Revving Up for Save Our Schools DC Conference and Rally

From HuffPo:

NEW YORK -- After months of planning the "Save Our Schools March And National Call to Action," educators will take to the streets in Washington D.C. in two weeks to protest what they call the generally misguided direction of education policy.

The campaign has a broad social media presence and is easily identifiable by its logo: a yellow school crossing sign emblazoned with its call of alarm, "SOS."

"We're trying to alert people to a danger," said organizer and former Oakland educator Anthony Cody. "The end goal is to resurrect the ideal of a democratic public school system."

From July 28 to 31, when teachers and activists descend on Washington, Cody and his fellow organizers will find out just how successful they've been at attracting attention.

"If we were a well-funded, orchestrated campaign with buses lined up, I'd be able to tell you how many teachers were coming," Cody said. "I do know that there are at least 15 different buses coming."

Teacher activism is nothing new, but this year has been particularly heated as several states passed laws that radically changed the gateways of the teaching profession, altering the way in which teachers are hired, fired and ranked.

Education funding has been slashed and budgets have been tightened, compounding the issues the laws have created and sparking a spate of teacher protests.
 
"What's new [about the march] is that this isn’t around a specific decision in a specific area. They're protesting the education reform milieu," said Richard Lee Colvin, executive director of "Education Sector. "They're trying to say we're heading in the wrong direction across this whole agenda."

Organizers say their gripes lie more with the overarching process for running education than with specific policies themselves.

"We're protesting the thrust of any kind of policymaking that is top down and punitive in nature," said Sabrina Stevens Shupe, a former Denver teacher and march organizer. "There are elements of this in Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind, but mostly we're fighting for fair funding of schools, for curricular development, things that support students."

"Policymakers should listen to the people who are in the classroom: Teachers and parents who understand education, what students need in order to be successful," she added.

The organizers are hoping the march will spark enough momentum to sustain an ongoing campaign.

"This is the beginning of a long-term movement to reclaim control of our schools," Stevens Shupe said.

The discontent stems from the continuation of education policies organizers say are passed down from on high, with little regard for their impact in the classroom. "We all assumed that things would change between Bush and Obama," Stevens Shupe said. "Instead, we saw the Obama administration double down on the policies of the Bush administration. That was when it became clear: We can't wait for the top to change their minds. We can complain all we want, but nothing will change until we do something."

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who created many of the policies Stevens Shupe described, says he encourages the debate.

"We all want to strengthen education in this country and we're all united in that goal," Duncan told The Huffington Post. "We have to take education to a different level. I think we all have a sense of urgency. I look forward to doing everything to see America again lead the world in college graduates."

Planning for the march began after a similar protest, called the SOS Million Teachers March, didn’t materialize last summer.

"There are always people who are willing to complain," said Stevens Shupe. "We're saying it's not enough to just talk to your friends in the teachers' lounge. Enough talking about what you don’t like. Reclaim the responsibility to make sure that our schools work for every single child every single day."

Cody had organized a group that wrote letters to Obama about education. "We decided it was time to raise the bar, to move beyond writing letters and move our bodies to DC in protest," he said.

Since then, the march has garnered a slew of endorsers, from celebrities to public officials. Yet the event has attracted criticism from some who believe the march is primarily being funded by unions.

"People say the unions are behind this. The unions didn’t come to our aid financially until we were well into this," said Rita Solnet, a Florida businesswoman and co-founder of the group Parents Across America who is helping to organize the march. "The lion's share of the money is individual $20 and $50 donations from people across the country."

"We're not some slick marketing effort," she added. "We're having people make their own signs."

According to Cody, less than half of the funding for the event comes from unions. A spokesperson for the American Federation of Teachers declined to specify the extent of the AFT's financial support.

The march will follow a conference at American University, which will feature a speech by Diane Ravitch, an education historian and former U.S. assistant education secretary who has become the de facto spokesperson for frustrated teachers. A teacher-created film that rebuts the tenets of the documentary Waiting for Superman will also be shown.

Leaders have also announced that the actor Matt Damon will take a red-eye flight from a film set in Vancouver in order to attend the march, before heading back west the same day.

Doug Ward Refuses to Admninister NC Test

Susan Ohanian has the story here.

Retreat from Collective Madness or the Restoration of Sanity?

There's no doubt that the disgust arising from our Guantanamo Bay torture camps has peaked. This morning the papers report that all former and living American Secretaries of State have come out with a strong statement for ending this chapter of American shame.

At another level of our current political nightmare, disgust is growing daily from the organizational, ethical, and humanitarian disaster of No Child Left Behind. Here are a couple of the systemic outrages that Bracey brings to our attention in a blog post at Huffington:

. . . .Some play it as if they have lost all sense of proportion and common sense. The Texas Education Agency refused to grant a waiver from the state test for a young woman hospitalized after a serious automobile accident that killed her brother and left her memory impaired. Her school dispatched an assistant principal to administer the test in the hospital. Fortunately, one of the girl's teachers overheard what was up, got to the hospital first and told her to refuse to take it. In Colorado, a father, a teacher himself, sought to opt his daughter out of the state fifth grade test. Fine, said the superintendent, but she won't be promoted to sixth grade.

In Washington, a willing testee who simply couldn't think of how to respond to a writing prompt was harangued by his teacher, then by his principal and then by his mother. Unable to respond, he was forbidden to attend a post-test party at which pancakes were served and the movie Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events shown. He was told he had ruined everything for everyone else at the school and suspended for a week.

And some play it desperately. On March, 27, 2008, the Houston Chronicle reported that a middle school principal told a group of teachers that he would kill them and kill himself if the school's science scores did not improve. He was not, the teachers said, joking. "You don't know how ruthless I can be," he is alleged to have said. The incident is being investigated as a "terroristic threat."

At this point we should be asking HAVE WE GONE COLLECTIVELY MAD? . . . .

Have we, indeed. Have we, in fact, managed to create our own unique brand of grade school interrogation camps in the nation's 90,000 public schools? Is there a thread that, indeed, runs all the way from Gitmo through our schools and into our large flat screen TVs, where we can't seem to get enough of the hellish incarcerated life celebrated on the Prison Channel, MSNBC, or even by National Geographic over in hi-def.

So what to do? This week we saw three states, Minnesota, Arizona, and Virginia, trying to get Margaret Spellings' attention by threatening to forego federal aid to escape the NCLB madness. Minnesota faces giving up over $200 million, Arizona over $500 million, and Virginia over $600 million. That's serious disgruntlement.

But do these states believe that this Administration cares whether or not they refuse Title I dollars intended for the poor? These are the same folks who have been trying to disband Title I for the past 40 years. They couldn't care less about these threatened refusals of tax revenues aimed to provide assistance to the poor.

When you think about it, this approach makes little sense and has an entirely hollow ring to it. It would be the equivalent of France, Germany, and Spain threatening to withdraw from the UN because they disagreed with the Bush torture policy. Such empty threats might placate their enraged citizens, but it does nothing to change the policy.

Leaving behind our own bit of domestic madness that threatens the future of the American democratic republic is not going to happen from threats to refuse Title I funds by state legislators looking for political cover. State legislatures, governors, mayors, and school boards will have to say, Enough. No Mas! We are not going to give up our Title I money! And we are not going to continue to torture! In effect, it is time to do away with this shameful policy of incarceration and surveillance training billed as education!

Opting Out of Testing

There is only one tactic that will stop the testing hysteria: parents who refuse to have their children's education hijacked. From Coalition for Better Education:

We would like to encourage you to read through our site and make a decision to join us. We hope you will not remain silent but will let your local school board and representatives know how you feel about NCLB and CSAP. If you are parents, we would like to encourage you to opt your child out of testing. It is legal and can be done (see below). This act may be the best way to inform education officials of your stance on the endless testing of our students.

Use the navigation bars to the left and above to navigate our site. If you wish to join our list serve, email dperl@myexcel.com

CSAP: Leaving Our Children Behind
Dear Parents:
CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program) testing is upon us…my 8-year-old’s class alone is scheduled for 16.5 hours of timed testing. After months of researching this exam and its negative implications, I have come to the conclusion that such extended testing is not only cruel, but also a waste of my tax dollars, a poor use of time that could be spent learning, and an activity that returns inconsequential results for my child, Canyon Creek and our district. My child will be opting out of CSAP testing because as a parent, that is my choice.

Read the rest of Kelley Coffman-Lee's research on CSAP

Please click on the opt out letters below if you wish to exempt your child from CSAP.

Click on the Susan Ohanian hyperlink for two sample opt out letters that she has created. Ohanian sample Opt Out Letters

We have also provided downloadable Opt Out Letters below.

Opt Out Letters

The Opt Out Letter is a form that can be downloaded as a PDF (in English/en Espanol) or as a print friendly form (in English/en Espańol) (opens a new window).

The Opt Out Letter is summarized as follows:

Please be advised that my child, ___________________________________, will not be participating in CSAP testing during the current school year. I understand that the law provides the parent or guardian the right of choice regarding this standardized testing. In my opinion, such testing is not in the best interests of our children since it promotes competition instead of cooperation, and blunts, not stimulates, our children's curiosity. I understand, too, that the school will provide appropriate learning activities during testing times. I request that no record of CSAP testing be part of my child's permanent file.

Please join us in signing a petition calling for the end to NCLB. You can reach this petition at the following website.http://www.educatorroundtable.org/

Want to know how it's going in other states? Paste the link below into your browser to read information from our sister organization in California.

www.calcare.org

Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport

by Joe Lucido:

DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT

In this stormy political season many topics have been touched on by the presidential candidates: the Iraq war, the economy, health care, etc. However, the one topic that has been left off the radar is education. Unfortunately, this subject is in dire need of full coverage by the press and our candidates because of the negative impact of the current law on our children in the classroom. If parents truly knew the research that has been released, but never given its just due, their initial decision to support the federal No Child Left Behind act would continue to fade.

As an educator of ten years, I can attest to the dramatic changes that I have seen in students over that period of time. Many students, were, for the most part, creative thinkers with independent minds that strove to come up with answers that made sense to them. They also showed an ability to approach a problem from various angles and come up with a solution that was correct, while still mastering standards. In this era of standardized testing "accountability", these precious elements gave begun to fade dramatically. I see students who wait for answers to be given to them, are less confident in their thinking capabilities, are less able to follow simple instructions, have much less patience, and even have shown an increase in behavior and health problems.

Discussions amongst other educators from Fresno area districts, as well as nationwide, have illuminated the same traits. Some teachers have told me about the removal of blocks from their kindergarten classrooms because it was told to them that, "Blocks won't be on the test." In other schools, playhouses have been removed citing the same reasoning, yet that reasoning defies all research and logic which states that children need socialization skills in order to be complete learners. The Center on Education Policy has shown that 44% of public schools have cut back on recess time, science and social studies in the name of testing practice. This evidence is a concerning and tangible reality.

A new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas-Austin finds that "Texas' public school accountability system, the model for NCLB, to be a dismal failure. Each year Texas public high schools lose at least 135,000 youth prior to graduation -- a disproportionate number of whom are African-American, Latino and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students." The study shows "as schools came under the accountability system, which uses student test scores to rate schools and reward or discipline principals, massive numbers of students left the school system." Here in the state of California, the drop out rate has increased 4% since the inception of high stakes accountability. Dr. Stephen Krashen from USC has pointed out that overall student performance has flatlined and even dropped in most grade levels since the law has been in place.

What can our community do about this? Many parents feel powerless in the face of lawmakers that make such drastic decisions about public education. However, not all have been silent. Parents in Chicago are planning on keeping their kids home in the face of their unjust local tests, and in Michigan the city of Pontiac's public schools have recently won a judgement against the NCLB law. Here in California, Lindsay schools have turned down funding to protect quality teaching practices that have been threatened by a myopic focus on standardized testing. There are many other situations nationally that display parent disenfranchisement with the current education focus.

It is the LAW in California that parents can choose to opt their children out of testing, if they see it fit. Schools are supposed to inform them of this during the year, but many fail to do so for fear of repercussions by the federal government. Even State Superintendent of Instruction Jack O'Connell has stated, "I want to remove the penalty against schools where parents do not want their children to participate in state testing," O'Connell said. "It concerns me that the Bush Administration apparently does not support the rights of parents in this regard, because NCLB unfairly penalizes those schools where parents exempt their children from testing." If you are interested in understanding more about the impact of the NCLB law on students and want to know more, please attend the Chavez Literacy Conference at Fresno State on March 28-29th. Parents have rights and should use them without fear. Let's strive to protect our public education system.

Joe Lucido
Educators and Parents Against Test Abuse (Fresno, CA)
Educator Roundtable

No, That Is No, NCLB Reauthorization This Year

To all the people who signed petitions, wrote letters, handed out flyers, made calls, talked to your neighbor, did research, prayed, threatened, screamed, cajoled, bribed, debated, made speeches, or otherwise attempted the impossible--CHEERS! for now. From Spellings' own media outlet:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top two lawmakers on the Senate Education Committee said Friday they are putting off consideration of a new No Child Left Behind law until next year.

Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., have decided that there's not enough time this year to complete work on the legislation, which has not yet been formally introduced.

The five-year-old law, up for a scheduled rewrite, requires math and reading tests in grades three through eight, and once in high school. Schools that miss testing benchmarks face increasingly stiff sanctions. The law, originally passed in 2001, is among President Bush's top domestic policy priorities.

Kennedy, the panel's chairman, had previously said he wanted a bill before the Senate this year. He now is aiming, however, to bring a bill up for consideration early next year, said his spokeswoman, Melissa Wagoner.

"We have additional work to do on key issues, but are confident that we can put forth a responsible package for consideration early in the new year that will enjoy strong support of the Senate," Wagoner said.

However, it may be even more difficult to pass a rewritten No Child bill next year because it is a presidential election year. It is harder to get the bipartisan consensus needed to pass major legislation against the backdrop of an intense presidential campaign. . . .

There will be plenty to do starting Monday morning to make sure that Spellings, Kennedy, and Miller are stopped in '08. Happy New Year!

Peter Henry has some sobering reminders:

So, another year of continuing to test kids until they bleed and vomit, more schools failing AYP, more threats, more school takeovers, more of everything, except the kind of innovation and quality schooling that our kids need in the 21st century.

This kind of myopic, stalemated, byzantine bureaucracy is precisely why I will argue until I die against a national curriculum, national standards and a national exam. Once the power is in Washington, it never comes back, it never improves people's lives and it never even gets off the bathroom floor.

Never give away our local control in education. Ever.

Pickets for Spellings, Miller, and Kennedy

As Susan Ohanian's caption reads: A Picture is Worth 666,483,972,618,001 Pages of Congressional Testimony.

It is time to break some No. 2 pencils and go to Washington. None of the Business Roundtable's agents on Captitol Hill want to hear anything that anyone has to say that does not agree with the bankrupt business model ideology that is driving the reauthorization of NCLB.

The inept and cowardly NEA in the meantime, with a membership of over 3 million souls, continues to work their back room deals in hopes of preserving collective bargaining rights, while children, starting with the most vulnerable, are ground up in a crucible that extrudes data, leaving behind mindless clumps who are clocking in every morning all over America to earn their Scholar Dollars and a bonus for their foremen, who once were caring and humane teachers, but who now hate their children for the failure that they are unable to correct.

Yesterday Hugo Chavez got headlines by declaring that he would insist on regulation of private schools to make make sure their curriculums encourage critical thinking, critical of capitalism, no doubt. The gringo press shouted, SOCIALIST INDOCTRINATION. At least Hugo so far is allowing the distinction between public and private to remain, rather than working to erase the boundaries with corporate-inspired "public" charter schools that become tax havens for those same corporations who are marketing their wares through those same schools.

And at least Hugo (so far) is encouraging some kind of thinking, directed as it may be, rather than the imposition of mind-blotting math and reading curriculums whose main attraction by those who push them is the total passivity that it breeds among the poor and the disenfranchised who become their victims. Reid Lyon and Doug Carnine are much more interested in neuronal switches that control behavior in young children than they are in imagination, understanding, and knowledge.

And none of these issues is of any concern for the dollar-bloated pols in Washington or the corporate media who present the education agendas of the conservative think tanks, whose remaining good intentions have been washed away by the flood of money that is required to remain in power. Instead, they talk about bonus pay for teachers in neighborhoods ravaged by poverty and public neglect, where you can't find health care, a good job, or even a decent grocery store. Merit pay for our meritocracy, hear, hear!!

Civil disobedience by parents, teachers, and students is the only tactic that will stop this dollar-stuffed juggernaut. It is time to JUST SAY NO THE CONTINUING CHILD ABUSE, PARENT ABUSE, AND TEACHER ABUSE.

The children, the teachers, and parents are not the failures. Their only failure is allowing the continuation of a failed system. It's time for change.

AYP Suddenly "Meaningless" When Middle Class Schools Put On List

As NCLB's rigid, manufactured failure plan has been used to turn urban schools into behavioral chain gangs via cheap charters, there has been not a peep of protest heard from the suburban enclaves or the high-rises of urban liberals who send their kids to private schools. When the failure plan starts creeping into places like Fairfax County, however, parents are suddenly outraged at a law that could show their fine schools coming up short. And overnight, suburban superintendents become outspoken advocates for the truth that they have known, yet studiously ignored, during the five previous years of educational genocide that only now begins to threaten them. From WaPo:

Fairfax County schools boast SAT scores significantly higher than the national average. More than 93 percent of graduates go on to college or trade schools. And the dropout rate is low.

But this week, the school system was given a new -- and negative -- label: failure to meet academic goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Fairfax educators say the system as a whole, along with 68 of its schools, fell short largely as the result of tighter federal testing requirements for students with limited English skills. Officials and parents now face the question of whether the rating will tarnish the district's reputation.

Liz McGhan, mother of three children in Fairfax schools and president of Garfield Elementary School's PTA, said the rating doesn't change her positive view of the schools.

"For me personally, and for other people I talk to, school scores are not everything about the school," McGhan said. "I think a majority of the parents understand what's going on behind all the numbers. There's so much more to a school than the testing."

School and county officials, who often cite the quality of schools as a lure for businesses and residents, argue that Fairfax's situation illustrates flaws in the federal law.

"This is not a question of academic performance. It's a question of a rigid law," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Board of Supervisors. "The No Child Left Behind law does not make allowances for a highly diverse school systems such as we have in Northern Virginia."

Federal officials disagree. They say that all students must be held to the same standards and that Virginia had ample time to adjust to testing requirements. "We know that some limited English students need an alternative assessment," U.S. Education Department spokesman Chad Colby said. "We're working with states, but [Virginia] could have done that going back to 2003."

Many other Virginia school systems fell short of academic targets. But some reached them, including those in Chesapeake, Roanoke County and Virginia Beach.

The federal law, which aims to shine a light on blocs of struggling students and allow schools to pinpoint areas that need improvement, requires annual reading and math tests in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school. It also requires schools, and school systems, to show steady progress in improving scores. Subsets of students -- including ethnic minorities, students with disabilities, those with limited English skills and those from low-income families -- also must show gains each year. If one group does not meet the target, the school or district may be designated as not making "adequate yearly progress," or AYP.

Several other Northern Virginia school systems, including those in Alexandria and in Loudoun, Prince William and Arlington counties, also did not meet targets on the spring Standards of Learning tests. The number of Northern Virginia schools that did not make the grade nearly doubled, rising from 76 in 2006 to 146 this year.

Education experts say school systems nationwide are experiencing similar increases. Each year, it is tougher for schools to meet standards, because states raise performance targets as they move toward the goal of having every child proficient in reading and math by 2014.

In Maryland, for instance, the number of elementary and middle schools targeted for academic improvement because of low test scores rose this year from 167 to 176, the largest total since the No Child law was enacted in 2002.

"The crunch is starting to be felt," said Jack Jennings, president and chief executive of the D.C.-based Center on Education Policy. "There's more tests, and there's a higher bar. The game is getting more challenging."

The experience of Northern Virginia, and the question of whether student performance on standardized tests should be the sole measure of a school's success, is expected to play a significant role this fall as lawmakers debate reauthorization of the federal law. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), House education committee chairman, has called for additional measures, such as graduation rates or the number of students passing Advanced Placement exams, to be included in the ratings.

Michele Menapace, president of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs, said parents who are not familiar with the intricacies of the federal law might question principals and school officials about the county's ratings.

"I don't think people will be up in arms, but I think there will be questions asked," Menapace said. "There has been a great deal of confusion. All they see is that their school didn't make AYP, and they don't understand all the testing groups."

Fairfax County School Superintendent Jack D. Dale said he is not concerned about the label.

"What I hear from the community is, AYP information has become meaningless," Dale said. "Our parents want to know how kids are doing on a broad spectrum of assessments."

With such fine reputations at stake, we can be sure that this game has just begun to change its rules.

NCLB Left Behind?

This opportunity to participate in the ongoing NCLB debate comes from Bob Schaeffer at ARN-L:

NCLB LEFT BEHIND: NEW REPORT TO DETAIL
GROWING GRASSROOTS REBELLION AGAINST
CONTROVERSIALFEDERAL ACT

Study: 47 States Already in Varying Stages of Revolt Against
NCLB; More Momentum Expected in New School Year, With 5 States
(MN, ME, NV, NJ and VA) Poised to Be Biggest Battlegrounds in
2005-2006.

As American children and their teachers head back to school,
the widespread grassroots rebellion against the controversial
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has taken root in 47 of the
50 states and is likely to gain new momentum during the
2005-2006 school year, according to a detailed analysis from
NCLBgrassroots.org, a project of the nonprofit and nonpartisan
Civil Society Institute (CSI).

The major new report will be released during a live,
phone-based news event (with full Q&A) at 1:30 p.m. ET on
August 17, 2005. News event speakers will be:

* Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal;

* Minnesota State Rep. Mindy Greiling, Roseville, MN;

* Laredo (TX) Independent School District Assistant Superintendent
of Schools Sylvia Bruni;

* Parents for Public Schools Board President Lisa Schiff,
San Francisco, CA; and

* Civil Society Institute President Pam Solo.

Entitled "NCLB Left Behind: Understanding the Growing Grassroots
Rebellion Against a Controversial Law," the new
NCLBGrassroots.org report provides a detailed look at the
various aspects of the grassroots backlash in 47 states against
NCLB, including the three states (Colorado, Connecticut and Utah)
already in “open revolt” and the five states (Minnesota, Maine,
Nevada, New Jersey and Virginia) expected to be the biggest hot
spots of NCLB opposition during the 2005-2006 school year.

TO PARTICIPATE: To participate in the live, two-way telenews
event (with Q&A), dial 1 (800) 860-2442 by 1:30 p.m. ET on
August 17, 2005. Ask for the “NCLB Left Behind” news event.

CAN'T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of the call will
be available on the Web at NCLBGrassroots.org as of 6 p.m. ET
on August 17, 2005.