What is a pig in a poke?

1. A term dating from the Middle Ages meaning buying something claimed to be a suckling pig in a bag (“poke”) without looking to see what was inside.
2. The Stand For Children ballot question called “promoting excellence in public schools.”

Will it actually:

• Turn good teaching into mindless test prep?
• Cause further narrowing of the curriculum?
• Punish teachers of the neediest students and deter teachers from working with these children?
• Drown principals in pointless paperwork?

Nobody knows!

Stand wants to force school districts to take a new teacher evaluation system that does not yet exist and has not been tried in the real world, and use it to decide on layoffs, transfers, and other critical matters. The system is just beginning to be developed, so nobody knows yet how it’s going to work.

But the New York Times reports a similar system in Tennessee has been a disaster, keeping principals tied up with endless paperwork, sending teacher morale into a tailspin and prompting such insanity as measuring music teachers by a school’s writing scores.   → Read More

Diane Ravitch (photo by Larry Aaronson)

Our friend, the education historian and author Diane Ravitch, has yet another great piece in the current Education Week and The Washington Post Answer Sheet.

It’s called “No Child Left Behind and the Damage Done,” and it’s about NCLB on its tenth anniversary and why it needs to be dramatically reformed so we can stop its “destruction of local community institutions.” Ravitch makes the piece made even greater by giving a  shout-out to Citizens for Public Schools:

When I spoke to Citizens for Public Schools in Boston, a young man who works as a chef at a local hotel got up to ask what he could do to stop “them” from closing his children’s school. It was the neighborhood school, he said. It was the school he wanted his children to attend. And they were closing it.

In city after city, across the nation, I have heard similar stories from teachers and parents.

CPS President Paula Parnagian acknowledged the diversity of conference goers: old and new members from across the state of Massachusetts.

Thanks to all who worked so hard to make the 2011 CPS Fall Issues Conference a success. And thanks to all our old and our many new friends who joined us for a high-energy, productive day of sharing ideas for action to protect and improve our public schools.

Watch for a detailed report in the next edition of the CPS Backpack Newsletter. For now, here are a few highlights from the morning panel of speakers.

From BTU President Richard Stutman’s welcome: “Thankfully, there is a Side One, good caring people who don’t want to turn over schools to the Bill Gates and Paul Grogans of the world. Our job to turn things around, educate people, the legislature about corporate influence. To do this we draw on our great assets: teachers, parents, and students working to keep alive public education for all.”   → Read More