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.

My Response to Tom Moran

In case you missed it, earlier this week fellow educators and bloggers, Ani McHugh (Teacherbiz), Mark Weber (Jersey Jazzman) and I wrote a joint open letter to Star Ledger editorial director, Tom Moran, regarding his continuous support of the racist policies of Newark Superintendent Cami Anderson's One Newark plan. In addition to posting on all three of our blogs, it also ran at Blue Jersey and on Diane Ravitch's site.

Tom was not happy, and posted a response on Blue Jersey. To which Jazzman responded here and here.

Here's my response:

Dear Tom,

You missed our point so I'll say it again in my best teacher voice: One Newark has been proven to be a racist policy toward students and education professionals. You refuse to research and report the facts surrounding it (Journalism 101), reporting instead on your opinions and pre-conceived notions, therefore you support a racist policy. 

It's one thing to say you've talked to Diane Ravitch and Dr. Bruce Baker; it's quite another to listen to them. You cannot find two better experts on education policy: their credentials and reputations are sterling. Unlike the architects of One Newark, they are not afraid to submit their research to peer review. It obviously passes with flying colors because for many issues, their work is the gold standard. But you refuse to listen.

They are not alone. There are hundreds—if not thousands—of equally skilled education professionals around the country who have dedicated their careers to researching and reporting on what works and what doesn't in public education. They have written books, given lectures, and continue to research and report on the train wreck that is education 'reform' in the United States, and while you may talk to them or read their books, you refuse to listen.

In no other profession do we see such a complete disregard for expertise. In no other profession do we see veteran professionals with decades of experience tossed aside or called, in your words, "shrieking" or "shrill", or in it for "old school greed".

You also refuse to listen to the parents of Newark who know first hand the effects of this prejudicial policy. Their choices have been taken away, their demands ignored, their voices silenced, their children suffer. 

I'm sorry if what we wrote ticked you off, but for years parents and educators (we three are both) have been more than a little ticked off at journalists like you, who refuse to investigate and report the facts about policies that are rapidly destroying public education in this country and promulgating racism. As I write this, many citizens of Newark are performing an act of civil disobedience: boycotting the first day of school because they are simply fed up. 

So, we decided to present the facts—not that we haven't done that before. And your response was to curse and scream (offline), and rant (online). Did we hit a nerve?

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts." Tom, you refuse to accept the facts. You refuse to accept the proof. What you write about Cami and One Newark and Ras Baraka and the parents and concerned citizens of Newark and education professionals is factually incorrect. Continuing to believe and spread this false information, puts you in the same category as birthers, creationists, climate deniers and vaccine refusers. Sorry if that's harsh, but it's the truth. You are better than that. I read your column every day and I agree with what you write the majority of the time.

You can tell me I'm wrong—that's your opinion—but you can't prove it. The facts simply are not on your side.

If this were to be tried in a court of law (and I do hope that will happen one day soon), Cami & Co. will lose. Are you willing to stake your professional reputation on that? I am because the facts are on my side. How about you?

An Open Letter to Star-Ledger Editorial Board Director Tom Moran

(Note: This piece was co-authored with Ani McHugh, aka. TeacherBiz, and Mark Weber, aka. Jersey Jazzman, and is cross-posted on both their blogs.)

Dear Tom,

This week, you crossed a line.

Until now, your pieces in the Star-Ledger about Newark’s school system and the reorganization of the district have been ill-informed and reckless. You’ve ignored the warnings of teachers, parents, community leaders, researchers, and students, preferring instead to cling to recycled talking points crafted by those with scant little experience in education policy, but much to gain in profits.

You’ve paid a price: like your ridiculous attempt to walk back from your disastrous endorsement of Chris Christie, your continuing effort to support State Superintendent Cami Anderson while distancing yourself from the consequences of her catastrophic leadership has shredded any integrity you had left as a journalist. Any standing your newspaper had left as a champion of the people of Newark has also eroded: as with Anderson, no one in the city trusts you or the Star-Ledger’s editorial page anymore.

But as awful as your previous meanderings about Newark’s schools have been, at least you never had the bad taste to try to pawn off Anderson’s failures and your own poor judgement on to others. At least you never tried to make the case that the impending disaster of One Newark was the fault of anyone but the Christie administration, its appointed superintendent, and her enablers in government and the press.

This week, however, you crossed that line. We have tried individually in the past to get your attention to set the record straight to no avail (see all the links later in this piece). Therefore, we—professional educators with a combined total of seven degrees, a PhD in the works, and 38 years of teaching experience—who, along with countless others across this state, have stood against the illogical, faith-based, and racist education policies you regularly espouse for Newark from your position of influence, have come together to deliver you a message:

Shame on you, Tom Moran

Shame on you for sanctioning One Newark, a plan so controversial and discriminatory that it’s the subject of both state and federal civil rights complaints. Shame on you for ignoring and then blaming the people your newspaper is supposed to serve. Shame on you for refusing to educate yourself about the policies you endorse.

Why do you insist that educators must be held accountable for the sins of greed and the failure of government to address generational poverty, while no one holds you, the editorial director of the state’s largest newspaper, accountable for the half-truths and misinformation you spread?

“Shame on you for refusing to educate yourself about the policies you endorse.”

Fact vs. Fiction

Fiction:

You claim: “At the same time, the city’s most successful charter school chains will take over management of three district schools, fueling their explosive growth.” As we have explained to you over and over again, the ‘success’ of these charters hinges on the fact that they do not serve the same population of students as their neighboring public schools.

Fact:

Percentage qualifying for Free Lunch

NPS: 80%

North Star (Uncommon): 68%

TEAM (KIPP): 73%

Robert Treat Academy: 60%

Fact:

Percentage Limited English Proficient

NPS: 9%

North Star (Uncommon): 0%

TEAM (KIPP): 0%

Robert Treat Academy: 1%

Fact:

Percentage Special Education

NPS: 17.7%

North Star (Uncommon): 7.8%

TEAM (KIPP): 12.3%

Robert Treat Academy: 5.8%

(All enrollment data 2014 from the NJDOE; special education classification data 2013 from NJDOE.)

Fact:

The small number of special education students within Newark’s charters overwhelmingly have low-cost special educational needs: milder learning and speech disabilities. And both TEAM and North Star have engaged in well-documented patterns of student cohort attrition: according to Julia Sass Rubin of SOSNJ, nearly 60 percent of the black males from North Star’s Class of 2014 dropped out between 5th and 12th Grade.

Fact:

Mark Weber and Dr. Bruce Baker have published several policy briefs explaining, in painstaking detail, why One Newark has little chance of succeeding:

• There is no evidence Newark’s charters can succeed with equivalent populations of students to those of NPS.
• The plan is racially biased, both against students and against their teachers.
• The district has apparently committed several serious methodological errors in creating the plan; we say apparently because NPS has never released its methods, and the Star-Ledger has never demanded that they do.
• The information the district released in the One Newark application about the quality of Newark’s schools is invalid.

We would think this last issue would concern you, a journalist, the most. You claim that Newark’s parents are clamoring to get into charter schools. What if, however, those parents are making their choices based on false information from Anderson’s administration? What if the waiting lists you point to—lists, by the way, whose lengths are wildly exaggerated—are the product of both the state’s neglect of Newark’s public schools and oversold claims from NPS—and your editorial page—of charter schools’ successes?

Separate and Unequal Education

The sad truth is that parents in your town of Montclair (or any other mostly white, mostly wealthy suburban community) would never willingly subject their own children to what’s happening in Newark right now:

• Public schools being closed without community input
• Children in the same family being sent to different schools in different parts of town on a transportation system that’s never been tested
• Tax dollars going to a school system that is separate and unequal: that segregates the neediest students from those who are the easiest and least expensive to educate
• The harsh, unforgiving “no excuses” disciplinary policies that are characteristic of so many charter schools
• Massive layoffs of education professionals
• A superintendent who has been a colossal failure at fiscal management  
• Schools in such disrepair that they are unsafe to occupy
• A superintendent who refuses to listen, who refuses to attend board of ed meetings, and who is not supported by the community

In fact, the parents of Montclair are fighting back right now, but you have not written one word about it. Why is it okay for them to fight back, but when the parents of Newark do so, you accuse them of “shrieking" and being "shrill and unreasonable"? Aren't the parents of Newark smart enough to know what’s good for their own children? Don’t you think they can smell a rat as well as someone from the ‘burbs?

Public education belongs to the public. The board of ed is answerable to all the people. But in Newark? Meh, what do those people know? They have no money, so they have no voice. They aren’t the right skin color, so they have no voice. They can’t write big campaign checks, so they have no voice. They aren’t concerned parents. They are, in your words:

“CONSPIRACY THEORISTS”

Yea, these parents look really crazy

... so do these students

Were these people “conspiracy theorists” too…?

Tin Foil Hats and Fox Mulder: The Truth is Out There

The message Newark parents hear from you is that if they would just shut up, take off their tin foil hats and let all these rich, smart (that term is used very loosely) white folk completely up-end their lives, they’ll crawl back on their hands and knees someday in thanks and praise.

But you’re wrong. Just because many are working class or poor, don’t speak the King’s English as well as you, refuse to stand on protocol at board of ed meetings because they’re sick and tired of the people in charge not listening when they use their ‘indoor voices’, are “voting with their feet” (as you so love to say of all those charter parents) by boycotting the first day of school, you accuse them of being crazy and—perhaps the cruelest cut of all—not giving a damn about their own children:

“[Anderson] is facing determined opposition from local activists and politicians who don’t seem to give a damn about the children.

…

“why not organize a protest march, or a sit-in, or even acts of civil disobedience? Why would your first big move be to keep kids out of classrooms when so many of them can’t read at grade level?”

Tom, the activists are parents. Keeping children home from school is an act of civil disobedience. The parents of Newark are not “conspiracy theorists”; they are concerned citizens who want what’s best for their children—just like parents in your town—but they’ve been shut out of the conversation. And you owe them an apology.

The fact is, Tom, the majority of opposition comes from parents and students who are supported by the clergy, unionized education professionals (whom you seem to hate for some reason even though NJ consistently ranks at the top in public education) and elected officials, some of whom also happen to live in the community. In case you hadn’t noticed, Mayor Ras Baraka ran and won on a platform to stop this madness. He was elected by a majority of the citizens of Newark, and he has dedicated his professional career—most recently as principal of Central High School—to the children and families of Newark.  But you, Tom, wonder “if the kids fit into the mayor’s political calculus at all?” Do you really believe that Ras Baraka is less committed to the children of his city than Cami Anderson, an outsider from California who lives in the suburbs?

In your X-Files world, conspiracy theorists are people “who see charter schools as a dark plot by Wall Street to somehow suck money out of the public system.” Should we assume you aren’t aware of the ways Qualified School Construction Bonds enrich charters while neighborhood schools starve—and at the same time translate to big profits for banks? (Are you also unaware that David Samson, who just resigned from his Port Authority position because of that pesky Bridgegate mess, is a partner of the law firm that oversees bond transactions between charters and banks?) The fact that you flat-out refuse to accept the mountains of evidence (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) linking Wall Street profits with the explosion of charter schools completely discredits you as a legitimate journalist.

“The fact that you flat-out refuse to accept the mountains of evidence linking Wall Street profits with the explosion of charter schools completely discredits you as a legitimate journalist.”

And as for children not being able to “read at grade level,” it’s important first to note that the link you reference details students’ scores on standardized tests, which are inherently flawed and economically-and racially-biased—and which are not indicators of students’ “grade level.” But if we are to keep with your language, there are a myriad of reasons children can’t read at grade level; many have little to do with what goes on inside a classroom. And setting up a system that closes schools, replaces veteran educators with inexperienced ones, and prevents hundreds of parents from enrolling their children does nothing to help those children.

How many times do we have to say this?

We’ve tried to reason with you and the rest of the Star-Ledger editorial board many times (here, here, here, here, here, and here), but your failure to acknowledge the evidence with which you’ve been presented makes your defense of Cami Anderson and her One Newark plan all the more troubling.  

Unlike you, Tom, we believe that responsibility for the gross failures of One Newark rests solely on the shoulders of Cami Anderson and her supporters— not on the shoulders of the parents, educators, researchers, community members, and elected officials who recognize and denounce One Newark’s glaring flaws and Cami Anderson’s failed leadership.  

This image is from apartheid-era South Africa

Who will be sitting at this bus stop on the first day of school in Newark? It’s not hard to figure out, Tom. It won’t be kids from your town.

Sincerely,

Marie Corfield

Ani McHugh

Mark Weber