COME TO D.C. ON JULY 8TH AND 9TH!

Join the SOS Rally, March, and Conference in DC on July 8 and 9!
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DIGNITY FOR ALL STUDENTS...(AND AMERICANS TOO?)

New York State has a law entitled "DASA - Dignity for All Students Act."  It is intended to protect the dignity of all students at all times, on school property and off, when involved in a  school function.  School curricula must include direct instruction in civility, citizenship, and character education by expanding the concepts of tolerance, respect for others and dignity. The consequences for infringing on student rights as outlined in the law are clearly laid out.  Public school teachers are also required to view a training video on the Act in order to maintain their certification.

My latest question is this: How are we to factor in the impact of Donald Trump's presidential campaign behavior on the behavior of our students?  What if it becomes clear that an increase in school bullying is directly tied to unconscionable public bullying of women, ethnic groups, disabled Americans, the LGBT community, and more, by a man seeking the highest office in our land?  

There is an actual law in the State of New York to address behaviors in children that we now witness daily from a man seeking to be President of the United States of America.  How can we not hold this man accountable?  How can any thinking, caring American support such behavior?  What justification can there be for supporting a "candidate" who exemplifies undignified behavior? How can we instruct our children in rightful behavior when an adult seeking the very highest office in the land is an exemplar of discriminatory, intimidating, harassing, bullying behavior?

PLEASE, we need to speak truth to insanity.  NOW.

The Dignity for All Students Act 

New York State’s Dignity for All Students Act (The Dignity Act) seeks to provide the State’s public elementary and secondary school students with a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment, and bullying on school property, a school bus and/or at a school function.

The Dignity Act was signed into law on September 13, 2010 and took effect on July 1, 2012. Amendments to the act are effective as of July 1, 2013 and are noted below under ***DIGNITY ACT NEWS***. 

The original legislation amended State Education Law by creating a new Article 2 – Dignity for All Students.  The Dignity Act also amended Section 801-a of New York State Education Law regarding instruction in civility, citizenship, and character education by expanding the concepts of tolerance, respect for others and dignity to include: an awareness and sensitivity in the relations of people, including but not limited to, different races, weights, national origins, ethnic groups, religions, religious practices, mental or physical abilities, sexual orientations, gender identity, and sexes. The Dignity Act further amended Section 2801 of the Education Law by requiring Boards of Education to include language addressing The Dignity Act in their codes of conduct.

Additionally, under the Dignity Act, schools will be responsible for collecting and reporting data regarding material incidents of discrimination and harassment.

QUestar (Pearson Jr.) RELEASES SOME (NOT ALL) TEST QUESTIONS IN NYS

It's true.  With Pearson gone (sort of) QUestar has released 75% of this year's test questions for the public to view.  While they haven't yet included the answers nor breakdown of how students did on each question across the state, I suppose you could be a tad thankful they released something. (?)

Yesterday, I sat down to look at the 5th grade math questions during my prep and found myself working through lunch and “taking” the whole test. 

I’m a fairly decent math thinker and have successfully taught scores of 5th graders the underlying concepts. But I had trouble with some of the questions. 

Sure, I could have looked at my teaching notes, and spent a little more time puzzling through the difficult problems, (they’re challenging but not impossible questions,) but the point is, our students take these tests under pressure (even if they’re un-timed,) and the answers just shouldn’t be so elusive. I understand throwing in a few questions to challenge the stronger students, but there were many challenging questions that frankly didn’t make much sense if the goal is to see how proficient students are, overall, with the math standards. And if the goal is to test the supposed “effectiveness” of teachers, then this post could most definitely be even longer… 

Question # 9 requiring students to know the “trick” of how to divide fractions is the one that sticks in my craw the most. The State’s own declaration of what Shifts in Focus the CCSS are supposed to lead to include “deep comprehension” of topics and not merely learning/teaching “tricks.” 

While it’s true that a truly astute student might know or remember that a whole number divided by a fraction is a whole number, including a problem like “56 divided by 1/17” is ridiculous. (For those not familiar with fifth grade math, this is the first year they work with division of fractions. It’s an incredibly complex concept to understand with “deep comprehension” so to create a test problem like this one pretty much forces teachers to teach the trick of “Keep, change, flip.” Then the answer is simple. And math short-cuts and tricks will surely remain the safety net for teachers and students. Maybe that is all for the best…)

Maybe I misunderstood the intention of all the new math standards and the underlying focus on “deeply understanding mathematical concepts.”

What do I know? I’m just a 5th grade teacher.

GOVERNOR CUOMO IS NO FRIEND OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

Wait. 
Stop. 
Hold the phone!

Did Governor Cuomo really just say "The problem is the State Education Department, which is the Board of Regents. It did a terrible job in implementing Common Core?"

He went on to say the Board of Regents must "change their perspective and their level of competence."  

And then had the audacity to say "They lost the faith and trust of the parents of this state, and they're going to have to remedy that.  It's not that the parents are irrational.  The parents are rational.  The system was implemented poorly and it did a lot of harm."

Seriously? 

I don't even know where to begin...