In 2004,after 38 years of teaching physics and mathematics, I retired from active teaching to do research and write a book about the deleterious effects of high-stakes testing on students, teachers and schools, Educational Genocide-A Plague on our Children.
I distributed free copies of my book to union leaders, state and national legislators, governors, business leaders and other educational influentials. I along with other teachers, parents, and college professors here in Fresno began a group we called Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse-EPATA.
We gave talks, presentations, workshops and cosponsored the Chavez Education conference for seven years. I took on the responsibility to coordinate the Assessment Reform Network in the San Joaquin Valley. I was part of the ARN-I and EPATA list serves.
I did all of this to help educators, parents and decision makers see more clearly the effects the current high-stakes testing policies and practices were having on education.
I thought that if all stakeholders had the evidence of what was happening to students, their teachers and schools that they might have an ‘aha’ experience and leave the dark side of using fear, threats and punishments to promote their educational agenda of mean accountability. Their plan was to disregard the professionalism of teachers and create a system of incessant monitoring, pacing charts, and scripted lessons with a prescribed inflexible curriculum. It attempted to sanitize learning to a set of discrete inputs followed by tested outputs in the same mold of manufacturing a toaster.
Little by little I began to see that this was just the tip of the iceberg. These manifestations revealed the core drive. It was that those with power and money want to usurp the freedom of education in the public domain and confine it to the corporate mindset of profit and control.
"Like the many advertisements for private goods and services, those who want to commandeer American education seek to convince an unsuspecting public that business practices employed in education are in the best interest of all students-who after all are just corporate workers in development. This is their central belief."
Contrast this to those of us who hold that students have unique hopes, desires and dreams that do not want to be bound by the artificial structures and limitations of becoming a worker bee. Education should be at the service of students not at the service of the corporate power brokers and those who support that mentality. Students’ teachers along with their parents are among those who give meaning to their world. They mediate all possibilities to enrich students’ lives. Teacher professionalism flows from our care and concern for individual students. We thrive on their successes. Life long learning for them is our greatest hope. This is our central belief.
I no longer believe that discourse with logical arguments, research studies and ‘proof’ about maximizing student learning and best practices for teachers have any significant effect on those who support the corporate mindset for education. There comes a point where reasoning and evidence have little sway in changing the course of events that are progressively worsening. While ongoing dialogue should not be abandoned, I no longer have confidence that it will effect the change with the immediacy that is necessary for the educational health and well being of our students.
It is much like standing in line at the check out counter only to see a child being physically abused by an attending adult. When supplications to stop the beating do not abate the behavior, then a coordinated force is required if not demanded by the situation to protect the child.
The civil rights struggles of the 60’s and our own war of independence are examples of the need to confront the injustices of those with beliefs that restrict freedoms and can enslave generations. We are in a battle of beliefs.
The planned July 28-31- Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action is a first step. I suggest that this should be followed by a well-coordinated national parent and teacher work stoppage.
Parents keeping their children home and teachers not working until our concerns are heard and a plan for action is established.
*Equitable funding for all public school communities
*An end to high stakes testing for student, teacher, and school evaluation
*Teacher and community leadership in forming public education policies
*Curricula developed by and for local school communities
It will not be easy. Those in power and control will not give it up without a fight. There is blood in the water and those corporate sharks who already have plans on our schools are seeing dollar signs. We have many on this list and beyond who can form nuclei of action. Count me in.
Rog
Rog ( Horace ) Lucido, Physics Instructor, Ret.
Program Evaluator
Heald College Mathematics Adjunct
Educational Consultant
Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse ( EPATA )
Assessment Reform Network Central Valley Coordinator
email: lucid4@cvip.net
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