In NY State, Those Who Once Attacked Teachers Have Parents in Their Crosshairs

Perhaps the most famous quote describing how most people looked the way during the rise of Nazism is the following

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

This statement has a chilling applicability to the top down, billionaire funded “School Reform” movement, especially in New York State. The movement began by demonizing teachers, blaming them for the failure of our public schools to prepare children for a global economy, and reduce racial disparities in educational achievement. In New York State, this campaign led to the Governor ramming through legislation requiring that teachers be rated on the basis of student test scores and removed if they had unsatisfactory ratings. Many principals and teachers warned that this legislation would result in a vast increase in testing in the state's public schools, and the institutionalization of "teaching to the test." Most parents in the state ignored these warnings, thinking that they were self serving and that greater "teacher accountability" would be in the interests of their children and families.

However, as this legislation began to be implemented, many parents began to discover that what teachers and principals warned about was occurring with breakneck speed. More and more, children were coming home bored and angry, telling parents they hated school because all that was going on was "test preparation," and that the activities they enjoyed most- art, music, recess, gym- were being cut to make room for it. Some were having anxiety attacks on the eve of the tests. Some had to be put under a doctor's care.

Small groups of parents in the state began organizing to protest what was happening. They discovered there was a national movement to "opt out" children from high stakes tests, and decided to create a version of this in New York State that could help their children. They approached school authorities and asked that their children be exempted from state ELA and Math exams.

The response to them, from New York State Education officials, was immediate and vicious. They were, and still are, told that Opting Out is illegal. Not only were they threatened with legal action by the State, their CHILDREN were threatened with everything from participation in extracurricular activities, access to special needs services, placement in magnet programs, even promotion to the next grade! These individual threats were coupled with an attack on the parental Opt Out movement in the media, describing it as a threat to the great progress the state has made in creating a great education for all children

The viciousness of the State's retaliation to parents and children who choose to "Opt Out" should be a warning that something profoundly undemocratic and destructive is happening in New York's public education system, and that the only way to do anything about it is for all stakeholders- principals, teachers, parents, students- to organize to dismantle the Test Machine being shoved down their throat

School Reform in New York State has become the smokescreen under which powerful interests, seeking profit or political gain, have launched one of the most far reaching attacks on popular democracy in recent memory. It is time to fight back before it is too late

Why The Test Revolt In New York State Cannot Be Suppressed

Because the officials of the New York State Department of Education lack the intellectual and moral stature to persuade parents, teachers, principals, and even more sophisticated students of the validity of their policies, they are resorting to a campaign of intimidation and misinformation that is more worthy of a police state than a democracy. In the short run, it may silence many people, in the long run, it will backfire, terribly. In two or three years, the test revolt in this state will be so large that it will not only be impossible to suppress, it will create irresistible momentum for new educational leadership in this state. So those who abhor the polcies, speak out, opt out and stand on principle. Your example will inspire thousands, eventually tens of thousands of others to follow your lead.

Why the New York State Dept of Education Will Never Invite Me to Talk About Teaching

Why The NY State Department of Education Will Never Invite Me to Talk About Teaching

During the last two months, I have given lectures at three high schools on the multicultural roots of Bronx Hip Hop- the first to 600 students at Northwest Catholic High School near Hartford; the second to two special needs classes at Sheepshead Bay HS in Brooklyn; the last to 400 students at Trinity School on Manhattan's Upper West Side. In each instance, I spoke about how immigration, migration, and the fusing of different cultural traditions shaped a seminal moment in American history in a community plagued by disinvestment, fires, and shutting down of youth programs in the schools and in the parks. The subject was serious one, yet in each instance, I not only was able to gain the complete attention of high school students I had never met before, I had them standing, cheering and participating in the presentation.

How did I do this? Some of this was due to familiar attributes such as passion for my material, confidence in public speaking, and ability to speak effectively before a large audience without consulting notes; but much of it was do to my use of music and music video to illustrate my major arguments and my encouragement of student participation in showcasing the skills I was highlighting. In all of my presentations, I called for student volunteers to create beats, whether through beat boxing or drumming on hard surfaces, to showcase their dance moves, and to perform original raps. The result of this was that a parties broke out in my presentation without detraction from the substantive content. The most moving example of this was in the special education class at Sheepshead Bay where students with disabilities, including some in wheelchairs, demonstrated all of the musical skills associated with hip hop with a joy and creativity that was literally mesmerizing. 

But what was most gratifying, in all three instances, was not just the individual skills displayed, but the community building. Students in all three groups cheered on those who showcase their talents, or asked questions of the lecturer. The teachers and administrators felt energized y what took place, and came up to me after the presentation with big smiles on their faces. I had managed to get young people normally reticent in large groups to become active participants in a learning community.

You would think that those seeing to improve public education might look to experiences like this for guidance in how to energize and improve school communities, but my approach contradicts the scripted, test driven pedagogy currently in fashion. My use of the arts in teaching history; my encouragement of student participation; my willingness to throw away lesson plans or scripts to promote community building and student creativity all make my approach seen inapplicable in a world of data driven instruction. 

So don't expect me to get an invitation any time soon from the New York State Department of Education to talk to teachers, legislators, or the Board of Regents. They would much rather talk to someone like Joel Klein or Bill Gates who wants to replace teachers with computers.

Meanwhile, I will keep looking for new ways to bring my research to life, promote student creativity, and "rock the house" when I get in front of a class

Why I Give School Reformers No Rest

The people who are reshaping public education in the US have limitless money, vast political influence and the virtually unanimous support of mainstream media, and they are creating a creating a catastrophic environment in our public schools with little opposition because they have the money to buy off or silence most critics. Not me. They have nothing they can offer me. Their arrogance and their systematic marginalization of people who have devoted their lives to teaching and learning has won them my undying contempt. I will fight them to my dying breath. But I will fight them not just with rage, but with love- love of learning, love of teaching, and love of changing young people's lives by believing in their agency and creativity. I will do this whether I am part of a group or the last one standing. I don't give in to bullies. I don't suck up to the rich and powerful.

It is Because Of Emails Like This That I Fight Testing Policies Which Have Become Child Abuse

I just got this from one of the Bronx's most important community leaders, Tanya Fields. can anyone help her with this situation. Let me know and I will connect you!
EDUCATION RANT:

I am BURNING up. I truly resent having to spend two hours each day to prepare my children for a standardized exam that means jack shit (yes there is no other term befitting) except to continue to exclude and weed out children. I resent having to drill my kids to take an exam that I KNOW is worthless and I don't believe in, an exam that I have explained to their little stressed out souls carries no educational, moral or cognitive weight. An exam however, that I have been told, that if they do not perform "proficiently" on they will then be retained because of. WTF!!! Are you serious? My child's grades, social acumen, performance and all around progress mean nothing? If they do not perform proficiently on the state exams they will be retained, right there in B&W. Hmph, tomorrow I am going to turn this school out... retention my ass. I will home school my children before I deal with this madness...

Why Test Resistance Is a Cause Whose Time Has Come

  When people decide to resist unjust policies that have overwhelming  support and for which there are few antecedents in their lifetime, mast movements do not erupt overnight. They are often inspired by the accumulation of individual acts of protest, taken at great risk. One of the best examples of this is the lunch counter sit ins during the Civil Rights movement, which began when 4 black college students in Greensboro North Carolina decided to challenge segregation in their down town business district, sparking a movement in scores of cities which eventually encompassed for than 35,000 protesters and let to the creation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee(SNCC).

  We can also see this occurring during the Vietnam War, where one of the most powerful dimensions of a movement which began with teach ins, rallies and marches, was draft resistance, individuals refusing induction into the military, and risking imprisonment for their actions. This form of protest, which began in 1966 when there was a dramatic escalation of the use of US ground forces  in the fighting, became one of the most powerful weapons the anti-war movement had to awaken the conscience of the nation, as tens of thousands of young men around the nation went to prison, or into exile, to show their opposition to a war they believed was profoundly immoral.

  Today, I see something similar happening with the phenomenon of Opting Out- parents refusing to let their children take tests which they view as stultifying and humiliating- or students decided engage in test refusal  themselves.   As high stakes tests have proliferated in our public schools, and are increasingly used as the basis of closing schools and firing teachers, more and more people  despair of challenging policies which have bi-partisan support, are championed by the media, have the nation's economic elite pressing for their implementation. Facing this kind of political juggernaut, which infuses its policies with an air of inevitability, individual acts of resistance have tremendous weight. Parents who have publicly refused to let their children take tests, in the face of threats from school authorities, though  initially small in number, have sparked a "prairie fire" around the nation, resulting in the creation of a national organization- United Opt Out- which has become the major focal point of grass roots protest against Corporate Education Reform.  Now, you can find op-out groups, and centers of test resistance, in almost every state of the union, and their example is gradually encouraging teachers, principals, and students to join the ranks of test protesters.  Even some elected officials are starting to get the message and championing the cause of reducing testing.

  But this is only the beginning. In the next few years, test resistance is likely to gather so much steam that it will force a significant re-evaluation- at the national, state  and local level, of policies which are making teachers hate their jobs, students hate school, and parents hate sending them there. But this requires constant mobilization, creative organizing and the multiplication of individual acts of courage and resistance, It also involves local organizing that links test resisters to labor unions, religious institutions, and remnants of the Occupy movement in every town and city in the nation, and in presenting test resistance as  a path to democratic renewal from the bottom up, fighting policies from the top down..

A Jam for Occupy DOE 2.0- The Battle for Public Schools, from Notorious Phd

Teachers and parents don’t be blue
Its Occupy DOE Number 2
Duncan must have hoped we’d disappear
But we’ve come from all over to bend his ear
From New York ,Virginia, Cali and Mass
We're taking no prisoners
And we're moving fast
Because k-12 testing
just won’t cut it
A young mind needs stirring
tests just shut it
To the best of our teachers
You’ve said “Goodbye M’am”
You don’t make the grade
According to VAM
We'll rate you, assess you
And make your job harder
Your school will be gone
Replaced by a charter
But though teachers are stressed
They surely won't wilt
They’ll fight for their students
Not succumb to test guilt
They’ll stand up for music,
gym, recess and art
For novels and poems
That inspire the heart
We bring to your doorstep
A teachers vision
A curriculum of love