It’s a Badass Film Festival! Closeup on Corporate School Reform!

BY:  Steven Singer 

Memes Created by our meme team members:  Lisa Smith and Deb Escobar

Originally posted on his blog  https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/its-a-badass-film-festival-closeup-on-corporate-school-reform/

I blog.

I write.

I look at the devastation, the hopes and promise of our public school system, and I report it to the world.

It seems a futile pursuit some days. Does anyone actually read this stuff? Or am I just talking to myself?

The hit counter tells me that, yes, indeed, there are people out there clicking on my humble little gadflyonthewallblog. Comments appear under my Facebook posts. My tweets get retweeted. Followers and friends multiply.

But I wonder sometimes about all the sets of eyes that see a block of text under my name and just keep on scrolling.

Would the minds connected to those eyes have understood? Would they have been spurred to action? Might they have been just the people we need to turn the tide and take back our education system?

And I answer: maybe.

So today’s entry is an attempt to get those roving, impatient orbs to stop, look and see.

Because today I bring not just words but pictures. Movies, in fact.

But first some background.

This whole enterprise began by accident. My school district received a $360,000 donation from Apple and Bill Campbell so every student could have an iPad for use in class.

The program will be rolled out next year, but teachers have already been given devices and some minimal training.

We were encouraged to play around with the devices to find applications for our students next year. One such app we were told to explore was iMovie.

I made a brief preview trailer for S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” – one of the novels my students read. I thought it might make a good lesson on theme for next year’s kids.

However, in doing the assignment, I wondered what it might look like if I made a similar short movie about corporate education reform. After all, I spend a lot of my off hours writing about it. Why not try another medium?

Let me be clear. I did NOT use school equipment. I have my own personal iPad at home. It’s not nearly as nice as the ones the students will be using. In fact, I had to pay for a few upgrades to get it up to similar specs.

But once I did, it was a simple matter to make the “OPT OUT OF STANDARDIZED TESTING” movie you see here:

The newest version of the program provides several short preview templates in various movie genres. All you have to do is insert pictures or video and change the text to suit your purposes. In some cases, I had to extend the templates so they’d fit the topic I was tackling.

I was kind of tickled by the result so I shared it with my fellows at the Badass Teachers Association. I serve on the Leadership Team. And in a moment of whimsy I had designated my film a production of “Badass Films.”

They seemed really taken with it. They loved the idea of having our own film studio – even if it was just a hand-held Apple device.

With the power of an organization representing more than 54,000 people, they promoted my first little film on their YouTube channel. They pushed it out on twitter and facebook. Even Education Historian Diane Ravich gave it a push and a very kind review.

They asked me to make more. I did.

My fellow BATS helped me decide on topics, made suggestions for revisions, helped provide photos and even made a kick ass mock movie poster for each film!

And every day they’d send out into the ether a reminder that Badass Films is coming soon!

I hope you enjoy them.

Without further ado, here are the remaining 11 Badass Films:

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COMMON CORE

On YouTube

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CHARTER SCHOOL TREASURE HUNT

On YouTube

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V.A.M. SHAM

On YouTube

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SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE

On YouTube

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

On YouTube

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TEACH FOR AMERICA

On YouTube

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TEACHERS UNIONS

On YouTube

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TEACHER TENURE

On YouTube

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PENSION THEFT

On YouTube

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SCHOOL “CHOICE”?

On YouTube

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BADASS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

On YouTube

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So there you have it. Badass Films.

I’m hoping these short videos can serve as a primer for our fight against the standardization and privatization movement.

People who wouldn’t sit to read an entire blog entry might stop long enough to watch a less than 2 minute film. And – hey – videos are like potato chips – you can’t stop at just one!

Some might criticize this project as being shallow. How can you really explain a topic like the School to Prison Pipeline or even Common Core in such a short span?

Well, you can’t. But these are meant to be attention-getters. I only hope they’ll spark interest. There are so many sources for more information – many of them previous articles published on this very blog!

I’d love to hear your thoughts. How did I do? Are these films successful? Will they help the fight against factory schools?

Feel free to leave a comment and certainly to share this blog or any of the individual videos.

Special thanks to all the BATS who helped bring this project to completion. You earn the name “Badass” every day!

As for me? I will continue to write.

To blog.

And – when possible – make movies.

Don't Allow our Children to be Abused!

I was the victim of abuse at the hands of my husband. For years he emotionally and verbally abused me. This may sound strange, but I was relieved the first time he beat me. I finally had something to show others. I finally had something that he couldn’t twist and manipulate; something tangible that he could no longer claim was my imagination. When I look at Common Core assignments, I see them as a physical manifestation of the abuse that is occurring, right now, across our country, directed squarely at our children. Allow me to explain.

For a decade I was told by my ‘loved one’ that I was stupid and crazy. I was told that the things that I knew in my heart were right, were really wrong. I was told that the things that I felt in my heart were wrong, were really right. If I said “I have an idea!” I was told, “Don’t think!” If I said “I feel like this is wrong”, I was told, “I make all the decisions, this is MY domain!” If I cried after being yelled at for 4 hours, and asked to be allowed to care for our small children, I was told I was crazy - you see my priorities were backwards; my allegiance should be to my husband first, not our children.

It’s been four years since I left him and to this day I cannot speak or think the words “I have an idea” without hearing him yell back “Don’t think!” You see, experiences build roads in our heads; frequently traveled paths are readily available for our minds to grab onto and go…like a parkway or a freeway. Try as I might, I can’t seem to shake this well-worn path. Now I look to the children that I ‘rescued’ and I look to these new Common Core standards and every bell in my head is ringing. I ignored these bells in the past and I vowed NEVER to ignore them again.

When you introduce mathematical concepts that are developmentally inappropriate, then test that child on these concepts and mark them as having failed, how is that not abusive? You are essentially giving them a task they cannot do and then telling them they are stupid. Now do that over and over and over again. Are these the rigorous results we are looking for? Or is this simply abusive?

Once the child fails the test they were meant to fail, tell them that they have to forgo music, chorus, recess, lunch and so on…so that they may receive additional instruction to ‘help’ them with the math they had trouble with. Now notice that they are fidgeting about and recommend that they get tested for ADD or ADHD…I have heard this scenario so many times, it’s frightening. Now we are telling the child that there is something wrong with them mentally. We are telling them that they are crazy. The adults who pulled them out of recess to improve upon skills they should not possess at their age are not crazy; it’s the child that has the issue.

These poor children are meant to make sense out of poorly worded instructions and answer questions in an overly convoluted and contrived manner. And then they are told what they did was wrong. Children naturally want to please; they want their parents and teachers to be proud of them. Let me tell you from experience, if your hand gets slapped every time you reach out, guess what you learn to do? You stop. You just stop trying. Do you want your children to turn inward? Do you want them to give up? That’s what they will have to do to protect themselves. They will retreat away from their parents and teachers. They will no longer feel safe to take that next step, to reach out, to venture out, and to grow.

This curriculum will cause our children’s minds, hearts and spirits to atrophy. I know you’ve seen signs of it. We have only just begun down this path; imagine what it will look like in 10 years. It took one final, massive beating for me to leave. By then, my brain had been hard wired to except bad as good, good as bad and to believe that I was a small minded, crazy woman who didn’t deserve better. What will our children look like in ten years? Will they be thriving, existing or devolving? What are you willing to do to stop it?

Don’t blindly give your allegiance to someone or something just because they tell you it’s the right thing to do. Listen to your heart. Listen to your instincts, they are sound. It’s when we ignore these warnings that we get into trouble. Our children can’t fix this one, we have to. We have to fight for our children. We have to be a chorus of SCREAMING adults. We have to be UNRELENTING until this is reversed; the price is far too high to allow this to continue. Don't allow our children to be abused.

Eshet Chayil

Originally posted in Opt Out of the Standardized Tests - New Jersey

You can find the public page here:   https://www.facebook.com/Choose2RefuseOptOutNJ

Celebrating The BAT Meme Team!!

One of the great hallmarks of BATs are the memes that our amazing meme team puts out on a daily basis.   The 16 volunteers who make up our meme team are amazing, creative, and talented individuals.  Thank you for all your incredible work.  We value your talent and gifts.  We value your dedication and commitment to kids.

Priscilla Sanstead
Brandon Parsons
Sue Cavanaugh
Kelly Braun
Sue Goncarovs
Deb Escobar
Kathie Wing Larsyn
Steve Singer
EJ Savage Kelly
Omar Sangiovanni
Nancy Osborne
Millisa Libey Jaycox
Amy Wolpin
Greg Cruey
Ken Prevti
Lisa Smith

Here is a small sample of their work.  If you would like to see a full sample of BAT memes please visit our Fan page here  https://www.facebook.com/BadassTeachersAssociation

or

Join our closed Facebook group here  https://www.facebook.com/groups/BadAssTeachers/

or

On our amazing Pinterest Page

https://www.pinterest.com/nationalbats/

Fight on, Ladies

By:  Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson

This article was also published

on the L.A. Progressive

http://www.laprogressive.com/war-on-women-teachers/

As we usher in Women’s History Month it is important to examine the many battles that women have faced over the years.  From bell hooks, to Susan B. Anthony, to Aurora Levins Morales we have seen women battle misogyny and marginalization.  Nothing rings more true to us at this time as the war we see on teachers.  The war on teachers IS a war on women.  Women United for Public Education wrote a powerful blog piece on this a few months ago where they said , “an occupation that houses predominantly women is the direct target of a male-dominated system.  Is the drop and halt of this profession as seen in the statistics above due to economics? That may be partly responsible. But, as the gender-defining roles within our society become even more blurred, we feel that those in power are feeling the potential loss of their hierarchical stature and are seeking to retain their positions.”  As woman fight even harder against the dominance of a male-centered society, the push against them becomes even stronger. Within the last several months we have seen women in the education activist world targeted for speaking out for children and their profession.  Deborah Vailes a teacher in the Rapides Parish School District shared a photo showing a little girl crying about Common Core .  She did this from her home computer.  Vailes post was reported to her principal by a third  party and she was called in by her principal, Dana Nolan, and given a written reprimand.  Vailes is currently suing to keep her job. 

Peggy Robertson, one of the founders of United Opt Out, announced earlier this year she would not be administering the PARCC in a heartfelt letter to the community in which she teaches.   In the letter she states, “Our children are not gaining from the Common Core standards, curriculum, and testing; instead, I see corporations profiting immensely, along with politicians and various other individuals who have jumped on the Common Core train. The link between the Common Core standards, curriculum, and testing is inextricable…. Public education is the new cash cow; privatization is the end goal. We must begin to take down this profit machine by beginning with the data the corporations so dearly love. No data. No profit. I will not hand over Colorado’s children (and their data) to the corporations via federal mandates.”     The Denver Post  on March 1^st documented the districts thoughts that Robertson’s stance was indeed “job threatening.”  Sadly, her local refused to publicly support her.  Pam Shamburg  spokesperson for the  Denver Classroom Teachers Association states that the, “DCTA board did not vote to encourage teachers to refuse test administration.” 

In another case a female teacher in Wyoming, who asked not to be identified, shared with the news outlet Truth in American Education that she had a gag order placed on her regarding talking about her opposition to the Common Core Standards.  She writes about sharing her concerns at a department meeting, “I shared my feelings, concerns and opinions. I suggested they become aware that there are two sides to this and to be prepared to have an opinion. I pointed out that questions could come from concerned parents or others in the community. I also shared that my main concern was with the changes to data privacy and losing local control. When I was finishing my administrator said that there would be no more emailing, or talking about the common core amongst the staff. There was a finality to his tone and the meeting was quickly over at that point. I then received an email from my administrator reminding me of our district policy of not using school resources to push political concerns or agendas. He also stated that there was to be no more discussion about common core unless it was on an ‘educational’ basis between staff members.”   You can read that article here http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/a-wyoming-schools-common-core-gag-order/

Finally, in a case last year, Ann Florence an English teacher in the Granite School District (Utah),  was fired  for refusing to give tests she saw as unethical and a burden to instruction time.  Her, and her colleagues  “resisted the requirement that English teachers grade students' writing samples in the test. They insisted it was unethical for teachers to grade their own students on an exam given across the district because the teachers themselves would be judged by the students' success on the exam.” 

in another

The American Civil Liberties Union deems the War on Women  as “the legislative and rhetorical attacks on women and women’s rights taking place across the nation. It includes a wide-range of policy efforts designed to place restrictions on women's health care and erode protections for women and their families. “  We see this example quite clear in the attacks on women in education.  There is a clear rhetorical and legislative attack on the profession of teaching.  The rhetoric we hear being driven by the corporate education agenda (which is the house of mostly white wealthy males) is a direct attack on a profession that is over 75% women.  These attacks can be seen most blatantly in the examples above, as well as in the attacks on a teachers right to due process, and on a teachers right to speak out on behalf of children.   As the great feminist bell hooks stated,  “I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.”   Fight on ladies, for we cannot bow down to ignorance that hurts our children.

 Marla Kilfoyle is General Manager Badass Teachers Association and Melissa Tomlinson is the Assistant General Manager of the Badass Teachers Association.

Marla Kilfoyle began her adventure into the Badass Teacher Association by way of being a parent advocate on Long Island in such groups as Parents and Teachers Against Common Core and LI Opt-Out.  She is also a member of New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE). Marla has been a teacher in the Social Studies Department at Oceanside High School (NY) for 27 years and is a National Board Certified teacher

Marla is the mother of a 12-year-old son and wife of Allan, a retired NYPD Detective. You can follow her on twitter @marla_kilfoyle

Melissa Tomlinson: A teacher of students with special needs at the middle school level, realized that she was not alone in questioning the role of standardized testing in schools when she found the Badass Teachers Association. She was first pushed into the spotlight of fighting the methods of corporate educational reform when she faced Governor Chris Christie to ask about his public degradation of NJ Schools when they were rated one of the top three in the nation. Along with teaching and advocacy, Melissa runs the after school program in her school building, providing a place for students to receive extra educational assistance, exposure to career possibilities, and a safe place to be after school hours.

Melissa is the mother of two teenage sons and she fights for equitable education for all students, now and in the future.

Is Absent teacher Reserve Contagious? Yes, Yes It Is by Dr. Michael Flanagan

Is Absent Teacher Reserve Contagious? Yes, Yes It Is - by Dr. Michael Flanagan

It was a tough place to find on a cold winter afternoon. Climbing over mountains of ice searching for a run down basement in an old church. The metal folding chairs, collapsible tables and fluorescent lights reflected the mood of those who showed for the first ever Bronx Teacher Empowerment Workshop on February 27th 2015. Even though we walked passed the boiler to get into the room people were still wearing their coats. Why were we meeting in this old church basement in the Bronx? Because New York City’s Absent Teacher Reserve initiative has turned veteran teachers into pariahs in an effort to supersede contracted rights. Referred to as ATR’s these educators have been scapegoated by the Department of Education and many have felt sacrificed by their own union. They are now castaways chalked up as the collateral damage of education reform. 


Over the last ten years in New York City, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s business model of education management, teacher seniority was one of the prime targets. His administration’s agenda worked like this, large traditional community schools were labeled as failing, phased out and smaller schools were opened in their place. “Closer” principals were brought in to shut down the large schools and excess at least fifty percent of the faculty. These smaller “charter-lite” schools tended to hire newer, younger teachers over those with more seniority. In other words those with the highest salaries were finding themselves un-hirable. The DOE, because of collective bargaining protections could not terminate these teachers, but without official positions they were thrown into the Absent Teacher Reserve pool. The recent teachers contract ratified after a contentious vote among union rank and file created a subordinate set of rights applied to ATR teachers. It was that part of the contract, which caused many of our members to vote against the promised raises and retroactive pay. A union should be there to champion the rights of the most oppressed in our ranks. One would think that the United Federation of Teachers would aggressively fight for its members who were unceremoniously cut from their positions and left to drift while having their professionalism questioned and their characters defamed. However, the plight of the ATR’s has been completely ignored. Disowned by their union, forced to drift from school to school much like day laborers ATR’s have become the teaching profession’s untouchable caste who are forced to endure the disheartening life of working in different schools every week. Constantly searching for keys to classrooms and staff bathrooms, doing mindless busy work created by administrators who often would rather not be bothered. If they are lucky occasionally one might be assigned as a permanent sub for an extended time, and allowed to teach in their subject areas, until that bond is inevitably destroyed when the permanent teacher returns. Rarely afforded even the slightest respect as a professional, ATR’s serve as indentured servants to the whims of that day’s supervisor. They may be given intolerable program assignments in the effort to force them to quit, or baited and incited in order to entice a negative reaction that could lead to trumped up charges. They are marginalized professionals, demoralized, disrespected and discarded. File numbers attached to transitory forms. Some ATR’s are just holding out until retirement, or they try to convince themselves that things are not so bad. But the truth is, teachers want to teach and an ATR’s life of temporary positions is a cruel jest. The prevalent teacher bashing narrative allows the ATR’s to be scapegoated as “bad teachers”. They obviously have the most experience therefore it is imperative to remove them from the classrooms. I call that “deformer logic 101”. The bottom line is that ATRs are the poster children of the education reform movement for two main reasons, and neither of those has anything to do with professionalism or teaching ability. The first is cost. Firing a twenty-year veteran pays for two Teach For America temp employees. The second reason is senior teachers are less likely to be intimidated and are more likely to speak their mind or call out ridiculous policies that are detrimental to students and teachers. The plight of ATRs is proof that corporate reformers are not interested in improving education. Seasoned teachers are experts who understand the nuances of teaching public school students. They have decades in the system, have weathered educational evolutions, taught through changing political tides or watched the gentrifications of their communities. They are the experienced educators who worked in the most challenging conditions for their entire careers. Teaching in any public school, especially in impoverished neighborhoods is more than a score. Reformers want to talk numbers, but they ignore the enormous complexity of teaching children. Of managing a classroom, adapting to differentiated needs and overcoming the trauma that children of poverty come to school with every day. These are the people have been almost forgotten, even amongst fellow teachers. It's like they are afraid being an ATR is contagious. And they are right. The truth is we are all potential ATRs. At the end of the day, the media wants to paint these teachers as itinerant workers, collecting a paycheck. But no amount of money is worth being treated like a second-class citizen and literally left out in the cold. Which brings me to why I am here in this basement working with people who are trying to create a support group to help the ATR’s who are holding out, enduring this war of attrition for many reasons. Of course saving their careers is the highest motivator, but it is more than money. The reality is, on the brink of retirement, these people are the ones with the most at stake. Not every ATR is an activist; some are beaten down by the weight of the world or on the verge of giving it all up. But on this day, in this old decrepit basement, it was the ATR's who were there to fight. The fact is if you can teach in a New York City Public school for twenty or thirty years, you are not easily intimidated by harassment. The Bronx Educators Empowerment Workshop organized by Fracesco Portelos’ of Don’t Tread On Educators joined several grassroots groups together to stand for ATR teachers and those members who are being wrongly harassed and bullied out of teaching. He along with Aixa Rodriguez of the Badass Teachers Association, networked with groups such as The UFT Solidarity Caucus, the ATR Alliance, Bronx Educators United For Justice, and BATs in NYC to create the first of many meetings to educate and support teachers throughout NYC who have been left out on their own. To help the disenfranchised among us when no one else will take a second look at. Developing social media techniques where information can be shared. Perhaps most of all, giving the ATR’s and others in need a place to organize. So they can stand up and be heard again. The techniques used in NYC are simple and consistent with education reform tactics. The ever effective divide and conquer approach. ATR’s are pitted against regularly appointed teachers just as younger teachers are used to eliminate older ones. The reform objective is clear, keep teachers at each other’s throats and their solidarity will crumble. Sometimes in this struggle for the survival of the teaching professions we are our own worst enemies. Unions are only as strong as our weakest link. ATR teachers are the ones most criticized, yet they are the ones here in this cold basement trying to fight for our profession. The message is certain, if we do not stand together now, there will be nothing left to stand for later. Those of us who are still in our schools, who still have our jobs, should not get too comfortable. We can always be the next on the list to be bullied and battered into retirement or cut loose into the ATR phantom zone. We are all ATR’s; we just don’t know it yet. ^0^

Coming Soon – Badass Films!

By:  Steven Singer

Originally posted on his blog:  https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/coming-soon-badass-films/

Quick! Somebody microwave Bill Gates a bag of popcorn!

Fluff up Arne Duncan’s favorite pillow!

Get Chris Christie some Sour Patch Kids!

A lot of Sour Patch Kids!

Because the show is about to begin!

Coming Friday, March 6, I’ll be launching Badass Films.

This new venture is a division of the Badass Teachers Association (BATs). Your humble blogger is a member of the leadership team.

I’ve made 11 very short films about corporate school reform and the grassroots movement that fights against it.

They’re nothing fancy – just something I whipped up with imovie. But I hope they’ll help spread the message and get people up to speed on the damage being done to our school system by standardization and privatization. I also hope to shine a light on some of the amazing people out there – parents, teachers, students, and people of conscience – who are fighting against factory schools with all their might.

I already released this film called “Opt Out of Standardized testing:

Friday I’ll release the remaining 10.

Here are the working titles and a few mock movie posters made by our incredible BAT Meme Team:

COMMON CORE

CHARTER SCHOOL TREASURE HUNT

(Meme by Deb Escobar)

V.A.M. SHAM

(Meme by Lisa Smith)

SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE

(Meme by Lisa Smith)

SOCIAL JUSTICE

TEACH FOR AMERICA

(Meme by Deb Escobar)

TEACHERS UNIONS

TEACHER TENURE

(Meme by Deb Escobar)

SCHOOL “CHOICE!?”

(Meme by Lisa Smith)

BADASS TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

(Meme by Lisa Smith)

I hope you’re as excited as I am! I always wanted to be in the movies! Move over, Orson Welles! Here comes a BAT with an ipad!

See you Friday at the movies! ^O^

Step Right Up, Folks

by Kathleen Jeskey

Last Tuesday I attended an event hosted by Oregon PTA at Gladstone High School. The event was billed as a parent information meeting about the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) and guests from the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) were there, we were told, to explain to parents the difference between the previous state test and the new SBA. The presentation was delivered by Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Rob Saxton and Derek Brown, Director of Assessment for ODE.

It’s funny how sometimes things in your life seem to flow together. That day, I had been wrapping up a lesson in my sixth grade classroom on propaganda in advertising. Webster’s Dictionary defines propaganda as “ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.” By the end of the evening, I felt like this would have been the perfect field trip for my students to see some of the various propaganda techniques that we had been learning about in class in action. Let’s see what examples of the techniques we learned about in class I can find in Dr. Saxton and Mr. Brown’s presentations:

Plain Folks: Dr. Saxton, of course, explained how we got the Common Core Standards and the tests necessary to make sure our children are learning them. It was just him and his buddies, regular guys just like him and you and me, other Chief State School Officers, who were at this meeting and they thought, “Hey! Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we all had the same standards, so we could really get good data?” And then a bunch of ordinary teachers got together and made the standards. Just us plain folks. Sandra Stotsky, one of the 6 out of 30 members of the Standards Validation Committee who refused to sign off on the standards tells it a little differently here. 

Repetition: This is self explanatory. It is the repeated use of a brand name or message to sell a product. The phrase “higher level thinking skills” was used repeatedly when referring to the Common Core Standards (purported to impart them) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment (purported to assess them). The phrase “higher level thinking skills” was used four times in the first 8 minutes of the presentation and repeated throughout. Another oft repeated phrase: “college and career ready”. Apparently this is what you can tell if children are as early as third grade if only you adopt the Common Core Standards and the Smarter Balanced assessment. We were also told repeatedly that Common Core Standards are “higher standards” than our previous standards. And thus we move to:

Glittering Generalities: This propaganda technique uses emotionally appealing words to describe a product or idea, but no evidence is given to support it. Both a father in attendance and I asked Dr. Saxton what the evidence was that Common Core are “higher standards”. The father, who stated that he held an engineering degree, said he would like to be directed to some sort of documentation that these standards were indeed “higher”. Another parent in attendance, who stated that he was an educational researcher, asked questions about evidence that the test had been validated using any sort of accepted standards for validation. Were these gentlemen and I directed to any evidence? No. Glittering generalities about “high standards” were all we got.

Bandwagon: This is an appeal to join the crowd in order to be on the winning side. We were told how SO many states (I believe 28) were jumping on the Smarter Balanced bandwagon, and told (repeatedly) how great it will be when we all have the same standards and the same test and we can all compare each other with each other across districts and cities and states. You wouldn’t want  your child left behind, would you?

The Big Lie: This is repeated distortion of the truth on a grand scale, especially for propaganda purposes, like when they say that all this education “reform” is going to erase the effects of poverty. I didn’t go over this one with my class, but maybe I should have, because I’m having trouble sorting out all the lies. There were particular portions of this presentation that have me greatly disturbed. Derek Brown, Director of Assessment at ODE, presented before Dr. Saxton. Saxton took over when Mr. Brown appeared to get to a point of discomfort in answering a question that was asked about the developmental appropriateness of SBA. Dr. Saxton ignored the statement made by the questioner that not one Early Childhood expert was part of the development of the Common Core Standards as well as ignoring the reference to a recent report on the harm that can result from trying to force children to learn to read by the end of kindergarten. (By golly, when he was in high school, they thought typing was developmentally inappropriate for kids until 10th grade, and now we have 5th graders typing 65 words a minute!) Neither presenter seemed overly troubled about the predicted 8 hour average that the battery of assessments will take a third grader to complete, stating that this test would take the same amount of time as OAKS (which might be true only if a student were one of the unfortunate who was required to take OAKS on all 3 possible attempts to increase her score). That’s probably not The Big Lie. That’s closer to a little white lie.

Mr. Brown was asked about not only the developmental appropriateness of the SBA, but was also asked, by me, about answers that students type in (I’m assuming at a rate of 65 words per minute in 5th grade, if Dr. Saxton is to be believed) and how those answers would be scored, since a few years back we dropped the Oregon 4th grade writing assessment which was hand scored by Oregon teachers. I told him about some links a friend had sent me where people were being hired from places like Craigslist to score student tests for as little as $10-$12 dollars an hour, with any four year degree being the main requirement. This is not a good thing.  He told me that he was unaware of any hiring being done off Craigslist, that ODE had contracted with a company called DRC (Data Recognition Corporation) and that all scorers would be well trained but would work “somewhere in the midwest” until ODE could find scorers “closer to home”. (By the way, I am a trained educator, live only 2 miles from my classroom and score student work every day for zero dollars above my regular salary.)  I then asked him specifically if those scorers would all be educators. He answered, “Yes.” I’m here to tell you that unless DRC is doing a special “educators only for Oregon” deal, that answer does not appear to be correct. They are advertising here for scorers. This is their recruiting flyer for jobs, some in the midwest, even. That probably isn’t The Big Lie either. I suspect that’s just a plain, old lie. (Thank you to Hyung Nam blogging at People Power for finding this information.)

What seemed to me to be the biggest lie came early in the presentation. I don’t know that this was actually an example of using The Big Lie as a propaganda tool, or more like just a big lie. At the beginning of the presentation, Mr. Brown showed attendees a slide show. In that slide show, he showed us a 5th grade “practice test item”, read it aloud, and then said “students would read that kind of stimuli and get an opportunity to answer a couple of short questions”.  He then read one of the questions that followed aloud (which did not match what he just read in the passage) and mentioned that “on this one, we just took a snippet from the passage the student would read, so that’s not actually the entire stimuli” and said something to the effect that you could just tell by the way that the question was worded that you would have to explain where your thinking is coming from… “and a student would probably have 3 or 4 short responses based on a passage like that”.

There was so much that was wrong with what was said that night, it’s nearly impossible to include it all here. You can see much more at the links to videos found below the SBA practice passage.  When you watch the video of the slideshow, pay attention to the question the woman asks about why she would subject her son to an 8 hour test as a junior when he had already shown the Essential Skills for graduation by passing the PSAT. The answer was basically about how we really need to be able to get good data to do data comparison to see which school is good and which is better and which school is really, really bad. This is the point at which I heard the woman next to me mutter under her breath, “So, it’s a pissing match.” Yes. And our kids are data donors caught in the middle.

Judge for yourself: The Big Lie, or just a big lie?

(See below the ODE slide followed by the actual entire passage from the SBAC practice site. Please note: there are plenty of multiple choice questions.)

Here is the slide presented by ODE:

Here is the actual passage and questions from the SBAC practice site in a series of screen shots taken the night of the presentation.

Isn’t it about time Oregon had an honest discussion about these standards and assessments?

Video Links

Derek Brown, ODE Slideshow

Rob Saxton Q & A

PTA Intro and Overview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2gZYySYgag