Tuesday Open Thread
Better late than never.
What's on your mind?
What's on your mind?
Tuesday Open Thread
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Comments
Why my 1st grader only gets 15 minutes for lunch including the time it take to get to the cafeteria, why the district was looking at transportation costs for places like Bellingham and Olympia when they needed to compare to large urban areas with waterways, and I'm also wondering what the heck is going on with the ALTF and why we haven't seen any updates. Those are just current thoughts.
Ben
Most kids eat fast. I've been in several schools and it is the gifted principal who can monitor a calm lunchroom where kids finish. If you get a chance, visit the lunchroom then make some suggestions if you have any. :)
Not sure people saw Charlie's comments on The Wire so am linking: The Wire
I wish it would warm up.
n...
Of course if you only need to meet eight performance goals, instead of 73 (in the Danielson Framework), then subjectivity is less of an issue...
Ed Week
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/06/06/33hargreaves_ep.h31.html?tkn=OQXFGT%2BBTIuWWSm93%2BGEuIJA1YJbG%2BXZgo2q&cmp=clp-edweek
very sad poster
I feel hog-tied because of being on the Taskforce and wanting to respect the other Committee members and our work and yet knowing that parents deserve answers. (And just because it was a public meeting doesn't mean I can report out on it. Anyone could have attended and heard what was said and didn't.)
I will wait for a reply from senior leadership but I will wait only so long. This is getting ridiculous.
He also goes off on yet another incoherent tangent. Frankly, he's just not worth linking to nor quoting.
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1583136/File/Departmental%20Content/advanced%20 learning/tf_TaskForceFrontPage.pdf?sessionid=ce506c2ceff2770dc8007fd32b6c0234
The last update was at the end of April. They were supposed to vote on APP recommendations by the 1st of May (the SNAPP PTA document has a pros/cons list for elementary APP at John Marshall), then discuss ALO and Spectum.
fyi
--TC
ABB (Anyone But Bob)
- Wondering if we made the right choice . . . UGH!
As far as lunch, I haven't talked to the Principal. My MO is assuming other parents have since all the little darlings are famished at the end of the day.
I wish it would warm up, too!
Wondering - you didn't make the wrong choice if your kid was miserable at their old school.
Is it Friday? I think I've lost my mind.
We are chuckling hard over the scuttlebutt of a debate provoked by Melvin G. Ashton's piece on charter schools....
... For the record, the usage of the term 'feeling the urge to kill' is something known as a 'figure of speech,' and does not necessarily mean Melvin plans to kill anyone.
ABB
Oh my goodness!
n...
Like every other major program in this district say ELL or Language Immersion, SPS continues to have a lack of program placement planning at the top level. I don't expect a task force to solve what the district hasn't. And with a new super, no matter what the recommendation, there will be uncertainty because his vision may or may not match the task force's.
Not Expecting A Divine Answer from Taskforce
I figure this is demonstrated by the number of people deserting the sinking Enfield ship.
Two groups haven't strengthened the program. It's weaker. It's weaker because placement has become more important than program content. Don't expect that to change. Anyone seen curriculum for both locations coming out of central office as promised. Ahhh, NOPE.
And it's costly to transport kids. And Spectrum is still going to be a mess. And ALOs are still going to be a mess.
Ready to move to having all schools commit to advanced learning. Want to work 2 grades ahead? Great. Every school should offer it to every kid who should do the work.
Would rather spend time fighting that battle than the battle we're in.
Some call it dismantling the program. I'd call it insisting on meeting the needs of all kids at their neighborhood school. After all, that's the promise of public ed, isn't it?
SavvyVoter
I'm not a fan of the dollars spent on research, but Mark was a nice guy.
--APP in ALO
- Keep Fighting
K...
Just Google/Bing "recess before lunch" to view news articles regarding recess/lunch schedule changes and the positive results.
K...who is in need of coffee
Look, I support APP but I think the bar should be very high because it is supposed to be for a very small group of kids.
I said this elsewhere but I think for all others, we do it in every school. Of course, the only way that works is:
- district backs it up. There is NO choice at ANY school about doing it.
- allows kids with ability in one area (math or reading) to work ahead as fast and as far as they can go
- PD for teachers on differentiation
Would this happen? No.
(But if MAP gets dropped because we can't afford the additional headcount to support it/crunch the data, then 'oh well'. Time to drop the contract.)
EdVoter
--APP in ALO
However, bringing this goal to fruition cannot mean dismantling APP. Remember, there are kids in APP who are there as much, perhaps even more, for the social and emotional benefits than the academics. It is critical to children's development that they be in an environment where they can relate to other kids, make friends, and practice social skills that they will use their entire lives. If you're a parent whose child was unable to do those things in a neighborhood school, acceleration alone will never be enough. And this why some of us react so strongly to threats to the APP cohort. There's so much more to it than the academics for some of these kids. Please remember that when talking about how to improve advanced learning. It's not an either/or proposition; we don't have dismantle APP to improve neighborhood schools.
Every school should have a math specialist who works with kids of all levels, including teaching advanced math to kids who are working one-two levels above grade level.
As far as I can tell, "Walk to Math" works pretty well for most kids, up to the point where they are in 4th or 5th grade, and there is nowhere left to walk.
Do I think this will happen? Nope, but it should.
North End Mom
I'd argue that just as the special ed mantra is kids are general education students first with necessary supports in classrooms or pullouts, the same is the case for social/emotional issues of the 'quirky' highly intelligent kids.
Self contained rooms of quirky kids doesn't answer their issues. Their needs should also be served in local schools and parents should insist that it happens.
I don't think the APP cohort social/emotional reasons is a valid one though of course those parents with quirky kids will no doubt differ out of concern for their kids and I understand that.
Ha, yeah those special ed kids get all the breaks. Actually, what little support they do get is spread incredibly thin and constantly under threat of further cuts.
But you're right, it would be amazing if every school had access to IAs to facilitate differentiation on all sides of the bell curve.
Who will take Teoh's place?
My 6th grader at Madison is required to do weightlifting weekly, but I've always heard that weightlifting shouldn't start until age 14 at the earliest.
Then, today, he injured himself in weightlifting, even lifting the light weights recommended by his teacher.
Is this a part of the required 6th grade PE curriculum in all SPS middle schools?
-just wondering
-
Just not for k-12.
Love to hear more about the support for sped teachers though. & the reading specialist? You mean the position paid through title 1? I don't believe you
Need to have an IEP to access that.
The mind of my APP kid, and her friends, was never just "two years ahead." These kids learn faster. They need different, and differently paced materials. Just like my LD child, my APP child needed the social, emotional, and academic company of other similar minds. Putting a child with a 145 IQ in a regular 4th grade math class (as opposed to a regular 2nd grade math class) is not a recipe for success for most of those kids. The ONLY child I know whose giftedness was handled that way, years ago, sat at the age of 9 and 10, in a room full of 12 and 13 year olds, and was unbearably lonely and unhappy. She was a child. She wanted friends to "play" with. Her new "peers" wanted to talk about make up, and what french kissing was, and who held hands with who, and slumber parties to which she was never going to be invited. Despite actually quite good social skills, she was utterly friendless -- and mostly miserable.
Blending APP kids back into regular schools, where our experience with Spectrum tells us plainly that they will meet with educational neglect, if not outright antipathy, by teachers, administrators, and parents of non-gifted kids, will fail these children. Some of them may just sit, quietly bored and disillusioned, and "get by." Others won't. They will quit school, or act out in frustration. And yet one more "good Seattle Public School program," one that has served its population well for years, will fold. Nice.
Why don't the voices of these children and their families count for anything? NONE of them that I know of are advocating that the program be disbanded and the kids distributed back to neighborhood schools. If APP parents suddenly got together one day and started advocating for the disbanding of the Ballard and Franklin academies, and the return of those kids to regular classes within a regular program, wouldn't people rightly challenge the basis on which they got to decide what was going to happen to other people's (but not their) kids?
--Keep APP self contained.
Wondering
Not a suitable place in SPS for either of them as far as I could tell except for Summit k-12.
Although at the time my oldest was in grade school, admission was through a lottery. Hardly the way to run a program that serves students with needs that can't be met elsewhere in the district.
She wasn't admitted, but we found that attending UCDS with a full scholarship was easier to accomplish than getting into a popular program in public school.
We were able to get the youngest into Summit in time for third grade, and she stayed through middle school.
Then of course the district determined that the needs of twice gifted students can be met anywhere, and that the building was more valuable than the program so Summit K -12 was closed a few years ago.
I wonder what happened to those kids?
The sad thing is, just grouping small clusters of kids within one or two classrooms (those that REALLY want or need the grouping, regardless of Spectrum label) would be hugely beneficial to those kids, while getting rid of the dreaded self-contained classroom and its horrible, terrible, no-good label. Instead, all the kids were deliberately and evenly dispersed and separated from each other, making it harder for the advanced learners. Everyone lost, except those that wanted the program dismantled in the first place.
I just wish everyone would be straightforward and honest about all this, and officially end the Spectrum program at the school. Because that is essentially what happened in the grades that blended their kids, especially in this school where the principal and some of the staff are so anti-Spectrum. This might work with a group of adults who are behind advanced learning in a blended classroom, and want to make it work. But it is not this group of people. The lack of honesty about what is actually happening is frustrating, to say the least.
Disillusioned
My kid will be starting 2nd grade at APP - and it looks like he will be in some type of interim facility through middle school (I'm assuming the Hamilton kids will get booted out in 2013 and will go to John Marshall). I'm ok with him being in interim facilities as long as there's a real plan to provide a long-term stable home for APP. It sure would be nice to have some stability and predictability.
And while I'm wishing - it would be great to have some open discussions about what the future of APP at Hamilton is - and to have the planning start now (and do so openly) if the writing is on the wall that there won't be room for them at Hamilton in 2913-14.
Mike
Mike
The Specialist could be funded by the PTA (which I don't agree with, but is the reality), so that any struggling child has access. The District also provides LAP funds to help cover the gap.
-You don't need an IEP for support
The problem is that kids know who goes to advanced math and who doesn't and it still can create problems in self-esteem and with the parents. I don't think that can ever be entirely fixed, but the kids themselves seem very aware of the issue and play it pretty cool, but it's always going to be strange when classmates and friends have harder or easier homework and when society says smarter is better. Some would say the better looking or more sociable kids might get better treatment as well. Many studies show that is true with adults. Even among staf the younger more vivacious are seen in a better light by parents. I think some stereotype recognition work for the staff, students and parents might be in order and then we could get down to the business of educating our kids.
Anyways, my feeling is Lawton is moving in the right direction.
There has been NO PD on differentiation, as was promised.
And at 3rd grade over half the cohort is bailing for APP or other schools.
Not sure what you mean about two years self contained b.c it was always that the spectrum cluster was in the same room, except for one year. So not self contained but w all the cluster together. Grade bands always ate and had recess together, not sure what you meant there? (except maybe on the few years on split classrooms)
Spectrum is shot, I'd be surprised if they are even getting a year ahead.
And the librarian teaching PE for .5, plus horrible class placements, our child has had a bad year.
(outta here)
It is my hope that Advanced Learning and Special Ed can work together to make north end APP more inclusive of 2E students as well (not just for SM1/resource room, but for APP-qualified kids with more intensive service models). I get the sense that this is not a huge priority for either department, but I keep being The Lorax about it anyway.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/american-graduate/jan-june12/amgrad_06-05.html
Public School Parent
I don't think that my middle school kid did weightlifting in PE on a regular basis in 6th or 8th grade.
Renton School District won't seek applicants from Teach for America
I find these statements particularly galling:
Renton Superintendent Mary Alice Heuschel was the product of a similar alternative teaching certification herself.
"This is 'my' profession," Heuschel said in an email when the district was still considering the program. "I am a fierce supporter and advocate of our teachers. I have an unwavering commitment to supporting the teaching profession, specifically with the Renton School District team of caring, dedicated professionals."
Heuschel noted that the district already has teachers in its career and technical education program who earned their certification through other state-approved alternative routes like the Teach for America program
Ms Heuschel, I have no problem with TFA providing automotive shop teachers. But they don't do that, do they? They place inexperienced, untrained temp teachers in high poverty/high minority schools, and their co-conspirators wink and call them highly-qualified to teach for Title 1 funds.
It seems you are teaching your kid(s) that the best way to deal with something is to diss it and scram! They don't teach that at Lawton. It's public school for goddess's sake - it''s your right, perhaps duty, to make a stink if you feel things could be better, but compromise is always the key concept.
Good luck, however, to you and your student(s).
Staying
You forgot to sign and we will lose your post.please redo.
Your points are well taken, however you point out the paradox. You help your kids at home or get extra help freeing up resources for the others. That's how it works. There just ain't enough money for everybody.
Smell the coffee
I feel it's harsh to tell outta here s/he he is teaching his/her child to "dis and scram". You don't know that person's experience.
There is nothing more frustrating than watching your child's needs be totally unmet. If you have ideals, that's great. But how many years of your kid's education do you sacrifice to those ideals? For example, the ideal of staying and working things out.
In the 5 years I've had kids in SPS, I've lost all idealism and have come to believe that even in schools others think are great public schools, the parent needs to know what is happening and what is not, and needs to take up the slack at home. This is why the gap will not be narrowed...the kids at the top are more likely to come from parents who are able to pick up that slack, while the kids at the bottom are disproportionately (not by any means exclusively) from families who for economic, language barrier or cultural reasons do not pick up the slack.
Back to my point, "scramming" may simply be moving your child to a school that will better meet his/her needs. Obligation is to the child, not loyalty to the school.
Forgot to sign original post, so
Wondering
I applaud anyone who tries to make things better for their kid as long as they see the big picture of public education. I think folks who try to fix problems at a school and then go to another to do the same are the best. They have insights and perspectives others do not. It seems a one way street to Lowell and Hamilton and they are the better for it. Id like to see some of those folks come back and help ramp up AL in the locals.
Most of the parents in APP came from their local elementary schools. My child was at an "ALO" school (as though that means anything) with an APP friendly teacher and a helpful principal. Both told us that our child's needs could not be met at the school at strongly recommended that we move our child to Lowell. My kid's teacher even signed our kid up for the testing in case we didn't do it. It woud be a diservice to my child to move them back to the neighborhood school for the "greater good."
I have lots of issues with what Dolphin wrote, but this really stood out to me: "The problem is that kids know who goes to advanced math and who doesn't and it still can create problems in self-esteem and with the parents" I will leave the parents feelings out of this because if their self-esteem is based on their children, they have lots of other issues. I will say that my child also gets to feel "normal." Dolphin is talking about the kids who aren't advanced and how being around kids who are advanced makes them feel bad. What about my kid? All the kids knew my kid was advanced and would always say things like "that is too hard, only K... would be able to do that." Every child should feel comfortable in their environment, not just the "normal" kids.
I always wonder why being educationally advanced it so hard for people to see. I don't see these same people trying to dismantle the varsity sports programs at high school. What about the self-esteem of those kids who don't make varsity? What about the kids who don't make the special band programs? Should we get rid of these programs? Everyone does not have the same strengths and I don't know how it serves kids to try and pretend that we do.
L@L parent
I'm no fan of elite sports and high school football should not be glorified in any way. The point is that all kids should be recognized for who they are but not judged better or worse. It's called win-win in American.
-we're outta of here too
And if you read and write on this blog you probably do feel it is your duty to help fix the schools!!!
Thanks for caring
This discussion is ridiculous. The goal of education should be to meet every kids' need, on both ends of the spectrum and in the middle. Advanced kids' parents should not be pressured to keep their kids in the neighborhood schools for the "greater good" or to preserve the self-esteem of other kids. It is not "win-win" to not meet kids' need. This is true even if you speak in "American."
L@L parent
we left
No, not really. But it's incredibly satisfying to have a role in making schools better, even if our own kids no longer attend them.
And it IS possible to have the best of both worlds -- to get your kid out of a bad situation but still stick around and work on a solution. Meetings are public, and the schools are always happy to have volunteer tutors and classroom help.
I "cut and run" and pulled my kid out of a bad school situation last year. He's doing great at his new school, but I will continue to show up at meetings and advocate for other special ed students in the district who aren't as fortunate. In fact, now that things are going well for my own kid, I actually have the time and energy to finally give back to the school community. It doesn't have to be an either/or thing.
The only person who is applying the "better or worse" label here is you. For APP and Spectrum families, it's just different - not better or worse, just different. There's no judgement applied.
That is a good point. The parent of course must make the decision of what is best for their child. Now if my principal ridiculed my student or any student for reading at recess I would demand an apology and an assembly to explain the meanness of such comments to the entire student body. I would go the District and I would go to the press if need be. But if I felt at any time my child was going to suffer, I too would look elsewhere.
In the case of FP, her new school,is lucky to have her and I am sure she has left her previous school better for her presence.
Hey SPS, you want my vote? You want my money? Then, be a straight-shooter. Tell me now, right NOW, NOT after-the-fact, what elementary school boundaries are going to change. Tell me now, not later, what middle school feeder patterns are going to change, before I have to go to the polls. Tell me your prospective program placements. Don’t burn me with silence. You must manage people’s expectations in this levy cycle, so that we all vote with blinders off. Otherwise, there will be a backlash you simply will not be able to control.
We know you have done the scenarios already, you have developed different options to address capacity concerns. We realize these are hypothetical, and subject to refinement, but you have plans drawn up. Should SPS Leaks liberate the documents, or, are you going to ‘fess up now and not look like you are hiding something? It is called full disclosure. It is called good faith. It is called smart politics. It is called avoiding the bait-and-switch.
How do you think the voters will vote in all future education levies if the ‘morning after’ the BEX IV vote you come out with the new maps? You have to know that you are treading on thin ice. Look at Mercer Island and a crashed levy.
Do not make a colossal mistake and obscure the pain that is coming with boundary redraws and sibling splits (remember your NSAP – no guaranteed for siblings split apart by boundary re-drawn maps??). The faith is already flagging, don’t keeping kicking it. There is far more at stake than just the $700 million. It is in the next 3 years of operating levies that will feel the wrath of angry parents. And even more substantial than that, I’m afraid you will alienate so many if you don’t start disclosing now that Charters will be welcomed with open arms. Then what are you going to do? Don’t kid yourself: the two are related. Make people that angry, and you will get a revolt. Charters are the remedy that the dissatisfied/traumatized public will turn to to fight back. Don’t think they won’t go there. The paperwork for the Creative Approach Schools can readily be cut-and-paste into Charter documents. It is not that I think Seattleites are craving charters, but, they may be cowed into being desperate enough to do what it takes to ditch you. The ‘won’t of the people, rather than the ‘will of the people’. Just saying… don’t take the chance.
“Oops, sorry school X, you now are pulled away from Washington Middle School and will be the lesser part of the new Meany middle school/high school/World school conglomeration”. “Sorry, school Y, your kids won’t get Eckstein Middle school”. “Sorry, West Seattle, we know you all wanted part of the STEM school, but, we are limiting seats to 300 because we don’t want to have to pay for transportation costs”. “Sorry, folks looking forward to Whittier, we’ve gerrymandered your kids into Viewlands”.
Similarly, it is understood that the Transportation department is a mess. Hopefully, the audits have kept the accounting clean, in the minimum, but whatever the problems are, daylight those too. Now. Not later. Not after we give you a billion dollars.
You pay your communication and policy folks enough to have them explain this to you, or, is this all a case of ‘the emperor’s clothes’ and you are all too overwhelmed? Are you all fixated on the mantra “BEX IV is too critical to fail” so it must not fail, regardless of the costs? Actually, some costs are too steep.
-signed, no more bait-and-switch
Mr Mas, you remind me of Stephen Colbert when he says " I don't see color, people tell me I'm white and I believe them"
I really don't think I am the only person who classifies smart as better. Are you so Zen that you don't even judge the weather "hot" or "cold" but merely high temperature and low? And maybe Geoge Clooney is no more handsome than Richard Simmons. You probably can't tell.
Incredulous
Whatever math a 5th grade Spectrum student is doing will be done by all of the other students soon enough.
If third grader's families aren't jealous of the instruction that the fifth grader's are getting then they have no reason to be jealous of the instruction that the Spectrum students are getting.
Every student should get lessons that are developmentally appropriate and at the frontier of the student's knowledge and skills. Any expectation that all students would have the same frontier or should get the same lesson is absurd and will make me the incredulous one.
This means patience when faced with something that seems overwhelming, analytical ability to take a problem apart and figure out what the problem actually is and what a solution might look like, and the ability to bring the resources needed to the problem--whether her personal resources or knowing where and what kind of help to find. Anyone in any kind of job who has these skills will do fine.
Kids in the middle of the pack get a lot of this in school, because they are challenged by grade-level work. I know a lot of successful adults (meaning, they have lives that work for them; jobs they like and are good at, relationships that work,etc.) who were at-grade-level kids. They know how to work, not get flustered, and roll with the punches.
I also know adults who were "smart", and some do well but some never learned to work hard, or what it feels like to be overwhelmed and how to handle that.
So while we have goals of getting kids to grade-level OSPI standards we have only soft goals of "challenging all kids". In reality, kids above grade level are hard to challenge but they meet the hard goals of OSPI standards so their true needs are ignored.
Having self esteem that comes from walking to harder math doesn't do a kid any good if they aren't challenged. One grade level ahead isn't enough for many. That self esteem will evaporate when they they hit the wall for the first time.
The self esteem each kid, no matter ability, could benefit from is the confidence gained from attacking a hard problem and winning.
Mixing classes doesn't do any good...a kid knows that they are the last one to finish and that they can't throw their hand in the air and answer a question because they have no idea. So the goal of protecting their self esteem is not met. The other kids know who's high and who's low, too.
The only way to help those kids is intense work and encouragement to give them that experience of mastery. I don't know how you do it, but I don't see the answer in a grade-level class of mixed ability when they can't keep up. I also don't see it in social promotion, where year after year they just learn to hate school more and more as they fall further and further behind.
Musing
The answer, I think, you have already provided. You treat each brain, each kid, as unique, and you give each one the right level of rigor and complexity so that they are challenged, and yet can succeed. You are correct that mixed level classes are no panacea. They are a waste of time (either a lot or a little, depending on the kid) for all but the narrow band of kids whose level is the one actually addressed. And the "fix" for social promotion is to stop "lumping" learning in big, 9-month globs called first grade, second grade, etc. You start where kids are, you pace them at a level that deals with both mastery and boredom, and you don't stop. If we stopped sorting them into 12 month "bands" and simply engaged them in continuing to rise -- we wouldn't have "social promotion" issues. We would also stop creating in kids the idea that if you can't do X at grade 2, you are dumb, or if you can do Y before grade 4, you are really smart. It is all so artificial. And we could start cultivating a better sense in kids of multiple intelligences and skills. Maybe Virginia can't add and subtract fractions in 3rd grade, like Viola can -- but she may have great physical coordination, be a terrific (and funny) class speaker, and be a natural team leader, while Viola continues to work hard at gaining any proficiency in those areas. Charlie is right -- Virginia will get there soon enough! No reason to hold Viola back if she is motoring through 5th and 6th grade math and getting ready for pre-algebra, but not a big deal, either. One of the great things about having a 2E kid, and about homeschooling, is that you start seeing kids' as learners, as walking minds -- and not as Spectrum 3rd graders, or "regular" third graders, or any "graders" at all. All the "classifications" that we group kids by to make things "easier" for the adults to "teach" them -- and which then become (wrongly) ingrained in the kids as measuring sticks of their intelligence or talent -- are so flimsy. I get how this "sorting and grouping" stuff starts -- but it soon takes on a life of its own that is totally add odds with any intrinsic "truth value" it may have ever had.
And all the ed reform stuff is making it worse. It's like watching someone pour plaster of paris over a really bad form. Listening to Melinda Gates chat happily about how the common standards would make it so we all know exactly what Virginia and Viola should know in each year of their school lives -- aaaggh. I wanted to run screaming from the room!
We are wasting kids lives, squandering their talents and abilities, and blighting their futures, when we make them go faster (or slower) than their minds learn, when we either give them no challenge, or insurmountable challenges, and when we teach them that only a very narrow band of abilities and intelligences have value -- to the exclusion of all others.
Thank you. I'm flattered (even though I have no right to be!)
Julian
Sorry Charlie, but reading your comment brings Allan Bakke to mind. You have to be old like me and remember him as a thirty-something "disadvantaged white male" who, in the 80's, sought to have the protections afforded classes who were faced systemic discrimination.
As someone in the 70's who somehow managed to overcome those systemic barriers, I say phooey! Brains and involved parents can easily overcome brains, involved parents, disability and racial status any day.
I hate these threads. Seriously, as a brainy immigrant girl, I would beat up the kids making fun of the brainy white boy at recess. That's okay. It was my pleasure.
Public School Parent
The problem with Reform, frankly.
It's automation, it's streamlining...
The brave new world of education wants a product that's easy to make. Designing individualized educations for individuals is time consuming, labor intensive, expensive. So what better than to package it all up into a neat, measurable process, one size fits all?
In doing this, Reformers cut out all the nuance, all the extras, all the quirky (oops! There's that word!) nuances that make people individuals (and, in a business-driven model the conspiracists among us might believe that anything that challenges business as usual, anything that looks at, say, social justice, is just not to be taught: Another piece of "fluff" discarded in the rush to streamline.
That's why you see me using Read Write Matt Science: These words have become, de facto, descriptors of what we want students to learn. Note that they don't say, Poetry, Drama, Literature...Cretive Writing, Essay, Critique...Algebra, Trig, Statistics....Earth Sciences, physical geography....No, no, no, can't have that nuance, we just want kids to Read. And Write.
("Everyone college ready and ready for work.")
So, what do you do? You make 10th grade standards the standard students have to reach in order to get a CAA, Certificate of Academic Achievement (accompanies HS diploma to put state sanction on said diplomoa) - So according to the state, 11th and 12th grade don't matter, test wise.
You make digital data systems that ONLY measure Read Write Math Science, and to a limited degree. As people complain, and inquire why, say, civics and art aren't test, heck: Get going making tests for THOSE. These will be called "Government Art Music. No tested standards on civil disobedience, none on graffiti, none on jazz...Just Government Art Music. I can see them now: "Student uses brush with defined strokes. Student's improv is wihtin defined parameters. Student gets 214 on the RIT."
(to be continued)
Then, once you have testing in place, you design curriculum to go with it, then you constrain educators to teach the curriculum to the test, make the tests high-stakes for student and teacher....Voila! Nothing is taught except what is tested, nothing is on the test except some median amount of some skill that someone decided was just high enough...10th grade, say...to be....passable...
Then you can turn teaching itself into the streamlined, candy-flake monster: If teacher is only teaching to strict curriculum tied to test, then anyone can do it, eh? It's EASY! Follow along as the screen prompts you. Don't stray. Don't innovate. Don't stray. BAD teacher, you strayed, as we can see with 22 percentile of factor "X" being triangulated against your time-on-task with lesson "Y"....You're on a PIP, Personal Improvement Plan, and if you can't do more with less, if you can't teacher more and more diverse students in your more and more crowded classroom to these baser and baser standards....well, you're not efficient and we will replace you with TFA (because, as you know, the district has already told teachers that TFA brings a certain je ne sais quoi to teaching, mainly have to do with "closing the achievement gap" (a gap defined by test scores in Read Write Math Science.)
TFA is more efficient, teachers are told, because they "backward plan" to the standard: THAT is the entire lesson. Oh, and hey, they're cheaper! IN this economy, every freakin' college grad in the world would be more than happy to do two years before the class to earn money before they get that job in, you know, leadership.
Yes, EQUALITY, cries the Inspector general in charge of humans. They tell us it's so we don't feel bad when someone does better, but methinks it's because it's easier and cheaper, and perhaps more lucrative, than actually teaching and learning. Base standards are what we should all attain, right?