Astounding NY Times Editorial Spells Doom For Ed Deform

[Smarmie Doofus]

>>Astounding NY Times Editorial Spells Doom for Ed Deform: Was Brent Staples Absent Today?
UPDATED WITH LEONIE's VIEWS:

...while charter schools can be a path to excellence, they can also cause problems. Shoehorning them into existing school buildings over local objections can alienate parents and reinforce among students a harmful sense of being separate and unequal.

Mr. Bloomberg’s schools chancellor, Dennis Walcott, called the criticism an “unconscionable” assault on the Education Department... after 12 years, this mayor’s ideas are due for a counterargument. The critiques the candidates are offering hardly shock the conscience, and their complaints about the Bloomberg administration can be heard from teachers and parents in any school in the city. ... NY Times editorial

After 12 years of outright support of Bloomberg ed policies and for ed deform in general, along with some of the worst coverage of local and national education issues (other than when Anna Phillips was reporting for a year), this editorial is a sign that the increasing messages of outrage emerging from every area of the city are reaching their mark. Staples has been the most adamant supporter of deform and a union basher to boot. I hope he brings an absence note.>>>

Norm Scott at Ed Notes. I was kind of shocked by this also. Pretty much an across the board admission that everything that paper's been advocating ( successfully) for over the last 12 years is a fiesta de failure. Or... as close to an admission that we're ever going to see.

So now what? Back to letting teachers teach and to letting people who understand how schools function actually RUN them? Probably too much to hope for.

Here's the rest: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2013/05/astounding-ny-times-editorial-spells.html

[FBaggins]

1. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

With both sides of the aisle pushing this stuff... a NYTimes editorial doesn't carry enough weight to "doom" anything.

[Addison]

2. Yeah, "Education Reform"

has been a controversial topic for, oh, about a hundred years or more.

won't be going away anytime soon.

[HiPointDem]

3. i think there's some hope; they're clearly feeling pressure from below. paul vallas, who

Last edited Sun May 26, 2013, 05:39 AM - Edit history (1)

pushed through ed deform in several big city districts, is now running around bad-mouthing it.

here's another report from the trenches:

It used to be that a handful of teachers at department meetings would be on board with the latest reform jive. They could be counted on to talk the talk, use the jargon, and just generally get excited about whatever the latest greatest education fad was that the DOE was trying to sell us.

This year I have noticed that not one teacher in my department is excited about the latest greatest fad - Danielson and Common Core. Even the teachers who did some of the Common Core PD a few years ago and were first excited about the reforms have turned on them.

I warned teachers in my school a few years ago that these reforms were not being done with us, they were being done to us. I told people that they were meant to make it easier to scapegoat teachers for all the problems in the school system and ultimately fire a whole bunch of us.

A few years ago, many teachers in my department didn't see the reform movement that way. But now when I say these kinds of things, people just nod their heads and agree.

They know Danielson isn't meant to improve teaching - it's meant to give administrators an easy tool to fire teachers. Similarly, Common Core is not seen as something meant to improve academic achievement but is seen as yet one more underfunded mandate that is being used to scapegoat teachers for all the ills in the system.

Maybe this is the way the DOE and the NYSED and the Regents want it - everybody so beaten down and demoralized that our PD department meetings sometimes resemble a prisoner of war camp. But I wonder how it is they think that can push these reforms through with almost no teachers on board with them other than a handful of teachers either too naive or too green to see the agenda behind the movement.

There is nobody sitting in these meetings who believes the reform jive at face value anymore.

Nobody.

http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2013/05/theyve-lost-everybody.html