All We Want for Christmas is...Tennessee Parents across the state are busy preparing for Christmas, but even while we bake, shop, and decorate, we are thinking about what we want for our schools during the upcoming new year. Without further ado, here is our Christmas 2013 wish list:
 
All We Want for Christmas is…

1. Full-funding for our schools: Classroom teachers and parents should not be forced to purchase items such as toilet paper, cleaning products, and Kleenex—but this is exactly what is happening across our state.  (TN averages $9,300 dollars in per pupil funding and ranks 49th in the nation for overall funding of public schools.)
2. Smaller class sizes so teachers can better accommodate the needs of individual learners.
3. Wrap-around services in schools—including social workers, health clinics, and food banks—that attempt to remediate the multiple ways poverty negatively affects a child’s life and educational progress.
4. Teachers who are treated with respect by administrators and lawmakers: We believe lawmakers can show respect to our teachers by replacing TVAAS with a more transparent and fair system of measurement and by overhauling the overbearing TEAM evaluation system. (Colorado is developing an innovative method of evaluating teachers that appears to be promising.)
5. An elected—not appointed--state Education Commissioner and Board of Education: We believe that our state Education Commissioner and BOE have been unresponsive to the pleas of parents and teachers because they are not elected and, therefore, do not have an obligation to consider our concerns. It seems they are more concerned with answering to the wealthy special interest groups and lobbyists that seem intent upon dismantling the pubic education system.  We deserve a direct voice in the decisions these people make about our children.
6. A minimum of 30 minutes of recess for each child: Currently, there are many schools across the state that do not allow enough time for physical activity during the school day. (Our own elementary children are lucky if they receive 15 minutes a day of recess. We know of some schools that actually do not have recess for their students.) This is not only cruel, but it also runs counter toresearch that shows that physical activity improves learning and increases test scores.
7. Administration of only 1-2 standardized tests a year: Metro Nashville teachers estimate that test preparation and administration take 30 days a year of instruction time from our children. Knox County and Hamilton County teachers estimate that their students lose 60 days a year to test prep/administration. That means that our children lose out of 2 to 3 school years of instruction between kindergarten and 12th grade. That is the equivalent of a child only attending school through the 9th or 10th grade. This is unacceptable and must stop now.
8. An opt-out law that would allow parents to easily opt out of testing if #7 (see above) does not happen: Parents currently can opt their children out of immunizations, even though unimmunized children can introduce illnesses into a school that can infect other children and adults, even those who have been immunized.  Yet parents who want to opt their children out of testing are told they are legally prohibited from doing so. Refusing testing for our children does not have the potential of causing physical harm (or even death) to other children or teachers like refusing immunizations does. Therefore, allowing parents to opt out of vaccinations, but not tests, seems hypocritical and incredibly unfair.
9. A law that will protect our children’s test scores and demographic data from being “data mined.”:  The federal law protecting our children’s educational data (FERPA) was weakened by the federal government, and 3rdparties can now access our children’s data without parental permission. And theRace to the Top application indicated that student data is being collected and tracked from kindergarten through 12th grade.  Our children have become lab rats without our permission, and we believe that is an inherent violation of their (and our) right to privacy and due process.

 And last, but definitely not least,
 
10) Lawmakers who will listen to the consumers of public education—including parents, teachers, and students--before lobbyists. We, ultimately, are the people who most directly experience the effects of the decisions made by lawmakers. Lobbyists do not. 
 
Thank you for reading our wish list, and we hope that you can help some of these wishes come true for all of the public school children, teachers, and parents of Tennessee in 2014. We hope your Christmas is wonderful and your new year is blessed.
 
Sincerely,
Tennessee Parents 

Who can you trust?  Thank you, legislators, for your responses to our Tripod email last week.  Some of you couldn't believe that our students were asked personal questions without parental consent.  We are glad to learn you share our concerns that our children's personal information should be protected.  

Here are things that every legislator and parent should know:

1. The FERPA law was changed to allow third parties (corporations "contracted with government") to access student data.  Click HERE to read what it means for students.
2. It is written hundreds of times in Tennessee's Race to the Top application that student data will be tracked from preschool to career.  (Appendix C of the RTTT Application is particularly scary for parents to read!)
3. The U.S. Department of Education has written about measuring student's emotional reactions to learning experiences using psychometric devices such as skin sensors, facial expression cameras, posture analysis seats, etc.  Click HERE to see the document produced by the government.  (Page 44 is the photos of the devices they plan to use.  Page 39 is the "character report card.") 
4. The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics provides a listing of hundreds of very specific individual data points of information on children that they believe “all education stockholders” need. (Note: our children are not stock in the stock-market!)  The National Education Data Model was created through a partnership between the U.S. Department of Education (as funder) and the Common Core State Standards’ very-own Council of Chief State School Officers (as coordinator).  Don't believe us?  Click HERE to see the list of the data points they want to collect about OUR children.

Tennessee parents are deeply concerned.  These are not rumors, these are FACTS clearly printed in government documents.  Please, legislators, take action to protect TN students! 

Did you know that school districts in New York are pulling out of their data-sharing agreements to protect their children's privacy?  They are giving their Race to the Top prize money back and saying "NO, not with our children!" to protect their children.  Click HERE to read more about this.

Teaching used to be a fun job that I was deeply passionate about.  I used my own creativity mixed with a healthy dose of perseverance, dedication and cheerleading to encourage my students, most labeled “special needs,” to believe in their own abilities and self worth.   I believed in their greatness and I helped them to believe it, too.   In my nearly 25 years of teaching children I have seen learning disabled, non-readers become college graduates; non-writers grow to be valedictorians; reluctant readers become bookworms.  I’ve encouraged students to write, to risk, to think, and to try again all of my adult life.  In fact, one performance evaluation stated that I was “a naturally gifted teacher with the unique ability to inspire greatness in my students.”

I was taught in teacher’s college that each student had an individual learning style, and that my job as a teacher was to discover each child’s pathway to learning and help them to embark on that path.  My calling was to meet the needs of the child.

Some years I witnessed the growth in the year I actually taught the student.  Many times I simply planted the seed that another teacher watered and yet another reaped the harvest.  Teaching, for me, has always been about the children.  Their learning.  Their growth.  Their future.

I used to do many fun, innovative projects with my students.   My students have owned and managed their own businesses, written children’s books and read them to younger students, done year-long literature studies on specialized topics, hosted project fairs, and an array of other student-created, choice- driven projects.  They have designed, researched, written and read beyond their peers.  My high school students were required to read 25 novels per year…yes, even the ones with learning disabilities could meet this goal with the help of assistive technology.   Meeting and exceeding  standards has always been my goal.

Last year, however, my performance appraisal listed me as “satisfactory.”  What has changed?  I’m still me.  I still bring the passion, dedication, and years of experience to the classroom that I always have.

What has changed is Common Core State Standards.  I was given a curriculum and told by my administration to teach it “word-for-word.”  In a meeting with my administration, I was reprimanded with “Don’t forget, standards drive our instruction.”

Standards drive instruction.  Data determines effectiveness.  Positive outcomes for students requires proof.

If I don’t supply that proof, I’m not an effective teacher.  Period.  And my administration has warned me that my job depends on this proof.

I can’t do projects with my students anymore because I have to teach the curriculum word-for word, and I am only allowed to use standards-based assessments (which I must create myself).   It doesn’t matter how my students learn best.  It doesn’t matter that the Common Core State Standards assume a steady progression of skills that my students have not been formerly taught.  It doesn’t matter that my students arrive at my door with a host of factors that I cannot control…their home situations, their former schooling, their attitudes toward school and learning and themselves, the neighborhood they live in, whether they are English Language Learners or have special needs, or whether they have just broken up with their girlfriend  in the cafeteria.  All those factors also affect student performance, but none of that matters.  What matters is how my students perform on the state test.  (And I must STOP teaching for 6 weeks in the spring to make sure our students pass that test.)

I’m not opposed to standards, it’s the standards BASED part that I have issue with.

My students like to tell me that I’m old school.  They are right.  I’m from the school of teaching CHILDREN, not standards.  I’m from the school of student needs, not student data.  I’m from the school of thinking and discovery and choice; not canned, watered-down, one-size-fits-all, global curricula.

Like so many experienced, good teachers, I don’t want to be a teacher anymore.  But where do I go? I need to make a living, but who wants a “satisfactory” former teacher with no advanced degree?  I’ve dedicated my life to teaching children, but with CCSS, teaching children is no longer the point.

Standards-BASED education gets it all wrong. They assume the best teaching and the best learning can be quantified with tests and data.  Yet I've never once had a student compliment me on my academic knowledge or my data collection skills.  I’ve never had a student thank me for writing insightful test questions or for staying up late to write a stunning lesson plan.  But students HAVE thanked me for being there, for listening to them, for encouraging them, for believing in them even before they could believe in themselves.  Meeting our student’s academic needs begins with seeing them as human beings with worth and capability and gifting, not as research subjects.

Judging the effectiveness of a teacher on only quantifiable data reduces the art of teaching children to a mathematical algorithm can that be performed more effectively by a hologram projected on the Smart board than by an old-fashioned, caring, humanly flawed teacher.

(This Delaware public school teacher's letter was originally printed in the Washington Post by Valerie Strauss)

This letter explains what is happening to many teachers across the country, including in TN.  Note that this teacher is not opposed to high standards; that is an important point, as critics of the Common Core’s implementation in many school districts have been accused of being opposed to standards and wanting to keep the “status quo.”

We experienced a traumatic "meltdown" today with my 5th grade son who has Dyslexia. He is supposed to be in a remedial math group, but they apparently have to be taught the same math at the same level now. The overwhelming amount of work to be done for one problem was too much for him. It was a word problem. They had to draw a picture to demonstrate it, write a number sentence/equation, and make a written explanation of the problem. I felt so sorry for him. I had to go pick him up he was so distraught that he could not keep up with it.

(This was posted anonymously, with the permission of this parent, to protect the privacy of this child in Knox County)

Did you know that students in New York are being diagnosed with "Common Core Syndrome"???  Click here to watch this video of a New York teacher telling how children are being harmed:

The TELL Survey was given to all teachers in TN as an anonymous way to collect feedback on teacher's working conditions and morale.  Why did so many teachers NOT complete the survey?  Here is what they said:

• "It was linked to our email address so it couldn't be anonymous."
• "If teachers got to a question that they could not respond to honestly because they were given specific choices, teachers did not finish the survey. If you didn't answer every question, it would not go through."
• "I heard that our responses will be given to our supervisors to address and so teachers were afraid to be honest."
• "They are just going to twist and manipulate our answers to make it say whatever they want it to, so why bother?"
• "It took a long time to take the survey, and I'm just too busy with so many other things I need to do for my students."
• "Knox County had the smallest percentage of survey results in the entire state. That speaks to the fear and paranoia we are experiencing over here."

(This was posted anonymously to protect these Tennessee teachers)



Tennessee parents realize that our children's teachers areSTRESSED.  Parents want HAPPY, respected teachers for our children.  We want TN leaders to listen and take action.

Some school districts in Tennessee–including Shelby County, Metro Nashville, and Knox County–plan to administer the Tripod survey to students twice this school year. This survey is being used as part of teacher evaluations in some of the districts that are administering it. For example, in Metro Nashville, Tripod survey results will reportedly count towards 5% of a teacher’s evaluation.
 
Parents have some significant concerns about its use. (Please go to this link and scroll to page 19–Appendix A–to see this version of the survey.  We do not know what this school year’s survey includes, because parents & teachers are not allowed to see it, but we are working under the assumption that it will be similar to the version linked here.)
 
1) The wording of the survey could be confusing to children, especially those who speak a second language or have reading delays. (e.g., items 8, 25, 45, & 52; elementary grades version)
 
2) The large majority of the answers are entirely subjective and student responses will vary depending upon their personal characteristics, values, and belief systems. (e.g., items 28 & 33, elem. version)
 
3) Some of the items ask students to reveal information they (and/or their parent/s) might not feel comfortable disclosing. For example, the survey asks students how many adults and children live with them (items 84 & 87, secondary version), how many books they have in their home/bedroom (item 85, secondary version/item 77, elem. version), and how many years of school the adult with the most education in their home has (item 89, secondary version). (We find it interesting that The Tripod Project does not list any of these more personal questions on its “Sample Student Survey Questions” webpage.)

4) These surveys take away instructional time and/or recess time from students.  These surveys also may cause teachers to not discipline misbehaving students to get a higher rating from misbehaving students.  Conversely, students who earned low grades, detention, or disciplinary action may purposefully rate teachers harshly.
 
In addition to our concerns about the Tripod survey itself, we have questions about how the data from these tests will be stored and disseminated. The US Department of Education weakened FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) over the past few years. (Click HERE to see how it was quietly changed without Congressional approval).  As a result, schools can now release student records and data without parental consent to companies contracted by schools. So we ultimately have no idea who might see the information our children share in this survey or any other survey/assessment given by school districts or the state.
 
Some parents in Tennessee have wisely refused the Tripod survey for their children.  However, in some districts, parents are never notified that their children will be given the survey, so they are denied the right to make a decision regarding it, and therefore will have no knowledge that their child even answered the survey questions unless their child tells them.  This is wrong.
 (This was reposted from www.StopTnTesting.com, an organized and growing group of parents in TN)

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently awarded Knox County Schools a one-year grant of $840,000, which Knox County Schools will match with taxpayer dollars in the amount of $360,000 for a grand total of $1.2 million. According to Knox County Schools, this money will be used to strengthen its ability to ensure “resources stay aligned to priorities.”

So where will all this money go- directly to the schools? No, not one penny of the $1.2 million will make it to classrooms. $950,000 of it will go to The Parthenon Group. (Knox County Schools will funnel grant monies to Parthenon in monthly amounts ranging from $140k to $168k over the next year.) The remaining $250,000 will go to Education Resource Strategies (ERS).

The Parthenon Group, a Boston-based (and international) organization, will be paid to “assist with data collection, and resource and return on investment analysis.” Parthenon helped sponsor a conference on January 15, 2013 to teach investors how to make money from public education. The conference was entitled “Private Equity Investing in For-Profit Education Companies– How Breakdowns in Traditional Models & Applications of New Technologies Are Driving Change.” The standard fee to attend this event was $1395. Here is a brochure description: “Private equity investing in for-profit education is soaring, and for good reason — the public and non-profit models are profoundly broken. This is why for-profit education is one of the largest U.S. investment markets, currently topping $1.3 trillion in value.” (This conference was co-sponsored by the law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath and chaired by Harold Levy, former Chancellor of the NYC public schools and now a partner in the Connecticut venture capital firm Palm Ventures that invests in for-profit education.)

According to its website, Education Resource Strategies is a Massachusetts-based non-profit organization “dedicated to transforming how urban school systems organize resources." Although ERS operates as a non-profit organization, its 2011 Form 990 lists six full-time (40 hour/week) employees who are paid salaries ranging from $117,000 to $172,398. It also lists a seventh employee who worked 16 hours per week in 2011 and made $61,400.

Parthenon and ERS support such things as larger class sizes, moving away from class size mandates, and “revamped teacher evaluations” (which I gather would include TN’s current flawed model). These organizations are manned not by education or education policy experts, as one might expect, but by business people, including MBAs, economists, and lawyers.

So in summary, Knox County Schools will receive a one-year grant to analyze “return on investment" that will ultimately cost them $360,000. Although $1.2 million will be generated for this purpose, none of this money will go toward classrooms. The money will go to business consultants (with no particular training in education or education policy) making six-figure-plus salaries and to companies that train “investors” on how to turn a profit from public education. These people will fly in, rake up their money, and then disappear. Meanwhile, our teachers will continue to earn only $46,000 per year on average, and our schools will continue to struggle financially for such necessities as computers for the new state-mandated online testing. 

And that is how you turn a profit off public schools.

(This was written by a smart school board member in Tennessee)

Tennessee parents aren't fooled... and neither are smart legislators and smart school board members.