Opening speeches generally start with a “Welcome.”
Lucy Calkins started the 86th Saturday Reunion, March 22, 2014, at Teacher’s College with a conjunction.
“And this is the important thing” she addressed the crowd that was filling up the rows in the Riverside Cathedral, “the number of people who are attending has grown exponentially. This day is only possible with the goodwill of all.”
Grabbing the podium with both hands, and without waiting for the noise to die down, Calkins launched the day as if she was completing a thought she had from the last Saturday Reunion.
“We simply do not have the capacity to sign you up for workshops and check you in. We all have to be part of the solution.”
She was referring to the workshops offered free of charge to educators by all Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) staff developers at Columbia University. This particular Saturday, there were over 125 workshops advertised on topic such as “argument writing, embedding historical fiction in nonfiction text sets, opinion writing for very young writers, managing workshop instruction, aligning instruction to the CCSS, using performance assessments and curriculum maps to ratchet up the level of teaching, state-of-the-art test prep, phonics, and guided reading.”
“First of all, ” she chided, “We cannot risk someone getting hit by a car.” Calkin’s concerns are an indication that the Saturday Reunion workshop program is a victim of its own success. The thousands of teachers disembarking from busses, cars, and taxis were directed by TCRWP minions to walk on sidewalks, wait at crosswalks, and “follow the balloons” to the Horace Mann building or Zankel Hall.
“Cross carefully,” she scolded in her teacher voice, “and be careful going into the sessions,” she continued, “the entrances to the larger workshops are the center doors, the exits are to the sides. We can’t have 800 people going in and out the same way.”
Safety talk over, Calkins turned her considerable energy to introducing a new collaborative venture, a website where educators can record their first hand experiences with the Common Core State Standards and Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBAC) or the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) testing.
And, as unbelievable as this sounds, Calkins admitted that, sometimes, “I get afraid to talk out.”
That is why, she explained, she has joined an all-star cast of educators (including Diane Ravitch, Kylene Beers, Grant Wiggins, Robert Marzano, Anthony Cody, Kathy Collins, Jay McTighe, David Pearson, Harvey “Smokey” Daniels and others-see below) in organizing a website where the voices of educators with first hand experience with standardized testing can document their experiences. The site is called Testing Talk( http://testingtalk.org/) The site’s message on the home page states:
This site provides a space for you to share your observations of the new breed of standardized tests. What works? What doesn’t? Whether your district is piloting PARCC, Smarter Balanced, or its own test, we want to pass the microphone to you, the people closest to the students being tested. The world needs to hear your stories, insights, and suggestions. Our goal is collective accountability and responsiveness through a national, online conversation.
Calkin’s promotion was directed to educators, “This will be a site for you to record your experience with testing, not to rant.” She noted that as schools “are spending billions, all feedback on testing should be open and transparent.”
Winding down Calkins looked up from her notes. “You will all be engaged,” she promised. “Enter comments; sign your name,” she urged before closing with the final admonishment, “Be brave.”
The Steering Committee for testingtalk.org:
Richard Allington
Carl Anderson
Kylene Beers
Henry Braun
Lucy Calkins
Anthony Cody
Kathy Collins
Eric Cooper
Tom Corcoran
Smokey Daniels
Steve Leinwand
Mary Ehrenworth
Anne Goudvis
Stephanie Harvey
Julian Vasquez Heilig
Heidi Hayes Jacobs
Peter Johnston
Bena Kallick
Ellin Oliver Keene
Patricia Kinsella
Robert Marzano
Mariana Souto-Manning
Jay McTighe
Debbie Miller
Pedro Noguera
Nancy Carlsson-Paige
David Pearson
Robert Probst
Gary Rubinstein
Alan Schoenfeld
Rick Stiggins
Grant Wiggins
Filed under: Assessment, Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Curriculum, Education, Education reform, Teacher, Testing Tagged: 86th Saturday Reunion, Anthony Cody, CCSS, David Pearson, Diane Ravitch, Grant Wiggins, Harvey "Smokey" Daniels, http://testingtalk.org, Jay McTighe, Kathy Collins, Kylene Beers, Lucy Calkins, Lucy Caulkins, PARRC, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) testing., Robert Marzano, Saturday Reunion workshop, SBAC, Smarter Balanced Assessments (SBAC), TCRWP, Teachers College, Testing Talk
