Teacher EFFECTIVENESS or CONFORMITY?

This was sent to me by Christy Hooley, a teacher in Wyoming who is part of our Truth in American Education Network.  She gave me permission to post the information she sent me in a blog format.

ROPE has long been concerned about the Teacher Leader Effectiveness program in Oklahoma.  Of course, this legislation was part of the larger - nationwide push through Race to the Top - to hold teachers 'accountable' for the grades of their students.  

We've never been on board with this particular aspect primarily because, as a former teacher, I know for a fact that a whole lot of the grades kids get have nothing to do with me.  They could've been out late the night before, their parents could have had an argument and it was causing the child to be preoccupied, they're thinking about the girl in the next row over and not their test...

What Christy explains here should make teachers cringe.  I truly believe that the idea is to get teachers unwilling to follow the 'program' to leave, allowing younger, more inexperienced, more worldly teachers - primarily through Teach For America - to come into the classroom and push the current Presidential administration's philosophical agenda.

Christy did an interview with Joy Pullman of the Heartland Institute.  It is not long.  I wish you would take the time to listen, it is very enlightening.

In the meantime, Oklahoma has apparently gone with Battelle for Kids version of a teacher evaluation system.  This is interesting for three reasons:

1.  Our new  "Secretary of Education and Workforce Development" - Robert Sommers is from Ohio, the home of Battelle.  It makes me wonder how Battelle was picked.

2.  They have something on their website called the "Student Experience Survey".  When I asked Battelle if I could see the survey, they replied that I could for $230.00 - the cost of the survey.  I am VERY concerned what kind of student behavioral data will be plucked from this particular 'survey'.

3.  They say this on the "Human Capital" portion of their website, "Human capital in education must be comprehensive and aligned with education-improvement goals."  WHAT?  Please tell me people remember that Human Capital was the catch-phrase used to describe the workers in the Communist system?

4.  They also push the Common Core.


At any rate, you get the idea...Here is Christy's story:

The state of Wyoming uses McREL's Teacher Evaluation System.

It assesses a teacher's performance as it relates to the Professional Teaching Standards.  These Professional Teaching Standards are the basis for teacher preparation, teacher evaluation, and professional development.  Each standard includes the skills and knowledge needed for 21st century teaching and learning.

Here is what is stated on their page:

A NEW VISION OF TEACHING

The different demands on 21st century education dictates new roles for teachers in their classrooms an schools.  These new roles reflect a deeper understanding about the content knowledge, skills, competencies, and outcomes that define a successful student in the 21st century.  Teachers must understand what comprises a 21st century education and how their practice must reflect the demands of the education in order to realize a new vision of teaching. 

These are the standards:

1. Teachers Demonstrate Leadership
2. Teachers Establish a Respectful Environment for a diverse population of students
3. Teachers Know the Content They Teach
4. Teachers Facilitate Learning for Their Students
5. Teachers Reflect on their practice

These are broken down with very detailed information for each. 

Teachers are rated as either: Developing, Proficient, Accomplished,or Distinguished

I found it extremely concerning at my end of the year evaluation, that my administrator chose not to give me a distinguished verses accomplished rating on the sub section of standard 4: 

Here is section f:

Standard 4 Section f states "Teachers help students work in teams and develop leadership qualities.  Teachers teach the importance of cooperation and collaboration. They organize learning teams in order to help students define roles, strengthen social ties, improve communication and collaborative skills, interact with people from different cultures and backgrounds, and develop leadership qualities."

My administrator mentioned she felt I needed to attend a particular training about collaborative teams she felt strongly about, before I could be marked higher.  We debated It back and forth a bit but of course it was her ultimate choice where to rate me. 

My concern after reflecting on this process,  is that this is truly about control, control of how and even what a teacher teaches.  Eventually, had I decided I would need to have a higher rating to keep my job I would need to take the training my administrator suggested, even if it was against my personal philosophy as a teacher. 

The fact that my administrator can come into my classroom a handful of times, if I'm lucky, even in a very small district and be able to give a TRUE evaluation of my teaching is ludicrous  .The majority of the teachers I speak with roll their eyes and just "jump through the hoops".  Test scores being tied into this is something that should wake more of us up!!  I am trying but teachers truly are either apathetic, or afraid of losing their job or see it as "just talk". 

Christy Hooley

The Dirty Little Secret of Common Core

What is appropriate reading material for children?  It is certainly an excellent question, begged by the absolute stipulation that it must have parental approval, so how does a parent find out?  Well, there are countless reading lists across the internet - it's super easy to just Google, "middle school reading list" for example and you'll retrieve a number to choose from. 

I remember several years ago having the occasion to be in the library of Deer Creek Middle School.  As I was waiting for one of my daughters to participate in an activity, I began to look over the book summaries posted on the walls of the library.  I was actually shocked at what I found.  In fact, I was so shocked, that I started looking into middle school reading lists and did a whole series on reading lists.  Though these are several years old now, I would take the time to study these.  You may not know what your child is reading and moreover, you may not know what kind of books are available in the school library or what the school is assigning to be read.  Unfortunately, it's not hyperbole that the older kids get, the less likely they are to spontaneously inform unsuspecting parents of anything they might be afraid would provoke a reaction at home.

Just recently, at an Oklahoma state school board meeting, we heard a boy (recently graduated) explaining how much fun it had been to be in this super cool non-traditional classroom setting where they got to read the book Unwind.  This book is basically about 'aborting' children after the age of 14 if they are unwanted/needed/desired.  I feel certain this would set off very stimulating discussion in the college crowd, but is this really a shining example of what kids in 6-12 grades should be reading?  Shouldn't these kids be reading something like CS Lewis or TH White for example?

This thought occurred to me as I read a very pornographic depiction of the book "Bluest Eyes",  (Toni Morrison, author), by an Oregon mother who had realized the volume was included on the Common Core State Standards Appendix B - the document that provides literary examples for use in the classroom with ALL Common Core standards.

But wait, shortly afterward, I read an article about an Arizona mom who decided to check into these 'exemplars' herself and found another pornographic book called "Dreaming in Cuban".  Immediately, she contacted a local organization who involved the press, creating such a stir that Arizona pulled the book.

I then stumbled upon a story about a high school English teacher FORCED to have students,

"Write an essay that compares the cultural experience reflected in To Kill a Mockingbird and The Mother of Monsters and explain how this experience helped a character demonstrate individuality in the face of outside pressure." 

She finally describes the lesson this way,

"This is obviously a pro-abortion message. This story paired with this assignment is a repulsive perversion of the concept of “lesson”; it is a corruption of anything descent and good."

"There is something deeply repulsive in this lesson, especially as it is aimed at students as young as 13."

Chester Finn of the Fordham Institute calls these recent concerns about the Common Core, "arcane", attributing the flap to

"the blurry border between academic standards and classroom curricula."

Okay, everyone is entitled to their opinions, however, it's important to point out here that Mr. Finn is a Common Core proponent whose organization has been paid big bucks by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to essentially prop them up and serve as their apologist.  That kind of makes Mr. Finn's argument here...shallow.

I have to admit, however, he does have a point on the 'blurry border' business.

As soon as the standards were adopted by most states in 2010, the horn sounded and publishers were off to the races.  Within a matter of months there were publishers everywhere stamping "Common Core Aligned" on their textbooks to take advantage of the 'new' market.  Catherine Gewertz had a great article in July, where she quipped,

all you need to do is take one step to trip over materials that are allegedly aligned to the Common Core State Standards.

Certainly, this is great for the Free Market and all, but, truly, how are any of us - parents, taxpayers, administrators, teachers - supposed to know definitively what is and isn't Common Core related?  But then again, does it matter whether it's Common Core aligned or not?

Oklahoma has changed the name of our standards to the Oklahoma Academic Standards even though when you click on the link to the Standards they go directly to the Common Core pages!  In fact, when a ROPE Facebook follower saw the post we made on Bluest Eyes, she contacted our State Department of Education and was told

Is it truly appropriate to have the kind of reading material mentioned here in ANY high school in America?  I would argue no.

Parents, PLEASE...take the time to look over the information your child is bringing home from school.  Ask your child's teachers what is being taught!  Stay informed and help us FIGHT COMMON CORE!

Failing at Common Core - A First Hand Account By Oklahoma Parent Kristal Picolet

I am turning the blog today over to a parent.  Her name is Kristal Picolet.  

One day, out of the blue, she messaged me and began telling me about her experiences with her son in Colorado where all the standards had been moved to Common Core.  She and her husband made a job-related move here to Oklahoma and she speaks glowingly of how much better her son has done here in Oklahoma.  She felt compelled to speak out about her experiences now, since she has found her son's school is transitioning into the Common Core as all schools in Oklahoma are to be doing by 2014. 

 

Failing at Common Core

By: Kristal Picolet

Oklahoma Parent

I was a typical mom who was excited and eager to send her children off to their first day of Kindergarten. School would be so much fun, and I couldn’t wait to hear what they absorbed; to watch them learn and grow, and hear their stories. To enjoy and encourage them while they mastered the ability to learn how to read, write, and discover numbers. 

My baby boy was learning how to read! I treasured each moment at bedtime listening to him read me stories. He was very choppy, but he was five, and he was learning all of this complicated stuff for the very first time. Aren’t they supposed to be choppy? I recall thinking how amazing it was to watch him study and discover each word. It was so cute, because he wasn’t fluid, his sweet little voice trying to sound out each word or letter and I quietly enjoyed watching while his little brain ticked. 

After the first progress report, his teacher explained that he had a hard time in school. She said he struggled trying to memorize word patterns, dialogues, and memory blocking.

Obviously, we were concerned. Why can’t he memorize like the other students? Why can’t he write a personal narrative as well as Sam or Trina? Why does he continually receive the lowest assessment grade in reading, despite the fact that night after night we sit with him in his room and he reads to us perfectly fine? Again, very choppy, but we could always see definite progress. Why couldn’t he write those two sentences explaining all those math problems? 

As time passed our son began to have behavior problems, and we were constantly having meetings and conferences with his teacher. She would state, “He’s just not getting it. He’s falling behind.” We as parents couldn’t understand. Why would any five year old be considered a complete failure? Where was the encouragement? Why was he stressed out after only a few short months into school?

Immediately, I began to volunteer heavily in the classroom. I watched the teacher pass out worksheet after worksheet, and it was certainly rigorous, mainly due to the excessive amount of materials being covered. Most of the material was strictly introduced with little to no repetition. The children were expected to sit quietly in their seat the entire 8 hours, there were no centers, nothing hands-on, and quite frankly not much of it was engaging. Even I, myself as an adult struggled with boredom as she was presenting all this “stuff”. 

I noticed the majority of his class was fidgeting, laying their heads on their desk, twitching, giving blank stares, etc. She was presenting materials fast and furious, all of which mostly flew right over their heads. I realized at that very moment, it wasn’t just my son struggling. All those other students whom I thought were so far advanced were also having the same issues. How can 24 students be failing, in kindergarten? 

Quite often we would have anywhere from 4-8 pages of homework since the teacher didn’t have enough time to finish all of the heavy amounts of coursework in class. From kindergarten to 1^st grade, and now into 2^nd grade it was a challenge as our son continued to snowball further and further behind - or was he? 

After finally getting that one teacher who wasn’t too scared to say anything and whom I had built a solid reputation with after many hours volunteering in her classroom…she leaned over to whisper this during our parent teacher conference, "I have to give your child this pacesetter score (also known as common core standard grading), but I also want to give you this sheet as well", which she had handwritten, "this tells you how your child is really doing in my class." 

Huh? What? The pacesetter score was so complicated and rhetorical, nobody, including the teacher, could possibly calculate an actual grade. And now after three long exasperating years of this we as parents hear for the first time and are finally able to put all the pieces together, “Common Core.” The new secret curriculum none of us parents have ever heard about. 

We knew all along something wasn’t quite right and that our son really wasn’t that dumb, but by this point he hated school so much that trying to get him engaged was like banging our heads, his head and the teachers head against a concrete wall. 

Finally, it all clicked. We began to research common core, meet with the principal and our administrators and ask LOTS of questions. The grading was so subjective that nobody could even explain it. There were no clear, precise or solid expectations. The more research we did and the more information his teacher relayed to us (confidentially of course) we soon discovered how poorly common core was preparing students, specifically our own children. By this time all of the really good teachers and principals had either quit or retired, so it left us no choice. We decided to move as far away from common core as possible. We researched states that currently offered a traditional education. 

That spring of 2012 my husband’s job transferred us to the Oklahoma area. After just one year in a traditional school setting our son began to love reading and love school. He began to soar in all subjects. We no longer had a battle trying to just get him up and ready for school. He for the first time saw how clear and precise his expectations were and that he could actually reach to obtain a specific goal or task, and he did. Oh, how he did! He went from 0’s and 1’s, “partially proficient” and “rarely demonstrating required benchmarks” to a straight “A” student, practically overnight. 

He was nominated for student of the month, he began to receive perfect 100’s in spelling (mainly because common core doesn’t even include spelling in the curriculum), and he even told us that school was fun.  It was a huge relief to see him actually learning, and with such positive enthusiasm, excitement, and success. Lots of success!! We as parents could not believe the difference.  In fact, we even noticed a huge difference because for the first time we started seeing standard, very traditional homework assignments such as spelling tests and normal math. Not fuzzy math or integrated math. 

Our son was actually taught sentence structure, capitalization, as well as punctuation. He was asked to write about his favorite animal or his favorite sport rather than just handing him a blank piece of paper with no clear direction and expecting him to write independently an entire personal narrative or progressive poetry about his favorite “things.”   

We received our first traditional report card; it was so easy to understand. The teacher didn’t have to explain any of it, it was obvious what grade he had received and why.  His perspective changed, our family life changed, drastically. Our attitudes went from exhausted, frustrated and failing to encouraging, understanding and successful.  Our son learned and retained more in one year doing education the traditional way than three long exhausting years failing at common core the 21^st century, never been tested way. 

 Each child is so much more than just one single test or obscure benchmarks.  I went back and found that “Common Core Standards Grading” PowerPoint slideshow (all 16 pages).  It was relayed to us parents during a two-hour parent presentation explaining how our child was going to be graded. Even after 3 years of them pushing all of this so called quality curriculum and dozens of pacesetter grades, still to this day the only single grade we ever understood was this, FAILURE over and over.  

How does that prepare any child to become a future leader, a future employee, or to reach new heights and tackle life head on? It’s similar to teaching an infant two-month old how to walk.

An Oklahoma Teacher Speaks Out About Common Core

I received this treatise on Common Core from an Oklahoma teacher with whom I've communicated for several years now.  Of course, I will not release this teachers' name and I have also been asked not to mention in which part of the state this teacher is located.  Why?  Because, as with so many other teachers in Oklahoma (and across the country) this teacher is afraid of repercussions for their job for speaking out against Common Core.

I have edited the form only slightly as this was sent to me in an unfinished kind of stream-of-conscientiousness form.  Here are the thoughts of this OKLAHOMA teacher.

The coming internal conflict among Education Administrators and Common Core Supporters. 

1)  There is a shortage of Teachers.  

2)  Alternatively Certified Teachers.

Due to the shortage of traditionally trained Teachers, combined with the weak economy, School Administrators are hiring more alternatively certified Teachers that are knowledgeable and successful in their field of study, even though they might not be fully aware of pedagogical methods and concerns. Those School Administrators are bringing them into the existing organizational structure of the Education System and burdening them with the same mandates and restrictions that seem to be part of the cause of failure of the system itself.   

Like teachers educated in the field of education, alternatively certified Teachers are also knowledgeable and accomplished in their fields and industry. They have college degrees in their respective fields. A Biochemist has a degree in Biological Chemistry;  A Business leader has a degree in Business Management;  An Author might have a degree in English Literature or Journalism (or the field in which they write). You get the point.  It is commonly explained as alternatively certified Teachers know WHAT to teach, whereas, traditionally trained Teachers know HOW to teach.  

3) Common Core pushes uniformity among Teachers and students.  

It strives to funnel all components of education, from teachers to curriculum to classroom management to students themselves, through it’s programmed system of policy and procedures so that all Teachers react alike and teach alike, regardless of what subject they teach.  Common Core Standards proponents believe that with these policies and procedures in place, all students will follow them with minimal variance, resulting in all students learning the same things at the same time regardless of their individual abilities, interests, and home life support.  

However, the restrictions that Common Core Standards enforce may very well frustrate the supply of alternatively certified Teachers and continue the shortage of Teachers in the classroom.  These Common Core Standards ( i.e.-policy and procedures) come from Washington DC, so, it also ignores variation among School districts across the USA.   

Let’s face reality:  School districts are supported by it’s tax base.  Nice houses owned by the people who live in them with lots of retail stores that make and sell goods provide sales taxes = more income for local schools.  Conversely, rental homes in low income areas with minimal retail sales tax revenue = less money for local schools.  This also applies to rural communities. Common Core policy and procedures don’t care.  

Uniformity is the desired result. 

In the old days, the desired result was quality education for students.  

But not any more.  

One of the most certain ways an organization can strangle itself and minimize its growth and quality output is when that organization designs policy and procedures and then applies them to an existing unstable organizational structure in order to better control human efforts and behavior.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, recognized worldwide for the successful management concept which he developed, focuses on the overall system of the organization and how it supports the individual workers, or components.  In Deming’s management philosophy, once the appropriate system is in place the desired results will flow more naturally out of that system. 

The difference?  Common Core is a redesign and implementation of policy and procedures applied to an existing education system, which, according to most analysis is broken.  Dr. Deming's management concept focuses on a continual evaluation of the overall system, and redesigning the broken existing system if necessary, so as to attain a higher level of quality in its output.   

Common Core Standards in Education is the belief that if you have plenty of policy and procedures in place in the schoolhouse (from Board members to Custodians) then you will always get the same results, which is true. Uniformity through conformity, yes.  Quality, no.  

Missouri Mom Discovers Common Core Can Erode First Amendment Rights

I received this from Missouri mom Stacy Shore on our Truth in Education email alert system.

This is absolutely worth spreading far and wide.  I know I don't have to tell anyone reading this blog that you can't POSSIBLY research ANY topic if you only have a specific parameter in which to search.  This is truly the kind of thing I think opponents of the Common Core are all afraid of.  

After Stacy's story, please continue reading to find what Mary Byrne, (an education consultant with a doctorate in education - she's also a mom and a grandmom who sees defense of liberty in this nation an avocation) says about the term "Academic Freedom" - it's an EYE OPENER! 

STACY'S STORY: 

My daughter told me a story a few weeks ago about doing a research paper for one of her classes this past Spring.  (She was a freshman at the time).   She told me that it was particularly difficult to do since she had to use the "common core approved" search engine "SIRS" for 4 of her 6 sources as required by her teacher. I found this to be very troubling, as did she since she said it was almost impossible to support her point of view by being forced to use that search engine to do her research.  

She said that at the top of the search engine site it shows a "Common Core Approved" banner.  

So, I found this information on SIRS:

Targeted resources for student research;

SIRS Knowledge Source (SKS) provides a portal to relevant, credible information carefully hand-selected by our SIRS editorial staff. When students use SKS, they receive best-of content designed to support student research, study, and homework in key curricula subjects. Databases cross-searchable within SKS will vary based on subscription. SIRS Knowledge Source offers National, State, Province and Common Core Standards aligned to content.

Use SKS to search these SIRS resources at once, or to link to each SIRS collection:

o    SIRS® Issues Researcher—Covering the pros and cons Leading Issues most studied and debated by students

o    SIRS® Government Reporter—Historic and Government Documents, Directories and Almanacs

o    SIRS® Renaissance—Current perspectives on the arts and humanities

SIRS® WebSelect—Collection of editorially-selected reliable and credible educational website covering all curriculum topics

You will find this web site here

"Hand selected" and "Credible"? How do we know something is credible that has been hand selected?  Those ideas are some that really bother me in this context. Research should not be relegated to "Common Core Approved".

We must put a stop to this madness.  When our children are not free to do research from any credible source they choose in order to get a grade, yet they are directed to a site where the message can be controlled in order to indoctrinate we have real problems. 

Okay, now read Mary Byrne's discussion on Academic Freedom: 

It looks like evidence of government control of information and freedom of speech for legislators to know about.  You may be interested in some information about academic freedom that refers to control of research as creation of a police state. Hmmmmm:

Academic freedom was first introduced as a judicial term of art (a term with a specific legal meaning) by Supreme Court Justice william o. douglas. In Adler v. Board of Education of City of New York, 342 U.S. 485, 72 S. Ct. 380, 96 L. Ed. 517 (1952), the Supreme Court upheld a New York law (N.Y. Civ. Service Law § 12-a) that prohibited employment of teachers in public institutions if they were members of "subversive organizations." In a scathing dissent joined by Justice hugo l. black, Douglas argued that such legislation created a police state and ran contrary to the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

Justice Douglas equated academic freedom with the pursuit of truth. If academic freedom is the pursuit of truth and is protected by the First Amendment, reasoned Douglas, then the New York law should be struck down because it produced standardized thought. According to Douglas's dissent, the New York law created an academic atmosphere concerned not with intellectual stimulation but with such questions as "Why was the history teacher so openly hostile to Franco's Spain? Who heard overtones of revolution in the English teacher's discussion of The Grapes of Wrath? and What was behind the praise of Soviet progress in metallurgy in the chemistry class?" Douglas conceded that the public school systems need not become "cells for Communist activities," but he reminded the court that the Framers of the Constitution "knew the strength that comes when the mind is free."

ROPE has said time and again that Common Core is MORE THAN STANDARDS.  We have said time and time again that this is about creating FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN AMERICA.  I think this article is a really great place to go to get an overall idea of how far Arne Duncan thinks America needs to go.