Goodbye And Good Luck

This will be the last post at Perdido Street School blog.

I have been blogging for ten years at various sites.

For reasons that have been brewing for some time now, I have decided ten years is enough.

I can no longer give the blog the kind of attention I have given it in the past and so, I've decided it's time to shut it down and move on.

Thanks to all the readers and commenters over the years.

Thanks especially to Arthur Goldstein at NYC Educator, who got me started at this all those years ago, and thanks to my blogging buddies Norm Scott at Ed Notes Online, Sean Crowley at B-Lo Ed Scene, James Eterno at ICEUFT blog, Brian at Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association blog and Chaz at Chaz's School Daze.

The battles in education these past ten years have been brutal and we have seen our profession transformed into something barely recognizable from when I first started teaching fifteen years ago.

Common Core, teacher evaluations tied to test scores, EngageNY scripts and drive-by Danielson observations have ensured that many of us are teaching by numbers if wish to remain in our jobs for any period of time.

If you're a reader of this blog, you know that all the "change" we hear that is happening in education - from Cuomo's Common Core Task Force "reforms" to the changes NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia says we'll see out of the State Education Department, is just so much window dressing.

The instructional focus of the Common Core remains.

The bludgeon of the Endless Testing regime on individual schools remains.

For many teachers, teacher evaluations tied to test scores remain.

The unions have run ads lately touting change, but quite frankly, there is no change  - just more of the same with minor tweaks.

Thankfully there is a parent-led pushback movement in Opt Out that continues to terrify the politicians and educrats, that continues to keep them off balance and on the defensive.

I must admit, I don't have a ton of optimism for any positive substantive change coming to public education in the near term, but if any does come, it will be as a result of the Opt Out movement and all the tireless folks there doing the work to end the Endless Testing regime.

When I first started blogging, the corporate education reform movement was in the ascendant, with no real pushback to them in the media or politics.

Despite the media narrative of the "powerful teachers unions," the unions never really tried to counter the reformers - they instead  collaborated with them on teacher evaluations, Common Core, Danielson, streamlined contracts and the like.

But the Opt Out movement has become that pushback and therein lies the hope I have for the future of public education - that parents, along with teachers, will take back their schools from the corporate reformers, the educrats, the consultants, the edu-entrepreneurs and the bought-off politicians.

If there is any bright light in the maelstrom of deform that we inhabit these days, it is the advent of a parent-led movement against the powers that be and their corporate backers to transform schools into one size fits all factories and children into interchangeable widgets.

On the union side, there are many great folks pushing back against the union leaders in the AFT, NEA, NYSUT and UFT, trying to end top-down unionism and make the unions more representative of the views of the rank and file.

In NYC, that movement is led by the people at MORE and before I go from the blogging scene, I want to say that I fully support the MORE candidates in the coming UFT elections and hope that we can finally get some people into the UFT leadership who fight for teachers and the teaching profession rather than sell us and it out piece by piece.

And with that, I say goodbye and good luck.

Open Thread: What Was The Worst Moment Of John King's Time At NYSED?

This morning, I voted for Poughkeepsie, when King petulantly declared both he and his education reform agenda were above criticism.

To me, it symbolized his Reign of Error at NYSED and the disdain he had for students, teachers and parents.

How about you?

What do you think was his worst moment?

Common Core roll-out?

The Common Core test score plummet?

EngageNY?

APPR?

"Dr" Ted Morris?

All of the above?

Goodbye

I took the summer off from regular blogging here at Perdido Street School, and other than a guest stint at NYC Educator's blog a few weeks ago and some comments at other blogs, have refrained from posting.

I really was thinking of shutting the site down, but I wanted to give it a few weeks before I made a final decision.

Well, I've made it.

I have been blogging for longer than I care to remember, first at Reality-basededucator.com, then here at Perdido Street School.

While I remain committed to progressive causes, especially progressive education causes, I am now hanging up the regular blogging shoes.

I feel it - it's time.

Before I go, let me say thank you to all the readers here at Perdido Street School, my fellow bloggers in the education blogosphere, and a special thank you to that fellow at NYCEducator.com who inspired me some years ago to start blogging and still brings me over to his site occasionally to have my say on things.

Finally, let me just say that I was going to run the last post with Perdido Street School being shut down by Chancellor Walcott and replaced with a Moskowitz Success Academy charter.

Then I thought about running a post that had me killed while riding shotgun in Cathie Black's car in the Hamptons as she hit the summer cocktail circuit.

The last post idea I had was my going to work for News Corporation's K-12 online education division as assistant phone hacker to Joel Klein.

As these ideas popped into my head, that's when I knew that I had made the right decision about leaving.

It is definitely time to go.

So, with that, let me say it one last time - good-bye and good luck.