It's kind of amazing to read that the reformies are playing down test scores as a way of assessment.I've been hearing the reformies for a good twenty years or so, and test scores were pretty much their bread and butter. I mean, why do we public school teachers suck? Of course it's because our test scores suck. Why did they close almost every comprehensive high school in New York City? Because our test scores suck. Why is there such a proliferation of charters? Because our test scores suck.

Now that charters have gotten well more than a toe in the door, they don't like all this test score stuff. I mean, you can just game the system so much, and then you get bored. How many times can charters dump 65% of their students, lose a few more, and then claim that 100% of their grads are going to college? How many times can they keep kids in their seats doing test prep until they pee their pants?

Better to just focus on stealing space from public schools. Hey, let's push into your building, trash your library, and dump all the public school kids in the basement. Let's get a bunch of funny shirts and drive every kid to Albany on buses. And just to make sure it's the worst field trip ever, let's make the kids do homework on the bus.

Here's the thing--charters have the same kids we do. Except they don't, because only proactive parents would even bother to fill out a charter application. I'd argue proactive parents can be a pivotal factor in how well students do. And hey, if those selected student's don't do well, they can put them on "got to go" lists and send them straight to Palookavile, aka public schools.

It's really challenging to understand how, with all those advantages, charters don't outscore and overtake us at every turn. But the fact is they don't. My school has none of those advantages and we do better than a whole lot of schools. Some people say that's because we have great kids, while others say it's because the ESL teachers are so smart and good looking. I can only suppose it's a combination of the two.

The reformies are right, actually, if they determine that students are not test scores. Nonetheless this is an industry that's argued it needed to exist because, you know, test scores sucked because, you know, public school teachers sucked. Being a public school teacher, I was not much amenable to that line of thought. But that's what I heard over and over. We need Moskowitz Academies because only they can save our children. Only KIPP has the secret sauce that will change our destinies. Only foul-mouthed Steve Barr from Green Dot can do this thing no one can do.

All we've learned from that is there isn't any secret sauce or magic shortcut. I don't know about you, but I hate seeing children marched about like little martinets so everyone can see how quiet and well-behaved they are. I don't give a golly gosh darn if some guy can save a minute and eighteen seconds via his ultra-efficient manner of passing out papers.

The reformies made their beds, and they ought to sleep in them, no matter what sort of creepy crawly things infest them. They raised the creepy crawly things, claim to love them, and ought to show the grit they're forever demanding from our children. They need to put their considerable money where their mouths are.

So yes, I support the removal of high stakes testing. Except for charter schools. In charter schools, in voucher schools, and in every reformy enterprise out there, they ought to count, double, triple, or more. In fact, if kids don't pass tests, charters ought to return state funding for those kids. If they toss the kids out, charters ought to return every dime that accompanied those kids. If the kids fail, charters ought to return the money for that year.

Charters promised us Superman. Superman doesn't bill the city for his services, especially when he fails spectacularly.

Yesterday I noticed four pieces in the Post that were distinctly targeted at us. The first was a cheery little piece about how well NYC schools are funded. The second was about how test scores went up because exams were easier. The third was about a ruckus between a couple of top people at UFT. (Evidently Donald Trump is not the only person who has to worry about leaks these days.) Then, of course, there's the obligatory anti-ATR piece.

Before I say anything else, I have to add that I am a frequent fan of Post education writer Sue Edelman.  Sometimes I disagree with her columns, but she has a knack for finding and exposing crazy principals., Every time she exposes some principal wearing her fur coat while ignoring her job, or pushing all the teacher desks out on the street, I silently applaud.

Now I can't read the minds of the writers, so whatever I say here is guesswork. But when you compare New York City spending with that around the nation, I figure you ought to include cost of living. I mean, I'm not personally all that shocked that we spend 10% more than Syracuse, although it's presented as an outright scandal. Naturally, our salaries are also to blame. It turns out we have a very high salary compared to teachers elsewhere. Never mind that a whole lot of states pay teachers so poorly they run off in droves, or that we can't really keep them here either. And forget about the fact that teachers in our immediate surrounding area earn well more than we do, and have done so for at least the three decades I've been teaching.

As for test scores, I distinctly recall, when they went up under Bloomberg, the general conclusion in the press was that he was a genius, and his reforminess was working. Diane Ravitch was skeptical, noting that the NAEP scores did not parallel the gains. It took years before the NY Times caught up with Ravitch, and I doubt the Post ever did. (I stand corrected here, because Sue Edelman actually wrote several pieces about this.) Of course, with Bill de Blasio in office, there's no giving credit for test scores.

The fact is that the scores, the ones around which schools live or die, are nonsense. My students are rated by the NYSESLAT, which they took months ago, and which we scored months ago. Yet we have no idea how our students will be placed because they set the cut scores after students take the tests. Can you imagine what your principal would say if you pulled something like that? Sorry, Mr. Principal, but I can't give grades until I figure out how to pass exactly 81% of my students. Miss Grundy passed 80% and I need to do better. No wonder the state believes we're such crooks that we can't grade our own students. They think we must be as bad as they are.

The big scandal in UFT brass looks to be between Howie Schoor and Ellie Engler. I know them both from UFT Executive Board. The very first time I got up to speak there, Ellie Engler set up a meeting with the school construction authority. Because of that, my school will get an annex to address our rampant and chronic overcrowding, so I'm a fan. (Norm speculates Ellie was not a friend of Debbie Poulos, in which case Ellie's misjudged. Debbie is an aggressive and creative problem solver, and she's helped my members more than once. If I ran UFT, I'd have her cloned and send at least one Debbie to every borough office.) I know Howie only because he runs the meetings and regularly offers a range of cursory, off-the-cuff, to outright mystifying answers to my questions. It's nuts the Post goes so crazy over a typo in an email, but I really wonder who leaked it and why.

Yet leaks are problematic, says Post columnist Michael Goodwin:

Leaks, leaks, leaks are Exhibit A. Why they continue, and why nobody has been fired for bad-mouthing the president to the media, ­remain a mystery. Why does Trump put up with it?

 
You see the discrepancy here? Leaks in Trump's White House are bad, and there needs to be retribution. Leaks in the teachers' union need to be celebrated, and we need to do feature stories on them even if we barely understand what the hell they are about.

Naturally there is a piece about how the astroturf group StudentsFirstNY managed, with the bazillions they get from Gates, to assemble 20 parents to protest ATRs. It's always nice to see an organized group indulge in mindless stereotype, and it's not surprising that the Post manages to interpret this corporate-sponsored act of ignorance as "ripping deBlasio apart." That's so stupid I won't give it any more attention. And for my ATR friends wondering when UFT was gonna say something, here is Mulgrew's response. When Mulgrew wonders whether anyone will print UFT "rebuttals "about ATRs I wonder whether UFT has submitted op-eds for publication. If anyone can clue me in, the comments are open.

Now I know the Post's positions are probably not big news to any teacher who reads the papers. But I'm kind of tired of hearing how awful I am for drawing a salary. I teach the children of New York City and therefore perform a more valuable service than President Trump, who appears top devote himself to golfing, decimating union, getting tax cuts for himself and his BFFs, and taking away health insurance from tens of millions of Americans.

I'll sit while I wait for the Post to share my opinion.

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.

There's a lot of talk about testing nowadays, and when UFT wishes to discuss it in the union paper, the first person they go to is E4E member Starr Sackstein. Sackstein says she doesn't want to prepare kids for tests, but rather for college. And after all, college readiness is a hallmark of Common Core and all the reformy folk who say our schools are failing.

That's certainly the direction in which we're moving. Personally, I lost seven class days to a newly extended version of the NYSESLAT exam, ostensibly to determine the English level of my students. Having now given the oral part a million times, and having read the written part, I'd argue it's a better measure of just how Common Corey the kids are.

When I teach, I don't aim for test prep or college readiness. For one thing, so-called college readiness is based on a hodge-podge of minimum standardized test grades that likely indicate little. Studies show that teacher grades are, in fact, a much more accurate indicator of ensuing success of lack thereof in college. I teach kids how to speak, write and understand English. I'd argue this is fundamental not only for college, but for life. I'd argue setting up kids to be happy and successful prepares them for college, if they choose college, whether they like it or not.

Of course, I'm not E4E, which is just one reason you won't be finding pearls of wisdom from me in the pages of NY Teacher. The other, of course, is that my philosophy on education is aligned more closely with Diane Ravitch than Michael Mulgrew. Unlike Mulgrew, I oppose VAM absolutely. I don't think it's OK if you dust it off, dress it up and call it a "growth model." I believe the American Statistical Association when they say teachers only affect test scores by a factor of 1-14%, and that using VAM can be counter-productive to good education. I don't believe in mayoral control, or school closings, or charter schools, or two-tier due process, or having teachers work under conditions of abject terror. I believe an appropriate response to meaningless and time-wasting tests is opt-out.

UFT leadership, as is their right, disagrees. That's why the E4E member is pictured in the story, and that's why E4E POV gets top billing. When it comes to fighting for more work for less pay, UFT desperately wants that seat at the table. That's why they cannily negotiated to get money everyone else got in 2010 by 2020. Not only that, but they managed to negotiate this with someone reputed to be the most left-leaning mayor in decades. And as if that weren't enough, we still have no idea how much we'll be paying to help the city, now flush, with health care costs.

But leadership has other priorities. I often get upset with Chalkbeat NY for running idiocy like how E4E got 100 signatures for more effective means of firing teachers, or whatever Gates money has them pushing for this week. It's even more disappointing to see the official UFT paper giving them top billing. I thought one purpose of a union was to seek better working conditions for working people, a group that will soon include our children and students.

I don't think that's what E4E wants, and it's unconscionable that they are promoted in the pages of our union paper.

But I never know what the hell it is that union leadership wants. Yesterday, I got an invite to spend a weekend with Randi Weingarten, TFA's Wendy Kopp, and reps from the Gates Foundation for the low, low AFT price of 50 bucks. I hadn't planned to write about the UFT's E4E feature, but invites like that make me feel like leadership thinks we'd do just about anything for 50 bucks.

There are words for people who do anything for 50 bucks, and none of them describe my profession.

Not yet, anyway.

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.

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. 

I've been attending curriculum development workshops all week. We're looking at Common Core, without which no sentient being can function, and one of our sub-categories is rubrics. Yesterday we created some of our own.

I'll be frank. I have never liked rubrics. The first time I saw them was when a new, two-day, four-composition English Regents exam came out. I read the grading rubrics and got a general idea of what levels 1-4 meant. From then on I marked more or less holistically. I used to know one teacher who treated the rubrics with great reverence and examined them quite thoroughly. It was very rough partnering because by the time you finished a class set of essays this teacher would be on number 2 or 3, if you were lucky.

I've been teaching for 30 years. I'm pretty good about reading papers. I comment on them and offer advice as needed. One of the most frustrating things, to me, is watching a kid look at the paper, or not, and then crumple and toss it away. More motivated kids tend to reflect a little more. My question is this--after I spend time writing a rubric, who's to say kids wont toss them away too?

I kind of understand the thinking. There's got to be a way to get a good grade. What the hell is this teacher looking for? And it's true there are conventions, and mechanics, and standard usage. I like paragraphs and organization, and I like being able to easily understand things. But during the presentation I kept hearing words like "grapple" and "complex." The word "simple" is used as a pejorative. I think Pete Seegar said, of iconic American songwriter Woody Guthrie:

Any damn fool can get complicated. It takes a genius to attain simplicity.

People don't still sing This Land Is Your Land because they want to grapple with complex ideas. They sing it because it's direct and simple, because it hits you like an arrow to your heart. Still, dedicated Gates-o-philes want to measure things with lexiles and make kids read train schedules instead of To Kill a Mockingbird.

If I'm forced to use rubrics to rate my kids' essays I'll do it. I do, after all, get paid for this stuff. But I'm more comfortable issuing general checklists, which kids understand better, and then demanding particular and different things from particular and different kids for rewrites. Isn't that actually the elusive differentiation of instruction we hear about?

And, in fact, the essays and projects are fine, but we still have tests that overshadow and override them. No matter how many projects they do, my students, who don't necessarily know English yet, can't graduate until they pass an English Regents exam that tests very little of what it is they actually need to know. Grappling with complex text is not their first priority, and I'd argue it ought not to be the first priority of native-born kids either. That's what you do way better after you learn to love and appreciate reading, and something you do when you need to. It's not remotely how you teach. 

How can we differentiate instruction if the test is always the same, and the evaluation is always the same? In the quest to quantify everything, we're producing a lot of rules. It's hard for me to see, though, how we're producing critical thinking or better-equipped kids, unless our ultimate goal is to make them take more and more standardized tests.

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.

The new Common Core test scores are about to come out, and are anticipated to be a disaster. This, naturally, will give further credence to the corporate-created myth that our schools are in crisis and need to be "reformed," despite the fact that CC itself is quite reformy. The fact that no one actually knew what would be on the tests is of no importance, nor is the fact that this system has never been proven, let alone tested, anywhere.

The papers will write editorials about "failing" schools, and will revel in this as proof that unionized teachers are goofing off when they should be teaching. Of course, since no one knew what would be on the tests, no one could prepare students for the tests. And, of course, we don't really know what passing or failing these tests establishes.

In fact, even today, elementary and middle schools haven't got a curriculum for this all-important program. The thing about reformy programs is they are absolutely urgent. That's why we can't wait to find out whether or not they work. In fact, in the case of things like VAM and merit pay, the fact that they have failed everywhere they've been tried is no reason to stop using them. In times of crisis, we must do whatever Bill Gates says we must do, no matter how counter-productive or idiotic it is.

So despite the fact that these tests have not been established to determine anything whatsoever, they will be used to place teachers on a fast track to unemployment, one of the long-cherished goals of reformy people everywhere. So what if we vilify a few more city teachers for no reason whatsoever?  As long as we can fire them, we're making progress.

Now I don't know whether or not these tests will establish anything. But when the scores are as abysmal as projected, they'll be used as a battering ram to trash working teachers. Why on earth didn't teachers prepare kids for the tests they had never seen? Why didn't they spend a little time going over the material that didn't exist?

And, of course, in schools with high numbers of learning disabled and ESL students, the scores will be lower, and reformy Arne Duncan will press for their closure. Never mind that every school targeted for closure has had high numbers of such students. That's just a coincidence. It must be the fault of the unionized teachers.

It can have nothing to do with the lack of planning and preparation. We are simply to assume that Common Core is wonderful, despite the fact there is no evidence whatsoever.

Because reformy Arne Duncan says so, and that ought to be enough for anyone.

This morning, I'm off to read 5 million papers. Our ESL department is going to read the papers of our ESL students. They are all taking the Regents exam, because NY State has decided, in its infinite wisdom, that there is no difference between kids who were born here, kids who have spoken English all their lives, and kids from other countries, who have spoken English only weeks or months.

It's important that we have a standardized test because teachers can't be trusted to construct their own. I, for example, would never exhibit the wisdom of NY State. I would test my kids on things like grammar and usage, the things that show up in their writing, the things they will be tested on when they enter college, and the things they will take no-credit remedial courses to correct. I'm thoroughly corrupt like that, teaching them what they really need rather than what Pearson or Common Core says they need.

And next year, because teachers cannot be trusted even to grade tests that don't measure what kids need, I'll be grading tests from somewhere else. That way, I will not be personally involved with the kids whose papers I grade, and will have no stake in whether or not they pass or fail. This is because I, like all teachers, actually want my kids to pass and therefore cannot be trusted to evaluate them. Kids will benefit from graders who don't know them, who couldn't care less whether they do well or not. At least that's the thinking from the geniuses who run education in New York.

So, as a thoroughly corrupt teacher, as the state assumes all of us to be, I bid you good morning.

Is NY State right to abolish the Global History Regents exam? Lots of us have had our fill of standardized testing, and would like to see far less of it. Of course that's not the case, as the state plans all sorts of nonsense, largely to assess teachers. Kids will be spending hours of potential learning time indulging in nonsensical junk science, to appease those who wish to fire teachers by any means necessary.

The problem with this proposal is not that there will be one fewer test. The problem is the rationale behind eliminating it--that too few students pass it. As the test with the worst record, it needs to be eliminated, disappeared. There is a counter proposal to make two tests rather than one, but that will cost more money. It's kind of amazing where they choose to make cuts--like the January Regents exams that not only allowed kids to graduate on time, but also boosted school stats.

That, of course, was a huge waste of money, as the notion here is to close as many schools as possible. This global exam, though, not only made the schools look bad, but also made the state look bad. That is unacceptable. So, like Geoffrey Canada dumping an entire cohort rather than deal with scores that make his school look bad, the state is exercising its absolute power rather than deal with a problem.

If the state were taking a reasonable approach, like empowering rather than vilifying teachers, we could present history in a way that might actually interest our kids in it. We could incorporate current events, and try to develop involved citizens. Or, we could simply dump the tests, hope interest in history wanes, fire hundreds of teachers who don't contribute to valuable test-taking, and try to raise a generation of citizens who believe people like John King, Mike Bloomberg, Andrew Cuomo, and Arne Duncan actually work for them rather than zillionaires like Bill Gates.

AFT President Randi Weingarten has an interesting article up at the AFT website. Ms. Weingarten suggests we drop our "fixation" on testing. She points out that this is not what students need, and that there are other forms of learning that will better benefit them. She even cites the President, who used his "bully pulpit" to say much the same thing at the SOTU speech.

I couldn't agree more, actually. Learning is more about doing than testing, and no one remembers, "Oh, that Miss Wormwood. Boy, could she give a multiple choice test. I lived to blacken those circles..."

Yet Barack Obama has enabled a sea of testing, first by appointing basketball expert Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education, and next by allowing his baseless programs like Race to the Top to promote testing even more. In fact he boasted about how, with a relatively small amount of federal money, he got cash-starved states to jump up and down and show just how "reformy" they really were.

And Ms. Weingarten, despite her principled opposition, supports the reelection of this President, just as she supported mayoral control and its renewal, despite its clear inability to help New York's teachers or students.

So it's hard, for me, to understand how Obama and Weingarten are opposing such programs by supporting them. It's positively Orwellian. I'd love to get behind both of them and help them achieve their professed goal of halting our testing obsession. But as long as they keep giving lip service to good ideas while energetically promoting bad ones, that's going to be very tough indeed.

It's a novel concept, but sometimes required by law.  For example, parents now must be informed if bedbugs are found in NY State schools.  I don't know what exactly they're to do about it, aside from keeping kids home from school, or hosing them down before coming back in the house, but there you have it.  As teachers, we have the same options.  They're not very good, but we need to know what's going on if we're to have any chance of keeping away from these little bloodsuckers.

But they're not the only thing sucking the life blood from education.  The "reform" movement has managed to snag itself not only a NY Mayor, but a US President, and several state governors.  This led UFT President Michael Mulgrew to write a pretty sensible editorial in yesterday's Daily News.  We really don't want schools to become test prep factories.  Those of us who've done test prep are acutely aware it's different from actual class.  And given the debacle of the recent state scores, you'd think we'd learn something from it.

Yet, as Mr. Talk pointed out yesterday, Mulgrew's point is a little late.  Just a few months ago, he went to Albany and negotiated a deal that teacher evaluations would be based 40% on test scores.  It's tough to imagine Mulgrew hasn't figured that principals, constantly under pressure from Tweed, won't base 100% of their opinion on test scores.  And it's tough to imagine tests you can't prep for.  If I'm looking at dismissal based on test scores, I'm not placing kids in groups and having them express opinions.

If Mulgrew didn't want test-prep to be the be-all and end-all, he shouldn't have allowed us to be painted into a corner, or supported the AFT's rousing endorsement of Bill Gates, to whom tests are the only thing that matters.

I'd have some trouble returning to a doctor who offered that advice.  Yet it's status quo in the USA.  We've just found out that Bloomberg's much-vaunted test gains are smoke and mirrors, which many of us have been saying for years. 

Still, if you look at the Daily News,  Bloomberg's illusory gains don't even merit a mention.  The important thing, according to their omniscient editorial writers, is we've raised the charter cap.  Who cares if charters don't represent any improvement over charter schools in our idiotic quest to make test scores the sole factor in whether or not schools succeed?  Who cares if their rates dropped even more than those of public schools?

What's crucial now, according to the News, is that we keep moving in the same direction that's gotten us nowhere.  In fact, we need to follow in the footsteps of Michelle Rhee, who's also produced no improvements, and start firing more teachers.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  Let's continue moving forward with this Race to the Top.  Even the UFT President supports it, so what's to question?

There are a few things, actually.  As Reality-Based Educator pointed out in chapter and verse yesterday, the same geniuses at the Daily News couldn't get enough of Bloomberg's phony test scores, and ridiculed those who questioned them.  These same folks now are not humbled in the least by their utter failure to see the obvious.

And they're just as wrong now as they were then, says Aaron Pallas.

...Washington, D.C. and New York City have failed to disclose the technical materials that describe the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen value-added technology. 

So teachers can be fired, but letting them know exactly why is top secret.  But that's not all.  The infallible Michelle Rhee has based her firings on a system that has some serious drawbacks:

There’s no polite way to say this: The procedures described in the DCPS IMPACT Guidebook for producing a value-added score are idiotic. These procedures warrant this harsh characterization because they make a preposterous assumption based on a misunderstanding of the properties of the DC Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS). 

Stupid in, stupid out is one thing.  But stupid administrators whose policies result in hundreds of fired teachers is another thing entirely. That's where we're headed in NY too, with the recent deal between UFT President Michael Mulgrew and the state to bring value-added here.  This will be piloted in 11 "turnaround schools" in NYC, then brought everywhere.  Teachers branded ineffective two years in a row, based on student test scores, will be fired within 60 days.

Once that happens, the Daily News will praise the process.  When kids inevitably fail to benefit from it, they'll cry we didn't fire enough unionized teachers.  Will union presidents be rushing to Washington to hasten the process?

One would hope not.  The role of union leaders is to help working teachers.  Helping teachers, in fact, would help kids, parents and communities as well. 

Maybe it's time union leaders, like all Americans, began looking to sources other than Daily News editorials for information.

I don't know how I missed this yesterday, but Elizabeth Green at Gotham Schools has a great piece about the 1-4 scale used to score "proficiency"on New York tests.  A score of 2 is enough to pass to the next grade, 3 is a little better, and 4 is the highest possible grade.  However, students with a 3 score "only have a 55% shot of getting a Regents diploma."

I don't know about you, but 3 to me would suggest a B, or a relatively good performance.  NY teachers know the Regents exams are not a particular indicator of stellar performance, but rather that this or that kid did enough to get by.  For a kid unable to pass the Regents to earn a 3, these tests musts have even lower standards.  In fact,  I remember reading Diana Senechal, writing about the sixth grade test,  that she simply wrote A, B, C, D over and over again, and managed to score a 2, or good enough to pass.

It's remarkable that Chancellor Klein can get up in front of God and everybody and state that he opposes social promotion.  In fact, basing promotion on a single test, or even weighing a single test heavily is a poor idea.   Basing it on tests like these, in fact, is practicing a most cynical form or social promotion.  It's amazing how folks like Klein get to speak out of both sides of their mouths, and that few if any members of our media challenge them.

I'm glad Gotham found this.  It's too bad NY Times editorial writers don't read Gotham, relying mostly on Tweed PR for their opinions.  It'll probably take three or four years before this news hits them.  By then Klein will be on to something even worse, and they won't know about that either.

So says the New York Post, which seems to make the rules up as it goes along.  The Post supports every "reform" that comes down the pike.  They applaud when schools close, and never, ever question why.  They do cartwheels when public schools are replaced by charters.  Yet they're shocked, shocked when they find that credit recovery programs are shams designed to make students pass by any means necessary.

The Post, which applauded while GW Bush cheated, lied and drove the country into the dirt, has no patience for public schools that don't want to close.  They can't wait to make room for new schools with disposable McTeachers.

The test-prep factories that the Bill Gates/ Wal-Mart coalition is spawning are fine.  The non-union charters are fabulous.  The only problem, apparently, is that some unreasonable public school principals are unwilling to just lie down and die.  This is troubling to Gates and Wal-Mart, who need to save the world by supplanting public schools with non-union charters ASAP. 

It's unfortunate that billionaires who know nothing about education, including ultra-right wing Post publisher Rupert Murdoch, are the dominant forces in education today.  It's disgraceful that faux-Democrats like Barack Obama are eager to do whatever the billionaires request, and have no interest in representing the people who put them in office.   Of course I expect one-sided, shallow nonsense from the Post, and they rarely disappoint.

But these stories are the inevitable consequences of the test-prep, do or die frenzy that's gripped the nation.  Any thoughtful person can see that such incidents will multiply rapidly as the Gates/ Wal-Mart/ New York Post crowd make their imprint on education.

That's just one reason we should drop this nonsense and go back to teaching children.

NY 1 reports that city SAT scores in math and reading have taken a dip. City officials were quick to explain that when scores go down, it means nothing whatsoever, except perhaps that those lazy shiftless teachers are spending even more time with their feet up on a desk doing nothing.

When scores go up, however, all credit is due to our Dear Leader, the Honorable Mayor-for-Life Michael Bloomberg, glory be to his name. In fact, AP scores went up, a further indication that Mayor-for-Life Bloomberg is doing a fantastic job!

So don't forget, folks, to get out there and vote for Mayor Bloomberg, who trashed the term limits you voted on (twice) just to give you this opportunity!

Remember, when things go wrong, it's not his fault! When they improve, it means the mayor is indispensable! That's what we call "accountability" here in fun city.

Thanks to Adam!

Over at South Bronx School there's been a series of pieces featuring what a cursory Google search would indicate to be a diploma mill doctor with some exalted title or other in the DoE. This person, apparently, not only observes teachers in NYC, but helps rate them unsatisfactory. Were I holding a dubious degree like that, I'd probably sing their praises, wear a floppy hat and dark glasses, and hope for the best.

Things that seem too good to be true usually are, and it's tough to imagine being taken in by an outfit offering a bogus degree. How often do you get spammed by diploma mills? I've seen things in my inbox for years offering me degrees by mail. I've yet to respond, having already frittered away thousands of dollars and countless hours on a master's. Who knows? Perhaps I could've gotten an equally practical diploma simply by opening the right box of Captain Crunch.

The other problem, for me at least, is I've never had much ambition to get that PhD or whatever. NYC doesn't pay teachers for doctoral degrees, and prestigious though they are, it hardly seems worth chasing the title unless you want to become superintendent or a college professor. I'd just as soon work for a living.

It gives you pause, though--if the need for advanced degrees leads to this sort of thing, what sorts of fresh corruption would merit pay bring?

I'll never forget walking in on a former supervisor and seeing her erasing and correcting a stack of standardized tests. After all, how else could she show what a great job she was doing? As Arne Duncan, Al Sharpton, and Newt Gingrich traipse around the country demanding higher test scores, you have to wonder just what new and innovative shortcuts people will devise to achieve them.