LOUISVILLE LEOPARD PWRCUSSIONISTS

Bring music back to our classrooms!

http://youtu.be/JPBrA3sV90A

When they realized women were using their sacks to make clothes for their children, flour mills of the 30s started using flowered fabric for their sacks, 1939

http://www.alternet.org/education/google-spying-40-million-k-12-students-privacy-advocates-call-federal-sanctions

Google Spying on 40 Million K-12 Students, Privacy Advocates Call for Federal Sanctions

Photo Credit: www.google.com

Unlike its website declaration, Google’s “Apps for Education” isn’t a tool that “schools can trust,” because it is spying on 40 million K-12 students and compiling all their online activities even though it pledged not to do that, according to online privacy advocates.

“Google is violating the Student Privacy Pledge in three ways,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission. “First… student personal information in the form of data about their use of non-educational Google services is collected, maintained, and used by Google for its own benefit, unrelated to authorized educational or school purposes.”

“Second, the “Chrome Sync” feature of Google’s Chrome browser is turned on by default on all Google Chromebook laptops – including those sold to schools as part of Google for Education – thereby enabling Google to collect and use students’ entire browsing history and other data for its own benefit,” EFF continues. “And third, Google for Education’s Administrative settings, which enable a school administrator to control settings for all program Chromebooks, allow administrators to choose settings that share student personal information with Google and third-party websites.”

EFF’s complaint to the Federal Trade Commission urges it to open an investigation into the company’s violation of privacy pledge drafted by the Future of Privacy Forum and Software & Information Industry Association, which Google signed last January. EFF notes that the FTC takes industry-created privacy pledges seriously, and “has brought enforcement actions against companies that made privacy-related promises to their costumers and then violated those promises.”

In 2011, Google paid “a $22.5 million civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misrepresented to users of Apple Inc.’s Safari Internet browser that it would not place tracking “cookies” or serve targeted ads to those users, violating an earlier privacy settlement between the company and the FTC,” the complaint said.

In public, Google claims to be a big privacy advocate. However, according to EFF, the 40 million K-12 students who use its laptops and software tools are unaware that it “collects, maintains, and uses records of essentially everything that student users of Google for Education do on Google services, while they are logged in to their Google accounts, regardless of which device or browser they use.” 

This may not be surprising to adults, who are used to Internet companies tracking their every search and move—mostly to analyze consumer preferences and target them for ads. But the privacy pledge that Google signed is supposed to protect the youths’ “personally identifiable information as well as other information when it is both collected and maintained on an individual level and is linked to personally identifiable information.” That includes all web searches, browsing, YouTube videos watched, all websites visited, other applications installed and passwords.

“Such data reveals highly personal information about students and is not necessary to deliver educational services,” EFF’s complaint said. “Google not only collects and stores the vast array of student data described above, but uses it for its own purposes such as improving Google products and serving targeted advertising (within non-Education Google services), as Google has represented to EFF.”

Google contends that it “anonymizes” this data—stripping off student identities—but that still violates the student privacy pledge, EFF said, “because Google still uses the data for its own benefit, unrelated to authorized educational or school purposes… and without authorization from the student or parent.”

Moreover, school administrators can also access and provide student information to third-parties, including businesses that are seeking to sell services or others trying to locate the student’s whereabouts. “In the same settings page where administrators can choose whether Google can collect a user’s passwords or browsing history, school administrators can also choose whether “websites are allowed to track the user’s [here, students’] physical location,” EFF said. “Sharing a student’s physical location with third parties is unquestionably sharing personal information beyond what is needed for educational purposes.”

EFF is asking the FTC to investigate Google’s privacy pledge-violating activities and tell parents exactly what records they have compiled on their children, and also destroy these accumulated data files. They are also asking the FTC to “order” Google to withdraw from the industry privacy pledge it signed, and “provide such other relief as the Commission finds necessary and appropriate,” which could include large fines.

The Industry Responds

Jonathan Rochelle, Director of Google Apps for Education, responded to the EFF complaint on the GoogleForEducation blog, saying that Google was following the industry’s privacy pledge.

“While we appreciate the EFF’s focus on student data privacy, we are confident that our tools comply with both the law and our promises, including the Student Privacy Pledge, which we signed earlier this year,” he wrote. “The co-authors of the Student Privacy Pledge, The Future of Privacy Forum and The Software and Information Industry Association have both criticized EFF's interpretation of the Pledge and their complaint.”

“We have reviewed the EFF complaint but do not believe it has merit,” wrote the Future of Privacy Forum’s Paul Keith. “Chrome Sync is a setting within the control of the school IT administrator, and can also be changed by parents or students.  This feature allows students to log in at home or at a library and have access to their school bookmarks, favorites and other settings.  Since Chromebooks may be shared among students in school (with password-protected accounts for each student using that particular hardware device), many schools rely on Sync so that multiple students have ready access to their accounts and settings on the same device.  We understand that any data collected is not used for behavioral advertising and all other data uses are aggregated and anonymous.” 

The Software & Information Industry Association spokesman Mark McCarthy wrote that EFF’s “complaint contains some important misunderstandings about the student privacy pledge.” Continuing, he said, “First, the complaint alleges that Google violated the student privacy pledge because it collected information about students who are using general purpose services. The pledge, however, only applies to applications, services, or web sites “designed and marketed for use in United States elementary and secondary educational institutions.”

“The complaint also alleges that Google violated the pledge by collecting personal information such as browser histories and bookmarks.  However, this information is collected at the direction of the school as part of a student’s educational experience. The pledge was never intended to prevent the collection of personal information as part of students’ educational experience.”

Meaningless Words?

Taken together, these statements appear to confirm that Google is tracking and compiling information on student online activities. That data may be rendered anonymous, may not be used for commercial purposes, and may be controlled in part by parents and educators. However, it’s clear that the basic allegations by EFF appear true. Whether that prompts federal regulators to investigate further, conclude it violated an industry privacy pledge, or sanction Google is an entirely different matter.

But it’s clear that Google, the Future of Privacy Forum, The Software & Information Industry Association, EFF—and likely the general public—have very different ideas about what privacy means for 40 million K-12 students using Google’s tools.   

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).

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http://www.educationviews.org/american-kids-read-years-common-core/

What Do American Kids Read after Five Years of Common Core?*

Sandra Stotsky December 5, 2015

Not much at their grade level, it seems. Nor do they seem to be reading enough of the kind of material that will develop college-level reading and vocabulary skills. Two independent sources of information help us to understand why American students continue to decline in their command of the basic subject in the curriculum. This is despite the brave words uttered by governors and commissioners of education when Common Core’s standards in mathematics and English language arts were adopted in 2010 by state boards of education, mostly without a question, and in many cases before the standards were written or completed. They also help us to understand what might be done to reverse the decline.

How do we know there is a decline in reading? It is suggested by the scores on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) grade 8 reading tests. http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_2015/#?grade=4
Can the decline be related to the implementation of Common Core’s ELA standards? Yes, according to Tom Loveless at the Brookings Institution, who undertook an analysis of both the decline in grade 8 NAEP reading as well as the plateau in grade 4 NAEP reading by looking at teacher-reported changes in the content of the English language arts (ELA) curriculum since Common Core. See the report here: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center-chalkboard/posts/2015/11/24-common-core-instruction-loveless and Education Week’s account here: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2015/11/fiction_no_longer_dominating_reading_instruction_naep_analysis.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-TW

As Loveless points out, teachers report shifting away from literary texts to what are called “informational” texts in response to the demands of the Common Core ELA standards writers for an increase in “informational” reading, as well as to their division of reading standards at all grade levels into about 50% for informational reading and 50% for “literature.” In Loveless’s words, the curriculum has moved “from the dominance of fiction over nonfiction to near parity in emphasis.”

While this shift may not be the cause (or even a cause) of the plateau in grade 4 reading and decline in grade 8 reading, it is linked to Common Core. It raises questions that might have been explored six years ago when Common Core’s ELA standards writers told English teachers to teach more “informational” reading despite the lack of historical or empirical evidence that such a shift would better prepare students for “college and career” than the customary balance of about 80% drama, fiction, and poetry and 20% nonfiction (biographies, essays, and speeches) in the secondary English curriculum. Apparently, the Common Core ELA writers did not know that secondary English teachers have rarely if ever taught “informational” reading, since “information” has always been taught in other subjects in the curriculum and is not what English teachers have studied or continue to study in undergraduate coursework as English or English education majors. It is not clear what Common Core’s ELA writers really did and do know about the secondary English curriculum since neither David Coleman nor Susan Pimentel has ever taught in K-12 or above.

We learn that American students are reading at low levels of reading difficulty from recent editions of an annual report issued by the Wisconsin-based company that sells Accelerated Reader 360 (AR or AR 360). This program, in thousands of schools (school libraries or individual classrooms), provides data on what K-12 students in their program read, as well as a short comprehension quiz for the books and “nonfiction articles” they read. It may not be an inclusive list (students may well read books and newspaper/journal articles they do not take a quiz on or report reading), but it is so far the best and largest data base we have.

The 2016 edition is based on data for 9.8 million students in grades 1–12 from 31,327 U.S. schools “who read over 334 million books and nonfiction articles during the 2014–2015 school year.” http://doc.renlearn.com/KMNet/R004101202GH426A.pdf The 2015 report is based on book-reading only (“more than 9.8 million students in grades 1–12 who read more than 330 million books during the 2013–2014 school year, and are from 31,633 schools, spanning all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia”).

The 2015 report noted that “the number of students reading books within the grade bands established by Common Core falls precipitously as grade level increases.” What seems to account for the decline? One reason may be, as the 2015 report suggested, that students simply read less challenging works than they once read. As noted in Figure 6 on p. 43 of the 2016 report, in grades 2–5, between 81% and 98% of students independently read at least one book in or above their Common Core-recommended “text complexity” grade band. In grades 6–8, these rates fall to between 24% and 32%. In high school, they drop further to between 7% and 14%. “Beyond grade 5, few students read books within their text complexity grade bands.”

In the 2015 report, the average difficulty level of books read peaks at 5.2 in grade 12 (Table A1, p. 51).” To judge by an essay in the 2013 AR report, this number indicates a significant decline over the 20th century in the difficulty level of the top titles in high school. Using the readability formula developed by this Wisconsin-based company (ATOS for Books), the essay reports that the average reading level of assigned high school texts in a 1907 study by George Tanner was 9.0, followed by 9.1 in a 1923 study by Sara Hudelson. The average reading level was successively lower in all subsequent surveys: 8.2 in Scarvia Anderson’s 1964 survey, 7.2 in Arthur Applebee’s 1989 survey, 6.7 in Sandra Stotsky et al.’s 2010 survey, and 6.2 in the 2012 AR survey of top titles read or assigned.

In the 2016 report, the average complexity level (i.e., reading difficulty level) of the top 25 texts read by the 95,000 grade 11 students in the AR data base is 5.6, and 6.5 by the over 70,000 grade 12 students. This might at first blush seem like the beginning of a reversal of the decline. But the 2016 report introduced a new wrinkle. Books are one kind of reading and “nonfiction articles” are another. And the distance between the level of the books read by high school students and the level of their college textbooks is still enormous, even though the reading level of the “nonfiction articles” students read is higher than the level of the books they read. The average ATOS level of the top 25 “nonfiction articles” read by grade 11 students (the ATOS for Books formula was adapted for short selections) was an impressive 9.7, and by grade 12 students 9.5.

But, as the 2016 report cautions, students exiting high school are typically reading books in the grades 5–6 range, “which is on par with the level of typical fiction best sellers of around 5.7.” Thus, as the report notes, their book choices are still about two grade levels below the demands of books commonly assigned to incoming college freshman as summer/fall reading (7.3) and nonfiction best sellers (7.6). Worse yet, the reading levels of college textbooks (13.8) are quite a bit more advanced than what many high school students choose or are assigned to read (AR’s data base cannot yet distinguish between the two categories).

In the context of two independent sources (the Brookings and AR reports) suggesting that American students are reading fewer and less challenging literary texts than before, several important questions need to be explored:

1. What is the quality of the “informational” or nonfiction articles now added to the AR data base (our only systematic source of information on the nonfiction article reading now taking place)?

2. Why do these “nonfiction articles” get on average higher grade-level ratings than the books students read (which are mostly fiction)?

3. What are the characteristics of high school-level literary texts (e.g., books with ratings above 9.0), which seem to have almost disappeared from the English curriculum?

We begin by exploring differences between literary texts and “informational” texts. The key element is their vocabulary because we know from 100 years of reading research that knowledge of the meanings of words is the key element in reading comprehension. However, we do not know how strong readers develop their large vocabulary. Researchers have concluded that good readers learn most new words in context (but not by using context—a very different statement) and that there is no one method teachers should use to teach vocabulary. http://www.readingrockets.org/article/teaching-vocabulary

It is possible that a crucial condition for learning new words is continuous prose reading, as with an Austen or Dickens novel or a work of historical nonfiction (poems typically use a smaller and often monosyllabic vocabulary). Continuous prose reading involves reading about the same people or events across a long series of pages written at about the same level of vocabulary and sentence structure. It requires concentration (especially when characters have different names depending on their relationships to other characters), but a good plot or exciting true story keeps readers moving along. This kind of reading is very different from the stop-and-start reading of a series of “nonfiction” articles. The reading level of the vocabulary and sentence structure in each article may be similar to those in a well-written work of fiction or nonfiction (or even higher), but students presented each week with a completely new topic, set of key words, and writing style in a short piece of writing may be overwhelmed. (There is no research on this issue.)

It is difficult to retain the meaning of constantly changing key words over a long period of time (changing because the topics are completely unrelated), especially in an English class which by definition does not teach any body of “information” as in a traditional science class. (Nor are English teachers licensed to teach any body of information.) Use of these kinds of articles in a curriculum does not lead to the cumulative learning that would take place from a sequence of learning activities for intellectual objectives (not skills), each related in different ways to preceding activities. Specific technical terms probably get learned from reading them over and over in a well-written textbook on one subject (and using them in some way). But a literate vocabulary is likely acquired from reading exciting tales (e.g., Sherlock Holmes stories) or a coherent series of literary works as in chronological survey courses in American or British literature, not from using a word list, word wall, dictionary, or context. Such words are in, for example, A Tale of Two Cities (9.7). http://web.suffieldacademy.org/english/english4h/c.d.voc.html While most are unnecessary for understanding a technical article, they appear in other works written by educated writers.

Dickens novels were once read by most high school students and are now hardly read at all in high schools in the AR 360 program. In fact, the only literary texts now in the top 50 titles for grades 9 to 12 with a rating of 9.0 or higher are rarely assigned or read, according to their frequency ratings, and were written before WWII (e.g., Austin, Conrad, Dickens, Hawthorne, and Shakespeare). The only European writers with high school-level ratings left are Kafka and Verne.

In contrast, the “nonfiction articles” are short, contemporary, and with key words that differ from article to article to address a variety of topics. Unless these articles are related in substantive ways to a literary work the English teacher has assigned all students for study, they constitute fragmented reading and likely lead to little learning. For example, the five most popular nonfiction articles from the Accelerated Reader 360 Collection read by over 122,000 tenth graders are as follows:

Title (ATOS™ level) Source Topic Skill area
1 Bad Behavior on Social Media Can Cost Recruits (9.0) AP Science Author’s Purpose
2 Facebook’s Privacy Update: Five Things to Know (9.4) AP Culture Main Idea and Details
3 NSA Spying on Virtual Worlds, Online Games (11.5) AP Culture Author’s Purpose
4 Monkeys Take Selfies, Sparking Copyright Dispute (9.9) AP Education Argumentation
5 Are Ants Smarter Than Google? (5.5) Youngzine Culture Compare and Contrast

To judge by the information given for each one, teachers have likely chosen them for “informational” reading instruction in order to address the “skill area” they are told it addresses. The reading levels may be about as high as a Dickens novel because these short articles must present quickly a heavy load of key words related to their topic—unlike nonfiction books where key vocabulary is spread out over many pages and readers have many opportunities to absorb their meanings in context. But one cannot discern the literary works for which these article might have served as “context texts” if in fact they were selected as the context for any literary work. See the report by Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky, issued in 2012, for a description of “context texts” as promoted by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). http://pioneerinstitute.org/education/new-study-suggests-remedies-for-common-core-literature-deficit/).

Keep in mind that the audience for these articles (and radio broadcasts by NPR) is not high school students but literate adults, who may read closely or skim for the point of an article—depending on idiosyncratic interest. They are mostly examples of journalism, targeted to busy readers. And the structure of these pieces fits a journalistic mode of writing, not the kind of paragraph that English teachers are desperately trying to encourage in high school students (a paragraph with a controlling idea, as well as complete sentences related to that idea, not quotations from interviewees). Moreover, if students are also given the pictures embedded in the original articles, or the tape recordings for the scripts of the NPR radio broadcasts, then measures of reading comprehension (short quizzes) applied to these articles are confounded.

Common Core’s ELA writers did not seem to know that complex literary texts better prepare students for college than even complex non-literary texts. They clearly did not know that NAEP in no way makes recommendations for the content of the English/reading curriculum at any grade level. (It simply recommends the percentage of types of passages to be used for assessment purposes only—and says so.) In fact, it remains a mystery why their misinformed curriculum and pedagogical recommendations have not been examined by the country’s most prominent education researchers (who could have looked for supporting research and told the public it wasn’t there) or why completely clueless boards of education adopted Common Core’s ELA standards without a question about the changes in the K-12 curriculum they would lead to—and the possible consequences of these changes.

Recommendations for Educators and the Accelerated Reader 360 Collection

The company producing the AR 360 Collection is to be commended for trying to encourage high school-level readings for high school English classes. It does so by showing fiction and nonfiction book titles that would be suitable for grades 9/10 and 11/12 (pp. 50-51, 2016 edition). But the lists showing top titles for books through the grades indicate that, overall, students are assigned or choose to read very few nonfiction books. It’s unlikely that enough nonfiction book titles will be selected to address the “informational” quota that schools mistakenly think English and other classes must meet to get students “college and career ready.”

As English professor Mark Bauerlein suggests, instead of “contextualizing” historically important literary works with modern “informational” texts (e.g., “nonfiction articles” and other forms of journalism), why not “scaffold” them with authentic informational readings? For example, teachers might pair The Odyssey with short passages about ancient Greek history and social life, and “A Tale of Two Cities” with readings by several French Encyclopedists or Edmund Burke’s post-Revolutionary comments. Better yet, the lists of suitable literary titles for high school in the AR 360 Collection might point to several possible “context” texts for each title and provide teachers with online access to these informational readings. Such groupings would help teachers to construct a more coherent secondary literature curriculum than they now do, and strengthen students’ grasp of both the literary and non-literary works they are asked to read.

* I appreciate the review of an earlier draft of this essay by Eric Stickney, Director of Educational Research at Renaissance Learning.

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https://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/2015/12/02/this-is-the-moment-congress-we-are-watching-you-vote-and-we-know-whats-in-this-bill/

This Is The Moment, Congress: We Are Watching You Vote (What This Bill is Really About)

The Every Student Succeeds Act

(ESEA or No Child Left Behind Reauthorization)

To read and expose the inevitable underbelly of the latest 1061-page fed-ed bill in the time between yesterday, when the bill slimed its way out of the dark, until tomorrow, when the bill is set up for its Congressional vote (without debate, without reading) is, of course, an impossible task.  We have done impossible tasks before, but I have never read 1,061 pages and analyzed it, overnight.

I’m going to post as much as I have energy for tonight.  In the morning, I’ll add what my smarty pants reader friends have found, as well.  So come back and scroll down.  :)  If you are reading the bill, please make comments and point out page numbers below.  (FYI I am comparing this bill to its predecessors and you can do the same if you like.)

For those just catching up, know this:  the secret committee released the over 1,000 pages long bill to the rest of Congress  Monday, Nov. 30th,  for Congress to make its reasoned vote TWO DAYS LATER but then they changed the bill–again– and re-released it today, Dec. 1st.  So technically, your reps had one day to read, digest, and debate.

Only Senator Lee has stood up to this procedural injustice.  Only he is a clear “NO” vote, that I know of.  Other Utahns: Senator Hatch, Representative Chaffetz and Representative Love, for example, are reading the bill today before they commit to a yes or a no vote this week, say their staffers.

This lack of commitment is something that I cannot understand.

Why wouldn’t Congressmen’s default vote be a “no,” based on the fact that the process has veered far from honest and proper procedural protocol?  Why not fight for the right to take a reasonable approach to actually study and debate the bill openly?

Congress is on the verge of passing this bill dishonorably while the only ones very excited about the bill (besides the Secretary of Education) are the bling-bling bipartisan lobbyists working for gold-rushing tech companies wishing to drain tax dollars into their pockets. These tech companies and ed sales corporations advise or partner up with the feds, saying smooth sounding stuff that poses as education — but education, the word itself, has been hijacked.

Corporate-partnered fed ed, served by this bill, is a top-down, one-sized, freedom-constricting, teacher-controlling, student data-stalking Frankenstein.  I don’t care if it’s left or right wing spawned.  It is wrong.

It is not education.

Any Representative or Senator who votes to pass this nation-binding law in such blind circumstances better prepare. There will be political careers lost– that will trace their demise back to this moment.  This is the moment, Congress.

Hold Congress accountable.  Call and tweet.  Call 202-224-3121 to tell Congress: vote no.    We, the people, are watching this vote.

Now, to business of this bill.

I’ll post the page number or section, the direct quote from the bill, and why it’s a concern. (There is no way this will be thoroughly done in so little time.  Not a chance. But it will give you the gist of the bill.  And you will understand why pushers have gotten into the habit of putting out lying talking points –“reduce the federal footprint”; “restore power to states”– to get the darn bills passed.)

  ————————–

“EVERY STUDENT SUCCEEDS ACT OF 2015”  aka ESEA  link here)

My friend Karen Bracken, a patriot warrior mom, wrote, “Even the title concerns me.  How do you ensure that Every Student Will Succeed?  The only way you can do that is by dumbing-down education to the point in which even a cat could graduate.”  Does that make you laugh or cry?

If you read the title and the table of contents, you will see the micromanagement right away.  But let’s start with section 1003.  It deals with money and how states will be micromanaged if they want to see any of it.  The bill calls it “School Improvement.”  I’ve renamed it “How States Can Beg for A Piece of Their Own Tax Dollars Back“.

Here, the feds dictate (page 24) what percentage of funds the state will use and for what purpose.  (7 percent for this, not less than 95 percent for that, 3 percent for this… on and on through page 32).

The feds dictate that the states then must turn around and inflict fed-like micromanagement on localities; they must be “monitoring and evaluating the use of funds by local education agencies” (page 26) and must give out monies to localities only if they “demonstrate the strongest commitment to using funds…[as feds see fit] and states must “align other Federal, State and local resources“.

(There’s that word “align” that we have read ten billion times in the past four years as we read official documents implementing Common Core and Common Data Standards.  The word pops up again on page 33:  “coursework that is aligned with the challenging State academic standards“.  They’ve now dropped  references to Common Core State Standards as well as any reference to College and Career Ready Standards.  But the word “aligned” they have not dropped.  It’s in the document 72 times, and,  notably, the word “standards” is in the document 269 times and “challenging state academic standards” is repeated 24 times; just not “Common Core” labeled anymore.  To me, “align” in ed reform now means to superglue to a global sameness; it means forget about scholastic creativity or imagination; it means forget about originality or home-grown ideas and powers.  It means that you are not represented; you are assimilated.   But I am off on a tangent.)

Pages 34 and 35 repeat the mantra that funds must be prioritized to low-achievers.  (First of all, how dare you tell a state how to prioritize its funds?  Secondly, how are the feds so sure that mid and high achievers won’t mind losing funding for their misdeed of having achieved?  Are mid or high achievers’ needs not all that important, anyway?)  Harrison Bergeron comes to mind; this is the Handicapper General at work.

Page 36 promises “a sufficient number of options to provide a meaningful choice for parents” which is a lie, of course; think about it.  Federal laws and conditional monies mean using federally approved standards and tests and CURRICULUM in every school receiving federal funds.  This is far from meaningful and it represents an extremely narrowed and controlled set of choices.  Meaningful does not happen in an atmosphere of standardized everything, just as wonderous meals do not bloom in the kitchens of McDonald’s.

Page 37 dictates that American tax dollars may only “provide instruction and content that is secular“.  This is old news.  But it is not old news that federal funds are increasingly being offered to private schools.  Does this mean that the feds are softening and will share taxpayers’ dollars with those who choose to attend private religious schools?  No.  It means that private schools are being coerced to secularize their core curricula and services so that they may receive federal money.

Page 38 is Section 1111:  STATE PLANS.

We’ll rename this one “Mother May I?”  (Thanks, Wendy Hart.)

States say:  “Mother, May I adopt these standards?”  Secretary of Education or his appointees say “no”.  Rinse and repeat until states eventually ask to adopt what the Secretary has already settled upon.  Here’s how it works:

Page 38:  “…State educational agency shall file will the Secretary a plan” which must meet, among other things, “Secretarial Approval” (page 39 line 23) and must be approved by a review team appointed by the federal Secretary of Education. (page 39-40)  That team (page 42) will have the authority to disapprove a state plan.  The state may revise its plan, appeal for a hearing (page 43) but ultimately, the process will “promote effective implementation of the challenging State academic standards [aka Common Core]” (page 43).

If ANYONE tries to tell you that this bill gives power to the States, point to these pages.  With such huge veto-wielding power, and review team appointing power, the Secretary becomes king over anything any state wants to do.  This is not good.  You can stop here.  That’s enough ammo.  VOTE NO.

I have to point out some sickening hypocrisy on page 44.  The review team must provide “objective feedback to the States” with “respect for State and local judgments with the goal of supporting State and local-led innovation“.  If your goal is to support State innovation, why not return to the Constitution which gives exactly ZERO authority to the feds in anything relating to education, tests, standards, or teachers!?

More hypocrisy on the same page: “Neither the Secretary nor the political appointees of the Department may attempt to participate in or influence the peer review process”.

On page 45:  “If a state makes significant changes to its plan at any time, such as the adoption of new challenging State academic standards or new academic assessments or changes to its accountability system… such information shall be submitted to the Secretary…”

Same page:  “If a State fails to meet any of the requirements of this section, the Secretary may withhold funds…” MICROMANAGEMENT HEAVEN.

A bit of a toothless joke on page 47:  “The State, in the plan it files… shall provide an assurance that public comments were taken into account”.

Page 47 also gives us this sobering mouthful:  “Each state, in the plan it files… shall provide an assurance that the State has adopted challenging academic content standards and aligned academic achievement standards (referred to in this Act as ‘challenging State academic standards’), which achievement standards shall include not  less than 3 levels of achievement…”  If you have studied how children are assessed, tracked and predestined to relegated top, middle, or bottom schools and careers in nations shackled by communism and socialism, this will make you very unhappy.

Page 48 says the state MUST align its standards to colleges and to tech-ed schools.

Page 49 says that only a small percentage of special education students– those with “the most significant cognitive disabilities” may be excused, and may use alternate standards, and only then if those alternate standards are “aligned with the challenging State academic content standards”.  On page 50 it adds that that severely disabled person must be “on track to pursue postsecondary education or employment” whether they want to or not.  The feds are not kind to special education students.  And they won’t let states determine these matters anymore.  Sadly, we already knew all of this was coming.

Page 51 offers us another blistering contradiction:  “The Secretary shall not have the authority to mandate, direct, control, coerce, or exercise any direction or supervision over any of the challenging State academic standards…”  Tell me how that works with page 45.   He can withhold funds and disapprove plans if the state files a plan that he doesn’t like for a slew of reasons that could include using curriculum, tests or standards that aren’t aligned to his vision of fed ed and he can mandate that the state has to use the exact same standards in every one of its schools (page 52 line 21) — but he in no way supervises the State’s standards?

Page 52 deals with “Academic Assessments”.  Feds dictate to states that the tests shall be the same in every school in the state (line 23) and that they will be “administered to all public elementary and secondary school students in the State” (page 53).  Does this end –or aim to end– the parental right to opt out of testing?  (See page 76 below)

Page  53 is an admission.  The bill says that the tests may not be used to “publically disclose personally identifiable information”.   They can’t disclose it publicly, but they can sure store it indefinitely.

Subtly, page 53 forces Common Educational Data Standards because the feds dictate that state tests must be:  “consistent with relevant, nationally recognized professional and technical testing standards”.

Next, the dictators tell states when and how much to test children:

page 54:  in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (every year) for math and language arts

in grades 9, 10, 11, 12 (at least once)

in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 for science (at least three times in those years)

On page 55, the dictators bring down the hammer:  “the participation in such assessments of all students”.  ALL.

On page 58 we see the racism and other -isms of the Department of Education: States are told that they must disaggregate test data by ethnicity, race, economics, disability, English proficiency, gender, and migrant status. 

On page 59 we see the toxic term “universal design for learning“.  Tests are to be developed using IMS Global education standards.  This means not just state or national, but global sameness and tracking.  Is that a good idea or a bad one?  Is that something that we ought to have Congress think about for more than one day prior to a vote?

On page 61 the feds are dictating to states that no more than one percent of students may be considered so disabled that they may take alternate-standards-based tests.  “The total number of students assessed… using alternate assessments does  not exceed 1 percent of the total number of all students in the State”.  Later, on page 65, the bill says that there is no cap; but that schools must submit information “justifying the need to exceed such a cap”.  It also notes that the State shall provide “oversight” of any school required to submit justifying information.  In other words, States must show that they are monitoring schools’ decision making.

How would the federal government ever know whether a state happened to have fewer, or a greater number of students who needed and deserved something other than what the highest achieving students can and should do?  On what basis does it dictate one percent?  What if my child is severely disabled and is forced to take the common tests and to be taught to common standards inappropriate for him or her, because of the high number of students with disabilties?  How does that bless my child?

On page 62 they’re dictating “universal design for learning” again; this time, for severely disabled special education testing.

Page 66 is literally jaw-dropping to me.  It says that if the state “provides evidence which is satisfactory to the Secretary that neither the State Educational Agency nor any other State government official… has sufficient authority under State law to adopt challenging State academic standards and academic assessments aligned with such standards [aka Common Core standards and tests] which will be applicable to all students enrolled in the State’s public elementary schools and secondary schools, then the State educational agency may meet the requirements…”  by aligning unofficially anyway, by meeting “all of the criteria…and any regulations… that the Secretary may publish”.  (page 67)   If your state law doesn’t allow for one size fits all, then adopt and implement policies that ensure that you are aligned anyway, or lose funding.  Talk about kicking Constitutional rights in the teeth.  This is dictatorship.

On page 69, states are told to dictate to schools again.  They must filter tests through the filter of “already been approved” (line 18) or they must “conduct a review of the assessment to determine if such assessment meets or exceeds the technical criteria” that has to be “established” (line 9) by the state.  This sounds to me like more herding of everybody into IMS Global’s universal design for learning.

On page 73, it almost sounds good until you finish the sentence.  It begins, “a State retains the right to develop and administer computer adaptive assessments, provided that….” and then we lose all the rights again, because they have to be aligned, aligned, aligned.

On page 76, it says that States can still decide whether or not to allow parents to opt out of testing but limits that concept to one paragraph:  “nothing in this paragraph shall be construed as preempting State” law.  So, in the rest of the over-1000-page bill, something might.  This is not making me feel better.

How many dictatorial mandates, contradictions, hypocrises, manipulations and usurpations of local control have I related in this first tiny section of this bill?

Now, it is 1:30 a.m.   I have to go to sleep.

There are 985 pages that I (and probably my congressional reps) are leaving unread.  

–In a few short hours, Congress votes anyway.  Watch it here.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/24/how-twisted-early-childhood-education-has-become-from-a-child-development-expert/

How ‘twisted’ early childhood education has become — from a child development expert

(Reuters)

Nancy Carlsson-Paige is an early childhood development expert who has been at the forefront of the debate on how best to educate — and not educate — the youngest students. She is a professor emerita of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Ma., where she taught teachers for more than 30 years and was a founder of the university’s Center for Peaceable Schools. She is also a founding member of a nonprofit called Defending the Early Years, which commissions research about early childhood education and advocates for sane policies for young children.

Carlsson-Paige is author of “Taking Back Childhood.” The mother of two artist sons, Matt and Kyle Damon, she is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the Legacy Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps for work over several decades on behalf of children and families. She was just given the Deborah Meier award by the nonprofit National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

In her speech accepting the award (named after the renowned educator Deborah Meier), Carlsson-Paige describes what has happened in the world of early childhood education in the current era of high-stakes testing, saying, “Never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen the situation we find ourselves in today.” Here’s the speech, which I am publishing with permission:

 Thank you FairTest for this Deborah Meier Hero in Education Award. FairTest does such great advocacy and education around fair and just testing practices. This award carries the name of one of my heroes in education, Deborah Meier—she’s a force for justice and democracy in education. I hope that every time this award is given, it will allow us to once again pay tribute to Deb. Also, I feel privileged to be accepting this honor alongside Lani Guinier.

When I was invited to be here tonight, I thought about the many people who work for justice and equity in education who could also be standing here. So I am thinking of all of them now and I accept this award on their behalf — all the educators dedicated to children and what’s fair and best for them.

It’s wonderful to see all of you here — so many family and friends, comrades in this struggle to reclaim excellent public education for all – not just some – of our children.

I have loved my life’s work – teaching teachers about how young children think, how they learn, how they develop socially, emotionally, morally. I’ve been fascinated with the theories and science of my field and seeing it expressed in the actions and the play of children.

So never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen the situation we find ourselves in today.

Where education policies that do not reflect what we know about how young children learn could be mandated and followed. We have decades of research in child development and neuroscience that tell us that young children learn actively — they have to move, use their senses, get their hands on things, interact with other kids and teachers, create, invent. But in this twisted time, young children starting public pre-K at the age of 4 are expected to learn through “rigorous instruction.”

And never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that we would have to defend children’s right to play.

Play is the primary engine of human growth; it’s universal – as much as walking and talking. Play is the way children build ideas and how they make sense of their experience and feel safe. Just look at all the math concepts at work in the intricate buildings of kindergartners. Or watch a 4-year-old put on a cape and pretend to be a superhero after witnessing some scary event.

But play is disappearing from classrooms. Even though we know play is learning for young kids, we are seeing it shoved aside to make room for academic instruction and “rigor.”

I could not have foreseen in my wildest dreams that we would have to fight for classrooms for young kids that are developmentally appropriate. Instead of active, hands-on learning, children now sit in chairs for far too much time getting drilled on letters and numbers. Stress levels are up among young kids. Parents and teachers tell me: children worry that they don’t know the right answers; they have nightmares, they pull out their eyelashes, they cry because they don’t want to go to school. Some people call this child abuse and I can’t disagree.

I could not have foreseen in my wildest dreams that we would be up against pressure to test and assess young kids throughout the year often in great excess — often administering multiple tests to children in kindergarten and even pre-K. Now, when young children start school, they often spend their first days not getting to know their classroom and making friends. They spend their first days getting tested. Here are words from one mother as this school year began:

“My daughter’s first day of kindergarten — her very first introduction to elementary school — consisted almost entirely of assessment. She was due at school at 9:30, and I picked her up at 11:45. In between, she was assessed by five different teachers, each a stranger, asking her to perform some task.

“By the time I picked her up, she did not want to talk about what she had done in school, but she did say that she did not want to go back. She did not know the teachers’ names. She did not make any friends. Later that afternoon, as she played with her animals in her room, I overheard her drilling them on their numbers and letters.”

The most important competencies in young children can’t be tested—we all know this. Naming letters and numbers is superficial and almost irrelevant in relation to the capacities we want to help children develop: self-regulation, problem solving ability, social and emotional competence, imagination, initiative, curiosity, original thinking — these capacities make or break success in school and life and they can’t be reduced to numbers.

Yet these days, all the money and resources, the time dedicated to professional development, they go to tooling teachers up to use the required assessments. Somehow the data gleaned from these tests is supposed to be more valid than a teacher’s own ability to observe children and understand their skills in the context of their whole development in the classroom.

The first time I saw for myself what was becoming of many of the nation’s early childhood classrooms was when I visited a program in a low-income community in north Miami. Most of the children were on free- and reduced-price lunch.

There were 10 classrooms – kindergarten and pre-K. The program’s funding depended on test scores, so — no surprise — teachers taught to the test. Kids who got low scores, I was told, got extra drills in reading and math and didn’t get to go to art. They used a computer program to teach 4- and 5-year-olds how to “bubble.” One teacher complained to me that some children go outside the lines.

In one of the kindergartens I visited, the walls were barren and so was the whole room. The teacher was testing one little boy at a computer at the side of the room. There was no classroom aide. The other children were sitting at tables copying words from the chalk board. The words were: “No talking. Sit in your seat. Hands to Yourself.”

The teacher kept shouting at them from her testing corner: Be quiet! No talking!

Most of the children looked scared or disengaged, and one little boy was sitting alone. He was quietly crying. I will never forget how these children looked or how it felt to watch them, I would say, suffering in this context that was such a profound mismatch with their needs.

It’s in low-income, under-resourced communities like this one where children are most subjected to heavy doses of teacher-led drills and tests. Not like in wealthier suburbs where kids have the opportunity to go to early childhood programs that have play, the arts, and project-based learning. It’s poverty — the elephant in the room — that is the root cause of this disparity.

A few months ago, I was alarmed to read a report from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights showing that more than 8,000 children from public preschools across the country were suspended at least once in a school year, many more than once. First of all, who suspends a preschooler? Why and for what? The very concept is bizarre and awful. But 8,000? And then to keep reading the report to see that a disproportionate number of those suspended preschoolers were low income, black boys.

There is a connection, I know, between these suspensions and ed reform policies: Children in low-income communities are enduring play deficient classrooms where they get heavy doses of direct teaching and testing. They have to sit still, be quiet in their seats and comply. Many young children can’t do this and none should have to.

I came home from that visit to the classrooms in North Miami in despair. But fortunately, the despair turned quickly to organizing. With other educators we started our nonprofit Defending the Early Years. We have terrific early childhood leaders with us (some are here tonight: Deb Meier, Geralyn McLaughlin, Diane Levin and Ayla Gavins). We speak in a unified voice for young children.

We publish reports, write op eds, make videos and send them out on YouTube, we speak and do interviews every chance we get.

We’ve done it all on a shoestring. It’s almost comical: The Gates Foundation has spent more than $200 million just to promote the Common Core. Our budget at Defending the Early Years is .006 percent of that.

We collaborate with other organizations. FairTest has been so helpful to us. And we also collaborate with –Network for Public Education, United Opt Out, many parent groups, Citizens for Public Schools, Badass Teachers, Busted Pencils Radio, Save Our Schools, Alliance for Childhood and ECE PolicyWorks —There’s a powerful network out there – of educators, parents and students — and we see the difference we are making.

We all share a common vision: Education is a human right and every child deserves one. An excellent, free education where learning is meaningful – with arts, play, engaging projects, and the chance to learn citizenship skills so that children can one day participate — actively and consciously – in this increasingly fragile democracy.

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http://illinoisfamily.org/education/americas-education-disaster/#.VlRmYeweg90.facebook

America’s Education Disaster

Written by Walter Williams

The 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress report, also known as The Nation’s Report Card, shows that U.S. educational achievement, to put it nicely, leaves much to be desired.

When it comes to reading and math skills, just 34 percent and 33 percent, respectively, of U.S. eighth-grade students tested proficient or above — that is, performed at grade level or above. Recent test scores show poor achievement levels in other academic areas. Only 18 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in U.S. history. It’s 27 percent in geography and 23 percent in civics.

The story is not much better when it comes to high schoolers. According to 2010 and 2013 NAEP test scores, only 38 percent of 12th-graders were proficient in reading. It was 26 percent in math, 12 percent in history, 20 percent in geography and 24 percent in civics (http://www.nationsreportcard.gov).

Many of these poorly performing youngsters gain college admission. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education reports, “Every year in the United States, nearly 60 percent of first-year college students discover that, despite being fully eligible to attend college, they are not ready for postsecondary studies.” That means colleges spend billions of dollars on remedial education. Many of the students who enroll in those classes never graduate from college. The fact that many students are not college-ready takes on even greater significance when we consider that many college courses have been dumbed down.

Richard Vedder, emeritus professor of economics at Ohio University, argues that there has been a shocking decline in college academic standards. Grade inflation is rampant. A seminal study, “Academically Adrift,” by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, argues that very little improvement in critical reasoning skills occurs in college. Adult literacy is falling among college graduates. Large proportions of college graduates do not know simple facts, such as the half-century in which the Civil War occurred. Vedder says that at the college level, ideological conformity is increasingly valued over free expression and empirical inquiry.

While educational achievement among whites is nothing to write home about, that for blacks is no less than a disaster. Only 13 percent of black eighth-graders score proficient or above in math, and only 16 percent do in reading. In 2013, only 7 percent of black 12th-graders scored proficient in math, and only 16 percent did in reading. The full magnitude of the black education tragedy is seen by the statistics on the other end of the achievement continuum. “Below basic” is the score given when a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at his grade level. In 2013, 62 percent of black 12th-graders scored below basic in math, and 44 percent scored below basic in reading.

Dr. Thomas Sowell has written volumes on black education. The magnitude of today’s black education tragedy is entirely new. He demonstrates this in “Education: Assumptions Versus History,” a 1985 collection of papers. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School is a black public school in Washington, D.C. As early as 1899, its students scored higher on citywide tests than any of the city’s white schools. From its founding in 1870 to 1955, most of its graduates went off to college. Dunbar’s distinguished alumni included U.S. Sen. Ed Brooke, physician Charles Drew and, during World War II, nearly a score of majors, nine colonels and lieutenant colonels, and a brigadier general.

Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School also produced distinguished alumni, such as Thurgood Marshall and Cab Calloway, as well as several judges, congressmen and civil rights leaders. Douglass High was second in the nation in black Ph.D.s among its alumni.

The stories of the excellent predominantly black schools of yesteryear found in Sowell’s study refute the notion of “experts” that more money is needed to improve black education. Today’s Paul Laurence Dunbar and Frederick Douglass high schools have resources that would have been unimaginable to their predecessors. Those resources have meant absolutely nothing in terms of academic achievement.

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This article was originally posted at Capitalism Magazine.

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The decline of play in preschoolers — and the rise in sensory issues

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/09/01/the-decline-of-play-in-preschoolers-and-the-rise-in-sensory-issues/

The decline of play in preschoolers — and the rise in sensory issues

(iStock)

Here is a new post from pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, author of a number of popular posts on this blog, including “Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today,” as well as “The right — and surprisingly wrong — ways to get kids to sit still in class” and “How schools ruined recess.” Hanscom is the founder of TimberNook, a nature-based development program designed to foster creativity and independent play outdoors in New England.

By Angela Hanscom

I still recall the days of preschool for my oldest daughter. I remember wanting to desperately enrich her life in any way possible – to give her an edge before she even got to formal schooling. I put her in a preschool that was academic in nature – the focus on pre-reading, writing, and math skills. At home, I bought her special puzzles, set up organized play dates with children her age, read to her every night, signed her up for music lessons, put her in dance, and drove her to local museums. My friends and I even did “enrichment classes” with our kids to practice sorting, coloring, counting, numbers, letters, and yes….even to practice sitting! We thought this would help prepare them for kindergarten.

[Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today]

Like many other American parents, I had an obsession: academic success for my child. Only, I was going about it completely wrong. Yes, my daughter would later go on to test above average with her academic skills, but she was missing important life skills. Skills that should have been in place and nurtured during the preschool years. My wake-up call was when the preschool teacher came up to me and said, “Your daughter is doing well academically. In fact, I’d say she exceeds expectations in these areas. But she is having trouble with basic social skills like sharing and taking turns.” Not only that, but my daughter was also having trouble controlling her emotions, developed anxiety and sensory issues, and had trouble simply playing by herself!

Little did I know at the time, but my daughter was far from being the only one struggling with social and sensory issues at such a young age. This was becoming a growing epidemic. A few years ago, I interviewed a highly respected director of a progressive preschool. She had been teaching preschoolers for about 40 years and had seen major changes in the social and physical development of children in the past few generations.

“Kids are just different,” she started to say. When I asked her to clarify, she said, “They are more easily frustrated – often crying at the drop of a hat.” She had also observed that children were frequently falling out of their seats “at least three times a day,” less attentive, and running into each other and even the walls. “It is so strange. You never saw these issues in the past.”

She went on to complain that even though her school was considered highly progressive, they were still feeling the pressure to limit free play more than she would like in order to meet the growing demands for academic readiness that was expected before children entered kindergarten.

Research continues to point out that young children learn best through meaningful play experiences, yet many preschools are transitioning from play-based learning to becoming more academic in nature. A preschool teacher recently wrote to me: “I have preschoolers and even I feel pressure to push them at this young age. On top of that, teachers have so much pressure to document and justify what they do and why they do it, the relaxed playful environment is compromised. We continue to do the best we can for the kid’s sake, while trying to fit into the ever-growing restraints we must work within.”

As parents and teachers strive to provide increasingly organized learning experiences for children (as I had once done), the opportunities for free play – especially outdoors is becoming less of a priority. Ironically, it is through active free play outdoors where children start to build many of the foundational life skills they need in order to be successful for years to come.

In fact, it is before the age of 7 years — ages traditionally known as “pre-academic” — when children desperately need to have a multitude of whole-body sensory experiences on a daily basis in order to develop strong bodies and minds. This is best done outside where the senses are fully ignited and young bodies are challenged by the uneven and unpredictable, ever-changing terrain.

Preschool years are not only optimal for children to learn through play, but also a critical developmental period. If children are not given enough natural movement and play experiences, they start their academic careers with a disadvantage. They are more likely to be clumsy, have difficulty paying attention, trouble controlling their emotions, utilize poor problem-solving methods, and demonstrate difficulties with social interactions. We are consistently seeing sensory, motor, and cognitive issues pop up more and more  in later childhood, partly because of inadequate opportunities to move and play at an early age.

What is our natural instinct as adults when issues arise? To try and fix the problem that could have been prevented in the first place. When children reach elementary school, we practice special breathing techniques, coping skills, run social skill groups, and utilize special exercises in an attempt to “teach” children how to be still and to improve focus.

However, these skills shouldn’t have to be taught, but something that was developed at a young age in the most natural sense — through meaningful play experiences.

[How schools ruined recess]

If children were given ample opportunities to play outdoors every day with peers, there would be no need for specialized exercises or meditation techniques for the youngest of our society. They would simply develop these skills through play. That’s it. Something that doesn’t need to cost a lot of money or require much thought. Children just need the time, the space, and the permission to be kids.

Let the adult-directed learning experiences come later. Preschool children need to play!

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