My second day at Network for Public Education Conference

The morning's first session included a panel on the Common Core:

Randi Weingarten:

• The push back from teachers on Corporate School Reform is not being ignored. It's noticed by those who are in power and it frustrates them.
• During this period of privatization and de-professionalizing of teachers, the idea of public education as a public good is under assault.
• National standards might be a good thing to help raise the standards and opportunities for children living in poverty.
• The Common Core standards are not appropriate for children in K-2.
• The testing will conflate and destroy any good that might have come from Common Core.
• The middle class is disappearing. We need to rebuild the middle class.

Paul Horton:

• If you are from Chicago, then you are angry. In the coming weeks, some Chicago teachers may be fired.
• No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top were born in Texas. The Texas 
• The Common Core is tied to data collection, the tests and Charters. There is no legal way of separating the Common Core from the Tests.
• The people who created the Common are test makers.
• Teachers don't need multi-billion dollar corporations to create curriculum and assessments that they should be paid to do.
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Geralyn McLaughlin

• Kindergarten is no longer the child's playground.
• Young children are being exposed to developmentally inappropriate, sit and get, drill and kill stuff.
• Many of the Common Core standards are not developmentally appropriate.
• The Common Core assumes that all children develop at the same rate. 
• Average age for learning to read is 6.5 years. Half learn earlier. Half learn later. Early readers are not better readers. 
• The Common Core demands that Kindergarteners read with fluency and accuracy.
• Let's stop demanding children be ready for school and have schools be ready for the children. Meet them where they are at.
• Children need play today more than ever.
• What the US can't learn from Finland.

Mercedes Schneider

• Common Core is not the same as national standards
• Common Core is the noose. Standardized testing is the scaffold. The high stakes and cut scores are the tightening of the noose.
• Common Core and Corporate Reforms ignores teacher professional judgement. 
• Common and standardized are not the same thing.
• No Child Left Behind has morphed into Common Core. Both need to be rejected.
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Jose Vilson

• Unions rightfully protect outspoken teachers.
• I don't teach kids for a higher teacher evaluation.
• The Common Core feels intentionally rushed.
• When we know that more than half of the children will fail the test, there is something wrong with the test.
• Too often we have the "experts" in one room and the teachers in another. Teachers are not considered the "experts" in their classrooms.
• Corporate School Reforms are destroying public education by demanding schools do things that they wouldn't make their own children do.
• We need to focus on the whole child -- not testing.

Opposing standardized tests that have no stakes is low hanging fruit. The real work is in opposing standardized tests that have the highest stakes. 

Diane Ravitch:

Diane Ravitch and me.

• Network for Public Education is a grassroots movement made by people who understand that public education is a public good not a private interest.
• Network for Public Education was Anthony Cody's idea.
• Randi Weingarten provided free legal aid to help start Network for Public Education
• Why we will win? 
• Robert Scott said we now have an educational-industrial complex and it was born in Texas.
• The assault on public education is a feature, not a bug, of Obama's administration.
• We may be out funded but we are not 
• I'm angry that powerful billionaires beat up on teachers who make less than their secretaries.
• I'm angry when legislators tell teachers how to teach.
• I'm tired of hearing people say they care about children and then do nothing about the 1 in 4 children who live in poverty.
• The Department of Education is an enemy of public education.
• The Democrats and Republican have merged into a bipartisan agenda that is really the Republican Agenda.
• I'm tired of people who say parents should have choice but then don't let them opt out of the testing. 
• We are going to win for several reasons: Everything proposed by the Corporate School Reformers fails.
• If privatization works, it should have worked in Milwaukee. It didn't work in Milwaukee. 
• Value Added Measurements shows who the students were in the class -- not the quality of the teacher. Value Added Measurements is junk science.
• We are being over run by 'disruption'. Children don't need disruption.
• Charter movement in US is resegregating America. 
• A 'for-profit public school' is an oxymoron.
• 90% of charters are no union schools.
• Every dollar of tax payers for public education should go to public schools not investors.
• Standardized tests measure the achievement gap -- they don't close it.
• Virtual Charters are a ponzi scheme.
• Main stream media is failing public education -- so we need to find other means to get our word out.
• Politicians and Legislators who think so little of our children should have to take the standardized tests and have their results published.
• Deborah Meier has been the voice of wisdom for longer than I have.
• Pittsburgh got a new school board and cancelled their contract with Teach For America.
• We are going to win because we own social media.
• Michelle Rhee was suppose to debate Diane Ravitch but Rhee wouldn't sign the contract. Rhee said she needed a partner -- so she got Rod Paige -- but then she wanted a third partner but couldn't find one so she wouldn't debate Ravitch.
• Corporate School Reformers are stealing tax payer dollars.
• We must stand in solidarity. We must be united. We must abandon ideological purity. We need a big tent. We need to stop pissing in our tent.
• Corporate School Reformers are the status quo
• Liberals think that facts persuade people -- conservatives know that stories persuade people. We need to reclaim the narrative. We must re-frame the argument against public education. We are defending democracy and children.
• We need retired teachers to speak up -- they can't be fired.
• I'm not going to be here forever. Who is going to take my place? You will. 
• Walls of Jericho will come tumbling down.