Those who read me know that I seldom invoke my children, my family, my employer (whoever that may be at any given time) and my children's school when I blog. Today, I am breaking all my own rules and creating a few new ones. I will write about the things I don't write about and I will censor any negative, mean, or slanderous/libelous comment that gets left behind.
I have been many things in my life. There is the obvious - my four years as a publicly-elected school board member - for which you all know me and the reason why this blog exists.
And then there are the other roles
1. A graduate of Partners in Policymaking
2. An education advocate for children with disabilities
3. A recent winner of the Charter Networks Idea Awards (for starting a really cool nutrition program from scratch and working to take it fully scratch) (yes, anti-charter friends, you may laugh while my pro-charter-wth-a-cause friends, you may smirk.
4. My degree in English/Journalism - a dying art
5. A lunch lady - as the my Pencader detractors would love to point out with a snicker
6. A recipient of the Lindt Unsung Heros of Autism Award - Nationally recognized.
7. A one-time commentator on Campbell Brown of CNN - back when people knew C.B actually was.
8. A recent face on WDEL - a station everyone in Delaware knows.
9. A wife for 15 years while a daughter for 30-something. Ask my kids, they remember my age better than I do.
10. I am a closed head injury survivor who struggles daily without narcotics to overcome indescribable pain in order to be the best mother, spouse, and employee that I can.
11. I have been D's mother for 13 years, while simultaneously, H's for eight.
12. I am a Gateway employee (less than one year).
13. And in my most important role today, I am a Gateway Parent.
Last week, while sidelined with yet another bout of Bronchitis, I heard the devastating news - The Charter School Accountability Committee had voted to recommend non-renewal for our charter. Their decision was based in solely on our academics as described by the charter framework. In our case, we passed the other two-thirds, organizational and financial. However, CSAC believes that the academic framework outweights the other two combined. Does it? Who knows? We are talking about the Academic and Testing Branches of DOE, a groupthinktank that hides in the dark.
So, let's move the conversation into the sun - GLS failed the academic portion of the framework. By conversion, as if it could ever happen, a whole lot of our traditional public schools fail the test as well. Most will never be placed on the chopping block. But, GLS was something different, it is a charter - an experiment - something I've often said about charter schools. I am a parent who knowingly put my children into an experiment rather than keep my children in failing districts. I did so as a believer in two kinds of education - traditional and charter-with-a-cause - and as a reasonable person who knows "the test" - whichever one of the three different tests in five years - is bunk.
For my daughter, my decision to try a new charter school was driven by need - she needed curriculum delivered in a sensory friendly way that would inspire her love of learning again. She stopped thriving in the lecture-based inclusion classroom. I could tell you how she was lonely, friendless, socially delayed, and how her team refused to work with us to address those critical elements. But, in the end, it was the need for a new environment and delivery model that inspired our choice to be inaugural Gateway parents.
For my son, it was frustration over people. He is twice exceptional. He has a huge IQ that swallows us whole and an amazing vocabulary that puts his peers to shame. No, I'm not gloating. The problem was that his vocabulary was masking his social skill deficits and his perception of the world around him. I just didn't know it. What I did know was that between preschool and 1st grade he had broken his dominant arm in three places during two different episodes and that he complained and cried about how handwriting was painful. For my part, I thought his writing was difficult to read. The first time I requested OT eval with a drs note, I was denied by the IEP crew at his traditional public school. Hand-in-hand my son developed school refusal - a nightmare sub-dx of separation anxiety. In addition to the tears about his hand, we had to fight daily to bring our child into school and to leave him there. It took 9 weeks of begging the school for help and the intervention of District-level admin to finally inspire our principal to take his condition seriously. That principal would go on to be an asset to us, working diligently to help our son adjust in a world where he felt seriously out-of-place. Unfortunately, when he returned for second grade, she did not. And, no, we didn't have any issues with his new principal. She tried hard to help us. But, the help that could be offered wasn't enough.
In his second grade year, I again asked for an OT eval. The school complied but first insisted on every other cursory testing under the sun before we got to OT. If the IEP process could be called a contest, he won a consult once or twice a month. When I look at the testing and read the results, I am floored as it points to Non-Verbal Learning Disorder. But, the team wouldn't give him that diagnosis - he got developmentally delayed. Okay, we said, we'd take it. Whatever label got him services. By this point, my son had become close friends with a number of school psychologists over the years, and we had even paid for therapy by a private psych who came into the school to work with him. So, we quietly celebrated what we had.
Was his IEP adherred to? Probably. Remember, it was people who would drive my decision to put my son into an experiment. By the time we received his IEP, we were tired of fighting over our twice gifted child. Because he scored so well, his academics made him low man on the totem pole in the classroom. I often felt that his teacher resented when I asked her to give him some extra assistance or to help him with his social skills. And then, half way through second grade, she just stopped responding to me.
Could this same series of events happen in another school? Yes. But, I already had his new school picked out. He would join his sister at Gateway, where we had seen tremendous success in both her academics, social, and medical life. For the first time ever, my special needs daughter would attend the same school as her brother - they would have a shared experience, a bond built through education.
And in the three months my son has spent at Gateway, his school phobia is almost eradicated! No more fights or tears. He's opened up to learning and has made friends. He loves everything about school - except gym.
An experiment? Yes. The right decision? Absolutely.
You see, it doesn't matter where my children take the test that DOE requires. The setting, the school, the state... My children will test the same. All DSTP and DCAS ever told us about my daughter was that her severe disability interferes with her ability to take standardized tests, accommodations or not. Meanwhile, my son recently took an ELA assessment that scored him at college-ready. Really? He's eight. I'm not about to enroll him in college. It was, afterall, a standardized test.
So, here's my plea - Whether you support public charters or traditional public schools, please take up Gateway's cause. It's time to cross the charter/traditional divide and unite to take on high stakes testing. These types of tests don't help schools or students, as we can all see - it hurts them.
Yes, high stakes testing hurts kids. From Partnership Zone to Priority to Charter Frameworks and everything in between - these tests are disrupting our children's academic life and causing undue hardship to students and their families. Because of the tests, we are constantly destabilizing schools, communities, and families.
There has to be a better way. So, please, submit a comment to the public record! You can do it here: http://www.doe.k12.de.us/Page/399 or by emailing infocso@doe.k12.de.us.
You may choose to advocate for Gateway or you may choose to use the above forum to tell DOE how you feel about the effects of high stakes testing. Be part of the public record! Help us Help Kids!
DL Open Thread: Sunday, April 28, 2024
1 hour ago
8 comments:
Well said Elizabeth! What the DOE has turned the high-stakes testing game into is a tragedy. If you are still on the fence, watch out, because your child's school may be next. Any school is fair game to this DE DOE!
Excellent, Elizabeth!
Nate Schwartz.
John Young has laid down the gauntlet over at Transparent Christina over your attack on CSD here and he has a point.
Now Nancy, you are better than this. Did you read the preceding and subsequent sentences of the line that Mr. Young claims as hypocritical. Allow me to highlight the the graf:
"So, let's move the conversation into the sun - GLS failed the academic portion of the framework. By conversion, as if it could ever happen, a whole lot of our traditional public schools fail the test as well. Most will never be placed on the chopping block. But, GLS was something different, it is a charter - an experiment - something I've often said about charter schools. I am a parent who knowingly put my children into an experiment rather than keep my children in failing districts. I did so as a believer in two kinds of education - traditional and charter-with-a-cause - and as a reasonable person who knows "the test" - whichever one of the three different tests in five years - is bunk."
Mr. Young is clearly an educated soul, thus one would think that he could use context clues to identify sarcasm. Apparently, not.
I will not change one word of what I have written. I have not perpetrated on CSD the lies he espouses.
If it makes him feel good about himself to insult my character sobeit. In doing so, he reveals that he is no better than those who would punish children for failing to show achievement on an unproven high-stakes test. It's wrong to move the conversation away from what is best for kids, especially as Mr. Young is on the cusp of losing three of his schools to the Priority "Zone." His three schools are being judged as GLS is for the failure of students to perform on unproven high stakes testing. Does that make his schools worthy of closure? Absolutely not. Nor should it for GLS.
not an attack on your character Elizabeth.
It is an attack on your words. You wrote them.
Own them.
"as Mr. Young is on the cusp of losing three of his schools to the Priority "Zone." His three schools are being judged as GLS is for the failure of students to perform on unproven high stakes testing. Does that make his schools worthy of closure? Absolutely not. Nor should it for GLS. "
THEN WHY DO YOU LABEL THE DISTRICT, CSD, AS FAILING?
Using the same scores...
Hypocrisy...
To suggest that "Mr. Young" is on the "cusp of losing" is the absolute epitome of your hypocrisy on the issue.
Please, keep responding.
Nancy, how do you like being lectured? #youarebetterthanthis
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