Along with approximately 50 other education professionals
from the New Jersey Education Association, members of the Newark Teachers Union
(AFT-NJ), and parents and other concerned citizens, I attended a lobby day at
the State Board of Education last Wednesday—Chris Cerf’s last day as state
education commissioner.
In certain ways it was like a funeral. While passionate,
articulate, well-educated speakers delivered anecdotes of excellence in teaching,
and the joy, inspiration and enthusiasm that go along with it, there were many
harrowing, absurd, and truly heartbreaking stories of what public education has devolved
into under Cerf’s fiefdom.
NJEA delivered a binder to each board member filled with
over 1,000 letters from teachers across the state. Many educators brought more
letters with them from co-workers who couldn’t attend. Two rooms were set up
for testimony. I was assigned to the smaller of the two where 36 speakers
had registered. At 5 minutes each, they were easily looking at 3 hours of
testimony.
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Binders full of letters
The following are quotes pulled from copies of testimony and/or letters. They are posted anonymously because, contrary to popular belief, tenure
does not mean a job for life. Teachers can and do get targeted by
administrators with an ax to grind. Almost every person who sent me their
testimony asked me not to use their name. Reading through all the text has been emotionally draining.
“South Brunswick was not too long ago considered a ‘lighthouse’
district by the state of NJ - a beacon, an example for other districts to
follow. I'm not sure the business model allows for any district to be
progressive in a way that would earn a distinction of ‘lighthouse’ any longer
and that scares me.
“This ‘lighthouse district’ is now a district with three focus
schools? South Brunswick’s middle schools earned the distinction of focus
school due to their ‘too large’ discrepancy between the highest (Asian) and two
lowest (special education and economically disadvantaged) performing
subgroups.”
“I remembered the countless hours that I had spent in graduate
school, watching how good evaluations are supposed to be conducted and began to
feel somewhat uneasy about what was to come because what was being proposed
looked nothing like what I was taught in graduate school. Evaluations weren't
supposed to be ‘gotcha moments.”
“I am choosing not to believe that the collateral consequences being suffered are actually intended, but rather in the mission you are aiming to achieve through these changes…You should know that it’s working, all of it. Your educators – a significant, influential portion of them – are becoming discouraged… You are forcing them to change their approach in the classroom and even reconsider their career in public education. That’s great! However, you’re also affecting the best, and running the risk of alienating those who may become your best. Rational people understand two things about our jobs right now: substantive changes take patience; trends lead to expected outcomes. What we don’t understand is why you’re using napalm to cut the grass… Why is everyone treated as a failure? We strive not to do that in your classrooms. We differentiate our instruction so higher learners sail beyond the basics and slower learners aren’t anchors. Why shouldn’t differentiated evaluation apply to the differentiators?... the common words and phrases I hear encompassing this collective school year and the years preceding it – regardless of age, teaching level, subject or district – are ‘drowning’, ‘uncertainty’, ‘stressed’, ‘disconnected’, ‘retirement’.
“Our administrators – confused and strapped for time – come to school every day knowing that, no matter how well they manage their time, they will fail to live up to the anything-but-static responsibilities and requirements imposed upon them. Observations that take multiple hours to produce have been jumbled and discarded within the Teachscape program our districts pay numerous taxpayer dollars for… Did you expect your administrators to become sterilized by your wave of changes?
“Our professional worth is determined, not by our educational credentials or the unmeasurable affect we have, daily, on your students, but by a number generated from an “educational responsibility checklist” by a mentally-taxed observer within a 20 minute snippet of time. If you saw what this was doing to your veterans – the ones who’ve honed and perfected their craft daily over a career – you would be “sad and disappointed,” said more than one colleague.
“Is public education creeping toward privatization because public education is the untapped oil-well of America’s fading manifest destiny?
“If our education system is going to have any substantive impact on our nation's youth, it is going to have to nurture thinkers, not build fact robots who could squash Ken Jennings in Jeopardy but who couldn’t reason their way past a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
“The one-size-fits-all approach to teacher evaluation, SGO's, SGP's, and PARCC testing are in direct opposition to making accommodations to suit the needs of children in not only these classes, but in inclusion and general education classes as well in urban school districts. To say that many children in urban classrooms don't have any type academic support outside of school is a gross understatement. Most live in low-income households, with daily stressors that adults would find hard to handle. These children are expected to come to school and learn even though there have been massive cuts in mental health services for all except those who have it specified in their IEP's. How is that factored in on the PARCC? Who will pay for this? The children, of course, when dedicated teachers are judged only by test scores, and decide to leave the field of education in frustration.”
"Many questions have been asked by teachers regarding specific problems in with the evaluation system, SGOs, etc. and little provided in response. Even supervisors do not have answers for us. Precious hours have been spent on paperwork that has no validity. The collection of this information is flawed and questions have not been answered. However, the machine continues to turn with little consideration for humanity. Where is the research data that proves that these reforms are in fact valid and reliable?"
From a mom/teacher:
“Apparently, many of the new
initiatives driving these changes are tied to corporate entities. Parents question
the motives behind the piloting and purchasing of costly, corporate kits,
especially in vulnerable districts. What can you tell us about the recent sale
of Newark’s Eighteenth Avenue School, which Senator Rice has alleged to be
illegal? Or the $2.3 million sale of products from Amplify, the current
employer of our former commissioner of education? Other corporate stakeholders,
like Teach For America, only see dollar signs in the eyes of our children. In
contrast, I thank God every day for my children’s teachers.”
“We have become, in many instances, no longer teachers, but
simply an entity to deliver information on which children will be tested.
Despite the rhetoric of the PARCC movement, it appears that we are moving
backwards – to the classroom that Dewey argued against.”
“I used to teach purely for joy; now I find my overriding
purpose is to keep a job… We force-feed concepts to young children who are
developmentally not ready or equipped to analyze and synthesize what is asked
of them. Many of the creative projects that made learning fun have fallen by
the wayside. I have 4th grade students who no longer want to come to
school, and we are resorting to teaching breathing and visualization techniques
to lessen their performance and test-taking anxiety. All the while we assess,
assess, assess, gather data, and report on what I already know about my
students.”
“Time that used to be spent teaching is now used to assess
and collect data. I have missed at least 20 days of instruction due to testing
students this year. While we continue to raise expectations for our students,
we do not give teachers time to help students meet these expectations.”
“Teachers have been made to feel very small when it comes to
standardized testing. If our students don’t do well, it must mean we’re
horrible teachers and the blame is put on us. And some of the directions for
teachers are insulting. For example, we have to sign a document that states we
will not sleep during testing. What teacher would ever sleep while giving a
test, let alone a state-mandated test! I wish [teachers] could have more say in
making the decisions on how to best assess our students, as we have their best
interests in mind.”
A special education teacher feels she is failing her
students:
“I am spending more and more time preparing my students for and
giving them assessments which are testing skills well above their ability. They
look to me for the guidance and support they need when in my room and I cannot
help them. Watching them feel so defeated has been frustrating to say the
least! I feel I have let them down and they feel they can no longer count on
me.”
Another special education teacher puts it simply:
“Please help us get back to the task of ‘teaching our students
the love of learning’ and not simply ‘teaching to the test.’”
A 4th grade teacher is at a loss for words:
“I am at a loss for words as to how to describe my experience
teaching this year. When I began
teaching, I knew exactly why I chose this profession. I woke up each day with a zeal and enthusiasm that only a
fellow teacher would understand… This has changed tremendously in the past
year… The excessive evaluations, assessments, SGOs, SGPs and standardized
testing have made the students and teachers feel a stress that cannot be
explained in a letter.”
On the effect of standardized testing on future generations
of students:
“We are stifling creativity in both the teachers and the
student, and we are creating an educational system that will, instead of
raising the bar of learning, lower it. We are taking away both the desire and
the ability of the next generation of children to be independent thinkers.”
A teacher laments he will never be a “Highly Effective
Teacher” under the AchieveNJ program:
"The Achieve NJ program is set up to reward one thing: standardized
teaching, plain and simple. Achieve NJ favors canned lessons and pre-packaged
approaches that were never meant to be what teaching was about. Achieve NJ,
with its ‘data-driven’ approach, seeks to quantify what simply can’t be
converted into numbers: high quality teaching. Oh, I understand there’s a
science to teaching, but the scientific approach means that anyone with a
heartbeat could be placed in front of a classroom and succeed in delivering
canned instructional material to those present. But, how many of those same
people could really inspire children?
"You wonder why the media tells us that America (not New Jersey
mind you) is falling behind in education? It’s because the things that always
made America great have been sucked out of our classrooms by Pearson-created
curricula and Amplify-sponsored standardized testing: vision and innovation. You
see, a master teacher, a teacher who is gifted in the art of teaching has a
vision of how far his students can go and can help them to achieve that vision.
A master teacher realizes that the most successful lessons are the ones that
were developed in his or her own mind and heart. There’s no place and certainly
no time left for innovation in the Achieve NJ program.”
A veteran teacher reflects on what new teachers have to look
forward to:
“Young students entering the field of education are given a
dose of reality: if you make this a life-long career, the respect of the
existing culture is not there for you.”
An art teacher on the difference between the corporate and
the education worlds:
“Education is not a business; we work with children of various
abilities and personalities, not a product, but human beings. This evaluation
process is not helpful, but is damaging to morale and effectiveness of
teachers.”
From a first grade teacher on the inappropriateness of
standardized testing for young learners:
“It is not the goal of teachers to emphasize testing in the
early elementary years… Research shows that the ‘gift of time’ is extremely
valuable to young children. The SGO does not address the maturation of young
students.”
A PE teacher on the use of standardized evaluation systems
across subject areas:
“Teachers should not be evaluated with one type of evaluation.
You can’t use the same format for a classroom teacher and then go see a PE
class or an art or music class and expect the same. The classes are totally
different and therefore need to have a different way to evaluate that teacher.”
Feeling overwhelmed:
“I am an experienced teacher who is overwhelmed by trying to
implement everything I am expected to do.”
A PE teacher on how CCSS and PARCC are preventing her from
fulfilling her legally required duties:
“As a result of the CCSS and PARCC testing our school has had
to move to a 6-day schedule, so our students no longer participate in the 150 minutes of physical education and
health every week as required by the state!”
A school librarian on the devastating effects of PARCC and
CCSS on her library and curriculum:
“In order for my district to meet the technology requirements
to administer the PARCC, over $400 thousand has been spent on Chrome books and
infrastructure support for our district. Those unfunded mandates have created
budget issues that directly affect all students. My library budget… is now
$8,000 LESS than [it was] in 1991.”
My thoughts on the ‘brain drain’ this is causing:
"In addition to being a teacher, I’m also the vice president of my
local education association, so I hear it all. My colleagues are overwhelmed
and under trained. They are burned out, stressed out, and many are simply
giving up and retiring early. With every veteran teacher who says to me, 'You
know, Marie, I was going to stay another few years, but I just can’t take it
anymore', we lose decades of experience. It’s bad enough to do this to adults,
but realize that what you do to us, you ultimately do to the children of this
state. If we are stressed, they are, too. This is not good for the future of New
Jersey."
Part 2 tomorrow...
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