So goes the rallying cry for the US of A. Students are failing tests, and the only possible value a human could have is measured on said tests. Whose fault? Well, it can't be the fault of the tests. After all, they're composed by experts, and we paid a lot of money for them. They must be the very best tests money can buy.

It can't possibly be poverty. Bill Gates has already decided that poverty is too complex to address, and if Bill's given up on it, we have to show him respect and give up on it too. It must be coincidence that students in Roslyn all do well on the tests and students in the Bronx don't. Sure, there is a correlation with high income and high test scores, and sure, this is true all over the country. But if Bill Gates says poverty is impossible to fix, he should know. After all, Bill has tried to fix many things in education and has succeeded in none whatsoever. So if there's a person who knows about not fixing things, it's Bill Gates.

It couldn't be homelessness. After all, only ten percent of NYC's students are homeless. We've already decided we aren't dealing with poverty. The fact is, these people likely wouldn't be homeless if they had the money to rent or buy a home. Obviously, poverty involves a similar lack of funds. Once we start to get these people homes we'll be addressing poverty. Bill Gates has already declared that off limits, and he must know something. Otherwise, why would he have all that money? So let's cross homelessness off our list.

It couldn't be lack of health care. After all, poor people in the United States should be used to not having health care by now. In fact, if Trump has his way, there'll be tens of millions more without it. So health care must not have anything to do with it. After all, it's all about grit. If you have grit you won't miss school. You'll hitch or crawl and do whatever's necessary to get to school and take that test. When Donald Trump was a kid, his chauffeur had to drive him 20 miles to school every day, and it didn't matter if there were two inches of snow on the ground.

In fact I'm sure it isn't health care. Otherwise, why would a children's health care program be in imminent danger? The important thing, according to the honorable members of Congress, is to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20%. Also, gazillionaires really need a substantive tax break. So what if the children have to medicate themselves with Robitussion and there are massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid? Because priorities.

It must be those lazy shiftless teachers and their unions working once again to subvert the test scores of our most vulnerable children. All they care about is themselves. Surely that's why Congress wants to kill the tax deduction for supplies. If they really cared about the children, they'd pay for supplies out of their pockets. After all, golf vacations at Trump properties don't grow on trees, and we have to save a whole lot of money to pay for them every single weekend.

No we have to place the blame where it's due. Thank goodness the GOP blocked the Democratic nomination for Supreme Court and changed the rules to push their guy through. Soon we can Right to Work the whole country, deprive unions of funds, and pay teachers the same as McDonald's fry cooks. They can have the same benefits too.

Because in the US of A, that's how we put children first.

The Washington Post interviewed both major candidates about education, and I'm not jumping up and down about either. Trump simply offered a statement about school choice, meaning charters, vouchers, and pretty much anything that doubles down against unionized public schools. Hillary is more nuanced, but not precisely encouraging. For one thing, it's disappointing she isn't still shunning spawn of Satan Rahm Emanuel. But let's look at the issues.

Testing:

A lot of us don't believe in high-stakes testing, particularly since they tend to shed light on nothing but which zip code students come from. Here's what Hillary says:

To me, the solution is better, fewer, and fairer tests.  The bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act was a step in the right direction. By providing funding to states and school districts to audit their testing systems and reduce unnecessary and duplicative tests, the legislation can help us find the right balance on testing.

It's not a bad answer, but it's not a strong one either. This is the same rhetoric we always get from testing apologists, and it really rules out nothing whatsoever. We're always hearing about how there's less testing, about how tests take less time, even when they're untimed. It really makes no difference what the truth of the matter is. That's not a strong statement, but rather a middle-of-the-road thing that makes it hard to disagree. But where's the beef?

Common Core:

When states came together on Common Core, I thought that was a laudable effort. But, like many Americans, I have concerns about how the Common Core has been implemented.

This is sorely disappointing. This is the same boilerplate excuse we get from virtually every CCSS supporter. It's like an executioner stating the process would work much better if only the guillotine were better oiled. Hillary sent Chelsea to the same elite school Obama sent his girls to. It utilizes none of the nonsense that CCSS inflicts on our children. Close reading is discredited nonsense, and if it isn't good enough for Hillary's kid, it's not good enough for yours either.

Charter schools:

Quality public charter schools can provide parents with real choices for their children. In fact, many of the country’s best public charter schools are opening doors to opportunity for disadvantaged students. That’s why I have long been a strong supporter of public charter schools and an unflinching advocate for traditional public schools.

She supports them, in case that is not clear. And she uses the ridiculous term "public" charter schools even though the only actual part of them that's public is the funding. You won't see Hillary making a fuss when Eva Moskowitz decides rules that dictate funding are too inconvenient for her. And the distinction between non-profit and for-profit charters, while it may mean something somewhere, doesn't prevent the likes of Moskowitz from paying herself half a million per annum.

Teacher evaluation:

The Every Students Succeeds Act provides a great framework for supporting educators. And specifically on the issue of evaluations, the law helps us move in the right direction by providing states the flexibility to design holistic accountability systems.  That moves us closer to ensuring every student has a supported and effective teacher in the classroom.

What does that even mean? The question specifically asked whether or not she was for VAM junk science evaluation of teachers. There is no yes, no no, and for my money, no answer. Perhaps she's saying she's glad there are alternatives. Still, I want to know whether or not the next President of the United States supports junk science.

Poverty:

...schools alone can’t overcome the crisis of children living in poverty.  This is something we all need to come together to address as a country.  Because the truest measure of any society is how care for our kids. 

I like this answer. It's her best, for my money. But if she believes that, why won't she stand up and say we have to stop evaluating teachers with junk science? Now I'm going to vote for Hillary, but with very little enthusiasm. This is because the alternative is Donald Trump, and I think he need be as widely repudiated as possible.

When she is President, we will need to speak as loudly and directly as we can. We will need to move Hillary Clinton away from these weasel positions and demand she support us. Make no mistake, anyone who supports children must also support their teachers. We are their role models, and I don't go to work every day to model being a victim. We must also demand that our union leadership speak up for those of us on the ground.

I don't have great expectations of President Hillary Clinton. But I think together we have the potential to cajole, push, move or force her toward sanity.

That's one in eight. It's not at all surprising because minimum wage workers can't afford to live here. If we raise the wage to $15, they still won't be able to afford it.

And still, reformies of all stripes get all agitated about how what we need is to fire the teachers, to establish charters, to give school "choice." Jesus, what about the choice to have a home? Isn't that just a little more fundamental than whether or not $500K-per-annum Eva Moskowitz gets to open up another charter school, or whether or not the city has to pay for it?

Nonetheless, every week there's another story about some study Eva's BFFs, the so-called Families for Excellent Schools, have done that proves that either City Schools Suck, Bill de Blasio Sucks, or ideally both. Where are our values?

I don't personally believe that standardized test scores are an indicator of much beyond family income. I don't think it's a coincidence that NY State took over the schools in Roosevelt but left Great Neck alone. But even if I did believe such a thing, there is no way I would prioritize test scores over living conditions. Self-proclaimed education guru Bill Gates has declared the way to defeat world poverty is for poor people to raise chickens.  Well, that's not an option if you live in Queens or the Bronx. Neighbors can be picky about having chickens running around in apartment buildings.

The fact is all schools targeted for closings contain high percentages of impoverished children. They contain high percentages of students with special needs. As long as we keep funneling children with proactive parents into charters, as long as we allow them to maintain and follow up on "got to go" lists, and as long as we allow them to dump kids back into public schools without replacing them we won't have any real "choice."

Sorry, reformies. If you gave a crap about children you'd stop attacking those of use who've dedicated our lives to serving them. You'd stop dragging them and their parents to Albany to maintain the substandard jobs you offer those who can't get UFT jobs. You'd fight to get kids out of poverty rather than putting your millions behind smoke and mirrors. You'd fight to make sure children had a future with middle class jobs rather than attacking teaching, one of their very best options.

You cannot ignore the fundamentals and make progress. One out of eight of our kids is homeless. That's not even considering the working poor, struggling to get by. Do you seriously think that parents working multiple jobs have time for parenting? Do you seriously think that homeless and overworked parents have the time to examine, apply for, and do the extra work hours charters can demand?

It costs $500 for an Epipen this year.  That's a 400% hike from what it was in 2008. Do homeless kids even know they need one? Have they signed the paperwork to help get one, if such paperwork is even available? I don't know, but I am certain that homelessness is a thing, that poverty is a thing, and that as long as we keep our head in the sand and worry about how many Moskowitz Academies we can open, or how many meaningless tests kids can pass, we're way off the mark in our priorities.

I read with interest a Daily News editorial rating Bill de Blasio on education. They say the graduation rate is inching up, and paint that as a legacy of Bloomberg. But Bloomberg controlled the city schools for twelve long, long years and despite his uber-reforminess they are not perfect. Of course it's hard to achieve perfection when people are not perfect. Bloomberg was certainly not perfect, or he wouldn't have bought himself a third term. But as a self-serving, self-important megalomaniac with billions of dollars, he had little choice.

The problem is, under Bloomberg and the geniuses who reside in the Ivory Towers of Albany, our students had little choice too. I remember when special education students could take RCT exams instead of Regents exams. I remember when ESL students were exempt from taking an English Regents exam specifically designed for English speakers. In fact, I'm so old that I remember an English Regents exam that expected me not only to have a knowledge of English and American literature, but also to understand English spelling. Spelling is incredibly illogical in English, but fortunately so am I. Personally, I've found the newer versions of the Regents exams to be not only more and more tedious, but also less and less challenging.

The Daily News looks at the graduation rate as something important, and I don't disagree. But now that we fail to differentiate (funny how teachers are expected to differentiate in classes but there's no such thing in assessment), it's tough for a lot of kids to pass required tests. I teach newcomers, and any reasonable educator would give them an alternate mode of graduation. The state's notion that we can replace English instruction with Common Core-laced subject classes via Part 154 is blatantly idiotic, and will result in even fewer ELLs graduating on time. Of course, this is the price you pay for stacking the Regents with people who are utterly ignorant of language acquisition. I'm sure that they don't bother making allowances for other special needs either.

The News, like most Americans, doesn't bother to question the one-size-fits-all reformy agenda. Most politicians are right there agreeing with them. Now here's the thing. There is nothing wrong with our schools. There is nothing wrong with our teachers. Sure, they aren't perfect. But the fact is every so-called failing school, without exception, has a high percentage of high-needs kids. To assume, because these schools get lower test grades, that they are not as good as schools full of affluent students is simply idiotic. And when I read editorials (not the one to which I linked) saying that poor-scoring schools have poor teachers, I'm also amazed. It doesn't take a genius to know that some kids score higher on standardized tests than others, or that income is among the best predictors of who those kids will be.

That, of course, is why the Moskowitz Academies need a "got to go" list. That is why Geoffrey Canada had to dismiss entire cohorts from his charter school. That's why the charters who boast of their 100% college enrollment rates forget to tell us that they've managed to lose 30-60% of the kids with which they started. Where are the ones that left? Surely in the same public schools being vilified for being so miserable.

Here's an idea. Instead of going on about how the schools suck, why don't we do something about the fact that 23% of our children live in poverty? Why don't we raise taxes on folks like Michael Bloomberg and actually help these kids? Because I'll tell you something--when you're hungry, when your house is cold,  when your parents can't afford to take time off from their multiple jobs, when parents have no time for their kids, when you have no health benefits or care, standardized tests become a whole hell of a lot less important.

That's why Bloomberg made no difference (though I don't recall the News or any paper holding him to task over that), and that's why, as long as de Blasio accepts reformy premises, he won't make a whole lot of difference either.

For years I've felt the NYT has provided us with the very worst education reporting in NY. There have been exceptions, like Michael Winerip, but in general they seem way too highfalutin' to bother with what's actually happening in NY. I first noticed this years ago, when some genius reporter criticized us for the February break, saying the city didn't want it. Actually the city wanted non-attendance days for kids and us in school, and had the reporter bothered to speak with a single teacher to prepare his article, he'd have known that.

Occasionally, though, there's a ray of sunlight in the morass of nonsense and reforminess. In fact, this particular ray of sunlight focuses on a truth many teachers know--that it is income and not teacher quality that is a general predictor of standardized test scores. Not only that, but the gap has widened considerably since Ronald Reagan became union-buster in chief. In fact, this disparity affects not only test scores:

These widening disparities are not confined to academic outcomes: new research by the Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam and his colleagues shows that the rich-poor gaps in student participation in sports, extracurricular activities, volunteer work and church attendance have grown sharply as well.

So if we're really serious about helping kids, perhaps we ought to address poverty and income disparity. Maybe we should, you know, help struggling families rather than just spouting the same old reformy talking points. Maybe the fact that, after decades of reforminess, we still have all these so-called failing schools indicates that we ought to try something new. Instead, we hire MaryEllen Elia, who walks around pretending to listen to people and promises more of the same anyway.

On the other hand, there's this article marveling at the impending teacher shortage. They're looking everywhere, they're taking anyone, they're lowering standards and you don't even have to bother with credentials, you know, like a degree. Learn as you earn. Who cares?

It is mind-boggling to me that a reporter for the paper of record fails to account for the reforminess that's led to an unprecedented attack on teachers. I see this ignorance amplified over at Eduwonk. Nothing to see here, it's the economy. All this reformy stuff we're doing has no effect whatsoever.

They're wrong, of course. Teachers are being judged by test scores. There is no reliable research to suggest that standardized test scores reflect teacher quality. In fact, the American Statistical Association suggests teachers have precious little to do with these scores. But what's a reformy to do? Bill Gates has invested a gazillion dollars in a Measures of Effective Teaching study. UFT leadership supported it, told us how important our participation was, but its result was a nation of teachers judged by junk science.

There are few things I find more inspiring than seeing my former students become teachers. One of them is now teaching math in my school, and I could not be prouder. I love this job and it's brought me great gratification. I can't promise, though, that it will be the same for my students. We're on the third new evaluation program in three years, and I see no evidence of improvement. Teacher morale is the lowest I've seen in 30 years, bar none.

We are regularly trashed in the media. NYT's Frank Bruni likens us to pigs at a trough as his BFF Campbell Brown attacks our tenure. (In fairness, Bruni's job entails coming up with 800 words not once, but TWICE a week, so who can find time to do fundamental research?) SCOTUS is now looking to break our union.

We are standing against a wall with targets on our backs. The ignorance of professional reporters who don't know that is simply mind-boggling. If they're purposely wearing blinders, that's even worse. Either way, it is them, not us, who are incompetent.

Of course, it's easier to forget about the truth and blame teachers. Bill Gates said poverty was too tough to deal with, so he, along with the happy NYT reporter, ignores it and goes on his merry way. And you can't fire parents or children, so why not just blame the teachers and whistle a happy tune?

This is the new paradigm in education. We need to change it. And if leadership just keeps going along to get along, we need to change them too.

It's fascinating to read about NY State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and her listening tour. "Fix your schools or I will," sayeth she. There are a whole bunch of schools on the list. In Long Island, where I live, there are several districts facing receivership. Here they are, along with the percentage of students poor enough to qualify for free lunch.

Central Islip - 91%
Roosevelt - 91%
Wyandanch- 80%
Hempstead - 78%

Do you see a pattern here? I do, and the pattern is replicated all over these United States of America. For some odd reason, every time there are large percentages of impoverished children, there are also large percentages of low test scores. What can we conclude from that? Well, MaryEllen Elia, like Governor Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy Hearted Assembly, has concluded there are two fundamental issues.

1. The schools suck, and
2. The teachers suck.

This is why we now have a system that rates teachers based on the student test grades. You see, if I spend 40 minutes a day with Johnie, and he doesn't learn English instantly, and he can't answer Common Corey questions, I suck. If Arwen teaches a student with no food at home, and the student has issues staying awake in class, Arwen also sucks. The only solution, in the view of geniuses like Andrew Cuomo and MaryEllen Elia, is to test the kids, and based on their scores, get rid of teachers like us who suck.

Because NY State knows what to do with a troubled school district. Well, they've never actually been successful, because they spent a decade in Roosevelt and Roosevelt is still on the list. But MaryEllen Elia knows what to do. She has a secret plan, you know, like Nixon did when he was gonna win the Vietnam War. OK, really it's not a secret. She's gonna fix everything.

Here's the thing. I've never heard of anyone doing that. Green Dot failed in their much-vaunted school takeover in LA. As far as I know, there is one way to be successful in raising test scores. You start your own school, cherry pick the kids, get rid of the ones who don't perform, don't replace the ones who leave, and then grease the governor's palm so he makes laws for you. (There are, of course, the alternate models of lying about the stats or changing the scores yourself.)

All MaryEllen has is a list of schools. She has no plan other than getting rid of teachers and placing new people in charge. But hey, that's the law. The Heavy Hearts passed the law and Michael Mulgrew thanked them for it.

A lot of people will suffer. Teachers will be fired and the hearts will be ripped right out of communities. But hey, their test scores suck, so the teachers suck, the schools suck, and the communities must suck too. That's pretty much what the law says.

Time for MaryEllen Elia to wave her magic wand.