In late October 2013, I testified at a hearing of the New York Senate education committee, which at the time was chaired by Senator John Flanagan, who is now the Senate Majority Leader. The hearing was one of many held around the state about the “Regents Reform Agenda.” I used the opportunity not only to criticize said agenda from my perspective as a New York City public school parent but also to provide a political analysis of the faux narrative of a “crisis” in public education and the giant disconnect between research and the so-called reforms being forced upon K-12 educators, parents and students in NYS.

So why, you might ask, am I posting testimony that is a year and a half old? The reality is that very little has changed except that Governor Cuomo and the NYS Education Department have doubled down on high-stakes testing, including the use of test scores to evaluate teachers and to close, or take over, schools. And the parent backlash has intensified, resulting in an estimated 209,000 opt outs last spring.

My testimony will tell you a lot about my perspective on what’s happening in public education. You can read it in full here or watch the abbreviated version I delivered in person (which is particularly fun if you like a lot of gesticulating).

Here’s are some key excerpts:

THE FAUX NARRATIVE OF “CRISIS” IN U.S. PUBLIC EDUCATION: “IT’S THE POVERTY, STUPID”

Education reform at the federal, state and city levels is largely being driven by the assertion that U.S. students are falling behind internationally and not graduating from high school ready to succeed in college and in a global labor market. This argument – often stated as irrefutable fact – has been used to rationalize the nationwide imposition of the Common Core (CC), which has been sold as a set of high academic standards that will teach critical thinking and result in deep learning. We are told that the situation is dire and that our very economic future is at stake, which is in turn used to justify subjecting public school children to extensive standardized testing linked to high stakes for themselves, their teachers and their schools.

The problem is that every part of the narrative about “the crisis in U.S. public education” has been shown to be overly simplistic, lacking in evidence, ideologically suspect or just plain wrong. Below, I employ my critical thinking skills – which I acquired from a high-quality public education – to unpack three of the taken-as-fact claims upon which current education reforms are predicated.

Claim #1: American Students are Falling Behind Internationally 

When disaggregated, international rankings of academic achievement repeatedly show that U.S. students from middle- and upper-income families perform quite well when compared to students from other countries. Another way to disaggregate U.S. performance data is by state. A recent analysis finds that Massachusetts trailed only four nations in 8th grade math performance. These data indicate that the highest-performing American states are wealthy, racially and ethnically homogeneous and/or have relatively low levels of child poverty (see figure)….

Far from falling behind as a nation, our most advantaged students continue to be quite competitive internationally. But due to near unprecedented levels of wealth and income inequality in this country, a growing portion of our nation’s children live in low-income families with few assets to fall back on in hard times. The U.S. now has the highest level of child poverty since 1960.

Claim #2: Education is the Antidote to Child Poverty

The richest nation on Earth – and one that purports to value democracy and equality – should not allow children’s socioeconomic status to determine their life chances. Yet that’s exactly what we currently do. We refuse to acknowledge as a nation that high rates of poverty and wealth inequality are holding us back: socioeconomic status continues to be the primary predictor of academic achievement in the U.S.

Given the rhetoric of education officials, one would never know that the national “achievement gap” between black and white students has narrowed considerably over time while the income gap in academic performance has steadily increased…..

Education reform alone will never solve the constellation of problems that can compromise the academic performance of low-income children. Not only do they enter kindergarten woefully behind their more affluent peers, low-income children confront a wide range of obstacles to doing well in school: inadequate nutrition; untreated medical, dental and vision problems; undiagnosed learning disabilities; and importantly, parents who are working multiple jobs, are constantly stressed about making ends meet and who often don’t have time to attend parent/teacher conferences or help their children with homework….

The sad truth is that we know what works to boost academic achievement among low-income kids, but policymakers continue to forge ahead with unproven reforms, ignoring decades of research. Proven strategies to improve school performance among our most vulnerable children include: increasing family income, providing high-quality comprehensive early childhood programs from birth, reducing class size (especially in the lower grades) and sending children to schools that are integrated socioeconomically and racially/ethnically.

Claim #3: American High School Graduates are Not College Ready

Enter the phrase “NYS college readiness rates” into Google search and the top entries all carry the same message: despite incremental improvements in high school graduation rates across NYS, fewer than half of these graduates are prepared to do college-level work. The implication is that high schools are pushing students out the door who should not have been allowed to graduate. An underlying assumption here is that anyone who graduates from high school should be capable of doing “college-level work,” although what this actually means is rarely defined.

Predictions are that while most jobs in the future will require some type of post-secondary credential, most of them will not require a 4-year college degree but rather a professional certificate or associates degree. To put the discourse about “college and career ready” into perspective, just under a third of Americans have a 4-year college degree. Even among young adults under 30, the percentage is roughly the same – just 30% of adults 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree or higher….

The conversation about the need for post-high-school remediation focuses primarily on community college students. But there are actually some good-news reasons for this. A higher percentage of low-income students are enrolling in college than ever before, with most of the increases occurring at community colleges. Many of these students are the first in their families to attend college. In short, one reason that more community college students are struggling is that far more high school graduates are opting to pursue post-secondary education….

I completely support efforts to re-assess our approach to high school to find better ways to prepare students for a variety of post-high-school pathways. But there is no evidence that implementing a one-size-fits-all “college and career ready” approach to K-12 will prepare more high school graduates to succeed in college or the labor market.

COMMON CORE: HIGH ACADEMIC STANDARDS OR CORPORATE SNOW JOB?

As a nation of immigrants with diverse backgrounds spread across a vast land, the American ideal of public education holds that it should facilitate social cohesion and reduce religious, ethnic, racial and socioeconomic conflict. By providing the space for people of varied backgrounds to come together and develop shared cultural understandings, public education at its best should prepare our children to be good citizens and enrich our democracy.

Nonetheless, the question of whether the U.S. should have a single set of educational standards for the entire nation has always been contentious and the U.S. Department of Education is actually prohibited from developing one. In the abstract, I personally support having at least a minimal set of consistent academic standards that the entire country should adhere to. This stance is consistent with the widely-held American value that all children, regardless of background or geography, should have access to a high-quality public education.

Although reasonable people can debate the pros and cons of using national standards to raise the quality of public education, we haven’t had that debate as a nation. Instead, from the perspective of most parents, Common Core came out of nowhere. Education officials, starting with those at the federal level, have provided dishonest descriptions about the origins, development and roll out of Common Core….

PARENTS HAVE BEEN IGNORED FOR FAR TOO LONG

As policymakers, you may be focused on the latest round of reforms: the introduction of Common Core, the implementation of a new generation of standardized tests aligned to CC and the creation of an entirely new battery of tests to evaluate teachers. As many stakeholders have argued, it’s been too much, too fast with little evidence this enormous agenda will accomplish its stated goals.

But from the perspective of many parents, this is simply the latest phase in a decade-long national experiment with public school children. While I fully appreciate that much of this is federally driven, for the vast majority of parents, it really doesn’t matter where it’s coming from – we just know how it affects our kids and our families….

The bottom line is that these reforms have little credibility with parents, rank-and-file educators and experts. They are not based on research and there is no evidence they will work. They are the product of corporate interests and influence. They have been sold to the public based on a “crisis” that doesn’t exist (or at least not the right crisis). We have been lied to and condescended to. And now we’re really angry. We will remain angry until these corporate-backed policies are rescinded and until teachers – trained, experienced professionals – are put back in charge of educating our children.

Read the full version here.