A Matter of Semantics

Below is an excellent peice written by a great local president during this mornings calls about school closure due to another snow event.  Thanks Tomia.

Maybe it is just a matter of semantics…


When meteorologists are off the mark in forecasting the weather, we chock it up to the fact that they have to deal with elements beyond their control.  Well, after getting the call that my school was closed today, after I had taken my shower, I started thinking that maybe we should rename our reasons, beyond the teacher, why a student might not do well on a standardized test on any given day.  


So here are a few possible new buzz words…

Absolute zero– The student, for a variety of reason, such as being up all night gaming, drug use, mental or physical illness, has come to school on the day of the test with absolutely no molecule motion in the brain.

Prevailing wind– The always present fear some students have of being abused when returning home after school.

Air pressure– This is when a student is having difficulty dealing with the peer pressure that is being placed on him to wear the right clothes, own the right phone, use this or that drug, sleep with this and that person and…well this list could go on forever.

Artic air-This is when a student’s best friend decided to be angry at her on the day of the test but will not tell her why.

Blizzard-When a student is thrown so many difficulties to deal with all at once that the only option is to zone out.

Wind-chill factor– When a student’s home is in desperate need of repair or his family cannot afford to keep the heat on.

Sea breeze– When a student’s family has decided to pull her out of class for two weeks to travel.

Acclimatization– This is when a student has, once again, moved to a new school district, with the real possibility of this being the 6th time this year. 

Snow flurries– This is when a student’s father or mother doesn’t or can’t do their part to support the family. 

Snow-But there always appears to be enough to support a drug habit.  


I think you get the picture.  So how many ineffectives do you think Sam Champion, Lee Goldberg, or Bill Evans should earn this year?


Our students, and our teachers, are more than a test score…

Tomia Smith, President

Massapequa Federation of Teachers

NYSUT, Director ED 17

Standard

Cuomo Demands Investigation of Long Island Teacher Ratings

Diane Ravitch's blog

Governor Andrew Cuomo has called for an investigation of teacher ratings on Long Island.

This follows a “Newsday” report that the portion of ratings under local control were “skewed” towards effective ratings.

Cuomo wants evaluations to count student scores as 50%, instead of the present 40% (only 20% is based on state tests, the other 20% on local measures

For some reason, Cuomo is determined to find some teachers he can fire. He is certain–despite evidence to the contrary–that low scores are caused by teachers.

He must have had terrible law school professors. There have been numerous reports that he failed the bar exam four times. If this is true, I hope he sued his law school for hiring ineffective professors.

View original post

Standard

Cuomo Logic

Diane Ravitch's blog

Governor Cuomo appeared in Utica, Néw York. About 65 teachers and parents demonstrated outside as he held a press conference.

“Dozens of teachers and parents, carried signs in protest of the governor’s education policies, loudly chanting, “Cuomo’s plan has got to go!” outside MVCC.

“The teachers’ union is going to yell at me. I know. But that’s the only way you make change,” said the governor during his presentation.”

Here is Cuomo’s syllogism:

“All teachers’ unions are bad (they didn’t endorse my re-election)

All teachers in Néw York are union members

Therefore all teachers are bad”

View original post

Standard

Daniel Katz: Is Your First-Grader College-Ready?

Diane Ravitch's blog

Daniel S. Katz read the New York Times’ article “Is Your First-Grader College-Ready,” and he was not sure at first whether it was a spoof or for real. Evidently, it was for real. He introduces us to the useful term “Poe’s Law.” Wikipedia describes it thus: “a literary adage which stipulates that without a clear indicator of an author’s intended sarcasm it becomes impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism.”*

It takes close reading a la Common Core for Katz to figure out that the article was for real, not a parody. Yet it still reads like a parody.

He writes:

So what is almost satirical about some of the approaches described in the Times?

It is one thing to talk to first grade students about what they want to be when they grow up. For students who are growing up…

View original post 504 more words

Standard

Your Help Is Needed to Fund Anti-Testing Billboards in New York State!

Diane Ravitch's blog

The New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)–a coalition of more than 50 parent and teacher groups–is raising funds to pay for two billboards on key highways in Albany and possibly other cities.. They need your help. Can you send a contribution of any size to help them meet their goal? The message will be something like “Less testing. More teaching.” I gave $100. Give whatever you can. Please.

This is how they describe their campaign:

“Despite the protests of tens of thousands of public school parents, Governor Cuomo intends to double down on his misguided education reforms and require an increased reliance on harmful high stakes tests.

“Test refusal is our best chance to save our children from a test-driven education and the privatization of public education in New York State. Please help New York State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of more than 50 parent…

View original post 24 more words

Standard

What is really at issue?

In the news lately we have been bombarded with news out of Albany about the teacher evaluation system, known as APPR. APPR, which stands for Annual Professional Performance Review, is part of legislation that requires most, not all, certificated school employees be evaluated using a system that is negotiated between the school district and the local union, which must be approved by the state before implemented. Across the state all plans must include a 60/20/20 breakdown. Sixty percent is based on administrative observations and a review of a teachers’ portfolio; twenty percent is based on some locally determined measure and twenty percent based on the New York State provided examinations. This is the plan that was set into legislation by our current governor and state legislature. So, you may ask what is at issue. The honest answer to that question is –POLITICS!

The agreement between the North Babylon Board of Education and the North Babylon Teachers’ Organization has ALWAYS included a teacher evaluation system! We have always recognized the need for educators to be evaluated, but for the purpose of improving instruction NOT for the purpose of wholesale firing of educators. Yes, any true evaluation system, in any industry, will help weed out those that may need to seek an alternative career, but the basis for us in the field of education is to help show teachers how to improve on their instruction and consequently better educate our students. Politics has now driven this system of evaluation from being used as a diagnostic tool, to being a punitive tool.

There are two main forces fueling this political situation. First, our current governor is angry at the states teachers’ union, NYSUT, the parent organization of our own NBTO, for not only not endorsing him in the last election, but for convincing the state AFL-CIO to also not endorse him. The NY Times recently printed an editorial to the effect that the governor needs to change his focus from revenge to what is really needed in our schools “And that means confronting and proposing remedies for the racial and economic segregation that has gripped the state’s schools, as well as the inequality in school funding that prevents many poor districts from lifting their children up to state standards.”      (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/opinion/the-central-crisis-in-new-york-education.html?_r=0) This anger was never more shown than when the governor recently vetoed his own bill which would enable districts to not penalize educators’ evaluation score by the flawed test. Secondly and more importantly to you as parents and residents in the state of New York, are the governors ties with the company the supplies ALL of the exams that your children take- Pearson. (Related articles: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/cuomo-common-core-and-pearson_b_1293465.html, http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/08/12/new-york-teachers-union-rips-corporate-ties-of-common-core/) Pearson not only has the exclusive contract with the state for standardized exams given in grades 3-8, but this same company now creates the certification exam for teacher candidates AND most of the textbooks. The amount of money New York State pays to this one company, without competition, could be used to help close the monumental funding gap we have in this state. As many will say – Follow the money.

Your children deserve teachers who are given the tools to appropriately educate your children, without fear of reprisal. Not reprisal from our own district administration and board of education, who have negotiated a fair APPR plan with the NBTO; but fear of the state continuing to impose inappropriate exams on your children and using the results of those exams to evaluate them. Your teachers deserve to be able to get the appropriate resources they need to educate your children, but with the state’s current funding system and our governors love of taking public money and giving it to for-profit charter schools, our district will continue to be short changed financially. We ask that you become informed about what is happening on the state and local level as we enter into the budget cycle. The governor will outline his budget, while we as a district will also try to make ends meet within those guideline. Attend budget meetings, hold your board AND local legislators accountable for how they spend your money.

Standard

California: Districts and School Boards Sue State to Pay for Common Core Testing

NY districts need to do the same thing.

Diane Ravitch's blog

Five districts and the California School Boards Association are suing the state for $1 billion to recover the cost of computers and other technology needed for Common Core testing. They say the state must pay for unfunded mandates. The state says the districts must pay to comply with federal law.

The irony is that Arne Duncan keeps saying that the Common Core was developed by the states and is not a federal program. It is surely not mandated by NCLB.

View original post

Standard

George Joseph: Black Lives Matter in School

#BlackLivesMatter

Diane Ravitch's blog

George Joseph is rapidly becoming one of our best education writers. In this article in The Nation, he shows how education “reform” is contributing to the “school to prison pipeline.” At best, he says, “no excuses” charter schools are preparing black students for low wage jobs.

He writes:

“As assistant professor of education Beth Sondel and education researcher Joseph L. Boselovic detailed in a Jacobin Magazine investigation, the “No Excuses” disciplinary approach, promoted by KIPP, the largest charter school chain in America, has transformed schools into totalizing carceral environments. Sondel and Boselovic write:

“There were, for example, specific expectations about where students should put their hands, which direction they should turn their heads, how they should stand, and how they should sit.… Silence seemed to be especially important in the hallways. At the sound of each bell at the middle school, students were expected to line up at “level zero”…

View original post 216 more words

Standard

NY Times: Is New York Public Education in Crisis? Experts Say No

#AllKidsNeed

Diane Ravitch's blog

Kate Taylor of the New York Times checked with a few nonpartisan experts on Governor Cuomo’s claim that New York public education is in “crisis,” and in dire need of the draconian “reforms” he favors.

The experts said that New York public education is NOT in crisis. The public schools fare about the same as they did on national assessments as they did 20 years ago. Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution says that if they are in crisis now, then they must have been in crisis for the past 20 years.

Aaron Pallas of Teachers College says it is unfair to use the Common Core test scores to gauge achievement because they are have a different passing mark from the previous tests. Only 30% passed the Common Core tests, but the year before, 80% were passing. The teachers didn’t suddenly get worse. The State Commissioner decided to change the…

View original post 1 more word

Standard