Jonathan Kozol on Segregation and Education Reform

“High stakes testing in kindergarten.” Sound familiar Seattle?

“The curriculum cops.”

Resegregation of our schools with “Neighborhood Schools.” Those “neighborhood schools” on the south end of town will be targeted by charter schools for two reasons. First, because now those minority, low-income families do not have any choice. Our superintendent did that in one fell swoop with the student reassignment plan. And secondly, because charter schools target minority communities where there is Title 1 money to be had. Hmmm…was that part of the (Broad) Five Year Strategic Plan?

This is a you tube video of Jonathan Kozol on his book “Shame of a Nation”.

Highly recommended. Start about 10 minutes into the video where Kozol begins to speak.

Dora

The Doublespeak of Ed Reform

	I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t an intentional Catch 22 that some people are trying to trap our public schools in–  setting them up to fail, making it impossible for them to be creative or independent, and then saying: “See! They’re losers! They don’t ‘innovate’! Sell them off to private enterprises!”

While watching part of NBC’s “Education Nation” (aka the week-long made-for-TV ad for Waiting for ‘Superman) last month, I tuned into the Teacher Town Hall where a teacher from a charter school was asked what made her school successful. “Teachers at our school are given the freedom to innovate!” she replied brightly.

Hmm, I thought. Sounds great. So why aren’t the teachers in my children’s public schools given that same freedom?

Instead, they are increasingly being slipped into the full nelson of a standardized curriculum measured by an ever-increasing barrage of computerized tests, all imposed by a top-down district management. (It feels stifling just to write about it.) Then the education reformers point an accusatory finger at our schools, call them “failing,” and hold up charter schools as exemplars of “innovation.”

And that’s one of the first ironies — or hypocrisies — of the current national dialogue on education reform.

The biggest players in ed reform — President Obama, Ed Secretary Arne Duncan, billionaires Bill Gates and Eli Broad: the “Superman” crowd, let’s call them — keep pushing privately run charter schools as the answer to all that ails our public schools (the central theme of ‘Superman’). One of the main winning traits of charters, they say, is their freedom to “innovate.” Indeed, free of public and school district oversight and mandates, privately run charter schools are granted the right to create their own curricula and empower their teachers to, allegedly, “innovate.” (They’ve also been allowed to exclude and expel students who don’t perform to their liking, a serious flaw of charters that even Secretary Duncan has acknowledged.)

Understandably, charter operations like to tout this precious autonomy they are given. Green Dot School’s site states:

3. Local Control with Extensive Professional Development and Accountability Principals and teachers own critical decisions at their schools related to budgeting, hiring and curriculum customization.

Now, why aren’t our non-charter public schools being given the creative and managerial autonomy that these reformers value in charters? Instead, when it comes to influencing or running our school districts with their corporate management trained superintendents, or their agenda-laden grants, these same reformers impose strictures on our schools and kids that quash innovation.

For example, here in Seattle, why is our district, led by a reformist Broad Academy-trained superintendent, taking autonomy steadily away from individual schools and principals and centralizing it? Why is it telling our teachers they need to follow the central office mandated curriculum exactly? Why is it sending “visitors” from the central office to escort the school principal on pop-ins into classrooms to monitor teachers? (I’ve heard these are called “Learning Walks” — apparently a trademarked term.) I can understand a principal checking on her/his staff, but why the accompanying Thought Police?)

Some researchers are even determining where exactly in the classroom a teacher should stand in order to deliver the “perfect lesson.”

I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t an intentional Catch 22 that some people are trying to trap our public schools in: setting them up to fail, making it impossible for them to be creative or independent, and then saying: “See! They’re losers! They don’t innovate! Let’s sell these schools to the private enterprises of KIPP charters, Green Dot charters, Billy Bob’s Acme Charters & Co.!”

Unfortunately this is just one of many conflicting messages coming from this latest breed of ed reformers. Those who are driving the national dialogue about the direction of our kids’ public education — from President Obama, Secretary Duncan, and lurking in the shadows with their open checkbooks, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Waltons, the Fishers and the Dells — are saying one thing out of one side of their mouths and another thing out of the other.

Here are some other examples of ed reform doublespeak:

“CLASS SIZE DOESN’T MATTER (except in charters)”

How many times have we heard the reformers declare that “class size doesn’t matter”? They claim that an “excellent” teacher can somehow transcend overstuffed classrooms and reach all kids. If this were true, then why do private schools and charters tout smaller class sizes and individualized attention as a key advantage over public schools?

Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone reportedly has a school with class sizes that average 15 kids, with two licensed teachers to every classroom! That’s a private school — and every parent’s — dream. From the Oct. 13, 2010, New York Times:

In the tiny high school of the zone’s Promise Academy I, which teaches 66 sophomores and 65 juniors (it grows by one grade per year), the average class size is under 15, generally with two licensed teachers in every room. There are three student advocates to provide guidance and advice, as well as a social worker, a guidance counselor and a college counselor, and one-on-one tutoring after school.

And from the Green Dot charter company web site:

1. Small, Safe, Personalized Schools All Green Dot schools are small (no more than 560 students when fully developed), ensuring that each student will not go unnoticed. In addition, small schools are safe and allow students to receive the personalized attention they need to learn effectively. Classes at each school will be kept as small as financially possible with a target student to teacher ratio of 27:1.

So apparently class size does matter to ed reformers when it comes to charters, but somehow not when it comes to the rest of the kids in regular schools.

“AN ‘EXCELLENT’ TEACHER CAN TRANSCEND EVERYTHING!”

How often have we heard the line: “The single most important factor in a child’s academic success is the teacher”? Here it is in the recent “manifesto” of (soon to be former) District of Columbia Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and NY schools chief Joel Klein et al:

As President Obama has emphasized, the single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents’ income — it is the quality of their teacher.

And here’s NBC (in an Education Nation press release) parroting this line:

Research and school-based evidence around the country now confirms that the most important variable affecting the success of the student is the effectiveness of the teacher, and the second most important variable is the effectiveness of the principal. Those two factors far outweigh the socioeconomic status, the impact of parental involvement or class size.

Problem is, these statements are false.

The most significant indicators and influences on a child’s success in school are what’s going on in these kids’ lives at home. In other words, their socioeconomic background and home life. Of course academic ability is not determined by race, gender or economic status. But success — the possibility of a child being allowed to fulfill her or his potential — is necessarily influenced by how much support they get at home, the stability of this home life and whether or not this child comes to school hungry each morning.

For the ed reformers to say that none of this matters — all you need is an “excellent” teacher — is false and another rigged scheme: rigged for failure. They may as well be dunking teachers in water to see if they are witches.

It defies common sense to say that a teacher, however brilliant, can transcend all challenges a child brings to school, can navigate a classroom of any size and any needs, and if the child does not succeed in school (in ed reformspeak that only means doing well on standardized tests), it is clearly unfair and inaccurate to lay the blame entirely on the teachers.

A great teacher does make a difference, for sure. But a teacher alone cannot determine a child’s academic success.

Despite this repeated canard, it’s clear that Geoffrey Canada, one of ed reforms’ heroes, recognizes these facts. Why else would his HCZ offer all the wraparound services that it does — Baby College, medical and dental care for students and their families? This is a clear acknowledgment of the fact that a child in poverty needs a great deal more than a stellar teacher to have a fair shot at educational success.

“AN ‘EFFECTIVE’ TEACHER IN EVERY CLASSROOM (but 5 five weeks of training will do!)”

I also find it rather hypocritical for the ed reformers to say they care about pushing academic achievement for all kids, and measure the success of their reforms by how many kids go to college — one of Canada’s benchmarks for HCZ — and then turn around and utterly dismiss the higher education of professional teachers.

Returning to the increasingly silly “manifesto”:

A 7-year-old girl won’t make it to college someday because her teacher has two decades of experience or a master’s degree — she will make it to college if her teacher is effective and engaging and compels her to reach for success.

If master’s degrees are so useless, then why don’t we just eliminate all academic degrees in all fields and just hire “effective, engaging” young credentialed dentists and doctors too? Does anyone really need an MBA? Or a law degree, for that matter?

On the one hand the reformers say they want an “effective” or “excellent” teacher in every classroom. On the other hand they promote sending Wendy Kopp’s Teach for America, Inc. trainees — who have only five weeks of training and are only required to commit to two years on the job — into the most struggling and challenging urban schools in the nation. Only 34 percent of TFA recruits stay in the field for a third year. Teachers don’t hit their stride until about the fifth. So most TFA-ers quit before they have even become “effective” teachers. (Michelle Rhee herself is a TFA graduate who only stayed for a few years in the field, and tells some pretty damning stories about her own mistakes as an inexperienced teacher.)

If the ed reformers were serious about promoting and supporting excellent teachers in every classroom, they would support well-trained professionals who are committed to the kids and the profession for the long term. Instead they disparage dedicated lifetime teachers as dead wood and promote young short-termers as the salvation. And their incessant teacher-bashing utterly undermines any claims they may have of “supporting” teachers.

“MONEY DOESN’T MATTER (except in the Harlem Children’s Zone)”

“Money doesn’t matter” the reformers like to say. I think I even heard President Obama say that recently, alas. And yet, the most comprehensive example of a charter model, Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone, has an operating budget and net assets in the multi-millions.

Reports the New York Times:

In 2009, the Harlem Children’s Zone had assets of nearly $200 million, and the project’s operating budget this year is $84 million, two-thirds of it from private donations. Last month, the Goldman Sachs Foundation pledged $20 million toward constructing an additional school building. With two billionaires, Stanley Druckenmiller and Kenneth Langone, on the board, its access to capital is unusually strong.

Canada’s Zone, at least acknowledges that underprivileged kids need a great deal of support inside and out of the classroom and school in order to succeed. His program offers social support services and medical services to these kids and their families for years, which is great. But he is given millions and millions of dollars to do it. That gives the lie to all those who say that money is not part of the solution to creating better schools. It also gives the lie to the reformers’ teacher-bashing mantra that somehow an “effective” or even “excellent” teacher can transcend all society’s ills.

It does take money to hire enough teachers to reduce class sizes, to maintain safe and clean facilities, invest in solid and inspiring curricula and enrichment. That’s an indisputable fact. We as a nation have not made education a funding priority. All my life, schools have been holding bake sales, as the famous bumper sticker laments, scrambling to pay for basics. It is a national shame. And the Obama/Duncan lottery of Race to the Top is unconscionable in that it does not fund all 50 states equally or at all.

So here’s where I’m at with this: Everything good the reformers tout about private control of our public schools via charters could be given to our existing public schools without handing over the control and finances of our schools to private charter franchise operators.

Smaller class sizes, more creative autonomy for teachers, local autonomy for schools, non-standardizing curricula that allow for more innovation, better resources for the kids from greater allocations of money — all of this is possible in our existing schools, if our superintendent, school board and central administration office would allocate our school district’s resources properly. But they don’t — as the recent damning state audit of Seattle’s School District revealed. (That’s why a growing number of parents and The Seattle Times support a “No” vote on the school levy Nov. 2 — unprecedented in a town that always backs school levies).

ALL public schools should offer ALL these things to ALL kids, no private-charter franchise middlemen required, and no lottery required either.

– Sue Peters

(originally published in The Huffington Post, 10/25/10)

Weekend Roundup: Big-Girl Pants, Parent Trigger, & the Charterfest Comes to Town (Oh my!)

Boy, I have some catching up to do. Some interesting discussions are going on in Seattle right now regarding education. It’s hard to keep up.

In brief: I’m voting NO on the school levy, despite running the risk of being called a “hater” and a “doubter” by the League of Education Voters’ apparently sometimes small-girl-pants-wearing Chris Korsmo.

Here’s why. Also listen to Dorothy Neville make a convincing, sensible argument for demanding more accountability from our renegade school superintendentt and school board by voting against the levy, on KUOW.  The pro-levy side was represented by Schools First’s Sharon Rodgers.

By the way, what is the definition of “grassroots”? I noticed Schools First was introduced this way on KUOW, but it’s not as if they are a mom and pop operation with a shoestring budget. They get private and corporate contributions. The true grassroots player in this latest levy debate is Neville’s Committee for Responsible Education Spending – a group of  parents and teachers who have no funding.

Here’s my own take on the issue  (in my letter to the SPS robocall teacher who told me to vote yes – paid for by Schools First):

Dear Elizabeth,

I am a Seattle Public Schools parent and I believe you left a message on my answering machine about the school levy.

I’m just curious — why are you supporting it?

Do you actually want your professional evaluation and pay tied to your students’ performance on the erratic MAP test — which is not designed for that purpose, by the way? Because that is where some of the levy money will go — towards instituting “merit pay” in SPS and more spending on MAP.

Did you know the district has already spent over $4.3 million on the MAP test?

And did you know that two significant studies out of Vanderbilt University’s National Center for Performance Incentives have found that “merit pay” does not work?

Do you truly want more money disappearing into the bureaucracy of the John Stanford central office? Because that is where this money will go if this levy passes. Little to none of it will actually reach the classroom.

Have you read the state audit that found that SPS is mismanaging our district resources as well as ignoring the law? (Also see this.)

Did you know that no matter what the district says it will do with the levy money, once it is passed, the district can — and does — allocate that money any way it wants. In other words, we voters and parents have zero assurance that the money will be spent as promised.

A number of SPS parents like myself fully support teachers and our schools and of course our kids. But we are not supporting this levy. I am concerned that not everyone knows the details of the levy and the district’s poor record on fiscal management and accountability. Of course we all want to allocate more money to our kids’ schools. But this levy won’t do that. I feel that by passing levy after levy we the parents and teachers of SPS are enabling the district to continue its bad habits.

More info here.

So please let me know why you are supporting it. I honestly would like to know.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

I’m batting zero with my letters, though. Elizabeth didn’t tell me her rationale, and I’m still waiting to hear back from my Representative Reuven Carlyle about why he supports bringing Teach for America to Seattle. He’s running unopposed this election, by the way. Guess he doesn’t feel he has to answer to his constituents anymore. Ah, democracy. (Maybe I’ll write in Lisa Murkowski on the ballot for his spot…!)

In response to her pro-levy post, LEV’s Korsmo was called to task by informed commenters who noticed how she skims over the implications of the highly damning state audit and puts her blind faith in the board to mend its ways in the future. Her use of the terms “haters” and “doubters” for all of the conscientious parents of SPS and others who want to see some accountability from SPS and are voting against the levy, took me by surprise. How very Sarah Palin of her.  And so simplistic. I wish the mainstream media would cover more of what’s going on in the Seattle School District right now because when it’s not nefarious it’s downright hilarious. Best line goes to Charlie Mas who resplies to Korsmo:

“I’m amused by the effort to dismiss and discredit those who oppose the levy as “haters” or “peeved”. In addition, I’m disturbed to think that Chris usually wears little girl pants. What does that mean? Diapers? I’m not interested in a childish back and forth. And, clearly, the League of Education Voters is not interested in an adult discussion.”

I also wish that for once the reformers and their sympathizers would debate the merits of our arguments and theirs without resorting to name-calling or misrepresentation of the facts.

Hey, Hey, PTA!

Speaking of which, I would like to propose a district-wide PTA policy which states that whenever an issue with more than one side is brought before a school PTA meeting, both sides must be represented. For too long, Schools First has slipped into PTA meetings (and once most inappropriately at an emotional school closures hearing at Lowell) spouted a quick spin on their issue, held out their hand for money, and darted away, with no counterpoint offered.

Some school PTAs don’t allow this. But it appears that too many do. So how bout it, PTAs?

Onto the “Parent Trigger” (what are they aiming for?)

The “Parent Trigger” also came up on Save Seattle Schools blog recently and in some discussions among Parents Across America. It’s a concept and now law in California that allows parents to step in and have a say in an overhaul of their kids’ schools if they are “failing.” Or something like that.

So I did a bit of delving. Though it may on the surface sound like an empowering idea for parents, I’ve heard it may well be used to further the ed reform agenda like charters.

For starters, consider the origins of the idea of the “parent trigger.” One of the main people pushing it, Ben Austin, is a charters guy (affiliated with Green Dot) posing as an L.A. Public Schools Parent, when in fact he isn’t.

From a reliable source in California:

“Ben Austin is the director of Parent Revolution, an “astroturf” (fake grassroots) organization created by charter operators, led by the Green Dot charters. He is newly a member of the California state Board of Education (appointed by fervent charter backer Arnold Schwarzenegger). Austin has no actual background or involvement in schools and is purely a hired gun, BTW.”

Also, the term “revolution” has become another code word for ed reform that leads to public school privatization. Proponents who are also using that latest jargon include the League of Education Voters here in Seattle.

Look at who LEV (funded by Gates) brought to Seattle for its  “Voices of the Revolution” speaker series this past Monday. Every one of these speakers is a charter operator or “teacher effectiveness” proponent:

Richard Barth, CEO – KIPP Foundation (a charter franchise that is affiliated with the Broad Foundation, like Supt. Goodloe-Johnson; Barth is also married to Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, which Supt. Goodloe-Johnson wants to clandestinely? bring to Seattle; Kopp is also affiliated with Broad. All rather incestuous.)

Timothy Daly, President – The New Teacher Project (created by the soon to be ex-D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who is also affiliated with Broad. This enterprise trains people in its Teaching Fellows™ programs, and appears to be anti-union. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/06/new-teacher-project-and-new-democrats.html)

Steve Barr, Founder & Emeritus Chair – Green Dot Public Schools (a charter franchise based in LA and supported by L.A. billionaire Eli Broad.)

This “revolution” leads to privatization. There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about private profiteers wanting to get their hands on yet another sector of our society. Count me out of this “revolution.” I’m also not that fond of the term “trigger.” Sounds like people are putting a gun to someone’s head.

Here’s more informed info on Ben Austin and Green Dot:

Caroline Grannan, one of the founders of Parents Across America, has analyzed Green Dot’s results. Based on the API, the California Department of Education’s accountability system, the Green Dot schools have mediocre results, and all but one had worse results than the supposedly “failing” L.A. public schools that Green Dot ran campaigns to take over, through the “parent trigger” measure, led by their fake grassroots organization, Parent Revolution. (The Parent Revolution is run by Ben Austin, an attorney who works for the city of L.A, has no school age children, is paid $100,000 as a part-time consultant to Green Dot, and yet regularly claims to be a typical, aggrieved L.A. public school parent.)

Also see: “Can Ben Austin Speak for Parent Revolution without Speaking for Green Dot?”

Which leads us to the LEV/Gates Charter Lovefest (the C-word that dare not speak its name in Seattle)

Though Washington State voters have voted “No” to charters multiple times, and we certainly have good, qualified teachers available, the League of Education Voters and the Gates Foundation brought two charter school franchise operators and a teacher-training operation to town this past Monday under the rubrics of “Voices of the Revolution” and “Leaders of Innovation.” Why do you suppose they did that?

“We’ve put together a powerhouse panel of three innovators in education: Richard Barth, CEO of KIPP Foundation, Timothy Daly, President of The New Teacher Project, and Steve Barr, Founder of Green Dot Public Schools. The discussion will be moderated by Adam Porsch of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”

Noticeably absent from much of the press material for this gathering was the word “charter,” even though both KIPP and Green Dot are charter school franchises. Hmm… interesting. Why don’t these pro-privatizing ed reformers just come out and say what their agenda is? The reformers have this strange stealthy manner that implies dishonesty.

I’m not sure how Green Dot gets away with calling itself “Green Dot Public Schools” as if it is its own district when in fact, it is just another privately run charter franchise.

Also, what’s so “innovative” about private enterprises trying to take control of yet another piece of the public sector?

Here’s a revealing tidbit that LEV boasts in one of its blog posts about the forum:

“In 2007, Steve Barr sought to take over a failing high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). When the district said no, Steve took a page out of a Wall Street playbook and became the first charter school organization to conduct a hostile takeover.”

So there you have it, spelled out quite plainly, the ed reformers’ MO: apply predatory Wall Street techniques to our public schools. A hostile takeover is indeed what they appear to be trying to do to our entire public school system. Apparently the folks over at the League of Education Voters think this is a good thing.

Back to this loose use of “innovative”: What’s innovative about slapping kids into uniforms, and regimenting them? Why, that’s as old as British boarding school or the military.

What’s innovative about a training program for teachers that bypasses full educational preparation? Sounds like a short-cut to me

There’s also nothing “innovative” about smaller class sizes or fully funding schools. That’s just common sense, most parents’ wish, and the norm for private schools. Both are good ideas, don’t get me wrong. But they were not invented by Richard Barth or Steve Barr.

But most importantly, KIPP and Green Dot both have very mixed records. They are not the shining solution to whatever the ed reformers think they are solving.

Caroline Grannan, a longtime journalist in California, and a member of Parents Across America, has researched the performance and record of charters and KIPP and Green Dot in particular, and has found some pretty troubling statistics, such as high attrition rates for KIPP, and low test scores for Green Dot (I am not a proponent of standardized test scores as a measure of much. But the charter people are, so my point is that even by their own measures, these charters are not succeeding.) She also cites misrepresented college graduation rates for the kids from KIPP.

The wealthy backers of these enterprises have made a concerted effort to spin positive press on these businesses (KIPP and Green Dot). That’s why you’ll often read phrases like “the highly regarded KIPP” etc. But more objective analysis shows that these operations are not so brilliant after all.

Which leads us to the question: Why do LEV and Gates want to bring charters to Seattle?

Why not instead invest in and replicate the existing ‘innovations’  in our system?

Like: the stellar (Singapore) math program at Schmitz Park Elementary.

The popular Montessori programs (and bring back the one the district booted from Ballard High School).

The alternative schools with waitlists.

The nationally recognized award-winning band and orchestra programs that some schools have.

Every inspired teacher’s approach and program that can be found in schools throughout the district.

They do exist.

We do not need to hand over our schools to private enterprise middlemen.

Honestly, if Seattle does eventually allow charter operators to come in, I will see it as a huge admission of failure by SPS. In effect our district leadership will be saying, “We failed. We don’t know how to create good schools and inspired learning environments for all the kids in the district, so we give up. We’re handing over our job and our responsibilities to these charter franchises.”

The issue of the LEV-Gates charter fest inspired more digging, and led to the topics of real estate (the missing link for the charter business model) and Kipp’s discipline techniques. To be continued on another post…

–Sue p.

(POST UPDATED 10/30/2010)

Another Comment on the School Levy

Another comment on the levy from an anonymous source. And no, it’s not me!

Dora

Aunty Broad Says “NO” on the Levy

And what do I think?

I have seen a lot of money be wasted over the last two years. First by closing schools, which was an expensive process in itself, $578,000 to be exact, just to open them again for a lot more money. The supe figured that there would be a savings of $5M to close these schools and programs which caused a re-shuffling of students throughout the district. This is a process that is difficult, time consuming and disruptive for students, teachers, staff and families. Then, just to have the supe decide within a few months that five school buildings needed to be re-opened to the tune of $47.8M.

Our Chief Financial Officer never provided the numbers last year that were requested by the school board president Michael DeBell to substantiate the rif.  Enrollment was on the increase for that fall and yet the superintendent and CFO were hellbent on rifing teachers just to bring most of them back in the fall because of the increased enrollment.

And the state audit should have been an embarrassment to the board and the superintendent. Lack of oversight on behalf of the school board and rules broken.

The party given by the supe with a service station of some sort that cost us $7,000?!

There is more information about the audit that is being discussed on the Save Seattle Schools blog that might be of interest.

And then there was the superintendent rifing teachers, firing school counselors, eliminating  the business office staff and Human Resources within the district, as well as letting go the Director of School Partnership just so the supe could hire a Broad resident and a senior admin staff at the cost of $127,000 last year.

Some of this levy money is to be used to start paying teachers based on their student’s test scores, the pay per score idea that the ed reformers like to tout as the miracle cure for all that ails the educational system in our country.

But, I am not going to tell you how to vote or how I will vote. What I and Sue will do is provide you with the information so that you can make an informed decision.

For additional information, check out

Accountability Begins at the Top

Seattle Teachers Against the Levy

NO on Seattle Schools Supplemental Levy

There is a lot to consider this time around.

Dora

Nova High School and Their Work in Guatemala

Nova High School is having a fundraiser tomorrow evening, November 28th at 6:30 PM to support this year’s Nova High School’s Social Justice trip to Guatemala. Nova High School is located at 300 20th Avenue East in Capitol Hill.

A movie of previous trips will be shown at this event sharing the work that the students have done in collaboration with  students in the Nuevo Amanecer (New Dawn) Community of repatriated refugees whose members were ravaged by the US-backed military violence in the 1980s and 90s. Nova has joined with this community for the last four years in working with the students in Guatemala providing them with training and a bridge out of extreme poverty.

There will be food, music, stories and lots of prizes. It is asked for those who attend to donate $10 or more to fund the trip.

This is one of many projects related to social justice that the students at Nova High School are involved in.

Go Nova!

Dora

“Race to Nowhere” at Nova High School

Nova High School is participating in a national day of screening of the powerful film, Race to Nowhere. Race to Nowhere addresses a multitude of concerns regarding high-stakes testing and the culture of competition that has “invaded” childhood. This film shares the voices of students, families, teachers, health professionals and others, asking that we re-evaluate our methods of teaching and evaluating learning.  The film has been featured on CNN and Oprah. The Washington Post says the film “is playing as a quiet counterpoint to the better-known Waiting for Superman.” This screening is open to the public.

Race to Nowhere
Tuesday, October 26th
6:30 PM: Screening, 8:00 PM: Community Discussion
Nova High School
300 20th Ave East, Seattle, 98112
Advance tickets available online.

Watch Diane Ravitch, Wayne Au, Jesse Hagopian and Dora Taylor in “Race to Where?” a Seattle Ed 2010 forum on the misdirection of ed reform, now online!

Here is the footage of our Oct. 5 forum on ed reform: “Race to Where?” featuring Dr. Diane Ravitch (Skyped in from her home in New York), Wayne Au of Rethinking Schools, Jesse Hagopian, teacher and founder of Social Equality Educators (SEE), and Seattle Ed’s own Dora Taylor.  Seattle University’s Dr. Jodi Kelly introduces the event, while I moderate. The panel discussion is followed by a Q&A with the audience.

The footage of the 90-minute forum, held  at Seattle University’s Pigott Auditorium, is divided into 7 parts of roughly 14 minutes each.

It was a terrific event that attracted over 350 parents, teachers and administrators for an engaging, if sometimes troubling, discussion about the current efforts by the forces of privatization to take over our public schools.

A big thank you to all who helped us sponsor the event: Dr. Kelly and the Matteo Ricci College and the College of Education at Seattle University, Social Equality Educators (SEE), and Parents Across America- Seattle. And, of course, a tremendous thank you to Dr. Ravitch and the rest of our panelists for sharing their wisdom and insights with us all.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Some background info about the forum:

WHY SEATTLE? Is Seattle the next battleground in the debate over ed reform? Seattle Public Schools, under its current Broad Foundation-trained superintendent, has fast-tracked a series of reforms in the school district these past three years, without much parent or community input. Seattle is also the headquarters to one of the biggest players in ed reform, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports “Race to the Top” — merit pay, publicly funded but privately operated charter schools and high-stakes testing. Yet Washington has failed to qualify for RTTT funding and state voters have repeatedly opposed charter schools. An increasing number of Seattle parents and teachers are asking: Why should we adopt reforms that research shows are detrimental to our schools and kids? Ravitch, who once supported these reforms as a member of the Bush I administration, agrees and now opposes them and warns against them.

OUR PANELISTS: Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and an education historian. She is the author of 10 books, including “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education” (2010). She shares a blog, Bridging Differences, with Deborah Meier, hosted by Education Week and also blogs for Politico.com/arena and the Huffington Post. Her articles have appeared in many newspapers and magazines. From 1991-93, she was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H. W. Bush. From 1997- 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. (adapted from: http://www.dianeravitch.com/vita.html)

Wayne Au – is a former public high school teacher, and Assistant Professor of Secondary Social Studies Education at the University of Washington, Bothell, and an editor of Rethinking Schools, a journal devoted to social justice education.  He is also the author of Unequal by Design: High-Stakes Testing and the Standardization of Inequality (Routledge, 2009).

Jesse Hagopian – is a Seattle teacher, a graduate of Seattle Public Schools, and a founding member of the progressive union caucus Social Equality Educators within the Seattle Education Association.  Hagopian’s writings in defense of public education have appeared in The Progressive, Common Dreams, SocialistWorker.org, Real Change News, Truthout.org, the Seattle PI, and the Seattle Times.

Dora Taylor and Sue Peters – are the co-editors of the Seattle Education 2010 blog, and founding members of the new grassroots public education advocacy organization, Parents Across America (PAA).

Seattle Education 2010 – is a blog of news and commentary created in 2009 by two Seattle parents in response to the reforms imposed on their children’s schools and district.

Parents Across America (PAA) – is a national grassroots organization of public school parents who oppose the current direction of education reform (“No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top”) and believe parents’ voices are missing from the national conversation about public education.

Social Equality Educators (SEE) – is a new progressive union caucus within the Seattle Education Association (SEA).

Diane Ravitch on “Race to the Top”

(excerpted from: “The Conversation” with Ross Reynolds, KUOW 94.9 FM, Aug. 2, 2010)

“I think ‘Race to the Top’ is a terrible program and I congratulate Washington for not advancing. I hope that you don’t win the money because winning the money means you agree to do things that are very harmful to public education.

“First off all, it means that you are expected to have charter schools and for states that have a limit on charter schools you are expected to have more charters schools. These are privatized schools that research has shown repeatedly do not perform better than public schools. So there is no reason to privatize low-performing public schools, we should help those schools get better, do whatever it takes to improve them, but not turn them over to private entrepreneurs.

“The second thing, ‘Race to the Top’ expects states to do is to evaluate teachers by test scores. And there are so many reasons why this is a bad idea. It leads to teaching to the test, narrowing the curriculum, dropping the arts and science and history and all those things, and it’s just a terrible thing to do to teachers because there many reasons kids get high or low scores and it’s not all about teachers.

“And the third thing that ‘Race to the Top’ does is that it commits states to they call “transform” low-performing schools. What they really mean by that is to close them down, fire the principal, fire the staff, fire half the staff, fire all the staff — these are very punitive measures and they are built right squarely on the foundation on George W. Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ program. So I think it’s sad that President Obama and  Secretary Duncan have tied themselves to a law that has proven to be very unsuccessful.

“I commend the states that didn’t apply and I commend the states that didn’t get the money because you’re better off.”

(…)

“I was seven years on the national testing board – President Clinton put me there. When you get close to the testing process, you realize this is a social construction, this is not a scientific instrument.  There are many flaws in the test, they’re frequently not valid, not reliable, loaded with measurement error, random error and we’re now going to hang teachers’ evaluation on these test scores. It just isn’t right.”

–sue p.

Aunty Broad on Teach for America

Titled: “Rhymes with Each Pour America“

For more information on Teach for America, see the following policy brief by the National Education Policy Center:

Teach For America: A False Promise

For more Aunty Broad videos, go to Superintendent’s New Clothes.

Dora

Chicago Parents Rock! They Saved Their Library.

Go Whittier moms!

From Democracy Now: