Education Reform Movement?

Below is another attempt to get some kind of traction against high stakes testing.  There is certainly value in using such a resolution to find out where the consensus is regarding high stakes testing.  But as long as we are reacting to another's agenda (in this case, the Business Roundtable's), we can work on gaining consensus on ours. What is our vision of what education should look like?  Certainly not what it was pre 1990.  Public schools continue to sort and socialize, as they have been designed to do from the beginning.  Education, when it happens, does so in spite of the structure and pedagogy of the public (and private) schools.

Help Build the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing campaign!

http://www.timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution

 
The Resolution campaign continued to gain strength over the summer. We now have more than 430 organizations and 13,000 individuals!  Our work has earned national attention, including from the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

In Florida, school boards in several of the state's largest districts and the state PTA endorsed it, and the Florida State School Board Association passed a parallel resolution. More than 830 Texas school boards representing 88 percent of the state’s children have signed a similar resolution. School boards in Ohio, Oklahoma and Virginia have also endorsed it. PTA’s and PTO’s and many other kinds of groups have also signed on. 

With outreach in additional states, we'll have an even stronger impact! Getting more organizations to endorse is an essential part of this campaign. Now that school is back in session, it is a good time get more signers and increase attention to this issue.

Your organization’s help is needed to build testing reform clout. You can expand the campaign with any or all of these actions:

• Put a link to the Resolution signature page on your website and/or in your newsletter: (http://www.timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution).
• Inform local media of your endorsement, perhaps in a letter to the editor, such as the samples at http://www.fairtest.org/how-you-can-build-support-national-resolution-high.
• Write/adapt an op-ed for your local paper (see sample at the above link).
• Reach out to allied organizations in your community, region or state, and encourage them to sign on.
• Organize a public meeting in your community to discuss testing and the Resolution campaign, with an eye on what to do to overhaul assessment policies.

Thanks again for your help! If you have questions or suggestions for additional actions to advance the Resolution, please contact Monty Neill at (617) 477-9792 or monty@fairtest.org.

The Sponsoring Committee for the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing

Sudan v Southern Freedom Movement

From the Sudan Tribune September 26, 2012 (KHARTOUM) - Is there a Revolution on the horizon in Sudan? On the evening of June 16th 2012, the voices of a small group of female students from Khartoum University’s Barracks dorms broke out in unison, chanting against the ruling National Congress Party (NCP); setting off a chain of events ..... A significant number of new actors have joined the political movement further broadening the base from being exclusively just activists and traditional groups. The recent protests attracted the attention of the world’s media and the sympathy of international civil society – and this has helped in highlighting the democratic movements in Sudan and prompted analysts to rethink their approach regarding the political situation in the country. A new generation of leaders has emerged as a result of the protest movement at both the national and regional levels. This can be viewed as nothing less than a positive step for the future of Sudan’s political scene. Awareness and the need to ’rebuild’ unions was another positive step; as a result, activists went on to form new, more active professional unions and syndicates covering doctors, lawyers, teachers and journalists.... The protests only served to further emphasize and bring about divisions and rifts within the ruling regime and the system it has put in place. Voices within the government and party began to question whether it’s possible to retain complete power in the near future and already exit plans and steps are being made. Why is Sudan Not There Yet? Lack of Leadership: In all its years of rule, the NCP has systematically and efficiently worked on demolishing the political and trade unions which in the past were the heart and base of Sudanese political activism; and had a leading and well respected position in the streets of Sudan in regards to it answering the people’s demands and interests. As such there is a vacuum of leadership and an inability to bridge this gap. 1. At the political level, with a lot of the opposition parties being based abroad has led to a ’break down’ between their leadership and the parties’ support base..... 2. The politicization of the mandatory civil service has also played a big part in dismantling state institutions that brought together professionals from various sectors resulting in the breaking of links of association between them. 3. The new demographic in the country is a factor as the doubling of the urban population in relation to the rural rising from 20% in 1989 to more than 40% in 2011. This drastic change has caused the rural areas to be void of traditional leaders and cities populated with people who have no social or cultural links, therefore a limited sense of camaraderie and kinship ties....

From Key Components of a Successful Social Movement:  A Successful Social Movement = The coordination of a variety of membership organizations that effect a fundamental paradigm shift..... To be strategic, an action needs to be designed to answer, at least, the following questions: 1. Will it dramatize the injustice you want to change? 2. Is it designed to gain the sympathy of a wider audience (and do you have a variety of tasks ready to assign for the expected number of recruits who will want to join when they see or hear about your action?) 3. Is your action part of a larger, long-range plan? 4....... 5.......   While the four major organizations - NAACP, CORE, SCLC, and SNCC - formed the basic infrastructure of the movement, they were supported by a variety of other important membership organizations both national and local in scope -- religious, labor, lawyers, doctors, civil rights and so forth...too many to name here. Kennedy’s election in 1960 and his public commitment to spreading “Freedom” throughout the world made the Federal government extremely vulnerable to direct action like Sit Ins and Freedom Rides that exposed the government’s hypocrisy to the world. .Examples of a few of the thousands of local leaders that were the backbone of the movement: Birmingham: Fred Shuttlesworth (Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights) . . . Montgomery, AL: Jo Ann Robinson (Women’s Political Council); E.D. Nixon; Rosa Parks; Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Jr.. . . . Johns Island, SC: Bernice Robinson; Esau Jenkins various Mississippi counties: Fannie Lou Hamer; Endesha Ida Mai Holland; Sam Block; Wazir Peacock. . . . Nashville, TN: Diane Nash; James Bevel; John Lewis; Bernard Lafayette. . . .   The NAACP had local offices mostly in the North until the 1930s when James Weldon Johnson created his Southern Empire -- local NAACP chapters in the South.

What A Chicago Teacher Learned from the Strike

Pretty Interesting!

Teaching for Social Justice Weekend Conference in SF

Teaching Toward Justice: A Weekend of Building Solidarity and Strengthening a Movement

Events surrounding the Teaching for Social Justice annual educator's conference on Oct 6 in San Francisco, CA

 

FRIDAY

Tough Times, Resistance and Real Talk: Into the Political Economy of Race, Place & School with David Stovall

Friday Oct 5, 7:30pm at I-SEEED (Institute for Sustainable Economic, Educational and Environmental Design), 1625 Clay St, Oakland, CA 94612

David Stovall, Ph.D.  is Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies and African-American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).  His scholarship investigates four areas 1) Critical Race Theory, 2) concepts of social justice in education, 3) the relationship between housing and education, and 4) the relationship between schools and community stakeholders. In the attempt to bring theory to action, he has spent the last ten years working with community organizations and schools to develop curriculum that address issues of social justice. 

Sponsors: Urban Education & Social Justice (UESJ)  & the International and Multicultural Education (IME) Department at the University of San Francisco, California NAME, Center for Urban Schools and Partnerships (CUSP), Teachers 4 Social Justice & the People’s Education Movement

This event is free and open to the public, donations will be accepted for the Raza Defense Fund

SATURDAY

Teaching for Social Justice: Acts of Courage and Resistance

Saturday, October 6th, 2012 at Mission High School, 9am-5pm, 3750 18th Street, San Francisco, CA 94114

Register at: http://www.t4sj.org

Each year hundreds of educators both locally and nationally gather to network, explore empowering learning environments and develop a professional learning community.  We are excited to celebrate 12 years of building grassroots, peer-led professional development opportunities!

Join us for… WORKSHOPS, RESOURCE FAIR, SPEAKERS, CHILDCARE & COMMUNITY BUILDING

Keynote Speaker: Sean Arce, former director of Tuscon Unified’s Mexican-American Studies Program and Dr. Sonia Nieto, author of The Light In Their Eyes, Creating Multicultural Learning Communities.

SATURDAY EVENING

Precious Knowledge: film on the struggle for Ethnic Studies in Arizona, with Sean Arce and Curtis Acosta as special guests
Saturday, October 6^th, 2012 7pm-9pm 
Presentation Theater, Education Building, University of San Francisco
2350 Turk Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94118

Sponsored by the Urban Ed and Social Justice Cohort at University of San Francisco

Arizona lawmakers believe Tucson High School teachers are teaching victimization, racism, and revolution in their Ethnic Studies classes. Meanwhile Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies Department have data showing that almost 93% of their students, on average, graduate from high school and 82% attend college.

PRECIOUS KNOWLEDGE, the movie, illustrates an epic civil rights battle as brave students and teachers battle with lawmakers and public opinion in an effort to keep their classes alive.

SUNDAY

Ethnic Studies People’s Movement Assembly
Sunday, October 7^th, 2012 9:30am-12:30pm
SF Community School - 125 Excelsior Street, San Francisco, CA 94112

It is time for action! As recent events in Tucson have proven, the struggle for Ethnic Studies is alive throughout the nation. This assembly will be a collaborative and democratic process that will be used to create a plan of action, culminating in a national assembly at Free Minds, Free People 2013. It is time to develop a regional and national strategy for K-12 Ethnic Studies nationwide together. All levels of experience and expertise are welcome!

Assembly Co-sponsors

Association of Raza Educators

Association of Mexican American Educators

Napa Valley Ethnic Studies Advocates

Pico Youth and Family Center

Raza Studies Now

Rethinking Schools

Save Ethnic Studies

Teachers 4 Social Justice

Tucson Freedom National Network

Chicago Teachers' Strike Redux - lessons to be learned (hopefully)

The Chicago Teachers Delegate Assembly has called off the strike (the members still have to vote on it but that seems to be pro forma). The deal that was struck was, not surprisingly, a compromise. The deal, if accepted will

give annual raises to teachers, lengthen the school day and allow teachers to be evaluated, in part, with student test scores. The school system would also aim to guide laid-off teachers with strong ratings into at least half of any new job openings in the schools. NYTIMES

Teachers, by law, have been allowed to organize collectively only around economic issues.  That legal requirement has made it very difficult for teachers to oppose the implementation of high stakes testing (high stakes attached to a standardized test score) that began in the 1990's.  For the last twenty years, students have been suffering under the onslaught of state standards, state tests and sanctions (especially the high school exit exams which have dramatically increased drop outs.)  Teachers are now the DIRECT targets of the corporate business agenda (hence the bipartisan nature of the use of standardized tests to impose educational reform) in that CEO's want to attach test scores to teacher evaluation.  Most district unions have caved in to the pressure of money power (it's ability to use the media and foundation money to put teachers on the defensive).

The Chicago teachers tried to draw a line in the sand but are still divided amongst themselves and have yet to build a solid coalition with parents.

Pressure mounted in recent days as union leaders grappled with a complicated equation: how to find agreement among hundreds of delegates with vastly different views and concerns, while balancing the risk of losing public support as the strike stretched on.
By Tuesday, there were signs that union leaders realized they needed to move quickly. The union issued a leaflet aimed at maintaining patience from Chicagoans, which read, in part, “We would like to express our profound gratitude for your support in our fight for quality public education and a fair contract.” (same NYTimes article as above).

Until local teacher leaders can forge a consensus around issues that they have in common with the parents of their students, money power will prevail.  Mike Miller (a civil rights veteran among other credentials) has written a very good article explaining the importance of organizing around "lowest common denominator issues."