Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

September 4, 2012
Dear Parents,

On behalf of the teachers and staff of the Wantagh Elementary School, I would like to welcome you back to school. I anticipate that the 2012-13 academic year will prove to be an exciting year.
We are all enthusiastic about the arrival of our new superintendent, Mr. D’Angelo, and the promise of a fresh vision for the academic well-being of our school district. Also, Mrs. Chowske will be joining our WES staff, functioning as our school’s Elementary Supervisor [aka, Assistant Principal]. The future is bright as we move forward with the implementation of our Writers' Workshop program expanding into our fourth grade and kindergarten. This year we will also initiate a new K-5 math program called enVisionMATH. This program not only meets the national Common Core standards for Math but does so with enhanced technological experiences for our children.
One significant issue as we move into this new school year is that we will, at times, find it difficult if not impossible to teach authentic application of concepts and skills with an eye towards relevancy. What we will be teaching students is to be effective test takers; a skill that does not necessarily translate into critical thinking – a skill set that is necessary at the college level and beyond. This will inevitably conflict with authentic educational practice – true teaching.
Unfortunately, if educators want to survive in the new, Albany-created bureaucratic mess that is standardized assessments to measure teacher performance, paramount to anything else, we must focus on getting kids ready for the state assessments. This is what happens when non-educators like our governor and state legislators, textbook publishing companies (who create the assessments for our state and reap millions of our tax dollars by doing so), our NYS Board of Regents, and a state teachers' union president get involved in creating what they perceive as desirable educational outcomes and decide how to achieve and measure them. Where were the opinions of teachers, principals, and superintendents? None were asked to participate in the establishment of our new state assessment parameters. Today, statisticians are making educational decisions in New York State that will impact your children for years to come.
Standardized assessment has grown exponentially. For example, last year New York State fourth graders, who are nine or ten years old, were subjected to roughly 675 minutes (over 11 hours) of state assessments which does not include state field testing. This year there will be a state mandated pre-test in September and a second mandated pre-test in January for all kindergarten through fifth grade students in school. In April, kindergarten through fifth grade students will take the last test [assessment] for the year.
Excessive testing is unhealthy. When I went to school I was never over-tested and subsequently labeled with an insidious number that ranked or placed me at a Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 or Level 4 as we do today. Do you want your child to know their assigned ‘Level’? What would the impact be on their self-esteem and self-worth at such a young age?
Of additional concern to me is the relationship between children and their teacher as we move into an era where teacher job status is based upon student assessment scores. Guess what, some children will become more desirable than others to have in class! And, conversely, others will be less desirable. There, I wrote it! That concept is blasphemy in our school where teachers live to prepare children to be productive learners and members of society. Teachers state-wide are worried that their relationship with students might change when they are evaluated based upon their students’ test scores. Teachers want to educate students, not test prep them for job security.
Additionally, what should be shocking to you as a parent is that state and national databases are being created in order to analyze and store students’ test scores – your child’s assessment results and your child’s school attendance! Do you realize that the state has mandated that classroom teachers must take attendance during every math, ELA, social studies and science lesson – everyone, every day for the entire school year! Those records are sent to the state and become statistically part of the teacher evaluation process. It will no longer be enough that your child ‘was in school.’ Rather, if he or she was at a band lesson or out of the room for extra help in reading and a math lesson was taking place in class, he or she will be noted as absent from that instruction. That will be factored into the teacher evaluation. Thinking of taking your child to Disney World for a week during the school year or leaving a day or two early for a long weekend skiing? Think again! Those absences will be recorded as illegal, missed seat time and sent to the state – as mandated by the state.
This is all part of the massive, multi-million tax-payer dollar teacher evaluation processes started by our Commissioner of Education, our governor, and our state legislators and fully supported by statisticians employed by the state and assessment-making companies. No one in Albany is selecting to see the end of the journey; that 98 percent of the students graduating from Wantagh Schools go on to two- and four-year colleges. Their myopic view is focused on the ‘parts’, not the whole. Who will eventually suffer? Your children!
The balance must now be struck between maintaining the special nature of an elementary school setting and the cold and calculating final analysis rendered by statistics. The use of assessment data to drive instruction is a tenet of good educational practices. The use of assessment data to render a yearly prognostication of teacher competency is ridiculous.
You have the greatest impact on your child’s school performance. Each teacher only has your children for 180 days per year and for less than six hours per day [minus lunch and recess times, art, music, and physical education classes]. It is our expectation that as partners in your child’s education, you will be doing your part as well. As part of any evaluation of student performance, Albany must simultaneously be asking parents the following questions:
Does your child read at home each day for at least twenty minutes?
Do you read to your child every day?
Are math facts gone over daily until they are known automatically?
Is there a quiet location in the house for homework time and do you check your child’s homework each night?
Is your child sent to school ready for the day with a good breakfast following at least eight hours of sleep?
Are after school activities monitored so that your child is not ‘overbooked’ and their stamina compromised?
Is your child in school daily [except when they are sick] and not taken out of school for any reason other than illness?
We will continue to have field trips, assemblies, and special school events but some events will be curtailed or rescheduled with an eye toward prudent times during the school year to maximize student seat time. However, it is unmistakable that we have entered into a new era of educational practice with higher stakes than ever before.
I look forward to working with you and your child as we start our new school year because….together we make a difference.
Thank you.
Don Sternberg, Ed.D.
Principal

Message edited 9/26/2012 10:09:08 AM.

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

EVERY citizen of NY State should read this letter.

Not just parents of kids in school.

I have done NOTHING but grade during this year's Jewish holidays... pre-assessments, made spread-sheets, try to guess my target ( ) for every class, updated my new Data Binder that has a sheet protector for EVERY one of my high school students and in there I record:
-a reflection on last year's social studies class, what they did well, what they could have done better
-absences, including the "real" reason.
-extra help attendance or lack their of
-samples of work
-document an unbelievable # of family and mental health issues of my students
-parents attendance or lack thereof at Open House
-every parent e-mail
-every trip to the nurse

Secretly, I call my data binder, "Exhibit A" because now am I not only a statistician I'm a para-legal preparing my side of the lawsuit if I am seen as ineffective two years in a row.

My colleagues and I are so unbelievably stressed. Several teachers I know now go to therapists. My mind races non-stop.

I am also so sad for my own children. As they start kindergarten, I CRY that my DH and I will never be able to give them the quality and disciplined education we received. On top of that they have parents who are stressed and juggling ten times what our parents juggled.

It's 100% falling on the teacher's shoulders.
All of the more successful countries have SOCIETIES that encourage and celebrate education at every level. It's supported at home, it's supported in the community, places of worship... on a national level. Teachers are revered.

Until we change the focus of our society all of this is just punishing teachers and the next generation of children. Our future as a nation, and economy and a civilization is in jeopardy is all of this continues to go forward.

People need to read this letter. It's the truth.

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

Thank you for posting this!! Finally, someone, besides teachers, are telling it like it is. I don't always post on here (I have not been teaching since having my kids), but I have been contemplating changing careers. I can't take all the non-sense with test taking, funding, and school salaries. IMO, the education system needs a complete overhaul.

Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

I worked in Wantagh as a sub and have nothing but wonderful things to say about Dr. Sternberg. Thank you for posting!

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

this is incredible

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

That's awesome!

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

Wish more administrators had the balls to do something like this.

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

That was great!

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

im a third grade teacher and we have to give the kids 5 assessments since the first day of school 3 reading assessements and 2 math. its disgusting and ridiculous.

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

I'm a first grade teacher and all we've done is given baseline assessments. Plus class sizes are bigger and kids are not getting the 1on1 they need. It's so sad.

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

Well said!!!!!!

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning

Damn, he's got some balls, good for him!!! I wish more administrators would speak up. I can say that my district is involved in a lawsuit against the state about APPR., I don't know a single teacher or adminstrator that supports this.

I had to give my 8th graders pre-assessments the first few days of school instead of the normal get to know you activities. It is a shame.

Re: Don Sternberg from Wantagh good bye to authentic learning