Most days I try to post meaningful quotes concerning education on my Facebook page.  Today I posted:

The issue is trusting teachers, trusting kids, and trusting them to find the books they need. The Common Core trusts nothing but computerized programs that train teachers and kids to do what they’re told. Susan Ohanian

This what followed:

Rick. The Common Core reduces teachers to low level techies.

Steve. Why are some educators embracing Common Core?

Judy. Steve, I think that it’s fear and intimidation that is pushing educators towards embracing Common Core.

Steve. Fear and intimidation from legislatures or administrators?

Me. Steve, because they refuse to do the simple research .

Delbert. I think many teachers were initially receptive to the Common Core because it had some good curriculum objectives in certain areas and because the idea of national standards brought the promise of shared national resources which could have helped underresourced states especially. Now that the CC has been exposed as part of an orchestrated effort to privatize public education, I think and hope the majority of teachers will turn against. They are the primary victims besides students. More and more are getting a taste of nothing but bitter. It down to professional self-preservation.

Judy. From my personal experience as a literacy consultant, administrators are terribly fearful of the officials at the DOE and that, then, is transferred to the teachers.

Sue. From my personal experience as a kindergarten teacher, everyone is afraid of losing her/his job and thus will not protest even the most egregiously inappropriate aspects of the Common Core. I’ve been told, “If they ask you to fill a cup, fill it. If they ask you to empty the cup, empty it.”

Sue. There is clearly a punitive undertone to the whole thing and CONTROL of everything that is being done in the classroom, based on the results of an absurd amount of assessment and data.

Delbert. That’s frightening.

Horace. Tim Slekar, thanks for the quote from Susan Ohanian. The new accountability systems and VAMS are all about not trusting teachers. There has arisen an incredible fear that left-leaning, liberal teachers are indoctrinating students to be socialists. It’s nearing the hysteria of McCarthyism.

Horace. Judy describes the flow of fear pretty well. Over the years, we’ve seen obedience and rule-following become priorities in schools. So, when CCSS comes down the pipe, teachers are just supposed to follow the rules and be obedient, not challenging the system at all.

Judy. I really don’t think that principals are comfortable with CCS and all of the assessments. (Susan should share how many she must do this year!). We should get administration and faculty together on this issue as a more outspoken and united front. Parents too.

Sue. Just through some simple calculations of the required assessments I am responsible for this year, based on 21 students, I have to carry out 840!!!!!! assessments. My principal told me that assessment should be used as instruction. I told her I was assessing more than teaching. She said that shouldn’t be…and I looked at her……….what else can one say?

Horace. Tim Slekar and Sue: that’s a post for At the Chalk Face.

Horace. Judy: NY has been exception in showing some administration leadership in as far as the resolution that 1,000 principals have signed. But what about the others? Where is the resistance at the admin level?

Horace. ”School leaders have a duty to undo the harm perpetuated on our public schools by the privatization movement today.” Every school board and administration needs asked, “How are you undoing that harm?”

Judy. Horace: administrators are afraid of losing their jobs.

Horace. ”An educator in a system of oppression is either an oppressor or a revolutionary.” –Lerone Bennett

Horace. “You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.” —MLK

Horace.  ”Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.” —MLK

Who’s next?

Is it fear? Should we respect the position teachers and principals have to take to keep their jobs?  Or, should doing what’s right be our only guiding principle?