Are You Having Your Child Opt Out?

Many parents are having their children opt out of standardized test.   The following letter appears in full on Google.com. 

Many parents are opting out for many reasons, for more information about common core and standardized testing in New Hampshire visit Stop Common Core in New Hampshire.

Letter to my Daughter’s Teacher: Why We’re Opting her out of the State Tests

Dear Grace,

It is with the highest level of respect for you that I’m writing to inform you that Haven will not participate in the state mandated standardized tests this April. Using student test scores to rate and rank students and teachers is an ethically unsound practice and is degrading to the profession of teaching.

This year I have been in awe of your incredible skills as Haven’s teacher, and I know that no standardized test can come even close to capturing what she has learned in your classroom. Furthermore, your bravery and resolve in the face of the top down pressures from the State of New York may weigh on you, but you do not let that determine your curricular decisions. Instead you teach with your heart and soul, and your excitement has ignited Haven’s passion for social studies, reading, writing, and mathematics. No standardized test can measure the spirited dinner conversations Haven has initiated this year about immigration, thanks to your elaborately designed integrated social studies curriculum. I listen carefully as Haven describes class field trips in New York City, her excitement about historical fiction, and her deep analysis of primary sources and questions regarding privilege, prejudice and access. I cannot count the number of times Haven has greeted me at the door with, “Mom, did you know…?!” No test could possibly be designed to measure the multitude of ways in which she extends the investigations you start in class, or document the initiation she has taken to write her own books at home about the immigrants living in her mind. Her learning is demonstrated in her written work, performance of role-plays, various conversations, not to mention your regular curriculum newsletters, extensive and detailed narrative reports, and personal emails. Watching Haven learn this year has deepened my own commitment to preparing teachers to design integrated curriculum that examines enduring questions and takes up multiple perspectives. Haven’s learning is travelling far beyond the walls of your single classroom. I do not need a test score to validate her learning this year.

Continue reading the letter here.

Cathy


"Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education." - Victor Hugo

School Choice Matters

Everyone needs an option other than public schools.  The following article appeared on EAGNews.org

STUDY: Black home schooled students outperform white public schoolers

Kyle Olson

Kyle founded Education Action Group in 2007.
Find Kyle on Twitter.

SALEM, Ore. – A new study proves all students can learn – provided they’re in the right setting.
A new analysis of standardized test data conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute reveals black home schooled students outperformed white children in public schools.
“The Black homeschool children’s high achievement test scores were remarkable. Parents without teaching certificates helping their children from a traditionally low-achieving minority group excel this way should cause all educators and social advocacy groups to take special note,” Dr. Brian Ray, the researcher and president of NHERI, says in a news release.
Ray looked at black home schooling families nationwide and children who learned by that educational option for more than half their school-age lives.
According to NHERI:

These Black homeschool students’ achievement test scores were quite high, all things considered. They scored at or above the 50th percentile in reading (68th), language (56th), math (50th), and core (i.e., a combination of reading, language, and math; 58th) subtests. By definition, the 50th percentile is the mean for all students (of all ethnicities/races) nationwide in institutional public schools.

After controlling for the gender and family socioeconomic status of students, Ray’s analysis found home schoolers had an effect size in reading scores of about 42 percentile points higher than children educated in a government school.

For language, home schoolers outpaced public schooled whites by about 26 percentile points. For math, being homeschooled had an effect size of about 23 percentile points higher than if they attended a government school.
NHERI reports some of the top reasons black parents gave for home schooling their children:

* “Prefer to teach the child at home so that you can provide religious or moral instruction,”
* “Accomplish more academically than in conventional schools,”
* “For the parents to transmit values, beliefs, and worldview to the child,”
* “To customize or individualize the education of each child,” and
* “Want to provide religious or moral instruction different from that taught in public schools.”

Other research indicates black families have increasingly been moving towards home schooling. Rates have increased 127 percent over the last four years, according to the Heartland Institute.
“I wonder how teachers unions, African American advocacy groups, certified teachers, public school administrators, and professors of education will look at these findings. Will they start encouraging Black families to homeschool?” Ray asks.

Guilty of Racketeering

I have never understood why more teachers are not busted for racketeering.  I was glad to see these teachers finally get convicted.

Teachers in Atlanta cheating scandal hear verdicts

Last Updated Apr 1, 2015 4:09 PM EDT

ATLANTA -- Eleven former Atlanta public school educators were convicted Wednesday of racketeering for their role in a wide-ranging conspiracy to inflate scores on students' standardized tests.
Only one teacher was acquitted of all charges. The 11 convicted represented teachers, testing coordinators and other administrators who were accused of participating in the conspiracy dating to 2005, motivated by pressure to meet federal and local standards to receive bonuses or keep their jobs in the Atlanta Public Schools district of about 50,000 students.

Former Dobbs Elementary school teacher Dessa Curb and her defense attorney, Sanford Wallack, listen in Fulton County Superior Court March 19, 2015.

AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kent D. Johnson

The teacher acquitted of all charges, Dessa Curb, was found not guilty of a racketeering charge and two charges of false statements, CBS Atlanta affiliate WGCL-TV reports.
When Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter asked for the guilty teachers to be taken into custody, their attorneys were quick to argue, but the judge held firm.

Read more at CBSNews.Com.

Cathy

"Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual." - Albert Einstein

Legal With Existing Statute

The following article appeared on  Watchdog.


By Steve Mac Donald | Watchdog Arena
The small town of Croydon, N.H. found a way to bring school choice to its families using existing state law, upsetting the state school board chairwoman.
New Hampshire has a number of small towns that do not have school buildings or only educate younger children. To address education at higher grade levels, they contract with neighboring towns and negotiate area tuition agreements.
State law allows towns to pursue these agreements, sending taxpayer education dollars to any accredited school, public, charter, or private, even in neighboring states, with the exception of religious schools. The local board, at the behest of voters, negotiates contracts and approves taxpayer-funded tuition payments to those schools.
The money follows the student.
With this in mind, Croydon looked ahead to a time when their current contract with a neighboring district would expire. Rather than just renew the contract, they began a discussion about school choice. They looked at state law, spoke with the State School Board, and asked voters about their preferences.
The result was a program, legal within existing statute, which would allow public education tax dollars to follow every student.

Development of this uncommon program began in 2007 and will be implemented this coming school year. Although it is a unique opportunity for younger students, a nearby district has offered a similar choice option for high school students for more than 25 years.
(In the interview) Dr. Underwood also talked about how the school board collaborated with surrounding public and private schools, so schools are competing for Croydon students. This is bringing down the tuition costs – a savings to the town.

While Croydon had been researching their options as early as 2007, their discovery only became more widely known when they began implementing it in the 2014-2015 school year. State School Board Chair Virginia Barry—whose mindset is “the districts legal obligations must supersede parent’s demands”—announced that the plan violated state law and told Croydon they would have to stop. If they refused the state would withhold $39,000.00 dollars in statewide education money.  But Croydon felt certain the law was on their side.
Last month, Commissioner of Education Virginia Barry wrote to Cynthia Gallagher, superintendent of SAU #43, and said the practice of sending pupils to private schools using taxpayer funds is unlawful; the state ordered the SAU to stop.
Underwood said state law supports school choice and that there is precedent.

“There are communities on the borders of Vermont and Maine who send their kids to Vermont and Maine private schools. They are not controlled by the state Board of Education at all,” Underwood said.
Lyme has tuition agreements with both Thetford Academy and St. Johnsbury Academy, both in Vermont, she said. And several communities along the Maine border have tuition agreements with Fryeburg Academy in Maine.
Croydon, along with former State Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas, sent a letter to Barry with regard to her incomplete application of state law as grounds to invalidate the tuition plan.

You cite RSA 193:1 and purport that it says that districts may only assign students to public schools. This is inaccurate. RSA 193:1 defines the duties of parents to ensure school attendance, and neither describes the duties districts have nor restricts the assignment ability of districts. In addition to your inaccurate interpretation, you cite to the portion of that statute that states: ‘A parent of any child at least 6 years of age … shall cause such a child to attend the public school to which the child is assigned.’ You fail to cite section (a) of the statute which clearly states that private school attendance is an exception to attending public school.

To read the rest of the story visit Watchdog.org.


Cathy

"When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children." - Albert Shanker, Former President of the American Federation of Teachers

Montessori - Why it Matters for your Child's Success and Happiness

Today,  we have a guest post by author and educator Charlotte Cushman. 

Contrary to what most people think, the sole purpose of education is not just to fill a child up with lots of information.  When a child grows up, he will need to know how to take what he knows and apply it in order to survive in the world.  He will need to know how to make decisions, how to prioritize, how to discern between right and wrong and so on.  In short, he will need to know how to think, and since thinking does not happen automatically, reasoning skills is what he needs to be taught.  The Montessori Method does exactly that.

The thinking process starts with identifying the facts of reality.  An entire area of the pre-elementary classroom is devoted to the identification of reality through the use of the senses.  In addition, the entire Montessori classroom has self-correcting materials so that the child can figure out for himself what is true or false, the causes of events, the effects of actions and numerous other aspects of the real world.

Montessori children learn facts, but they learn them along with the ability to logically unite them together.  The child forms concepts based on the facts of reality and then goes on to learn new concepts based on the first ones he learned.  Any new knowledge is consistent with what he has learned before. His learning also occurs in a logical sequence.  He does not learn fractions, for example, until he has a concept of whole numbers. In history he does not skip around from event to event or merely memorize a bunch of dates, he learns history in the order that it happened.  Concepts are presented to the child in order, progressing from simple to complex, concrete to abstract, in incremental steps that he can recognize and understand.  This is important because everything that we know depends on what we learned before, what we had to understand in order to grasp the next concept. Thinking is based on these sound principles of reality, consistency and order and because learning happens logically in Montessori, the child feels that he can comprehend the world. 

 Another essential element to the child’s development is the ability to concentrate.  Montessori thought that concentration lays the foundation for the child’s character, social behavior, intelligence, body control, academic success, morality, etc. Thus, she created another area in the classroom devoted to learning concentration.  In order to learn how to concentrate, a child needs to be allowed to work independently, without interruption and he needs to practice and repeat his work as much as he needs until he feels satisfied that he understands it.   Without understanding what he is learning, the child will be hampered-- he will memorize information, only to forget it shortly thereafter.  This does not teach a child how to think, but rather, teaches him how to forget and leaves him with a poor memory.

The child’s mind is the only thing that can bring him success and happiness and its method of development is crucial. The only educational system that I know of that has a specialized, integrated methodology for the specific purpose of teaching a child how to think is Montessori.

To read more about Why Montessori Matters visit Charlotte Cushman's website.http://whymontessorimatters.wix.com/montessorimatters

To purchase Charlotte's book visit Amazon.

Virginia Barry Informed Croydon is Following the Law

The following article appeared in full on the Union Leader.

State wants to work with Croydon on school choice issue

By MEGHAN PIERCE 
Union Leader Correspondent

CROYDON — The Department of Education is looking for common ground on school choice in the Croydon School District, an official said Friday.

Commissioner of Education Virginia Barry “has met with some of the representatives of the community, and the commissioner has expressed an interest in supporting the community in looking at the options that are available,” Judith Fillion, director of the Division of Program Support at the Department of Education, said Friday afternoon on behalf of Barry.
“She wants to help in any way to have the community offer their children the best education possible,” Fillion said of Barry.

In a letter to Barry this week, Croydon School Board Chairwoman Jody Underwood defended the school district’s new practice of paying tuition to send a handful of students to private schools. There is nothing in state law that says public school districts can’t pay tuition to a private school, Underwood said.
In the letter, written by former N.H. Supreme Court Associate Justice Charles G. Douglas, III, Underwood also said Croydon would continue sending “students to private schools when it believes it is in the best interest of the child and the district.”
Fillion said Friday she didn’t know if Barry had received the letter or not yet, and did not have a response to the letter.

Underwood said, though, she has not heard from the Department of Education, yet she was pleased to hear Barry wants to support options.
“We look forward to working with her to provide the best opportunities for education for every child. Sometimes, private school best fits the needs of an individual student, and they should have the opportunity to attend those schools without additional costs,” Underwood said.
In February, Barry wrote to SAU 43 that the practice of sending pupils to private schools using taxpayer funds to pay tuition was unlawful and ordered the SAU to stop.

The letter from Douglas and Underwood argues against the state laws Barry used to support her order to stop school choice in Croydon:
“You cite RSA 193:1 and purport that it says that districts may only assign students to public schools. This is inaccurate. RSA 193:1 defines the duties of parents to ensure school attendance, and neither describes the duties districts have nor restricts the assignment ability of districts. In addition to your inaccurate interpretation, you cite to the portion of that statute that states: ‘A parent of any child at least 6 years of age ... shall cause such a child to attend the public school to which the child is assigned.’ You fail to cite section (a) of the statute which clearly states that private school attendance is an exception to attending public school.”
Croydon faced the possibility of the state withholding up to $39,000 in adequacy money next year if they continued school choice in the fall.

Croydon and Newport are both part of SAU 43. There had been a long-standing agreement that Croydon students would attend Newport schools after leaving Croydon Village School, a kindergarten through fourth grade elementary school.
There are currently about 60 students from fifth to 12th grade in the district. Most of the students continue to go Newport Middle/High School.

But since school choice became an option in the district, Croydon has been sending five of its students to a non-Newport school, including one student who attends public school in Sunapee, one who attends Kimball Union Academy in Meriden and three who attend Newport Montessori.
Along with state law, precedent also supports school choice, Underwood said.

Lyme has tuition agreements with both Thetford Academy and St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont, she said, and several communities along the Maine border have tuition agreements with the Fryeburg Academy in Maine.
- See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150330/NEWS04/150339970#sthash.zGtNmHBH.dpuf

"Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role." - William T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889