An Open Letter to Bernie Supporters Who Say They Hate Hillary and Won't Vote For Her

Do you have any idea what kind of damage a single Trump term could do to this country and to the world? If you actually value any of the ideals that you say you value and are not just giving them mouth-honor because, hey, it's fun to imagine a world where all of the most progressive causes are realized, you would never, not for one instant, consider doing ANYTHING that could conceivably lead to that man's election. With potentially three *liberal* SCOTUS seats to be replaced? Forget EVERYTHING that you've been wishing for, campaigning for, and dreaming about for these past months; it will be gone. You'll be fantasizing about the good old days of Reagan and W. 

And speaking of them: don't kid yourself by thinking we can somehow get through a single term of Trump and, because it will be so bad, the country will easily swing left then. Reagan pushed the Overton Window so far to the right that freaking NIXON seemed like a Democrat! In fact, at the start of this campaign it was so far to the right that it was generally acknowledged that REAGAN HIMSELF could not run and win as a Republican. And it's 35 YEARS later! 

Take heart in the fact that eight years of Obama/Biden has slid the window considerably back toward the center from the right, where they found it. It may even be slightly *left* of center right now. Take heart in the fact that Bernie's run has given it a gigantic *shove* to the left that will impact the Democratic Party–and its nominee–in the fall. Take heart in the knowledge that, if Hillary is the nominee, she will be running on a platform crafted as much by Bernie's people as by her own, and she will likely need a VP who will appeal to his supporters to guarantee their votes a lot more than she needs anyone to guarantee any state. Take heart too in this: 90+% of what you think you know about Hillary Clinton is the result of a quarter century of carefully crafted smear campaigns run against her almost constantly by a right wing that never liked or accepted her because she didn't fit their mold of what a First Lady should be. There is a reason why, once they find something that they can sink their teeth into, like Benghazi (which THEY have cleared her on now five times) or emails (on which they conveniently overlook the fact that the last four Secretaries of State have had private servers), they don't let it go: they know because they are good at this stuff that the more they keep dragging it up, the more people will believe there is something there.

In the debates, politifact.com rated her slightly ahead of Bernie as the two most honest candidates. Trump was dead last, even behind the man he calls "Lying Ted Cruz." He cannot be trusted with the Presidency. He cannot be allowed to have that office. Period. If the Dems nominate a two-headed orangutan, vote for THAT orange-haired candidate instead of the one the GOP have on the ballot. But don't do what so many people did in 2000 with Nader. Back then, the argument was that there was "no difference" between Gore and W. Right. Tell that to the families of the soldiers killed in his illegal wars. Tell that to the middle class that no longer exists because of his economic policies. Tell that to our children and grandchildren, who are facing a planet that is rapidly becoming unlivable because the guy who literally wrote the book on climate change was kept out of the White House even though he won the popular vote by a partisan SCOTUS just beginning to flex its activist wings. 

You've seen the damage a bad GOP president with a 5-4 majority can do. You REALLY want to see what an even WORSE one with a 7-2 majority can do? Then go ahead: vote Green. Or sit it out. Do it. And while you are watching Bernie's dreams go sinking into the muck over the next four years, knowing they were so close in 2016 and will NEVER be that close again, remember just how much you "hated" Hillary Clinton.

No PARCC you'd ever want to visit: a repost of an anonymous blog

The following blog was written by an anonymous 4th grade NYC public schools teacher who defied his or her confidentiality agreement to show the world what a complete farce these tests actually are. I have signed no such agreement, but I too believe them to be asinine. They create an environment in which schools across the country are almost forced to teach to tests that are, by design, above the heads of their students. These are extremely flawed tests that take up significant educational time for our children, all for the increased profit of a testing corporation. This must be stopped. We have become utterly test-crazed in this nation at a time when, internationally, it is becoming more and more clear that FEWER standardized tests create better education, that flooding kids' lives with one test after another just dilutes their impact. And this one, with its intrinsic flaws and ludicrous premises, must be aborted now before it is so entwined within our school systems that getting rid of it becomes impossible.

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.

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.”

In fact, this prompt assesses a student’s ability to research a topic across sources and write a research-based essay that synthesizes facts from both articles. Even CCSS W.4.7, “Conduct research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic,” does not demand that students compile information from different sources to create an essay. The closest the standards come to demanding this sort of work is in the reading standards; CCSS RI.4.9 says: “Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.” Fine. One could argue that this PARCC prompt assesses CCSS RI.4.9.

However, the fact that the texts presented for students to “use” for the essay are at a middle school reading level automatically disqualifies this essay prompt from being able to assess what it attempts to assess. (It is like trying to assess children’s math computational skills by embedding them in a word problem with words that the child cannot read.)

ELA 4th Grade Prompt #3

25. In “Sadako’s Secret,” the narrator reveals Sadako’s thoughts and feelings while telling the story. The narrator also includes dialogue and actions between Sadako and her family. Using these details, write a story about what happens next year when Sadako tries out for the junior high track team. Include not only Sadako’s actions and feelings but also her family’s reaction and feelings in your story.

Nowhere, and I mean nowhere in the Common Core State Standards is there a demand for students to read a narrative and then use the details from that text to write a new story based on a prompt. That is a new pseudo-genre called “Prose Constructed Response” by the PARCC creators, and it is 100% not aligned to the CCSS. Not to mention, why are 4th Graders being asked to write about trying out for the junior high track team? This demand defies their experiences and asks them to imagine a scenario that is well beyond their scope.

Clearly, these questions are poorly designed assessments of 4th graders CCSS learning. (We are setting aside the disagreements we have with those standards in the first place, and simply assessing the PARCC on its utility for measuring what it was intended to measure.)

Rather than debate the CCSS we instead want to expose the tragic reality of the countless public schools organizing their entire instruction around trying to raise students’ PARCC scores.

Without naming any names, I can tell you that schools are disregarding research-proven methods of literacy learning. The “wisdom” coming “down the pipeline” is that children need to be exposed to more complex texts because that is what PARCC demands of them. So children are being denied independent and guided reading time with texts of high interest and potential access and instead are handed texts that are much too hard (frustration level) all year long without ever being given the chance to grow as readers in their Zone of Proximal Development (pardon my reference to those pesky educational researchers like Vygotsky.)

So not only are students who are reading “on grade level” going to be frustrated by these so-called “complex texts,” but newcomers to the U.S. and English Language Learners and any student reading below the proficiency line will never learn the foundational skills they need, will never know the enjoyment of reading and writing from intrinsic motivation, and will, sadly, be denied the opportunity to become a critical reader and writer of media. Critical literacies are foundational for active participation in a democracy.

We can look carefully at one sample to examine the health of the entire system– such as testing a drop of water to assess the ocean. So too, we can use these three PARCC prompts to glimpse how the high stakes accountability system has deformed teaching and warped learning in many public schools across the United States.

In this sample, the system is pathetically failing a generation of children who deserve better, and when they are adults, they may not have the skills needed to engage as citizens and problem-solvers. So it is up to us, those of us who remember a better way and can imagine a way out, to make the case for stopping standardized tests like PARCC from corrupting the educational opportunities of so many of our children.

My Retirement Address: A Transgender Legacy

At my retirement party last night, instead of going with the more normal antics of having a colleague speak for me, making jokes about me, my crazy quirks, my career, etc., I decided that I'd just speak for myself. After all, I've tended to be outside the norm all of my life. Why stop now? What follows is an annotated version of the speech I gave to my colleagues and to fellow retirees, some of whom retired before I even transitioned:

Several weeks ago I started to notice that someone was messing with all of the clocks.

Usually they move normally, you know, tick tick through the days, a little faster, sure, as spring gets here, but a few weeks ago I started realizing that entire weeks were passing in minutes. And I looked back 33 years and saw my 26-year-old self shaking Art Kleck’s1 enormous hand and feeling that I was already a part of something warm and inviting in the very first interview with Bob Metcalf 2, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how I got here so fast.

I knew right away I’d retire from this school in 30 or 40 years. I just didn’t know 30 or 40 years could go by so fast.

Of course there was another thing my 26-year-old self didn’t know that day as I continued my interviews with Jay Criche3 and Pie4–because I was coaching soccer back then–and others. I didn’t know that the me who retired wouldn’t be a whole lot like the me who was handling those interviews. And not just for the usual reasons like I’m older and maybe a little bit wiser and more experienced and a whole lot flabbier. Not even for the superficial reason that I had no clue back then that I’d be a redhead when I retired. No, this was something my 26-year-old self could only have considered as a possibility in his deepest fantasies, because he had long since given up on the possibility of it ever happening. Yet somehow it did.

Before I transitioned, I started telling select colleagues about it. Partly because I was scared to death and needed to talk, and partly because I had come back to school that fall about 50 pounds lighter and looked like a walking skeleton and several people, including Brenda Perkins5, told me they had been worried I had AIDS, so I guess sex change was, you know, a relief. I know it was to one of the two “out” gay men then on staff in the math department. When I told him, he laughed and said, “Well, I guess that takes the pressure of of us.” 6

Pretty much everyone, though, told me the same thing about transitioning. “You can’t do that in Lake Forest.” Which of course wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. But I said, basically, “Why not?” I figured there were only two possibilities: they’d keep me on or they’d kick me out. Why should I kick myself out? As I told everyone: I’m going to give them the chance to do the right thing. 18 years later, it’s clear that they did.7

If you weren’t here then, I’ll just say that it was a crazy first day of school. Lots of news vans lining McKinley. Reporters grabbing kids to interview. Really nuts.8 And I stood at the front of my classroom in a skirt and top welcoming everyone in, and they came in and sat down, and there was whispering, and I quieted them, and I said, “Well, I guess you’ve probably noticed that a few things have changed over the summer.” General tittering. “Yes,” I said, “I moved the teacher’s desk to this side of the room.” And they all laughed, and that was that. Time to start poetry or whatever.

Kristen Carlson9 asked me last year what I hoped would be my legacy at Lake Forest High School, and I thought: gosh! Legacy. That’s a gigantic word. Am I leaving a legacy? Am I supposed to? In what way? I mean, most teachers make an impact, right? But then we retire, and I’ve been around long enough to know the actual legacy we leave: three years later the last of our little freshmen graduate, and all we become is fading memories in the minds of former colleagues and students. We are not part of the bricks and mortar here; we are very important while we’re here but then we leave and become simply history. Unless we’re Dave Miller10 and they name theatres after us.11 But they’ve run out of unnamed theatres. Maybe they could name the RMA lobby after me? Is it a legacy when they walk all over your namesake? It might be a perfect one: I’ll get the space where everyone is tired and hungry and chatting with each other and just wishes to be entertained. Sounds just like a classroom. But I have directed 37 plays and musicals here. I’ve given a lot to our theatre program since the mid-80’s. But still I suppose not: if I have a legacy there, it lies in the kids who were once here and are now doing incredible things in theatre, like Ann Noble, recently inducted into our Wall of Fame, or Alex Timbers, Tony-nominated and highly lauded Broadway director. And journeymen like Jay Reed12 and Adam Pasen13, once mainstays on our stages and now working actors in Chicago and LA. They are my legacy.

So maybe I should consider that my legacy lies in teaching? I mean that’s logical; it’s my job, after all. And I have tried over the years to be innovative and cutting edge, from my early 90’s adoption of technology to my now more than one-decade-old paperless classroom to experimental things like Capstone Projects14 and my current gradeless classrooms.15 Overall, though, all of this simply facilitates the basic thing I’ve been doing all along, which is what we all do: interacting with kids, working with them in groups and one on one. That’s what has always made this thing worth it to me. I could spend entire days conferencing with kids about writing and be happy. I could spend entire days talking with them about literature and be happy. Hell, I could spend entire days just talking to teenagers and be happy. And I know, because they’ve told me, that I’ve helped a lot of them. Is that a legacy?

Yes, for individuals who have gone here, I suppose that things I’ve done in my classroom and in theatre have had some significant impact. But if I am truly honest, I guess the most impact I’ve had on this school has come from something far beyond my control: the pure accident of me being me. It’s been said to me enough times by now in notes from students and parents, in class evaluations, in emails, etc: you don’t know how much it has meant just having you here. When I transitioned, everyone said what I was doing was “brave,” and I deflected it by saying that I didn’t think it brave to do the only thing that it was possible for me to do. But brave or not, I set myself up as a potential object of criticism and derision. That in fact did occur from some of the more conservative teachers at the time and some of the kids who didn’t know me. And for years Thor16 had to work my schedule around parents who refused to let their kids be taught by the freak in the English Department. And yet: you don’t know how much it meant just having you here.

I was the first teacher to do this. In the whole country.17 We were the first school to allow it. Even today, 18 years later, it’s news when it happens. And for almost two decades, matter of factly, Lake Forest High School has had a transgender teacher on its staff, a sign to every kid who was different that different is OK. I’ll take that. Now that is a legacy.

You know, it’s funny: when I was 26, I was already calling myself 30. When I was 30, I was already calling myself middle-aged. I was on a fast track to live out my life as well as I could, as fast as I could, and then, whenever it happened, check out. But now, I’ll be 59 on the last day of school, I’m retiring, and I have an entire life ahead of me to live. And I’m looking forward to it.

Thank you.

End Notes

1. Art Kleck, principal of Lake Forest High School West Campus the year before I arrived (‘82-’83), moved into the Dean’s office at East Campus when the two consolidated in my first year. He was known, along other things, for the unusual size of his hands.
2. Robert Metcalf served as LFHS’s principal and superintendent for the first several years of my tenure. He was a hands-on superintendent who spent his days hanging out in the hallways talking to faculty and to students, and he seemed to know every single one of them by name.
3. Jay Criche, English Department Chair and director of plays and musicals, served as my initial mentor in both capacities. When he retired, the department paid tribute to him with skits and even with a song parody based on Man of la Mancha, which combined two of his loves--musicals and Don Quixote (though he never liked that particular show for reasons I never quite understood).
4. Larry Piemontese, known as Pie to virtually everyone, coached soccer here for I don’t know how many years. I coached both boys’ and girls’ soccer for ten years at LFHS before giving it up to go full time into theatre.
5. Brenda Perkins replaced Jay Criche as English Department Chair and served in that role well into the 21st Century. Whereas Jay was the professorial type of chair, Brenda was a more collegial, earthy, get-your-hands-dirty type. Both were extremely effective. In addition, it was Brenda’s pregnancy leave in 1983-84 that created the opening (originally for one year) that got my foot in the door at LFHS, so I owe her a lot.
6. Interesting side note: it should have done that, but both of them were gone within two years.
7. I’ve never really known why. My suspicion, fueled in part by rather overt actions by the administration to find “reasonable” actions to take against me in the months before my situation became official (but when everyone understood and no one could legally say that they already knew), was at the time that their lawyers had told them that they simply had no other legal option. I’d been there fifteen years, I had tenure, and I had a trail of stellar evaluations (one from just the previous spring). But if they did support me out of legal necessity, they did so vehemently. From the first, the school was outspoken in its support for me. It defended me against any aggression, verbal or written. (Thank goodness there were never any that were physical.) In fact, it was a long time before I even knew the extent of the support they were giving me against bigoted community members. I definitely thank them for that.
8. In the middle of summer, I had pretty much insisted that the school send out a community letter acknowledging what was happening. We all knew that the press had had the story since March and had been sitting on it, waiting confirmation. I told the principal that there was going to be hoopla on the first day of school no matter what, but if she wanted to lessen it she had better get the mass uproar out of the way over the summer. She did, and the radio and TV talk shows and news were done with their feeding frenzy by the end of July. So what happened on the first day of school, predictable as it was, was far less of an issue than it otherwise might have become.
9. Kristen Carlson is my current (and final) Department Chair. She has only been at LFHS a couple of years but has established herself as fair and attentive to the needs of the teachers.
10. Dave Miller ran the theatre tech group at LFHS for...I’m going to go with an eon? He even directed a few shows himself. He was a certified icon until his second retirement. Yeah, that happened. I don’t understand it either.
11. They named the black box theatre after him...while he was still working here!
12. Jay Reed was a major player on the stages in the early 90’s and has been working as an actor in Chicago since then. Recently he appeared in the lead role in Piven Theatre’s Dead Man Walking.
13. Adam Pasen was another major player--in the late 90’s--and has been working as an actor and aspiring playwright ever since. His hilarious play, BadFic, a takeoff on the phenomenon of fanfiction, played to full houses in Chicago last year before he decided to take a chance and move to LA.
14. Capstone projects are massive end-of-the-year presentations that are designed by the teacher to take the place of a final exam by tying together everything the student is supposed to have learned and linking them to a student’s core interests. I’ve been doing them with my juniors since 2011 and they’ve been the best part of my year.
15. In my last two years of teaching, I decided to experiment with a Gradeless Classroom. Our former Director of Curriculum, Lauren Fagel, and I worked out how this would occur, and I’ve been handling all of my courses in this framework ever since. It has been revelatory. Students find that working for themselves instead of for a grade makes them work harder than ever and learn more.
16. Thor Benson, long-retired former Math Department Chair, has been the keeper of the schedule for a long time. I owe him a debt of gratitude for his behind-the-scenes work in the first several years of my transition.
17. As far as anyone could tell at the time. There was no real internet in 1998 and no WWW. I did as much research as the fledgling net would allow. I found a teacher in Minnesota who had only been allowed to return as a librarian. I found a teacher in Seattle who had been forced to take two years off and then been shuffled to another school in district where she did mostly clerical work. I found someone in the Detroit area who was in the process of transitioning and was under the impression that she’d be able to return in some capacity to her former school after taking the next year off. And I did find two Vancouver-area teachers who had been able to transition successfully in their own schools, though it was never clear about whether they had needed to take a break. In any case, it seemed clear that I was and would be the first teacher in the USA to transition without a break on the job. That is what the press was all about all summer.