Teaching about history in Georgia is tougher now than ever, according to those who do it.
In an environment full of touchy topics such as race, religion and politics, where facts and the interpretation of facts are bitterly debated, teachers’ tools or tactics can explode into a national controversy with a few tweets.
Georgians’ vocal views in the nationwide battle over a high school history course and a recent protest in Fulton County over a middle school lesson on the Civil War show that parents are paying more attention to the subject — and speaking out when they don’t like what’s being taught.
For teachers, that requires a degree of balance that’s not always easy.
“You are always on a tightrope,” said Eddie Bennett, executive director of the Georgia Council for the Social Studies, a 700-member group of teachers, administrators and others. In recent years, some Georgia educators have lost their jobs as a result of a lesson plan gone bad.
Bennett said he learned just how high emotions run on some topics around the year 2000 when he accepted a position at the state Education Department. A parent grilled him about how contentious changes to the state flag, which previously included the Confederate battle emblem, would affect curriculum. A couple of years later, after 9/11, Bennett was leading the CobbCounty social studies department and he got questions from parents on why they were teaching about Islam.
In some cases, educators have brought the difficulty on themselves.
Criticism of the latest Advanced Placement U.S. History class, for example, stems from changes made by its provider, the College Board. Conservative lawmakers, like tea party favorite William Ligon of Brunswick, say the course now diminishes the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers and takes a liberal viewpoint on some aspects of American history. The Georgia Senate passed a resolution this month, as the Republican National Committee had done earlier, outlining its opposition to the revised course.
A day after that resolution passed, some parents at Fulton County’s River Trail Middle School complained — among other things — about their children being shown a 19th-century political cartoon that included a Ku Klux Klansman and an African-American hanging from a tree. School district officials conceded it was a mistake to show students that age the cartoon without the proper context.
The problem is two-pronged, educators and parents say. The national political divide has some paying closer attention and voicing their displeasure about what is being taught in social studies and history classes. Then, educators say, there are the times lessons veer from the Georgia Performance Standards, which guide teachers how to teach about history and other subjects.
There is history of such missteps in some Georgiaschool districts.
In 2010, a Lump-kin County high school teacher was suspended for allowing four students to dress as Klansmen as part of a film project for her AP U.S. History class. Two years later, a GwinnettCountyelementary school teacher resigned after asking questions about slave beatings and picking cotton to teach about math. The teacher was trying to explain what abolitionist Frederick Douglass had to overcome.
In the incident this month in Fulton County, about two dozen African-American parents at River Trail Middle School kept their children from watching a Civil War lesson taught on school grounds that they found racially insensitive. Besides the cartoon, the lesson included flags with the Confederate battle emblem.
Jeff Royster, a parent at River Trail who is African-American, said the Civil War lesson was done well, but he wonders why there aren’t similar types of lessons about, say, the March on Washington.
“You have to be able to teach about both sides,” said Royster, who recently met with school officials. “Why not teach the whole picture?”
It’s hard, though, to find consensus about history. Bennett noted there’s dispute even over what kind of government the United States is: a democracy or a republic?
People define the nation and view the past through the lens of their own experiences and values, history educators say. That’s why disagreements abound on history’s most important lessons.
On the Civil War, for example, “One hundred and fifty years later, we’re still fighting with many of the same questions,” such as race relations and the role of the federal government, said Andrew T. Mink, the director of outreach and education at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, in a recent Education Week article.
Mink has administered a series of federal Teaching American History grants. “People bring a certain cultural understanding of the Civil War, of the Confederacy, of the Union,” he said. “If teachers don’t address that, it gets addressed somewhere else.”
Georgia’s high school social studies performance standards include guides for teaching about European settlement of North America, the westward expansion of America and the Civil War, along with websites the state education department believes are useful.
AP U.S. History course supporters and critics debated some points about the interpretation of history during a state education committee hearing last month. The uproar over the course changes has been noisy in Gwinnett, the state’s largest school district, where a half-dozen residents have spoken against it at nearly each school board meeting in recent months. They’ve complained, for example, that the revised course guidelines omit key moments such as D-Day and describe Ronald Reagan’s Cold War strategy as “bellicose.”
“Stop this indoctrination! ... Take back local control of (AP U.S. History) now,” Gwinnett resident Bruce Duncil wrote school board members last month.
Some critics of how history is taught are teachers or former teachers. Former Gwinnett teacher Marc Urbach said he left the district, in part, because he wanted to teach more about the role of religion in American history.
Getting some educators to discuss the issue is difficult. Some school districts either did not return telephone calls to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution or declined to comment about it.
“Social studies contains a lot of sensitive topics,” FayetteCounty social studies coordinator Becky Ryckeley said.
Ryckeley said she fielded many complaints about the AP U.S. History course. Occasionally, she said, they get some questions or concerns about some of the county’s curriculum. Fayette teachers follow the Georgia performance standards and teach through historical documents, she said.
Ryckeley said teachers will contact parents beforehand to clearly explain coursework that could be misunderstood to try to avoid the type of controversy that causes backlashes.
“The relationship between parents and teachers is vital,” she said. “Sometimes things will go home and it’s not in the classroom context.”
Rep. Mike Dudgeon (R-Johns Creek) takes part in a discussion about an Advanced Placement U.S. History class framework. BOB ANDRES / BANDRES@AJC.COM
Jeb Bush hails Senate Republicans' stand on Common Core
In this March 19, 2015, photo, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, left, walks with former campaign staff member Rufus Montgomery, right, while visiting the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.(AP Photo/David Goldman)
Jeb Bush expressed support through a spokesman Friday for a Senate measure discouraging federal incentives for states to adopt the Common Core education standards.
The non-binding amendment, proposed by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and approved Thursday during a marathon voting session on the Senate budget resolution, sought to prohibit the federal government "from mandating, incentivizing or coercing states to adopt the Common Core State Standards."
Bush has faced scrutiny from conservatives for steadfastly backing the standards, in particular as he prepares to run for president. But Bush spokesman Tim Miller told the Washington Examiner Friday that the former Florida governor "applauds" Vitter's stand.
"Governor Bush applauds Senator Vitter and Republicans in the U.S. Senate for ensuring states' autonomy when it comes to adopting high standards that are right for their students," Miller said. "As Governor Bush demonstrated through his leadership in Florida, states have always been more effective at addressing policy challenges in our schools."
The statement of support indicates that Bush would be open to eliminating Common Core as a prerequisite for states to receive federal "Race to the Top" funds, a link put in place by the Obama administration. The funding has become a source of controversy among conservatives, who fear the federal government's encroachment into education, although the standards themselves were crafted by governors and education groups and are adopted by states voluntarily.
Vitter, like Bush, has expressed support for the standards themselves, while cautioning against the federal government pushing states to adopt them.
But Bush has been the target of outsized conservative wrath for defending Common Core, which has quickly become a driving issue among the Republican base.
"Raising expectations and having accurate assessments of where kids are is essential for success," Bush said during a recent stop in Des Moines, Iowa, "and I'm not going to back down on that."
President Barack Obama pretends to be a friend of public education, but it just is not so. Sure, the White House offers a decorative promotional on K12 education; however, if one reads it closely, one sees that the Obama administration believes education (and, by extension, those educated) should serve the economy; that “higher standards and better assessments” and “turning around our lowest achieving schools” is No Child Left Behind (NCLB) leftover casserole, and that “keeping teachers in the classroom” can only elicit prolonged stares from those of us who know better.
All of these anti-public-education truths noted, the deeper story in what the Obama administration values regarding American education lay in its selection of US Department of Education (USDOE) appointees. Their backgrounds tell the story, and it isn’t a good one for the public school student, the community school and the career K12 teacher.
In this post, I examine the backgrounds and priorities of eight key USDOE appointees. (Here is the complete USDOE list of senior officials, and here is the complete USDOE list of appointments.)
I just wanted a closer look. It’s what I do.
Of course, there is Obama appointee Arne Duncan, US secretary of education, who had his big education reformer break in 2001 when then-CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Paul Vallas had a falling out with then-Mayor Richard Daley. Duncan had been playing professional basketball in Australia until 1991 then decided to return home to Chicago. A childhood friend, John W. Rogers, Jr., gave Duncan the job of “director” of the Ariel Education Initiative (AEI) and education based upon an “investment curriculum” modeled after the stock market. What Duncan actually did in his AEI “director” role is a mystery. However, in 2001, CPS being under mayoral control, Mayor Daley appointed Duncan as CPS CEO, a role in which Duncan served until 2008. (Documented in my book, A Chronicle of Echoes.)
To read Duncan’s USDOE bio, one would think that Duncan’s focus on standardized test scores and on closing traditional public schools and opening charters created a Utopian, market-driven CPS. However, if such were true, there would have been no reason for another Obama pal and former Obama admin chief of staff, current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to slaughter CPS in the name of “reform.”
Emma Vadhera, Duncan’s chief of staff, was formerly in charter management for Uncommon Schools. Prior to that, she was in USDOE as deputy assistant secretary for planning, evaluation and policy development under Common Core State Standards (CCSS) clueless promoter, Carmel Martin, former assistant secretary at the U.S Department of Education in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development who “debated” in favor of CCSS in New York in September 2014 but did not even know CCSS was copyrighted.
Massie Ritsch, acting assistant secretary for communications and outreach, but who is leaving USDOE to help the glorified teacher temp agency, Teach for America (TFA) with (as Ritsch tweeted) the “vital work” of (in a Ritsch email) “communications, marketing, research and strategic partnerships.” TFA is trying to get complete control over its public image, which is suffering from exposure of its illusive success. Ritsch was previously USDOE’s deputy assistant secretary for external affairs and outreach, a position in which he directed “outreach to stakeholders, including education trade associations and the business community.” That’s what America needs: More business “stakeholder” involvement driving the American classroom.
Ritsch is to be replaced by USDOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Development Jonathan Schorr, whose background includes being a NewSchools Venture Fund “partner” in San Francisco and “director of new initiatives” for KIPP charter schools (KIPP was founded by TFA alums.)
Obama appointeeJim Shelton, deputy secretary of education, has previous connections to the Gates Foundation, NewSchools Venture Fund (whose current CEO, Stacey Childress, was also with the Gates Foundation), and McKinsey and Company. (Lots of ed reform folks originate with McKinsey and Company, including CCSS “lead architect” David Coleman, numerous individuals at the online education site, Khan Academy, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Read here for more info on McKinsey’s influence on public education.)
Tyra Mariani, chief of staff, office of the deputy secretary, is one of Eli Broad’s “academy trained” education reform-promoting “graduates.” She ended up in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in 2003, the time that Duncan was CPS CEO (and the same time that CPS happened to be doing business with David Coleman’s assessment company, Grow Network). Prior to her appointment at USDOE, Mariani was executive director of test-score-focused New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS) in New Orleans. (The NLNS executive board has both McKinsey and TFA connections.) When Mariani was appointed to USDOE in 2001, she was congratulated by the corporate-reform-promoting PR group, the K12 Search Group, Inc.
[Mitchell’s] ethics disclosure form shows that he was paid $735,300 for his role at NewSchools, which is organized as a non-profit. In recent years, he has served or is currently serving as a director to New Leaders, Khan Academy, California Education Partners, Teach Channel, ConnectED, Hameetman Foundation, the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, Silicon Schools, Children Now, Bellwether Partners, Pivot Learning Partners, EnCorps Teacher Training Program, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the Green DOT Public Schools.
In addition, Mitchell serves as an adviser to Salmon River Capital, a venture capital firm that specializes in education companies. Mitchell sits on the board of Parchment, an academic transcript start-up that is among Salmon River Capital’s portfolio.
Salmon River Capital helped create one of the biggest names in for-profit secondary education, Capella University. …
Update: After publication of this blog post, Mitchell e-mailed a statement noting that he could not comment on gainful employment regulations because he is in the “midst of a confirmation process.” He added that he is on “an informal advisory Board for Salmon” and that Pearson sponsored a summit for his organization in May.
Well. There we have it. Eight fine Obama-serving individuals in key USDOE positions whose priorities (and professional experience) lay far and away from the traditional American classroom but who have been appointed to carry out the work of condemning and supplanting the traditional K12 American classroom with profitable “ventures” and disposable teachers by relentlessly testing the traditional classroom, collecting unprecedented amounts of data on it; labeling it a failure; replacing it with under-regulated, philanthropic-padded, market-driven “reform” that is also supposed to channel students to serve the market, and all the while adding the USDOE padding to their corporate-favoring resumes and advancing their own careers in the process.
I reviewed a copy of the teacher guide to Pearson My World Social Studies: The Growth of Our Country at the New York State Council for the Social Studies annual conference. Curiously (a word I will use throughout this post) the hard-copy teacher guide does not identify a grade level, but online it is designated for 5th grade.
Online Pearson also includes a price list. Nothing is free, although the curriculum package repeatedly tells students about the benefits of "free enterprise." The student edition of myWorld costs $25.97 each but includes a one-year digital course which you probably have to pay for again if you want it for another year. The workbook costs $24.97, a student atlas is $16.97, for a total of $67.91 per student. Each teacher guide is an additional $245.47. A school district can get a package of activity cards for $46.97, "leveled readers" for $877.47, leveled reader lesson plans for $53.47, an activity kit bundle for $429.97, a student edition DVD-ROM for $44.97, an exam DVD-ROM for $122.47, a myStory DVD-ROM for $190.97, and a Digital Courseware 1-year license for $15.97. I figure for a class of 25 fifth-graders, the entire Pearson myStory package with all the extras would cost a school district $3,725.48, but this bill is just for social studies and for one class. Pearson is also selling packages for all the other subjects.
The Pearson package begins with the statement:
This work is protected by United States copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of teachers and administrators in teaching courses and assessing student learning in their classes and schools. Dissemination or sale of any part of this work (including on the World Wide Web) will destroy the integrity of the work and is not permitted.
I guess this statement is supposed to scare everyone and Pearson appears to be serious. In New Jersey, Pearson was monitoring social media after the recent PARCC exams to see if any students were discussing the Pearson PARCC tests. Apparently Pearson complained to the New Jersey Department of Education that they had actually caught three students who discussed specific questions and they felt were violating Pearson's copyright.
Let me make this perfectly clear from the start. My purpose in reviewing their curriculum package is not to destroy its integrity because I could not find very much integrity in the package. If Pearson does not like the review, they can sue me.
On the same page as the copyright threat and on page vi there are rejoinders explaining that although its "Program Consultant," Grant Wiggins, is associated with the Association for Supervisors of Curriculum Development (ASCD) and they are the registered owners of the trademark "Understanding By Design," which is a fundamental component of the approach used in the teacher guide, ASCD "has not authorized, approved or sponsored this work and is no way affiliated with Pearson or its products." It is a curious disclaimer because as anyone who attends an ASCD conference knows, Pearson is the major sponsor of its exhibit hall and featured presentations and delivers conference swag labeled with the Pearson brand to all the participants. ASCD has also been championing its partnership with Pearson at least since 2012.
As with all Pearson curriculum material, this one includes a list of its consulting authors and reviewers. What is curious here is the list of "Program Teacher Reviewers." There are twenty teacher reviewers, nine from Florida. It is not explained why so many reviewers were selected from one state, especially a state that has had academic performance issues. On the 2013 PISA exams, Florida high school students scored lower than their peers in the United States and internationally in math, reading and science.
The reviewers list is also misleading. One teacher is listed as teaching in Pittsford Schools-Allen Creek in Rochester, New York. The Rochester City school district student population is 85% African American and Latino and 90% of the students are considered to be from economically disadvantaged families. As a district, it confronts all of the problems facing urban minority schools. Pittsford is an affluent suburb of Rochester with a student population that is over 90% White and Asian and a collection of award winning schools. Four percent of its students are from economically disadvantaged families. The teacher from Holmes Elementary School in Chicago may be wonderful, but the school itself has only 16% of its students meeting or exceeding state standards. I am not sure what the teacher reviewers do or what their qualifications are but it is not a list that builds confidence in the product.
The curriculum package opens with essays for teachers that cover all the latest education buzzwords and establish Pearson's alliances and priorities. They include understanding by design, the importance of big ideas, how the package aligns with National Common Core Standards, correlates with national social studies standards, supports English Language Learners, promotes digital citizenship, prepares students for the 21st century, utilizes differentiated instruction, is geared for assessment, and supports "real" student learning. District purchase agents need to know that it is a one-stop-to-shop package that includes everything and everyone.
Pearson is so thoughtful that it provides teachers with activities, images, reading passages, and assessment questions, and just in case the teacher is an idiot and does not understand the material, they also provide the answers to student short-written questions. On page 223, students are asked to "Tell whether or not you would have approved of John Brown's raid." The Pearson provided "possible answer" is "I would not approve; slavery is wrong, but you still should not murder people."
One of the most curious Pearson statements appears at the end of every chapter in the teacher guide. Pearson recommends that in case there is "Not enough time for social studies" because of pressure to prepare students for the high-stakes Common Core English tests, teachers can use material from the package "during your reading block." I would expect the National Council for Social Studies to be howling and threatening to cut all ties with Pearson, but so far I have not even heard a quiet whimper, which may be because they depend on Pearson to exhibit at their conferences as well.
The package itself offers a curriculum laced with myth and blather. Common Core aligned lessons are in theory supposed to promote higher order thinking, but critical thinking and historical accuracy are missing in this package.
Pages SSH 6 through SSH 10 offer a unit on "Our Market Economy" that starts with the "law of supply and demand," stresses the "importance of competition," and explains scarcity, opportunity costs, and "basic concepts of banking." According to the unit, the United States has a "free market economy" where "private businesses make decisions about what they produce and sell, and what prices to charge in the marketplace. Then individuals choose what to buy in the marketplace."
Pearson may not like it, but the United States actually has a "mixed economy" where government regulates and subsidizes business. In fact, government is Pearson's largest customer. The unit also leaves out the manipulation of demand through advertising and of government policy through lobbying and contributions to political campaigns. The words capitalism, profit, and globalization do not appear in this benign and misleading unit. And in case there is not enough time to teach social studies, students can just read the Pearson propaganda on their own. The two-paragraph passage on "The Marketplace" uses the word "free" six times. Unfortunately, in the real world, nothing is free. The economic myth building continues on pages 398-403 where students learn about the creativity and risk-taking of the entrepreneurs who created really big companies "because it could help them keep costs down."
Free and freedom are also very big in the reading passage on the "Gettysburg National Battlefield, Fighting for a Cause" (218-219). "Eleven-year-old Trent" who is a "history buff" wonders about the segment's big question, "Why do you think both sides in the battle fought so fiercely?" As he reads the Gettysburg Address, Trent discovers his answer. "It was for our freedom," he decides, "All of our freedom. I'd say that is something worth fighting for!" The reality is that people fought for many things, but very few were fighting for freedom. Some soldiers fought to protect homes, some fought to defend the buddy standing next to them. Some fought for the union and others fought for slavery. Some joined the armies because they were bored on the farm and wanted adventure, others because they needed work or hoped for citizenship. While 200,000 African American soldiers did fight for freedom, their segregated units were not at Gettysburg. To add to the fiction and confusion, on page 306, students are told "both sides" in the Civil War "were fighting for freedom but disagreed about what freedom meant" and that the enslavement of Africans in the South was really about "differences in geography." I guess Pearson and I just disagree about what freedom means.
Pearson promotes Common Core and Common Core creates markets for Pearson. Teaching history the Pearson way means teaching it the Common Core way, without any meaningful content. The text, no matter how inaccurate or misleading, rules. Myth replaces history, if teachers have the time to include social studies at all while prepping students for Pearson standardized tests. That is the real "free market" at work in Pearson World.
Pearson Customer Service: If you have a Pearson complaint or are still waiting for Pearson to grade your teacher certification exam, call Pearson Customer Service and let them know how you feel. You can speak with a customer service representative directly Monday-Friday 8 AM to 6 PM Eastern Time. After all, we are all Pearson customers. 800-848-9500.
HB 441 "Flexibility" Charter System 2015 - educationalfreedomcoaliti
We are so pleased that this did not pass before crossover day in 2015 out of the House of Representatives in Georgia. There is something we need to know about this bill if we are considering becoming a charter system or an IE2 system. Since the cutoff on the CCRPI score is 80 in this legislation, that means that the state could eliminate your locally elected representatives if any given school in your system scores below 80. Look at the CCRPI scores from last year. You will see that there are most likely several, if not many schools with less than an 80. Because the CCRPI system is not academically accurate, it is probable that many schools will fall below the 80 point minimum. When they write about "flexibility", they do not really mean flexibility from any of the federal mandates involving common core or the accompanying assessments. They mean not having the follow the class size maximums or the 65 percent rule where at least 65 percent of the budget of the school system needs to pay for instruction. Those are both important rules that parents and local communities wholeheartedly support for the benefit of the students. We will keep this bill in mind and watch that this does not come back as an attachment to another bill this year. In the meantime, choose "status quo" before June 15, 2015 so that you will be able to keep authority over all your local schools.
Education, taxes, housing, immigration, politics, and other issues that affect the people of New Jersey
Two other New Jersey school districts–Hanover Park Regional in East Hanover and South Orange-Maplewood–were notified by state officials that “monitoring”–spying?– Twitter traffic revealed students had used social media accounts to post a forbidden messages regarding the PARCC tests. No surprise, really–it’s happening everywhere, including Maryland where a state official said he gets daily reports from Pearson, the publisher of the standardized tests. on what students are saying about testing on their internet accounts.
“PARCC has a very sophisticated system that closely monitors social media for pretty much everything (comments like the one you shared, test item questions that students use cell phones cameras and take),” said Henry Johnson, the state assistant education commissioner in Maryland. The state, like New Jersey, has a contract with Pearson.
Henry R. Johnson, Jr.
“We get those reports daily.”
Let’s run that one by you again:
“PARCC has a very sophisticated system that closely monitors social media for pretty much everything….”
The phrase “pretty much everything” aptly describes the broad reach of how this brave new world of testing and cooperation with government works. Pearson will say–as it told the Washington Post–that it is doing it for “security” reasons.
But security is itself a broad term. Here is what the State of New Jersey and Pearson agreed encompassed the idea of security and its possible breach–it’s codified in the testing manual developed by the state and sent out to all the districts:
“Revealing or discussing passages or test items with anyone, including students and school staff, through verbal exchange, email, social media, or any other form of communication.”
Another opportunity for repetition for emphasis here–discussing? Any other form of communication?
So, if children come home from school and their parents ask–”How was your day, sweetheart?” and the children talk about a really dumb question on the PARCC, they will be violating the rules and be subject to whatever punishment is meted out for cheating–as a blogger did who learned from a child who hadn’t taken the test that there was a passage on it about The Wizard of Oz.
At the Watchung Hills Regional High School district in Warren, three students were caught up in the “monitoring” and at least one of them was suspended. Elizabeth Jewett, the district’s superintendent, won’t say exactly what the students did to violate the rules so we don’t know what the students said and to whom.
Here’s the rub–school officials invoke student privacy concerns to prevent parents from finding out how the privacy of children is violated.
Jewett did write, in a private email to her colleagues, that one of the students singled out for special treatment by the New Jersey Department of Education/Pearson testing police, had twittered about the test after the end of the school day and had not taken a picture of the test question.
How is that a security breach? Well, the vastly inclusive scope of monitoring can include virtually anything.
Consider that breadth and scope here–any discussion of any aspect of testing by anyone can, if detected by the “sophisticated” methods employed by government and a private, profit-making foreign corporation, could get children into serious trouble. It’s less dangerous, apparently, to opt out of the test than to take it and talk about it.
Little is known of the incidents at Hanover Park Regional, a district with two high schools, Whippany Park and Hanover Park, that together enroll some 1,500 students. But it was apparently handled the same way. A state testing official–identified as Veronica Orsi–was notified by Pearson that something happened at one of the high schools and Orsi then directed the district to take action against the offenders.
Less is known about what happened at Columbia High School, the high school in the South Orange-Maplewood consolidated district. Sources say a student was disciplined for what appeared in a Twitter account but they could not his identification to Pearson’s monitoring program.
Hanover Park and Watchung Hills are high school-only districts in some of the most affluent areas of New Jersey, wealthy suburbs where children regularly score well on all sorts of tests and whose graduates are recruited by Ivy League and other selective colleges. Columbia also has a strong academic reputation. These students aren’t afraid of tests and, according to one source (who cannot be further identified), mocked the PARCC because they believed it was a useless waste of time–just as students who sit and take the SAT often mock it.
“There was no question of cheating to gain an advantage,” said the source. “Nothing happens whether they pass or fail and so they don’t take it seriously. It’s like dealing with a substitute teacher.”
But parents–especially in less affluent areas– should prepare themselves for negative consequences of dealing with the test in ways thought inappropriate by the Testing Police–like, for example, refusing to allow children to take it.
In Newark, a state-operated district, one school principal threated to cancel a boys’ basketball season because their parents wanted the children to opt out of the tests. The children, students at the Camden Street School, caved in to save their sports season and agreed to take the test. In Paterson, also a state-operated district, parents were “persuaded” to change their minds about opting out when they were told recommendations for college admissions would depend on it.
Let’s be clear: The $108 million contract between the state and Pearson is a complicated document, but this is true: The more students tested, the more Pearson gets paid. Whatever else children are, in the world of corporate testing and big government contracts, they also are potential profit centers.
So, like the official from Maryland said, the testing powers have “pretty sophisticated” ways of watching students when they take tests.
But they also can use plain, ordinary clubs.
What follows is the text of my first blog on Pearson/state spying. It is presented here because so many readers have had difficulty calling up the original blog:
BREAKING: Pearson, NJ, spying on social media of students taking PARCC tests
Pearson, the multinational testing and publishing company, is spying on the social media posts of students–including those from New Jersey–while the children are taking their PARCC, statewide tests, this site has learned exclusively. The state education department is cooperating with this spying and has asked at least one school district to discipline students who may have said something inappropriate about the tests. This website discovered the unauthorized and hidden spying thanks to educators who informed it of the practice–a practice happening throughout the state and apparently throughout the country.
Elizabeth Jewett
The spying–or “monitoring,” to use Pearson’s word–was confirmed at one school district–the Watchung Hills Regional High School district in Warren by its superintendent, Elizabeth Jewett. Jewett sent out an e-mail–posted here– to her colleagues expressing concern about the unauthorized spying on students.
She said parents are upset and added that she thought Pearson’s behavior would contribute to the growing “opt out” movement. So far, thousands of parents have kept their children away from the tests–and one of the reasons is the fear that Pearson might abuse its access to student data, something it has denied it would do.
In her email, Jewett said the district’s testing coordinator received a late night call from the state education department saying that Pearson had “initiated a Priority 1 Alert for an item breach within our school.”
The unnamed state education department employee contended a student took a picture of a test item and tweeted it. That was not true. It turned out the student had posted–at 3:18 pm, well after testing was over–a tweet about one of the items with no picture. Jewett does not say the student revealed a question. There is no evidence of any attempt at cheating.
Jewett continues: “The student deleted the tweet and we spoke with the parent–who was obviously highly concerned as to her child’s tweets being monitored by the DOE (state education department).
“The DOE informed us that Pearson is monitoring all social media during the PARCC testing.”
Jewett continued: “I have to say that I find that a bit disturbing–and if our parents were concerned before about a conspiracy with all of the student data, I am sure I will be receiving more letters of refusal once this gets out.”
The school superintendent also expressed concern about “the fact that the DOE wanted us to also issue discipline to the student.” Clearly, if Pearson insists on claiming test security as a justification for its spying on young people, that reasoning is vitiated by its cooperation with the state education department in trying to punish students who are merely expressing their First Amendment right to comment on the tests.
I contacted Jewett by email. By that time she had discovered not one but three instances in which Pearson notified the state education department of the results of its spying. In her email to me, Jewett was vague about the role of Pearson and the education department.
She wrote: “In reference to the issue of PARCC infractions and DOE/Pearson monitoring social media, we have had three incidents over the past week. All situations have been dealt with in accordance with our Watchung Hills Regional High School code of conduct and academic integrity policy. Watchung Hills Regional High School is a relatively small district and a close-knit community; therefore, I am very concerned that whatever details your sources are providing may cause unnecessary labeling and hardship to students who are learning the consequences of their behavior.”
Jewett acted professionally, I believe, but I must point out the irony of her lecturing me about protecting the identity of students when she has just dealt with both an inexcusable breach of privacy involving minors and an attempt by state government to punish dissent. I made it clear to her I have no intention of revealing names of students–but I would be more than happy to speak with their parents.
The state education department official identified as the person cooperating with Pearson is Veronica Orsi, who is in charge of assessment for grades 9-12 in the department. She refused to answer this website’s questions about her involvement and passed them on to superiors who also did not answer.
Neither the state education department nor Pearson’s would respond to my emails on the company’s spying on students. New Jersey is paying $108 million to run its PARCC testing program, an enterprise that has engendered opposition throughout New Jersey–and that was before the spying was revealed.
One motivation is clear–the more students who take the test, the more Pearson gets paid. This explains a lot about the state’s and the company’s aggressiveness in ensuring as many students as possible take the test.
But what isn’t explained is the willingness of the state education department to punish New Jersey children on behalf of a private company. According to sources–and not denied by Jewett–state officials tried to have the students involved suspended.
State Education Commissioner David Hespe spent hours testifying before the Legislature’s Senate Education Committee Thursday but did not once mention the possibility that the London-based Pearson would be “monitoring” the social media accounts of students taking the test. Jewett’s email, however, indicated the department–presumably including Hespe–were well aware of the practice.
A few days earlier, state education department officials–including Orsi–held a background briefing for some media–Bob Braun’s Ledger was not invited–and none of the mainstream media accounts of the session revealed the Pearson spying program.
Testing is scheduled for this month and May. Passing or failing the test has no consequence for the students who take it. PARCC does not serve as a graduation test. It can, however, be used in the evaluation of teachers.
UPDATE: The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss picked up the story and managed to get Pearson to comment:
“The security of a test is critical to ensure fairness for all students and teachers and to ensure that the results of any assessment are trustworthy and valid. We welcome debate and a variety of opinions. But when test questions or elements are posted publicly to the Internet, we are obligated to alert PARCC states. Any contact with students or decisions about student discipline are handled at the local level. We believe that a secure test maintains fairness for every student and the validity, integrity of the test results.”
The Washington Post also posted a letter written by Jewett:
Dear Watchung Hills Regional High School Learning Community,
On Friday, March 13, 2015, Bobbraunsledger.com published a story referencing an email I had sent to other superintendents about issues regarding PARCC testing and Pearson’s monitoring of social media. The email shown in his article is authentic. It was an email I sent on March 10, 2015 at approximately 10:00AM to a group of superintendents to share my concerns and to see if other schools had a similar experience. I did not authorize the release of this email nor am I aware of who did release it. I am also not aware of the motives they may have had behind the release. That said, I completely stand behind my comments as they represent not only my views and concerns; they also represent the views and concerns of our Board of Education.
The article references instances involving students during PARCC testing and any related disciplinary action. For student privacy issues, we cannot comment on any of the specific students or discipline referred to in the article. What I am able to share is that all issues have been dealt with in accordance with our Code of Conduct, Academic Integrity and Acceptable Use of Technology Policies.
Our main concern is, and will always remain, supporting the educational, social and emotional needs of our students. The privacy and security of student information remains the utmost priority for our district.
The district will have no further comment on this matter at this time.
This site also has learned that at least one of the three students at Watchung Hills Regional was suspended. It should be kept in mind that there are no consequences to students for this test–and students everywhere are smart enough to know when there are no consequences and they act accordingly–as they do when a sub shows up.
That one or more students may have been suspended for treating PARCC like the bad joke it has become shows how sad–and maybe scary–this cooperation between government and the private testing industry has become.
HIGGINS: PARCC-TESTING COMPANY CAUGHT SPYING ON TEST-TAKERS
By Laurie Higgins -
Confession # 1: I am not now nor have I ever been a member of a conspiracy group.
That said, enthusiastic supporters of more, more, and MORE federal bureaucratic intrusion into the lives of parents, students, and public education via Common Core Standards/PARCC tests/Pearson Publishing just may turn me into one.
Yet another troubling revelation about PARCC testing is coming to light. In the past few hours, parents began to learn that Pearson Publishing, the company that produces Common Core-aligned PARCC tests, is spying on students monitoring the social media of all students during PARCC tests and tattling on potential cheaters to the Department of Education via Priority 1 Alerts which then go to the students' administrations where discipline is expected to be meted out to the student miscreant.
The incident that is generating outrage took place at Watchung Hills Regional High School in Warren, New Jersey. Late Monday night a Watchung Hills testing-coordinator received a call from someone in the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) reporting a testing "breach."
While monitoring all test-takers' Twitter accounts, the Pearson-created spy system detected what it thought was an unlawful "tweet" and went into full-blown KGB-mode, alerting the New Jersey Department of Education who then notified the school and recommended the gulag student-discipline. Even more troubling, apparently the Priority I cheater-Alert was incorrect.
Justifiably troubled by the spying and worried about the effect the revelation of spying may have on support for PARCC testing, Superintendent Elizabeth Jewett sent this email to her colleagues:
Good morning all,
Last night at 10PM, my testing coordinator received a call from the NJDOE that Pearson had initiated a Priority 1 Alert for an item breach within our school. The information the NJDOE initially called with was that there was a security breach DURING the test session, and they suggested the student took a picture of a test item and tweeted it. After further investigation on our part, it turned out that the student had posted a tweet (NO PICTURE) at 3:18PM (after school) that referenced a PARCC test question. The student deleted the tweet and we spoke with the parent-who was obviously highly concerned as to her child's tweets being monitored by the DOE. The DOE informed us that Pearson is monitoring all social media during PARCC testing. I have to say that I find that a bit disturbing-and if our parents were concerned before about a conspiracy with all of the student data, I am sure I will be receiving more letters of refusal once this gets out (not to mention the fact that the DOE wanted us to also issue discipline to the student). I thought this was worth sharing with the group.
- Liz
Elizabeth C. Jewett Superintendent Watchung Hills Regional High School District 108 Stirling Rd. Warren, NJ 07059
Confession #2: I am wholly opposed to cheating in any form, from electronic cheating to sly-eyes peaking. Opposition to cheating, however, does not justify spying on students. The ends of curtailing cheating most decidedly do not justify the means of monitoring social media. Add this to the list of reasons to opt your children out of PARCC testing-or better yet, public schools.
URGENT: Author of Common Core Admits the Real Goal… This Will Make You Sick
Schools who opt to follow Common Core Standards have negatively affected the futures of countless children as they struggle to learn basic math, English and other critical development skills.
The creator of Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, Dr. David Pook, recently enlightened a stunned audience at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics when he announced his true motive behind creating the system.
“The reason why I helped write the standards and the reason why I am here today is that as a white male in society I am given a lot of privilege that I didn’t earn,” Pook stated to the audience.
Pook intentionally helped develop Common Core to end “white privilege,” according to his statement.
Ironically, it has been reported that Common Core is targeting the very children that Pook thought he was equaling the playing field for. Black and Hispanic children have seen lower test scores and have struggled to understand the ridiculously complicated nature of the program.
In true liberal fashion, Pook implies that not all children have the opportunity to learn how to read, as if something had changed in the last five decades. What, suddenly, is causing this great disadvantage to minority children, Dr. Pook?
In other ironic news, his employer, a Derryfield school, has refused to implement Common Core as they deemed it “inferior.” (H/T The Liberty Eagle)
Oh, and did we mention his school is 91 percent white?
Common Core is nothing but gross government overreach and a method of learning that will shape young students’ minds into non-thinking, liberal drones who will ultimately provide Democrat votes — or so the liberals hope.
And Pook is just another cog in the liberal propaganda machine who does his best to promulgate the intellectually useless concept of white privilege.
Share this on Facebook and Twitter if you think white privilege is liberal nonsense and that anyone has a chance at success in America no matter what their race happens to be.
