Today's Education Week includes a commentary from national representatives of school principals, school district administrators, and teacher-prep programs; these folks start out arguing for performance based assessment for new teachers, but then give limited endorsement of corporate baloney instead.
Their opening point is well-made; people looking to enter the teaching profession need real support and an evaluation that isn't stupid. That is not what we have now.
I've seen the effects of what we have now. I'm currently working with a student teacher, and she just took her Praxis exam, and I am struck once again by how much it resembles the standardized tests we inflict on students-- purposefully misleading and tricky, often skipping over the actual core knowledge that should be measured, and totally divorced from any authentic real-world task. I can't imagine that the current Praxis exam can predict future teacher success any better than tea leaves or phrenology.
NEA and AFT have both thrown their hats into the three-ring-circus of new teacher assessment, but the leading candidate for New Gateway To the Profession remains edTPA, a totally awesome teacher evaluation product from our good friends at Pearson and the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity.
The idea is to provide a common measure aligned with high standards (and boy, that has never ended badly before). Candidates are supposed to submit portfolios, lesson plans, videos of their teaching, and evidence of differentiation and assessment. Pearson does the administration of the exam and scoring.
So here is one more educational tool based on the assumption that the troops on the ground are dopes. Yes, we have to check with someone at Pearson in order to know whether or not the teacher right up the hall is any good. In place of old-school techniques such as "Watching her work" or "Talking to he," we have to find out what's up performance videos and long-form essays.
The authors represent a broad swatch of the field: JoAnn Bartoletti is the executive director of the National Association
of Secondary School Principals, in Reston, Va. Gail Connelly is the
executive director of the National Association of Elementary School
Principals, in Alexandria, Va. Daniel A. Domenech is the executive
director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, in Alexandria,
Va. Sharon P. Robinson is the president and chief executive officer of
the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, in
Washington. Their endorsement of edTPA and the desperate-catch-up play, Praxis Performance Assessment for Teachers, is tepid:
Our respective organizations welcome such preservice performance
assessments as long as they reflect input from the field, meet rigorous
standards of validity and reliability, and support research-based
instructional practice. We look forward to helping shape and improve
these and other performance-based assessments as they evolve.
Both their endorsement and their tepidness. edTPA strikes me as a terrible approach, but not as bad as the one we have now. So, perhaps, baby steps. And the authors nail the crux of the problem pretty well:
As educators, we can’t control what Congress, state education agencies,
or school boards ask us to do. But we can control what it means and what
it takes to be a new teacher.
Doctors, lawyers, nurses, physical therapists-- they all exercise considerable control over the entry to their profession. Teachers-- not so much. It would be nice to change that.
Good teachers know how to spot other good teachers. They ask the right questions. They worry about the right things. They have an understanding of their students. Content knowledge is nice to have going in, but it's always an easy weaknesses to fix, whereas it's hard to teach someone how to interact with other human life forms. When you have a long conversation with them, you get a sense that they have an appropriate professional focus, not just a desire to "play teacher" or be the smartest kid in the room. They can see or sense the connection between what to teach, how to teach it, how to tell if you taught it. They read students well. And they have to actually care. Difficult to measure on an assessment.
New teachers tend to follow the 10-80-10 rule. 10% will be awesome no matter what. 10% will be unsalvageable no matter what. 80% will become great or mediocre or awful depending on what kind of support and assistance they get through their first several years. Almost nobody arrives in a classroom at age twenty-two fully formed, completely prepared, and totally able to rock the education biz. Guarding the gateway is not nearly as important as fully supporting the people who get in, figuring out what they need, who they are, how they can best grow into a good teacher.
None of this is well-done by people who aren't there. A new teacher assessment tool can provide some small pieces of information, but just like a PARCC or SBA test, an edTPA is just a small slice of a much larger picture.
Yes, there is a lot of work ahead, but, while not everyone agrees on the
right assessment or combination of assessments, we see enough momentum
to be encouraged. We are joining as one voice to help accelerate this
movement and to make sure it holds up. At the same time, we will be
vigilant to ensure that this work is done well, that institutions have
the time they need to prepare, and that P-12 educators are involved as
collaborators along the way.
I agree. Pearson and Stanford cannot really help us, and the less control over this process they have, the better.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Parents and Tenure
As battles over tenure across the country heat up, teachers will keep encountering parents who are in favor of ending job protections for teachers.
We teachers have our favorite pro-tenure arguments, the long list of bad reasons that teachers in non-tenure districts lose their jobs. But those arguments are most compelling to us. They speak to our professional concerns. What can we say to parents that means something to them? I have a suggestion.
Tell the parent to imagine one of the following situations:
You have to drop your child off early on a wintry morning, and the doors are locked. You'll have to leave them there, freezing and alone outdoors, but you can see the child's teacher just inside the door. Could she please let your child in just this once?
Your child is being bullied by one of the children of a powerful local figure, maybe even a school board member. You've thought about calling the principal, but you're afraid it won't help. Could your child's teacher please intervene to protect your child?
Your child has been through a tremendous personal loss-- maybe the death of a family member-- and she's not coping well. You know your child's teacher has suffered grief as well. Could she perhaps spend a few extra moments counseling your child through this personal crisis?
School officials are picking on your child, forcing your child to deal with educational demands that are just too tough and wrong. They've decided that your kid needs to be toughened up, so they are riding him hard. Could your child's teacher step in to take some of the heat off?
Your child's teacher is using materials that only make your child confused, frustrated and depressed about school. You know this material is bad for your child, and you also know that the teacher didn't support choosing it. Could the teacher please find a way to use the material less, or at least lessen its impact?
And then tell the parent to imagine that the only answer they can get for these or similar problems is this:
I'm sorry. I'd like to help your child. But I could lose my job.
Tell me again why getting rid of tenure and due process will make schools better.
We teachers have our favorite pro-tenure arguments, the long list of bad reasons that teachers in non-tenure districts lose their jobs. But those arguments are most compelling to us. They speak to our professional concerns. What can we say to parents that means something to them? I have a suggestion.
Tell the parent to imagine one of the following situations:
You have to drop your child off early on a wintry morning, and the doors are locked. You'll have to leave them there, freezing and alone outdoors, but you can see the child's teacher just inside the door. Could she please let your child in just this once?
Your child is being bullied by one of the children of a powerful local figure, maybe even a school board member. You've thought about calling the principal, but you're afraid it won't help. Could your child's teacher please intervene to protect your child?
Your child has been through a tremendous personal loss-- maybe the death of a family member-- and she's not coping well. You know your child's teacher has suffered grief as well. Could she perhaps spend a few extra moments counseling your child through this personal crisis?
School officials are picking on your child, forcing your child to deal with educational demands that are just too tough and wrong. They've decided that your kid needs to be toughened up, so they are riding him hard. Could your child's teacher step in to take some of the heat off?
Your child's teacher is using materials that only make your child confused, frustrated and depressed about school. You know this material is bad for your child, and you also know that the teacher didn't support choosing it. Could the teacher please find a way to use the material less, or at least lessen its impact?
And then tell the parent to imagine that the only answer they can get for these or similar problems is this:
I'm sorry. I'd like to help your child. But I could lose my job.
Tell me again why getting rid of tenure and due process will make schools better.
#AskArne- Student Data & Test Edition
Yes, dear readers, the Department of Education continues to crank out youtube videos in which Arne Duncan is fake-interviewed about an educational issue. The newest clip presents a Teach to Lead update, a shady tale of data privacy, and some huge whoppers about the testing going on. I have included the link, but it's really only as corroboration; it's in your blood pressure's best interests not to click. (If you're thinking, "Well, how bad could it be, read my summary of a previous #AskArne.)
So let's see how long it takes this video to invoke some sort of incredible fiction and --oops, look. We're at the four-second mark and I'm looking at a screen that tells me that this video from March (youtube release date April 7-- so either a little long in production or somebody sees these before the crucial youtube demographic) is subtitled "Questions from Teachers." I've seen the questions that get tweeted under the #AskArne hashtag, and I would find a video in which Arne responded to those questions pretty special, but I'm pretty sure that's not what we're getting here.
The teachers who hosted our January outing are no longer here, and that might be an improvement, so like every rooster who thinks he makes the sun rise and every activist who thinks his squawking just made The Man change, I'm going to take credit for every change USDOE has made since I first vented my spleen all over them.
Anyway, our new hostess is Emily Davis, a Teaching Ambassadors Fellow at the USDOE. She is sitting at a table in a library talking to Arne. She thanks him for taking the time to sit down for this video shoot that he scheduled to talk about student data privacy, and he is nodding like, "Yes, yes, that's right, good job."
But first-- a commercial. Emily knows it's early to talk about the new Teach to Lead Initiative that he announced at the National Board convening last week, and I'm thinking, why, exactly is it early? After you announce a new program, would you not want to be able to talk about it? After all these years, I've come to believe that the Duncan DOE specializes in rough drafts, but nobody ever fills in the details. So I'll believe that Teach to Lead actually has a plan when I see it. Anyway, we can't talk about that yet, but she's really hoping he'll talk about it and -- flick go her eyes back to left-of-screen. This eye-flick will be repeated throughout the video and I can only conclude that just stage-right of the camera is either A) a toddler playing with a chain saw or B) Emily's script. She doesn't look quite afraid enough for the toddler theory, so I'm going to go with "working from some sort of prompter."
Anyway, Arne will absolutely talk about Lead to Teach the next time he schedules her to do one of these things. "I was thrilled with that," he says. "It was an extraordinary group of teachers... some of the best teachers in the country." And I guess we've conflated the program and the announcement. Maybe the program WAS the announcement, and now it's over. "The energy behind these hybrid roles of teachers, wanting more responsibility, wanting the chance to do more, but not have to leave the classroom and leave what they love most and do best," says Arne, and I am thinking that lots of teachers would be happy to get back the responsibility and autonomy they had before CCSS started chaining them up. "We have to make this real across the country and again, I think teachers are going to help lead us where we need to go," says Arne, and while I'm not sure what "this" is, exactly, I'm pretty sure that the USDOE's proven track record of ignoring, belittling, dismissing and disregarding teachers makes a joke out of this promise. And now he refers to the speech at the National Board as a "launch," so I'm back to wondering why we can't talk about the details because surely we didn't launch a detail-free rough draft?
Emily is excited, and then pivots awkwardly-- flick-- to the real topic-- student data privacy and the FY15 budget. The budget includes a 200 million dollar ConnectEDucators program (Emily just plain has to stare her notes in the face for this one). "What is this program and why is it so important," asks Emily, and I guess she looked away from the prompter before she could read "ask many teachers."
"This to me is absolute common sense," replies Arne. "Every teacher is looking for more technology." [insert gif of Stewart leaning in to say "Do tell!"] Teachers want time and resources and more PD and tech is changing learning and teaching and "what students are learning not just during the school day but at home" and didn't THAT just send a little chill down your spine? Anyway, we need significant resources and so we need the help of Congress to approve the budget (this would be another major theme of this video). With that, we can get to 40,000 educators and a couple hundred school districts. It will "really help empower teachers to take their craft to an entirely different level."
Emily says, "Oh yeah, that's me. I use technology every day. I'm constantly downloading apps." (Yes, I too, like the young people, am always downloading the apps and playing on the twitter as I listen to the rap music.) But you know, one of the challenges she faces is trying to stay current with the pace of innovation and still balance it with-- flick-- protecting student privacy. Two minutes in and still waiting for a teacher question.
Arne replies that tech changes at "warp speed" and is only going to get warp speedier, so it's hard to stay abreast of it. But as we move excitedly forward, we cannot compromise on student privacy. "That has to be first. That has to be foremost. That's absolutely paramount." I was going to say actually educating the students was paramount, but I'll give him this one.
But at the same time, it's important to give teachers data, to think about not teaching-- oh, I give up. This rambly mess of a sentence either was botched by the captioners or Arne needs to borrow Emily's teleprompter. Eventually we come out the other side and arrive at what I think is his point-- we need lots of data in order to individualize instruction. Plus real time feedback for children and parents.
So we have laws on the books and we have set up a technical assistance center (really? where? for what??) but it's all changing so fast that we have to keep thinking, and it strikes me at this point that Arne has been very serious for this "chat" without any of the smirkiness that I noted last time, and I'm going to go ahead and take credit for that, too.
Anyway, because things change quickly, government at all levels will have to keep thinking (do tell) and we will all have to be very public and transparent in these ongoing conversations, and of course we are all thinking that transparency has been one of the hallmarks of ed reforminess over the past decade.
Emily says that one of the conversations she keeps hearing -- fliiiiiiiick-- in the field is that districts are releasing their student data to third parties, possibly for advertising. She wonders what Arne's thought are on that. Don't we all. And here comes your first huge spit take of the day, because here's what Arne has to say:
Well first and foremost, children's data can never be a commodity
I want to see the blooper reel for this. I want to know how many tries it took him to say that with a straight face.
He goes on to say that the info can be used by teachers to improve instruction, but it should not be sold to a third party-- and we are going to hammer versions of that phrase "not be sold to a third party" a few times. And whenever a political figure who specializes in broad generalities (like say, the Teach to Lead programmish thingy) starts using very specific language, my spidey-sense starts tingling. I'm thinking that if, for instance, we've redefined data collectors as part of the school system (hello, new FERPA), and we don't actually sell them the data, then we've totally kept this very specific promise. Just saying.
Remember-- FERPA was rewritten so that parents could not withhold information about their children in the first place. inBloom was run out of every state on a rail specifically because folks like Leonie Haimson repeatedly demonstrated that the system was already set up to feed data directly to inBloom, and that inBloom wasn't going to make promises about anything, including their ability to resist hacking. Saying "we'll never sell it to those guys because we already let them walk off with it for free," is no reassurance. Saying, "We won't let them sell raw, but only as part of a product they create with it" is no assurance of privacy at all.
When your brother-in-law asks for a set of your car keys, and you say, "Will you keep it safe and never use it except with permission?" you are not looking for an answer like, "Welllll, I'll never rent it to anybody." You know what the easiest way to keep student data private safe is-- keep it completely under the control of parents.
Anyway, there is a website about privacy and a Chief Privacy Officer named Kathleen Styles who is working on this all day every single day, so congrats Kathleen Styles on your new title and so sorry that you have to work weekends.
Arne is a parent, you know, and has children, and the last thing they want is their children's data being sold to someone. So no giving data to people to sell. No selling. Selling data bad. I think we get it, Arne. Districts need to get information, stay current, maintain the trust of parents and public.
Another conversation that Emily is hearing in the field is --flick-- we're in the assessment season-- flick-- field tests are out there linked to college and career ready standards (and somewhere Common Core weeps in its beer and cries, "Why? Wasn't I good to you? And now you never call, and when we run into each other you won't even look me in the eye! Why, Arne, why??!!"). Anyway, Emily says, do you think schools have the technological capacity to administer these exams? Because, yeah, of all the issues associated with The Test, tech preparedness is the biggest.
And here comes Arne's giant whopper of the day, a pack of lies so phenomenally huge that-- he can't do it, he can't keep that poker face one more second and here comes the Arne "I Can't Believe The Bullshit Coming Out of My Mouth" Duncan liar's smile (just like the one on the face of all those baby daddies on Maury).
The field test is just a dry run. And this next line is a quote and I swear to God he actually says this:
There are no stakes attached to them.
"They are testing the technology. They are testing the test. Some items are going to make sense, some items won't'"-- because, you know, adult professional test writers can't tell if something they've written makes sense or not until they show it to eight year olds!!-- and there will be technological glitches. Arne thinks it's important that teachers and principals speak out about the challenges and then we'll have a year to fix things. He keeps saying that if people say the tests are going perfectly, they're lying, and I agree that there's a great deal of lying going on about the tests somewhere. But Arne expects them to be rocky. He expects it!! He wants the bumps! He cherishes the bumps! But wait-- he's not done saying ridiculous things yet.
These tests are going to, I think, start to be the end of the fill in the bubble tests.
Certainly. Because clicking on the correct multiple choice answer is totally different from bubbling in the correct multiple choice answer. It's a whole new world, a whole new bubble-free world. Nope-- adding a computer automatically gets you critical thinking skills. It will be a rocky transition, but we are on our way to the promised land.
Emily is refreshed to hear that Arne loves the bumps and that he's willing to work-- flick-- these things out. And she's looking forward to our next conversation and --Hey!! What happened to the questions from teachers??!!
And Arne wraps up with a reminder that Congress should approve the budget so he has the monies to do swell things. And he thanks Emily for giving him the opportunity to help her follow her instructions from his office. And feel free to send your questions to #AskArne so that they can be not included in the next video.
So let's see how long it takes this video to invoke some sort of incredible fiction and --oops, look. We're at the four-second mark and I'm looking at a screen that tells me that this video from March (youtube release date April 7-- so either a little long in production or somebody sees these before the crucial youtube demographic) is subtitled "Questions from Teachers." I've seen the questions that get tweeted under the #AskArne hashtag, and I would find a video in which Arne responded to those questions pretty special, but I'm pretty sure that's not what we're getting here.
The teachers who hosted our January outing are no longer here, and that might be an improvement, so like every rooster who thinks he makes the sun rise and every activist who thinks his squawking just made The Man change, I'm going to take credit for every change USDOE has made since I first vented my spleen all over them.
Anyway, our new hostess is Emily Davis, a Teaching Ambassadors Fellow at the USDOE. She is sitting at a table in a library talking to Arne. She thanks him for taking the time to sit down for this video shoot that he scheduled to talk about student data privacy, and he is nodding like, "Yes, yes, that's right, good job."
But first-- a commercial. Emily knows it's early to talk about the new Teach to Lead Initiative that he announced at the National Board convening last week, and I'm thinking, why, exactly is it early? After you announce a new program, would you not want to be able to talk about it? After all these years, I've come to believe that the Duncan DOE specializes in rough drafts, but nobody ever fills in the details. So I'll believe that Teach to Lead actually has a plan when I see it. Anyway, we can't talk about that yet, but she's really hoping he'll talk about it and -- flick go her eyes back to left-of-screen. This eye-flick will be repeated throughout the video and I can only conclude that just stage-right of the camera is either A) a toddler playing with a chain saw or B) Emily's script. She doesn't look quite afraid enough for the toddler theory, so I'm going to go with "working from some sort of prompter."
Anyway, Arne will absolutely talk about Lead to Teach the next time he schedules her to do one of these things. "I was thrilled with that," he says. "It was an extraordinary group of teachers... some of the best teachers in the country." And I guess we've conflated the program and the announcement. Maybe the program WAS the announcement, and now it's over. "The energy behind these hybrid roles of teachers, wanting more responsibility, wanting the chance to do more, but not have to leave the classroom and leave what they love most and do best," says Arne, and I am thinking that lots of teachers would be happy to get back the responsibility and autonomy they had before CCSS started chaining them up. "We have to make this real across the country and again, I think teachers are going to help lead us where we need to go," says Arne, and while I'm not sure what "this" is, exactly, I'm pretty sure that the USDOE's proven track record of ignoring, belittling, dismissing and disregarding teachers makes a joke out of this promise. And now he refers to the speech at the National Board as a "launch," so I'm back to wondering why we can't talk about the details because surely we didn't launch a detail-free rough draft?
Emily is excited, and then pivots awkwardly-- flick-- to the real topic-- student data privacy and the FY15 budget. The budget includes a 200 million dollar ConnectEDucators program (Emily just plain has to stare her notes in the face for this one). "What is this program and why is it so important," asks Emily, and I guess she looked away from the prompter before she could read "ask many teachers."
"This to me is absolute common sense," replies Arne. "Every teacher is looking for more technology." [insert gif of Stewart leaning in to say "Do tell!"] Teachers want time and resources and more PD and tech is changing learning and teaching and "what students are learning not just during the school day but at home" and didn't THAT just send a little chill down your spine? Anyway, we need significant resources and so we need the help of Congress to approve the budget (this would be another major theme of this video). With that, we can get to 40,000 educators and a couple hundred school districts. It will "really help empower teachers to take their craft to an entirely different level."
Emily says, "Oh yeah, that's me. I use technology every day. I'm constantly downloading apps." (Yes, I too, like the young people, am always downloading the apps and playing on the twitter as I listen to the rap music.) But you know, one of the challenges she faces is trying to stay current with the pace of innovation and still balance it with-- flick-- protecting student privacy. Two minutes in and still waiting for a teacher question.
Arne replies that tech changes at "warp speed" and is only going to get warp speedier, so it's hard to stay abreast of it. But as we move excitedly forward, we cannot compromise on student privacy. "That has to be first. That has to be foremost. That's absolutely paramount." I was going to say actually educating the students was paramount, but I'll give him this one.
But at the same time, it's important to give teachers data, to think about not teaching-- oh, I give up. This rambly mess of a sentence either was botched by the captioners or Arne needs to borrow Emily's teleprompter. Eventually we come out the other side and arrive at what I think is his point-- we need lots of data in order to individualize instruction. Plus real time feedback for children and parents.
So we have laws on the books and we have set up a technical assistance center (really? where? for what??) but it's all changing so fast that we have to keep thinking, and it strikes me at this point that Arne has been very serious for this "chat" without any of the smirkiness that I noted last time, and I'm going to go ahead and take credit for that, too.
Anyway, because things change quickly, government at all levels will have to keep thinking (do tell) and we will all have to be very public and transparent in these ongoing conversations, and of course we are all thinking that transparency has been one of the hallmarks of ed reforminess over the past decade.
Emily says that one of the conversations she keeps hearing -- fliiiiiiiick-- in the field is that districts are releasing their student data to third parties, possibly for advertising. She wonders what Arne's thought are on that. Don't we all. And here comes your first huge spit take of the day, because here's what Arne has to say:
Well first and foremost, children's data can never be a commodity
I want to see the blooper reel for this. I want to know how many tries it took him to say that with a straight face.
He goes on to say that the info can be used by teachers to improve instruction, but it should not be sold to a third party-- and we are going to hammer versions of that phrase "not be sold to a third party" a few times. And whenever a political figure who specializes in broad generalities (like say, the Teach to Lead programmish thingy) starts using very specific language, my spidey-sense starts tingling. I'm thinking that if, for instance, we've redefined data collectors as part of the school system (hello, new FERPA), and we don't actually sell them the data, then we've totally kept this very specific promise. Just saying.
Remember-- FERPA was rewritten so that parents could not withhold information about their children in the first place. inBloom was run out of every state on a rail specifically because folks like Leonie Haimson repeatedly demonstrated that the system was already set up to feed data directly to inBloom, and that inBloom wasn't going to make promises about anything, including their ability to resist hacking. Saying "we'll never sell it to those guys because we already let them walk off with it for free," is no reassurance. Saying, "We won't let them sell raw, but only as part of a product they create with it" is no assurance of privacy at all.
When your brother-in-law asks for a set of your car keys, and you say, "Will you keep it safe and never use it except with permission?" you are not looking for an answer like, "Welllll, I'll never rent it to anybody." You know what the easiest way to keep student data private safe is-- keep it completely under the control of parents.
Anyway, there is a website about privacy and a Chief Privacy Officer named Kathleen Styles who is working on this all day every single day, so congrats Kathleen Styles on your new title and so sorry that you have to work weekends.
Arne is a parent, you know, and has children, and the last thing they want is their children's data being sold to someone. So no giving data to people to sell. No selling. Selling data bad. I think we get it, Arne. Districts need to get information, stay current, maintain the trust of parents and public.
Another conversation that Emily is hearing in the field is --flick-- we're in the assessment season-- flick-- field tests are out there linked to college and career ready standards (and somewhere Common Core weeps in its beer and cries, "Why? Wasn't I good to you? And now you never call, and when we run into each other you won't even look me in the eye! Why, Arne, why??!!"). Anyway, Emily says, do you think schools have the technological capacity to administer these exams? Because, yeah, of all the issues associated with The Test, tech preparedness is the biggest.
And here comes Arne's giant whopper of the day, a pack of lies so phenomenally huge that-- he can't do it, he can't keep that poker face one more second and here comes the Arne "I Can't Believe The Bullshit Coming Out of My Mouth" Duncan liar's smile (just like the one on the face of all those baby daddies on Maury).
The field test is just a dry run. And this next line is a quote and I swear to God he actually says this:
There are no stakes attached to them.
"They are testing the technology. They are testing the test. Some items are going to make sense, some items won't'"-- because, you know, adult professional test writers can't tell if something they've written makes sense or not until they show it to eight year olds!!-- and there will be technological glitches. Arne thinks it's important that teachers and principals speak out about the challenges and then we'll have a year to fix things. He keeps saying that if people say the tests are going perfectly, they're lying, and I agree that there's a great deal of lying going on about the tests somewhere. But Arne expects them to be rocky. He expects it!! He wants the bumps! He cherishes the bumps! But wait-- he's not done saying ridiculous things yet.
These tests are going to, I think, start to be the end of the fill in the bubble tests.
Certainly. Because clicking on the correct multiple choice answer is totally different from bubbling in the correct multiple choice answer. It's a whole new world, a whole new bubble-free world. Nope-- adding a computer automatically gets you critical thinking skills. It will be a rocky transition, but we are on our way to the promised land.
Emily is refreshed to hear that Arne loves the bumps and that he's willing to work-- flick-- these things out. And she's looking forward to our next conversation and --Hey!! What happened to the questions from teachers??!!
And Arne wraps up with a reminder that Congress should approve the budget so he has the monies to do swell things. And he thanks Emily for giving him the opportunity to help her follow her instructions from his office. And feel free to send your questions to #AskArne so that they can be not included in the next video.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Strangers in Mathland
If you are none-math person, here's your quick partial explanation of why math under the Common Core is so hinky.
I'm an English teacher, so I've rather stayed away from the math side of the Common Core Standards. But I can't help noticing that if you are of a certain age (say, mine) some of it seems vaguely familiar. Let me give you a hint...
(Note: Tom Lehrer is, as the young folks say, the bomb. If you are not familiar with his work, you should acquaint yourself).
So, why this theoretical swinging back and forth of the mathematical pendulum? Because math is not all one thing!
I know. In my discipline, we're used to all sorts of squabbling. Despite the fact that David Coleman and The Corophiles (which might be a good name for a band) seem to believe that all matters of reading, interpreting, and generally messing with literature have been definitively settled, those of us who actually live in that world know better. For example, the notion that author's intent is important or even legitimate may be assumed to be true and settled by CCSS, but actual literary scholars and students can argue about it till the cows come home (which the cows may have consciously intended to do, but on the other hand they may have returned home as a result of cultural pressures and expectations, or as an unconscious expression of patriarchal gender-normative structures).
But math. I always thought math was just, you know, math. And then I got older and I did reading about things like chaos theory and quantum mechanics and building structures and I learned that math is not just math. That there is an ongoing rift of sorts between practical mathematics and theoretical (or pure) mathematics.
If you go to math middle school, the applied mathers will all be sitting at the same lunch table pointing and laughing at the theoretical guys and making fun of them for being the kind of people who like big equations but can't change (or design) a spare tire. Meanwhile, the pure math lunch table is pointing back and mocking the applied guys because they only use math to...ew... make things. Think Big Bang Theory and the abuse Sheldon heaps on Howard for being merely an engineer.
Periodically the ongoing rivalry between these groups spill over into the teaching of math to small children. "It's important," say the pure math guys, "that children learn the principles, grasp the ideas, appreciate and see the pure structure underlying the world of mathy things. It doesn't matter if they can make change; it matters that they see the beautiful mathematical structures and relationships underlying the universe of mathematics."
"No," reply the applied math guys. "It would be really nice if they could figure out how to put together some pieces of wood into a properly measured chair that you can sit in, or figure out how long a train takes to get to Amsterdam. Wrong answers mess up the world."
Children and their parents seem to lean historically toward practical math and getting the right answers. But periodically the theoretical math folks gain the upper hand and push the notion that it's concepts, not correct answers, that matter. The last time they gained the upper hand, we got the new math. This time, they somehow used the launch of CCSS to get their feet in the door again, and so Core math arrived, the bastard grandchild of New Math, desperately trying to get six year olds to grasp the beauty of numerical relationships in the universe of pure math (never mind the answer).
Of course, it's a bit of a false division. Here's one of many rants written about how false a dichotomy it is, but of course, rants like this wouldn't be written or necessary if it weren't a dichotomy that many people observe.
Real Math People undoubtedly understand this better than I, but for my fellow strangers in mathland, I thought a non-mathy explanation might be helpful in grasping why we've been to this weird place of math instruction before, and why we're back there now. And why we undoubtedly won't stay there. If you are of a certain age, you remember what happened to New Math in most places-- schools became very tired of explaining why students were being frustrated by weirdly theoretical homework, but couldn't repeat even a sliver of a times table.
I'm an English teacher, so I've rather stayed away from the math side of the Common Core Standards. But I can't help noticing that if you are of a certain age (say, mine) some of it seems vaguely familiar. Let me give you a hint...
(Note: Tom Lehrer is, as the young folks say, the bomb. If you are not familiar with his work, you should acquaint yourself).
So, why this theoretical swinging back and forth of the mathematical pendulum? Because math is not all one thing!
I know. In my discipline, we're used to all sorts of squabbling. Despite the fact that David Coleman and The Corophiles (which might be a good name for a band) seem to believe that all matters of reading, interpreting, and generally messing with literature have been definitively settled, those of us who actually live in that world know better. For example, the notion that author's intent is important or even legitimate may be assumed to be true and settled by CCSS, but actual literary scholars and students can argue about it till the cows come home (which the cows may have consciously intended to do, but on the other hand they may have returned home as a result of cultural pressures and expectations, or as an unconscious expression of patriarchal gender-normative structures).
But math. I always thought math was just, you know, math. And then I got older and I did reading about things like chaos theory and quantum mechanics and building structures and I learned that math is not just math. That there is an ongoing rift of sorts between practical mathematics and theoretical (or pure) mathematics.
If you go to math middle school, the applied mathers will all be sitting at the same lunch table pointing and laughing at the theoretical guys and making fun of them for being the kind of people who like big equations but can't change (or design) a spare tire. Meanwhile, the pure math lunch table is pointing back and mocking the applied guys because they only use math to...ew... make things. Think Big Bang Theory and the abuse Sheldon heaps on Howard for being merely an engineer.
Periodically the ongoing rivalry between these groups spill over into the teaching of math to small children. "It's important," say the pure math guys, "that children learn the principles, grasp the ideas, appreciate and see the pure structure underlying the world of mathy things. It doesn't matter if they can make change; it matters that they see the beautiful mathematical structures and relationships underlying the universe of mathematics."
"No," reply the applied math guys. "It would be really nice if they could figure out how to put together some pieces of wood into a properly measured chair that you can sit in, or figure out how long a train takes to get to Amsterdam. Wrong answers mess up the world."
Children and their parents seem to lean historically toward practical math and getting the right answers. But periodically the theoretical math folks gain the upper hand and push the notion that it's concepts, not correct answers, that matter. The last time they gained the upper hand, we got the new math. This time, they somehow used the launch of CCSS to get their feet in the door again, and so Core math arrived, the bastard grandchild of New Math, desperately trying to get six year olds to grasp the beauty of numerical relationships in the universe of pure math (never mind the answer).
Of course, it's a bit of a false division. Here's one of many rants written about how false a dichotomy it is, but of course, rants like this wouldn't be written or necessary if it weren't a dichotomy that many people observe.
Real Math People undoubtedly understand this better than I, but for my fellow strangers in mathland, I thought a non-mathy explanation might be helpful in grasping why we've been to this weird place of math instruction before, and why we're back there now. And why we undoubtedly won't stay there. If you are of a certain age, you remember what happened to New Math in most places-- schools became very tired of explaining why students were being frustrated by weirdly theoretical homework, but couldn't repeat even a sliver of a times table.
Common Corer? I Don't Even Know Her!
With his House appropriations subcommittee testimony Tuesday, Arne Duncan remains the highest profile reformy booster to wipe the Common Core lipstick off his face and stammer, "But, honey, I barely even know the woman!"
It's not the first time for Arne-- it hasn't even been a month since he watched Indiana dump the Core and said, "Yeah, well, fine. They can do that if they want to." But that was less of a test of his resolve because Indiana was dumping the Core in name only; like several other states (looking at you, Bobby Jindal) they appear to be going to route of shearing the wolf and giving it a new woolen suit.
But here was Arne in front of congressmen saying, "Common core??! You thought I said 'Common Core Standards'?! No no no-- I said 'Je t'adore Standards'-- You know, French! Because standards are so cosmopolitan and so I was just saying I love them standards because--well, no- any standards. Any standards at all!" (I am paraphrasing a bit.)
He walked a tightrope between lying and just not being truthful on the subject of tying state money to CCSS compliance, and I can't fault him because extortion, robbery and holding someone hostage are all different activities.
And he pretended not to know what exactly "Race to the Top 2.0: The Muddle to the Middle" is going to look like. And I was delighted to see Rep. Steve Womack ask the several million-dollar question-- How does one race to equality, exactly? But Arne, gosh, he's just not sure exactly what that new program is going to look like, exactly.
I'm hoping that this performance was more than just Arne's usual attempt to maintain plausible deniability about the federalness (and therefor illegality) of CCSS and its attendant reformy pilot fish. I can't help noticing that he also did not look congress in the eye and try to tell it that only Tea Party fringe elements oppose the Core. But it's hard to connect this Arne to the one who last year told the American Society of Newspaper Editors that the Common Core was the best thing since sliced bread and offered them handy tips on how to help him promote it. Nor is this is certainly the same feisty Duncan who told California that they had better do a full rollout of testing or the USDOE would withhold funds from the state.
The whole thing comes as a steady drip drip drip eats away at the CCSS love. Yesterday's defection by LA Times writer Karen Klein, aprevious long-time Common Corer who announced in the paper that she would be opting her daughter out of tests-- that didn't help. The noisy and large opt-outs from testing across the country-- that didn't help. Stephen Colbert returning to the CCSS well for satirical fodder-- that didn't help. Jeb Bush and the Chamber's fizzling program to build a groundswell of grass roots support for CCSS-- that's not helping, either.
They can't hold onto their faithful, and they can't convert new ones. How can this be happening? How can it be that CCSS boosters are losing American hearts and minds?
CCSS supporters all along have been from three groups:
1) People who are making money from pushing the CCSS
2) People who are either willfully or naively delusional about the CCSS
3) People who do not yet fully understand what the CCSS regime entails
At this point, Group 3 is hemorrhaging people at a tremendous rate. Like Karen Klein, people lose their support for the tests at the moment they see one, or hear about it from their children. As more and more people see what CCSS really means, more and more people see it for the mess it really is.
And so its supporters start slowly backing away, start pretending "No, no! I barely even spoke to her! We met, like, one time, at Bill Gates' party!"
What happens next? Realigning strategy-- people have big money invested in this and they aren't just going to walk away. Can the acolytes of CCSS limit the damage to the brand name alone? Some groups will be particularly nervy-- the data overlords need all those tags from all that material to line up. If you want to see how much a state has really dropped the standards, look at the new standards and ask how hard it would be to convert the tagging system. Some tone-deaf groups will pay a price-- if NEA isn't careful, they'll end up as one of the few marquee faces for a disgraced brand. And some politicians will suffer (sorry, no President Jebby for you).
They will deploy new weapons, new rhetoric, new advertising approaches. They will try to get more done away from the public eye (which may have the odd effect of turning the entire battle for public education into a underground war between guerilla fighters on both sides). Sadly for them, they will not deploy the one approach that would be unstoppable. They could win the whole thing, win the court of public opinion, win the support of tastemakers and kingmakers alike.
All they would have to do is be right.
If they were right, all of us in the resistance would have to shut up. If any of the reformy initiatives reaped positive real results, the resistance would have to cope with that success. We would be scrambling for arguments instead of scrambling to cover the many many many failures of the Reformy Folks. That's why time is not on their side. Because every single reformy trick has failed. Every single reformy idea has been tested, has been given exactly what they claimed it needed, and it has failed. And it's going to keep failing, and Arne Duncan is going to keep going before Congress to wag his finger and say, "I have never had legislative intercourse with that program!"
It's not the first time for Arne-- it hasn't even been a month since he watched Indiana dump the Core and said, "Yeah, well, fine. They can do that if they want to." But that was less of a test of his resolve because Indiana was dumping the Core in name only; like several other states (looking at you, Bobby Jindal) they appear to be going to route of shearing the wolf and giving it a new woolen suit.
But here was Arne in front of congressmen saying, "Common core??! You thought I said 'Common Core Standards'?! No no no-- I said 'Je t'adore Standards'-- You know, French! Because standards are so cosmopolitan and so I was just saying I love them standards because--well, no- any standards. Any standards at all!" (I am paraphrasing a bit.)
He walked a tightrope between lying and just not being truthful on the subject of tying state money to CCSS compliance, and I can't fault him because extortion, robbery and holding someone hostage are all different activities.
And he pretended not to know what exactly "Race to the Top 2.0: The Muddle to the Middle" is going to look like. And I was delighted to see Rep. Steve Womack ask the several million-dollar question-- How does one race to equality, exactly? But Arne, gosh, he's just not sure exactly what that new program is going to look like, exactly.
I'm hoping that this performance was more than just Arne's usual attempt to maintain plausible deniability about the federalness (and therefor illegality) of CCSS and its attendant reformy pilot fish. I can't help noticing that he also did not look congress in the eye and try to tell it that only Tea Party fringe elements oppose the Core. But it's hard to connect this Arne to the one who last year told the American Society of Newspaper Editors that the Common Core was the best thing since sliced bread and offered them handy tips on how to help him promote it. Nor is this is certainly the same feisty Duncan who told California that they had better do a full rollout of testing or the USDOE would withhold funds from the state.
The whole thing comes as a steady drip drip drip eats away at the CCSS love. Yesterday's defection by LA Times writer Karen Klein, a
They can't hold onto their faithful, and they can't convert new ones. How can this be happening? How can it be that CCSS boosters are losing American hearts and minds?
CCSS supporters all along have been from three groups:
1) People who are making money from pushing the CCSS
2) People who are either willfully or naively delusional about the CCSS
3) People who do not yet fully understand what the CCSS regime entails
At this point, Group 3 is hemorrhaging people at a tremendous rate. Like Karen Klein, people lose their support for the tests at the moment they see one, or hear about it from their children. As more and more people see what CCSS really means, more and more people see it for the mess it really is.
And so its supporters start slowly backing away, start pretending "No, no! I barely even spoke to her! We met, like, one time, at Bill Gates' party!"
What happens next? Realigning strategy-- people have big money invested in this and they aren't just going to walk away. Can the acolytes of CCSS limit the damage to the brand name alone? Some groups will be particularly nervy-- the data overlords need all those tags from all that material to line up. If you want to see how much a state has really dropped the standards, look at the new standards and ask how hard it would be to convert the tagging system. Some tone-deaf groups will pay a price-- if NEA isn't careful, they'll end up as one of the few marquee faces for a disgraced brand. And some politicians will suffer (sorry, no President Jebby for you).
They will deploy new weapons, new rhetoric, new advertising approaches. They will try to get more done away from the public eye (which may have the odd effect of turning the entire battle for public education into a underground war between guerilla fighters on both sides). Sadly for them, they will not deploy the one approach that would be unstoppable. They could win the whole thing, win the court of public opinion, win the support of tastemakers and kingmakers alike.
All they would have to do is be right.
If they were right, all of us in the resistance would have to shut up. If any of the reformy initiatives reaped positive real results, the resistance would have to cope with that success. We would be scrambling for arguments instead of scrambling to cover the many many many failures of the Reformy Folks. That's why time is not on their side. Because every single reformy trick has failed. Every single reformy idea has been tested, has been given exactly what they claimed it needed, and it has failed. And it's going to keep failing, and Arne Duncan is going to keep going before Congress to wag his finger and say, "I have never had legislative intercourse with that program!"
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
I Love My Job (Seriously)
Regular readers of this blog (I believe there are at least three, now) probably expected that the headline was setting up some sort of sarcastic satirical rant. But no-- that's not where I'm going today.
Because I do, in fact, actually love my job.
Sometimes it's the obvious stuff. A few weeks back I was hustling in overdrive overtime to pull together a hundred-plus students into a production of the annual variety show, standing in that big pre-show circle at all those faces excited and committed and simultaneously part of something brand new and also an eighty-four year tradition at our school. They had worked so hard and they were so excited and they created such a special night for hundreds of audience members and it was not possible for me to be any prouder of how each put his or her personal stamp of sweat and inspiration and talent and spark to those performances. How could anybody not love that?
Sometimes it's not so obvious. Today I was up in class and we were seguing straight from the difference between jazz hands and spirit fingers into what turned out to be an infomercial for the three uses of semi-colons (three! count 'em, three!) and we are all just enjoying ourselves while we nail this stupid punctuation nuance and I am thinking, damn, I have the best job in the world (although I'll admit I can see how not everybody would necessarily love that part).
Sometimes it pays off for decades. I teach in a small town district, and while many of our grads leave the area, many do not, and many stay in touch. To see these people strive and grow and sometimes fall but then find a way-- it's an awesome thing. To see the many amazing ways in which a person's life can unfold, unexpected and not according to plan, and yet eventually finding its own way-- I tell you, it's watching my students grow up and go into the world that has reassured me more than anything else in life that ultimately, for most people, things turn out okay.
And the generations. I see families unfold through generations and through years, see parents pass their own struggles and strength onto their children. I see parents and children trying so hard to figure out how to love and support each other, and I get to know both sides of their story.
I mean, the line about touching the future because I teach is great, and I don't disagree, but I am also up to my elbows in the present and it's awesome. I get to work with real live living growing changing rising and advancing human beings. Not like doctors and nurses who see them when they're sick, or lawyers or social workers who see them when they're in trouble-- I get to see them when they are becoming themselves. I get to see them learn what it means to be fully human, to be who they are, to be in the world.
I am driven to understand just like I am driven to write and make music and ride a bike, and I am driven to connect other people to what I understand and to see what I can see through them. Like the guy shoveling coal into the furnace that drives the engine in the belly of a great ocean liner, I get to work next to the burning heart of humanity.
We talk about all the things that matter and all the things that don't, and we talk about how to talk about them, and we talk about how to bridge the gap between human beings, to share understanding, to pass on some of that heat from the burning heart. Every one of my students is a giant waiting to stand up tall, struggling to channel strength into those legs.
We read and write and do every piddly thing any English class ever did. We look into the literature and the paragraphs and the prepositional phrases and we try find some way to use it, some way to move forward, some way to grow and rise and embrace ourselves and the world.
It is not always pretty and it is not always neat and not always according to plan, and lord knows some days I am not very good at it for any number of reasons, up to and including that I'm an imperfect rough draft of a teacher. I may never retire because I don't think I can quit until I actually get really good at this.
The worst is to get distracted by the stupid stuff, and we are all awash in a sea of stupid distractions these days, and that's mostly what I write about. But I need to let myself know (and you, too, dear reader if you have hung on through all these paragraphs) that there is a reason I do this and it is bigger than all the stuff that I bitch and moan about. There's is more to this, to me, than the bitching and moaning. There is the energy in knowing and passing it on, there's the joy of grinding through the tight places to the places where the sky is fresh and clear, and there is absolute heart-shaking awesomeness of watching young humans grow and grasp and build and rise and become fully human and fully themselves.
Make no mistake. I love my job. I freakin' love my job.
Because I do, in fact, actually love my job.
Sometimes it's the obvious stuff. A few weeks back I was hustling in overdrive overtime to pull together a hundred-plus students into a production of the annual variety show, standing in that big pre-show circle at all those faces excited and committed and simultaneously part of something brand new and also an eighty-four year tradition at our school. They had worked so hard and they were so excited and they created such a special night for hundreds of audience members and it was not possible for me to be any prouder of how each put his or her personal stamp of sweat and inspiration and talent and spark to those performances. How could anybody not love that?
Sometimes it's not so obvious. Today I was up in class and we were seguing straight from the difference between jazz hands and spirit fingers into what turned out to be an infomercial for the three uses of semi-colons (three! count 'em, three!) and we are all just enjoying ourselves while we nail this stupid punctuation nuance and I am thinking, damn, I have the best job in the world (although I'll admit I can see how not everybody would necessarily love that part).
Sometimes it pays off for decades. I teach in a small town district, and while many of our grads leave the area, many do not, and many stay in touch. To see these people strive and grow and sometimes fall but then find a way-- it's an awesome thing. To see the many amazing ways in which a person's life can unfold, unexpected and not according to plan, and yet eventually finding its own way-- I tell you, it's watching my students grow up and go into the world that has reassured me more than anything else in life that ultimately, for most people, things turn out okay.
And the generations. I see families unfold through generations and through years, see parents pass their own struggles and strength onto their children. I see parents and children trying so hard to figure out how to love and support each other, and I get to know both sides of their story.
I mean, the line about touching the future because I teach is great, and I don't disagree, but I am also up to my elbows in the present and it's awesome. I get to work with real live living growing changing rising and advancing human beings. Not like doctors and nurses who see them when they're sick, or lawyers or social workers who see them when they're in trouble-- I get to see them when they are becoming themselves. I get to see them learn what it means to be fully human, to be who they are, to be in the world.
I am driven to understand just like I am driven to write and make music and ride a bike, and I am driven to connect other people to what I understand and to see what I can see through them. Like the guy shoveling coal into the furnace that drives the engine in the belly of a great ocean liner, I get to work next to the burning heart of humanity.
We talk about all the things that matter and all the things that don't, and we talk about how to talk about them, and we talk about how to bridge the gap between human beings, to share understanding, to pass on some of that heat from the burning heart. Every one of my students is a giant waiting to stand up tall, struggling to channel strength into those legs.
We read and write and do every piddly thing any English class ever did. We look into the literature and the paragraphs and the prepositional phrases and we try find some way to use it, some way to move forward, some way to grow and rise and embrace ourselves and the world.
It is not always pretty and it is not always neat and not always according to plan, and lord knows some days I am not very good at it for any number of reasons, up to and including that I'm an imperfect rough draft of a teacher. I may never retire because I don't think I can quit until I actually get really good at this.
The worst is to get distracted by the stupid stuff, and we are all awash in a sea of stupid distractions these days, and that's mostly what I write about. But I need to let myself know (and you, too, dear reader if you have hung on through all these paragraphs) that there is a reason I do this and it is bigger than all the stuff that I bitch and moan about. There's is more to this, to me, than the bitching and moaning. There is the energy in knowing and passing it on, there's the joy of grinding through the tight places to the places where the sky is fresh and clear, and there is absolute heart-shaking awesomeness of watching young humans grow and grasp and build and rise and become fully human and fully themselves.
Make no mistake. I love my job. I freakin' love my job.
Why "Reformy"?
Part of a series of posts for folks who are just beginning to find there way through the current debates on education. My blog dedicated to that audience is Reclaiming Pubic Education 101.
As one wades out into the sea of education blogging, one repeatedly encounters the term "reformy" or "reformy stuff." There's a short explanation, but it underlines one of the central issues of the education world these days.
The champions of Common Core, high stakes testing, charters, TFA, and the other tools of powerful amateurs dedicated to dismantling US public education have tried to claim for themselves the mantle of "Reformers," of people who are standing up to combat the status quo.
"Reformer" is a powerful word. It speaks of someone who sees and unjust system and fights to fix it, to make it more fair, more just. A reformer stands up, against whatever odds, for positive change.
Our current crop of corporate raiders, government stooges, privateers, data overlords, and public ed destroyers do not match the definition of the word. They are not standing up for justice. They are not trying to Fight the Power for freedom and a better world. They are trying to twist and destroy the public education for profit and power.
More than that, they are not fighting against the status quo. Every one of these "reforms" has been in place for years, even decades. Charters have been given every condition they claimed they needed for success. High stakes federally-pushed tests have been used to drive instruction for over a decade, as have state-mandated uniform standards. TFA is over twenty years old. These folks aren't fighting the status quo-- they ARE the status quo.
And so, folks fighting to restore the promise of public education generally refuse to allow these folks the name "reformers," nor can we call the failed policies that have now had ample opportunity to prove themselves "reform."
Some folks tried, "deformers," but while it's catchy, it doesn't really captured the degree to which htey have successfully destroyed and uprooted elements of pubic education. Many bloggers have tried many constructions with limited success (I myself have coined "Masters of Reforming Our Nation's Schools," but while MoRONS has a certain sophomoric semi-wit to it, it's not really practical for writing).
So the term that has emerged most often is "reformy." Like Colbert's "truthiness," it captures the degree to which the thing is trying to imitate a real quality with a cheap, fake imitation of that quality. Likewise "reformy stuff" shows an understanding of the great CCSS-based complex of educational malpractice without showing it any respect.
As one wades out into the sea of education blogging, one repeatedly encounters the term "reformy" or "reformy stuff." There's a short explanation, but it underlines one of the central issues of the education world these days.
The champions of Common Core, high stakes testing, charters, TFA, and the other tools of powerful amateurs dedicated to dismantling US public education have tried to claim for themselves the mantle of "Reformers," of people who are standing up to combat the status quo.
"Reformer" is a powerful word. It speaks of someone who sees and unjust system and fights to fix it, to make it more fair, more just. A reformer stands up, against whatever odds, for positive change.
Our current crop of corporate raiders, government stooges, privateers, data overlords, and public ed destroyers do not match the definition of the word. They are not standing up for justice. They are not trying to Fight the Power for freedom and a better world. They are trying to twist and destroy the public education for profit and power.
More than that, they are not fighting against the status quo. Every one of these "reforms" has been in place for years, even decades. Charters have been given every condition they claimed they needed for success. High stakes federally-pushed tests have been used to drive instruction for over a decade, as have state-mandated uniform standards. TFA is over twenty years old. These folks aren't fighting the status quo-- they ARE the status quo.
And so, folks fighting to restore the promise of public education generally refuse to allow these folks the name "reformers," nor can we call the failed policies that have now had ample opportunity to prove themselves "reform."
Some folks tried, "deformers," but while it's catchy, it doesn't really captured the degree to which htey have successfully destroyed and uprooted elements of pubic education. Many bloggers have tried many constructions with limited success (I myself have coined "Masters of Reforming Our Nation's Schools," but while MoRONS has a certain sophomoric semi-wit to it, it's not really practical for writing).
So the term that has emerged most often is "reformy." Like Colbert's "truthiness," it captures the degree to which the thing is trying to imitate a real quality with a cheap, fake imitation of that quality. Likewise "reformy stuff" shows an understanding of the great CCSS-based complex of educational malpractice without showing it any respect.
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