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Knox County: Parents & Teachers take charge and things are looking up!

10/31/2014

 
This short column by Betty Bean recently appeared in the local Knox County newspaper.  It is especially important because it gives hope to the rest of the state.  If smart parents and teachers put their minds to it, they can take charge of their public schools.  It can be done!  Parents & teachers know what is best for the children in their community, not politicians, businessmen, expensive think tanks paid for by billionaires, or those in Washington D.C.

CHANGE IS HARDOctober 26, 2014 by Betty BeanIn the recent past, when teachers or parents asked for relief from Knox County Schools’ test-happy corporate reform regime, Superintendent James McIntyre and the 8-to-1 school board majority that had his back would tell them to suck it up and get with the program.

“Change is hard,” they’d say to tearful mothers telling of their children’s mounting test anxiety.

“Change is hard,” they’d tell teachers saddled with evaluations based on subjects they never taught.

We haven’t heard much of that since that since August elections and Indya Kincannon’s departure whittled McIntyre’s majority down to a 4-5 minority, and depending on the outcome of the Nov. 4 race to replace Kincannon, the former majority would probably be well advised to start practicing a new mantra.

New board member Amber Rountree has one:

“Go big or go home.”

Rountree has requested a called meeting to vote on abolishing SAT-10, an exam for kindergarten through second graders that many educators feel is inappropriate. SAT-10 is not state-mandated, and board chair Mike McMillan is expected to honor her request. Rountree wants a vote before the tests are ordered.

Board member Karen Carson is expected to oppose Rountree’s efforts. Carson said at last week’s mind- and butt-numbing 5-hour workshop that it’s the school board’s job to hire a superintendent and set goals. It’s the superintendent’s job to decide what tests will be administered.

But Rountree disagrees. She quit her job as a school librarian to serve on the board. Her South Knox constituents elected her, and she’s not been shy about saying how she feels about McIntyre’s heavy-handed administration.

Rountree, Patti Bounds and Terry Hill have served notice that they intend to own future school board meetings. It’s unlikely that McIntyre’s lengthy, orchestrated presentations will recur.

County Commissioner Charles Busler said last week that commissioners would never allow Mayor Tim Burchett, or any mayor, to sit at their table and control their meetings. In fact, Burchett often stays in his office, monitoring commission meetings and making himself available if needed.

Change is hard. And we should expect change for the Knox County Board of Education, starting this week with Amber Rountree’s effort to discontinue high-stakes testing for kids who have not yet learned to read. Are we really that data-driven? And to what goal?

Will Rountree win the vote? Maybe yes, maybe no. But the message is clear: Go big or go home.

Yes, change is hard.


ASD in Ashes: ASD Achieves Revolts

10/29/2014

 
Tennessee's Achievement School District has achieved something alright... a flat out citizen's revolt and not even offers of free pizza from the ASD could calm the crowds.

This week, the ASD is holding a series of public meetings at schools targeted for takeover in Shelby County. They were not welcomed and faced strong community opposition. On the north side of town, parents and teachers protested the ASD takeover at Raleigh Egypt High School. At American Way Middle School in south Memphis, the audience shouted down ASD charter school representatives forcing them off the stage. Then last night at the Shelby County School Board meeting, so many people spoke against the ASD school takeovers that public comments were limited to 90 seconds. More opposition to ASD takeovers is expected at the upcoming meetings scheduled for later this week.

Parents Don't Trust the ASD

Parents have seen the ASD's dismal record on student achievement and they want better for their children. The new unified Shelby County School system has shown that is a stronger district and capable of raising student achievement. The citizens of Shelby County are insisting that their school system be given an opportunity to teach their children without the ASD's interference. 

ASD charter schools have WORSE test scores than Shelby County School

ASD schools are now scoring even LOWER than before the takeover 

ASD plays games in selecting schools for its priority list:  
  • Click HERE to see how the ASD manipulated its own numbers.  
  • See HERE how the ASD literally changed report card grades to a new scale to make failing students pass (*A=90-100, B=71-89, C=59-70, D=47-58, F=0-46).  
  • Click HERE to see how the TDOE "messed up" the lists of failing, priority, & focus schools and was called out by a district. 
  • Click HERE to see how the ASD cherry picked schools and manipulated data last year. Is the ASD targeting the "top of the bottom" schools to try and "cream" the best for their portfolio?
  • Click HERE to see why American Way Middle shouldn’t be on the ASD list at all.
  ASD contracts with problem charter chains:
  • Green Dot's failure in California
  • YES Prep's cronyism and connection to the ASD Superintendent, Chris Barbic. Coincidentally, Barbic is being sued for unfairly picking his YES Prep charter chain to operate in the ASD.
  • Libertas' non-existent track record
  • KIPP's method of kicking out students before TCAP testing
  • A former Memphis KIPP teacher speaks up about the high teacher turnover and cult-like environment.

Parents Don't Want to be Disenfranchised by the ASD

Another problem that these communities are having trouble digesting is the loss of elected representation. No one on the school board represents the ASD schools. Public parents demand to have an elected official to turn to when they or teachers have concerns. They pay taxes for public education and they want elected school board members to have authority over their public schools. But instead, their tax dollars are paying for charter schools. Sounds a lot like taxation without representation where public dollars are controlled by private interests. Parents don't like putting their children in the hands of those who are there (and let's be honest) because their profit potential is huge.

Parents appreciate House Representative Antonio Parkinson and Shelby County School Board Member, Stephanie Love, for speaking up for the teachers, students, and communities at the Raleigh Egypt High meeting. That is elected leadership representing their constituents. We hope other elected officials join their efforts.

Parents Don't Like the ASD's Back Room Dealings 

A Memphis blogger talked to Stephanie Love about this "hostile takeover" and Love felt the community was being left out of the process. “People are meeting behind closed doors about our children and our communities who don’t know anything about our children, don’t ask us question about what’s best for our children and our communities.” Even though Love is the elected school board member for Raleigh-Egypt's district, she had never been included in the meetings.  The blogger goes on to say that Love "would rather see those schools being taken over included in [Shelby County School's] iZone. Love agreed that these schools need extra support but she urges support be given within the current framework of SCS." Unfortunately, this is not an option with the ASD because the ASD has made it clear that it works with charter school operators, not Shelby County School Board nor their constituency. And they are more interested in making money than being popular with the voters. A recent Commercial Appeal article said, "State Rep. Antonio Parkinson suggested it was time to follow the money, noting that charters aren’t interested in taking over small schools, suggesting they don’t offer enough cash."


Parents Don't Want the ASD to Say Goodbye to Teachers & Staff

When these communities realize that their school's teachers and staff will likely be replaced with unqualified, inexperienced staff, they're not so keen on the idea.  They like their teachers.  They are invested in the community. One news station reported how Green Dot brought some of their current ASD students to talk to people at Raleigh Egypt High School, but one of the  Green Dot students admitted that the staff at her high school had changed drastically when the ASD took over, saying "probably 10 teachers that I recognize from last year" are still at her school this year.   

Even though Superintendent Dorsey Hopson co-authored a letter in the local newspaper just a few months ago with ASD Superintendent Chris Barbic, Hopson is now saying he is opposed to giving the schools to the ASD.  In fact, the SCS Board is considering a moratorium on ASD takeovers, citing that it is achieving better results with its own iZone schools, which pour more resources and qualified teachers into struggling schools.


Parents Don't Forget the ASD's Broken Promises
  • Children in Memphis’ Coleman neighborhood are not allowed to attend their neighborhood ASD school that is blocks away from their home.  Despite the law that said ASD must take zoned neighborhood children, children are being bussed an hour away to another ASD school across town because Aspire Charter Chain says they have no capacity for them.  But here’s the thing:  Coleman Elementary had 515 students in 2012-13, but now they are maxing the school out at 380 students as a new ASD school?  This is not acceptable.  Parents do not want their children riding on a school bus 2 hours a day or sent to a failing school across town.  This is not good for children.  Some speculate it is about money and raising the scores of the school across town.
  • Parents were told that two veteran charter school operators, KIPP and Freedom Prep were chosen by the ASD to takeover their schools. But these charter chains recently decided to pull out of the ASD market in Memphis. They said it was to focus on their current schools but at least one of them is eyeing new charter schools in Nashville leaving parents to wonder if it truly about children or about profits.   
  • And the biggest broken promise of all... our schools taken over by the ASD aren’t anywhere near reaching the top 25% of the state like ASD Superintendent Chris Barbic has repeatedly promised parents.

Local news coverage in Memphis:
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Memphis isn't the only pocket of resistance.  Nashville is simmering, too.  This strongly worded press release below from East Nashville United shows that parents are not willing to give in.  They clearly do not like back-room deals being made regarding their children or their community's schools between politicians and venture capitalists:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                              
Contact: John Haubenreich
haubenreich@gmail.com
October 28, 2014

EAST NASHVILLE UNITED BLASTS REGISTER’S INGLEWOOD DECEPTION

Nashville, Tenn. -- East Nashville United is calling on Jesse Register to back away from his back room deal to hand over the management of Inglewood Elementary School to KIPP, a local charter school operator. 
On September 24th, Nashville Schools Director Jesse Register hosted a community meeting at Inglewood Elementary to discuss his recently announced East Nashville schools’ plan. Nearly every parent at the meeting voiced unbridled support for their zoned school, prompting Register to tell the Nashville Scene that he was not inclined to hand over Inglewood to KIPP.
“It sounds like this community does not want this school to convert to a charter school. So, we need to hear that,” said Register. “I would be very hesitant to recommend a conversion here. There are some other places where a conversion might work, but I don’t think so in this community.”
On Monday, however, it was revealed that Register had already made a deal with KIPP for Inglewood Elementary, despite repeated assertions to the community that “there was no plan” and statements to Inglewood Elementary parents confirming that he was not going to convert the school to a charter. Recently released emails confirm that the district’s central office had already settled on Inglewood as a location for the next KIPP location, weeks before Register announced his 3rd Way Plan to the school board. 
“We made it very clear to Dr. Register that we were not in favor of a charter conversion and he appeared to listen,” says Jai Sanders, an Inglewood parent and one of the founding members of East Nashville United. “But now it’s clear that the fix was already in to flip our school to KIPP and that his meeting with parents was a charade.”
Although East Nashville United has repeatedly signaled its support for the existing charter schools in the Stratford and Maplewood clusters, John Haubenreich, the chair of the parent-led group, affirmed yet again that his group’s opposition to the district’s dealings is not over the role of charter schools in public education. 
“Had the parents at Inglewood expressed any interest in handing over their school to KIPP, we would not oppose a charter conversion,” Haubenreich says. “But the parents made it clear that they did not want a charter to run their school. What they wanted--and still want--is for their zoned school to stay intact, only with MNPS providing it with the resources it needs to succeed.” 
Haubenreich says he is mystified how Register could hedge his position after hearing from so many Inglewood parents. 
“Our message all along has been that any East Nashville plan can be created only after listening to parents and educators,” he said.  “We thought that’s the direction we were all headed, but now it appears we’re back to square one, fighting a cram-down scheme concocted in back rooms by people who don’t live in our neighborhoods and don’t have kids in our schools.”

Ruth Stewart, the vice chair of ENU, says that the recently released emails raise serious questions about whether Register has any plans to listen to the community task force. The task force, pushed for by East Nashville United, was supposed to help devise a plan by listening to parents and educators and researching the best options for each school.  Stewart, however, says the recently released emails suggest that district officials and charter officials were already engaged in serious policy discussions well before anyone else knew an East Nashville plan was afoot. 
 
“We were told over and over that there was no plan, but the emails show the exact opposite.” Stewart says. “Before the task force begins its work, we want to know details of this secret plan. We’re not sure what the point of having a task force is if the district is already making decisions behind closed doors, with no community input.  Who knows what else they’ve already decided and haven’t told us about.” 

As Jim Horn eloquently wrote on his blog:

"Parents and teachers, however, are not nearly as uninformed as county officials who are doing the Gates dirty work believe. In fact, they know how the charter school takeover cycle works. They know that first you need public schools isolated by years of neglect, segregation, and poverty--schools that everyone outside the affected communities would rather forget about. Memphis has an ample supply of these schools in the poorest neighborhoods, and politicians are eager to make them someone else’s responsibility. 

These neighborhood schools make easy targets for profiteers and politicians convinced (or pretending to believe) that these public schools have low test scores because of lazy teachers, public bureaucracy, unconcerned parents, unions, or other reasons having nothing do with the reality of poverty, racism, or a sordid history of inequality.

I am glad they are among those who have been awakened to the threat to their neighborhood schools by corporate takeover, as they have decided to SKIP the KIPP and offer a loud NO to YES Prep and put a big red light in front of the Green Dot. 

Frederick Douglass knew that power concedes nothing without a demand.  It is time for Shelby County to concede what these teachers and parents demand, and that is nothing more or less than quality public schools for all children."

November 2 in Nashville... Why you should be there

10/27/2014

 
Can Nashville learn from the mistakes of New Orleans' all-charter school district?
Public School activist and parent Karran Harper Royal and Public School Reform author Kristen Buras come together in Nashville, TN on November 2nd to speak about the past decade of education reform in New Orleans. 

As Nashville continues to shape its public education reform it must learn about the success and failures of these reform models in other cities. Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence and Gideon's Army: Grassroots Army for Children welcome two foremost experts on the public school privatization front lines. Karran Harper Royal and Kristen Buras will talk about how those solutions look today in New Orleans, LA.
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Free and open to the public with parking at the center.  

Click this link to register.

Tennessee Parents wrote about this issue in February, but it is definitely worth sharing again:
Big Easy, Little Choice 
Posted on February 26, 2014
By Ashana Bigard

A parent advocate says run—don’t walk—from New Orleans-style school choice
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When I talk about *choice* in New Orleans I use quotations with both fingers and I wink too. Supposedly we have what’s called a *choice model for excellent education* but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of schools in New Orleans now operate the exact same way. They have rigid disciplinary codes that punish poor kids for being poor and are neither nurturing nor developmentally appropriate.

I’m an advocate for parents in New Orleans, which means that I work with them and represent them when their kids are suspended or expelled from school. Last year we had 54 school districts in New Orleans and all of those different districts make their own rules. For six years after the storm, the schools all set their own expulsion policies. As of last year we have a uniform expulsion policy but individual schools still make their own suspension rules.

Punished for being poor
Most of the cases I see involve kids who are being discriminated against and criminalized for being poor. Think about it. If I’m setting up a school where I know that the majority of students I’m serving are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced lunch—to access free lunch in New Orleans your family has to earn less than $12,000 a year—why would I punish kids for not being able to pay for things that are clearly out of the range of what their families can afford? It isn’t logical. Yet as an advocate I have to go and argue with the school that if this child doesn’t have a belt or his mother can’t afford a size 15 uniform shoe that costs $200, you don’t have the right to put them out of school and keep them from being educated. This is a child we’re talking about. Even if you’re saying *we’re going to teach this child a lesson,* what are you teaching him other than that *if your parents are poor, you can be hurt*? What is the lesson?

Case closed
The case that still breaks my heart involved a 14-year-old who kept getting demerits because his uniform shirt was too small and came untucked basically every time he moved. His mother was a veteran, well-educated, and had sold real estate but got divorced and ended up losing her job, and became homeless. They were living with friends and really struggling. The school expelled the child because he’d had three suspensions—the last one for selling candy to try to raise enough money to buy a new shoes and a new uniform shirt. I felt that if the mother went and told her story that the school would understand and wouldn’t hold up the expulsion. She didn’t want the school to know how impoverished she was but I convinced her to do it, so she came and told all of these people what she was going through—about her struggles. I thought for sure the board would overturn the expulsion, not just because her story was so compelling, but because there wasn’t actually anything in the school’s discipline book about selling candy. But they upheld it and it broke my heart that this kid was being put out of school because he was poor.

Little prisons
The majority of schools in New Orleans have these overly rigid disciplinary codes—they’re run like little prisons. The schools aren’t nurturing and they aren’t developmentally appropriate. Children need social development time. They need recess, they need to be able to talk at lunch. You’ll hear the schools say *we’re providing structured social development*—but there’s no such thing! If you have to manage kids’ social development, it’s not social development. Typically you’ll hear from school leaders that they have to have this overly rigid school climate because the school has just opened and it’s chaotic. They’ll say something like *we need these rules in place until we get a structured, calm environment, then we can make it less rigid. But first we have to calm these children and get them to a place of orderliness.* But children will never be calm, orderly robots unless there’s something wrong with them. They’re never going to get to the place that you’ve decided is necessary before they can have more freedom. In order for children to know how to operate in freedom, they have to have freedom to operate in. We don’t teach kids to eat with a fork and spoon by not giving them a fork and spoon!

Recess and recourse
When parents ask me for advice about schools in New Orleans they never ask *what are the best schools*? They want to know what the least terrible schools are. I tell them to go for one of the Orleans Parish School Board schools because at least then they’ll have some recourse. I tell them to look for schools that have recess and try to find the good teachers. And if they end up at a school where the teachers are really young, look for developmentally appropriate material and bring it to the teacher—kind of like *educate the educator.* So many of the teachers in New Orleans are brand new—this isn’t their profession. They don’t know about child development or adolescent development. I also tell parents to document absolutely everything. If you have a problem with something that happens at the school, keep a record. Try to create an email trail and keep a log of   everything that happens. At some point there is going to be a class-action suit because our children’s rights are being violated and we need as much documentation as possible.

The choice to leave
My daughter attended a kindergarten where the students spent most of the day doing worksheets. I didn’t feel that this was in any way developmentally appropriate. At six years old, my daughter should love math—I love math!—but the school was basically fostering a hatred of math. Their response was basically *if you don’t like our program, you have the choice to leave.* So I left. As of last year, though, parents in New Orleans no longer have the choice to leave schools they’re unhappy with after October 1st. In order to transfer, you have to get the approval of the school board to agree to release your child, and you have to get the other school to agree to take your child. Our children are prisoners—are kids are inmates—and in order to get them out, we have to beg for pardons, which may or may not be granted.

A sorting mechanism
OneApp, the centralized enrollment system for the New Orleans schools, is supposed to make it easy for parents in the city to have their choice of schools. But parents aren’t going to have real choice just because they filled out the OneApp application. For example, you can’t see a school’s discipline guide before you register your child. And if I want my child to go to a school that has recess, art or educates the whole child, I have very little choice at all. I can try for one of the high-performing charters—the magnet schools that existed before the storm—but which are now even harder to get into than they were before Katrina. Parents of special needs kids, by the way, have even less choice, because so few of the schools will accept their children at all. What OneApp does is ensure that the various charter operators get the enrollment that they were promised. No matter how bad the school is, or how terrible the climate, we’re going to make sure that you get those kids.

Fight harder than you’ve ever fought
If New Orleans is being held up as a model for the schools in your community, I have some advice for you. Fight harder than you’ve ever fought to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you. Because once you’re in it, it’s so hard to get out of. Fight tooth and nail. If people come to your community and try to sell you bull crap, come down here and talk to us first. Read anything you can get your hands on. They’ll tell you that your input matters, that your schools are going to be run according to a community model. Don’t believe it. At the end of the day, they could care less about what kind of schools you want. In fact, I’m pretty sure that we said that we wanted arts and music in our schools—that those were really important to us in a city like New Orleans that’s build on arts and music and culture. Instead we got prisons.

Ashana Bigard is a life-long resident of New Orleans and a long-time advocate for children and families. She helps lead the Community Education Project of New Orleans

This was printed with permission from this awesome website: www.edushyster.com 


Tennessee's Achievement School District is modeled after New Orleans' FAILING Recovery School District.  Tennessee parents do NOT want this system here.

Giving our public schools away to charter operators is not acceptable. It is especially sneaky and dishonest to give them away one grade level at a time (starting with only the Kdg. & 1st grade in year 1, and adding a grade each year thereafter) so that the charter operator isn't held accountable by test scores for several years. Plus it hides the glaring low enrollment rates due to parents transferring their children to other public schools.  The claim that "the ASD must immediately intervene to save those poor, failing students currently in those schools" is a big, fat lie.  Those current students aren't being helped one bit by only taking the brand new younger grades.  It really IS about profit, isn't it?

This is NOT what those parents want for their children.  They want fully funded public schools.  Parents voices are repeatedly being ignored. Parents in those communities will not forget this in the voting booths.


Stop giving away our public schools away.
They belong to the public.


Gov Haslam's desperate attempt to save Common Core, despite major flaws with his plan:

10/22/2014

 
In a desperate political move to save the Common Core in Tennessee, Governor Haslam has announced there shall be a "full vetting" of the Common Core.  There are some huge flaws with his plan that people should know:

  1. The "independent" organization that will be handling the entire process is not "independent" at all.  It is heavily funded by Bill Gates.  $11.8 million dollars so far has been given to the Southern Regional Education Board specifically to support Common Core.  Click HERE to see the millions in grant money flowing from Gates to SREB specifically to support his Common Core initiative.  This organization is biased and exists to SAVE Common Core.
     
  2. The committee members of these review panels include Common Core cheerleaders from the lucrative reform movement such asCandice McQueen (Miss "I love it for your kids, but not for mine in private school") and Meghan Little, chief academic officer for KIPP Nashville which has a very high rate of kicking kids out conveniently before the TCAP testing window.
     
  3. The "review" won't be finished until after the 2015 Legislative Session so Legislators won't be able to take any action regarding the results until 2016.

Click HERE to see the FAQ from Governor Haslam with more details.
 
 
Will TN Legislators be fooled with this stalling tactic?

Puke

10/22/2014

 
The awareness & outrage over standardized testing is growing.  A Knox County School District meeting this week about the SAT-10 test for young elementary students lasted over 5 hours.  Some parents who wished to speak during public comments weren't able to because they had to leave to put their children to bed.  Some strong parents & teachers stayed until 10:30pm to be heard.  

A frustrated TN Mom wrote the letter below during TCAP testing last year.  She wanted to know how to send it to someone who could make a difference, so we are happy to pass this along to all the School board members, Superintendents, Senators, Representatives, Commissioner Kevin Huffman, Governor Haslam, and to the media.  It is easy to see why parents are so upset:

Dear important elected official who can make a difference,

I know you are a very busy and important person, but I would really appreciate it if you could read my letter.  It matters very much to me and my family.  See, I just cleaned up puke.  

Yes, vomit.  My youngest daughter, who is 9 years old and in the 3rd grade, is stressed to the point that she threw up.  She can’t sleep she is so worried.  She loved school until just this past month.  Now, everything that is normal and consistent in her school has changed because they are in TCAP testing prep mode.  Instead of being with her teacher that she loves, her class is herded like cattle between 5 different 3rd grade teachers each day to be drilled on TCAP questions.  This will be the schedule for 3 weeks.  Drill, drill, drill.  No weekly spelling words or literature stories anymore because they have to be ready for THE test.  In music class, they were taught songs about testing and “Zapping the TCAP”.  Her guidance counselor even taught the whole class how to deal with stress by practicing deep breathing just in case students freaked out on THE test.  (Which is like me telling you not to freak out if a giant spider crawls on your head because it just might happen.  To kids, that will be ALL they can worry about until it really comes true).  Also, her school, which is normally a cheerful, bright environment full of colorful artwork will soon be stripped bare and their school will look like a prison to prevent cheating.  Blank concrete cinder-block block walls and empty cork bulletin boards in every classroom will be what children see for testing week (and really for the rest of the year, since there are only a few weeks left before summer break).  The only thing allowed on their desk will be #2 pencils.  

How do I know my vomiting 9 year old isn’t really sick?  Déjà vu…  It was just a few years ago that our oldest child was only 8 years old in the 2nd grade when she started having stomach aches.  8 years old.  We thought it was a virus at first, but when it didn't get better, we took her to her pediatrician.  The pediatrician thought it could be a food allergy, so over the course of a few months, we tried all sorts of remedies from eliminating dairy & gluten, and adding probiotics to her diet.  Her stomach issues only got worse.  She missed quite a bit of school.  The pediatrician was perplexed and referred her to a GI doctor who sent us to an outpatient facility to have our 8 year old daughter put to sleep so he could put cameras inside her little body.  He looked at every inch of her intestinal tract and cut out tissue samples to biopsy.  His diagnosis:  our child was perfectly healthy, thank God!  The next week after the biopsies were back, he asked her some questions and diagnosed her with:  Anxiety.  Specifically, anxiety over the testing at school.  8 years old.  He said he is seeing more and more of this test anxiety in children, especially in the children who are A+ level over-achievers like my daughter.   We had no clue she was worried about the standardized test at school (Our child called this test "TCAP," but the test for 2nd graders was really the SAT10 test which is basically the same thing as TCAP except for 2nd graders)

I know my kids better than anyone on the planet.  No matter how much my husband and I tell our children that the stupid TCAP test doesn't matter, they know better.  They see how the teachers are stressed over it.  Kids are very intuitive and pick up on things.  I want to opt my children out of the stupid tests, but the district won’t allow it.  The district says the state law won't allow it.  If we keep them home on test days, their grades on their report cards will drop from A’s & B’s to C’s & D’s.  I hate this.  You don’t know how much I hate this.  There are curse words I’m thinking of right now (but I won't say aloud) because of the greedy testing companies and politicians who force this on my children.  There is no good reason for this.  This test doesn't help my children learn.  We won’t even get their scores until the fall, a few months after they have moved into the next grades!  If we could afford private schools, my children wouldn't even have to take these high-stakes tests.  Do politicians even realize how bad it is in public schools?

And this stupid Common Core math makes me want to puke, too, right along with my child.  Don’t get me wrong… I agree with high standards.  I agree with understanding clear concepts.  However, I don’t see the point in doing math with these backward, confusing methods.  Drawing arrays and hoops on a number line is NOT the clear, simple way to solve a simple equation.  It confuses younger kids by showing them so many methods that they can't remember any of them correctly.  This new math is only making the curriculum companies richer.  

Even scarier, I sure as heck don’t want the government or a company contracted with the government tracking my child's personal information or guiding my child into a career path based on test results.  That is my children’s right to decide for themselves.  Their data should be protected, and we, as their parents, should be able to control and protect who has access to it.  The FERPA law doesn’t protect my children, it protects the companies who seek to profit from my children’s data.  There is a big difference between the two.

Don’t tell me that Common Core is “only standards” or that the problems are from “bad implementation” or that “Common Core doesn't require data mining”.  I know better.  I've read the Race to the Top Application and all the Appendixes to it.  It is there.  It is inseparable.  It is undeniable.  It boasts how the government will track children, a "360 degree view of the child" from PreK through the workforce.  TN agreed to do Common Core before the standards were even written.  In exchange for money.  Money that is long gone.  Money that didn’t trickle down to my children’s classrooms.  In fact, there are more students in my children’s classes now because our district had to “excess” teachers and increase class sizes because the money is so tight in our district to pay for all these stupid tests.  Teachers are stressed.  Children are stressed.  Parents are stressed.  Our kids are being boxed in to standards and tests that nobody can prove even work.

I’m not the only parent who feels this way.  It is the main topic of conversation at PTO meetings and while waiting to pick our kids up after school.  I know it is wrong of me, but I feel a sense of relief knowing that it isn't just my children having these reactions; their kids are barfing and crying over Common Core and all this crazy testing, too.  Teachers in our community are even risking their jobs to hold public meetings against Common Core and testing.  This anger in the community is not going away.  

I don’t think politicians or the media realize what a hot button this is.  There is no Republican or Democrat party to pin the blame on for these problems.  Parents are angry at both sides for forcing this on our children.  When Democrats are willing to vote for a Tea Party candidate if that person says he will abolish Common Core, you know something is very, very wrong.

Which is why I am writing this letter right now, even though I should be washing the pile of puke-covered laundry.  Please, I beg of you, STOP Common Core.  STOP this incessant testing.  Let our kids have normal childhoods and enjoy learning.  Stop pushing OUR kids in ways that YOUR children in private schools are not forced to do.

Thank you for reading my letter,
A mother of stressed children in Tennessee

 

Why it won't work...

10/20/2014

 
Do your eyes get a glazed-over expression when people start talking about education reform?  

Are you intimidated by the slick marketing tactics that the reformers bombard you with?  Do you REALLY understand their lingo and impressive-sounding buzz words?

Do you sincerely believe the gloom and doom coming from the media and reformers, even though you think that your neighborhood's schools & teachers are excellent, so it must be that "other" school district?


You're not alone.  Don't despair!  There is hope!

Even though the mainstream media tends to simply regurgitate press releases from richly-funded reformers...  and even though education reporters are strangely replaced with out-of-state journalists who have very little knowledge on our state or local education issues... there is a light that is growing brighter that people cannot ignore: independent bloggers!  The word is spreading!  One such blogger is Peter Greene, a teacher by day and a blogger by night.  


This recent blog of Greene's is simply fantastic.  He has the incredible gift of writing the obvious.  Please read it, wipe the reformy grit out of your eyes, and share it with others.

Free Market Forces Will Not Save US Education -- They Will Destroy It

by Peter Greene
originally posted at Curmuducation 


Fans of market forces for education simply don't understand how market forces actually work.

What they like to say is that free market competition breeds excellence. It does not, and it never has.

Free market competition breeds excellent marketing. McDonald's did not become successful by creating the most excellent food. Coke and Pepsi are not that outstandingly superior to RC or any store brand. Betamax was actually technically superior to VHS, but VHS had a better marketing plan.

The market loves winners. It loves winners even if they aren't winning -- Amazon has yet to turn an actual profit, ever, but investors think that Bezos is a winner, so they keep shoveling money on top of him. And when we enter the area of crony capitalism, which likes to pretend it's the free market, picking winners becomes even less related to success. Charter schools were once a great idea with some real promise, but the whole business has become so toxically polluted with crony capitalism that it has no hope of producing educational excellence in its present form.

But then, the market has only one measure for winning, and that is the production of money. The heart of a business plan is not "Can I build a really excellent mousetrap?" The heart of a business plan is "Can I sell this mousetrap and make money doing it?"

There is nothing about that question that is compatible with pursuing excellence in public education.

The most incompatible part of market-driven education is not its love of money-making winner, but its attitude about losers. Because the market hates losers. The market has no plan for dealing with losers. It simply wants all losers to go away.

Here's the problem. I teach plenty of students whom the market would consider losers. They take too long to learn. They have developmental obstacles to learning. They have disciplinary issues. They may be learning disabled. They have families of origin who create obstacles rather than providing support. What this means to a market-driven education system is that these loser students are too costly, offer too little profit margin, and, in their failures, hurt the numbers that are so critical to marketing the school.

In PA, we already know how the market-driven sector feels about these students. It loves to recruit them by promising a free computer and a happy land of success where nobody ever hounds you about attendance and all homework can be completed by whoever is sitting by the computer. But sooner or later, those students are sloughed off and sent back to public schools. And by "sooner or later," I mean some time after the cyber-charter has collected the money for that student.

The market sheds its losers, its failures (well, unless they can convince some patron or crony that they are just winners who are suffering a minor setback). Schools cannot.

For the free market, failure is not only an option, but a necessity. Losers must fail, be defeated, go away. For a public school system, that is not an option. Only with due process and extraordinary circumstances should a student be refused a public education. And certainly no traditional respectable public school system can simply declare that it has too many loser kids, so it's going to shut down.

The free market approach to schools must inevitably turn them upside down. In a free market system, the school does not exist to serve the student, but the student exists to serve the interests of the school by bringing in money and by generating the kinds of numbers that make good marketing (so that the school can bring in more money). And that means that students who do not serve the interests of the free-market school must be dumped, tossed out, discarded.

To label students losers, to abandon them, to toss them aside, and to do all that to the students who are in most need of an education -- that is the very antithesis of American public education. The free market approach to schools will no more unleash innovation and excellence than did 500 channels on cable TV. What it will do is chew up and spit out large numbers of students for being business liabilities.

Free market forces will not save US education; they will destroy it. To suggest that entrepreneurs should have the chance to profit at the cost of young lives is not simply bad policy -- it's immoral. It's wrong.


The above article is reprinted with the kind permission of its author.  Click HERE to read more of Peter Greene's enlightening, witty blogs about education reform.  You can easily subscribe to his blog on the sidebar of his website.

Another school board in TN passes a Resolution against Common Core

10/15/2014

 
Lakeland School District in Tennessee unanimously passed a Resolution against Common Core State Standards on Monday, October 13, 2014.  

Important facts to know about Lakeland School District:
  • Lakeland, TN is a middle-class suburb near Memphis.  
  • Lakeland school district is brand new; it just opened in August 2014.  Formerly, Lakeland was a part of the merged Shelby County & Memphis City School mega-district for one year.  Before the merger, Lakeland was a part of the high-performing Shelby County school district. 
  • Lakeland has one school that serves elementary with plans to build a combined middle/high school soon.  Their 6-12 grade students currently attend schools in neighboring districts. 
  • When elected last year, their school board members did not run on anti-Common Core platforms.  Their board members received no campaign funding from out-of-state organizations.  They have zero affiliation with the Koch Brother's Americans For Prosperity organization.  In fact, their board members are not particularly connected with any political party.  Their board members are pro-public school (not charters or vouchers).
  • Laura Harrison, one of the Lakeland school board members, says this Resolution was not a political move at all.  She said that their board members have heard from many parents, teachers, and constituents in their district who are opposed to Common Core for many different reasons.  The board members simply voted for what their community wanted.  
  • Lakeland's 5 school board members all have children currently in public schools.  The professions of the school board members include: a lawyer, an engineer, a teacher, a business owner, and a Human Resources professional.
  • Representative Ron Lollar and Senator Mark Norris are the elected state legislators for Lakeland.  Mark Norris is the current Senate Majority leader and, as such, carries Governor Haslam's bills.  

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Which brave school district will be next?

Will Governor Haslam ever get the message?

Or will legislators have to pull more stealth moves to get past the Governor's strategically-placed committee chairs and phony fiscal notes to ultimately eliminate Common Core like they had to do during the last Legislative session to stop the pricey PARCC test? 


Our kids are waiting...

A picture is worth a thousand words...

10/13/2014

 
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Common sense reforms:

10/1/2014

 
I attended a community meeting at Jere Baxter Middle School tonight to hear discussion of the East Nashville "Third Way" plan. Jere Baxter is located just off Dickerson Pike and only a few blocks away from the new Rocketship charter school (which is directly across the street from Jenna's Adult Toy Box, but that's an entirely different issue). 

Jere Baxter boasts a beautiful new building, but is severely underenrolled at only 53% capacity. Dr. Register said hundreds of students in the area are now attending new charter schools, which have oversaturated the East Nashville market. (See the correlation here?) 

Jere Baxter serves a population of 97.9% free and reduced lunch students. It has a mobility rate of 58% and a chronic absence rate of 18%. To no one's surprise, this school is struggling. This year, only 15.8% of its students were reading on grade level.

Dr. Register led off the discussion with Jere Baxter's dismal performance and said that no child should be subjected to a "failing" school. A parent responded with the question I had in mind: What actually makes Jere Baxter a "bad" school? Although Dr. Register didn't really answer this question, staff members complained about the lack of continuity - with constantly rotating students, teachers and principals. Teachers asked for greater supports. A parent noted that many students at the school are desperately seeking teachers' attention, and the school needs more staff. One teacher who had taught at both a charter and traditional schools pointed out that guidance counselors at traditional schools are too tied up with testing to actually offer counseling. (This is definitely the case at my child's school.) No one mentioned the elephant in the room - the impact of poverty and mobility on student performance.

The most disturbing part of the discussion for me, however, was the new focus onrecruiting students, rather than discussion of how to best address the huge challenges at the school. According to Dr. Register, the need to compete for students is just a reality now, and traditional schools need to step it up. He went on: Because charter schools are "out recruiting us" (despite the fact that our traditional schools provide more offerings than MNPS charter schools), we must become better recruiters at traditional schools. Other MNPS officials also spoke about the need to "sell" and market our schools and go door-to-door looking for students (like our charter schools). One teacher pointed out that charter schools often host huge BBQ dinners to recruit families and (only somewhat jokingly) asked for a budget for BBQ! 

This focus on recruitment and competition is all a direct result of the national, state, and local attacks on public education, created by those who view our schools as markets, our families as consumers, and our children as mass-produced commodities. 

Then, a voice of reason spoke up. A teacher said, "I went to school to be a teacher. Not a business person. Not a marketer. Not a recruiter." She asked: When can I do my job and teach? Where are my supports?

So after tonight's meeting, here are my questions: Is it really a good idea to require parents to compete for spots at coveted "choice" schools and ask teachers to become recruiters for the best test takers? Where is community in all this "choice," competition and winning? 

What has happened to the ideal that we will work together to build healthy communities and ensure that every neighbor is welcomed and accepted? We should make sure that children who have special needs, immigrant children who can't speak English, those with behavioral problems, and those who simply struggle in school are just as welcome as children who perform best in school, and that our struggling students will receive the extra support that they require. We should work together to support our schools in addressing these difficult issues and never give up on a single child.

In the end, this all seems to be a numbers game. Last year, Memphis closed down several of its "failing" schools, which increased Nashville's number of "failing" schools. We can now respond by shutting down our own "failing" schools (poof- no more "bad" schools!) and play the game of competing to win. Or we can take the brave step of not buying into all of this market-driven insanity. 

In short, we can choose to educate children, or we can sell out by "marketing" our "product" to "customers." 

We can have chaos, or we can have community.

What would happen if MNPS refused to play the "reform" numbers game anymore? What if we just decided to stand up to the bullies? Instead of merely shuffling students around to make our numbers look better, we, as a district, could decide that shuffling struggling students around is not the answer, even though it may momentarily make MNPS look better on the State Report Card. We could decide that we value each individual student and recognize that just moving "failing" students from school to school does nothing to address their academic problems. Instead of rubber-stamping military-style schools that get great scores, but don't offer healthy social/emotional learning opportunities, physical activity or enrichment, we could demand a focus on best practices. We could acknowledge that there are no miracle school cures, just like there are no miracle diet cures, and invest time, energy and long-term resources into our existing schools. We could create a budget that allows for extra support staff in the schools with the most challenging populations.
We could acknowledge that real school reform takes time. 

I believe these are the discussions we need to undertake. Who's with me?

- written by Amy Frogge, Metro Nashville School Board member
[emphasis added by TN Parents]

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