Visionary Ed Reform in a Picture

Outgoing Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings sometimes shares one of her favorite sayings from Texas in praise of NCLB, high-stakes testing, and a variety of band-aid market solutions:

If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all
you'll ever get is all you ever got.

Here she unwittingly sums up 25 years of failed "reform" wrought by corporate politicos as they corrupt and undermine the very hope and promise of public education.

And it's even worse than you say Mrs. Spellings. We are actually regressing.

If all we ever do is put more teeth into what already does not work, then all we'll ever get is even worse than what we've already got. Thank you for reminding us of the definition of insanity.

Lift that veil of civil rights rhetoric you hide behind and show your face Ruling Class. The last thing you need in order to keep things as they are (and make them even more so) is a nation of well-educated citizens who can actually think.

Excellent CounterPunch Article on Arne Duncan Appointment

Cheers for Kenneth Libby, teacher-in-training in Portland, Oregon. Please take the time to visit CounterPunch where his excellent piece on the appointment of Arne Duncan as Ed Secretary has been published.

I've been slammin' Duncan quite a lot on this blog but I believe Kenneth is right on target when he points out that Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same worn-out coin. He rightly speaks of "the collusion of government officials and corporate interests" and has some important things to say about our nation's spending priorities.

Some excerpts from Libby's article:

The policies touted as educational "reform" by the New Democrats apply the same neoliberal theories responsible for NAFTA, the WTO, and GATT with the same results: the inequalities become greater while those in positions of power receive even greater rewards. A two-tired education system lurks in the distance, the result of neoliberal efforts to create equality. The gradual privatization and outsourcing of public schools represents a shift towards the voucher system, the ideal school system envisioned by Milton Friedman and present-day neoconservatives.

The dull, "research based" education models explicitly required by sanctions in NCLB, inflicted on America's poorest children, and peddled by private, for-profit companies are designed explicitly to raise test scores. The marginal gains accomplished in the so-called "turnaround" schools are the result of data manipulation and drilling students with the question-answer format used in high-stakes testing. This is far from genuine education and contributes to a curriculum void of civics, history, social studies, physical education, health education, and active community building. Most importantly, this kind of education treats our children as either young factory workers or future executives based almost exclusively on their access to quality education. The educational inequality helps ensure poor children learn to read simple instructions and compute basic math, skills suited for minimum-wage employment, while middle- and upper-class students learn the "21st Century Skills" desired by corporate America in private schools, the affluent suburbs, and exclusive charters operating within impoverished districts.

Letters to Obama from Top National Experts

Let us pray he listens. Carefully. You will find a link to the letters with accompanying research base below. A big thank you to the scholars who put this outreach to Obama together.

From Education and the Public Interest (EPIC) in Boulder, Colorado, and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University:

Fifteen educational scholars have produced a collection of letters to President-elect Obama. Each letter briefly sets forth an idea or proposal to help create a more productive and equitable educational system. The letters cover the gamut of key policyissues facing the next administration, including reading instruction, No Child Left Behind, the expansion of preschool availability, charter schools, special education, the effects of poverty, and the teaching of English learners. These proposals should be thought of as the tips of empirical icebergs –beneath the letters lies a research base to guide policymaking throughout Obama's time in office.

The collection is edited by Peter Cookson of Yale University and Kevin Welner of the University of Colorado at Boulder and is jointly published by the Education and the Public Interest Center at CU-Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University. Contributors include top national experts in their respective areas.

DC Schools Chancellor Rolls a Perfect 300. Or Did She?

We really don't know. We may never know. During a rare respite from their relentless efforts to raise the standardized test scores of poor children in urban schools, Chancellor Rhee and ed reform colleagues Joel Klein, Paul Vallas, and Arne Duncan met at the Imperial Lanes in Miami, Florida for what was expected to be a simple evening of recreation. However, where Rhee goes, sweeping legends seem to grow.

The group was in Miami with Jeb Bush and other edu-biz reformers for an Education Leadership Conference under the theme "Levers for Reform". Teachers and the general public were not invited, as is typical of the many corporate-led education summits that have driven 'public' education reform for the past 25 years.

Less than an hour after the group had bowled three games and left the premises, reports began surfacing that the diminuative former Teach for America superstar had bowled a perfect 300, putting her male colleagues (including former pro-basketball player Arne Duncan) to shame. However, at press time news sources were unable to obtain scoring sheets from the Imperial Lanes documenting the game in question. Some witnesses had downsized the miracle to a score of 152 with accommodations, including inflatable bumper pads in the gutters.

Teach for Awhile, Bowl for Awhile.

Rhee has been nominated for election into the USBC (United States Bowling Congress) Hall of Fame, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon contributors to the sport. She will appear on the cover of Time magazine in January with a broom in one hand and a bowling ball in the other.

news spoof brought to you by staff at This Little Blog

Does it ever hit you like a brick

or make you stop in your tracks when you consider what a giant travesty this all is? The whole pretense of public education reform as it is being framed. God help us. We must stop allowing the ruling elite to call what is taking place reform and call it what it is, the continuing war on public education. Corporatism. Deception cloaked in the language of civil rights. This is a war.

From Henry Al Giroux and Kenneth Saltman:

It is difficult to understand how Barack Obama can
reconcile his vision of change with Duncan's history of supporting a corporate
vision for school reform and a penchant for extreme zero-tolerance polices -
both of which are much closer to the retrograde policies hatched in conservative
think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institution, Fordham Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, than to the values of the many
millions who voted for the democratic change he promised. As is well known,
these think tanks share an agenda not for strengthening public schooling, but
for dismantling it and replacing it with a private market in consumable
educational services.

I urge you to read their entire piece at truthout.

Obama Congratulated by Business Roundtable for Ed Secretary Pick

But of course. After all, who are the beneficiarie$ of the current standards and accountability movement? Yes, a "sweet choice" for the Business Roundtable given that Linda Darling-Hammond, who is eminently more qualified than Duncan, would have worked to strengthen, support, and improve public schools rather than undermine and destroy them. Same for Doug Christensen.

From coach and non-educator Rod Paige and the Houston Fraud to Margaret-All-Children-On-Grade-Level Spellings, to CEO and basketball player Arne Duncan and his Chicago Miracle. Non-educators all.

Thanks Obama for the slap in the face insult to our nation's teachers.

Mr. Duncan has a strong record of working with the business
community to improve schools in Chicago. John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable

How fitting it is that Duncan is called the CEO of Chicago "public" schools! An oxymoron in my book, this big-biz title now being used in so many urban schools being "rescued" by business opportunists. Does the arrogance of big business know no bounds?

Remember the word "superintendent" back in the days when public schools were public? Even the language of public education is being hijacked.

Arne Duncan may be a nice guy. He seems like it. But he is not an educator and it is quite possible that he is merely an unwitting tool of the disaster capitalists. In his ignorance he may be a true believer that high-stakes testing improves the quality of teaching and learning. Test scores go up a little under immense pressure and he sees those scores as evidence that learning has improved. He doesn't see the big picture and the disaster that is unfolding.

The greatest hindrance to reforms that would really make a difference in the lives of poor children? The ruling elite.

A national uprising. Let's work to improve the quality of teaching and learning and keep public schools public.

Appointment of Arne Duncan Incites Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

Silly me. All I want for Christmas is a national uprising of teachers, a nationwide walkout. While I am not anti-union, I think it would send a powerful message if the movement took place independent of the teachers' unions.

Please deliver Santa.

Naively yours,
Tauna

P.S. I do hope I'm wrong about Duncan. I can imagine worse...Michelle Rhee or Joel Klein. Still, I'm mighty uneasy Santa. That nationwide movement of teachers is needed regardless of who the Secretary of Education is.

It is needed to respond to a nation that does not take care of its children but simply dumps them into the public schools, places wildly unrealistic demands upon those schools, then hypocritically wags a finger of blame. It is high time the relentless "failing public schools" mantra received critical scrutiny.