany but the teacher works in Niagara County.

Just who put the complaint into Albany police about the comment made by the Niagara County teacher?

The New York State Education Department is located in Albany.

Was the complaint made by someone at SED?

And if so, just why is this bureaucrat being paid to monitor social media for education reform heretics.

We know the USDOE had paid trolls monitoring critics like Diane Ravitch.

We know this because one of the trolls who was tasked with that job, Peter Cunningham, told us so in a Huffington Post piece attacking Ravitch.

My "Hmmm..." meter goes off at this story of Albany police contacting Niagara County police over a comment posted by a Niagara County teacher on Facebook about NYSED Commissioner King.

Is somebody at SED monitoring and trolling social media and the blogosphere looking to retaliate against reform heretics?

Does the NYSED have an Internet troll division just the way the USDOE does?

The trajectory of this complaint, coming from somebody in Albany about a teacher in Niagara County, certainly suggests this is so.

In any case, you know the Common Core/corporate education deform movement has jumped the shark when they have to use the state security forces to clamp down on dissent, criticism and opposition to their agenda.

This will work in some instances, but overall, it will just fan the flames of the fury many parents and teachers are feeling over the SED reform agenda, the Common Core, and the state's battery of tests and bring the deform movement closer to its very deserved demise.