Guest post by Katie Lapham.

In April I carried a guest post written by New York City elementary teacher Katie Lapham, expressing support for the Common Core standards, but opposing the tests attached to them. Since then, Ms. Lapham has shifted her views. She explains:

When I first learned about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) two or so years ago, I didn't question their implementation. I've always preferred designing my own lessons and was sold on the idea that the standards were mostly a guide; we were free to choose our own curriculum.

Since writing to Dr. John King, head of New York State's Education Department, about the excessive CCSS state assessments administered in April, I have spent countless hours educating myself on education reform and Race to the Top polices. I now feel duped. CCSS are much more than a set of learning objectives. By attaching them to government initiatives such as high-stakes testing and teacher evaluation plans, the standards are being used as an instrument to standardize and control public education in the US. Teachers and schools feel increasingly micromanaged, which is insulting and demoralizing. We have less autonomy and choice, and my own personalized instruction is being threatened. Below are the main reasons why I, a teacher and parent, oppose the Common Core State Standards.

1.) My biggest concern has always been high-stakes testing, which deprives students of meaningful learning experiences. The NYS ELA and math exams have been redesigned to align with the CCSS. The content and length of these exams are educationally unsound. I have written about this in great detail on my blog.

I now understand that you cannot separate the CCSS from high-stakes standardized testing. The two go hand in hand. I originally thought the CCSS stood alone, used solely as standards to shape instruction. I now see that they are much more than that. The current high-stakes tests in New York State that I so detest are the way they are because of the CCSS.

2.) I am witnessing a shift towards uniformity and increasing government control with regards to the curriculum in New York City public schools. The NYCDOE has compiled a list of "recommended" CCSS-aligned curriculum (Core Curriculum), and it urges schools to use the CCSS-aligned performance tasks from their online Common Core Library. Two of the Core Curriculum programs - ReadyGen for ELA and Connected Math Program 3 - are published by Pearson, the publishing giant that creates New York State's ELA and math assessments as well as the Next Generation Assessments. ReadyGen is not yet ready, and New York City schools that have signed onto the program are expected to start using it in September. Developmentally inappropriate performance tasks frustrate both teachers and students. Kindergarteners who don't yet know all their letters and sounds are expected to write persuasively, and 8-page multiple choice assessments are administered to them in October.

According to the NYCDOE's New Teacher Evaluation and Development System, 40% of a teacher's overall rating is based on student learning through state assessments, or comparable measures, and local measures. Local measures are determined by individual schools, but schools must select a measure from a list of NYCDOE- approved options such as NYC performance assessments aligned to the CCSS, 3rd party assessments used in NYC schools, and state assessments. In my mind, this not choice, nor do I buy that it is giving schools autonomy.

3.) NYC schools are experiencing deep budget cuts. Teachers will be excessed and services will be cut. As a result, educators - already overwhelmed - will have to do more with less. Class sizes will be larger, which means that there will be fewer opportunities for small group and individualized conferencing, critical for struggling students. Mandated service providers who have out-of-classroom positions (ESL teachers, for example) will be pulled from their teaching programs to provide coverages for absent teachers and to assist with state-test work, among other duties. It is appalling to me that millions of dollars are being spent - wasted - on yet another "solution" to closing the achievement gap. The CCSS umbrella (high-stakes testing, CCSS curriculum and the NYCDOE's New Teacher Evaluation and Development System) does not address root causes of educational inequities such as poverty and the increasing polarization of wealth in the US.

Opposing the CCSS does not mean that I'm not a rigorous teacher. On the contrary, the actual standards -have validated my already established teaching practice, which has always included higher order thinking questions and tasks, as well as the use of authentic materials. A misleading CCSS ad recently created by the NYCDOE claims "we're not satisfied with just teaching your children basic skills." I never was just teaching basic skills. Neither were the majority of my colleagues.

What do you think? Have your own views changed regarding the Common Core? Do you think we can separate them from the tests coming along with them?

Katie Lapham teaches in a New York City elementary school. You can follow her on Twitter here, read her blog here, and find her Teachers' Letters to Bill Gates project website here.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by John Thompson.

NPR's Wade Goodwyn in Why Some Schools Want to Expel Suspensions, reported that Los Angeles schools banned suspensions for "willful defiance of authority." He then left the impression that a single suspension often sets poor children of color down the path to educational failure. Goodwyn asked Daniel Losen of the UCLA Civil Rights Project whether such a suspension could lead to a student dropping out. Losen replied that it is "associated" with a doubled risk of dropping out.

Then, Goodwyn reported on a LAUSD school, Garfield H.S, that supposedly showed that better policies can be cost-free. It turns out that it has a wellness center and scores of community volunteers for addressing misbehavior.

In fact, the Civil Rights Project commissioned research by Johns Hopkins' Robert Balfanz which explains that a single suspension can be a trigger and why it should be seen as a warning sign to be investigated. It makes a case for solutions that are costly and complex, even though they would save money in the long run.

Yes, a suspension for willful defiance of authority can be "associated" with a doubling of the risk of dropping out. But, mostly, such a statistic reverses the cause and the effect. It is the prison pipeline that has grown dramatically since the deindustrialization of our economy that has helped undermine schools. It is the breakdown of the family, as well as growing concentrations of poverty, that robbed poor children of adult role models.

I predict that the success of non-punitive discipline will often be determined by a bitter and ubiquitous dispute between those who believe that suspensions cause educational failure, and those who see correlations between suspensions and dropping out. District and school leaders, who read the Civil Rights Project's data as proof of suspensions driving troubled kids out of school, will demand that the numbers of those actions be reduced, regardless of whether effective alternatives are in place. When educators complain that behavioral standards are being lowered as they are supposed to be teaching at higher levels, the certainty of the "teacher quality" crowd who blame our "low expectations" will grow.

Those who see the Project's data as evidence of a correlation between suspensions and educational failure do not need to refight the blame game, however. Regardless of whether the primary problems are students bringing to school the legacies of generations of oppression or the ineffectiveness of schools, there is more than enough blame to go around.

The Losen's and the Project's quest for solutions draws upon some of the best social science in the world. It is carefully drafted by scholars from the Johns Hopkins Everyone Graduates Center, the Consortium on Chicago School Research, the American Institutes of Research, and others.

The association they document between the current disciplinary systems and dropping out is not adequate for indicting poor instruction or identifiable in-school factors as the prime villains. But, it provides more than enough evidence on the links between suspensions and educational underperformance to drive a search for solutions.

The LAUSD, on the other hand, already has its plate full. Counselors and principals are already overloaded. They and teachers must deal with tough new Common Core standards and value-added accountability. Both require teachers to ratchet up the rigor of their instruction. Now, they will lose a previously essential tool for curtailing classroom disruptions. Teachers can only hope that the district finds the time and money to quickly devise alternatives.

What happens if the district does not implement a workable replacement to the admittedly flawed system of suspensions? If a teacher fails to meet his test score growth target because his school fails to seriously address classroom disruptions, will Superintendent John Deasy say "My bad!," and say we need to shift more resources from command and control to a collaborative system of supports?

Perhaps this is naïve, but isn't it time to stop issuing one risky mandate after another on schools that are already overburdened? Couldn't we agree to a phased implementation of socio-emotional supports and programs such Restorative Justice before banning defiance of authority suspensions? Wouldn't it be smarter to phase out suspensions for nonviolent offences, as schools find the time and money to implement in-school alternatives?

What do you think?

John Thompson was an award winning historian, with a doctorate from Rutgers, and a legislative lobbyist when crack and gangs hit his neighborhood, and he became an inner city teacher. He blogs for This Week in Education, the Huffington Post and other sites. After 18 years in the classroom, he is writing his book, Getting Schooled: Battles Inside and Outside the Urban Classroom.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

John Merrow is an intelligent man. But his latest post, The Common Core and the End of the World, is disappointing. First, rather than address the concerns raised by Common Core critics, Merrow compares us all to religious doomsayers like Pope Innocent III ("The world will end in 1284") and Cotton Mather ("Yea verily, the world will end in 1697").

As Merrow should know, critiques of the Common Core by myself and other writers are well-supported by evidence and experience, unlike the end-of-the-world predictions he quotes to mock us.

Here are the statements I have made which Merrow compares to doomsday alarms:

The tests associated with Common Core are likely to renew the false indictment of our public schools. Proficiency rates are predicted to drop by at least 30%. There will be a significant expansion in the number and frequency of tests, and the technology needed to fully implement to Common Core will divert billions of scarce education dollars.

This statement is based on solid evidence. The first implementation of Common Core tests in Kentucky did indeed result in drops of roughly 30%, and significant drops are predicted in New York with the new tests students have just recently taken. Proponents of the Common Core have made it clear that these poor results will be used to pressure schools with fresh "evidence" of their ineffectiveness.

And in California, the state legislature has just voted to allocate $1.25 billion in one-time funds to implement the Common Core, with money being spent on a mix of hardware and teacher training. This is obviously money that could have been spent elsewhere, and does not even cover the expense of full implementation.

However, Merrow does not respond to the substance of my concerns at all. He just mocks.

My second quote:

And what about a democratic process? We are apparently about to be handed a set of standards that will dictate what is taught in millions of classrooms across this nation. How will these have been arrived at? Who, besides the Gates Foundation millionaire's club and the standardized test companies and the publishing companies will have been engaged in this profoundly civic process?

Again, is this true or not? That particular quote comes from a post written in 2009, as the Common Core standards were being written by a group numbering fewer than 100, that included only one classroom teacher.

But again Merrow ignores the substance, preferring to mock.

Merrow also quotes Diane Ravitch:

The Common Core standards have been adopted in 46 states and the District of Columbia without any field test. They are being imposed on the children of this nation despite the fact that no one has any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools. We are a nation of guinea pigs, almost all trying an unknown new program at the same time.

Once again, a factual statement, with no substantive response from Merrow. Just mockery.

Having dismissed critics without ever addressing the substance of our concerns, Merrow claims the Common Core will empower teachers to reclaim our profession. But before we look at this bright idea, let's take a look back in time, to see what Merrow's own role was in the Common Core saga.

Those paying attention might recall that, back in 2007, as No Child Left Behind was losing credibility, Merrow wrote a commentary for Education Week, entitled "Learning Without Loopholes." The subheading was: "With NCLB reauthorization on hold, we should move toward common standards--and fewer excuses."

Many of us had pointed out the flaws in a test driven accountability system, which was leading to a narrowed curriculum, and widespread teaching to the test. But this was not Merrow's concern in 2007. Instead, he focused on various ways that states were maneuvering around the draconian effects of the law, calling these "loopholes."

In order to close these loopholes, 2007 Merrow suggested the following:

Presidential candidates could be pressed to pledge adequate resources to allow states to develop common standards and tests. While state participation should be voluntary, once 20 or so states sign on, the rest will follow. And that would be a big step toward a healthy, internationally competitive public education system.

And lo and behold. A short two years later, we had the Common Core standards process, much along the lines Merrow had suggested. But Merrow has changed his tune now. When he speaks of the Common Core, it is not about closing loopholes and getting rid of excuses. Instead, he suggests:

The Standards themselves could get us out of the box we're now in- a narrow curriculum-because they call for critical thinking, speaking persuasively, listening, teamwork and some other skills that make sense, in addition to math and English.

After acknowledging that the Common Core tests are being developed by people whose mindset is that teachers cannot be trusted, he suggests:

The Common Core will fail miserably unless we trust teachers. Computers cannot assess speaking and listening skills, nor teamwork, nor about half of the skill set the Common Core values. That requires well-trained professionals.

So we have a choice: Rely upon computers to test that narrow band (of same-old, same-old stuff). If we do that, many teachers will teach to that test because they know they're being evaluated on those scores, and that in turn means that nothing important will change. Say goodbye to the spirit and essence of Common Core.

Or we can learn to trust teachers, teachers who will be better trained because we will, of course, get smart and invest in Professional Development.

Here is where we have to employ the critical thinking that the Common Core is supposed to train us to use. According to 2013 Merrow, the essence of the Common Core is all about trusting teachers to do great work in challenging their students to think beyond the capacity of our tests to measure.

But what was the thinking that drove the development of the Common Core? Merrow should know, because he was one of those thinking it. It was driven by the desire to "close the loopholes" in NCLB. It was driven by the desire to create a more rational, seamless system of standards, assessment and curriculum, as described by Bill Gates in 2009. Contrary to Merrow's newfound wishful thinking, the Common Core was not built to free us from tests, and to empower teachers. And until that test-driven paradigm is overthrown, no set of national standards is likely to move us towards a place where teachers are trusted.

The Common Core standards are not a vehicle teachers can use to reclaim our profession. They are the backbone of the newest system of mechanization of our entire educational enterprise. We will reclaim our profession by asserting our capacity to determine, in close relationship with our students and communities, what ought to be taught, and how. We will reclaim our profession by rejecting the use of tests to measure the quality of instruction, the quality of our schools, and the quality of teacher preparation programs. We will reclaim our profession by offering high quality means of demonstrating student learning.

The Common Core is not the end of the world. It is, however, an obstacle to the reclaiming of our profession, rather than a vehicle. Merrow, who suggested them in 2007, ought to take a harder look at what his quest to close loopholes has brought us. Perhaps he might engage in a little less mockery and a little more reflecting on his own role in this mess.

What do you think? Are the Common Core standards a means by which teachers might reclaim their profession? Or are they an obstacle to that goal?

Continue the dialogue with Anthony on Twitter.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Sunday's Seattle Times tells us of a strange problem encountered by the richest man in the world. He has discovered that his money is not working its magic in education -- teachers are not for sale.

The Gates Foundation has spent the past decade promoting hard hitting education reforms. Organizations they fund have conducted research, lobbied politicians, and advanced policies that have brought us Value Added teacher and principal evaluations, charter school expansion, Teach For America corps members, and merit pay. They have poured millions into efforts to shape public opinion, sponsoring Education Nation and the propaganda documentary Waiting for Superman, and its star, Michelle Rhee. They have told us how important teachers are, but in spite of all this attention, teachers seem positively ungrateful.

So now the Gates Foundation is on what has been called a "charm offensive." According to Seattle Times reporter Linda Shaw, the Gates Foundation last year brought 250 teachers to a hotel in Arizona to share their new vision. The Gates Foundation's Irvin Scott said, "We're trying to start a movement. A movement started by you. A movement you're leading."

Is this not a paradox worthy of Lewis Carroll?

Money tends to distort reality. Those that have it think that they can use it to get what they want. And those that have a lot, think they can get a lot. But when what you want to control is something as big as the way children are educated, and the conditions under which an entire profession is trained, supervised and paid, you are going to run into some bumps along the way.

Ultimately, there are three ways to get people to do something you want them to do. One is to force them, by making the consequences for not complying onerous or unacceptable. The second is to lure them, by offering some sort of bribe or incentive. The third is to get them excited about your ideas, whereupon they may engage with enthusiasm.

In my experience, real change in education only comes with the third of these methods, because the first two inspire more resistance than cooperation.

You may get people to buckle under and teach to the test because they fear being fired if their scores don't rise. You may get them to have PLC meetings focused on test data that supposedly allows them to "personalize" their instruction. But this sort of change does not go very deep, or inspire much enthusiasm, because it is not rooted in our deepest aspirations for our students. And people sense when they are being manipulated and coerced - they resent it, and they resist. That is what the Gates Foundation is getting now - resentment and resistance.

The sort of high quality work I wrote about last week comes from a different, deeper source of inspiration. It is not the product of fear or desire for rewards. It is from that spirit of compassion and creativity that drew most of us into teaching in the first place.

So far, I have not seen any evidence that the Gates Foundation has learned this lesson. When I look at the substance of the recent editorials written by Gates and his representatives, I see an acknowledgement that some of the things they have pushed for may have gone too far.
In the Seattle Times article, I am quoted as wanting Gates to apologize for all the destructive policies his money has inspired. I do want that, but much more important would be the recognition that we need a very different direction.

It might start with some curiosity. What do teachers who have not been "empowered" by the Gates Foundation's largesse think of their work? The comments to the Seattle Times were rather scathing.

One of the milder ones reads:

If I could send Mr. Gates just one message, it would be this:

Almost all teachers are proud of the progress of their students and enjoy sharing evidence of that progress with administrators, other teachers and parents. In California, I worked under the Stull Act for many years, which required me to prove student progress. To help with that, I kept a portfolio for every student in which I kept samples of student work, compositions and tests. I never resented doing this because ensuring student progress was my job. (I am now retired.)

What teachers are against is being evaluated on the basis of a whole group standardized test. The reasons for this should be obvious: these tests are not designed to differentiate between classroom and home learning; they are often not valid; they are not professionally administered or handled. In short, an excellent teacher could get mediocre test scores, while a poor teacher could get good ones. These test scores most often correlate closely with the socioeconomic background of the students and not with classroom instruction.

If Mr. Gates continues to include teachers in his efforts to reform education, I believe he will find that the average teacher is NOT against being evaluated, as long as it is done fairly.

And another comment provides an avenue for even more feedback, should the Gates Foundation be interested. Several teachers have launched a new project, Teachers' Letters to Bill Gates, with a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account.. If you have any thoughts to share with the Gates Foundation, here is a place to do that.

The coercive strain of education reform advanced by the Gates Foundation has left them in a bad spot, if they want to start, or help lead any sort of movement of teachers in this country. So far, the minor course adjustments that have been made have been insufficient to convince educators that deep lessons have been learned.

The key to understanding the way out may lie in the paradox offered by Irvin Scott. Teachers are already leading their own movement, a movement they started themselves. The Gates Foundation cannot start that movement, and they cannot succeed in "empowering" leaders that align with their models of reform. Teachers, just like any group of people, have to choose their own leaders, and must be inspired from values held within. That paradox, like a Gordian knot, must be severed with a decisive blow, and rejected whole.

We are engaged in some formative assessment here, and feedback is being offered. It remains to be seen if the Gates Foundation is open to new understandings.

What do you think? What feedback do you have in response to the Gates Foundation's efforts to "make nice" with teachers?

Continue the Dialogue with Anthony on Twitter.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Teachers in Oakland, California, continue to shed light on what happens when you give them autonomy and support for deep, open-ended professional growth. I have written before about the work of the Mills Teacher Scholars, a program that has been in existence for a decade. With guidance from Mills College education professor Anna Richert, the program has expanded, and a few weeks ago I joined hundreds of people as we viewed research project displays, and heard from those engaged in teacher inquiry.

Often times it seems we are seeking "best practices" that will work with all students. In the case of teacher inquiry, however, the work begins in a state of uncertainty. Our starting point assumes that what worked before might not work this time, because in the complex relationship between teacher, student and subject matter, no two lessons are alike. This curiosity allows us all to be ourselves, and to start fresh with an open mind. It also means we are actively probing how our students are receiving and processing our instruction. This gives students a very active role. We are working with them to find the best ways for them to gain new skills and understanding.

One of the Mills Teacher Scholars is Channon Jackson, who teaches fourth grade at New Highland Academy elementary school in Oakland. This public school is in the most violent and economically deprived part of town. The students are a mix of mostly Latino English learners and African Americans. Here, in her own words, is the story of her recent classroom inquiry.

Channon Jackson:
This year my focus was science vocabulary. I chose this because as a student I loved science. This year I focused on science conclusions. My goal is to make great scientists, to get my students engaged in science. My data source at first was to look at how the students use science vocabulary in their conclusions. In my class they do a science conclusion at the end of every investigation. It is a paragraph where they introduce the topic, give a definition of the key term, make a claim that goes with the focus question, give evidence and then give the scientific reasoning behind the claim. I looked at the data, and found out that a lot of students were not writing.

My questions were: are they not writing because they don't understand how to write a paragraph? Is that too much for them? Did they not understand the content they were learning? Do they not know how to use the vocabulary words? It was mandatory that they use vocabulary words in these conclusions.

So after thinking about that I decided to have this new structure, where they have these free writes. They don't have to use complete sentences. They just can write whatever they want to write about the topic we were learning about. So if we were learning about rocks, they could write whatever they learned about rocks. If we were learning about magnets, it's just whatever you learned about magnets, but they still had to use vocabulary words. They would get five minutes free write, then sit with their table groups and share out to their table about what they learned.

Still, I had some kids that weren't writing. And because they weren't writing therefore they couldn't talk in their groups. So I had to figure out -- why aren't these kids talking? I thought maybe they still don't understand the content. Maybe I'm not teaching it well enough. So after a while I thought of lifting the vocabulary, so it was not mandatory, and they could just write whatever they wanted to write. And all of a sudden, ALL my students had something to say. They clearly understood the content. They now were competing with each other to see who could have the most things to share out at their table group. They were really engaged in the conversation, and that started this inner debate within me about making them use these vocabulary words, or was it just good enough that they have all this content knowledge?

I realized that as I was teaching the vocabulary, I was hindering a lot of my students' voice. They couldn't speak in class, because they couldn't use these words. I continued to teach vocabulary like I was teaching it, very explicitly, and I continued to have these free-writes and these table talks, to get them comfortable with writing and having them share their ideas, and we had a lot of debates.

After one of the Mills Teacher Scholar meetings I talked to a teacher, and she made me think, "why did you stop having them use vocabulary?" And my reasoning was "Because it was hindering their voice." And she said "Is there a way you could still have them use the vocabulary without it getting in the way of their voice?

So the third thing I changed in my teaching was they would do the free-write, they would still do the table talk, we would have a class discussion, and then I would have them pull out their vocabulary words (we keep them on these cards.) I would tell them "Go back and look at the sentences you wrote, and see if there is any words that you could replace with one of your vocabulary words?" I found out that most of them could do that. Most of them could figure out "Oh, I used 'non-living' here, and I could say 'abiotic' instead."

At the end of this, out of my four focal students, I have one who is really good about using the vocabulary when he's speaking to me, but he still rarely uses it when he's writing. I have another who never uses it when he's speaking, but always uses it in his writing. My other two focal students never use it unless I tell them they have to use the vocabulary words, and I have to give them that space, to have the free-write, to jot down their ideas, and go back and plug in the vocabulary. But then they can do it correctly. Those are my big ahas.

I am still having this inner debate with myself on how far do I push for the vocabulary, because I really don't want to hinder their voice, and it started to open my eyes, to think in other subjects where I was pushing for vocabulary - was I doing the same thing? Social studies came to mind, because we talk about all these "key terms," and I want them to use them, but maybe someone had something brilliant to say, and they just couldn't say it because I wasn't allowing them to, or give them the space.

(Someone else) said Mills gives teachers a place to express their voice. I think this project gives students a place to express their voice because a lot of times when you're teaching, you're teaching to the mass of your class, and this gives you an opportunity to sit down and figure out what does each student need, and I think if I wasn't able to do that, I wouldn't know that the student who isn't speaking with the words likes to write them down, or the one that does write them down doesn't feel comfortable using them in his speech. Or even the opportunity to know that most of my students do understand what most of the vocabulary words mean, but they just, for some reason, aren't able or have no desire to use them in class - but still understand all this content.

We all try to take what we've learned the previous year into our room, but one of the things we have learned is that it might not work, because these are brand new kids, so it gives us a starting place, but we still have to sit and see. It's ok that this didn't work, whereas in teaching, they say "do this and it should work for everybody." With (teacher inquiry), its like, no, try it, see if it works, and if it doesn't you can tinker with it until it works for you.

These teachers, by constantly tinkering together, have taken ownership of their classroom practice, and in so doing, given themselves and their students a real voice in what goes on. The "best practice" they have developed the most is not a reading comprehension strategy. It is the practice of starting from uncertainty, asking questions, actively listening to what their students are saying, being willing to experiment and change, and sharing that process with one another. This is the endlessly complex and rich work of being a teacher.

What do you think? Have you investigated student thinking? Has this shifted the dynamics in your classroom?

Continue the dialogue with Anthony on Twitter.

Photo by Anthony Cody, used with permission.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Educators and our representatives have been on the defensive for so long, many of us have forgotten one of the lessons of the great strategist Sun Tzu - the best defense is a good offense.

No Child Left Behind was a frontal assault on the teaching profession. We were accused of "the soft bigotry of low expectations." One Bush era secretary of education even called a teacher union a "terrorist organization."

The phony accountability regime that NCLB brought us was collapsing in 2008. The biggest applause lines at both Clinton and Obama campaign rallies came when they pointed out how NCLB was pushing us to teach to the test, and promised to get rid of it. Of course we all know what happened after Obama was elected.

The Common Core could be called a "High Tech Rehabilitation of High Stakes Tests." The major goal of the project has been to overcome objections to data-driven school reform, by offering standards and tests that are so new and different that we will not mind having our schools driven by them. They are heavily supported by a coalition of corporate entities that stand to make billions from the privatization of education. If we cannot mount a coherent counterproposal, we will be stuck objecting piecemeal to the worst elements of this regime, just as we did with NCLB. This may give us some small victories, but the entire project will remain intact.

Our union leadership has, for the most part, been timid about confronting the basic tenets of corporate reform, especially in regards to "accountability." There is a reason for this. The corporate offense has led with the charge that unions are vehicles by which teachers avoid accountability for poor performance. Union leaders have responded by rushing to assure everyone that "Oh no, we do embrace accountability." We even have NEA President Dennis Van Roekel co-signing an op-ed on teacher preparation with TFA founder Wendy Kopp, calling for the use of data in teacher preparation. And AFT President Randi Weingarten co-signing one on teacher evaluation with the Gates Foundations' Vicki Phillips.

We are operating on defense, and we are steadily losing ground. Those who wish to wipe out or completely disempower our unions, replace public schools with private and charter schools supported by vouchers, and put schools of education out of the field of teacher preparation, are setting the terms of the debate.

One of the things we ought to learn from the incredibly effective conservative pushback against the Common Core is that they have been on the offense from the start. They have fiercely and, for the most part accurately, attacked the false promises and corrupt elements of the Common Core, and they have made it clear what they want instead.

So how would we build an effective positive "offense" against corporate reform?

First Step: Thoroughly Discredit Bogus Claims and False Solutions
There are literally hundreds of bloggers and analysts working on this every day, with remarkable effect. The blog and writings of former accountability hawk Diane Ravitch have been especially effective in this regard, attracting more than four million views since its launch a little more than a year ago. There are academic sites, such as the National Education Policy Center, which regularly debunk propaganda disguised as research. There is academic research, such as this 2011 report from the National Academy of Sciences, which found high stakes accountability to have virtually no positive effect. The market-based solutions offered by corporate reformers have been devastating to our public schools, and are increasing segregation and narrowing the curriculum, especially for students in poverty. Charter schools, in spite of their tendency to avoid the most challenging students, have performance levels no better and often worse than the public schools in their communities. The flag-bearer for corporate reform, Michelle Rhee, left behind a district wracked by cheating scandals, with a widening achievement gap and huge teacher turnover. This is a failed project, top to bottom.

We need to educate ourselves and others about the Common Core system that is on the way. Positioning ourselves as expert implementers of the curricular and instructional aspects leaves us largely disarmed, as the accountability mechanisms begin to kick in. Randi Weingarten has called for a year's delay in the high stakes consequences for the Common Core tests, but has continued to praise the Common Core to the heavens. A year's delay would be welcome, but to pretend that this is sufficient to prepare for tests that are likely to yield a 30% drop in proficiency rates is foolish, and sets us up for a new round of failures.

We need to be absolutely clear. The Common Core is NOT a new paradigm. It is old wine in a new, high tech bottle. If you want to give teachers a set of loose standards and the time to work together to make them come alive for their students, fantastic. However, if you want to create a seamless system of cradle to college expectations, measured in all sorts of high stakes tests, we are not interested, and will fight you every step of the way. As John Merrow wrote recently, "to hell with the tests." When John Merrow has become more radical than leaders of our unions, something is amiss.

Second Step: Develop a Comprehensive Critique of Market-Based Reform
The thrust of corporate education reform is that our schools ought to be run more like businesses. That is why we have ever-more tests, so that performance can be measured and managed. Our schools are being redefined as places that serve not the development of humanity, but the training of the workforce -- and as centers for corporate profit. The spectre of global competitiveness is used to frighten us into behaving as though our survival depends on making ourselves useful and profitable to global commerce. We are losing the school as a center of community strength, a vital part of the commons, where we send our children to learn together. Instead each school is in competition with others, and could be closed down like a bankrupt shoe store any time performance lags.

We are part of a growing movement that insists we have a common social destiny, and we need public spaces that are democratically operated, not in the interest of profit, but for the common good. We are connected to those fighting the unfolding global environmental crisis - another place where the common good is being sacrificed to market forces. The movement for our public schools must confront head-on the idea that the market is the ruler of us all. The market is an abstraction. It has no mind, let alone a moral compass, and cannot care for the weak and vulnerable. The market may dictate that mountains should be laid to waste, whole cities abandoned to rot, the globe warm unchecked, and bees can go extinct because profits can be made from pesticides, but through our actions together, we can make different choices as a society, that transcend profit and greed. We want a society where we care for one another, and build community structures that protect and serve everyone, not just those with great wealth.

Third Step: Redefine Accountability
The evidence has clearly shown that the high stakes accountability of the NCLB era has done little beyond narrowing the curriculum, and unfairly labeling and stigmatizing schools and teachers. In spite of all the talk of us losing out to our global competitors, this model is not followed in countries like Finland, that outperform us. We must advance a clear alternative to this counterproductive system. The clearest model of this is the Community Based Accountability framework developed by Julian Vasquez Heilig and his collaborators. In this system, our schools are accountable not to the federal Department of Education, nor to high stakes tests from for-profit test publishers. Rather, it calls for communities to engage with their schools to establish priorities and choose indicators that are most meaningful to them. This approach recognizes that conditions differ around the country, and one size fits all standards do not work. It puts the locus of control and accountability where it belongs, within our communities, and under democratic control. We must categorically reject the test and punish approach to reform. We need a permanent end to this, not just a year-long reprieve.

Fourth Step: Build Our Capacity to Fight
We must be prepared to actively fight, using every tool at our disposal. Those advancing corporate reform use the power of money and the political influence it purchases. They have allies in government, in the media, in the publishing/testing industry, and in the field of technology. We have a very different set of tools, and allies. We have our unions, our communication tools, and large numbers of teachers, parents and students who have direct experience in the schools, and very personal stakes in what happens to them. We also have potential allies in higher education, if they can get out of their own rut of defensiveness. Similarly, elected school board members, often dedicated to the public schools, are figuring out that education reformers often are seeking to displace them. Democratic control of our schools is becoming a relic of the past in many places. School board members are important community leaders, who can help defend our schools.

Of these, our unions are our greatest reservoir of potential strength - but they are largely ineffectual, because of their defensive stance. So we need to elect leadership capable of educating and activating the membership. We also need to be willing to use all the tools in the union toolchest. We should act together as teachers, and refuse to give tests, as they did in Seattle. We need to be willing to strike, as teachers did in Chicago. That means preparing by organizing our union members from the grassroots up, and building strong relationships with our parents and community leaders, making it clear teachers are not just after narrow interests, but want what is best for our students. Our power comes from our capacity to act, and we can only act if we are well organized and united, and have strong ties to our allies.

We also need to strengthen our ability to put pressure on elected officials. When 28 Senators from the Democratic Party vote with Republicans against funding foodstamps, and billionaires back candidates who will support corporate reform even in local school board races, we need to develop an independent way to support grassroots candidates who will act for the common good. The Network for Public Education is one such vehicle, and we need more. (disclosure: I am a co-founder of NPE and serve as its treasurer.)

The other key source of strength is the increasingly active and aware movement of students and parents, who are seeing that education reform is working against their interests. In a note yesterday, a friend pointed out something else of great importance:

Our movement must include, among its leadership and directors, parents and teachers from the most targeted of the public school communities, meaning, of course, black, Hispanic and poor families, and proponents of excellent public schools for all. Tea Party and other conservatives who include in their opposition to CCSS an opposition to full equality and educational opportunities for ALL of our children, are doing a disservice to our major job, which is to protect and expand quality education for all children.

These allies are already in motion. Students are walking out in protest of school closures in Philadelphia and Chicago. They are looking to educators for guidance, but if we are not willing or able to step outside the safe boxes offered by those in power, and truly challenge the market and test driven paradigm, we will lose our chance to move with them.

What do you think? Is it time to get off defense? What steps should we take?

Continue the dialogue with Anthony on Twitter.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Yesterday's Washington Post carried a banner story about growing Tea Party opposition to the Common Core. We learn that across the country, Tea Party activists have been organizing around opposition to the Common Core, and have succeeded in blocking or delaying the standards in at least nine states.

There has been a contemptuous reaction from the highest levels of our educational system. Arne Duncan has implied that opponents are tin-foil hatted paranoids: "It's not a black helicopter ploy and we're not trying to get inside people's minds and brains," he said last week. A week before he responded to questions at Capital Hill, saying "Let's not get caught up in hysteria and drama." And of course corporate-funded conservatives like Jeb Bush, and the Fordham Institute are still on board all the way.

The problem they have is that the substance of the Tea Party criticism of Common Core standards is solid. And it aligns pretty well with what many of us a bit more to the left have been saying for years. Let's take the arguments, as presented by this Washington Post article and elsewhere, and check them out.

1. Sharing of student and teacher data with third party developers of all sorts, with no guarantees of privacy. As noted in this post, there are plans in place in some states such as Illinois and New York, and others as well, to collect massive amounts of data, which will be housed in a cloud based databank maintained by inBloom, a non-profit created by the Gates Foundation for this purpose. Given the many ways data has been abused in recent years, there are sound reasons to question this threat to privacy.

2. As the Post notes, "Critics also charge that Common Core was thrust onto schools with little public debate." This is a huge problem. What hubris it must take to believe that you can assemble a small group of people, and, working largely in secret, completely overhaul what is taught in a supposedly democratic society. When I first got wind of the project back in 2009, I wrote this:

And what about a democratic process? We are apparently about to be handed a set of standards that will dictate what is taught in millions of classrooms across this nation. How will these have been arrived at? Who, besides the Gates Foundation millionaire's club, and the standardized test companies and the publishing companies will have been engaged in this profoundly civic process?

A month later, when the writers of the standards and the "confidential" process were announced, we learned that the group of sixty people included numerous representatives of test publishers, but only one classroom teacher.

In most states, it was the governor or state superintendent of education who made the decision to adopt the standards, with little or no public deliberative process. This back door adoption process is now backfiring, as people realize the entire fabric of our schools is being changed, and educators and the public were never consulted in meaningful ways.

3. Related to the previous point, Tea Party activists have correctly pointed out that Federal law specifically forbids the Department of Education from setting national standards. As Jamie Gass and Charles Chieppo noted in their recent Wall St. Journal op-ed:

Three federal laws explicitly prohibit the U.S. government from directing, supervising or controlling any nationalized standards, testing or curriculum. Yet Race to the Top, a federal education grant competition that dangled $4.35 billion in front of states, favored applications that adopted Common Core. The Education Department subsequently awarded $362 million to fund two national testing consortia to develop national assessments and a "model curriculum" that is "aligned with" Common Core.

There has been extensive federal support for this project from the start, and one of its chief selling points has been the fact that it will create a set of national standards. There is little question that this is federal bribery bordering on coercion. In his rebuttal to Gass and Chiappo, Michael Petrilli, of the Gates-funded Fordham Institute, offers the very weak defense that no courts have, as of yet, found this to be illegal. That is a low standard indeed.

4. Some conservative critics have pointed out that the thrust of the Common Core is aimed at preparing students for the workforce. We are told that the role of our schools is to prepare students for "college and career," and we find an increased emphasis on informational text. This very thorough conservative critique states:

Common Core changes the mission of the public education system from teaching children academic basics and knowledge to training them to serve the global economy in jobs selected by workforce boards.

The author also writes:

The role of education is not to teach students what to think in preparation for job placement. The role of education, the proper role, is to teach children HOW to think, how to process information, how to analyze, interpret, and infer, and how to solve problems.

This latest corporate reform plan, the Common Core State (sic) Standards (CCSS), eliminates community-based planning, destroys personal response to literature, and, instead of fostering education for individual need and the common good, puts children on a treadmill to becoming scared, obedient workers for the global economy. The constant exhortation to teachers and students is "You're not good enough for the market economy!" When the ruling class screams about people not measuring up, over time the besieged are trained to blame themselves for the lack of jobs, lack of benefits, lack of a safety net.

5. Many conservative activists are, like myself, deeply concerned about the role of the Gates Foundation, which has, to date, invested an estimated $150 million in the Common Core project. Check out those out front advancing the standards - you will find they are almost all recipients of Gates money. Educators have come to understand the market-driven, test score-focused agenda of the largest philanthropy in the world. The Gates Foundation has promoted charter schools, test score/VAM teacher and principal evaluations for the past decade, and have been hugely influential across the country, and at the Department of Education. The Tea Party analysis often applies the label "progressive" to the Gates Foundation, while some of us might use a different term.

We also have some major reasons to be concerned about the Common Core that have NOT been mentioned by conservatives. The tests associated with Common Core are likely to renew the false indictment of our public schools. Proficiency rates are predicted to drop by at least 30%. There will be a significant expansion in the number and frequency of tests, and the technology needed to fully implement to Common Core will divert billions of scarce education dollars. The data systems not only threaten student privacy, but also provide more fuel for the phony value added systems being developed to micromanage our work as teachers.

While these are some significant areas of agreement, there also major areas where many of us part ways with aspects of the Tea Party perspective. As I learned on a visit to Arizona a few months ago, many in this movement are strongly in favor of vouchers and deeply suspicious of public education. Part of the reason some oppose national standards is that they are happy to see public funds flowing to private and religious schools in many places, and fear that these schools will be obligated to align their curriculum with the Common Core. Many are also strongly opposed to unions, including teacher unions.

Some who are influential with Tea Party folks have some misconceptions. For example, some have suggested, with very little supporting evidence, that Bill Ayers was one of the authors of the Common Core. I actually checked with Mr. Ayers, and he told me he has had nothing to do with them, and does not even support them.

Tea Party conservatives, unlike many educators, are not at all convinced that schools ought to be pursuing the goal of equitable outcomes for students. Some of them even go so far as to equate equity with communism. This critique of Linda Darling-Hammond's work takes on the Opportunity to Learn campaign:

Also included in the "Opportunity to Learn Campaign" are "wraparound supports" such as extended learning time which might sound good until you realize that we're moving away from a family-centered to a school-centered way of life that pushes parents to the periphery of children's lives.

To be clear, those of us who support social services do so not because we are opposed to families and parents having central roles in students' lives, but because we are aware of the toll poverty is taking on children, and wish to provide much-needed support so that children can succeed.

While we might disagree with the Tea Party on some key points, there is no question that they have been highly effective at reversing the forward momentum of the Common Core. Their pressure led the GOP to recently pass a resolution declaring the party's opposition to the Common Core, along the lines described above.

Why have educators and parents with similar concerns about corporate reform and the Common Core been less influential than the Tea Party? The combined membership of the two largest teachers unions in the nation - in excess of four million, is far larger than the number of members of any Tea Party organization. But our union leaders have largely embraced the Common Core, and rarely confront corporate reform head-on. AFT President Randi Weingarten continues to voice strong support for the new standards, though she has called for a year's delay for the punitive consequences attached to Common Core test results. In a sign of mounting pressure on AFT leadership, however, the AFT issued a statement yesterday raising serious questions about the inBloom database.

There are additional signs that educator, parent and student voices may be gaining strength. While billionaire corporate reformers recently spent millions on their chosen candidates in the Los Angeles school board race, the voters chose more independent candidates instead. The Network for Public Education has begun endorsing candidates, such as Monica Ratliff, the teacher just elected in Los Angeles. (disclosure: I was a co-founder of the NPE and serve as the group's treasurer.) In recent union elections in Chicago, 80% of the teachers there voted for the CORE leadership caucus led by Karen Lewis, which has been more willing to fight back against school closures and corporate style reforms. Students are becoming far more active as well, and in recent weeks we have seen walkouts related to these issues in Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities around the country.

If educators, parents and students are capable of clearly defining issues that we care deeply about, we can communicate this through groups like the NPE. And perhaps we can encourage more candidates who are knowledgeable about these issues to run for office, and ensure they have grassroots support so they have a chance to beat the big money they are likely to face. And perhaps we can even convince our unions to see the value of taking a stance independent of the billionaire sponsors of the Common Core and corporate reform.

What do you think? Is the Tea Party correct in their critique of the Common Core? What can we learn from their success?

Continue the dialogue with Anthony on Twitter.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by John Thompson.

I first recoiled at Arthur Levine's tired old vision of schools in his Education Week Commentary "The Plight of Teachers' Unions." Levine seemed to argue that resistance against high-stakes testing is doomed. He seemed to believe that the future belongs to a new generation of standards-driven schooling. He implied that unions, for instance, were on the wrong side of history in resisting NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg's test-score-based evaluations and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's school closing campaign.

Then I read the rest of the newsmagazine of record. Not all is lost! Nearly a half of the issue described various aspects of today's backlashes against school "reform." Around 40% of the articles discussed promising new approaches to school improvement. So, I went back to Levine's dusty old analysis in the hopes that Ed Week was merely reprinting a twenty year old commentary from back in the day - before test-driven "reform," epitomized by the assembly line, tried to turn the clock back to the early 20th century.

It was an irony worthy of post modernism that Levine's retrograde vision of schools was at the end of the Ed Week which featured Michele McNeil's "Rifts Deepen Over Direction of Education Policy in U.S." The issue was also full of articles and comments about the malfunctioning of standardized testing, the potential abuses of testing data, cheating, and other bubble-in failures, as well as the fast-approaching Common Core implementation crisis. It included two accounts of dubious school takeovers in Michigan, as well as protests against similar efforts to close schools and disempower teachers, parents, and students in Chicago and elsewhere.

Nearly as much of the issue was devoted to the future of school improvement efforts that are the opposite of corporate reform pedagogies. An article co-written by two leaders of pro-"reform" institutions proposed a novel idea for saving the data-driven "teacher quality" experiment. They suggested that accountability hawks listen to teachers! Another story described a few schools that have turned the Race to the Top (RttT) on its head. Rather than use RttT funding for online differentiation of instruction, they focused on the socio-emotional health of children. An article described a corrective to a consequence of market-driven "reform," which has reduced diversity among teachers, and attempts to recruit more black and Latino teachers. Another story on "citizen science" was the opposite of the drill and kill pedagogies imposed by "reform." It described the potential for students to gain real-world experience with hands-on science fieldwork.

Two stories dealt with the research-based, win-win strategy of high-quality pre-school. Another documented new evidence on why pre-K is cost effective. Another commentary, by the Schott Foundation's John Jackson, explicitly repudiated the thesis of Levine's commentary.

Jackson explained that the output-driven accountablity crowd was on the wrong side of history. He argued persuasively that standards-based accountability has not been a game-changer. He explained how, "Standards-based reform creates an inherent system of winners and losers by raising the bar and assessing who makes the cut." Standards and standardized test-driven "reform" failed because it ignored the root cause of the achievement gap - poverty. Because of its focus on tests for punishment, standards for children who are academically drowning have moved the shoreline further away in order to teach them how to swim.

Rather than concede defeat as Levine would recommend, teachers, unions, parents, and students should demand "supports-based reforms." We must strategically align:

• High-quality early education for all students;
• mandatory kindergarten with assurances that all students are achieving at grade level by 3rd grade;
• recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers, along with supplying the training and resources those teachers need to provide more learning time and deeper learning approaches;
• access to student-centered learning and personalized academic, social, and health plans to keep all students on a college path;
• equitable resources and policies so that all students remain in engaging, high-quality educational settings.

Unfortunately, Levine's commentary was not a reprint. It was a kinder, gentler retread of the soundbites of the teacher-bashing movement, previously known as "reform." His mind seems to be back in the heyday of corporate "reform's" political victories that occurred before the extent of their educational failures was clear. It is possible that public schools may still be defeated by market-driven "reformers," but, today, it is the true believers of bubble-in accountability who are on the ropes. Levine, obviously, was too quick to throw in the towel on teacher unions' behalf.

What do you think? Was it just a coincidence that one issue of Education Week was so full of defeats for test-driven accountability and so full of promising stories about real reforms? Is our long nightmare of teacher-bashing and attacks on public schools about to end?

John Thompson was an award winning historian, with a doctorate from Rutgers, and a legislative lobbyist when crack and gangs hit his neighborhood, and he became an inner city teacher. He blogs for This Week in Education, the Huffington Post and other sites. After 18 years in the classroom, he is writing his book, Getting Schooled: Battles Inside and Outside the Urban Classroom.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by Michelle Newsum.

Under the fear created by NCLB/RTTT, large scale ability group tracking has made its way back into schools. Because tracking is commonly considered odious, and the research does not support it, no one calls it that. It is now given cuter or more palatable names like 'Walk to Read' or 'Intervention Time' even 'Flexible Grouping.' (Although some schools have flexible grouping and intervention time that takes place in classrooms and is quite lovely.)

Walk to Read/March to Math= Send your kids to other classes for math and reading for 90 minutes a day. If you have three teachers at a grade level, one teacher takes all the 'advanced' students, the fours; one takes all the 'on levels', the threes; one takes all the 'twos; and a group of aides under the direction of a Title 1 or resource teacher take five to eight students each who are 'well below grade level.' Children receive some additional reading and math instruction in their classrooms.

The following is a statement I made at a school board meeting. Not surprisingly, it fell on deaf ears.

Dear School Board Members,
I am a teacher and I love this work. That's why this is especially hard to do. I have been told that failure to toe the line will cost me my job, so I have thought long and hard before speaking out. It's clear I have no rights in this area, but I still have a responsibility to speak out for my students.

Walk to Read is one of the many new names for achievement group tracking. In primary schools, this backward practice was long ago de-bunked, ostracized even, but it's crept back under the test-score fear and mania of NCLB/Race to the Top.

We are told that this is not tracking; that it's 'flexible grouping.' The experts disagree.

Carol Burris, award winning educator, administrator and ASCD author of Detracking for Excellence and Equity, says, "They can call it ability grouping, walk to reading, hop to math, or skip to social studies; when you group students for instruction based on achievement, that is tracking. Why don't they simply do some flexible grouping within the class?"

Author/Speaker Alfie Kohn says: This is "Wretched. It's a new name for segregating kids by performance, which has always been a terrible idea. The one thing we know about tracking is that it doesn't respond to differences in what students can learn so much as it creates differences in what they will learn."

Bill Bigelow, of Rethinking Schools says: "Wow. This seems wildly inappropriate -- in so many ways. First, how dumb to segregate math and reading from the rest of the curriculum. We need more curricular integration, not less. This is simply ability group tracking -- a practice with a past soaked in class and race bias. (This) is disrespectful of teachers' professional knowledge and exemplifies so much of what is wrong with education."

Kevin Welner of the National Education Policy Center says: It's "Tracking for Tots. And it also appears to be part of the overall laziness we see of turning to a factory model of sort, select, target, etc."

In the Heinemann research series, Catching Schools, Barbara Taylor and Nell Duke found that of the four school wide interventions they studied, only Walk to Read (or what they call a combination model) had a negative effect on all areas of student learning.

Ann Wheelock, author of Crossing the Tracks: How "Untracking" Can Save America's Schools, says, "Ability grouping, or tracking, does not enhance academic achievement and research tells us that it is not a neutral or benign practice, either. Although it is widespread and widely accepted, ability grouping generally depresses student achievement and is harmful to kids."

When asked if gifted children are challenged enough in heterogeneously grouped classrooms, she replied, "If the curriculum is rich and varied, yes. So teachers should commit to creating a high-expectations climate and an engaging hands-on curriculum for all.

When Carol Burris examined tracking in her school district, she found that, "Although we had been telling parents that it was possible for students to move to higher track classes after beginning in the lower tracks, we found no evidence that this upward movement was in fact taking place. Instead, the opposite was happening---it was not uncommon for students to move from the middle track to the lowest track."

In his book Tracking Inequality, Samuel Lucas (1999) uses national data to demonstrate that track movement occurs in a downward direction far more frequently than it does in an upward direction. The (International) Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), analyzed successes and failures in education systems in 39 of the world's most developed nations. It found that countries that divided pupils into ability groups at an early age tended to have higher numbers of school drop-outs and lower levels of achievement. Streaming by ability "exacerbates inequities" because immigrants and pupils from low-income families are more likely to be placed in low-ability groups. The UK and the US had the joint highest proportion of pupils in schools that divide according to ability. Countries, such as Finland, that are well-known for their high-performing education systems, had a far lower proportion. Indeed, In Finland, ability grouping was abolished for grades 1--9 in 1985.

According to the National Research Council (NRC), low-track classes have an especially deleterious effect on learning, since such classes are "typically characterized by an exclusive focus on basic skills, low expectations, and the least qualified teachers." (Heubert & Hauser, 1999, p. 282). The preponderance of research regarding low-track classes was so overwhelmingly negative that the NRC concluded that students should not be educated in low-track classes.

This form of tracking will increase our already outrageous class size. In addition to the 30 students we need to bond with, know well and understand their learning styles and quirks and scaffold our lessons to meet all their needs, we'll have about 36 additional kids (and they will be turning over.)

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) supports the instruction of students within heterogeneous classrooms that recognize and accommodate individual student differences in learning style, ability, and interests. NASP opposes the use of tracking because of its demonstrated negative effect for many students.

Research has demonstrated that the use of whole class ability grouping disproportionately impacts minority students, economically disadvantaged students, and students with lower ability. Related to individuals identified with educational disabilities, whole class ability grouping does not comply with the requirements of placement within the least restrictive educational (LRE) environment. Further, the practice of whole class ability grouping/tracking can deny many children of their statutory right to equal educational opportunity. Demonstrated best educational practice can lead to the establishment of excellence for all learners without resorting to the use of ability grouping. Such positive educational practices supported in the research and literature include:
Cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, small group instruction, curriculum modifications, scaffolding, essential understandings, structure of disciplines, learning communities and flexible grouping.

Using our professional development time to explore how to best meet the needs of all children using some of the research-based practices listed above would be a much better use of our time than dealing with paperwork for tracking.

Instead of tracking, we should engage in flexible grouping within the classroom, where young children feel comfortable with the structure, rules, materials, routines and teaching style in their own class. Teachers can and do make lessons accessible to all children with large, small and individual groupings, and high-level, open ended assignments.

We spent the first several professional development days exploring Daily 5, a workshop model that aligns with best practices (and lends itself to all the suggested research-based practices the NASP listed above.)The first two sessions really laid out the program and how and why it is done.

It was well received, but only teachers attended.

In real life, working and learning are heterogeneous and collaborative. I benefit from working with people who know more than I know, people who are deep thinkers, good questioners. I also benefit from helping others and seeing how others think and solve problems.

By keeping our kids together in a heterogeneous, consistent group:

• We teach children with different skills how to work effectively together.


• Children learn to accept differences as normal and desirable.


• We take each child where he is and move him as far as possible.


• We learn, respect and use individual strengths, interests and needs.


• We give whole group, small group and individual instruction to meet the needs of all students.


• We provide open ended assignments to meet the needs of all children.

• Teachers get to know their students better. As teachers work to differentiate the curriculum, they develop an awareness and understanding of their students as learners.


• Students feel respected and cared for by teachers who make the effort to reach them by developing careful, differentiated lesson plans./Such students become assured that their classroom is a safe learning environment.


• Differentiation allows more students to feel invested in the lesson, thereby decreasing behavioral problems. Students who previously opted to be viewed as "bad" rather than "stupid" will have their learning needs met and other talents explored, allowing them to drop the "bad" act and become instead a valuable member of the class.


• Students who might have been considered less intelligent because they learn in a nontraditional way become invaluable contributors to the heterogeneous classroom./For example, an aural learner who struggles with textbook assignments can add in-depth perspective in a social studies class discussion by contributing what he or she has learned through documentaries or tapes.


• Struggling students who are part of heterogeneous groups and classrooms observe and learn the techniques of less-inhibited learners. They begin to see that "smart kids" don't always know the answers, have to pause to think, and use questions to orient themselves. Students in low-track classes are cut off from exposure to the habits of successful learners.


• Differentiated instruction encourages flexibility. Teachers thus become adept at adapting lessons to fulfill each student's individual needs.


• Detracking removes the limits that come with rigid thinking about how learning should and does occur. Fair does not always mean "the same." For example, allowing a student who struggles with the physical act of writing to type his notes can benefit that student and the rest of the class. Not only does the student get access to the material, but the entire class has a reliable set of notes that can be used for those who were absent. This student now becomes an expert---and essential---note-taker who takes pride in his responsibility and sees himself as a member of the class.

Joanne Yatvin, education professor, long time primary teacher, principal, superintendent, author and lone educator on the National Reading Panel says:

The original reasoning behind keeping elementary age children with one teacher and one set of classmates was continuity: One teacher gets to know the abilities, behavior, and feelings of a group of kids really well and so can best meet their needs, plus the kids feel comfortable with that teacher in that classroom. Young kids should not be tossed around from one teacher to another and be separated from the rules, materials, and teaching style they have become familiar with. More recently, the concept of community has been emphasized: it is important for children to work in a heterogeneous group where they can help and learn from each other; that's what the real world is like. Besides, putting children of the same ability altogether encourages one-size-fits all instruction and treats them as if they were objects rather than human beings.

Primary education should be based on a family model, not a factory model.

What do you think? Are you seeing more tracking at your school? How has this affected your students?

Michelle Newsum teaches elementary school in Oregon.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Guest post by Alice Mercer.

All eyes are on Chicago, and the record school closures taking place in that city. But this is a drama being played out in cities across the country, including my own, as "right-sizing", the Broad way, takes over. By now, many would have (or should have) heard that in Chicago, the projected savings have disappeared (or didn't exist in the first place), and in the face of massive protests, the mayor has thrown $55M to a classic "Edifice complex " (my husband's term for hubristic public works projects). Public will has been ignored, and the press has been muzzled.

Now we come home to Sacramento. Once again, projected savings - questionable; public will - ignored; press inquiries - we'll get back to you...much later; last, but not least, reality-based decision-making - completely absent. Let me share the sad tale of woe that has befallen my district (and to a greater degree, at least 50 teachers). When schools close or their enrollment declines, teachers lose their position (not their job, but the school they are assigned to). This can happen to teachers that have plenty of seniority, especially in the case of school closures. There were a large number of teachers looking for new positions because of my districts decision to "right-size" (with seven schools that's over 10% of the elementary schools in the district). The way that is handled is covered by our contract. At a mutually agreed upon date, the district holds a surplus meeting. All open positions in the district are listed, and the teachers pick based on their hiring date (seniority). One problem...with over 50 teachers left needing a placement, the district ran out of jobs. Oops.

This all comes back to the Superintendent's "priority schools" which have led to the following:

• A number of schools in the district (7) are outside of the contract process for hiring, and surplusing (or movement) of teachers;
• Those same schools are receiving students from closing schools, but getting in as a teacher is another matter;
• This is bad for both teachers and the kids involved.

What is a "priority school"? In the early days of RttT (Race to the Top), while Gloria Romero was still chair of the California State Senate Education committee, the state was desperate (and I mean desperate) to get Race to the Top money. In the face of enormous budget short-falls at that time, it was much too tempting. So they enacted a number of policies to "qualify" to apply for RttT money that they of course, never got. One provision was for the state to identify its lowest 5% of schools and reform them using one of their "research-based" reform methods (I kid, there is no research to support what they proposed). I was working at the one school in the Sacramento-area that was identified for this "extreme" make-over. For good measure, the superintendent threw in two more elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school and called them "priority schools". A third middle-school was added the second year. These were likely added in an attempt to get SIG money, but after two failed attempts to secure a grant, they succeeded in only getting money for Oak Ridge, the only school identified by the state as low-performing. I'm not teaching there anymore, and you can read about why here.

The salient point is that in addition to making these schools a priority, the staffing at these schools underwent a change that now has created swiss-cheese-like holes in our teaching contracts. You see, the schools are allowed to hire teachers outside the district surplus process, and only have to take surplus teachers they want. Open positions at "priority schools" are not on the district's list of available positions at the surplus meeting. They've made a practice of picking up the least senior teachers, and even brand-new hires from outside the district. This has occurred while elementary teachers with up to 7 years of seniority are still out of work. In addition, they are exploiting a little-used provision of the State Education Code saying these teachers have "specialized training" that other teachers lack, and should be "skipped" in layoffs. That has exacerbated the entire lay-off process as teachers at priority schools with less than 5 years of seniority have never gotten a pink-slip, while teachers with up to 8 years of seniority have, and those with seven never returned. You can read the bottom of this article about this.

What has this done for these schools? Well, like the results nationally for SIG-eligible schools, the results are mixed. Since that last article, scores at Oak Ridge (which were higher in year one) were not as good. In the meantime, this has not created staff "stability" as teachers with any seniority (and many without) have left.

What it has done to our teachers, and our union is poisonous. We now have an entire class of teachers who owe their continued employment as a teacher to their principal's good will alone. They have no contract protection, because they can be "administratively" transferred out of their school, and then they will be laid off because of their low seniority. The way the administrators have set things up it's just going to get worse. Always hiring teachers with the least seniority, having large turnovers of staff may not be great for the kids but it's wonderful for making a contract useless, undermining teacher morale, and pitting teachers against each other.

What do you think? Have you seen patterns emerging of veteran teachers being discarded?

Alice Mercer teaches 6th grade in Sacramento. This was originally posted at her blog here.

Posted by Anthony Cody at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend