Advocacy a Waste of my Time

This is the last post on the BuildBetterSchools blog that will disappear on October 26th. Most of its contents is now available here at The School Buzz, but this post was my last one there, to voice my opinion on how advocating/fighting for quality schools that serve the common good will remain a dream, because not enough people are united for the cause, and many are misguided about what quality education is. 

After advocating for my own, and then also for other kids for twenty years , I have come to the sad conclusion that my time was utterly wasted. Why did it take me so long to realize that no matter what committee a parent serves on, and no matter what useful information or research they bring to the table, their opinions are simply ignored. Is it because of the infinite hope we cling to that surely some day things will be different?

Is school today really that much different, never mind better, from when you were 'educated'? I bet not, especially not right now with all the testing, the lock-step schedules and the scripted lessons that quash authentic learning in classrooms across the nation! Thankfully my kids escaped that fate while they were in elementary school. Thankfully they played in kindergarten, had recess, and were lucky to be able to learn through projects, not just books and computers.

I wanted my children's  school experience to be much better than it had been for me, so I became an involved parent. But, all my time invested in attending school accountability meetings and schoolboard meetings, was for naught. If anything, schools are now worse for kids, toxic even!

One positive thing came out of my involvement.  I got passionate about education. I felt like I was in hog heaven each time I visited my local university's library. I had access to many good and interesting books by notable authors and experts. I became knowledgeable about education, but how many others do? Certainly not the people who serve on schoolboards and in the legislature who make policies and laws, and who heed the wishes and demands from business and corporations rather than the advice from education experts whose warnings and suggestions are willfully ignored! Their books are collecting dust on library shelves. Some had never even been checked out,  others just a handful of times, and this at a university that focuses on teacher education!

A few other longtime advocates and activists I know, also see that improving education is  a near impossible feat. They fear though that showing their discouragement will dash the hope of others. But, should we keep ignoring the fact that no one in charge of public education, at any level, really cares about what child development experts and neuroscientists say that children need to learn best and thrive holistically?

Only a paradigm shift in education will truly benefit the common good, but will not happen unless a critical mass of people demand it. Almost all of us were raised to unquestioningly respect authority, so it is uncomfortable to request changes. Many parents are apprehensive of going into a school to talk to the principal as memories  from their own school days  of being subjugated may resurface. Few adults reach the level of self-esteem and self-confidence to dare advocate for their own child. Fewer still dare question the whole concept of mandatory education!

The intent of  education is believed by many to give children broad experiences so they can become literate in the truest sense, to learn to think , question, analyze, conclude, and  to help make their own life and society better for all. But, John Taylor Gatto argues  that public schools were  meant to serve the needs of the ruling elites, by teaching the kids of lower socioeconomic classes to conform.  I agree!

Many times I heard teachers talking about the importance of instilling "work ethic" in high school students, and, to my amazement, many parents agree with that! It is instilled by means of meting out punitive grades for homework not done (or handed in just one minute late) which result in a lowered GPA even if the scores on tests and quizzes are all A's.

Work ethic, as a major goal of schooling, likely stems from the beginning of the 20th century when schools already were heavily influenced by the nation's first industrialists who needed skilled laborers to work in their factories. When Frederick W. Taylor introduced his principles of scientific management which were to increase production with less waste and fewer costs, those were also used to make schools run more efficiently. Learning had to be done for a specific purpose inside strict parameters, and that concept has not changed over the decades. Kids still have to learn this, and disregard that, even if they are interested more in that than this. It is a good way to ensure that many dislike school and do not learn much substance. The situation is worse now with the many standardized tests kids need to take each year.

One mom, who has tried tirelessly to inform parents that opting their kids out of the state testing is possible, said:

"I've been trying for more than 7 years here ... to convince parents to band together against testing but schools are closing right and left and charters springing up everywhere in my home district. I and a teacher here in town hosted an opt out event, put out flyers, advertised on the radio, invited everyone we knew and absolutely NO ONE showed up. I cannot tell you how discouraging that was. I've given out leaflets at schools. I don't know what else I can do. I'm tired. So I have a public Facebook page and I post. ..I don't want anyone to think I'm giving up; though I think it's a David and Goliath battle."

"We're winning small battles here and there but it's going to be years; as many as it took us to get this far.... There are more and more parents opting out every year but no one seems to want to band together; at least not here. They don't want to call attention to themselves. So, whenever I get the opportunity, I spread the word; while my kids and my husband roll their eyes and find the door."

I told her I admire her for her tenacity, and that a bit of her discouragement should be shared.

Perhaps it will shake some awake!

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Some of the many good books I have read:

• All work and no play..How educational Reforms are harming our Preschoolers by Sharna Olfman


• Education's Missing Ingredient by Victoria M. Young


• Educational Genocide by Horace (Rog) Lucido


• Endangered Minds by Jane M. Healy


• Free to LEARN; Why Unleashing the Instincts to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and better Students for Life by Peter Gray,


• Insult to Intelligence - Frank Smith

• Life in Schools - An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy by Peter McLaren (Life in Schools has been named one of the 12 most significant writings worldwide in the field of educational theory, policy and practice by an international panel of experts)


• Seeds of Tomorrow by Angela Engel


• Wounded by School by Kirsten Olson


• The Education of Sam Sanders by T.S. Poetter

And many others by Diane Ravitch, John Holt, Alfie Kohn, John Taylor Gatto, and more!

Too Much Screen Time Harms Development

Fred Rogers with the real Daniel!

I was shocked to find The Fred Rogers Company trademark on PBS kid shows like Daniel Tiger and Super Why! I wonder what Fred himself would have thought of  very young children watching these 3D animated shows, or playing the game versions on computer or iPad!  Is it a coincidence that 'his' company started featuring these shows, after his death? 

The company that was started by Fred Rogers in 1971, began making 'educational' programs like Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, "a new animated program for preschoolers ages 2 to 4" in 2012.

"In 2006, three years after Fred's passing, and after the end of production of Blues Clues, The Fred Rogers Company contacted Angela Santomero [creator of Blues Clues  and Super Why] to ask what type of show she would create to promote Fred’s legacy. That conversation was about the birth of "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood."

PBS initially ordered 40 episodes, which were broadcast between September 2012 and February 2014. ...Santomero confirmed that PBS Kids has renewed the show for a second season of 25 episodes to premiere September 2014." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Tiger's_Neighborhood)

"Two of the women behind Nickolodeon's biggest shows [Blues Clues] are now rolling out their own line of educational programming, toys and books for kids." Says Angela Santomera in this interview on Fox: "It's an interactive show where kids are able to practice the key literacy skills as identified by the National Reading Panel, so it's the first 3-D animated series for PBS kids.."

The Digital Daniel

In an interview in Forbes magazine, A Different Kind of Tiger Mom, she says:

"This “interactive” model has proven effective by numerous educational studies done on Blue’s Clues and Super Why, proving that kids who watch scored statistically significantly better on standardized tests than kids who did not watch."

So, it appears that entertainment for kids is no longer educational in the broadest sense, but focused on the components of the standardized tests! What would Fred Rogers have thought of that? The people who now run his company clearly don't care about that.

I'm sure Mr. Rogers would have wholeheartedly agreed that "what’s most important for children is lots of time for hands-on creative and active play, time in nature, and face-to-face interactions with caring adults."

And as  stated in the report Impact of Screen Time on Development and Learning,

"Regardless of content, excessive screen time harms healthy growth and development.”

And, lastly ponder the following about how students best retain information!

‎”[Those], who held a paper copy in their hands, averaged a retention level of 85%. Those who saw it on the movie screen had a retention level of between 25 to 30%, and those who studied it on the TV monitor had a retention and comprehension level between 3 and 5%.

One professor from MIT made the passionate plea that we must encourage children to develop the ability to think first, and then give them the computer…if you introduce the computer before the child’s thought processes are worked out, then you have disaster in the making.

This is because, as Piaget pointed out, the first twelve years of life are spent putting into place the structures of knowledge that enable young people to grasp abstract, metaphoric, symbolic types of information. The capacity for abstract thinking developed as a result of the natural concrete processes that have been going on for millions of years. The danger here is that the computer, which operates by the same artificial, cathode-ray-tube technology as the television, will interrupt that development.”  ~ Interview with Joseph Chilton Pearce

The Time for Talk is Over!

From the Facebook page of a retired school teacher.

"I've nearly completely extricated myself from my daily reading and commenting on Facebook and Twitter. I'm a retired public school teacher. I've virtually stopped writing about education and the continuing destruction of our public schools. I live it everyday now as a consultant in the classrooms. I've been traveling a lot over the last few months. Now and then I see the same great and not so great stories, links, and comments. Brilliant people making brilliant observations. Making effulgent, even quite luminous and pithy remarks.

Progressives are aware of Achieve Inc. Michael Cohen has been around the education game in the Beltway for some time. They know Intel and IBM. They know Bill and Melinda Gates. Progressives are aware of a poll in Georgia showing a cooking show host as being more popular than Martin Luther King Jr. But they are living within the corporate dominant body politic.

Notice will be served to all those regardless of which side they take when all the commenting and daily reporting regarding this group or that, this small protest or that, change tenor. That is, the time for talk is over. Speak truth to power? The power already knows the truth. They discourage media from reporting on what's real. Like an interview of a career politician, there are few sources that don't deflect each question, each remark. Defying the truth. The time for talk is over.

Teachers. Stay in your classrooms if you must. What's happening in Chicago is clearly a harbinger of what's to come for teachers---nationwide. What's happening in Detroit is a message like some kind of back to the future Orwellian time machine. Corporate control beyond the atrocities of buying children for placement and profit. Like some John Hersey novel ("The Child Buyer") gone even more insanely dystopic as Wall Street and its largest beneficiaries concoct "no excuses" institutions for the poor to stay poor, and increase insulation from the new feudalism for the progeny of the wealthy.

The authoritarian power elite know that people are not truly defined by numbers. But they do know that the complete corporate occupation of schools requires a facade of unproven benchmarks and testing so it appears that they are preparing people for a future. Indeed.

Until there is a movement of such insane capaciousness, linked together throughout all stratum of people and groups, all of one accord and in motion against the tyrannical private-corporate-government complex and its will to seize all that can be profitized and measured, leveraged by indebtedness. Then will there be meaningful action beyond the words and mien of a scattered, austeritized public. Each interest group appending a whole. With singularity and solidarity in commitment. Truly revolutionary.

Not a million or two people marching upon Washington, D.C., but 50 million or more. Susan Ohanian said it in one word: Revolution. Put thought into action or live the regret of continuance in a gone world."

iPads ~ Causing Intellectual Devolution

Trying to find what Jane M. Healy, author of "Endangered Minds" would have to say about the harm that digital devices have on young children, I came across this Blog Post "Gadgets Are the Root of All Evil ~ NOT!" and felt the need to respond with this:


I feel like you use Sesame Street as a straw man to distract from computers, and now easily accessible portable gadgets like the iPad, that are much more harmful. Watching Sesame Street is a much slower paced activity than games played on the computer.

You talk about balance, but from what age on? Harmful digital distractions should be kept at a minimum during the early years when the brain is developing. It is best to not subject babies and toddlers to any of it.

"..Research psychologist Jane Healy, author of Endangered Minds, recommends that children remain TV-free well into elementary school."

Take a look at this video (18 month old IPad Genius) of a girl doing spelling "work" on an iPad. Now that is definitely harmful.

You said,

"I wouldn’t suggest hampering your children, by NOT encouraging them to learn new technologies. To do so could reduce their future chances of success in modern life. There are so many good applications of new technologies; they far outweigh the bad."

If you let a child learn through appropriate developmental activities, that child will be intelligent enough to catch on to any electronic tool later on. Besides, it is high time for society to redefine success. Look where focus on material success has gotten us! If we want a more compassionate and just society, kids in preschool and kindergarten need to play with real toys and with each other instead of using computers and iPads.

DigiKids will have a hard time with slow activities like reading, and thinking; still the pathway to wisdom.

Here is a good interview with Matt Damon's mom, an early childhood professor, about The Disastrous Impact of Education reform on Young Children.

Well-Paying Jobs Will be Few!

If only people, especially those in business, including students majoring in business, would read books like “Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy” by Edward Luttwak, they would realize that only a small number of all the envisioned “proficient” students will ultimately find a slot away from the base of the pyramid that is capitalism!

Well-paying high-tech jobs requiring advanced math and science will be few. Yet, Bill Gates and others believe it necessary that kids are pushed in that direction whether it is their area of strength, or love, or not!
Why do we even believe this hype, when according to BBC World News corporate America is already investing money in research and development labs in China, therewith supporting the graduates over there instead of here?

China has over 1,200,000 IT professionals and is adding 400,000 technical graduates each year. China ranks #1 in the world (followed by India and the US)  ~ Source: Facts About China: education

See China's Drive to Promote Invention.

"..multinational firms are now betting that the long-term future of innovation may lie in China. Hundreds of companies have opened research centres in Beijing and Shanghai.

Intel has its own compound in a skyscraper in Beijing, where dozens of young researchers doodle on notepads or write incomprehensible programmes onto their computer screens.

Intel's strategy is simple - sign up the best young brains in China and then get them to have a go at some mind-bending problems, such as face processing imaging, machinery application on video retrieval and ultra-mobile devices."

It’s not because there are no smart graduates here as we are supposed to believe. It’s because investing in Chinese graduates and labs is cheaper! Having more science and math majors here is not going to change that. Luttwak writes “Corporations are not moral entities. They exist to earn profits.”

Indeed! They are opportunists, lacking allegiance to their own country, fellow citizens and even their own employees which they easily lay off under the guise of “restructuring.” At a later time they rehire, but at lower wages and offering fewer benefits! They are powerful entities. According to David Downing in an educational book about and called "Capitalism",

"The most important changes to affect the international economy over the last 25 years has been the rise of multinational corporations. These businesses, which conduct operations all over the world, can have more money than some national governments...

supporters claim that they bring new technology..and new jobs to the poorer countries..[but] ..critics argued that the jobs are few, the major decisions all made at corporate headquarters in the rich countries, and that most of the profits are sent home."

Clearly corporations will employ any strategy that promises profit, including outsourcing which has nothing to do with the talent pool stateside, but with savings.

Writes Luttwak : “ ... even at the height of the boom in 1997, there was still an oversupply of software engineers in general, so much so that employers could pick and choose among job applicants, specifically picking the young who cost less, while rejecting mid-career applicants - not something they could afford to do if there were a shortage.”

As an example, since 1997 Microsoft has only hired 2% of all software writing applicants! The other dozen or so smaller software companies hire even fewer which leaves more than 70% of qualified people without a job of their choice! That’s what “business” hopes No Child Left Behind will “produce” — an oversupply of qualified human resources for any field in which large profits can be made to drive down wages and generate more profit. And profit for whom? For the CEOs and the stockholders!

Rhee's wrong about what's best for kids.

Is Richard Whitmire, who wrote a book about the former Chancellor of District of Columbia public schools, worried he may not sell enough books? In "What Is Behind the Discrediting of Michelle Rhee?" in Education Week he writes:

"While researching my book, The Bee Eater, I often shook my head in amazement after reading some of the online comments posted after a Washington Post story about Rhee. Wow, I would say to myself, some people really, really dislike her.

It’s not that Rhee didn’t, and still does, have many supporters. You don’t launch a new organization like StudentsFirst and declare a one-year goal of enlisting one million members and raising $1 billion without having more than a few backers.

Rhee’s track record in Washington is ripe with data, both local and national. Why not judge her on that and her actual reforms, or her lengthy record building the New Teacher Project?"

My comment:

As my daughter says, even if you put a child in a box he or she will learn something. The issue is that test scores do not say much about any student's true ability or potential. If you teach kids with a narrowed, basic skills curriculum they will learn basic skills, but not much beyond.
If you teach kids reading by means of a rigid script or in a lock-step curriculum, the kids will not be able to stretch their minds beyond the script or the facts taught.

If you do not allow children in kindergarten to play and socialize, those kids will not function well enough in 21st Century jobs because they'll lack imagination (needed to come up with innovations), and the skills to work in teams.

As long as powerful corporations and billionaires have influence over education as is now the case, we can never have quality education. Business is about "the bottom line", about turning schools around for profit, about selling ever "new" curriculum to districts.

Corporations base decisions on reducing costs which often leads to throw-away, shoddy products. In education it will lead to schools that teach basic "skills" and "knowledge", content that can be measured on the high-stakes tests,instead of a rich, quality curriculum that stretches student potential and develops interest in life-long learning.

As Edward Luttwak remarks in his book, "Turbo-Capitalism; Winners and Losers in the Global Economy"

"Corporations are not moral entities. They exist to make a profit"

Textbook and test manufacturing profits for McGraw-Hill soared from 50 million dollars in 2002 when NCLB was just enacted, to 300 million dollars by 2009. I'm sure it is more now.

Read this article by Joanne Barkan to understand the far reaching consequences of business involvement, Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools.

Students are just Corporate Workers in Development.

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 Rog Lucido wrote:

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

Who is in control of public education?

In his State of the Union address, president president Obama implied it was the National Governors' Association that had come up with the school reforms such as the national common core standards .

Was that an attempt to have us believe the states still have sovereignty regarding education decisions? What about the fact that states have to compete for federal Race to the Top monies and fulfill many criteria set by the federal government?

The real concern is that the government is not taking action against the influence on education from wealthy billionaires such as Bill Gates, the Walton family and Eli and Edythe Broad. Below is an example. Note the part in bold and then think again of what Obama said about the governors making education decisions. Ask yourself if education reforms should even be determined by a group of governors without input from their states' legislators, and even more importantly, from "Us, the People"?

"..In its “advocacy and public policy” work, the [Bill and Melinda] Gates Foundation also funnels money to elected officials through their national associations. They have given grants to the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, National Conference of State Legislatures, United States Conference of Mayors, National Association of Latino Elected Officials Education Fund, and National Association of State Boards of Education. They’ve also funded associations of high nonelected officials, such as the Council of Chief State School Officers."

Read about the billionaires' influence in this long, but enlightening excerpt of the article "Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools". Click here - It clearly shows that public education has been hi-jacked by the wealthy and we should wonder to what end? What is in it for them?

Also read this insightful response to the president's address by Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post: "Obama's faulty logic: What he said and failed to say" .

Mr. President, We Want Your Children's Education, Too

From an insightful column by Rachel Levy

(Photo: Not a Sidwell classroom!)

"Mr. President, if... the new school reformers' policies, which you and your administration support, are the right ones, why don't you send your own children to the very schools where such policies are being implemented? If that is not possible, why send them to a school that is in many ways the mirror opposite of your revolutionary reforms?

Is it possible that the very things that make Sidwell [school] so enticing to you (..their website [states]: "We offer these students a rich and rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum designed to stimulate creative inquiry, intellectual achievement and independent thinking in a world increasingly without borders") do not apply to children in public schools, and, specifically, inner-city schoolchildren?

Your educational reforms leave interdisciplinary curriculum, creative inquiry and independent thinking by the wayside in the pursuit of higher math and reading scores. Elite kids get to read, find learning fun and relax in moments of quiet reflection, but public school systems, apparently in a crisis, have to drop recess, the arts, science and social studies, not to mention many of their neighborhood schools, in the quixotic quest for higher test scores and school "choice." Are such policies fine for the education of other children, but not your own?

Mr. President, if we should all have your healthcare, as you have said we should, then shouldn't we all have your children's quality education, too? No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Arne Duncan and Bill Gates are not going to get us there, and your choice in where you send your children to school demonstrates that.

Do you think that children in public schools aren't ready for these luxuries? Or are their brains somehow different? Less curious? Less creative? I don't think you believe this. But it seems to me you should at least say that they deserve exactly what your own children have. When you fail that basic test, it makes me think you're just the elitist that your populist critics say you are. "

Do We Have the Time to Reform?

With so much discussion around improving our schools it is hard to figure out how and when to help out.  Stakeholders have little time as it is and we all go a little cross-eyed at the end of the day.  Heck, getting a good night’s sleep is what most of us shoot for in the daily accomplishments category (and fail at)!  Point is, everything is moving so fast.  So how can we get more involved in improving our schools? A recent D6 outreach event was attended by about 40 community members.  We have almost 20,000 children who attend our D6 schools.  Board meetings typically have just a handful of people there.  We see about that 40 attendee number again when the Board is discussing hot topics such as the charter schools.  40 out of 20,000.

Time is valuable and your time is best spent with your family and friends.  So how can we advocate improving our schools?  By forming connections and becoming an informed group.  Thanks to technology it is extremely simple to accomplish this.  Take the easy steps to get involved by following BuildBetterSchools.com.  You can follow via Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds or subscribe the simple way with basic email updates.

Want to write a column or just vent?  Let us know via the Contact Us page!  And you DO NOT have to agree with us or be in line with our thinking.  I believe the best things happen when two opposing sides can find common ground to move forward on.

These are our kids.  These are our schools.  This is our community and our future.  This is your website.  Let's  find each other and work together to make our schools what we all know they can be!

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