Monday Morning- I hate being ripped off. I don't mean the kind of ripped off like the price of a beer at a Mariners game, although what is with those prices? I am talking about when someone convinces me to spend my money on something that turns out to be a scam. Like herbal supplements that are supposed to give me back my full, curly head of hair in just 6 weeks costing me only 3 easy payments of $39.99 (I am speaking completely hypothetically, I mean, I am totally at peace with my widow's peak and expanding bald spot, it doesn't affect my self-esteem, and just because I wear a baseball cap doesn't mean I am hiding my hair loss, no I am not that insecure...).
I have such strong feelings about being scammed because not only did I lose money, I lost it to someone who knows that they are profiting from a lie. I know that most of you out there, including the scammers, understand.
It's bad enough to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous people when it's just me (and 2,000,000 other bald guys). It's humiliating, sure, but not that big of a deal. But when people pull off a scam against children, when kids are the victims because of the actions of crooks and liars, it is our job as parents, teachers, administrators, school board directors and legislators to confront them and stop them.
Well, guess what? We are being ripped off right now, and this scam is affecting our children. We as a community have been lied to by people who know what they are doing and are profiting from it. They are draining our District of money, yes, but they are also hurting our kids.
THIS IS THE SCAM- We have been convinced that our kids need to take standardized tests in order to pinpoint their academic deficiencies so that those deficiencies can be fixed. The standardized tests (called assessments by the Liars) are the only way to figure out what is wrong with our children. If we don't test the kids and help them get better skilled, then we won't be able to compete in the rapidly changing world around us. We will condemn an entire generation of children to mediocrity.
The Scam comes at us from many different directions. There are organizations out there who hide under the mantle of child-advocacy like a wolf in sheep's clothing and repeat the Lie over and over and over-
ACCOUNTABILITY! DATA! ACCOUNTABILITY! BAD TEACHERS WITH LOW EXPECTATIONS! THE UNION IS IN THE WAY! CHOICE! CHARTER SCHOOLS! CLASS SIZE DOESN'T MATTER! DATA! ASSESS! ASSESS! ASSESS! POVERTY DOESN'T MATTER!!! BAD TEACHERS ARE HURTING THE KIDS!!!! TFA IS THE WAY!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
These parasitic organizations are numerous. They have innocent-grass-roots-sounding names like Alliance for Education, League of Education Voters, Our Schools Coalition, or Stand For Children. Or they sound very official like the National Council on Teacher Quality. They have huge amounts of money backing them up and they use that money, and the media to inundate us with crap.
And it works.
Their load of bull is piled on so high that it seeps into the brains of well-meaning people who have power and influence. People like Oprah, or (not so sure about this one) Obama, or former mayors, or our current School Board, etc. These are good people whose word is taken at face value, and they repeat the Lies and they use their stature to push the Lies on us and they are fools, just like the rest of us who believe them.
In Seattle, we got Lied to and Scammed into spending a big chunk of money for the Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP), a test that is perceived as being so important that it remains safely intact while teachers (and their families) are being rif'ed and laid off.
But-
there is a wonderful something out in the midst of all this stinkiness. This something can get obscured at times by the sheer volume of the Lies that money buys, but it can't be hidden forever. This wonderful something can't really be beaten down and killed by all the money that Bill Gates and Eli Broad have. No it can't be because this wonderful something is called-
I have such strong feelings about being scammed because not only did I lose money, I lost it to someone who knows that they are profiting from a lie. I know that most of you out there, including the scammers, understand.
It's bad enough to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous people when it's just me (and 2,000,000 other bald guys). It's humiliating, sure, but not that big of a deal. But when people pull off a scam against children, when kids are the victims because of the actions of crooks and liars, it is our job as parents, teachers, administrators, school board directors and legislators to confront them and stop them.
Well, guess what? We are being ripped off right now, and this scam is affecting our children. We as a community have been lied to by people who know what they are doing and are profiting from it. They are draining our District of money, yes, but they are also hurting our kids.
THIS IS THE SCAM- We have been convinced that our kids need to take standardized tests in order to pinpoint their academic deficiencies so that those deficiencies can be fixed. The standardized tests (called assessments by the Liars) are the only way to figure out what is wrong with our children. If we don't test the kids and help them get better skilled, then we won't be able to compete in the rapidly changing world around us. We will condemn an entire generation of children to mediocrity.
The Scam comes at us from many different directions. There are organizations out there who hide under the mantle of child-advocacy like a wolf in sheep's clothing and repeat the Lie over and over and over-
ACCOUNTABILITY! DATA! ACCOUNTABILITY! BAD TEACHERS WITH LOW EXPECTATIONS! THE UNION IS IN THE WAY! CHOICE! CHARTER SCHOOLS! CLASS SIZE DOESN'T MATTER! DATA! ASSESS! ASSESS! ASSESS! POVERTY DOESN'T MATTER!!! BAD TEACHERS ARE HURTING THE KIDS!!!! TFA IS THE WAY!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
These parasitic organizations are numerous. They have innocent-grass-roots-sounding names like Alliance for Education, League of Education Voters, Our Schools Coalition, or Stand For Children. Or they sound very official like the National Council on Teacher Quality. They have huge amounts of money backing them up and they use that money, and the media to inundate us with crap.
And it works.
Their load of bull is piled on so high that it seeps into the brains of well-meaning people who have power and influence. People like Oprah, or (not so sure about this one) Obama, or former mayors, or our current School Board, etc. These are good people whose word is taken at face value, and they repeat the Lies and they use their stature to push the Lies on us and they are fools, just like the rest of us who believe them.
In Seattle, we got Lied to and Scammed into spending a big chunk of money for the Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP), a test that is perceived as being so important that it remains safely intact while teachers (and their families) are being rif'ed and laid off.
But-
there is a wonderful something out in the midst of all this stinkiness. This something can get obscured at times by the sheer volume of the Lies that money buys, but it can't be hidden forever. This wonderful something can't really be beaten down and killed by all the money that Bill Gates and Eli Broad have. No it can't be because this wonderful something is called-
The Truth
and money can do a lot of things but it can't change that.
So, where can we find the Truth? The Liars know. They bring it up all the time. It's in the Data. I know what you are thinking- no, not about that piece of pie you shouldn't have eaten at lunch, the other thing. Why would the Liars point out the place where the Truth is? I mean, are they stupid? No they aren't. But they think we are. We do seem a little dull-witted at times, but the reality is that most of us are just trying to get through our day. We have bills piling up, and our jobs aren't as secure as they once were and we're tired. But we aren't stupid.
And luckily there are people out there who have been watching out for us, keeping up the good fight until we can look up and see for ourselves what is happening to our schools and to our kids' educational well-being. Local folks over at Seattle Education 2011, Save Seattle Schools, Where's the Math, Social Equality Educators,and Parents Across America- Seattle, as well as individual teachers and administrators, are pushing against the Lies.
Time also is an ally, because Data gathered over time helps reveal the Truth. Check this out-
The National Academies of Science, after examining the state of our educational system since the Lie of Standardized Testing became the Law of the land under No Child Left Behind, released a report about the effectiveness of all this Standardized Testing. And guess what-
"Nearly a decade of America’s test-based accountability systems, from “adequate yearly progress” to high school exit exams, has shown little to no positive effect overall on learning and insufficient safeguards against gaming the system, a blue-ribbon committee of the National Academies of Science concludes in a new report."
Yup. There it is. "little to no effect overall on learning". <-------Truth borne on the wings of Data.
But the Word now has to get out to the people of Seattle. We don't need any MAP to show us how to teach our kids. The tests are pointless and do nothing more than freak out over-worked teachers who have been hurt by this bunch of Crap almost as much as our kids. And cost us a lot of our money.
So you, the one with the pie crumbs on your shirt, listen to me. Spread the Word about the
"little to no effect overall on learning"
that is the TRUTH about all these tests. It's easy to do, just share this blog post with your friends, or link to any of the groups I listed above and share their blogs. It's as easy as pressing a button, and that ain't no Lie.
1 comment:
thanks for sharing this post
jkt
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