Where is the Love, Y"all

Today I reject the distrust, 

Today I reject the haters of teachers, 

I reject the fear mongers of our schools are failing. 

Today I took a stand, today I did something, and so can you. 

I reject the notion that teachers are best measured by unreliable value added measures. 

I reject New York's release of teacher ranking based solely on student test scores!

Valerie Strauss's "Answer Sheet" gives the academic response here: she outlines the fallacy of  well. She embeds reference links to the studies challenging Valued Added Measures.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/nyc-releases-teachers-value-added-scores--unfortunately/2012/02/24/gIQAtbVXYR_blog.html#pagebreak

My thinking is accountability yes, but this is ethically and morally wrong. This is the new Scarlett Letter for teachers. First they reduced our children to data, to capital, and turned our children from God's gifts into test scores. Now they are doing the same exact thing to teachers. Shame is not education reform, and in the end does more harm than good. It will turn teachers away from working in poor urban and rural school districts. It will demoralize teachers, and hurt children, parents, and local schools. Maybe that has been the plan of NCLB/RTTT all along. A plan to destroy our public school system.

Shame on New York City's DOE.

Mrs. Stanfield my high school English teacher shared Pastor Niemoller's words with us when we were reading Elie Wiesel’s “Night”.

 Pasto Niemoller said:

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

Mrs Stanfield my only African American teacher in high school taught her students about Pastor Niemoller and Elie Wiesel not because it might be on some bubble sheet test, but because it mattered. It helped to shape the men and women we would become.  Thank you, thank you, thank you Mrs Stanfield for making a difference in my life.

So today I live her lesson, I resist, today I fight back, and I reject shame reform. 

Join me on Facebook by liking:

https://www.facebook.com/TeachersAreMoreThanTestScores?notif_t=page_new_likes

In the meantime let's all sing:

“Where is the love (The love)
Where is the love (The love)
Where is the love
The love, the love

It just ain't the same, always unchanged
New days are strange, is the world insane
If love and peace is so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don't belong
Nations droppin' bombs
Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones
With ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young
So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone
So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong
In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin'
in
Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends
Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother
A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover
The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug
If you never know truth then you never know love
Where's the love, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the truth, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the love, y'all” (Black Eye Peas Where Is The Love)

Walking tall today listening to "Where Is The Love" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZVxjH04aIY

Respectfully,
Jesse The Walkingman Turner