Ed Reform – Reducing Teaching to Sophie’s Choice

This will be a difficult blog for many to read. For some, the overarching subject matter will raise powerful emotions of anger and rage. For others the realization of being intensely manipulated and forced to compromise morals and integrity will also raise powerful emotions of anger and rage. My intention is to expose parallels between two cultures. My intention is to make you think. One event is monumentally abhorrent, intensely immoral, and a crime against humanity of such a magnitude, there are no words to describe it. The other event pales in comparison. So before I go any further, I offer my sincere and humble apologies to anyone who may be offended or may think I am over stepping my bounds, or making inappropriate comparisons.

In World War II, Germany’s Nazi regime owed much of its power and domination to a reign of abject and merciless terror. It was accepted policy to enter into a defeated town or village, round up the entire population to witness a wholesale slaughter of town leaders and “undesirables.” This was done to set the tone and show the survivors the consequences for defying the Reich. The Nazi's understood this: When you can strike terror into the hearts of many, you can get them to do most anything you want.

The remarkable American film, Sophie’s Choice, illustrated some of the heartless and cold blooded terrorist techniques the Nazi’s used to crush the will of people. In the movie, Sophie (Meryl Streep) reveals to her lover the tragic episode of the choice between her children in Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Sophie was forced to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which would proceed to the labor camp. To avoid having both children killed, she chose Jan (Adrian Kaltika), her son, to be sent to the children's camp, and her daughter, Eva (Jennifer Lawn), to be sent to her death in Crematorium Two. This is an unbelievably heartbreaking decision of such a magnitude there are no words to describe it. This is a decision no human being should ever have to face and one that rattles our sensibilities to their very core. This episode reaffirms how the Nazi's understood that when you can strike terror into the hearts of many, you can get them to do most anything you want.

Here is where this conversation will likely get tough and upset many.

The realities of today’s education landscape include excessive testing, NCLB, RttT, public humiliation, VAM rankings, no LIFO, and no tenure. The consequences associated with going against these realities invoke increasing degrees of censure including Federal punishments ranging from schools, districts, and entire states being labeled as failures, school closures, and now public humiliation.

Combined, all of these sanctions and punishments strike terror into the hearts of teachers. Teacher's are scrambling to find ways to not be noticed. We are desperate to both do the right thing by our students AND survive the gauntlet laid down by the Federal Department of Education and its Status Quo reform policies of NCLB, RttT, public humiliation, VAM rankings, no LIFO, and no tenure.

Teacher all across the nation lament the pressure to raise sore, the pressure to forego teaching for test prep, the damage they see year after year as kids are pushed through the assembly line of the classroom experiences. Today's school experience has been institutionally demoted to not much more than a test data mill.

In private, teachers wish to rise up and fight the oppressive regime that imposes such harsh sanctions for failing or being otherwise undesirable to the Status Quo. In private, teachers wish they had options.

Then they remember what happened to the Teachers in Wisconsin, or they consider the 50% impact student test scores have on teachers in states like Florida that has already been conquered and dominated by the reformers. And quickly, teachers retreat hoping to remain under the radar of sanctions. Quickly the thoughts turn to ways to keep their VAM scores up to avoid the public tarring and feathering experienced by Pascale Mauclair after the New York Post declared her “The city’s worst teacher” based on wonky VAM scores. The Federal government has, in essence, championed a system and dynamic that facilitates rounding up undesirables, parading them into the town square and then make a public example out of them.

So here is the modern teacher’s “Sophie’s Choice.” When it comes down to a choice between providing a home for our own kids and keeping food on our own tables by dancing at the end of the reform puppeteers stings, caving to the pressure of foregoing teaching for test prep, and push kids through the test data mill assembly line regardless of real learning, most will choose the dance and sacrifice their students to the requirements of the regime.

In reality, neither the security of career and home nor the well being of the students should be on the sacrificial block. But when the choice given to teachers is between placating the test mill regime and sacrificing kids' learning, or teach the way it is meant to be and excite the hearts and minds of kids at the risk of kids' scores dropping and probable sanctions and/or dismissal, education places teachers squarely in the immoral position of making a modern parallel to Sophie’s Choice.

We Are An ARMY of Teachers

By Dave Russell

I just got finished reading a post on United Opt Out National’s blog titled: “A Teacher Story: Why I’m Leaving Public Education.” It is a real story about one teacher’s experiences with abusive policies surrounding testing mania that lead to the hard decision to leave education. If you haven’t read it, do so. It is raw, brutally honest, and exposes the realities of “reform.” After reading it, I was compelled to leave the following remark:

“God Damn-it! This pisses me off so much, I am seeing red. I so understand your feelings of defeat and fully support your decision, as will so many of us who are facing or have faced this Gauntlet of emotional, professional, and spiritual beatings. Understand, I wish you nothing but the best in whatever the future may hold for you - may you land on your feet and once again find your bliss.

What has me so pissed off is that this scenario is EXACTLY what the Oligarch's are gunning for. Here is an experienced, caring teacher with SO much to give to the kids and her fellow teachers who is being so systematically scrutinized, criticized, demoralized, demonized, and a whole lot of "ized's," I haven't thought of that he/she has finally tossed in the towel and is walking away from a lifetime of service and a career born of a deeply rooted passion for kids.

This is nothing less than "teacher cleansing" where teachers are systemically targeted for professional scrutiny and punishment based on salary, political reasons, or some other arbitrary or capricious reason. As the "business model" continues to invade schools like the tentacles of a corrosive cancer, we will see more and more of this type of decimation happen among our ranks.

And don't kid yourself, as Michelle Rhee continues to successfully lobby for the removal of LIFO and tenure, we will see our most experiences (read expensive) teachers get bloodied by the very tactics our author experienced. The outcome is predictable. Toss the expensive teachers on the curb like so much trash, gather all that salary and hire short-term contract scabs and pay them gobs of bonus money for successfully teaching to the test and raising scores.

We are an ARMY of teachers fed up with this! We are a sleeping giant ready to roar, claw back the oppression and RESTORE education to a colorful world where kids are free to explore the world around them in a safe and encouraging way. Fear has us paralyzed. Tradition has us waiting. The machine is counting on our passivity. And if we don't coalesce and act NOW, before long we too will be walking the gauntlet, getting bloodied, and being tossed out on our own ear.”

The State In Which...

Dave Russell on "The Status Quo"

David L. Russell

Status quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. It has become the ubiquitous slogan of the corporatist reform movement to refer to anyone who disagrees with the – “defenders of the status quo.” It is the perfect word for their agenda because in and of itself, it has no meaning. How silly does this sound: ““defenders of the state in which.” But, oh, the images it conjures! Failing schools, destructive union supporters, ineffective old timer’s who drool while sleeping in class, rubber rooms, dances of the lemons, low achievement – all are images set forth and lumped under the slogan “status quo” by the PR arm of the reform movement. So the beautiful people and everyone who agrees with them are “reformers,” while anyone who disagrees with them are “defenders of the status quo.” But, come on folks – who has ever come out to defend failing schools, destructive union supporters, ineffective old timer’s who drool while sleeping in class, rubber rooms, dances of the lemons, or low achievement.

Here is the “status quo” as I see it. No Child Left Behind (test-based-accountability-as-reform that has been the existing state of affairs (status quo) for a decade, and the research continues to show that it’s not working), compelled teaching to the test, excessive test prep, elimination of the arts from schools, unfunded mandates, blackmailing states to adopt unproven changes, inequitable funding between richer and poorer districts, Mile wide – inch deep curriculum, incorrect, incompatible and inconsistent across and within grade level textbooks, and the list goes on.

So who is really defending the “status quo?” In spite of a decade of glaring evidence of it being an abysmal failure, Arne Duncan, refuses to shut this program down, but instead announced last summer plans to grant waivers from NCLB mandates – none have been granted. In August, 2011, Florida reported that 89% of its schools failed to make required Federal NCLB Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals. The threat of punitive Federal funding sanctions has compelled districts to force more teaching to the test and eliminate arts and electives from schools and replace these with test prep. Textbook and curriculum writers are not held accountable for much. Although states will place textbooks on their adoption list that demonstrate evidence that the state’s standards are covered, there are no guidelines whatsoever designed to prevent publishers form creating a product that is not a mile wide – inch deep, incorrect, incompatible or inconsistent across and within grade level textbooks, and the list goes on. And the list goes on.

So the next time you hear someone toss out the term “status quo,” remember they are tossing out a name calling propaganda label designed to demonize the opposition and create scapegoats who supposedly defend failing schools, destructive union supporters, ineffective old timer’s who drool while sleeping in class, rubber rooms, the dance of the lemons, or low achievement. But, what they are really describing is the current or existing state of “NCLB, high stakes testing, punitive sanctions, mile-wide inch deep curriculum, and schools devoid of humanities” affairs.

Why Does The Public Have So Little Faith In Teachers?

This is a comment by Dave Russell over at the SF FB page:

Michael - with all due respect, I have been following Rhee and her commentary from the launch and seeing first hand how her rhetoric and propaganda has been delivered to and received by the public. I have had scores of people talk to me about their perceptions of teachers and education. Soon after Rhee launched StudentsFirst, the flavor of the discussions changed with people I know becoming more embittered to teachers and naming them as the sole reason why American students are 20-whatever in the world. Nearly overnight I became a part of this ambiguous "status quo" and someone who has wrecked budgets and damaged kids because I am a member of a union. Nearly to the person, I heard word for word the same rhetoric and propaganda, nearly word for word, Rhee spouted on her national TV talk media launch blitz.

I wrote the following: " The reason why STEM teachers aren't jumping the broom is because (as we predicted) the smear campaign of StudentsFirst and other reformers against teachers and the institution as a whole has left a PR image of education as a cesspool of angry ineffective cronies who dance at the strings of unions and care nothing about kids or their learning or well being."

I believe if you objectively read the following posts from the standpoint of someone trying to evaluate the profession and determining a career choice/change, the following passages from Rhee blogs reinforce my point that StudentsFirst and other reformers have left a PR image of education as a cesspool and that the tone of these posts is not flattering, inviting and effectively paints the institution in a totally negative light fraught with insurmountable problems that only Rhee can champion and fix:

"Still, I could have done a better job of communicating. I did a particularly bad job letting the many good teachers know that I considered them to be the most important part of the equation. I totally fell down on doing that. As a result, my comments about ineffective teachers were often perceived as an attack on all teachers." "Some people believed I had disdain for the public. It’s not that I wasn’t listening; I just didn’t agree and went in a different direction. There’s no way you can please everyone." "The U.S. is currently 21st, 23rd, and 25th among 30 developed nations in science, reading, and math, respectively. The public-employee unions in D.C., including the teachers’ union, spent huge sums of money to defeat Fenty. The focus remains on what jobs, contracts, and departments are getting which cuts, additions, or changes. The rationale for the decisions mostly rests on which grown-ups will be affected, instead of what will benefit or harm children. The purpose of the teachers’ union is to protect the privileges, priorities, and pay of their members. And they’re doing a great job of that. Conflict was necessary in order to move the agenda forward. There are some fundamental disagreements that exist right now about what kind of progress is possible and what strategies will be most effective. Right now, what we need to do is fight." 12/6/10 Newsweek.

"Ultimately, a great teacher is someone who gets results. If two students with similar backgrounds go to similar schools and take similar classes, and one of those students outperforms the other, it might seem fair to say that that student had a better teacher."

"We will fight to get rid of these bad policies and practices so that every child has an excellent teacher in his or her classroom."

"Challenge the status quo to always push for the right priorities, "

"I’m sure you hate it when your child gets an ineffective teacher, and you probably wonder why that teacher is still in the classroom. Often your school leaders feel the same way, but they usually don’t have full power to choose their workers. Second, some of the silent issues that never get talked about are eating away at your schools’ ability to be effective, like a trend toward central district bureaucracy."

"In the book version of Waiting for “Superman”, Michelle describes one overcrowded high school class where kids not even enrolled showed up every day because they felt this teacher offered them the best opportunity to learn, even though some of them would get no credit for the course."

"If we were to grade the academic performance of the world’s industrialized economies, Singapore, South Korea, and now Shanghai would get an A — the United States would get a C, at best, and in math we'd get an F.Background or socioeconomic status, while influential, is not the determining factor in how well a student can perform. And as I discussed in a blog post yesterday, great teaching can overcome the circumstances that put our kids behind those of other world powers.The bottom line: We need to fight to transform our underperforming education system, overcome the vested interests that stand in the way of progress, and work to ensure that our kids have the best schools in the world."
--------The clear implication and takeaway by the public is that the poor performance on the PISA is because of a lack of "great teachers."

"This week Mayor Villaraigosa called the LA Teachers’ Union to task for obstructing reform by defending an unacceptable status quo in the Los Angeles Public Schools. I’ve never been of the mind that unions shouldn’t exist. I was in one when I was a teacher, and I believe they can play a role in reform by compromising with the newly backed interests (like StudentsFirst) who are representing children. "

"Michelle gets to the heart of how the needs of teachers’ unions and students don't always align, and why America needs a strong counterweight to the special interest groups that have long dictated education policy."

"StudentsFirst scored its first Newsmaker interview to help explain the new study that finds a link between good teachers and good student test scores. Why should you care? StudentsFirst and other reform groups believe a significant part of a teacher’s evaluation should be based on how his or her students demonstrate progress on tests and this study seems to support that practice."