Thursday, October 17, 2013

Finnish Educational Success: Hard Truths for the U.S., SUNY New Paltz, 10/24/13


Forum on Public Education and the Impact of Testing and Mandates


ATTENTION PARENTS: The Kingston City School District's DWPC (District Wide Parents Council) Hosts Forum on Public Education and the Impact of Testing and Mandates on October 22nd.

District Wide Parents’ Council of the Kingston City School District is hosting A Forum on Public Education and the Impact of Testing and Mandates in conjunction with Senator Cecilia Tkaczyk’s office on Tuesday October 22, 2013.  The purpose of this forum is to give voice to the strains that school districts in Ulster County are feeling due to increased testing and related state and federal mandates.  At the forum our state legislators will have the opportunity to hear from invited educators and parents about the Impact of State Mandates and Testing on K-12 Students.
Please mark your calendars to attend this forum and hear about the challenges our public school system in Ulster County is facing and to show your support as we work towards solutions to these challenges.
A Forum on Public Education and the Impact of Testing and Mandates
Hosted by DWPC in conjunction with Senator Cecilia Tkaczyk’s office
Date:  Tuesday October 22, 2013
Time:  5pm – 7pm
Place:  MJM Gym – Kingston High School  403 Broadway, Kingston New York 12401
Oral testimony at the forum is by invitation only.  All are welcomed to provide written testimony, which can be submitted at the forum, or sent to Tkaczyk@nysentate.gov before the forum.  Please use the subject line:  EDUCATION FORUM TESTIMONY.
Jolyn Safron, DWPC Co-Chairwoman/DWPC High-stakes Testing Committee chair

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Action Alert from New York State Allies for Public Education

Below is a template that can be used for phone calls, faxes and emails to Governor Cuomo, Meryl Tisch, Senators Flanagan, Klein and Skelos. Speaker of the House Sheldon Silver and Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan.

It is urgent that parents, educators and concerned citizens contact these individuals DAILY and demand the resignation of NYS Commissioner of Education John King. New Yorkers deserve real leadership, leadership that values the voices and concerns of parents.

Monday, October 14, 2013

View the Complete Video of Commissioner King's Town Hall Meeting at Spackenkill High School



http://www.spackenkillschools.org/node/6692



View the video of the meeting in its entirety at the Spackenkill Website.

Parents Continue to React to Cancellation of Upcoming Town Hall Meetings


From The Poughkeepsie Journal, October 14th, 2013
Parents are upset by an announcement that the state education commissioner’s office suspended four upcoming town hall meetings on the newly-implemented Common Core standards following a meeting last week at Spackenkill High School, according to the New York State PTA.
A loud and often critical crowd filled the Spackenkill auditorium Thursday for a meeting with Education Commissioner John King. The crowd challenged him and offered sometimes angry comments on the new learning standards, which were developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers and adopted by many states, according to Journal archives.
“While our goal was to provide an opportunity to learn and share, based on review of the initial October 10 meeting, the Commissioner concluded the outcome was not constructive for those taking the time to attend,” the PTA, a parent, teacher and student advocacy group, posted on its Facebook page Friday. The town hall meetings had been scheduled to take place this month across the state, it said. The announcement also was made on the group’s website, www.nyspta.org.
“I believe that Commissioner King is running away. He doesn’t want to be challenged by the parents or anybody else,” said Lisa DiStefano, 38, a mother of three from Pleasant Valley, who attended the meeting Thursday.
DiStefano said if parents no longer have a say in their children’s education, that the state Education Department is “acting as an authoritarian, telling us we don’t want to listen because you no longer have any rights.”
Anna Shah, 41, a parent in the Spackenkill district, said the PTA’s flier for the event advertised it as an opportunity to gather information, ask questions and share concerns with King and other education department representatives.
“Those of us who were at the meeting saw firsthand that Dr. King must have missed the memo,” she said via email. “The meeting ended abruptly after five speakers presented, leaving at least 75 who were denied the chance to speak.”
Read More at:

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20131013/NEWS01/310130023/Common-Core-meetings-canceled

ReThinking Testing Joins Parents, Educators and Concerned Citizens in Calling for the Resignation of Commissioner John King

ReThinking Testing is joining grassroots groups across the state and New York Allies for Public Education in calling for the resignation of Commissioner of Education John King.

From New York State Allies for Public Education:


Billed as an opportunity to “gather information, ask questions and share concerns with NYS Commissioner of Education John King”, the NYS PTA sponsored  Town Hall Meeting on the Common Core and privacy issues was anything but. After speaking uninterrupted for 1 hour and 40 minutes, Commissioner King allowed parents 20 minutes to speak. During this time, parents expressed concerns and attempted to share stories regarding the impact that the CC has already had on their children. Commissioner King repeatedly interrupted parents and refused to answer parent questions or address their concerns. Commissioner King subsequently cancelled all future scheduled town hall meetings, called concerned parents “special interests groups” and stated that the forum was “co-opted by special interests whose stated goal is to ‘dominate’ the questions and manipulate the forum,” King went on to state that “Essentially, dialogue has been denied.”

When a public official such as Commissioner King refuses to participate in the democratic process and refuses to hear the concerns of parents while simultaneously carrying out educational policies that affect thousands of children, he is no longer fit to carry out the duties of the NYS Commissioner of Education. Commissioner King, we would argue that it is because of you that “dialogue has been denied.”

According to award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York, last week’s Town Hall meeting in Poughkeepsie, NY highlighted the fact that “The New York State Education Department has lost its moral authority.” Burris states.  “One might imagine that if John King had first been a principal of a New York City public school, or the superintendent of a district, he would have become skilled in dealing with emotional and boisterous groups….. Leaders must listen deeply, learn and respond.  They must be willing to consider alternative courses, and even in loud crowds, hear truth.”

Anthony Cody, nationally recognized educator, public speaker and writer for Education Week says, “Speaking truth to power, as these parents did, is an intoxicating thing. It delivers to both speaker and witnesses a shiver, an awakening to the fact that we do not need to suffer in silence, or allow our children to suffer without objection. Those in power may cancel future hearings, but these parents' voices are ringing out, like a bell that cannot be un-rung.”

We would say to Commissioner King that in this age of apathy, you should be proud to represent a state where parents have taken the time to inform themselves about the current education reforms and have taken the time from their busy schedules to engage with public officials such as yourself.  Aren’t these parents the kind of critically thinking, involved citizens that our public schools hope to create? We would argue that a competent leader does not run away from concerned parents, or call them a “special interest group.” Commissioner King, you are a disgrace to the field of education. It is not surprising that in NYS, your lack of teaching experience would not allow you to be granted tenure in a public school.

The NYS Commissioner of Education sends his own children to a private school, a school that is not legally bound to carry out the same testing and data sharing mandates that he is subjecting thousands of public school children to.  He has stated, “I believe that every parent should have the right to choose the school that is right for their child.” Commissioner King subjects public school students to harmful practices while maintaining that parents do not have the right to refuse these mandates. This certainly does not afford all parents “the right to choose the school that is right for their child.” Commissioner King is guilty of promoting inequitable education policies that essentially create a different set of educational opportunities and experiences available to those with the means to afford private school and those who attend public school.  This is an attack on the freedoms and rights that are afforded to every American citizen and on public education itself.

New York State Allies for Public Education calls for the immediate resignation of Commissioner of Education John King as he is unfit to carry out the duties of his position competently and he is no longer able to conduct himself in a manner that is consistent with the principles and ideals of the American democracy. NYSAPE urges parents, educators and concerned citizens to:

  • ·     Spend 10 minutes adding the attached emails and phone numbers to your contacts
  • ·     Call, email, and fax Governor Cuomo DAILY
  • ·      CC all emails to Senator John Flanagan, Speaker of the House Sheldon Silver, Senator Dean Skelos, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan and Senator Jeffrey Klein and the entire Board of Regents
  • ·      Call your local Regent

·      Let them know that:
                                    
*New Yorkers deserve a COMPETENT leader who listens to and engages his or her constituents
                                   
 *New Yorkers deserve a COMPETENT leader who can handle the concerns and dissenting opinions of educated and involved New York parents.
                                    
*John King has let abusive testing and data sharing practices dominate the implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards 

*John King runs away from the public.

*John King calls concerned parents “special interest groups.”

*John King is not competent to be the NYS Commissioner of Education


http://www.scribd.com/doc/176000558/NSYAPE-Calls-for-Resignation-of-John-King

How New York's Education Commissioner Blew It Big Time by Carol Burris


New York Education Commissioner John King recently started a series of forums co-sponsored with the New York State PTA to talk about the Common Core State Standards — but things didn’t go as planned. At the Poughkeepsie forum a few days ago, audience members were less than polite when they were given little opportunity to speak, and he cancelled other stops on his mini-tour. In this post, award-winning Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York,  talks about what this all means for the reform movement in New York.
Burris has for more than a year chronicled on this blog the many problems with the test-driven reform in New York (here, and here and here and here, for example). She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and in 2010,  tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State. She is the co-author of the New York Principals letter of concern regarding the evaluation of teachers by student test scores. It has been signed by more than 1,535 New York principals and more than 6,500 teachers, parents, professors, administrators and citizens. You can read the letter by clicking here. 
By Carol Burris
Thomas Sergiovanni was a renowned international scholar of educational leadership.  In his book, Moral Leadership, he explains the differences between subordinates and followers.  Sergiovanni argued that educational leaders need followers because followers are not led by coercion, but rather by commitment to beliefs, values and ideals.  In a 1990 article for Educational Leadership he wrote:
When followership is established, bureaucratic authority and psychological authority are transcended by moral authority.
The New York State Education Department has lost its moral authority, as defined by Sergiovanni.  That loss was clearly on display at a recent New York State PTA-sponsored hearing on the Common Core in Poughkeepsie, New York.  By the last half hour of the evening, the audience was both boisterous and impassioned, angered because there was limited opportunity to speak. What little time remained for the audience was twice interrupted by Commissioner John King, who had held the floor for an hour and a half.
The miffed King then reacted by cancelling upcoming scheduled forums.  In response to an inquiry about the cancellation by Long Island’s Newsday, King responded:
 I was looking forward to engaging in a dialogue with parents across the state.  I was eagerly anticipating answering questions from parents about the Common Core and other reforms we’re moving ahead with in New York State.  Unfortunately, the forums sponsored by the New York State PTA have been co-opted by special interests whose stated goal is to “dominate” the questions and manipulate the forum.”[1]

The people in the audience at the Poughkeepsie forum were teachers and parents.  The common “special interests” of both groups are children.
What occurred in Poughkeepsie is not surprising to those who have followed the course of reform in New York led by John King.  John King was a teacher for only three years—teaching in Puerto Rico, in a private school and in a charter school in Boston.  After his short career as a teacher, he became the co-director of Roxbury Prep, a charter school with fewer than 200 students during his tenure. Five years later, he became the managing director of Uncommon Charter Schools.
In 2000, John King entered the Inquiry Doctoral Program at Columbia University’s Teachers College.  Each Inquiry cohort was small and intimate—about 25 students.  I know the program well—I was a member of the 1999 cohort.  A fellow member of John King’s cohort was the wife of billionaire Jim Tisch, Merryl Tisch, who was appointed to the New York State Board of Regents four years earlier.  King and Tisch took classes together for two years. In April of 2009, Merryl became the Regents’ chancellor.  In September 2009, John King was appointed deputy commissioner of  education. Two years later, John King was appointed commissioner following the abrupt resignation of David Steiner.  It was the meteoric rise of a man who became commissioner at 36 years of age.
King has surrounded himself with bright young people, most of whom like King, have limited or no experience in public education. They are called the Regents Fellows. Their positions are funded by donations, including a million-dollar gift from Chancellor Tisch herself, and nearly a million dollars from Bill Gates.  At a recent gathering of Long Island school leaders, Tisch was asked about the Fellows. She chided the audience, telling them that they should be grateful for the private donations.  The skeptical audience, however, well understood that there is nothing like a million dollar donation to ensure that ‘my will be done.’
‘My will be done’ has been the tone and the tenor of chaotic reform in New York.  In its rush to implement teacher evaluations, the Common Core and new testing, the state leadership has likened it to building a plane in the air.  Cut scores anchored to ridiculously high performance on the SAT caused proficiency scores to plummet.  Students, often in tears, rushed to finish tests that were too difficult and too long. The Common Core Algebra modules are still not finished, even though teachers must teach the course to students now. Rushed APPR plans reviewed by law school students and supervised by a young, former Teach For America grad now Fellow, led to disastrous results such as those of Syracuse, where 40% of the teachers were rated below effective and no elementary or middle school teacher was found to be highly effective.
Syracuse is not alone—other districts have simply chosen to hide their disasters.  The very APPR rating bands themselves produce illogical results, leaving one to wonder if the department can add three, two-digit numbers. The confusion continues. Just a few days ago, the department’s website directed those who wanted information about the parent portal to a telephone number of a sex chat line. From APPR, to the Common Core, to 3-8 testing, the plane being built in the air is falling apart.
As a result, there is no followership—no commitment among parents, teachers and principals to the values and ideals of reform.  The interest in the Common Core has turned to tepid support at best. What remains is compliance.  Even that compliance, however, is waning, as evidenced by the Poughkeepsie hearings, the Buffalo forum on testing that drew 2500, and the Opt Out movement that is growing exponentially around the state.  The moral leadership that is needed to navigate through the seas of sweeping change is not there. The source of authority is at best, bureaucratic.
In the authoritarian world of the Uncommon Charter Schools as described so well by scholar Pedro Noguera here, the rule is “thy will be done.”  In the real and messy world of democracy it is different.  Leaders must listen deeply, learn and respond.  They must be willing to consider alternative courses, and even in loud crowds, hear truth. In teaching, we attempt to perfect the skill known as “monitor and adjust.”  You can only master that skill by truly engaging learners.
In many ways, it is a sad tale.  One might imagine that if John King had first been a principal of a New York City public school, or the superintendent of a district, he would have become skilled in dealing with emotional and boisterous groups.  In doing small-scale reforms in a district, he could have practiced effective pacing. John King would know, as Sergiovanni taught, that the heart of good leadership is the development of followership.  Without followership, no reform has a chance.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/13/how-new-yorks-education-commissioner-blew-it-principal/

Commissioner King Addresses a Critical Crowd

"State Education Commissioner John King faced a critical and often loud crowd Thursday evening as he defended the state's Common Core curriculum initiative that all students, educators and parents are coping with and that has become increasingly controversial."

Read more at:

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20131010/NEWS01/131010019/Commissioner-King-addresses-big-critical-crowd-Common-Core

Common Core Presentation and Public Comment, SpackenKill High School, October 10th, 2013

View video of parents attempting to voice concerns to Commissioner of Education John King here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Eiz406VAs

Parent Voice Concerns Over Common Core and Commissioner King Subsequently Cancels Future Meetings


"Speaking truth to power, as these parents did, is an intoxicating thing. It delivers to both speaker and witnesses a shiver, an awakening to the fact that we do not need to suffer in silence, or allow our children to suffer without objection. Those in power may cancel future hearings, but these parents' voices are ringing out, like a bell that cannot be un-rung."

Read more at:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/10/parents_voice_concerns_about_c.html

Commissioner John King Cancels Remaining Town Hall Meetings

After a recent NYS PTA sponsored town hall meeting, Commissioner King calls parents voicing concerns "special interest groups" and says the recent PTA sponsored town call meeting was "co-opted by special interests whose stated goal is to ‘dominate’ the questions and manipulate the forum." 

Read more at:

http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/education/state-education-commissioner-cancels-appearances-20131012