OPEN LETTER TO ANDREAS SCHLEICHER, OECD, PARIS

REGARDING PISA TEST!

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http://oecdpisaletter.org/

Dear Dr. Schleicher:
We write to you in your capacity as OECD’s director of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA). Now in its 13th year, PISA is known around the world as an instrument to rank OECD and non-OECD countries (60+ at last count) according to a measure of academic achievement of 15 year old students in mathematics, science, and reading. Administered every three years, PISA results are anxiously awaited by governments, education ministers, and the editorial boards of newspapers, and are cited authoritatively in countless policy reports. They have begun to deeply influence educational practices in many countries. As a result of PISA, countries are overhauling their education systems in the hopes of improving their rankings. Lack of progress on PISA has led to declarations of crisis and “PISA shock” in many countries, followed by calls for resignations, and far-reaching reforms according to PISA precepts.

We are frankly concerned about the negative consequences of the PISA rankings. These are some of our concerns:
-while standardized testing has been used in many nations for decades (despite serious reservations about its validity and reliability), PISA has contributed to an escalation in such testing and a dramatically increased reliance on quantitative measures. For example, in the United States, PISA has been invoked as a major justification for the recent “Race to the Top” program, which has increased the use of standardized testing for student-, teacher-, and administrator evaluations, which rank and label students, as well as teachers and administrators according to the results of tests widely known to be imperfect (see, for example, Finland’s unexplained decline from the top of the PISA table);
-in education policy, PISA, with its three-year assessment cycle, has caused a shift of attention to short-term fixes designed to help a country quickly climb the rankings, despite research showing that enduring changes in education practice take decades, not a few years to come to fruition. For example, we know that the status of teachers and the prestige of teaching as a profession has a strong influence on the quality of instruction, but that status varies strongly across cultures and is not easily influenced by short-term policy;
-by emphasizing a narrow range of measurable aspects of education, PISA takes attention away from the less measurable or immeasurable educational objectives like physical, moral, civic, and artistic development, thereby dangerously narrowing our collective imagination regarding what education is and ought to be about;
-as an organization of economic development, OECD is naturally biased in favor of the economic role of public schools. But preparing young men and women for gainful employment is not the only, and not even the main goal of public education, which has to prepare students for participation in democratic self-government, moral action, and a life of personal development, growth, and well-being;
-unlike United Nations (UN) organizations such as UNESCO or UNICEF that have clear and legitimate mandates to improve education and the lives of children around the world, OECD has no such mandate. Nor are there, at present, mechanisms of effective democratic participation in its education decision-making process;
-to carry out PISA and a host of follow-up services, OECD has embraced “public-private partnerships” and entered into alliances with multi-national for-profit companies, which stand to gain financially from any deficits—real or perceived—unearthed by PISA. Some of these companies provide educational services to American schools and school districts on a massive, for-profit basis, while also pursuing plans to develop for-profit elementary education in Africa, where OECD is now planning to introduce the PISA program;
-finally, and most importantly: the new PISA regime, with its continuous cycle of global testing, harms our children and impoverishes our classrooms, as it inevitably involves more and longer batteries of multiple-choice testing, more scripted “vendor”-made lessons, and less autonomy for our teachers. In this way PISA has further increased the already high stress-level in our schools, which endangers the well-being of our students and teachers.
These developments are in overt conflict with widely accepted principles of good educational and democratic practice:
-no reform of any consequence should be based on a single narrow measure of quality;
-no reform of any consequence should ignore the important role of non-educational factors, among which a nation’s socio-economic inequality is paramount. In many countries, including the United States, inequality has dramatically increased over the past 15 years, explaining the widening educational gap between rich and poor which education reforms, no matter how sophisticated, are unlikely to redress;
-an organization like OECD, as any organization that deeply affects the life of our communities, should be open to democratic accountability by members of those communities.
We are writing not only to point out deficits and problems. We would also like to offer constructive ideas and suggestions that may help to alleviate the above mentioned concerns. While in no way complete, they illustrate how learning could be improved without the above mentioned negative effects:
-develop alternatives to league tables: explore more meaningful and less easily sensationalized ways of reporting assessment outcomes. For example, comparing developing countries, where 15-year olds are regularly drafted into child labor, with first world countries makes neither educational nor political sense and opens OECD up for charges of educational colonialism;
-make room for participation by the full range of relevant constituents and scholarship: to date, the groups with greatest influence on what and how international learning is assessed are psychometricians, statisticians, and economists. They certainly deserve a seat at the table, but so do many other groups: parents, educators, administrators, community leaders, students, as well as scholars from disciplines like anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, linguistics, as well as the arts and humanities. What and how we assess the education of 15 year old students should be subject to discussions involving all these groups at local, national, and international levels;
-include national and international organizations in the formulation of assessment methods and standards whose mission goes beyond the economic aspect of public education and which are concerned with the health, human development, well-being and happiness of students and teachers. This would include the above mentioned United Nations organizations, as well as teacher, parent, and administrator associations, to name a few;
-publish the direct and indirect costs of administering PISA so that taxpayers in member countries can gauge alternative uses of the millions of dollars spent on these tests and determine if they want to continue their participation in it;
-welcome oversight by independent international monitoring teams which can observe the administration of PISA from the conception to the execution, so that questions about test format and statistical and scoring procedures can be weighed fairly against charges of bias or unfair comparisons;
-provide detailed accounts regarding the role of private, for-profit companies in the preparation, execution, and follow-up to the tri-annual PISA assessments to avoid the appearance or reality of conflicts of interest;
-slow down the testing juggernaut. To gain time to discuss the issues mentioned here at local, national, and international levels, consider skipping the next PISA cycle. This would give time to incorporate the collective learning that will result from the suggested deliberations in a new and improved assessment model.

We assume that OECD’s PISA experts are motivated by a sincere desire to improve education. But we fail to understand how your organization has become the global arbiter of the means and ends of education around the world. OECD’s narrow focus on standardized testing risks turning learning into drudgery and killing the joy of learning. As PISA has led many governments into an international competition for higher test scores, OECD has assumed the power to shape education policy around the world, with no debate about the necessity or limitations of OECD’s goals. We are deeply concerned that measuring a great diversity of educational traditions and cultures using a single, narrow, biased yardstick could, in the end, do irreparable harm to our schools and our students.

Sincerely,
Heinz-Dieter Meyer (State University of New York)
and
Katie Zahedi (Principal, Linden Ave Middle School, Red Hook, New York)

Ras Baraka describes a complex scheme that has provided his opponent Shavar Jefferies with more than a million dollars in secret campaign contributions.

For Release: Tuesday, May 6^th, 2014

Contact Frank Baraff (914) 469-3775  fbaraff@optonline.net

Statement by Ras Baraka

 

80% of the money spent on radio and television commercials in this campaign has been spent by one committee, Newark First, on behalf of Shavar Jeffries. Newark First has spent at least two million dollars, and the donors of most of that two million are secret.

 

In other words, a group behind Shavar Jeffries is trying to buy control of Newark’s government, and the people of Newark have no idea who they are, what they stand for, and what they ultimately seek to achieve.

 

At the last financial filing 20 days ago, Newark First had received $1.3 million in contributions. Of the $1.3 million, $850,000 came from Education Reform Now, a New York City group of Wall Street hedge fund operators behind Chris Christie and his appointed school superintendent, Cami Anderson. Today, Newark First has spent more than $2 million.

 

By putting their money through Education Reform Now, large contributors are able to hide from the people of Newark. There is nothing illegal about that kind of money laundering. It’s allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court. But the people of Newark must know who is trying to control our city.

 

The fact that people launder contributions through an education reform group does not necessarily mean that they are supporters of Chris Christie-style education reform.  The money could just as well be coming from the South Jersey political boss, George Norcross, or big contractors seeking to avoid pay-to-play laws.

 

Let me be clear. The issue is not that Shavar Jeffries is outspending me. The issue is that he is keeping the source of his money secret. I call upon Shavar Jeffries to reveal his secret contributors. Jeffries will no doubt deny any connection to Newark First.

 

But there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The Shavar Jeffries campaign is deeply involved with Newark First and I have the evidence.

 

 

Connections Between Shavar Jeffries, his campaign, and the Newark First “Independent Expenditure” Committee

 

Under the law, communication between an independent expenditure group and a candidate or committee it is supporting is strictly illegal. That’s the meaning of independent expenditure.

 

1.     After Jeffries met several times with George Norcross, the political boss of South Jersey, Norcross helped to establish Newark First. The media and mail consultants to Newark First are extensively involved with Norcross candidates.

 

2.     Jeffries raised the most money of any candidate, $1,351,800, yet has only spent $82,000 on television and radio, barely enough to have any impact. No rational candidate would spend so little to communicate his message unless he knew that somebody else (Newark First) was going to spend $2 million or more for him on radio and tv.

 

3.     The Jeffries campaign is run by Steve Adubato’s North Ward political organization. Members of that organization appear in commercials paid for by the so-called independent expenditure group.

 

4.     The chairperson of the independent expenditure group is a leader in the Adubato North Ward political organization.

 

5.     Congressman Payne a leader of the Shavar Jeffries campaign appeared in a television commercial paid for by Newark First. It stretches credulity to claim that the Congressman is unaware of who is paying for his tv spot.

-- 

MY OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR!
By:  Alicia Maynard

Dear Gov. Haslam,
I am writing to let you know that my fourth-grader will not be taking the TCAP test. This is unfortunate ...for her school because she scores in the advanced range every time.

Auria is in fourth grade at Northfield elementary in Murfreesboro, TN. This is our fourth year at this school, and between her and her sister I have fallen in love with numerous teachers there. Murfreesboro has the best school system in the state (according to Google), and I have been highly impressed with the people and their level of care for my children.

      Third grade changed, though. My highly-intelligent, confident kid became a wreck - early in the year - over the pressure associated with the TCAP. I was confused, as I took the TCAP every year as a child and have nothing but fond memories of bubbling in the little circles. I started to notice the growing intensity leading up to the test, and I became a little disgusted. That was last year. This year it was worse. The teachers I have had the pleasure of working with are so wound up that I feel sorry for them. The teachers, the staff, the administration...everybody.

      These are obviously brilliant and creative people, and this test has taken over like a life-sucking monster. Teaching isn't an exact science, just like parenting. Every child is different, and this terrible system is stifling all the joy and creativity that is required to really make an impact.
Now, if I love this school and staff so much, and I know her test scores would attribute to an average boost ($$$), why would I pull her from this?

      She wants to be a teacher when she grows up. These teachers are already being grossly underpaid for such an important role.

"Pearson is America's largest corporate maker of standardized testing. It has a multiyear contract with our Department of Education: For creating and implementing the TCAP and the end-of-course tests for high schoolers, we pay more than $150 million.

 (That's three times what it would have cost to give Tennessee teachers a 2 percent raise.)
The deepest cut of all? Teachers aren't able to preview the test. They are neither editor nor author of the single most influential test of the whole year. It's the educational equivalent of a slap in the face." - David Cook

Auria can already make better decisions than this.

My child's job is to learn. The teacher's job is to teach. But my role as her parent is more complicated. I also have to teach her when standing up for something is necessary. This system is stupid and unfair. She will be accepting a 0 as 15% of her grade for the year. But she will also be standing up for teachers and students all over the state. She will be taking steps toward bettering her future right now, and I think that's better than just a memory of all those bubbles.

Thank you for your time reviewing this matter,
Alicia Maynard
Murfreesboro

The "Sit and Stare" Policies used against Test Resistors are Daily Practice in Many Charter Schools

By:  Dr. Mark Naison

 

For the past year, I have been working with, and trying to get legal representation for, parents whose children have been forced to "sit and stare" during standardized tests they have refused to take. This punitive policy has outraged parents and Test Refusal advocates throughout New York State and has resulted in mass pressure tactics which have persuaded many school districts- but not all- to eliminate the practice

 

Given the appropriate level of outrage this practice has generated among people in the Opt Out movement, it is important to understand that this practice was not invented for their children-- it has long been prevalent in "zero tolerance" charter schools that have proliferated in inner city neighborhoods in recent years.

Schools like those associated with the K.I.P.P. charter chain, the "Uncommon Schools" chain where NY State Education Commissioner John King was once a principal, and Eva Moskowitz's "Success Academies" have long made a practice of disciplining allegedly "unruly" students by making them sit and stare at a wall for hours at a time. Indeed, it is through disciplinary measures like this that these schools have used to drive out students they deem difficult who they fear might lower test scores as well as undermine school discipline

 

This is yet another reason why parents, teachers and students in suburbs and rural areas must communicate with the counterparts in the inner city, and vice versa. No one is living in a bubble, and abusive education policies pursued in one area will inevitably spread if they are not exposed 

 

Taken from Dr. Naison's blog http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/

    

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
BY:  MELISSA TOMLINSON

 

 

 

The Good

 

            I have lived with a charter school in my home town for at least ten years now.  In fact, I even applied to teach there as soon as I got my certificate of eligibility for Teacher of Students with Disabilities.  The school caters to students that are interested in pursuing a life in the performing arts.  (Needless to say, I did not get hired.  I can't act, dance, or sing!) This school has been a part of our community for a while and has developed a wonderful relationship with the area high school.  It has been successful in sending students all over the country for college, including Julliard.

 

            This school is a perfect example of the original purpose of charter schools.  It is meeting a need within a community.  In all these years, I have not heard of any complaints about the school, the administration, or the teachers.  To have more schools like this, that would meet a specific need of some of the community's students, would be ideal in our diverse country.  That was why many laws were passed to help support the infusion of charter schools into our communities, our home towns. 

 

The Bad

 

            Unfortunately, that is not what happened.  In No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was enacted at the hands of the Bush administration and schools jumped to the task to prove that they were doing everything possible to make sure none of their students were left behind.   Accountability became the key word as standardized testing became the tool used to measure the academic worth of all students and subsequently all schools.  It became evident that some children were not performing as well as their peers as these norm referenced tests with a built-in failure percentage golden rule of measurement instead of one piece of data used to paint the bigger picture.  Parents were shown data that distinctly told them that their public school was failing to properly educate their children and cries ensued, calling for alternatives. 

 

            These cries were answered in the form of school choice.  Our public markets are designed to promote choice and healthy competition.  Where there is a need, people jump at the chance to fill that need and, of course, make a profit for themselves in the meantime.   Parents were sold this wonderful thing called school choice to give their child more possibilities, more options.  Who doesn't want more for their child? 

 

            Options became available like magnet schools that originally started in the 1970's as a tool for desegregation and gained popularity again between 1997 and 2005.  Magnet schools have since declined in their fulfillment of their original purpose.  A study done in Nashville proved that the academic selective magnet schools became increasingly racially isolated white schools, while the non-academic selective magnet schools became increasingly racially isolated black schools.  https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/voice/works/w/rethinking-magnet-school-policies-and-practices/s/1

 

Soon new charter schools were flying in to areas, swooping in to save the day. Charter schools use marketing techniques to falsely create demand within communities and implant the idea that a charter school may be a better option for the children. They offer parents a solution to the misrepresented fact that their child was not performing as well in school as others. These charters offer open enrollment, lottery systems and wait lists that gave the promise of hope to all. What they actually deliver is limited openings, draining of funds from the public school budgets and false claims that students perform better at charter schools. Charter schools actually leave many students behind by not catering to all demographic groups, and through selective attrition of lower performing students. http://www.care2.com/causes/charter-lotteries-leave-lots-behind.html. It has been recently stated that the data shows school choice and charter schools actually increase the threat of resegregation in our schools. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/13/the-link-between-charter-school-expansion-and-increasing-segregation/. Eva Moskowitz's charter schools, Success Academy, now serves a proportionally higher amount of privileged students than of other demographics.

 

     Charter schools are no longer the community provision to filling the gaps in specialization of different types of curricular opportunities, such as performing arts. Instead, charter schools have been taking over by for-profit enterprises or non-profit corporations with a board of directors. Decisions made by these entities are often in the best interest of the corporation or non-profits. These boards have power to run the school as they best see fit, including managing personnel that often leads to a higher turnover rate of administration and teachers. Some public charter schools work their way around the laws that govern schools by subcontracting management services to for-profit companies. They sit on the fence and use their private and public titles to circumvent laws whenever necessary.

 

     The upheaval of our public school systems is coming at a great cost to our children as they are exposed to re-segregation of our schools, higher staff attrition rates, and provided less opportunities due to the drain of funding caused by charter schools. Tuition is given to charter schools on a per-student basis, but the charter schools are free to send students back to the public school district without a return of any portion of the funds. Charter schools often tap into the state and federal grants that are available. All of this leaves the public schools having a loss of resources available while operating with decreasing budgets.

 

 

 

The Ugly

       By not having to exactly follow all of the same laws and regulations that public schools follow, a door is left wide open for mistreatment of students at the hands of the charter school systems.  At the hands of these charter schools, children have suffered such abuses as being thrown in padded cells,  forced to wear signs that say “CRETIN”, made to earn their desks while sitting on bare floors,   and fallen victims of public shaming as they are told to wear clothing backwards and excluded from lunch tables.  Documentation of students being slammed into walls, garbage cans placed on heads, and made to bark like a dog at the hands of KIPP administrators have all surfaced. 

 

      Other charter schools, such as Rocketship, practice a passive form of abuse by having students sit in a cubicle in from of a computer monitor for hours, all in the name of education.  Master Charter Schools, known for its “no excuses” policies trains staff in the art of disciplining children instead of in the science of educating them.            

 

      As the decision makers and corporate buddies decided that they wanted to find a way to promote charter schools, Charter School Week was born. Ironically, the dates set occur the exact same time as teacher appreciation week. In the meantime, public schools are left holding the bag, screaming, “Where is our week? When do we honor public schools?”

                         

 

 

 

 

 

BATs Weekly Roundup – Week of April 28^th

^{By: Marla Kilfoyle, General Manager, Badass Teachers Association}

BATs will always have a busy week.  This week we started off with our Empowering Praise Campaign.  Each month BATs commit to empowering praise on a person who is helping our cause to win back public education.  This week we empowered praise upon the amazing Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union.  We showered her all day with praise, love, and feelings of solidarity.  Thank you to BAT Dawn Neely Randall for that suggestion!  On Monday, over 3000 teachers showed up at a rally on Long Island, NY to protest a dinner that NY Governor Andrew Cuomo was holding as a fundraiser.  BATs showed up in numbers to support the rally and “boo” party guests!  BATs got their Thunderclap #nodegree4Christie fully supported on Tuesday night.  We were able to blast out over 200,000 tweets to ask Rowan University NOT to honor this bully with a degree or allow him to speak to future teachers.   This week we got amazing "Breaking News" that International High School in Prospect Heights, NY was going to refuse to give the ELA NYC test! BATs sent them statements of solidarity and support.  Then on Thursday we found out that a group of 7 Houston teachers decided to sue in court against VAM evaluations.  One of the 7 is BAT Daniel Santos!  45,000 Members of the Badass Teachers Association are honored and humbled by this courageous act against an evaluation system we know DOES NOT work!  Finally, today was the launch of Co-Founder Mark Naison’s short news programs.  His first program, Camp Philos, was hysterical and we invite you to check it out and LIKE it on You Tube!!!  http://youtu.be/q8caVCtnsxk

 

I am a Self Contained Special Education Teacher in the Bronx
By:  Anonymous Teacher




 I am a self contained special education teacher in the Bronx. I have 12 students with special needs. My students are learning disabled or speech impaired third and fourth graders performing on a first and second grade level. Today, as I am reading the questions in book 3 of the math test I see their faces as they are struggling to try and figure out how to begin to answer the questions and all I can do is reassure them that they will be fine. As I do this I... am blinking and fighting back my own tears. As a teacher, emotionally I feel like I have failed these children and was unable to prepare them fully for this and the ELA test. I question myself as a teacher and wonder what I have done wrong. 

 Logically, I know that my task was almost impossible to accomplish. These children are performing 2 grades below level and are being asked to take a test that for the ELA they could barley read and for the math they struggled with, just figuring out how many steps they needed to take to get the final answer, let alone what they would have to do to get there. Every one of my students has grown and shown great improvements in all of the subject areas. These tests will only show what my students do not know and crush their self esteem. Why are any students subjected to these tests? Why are special education students subjected to these tests? They show and prove nothing. These tests not only crush my self esteem and make me question my teaching ability, more importantly they kill my students self esteem and their joy of learning that I have built up in my classroom all year.