The PARCC Test: Exposed

The author of this blog posting is a public school teacher who will remain anonymous.

I will not reveal my district or my role due to the intense legal ramifications for exercising my Constitutional First Amendment rights in a public forum. I was compelled to sign a security form that stated I would not be “Revealing or discussing passages or test items with anyone, including students and school staff, through verbal exchange, email, social media, or any other form of communication” as this would be considered a “Security Breach.” In response to this demand, I can only ask—whom are we protecting?

There are layers of not-so-subtle issues that need to be aired as a result of national and state testing policies that are dominating children’s lives in America. As any well prepared educator knows, curriculum planning and teaching requires knowing how you will assess your students and planning backwards from that knowledge. If teachers are unable to examine and discuss the summative assessment for their students, how can they plan their instruction? Yet, that very question assumes that this test is something worth planning for. The fact is that schools that try to plan their curriculum exclusively to prepare students for this test are ignoring the body of educational research that tells us how children learn, and how to create developmentally appropriate activities to engage students in the act of learning. This article will attempt to provide evidence for these claims as a snapshot of what is happening as a result of current policies.

The PARCC test is developmentally inappropriate

In order to discuss the claim that the PARCC test is “developmentally inappropriate,” examine three of the most recent PARCC 4th grade items.

A book leveling system, designed by Fountas and Pinnell, was made “more rigorous” in order to match the Common Core State Standards. These newly updated benchmarks state that 4th Graders should be reading at a Level S by the end of the year in order to be considered reading “on grade level.” [Celia’s note: I do not endorse leveling books or readers, nor do I think it appropriate that all 9 year olds should be reading a Level S book to be thought of as making good progress.]

The PARCC, which is supposedly a test of the Common Core State Standards, appears to have taken liberties with regard to grade level texts. For example, on the Spring 2016 PARCC for 4th Graders, students were expected to read an excerpt from Shark Life: True Stories about Sharks and the Sea by Peter Benchley and Karen Wojtyla. According to Scholastic, this text is at an interest level for Grades 9-12, and at a 7th Grade reading level. The Lexile measure is 1020L, which is most often found in texts that are written for middle school, and according to Scholastic’s own conversion chartwould be equivalent to a 6th grade benchmark around W, X, or Y (using the same Fountas and Pinnell scale).

Even by the reform movement’s own standards, according to MetaMetrics’ reference material on Text Complexity Grade Bands and Lexile Bands, the newly CCSS aligned “Stretch” lexile level of 1020 falls in the 6-8 grade range. This begs the question, what is the purpose of standardizing text complexity bands if testing companies do not have to adhere to them? Also, what is the purpose of a standardized test that surpasses agreed-upon lexile levels?

So, right out of the gate, 4th graders are being asked to read and respond to texts that are two grade levels above the recommended benchmark. After they struggle through difficult texts with advanced vocabulary and nuanced sentence structures, they then have to answer multiple choice questions that are, by design, intended to distract students with answers that appear to be correct except for some technicality.

Finally, students must synthesize two or three of these advanced texts and compose an original essay. The ELA portion of the PARCC takes three days, and each day includes a new essay prompt based on multiple texts. These are the prompts from the 2016 Spring PARCC exam for 4th Graders along with my analysis of why these prompts do not reflect the true intention of the Common Core State Standards.

ELA 4th Grade Prompt #1

Refer to the passage from “Emergency on the Mountain” and the poem “Mountains.” Then answer question 7.

7. Think about how the structural elements in the passage from “Emergency on the Mountain” differ from the structural elements in the poem “Mountains.”

Write an essay that explains the differences in the structural elements between the passage and the poem. Be sure to include specific examples from both texts to support your response.

The above prompt probably attempts to assess the Common Core standard RL.4.5: “Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text.”

However, the Common Core State Standards for writing do not require students to write essays comparing the text structures of different genres. The Grade 4 CCSS for writing about reading demand that students write about characters, settings, and events in literature, or that they write about how authors support their points in informational texts. Nowhere in the standards are students asked to write comparative essays on the structures of writing. The reading standards ask students to “explain” structural elements, but not in writing.
There is a huge developmental leap between explaining something and writing an analytical essay about it. [Celia’s note: The entire enterprise of analyzing text structures in elementary school – a 1940’s and 50’s college English approach called “New Criticism” — is ridiculous for 9 year olds anyway.]

The PARCC does not assess what it attempts to assess

ELA 4th Grade Prompt #2

Refer to the passages from “Great White Shark” and Face the Sharks. Then answer question 20.

 Using details and images in the passages from “Great White Sharks” and Face to Face with Sharks, write an essay that describes the characteristics of white sharks.

It would be a stretch to say that this question assesses CCSS W.4.9.B: “Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text.”

In fact, this prompt assesses a student’s ability to research a topic across sources and write a research-based essay that synthesizes facts from both articles. Even CCSS W.4.7, “Conduct research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic,” does not demand that students compile information from different sources to create an essay. The closest the standards come to demanding this sort of work is in the reading standards; CCSS RI.4.9 says: “Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.” Fine. One could argue that this PARCC prompt assesses CCSS RI.4.9.

However, the fact that the texts presented for students to “use” for the essay are at a middle school reading level automatically disqualifies this essay prompt from being able to assess what it attempts to assess. (It is like trying to assess children’s math computational skills by embedding them in a word problem with words that the child cannot read.)

ELA 4th Grade Prompt #3

25. In “Sadako’s Secret,” the narrator reveals Sadako’s thoughts and feelings while telling the story. The narrator also includes dialogue and actions between Sadako and her family. Using these details, write a story about what happens next year when Sadako tries out for the junior high track team. Include not only Sadako’s actions and feelings but also her family’s reaction and feelings in your story.

Nowhere, and I mean nowhere in the Common Core State Standards is there a demand for students to read a narrative and then use the details from that text to write a new story based on a prompt. That is a new pseudo-genre called “Prose Constructed Response” by the PARCC creators, and it is 100% not aligned to the CCSS. Not to mention, why are 4th Graders being asked to write about trying out for the junior high track team? This demand defies their experiences and asks them to imagine a scenario that is well beyond their scope.

Clearly, these questions are poorly designed assessments of 4th graders CCSS learning. (We are setting aside the disagreements we have with those standards in the first place, and simply assessing the PARCC on its utility for measuring what it was intended to measure.)

Rather than debate the CCSS we instead want to expose the tragic reality of the countless public schools organizing their entire instruction around trying to raise students’ PARCC scores.

Without naming any names, I can tell you that schools are disregarding research-proven methods of literacy learning. The “wisdom” coming “down the pipeline” is that children need to be exposed to more complex texts because that is what PARCC demands of them. So children are being denied independent and guided reading time with texts of high interest and potential access and instead are handed texts that are much too hard (frustration level) all year long without ever being given the chance to grow as readers in their Zone of Proximal Development (pardon my reference to those pesky educational researchers like Vygotsky.)

So not only are students who are reading “on grade level” going to be frustrated by these so-called “complex texts,” but newcomers to the U.S. and English Language Learners and any student reading below the proficiency line will never learn the foundational skills they need, will never know the enjoyment of reading and writing from intrinsic motivation, and will, sadly, be denied the opportunity to become a critical reader and writer of media. Critical literacies are foundational for active participation in a democracy.

We can look carefully at one sample to examine the health of the entire system– such as testing a drop of water to assess the ocean. So too, we can use these three PARCC prompts to glimpse how the high stakes accountability system has deformed teaching and warped learning in many public schools across the United States.

In this sample, the system is pathetically failing a generation of children who deserve better, and when they are adults, they may not have the skills needed to engage as citizens and problem-solvers. So it is up to us, those of us who remember a better way and can imagine a way out, to make the case for stopping standardized tests like PARCC from corrupting the educational opportunities of so many of our children.
                              

Beware the Ides of Testing

Great news, New York! Your kids will have the chance to take standardized tests even earlier next year! The New York Education Department (NYSED) has ruled that the Big Tests will now go down in March instead of the usual April. Note to white suburban moms: the tests will no longer interfere with soccer season!

And it's no coincidence that Governor Cuomo's annual budget will now be due after the tests instead of before. After all, Cuomo was hoisted by the petards of his budget last year when draconian changes to his teacher evaluation law (APPR) enflamed the Opt-Out movement. Since then, Cuomo has correctly yet bizarrely credited himself for the dramatic spike in test refusals, announcing that his asinine education laws "increased parental participation."    

With the winds of Opt-Out now at his back instead of his face, the Lobbyist for the Students will try to ram whatever other "reforms" he can down our throats without too much gagging. Cuomo and his slimy associates count on parents and teachers having short memories when it comes to education laws passed in the middle of the night.

New Yorkers have longer memories than Cuomo thinks, however, and will not soon forget last year's pernicious attacks on their kids and communities. Whether in March, April, or any other time of year, refusing Cuomo's abusive tests strikes at the heel of an education agenda that is bankrolled by billionaires.

Opt-Out must not relent until lawmakers do their jobs and bring the Test and Punish era to an inglorious end.

Don't be Fooled by Cuomo's Mea Culpa on Testing

As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo pretends to listen to parents and teachers, he hopes they don't know how to read.

Buried at the bottom of a recent press release announcing the "recommendations" of his education task farce is proof that Cuomo is open to changing nothing: 

The Education Transformation Act of 2015 will remain in place, and no new legislation is required to implement the recommendations of the report, including recommendations regarding the transition period for consequences for students and teachers. During the transition, the 18 percent of teachers whose performance is measured, in part, by Common Core tests will use different local measures approved by the state, similar to the measures already being used by the majority of teachers. 

Yes, tests will still count for 50% of a teacher's evaluation.

The so-called “local measures" will require the state’s seal of approval, and the cut-points on the convoluted “matrix” that determines if teachers keep their jobs will be tweaked just enough so heads roll—regardless of how “fair” the tests appear. Moreover, the number of tests will double as students will take one test to grade their teachers, and one test that will, according to Cuomo, be "meaningless" until the 2019-2020 school year. So much for reducing the amount of testing. 

School districts can now expect a full-court press by Cuomo and his slimy associates to convince them to agree to his asinine teacher evaluation law (APPR) or lose more funding. After all, the (Common Core) tests won't count for another four years, even though communities and careers will still depend on tests.   

Additionally, everything else in the Lobbyist for the Student's infamous Education Transformation Act remains, including receivership and weakened due process rights. As Cuomo maintains, the law will not change. The test is still king.   

   

Though federal law now says states don't have to use test scores to rate teachers, Cuomo doesn't care. He will use any means necessary to break public education and hand the pieces over to his Wall Street donors. Cuomo is too greedy and prideful to try to save face. 

Education historian Diane Ravitch recently wondered why Cuomo thinks he can control education since the New York State Constitution grants that power to the Board of Regents, not the governor. Cuomo gets control by linking ludicrous laws to budgets which are rammed though in the middle of the night. As he once said, he is the government, and public education and all of its democracy threatens Cuomo's control.   

It's time for spineless, heavy-hearted legislators to take control away from Cuomo and ram through legislation on behalf of the communities they claim to represent. 

Nothing short of a complete rebuke of Cuomo's toxic agenda will stop 500,000 test refusals now. 

On Cuomo and Incompetency Based Education

Like sweet soma in Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World, a dose of "competency based" education has arrived to pacify the public.

Rather than with super-sized standardized tests taken once a year—tests which are less popular than purgatory—the profiteers of public education now seek to lure schools into oblivion via the sirens of software.

If the plutocrats get their way—and they usually do—steaming piles of tests will be served even more frequently, albeit sealed in smaller, digital packages. The fates of schools will ride on kids' keyboards, as each log-in will at long last expose the incompetency of their principals and teachers. 

With No. 2 pencils soon going the way of pay phones and mix tapes, politicians will call for even more computers inside (and out of) the classroom. Besides, it's the 21st century, and technology is finally smarter than people. Tying teacher evaluations to computer-based tests will make sense to many, at least at first. Kids will enthusiastically complete tasks formerly known as high-stakes tests and be cajoled by computers into achieving proficiency.

Over time, however, this will become a fool's errand; the "bar will rise" just enough to placate parents and turn effective teachers ineffective. Educators will also ironically have no choice but to embrace this software since their careers will depend on it. Computers will spew forth weekly ratings of teachers and schools that will make Bill Gates swoon. Meanwhile, companies like Pearson, Questar and Google will collect pearls of data on our kids, for sale on the open market.  

Though the opt-out movement has apparently burrowed deep enough beneath the skin of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that the Lobbyist for the Students is reportedly considering amending his test-centric teacher evaluation law (APPR), it remains to be seen what, if anything, will actually change. All signs point to Cuomo once again including education "reforms" in the state budget—a cynical and selfish ploy which leaves schools in the hands of the infamous three men in a room.

If Cuomo was serious about improving education, he would compel the legislature to take up changes to his APPR immediately instead of five minutes before the budget's due.

Embedding education in the budget has forced heavy-hearted legislators to either forsake funding or vote for ludicrous laws they don't even read. And though Cuomo has hinted that he now wants nothing to do with high-stakes tests, don't be surprised if the words "technology" and "competency" are peppered throughout his proposals. Cuomo may indeed offer to remove traditional tests in exchange for competency based benchmarks, technology touchstones or pathways to proficiency; he's still searching for the right euphemism. As usual, all of this will come at a cost, with districts who agree to these deforms promised increased bandwidths and refurbished iPads. Sleazy budgetary bribes are how Cuomo "gets things done", after all.

It was just ten days ago that Cuomo expressed a desire to replace teachers with computers.  Parents and teachers must therefore verify but not trust his overtures on education, be they from anonymous "administration officials" (i.e. Cuomo) or Cuomo himself.

And if Cuomo thinks computers are the answer, he should first try replacing himself with one. 

NYSED Updates Cuomo Core Toolkit

Amid uproar and mockery, it seems the New York State Education Department (NYSED) has finally decided to tell us what standardized tests are really all about.

Recent addendums to the state's "Assessments Tool Kit" includes a sample letter schools may send to parents to inform them of the value of the tests, a win-win for all.

The letter reads:

SAMPLE
School Letter to Parents

Dear Parent/Guardian:

This past spring, many of your brats children participated in the 2015 Grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Math Tests. This was the third year that New York students took assessments aligned to rigorous careers and community college readiness. The tests ask students to demonstrate and apply their knowledge and skills in areas such as critical confusion, analytical antics and bizarro logic. 

While no single test provides a complete picture of student achievement, when combined with grades and smear campaigns, annual assessments provide important information about a student’s teacher's incompetence. The tests also give us an objective measurement of how long it will be before your child's school is placed under state control, otherwise known as receivership. Additionally, the tests help ensure that teachers get the bullying they need to be successful.

With the help of Meryl's Tisch's lackeys, the State Education Department has worked hard to ensure that these tests provide a completely random assessment of your child’s learning. Every question on the State assessments was written specifically by people found on Craig's List, and all test questions have undergone an extensive review process that includes feedback from dozens of people who couldn't teach their way out of a wet paper bag.  

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has demonstrated a commitment to improving New York’s testing program and firing as many teachers as possible. She recently announced a contract with a new test company that should nearly double the bank accounts of billionaires. She also announced that this spring’s tests will include even more nonsensical questions for all grades.

The State has taken steps to ensure that your child can digest all this grit and rigor. State law and Commissioner’s regulations prohibit school districts from making placement decisions based solely on a student's performance on the Grades 3-8 ELA and Math Tests. Also, Governor Cuomo recently announced that the tests are "meaningless" until December 31, 2018 or his poll numbers rise—whichever comes first.

In October, the Education Department launched an online survey of the learning standards that pervert the instruction in your child’s classroom. The survey is available at www.whereswaldo.com and allows respondents to provide feedback that we plan to ignore. We believe the only voices that must be a part of the conversation are the billionaires who want to steal teachers' pensions. You are encouraged to participate in the survey if you're not busy defrosting your freezer. 

Please feel free to reach out to no one with any questions you have, because no one will return your call or email. There are also extensive resources for parents available online at our website. 

                 
                        Thank You,

                      

                         Principal


NYSED maintains that this letter is optional and customizable unless and until your school is taken over by the state.

       

Leaders Alter the Optics of Opt Out, Steer Clear of Solutions

 

As much as people may not like testing, it’s the only way available for us to document and to hold schools and school districts accountable. We can’t close the achievement gap unless we know what it is and where it is and how big it is.  

 Marc Morial 

 President, National Urban League   

Testing is the only way to hold schools accountable?

 

That’s like saying the only way to keep your car running is to glance at its gauges . But what if the gauges malfunction or break? What if your check engine light means only that you forgot to tighten your gas cap again? What if your seat belt sensor is set off by a box of books?

 

Much like cars, many problems in public schools are difficult to diagnose. And though learning is more complicated than your car's cooling system, proponents and pushers of standardized tests are desperate to deduce it to a number in order to justify their self-serving schemes.

 
Parents, students and teachers across the nation are passengers in a turbocharged testing machine with a broken speedometer which will soon round narrow, rocky ledges. Airbag lights may finally have a good reason to turn on as more and more public schools plummet into privatization.  

In order to gauge learning  or determine how well our teachers and schools are running  many variables must be considered, all of which have zero to do with standardized tests . If it's unsafe and expensive to leave our car at the mercy of its gauges, then it’s immoral to leave our schools at the mercy of tests.         

Unfortunately, when inspecting our schools, instead of looking under the hood and kicking the tires, our leaders continue glancing at the gauges. 

 

Speaking of lame lemons, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently doubled downed on deform, hoping a thesaurus might help convince himself and others that test scores are also the only way to hold teachers and schools “accountable.”  Like Jeb Bush, Duncan is loathe to utter the words Common Core these days, for example, and has even found a synonym for high-stakes tests, referring to them as “student learning” in a recent interview.  

 

Replace the words “student learning” with "testing" and Duncan's infatuation with high-stakes tests rings clear:

I think having some connection between teacher evaluations and student learning testing makes sense. The goal of all great teachers is to make kids learn. But for folks to say there should be no connection between teacher evaluation and student learning testing I think actually demeans the profession.

Note that Duncan says the opposite of what over 200,000 New Yorkers (and counting) believe. Testing actually demeans the teaching profession.  

As the interview continues, Duncan finally trots out the word "testing", albeit shrouded in lies and equivocation:   

I think on the kids' side, there has been too much testing where there's duplikative [sic] tests, or redundant tests, or too much time doing test prep. That makes no sense. Part of what we're asking Congress to do in the fix of No Child Left Behind is to put a cap on what states can do in terms of testing. And the vast majority of testing is not coming from the federal level—it's coming from the state and local level. I do think it's important for kids to be tested annually.

It’s laughable that Duncan blames the metastasis of tests on the states, when anyone who can see Donald Trump's hairline knows that the federal government has clearly used No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top to force states into accepting the test-and-punish regimes entrenched today.

 

Duncan and others are also desperate to change the optics of Opt Out so that fewer parents join a movement which exposes and threatens to topple the privatization of public education.

 

Sadly, Duncan, the National Urban League, and even the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) are also still spinning cynicism, suggesting that affluent (rich and white) parents in the suburbs are somehow robbing inner-city (poor and black) children of a sound education by Refusing the tests.  NYSED's characterization of students who opted out as being "mostly white" from "low-need" schools who performed poorly last year eerily echoes Duncan's infamous "white suburban moms" comment from two years ago.

Perhaps former New York State Education Commissioner John King, who now works for Duncan in Washington, can tell us if he agreed with Duncan's ignorant intimations about Opt Out all along. Yes, John King is forgotten but not gone from the annals of New York education deform.

Maybe King could also investigate what the hell is going on in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, and finally get to the bottom of whether or not it was, as Duncan callously claimed at the time, "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans."

   

If tests are not the answer, skeptics will ask, then what is?

 

How do we rescue all kids from disillusion and degradation?

In other words, if its gauges are broken, how will we know which parts of the car need maintenance?

Since it seems education deformers treat windshield wiper warnings more seriously than most, perhaps they can assist in devising a formula to measure our schools that does not include test scores as a factor.

This formula will require our best and our brightest  schooled in the intricacies of Boron  who don't waste their time blogging.

 

The formula must include MANY variables to determine whether schools are succeeding or failing.

 

Below, The Pen is Mightier than the Person is pleased to offer eleven variables, adapted from Diane Ravitch's groundbreaking book Reign of Error, that could be used in this formula. And instead of calling the product a value-added measure (VAM), which sounds too much like a failed coupon campaign, we'll call it a Ravitch-added measure (RAM), much more valid than any multiple-choice test:

 

Ravitch-added Measures (RAM) of a 

Highly-Effective School:

      1. Is access to pre-natal care in your district free and convenient? If the answer is NO, your school's RAM will not be affected.  
      2. Is access to daycare and/or pre-school in your district free and convenient? Once again, your school's RAM will not be affected if the answer is NO.
      3. How diverse is your school’s curriculum? How many art, English, and music electives do you offer, for example? Extra-points will be added to your RAM for any physical education electives.
      4. Does your school have small classes? This is one of the easiest variables to measure. Let’s cap classes at 20. The lower your average class size, the higher your RAM.
      5. All charter schools within your district must be fiscally transparent, and PROVE they are not manhandling money. They must accept all students and also not discourage their faculty and staff from joining unions. Any infractions related to funding and/or the rights of students and workers will lead to an automatic revocation of their charter. Should corrupt charter schools be identified as operating within your district, however, your school's RAM will not be affected. 
      6. Are medical and social services widely available in your district? Once again, your school's RAM will not be affected if the answer is NO. 
      7. How much does your school embrace teacher-designed tests and lessons? The more autonomy teachers possess, the higher your RAM. Merit pay (yes, merit pay) could even be awarded to teachers who take extra classes for enrichment. Teachers could even be paid for uploading lessons and assessments to a state-run website which other teachers could access for ideas, free-of-charge. Let’s pay teachers $20 per lesson and go from there.
      8. Do 100% of the teachers in your school hold a teaching certificate? Do 100% of the administrators have at least 10 years of experience in the classroom? Any numbers lower than these will lower your RAM. Experienced administrators, by the way, know good teaching when they see it, and therefore will not need trumped-up charges and test scores to remove tenured teachers.  
       9. If your district is not controlled by an elected school board, your RAM will be lowered. After all, what would people say if one person controlled the United States government?   
       10. What efforts are being made by agencies within your district to reduce racial segregation and poverty? Little or no proof of these efforts will not affect your RAM. 
       11. Does your school recognize that public education is a public responsibility? As evidence of this, your school must produce an annual portfolio   created by teachers, administrators, parents and students   which documents how your school positively impacts the community. Examples of this might include fundraisers, attendance at plays and sporting events, and scholarships awarded to students by local groups and businesses.  

Implementing RAM will be expensive and require diligence, no doubt, but cities and states can no longer afford to shun their schools. Besides, who could deny aid to a school whose RAM is stagnant due to timid attempts by the community to reduce poverty and racism?

New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is example of a politician who might consider adopting RAM. Overwhelmed by his bullying and bullshit, Heastie and other heavy-hearted legislators let Governor Andrew Cuomo have his way in this year's budget, and only threw gasoline on the Opt Out Movement when they voted to strip teachers of due process rights in the name of test scores.

If his recent statements are any indication, however, Assemblyman Heastie may have at last come to his senses about education, finally talking the talk:

I really think that we shouldn't be looking at education alone anymore or mental health alone anymore or poverty alone anymore. I think that we have to look at the total family structure and see why it is that students are going into school not prepared for these challenges. And I think a lot of it has to do with what's going on at home and their neighborhoods. Even super teacher may not be able to get through to a student whose life outside of school has issues.
                         Carl Heastie (D-NY)
                         August 17,2015

If Heastie and other legislators are finally prepared to walk the walk toward educational justice, people will join them.  

And unlike Cuomo and Duncan's plans, they won't have to RAM it down their throats.  

 

Not a sham.

Education and Incarceration in the Brave New Nation

In a 1949 letter to George Orwell, Aldous Huxley wrote:

Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.

More prescient words have rarely been written.

Though nothing new, the kindness and cruelty our leaders use to persuade the populace is maturing into something frightening these days in the United States, where it rages like bi-polar twins at a family reunion.

Thanks to the Citizens United decision, the same billionaires who own the Big Banks and Big Media also own the politicians, and Huxley's "instruments of government" drip from drums of tear gas and glossy political ads.

Government officials around the country wave diseased olive branches and dollars in the face of the Opt Out Movement, for example, while sharpening arrows for anyone on the streets after dark.

In New York State, newly-minted education commissioner and Mrs. Doubtfire’s sister-from-another-mister MaryEllen Elia thinks parents and communities just don’t understand why the state must continue clubbing our kids and their schools with inane standardized tests.  The commissioner believes people can still fall in love with tests whose sole purpose is to enrich plutocrats on the sweat of students and middle-class workers.  The unelected Elia holds an olive branch in one hand and a fist in the other, threatening to coax people into submission if she cannot cajole them first.

With the number of students refusing to take the federally-mandated tests quadrupling in one year, the commissioner, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, and even Governor Andrew Cuomo have to realize that the horses are out of the barn, but they will try—at least for now—to corral them using the pricey tools of public relations instead of the tools of incarceration. Charlatans like Jeremiah "I'm not an Educator" Kittredge from Families for Excellent Schools and Jenny Sedlis from StudentsFirstNY, for instance, will continue spewing forth commercials promoting Cuomo Core and fraudulent vulture charter schools.       

Try as they may, NYSED will not sweep away the Refuse movement.

Speaking of Cuomo and incarceration, the governor and other leaders for that matter have been silent about tactics within the state's prisons that would make Dick Cheney blush.  A recent report in The New York Times details what took place at the Clinton Correctional Facility in the aftermath of the infamous escape of two convicted murderers, when officials allegedly tried to beat information out of inmates, and yes, even threatened to waterboard them if they didn't comply.  

To make matters worse, during his jaunt through the jail, the Lobbyist for the Students was filmed talking to an inmate, and punctuated his monologue with his "best tough-guy stare", according to the inmate. 

Just hours later, the same inmate was handcuffed and bludgeoned in a broom closet by guards who wore no name badges.

"Right this way, sir."

When someone is tortured shortly after the state's most powerful elected leader stared him down, in the words of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, "that's not going to be good for anybody." 

Contrary to the whims of groups like the National Urban League—who recently gave Cuomo an award for “leadership in criminal justice reform", ordinary Americans face heavy-handed, heavily-funded efforts by Cuomo and others for opting out and speaking out.

And while Cuomo may be proud of shutting down some of the prisons his father opened, it didn't stop him from recently shutting down the mouth of activist Allen Roskoff. Roskoff, President of the Jim Owls Liberal Democratic Club, was arrested for disrupting an event where Cuomo received another bogus award, this time for his "progressive leadership."

Evidently, modern progressivism entails attacking public education and the First Amendment, among other things.

Roskoff ( 2nd from l.) was even more shocked to end up in a blue and white.  

Across the country, bullies abound. But they are not merely confined to buses and school locker rooms. They also lurk in state houses and corporate boardrooms, quick to shove verdicts and public policies down people's throats before they even smell them.

It is a lust for power like no other, since the technology of today is like no other. Huxley's "infant conditioning" and "narco-hypnosis" come standard on iPads and in bottles of prescription pills, after all.

And it is also not surprising that Commissioner Elia vows the tests will be embraced once they're computerized; technology has a knack for lulling many into submission.

And if they can't lull us into submission, they'll beat us.
 

On the Road to Receivership

A recent $8.5 million donation to Evil Moskowitz’s torture chambers charter schools by billionaire hedge funder John Paulson is a mere bubble amid the tsunami of Big Money careening toward public education in New York State. It’s doubtless Paulson would have donated at least twice that amount had Andrew “I am the Government” Cuomo not failed to enrich Paulson and other Wall St. wankers via another one of his tax-cuts-for-billionaires bills.  

Alas, the Lobbyist for the Student’s dubiously-dubbed “Parental Choice in Education Act” did not even come to a vote, though Cuomo did manage to slip a few more charter schools for his slimy associates into Albany’s putrid package of legislation. Cuomo continues to “get things done” by ramming through ludicrous laws before most legislators even have a chance to put their reading glasses on.   

Contrary to what The New York Times says, Paulson’s donation will not cause New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio additional angst in accommodating Moskowitz’s schools—Cuomo already carved out space for them in the state budget through seemingly unrelated legislation.

Under a new “school receivership” law encased in the budget, Moskowitz and other public school predators are now clear to subsume “failing” schools within one year, kicking union contracts and our most vulnerable kids to the curb. After all, neither Moskowitz nor Paulson’s money will tolerate low Cuomo Core test scores. Kids who happen to struggle because their parents are destitute, disabled or dead will be out of luck; rather than fitted for a charter school uniform, they will be promised all the knowledge in the world via asinine online classes on a refurbished iPad. 

The good news is that many intelligent people understand that test scores do not define children, or teachers for that matter. Paulson and other education misanthropists should remember this the next time they agonize over the worthlessness of their worth and attempt to live vicariously through other people's kids. It’s not our fault that Paulson decided to become a billionaire and now needs another reason to exist besides money. Perhaps his fortune would be better spent saving lions in Africa. 

Billionaire John Paulson is now in the market for a soul

Awash in ignorant hubris, Paulson’s beneficence also helps destroy those precious middle-class jobs politicians like to tout, as the faculty and staff in charter schools have less job security than a drunken babysitter. Yes, public schools are similar to corporations in that they also provide jobs to the community, jobs politicians from both parties are desperate to downgrade.

Fortunately, more people are paying attention. One of the largest acts of civil disobedience took place this year in New York when over 200,000 ordinary citizens decided they would refuse to allow their kids to participate in Andrew Cuomo’s greedy and vindictive quest to destroy their schools with standardized tests. This number will only increase next year as more people start to realize that the road to receivership is paved with low test scores. If Moskowitz and others continue to get their way, this road will soon crisscross the state, with hundreds of schools labelled as “failing” and in need of a Paulson donation.

Besides an attempt at fumigating college readiness standards that are more toxic than Chernobyl on a windy day, the state’s only answer for the Refuse movement will be to intimidate and punish any teacher suspected of supporting the uprising. Cuomo’s Orwellian “moral character” law contained in the budget is clearly meant for this purpose, as our sociopathic leader’s definition of immorality pertains to anyone who challenges his ego. How many teachers, for example, will the state try to railroad out of the profession because they "like" a status on Facebook?

History shows, however, that people don't digest force-fed injustices very well, especially ones that include children and hard-working teachers as their ingredients.

Paradoxically, injustice also breeds solidarity, and it is now the job of everyone who cares about public education—from bus drivers to board members—to coalesce around the Refuse movement. Refuse the road to receivership by refusing the tests.

It is the only way to save our schools from the clutches of strife.

The Oracles of Cuomo’s Orifices

The Pen is Mightier than the Person slogged through the sludge of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent op-ed on education so you wouldn’t have to. You’re welcome.   

Cuomo begins with a long-winded olive branch that only pokes his audience in the ear:

The education system is deeply entrenched, localized, unionized and personal to the families of the state—as it should be.

Cuomo’s correct—public education is in a deep trench. Parents, teachers and students are taking cover against the bayonets of the governor’s billionaire bidders and the pernicious fumes of his budget. 

Cuomo bizarrely claims he prefers “unionized” schools while simultaneously auditioning for Scott Walker’s running mate. The AFL-CIO even passed a resolution demanding the removal of his education reforms from the budget, calling them a "circumvention of the collective bargaining process."
 
Cuomo’s anti-union stench only thickens further down the page:     

Not surprisingly, the teachers unions and educational bureaucracy oppose parts of my plan.

Wrong. Educators oppose all of Cuomo’s plan, including the current teacher evaluation law (APPR). Fueled by greed and hubris, it is a plan designed to undo the same schools Cuomo says are so “personal to the families of the state.”

There is no reasoning or reasons to compromise with someone who also writes:   

The acceptance and implementation of an evaluation system predates my administration.

Just like the state’s email-deletion policy predates his administration, so does the evaluation system Cuomo once wanted to “force down your throats.” In addition to emails, Cuomo would prefer to erase everything he has ever said about education, and it is impossible to decipher from which orifice his oracles are emerging:        

Virtually everyone also agrees that New York's teacher evaluation system is not accurate and is skewed in its construction to provide favorable results for teachers.

Who, exactly, is “virtually everyone”?  Virtually no one supports Cuomo’s plans, however, save those who stand to profit from the destruction of teachers unions.

The governor then turns wonky and indignant:

…only 38 percent of high school graduates are ready for college or careers. How can that be?

This nebulous number is allegedly the percentage of students on pace to score 1630 on the SAT.  The national average for the SAT is 1500, but that doesn't stop Cuomo from declaring 62 percent of kids unprepared for life. Though it’s not clear which colleges and careers these students are not “ready for”, Cuomo is not ready for a career as a statistician, or a realtor:

Suffolk County will want to know how its teachers and schools compare to those in Westchester County.

Right, because APPR scores are the first things people check before moving from Patchogue to Pleasantville. In fact, parents around the state have been so curious about how their own teachers rate that a whopping zero parents requested to see the scores in the cities of Syracuse and Rochester last year.

The Lobbyist for the Students next touts his heroism in the face of high-stakes tests:

I have signed a law reducing the significance of testing for students, including eliminating standardized testing for students in grades K-2 and removing standardized test results from students' permanent records for five years.

Cuomo thinks Common Core tests are so flawed that they shouldn’t count for students but should count against teachers. See the above reference to Cuomo’s orifices.     

Local school districts are then blamed, once again:  

My proposed reforms to the evaluation system reduce the amount of testing by eliminating the existing local component of the system that leads to more testing.

Though education should be “localized”, high-stakes tests should come from faceless, monopolistic corporations and be graded by people found on Craig’s List. The same tests Cuomo wants to banish from a student’s permanent record are somehow superior to tests created by that child’s teacher. See the above reference to Cuomo’s orifices.

The op-ed concludes in a fiery ball of ignorance and deception:

I have proposed that testing comprise 50 percent of the [teacher] evaluation. The State Department of Education suggests 40 percent. Still, teachers and administrators prefer that the emphasis be on classroom observation as opposed to testing. Interestingly, whatever percent is assigned to standardized testing will only affect a small minority of teacher evaluations as only 20 percent of teachers are in subjects and grades that have state testing.

The governor neglects to mention that per his budget, teachers rated ineffective on the testing component will be rated ineffective overall, regardless of how well their classroom observations go.  To further ensure failure, observations will be conducted by “independent evaluators” from outside the district. So much for a “localized” education system.

Furthermore, if local tests will not be used and 20 percent of teachers are tied to a state test, will tests comprise zero percent of the evaluation for the remaining 80 percent of teachers?

See the above reference to Cuomo’s orifices.