PEN's Juanita Doyen & Seattle Teacher Carl Chew

I neglected to post this when Juanita first sent it out. It is pertinent today with Bronx teacher Doug Avella under attack because his kids boycotted their 22nd standardized test this year.

PRESS RELEASE—FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SEATTLE TEACHER REFUSES TO ADMINISTER WASL TEST TO STUDENTS, CITING MULTIPLE HARMS TEST CAUSES STUDENTS, TEACHERS, SCHOOLS, AND PARENTS

Date: April 20, 2008

Contact: Juanita Doyon, Director, Parent Empowerment Network, Spanaway, 253/973-1593

Carl Chew, Seattle Teacher, 206-265-1119 email ctchew@earthlink.net

Carl Chew, a 6^th grade science teacher at Nathan Eckstein Middle School in the Seattle School District, last week defied federal, state, and district regulations that require teachers to administer the Washington Assessment of Student Learning to students.

“I have let my administration know that I will no longer give the WASL to my students. I have done this because of the personal moral and ethical conviction that the WASL is harmful to students, teachers, schools, and families,” wrote Chew in an email to national supporters.

School District response to Mr. Chew’s refusal was immediate. After administrative attempts to dissuade his act of civil disobedience had failed, at the start of school on the first day of WASL testing, April 15, Mr. Chew was escorted from the school by the building principal and a district supervisor. Mr. Chew was told to report to the district Science Materials Center where he was put to work preparing student science kits while district administration and attorneys consulted on an appropriate penalty for what was labeled, “gross insubordination.”

Mr. Chew attended one hearing at Seattle School District Office, where he was accompanied by a Seattle Education Association representative. On Friday, April 18, Mr. Chew received a letter from Seattle School District Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson which began, "This letter is to inform you that I have determined that there is probable cause to suspend you from April 21, 2008 through May 2, 2008 without pay for your refusal and insubordination to your principal's written direction to administer the WASL at Eckstein Middle School."

During his weeklong struggle with the district over consequences, Mr. Chew was supported by allies throughout the state and nation. “Carl Chew is saying ‘No!’ to high stakes testing and a resounding ‘Yes!’ to student needs and to teacher professionalism,” stated nationally renowned education activist and author Susan Ohanian of Vermont.

“There are many more teachers who are ready to follow suit. They just need an example and leader,” states one Washington teacher.

Organizations and individual allies are now working to replace Mr. Chew’s lost wages. “Though a minor gesture in response to your so much larger gift, I plan to contribute to your salary for the two-weeks the schools aren't paying,” was the response of one colleague from Washington.

Parent Empowerment Network will be presenting Mr. Chew with a check for $200 to help alleviate his loss of wages and is encouraging organization members to also support Mr. Chew with words of encouragement and monetary contributions. The Vermont Society for the Study of Education and Colorado’s Coalition for Better Education have also pledged contributions.

The following is a full statement of Mr. Chew’s reasoning for his refusal to administer the WASL.

On April 15 I refused to give the Washington Assessment of Student Learning to my 6^th grade students at a Seattle Public Schools middle school. I performed this single act of civil disobedience based on personal moral and ethical grounds, as well as professional duty. I believe that the WASL is destructive to our children, teachers, schools, and parents.

It is important for me to note that my disobedient action was not directed at any individual. I love being a teacher; my students are fantastic; my fellow teachers collaborate with and help me every day in numerous ways; and my school administration has always shown a willingness to listen to and support the teachers. I understand that my action has caused people pain, and I am truly sorry for that, but I could no longer stand idly by as something as wrong as the WASL is perpetrated on our children year after year.

Though my act of civil disobedience was individual, I do not stand alone in my strong beliefs. Any Internet search for high stakes testing will reveal highly regarded educators, distressed parents, and sensitive teachers with a wealth of thoughtful writing and case studies supporting my views.

The WASL is bad for kids.

To my mind the measure of successful childhood is that each child learns about who she or he is and how the world works, gains an assertive and confident self image, and feels safe, well fed, and happy. Schools, along with parents and communities, need to contribute wisely to this goal. Unfortunately, the WASL creates panic, insecurity, low self esteem, and sadness for our children.

o It is written in the language of White, middle and upper class students, leaving all others behind.

o It is presented to children in a secretive, cold, sterile, and inhumane fashion.

o There is no middle ground—children either pass or fail—which leaves them confused, guilty, and frustrated.

o Numerous questions on the test are unclear, misleading, or lacking in creativity.

o It tests a very narrow definition of what educators know children need to become well-rounded human beings.

o The WASL is given at a prescribed time regardless of a child’s emotional or physical health.

The WASL is bad for teachers.

For meager pay teachers are asked to work in extremely challenging situations, keep absurdly long hours, and, when it comes to the WASL, function in an atmosphere of fear.

o A majority of teachers loath the WASL but feel unable to speak out freely against it due to their fears of negative consequences for doing so.

o Because administrators are constantly pushing to meet federal guidelines for yearly score improvements, their relationships with teachers can become strained and unpleasant.

o Administrators and teachers suffer under the knowledge that if they do not achieve improvement goals (measured by WASL passage alone) they can be sent to retraining classes, lose their students to other schools, or have their “failing” school handed over to a private company.

o Before administering the WASL teachers mandatorily sign a “loyalty” oath promising they will not read any of the test questions.

o Teachers feel devalued by the amount of time most of them have to devote to test practice and proctoring—upwards of four weeks for actual testing and many more weeks for WASL prep in many cases.

o Teachers feel used and depressed when, half a year after the test is given, they are presented with dubious WASL results—amateurish and misleading Power Point charts and graphs telling them next to nothing about their students’ real knowledge and talents.

o Teachers’ relationships with parents are compromised because they cannot talk freely with them about opting their child out or other WASL concerns.

The WASL is bad for parents and families.

o Parents have been shut out of this costly process.

o Most of them are misled by official statements about what the purpose of the WASL is.

o Many of them do not realize that they have the right to opt their children out of testing with no consequences, though in practice schools have illegally put inappropriate pressure on parents and children who have opted out.

o Many of them do not realize that teachers are, in many cases, not allowed to discuss any reasons why they might want to opt their child out. (Teachers in California went to court to secure the right to inform parents of their right to opt their children out of that state’s testing.)

o Like children, parents suffer from the same feelings of guilt and unhappiness when their children fail.

o Parents are not informed that the test is biased, culturally insensitive and irrelevant, and not a real measure of anything.

o The WASL graduation requirement has kept thousands of families from knowing whether or not their students will be allowed to take part in graduation ceremonies and celebrations—the culminating reward for 13 years of public school attendance and achievement-- with friends and families.

The WASL is bad for schools.

Even in the best of times purse strings are rarely opened adequately to public education. Where a private school needs to charge $20,000-$30,000 to educate a child well, public schools are given a third or less of that for each student. Simply, schools are strapped for cash, many of them struggling each year to fund their needs with an ever shrinking pot of money.

o While schools are generally underfunded, Washington will spend a projected $56 million in 2009 to have a private corporation grade WASL tests. These tax dollars are needed right in our schools providing more teachers, smaller classes, tutors, and diverse educational experiences for our students.

o While the federal government requires that school districts use high stakes testing to qualify for federal dollars, tests are not fully funded by the federal government.

o WASL is one of the most difficult tests used to fulfill the federal requirements, with one of the highest failure rates.

o Instead of safe, exciting, and meaningful places for our children to spend half of their waking hours, schools have become WASL or test mills bent on churning out students who are trained to answer state-approved questions in a state-approved manner.

The WASL is just bad.

o Most, if not all, teachers will agree that assessment is vital. Wise teachers know that assessments which are also learning experiences for students and teachers are the best. The WASL categorically is not a learning experience.

o I believe that individual students are entitled to their own learning plans, tailored to their own needs, strengths, and interests. Teachers know it is definitely possible to do this in the context of a public school. The WASL categorically treats all children alike and requires that they each fit into the same precise mold, and state-mandated learning plans based on WASL scores fail to recognize individual strengths of students.

o Passing the WASL does not guarantee success in college, placement in a job, a living wage, or adequate health care.

o WASL will decrease the high school graduation rate. Thousands of students who have completed all other requirements and passed all required classes will be denied diplomas because of WASL failure.

o High-stakes testing has not proven beneficial to students, teachers, schools, or communities.

In the real lives of students, teachers, and parents the WASL is an ongoing disaster.

o When I was a teacher at Graham Hill Elementary in Seattle, a number of my students received their WASL scores to find that they had “failed”. When I looked at the notices being sent to their parents I saw that each student had come to within just a few points of actually passing and that their scores were well within the grey area, or “margin of error,” for the test. The “test scientists” aren’t sure whether the student passed or failed, yet the school tells the student he or she failed. These students cried when they saw the results.

o When I first started teaching, Graham Hill could afford Americorps tutors, numerous classroom aides, and had money for fieldtrip busses and ample supplies. By the time I stopped teaching there, Americorps was gone, there were no classroom aides except for parent volunteers, and everything else was in short supply.

o Teaching and testing during my last year at Graham Hill was challenging. I was on my own in a room with 29 students, 10% did not speak English, 50 % of them spoke another language at home, several of them were homeless, and many of them had severe emotional challenges due to parental pre-natal drug use, violence, and abuse.

o No one ever asked me or any of the teachers I know whether high stakes testing was a good idea. In fact, we teachers are made to jump through seemingly endless hoops to prove our worthiness to be professional, certificated educators. Public school teachers are responsible for the educational lives of over a million students in Washington State, yet, in the end, no one actually wants to listen to what teachers have to say about what is best for the students in our care

Parent Empowerment Network Update 4/27/08

(Disclaimer for the length of this post: WASL Season, Big News Week!)

It has been a great week for the High Stakes Resistance! A sincere and hearty “Thank You!!” to teacher Carl Chew, who took the courageous and moral step of refusing to give the Washington Assessment of Student Learning to his 6^th grade students. The press release by PEN, sent to all of you and to media contacts one week ago, brought a flood of phone calls to Mr. Chew, and to me, by Monday morning. Through the week, I hope you read some of the well written accounts of Carl’s refusal, his reasons for taking the steps he did and the positive reaction of the public in general. Our cause of educational justice could not ask for a more humble, reasonable, articulate and credible spokesperson.

Please take time, if you haven’t already, to visit some of the following links to news accounts and the great political cartoon depiction of Carl’s stand, by David Horsey http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=1753 . Carl’s civil disobedience is a national and international story. Carl has interviewed with ABC News, National Public Radio and just about every major local television, radio, and newspaper outlet. And the interest continues in all areas of the country and world. Thank you, again, Carl, for being the right person at the right time and for being willing to set aside your own comforts and privacy to enter the “media circus” that has ensued.

The abbreviated list:

Front Page Seattle Times

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004364815_wasl22m.html

Front Page Seattle PI

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/360031_wasl22.html

ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4720675&page=1

AP Article- Tri-Cities Herald, Tacoma Tribune and others

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/341337.html

KOMO TV

http://www.komotv.com/news/17985524.html

KING TV

http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_042108WAB_teacher_refuses_to_give_wasl_TP.886720b0.html

Type “Carl Chew WASL” into Google for lots more!

In the aftermath of local media coverage, several local commentators found it appropriate to personally attack Carl and question his motives and his right to take an action of civil disobedience. Please find the time to let these commentators know they are off base.

Robert Jamieson, Seattle PI

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/360403_robert24.html

Lynne Varner, Seattle Times

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004366589_lynne23.html

Peter Callaghan, The News Tribune (Tacoma)

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/columnists/callaghan/story/343200.html

Below, I have pasted Carl’s eloquent response to these personal attacks.

As for your PEN director, I am just returning home from Vermont and New York, where I spend a few days visiting with my good friend, activist and author Susan Ohanian. I had the privilege of visiting a meeting of the Vermont Society for the Study of Education on Friday. Susan and NY educator and activist Dr. Bill Cala (Type “Bill Cala” and “Military” into a Google search and you’ll find another act of courage) and I spent Saturday working with teachers, administrators, pre-service teachers, and parents--and one member of the NY State Board of Regents-- at Suny Plattsburgh University. Subject: Resisting High Stakes Testing and NCLB.

Meanwhile… back in the state, WASL madness continues. Please check out one of many snafus of the season, front page, Olympian, http://www.theolympian.com/news/story/430522.html . How many of these inconsistencies and outright unfair conditions exist during Washington’s high stakes testing? Our students’ diplomas should not hinge on a high stakes testing system so susceptible to local human error and OSPI folly!

The lack of seriousness with which state testing department head Joe Willhoft takes the future of our children can be read in the ABC news piece:

But Joe Willhoft, the state's assistant superintendent for assessment and student information, told ABCNEWS.com that the WASL is a good tool for measuring student achievement.

Only half the questions on the test require a written response, and experts make sure they have no "unfair and biasing features," Willhoft said. "For example, we don't use the words 'tennis' or 'golf.'"

And just which experts let that Strawberry story slip through last year, Joe? Ever heard of “stereotype threat”? The same type of frustration and fear is experienced by the student who is given the wrong type of calculator for a math test and told he or she is not to ask questions. That student’s entire testing experience is in jeopardy, regardless of whether a question requires use of the calculator or not.

For those of you in the Spokane area, PEN board members Rachel DeBellis, Marysville, and Carol Carpenter, Yakima, and I will be attending a table at the WEA Representative Assembly, April 15-17. We would like to get together Thursday or Friday evening with anyone in the area who is interested in meeting. Please contact me, if you are interested or have an idea for a good place (restaurant with a meeting room, for instance) to hold a PEN get together. We will set the time, day and place and get it out to you next week.

While visiting Susan Ohanian, I picked up 20 more copies of her new book, When Childhood Collides with NCLB, which she was kind enough to autograph. PEN is offering these autographed copies as a premium to anyone who contributes $100 to PEN, either as a onetime contribution or through a pledge for a set monthly amount to equal $100.

If you believe that PEN is a valuable voice for students, parents, teachers and administrators of Washington State—and the nation— please help fund us by making a tax deductible contribution today. Activism has a monetary price tag, whether it’s the cost of websites, postage, travel, information booths at conferences, cell phones to provide 24 hour counseling access for parents opting out of the WASL and reporters wanting interviews—even while in Vermont— or the opportunity cost of no time to hold a position with an actual paycheck.

Please send contributions to:

Parent Empowerment Network

PO Box 494

Spanaway, WA 98387

Or visit http://www.mothersagainstwasl.org/member.html to contribute through PayPal.

And finally…. A response to critics of Carl and his civil disobedience:

*Attention Students **

By Carl Chew

1) Remember there is no name calling in class. (Somehow my 6th graders can do this and still have stimulating and important conversations at the same time. When did adults forget the rules?)
2) Each of us has a right to be civilly disobedient whenever we feel inspired or forced to do so. Period.
3) I did not ask to be removed from my class. In fact I recommended to the principal that she simply reassign me during testing times. It was the school district who ultimately levied my punishment and by so doing brought this to the attention of the public.
4) My students did not know what I was doing. In no way was my class disrupted. I wrote on my blackboard, "I have something important to do and you probably will have a guest teacher. Treat them with respect. Do your best on the WASL." The students only learned of my act a week later when the media splashed it all over town.
5) I did not plan at the beginning of the year to refuse to give the WASL. I think it is a normal human reaction to want to forget painful events quickly. I would always tell myself, I won't do this again, but then forget about my discomfort. Then every spring I would wimp out and just get the WASL or other big test I had to administer over with. This year I simply decided not to be a woose (sp?). (I guess it's okay to call myself names.)
6) And yes, I have been to Olympia to protest the WASL. And I am a member of a number of organizations that are working to change or eliminate the WASL. Educators have been protesting the inequities of the WASL for years in all the appropriate places. Guess what? We can no more count on our leaders to change the WASL than we can convince them to follow the law and fully fund education in this state.
7) The Ebonic issue is interesting. It sure brings a lot of folks out into the open. Look, KVI's John Carlson will move heaven and earth to get someone he doesn't believe in to put their foot in their mouth. He asked me about my contention that the WASL was writ ten in White middle and upper class language. It is, read it. This fact alone puts a huge percentage of our children at risk of not passing. Imagine if your children had to take the test in Spanish. Would you feel that was fair? The kids in our schools speak in many different languages. Actually, I am a teacher who believes they must learn White middle and upper class English to navigate the world successfully, but I respect and value their home languages, too. To not do so would be unconscionable, immoral, and a slap at the faces of the students, their parents and communities. When I brought up Ebonic, Mr. Carlson immediately began hammering at me. He said something to the effect, you mean we should give the test in Ebonic--slang! His words, not mine. I clarified that I had used the word Ebonic because he asked for an example of another kind of English. And, I stand by my words. Next a caller said I sickened him. And then Carlson said, what would Obama say about this. He is darn good at attacking from every conceivable angle, whew! I think I did pretty well considering.
8) Okay, let's consider Ebonic or Black English or what every you want to call it. If you are brave enough, paste this link into your browser. It is a wonderful defense of my position by one of my heroes, James Baldwin. You know who he is, right? Good, you get full credit. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-english.html

There have been a lot of cheap shots taken at my character and value as a teacher. Don't worry, I know who I am and what a great job I do with my students.

Enough said.

Bush Profiteers collect billions from NCLB - Part 1

This is the first piece of a 23 part (so far) series. Kathy Emory attended the high stakes testing conference John Lawhead and I attended in Birmingham. Al. in 2003.

All parts accessible here:

Source: http://www.diatribune.com/bush-profiteers-collect-billions-nclb

Bush Profiteers collect billions from NCLB

Much was said about George W. Bush’s fundraising prowess in 2000 and 2004, when he created labels like "Bush Pioneers" to identify those who shook down donors and bundled the lucre for his campaigns. But hard on the heels of his inauguration, he might’ve just as appropriately created a new label, "Bush Profiteers," to identify those who first turned his decayed ideologies into law – inventing new spigots through which Bush’s businessmen-backers could suck federal funds – and who then vacated public service to collect their own lucre as lobbyists for those businessmen and their companies.

If you needed a perfect example of this model of lawmaking-turned-moneymaking, you might consider Bush’s vaunted No Child Left Behind. And if you needed a perfect example of the Bush Profiteer, you might consider the first "senior education advisor" he imported from Texas, the architect of NCLB himself.

I offer a simple thesis: Several large corporations and their lobbyists have profited from Bush’s NCLB by tapping billions of dollars in standardized testing and in "supplemental education services" funds since its passage in 2001. They’re lining up now to expand their profit margins for the next six years as NCLB is being re-authorized. And the one man who stands to personally profit the most this year isn’t Bush himself, but advisor-turned-lobbyist Sandy Kress, the architect of Bush’s old high-stakes testing model in Texas and the overhaul of ESEA in 2001.

As Bush himself might put it, "Heck of a job, Sandy." Ahem: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...

KATHY EMERY KNOWS something about educating kids. Her resume, found here http://www.educationanddemocracy.org... , documents a 30-year career as a history teacher-turned-education researcher. Credentials impeccable. She’s published and presented and given workshops and been interviewed on testing and assessment and good education practices, so she’s got skills. And she writes, "When Ted Kennedy and George Bush agree on something, one needs to worry about who the man behind the curtain is. After doing research for my dissertation (which is now a book) it became clear to me that the men behind the curtain are the members of the Business Roundtable."

In a speech given in January 2005 to the San Francisco State University faculty retreat in Asilomar, California, she detailed the convergence of two heretofore unconjoined worlds: the world of big business, and the world of educating kids. The convergence was given birth in the passage of NCLB, she says, but the pregnancy was more than a decade long. Its unsuspecting mother was the Education and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), first adopted under Lyndon Johnson’s administration in 1965 in partial fulfillment of John Kennedy’s domestic agenda. Its father? "...a bipartisan bandwagon of standards based advocates – a bandwagon built in the summer of 1989 by the top 300 CEOs in our country."

Emery's speech is here http://www.educationanddemocracy.org...

At this meeting, the Business Roundtable CEOs agreed that each state legislature needed to adopt legislation that would impose "outcome-based education," "high expectations for all children," "rewards and penalties for individual schools," "greater school-based decision making" and align staff development with these action items. By 1995, the Business Roundtable had refined their agenda to "nine essential components," the first four being state standards, state tests, sanctions and the transformation of teacher education programs. By 2000, our leading CEOs had managed to create an interlocking network of business associations, corporate foundations, governor’s associations, non-profits and educational institutions that had successfully persuaded 16 state legislatures to adopt the first three components of their high stakes testing agenda. This network includes the Education Trust, Annenberg Center, Harvard Graduate School, Public Agenda, Achieve, Inc., Education Commission of the States, the Broad Foundation, Institute for Educational Leadership, federally funded regionally laboratories and most newspaper editorial boards.

By 2000, many states legislatures, however, were balking at the sheer size and scope of what corporate America was demanding. The Business Roundtable took note of this resistance when publishing, in the spring of 2001, a booklet entitled Assessing and Addressing the "Testing Backlash": Practical Advice and Current Public Opinion Research for Business Coalitions and Standards Advocates. My guess is that the timing of this renewed effort to "turn up the heat" involved getting federal government into the act by aligning the federal educational policy with the Business Roundtable’s state-by-state strategy.

Emery quotes Gene Hickock, the under-secretary of education assigned to implement NCLB, speaking to CEOs at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in 2003: "One of the virtues of NCLB is leverage, leverage at the state. . . at the local level . . . We don’t mind being the bad guys... I am very concerned that we will . . . underestimate the potential that we have to redefine everything."

And Emery pays special attention to Hickock’s desire to "redefine everything." She sketches briefly the intent of the "corporate business class" to control public education systems beginning the 1890s and continuing through "modern comprehensive schools, an important part of which was the introduction of standardized, norm-reference tests."

Why the interest of the "corporate business class" in standardized tests? Emery tells us: "Since the 1890s, these tests, along with the factory like conditions of public high schools, have been central to fulfilling one of the major purposes of our public schools. In an industrial economy, working class students need to be tracked into vocational education and middle class students into college prep courses. This is one reason why we find standardized tests to be more strongly correlated to socio-economic status than to any other variable."

Emery suggests that the corporate climate in the 1980s – pressure from the emergence of Japan, for example – lit a fire beneath America’s corporate interests to accelerate the education process, she surmises; hence, the Business Roundtable’s meeting in 1989 and its development of a "high-stakes testing" model for schools.

It’s clear to me that the fact that its system fails millions of American kids doesn’t deter the leaders of the Business Roundtable: Its goal of marrying the world of big business with the world of educating children has yielded its primary objective, the profit margin. How so?

Education itself isn’t a profit-making venture; no teacher, lunch lady, janitor, principal or bus driver is getting "rich" from "the system." Any dividends on public investment aren’t realized until a child graduates, matures, and becomes a contributing member of society. But a small cottage industry of education support programs has always existed in the private sector, and it included everything from single-subject tutors to after-school or summertime programs for remedial readers. NCLB, the shotgun marriage of Lyndon Johnson’s ESEA with the Business Roundtable’s "high stakes testing" agenda, created a brand-new spigot through which that cottage industry in the private sector could siphon federal education funds. The result: Instant profit – and instant profiteers. What once was just a cottage industry has become a corporate giant.

Says Emery:

Not only do working class and poor students, especially those of color, not learn to read and write, they don’t learn the kinds of skills that would allow them to challenge the direction the Business Roundtable CEO’s are taking this country. Throughout American educational history, there have been educators and activists who have argued against education as merely legitimizing the sorting of students into job categories. Some have created schools based on the joy of learning, or the need for students to be life-long learners. Others have created schools that taught students how to be active agents of social change, or to be skilled citizens in a democratic society. One effect of high stakes testing, one that I am sure the CEO’s are pleased with, is that the historic public debate over what the goals of education should be, a debate going back 2500 years, has been eliminated. Instead, raising tests scores has become an end in itself...

PRESIDING OVER THE SHOTGUN wedding that Emery describes – the forced marriage of ESEA to the Business Roundtable’s agenda – was none other than Sandy Kress. "Pressure" from not-yet-Secretary Margaret Spellings – then still known as Margaret La Montagne – and Kress, "former head of the Dallas school board, seems to be paying off. Already, the Business Roundtable has pledged to air TV ads promoting testing," wrote Richard Dunham in the March 19, 2001, edition of Business Week magazine here http://www.businessweek.com/...

Dunham’s puff-piece on La Montagne/Spellings said the duo was "counting on business leaders such as Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, AT&T CEO C. Michael Armstrong, and Texas Instruments CEO Thomas J. Engibous to lobby Congress on behalf of Bush's cherished annual performance tests..."

Mere weeks later, columnist Robert Novak credited Kress as half of Bush’s Texan education brain trust, and Bush’s emissary to Congress at a time when the legislative branch was still evaluating its untested executive. "...Who convinced the president to build this bridge for the enemy? Republican House members finger two White House aides brought from Texas: Margaret LaMontagne and Sandy Kress."

"Kress, who was a Democratic activist in Dallas backing Michael Dukakis for president when I first met him, told me Tuesday the White House did not support even Kennedy's version of Straight A's because ‘to have a bloodbath on the House floor is not worth it’," wrote Novak on May 23, 2001, here http://www.texaseagle.org/...

But by July, Kress had left La Montagne/Spellings behind and earned a high-profile spread of his own in New Yorker magazine, thanks to writer Nicholas Lemann. In addition to sketching Kress’s history, Lemann cast Kress as Bush’s brain on education. Inscribed in "a flimsy little drugstore notebook, green, maybe four by six inches" was a text by Kress dated 1999 and called ‘A Draft Position for George W. Bush on K-12 Education’." It was this draft, apparently, that led to Kress’s "temporary assignment as the White House's chief lobbyist on education."

Here’s a sample of the guru’s amazing composition: "Unhappily, after spending billions and billions of dollars on education, the federal government has made virtually no meaningful difference in helping educate our children. As a result of this cynical, shameful, and wasteful behavior, other politicians have decided that there should be no federal role in education at all. Our citizenry, which regularly says that education is the nation's most important cause, needs to understand the sharp contrast between Governor Bush's vigor and the utter sloppiness of the keepers of the status quo."

If anyone could lead Bush’s crusade into education, it would be Kress, who, in addition to being "former president of the Dallas School Board and one of the architects of the Texas education reforms, is a Democrat, but he and Bush had been working together successfully for years."

"Sandy Kress's notebook lays out the essentials of the Texas education reform," Lemann writes. It’s not rocket science: State-adopted standards feed into state-adopted tests, with scores "used to rate the performance of schools." The magic, Lemann understates, was in the marketing: "the promise to ‘leave no child behind’ and to eschew ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’." And Kress was the perfect marketer for the purpose, as Lemann describes here:

In the early stages of the Presidential campaign, I watched Gore, in Dallas, make a speech on education to a group of African-American mayors, in which he tried, without much evident conviction, to cast Bush's record on education in a bad light. Sandy Kress was there to run an after-the-speech spin room for the Bush campaign, which entailed publicly opposing the Presidential candidate of his own party. The intense loyalty of Bush's close aides can be startling -- is there something there that they see and we don't, or do we see Bush more clearly from a distance than they do up close? In one of my conversations with Kress, when he was talking about an early Bush maneuver on behalf of the bill -- nothing terribly unusual, just chatting up some members of Congress -- a wave of emotion came over him and, with a murmured apology, he started to cry.

Kress won his victory, sure enough. Without ever convening a hearing on the bill, the House passed it 384 to 45. "The last thing the White House wanted was a long, slow period of national debate in which the many interest groups involved in education could marshal lobbying campaigns," Lemann explains. In the Senate, progress was slower, getting snagged on the consequences to schools whose scores didn’t measure up. Kress’s solution reflected Kress’s power in Bush’s world: "One Saturday afternoon, word spread instantaneously within this group (while the world slumbered on): Sandy Kress had just rewritten the A.Y.P. formula," Lemann says.

Just like that.

WHEN JOHN DiIULIO DITCHED the White House’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, Time magazine’s James Carney wrote that Washington watchers wondered why Kress hadn’t done the same already. But Kress was a different animal altogether, Carney observed here http://www.time.com/... "Not only is Sandy Kress a Democrat, but he's also the lead negotiator and chief policymaker for Bush's education-reform plan. Together with his faith-based initiative, education reform undergirded Bush's claim to be a compassionate conservative. Like DiIulio, Kress was chosen because Bush hoped his Democratic credentials would attract bipartisan support. In Kress's case, it worked. But after the education-reform bill clears Congress, expected next month, Kress will pack his bags. Kress will at least be able to claim victory when he leaves."

And it came to pass, as reporter Diana Jean Schemo wrote here

http://listserv.arizona.edu/... on December 18: "The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill today that would dramatically extend the federal role in public education, mandating annual testing of children in Grades 3 to 8, providing tutoring for children in persistently failing schools and setting a 12-year timetable for closing chronic gaps in student achievement. The 87-to-10 vote capped a tumultuous year for the bill that began with President Bush's postinaugural unveiling of his education plan, [and] continued through a springtime of wrangling over issues like how student progress would be measured..."

Kress himself, Schemo writes, "watched the vote from the Senate gallery, as did Education Secretary Rod Paige."

Rational Assessment in Nebraska

Update from Nebraska: Promises Worth Keeping

Posted by George Wood at 11/6/07 6:00 AM Tags: Education Policy

The Forum for Education and Democracy

http://www.forumforeducation.org/blog/index.php?post=65&function=print

Nebraska continues to be an island of sanity in the midst of the standards and testing movement that disguises itself as school improvement in America today. To remind you, Nebraska’s 517 school districts design their own assessment systems: a portfolio of teachers’ classroom assessments, district tests that measure how well children are meeting locally developed learning standards, a state writing test and at least one nationally standardized test to serve as a reality check. We have featured the work of Nebraskans before in this newsletter (Seeing STARS in Nebraska and Notes From Nebraska) and last month I traveled back to Nebraska for their state-wide assessment conference to see how things are going.

This year’s conference drew participants from not only from Nebraska but from Hawai’i, California, Colorado, and New England. Part of the interest was to see how the system continues to work. But many of us were also curious as to how the School-based, Teacher-led Assessment Reporting System (STARS) was faring given this past summer’s passage of Nebraska Senate Bill 653, a bill that requires for the first time a single statewide test in reading and math.

It is hard to imagine why the legislature would take this action. For the past five years, the STARS system in Nebraska has provided educators and communities with detailed information on how students are doing in their schools. It begins with teachers benefiting from extensive training in how to develop assessments that provide detailed information on how well their students are doing in school. These teachers prepare assessments, keyed to both the state or local standards and the curriculum they teach, administer and score them.

The scores are used not to drive teaching and learning as is the case in so many states where standardized tests drive the curriculum. Instead, Nebraska educators pour over the results and, as one teacher told me during a school visit, ‘if our kids don’t do well on an assessment first we look at our teaching, then we look at the curriculum, and finally we look at the assessment to see if we are doing the best job we can.’ Quite a different story than we hear from across the country where in many schools the school experience is being narrowed to make room for more test preparation.

And the results in Nebraska are all headed in the right way. Scores on the local assessments show students succeeding at rates many states only wish they had. On the one state-wide assessment, a writing test that teachers are involved in developing and scoring, student scores have been improving to the point where 89% of students are proficient and the achievement gap between groups of students is narrowing. If you need more evidence and you like tests you would be pleased to know that similar improvements have been seen on the ACT and the NAEP in Nebraska.

One more thing that should catch any legislator’s eye—the Nebraska system is incredibly cost effective. Since there is only one state-wide test, the amount of money that goes to testing contractors from Nebraska is, ready for this, only 3 cents per student or about $9,000! The rest of the state’s funds for assessment are spent on teacher professional development to enable teachers to have control of the assessment system as opposed to the assessment system controlling them.

This may be why, according to Nebraska Commissioner Doug Christiansen, some legislators and bureaucrats want to push a standardized, one-size-fits all approach to student assessment and school accountability. In his opening address, “Promises worth Keeping” (read the entire speech here) the Commissioner warned that “There are those who would steal our practice and its practice from us. I believe they are afraid of a profession that leads from the inside. I believe they fear what we bring to the conversation. And we bring a lot to the conversation…we bring the deep hearts like those of our mothers, the passion like that of a champion athlete, the relentlessness like that of the mountain climber, and the spirit like that of the artist. And, we bring the most important and precious piece of all to the table, the voices of our children…”

The standards and accountability movement in American education has a kernel of wisdom in it—we want high standards for all kids and we want to hold our system of education accountable for helping every child meet those standards. The problem is that this agenda has been hijacked by some who feel that the only way to improve schools is to standardized them and link accountability to a narrow band of test scores. This strategy takes control and authority away from those closest to children, teachers and their parents, and puts it in the hands of state and federal authorities.

What Nebraska has shown is that it does not have to be this way. As Doug Christiansen put it: “We (Nebraska’s educators) made a promise to be accountable not be held accountable. We made a promise to stand up for teaching all children and leaving no child behind. We made a promise that this work would be led from the local level and from classrooms. We promised that the design and practice of our work would come from the energy, creativity and knowledge of our educators…We promised our students our best instruction and that it would not be defined by the limits of what could be tested.”

Through investment in teachers, engagement of the public, and leadership with an eye toward what’s best for kids and not test or textbook companies our friends in America’s heartland have kept that promise. They have shown us community engagement and control of schools at its finest. The question is only whether policy makers around the country we are willing to learn from this successful lesson.

CEC in D26 Forum on Testing

Held on October 25:

"At one point Senator Padavan spoke and said he will look into the possibility of limiting the high stakes testing by imposing limits on state funds to NYC; in a manner similar to the recent limits of CFE money for class size reduction."

Posted on nyceducationnews listserve as part of a report from a forum testing held in Queens last night. Appearing were Randi Weingarten, Bob Tobias (former head of accountability at the old BOE and a frequent BloomKlein critic on testing policy) and Jane Hirschman (time out from testing)

My comment:

As we learned at our high stakes forum a few weeks ago at Fordham, NY state has one of the most regressive and oppressive testign procedures that goes way beyond what NCLB requires. One thing the Senator can do is to focus on the process for appointing the state board of regents which appoints the state ed commissioner. Right now I understand the state assembly has the major role and Shelly Silver is instrumental.

If there is to be progress on reforming the state and city testing procedures it starts there. Holding politicians accountable is part of the process. So why am I, as usual, skeptical? Has the UFT put any effort into these kids of reforms? Appearing at forums and saying the right things is fine. But if it stops there then they are just words. If UFT reps appear at these forums they should be asked exactly what are their poliicies on reforming state ed and how far are they willing to go to back this up -- ie. withholding endorsements and support for candidates.

Norm

From Leonie Haimson's post:

See email below, from Rob Caloras, the president of the CEC in D26, reporting on their forum last night on testing.

Sounds like a dynamite forum; we hope to be able to make the tape available. Meanwhile, Rob’s summary is below. Exciting news about Padavan supporting the introduction of a bill that would ban the use of high-stakes testing in our schools; I sincerely hope that the Democrats in the State Assembly may go along with this as well.

Last night, Community District Education Council 26 hosted a forum on testing & Assessing in NYC Public Schools. Our panelists were Randi Weingarten, President of the United Federation of Teachers, Bob Tobias - former Executive Director of Assessment and Accountability of the NYC Department of Education and current director of the As Stei

We were informed that during the last five years, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of standardized tests and assessments given to our children and a vast proliferation in the ways results are used. All of the panelists explained that testing is an integral part of the education system and is necessary to determine whether or not students are understanding a given subject. However, all of them agreed that the standard tests were not designed to be used in the way that they are being used in NYC schools. In particular, the use of these tests in determining whether a student is promoted and in evaluating an individual student and teacher’s performance was criticized and rejected as inappropriate. It was also explained that there is no evidence that when students are subjected to more standardized tests, their efforts increase and understanding improves. Panelists also discussed: the disparity between students’ good results on We were i

In general, parents expressed equal concerns on the above matters and expressed frustration over the inability to stem the regimen of testing now imposed. In fact, a belief that the system of testing is harmful to the quality of education is held by most parents . Such is the frustration that many parents called for a student boycott of tests. The Community District Education Council will be evaluating whether or not a boycott will be helpful to our students and if a boycott should be called and organized.

I urge you to take steps to publicize issues on testing and assessing that do not reflect only the Department of Education’s point of view. By doing so, you will be doing a tremendous service to our children.

Sincerely,

Robert Caloras,
CDEC26, President