Controversy Brews at Teachers College

It is a dark day when Teachers College, a venerable institution of learning, engages in actions that are contrary to the values it has upheld and nurtured for more than a century but that day has arrived.

Its founding vision was to train teachers to work effectively with the children of New York City’s poor by understanding and furthering the many ways that children are capable of learning. Individual differences were respected, cherished. The words progressive and humanitarian were embraced by Teachers College.

Unfortunately, the unilateral decision by T.C. President Susan Fuhrman to honor New York Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch next week at the school’s convocation defies this tradition. As a member of the board since 1996, Tisch has supported New York’s testing program as it became the black hole of education from the inception of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. Children have been reduced to data points. Education is now a census filed annually on their answer sheets.

Many in the Teachers College community as well as off-campus bystanders are disturbed by Fuhrman’s decision to honor Tisch who represents to her critics the testing agenda which they believe has corrupted education policy.

In 2009, after becoming chancellor, Tisch admitted that the test results during her tenure had been misleading but maintained that the tests were valid. Her agenda, with the promise of more rigorous testing, became the focus for New York.

The shift was navigated in editorial boardrooms where she won support for the idea that more testing was the way to go, and test scores could be defended in reaching high-stakes decisions about students, teachers and schools — uses for which they were never intended.

Not once did she ask for an independent investigation of the relationship between the test publisher and the State Education Department and how the results had become so spuriously high. The regent board member who watched the misuse of testing unfold was now in charge of its reform.

Since 2010, Chancellor Tisch has supported the hostile takeover of education by the U.S. Department of Education through Race To The Top money that put even more pressure on states to reach test-based decisions and develop data management systems to store and report test results.

Tisch’s reform reached its apotheosis in the hasty imposition of New York’s Common Core Learning Standards and the more difficult 2013 core-aligned tests that have been cobbled together to provide information about student readiness for college and careers. Clearly, the new tests were not ready for delivery this year.

It is sadly fitting that Susan Fuhrman, president of Teachers College, should be presenting Tisch with a distinguished service medal. Fuhrman has reportedly received almost $1 million in the form of stocks and fees (as “non-executive independent director) from Pearson, the state’s current test publisher.

And closing the circle, Pearson not only has a five-year $32 million contract with the state to test 1.2 million students in grade 3 to 8 each year in reading and math. It has taken over gatekeeping programs that assess who is qualified to be a teacher and whether their performance as teachers is satisfactory. So T.C. trains the teachers, the state hires and evaluates them and Pearson thrives — monopoly style — on this neat arrangement.

Many T.C. students, who aspire to a career in education, are offended by this award. They, faculty members and alumni are engaged in discussions over the best way to let the administration know of their growing opposition to the May 21 ceremony.

At least it is heartening that the T.C. idealism and commitment to teaching has not been extinguished by the likes of Tisch and Fuhrman. Many feel the medal must not be bestowed in order to protect the honorable name of Teachers College.