Advocacy a Waste of my Time

This is the last post on the BuildBetterSchools blog that will disappear on October 26th. Most of its contents is now available here at The School Buzz, but this post was my last one there, to voice my opinion on how advocating/fighting for quality schools that serve the common good will remain a dream, because not enough people are united for the cause, and many are misguided about what quality education is. 

After advocating for my own, and then also for other kids for twenty years , I have come to the sad conclusion that my time was utterly wasted. Why did it take me so long to realize that no matter what committee a parent serves on, and no matter what useful information or research they bring to the table, their opinions are simply ignored. Is it because of the infinite hope we cling to that surely some day things will be different?

Is school today really that much different, never mind better, from when you were 'educated'? I bet not, especially not right now with all the testing, the lock-step schedules and the scripted lessons that quash authentic learning in classrooms across the nation! Thankfully my kids escaped that fate while they were in elementary school. Thankfully they played in kindergarten, had recess, and were lucky to be able to learn through projects, not just books and computers.

I wanted my children's  school experience to be much better than it had been for me, so I became an involved parent. But, all my time invested in attending school accountability meetings and schoolboard meetings, was for naught. If anything, schools are now worse for kids, toxic even!

One positive thing came out of my involvement.  I got passionate about education. I felt like I was in hog heaven each time I visited my local university's library. I had access to many good and interesting books by notable authors and experts. I became knowledgeable about education, but how many others do? Certainly not the people who serve on schoolboards and in the legislature who make policies and laws, and who heed the wishes and demands from business and corporations rather than the advice from education experts whose warnings and suggestions are willfully ignored! Their books are collecting dust on library shelves. Some had never even been checked out,  others just a handful of times, and this at a university that focuses on teacher education!

A few other longtime advocates and activists I know, also see that improving education is  a near impossible feat. They fear though that showing their discouragement will dash the hope of others. But, should we keep ignoring the fact that no one in charge of public education, at any level, really cares about what child development experts and neuroscientists say that children need to learn best and thrive holistically?

Only a paradigm shift in education will truly benefit the common good, but will not happen unless a critical mass of people demand it. Almost all of us were raised to unquestioningly respect authority, so it is uncomfortable to request changes. Many parents are apprehensive of going into a school to talk to the principal as memories  from their own school days  of being subjugated may resurface. Few adults reach the level of self-esteem and self-confidence to dare advocate for their own child. Fewer still dare question the whole concept of mandatory education!

The intent of  education is believed by many to give children broad experiences so they can become literate in the truest sense, to learn to think , question, analyze, conclude, and  to help make their own life and society better for all. But, John Taylor Gatto argues  that public schools were  meant to serve the needs of the ruling elites, by teaching the kids of lower socioeconomic classes to conform.  I agree!

Many times I heard teachers talking about the importance of instilling "work ethic" in high school students, and, to my amazement, many parents agree with that! It is instilled by means of meting out punitive grades for homework not done (or handed in just one minute late) which result in a lowered GPA even if the scores on tests and quizzes are all A's.

Work ethic, as a major goal of schooling, likely stems from the beginning of the 20th century when schools already were heavily influenced by the nation's first industrialists who needed skilled laborers to work in their factories. When Frederick W. Taylor introduced his principles of scientific management which were to increase production with less waste and fewer costs, those were also used to make schools run more efficiently. Learning had to be done for a specific purpose inside strict parameters, and that concept has not changed over the decades. Kids still have to learn this, and disregard that, even if they are interested more in that than this. It is a good way to ensure that many dislike school and do not learn much substance. The situation is worse now with the many standardized tests kids need to take each year.

One mom, who has tried tirelessly to inform parents that opting their kids out of the state testing is possible, said:

"I've been trying for more than 7 years here ... to convince parents to band together against testing but schools are closing right and left and charters springing up everywhere in my home district. I and a teacher here in town hosted an opt out event, put out flyers, advertised on the radio, invited everyone we knew and absolutely NO ONE showed up. I cannot tell you how discouraging that was. I've given out leaflets at schools. I don't know what else I can do. I'm tired. So I have a public Facebook page and I post. ..I don't want anyone to think I'm giving up; though I think it's a David and Goliath battle."

"We're winning small battles here and there but it's going to be years; as many as it took us to get this far.... There are more and more parents opting out every year but no one seems to want to band together; at least not here. They don't want to call attention to themselves. So, whenever I get the opportunity, I spread the word; while my kids and my husband roll their eyes and find the door."

I told her I admire her for her tenacity, and that a bit of her discouragement should be shared.

Perhaps it will shake some awake!

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Some of the many good books I have read:

• All work and no play..How educational Reforms are harming our Preschoolers by Sharna Olfman


• Education's Missing Ingredient by Victoria M. Young


• Educational Genocide by Horace (Rog) Lucido


• Endangered Minds by Jane M. Healy


• Free to LEARN; Why Unleashing the Instincts to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and better Students for Life by Peter Gray,


• Insult to Intelligence - Frank Smith

• Life in Schools - An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy by Peter McLaren (Life in Schools has been named one of the 12 most significant writings worldwide in the field of educational theory, policy and practice by an international panel of experts)


• Seeds of Tomorrow by Angela Engel


• Wounded by School by Kirsten Olson


• The Education of Sam Sanders by T.S. Poetter

And many others by Diane Ravitch, John Holt, Alfie Kohn, John Taylor Gatto, and more!

Do Public Schools Serve the Common Good?

Diane Ravitch, in her newest book, Reign of Error, writes that public schools are for the common good, but John Taylor Gatto argues that they were  meant to serve the needs of the ruling class, by teaching the kids of lower socioeconomic classes to conform. It's been my own experience advocating for my children when they were in school that teaching kids to conform  still is the major goal, or else schools would look  very different indeed!

Many excellent books have been written about how kids learn best, but these have been, and are still, ignored by those working in this institution. Why? Because those who are in control of society do not want kids to learn what is best for themselves. They certainly do not want kids to become critical thinkers and prudent consumers. The global economy depends on their participation, and schools help with that. How? By getting kids involved in competition as soon as they enter, with awards, grades and rewards, and now also awards for scoring well on the state standardized tests!

We are fed sound bites that a good education is important for getting a good job or career, but only a fraction of people will be rewarded with a job that pays well enough and that they like! It is not about getting a good mind that you can and SHOULD put to use to help create a better society along with others who have good minds and caring hearts too.

Kids are raised and 'educated' to be materialistic consumers, and it is working. Schools even play along by providing kids with the latest technology and software programs, ignoring that the best brain is developed by means of  tactile learning opportunities indoors and out, rather than through 'fun' apps on iPads, now provided to kindergarteners who then only get to use one finger to manipulate the screen instead of using all ten, digging in the dirt and sculpting clay.

It's ironic how all who love digital gadgets and games, and see no harm in that use, have inadvertently helped set the stage for the disappearance of the teacher. That is what the reforms are now all about; computers, standardized tests, common core standards measurable by tests on computers, and the use of iPads and smart boards. Think of the companies making money on all these things that are really not good for young, developing brains!

Frank Smith warned about it almost 30 years ago! No one listened!

"..The computer is the ultimate weapon of instructional programmers, and in many people’s minds at least, it is a device to take the place of teachers. Anyone who believes that students learn best from systematic instruction and tests can say goodbye to teachers. For dispensing programmatic instruction, computers are cheaper and more efficient than humans.

..Our schools should not remain places where the enormous potential of the human brain is systematically eroded, and possibly destroyed. The invasion of education by instructional programmers must be turned back now.”

We probably won't unless the power grid goes out for good!

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Discuss Diane's book with others on the Facebook group: Opt Out of the State Test: The National Movement



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4eYRPjfGYQ

Learning is Knowing what Questions to ask.

By Angela Engel 

"....As the business community delves into the complexities of education, they may want to look a little more deeply at the tests that are driving everything in education.

I first administered the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) test to my fourth grade students in 1997. High stakes testing was the reason I left the classroom and the reason I have not returned.  Why? Because I knew that a year’s worth of “Joe’s” writing is a much greater indicator of his writing ability than one CSAP essay graded by a temp worker.

Hearing “Lisa” discuss character development in a literature discussion with her peers or reading her annotated notes is far more revealing than how she answered the question, “Who is the main character in this paragraph?”

A: Dick

B: Sally

C: Rover

D: All of the above

Reviewing questions that “Mike” generated on his own from a science experiment on volume tells much more about his understanding than how he answered question number thirteen on the state assessment.

In real life, the questions aren’t given to us. The most important part of learning is knowing what questions to ask. 

What we learned from the recently released CSAP scores was the same thing we learned from the first tests: That students who have more opportunity and resources do better than students who do not. Socio-economic-status is the number one correlating factor to test scores.

We also learned that high-stakes testing does not better prepare our children for college. Remediation rates are three times higher than when No Child Left Behind was signed by Congress.

The class of 2011 — the first class to graduate under high-stakes testing — showed an 11 percent increase from the previous year in the need for college remediation, according to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

It is simple, really. The students who have been educated under the umbrella of high-stakes testing did not get the opportunity to fall in love with books or to develop their own writing style and voice. They were too busy memorizing testing terminology and mastering test-taking strategies to engage in serious reading or writing on interesting concepts that have meaning in their own lives.

State assessments did not close the achievement gap as promised. Instead, we traded educational opportunity for data spreadsheets, and now there are twice as many children in poverty. The number of homeless schoolchildren in this state has more than tripled in the past 10 years — from 7,000 to more than 23,300 students last school year.

Meanwhile, the majority of our elected representatives continue to insist that learning can be forced on students with the “right” test. They argue that teachers will do better if their evaluations are tied to the tests, as if educators care more about their own ratings than they do about the kids they serve day in and day out.

While Colorado spends another year choking on the data, classrooms grow larger and teachers and school counselors become fewer. Test prep and remediation courses have replaced music, art and PE, after-school programs, and field trips. Still we wonder why kids will not stay in school and more are diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Students are now being tested in preschool and kindergarten, despite all evidence that standardized tests in early grades is developmentally inappropriate.

Now, the Colorado state Board of Education  has adopted the Common Core, yet another set of standards now being implemented in schools where some haven’t been able to afford new text books for decades.

Standardized tests are not an accurate measure of what students and teachers can do. Even if they were, the purpose of education is not to measure human capabilities, the purpose is to advance them. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on testing reforms that have diverted our time, attention and resources away from addressing the opportunity gap and infusing innovation.

Parents do not need school performance ratings based on a test; they need schools that are safe, happy, holistic, and promote personal, real learning. Teachers do not need a test to tell them how they or their students are performing; they need tools, resources and time.

And business does not need future employees who are experts at shading bubbles.

Test Prep! Watch and Weep!

"Worksheets don't grow dendrites" ~ Marcia Tate

Watch and share this video by Kaydonna Wolfcale,  a teacher who quit because of the rigid education reforms, and weep for all kids in public schools today!



Texas STAAR test prep

If this example is not enough reason to sign the White House petition to stop standardized testing in America's public schools, I don't know what will be persuasive.

Direct the Department of Education & Congress to Remove Annual Standardized Testing Mandates of NCLB and RttT

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/direct-department-education-congress-remove-annual-standardized-testing-mandates-nclb-and-rttt/1lSSvnYK

Also see: Do You Care about Kids or Data?

Do You Care About Kids or Data?

Kaydonna Wolfe, a former teacher in Texas where the standardized testing fad began, says "We have let it happen", and by that she means teachers. She is right!

Because teachers are afraid of losing their jobs when they speak out against testing, most parents and community members remain in the dark about what's happening in their children's schools. Parents blindly trust that how their children are taught, must be good for their kids.

They do not expect that teachers condone child abuse and neglect, and yet...what do you call it when kids live in fear of scoring poorly on the test? What do you call it when kids in kindergarten are taught by script that does not allow the teacher to respond to a question or comment? What will it do to the child's psyche to be ignored? What do you call it when kids in kindergarten can no longer play?

Kaydonna says, "We are putting school data which leads to funding, over the needs of children, and this must stop...I'm begging our educators to take a stand....Did you become a teacher for data and funding, or did you become a teachers to do what's best for children? We've got to stop and think about what we're doing to children, and do what's right...The first thing you can do is to tell your story...What we have to do is tell the truth!"

The Time for Talk is Over!

From the Facebook page of a retired school teacher.

"I've nearly completely extricated myself from my daily reading and commenting on Facebook and Twitter. I'm a retired public school teacher. I've virtually stopped writing about education and the continuing destruction of our public schools. I live it everyday now as a consultant in the classrooms. I've been traveling a lot over the last few months. Now and then I see the same great and not so great stories, links, and comments. Brilliant people making brilliant observations. Making effulgent, even quite luminous and pithy remarks.

Progressives are aware of Achieve Inc. Michael Cohen has been around the education game in the Beltway for some time. They know Intel and IBM. They know Bill and Melinda Gates. Progressives are aware of a poll in Georgia showing a cooking show host as being more popular than Martin Luther King Jr. But they are living within the corporate dominant body politic.

Notice will be served to all those regardless of which side they take when all the commenting and daily reporting regarding this group or that, this small protest or that, change tenor. That is, the time for talk is over. Speak truth to power? The power already knows the truth. They discourage media from reporting on what's real. Like an interview of a career politician, there are few sources that don't deflect each question, each remark. Defying the truth. The time for talk is over.

Teachers. Stay in your classrooms if you must. What's happening in Chicago is clearly a harbinger of what's to come for teachers---nationwide. What's happening in Detroit is a message like some kind of back to the future Orwellian time machine. Corporate control beyond the atrocities of buying children for placement and profit. Like some John Hersey novel ("The Child Buyer") gone even more insanely dystopic as Wall Street and its largest beneficiaries concoct "no excuses" institutions for the poor to stay poor, and increase insulation from the new feudalism for the progeny of the wealthy.

The authoritarian power elite know that people are not truly defined by numbers. But they do know that the complete corporate occupation of schools requires a facade of unproven benchmarks and testing so it appears that they are preparing people for a future. Indeed.

Until there is a movement of such insane capaciousness, linked together throughout all stratum of people and groups, all of one accord and in motion against the tyrannical private-corporate-government complex and its will to seize all that can be profitized and measured, leveraged by indebtedness. Then will there be meaningful action beyond the words and mien of a scattered, austeritized public. Each interest group appending a whole. With singularity and solidarity in commitment. Truly revolutionary.

Not a million or two people marching upon Washington, D.C., but 50 million or more. Susan Ohanian said it in one word: Revolution. Put thought into action or live the regret of continuance in a gone world."

Teacher says: "We are abusing children.."

"..I am here to report we are abusing children in the state of New York. There is now a common core syndrome."

From the moment I posted this short, very inspiring video on various Facebook  education  groups, the number of views went from 301 to 1,332 in just 15 minutes! Help make this video go viral, so that most anyone in the country will have heard what this teacher so unequivocally dared to say!

And remember, it is not just kids in New York  State who are abused. This unhealthy focus on student 'performance' on standardized tests  is happening in schools everywhere.



Check out United Opt Out National and their Facebook group: Opt Out of the State Test: The National Movement with 5,541 members!

"ADHD is not an illness"

"ADHD is not an illness", says Dr. Laura Batstra, researcher at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands.  She quit her job as a treating psychologist at an institution for child and youth psychiatry when she found that more and more schoolkids were referred for diagnoses of ADHD.

Schools in Holland too test kids yearly on their progress. If students do not show growth, a reason will/must be found why, and often the verdict is ADHD even though the child's behavior is normal.

In a dutch tv show I watched on the subject of labeling of school children, a child development expert who has studied descriptions of boys' behavior through the ages said that boys have not changed, but society's expectations of them have. They are now forced to sit still in school even though boys especially have an innate drive/need to be active and to work with their hands. Sadly, vocational schools have been phased out in Holland too.

Because of the focus on the importance of test scores, many parents with children who struggle, are eager to have their child tested, in hopes of getting a diagnosis for which there is treatment or a medication so that the child will perform up to expectation. Another advantage of some labels is that kids get extra time do do their tests.

All these labels are listed as disorders in the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual). This year a new version will be published, the DSM V with in it a new disorder, the so called DMDD: Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder. Dr. Batstra worries that it will further inflate "the diagnostic Bubble", and that a number of kids will be seen as overly temperamental and disruptive. She says that rather than putting high expectations on kids in schools, we should tone those down.

I am all for that. No kid in school should be subjected to stress and worry, the very conditions that can lead to a label!

 

U.S. best practices used in Dutch schools!

Veteran Colorado teacher Vicki Heisler shares this memory  from 2000; before NCLB was enacted!

".. I will always remember.. friends from The Netherlands talking with me about how foolish our education system was not to adopt the recommendations of our professional associations into our classrooms. They made it clear that the Dutch schools were using these best practices in their own schools successfully.

Now I understand that the Dutch may be following the market-driven practices which are crippling our children. I hope this is NOT true.

Our system is destroying young minds rather than nurturing them. We claim to celebrate diversity, but measure standardization. Without creativity and innovation, what will our future look like--a nation of mindless hyper consumers dependent upon others for every thought?"

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Read here about her using primary sources from the Library of Congress to support effective instructional practices:  http://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/quarterly/elementary/spotlight.html

 

If Ten Percent Refuse the Test it's Over!

This was written by Pennsylvania parent Michele Gray. Be sure to check out her blog .

If we can just help parents overcome their fear of saying No to testing, their fear of what will happen if their school doesn't make AYP, we can end this all now. Only 10% of parents and/or kids have to decline testing and it's over. The 10% isn't some mystical 100-monkeys number.

According to psychometricians, if the tests fail to test the same percentage each year, all the stats are invalid. That's why there is extreme pressure on schools to test 100% and why there is the threat of failing if the percentage for the whole school OR for any measurable subgroup falls below 95%. In fact, for small rural schools, their scores are statistically meaningless anyway, but they still have to take the test, or else we could all sue under the equal protection clause.

[U.S. Education Secretary] Arne Duncan said earlier this week that the Dept of Ed predicts 82% of schools will fail this year no matter what we do. So why not force the schools to fail because parents and kids say NO to testing rather than putting the burden and the blame on kids with special needs, living in poverty, struggling with English, and so on. That's just wrong. In fact, it's evil.

I also highly recommend the book "Making the Grades" by Todd Farley. It's been recommend by Alfie Kohn and Jonathan Kozol. It's very readable, very funny and after reading it no parent in their right mind will ever let their child be subjected to these tests ever again.

It's insane that we are allowing our children to be subjected to a full two weeks or more of these pointless tests that only enrich the private for-profit testing industry. I remember taking the SATs or GREs took a couple of hours on a Saturday morning, back when it was just ETS [Educational Testing Services]. Now it's multi-national companies like Pearson (in which Qaddafi is major investor; Qadaffi and NCLB Testing ) or McGraw-Hill or DRC that are draining millions of education dollars into the pockets of CEOs while our kids tests are scored by temps. [Read: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Test Scorer ] Farley recently sent this to me:

"Last summer, before she lost her job, [D.C. Chancellor of schools, Michelle] Rhee was arguing for even MORE standardized tests in the DC schools. As a parent, she said, she "wanted to know how her kids are doing...." To me, that is the fundamental problem with standardized testing: In my opinion, we don't know anything about the kids at all. We score their open-ended responses in sweatshop like conditions, bored out of our skulls, item by item. We never, in other words, get a feel for a whole human being, just random words on a page.

The multiple choice questions are either too simplistic or pretend they are too complex, as if you could get some understanding of a child's understanding about literary characterization (or whatever) in multiple choice format. As far as I'm concerned this whole thing is a great deal for big business, but that's it.

If Michelle Rhee really wanted to know "how her kids are doing," all she needs do is ask the friggin' human being standing at the front of their classroom, the person who hears her kids' answers (and thought processes) every day, who knows how hard those kids work or how they play together, etc etc."

Michele also has a blog called: Leaving Behind the PSSA Here's an excerpt from a recent letter to Michael Hardy,  superintendent of State College Area School District.

"We are told that private for-profit companies can do a better job than you and others who are committed to public education because of the free market. The free market resulted in scandals ranging from Halliburton and Blackwater in Iraq, to the Enron debacle, to the recent outrage in our own backyard with private for-profit prisons for kids.

When our tax dollars are involved, greed and corruption run rampant in the “free market.” Please think about your role in this and if there is anything you can do to take a stand against the Big Lie that is NCLB and high-stakes standardized testing which threatens the future of the kids you serve."

Visit her Facebook page: NCLB Testing: Stop the Madness Know the Truth

D6 forum January 8th

The League of Women Voters is hosting a forum on the future of District 6.  Linda Trimberger and Bob Stack will give a presentation on plans for our school district.    The audience will be allowed to ask questions and, presumably, get answers!  http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20110104/NEWS/701049999/1051&ParentProfile=1001

Noticeably absent from the lineup is, well, all the other board members.  Not to mention the superintendent.  No matter, I'm sure Linda and Bob will do a fine job all on their own.   I am looking forward to hearing the plans they've made for our children.  Plans made after carefully listening to the needs of teachers, students and parents, no doubt.   What's that?  You don't think so?   I know I haven't been asked, but I assumed I just missed that questionnaire.    Guess I'd better go to see what they're cooking up.  You should too!

I have a prediction on what we might hear.   At a recent D6 Citizen's Academy meeting, superintendent Ranelle Lang mentioned that so far the district has focused mainly on revamping elementary schools.  Now she has that to her liking, the next stop will be the middle schools.   We also might hear about pressing issues like discontinuing the sale of chocolate milk in the school cafeterias.  If my sources are correct, Trimberger has been working on that.

Here is what I hope to hear: kids will get more recess, get tested less, teachers will be given more control over what, how, and when they teach, the introduction of unique school models like teacher run schools, magnets, a bilingual school for kids to learn in two languages(yes, English speakers taught in Spanish!  How cool!),  a reduction in the absurd amount of time spent on phonics for elementary(more than an hour a day?!),  the creation of a district parent council that meets regularly with the board/super... Whew!  What else?  What would you like to see the Greeley-Evans school board plan for the future?  Post your ideas in the comments.