Voice of Revolution

Parents and Teachers United Against Common Core

Democracy Means We Decide, Not the King

Teachers, parents and students from Buffalo and surrounding areas organized a public forum, outside the WNED station downtown, where New York Education Commissioner John King was speaking at an invitation-only event inside. Representing the public and its fight for the right to education for all, people joined in rejecting King’s undemocratic meeting, where those attending were not allowed to speak. At the King’s meeting, questions had to be submitted in writing, were then screened, and then read by the WNED moderator. King then was given free reign to say whatever he wanted, including falsely accusing parents of wanting to “lower standards,” (see article below).

At the public meeting organized outside by parents and teachers together, all were given a chance to speak. Despite the cold and snow, there were more people outside than inside, all determined to have their say and take their stand together. Several speakers brought out that it is teachers, staff, parents and students who are the authority on public education. They are the ones directly engaged in the work of education and must have a role in deciding. They echoed the content of signs, which read: Democracy Says, We Decide, Not the King!

One after the other speakers denounced the Common Core and its testing regime. They brought out that testing does not equal learning and that teachers must be given the conditions necessary to teach. Many members of the Buffalo Teachers Federation were present and participating. People spoke to the harm being done to children with the testing regime. Young students are contending both with the anxiety of the arbitrary tests that do not serve educational needs, and with the fact that their scores can be used against their teachers. It is an inhuman situation, especially for younger children.

Organizers also brought to the fore that the action showed that parents and teachers are united in defending public education and raising its quality. They are rejecting efforts by King to pit parents against teachers and brand children as “failures.” As has occurred in numerous public meetings in the area and statewide, speakers brought out that they are fighting for an all-sided curriculum, with music, art, physical education and content in all courses that defends the public and its interests. They want change in the public schools, but not the anti-education and anti-democracy content that is the Common Core. Their many signs brought this out: Education Yes! Common Core No! Testing ≠ Learning, Common Core Harms Children! Common Core Harms Education! We Want Decision Making Power!

Various people also spoke of the need to Refuse the Tests and organize in each school to encourage students and parents to refuse! As discussion ensued among participants, people talked to the need to keep matters in our own hands and continue building up organized resistance. The need for more public meetings large and small to further involve all concerned and assess resistance to the Core was raised. Ideas about how to improve the quality of education and strengthen the fight for the equal right to education for all was on the minds of many. Problems confronting Buffalo students, like the high levels of poverty and inequality have to be addressed, something the Common Core is designed to prevent. Strengthening our own media, our own organizations by keeping matters in our own hands and organizing in public, for the public good is also being talked about.

What stood out at the action was recognition of the need for increasing the role of teachers, staff, students and parents in all matters of public education. The rally was organized in a way that was democratic and enabled the public to debate and strengthen its common thinking. It brought to the fore the need for decision making and building resistance. Parents are activated and engaged and this is vital to build on. There is consciousness about standing united and rejecting any effort by King to divide and conquer, whether it be urban schools against suburban schools or parents against teachers. Several times from the stage people emphasized, we are parents and teachers united! There is also growing recognition that for Common Core to be defeated everyone together must continue to rely on their own efforts and to organize broadly, at every school, in every district, and in the Buffalo-area as a whole.

Democracy Means We Decide, Not the King!
Organize to Keep the Fight in Our United Hands!

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Undemocratic Forum in Buffalo

Commissioner King Again Insists Common Core “Right Thing for Students”

Despite continuing and repeated demands by parents, teachers, staff and students to reject the Common Core and find alternatives that will improve the quality of public education, New York State Education Commissioner John King again emphasized that the state will continue to impose the Common Core. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he said, “It’s the right thing for students.” Speaking at a recent forum in Buffalo at WNED — that was closed to the public and by invitation-only — King also continued his disinformation about concerns of parents and teachers.

He said, “To the extent that people are saying we should ask students to read less, they’re wrong.” He added, “To the extent that people are saying we should ask students to write less, they’re wrong.” He concluded, “To me the folks who are making the argument that it’s too much, it’s too hard — essentially an argument for lower standards — they’re just ignoring the reality.”

He then made clear that regardless of the stand being taken by the public against the Common Core, King will go ahead: “I think we have to distinguish between listening and agreement.” He added, “We listen carefully to their concerns, but we also have a strong view that we’ve got to ensure that our students are prepared for college and career success.”

The King’s comments make clear he is not hearing what is being said, as he, and the private interests he serves, have already decided Common Core must go forward. And rather than respond to the facts and concerns raised by parents, he presents them as the ones wanting to lower standards and the general quality of education. The opposite is the case.

Any review of comments made by parents, teachers and students in numerous public meetings of various kinds, in the Buffalo area and across the state, make clear that they are not saying the problem is “too much reading” or “too much writing.” That is an entirely fabricated argument made by King to make it appear he is defending children while parents and teachers are not. What parents are saying is that there is too much testing, that the tests are not being used for educational purposes but rather to brand public teachers and students as failures, that the tests are arbitrary, not designed by educators, and are being kept secret, the property of private testing monopolies like Pearson. King consistently refuses to address these real and widespread concerns.

Parents, teachers and students alike want to improve the quality of the curriculum, make it more all-sided, ensure it provides students with the full and factual information and context they need to actually be informed and educated. And they have given various proposals along these lines. They are the ones fighting for higher quality libraries, fully staffed in every school. They are the ones fighting for music, art, physical education, foreign languages and more generally to raise standards in the public schools. They are the ones rightly saying that it is teachers, staff, students and parents who are the authorities on public education. They are the ones fighting for democracy and demanding to increase the role of teachers, staff, students and parents in deciding matters of public education. The Common Core, as widely evidenced, is eliminating standards, curriculum and is anti-democratic. The King has systematically blocked the role of the public in deciding, including by organizing an invitation-only meeting. Further, no one attending the meeting was allowed to speak. Rather questions had to be submitted in advance, were screened and then read by the forum moderator.

Students Are Not Products

What the King calls standards are not. That can better be described as product specifications. Students are to be considered products that meet a list of specifications. The Core provides specifications for each stage along the production line. And that “line” is now being extended to kindergarteners, who are also being tested. At minimum, the specifications are to be produced and tested for all 3-8 graders, with high school added in the coming year. Teachers are to be assessed based on how well their students achieve the specifications and principals are essentially production managers held accountable for the productivity of their unit in the production process.

Developmentally appropriate educational practice is not needed for this. There is not a curriculum, only the assembly line, the series of steps of the manufacturing process, guided by scripted “teaching modules” and tests to show the specifications have been met.

The “curriculum” with its modules and the testing and evaluation regime show that the Common Core is premised on eliminating the human factor from the education of human beings. Eliminating the role of teachers and parents, eliminating the role of those actually engaged in education, eliminating students as students and turning them into products. It is anti-education and anti-human. So it is little wonder that the King insists on going ahead while parents make clear their children are being abused and harmed, educationally and physically, and teachers join in refusing to do harm. King refused to speak to the reality that pediatricians are reporting several cases a week of students sick from the anxiety and inhumane character of the testing regime. Indeed, the doctors have designated the “Common Core” syndrome as an illness.

While King and the private interests behind him have agreed the Common Core must go forward, parents, teachers, staff and students are also agreed that they will not stand for it. As their many and continuing actions show, they are determined and united in advancing their organizing to Ban the Common Core!

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Potential Charters and Outside Management Planned

Superintendent Brown Proposes to Close Bennett and Two Other Schools

Superintendent Pamela Brown has informed the Buffalo School Board that she plans to close three schools. Brown is proposing to close Bennett High School, and two elementary schools, the Martin Luther King Multicultural Institute and the Harvey Austin School. The schools would potentially reopen, with Brown asking for proposals on running the schools from private interests, such as those that operate charter schools. The fact that Superintendent Brown is making the proposals, absent any public meetings or consultations with teachers, staff, students and parents on the matter, is another indication of the undemocratic means being used to deal with problems of education in the Buffalo Public Schools.

It is reported that three possible outcomes are for the schools to re-open as charter schools; to reopen under management of a private outside force, such as an Educational Partnership Organization (EPO); or for a “lead educational partner,” such as a group of principals to run the schools. The principals would remain under the superintendent’s authority and are considered the least likely outcome. Charter and EPOs mean that authority is removed from public hands and put in private ones. Funding in all cases remains public.

A charter school takeover means that the private interests involved would be free to decide all matters of education, including picking and choosing the students admitted, setting curriculum, conditions for teaching and staff, disciplinary measures, length of school day and year and so forth. Similarly, an EPO also has broad autonomy to decide these public educational matters. This is what Johns Hopkins, a private, Maryland-based university, is already doing at Lafayette High School. Final decisions concerning the schools would need to be approved by the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) and Commissioner King. He is well known to favor charter schools, having himself been a director of the privately run Uncommon Schools charter in New York.

Both charters and EPO’s are means to take decision making out of the hands of elected governance, like school boards, and to further block parents, teachers and students from any say in educational matters. The Charter and EPO are not accountable to the public, but rather to private interests and government executives, like Commissioner King, in their service. While parents and teachers together have been repeatedly demanding that they are the ones that must decide these issues, Brown, apparently following Commissioner King, is acting on the undemocratic basis that such decision making resides in the hands of the executive. Buffalo Forum urges her and the School Board to instead join in organizing public meetings and in increasing the decision-making role of teachers, staff, parents and students.

Proposal Serves to Attack Teachers

According to Brown, students in the three schools would be permitted to remain there, while other students could transfer to the reopened schools. However, charters are under no obligation to do so. Although such an arrangement for the first year could be part of any proposal to take over the schools. Brown has so far not spoken to whether or not the public asset of the school buildings themselves will simply be given to any charter company involved. The proposals by charters to takeover Waterfront and East High School — still being considered by King, specifically demand that these public buildings be turned over to these private interests, for free!

The proposal also serves as a direct attack on the teachers and staff at the schools involved and more generally. Private charters are not required to hire the teachers currently at these schools and not required to provide wages, benefits and conditions at their current levels — which already are not sufficient. The choice of an EPO or principals actually requires that 50 percent of teachers at these schools be transferred, as though teachers are the problem, not executive dictate. As the Buffalo Teachers Federation (BTF) statement concerning the proposal brought out: “There has been no meaningful input sought and then implemented based on the suggestions of teachers, staff and parents.” It added, “The teachers have been and continue to be willing to work with the District on what will actually improve teaching and learning at our schools; however, we cannot agree to quick fixes and a continuation of the blame the teachers, staff and parents game.”

Brown is making the proposal to close the schools and potentially turn them over to private interests in the name of having the schools considered in “good standing” by NYSED and the federal government and thus eligible for federal funds. As Buffalo and other districts have come to experience, the “persistently low achieving” label is an integral part of the drive by federal and state governments — serving private interests — to impose the Common Core with its arbitrary testing and teacher evaluation regime. Over the past several years government executives have labeled most Buffalo schools as “failing.” Such a label in turn opens the way for the kind of private takeovers Brown, backed by King, are proposing.

Common Core Undemocratic and Anti-Education

For the past several years, the federal government has used the bribe of its Race to the Top money to force schools to accept the Common Core and its testing and evaluation regime. According to Brown, Bennett and MLK will now no longer qualify for these federal funds so other “drastic measures” must be taken.

What Brown and King leave out is that while these funds have been used to bribe schools into accepting the entire testing regime, they do not in any way cover all the additional funding needed for the required testing, teacher evaluations and trainings, principal trainings, and so forth. Indeed, the requirements for testing and evaluations, including computer and software purchases from private interests like Microsoft, and those for the private testing company Pearson, are far greater and longer-term.

The Common Core is yet another pay-the-rich scheme, turning over public dollars to private interests while also increasing the undemocratic governance of public schools. It is an attack on the public, public education and public governance. And there is literally no evidence that any of it serves to raise the quality of public education. On the contrary, it is blocking and undermining the conditions of teachers to teach, which are the conditions for students to learn.

Numerous actions by parents and teachers together in the past two months have repeatedly brought out the wrecking character of the Common Core, including its narrowing of curriculum, its developmentally inappropriate materials, teaching scripts and tests that force students to draw conclusions solely from the given reading, without learning the context and other relevant facts about the reading, a testing regime where tests are kept secret and not used to assist in teaching, and more. Closing and reopening the schools does nothing to deal with the serious concerns with Buffalo Public Schools, including the urgent necessity to deal with the high levels of poverty and racism imposed on the majority of students, the insufficient and unequal funding of public schools, and the just demand of teachers, staff, students and parents alike to decide matters of education.

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Commissioner King Versus the Educating Public

Dr. Mark Garrison, markgarrison.net, December 11, 2013

On December 12 at 5pm outside the WNED studios in Buffalo there will be a demonstration opposing the exclusion of the public from New York State Education Commissioner John King’s forum on the Regent’s Reform Agenda and in particular the Common Core regime. In an email sent out notifying the public of the event, organizer Eric Mihelbergel said: “We have been provided with a sound system and microphone, and we will be allowing people to speak their minds about education. We hope to see you there.” Compare this democratic spirit to the anti-democratic spirit of state authorities. [1] [Commissioner King’s meeting was by invitation only, with seats limited, audience members were not allowed to speak and questions had to be submitted in advance, were screened and then read by the event moderator — BF Ed. note.] It should be noted that legislators from the New York State Assembly and Senate will be in attendance.

While previous forums have placed numerous limits on public expression, and while they have revealed that John King has no intention of working with the public to sort out the problems associated with the Regents Reform Agenda, educators and parents nonetheless have made it clear that there is broad opposition to high-stakes testing, data sharing and the Common Core in New York State.

Possibly as a result of this broad and growing opposition, a change in approach to defending the Core regime for the New York State Education Department is apparent.

The December 10th forum held in Brooklyn, New York was described as follows by this blogger:

Unlike previous Common Core forums held in New York State, the Brooklyn forum was dominated by Common Core supporters, namely representatives of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst movement, including teachers, and members of Families for Excellent Schools. Former CNN correspondent Campbell Brown, whose husband, Dan Senor, is a board member of StudentsFirstNY, was there as well.

Indeed: “Specials interests descend[ed] on Brooklyn’s Common Core forum.”

These two developments raise an important question: are we at a turning point in the battle between those who wish to renew public education and those who wish to destroy it?

The Public and the Battle for Democracy

The battle for democracy is as varied as it is long. One feature of the battle for democracy is the role of public space, public expression, and public opinion in how society is governed and how government actions are legitimated. It is important to recall that a public independent of royal power, a public that both limits and legitimates authority, is a historical development, and the result of many struggles. This struggle for public right, which began even before the time of Shakespeare, continues today. I think we are at a crucial point in this struggle.

A key premise of this emergent pubic is that members of the public are, for the purposes of discussion and deliberation, equal in status when it comes to determining who can speak. Truth and legitimacy rest not with the social standing of the speaker, but with the speaker’s argumentation. The parents and educators at these forums have acted in line with this premise of the public and its role in democratic life. John King and Regent Merryl Tisch have acted as those who defended royalty against the march of democracy. As parents argued in Jamestown, King and the State Education department will ultimately lose to the will of the public.

Public Forums Are Means for Public Education

Another key feature of this public is that public deliberation, itself, teaches. It teaches the public not only about the issue of the day, but it also teaches the public about how to advance participation and deliberation about key social issues, what aspects require more discussion, and so on. In other words, public forums are means by which the public comes into being, educates itself, and sustains itself as a social, cultural and political agent through establishing common facts and thinking. Public forums are thus educative: they develop the ability to argue out a view, and they serve to inform the public about an issue, while presuming a hitherto unheard of degree of political equality among participants. Public forums develop and strengthen public conviction. Public forums serve to transform public speech into collective will, what is understood as the common interest or public good. The common or public interest is not worked out alone by political philosophers, but in the public spaces were public deliberation takes place, where all the interests and facts are laid bare, and contradictions sorted out.

What Has the Public Learned from King’s Forums?

One thing is certain: King and those he is aligned with have at present no intention of meeting the demands of the public. Instead of listening to parents and educators, he has chosen instead to limit the public forums further, and openly collaborate with those who have been publicly discredited, such as Michelle Rhee. Thus, while the public forums have proven spaces for the formation of public opinion, they have not as yet served as means for transforming this public will into legal will.

But the question of what has been learned is even larger. What have we learned about parents and educators, and their collective ability to act independent of powerful propaganda disseminated by the likes of corporations operating in more than fifty countries, who now organize Core-like regimes for all countries in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (which includes the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australia)? What have we learned about the fight against disinformation, and the role of public engagement in that fight? What have we learned about alternative sources of information? What have we learned about the source of legitimate authority, the role of direct experience and authoritative knowledge? These questions point to the need in the coming months for public work to sum up the experience over the last two months. These questions point to the need for the public to consciously assess its direct experience as a collective agent representing the interests of families and educators and enlightenment against a narrow politicization of private interests who are now usurping power. This is the high-stakes test of democratic education.

Notes:

1) Following King’s lead, the Ken-Ton School Board is blocking any discussion of current education policy that does not align with the State’s view: School Board President Bob Dana “says that he’s concerned about parents discussing views that don’t coincide with district opinions at PTA meetings.” This crack down on the public is part of a much larger trend.

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Resistance to Common Core Widespread

Parent Responds to Arne Duncan and Commissioner King

At a meeting with state school superintendents in November, Education Secretary Arne Duncan was quoted as saying that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core has come from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.” Duncan afterward published a post on the department’s website that referred to “clumsy phrasing,” but he did not apologize to parents nor address their concerns about Common Core. These concerns and demands to stop common core have been repeatedly and widely expressed by urban and suburban parents, white, African American, Asian and Latino.

Duncan wrote in part: “A few days ago, in a discussion with state education chiefs, I used some clumsy phrasing that I regret – particularly because it distracted from an important conversation about how to better prepare all of America’s students for success. In talking about the importance of communicating about higher learning standards, I singled out one group of parents when my aim was to say that we need to communicate better to all groups – especially those that haven’t been well reached in this conversation. I have not been shy in letting the country know the enormous value of the state-led movement to prepare young people for college and careers. My goal was to urge elected leaders and educators to be more vigorous in making that case, too, particularly when recent polling shows that a majority of Americans may not even know what these higher standards are.”

We reprint below an open letter from a Long Island parent making clear that there is not a “communication problem,” as Duncan states, but rather legitimate rejection of the Common Core by parents, and rejection of the undemocratic manner being used to impose it. Parents are informing themselves about the Core and organizing themselves together with teachers to defend their children and their right to education.

* * *

Dear Secretary Duncan,

I am a white suburban mom, and I am reaching out to you in an effort to explain what seems to be very confusing to you. Your statement on November 15 that some of the foes of the Common Core are “white suburban mothers who find out all of a sudden their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were” leads me to believe that you have been spending too much time in D.C. Perhaps you would like to come to Long Island and meet with some of us, and our friends who are not white, living in suburbs, cities, and in rural areas. It might do you some good, and help you to reframe your thoughts on those of us who have been advocating for our children.

I do not like to be lumped into any one group. I am actually a pretty complicated individual. Initially you tried to convince people that the only people who oppose the Common Core are Tea Partiers. Let me assure you, I am about as far from a Tea Party member as you could imagine. I am a progressive, bleeding heart liberal. I not only voted for President Obama twice, but I donated to his campaign and volunteered to knock on doors. My husband and I brought our family to both Obama inaugurations.

Just so you are clear that I am not a bored housewife, I work full time. I am also an elected Board of Education Trustee for the Comsewogue School District, and my local public library. I am a uterine cancer survivor; this month marks one year cancer free for me after two years of very difficult treatments. I have been a very active member of my community for many years.

I am a mom of four kids. My oldest daughter is in her sophomore year at Simmons College in Boston majoring in economics (she was ‘college ready’ before the Common Core). My second daughter is a senior in high school, and a member of many Honor Societies. We are in the midst of her college application process now. My only son is in 7th grade, and he is very creative, but struggles academically. After advocating for him for many years, I was able to get him an IEP [Individualized Education Plan] and the services he needs. My youngest daughter is in 5th grade, and also has an IEP. In addition to her academic struggles, she has epilepsy.

Now that you know a little more about me, let me explain to you very clearly how I feel about the Common Core implementation. I am not completely opposed to the idea of a common set of standards throughout the country —although I believe any state that adopts such a measure should do so on its merits, not because they were offered money in exchange for its adoption. I think another word for that is extortion. I am also not opposed to high standards. I love the idea of making all children strive to be the best they can be, challenging them to imagine more for themselves, and encouraging them to work towards goals — as long as we realize that they will not all reach the same level of proficiency.

I am, however, opposed to standards, and more specifically curriculum, that are developmentally inappropriate. I am strongly opposed to the number of standardized tests students are subjected to, which have no bearing whatsoever on their education. I believe the money schools are forced to spend on the administration, and scoring of all the testing could be put to much better use, and the same goes for the amount of time spent on testing. I am also opposed to the 1% — Bill Gates, et al — imposing a business model mentality on public schools.

It is certainly not, as you implied, that I have some unrealistic idea of my kids’ abilities. I do not. I am very aware of their strengths and weaknesses. I know that each of my children have different learning styles, and I recognize that what worked very well for my oldest daughter will absolutely not work well for my youngest. I am confident that my kids’ teachers know that as well. They have the education, experience, and expertise to differentiate instruction for varying abilities and learning styles. The Common Core is a one size fits all approach to millions of different minds… it cannot benefit every child, especially those with learning disabilities. It also completely ignores the effect of poverty on achievement. No silver bullet education program will have the kind of success you are looking for nationally unless you address child poverty.

By the way, you might want to have a chat with New York Education Commissioner John King, because he is certainly not doing you any favors with regards to getting the suburban moms on board with the Common Core. He and his department have botched the implementation of Common Core here at every turn. They created a curriculum, EngageNY, that is rife with errors, intentionally confusing, and very poorly written. He has had several public forums around the state that have not gone well. He has listened to parents, teachers and administrators speak about how our children hate school, are feeling defeated, are being forced to read and interpret reading passages that are developmentally inappropriate, and on and on, but he ends every meeting with the same refrain. “We stand united in our effort to move forward with the implementation of the Common Core. Now is not the time for delay.” Honestly, the time for delay was years ago, when states adopted the standards before they were even completely written.

The rest of the country is watching what we ‘suburban moms’ do now, so thanks for the shout out. One more thing you should know about me — I am incredibly stubborn. I assure you, I will not back down. I will not stop advocating for my children. I will not let you, or Commissioner King experiment with my child’s education because Bill Gates has lots of money to throw away. He said himself it would take a decade to see if his “education stuff” works. My kids do not have a decade to waste on your hunches or his money.

Again, I would encourage you to visit some of us suburban moms before you dismiss us. I would be happy to host you in my suburban home at any time that is convenient to you. I am no Bill Gates, but I make a mean chocolate chip cookie.

Sincerely,

Ali Gordon

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