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