> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLJzMZDTkrk&ab_channel=TheBrainwavesVideoAnthology <
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I am the broken record of truth in our public schools |
This blog welcomes readers who believe that No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top, and Every Student Succeeds Act are misguided educational reform policies that rely too heavily on standardized test scores that are too focused on punitive measures against local schools. This is also the diary of Jesse Turner's 2010/15 walks to Washington DC from Connecticut, and his occupation of the DOE in DC with United Opt Out, and his opposition to public school choice policies without equity.
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I am the broken record of truth in our public schools |
The Merry-Go-Round of school reform money tree shouts:
New tests,
Charter Schools,
Magnet Schools,
State takeovers,
Google classrooms,
Chrome books,
Drive-by-teacher alternative programs,
New Rigorous Standards,
New Fail Proof Curriculums.
Blame:
Parents,
Students,
Teachers,
Schools,
Blame everyone,
Except those making hundreds of billions of dollars running the Merry-Go-Round.
Look everywhere but at those making profits, giving campaign contributions, and sweet jobs to family and political allies,
They love the teacher blamers,
Children are falling because teachers didn’t teach them right,
Don’t worry parents for a few billion we can fix it.
Time to Look behind that great OZ Curtain,
Where we discover rich white kids always get more,
Black, Brown, Poor, and Special children get less.
Much, much, much less,
23 Billion dollars every year.
Now these Ed Refromers want teachers to take sides in their reading wars.
I can hear that cash register of a status quo ringing,
A school-to-prison pipeline that profits from 5 until death.
How about we do something different?
Radical,
Fair,
Humane.
Children, Teachers, and Parents shout ENOUGH,
EQUITY now!
I have an idea, and it won't cost a penny more.
We can take that 23 Billion Dollars extra spent annually on Wealthy Predominately White Schools, and spend it on our children in our poor school districts. You know the children who America has given less to for over 170 years.
It's time to close their merry-go-round down.
If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my blog today its Adrea Day's "Rise Up" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZnv6qLWPy4 <
As an academic, my articles and chapters are seldom read. As an activist, my blog reaches thousands every month. My activist message is simple, all I ever wanted to do is teach, but injustice got in my way.
I find myself fighting inequity and injustice in our public schools has become my main focus. This is something I never imagined when I first entered into the profession. I naively thought research mattered more than my activism.
Thankfully, I was an activist before I became a teacher. It is this endless activist well that enables me to teach these days. Words are not enough to win this battle, but they do help.
I am an Old School Teacher,
I teach,
I march,
I stand up,
I speak up,
I put my body on the picket line,
I turn up,
I reject apathy and silence,
I stand up for the rights of all in and out of my classroom,
I am inspired by the thousands who read,
I am Dr. Jesse P. Turner the Walking Man
Uniting to Save Our Schools
Can't be silenced Badass Teacher
If you like to listen to the song that inspires my blog this morning at 5:am its John Legend's "Preach" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0r1AJMK79g <
Policymakers and education reformers have our teachers using expensive and time-consuming online data collecting tools. Our teachers are chasing data, they already know. When people ask me who knows a child best. I always say the people closest to them, their parents, and teachers.
Rather than have our teachers following their authentic real time observational data and intuitive understandings of the children they teach. We force them to engage in time consuming repetitious data, that has them second guessing what they already know.
From my work with classroom teachers, this online data consumes 10 to 15 hours a week. 10 to 15 hours that use to be spent on finding ways to motivate learners. and with the demands of teaching today. We are losing experienced and new teachers because they are not given the time to act on the data that really matters.
Teachers not only see the numbers, but they also see the child, they have essential knowledge about what motivates the children they teach. What teachers know often takes a back seat to the data policymakers value. I say the data that matters most is the real time observational data teachers have. The data the system often causing them to doubt. Or, feeling as if their voice does not matter. This feeling of doubt and being voiceless is in my opinion the number one reason we are losing experienced teachers today.
Those 10-15 hours of online data chasing prevents teachers from acting in real time on that rich Kid Watching Data that Dr. Yetta Goodman told me 30 years is a learning goldmine.
Teachers know where the gold is, Dr. Jesse P. Turner CCSU Literacy Center Director
If you like to see what inspired my blog today...its Barry Lane's What's Happening in our schools > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPZLqsZzzzo <
In case you want more Chuck Barry's "School Days" reminds me of > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHG5-GxI_Es <
This course is taken just before our Pre-Service teachers do the Student-Teaching. This semester I have Spanish, History, Teach Education, and English teachers. The sharing is about sharing the character traits of good teaching. For some strange reason, many students came down on their former Spanish teachers this day. On Wednesday, my plan is to share two teachers, one is Father Fitzgerald, (Parish Priest) and Mrs. Sanchez my favorite Spanish Teacher. Father Fitzgerald story is about some of our best teachers don’t teach in a classroom, but outside the schoolhouse. Mrs. Sanchez is about a language teacher who knew before you learn a language you have to feel it in your heart.
Mrs. Sanchez, open her class with Las niñas y los niños sienten español en sus corazones: [girls and boys, we feel Spanish in our heart not our head]. My oral Spanish speaking skills were lacking. I did well on homework assignments, quizzes, and tests, but my Spanish speaking skills were as broken as it gets. Mrs. Sanchez, said don’t worry about how you say it Jesse, your work shows me you can read and write Spanish. She had a way of helping us accept our limitations, and helping us see our strengths. I aced her classes, and learn to dance and feel Spanish in my heart. Mrs. Sanchez would end class with “Todos levántense, sientan español en el corazón y en los pies, es hora de bailar” [Everybody up, and feel Spanish in your heart and feet. It is time to dance]. She, place a record her record player, either some Falmenco, Mambo, Conga, or Salsa, and we flet Spanish in our feet and heart.
Mrs. Sánchez, put Spanish in my heart and feet. She taught with her love of Spanish, and her students. Like, Mr. Bass, Father Fitz, and Mrs. Sánchez they did more to prepare me to be a teacher; then many of the research studies at the university. Time to remind these soon to be teachers, it is less about what we teach, and more about how we teach. Can't wait to see my Spanish teachers smile tomorrow. Humanity is every teacher's super power. Great teachers lead with humanity every day.
This one is for you Mrs. Sánchez, and all you wonderful feel it in your heart Spanish Teachers.
Gracias, Dr. Jesse P. Turner
Literacy Profesora,
If you like to dance to the tune that inspire my blog today...its Fania All Stars ft Oscar D'Leon, Milly Quezada, El Canario and others yo Soy La Salsa > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuqGyeJgT6E <
A 3 minute clip about this teacher shortage crisis.
What exactly is a Teacher Shortage Crisis? In simple economic term is it an issue of Supply and Demand. Supply is the amount of a specific goods or services available in the market. Demand is the amount of the goods or services available. Teaching is not goods; teaching is a service. Teacher salary fact: "The average weekly wages of public-school teachers, adjusted for inflation, increased just $29 from 1996 to 2021 — from $1,319 up to $1,348. Teachers have consistently earned less than their non-teacher, college-educated counterparts, and that wage penalty was found in all 50 states and Washington, D.C." Teachers today make less than teachers in 1996" (https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/08/17/us-teacher-pay-wage-gap-education-public-schools-decades). However money alone is not the sole issue.
While teachers are leaving the profession at higher rates than at any other time in history, Policymakers, Ed Reformers, and Legislators are mainly focus on growing new teachers. The problem we are having with these efforts, is they have not engaged in serious conversations with potential future teachers. The problem with this approach is in the 1970's nearly 1 in 5 college students wanted to become teachers, today that number is down to 4%.
Now consider this during COVID 300000 teachers left teaching. Filling that gap with 4% would take decades to fill. We simply can’t grow enough quickly enough to end this shortage. We must find ways to keep the current teachers in our classrooms as well.
There are many reasons young people are choosing not to become teachers, declining pay is just one of them. I The veteran teachers on my show tomorrow believe the answer must involve stemming the exit from teaching. They believe finding ways to entice teachers to stay will help grow new teachers. Our future teachers are front row eye witnesses to teachers who are not only underpaid, but disrespected on numerous levels. They come to our universities with 13 years of witnessing how their teachers were treated. Trust me, they come fully knowing the struggles teachers face.
Returning to Supply and Demand you can’t build supply while you are suffering massive pillages. My analogy is the current teacher shortage solutions are focused on one end of the supply chain. Think about trying to fill a pail with water with holes in the bottom. Addressing this teacher shortage crisis requires fixing the holes first.
Hope you join us 8/18.23 at 11:AM EST on 103.5 FM New Haven, > http://wnhh.org/tfs <
Dr. Jesse P. Turner Central Connecticut State University Literacy Center Director
If you like to listen to the tune that inspire this post, its the Beatles Fixing A Hole > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGRoSJaz-nw <
just in case you want to watch the radio show with teachers talking about how to keep the teachers we already have. Link https://www.facebook.com/NewHavenIndependent/videos/201391319590261
How about we do something different this Teacher Appreciation Week?
1. Sates stop requiring advanced degrees you do not pay for,
2. A real pay increase above inflation for a change,
3. Stop reducing our pensions and medical benefits,
4. OMG, stop wasting nearly 2 billion dollars every year on standardized test that have no real instructional value,
5. Stop trying to speed learning up; it doesn't work,
6. Try respecting our professional knowledge,
7. Stop pushing school choice scams without equity,
8. Stop passing laws to ban the three things that motivate learning, Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity,
9. Almost anything more than; thank you teacher stickers and donuts,
10. Just let us teach!
"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." ~James Baldwin
Dear Policymakers and Legislators, we see your cowardice.
You dance and sing those old minstrel lies:
Testing will save Black, Brown, Special Education, and Poor children,
Charter schools will save them,
Magnet Schools will save them,
School Choice will save them,
Teach for America will save them.
Schools for profit will save them.
The song you dare not sing is about quality and equality for all children.
This tune would make you moral heroes to all; you run from, hide from, and dare not imagine it.
Justice is too costly in your world.
But, our nation's dreamer Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke from his Birmingham prison cell in
"Justice too long delayed is justice denied."
Heroes speak the truth; they never run from it or deny it.
We see you.
You can't do equity,
Your minstrel dance of lies,
Reveal your lies, and they damn you.
They expose your cowardice,
They show us,
Monsters of injustice.
We see you,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
Uniting to Save Our Schools
Badass Teacher,
If you like to hear the tune that inspired my walk this morning? It is Pete Seeger's version of We Shall Over Come https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gmTxc2wGTI
Bishop John Selders is an academic who TURN UP! |
Reading between the lines of these Florida and Texas Governors who want to ban books and factual history. It is not about Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, or CRT; it is TRUTH they fear.
What frightens the hell out of them; is the actual historical truth. History is the game plan showing how racist attempts to suppress Black, Brown, Women, and LGBTQ Americans always fail in the end.
They are not afraid of their children feeling bad; they don't want children to see how miserably hate has failed time and time again.
Case in point, the Georgia State Legislature denied Civil Rights Activist Julian Bond his seat three times. He took it to the highest court in the land. Georgia lost in the Supreme Court. History gives people a game plan against hate. These book and history haters fear truth more than anything else. Why attack history? They lack the courage to face actual history. They do not want you to see the game plan to defeat them.
History is the game plan against hate,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
Uniting to Save Our Schools
Badass Teacher
A bit of Jackson Brown's Great Pretender lives in me. I wake up some days a bit lost, but then I find my dreams in the smiling faces of those children and teachers I work with.. My fellow teachers and our CCSU Literacy Teachers are path finders.
When I was a young university student, Dr. Jerry Weiss asked us to consider stories from different points of view. He said what if you read To Kill a Mockingbird from the point of view of a Black Person, Hispanic Person, LGBT person, Immigrant, White person, a person of faith, and a person of no faith. What happened in that in class that day became one of my deepest most sincere learning experiences. Readers bring their life experiences to the text they read, and those experiences lead to multiple meanings. I would learn later on about Louise Rosenblatt's Reader Response Theory which took it to the next level.
Well, teaching that novels have different points of view leads right into Rudine Sims Bishop's Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Doors. Teachers have learning experiences that shape them; they are fed not by Common Core State Standards, but by theory. Research shapes us.
Our work is hard, and our nation's policymakers and legislators are working around the clock to make it harder. They don't care much for research; they prefer counting numbers. Professionally my view is a public school system that often tries to break teachers. It is around the concept of breaking teachers that I begin to feel lost, a great pretender. I then remember research guides me in the right direction, not test scores or policymakers. I remember teachers can make learning joyful. Then I put on my Mr. Icredible outfit, and say Does anyone feel like winning a gold medal today.
Then I remember these teachers and children needed me to rise above the noise. When I do that, I find my teaching soul. With teachers it is never about us; it is about those we teach.
For 40 years the ones I teach have always brought me back to my teaching dream. That dream that said I will be a teacher who makes a difference. Teaching is difficult, and the system appears to be making it harder, but those faces in front of me make it worth every day for 40 years.
I am the Great Pretender renewing my dream,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
CCSU Literacy Center Director
If you like to listen to the song that inspired my morning walk it is Jackson Brown's The Great Pretender. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xowaOsutxA4&ab_channel=MaliYojez <
Isn’t the push back against diverse books, diversity, equity, and inclusion another dog whistle attempts to create passive citizens. Citizens easy to rule, easy to maculate, and easy to stir up.
The Pan-African activist, journalist and entrepreneur, Marcus Garvey, wrote “a people without knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” Trees that are not firmly rooted in rich, fertile soil do not grow, do not bear fruit, they cannot withstand strong wind, or bear heavy loads.
If you wonder how a White Teacher from Jersey City knows about the life of Marcus Garvey? It is because, I had old schoolteachers who refused to confined by the dog whistle blowing status quo Florida Governor.
Ain't no Governor going to turn me around, Dr. Jesse P. Turner Initing to Save Our Schools
Badass Teacher
If you like to listen to the song that inspired my morning walk today its Ain't going to let no one one turn me around. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBQu1BWdpiY <
As in Hamlet “there is a method in my madness”. Everything we do in our Literacy has purpose and reason just beyond reading. March is Women's History Month, we are discovering role models of nobility, integrity, and honor in the lives of famous women in history. Our girls are seeing possibilities of their own futures, our young boys are learning to value and respect the lives of women. Of course we are building a love of reading and reading stamina. Again, don't tell the policy makers or legislators, because they sometimes struggle with the idea that free reading improves reading. At least they always leave it off their PowerPoint Presentations at PDs. Sometimes I wonder if they understand that the readers who love to read do better on those high-stakes assessments they love. It is just to hard to put love of reading into their SLOs. Why how we you test it? You could observe it of course, but that would qualitative data, Every Policymaker knows that qualitative data can't be measured on standardized test, or their PowerPoints.
Back to our Read-A-Thon, we started reading about great women in aviation in the fall, (you don’t have to wait for women's history month to learn about famous women. We have continue learning about women all year long. We read about Amelia Earhart, Bessie Coleman, Hazel Ying Lee, and Olga Custodio female aviators who broke new glass ceilings. We are not done yet; we discover others every day. American History is everyone’s story, and we celebrate all stories.
The fact we were studying female aviators, might be might call this being WOKE Education to some people. I just call it good teaching. Now, Governor Ron DeSantis probably disapproves because each of these women had to overcome obstacles of sexism and racism, that sounds like being WOKE. Word is the Governor thinks that kind of learning might upset some children. After decades of teaching, I find learning about how people overcame sexism and racism motivates and lifts them. Children like the idea of people breaking barriers.
Back to the parachutes, there is a learning theory called; "Hot cognition" a hypothesis on motivated reasoning in which a person's thinking is influenced by their emotional state." What we learn during positive emotional learning, stays with learners. The parachutes are just a door to build healthy respect for each other. I wager 20 years from now our children will remember Amelia Earhart, Bessie Coleman, Hazel Ying Lee, and Olga Custodio. BIG HINT Governor DeSantis, you can study Women's History without studying Sexism and Racism.
I am an old schoolteacher unafraid of being WOKE, Dr. Jesse P. Turner Uniting to Save Our Schools Badass Teacher
Here is a link to some great books celebrating Women's History Month. > https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.readingrockets.org%2Fbooklists%2Fcelebrating-women-s-history-month-picture-book-biographies%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1j53zR6zvr7nzNWeGbZUbRJcfWWv3ZZDdQfemGJljAoPstT3mb3ZfBB4o&h=AT1WqsxQOTqI0xICTEJ2XjrtyAfXbc5SmVTW8Y8TKS7ZRltN43DJym4BJwmsCMXXkkhAerbiiPKm2nTtG_EJvsSVky3wG9f2-Fw_A6HOGhO41ykVnyhnOX76IQM8hILoM7u9un8TPyVrpA2F2g6yr2d4ILbBL_9Vc6k&__tn__=R*F
If you want to listen to the song that inspire my morning walk this morning its Sam Cook cover of Blowing in the wind" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBDdLgBO0Nw
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https://www.unitingtosaveourschools.org/about |
We are not beaten,
We are not tired,
We are not demoralized.
We are Uniting to Save Our Schools,
On a mission to lift every child, parent, teacher, and public school.
Ain't no Ed Reform Privatizing fools going to turn us around.
We are on FIRE.
Uniting to Save Our Schools: the fight to make our nation’s school equitable and fair is ongoing and worthy. We are in this struggle to make our public schools places where every child regardless of their Race, Zip Code, Immigration status, Income, or identity a quality and equal education. Schools where everyone’s stories are valued and celebrated. We are the WOKE educators Ron DeSantis fears.
In 2002 the United States Department of Education launch a Trillion Dollar No Child Left Behind Education Reform Bill that promised every child would be reading, writing, and doing match at grade level by January 1, 2014. These reforms would focus on a massive increase in the used of High-Stakes Testing and placed the blame for failing test scores on teachers and curriculums. All you need to know is that promise failed, and that trillion dollars made testing companies and publishers that biggest profits they had seen in decades. The scientific-based curriculums of NCLB were massive failures, but extremely profitable.
See: https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094038/index.asp
In 2009 Race to The Top became our nation’s new venture into education reform. Like NCLB it would focus deeply on Hight-Stakes Testing and forced our nation’s poorest public schools to compete for their survival. See: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED557422
I want parents, teachers, legislators, and policymakers to know there were researchers, teachers, parents, teacher educators, and activists that fought back from day one of both NCLB and RTTT. We spoke up, wrote, presented at national and international conferences, and spoke out in communities across the nation. I know because I am one of them. By 2010, I grew tired of being ignored by policymakers, legislators, and school administrators. I decided to go back to my Civil Rights roots and do what activists have always done; I would use my feet. I would as Congress John L. Lewis said embark on a series of “Good Troubles”. See my letter to President Obama challenging RTTT policies: https://childrenaremorethantestscores.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-letter-to-president-obama-one-that.html
In 2010, I walked 400 miles to protest the abusive High-Stakes testing Policies of No Child Left Behind and Race to The Top. On that walk a powerful coalition of educators, researchers, parents and even students emerged that brought 12.000 scholars, activists, teachers and parents to Washington DC in 2011 to fight against abusive education policies that force poor local community schools to compete against each. Abusive policies that place the blame on local community schools, their teachers and parents. That coalition was Save Our Schools, and it spur many others to form coalitions to fight abusive testing and inequity in our public schools. The future leaders of United Opt Out, NPE, Badass Teachers, Karen Lewis brought a whole crew of Chicago Teachers Union members, Journey 4, Justice, and many others were in DC in 2011. We had conference, rally and march in 2011. All were successful, and attendees shared ideas and strategies to fight back against education reforms that hurt children, teachers, and community schools. I would meet the most incredible Social Justice Education Warriors in 2011, and those warriors would launch a resistance movement. For a quick three-minute look at this historic moment in 2011 see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EumSu0t6Ec Even Matt Damon showed up. See: https://vimeo.com/27164498
From 2011 to today, Uniting to Save Our Schools has not stop fighting, or as Congressman John L. Lewis said getting into “Good Troubles”.
Tomorrow morning, I am gust hosting the Tom Ficklin 103.5 FM New Haven Radio. My Guests will be two of my favorite “Good Troubles” USOSers. Tune in to hear where the struggle has been, and where we are taking our “Good Troubles” to next. Of course you don’t need to wait for the show to join the struggle visit our Uniting to Save Our Schools webpage, and join this Good Trouble voyage to save our public schools. See: https://www.unitingtosaveourschools.org/
I am a man on fire, Dr. Jesse P. Turner Uniting to Save Our Schools Badass Teacher Fellow Good Troublemaker
If you like to hear the tune that inspire my morning walk its Roots cover of " Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOaKFuTcTYI