better late than never...

Last New Year's Eve I blogged about the glory of entering 2014 AC. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to posting it to my blog. I did, however, include it in the newsletter I wrote for my local association. Ironically, this ended up being my last association newsletter. My president wasn't happy with my post for some reason, so she fired me from my unpaid position as newsletter editor. #whatthef**kever! Sadly, the association newsletter died with this last editorial. Go figure. 
 
So, here goes... Better late than never... maybe.

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1…  I don't know about you, but I was soooo ready for 2014 to arrive in all its glory. I had been waiting for this moment for over a decade and...  I. Couldn't. Wait. A new day would soon be dawning and I was waiting in eager anticipation. As the clock struck midnight, a miraculous change could be felt first on the right coast, then in the midwest, soon the left coast felt it with Hawaii ringing in the New Year Miracle last. As it happened, Facebook and Twitter were alive with the sound of music crossing this great land of ours as the shift we had been waiting for occurred. The great day had finally arrived and now All. Children. Are. Proficient. Or. Above. Oh, happy day! 

Surely we would now be bringing back the arts, music, science, social studies, voc. ed., physical education, RECESS, developmentally appropriate curricula and classroom teacher created tests back into the classroom. Surely we would be seeing the end of high-stakes testing, and the test prep to infinity and beyond that goes with it. No longer would we be Teachers as Testers! We would finally return to being Teachers... dare I say it... as Teachers! Can I hear an Amen! 

Data (that four letter word) would no longer be driving instruction. The never-ending analysis of data, created by tests whose questions we were not allowed to see, would end. Our children would no longer be Data Points. They would be children once again! The individual differences of our children would be celebrated and the cruel standardization of our children would cease to be. Deficit-based thinking would be so five minutes ago! No longer would our children be seen as common, but as unique. Children would once again be engaged in the learning process and actually enjoy coming to school. Students, teachers and administrators, finally released from the tyranny of the US Department of Education, could once again enjoy teaching and learning! Oh happy day! When will vacation be over so that we may enjoy this new world?

Happy New Year, y’all. Enjoy all that 2014 has to offer.  #TYNCLB

In 2015 I will continue resisting CC$$ and high-stakes testing. I'm so tired of this sh!t. Srsly!

r u smarter than a 6th grader?

So I was sitting in a sixth grade classroom waiting for our staff meeting to begin.  Looking around the room, taking in the environment, I was trippin’ on how different the kindergarten room environment is from where the big kids are.  The words, Final Push, written on the whiteboard caught my eye. Uh oh, I thought.  I’ve heard that term before and since we’d just began the fourth quarter I knew it wasn’t referring to the end of the year.  Nope.  It was referring to the stupid totally fucked waste of time waste of money brain killing ulcer inducing upcoming high-stakes, standardized State test.

“Crap,” I thought.  Oh yeah, now I’m making a connection!  Grades two through six have been gearing up for these tests with their Final Push test prep extravaganza.  Yep.  Six weeks of mind numbing, stomach wrenching, enormously boring, enthusiasm sucking, test preparation.  Six whole weeks stressing kids out while denying them access to a real education where their natural curiosity and ability to think critically has been sorely eliminated – along with social studies, science, music, art, recess, etc.

I looked at the terminology on the board and thought, wow!  Just. Wow!!!  I also thought, Are You Fucking Kidding Me really???  Srsly!  I'll bet if I asked any non-sixth grade teacher in the room, including our principal, no one, I mean NO one, could define all of those terms.  I’d be willing to bet NO one at the district office could define those terms.  Our local school board couldn’t.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp, Geoffrey Canada, Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, and even Oprah couldn’t define those terms.  Yet our SIXTH GRADERS are supposed to be able to know these terms and apply that knowledge on the State test? Why?  I mean, seriously, why?  Who came up with the ludicrous idea that this was grade level appropriate material, let alone relevant to sixth graders?

All I can say is, “Shit is fucked up!”  Totally.  This year has been the most frustrating in my entire career.  I am sick of District and State generated test data.  I’m sick of test prep.  I’m sick of testing.  Yes, even kindergarten teachers are now testing our children into oblivion. (More about that in an upcoming post.)  I’m disgusted by the reward parties for children who have made the grade, so to speak.  I weep for all those kids who NEVER get to attend any of the special events because they couldn’t make the grade no matter how hard they tried.  My stomach clenches when I think about walking into the multipurpose room at the beginning of the next school year.  Will I see the NAMES and SCORES of the kids who scored Proficient or Advanced on the State test posted on the walls for all to see, AGAIN? Will we spend $6,000 on Accelerated Reader when we spend $0 on new books for our library?

The only good thing about having furlough days for the third year in a row is that it means that I have five fewer days to put up with this shit.  Class sizes continue to rise.  Testing continues to increase.  More mandates that do nothing to help kids learn proliferate. Really, people, I can’t possibly take any more meds than I am currently taking.

So, dear readers, please take the test below and see if you’re smarter than a sixth grader.  If you’re not, and you are a parent with a school-aged child, please opt your child out of high-stakes testing.  If you don’t have kids, tell all parents you know that they can opt their child out of high-stakes testing.  Check out http://unitedoptout.com/ for more information.

 

All I can say again is “Shit is really fucked up.” And not in a good way!

california department of education's policy on STAR testing.....

Title 5.  EDUCATION

Division 1.  California Department of Education

Chapter 2.  Pupils

Subchapter 3.75.  Standardized Testing and Reporting Program

Article 1.  General

§ 852. Pupil Exemptions.

            A parent or guardian may submit to the school a written request to excuse his or her child from any or all parts of any test provided pursuant to Education Code section 60640. If a parent or guardian submits an exemption request after testing has begun, any test(s) completed before the request is submitted will be scored and the results reported to the parent or guardian and included in the pupil’s records. A school district and its employees may discuss the STAR Program with parents and may inform parents of the availability of exemptions under Education Code section 60615. The school district and its employees shall not solicit or encourage any written exemption request on behalf of any child or group of children.

NOTE: Authority cited: Sections 33031 and 60605, Education Code. Reference: Sections 60605, 60607, 60615, 60640 and 60641, Education Code. 

..... just sayin'. Neutrally, of course!

kindergarten 2011-12 on the left coast

Thanks to continued Federal intrusion into the learning lives of children and the importance of data points and accountability, here's the new and improved schedule for the Kindergarten Class of 2011-12:

Other than the 5 minutes allotted for Opening Activities (greeting each student; putting backpacks away; getting settled; attendance; lunch count; mail; announcements.... Right, like in 5 minutes?), these 4 and 5 year old children will enjoy 2 hours and 55 minutes of seat time as I effectively deliver a skills based, scripted, academic English Language Development, English Language Arts, and Math curricula. During 60 minutes of ELA and Math Strategic Support, I will address the needs of the Below Basic and Far Below Basic children while the other 4 and 5 year olds are working independently at their instructional level. (NOTE: In the school districts in my city on the Left Coast we do not have instructional aides, or specials - music and art teachers.)

I am sure my students will enjoy the Health Nutrition break, where they will be able to eat a snack and play play play to their hearts' content and socialize for an entire 10 minutes! Wow! Life doesn't get much better than that when you're 4 and 5 years old.

Now regarding the 20 minutes allotted for Science/Social Studies/Music/Art..... well I won't even get into the reality of those 20 minutes. Anyone who's ever taught kindergarten can look at the above schedule and figure out why.

So the year has begun... On your mark. Get set. GO! And while I'm at it, I'll be giving the Emerging Literacy Assessment, one-on-one, to each of my students (To Be Completed by the ninth day of school. No excuses!) After all, it's never too early to labels kids as failures, is it? So in 9 short days, my kids have been bibbidy bobbidy booed and magically turned into data points... because, well, DIG*! 

*DIG = Data Is God

status quo

• the existing state of affairs
• large class sizes
• developmentally inappropriate curriculum (a.k.a. higher standards)
• narrowly focused, densely packed curriculum
• scripted curriculum
• vocational education classes
• test prep overkill
• high-stakes standardized testing
• intensive intervention services for struggling students
• inequitable funding for schools
• education policy being driven by corporate education reformers

"What keeps me up at night is the historic lack of urgency, the acceptance of the status quo. We need to change. Anyone who is defending the status quo is part of the problem."

Arne Duncan
US Secretary of Education

When corporate education reformers like Arne Duncan, Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee rail against those who defend the status quo, they should really start looking in the mirror. Dudes, you ARE the problem!

338 words

Dear Mr. President,

Recently you spoke to students about education and said, “One thing I never want to see happen is schools that are just teaching the test. … young people do well in stuff that they're interested in. They're not going to do as well if it's boring." I absolutely agree.

Why then, Mr. President, do you want to continue to impose an inferior educational system based on high-stakes testing on the rest of the nation’s non-elite children? Why is it acceptable to subject children living in poverty, most of whom are children of color, to a punitive educational system that limits their curricula, kills their love of learning and fails to support the most struggling students, effectively making it impossible for these children to catch up to their more affluent peers. Why do you support a system that begins labeling children as failures at 5 years old, and makes it essentially impossible for those children to escape that label?

Research does not support the policies being advocated by your Secretary of Education. School turnarounds and charter schools staffed by unqualified teachers have been proven failures. Both you and Mr. Duncan need look no further that your former backyard, Chicago, to see the failure of those policies. High-stakes testing serves to dumb down curricula and encourage cheating. Look what happened recently in Ms. Rhee’s former school district.

Think of your own children, Mr. President. Would you want Sasha and Malia taught by highly qualified, experienced educators, or recent college graduates with no background in educational theory, pedagogy or child development? Would you want your daughters’ curricula limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic? Would you want your daughters sentenced to an educational system that is nothing more than a test prep assembly line? I am sure your answer would be ‘absolutely not’.

Please, Mr. President, we want our children to have an educational system like your daughters have. We want equitable funding in our schools. Those are goals that would be worthy of your administration.

Sincerely,

A Teacher Anon

RttT

Rheerase to the Top

busted

USA Today, March 27, 2011 

In D.C. schools, hundreds of classes flagged for ‘erasures’

     "From 2008 to 2010, 103 public schools in the District of Columbia were flagged for having at least one class of students with statistically high rates of wrong answers that were erased and replaced by correct answers on their standardized tests. That represents more than half of the schools in the system."

USA Today, March 28, 2011

When standardized test scores soared in D.C., were the gains     real?

     "A trio of academicians consulted by USA TODAY — Haladyna, George Shambaugh of Georgetown University and Gary Miron of Western Michigan University — say the erasure rates found at Noyes and at other D.C. public schools are so statistically rare, and yet showed up in so many classrooms, that they should be examined thoroughly."

USA Today, March 29, 2011

D.C. officials to review high rates of erasures on school tests 
     "In its months-long investigation, which included documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, USA TODAY looked at 103 public schools in the nation's capital where tests showed a pattern of unusually high numbers of answers that had been changed from wrong to right."

     “Rhee, who said Monday night that the investigation "absolutely lacked credibility," had declined to speak with USA TODAY despite numerous attempts before an article ran online and in Monday's newspaper."

Uh oh..... Rhee's thighs must be burning. Back peddling is so exhausting.  And her pants... they are definitely smokin'!!!