Reviewing some of these rigidly constructed lessons, I found myself trying to imagine what it would be like to be a student subjected to these formulaic scripts that appear to have students spend huge periods of time reading texts, having texts read to them, looking for YouTubes that are related to the texts and answering questions about the texts that are meant to be penetrating but most of which would bore me to death after a while, particularly when the lesson in each subject I take is going to be shaped the same way.. Of those I reviewed, my favorite was a plan for a four or five day unit on Brown vs. Board of Education for eighth graders which is essentially centered on a two and one half page text. Five days on one court case with eighth graders? If I even half-remember what I was like at that age, I’d would be acting out from boredom after day two, and maybe sooner than that. If this is what school leaders have in mind for the implementation of the Common Core Standards, it won’t be long before the teachers are acting out too.

Last night, however, Board President Gary Bettan shocked me from my habitual reverie. Announcing that he was speaking only for himself, Bettan read a carefully prepared statement protesting the harmful effects of high stakes state testing. “It is so frustrating that politics and corporate profits are the driving force in NY State’s race to high stakes testing. I’m all for accountability, but if you can’t trust the standardized tests, how can you trust the results?” Bettan went on to say, “These tests are loaded with trick questions and ambiguous passages. I fear that we are testing our kids’ ability to take tests, not their knowledge of what they have learned.”

It was heartening to see a member of the Board of Education take a public stand on what is emerging as the central issue facing New York’s public schools. If we are ever to end the mindless testing that is being passed off as education reform, it is going to take the forming of a grand coalition of teachers, Board of Education members, administrators and parents all standing up for the children of our state and demanding that our political leaders put children ahead of corporate profits and learning ahead of testing. We all need to summon the courage Bettan did last evening.

Mom’s expression came to mind immediately I read the Pearson Company’s justification of the now infamous “pineapple question” on the recent eighth grade ELA exam. The leaders of the Pearson Company, the makers of the test, apparently didn’t benefit from my mother’s kind of parenting. Although the entire state appears to agree that the pineapple question was absurd and, more importantly misleading, Pearson, in a letter to the State Education Department, disagrees. Claiming that the correct answer could be derived from evidence in the text of the story, Pearson wrote, “The owl declares that ‘Pineapples don’t have sleeves,’ which is a factually accurate statement. This statement is presented as the moral of the story, allowing a careful reader to infer that the owl is the wisest animal.”

Chancellor Tisch’s response to the pineapple flap was at once more equivocal and scary. The Times reports that she maintains that the question makes sense in context but should have been discarded. Why? Because questions like this are used by the opponents of testing to discredit the process. Given the many problematical questions on the recent battery of ELA and math exams, don’t the opponents have a point, Dr. Tisch? Sorry Dr. Tisch and Pearson. It’s not raining.

There isn’t even any pretense of the inclusion of the voices of teachers on this commission. If AFT President Randi Weingarten has any sense, she will decline the “opportunity” to be the token voice of teachers on the panel. We surely don’t need the appearance of her concurrance with some of the really bad stuff that’s bound to come from this group. There is not a soul there who has any real idea of what the teachers and students of this state are going through in the name of reform. Reform to them looks and is more like chaos. Doubt me? Google some of these people for yourself!

King told a tale about his father having broken his arm and arriving at his school with a cast on it. His principal told him that he could not work with his arm in a cast and that he had to go home sick. King’s father protested and protested to no avail. His principal would not let him teach with a cast on his arm. At this point the elder King smashed his casted arm on the office counter, breaking the cast and announcing that he was going to his room to teach his class.

While I’m sure the Commissioner meant his story to convey a sense of his genetically determined will to see the policies of State Ed through, upon reflection, the story offered an insight into what in more appropriately dubbed fanaticism, a fanaticism in support of failed policies every bit as extreme in degree as his father’s breaking of his cast. Suddenly, his very smooth, articulate defense of the indefensible policies of State Ed made sense to me, scary though that sense may be.