Disappearing Childhood

From The Alliance for Childhood:

Millions of families have lost homes, jobs, or both. The impact on children is enormous. But times are harsh in other ways, too. Work pressure puts parents on call 24/7 and eats away at family time. Children say the thing they most want is more time with their parents—not for homework help, but for talking and leisurely fun.

The anxiety parents feel about their children’s future is heightened by well-meaning but misguided education “reforms.” Even preschoolers and kindergartners have longer school hours. They are plunged into didactic lessons and testing before they are physically able to sit still or have the cognitive foundation to meet these inappropriate demands.

What is at stake is childhood itself—time for children to learn to discover their talents, regulate their impulses, and make sense of the world through play and exploration.

Someone has to yell STOP.

From Education For We, The People Or For Private Profit?

"Total student loan debt exceeds total credit card debt in this country, with $850 billion outstanding, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com, websites that provide information about student aid and scholarships.
Consumers owe about $828 billion in revolving credit, including credit card debt, according to seasonally adjusted numbers in a report on July credit from the Federal Reserve.

.."Far too many for-profit schools are saddling students with debt they cannot afford in exchange for degrees and certificates they cannot use."

..A Huffington Post report of their investigation of Kaplan University, At Kaplan University, 'Guerilla Registration' Leaves Students Deep In Debt, exposes Kaplan's practice of "guerilla registration" in which they register students and charge them tuition for classes they don't want or take, even in some cases after they have withdrawn from the school. And then they send the debt collectors after them for the money." ..Kaplan University, by the way, is owned by The Washington Post company."

Can Student Creativity Be Saved?

kids' scores on the commonly used Torrance creativity test dropped steadily from 1990 to 2008. The blame..lies both in and out of school:

Researchers believe growth in the time kids spend on computers and watching TV, plus a trend in schools toward rote learning and standardized testing, are crowding out the less structured activities that foster creativity

Self-directed H.S. Programs on the Rise in Ga.

In addition to conventional classes, several Georgia high schools will offer niche programs—described as a “school within a school”—that are geared toward students' strengths and interests.

Homework A or Homework B? Let Students Choose

The study, out of the University of Texas at Austin, found that, "When students were given choices, they reported feeling more interested in their homework, felt more confident about their homework and they scored higher on their unit tests,"

More Testing Seen for High School Students

High school is becoming a focus of increased testing, as more states tie diplomas to some type of assessment and require other exams that are not linked to graduation, according to a study released today...“The bottom line is that high schools tomorrow will face more testing, not less,”

Awards for kids to do well on tests

From the Education Week article: Motivating 12th Graders to Ace NAEP: Try Prom Tickets

"..schools, with NAGB's blessing, are actually offering stuff to seniors to "motivate" them to do better on the famed exam known as "the nation's report card."

My take on this:

If kids learned at an early age the merit of intrinsic rewards, they'd be more likely to want to do well on any test, simply to challenge themselves for their personal benefit. Right now though, kids are tested so much, it loses value to them.

Not only are they burdened at a young age to sit tests, but their school days are getting more rigid without enough time for things that stimulate their brains, which includes plenty of recess, and play time in kindergarten. What we are doing to young children is appalling and unethical from a child development standpoint as well as a humane one.
What has happened to educational policymakers empathic capability? Perhaps they did not have any to begin with.

Join Uniting 4 Kids on Facebook to help fight the madness of high-stakes testing:

or the Yahoogroup Uniting 4 Kids

The Control of Teachers and Schools

From the book What does it mean to be well educated?: by Alfie Kohn

There are standards offered as guidelines ("See if this way of thinking about teaching can help you improve your craft"), and then there are standards presented as mandates ("Teach this or else"). Virtually all the states have chosen the latter course. The effect has not only been to control teachers, but to usurp the long-established power of local school districts to chart their own course. If there has ever been a more undemocratic school reform movement in U.S. educational history than what is currently taking place in the name of standards, I haven't heard of it.

..the standards themselves, if handed down as requirements, embody that same determination on the part of policymakers to do things to educators and students rather than to work with them.

My nominee for the most chillingly Orwellian word now in widespread use is “alignment” – as in, “How can we make teachers ‘align’ their teaching to the state standards?” A remarkable number of people, including some critics of high-stakes testing, have casually accepted this sort of talk despite the fact that it is an appeal to naked power.

“Alignment” isn’t about improvement; it’s about conformity.
..While plenty of teachers need help, virtually everyone is likely to resist having the state try to micro manage his or her classroom.

..After new proficiency exams were failed by a significant proportion of students in several other states, education officials there responded by making the tests even harder the following year...The commissioner of education of Colorado [William J. Moloney] offered some insight into the sensibility underlying such decisions:

“Unless you get bad results,” he declared,”it’s highly doubtful you have done anything useful with your tests. Low scores have become synonymous with good tests.”

Such is the logic on which the tougher-standards movement has been built.

What has happened to our profession?

Here's a poem by long-time education advocate/activist Don Perl of The Coalition for Better Education. He refused to administer the CSAP (Colorado's assessments) to his Jr. High students. He says:

"I came across this poem I wrote almost 10 years ago in the aftermath of my boycott of CSAP testing in February of 2001.

What has happened to our profession?

"We’ve seen the passage of a generation
in which open minds have passed from fashion,
and the items on our job description
have drastically changed their political position.

What happened to shared thoughts and imparting wisdom?
Now we teach to tests, dull children’s minds
and have become a collective administrative technician.

What has happened to our profession?

It’s been on trial at some secret adjudication
and been abandoned without adequate representation.
It’s been attacked and maligned at every legislative session.
Some say there’s already been a secret, subversive elimination.

What has happened to our profession?

When will we join together, stand and say
that politicians don’t know the way?

Democratic schools are not to be factories of production.
True education serves a nobler function.
The insidious results of categorization
will starkly come to light in the devastation and desolation
of the minds and spirits of the coming generation.

We’ll wonder what happened to the ancient Socratic concept of cooperation.
We’ll see our society ever more in isolation.
Oh, those bleak visions are replete with trepidation.
And then, too late, we’ll ask again,

What has happened to our profession?

Now, before we witness further deterioration,
we must give our colleagues some supportive representation.
We must ward off this horrific political invasion,
and allow hearts and open minds to return to fashion.

We must nurture the concept of cooperation,
and dignify the ideal of true education.
We must say no to standardization,
assembly line production,
and cowardly administration.

We must revive the dignity of our profession."

Superintendent terminates creative learning

Colorado parent Julie Blehm gave the following address to the Greeley-Evans Board of Education. She has a fourth grader and Kindergartener attending Meeker Elementary.

"I believe CSAP is the culprit for many of the problems that parents like me are having with the district right now. I understand that there has to be a system for testing whether the schools are performing in accordance to the district and state levels. This is what CSAP is supposed to be measuring. We do need a way to figure out the effectiveness of each school in the state.

Unfortunately, that is not how the data is being used. The district is taking these results and punishing the teachers, as well as the students for not performing at top levels. Teachers are being rigorously trained to teach a curriculum that does not support individual teaching technique. Brilliant teachers are being reduced to scripted programs.

The entire focus of our school system is centered on the results of one moment, in one day of a child’s life. It is a snapshot. Surely anyone can see the flaw here; an upset stomach, needing a potty break, thirst, hunger, bad sleep, a runny nose. I could go on and on. The point is, there is way too much emphasis on a test that doesn’t accurately measure any child.

When Friday Fun got removed, it was just another blow to the confidence I had in the school. My child scored well in all three categories on CSAP, and yet, she was told that because the whole school didn’t perform as well as the district wanted, ALL students will suffer the consequence. How can you possibly justify this!

Friday Fun was a reward for doing great the entire week. She could choose to learn a foreign language, explore her creativity in art, and learn how to play chess. This was a 25 minute chunk of time in school that she had completely earned and very much deserved! It was a time that was not contingent on test scores. Friday Fun was available for every student, no matter if you scored well on CSAP or not.

When Friday Fun was discontinued because of CSAP, that is when I realized that the only worth my child had to the district was her score. I don’t think they care if my child is enjoying learning or being introduced to new and exciting things, if it can’t be measured on CSAP, it has no importance to the district. Instead of caring if my child is getting an enriching education, the district wants to know if something is being done to increase my child’s reading score.

I never cared for the CSAP testing before this happened, but I also understood the need for it. When my child actually got Friday Fun taken away, punished for a test that shouldn’t even impact her life, I knew I needed to change my position.

CSAP is a necessary test that should be used for better understanding the effectiveness of each school. It should not be used as a measure of a child and it certainly should not become leverage against a program whose sole purpose was to enrichment our children’s lives.

I’m opting out of a testing program that has been detrimental to my child’s school experience. It has created an unhealthy environment for our teachers and children."

Kindergarten: It's the new first grade

From the article in the Chicago Tribune:
Kindergarten: It's the new first grade

"With homework, testing and full-day classes, today's kindergarten bears a striking resemblance to first grade. Some experts call that progress, but others worry that 5-year-olds are being pushed too hard, too soon".

.."If you want children to know how to read, you don't work on their social skills" in a play-based kindergarten, said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C."

I am always disappointed in articles such as these when for balance, a so-called expert is asked to give an opposing view. Sorry, but when it comes to young children we only need the expertise of true child development experts and those who know how the brain functions and is affected by undue stress.

Ask Dr. Bruce Perry from the Child Trauma Academy, Dr. Joe Frost with 30 years of play research experience and Dr. Stuart Brown of the Play Institute for their findings, rather than opinions. They all will wholeheartedly agree that kids need to play in order to develop healthily, and do well academically later on.

Note the following in a research paper on neuropedagogy by ZHANG Dingzhang, titled Trend of Neuro-pedagogy and Brain-based Education. Emphasis mine.

“..brain development is inspired by free creative environment and blocked by pressed, forced or threatened circumstances. Brain-based education is the education to understand, use, protect and develop brain based on the scientific research on brain, so as to promote each learner to optimize and develop his brain.”

The current NCLB and Race to the Top reforms leave no room for individualization in public school classroom because of the high-stakes testing preparation. Parents need to inform themselves and then take action on behalf of their own and all children at risk of being cognitively damaged. Read the book "Educational Genocide" by Horace (Rog) Ludido. It is eye-opening!

Parents need to join together with education activists who are trying so hard to turn the tide on these ill conceived reforms without ethical reservations and regard for how children learn best. 

If you are an education activist, please join Uniting 4 Kids on Facebook which links to the National Stop Standards group in which authors and experts are uniting to take a collective stand.

Where are the others?

This first post is dedicated to Dr. Jesse Turner. He walked some 350 miles from his hometown in Connecticut to Washington, D.C. to protest the education reform policies under No Child Left Behind and now also Race To The Top that focus on test scores. He's taking a stand for all children in hopes of turning the tide against testing which causes teachers to spend more time on preparing students for the test than on good teaching!

Here is the wonderful and heartfelt response from Jesse to a message on my Stop National Standards Yahoo group where education activists and nationally renowned authors are joining forces; also to take a stand for all of America's children!

Don Perl, the first known teacher to refuse to give the CSAP (Colorado state test) to his students, now heading The Coalition for Better Education wrote:

"..my sense is that unless there is a resounding NO by parents to the horror that is high stakes standardized testing, the criminal policies of the tiny tyrant (translation: [Secretary of Education, Arne] Duncan) will continue to decimate and undermine all of us.

Thank you Jesse, for undertaking this courageous walk for justice and equity in education".

Jesse replied: "Salutations Don and others, yes we need parent voices in mass to fight this insanity. At one of my Walking Man Events in Jersey City New Jersey a parent Laura Brown said "we believe in your cause Jesse, and appreciate your walk, but where are the others walking with you. There should be thousands, there should be be hundreds here tonight for you."

I often am alone on my walk to DC. I wonder where is the press? I wonder where is the outrage. Then I reflect how many walked with Dr. King on his first walk? How many refused to give up their seat on the bus with Rosa Parks on the bus?
Is this not a civil rights issue? Our politicians use the Achievement Gap and race with this legislation every chance they get. The mainstream media pays them homage every chance they get.

While I am no Dr. Martin Luther King, no Rosa Parks, I can't help feeling them walk beside every step of the way. This nonsense of focusing mainly on standardized test scores (so very often accused of racial, cultural, and linguistic bias) to close the Achievement Gap is an insult.

I told Mrs. Brown the same thing I tell everyone on Facebook's Children Are More Than Test Scores. We are part of the resistance. We are growing. We are moving. Some are walking, some are writing, some are meeting, some are organizing, and I am walking. Finally I told her "Every tidal wave begins with a single drop of rain", (my signature line these days)

Don, I am collecting those drops of rain in my pockets these days, and one day we will all be walking in a rain that brings a tidal wave of justice to our schools.
Thank you for your kind words of support, and thank you every one for resisting this insane reform policy that is destroying our public schools, and thank you for keeping us informed.

Sincerely,
Jesse