Thread: Education "Reform" : “Common Core” standards

High School Forces Kids to Attend ‘Racial Identity’ Classes on MLK Jr. Day

by Joel B. Pollak 12 Jan 2016

New Trier High School, one of the country’s top public schools, is forcing students to attend seminars on racial identity on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. “The goals for this day are to help New Trier students develop a deeper understanding of their own racial identities and the identities of others, and to better understand how we can all work to counter the impact of systemic racism in our lives,” reads a statement on the school district’s website.

Attendance is mandatory, though other public institutions in New Trier Township will be closed in observance of the holiday.

Students at the high school’s two campuses will be allowed to choose from a list of provocative and highly political seminars on race, including the following:

The Truth about Ferguson: The Investigation into the Death of Michael Brown

The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked protest and outrage regarding the treatment of people of color by law enforcement. Some demanded reform and recognition of ongoing injustices, while others came to the defense of officer Darren Wilson. Meanwhile, similar events following Brown’s death continued to go viral on social media. The United States Justice Department investigated the death of Brown as well as the Ferguson Police Department as a whole. This seminar will look into the Justice Departments findings

.

Why Do I Have to Feel Guilty for Being White?

Talking about race doesn’t usually feel good for anyone. White people often walk away feeling guilty and thinking, “But I didn’t do anything!” In this workshop, we’ll explore how white guilt can become a roadblock in our journeys toward becoming white allies.

Unconscious Perceptions of Race

How does the media you choose and the community in which you live both reflect and influence the way you look at race. Join us as we look at our automatic thinking processes, how it influences the way we look at race and consider how we might adapt those processes.

Mascot or Mockery: Finding Stereotypes in Popular Culture

We will discuss the presence of racially charged parts of our popular culture that we often accept. We will discuss Halloween and sports mascots in particular. Many universities, including the University of Illinois, have recently wrestled with this topic.

Disney and the Creation of Racial Identity

Watch classic Disney films and discuss how these films influence childhood development of racial identities.

Representations of the Middle East: Stereotypes and Islamophobia

This session will examine racial stereotypes of Middle Easterners in film, television, news, and current events and how these stereotypes contribute to the Islamophobic climate. We will use the “Pyramid of Hate” model to assess the escalation of anti-Muslim rhetoric, profiling, and hate crimes.

Western Bias in Science

Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein… Were all of the great discoveries in science made by Greeks and Europeans? Explore the impact of our western bias in the history of science in this discussion session.

Dear Mom and Dad, What (Race) Am I?

This session will focus on a conversation of racial classification and identity.

What is Your Privilege?

Participants will walk through a simulation of what it is like to lose privilege and view others who have it. Participants will be given an identity of a different race and will be given the hardships that encompass that race.

Yer’ A White Wizard, Harry: Whitewashing in Cinema

This is a discussion about white dominance in the film industry. We are going to be taking a look at different cases where the voices of People of Color were silenced by the industry and how we can change it.

Intersections: Where Race and Gender Connect

This session will be led by representatives from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Gender and Sexuality Center. The session will examine the intersections between race and gender and how each impacts one’s identity.

One seminar focuses on the experience of being a black Muslim. No other faith is represented in the schedule. Several others touch on sexual themes, including an seminar on black artists entitled “To Pimp a Butterfly.”

Full lists of seminars are provided for the Northfield (freshman) campus and the Winnetka (main) campus.

In addition, students will be required to attend a “special presentation” by Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X, and a keynote address by author Isabel Wilkerson, an open supporter of the Black Lives Matter protest movement.

A concerned parent contacted Breitbart News and confirmed that students would not be excused from school. An email to parents from Timothy Hayes, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services, reminded parents that “MLK Seminar Day is a regular attendance day, and we will follow our typical procedures for attendance.”

Hayes did not return requests from Breitbart News for comment, nor did New Trier Superintendent Linda Yonke.

One parent, who did not wish to be named, told Breitbart News via e-mail:

“In order to be post-racial you have to live it. There’s a time and place to look at racism and the horrors endured. But this is morphing into getting people riled up. It is always about seeing people different rather than what is shared.

“They are supposed to be a neutral environment. Yet they are pushing all this ‘white guilt,’ using our kids for their own agenda, twisting their minds–whether it be sexual or racial.”

Another parent, who likewise did not wish to be named, said via e-mail:

“This is supposed to be a day to honor Dr. Martin Luther King. Yet of the 59 classes, over half seem to focus on the color of skin and not the content of character. Why not spend the day to study, reflect and write about Dr. King’s actual words, the advancements made and the dreams yet to be realized?…

“These ‘workshops’ and ‘classes’ seem likely to breed within the kids a sense of guilt and shame–as if they are at fault for the misfortune in the world and it is their responsibility to make amends. Several classes are designed to teach them to be, in essence, ‘community organizers.’…It all seems like there is a political agenda underlying it all.”

The program for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day appears to violate the policies of the New Trier Township High School District, which require a balanced presentation of political issues: “We charge the faculty with the obligation to help our students identify arguments or preachments which are demonstrably unbalanced by bias, hate, calumny, distortion of facts, or ignorance of or indifference to the laws of evidence and the requirements of proof.”

District personnel are also required to “Refrain from using school contracts and privileges to promote partisan politics, sectarian religious views, or personal agendas of any kind. Foster critical thinking and development of alternative views.”

Yet the program for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is shaped by radical left-wing ideology. There are no presentations from conservative perspectives, such as seminars that question the idea of “systemic racism” itself.

Other area schools–including Evanston Township High School, which has the largest percentage of black students of any high school on the North Shore–will be closed for the holiday, as usual.

New Trier High School is located on Chicago’s affluent North Shore, and was ranked #4 in the nation last year, according to Business Insider, which gave the district an A+ for academics and teachers, but a C+ for diversity.

The school was also the setting for many of John Hughes’s classic 1980s films portraying suburbia, and is the basis for the wealthy schools portrayed in Risky Business and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It boasts many famous and influential alumni, including Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, Hollywood icon Ann-Margret, Nobel laureate Jack Steinberger, and actor Adam Baldwin, a noted conservative who told Breitbart News students should “call in sick.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...mlk-new-trier/

Just a blog by a guy who's a retired math teacher

Lousy PARCC items from Pearson released by a brave yet anonymous teacher

This is from Leonie Haimson:

Important! Collective action needed by bloggers

As some of you may know, Celia Oyler of TC posted an anonymous teacher’s critique of the 4th grade PARCC exam a few days ago that identified a few texts and the questions asked. Yesterday Celia received a threatening email from PARCC and removed the name of the text sources & the wording of the questions. https://celiaoyler.wordpress.com/201...-test-exposed/ She is now looking into challenging PARCC’s position legally.

My tweet and many others linking to the piece were deleted after PARCC complained to Twitter of copyright infringement Diane Ravitch wrote a blog post about this last night that she insists was somehow deleted.

As a collective act of defiance, I propose that as many of us as possible re-post the original blog post and challenge PARCC’s authority and capacity. Other points that could be made:

It should be required that all high-stakes tests be released after they are given to check for accuracy and fairness. If kids, teachers, and schools are to be judged on the basis of these exams, the test-makers shouldn’t be allowed to escape accountability by keeping their tests secret after they are given.

It is ridiculous that Pearson, PARCC or any organization would even try to keep secret the items on a test that is given to millions of students nationwide.

It is especially important to publicize as widely as possible the awful quality of the Pearson/PARCC exams– designed to find as many kids as possible failing. Pearson in particular has been known for producing crappy tests for years (witness the Pineapple.)

You could also mention the fact that most of the writing responses on the PARCC exam will be scored by computers that are unable to distinguish sense from utter nonsense.

[I wrote about this here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...core-tests/%5D

The full blog post is pasted below, and attached as a word doc as well. Please consider posting this on your blog and let me know if you do. thanks!

Leonie Haimson

https://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/...ymous-teacher/

The PARCC Test: Exposed

The author of this blog posting is a public school teacher who will remain anonymous.
I will not reveal my district or my role due to the intense legal ramifications for exercising my Constitutional First Amendment rights in a public forum. I was compelled to sign a security form that stated I would not be “Revealing or discussing passages or test items with anyone, including students and school staff, through verbal exchange, email, social media, or any other form of communication” as this would be considered a “Security Breach.” In response to this demand, I can only ask—whom are we protecting?
There are layers of not-so-subtle issues that need to be aired as a result of national and state testing policies that are dominating children’s lives in America. As any well prepared educator knows, curriculum planning and teaching requires knowing how you will assess your students and planning backwards from that knowledge. If teachers are unable to examine and discuss the summative assessment for their students, how can they plan their instruction? Yet, that very question assumes that this test is something worth planning for. The fact is that schools that try to plan their curriculum exclusively to prepare students for this test are ignoring the body of educational research that tells us how children learn, and how to create developmentally appropriate activities to engage students in the act of learning. This article will attempt to provide evidence for these claims as a snapshot of what is happening as a result of current policies.

The PARCC test is developmentally inappropriate

In order to discuss the claim that the PARCC test is “developmentally inappropriate,” examine three of the most recent PARCC 4th grade items.
A book leveling system, designed by Fountas and Pinnell, was made “more rigorous” in order to match the Common Core State Standards. These newly updated benchmarks state that 4th Graders should be reading at a Level S by the end of the year in order to be considered reading “on grade level.”

[Celia’s note: I do not endorse leveling books or readers, nor do I think it appropriate that all 9 year olds should be reading a Level S book to be thought of as making good progress.]
The PARCC, which is supposedly a test of the Common Core State Standards, appears to have taken liberties with regard to grade level texts. For example, on the Spring 2016 PARCC for 4th Graders, students were expected to read an excerpt from Shark Life: True Stories about Sharks and the Sea by Peter Benchley and Karen Wojtyla. According to Scholastic, this text is at an interest level for Grades 9-12, and at a 7th Grade reading level. The Lexile measure is 1020L, which is most often found in texts that are written for middle school, and according to Scholastic’s own conversion chart would be equivalent to a 6th grade benchmark around W, X, or Y (using the same Fountas and Pinnell scale).
Even by the reform movement’s own standards, according to MetaMetrics’ reference material on Text Complexity Grade Bands and Lexile Bands, the newly CCSS aligned “Stretch” lexile level of 1020 falls in the 6-8 grade range. This begs the question, what is the purpose of standardizing text complexity bands if testing companies do not have to adhere to them? Also, what is the purpose of a standardized test that surpasses agreed-upon lexile levels?
So, right out of the gate, 4th graders are being asked to read and respond to texts that are two grade levels above the recommended benchmark. After they struggle through difficult texts with advanced vocabulary and nuanced sentence structures, they then have to answer multiple choice questions that are, by design, intended to distract students with answers that appear to be correct except for some technicality.

Finally, students must synthesize two or three of these advanced texts and compose an original essay. The ELA portion of the PARCC takes three days, and each day includes a new essay prompt based on multiple texts. These are the prompts from the 2016 Spring PARCC exam for 4th Graders along with my analysis of why these prompts do not reflect the true intention of the Common Core State Standards.

ELA 4th Grade Prompt #1

Refer to the passage from “Emergency on the Mountain” and the poem “Mountains.” Then answer question 7.

Think about how the structural elements in the passage from “Emergency on the Mountain” differ from the structural elements in the poem “Mountains.”

Write an essay that explains the differences in the structural elements between the passage and the poem. Be sure to include specific examples from both texts to support your response.

The above prompt probably attempts to assess the Common Core standard RL.4.5: “Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text.”
However, the Common Core State Standards for writing do not require students to write essays comparing the text structures of different genres. The Grade 4 CCSS for writing about reading demand that students write about characters, settings, and events in literature, or that they write about how authors support their points in informational texts. Nowhere in the standards are students asked to write comparative essays on the structures of writing. The reading standards ask students to “explain” structural elements, but not in writing. There is a huge developmental leap between explaining something and writing an analytical essay about it.

[Celia’s note: The entire enterprise of analyzing text structures in elementary school – a 1940’s and 50’s college English approach called “New Criticism” — is ridiculous for 9 year olds anyway.]
The PARCC does not assess what it attempts to assess

ELA 4th Grade Prompt #2

Refer to the passages from “Great White Shark” and Face the Sharks. Then answer question 20.

Using details and images in the passages from “Great White Sharks” and Face to Face with Sharks, write an essay that describes the characteristics of white sharks.
It would be a stretch to say that this question assesses CCSS W.4.9.B: “Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text.”