Has it really come to this? That a mother has to assert her child’s civil rights to be let alone from government intrusion, via the pro-Common Core/anti public schools mob?? That a child can be interrogated by Chicago Public Schools for opting out of an abusive test?
Who are the bullies in this scenario? Because it ain’t the kids…
You know, if I didn’t know better, I would think this was written in the 1950s, by conservative busybodies with too much time on their hands. Talk about cutting out the young people! Keep in mind that the whole system of chiefs was forced upon the indigenous…so the concept is really against their tradition.
“It’s the end of us… we’re not going to vote,” one man said. “Eighty per cent of this community is under 40 and us, the young people, we need some attention. We need public attention, media attention. This is discrimination.”
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More here from Warrior Publications on Kinder Morgan taking what it wants whether a landowner wants to cede ownership or not.
A home is your castle…until Big Oil wants a piece of that castle…
John Denver, Rocky Mountain High:
And then there’s my favorite, for which this blog was named after:
Reclaim Reform has a post up on the twitter storm demanding Congressional investigation into the profiteering of standardized testing.
From the link to NPE:
How good are the tests?
Problems with the actual content of tests have been extensively documented. There are numerous instances of flawed questions and design, including no right answer, more than one right answer, wording that is unclear or misleading, reading passages or problems that are developmentally inappropriate or contain product placements, test questions on material never taught, and items that border on bizarre, such as a famous example that asked students to read a passage about a race between a pineapple and a hare. Tests are not scientific instruments like barometers; they are commercial products that are subject to multiple errors.
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Diane Ravitch has a post up on Linda Darling-Hammond testimony at the Vergara trial. She outlines the criteria for evaluating teachers for tenure and helping struggling teachers:
“Well, it’s important both as a part of a due process expectation; that if somebody is told they’re not meeting a standard, they should have some help to meet that standard.
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Absolutely. If a teacher is abusive or grossly inadequate, you want them out. But if a teacher is good in some areas, but needs help in others, by all means, they should get support and encouragement in those weak areas. In any line of work, you would expect some guidance from those more experienced. Why should the teaching profession be any different?
More:
And the third reason is that when you create a system that is not oriented to attract high-quality teachers and support them in their work, that location becomes a very unattractive workplace. And an empirical proof of that is the situation currently in Houston, Texas, which has been firing many teachers at the bottom end of the value-added continuum without creating stronger overall achievement, and finding that they have fewer and fewer people who are willing to come apply for jobs in the district because with the instability of those scores, the inaccuracy and bias that they represent for groups of teachers, it’s become an unattractive place to work.
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Word.
This comment by Teacher Ken gets at the heart of teaching and tenure:
I have been the cooperating teacher for five student teachers from the University of Maryland at College Park, three from the undergraduate program and two from the masters’ program. The only one who failed to ‘make it’ was a 4.0 student who refused to listen to the notion that he had to meet the kids where they were in order to be able to inspire/entice them to move further. He dropped out before doing his full load of student teaching.
I have been a building union rep and have served as an informal mentor to both beginning and struggling experienced teachers. I have helped some turn around and have counseled others out of the profession. I have as a union rep helped remove a tenured teacher (who never should have gotten tenure) who was not merely ineffective but a danger to students.
We have those who should never go into teaching – they don’t like kids.
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This can’t be stated enough–the pro-Charter, anti-public schools, anti-Teacher’s union mob would like to play on people’s emotions and say that bad teachers get a free ride once they get tenure.
As Diane has stated in the past, tenured teachers are not guaranteed a job, per se, but are guaranteed the right to a fair hearing if charges are made against them. That seems reasonable to me.
However, I have heard of instances of bad teachers being kept on because the principal was afraid to confront them. They feel they had to have mountains of evidence to get rid of a bad teacher. It might also be just a clash of personalities…where the child is better suited for another teacher. The teacher isn’t necessarily bad and the kid isn’t necessarily bad, but they just butt heads.
On the other hand, I would not want to see a teacher sacked over gossip (lack of solid evidence)…because I’ve seen that happen, too, where some big mouth started a rumor and the good teacher left. He was one of those teachers that really connected with the kids, too. The gossipmonger was probably jealous of his ability to connect and the resulting popularity.
And Teacher Ken’s point about the 4.0 teaching student is spot on. You can be the smartest person in the room, but if you don’t like kids and can’t get down to their level to help them learn, you’re in the wrong profession. (Gee…why does this describe Bill Gates to a “T”…??)
This is one of the most compelling letters I’ve read so far. It’s sickening how these little children are being forced to perform at levels above their comprehension and emotional growth. It’s abuse, plain and simple. Bill Gates is a child abuser…why isn’t he held accountable??
Kids had to solve 8+6 when the answer choices were 0-9 and had to DRAG AND DROP first a 1 then a 4 to form a 14. There were questions where it was only necessary to click an answer but the objects were movable (for no reason). There were kids tapping on their neighbor’s computers in frustration. To go to the next question, one clicks “next” in lower right-hand corner…..which is also where the pop-up menu comes up to take you to other programs or shut down, so there were many instances of shut-downs and kids winding up in a completely different program.
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Some of the links in the letter:
Gates dining with 80 Senators. Eighty. Unfortunately, it stops short of naming names. So, I went looking for other reports to try to find out the senators’ names…no such luck. All that I could find were quoting Politico.
On Politico’s site, I found this little tidbit:
SPOTTED: Political odd-couple Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) having dinner last night at Bistro Bis just off Capitol Hill. Sen. Joe Donnelly later strolled over with a big group to say hi. (h/ts: @ZStoller and @dsamuelsohn) Pic here: http://bit.ly/1qyM4dx
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Wanna bet Joe Donnelly was one of those senators that dined with Gates?
And from this link:
There is a growing body of evidence that the Common Standards are not the solution to make America more competitive, to make kids smarter in math, reading and science, and any of the other ills that have been cast upon the education system. I’ve reported on this blog that independent research questions the efficacy of a standard-based approach to education as it is now conceived. The standards-based system is a top-down authoritarian system that disregards the professional decision-making ability of classroom teachers. I’ve reported research by Wallace that shows that this authoritarian accountability system is a barrier to teaching and learning.
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[…]
….the Gates Foundation has invested about $2.3 billion into the Common Standards and related efforts.
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Bill and Melinda Gates are not educators. Why does their $$$ opinion $$$ matter more than those who are educators and don’t wish to abuse children?!
A reader reports:
“Big win for Arne Duncan and Rick Snyder on Eli Broad’s EAA experiment in Detroit:
“Democratic lawmakers said the bill is an attempt to prop up Snyder’s struggling EAA, which has been dogged by declining enrollment, financial problems and teacher turnover during its two years of running schools formerly operated by Detroit Public Schools.
“This isn’t about helping schoolchildren. This is about a politically and ideologically driven agenda to destroy public education as we know it,” said House Minority Leader Tim Greimel, D-Auburn Hills.”
“The EAA isn’t financially viable unless they keep packing in more kids. Now that they have 50 more Michigan (formerly) public schools, and the capacity to take over really as many as they want, they should be able to keep this failed experiment going for a while.
“Now it’s too big to fail, which of course was the point of expanding it.”
Do as I say…not as I do…
I’ve completed the process paypal requires to confirm that I am who I say I am…and so forth…so the account is now up and running….where it’s running to, I don’t know…:)
Eagle 
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