I am writing in response to your recent article about McKinley Elementary School, where a teacher was recently accused of giving answers to a student while administering the California Standards Test.  Our son, a McKinley student, is not in the third grade class where the alleged cheating took place.  He did not [...]]]> Dear Editors:

I am writing in response to your recent article about McKinley Elementary School, where a teacher was recently accused of giving answers to a student while administering the California Standards Test.  Our son, a McKinley student, is not in the third grade class where the alleged cheating took place.  He did not take the test at all because we decided to opt him out of testing, which is a parental right the California Education Code guarantees.  We opted our boy out because we know what is happening to McKinley now and what will happen to it in the future, as long as standardized tests are used to evaluate schools: the curriculum will be narrowed, creative educators will be forced to teach to the test, and there will be cheating, because standardized tests guarantee failure, as the bar for passing them gets higher every year.  Others know this too: big business super PACS, which have recently made inroads into Burbank’s excellent schools, and threaten to turn them into charters if test scores continue to slide.  We do not know what happened in the third grade class where the cheating supposedly took place.  All we can do to support our son’s excellent public school is continue to opt him out of this harmful testing and to encourage other Burbank parents to do the same.

Respectfully…

We Hold from Vincent Precht on Vimeo.

To  make this video I downloaded photos from the Library of Congress. I was amazed how diverse public schools have always been.  Native Americans, African Americans, Anglo Americans–first in separate schools, then in the same ones. Typical and not so typical–fed, taught, given a [...]]]>

We Hold from Vincent Precht on Vimeo.

To  make this video I downloaded photos from the Library of Congress. I was amazed how diverse public schools have always been.  Native Americans, African Americans, Anglo Americans–first in separate schools, then in the same ones. Typical and not so typical–fed, taught, given a place to play. Cherished. Though guaranteed neither in the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution, the idea of public education has always occupied a steady place in my heart. It is something that, as Americans, we just do. A given. What we hold. Who we are.

Music: The United States Army Band

It is the thesis of [...]]]> I am reading Upton Sinclair’s wonderful muckraking book about public education in Los Angeles in the ‘twenties, The Goslings, a Study of American Schools. See if any of this sounds familiar (e.g.,teacher bashing by the LA Times, business’ stranglehold on public education). For more check it out on Google.

It is the thesis of the business men who run our educational system that the schools are factories, and the children raw material, to be turned out thoroughly standardized, of the same size and shape, like biscuits or sausages. To these business men the teachers are servants, or “hands,” whose duty is the same as in any other factory–to obey orders, and mind their own business, and be respectful to their superiors. Whenever by any chance teachers dare to have ideas of their own, or especially to ask for higher wages, these teachers are treated precisely as we have seen labor unions treated by tile Black Hand of Southern California.

This past week, I learned more about what’s in store for public schools. I was dismayed to find out, at our Tuesday faculty meeting, that Common Core, a new set of learning standards mandated in 46 states, deemphasizes the importance of fiction as well as the experiences in a child’s life that make stories [...]]]>

This past week, I learned more about what’s in store for public schools. I was dismayed to find out, at our Tuesday faculty meeting, that Common Core, a new set of learning standards mandated in 46 states, deemphasizes the importance of fiction as well as the experiences in a child’s life that make stories (fables, fairytales, etc.) meaningful. It motivated me to look deeper into the standards and the people developing them. In this clip, David Coleman, the man behind Common Core, states that Americans don’t give a sh*t how people think or feel. I disagree. I think they care a lot.

Several states plan to share confidential student data with a corporation funded by the Gates Foundation. This information may be shared with other entities, for purposes that are not clear.

As parents, grandparents and educators, we must protect our children’s rights to privacy.

We expect schools to understand the needs [...]]]> Please consider signing this petition.

Several states plan to share confidential student data with a corporation funded by the Gates Foundation. This information may be shared with other entities, for purposes that are not clear.

As parents, grandparents and educators, we must protect our children’s rights to privacy.

We expect schools to understand the needs of children. We do not expect them to share this information with corporations, marketers, or other government agencies, except in the aggregate–not with individual identification– for informational purposes only.

It is understandable that government needs to collect data about enrollment and attendance and special education and trends.

There is no reason to release the names of individual students to outside entities.

Please protect our children and our students against commercial and governmental intrusion into their lives.

The petition begins as follows:

“New York State, along with Colorado, Illinois and Massachusetts, intends to provide confidential student information to a private corporation called the Shared Learning Collaborative, funded by the Gates Foundation, which in turn will make this data available to for-profit companies to develop and market their commercial learning products. 

This confidential data will include student names, addresses, test scores, grades, attendance, economic and special education status, IEPs, and disciplinary records. All this is being done without parents’ knowledge or consent, and represents a shocking violation of our children’s right to privacy.

Four more states have said they will soon follow in phase II: Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana, and the Gates Foundation is soliciting even more states to join in.” 

Every weekend I drive to Fort Hernandez in Van Nuys a few miles away from where I teach and drop off food.  The Hernandezes have been fighting eviction for years and now are getting help from 50+ Occupiers camped in their front yard.  Housing is a human right.  I hope they can keep [...]]]>

Every weekend I drive to Fort Hernandez in Van Nuys a few miles away from where I teach and drop off food.  The Hernandezes have been fighting eviction for years and now are getting help from 50+ Occupiers camped in their front yard.  Housing is a human right.  I hope they can keep their home.

I wrote a letter that appeared in our local newspaper. Free Lance Star. I thought it might interest you. As [...]]]> I recently received this thoughtful comment bin response to a blog entry I wrote a while back about alternative assessment for kids with IEPs. Thank you, Karen.  I think your take is spot on!

I wrote a letter that appeared in our local newspaper. Free Lance Star. I thought it might interest you. As a teacher I wanted parents to be aware of this new process and how it might impact their children. Here is a copy.

October 8, 2012

To whom it may concern:
I am a National Board Certified Special Education teacher in Spotsylvania County Schools. I have taught here for 10 years and have been a Special Education teacher for over 20 years. I am writing to you because of concerns that I have for the new alternative assessment (VAAP) for students with significant cognitive disabilities.
The expectation of the No Child Left Behind Act is that the majority of students with disabilities can and should participate in and achieve proficiency on state assessments. I teach a small percentage of students with disabilities who may not reach grade-level standards, even with the best appropriate instruction. These are students with the most significant cognitive disabilities (about 1 percent of all special education students.) The Title I regulations allow these students to take an alternate assessment based on achievement standards that are less difficult and more tailored to their needs. Their proficient scores can be counted in the same way as any other student’s proficient score on a state assessment. This alternate assessment is used for students who have IQs of 55 or lower. (Average normal intelligence is 100.)
My concerns are for the new changes to VAAP that have been put in place this school year. I teach at the high school level, and previously my students were held to an aligned standard in accordance with their academic level. The VAAP curriculum was aligned only up to the sixth grade SOL standard. Currently, they are being held to the same high school proficiency level as general education students. We are expected to increase our students’ knowledge by many years within a short period of time. This is not acceptable for students with significant cognitive disabilities. General Education students would not have to attain these levels in one year. All of my students follow an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that provides for a combination of functional and standards based curriculum that will allow them to be as independent as possible and promotes life-skills learning which will help them be self sufficient. (My students’ functional grade levels range from pre-K through third grade.)
Is it realistic to expect students with significant cognitive disabilities to meet the same level of achievement as all general education students? We cannot expect all students to be the same. This does not follow the IDEA guidelines of a free and APPROPRIATE education. There is nothing APPROPRIATE about a student with a 55 IQ or lower trying to learn Algebra. How will that help them in the future? Academic cognitive testing for these students is done by standardized psychological testing which provides the IQ scores. The outcome for many of my students will be staying at home with guardians, sheltered employment or employment with coaching. The IEP is established for the “individual” educational goals. When an educator is forced to look at grade level and not academic level, they are not really meeting the student’s needs.
We are speaking of the students who are not in SOL classes and have not had the prerequisites to attain those SOL standards. They are receiving an IEP/Special Diploma. With this in mind, I need to focus my efforts on skills that will help them with self help skills (i.e. cooking, personal hygiene, laundry, household chores,) functional vocabulary (i.e. survival signs, grocery words, restaurant words/fast food words, job words, community signs,) functional writing (i.e. thank you letters, personal information, expressive journals, ) functional math (i.e. money skills, basic add and subtract, measurement, time, calendars,) functional science and social studies (i.e. animal care, plant care, weather, maps and globes, character education, holidays,) and vocational skills (i.e. following directions, community jobs and expectations, time management.)
I feel that with the focus on these extremely high standards that my students will lose the skills that will help them be independent and thrive. Please take a look at the new VAAP guidelines put in place by the Virginia Department of Education. Ask yourself, if you had a child with significant cognitive disabilities, what would be important for them to learn?
Sincerely,
Karen S. Molbert