Call me one Badass Teacher fighting his way to DC this July 28, 2014

Today I am walking under a Jamaican sun, I have the honor and the pleasure of working with 19 Jamaican reading teachers here. They have arrived at the last course on their three-year journey to becoming Reading Specialists. They have crossed so many rivers to become Reading Specialists, gone into debt, made far too many sacrifices to come to this river. I have been their captain. One lost her toddler son just less than two months ago, and still grieving she came to cross this last river in honor of her son. 
I am in awe of my teachers. Jamaicans teachers are no different than American teachers they never stop learning, never stop sacrificing, and almost always on their own dime. It pains me to hear so many in power undermining and belittling their work.  
I said I was their Captain, but it's the crew who lifts the anchor, and sails the ship out and in of port. This by far is one of the best crews that any captain ever had. So for this blog I am drawing on one of Jamaica's Seven National Heroes. Marcus Garvey in their honor. For my Jamaican teachers have given me far more than I them.

Jonathan Kozal wrote about savage inequalities that define our public schools two decades ago. He called our leaders to equality, he called them to justice, to dignity, and to honor.

Bob Marley said: "How many rivers do we have to cross before we talk to the boss?"
Equality does not come through testing,
Equality does not come through reducing children to data points,
Equality does not come through demoralizing teachers,
Equality does not come through forcing schools to compete against each other on unleveled playing fields.

Equality will not come through Common Core Standards that fail to study our history:
Equality does not ignore the brutalization of our Native people,
Equality does not ignore the continuous noble struggle of a people dragged from Africa's shore in bondage rising from the evil shackles of slavery to freedom,
Equality does not ignore that the first cargo unloaded at James Town was 20 Black slaves,
Equality does not ignore the struggles of Black, Latin, Women, GLBT for Civil Rights,
Equality does not ignore the struggles of labor unions,
Equality does not ignore the history of those who sacrifice all to defend the freedom of all,
Equality does not ignore the immigrant journeys of all Americans, our journeys did not end at Plymouth,
Equality does not ignore the cries of the poor, 
Equality does not ignore the disastrous lessons of bubbles, speculators, and economic collapses.

Equality will not come with out a deep study of who we are, where we came from, and an thorough examination of the sacrifices of all Americans. 
Focusing on standards rooted in 3 Rs and testing while ignoring the sacrifices, the struggles, the joys and triumphant stories of we the American people,
These Ed Reform Standards are not standards, but an insult, and an attack on the American people.  
Marcus Garvey said “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
I see no roots in Common Core standards that claimed to be are all things to all people, but lack any real specificity about America's journey.  
Where is the spoken word in these standards? I am not referring to the conventions of English, but the voices of who we are, where we are going, our different points of view, and our deepest hopes? 
These standards appear to aim at silencing our young not at helping to raise their collective voices. Garvey also said: “The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than them both put together.” I see silence and apathy rooted in these standards not the lifting the voices of our young. Any wonder, why we talk about unmotivated students and prison to school pipelines.

Returning to Equity. As long as we give one school more than another, and expect the same results. 
First, I acknowledge we were rooted in inequality before NCLB, but have made unfair competition and inequity the core of our NCLB/RTTT Education Reforms.
Second, any national standards not rooted in equity are not standards, but shackles upon the dreams and hopes of our children.
Thirdly, I know evil when I see it,
Finally, I know a righteous fight when I am in it,
Call me one Badass Teacher fighting his way to DC this July 28, 2014,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner

If you want to know what the Walking Man was listening to on his walk, it was Bob Marley's Stand up..Get Up...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7iXcKKpdx0 and James Weldon Johnson's Lift Every Voice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0XJPUA5xdI

Poverty matters Mr. Mayor, fighting poverty should be our nation's work.

My thinking about No Child Left Behind, and Race To The Top can be summed in one line: I see these Education Reform policies as attacks on the poor. They are sinful in my humble opinion. When do we start really looking closely at these Ed Reformers. This blog looks at one of those Education Reformers leading the charge.
Sonny Carroll wrote: "There comes a time in your life when you finally get it ... When in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out "ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on." And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes you begin to look at the world from a new perspective  .........This is your awakening."

Mayor Bloomberg recently said when referring to a New York Times series on homelessness that featured an 11-year-old homeless girl named Dasani. "This kid was dealt a bad hand. I don't know quite why. That's just the way God works. Sometimes some of us are lucky and some of us are not."

Billionaires never get it, I am perplexed why we keep electing people who think hunger, poverty and unemployment is God's work not a result of their greed. 
So brothers and sisters, this is our awakening we can let the powerful, the connected, the wealthy continue to blame God, or luck, or we can start pointing them to the nearest mirror. I am a man of a deep faith. I am an unworthy soul seeking grace. I know that those standing idly by, doing nothing to help those in need will not attain that grace. In James 4:17 it is written: “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” 
No Mr. Mayor it is not God's work, but our work.
Silence and apathy are unacceptable,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner

If you want to listen to what the Walking Man listened to on this beautiful Sun filled Connecticut day...its Old Crow Medicine Show's "I hear them all" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD3jsS-sL1Q

Is data a dirty word?

In Education Week on 12/18/13 Peter DeWitt ask the question: Why is data a dirty word? He goes on to write a good article around the idea that we are inudated with data in our schools. He points us to good sources to make this point: Lyn Sharratt and Michael Fullan's "Putting Faces on Data.  He uses their work to provide perfect questions about the data we are collecting in our schools.   
" Lyn Sharratt and Michael Fullan, they write that "It's not just the sheer volume of information that is daunting. It is the form in which data arrive-can you imagine a devoted teacher becoming excited about the latest eloctronic report that serves up scores of disaggregated statistics?" Sharratt and Fullan go on to quote their colleagues Any Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley by writing "Teachers are data driven to distraction."

In their book, Sharratt and Fullan ask educators to take a "deliberate pause" and ask the following questions:

• How useful have your data been?
• Of all the data available, which are most critical?
• Which data are missing?
• Instead of using data, do players at every level "hope for" exceptional instructional practice within the mysterious black box known as the classroom?
• Give examples from your data that demonstrate you know that every child is learning at his or her maximum potential?"

These are crucial questions in any discussion of assessment. I highly recommend them in any discussion of assessment. The notion by Hargreaves and Shirley that Teachers are data driven to distraction deserves some immediate attention. I agree the amount of data teachers are required to collect under the current education reform policies are distracting them from good teaching. I feel the need to ask who is responsible for this? It is not teachers, not school adminstrators, or local schools. This insane focus on collecting data to the point, that it is distracting teachers is coming from the Federal Education policy of No Child Left Behind. This insanity is driven by Federal policies coming from the United States Department of Education. Keeping it simple in my humble opinion all distractions eminate from No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top polices. 

Time for a little professional reflection on data from Dr. Jesse Patrick Turner 

In my assessment courses I begin every course with this line on the board: There is the data that counts, and the data that really counts.

Then we proceed to list the data that counts to policy makers on the board. The usual suspect always shows state mastery test scores, (proficiency type data) assessments.

First question:  How useful is this data to students and teachers at the classroom level? The mantra usually goes something like this data tells us where our schools compare to others. Getting back to students and teachers…. Is this data useful for guiding differential instruction for individual students? Eventually the discussion ends up with not really. Does this data tell us explain why schools perform at certain levels compare to others? In a very short time it comes down to NO. So why do we collect it again? The answer ends up to something like we have to collect it. Would learning shut down if for some reason this data were lost? Resounding NO. 

Second question: So my follow up is: How useful is this data in driving instruction for individual students. It eventually comes around to well it's not timely enough to be used for that purpose really. It's grade level driven, so while this data informs us about a student's grade level proficiency, it does not inform us about where a students is proficient if they are not able to grade level work. It assessment we refer to that as the ceiling level. Good assessment practice requires we go down until we come to an assessment level that demonstrates they perform on. We learn only one thing from ceiling levels, our students cannot perform at this level, and we need to move down.  Again how useful is any of this data to driving instruction for students who are below proficiency? Answer not very useful. Considering that policy makers love to throw numbers like more than more 40% of our students can’t read, write, or do math at their grade level. So the data that counts to policy makers is of little use to nearly half of our students. So this data counts, but not to individual students.

Forth question: Can we talk about the data that really counts? We quickly discover the data that really counts is collected in the classroom on a daily basis. Are policy makers requesting this data? NO! Then are our policy makers using the data that really counts? Answer always ends up being NO. Can we afford to not look at this data? Again the answer ends up being NO. So the data that really counts does not count in Washington DC. Something is terribly wrong with a federal and state assessment systems that ignore the data that really counts, and Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium and PARCC cannot fix a broken policy.  

Peter DeWitt ends his piece rightly saying this about data. " We need to realize it's not the data's fault so we shouldn't hate it. It is what we, as educators or leaders, do with the data that matters."

I end with data becomes a dirty word when it does not inform instruction. When the main purpose of data collection is to compare, sort, and rate schools, and not improve learning for individual learners it become not a distraction, but harmful to students, teachers, and schools. It also begins to sound like eugenics. Eugenics is a dirty word in any discussions of race and class. Data becomes a dirty word when policy makers turn it in an abusive social shaping hammer. A hammer that continously degrades our children, their parents, and teachers. When policy makers refuse to stop using assessment as a hammer it becomes dirty. In simple terms it sure sounds like eugenics. 

I charge the United States Department of Education with abuse, and I plan on going to the July 28 National Badass Teachers protest outside the United States Department of Education's house of dirty data.

Silence and apathy are not acceptable,

Jesse The Walking Man Turner 

If you like to read Peter DeWitt's full article you can find it here http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2013/12/why_is_data_a_dirty_word.html?r=30273851

If you want to listen to what the walking man listened to on his walk snow shoe walk over the moutain today it Peter Tosh's Go Tell It On The Mountain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkUjtl3sH_k#t=8