The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Turning Kids into Cash

by Steven Singer, member of the BAT Leadership Team

originally posted on his blog:   https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/the-school-to-prison-pipeline-turning-kids-into-cash/

For too many children, public school is just a “GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL” card.

Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

The institution that should be raising kids to the skies is chaining them to the ground.

It’s called the School-to-Prison Pipeline, and it disproportionately affects students of color and the poor.

School policy at the highest levels is designed to sort and rank students. Some go to the college track. Some go to the industrial track. And even more end up on the prison track.

We actually have procedures that prepare certain children for life behind bars.

Why? Because people make money from it.

Think about it. The United States represents only 4.4% of the world population but we house 22% of the world’s prisoners. We’re the number one jailor!

It’s not that our citizens are out of control. It’s not a rise in violent crime. In fact, the crime rate has decreased to 1970s levels.

But instead someone has found a way to convert prisoners into cash.

Since the 1980s, we’ve been handing over our prison system to private companies to run for a profit.

The number of inmates in privatized prisons has increased by 44% in the last decade alone, according to a 2013 Bloomberg report.

This creates a market. Without a steady stream of prisoners, these institutions would go bankrupt. And corporations such as Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group spend tons of cash lobbying our government to ensure just that.

It’s no accident that our national education policy meets the needs of the for-profit prison industry.

Look at the so-called education reforms of the last decade: increasing standardization, efforts to close schools serving poor and minority children, cutting school budgets and narrowing the curriculum. All of these serve to push kids out of school and into the streets where they are more likely to engage in criminal activity and enter the criminal justice system.

Federal education policy – whether it be No Child Left Behind or Race to the Top – continually doubles down on privatization and standardization. These policies consistently have failed to produce academic gains but are offered as the only possible solution in school reform initiatives.

Question: Why do we keep enacting the same failed policies?

Answer: Because they are not MEANT to succeed. They are meant to fail a certain percentage, race and economic bracket.

If we had effective education procedures that increased academic success, we wouldn’t have enough prisoners to feed our for-profit prisons. Lawmakers would loose valuable lobbying revenue.

Call it what you will – misplaced priorities, profiteering or an outright scam. But the reform-to-profit cycle is advocated, perpetrated and championed by the most prominent figures in the so-called education reform movement.

Take Bill Gates – the monetary force behind Common Core State Standards (CCSS), one of the leading policies in education.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also is an investor in The GEO Group – one of the biggest for-profit prison providers in the country. It’s most recent tax filing (2013) shows a more than $2 million investment.
Nominally a philanthropic organization, the Gates Foundation refuses to admit if it still backs the industry or by how much. Sure Gates underwriting is just a drop in the bucket, but it proves how the organization’s interest is economic and not charitable. It is one of a herd of Trojan horses stampeding over the cries of critics under a banner of largesse.

Likewise, Common Core essentially isn’t concerned with increasing the quality of children’s education.

CCSS has never been proven to be effective and is – in fact – developmentally inappropriate. But it’s touted as a panacea to a host of ills when its real concern is to continue fortifying the prison machine.

We live in a country where more than half of the children attending public school live below the poverty line. They need proper nutrition, social assistance, tutoring, counseling and a host of wrap around services. But instead they get so-called “higher” academic standards and standardized tests.

It’s like a sporting goods store withholding wheelchairs to the Special Olympics and instead donating extra hurdles – all the while claiming it was trying to help participants become better hoppers!

Even worse, these standards aren’t actually better. They’re just confusing, ignorant and ill-conceived. After all, they weren’t developed by educators. They were made by ideologues who admit they were unqualified for the task.

Was this a huge mistake? No. These standards and the associated bubble tests that drive them do exactly what they were meant to do.

They increase the numbers of failing students. They push more kids out of school and into the waiting arms of the prison industry.

And when kids have difficulty sitting through the hours, days, and months of test prep that are increasingly replacing a well-rounded curriculum, they face unfair discipline practices.

We treat misbehaving kids like little criminals.

Can’t sit still in class? Can’t keep quiet? Can’t control your frustration?

Out you go! Detentions, suspensions, expulsions!

We have zero tolerance for your childish behavior – even if you are still a child.

And unsurprisingly the majority of the children who are crushed by the hammer of discipline have dark skin.

Let me be clear. I’m not saying that misbehaving children shouldn’t be disciplined. Far from it.

But we need to stop criminalizing their misbehavior.

If we can’t provide them with schools that teach in a developmentally appropriate manner – it’s not the children who are misbehaving. It’s us! The school system!

Moreover, when a child has a problem conforming to the norm, our first reaction shouldn’t be punishment. It should be understanding. The goal should be to find ways to change the negative behavior, not weed the kid out of the system.

But this means treating children as ends not means.

We have to care about their well-being. They have to be more than just piggy banks for big business.

Otherwise, it is our sick society that really deserves to be sent to jail.

Why I Quit Teaching

By:  Anonymous 

 

 

 

I don’t know. Every time someone asks me, my response is always different. Teaching is a dream job. You get to share your hard-earned knowledge and experiences to train the next generation. Why would I quit such a job? I don’t think there will ever be an objective answer, but I’ll try my best to go through my experiences and figure it out.

 

Student teaching was awesome. I had a great master teacher, the students loved learning, and class was a blast. Still, I was always really tired. This should be shocking because normally a teacher has to teach five or more periods, but I was really only teaching two. I wasn’t even lesson planning. Therefore, why would I always come home and go straight to bed, only to wake up at 5:00 in the morning? I thought it was mostly because I wasn’t used to working and that I’m innately shy, but I figured that eventually I would get over it.

 

Fast forward to getting my first job as a high school math teacher at a charter school. I honestly sent in my application really late because I wanted to rest more during the summer. I don’t really have a go-getter personality and I always try hard to be efficient. By efficient I mean, getting stuff over with as little effort as possible (I mean, I still turn out a quality product. Usually.). Still, after a little monetary pressure I sent in my application. I was hired almost immediately and had to start in 3 days. School started and I really only got to be in the classroom after about a week because there were some technical difficulties with the fingerprints. In any case, I had a rough start. Sure I liked the students, but they weren’t what some would call “easy” students. Most of them grew up in Watts, in the projects, and they got passed along to high school with sometimes elementary level math skills. Several kids told me how crazy their middle schools were. Chairs and tables would be flying. One kid even blew his mouth open by lighting fireworks in his mouth. Another kid told me about how their gang got their weapons confiscated by the police.

 

However, this was where I wanted to be. I wanted to be a light in the darkness. I wanted to give kids who society would dismiss as hopeless, hope. I soon found out that it was a lot more work than I bargained for. At the work place, I can work like a machine. But to make me work like a dog at home too was too much. I’m still single! I need to get out! Yet I found myself isolating myself from my friends and family because the stress was too much and I always felt “behind”. The charter school did offer a lot of support but I felt like it was too much support. Can there ever be too much support? Too much coaching? Too much professional development?

 

I wanted to go into teaching and do my thing. Turns out that I had to reset my grading system to match theirs. I had to read a book on how to properly teach. I had to collaborate with coworkers on how to properly implement one educational theory after another. I watched videos and read articles about effective teachers. My students typically scored far below basic on the charter school’s newly designed Common Core exams. I was told to give more exams, score more exit tickets, give more assessments. I was scored on a scale from 1 to 4 about how effective I was across a plethora of parameters. I typically scored 1s and 2s so I had to receive even more coaching. Everyone was very supportive, but I still felt like I wasn’t a good teacher. They encouraged me a lot, saying that I was improving really quickly, that the students liked me, that I would be much better next year. But still, something was lost. Respect? Pride? Dignity? I don’t know. It’s not good to be proud anyway but I felt like I wasn’t a teacher anymore. I was some new clay that could be properly molded into a good teacher using the latest research and data-based educational findings. I was clay that could be found anywhere.

 

Who cares if my kids liked me? Who cares if I brought them candy every week? Who cares if I spent over $200 on pencils alone? I was just another face that could become effective with enough training. I was an ineffective teacher. Many of my students scored far below basic on the Common Core based tests that they had to take every unit. They were frustrated. They lost confidence.

 

But then, something amazing happened. They didn’t require me to give the charter school’s manufactured exams. I could teach them my way. The students started gaining confidence. They were learning at their own pace, not an artificial pace to prepare them for an exam that most adults would struggle with. They started saying bizarre things like, “This is easy!” Still, I knew that next year the exams would come back. I would have to work harder and harder to just maybe be considered effective. If I’m not effective, then I say find someone else that wants to be molded into an effective teacher. If I’m not a good teacher, why should I stay teaching only to sacrifice my well-being while doing these students a disservice?

               

The students were upset that I was leaving and gave me their well-wishes. Students told me I was a really good teacher and were upset that all the good teachers were leaving. It made me wonder what really made a teacher a good one. I was so busy feeling inferior the whole time that I hadn’t really stopped to consider. The students signed my yearbook and gave me cards. I told them I was moving into a Computer Programming training program. They were happy for me as I’m set to double my pay within 3 years. If I work overtime, I’ll actually get paid for it. I’ll be able to do the programming that I love and be able to challenge myself intellectually as I learn new things every day. The more I learn and master, the less work I have to do! I won’t be expected to lesson plan in the middle of the night and wake up in the mornings to motivate students that hate school, that hate the system. I’ll be working for employers that appreciate my work as I fully utilize the talents that could not see the light of day while I was a high school teacher.

               

Bye charter school. Even though the principal, the two vice-principals, and six out of thirty-one teachers are leaving this year, I’m happy I’m leaving because I’m sure you’ll replace me with someone more effective than myself.

 

BATs Pledge to Preserve the Arts in Our Schools

 

BATs will be 2 years old on Sunday, June 14^th.  Over the 2 years of BAT existence we have seen the Arts slashed and cut. 

1. Atlanta School District cut 18 Music/Orchestra positions  http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/atlanta-schools-cut-music-teachers/nmRGP/

2.  Funds have been cut in more than 80 percent of U.S. school districts since 2008  http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/04/28/music-art-and-language-programs-in-schools-have-long-lasting-benefits

3.  Detroit's Renaissance High School may lose music program http://archive.freep.com/article/20140821/NEWS01/308210056/Renaissance-High-School-teacher-cuts

 We could put hundreds of articles here to show how the arts have been slashed and cut.  As educators we know that the arts are needed in our schools.   The arts allow students to explore their natural passion and creativity.  The arts give students an outlet to express their vision of the world and provide, for many, a place in which they can shine.

Research shows that children who are exposed early to music have a boost in their brain development   https://www.mcgill.ca/channels-contribute/channels/news/early-music-lessons-boost-brain-development-224936

Neuroscience research is revealing the impressive impact of arts instruction on students' cognitive, social and emotional development  http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=7378

Our very own BAT Dr. Yohuru Williams wrote an amazing piece in September of 2014 in which he said,

“The intangible benefits of public education will never appear in the sterile strips of data represented by tests scores. The high school band members who play in churches, parks, parades and festivals, the young thespians and dancers who share their talents in shows, and the artists who paint murals on the sides of buildings bring a splash of life and color to an otherwise desolate urban landscape -- they put the public into public education.”   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yohuru-williams/rhythm-and-bruise-how-cut_b_5838406.html

 BATs we must all commit to fighting for and preserving the arts in our districts.   We must show our local, state, and federal lawmakers that funding our schools means that all children get rich programs that help them grow and that make school a fun place to be.  

We are asking all BATs to please sign onto the BAT Pledge to Preserve the Arts in Our Schools!

 

 

 

The One about "Global Competitiveness" and What we Truly Want for our Children  By:  Dr. Mitchell Robinson

 

 

 

 

Originally posted on his blog:  http://www.mitchellrobinson.net/2015/06/05/the-one-about-global-competitiveness-and-what-we-truly-want-for-our-children/

 

 

Education reformers have been very clear about their goals for American schools and students. Authors like C. M. Rubin have called for parents to vote for the presidential candidate "who has the most impactful 21st-century vision for education, because addressing our issues now is essential for the U.S. to maintain its prosperity and global leadership in the next decades." Neera Tanden and Matt James raise the specter of 200 million Chinese college grads by 2030 competing in the global marketplace, and compare education to Olympic medal counts in their analysis of global education trends. But few of these pundits ever ask parents what they want for their children, so as the father of 2 school age boys I'm taking the liberty to share my thoughts on the subject.

 Here is what I don't want with respect to my kids' education:

 I don't want my children to be "globally competitive"--that's nothing more than Cold War fear mongering. Having recently returned from Shanghai, I can report that the Chinese educators I had the pleasure of working with were very interested in American educational strategies and ideas, and not for reasons of "global competitiveness." They seemed honestly interested in how what we do as teachers was the same or different from their approaches to teaching and learning, wanted to know how US teachers were prepared in colleges and universities, and were eager to share their traditions and ideas with us.

 I'm not interested in an educational approach that is targeted on producing "college and career ready" graduates. My boys are 12 and 14. We hope they attend college, choose a major they are passionate about, and find a way to apply their talents and abilities in jobs that they enjoy and that make a strong contribution to their community and society in general. But that's not the purpose of education. Education is not "job training". Its so much more, and limiting the creativity and wonder of learning to college and career readiness is a perversion of the true purpose and value of education. The reformers have a very narrow, impoverished notion of education as nothing more than a banking transaction, in which teachers make deposits and students withdrawals. Its little wonder that their approach to schooling is erasing the joy of learning for students and teachers in far too many of our schools today.

 And, I don't want an increasing bevy of tests consuming ever larger swaths of time and energy in my children's education. The truth is that we are measuring the things that are easy to measure, and ignoring the things that really matter--relationships between teachers and students, and among students themselves.

 Here's what I do want for my children's education, and for education in general:

 I want my children to read for enjoyment, play an instrument and sing, draw, dance, play, think, feel and be kind.

 I want schools to be richly diverse, noisy, messy places full of discovery, where instead of worrying about a stifling regimen of tests, children are encouraged to explore, ponder, experiment and create.

 I want rich arts programs, nurses, psychologists, counselors and librarians in every school, to make sure that no child comes to or leaves school hungry, and for schools to be places where every child and adult is treated with dignity and respect.

 I want my children's teachers to be free to create their own lessons, and work collaboratively with their colleagues in a climate of trust and mutual respect with their administrators, school board members and parents.

 I want those teachers to be evaluated based on the work they do in the classroom with their students, not on standardized test scores in subjects they don't teach, from students they've never met.

 I want those teachers to be well prepared, and fully certified in their subject area with a semester or more of internship experience before being entrusted with their own classroom.

 I want all children to be taught by persons who care about their growth and development as full human beings, not about their test scores.

As a parent, I have a message for the reformers: Stay out of public education and stop obfuscating parents and community members with distracting propaganda like "global competition" and "college and career readiness", which is only designed to further the false rhetoric of "failing schools". The vast majority of public schools are wonderful, and our children's teachers are doing what can only be described as heroic work under very difficult conditions.

 And let's stop using "competition" as a solution for the problems that have been caused by..."competition."

Are Some Democrats Really “Education Assassins”?

by Karen Wolfe


Last week’s New York Times editorial http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-department-of-education-assassins.html?referrer&_r=0 spinning those who oppose the Obama Administration's Department of Education as right wing "education assassins" misses an exciting story. 

 An important national policy debate is reaching a peak as Congress prepares to consider reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), originally passed as part of Lyndon Johnson's sweeping Civil Rights legislation. Rather than the small government talking point that columnist Frank Bruni illustrated with mere annoyance at bureaucracy, the conflict represents a growing insurgency within the Democratic Party.

 

Just ask Rahm Emanuel, the first mayor in Chicago history to require a runoff to get re-elected. That’s especially significant given his close ties to President Obama. Emanuel suffered bruising opposition largely in reaction to his closing of 50 public schools, which many say was retaliation for a teacher's strike led by Karen Lewis. He avoided the full wrath of Lewis's might only when she fell seriously ill and ended her campaign to unseat him. The loss of momentum in the Chicago movement is temporary.

 

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is another prominent Democrat losing support because of education policies. He can also blame his embarrassing fight for survival on a progressive candidate whose base of support includes teachers and parents betrayed by his education platform--which looks a lot like President Obama's. His opponent, Zephyr Teachout is the former online organizer for Howard Dean. She just launched a three-week tour to identify candidates to run for office throughout New York State.

 

Democrats who are keyed into education are frustrated with the recent shift from the original intent of the landmark ESEA which made equitable funding of schools the law of the land. Later sanctioned by President Carter's elevation of education to a cabinet level post, Democrats have almost universally supported public education as a great equalizer.

 

Over the last decade or so, the equity of opportunity has been replaced by an emphasis on equal outcome. That has altered education policy to an emphasis on universal standards and an obsession with the almighty test score. The idea that every 5th grader in the country should score about the same on a test might seem reasonable in a committee room, but it's making parents and teachers go bonkers. That is leading to coalitions of regular citizens standing up in their communities and saying, "Enough is enough!"

 

If that is starting to sound like a political movement, that's because it is. Groups like BATs, United Opt Out, Save our Schools and the Network for Public Education have teachers and parents working together in every state in the country. They are developing clearly articulated positions on education policy, highly critical of the Obama Administration. 

 

The insurgency is stirring up the teachers unions, too. Enlivened by the new Occupy Wall Street reality, parents and public education advocates are becoming activists, joining teachers for a seat at the table. Negotiating priorities like class size and curriculum alongside pay and benefits brings parents and teachers together to support schools. It’s a natural coalition. This broader base of support helps the unions in an increasingly pro-corporate America.

 

Heading toward the presidential primary season, this makes for a fascinating moment in time. The New York Times can ignore it, but the campaigns cannot.

 

Perhaps no one understands the situation better than Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Pushed from one side by the progressive arm of the union with its burgeoning coalition, and the Democratic Party establishment—accustomed to unequivocal support from the AFT—on the other, Weingarten is in a singular position. A longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton, Weingarten will surely be rewarded if she can deliver the country's largest teacher's union, with all its organization and resources. But the grassroots are pushing Weingarten not to let any Dem take them for granted. Weingarten as Secretary of Labor or Commerce will be no victory to public education advocates if Clinton is not influenced to change course on education policy.

 

The situation is so serious that some Democrats advocate deflating the power of the Secretary of Education. Why support a strong federal Department of Education when the guiding policy of the administration is to sell off public education?

 

Progressives who are engaged in public education oppose President Obama's education policies every bit as much as the Tea Party does, but for different reasons. This conflict will escalate during the presidential campaign season, and will have far reaching implications. It’s a story worth telling.

 

Karen Wolfe is a public school parent and member of the Venice Neighborhood Council Education Committee and a member of the BAT Leadership Team.  You can follow her on twitter @kwolfepack

 

5 MYTHS ABOUT STANDARDIZED TESTING AND THE OPT OUT MOVEMENT

Originally published by emPower Magazine on Wednesday June 3, 2015.

For the past few years a movement has been growing to save our public schools from a culture obsessed with standardized testing. After the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RttT), testing has been forced upon students, teachers, and parents at an alarming rate. We all took tests when we were in school, but unless you have a child in school today or you are a parent of a child or teacher, you have no idea how much these tests have changed. Instead of 3 hours a day 3 days out of the school year that we remember of standardized testing, we now have 6 weeks of testing 6 hours a day and 2-3 months of test prep. One teacher acknowledges that her students had only 3 weeks of instruction not related to testing.

Many parents and teachers are fed up with the culture of testing. The opt out movement has grown and this year the numbers are so large the media has been forced to pay attention. Teachers are refusing to administer the tests and parents are opting their children out of all standardized tests especially those used to punish their child’s teacher and school. United Opt Out National*, a leading organization supporting parents right to opt out, has a map on their website that shows the numbers of opt out across the country. Jesse Hagopian editor of and contributor to More than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing, has been leading the fight against testing when he and his colleagues at Garfield High School refused to administer the MAP test in 2013. More than a Score provides personal accounts of teachers, parents, and students who refused to allow a single test to determine their worth. These are just some of the examples of how the opting out movement is growing.

However, as the movement grows so does the push back. There are many who have a vested interest in keeping standardized testing in place and thus they are threatened by parents, teachers, and students who choose to opt out. As testing season began and the opt outs started rolling in we have a seen a plethora of articles and interviews admonishing the opt out movement. After John Oliver addressed standardized testing and Pearson (the multinational corporation that creates most of the profit tests and testing materials estimated to cost public schools $4 billion dollars annually) on his show Last Week Tonight, Peter Cunningham felt the need to accuse John Oliver of throwing poor kids under the bus. And he is not alone in his defense of standardized testing. Some Civil Rights groups have been vocal about their belief that annual standardized testing is needed to deal with racism in schools and President Obama has said that he would veto the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that did not include annual testing.

Most of the arguments made by those who believe in standardized testing are filled with myths about what standardized testing can and should accomplish and misconceptions about the promise of opting out. Those of us who are advocates for a public education system that honors all children and supports families have an obligation to address the myths head on. Here are five popular myths about standardized testing and the opt out movement and the facts you can use to counter them.

1. Standardized testing is needed to address the racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps.

This is the main point of 12 national Civil Rights group who issued a press release on May 5, 2015 denouncing “anti-testing efforts.” The group joint statement claims “For the civil rights community, data provide the power to advocate for greater equality under the law. It’s the reason we’ve fought to make sure that we’re counted equally in every aspect of American life, such as in employment, the criminal justice system, and consumer lending.” They acknowledge that high stakes standardized testing (tests used to determine graduation or grade retention) can be misused and undermine the purpose of public education, but they counter that the today’s opt out movement prohibits the collection of important data that will reveal the education disparities by race and class and our ability to fix what we measure. Additionally the statement takes issues with opt out activists using the language of the civil rights movement to remind people that standardized tests have a long history or eugenics and racial biases.

At first read it sounds like standardized testing was designed to close the achievement gap. This is simply not true. No test can close a gap. Testing can only show you were the gaps are. We know we have an achievement gap in this country and that after 10 years of NCLB and nearly 8 years of RttT the gap has not closed. Do we need more standardized testing to show us that African American and Latino students do not score as high as their white and Asian counterparts? How can knowing this close the gap? Perhaps if we know where the gaps are then we can take appropriate steps to close the gap. But we know where the gaps are. We know that if you plug in student zip codes on a map, you could easily determine which areas would have high test scores and which areas would have low test scores, because testing reveals more about economic inequality than academic achievement.

So how do we respond to standardized test results that show a racial or class achievement gap? Well under NCLB we would label the school as failing to meet adequate yearly progress. We would sanction the school and possibly close it and turn it into a charter school. Is that how we close the achievement gap? The charter school experiment has been under way in the U.S. for over 20 years and we still have an achievement gap. Although some charter schools are able to produce amazing results (especially when they self-select good students and remove those who threaten to lower test scores) but overall charters do not outperform public schools and have not closed the achievement gap.

The problem with this is myth, is that it leads people to believe that by testing students more and more we can somehow make the achievement gap shrink and eventually disappear. We do need to know how students are doing in school and if there are disparities based on race and class but we can collect this information by testing a random sample of students once in elementary school, once in middle school, and once in high school. We do not need annual testing in grades 3 through 8 to show that academic achievement is tied to social class and race.

2. Standardized testing is needed to hold teachers and districts accountable.

This myth is often tied to the previous one and used by those who seem to think teachers and their unions are the reason why all children are not succeeding in school. The idea is that teachers are either racist, lazy, or both and if we do not have standardized tests in place to measure their effectiveness (this is known as VAM- value added measure, and VAM is a SHAM) then our children will be the ones to suffer. Are there racist teachers? Yes some teachers are racist. Are there lazy teachers? Yes some teachers are lazy. Will standardized testing make teachers stop being racist or lazy? No, they will not. Instead when teacher evaluation is tied to test scores you see fewer teachers willing to teach students who traditionally score low. Why should a young teacher work in a school where 95% of the students are on free or reduced lunch and less than 30% receive a passing score on standardizes test when at the end of the year their ability to keep their job will be based on their ability to increase test scores?

Often when teachers remind the public that poverty is the real culprit they are often accused of making up excuses. But how does one excuse the effects of poverty when there are an abundance of research studies that prove that poverty can have negative effects on a student’s ability to learn? By now you are probably thinking, well not all poor children do poorly in school. Many go on to be quite successful. This is true, and I am one of those poor children who succeeded in school despite my impoverished background. But these students are the exception not the rule. The hundreds of thousands of children born poor and who fail to graduate high school are the ones we need to remember. And for them poverty is the elephant in the room that no one wants to address. It is much easier to blame the teacher, or the parent, or even the student, then to deal with the effects of poverty. However, one thing we cannot do is expect standardized testing to solve the poverty problem by making teachers more accountable.

3. Opting out does not prepare children for the real world.

This myth is directed towards the students who are choosing to opt out. In a plea to young leaders a former high school drop out reminds students that although they are told these tests are high stakes, they are nothing compared to other tests they will need to take. And since you cannot opt out of the SAT or GRE or LSAT then you should not opt out of your current standardized testing. It is true that after high school there will be more standardized tests you need to take. If you want to go to college you need the SAT or ACT and if you want to go graduate school you need the GRE and other academic areas will require even more standardized tests like the LSAT. But there is one difference between those possible future tests and the current standardized tests you are refusing to take today: a low score on the SAT, ACT, GRE, or LSAT does not mean that you cannot go to college, graduate school, or even law school. If you fail to pass a high stakes standardized test, you may not graduate depending on what state you live in. Or if you are in elementary school you might be held back a grade, or force to give up electives and specials for additional test prep. If you get a low score on the SAT or ACT you may not get into an Ivy League school but you can still go to college. Same for graduate school and law school, so in fact these tests are very low stakes.

Another difference is that your score on the SAT, ACT, GRE, or LSAT is not tied to your teacher or public school. Your high school will not face sanctions if you do poorly on the SAT. Your college dean will not have to worry about losing their job if your GRE scores are too low. After high school, you may need to take standardized tests, but they are not the same as the tests you are taking today. Currently, students are drowning in our testing obsessed school culture. They come to college unable to think critically because all they have been taught is how to eliminate poor choices and make an educated guess. As a college professor, I can attest to the effects of testing industrial complex on new generation of college students. Not all, but many of them have no desire or joy for learning because they spent years preparing to take tests. And they have a hard time adjusting to the expectations of college life because testing is not the goal of higher education. What these students really need is an opportunity to reclaim their public education. They will be much better off learning how to stand up and fight for something they believe in then searching for the right answer out of four not so right choices.

4. Opting out is for white middle class families who only care about their children.

This is probably one of the most interesting myths on the list, mainly because in some ways it is true, however, the way it is being used to attack the opt out movement is false. Arne Duncan, Secretary of the Department of Education, bolstered this myth when he accused white soccer moms of fighting the Common Core State Standards because the tests showed that their children were not as bright as they thought they were. Others have also pushed this myth, arguing that “The opt-out movement is dominated by middle-class families that are concerned for the welfare of their own children, but seem less concerned about poor children who are languishing in low-performing schools.” I say this myth is partly true because the opt out movement is dominated by white middle class parents (so are many of our public schools). But this does not mean that those pushing the opt out movement are not concerned about poor children in public schools. In fact many of us in the opt out movement, are the same ones demanding that poverty and income equality be addressed. We know that poverty and racial discrimination are real problems affecting student achievement which is why we refuse to play along with the status quo that more standardized testing is going to make things better.

Many white middle class parents did not join the fight to save public education until the Common Core standards and standardized testing began to affect their child and their public school. When urban schools were being closed and turned into to charters and urban teachers were being fired and replaced by temporary Teach for America staff, many white middle class families remained silent. And that silence allowed Common Core and standardized testing to spread into middle class schools. Now that Common Core is in 45 states plus DC, and the Smarter Balanced or PARCC tests are being administered to a majority of children, these families are ready to say enough is enough. To the movement this is problematic for a number of reasons. Will these white middle class parents continue to fight when the issues are those effecting urban schools? Will they fight for all children and not just their own? These are important questions worth asking but that is not the goal of those who say the opt out movement lacks diversity. The truth is there are many parent and teachers of color who have been a part of this movement from the beginning. And in New Jersey and New York there are schools that are predominantly high-poverty opting out in huge numbers. The opt out movement will continue to strive for diversity in its members and work with all parents, students, and teachers who believe that our public education system should not be reduced to preparing students to pass a test.

5. Opting out does nothing to stop the testing industrial complex that is dismantling public education.

No matter what side you are on, almost everyone can agree that there is too much testing. Many of those who critique the opt out movement, are quick to acknowledge that there is too much testing and teaching to test going on in schools today. Their response however, is not to opt out of testing, but to demand that the test be used appropriately and that the curriculum not be based on testing. Wow, why didn’t we think of that? Why didn’t we just decide to say look, just get rid of the test prep and we will take the tests? Perhaps it’s because we knew this would not work. The goal of the opt out movement is simple: deny the testing industrial complex the data it needs. Without the data the testing machine will grind to a halt. Like the prison industrial complex, the testing industrial complex grew into a monster that we can no longer control. Once it became apparent how much profit could be made off of testing all children in public schools all the time, the beast was unleashed and now the only way we can stop it, is to starve the beast, deny it the data it needs to survive.

No amount of wishful thinking or rational conversations is going to stop the testing industrial complex. All of the major players who have millions if not billions invested in standardized testing are not going to pack up and go home because we ask them to. In fact they will do whatever they can to ensure that the testing stays in place; even if it means closing schools, bullying parents, students, and teachers who opt out, and locking up teachers who try and cheat the testing industrial complex. Now we must do what we can to save public education. We must expose the myths and lies for what they are and educate the public to the truth. We must remind people that a norm-referenced standardized test is designed to get results that produce a bell curve, meaning only a certain amount of children will score below average, average, or above average. We must call out the insanity that insists we use a test that will never allow for 100% of children to succeed to prove that not all children can succeed. We must reclaim our rights as students, teachers, and parents to have an equitable democratic public education system that prepares everyone for life as an informed citizen. We must opt out now.

*The author is an administrator for United Opt Out National. For more information on how you can opt out of standardized testing visit unitedoptout.com

Broken Promises! Pennsylvania Republicans Ready to Renege on Pension Deal Even if It Means Breaking the Law

By Steven Singer, Member of the BAT Leadership Team

Originally posted on his blog: https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/broken-promises-pennsylvania-republicans-ready-to-renege-on-pension-deal-even-if-it-means-breaking-the-law/

 

Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering breaking the law.

In fact, they may have already done it.

The reason? Pension debt.

The Commonwealth owes an estimated $50 million in unpaid pension obligations to state employees.
Instead of doing the responsible thing and paying off the state debt, Republican legislators are trying to rip up the bill and pay whatever they want.

If you or I did that, they’d put us in jail. But I guess the rules are different in Harrisburg.

As a public school employee, I work for the commonwealth. So do the state’s troopers, judges, university staff, etc. When I took this job, I signed a contract. I agreed to certain things (i.e. teaching, keeping up my certification, etc.) if the state agreed to certain things (i.e. pay, benefits, etc.).

But now GOP lawmakers – I don’t mean to be partisan but it is ONLY Republicans – want to renege on that deal.

Let’s say I came into school one day and said, “You know what? I just don’t feel like teaching today. But you still have to pay me.” No reasonable person would expect the state to cut me a check.

I need to live up to my end of the bargain. Otherwise, the state doesn’t have to give me one dollar.

And I have no problem with that. I love teaching. There’s nothing else I’d rather do.

But the state has to live up to its end, too. That goes beyond common sense. It’s one of the key principals of any civilized society. Each party to a contract has to abide by the agreement.

That’s really the issue – breach of contract. Legislators want to reduce benefits for both new employees – which is shortsighted but legal – and current employees – which has NEVER been permissible.

This isn’t just my interpretation. When lawmakers in Oregon and Illinois tried to rip up their state employee pensions, their state Supreme Courts ruled it unconstitutional.

State constitutions in both Oregon and Illinois specifically prohibit violation of contracts. Pennsylvania’s state constitution has an almost identical provision.

1+1=2.

That is not serious lawmaking. It’s theater.

This legislation has already passed the state Senate with all Democrats and one Republican voting against it.

If it somehow were to pass the state House (which is by no means a sure thing) and if Gov. Wolf signed it into law (which he has said he would NOT do), it would go straight to court.

There would be no cost savings. In fact, the state would have to spend additional taxpayer money to defend legislators’ disdain for their own laws and 370,000 state workers.

So why do it?

Politics.

Gov. Wolf has proposed a budget that would right the wrongs of the previous Republican administration. Among other things, Wolf would restore $1 billion in annual cuts to public schools.

With this, we could reduce class size by rehiring the 25,000 teachers we unnecessarily sacked four years ago. We could ensure all children get arts, music, science labs, foreign languages, sports and extra-curricular activities. Even amenities like school nurses and guidance counselors could be restored.

But from the moment the governor made this promise, Republicans have vowed to oppose it. They had no problem four years ago voting to cripple our state education system. The result: Pennsylvania has the most inequitable school spending in the nation.

The commonwealth spends only 36.1% of the cost to educate students. That’s far below the national average of 45.5%, and ranks 45^th in the country. The remaining cost is absorbed by local property taxes.

Not only does this put an enormous tax burden on residents, it ensures schools in richer communities are better funded than those in poorer ones.

In fact, Pennsylvania has the worst disparity in the nation between dollars spent on rich vs. poor children.
But our Republican lawmakers are refusing to do anything about that…

Unless!

Unless the Democrats allow them to pilfer state workers pensions.

Republicans are holding the budget hostage to this criminal pension scheme.

Realistically, they need no help in the House and Senate. They control both bodies and in theory could pass whatever they want. However, this is the first year we have a Democrat in the governor’s mansion, so they need to bargain with him.

Funny when Republicans controlled both the executive and legislative branches, they didn’t have the guts to do this alone. Once it failed, who would they have had to blame?

That’s the reason for this elaborate hoax of a bill. They know it’s illegal. They know it won’t make it through court. They know it won’t save the state a dime because it will never be enacted.

But they are putting on a show for the voters.

Look how hard we tried to save the state money, but the Democrats (i.e. Wolf) wouldn’t let us do it. Look how hard we tried to increase school spending, but the Democrats (i.e. Wolf) wouldn’t pass our pension bill so we just couldn’t do it.

Excuse me while I go vomit all over myself!

How did we get in such a situation?

Basically, the legislature stopped paying the bills for 17 years.



Both the state government and commonwealth employees are responsible for paying into the pension system.

And state workers made all their payments. They put aside 7.5% of their salaries every year to pay for their retirement.

But the legislature didn’t make its payments. It pushed them off to the future, and now that the future’s here, lawmakers have the gall to act like they have no idea where this cost is coming from!?

You ran up the bill! Time to pay! But instead of doing that, you blame the hardworking men and women who do all the state’s actual J.O.B.’s. And you practice Al-Qaeda tactics against labor, teachers and students!

Is that too harsh?

Who else holds people hostage to their demands?

This is terrorism as governmental policy. Our course of action should be the same with guerrilla extremists at home as it is with those on foreign soil: We don’t bargain with fanatics.

Gov. Wolf has a plan to pay off the pension debt. It’s nothing fancy. It’s the same kind of advice you might get from your accountant – or your mom. Refinance, reduce costs elsewhere and pay your bills.
That’s certainly a more sound strategy than holding a knife to workers and kids.

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If you live in the commonwealth, please write your Senator and State Representative asking them not to support the GOP pension plan and to pass Gov. Wolf’s budget.

 https://youtu.be/JhUPs6SJQMc