There may be exceptions, actually, but I really believe this in general. The main thing that stands in the way of that goal, though, is often administration. Of course not every student will cooperate, and of course not all students will pay attention, study, or do homework. Of course some will fail. For the most part, though, it doesn't mean they couldn't have passed.

Every teacher I know has heard about differentiated instruction. I know some supervisors have demanded multiple lesson plans for different students. Sometimes supervisors assume teachers have nothing to do and unlimited time. This is not a good approach. We have a lot to do, our work is important, and it's sad when we're burdened with wasteful nonsense.

Differentiation is a tough demand when you have 34 students in a class. Of course, class size tends to be overlooked by administration, and in fact when I go to grieve oversized classes, they fight to keep them that way. It's an ironic attitude from an organization that claims to put, "Children First, Always." Of course, the real meaning of that slogan is demoralizing and devaluing those of us who do the important work of teaching the children (the very children Moskowitz Academies would not accept on a bet).

I'd argue that differentiation is a fundamental human trait. Unless you are in possession of a remarkable lack of sensitivity, you treat people differently. I see, in my classroom, students who will challenge me. I'll let them do it, and I'll challenge them back. I have nothing to lose, really. If they manage to out-talk me, I must be doing a great job. I also see very sensitive and reserved students, students who need my understanding, students for whom a harsh word would be hurtful and damaging.

Then there is talk of assessment. I hear insane things from administrators about assessment. There is evaluative and non-evaluative (formative) assessment, evidently. Supervisors come into classes and trash teachers for failing to offer non-evaluative assessment. They write them up for it, failing to see the irony that they themselves have just failed to offer the formative assessment for which they advocate.
 
As for non-evaluative assessment, it too is often presented as a one-way street. The only way you can do it is if students have red and green cards. Green cards mean they understand, and red cards mean they don't. Or they use left and right hands. Left hand means they understand, and right means they don't. Or vice-versa. Who remembers?

I recently read a Danielson observation form criticizing a teacher for failing to use the left hand-right hand thing. Evidently this teacher was walking around looking at student work. The observer concluded there was no way the teacher could assess the quality of student work that way. I was amazed by this conclusion.

First of all, there is the underlying assumption that 15-year-old students will freely announce to their peers that they do not understand what is going on. There is the assumption that kids at that age are neither obsessed with nor concerned about the opinions of their peers. There are the further assumptions that students who do not know what is going on are aware of it, that they have not yet tuned out altogether, and that they are even listening when the teacher says raise this or that hand, or this color or that color card.

The very worst assumption, though, is that of the binary nature of understanding. You understand it or you don't. There are no degrees. There is no grey, only black and white. That's ridiculous. Once you understand that, you understand how absurd the criticism of looking at student work is. When I look at individual student work, I can offer individual advice. This sentence doesn't make sense. What were you trying to say? That's a good idea--please explain or build on it. This sentence doesn't belong in that paragraph. Eliminate it or start a new paragraph. This word doesn't need an apostrophe. Use a question mark here, please.

If everything is green and red, or left or right, your subject is pretty limited. I don't really want to be in your class if that's how you see things. And even so, if I'm the only student who doesn't get it, why do the other 33 students have to sit around and wait while you explain it to me?

You may as well give only true-false tests and hope for the best. If you're marginally more adventurous, you can give multiple choice tests. I was a pretty terrible high school student, but I loved multiple choice tests. I almost always passed them, whether or not I knew the answers. Now on an open-ended question I could spout a lot of wind, but I couldn't usually appear to know things I didn't. 

There is spectacular irony in the fact that our system demands that every one of our students take the same tests. I mean, if we're going to talk differentiation, how can it possibly exist when final assessment is exactly the same for everyone?

Every kid can learn, but not necessarily the same things in the same way. I'm glad to see that NY State has finally allowed some leeway for different students with different needs. It's a step in the right direction, but it isn't enough. Every kid can learn, but every kid can learn differently at different times. Some kids need more time than others. Some have learning disabilities. Some don't know English. A full 10% of our kids are homeless, and as long as we continue to ignore that, we won't be serving them no matter how often we give them the meaningless label of "college ready."

Learning is not binary, and it's not multiple choice either. It really is individual. The sooner administrators can understand that simple notion, the better we will serve our children.

Even the state says this year's test scores aren't comparable with last year's, but that doesn't matter to Chalkbeat NY. Chalkbeat needs to make sure its reformy supporters can take credit. So even though the tests were different, even though there were fewer questions, and even though there was no longer a time limit, we need to pretend there's some big mystery. 

Mayor de Blasio, predictably, took credit. This is in the grand tradition of Michael Bloomberg, who always said what a great job he was doing when test scores went up. Diane Ravitch was derided as a crank, but two years later she was proven absolutely correct as the newspapers caught up with her and declared the tests dumbed down.

Or could it be the charter schools, Chalkbeat's BFFs, who caused the rise in scores. Well certainly they say so, and rather than leave it to the reader's imagination, Chalkbeat simply declares, "Charter schools are part of the answer." There can be no question about that, from the Chalkbeat NY point of view. And just to emphasize that, they make sure to quote Eva Moskowitz.

And to make absolutely sure that we get the Gates/ Walmart perspective, Chalkbeat goes to a "nonprofit" they funded, fails to acknowledge said funding, and gets them to wave the flag for the Common Core:

“The Common Core state standards and tests have been unfairly demonized and used to excuse the failures of our education system,” two leaders of the group wrote. “When we truly listen to what teachers, parents and students are saying, we know that high standards, implemented well, enable students to thrive.”

I love that they say "when we truly listen." Evidently, when we hear the powerful and relentless opt-out movement deride the standards as child abuse, we aren't truly listening. The only ones we should truly listen to, evidently, are people who take money from Gates, who funded not only the people who say these words, but Common Core itself.

And the quote is even more ironic in that it's presented in the context of an article that does not bother to listen to, let alone interview, a single affected teacher, parent or student. Further ironic is that the article does not even acknowledge the huge opt-out numbers, surpassing even those of last year, despite NYSED's big push to tamp it down. Further ironic is that opt-out is driven entirely by the teachers, parents and students the Gates/ Walton funded group claims to listen to.

It couldn't be that the tests are apples and oranges, a meaningless waste of ink, paper, and time.  That's impossible, even though the state admits it flat-out:


Though the state admits that outright, it doesn't hesitate to use the narrative of increased test scores to advance its own reformy agenda. Of course Chalkbeat were to simply acknowledge the obvious, as the state pretty much grants, the reformies who drive the narrative in the article would have nothing to babble about.

In fact, non Gates-funded Leonie Haimson points out that we're seeing the same pattern that caused Ravitch to call shenanigans on previous tests--the uptick in scores does not coincide with the more reliable NAEP scores. And the raw scores are different this year. Isn't that a pretty clear answer, rendering the Chalkbeat piece academic at best?

You wouldn't know that if you relied on Chalkbeat for info. It's very sad that we have a potential resource to keep people informed on the education wars, but that it generally can't be bothered to seek out the points of view of even the activist parents who give MaryEllen Elia nightmares about democracy in action. The 22% of students who opted out statewide figure absolutely nowhere in this coverage. Do you suppose they just forgot?

It's pretty sad that a piece bemoans us not truly listening to teachers, parents, and students fails not only to listen to them at all, but also to show the remotest curiosity about them.

That's the question the Daily News asks. After all, the stakes are pretty low, as the state has agreed not to count the results for a few years. This is true for students and in many cases for teacher ratings as well. So what's the big hooplah, the News wants to know. Why don't these goshdarn kids just sit down and take their tests?

That's a much more reasoned approach than that taken over at the Post, where they concoct a ridiculous strawman argument suggesting that parents who opt out are simply petulant, over-privileged, self-serving lunatics who don't want their kids to fail. At the same time, they are helicopter parents making ridiculous demands for their pampered children. Patrick Walsh had a great piece on his blog in response: 

Its always a good sign when shills for those who are systemically attempting to undermine public education, the better to privatize it, are reduced to making public arguments that read like they are written by a person on a six day drunk.

Read the whole piece.  I'll just address the piece at the News, which makes a more reasonable argument. There's actually a pretty reasonable answer, too.

Midterms are usually written by teachers. They’re usually graded and returned to the students, so the students can see how they did and what they may have done wrong. That’s not the case with these tests, whatever the stakes. And if the stakes are so ridiculously low anyway, a better argument might be that they ought to simply be canceled.

A lot of us are labeled as anti-testing, when that's not precisely the case. We are against high-stakes tests that don't really help our children. And while it's true that there is a temporary reduction in the stakes, the tests still don't help our children. I don't know much about these tests, but from what I'm reading, even disregarding the fact that our kids will never get them back or learn anything from them, they don't appear to be of very good quality.

They don't necessarily test what kids need. They aren't necessarily developmentally appropriate. And the notion of kids sitting indefinitely to take these tests appears not so much a concession as an implement of torture. 

But even more important is the fact that we won't be fooled. You can't just tell us, hey, we won't count it for a few years. Please drop your organizing and go away. Maybe that's not what the Daily News editorial board had in mind. But it certainly appears to be what Cuomo had in mind.

And to Governor Cuomo, I have just this to say. We did not just fall off the tomato truck from New Jersey.

And we are not going away.

If you're happy with how things have been going, you can vote for Michael Mulgrew and his gang of 800 loyalty oath signers. You can let them know you love being under a microscope. You can tell them you love being judged by a rubric, and it makes no difference to you whether or not supervisors even understand it. You can tell them it's swell that you can't address supervisory fabrication in observations until and unless you receive an ineffective rating.

You can tell them you're pleased they failed not once, but twice to oppose autocratic billionaire Michael Bloomberg as he bought Gracie mansion. You can pat them on the back for supporting his mayoral control not only at its inception, but also after it was proven to be an abject disaster. You can thank them for not only supporting charter schools, but also for creating and even co-locating them.

You can let UFT Unity and Michael Mulgrew know that you have no problem with their sitting on their hands as Joel Klein established a Leadership Academy and trained a small army of administrators to paint targets on the backs of working teachers. You can tell them you approve of being judged by test scores of students you may or may not even teach. You can let them know that you think it's a great idea to be judged on what Diane Ravitch and the American Statistical Assiciation regard as junk science.

You can pat UFT Unity on the back for having handed you a contract that ushered in second tier due process for ATR teachers, the most vulnerable among us. You can tell them you're pleased to wait until 2020 for the raise that NYPD, FDNY and most city workers got in 2009. You can say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?" as they make teachers on leave wait at least two years to get the small portion of retro pay we received a few months ago.

In fact, you can thank them for their failure to actively support or promote opt-out. You can listen to Mulgrew take credit for the cosmetic changes Cuomo proposed, the ones that were actually inspired by opt-out activists like those in this video, Jia Lee, Lauren Cohen, and Kristin Taylor. You can pretend that Cuomo is afraid of Mulgrew instead of the vibrant grassroots opt-out movement that has tabloids all over the state in a frenzy.

On the other hand, you may wish to support the future, and you may wish to repudiate the reforminess that has infected and degraded not only our profession, but also the education of our children. That's what I'm going to do, and I'm going to do so by voting for not only Jia Lee for UFT President, but also the entire coalition of MORE/ New Action. I'm tired of being told that black is white, that hot is cold, that day is night.

If you are too, you will join me in demanding fundamental change in our union. MORE/ New Action has a slate of hundreds of activists who will stand up for what we know to be right. That's why I'm proud to be running with them. Vote for them, vote for me, and vote for a long-needed new direction in our union, the United Federation of Teachers. 

I don't  know much about the writer of the quote at left. Oddly, I found it on Facebook, posted by the writer himself. I'm wary of people who quote themselves, but I love this sentiment. Look at Andrew Cuomo, with no moral center, doing any damn thing his contributors want. He only rolls it back when his popularity is swirling the bowl, and even then, not nearly enough to change much of anything. NYSUT and UFT leadership appear not to notice, and spend millions of our dues dollars on what appear to be pro-Cuomo commercials.

Thinking teachers and parents are paying close attention, though, and don't buy the "moratorium" nonsense that rolls back just a little bit of the test-based drek that passes for teacher evaluation in New York State. Our kids are still taking the same number of tests, including the ones that now seem to count for nothing whatsoever.

It's surreal that we live in a country where Bill Gates can dictate that test scores dictate the life and death of schools (not to mention the careers of teachers). Yet Gates sends his own kids to schools that aren't subject to his whims and caprices. Reformy folk like Gates, Rhee, King, Obama, Cuomo and Bloomberg opt their kids out of programs they impose by opening their wallets. When we do the same by declining to allow our children to take the tests, it's an outrage. The taxes we pay for our children's schools can be withheld, they say. Our children will suffer, they say, because we didn't conform. That's not taking care of those in their charge.

Of course, the folks above appear interested in taking care of only their own children. Otherwise, why would they impose a system they deem unfit for their own children on our kids? Of course there is hope for our kids. Opt-out is burgeoning in New York State, despite the druthers of test-happy zillionaires and the politicians crawling through their pockets. Parents and teachers aren't blindly accepting this nonsense anymore.

Classrooms don't need to be test-prep factories. Classrooms can be windows of kindness and encouragement in a tough world. A test-obsessed America makes that tougher each and every day. How can you be kind to children when you're gonna lose your job if they fail that test? It's an awkward balancing act, and every thinking teacher I know feels that pressure pretty much every moment.

Despite that, most of the kids know whether or not we care about them. Most of the kids know whether or not we have their interests at heart. It's harder for us, of course, because we're subject to all sorts of external pressures that have little to do with their welfare (not to mention ours). I can't imagine being a new teacher today, and trying not only to learn a very complex job, but concurrently dealing with all the red tape and nonsense that make actually doing the job a near impossible dream.

It's a balancing act, a juggling act, and it's really getting tougher to maneuver every single day. It's too bad we can't just do our jobs, help our students and give them that little bit of guidance they need. It's too bad these kids will lose so many people who could help them due to myopic to outright hostile leadership.

But we stand, we stay, and we care. How we broadcast that message over the Gates-propagated noise machine is just one more issue for us.

In Buffalo, the new state receivership law is being tested. It's an important test, because teachers there are expected to work longer and dump seniority rules. This is in direct conflict with the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law, which states that if a new contract is not negotiated, old contract terms remain. The BTF will have to sue if it wishes to maintain its current contractual terms.

This is not anything Mulgrew didn't know. I watched him tell the Delegate Assembly that this new law, if passed, meant the receivers could pretty much do anything they wished. He told us all that, under receivership, collective bargaining agreements would be null and void.

As of now, the decision about whether to allow the hacks who run Buffalo schools to violate contracts is in the hands of MaryEllen Elia, hardly a voice of reason. Even now, her Gates-funded, budget busting program in Hillsborough is being dismantled. That does not appear to have diminished Elia's enthusiasm for junk science teacher rating. It's hard to imagine she will do the right thing here, but we will soon see.

There are reasons why kids do poorly on tests. Sometimes the tests are inappropriate. If you insist on giving millions of kids the same tests regardless of their background, that's gonna happen. Kids with learning disabilities are different from those without them. Kids who speak English are different from those who don't. And kids with parents who need to work 200 hours a week, each, may need a different sort of attention from those who actually see their parents every now and then.

But Bill Gates has declared he can't deal with poverty or its effects. He has therefore decided to focus only on standardized tests. And because Bill Gates druthers are more important than the needs of millions of American children, that's where we are today. What's truly shocking is that UFT President Michael Mulgrew has not only accepted the premise that kids must be judged by test scores, but that he's also bought into the notion that schools must be judged on them. He's repeatedly told the DA that we are going to fix the Renewal schools and show it can be done. Unfortunately, the only metric for this "fix" is higher test scores. So far, the only way I've seen that raises test scores is choosing which students take the tests. That's not helping kids, and that's not improving education.

Worst of all, Mulgrew actually thanked the Heavy Hearts Assembly for passing the bill that enabled receivership. That is insane, and I find insanity a very poor quality in a leader. That's why I'm glad I have a choice this spring. I've going to vote for Jia Lee, the candidate who is not insane, for President of the United Federation of Teachers.

If you agree with me that it's time to have a President who is not insane, you'll vote for Jia too.

I'm reading Michael Mulgrew's piece in the Daily News and agreeing with much of it, but I find myself confused by the great disparity between his words and actions. I agree, for example, that it will not be possible to Fire to the Top, and that getting rid of teachers will not help our students. Mulgrew gives examples of schools that have had tremendous turnover. I can understand why people don't want to work in these places. In fact, as someone who absolutely loves being a teacher, as someone who hates to say this, I even understand why people don't want to teach at all.

Mulgrew advocates fixing schools that are perceived to be broken. A bigger problem, though, is determining precisely what that fix entails. If, for example, we are judging these schools purely on test scores, it's important we get to the source of the low scores. I'm not sure, from the column, that Mulgrew rejects the notion of failure based on test scores. In fact, Mulgrew helped craft the current APPR system, the one that is making working teachers almost universally miserable. Mulgrew not only accepted test scores as a factor to rate teachers, but went so far as to thank the Heavy Heart Assembly for accepting Andrew Cuomo's plan to exacerbate the situation, a plan the governor wanted specifically so as to fire more teachers. Make no mistake, placing the burden of proof on the teacher at 3020a hearings can and will achieve that goal.

Now Mulgrew seems to think the whole firing teachers thing is problematic. Why, then, did he not lay down the gauntlet when Cuomo turned the heat up on junk science evaluation? In fact, why didn't Mulgrew take a position against Cuomo when Zephyr Teachout opposed him in not one, but two primaries? Come to think of it, why didn't Mulgrew oppose him when he ran the very first time, a Democrat proclaiming he would go after unions? Isn't that fundamentally counter to what we stand for as unionists?

Mulgrew doubles down on the assumption these schools are failing, and prescribes the following:

Customize curriculum and instructional practice. Traditional teaching methods and approaches haven’t worked in these schools. The system has to abandon off-the-shelf curriculum, revamp the training that teachers get and focus on delivering lower class sizes, individualized instruction and curriculum that’s tailored to the students’ current knowledge and skills.

Is this not the same Michael Mulgrew who said he would punch our faces and rub them in the dirt if we tried to take his precious Common Core from him? Does Mulgrew actually assume that it is "teaching methods and approaches," rather than outside factors like poverty, special needs, or lack of English ability that cause low test scores? (To his credit, Mulgrew later asks for wraparound services, which actually may help.)

I also strongly agree with Mulgrew that smaller class sizes are key to delivering better education. But despite the valuable lip service provided here, the only instrument that has regulated class sizes for the thirty years I've been teaching has been the UFT Contract. In all that time, and for decades before, neither Mulgrew nor any of his predecessors has even tried to negotiate down what are, in fact, the largest class sizes in the state of New York. Mulgrew may argue that we went for money instead, but we haven't seen a whole lot of that, and what we will get will be ten years after the overwhelming majority of city workers got it.

Here's the thing--history has established there are many ways to raise test scores. You can cherry pick the students. You can dump those who don't work out. In fact, you can dump entire cohorts, like Geoffrey Canada did, and American Express will still pay you to do commercials. Or, of course, as we're seeing more frequently lately, you can cheat.

As none of those options are available to us, Mulgrew is now blaming others for failures. Mulgrew told the DA he had staked our reputation on turning around these schools. But Mulgrew accepts the reformy criteria for failure and success, i.e., test scores. And that is a crucial error.

It isn't the schools that are failing these children, and it isn't the teachers either. It is the nation, the state, and the city that allows them to grow up in poverty. It is a country that pays starvation wages and makes both parents take multiple jobs to make ends meet. It is a country that allows people to spend so much time working that they neglect their families, a country that allows Americans to suffer and die as a result of not having health insurance. It is a country that takes junk science in lieu of education, and it is union leaders like Michael Mulgrew who not only accept but enable and encourage such nonsense.

These are the issues we need to face if we want our kids to succeed and excel, be your standards reformy or reasonable. This is why I turn down perks and jobs to represent members rather than leaders. This is why I decided to join MORE/ New Action and oppose Mulgrew in the coming election.

This is why I'm a teacher, and this is why I'm staying until they shoot me down with junk science.

9 percent of NYC's public school population is literally homeless, In some schools, the number can run as high as 40%. Governor Cuomo, rather than trouble himself with such trivialities, works tirelessly to demonstrate it's teachers and schools that are failing our children. Of course, being impoverished in a city like New York is far from limited to those who lack a consistent home.

But that issue is being disregarded altogether in favor of fixing the schools and teachers at the root of the more pressing issue, which Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy Hearted Assembly have determined to be low test scores. After all, when you're seething with ambition, indifferent to absolutely everything else, and you've taken millions of dollars from people whose agenda entails squeezing further millions out of those costly public schools, you tend to do what they say.

The city, containing dozens of so-called Renewal Schools, has got to do something about it or have Cuomo take over those schools. That's basically the plan. If de Blasio can't figure out how to get the homeless, the hungry, the tired, the poor, the non-English speaking huddled masses to get better Common Core scores, MaryEllen Elia will get busy and do it herself. It isn't easy to ignore root issues, but she's determined, and she can't wait to turn those money-sucking community schools over to her wealthy and therefore worthy BFFs.

The city plan to deal with test scores directly related to homelessness, learning disabilities, and lack of English entails merit pay, which has not worked anywhere in over 100 years. Perhaps that's why no one's calling it merit pay, but since the entire project revolves around solving the wrong problem anyway the point is moot. Each school will get $27,500 to offer as bonuses to the teachers who will help raise the test scores and save the schools. It doesn't matter if your school has 20 teachers or 200 teachers because that doesn't matter either. The problem is test scores and the solution is $27,5000.

A principal can take that 27K and distribute it among up to three teachers. These lucky duckies will then set about the task of raising the test scores of kids, because that is the only way New York needs to help its children. Once their test scores are higher, they won't mind being homeless anymore. That they have disabilities hindering their ability to read, write, or do math will no longer be of any consequence. And kids who don't speak English will no longer find that an obstacle. (I actually spent several years teaching ESL students how to write formulaic nonsense so they could pass the English Regents exam, without which they couldn't graduate. I'm absolutely certain they would've benefited more from my teaching them English conversation, grammar, usage, and actual writing.)

Would you move to a school facing extinction in order to make an extra $7500? I wouldn't. I don't believe in miracles, and every educational miracle I've seen thus far has entailed either juking the stats, changing the grades, selecting the students, getting rid of those whose scores weren't high enough, or some combination of the above factors. In fact the most recent fantastic charter success I've seen occurred when the staff decided to grade their own state tests, something illegal in public schools.

It's pretty easy to fabricate miracles. It's unconscionable that the United States is so determined to scapegoat communities, schools and teachers in its effort to ignore a basic and fundamental issue affecting our people.

 I was pretty shocked when NY State Regents unanimously nominated MaryEllen Elia to be NY State Commissioner of Education. For one thing, I had heard Michael Mulgrew speak of the great hope he had in the Regents to modify the new and draconian APPR law. Given that, I was surprised they'd select someone with such enthusiasm for testing, junk science, and all things reformy. It makes me really wonder exactly how much interest (if any) the Regents have in doing the right thing.

It's true Elia gave lip service to being a teacher, and to seeing herself as a teacher. But every teacher I know abhors the new system that judges us, now even moreso, on student tests. It's not even a secret anymore that the state takes these tests and manipulates the cut scores so they show whatever it is the state feels like proving that week. The only teachers I know of who support this stuff at all are those in Educators 4 Excellence, you know, the ones who take Gates money just like Elia did in Florida. And while their leaders, Evan Stone and Whoever the Other One Is, were briefly teachers, they aren't anymore.

And that's exactly who Elia went to speak to yesterday. And let's be clear--that is a political statement. If Elia wanted to speak to teachers, she could have tried for an audience with NYSUT or UFT. There's certainly precedent for reformies getting audiences with unions, like Gates addressing the AFT. (When that happened, Randi Weingarten seemed to encourage the troops in ridiculing the protesters. Gates thanked AFT by trashing teacher pensions just days later.)

.@MaryEllenElia says she is a commissioner who will never bash teachers #e4eNY

— Ben Chapman (@NYDNBenChapman) August 20, 2015

That's great to hear. I hate it when politicians, op-eds and editorial boards bash teachers. I'm acutely aware of it because it happens almost every single day. Teachers don't want to be accountable because they object to having their jobs dependent on junk science. Teachers shouldn't talk to one another in teacher lounges. Teacher unions should be punched in the face.

Of course, the clever politicians who bash us often differentiate between teachers and teacher unions. "I would never bash teachers. I love teachers. My mother was a teacher. Yes, I had a mother." They blather on as though only Satanists are in teacher unions, and they only hate Satan. I suppose someone should inform those pols that teachers are in teacher unions, and that when they punch unions in the face they punch us in the face. Of course Elia hasn't yet broadcasted her intention to punch teacher unions in the face. Instead, she came up with this little gem:

.@MaryEllenElia says any teacher who encourages opt-out is unethical #e4eNY

— Ben Chapman (@NYDNBenChapman) August 20, 2015

Now, here's the thing about stereotypes--they are always hurtful, and they are always wrong. It doesn't even matter if they're positive. And make no mistake, Elia's statement is not positive at all. She's calling me and thousands of my brothers and sisters unethical. She's saying Diane Ravitch, Leonie Haimson, Carol Burris, Jeanette Deuterman, Beth Dimino and Jia Lee are promoting evil. And yet it's Elia herself who takes a salary several times that of any working teacher to carry out an agenda based on junk science.

It's Elia who supports giving every child in New York the same test. It doesn't matter to Elia if that results in a developmentally inappropriate curriculum. If the kids have learning disabilities, if they don't speak English, if they're malnourished, if their parents both work 200 hours a week, if they live in rotating shelters, too bad for them. The State has spoken.

Just because you're selective about the group of teachers you bash, you're still a teacher-basher. And with all due respect, I've seen absolutely no evidence that MaryEllen Elia is in any position whatsoever to lecture anyone about ethics.

A young woman writes a piece in the Post expressing outrage that she graduated. After all, she barely attended one of her classes. There was just no way she deserved to pass. But when it comes time to go to college, she's right there.

“I don’t think I did anything bad,” she said.

I don't think so either.  But her own story suggests outrage:

New York City gave me a ­diploma I didn’t deserve.

It may seem odd that I’m speaking up, but it’s only because I’m fully aware I didn’t deserve to pass a course that allowed me to graduate.

You know, it's not like the young woman couldn't have done something about it. She could have read a book, sat for a test, written a paper, or done something to ease her anxiety. Her teacher also spoke to the Post, saying she passed the young woman because she was under enormous pressure. This pressure, though, is nothing particularly new. The teacher is not jumping up and down with pride over this decision:

But if we set the bar higher, we would be a failing school.

That's pretty much the case, from all I see.  And what exactly is a failing school? Well, there are several metrics. One, of course, is the graduation rate. In a perfect world, every student would graduate in four years, without exception. In this world, though, there are all sorts of messy things that get in the way. Maybe the kid doesn't speak English. Maybe the kid has a severe learning disability. Maybe the kid's parents work 200 hours a week, offer no supervision, and the kid has no sense of discipline. Or maybe the kid, like the one in this story, just didn't bother coming to class.

In 2015, all of that is the teacher's fault, and all of that is the school's fault. Never mind that these things occur with great frequency only in high poverty areas with high concentrations of kids with high needs. The NY Post editorial board can't be bothered hearing about such things. Better to blame Carmen Fariña, as though this didn't even exist for the interminable years their BFFs Mikey Bloomberg and Joel Klein ran the city.

Rather than rely mainly on test scores, grades and other clear measures to see if a student is ready to advance, Fariña OK’d “a comprehensive evaluation of student work using multiple measures.”

Actually, NY Post, that was based on state regulations. But don't expect to see them asking Tisch or Cuomo to step down any time soon. But the Post editorial board loves test scores. They'd feed them to our children for breakfast, lunch and dinner given half a chance. The fact that state tests seem to get worse with each passing year is neither here nor there.

Where was the Post's outrage when Bloomberg's scores miraculously went up as the state dumbed down the tests? Did they ask for Klein to step down? Did Post chief Murdoch refrain from giving Klein a megabucks corporate gig on his DOE departure? Did they ask for Bloomberg's resignation? Of course not.

There is an agenda at the Post editorial department, and it has little or nothing to do with ensuring our children get a great education. Murdoch saw, long ago, that there was tons of cash to be made off the backs of our children. Therefore public education is bad, teacher unions are a menace, and anyone who isn't simply trying to crush union must be humiliated at each and every opportunity.

The series of Post stories are open to interpretation. Mine is that teachers and schools ought not to be under such pressure to pass absolutely everyone. We should teach students that there are consequences when they fail to be responsible. It's not Carmen Fariña's fault that there is ridiculous pressure to graduate as many kids as possible. It's not her fault the Heavy Heart Assembly passed an insane bill that will place public schools into receivership. And it's certainly not her fault that there is such ridiculous pressure on school administration that things like this occur.

The Post is already running gleeful articles suggesting this could be the end of mayoral control. I'd be fine with the end of mayoral control, but the Post only wants the end of de Blasio's control. And let's be honest, he hasn't got all that much anyway since Cuomo took Eva's money and forced NYC to foot the rent whenever she feels like expanding her company.

Should we get another reformy mayor, the Post will once again be enamored of mayoral control, and passing kids for no reason will no longer be a problem. The names change, but the agenda remains the same. It's tough keeping a level head with people trying to punch us in the face all the time, but that's still our job.

We'll have to let the crazies do their thing while still striving to keep our eye on what's important. And in case you don't know, that's our kids. One day they will have to work for a living just like us. We need to fight the crazies at least long and strong enough to make that possible.

Thanks to Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy Hearts Assembly, a whole lot of schools in NY State are looking down the barrel of receivership, i.e. state takeover. In a year or two, if Chancellor Fariña and her counterparts can't make test scores and graduation rates go up, Governor Andy and his hedge fund BFFs can turn over school leadership to Eva Moskowitz, or whoever they feel like.

I live right next to Roosevelt, where state takeover has been failing pretty much forever.  But why bother with history when all your programs are based on ignoring not only that, but also research and practice? If poor test scores are invariably aligned with poverty and high needs, why not ignore that utterly and blame the teachers? That's what newly-minted Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has done, blathering some hogwash about how these schools have been failing children for decades.

Here's the thing--there are ways to improve test scores. Eva Moskowitz and her corporate charter counterparts have one. First, you don't take the same kids the public schools do. You make extra steps to gain entrance. You make school a living misery, focused almost solely on tests. Then you get rid of those who don't measure up, and don't bother replacing them. Then you make a lot of noise about "no excuses" and vehemently deny the playing field is rigged.

Another route to school improvement is GW Bush's preferred methodology--the "Texas Miracle." Basically you just cook the books and base a national education program on fraud.  Or you could always erase to the top. We collectively assume programs like GW's and Eva's are models, things to be  admired and replicated. That, in fact, is why my neighbors, schools like Van Buren, Grover Cleveland and John Adams, are facing a very uncertain future.

In the two city schools facing these draconian measures this year, more than half the staff won't be returning. In an agreement with the city, these educators will get jobs elsewhere. I think those who left did a smart thing. They've avoided the ATR, and they've also avoided sitting around in targeted schools with guns to their heads. In fact the principal of Boys and Girls has so little confidence in his own ability to accomplish the turnaround, he took a big old bonus regardless of consequence and made a deal to be able to return to his old school if things go south.

I've heard Mulgrew say at the DA several times that we need to succeed in this venture. I certainly hope we do, but there are issues here that bear our attention. The prime issue is that there is no basis whatsoever to assume we will succeed. We cannot cherry pick, we cannot counsel kids out, and we cannot leave slots open as kids leave. It's particularly absurd to assume we're gonna reverse the trajectory of kids who've been attending school for a decade or more. Moskowitz doesn't just take on high school kids. In fact, the history of "miracles" has to do almost entirely with either outright fraud or using selected kids and comparing them to the population at large.

Until and unless we address poverty, the underlying cause of a whole lot of our problems, that isn't going to change. In a few years, they can fire me as an ESL teacher, but that still won't mean newcomers will arrive speaking perfect English. They can close or take over my school, but that won't mean the severely disabled kids we enroll (unlike Moskowitz and even most public schools) are gonna ace the Physics Regents.

The underlying assumption, that state tests are the only measure of what kids achieve, is ridiculous. For one thing, I'm no genius, and my tests are a whole lot better than state tests. My tests are written by me, in response to the needs of my kids. Conversely, the NYSESLAT, on which I will be rated, is designed to test Common Core skills. My kids need to learn English before they can deal with this nonsense, and the geniuses who run the country have just denied them extra time to do that. Bear in mind that the extra time was still not nearly enough, but better than nothing.

I'm very sorry to say that our schools are being set up for failure. It is an egregious error on the part of the UFT to accept all the false assumptions about our kids and schools and say we're gonna prove them wrong. The way to prove them wrong, in fact, is not to step on their rigged playing field, accept their rules, and hope for the best. We prove them wrong by doing our job, by teaching America.

America needs to learn that we do a whole lot more than prepare kids for tests over which we have no control. America needs to learn that, while MaryEllen Elia may indeed believe life is a big test, she has failed it by making such idiotic pronouncements. America needs to learn that the highly regarded American Statistical Association says that not only do teachers affect test scores by a factor of 1-14%, but that undue focus on test scores actually impedes us from helping kids, the most important thing we do. American needs to learn that the best predictor of college readiness is not the arbitrary crap the geniuses in Albany dream up, but rather teacher-issued grades.

There are, in fact, kids who do poorly on tests who can succeed because they get along well with others. There are some who get excellent test scores but who aren't really very good students.  Life is not, in fact, a test, and we don't spend most of our time figuring out which dot to blacken. Life is messy, people have feelings, emotions, and desires, and teachers who ignore them are not likely to be successful.

It was an egregious error for the Heavy Hearts to agree to Cuomo's draconian plan to fail our public schools. Worse still was UFT President Michael Mulgrew's thank you note for having done so. Whoever wrote that for him should be fired. We're in a very rough place, and we have no one but ourselves to blame.

Staking our reputation on doing what has never been done anywhere is not the wisest thing to do. Enabling the government to shirk its responsibility to the neediest of students is irresponsible on our part. We need to do better, not only for our own sake, but also for the sake of the children we are charged to serve.

You can replace the teachers and principal, but they're not the ones who need help. The kids need help, and they're not, in fact, the ones who are failing. It is us, their caretakers, who are failing, by ignoring their problems, studiously pretending they don't exist, and blaming their teachers and schools. 

There's an interesting point of view in the Daily News. Apparently, the issue with the "Renewal" schools in New York City is that they have an inordinate percentage of "lower quality" teachers. This assumption, of course, is based on the research of reformy Chalkbeat NY, nee Gotham Schools, which finds it noteworthy when E4E can muster 100 signatures on a petition demanding more work for less pay, but can't be bothered to cover a massive demonstration against Cuomo's policies.

First, let's look at the definition of a "lower quality" teachers. This particular person is someone who scores developing or ineffective on a rating system even Andrew Cuomo labels "baloney" (notwithstanding his enthusiastic support for it at its inception).  Unlike Cuomo, those of us who actually believe in science and research called it junk science from the start. That includes people like Diane Ravitch. In fact, even Randi Weingarten, who ran around the country helping to negotiate crap evaluation systems eventually admitted "VAM is a sham."

These systems are all a result of the Gates MET study, a convoluted piece of crap that set out to prove yet another theory emanating from Mr. Gates' fruitful hind quarters--that we need to replicate whatever teachers do in classrooms in which students receive high test grades. This, of course, is the central theory behind reforminess. Public schools, Gates theorizes, are no good because kids don't score well enough on standardized tests.

The fact is, though, that every so-called failing school contains high concentrations of high-needs students. There are kids who live in poverty, kids who have special needs and kids who don't speak English. And please, before some preachy moron gets the notion I'm giving up on those kids, the fact is I spend every day of my working life trying to help those kids. And what my kids need is help learning English, not help passing a test.

I spent a few years teaching ELLs how to pass a test. Some genius in Albany declared that it didn't matter whether or not kids knew English, and in order to graduate high school they needed to pass the English Regents exam anyway. I was drafted. I made kids pass and didn't teach them fundamentals of English language because it wasn't necessary for the test. Kids who passed may have assumed it meant they knew English, but I can assure you they did not. It meant they knew a highly formulaic four paragraph essay good for nothing but that version of the test, and it meant they knew how to look for correct A, B, C, D answers in Regents texts. It meant absolutely nothing more.

I was happy for kids who passed, but I did not fool myself for a moment that it was because I was a great teacher. It was because I made them write until their hands fell off. It was because I made them rewrite everything, no matter how tedious, and it was because I read and critiqued every word they wrote. It was no fun, neither the kids nor I liked it, but they tended to pass the stupid test in higher numbers than they would have without it. Of course their actual writing was no better than before, and they surely failed college writing tests in droves.

Here's the thing--if you are the principal, charged with running a so-called failing school, are you gonna say yes, the school is failing, and all the teachers are excellent. It is therefore an anomaly, a veritable miracle of nature. Are you gonna say the students are no good? Are you gonna tell the truth, that you in fact have high concentrations of high needs kids and there is really nothing you can do about it? Is that gonna get you that desk job at Tweed that will afford you the much-needed time to work on your oragami? Those paper airplanes are not gonna fold themselves, after all.

Of course not. You're gonna observe the teachers and blame them. It's remarkable, in fact, that the negative observations are a mere 20%. Now, you can accept the observation system as the Ten Commandments and assume principals in troubled schools have no self-interest whatsoever.

Or, you can face the actual issue of rampant poverty in NYC and the United States. You can face the fact that non-English speakers tend to settle in cities, where there is work. You can face the fact that most of them cannot, in fact, afford to live in Scarsdale. You can face the fact that the necessity of working 200 hours a week to support one's self and family is not conducive to thoughtful and thorough parenting.

Or, you can accept Bill Gates' formulaic solutions, which are to education as my ELLs' four paragraph compositions are to writing. That is what much of the public does, and that is what many editorials, up to and including those of the NY Times, encourage.

It's on us to get the truth out, and we have our work cut out for us.

Looks like the geniuses at NYSED have done it again. Even after they field test the questions, they still don't work, so they get to erase them. These, of course, are the tests written by Pearson, which are much better than tests you or I could write. After all, the folks at Pearson have never met any of your students, don't know them from a hole in the wall, and are therefore the only people on earth who are qualified to judge them, or you, or whether your schools stay open.

One of the coolest things about the state tests is that they set the cut scores after they grade them. So if John King says 70% of our kids are gonna fail, well, that's just the way it is. If they say you need to answer 50 questions to pass, and too many kids do it, they can say they need 55. Or if not enough kids pass, they can say they need 45, and so on. Nice work if you can get it, and when you can toss out any questions that skew your results the wrong way, your success is fairly assured.

Here's the thing--that's exactly why head ed. Merryl Tisch decided we couldn't grade our students' Regents exams. Some teachers, horror of horrors, were finding kids who scored 64, and finding ways to bump the scores up to 65. What an awful thing to do, when the kid who scored 64 could simply spend another year studying whatever it was he or she missed by one point. Spending an entire year agonizing over one stinking point builds grit, or rigor, or whatever the hell it is that we're supposed to want for our kids.

Now NY State doesn't go scrimping around for one stinking point. NY State determines what results it wants, and manipulates the scores so they prove whatever. Want all the kids to pass so you look like geniuses? Want all the kids to fail so you can give more schools to Moskowitz? Want to have a sudden improvement? Want a crisis? You can get anything you want in Merryl Tisch's restaurant.

Now, since NYSED blatantly twists the scores to do whatever, they kind of assume we will too. I mean, have you known people who lie and cheat and say any damn thing to suit their purposes? In my experience, people like that tend to suspect the worst of others. They're very free with accusations, usually angry ones, that other people behave as they do. So don't take it personally if NYSED doesn't trust you.

They don't trust anyone, since they can't trust themselves. Because they are a bunch of lying manipulative weasels, they assume we are too. The only bad thing is how many people believe it.

We're gonna have to do something about that.

There’s an odd drama being played out in New York State this year. Andrew Cuomo, who awards himself the mantle of student lobbyist, has quite publicly refused to support our children. And we’re not talking chicken feed here. Under the CFE lawsuit, Andy Cuomo owes our kids 5.5 billion dollars. In fact, he owes the city alone 2.5 billion. Of course, there was a crisis, and he couldn’t pay for a while, but now that it’s over, where’s the money?

Not only won’t Cuomo pay what he owes, but he’s set preconditions for giving kids even a sliver. In fact, he wants to take power away from the communities he owes and award it to himself. I shudder to imagine what Judge Judy would say to someone who failed to pay child support for years and demanded not only primary custody, but also the right to dictate parenting techniques.

Instead of paying his debts, Andrew Cuomo demands more state testing to rate teachers. This is odd, because studies show that school grades, not standardized test grades, are a better predictor of student success. That doesn’t work for Cuomo, because he can’t control school grades. When the state sets cut scores, it can make it look like 90% of our kids are geniuses or 70% are failing. The governor can either say he’s doing a fabulous job and take credit, or that we’re in crisis and assign blame. Its a win-win as far as he’s concerned.

Cuomo also wants to take control of negotiating contracts away from local school boards and offer some kind of merit pay system, basing teacher pay on the very test scores he will be manipulating. Merit pay has been kicking around for a hundred years and has never worked anywhere. It’s even more absurd when we base it on test scores based on the druthers of Andrew M. Cuomo. Personally, I’d argue that any teacher holding back the good stuff waiting on merit pay merits immediate dismissal, with prejudice.

The governor further demands that communities relinquish almost all local decision making regarding teacher ratings. Under his proposal, 50% of a teacher’s rating will be based on classroom observation. But the people communities choose to run their schools will only get input on 15 out of those 50 points. Thus, Deadbeat Andy will have control over 85% of teacher ratings, while communities are left with largely irrelevant scraps.

Perhaps worst of all, Cuomo wants to place troubled schools into receivership, taking control over schools he determines to be failing. Would they be doing better if the governor paid them the millions he owes them? Could that money be used to address the special needs of these children? Governor Cuomo doesn’t care. He knows better.  Yet those of us who’ve watched NY state work its magic in Roosevelt have abundant reason for skepticism.

Cuomo attacks our Long Island schools, largely regarded as excellent, because it’s the epicenter of the opt-out movement, loudly questioning his beloved tests. But the fact is all schools could do better if Governor Cuomo lived up to his obligations. Suburban communities face the triple whammy of the Gap Elimination Adjustment, Cuomo’s punitive tax cap, and his stubborn unwillingness to fork over what he owes us.

It’s time for this deadbeat to pay up or shut up. If Governor Cuomo can’t be bothered following court orders to support our kids, he’s no student lobbyist. In this country, in 2015, deadbeat dads don’t get to make the rules. 

It's hard to be an optimist when the UFT seems an immovable object.  Indeed, leadership practices a self-professed, peculiar form of parliamentarian rule that seems to negate democracy.  It justifies 800 people voting as leadership dictates instead of heeding the rank and file, the ones whose dues pay their salaries.

Still, I think the U.F.T. is a moving object, albeit very slowly.  To some, it may change with all the speed of natural erosion, painfully slow.  Given its traditional focus on business unionism, it sometimes seems to take the side of business-oriented principles over that of its constituency.  I could mention UFT charters and ties with highly suspect persons or foundations as a starter.

I regularly follow the news at ctunet.com, the website of the Chicago Teachers Union, as well uft.org, the website of the United Federation of Teachers.  It seems my UFT is in a race.  They just always seem behind.  At times, the UFT seems to stop or stall.  At other times, it picks up the pace.  Sometimes, it changes course.  Yet, it is always behind.  And, I watch and wait and wonder when it will finally catch up on one issue, perhaps, while falling further behind on others.  

Both unions are busy staving off attacks from politicians funded by corporate-minded businessmen, showering millions into campaign donations as they promote the destruction of public education.  In Chicago, the arch enemy is Mayor Rahm Emanuel, now fighting to maintain his power in the face of a powerful challenge by Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.  The CTU is stoutly behind Garcia.  In NY, Governor Andrew Cuomo is now the arch enemy.  Backed by the 1%ers, he has made it his personal crusade to destroy the "public-school monopoly."  It seems that by failing to do enough to try to stop him, we enabled him and with a vengeance.




Both the CTU and UFT sites favor fairer funding for our public schools.  The UFT has a great link to a site which will inform you just how much money your school has lost through the Governor's reluctance to abide by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity's school-funding lawsuit.  There's not much here that is not also a concern of the CTU.



Both sites share concerns over class sizes.  Here is a link to the CTU's discussion of the issue.  Here is a link to the UFT's tax proposal to help reduce class size.

At faculty conferences, we hear dire projections of more students due to crowd our already overcrowded floors next year.  When I consider that an arbitrator's solution to the problem this year was excusing teachers of over-sized classes (34+ at the high-school level) from a period of  professional duty, I am severely dismayed.  The remedy shows a tragic misunderstanding of the nature of the problem and it bodes badly for the future.  It seemed the UFT could fight a hell of a lot harder to relieve students and teachers of overcrowded learning environments.



Despite the similar predicaments which indeed affect public schools across the nation, there are key differences between the CTU and the UFT.  Since CORE gained control of the CTU, the union became far more active in issues of social justice and political action.  In addition, the CTU is far more active in attacking the crippling testing regime.  On March 6th, the CTU had two pieces on the opt-out movement.  Here is a sign from their site:




The UFT now has its own version of a testing resolution.  Whereas Sterling Roberson seemed to originally state teachers need testing as "tools to help drive instruction," the resolution states assessments must be a "servant to curriculum."  Mulgrew indicated at the D.A. his belief that parents desire regular testing.  (These are not the same parents who move in my circles.)

So, the UFT supports annual exams administered for diagnostic purposes only.  The resolution applauds standards--which, in my mind, implies support for the Common Core.  (The U.S. Chamber of Commerce must be loving them.)  The resolution further applauds multiple measures of evaluation.  It affirms parents' rights to opt out their children from exams.  It affirms that the power of Pearson must be curbed.

The CTU always seems several steps in advance of the UFT.  The Common Core will ultimately be doomed, perhaps, even as the UFT clings to it.  The national standards are intensely unpopular with those who are not paid endorsers.  The question of it constitutionality may be one of its lesser worries.

Last year, while the UFT (at the AFT) worried about bathwater--which the baby wasn't even able to get in, the CTU passed a resolution clearly in opposition to the Core:

"that enjoins the city’s educators to growing national opposition to the Common Core State Standards, saying the assessments disrupt student learning and consume tremendous amounts of time and resources for test preparation and administration"

Both the CTU and the UFT recognize we are at war with those who would destroy public education.  The UFT in the past month has taken great strides in mobilizing its membership through twitter campaigns, public forums and petitions.  They have organized a week of action, culminating in teachers joining with the community in human chains about their buildings.

Chicago, given the leadership of Karen Lewis, has taken far more serious actions in mobilizing its membership.  The difference probably goes in part to the  different situations faced by the two cities and the fact that UFT-Unity practices business unionism.  CTU, under the leadership of CORE, is far more versatile.  Instead of telling us that our communities want more Common-Core tests, they join with the community to overturn the system.

I am guessing some day my UFT will catch up on the issue of the Core, but by then there will be new issues, and we may, once again, lag behind.  It is only when your views truly reflect the views of the People that you can truly catch up.  Then you have the right pulse.  Then, you stand side by side, arm in arm with "People Power."

I was pretty surprised, after having sat through the convoluted explanation of why parents love testing at the DA, that UFT leadership would muster the temerity to pass something resembling a resolution on testing. I went to a seminar on testing this week, and I can tell you the room was not feeling the love for it. There is, of course, AFT President Randi Weingarten's position that she does not oppose testing, but rather the high stakes opposed to it. That sounds good, until you realize they are more or less inseparable and that the position is therefore meaningless. That's precisely the sense I get from the UFT resolution.

In particular, there is this line:

RESOLVED, that the UFT affirms its support of standards and its support of multiple measures to assess student progress, evaluate teachers and gauge the success of schools; 

I mean, what does that say? First of all, as for standards, it says that Mike Mulgrew will still punch you in the face and push you in the dirt if you lay a stinking hand on his Common Core. We know those are the standards he supports, and despite his sarcastic talk about Bill Gates and flying saucers, we know in fact that hundreds of millions of Gates dollars are behind it. When is Mulgrew gonna wake up and realize Gates is not our friend? When is he gonna empathize with the children labeled as failing due to developmentally inappropriate nonsense? 

What are multiple measures? They are in fact, the use of VAM, student test scores to evaluate teachers. The American Statistical Association estimates teachers move test scores from 1 to 14%. Mulgrew openly admits he doesn't understand these formulas, and I wish he'd openly admit about more things he doesn't understand. I don't understand why he went to Albany and helped negotiate a law that made test scores part of our assessment. I don't understand why he never considered the absurdity of music teachers being judged by English tests, whether or not they happen to be students taught by said music teachers. 

And this resolution clearly affirms support for evaluating teachers on such measures. Though Randi Weingarten has openly said, "VAM is a sham," nowhere in this resolution is it repudiated. The original resolution sought to "eliminate high stakes testing." That's pretty clear. UFT says they shouldn't be used to much, we maybe ought to do some other stuff, that we ought not to increase the weight of standardized testing, and so forth. 

Parents are sharp. Parents know all about these tests. They know that the state sets the cut scores and makes them look any damn way they please. Parents remember when the test scores were inflated, when every New York child was above average, when the New York Times reported the tests were dumbed down a full year after Diane Ravitch noticed it. She was right then and she's right now. Kids are overtested, VAM is junk science, and it's ridiculous to condemn schools full of high needs kids as failing simply because they don't get great test scores. It's particularly ridiculous with the Common Core tests, expressly designed to make our public schools appear to be failing. 

Personally, I find the following particularly offensive:

WHEREAS, setting standards is also a natural and appropriate part of education, as without them, students who may be struggling - such as English language learners, students from high-poverty neighborhoods or students with special needs - can fall through the cracks;

These are precisely the students whose schools we've sat by and watched as they close. These are the kids with whom I work every day. The tests they take are inappropriate, have been so for years, and are only getting worse. From what I hear, the placement tests are beginning to resemble Common Core tests. ESL students have particular needs that are not being met. The best tests my kids take are the one I write. It's not because I'm a brilliant writer of tests, it's simply because I see these kids every day, and base the tests on what they really need to learn. I write on each test how much each answer is worth. I grade it by the set rules, and usually give it back the next day. We go over it in class, and kids can say where they need to improve and how to do it.

That's a whole lot different from some test for which you sit hours, never get back, never see what you got wrong, and never even know whether or not the questions are just practice for Pearson. What stand is UFT leadership instructing the loyalty oath signers to approve here?

I'm not really sure. They've been concurrently for and against so many things for so long I just can't tell anymore.

The facts and formulas we instill in kids are secondary in importance to the manifold other purposes of public education.  We need individuals who can think outside a test bubble.  This has traditionally defined our greatness.

When it comes right down to it, most of us probably remember only a small fraction of what we learned in school.  Yet, we succeed in life because we are able to think creatively and confront positively the problems that appear in life.  These are the problems that you will never find on a test.

I judge my education a success because I gained a love for learning which propels me past the confines of my college and graduate-school years.  I do not deed my learning over to classrooms or workshops for PD credit.  I motivate myself to learn and my students and children further motivate me to self-educate.

In school and at home, I gained confidence in my ability to address new problems.  If the Common Core had repeatedly smacked me down and branded me as a failure, I might have started off with the supposition that I cannot do it.  It might have caused irreversible harm.  How many children are suffering harm today?

We need something more than good test takers.  We need good citizens.  We need emotionally and intellectually healthy people as threads in the fabric of our society.  We don't need beaten-down masses labeled as failures by a test-crazed, self-appointed set of reformers.  We need individuals inspired to achieve their very best.  We need to teach the principles that encourage kids to love learning--and it may not be the same principles for all kids.

We don't need a "common core" to kill individual initiative in the name of standardization.  Greatness is rarely, if ever, achieved in any nation when it becomes set in its ways.  And, we certainly don't need Common-Core testamania to promote incessant prep and then punish students and their teachers.  Maybe what the ed. "reformers" really need to do is re-form their own thinking.

Last June, my eyes popped wide and I snapped this picture outside my Regents' grading site.  Students' regents exams were sitting exposed to all in an open vehicle.  It struck me as odd and unsafe at the time.  I didn't think and I still don't think that anyone would steal exams.  It would have to be one desperate criminal.  First, there's no money to be made in it; two, the boxes are very heavy and, three, it surely, in some ways, constitutes a crime against humanity.  I suppose some unschooled crook might have supposed the box to be filled by unmarked bills, but I think it is far more likely that the boxes were lost through carelessness, rather than crime.  My vague sense of foreboding about the situation, unfortunately, turned out to be correct.

The New York Post recently published a piece entitled, "127 students must retake Regents after city loses their exams."  One could not help but feel for the kids at Thomas Edison Career and Technical Education HS, Community Leadership, Hillside Arts and Letters Academy and Jamaica Gateway, all in Jamaica, Queens.  I suppose some people view these students as statistics, but each has his or her own story of hardship.  And, I feel like anyone of them could be my student or my child someday.

Tests have been lost before, but only recently has the situation worsened.   In 2012, seventeen exams from FDR HS in Brooklyn were lost.  Last year, seventy-five tests from Chelsea Career and Technical Education HS supposedly fell off a truck and vaporized.  I have no idea of the statistics before that date, but I would bet the number of lost tests was very low.

It's sad that as "reformers" try to punish teachers, they also punish students.  "Reformers" tie NY teachers evaluations to student test scores.  Then, they craft impossible tests with devilish cutscores.  They observe academic chicanery--which I suspect comes top-down in schools that experience desperate situations, fear of closure under Mayor Bloomberg, and  administrators with sub-standard morals.  So, now, no teacher can be trusted to grade any exams from his or her own school.  Teachers must shuttle themselves around the City as their students' tests are shuttled in an opposite direction.  Teachers often wait in the beginning at their grading sites for tests to catch up with them.  Precious time is lost.

For the twenty years or so that tests were graded in my school, to the best of my recollection, only one exam was lost.  We ran down the hall to the proctors' room.  We searched the garbage cans.  We searched the bathrooms.  We interviewed the proctor.  We called the student, realizing if she had taken the test with her, it must be invalidated, but we could call off our search.  We turned everything upside down again and again.  In those days, teachers often stayed late to help their school community in a time of need.  (Now, we grade on foreign turf and there is a clear division of labor between those who do the official sorting and those who are trusted only to grade exams from schools other than their own).  The poor girl had to retake the Regents.  Happily, she passed.

The test had not vaporized, however.  Months later, it resurfaced.  While checking a class set of scantrons, a teacher jammed the machine.  The screwdriver was brought in and the lid removed.  Lo and behold, there was the missing Regents scantron crumpled up and buried in the recesses of the machine.  The necessary paperwork was completed.  The mystery was solved.  The case was closed.

So, how can we prevent more tests from being lost in the future?  In my mind, the solution would be to give students reasonable tests and detach student scores from teacher evaluations.   But, alas, that solution would show too much respect for teachers and make too much sense in an era when the teacher has a necessary role to play in educational "reform," that of the scapegoat.  

In all the discussion of higher standards, I doubt the "reformers" have given much consideration to the complexities of motivation.

Some "reformers" seem to think that students who fail will seize the day.  They will harness their inner grit, work harder than ever and power their way to success.  Some may.  Most will not.  Many will wonder what is the purpose of trying.  Many will grow resentful.  Some will shut down their young minds.  These tests and the people who make them do a disservice to humanity.

I learned my first year on the job that a classroom test which fails nearly everybody represents a failure on the part of the teacher who created the test.  Teachers must deal in realities, meet students where they are and try to raise them up.  It is no good to aim far over students' heads to try to smugly prove one's own "smarts."  When NY State sets cut scores to fail 70% of its 2013 Common-Core test takers, the State turned a blind eye to reality and, itself, failed.

Some reformers seem to think that everything meaningful must be measured under conditions of time-pressure.  They think students will be motivated to show off their best stuff.  But, many kids can't sit for that long, let alone, for six days of testing.  They have young minds that wander and sometimes their legs need to do so, also.  Words and numbers may swim on the page.  Kids may over think some questions and tune out others.  They may grow nervous, agitated, fidgety and uncomfortable.  The classroom teacher best understands a child's academic strengths and weaknesses, not a cold, cruel and calculating standardized test.  These tests and the people who make them do a disservice to humanity.

Some "reformers" think that students will be motivated by the promise of becoming "college and career ready."  With the price of college and the lack of meaningful careers, however, the promise may prove false.  Reformers tout their own definition of success, measured primarily in terms of test points and, ultimately, salary figures.  It fails to motivate me.  I don't deal in their definitions, nor do most of the people I know.  To do so would be a disservice to humanity.

Thank goodness we have great thinkers like Merryl Tisch working for us. If it weren't for her, teachers would still be grading Regents exams of their own students. Back in the bad old days, that would translate into rampant corruption. Sometimes, in fact, a bunch of evil teachers would look at a grade of 64 and try to find ways to make it a 65.

Obviously that's unacceptable. It's vital that any kid with a grade of 64 be forced to go to summer school, or take another year of that course, or whatever it takes to learn that this is a rigorous world. Because this world is not about curiosity or joy, but rather rigor and grit (unless your father is Andrew Cuomo, Bill Gates, Barack Obama or John King, but that's another story). In public schools, we let kids know life is filled with tedium and unnecessary nonsense. Otherwise, how will we persuade people to make careers at Walmart?

Since Merryl Tisch has determined that public school teachers are a bunch of lowlife animals, unworthy of the public trust, we can't allow their favoritism to sully our practice of giving kids grades of 64. We've placed incredible pressure on teachers to have their kids pass tests, and it's important that we preclude their giving any comfort or aid to the kids they work with. Again, it's kibbles and bits. Or rigor and grit. Or something we need to teach the kids who don't go to Montessori schools, like John King's kids.

In NYC, we've taken this thinking to a whole new level. One year, we took all the papers to Connecticut or someplace, and teachers couldn't even touch the physical papers. Unfortunately, some of them fell off the truck or something before we could scan them. I guess that meant more rigor and bits for the kids who just had to take the test again.

Now it's different. Before, city teachers would sit and grade papers. Now, they travel to other schools and do it. But for some reason, it just doesn't get done on school time. Therefore we now pay teachers to grade the papers of kids from other schools. How much? Who knows? But friends tell me they're offered all sorts of extra hours to do what used to get done on school time.

I get emails from the DOE offering me hours if I'll go grade English Regents exams. I don't do it because I'm not at all interested in reading papers of strangers. But a lot of people need the money and they have no problem getting enough people to do it. Is that a good use of taxpayer money?

I'm a taxpayer, and I don't think so. Why should we pay extra just to make sure more kids fail?

I'm really curious why not one education writer has even noticed this. It would make a great story if some enterprising writer could find out how much extra money the city pays in per-session in order to maintain this idiotic policy.

But I guess with Campbell Brown out attacking tenure as the civil rights issue of our time, there just isn't enough space.