The Common Core in it's historical perspective

Here's a very very brief outline of my PhD dissertation

1. business LEADERS have always determined what educational policy is -- business leaders fundamentally alter schooling to meet their needs to sort and socialize the work force. When the nation's economic structure alters, the school system's structure has been changed by business.

2. fundamental education reform has happened 3 times in U.S. history:

• 1848 -- creation of standardized, hierarchical public school system
• 1890's -- creation of comprehensive high schools and tracking system using standardized tests (working class tracked into vocational education; middle class tracked into college prep courses).
• 1989 -- creation of high-stakes testing (attaching High stakes to the standardized tests that have been in use since 1890s)

3. these three transformations of the public school system match the three major transformations of the U.S. economy.

• 1840s' -- transition from agricultural to manufacturing society
• 1890's -- transition from manufacturing society to industrial
• 1980's -- transition from industrial to service economy

4. beginning in 1990's the Business Roundtable engineered a coalition of business groups and educators to pass "high-stakes legislation" in all the state legislatures. By 2000, only 16 states had passed high stakes testing:

• a. state content standards
• b. state mandatory standardized tests
• c. rewards and sanctions connected to test results

5. so, frustrated at the state level, the BRT went to Washington D.C. and lobbied Dems and Republicans to rewrite the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act to reflect high stakes testing policy. the result was NCLB, in the hopes that lobbyists could use NCLB as LEVERAGE to get the recalcitrant state legislatures (those resistant to HST) to pass HST legislation. Many more states came on board during the next 10 years.

6. NCLB was set to expire in 2007. It was SO UNPOPULAR that congress didn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole, in spite of heavy lobbying by the BRT inspired coalition to reauthorize the law. In 2008, Obama campaigned to rewrite the law to respond to criticism. When in office, he hired Arne Duncan ( the NEA has recently called for Duncan to resign) who essentially replaced NCLB with Race to the Top. This has been equally widely unpopular.

7. Business CEO's, frustrated by teacher, parent and student sabotage of high stakes testing have now settled on a "common core" set of standards to once again, be enforced by standardized tests.

What is the purpose of HST/Common Core? The top CEOs want to increase the number of college graduates in STEM fields -- to increase the supply far beyond the demand, so as to lower their wages. HST failed to do that, so Gates et al got Congress to expand the H1B visas to bring in foreign born "knowledge workers" at half the price of native bred STEM. also, majorly outsourcing computer programming et al to India and China and anywhere where they were cheap.

Top down education reform doesn't work. it doesn't get the willing participation of those who are actually implementing it. and the more administrators threaten, cajole teachers, the more teachers resist in any way they can. Teachers had different goals for their students than business leaders have. the clash of goals in schools and in the classroom frustrates everyone.

Activism: Then and Now (event at USF)

I was delighted to work with Victor Valle, a student at the University of San Francisco, in putting on this event.  I met Victor when I went to  Marilyn DeLaure's Rhetoric of Social Movement's class.  Marilyn was, briefly, a board member of the SF Freedom School.  She invites community groups to present options for community service during the first weeks of her course (as part of the community service requirement of her course).  After I presented, Victor contacted me to ask if he could work with "the SF Freedom School" to put on a panel that would include current day activists and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement.  I suggested several current day activists of which two were able to participate -- Shanell Williams and Javier Reyes.  I ask Phil Hutchings, a former field secretary and program director of SNCC, veteran of the Venceramos Brigade and, currently, a senior organizer for Causa Justa/Just Cause and the Black Alliance for Immigration Reform.
presented to Professor

On November 14th, at the University Center at USF, around 30 people attended the event.  Victor had arranged for food to be served and moderated the panel.  Phil, Shanell and Javier took turns presenting.

Victor moderated the presentations in such a way that he encouraged a spirited interaction among the panelists as they responded to each other's presentations. The questions from the audience also provoked discussion among the panelists.

SEE USF FOGHORN ARTICLE FOR GOOD SUMMARY OF CONTENT OF PRESENTATIONS/DISCUSSIONS

Phil, as part of his presentation, read the last three paragraphs from Julian Bond's essay, SNCC: What We Accomplished, published by Monthly Review in 2000.

Throughout its brief history, SNCC insisted on group-centered leadership and community-based politics. It made clear the connection between economic power and racial oppression. It refused to define racism as a solely southern phenomenon, to describe racial inequality as caused by irrational prejudice alone, or to limit its struggle solely to guaranteeing legal equality. It challenged U.S. imperialism while mainstream civil rights organizations were silent or curried favor with President Lyndon Johnson, condemning SNCC’s linkage of domestic and international poverty and racism with overseas adventurism. SNCC refused to apply political tests to its membership or supporters, opposing the red-baiting that other organizations and leaders endorsed or condoned. And it created an atmosphere of expectation and anticipation among the people with whom it worked, trusting them to make decisions about their own lives. Thus SNCC widened the definition of politics beyond campaigns and elections; for SNCC, politics encompassed not only electoral races, but also organizing political parties, labor unions, producer cooperatives, and alternative schools.

SNCC initially sought to transform southern politics by organizing and enfranchising blacks. One proof of its success was the increase in black elected officials in the southern states from seventy-two in 1965 to 388 in 1968. But SNCC also sought to amplify the ends of political participation by enlarging the issues of political debate to include the economic and foreign-policy concerns of American blacks. SNCC’s articulation and advocacy of Black Power redefined the relationship between black Americans and white power. No longer would political equity be considered a privilege; it had become a right.

A final SNCC legacy is the destruction of the psychological shackles which had kept black southerners in physical and mental peonage; SNCC helped break those chains forever. It demonstrated that ordinary women and men, young and old, could perform extraordinary tasks.

They did then and can do so again.

Civil Rights History event - November 9th

November 9th, Daughters of the Civil Rights Speak in Oakland.
(and more East Bay events)