Letter to NYSED #23

Dear -----,

I occasionally write to this address at NYSED, in hopes of engaging in productive discourse.  I would greatly appreciate a response, when possible.

I was so encouraged to read this recently:

“Our students deserve the best, most accurate assessments we can give them,” Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch said.  “Teachers and parents should have clear, practical information to help them help their students learn.  Our goal is to continue to improve the assessments to make sure they provide the instructional support parents and teachers need to prepare our students for college and careers.  This new contract also recognizes how vitally important it is to have New York State teachers involved in the test development process.”

“New York State teachers will be involved in every step of the test development process,” State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said.  “Teacher input is critical to building a successful state test, and that’s why the new contract emulates the collaborative process used to develop the Regents Exams.” 

I am looking forward to seeing positive action, implemented in the true spirit of these comments from officials in the NYSED.

I also look forward to a response to my previous email regarding the timing of the NYS 3-8 math tests.  I've copied that email below:

Hi,

I was just rereading a July 9th NYT article about the company Questar winning the bid for the NYS 3-8 assessments.  I was wondering if, due to the change of format the article mentioned, that the timing of the math tests would be reconsidered.  Right now, the tests are administered more than two full months before the end of the year.  Given the high stakes aspect imposed by the Governor and the Board of Regents, districts would be unwise to not spend at least a few weeks preparing students for the format of the test.  These facts taken together, effectively reduce teaching time from a ten month school year to a seven month school year (and that does not take into account New York State snow days and the beginning-of-year routines that may delay starting the math curriculum in the first weeks of school.)

I've written on several occasions over the past three years of how difficult (impossible?) it is to address the shifts in emphasis demanded by the CC State Standards, particularly the need to have students gain "deep understanding" rather than just learn "tricks."  The current timeline does not allow this to be possible.  I know the State has created a September-April timeline and a May/June timeline, but what's expected from September through testing time is still wholly unrealistic.  Rather than enable teachers and students to spend greater time digging deeper and reaching greater mathematical understanding, the expectations of the State have actually made true mathematical understanding elusive for most students.

Given the growing Opt Out Movement started by parents, and the State's desire for teachers to counter parents' concerns with public support for the testing, I would sincerely hope the State Education Department and the Board of Regents would now see fit to give teachers and students the benefit of a full year of teaching and learning before trying to discover who has become an effective learner/teacher, and who might not be.

PLEASE, show that the State is really behind a sincere effort to improve educational outcomes.  Act to immediately amend the testing schedule so that 3-8 math students take tests at the end of the year, rather than 2/3 of the way through the year.

Thank you for your cooperation with this matter,

Question of the Day: Can we start an information campaign that provides verifiable factual evidence about testing to all New York State citizens?

I just finished giving the NYState ELA tests to 14 of my 25 students.  (The other 11 refused.)  It was a very strange position to be in as a teacher where you wanted to support every child's/family's rights to choose to test or not to test, but you only had 56% of a class taking the tests.  It made me even angrier that the State (meaning the Ed Dept, the Board of Regents, and the governor) is using our students as pawns in their struggle for power.  How dare they accuse us of not having our students' best interests at heart!!

I'm currently working on my own "Governor Readiness" exam to give Mr. Cuomo.  It will require him to provide verifiable evidence for all his responses.

In the meantime, I sent the following letter to my state union:

Dear _______________,

Thank you for all you do for members.  Your action and organizing work on behalf of teachers (and students) in NYS is appreciated and critical for any success we can have in saving our public schools from corporate take-over.

I am hoping it would be okay to suggest some possible ideas for actions in the future...

I think our only chance for success in our efforts is to have the full support of parents and other taxpayers.  Although the "Opt Out" movement and the significantly increased number of families who chose to refuse the tests this year is a sign that more parents are listening, I think it would be helpful if we designed a campaign of "the truth about testing" rather than just a general statement to refuse the "high stakes tests."   The fact is, not everyone agrees that teachers shouldn't be held accountable by way of test scores.  Not everyone opted their children out of testing for the same reason. But if we act as educators of the public and started a massive "truth telling" campaign that focuses on facts not personalities (I think using the angry face of Cuomo on so many union messages isn't necessarily in our best interests,) I think we could garner the support of many more people.  I think we need to create new informational sound bites that offer different focus than "stop high-stakes testing."  I would be willing to help work on such an information campaign, if that would be appropriate/helpful.

For instance, can we focus on these simple facts:

•                Jonathan Burman from the State Education Department was quoted this week as saying: "Test refusal is a mistake because it eliminates important information about how our kids are doing."  The truth is, there is NO useful information provided to parents, students, or most importantly, teachers. The scores are shared many months after the tests are administered when the students have moved on to the next grade.  The numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4 are tied to arbitrarily assigned cut scores set by the State.  Information from the most important part of the ELA tests - the written responses, are not shared with teachers.  How are we to know if our teaching has been effective?  How will we know what skills students were able to apply from the instruction we provided? How can we improve our teaching, and therefore student learning, without this critical data?  Without this data, the scores are little more than random numbers that serve no other purpose than to provide a false sense of "important information."

•                Jonathan Burman was also quoted as saying: "Those who call for opting out really want New York to opt out of information that can help parents and teachers understand how well their students are doing."  Parents have chosen to refuse testing for their children for many reasons.  One argument that has not been proven with verifiable evidence by the State Ed Dept is that there is information generated by the tests that will help parents and teachers understand how well their students are doing.  What "important information" exactly is the SED referring to?  They need to follow their own instructions to students - "Be sure to include evidence to support your response."

•                This is perhaps the most ironic of the SED's recent comments: “We can’t go back to ignoring the needs of our children.”  While I think they're implying the "we" includes all of us in education in NYS, it really is the SED, the Board of Regents, and the Governor who have been ignoring the needs of our children.  Several years of teachers and parents speaking out about the flawed roll-out of the Common Core Curriculum, unreasonable, age-inappropriate tests given for inappropriate lengths of time, and demands that teachers jobs will be dependent upon the scores of the ill-conceived tests (but that no one should be teaching to these tests) provide ample evidence that it is our own education "leaders" and policy makers that have been ignoring the needs of our children.

I am a firm believer in speaking truth to power.  As a fifth grade teacher tasked by my district with implementing the State's engageny ELA Module 1 on human rights, I've spent many months teaching my students about human rights, civil rights, the power of peaceful, non-violent protest to effect change, and the impact of many voices speaking truthfully in the face of unjust laws and people who bully their way to power.  How can I not apply these same lessons to our real life situation here in NYState?  Law makers and policy makers are bullying parents, students, and teachers into obeying illogical dictates that are not based on anything we know to be true about how children learn and what constitutes great teaching.  None of their policies are supported by research proven knowledge.  These leaders insist we all blindly follow their decrees, and ignore common sense, our own professional knowledge of what constitutes "best teaching practices," and even our personal ethical/moral compasses.  They denounce us publicly, try to shame us into blind obedience, and threaten that we will lose funding, lose our jobs, or worse yet - ruin the lives of the children we love.

Please, can we start a new campaign that provides verifiable factual evidence to all our fellow New York State citizens?  

Help lead us all to stand up to the insanity with truth as evidence to light our way.

Thank you very much for reading!

~veteran elementary teacher

June 2007

Question:  Where is the school "emergency room?"

In the days following the tragedy at Virginia Tech, I, like countless others around the country, spent many waking moments pondering how such a horrific event could occur.  I was particularly struck by an interview done shortly after the event with the Chairperson of the English Department.  She spoke in such a calm tone about all that she had done with respect to the student who committed the unspeakable acts.  Her broken heart and grief were unmistakable, as were her very insightful comments about working within an educational institution that does not always have the ability to respond effectively to teachers’ concerns about specific students.  As a teacher myself, I was particularly struck by the similarities I heard in her story, compared with my own experiences working in a suburban New York elementary school.  While my purpose is not to raise undue alarm, I do feel strongly that an accident (or a disaster) isn't such, until it happens.  Until we are able to create systems that can both process and respond to teacher’s concerns about student behavior, I am afraid we may possibly repeat this horrible event.

While many will look at Virginia and wonder how this could have happened, I recognized so many of the professor’s concerns and frustrations I could, unfortunately, see how it could come to pass.  There were many warning signs but there just wasn’t a system in place to properly receive and process the warnings.  

 Our school district, like most others, has systems in place for children with learning problems and even mild to moderate behavior problems.  I have often compared our system to that of a doctor's office.  We can manage and "treat" children whose issues are not extremely time-sensitive.  Similarly, a doctor's office makes appointments months in advance for well visits, days in advance for mild illnesses, and daily "emergency" appointments for fevers or rashes.  However, if a child has broken a bone, seriously bleeding wound or other extreme symptom, parents head to the nearest emergency room.  Time is of the essence.  Rules that apply to the orderly and systematic scheduling of a doctor's office cannot be applied in emergency situations.

Some problems our students face, though uncommon, are more appropriately labeled as “emergencies.”  Classroom teachers, on the front lines, often sense the urgency much more acutely than support staff or administrators.  In Virginia, the head of the English Department was so concerned about the gunman’s behavior that she ended up privately tutoring him to reduce his interaction with other students.  She recognized the warning signs.  She reported her concerns to many levels of administration.  Faced with what she considered repeated inadequate responses, she took matters into her own hands.  She felt powerless to do anything else.  Yet in hindsight, we all can see what really needed to be done.  Virginia Tech needed an “emergency room.”  A place, or process to manage a student with symptoms so worrisome they needed the same level of attention and care as a person brought to an emergency room bleeding profusely or even unconscious.  His life was in danger (as were many other lives it turned out,) yet the system only had doctor’s appointments and long waits in the “waiting room.”   

In our society we find it difficult to quickly and decisively respond to situations involving emotional “unwell-ness.”  Bleeding we can see.  Broken bones we can feel.  Learning disabilities we can test for.  But emotional instability is hidden from sight in many ways.  It can only be noticed and reported by those who come in frequent contact with the suffering person.  And those who report the suffering need to feel supported and responded to in the same manner as if the symptoms were more obvious to the casual observer.

I've had many students to worry about over the years.  The response is always the same - wait and see. And then respond to specific incidents as they occur. Even as a veteran teacher, it took many months and my complete and unwavering belief in the desperate nature of my student’s situation, to get an adequate response.  It was not until other staff members became physically involved and personally inconvenienced that real progress was made.  I noted a problem on the first day of school.  I reported it to both the parents and other support staff by the end of the second week of school.  But without an emergency room system in place, complicated by the difficult nature of emotional illness, the child’s warning signs went largely unaddressed.

I share this experience not to point fingers at individuals, nor to open a case of “he said she said”  but rather, in an honest  effort to avoid such a horrible, unspeakable tragedy from occurring again.  It is not enough to love and support each other.  It is not enough to look at the good around us and live each day to the fullest.  Those of us working “in the trenches,” those of us best in the position to observe the warning signs, need an emergency room.  A place where the rules and procedures appropriate for other less desperate situations are not adhered to.  I urge all administrators, with whatever power and ability you have, to work towards this end.  I feel all of our lives depend on it – those that suffer, those that try to help them, and the countless other innocents who may get caught in the crossfire some day.