The Opt Out movement needs to become more than just a rebellion against high stakes testing. The Opt Out movement needs to fight the injustices of so-called education reforms that strip our children and our teachers of their humanity.
Please watch and share this video created by Michael Elliot and Shoot4Education if you are in agreement.
What we have in our schools today is not my idea of a healthy, holistic, nurturing education. We need to return to a paradigm where we cherish children, creativity, and the teacher-artist.
Silent
Compliant
Nonviolent
Invisible
Do our students even really exist anymore?
Or have they each become
just a data point?
Dead
All dead
not one alive
willing to risk
willing to scream
for their lives.
We have hidden
them all
and thrown them away – the outliers.
All that is left
are the silent
compliant
nonviolent
invisible children.
This is an amazing read. I have it on my Kindle. You can download it, buy it for your Kindle, or buy it as a book on Amazon.
Must Read – for all of the teachers out there who have been through reform hell and back.
Must Read – for all the parents out there to get a glimpse of what it is like being a teacher fighting against reform.
Must Read – for all students who know there’s something wrong and are searching for the truth.#ResistRefuseRevolt
Thank you Ciedie Aech! ONWARD!
WARNING Connecticut – They are coming for your schools and your democratic rights!
Mar 06
Charter Schools, ConnCAN, Connecticut State Department of Education, Dianna Roberge-Wentzell, Education Reform, Malloy, State Board of Education ConnCAN, Corporate Education Reform Industry, Dianna Roberge-Wentzell, Malloy, State Board of Education, State Department of Education, Turnaround School No Comments
A Breaking News Alert from Jonathan Pelto and Wendy Lecker
When it comes to public education in Connecticut, a new piece of legislation before the Connecticut General Assembly (H.B. 5551) would be the most far-reaching power grab in state history – a direct attack local control of schools, our democracy and Connecticut’s students, parents, teachers, local school officials and public school.
The legislation, would enable Malloy’s political appointees on the State Board of Education to takeover individual schools in a district, remove the control of the elected board of education, “suspend laws” and eliminate the role of school governance councils which are the parent’s voice in school “turnaround plans.
The bill is nothing short of an authoritarian maneuver by grossly expanding the Commissioner of Education’s powers under the Commissioner’s Network. The bill destroy the fundamental role local control because it allows the state to indefinitely take over schools and even entire districts, without a vote of local voters.
The bill removes any time limit on Commissioner’s Network Schools. It removes the cap on how many Commissioner’s Network schools can be taken over by the state. It removes the right of the local community to appoint their own turnaround committee. It eliminates the requirement that local parents, through their school governance council are included in the process.
This plan contravenes all the evidence on state takeovers.
State takeovers of schools and districts have been an abject failure across the country.
In Newark and Paterson, New Jersey, where state takeover has been in effect for years, the districts are plagued by fiscal crises, lack of improvement in student outcomes and charges of mismanagement.
A recent report issued by the Center for Popular Democracy found that state takeovers in New Orleans, Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority, and Tennessee’s Achievement School District, have all been plagued by mismanagement, instability and high turnover and hiring of inexperienced teachers, and virtually no student improvement. https://populardemocracy.org/sites/default/files/National%20Takeover%20Ed%20Report.pdf
In fact, even the federal government has found that states do not have the expertise to successfully turn around low-performing schools. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/most-states-lacked-expertise-to-improve-worst-schools/2015/05/05/0eb82b98-f35f-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html
Connecticut’s track record on taking over schools is anything but stellar. In fact, one of the first Commissioner’s Network school, handed over to Jumoke/FUSE failed miserably under the supposed watchful eye of the Commissioner and State Board of Education. The charter network admitted it was “winging it,” hiring ex-convicts, mismanaging funds and allowing student test scores to drop precipitously. Even the current principal, Karen Lott, admitted that the takeover was a failure, with only 13% of Milner’s students scoring proficient in Language Arts and a shocking 7% in Math. Lott declared that what the school needed was experienced staff, additional resources and community support, particularly wrap-around social services. http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Wendy-Lecker-Failure-as-a-model-for-Connecticut-6267220.php.
None of these inputs require state takeover. In fact takeovers have been characterized by hiring inexperienced teachers, and disenfranchising the local community.
Where would such an un-American, anti-democracy and anti-local control idea come from?
This bill is virtually a carbon copy of ConnCAN’s proposal for the Commissioner’s Network schools. http://webiva-downton.s3.amazonaws.com/696/7c/c/2766/255496644-ConnCAN-Turnaround-Report.pdf ConnCAN cherry picked and misrepresented certain “case studies” and, as per usual, passed it off as “research.”
For an example of ConnCAN’s misrepresentation of its case studies, read the truth about Lawrence Massachusetts here. http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Wendy-Lecker-The-collateral-damage-of-a-district-6295743.php
ConnCAN not only wrote a proposal shockingly identical to this bill , the charter lobby also sponsored a “forum” for legislators in 2015 where it invited Ms. Lott of the failed Milner school and others, such as the deputy superintendent of Lawrence to speak to legislators.
However the true examples of following ConnCAN’s prescription can be found in places like Detroit, where the emergency manager left under a cloud and Detroit’s schools are on the brink of collapse, and in Tennessee where the superintendent, Chris Barbic, resigned, admitting turnaround was “much harder” than he thought.
Why would ConnCAN, the charter lobby, push this proposal?
Because state takeovers have been characterized by conversion of public schools into charter schools; schools unaccountable to elected boards, with little duty to report on its finances, yet who receive millions in public funds. Charters also tend to exclude a district’s neediest children, without any accountability for these practices.
This is the second recent example of the Malloy administration ceding governmental tasks to ConnCAN. As was reported Friday, the Malloy administration allowed ConnCAN to choose at least one candidate for State Board of Education. (link)
Now, ConnCAN is writing legislation to determine the fate of our poorest schools. ConnCAN is a lobby for charter schools. The world outside Hartford recognizes ConnCAN as charlatan organization. It has received the Bunkum Award for shoddy research from the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado.
It is beyond troubling that our education policy is being set by this lobbying front group.
Without any evidence that destroying local control will help students (in fact with most evidence pointing the other way) why would we cede more power to the Commissioner?
Why do we think people who live and work in poor communities do not know what their children and schools need? As longtime teacher, professor and writer Mike Rose has written,
“We have a long-standing shameful tendency in America to attribute all sorts of pathologies to the poor… We seem willing to accept remedies for the poor that we are not willing to accept for anyone else.”
Our neighbors in our poorest communities know what their children need. Their teachers and principals and all the dedicated staff in their schools know, too. In fact, since early February they have been testifying, along with real national experts, in front of Judge Moukawsher in the CCJEF case about what their schools need to improve: smaller classes, more teachers, social workers, prek, wraparound services for kids and families, adequate facilities and more.
As Milner’s principal stated, struggling schools need money, a stable staff and community support. State takeover will not accomplish these goals.
What will?
Providing schools the supports Ms. Lott mentions; supports that have been proven to improve schools. https://populardemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Community-Schools-Layout_e.pdf
How do we provide these resources?
Several recent longitudinal studies prove that school finance reform where states substantially increase funding for struggling schools raises achievement. http://eml.berkeley.edu/~jrothst/workingpapers/LRS_schoolfinance_feb2016.pdf; http://www.nber.org/papers/w20847.
The legislature can truly impact student performance by settling the CCJEF case and enacting real finance reform to fund Connecticut schools adequately.
What the legislature should NOT do is replicate failure. And that is what Raised Bill 5551 will do.
Governor Malloy and his administration are apparently doing the biding of ConnCAN and the rest of the charter industry.
It is the legislature’s duty to act on behalf of the children in this state on behalf of taxpayers, and on behalf of democracy.
Connecticut needs elected officials with integrity and clarity of vision to once and for all, to examine the evidence and protect the interests, not of high-priced lobbyists, but of those children most in need of protection.
For more about how ConnCAN, the charter school industry and the corporate education reformers are corrupting Connecticut politics and policy read – Malloy turns to charter school industry for names to appoint to the CT State Board of Education
The General Assembly’s Education Committee will be holding a public hearing on this outrageous proposed law on Monday, March 7, 2016 starting at 11am in the Legislative Office Building
Testimony can be submitted online via edtestimony@cga.ct.gov
Citizens can also contact the leadership of the Education Committee;
Senate Chair Democrat Gayle Slossberg – http://www.senatedems.ct.gov/Slossberg-mailform.php
House Chair Democrat Andrew Fleischmann – Andrew.Fleischmann@cga.ct.gov
Senate Ranking Member Republican Toni Boucher – Toni.Boucher@cga.ct.gov
House Ranking Member Republican Gail Laveielle – gail.lavielle@housegop.ct.gov
Education Committee
Legislative Office Building, Room 3100
Hartford, CT 06106
(860) 240‑0420
To find contact information for your legislators go to: https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/menu/cgafindleg.asp
Poetic Justice stands with the people of Flint, Michigan as they fight for the most basic of human rights – the right to water.
Poetic Justice also stands with the teachers, parents, and students of Detroit, Michigan as they fight for the right to an equitable and humane education.
Please read this letter from LeMar Lemmons.
“End State Oppression:
Rachel Maddow showed the world the sad truth many of us have known for a long time: Snyder is oblivious to the life of ordinary Michigan citizens. He is a cardboard cut out politician. For him, doing a good job is reading what his speech writer wrote correctly.
This tragedy is real. And it is happening to people I care about. Snyder’s agenda is clearly prepared by the donors to the NERD fund. Each day he asks himself, ” I am meeting my donor’s objectives?” The idea that human beings needed water, never occurred to him. The idea of safety never occured to Earley when he told Sue McCormick, “thanks but no thanks”. They had a plan and they were sticking to it.
As far as Governor Snyder is concerned, if the water is poisoned, just get water from somewhere else. Where is up to you. In his free market mindset, the choice of where you shop for water, is yours. It’s all supply side economics. So, shop wherever you like.
If you like Perrier, buy Perrier. He has read his speech to us, now it is time for he and his appointees to get back to the agenda of creating a better climate for his donors. He just wants this stuff off his desk! He just wants us off his desk. They don’t care about Flint. They don’t care about kids. Do you think he has met with me – a Detroiter, former State Representative and now a DPS Board member with 197 family members in the Detroit schools, even once? FYI: No, he has not!
A Little Background on Flint: Flint resident, Lee Ann Walters’ children tested high for lead poisoning. She called the EPA and Miguel Del Toral – one of the top water scientists in the world, tested her home and was shocked! Concerned for her well being, as a courtesy, he gave her a copy of his draft report showing that there was lead in her water, although her pipes were primarily plastic.
He knew that the source of the lead was not from her home. He recommended Flint water be treated.
Del Toral argued with MDEQ calling and writing back and forth. Patrick Cook, and Stephen Busch, MDEQ employees decided since Flint was hooking up to KWA in a year, there was no need to treat the corrosive water Flint residents were drinking. Lee Ann Walters gave the report to Curt Guyette, who made a phone call to Natasha Henderson, an appointee of Darnell Earley.
Rather than handling the safety of citizens herself, Henderson, who earns $140,000 plus $8,000 a month for expenses, passed the ball to Mayor Dayne Walling. Walling had asked for help from Washington DC, but he had neither the gumption nor courage to articulate concerns to the residents drinking the water. He kept looking to MDEQ for help. Why? Because they were calling the shots.
The Flint water emails, obtained by FOIA, show Brad Wurfel, the MDEQ Spokesman,was the one gathering facts from MDEQ so that he could refute the claims of Guyette. Wurfel called EPA employee Del Toral, a “rogue” EPA employee! Stephen Busch assured Wurfel in writing, that new MDEQ numbers would not justify Guyettte’s alarm. How did Busch know the outcome of the testing?
WMDEQ ALTERED the documents. Blamed the switch on Detroit and people with old houses. Rather than having 99 samples, they threw out the 30 samples showing high lead content to show just 69 samples of the best results. And they did this right around the time of a meeting with the Governor.
That is not the first time the administration made up their own science. Andy Dillon ordered a test to determine whether Flint should switch from Detroit. The engineering firm advised that it was a bad idea. It wasn’t what Dillon wanted to hear, presto chango, they throw out the report. Now refresh your memory of Earley’s lies, now caught on camera. Blaming Detroit, blaming Walling, blame the victim.
I can tell you working with Earley now, as a DPS Board Member it is HIS WAY OR THE HIGHWAY style management. He won’t even allow us to change the paper in the copy machine at the Fisher Building, let alone change a source of drinking water.
This is called oppression. Oppression is the exercise of power in a burdensome, unjust manner. In order to destabilize the DWSD, they needed to disconnect Detroit from it’s biggest customer permanently. Earley even sold a pipe that connected the two. It should be noted, Flint’s current city manager, Natasha Henderson, was hired by Earley AFTER she destabilized Muskegon Heights Water, and as a result Muskegon Heights lost their biggest customer, Norton Shores. Norton Shores purchased 70% of Muskegon Heights water. So what is this about?
Is this about Earley and Snyder are nice guys who just want to help? No. Later for that BS! Snyder’s administration makes up their own science on an as needed basis, alters documents, discredits anyone who stands in the way, removes from power and replaces anyone who is not with the agenda. Destabilizes public institutions so that they have to be privatized to survive. And they lie. Does any of this sound familiar?
I hope it does. Because sitting here as a Detroit School Board member with no power, watching Darnell Earley run our district into the ground, I weep.
Pastor Bobby Jackson in Flint has been distributing water to all who can’t afford $300 per month to buy drinking water from the grocer. These are the families Snyder is blind to. Bobby Jones ran out.
The next day, a Detroit teacher and I drove in the rain to Flint and we formed an assembly line to help distribute water. A grandmother tells me that she doesn’t drink the poisoned water, she just washes her greens in it. She says thank you and squeezes my hand. I am humbled.
She could be anyone’s grandmother. So many people said, “Thank you,” as I handed over my jug. I realized then how desperately they needed the water. Now we learn 10 people have died from Legionnaires disease!
An astounding 87 people have gotten sick. I have 197 children in my family attending Detroit Public Schools who are cold in their classrooms and I have friends and family in Flint. Snyder can’t relate, but for me, this is personal.
Snyder has now asked that Flint be declared a National Emergency.
Help us God.
LaMar Lemmons
Detroit Board of Education”
Please support the oppressed in Michigan. Read about what is going on. Help in any way you can. Justice must prevail and good must conquer this evil.
As LeMar Lemmons pleads in his letter – “Help us God.”
Poetic Justice supports United Opt Out and their petition drive to stop the Senate from passing the very flawed ESEA law. Here is what United Opt Out has written in their petition to the US Senate.
“Since 2002 when No Child Left Behind became law, students, parents, and teachers have been subjected to a national education policy written to benefit the education testing industry and politicians out to privatize public education in America. As a result, schools have been turned into testing factories and thousands of low-scoring public schools that serve the poorest students have been closed and replaced by corporate charter schools that, on average, perform no better than the underfunded schools they replace. Those charters with high test scores most often exclude low-scoring and problem students, while subjecting their students to punishing discipline systems that middle class parents would never allow for their own children.
Next week the U. S. Senate will vote on a rewrite of No Child Left Behind that greatly expands the “No Excuses” charter school system that has gone from a few hundred to almost 7,000 schools during the past decade. If the new legislation becomes law, annual high stakes standardized testing in grades 3-12 will continue unabated, and the expansion of publicly funded and intensely segregated reform charter schools will intensify without the benefit of public oversight.
By signing the petition, you can let the U. S. Senate know to say NO to an ESEA reauthorization plan that, if passed, will set education policy back by over 50 years.
We can do better, and Congress must take the time to hear from parents, students, and teachers, whose voices have been silenced by organizations pretending to represent their interests.
Please join me in saying NO to moving backwards and YES to moving forward toward humane, inclusive, and high quality public schools for all children. Please sign the petition and send this urgent message to Washington.”
Please click on this link and sign this very important petition. Tell the Senate that we say NO to a vision of 21st Century teaching and learning that treats our children like test scores and our teachers as automatons. #DoNoHarm #ESEA
Where have all the teachers gone?
Children are asking.
Where have all the teachers gone?
Parents want to know.
Where have all the teachers gone?
Lost to classrooms every one.
When will they ever return?
When will they ever return?
Poetic Justice is standing strong in support of MA teacher Gus Morales who has, once again, not had his contract renewed.
I am re-blogging a message in support of Gus from Dr. Mark Naison. Please share far and wide.
Gus Morales Firing Epitomizes Everything Wrong With School Reform
by Dr. Mark Naison
You are leading a high poverty school district in Massachusetts with a majority Latino population. You have a teacher who grew up in the district. He is male, Latino, brilliant, and charismatic. He always dreamed of teaching in the community he grew up in. But he is also a veteran who is proud and outspoken. When he sees something wrong, he says so. Evern though he is a new teacher, his colleagues, who are mostly white, look to him for leadership, especially when he speaks out against excessive testing and the way tests and data walls are used to humiliate students. They elect him, as an untenured teacher, president of the local teachers unions.
So what do you do? Do you focus on what this teacher- Gus Morales- brings to his students, to the families in the district, to the entire community. Or do you decide to get rid of him to crush the opposition to the new testing policies and have a teaching staff that accepts the new “reforms” passively?
You decide to do the latter. You fire him once, and then in the face of national protest, hire him back. And then, after a year, you decide to fire him again.
This shows something we see happening all over the country. For all the comments that Arne Duncan makes about diversifying the nation’s teaching force, there is nothing more threatening to the current generation of school reformers- Duncan included- than people with real roots in the communities they teach in who can connect with the students and parents in those districts. That is why they fire people like Gus Morales and try to bring in Teach for American temps who will be in those classrooms for only a few years and then leave.
And that is why we- the people who really care about children and schools and teaching- have to fight to get Gus Morales back in the classroom.
He represents exactly what we need in our high poverty schools and indeed all our public schools- teachers for life who live in the communities they teach in and love the children they work with.
Note: The School District is Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Gus represents the Good Teacher – the teacher who will lay down his life for his students – the teacher who will devote his whole life to helping just one student. We need to do everything we can to keep him where he belongs – in the classroom.
To see Gus Morales in action, see this video of his testimony in support of Opting Out before the Education Committee of the Philadelphia City Council on November 19, 2014.In the beginning,
there was a good teacher.
And the good teacher taught
with passion and with eloquence.
The good teacher taught with love
and compassion.
The good teacher touched many lives
forever with light, love, and learning.
Those were
the best of times.
One day the good teacher awoke
to a siege of terror
creeping into her classroom –
the Great Teacher Displacement
had begun while she was asleep.
Her voice was dismissed.
Her power was slowly drained.
And her students stumbled more
fell more
searched more
and started losing the precious seeds
of education.
These are the worst of times.
These are the times that try men souls.
These are the events that spark –
a revelation
a renovation
a reimagination
a reformation
and most importantly ~
a revolution.
Let the revolution break forth.
I just previewed a short (about four minutes) but very powerful and moving web film that I truly believe is going to bring down the PARCC test. The video is on the continuous test preparation and the deleterious effects on our students and how parents are crying out for the abuse to be stopped now. It is full of parents voicing the truth about how their precious children are being damaged and how the love of learning is being destroyed before it has a chance to bud and blossom.
When I watched the film, it brought tears to my eyes and it also made me extremely angry. I felt really angry because just stopping the PARCC/SBAC tests is not going to stop the abuse. We have to stop the test – the evaluations – and the intrusion of profiteers into our classrooms. This film is one huge step in this war against the dehumanization of education.
So set your clocks and start the countdown now. The PARCC is going to come down with the premiere of this web film this Sunday March 1, 2015 at 5 PM EST, 4 PM CST and 2 PM PST. I will be posting it and will be asking all of you to post it far and wide.
So please get the word out that this web film is on the way.
UPDATE: The web film is finally out – Watch it here! From the amazing film maker Michael Elliot.
My thoughts on public education and other things
Thoughts from a big sweaty music educator.
Associate Professor of Learning Technology | University of Massachusetts Amherst
Teachers Know Best
Anti-Racism Education | Black Blogger on Advocacy, Books, and More
Public Education. America's Best Idea.
An inquiry into Education
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