| [Maura's note: I don't see anything wrong with people like Eli Broad trying to improve education. What I do find unethical is CT's efforts to stifle reform. Susan Ohanian seems to be either unaware or unconcerned that school board members and top district employees often keep their power by spending funds on unethical lawyers. She doesn't seem to think that the huge amounts of public money involved in paying these lawyers, and paying rising rates for liability insurance because these lawyers earn so much, is a problem for schools. Not just because of the loss of money, but because the rule of law is thrown out the window, and all too often, the worst teachers and administrators and board members, not the best, control the schools. Maybe Ms. Ohanian knows this, but she just doesn't want to think about it. She'll be waiting a long time for education to improve if she doesn't want to talk about the most serious issues. We need people like Eli Broad to force change. Then, hopefully, CTA will start facing the truth: we need to differentiate between good and bad teachers. |
| Part 4: Susan and Me |
| Part 1: Teachers and Democrats |
| Thank goodness some Democrats have had the courage to stand up to teachers and their Democratic pawns who care more about their personal power than they care about the children of America. I think Susan cares about kids, but she can't get past her apparent guiding principle: nobody should interfere with teacher culture or the control of every single teacher of his/her classroom. I agree with Susan that NCLB causes a lot of pain, mostly to teachers, and costs a lot of money, without accomplishing much, BUT IT IS THE ONLY SERIOUS ATTEMPT AT CHANGE THAT IS ON THE TABLE. Good for Nancy Pelosi, George Miller, Hillary Clinton and Edward Kennedy for STANDING UP TO THE UNIONS AND SAYING: SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE! Also, good for Randi Weingarten of New York's teacher union for agreeing to help run a charter school. |
| Maura Larkins' Feb. 23, 2008 email to Susan Ohanian: Hi Susan: I'm curious about why you ignore the problem of unethical education lawyers. Maura Larkins Hi Susan: What I meant to say is this: why do you ignore the problem of unethical insurance companies and their lawyers and the public employees who aid and abet them? Maura Larkins Response: ______________ (still waiting) Follow-up email: February 29, 2008 Did you miss my email about school attorneys? I get the feeling you're ignoring me. But I don't want to jump to that conclusion. If I'm right, you know what to do with this email. Maura Larkins Success! Your message is on its way to Susan Ohanian (who will reply as soon as possible). |
Susan Ohanian,
teacher, author, blogger
teacher, author, blogger
| Arizona State University writes: EPRU Education Policy Research Unit Susan Ohanian, a long-time public school teacher, is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in Atlantic, Parents, Washington Monthly, The Nation, Phi Delta Kappan, Education Week, Language Arts, and American School Board Journal. In 2003, Ohanian received The National Council of Teachers of English's "NCTE Orwell Award" for her outstanding contribution, via her website (http://www.susanohanian.org), to the critical analysis of public discourse. The website offers information and inspiration on high-stakes standards and testing resistance. E-mail Susan Ohanian at susano@gmavt.net |
| "I know that if schools ever encouraged or allowed people to think for themselves, we'd have a democratic revolution dismantling the current power structure." --Susan Ohanian |
| from The Nation: Susan Ohanian, a longtime teacher, is a fellow at the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University and at the Vermont Society for the Study of Education. She is the author of One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards (Heinemann). http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/susan_ ohanian |
| Interview with Susan Ohanian Home Education Magazine January-February 2005 Freelance writer Susan Ohanian, interviewed for HEM by Ohio homeschooling leader Peggy Daly Masternak... What led you to the classroom? The day after I received my MA in medieval literature, I boarded a plane for New York City, hoping to find a journalism job. I ended up working in the television department of the world's largest advertising agency. In less than three weeks, I realized that I needed something more worthwhile for my life's work than creating Listerine and Ford commercials. So I signed up for night school education courses--as a back-up plan. |
October 10, 2007
Reg Weaver, President
National Education Association
1201 16th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036-3290
Dear Mr. Weaver:
Our Task Force to Eliminate NCLB represents approximately 10,000 teachers and support
personnel in the San Joaquin Valley of California. We have been campaigning
aggressively during the last twenty-four months to eliminate the Bush agenda to
privatize public education.
We have posted on our Website, http://www.EliminateNclb.org, a letter from Marc Tucker
to Hillary Clinton. The letter, received two months prior to her husband taking office,
clearly paints an agenda that leads to privatization of our public schools.
Our educators are extremely concerned with the leadership of the National Education
Association. We want to make it clear to the officers of NEA and its management team
that we will not accept an endorsement for a Presidential candidate who does not fully
support public education.
Mr. Weaver, if the current proposed NCLB language stands, and is supported by Hillary
Clinton or any other presidential candidate, they will not have our support.
Thank you for your time regarding this matter.
Sincerely,
The Task Force to Eliminate NCLB
___________________________
Pete Lindstrand Lindsay TA/Eliminate NCLB Chairperson
Members of the Task Force to Eliminate NCLB
Kirsten Barnes, Hanford SEA Pamela Beck, Pleasant View EA
Jackie Buckner, Tulare City TA Carol Clarke, Visalia UTA
Jackie Crusha, Lemoore El, TA Tom Douglass, KTUU
Dennis Durbin, Porterville EA Pearl Gonzales, Farmersville TA
Myndi Hardgrave, Hanford SEA Wendi Hulbert, Corcoran FA
Karl Kildow, Visalia UTA Sandy Dana-Kildow, Visalia UTA
Karla Orosco, Central Union El. TA Michael Rogers, Hanford El. TA
April Silva, Hanford El.TA
301 W. School Avenue, Visalia, CA 93291 TKSCC/KTUU/CTA/NEA
Members of the Task Force to Eliminate NCLB
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_stories.html?id=354
Reg Weaver, President
National Education Association
1201 16th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036-3290
Dear Mr. Weaver:
Our Task Force to Eliminate NCLB represents approximately 10,000 teachers and support
personnel in the San Joaquin Valley of California. We have been campaigning
aggressively during the last twenty-four months to eliminate the Bush agenda to
privatize public education.
We have posted on our Website, http://www.EliminateNclb.org, a letter from Marc Tucker
to Hillary Clinton. The letter, received two months prior to her husband taking office,
clearly paints an agenda that leads to privatization of our public schools.
Our educators are extremely concerned with the leadership of the National Education
Association. We want to make it clear to the officers of NEA and its management team
that we will not accept an endorsement for a Presidential candidate who does not fully
support public education.
Mr. Weaver, if the current proposed NCLB language stands, and is supported by Hillary
Clinton or any other presidential candidate, they will not have our support.
Thank you for your time regarding this matter.
Sincerely,
The Task Force to Eliminate NCLB
___________________________
Pete Lindstrand Lindsay TA/Eliminate NCLB Chairperson
Members of the Task Force to Eliminate NCLB
Kirsten Barnes, Hanford SEA Pamela Beck, Pleasant View EA
Jackie Buckner, Tulare City TA Carol Clarke, Visalia UTA
Jackie Crusha, Lemoore El, TA Tom Douglass, KTUU
Dennis Durbin, Porterville EA Pearl Gonzales, Farmersville TA
Myndi Hardgrave, Hanford SEA Wendi Hulbert, Corcoran FA
Karl Kildow, Visalia UTA Sandy Dana-Kildow, Visalia UTA
Karla Orosco, Central Union El. TA Michael Rogers, Hanford El. TA
April Silva, Hanford El.TA
301 W. School Avenue, Visalia, CA 93291 TKSCC/KTUU/CTA/NEA
Members of the Task Force to Eliminate NCLB
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_stories.html?id=354
| Eduwonk says that Susan Ohanian refers to him and his kind as "thugs." Eduwonk.com: August 21, 2005 "thugs" -- Susan Ohanian .... www.eduwonk.com/archives/2005_08_21_archive.html |
| Susan Ohanian makes some good observations. I just wish she could get politics in perspective. Here are some descriptions of her latest book from Amazon.com: |
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Susan Ohanian hates censorship--except, apparently, when it's necessary to keep
wrongdoers in power at the California Teachers Association and local affiliates.
As long as NEA/CTA is able to prevent any real school reform, we will have desperate
and ineffective measures such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
It's time to take a closer look at teachers, Susan. You appear to believe that as long
as you leave teachers alone, with the teachers union in control of Democratic
politicians, everything will be fine and dandy.
Our schools have been in crisis for a long time. NCLB is a symptom, not a cause, of
the crisis.
Teacher quality needs to be improved. And CTA/NEA is standing in the way.
wrongdoers in power at the California Teachers Association and local affiliates.
As long as NEA/CTA is able to prevent any real school reform, we will have desperate
and ineffective measures such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
It's time to take a closer look at teachers, Susan. You appear to believe that as long
as you leave teachers alone, with the teachers union in control of Democratic
politicians, everything will be fine and dandy.
Our schools have been in crisis for a long time. NCLB is a symptom, not a cause, of
the crisis.
Teacher quality needs to be improved. And CTA/NEA is standing in the way.
| Questions or Comments If you have questions, comments, suggestions, or ideas about this site, please use this form to send them along. Content comments will go to me. Technical questions will go to Eric Crump, the site developer. —Susan Ohanian |
| "The media in this country should be a sanctuary for dissent. Instead the media simply acts as a megaphone for the people in power." —Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! |
| "Education blogs should be a sanctuary for dissent. Instead Susan Ohanian simply acts as a megaphone for the people in power--the California Teachers Association." --Maura Larkins, SD Ed Rpt |
| SusanOhanian's blog: |
| Maura Larkin's response: |
[From Susan's blog]
NCLB In Your Face
Eliminate NCLB Task Force
Ohanian Comment:
NEWS FLASH!!!!
This letter will go to all members of
Congress. The letter goes overnight
to Reg Weaver on 10/11/07 and
then on Friday, 10/12/07 copies go
to Congress, putting them on notice
that plenty of California teacher
union members are not going to be
stomped on any more. They are
going to take back their profession.
Hundreds of copies of this letter [see
below] will flood CTA offices starting
Friday. Members are encouraged
post it on their websites and pass it
on to everyone they know.
Democrats need to know they can no
longer take teachers for granted. We
are mad as hell and we aren't going
to take it any more.
NCLB In Your Face
Eliminate NCLB Task Force
Ohanian Comment:
NEWS FLASH!!!!
This letter will go to all members of
Congress. The letter goes overnight
to Reg Weaver on 10/11/07 and
then on Friday, 10/12/07 copies go
to Congress, putting them on notice
that plenty of California teacher
union members are not going to be
stomped on any more. They are
going to take back their profession.
Hundreds of copies of this letter [see
below] will flood CTA offices starting
Friday. Members are encouraged
post it on their websites and pass it
on to everyone they know.
Democrats need to know they can no
longer take teachers for granted. We
are mad as hell and we aren't going
to take it any more.
| Teacher union power in the Democratic party |
| Susan Ohanian comment: "Democrats need to know they can no longer take teachers for granted. We are mad as hell and we aren't going to take it any more." |
| Maura Larkins comment: "Has Susan been paying attention to the real world of Democratic politics? "Democrats have long lived in terror of teachers. They don't dare criticize the teacher unions. "I agree that NCLB is bad, but this is what happens when no one is allowed to criticize teachers. Susan, you have a big blind spot. If you want free and open discussion, then NEA/CTA has to allow Democrats to challenge some of the union's demands. "Why is CTA so afraid of merit pay? "You know very well that some teachers are fantastic and others do more harm than good. "Why do we have to pretend that this isn't so?" |
| March 2, 2008 I've tried to get in touch with Susan Ohanian--to no avail. About a year ago I created a link to a couple of her webpages when I was discussing the Downer Five in WCCCUSD, and within a couple of hours those particular webpages (but no others) were disconnected from their addresses. I emailed a protest, and the pages came back on, but I received no other response. |
| More recently, I sent emails to Susan, but got no response (see left column below). I'll let readers know if I hear from her. |
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| Chicago’s Renaissance 2010: The Small Schools Movement Meets the Ownership Society Ohanian Comment: School reform becomes part of what the authors call the “ownership society,” which cannibalizes everything from education to health care to retirement benefits, criminal justice, waste management, elections, public safety, and water rights. Any area that has traditionally been part of the common good and publicly administered is now up for grabs, and public schools are no exception. Public space is being divided into sectors to be sold off or privately managed. Would-be reformers need to beware of those who would co-opt the language of reform to undermine its ideals. Mr. Ayers and Mr. Klonsky examine how Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 initiative has used the terms of the small schools movement to promote privatization and the erosion of public space. by William Ayers and Michael Klonsky WE started the Small Schools Workshop in 1991, with the goal of supporting Chicago’s reformminded teachers as they tried to create new, smaller learning communities in an environment that was historically toxic... the small schools movement offered a strategy for engaging teachers, students, parents, and whole communities, the people with the problem, in a movement for democratic education... According to many studies, the results have been positive. 1 But ...Some have recently expressed to us their discomfort with Chicago’s new initiative, Renaissance 2010, which seems to have more in common with the erosion of public space, with the “ownership society,” than it does with democratic education... It’s no secret that the language of social movements can be co-opted or reduced to empty clichés. In the world of Chicago school reform, the simple word “choice” has become a two-edged sword... Another word commonly used around the smallschools movement, “autonomy,” was supposed to signal greater freedom for educators from bureaucratic constraints and stupid rules, more local decision making, and increased teacher discretion. Instead, “autonomy” has been twisted to mean the absence of accountability or the “freedom” of charter operators to implement business efficiencies and run schools without due process or necessary regulations. This kind of educational doublespeak is embedded in Chicago’s latest public school reform strategy, Renaissance 2010. Ostensibly, it’s a plan to create 100 new small public schools in six years in minority and low income neighborhoods. ...The “ownership society,” in matters of public policy, is... cannibalizing everything from health care to retirement benefits, criminal justice, waste management, elections, public safety, and water rights. Any area that has traditionally been part of the common good and publicly administered is now up for grabs, and public schools are no exception. Now, however, the term “open sector” is being used to turn over large chunks of public school districts to private school- operating companies and education management organizations (EMOs). 2 What used to be considered public space is now imagined by groups like the Chicago Civic Committee and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (the main patrons of Ren 10) to be part of a new marketing space for dozens of private companies... 3 Ren 10 also favors politically connected school operators, private firms that have received charters to operate Ren 10 schools in exchange for private investment and high- powered management and efficiency plans. One example is the powerhouse Washington lobbying firm Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, whose client list includes such corporate giants as Mediacom and which enjoys direct ties to both the White House and the Democratic National Committee. Another is K12 Inc., the virtual learning company founded by former Secretary of Education William Bennett. Bennett’s name had to be taken off the company stationery after his embarrassing, racist comments linking crime prevention with the abortion of African American babies... 4 ...more than 200 Chicago schools have now been placed on academic probation, which, under No Child Left Behind, allows, encourages, or forces students to transfer to the new start-ups. In our opinion, all of this has little to do with fixing, helping, or restructuring low- performing schools. But it does increase instability and uncertainty for struggling schools... That will make it more difficult for new schools to sustain their culture over long periods of time. While many of the early, mission-driven charters, which were started by teachers and community groups, focused on teacher engagement and empowerment, most of the 100 new schools will have to focus on bottom-line issues, with principals or school directors functioning more as fund raisers than as instructional leaders. Conflicts of interest abound as charter school operators sit on board-appointed Evaluation Teams that approve or disapprove new start-up applications. The mayor calls openly for a majority of the 100 schools to be union-free, while others in the Civic Committee are pushing for 80%. All of this has deepened divisions and fostered distrust in a system in which a climate of collaboration in the reform effort had prevailed for the past decade. Most of the 100 new schools will have to focus on bottom line issues, with principals or school directors functioning more as fund raisers than as instructional leaders. The once-heralded experiment in school decentralization seems headed for the scrap heap. Resistance to Ren 10 is growing... ...The plan originally called for closing a whopping 20 of 22 schools in the Mid-South area, but not a single school in that neighborhood is closing this year, thanks to the community-organizing initiatives of groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)... 5 Ren 10 leaders have all but given up on improving or restructuring the city’s large traditional schools and are closing them instead. The small schools movement was, from its inception, a collage of educational and political forces. There was an initial group of autonomy-seeking young activist teachers who were trying to carve out some space for innovation and good teaching. Dozens of new schools were started, and new innovative models like the multiplex at Cregier High School emerged. Later, the rug was pulled out from under that movement, and the new schools were all put on a strict test-prep regimen. On Mothers Day 2001, a group of mothers and grandmothers in Little Village began a hunger strike, demanding that the leadership of the Chicago Public Schools fulfill its commitment to build a new high school in the community. Funds set aside for the new school had been spent on new exclusive-enrollment schools on the north side. The hunger strike drew widespread support from church and community groups and led to a victory when new superintendent Arne Duncan announce that the money had been “found” to build the most expensive high school in Chicago in Little Village. ...“When we petitioned the board for years for a decent school, there was no Renaissance 2010. When we had our hunger strike, there was no Renaissance 2010. When we planned the design of the school with the architects, there was no Renaissance 2010. We aren’t going to turn over our school to Renaissance 2010 now.” ...Small schools are not a panacea, and, while they create wonderful possibilities, the language of small schools can be twisted to become an excuse for inequity and promotion of the ownership culture. Every wave of official “school reform,” including small schools and Ren 10, must be met with skepticism, agnosticism, and doubt by those of us who hope and struggle for a more democratic future, a more just social order... Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 87, No. 06, February 2006 http://www.susanohanian.org/show_outrages.html? id=5407 |
| "... Every wave of official “school reform,” including small schools and Ren 10, must be met with skepticism, agnosticism, and doubt by those of us who hope and struggle for a more democratic future, a more just social order..." |
Florida's school reform results are "mixed" from Susan Ohanian blog "Reform Florida" Policy Briefs Susan Notes: Although these policy briefs focus on Florida, everyone should pay attention. Florida's reforms have served as de facto models for federal education policy. This series of policy briefs examining education reform in Florida finds that the results of the state's aggressive school-reform program have been mixed... Introduction and Executive Summary For nearly a decade, Florida has been a laboratory for school reform unlike any in the nation. While nearly every state has undertaken a variety of programs aimed at improving achievement in public schools, Florida's efforts have been more far-reaching and wide-ranging. . ...Florida voters have passed a series of mandates, in the form of amendments to the state constitution, that seek to reform education by insuring adequate resources are provided and by investing in early education and reduced class size... In upper grades the news is not so good, with continued and in some cases widening achievement gaps along ethnic and socioeconomic lines. Lisa Abrams of Boston College (Teachers' Views on High-stakes Testing: Implications for the Classroom) reports that the emphasis on test-driven assessment under the state's A-plus accountability program has tended to produce more fear than trust in Florida's classrooms. Florida teachers who took part in a national survey on the impact of high-stakes testing on their teaching practices were more likely than their counterparts in other states to report positive views of state standards and of their compatibility with the state's testing program. ...They also report that the pressure to raise test scores has produced widespread anxiety among students and quite possibly encouraged some to drop out of school. One result of the testing mandated by the A-plus accountability program has been the retention in grade of students who fall below a threshold test score. Mary Lee Smith... examines the research on the impact of retaining students in grade and finds that the practice drives up dropout rates. She concludes that although retaining students in grade provides no short-term benefits, the policy entails substantial long-term risks for students, and increases costs to taxpayers. Students retained in grade are disproportionately students living in poverty and members of ethnic minorities. Examining the state's record since the 1998 implementation of the constitutional mandate to provide "adequate provision for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools," Douglas Harris of Florida State University (Funding Florida's Schools: Adequacy, Costs, and the State Constitution) finds that a strong case can be made that the state has failed to live up to its constitutional obligation and that Florida is at risk of being held legally liable as a consequence. Harris recommends that the legislature empanel a bipartisan commission to study the state's education system and bring its funding into line with terms that would enable the state to meet the constitutional standard voters have approved. ... Florida remains under a 1990 consent decree requiring "equal and comprehensible instruction" to the state's LEP students, efforts to meet the decree's standards have been hampered by the requirements of the state's A-plus accountability system, the No Child Left Behind act, and the too-hasty movement of LEP students away from bilingual instruction and into inclusion programs. Macdonald notes, however, that Florida has avoided the wholesale hostility to bilingualism that has harmed LEP education programs elsewhere. Briefs ...examine the challenges of recruiting high quality teachers for every classroom and appropriately assessing them once they have been hired. Harris warns of a serious challenge in finding qualified teachers to fill every classroom... ...Policy makers have increasingly turned to two forms of test-driven evaluations of teachers: paper-and-pencil tests of teachers themselves, and student test scores, where student performance is used to assess teachers' competence... Find the report at: http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/epru_2004_Research_Writing.htm http://susanohanian.org/show_research.html?id=45 |
| Susan Ohanian, a longtime teacher, is a Fellow at the Vermont Society for the Study of Education. She is a co-founder of Educator Roundtable. In addition, she is a free-lance writer whose articles have appeared in periodicals ranging from the Atlantic and Washington Monthly to Phi Delta Kappan and Education Week. Susan is the recipient of The George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honest and Clarity in Public Language, National Council of Teachers of English, 2003; The Kenneth S. Goodman "In Defense of Good Teaching" Award, College of Education, University of Arizona; and The John Dewey Award for Extraordinary Contributions to the Education of Young People In America (2006). |
| [Maura's note: Sadly, educators have dropped the ball on education reform, which everyone agrees is needed. The National Education Association has left a vacuum, and through its political power has maintained that vacuum. It's no wonder that opportunists have stepped in. NEA is largely to blame for the very reforms it is opposing.] |
| “As we enter this new century, our nation’s continued prosperity rests on a strongly educated, highly skilled workforce,” Broad intoned in “Preparing Leaders for the New Economy” in School Administrator (March 2001). Fran Zimmerman, the school board member Broad wanted ousted from San Diego, told the Los Angeles Times, “He’s dabbling in social policy with all his money, and affecting change with it, but it’s not necessarily good change, and it’s not really school reform.” She emphasized, “It’s basically a business agenda for reshaping the public school system.” [Maura's note: Zimmerman is a teacher union favorite.] On April 6, 2003, Eli Broad put out a call for school boards to stop being part of the problem and become part of the solution. The Broad Foundation supports what it terms leadership capacity-building initiatives, promoting corporate-style school management in cities from Seattle to Atlanta to New York. They include training for superintendents and board members, support for charter school development, and demonstration projects such as a merit pay plan in Denver. In addition to the Broad Prize for Urban Education, there’s the Broad Center for Superintendents, and the Broad Institute for School Boards. |
The participants > > > Arlene Ackerman, superintendent, San Francisco Unified School District; Richard C. Atkinson, president, University of California; Alan Bersin, superintendent, San Diego City Schools; Dominic Brewer, director, RAND Education; Dennis Chaconas, superintendent, Oakland Unified School District; Robert Chase, former president, National Education Association; Rudolph F. Crew, director, the Stupski Foundation; John Danielson, chief of staff, U. S. Department of Education; Chester Finn, president, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation; Patricia Harvey, superintendent, St. Paul Public Schools; Genethia Hudley Hayes, board member, Los Angeles Unified School District; David Hornbeck, founder, Good Schools Pennsylvania; James Hunt, former governor, State of North Carolina; Nancy Ichinaga, member, California State Board of Education; Joel Klein, chancellor, New York City Department of Education; Wendy Kopp, president, Teach for America; Robin Kramer, senior fellow, California Community Foundation; Diana Lam, superintendent, Providence Public Schools; Arthur Levine, president, Columbia University Teachers College, Tom Luce, chairman, National Center for Educational Accountability; Joe Lucente, board president, California Network of Educational Charters; Don McAdams, executive director, Center for Reform of School Systems; Richard L. McCormick, president, University of Washington; Theodore Mitchell, president, Occidental College; Barry Munitz, president and chief executive officer, J. Paul Getty Trust; Mark Murray, president, Grand Valley State University; Joseph Olchefske, superintendent, Seattle Public Schools; Ron Ottinger, board member, San Diego City Schools, William Ouchi, professor, the Anderson School at University of California at Los Angeles; Roderick R. Paige, U. S. secretary of education, Tim Quinn, president, Michigan Leadership Institute; Richard Riordan, former mayor, City of Los Angeles; Nancy Daly- Riordan, children’s rights activist; Waldemar “Bill” Rojas, former superintendent, Dallas Public Schools; Steven Sample, president, University of Southern California; Jay Schenirer, board member, Sacramento Unified School District; Jon Schnur, CEO, New Leaders for New Schools; William Siart, president, ExED, LLC; Kim Smith, president, New Schools Venture Fund; Glen Tripp, president, Galileo Educational Services, Adam Urbanski, President, Rochester (new York) Teachers Association; Michael Usdan, senior adviser, Institute for Educational Leadership; Carolyn Webb de Macias, senior associate provost, University of Southern California; Randi Weingarten, president, United Federation of Teachers; Caprice Young, board president, Los Angeles Unified School District. |
| A Conversation with Susan Ohanian by Jo Scott-Coe JSC: You've written and spoken extensively about contradictory and exploitative language within the "Standardisto" movement. Would you distinguish between the concept of "standards" and "standardization"? Why or why not? SO: Standardistas proclaim that standards are a guarantee of educational equity. Standardization of the curriculum promises the same thing. Don't let any teacher or curricular quirkiness disrupt a perfect conveyor belt trip to education excellence. For everybody. The cynicism underlying the claims is profound. Handing out standards in the name of preparing everyone to meet the high skills that will be demanded for employment in the twenty-first century is as cynical as handing out menus to homeless people in the name of eradicating hunger... Let them eat cake. Let them take calculus. ... I don't want to argue about who will and who won't take calculus or read Hamlet. I want us to sit down and discuss at what age we start training kids to think that if they don't go to college, they will be failures (with the converse that if they do go, they will be successes). JSC: What exactly does corporate America stand to gain by a "failure" of the public school system? How should conscientious teachers and parents view corporate offers of "sponsorship" for education? SO: Some corporate interests want privatization of education, sort of a capitalist free-for-all—for their own gain. But corporate gain goes deeper than how many books and tests McGraw-Hill sells. There's a larger pattern at work. We see a similar attack on the working class as seniority rights, pension benefits, health coverage are reduced. And outsourcing makes everyone vulnerable. It suits the power brokers to have a scared, compliant workforce where everybody is competing with everybody else for survival. In a dog eat dog world of cutthroat competition, there isn't much hope for solidarity—or for democracy. So start 'em early. Train young children that their standardized test score is all that matters and they will grow up to be workers who follow orders. Train young children that they will never be good enough, and they will blame their lack of success on themselves, not on a system designed for them to fail. JSC: When you recently visited Santa Monica to speak at a local bookstore, a school board member stood up to argue that standardized tests "weren't working" for a large percentage of Santa Monica students. Her implication, intended or not, was that testing is fine for those who perform "adequately." What dangers or traps lurk inside this line of argument? SO: I taught third grade in a school that rigorously grouped kids according to their reading scores. They didn't even bother with euphemism: the kids were designated high, middle, low. By request, I had the low readers. Reading took up nearly half the school day, but the school was also departmentalized, so that I had mixed groups for social studies and science. A child with serious developmental delays and emotional problems mainstreamed into my reading group but increasingly he asked to stay for more of the day. When he appeared in the social studies class, a girl from "high" reading exclaimed, "Charles is weird." Her tone was superior and dismissive. Her friends laughed. Charles ran out of the room. I told the children how shocked I was, that "low" readers supported Charles, never laughing at him or making him feel anything but a regular part of our group. I talked to them about what high reading scores did and didn't mean in terms of important community values like friendship, cooperation, loyalty. I told them the school was wrong when it isolated children into categories of superior and not-so-superior but that they could overcome these categories and if they did so, their lives would be better for it. It so happened that Cathy, the child who called Charles weird, was warm and caring. She took my message to heart and wrote Charles a note of apology, asking for another chance to be his friend. People who make it into the lifeboats think they deserve to be there. The wealthy think their own good fortune comes from their own superiority. This attitude even infects wonderful third graders who, when finding themselves in the top reading group, aren't aware that test scores are more a function of zip codes than any innate talent. Being infected with a notion of superiority and entitlement stunts little kids' development as members of a democracy. They deserve better—and our society needs better. JSC: Teachers are vocal among themselves with concerns about testing and test-prep mania—yet they are often forced to embrace textbooks and ancillary materials published by the same companies which make the tests. How might we confront this blind spot? What makes it difficult? SO: This is hard for me to answer without sounding morally superior, but here goes. Under a tough new regime in my district, a reading inspector visited schools, making sure that teachers were on the page of the basal indicated in their lesson plans. By this time I had worked in the district for more than 10 years, had even been named the district's first Teacher of the Year. So I used my clout to good purpose. I was quite vocal about refusing to use the basal. People waited with glee for the Inspector's visit to my classroom. He blinked—offering a last-minute excuse for his non- appearance. My point here is that veteran teachers must abandon the longstanding teacher culture of cooperation and compliance with Authority. They must stand up and say "No." Nobody is going to do this for teachers. Grumbling in the faculty room goes nowhere. Corporate and political interests oppress teachers because they can. Teachers must organize and take back their profession. JSC: As a new English department chair, I attended District meetings of all English chairs to discuss textbook adoption. However, real conversation was often derailed by excitement over which company would offer the best gimmicks—filet mignon at a luncheon? red and white wines at the door? tote bags? notepads? etc. How should teachers in leadership positions respond to base consumer appeals—especially when District officials themselves play up such enticements to distract from substantive conflicts over policy and materials? SO: Lobby the school board to ban gimmicks. Ask the board for a policy on what is required—and what is disallowed—from publishers. JSC: A teachers' union in Colorado recently voted to connect teacher financial incentives to student performance on standardized tests. While applauded by some as a move towards accountability, few have commented about how this move provides teachers with financial motives to "sell out" their students to bad curriculum. What are your thoughts on the responsibility of teachers in this context? SO: We have already seen that the pressure to escape NCLB labeling has brought an increase in cheating on tests. I can't even fathom what tying students' scores to money in teachers' pockets will do. Can't you see the kindergarten teacher eliminating "show and tell"—because her pay will be based on children's knowledge of phonemes? We already see this across the country—where children who score low on pre-tests are kept in from recess, art, music, P. E., so they can practice their skills on mountains of worksheets. I shudder to think of what other "wastes of time" will disappear from schools when a teacher's income is tied to test scores. I would remind people of the World of Opportunity in Birmingham, Alabama, which rescues high schoolers pushed out of schools. There, 522 African-American students were "withdrawn" from school right before the administration of the state tests. The schools were in danger of being taken over by the state if they didn't improve their test scores. Of course the easiest way to improve scores is to get rid of low scorers. What maneuvering will go on in elementary schools to get rid of low scorers? More labeling? More behavior expulsions? We must acknowledge and honor resisters. When California started awarding bonuses for student performance on the state test some years back, a few teachers stood tall and refused it or donated it to a test resistance advocacy group or some other favorite charity. JSC: While ill-defined concern over "teacher quality" gets a lot of press at the moment, how might one play devil's advocate to argue that underqualified—or underconfident—teachers are precisely what standardization, with its "teacher-proof" materials, actually demands? SO: Clearly, lining up behind a behavioristic curriculum of test prep requires teachers who don't think too much. And I think there's something else at work. In my new book, Why Is Corporate America Bashing Public Schools? (Heinemann), I discuss the new requirements for paraprofessionals. Under NCLB, they must earn 2-year college degrees. Take a look at the math requirements: http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_stories.html?id=38 Read these hyper-qualifications for paraprofessionals along with news that corporate committees are advocating $100,000 salaries for top teachers in a restructured profession with tiers of professionalism. Pay a top teacher $100,000 to direct a horde of paraprofessionals to use the direct instruction curriculum. Parents will be assured that Paras, who make $9 an hour, have college degrees. This scheme will be a big money saver and will further cement corporate values in the schoolhouse. JSC: It's ironic that, while we claim we want students to be "lifelong learners" and "critical thinkers," schools seem to expect passivity and acquiescence from teachers themselves... SO: ...I know that if schools ever encouraged or allowed people to think for themselves, we'd have a democratic revolution dismantling the current power structure. Since jobs in our society are distributed on the basis of social class, it is in the interest of the corporate-politico Standardistas to keep independent thought out of the schools—for teachers and learners... http://www.educationoasis.com/resources/Articles/conversation_ohanian.htm Education Oasis |
| NEWS FROM THE TEST RESISTANCE TRAIL Ms. Ohanian offers readers reams of evidence showing that the Standardisto boat is leaking badly. By Susan Ohanian AS A LONGTIME seventh-grade teacher who is intimately familiar with an atmosphere of ongoing crisis and impending doom, I'm not often overcome by apocalyptic imaginings. But the arrival of two officers of the law from Gwinnett County, Georgia, on our doorstep in rural Vermont did get my attention. The cops threatened my extradition for a felony, punishable by five years in jail and a $50,000 fine. I've seen cantaloupes smaller than the badge packed by the cop who told me my link to the felony is that I live five miles from the post office from which a high-stakes Gwinnett County test, written by CTB/McGraw-Hill, was mailed to the Georgia media. Go figure. Gwinnett County, Georgia, isn't desperate to raise average test scores, which are pretty darned good already. This affluent suburban Atlanta district, which enrolls 110,300 students in its public schools, is the showcase of Gov. Roy Barnes' plan for raising school standards statewide. It is the first district in Georgia to institute high-stakes tests. Even so, the Georgia media have shown no interest in commenting on the loony test questions used to decide whether students pass or fail a grade. Maybe journalists think it appropriate for fourth-graders to be interrogated about the socio/political/economic effects of the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin or whether one is more likely to find information about the history of pretzels in a newspaper or an encyclopedia. Anyone who thinks the answer to the pretzel question is obvious should try looking up "pretzels" in an encyclopedia, something the test item writers obviously failed to do. Anyone who thinks Gwinnett County is unique must have been taking a long snooze. Fourth-graders in New York City are interrogated about the purity of maple syrup; high-schoolers are asked to respond to an essay by Roger Ascham (you know, the 16th-century fellow who gained fame for his essay on archery). Students in Los Angeles are asked about lemon mousse. The SAT 9 (Stanford Achievement Test) gives third-graders a rigorous proofreading test, along with some nutty vocabulary items. Quick, does one visit the Statue of Liberty or the statue of liberty? Is a raindrop hitting one's head more like a dart hitting a target or a storm hitting a region? More important, does anyone think the answers should determine whether a student passes or fails third grade? The SAT 9 sixth-grade social studies inquisition defies description. It seems to be playing one-upmanship with E. D. Hirsch's What Your Sixth-Grader Needs to Know. I've long thought Hirsch's curriculum for sixth-graders was wacky in its scope (and lack of sequence), but the SAT 9 makes Hirsch look puny. The SAT 9 interrogates sixth-graders on the functions of local government (as contrasted with state and national), on the location of Idaho and Utah on a U.S. map (full disclosure: my Ph.D. husband missed both), on the processes of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, on the relationship between production and consumption, on causes of the change in American family structure, and on the meaning of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. The SAT 9 asks sixth-graders to identify the requirements for a police search of one's home; the climate of Moscow, Seattle, Cairo, and Paris; the Northwest Ordinance of 1787; the outcome of the Industrial Revolution; reasons that English colonists came to Massachusetts; and results of the Louisiana Purchase. Sixth-graders must also know about Eli Whitney, the Holocaust, and treaties between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s; the reason for the growth of urban areas in the 19th century; why the Republican Party was formed in 1854; the relationship of Henry Ford's assembly line to the price of cars; whether the person for whom Constantinople was named was a pope, scholar, emperor, or poet; what the law says about handicap access; what archeologists study; the differences between a will, a license, a deed, and a lien; and the significance of California's being granted statehood before Wyoming. Whew! Fifth-graders have it easy. They just have to guess whether totem poles carved by the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest were most like modern family albums, road maps, science books, or almanacs. They also need to know whether the clothes of early Hawaiians who lived in rain forests were most likely made from wool, feathers, sealskin, or cotton. In California, complaints circulate that the SAT 9 test is too hard in grade 2 and just gets worse through the grades. The Los Angeles Times, long rumored to be in possession of a bootlegged test, published questions in fall 2000, along with expert commentary explaining how goofy the questions are. A teacher, frustrated by threats of losing his job if he reveals what he knows about the inconsistencies and outrages of the SAT 9, posted research findings on a test resistance website. His work indicates wildly inappropriate reading levels. He also points out that students taking the Graduate Record Examination or the Law School Admissions Test are given more time per item than is given to a 6-year-old taking the SAT 9. Mickey VanDenwerker is a cofounder of Parents Across Virginia United to Reform SOLs. (SOL stands for Standards of Learning and is Virginia's entry in the "test 'em till they drop" marathon.) VanDenwerker points out that posing questions like "What is a cartouche?" to measure a student's knowledge of "the contributions of ancient Egypt and China which have had an impact on world history, with emphasis on written language, laws, calendars, and architectural monuments such as the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China" is what caused her son, a sixth-grader, to fall backwards off the bus because his book bag was too heavy. "He weighs 62 pounds; the book bag is 41 pounds. He does homework from 5 to 9 each night with a 25-minute break for dinner. He has gone to bed crying twice this week because he is doing a 1,000-word research paper on what the walls of the U.S. Capitol would say (from 1800 to 1900) in addition to everything else. We are definitely speeded up around here." Is it any wonder that the people who write these tests and the Standardistos who spend millions of dollars buying them insist that they be kept secret? Teachers in New Jersey are forbidden to look at the tests while they are administering them to the children in their care. Glancing at a test question is the eighth deadly sin in New Jersey. Teresa Glenn, a North Carolina middle school teacher, was suspended for five days for paraphrasing two oddball test items on a listserv set up by the state as a place for teachers to discuss educational concerns. Teachers may be concerned about the test, but they are forbidden to discuss it. Fortunately for Oregon teacher Bill Bigelow, the Portland superintendent refused the then-state superintendent's demand to fire Bigelow for writing an article titled "Social Studies Tests from Hell." Jim Bougas, a Massachusetts middle school teacher, was suspended for two weeks for refusing to give the state's high-stakes test as required by the corporate-led forces of education reform in that state. Bougas says, "If the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) continues, I have no job because they've taken it away from me as long as I have to spend my time teaching to the test." At 17 hours, the MCAS is longer than the Massachusetts bar exam. In Birmingham, Alabama, Steve Orel, an adult education instructor, was fired for questioning why 522 students were pushed out of city schools that were under threat of state takeover because of their low test scores. The students were "administratively withdrawn" shortly before the SAT 9 tests were administered. Testing experts note that the easiest way for a school to raise its scores is to make sure the students who are likely to score lowest don't take the test. Obviously, those who are kicked out of school won't be there to take the test. Although fired, Orel refused to stay down. He has opened a new school, with new students arriving daily. Teachers and students around the country are responding to his efforts and raising money to buy books to send to Birmingham. 1 Veteran Chicago teacher and journalist George Schmidt has paid the highest price for resisting high-stakes tests. Schmidt was fired from what even his antagonists admit was a distinguished career of 29 years teaching in the public schools of Chicago. He is also being sued for $1.3 million for publishing six of 22 Chicago pilot tests in Substance, an investigative and analytical newspaper about Chicago schools. 2 Independent experts, including Gerald Bracey, have declared these tests unprofessional, simplistic, and error-ridden, but Schmidt, not the test-makers, is on the firing line. A group of teachers and parents has established the Committee to Recognize Courage in Education and offers the Emperor's Clothes Award.3 George Schmidt will be the first recipient of the group's award. Last February, the St. Petersburg Times challenged Florida politicians to take the high-stakes tests they insist high-schoolers pass in order to graduate. All declined. Parents and teachers in Colorado asked Gov. Bill Owens and Bill Maloney, the state commissioner of education, to take the CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program), the high-stakes test that the president of the Colorado Association of School Boards said Einstein would probably have failed. Both state officials declined. Parents are speaking out against the testing insanity. Carol Holst, a Texas mother-turned-activist who heads the Parents United to Reform TAAS Testing, tells of her fourth-grade son who couldn't sleep because he was worried that, if he and his classmates didn't do well on the test, Holst would lose her job and her children would not have food. She points out that her son's school had no science or social studies because they aren't covered on the TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills). Mary O'Brien, a parent activist who has been questioning the Ohio Proficiency Tests (OPTs) for more than three years, says her husband and sons tell people that the telephone receiver is "surgically attached" to her ear. O'Brien says that her group's largest success has been in holding testing parties, groups of 10 to 15 people who come together to learn about the tests. Parents in Gwinnett County, Georgia, took the fourth-grade practice test and then asked why they, well-educated adults, scored so miserably. They formed the Concerned Parents of Gwinnett County to fight the tests. Now these parents are under investigation by Gwinnett County policemen. The cops who appeared at my home promised to go easy on me if I'd just implicate the activist parent who set up the protest website, who filed for documents under the Freedom of Information Act, and who distributed fliers that provoked 700 concerned parents to show up at a school board meeting to protest the high-stakes tests. On 3 August 2000, some 1,000 teachers attended the Gwinnett County school system's orientation for new teachers and heard tips on communicating with parents. Maybe the governor and the cops should have been invited. In 1937 Frank Lloyd Wright built a house in Wisconsin for industrialist Hibbard Johnson. One rainy evening Johnson was entertaining some important guests for dinner when the roof began to leak. The water dripped onto Johnson's bald head. He telephoned Wright in a rage. "Frank, you have built this beautiful house, but I have told you the roof leaks, and right now it's leaking right on my head." Wright replied, "Why don't you move your chair?" That's an answer worthy of the Standardistos. When 97% of the schools in Virginia fail the state test, state officials declare that something must be wrong with the students, but not with the test. But as the Honor Roll of Resistance shows, the Standardisto boat is leaking badly. Last October, on the occasion of receiving the New York ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) Educator of the Year award, Thomas Sobel, the former state commissioner of education, remarked that we "don't need more prizes for measuring rain but should award prizes instead for building arks." Sobel added that it's time for people to stand up and say that our current mania for standards and measurements is "crazy and immoral." He concluded by observing that the people who do stand up may be lonely. But they will also be doing the Lord's work. SUSAN OHANIAN is a ...media consultant for the John Dewey Project on Progressive Education at the University of Vermont, Burlington. from Phi Delta Kappan International http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/koha0101.htm |
| We need to remember that our high school graduates will become chefs, plumbers, child-care workers, as well as musicians and artists. We must consider the possibility that the ability to manipulate quadratic equations might not be a realistic goal for all. Certainly we must not dump kids who don't achieve this goal to the slagheap of high school dropouts. Don't parents want clear standards? Parents want their children to be in the care of competent teachers who are capable to nurturing those children, teachers who like their children whether or not they read on grade level. I sat on the plane next to a heart-broken father whose son was denied a high school diploma because he did not meet the reading standards. Dad kept telling me what a great kid his deaf son is personable, reliable, hard working, honest, helpful. And now he can't get a job in the Federal Express warehouse because he doesn't have a high school diploma. Dad didn't expect his son to get a high-tech job; he wanted his kid to be able to work in a warehouse. |
| Mining the knowledge and experience. What a metaphor. What a reality. Dig right in. |
| Susan Ohanian of Charlotte is a senior fellow at the Vermont Society for the Study of Education. Is it rigor, or is it rigor mortis? 04/06/2006 By Susan Ohanian Rutland Herald April 6, 2006 Rigor, this decade's word of the day for the education industrial complex, commands scrutiny. In 1999, when Edward Rust Jr., chief executive officer of State Farm Insurance Company, addressed the U. S. House of Representatives, saying that "the federal government has a role in helping states develop and maintain rigorous academic standards," he brought the weight of his chairmanship of the National Alliance of Business and the Education Task Force for The Business Roundtable, not to mention board positions at McGraw-Hill, Achieve Inc., and the Business-Higher Education Forum. Six years later, speaking at the National Governors Association education summit, Bill Gates identified a new set of three R's — the first one being rigor. In announcing a $42 million initiative to prepare all students for success, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation trumpeted: Leaders call for equity, rigor in the American high school. And when money talks, politicos legislate. The president's 774-page budget bill calls for the federal government to rate the academic rigor of the nation's 18,000 high schools. Republicans and Democrats vie for whose education platform is more rigorous: Mom, apple pie, and rigor. Rigor: Strictness or severity, as in temperament, action, or judgment. A harsh or trying circumstance; hardship. A harsh or cruel act. Physiology: A state of rigidity in living tissues or organs that prevents response to stimuli. Synonym: Stiffness, rigidness; inflexibility; severity; austerity; sternness; harshness; strictness; exactness. —The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition. Nonetheless, the clamor for rigor increases. It's no surprise that Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings promotes advanced placement courses as "a very effective model to get teachers the full capability to teach rigorous course work." More disquieting, even bizarre, is Montgomery County superintendent Jerry Weast's campaign, headlined in an article "Why We Need Rigorous, Full-Day Kindergarten." In June 2006, Montgomery County holds its second annual conference titled Partners for Rigor Through Relevancy. Stevens Elementary School in Washington promises to achieve its goal of 77.2 percent of students meeting standards on the fourth grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning by promoting a "school focus of respect, responsibility, and rigor." The South Dakota Department of Education distributes checklists on which teachers indicate how well professional development activities produced "Increased Academic Rigor in my Classes." The CESA 4 Standards and Assessment Center in Wisconsin, provides alignment worksheets and rigor ladders in reading and mathematics, though just what the difference between a rigor ladder and a skills checklist is not readily apparent. In the Elementary Education Newsletter, winter 2006, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell writes that the mathematics framework for California public schools provides for the "implementation of a rigorous and coherent mathematics curriculum for kindergarten through grade 12." California unionists join in. Representing the 319,000-member California Teachers Association, Betty Ann James announced, "Let me assure you that today's rigorous kindergarten aims to prepare youngsters to succeed in the hard academic work that begins in first grade." Not surprisingly, for-profit organizations move in for the rigor kill. The International Center for Leadership in Education, headed by Dr. William R. Daggett, has developed The Rigor/Relevance Framework. Vermont's former education commissioner Ray McNulty is a senior consultant with this outfit. Their Rigor and Relevance Handbook is available for $40 (plus postage). In its report the State of State Standards the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., assigned each state a grade for their academic standards. The grades were based on the standards' measurability, specificity, and rigor. Rigor being in the eye of the beholder, Vermont received a D-plus. Across the country, journalists and editorialists pick up on the corporate call for rigor: "more academically rigorous material to lower grades" (Burlington Free Press); questioning "whether spring test results meet rigorous new federal standards for student performance" (Raleigh News and Observer); "Blame parents for lack of rigor in high schools, Gov. Tom Vilsack says" (Des Moines Register); "the national effort to ratchet up the rigor of American high school education." (New York Times) Perhaps we in Vermont can take some small comfort that rigor doesn't rear its ugly head until page 3 of the Vermont Department of Education application for a Reading First grant from the federal government. There, the department promises to provide rigorous expectations for reading instruction throughout the grant sites and across the state. And please note: They are talking about the education of 5-year-olds. Read further and you'll see what the department has abandoned in the name of this rigor. Thanks to the edicts of the rapacious No Child Left Behind and its illegitimate spawn, Reading First, kindergartners and primary graders now inhabit rigorous skill drill zones. In the guidelines for Reading First applications, the federal government made it clear what was expected, warning, "State applications, however, will be held to rigorous standards for approval." Money commands, and the Vermont Department of Education followed orders. In marching to the corporate- politicos' tune, the Department of Education has strayed far from the principles of the Vermont Design for Education, a 1968 statement of belief about how children learn. One must ask whom, besides functionaries at the U. S. Department of Education, they consulted before doing this. The word rigor does not appear in the 10-page Design for Education, but plenty of good words do. Vermonters would do well to reject the corporate-politico jingles and look again to our educational roots. The Vermont Design for Education is a good place to start. Susan Ohanian of Charlotte is a senior fellow at the Vermont Society for the Study of Education. Thanks for posting this Susan. I've been meaning to research education in Vermont, as I'm convinced that bad education is one of the United States' primary ills. Let me get this straight- Vermont consistently places in the top five states in primary education, but we get a "D," in "rigor?" I went to a high school with 4000 students in Fairfax County, Virginia, ranked as one of the three best counties in the nation for education. There were certainly several tiers of expectations. In particular, English classes & political science classes differed markedly for the "smart," kids. The rest was rigorous Pavlovian cash-register conditioning. All this "rigor," is going to do is squelch the inquisitive mind, and convince children that "learning," is miserable work. They'll be much happier if they simply go to work, watch T.V. and buy stuff. Yeah. And don't ask too many questions, kid, we're studying for a test, and we get more money if you do well... If we want to have a functional citizenry in our new Vermont, we're going to have to dispense with this assembly line education. This is the perfect place to ask the question: would we like to have $10,000 to spend as we want, or $11,500 to spend as the American Federal government says we have to? I'll take the $10,000. Submitted by J.Arthur Loose on Fri, 04/07/2006 - 9:29am. Login or register to post comments Greetings Susan and Jol, AsGreetings Susan and Jol, As an educator for fifteen years myself, I agree with both of you. We can do more with less. We can educate our children with more compassion AND teach them real life skills suitable to living in our changing 21st century world, one that won't need to instill rigor for rigor's sake, or assembly-line obedience, in the hearts and minds of our young people. Let's take this up in our fall "back to school" Vermont Commons issue, shall we? Cheers, Rob http://www.vtcommons.org/blog/2006/04/06/it-rigor-or-it-rigor- mortis |
| from Susan Ohanian's blog Parents Use Test Scores To Pick Out New Houses When Aparna Seethepalli and Sarvesh Jagannivas jumped into the housing market, they met their real estate agent armed with spreadsheets, charts, and one number: 920. With two young children, the couple only wanted to buy in one of Silicon Valley's best school districts. So they insisted on seeing houses near schools with scores of 920 or above on the state's Academic Performance Index. The latest API scores, released Thursday, rank California public schools based on how well students score on standardized tests. Parents, teachers and superintendents always pay close attention to the scores. But the scores are also driving real estate prices for prospective home buyers and sellers, real estate agents and educators say, because they make it possible to compare schools to others within the same school district. From Fremont to Almaden Valley to Palo Alto, ``score shopping'' is more important to some than commute times, lot size or granite counter tops. Critics argue that API only proves how well students take tests, while real learning is influenced by creative teaching, innovative music or arts programs, and classroom culture. High API scores are overwhelmingly associated with socioeconomic status and the education levels of parents, so some educators grumble that API stands for ``Affluent Parent Index.'' Schools with low scores tend to have high concentrations of students living in poverty or learning English for the first time. Sarvesh Jagannivas, a marketing director at San Jose's Agile Software, knows that API doesn't tell a school's whole story. But when he and his wife began their house hunt last spring, he crunched API data with gusto. He talked to friends and colleagues about schools and scores and pored over Web sites such as www.great schools.net. He carefully plotted charts and graphs, paying close attention to schools that made gains on API over time and those that showed volatility. ``It became for us literally a number for the school and the community,'' said Jagannivas, who attended private schools in his native India but wants a public school experience for his children. ``If a school had 850 and they inched upward in a consistent fashion, I knew something good was happening in the school.'' His intense preparation made his wife chuckle. ``My husband is an analytical MBA type of guy -- everything has to be graphed and charted out,'' she said. ``Education is very important to us, and API scores were the best measure for us to say `This is a good school.' '' Their Realtor, Malka Nagel, has seen this kind of research before. ``One client came in with a map of various cities and stickers everywhere,'' said Nagel. ``It was color coded for Most Acceptable, Acceptable, and Least Acceptable schools.'' One Cupertino real estate agent plans to include API scores in an upcoming mailer. Another found clients a townhouse they loved -- great neighborhood, right price -- but they declined to make an offer because the assigned school had an API of 818, and they wanted 850 or above. The state says that all schools should strive for a score of at least 800. ``Realtors ask questions about API that are as technical as any questions I get from local superintendents,'' said Jack O'Connell, a former teacher and the state superintendent of public instruction. The Fremont Union High School District has five high schools -- Cupertino, Fremont, Homestead, Lynbrook and Monta Vista -- that are among the best in the state. But within the district, slight variations in API scores greatly affect real estate prices. Homes within the boundaries of high- scoring Monta Vista and Lynbrook command higher prices than equivalent houses in the Homestead or Cupertino attendance areas, which in turn are higher then Fremont. One agent said that a house that would sell for $780,000 in the Cupertino high school attendance area probably would fetch $1 million in Monta Vista. ``It becomes a situation where the good schools get sought after, and that drives up appreciation,'' said Steve Elich, a Coldwell Banker agent in Cupertino. ``As the prices go up the people who can afford them tend to be higher educated, so the schools get even better. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.'' Shelby Spain, Fremont Union's assessment director, warns that API, while important, is not the only measure parents should look at. ``We need to get the message across that API is not the most important factor,'' said Spain. ``You need to look at the courses that are offered and the culture of the school.'' One of Elich's clients, David McDonnell, is currently renting in San Francisco with his wife and two children. McDonnell commutes to Redwood Shores in Redwood City for work, and they want to buy in the Cherry Chase neighborhood of Sunnyvale. Elich taught them the ins and outs of API, and 850 is the number they have in mind. ``We look at the home as the largest investment we'll ever make,'' said McDonnell, who is already thinking about preschool for his 20-month-old son and 5-week-old daughter. ``I see good schools as an insurance policy against a crash in the market. Even in down markets, if the real estate flatlines, you'll be able to get a good return on your investment.'' Seethepalli and Jagannivas got lucky. They could afford to buy a house in Saratoga's ``golden triangle,'' the area that feeds Saratoga High School. In April, they closed on a house with a beautifully landscaped front yard, three bedrooms, and a plum tree. It cost more than $1 million, but they feel it is worth it. Their 6- year-old daughter, Ankitha, is in the first grade at Argonaut Elementary, which has an API score of 949 (a slight drop from last year's score of 952). ``We are quite happy with the school,'' said Jagannivas, who likes the emphasis on math and science, the level of parental involvement, and the fact that it feeds Redwood Middle School and Saratoga High School. ``So far my hypothesis has come true.'' — Dana Hull San Jose Mercury News 2004-10-29 http://www.mercurynews. com/mld/mercurynews/living/education/10045224.htm FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of education issues vital to a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information click here. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. This is G o o g l e's cache of http://susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch. php?id=3155 as retrieved on Jan 31, 2008 23:25:45 GMT. |
| [Maura's note: I agree with Susan and Spock--to a degree. Psychologists find that the truly intelligent know more than they think they know, but that there are many less-intelligent people who are confident that they are smarter than everyone else, even though tests prove they are fooling themselves. I suggest standardized testing for teachers, and a competent teacher in every classroom. Then we wouldn't have to give kids standardized tests very often, maybe once every few years. The fact is that "standardistos" come from the dominant teacher culture, which is NOT knowledgeable, intuitive, pragmatic or flexible.] |
| According to the Broad Foundation website (http:// www.broad foundation. org/), its plan is to “redefine the traditional roles, practices, and policies of school board members, superintendents, principals, and labor union leaders to better address contemporary challenges in education.” Broad’s deep pockets mean it gets to define those challenges. Follow Broad money: A pattern emerges of business and foundation money moving in on local elections. Founder Eli Broad was influential in getting the Los Angeles superintendency for former Colorado governor Roy Romer, and it’s no coincidence that the Broad Foundation gave its first urban ed prize to Houston — with Rod Paige at the helm. A tight circle of backslapping and influence peddling reigns. Writing in the San Diego Reader, Matt Potter asked, “Why would two obscure East Coast liberal foundations unite with some of the most conservative and wealthiest of San Diego business interests in a secretive attempt to defeat incumbent board member Frances O’Neill Zimmerman?” The answer is that Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad’ s money reaches far and wide — from California school boards to East Coast foundations with liberal ties. In 1999, Broad teamed up with then-Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan and Ron Burkle to get what they called a reform-minded school board elected. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, funds from the Coalition for Kids, created by Riordan and Broad, broke the union stranglehold over the Los Angeles Unified School District. The Los Angeles Times agreed, also tagging Riordan’s manipulations as “reform.” A Times editorial praised Riordan and “the business-led Committee on Effective School Governance” for supporting school board reform candidates who would “hold greedy labor demands at bay . . . and put improving student achievement ahead of teacher union wish lists.” The alternative press put it differently. Writing in LA Weekly, Howard Blume noted, “Most of the money is from the pockets of the mayor himself and dozens of his closest rich friends and associates.” With big money being spent to dump three incumbents from their $24,000-per- year low-profile jobs, the operation is known as the most expensive school board campaign in the country’s history. |
| [Maura's guess: because they received poor educations, too! That's the reason many teachers can't teach well. They were never taught well themselves.] |
| According to Forbes 400, at $3.8 billion, Eli Broad places forty-fifth in U. S. wealth. Number eighty-two in world’s richest. You have to be quick on your feet to keep up with new Broad projects to reform education. |
| [Maura's note: Right. But why do you talk about grand, unlikely scenarios, and at the same time refuse to criticize the extreme hostility of teachers and their unions toward discussion of change?] |
| “By mining the knowledge and experiences of successful school districts and then helping other districts use that knowledge and experience, this program aims to accelerate the gains in the bottom line — improved student achievement and school system performance,” said Eli Broad. (American Product and Quality Center. 2001.Press Release. 21 August. Accessed at http: //old. apqc.org /about/press /dispPress Release.cfm? ProductID=1431) |
| [Maura's note: I agree with Ms. Ohanian that it almost always does much more harm than good when a child is forced to repeat a grade. |
| On August 21, 2001, the Broad Foundation and the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), which identifies itself as a nonprofit organization and “a recognized leader in benchmarking, knowledge management and best- practice information,” announced that Chicago’s school district had been chosen as a national model for leadership and principal development in our nation’s public schools. The Broad Foundation’s Benchmarking Project was putting up $600,000 to identify what works in public schools. |
| Susan Ohanian makes a lot of sense a lot of the time--but why doesn't she talk about practical solutions? For example: we could reduce the responsibilities of mediocre (or worse) teachers, and let them assist master teachers. Master teachers would be responsible for several classrooms. Example 2: reduce the influence of those who maintain their power in the education establishment through illegal tactics (this would include (administrators and officials who milk the system, and the private companies, including insurance companies, who pull the strings). |
| Who should be allowed to talk about school reform? Apparently only people who agree with Susan Ohanian and CTA. |
2002-11-02
By Susan Ohanian
Studying conferences programs
reveals a lot of info about Standardisto
bedfellows
We often hear the political exhortation
"Follow the money!" Here's our chance
to do it: From golf games to breakout
sessions, to every morsel of food and
drink, money talks at the annual
get-together of the National
Association of State Boards of
Education. Money talks, and it talks
dirty. How dirty? Just read this program
very carefully. Then keep this ed biz
coziness in mind the next time you
read blather from your state board of
education about a teacher's
responsibilities for standards and
measures.
National Association of State
Boards of Education
2002 Annual Conference
October 10-12, 2002
Westin Horton Plaza Hotel
San Diego, California
Thursday, Oct 10, 2002
Pre-Conference Activities
7:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
NASBE Foundation Golf Tournament
Torrey Pines Golf Course, La Jolla, CA
8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Healthy Schools Network
8:45 a.m. - 4:45 p.m.
High School Institute
Restructuring High Schools: From
Policy to Practice
Sponsored by the Carnegie
Corporation
2:00 - 3:45 p.m.
Boardsmanship Institute
"State Board Website Technologies"
Amivtav Thamba (1)
Friday, Oct. 11
8:00 - 9:30 a.m.
Opening Session Breakfast
Keynote speaker: Roy Romer
Sponsored by The McGraw Hill
Companies (2)
9:45 - 11:00 a.m.
Breakout sessions
Teacher recruitment and retention
Panel: Michael Poliakoff (3)
Margaret Fortune (4)
Sponsored by National Evaluation
Systems (5)
Physical Education for Life
Panel: Jean Blaydes (6), Phil Lawler
Sponsored by Coca-Cola USA (7)
11:15 - 12:15 p.m.
General Session Speaker
Dr. Charles Hayne (8)
12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Policy Leader of the Year luncheon
Sponsored by ETS K-12 Works (9)
2:15 - 3:30p.m.
Breakout Session
Implementation of ESEA
James Horne (10), Florida Secretary of
Education
Sponsored by Data Recognition
Corporation
Saturday, Oct. 12
8:15 ? 9:00 a.m.
Topical Breakfast
Sponsored by Educational Testing
Service **
9:30 - 10:30 a.m.
General Session Speaker
U. S. Assistant Secretary of Education
Susan Neuman (11)
Sponsored by Harcourt Educational
Measurement *
12:15 - 1:30p.m.
General Session Luncheon
Adelaide Sanford (12)
Sponsored by Holy[sic], Rinehart &
Winston and Harcourt School
Publishers *
6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
President's Reception
Sponsored by Houghton Mifflin *
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
President's Banquet
Notes [regarding speakers]
(1) Amivtav Thamba
Thamba is with Crowe Chizek and
Company, in partnership with IBM. In
his report to the Indiana Education
Roundtable, advocating
comprehensive data collection on
every student, Thamba said, ?doing
this costs less than not doing it.?
(2) Keynoter and McGraw Hill
Standards in practice: Los Angeles
adopts Open Court. McGraw Hill
sponsors LA Superintendent of
Schools Roy Romer.
(3) Michael Poliakoff
President of the teacher-bashing
National Council on Teacher Quality,
formerly the Teacher Quality Initiative,
created by an alliance between the
Education Leaders Council and the
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.
(4)Margaret Fortune
Executive Director, Project Pipeline,
Northern California Teacher
Recruitment Center [Alternative
Certification].
(5) National Evaluation Systems
National Evaluation Systems, Inc.? is
an education services company that
develops and administers customized
teacher certification testing.
(6) Jean Blaydes
Texas P. E. Teacher of the Year
(7) Coca-Cola USA
8/1/02: North Carolina News &
Observer reports that Wake County
students and teachers chugged
enough soda for school system to
collect $2 million from its exclusive
beverage contract. But some folk (not
at Assocation of State Boards of
Education) are beginning to worry
about health risks to children.
(8) Dr. Charles Haynes
Here's the one speaker without a
corporate sponsor. Could it be
because he is from the First
Amendment Center?
(9) ETS K-12 Works
Princeton, N.J. (May 28, 2002) ETS
today announced that its new
(for-profit) unit will be called K-12
Assessments.
(10) James Horne
"The No Child Left Behind Act includes
many important provisions, but I
believe one that is particularly key and
relevant to this morning's hearing is
the focus on 'scientifically based
research.' This term is used
throughout the new law in a way which
will require everything from technical
assistance for failing schools to
reading programs to be based upon
sound scientific evidence that shows
such strategies are effective toward
improving student academic
achievement."
testimony to Committee on Education
& the Workforce, 107th Congress
(11)Susan Neuman
"We're no longer debating whether
scientifically based research and
scientifically based evidence is
important, we know it now is important
and we know it is critical. As many of
you know, we have counted one
hundred and eleven times that the
phrase 'scientifically based research' is
in our new law."
February 6, 2002
Susan Neuman said the new federal
No Child Left Behind Act, if
implemented the right way, will put an
end to creative and experimental
teaching methods in the nations'
classrooms.
"It will stifle, and hopefully it will kill
(them)," said Neuman, U.S. assistant
secretary of education. "Our children
are not laboratory rats." October 25,
2002
(12) Adelaide Sanford
New York State Regents Vice
Chancellor, she produced the report
"Perform or Perish."
* McGraw-Hill, Harcourt, and Houghton
Mifflin
When Congress increased this year?s
budget for the Department of
Education by $11 billion, it set aside
$400 million to help states develop and
administer the tests mandated by the
"No Child Left Behind Act" for children
in grades 3 through 8. Among the
likely benefactors of the extra funds
are: CTB McGraw-Hill, Harcourt
Educational Measurement, and
Riverside Publishing (a Houghton
Mifflin company).
According to an October 2001 report
in Educational Marketer, CTB
McGraw-Hill, Harcourt, and Riverside
write 96 percent of the exams
administered at the state level.
The news has been filled with testing
mishaps, but the drum roll for testing
continues. An ad for NCS Pearson
notes that they are the "nation's
largest commercial processor of
student assessments serving over 40
statewide K-12 testing programs."
It does not mention the terrible
mistakes, such as those in Minnesota
which prevented seniors who'd passed
the state from graduating but NCS had
flubbed the scoring.
** ETS
In a rather incredible statement on the
Educational Testing Service website,
ETS President and CEO Kurt M.
Landgraf explains how, through
testing, ETS is fighting terrorism.
NOTE: This article will appear in the
November 2002 Substance.
Get your subscription today.
$16 to: Substance, 5132 W. Berteau,
Chicago, IL 60641
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=62
By Susan Ohanian
Studying conferences programs
reveals a lot of info about Standardisto
bedfellows
We often hear the political exhortation
"Follow the money!" Here's our chance
to do it: From golf games to breakout
sessions, to every morsel of food and
drink, money talks at the annual
get-together of the National
Association of State Boards of
Education. Money talks, and it talks
dirty. How dirty? Just read this program
very carefully. Then keep this ed biz
coziness in mind the next time you
read blather from your state board of
education about a teacher's
responsibilities for standards and
measures.
National Association of State
Boards of Education
2002 Annual Conference
October 10-12, 2002
Westin Horton Plaza Hotel
San Diego, California
Thursday, Oct 10, 2002
Pre-Conference Activities
7:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
NASBE Foundation Golf Tournament
Torrey Pines Golf Course, La Jolla, CA
8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Healthy Schools Network
8:45 a.m. - 4:45 p.m.
High School Institute
Restructuring High Schools: From
Policy to Practice
Sponsored by the Carnegie
Corporation
2:00 - 3:45 p.m.
Boardsmanship Institute
"State Board Website Technologies"
Amivtav Thamba (1)
Friday, Oct. 11
8:00 - 9:30 a.m.
Opening Session Breakfast
Keynote speaker: Roy Romer
Sponsored by The McGraw Hill
Companies (2)
9:45 - 11:00 a.m.
Breakout sessions
Teacher recruitment and retention
Panel: Michael Poliakoff (3)
Margaret Fortune (4)
Sponsored by National Evaluation
Systems (5)
Physical Education for Life
Panel: Jean Blaydes (6), Phil Lawler
Sponsored by Coca-Cola USA (7)
11:15 - 12:15 p.m.
General Session Speaker
Dr. Charles Hayne (8)
12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Policy Leader of the Year luncheon
Sponsored by ETS K-12 Works (9)
2:15 - 3:30p.m.
Breakout Session
Implementation of ESEA
James Horne (10), Florida Secretary of
Education
Sponsored by Data Recognition
Corporation
Saturday, Oct. 12
8:15 ? 9:00 a.m.
Topical Breakfast
Sponsored by Educational Testing
Service **
9:30 - 10:30 a.m.
General Session Speaker
U. S. Assistant Secretary of Education
Susan Neuman (11)
Sponsored by Harcourt Educational
Measurement *
12:15 - 1:30p.m.
General Session Luncheon
Adelaide Sanford (12)
Sponsored by Holy[sic], Rinehart &
Winston and Harcourt School
Publishers *
6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
President's Reception
Sponsored by Houghton Mifflin *
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
President's Banquet
Notes [regarding speakers]
(1) Amivtav Thamba
Thamba is with Crowe Chizek and
Company, in partnership with IBM. In
his report to the Indiana Education
Roundtable, advocating
comprehensive data collection on
every student, Thamba said, ?doing
this costs less than not doing it.?
(2) Keynoter and McGraw Hill
Standards in practice: Los Angeles
adopts Open Court. McGraw Hill
sponsors LA Superintendent of
Schools Roy Romer.
(3) Michael Poliakoff
President of the teacher-bashing
National Council on Teacher Quality,
formerly the Teacher Quality Initiative,
created by an alliance between the
Education Leaders Council and the
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.
(4)Margaret Fortune
Executive Director, Project Pipeline,
Northern California Teacher
Recruitment Center [Alternative
Certification].
(5) National Evaluation Systems
National Evaluation Systems, Inc.? is
an education services company that
develops and administers customized
teacher certification testing.
(6) Jean Blaydes
Texas P. E. Teacher of the Year
(7) Coca-Cola USA
8/1/02: North Carolina News &
Observer reports that Wake County
students and teachers chugged
enough soda for school system to
collect $2 million from its exclusive
beverage contract. But some folk (not
at Assocation of State Boards of
Education) are beginning to worry
about health risks to children.
(8) Dr. Charles Haynes
Here's the one speaker without a
corporate sponsor. Could it be
because he is from the First
Amendment Center?
(9) ETS K-12 Works
Princeton, N.J. (May 28, 2002) ETS
today announced that its new
(for-profit) unit will be called K-12
Assessments.
(10) James Horne
"The No Child Left Behind Act includes
many important provisions, but I
believe one that is particularly key and
relevant to this morning's hearing is
the focus on 'scientifically based
research.' This term is used
throughout the new law in a way which
will require everything from technical
assistance for failing schools to
reading programs to be based upon
sound scientific evidence that shows
such strategies are effective toward
improving student academic
achievement."
testimony to Committee on Education
& the Workforce, 107th Congress
(11)Susan Neuman
"We're no longer debating whether
scientifically based research and
scientifically based evidence is
important, we know it now is important
and we know it is critical. As many of
you know, we have counted one
hundred and eleven times that the
phrase 'scientifically based research' is
in our new law."
February 6, 2002
Susan Neuman said the new federal
No Child Left Behind Act, if
implemented the right way, will put an
end to creative and experimental
teaching methods in the nations'
classrooms.
"It will stifle, and hopefully it will kill
(them)," said Neuman, U.S. assistant
secretary of education. "Our children
are not laboratory rats." October 25,
2002
(12) Adelaide Sanford
New York State Regents Vice
Chancellor, she produced the report
"Perform or Perish."
* McGraw-Hill, Harcourt, and Houghton
Mifflin
When Congress increased this year?s
budget for the Department of
Education by $11 billion, it set aside
$400 million to help states develop and
administer the tests mandated by the
"No Child Left Behind Act" for children
in grades 3 through 8. Among the
likely benefactors of the extra funds
are: CTB McGraw-Hill, Harcourt
Educational Measurement, and
Riverside Publishing (a Houghton
Mifflin company).
According to an October 2001 report
in Educational Marketer, CTB
McGraw-Hill, Harcourt, and Riverside
write 96 percent of the exams
administered at the state level.
The news has been filled with testing
mishaps, but the drum roll for testing
continues. An ad for NCS Pearson
notes that they are the "nation's
largest commercial processor of
student assessments serving over 40
statewide K-12 testing programs."
It does not mention the terrible
mistakes, such as those in Minnesota
which prevented seniors who'd passed
the state from graduating but NCS had
flubbed the scoring.
** ETS
In a rather incredible statement on the
Educational Testing Service website,
ETS President and CEO Kurt M.
Landgraf explains how, through
testing, ETS is fighting terrorism.
NOTE: This article will appear in the
November 2002 Substance.
Get your subscription today.
$16 to: Substance, 5132 W. Berteau,
Chicago, IL 60641
http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=62
| Maura's note: The founders of the United States decided to allow freedom of speech and thought. Was this done simply because it's "good"? No. It was done because it results in economic gains. So why doesn't a First Amendment speaker have a corporate or government sponsor? Because education is in almost entirely in the hands of people who don't care about the common good. Politicians, businessmen, and union leaders are worried about their own personal advancement, not the advancement of our society. |
| March 3, 2008 email I'm a blogger with far less recognition than you (unless you count the defamation suit against me by San Diego school attorney firm Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz), but in my small way I'm trying to make education better. I agree with just about everything you say. My main complaint is that you ignore the problems of teacher culture and teacher quality, and the role that abusive lawyers play in fostering problems of culture and quality. I worked many hours yesterday creating a page about you on my site (mauralarkins.com/susanohanian.html). I'd love to publish your response, if you can find some time to contact me. Success! Your message is on its way to Susan Ohanian (who will reply as soon as possible). |
| On October 8, 2002, a press release from the U. S. Conference of Mayors and the Broad Foundation announced the intention of this new partnership to publish joint reports on “mayoral efforts to improve public schools, develop new ideas for federal education policymakers, and hold a mayors’ education summit”’ in 2003. Eli Broad addressed the conference, saying, “At The Broad Foundation, we recognize that leadership — bold new leadership — is critical if we are ever going to see the dramatic gains in student achievement that children across America deserve. Schools that fail to teach our children the skills necessary to participate and to succeed in our changing economy are infringing on each student’ s civil rights.” There’s that emphasis on schooling for the economy again, as though schools had any control over minimum wage, outsourcing jobs to Asia, policies of the World Bank, and so on. And by conflating high test scores with civil rights and co- opting those who raise alarms about the growing segregation of U. S. Schools, high standards for all rhetoric hides the fact that minority and poor students are being ghettoized into dead-end, underfinanced, drill-and- kill, low-performing schools. Participants in conferences like this mayors conference carefully avoid talking about the crumbling neighborhoods surrounding troubling schools. Other participants in this so- called education summit included Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers; Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of Great City Schools; and Lisa Graham Keegan, president of the Education Leaders Council; as well as other education experts, unnamed in press releases. Did you notice who’s missing? The mayors are there. School boards aren’t. The Broad website includes a heroes page. Headed by Rod Paige, it is a high-stakes testing crew par excellence. Take a look at: www.broad foundation.org/ heroes/venture -net.shtml Here is a list of the participants at the 2002 Broad Foundation strategic planning retreat. Look at the list and notice that you can’t label this group liberal or conservative: Standardistas cross party lines. In the foundation’s words: “The Foundation solicited guidance on how best to scale-up current Foundation investments and develop new high- impact policy initiatives. What fun: getting invited to figure out how to spend the foundation’s $400 million. |
It is difficult to present all this information in a
way that approaches comprehensibility. Keep
your eye on Broad and you’ll be watching a
sophisticated, many-faceted plan for
dismantling the local control of schools.
Worth an aside, perhaps, is another recipient of
Broad largesse: the Broad Foundation supports
coverage of leadership issues in Education
Week. One can wonder if “America’s online
newspaper of record” will ever bite the hand
that feeds it.
Note: This is excerpted from Why Is Corporate
America Bashing Our Public Schools by
Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian (Heinemann
2004).
Here’s what Jonathan Kozol says about this
book: “Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian have
written a magnificent, carefully documented,
and high-voltage manifesto to confront the
degradation of our nation’s schools by powerful
corporations whose self-serving motives and
assaultive tactics have developed into a
relentless and dehumanizing juggernaut. Steam
will be coming out of your ears by the time you
finish this extraordinary book. It should be a
wake-up call to all who care about the future of
our schools and all who truly value children.”
from Substance, the
newspaper of public
education in Chicago
Feb 2005
http://www.substancenews.com/content/view/173/81/
way that approaches comprehensibility. Keep
your eye on Broad and you’ll be watching a
sophisticated, many-faceted plan for
dismantling the local control of schools.
Worth an aside, perhaps, is another recipient of
Broad largesse: the Broad Foundation supports
coverage of leadership issues in Education
Week. One can wonder if “America’s online
newspaper of record” will ever bite the hand
that feeds it.
Note: This is excerpted from Why Is Corporate
America Bashing Our Public Schools by
Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian (Heinemann
2004).
Here’s what Jonathan Kozol says about this
book: “Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian have
written a magnificent, carefully documented,
and high-voltage manifesto to confront the
degradation of our nation’s schools by powerful
corporations whose self-serving motives and
assaultive tactics have developed into a
relentless and dehumanizing juggernaut. Steam
will be coming out of your ears by the time you
finish this extraordinary book. It should be a
wake-up call to all who care about the future of
our schools and all who truly value children.”
from Substance, the
newspaper of public
education in Chicago
Feb 2005
http://www.substancenews.com/content/view/173/81/
| [Maura's note: Testing is not stressful for students unless teachers make it so. I always told my students to do their best and not to worry about the results. My students knew that standardized tests would not affect their grades. Of course, they did their best. Kids always do their best unless they have some emotional problem--such as teachers getting all anxious about test results and transferring that anxiety to their students. |
| It's easier to fight against something that someone else is trying to change, than to fight for change yourself. It's easier to destroy than to create. Teacher unions need to get in the business of change, not just fighting to keep the status quo.] |
| March 4, 2008 Still no response. Maybe Susan is checking with CTA/NEA about what to do. Beverly Tucker and Carolyn Doggett will be happy to give her directions. CTA Rules for silencing complaints Rule #1: Don't talk! Rule #2: Don't say a word! Rule #3: Pretend that anyone who is off-message doesn't exist! Leave it to us to go after them. Rule #4: Don't even consider the possibility that we might use illegal methods to stay in control of CTA/NEA! Rule #5: We're teachers! So we always behave in a legal manner! And everyone knows that teachers are always nice to one another! Rule #6: Everything will be fine as long as us teachers are in control! |
| Maura and Susan's email correspondence |
| San Diego School Boards Conference Dr. Charles Haynes is the one speaker without a corporate sponsor. Could it be because he is from the First Amendment Center? |
| Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools? Maura's guess: Because our schools are doing an inadequate job, and our children are going down the tubes. |
| For those who think any big-business involvement is a conservative conspiracy, take a look at former California state senator Jack O’Connell’s run for state superintendent of schools; he was backed by the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, who together gave him more than $370,000. Eli Broad kicked in $100,000, and Reed Hastings, the president of the State Board of Education, gave $250,000. Both Broad and Burkle are big contributors to the Democratic Party, spreading maximum donations to senators across the country. Hastings gave $350,000 to Governor Gray Davis’ 2002 reelection bid. In summer 2003, Hastings was listed as one of Howard Dean’s connections. |
| Not surprisingly, the Broad Foundation is enthusiastic about the way Chicago runs its schools. |
| Incumbent George Kiriyama, a former teacher and school principal who was supported by the teachers union, raised $138,000 to fund his campaign. The Riordan- Broad Coalition for Kids handed Kiriyama’s opponent $771,000. One incumbent called the Riordan-Broad enterprise a “naked power grab”; at a news conference, Rev. Robert Holt, chaplain for the Black American Political Association of California, told the mayor, “We object to your colonial mentality and your unmitigated gall in trying to select our leader.” It Isn’t a ‘Conservative Conspiracy |
Susan's notes regarding this article:
"It takes a lot to stand up and be willing to have people
angry at you."
--Pat News
"What we need are teachers willing to take such a stand
for subjects like children's love of literature."
Evolution's Lonely Battle in a
Georgia Classroom
By Michael Winerip
DAHLONEGA, Ga.
OCCASIONALLY, an educational battle will dominate
national headlines. More commonly, the battling goes on
locally, behind closed doors, handled so discreetly that
even a teacher working a few classrooms away might
not know. This was the case for Pat New, 62, a
respected, veteran middle school science
teacher, who, a year ago, quietly stood up for her
right to teach evolution in this rural northern
Georgia community, and prevailed.
She would not discuss the conflict while still teaching,
because Ms. New wouldn't let anything disrupt her
classroom. But she has decided to retire, a year earlier
than planned. "This evolution thing was a lot of stress,"
she said. And a few weeks ago, on the very last day of
her 29-year career, at 3:15, when Lumpkin County
Middle School had emptied for the summer, and she had
taken down her longest poster from Room D11A � the
15-billion-year timeline ranging from the Big Bang to the
evolution of man � she recounted one teacher's
discreet battle.
She isn't sure how many questioned her teaching of
evolution � perhaps a dozen parents, teachers and
administrators and several students in her seventh-
grade life science class. They sent e-mail messages and
letters, stopped her in the hall, called board members,
demanded meetings, requested copies of the PBS
videos that she showed in class.
One parent asked how money could be wasted on a
subject like evolution: "As budget cuts continuously chip
away at our children's future of a good, quality college-
ready education," she wrote, "I would think there would
be more educational, more worthwhile and certainly
more factual learning that could be taught." She
requested that her son be permitted to "bide his time
elsewhere" when evolution was taught.
Ms. New explained that evolution is so central to biology,
the boy would be biding elsewhere all year long.
Practically every chapter in her Prentice Hall textbooks
"Bacteria to Plants," "Cells and Heredity," "Animals"
used evolution to trace the development of life starting
with bacteria, green algae and gymnosperms.
The books were purchased by her district, and she sent
her supervisors copies, marking evolution references
with dozens of Post-its, but it didn't seem to register. On
April 25, 2005, during a meeting about parent
complaints with her principal, Rick Conner, she recalled:
"He took a Bible off the bookshelf behind him and said,
'Patty I believe in everything in this book, do you?' I told
him, 'I really feel uncomfortable about your asking that
question.' He wouldn't let it go.' " The next day, she said,
in the lunchroom, "he reached across the table, took my
hand and said: 'I accept evolution in most things but if
they ever say God wasn't involved I couldn't accept that.
I want you to say that, Pat.' "
Asked to comment during an interview here, Mr. Conner
would say only, "I don't want to talk about it."
Four days after her encounter with the principal, Ms.
New was summoned to a meeting with the
superintendent, Dewey Moye, as well as the principal
and two parents upset about her teaching evolution.
"We have to let parents ask questions," Mr. Moye told
her. "It's a public school. In a democracy people can ask
questions."
Ms. New said the parents, "badgered, got loud and
sarcastic and there was no support from administrators."
Babs Greene, another administrator, "asked if I was
almost finished teaching evolution," Ms. New recalled. "I
explained to her again that it is a unifying concept in life
science. It is in every unit I teach. There was a big sigh."
"I thought I was going crazy," said Ms. New, who has won
several outstanding teacher awards and is one of only
two teachers at her school with national board
certification. The other is her husband, Ward.
"It takes a lot to stand up and be willing to have people
angry at you," she said. But Ms. New did. She
repeatedly urged her supervisors to read Georgia's
science standards, particularly S7L5, which calls for
teaching evolution.
On May 5, 2005, she filled out a complaint to initiate a
grievance under state law, writing that she was being
"threatened and harassed" though "I am following
approved curriculum." She also wrote, "If we could get
together within 24 hours and settle this and I feel I have
support to teach the standards, then I would tear it up."
Suddenly the superintendent was focused on standards.
Mr. Moye called the state department's middle school
science supervisor and asked about evolution.
"Obviously the State Department of Education supports
evolution," Mr. Moye said in an interview.
Obviously? So why call? "I wanted to be sure," he said.
"Let's make sure what these standards are."
He added: "I feel strongly about the Georgia standards. I
think it's very important. Obviously we'll teach standards;
that's the law. We will do everything in accordance with
the Department of Education."
And parents' rights? "I explained to parents that we're
following the state standards," Mr. Moye said. "I said,
'You can believe what you want, but we have to teach
the standards.' If they're upset, they can take it up on
the state level."
The superintendent, principal and Ms. Greene all
praised Ms. New's ability. "The lady's an excellent
teacher," Mr. Moye said, adding, "Maybe she felt like the
school system didn't support her. We certainly support
her."
Ms. New said that from then on, including the entire
2005-06 school year, she had no problem teaching
evolution. "What saved me, was I didn't have to argue
evolution with these people. All I had to say was, 'I'm
following state standards.'"
GERRY WHEELER, director of the National Science
Teachers Association, said membership surveys
indicated that a third of teachers were challenged on
evolution, mainly by parents and students. A survey of
state science standards by the Fordham Institute, a
conservative policy research organization that supports
teaching evolution, rated 20 states, including Georgia,
with "sound" evolution standards in 2005, down from 24
states in 2000.
The Georgia standards that saved Ms. New almost did
not happen. In January 2004, when they were about to
be adopted, Kathy Cox, Georgia's education
superintendent, announced that she would remove
evolution from the standards because it was too divisive
an issue. That set off a huge protest that included
former President Jimmy Carter and former Governor
Sonny Perdue, a Republican. Within days, Ms. Cox
reversed herself.
No one was more gratified than Dr. F. James Rutherford,
who worked as a consultant developing the Georgia
standards. In 1985, Dr. Rutherford, a Harvard-trained
science educator, began a project for the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, aimed at
laying out what every student should know about
science, grade by grade. That year Halley's Comet
appeared and he called the effort Project 2061, with
hopes that by the comet's next visit, in 2061, the
children of 1985 would have had a lifetime shaped by
superior science education.
It took longer than he thought, but Project 2061 became
the foundation for the Georgia standards adopted in
2004, and by many other states. Dr. Rutherford, now 82,
had not heard of Ms. New, but when told of her quiet
victory, he said: "Wonderful. That was the idea."
E-mail: edmike@nytimes.com
— Michael Winerip
New York Times
http://susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=6260
"It takes a lot to stand up and be willing to have people
angry at you."
--Pat News
"What we need are teachers willing to take such a stand
for subjects like children's love of literature."
Evolution's Lonely Battle in a
Georgia Classroom
By Michael Winerip
DAHLONEGA, Ga.
OCCASIONALLY, an educational battle will dominate
national headlines. More commonly, the battling goes on
locally, behind closed doors, handled so discreetly that
even a teacher working a few classrooms away might
not know. This was the case for Pat New, 62, a
respected, veteran middle school science
teacher, who, a year ago, quietly stood up for her
right to teach evolution in this rural northern
Georgia community, and prevailed.
She would not discuss the conflict while still teaching,
because Ms. New wouldn't let anything disrupt her
classroom. But she has decided to retire, a year earlier
than planned. "This evolution thing was a lot of stress,"
she said. And a few weeks ago, on the very last day of
her 29-year career, at 3:15, when Lumpkin County
Middle School had emptied for the summer, and she had
taken down her longest poster from Room D11A � the
15-billion-year timeline ranging from the Big Bang to the
evolution of man � she recounted one teacher's
discreet battle.
She isn't sure how many questioned her teaching of
evolution � perhaps a dozen parents, teachers and
administrators and several students in her seventh-
grade life science class. They sent e-mail messages and
letters, stopped her in the hall, called board members,
demanded meetings, requested copies of the PBS
videos that she showed in class.
One parent asked how money could be wasted on a
subject like evolution: "As budget cuts continuously chip
away at our children's future of a good, quality college-
ready education," she wrote, "I would think there would
be more educational, more worthwhile and certainly
more factual learning that could be taught." She
requested that her son be permitted to "bide his time
elsewhere" when evolution was taught.
Ms. New explained that evolution is so central to biology,
the boy would be biding elsewhere all year long.
Practically every chapter in her Prentice Hall textbooks
"Bacteria to Plants," "Cells and Heredity," "Animals"
used evolution to trace the development of life starting
with bacteria, green algae and gymnosperms.
The books were purchased by her district, and she sent
her supervisors copies, marking evolution references
with dozens of Post-its, but it didn't seem to register. On
April 25, 2005, during a meeting about parent
complaints with her principal, Rick Conner, she recalled:
"He took a Bible off the bookshelf behind him and said,
'Patty I believe in everything in this book, do you?' I told
him, 'I really feel uncomfortable about your asking that
question.' He wouldn't let it go.' " The next day, she said,
in the lunchroom, "he reached across the table, took my
hand and said: 'I accept evolution in most things but if
they ever say God wasn't involved I couldn't accept that.
I want you to say that, Pat.' "
Asked to comment during an interview here, Mr. Conner
would say only, "I don't want to talk about it."
Four days after her encounter with the principal, Ms.
New was summoned to a meeting with the
superintendent, Dewey Moye, as well as the principal
and two parents upset about her teaching evolution.
"We have to let parents ask questions," Mr. Moye told
her. "It's a public school. In a democracy people can ask
questions."
Ms. New said the parents, "badgered, got loud and
sarcastic and there was no support from administrators."
Babs Greene, another administrator, "asked if I was
almost finished teaching evolution," Ms. New recalled. "I
explained to her again that it is a unifying concept in life
science. It is in every unit I teach. There was a big sigh."
"I thought I was going crazy," said Ms. New, who has won
several outstanding teacher awards and is one of only
two teachers at her school with national board
certification. The other is her husband, Ward.
"It takes a lot to stand up and be willing to have people
angry at you," she said. But Ms. New did. She
repeatedly urged her supervisors to read Georgia's
science standards, particularly S7L5, which calls for
teaching evolution.
On May 5, 2005, she filled out a complaint to initiate a
grievance under state law, writing that she was being
"threatened and harassed" though "I am following
approved curriculum." She also wrote, "If we could get
together within 24 hours and settle this and I feel I have
support to teach the standards, then I would tear it up."
Suddenly the superintendent was focused on standards.
Mr. Moye called the state department's middle school
science supervisor and asked about evolution.
"Obviously the State Department of Education supports
evolution," Mr. Moye said in an interview.
Obviously? So why call? "I wanted to be sure," he said.
"Let's make sure what these standards are."
He added: "I feel strongly about the Georgia standards. I
think it's very important. Obviously we'll teach standards;
that's the law. We will do everything in accordance with
the Department of Education."
And parents' rights? "I explained to parents that we're
following the state standards," Mr. Moye said. "I said,
'You can believe what you want, but we have to teach
the standards.' If they're upset, they can take it up on
the state level."
The superintendent, principal and Ms. Greene all
praised Ms. New's ability. "The lady's an excellent
teacher," Mr. Moye said, adding, "Maybe she felt like the
school system didn't support her. We certainly support
her."
Ms. New said that from then on, including the entire
2005-06 school year, she had no problem teaching
evolution. "What saved me, was I didn't have to argue
evolution with these people. All I had to say was, 'I'm
following state standards.'"
GERRY WHEELER, director of the National Science
Teachers Association, said membership surveys
indicated that a third of teachers were challenged on
evolution, mainly by parents and students. A survey of
state science standards by the Fordham Institute, a
conservative policy research organization that supports
teaching evolution, rated 20 states, including Georgia,
with "sound" evolution standards in 2005, down from 24
states in 2000.
The Georgia standards that saved Ms. New almost did
not happen. In January 2004, when they were about to
be adopted, Kathy Cox, Georgia's education
superintendent, announced that she would remove
evolution from the standards because it was too divisive
an issue. That set off a huge protest that included
former President Jimmy Carter and former Governor
Sonny Perdue, a Republican. Within days, Ms. Cox
reversed herself.
No one was more gratified than Dr. F. James Rutherford,
who worked as a consultant developing the Georgia
standards. In 1985, Dr. Rutherford, a Harvard-trained
science educator, began a project for the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, aimed at
laying out what every student should know about
science, grade by grade. That year Halley's Comet
appeared and he called the effort Project 2061, with
hopes that by the comet's next visit, in 2061, the
children of 1985 would have had a lifetime shaped by
superior science education.
It took longer than he thought, but Project 2061 became
the foundation for the Georgia standards adopted in
2004, and by many other states. Dr. Rutherford, now 82,
had not heard of Ms. New, but when told of her quiet
victory, he said: "Wonderful. That was the idea."
E-mail: edmike@nytimes.com
— Michael Winerip
New York Times
http://susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=6260
He Who Knows No
Shame
If Johnny Brown had a
"honeymoon" as DeKalb County's
new superintendent of schools, it
may be over...
...initiatives have been obscured
by controversies that have dogged
Brown almost since he officially
took office July 1, including
allegations of fiscal
mismanagement in Birmingham,
where he previously served as
superintendent.
Here, Brown has drawn fire over
his plan for a uniform-like student
dress code and an incident when
copies of a Chamblee High student
newspaper featuring articles critical
of Brown were confiscated.
...Narwanna el-Shabazz, a vice
president in the county's Council of
PTAs ...opposes Brown's Dress for
Success plan. "We're not talking
about education anymore; we're
haggling over colors of clothes."
Brown is the first black
superintendent of Georgia's third-
largest school system, nearly 80
percent of whose 98,000 students
are black. He describes himself as
a civil rights worker through
education...
"Stronger requirements for
graduation, algebra for eighth-
graders, parental involvement ---
those are, frankly, the issues about
which we [system administrators]
spend our time," Brown said...
Ohanian Comment: Here's a guy
who has no shame. The
superintendent who presided over
the push-out of the Birmingham
522 moves to DeKalb County
Georgia and describes as "a civil
rights worker through education."
Read the entire article. It looks as
though the chickens may be
coming home to roost in Dekalb.
— Jen Sansbury
Atlanta Journal Constitution
10/10/02
http://www.accessatlanta.
com/ajc/epaper/editions/today/metro_d35a0158e35412e200ff
.html
---------------------------------------------http:
//susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=131
Shame
If Johnny Brown had a
"honeymoon" as DeKalb County's
new superintendent of schools, it
may be over...
...initiatives have been obscured
by controversies that have dogged
Brown almost since he officially
took office July 1, including
allegations of fiscal
mismanagement in Birmingham,
where he previously served as
superintendent.
Here, Brown has drawn fire over
his plan for a uniform-like student
dress code and an incident when
copies of a Chamblee High student
newspaper featuring articles critical
of Brown were confiscated.
...Narwanna el-Shabazz, a vice
president in the county's Council of
PTAs ...opposes Brown's Dress for
Success plan. "We're not talking
about education anymore; we're
haggling over colors of clothes."
Brown is the first black
superintendent of Georgia's third-
largest school system, nearly 80
percent of whose 98,000 students
are black. He describes himself as
a civil rights worker through
education...
"Stronger requirements for
graduation, algebra for eighth-
graders, parental involvement ---
those are, frankly, the issues about
which we [system administrators]
spend our time," Brown said...
Ohanian Comment: Here's a guy
who has no shame. The
superintendent who presided over
the push-out of the Birmingham
522 moves to DeKalb County
Georgia and describes as "a civil
rights worker through education."
Read the entire article. It looks as
though the chickens may be
coming home to roost in Dekalb.
— Jen Sansbury
Atlanta Journal Constitution
10/10/02
http://www.accessatlanta.
com/ajc/epaper/editions/today/metro_d35a0158e35412e200ff
.html
---------------------------------------------http:
//susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=131
Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
ATLANTA, Jan. 29 � A proposed set of guidelines for
middle and high school science classes in Georgia has
caused a furor after state education officials removed
the word "evolution" and scaled back ideas about the
age of Earth and the natural selection of species.
Educators across the state said that the document,
which was released on the Internet this month, was a
veiled effort to bolster creationism and that it would
leave the state's public school graduates at a
disadvantage.
"They've taken away a major component of biology and
acted as if it doesn't exist," said David Bechler, who
heads the biology department at Valdosta State
University. "By doing this, we're leaving the public
shortchanged of the knowledge they should have."
Although education officials said the final version would
not be binding on teachers, its contents will ultimately
help shape achievement exams. And in a state where
religion-based concepts of creation are widely held,
many teachers said a curriculum without mentioning
"evolution" would make it harder to broach the subject
in the classroom.
Georgia's schools superintendent, Kathy Cox, held a
news conference near the Capitol on Thursday, a day
after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an
article about the proposed changes.
A handful of states already omit the word "evolution"
from their teaching guidelines, and Ms. Cox called it "a
buzz word that causes a lot of negative reaction." She
added that people often associate it with "that monkeys-
to-man sort of thing."
Still, Ms. Cox, who was elected to the post in 2002, said
the concept would be taught, as well as "emerging
models of change" that challenge Darwin's theories.
"Galileo was not considered reputable when he came
out with his theory," she said.
Much of the state's 800-page curriculum was adopted
verbatim from the "Standards for Excellence in
Education," an academic framework produced by the
Council for Basic Education, a nonprofit group. But
when it came to science, the Georgia Education
Department omitted large chunks of material, including
references to Earth's age and the concept that all
organisms on Earth are related through common
ancestry. "Evolution" was replaced with "changes over
time," and in another phrase that referred to the "long
history of the Earth," the authors removed the word
"long." Many proponents of creationism say Earth is at
most several thousand years old, based on a literal
reading of the Bible.
Sarah L. Pallas, an associate professor of biology at
Georgia State University, said, "The point of these
benchmarks is to prepare the American work force to
be scientifically competitive." She said, "By removing
the benchmarks that deal with evolutionary life, we
don't have a chance of catching up to the rest of the
world."
The guidelines, which were adopted by a panel of 25
educators, will be officially adopted in 90 days, and Ms.
Cox said the public could still influence the final
document. "If the teachers and parents across the
state say this isn't what we want," she said, "then we'll
change it."
In the past, Ms. Cox, has not masked her feelings on
the matter of creationism versus evolution. During her
run for office, Ms. Cox congratulated parents who
wanted Christian notions of Earth and human creation
to be taught in schools.
"I'd leave the state out of it and would make sure
teachers were well prepared to deal with competing
theories," she said at a public debate.
Educators say the current curriculum is weak in
biology, leading to a high failure rate in the sciences
among high school students across the state. Even
those who do well in high school science are not
necessarily proficient in the fundamentals of biology,
astronomy and geology, say some educators.
David Jackson, an associate professor at the University
of Georgia who trains middle school science teachers,
said about half the students entering his class each
year had little knowledge of evolutionary theory.
"In many cases, they've never been exposed to the
basic facts about fossils and the universe," he said. "I
think there's already formal and informal
discouragements to teaching evolution in public
school."
The statewide dispute here follows a similar battle two
years ago in Cobb County, a fast-growing suburb north
of Atlanta. In that case, the Cobb County school board
approved a policy to allow schools to teach "disputed
views" on the origins of man, referring to creationism,
although the decision was later softened by the
schools superintendent, who instructed teachers to
follow the state curriculum.
Eric Meikle of the National Center for Science
Education said several other states currently omit the
word "evolution" from their science standards. In
Alabama, the state board of education voted in 2001 to
place disclaimers on biology textbooks to describe
evolution as a controversial theory.
"This kind of thing is happening all the time, in all parts
of the country," Mr. Meikle said.
Dr. Francisco J. Ayala, the author of a 1999 report by
the National Academy of Sciences titled "Science and
Creationism," vehemently opposes including the
discussion of alternative ideas of species evolution.
"Creation is not science, so it should not be taught in
science class," said Dr. Ayala, a professor of genetics
at the University of California at Irvine. "We don't teach
astrology instead of astronomy or witchcraft practices
instead of medicine."
But Keith Delaplane, a professor of entomology at the
University of Georgia, says the wholesale rejection of
alternative theories of evolution is unscientific.
"My opinion is that the very nature of science is
openness to alternative explanations, even if those
explanations go against the current majority," said
Professor Delaplane, a proponent of intelligent-design
theory, which questions the primacy of evolution's role
in natural selection. "They deserve at least a fair
hearing in the classroom, and right now they're being
laughed out of the arena."
— Andrew Jacobs
New York Times
Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
2004-01-30
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/education/30GEOR.
html
----------------------------------------------------------------------http:
//susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=1717
ATLANTA, Jan. 29 � A proposed set of guidelines for
middle and high school science classes in Georgia has
caused a furor after state education officials removed
the word "evolution" and scaled back ideas about the
age of Earth and the natural selection of species.
Educators across the state said that the document,
which was released on the Internet this month, was a
veiled effort to bolster creationism and that it would
leave the state's public school graduates at a
disadvantage.
"They've taken away a major component of biology and
acted as if it doesn't exist," said David Bechler, who
heads the biology department at Valdosta State
University. "By doing this, we're leaving the public
shortchanged of the knowledge they should have."
Although education officials said the final version would
not be binding on teachers, its contents will ultimately
help shape achievement exams. And in a state where
religion-based concepts of creation are widely held,
many teachers said a curriculum without mentioning
"evolution" would make it harder to broach the subject
in the classroom.
Georgia's schools superintendent, Kathy Cox, held a
news conference near the Capitol on Thursday, a day
after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an
article about the proposed changes.
A handful of states already omit the word "evolution"
from their teaching guidelines, and Ms. Cox called it "a
buzz word that causes a lot of negative reaction." She
added that people often associate it with "that monkeys-
to-man sort of thing."
Still, Ms. Cox, who was elected to the post in 2002, said
the concept would be taught, as well as "emerging
models of change" that challenge Darwin's theories.
"Galileo was not considered reputable when he came
out with his theory," she said.
Much of the state's 800-page curriculum was adopted
verbatim from the "Standards for Excellence in
Education," an academic framework produced by the
Council for Basic Education, a nonprofit group. But
when it came to science, the Georgia Education
Department omitted large chunks of material, including
references to Earth's age and the concept that all
organisms on Earth are related through common
ancestry. "Evolution" was replaced with "changes over
time," and in another phrase that referred to the "long
history of the Earth," the authors removed the word
"long." Many proponents of creationism say Earth is at
most several thousand years old, based on a literal
reading of the Bible.
Sarah L. Pallas, an associate professor of biology at
Georgia State University, said, "The point of these
benchmarks is to prepare the American work force to
be scientifically competitive." She said, "By removing
the benchmarks that deal with evolutionary life, we
don't have a chance of catching up to the rest of the
world."
The guidelines, which were adopted by a panel of 25
educators, will be officially adopted in 90 days, and Ms.
Cox said the public could still influence the final
document. "If the teachers and parents across the
state say this isn't what we want," she said, "then we'll
change it."
In the past, Ms. Cox, has not masked her feelings on
the matter of creationism versus evolution. During her
run for office, Ms. Cox congratulated parents who
wanted Christian notions of Earth and human creation
to be taught in schools.
"I'd leave the state out of it and would make sure
teachers were well prepared to deal with competing
theories," she said at a public debate.
Educators say the current curriculum is weak in
biology, leading to a high failure rate in the sciences
among high school students across the state. Even
those who do well in high school science are not
necessarily proficient in the fundamentals of biology,
astronomy and geology, say some educators.
David Jackson, an associate professor at the University
of Georgia who trains middle school science teachers,
said about half the students entering his class each
year had little knowledge of evolutionary theory.
"In many cases, they've never been exposed to the
basic facts about fossils and the universe," he said. "I
think there's already formal and informal
discouragements to teaching evolution in public
school."
The statewide dispute here follows a similar battle two
years ago in Cobb County, a fast-growing suburb north
of Atlanta. In that case, the Cobb County school board
approved a policy to allow schools to teach "disputed
views" on the origins of man, referring to creationism,
although the decision was later softened by the
schools superintendent, who instructed teachers to
follow the state curriculum.
Eric Meikle of the National Center for Science
Education said several other states currently omit the
word "evolution" from their science standards. In
Alabama, the state board of education voted in 2001 to
place disclaimers on biology textbooks to describe
evolution as a controversial theory.
"This kind of thing is happening all the time, in all parts
of the country," Mr. Meikle said.
Dr. Francisco J. Ayala, the author of a 1999 report by
the National Academy of Sciences titled "Science and
Creationism," vehemently opposes including the
discussion of alternative ideas of species evolution.
"Creation is not science, so it should not be taught in
science class," said Dr. Ayala, a professor of genetics
at the University of California at Irvine. "We don't teach
astrology instead of astronomy or witchcraft practices
instead of medicine."
But Keith Delaplane, a professor of entomology at the
University of Georgia, says the wholesale rejection of
alternative theories of evolution is unscientific.
"My opinion is that the very nature of science is
openness to alternative explanations, even if those
explanations go against the current majority," said
Professor Delaplane, a proponent of intelligent-design
theory, which questions the primacy of evolution's role
in natural selection. "They deserve at least a fair
hearing in the classroom, and right now they're being
laughed out of the arena."
— Andrew Jacobs
New York Times
Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
2004-01-30
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/education/30GEOR.
html
----------------------------------------------------------------------http:
//susanohanian.org/atrocity_fetch.php?id=1717
| Evolution in Georgia |
| [Maura's note: Susan clearly has the courage of her convictions about teaching reading. But she is very much a part of the teacher culture that refuses to admit its own mistakes, and enjoys using its clout to get what it wants. She is unable to admit that teachers must protest a whole lot more than textbooks. In many ways, Susan is one of those teachers who grouses about little things, while silently allowing huge abuses. |
| [Maura's note: It's bogus to blame the focus on test preparation for the lack of instruction in thinking skills. Teachers weren't teaching kids to think before all the test-prep hoopla. Actually, teaching thinking skills is the best way to prepare kids for standardized tests. Most teachers only do it by rote because that's the way they do everything. |
| Part 2: Susan's achievements |
| Part 3: School Reform |
| I worked with students who were so obnoxious they were excluded from the regular high school campus, and I know that when a teacher meets with such students in a small enough setting and they have no place to hide, they can be brought into a constructive, productive course of study. It is a course of study that is built by teacher and student together. It is not shipped out from a state board of education. What do you suggest policy makers think about when their inclination is to endorse standards. |
| Increasingly, schools are becoming high-stress skill zones. Parents need to realize that their children who do badly in such skill zones might function well in a less stressful environment. They need to insist on less stress rather than pills. Parents would not accept the judgments of education terminologists who talk about raising the bar of education standards. Their children are to steeplechase horses or pole-vaulters. Parents need to realize that it doesn't matter whether the students in Alaska are ahead or behind those of Maine in apostrophe acquisition. How can creative, thoughtful teachers survive the standards? We must not think in terms of survival but in terms of triumph. We teachers need to tell our stories, and in telling our stories we will be speaking out for students. It is particularly important to tell the stories of the oddball students, the students who don’t easily fit the norm. These stories will counter the hallucinatory, deceptive rhetoric of the Standardistos. Dr. Benjamin Spock told parents in his best-selling book, 'You know more than you think." I would tell teachers, "You know more than they think." Standardistos attempt to strip teachers of their knowledge, their intuition, their pragmatic saviness, their flexibility, and their very hearts. Teachers must remind themselves every day: "We know more than they think. We know more than they think." |
Teachers need to check the facts Standardistos spread
about so casually. Beware of cooked data. Gerald
Bracey's reports to Phi Delta Kappan offer useful
ammunition.
Don't blame the victims. One in four of our students
come to us from poverty and the correlation between
lower test scores and the percentage of children living
in poverty is .99. The average after-school program
costs $3,000 per child. Each new juvenile
correction facility costs around $102,000 per bed
to build. It is our strength as teachers that we are
empathetic people. We try to walk in the shoes of our
students. We must nurture this empathetic quality, not
deny it in the name of standards. We must remember
the great words of teaching: read, write, teach, learn,
work, skill, care, help, hope, trust, faith, love. When
necessary, teachers need to choose passion over
pedagogy. Teachers need to join with administrators
and parents and say, "We're as mad as hell. Our
students already take 4-6 standardized tests a year.
We don't need any more."
What should kids do?
What can an eight-year-old do? Even high schoolers
are pretty much at the mercy of their teachers and their
textbooks.
What troubles you about the emerging reading and
language arts standards?
The standards are intent on turning children into
literary pedants, technicians who can identify plot and
setting but who are never asked about how literature
makes them feel, no mention of the emotional impact of
reading, no mention that in books human beings feel
more connected to one another. This approach to
literature is numbing and nonsensical. Literary
technicians testified to techniques of teaching
systematic decoding. Nobody was asked to testify for
the love of reading.
What are your primary criticisms of the new California
math standards?
The verbs deleted by the California State Board of
Education from the math standards reveal a lot.
They deleted verbs like "model, understand,
estimate, interpret, classify, explain, create." The
word most commonly substituted in place of
these verbs is "compute."
The California standards turn their back on the work of
the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics,
insisting instead on a narrow definition of math as
computation.
I’m sure you have lots of favorites. Can you share with
us a couple examples of ridiculous standards.
My two favorite ridiculous standards are both in the
California history standards. First graders are ordered
to "know and understand" such documents as the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Seventh graders are required to analyze the
geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures of the civilizations of Islam in the middle
ages, of China in the middle ages, of the Sub-Saharan
civilizations, of Japan in the middle ages, of Europe in
the middle ages, of Nesoamerican and Andean
civilizations. This is one of eleven history standards for
seventh graders. Anybody who has ever taught 7th
graders is left speechless.
Surely, reasonable people may disagree about the
need for educational standards, but how do you explain
the mean-spirited attitude exhibited by the proponents
of standards?
Two forces seem to prevent any fruitful discussion
about the standards.
The people in power, the members of state
boards of education, for example, exclude
dissenting voices. They even forbid the
appearance of dissenting voices on materials
used in the inservice training of teachers.
[Maura's note: Why does Susan leave out the
teacher unions here?]
The media, operating on the supposition that
everything has two sides, puts everybody in one of two
camps: if you're not for excellence, then you must be
against it. Of course there aren't two sides to the
standards issue. The last time I looked there were 123
sides.
Any time people pass a rule about education,
responsible teachers will say, "Yes, but. . . " Any savvy
teacher knows that every classroom has oddball
exceptions, kids who need alternatives. As a longtime
teacher in urban schools I am dismayed that people
sitting in state departments of education insist they can
come up with one standard mold of excellence--and
that they are willing to throw away children who do not
fit into that mold of a uniform curriculum.
http://www.stager.org/articles/ohanian.html
about so casually. Beware of cooked data. Gerald
Bracey's reports to Phi Delta Kappan offer useful
ammunition.
Don't blame the victims. One in four of our students
come to us from poverty and the correlation between
lower test scores and the percentage of children living
in poverty is .99. The average after-school program
costs $3,000 per child. Each new juvenile
correction facility costs around $102,000 per bed
to build. It is our strength as teachers that we are
empathetic people. We try to walk in the shoes of our
students. We must nurture this empathetic quality, not
deny it in the name of standards. We must remember
the great words of teaching: read, write, teach, learn,
work, skill, care, help, hope, trust, faith, love. When
necessary, teachers need to choose passion over
pedagogy. Teachers need to join with administrators
and parents and say, "We're as mad as hell. Our
students already take 4-6 standardized tests a year.
We don't need any more."
What should kids do?
What can an eight-year-old do? Even high schoolers
are pretty much at the mercy of their teachers and their
textbooks.
What troubles you about the emerging reading and
language arts standards?
The standards are intent on turning children into
literary pedants, technicians who can identify plot and
setting but who are never asked about how literature
makes them feel, no mention of the emotional impact of
reading, no mention that in books human beings feel
more connected to one another. This approach to
literature is numbing and nonsensical. Literary
technicians testified to techniques of teaching
systematic decoding. Nobody was asked to testify for
the love of reading.
What are your primary criticisms of the new California
math standards?
The verbs deleted by the California State Board of
Education from the math standards reveal a lot.
They deleted verbs like "model, understand,
estimate, interpret, classify, explain, create." The
word most commonly substituted in place of
these verbs is "compute."
The California standards turn their back on the work of
the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics,
insisting instead on a narrow definition of math as
computation.
I’m sure you have lots of favorites. Can you share with
us a couple examples of ridiculous standards.
My two favorite ridiculous standards are both in the
California history standards. First graders are ordered
to "know and understand" such documents as the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Seventh graders are required to analyze the
geographic, political, economic, religious, and social
structures of the civilizations of Islam in the middle
ages, of China in the middle ages, of the Sub-Saharan
civilizations, of Japan in the middle ages, of Europe in
the middle ages, of Nesoamerican and Andean
civilizations. This is one of eleven history standards for
seventh graders. Anybody who has ever taught 7th
graders is left speechless.
Surely, reasonable people may disagree about the
need for educational standards, but how do you explain
the mean-spirited attitude exhibited by the proponents
of standards?
Two forces seem to prevent any fruitful discussion
about the standards.
The people in power, the members of state
boards of education, for example, exclude
dissenting voices. They even forbid the
appearance of dissenting voices on materials
used in the inservice training of teachers.
[Maura's note: Why does Susan leave out the
teacher unions here?]
The media, operating on the supposition that
everything has two sides, puts everybody in one of two
camps: if you're not for excellence, then you must be
against it. Of course there aren't two sides to the
standards issue. The last time I looked there were 123
sides.
Any time people pass a rule about education,
responsible teachers will say, "Yes, but. . . " Any savvy
teacher knows that every classroom has oddball
exceptions, kids who need alternatives. As a longtime
teacher in urban schools I am dismayed that people
sitting in state departments of education insist they can
come up with one standard mold of excellence--and
that they are willing to throw away children who do not
fit into that mold of a uniform curriculum.
http://www.stager.org/articles/ohanian.html
Although there may be an occasional exception, I'd also
advise that parents never allow a child to be held back in
school. In 20 years of teaching, I never saw retention
help a child.
Social promotion gets a bad press these days.
Parents should realize that social promotion is at
the core of the Japanese educational system. The
children who start together stay together until they
finish sixth grade.
This social bond is deemed essential by the people
who run the Japanese school system. Imagine that:
a social bond being more important than discrete
academic skills.
advise that parents never allow a child to be held back in
school. In 20 years of teaching, I never saw retention
help a child.
Social promotion gets a bad press these days.
Parents should realize that social promotion is at
the core of the Japanese educational system. The
children who start together stay together until they
finish sixth grade.
This social bond is deemed essential by the people
who run the Japanese school system. Imagine that:
a social bond being more important than discrete
academic skills.
| What should concerned parents do? Parents need to support their children. They need to make sure their parents are in the care of teachers who like them. Parents need to talk to their children; they need to listen to them. |
| The Education Wars--How come the winners are never the kids? |
Policy makers need to remember that we are a nation that celebrates diversity. Policy makers should also realize that there is no magic bullet, no quick fix. We need to take the long view, realizing that it is more important that kids read a lot, and read for pleasure, choosing books that interest them, than they read on grade level by third grade. If a child learns to read for pleasure by the time he is in third grade, reading on grade level will come. In contrast, the children are doomed to recurring instructional crises, when there's never any time in the school day for them to know the joys of literature, it is doubtful they will ever be successful. |
| An Interview with Susan Ohanian Published in the April 1999 issue of Curriculum Administrator By Gary S. Stager Susan Ohanian, a long-time teacher, is now a freelance writer and editor. Her books include, the award-winning "Garbage-Pizza Patchwork Quilts and Math Magic," "Who’s in Charge? A Teacher Speaks Her Mind," "Math: A Way of Knowing" and "Ask Ms. Class." Curriculum Administrator Contributing Editor, Gary Stager recently chatted with Susan about her provocative and timely new book, "One Size Fits Few – The Folly of Educational Standards." Susan Ohanian lives in Vermont with a husband and three strongly opinionated cats. How can anyone be against educational standards? These days it is not fashionable to admit that some students can learn trigonometric function and some can't. But knowledge is never pure, never unrelated to the knowledge seeker. Rather than arguing about whom will and who won't take calculus and read Hamlet, I'd like people to consider the terrible cost that comes from telling kids if they don't go to college they are worthless. Standards makers commit a crime in offering a curriculum without regard to the students who are supposed to learn it. Standardistos who focus on the military-industrial- infotainment agenda care about how kids in Grosse Pointe measure up against kids in Larchmont and how both compare with the Japanese. I am worried about the kids in the South Bronx, in Chicago, in Los Angeles. The truth of the matter is that there is no better predictor of a child's success in school than the level of schooling attained by his parents. That counts more than who his teacher is. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new tests to prove new standards, why don't we buy library books for the ghetto schools whose need is so great? contd. below |
New book: Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools? by Kathy Emery (Author), Susan Ohanian (Author)... An invaluable combo of information and fiery inspiration, this book equips us to resist the business powers that be coiling themselves around public schools to squeeze out all respectful, individual teaching. Carol Bly, Author of Changing the Bully Who Rules the World Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian shout Jaccuse! to the Business Roundtable, the Education Trust, politicians, and the rest who are selling out America's children in the name of high standards. A must read for all citizens, not just parents and educators. Gerald L. Bracey, Author of On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian have written a magnificent, carefully documented, and high-voltage manifesto to confront the degradation of our nation's schools by powerful corporations whose self-serving motives and assaultive tactics have developed into a relentless and dehumanizing juggernaut. Steam will be coming out of your ears by the time you finish this extraordinary book. It should be a wake-up call to all who care about the future of our schools and all who truly value children. Jonathan Kozol, Author of Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools Q: How many businessmen does it take to screw up American schools? A: Only 13, the number of members of the Business Roundtable assigned to the Business Coalition for Education Reform! Emery and Ohanian explain why this joke isn't funny, asking readers to raise their consciousness and their voices to take back public education. Patrick Shannon, Pennsylvania State University, author of Becoming Political, Too... http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-America-Bashing-Public-Scho ols/dp/032500637 |
| b) California is a textbook adoption state, meaning that the Board of Education has the final say on which textbooks get on the approved-for- purchase list, so California Standardistos end up deciding what children in the other 49 states will read. We also pay attention to California because it is such a large, noisy state. But the truth of the matter is that the Standardisto mindset that has infected California politicians sits comfortably in just about every state house in the land. This is the "Get ready" insanity, telling teachers they must "deliver" students to the next grade ready to continue with the next, sequenced set of expectations. Standardistos see knowledge as a continuous stream of information that students as an undifferentiated mass into which this information can be poured. We should be wary of pointing the finger at California. Standardistos. Most of the 50 states are on skills amphetamines, engaged in what amounts to a standards arms race. Isn’t the latest clamor for standards just an example of the educational pendulum swing? Educational pendulum swings are exaggerated. The truth of the matter is that over time most teachers stick to pretty much of a middle-of-the-road approach. Although the whole language movement, for example, has been influential, no more than 10% of the teaching population were whole-hearted adherents. Most teachers offer an eclectic approach, taking bits and pieces from various philosophies and pedagogies. The Standardisto drive is different in that it is using the imposition of tests to force teachers to radically change their curriculum. Tests will force teachers to treat children like sardines, shoving everybody into the same small academic tin. Who would you identify as allies on the side of children in the skirmish against standards? I am reluctant to put words into the mouths of other people. Ted Sizer and Deborah Meier hands-on truth-in-action for a nonstandard academic rigor that arises from local needs. Patrick Shannon offers historical perspective as well as contemporary insight on why the Standardistos are nuts. Gerald Bracey writes persuasive, date-filled articles in Phi Delta Kappan, demonstrating that one need not assume school failure in order to propose school reform. Howard Gardner speaks to the diversity of children's needs, the diversity of their talents, and why and how we must offer different curricula to different children. Jonathan Kozol has provided searing indictment of the lack of equal educational opportunity in the schooling we offer children. Nel Noddings reminds us of the humanistic needs missing from Standardisto documents. Alfie Kohn is launching a nationwide movement, asking people to reject the knee-jerk rhetoric of Standardistos. He challenges us all to think about how our actions affect children. If you are against standards, what would you propose as alternatives? Plenty of experts have shown us that we need small schools, schools capable of responding to the individual needs of students. The most important alternative to standards is an unwillingness to discard any student because of his score on a standardized test. |
| The Resistance: Casting a Broad Net of Influence By Susan Ohanian |
| contd. from above I admit that as a teacher of more than 20 years experience I resent the implication that my colleagues and I didn't have standards until political functionaries put their stamp of approval on a discrete list of information. Piling the required standards higher and higher runs contrary to what thoughtful educators advise--digging deeper for real understanding. If people are worried about standards, why don't they worry about the fact that the city of Berlin spends more on the arts than does the U.S. government? France devotes vast expenditures on the arts, not to improve their GNP but because the French believe the arts are critical to peoples' well being. contd. below |
| We might consider another point about parents' concerns. According to a national survey, in 1997, parents talked to their children 38.5 minutes a week. These same children watched TV 1,680 minutes a week. Who profits from the standards crescendo? Politicians profit because their touting of standards offers proof that they care about education. You don't have to know anything to be in favor of standards. Publishers profit because districts won't dare not to order the new books based on the new standards, books that promise to deliver the skills tested on the new tests. Test makers profit because they are grinding out the new tests that promise to show how students measure up. Who loses? Clearly, students lose. If, by grade four, after four years of standards, e.g., intensive direct, explicit, and systematic instruction in phonics, a student does not exhibit mastery of fourth grade skills, then Standardistos say he must loop back through the same skills sequence. Standardistos offer no hint that if four years of this lock-step instruction doesn't work, then it might be a good idea to try something else. For the sake of the students, we must shout, "Stop the conveyor belt and let the kids get off!" You spend a portion of your book discussing the educational climate in California What's going there? In the name of standards, California standards are not allowed to be exposed to the ideas of educational leaders of national repute who don't kowtow to the idiosyncrasies of members of the State Board of Education. Anyone who wants to be approved to teach in-service courses in California must sign a curriculum loyalty oath devised by the Board of Education. This loyalty oath actually forbids showing teachers how to help children use context clues when reading unfamiliar material. The rest of the country must care about California for two reasons: a) When California teachers and children bleed from the outrageous practices of the state board of education, the rest of the nation must care. When freedom of speech is curtailed in any state, the freedom of residents of every other state is endangered. |
| Parents aren't prepared for their children to be served with an academic death penalty in the name of standards. |
| contd. from above What does the title of your book refer to? My book title refers to the fact that a "one size fits all" curriculum meets the needs of few students. This mantra of everybody needing to learn the same thing is particularly offensive in the face of the gross inequality of educational opportunity in this country. Fully one third of our students attend schools in inadequate buildings. The buildings are crumbling; they are understaffed, overcrowded, and don't contain even minimal supplies. Who is the audience for your controversial new book? This book is written for every teacher, administrator, and parent who knows that children are unique, that they do not come to us from some mold marked: first graders, second graders, third graders, and so on. This book is for people who think third graders are more uniquely wonderful in their variety than they are same in their uniformity. In "One Size Fits Few," you demonize the Standardistos. What is a Standardistos? Standardistos are a band of academic pillagers roaming the land, burning their particular skill brand onto children's diversity. They look neither to the left nor the right, talking with neither teachers nor principals nor students. They keep their eye only on the government pot of government Goals 2000 gold. Standardistos’ mission is to keep the populace alarmed with tales of teacher malfeasance and student ignorance. Contd. below |
| A year later, I answered a New York Times ad announcing that New York City's Board of Education was issuing emergency credentials to people willing to teach high school English. They sent me to a school larger than my hometown. Feeling completely inadequate to the job, I went home and cried every night. But by year's end, the department chairman's evaluation stated that I had a good heart and would learn the technical skills necessary to good teaching. I was very impressed to hear that New York City put such stock in a good heart... http://www.homeedmag.com/HEM/221/ohanian.html |
| contd. from above Standardistos promise that if every kid takes algebra he'll get a good high tech job. They use such promises of "21st Century skills" to divert the public from thinking about the real issues of equity and justice. At best, Standardistos litter the land with documents that are irrelevant to the lives of children. At worst, they offer obscenity, poisoning public perception of what schools need to do. Rush Limbaugh is a typical Standardisto, telling his radio audience that "Diversity has nothing to do with the greatness of America." For Standardistos, "diverse standards" are an oxymoron. For me, standard standards are both an insult and an impossibility. Lou Gerstner, IBM's 91.5 million a year CEO, is a Standardisto. He advocates teachers don the pinstriped, avaricious attitude of Wall Street, not the conscience or social activism of a Dorothy Day, a Mother Jones, a Ralph Nader. |
| Standardistos keep the populace alarmed. They rush to get every kid into algebra class in the name of skills needed for 21st century employment. The algebra hobgoblin keeps the public from thinking about the fact that one- fourth of our children live in poverty, lacking the minimum standards of food, shelter, and health care. Isn’t this an elitist view? Shouldn’t we do everything possible to ensure that all kids can succeed in subjects like algebra? If teachers can encourage more kids to take algebra, then God bless all of them, the teachers and the kids. But it is dangerous and dishonest to posit algebra--or any other subject--as the key to economic success in the twenty-first century. Algebra has become the snake oil nostrum of the 90ies. The fact that a large portion of today's workforce has not mastered quadratic equations is not the reason U.S. industries are downsizing, not the reason so many of the goods in our stores are made in China. I want to speak out for the weird kids, the obnoxious kids, the kids who, for whatever reason, are not successful in school. I know that when these kids are offered alternatives they can make a turn-around. But whether or not they master algebra need not and should not be the proof they and their teachers have standards. We must offer alternate education and career choices for students who can't or won't master quadratic equations. Or read Hamlet. I also find it offensive that mathematics is being sold solely on the basis of utility, telling students to study math for a paycheck. Where's the talk of the beauty of mathematics, the idea of studying math for math's sake? |
| President Clinton is a Standardisto, insisting that what the children removed from the welfare safety net need is a national test. |
With throwaway lines
about U. S.
schoolchildren being “at
the back of the pack of
industrialized nations,”
the demands of
globalization and free
trade, and what “our
21st Century information
economy requires,”
Broad hammers home
the point that our “public
education system is not
providing our young
people with the
knowledge and skills
necessary to become
future knowledge
workers.” Future
knowledge workers. It is
a phrase that reeks of
Business Roundtable
hypocrisy. Why are so
many college graduate
knowledge workers out
of work?
[Maura to Susan: Are
you kidding? Are you
really arguing that
education doesn't
need to be improved,
or that it's not linked
to better jobs?]
about U. S.
schoolchildren being “at
the back of the pack of
industrialized nations,”
the demands of
globalization and free
trade, and what “our
21st Century information
economy requires,”
Broad hammers home
the point that our “public
education system is not
providing our young
people with the
knowledge and skills
necessary to become
future knowledge
workers.” Future
knowledge workers. It is
a phrase that reeks of
Business Roundtable
hypocrisy. Why are so
many college graduate
knowledge workers out
of work?
[Maura to Susan: Are
you kidding? Are you
really arguing that
education doesn't
need to be improved,
or that it's not linked
to better jobs?]
< < <
The participants
The participants
Not-So-Strange Bedfellows On August 7, 2003, the Broad Foundation announced a first-of-its-kind residency program to recruit young business leaders for intensive management training and placement in urban school districts across the country. The program “seeks to attract talented young MBAs. . . and train them for managerial positions in the central operations of urban school districts.” Broad will pay 75 per cent of their $80,000 residency salary, with local districts picking up the rest. The plan is that “the residents will receive mentoring from district superintendents as well as hands-on experience in transforming a large public institution into a high-performing organization focused on raising student achievement.” Resident will be placed in senior-level positions in Chicago, Oakland, Philadelphia, New York City, and San Diego public school districts. Eli Broad said, “I am thrilled to see so many dedicated young leaders eager to use their leadership and management skills to remedy the inequities in urban education.” Funny thing: Broad isn’t shipping any Harvard MBAs to Houston, winner of the 2002 Broad prize for best urban district in the Country. In Better Leaders for America’s Schools: A Manifesto (May 2003), the Broad Foundation and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute jointly proclaimed: “It is no more essential for every education leader to be a teacher than for the CEO of Bristol-Meyers Squibb to be a chemist. In any organization, the similarities between technical and leadership roles and skills are incidental and the differences fundamental.” Singled out by Broad and Fordham as exemplary in this model are: Joel Klein, Office of White House Council during the Clinton administration; superintendent of New York City Roy Romer, chair of the Education Commission of the States; chair of the national Democratic Party; Colorado governor; superintendent of Los Angeles John Fryer, major general U. S. Air Force; commandant of the National War College; interim president of the National Defense University; superintendent of Duval County, Jacksonville Paul Vallas, policy adviser, Illinois state senate; Chicago city budget director; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Illinois governor in 2002; superintendent of Chicago and Philadelphia Alan Bersin, federal prosecutor; superintendent of San Diego Paula Dawning, sales vice president of AT&T; superintendent of Benton Harbor, Michigan On September 9, 2003, President Bush announced a partnership between the Broad Foundation and the U. S. Department of Education,” To improve our country’s public education system.” They call it an unprecedented public-private collaboration. The third partner is Just for the Kids. They’re combining “$4.7 million of federal funds with $50.9 million in private philanthropy to effectively lower the cost barriers associated with the data collection, analysis, and reporting mandates of NCLB.” Standard and Poor’ s is lending a hand. The deal is that the partners offer a website “that transforms disaggregated student achievement data into useful decision- making information.” It will be free for two years. They call it private philanthropy. McGraw-Hill, owner of Standard and Poor’s, Open Court, and Direct Instruction, not to mention one of the top producers of standardized tests, as a leader in philanthropy for the good of children? |
| Chicago’s School Reform |
| [Maura's note: Susan says, "We must acknowledge and honor resisters.." But she's only talking about resisters who agree with her. Susan refuses to acknowledge those who resist illegal tactics of the teachers union.] |
| San Diego Education Report |