The Jose Vilson: The Blog

Validating Blogs #4080: Indirect People Are Shadyyyy

2010-03-18T18:44:05-07:00

C'mon Son: Star Wars Edition

Last week, after attending the awesome TEDxNYED, I found myself yearning for more of that collaborative energy. Everytime I thought I was done reflecting on some of the ideas presented, I find another opportunity to immediately use the knowledge acquired to something I’d already thought.

For instance, I invited a group of educators and concerned citizens to blog here about a series of topics ranging from school choice for their children to the impact of great educators. Each has a passionate voice and a vibrant energy that resonates through their own writing. Upon assembling this team, I also hoped that we’d start building towards a collective of concerned citizens addressing issues pertaining to Black / Latino education in this country, and our common concerns and solutions. Most of the people responded positively, and I expected 1-2 people who wouldn’t. These people were busier than anything and I had to respect that.

One of them totally disappointed me. I invited her since she’d inspired great discussion on Twitter through her #blacked hashtag and her new Ning, At first, her reaction was positive enough. After clarifying the assignment in the same way that I clarified to everyone else, I heard no reply. I let it go. Then, I turned over to Twitter and found her writing a series of tweets positing that those who blog are wasting their time since blogs don’t affect change. She infers the dullard thoughts of bloggers don’t compare to more erudite people who write peer-reviewed articles (and, I’m assuming, other pieces published under similar restrictions).

At first, I giggled at the idea that someone (who I’ve deemed anonymous since her handle is also a pseudonym) would use social media to validate one platform of social media (Twitter) over a more validated form of social media (blogging), and thusly promotes another social platform (Ning) which is also a collection of collections of another social platform (blogging).

Then, I thought, “Man, maybe she has a point. We who write out here only write to cyberspace, contributing to the throngs of information out there but not seeing immediate change with our writing. Those of us looking for validation from media will surely miss out on the boat.”

Then I stopped, took a deep breath, and noticed the huge wave of academics flocking to get a slice of this new way of delivering information. Whereas once, people used to have to travel outside of their confines to find information, people now type in a few words in a bar and get most of the information they need, much of it accredited and prioritized in order of importance and popularity. At one point, a piece of writing might get about 5-10 people looking over it and helping to fill in the gaps. Now, everyone from the solo writing to the news corporation can throw their piece of writing into this vast space and have 100s of people view and edit their writing, filling in the gaps and adding new information wherever they can.

In other words, crowdsourcing is the new peer-review.

Jay Rosen spoke about this at length in his speech from TEDxNYED, and it made me think of all the professors, PhDs, politicians, mathematicians, scientists, and people from all fields put out 90% of their material in hopes of getting the best and worst feedback in real time instead of waiting around for weeks. Some of the most well-respected individuals, who’ve earned their cred through academia, now see the validity of this venue. (About time.)

It’s certainly not perfect. We’re humans, often led by misinformation, and we’re not writing academic papers, researching every bit of what we opine to the masses. When I hit that “Publish” button, I’m prone to a few grammatical errors, and a little hyperbole. Yet, and still, I’m confused about by this person’s assertions about blogging as some sort of replacement for validated and heavily-researched articles. I disagree with people without being disagreeable, but please understand, even the words here on this blog have been used for “old media,” so again, where is the argument?

Few bloggers see themselves as replacing these “wise, sacred” texts. We just ask that we get a chance to express our voice to the public. Especially in places that don’t always accept our voice. Especially in arenas where our voices have been suppressed for years through various devious mechanisms. Even in places willing to accept one or two of us, they eventually see the need for different passions and canticles.

Hopefully, after reading next week’s collection of stories, you too will join the chorus.

Jose, who will lead from behind …

Well, If You Don’t Teach It, How Will They Know? [Beware the Ides of March]

2010-03-15T18:49:38-07:00

Julius Caesar Statue in Rome, Italy

What does it mean when a teacher says, “They don’t know ..?”

That’s often my quandary when I listen to the conversations about our students in classrooms all across the city (and in some cases, the nation). Topics like fractions, percentages, decimal places, and other seemingly rudimentary topics evade many of our students, and many teachers prefer to concentrate on these deficiencies with a flippant “They don’t know.” At some point, after the teacher carefully reflects upon their practices, looks at their data, and fully understands their students’ capabilities, they can reasonably say “They don’t know.”

And that’s where the real work begins.

In a national survey conducted by MetLife (“Survey of the American Teacher“), close to 90% of all teachers and supervisors believe that high expectations has a huge impact on student achievement (around 1500 teachers and supervisors were surveyed). Yet, only 36% of teachers and 51% of principals believe that all of their students have the ability to succeed academically. Naturally, this results in many students thinking their teachers don’t care much about them. Just over half of students agree that all of the teachers in their school want them to succeed. And frankly, this is unacceptable.

While the survey doesn’t have much qualitative data regarding this dynamic, I’d venture to guess that their years of experience and expertise via education are as disparate as the hopes and expectations of the students for themselves. To wit, I believe most teachers are actually qualified to teach the students they do, pedagogically and content-wise. I also believe that the definition of “bad teacher” varies from person to person, and still proves invalid since, as recently as November, districts rated only 1% of teachers unsatisfactory.

It also forces me to deduce that we have a long way to go before we see students as people who can achieve and achieve well. Let’s start out with something simple: flipping the question.

“Fair, so they don’t know fractions, and they don’t know decimals, and they don’t know everything else you’re saying they don’t know, even if that’s a huge generalization. Then what do they know?”

When asked, it’s usually followed by an awkward silence. Where once people were so opinionated about what their students might not know, they have an awkward time praising them and taking a real inventory. Abundance vs. deficit model. Then, the next question I’d ask is:

“Alright, so if they don’t know these things, how will we integrate them into what we have to teach them based on the standards?”

There’s the conversation starter. You know?

Mr. Vilson, whose getting better at having the gritty conversations …

Short Notes: Whereupon We Speak Our Truths and the Issue of Torii Hunter

2010-03-14T19:48:25-07:00

Angels' Torii Hunter Screams at Umpire

A few notes:

A great example of what happens when we try to control every little part of a staff’s speech in order to make them sound like they’re “normal.” [Vocalo]
Google buys into Pi Day. [Mashable]
An ed-techy’s case for pedagogy … in tech. [Box of Tricks]
You ever wonder what Twitter would be like if someone drew out everything some random celebrity said, spelling mistakes and all? Wonder no longer. [TweetMuseum]

There’s something funny that emerges whenever you put several opinionated, proud, and disconcerted members into a confined place and make them play nice. This doesn’t always happen. While in some places, there are no bosses manipulating the intricacies of these relationships, Major League Baseball is certainly not one of them.

In one of the more “controversial” stories of the off-season, Torii Hunter of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim said Black Latino players are “impostors,” later stating that they’re not Black players but Latin American players. The outrage behind the comments spread amongst many Latinos, especially those concerned with the racial disparities across Latin America and its implications here in the United States. That notwithstanding, I think the definition of “Black” to Torii Hunter falls in line with many African-American in the States, and that’s the part we lose in the sensationalization of this topic.

This is nothing new. People like Gary Sheffield have been discussing the lack of black players and the “replacement” of African-American players with Black Latino players or Latino players as a whole, and in a sense, I agree. African-American baseball players have been encouraged to go to other sports like basketball and football. I’m not a fan of baseball’s quiet underground market for Latino players either. I see there are tons of factors playing into Torri’s comment, much of which I understand.

Yet, the one thing that seems to perpetuate this divide is simply these misgivings about nomenclature and shared ancestry / struggle / heritages. This also unfortunately showed up at the SXSW conference, highlighting social media and technology use around the world, the biggest such conference. In the Blacks in Tech meeting, Kety Esquivel discussed an incident with a particular provocateur who questioned why she and an Asian panelist were included in this panel. Kety gracefull answered the question, and upon further reflection, posted this:

There is always not just one truth. My father’s lessons from childhood when he taught me Aesop’s fable about the elephant are as true now as ever. We are all blind men and women standing around the elephant and all of the pieces that we hold are true and yet none of them are true on its own individually. The elephant has a tail that resembles a rope. The elephant has an ear that resembles a fan. The elephant has legs which resemble tree trunks. And in the end it is in truth an elephant.

The elephant here is the truth, and while everyone has their truth, we become less blind when we work together towards finding the elephant, not by sticking to our assertions about what the trunk might feel like. That’s where we’re missing the point.

It’s also the opportunity where we get to talk about elephants as the larger beings they are.

Jose, who’s working with transformations this week in math …

It’s What I Like About You (A Meme For Schools)

2010-03-11T19:01:42-08:00

The Romantics

In my personal journey for growth, I’ve found that the dearth of positivity amongst involved adults can turn any school, well-meaning or otherwise, into a dumping ground of negative soot. In such an environment, it only makes sense that kids suffer. While I don’t participate in too much negative banter nor do I like simply listing problems that exist if not accompanied by some form of solution, I find it’s the responsibility of all adult parties involved to make sure that the soot stays out of the walls of their buildings.

Here are some #eduthingsIlike I like:

- I like schools that aren’t split apart when architecturally it makes no sense.

- I like schools that do the most with what they’ve been given.

- I like schools that look to find ways to work with a child and develop them as whole children before castigating them as special ed or throwing them out as quickly as possible.

- I like elementary schools that teach their students strong rituals and routines before they get to middle school.

- I like middle schools that assume responsibility for making sure they know high school is the real bridge to adulthood, not the phase they’re in at that point.

- I like schools that empower teachers to become proactive leaders.

- I like schools where the sense of urgency is mediated by careful and intentional planning.

- I like schools that teach the whole child.

- I like schools that balance the academic with the socio-emotional.

- I like schools that speak in three languages: the language of the pedagogy, the language of the community, and the language of the students.

- I also like schools that show students the bridge to success in this country without losing a sense of identity.

- I like schools with active parent involvement and after-school programs.

- I like teachers who buy into a larger vision for the school, working towards the students and their needs first.

- I like teachers who balance their discussion of “What the kids don’t know” with “What the kids do know.”

- I like teachers who want to know more than the 180 or so days of instruction inside their classroom, extending themselves and their voices in other arenas.

- I like teachers who are well-versed in politics but see themselves as change agents without deference to educrats.

- I like when pedagogues talk about building personal responsibility only after they talk about the factors that lead to current (and often underperforming) conditions.

- I love pedagogues who care. And care a lot.

- I love kids, even when they make me want to hold a piece of chalk the wrong way and run it right off a clean chalkboard.

- I love kids who come ready to learn, breakfast in stomach, mind in heart.

- I love kids who, even when they’re not ready, they’re willing to get ready if given a chance.

- I like when we talk about things we are, and not what we’re not.

Mr. V, who is unfettered and unafraid of honesty as a means of activism …

p.s. – Thanks, @tonnet.

Excellence Is My Presence, Never Tense, Never Hesitant

2010-03-09T18:39:47-08:00

Notorious BIG, Biggie, 1994

As we commemorate the passing of Christopher “Biggie” Wallace 13 years ago, we must also remember a big reason we consider him one of the greatest rappers of all time: his delivery. It wasn’t so much the diversity of flows and rhythms within rhymes and from song to song; it was the crisp and commanding delivery of each line. Like a Black Russian, his songs were at once smooth and potent, sweet and demanding. Along with the actual lyrics and subject matter, his rather introspective lyrics spoke to the pathos of the ghetto and the mentality of newly successful ghetto boys.

I bring this up because Dan Meyer did me a huge favor this past weekend at TEDxNYED: he succinctly and precisely described my blog in a way I’d never heard. While I have a hard time completely recanting what he said, he did mention that my blog serves a mix of my education work and my policy / activist work. On the one end, I’ll interact with education heavies readily, particularly on Twitter. On the other end, I’ll interact with people edunerds have never heard of, and they tend to be the people no one’s ever heard before.

And the one thing everyone seems to agree upon: I can actually write.

Sometimes, these posts get people from divergent occupations to have heated arguments in the comments section, but mostly, the conversations become a beautiful harmony of concerned individuals. That’s where I believe this blog must officially go. I never find myself in any particular lane heavily, because the traffic often gets too dense in one for me to really own it. I’m not very ed-techy, or ed-policy heavy. I have strong convictions about education leadership, but I don’t want people judging whether I can discuss the latest Obama policy when I’m supposed to have a particular focus. I don’t engage in gossip anymore, but every so often, I find myself intertwining entertainment with education, but not in a DetentionSlip sorta way. (I’m not a fan of the BS that streams out of that blog).

That’s often where I find myself looking to Biggie for guidance. One of his greatest quotes was “If I was working at McDonald’s, I’d probably be rappin’ about burgers.” In other words, his current life made up the bulk of his work. Even if they existed in hyperbole and braggadocio, he still managed to impress us time and again with the clever precision and urgent presence. It’s as if everytime he got on the mic, no matter what the subject, what he had to say was the most important thing anyone had to hear over the 3:30 he had you for.

This blog, I hope, has the same intonation.

Jose, on brawl nights, performs like Mike. Anyone: Tyson, Jordan, Jackson, Action …

p.s. – Are you ready for Black-Latino Ed Week here? 2 weeks and counting …

No More Heroes

2010-03-08T18:37:33-08:00

Superman Dies

Last week, the whole world found out that Guru a.k.a. Keith Elam of the world-renown hip-hop duo Gang Starr had (ostensibly) died of a recent heart attack he suffered the day before. Entertainment bloggers reported it. Wikipedia reported it. Celebrities who are usually in the know said it. Then, I typed up a dedication to the man, thinking these three had become relatively credible sources.

Ten minutes later, the news of his demise was squashed.

I was crushed. Hurt. Distraught. A bit angry, especially after my apology and subsequent redaction.

Then, happy the man was still alive.

His music is a big reason I made it through college to begin with. Songs like “Royalty” and “Moment of Truth” infused awesome street symphonies with super-tight poetry in ways no one’s mimicked since. He isn’t superlyrical or completely braggadocious, but his street tales and messages of peace and reflection carried me through some tough times and even some awesome times. I never had the fortune of picking up his albums early in my youth, but as I got older, I recognized Preemo (DJ Premier) and Guru’s melodies from a mile away.

It also made me think of the people I valued as heroes, people whose names sparked chatter in their respective fields, whose work made people quiver with excitement, whose passion put them just a notch above everyone else I looked up to. During college, I met many of these folks and gathered many more heroes along the way, learning more about myself as a person through their works and my reflections upon those. Whether it was education, activism, writing / poetry, or just life as a whole, I sought these figures actively as a source of the proverbial light.

Meeting them in limited spaces gave me and others the impression that they’re somehow on another level of “avatar” than those of us acolytes. In many ways, that still holds true: when one is still learning and finding their guide in life, one needs those role models to help guide their personas and spirits.

As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve become acutely aware of my heroes’ faults. Starting from my extensive research of the long history of Muhammad Ali’s womanizing and Malcolm X before he became we semi-deify now, my ever-expanding knowledge began to deconstruct the images I had of them, and as I got older and saw my more current heroes more regularly, I saw the griminess, the discontent, the shiftiness, and the inexplicable. I also found myself at a loss for words at the indirectness and secret society rules many of them played by.

In a fit of poetic rage, I metaphorically killed every single one from top to bottom, in rhyme and meter. Like those movies where the one guy finds out his boss / government has been deceiving him the whole time and decides to abandon their rules and go guerrilla.

Except that Guru almost died.

And then it took me back to a discussion our African-American Studies department at Syracuse University had about leaders like MLK Jr., wondering whether his less savory acts devalued what he did as one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the world. One of the younger professors in the panel argued that, because he had these blemishes, he was more closely reached. Before, the MLK standard was so hard to reach for him but now, in a backwards sort of logic, he now felt better about getting to that level.

In my current position, I look at those who I consider role models and that I certainly consider myself a fan of, and have to remind myself that, for all their inner divinity, they are human. They’re every bit as emotional, insecure, wavering, and contradictory as I am. That’s what makes them possible.

Why not pray for peace with them while they’re still on Earth and not when they’re six feet under or ashes spread across a plot of land?

Everyone is on a path that’s asymptotic to 100%. That’s why I can’t blame them. They’re somewhere down the road from where I am.

Jose, who shouldn’t be this popular, you’re far too kind …

Short Notes: 14 Things I Learned from #TEDxNYED 2010

2010-03-07T18:52:21-08:00

TEDxNYED, Apples

This past Saturday, I had the fortune of attending the TEDxNYED conference, an independently run conference based on the TED conferences where they speak on an idea for a good 18-20 minutes about whatever topic they like. While some critics have come out in full force against the latest TED conference, wondering whether these events actually promote ideas for others or if they’re invite-only silos for information, people like me enjoyed the conference for simple reasons:

We never met any of these people before.
We actually understood the idea of this event.

I’ve learned tons of stuff. Here are 14:

Andy Carvin taught me about the potential of openness and allowing people to hack your stuff in the name of crisis prevention building. There’s something thoroughly revolutionary about letting people have all this information with no restriction in the name of mobilization.

Michael Wesch taught me that, when we think that we’re the creators of new media, the new media actually controls us. “Thus, we’re living in a razor’s edge” where the Internet can engender openness or it can be a system of control. Also, we have to take children from becoming “knowledgeable” to “knowledge-able” (the learned to the learner, a process of constant learning).

Henry Jenkins taught me about the idea of using popular culture to promote unrelated ideas, i.e. using Avatar the Last Airbender to discuss issues of race in Hollywood remakes, for instance.

David Wiley taught me that we should transform our definitions of education from an exclusive one to an inclusive one. Education should be defined as a relationship of openness and sharing, and successful teachers are those that do the most sharing with the most students (knowledge-wise).

Neeru Khosla taught us that textbooks need not be costly nor outdated. We can innovate in huge ways by just allowing us to throw out our convictions of what a textbook should be and using the right tools now to make this happen. And best of all, we can do this all for free.

Lawrence Lessig taught me that conservatives can teach liberals a few great things about being free. At least true conservatives anyways. (I don’t know if I took him up for this lesson, but I’d love to do more research on this).

Jay Rosen taught me about the idea of finding compensation through other methods than money. Sometimes, motivation and a “gift economy” is enough to spread the work around.

Jeff Jarvis taught me that the standard lecture need not be. We’re constantly puncturing holes in the one-way structure of current teaching with social networks and tech use in the classroom. Thus, the learning itself needs to be participatory for it to work well. (And of course, he reinforces his theorem by using the one-way model of lecturing. Hilarity ensues.)

Chris Abani, who TEDxNYED showed through video, taught me that the narrative of a people is just as important as looking at the geography. In other words, when we listen to the stories of a people, it matters less that you can identify their country on a map, for instance.

George Siemens taught me that networks, and not individuals, solve large problems. When we’re connected, we’re better educated as a whole. Fragmentation is easy to do, but tying it all back together is the hard part.

Dan Cohen taught me that the new millennium has a lot to teach us about the new order of information. Sometimes, even when chaos looks disorganized, it can actually provide the precision and order we need. (Think: 3.1415926535 …)

Amy Bruckman taught me that it’s important to help theory catch up with practice, and in that vein, value our students’ agency.

Dan Meyer, who I’ve discussed at length on this blog, taught me to encourage student intuition and be less helpful. Not that I didn’t learn that from his blog, but he does this so much more effectively in person.

Chris Lehmann, who I’ve also developed a good acquaintance with, taught me that children should never be the implied object of their own learning, so we’re teaching kids the subject we’re teaching them, not strictly teaching the subject.

The speeches varied from impassioned to collected. From mind-tickling to mind-blowing. And yet, all of them had this great idea and simply wanted to share it with everyone. It went off so seamlessly that it seemed less like a self-agrandizing conference and more of a meeting of the minds.

Now, if we can include the people who might never make it to these on purpose …

Jose, who wants to do one himself …

The Question Is: Are You Part of the Conspiracy?

2010-03-05T12:39:54-08:00

Pedro Noguera

Reading through the plethora of feedback given not only to this blog, but the rest of the blogs out there, I noticed a big part of the Teach for America event missing in all of our posts. For the purposes of this post, I’m glad we did since I’ve mulled it over so many times, it’s made me stop dead in my tracks twice since Wednesday.

Dr. Pedro Noguera made good mention of the schools-to-prisons funnel system, highlighting how so many schools are structured like prisons and how people have looked at 3rd – 4th grade test scores to determine the need for more prisons. My biggest takeaway in his rant was the following:

“I’ve been to prisons before, speaking in front of the inmates with guards all around the premises, and I’ve said, ‘There is a conspiracy to keep you in prison, and there are people whose jobs and income depend on keeping you here. There are policymakers planning to build more prisons right now, and whole towns in upstate New York that rely upon their prisons for jobs and economic development of those towns. There are corporations that run prisons for profit, taking advantage of the low wages prisoners receive for the work they do. Even the guards in this room understand their jobs depend on you being here. But my question to you is: are you part of the conspiracy?’”

The whole room paused. Most people in the audience had never read Noguera’s work , but even those of us who did stood silent while he struck that question. What’s often missing in the questions about responsibility is whether or not we’ve actually addressed that conspiracy. How do we play into the very stereotypes and limits set for us? How do we build bridges that address the needs of communities of color from a perspective of self-empowerment?

For that matter, when do the high-brow people in our communities stop talking down to those communities and integrate them into their work? Those of us who’ve had an opportunity to get enlightened act more like the Illuminati than illuminated: privileged and exclusive versus humbled and inclusive, as if the work we do gives us a certain holier-than-thou-art status instead of making us de facto servants for others.

And does that make us, those of us with Internet access who can read at a high school level or above with connections and a certain level of income, part of the conspiracy too? Let me not ruffle any feathers, though.

Mr. Vilson, who doesn’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but he is, so that’s how it comes out …

Dear John: Where I Disagree With Legend

2010-03-03T17:49:38-08:00

John Legend

Dear John Legend,

Last night at the Avery Hall in Lincoln Center (NYC), you and Common headlined an awesome town hall between some of the brightest and influential Black / Latino men in education. The line-up read like a starting roster for a hypothetical NYC Black educator panel: David Banks of the Eagle Academy as moderator, followed by Dr. Pedro Noguera, Common, Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, Ruben Diaz Jr., and Eric Snow. On paper, the roster was dynamic and possibly influential enough to break some ground on the topic of the moment: why the system has failed men of color in education. While I don’t expect much for Teach for America, I know plenty of educators from that system that have done good things for their children.

Having said that, you, my friend, did not bring your A game.

You brought a set of talking points akin to the wonks that, in changing public education, have silenced the voices of the most underprivileged. Your assertion that students who don’t do well on the standardized state tests are not ready for the real world conflict with real life, where no one asks you in the job force to fill out a bunch of bubbles to do the best job possible. Your case study about that one school that did so well with passing the test doesn’t say much about how they’ll do in the future nor does it coincide with the reality of education as a whole, where charter schools only make up 5% of NYC public schools. Your vision of the perfect school and how that aligns to the educrat movement sound more like a page out of a war stratagem than public school reform, with your talk of “getting rid of teachers.”

Nevermind that the policies of charter schools directly influence public schools in the area. For one, charter schools have more choice as to who gets in, and who leaves. Public schools have more paperwork in that respect. Charter schools thusly don’t house as many ELLs or children with special needs as public schools do. Plus, where do they go when they’re not deemed fit to attend this prestigious school? Public school, of course. Worse still is that the correlation between the amount of charter schools popping up and the amount of Black and Latino children in the neighborhood in which they arrive is pretty high.

A part of me wants to understand, too. Men of color do not exist monolithically. The depth and breadth of opinion within this demographic might make outside observers blush. We have so many routes by which to attack the issue of Black men that the one path we should all choose gets distorted by various interests and beliefs. That much, I believe. Even my attendance to an event sponsored by an organization I don’t fully support shows the complexity of education right now. Plus, not many in the audience (excluding me) expected you to know much about the plight of Black men in education outside of the banalities of men of color failing.

There, your opinion failed. Unfortunately, you were Soulja Boy in the middle of a catalogue battle between Jay-Z and Lupe Fiasco. A recent Golden Gloves championship winner discussing boxing with Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. That’s why, no matter how talented a musician you are, people could see through the distortions and false-ttos. Upon entering the Empire City, please note that, while the house is owned by people who readily accept what you say as fact, the neighborhood is guarded by watchmen who’ll boo you the minute you get it wrong.

Take that weak stuff outta here.

Jose, who doesn’t do personal attacks. This is purely professional …

p.s. – Part 2 tomorrow (and some takeaways) …

What We’re Definitely Talking About

2010-03-01T18:17:59-08:00

Jay-Z in concert

I hate being Joel Klein’s messenger.

I’m not directly that, but today, at a common prep meeting, I found myself having to blunt the rather acute message that sometime this week, NYC teachers would receive teacher evaluative reports. From my vague understanding, the reports yield a summative (and opaque) view of a teachers’ success in academic achievement as they pertain to the New York State tests over the last four years. This year’s focus is on English / Language Arts and Math teachers, it seems, and this nugget comes a week after Joel Klein told every educator possible that this report should help determine whether teachers get tenure and / or (implicitly) their capacity for joining one’s staff during the Open Market Process in the summer.

When I met with teachers, I found myself annoyed, not simply at the varied (but typical) responses to this news, but moreso at the men and women who decided that giving such a report 8 weeks before our statewide ELA test and 9 weeks before our math test was the best idea ever.

What we’re talking about here is a failure to communicate.
We’re talking about how obtuse such an instrument is.
We’re talking about how quickly we’ve shifted from calling the principals “CEOs” of their school, but creating malcontent and depleted morale in their schools at such a critical time of the school year.
What we’re talking about is the children. Not just as your little punchline, but as a regular part of our study.
We’re talking about how best to pick apart an exam that was just renormed, and that no one has any idea about except its date.
We’re talking about unequal pay and unequal press in the news.
We’re talking about upgrading pedagogy.
A few of us are talking about lawyers and what happened in the past, but most of us are thinking forward and not just to the weekend.
A few of us only talk about parents, not most of us talk about making them an integral part of the educational process, even when some may not understand how to go about that.

This is only a small selection of the things we discuss on a daily basis, but now much of this gets supplanted by having to achieve a magical number. The teachers who have low-achieving students (and for purposes of this essay, I’m using standardized testing measures to discuss achievement. I rarely associate those two words) will already feel condemned because, no matter what the truth says, they’ll always feel they’ll start out at a disadvantage. Those who have the higher achieving students won’t get credit for moving students up, especially because the gap between good and great is so narrow.

And this is what we have to talk about now. Joel Klein’s quantified the unquantifiable. The corporations and educrats smile along. The people in the front lines fall one by one.

Jose, who’s talking about progress and he ain’t lookin’ back …

The Jose Vilson: The Blog

Validating Blogs #4080: Indirect People Are Shadyyyy

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Well, If You Don’t Teach It, How Will They Know? [Beware the Ides of March]

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Short Notes: Whereupon We Speak Our Truths and the Issue of Torii Hunter

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It’s What I Like About You (A Meme For Schools)

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Excellence Is My Presence, Never Tense, Never Hesitant

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