ASTHE PRESIDENT RECONSIDERS THE LEGACY OF NCLB

Teachers should not compete with each other for extra dollars (Edward Deming says that this kind of competition doesn't even work in business, that it demoralizes the workplace). Teachers should share what they know, not hoard their trade secrets for their private benefit. . .

Most teachers I know are happy, even proud to share their knowledge, experience, and ideas with others - especially idealistic newcomers.

The era of NCLB has been marked by lowered state standards, cheating, and widespread gaming of the system. While the states claim big leaps forward, NAEP shows very little improvement. In math, the gains were larger before NCLB than after it was implemented. On eighth grade reading, there have been no gains at all since 1998, even though these are the students who grew up with NCLB. . .

This empirical data fails to recognize the frustration and fear engendered in students, teachers, and school administrators alike. The higher the stakes, the greater the fear.

You describe the reform "consensus," but the consensus seems to exist mainly inside Beltway think tanks, corporate suites, foundation offices, editorial boards, and at the highest levels of government. Those who are not part of the consensus are ordinary classroom teachers, the very people who are supposed to implement the “reforms.”

from: Is Education on the Wrong Track? by Diane Ravitch

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REWRITING HISTORY, TEXAS STYLE, ctd.

Just yesterday I posted about the Texas Board of Education rewriting history. If you are interested in learning more about this intrepid board here is a link with a PROFILE written by Mariah Blake. It is worth reading in its entirety, but I've included a few bits below.

And if you wonder why you should care about this, not being in Texas and all, I suggest you pay particular attention to the passages I have made bold.

DON McLEROY - “Evolution is hooey.” “The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years . . .”

Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy . . .  As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers.

Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced . . . by California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.

CYNTHIA DUNBAR (Remember, she kicked out Jefferson) - rails against public education, which she dubs “tyrannical” and a “tool of perversion,” and says sending kids to public school is like “throwing them into the enemy’s flames.” (More recently, she has accused Barack Obama of being a terrorist sympathizer and suggested he wants America to be attacked so he can declare martial law.)

PETER MARSHALL - has argued that California wildfires and Hurricane Katrina were God’s punishment for tolerating gays. . .

DAVID BARTON - argue[s] that the wall of separation between church and state is a myth. . .

[W]hile they concede that people like Martin Luther King Jr. deserve a place in history, they argue that they shouldn’t be given credit for advancing the rights of minorities. As Barton put it, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Ergo, any rights people of color have were handed to them by whites—in his view, mostly white Republican men. . . .

The ultraconservatives argued that [the English language arts] were too light on basics like grammar and too heavy on reading comprehension and critical thinking. “This critical-thinking stuff is gobbledygook,” grumbled DAVID BRADLEY. . .

[T]he next generation of textbooks will likely bear the fingerprints of the board’s ultraconservatives—which is just fine with McLeroy. “Remember Superman?” he asked me, as we sat sipping ice water in his dining room. “The never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way? Well, that fight is still going on. There are people out there who want to replace truth with political correctness. Instead of the American way they want multiculturalism. We plan to fight back—and, when it comes to textbooks, we have the power to do it. Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.”

~

[ADDED: It might be worth noting that while Texas reported that 85 percent of its students in grades four and eight were proficient readers based on year-end state testing in 2008, on the federal assessments (the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP), only 29 percent actually were. - Diane Ravitch]