Taken from a letter by Carol Burris in the Washington Post:
Burris was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and in 2010, tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.
'The bottom line is that there are tremendous financial interests driving the agenda about our schools — from test makers, to publishers, to data management corporations — all making tremendous profits from the chaotic change. When the scores drop, they prosper. When the tests change, they prosper. When schools scramble to buy materials to raise scores, they prosper. There are curriculum developers earning millions to created scripted lessons to turn teachers into deliverers of modules in alignment with the Common Core (or to replace teachers with computer software carefully designed for such alignment). This is all to be enforced by their principals, who must attend “calibration events” run by “network teams.”
We who are inside schools have been sounding the alarm, although perhaps not as loudly as we should. But in the end, it will be parents, speaking with each other and with their local school boards and legislators, who will insist that sanity prevail and local control and reason be restored. It will be parents who insist that school not be a place of the continual measurement of deficits, instead standing as places that allow students to show what they know beyond a standardized test. Parents won’t “buy the bunk” and they will tire of data driven, rather than student driven, instruction. Then the “Hard Times for These Times” will end.
Fitting topic for the crazy season. Education, Inc. does a great job recruiting gadflies to their cause. Sprinkle a few sample textbooks, simplify a few "studies" and self-described education activists will take to the streets (or at least to the blogs).
ReplyDeleteIMHO the absence of responses tells an awful lot. The people who visit this site have their boots on the ground. The problems we face are pretty extreme-- it's hard to worry about long term national education policy when you're kid's school doesn't have a permanent principal, or you're an employee and you never know when the BOE will be cutting your hours.
ReplyDeleteGood point! Time to move on to your frustrations, thoughts and ideas.
ReplyDeleteHere we go again. A retired BOE employee becomes interim principal of one of our schools. When is this double dipping going to stop. Our schools need committed, permanent administrators not one who is getting a huge pension and now a very large salary. I just don't understand this district. The general public should really get involved and challenge the powers that be!!!
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