Support Parents in Opting Out!

By Don Perl from The Coalition for Better Education

"...Our billboard campaign is off the ground.  We have had a few early donations to the cause and our account at the Weld Schools Credit Union is just over $1,000.  The donations have come from Boulder and Greeley, Colorado.  Each year we have seen more parents exempt their children from this boondoggle of testing.  The 2014 figures show that 1,412 parents exempted their children, up from 946 in 2013.  I am attaching a photograph of last year’s billboard.  This year’s boards will have a similar look, of course with the change of acronym to PARCC.

We have contracted with Mile Hi Outdoor Advertising for two billboards.  One on Route 85 south of Greeley, and the other in a high visibility area in South Denver at Hampden and Santa Fe Avenues.  The two billboards will cost $3,700 and will go up in mid-January, symbolically around the celebration of the works of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We will have the billboards for at least one month and likely for longer if all is well.

 

All donations are greatly appreciated, no matter the amount.  “Revolutionary headquarters” is at the following address:

 

The Coalition for Better Education, Inc.

2424 22^nd Avenue

Greeley, Colorado 80631

 

In appreciation and solidarity,

 

Don Perl

The Coalition for Better Education, Inc.

www.thecbe.org

 

Department of Hispanic Studies

University of Northern Colorado

Greeley, Colorado 80639

don.perl@unco.edu

Test Prep! Watch and Weep!

"Worksheets don't grow dendrites" ~ Marcia Tate

Watch and share this video by Kaydonna Wolfcale,  a teacher who quit because of the rigid education reforms, and weep for all kids in public schools today!



Texas STAAR test prep

If this example is not enough reason to sign the White House petition to stop standardized testing in America's public schools, I don't know what will be persuasive.

Direct the Department of Education & Congress to Remove Annual Standardized Testing Mandates of NCLB and RttT

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/direct-department-education-congress-remove-annual-standardized-testing-mandates-nclb-and-rttt/1lSSvnYK

Also see: Do You Care about Kids or Data?

Reforms Fail to Help Disadvantaged Children

The future looks bleak for all of us! For all the youth that teachers still may help to think  critically, there will be an ever growing number of children who will be born into poverty and/or dysfunctional families; usually the result of poverty, but not always. For those children it may very well be too late to ever learn how to think!  It reminds me of what Dr. Bruce Perry said; most mental retardation is caused not by a birth defect, but by neglect of the child's needs in the early years.

I talked to a kindergarten kid last night who looks bright, but who is intellectually disadvantaged because he was born to a mom who used Meth. She stopped using when the boy was born, but she did not become, nor is she now, an attentive mother.

The boy's  11 yr-old brother, is also intellectually stunted. These kids clearly did not get the proper foundation in their early years, and as a result, do not even have the vocabulary (in number of words at least) that my 3 yr-old grandson already has.

These kids will never be able to catch up; certainly not in today's schools with the Common Core being taught, and testing taking priority over actual great, learning experiences!

It breaks my heart, and these two kids are the tip of the iceberg I normally never see, and many others not either! These are the kids that schoolboard members, and other education policy makers, need to meet to understand that what they offer in school to bring these kids up to speed is woefully lacking and even contrary to what such children really need for their brains to  develop further so that they can even begin to think critically!

Toxic Stress Damages Developing Brain

Draw Kids Out, Make it Safe!

Current Education Reforms Ignore Neuroscience

Current Education Reforms Ignore Neuroscience

Education reformers should acknowledge advice from child development experts and neuroscientists on how and when children learn best,  and then tailor material and curriculum to kids' needs and brains! It is for instance totally absurd and counter productive to rob kids of recess, and even more unconscionable, to deny them of playtime in kindergarten!

I watched the video, High-Quality Kindergarten Today  of what is purported to be a high quality kindergarten and yes, a lot of the activities are engaging the children, but...there is still no time for free play. The teacher gets too involved and actually helps direct the play. She also expects feedback on it, but kids need to be able to play for its own sake instead of as a goal oriented, and teacher-directed learning experience!

Recess and playtime are good for all kids as it literally helps stimulate their brains which facilitates cognitive learning, but it is even more important for kids from poverty as they very likely have missed out on important early childhood experiences! In an infant’s life, stress especially can seriously hinder brain development. Anxiety and tension deplete the glucose necessary for mental learning and processing.

“The experiences of the first year can completely change the way a person turns out”, says neurobiologist Harry Chugani in the book Teaching With The Brain In Mind written by Eric Jensen.

And from research by Dr. Bruce Perry, Childhood Experience and the Expression of Genetic Potential: What Childhood Neglect Tells Us About Nature and Nurture the following:

Page 89: "The earlier and more pervasive the neglect is, the more devastating the developmental problems for the child. Indeed, chaotic, inattentive and ignorant caregiving can produce pervasive developmental delay in a young child."

Page 91: "...[I]n a study of more than 200 children under the age of 6 removed from parental care following abuse and neglect we demonstrated significant developmental delays in more than 85% of the children. The severity of these developmental problems increased with age, suggesting, again, that the longer the child was in the adverse environment – the earlier and more pervasive the neglect – the more indelible and pervasive the deficits..."

Page 92: "...when early life neglect is characterized by decreased sensory input (e.g., relative poverty of words, touch and social interactions) there will be a.. [negative] effect on human brain growth as in other mammalian species. The human cortex grows in size, develops complexity, makes synaptic connections and modifies as a function of the quality and quantity of sensory experience. Sensory-motor and cognitive deprivation leads to underdevelopment of the cortex in rats, non-human primates and humans."

Watch the interesting presentation Brain Development & Addiction by Gabor Mate in which he explains how addiction is the result of lack of proper brain chemistry caused by environmental factors  in the young child's life.

Schools Complicit in Child Abuse and Neglect

So, there! I said it. What is it based on? Well, when you hear a parent of a kindergartner say that he hates going to school, you know something is dreadfully wrong. No, kids are not beaten (I trust!), but I heard of a teacher who did not allow a child in third grade to go to the bathroom, or get cleaned up after she peed her pants, all because there's a  strict lock-step schedule to be followed. Every school in my district is on the same page at every hour.

Stories like this do not make it into the news, so parents still think school is a good place for their kids, never mind that kids are now deprived of recess which, research bears out, enhances learning capability. Never mind that kids in  kindergarten no longer get to play (at all!) with dolls, cars, blocks,  and jigsaws, or do quality crafts that help develop fine motor skills. Those learning activities are now deemed unnecessary as kids "need to be prepared early to 'succeed' and 'compete' in a global economy".

Someone on the Facebook group Opt Out of the State Test, discussing Diane Ravitch' latest book " Reign of Error" wrote,

"..in my small town, I don't think parents see the connection with test scores. If parents routinely are measuring their kids against others by asking all their friends what their kids scored, then we have an uphill battle to educate them. As I read, I am constantly trying to decide where to start educating my community.

Our parents need to feel assured that the "answers" are not necessarily in homeschooling, post secondary (dual enrollment) online schooling and open enrollment. Charters are 50 miles away. Instead of taking a complacent role that are school is here, I see us pro-actively promoting and advocating for our district so that fewer parents feel the need to look elsewhere."

In response I shared that in our district, young kids' needs are neglected in all regular schools, so any parent who can seek out more appropriate education (in my opinion only one of the three charters here qualifies), or who can homeschool, absolutely owes it their child to do so!

My heart still aches for all the kids, year after year, who enter kindergarten and are trained like dogs, not just with learning how to read by scripted Reading First curriculum, but also by means of the PBIS program. Plus, no recess, and no play in kindergarten.

Sadly, parents have been brainwashed to believe that school is a, "safe and nurturing place where all kids will have a chance to learn and reach their fullest potential", as written in many a school's mission and vision statement.

As a young parent I trusted those 'good' intentions, and back then in the early nineties, school was still a relatively good place for kids. I say relatively because, seriously...how many kids do you know of who will say they love school? But now, schools have become toxic, here in Greeley, Colorado especially, and their toxic overhaul in 2006 was used as a shining example for other failing districts to follow!

And now parents buy into the propaganda that all these reforms and tests, to track their kids' performance,  are needed so their kids can 'succeed' and 'compete' in the 'global economy', never mind what the experts say whose findings are never even presented to parents, because school administrations are complicit in keeping the reforms going. And how do they do that?

By insidious coercion and threats. A parent shared this letter (click on the photo to enlarge) she received from the superintendent when she chose to opt out her child from testing, and to her credit, DIBELS testing as well.

[caption id="attachment_1760" align="aligncenter" width="300"] An Opt Out threat[/caption]

PTA's and PTO's should step up to the plate, but they too believe the propaganda. See what the New York State PTA shares on the issue: Testing Opt-Out, Just the Facts