Chomsky Clip on Education from 25 Years Ago

Epigrams & Bromides I

• There can be no single path to sustained learning or living; diversity and adaptation in both biological and social worlds are required for survival. 
• The strength of a democracy is determined by the levels of participation and shared well-being of its constituents. 
• Economic success without personal happiness is misery; personal happiness without economic well-being is a myth.
• Real freedom is comprised of equal proportions of liberty and responsibility.
• The greatest threat to freedom is a shortage of trust; as trust recedes, policing moves forward.
• Civilization requires both conservation and growth.  Too much of either is the source of all moral and intellectual ill health.
• Leadership, in the classroom or the boardroom, requires equal proportions of support and challenge. Support without challenge breeds complacency and false competence. Challenge without support breeds intimidation and withdrawal.
• The offering of opinion serves an important purgative purpose;  understanding, on the other hand, is a metabolic act that fuels human organizations. 
• Ethical acts occur at the intersection of cool reason and warm compassion.
• Play that is not fun can be neither therapeutic nor constructive.

Jeb Bush's Ghastly Gall and Bad Motives

As it proved to be George W's presidential calling to finish Poppy's war in Iraq, it looks as if 2016 could be the beginning and end of Jeb's crusade to finish the education privatization plan that got put on hold in 1992 by Poppy's crushing defeat.  

Actually, the plan was on life support when Poppy got beat, as the New York Times had reported in 1991 that Daddy Bush's ED secretary, Lamar Alexander, was fashioning the "education president's" reforms to fit hand in glove with the business plans of Lamar's former partner, Chris Whittle:

He [Whittle] plans to establish a laboratory called the Edison Project in Knoxville, Tenn., where his Whittle Communications empire is based, staffed by 100 yet-unselected people culled from education, business and science who will try to sketch out a blueprint for a new breed of elementary and secondary schools.

Once the outline is complete, Whittle intends to build 200 schools around the country, to open in the fall of 1996. The cost, he imagines, could approach $3 billion, which he might raise by selling shares to large companies. Within 15 years, Whittle foresees 1,000 Whittle schools educating as many as two million students. Whittle's initiative will run parallel to the new education plan unveiled by President Bush and Education Secretary Lamar Alexander (a Whittle friend and former member of the Channel One board), which calls for grants to invent experimental public schools and for the building of 535 model schools by 1996.

When Congress got wind of this emerging scandal at the heart of the thinly-veiled Bush privatization plan, Poppy's whittling of public education got zeroed out of the budget.  

In a recent book review that used up most of the space to provide a neoliberal revision of recent education history, one that softens the hard facts on Reagan, Lamar, and Poppy, it was none other than Diane Ravitch who put the blame on the Democratically-controlled Congress back then for not setting Poppy's plan into action.  

If Congress had supported the Alexander/Whittle plan, perhaps the privatization would have already been complete, and Ravitch's painful, though lucrative, "conversion" experience would have been entirely unnecessary.  From Ravitch:

Starting with President George H.W. Bush in 1988, every president wanted to be remembered as “the education president.” His plan was called America 2000, and its purpose was to encourage the American people to strive to reach the national goals set by the governors at Charlottesville. Stymied by a Democratic Congress, Bush was unable to pass any legislation, and America 2000 soon faded into obscurity.

Those mean old congressmen.  Poor Poppy.

And so now it is now Jeb's turn to do his part to eviscerate the democratic space.  Last week the puffy, angry fool was in Washington to try out his tired talking points as he girds his lardy loins for the 2016 campaign.  The speech contains a litany of lies and obfuscations, but by far, the least likely to be believed is this one:

"Nobody in this debate has a bad motive.... Even if we don't all agree on Common Core, there are many principles we can agree on."

No, Jeb, there are no principles we can all agree on because there are some in this "debate" who are without principles, and whose motives are bad.  Really, really bad.

Arizona's Education Taliban is at it Again

This time, Arizona's right to lifers, aka right wing, religious wing nuts, are at it again, wreaking havoc on the state's youngest, most vulnerable population. Today's New York Times reports the story of how  young people should have their lives and their children's lives ruined because of religious fanaticism and those who still want to live in the Dark Ages, where women and children knew their place, or else.

Ms. Smith, the school board member and parent, said she had been driving her family home from church back in January when her son told her about what was in the textbook. “I almost drove off the road,” she said. 

“I’m Catholic; we do not contracept,” Ms. Smith said. “It is a grave sin.” By including those pages in the curriculum, she added, “you have violated my religious rights.” 

She and other parents offended by the material said they thought it could be in violation of a law signed in 2012, called SB 1009, which required Arizona schools to teach in a way that favored a woman’s taking a pregnancy to term over terminating it. 

The textbook “speaks about abortion, it touches on childbirth, but there’s not a mention of adoption,” said Christine Accurso, a mother of three who moved her children out of the school district well before the issue arose but got involved nevertheless. “It was blatant. It was obvious.”

Will Nashville School Board Put More Poor Children on the Charter Chain Gang?

A compelling question is coming in early December for the members of the Metro Nashville School Board:  Will you assert the ethical responsibility that you are charged with by your positions as custodians of children's educational welfare, or will you double down on supporting a morally bankrupt school caste system, whereby children of the poor are separated and confined in total compliance corporate testing camps that no parent on the school board would ever allow for their own children?

Will you read this book and see how well-positioned you are for making the new Nashville another Wake County, NC?  Review here.  I think you have a group of citizens who are willing to try.

Two Teachers in Tulsa Represent the Conscience of Teaching

As the NEA and AFT suits cut deals with corporate education child abusers to impose more of their lucrative and immoral business solutions on school children and teachers, the new voices of teaching are stepping forward to protect children and themselves from the rapacious privatizers who are in charge of public education.

From the Tulsa World:

Why are two first-grade teachers risking the jobs they love to take a stand against new student tests and surveys?

Because they know they’re not alone.

“It’s definitely not about my evaluation,” said Skelly Elementary School’s Nikki Jones.

“It’s about watching kids cry and throw chairs and pee their pants and scratch their face until it turns red or they bleed. That’s what it’s about — that’s all that it’s about.”

Jones, 33, and her colleague at Skelly, Karen Hendren, 23, were first featured in a Nov. 16 Tulsa World story about the new use of K-12 student surveys in Tulsa Public Schools’ teacher performance evaluations. They are among dozens of local teachers who have been writing emails to district officials and contacting principals and the local teachers union to raise red flags about the new surveys.

Jones and Hendren followed up with an open letter to parents detailing how “developmentally inappropriate” they feel the surveys are for their 6-year-old students, as well as how new tests are robbing their young students of a significant amount of instructional time.

The stand they have taken has landed them on national news outlets, including the Washington Post and Fox News, plus a host of national education blogs.

Parents and other teachers are calling them heroes for speaking out with the same concerns that have led to organized parent opt-outs and student walk-outs in several other states.

Regina Kelly, whose daughter was in Hendren’s class last year, said the information about the new surveys and the emotional and behavioral toll that new tests are taking on young students were revelations that sent her to Tulsa Public Schools herself on Friday.

“I have been feeling physically ill ever since I read their letter and heard about these children and what they were going through taking these tests and surveys,” said Kelly. “I went to TPS because I wanted to see the survey for myself, but they said they didn’t have any — they shredded all the extras. I really feel as parents we have been left in the dark. These are minor children, and TPS is asking them questions they should be asking parents.”

Jennifer Thornton, a veteran third-grade teacher at Emerson Elementary School, said Jones and Hendren simply expressed what most teachers feel — that they are smothering their students with required assessments.

“I’m not saying all of us should refuse to do our job, but our job is to teach kids,” said Thornton.
“All of this testing has created mounds and mounds of administrative work — printing reports and filing reports, and checking reports and then analyzing reports. There is no balance to be found, and that is devastating because you feel like you’re failing your kids.”

Why don’t more teachers speak out? Thornton says teachers in TPS fear for their jobs.

“We have a lot of administration, and our principals are getting pressure from (their bosses), who I assume are getting pressure from the superintendent. Principals are afraid so then we become afraid, and we have seen TCTA (Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association) leadership speak up on behalf of teachers and get slammed by the superintendent — and that also provides a level of fear for the rest of us to speak up,” she said.

Before the teachers’ story went viral

What many people don’t know is that Jones and Hendren first took their concerns and their pledge not to continue with the Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP tests, and Tripod student surveys for teacher evaluations directly to Superintendent Keith Ballard in emails they each sent on Nov. 9 and 10.

They did so knowing they would be seen as insubordinate.

“The biggest consequence would be losing our job,” said Hendren. “But I just think we’re really in it for the kids — that’s why we’re here, is to do things for kids.

“And so if that means we’re on the line for that, we’re really sticking up for our kids and to us, that’s worth it.”

Jones said her hope was that Ballard would hear about the emotional and behavioral toll the new surveys and MAP tests have had on their students. And that he might consider letting them or other early childhood education teachers find more appropriate accountability measures.

Instead, Jones and Hendren said, the only response they received from the emails to Ballard was a visit from their principal’s boss a few days later. They said they got no real answers to their questions and concerns.

After the teachers took their concerns public, Ballard responded by publicly questioning their experience level and saying refusing to participate “is not an option.”

Thornton said most teachers she knows found his remarks offensive.

“To say they just don’t know how to use the data — that is just so offensive,” she said. “They are amazing teachers. They are poster children — they epitomize what we need in our profession because of the fact that they have the guts to speak up for what they feel is right and risk their jobs.”

New audit underway

Coincidentally, Ballard last week had his monthly advisory group meetings with elementary and secondary school teachers.

“I am willing to listen to teachers and I asked them, point blank, are we doing too much assessment, and I heard in many cases we are,” he said.

“Maybe we are asking too much in assessments. I don’t want to overburden teachers.”

As a result, Ballard said, he has ordered an audit of all tests being done, including all district- and individual school-site-mandated assessments.

Ballard said he has heard the criticism of his initial response to the Jones and Hendren case, but he said his defense of the expansion of MAP testing into the early grades is a direct result of 1,128 Tulsa third-graders failing the state reading test last year. About half were held back because of a new state law.

“I do believe there are high-stakes tests that are onerous, and I think we can do too much assessment. I was against having third-graders retained for one test on one day, and I led opposition to the end-of-instruction tests (required for high school graduation),” Ballard said. “This is no contradiction whatsoever. I truly believe in having the MAP assessment to inform instruction, and many of our teachers believe in that, as well. We must do all we can to eradicate this reading problem we have in TPS.”

As for parents like Kelly, who just last week found a parent opt-out form letter on the website of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing that she said she will be using and encouraging other parents to consider, Ballard said TPS has yet to formulate a response.

“We do not have a policy that permits that, but we would listen to that parent and we would work with them,” he said.

And what will happen to Jones and Hendren?

“‘I’m not going to discuss individual personnel,” Ballard answered.

Newly certified, but not novices

Jones, who is in her third year teaching at TPS, worked in preschools for years before she went back to school herself and got her bachelor’s degree at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa, where she is working on her master’s degree.

She worked previously as a prekindergarten and kindergarten teacher at Early Childhood Development Center-Porter, in west Tulsa. When National Public Radio’s national education reporter came to Tulsa last spring to illustrate how the school district led the state of Oklahoma in the establishment of prekindergarten programs, it was Jones’ classroom at Porter where TPS directed the news crew for its weeklong project.

Hendren is a year and a half out from earning her bachelor’s degree at Oklahoma State University, and she worked in early childhood education all four years of college. She taught at the Sand Springs Early Childhood Center and later worked as a teaching assistant at Tulsa’s Educare I.

Jones said she first began to be concerned about the expanded use of formal assessments with her own three children about five years ago. Networking with other parents who were trying to opt out their own children in a state with no formal policy for doing so led her to United Opt Out National, a nonprofit organization of parents, educators, students and other “social activists” seeking the elimination of high-stakes testing in public education.

She eventually agreed to serve as Oklahoma’s state representative for the organization, which has led her to assist other parents around the state.

The pair said they have received only positive feedback from their colleagues and their current students and their parents.

“Our kids have asked for our autographs,” Jones said, laughing.

“They’ve seen us on TV, and one parent even called out in front of the whole lunchroom to congratulate me. One little boy came to school and said, ‘My mom saw you on TV and said you said we don’t have to take tests in our class anymore.’”

‘Tip of the iceberg’

While parent-opt groups have exploded in states including California, Texas, Florida and Washington, the idea of pushing back against the use of formal assessments and student data collection is still new and officially discouraged in Oklahoma.

In 2013, the state Department of Education investigated and ultimately said it found evidence that Jenks Middle School Principal Rob Miller initiated a parent movement to opt out students at his school from all field tests, which were being used by the state testing vendor to evaluate questions for future use.

Parent leaders at the school said they were behind the opt-out movement, which resulted in 800 students skipping the field tests.

This May, the Bixby school board adopted a policy to allow parents to opt their children out of state standardized testing — not to encourage the practice — but simply as a response to numerous parent inquiries about how to do so.

Under state law, public school students risk retention in third grade for not taking and passing the state reading test and not receiving a high school diploma despite their course grades for not taking and passing at least four of seven state exams in core subjects.

Additionally, state officials have said that schools’ own accountability ratings and even federal funding could be jeopardized if a substantial number of students don’t participate in state-mandated tests.

In July, the Oklahoma PTA adopted a resolution that calls for a ban on policies that force the state’s public schools to rely on high-stakes testing.

Sand Springs Superintendent Lloyd Snow estimated that 25-30 parents in his district opted out of state testing last year, and they couldn’t find a bigger ally than Snow and the Sand Springs board of education, which also adopted the Oklahoma PTA resolution.

“If you look across the country, parents are waking up and wising up about the lost time for instruction and the counter-productive impact it has had,” Snow said of excessive testing, noting that his school district only participates in “the minimum required by the state.

“There are going to be bigger and bigger numbers across the country, and our state and certainly across Tulsa of people who are going to opt their kids out — or they’ll take their kids out of school. And we’ve seen some of that already, too.”

Snow said he respects Ballard and the Tulsa school board for doing what they feel is right, but he is going to be advocating for the Legislature to repeal the requirement for “quantitative” measures on new teacher evaluations, which are the basis for Tulsa’s student surveys and partially for the expansion of student assessments.

“I don’t think it’s developmentally appropriate and meaningful. I respectfully disagree with those,” Snow said.

“What happened with those two teachers was inevitable. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

“And it wouldn’t take a whole bunch to have those two become 200. Teachers are not on board with this — they were uninvited to the conversation about assessments. My view: This is just the tip of the iceberg. . . .

Andrea Eger 918-581-8470
andrea.eger@tulsaworld.com

Our concerns about the common core are not just "noise"

Sent to Reading Today, November 27, 2014

"Moving beyond the noise of the common core" (Nov/Dec 2014) reads like advice from a mature adult to excitable children: don't pay attention to the critics, just embrace the core. Focus on implementation, on making the common core work. 

But many of us are convinced that the common core is a disaster, a tsunami that could destroy American education.  Our concerns are not "noise." They are very serious.

Briefly, there is no need for the common core: The problem in American education is not teacher quality, nor is it a lack of tough standards. The problem is our unacceptably high rate of poverty.  Poverty has a devastating impact on school achievement. When scholars control for the effect of poverty, American students score at the top of the world on international tests.

The common core makes no attempt to protect children from the effects of poverty. Instead it imposes, as Susan Ohanian accurately describes it, “a radical untried curriculum overhaul and … nonstop national testing," a plan that is already costing billions, and, thanks to the requirement that testing be online, will cost billions for years to come.

The common core promises to bleed every spare dollar from education, all to profit computer and testing companies, without a shred of evidence that it will help students. 

This is not the time for blind obedience.

Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California

Original article: Hall, April. 2014.Moving beyond the noise of the common core.  Reading Today 32(3): 18-21
This letter posted at: http://tinyurl.com/mat9gvh

UVA and the Culture of White Male Privileged Rapists

Grizzly story in Rolling Stone.

Common Core Drives 57% Increase in Testing Business Since 2010

Link to the study here, well worth reading:

Federal Plans to Suck Remaining Air from Teacher Education Classrooms

Last summer corporate lackey, Arne Duncan, acknowledged that  "testing issues today are sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools."  

In order to make his statement truer still, Gates and the USDOE just announced a 60 day comment period on a plan to use K-12 student test scores to grade teacher preparation programs.  

With student assistance tied to K-12 student test scores where teacher candidates eventually end up teaching, the most obvious effect will be that prospective students applying to university programs that send lots of students to poorer schools will not get their scholarship money--since this is where the low test scores have always been and will always remain:

The regulations would require programs to track data on their graduates that includes job placement and the performance of students those graduates eventually teach. Programs would have to earn ratings of effective or higher for at least two of three years to qualify for TEACH grants, which provide up to $4,000 annually for individual students to put toward their teacher training. In 2014, the department gave out about 34,000 TEACH grants totaling nearly $100 million.

The second most obvious effect is that teacher education programs that depend upon federal dollars will focus their curricula even more on test prep techniques for prospective teachers, thus shoving even further to the periphery the science, history, theory, and philosophy of teaching. Those programs with large endowments that prepare teachers for private schools and the best public schools in the leafy suburbs will continue to prepare teachers who understand curriculum, child development, special needs, and all the other important pedagogical elements that TFA and other alt cert corporate missionaries remain clueless about, even as they ply their test prep trade in schools where children's needs are most demanding.  Here, again, is institutional racist planning on a grand scale.  

Wonder is Uncle Barack will be be called out on the porch to make this announcement?