"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Save Real Accountability in Nebraska

Part of the Spellings assault last week was aimed at Nebraska, the only state in the Union to have an established local systems of assessments developed by teachers to help them know what students are learning and where they need to take their instruction next. Nebraska, in fact, could serve as a national model once Spellings is sent packing back to Texas, where, no doubt, Randy Best will have something for her to do down in Dallas.

Doug Christensen, Commissioner of Ed in Nebraska, is appealing the ruling by the cons at ED. Susan Ohanian has up at her site the memo that Christensen wrote in response to the ruling, along with his address to send letters of support to help save assessment in Nebraska. I urge you to do so.

I would suggest, too, that the FedED Enforcer receive some mail asking what justifies her arbitrary rejection of the deal that ED had previously struck with Nebraska on its assessment program. When does a federal lie become a federal offense? Is Pearson putting the heat on Spellings to bring all states under a system that can be sucked up by its corrupt and hungry testing regime that hopes to amass an intrusive database on every American child (and adult)? For sale to whom, or a gift in kind? Email Margaret Spellings and ask her.

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