The selling of #CCRAP

In a previous post I compared the selling of PARCC to an as-seen-on-TV gizmo that promises to make your life perfect for only "3 easy payments of $19.95." But unlike the Veg-O-Matic, frustrated, white suburban moms, and parents of all colors in all locales, have quickly discovered that the cost of the PARCC and its conjoined twin, CCSS, is anything but easy. They're standing up and fighting back in droves. And that doesn't sit well with the folks who market and sell this hokum. So, as Anthony Cody recently reported, somebody created an easy-to-use "How to Talk About Testing" ad campaign guide complete with a cute little bunny rabbit graphic and a classroom-friendly layout and fonts. I guess they figure if they treat parents like second graders, all will be well. 

I wonder how many "easy payments of $19.95" this cost? And who created it? And who it's being sent to? 

Do yourself a favor and read the entire manual. It's short on content but long on laughs. Here's Mr. Bunny. Be careful! You don't want to fall down his rabbit hole of 'facts' now, do you?

Before I became an educator, I spent 15 years in advertising. It can be a sleazy business because it's not about presenting the facts; it's is about selling a product. And it's done by appealing to our base emotions and physical states; convincing us that our lives will be infinitely better with any given product. In advertising, the facts look really good in places like the disclaimer, the miles per gallon, or when "4-out-of-5-(fill in the blank)-recommend..."  

But watch out! Cute, little Mr. Bunny cautions you not to stray too close to them:

"Tell the best story you can about your state"? Okay, I've got one: Public schools have been underfunded to the tune of $6 billion... Oh wait, I can't do that 'cause that's not a 'story'; that's a fact. 

So are these 'reformy' stew ingredients, courtesy of Jersey Jazzman:

• There is no evidence charter school proliferation will work; it may, in fact, be harmful.
• There is little evidence vouchers will work; they may, in fact, be harmful.
• There is no evidence test-based teacher evaluation will work; it may, in fact, be harmful.
• There is no evidence merit pay works; it may, in fact, be harmful.
• There is no evidence eliminating teacher tenure will work; there is, in fact, plenty of evidence it may be harmful and expensive.
• There is no evidence the expansion of high-stakes, standardized testing will work; in fact, it is harmful. (emphasis mine)

If the Common Core and PARCC were so amazing and transformational, they would sell themselves. Educators' jobs would be more—not less—meaningful. People would be clamoring to enter the profession, not leaving it sooner. Educators would be lined up at Pearson's front door to provide testimonials. The education blog-o-sphere would be busting at the seams with posts about the incredible transformation of their students, and the joyful classroom atmosphere in which that is occurring. Sadly, none of this is happening. In fact many classrooms are experiencing just the opposite.

The reform movement ad campaign is losing market share because they're selling a lousy product and parents know it. So they're doubling down on their efforts by spreading misinformation about funding cuts to their child's school or worse: how opting out will harm their child's educational future. But the facts simply aren't on their side.

So, dear parents, the next time a 'reformy' cheerleader sings the praises of the PARCC, the next time they promise it will magically make your child 'college and career ready'—even if that career is a stay-at-home-parent or a circus clown—the next time they tell you this amazing test will magically diagnose and cure all your child's learning problems or weed out all those 'bad teachers', demand the facts. Then sit back and listen... 

'College and Career Ready': the big, fat myth of standardized testing

Hats off to Delran, NJ Education Association President Mike Kaminsky (@MKaminskiNJ) and his leadership team! They are doing excellent work in the push back against education 'reform'. Not only did they recently host both a showing of "Standardized" (trailer above), and a Take the PARCC night, Delran also threw down the gauntlet with this very powerful statement against standardized testing, posted on DEA member and fellow ed blogger, Ani McHugh's Teacherbiz blog:

We, the members of the Delran Education Association, believe that authentic, teacher-created assessments are an important component of any successful instructional program. However, we stand in defiant opposition to the New Jersey Department of Education’s obsession with the use of high-stakes standardized testing, both in our own district and in districts across this state. 

And that's just the beginning. It's a perfect overview of education 'reform' and standardized testing for folks who haven't read every book that's been published on the subject over the past few years.  

Show me the money!

Along with about 350 other concerned parents and educators, I attended the Take the PARCC event, which was a BYOPD affair. The first half hour was spent trying to get everyone in the room logged on to the Pearson website to take the sample test. I'm hoping that all works out statewide on actual testing days because Acting Commissioner Hespe assures us that over 90% of school districts across the state are tech ready. And for those that aren't, he's got about $1.3 million in grant money... for the whole state. 

Gov. Christie has cut close to $5 billion in education funding since he was first elected, and the devastating effects are still being felt. So I'm happy that the state managed to scrape together a few bucks for cash-strapped school districts. I'm sure the good people of Bernards Township, one of NJ's many affluent and successful suburban districts, are thrilled that, despite their hefty property tax bills, they will have to raise about $900,000 to replace their turf fields, which have a shelf life of 10 years, because the state could only cough up $58K to help 'em out with their tech upgrades. That's a whole lotta bake sales.

Source: Bernards Twp. School District website

The state itself has spent about $27 million so far to gear up on their end. Where'd they get that money? The pension system and the transportation trust fund have been raided to the bone, but we magically have $27 mil to—oh silly me! The money must be found because this is for the edupreneures children.

Angry Birds? No, Angry Parents!

Once everyone was logged on, Ani and Mike led the audience through some of the nuances of the platform, and it quickly became clear that this test is first and foremost about computer skills. If the students don't have them, they won't do well—period. The size of a Chromebook screen isn't much bigger than an iPad. Students have to read passages and mathematical equations, answer questions, keystroke essays and scroll through text on something with which many have very little experience. And it starts in third grade. Many administrators know this, so they're scrambling to get as many of these devices into the hands of as many students as possible. I don't care how much time the average 8-year-old spends on the computer, playing Angry Birds for hours is a whole lot different than this:

That's 9 days of testing, folks: 5 in March and 4 in May. Once that sunk in, the demeanor of the room quickly changed. The Q&A session progressed rapidly from 'how can this happen?' to 'how can I opt my kid out?' Several parents stood up to announce community groups and Facebook pages they've started in order to organize and inform other parents. So much for Hespe telling us at the NJEA Convention that he isn't "aware of any opt out movement in the state." By the end of the night, I think there were more interpersonal connections made than Internet connections.  

The biggest takeaway of the night was this: Parents have to lead this revolution. Teachers can and do lead the fight on other ed 'reform' battles, but the front lines on testing must be filled with parents. And my money is on the parents of special needs children because they always have to fight, and this one's gonna be particularly ugly.

The big, fat myth

The bottom line is that Common Core and the PARCC will not magically make every child #CACR—'college and career ready'. It's not about developing a generation of super students or magically lifting every single child out of poverty. It's all about money, and the money is the hostage. The message Arne Duncan sends to school districts all across the country is this: if your students don't hit their cut scores, you don't get your money. If it really, truly were about helping all students succeed, K-12 educators would not have been given a seat at the table, we would have been given the whole damned table. If it really, truly were about helping all students succeed, K-12 educators would be able to rely on their own assessments to guide their instruction, instead of assessments developed by people who are not necessarily K-12 educators and that may be scored by Craig's List hires or robots (yea, don't get me started). 

Case in point: I was recently interviewed by New Jersey News12 on the state's gear-up for the PARCC. Commissioner Hespe was also interviewed. To be fair, much of an interview gets left on the cutting room floor. The reporter spent about a half hour interviewing me for what amounted to a 30 second sound bite. But, listen to Hespe's comment at the 2:28 mark:

[PARCC is] going to prepare students for the tests of the future.

That is what Hespe thinks the PARCC will do, and I don't know about you, but that scares the bejeezus outta me. The flawed tests are based on a flawed set of standards that the teachers must teach so the students can get better and better at taking flawed tests. 

For all the data mining that now happens to our children, the founding fathers of CCSS and PARCC refuse to acknowledge some startling data from the US Census Bureau, brought to you by ed blogger extraordinaire, Lloyd Lofthouse: 

• 26% of [US] jobs do not require a high school degree, but only 11.8% of the adults who dropped out of high school are qualified for these jobs. More than half are overqualified.
• 40% of the jobs require a high school degree, but more than 88% of Americans have a high school degree—more than double the jobs that require this much education.
• For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to combine everyone with a college degree—associate degree, BA, masters, professional and doctorate—and only 27% of the jobs in America require one of these college degrees, but 53% of the adult population might be qualified for these jobs—more than twice the number required. 

This means a large sector of the American work force is highly over educated and working in jobs that don’t require the education they earned, because those jobs do not exist. 

In addition, if there are shortages of skilled workers in some fields, how can that be blamed on the public schools, teachers and teachers’ unions? After all, Americans pride themselves on the freedom of choice regarding their lifestyles, and our children and adults make academic choices as they age. For whatever reason, these choices lead to dropping out of high school or staying in school to graduate and/or go on to earn an associate, BA, professional or doctorate degree. If an individual majors in the wrong field, do we blame K–12 teachers for that, too? (emphasis mine)

Another ed blogger, Leonard Isenberg, who writes at perdaily.com summed it up this way:

50% of recent college graduates with degrees are working at jobs that do not require one, e.g. waiter. Add to this the fact that the total capacity of all colleges and universities in the U.S. is just 30% of high school graduates and one wonders what the rest of students are supposed to do in a privatizing education culture that has closed public school industrial arts and other alternative career and trade programs.

So, students are graduating college with Cadillac degrees only to find work in the Edsel factory. The CCSS and PARCC will not solve that problem, but they will make a boatload of money for the testing industry. And while college debt is at record highs, that debt, unlike corporate debt, isn't erased in bankruptcy.  

Essential questions

Parents, before you make sure your child is well-rested and well-fed for test days ('cause the other 171 days aren't really important), blogger Peter Greene, has put together this handy list of questions for you to bring to the next NJ State Board of Ed meeting January 7th:

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers... is a magical magical test. It can tell with absolute precision, how prepared your student is for college or career because, magic. And who wouldn't want to know more about the powerful juju contained in the PARCC test. 

So if Mr. Hespe and any of his friends come to explain how crucial PARCC testing is for your child's future, you might try asking some questions.

• Exactly what is the correspondence between PARCC results and college readiness. Given the precise data, can you tell me what score my eight year old needs to get on the test to be guaranteed at least a 3.75 GPA at college?
• Does it matter which college he attends, or will test results guarantee he is ready for all colleges?
• Can you show me the research and data that led you to conclude that Test Result A = College Result X? How exactly do you know that meeting the state's politically chosen cut score means that my child is prepared to be a college success?
• Since the PARCC tests math and language, will it still tell me if my child is ready to be a history or music major? How about geology or women's studies?
• My daughter plans to be a stay-at-home mom. Can she skip the test? Since that's her chosen career, is there a portion of the PARCC that tests her lady parts and their ability to make babies?
• Which section of the PARCC tests a student's readiness to start a career as a welder? Is it the same part that tests readiness to become a ski instructor, pro football player, or dental assistant?
• I see that the PARCC will be used to "customize instruction." Does that mean you're giving the test tomorrow (because it'a almost November already)? How soon will the teacher get the detailed customizing information-- one week? Ten days? How will the PARCC results help my child's choir director and phys ed teacher customize instruction?
• Is it possible that the PARCC will soon be able to tell me if my eight year old is on track for a happy marriage and nice hair?
• Why do you suppose you keep using the word "utilize" when "using" is a perfectly good plain English substitute?
• To quote the immortal Will Smith in Independence Day, "You really think you can do all that bullshit you just said?"

The PARCC may look like just one more poorly-constructed standardized math and language test, but it is apparently super-duper magical, with the ability to measure every aspect of a child's education and tell whether the child is ready for college and career, regardless of which college, which major, which career, and which child we are talking about. By looking at your eight year old's standardized math and language test, we can tell whether she's on track to be a philosophy major at Harvard or an airline pilot! It's absolutely magical!

Never has a single standardized test claimed so much magical power with so little actual data to back up its assertions. Mr. Hespe would be further ahead to skip his fancy final paragraph and just tell his people to look parents in the eye and say, "Because the state says so." It's not any more educationally convincing than the magical CACR bullshit, but at least it would be honest. (emphasis mine)

But for all its promises of miraculously making every single child in the United States 'college and career ready', the PARCC test is quickly wilting under the bright lights of scrutiny. As of this writing, only 12 of the original 26 states that signed on, plus the District of Columbia, are participating. When K-12 educators do not take an active role in designing the curriculum and the accompanying assessments, the result is a deeply flawed, poorly executed grand experiment that will ultimately crash and burn.

Final thoughts

As the US moves more and more toward an education system like China's, China has seen the error of its truly rigorous ways and is moving more toward a system like what ours used to be—one that embraced minds like Einstein's as something to be celebrated and nurtured, not standardized. 

When students game the 'reformy' system

A teacher friend who lives and works in a western state informed me of an interesting trend within her district. Even though she is tenured, she asked me not to identify her or the state in which she lives for fear of retribution. (Are you listening, Campbell Brown?) I'll call her Mrs. Smith. Her story is the perfect example of how the one-size-fits-all approach of education 'reform' in the most culturally and economically diverse country in the world is damaging many of the students for which it was devised, and how the students are fighting back. 

Mrs. Smith teaches high school language arts to students who have not passed the state standardized tests. She is their last, best hope for graduating. They love her because she's caring and compassionate, and her lessons are fun and engaging, but she also knows when to pull out the tough love. 

As with millions of students across the country, Mrs. Smith's students will head down a variety of college and/or career paths once they graduate. For many however, getting that diploma will signal the end of their formal education because unlike a school such as Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, NJ, with only 2% of its student population economically disadvantaged and most students going on to 4-year colleges and a much wider range of future career options, Mrs. Smith works in a district where 100% of students live at or below the poverty level, and there's a big difference in educational outcomes and career paths between the two. 

According to a recent study of US children by Dr. Glenn Flores and Bruce Lesley published in JAMA Pediatrics: 

• Childhood poverty has reached its highest level in 20 years
• 1 in 4 children lives in a food-insecure household
• 7 million children lack health insurance
• A child is abused or neglected every 47 seconds
• 1 in 3 children is overweight or obese
• 5 children are killed daily by firearms
• 1 in 5 experiences a mental disorder
• Racial/ethnic disparities continue to be extensive and pervasive
• Children account for 73.5 million Americans (24%), but 8% of federal expenditures
• Child well-being in the United States has been in decline since the most recent recession

So, 100% of Mrs. Smith's students fit some or all of this criteria. Assuming that they all received supplemental governmental support, according to a ground-breaking 1980's study they all had a 32 million word gap compared to 98% of Ridge High School students by age four. This is not to say that none of the students in Mrs. Smith's district will break the cycle of poverty in which they were raised. Research has also shown that those hurdles can be overcome with early intervention and concerted effort by the student and the adults in their life, but the odds are greatly stacked against them from the start.

Many of Mrs. Smith's students work to help support their family, and many times work takes precedence over school. For most, college isn't in their future because any extra money that comes in goes to helping the family make ends meet. 'College and career readiness' is as foreign to them as a real bagel. (Trust me, there are no real bagels west of the Delaware River.) They see no value in trying to pass standardized tests that are too hard for many adults, that won't help their parents put food on the table today, and that simply will not guarantee any future success. 


But thanks to the Common Core and its standardized testing spawn, with it's false promise of a better, newer, shinier life if you only pass these tests and put yourself into debt for the next 20 years paying off college loans, Mrs. Smith's students' needs are not being met in school. As in many schools across the country, programs that will greatly enrich her students' lives and learning like art, music, physical education, foreign languages and vocational classes have been cut back or eliminated. Like many other states, Arne Duncan is holding their's hostage. If the kids don't pass the tests, the state doesn't get their money.  

But, many of the students in Mrs. Smith's district are a lot smarter than Arne Duncan & Co. think. To dodge the testing mania, many will simply drop out, scrape together a couple of hundred bucks and enroll in the local community college where they'll earn their GED with nary a standardized test in sight. 

And that, dear readers, is pure genius.

NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia has no time to be diplomatic – Part I

"This is a test. This is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency..." Yea, you know the drill. More on this later...

This is Ethan Rediske and his parents. Ethan is an 11-year old Florida boy who was born with cerebral palsy. He is also blind and brain damaged. He is perhaps the poster child for all that is toxic and outright dangerous in education 'reform'—especially standardized testing. More on him later...

"I don't have time to be diplomatic."

This is Lily Eskelsen-Garcia, newly elected President of the National Education Association.

What do all three have in common? Keep reading...

A woman on a mission

Lily is on a mission to energize fellow education professionals and parents to fight high stakes testing and she's taking it to the streets. As part of her 50-state Back-to-School tour, she declined a meeting with the Star Ledger's editorial board, citing the fact that mainstream media is woefully out of touch and misinformed about education 'reform'. Instead she chose to meet with New Jersey education bloggers and activists Mark Weber (Jersey Jazzman), Ani McHugh (TeacherBiz), Darcie Cimarusti (Mother Crusader), Melissa Katz (The Education Activist), Melissa Smearer-Tomlinson, Susan Carlsson of Save Our Schools NJ, and me, along with Rosi Efthim, editor of the progressive blog, Blue Jersey, parent activist Rose Jorgensen, and educator and media consultant, Ronen Kaufman.

As the president of the nation's largest labor union, Lily is a woman of the people, with legions of adoring fans both inside and outside the association. Why? 

1. She has empathy. As a former educator in a low income school in Utah and now as a national figure, she can relate to people all across the socioeconomic spectrum, especially those who live on the margins. 
2. She connects to individuals. She is more about listening than speaking, and she has that rare gift of remembering people even if she's only met them once or twice.
3. She gets it. After several years of wondering which side of the 'reform' debate our association was on, she is a breath of fresh air. She understands that the corporate takeover of public education is not a conspiracy theory. It's real, it's happening at an alarming pace, and it's flat out wrong.

With Lily at the helm, I am optimistic about the direction the NEA is heading. After several years of effort, we finally drew our line in the sand this summer by passing a resolution calling for the resignation of Arne Duncan—not an improvement plan, as AFT did. No, this was a flat-out call for his resignation. 

She listened to our call and she's taking action.

The meeting

The focus of our 90 minute round-table conversation was the devastating effects of high stakes testing on students, educators and public education as a whole and how to stop it. 

With so much meaningful input from all who were present, it took a while to translate it into a user-friendly format. What follows is a quote or paraphrase from our discussion followed by some informational text for clarification. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are Lily's.

Who really should be held 'accountable'?

"I am on a crusade against this toxic testing. It's not whether the test is good or bad. It's not whether the standards are good or bad. It doesn't matter. If there's some kind of standardized test that's about 'hit your cut score' otherwise you're going to get punished, they can turn something perfectly good and wonderful into something toxic in a school. I haven't talked to anyone who supports it, and by the way that includes secretary Duncan. But I don't see him saying, 'lets stop that'."

Let's cut to the chase here: the overemphasis on standardized testing serves three purposes:

1. Funding: If districts meet their quota of students hitting their cut score, they get money.
2. Getting rid of educators: Test scores are a quick and easy way to get rid of 'bad teachers' reduce payroll. It's like an assassin's bullet from a roof top: clean and impersonal, and nobody takes the blame.
3. Money: This is what happens when testing giant, Pearson, gets exposed for its influence and profiteering at the expense of our children.

"This madness has corrupted teaching and learning."

What kind of crazy punishments and/or carrots and sticks is your school district dangling in front of educators and students? We spoke about administrators denying students recess or promising to abolish the dress code if students hit their cut scores. This is not best practice! This is bribery! And the bribery starts at the Department of Education. School districts across the country are being bribed: increase your test scores or you don't get your funding.

But perhaps the cruelest story of all is the deplorable and downright inhumane treatment of special needs children, especially Ethan Rediske. His mother describes what he went through because of standardized testing and how she fought back (emphasis mine):

Not only was the Florida Adapted Assessment inappropriate for the level of my son’s abilities, it endangered his health – the long, stressful testing sessions requiring him to sit in his wheelchair caused pressure sores, fluid to pool in his lungs, and increased seizures and spasticity that contributed to his deteriorating health. 

Only after climbing a mountain of paperwork and garnering media attention was Ethan granted a medical waiver for the FAA. Despite assurances at his IEP meeting that the waiver would be granted again for this school year, the school district demanded paperwork proving his continued medical fragility. The insult to this injury was that he was on his deathbed – the school district and the state of Florida required a letter from hospice care stating he was unable to take the FAA.

This incident caused anguish to my family and his teacher, and shows a stunning lack of compassion and even common sense on the part of the Department of Education. His exceptionally talented teacher faced threats and sanctions because she continued to work with him even though he wasn’t preparing for the FAA. I wonder if these administrators are more concerned with policy, paperwork, and their bottom line than the children they have been elected to serve.

There is nothing in any state or federal law that says kids should be denied recess or a child on their deathbed should have to take a standardized test. So when parents and students are put in that position, they need to "just say No". Lily called for educators and parents to organize push back and keep pushing back until someone takes responsibility because no one is taking responsibility for insane practices such as these.

"The one who is ultimately accountable is Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and he's not taking responsibility for what has become toxic in our schools, so who do we hold responsible when no one will?"

On edu-preneurs and big money

"That Value Added voodoo number has tied us in knots. Districts that don't have enough money for librarians and ESL teachers now have full time Test Compliance Officers who only monitor test scores and whether or not a district is hitting its cut score of students passing standardized tests." 

"The billion dollar edu-business has benefited from this insanity. Just like Wall St. sold toxic bundled mortgages, they're now bundling test prep and scripted reading because [states] are invested in fear."

Some time earlier this year, my school email started filling up with spam from vendors selling all sorts of miracle cure-all CC$$ products: test prep, lesson plans, Core-aligned 'assessments', you name it. Since the start of this school year, which is only a couple of weeks old, that number has increased significantly. 

Test prep companies are making out like bandits because the Common Core and its related tests are fear-based. Their products have nothing to do with making students 'college and career ready'. A well-rounded curriculum that includes the arts, health and physical education, foreign languages and a variety of electives and clubs will. But in our dysfunctional ed 'reform' culture, there's no time or money for that. If a school district's students don't hit their cut scores, they risk losing millions in federal funding. It really is that simple. And the irony is that the vendors are invested in their failure because they want to be there to create the next thing.

"Oh Marie," you say, "you really can't be serious. We're talking about children! These companies would never do that." Take your heads out of the sand, folks. The primary goal of education companies—like any other for-profit company is to make money, and once the Obama administration green-lighted Race to the Top, it opened the floodgates for them to design and sell all sorts of "new and improved" test and curriculum products.

It's Advertising101. Nike expects sneakers to wear out so they design new ones. Apple designs a new iPhone every few years. Supermarket shelves are overflowing with "new and improved" junk food. Edu-preneurs are no different. These companies have always made a profit, but the difference now is that parents and school districts are scared. And fear is a powerful purchasing motivator.

"Who would have thought the Reagan years were the glory years of education?"

Now, about that Emergency Broadcasting System test: 

"If this had been an actual emergency, the signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions..." 

There is no public education emergency, folks. But those in charge don't want you to know that because the real life or death emergency is poverty. And a new pair of Nikes new standardized test can't fix that, but it sure looks good to the naive. 

In Part II, we talk about the dearth of mainstream media reporting, the false invitation to educators to be part of the discussion, and what Lily learned when she visited a Camden school.

NJ BOE Testimony Part III: Horror Stories from Paterson

Be sure to check out NJEA member testimony at the NJ State Board of Education Parts I and II.

So, you think you have it bad. You think your administrators didn’t fully implement the new evaluation system. You think you could have gotten a higher score in this domain or that. How would you like to be an educator in a state controlled district? Paterson Education Association member, Gennaro Tortoriello, paints a shocking picture of administrators gone wild in his state controlled district. And to think, the state took over Paterson because they deemed it 'failing'. If this is their idea of improvement, everyone at the department of education should resign.

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊

Thank you for your time. I would like to speak about the evaluation system that was very hastily implemented by the state without proper training for both administrators and teachers. As a grievance delegate in the Paterson Education Association, I have witnessed the effects of this unjust system throughout my school district on a daily basis. Here are some examples:

• Some administrators have been told by their superiors that they are not allowed to give teachers high scores.
• Some administrators have told teachers that they work in a failing school and failing district therefore there are no effective teachers. In School 13 70% of teachers have been placed on a CAP (Corrective Action Plan).
• The principal of one school told the staff that 80% of them are incompetent and should not be educators.
• In many of our schools special education teachers have been directed to not follow the legal mandates of student’s IEPs if they want to earn a proficient observation.
• One administrator in School 18 has written fraudulent observations and has egregiously violated the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, state law, and district policy because tenure is “dead”, and “we can do whatever we want to them.”
• Educators have been told that instruction must be data driven yet many administrators ignore data when conducting evaluations.
• Educators have been told that lessons must be differentiated yet when instruction is modified teachers are told that their lessons are not rigorous enough.
• When educators use the whole group instructional method they are sometimes told that they did not differentiate the lesson and did not make accommodations for exceptional students.
• One administrator in a high school marked staff down for not creating ‘data walls’ where student test scores were to be posted as a way to make them improve. When association officials pointed out that that is a violation of student privacy rights protected by FERPA, the administrator told them to use student ID numbers instead. When the association pointed out that students are not supposed to publish or share their ID numbers, the administrator relented, but refused to reassess staff ratings.
• The majority of staff rated partially effective or ineffective met their SGO’s. Can somebody explain how this is possible?

These are only some examples. There are many more. This system has created an environment of distrust in which the evaluation system is viewed as discipline and punishment rather than an opportunity for professional growth. As you can see, this system has led to an abuse of power by many administrators. Please repeal this system. (emphasis mine)

Thank you.

NJ BOE Testimony Part II: Was human error or intentional omission to blame for PARCC pilot report?

Be sure to check out Parts I and III in this series.

In part 2 of this series of posts on NJEA's July 9th lobby day at the state Board of Ed, Spanish teacher and education activist, Heidi Maria Brown, questions Data Commissioner Bari Erlichson's obvious omission of any negative feedback on the state's PARCC trials, and why some board members have not done more to get to the truth.

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Good afternoon. My name is Heidi Maria Brown. I’m here today with my family. My husband is helping me with our two boys, Johnny and Nicholas, both of whom attend the amazing public schools in Pitman, New Jersey. We came here today despite the fact that following testimony, we have a wake to attend and a funeral tomorrow. That is how important I feel this opportunity is.

Throughout the past school year, I attended three board of education meetings. Initially, the experience was very positive. However, over time, it became quite discouraging because it appears that my testimony has fallen on deaf ears.

I recently met with my legislative representative, Assemblyman Paul Moriarity (D4 – Camden, Gloucester). When I first spoke with Mr. Moriarity, he mentioned that some of my concerns could be explained by human error. I concurred that perhaps one or even two misstatements could be explained by human foil. However, the number and type of misstatements are worrisome considering that the Department of Education is also responsible for determining test scores and teacher evaluations.

At the May 7th BOE meeting, Data Commissioner Bari Erlichson evidently misspoke with regards to the number of hours students spend testing. Students test for four days, not one. And many of our students with IEPs and 504s test for about six hours a day, not two. That means that contrary to her statement, students were in testing anywhere from eight hours to as many as 24 hours. What will this mean for our students when they take the PARCC, which is a much longer test? Has anyone considered this? If the BOE doesn’t have an accurate understanding of testing conditions, due to misinformation, how can they properly serve our students? Again, this may have simply been a misstatement. So let’s look at another example.

Erlichson made statements and provided evidence regarding the success of the first PARCC pilot. When presenting social media clips regarding the public feedback, she presented 100% positive feedback. I found this surprising because I had spoken with several teachers in various districts who confirmed that the computers froze and the testing was problematic from a technology perspective. Several parents also posted negative feedback on Facebook regarding testing and the PARCC, but I saw no evidence of this in her report. Board member Edithe Fulton immediately questioned the lack of negative comments. The response to Ms. Fulton was that this was due to the “abbreviated” board session. Does that justify incomplete and allegedly misleading and one-side data presentation? Perhaps this omission was simply “human error”.

Furthermore, while the statement was made that 70 percent of districts piloted, it should be noted that only 10 percent of students within those districts were actually tested. This means that we really don’t have an accurate picture of what full implementation will mean for this fall. This method of cherry picking data to provide evidence seems to be more than a misstatement.

During this same board meeting, Erlichson depicted a doom and gloom report of New Jersey’s NAEP scores. Apparently, our growth was, “flat”. Later, after reviewing the results independently, I was surprised to see that New Jersey’s 8th graders are first in reading and second in math. Why was so little made of this success? Was this omission just a mistake?

Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder how accurately informed the board of education is, not to mention your level of engagement in terms of asking critical questions when questionable data is provided as truth. At the June 4th and 11th public hearings to examine the CCSS, only one board member, Joseph Fisicaro, attended. Why? I work two, sometimes three jobs, I have two little boys and I volunteer in my local township. I still found time to review the standards, draft feedback and give professional analysis of the World Language standards. Nobody had to pay me to show up. I did it, because I care.

During the past five months, I have witnessed enough testimony here at the BOE, at several legislative meetings, and throughout New Jersey, to know that there are serious problems with the implementation of the teacher evaluation, the PARCC testing and the leadership of our struggling, economically challenged districts like Newark, where under Cami Anderson’s deplorable leadership, the district spent $330,000 on take-out instead of school supplies, maintenance needs, technology upgrades, classroom teachers and aides. It was reported by NBC news that students will not have enough desks this year and teachers will have to take a pay freeze because Ms. Anderson felt it was appropriate to spent $22,000 a month for catering. I guess the chicken and sides must be good. But I digress.

In March, I witnessed the delivery of nearly 2,000 letters to the Board of Education from teachers, parents, and community members, imploring you to address these concerns. In May, despite the conflict of NJASK testing, several teachers reported similar concerns to the board. In June nearly 30,000 NJEA members participated in a town hall conference call with Senate President Steve Sweeney to discuss these concerns. But you don’t have to listen to me or my colleagues. All you have to do is read the paper, go online or watch the television to know that there is a real crisis - not with our schools - but with these un-vetted reforms being rushed to implementation.

And since it’s evident that many misstatements have allegedly been made due to human error, we need you to listen to us. The truth is we don’t really know if we’re ready for the technology demands of the PARCC. We don’t know how much this has cost or how much it will cost in the future. We don’t know that the data management system is secure or who will have access to our children’s personal, and legally protected data. The fact that Assembly Bill 3081 passed 72-4, and that the sister bill is to be posted for a senate vote tomorrow*, makes it clear that this process is not going well and we are not ready. (emphasis mine)

So, do what you need to do. I will follow my conscience and follow up with Assemblyman Moriarty. Because based on the information I provided, he agreed that there seems to be more than just, “human error” at play. I will continue to write letters to the editor and educate my community about opting out of the PARCC, a new NEA initiative, and we’ll just wait to see how this turns out. Ultimately, I will be able to sleep at night with a clear conscience.

Heidi Maria Brown has an MFA in theatre from Temple University and a BA in Spanish from Western Washington University. She has 10 years experience teaching in public schools and 9 years as an adjunct professor. She currently teaches Spanish in the Pittsgrove Township School District in Salem County, NJ.

* Note: As of this writing, it is not clear if S2154 will be posted for a full Senate vote. For all the breaking developments, be sure to follow Save Our Schools NJ on Facebook and Twitter.