NCLB Blasted

From the Examiner:

BALTIMORE - Two key proposed Bush administration changes to the No Child Left Behind law drew criticism from local public school education officials and union leaders.

The Teachers Association of Baltimore County, a National Education Association member, criticized the White House for proposing to allow school officials to override collective bargaining agreements.

“We do have to abide by the governing laws,” Teachers Association President Cheryl Bost said in a phone interview. “All schools have to respect the collective bargaining agreements, even charter schools. But that doesn’t mean we can’t possibly make changes. We can still work together on some things.”

Citing one example, Bost said, the association might allow longer work days for teachers in charter schools wishing to extend school hours; however, it would have to come with commensurate pay.

“We have ideas for improving schools, adding staff to lower-performing schools, making available the best leaders on instructional and behavior issues,” Bost added. “We’re not given an equal seat at the discussion table.”

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings released the changes the administration wants in the 5-year-old education law, up for renewal this year.

A second proposal would allow students in failing public schools to apply for a $4,000 religious or private school voucher.

“President Bush has clearly decided to invite partisan bickering rather than bipartisan progress,” said American Federation of Teachers President Edward McElroy. “Every minute spent debating a voucher proposal means less time for making needed changes to a law that has been long on promise and short on progress.”

Baltimore Teachers Union spokesman David Barney said Tuesday that the union would support the AFT’s position.

“Vouchers would shift resources and the best students, but what about the kids left behind,” Baltimore County School Board President Donald Arnold said. “The biggest thing we need to do is bring all the schools up to the top-performing levels.”

With school board leaders from Harford, Anne Arundel and Carroll counties, Arnold met with Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., Tuesday at noon in his Capital Hill office to discuss the No Child Left Behind reauthorization.

Arnold would like to see the current law changed to designate an entire school as failing, even if only one small subgroup of students misses the adequate yearly progress marks. Ruppersberger said he’s more concerned about fully funding the legislation.

“It was a good idea,” Ruppersberger said of the law. “But it was never funded completely. For example, the federal government was supposed to pay for 40 percent of the special education costs. That number has been at 15 percent or 18 percent. That puts the squeeze on the state, and then the state puts the squeeze on the local governments.”

Finally a Little Pell Grant Relief

Despite all the saccharine lip service by conservatives about not leaving children behind, they have staunchly stood against increases in Pell Grants, just as they have refused to budge on the minimum wage. One must wonder if the millionaires in Congress will block this effort as well:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30— The maximum federal grant for middle- and low-income students to attend college would increase for the first time in four years under a catchall spending bill that House and Senate Democrats agreed to on Tuesday.

The measure would complete budget issues left over from 2006.

The increase, announced by the chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, would raise the maximum grants, under the Pell program, to $4,310 a year from $4,050. The last substantial increase in the grants was in 2001.

Spellings on the Road Again Hawking High School Charters

Spellings is on tour once more, this time to tout the Bush Co. alternative to public high schools: for profit or non-profit, privately-managed charter high schools that use tax money to fund them. The non-profit variety is increasingly popular, because with it, corporations can received tax breaks for money contributed to the charter fundraisers to shut down public education.

And if states have caps on the number of charter schools allowed? Easy--just ignore the law. Never mind that there is no empirical research to show that these ED-supported alternatives are any better than the publics they are intended to replace. Obviously, the Decider has decided once again, and who will dare stand in his way. The evidence will now be manufactured to support the decision:

The day after the Bush administration unveiled its most detailed plans yet for renewing the No Child Left Behind Act, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings selected a charter high school here as the first stop in a campaign to sell a plan that includes expanding the role of charter schools and revamping high school instruction.

“People ask me, ‘Is No Child Left Behind possible?’ And I say yes, it’s absolutely possible. And people say where is that happening, and I say right here at Noble Street,” Secretary Spellings said on Jan. 25 at a student assembly at Noble Street Charter High School, which was founded under a charter from the Chicago school board. It was her first school visit after Mr. Bush’s Jan. 23 State of the Union address. “I am very encouraged by the innovation that’s going on here. … We need to open up more charter schools where they are needed.”

The administration’s plan would make it easier for districts to turn faltering regular public schools into charters. The administration said it would support local decisions to reopen schools identified as needing improvement under the No Child Left Behind law as charters, even if state law limits the number of those independent public schools. . . .

Accountability for Failing Doctors and Hospitals

Children in poor areas of DC, Chicago, New York and other urban areas have much lower birth weights than children in the suburbs. It is obvious that public health care doctors and hospitals that serve these poor, black, and immigrant early underachievers are going to require new accountability measures to make sure that birth weight gap is addressed. And if they fail to produce children who meet the new birth weight targets, then we are going to have to shut them down and re-open them as privately-managed companies that will be operated from funds that went previously to the failed government clinics and the lazy doctors who worked there. Maybe then we will finally begin to see birth weights increase. And if not, they certainly couldn't be any less. Could they?

Clinics and hospitals receiving federal funds intended for poor patients will be required to weigh pregnant patients in Months 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 and to report these weights the the State. If patients do not meet the target weights that have been estabished by the State to make sure that all American babies are born at average or above average weight by 2014, then the facilities and doctors who treat and weigh these patients will be placed on "Needs Improvement List" (NIL). After five years on the list, the doctors will be fired and the facility re-opened under private management.

Sure, there will be the bigots of low expectancy expectations who whine about other factors influencing birth weights, but these are the same welfare advocates will use any excuse keep their government handouts coming in while children remain trapped in a failed public health care system. No more excuses, bigots!

Still Think Impeachment is a Bad Idea?

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats. . . .

Knights-Errant of the Business Roundtable, Begone

The members of the Order heard an unpleasant banging noise below. When they peered down from the ivy-covered parapet, they saw workers with jackhammers and others with explosive charges that were being inserted into the foundation walls. The Knights-Errant of the Business Roundtable had a new target. The members conferred and offered a resolution:

The Phi Beta Kappa Society

Published in The Key Reporter

Winter 2006

The 41st Council of Phi Beta Kappa in Atlanta was a great success, not least in electing to leadership positions distinguished people who will guide the Society’s future. It was also a celebration of 50 years of our Visiting Scholars Program. How better to celebrate than by hearing from, and conversing with, some Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars themselves? In the midst of all this, we authorized six new chapters, and the Council took a major step toward fulfilling the first goal stated in the Society’s strategic plan: to be a more effective advocate of the liberal arts and sciences on the national scene. That step was the adoption of a resolution, in plenary session, that places Phi Beta Kappa in the conversation about the future of American higher education.

In September of this year, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings accepted a report on that topic from a specially appointed commission, and she very quickly laid out an action plan to pursue its recommendations. The report and information about the commission are available on the Web at ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/index.html. In her action plan, located on the Web at ed.gov/news/speeches/2006/09/09262006.html, the secretary targets access, financial aid and affordability, and institutional accountability for student learning outcomes. These are important issues. They deserve our attention. But missing from the report and from the action plan is any mention of certain aspects of American higher education that have made it, in the commonly heard phrase, “the envy of the world.” By an overwhelming voice vote, the Council endorsed the following statement as a basis for expressing Phi Beta Kappa’s perspective:

"The U.S. Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education has issued, in September 2006, a report seriously flawed by omission of the role of the liberal arts and sciences in sustaining the excellence of American higher education.

"Since 1776, the Phi Beta Kappa Society has upheld the conviction that broad undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences, by all students, conducted with rigor, is essential to the accomplishment of higher education’s most important purposes. Phi Beta Kappa has honored outstanding achievement in the liberal arts and sciences and has elected as members many who have gone on to become the nation’s most eminent leaders in government, the private sector, and academe.

"The transformative and empowering consequences of higher education depend upon strong student engagement with the liberal arts and sciences. The Phi Beta Kappa Society, therefore, urges the nation’s higher education leadership, in pursuing appropriate goals of increased access, affordability and accountability, to advance these studies as a wellspring of excellence in American higher education."

Aid, access, and accountability need our best thought. But we must speak up when national policy initiatives are framed by the idea that higher education is no more than a service delivered to a consumer. That metaphor will obscure the most distinctive aspect of education that is truly “higher.” Education in the liberal arts and sciences cannot be adequately captured in the language of consumerism: it specifically aims at the student’s transformation and not at the gratification of pre-existing desires. Its real value may well be made invisible by the model of mass distribution of standardized goods and services.

So we need to talk about why it is a good thing to have thousands of faculties across the country striving for their own vision, why it is a good thing for society to cultivate persons of deliberation and reflection, rather than persons of didactic or apodictic habits. We need to talk about the importance of public understanding of the nature of science and the nature of civilizations and cultures across the globe. We need to talk about the value of a democratic society in which citizens have the help of learning to inform their choices.

In The Washington Post on September 4, Duke University President Richard Brodhead responded to a prepublication draft of the Spellings report. He wrote, in part, that “we need to promote everything in our system that breeds initiative, independence, resourcefulness, and collaboration. One of these is the liberal arts model of education.” This is the conviction expressed in the Council’s resolution, and we join President Brodhead, an initiate of Alpha of Connecticut, in the effort to place these values at the center of the nation’s conversation about higher education.

NYC Principals Get No Respect

School principals in New York want more money and a contract to offset their miserable existence in Bloomberg and Klein's brave new world of corporate control. This is a world in which principals will replace the traditional superintendents as the new "field commanders" in the war against "the magic and poetry of teaching and learning." If I didn't read it in the New York Times today, I wouldn't believe it. Perhaps a salary increase will make it easier to join the testing Gestapo and rule with an iron fist and a hardened heart.
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Under Mr. Bloomberg’s latest plans, announced in his State of the City address this month, principals will gain power but also face far more scrutiny. They will be held accountable for students’ progress and for rigorously reviewing teachers up for tenure. They will be rated by superintendents in the chancellor’s office and also, for the first time, by the staffs in their own schools.

And since the mayor plans to eliminate traditional superintendents’ offices, principals will become the field commanders.

Many principals applaud the concept. Kenneth Baum, principal of the Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science, a Bronx middle school, said, “These kind of empowering moves for principals allow us to make the school-based decisions that make sense for us.”

Yet others complained that the emphasis by Mr. Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel I. Klein on corporate-style management and data-driven accountability, and relentless pressure from the federal No Child Left Behind Act, were drowning out the magic and poetry of teaching and learning.

“I think the principals as a group feel very battle weary,” said a Brooklyn high school principal, who asked not to be identified out of fear of alienating superiors. “We’re tired. We don’t feel like there’s any real vision coming from the leadership around instruction.” This principal added: “The emotional and hopeful and romantic piece of education is left behind by businessmen.”

Still, what echoed most in the interviews was bitterness over the lack of a raise to compensate for the added duties.
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Oh, those hopeless romantics

Testing and the "Darkest Underbelly"

In moving toward the negotiating table for reauthorization talks, Bush and Spellings have shown zero interest in acknowledging the impossibility of children reaching their 100% proficiency target in math and reading by 2014. To acknowledge reality would require change, and that, in turn, would shake loose the linchpin of the Right's school privatization plan that requires a steady stream of public school failures in order to undercut public support and, thus, get traction for the voucher and charter alternatives intended for those who don't have a choice in the matter.

In the meantime, of course, there are the millions of children, parents, and teachers who are being sacrificed each year in order to attain the assured failure that has been planned for them. The choking canaries in this dark poisonous mine are, of course, the poor, the disabled, the immigrant, the minority--the ones supposedly for whom the title of this legislation was stolen from the Children's Defense Fund. No Child Left Behind, indeed.


Here is a commentary from science teacher, Robert Tyrrell, on what is happening to the children at his school, children who are being ground up in this cruel crucible--and what is happening, too, to the attitudes of the survivors who now see the test failures as the "dumb ones" who stand in the way of success:

Campus West School is a kindergarten through eighth-grade Buffalo public school that has had a long and proud tradition in its association with Buffalo State College. The staff is highly trained, motivated and constantly involved in professional development.

Our school is a site for training student teachers, with many professionals using our school for educational research. Our scores for eighth-grade general education students on the 2006 English language arts, math, social studies and science exams are the second- or third-highest in the district for nonselective schools. The scores surpass some suburban schools.

Campus West, however, has been listed as a "school in need of improvement" for a number of years by the State Education Department, as was reported in The Buffalo News on Jan. 11. How could this happen?

Campus West has, throughout its existence, been a wonderful learning center for special education students. At this time, about 40 percent of our student body is special-needs students. One part of the No Child Left Behind Act requires special education students to meet the same benchmarks as their counterparts in general education.

A little-known aspect of this policy is that a school can be judged deficient solely on the basis of the Education Department's judgment that special education students are not successful on state assessments. This indeed is the mechanism by which Campus West was designated as needing improvement. The policy of judging an entire school program by measuring special education student achievement on standardized testing precipitates much more negative fallout than the simple label implies. First and foremost, parents and community and media people are not able to see real successes in the school program.

For example, the percentage of Campus West general education students who passed the eighth-grade English language arts test has increased 20 percent in the last two years. The eighth-grade general education students of Campus West are almost 25 percent above the city average on all state tests.

It also undermines the professionalism of special education teachers who traditionally have judged the success of special education students based on their individual learning plans.

Lastly, and the reason for this explanatory piece, the policy of judging a school by the success of its special education students on standardized tests affects student responses to their educational program. One bright student, perhaps reflecting her parent's comments, was recently overheard: "Campus West is a "bad' school because we have "dumb' kids taking these [standardized] tests."

Much more could be said, but to me, this statement reflects the darkest underbelly of the unwarranted use of standardized testing and provides its own commentary.

Robert Tyrrell is a science teacher at Campus West School in Buffalo.

America's Schools of Institutionalized Child Abuse

A clip from the NY Post:

January 28, 2007 -- For a month, third-graders at one Brooklyn elementary school had only two social-studies lessons.

Their teacher said she was too busy teaching kids test-taking strategies.

"The kids can't tell you who the president was during the Civil War," she said. "But they can tell you how to eliminate answers on a multiple-choice test. And as long as our test scores are up, everyone will be happy.

"That's education?"

The teacher, who requested anonymity, said she was ordered by her principal to "forget about everything except test prep" over the four weeks prior to this month's statewide English tests.

"All anyone cares about now are test scores," she lamented.

Since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 brought high-stakes testing to the nation, city teachers have complained that statewide tests and test preparation have dominated class time. Now, they say, the situation is getting worse.

With Mayor Bloomberg's announcement of plans to crack down on tenure, teachers fear test scores will become even more important than other performance indicators.

They also fear the focus on tests will grow as a city science test for grades 3 through 8 debuts in 2007-08 and a city social-studies test arrives for the same grades in 2008-09. Currently, only two grades take those tests.

"My students haven't done science or social studies since three weeks before the ELA [English language arts] exam," said Jennifer Giovinazzo, a fourth-grade teacher at PS 14 in Staten Island who attended a forum on testing last week.

"We did one period of science today, and I had to review everything we learned from before the reading test," she said. "That took the whole period. Nothing new was learned."

She said her students get prep during lunch and aren't getting additional classes like art. "The kids don't even know what a crayon is," she said.

Another teacher called it "institutionalized child abuse." . . .

When Schools No Longer Matter

If the educational genocide is allowed to continue with the reauthorization of NCLB, how long will unschooling remain a choice for just the quarter-million or so children whose parents have already opted out of the test prep chain-gangs that have replaced school? If schooling is allowed to become even more irrelevant to a humane education, who can blame parents for choosing a different path altogether?

Perhaps when the survival of schooling, itself, becomes an economic issue for the NEA and the AFT and the McGraw-Hills of the world, then we may begin to see some return to consideration of what children need in order to become adult humans, rather what the Business Roundtable believes it needs--more roboticized components of the human capital market.

A clip from the Tennessean:

. . . . Families often turn to unschooling in rejection of what they see as a one-size-fits-all school system they say crushes curiosity and creativity. Advanced children get bored waiting for classmates to catch up, while slower learners can fall between the cracks.

They also shun traditional home schooling because it follows the same mold of telling children what they need to be taught and how to learn it.

"The object of school is to make everyone come out the same. That whole concept offends me," said Chelsea Gary of Franklin, who is unschooling an 18-year-old stepson, Chris, and her other two children, ages 3 and 5. There's nothing a school system could do to persuade her to enroll them, she said.

Chris, nestled in an oversized red beanbag in his bedroom, said he hated reading until his parents pulled him out of school in California in December 2005 so he could direct his own education at home.

"I've learned more in the last year than I ever did in public school," said Chris, who spent the first few months "deschooling," getting used to his educational freedom.

A giant TV, shelves of CDs and a nearby computer loaded with video games are easy distractions in the typical teen-age bedroom. But Chris said he's not tempted because he's more interested in what he's reading, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things.

"Topics I don't like, I skim it," he said. "It's kind of a cool idea. I focus on things I want to use in life."

Life, he hopes, will mean either being a rock star or chef — that's why he spends the afternoons working at a Panera Bread cafe or rehearsing in a heavy metal band. He's not sure if he'll go to college.

"I want my children to grow up retaining all their creativity and interests they were born with," his stepmother said. " I can't imagine someone crushing that out of them.". . .

Documentary "No Child Left Behind" Tonight

This Sunday, January 28, at 7 p.m. the documentary film "No Child Left Behind" will be shown at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center, a new 500-seat state-of-the art theater located at the Jewish Community Center in Deal New Jersey.

Following the film, there will be a discussion led by Dr. James Horn, Ph.D., of Monmouth University and filmmaker Lerone Wilson. Wilson, a New York University film student, produced the movie while working as a substitute teacher in a New York City elementary school.

Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door. The proceeds will be used for educational scholarships.

"No Child Left Behind" is a must see for teachers and parents.

Jewish Community Center
100 Grant Avenue
Deal, NJ 07723

The Speeding Gender Equity Clock at ED

The same ED that re-wrote the book on research to require experimental or quasi-experimental methodologies for most federally-funded educational research has now re-written the rules on gender, allowing for "same-sex education any time schools think it will improve achievement:"

"Too many schools feel they can carry out a social experiment with students' education with really the flimsiest of theories," said Emily Martin, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project.

Single-sex schools are an "illusionary silver bullet," said Lisa Maatz, director of public policy and government relations for the American Association of University Women. They distract from real problems and do not offer proven solutions such as lower class sizes and sufficient funding, she said.

Many classrooms and schools could make the switch thanks to a change made by the U.S. Department of Education in November.

Previously, single-sex classes had been allowed in only limited cases, such as gym classes and sex education classes. But the new rules allow same-sex education any time schools think it will improve achievement, expand the diversity of courses or meet students' individual needs.

Fairfax County Revolts Against NCLB Abuse of Immigrant Children

From WaPo:

. . ."This will help build political pressure to find a sensible solution where you keep accountability, but you test kids fairly," said John F. Jennings, president and chief executive of the District-based Center on Education Policy. "Schools are saying it makes no sense to test kids who don't understand English. The U.S. Department of Education is saying that they should be tested the same way as other students. There has to be a third way.". . .

The CBS Film You Won't See on CBS

Apparently it doesn't fit the feel-good format of America's mom, Katie Couric, and the MSM corporate fealty to the War Machine. From Josh Marshall:

Take a look at this video segment about the war on the ground in Baghdad, The Battle for Haifa Street, little more than a mile from the Green Zone. For some reason CBS only ran it on their website. It never saw the light of day on the network news.

Murrow rolls in his grave.

What We Talk About When We Talk About School Privatization

Before Bush II came to Washington with his Texas Mirage (TAAS) that would become the Nation’s Nightmare (NCLB), the Dems owned the education issue. In large part it was due to the work of another Texan, LBJ, whose policies eventually brought us face to face with the liberal (as in Enlightenment) delusion that for every social or economic problem, there is a schooling solution. That we continue to embrace the delusion is clearly evident in the continuing acceptance of a Bush education policy purportedly aimed at helping a minority population whose support for him has never climbed into double digits.

Notwithstanding a continuing widespread blindness to the real Bush agenda among white voters, it is with a heightened sense of incredulity that we are subjected to another round of the threadbare platitudes about not leaving minority children behind, platitudes that are cynically used as they have been from the start to disguise the conservatives' real agenda of crushing public schools while continuing to subjugate the poor. In this new push for the conservatives' privatization scheme, the focus has subtly shifted from saving poor children by closing the achievement gap in the public schools to now saving poor children by giving them $4,000 to escape into either Christian fundamentalist madrasahs or the Big Lots version of secular private schools. Oh yes, one other Spellings option: Chain-gang charters (the Tucker Solution) that have been demonstrated by her own "scientifically-based" research to be no better, or even worse, than the public schools she would replace. No matter--the charter solution is at least cheaper to run with no messy collective bargaining units to deal with and no prying eyes from publicly-elected school boards.

From the Tribunein Chicago, where Spellings was yesterday trying to remedy that elusive 1% of non-perfection that continues to plague her almost pure plan:

"For the promise of No Child Left Behind to be real, we must provide more vigorous and robust tools to address the chronic underperformers," Spellings said. "We cannot have kids trapped in these schools year after year after year."

What do African-Americans think of Bush's new plan to free their children by giving them a handout big enough to choose their own correctional testing facilities? Here is must-read commentary from New America Media:

EDITOR'S NOTE: President George W. Bush is asking Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, but the act has failed to deliver on its promise, writes Donal Brown, a New America Media reporter who taught for 35 years in California's public schools.

President George W. Bush is asking Congress to re-enact the No Child Left Behind Act even though the act has failed to significantly boost the performance of under-achieving students.

Calling the NCLB a "good law" during the State of the Union address, the president ignored the criticisms of those in the educational trenches.

NCLB began auspiciously with the right emphasis on enabling urban students to improve their school performance. It provided a frame for establishing high standards for all students and making schools responsible for student progress.

But for all its good intentions, the law has created huge problems for educators, students and parents, and has failed to deliver in crucial areas.

At the onset, NCLB was never funded properly. There was no money provided to transfer students out of under-performing schools. In Chicago, 2,000 students needed to transfer, but had no place to go.

In a feeble attempt at a remedy, once again the Bush administration is playing the voucher card. In his speech, Bush said he wants to enable "children stuck in failing schools the right to choose some place better."

The Department of Education reauthorization plan allocates $4,000 scholarships for students to attend private, other public or out-of-district public schools. This does not address the problem that in many cities, there are simply no schools in which to use the scholarships. Private schools are exclusive and are not likely to accept large numbers of under-performing students from public schools. The tuition of the best private schools can range from four to seven times that of the scholarship money. And there is no sign that suburban schools with high performing students are lining up to accept these students, either.

So far, the transfer aspect of NCLB is a failure. In 2005, nationwide, only 1 percent of eligible students chose to transfer. Critics also question spending money on busing students when funds are needed to hire better teachers, improve instruction and provide books and computers.

Notwithstanding the need to establish stronger benchmarks for success, the testing regime established by NCLB has delivered no more than minimal results.

In his speech, Bush cited the progress minority children had made in closing the testing score gap between them and other students. Fact-checkers working after the speech and others say that Bush's claim that NCLB is closing the gap is exaggerated.

Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2005 indicated that the reading scores for fourth grade Asian, Hispanic and black students went up modestly. Native American scores went down. For the eighth grade, scores for all groups except Asians went down. The achievement gap between black and white students from 2002 to 2005 widened a bit.

Professor W. Norton Grubb of the University of California at Berkeley, who has extensive experience in urban schools, thinks it is too early to make any claims for NCLB. He says that any rise in scores can be characterized as one-time improvements from students getting used to testing and teachers teaching to the test.

For sure, teachers around the country are reeling under the weight of a testing regime. Some out of desperation are resorting to deadly drills that sap the spirit of students and deaden the joy of learning.

The Bush plan to reauthorize NCLB calls for more funding for tutoring that was not funded under the original act. The reauthorization funds tutoring for disabled and limited English proficiency students. Unfortunately, there are legions of other students who need tutoring.

Urban districts strapped for funds have found it impossible to provide qualified tutors. Grubb said districts that do provide tutoring often hire untrained college students unfamiliar with students' needs or how to help them. He said that a program called Reading Recovery was effective using one-to-one or small group tutoring by highly trained tutors.

The list goes on. The reauthorization plan is woefully inadequate in addressing the need for more and better-trained teachers. The plan wants to improve teaching by rewarding effective teachers, but only offers "resources" to interested states and districts rather than funding.

That will do little to provide excellent teachers for the most difficult students to teach. Harnessed with poor teaching conditions, unruly students and inadequate training, teachers do not last. There should be more federal money going directly for salaries and training for those teachers willing to take jobs in schools with vast numbers of under-performing students.

It is unlikely that the Bush administration will make significant outlays for education. The war in Iraq and tax cuts for the rich have depleted the treasury, and now that the Democrats rule Congress, Bush has forsaken the route of deficit spending and is trumpeting the virtues of a balanced budget.

Yet there is no more important challenge facing the nation than turning out, in Bush's words, "a public with knowledge and character." It will take more than a warmed-over NCLB to meet that challenge.

Orleans Public School Children Wait-Listed While Charter Schools Bar Their Doors

For the poorest citizens of a devastated New Orleans who were hoping to hear some encouraging words this week from their President, they will have to wait. They will wait, just like 300 of their children who are now waiting and wait-listed because there is no place for them in the very sick Recovery School District.

But there are some in the Big Easy that the Decider and his Secretary of Education have not forgotten: the 17 new charter schools that the privatizing President hopes will serve as a model for the nation. They enjoy new everything and a mandated teacher-student ratio of 1:20.

In the meantime, there are the children of the Recovery School District, those children from the public schools prior to Katrina who were on the NCLB list of failures. The Recovery District (another Orwellianism) is still 73 teacher short of what they need for their legal limit--a 1:25 teacher-pupil ratio. These children are now jammed into 18 schools, with 300 wait-listed while waiting for seats that have been refused them by the charter schools.

We can know, of course, that when Spellings sends in Jay Greene and other Walmart scholars from Arkansas to do her comparative research on test scores between the charter students and the rest who are waiting for a place to sit down, the new charter schools are going to win that contest. If true comparisons show charters no better than the publics, which true comparsions have shown, then the Secretary will create some phony, manipulated comparisons. Anything to crush the enemy--the public schools.

Phyllis Landrieu, the Orleans Parish School Board president who prayerfully thanked Katrina's merciful destruction of the public school system a few months back, must be giving thanks once more for the overcrowding in the Recovery Schools that her 17 charter schools will be competing against when the LEAP comes to town once more in March.

Asked if they'd consider increasing class sizes to help offset crowding in the Recovery District, Orleans Parish School Board President Phyllis Landrieu said it's too early to say.

"That's not something we can answer quickly," she said. "The board will have to talk about that."

Misleader, Liar, or Both? NAEP and the Art of Manipulation

8th Grade NAEP Reading Scores at left (click charts to enlarge)












4th grade NAEP reading scores at left










And here is what the President said in his SOTU address:

"Minority students are closing the achievement gap, and student achievement is rising – more reading progress was made by 9-year-olds in five years than in the previous 28 years combined, and reading and math scores for 9-year-olds and fourth-graders have reached all-time highs.

Now below are 4th and 8 grade reading comparisons based on ethnicity:






















And below is the chart (click it to enlarge) from which the President drew his conclusions that were delivered in his speech to show that NCLB is working:

You be the decider!

Documentary "No Child Left Behind" Comes to NJ

This Sunday, January 28, at 7 p.m. the documentary film "No Child Left Behind" will be shown at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center, a new 500-seat state-of-the art theater located at the Jewish Community Center in Deal New Jersey.

Following the film, there will be a discussion led by Dr. James Horn, Ph.D., of Monmouth University and filmmaker Lerone Wilson. Wilson, a New York University film student, produced the movie while working as a substitute teacher in a New York City elementary school.

Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door. The proceeds will be used for educational scholarships.

"No Child Left Behind" is a must see for teachers and parents.

Jewish Community Center
100 Grant Avenue
Deal, NJ 07723
732.531.9100

Educator Roundtable Says Enough is More Than Enough

A grassroots movement called the Educator Roundtable has collected over 24,000 signatures in a few weeks in support of repealing the legalized child abuse of NCLB. They have archived the comments left by grandparents, teachers, parents, students, principals, academics, and even politicians. The Educator Roundtable will have its first big meeting in Atlanta March 17. Clearly, the ground is about to move.

Here are a few of the comments by signers you may read with the thousands of others at the ER website:

This law is a full frontal attack on public education. It is designed to destroy public education by setting unrealistic goals that could not be reached even if every mandate was fully funded. It is a disaster. Return the schools to local control. As a public school teacher of 32 years, this is the most dangerous piece of legislation for public schools I have ever seen. In my school district standards based education has been turned into a standardized education nightmare where all children are treated exactly the same with curriculum that teaches to a test and eliminates any pretense of teaching kids to think. The price we will pay for this kind of education is a generation of people who will know how to pass a test but have no idea how to solve the problems of our world. Please scrap this legislation now before it is too late. --Patricia A. Kennedy

I have always been passionate about my job, and never felt I needed to be paid for what I do. I no longer find any joy in teaching and feel that I am harming children far more than I am helping them. I have chosen to take a leave of absence for a year to try to heal the wounds I feel from this heinous law. OF COURSE no child should be left behind, but this law is so terribly flawed in its implementation! The government would act just as foolishly if it legislated that no lawyer would ever lose another case, no doctor would ever lose another patient. People are not widgets, or pieces of metal, to be shaped and molded in cookie cutters. There is SO MUCH MORE to education than the passing of random tests. We are dealing with human beings, many of them very flawed and damaged. Educational decisions should, no MUST, be made by educators, not by legislators who have absolutely NO IDEA what the art of teaching, and nurturing responsible human beings, is about!! --Kathleen P. Willis

"NCLB" is an insult to the educational community and to teachers everywhere. "Teaching to the FCAT" is rampant in FL and our children are not getting the chance to explore incidental learning which sparks further study in a particular area. There is "no time" for such things, as it is of the highest importance that the school "score well". It is well known that different children learn in different ways. What works for one may not necessarily work for another. The NCLB ignores this completely & imposes a cookie cutter mold on all students, completely ignoring those "square pegs", who will fall behind because teachers are prohibited from taking the time to teach in an understandable way to them. As far as filtering money to homeschoolers and away from schools, the majority of homeschoolers DO NOT WANT the government to interfere with their children's education. Please keep your money; it is not wanted. I've been on both sides of the fence. My child has been homeschooled & public educated. The NCLB has to go! --Deborah Carter

I am not teaching students to love to read or love to learn. I am "phontasizing" them (shoving more and more phonics down their throat) which is in no way instilling a desire to pick up a book and read! I numb myself everyday to get through my teaching day. More and more curriculum to cover, more and more paperwork that goes along with the "data-driven dialog" that we endlessly babble about. It's sad, we are cultivating a generation of students who hate to read and who are not intrinsically motivated to learn. But heck, they can sure fill in bubbles. --Lorretta Chavez

I'm a special ed teacher...special ed students are being "left behind" with the current law! They are not given what they need to become productive members of society. They are lumped in with "regular" students and asked to perform to a certain standard despite their IQ or disability. Unless someone devises a way to improve IQ, this law is unlawful and does not meet students' needs. --Elizabeth Herren

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!! As a National Board Certified teacher, I am appalled at what we are putting out students through, the discrimination they are facing as a result of this act and the lack of professional respect our educators are given from folks in the government who have never stepped foot in a real classroom! To provide all students with an equal opportunity for learning is one thing and very fair, but to expect ALL students at the same mastery level by a certain age is totally unrealistic! Every human develops individual and unique affinities that make them successful, not all can be measured and determined by a single test score! This act is truly UNFAIR and I expect our drop out rate and teacher shortages will soar! High expectations are great.... but let's get real!!! The other issue that is totally wrong is the constant cut of funds that would enable better education to occur. The kids aren't supposed to be left behind, but there is no money to bring them along!!!!! Enough is enough! --Dana Honea

I am leaving my job of 28 years because of the travesty of NCLB. It is clearly a manipulation by our president to get his agenda in under the radar. He wants vouchers and private schools. We will soon see the destruction on the middle class! --Susan Ford

As a career educator and a parent and grandparent of public-school educated children and grandchildren, I do not object to accountability, but this legislation is not only unrealistic, unfunded, unjust and unequally applied, it undermines the public education system instead of improving and reforming it. The future of our nation, and its children, as well as our ability to provide the personalized, challenging instruction students need to become capable citizens, is at stake. Please stop the destruction! REPEAL NCLB! --Eldene Burrows

The students I have the honor of teaching this semester are so complex -- and delightful in their complexity. What is delightful about the art of teaching is working with students and encouraging the whole learning community to use the imagination to create, recreate the self and the community of learners. Teaching is the art of empowering young people from within. One cannot base a whole child/young person -- dire I say it -- human being -- on such a bill. NCLB disenfranchises students, teachers, school systems, and on. Students end up with such a narrow view of the possibilities of this wonderful life. NCLB does not offer opportunity; rather, the student is relegated to a single number, single tasks, and tasks with rules without a living context. John Dewey said education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. NCLB doesn't prepare young people for life, and certainly, education has become so far removed from life itself, discouraging imagination and promoting education as drudgery. --Anna M. Ragghanti-Crowe

Monty Neill in Chicago

Some interesting and informative video here (31 minutes) based on Monty Neill's visit to Chicago in early January. Monty surveys the status of testing and retention research and talks about the political landscape surrounding reauthorization talk of NCLB. Some interview and some presentation. Thanks, Monty.

Monty Neill Responds to Bush's "Augmentations" to NCLB

Monty's fired up:

President George Bush’s State of the Union proposals to escalate the failing test-and-punish strategy of the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) law, as outlined by a White House policy memo (http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2007/initiatives/print/education.html), rest on misinformation and ideologically skewed assumptions, not evidence. Pres. Bush wants to continue pursuing dead-end policies that have not improved educational quality, particularly for our nation's most vulnerable children

The facts demonstrate that NCLB is not a success. Key independent indicators, including dropout rates, college admissions test scores, and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results are unchanged or only slightly improved. Narrowing of the racial achievement gap has slowed since NCLB was implemented.

Meanwhile, the law has turned many schools into test-coaching programs, denying students the well-rounded, rich education all the nation's children deserve. The Bush administration pretends that minor changes in test scores in a few subjects is an adequate substitute for real education.

Now, the Pres. Bush proposes that all states report their NAEP results along with scores on their local tests. But the NAEP definition of "proficiency" was deemed flawed and too high by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Education. Making states look bad by comparing them to an unreasonable standard will not improve education.

Outside the Bush Administration, a broad consensus on how to overhaul NCLB is emerging, as evidence by the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB, signed by more than 100 education, civil rights, religious, disability and civic groups, including FairTest. It says, "Overall, the law’s emphasis needs to shift from applying sanctions for failing to raise test scores to holding states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that improve student achievement."

The recommended changes to NCLB include:
- using multiple measures of student learning instead of single test scores;
- expecting rates of improvement actually attained by significant numbers of real schools, replacing the "adequate yearly progress" scheme;
- providing substantial support for building the capacity of schools to serve all students well, then holding them accountable for making improvements; and
- increasing funding to support improvement efforts and to enable all students eligible for Title I services to receive them.

The Forum on Educational Accountability, a group working to implement the Joint Statement, will release more detailed proposals on capacity-building, assessment and accountability in the coming months.

The Joint Statement is available at www.fairtest.org and at www.edaccountability.org.

What FairTest has not confronted or challenged directly is the privatization strategy that emanates from the conservative rationale for the old and new versions of NCLB. FairTest, for whatever reason, continues to pretend that the educational genocide from NCLB is somehow an unintended consequence of incompetence or stupidity. Although there is plenty of that to go around in this Administration, neither incompetence nor stupidity is the reason that Bush Co. has a laser focus on impossible AYP targets for public schools. Look at the privatization initiatives in tonight's speech that depend upon the manufactured failure of schools based on impossible test targets:

• We Will Strengthen School Restructuring. Schools subject to restructuring for chronic underperformance will be required either to make substantial changes in staff or to reconstitute the schools' governance structure.

• We Will Require Persistently Underperforming Schools To Offer "Promise Scholarships." These scholarships will enable low-income students to transfer to private schools or out-of-district public schools, or receive intensive tutoring. Federal funds will follow the students to their new schools.

• We Will Offer Competitive Grants Through The "Opportunity Scholarships Program" To Help Communities Expand School Choice Options For Low-Income Parents And Students. Similar to the Washington, D.C., choice program that the Federal government has funded since 2004, families would be able to send their children to a private school through a locally designed scholarship program. They could also seek intensive tutoring.

• We Will Increase The Availability Of High-Quality Charter Schools, Which Provide Important Options For Parents. Charters will also have a greater degree of flexibility to use their grants in executing planning and startup activities.

• We Will Expand Access To Tutoring. We will ensure that districts notify parents whose children are eligible for tutoring and require school districts to make full use of the Federal funds set aside for tutoring and other school choice activities.

We Will Help Parents Get The Information They Need In Time To Make Informed Decisions About Their Children's School Choice Options. We will strengthen enforcement mechanisms to ensure parents receive proper and timely notice of their tutoring and choice options, and school districts will be allowed to use Federal funds to conduct high-quality parent outreach campaigns.

To Miller and Kennedy: A Plan for Withdrawing from NCLB Insanity

For those in Congress who may be looking for an alternative to the current train wreck of NCLB, read about George Wood's field trip to Nebraska:

Imagine that in this era of reducing everything we do in schools to a score on a high-stakes, standardized test that one state just says no. Imagine that this state relies upon locally established standards, assessments developed by teachers and administered in classrooms by those teachers, and only gives one state wide test—a writing sample again scored by teachers. Imagine that the State Commissioner of Education supports and fights for this system, because he believes that assessment should not drive instruction but simply be one tool to assist good teaching.

If you cannot imagine this, then head out to Nebraska and see their School-based Teacher-led Assessment Reporting System—go see the STARS.

A group of us did just that on a study tour organized by The Alliance for Public Schools. Educators, policy researchers, and reporters spent three days in Nebraska to see STARS in action. We visited classrooms, met with teachers, students, administrators, and parents, were briefed by State Commissioner Doug Christensen and his staff, and attended a state-wide training system for peer reviewers (teachers who will review the work of other teachers).

It is hard to capture in this short space what we saw, and for a full picture I suggest you either visit the STARS web site or pick up a copy of Chris Gallagher’s fine book, Reclaiming Assessment which includes a Foreword by Forum Convener Deborah Meier. The simple outline is this:

• Nebraska’s educational standards, slimmer than most, are either approved by local districts or districts improve upon them and send them back to the state for approval.
• There is only one state-wide assessment which is a writing sample. This is scored by Nebraska teachers at a state-wide review for which there is a waiting list of teachers who want to participate. Samples of these are sent out for scoring to check on reliability—Nebraska’s teachers’ scores are always more demanding.
• Other standards are assessed by teacher-developed assessments, both paper and pencil and performance, taken at the point of instruction. Often students do not even know they are taking a state assessment; it is just one part of a classroom activity.
• Each district chooses a norm-referenced test at whatever grade they want to provide a snapshot comparison of local scores to national norms.
• There are no high-stakes attached to the tests. If students do not do well the teachers meet to see if a) the assessment was inappropriate, b) they did not do a good job of teaching the content, or c) the students need additional work.
• You cannot compare districts by looking at test scores since there is no statewide test.

The system was driven by State Commissioner of Education Doug Christensen, who may be the most visionary state educational leader in the country. He is, as he says, “committed to teachers being instructional leaders. You cannot have good schools without professional educators, and you have professional educators only if you treat them like professionals. That’s what this is all about.” (Read Doug’s speech on assessment here.)

It is indeed. At every school we visited, in every conversation we had, teachers talked about how STARS puts them in charge of their craft. As one of our companions from Hawaii put it, “There is a lot of aloha going on here; teachers sharing their wisdom, working together, acting like professionals.”

As I noted, there is no way to record all we saw in this space. So perhaps the best way to give you a flavor of what is going on in Nebraska is through a few snap shots taken from my notes of the trip;

• Accompanied by an eleventh grader I go to an English classroom where a writing standard is being assessed. She walks over to the teacher who hands her the assessment and she shares it with me. I ask the teacher if he is worried that she sees the assessment before taking it the next period. “Why would I worry about that, this is just like the tasks we ask them to do all the time, they know what is coming and I know they are prepared for it."
• In a fourth grade classroom students are busy at their desks waiting to be called to the back of the room for an assessment on electricity. They each take their turn sitting with the teacher and building simple circuits of varying types. The teacher notes the steps the student takes, what the student can tell her about it, how the student self corrects. This is recorded as part of the assessment on electricity.
• I am talking with a group of seniors about assessment and they ask what goes on in my school and state. After I tell them about our high stakes standardized graduation exams they are amazed. “You mean kids don’t know what is on the test, and it is all a paper and pencil type exam…And their teachers don’t grade it and don’t know what to help them with?” They cannot imagine what it is like and wonder why anyone would do that to students. A math teacher who is in on the session points out to them: “(Tests like that) are why I left Texas to come teach here.”
• A sixth grader watches a video of his oral presentation yesterday, with student and teacher scored rubrics in hand. He makes notes on how to improve his presentation next time.
• In the state-wide training for peer review I watch Educational Service Center staff working with teachers and administrators. “Our ESC is crucial to our small district,” a superintendent tells me. “We are all on the same page, working together, and our teachers value their collaboration.” It is this way everywhere we go, with educators talking about how much time they spend together working on curriculum, assessment, and helping kids learn.

There is much more one could say about what is going on in Nebraska, including that it took a fight with the U. S. Department of Education to get this system approved even though it is clearly working. Working because by all outside measures Nebraska’s kids do well in school; because Nebraska’s teachers feel and act like professionals; and because assessment is seen as a tool to help kids learn, not a stick to use in punishing those who fail. Let’s hope that any change in NCLB takes notice of what is happening out here on the plains.

Most importantly, Nebraska’s kids are in the company of powerful adults. This was an epiphany that came to me after talking with a high school principal near the end of the trip. He and I had a gentle disagreement on how to organize the school day. In reflection I realized that the Nebraska system was not about doing things the way I would do it, it was about giving educators the power to do what worked for their students. Rather than have their classrooms and schools be chained down to a one-size fits all assessment system, educators in Nebraska have the freedom to construct systems that best meet the needs of their students. A responsibility they take seriously and in so doing model professionalism of the highest degree.

As Deborah Meier has said, “Young people learn to be powerful adults when they are in the company of powerful adults.” That is, we learn to be democratic when we watch others being so. Nebraska’s kids are in the presence of educators who do not talk about ‘what the state makes us do.’ Instead they talk about what they have created—the lesson young people learn from watching this is the most important lesson of all.

Announcing the New Testing Surge

Tonight the SOTU Speech will give the Decider an opportunity to change the subject from his foreign war that he would rather forget to the domestic one that he is now eager to wage with new vigor: the war against public education. He will use this event tonight to urge bipartisan support for an escalation, er, surge in testing, a bold (read reckless) plan to lay down a endless blanket of incendiaries from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Sure, there will be some naysayers who tell you that the current testing war is not working any better than the one that the Escalator would rather forget. The achievement gap, for instance, remains a chasm, and test scores in reading and math have been less during the past four years (based on NAEP) than they were in the previous four. Not only that, but the troops in the classroom are demoralized and ready to desert for being blamed with the failure, and the tutoring companies and the corporate welfare charter outfits (the Blackwaters of the edu-world) complain about a shortage of contracts.

What the whining naysayers don't realize, however, is the testing war, the war on public education, is being won. For complete victory, it is just going to require a determined effort to re-arm and re-deploy the NCLB weapon that will assure the demise of the enemy. Just look, for instance, at the growing number of schools in every state of the nation that have already been neutralized by AYP scores that don't pass muster. And just look at the projections that show 70-90 percent of all public schools being taken down, taken out, by 2014, if we have the guts to stay the course, er, to adapt and adjust. Now is not the time to waver in our commitment to crushing the dictatorial government schools. We have the voucher reinforcements ready to pull the trigger on their front, and we have General Marc Tucker ready to launch a full-scale charter assault in his theatre of operations. All we need is the determination to not cut and run. We need to buck up, suck it up, bite the bullet--we need to Reauthorize NCLB Now!!

Five Myths About U.S. Kids and American Schools

A must read from Paul Farhi in yesterday's WaPo:

The usual hand-wringing accompanied the Department of Education's release late last year of new statistics on how U.S. students performed on international tests. How will the United States compete in the global economy, went the lament, when our students lag behind the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong in math and science? American fourth-graders ranked 12th in the world on one international math test, and eighth-graders were 14th. Is this further evidence of the failure of the nation's schools?

Not exactly. In fact, a closer look at how our kids perform against the international "competition" suggests that this story line may contain more than a few myths: . . .

20 Reasons to Repeal NCLB Redux

1. An education policy built on impossible performance demands that undermine public schools should be repealed, not reauthorized.
2. An education policy that ignores the unique needs of English-language learners and special education students should be repealed, not reauthorized.
3. An education policy that abuses and traumatizes children, destroys the desire to learn, and corrupts the purposes of learning should be repealed, not reauthorized.
4. An education policy that bases life-altering decisions on the use of a single assessment should be repealed, not reauthorized.
5. An education policy that ignores poverty as the chief cause for the achievement gap should be eliminated, not reformed.
6. An education policy that replaces the intellectual, social, and emotional growth of children with year-round teaching to raise test scores should be repealed, not reauthorized.
7. An education policy that uses pseudoscience and flawed research to devise national reading and math teaching standards and strategies should be repealed, not reauthorized.
8. An education policy that shrinks the American school curriculum to two or three subjects that are tested, thereby reducing or eliminating recess, social studies, art, music, foreign languages, health and PE should be repealed, not reauthorized.
9. An education policy that discourages integration and diversity, while encouraging homogeneity and segregation, should be repealed, not reauthorized.
10. An education policy that supports the use of tax money to fund private schools and private management of public schools should be repealed, not reauthorized.
11. An education policy that encourages our best and most ethical teachers to leave the profession should be repealed, not reauthorized.
12. An education policy that encourages teachers to ignore the needs of individual students in favor of raising test scores should be repealed, not reauthorized.
12. An education policy that is built on unfunded and under-funded requirements should be repealed, not reauthorized.
13. An education policy that reduces or eliminates local education decision-making should be repealed, not reauthorized.
14. An education policy that mandates that military recruiters have access to student information should be repealed, not reauthorized.
15. An education policy that is used to reward public money to insiders and cronies for their political support should be eliminated, not reformed.
16. An education policy that replaces effective teaching with chain-gang rigidity and parrot learning that minimizes critical thinking and democratic values should be repealed, not reauthorized.
17. An education policy that supports paid propagandists to advance its agenda should be repealed, not reauthorized.
18. An education policy that offers public funds to tutoring companies with no accountability or oversight should be repealed, not reauthorized.
19. An education policy that is not closing the achievement gap or increasing student knowledge should be repealed, not reauthorized.
20. An education policy based on threats, intimidation, and sanctions should be repealed, not reauthorized.

Action Strategies to Fight Back

1. Hold a public forum in your community to discuss 20 Reasons to Repeal NCLB.
2. Organize a meet-up with teachers and parents to talk together about how NCLB is affecting children and school.
3. Persuade your professional and civic organizations to pass resolutions supporting repeal of NCLB.
4. Write letters-to-the-editor and op-ed pieces to your local and regional newspapers.
5. Ask your school board to pass a resolution against NCLB.
6. Contact your U.S. Senators and U. S. Representatives asking for repeal of NCLB.
7. Contact your state legislators to enlist them in the effort to repeal NCLB.
8. Parents: Join the NCLB-mandated Parents Advisory Board at your child’s school. Bring the 20 Reasons to Repeal NCLB to begin a dialogue.
9. Organize a public protest on test days or days given over to test preparation.
10. Make a statement and sign the Petition to Dismantle NCLB at http://www.educatorroundtable.org/

Restoring the Fairness Doctrine to Save the Republic

From Raw Story:

Rep. Hinchey: New bill would break up media monopolies and restore fairness doctrine

Warns media reform critical to prevent 'end of democratic republic'

Concerns about monopolies and fears of a possible "fascist" takeover of the US media have prompted a Democratic congressman to push to restore the Fairness Doctrine, RAW STORY has learned.

"Media reform is the most important issue confronting our democratic republic and the people of our country," Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said at the Free Press National Media Reform Conference held in Memphis, Tennessee last weekend. "This is a critical moment in history that may determine the future of our country…maybe forever."

Hinchey told RAW STORY he plans to reintroduce the Media Ownership Reform Act (MORA) that would break up media monopolies and restore the Fairness Doctrine, which was eliminated by the Federal Communications Commission under the Reagan administration.

“If Rush shoots his mouth off, he must give equal access to our side,” Hinchey said. “The American public will begin to get both sides or all sides of an issue. That is basic – fundamental to a democracy.”

Last year, Hinchey introduced H.R. 3302 (MORA), but Republicans blocked the measure in committee. He also founded the Future of American Media Caucus in Congress in 2005. With Democrats now in control of Congress, a new media reform measure is expected to be assigned to the House Energy and Commerce Committee within the next couple of weeks, Hinchey’s staff confirmed.

“We’ll be trying hard to get the subcommittee and the full committee chairs to bring this to the House floor,” Hinchey pledged. A companion bill will be introduced on the Senate side by Bernie Sanders (D-VT), he added.

MORA would restore the Fairness Doctrine, reinstate a national cap on ownership of radio stations, lower the number of radio stations that one company can own in a local market, and reinstate the 25 percent national cap on television ownership, among other restrictions. The bill’s no-grandfathering provision would compel media conglomerates to divest to comply with new ownership limitations.

MORA would also require public interest reports from broadcasters and require more independently produced programming on TV. In addition, it establishes new public interest obligations to assure that broadcasters meet the needs of local communities and requires increased, sustained public input and outreach to give the people a voice in programming.
Media 'con job'

Hinchey faults the mainstream media for failing to tell Americans the truth about “an administration in Washington that has falsified information to people about weapons of mass destruction in order to justify an illegal and unjustified attack perpetrated on Iraq. How was it that Congress voted to give the President that authority? And how was it that so many people just bought into it when Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center and whatever weapons they had were given to them by the Reagan administration?”

Talk radio has become dominated by shows that are “right wing, even neo-fascist,” he said, adding that even the best newspapers gave readers a “con job” by reporting false information fed by the administration.

“This should make every single citizen in America deeply concerned,” he told conference attendees. “What lies will they tell in the future to jeopardize this democratic republic or even end this democratic republic? That is the objective of many of those involved.”

Hinchey believes the takeover of the U.S. media has been carefully calculated by the “political right wing,” starting with the abolition in 1987 of the Fairness Doctrine, which was originally adopted in 1949 in reaction to the rise of global fascism prior to World War II.

“Fascist government dominated discussions in Europe. They could now broadcast all over and control all information going out. That’s how they took over governments in Spain and Italy,” Hinchey recalled. “The U.S. said the airways should be owned by everyone.”

The Fairness Doctrine required that broadcasters give equal time to people who wished to express an opposing viewpoint. “Under the Reagan administration, the FCC wiped out that rule and said only businesses that operate stations can express their view,” Hinchey noted. Congress passed a bill that would have required the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, but that bill was vetoed by Reagan.

“The veto said clearly that this is an idea from the political right wing because we do not want to allow other points of view – because if we allow free and open discussion on the environment, healthcare [and other issues], in almost every case the right wing will lose.”

Asked whether the Congressman believes there is now an attempt at a fascist takeover of the U.S., a Hinchey staffer noted that Rep. Hinchey’s legislation arose from his concern about increasing concentration of media ownership into the hands of a few individuals and corporations. “Whether or not there is a purpose that includes fascism, we could wind up in a fascist situation if corporations end up controlling information without the government providing some balancing mechanism, such as the Fairness Doctrine,” said the staffer, who spoke on background only and did not wish to be named. “He would also say that the FCC’s recent efforts to weaken media ownership rules in order to enable corporations to own more and more outlets plays into that as well.” . . .

The Bloomberg Defense

A reader writes:

I've been reading your blog for a couple months now and usually appreciate and am with you on most things. I think you're a little quick to jump the gun here though. First - the facts. The "private management companies" must be non-profits.

Yes, and the College Board is "non-profit," too--but they cleared over $500,000,000 last year from their testing products. Besides, how could the corporate sultans receive tax credits or deductions for their largesse if the edu-business companies they plan to fund were not set up as non-profits?

Second - I think the revolutionary part of what Bloomberg/Klein are doing has been lost - the Fair Student Funding Initiative. This means a school like mine in the Bronx that serves the students who need the most will be seeing more money at the expense of schools that tend to serve the Middle Class and Upper Class in nicer part of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens.

I have my doubts as to whether any remaining middle class parents who continue to have kids in NYC public schools will allow their kids' funds to be drained off. It has never happened before, and I don't expect it happen now in this reverse Robin Hood era.

Third - yes, Empowerment Schools can outsource services to other companies. But Empowerment Schools can also partner with community organizations and receive funds that are unavailable to most schools. I teach in an Empowerment School, and we get somewhere in the range of 25%-50% of our total budget from our partner organization - FEGS. Among other things, this allows us to increase our support staff (we have a full time college placement specialist, just like the top private schools)

Sad, indeed. This is the typical neo-liberal treatment to the poverty and racism issue: ignore the real problem, provide services that only the middle class can use, and then blame the poor for not using them.

. . . .Not to mention the fact that literally every request I have made for classroom materials - from technology to books to curricular materials - I have received. Are there flaws with the Tucker model of education reform? Of course, and you've highlighted a lot of them. But with that said, there are a lot of benefits, which I am seeing first hand (and believe me, we are not a KIPP like school - I'd like to think people like Paulo Freire and Myles Horton would be proud of most of what they saw at Bronx Lab).

That Bloomberg and Klein would be falling over themselves to pander to the "empowerment" schools in order to prove their superiority should be expected, I think. That is the Marc Tucker horse they have their money on, after all. Wonder if the schools served by the remaining superintendents have the resources to honor every requst from teachers?

Maybe I am being a little naive here - but I always come back to the fact that the Bronx has something like a 30% graduation rate. What has been done in the past hasn't worked. Isn't it worth trying something new?

The fact that the City, the State, and the Nation have ignored the poverty, repression, and racism that produced what "hasn't worked" does not seem reason enough to give up on the public schools for not accomplishing what no school system alone can ever accomplish, anyway. If Bloomberg's privatization plan is allowed to succeed, I am sure, Steve, that the Mayor's Office will stay busy congratulating you, your colleagues, and themselves for the new bright successes that were so recently painted as dismal failures. Something new, indeed.

Bloomberg, Klein, and the Stealth Privatization Plan

Even though there are few details available on Bloomberg's stealth privatization plan for NYC Schools, there is enough to know that this Tucker Lite version of corporatized education will be conducted without consulting teachers and principals and without the benefit of 6 of the 10 school superintendents who will be replaced by private management outfits that will contract with the Mayor's Office. If principals choose to sign test score performance contracts, they can become "empowerment" schools and be serviced by these new edu-business versions of Kellogg, Brown, and Root.

Taking a page from the Bush playbook on delivering news you'd rather not make public, Bloomberg sent Klein out on Friday to make the announcement during a speech to, who else, a hand-picked group of corporate executives who are part of the "partnership." Wonder how many of these corporate partners have children who attend the crumbling school buildings that they will now manage as the bold new civic-minded slumlords whose real focus remains on minimizing the city tax bill on their deliriously-rich Manhattan sultanates.

With testing practices in place that assure the failure of the most vulnerable children, and with retention policies locked in that hold children back, thus increaing their likelihood of dropping out later, Klein, a mealy-mouthed version of Dickens's Gradgrind, had the audacity Friday to lay claim to a phrase by Jonathan Kozol to characterize the apartheid education system that Klein and Bloomberg are scheming to perpetuate:

Mr. Klein defended the need for vast change to the school system. “How can we be anything but bold,” the chancellor asked, “when 140,000 of our children between the ages of 16 and 20 years old have either dropped out or are on the verge of dropping out?”

Calling the failures of school systems “the shame of our nation,” Mr. Klein said, “We must move forward with resolve.”

Breath-taking, and truly Rovian.

Nelnet Gets to Keep $278,000,000 in Illicit Student Loan Interest Payments

ED's Inspector General's Office announced back in September that ED had overpaid conservative political bankroller, Nelnet, $278 million in interest for student loans that had been subjected to the sleazy practice of "loan recycling."

Now Maggie Spellings has decided to let them keep their fraudulent gains. Why? Incredibly, the only excuse that the ED lawyers can come up with is that if ED starts going after the $278 million owed them by Nelnet, then they might endanger other ill-gotten gains from other crooked outfits (who have paid, through campaign contributions, for admission into the federal treasury feeding frenzy):

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings rejected the inspector general's recommendation that the department seek to recover past overpayments. The audit estimated that Nelnet already has been improperly paid more than $278 million by the government.

Recovering past payments might require the government to also go after money other lenders have received, including some small nonprofit lenders, according to Department of Education officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the settlement. The federal officials said they didn't want to put small lenders out of business.

“This decision was reached in the best interests of taxpayers and students as well as the integrity of the federal student loan programs. The federal student loan programs are an important pillar in this nation's system of financing college opportunity and offer students and families the ability to afford higher education,” Under Secretary Sara Martinez Tucker, who oversees higher education issues, said in a statement.

The audit by the inspector general's office report found that Nelnet has improperly sought and received an artificially high rate of return on many of its loans.

Right on cue, Kennedy and Miller are out front to let the world know how disgusted they are about the decision:

“The administration should have settled for nothing less than the full recovery of Nelnet’s ill-gotten proceeds from these loans,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “The Department of Education’s settlement is a loss for students and taxpayers, who are the victims of Nelnet’s greed.”

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, said his panel would investigate the accord. “We will ensure that taxpayer dollars are used properly,” Mr. Miller said in a statement.

The question is: what will Miller and Kennedy do to oversee and investigate this thievery? And what about the Reading First corruption uncovered by another OIG Report last fall? Will Kennedy and Miller stand by and let Spellings deliver more imperial decrees on that matter as well?

Using a Business Model to Bankrupt Teaching

The neo-liberal cabal at Education Sector, those mainstream conservatives whose greed has brought them wheeling and dealing into the "Post-partisan" Era, have released some more toxic think tank material that is sure to be must-reading among the edu-business leeches aimed at corporatizing every remaining civic purpose in America. This piece of sludge, "Frozen Assets," has the same smell that emanates from the recent release of Marc Tucker’s bankrupt business model for state-funded corporate welfare charter school systems. Tucker Co. is in Colorado this week trying to sell the neo-liberal brand of the same snake oil that has been marketed under a different label by the charlatans who now control the Department of Education.

“Frozen Assets” fantasizes about un-freezing, nay, vaporizing, the remaining attractions to the profession of teaching, a profession that, otherwise, is in the process of being destroyed by an onslaught of rigid testing, test preparation, and behavioral control methods. The target is an estimated $77 billion in guaranteed salaries, retirement, and health benefits that now go to the nation’s underpaid and demonized teacher corps.

According the this report, there are the eight problem areas that arise from teacher contract provisions. I have taken the liberty to share or extrapolate the corporatized solutions:

Problem 1: Increases in teacher salaries based on years of experience
Solution 1: Increase beginning salaries and introduce merit raises on “increased benefits for students,” i. e., higher test scores.

Problem 2: Increases in teacher salaries based on educational credentials and experiences
Solution 2: Increase teacher salaries based on “measurable effects in terms of increased student learning.” You got it--test scores.

Problem 3: Professional development days
Solution 3: Dump contractually-guaranteed professional development days that take teachers away from jobs. Professional development “should give teachers the chance to try out new strategies in real classroom settings, it should include ongoing support after initial training, and it should be evaluated to ensure that it increases student learning.” So all approved professional development will have as its goal increased student learning (higher test scores).

Problem 4: Number of paid sick and personal days
Solution 4: Other professional employees (undefined) would take 3.06 days per 180-day year. You get the picture. No matter that teachers are exposed to every form of crud that circulates among the masses.

Problem 5: Class-size limitations
Solution 5: Citing the only piece of peer-reviewed research in this report, the author concludes that modest reductions in class size do not produce significant results. The most reliable indicators from the Tennessee STAR study show that when enrollments drop below 18 students that significant academic gains are likely. According to “Frozen Assets,” then, the modest reductions in class size called for by many teacher contracts are a waste of money. Wonder what these guys would say if teacher unions demanded a 1:17 teacher student ratio?

Problem 6: Use of teachers’ aides
You guessed it: “. . . as with many of the typical contract provisions described in this report, the research suggests that money spent on teachers’ aides does not yield increased student learning.” If there is not a direct link to increasing the bottom line (test scores), then forget it.

Problem 7: Generous health and insurance benefits
Solution 7: With abysmally low salaries compared to other professions, health insurance remains one of few financial attractions to the teaching profession. Advocating for less health benefits, look at how “Frozen Assets” analyzes the situation: “. . . Podgursky’s analysis suggests that the teacher health and other insurance benefits amount to 9.1 percent of the average salary, compared to 6 percent for other professionals.” With lower take home pay for teachers, would not any semi-literate dolt expect that the health insurance premium would constitute a greater percentage of the overall salary???

Problem 8: Generous retirement benefits.
Solution 8: See Solution 7--same thought disorder. In short, dump defined benefit pensions for teachers and put them all in 401Ks.

Movie "Freedom Writers" Promotes Dangerous Myths

A real live inner-city school teacher tells it like it is today in the New York Times when it comes to the dangerous myths perpetuated by Hollywood in movies like Freedom Writers. While the ongoing problems of poor working conditions, low pay, lack of respect plague the profession, teachers are expected to be miracle workers and heroes in a failing system. A system that leaves millions of children behind in wretched, underfunded, understaffed schools located in war zones. Unless the real problems of real teachers and real students are addressed eventually there will be no teachers left, period.

Every year young people enter the teaching profession hoping to emulate the teachers they’ve seen in films. (Maybe in the back of my mind I felt that I could be an inspiring teacher like Howard Hesseman or Gabe Kaplan.) But when you’re confronted with the reality of teaching not just one class of misunderstood teenagers (the common television and movie conceit) but four or five every day, and dealing with parents, administrators, mentors, grades, attendance records, standardized tests and individual education plans for children with learning disabilities, not to mention multiple daily lesson plans — all without being able to count on the support of your superiors — it becomes harder to measure up to the heroic movie teachers you thought you might be.

It’s no surprise that half the teachers in poor urban schools, like Erin Gruwell herself, quit within five years. (Ms. Gruwell now heads a foundation.)

I don’t expect to be thought of as a hero for doing my job. I do expect to be respected, supported, trusted and paid. And while I don’t anticipate that Hollywood will stop producing movies about gold-hearted mavericks who play by their own rules and show the suits how to get the job done, I do hope that these movies will be kept in perspective.

While no one believes that hospitals are really like “ER” or that doctors are anything like “House,” no one blames doctors for the failure of the health care system. From No Child Left Behind to City Hall, teachers are accused of being incompetent and underqualified, while their appeals for better and safer workplaces are systematically ignored.

Every day teachers are blamed for what the system they’re just a part of doesn’t provide: safe, adequately staffed schools with the highest expectations for all students. But that’s not something one maverick teacher, no matter how idealistic, perky or self-sacrificing, can accomplish.

Tom Moore, a 10th-grade history teacher at a public school in the Bronx, is writing a book about his teaching experiences

Parents Fighting the Testing Frenzy

This is exactly what it will take to tamp down the current abusive orgy of tabulation in schools:

Some Richmond public school parents say frequent testing is interrupting their children's education.

"I am concerned about the onslaught of assessments in Richmond Public Schools," said Fox Elementary School parent Mary Boyes, adding that she was particularly bothered by the testing of students from kindergarten through second grade. "I question the frequency and types of assessments our children are being given."

Speaking at a School Board meeting Tuesday night, more than two dozen parents called for reduced testing. In addition to annual state tests, Richmond students take a number of other tests throughout the year that aren't required by the state.

"My wife and I were naive," said Evan Davis, also a Fox parent. He said he knew his daughter would take Standards of Learning tests when she reached third grade. "We didn't know that as a 5-year-old she would also encounter nine-week and biweekly tests."

Because the students are at all different reading levels, the teacher has to test them one at a time, which causes the testing to drag on for days, Davis said.

"Quite honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of learning going on during that period," Davis said.

Wendy Martin has two children in Richmond schools.

She said she is not against assessment but noted that her first-grader's class includes students who are reading at all different levels and must constantly stop their lessons for testing every other week and every nine weeks.

"Every two weeks, these kids are getting a language-arts assessment determining where they are," Martin said. "It's wasting the time of the kids who are at the sixth-grade level. It's wasting the time of the kids who are still learning their ABCs."

She and other parents said that some of the purchased tests are poorly designed and would be better if Richmond teachers wrote them. Martin also noted that she considered moving from the city, in part because of the emphasis on testing, and knows of other families who feel the same way.

"You need to know, where the rubber meets the road, this is having an impact," she said.

Richmond Education Association President Wade Ellegood said the union surveyed its members about testing and that it plans to present the results to the School Board's curriculum committee Jan. 29.

"The board is listening to this concern," said School Board Chairman George P. Braxton II.

Also Tuesday night, the coordinator of school health services, Charlene Rodgers, said that seven sixth-graders have yet to receive their mandatory vaccines for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis and have been suspended from school.

State law required all public school sixth-graders to have the immunization by early December or be kept out of school. Irving C. Jones Jr., executive director of secondary education, said that the school district has been unable to locate the parents of three of the remaining seven students. The parents of the other students will be taken to court, he said.

Contact staff writer Lindsay Kastner at lkastner@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6058.

Dodd, Kennedy, and a New Surge for the Testing Juggernaut

The cries from students, parents, teachers, school boards, and academics during the past five years of NCLB war on schools have proven that Democrats are as tone-deaf to education issues as any other group of nitwits. And why wouldn't they be--most of the Dem kids are going to the same private schools as children of their opponents across the aisle. No chili supper fundraisers or coupon books among this group.

Let's face it--Dodd, Kennedy, Miller, and most of the other "Democrats" don't give a rat's posterior section about public education, the abusive use of testing, the stupidifying of America's non-elite children, or the privatization of public schools. And now both Kennedy and Dodd have bills in the Senate to prove it.

While Dodd's bill goes so far as to use extensions for NCLB targets and sanctions to "incentivize" states to "voluntarily" adopt national testing, Kennedy's bill is proposing more chairs for business and the military at the "preparedness councils" that will determine what gets taught and tested in school. Talk about a cancerous growth of the military-industrial complex!! Now we can rename it the miltary-industrial-educational complex.

Here is a clip from the Olson piece in Ed Week:

Congress is considering two new bills that aim to increase the rigor of state standards and tests by linking them to those set at the national level.

The SPEAK Act (SB 224, HR 325), or Dodd-Ehlers bill, would:

• Require the governing board for the National Assessment of Educational Progress to create voluntary U.S. education standards in mathematics and science for grades K-12 and ensure they are internationally competitive.
• Provide competitive grants to states that adopt the standards. Those states would align their tests in math and science, as well as teacher licensure, preparation, and training requirements, with the new standards.
• Permit the U.S. secretary of education to extend the 2014 deadline for states to get all students to the “proficient” level on state reading and math tests under the No Child Left Behind Act by up to four years.
• Provide bonus grants for states that fulfill the grant requirements to develop data systems that can track individual student performance over time.
• Require NAEP to test science, as well as reading and math, in grades 4, 8, and 12 every two years and require states getting NCLB school improvement funds to participate in such tests for students in grades 4 and 8.

The SUCCESS Act (SB 164), or Kennedy bill, would:

• Require that NAEP revise its standards and tests to ensure that they are internationally competitive. At 12th grade, NAEP also would have to assess whether students are prepared for college, the military, and the workforce.
• Require the U.S. secretary of education to identify states with the biggest gaps in student performance on state and NAEP tests. States could ask the NAEP governing board for help in analyzing those gaps.
• Provide $200 million for state grants to set up P-16 preparedness councils, with members of the education, business, and military communities, to align state standards with the skills needed in college and the workplace.
• Provide up to $75 million for state consortia to establish common standards and tests that are rigorous, internationally competitive, and aligned with postsecondary demands.

SOURCE: U.S. Congress

At least Kennedy and Miller can no longer hide behind the excuse of being in the minority. With control of both Houses, the question remains as to whether the Dems will sacrifice the future of American K-12 education for the short-term benefit of appearing bipartisan, at least, on something. To call these pieces of dreck compromises is to give "compromise" a really bad name. Calling it idiocy would be closer to the truth.

Saving Recess

Good reporting in the Toledo Blade on the effort to save recess from the testing hysteria:

Jonny Plasencio bundled up and braved the cold with his Ottawa River Elementary classmates for the one routine most of them probably look forward to the most.

"Without recess, we'd be kind of mad," the fourth grader said. But new government figures show some schools and school districts nationwide are cutting back or eliminating recess for elementary school students, particularly as they get older. . . .

Merit Pay and the Flawed Research That Buys It

A couple of years ago the Walton Foundation was able to buy their own shop at the University of Arkansas to churn out propaganda to support the type of conservative education agenda that would make all of America Walmart employees or Walmart shoppers--or both. As Chair of the new department paid for with $20,000,000 of Walton money, who else--Jay P. Greene, who has manhandled and simmered more statistical data for the Manhattan Institute than you can shake a graphing calculator at.

This is background, then, for this post at the Arkansas Blog, which offers the skinny on a new research products manufactured by Greene and Co. just in time to kick off the big campaign there for merit pay based, of course, on test scores:

The merit pay train leaves the station from the state Capitol at 2 p.m. tomorrow, when faculty members at the University of Arkansas present an evaluation of merit pay experiments in the Little Rock School District. (Noted: The UA is a major recipient of Walton Foundation money. The department doing the evaluation is a major recipient of Walton money. Walton money is promoting merit pay, charter schools and other "reform" all across America. Walton money is supporting the merit pay experiment in the Little Rock School District, with notable aid from Democrat-Gazette publisher Walter Hussman.)

The finding: No surprise here. Merit pay holds promise. More experimenting and testing are needed.

Pardon my sarcasm. Suspicion naturally arises from the multiple connections and the fact that the publicly financed UA refused our FOI request for this report since last Thursday. The report was provided to certain insiders -- supporters of the program -- and one of them was kind enough to supply a copy to us today. Secrecy about this project has been a black mark on the effort from the start.

I'll put the verbatim executive summary on the jump. The meat comes later, in test score comparisons between two schools using merit pay projects (Wakefield and Meadowcliff) and three not using them (Base Line, Chicot and Franklin). But I'm unable to post that data at the moment. There is, however, very little in the way of apples-to-apples comparison of student test scores. In the end, because of a number of variables, the only true comparison is how fourth- and fifth-grade students at one school, Wakefield, performed on a math test, compared with an average from three non-merit-pay schools. Another flaw, in my view, is that the two merit pay project schools -- with about 80 percent minority student bodies -- are compared against an average score of three schools with differing demographic makeups, including one, Franklin, a virtually all-black school with very low scores. I don't see group-to-group comparisons of individual student advancement -- among poor students at a merit pay school vs. poor at a single comparable school, black vs. black, non-black vs. non-black These schools happen to fall in an area where an interesting demographic difference may be emerging based on some recent data -- the relatively strong performance of the rising Hispanic population, particularly versus black students -- and I'm not sure any thought has been given to that.

Teacher opinion surveys produced a finding that teachers at merit pay schools didn't think they worked harder or more innovatively than other teachers, but they found a more positive atmosphere. Yes, they liked higher pay.

It is a shame that the presentation won't be rolled out in a true open forum. It should have been peer reviewed and distributed to those with differing viewpoints in time for study and informed questioning. But this is a political and public relations process at work tomorrow, with academic researchers as props.

Losing Black History, All History

A nice piece by SusanG at Daily Kos:

One of the few things I’ve always assumed united conservatives and liberals in this country is a desire to pass on the American story to the next generation. Of course, there are often different reasons for this desire. Conservatives tend to view the founding of this country and the glorification of its heroes as a priori evidence of American exceptionalism and carte blanche to act without owing the world an explanation . I think liberals are more prone to point out American ideals – and what people have risked to attain them – as remarkable goals for which to strive. We tend to take these rigorous standards seriously and be vocal whenever we see them violated.

Given this shared goal of ensuring our past is known to future generations, the following Washington Post article is discouraging, to say the least, particularly so because the students in question are at college level:

In a recent survey of college students on U.S. civic literacy, more than 81 percent knew that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was expressing hope for "racial justice and brotherhood" in his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.

That's the good news.

Most of the rest surveyed thought King was advocating the abolition of slavery.

It’s not just a critical understanding of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy that is suffering. In fact, educators interviewed in the article say that because the civil rights battle falls into the range of more recent history, it’s actually easier to teach. No, young Americans are woefully ignorant on a number of fronts.

Many of the 10 federal holidays have become little more than days off school or work, even if they are dedicated to significant Americans, such as Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Many people have no idea what Labor Day commemorates, educators say.

"Honestly, I never knew what Veterans Day was until last year," said Taneisha Rodney, 14, a ninth-grader at William E. Doar Jr. Public Charter School for the Performing Arts in Northeast Washington.

Given the right-wing’s insistence on demonizing multi-culturalism and advocating a smooth transition for immigrants (and one would hope our American-born youth) into the "melting pot" of shared values, you’d think the Bush administration would advocate doing everything within its power to promote knowledge of this country’s history, the basis for its federal holidays and the personal stories of the heroes – even collectively, as workers or veterans – that are so honored. You would be wrong.

In many schools across the country, teachers say social studies has taken a back seat under the federal No Child Left Behind law, which stresses math and reading. Squeezing history into the curriculum can be difficult, educators say, and taking time out of a scheduled lesson to use a federal holiday -- even King's -- as a teaching moment can be tough.

The constraints imposed by NCLB, according to educators interviewed by the Post, are leading to rote teaching, with little depth and no substance. Experts point out, for example, that most students are familiar with the "I Have a Dream" speech of King’s from years and years of repetition, while the seminal "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is rarely taught.

"One of the raps on elementary social studies is that it is all about heroes and holidays, and with standardized testing, it often becomes that," said Andrea S. Libresco, an education professor at Hofstra University in New York who teaches prospective teachers how to use the holidays as teaching opportunities. "People tend to concentrate on English and math."

So on this day when we honor King, it’s important to also review the legacy of George Bush and his punitive education policies, which seem to be leading to historical ignorance on a disquieting scale. How can we continue to honor and model our own citizenship to our higher ideals if social studies is left behind? Are the accounts of risks taken, courage displayed, tyranny resisted, injustice challenged – all complex events embedded in the contemporary cultures of their times, difficult to test beyond dates and names – are we willing to jettison all this in the name of "standardization?"

Is the story of America and its heroes doomed to become The Greatest Story Never Told?

High-Stakes Testing as New Tool for Old Repression

In the dark days of the Jim Crow Era, racists were inventive in their use of various tactics to make sure that the Negroes continued to live second-class lives in squalor and deprivation, while continuing to provide a cheap, dependable labor force. Besides being taught that they were morally inferior and, thus, unfit to participate in public life, the white Establishment devised various impossible tests that blacks had to surmount if they showed the audacity to try to exercise their Constitutional guarantee and to participate in the normal activities of white citizens:

Blacks were denied the right to vote by grandfather clauses (laws that restricted the right to vote to people whose ancestors had voted before the Civil War), poll taxes (fees charged to poor Blacks), white primaries (only Democrats could vote, only Whites could be Democrats), and literacy tests ("Name all the Vice Presidents and Supreme Court Justices throughout America's history").

By the 1920s, racists and eugenicists like Lewis Terman and Robert Yerkes had devised a "scientific" test to demonstrate intellectual inferiority to go alongside the accepted view of moral inferiority. Segregation, then, became a "scientifically-based" survival strategy that aimed to avoid the contamination of the white race that would surely occur if race mixing were allowed.

Nowadays we have a much more subtle and sophisticated system to assure that the poor, the brown, and the black remain in their repressed states. The new literacy test (the MEAP, the LEAP, or the CHEAP) is much like the old ones in that it guarantees failure for the disenfranchised. It is quite different, however, in that the new literacy tests are given at an early age, rather than to uppity adults trying to exercise the rights reserved for whites.

Children are now labeled as failures as early as kindergarten and taught failure long before they get a notion of what might constitute success. They are taught order and obedience, to work hard, be nice. They are taught that learning is work, work, learning. They are taught that learning is rewarded with candy, toys, or other worthless consummables. They are told the big lie that if they try hard enough and work hard enough that they can do anything, thus guaranteeing the crushing of esteem and an accompanying sense of self-loathing when all the pie-in-the-sky promises don't materialize, despite their efforts that are doomed by the poverty they don't understand.

Now the present-day racists, unacknowledged though they are, are planning a new, even more impossible slew of national tests based on the NAEP, to be accompanied by robust data reporting systems that make sure the guaranteed failure rates in poor communities can be posted as warning signs for those who would avoid the contamination of the failed, dark residents of these communities. Not only will these new test score placards keep wealthier families out, but they will serve just as clearly as the signs above the Blacks Only water fountain to delineate the boundary for those maturing youngsters who are learning at an early age to accept their failure, to abandon hope, and to forget the Dream that today, we, ironically, celebrate.

Civil rights attorney, Thomas Todd, was in Greenwood, Mississippi last week to commemorate Dr. King. Here are some clips:

Although young blacks today have some of the trappings of freedom, it's a college education that will truly uplift them, civil rights attorney Thomas N. Todd said Wednesday.

Todd was the keynote speaker at Mississippi Valley State University's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation.

King's Birthday, Jan. 15, is a national holiday.

Todd said that January, named after the Greek god Janus, is a time to look backward and forward.

"When we come to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth, we must look backward and forward at the same time," he said. "If you don't know about where you come from, you don't know where you are and you sure don't know where you're going."

Todd criticized the country's military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and said although blacks have served this country, they were not free.

"In World War I, black soldiers were lynched in uniform right here in Mississippi. In World War II, white prisoners of war, who fought against America, were treated better than black soldiers that fought for America. These wars are everybody's wars, but they are not for everybody's freedom," he said.

"One hundred and fifty years after the Dred Scott decision, 144 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 142 years after the 13th amendment, 139 years after the 14th amendment, 137 years after the 15th amendment, 53 years after Brown v. the Board of Education, 52 years after Montgomery, and 42 years after the Voting Rights Act, blacks in America are still not free," Todd said.

"We're somewhere between liberation and servitude, we're still not free," he said to loud applause.

Todd, 68, widely known in civil rights circles as "TNT" for his dynamic presentations, is a native of Demopolis, Ala.

Todd said blacks must know the history of signs in the Deep South - that although "White" and "Colored" signs are no longer present, new signs have taken their place.

Take standardized testing for students from kindergarten through 12th grade. "Are they based on sound educational principles or just new signs? Are they just the new literacy test?" Todd asked.

The income gap between blacks and whites and the disparities in health care are other indicators that discrimination is still present in American society, he said.

Education, specifically college education, will help remedy some discrimination, but young blacks must be wary of "knockoff freedoms" - freedoms that sound good but are false and misleading, Todd said.

Civil rights has advanced education for blacks, he said: "If education won't free you, it will give you the tools."
. . .

Jacques Derrida, Pat Robertson, and Frosty Hardison Join Forces

It wasn't so long ago that skeptics of the postmodern turn lay claim to the paradoxical argument that all knowledge claims are relative, a strong statement that could obviously be true only if it were false. Such a glaring logical contradiction was not enough, however, to keep dogmatists of all brands from becoming apoplectic that there could be a challenge to the notion of Absolute Truth, even though those claiming to be in charge of the Truth often attacked or were attacked by others equally sure of having quite a different version of what, otherwise, remained Unchangeable and Unvarying. You might say that if truth can set you free, then t absolute truth can get you killed.

Since Truth is dependent upon values and beliefs that function to direct our moral conduct, facts often become unpopular among Truth holders, particularly when facts offer evidence that challenge the Truth of those who have confused or conflated their Truth (based on values and beliefs) with the empirical certainty of facts. Since those who harbor the Truth cannot use their belief alone to counter the facts that they find dangerous to the underpinning of their Truth, they convert their values, their beliefs, into false facts and then insist that they be given equal weight to the true facts that are derived from observation and experimentation, rather than being derived from a desperate cobbling together of pieces of broken faith.

This is, indeed, the situation we find ourselves in today, where Believers' facts, which are extrapolated from beliefs, vie for postion next to the facts derived from 500 years of modern science. Witness the re-emergence of the controversy surrounding the science of evolution.

With the help of right-wing political ideologues, however, we have gone one step further than the religious fundamentalists have taken us, so that now facts are now not challenged by a faith-to-fact transformation of the standard creationist variety, but, rather, facts, themselves, the ones based on observation and experimentation, are given the same previously-privileged place of faith. This gift, if you will, has less advantage for the empirically-grounded than it does for the holders of Truth, whether that Truth be religious, moral, or political--or all three. For when facts become a belief, then Truthholders are no longer required to go through the cumbersome and often-embarrassing machinations of fact manufacture. They simply have to disagree with what has been converted to another version of the Truth and then insist that their real Truth be given equal time with the one held by those who happen to believe in the facts.

Thus, the fundamentalists and the uniculturalists and the advocates of the one-Party system have come much closer in just a few short years to the ultimate relativism than ages of committed solipcists, angry anarchists, and posturing postmodernists: the Karl Roves of the world stand to inherit an epistemological relativism that will make those who control power the ultimate keepers of Truth--where propaganda is given the same stage as facts, all in the name of free speech. And the consolidation of media continues.

Here is an example from today's news that shows the current denigration of fact through its elevation to truth for political purposes--perhaps Gore should have chosen a better title--something like An Inconvenient Fact:

This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert "An Inconvenient Truth."

After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a computer presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists' findings.

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

Hardison's e-mail to the School Board prompted board member David Larson to propose the moratorium Tuesday night.

"Somebody could say you're killing free speech, and my retort to them would be we're encouraging free speech," said Larson, a lawyer. "The beauty of our society is we allow debate."

School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view."

The requirement to represent another side follows district policy to represent both sides of a controversial issue, board President Ed Barney said.

"What is purported in this movie is, 'This is what is happening. Period. That is fact,' " Barney said.

Students should hear the perspective of global-warming skeptics and then make up their minds, he said. After they do, "if they think driving around in cars is going to kill us all, that's fine, that's their choice."

Asked whether an alternative explanation for evolution should be presented by teachers, Barney said it would be appropriate to tell students that other beliefs exist. "It's only a theory," he said.

While the question of climate change has provoked intense argument in political circles in recent years, among scientists its basic tenets have become the subject of an increasingly stronger consensus.

"In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations," states a 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which advises policymakers.

"Furthermore, it is very likely that the 20th-century warming has contributed significantly to the observed sea level rise, through thermal expansion of seawater and widespread loss of land ice."

The basics of that position are backed by the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences.

Laurie David, a co-producer of the movie, said that this is the first incident of its kind relating to the film.

"I am shocked that a school district would come to this decision," David said in a prepared statement. "There is no opposing view to science, which is fact, and the facts are clear that global warming is here, now."

The Federal Way incident started when Hardison learned that his daughter would see the movie in class. He objected.

Hardison and his wife, Gayla, said they would prefer that the movie not be shown at all in schools.

"From what I've seen (of the movie) and what my husband has expressed to me, if (the movie) is going to take the approach of 'bad America, bad America,' I don't think it should be shown at all," Gayle Hardison said. "If you're going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don't think the video should be shown."

Scientists say that Americans, with about 5 percent of the world's population, emit about 25 percent of the globe-warming gases.

Larson, the School Board member, said a pre-existing policy should have alerted teachers and principals that the movie must be counterbalanced.

The policy, titled "Controversial Issues, Teaching of," says in part, "It is the teacher's responsibility to present controversial issues that are free from prejudice and encourage students to form, hold and express their own opinions without personal prejudice or discrimination."

"The principal reason for that is to make sure that the public schools are not used for indoctrination," Larson said.

Students contacted Wednesday said they favor allowing the movie to be shown.

"I think that a movie like that is a really great way to open people's eyes up about what you can do and what you are doing to the planet and how that's going to affect the human race," said Kenna Patrick, a senior at Jefferson High School.

When it comes to the idea of presenting global warming skeptics, Patrick wasn't sure how necessary that would be. She hadn't seen the movie but had read about it and would like to see it.

"Watching a movie doesn't mean that you have to believe everything you see in it," she said.

Joan Patrick, Kenna's mother, thought it would be a good idea for students to see the movie. They are the ones who will be dealing with the effects of a warmer planet.

"It's their job," she said. "They're the next generation."

Will the NEA Help Parents Learn What Teachers Know?

In some new survey research, TAKS, the Texas Miracle, is not fairing well among teachers:

AUSTIN – More than three out of four teachers believe the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills does not accurately measure a student's academic level and is turning students into test takers rather than critical thinkers, according to a study released Thursday.

The random telephone survey, paid for by a teacher group and conducted by a University of Texas researcher and a Houston research firm, found that teachers and parents share negative views about the TAKS and the way the high-stakes exam is being used in public schools, although parents' views were generally less strong.

For example, a solid majority of teachers and parents – more than 60 percent – said the TAKS has reduced learning to how well a student can take a test.

However, there was a divergence of opinion when the groups were asked whether the TAKS is increasing the overall quality of the state's education system. Roughly three-quarters of parents agreed that it is, while three-quarters of teachers disagreed that the test is helping.

"The results suggested that neither teachers nor parents want to return to the days of no assessment or accountability. But both teachers and parents suggested the system has swung too far from one extreme [no testing or accountability] to another [too much testing and accountability]," said an analysis of the survey results.

The education of parents by teachers on abusive testing remains a critical element in quashing this stupidifying testing scheme. If the NEA suits were attuned to what their membership already knows, rather than making backroom deals with the education privatizers, perhaps they would be using their power and expertise in helping teachers to educate parents on the dangers of testing to their children. Once teachers and parents start to speak with the same knowledgeable voice, this testing hyteria and child abuse will come to a screeching halt.

The Broken Rhetoric of Sec. Spellings

From the Home Tribune News:

As I was driving to Perth Amboy the other morning, I was listening to a radio report about the fifth anniversary of the "No Child Left Behind" program.

It was apropos, because I was on my way to the McGinnis School on State Street to appear at a career fair for seventh- and eighth-graders.

I have a tendency to say "yes" to any invitation that comes from Perth Amboy, and especially from the school district, and I especially like going to the McGinnis School, where nearly 40 years ago I went as a reporter to cover meetings of the city's Board of Education.

Talking to pupils at McGinnis is a lively experience.

Some of them go through the motions — gathering only the required information — but many of them seem to have the reporter's bent themselves, asking questions like, "What time do you get up in the morning?" and "How much money do you make?" and "Do you regret staying in the same job for 40 years?"

While I'm sure some of them raise hell when they get the chance — as kids that age will — I am always struck by how courteous they are when they approach the visitors to their school.

All of them say "thank you" when they're through asking their questions, and many of the boys offer their hands.

I get a kick — and a little education — out of watching them interact with each other and with the teachers and guidance counselors who stroll the gym among them.

And I must say I think wistfully about their futures.

No Child Left Behind is a noble ambition, and I'm sure the program by that name was established with the best intentions — and I imagine it's having a positive impact at least in some school districts in the country.

But programs like that tend to approach public education as a kind of vertical structure, as though the academic progress of youngsters like my friends at McGinnis can be improved by measures taken only within the institution.

Unfortunately, education is a horizontal structure. In the lives of many children, progress depends at least as much on what happens outside the institution — especially at home — than on what happens in the classroom.

The radio report I heard the other morning included clips from a speech by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in which she repeated the premise that the American "public-education system is broken."

Generalizations like that in a country this size are always suspect — and probably can't be supported — but I would challenge it even on a particular level.

I don't believe, for example, that the education system is broken at McGinnis or in the Perth Amboy school district as a whole.

What's broken is the lens through which public authorities look at the education of kids. It's a lens with a narrow focus that doesn't permit bureaucrats to see that setting performance standards in school, without seriously addressing economic and social issues that the best teachers in the world are helpless to control, is a method sure to fall short of its goals.

Charles Paolino is executive editor of the Home News Tribune. Contact him at (732) 565-7210; cpaolino@thnt.com.

Failure at Any Cost

From WaPo:

As Congress prepares to debate renewal of the five-year-old federal law, controversy has emerged over how to measure the progress of children learning English. The federal government objected last year to the way Virginia and 17 other states test limited-English students. Often, federal officials indicated, the state tests for such students were not demanding enough. They said that all students in a given state must be held to the same standards.

"It's important students enrolled in our schools are properly assessed, and that includes limited-English-proficient students," Chad Colby, an Education Department spokesman, said yesterday. "With testing, we have more data. So policymakers and educators at every level will have more information to make sure students who need more help get it."

The transparency of this plan for manufactured failure and the bankruptcy of Colby's argument would be laughable if it were not for the fact that children, schools, parents, and teachers are suffering as a result. Does Colby really believe the American people are so stupid as to think that "more data" does anything to change the fact that poor children who recently arrived from another country are being commanded to perform at the same level as middle-class children who have lived here all their lives? Can "more data" allow us to see how inhumane this practice is? Did we ever need "more data" to know what any sane person would know without "more data?" Does "more data" bring these children any closer to becoming literate in the language they are being tested in that they cannot speak? Are there any additional resources for these children, besides what has been guaranteed to the unaccountable tutoring corporations who don't even have to hire teachers, highly-qualified or otherwise?

LeFevre's "Report Card on Education" Earns an F

HT to Peter Farruggio:

****NEWS RELEASE--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE****

‘REPORT CARD ON EDUCATION’ GETS BAD GRADES ON RESEARCH, ANALYSIS

Contact: Gene V Glass (480) 965-2692 (email) glass@asu.edu
Kevin Welner (303) 492-8370 (email) kevin.welner@gmail.com

TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo. (January 8, 2007) -- The widely-touted Report Card on Education, 1983-1984 to 2004-2005 falls far short of valid or useful research, a new review finds. The reviewer concluded that the report’s “ineptness and naiveté in measurement and data analysis have thwarted any attempt to draw legitimate conclusions.”

The Report Card, which promotes a policy agenda that includes charter schools and vouchers, was written by Andrew T. LeFevre and published by The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The ALEC document was reviewed for the Think Tank Review Project by Gene V Glass, Regents' Professor at Arizona State University. Glass is past-president of the American Educational Research Association as well as the 2005 recipient of the organization’s award for “distinguished contributions to research in education.” He is also a member of the National Academy of Education.

The key policy claim of ALEC’s Report Card is its assertion that student achievement has not been improved by increased spending on education, smaller class sizes, or improved teacher salaries. It further asserts that “strong accountability measures” will help focus educational resources and that parental choice policies will lead to improved achievement. As Glass explains in his review, however, the policy agenda promoted by the Report Card lacks support.

“LeFevre presents a great deal of data, but the vast majority of these data are not analyzed,” Glass writes. Further, the Report Card “ignores, intentionally or unintentionally, the many studies that flatly contradict its findings and conclusions.” In fact, the Report Card fails to cite any research studies at all. “Particularly for a report with such sweeping, far-reaching recommendations, this oversight is indefensible,” Glass writes.

Examples of the report’s shortcomings include:

• While citing data intended to support of the claim that per-pupil expenditures have increased without improvement in academic achievement, LeFevre makes “no attempt…to track whether those increasing dollars actually are spent on regular instruction of students.” Other research has found that the bulk of additional spending on education in the last two decades has been for items such as special education, dropout prevention, transportation, health insurance, school lunch programs, and security – leaving only modest gains for regular classroom instruction.
• The report’s measure of educational success is a mish-mash of valid and invalid measures, with the result having very limited usefulness. In fact, if the author had used only the valid measure, he would have found substantial evidence that increased per-pupil expenditures correlate with improvements in 8th Grade Math state averages.

Glass concludes: “In spite of being clad with myriad numbers and statistics, the Report Card on American Education is rhetoric, not research. Legislators may find value in looking up education statistics for their own state and comparing them with other states. But they will find neither credible findings nor any firmly established facts on which to base policy decisions.”


Find Gene Glass’ review on the web at:
http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/ttreviews/EPSL-0701-224-EPRU.pdf


About the Think Tank Review Project

The Think Tank Review Project (http://thinktankreview.org), a collaborative project of the ASU Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) and the CU-Boulder Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) provides the public, policy makers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected think tank publications. The project is made possible by funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Kevin Welner, the project co-director, explains that the project is needed because, “despite their garnering of media attention and their influence with many policy makers, reports released by private think tanks can be of very poor quality. Too many think tank reports are little more than ideological argumentation dressed up as research. We believe that the media, policy makers, and the public will greatly benefit from having qualified social scientists provide reviews of these documents in a timely fashion.”


CONTACT:
Gene V Glass, Regents' Professor
Arizona State University
(480) 965-2692
glass@asu.edu

Kevin Welner, Professor and Director
Education and the Public Interest Center
University of Colorado at Boulder
(303) 492-8370
kevin.welner@gmail.com

Using NCLB to "Incentivize" "Voluntary" National Standards Based on NAEP

(Photo shows Sen. Dodd and former-Gov. Engler (R) (President, National Association of Manufacturers) being cozy at Monday's announcement.)

There are more details today on Senator Dudd's "post-partisan" participation in the New America Foundation's plans for national, or is that international, education standards. (By the way, Petrilli sits on the Board of this august "think tank.") I say "international" because there is nothing in the rationale for these standards that would link them particularly to what historically has been American goals or American purposes for education.

Coming from the New America Foundation, which is a self-proclaimed “post-partisan” non-profit think tank, we can assume, in fact, that the purpose and aims of education under this new plan are to be “post-partisan” as well. As we can see below, these are standards that may be just as applicable in Springfield, Illinois as they are Pyongyang, North Korea or Beijing, China. Gone are the messy, controversial, and time-consuming rationales of preserving and expanding our democratic way of life, or civic commitments or equality among peoples, or human rights and social equity. Well, we know that time is money, and economic competitiveness is what these national standards are all about. If we are going to gut punch the rest of the world during this foundational stage of the new century, then we need citizen-workers with that goal in mind.

So here is the rationale for the un-American education standards set forth in The Standards to Provide Educational Achievement for All Kids (SPEAK) Act (pdf):

WHY AMERICAN EDUCATION STANDARDS?

• To ensure that all American students are given the same opportunity to learn to a high standard no matter where they reside.

• To allow for meaningful comparisons of student academic achievement across states.

• To ensure American students are academically qualified to enter college, or training for the civilian or military workforce.

• To ensure that students are better prepared for the global marketplace and, consequently, maintain America's competitive edge.

I guess this is what “the world is flat” really means.

And here is what the "post-partisan" Bill does, or what it wants to do:

• Tasks the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), in consultation with relevant constituencies and upon review of existing standards, with creating rigorous and voluntary core American education content standards in math and science for grades K-12.

• Ensures that such standards are internationally competitive and comparable to the best standards in the world.

• Requires the standards to be anchored in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math and science frameworks and achievement levels.

• Ensures that special education students and English Language Learners are considered in development of the standards.
  

• Establishes the American Standards Incentive Fund as a means to incentivize states to adopt the standards.
  

• Provides an additional bonus grant to states that successfully meet the requirements of the incentive fund to enhance statewide student-level longitudinal data systems.

• Allows the Secretary to extend the NCLB timeline for participating states.

So let’s see—these national standards will be adopted only voluntarily by the states, right? For instance, you, Utah or Virginia, you don’t have to join up here. You can go your own way and stick with your own standards, thus foregoing all the millions in “incentivizing” bonuses that would have come your with your “voluntary” adoption, just as you may forego the extension for meeting Maggie’s impossible 2014 deadline that is looming—you know, the deadline you don’t have chance in hell of meeting without the extension that you just turned down. So have fun, South Dakota and Virginia--see you around. Voluntary? Just as voluntary as all kids in urban and rural poverty who voluntarily join the Army as their only route to a college education.

The NAEP business--we all saw this one coming as a way to continue the accountability intimidation indefinitely. It would appear, in fact, that if the rest of the world adopted NAEP as a standard, then everyone could be held hostage to accountability pressures that no one could meet. Just one example is provided in the chart and text at left (click to enlarge) from a paper by Richard Rothstein, Rebecca Jacobsen, and Tamara Wilder that was delivered at Columbia University November 16. The impossible cut scores, which have long been considered a bad joke by the psychometric folks, would make it impossible for even the most repressive educational regimes (the ones we want to emulate) to meet.

Finally, here is the soothing conclusion to Presidential "Contender" Dodd's speech at Monday's at the announcement of the new educational "way forward":

With core standards, America can begin the work of regaining its competitive edge in the global economy. And in the life of every student, equality will be made a little more real, as the skills and knowledge we expect of them are no longer made contingent on the accident of birth or residence.

High standards—American standards—have the potential to accomplish all of that. Their power can be enormous—as John Cole, the president of the Texas Federation of Teachers, once illustrated with a little story.

Apparently he had read that his favorite running back, Emmitt Smith, was asking for a $13 million contract from the Dallas Cowboys. So Cole immediately wrote a letter: “Dear Dallas Cowboys: I would gladly serve as your running back for just one hundredth of Emmitt Smith’s salary. Please let me know.”

Amazingly, he never heard back; and he asked himself why the Cowboys would pay $13 million for a running back when they could have had someone play the same position for just $100,000. “The answer,” he decided, “has to do with keeping score. If you don’t keep score, quality really doesn’t matter.” Unfortunately for John Cole, football teams keep score.

And unfortunately for our students, American education doesn’t—not in any consistent, comparable, competitive way. With your hard work, that’s going to change very soon.

Start keeping score—start holding America’s children to the same high standards—and we might be amazed at the excellence that follows, for our economy, for our security, for our parents, and for our children.

So if the new educational "way forward" looks amazingly the same as "staying the course," well, chalk it up the Collective Political Unconscious--or should that be the Collective Political Un-Conscience. You decide--it might be one of your last.

America's Homeless and the Decider's War

Today in a new report, we find out that almost 3/4 of a million Americans are homeless. 744,000 to be more specific. Tonight while the Decider was holding Americans spellbound with his "new way forward" in Iraq, I did a little quick arithmetic to see what it would take to solve the homeless problem.

I figure we could put each of the 750,000 homeless people in a new $200,000 house and pay each of them 50,000 dollars a year for 4 years while they get some schooling or job training. Oh yes, we could give them 20,000 each per year for four years of tuition at his or her favorite school.

When I carry my zeros and put in the commas, it comes to right at $360 billion, almost exactly the amount we have thus far blown up, burned, and handed over to war profiteers in Iraq.

Dodd on Arrival

Carrying water for the school privatizers is not the way to earn presidential points among those who still support public schools. And the last time I checked, that group constituted an impressive majority. From WaPo.

Petrilli, Finn and the Sludge Tanks' Revival of Federalism, or Why Does My Carrot Feel Like a Stick?

Now that the Dems have taken charge of the Congress once more, there is at least a small chance that the ascendancy of the new fascism (corporate socialism) may be temporarilly put on hold. And now with The Decider deciding to make more war just as the people are demanding much less of it, it looks like 2008 might even bring the neo-liberals back into the White House as well. With Power in real flux, then, it is no surprise to see the sludge tank reps like Petrilli and Hess, Finn and Rotherham start to backpeddle on their recent wild enthusiams for federal powers to shape education policy. We are witnessing nothing less than the beginning of a great awakening among backslid states rights federalists in Washington. Imagine that. See Petrilli's murky blather in NRO, "Leaving My Lapel Pin Behind: Is No Child Left Behind’s birthday worth celebrating?"

Now, in fact, that there appear to be votes to end some of the more egregious abuses of power and abuses of children in the NCLB Act, such as the idiotic pretenses and impossible test performance targets that NCLB is built around, No Child Left Behind no longer seems like the great idea it once did to the sharks in the ed policy tanks whose job it has been to figure out how to crush public education.

Now that there could be a movement away from the test-teach-test corporate model that is stupidifying America, and toward something ever-so-slightly more humane, maybe NCLB is not such a great idea after all. Now that there are signs of a commitment to get some of the $56 billion to the public schools that were promised to them five years ago when the Texas Miracle became America's Nitemare, maybe NCLB is not such a great idea. Now that there are clear indicators that some technical assistance to teachers and some help for the poor could truly be on the way, Petrelli and Co. have begun to conclude that a federal role will never suffice to reach the "lofty ideals" of reformers like himself who once embraced NCLB. Surely he must be referring to the lofty ideal of privatizing schools and turning teachers into Walmart employees.

With a real possibility on the horizon that the Department of Education under a new President might cast out its cast of edu-business crooks and privatizers come '08 (can you imagine ED without a Paige or a Spellings?), the Petrillis of the world are about to re-dedicate themselves to the old-time religion of states rights federalism that had been cast aside in favor of a federal treasury feeding frenzy that their sludge tankers have lapped up for the past five years. But, alas, all good things must come to an end.

Now as Petrilli and the other policy prostitutes for the Business Roundtable start to envision at least 4 blue Christmases in Washinton, they are in the process of doing a complete 180, which in prior times was known as a flip-flop. Where under the right-wingers, ED functioned as the the big stick, Petrilli and Finn are now imaging an ED that only carries a big carrot. They are asking the Feds to create national tests that will be "optional" to the states who want to use them. If the states "choose" to use the new national tests and create the data systems to make the data public, then there will be big financial rewards. The Feds at ED will become the scorekeepers in the National Test Score Derby. Will Vegas carry the line on Montana vs. New Jersey?

Where once there was enthusiasm for Federal power to force states into a particular educational mold, now with Democratic control looming, there is only a call for incentivizing by ED. Instead of using federal accountability demands, federal Title 1 purse strings, and paid thugs to force states to enact the the crackpot reading pseudo-science of Bush cronies, Lyon, Carnine, and Good, now there is a desire for each state to control its educational destiny. Instead of using federal sanctions to destroy the public schools, now there should only be big federal checks available for states to do it themselves, as they develop the Tucker Model of statewide corporate welfare charters. Instead of crafting federal timetables so cramped that states are forced to buy educational "solutions" from the testing corporations that have bankrolled the right wing takeover of educational policy, now there should be free-rein for states to choose privatization on their own time schedules and to be rewarded for it.

And guess what? The Business Roundtable has already found the nuch-needed neo-liberals to help make it all possible in a way that the cheap suits for the NEA will accept. Check out the "bipartisan" Dodd-Ehlers Bill to get the ball rolling for just what Petrilli is calling for. In short, Plan B is already underway before Plan A can be knocked down. Note that the BRT has allowed liberal relic, Ted Kennedy, to throw the usual bone to the progressives, one that will be quickly snatched away as the Congress gets down to real Business. From Ed Week:

As Congress moves to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act as early as this year, at least one topic will be high on the list: increasing the rigor of state standards and tests by linking them to those set at the national level.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., the new chairman of the Senate education committee, introduced a bill late last week that would encourage states to benchmark their own standards and tests to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often known as the "nation's report card," but would stop short of calling for the development of national standards.

And on Monday, Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, the committee's second-ranking Democrat and a potential presidential contender, introduced a bipartisan bill with Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, R-Mich., that would go a step further by providing incentives for states to adopt voluntary "American education content standards" in mathematics and science, to be developed by the governing board for NAEP.

About 40 organizations have endorsed the Dodd-Ehlers bill, including such Washington-based groups as the National Education Association, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, the Alliance for Excellent Education, and the Council of the Great City Schools. The sponsors have just begun circulating the bill on Capitol Hill in an attempt to gain additional congressional sponsors.

Accelerated Charter School Puts Brakes on Repayment of $10 Million Loan From L.A.Taxpayers

The edu-business world is making a killing from corporate welfare payments and easy-pay or no-pay loans from city and state officials across the country who are bilking taxpayers as a part of the charter school revolution. Here's a great example of one sweetheart deal that has come to light in California. Some clips:

A nationally recognized charter school in South Los Angeles has defaulted on a $9.9 million loan extended by the Los Angeles Unified School District using voter-approved bond funds, documents and interviews show.

The Accelerated School, an elaborate, high-tech campus where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa delivered his State of the City address last spring, made a $200,000 payment about two weeks ago - but only after district officials received a memo alerting them the campus was in default. The school previously had made two payments totaling about $1 million, the last in October 2005.

. . . .

"We took out a $10 million line of credit with the district in order to finish construction of our school (and) we were hopeful and ambitious of our fund-raising."

Although the school has close ties to the Mayor's Office, there is no indication that Villaraigosa has been involved in the loan or in the renegotiation discussions.

Williams said the original terms of the loan required repayment of the loan within five years. The payments included interest, which Meghrouni said was calculated based on the district's bond rates.

. . . .

Williams and Kevin Sved, like Williams a former teacher, opened the school in 1994 with 50 students in grades K 4, renting space from a Catholic church where every Friday the founders and parents packed up and stored the school equipment so the space could be used for church services.

Its expansion a decade later was made possible by $28.1 million from the LAUSD and a credit line with the district of $11.3 million, of which the school used $9.9 million to complete its growth, according to district documents.

According to Tokofsky, the loan was necessary because the school founders' vision for their construction - "more detailed, more elaborate, more spectacular" than anything the LAUSD has built - exceeded the budget allotted by the district and the state.

NCLB and Right Wing Privatization

From Workday Minnesota:

WASHINGTON - The nation’s largest union, the 3.2-million-member National Education Association, plus two other big unions and a coalition of more than 80 allies, are launching a fight to rewrite the "No Child Left Behind" Act. But Bush Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says the law needs tweaking, but not a major rewrite.

Teachers, school boards and their allies, members of the Forum on Education Accountability, sharply disagree with her. Besides NEA, the coalition includes AFSCME, the Service Employees and a third union, the School Administrators. It also includes civil rights groups such as the NAACP and the Urban League, and the national PTA.

All the groups say the law places too much emphasis on test scores and is too punitive, as it trashes even those schools that make progress in educating their students.

Indeed, one suburban Philadelphia school superintendent last month told the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies--a think tank that concentrates on issues of interest to minorities--that NCLB sets up inner-city public schools to fail. When schools “fail” under NCLB, their federal funds can get yanked and diverted to a favorite Right Wing cause: Taxpayer-paid vouchers for parents of private school students. . .

Tell me it's not so! The rest here.

NCLB and The Hounds of Hell

"It really has brought the Hounds of Hell down on the schools of Prince William County," says Betsie Fobes, a recently retired eighth-grade algebra and pre-algebra teacher at Parkside Middle School in Manassas, Va. "This AYP business is just killing us — absolutely killing us."

Parkside, which has seen a large Latino influx, didn't meet its goals two years in a row — so now teachers must attend twice-weekly meetings, often focused on testing. They've built in a tutorial period, and even secretaries do their share of tutoring.

Here is another big chunk of the USA Today story on how NCLB has changed schools:

It's driving teachers crazy

Here's a pretty safe rule of thumb: Start in the classroom and travel up the educational food chain. The further you travel, the more you'll find that people like the law. Mention it to most teachers and they'll just roll their eyes. Many principals tolerate it. Ask a local superintendent, a state superintendent or a governor and the assessment gets rosier as their suit gets more expensive.

Carmen Meléndez quit her job as a bilingual language arts teacher at an elementary school last spring in Orange County, Fla., after the law prompted her principal to institute 90-minute reading blocks and a scripted curriculum — in the process making individualized instruction impossible. Meléndez also found that she couldn't teach poetry anymore.

"It was insane," she says. "The kids were all jaded. They were tired — they hated school."

Most of the frustration, teachers will tell you, comes from the stress of mandated math and reading tests. The law requires that virtually all children be tested each year starting in third grade — and it doles out growing penalties if schools don't raise scores each year. Naturally, test day in most schools is fraught with tension.

"They're 8 years old, and they're so worried about a passing score," Meléndez says. "I think that's inhumane."

Dianne Campbell, director of testing and accountability in Rockingham County, N.C., told the American School Board Journal in 2003 that administrators discard as many as 20 test booklets on exam days because children vomit on them.

Also, many state rating systems (which often predated No Child Left Behind) now end up celebrating the same schools the federal law slams.

Longstreet Elementary School in Daytona Beach, Fla., has scored high on the state ratings for five years, but Longstreet is one of 21 Volusia County schools due for "corrective action" this year under the law.

"Our parents are thrilled at what happens at our school — and a lot of what happens at our school has nothing to do with No Child Left Behind," says counselor Bill Archer.

Jack Jennings of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington education research group, says some of the testing actually helps drive better instructional strategies and, in that respect, is helpful. But he says teachers tell him they're overwhelmed by the sheer volume of testing, which can last six weeks in some schools.

"I don't think you can go into a teacher meeting in the country without somebody bringing up No Child Left Behind," he says.

After five years, the law has even spawned an online petition that, as of Sunday, had about 22,500 signatures of people urging Congress to repeal it.

Along with his signature, teacher Mark Quig-Hartman of Vallejo, Calif., said: "I am well on my way to becoming an embittered and mediocre teacher who heretofore considered teaching to be a profession, not a job. I once loved what I did. I do not now, nor do my students; school has become a rather grim and joyless place for all."

Teachers' unions have often been the law's loudest critics. One top National Education Association official even entertained the NEA's 2004 conference in Washington by appearing onstage with an acoustic guitar and singing a protest song with this unforgettable hook: "If we have to test their butts off, there'll be no child's behind left."

And if you think it's just teachers who complain, think again: 2006 saw even the law's most ardent supporters complaining, but for a very different reason: They say states and school districts game the system by lowering their standards.

Because the law allows each state to set its own pass/fail bar on skills tests, "proficient" means something different depending on which state you live in. The percentage of Missouri fourth-graders at or above "proficient" in English is only 35%, but 89% of Mississippi fourth-graders meet that state's standards. In math, only 39% of Maine fourth-graders are proficient or better; in North Carolina, 92% are.

Philadelphia Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas jokes that to really improve scores in his city, he could make classes smaller and modernize buildings. "Or we can give everyone the Illinois test," he says.

It's narrowing what many schools teach

If nothing else, the law's first five years have proved the maxim "What gets tested gets taught."

The law's annual testing requirements in math and reading have led many schools to pump up the amount of time they spend teaching these two staples — often at the expense of other subjects, such as history, art or science.

Jennings found that 71% of districts are reducing time on other subjects in elementary school.

"What we're getting under (the law) is a very strong emphasis on building skills at the expense of history and literature and science," says researcher Thomas Toch of the Education Sector, a Washington think tank.

Other critics say the law has created a "complexity gap." Children in lower grades have made improvements — some impressive — in basic skills, but the improvements vanish in middle school and beyond, when kids are tested on more complex conceptual thinking.

Brown University researcher Martin West this fall compared federal data from 2000 and 2004, and found that since No Child Left Behind, elementary schools have spent, on average, 23 fewer minutes a week on science and 17 fewer minutes on history. He also found that in states that test history and science each spring, teachers spend about half an hour more a week on each subject.

. . . .

It's making the school day longer

If a restaurant takes 12 eggs and makes a lousy omelette, will adding another two eggs make it better?

If a school can't teach a child to read in seven hours, will eight do the trick?

Under No Child Left Behind, the answer is: Probably yes.

The law requires schools that don't make adequate yearly progress to offer free transfers to a better-performing public school.

If results don't improve the next year, the school must begin offering free after-school tutoring — in many cases with classes taught by the school's own teachers with whom the kids were failing during the school day.

William Bennett, Ronald Reagan's education secretary, invoked the egg metaphor, and as it turns out, a lot of families — and teachers — are willing to try the omelette. In the 2004-05 school year, 1.4 million students were eligible for the tutoring, and about 17% took advantage of it.

Spellings says the tutoring is often provided by different teachers from the ones a kid sees during the regular day. Perhaps more important, she says, the law is forcing large districts such as Los Angeles to figure out how to keep kids from needing tutoring in the first place.

"They're … sitting there thinking, 'What the heck? How can we have so many kids who can't get to grade level in the course of the school day? What needs to happen in the school day different?' "

It's changing how reading is taught

Forget everything else No Child Left Behind stands for. If it does nothing else, advocates say, it will have improved poor kids' reading in unprecedented ways. A few say it already has.

The law gives schools $1 billion a year to spend on reading and focuses it, laser-like, on 5,600 schools that serve the nation's poorest 1.8 million kids. It starts with kids as soon as they enter school and, so far, has trained 103,000 teachers on "scientifically based" reading strategies heavy in phonics, step-by-step lessons and practice, practice, practice.

And because many schools build their reading programs around what primary grades do, it could affect millions more students' reading skills.

How could it fail? Easily, say critics such as Susan Ohanian. She points to overly scripted reading curricula and a curious little reading test called DIBELS, which makes it easy to rate children's reading skills, in part by asking them to look at nonsense words; it then rates them on their ability to read the words aloud — very quickly.

"I have never seen anything like this," says Ohanian, a former New York teacher who blogs about education in general and No Child Left Behind in particular. She bemoans the loss of teacher autonomy and says DIBELS is one of its worst symptoms.

"I don't dispute that it's quick and easy and it's a tool — and if you just used it that way, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it," she says. But she adds: "They're using DIBELS to hold kids back in kindergarten. And that's where it becomes really evil. Some kids are just not ready for that skills stuff."

Saving the Wars on Iraq and on Public Education

(Chart at left from The Christian Science Monitor)

It's going to be another big week for the Decider. Not only will he be going before a hostile public to advocate for an escalation of his War, but he will meet with Miller and Kennedy this morning to charm his way toward a new surge in the continued war on the poor and on the public education system in our country. It comes just in time to mark the five-year anniversary of the most reckless, destructive and utterly failed education policy ever. Let's take a little accounting of how NCLB is accomplishing its goals as set out in 2002:

Performance Goal 1: By 2013-2014, all students will reach high standards, at a minimum attaining proficiency or better in reading/language arts and mathematics.

Reality 1: The most significant form of educational growth is the alarming increases in the number of schools not making AYP (adequate yearly progress) toward the impossible goal of 100% proficiency. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, for instance, where public schools are the strongest, the NCLB-mandated failure in reaching beyond the impoverished urban schools and into suburban enclaves.

Here is a chart from a study commissioned in Massachusetts (click to enlarge) that shows 74% of their schools failing to make AYP by 2014. If ED has its way, of course, these schools will have been turned in corporate welfare charter schools by then.

Performance Goal 2: All limited English proficient students will become proficient in English and reach high academic standards, at a minimum attaining proficiency or better in reading/language arts and mathematics.

Reality 2: If most people know that 100% proficiency is impossible for native speakers, 100% of people know that English-language learners and special ed. students are not going to become 100% proficient. The insanity of this goal clearly demonstrates the built-in failure that will not, cannot, be overcome, regardless of all the wishful thinking by the likes of Kati Haycock and Amy Wilkins at Ed Trust.

Performance Goal 3: By 2005-2006, all students will be taught by highly qualified teachers.

The attempted implementation of this goal has caused more grief and confusion and resignations than most could have imagined in 2001. On the one hand, higher standards would seem to guarantee more qualified teachers. This could have been the case if not for the overriding ideological commitment to bypass schools of education in creating a teacher corps is "highly-qualified."

ED prefers teachers who have passed subject matter tests to teachers who have completed professional certification programs. In the meantime, states like New Jersey now have a 52-page document explaining what it means to be "highly-qualified." Or check out the NEA's guide to highly-qualified (Download this chart as a PDF document here).

Performance Goal 4: All students will be educated in learning environments that are safe, drug-free, and conducive to learning.

Reality 4: 14 percent of eighth graders, 28 percent of 10th graders, and 36 percent of 12th graders used an illicit substance during the past year.

In terms of safety, here are the key findings from the latest (2004) School Safety Survey conducted by the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO):

More than 55% of the school officers stated that teachers, administrators, and support staff (secretaries, custodians, etc.) do not receive ongoing professional development training on school security and emergency preparedness issues.

Over 65% of the SROs stated that school bus drivers and other school transportation personnel have not received training during the past three years on issues related to security measures, emergency planning and response, terrorism, and associated topics.
Nearly 86% of respondents indicated that the number of crimes that occur on school campuses nationwide are underreported to law enforcement.

The majority of SROs (over 54%) stated that the federal “No Child Left Behind” law requiring states to create definitions of “persistently dangerous” schools decreases school crime reporting. Only 17% believed the law would improve school crime reporting.

The majority of school-based police officers (67%) believe that a federal law mandating the reporting of serious/violent school crimes to law enforcement would enhance law enforcement efforts to reduce school crime. Over 20% were uncertain as to whether such a law would improve school crime reporting.

Over 70% of the surveyed school officers indicated that funding for school safety in their districts is either decreasing or remaining the same.

Only 15% of respondents reported an increase in safe schools funding.

Over 70% of the survey respondents reported that school safety funding either decreased or remained the same in their district. Over 25% of that figure said that school safety funding was decreasing in their district, while over 44% said that funding was remaining the same. Only slightly more than 15% reported an increase in school safety funding in their districts.

More than 80% of the SROs believe that, considering the amount of federal funding being provided to improve homeland security for non-school entities, the amount of funding being made available specifically for K-12 school security and emergency preparedness planning is not enough.

Performance Goal 5: All students will graduate from high school.

In June 2006 the Christian Science Monitor reported on a new study funded by the Gates Foundation that showed a dropout epidemic in American high schools. The Administration's solution: increased testing in high school.

In the meantime, high schools have survived repeated attempts by the Administration to eviscerate vocational education, proposing in 2006 to simply eliminate all vocational education programs. The Administration is pushing, too, for more testing in high schools under the perverse rationale that testing will improve high schools and improve dropout rates, when the evidence points to the contrary. The 10 states, in fact, with the lowest graduation rates all have high school exit exams, and 9 of them have had exit exams for more than 10 years:

Georgia (1994)
Nevada (1981)
Florida (1979)
Arizona (2006)
Tennessee (1986)
S. Carolina (1990)
Mississippi (1989)
Alabama (1985)
North Carolina (1982)
New Mexico (1990)

Who Is Accountable for Five Years of NCLB's Failed Policy?

A big chunk of a nice piece in the Macon Telegraph:

An increasing number of schools fear stiff penalties in part because NCLB is woefully underfunded. The law has never been funded at the authorized levels, and schools face a cumulative 6-year shortfall likely to exceed $56 billion.

After a reasonable increase in funding in the first year, and smaller increases in the succeeding three years, funding was cut by over $1 billion dollars last year. To add insult to injury, there are more mandates this year that schools must comply with, yet they are receiving less money than they were three years ago.

About 80 percent of school districts said they have costs associated with NCLB not covered by federal funding. Indeed, in this current school year 62 percent of all school districts had their Title I funds cut.

According to the Education Department, 27 percent of schools failed to meet "adequate yearly progress" under the law for 2004- 2005, a one percentage point increase from 2003-2004. NEA's positive agenda calls on lawmakers to provide adequate tools and resources to comply with the law.

Educators, parents and the general public all want positive changes to the law that will help students succeed. According to a recent survey, about 70 percent of NEA members said they disapprove of NCLB and 57 percent said they want major reforms. Most people share their concerns. Nearly six in 10 Americans believe NCLB has had no effect on schools, or has had a negative effect, according to a Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll.

NEA has been collecting eyewitness accounts of educators' experiences with the law and compiled them into "ESEA/NCLB: It's Time for a Change! Voices from America's Classrooms," a publication that will be released next week. The stories are from every state, from all size school districts, and from all types of educators, but they raise strikingly similar concerns.

Karol Nyberg, a high school teacher in Grand Forks, ND, said: "It's a professional slap in the face, someone telling you, after you've been working so hard at your craft for 30 years, that all of a sudden you are not qualified to do it.

"But the piece that did surprise me was the number of young teachers who told me they were getting out because they said that 'if they do this to us now, what else are they going to decide to pull when we get further into our careers and don't have any options?'

"They felt that now they have the option to go and do something else, to be treated with more respect, and to make more money at the same time."

Not only do NEA and educators throughout the country have serious concerns about this law, but so do a wide variety of other organizations and policymakers. A coalition of 99 national organizations representing education, civil rights, religious, children, disability rights and other interests have joined together and called for changes to NCLB. The National Conference of State Legislatures last year issued a report criticizing the law and calling for specific changes. And in the previous Congress, 41 bills supported by NEA to amend NCLB were introduced, including several sponsored by Republicans.

Will Potter is a member of the NEA's media relations team.

• Myth No. 1 - No Child Left Behind is working.

Reality: While the Bush administration claims that the No Child Left Behind Act is "99.9 percent pure" and working, in fact, it is leaving children behind and failing to close the gaps in student achievement. Moreover, the law labels students as failing and unfairly punishes schools.

The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, in a June 2006 report, said, "NCLB did not have a significant impact on improving reading and math achievement across the nation and states É [and it] has not helped the nation and states significantly narrow the achievement gap."

• Myth No. 2 - Schools and educators are spending more time helping students learn and less time filling out forms.

Reality: The Bush administration claimed, when it signed the law, that educators and schools would spend more time teaching and less time doing paperwork. In fact, the opposite is true. Educators and school personnel are spending millions of additional hours and dollars doing paperwork as a result of NCLB. This means less time preparing students and drawing up lesson plans. It means more time drafting compliance plans to submit to Washington bureaucrats.

(According to the U.S. Department of Education, states and schools are expected to spend 6,457,586 burden hours and $135.9 million to comply with the paperwork requirements of NCLB.)

• Myth No. 3 -Congress is providing record levels of funding to schools.

Reality: When Congress enacted the law, it promised to provide the resources necessary to meet the law's many mandates. Unfortunately, it is failing to provide the tools and resources that educators and students need to succeed in an increasingly interconnected 21st century global community.

Congress has been shortchanging states, schools and parents to the tune of $40 billion since the law's enactment. In FY 06 (funding for the 2006Ð07 school year), Congress cut NCLB by over $1 billion, bringing the level of resources available to schools below what was provided three years ago. Both the pending House and Senate FY 07 legislation would cut funding by an additional $400-$500 million. And because of federal funding shortfalls, states such as Connecticut and Ohio are using their own money to close the funding gap.

(In 2005Ð2006, two-thirds of all school districts received less Title I money than they had the previous year. In 2006Ð2007, an additional 62 percent of school districts have had their Title I funding cut because Congress reduced overall Title I funding.)

• Myth No.4 - NCLB is on track to eliminate the achievement gap by 2014.

Reality: With news headlines such as "Schools slow in closing gaps between races," and "What it will really take to close the education gap," the gaps in student achievement remain persistent. According to UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST), the "most serious problem is that the NCLB expectations for student achievement have been set unrealistically high, requiring that by the year 2014, 100 percent of students must reach the proficient level or above in math and reading.

"Based on current improvement levels and without major changes in the definition of adequate yearly progress (AYP), almost all schools will fail to meet NCLB requirements within the next few years."

According to a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University released June 2006: Only 24 to 34 percent of students will meet the proficiency target in reading and 29 to 64 percent will meet the math proficiency target by 2014. If the current trend continues, the proficiency gap between advantaged white and disadvantaged minority students will hardly close by 2014. The study predicts that, by 2014, less than 25 percent of poor and black students will achieve NAEP proficiency in reading and less than 50 percent will achieve proficiency in math.

• Myth No. 5 - Educators oppose NCLB, testing, and accountability.

Reality: Educators have supported the Elementary and Secondary Education Act since its inception in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it as part of the War on Poverty. They strongly support the stated goals of NCLB - to improve student achievement and help close the achievement gaps.

However, the rigid accountability system under NCLB focuses excessively on labeling and punishing. Educators are insisting on meaningful accountability, one that's more flexible and comprehensive than the existing one-size-fits-all.

Educators understand that all children can learn but not all children learn in the same way and at the same rate. Meaningful accountability should acknowledge and differentiate between a truly failing school and one that is short on only one of 37 federally mandated criteria.

• Myth No. 6 - Support for NCLB is strong and growing.

Reality: The more Americans know about NCLB, the more they dislike what the law is doing to teaching and learning in our public schools and classrooms. A recent independent poll found 7 out of 10 Americans who are knowledgeable about the law believe it is either making no difference or hurting local schools.

An NEA member poll also found similar results. Nearly half of members polled said that NCLB is hurting the teaching conditions in the schools in which they work, and educators are not alone. One hundred national organizations have signed a joint organizational statement on NCLB that calls for significant changes to the law during reauthorization. In addition, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have proposed legislation to improve NCLB.

• Myth No. 7- NCLB is improving teaching and learning in America's classrooms.

Reality: Teaching to the test and narrowing the curriculum are only two of the unintended consequences of the fundamentally flawed law. School districts are spending more time on reading and math - the two subjects on which tests are based under NCLB - sometimes at the expense of other subjects not tested.

(According to the Center on Education Policy, 71 percent of districts are reducing time spent on other subjects in elementary schools, and 60 percent of districts require a specific amount of time for reading in elementary school.)

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills said, "The No Child Left Behind Act risks losing relevance if an innovative approach to reauthorization is not pursuedÉ" One of its recommendations is that "NCLB's assessment and accountability system should be based on multiple measures of students' abilities that include 21st century skills."

According to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, "is anybody prepared to tackle one of that law's most damaging unintended consequences? We refer, of course, to 'the big squeeze'- the compression of the curriculum to little but reading, math and sometimes science. Doubling the time that schools devote to math and reading in response to state and federal testing requirements won't truly prepare young Americans for life in the 21st century. It probably won't even boost reading and math scores in the long term, concluded a conference of policymakers, business leaders, and educators."

Happy Anniversary!!

State-Sanctioned Child Abuse in New York

From the Utica Observer-Dispatch:

Saturday, Jan 6, 2007

By MARIA NEIRA

You've heard of the schoolyard bully, the one who picks on the most vulnerable children on the playground?

The big bully today is none other than the U.S. Department of Education, and among the victims are some of Utica's most vulnerable children — those with learning disabilities and those who are new to this country and do not yet have command of the English language.

In a policy shift that reverses long-standing testing practice, the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., next week will require New York's 60,000 newly arrived English language learners and thousands of moderately disabled students in special education classes to take the same grade-level tests as the general student population.

Requiring children to take inappropriate tests far beyond their current ability will likely have disastrous consequences for Utica schools. With 1,200 students labeled as having limited proficiency in English — 13.4 percent of the enrollment — Utica will be hit particularly hard by this unwarranted, ill-considered policy shift.

The likelihood is great that many of these foreign-born students — some living in the Mohawk Valley for just 12 months — will fail the ELA tests. And, because of the unbending accountability requirements in the No Child Left Behind Act, too many failures will mean that Utica city schools will be falsely labeled as "in need of improvement" and penalized by the federal government.

Amazing, isn't it? Despite the efforts of Utica's teachers to help the city's large immigrant population learn English and succeed academically, many of these newly arrived students will fail merely because they are being forced to take an unfair test of their skills. And, as a result, Utica public schools will be labeled as failures.

The real, measurable progress that Utica's schools has been making with these student and others toward closing the performance gap will be obscured. Negative publicity will be devastating for teachers, parents and the city.

What's most frustrating is that policymakers in Washington, D.C., and Albany ignored several alternatives that were educationally sound and endorsed by classroom teachers, including nearly 3,500 who wrote the Regents asking them to stand up to the bureaucrats in Washington.

Teachers fiercely lobbied the Regents and state Education Department to allow English language learners to continue to take an appropriate assessment that would fairly measure their progress in learning to read and write English. This test, which had been used successfully since 2003 and had been recently revised to be better aligned with New York's learning standards, was not even reviewed by the federal government.

Teachers also argued that certain special education students should be required to take tests appropriate to their instruction — not the grade of their non-disabled peers.

Sadly, the Regents chose to let the federal ruling stand.

Make no mistake, teachers — and their union, New York State United Teachers — strongly support accountability measures. Teachers support well-designed tests that are aligned with the curriculum, and which fairly measure students' academic progress.

States and school districts should also be held accountable for the performance of all students, including special education students and recently arrived English language learners.

Yet, requiring new immigrant students who are not proficient in English — and students with moderate disabilities -- to take tests they are obviously not able to pass makes a mockery of both the testing and accountability provisions of NCLB.

Expecting a 14-year-old eighth-grader, living in this country for a year, to read and write English as well as a native-born teenager is cruel. Requiring disabled students in special education to be assessed on material several academic years beyond their ability is totally unreasonable. Taken together, it amounts to a concerted effort by the federal government to set vulnerable children and school districts up for failure -- and then penalizing them when they do.

Teachers and parents are natural allies on many issues. In Utica, there must be a strong voice against unfair, unsound and unreasonable testing policies that pick on the weakest. It's time to stand up to the bully.

There is only one option left: Just Say No to Child Abuse!

Jaywalking Historians in Atlanta Beware

From the AHA in Atlanta:

On Friday the Tufts historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto was arrested by Atlanta police as he crossed the middle of the street between the Hilton and Hyatt hotels. After being thrown on the ground and handcuffed, the former Oxford don was formally arrested, his hands cuffed behind his back. Several policemen pressed hard on his neck and chest, leaving the mild-mannered scholar, who's never gotten so much as a parking ticket, bruised and in pain. He was then taken down to the detention center along with other accused felons and thrown into a filthy jail cell filled with prisoners. He remained incarcerated for eight hours. Officials demanded bail of over a thousand dollars. To come up up with the money Fernandez-Armesto, the author of nineteen books, had to make an arrangement with a bail bondsman. In court even the prosecutors seemed embarrassed by the arrest and asked Fernandez-Armesto to plead nolo contendere. He refused, concerned that the stain on his record might put his green card status in jeopardy. Officials finally agreed to drop all charges. The judge expressed his approval. The professor says he has no plans to sue. But the AHA council is considering lodging a complaint with the city.

Professor Schrag, Congressman Miller, NCLB, and the Nurturing of Despair

Peter Schrag recently did an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee calling for repair, or a new "surge," for the failed war on the public schools known as NCLB. Below are Professor Schrag's remarks and my own interspersed as commentary on the commentary:

Like many federal laws, the No Child Left Behind Act operates mostly on states and local agencies. Few ordinary citizens notice it in their private lives.

But NCLB, the centerpiece of President Bush's compassionate conservatism, has had a deeper impact on the nation's schools and thus on students than any other piece of federal legislation.

"It's changed the conversation in the schools," as Alan Bersin, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's outgoing secretary of education, said the other day, by forcing serious attention on school accountability and achievement, particularly the lagging achievement of poor and minority kids.

Serious attention, or disingenous political rhetoric? Check out (click to enlarge) this chart by Jerry Bracey:

But it's also generated fundamental controversies and thorny problems that go to the heart of the nation's ambivalence about educational policy and the treatment of kids. One of its two core provisions requires all schools to achieve 100 percent proficiency in major academic fields by 2014. Schools receiving federal funds for disadvantaged students that don't make progress toward that goal face an increasingly tough set of sanctions.

Some critics have called the very notion of 100 percent proficiency an oxymoron -- something that, if proficiency is to have any meaning, can't be achieved. And since the states themselves define proficiency and set their own standards, some, such as Wisconsin, have lowered their standards to make the targets. California, which has among the highest standards in the nation, is not one of them, despite some legislative efforts to water them down.

Professor Schrag does not go so far here as to agree with the critics, even though he doubtless knows they are correct. Studies in MA, WI, MI, IL, for instance, show a 60-90% failure rate by 2014, even with the state standards that Schrag claims have been watered down. If we abandoned state standards for, let’s say, NAEP standards, there would truly be no public school left standing even before 2014 (see Bob Linn’s projections based on NAEP scores (pdf). Of course, no public school left standing (NPSLS) is exactly the result that the education privatizers have been working toward even before the NCLB was craftily crafted, a fact that has been shrouded beneath the threadbare mantle and the cynical mantra of "closing the achievement gap" between rich and poor.

But as seemed evident from the start, the federal mandate on schools to get students in all ethnic, economic and educational subgroups to full proficiency is a near impossibility, especially for learning disabled students and immigrants who have been in U.S. schools for three years -- or perhaps five years -- or less.

Rep. George Miller of Martinez, a Democrat who's the incoming chairman of the House Education Committee, and, with Sen. Ted Kennedy, one of the co-authors of NCLB, agrees that the law needs fixes especially in weighing the achievement of English learners and handicapped students.

He's also willing to consider proposals from California and other states that school progress be measured by year-to-year growth rather than movement toward that 100 percent proficiency goal. But he's leery about abandoning a drop-dead date. "We can't give away the integrity of the act," he said. If the schools think that mere "growth," no matter how little, is enough for students to be competitive in the global economy, the country is likely to be back on the slippery path to mediocrity.

So it is no longer the job of the American free market to make us competitive in the global economy—it has come down to making children in school accountable for whether or not American capitalism maintains its world dominance. And the slippery path to mediocrity? If we were not being constantly reminded by ED, we could certainly wonder where the mediocrity left off or where it became most pronounced.

In terms of the "integrity of the Act," consider the reasoning that anchors the current stupidity:

• NCLB requires 100% proficiency of all children by 2014.

• The disadvantages of English language learners and handicapped students make it impossible for these children to achieve the 100% proficiency target by 2014.

• Therefore, the goal of 100% proficiency by 2014 must be kept in place to preserve “the integrity of the Act.”

There are deeper problems with this kind of thought-disordered thinking. While Rep. Miller (and Prof. Schrag, too, perhaps) admit that it is impossible to expect students who are disadvantaged by disability or by language status to reach full proficiency, they are quiet when it comes to addressing the greatest disabler in America—poverty. Scores on standardized tests, whether the SAT, TIMSS, or the New Jersey HSPA (or pick another), show the same pattern: as poverty decreases, test scores go up, and vice versa. Here is an example of SAT scores for 2002:

SAT Scores 2002 from the College Board

Family Income Verbal/Math Scores

Less than $10,000/year-----417/442
$10,000 - $20,000/year-----435/453
$20,000 - $30,000/year-----461/470
$30,000 - $40,000/year-----480/485
$40,000 - $50,000/year-----496/501
$50,000 - $60,000/year-----505/509
$60,000 - $70,000/year-----511/516
$70,000 - $80,000/year-----517/524
$80,000 - $100,000/year----530/538
More than $100,000/year---555/568

So if we know, without a doubt, that most poor children, immigrant children, and disabled children are going to score, let’s say, 18-20% lower than middle class native-speaking ableist children, why should we treat their disadvantage of income differently than, let’s say, autism, especially when the same disparities in performance result? Why do we acknowledge a psychological disability, a biological disability, or a language disability at the same time we ignore the socioeconomic disability? Does the refusal to acknowledge poverty as a disability allow us to continue our unethical and inhumane testing practices that we could not allow ourselves otherwise?

The bipartisan deal that led to the passage of NCLB in 2001 was based on a combination of rigorous school accountability measures and increased federal funding that would supposedly pay for the increased demands on schools.

Inevitably there's been erosion at both ends of the bargain. States have continually fudged on the law's demand that there be a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom -- a laudable target but a near impossibility -- and on the proficiency standards. The Bush administration, while increasing funding, has fallen many billions short of its fiscal commitments when the law was passed.

Not surprisingly, there's been push-back from a variety of sources -- from bipartisan legislative committees, from the National Education Association, from some civil rights groups and from educators who believe that the law's pressure on states has led schools to overemphasize drill for tests and the subjects, particularly math and English, that are tested, and to neglect other subjects.

There's also debate about the extent to which federal accountability programs have raised achievement and closed the gaps between different groups of students. And as low-standards states continue to report high levels of success, the gaps between state and national test scores have increased pressure for a system of national standards, even among educational conservatives who generally oppose meddling with what used to be a strict state-local prerogative.

What's certain is that until the federal and state accountability are "harmonized" -- Bersin's term -- there'll be continuing public confusion about what different scores and proficiency reports mean. In California, as elsewhere, hundreds of schools that are doing well according to the state's "growth" model are underperforming in moving toward the federal proficiency target.

Although NCLB is up for renewal this coming year, and while it's already the subject of hearings, the chances of major revisions before the 2008 presidential election -- or even on anything more than a temporary extension -- are low. Given the controversies, neither the administration nor Congress is eager to touch the subject any sooner than necessary.

And yet it's also true that, as Miller says, "When you have poor kids, poor schools and poor teachers, how can you expect a good result?" To change that requires a major -- and well targeted -- investment, including serious reforms in the nation's tired schools of education, another item on Miller's agenda. And it will require a continuing national push.

So will changing the schools of education bring an end to the family income chasm, which is the source of the achievement gap? Who will be blamed after it is demonstrated that schools of education are not creating the gap?

"If NCLB is gone," as he says, "America's poor kids will again be forgotten."

Does Rep. Miller really believe that poor kids have been helped by dumping them into the cruel testing crucible of assured failure? Does he not see that these children are being dumped on the streets the same way they have been dumped ever since slavery—but this time with a new realization that the mantra of “work hard, be nice” means even less than it meant when Booker T. Washington learned it from the white philanthropic liberals of his generation? Will this current generation of assured losers be as acquiescent when they find out they have once again been told a lie that is intended to assure their own complicity in their own subjugation as second-class citizens in a global economic order that doesn’t give a damn about their loss beyond what it might mean to the grand revenue stream that, by the way, continues to carve the canyon between the haves and the have nots.

If Representative Miller’s and Senator Kennedy’s efforts to continue the educational genocide of constant and unrelenting testing in chain-gang schools can be construed as "not forgetting" poor children, then let us assuredly end our memory of them in hopes that our neglect may offer at least an outside chance that these children might survive without the benefit of our obliterating mindfulness.

Stanley Milgram and the NEA

On Wednesday night ABC presented its own re-enactment of the Stanley Milgram experiments on blind conformity to authority, even when authority demands the performance of, otherwise, unthinkable acts. Here is the setup:

The Experiment

In 1961, social psychologist Stanley Milgram asked those same questions. That was the year Nazi Adolf Eichmann, on trial for his war crimes, denied responsibility for his actions by saying he was simply doing what his superiors told him to do.

Contemplating this rationalization, Milgram came up with a famous and controversial experiment to examine what happens when ordinary people are faced with morally questionable orders. What he learned shocked not only him but the entire world.

In the experiment, conducted at Yale University over a period of months in 1961, an authority figure — "the experimenter" — dressed in a white lab coat and instructed participants to administer what they believed were increasingly painful electric shocks to another person.

Although no one was actually receiving shocks, the participants heard a man screaming in pain and protest, eventually pleading to be released from the experiment. When the subjects questioned the experimenter about what was happening, they were told they must continue.

And continue they did: Two-thirds of Milgram's participants delivered shocks as they heard cries of pain, signs of heart trouble, and then finally — and most frightening — nothing at all.

Now one of the participants who faithfully continued the "shocks" at the urging of the experimenter was a 7th grade teacher. During the debriefing session with this teacher, she acknowledged that at first she had concern about the other participant receiving the shocks, but when the experimenter assured her that the experimenter assumed all responsibility for any ill effects, the teacher then felt relieved and emboldened to continue. This situation, she volunteered, was analogous to the NCLB testing that she administered to her 7th graders, which she knew was causing harm, but which she continued to do because it was not her responsibility. Of course, this point did not even register a hmmm on the ABC reporter's relevance meter.

This 7th grade teacher can hardly be accountable alone for her unethical actions, especially when we see that the professional organization that has offered her a Code of Ethics turn its back on that very same Code. Where is the NEA on this issue of educational genocide against the children of America? How many intellectual and emotional cores of children must be melted down before the NEA bigwigs acknowledge that this policy is destroying children, schools, and the health of our democratic future.

KIPP and Apartheid Schooling

Peter Campbell has another insightful piece on KIPP and segregation.

Hand-Wringing at Middle School

The reformers who brought you the current orgy of testing in schools are considering what to do about increasing evidence of disengagement and dropping out in middle schools. In L. A. they are experimenting with "intense counseling" as a possible cure. With or without the water board, I wonder.

This clip captures the irony of ironies for the mess in the middle:

Middle schools, sometimes called intermediate schools, were created starting in the 1960s, after educators determined that seventh-through-ninth-grade junior high schools were excessively rigid and unattuned to adolescents’ personal development. But now, a battery of standardized tests, some required under the No Child Left Behind law, are starkly illustrating that many of these sixth-through-eighth-grade schools are failing, also.

How do we know that middle schools are "excessively rigid and unattuned to adolescents' personal development?" We administer a battery of excessively rigid and unattuned instruments, silly--like the ones that have destroyed the natural intellectual curiosity that once accompanied childhood.

Earth to Professor Fuller

Bruce Fuller is a smart guy--and one I respect. He does a good job in this commentary deconstructing the do-gooder talk by the elites of non-elitism like Nancy Pelosi, who is offering an education assistance plan to make it easier for Caitlin and Seth to go to Cal Tech at taxpayer expense--while neglecting to do anything significant to help those who need the most help.

Fuller, however, goes over the deep end with this gem:

The nation's literacy rate is now in decline, dragged down by youths who acquire few skills in mediocre high schools, who come to feel little stake in civil society. So, American firms move overseas, ironically spurring upward mobility for graduates in Bangkok and Bangalore, rather than in Daly City and Des Moines.

Can Fuller, a real researcher, believe this simplistic crap? First, does he not know that literacy rates (click to enlarge) have been in decline since 1992 for all segments of the population--high school grads, MIT grads, or middle school dropouts? Most importantly, though, does Professor Fuller really believe that corporations have been exporting jobs for the past 15 years because American high schools are bad, or because there is a shortage of talented and trained workers here? Has he been drinking the Kool-Aid offered him by the Business Roundtable?

It's the Family Income, Stupid!

A piece in WaPo on the growing Montesorri movement, especially among the middle-class minorities who can choose something other than the KIPP chain-gangs that remain the preserve of the "left behind." A clip:

And it is appealing to some African American professionals. The private Henson Valley Montessori School in Temple Hills has grown 50 percent over the past decade and plans to move to larger quarters in Upper Marlboro in the fall.

On a recent day at Henson Valley, children were putting together map puzzles, blowing seeds in the air to demonstrate plant dispersion and planning the construction of a space station. "They are learning how to learn," said Stephanie Carr, a federal government manager who has three children at the school. Despite the free-form nature of lessons, "they get very good test scores," Carr said. "My children are testing above grade level."

Pamela Hayes, an accountant in Fort Washington, has three children at the school. "There was a feeling that we were part of a family," she said. The school serves 260 students from preschool through eighth grade; tuition is $9,190 through sixth grade and $12,160 for seventh and eighth.

KIPP and the Stepford Children

Picked this up from the ARN listserv from a teacher:

Sorry for lurking and posting, but I can rarely let a KIPP reference pass without making some kind of comment. I am a former public school teacher and journalist who volunteered at the original KIPP Academy, warmed by the personality and charm of Mike Feinberg and his publicity. It's been a while since I've made my passionate arguments against KIPP -- and I hardly have the educational background of an advanced degree-- but I would make some broad statements about Early KIPP:

KIPP's original success was personality driven, no different than the success of Thaddeus Lott and his "miraculous" elementary schools in Houston ISD. There was no tremendously superior curriculum, no amazing secret axiom, no incredible structure. (These were guys who sometimes forgot to order the school buses!) If you walked past the classrooms, the textbooks and discussion were the same as they were in any other HISD schools. I was not in every classroom, but the skills of the teachers were, from what I could see, the same as they were in any other school. The textbooks were the same. The writing curriculum was New Jersey Writing Project. Some teachers were hired for their skills; others were simply hired because they were Ivy League friends of Levin and Feinberg. It was, from all appearances, just like any other school, except for the tremendous discipline, which I would compare to a rigidly disciplined private school.

The secret of KIPP, of course, was the buy-in from the kids and parents. They signed contracts. They agreed to extra hours. They felt honored they were picked for the school. And after the media picked up on KIPP, families were even grateful to be at the campus. They did not question authority. They were Chosen. If only that could be transferred to the public school system!

I was on a KIPP campus recently in Austin, and I have to tell you it was odd to me. It appears the drill-and-skill fast-paced parrot-the-teacher sort of activity is now a high art form on KIPP campuses. Margaret Spellings, who was with us, called it inspiring. (One kid came up to here and told her he had been accepted at an exclusive Eastern seaboard prep school, and I am sure that was inspiring to the child and his family.) Most of it, however, is what I would call creepy as hell. You wouldn't call this a place where children were encouraged to think. it was classroom after classroom of creepy Stepford children.

I'm a high school journalism teacher who values children who know how to think. That is not what is valued at KIPP. Conformity is what is valued at all cost. I think rigid controlled instruction is fine at the 4th grade, but if you're still controlling children that way at the 8th grade, you have problems. (I think that is why KIPPsters have such a problem going on to high school and why Feinberg has a problem pulling the KIPP experience into the high school grades.) This is a school that instills the discipline that most children could and should learn at 8 or 10. They just like to hammer it home at 10, 12 and even 14.

My own thought? At some point in the middle school years, kids need to move into their own, think on their own, learn how to be creative. I'm sure others would argue with me, but that just didn't happen at KIPP, in my mind. KIPP and I parted ways after I wanted to take the kids to a junior high journalism conference in San Antonio, and Feinberg wouldn't agree because the kids hadn't "earned" the trip. It occurred to me -- and I probably am not as artful I could be when I say this -- that when a rigid discipline code trumps valuable student learning, then the ones who lose are the kids. Period.

To me, that was profound. No system of discipline, no method of teaching, should ever get in the way of learning.

You'll hear a lot about the Myth of KIPP. The fact is that KIPP is a fine charter school, but it is no better or worse than many other charter schools. It will work for some kids and not for others. (I would have been miserable at KIPP!) I don't care how selfless it may be -- the great noble story of two Teach for America grads pioneering a new way for education -- but the whole "Harriet Ball was our inspiration" (blah blah blah) is, I suspect, some part truth and then
just a whole lot of spin. I imagine KIPP has evolved -- they have learned to order the buses, take the grant money, hire better teachers, whatever -- but I never saw any incredible magic at KIPP that couldn't be replicated at a public school with a good principal and concerned parents.

And all these interviews about how selfless these guys are... I mean, what Kool Aid did Jay Mathews drink? When I was there, everything at KIPP was about Feinberg and his ego. His approval meant everything to the kids. I won't go into his particular temper tantrums, but they would never be acceptable at a public school. His point system for
rewarding the kids was above everything else. And don't think every teacher agreed with his methods. I think Feinberg likes to paint teachers who disagreed with him as simply not being "with the program" or unwilling to do the work. But there were plenty of teachers on the campus who simply got there and just didn't agree with the way that Feinberg ran his school. A number of us wondered aloud whether this brave experiment could be replicated anywhere at all.

When I actually criticized KIPP at an Education Writers Association meeting, Feinberg had a class of eighth-grade students write me letters about how wonderful KIPP was. Co-opting kids to do your PR campaign? I just was repulsed on so many levels, and it just reminded me why I was so opposed to KIPP in the first place.

So... my fair assessment... I don't know what makes me madder... Feinberg so self-satisfied with his great KIPP experiment or the media that is so willing to make KIPP a great school simply because it's a great story to tell.