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My Comments from the Save our Schools Rally

Deborah Duncan Owens Uncategorized

My Comments from the Save our Schools Rally

Thursday, March 12th, I was honored to be invited to speak at the Save our Schools Rally in Corning, New York. My friend, Tyler Tarnowicz captured most of the most of my speech  on video. However, I thought I’d share the entire text with you. It was a wonderful event with hundreds of parents, teachers, administrators, and government officials in attendance and it truly was an honor to be able to participate.

Governor Cuomo has declared war on public schools. In fact, in New York and all across the nation a war is, indeed, being fought to save our locally controlled public school systems.

And once again as this war wages our public schools are being blamed for all that ails America.

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March in Selma, AL, this week, we should also remember the legacy of Ruby Bridges, the Little Rock Nine, and the plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that desegregated our public schools in America. In the decades following the Brown decision, decades that were too often marked by racism and violence, we made great strides in equalizing educational opportunities for all students.

In fact, the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as a component of President Johnson’s War on Poverty, was a source of pride, signaling to the world that we placed a high priority on education and the need to ensure that regardless of a student’s race, economic status, or zip code, they had a right to a world class education in a publicly funded public school.

Nevertheless, I believe everyone would wholeheartedly agree that more needs to be done to finally realize this dream.

However, the noise of public school critics have gotten in the way of our efforts in the decades following the 1954 Brown decision.

During the Sputnik crisis the failure of the United States to beat the Soviet Union in placing a satellite in orbit was blamed on America’s public schools. And as history has shown, this blame was misplaced.

In 1983 the report A Nation at Risk blamed public schools for threatening the security of America and for the economic problems in which America had found itself. And as I and others have pointed out, this blame and the claims of a Nation at Risk were misplaced.

Today, America’s public schools find themselves under assault as never before from both the political left and right. Democrats and republicans.

As a result, all American citizens and most importantly, all citizens of New York as well as every person in this auditorium needs to ask themselves whether or not they ultimately support America’s system of public education.

How do American’s view locally controlled public schools?

Do all of you in this auditorium agree with governor Cuomo when he calls America’s public school system a monopoly that needs to be busted?

Or, like myself and so many others, do you see our locally controlled public schools as an essential institution that has served America well, and in the process, helping make the United States I believe the greatest nation on Earth.

Do you believe that Governor Cuomo and the New York legislature need to equitably fund our public schools?

Or do you believe like Governor Cuomo and his education reform allies that money needs to be channeled away from our public schools in order to fund entrepreneurial adventurism?

Our public schools are not monopolies. They are not government schools that reflect some socialist agenda as has often been asserted since the Cold War.

No. I believe, and I hope all of you believe, that our public schools are in fact an institution that is a reflection of America’s devotion to a pluralistic society that gives our great republic the vitality and ability to help meet the needs of our diverse society.

If you believe this you will, unlike Governor Cuomo and those who support his education reform ideas, embrace our locally controlled public schools because these are our community schools.

They belong to the community. They belong to all of us.

Public schools take on the honored responsibility of meeting the needs of every citizen.

Do you believe as Governor Cuomo believes that we need alternatives to our public school system because our public schools need more competition in order to meet the social and economic challenges our nation is facing?

Or do you believe that this approach to education reform is but another means to destroy our historically beneficial public school system?

Is the move to allow education entrepreneurs to enter the education reform arena nothing but a nod to Wall Street?

I certainly do not believe that Wall Street should trump Main Street when it comes to nurturing our nation’s most precious resource – our children.

Governor Cuomo’s education reform ideas such as excessive draconian high stakes testing that saps the educational life out of schools – only seems to line the pockets of corporations making huge profits off of questionable assessment models.

I believe public schools have been and continue to be places for the public good. I believe and I hope you believe that our locally controlled public schools have been and continue to be essential in helping to create our great republic – a republic whose foundation is fortified by the power of democracy.

I believe that our locally controlled public schools are one of the jewels in the crown of our republic and this jewel must not be removed from the crown because if you remove this jewel, our republic will not shine nearly so brightly.

If you believe this, then I hope you realize that WE need to eliminate draconian high stakes tests that do not reflect the complex challenges public schools and their communities are facing. And stop using these tests as a weapon to punish teachers!

I believe that our locally controlled public schools are essential in preserving the vitality of our great republic.

If you believe this, I hope you will agree that we need to fully fund public schools and eliminate the GAP Elimination Adjustment that robs local school districts of their money and sends this cash to Albany!

If you believe this, I hope you agree that we should not funnel money away from our public schools and into the hands of education entrepreneurs who favor Wall Street over Main Street.

If you believe this, then I hope you will support investment into universal pre-K education.

Let us not be distracted by Governor Cuomo and those who support his education policies and very importantly his misguided view of our truly egalitarian system of public school education where all students are welcomed regardless of race, language, class, culture, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, ability or disability.

Our public schools have always reflected the complex cultural mosaic that we proudly call the United States of America.

The legacy of Ruby Bridges, the Little Rock Nine, and so many others who sacrificed so much, even at times their very lives, to create an America worthy of its allegiance to democracy demand that we stand up for and defend our public schools.

Let me be clear about what’s at stake in our nation’s head long rush to dismantle our public school system. Our heritage is at stake.

As a point of illustration, let me point out that the very school Ruby Bridges bravely integrated, flanked by federal marshals, – an event memorialized by the artist Norman Rockwell – no longer exists as William Franz Elementary School.

It was turned into a charter school after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and all public school teachers were fired.

Was this new school named the Ruby Bridges Elementary School to honor her legacy? No. It bears a name chosen by the entrepreneurs who took over the school.

Yes, they did erect a statue of Ruby in the school, but how long will it be before the statue is just a statue and her legacy is all but erased. And the saddest part of all is that Ruby’s schools is once again segregated.

We are squandering the legacy of those who worked so hard to create the American ideal of a public education system.

America’s system of public education has proven to be an important democratic avenue on the long road to breaking the stranglehold of segregation in our country.

And let us always remember that our public schools have been an important democratic avenue for millions of Americans and immigrant groups in realizing their dreams and aspirations.

We must stop closing public schools on one corner in order to open up an entrepreneurial charter school a few blocks away. We must continue the proud tradition of locally controlled public schools. Only the citizens within a community can truly determine what is best for their students.

Public schools have historically done yeoman’s work in helping raise the United States to international preeminence. It is for this reason I urge everyone in New York to unite around our public schools.

We must positively help to improve these schools and fend off those who, wittingly or not, are now dismantling this important American institution.

And do not be misled by the rhetoric of choice.

For me there is only one “choice” and that is to fully fund public schools and ensure that all students receive a world class education in their community schools.

Tax dollars paid by citizens should enhance community schools, not feather the nests of entrepreneurs who seek to make a dime off of our children.

To be sure, there is a price on the head of every school child in America. But they deserve to have what so many of their parents and grandparents had before them – a public school that is a vital part of their community.

THANK YOU!

What’s More Important? Test Data or Life Data?

Deborah Duncan Owens education reform, high stakes tests, standardized tests, Uncategorized

In my last post I suggested that if the government is so intent on publishing standardized testing data as an indicator of the effectiveness of teachers and schools, they should likewise publish other meaningful data on the communities teachers and schools serve.  In What’s Missing in Education “Reform”  ?  Daun Kauffman discusses another dimension of child wellbeing that is distinctly missing from discussions of education reform.  One dimension that is missing, according to Kauffman, is “the massive incidence of childhood trauma, and its laser-like connection to cognition and education ….”  Children who live in urban settings typically experience more incidents of trauma.

A great deal of research has been generated about the impact of childhood trauma or “Adverse Childhood Experience” (ACE).  Therefore, Kauffman makes the following suggested addition to the data that should be reported concomitantly with standardized test scores:

“What are aggregated, community rates of Childhood Trauma, or “Adverse Childhood Experience” (ACE), as separate from ‘poverty’?”  What are the reported incidents within a community of physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical or emotional neglect?  How many children are being raised in single parent homes due to abandonment, separation, divorce, or incarceration?  What are the reported incidents of household violence, substance abuse, and mental illness?

I agree with Daun Kauffman that this type of data is clearly missing in discussions of child wellbeing.  The federal government funds research in the area of childhood trauma/ACE and, therefore, it would seem that the government acknowledges the impact of trauma on a child’s ability to meet the cognitive demands of school life.  According to Kauffman:

“ACE Rates vary widely. Chronic exposure to ACEs directly affects cognition. They have the power, as chronic events, to disrupt neurodevelopment and secondarily social behavior(as defenses against the onslaught). Presently ACEs are ignored in educational performance analyses. Ignored at macro levels, ignored at District level, ignored at school level . . .  Their prevalence is shocking:  suburban rates (for 3+ ACEs) have been measured at 22% and urban rates at 37% and greater.  A prevalence above the COMBINED rates of ELL and IEP students.”

It is not without irony that education reformers posit that improvement in the academic lives of children begins and ends at the schoolhouse door and they distance themselves from meaningful data about the realities of the lives of too many children through “no excuse” rhetoric that teachers can demonstrate academic improvement for every student regardless of all the factors that impact their lives.  No other profession is held to the same level of accountability, responsible for one narrow set of outcomes in spite of all other dimensions of human life.

Again, if the federal government is so intent on public disclosure of standardized test scores as an indicator of the effectiveness of teachers and schools, they should be required to provide a full picture of the community data that impacts the lives of children.  Then, perhaps, teachers will get the credit for their noble efforts in trying to educate children who face almost insurmountable challenges every day.  As one teacher I interviewed a few years ago poignantly stated about her young students in a high poverty community, “I’m trying to teach these children to read and they’re trying to survive.”  I’ve experienced firsthand the devastating impact of unsafe communities on the lives of children.  I’ve heard children speak of family members murdered, imprisoned, and lives lost to drugs and crime.  I saw little children take freshly sharpened pencils and pretend to inject themselves in the tiny little crooks of their arms.  It broke my heart.

How dare education policy makers ignore the realities of the lives of far too many children in the U.S. when they boldly and callously propose systems for holding teachers accountable for academic performance while ignoring the devastation of too many of the communities that create the world children have to navigate through on the way to and from school?  Children deserve better.

 

For more information, see:

http://lucidwitness.com/2014/09/25/whats-missing-3/ http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/ http://captus.samhsa.gov/prevention-practice/targeted-prevention/adverse-childhood-experiences/1

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/pdf/Childhood_Stress.pdf

Trust Tests, Not Teachers – Accountability for Dummies

Deborah Duncan Owens Uncategorized

Amazing posting by Steven Singer.  He explains the faulty logic of groups like the AFT and the Center for American Progress as they advocate for maintaining standardized testing in ESEA.  It’s sad that we’re squandering the ESEA reauthorization process and not using it to make the school lives of children better. Parsing language about “hi-stakes” testing versus informational testing ignores the lives of children. Sitting through hours of test-prep and standardized tests is “hi-stakes” in their lives.

Trust Tests, Not Teachers – Accountability for Dummies.

Thomas Jefferson’s Warning to America: Aristocracy Founded on Banking Institutions and Monied in Corporations

Deborah Duncan Owens Uncategorized
My husband and I are beginning to work on our next book and we came upon a quote that we think is profound and prophetic. 
In 1825, one year before his death, Thomas Jefferson wrote of a group of individuals “who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry. This will be to them a next best blessing to the Monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest stepping stone to it.”