#DM7 Article: Boys, Interrupted

Posted on May 17, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

This is the repost of my weekly Da Tech Guy Column: Boys, Interrupted.

By A.P. Dillon

For quite some time now I’ve been watching the assault on boyhood. I’ve been kicking around observations of how boys are being treated in school, how other parents treat their children, the realities of having sons and considering the lives of my own sons.

A recent PJ Media video, Boyhood Under Attack: Why Boys Can’t Just Be Boys Anymore, hit a number of chords with me.  The video is just under 17 minutes long and I recommend watching the whole thing.  It is this video that has prompted me to finally write about boys today.

Bear with me while I trace my thoughts.  Keep in mind that I am writing from the perspective of a mom with young boys – elementary school-aged and younger. One is in elementary school and the other has not yet entered Kindergarten.

Moms of boys are a different breed. We display our Lego scarred feet like badges of honor. We know when it is too quiet in the house that something is afoot; usually requiring towels and cleaning supplies on our end. We know that unless we’ve spent several hours outside, bed time will be a disaster.

Moms of boys also know it is not all bugs, fart noises and little feet running through the house that sounds like a herd of elephants stampeding.  They love toy cars and somehow know how to make a wide array of explosion noises before they even turn 4.

Boys are tough, or so they want you to believe. They will always look to their mom for strength and direction. Be a loving mother who is a source of strength, not criticism.

Being a mom of boys is also about that little person wandering into your bed in the middle of the night and setting up camp in the crook of your arm.

We see our sons eye their cuts and scrapes through a mix of tears and curious pride. Our sons slay monsters. They like to shoot the bad guys and play the hero. They build towers just to smash them to see what happens.

Boys are largely ‘hands-on’ creatures; trial and error teaches them about expectations and roles they will play as they grow into manhood.

With all their adventures, boys are learning about themselves.  This is how they find their character and their confidence. Their activities are a means of both defining one’s self and following what they are hard-wired for at the same time. This is boyhood. It is primal and instinctual.

Moms of boys see all of this and more, yet inexplicably some of us seem to relinquish protecting our son’s boyhood once school starts. Well, not this mom.

Boys are boys. They are not girls.

Boys in general are movers, not sitters. They are explorers, not sedentary watchers. Their social interactions are less verbal than girls their age and are more physical.

This is who boys are and they are being interrupted. I’ve noted that school tries to make them act like girls; sit still, listen, don’t fidget, etc.  The shortening of recess and interactive play in school is exacerbating the situation — Gee, thank you, Common Core.

Boys have labels applied to them like ‘hyperactive’ and ‘disobedient’ along with notes to that go into their school files.  Some of the labeling and note taking is followed by a suggestion for an ‘educational intervention’ and questions about ADHD. Too often, parents comply.

This is not to say that boys shouldn’t pay attention to instruction or try their best in the classroom. Having an expectation for boys to learn is not the problem, rather, boys shouldn’t be expected to behave like their female counterparts.

I’ve also watched as young girls are rewarded for exerting their independence and entering into activities taken up by mainly by boys in the past. Yet, the boys who engage in these same activities are herded, marginalized and told their actions are inappropriate.

This marginalizing represents a form of picking winners and losers; one that is predetermined based on sex and in my opinion has its roots in ‘modern feminism‘.  Modern feminism’s drive has been to enshrine the concept that ‘all things female’ automatically trump ‘all things male’. This has done more to harm gender equality than the actions of any man ever has.

Modern feminism has become a twisted parody and it is continuing to ignore biology and common sense and instead opting to apply their will and make males second class citizens by brute force. Oh, the irony.

Be their mom. Be their dad. Let them be boys. What you do and say means more to your sons than anything else. Stop giving in to those who would marginalize who boys naturally are. Start standing up for your sons.

Stand up for their boyhood — and their future manhood.

 

DM7 small LL1885A.P. Dillon resides in the Triangle area of North Carolina and is the founder of LadyLiberty1885.com.
Her current and past writing can also be found at IJ Review, StopCommonCoreNC.org and Watchdog Wire NC.
Catch her on Twitter: @LadyLiberty1885

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885) | 1 Comment

WNCN Embargoes Teacher Sexual Misconduct Story (UPDATED!)

Posted on May 17, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

In my email alerts this morning I saw a story from WNCN on ‘sexual misconduct by educators a growing problem’. When I clicked the link, I found that the story had been pulled. I hit Twitter and asked WNCN why. Here is the response:

Related: NC Plott Hound’s NOT A HOMESCHOOL

UPDATE: This story on Teacher Sexual Misconduct at WNCN is now available and it is a MUST READ.

Excerpt:

WNCN Investigates started compiling and digging through court records and found that in the past five years, teachers have been charged more than 700 times for sexual misconduct with students.

“This is child sexual abuse and child rape and we have to recognize it as that,” Miller said. “It’s wretched. It wreaks havoc on their lives, their relationships, their emotional well-being.”

Miller said most cases often go unreported.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION | Comments Off on WNCN Embargoes Teacher Sexual Misconduct Story (UPDATED!)

Ed Tech Company That Received Millions in RTTT Funds Shuts Down

Posted on May 17, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Education Tech company, Thinkgate LLC, shut its doors this past week.

The company was located in Charlotte, North Carolina and provided a number of services to the North Carolina and other states. The company moved their headquarters to North Carolina just over a year ago.

Just six months ago, Thinkgate hired a new controller and moved into brand new office space in downtown Charlotte.

My gut reaction to this news — is this the start of an education version of Solyndra?

According to Washington Post, Thinkgate was paid by some states with Race To The Top funds:

An education technology company has folded after receiving millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funds to provide online assessments and other services to school districts.

Charlotte-based Thinkgate LLC shut down last week, according to state education officials in Ohio and Massachusetts, two states that used Race to the Top money to contract with the company.

Their joint contract with Thinkgate does not expire until the end of the school year, leaving some schools scrambling to fill the void left by the company’s closure and some parents concerned about the security of student data in the company’s systems.

The company also had statewide contracts in North Carolina and Illinois, and altogether served more than 500 education agencies and 3 million students, according to its Web site.

What does this mean for North Carolina Schools? Charlotte Business Journal offers this bit of information:

N.C. Department of Public Instruction spokeswoman Vanessa Jeter says the agency has been working through issues related to Thinkgate’s closure this week. Thinkgate has been the state’s software vendor for career and technical education assessments. The department is working on a transition plan with the Thinkgate system now shut down.

[…]

Thinkgate was a finalist for a North Carolina Technology Association Use of Technology Award in the education category in October.

For more on what the “career and technical education assessments” mentioned above are, hit CommonCoreDiva’s archive on the topic.

I hit Recover.gov and found that Thinkgate’s ARRA recovery fund grants total: $6,568,028

I then dug further into Thinkgate and pulled all the financial data I could find with ties to North Carolina.

The information for North Carolina is all over the place on multiple websites, but I located a few districts that seem to rely on Thinkgate which are Anson, Gaston, Charlotte-Mecklenburg and  Mooresville.  The latter two, CMS and Mooresville, more so than the first two.

With regard to Mooresville, it is worth noting that Superintendent Mark Edwards has a number of appearances on the Thinkgate blog. This goes hand in hand with Mooresville Graded School District (MGSD) attempts to convert all teaching to an all digital based format.

It is worth nothing that in 2013, President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited a Mooresville Middle School during their “Jobs and Opportunity” tour, which in part promoted the White House Initiative, ConnectED.  

Follow the NC Thinkgate Money

NC Open Book lists two contracts. Total: $3,703,255.50.

Looking through the contracts via the NC State Board of Education, these were the multiple listings that I found. Total:  $8,764,492.43*

*note: two of the contracts above appear to be identical dollar totals, but the purpose descriptions differ.

So What Now? What Happens to Thinkgate and the Data?

According to the NC Secretary of State, Thinkgate is an LLC.

I might be wrong, but as an LLC, this means Thinkgate can’t use the remedy of filing for chapter 13 bankruptcy. The two other options available to Thinkgate would be liquidation or reorganization.

The amount of student and teacher data that flowed through Thinkgate spans multiple states and potential impacts hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of kids and teachers.

What will happen to this data now that Thinkgate has gone under?

Will this data be sold like it was when ConnectEDU filed for bankruptcy as Missouri Education Watchdog reported?

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION | Tagged | 1 Comment

Teacher Omar Currie Knows What’s Best For Your Child

Posted on May 16, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Parents, teacher Omar Currie knows what is best for your child. He will read to your 8 year-old child what he deems fit. That includes a book about homosexuality because.. bullying! Mr. Currie has many quotes caught by the News and Observer, but this amazingly arrogant comments on your rights as parents are truly amazing:

On Wednesday, the committee, acting on an earlier complaint, upheld the use of the book. But Currie said the principal also instituted new policies that require teachers to notify parents of all the books they plan to read in class and to fill out a form for every bullying incident.

On Friday night, speaking loud and fast in his allotted three minutes, Currie objected to the new rules.

“This egregious policy creates an undue burden on teachers, and it hurts students,” he said. “The district must understand silence is poison.”

You got that parents? Notifying you of what books your child will read in class is “egregious policy” and “hurts students”. Currie claimed this book was to draw awareness to bullying?  His own mentality here is bullying.

Notice he mentions the teachers and students but not the parents?

They are not in his equation – still. Lib Logic

These are not your kids, Mr. Currie. They belong to their parents and those parents have every right to be angry with you on this. This content is inappropriate for a class full of 8 year-olds. To the parents that thought this was OK to read, that’s fine — read it to your own kids.

One can argue the split in parental opinions here actually proves the need for such a notification process.

Frankly, a practice like this should be in place for ALL grades in all schools. Does Mr. Currie have a problem with transparency and the engagement of parents?

Back to that ‘bullying’. At the end of the News and Observer article, we see real bullying in action:

“These are my children. These are not your children,” said Rodney Davis, who has two children at Efland-Cheeks. “What gives you the right to tell me what they can listen to and what they can hear in our school? That’s bullying.”

[..]

School district spokesman Seth Stephens repeatedly told speakers to focus on the book and not individuals.

When Davis interrupted him, Stephens had a sheriff’s deputy escort Davis through the door and out of the school.

Good for Mr. Davis. Parents have had it with some schools and teachers making school more about social issues than about actual academics.

By the way, while News and Observer characterized the meeting as supportive of Currie, WRAL said it was a protest.
Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, Parental Rights, Poltical Correctness, Social Justice | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Pearson Is Everywhere: MN Tests Get Hacked Edition

Posted on May 15, 2015 by A.P. Dillon
Pearson: Always Earning

Pearson: Always Earning

Welcome back to Pearson Is Everywhere!

Last time, we saw that Over 175k Opted Out of Pearson PARCC in NY.

 

Today, we’re looking at Minnesota’s tests being hacked, causing the testing to be temporarily canceled.  The attack was a DDoS (denial of service) attack.

Background
According to Ed Week, even their practice runs had issues. Technical ‘glitches’ with browser compatibility seriously hampered the practice runs. Pearson’s answer was to direct the browsers to turn off security measure and run them in “unsafe mode”:

Issues have been reported most often by districts equipped with Apple computers, due to incompatibilities between Pearson’s testing portal and the device’s standard web browser, Safari.

Updated versions of Safari (on OS X 10.7 or higher) will not support the Java and Flash software necessary to run TestNav unless the browser is operated in what is called “unsafe mode.” 

Brandon Pinette, the senior public affairs manager at Pearson, told Education Week that the company is working with Apple to resolve the matter.

In the meantime, he said that districts can download a Web browswer that is compatible with TestNav, such as Google Chrome, or access the website using Safari’s “unsafe mode.”

Some district leaders have expressed concerns about what the latter recommendation could mean for protecting student data.

Minnesota has a $38 million dollar three-year contract with Pearson.

KARE11 reported on the DDoS attack:

ROSEVILLE, Minn. – Minnesota student testing has been suspended again after what is believed to be a sophisticated hacking attempt.

The state Department of Education said Wednesday it was temporarily halting the computerized Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments that test science proficiency. Testing was also disrupted last month over security and connectivity concerns.

[…]

Pearson released this statement late Wednesday afternoon:

From time to time, online testing providers like Pearson encounter malicious third-party attempts to disrupt their systems. This can lead to a degradation in service that slows system responsiveness, which could affect a student’s ability to start or continue testing.

Pearson has experienced intermittent disruptions today due to a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. A DDoS attack is a deliberate attempt by an outside party to overload and slow down system traffic.

We have worked throughout the day to mitigate these attacks, minimize the disruptions and return service to normal. We are actively working to strengthen our defenses to fend off these attacks.

DDoS attacks are not attempts to access student data, and at no time was student data compromised. We understand this caused difficulties today for learners and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Pearson has been DDos’d many times in the past; just last year Pearson VUE was apparently down for 5 days:

In the blizzard of paper from my FOIA to NC DPI on Powerschool, a DDoS attack on Pearson was revealed. This attack affected ALL schools in North Carolina using Powerschool.

The press release crafted for NC DPI by Greg Parrish of Pearson softens the original message he sent regarding the attack. Both of these emails are documented in my tweets below:

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Parent Asks DPI: What’s the exit mechanism for EOG?

Posted on May 15, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

There was an interesting exchange on Twitter regarding opting out of the EOG in North Carolina.  It was launched by this tweet, in which the user tagged NC’s Superintendent and CCSSO President, Dr. Atkinson.

 

EOG’s take a snapshot of where the student has been, not where they are going. Everything I have read about them indicate are not used for much beyond grading the school’s performance and federal requirements for funding and grants.

Reminder:

“The State Board of Education shall adopt the tests for grades three through 12 that are required by federal law or as a condition of a federal grant.”

One could argue the EOG helps catch issues with kids not learning what they need to, but when given at the end of the year, it’s a bit too late. In my opinion, quarterly or regular formative assessments seem to be the way to go.

Formative assessments that are built into or disguised as daily activity as to be the least invasive or pressuring on the student and directly impact instruction in the present make sense.

For the record, I do not advocate collecting data on any assessments beyond use in the local classroom. States need to stop handing over pounds of our flesh from our kids to the Fed for more money.

EOG’s start in 3rd grade, by the way folks.  They are given to 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. By the time you get to 5th grade, you have an EOG in science, which is in addition to math and reading.

The conversation started by @DirkNC continued and another parent joined in.

Like other parents, @Leslielam had been told that the EOG was 20% of their child’s grade and warned that opting out will hurt their school. @DirkNC wanted to know if there was a penalty for pulling their kid from the test.

In response to @Leslielam and @DirkNC’s questions, Dr. Atkinson makes a distinction about End of Course and End of Grade tests in response:

You will get statutes and policy out of DPI.

I will refer the reader to the letter March 25, 2014 letter from DPI’s Rebecca Garland to Superintendents on the topic of Opting Out.

MeltdownDPI will blame the State Board of Ed and the legislature.

That seems to be the general response from DPI when questioned about anything — ‘they made us do it!’

But hey, you guys, leave DPI alone!!!!

 

Overall though, an interesting conversation. Parents should start with the original tweet and read the rest.

Related Reading: Opting Out Of Tests In North Carolina – PT II

Posted in Common Core, EDUCATION, June Atkinson, Testing | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Parent Asks DPI: What’s the exit mechanism for EOG?