|
FEBRUARY 2010
SURVEY: TEACHERS DON'T LIKE 'NO
CHILD' LAW
TEST TYRANTS DOING AWAY WITH RECESS
LOCAL HEROES: SCHOOL DISTRICT
REJECTS 'RACE TO THE TOP'
JANUARY 2010
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND FLUNKS AGAIN
CONFLICTING NEW YORK RESULTS FLUNK
TEST OBSESSION
DECEMBER 2009
SCHOOL DEFORMERS SUCK 3-4 YEARS
INTO TEST OBSESSION; EDUCATORS FIGHT BACK
ARNE DUNCAN WOULD FLUNK WINSTON
CHURCHILL
EIGHT REASONS DUNCAN'S TEACH FOR
DOLLARS PLAN WON'T WORK
NOVEMBER 2009
OBAMA'S EDUCATION PLAN DEPENDS
ON TEST SCORING BY ILL TRAINED TEMPS
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL DEFORMERS AND
THE CHICAGO GANG DEATH
OBAMA'S WAR AGAINST KIDS' VACATIONS
SCHOOL DEFORMERS' LATEST NONSENSE
OCTOBER 2009
HOW TEST OBSESSION IS HURTING
LEARNING
OBAMA WOULD HAVE STUDENTS STAY
IN SCHOOL LONGER
SEPTEMBER 2009
BLOWING THE MYTH OF ARNE DUNCAN
ONLINE LEARNING HELPS STUDENTS
AUGUST 2009
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND . . .UNTIL
THEY TAKE THE SAT
NEA RIPS INTO OBAMA'S SCHOOL POLICIES
NEA HEAD CALLS TEACH FOR AMERICA
EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE
STUDY FINDS GIULIANI-BLOOMBERG COPS IN SCHOOLS
APPROACH DOESN'T WORK
OBAMA BULLYING SCHOOL SYSTEMS
TO GIVE UP LOCAL CONTROL
HOW PUBLIC SCHOOL TEST TYRANTS
CHEAT THEIR STUDENTS
JULY 2009
PLAYING GAMES WITH SCHOOL TESTING
WHY WE'RE NOT CHANGING EDUCATION
TAKING TESTS IS NOT LEARNING
JUNE 2009
HOW THE STANDARDISTOS ARE DAMAGING
EDUCATION
BRITISH REPORT BLASTS CORPORATIZED
EDUCATION
DUNCAN OUT TO KILL LOCAL PUBLIC
EDUCATION
THE SAME SORT OF PEOPLE WHO CRASHED
THE ECONOMY NOW RUN OUR SCHOOLS
LG OFFERS TESTING TRANSLATION
TOOL FOR PARENTS
DUNCAN THREATENS STATES WITH LOSS
OF FUNDS
IF THEY DON'T PRIVATIZE SCHOOLS
WHAT ASSESSMENT ADDICTS, CORPORATE
HUSTLERS,
BUREAUCRATS & POLITICIANS ARE DOING TO OUR CHILDREN
MAY 2009
SCHOOL REFORM? UNTRAINED TEACHERS
FOR THE POOR
CHILD ABUSE: JUKING THE STATS
THE UNDERSIDE OF TEACH FOR AMERICA
COMING SOON TO A SCHOOL NEAR YOU:
A NATIONAL CURRICULUM?
HEY, IT WORKED FOR HITLER
DIDN'T IT?
EXPLORER
SCOUTS BEING TAUGHT HOW TO KILL
MORE PHOTOS
APRIL 2009
WHAT DUNCAN REALLY DID TO CHICAGO
SCHOOLS
COMING SOON TO A SCHOOL NEAR YOU:
A NATIONAL CURRICULUM?
DUNCAN BULLYING SCHOOL SYSTEMS
INTO EXCESSIVE PAPERWORK
NYC CHANCELLOR USED TAXPAYER'S
TIME TO RAISE MONEY FOR CONSERVATIVE EDUCATION LOBBY
DUMP DUNCAN, RHEE & KLEIN
AND LET THE FINNS TEACH US HOW TO RUN OUR SCHOOLS
HOW SCHOOL AUTOCRATS ARE HURTING
PUBLIC EDUCATION
PAYOFF CONTINUES TO AL SHARPTON
FOR JOINING WAR ON PUBLIC EDUCATION
BRITISH SCHOOL SCANDAL RAISES
CONCERN OVER AMERICA'S TESTING OBSESSION
MARCH 2009
UNDERPERFORMING DC SCHOOL SUPER
PLAYS FAST AND LOOSE WITH TEACHERS' FUTURES
BILL GATES WANTS BIG BROTHER IN
THE CLASSROOM
WHERE BAD PUBLIC EDUCATION REALLY
COMES FROM
OBAMA TAKES RIGHTWING LINE ON
PUBLIC EDUCATION
FEBRUARY 2009
THE MEDIA MUDDLED STORY OF TEACH
FOR AMERICA
THE DANGERS OF SCHOOL TESTING
ADDICTION
THE PRICE OF BRIBING STUDENTS
INTO BETTER GRADES
LOCAL HEROES: SEATTLE TEACHER
SUSPENDED FOR REFUSING TO GIVE STANDARDIZED TEST
JANUARY 2009
|
HOW ARNE DUNCAN THINKS
ABOUT CHILDREN
I am not a manager of 600
schools. I'm a portfolio manager of 600 schools and I'm trying
to improve the portfolio. - Arne Duncan, the new education
secretary, speaking of the Chicago schools he ran. |
FLUNKIN' DUNCAN: THE TEST RESULTS
FOXES IN THE CHICKEN COOP: ARNE
DUNCAN
OBAMA SIDES WITH WAR ON PUBLIC
SCHOOLS
WHY ARNE DUNCAN IS A TERRIBLE CHOICE FOR
EDUCATION SECRETAR
DECEMBER 2008
MAJOR CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDAL IN
DC
STUDY
SUGGESTS NO CHILD LAW MAY BE DUMBING DOWN STUDENTS
NO CHILD LAW EVEN MAKING LIBERALS
DUMBER
SEPTEMBER 2008
EVEN THE RIGHT IS FINDING CHARTERS &
VOUCHERS TO BE SUBPRIME
Frederick M Hess, American
Enterprise Institute - Milwaukee's voucher program initially
allowed a few hundred students to attend local private schools
with public scholarships. When it was launched, advocates voiced
expansive claims on behalf of "choice." In 1990, scholars
John Chubb and Terry Moe argued in their seminal volume Politics,
Markets, and America's Schools, "Without being too literal
about it, we think reformers would do well to entertain the notion
that choice is a panacea. . . . It has the capacity all by itself
to bring about the kind of transformation that, for years, reformers
have been seeking to engineer in myriad other ways."
The record of markets
in advancing prosperity, opportunity, and innovation is compelling.
It seemed almost axiomatic that market reforms would deliver
similar results in schooling, spurring the emergence of good
schools and pushing traditional districts to improve.
Yet things have not worked
out as intended. Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas
B. Fordham Institute and a champion of choice-based reform since
the 1980s, has voiced "growing sympathy" with choice
skeptics and warned against "too much trust in market forces.
. .
Even staunch proponents
of school choice are conceding disappointment. Earlier this year,
Weekly Standard contributor Daniel Casse reported, "The
two most recent studies show that, since the implementation of
the voucher program, reading scores across all Milwaukee schools
are falling." Howard Fuller, patron saint of the voucher
program, has wryly acknowledged, "I think that any honest
assessment would have to say that there hasn't been the deep,
wholesale improvement in MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools] that
we would have thought." Manhattan Institute scholar Sol
Stern, one-time choice enthusiast and author of Breaking Free:
Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice, brought
the concerns to a boiling point earlier this year when he declared,
"Fifteen years into the most expansive school choice program
tried in any urban school district [there is] . . . no 'Milwaukee
miracle,' no transformation of the public schools has taken place.".
. .
Today, the Milwaukee voucher
program enrolls nearly twenty thousand students in more than
one hundred schools, yet this growing marketplace has yielded
little innovation or excellence. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
recently described 10 percent of voucher schools as having "alarming
deficiencies." These include Alex's Academics of Excellence,
which was launched by a convicted rapist, and the Mandella School
of Science and Math, whose director overreported its voucher
enrollment and used the funds to purchase two Mercedes-Benzes.
Veteran Journal Sentinel writer Alan Borsuk has opined, "[The
Milwaukee Parental Choice Program] has preserved the status quo
in terms of schooling options in the city more than it has offered
a range of new, innovative, or distinctive schools."
Wisconsin headline writers
have had a field day, with the Capital Times and Milwaukee Magazine
featuring the likes of "The Failure of School Choice,"
and "Whoops, We Goofed: School Choice Doesn't Work Like
Its Supporters Promised. Gulp. Now What?" . . .
While research suggests
that some participating students benefit from private school
vouchers, these results may largely reflect the ability of students
in places like New York City or Washington, D.C., to find empty
seats in established parochial schools. There is little evidence
that voucher or choice programs have succeeded in fostering the
emergence or expansion of high-quality options.
Similar concerns plague
the charter movement nationally, even as the number of charter
schools has surged above four thousand and charter enrollment
has passed the one million mark. The U.S. Department of Education's
National Center for Education Statistics has compared the performance
of students in district and charter schools, reporting, "After
adjusting for student characteristics, charter school mean scores
in reading and mathematics were lower, on average, than those
for public noncharter schools." . . .
Stig Leschly, executive
director of the Newark Charter School Fund, has observed that
only about two hundred of the thousands of existing charter schools
"really close the achievement gap." . . .
Among the eight cities
where charter schools enroll 20 percent or more of students are
Detroit, Michigan; Youngstown, Ohio; and Washington, D.C. In
2007, Education Week reported that, despite a substantial charter
presence, Detroit had the highest dropout rate among the nation's
large school systems. A 2007 analysis found that just 57 percent
of Youngstown's charter schools, and just 38 percent of its district
schools, met Ohio's growth targets for student improvement in
reading and math.
In a study of Washington,
D.C., which has one of the nation's highest rates of charter
school enrollment, researchers Margaret Sullivan, Dean Campbell,
and Brian Kisida found no evidence of improvement in D.C. public
schools even as they lost nearly a third of their students to
charter school competition. They traced inaction to a district
"hampered by political dynamics and burdensome regulations."
. . .
YOU GOT ME. . . WHAT
MORE DO YOU NEED?
Progressive Review - We've
noticed a growing new elite that even makes the fiscal crisis
spawning boomers seem self-effacing. At the core of its style
is the assumption that certainty is an adequate substitute for
competence. We're not sure what created them - perhaps they believed
all the TV shows they watched growing up or perhaps their boomer
parents told them too many times how great they were, but we've
seldom seen such rampant unsubstantiated self satisfaction. Some
sociologist needs to find a name for them before they all get
fired for screwing up. In the meantime we might name them Generation
Rhee after that media-coddled prototype, DC school chancellor
Michelle Rhee, who has gotten unending plaudits for yet to be
seen results. And just when we thought we'd heard he best Rhee
could tell us about herself, now comes this from the Washington
Post: "D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, who didn't
fuss when a PBS interviewer asked if she was a 'benevolent dictator,'
made clear again that she was more than comfortable with the
her-way-or the-Beltway approach. 'I think if there is one thing
I have learned over the last 15 months it's that cooperation,
collaboration and consensus-building are way overrated,' she
told the Aspen Institute's education summit at the Mayflower
JULY 2008
LOCAL HEROES: SOME WHO HAVE STOOD
UP AGAINST SCHOOL TEST MANIA
Fair Test Examiner Individual
teachers, parents and students sometimes respond to high-stakes
testing by putting themselves on the line:
- Carl Chew, a 60-year-old
sixth grade science teacher from Seattle, wrestled annually with
his conscience about administering the Washington Assessment
of Student Learning tests to his students. "Each year I
would give the WASL, and I would promise myself I would never
do it again," he said. "I decided, 'I'm not going to
wimp out this time.'" His refusal resulted in a nine-day
unpaid suspension along with accolades from parents and teachers
around the nation. Chew explained his reasons in a Seattle Post
Intelligencer commentary: "I performed this single act of
civil disobedience based on personal moral and ethical grounds,
as well as professional duty. I believe that the WASL is destructive
to our children, teachers, schools, and parents. . . . "
- North Carolina special
education teacher Doug Ward could no longer bring himself to
give the state's alternative assessments to his students with
severe disabilities. He was fired for his act of civil disobedience
this spring. Ward, who had been teaching special needs students
for three years, said he did not want to give a test to his students
that was invalid and that they could not pass. "Someone
needs to use a little common sense and say, 'I am just not going
to do it,'" Ward said. Like Chew, Ward has received support
from parents, colleagues and the community. Bob Williams, whose
son Kyle was taught by Ward, said he admires his son's teacher
for what he did, and that the test doesn't measure what Kyle
has learned. "If you ask me as a parent is (Kyle) succeeding,
you are darn right he is succeeding," Williams said. "When
he started third grade, he couldn't walk down the hall. When
he started school as a kindergartner, he was in a wheelchair.
Now he can walk down the hall on his own. The test doesn't test
that."
- Parent Craig Haller
of Brookline, Mass., whose daughter Hannah is a high school freshman
with severe disabilities, has launched an exhaustive effort to
exempt his daughter from the state test and alternative assessment.
State authorities failed to respond to his many requests that
15-year-old Hannah not be tested because she is unable to communicate
and her individualized education plan does not align with the
state curriculum frameworks. Haller contacted every local and
state official he could find and alerted the news media. . .
In a letter to state Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester,
Haller wrote, "She will experience heightened stress and
anxiety at the time of the exam by not being physically able
to respond to any part of the exam. She will experience loss
of self esteem and self image by completely and totally failing
an exam that is not designed to test or assess her knowledge
but the mastery of the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks."
- Virtually the entire
8th grade of a South Bronx, New York City, middle school boycotted
a practice version of the state exam. Their teacher was disciplined
for supposedly fomenting the rebellion. The 160 students from
six classes at Intermediate School 318 handed in blank answer
sheets rather than take a three-hour practice round of the state
social studies exam. "We've had a whole bunch of these diagnostic
tests all year," said 13-year-old Tatiana Nelson. "They
don't even count toward our grades. The school system's just
treating us like test dummies for the companies that make the
exams."
The students also submitted
a petition to school authorities saying they were tired of the
"constant, excessive and stressful testing" that takes
time from instruction. The students insisted the boycott was
their idea, but administrators blamed Douglas Avella, the students'
probationary social studies teacher, and reassigned him to New
York's notorious "rubber room" for teachers accused
of various kinds of misconduct. "Now they've taken away
the teacher we love only a few weeks before our real state exam
for social studies," Nelson said. "How does that help
us?"
- St. Lucie County, Florida
high school Assistant Principal Teri Pinney resigned from her
position in June rather than comply with her principal's request
that she suspend students for sleeping or "Christmas Treeing"
(filling in bubbles to make a pattern) during state testing and
other requests she believes were unethical. Neither Pinney nor
another assistant principal complied, but the principal suspended
the students. Pinney said, "Two of the kids he suspended
were good students, never got in trouble, and had excellent attendance.
They were children of migrant Mexican workers. The parents pleaded
with me and I gave in and lifted the suspensions. Of course,
that opposition with my boss got me in trouble." In a newspaper
commentary, Pinney expressed her dismay at the role played by
testing in schools today: "I believe that misuse or overuse
of standardized testing is creating a maddening race for everybody
to that elusive finishing line."
TEACHERS UNION CALLS FOR END OF
NO CHILD LAW
George N Schmidt, Substance
- In a major address to the 3,000 delegates to the national convention
of the American Federation of Teachers, outgoing president Ed
McElroy announced that the union was no longer in favor of tinkering
with the federal "No Child Left Behind" law and called
for the abolition of NCLB.
According to the press
release summarizing McElroy's remarks: "McElroy pledged
that the AFT would work with the next president to move beyond
the No Child Left Behind Act (which he called 'an idea whose
time has gone') to 'create a new education law that respects
the knowledge of classroom professionals and helps teachers and
paraprofessionals provide our students with the high-quality
education they deserve."
To the loudest cheers
of his valedictory speech, McElroy repeated that No Child Left
Behind cannot be repaired, and had to be replaced. . .
When No Child Left Behind
was originally proposed by the administration of President George
W. Bush in 2002, it received widespread bipartisan support, including
the support of U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy (D, MA) and U.S. Representative
George Miller (D, CA), who at the time were the ranking minority
leaders in the Senate and House on matters of education. Senator
Kennedy stood beside President Bush at the signing of NCLB.
AFT long maintained in
public that NCLB was basically an "unfunded" mandate,
and publicly clamored for more funding for NCLB. Kennedy and
Miller followed their lead. When NCLB came up for reauthorization
in 2007, however, widespread national opposition to the law was
even heard inside the Beltway in Washington, D.C., and at the
offices of the two national teacher unions . . . By mid-2007,
it was clear that NCLB was in trouble, and even its staunchest
supporters inside the Democratic Party were being forced to retreat.
Rep. Miller returned to his home district in California to find
himself followed by teachers and others who were actively opposing
NCLB. . .
By the summer of 2007,
two of the contenders for the nomination (U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich
of Ohio and Governor Richardson of New Mexico) told people across
the county that there were opposed to NCLB, and that the law
should be eliminated. The two leading contenders for the Democratic
Party nomination -- New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois
Senator Barack Obama -- were less emphatic in their opposition
to the renewal of NCLB. Both continued throughout the 2008 primary
season to discuss NCLB as if it might be improved, and not simply
eliminated. . .
Although U.S. Senator
Barack Obama appeared before a high-priced fundraiser at one
of the two main convention hotels on the night of July 11, his
campaign has continued to announce that his address to the AFT
will be by satellite, as he addressed the NEA two weeks earlier.
Many at the AFT convention consider Obama's refusal to appear
in person before the convention a personal snub. Chicago's teachers
were among the first supporters Obama had when he was gathering
support for the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. Senate
in 2003 and early 2004. In fact, without the support of the Illinois
Federation of Teachers, Obama would not have received the backing
of the Cook County Democratic Party and the junior senator from
Illinois today would be Dan Hynes, a member of a prominent Democratic
Party family in Chicago who was the early favorite in 2003 for
the nomination. By July 11, there was some speculation that Obama
was reconsidering his decision to snub the AFT as he had snubbed
the NEA by refusing to appear in person.
JUNE 2008
TEACHERS RUNNING SCHOOLS IN MILWAUKEE
WHAT WAS BEHIND NO CHILD LAW?
CLAUDIA WALLIS, TIME Susan Neuman, a professor
of education at the University Michigan who served as Assistant
Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education during George
W. Bush's first term, was and still is a fervent believer in
the goals of NCLB. And she says the President and then Secretary
of Education Rod Paige were too. But there were others in the
department, according to Neuman, who saw NCLB as a Trojan horse
for the choice agenda - a way to expose the failure of public
education and "blow it up a bit," she says. "There
were a number of people pushing hard for market forces and privatization."
Tensions between NCLB believers and the
blow-up-the-schools group were one reason the Bush Department
of Education felt like "a pressure cooker," says Neuman,
who left the Administration in early 2003. . .
It was only in Bush's second term that
the hard line began to succumb to reality. Margaret Spellings,
who replaced Paige as Secretary of Education in 2005, gradually
opened the door to a more flexible and realistic approach to
school accountability. . .
Neuman also regrets the Administration's
use of humiliation and shame as a lever for school reform. Failure
to meet NCLB's inflexible goals meant schools would be publicly
labeled as failures. Neuman now sees this as a mistake: "Vilifying
teachers and saying we are going to shame them was not the right
approach."
The combination of inflexibility and public
humiliation for those not meeting federal goals ignited so much
frustration among educators that NCLB now appears to be an irreparably
damaged brand. "The problems lingered long enough and there's
so much anger that it may not be fixable," says Neuman.
While the American Federation of Teachers was once on board with
the NCLB goals, she notes, the union has turned against it. "Teachers
hate NCLB because they feel like they've been picked on."
GUIDE TO NO CHILD OUTRAGES
MAY 2008
NO TIME FOR CHILDHOOD
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BUSH'S READING PROGRAM A BUST
SEATTLE TEACHER SUSPENDED FOR
REFUSING TO GIVE STANDARDIZED TEST
THE ISSUES THAT MAKE NO CHILD
LAW SO CONTROVERSIAL
THE WAR AGAINST PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
CORPORATIONS DESIGNING CURRICULA TO HELP RECRUIT WORKERS
PERCENTAGE OF MALE TEACHERS HITS
40-YEAR LOW
LOCAL HEROES: SCHOOL DISTRICT
REBELS AGAINST NO CHILD LEFT LAW
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN KIDS STOP PLAYING
OUTSIDE
ANOTHER REASON YOU MAY NOT WANT
TO WRECK THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
MAINE'S SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION MESS
ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLS GETTING A
NEW LIFE
NEIL BUSH ZAPPED ON NO CHILD HUSTLE
NO CHILD LEFT SCHEME HAS BROUGHT
FIVE TESTING FIRMS $2 BILLION
WHY IQ SCORES RISE WHILE READING
AND MATH SCORES DON'T
BRITISH STUDY FINDS 7-11 YEAR
OLDS STRESSED OUT BY NATIONAL TESTS, NEWS
NO CHILD FLUNKS OWN TEST
JONATHAN KOZOL BLOWS NO CHILD
LEFT BEHIND OUT OF THE WATER
BRINGING BACK THE COMMUNITY SCHOOL
JOE SMYDO, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE Richardo
Grimsley, a sophomore at Pittsburgh Westinghouse High School
in Homewood, said he sometimes thought about writing poetry but
didn't put pen to paper until a new after-school program debuted
in October. So far, he's authored 20 poems, including "Fantasy,"
about his childhood dreams, and "Get Up," about his
struggles with adversity. He's also refurbishing a bicycle through
the program.
Called the Lighthouse Project, the program
represents the Pittsburgh Public Schools' first efforts to create
"community" or "full-service" schools that
go beyond education to focus on students' health and welfare.
Many community schools serve adults, too.
They often stay open well into the evening,
providing a range of social services to lift individuals, mend
families and revitalize neighborhoods. "Get Up" could
be the schools' theme. . .
With a contract of about $300,000, the
Homewood-Brushton YMCA launched the project with classes in poetry,
dance, music production and visual arts, all designed to broaden
Westinghouse students' horizons.
While Richardo worked on poetry, other
students printed T-shirts with a Lighthouse Project logo, painted
murals and practiced "stepping," the dance style highlighted
in the movie "Stomp the Yard."
The program also includes guest speakers
and field trips. . .
The Lighthouse Project operates from 3
to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Attendance fluctuates;
about 30 students were present Wednesday.
Community schools are modeled after the
19th-century settlement houses that provided education, health
care and other services to immigrants in New York and Chicago.
The philosopher John Dewey advanced the concept in a 1902 address
titled "The School as Social Center," and the Charles
Stewart Mott Foundation funded some of the nation's earliest
community schools in Flint, Mich., during the 1930s.
Interest has waxed and waned, with the
Coalition for Community Schools in Washington, D.C., trying to
build numbers and secure federal funding for the schools.. .
APRIL 2008
THE ISSUES THAT MAKE NO CHILD LAW SO CONTROVERSIAL
JOAN INDIANA RIGDON, WASHINGTON LAWYER - According to its critics,
NCLB has actually lowered education standards by forcing schools
to obsess over testing while diverting some of their own funds-as
well as huge chunks of classroom time-away from their own educational
goals to do that testing.
Indeed, one thing we know from all the
testing that is required is that the nation's students aren't
making much progress under NCLB. Math scores, for instance, have
risen under NCLB, but at a slower rate than they did before the
law took effect. Reading scores have barely budged.
There's been book-cooking, too: Afraid
of having their schools tagged as failures, which could mean
large-scale staff replacement, or being forced to cede a school
to private management, many states have assured themselves of
improved results by dumbing down their assessment tests or lowering
the definition of a passing grade. Technically, that's allowed,
since NCLB requires students to be "proficient" but
doesn't say what that means. . .
While many of NCLB's original backers have
distanced themselves from the bill, even its chief architects,
Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy and California Democrat
Rep. George Miller, are starting to criticize it. "Up until
at least spring of last year, they were very resistant to legislative
changes to the law and generally defenders of the law. They were
critical of funding and critical of how the Bush administration
was implementing the law, but they were not calling for a change
to the statute itself," says the NEA's Packer. "This
year they have significantly changed their tune and their tone."
Last summer, Miller declared the law "not
fair," "not flexible," and "not funded."
Last month, in a Washington Post op-ed on the eve of NCLB's sixth
anniversary, Senator Kennedy ticked off some of its accomplishments,
but then proceeded to roundly criticize it, writing that "its
one-size-fits-all approach encourages 'teaching to the test'
and discourages innovation in the classroom."
The National Conference of State Legislatures,
which has long criticized NCLB, believes the law is hopelessly
convoluted. Representative Miller's draft revision numbered 600
pages, compared to approximately 1,100 for the original. Says
David Shreve, the NCSL's federal affairs counsel: "It's
a terrible irony that you take 600 pages of amendments to fix
1,100 pages of messed up public policy, as if that's going to
simplify and clarify it."
MARCH 2008
WHAT'S HAPPENING TO SCHOOLS
[This is the best piece we've seen on what
NCLB, charter schools, reorganizations and other false school
reforms are really about]
STEVEN MILLER AND JACK GERSON, EDUCATOR ROUNDTABLE
- The "Tough Choices or Tough
Times" report of the National Commission on Skills in the
Workplace, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and signed by a bipartisan collection of prominent
politicians, businesspeople, and urban school superintendents,
called for a series of measures including:
(a) replacing public schools with what
the report called "contract schools", which would be
charter schools writ large;
(b) eliminating nearly all the powers of
local school boards - their role would be to write and sign the
authorizing agreements for the "contract schools;
(c) eliminating teacher pensions and slashing
health benefits; and
(d) forcing all 10th graders to take a
high school exit examination based on 12th grade skills, and
terminating the education of those who failed (i.e., throwing
millions of students out into the streets as they turn 16).
These measures, taken together, would effectively
cripple public control of public education. They would dangerously
weaken the power of teacher unions, thus facilitating still further
attacks on the public sector. They would leave education policy
in the hands of a network of entrepreneurial think tanks, corporate
entrepreneurs, and armies of lobbyists whose priorities are profiting
from the already huge education market while cutting back on
public funding for schools and students.
Indeed, their measures would mean privatization
of education, effectively terminating the right to a public education,
as we have known it. Many of the most powerful forces in the
country want the US, the first country to guarantee public education,
to be the first country to end it.
For the last fifty years, public education
was one of only two public mandates guaranteed by the government
that was accessible to every person, regardless of income. Social
Security is the other. Now both systems are threatened with privatization
schemes. The government today openly defines its mission as protecting
the rights of corporations above everything. Thus public education
is a rare public space that is under attack.
The same scenario is being implemented
with most of the services that governments used to provide for
free or at little cost: electricity, national parks, health care
and water. In every case, the methodology is the same: underfund
public services, create an uproar and declare a crisis, claim
that privatization can do the job better, deregulate or break
public control, divert public money to corporations and then
raise prices.
In the past year, it's become evident that
the corporate surge against public schools is only part of a
much broader assault against the public sector, against unions,
and indeed against the public's rights and public control of
public institutions.
This has been evident for some time now
in New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina's devastation is used
as an excuse for permanently privatizing the infrastructure of
a major American city: razing public housing and turning land
over to developers; replacing the city's public school system
with a combination of charter schools and state-run schools;
letting the notorious Blackwater private army loose on the civilian
population; and, in the end, forcing tens of thousands of families
out of the city permanently. The citizens of New Orleans have
had their civil rights forcibly expropriated.
Just as the shock of the hurricane was
the excuse for the shock therapy applied to New Orleans, so the
economic downturn triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis is
now the excuse for a national assault on the public sector and
the public's rights. . .
In public education, the corporate surge
has grown both qualitatively and quantitatively. Where two years
ago the corporate education change agents were mainly operating
in a relatively small number of large urban areas, they have
now surfaced everywhere. The corporatization of public education
is the leading edge of privatization. This has the effect of
silencing the public voice on every aspect of the situation.
Across the US, public schools are not yet
privatized, though private services are increasingly benefiting
from this market. However, increasing corporate control of programs
- a different mix in every locale - is having a chilling influence
on the very things that people (though not corporations) want
from teachers: the ability to relate to and teach each child,
a nurturing approach that nudges every child to move ahead, human
assessments that put people before performance on standardized
tests.
Perhaps the single most dramatic development
of the corporate approach was the launching of the $60 million
Strong American Schools - Ed in '08 initiative, funded by billionaires
Bill Gates and Eli Broad. This is a naked effort to purchase
the nation's education policy, no matter who is elected President,
by buying their way into every electoral forum.
Ed in '08 has a three-point program: merit
pay (basing teachers' compensation on students' scores on high
stakes test); national education standards (enforcing conformity
and rote learning); and longer school day and school year (still
more time for rote learning, less time for kids to be kids. .
.
Where two years ago charter schools were
still viewed as experiments affecting a relatively small number
of students, in 2007 the corporate privatizers - led by Broad
and Gates - grossly expanded their funding to the point where
they now loom as a major presence.
In March, the Gates Foundation announced
a $100 million donation to KIPP charter schools, which would
enable them to expand their Houston operation to 42 schools (from
eight) - effectively, KIPP will be a full-fledged alternative
school system in Houston. Also in the past year, Eli Broad and
Gates have given in the neighborhood of $50 million to KIPP and
Green Dot charter schools in Los Angeles, with the aim of doubling
the percentage of LA students enrolled in charter schools. Oakland,
another Broad/Gates targets, now has more than 30 charter schools
out of 92. And, as we shall see below, the same trend holds across
the country.
NCLB in 2008 is still a major issue. It
continues to have a corrosive effect on public schools. It is
designed an unfunded mandate, which means that schools must meet
ever rigid standards every year, though no more money is appropriated
to support this effort. This means that schools must take ever-more
money out of the class room to meet federal requirements when
schools with low test scores are in "Program Improvement".
Once schools are in PI for 5 years they can be forced into privatization.
NCLB is a driving force that decimates
the "publicness" in public schools. In California,
more than 2000 schools are now in "Program-Improvement".
This means that they have to meet certain specific, and mostly
impossible standards, or they must divert increasingly greater
amounts of money out of the classroom and into private programs.
For example, schools in 3rd year PI must
take money out of programs that helped schools with a high proportion
of low achieving schools and make it available to private tutors.
. .
Privatizing public schools inevitable leads
to massive increase in social inequality. Private corporations
have never been required to recognize civil rights, because,
by definition, these are public rights. If the corporate privatizers
succeed in taking over our schools, there will be neither quality
education nor civil rights.
The system of public education in the United
States is deeply flawed. While suburban schools are among the
best in the world, public education in cities has been deliberately
underfunded and is in a shambles. The solution is not to fight
backwards to maintain the old system. Rather it is to fight forward
to a new system that will truly guarantee quality education as
a civil right for everyone.
Central to this is to challenge the idea
that everything in human society should be run by corporations,
that only corporations and their political hacks have the right
or the power to discuss what public policy should be. . .
The real direction is to increase the role
and power of the public in every way, not eliminate it. . .
FOR
FULL REPORT, EMAIL STEVE MILLER
CORPORATIONS DESIGNING CURRICULA TO
HELP RECRUIT WORKERS
ANNE MARIE CHAKER, WALL STREET JOURNAL
- In a recent class at Abraham Clark High School in Roselle,
N.J., business teacher Barbara Govahn distributed glossy classroom
materials that invited students to think about what they want
to be when they grow up. Eighteen career paths were profiled,
including a writer, a magician, a town mayor -- and five employees
from accounting giant Deloitte LLP. . .
The curriculum, provided free to the public school by a nonprofit
arm of Deloitte, aims to persuade students to join the company's
ranks. One 18-year-old senior in Ms. Govahn's class, Hipolito
Rivera, says the company-sponsored lesson drove home how professionals
in all fields need accountants. "They make it sound pretty
good," he says.
Deloitte and other corporations are reaching
out to classrooms -- drafting curricula while also conveying
the benefits of working for the sponsor companies. Hoping to
create a pipeline of workers far into the future, these corporations
furnish free lesson plans and may also underwrite classroom materials,
computers or training seminars for teachers.
The programs represent a new dimension
of the business world's influence in public schools. Companies
such as McDonald's Corp. and Yum Brands Inc.'s Pizza Hut have
long attempted to use school promotions to turn students into
customers. The latest initiatives would turn them into employees.
Companies that employ engineers, fearful
of a coming labor shortage, are at the movement's forefront.
Lockheed Martin Corp. began funding engineering courses two years
ago at schools near its aircraft testing and development site
in Palmdale, Calif., saying it hopes to replenish its local work
force. Starting in 2004, British engine-maker Rolls-Royce PLC
has helped fund high-school courses in topics such as engine
propulsion. Intel Corp. supports curricula in school districts
where engineering concepts are taught as early as the elementary
level.
Schools, for their part, have embraced
corporate support as state education funding has remained flat
for a decade and declining housing values now threaten to eat
into property-tax revenues. Teachers, meanwhile, often welcome
the lesson plans, classroom equipment and the corporate-sponsored
professional development sessions.
But however well-intentioned, such corporate
input may blur the line between pure academics and a commercial
agenda, critics say. "When you have a corporation or any
special interest offering an incentive, you are distorting the
educational purpose of the schools," says Alex Molnar, an
education-policy professor at Arizona State University who directs
the school's Commercialism in Education Research Unit.
The hiring priorities of a company or industry,
Mr. Molnar says, can change quickly. On the other hand, he says,
schools should provide a broad and consistent foundation of knowledge
and skills. Deciding what to teach is "first and foremost,
a series of choices," he says. Historically, those choices
have been made by school officials and professional educators,
based on the interests of their community's children, not on
the shifting needs of industry.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120476410964115117.html
FEBRUARY 2008
FINLAND: WHERE THEY REALLY LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND
ELLEN GAMERMAN, WALL STREET JOURNAL - Finnish
teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some
of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in
57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students
even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and
rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste
hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to
rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they're way ahead in
math, science and reading -- on track to keeping Finns among
the world's most productive workers. Finland's students are the
brightest in the world, according to an international test. Teachers
say extra playtime is one reason for the students' success. WSJ's
Ellen Gamerman reports.. . . .
The academic prowess of Finland's students
has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years
to learn the country's secret, including an official from the
U.S. Department of Education. What they find is simple but not
easy: well-trained teachers and responsible children. Early on,
kids do a lot without adults hovering. And teachers create lessons
to fit their students. "We don't have oil or other riches.
Knowledge is the thing Finnish people have," says Hannele
Frantsi, a school principal. . .
The Norssi School is run like a teaching
hospital, with about 800 teacher trainees each year. Graduate
students work with kids while instructors evaluate from the sidelines.
Teachers must hold master's degrees, and the profession is highly
competitive: More than 40 people may apply for a single job.
Their salaries are similar to those of U.S. teachers, but they
generally have more freedom.
Finnish teachers pick books and customize
lessons as they shape students to national standards. "In
most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland,
the teachers are the entrepreneurs," says Mr. Schleicher,
of the Paris-based OECD, which began the international student
test in 2000.
One explanation for the Finns' success
is their love of reading. Parents of newborns receive a government-paid
gift pack that includes a picture book. Some libraries are attached
to shopping malls, and a book bus travels to more remote neighborhoods
like a Good Humor truck. . .
Despite the apparent simplicity of Finnish
education, it would be tough to replicate in the U.S. With a
largely homogeneous population, teachers have few students who
don't speak Finnish. . .
Another difference is financial. . . The
gap between Finland's best- and worst-performing schools was
the smallest of any country in the PISA testing. The U.S. ranks
about average. . .
Once school starts, the Finns are more
self-reliant. While some U.S. parents fuss over accompanying
their children to and from school, and arrange every play date
and outing, young Finns do much more on their own. At the Ymmersta
School in a nearby Helsinki suburb, some first-grade students
trudge to school through a stand of evergreens in near darkness.
At lunch, they pick out their own meals, which all schools give
free, and carry the trays to lunch tables. There is no Internet
filter in the school library. They can walk in their socks during
class, but at home even the very young are expected to lace up
their own skates or put on their own skis. . .
Mr. Erma's school is a showcase campus.
Last summer, at a conference in Peru, he spoke about adopting
Finnish teaching methods. During a recent afternoon in one of
his school's advanced math courses, a high-school boy fell asleep
at his desk. The teacher didn't disturb him, instead calling
on others. While napping in class isn't condoned, Mr. Erma says,
"We just have to accept the fact that they're kids and they're
learning how to live." |