It's Wednesday, and that means it's time for an update on the Lunch Teacher. Actually, no hard and fast rule about Wednesday.

For those who have forgotten, or those who are new, you can catch up on the Lunch Teacher here, here, and here.

This past Monday, March 25, the Lunch Teacher turned the proverbial Lunch Tables on her accusers during the always fun and exciting professional development.

PD was all about the upcoming ELA exam's next week and The Crack Team had some insiders at there reporting back that not only was the Lunch Teacher chomping at the bit raring to go, but she completely p3wned the upper echelon of her school.

The Lunch Lady asked the testing coordinator...

"If the students don't finish the test by lunch is it permissible to keep them from lunch until they are finished?"

The Crack Team's insiders reported a collective gasp from all the teachers gathered when the above was asked.

We here at SBSB applaud the Lunch Teacher for asking a hard hitting non softball question. Recall, she was punished, ostracized, and shunned for daring to insist that one of her students report for a federally mandated lunch last year during testing.

The response...

"No, they go to lunch then when they return they come back and take the test."

Exsqueeze me?? So it seems the Lunch Teacher was following protocol last year. But then why is she being charged in a 3020-a? She just had her pre-hearing last week? Apparently the hacks at Gold St  are going full throttle in presenting this farce and doing whatever they can get away with in separating her from her direct deposit.

The Lunch Teacher then inquired to...

...a pacing method that was placed in the PD folder about telling the kids to stop at question 5 or so and tell them to wait like doing it all together as a class everyone as looking at each other like we’re not supposed to guide them at all. Then asked further about pacing. The Lunch Lady asked the staff that was there does anyone pace the kids. Insiders shared with The Crack Team that other teachers were sharing how they do it. One said she writes the time in the board just to let the kids know their pace (that’s what Lunch Lady did.) Lunch Lady said to testing coordinator, you cannot clarify about pacing and suggest how to do it and she said no.

Now one of the issues is that another teacher in the school took her tongue and tattled on the Lunch Teacher informing upper echelon on improper pacing. Seems the Lunch Teacher was doing it right all along. 

Then the Lunch Teacher asked....

"...if a student doesn’t finish on day 1 by dismissal can they finish on day 2? 

Testing coordinator said no but they can finish on the make up days.

Face palm!


This is a big violation. It is supposed to be in the confines of the same day!

Is this 3020-a really necessary? Are most? Think about it. If we had seniority transfers and get rid of fair student funding there would be a drop in the amount of teachers brought up on charges. The Lunch Teacher was brought up on charges just to get her out of the school. So she can spend her remaining years wandering a nomad existence as an ATR.

There are more lunch table to turn.

I'm a schmuck. I voted for Obama in 2008 and felt good about it. I had had it of 8 years of George W. Bush incompetency and lies. I wasn't voting for change, I was voting for accountability and for having a voice in my government. I truly believed that under Obama, the voices of the people if not
100% heard, will be at the very least be taken into consideration.

Gone will be the dreams of kowtowing to big money. Gone will be wasting money in two wasteful wars. Gitmo would be closed. A sensible and straightforward manner in insuring those without healthcare would finally be solved. NCLB? It will be a thing of the past, in fact there would be less federal involvement in local education matters. Guess I, along with others, have been incorrect.

What steams me is that I have defended Obama from Right Wing nut jobs who claim he is a socialist. How can a socialist turn over education to private and corporate entities? Same with Obamacare. Who is making out? The insurance companies. The corporatists are benefiting from the extension of Gitmo and since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, into Pakistan.

But one of the stupidest things I have heard from this administration came out of the mouth of non-educator Arne Duncan bellowed to a  group of state superintendents on Friday;

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary,” Duncan said. “You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”

First off let me add that is not just white suburban moms that are displeased. I guess I can speak for white suburban dads and say we are displeased as well. But anyway (I will toot my horn again), as I predicted, it is now the time for the rollback or should I start saying the Revolution.

The undertones of what Arne is saying is fascinating yet revealing. I don't know if what he said comes from being racist as some have said, or just clueless as to what his policies have wrought or clueless as to the world around him.

First off, there has never been a crisis in education. In fact I'll go as far as saying Bush was much more benevolent than the Obama administration and truly wanted to help along those that truly needed the help. It has been under Obama that the push for privatization and federal intervention into education as truly accelerated and been encouraged. But I have digressed.

Arne needs to realize why there has been more silence coming from the urban core concerning education deform from the inner cities.

Parents are less informed, not only own their own volition, but more and more the urban governments of this country, and particularly in NYC, have been become more of a top down style of governance than in the suburbs. In the suburbs, in the small towns and villages, and even the cities, there is still a participatory style of government. Not only is speaking at council meetings easier, but better, still encouraged. One can still call their mayor, supervisor, trustee, or council member at home and discuss issues.What Arne is unaware of is this is democracy in action. Heck, I won't even get into New England town meetings.

The school boards are still elected by the people and for the people. More and more schools boards and school districts are being usurped and taken over my maniacal short little men with Freudian issues across the country. See the paragraph above for participatory democracy.

Many, not all, but a goodly amount of parents in the inner city are immigrants. They do not know or are afraid to speak out. There are also parents hat work multiple jobs and don't have time to complain or to be informed. There are parents that have been so beaten down by the system they can't or won't speak up. And worse, there are parents that just don't care.

But how can you as a parent, let's say in NYC, speak up for your child's education when a parent whose child goes to school in Brooklyn has a complaint and must traverse to the Bronx to deal with the school's network? How bus and/or subway lines must this parent transverse to advocate for their child's education? Even the parent that goes to each and every PEP (Panel for Eduction policy, NYC's answer to the board of ed.) is met with disdain from the panel time after time.

And let's not forget the suburbs seem to have an independent media. The Journal News in Westchester County is doing a wonderful job at exposing Common Core.

The parents in the suburbs still have and want to keep their voices in their district's decisions and their child's education. We will never abdicate that right. To have that right taken away from us, to have our local boards ability to know what is best for our children removed, is not the American way. Our schools, our communities, and our children are not part of a corporation.

But for Arne to say that, "isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were," speaks to a bigger issue of his ignorance.

Speaking only for me, I know what my son is capable of and what he can do. I do not need a test to tell me what my son does or doesn't know, what he is or isn't capable of. There is a difference between proficiency and ability. I'm tired of this proficient crud. It means NOTHING!

Thanks to Arne and Obama we are allowing our children to be mindless and clueless incapable of thinking for themselves. Oh, and please spare that we need to compete with other countries. India and China pay their employees squat. Is that what Arne wants, our children to make $5 an hour?

Arne, your time and your charade are over. The Education Revolution is just beginning.

Can someone please explain this career and college readiness to me? What is the determination for when one is career and/or college ready?

It's all bullshit.

I will make my point.

But first some background in a somewhat stream of consciousness.

I never cared for school growing up. I always felt that I was smarter than my teachers and smarter than everyone else and I was going to do things my way. This caused me to wind up in the principal's office on almost a daily basis.

I basically coasted through school up until 11th grade. I put in the effort I had to, nothing more, nothing less. School didn't excite me and I was bored all the time. I thought geometry was a waste of time and so was almost any other subject other than Social Studies.

I was obliterating my junior year in HS. I wasn't showing up for class, I wasn't showing up for school, I wasn't doing homework. I took my PSAT's and got an 850.

My parents decided that I needed a change and sent me to a local private school in the hopes that the personalized attention and small class size would help.

It didn't. I still didn't care. In fact I didn't care more because the other students at the school were there, more or less, for the same reason I was there.

My math teacher at this private school was a failed priest with a sociology degree that had no idea what he was talking about. I once asked him in the middle of class, "Mr Costa, do you have any naked pictures of your wife?" When he replied, "No," I asked him if he wished to purchase some from me. I got two weeks detention.

The science teacher, Mrs Amy was a hardcore Catholic. I muttered "Jesus Christ" under my breath and she slapped me with a week detention. I muttered it again to make sure she heard it and she slapped another week on.

I got more detentions here and there. Mostly had to come in on Saturdays for entire day "as punishment." Big deal. I was left alone in building. I found out where the TV was and watched or either slept.

I went back to my high school in September, and just continued. I barely graduated. I had no plans to go to college and the guidance counselors had no plans to guide me.

Oh, did I mention that my mom was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer two months before I graduated. She died that November.

But even without her dying, I was in no way ready for college emotionally. I also had no idea what my career was going to be.

Right after high school I worked for my dad's printer on 8th Ave and 14th as a messenger. I loved it.  I was making $150 a week! I worked in Manhattan. I thought I was so cool.

The January after graduation I enrolled at the local community college. I put down Business as a major because everyone else did and that is what I thought my dad wished me to do.

I did not do well. And kept on not doing well through several semesters. The same went for my choice of jobs. 

I started working in a deli in 1987 and I liked it, the money was good, but it was not something I wanted to do long term. In fact during this time my Jewish great aunt was kvetching to me to go "learn a trade."

I soon moved out and around the time I was 27 I had an epiphany. I better get my ass in gear. And I did.

I think what did it for me was that I decided that going to and doing well in college was for me, not my dad. I had to want it for myself. I also had to want a career, for myself.

So what is the point I am getting at?

These so called exams that are determining and predicting whether or not a 3rd grader or a 12th grader is career and/or college ready are bullshit. All these exams do is show what the students can memorize, jot down, create, whatever. It doesn't show emotional readiness or what is in the students heart.

I am/was just as smart as the nerds in my high school that went to Brown, Yale, med school, law school, or whatever. They just took tests better and gave a shit more than I did and conformed more than I did.

Two of the stupidest people I know are my brother in law and my cousin. They are both lawyers. They have no clue of the world outside of the law.

I had a friend at one time who had graduated from the University of Chicago. Hell, he was book smart, but I teased him that if he ever go lost in the woods, he would have no idea what to do.

My wife is an artist, she wanted to be one from the time she was 10. Would a child such as my wife need to take the ELA or math exams?  Can creativity be tested?

My son wants to play Major League Baseball (I tell him that I will be happy if baseball helps facilitate him getting into college). Does he need to know trig to hit a ball or to throw a slider? Oh, I swear there is one Elite right now that is saying, "Well with Math and Science you can learn why a slider breaks as it does." Yeah, does Mariano Rivera really care how and why is cutter breaks?

I can see a point in high school students taking a more rigorous exam to see if they are truly career and/or college ready. But 9 year olds?

These exams are foisted upon us and created by Elites who think that everyone aims to excel and be as wonderful as they think they are.

Bullshit!

I am not trying to sound uncaring, but the world needs ditch diggers and Al Bundy's.

I am more concerned that my son puts an effort everyday into his schoolwork and whatever else he enjoys. The tests are bullshit.

I want him to go to a great college but that depends more on him than taking bullshit exams. It depends what kind of person he becomes as well.

As far as a career for him, do what you want and do what makes you happy. Just put an effort into what you do and be the best that you can be.

A generation is being lost. It is time to make those is charge responsible for hurting our children. 

As the clock is ticking down to when all mayhem is about to take place across the State of New York, we here in the suburbs seems rather calm, as I am sure the rest of the state is.

Of course the rest of the state are not the 5 boroughs of New York City in which we have been told that the sky is about to fall and soon rioting will commence throughout the Empire State?

What is causing all this? Of course it is the release of the state exam scores 4 months after they were administered and 3 1/2 weeks before school begins, tomorrow, August 7.

John King, Grand Poobah of the NYSED said;

“Scores are expected to be significantly lower than the 2011-’12 scores,” he wrote, adding that principals should use the scores “judiciously” when making decisions about whether to fire teachers.

“People are freaking out at Tweed,” said the agency official, who asked to remain anonymous. “They’re trying to find a way to spin the scores so it doesn’t look so bad.”

The righteous rise/With burning eyes/Of hatred and ill-will/Madmen fed on fear and lies/To beat and burn and kill....Neil Peart 1981

Last night before the radio show I was reading Edwize to do catch up on what I wished to discuss with Leo Casey. But before I could I get the information I was seeking I came across an excellent blog post by Leo of the plight of Pascale Mauclair who through no fault of her own was rated the worst teacher in New York City. And of course the New York Post and "reporter" Georgett Roberts was there to not only kick her when Ms Mauclair was down, but to throw the proverbial salt into her wounds.

The New York Post and it's reporter Georgett Roberts decided to make Ms. Mauclair its target. Not only did Roberts find the need to harass Ms Mauclair's father at his own home, but found the need to go to her home, on private property and hound and harass her as well. When they couldn't get any information from her Roberts started to hound and harass Ms Mauclair's neighbors as well. Police had to be called in twice. Obviously Roberts didn't get the hint the first time.

Never mind, and Leo Casey pointed this out in his blog post, that Ms Mauclair's school, PS 11, came out of its quality review as proficient, but that by any conceivable measure it is a successful school which is 100% over capacity.

Also, let's not forget being in Woodside, Queens the number of ELL's in the school, the amount of free lunches, the students from troubled homes. This school works.

Worse, The Post and Georgett Roberts need to stretch the truth more. In the article this past Sunday "reporter" Roberts blabbered, "ranked among the very bottom out of more than 12,000 fourth- through eighth-grade math and English teachers citywide." Amazing, simply amazing. But how is it possible that Ms Muclair was amongst the worst in English when there were no scores for her at all? Just her math from 2010 and lifetime math scores were shown. And still no one can explain what the hell her lifetime math score mean.

But in 2010 Ms Mauclair had 11 students in her class. What do we know of these students? What do we know of their homes? Previous test scores. Could it be that the previous year each and every student of Ms Maulcair got every single question correct on their 5th grade math exam and statistically only went down? My son aced 3rd grade math, should his 4th and 5th grade teachers be held accountable?

There is so much we do not know about what goes into a kids mind. Especially a 6th grade student that MS Mauclair teachers. Most of these students at that age are in, or what on the cusp of puberty and adolescence. We should all remember that which we all went through.

And let's not forget, and at least in my opinion, that boys fare tougher. I see it now with my own son who is in 5th grade. He just made high honor roll for the past quarter and since 3rd grade has always made honor roll. He standardized test scores are outstanding. But, his behavior has been a bit off lately and we are attributing it to that he does not want to seem like a brainiac. He wants to be seen as a jock, as one of the guys, and not some nerdy kid. This is what happens.

Name me a scientist that would allow all the variables that are present in students, in children's lives to be part of any experiment. In fact, how could a scientist make a plausible hypothesis on any experiment with all the variables we see in students? Yet, we as educators are not only asked to come up with a system which is imperfect and has countless variables to judge students, but worse, it is being used against us. It does not make sense.

I believe test security has been breached.

Last week were the 3rd-5th grade state ELA exams.

A handout went home stating that students were allowed to bring in candy, gum, sucking candy to have on their desks to keep them calm. I have a copy of this handout. The handout is signed by the principal. How is this a breach of test security?

Is it not plausible that certain test taking techniques, answers, etc... could be written on or inside wrappers of the candies? This can cause a skew of the test scores. The last I checked, and I have proctored many a test is that all that should be on a students desk is the test booklet and and No. 2 pencil.

The crack team here at Southbronxschool.blogspot.com did some major investigating over the weekend to see if something was overlooked in Amy Mcintosh's sparkling resume. that perhaps she did hold a position of importance that would make her qualified to rate teachers based on very subjective means.

After reading the information, I offer a hearty apology to Ms Mcintosh. At no time should I have inveighed sarcasm and derision over her qualifications. And for those of you that did, either by laughing your fannies off, or just wet themselves laughing so hard in front of a computer monitor I have only one thing to say. Shame on you.

Amy Mcintosh was Zagat's CEO at one point. From October, 2000:

"I've been a long-time user of the familiar burgundy guidebooks, as well as zagat.com, and like everyone else have found the Surveys indispensable, wholly reliable, and fun to use," Ms. McIntosh said.

Click here for entire story.

Warning, please do not be drinking or eating something while reading. May cause food or drink to be released through nostrils.

So I guess using that logic, she is qualified to work for the DOE because in first grade she used a primer.

But here is the problem. Why not use a Zagat's type rating for teachers instead of what she is suggesting? Zagats reviews have Food, Decors, Service, and Price. For teachers you can have basically the same.

Food, you can have just a rating for the administrators of the school. Like are children actually put first(if someone has a better idea feel free to post it!).

Decors could be the classroom and the overrated bulleting board.

Service could been not only a student's performance, but those things you can't measure like a teacher working all weekend long, or at night, or on their honeymoon.

Price, that be how many hundreds of dollars a teacher spends on their classroom, how many hours multiplied by per session a teacher should receive for all those long hours put in on their own time.

Ms Mcintosh, I apologize for mocking your qualifications.

Who is Amy Mcintosh? Amy Mcintosh was quoted in a New York Times article that I posted the other day:

Amy McIntosh, the Education Department’s chief talent officer, who helped develop the system, said that her team would continue to explore ways to monitor the effectiveness of the city’s nearly 60,000 other public school teachers, but that for now the state tests were the only data on which to reliably base evaluations of them.

As Arte Johnson would have said, "verrry interesting."

I wonder what algorithm is being used to determine which teachers are above average, average, or below average? Or what is being factored into said algorithm. I hope such things out of a teachers or students control are factored in. Perhaps we can factor in that Harvey had his father put out a cigarette on his forehead the night before a test, or that Lance had to watch dad beat the crap out of mom the morning of a test, or maybe Meredith's step father decided to sexually abuse her when she was supposed to be studying. I could go through a plethora of examples like I have mentioned, but unfortunately I have an appointment on May 30th, 2009 and just do not have the time right now.

I am all for giving teachers all the tools we need so we can learn more about ourselves, improve ourselves, but in the long and short run this is not what will happen. Who is going to suffer the most? The students. teachers will be so anxious about this "grading" system that inquiry will be thrown out the window. Teachers will now just concentrate 100% on the tests that all that will be left is memorization and rote. The students will not have any critical thinking skills at all, and this is what is most lacking in the students in NYC. Not memorizing facts, and we all have seen what happens when someone just blabbers on without understanding what they are talking about.

So what are Amy Mcintosh's credentials? Surely she has a long and storied career as an educator. Now, thanks to technology and Linkedin.com we can examine Amy Mcintosh's sparkling education resume.

Chief Talent OfficerNYC Department of Education(Government Agency; 10,001 or more employees; Education Management industry)January 2007 — Present (1 year 10 months)Develop strategy and lead major new initiatives around teacher, principal and management recruitment, induction, development and performance management.

Talent officer as opposed to Human Resources manager. Obviously something in the Amy Mcintosh background shows that she understands education, schools, children, etc...

Let's see what is next!

Executive Director, Partnership for Teacher Excellence NYC Department of Education(Government Agency; 5001-10,000 employees; Education Management industry)February 2006 — January 2007 (1 year)Lead a grant-funded initiative to attract, develop and retain more math, science and special education secondary teachers in NYC public schools. The Partnership links NYU, CUNY and the NYC Dept of Education in an unprecendented alliance to improve the supply of qualified shortage area teachers for NYC public schools and to develop them in a way that will make them more effective and more likely to remain in careers in urban public education.

Instead of paying her for this, why not just pay teachers per session after school and we can brainstorm on how to retain teachers.

Deputy Chief of Staff/Chancellor's OfficeNYC Dept of Education(Government Agency; 10,001 or more employees; Education Management industry)October 2004 — February 2006 (1 year 5 months)Senior staff to Chancellor of NYC Dept of Education. Created first strategy and plan for Autonomy Zone, now a major second-term initiative. Led other policy, strategy and communications initiatives.

So she starts as a deputy chief of staff and rises to make decisions on how qualified teachers are in administering tests? But this is her first job with DOE what comes before??

SVP Risk ManagementD&B(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; dnb; Information Services industry) June 2002 — July 2004 (2 years 2 months)

Risk management? Ever see the Seinfeld where George has to give the presentation about it?

Volunteer Chair of NYC Board Teach For America(Education Management industry)1996 — 2002 (6 years)

So?

Senior Management various Verizon (and NYNEX, Bell Atlantic)(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Telecommunications industry)1995-2001 (6 years)Positions of increasing responsibility in product management and marketing at NYNEX. Head of consumer marketing for Bell Atlantic at merger. General manager of high speed internet businesses for Bell

My best buddy works for Verizon. Tomorrow will go find him in his truck on the Concourse and tell him to come work for the DOE.

SVP MarketingAmerican Express(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Financial Services industry)1984 — 1995 (11 years)Moved from marketing manager up to SVP marketing. Positions in corporate cards, business travel, traveler's cheque(s) and consumer card businesses.

I had to correct a spelling miscue there. I am sorry will have to deduct points.

I got the education qualification!!!! I found it! I found it!!

Harvard Business School mba, general management, 1982 — 1984 Harvard University ab, Economics, 1976 — 1980

The Harvard degree and fifty cents will get you a pineapple soda on Anthony Ave. Time to come see reality than decide fates of teachers and students from a gilded tower.

Several questions. What are Amy Mcintosh's qualifications, and how much money does she make, and could her job be done cheaper my teachers making per session @ $40/hr?

Remember The Dude? If you need refreshing click here. Anyway The Dude is about to be officially mainstreamed. I am all for mainstreaming a student. When it is for the right reasons. But unfortunately mainstreaming The Dude is for the wrong reasons. He is being moved because he is a behavior problem. But more because of personality conflicts within the class.

The Dude's mother will be coming in to sign the papers so he is no longer in special ed. Mom is sweet, but needs someone to advocate for her. The Dude and his sister are the adults in that home. In fact Sister is the one that cooks, gets The Dude ready for school and so on. Mom is going to be met with a full court press and told that The Dude has progressed and he is ready to move on. Also, why aren't teachers being asked to join in on the meeting with mom? But what, you may ask yourself, is the problem?

The problem is that the IEP/PPT team (school psych, etc...) have not tested him out of special ed. Nor was there any conference or anything to discuss it with IEP/PPT team. The Dude is two grades behind where he should be in reading and several teachers have mentioned that there might be dyslexia. Shouldn't he be tested for this? Seems to me that the law, if not the spirit of the law is being broken. Time to call in the school cops?

So another example of the "Children First" philosophy gone awry. More of the "cover your ass and hide your head in the sand and hope the problem either goes away or becomes someone else's" philosophy.

You never know whom you are going to run into when you watch a football game. Except me, I knew whom I was running into, a bunch of other teachers. The DOE employs one of the teachers, the one hosting the football party; a suburban district employs the other teacher. Since we were watching the Jets-Dolphins and I couldn’t care who won or lost, all I head left was the Blue Moon beer and talking shop with the suburban teacher. Oh no! Did I just mention I drink beer? Teachers are perfect, we don’t drink beer, nor do we have any other vices.

So this teacher from the suburbs is a fifth grade teacher. I asked him how his class did on the state wide ELA test last year. He told me two students failed the test. “Two students received ones?” I inquired. No he told me, “Two students received twos.” Apparently in his district two is considered failing, whilst in NYC two is passing. I guess they have higher standards and expectations in the ‘burbs.

A shot of Bill Parcells is shown on the screen. Charley the Tuna he is, or at least was called in his days with the Giants. Personally I think he is all about himself. So blocking out the image of Parcells I inquire what the fifth grade is doing in social studies. I find out that the beginning of the year the emphasis is on the American Revolution, and then evolves into American history and then Latin America. I explain to him what a buff I am of American History I am. He tells me that his schools take the fifth grade to Philadelphia for a day so they can SEE American history. Does that happen in NYC? Maybe it happens in Riverdale, Forest Hills, and a few select schools in districts 1 and 2, but never South Bronx kids. Maybe it is because of money concerns? I see enough three hundred dollar sneakers, enough satellite dishes, and know too many students with Wii, Playstation, and whatnot to know that is not the main reason. I know the PTA’s are great in raising money, and there are a lot of fat cat philanthropists attached to the DOE to help fund a trip. I guess they have higher standards and expectations in the ‘burbs.

“Surely you are still teaching the basics of how to decode words in fifth grade? Lots of visual clues all over the room, charts and such?” I give him a glare as Favre completes a pass. “”No, just really working on their comprehension at this stage,” he replies as Coach Mangini is shown on the tube. Foiled again! I guess they have higher standards and expectations in the ‘burbs.

Even at my child’s school this is the type of learning that is going on. It all seems inquiry based. No rote learning. No taking a test to practice taking a test time after time after time. There are no behavior charts in classes in my child’s school. Everything I see being done in his class, the same grade in the city is at least a grade behind. Are the city students dumber than suburban students? No. Do the students in the city have less advantages that a suburban student? Yes. And no.

The student from Upper Saddle River, or Roslyn, or Scarsdale has the same challenges, as does the inner city student, absentee parents, lax parenting, and no discipline. But it is the system in the ‘burbs in which challenges the students, teaches the students how to think, how to create, and how to use their higher order thinking skills. All we have become is covering our butts and teaching to the test.


I guess they do have higher standards and expectations in the ‘burbs.

So for anyone who has missed it, PS 8 in Brooklyn Heights has received an F. This school, though it is a shining star with its parents failed the city’s standardized testing and now its principal should be removed according to Chancellor Klein’s edicts about failing schools. But what about the 50 or so other schools that has received an F? Have all those principals been removed? Wait a minute; there seem to be extenuating circumstances, especially at PS 8. Could it be that all standardized tests are subjective? Why does PS 8 get a break, but parents of students who get ones on city and state exams have to go through hoops to prove that the tests are wrong in their child’s case? As they esteemed Chris Baker once proclaimed “the only people that tests are an advantage for are the companies that produce them.”

Many years ago when I was a teacher in a testing grade a girl failed a city wide reading test. I was shocked. I sat many times with this girl listening to her read, kept running records on her and listened to her as she retold story after story, was able to predict and had excellent skills. What did this test prove? Nothing. Except that she was not a good test taker. I got anxious having to take my teaching exams, what do you think happens to 9, 10, 11, etc… year olds when they have to take an exam?

I speak from experience. I was never a good test taker. To sit there and read questions and answer them was not showing what I learned, it showed what I was able to memorize. Judge any child, or myself on the totality of our work. What we contribute to class, what we contribute to the bigger picture of our education. I took my PSAT in 10th grade and got an 800 total. I didn’t care. The whole test was illogical. The kid going to MIT was smarter than me? No. He studied better, he had better habits, but surely he was not smarter than me. Let’s see that kid in Getty Square late at night and see if he doesn’t pee on himself. Maybe he could fend off his tormentors with reciting the periodic table from rote.

Now let’s take our students in special education, the deep abyss where students don’t ever come out of, and where troublemakers, and rabble-rousers are sent. Special Ed is a roach motel for students. “Students check in, but they don’t check out.” These students who are behind are forced to take exams at the grade/age level there are at chronologically. Oh they have extra time, have the test read to them, can write in the booklet, but it doesn’t make any sense at all that a student who is behind has to take an exam that is for a student that is at the proper level. When will this insanity stop? Does it do anything to help a students self esteem? And the grading system is not helping. The difference between a one and a two in which two is considered passing (not in suburbs, more on that in another posting) could be so much as guessing one more answer correctly?

Hey now there are many schools that deserve to get an F. But the larger picture needs to be addressed and actually seen. The schools that fail are not because of the teachers. It is because of a “cover your ass” system. Let’s stay later and have the kids stay until 3 30 or whatever SBO time your school decides. Doesn’t matter that a 7 year old is tired as heck at the end of a long day. I always thought of myself as a facilitator, introduce and watch the students take the ball and do beautiful things with it, like a Gale Sayers. But now teachers are so frazzled and so scared about the wrath and the blame we have stopped being teachers but have become test givers.