Two things I love
Bea Arthur and this song.
What does first grade science look like?
Peg With Pen has a post up today called, “What Does Enrichment Look Like?” It inspired me to put up a post I’d planned to sit on until a later date, which is to say, until I read Peg’s post, I was still worried about pissing off the wrong people. But I’m over that now. So!
Last Friday like every Friday, I helped out in the classroom. One of my jobs that day included prepping the science kits for my daughter’s class, a task that consisted of putting together 24 one-gallon bags, each with a group of objects:
Oh, hell yes, I whipped out my phone and took photos.
The one-gallon bags were purchased by parents, along with sandwich bags and a multitude of other supplies the teacher asked for early in the year. (I used all but four of the one-gallon bags and my husband is, at this minute, at Costco purchasing more to replenish the classroom). The objects—a square piece of fabric, a small piece of electrical wire, a snippet of plastic tubing, a plastic triangle, a screw, a wood cylinder and a popsicle stick—were sent by the district with instructions.
Not only were there instructions about borrowing and returning the materials (excluding, presumably, the one-gallon bags), but there were instructions—very specific instructions—about how to teach this very interesting unit.
“NOTE: This strategy does not require you to write a note for each student.” I don’t know why, but I really love that part.
Thank GOD these instructions exist because teachers couldn’t possibly come up with a lesson plan as compelling, as intriguing or as as curiosity-building as this one. Nor could they be trusted to do so. After all, they’re only teachers. And, too, I bet the children can’t wait to begin “exploring” the very exciting borrowed materials I placed in the one-gallon bags, materials that need to be returned in the “cleanest most complete condition possible.” Have at it kids! Explore allllll you want….just don’t get so much as a greasy little six-year-old fingerprint on any of those items loaned to you.
This unit is destined to inspire a whole slew of future scientists and instill a life-long love of solids.
We are so, so small
Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo. (h/t Blurbomat)
Here’s hoping Jesus hearts the Pats
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Reader Feedback
Following my two posts (here and here) on opting out of standardized testing, I have received numerous emails from educators. With permission, I am going to start posting them here, sometimes including whole emails and other times just excerpts. Because these people have much to lose, I’m removing identifying information and changing names to protect the letter writers. These voices are being discounted and demonized. And yet, these are arguably the most important voices for parents and policy makers to be hearing right now.
And so, here you go:
Aaryn,
Just wanted to say thank you so much for what you’re writing about high stakes testing. I applaud your decision to extricate your kids from it.I will disclose at the outset that I am a public high school teacher [...]. I appreciate that you’ve done your homework and understand what’s really behind so much of what is called “reform” and “accountability.”This all plays out in the classroom in ways even more crazy than people suspect. Here’s one example: I work for a high school district [redacted] that prohibited novels in the language arts classrooms for several years. We were told that since the standardized tests were made up of multiple choice questions and short reading passages, time spent reading literature would be time taken away from appropriate test-readiness activities and therefore an inappropriate use of instructional time. (I was “written up” for teaching The Great Gatsby to high school juniors in defiance of this curriculum mandate)And all of this takes place while I watch closely the rich humanities curriculum prepared for the children of privilege. (My wife teaches at [a private school]). The so-called “achievement gap” is quite small when compared with the “exposure to culture and art” gap that has widened obscenely since NCLB. If this all continues apace public school kids not exposed to literature at home will read and write only well enough to fill out a credit application so that we can inflate the next wealth-transferring bubble. (See “College, Inc.” documentary of PBS Frontline)Thanks again.Nick Carraway
What’s up with Up for Ed?
Last month, I attended two different events dedicated to the discussion of public education. They were separate and unrelated, but each event featured one of the two co-founders of a local group called Up for Ed.
Theresea Drew sat on a panel hosted by Voice of San Diego, and Shelli Kurth was one of three attendees hand selected to ask a question during the Michelle Rhee event, the welcoming remarks for which were given by the former leader of the supposedly defunct pro-charter group San Diegans 4 Great Schools. (One of my Twitter followers approached me before the event started, shook my hand and said ominously, “We are in the belly of the beast.” No doubt, I believe what she said was true.) At any rate, when Kurth took the microphone to speak, she identified herself only as a parent (I’d love to know where her children go to school) and not as a founder of Up for Ed, which happened to be a co-sponsor of the event.
I thought this was a curious omission. I mentioned this in my recap of the event, and went a few rounds on Twitter with Up for Ed. Interested to know why Kurth wouldn’t mention her affiliation at the time of her public question to Rhee, and curious about where Up for Ed stands on certain issues that are left unaddressed on it’s website, I emailed Kurth. I wrote:
Your website states as core values, “Great School and Great Teachers, Kids-First Decision Making and Parents as REAL and POWERFUL Stakeholders.” Yet nowhere on your site do you state which reforms you support in order to achieve these core values. You say your in favor of parent empowerment, yet nowhere in your mission statement do you say what that means to your organization. So, I‘m writing you now to try to understand where Up for Ed stands on various issues. I’m curious to know what Up for Ed’s position is on the following:
1. Privatization
2. High stakes testing
3. Teacher assessment using HST
4. School Closings/Conversions of schools to privately run charters
5. Lifting the caps on public funding of charter schoolsAlso, is Up for Ed affiliated with the Los Angeles group Parent Revolution?
Finally, when Shelli spoke publicly at the Michelle Rhee event last night, she introduced herself as a parent, but did not include that she is a co-founders of Up for Ed, one of the sponsors of Rhee’s listening tour. Why this omission?
I received a response from Up for Ed’s PR person offering a chance to discuss these questions over coffee. Unable to do this until after the holidays, I reiterated that my questions were pretty straightforward, and that I didn’t think they necessitated a face-to-face meeting. Never mind that I’m a journalist; as a parent who might be looking to affiliate with some sort of education reform group, these questions are not unreasonable. Why would they hedge unless there was something to hide?
Long story getting longer, I did receive an email from Kurth filled with platitudes, talking points, and——one of my questions answered. “In regards to the Michelle Rhee event,” Kurth added as a post script, “It was requested that I identify myself simply as a parent.” That passive voice is so forgiving, isn’t it?
I’ve since emailed to ask who requested that Kurth identify herself “simply as a parent.” Was it the Rhee people? And if not the Rhee people, then who? Was it her people? And who are her people? So far——and not surprisingly——it’s tumbleweeds and crickets from Kurth. And I definitely don’t expect any more answers after I write this, which is okay with me since the evasiveness, combined with what Drew and Kurth are willing to say to other journalists, speaks very loudly indeed.
Please join me for a quick detour, won’t you?
The re-branded and newly named U-T San Diego published a piece yesterday about a tussle between parent groups and the teachers union. There are so many ways to dissect this particular piece of journalism, but the gist is that certain parent organizers—who don’t like unions other than “parent unions”—are unhappy with the way the teacher’s union is depicting the new parent trigger law in their member newsletter.
The union views the parent trigger law as another effort to privatize schools (which it is), and is making sure its members understand its implications. Bill Freeman, president of the San Diego Education Association went so far as to call the parent trigger a “fake democracy.” Which is just, you know, BULLS EYE.
The parent groups interviewed for the article see things another way, however, stating “[t]he parents want union leaders to retract the articles published in their newsletters and issue new communication to members that offer unbiased news about the law.” I suppose that unbiased news about the law and other education reporting should come from…the Doug Manchester owned U-T San Diego?
But enough detour. Can you take a guess at who the parents are in this story? That’s right: Shelli Kurth and Theresa Drew of Up for Ed. Working in conjunction with Parent Revolution (shocker), which answers one of my unanswered questions. And then, too, there was this very important bit that pretty much answers all of my other questions: “Up for Ed organizers received seed money from businessman and charter school advocate Rod Dammeyer, who worked with San Diegans 4 Great Schools and that group’s failed effort put a measure on the next ballot that would allow voters to expand the city school board with appointed members. ” (Bold face type is mine, typos are not.)
The dots are all there. They just need to be connected.
To be clear, I don’t have a problem with Up for Ed’s point of view, other than I think they’re wrong, and I’m going to speak out about it. What I do have a problem with is the lack of transparency that seems to define Up for Ed, San Diegans 4 Great Schools, Parent Revolution and the entire “reform” movement more interested in equivocation and trickery than anything else when it comes to realizing their end goals.
Parents: If you’re going to pick a side, it’s good to know who you’re dealing with.
Fighting back against mandatory school testing, Part 2
“The bottom line is that standardized testing can continue only with the consent and cooperation of the educators who allow those tests to be distributed in their schools—and the parents who permit their children to take them. If we withhold that consent, if we refuse to cooperate, then the testing process grinds to a halt.”
—Alfie Kohn, parent, author and education expert
(photo from Peg With Pen)
Jan. 7 has been declared National Opt Out Day by the grassroots organization United Opt Out National, whose goal is to eliminate high-stakes testing (HST) in public education. With the unreachable goal of 100-percent student proficiency in math and reading by 2014, the bipartisan No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and its component standardized testing will result—in fact is designed to result—in an unprecedented, manufactured event of 100-percent school failure. Education privatizers are salivating like hyenas.
Fighting back against mandatory school testing: It’s my way or the highway, says No Child Left Behind—but is it really?
The red pillow takes the least space. The yellow pillow takes more space than the blue pillow. Which of the following is not true:
- The red pillow takes more space than the blue pillow.
- The yellow pillow takes more space than the red pillow.
- The blue pillow takes more space than the red pillow.
- The red pillow takes less space than the yellow pillow.
- The blue pillow is the one I will bury my face in while I cry myself to sleep because my frustrated child told me today, “I’m a loser.”
That there is a real homework question (mostly) from my child’s third week in first grade. She’s in a language immersion program and isn’t reading fluently in any language just yet, so problems like these need to be dictated to her. This is typical of the state-mandated curriculum taught every day at her public school and of the battery of tests she’ll take during the next 11 years beginning this past October. Never let it be said I didn’t offer you readers birth control.
Folks, if you think the people leading us today are fucked up, wait until you see what our schools are going to churn out in the next decade and beyond.
Exactly one year ago, San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Bill Kowba spoke on an episode of KPBS’s These Days radio show about a “lost generation” of children.
“If you were a kindergartner enrolled about 2007,” Kowba said, “and you moved forward, you’re in about the third grade now or so. All we have done is reduce the opportunities for you as a student.”
With the end of 2011 comes a much-needed four-week break for my generational refugee. For one month, she’ll be free from the barrage of multiple-choice, fill-in-the bubble worksheets and the drone of standardized-testing-based curriculum that now comprise the meat of our public-education system. Designed to prep the little ones for the revolving door of tests, the classwork being pushed is also perfect for squashing the curiosity right out of them.
According to Diane Ravitch, an education historian, former supporter of No Child Left Behind and outspoken critic of high-stakes testing, “No high-performing nation tests its students every year or uses student test scores to evaluate teacher quality.” That tells us a lot about our nation’s direction. Behold, our testing:
California students are to take federally mandated tests (the NAEP in grades 4, 8 and 12); state-mandated tests (STAR, which includes the CST, CAPA and CAMA tests for grades 2 through 11, and the CAHSEE in grades 10 through 12); and district-mandated tests (math-, science- and literacy-benchmark exams administered three times each year to grades 1 through 8 and end-of-course exams in grades 6 through 12—there are no cool acronyms for these). More tests are coming, too, thanks to Obama’s Blueprint. Are your eyes going all psychedelic kaleidoscope on you right now? Just wait. I’m about to add some neon.
Counted among the “voluntary” tests are the AP, EAP and IB exams. There are the college entrance exams—ACT, PSAT, SATI and SATII (how voluntary are these?)—that can be taken more than once! There’s the CELDT for new English-language learners and the infamous-amongst-parents GATE test because it supposedly identifies the cream of the crop. Of course, none of this includes the old-fashioned test—like the math and spelling tests my daughter takes at the end of each week.
With tests like these—and an ever-shortening school year—who has room for meaningful, inspiring instruction in any subject, let alone math and literacy? Certainly not teachers, who are at once hamstrung by the standards and made out to be the scapegoats of all that’s wrong with public education. Why anyone would want to be a teacher right now is beyond me.
I’ve said before that being a parent means going through school all over again. Nobody tells you this, and had I known way back when, I might have made a different decision about my future, settling on a reliable dog-sitter and lots of world travel instead.
More likely, I would have pressed ahead with my naiveté, thinking—like I did in 2005—How bad can it be? Schools have got to be better by the time my child is 5. Isn’t that quaint? The thought is so adorable that I want to pat it on the head and send it to bed with a warm cup of milk. And even if I’d been able to imagine a worst-case educational scenario, it still would’ve been a termite’s dust tower compared with the Mt. Kilimanjaro shit-pile that it is.
So, here I am at base camp of the shit-pile, faced with the daunting task of navigating my route to the top. Testing looms, and it pisses me off.
I’m angry that my kid is being held hostage to tests by a system that threatens to take away her school’s funding if she and her schoolmates don’t perform well. I’m angry that my child’s class spent an hour, during the math benchmark test in October, transcribing their answers from the test sheet to the Scantron sheet. I’m angry that whatever changes are coming to this system will not be soon enough—or even the right ones—to change the experience the “lost generation” will have.
I’m not willing to be complicit in it. So, we are opting out of the mandated testing. What? You didn’t know you know you can do that?
(Published Dec. 20, 2011 in San Diego CityBeat.)