New Mexico Schools' Surprise Return to In-Person Instruction on April 5 Due to Standardized Tests?

I am a parent, a university professor, and a teacher in New Mexico’s public schools, currently in my 34^th year.  I am also a political constituent, whose tax contributions help fund the state’s public schools.

Like many other observers of public education in New Mexico, I was surprised by the governor’s announcement in February of 2021 that mandates all teachers and students to return to live, in-person instruction on April 5. 

Just as the governor provided virtually no explanation for the surprise firing of the former (and now late) state Secretary of Education Karen Trujillo in July 2019, she provided no explanation for the surprise announcement to return all public schools to full, in-person instruction.

My school district, Albuquerque Public Schools (APS), had been planning a hybrid return—and possibly a full, in-person return—sometime in the near future.  Return to full, in-person instruction, however, had been contingent on two consecutive weeks of low (i.e. "green") covid transmission status for Bernalillo County, where APS is located. Unfortunately, the governor's directive supersedes all local requirements for full, in-person return, including a county's low covid transmission status.

This is a problem. Why? Because the governor seems to be accelerating in-person instruction in order to subject the state’s students to annual high-stakes, standardized tests, the results of which would likely be used to create a baseline against which future student student achievement will be compared. As students will inevitably score very low this spring, higher scores in the post covid era will likely be touted as evidence of how well the governor is handling the recovery.

The problem is yet more serious because it may have been made only after the governor received assurances from the White House that testing would not be canceled by the President Biden, despite an explicit campaign promise to the contrary.

But what makes the problem outright dangerous is the way the testing will affect our public school students, especially the most vulnerable. In the best of times, high-stakes, standardized tests traumatize students.  Administering them under the circumstances brought on by a global pandemic is tantamount to psychological and emotion child abuse.

Last month, the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) applied for a waiver from the requirement that public school districts test a minimum of 95% of their students each spring. State Secretary of Education Ryan Stewart has not publicly stipulated what percentage of the state’s students the waiver would allow the state to test, though the Fordham Institute reports he has suggested a rate as low as 1%.  According to a statement issued on February 25 by Stewart’s office and carrying the NMPED letterhead:

“The New Mexico Public Education Department has not canceled spring end-of-year assessments. We have a request before the U.S. Department of Education (attached) to waive a requirement that 95 percent of New Mexico students participate in these assessments. Instead, we have asked to test a representative sample of students, which would provide us with the information educators, families and communities need to gauge academic progress . . . . We have not asked to cancel testing; we’ve asked for flexible options that will work for our schools and students.”[Emphasis added]

However, the U.S. Department of Education recently announced it will not permit states to opt-out of the tests this spring.

Educators, parents, and policy makers of conscience should not delay in contacting Secretary Stewart, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, their state legislators and senators, President Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, and demand they stop the psychological and emotional abuse of our students by canceling high-stakes, standardized tests—now and forever. 

Pulling Back the Curtain

Dear Editor:

          The following disclaimer/explanation appeared at the end of an editorial published in the Albuquerque Journal on Friday, October 21, 2016 that ridiculed area teachers for taking part in a peaceful, symbolic protest in front of the Board of Education headquarters in Albuquerque:
  

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

 
         First, I find the above statement lacking in clarity.  Who are the "members of the editorial board"?  There is an "Administration" designation that consists of the editor and five others.  There is also an "Opinion" designation that consists of four additional Journal staff.  However, there is no identifiable "editorial board" listed on the Journal web page. Your readers deserve to know whose opinions are being represented in the paper's editorials—and whose are not.

          Second, exactly who or what does the term “the newspaper” include?  All employees?  All staff?  A corporation?  If by “the newspaper” the Editorial Board implies all employees, how does the Board go about verifying that other Journal employees agree with the opinions expressed by the Editorial Board?  No Journal staff members I know have ever been consulted by the "editorial board" as to whether or not they agree with the opinions expressed in the paper’s editorials.

          Third, I find the disclaimer/explanation lacking in logic.  That editorials purport to represent “the newspaper” does not prevent the authors from signing them.  Why not sign editorials?  Doing so would go a long way toward enhancing transparency and accountability at the Journal.  It would also afford Journal employees the opportunity to either associate with or disassociate themselves from the opinions of the "editorial board." The teachers involved in the protest on October 19 proudly stated their names and their schools’ names prior to speaking.  This was akin to signing their names to an editorial.  They were not afraid.

          Finally, I counted 103 names on the list of employees at the Journal website.  This list does not seem to include the dozens if not scores of employees whose duties include printing, distributing, and delivering the paper, publishing the online version of the paper, cleaning the facilities, providing security, and so on.  Even if those employed by the Journal numbered only 103, the small number of Administrative and/or Opinion staff represent a mere 5.8% or 3.8% of those employed by “the newspaper,” hardly a majority or even a meaningful minority.  

          I urge the Editorial Board of the Journal to bear in mind the above points the next time they choose to minimize and marginalize the voices and opinions of large, medium, or small groups of teachers who have no problems with transparency, accountability, and courageous self-representation while engaging in peaceful, public events designed to draw attention to injustices endemic in our public education system.

Up in Smoke

The fate of all levels of teacher evaluations.
Main entrance, APS Central Office.
May 20, 2015.
[Click to enlarge]

           A day after a large group of Albuquerque teachers made bold statements before burning their evaluations at Central Office, the Albuquerque Journal published an article about a local teacher who was retiring.  He was retiring in part because, in less than a year, the Public Education Department (PED) dropped him from "highly effective" to "minimally effective" on his annual evaluation.  The article, written by editorial board member D'Val Westphal (aka the Road Warrior:  self professed expert on asphalt, potholes, and traffic jams) turned out to be more about Ellen Hur, the chief of staff of Education Secretary Hanna Skandera, than the retiring teacher.  Ms. Westphal (505-823-3858) had contacted Ms. Hur in an effort to explain to readers the discrepancy between the teacher's 2014 and 2015 evaluations.  Her effort was minimally effective, at best.

           In the article, Ms. Westphal states that Ms. Hur "is also a teacher."  Given the fact that Ms. Hur works full time for the PED, I felt this was a dubious assertion.  So I called Ms. Hur (505-827-3817) and asked her myself.  As it turns out, Ms. Hur is not a teacher.  Her entire teaching experience consists of three years in a private school in Colorado between 2001-2004.  What's more, she is a product of disgraced former Washington D. C. school commissioner Michelle Rhee's TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project).  She also worked for McKinsey & Company, the same global management consulting firm that brought us David Coleman, the main author of the Common Core language arts standards and, by extension, PARCC testing.   Finally, although Hur has a masters in education, she quickly followed that with an MBA. Guess which degree got her the job  at the PED? 

         I wrote to Ms. Westphal and urged her to issue a retraction or correction to her story.  Unfortunately, she had already left town for the Memorial Day weekend.  So I wrote to Kent Walz (505-823-3802) the editor of the Albuquerque Journal (or Jurinal, if you prefer).  He responded, and what ensued was a short exchange of e-mails.  What follows is that exchange.  Read to the very end.

Dear Mr. Walz:

I am writing to ask you to issue a retraction or correction to the article Ms. Westphal wrote recently about the middle school teacher who received an evaluation of minimally effective after receiving highly effective last year.  I have written to Ms. Westphal regarding this matter.  Unfortunately, I received an automated response explaining that she was out of town.

In your retraction or correction, please state that, contrary to what Ms. Westphal stated in her article, Ms. Hur, chief of staff of Ed Sect’y Skandera, is not a teacher.  If you state that she was once a teacher, be sure to include the fact that she taught for only three years, from 2001-2004.  In the state of NM, a teacher with only 3 years experience is considered a beginning, relatively inexperienced teacher, still in her probationary period.  

Please also include the fact that her three years of teaching experience were in a private school, not a public school, and that she was therefore never subject to the high teaching standards historically applied to public school teachers.  Include the fact that she has never been evaluated by NMTeach and has never taught under the requirements of NCLB and RTTT.   

It would also be forthright of you to point out that Ms. Hur has never been certified to teach in the state of New Mexico and may also no longer be certified to teach in Colorado.  

Finally, you might consider mentioning that Ms. Hur worked for Michelle Rhee’s The New Teacher Project (TNTP) and for David Coleman's McKinsey & Co., two private organizations that continue to work feverishly to undermine America’s public schools by discrediting and demonizing public school teachers, privatizing our public institutions, and turning our students into perpetual test takers.   

I urge you do have Ms. Westphal write a follow up article in which she investigates the extent of teaching experience and pedagogical knowledge of other PED staff, specifically those who are instrumental in developing and implementing Skandera’s education “reforms.”  This is what a true American newspaper would do.  Ms. Westphal might also divulge her own lack of experience in education and explain why her alter ego, The Road Warrior—an apparent expert on asphalt, traffic, and potholes—is suddenly an expert on education. 

As for future articles, I recommend you have Ms. Westphal write her pieces with full disclosure regarding her views on education and how they echo those of the editorial board at the Journal.  Ask her to state that, in addition to being a reporter, she is also an assistant editor who sits on the editorial board and that, consequently, her views on education are consistent with the anti teacher, anti public education views the rest of the board regularly promotes in its editorials.  

Sincerely,

David A. Wilson, MA

APS Teacher and PhD Candidate at UNM

28 years of continuous classroom teaching

505-554-8913

Mr. Wilson, 

Thank you for your letter. Ms. Westphal will respond to you when she returns.

Meanwhile, having reviewed your communication, I do not agree a retraction is in order. You are free to submit a letter for consideration challenging Ms. Hur's credentials.

Nor do I agree with your characterization of the Journal's editorial position as being anti-teacher and anti-public education. We view our positions as pro student and pro student success during a challenging time when many students drop out and many who graduate are woefully unprepared for either college or the workforce.

That is not assigning blame, it is stating fact.

Have a good weekend.

Kent Walz

Mr. Walz:

Thanks for responding.

You and I know we will always disagree on issues related to education.  This is due to primarily to the fact that I have dedicated my life and career to education; you, to journalism.  Thousands of educators in New Mexico and I know what we’re talking about.  Unfortunately, those with money, political power, and disproportional control of the media, do not.  Considering your access to Ms. Skandera and others in the PED, you have all three.  This explains much of what is “wrong” with education:  Those who don't know what we know, nor can do what we do, have the audacity to tell us what to do and how to do it.  This is indeed a shameful state of affairs.

As for Ms. Westphal, well, she is a member of the editorial staff.  She is therefore obligated to toe the editorial line. What’s more, it’s not so much Ms. Hur’s credentials that must be called into question, as you suggest; it is Ms. Westphal’s reporting.  If Ms. Westphal had asked Ms. Hur the same questions I asked Ms. Hur this morning, she would have received the same answers.  Ms. Hur was unabashed about admitting to me that she taught for only three years in a private school in Colorado between 2001-2004; that she never taught under NCLB or RTTT; and that she was never subject to any statewide, quantitative and punitive teacher evaluation system.  Investigating the credentials of the people Ms. Westphal interviews is not my job; it is hers.  And in that, she failed.  Willingly, I suppose.  I would say "minimally effective” would be an apt descriptor for the quality of the reporting displayed in today’s article.

I know half a dozen of your news staff personally.  Their view on the inordinate control the editorial staff exercises over its reporters is not positive.  I know why [former Journal education reporter] left the paper, and I know why others are preparing to do so, too.  It won’t be long before the newsroom reflects the monolithic views of the editorial staff.  When this happens, the “crisis” New Mexicans will be talking about will be journalism, not education.

With all of this in mind, I challenge you, Mr. Herrera, and Ms. Westphal to print letters and op ed pieces that strongly challenge your views.  I have sent at least three letters to the Journal over the last 12 months that did just that.  None were published.  If I have time, I will send another, and perhaps resend others, then wait to see if they pass the test to be printed in your hallowed pages.

Finally, I feel obliged to respond to your assertion that the ABQ Journal is pro student and pro student success.  

The Journal is not pro student when it favors subjecting them to months of abusive and meaningless standardized tests that rob of them of hundreds of hours of the very instruction they will need in order to do well enough to not drop out and to succeed after graduation.  Furthermore, the Journal is not pro student when it abets the PED in its efforts to drive unprecedented numbers of NM’s best teachers out of the profession with its misguided and uninformed corporate education agenda.  Accomplished and dedicated veteran teachers, along with more hours of quality instruction, are what many of NM students need most.  Yet these are the very things you and the PED are attempting to take away from them.  This is unconscionable, Mr. Walz; and deep inside, you know it. 

The smoke from the burned evaluations on Wednesday floated from APS Central Office in a northwesterly direction.  We can only hope they reached the Journal so that at least some of your employees could catch a whiff of what is really wrong with education in New Mexico.

I hope you enjoy your weekend, too.

Sincerely,

David A. Wilson
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Elevation:  5,220 feet

Mr. Wilson,

           I am well aware of your views.  I could not disagree more. Good night.

           [Kent Walz]

Retirement as a Subversive Activity

I hope this statement is not automatically interpreted as one of those “Why I Quit” letters from teachers.  For one, I didn’t quit; I retired.  But I retired earlier than I had planned, so it felt a little like quitting.  If you would like to read such a letter, they are easy to locate online, and several are very good.  In fact, the sentiments expressed in some of them coincide with one of the reasons I retired earlier than I had planned:  the adverse effects of corporate school “reform” movement on public education.  And although school “reform” is indeed one of the main reasons I chose to retire, it was not the only reason.  Several other important reasons converged in June, 2014, that ultimately led to my decision to retire.  I will explain those factors below.

More importantly, however, is the act of explaining why I retired.  For the last several decades I have listened to my colleagues articulate the reasons they chose to either resign prior to retirement age or retire sooner than they had planned.  Of course, there is always spending more time with family, taking care of elderly parents or grandchildren, and so on.  These are all good and noble reasons to resign or retire.  Recently, however, these reasons have taken a back seat to the disappointment, frustration, anger, and disgust they have felt in response to the current trends in education "reform" that have made teaching for many dedicated teachers a very unenjoyable and unfulfilling pursuit.  Nonetheless, when the time comes at the end-of-the-year staff meeting to accept the ubiquitous potted plant of retirement and say a few words of farewell, there is rarely any mention of the these front seat reasons.  Only the more innocuous, back seat reasons are given.  

I had always vowed to break that trend when I retired.  I planned to follow the acceptance of my potted plant with a ten minute address that exposed the diabolical designs of the current corporate education "reforms" and how they have virtually ruined teaching and learning in the public schools, so much so that I was obliged to follow thousands of other long-time educators out the door.  But that address was never to occur, as I didn't decide to retire until a month after the conclusion of the school year.  No potted plant, no address.  This written statement serves as that address and I don't need a potted plant to make it.  

I officially retired from the Albuquerque Public Schools on July 1, 2014, after 27 consecutive years as a “classroom teacher” (teachers know that term is not redundant!).   It was rather unexpected.  I was not among the school staff who announced their retirement in January and spent the rest of the semester waxing nostalgic about all the things I was experiencing for the very last time.  I finished out the school year believing I would be back in August to begin my 28th year of teaching.  My decision to retire was unexpected due in part to the fact that, at the end of the school year as throughout, I had no time to think about anything or do anything other than teach 4th and 5th graders, study for my doctorate, and grade the papers of my undergraduate students at the university.  And eat and sleep a bit.  Just thinking about retirement, let alone going through the requisite motions to retire, was simply out of the question.  So when June arrived and the craziness of the school year had subsided, I was once again receptive to many things I had suppressed during the school year, including thoughts of retirement.

The reasons I ultimately decided to retire are many and varied but fit generally into four categories:  1) It was time and I’m tired; 2) I need a less stressful, more balanced life; 3) I have to finish my PhD; and 4) I need more time and freedom from censorship and harassment to continue the fight against education “reform.”  

It is time

• For several years now, some of my former students have been sharing photos of their own children, some of whom are now old enough to be my students.  Others have announced the completion of their PhDs, MD, and JDs, or other credentials.  Still others are far enough along in their careers that they, too, are contemplating retirement.  And if these realities don’t indicate a long teaching career and hint that it may be time to retire, I now have teacher colleagues who are young enough to have been my students.  

• Twenty-seven years is exactly half my life.  One more year of teaching in the district would have tipped the balance forever:  from that point on, my years in public education would constitute more than half my life.  (You, too, can do the calculations on this intriguing 5th grade math problem!)  When I include other years of teaching experience, I realize I have been teaching for 66% of my life.  And when that percentage is combined with the years I spent as a student in the public schools and at the university, I have spent nearly 90% of my life in public institutions.  In other words, I have been institutionalized for 90% of my life.  If it seems crazy to choose to remain institutionalized for so long in the first place, it seems even crazier to prolong it.

• I started teaching in the public schools in the fall of 1987.  I started my last year of teaching in the fall of 2013.  Coincidentally, 2013 was also the first year since 1987 where all four digits of the year were different.  (More fun with 5th grade math!)  I consider 1987 and 2013 to be appropriate mathematical bookends to a teaching career in which I grew to like math in ways I never had as a student. 

• Derek Jeter, star shortstop for the New York Yankees since 1995, is retiring at the end of the 2014 season.  I started teaching at my current school his rookie year.  If Jeter says it’s time to go, it’s time to go. 

• In baseball, a game isn't over until both teams have recorded 27 outs.  The end of the 2013-2014 represented the 27th out in my teaching career.  Game over.

• By June 2014, there was no more space in our kitchen cupboard for new coffee mugs given to me and my wife as presents from our students.  (Teachers know what I’m talking about!)  I am faced with the prospect of either building more cupboards, or retiring.  As I am no carpenter, I chose to retire.  

• Everyone wants to go out on top.  The students in my 4th and 5th grade dual language class in the 2013-2014 school year represented one of the best classes I’ve ever taught.  Teaching one more year might have pressed my luck a bit too far.  Pleasant memories of this class will go a long way toward softening any lingering negative memories of my 27-year career.

I am tired

• I am tired of saying, “Please make a straight line,” “Use quiet voices,” and the hundred million other commands teachers feel obligated to issue throughout the day.

• I am tired of the overwhelming cacophony of voices in an acoustically unsound cafeteria.

• I am tired of being forced to quantify qualitative beings on report cards and other assessment instruments.

• I am tired of filling out, three times a year, 84 quantitative marks on each student’s report card.  

• I am tired of playground duty.

• I am tired of having an increasing number of baseless, adult-centered demands and mandates put on my plate without anything being taken off.

• I am tired of being “balled-and-chained” to the classroom without the freedom to use the bathroom when I need it, make a phone call, or leave for an appointment.

• I am tired of cramming down my lunch in 15 minutes flat while simultaneous grading papers and answering work related e-mails.

• I am tired of being on stage every working minute. 

• I am tired of my daily actions, and those of my students, being determined by bells and whistles.

• I am tired of not being able to call in sick without having to spend 2-3 hours the night before writing lesson plans despite an aching body and a 101º fever.

• I am tired of having to write shallow and meaningless “lesson plans” and linking them to the new corporate standards all for the sake of some policy maker's definition of accountability.

• I am tired of administrative incompetence at all levels, from the president of the United States to school principals. 

• I am tired of vapid, dumbed-down “professional development” schemes and “trainings.” (“We train animals; we educate people,” some famous person once said.)

• I am tired of being spoken to and treated like a 4th grader by administrators simply because I teach 4th grade.

• I am tired of being forced to participate in Professional Learning Communities which have now evolved into Professional Indoctrination Communities that serve as conduits for corporate education “reforms.”

• I am tired of grading homework.

• I am tired of the meaninglessness of the Pledge of Allegiance.  

And most of all:

• I am tired of pointless staff meetings which some administrators use to reassert their perceived power over teachers.

• I am tired of being forced by the federal and state governments and their corporate partners to commit emotional and psychological child abuse by administering high stakes standardized tests to my students.

• I am tired of being told what to teach and how and when to teach it.

You will note that none of these issues has much to do with children.  If teaching consisted simply of a rich, high quality learning relationship between teachers, students, and parents, I would probably still be teaching.  However, the agendas of misguided adults have made such dramatic incursions into what was once a caring, child-centered, and highly effective public education system that I no longer recognize the profession I joined nearly three decades ago.  Consequently, I want little part of it. 

I need a less stressful, more balanced life

Since I began pursuing a PhD four and a half years ago, life has been crazy, too crazy, really.  I started the PhD program without giving up my job as a full-time 4th and 5th grade dual language teacher.  I literally couldn’t afford to.  Since then, daily life for me was contained within a six mile triangle between home, school, and the university.  I travelled that triangle virtually every day on my bike.  After riding the 1.8 miles to school, I would spend an eight-hour day in my classroom in what has recently been very stressful conditions that are directly related to the national education “reform” movement (see “Education Reform” below).  By 4:00 p.m. each day I was physically and mentally exhausted.  But there was no time to rest.  At the point of utter exhaustion, I would remount my bike and pedal the 2.2 miles to the university where I would slip into my seat in at 4:15 for two and a half hours of lecture and discussion during which I struggled to stay awake and speak coherently. (If I wasn’t attending class, I was teaching an undergraduate class during the same time slot.)  By the time I pedaled the two miles home at 7:00 p.m., I was a virtual zombie.  Nonetheless, I grabbed a bite to eat, debriefed the day’s activities with my wife, tried to help with my sons’ homework, then opened my books to read or write until 11:00 or midnight.  Once in bed, I often remained wide awake for an hour or more, the result of my body’s relentless attempts to stay awake and alert for all the day’s obligations.  After five to seven hours of often fitful sleep, I would wake the next morning to another long day.  

The weekends were not much better.  Though I did study on week nights, my efforts were only marginally productive due to the fact that I consistently chose to study in a busy household.  Consequently, I regarded the weekends as prime study time.  Beginning after school on Friday and continuing almost non stop until late Sunday night, I read, wrote, thought, and graded papers, often to the point of exhaustion.  Down time came in the form of my sons’ baseball games and an occasional beer.  

I sustained this crazy schedule for four and a half years.  By June, 2014, it was obvious to me and to others it was no longer sustainable.  Every facet of my life was suffering:  my teaching, my PhD work, my health, my family, my longtime interests in music and nature, and more.  I had fallen out of balance.  After carefully weighing the financial consequences of my retirement, it was apparent that my full time teaching job was what had to go in order to restore balance to my life.

I need to finish my PhD

Some of the students who were a part of my PhD cohort in the fall of 2010 have already graduated and received their doctorates.  Some of these same students, plus others who are still working toward their degrees, are not married, have no children, and do not work full-time.  For the last four and a half years I have envied those of among my fellow students who, instead of making a hasty and frantic exit from a busy household in order to be at a full-time job at a specific time each morning, awoke in houses relatively free of stress and in which they were able to read and write while their minds were fresh and clear.  How I yearned for just three or four uninterrupted hours of studying free of stress, exhaustion, and other obligations hanging over my head.  I hope my decision to retire will allow me more stress free study time so I can make more progress on my degree and perhaps even finish it before my first social security check arrives.  

The fight against school “reform”

At the conclusion of the school year my wife and I joined other teachers and parents to carry out a series of anti-education “reform” protests in Albuquerque.  The focus of our protests was what I have been calling the evil three-legged stool of school “reform”:  high stakes student testing and teacher evaluation, the privatization of our schools, and the Common Core.  We protested and spoke at several school board meetings in May, June, and July.  We picketed and interrupted the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) principal indoctrination sessions at the Albuquerque Convention and Visitors’ Center in late May.  Finally we stood in silent protest outside the annual meeting of the state’s school boards at which PED Secretary Designate Hanna Skandera was scheduled to speak (she never showed up).  

On the evening following one of the protests I was struck with the stark, powerful, and obvious realization that, come August, I would be expected to return to the classroom and implement the very policies and practices against which I had been speaking and protesting.  I decided on the spot that I could no longer live that contradiction.  In the end I, like everybody else, must live with my decisions and their consequences.  By June, 2014, it was clear to me that the moral and professional consequences of implementing the immoral and abusive policies and practices of education “reform” finally outweighed other consequences I might suffer by no longer earning a full-time teacher’s salary.

Furthermore, I decided it is no longer productive for me to subject myself to the threats, harassment, censorship, bullying, and intimidation I have suffered in recent years at the hands of district administrators who happened to disagree with my perspective on education “reform.”  I do not have a strong filter for education politics, nor do I want one.  But nor do I want my time and energy drained off into conflicts with "reformers" in our schools who are not likely to change their minds.  It's not worth it.  They're not worth it.  Unlike the district's administrative "reformers," I believe the school “reform” measures advanced by President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan, accepted with enthusiasm by New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez and NMPED Secretary Designate Skandera, and financed by the Gates, the Broads, the Waltons, the Kochs, Michelle Rhee, and scores of other wealthy non-educators, should not go unaddressed by thoughtful, caring, and enlightened educators.  I can no longer close my classroom door and pretend the corporate attack on public education is not occurring.  I feel compelled to take action and speak out.  I know that my retirement will afford me more time to do just that.

Finally, as Chris Hedges once said, “The greatest crimes against humanity are perpetrated by people just doing their jobs.”  I can no longer continue to "just do my job" knowing that my job perpetrates crimes against children—and teachers, too, for the exploitation of teachers leads to the exploitation of children.  I agree with Rosa Parks when she said, upon being arrested on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, that she could no longer participate in her own exploitation.  Instead, I will attempt to liberate myself from the political oppression of the public schools and mount, along with many other courageous parents and educators, a more vigorous and sustained defense of our public schools and their students.  I look forward to carrying on the struggle to expel corporate education "reform" from our schools so we can reinstate localized, culturally sensitive, flexible, and caring public education in our communities.

I ain't done yet, ya bushwhacker! 
(Adapted from the first True Grit with Glen Campbell and John Wayne.)

While I am officially retired, I am not fully retired.  I have accepted a 0.25 bilingual language arts "intervention" position at the school where I have taught for the last 19 years.  I have been a teacher my entire adult life and will continue to be a teacher for the rest of my life.  I can no more shed my identity as a teacher than my identity as a father, husband, cyclist, musician, bird watcher, and so on.  So here's to a new life of teaching and learning and, I hope, doing the right thing.  

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have some bread to bake, some musical instruments to play, some birds to observe, a ballgame to monitor, a bicycle to ride, a sunset to watch, a PhD to finish, a pint of IPA to savor, and nearly three decades of classroom memories to process before what I hope is a good night’s sleep.

And in the end, the kids you teach are equal to the joys you reach.

(Apologies to the Beatles!)

The Important Work of Frederick the Mouse

The following address was read to the fifth graders and their parents at the graduation ceremony at Zia Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.  

The Important Work of Frederick the Mouse

May 15, 2013

            Last year I read a story by Dr. Seuss.  It was called King Looie Katz.  It was an allegory about leaders and followers.  Of course the story stressed the importance of being good leaders.  Everybody says that, including Dr. Seuss.  But it also emphasized the importance of being good followers, informed and responsible followers, followers who recognize when leaders have run astray from good leadership and are no longer good leaders.   In these cases, good followers know how to muster the intelligence and the courage to call the leaders out and hold them accountable for their transgressions.  This essentially makes the good followers the new good leaders.  I love Dr. Seuss! 

            I also love Leo Lionni.  My favorite work of his is a little book about a little mouse named Frederick.  It is a work of fiction, a style of writing I hope you continue to enjoy despite current trends to reduce or eliminate it.

            [At this point Frederick, by Leo Lionni, was read to the audience.  In this book, Frederick and his four little mouse friends are getting ready for the long, cold, dark, winter.  While the other mice gather wheat, grain, and seeds, Frederick gathers rays of sunshine, stories, and words.  Of course, the other mice don't believe Frederick's work is real work, and they remind him of that at every turn.  But in the middle of the winter, when the food is nearly gone and the mice are anxious to get their minds off the cold, the hunger, and the desperation, Frederick astounds them with his ability to warm them with the rays of sun he has stored, entertain them with his stories, and comfort them with his poetry.  In the end, the other mice realize that Frederick's work, though somewhat unconventional, is as important as theirs.]

            Dr. Seuss and Leo Lionni don’t just write cute little books for children; they write lessons for life from which we readers might derive some wisdom.  The obvious lesson in this book is the value of work. 

            From kindergarten through 5^th grade you have often been encouraged to be like the other mice, especially when it comes to getting your work done.  Much of the work you have been required to complete has been designed and prescribed by adults you will never meet and who will assure you they know what’s best for you.  It is work that can be easily entered onto bubble sheets and evaluated by a computer, for their convenience.  This work is easy to recognize, validate, and reward.  This is the work of the four little mice. 

            However, as you now well know, there is other, often more important work you have completed over the last six years, work that is not so easily recognized or rewarded.  It is the work of creativity, cooperation, and caring; flexibility, fantasy, and fun.  And while there are no bubbles or computers that can evaluate this work, it is as important to your personal and academic growth as the more conventional and recognizable work you’ve completed so far.  This other important work is, of course, the work of Frederick.

            As you leave elementary school and go onto middle and high school, do the work of the four little mice and do it well. You will recognize this work by the little names they give it—DRA, SBA, PARCC, and CCSS—and you will be told your success in college and career depend on it.  But as you strive to comply with the demands of those who have the power to define this work, don’t neglect the work of Frederick.  Frederick knows best what work is most important for him and his community, and he does that work as best he can, regardless of whether or not it can be validated on bubble sheets by powerful mice he will never meet.  

Round Up the Usual Suspects

Teachers are the problem in education.  The press says so.  School districts say so.  State legislatures say so.  The federal government says so.  Political pundits say so.  The Department of Education says so.   And, yes, President Obama says so, loud and clear.  The sole holdouts are, interestingly enough, teachers, parents and students, the only groups that really matter.


If you, like the rest of the public, accept the argument that teachers are the problem in education, then everything else makes sense: standardized testing, punishing school for low scores, boxed and scripted curricula, narrowing of the curriculum, merit pay, elaborate and excessive accountability schemes, and so on.  If, instead, you reject this specious proposition and challenge it head-on, you will be able to see quite clearly how incredibly baseless it is.

The perception that teachers are the problem in education is an obscene exaggeration of one simple fact:  there are indeed some really bad teachers in our country.  President Obama said so recently when visiting my fair city:  "If some teachers are bad, they've got to go."  Even here the President of the United States suggests that there may be some bad teachers.   At the same time, however, he seems to imply that if they exist, they must be the sole reason for all that is bad in education.  After all, he made his statement in the context of how to fix what is broken in education.  Fix the teachers and you've fixed the problem.

What President Obama, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates and other teacher bashers are not saying, even though they know it's true, is that the number of really bad teachers—those who might actually have a detrimental effect on the education of their students—is such an incredibly small percentage of the nation's teaching corps that they couldn't possibly constitute a group large enough to cause all the perceived damage to our educational system.  If some teachers are bad, that means most teachers are not.  And if most teachers are not bad—and many are very good to excellent—then we really don't have an educational crisis on our hands.  A minority of bad teachers does not a bad school or district make.  

It seems absurd but true:  we begin with a statement that virtually everyone can agree with—there are some bad teachers and "they've got to go"—and conclude that most teachers are bad and have to go or be radically retrained.  But the fact of the matter is, most teachers are not bad. There are good and excellent schools across the country with one or two bad teachers on every staff, but those bad teachers don't make the whole school bad.  Most of the nation's public schools are good to excellent because they have good to excellent teachers and despite the presence of one or two bad teachers.  

Even if we agree that there is a small contingent of bad teachers in America, we still have another problem:  defining "bad teacher"?  Is a bad teacher someone in whose classroom parents hope their children are not placed?  Someone who received a negative evaluation from her principal last year?   Someone who hates her job?  Someone who dislikes children?  Someone who focuses her energy more on retirement than on education?  Someone who doesn't seem to know the established curriculum, content and standards?  Looking at it from a different angle, is she someone who received a positive evaluation from the principal due to her adherence to program fidelity?  Someone who refuses to teach the boxed and scripted curriculum and dares to create her own curriculum and teach creatively?  Is she a teacher who gives equal weight to all subjects instead of teaching only reading and math in order to raise test scores?

The definition of a bad teacher probably depends on where you think public education should be heading.  In the end it doesn't matter.  All definitions but one are irrelevant in the minds of the critics of public education:  a bad teacher is one whose students receive poor results on state sanctioned standardized reading and math tests.  Period.  That's right.  Tests that are designed for the sole purpose of pinpointing a student's academic progress are being used to judge teacher quality.  Never mind the fact these tests were never intended to be used to evaluate teachers (or schools either, for that matter).  Beginning with the NCLB testing frenzy in 2002, schools and increasingly teachers have been evaluated based on student test scores.  Obama will soon attempt to sharpen the teeth of the accountability section of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, aka No Child Left Behind and soon to be Blueprint for Success) when it comes up for renewal before the end of his term.

If these tests are not designed to evaluate teacher quality and effectiveness, then why do we use them for that purpose?  Perhaps it is because we have objectified students to the point where they are qualitatively no different than a widget on the assembly line.  It is understandable that a factory worker be held accountable for and evaluated on the quality of her widget.  After all, everything about the widget can be controlled and manipulated by the worker.  The widget is an inanimate object whose ultimate form and function is determined solely by its maker.  Therefore, if the widget is defective or otherwise fails, it must be the worker's fault because it couldn't possibly be the wiget's.

But students are not widgets and teachers are not assembly line workers.  This image was cooked up and promoted by business interests such as the Chamber of Commerce who cannot conceptualize public education in any way other than the factory assembly line.  The image is false, misleading and damaging to our public school system.  Unlike the widgets in the  business world, students are living, breathing, dynamic, individual, multi-faceted, idiosyncratic, creative, spontaneous, unpredictable, free-willed beings who, despite what we may "do" to them, will likely "produce" results wholly inconsistent with the "worker's" desired outcome.  And since students are not widgets—or products—an evaluation of their worth cannot be based on the "productivity" of their "maker."

If the wrong measure is used to determine the quality of the teacher, the wrong fixes—merit pay, firing, meaningless accountability—will be applied to the perceived problem.  And if we are spending time and resources fixing the wrong problems and even problems that don't exist, we'll have a real mess on our hands.   Educational "remedies" based on measuring teachers with student test scores are inherently ill-conceived and will inevitably fail. 

This brings us full circle:  if you believe that most teachers are bad; that their "badness" is proven by student test scores; and that teachers are the main cause of the wholesale failure of the public schools, then the various and sundry educational solutions proposed by the critics of public education will seem wholly logical to you.  You will whoop and holler for the teacher bashers when you hear of their schemes to marginalize the role of the teacher in order to gain direct access to students.  That is precisely the role of standardized tests, standardized curricula, box and scripted curricula, school wide punishments, accountability schemes, and merit pay:  they are all attempts to circumvent teachers and get direct access to students so that teacher bashers can apply their simple minded remedies to the problems teachers have failed to fix.

If you have no faith in teachers' ability to evaluate their students, you imposed standardized testing.  If you have no faith in teachers' ability to teach, you force them to implement boxed and scripted curricula. If you have no faith in teachers' ability to account for their work, you dream up schemes that hold teachers responsible for the boxed and scripted curricula (this is known as "program fidelity").  If you have no faith in teachers' intrinsic value as trained and experienced professionals, you implement merit pay (based, of course, on their students' standardized test results).  If you have no faith in teachers, you blame teachers for all that is wrong in education and proceed to offer the wrong solutions to all the wrong problems.  

President Obama has no faith in teachers; otherwise he would not call his educational plan a Blueprint for Success—a title that invokes private industry ("blueprint") and implies failure ("success")—and he would send his daughters to public school.  The press has no faith in teachers; otherwise they would investigate other, more important factors of school "failure," such as language, parenting, parental level of education, parental investment in the education of their children, and of course the two big ones, TEST VALIDITY and POVERTY (see last post).  Policy makers have no faith in teachers; every fix they come up with, usually in the form of mandatory professional development, addresses the perception the only thing teachers need in order to improve student achievement is more training, more motivation, and an improved work ethic (lazy teachers; if they would only work harder!).  

Perhaps the most unfortunate reality of the teacher bashing is that the solutions to the bad teacher problem proposed by the nation's non educators lead to the production of more bad teachers and, consequently, more bad instruction.  When we dumb down the curriculum in order to make it accessible to the worst of teachers, and force all teachers—good, bad and in-between—to the lower standard of boxed and scripted curricula and "program fidelity," we may succeed in raising the effectiveness of the worst 25% among us, but we will also lower the quality and effectiveness of the 75% good and excellent teachers as they are pulled inexorably towards the new, lower standard.  

The subsequent dilution of the nation's teaching corps will inevitably accelerate the narrowing of an already narrowed curriculum to the point where only basic math and reading skills will be taught and tested.  When we reach that point—and many schools in the country already have—we will no longer be able to claim that what we are engaged in is education.  Instead, we will be engaged in a clinical and impersonal system of mass production wherein our teachers, like factory workers around the globe, will produce human widgets who can look forward to a life as a cog in the machinery of the global marketplace.  The absurdity of public education in America will then be complete:  we will have converted students into objects, teachers into producers, and a flawed system of measurement into the sole "truth" about education, the "truth" that convinced us that teachers are the problem in the first place.

And if you believe that, then everything else makes sense.