How the legislature works: and doesn't

California Clean Money Supporters in Suspense



By Sara S. Nichols

If the California Appropriations Committees were a summer movie, it’d be a blockbuster. After all, they’ve got all the right ingredients: suspense, mass murders, graveyards. Unfortunately for me, I’ve never liked horror films—I can’t stand the suspense.

Today the California Assembly Appropriations Committee moved AB 583, the Clean Money and Fair Elections Act by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) to the “suspense file,” leading me to wonder whether, once again, the suspense will kill me before we have public financing of elections in California. What rule, concept or decorum is actually “suspended,” I’ve long since forgotten. What I do know is that the suspense is not whether a bill will go “to suspense,” the suspense is whether it comes off.

And off it should come. As Susan Lerner, Executive Director of the California Clean Money Campaign, the sponsor of AB 583, said today, “the issue is no longer how can we afford to pay for it, but how can we afford not to pay for it?” Indeed, it is long overdue to inject clean public financing into California elections. However, this bill, coming as it does on the heels of (losing) Proposition 89 on last year’s ballot, faces a tough challenge in the legislature, even though it contains only parts of that initiative.

Sacramento insiders know that virtually every bill worth passing (i.e., every bill with a price tag) moves to “suspense” in Appropriations. The legitimate rationale used to be that bills that would cost the taxpayers over a certain amount of money per year would all be considered together. This process would ensure that California could afford the legislation it passed.

I have no quarrel with the theory behind considering these bills in tandem. I do take issue with the extreme secrecy with which these decisions are made. I’ve never understood why the handling of the suspense calendar isn’t a violation of the Brown Act (California open meeting law).

What it boils down to is that a handful of legislators can prevent the most important legislation in the state from moving forward without explaining their reasons or having to vote in public.

Here’s how it works: all the Assemblymembers and Senators who have their bills “on suspense” in the Appropriations Committee are forced to submit a secret (closely guarded) ranking of all their bills in order of priority.

It’s the Sophie’s Choice of legislators—“if only (sob) one of my (sob) bills gets to (sob) live, I guess it will have to be (sob) this one.” This ranking is then reviewed by a small cadre consisting of (if memory serves) the Appropriations Chair, the leader of the house, in private consultation with other members of the Appropriations committee, who decide which bills will come “off suspense” and therefore be granted an actual vote in committee.

Every year these “graveyard” committees bury scores of important (and less important) bills by having them never come off “suspense.”

Last year’s version of AB 583 came off suspense in a new form: without operative language and passed “in concept” off the Assembly floor and into the Senate where it fizzled out in the Senate Elections Committee despite the strong support of then chair now Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

The bill today was supported by over 20 activists and spoken well of by several legislators, including Assemblymember Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) who asked to be added as a co-author.

The Chair of the Assembly Elections Committee Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) also spoke highly of the bill, having been a leading co-author for years. He hailed author Loni Hancock as more than an author, as the leader of a movement.

Despite my misgivings about the process, if the fate of this bill has to be decided in secret, I’m thrilled it’s in the hands of the capable and trustworthy Mark Leno, in consultation with Speaker Fabian Nunez, who has also been a strong supporter in the past.

Nunez, Leno and Hancock have the power to give this movie a happy ending if they put their heads together behind the scenes and bring to the screen a real version of this bill, with enforcement provisions and the necessary funding source off “suspense” for the vote the public deserves. When will California have real campaign reform? The suspense is killing us.

Sara S. Nichols is a dynamic public speaker who has appeared on Larry King, Jerry Springer, the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and talk radio. She lives in Sacramento and writes from time to time on politics on snicholsblog where this article is being simultaneously posted.

From: California Progress Report

Police assault Los Angeles marchers and news

Remember: this is Fox news.



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Immigration marches in Los Angeles: May 1

Gov. Fails on Schools

Voters losing hope on school issues, poll finds
Blame for problems placed at governor's feet, same survey concludes
By Steve Geissinger, MEDIANEWS SACRAMENTO BUREAU
Inside Bay Area
Article Last Updated:04/26/2007 08:11:48 AM PDT
SACRAMENTO — In surprising poll findings Wednesday, voters appear to have all but given up on fixing California's troubled education system and are blaming Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The governor, dealing this year with issues such as health care and prison overcrowding, postponed tackling school woes — like equalizing fund allocations between poor and rich areas. He instead declared next year his "Year of Education Reform."
In reaction, Schwarzenegger's overall job approval rating of 62 percent plummeted to 34 percent when focused on his handling of
education, according to the poll by the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California.
Legislators fare little better.
While 38 percent approve of lawmakers' overall job performance, only 29 percent are satisfied with their handling of education, the poll found.
"While education remains a critical issue for most Californians, they clearly see a lack of progress and appear to be questioning the return on all the investment and activity of recent years," said Mark Baldassare of PPIC in a statement.
In the past decade, voters have faced education-related measures on just about every ballot and have passed nearly $45 billion in school bonds.
Once Schwarzenegger's "Year of Education Reform" does arrive, Baldassare said, "The question is — does the public have the will and the faith in state leaders to tackle this complex and controversial issue?"
Most Californians (80 percent) still believe the quality of K-12 education in the state is something of a problem, the poll found. Out of those, 52 percent believe schools are in big trouble.
But even so, they lack confidence in officials, their ability to allocate resources properly and are reluctant to hike education spending without greater fiscal responsibility.
Slightly less than half (48 percent) of those responding to the survey said the state needs to spend more wisely and increase the amount it spends on schools, while 37 percent expressed the belief that the state can improve education quality by just making better use of existing funds.
Respondents were divided over raising state taxes to benefit schools. The only universally popular concept for raising more funds is not new — boosting the state's income tax rate on the wealthiest Californians.
Support for raising more money for schools increases if voters were assured more funding would go to poor areas, teachers were given greater incentives to work there, and more counselors and social workers were hired to help boost graduation rates in those regions.
Findings were based on a telephone survey of 2,500, conducted between April 3-17. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Imposed teacher assessment reforms do not make sense

A little common sense please.
Current legislation imposes untested, invalid teacher performance assessments in California as of 2008. All future teachers will be required to pass these assessments.
It would make a lot more sense to develop the assessments. Then have 2-3 campuses test them.
After 2-3 campuses tested them, we should have a real, authentic, analysis of the value and validity of these assessments.
Then, if the assessments are valid, and they add value; then they should be implemented state wide.
We need to stop writing law by ideology and then imposing it blindly.

Duane Campbell
for more see:

http://coefaculty.csus.edu/campd/index.html


CFA Resolution

As part of a massive movement by the State Commission on Teacher Credentialing to reform credential programs in California (SB2042, 2000), new accountability measures have been implemented, some without financial funding. As part of these mandates, the State of California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing has mandated that all teacher education programs implement Teacher Performance Assessments for credentialing candidates (TPA) by July, 2008.
The TPA as an assessment tool is based on reductive, corporate-driven teacher performance expectations (TPEs). As an assessment tool, it is even more simplistic and rigid than these expectations, requiring the development of lower-level teaching skills needed to teach the scripted curriculum regulated by the high stakes tests required under No Child Left Behind. It may be inferred from the content of the TPA that programs employing this tool will lose quality in terms of equity and social justice as well as critical thinking, creativity, and the holistic growth of all participants: faculty, student teachers and teachers. These requirements imposed upon teacher education are only the beginning of state and national efforts that are currently referred to as student learning outcomes, assessment and accountability. These efforts are directed towards corporate control and standardization of all disciplines of higher education.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whereas, the CFA values the development of complex processes of accountability for teaching and learning if these processes are not framed in terms of reductive standards;
Whereas, the current move towards accountability contributes to the standardization of higher education from the ‘top down”;
Whereas, this standardization has serious implications for the academic freedom of all CSU faculty;
Whereas, the development and implementation of assessment tools are unfunded mandates that have serious workload implications, as well as implications for faculty, students, student teachers and teachers in terms of educational goals, practices and experiences.

Be it resolved, that CFA encourage faculty to become involved in a dialogue with others on campuses to learn more about these unfunded mandates, and
And be it further resolved that the CFA encourage faculty to decline to participate in the development and implementation of unfunded, reductionist assessment tools.

October 21, 2006

Unanimous support from Teacher Education Caucus , CFA
Majority support from the Peace and Justice Caucus

ELL Advocates

Dear Colleague:

Please join with us in building the Institute for Language and Education Policy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting research-based policies for educating English and heritage-language learners.

Details about our activities, founders, bylaws, and organizational structure may be viewed at http://www.elladvocates.org/. Information on how to become a member of the Institute appears below.

We believe that our mission has never been more critical. In a time of misguided “accountability” measures, high-stakes testing, cutbacks in school funding, and English-only activism, strong advocacy for children is essential. Scientific knowledge about what works -- not political ideology or expedience -- must guide public policy.

Our goals are ambitious:

– Encourage and disseminate research on education policy and practice.
– Educate the public and policymakers about the benefits of bilingual and heritage-language education for individuals, communities, and the nation as a whole.
– Represent the needs of English language learners as Congress moves to reauthorize -- and, we hope, reform -- the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
– Support grassroots efforts by local and professional organizations to secure adequate resources for quality language programs at all levels.
– Combat English-only legislation that threatens to restrict the rights and educational prospects of language-minority Americans.
– Create professional development opportunities for educational practitioners.

To succeed in these efforts, we need your help. One way is to volunteer your time and talents -- for example, by organizing meetings in your school or community, contacting members of Congress, or writing articles for our web site.

Another way is to become a member of the Institute -- just fill out and return the application below -- and provide financial support for our advocacy work. The annual membership fee is $50 for professionals, $25 for parents and full-time students. Contributions over and above those amounts are naturally welcome. Our membership form is attached below. For a Web version, please click on http://www.elladvocates.org/documents/Announcing.pdf.

Member benefits include participation in an email listserv to discuss legislative and policy developments; access to the latest research on educating English and heritage language learners; eligibility to participate in Institute elections and to serve on professional committees; and a 25% online discount on books published by Multilingual Matters. Additional benefits in the planning stage -- which we hope to provide soon -- include a monthly newsletter and online access to the new International Multilingual Research Journal.

Since incorporating as a nonprofit group last year, the Institute has signed up members in 29 states and several foreign countries, including many leaders in our field who are dedicated to advocacy for English and heritage-language learners. We urge you to join with us in this important cause.

James Crawford, President
Institute for Language and Education Policy


Institute for Language and Education Policy
P.O. Box 5960
Takoma Park, MD 20913
bilingualed@starpower.net
www.elladvocates.org

Teachers dropping out too

From the Los Angeles Times
Teachers dropping out too
A study blames working conditions. Higher pay isn't the answer, it says.
By Howard Blume
Times Staff Writer

April 27, 2007

As a mid-career professional with a doctorate in chemistry, Maurice Stephenson appeared made to order for the Los Angeles Unified School District, especially because he was eager to teach at a high-poverty campus in a system woefully short of qualified science teachers.

But the honeymoon ended abruptly after less than two years. Fed up with student insolence and administrative impotence, he stalked out of Manual Arts High School on March 12 and never went back.

Few teachers quit so dramatically, but leave they do. In California, teachers are departing the profession in alarming numbers — 22% in four years or fewer — but simply offering them more money won't solve the problem, according to a report released Thursday.

The real issue is working conditions, which are the flip side of a student's learning conditions, said Ken Futernick, who directs K-12 studies at the Center for Teacher Quality at Cal State Sacramento.

His study, which was based on a survey of nearly 2,000 California teachers, maps a growing crisis that fundamentally affects student learning.

The study also casts doubt on commonly pursued remedies both for the teacher shortage and student achievement in general.

Classroom interruptions, student discipline, increasing demands, insufficient supplies, overcrowding, unnecessary meetings, lack of support — all play a role in burning out teachers.

"They're not just driving teachers crazy; they're driving teachers out of the classrooms," Futernick said.

Stephenson is among the 35% of L.A. Unified teachers who quit within five years, according to school district data.

And as in most other cases, salary wasn't the primary factor.

In fact, L.A. Unified's data lists salary as the No. 9 reason why new hires leave. No. 1 is "moving." But also cited are "lack of support from administrator," "student discipline policy" and "unmotivated students."

Those results are consistent with Futernick's findings: "When teaching and learning conditions are poor, we discovered that many teachers see their compensation as inadequate. When these teaching and learning conditions are good, not only do teachers tend to stay, they actually view their compensation as a reason for staying."

The findings suggest that when teachers unions advocate primarily for salary, they have it somewhat wrong. On the other hand, Futernick said, administrators are clearly misguided when they focus single-mindedly on getting rid of "bad teachers."

That issue pales in importance to teacher retention. Moreover, at a struggling school, "one is hard-pressed to know the good teachers from the bad. Such a place is not conducive to good teaching," he said.

At high-minority and high-poverty schools, teacher turnover typically runs at 10% annually.

"If this churning is going on, you can be sure you have a dysfunctional school," Futernick said. "As long as we think of these schools as combat zones, we'll never solve the retention problem and we'll never close the achievement gap" between white and Asian students and their black and Latino peers.
"I told everybody I would teach as long as it was fun," said Barbara Millman, who left her teaching job at a school in San Pedro for the severely disabled at age 63. "They kept squeezing more kids into a class and trying to get by with less assistants. I felt the kids were not getting the kind of attention they needed and that we also were not valued as experts."

Other states, including Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, use teacher survey information in ways that California does not, Futernick said. North Carolina, in particular, has adopted workplace standards that protect teachers from unnecessary interruptions, paperwork and meetings.

Such standards seem a universe apart from the experience of a former Los Angeles middle school teacher who said she taught at a rodent- and roach-infested campus where students read at a second-grade level and frequently wandered the grounds because no one made them go to class.

"It got to the point where my morale was so low, and I cared so little that I would show up 15 minutes late, with my students waiting outside. No one ever said a word to me. I was still a star," said the former teacher, who asked not to be named because she has returned to the school system for a job outside the classroom.

She had to leave the classroom because "I saw myself turning into the others. What we attract are the martyrs and the lazy, and the conditions perpetuate it."


howard.blume@latimes.com

For the report, go to http://www.calstate.edu/ teacherquality/retention.

*

(INFOBOX BELOW)

Why teachers leave

Top 10 reasons cited by California teachers who quit or planned to quit teaching, or who planned to transfer out of their current schools, because of job dissatisfaction:

Percent saying each reason affected decision

Bureaucratic interference: 57%

Poor support from district: 52%

Low staff morale: 45%

Lack of resources: 42%

Unsupportive principal: 42%

Poor compensation: 41%

Too little decision- making authority: 405

Too little time for planning: 36%

Accountability pressures: 35%

Lack of teamwork: 35%

--

Note: Responses are from 220 current and former California teachers who participated in a 2005 online survey by the California State University Center for Teacher Quality.

--

Source: California State University Center for Teacher Quality

Los Angeles Times

More on the legislature and teacher preparation

Good morning.
In the legislature you win some and you lose some. Last night we lost on AB 750 regarding the unfunded mandate imposed on future teachers by SB 1209/Scott. (see prior posts)
We needed 6 votes to get out of the Education Committee. We got 5 votes. At a critical moment a critical assesmblyman left for another crisis. Without his vote, we lost.
(There were only two negative votes).
So, this effort in the legislature ends.
Our long range effort has just begun. Our effort is to educate, agitate, and organize about these invalid assessments has just begun. Our opponents now know we exist.
The CSU Chancellor’s office disappeared from the room rather than take questions.

If we return to the capitol in a future fight – as proposed- we need more allies. When CTA stood silent on our bill hurt us significantly. Legislators wanted to know why CTA was not with us.

Of particular significance was that Education Committee Chair, Gene Mullin was not with us. In an earlier bill he left the Chair to introduce CTA’s bill on mandatory Kindergarten. He introduced Barbara Kerr. All members were deferential to him and C
TA. They had a near unanimous support.
Then, in our case, he declined to vote. He assured the committee members that there was a “deal” and that the TPA’s would be funded.
All of the Republican votes were against us from the start.

Also. If we return to the capitol.
The legislature, both Republicans and Democrats are convinced that more assessments are necessary. When they say assessments, they mean TPA’s, not the broader definition of assessments. Of the few legislators who understand this issue, former CTC staff are well placed in their committees. Thus, they get a CTC view as normal, natural, uncontested.


We will now begin to develop our next steps. I refer you to the strategy section of the paper at:
http://coefaculty.csus.edu/campd/index.html


This morning I feel like the day after having lost an election such as Prop. 209, or 227.
But, as Cesar Chavez taught us, you lose and you lose, time after time, right up to the day when you win.

Thank you for your work.
Duane Campbell
Sacramento

For the AB 750 team.

Career Education: Jack Scott

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap26apr26,1,7596294.column?coll=la-headlines-california
From the Los Angeles Times
GEORGE SKELTON CAPITOL JOURNAL
Vocational education can keep students hooked on school
George Skelton
Capitol Journal

April 26, 2007

Sacramento — Sen. Jack Scott, a career educator, remembers when his daughter broke the news that she was going to marry a commercial fisherman.

"This guy was not too happy," the Altadena Democrat says, referring to himself.

His daughter's suitor "was not highly educated; he'd never gone to college," recalls Scott, who at the time was dean of instruction at Orange Coast College, and later would become president of Cypress College and then Pasadena City College.

Scott's attitude reflected the typical academician's mind-set of the day — indeed, much of society's. If you weren't a rock star, a big league athlete or a rich heir, you needed a four-year college degree to become a success. Short of that, you were doomed to be second class, if not a failure.

The senator's view has changed, in no small part by watching his son-in-law Paul, whose father and grandfather also had been commercial fishermen.

Paul went to Alaska, bought his own boat, then another, and acquired an interest in a third. He fished for cod, pollock, halibut and crab in the Bering Sea. He worked and froze his rear off and "made enough to retire at the early age of 42," Scott says with admiration and amusement.

"The lesson is," the lawmaker continues, "we find our own self-fulfillments. We make a real mistake if we think everyone is going to receive their self-fulfillment by studying humanities or pure math. They may get self-fulfillment by being good plumbers or auto mechanics or nurses. Or commercial fishermen. We've got to design our courses to meet the needs of these people.

"If not, they'll just drop out."

And that is what they've been doing.

In California, roughly a third of ninth-graders eventually drop out of high school. In L.A., it's around one-half of blacks and Latinos.

A Gates Foundation survey of high school dropouts nationwide found that 88% were getting passing grades. So most must have left school because they were bored.

One major reason they're bored in California is that classwork doesn't seem to bear any relationship to whatever they envision as their life's work. It relates primarily to getting them qualified to enter the state university system, which many either aren't interested in or consider a pipedream. Only around 20% of ninth-graders ever will graduate from a four-year college.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of thousands of students each year who could be learning middle-class job skills — as future nurses, auto mechanics, computer programmers, home builders. Name it. There are some successful school-business training partnerships, but not nearly enough. There's a shortage of skilled workers in California, business groups contend.

Our public schools used to offer many vocational education courses — metal shop, drafting, etc. — that have been drastically reduced in recent decades. In 1987, three-fourths of high school students took at least one voc ed class. By 2005, only one-third did.

"Those great shop classes have disappeared," says state Sen. Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch), a former teacher who intends to run for state superintendent of public instruction in 2010. "That's a tragedy. Because those classes motivated students to stay in school."

The classes have disappeared because of two primary reasons: First, the elitist attitude that it's on to the university or bust; everybody else just get out of the way. Second, voc ed courses, with all their equipment that constantly needs updating, aren't cheap. They're among the first to land on the chopping block whenever state politicians face one of their periodic budget crises.

"The notion of voc ed went out of favor with many education bureaucrats," says Sen. Mark Wyland (R-Escondido). "What's tragic is that while all other industrialized nations have highly developed systems, our existing system has been battered.

"It was replaced by a notion that was well intentioned, but utterly foolish and communicated incessantly that the only thing of value for a young person is a college degree. Not only that, the message was that you're not of value unless you're going to college. The name 'voc ed' connoted being less worthy."

But voc ed now is making a comeback under a new euphemism: career tech.

It's not the top priority at the Capitol, but it is a priority. Scott, Torlakson and Wyland all have introduced legislation aimed at upgrading career tech.

Scott has a bill to simplify credentialing for career tech teachers and provide more flexibility in what they can teach. Wyland wants to eliminate the requirement that voc ed teachers have a bachelor's degree. Torlakson proposes requiring every high school student to take at least two career tech courses.

The $10.4-billion school construction bond approved last year by voters contained $500 million for career tech facilities.

There's also $52 million in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget for various career tech programs. The trick will be keeping it there, since the state is spending with red ink and tax revenues have been falling below expectations.

But the public will back the politicians' spending on career tech. A poll being released today by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that 67% of adults consider career tech curricula to be "very important." The figure is even higher, 71%, for parents with kids in school.

Schwarzenegger has been promoting voc ed. "I myself," he told a "summit" on the subject last month, "am a product of career tech education. Between the time I was 15 and 18 I went to school in Austria to learn how to be a salesman."

He learned very well.

George Skelton

FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. WE ARE MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN OUR EFFORTS TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. WE BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A 'FAIR USE' OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML. IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND 'FAIR USE,' YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.

Kucinich: Impeach Cheney Resolution

Kucinich Introduces Historic Articles of Impeachment
Against Vice President Richard Cheney

Democrats.com - April 24, 2007

Ladies and gentlemen, your tireless efforts for
impeachment have finally borne fruit.

Your countless emails, calls, letters, town hall
meetings, street protests, and huge marches have
persuaded one courageous Member of Congress to start
the impeachment process.

That Member is Dennis Kucinich, and here are his
Articles of Impeachment, officially known as H.Res.
333.
more on Kucinich: http://kucinich.house.gov/
Articles of Impeachment (H.R. 333):
http://kucinich.house.gov/SpotlightIssues/documents.htm

In a nutshell, Kucinich believes Cheney should be
impeached because he:

1. Manipulated intelligence to fabricate a threat of
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
2. Manipulated intelligence to fabricate a relationship
between Iraq and al Qaeda
3. Openly threatened aggression against Iran absent any
real threat to the United States

Let's show our support for Kucinich's heroic efforts by
asking the rest of Congress to co-sponsor these
Articles , and by telling the media we demand
impeachment now.

http://www.impeachcheney.org

Ask your Congress Member to support impeachment
proceedings against Vice President Cheney:
http://tinyurl.com/yttnxq

Improving ELL in California

"Obvious" Ways to Improve Education of ELLs in California
Providing learning materials and making available assessments in students' native languages, and hiring teachers and staff who speak students' primary languages are some of the "obvious" ways that California schools could improve how they teach English-language learners, according to a couple of researchers in the state.

I find it interesting that Patricia Gándara, a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Russell W. Rumberger, a professor of education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have chosen the word "obvious" in their recent recommendation for an increase in the use of students' native languages in a state where voters approved a ballot initiative in 1998 to try to get rid of bilingual education.

What's obvious to the researchers was OBVIOUSLY not obvious to many Californians in 1998, and I wonder if much has changed since then. (Readers, tell me what you think.) Though Proposition 227 provides a way for schools to provide bilingual education through a parent waiver process, the number of English-learners in bilingual education has decreased dramatically since the initiative's passage.

But Ms. Gándara and Mr. Rumberger persist in trying to get the word out that research findings indicate closing the achievement gap between language-minority students and students who speak only English (See Claude Goldenberg's glossary) is most likely to occur with a bilingual curriculum. Their view and others they hold for how to improve education for English-language learners in California based on their research or review of research are published in a 4-page summary of a study, "Resource Needs for California's English Learners," released last week along with 22 other studies about the financing and governance of public education in California. Education Week's Linda Jacobson wrote an article about the studies.

Also last week, Mr. Rumberger published an article analyzing research data showing that Spanish-speaking, language-minority students in California aren't doing as well in keeping up with their peers who speak only English as are their counterparts nationwide. The results of Mr. Rumberger's analysis "call into question California's current efforts to educate the state's growing linguistic-minority population--especially Spanish-speaking students--and to close the sizeable achievement gap with other students," he writes.

He doesn't mention Proposition 227 in his article, which was published in a newsletter of the University of California's Linguistic Minority Research Institute and which I wrote about for Report Roundup on Education Week's Web site.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr on March 19, 2007 10:51 AM | Permalink
Mary Ann Zehr writes for Education Week.

NCLB: How Karl Rove reframed the debate on school reform

'Framing' the Debate over NCLB
The No Child Left Behind Act – though a policy failure in many ways – has nevertheless been a rhetorical triumph. For NCLB proponents, the emphasis on overcoming racial "achievement gaps" has served as a moral high horse, enabling them to gallop roughshod over critics while decrying "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Accusations of "making excuses for failing schools" and "believing that minority children can't learn" have proved to be effective weapons in the debate.

As a result, most organizations representing educators find themselves on the defensive whenever they raise concerns about NCLB's impact. Who wants to be labeled as "against accountability," much less "bigoted" against minority children? So those favoring fundamental changes in NCLB often find themselves at a tactical disadvantage in enounters with Stay the Course forces.

Credit for all this belongs largely to Karl Rove, White House adviser and Republican apparatchik extraordinaire, who has been deservedly dubbed "Bush's Brain." It was Rove who made NCLB, both the slogan and the concept, a centerpiece of the 2000 presidential campaign. He saw it as a way to position George W. Bush as a "compassionate conservative," to soften his party's hard-hearted image, and to outflank Democrats on a key domestic issue.

In effect, Rove "reframed" the issue of school reform to gain a political advantage for Republicans. Whereas conservatives had traditionally opposed a strong federal role in education and had tended to stress academic excellence over equity, the Bush Administration took up the cause of "disadvantaged" students in order to advance other Republican objectives, such as the privatization of public schools. Using the rhetoric of civil rights and anti-poverty, it enlisted many Democratic followers as well. Hence the overwhelming bipartisan support for NCLB in 2001.

New Terms, New Politics
Terminology is central to framing, as the linguist George Lakoff explains:

"Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. When you hear a word, its frame is activated in your brain. Reframing is changing the way the public sees the world… New language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently."

NCLB has relied on several terms to reframe the debate over school reform, including accountability, adequate yearly progress, scientifically based research, and perhaps most important, achievement gap.

Disparities in test scores between socioeconomic groups are nothing new, of course. (Nor are they restricted to American schools.) But when did "the achievement gap" become a focus of public discourse? Quite recently, it turns out. An archive search of the New York TImes found that the term appeared rarely in the 1980s, sporadically through most of the 1990s, and then frequently beginning in 1998 – often in reference to the Bush presidential campaign and later, of course, in connection with NCLB.

Meanwhile, a long-established term – equal educational opportunity – was going out of common usage. From 2001 to 2005, it appeared in just 10 articles, as compared with 173 articles mentioning achievement gaps. The shift in terminology, albeit subtle, signaled a reframing of how the American public thinks about school reform.



Whereas "equal educational opportunity" had framed the issue in terms of educational inputs – resources, curriculum, facilities, materials, teacher training, best practices – "achievement gap" now highlights only educational outputs, as measured by standardized tests.

Responsibility for inputs is broadly shared among policymakers at all levels. Outputs are seen as the job of schools, which will be "held accountable" for achievement gaps. Hence NCLB's constricted version of accountability. The law essentially removes political leaders from the picture, ignoring their responsibility to provide adequate and equitable resources, and shining the spotlight on educators alone.

Another sign of reframing: The phrase “failing schools” appeared in 306 New York Times articles between 2001 and 2005, as compared to just 69 between 1991 and 1995.

James Crawford

Unstated Assumptions about NCLB-Style Accountability
'Accountability' at What Price?
What Kind of Accountability?
A Better Way To Hold Schools Accountable for ELLs

Copyright © 2007 by the Institute for Language and Education Policy. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to reprint or repost material from this site unless copyrighted by third parties, for educational, advocacy, and other noncommercial purposes. All other permission requests should be directed to the Institute at bilingualed@starpower.net.

Reading First: How the Bush Admin. operates

Key Initiative Of 'No Child' Under Federal Investigation
Officials Profited From Reading First Program
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 21, 2007; A01

The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.

The disclosure came as a congressional hearing revealed how people implementing the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program made at least $1 million off textbooks and tests toward which the federal government steered states.

"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee, which held a five-hour investigative hearing. "You don't get to override the law," he angrily told a panel of Reading First officials. "But the fact of the matter is that you did."

The Education Department's inspector general, John P. Higgins Jr., said he has made several referrals to the Justice Department about the five-year-old program, which provides grants to improve reading for children in kindergarten through third grade.

Higgins declined to offer more specifics, but Christopher J. Doherty, former director of Reading First, said in an interview that he was questioned by Justice officials in November. The civil division of the U.S. attorney's office for the District, which can bring criminal charges, is reviewing the matter.

Doherty, one of the two Education Department employees who oversaw the initiative, acknowledged yesterday that his wife had worked for a decade as a paid consultant for a reading program, Direct Instruction, that investigators said he improperly tried to force schools to use. He repeatedly failed to disclose the conflict on financial disclosure forms.

"I'm very proud of this program and my role in this program," Doherty said in the interview. "I think it's been implemented in accordance with the law."

The management of Reading First has come under attacks from members of both parties. Federal investigators say program officials improperly forced states to use certain tests and textbooks created by those officials.

One official, Roland H. Good III, said his company made $1.3 million off a reading test, known as DIBELS, that was endorsed by a Reading First evaluation panel he sat on. Good, who owns half the company, Dynamic Measurement Group, told the committee that he donated royalties from the product to the University of Oregon, where he is an associate professor.

Two former University of Oregon researchers on the panel, Edward J. Kame'enui and Deborah C. Simmons, said they received about $150,000 in royalties last year for a program that is now packaged with DIBELS. They testified that they received smaller royalties in previous years for the program, Scott Foresman Early Reading Intervention, and did not know it was being sold with DIBELS.

Members of the panel said they recused themselves from voting on their own products but did assess their competitors. Of 24 tests approved by the committee, seven were tied to members of the panel.

"I regret the perception of conflicts of interest," said Kame'enui, former chairman of the committee, who now works at the department as commissioner of the National Center for Special Education Research. "But there was no real conflict of interest being engaged in."

The intricate financial connections between Reading First products and program officials extend beyond issues the committee explored yesterday.

Another researcher, Sharon Vaughn, worked with Kame'enui, Simmons and Good to design Voyager Universal Literacy, a program that Reading First officials urged states to use. Vaughn was director of a center at the University of Texas that was hired to provide states advice on selecting Reading First tests and books.

The publisher of that product, Voyager Expanded Learning, was founded and run by Randy Best, a major Bush campaign contributor, who sold the company in 2005 for more than $350 million. Now Best runs Higher Ed Holdings, a company that develops colleges of education, where former education secretary Roderick R. Paige is a senior adviser and G. Reid Lyon, Bush's former reading adviser, is an executive vice president.

"I'm very disappointed and saddened by the information that was provided at the hearing today," said Lyon, who had been a strong defender of Reading First, which he said had nothing to do with his new job. "The issues appear much more serious than I had been led to understand."

Despite the controversy surrounding Reading First's management, the percentage of students in the program who are proficient on fluency tests has risen about 15 percent, Education Department officials said. School districts across the country praise the program.

Members of both parties continue to support the goals of Reading First even as they attack its management. Miller and Senate education committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) joined Republicans yesterday in pledging to tighten restrictions on conflicts of interest in No Child Left Behind.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who declined to comment yesterday, has said management problems with Reading First "reflect individual mistakes." But Doherty said nearly every aspect of the program was carefully monitored by the department and the White House, where Spelling was Bush's top education adviser.

"This program was always firmly under the watch and control of the highest levels of the government," Doherty said.

Staff writer Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.

Reading first and honest use of data

At least we should be able to agree to look at data honestly. The President and his staff can not make this claim.

The President and Secretary of Education constantly
maintain that Reading First has had a positive effect
on national tests, because of an increase on NAEP
trend test scores for fourth grade reading between
1999 and 2004, from 212 to 219. (Margaret Spellings
said this at the NCLB summit in April, 2006, and it
was repeated a year later, in April, 2007 on the White
House website, with many repetitions over the last
year.)

Trend tests, considered appropriate for comparison,
were not given between 1999 and 2004. Gerald Bracey
(2006a) has pointed out that Reading First did not go
into effect until 2002-2003, so it is not clear that
Reading First deserves the credit for the increase
(according to the recent GAO report, 25 states were
funded in 2002-2003 and 25 more in 2003-2004). In
fact, several analyses show that reading scores have
not improved since Reading First went into effect.
(Fuller et. al., 2006; Lee, 2006).

Bracey (2006b) also doubted that many children in
districts that did Reading First took the NAEP in
2004. The test is given to nine year olds, and Reading
First is aimed at grades three and lower.

Data from the recent GAO report confirms Bracey’s
suspicion. The report tells us that 1,200 districts in
the US were awarded Reading First grants. That’s only
seven percent of all districts in the US.

Let us give Reading First the benefit of the doubt and
ignore all the counterarguments presented above. Let
us give Reading First even more benefit of the doubt
and assume that even though only seven percent of
districts did Reading First, these districts were
gigantic, and that 21% of all children who took the
NAEP in 2004 had Reading First. If Reading First is
to take credit for the seven-point gain, those
children would have had to outscore their 1999
counterparts by a fantastic 33 points, a score that is
nearly exactly at the 75% percentile. If the Reading
First districts contributed only seven percent of
those who took the test, they would have had to score
312, outscoring their 1999 counterparts by 100 points
(The 90% percentile in 2005 was 263).

Again, several studies tell us that there was no gain
on national tests after Reading First went into
effect, and Bracey gives us reason to doubt that many
Reading First children were old enough to take the
test. But even ignoring these arguments, all estimates
of the number of children who took the test who were
in Reading First districts makes it highly unlikely
that Reading First deserves any credit for the
1999-2004 increase.
S. Krashen



Bracey, Gerald. 2006a. The 16th Bracey Report on the
Condition of Public Education. Phi Delta Kappan 18
(2): 151-166

Bracey, Gerald. 2006b. Letter to Congressperson George
Miller and Senator Edward Kennedy, September 25, 2006.

Fuller, Bruce, Gesicki, Kathryn, Kang, Erin, and
Wright, Joseph. 2006. Is the No Child Left Behind Act
Working? The Reliability of How States Track
Achievement. University of California, Berkeley:
Policy Analysis for California Education

GAO 2007. Reading First GAO 07-161 (States report
improvements in reading instruction, but additional
procedures would clarify Education’s role in ensuring
proper implementation by states.)

Lee, Jaekyung. 2006. Tracking achievement gaps and
assessing the impact of NCLB on the gaps: An in-depth
look into national and state reading and math outcome
trends.
Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard
University.

California High School Exit Exam and ELL

English Learners and the State Exit Exam
Sent to the Ventura County Star, April 17, 2007

California State Superintendent of Instruction Jack
O’Connell is “deeply concerned” that students
classified as English Learners did not do as well as
other groups on the State High School Exit Exam (“More
seniors are passing state exit exam,” April 17).

Half of the test is English Language Arts. It has a
reading section and a writing section, which includes
an essay. According to the Department of Education
website, statewide, for all grades combined, 28% of
those considered to be English Learners passed the
English Language Arts part of the test in 2006.
Overall, 61% passed. Statistics for Ventura County are
similar, with 30% of English Learners passing, and 60%
overall.

This is no surprise. Students are classified as
English Learners because they have not yet acquired
enough English to succeed in school. If they are able
to pass an exam that demands a high level of
competence in English, they should not be considered
English Learners.

The low passing rate for this group simply confirms
that the classification system is accurate.

Stephen Krashen

Schools and democracy : Deborah Meirer

Posted by Deborah Meier at 4/17/07 6:00 AM
Tags: Education Policy

Some people wake up with great ideas. But I’m a night person. Right before I fall asleep I think I’ve finally found just the right way to say what it is I’m thinking. Often when I wake up I've either forgotten it or it seems banal.

But here are two ideas that keep reoccurring, and it is morning now so I’m going to try to capture them.

Great Idea 1:

The whole point of public education (vs job training or even some forms of private education) is to prepare a public for its responsibilities which, in a nutshell come down to exercising careful, thoughtful and reasonable judgment in the face of complex evidence. In the two tasks that confront 18 year olds--voting and serving on juries--these are the presumptions that lie behind the privilege. Our best judgment is what in the end we bring to the table. Note there are neither admissions tests, nor licensure requirements for either voting or serving on a jury. It's the unspoken and awesomely heavy presumption and also the most irrational facing governance by democratic principles and practices. It makes no sense, except (as Churchill said) it's better than any of the alternatives. But for every problem confronting this absurd idea--that everyone has a "right" to such power--there is a solution. Better education.

Not just formal K-12 schooling, surely not just or even college—which comes too late for many voters and jurors and is not open to everyone. But, as the slogans say, our aim is “lifelong” learning, on-going adult education. Newspapers are one of these educating forces, as are all the new technologies. Public access to books, libraries full of resources for getting at "the truth", public spaces for communicating one’s ideas, and for demonstrating on behalf of them, etc, etc. I’m enamored even of the idea of subsidizing adults for going back for a liberal arts education later on, when they are more likely to appreciate its usefulness. But the one and only institution we set aside for this and only this purpose--with no obligation to make a buck in return--is our K-12 system of schooling.

I challenge any of us to spend a day with a kid in an average school and try to connect the dots between what is being learned there--formally ad informally--and what a citizen of a democracy requires (in contrast to citizens perhaps of countries that don't even pretend to be democratic). The world is full of virtues. And economic necessities. But what are the explicitly democratic predispositions, skills, habits of mind and heart that we are not born with, but could learn in a setting devoted to such a purpose?

Great Idea 2:

Then, one night it occurred to me, that for all my ranting and raving against the term accountability, in fact the idea of being accountable lies at the heart of democracy. Democracy is a form of accountability--a concept intended to hold the powerful’s feet to the fire. Naturally as our schools have moved further and further away from being attached to their publics, it has become more and more important for us to invent other non-democratic, bureaucratic, “mandarin” forms of accountability. When there were 200,000 school boards serving a population less than half the size of today’s, a lot of people knew who was making judgments about their schools. Today with as few as 10,000 school boards, and with some of them having almost no realistic power over anything but floating bonds, well.... No wonder! There ought to be a half million school boards or more, if--big if--we really believe in democracy as our most special and effective form of accountability.

Given that I'm not a fan of many of the decisions reached by democratic decision making bodies--including many school boards as well as state legislatures and Presidents--this is a leap of faith. I make it because I still agree with Churchill about the alternative to holding on to this often counter-intuitive and even counter-reasonable faith. Neither various forms of benign dictatorship or market-place utopias seem more reasonable . Although if I got to choose the dictator it does some nights appear to be the solution. But by morning I have to face the fact that it’s unlikely to be someone of my choice; and if it were I’d probably be in the opposition the day after—coercion just has its limits when it comes to the important stuff—the stuff inside our hearts and minds.

These two ideas have become more than nighttime fantasies, but daytime ones too. I long for a more robust discussion. We confront the increasing daily power of BOTH my dystopias-- increased centralization of public schools in the hands of the few, and increased “selling off” of our schools to private interest groups. And yet we confront a very thin response to both.

What, Forum readers, would we have to do to make these issues part of the conversation about K-12 schooling among our friends, parents of our children’s friends, colleagues, fellow citizens?

copyright © 2007 The Forum for Education and Democracy

Reading first: Another Bush failure

Has Reading First Helped?

USA Today (“Textbook scandal reaches Congress,” April
16 ) notes that a Center for Education Policy report
found that Reading First has helped schools. This
report only asked officials in states and districts
that improved in reading whether they thought Reading
First had helped. There was no discussion of cases in
which Reading First was used and there was no
improvement.

Reports from Harvard and Berkeley have found that
Reading First has not resulted in gains on national
tests. Also, the achievement gap between high- and
low-income students is the same as it was before
Reading First.

The President and the Secretary of Education continue
to insist that reading scores on national tests have
increased, but recent gains all occurred before
Reading First went into effect.

The Reading First hearings, in addition to
investigating potential conflicts of interests, should
also probe the unsupported claims that the program has
been a success.

Stephen Krashen


Analysis of Center for Education Report
Krashen, Stephen. 2006, Did reading first work?
http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=17349

No improvement in national test scores:
1. Fuller, Bruce, Gesicki, Kathryn, Kang, Erin, and
Wright, Joseph. (2006). Is the No Child Left Behind
Act Working? The Reliability of How States Track
Achievement. University of California, Berkeley:
Policy Analysis for California Education
2. Lee, Jaekyung. 2006. Tracking achievement gaps and
assessing the impact of NCLB on the gaps: An in-depth
look into national and state reading and math outcome
trends.
Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard
University.

Stephen Krashen




Textbook scandal reaches Congress

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
A slow-motion scandal surrounding a federal
multibillion-dollar reading program has its first
congressional hearing this week, but it remains to be
seen whether the scrutiny will shed any new light on a
complex, contradictory tale of textbooks, tests and
allegations of federal arm-twisting.

A key part of President Bush's efforts to remake
public education, Reading First was launched in 2002,
giving schools $1 billion a year to improve reading in
early elementary grades. Five years later, early
evidence suggests that it may be helping. But
investigators say a handful of advisers have
railroaded schools into buying textbooks and other
materials that they and associates developed.
The result: a conflict-of-interest case that took two
years to jell as investigators in the Education
Department connected the dots. To date, no criminal
charges have been filed, but Democrats, now in control
of Congress, promise to give the case a full airing.
"The purpose of Reading First is to help
schoolchildren learn to read, not feather the nests of
a select group of well-connected individuals and
organizations," says Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who
chairs the House Committee on Education and Labor.
Miller and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., are
conducting probes. Kennedy plans hearings later this
spring.
Miller will preside at the first hearing Friday, which
brings together Chris Doherty, the program's former
director, and three top advisers.
Atop the witness list: John Higgins, the Education
Department's inspector general, who has issued six
reports detailing how Reading First leaders and
contractors looked the other way at possible conflicts
of interest among advisers and others — several of
whom authored textbooks. He also found that Doherty
and others strong-armed states and school districts
into choosing from a small selection of materials that
stress phonics.
In one e-mail Higgins cited, Doherty said of a
publisher whose books downplayed phonics, "They are
trying to crash our party, and we need to beat the
(expletive) out of them in front of all the other
would-be party crashers who are standing on the front
lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags."
Doherty quit in September after the report's release.
Higgins also found that a 2002 conference for
educators focused too exclusively on a few programs,
creating what investigators said was a perception that
there was an "approved list" of texts.

A related probe last month by the Government
Accountability Office found that officials from 10
states complained that the Education Department told
them to eliminate reading programs or tests that they
didn't endorse. Federal rules prohibit the department
from endorsing any curriculum.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who until 2005
was a White House domestic policy adviser, says the
troubles occurred before her move to the Education
Department. But Mike Petrilli, a former associate
deputy secretary under Spellings' predecessor, Rod
Paige, says Spellings "micromanaged the implementation
of Reading First from her West Wing office." She
already has told lawmakers she is beefing up oversight
of the program.

But even a few critics cautiously concede that the
program has been a boon to schools. The Center on
Education Policy, a Washington think tank that has
criticized Bush's education programs, in September
said Reading First is having "a significant impact" in
schools.
A five-year, $30.5 million evaluation, begun in 2003,
should produce complete results next year.
Cindy Cupp, a Savannah, Ga., educator, was among the
first to complain in 2005, after Reading First schools
in Georgia passed over her homegrown phonics program.
Cupp compiled a huge dossier outlining the links
between publishers, federal advisers, universities and
the Bush administration. In findings issued last
January, Higgins largely upheld her complaint.
She says it's irrelevant whether Reading First works:
"To rationalize breaking the law by saying the program
has been effective is just that — a rationalization."
She also notes that part of the evaluation bid went to
RMC Research Corp., which Higgins cited for turning a
blind eye to conflicts of interest among three top
advisers it hired. All three are scheduled to testify
Friday.

Oppose new, unfunded mandates on teachers

Regular readers will recognize that last Spring I posted several items on SB 1209, an Omnibus Education Bill in the California legislature, and how it was meddling and pandering rather than improving teacher preparation.
With the help of CFA, we have now prepared to repeal one part of the mandate.

April 12, 2007
Members, Assembly Education Committee

Fr: Susan Meisenhelder, Chair, Political Action and Legislative Committee
David Balla-Hawkins, Legislative Director

Re: AB 750 (Carter) – SPONSOR
Removal of CSU Teacher Assessment Unfunded Mandate


On behalf of the 23,000 faculty, counselors, coaches and librarians who teach at the California State University system, the California Faculty Association is the SPONSOR of AB 750 to eliminate an unfunded mandate affecting teacher credential students.

In lieu of this change, institutions such as the CSU will be required to pay for these teacher assessments – or will simply pass the estimated $400 per assessment costs onto students – when adequate state funding is not provided.


The Need for AB 750

Along with an array of important K-12 teacher credential reforms, a small change resulting from last year’s SB 1209 (Scott) also created an unfunded mandate that – unaddressed – will adversely impact CSU students seeking a teaching credential. Beginning July 1, 2008, CSU teaching candidates will be required to complete teacher assessments as part of their graduation requirement. Unfortunately, SB 1209 changed existing law that made these assessments contingent on the availability of state funding, thus creating a new CSU unfunded mandate.

At the CSU, where over half of all K-12 teachers are taught, student enrollment fees have already nearly doubled in just five years. Having the state require a new assessment of credential students, without providing the necessary funding, would discourage students from seeking a teaching credential by making it more cost-prohibitive – or simply more difficult – by forcing CSU teacher credential students to pay $400 more in higher fees, or eliminating other essential student services and/or classes to pay for these assessments.

AB 750 will simply reinstate existing language that was deleted by SB 1209, thus making teacher assessments contingent on the availability of state funding. Unaddressed, these assessment costs – if continued as an unfunded mandate – will further deplete limited CSU funds or restrict the financial ability of students to obtain a K-12 teaching credential.

It is for these reasons that CFA respectfully requests you vote “AYE” on AB 750.

What you can do.
Write letters of support to your Senators and Assemblypersons. Support AB 750.

For a detailed description of the complex problem and the strategy see

http://coefaculty.csus.edu/campd/index.html
Duane Campbell

NCLB: What you can do

Overhauling NCLB: What You Can Do

Rethinking Schools.org, Spring 2007

Illustration: Toles
© 2007 The Washington Post

By Monty Neill

The most important thing progressive educators can do at this time, aside from teaching well, is to help ensure that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) does not reproduce the destructive components of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Make no mistake: if the act is reauthorized without significant changes, progressive education initiatives will remain on the defensive, squeezed out by NCLB's focus on standardized tests and punitive sanctions.

The first step in overhauling NCLB is to block its rapid reauthorization, and then to press for positive alternatives. This process could move quickly in 2007 or, if progressives are successful in blocking a status-quo reauthorization, continue into 2009.

The main multi-organizational organizing effort to press for positive changes involves The Joint Statement on No Child Left Behind, now signed by over 100 education, civil rights, religious, disability, and civic organizations.

Many signers of the Joint Statement, such as the National Education Association, are also organizing among their members to transform NCLB.

Here are things you can do to prevent a rapid reauthorization that largely leaves NCLB intact:

Get school boards and other groups to endorse the Joint Statement and other progressive proposals to overhaul the NCLB.

Set up meetings with members of Congress and their staff. Bring a diverse delegation to the meeting, then follow up repeatedly.

Lobby your state legislators to pass resolutions in line with the Joint Statement and other progressive alternatives.

Hold public forums on problems with the current NCLB and on much-needed information on the NCLB, including various actions you can take to help prevent the law's status-quo reauthorization.

Use the list of Joint Statement signers to reach out to their local and state affiliates.

Write letters to the editor of your local paper.

In short, get active, organize and mobilize.

Websites on NCLB

Following is a list of websites with alternatives:

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/index.shtml
Includes special sections on NCLB, vouchers, privatization.

http://www.fairtest.org
Leading advocate for progressive assessment practices, information on NCLB.

http://susanohanian.org/nclb.html
Large collection of NCLB information, stories, research.

http://nochildleft.com/
NCLB site of education writer Jamie McKenzie.

http://www.nea.org/esea/
National Education Association NCLB site.

http://www.aft.org/topics/nclb/index.htm
American Federation of Teachers on NCLB.

http://www.educatorroundtable.org/
Educator Roundtable and its petition against NCLB.

http://www.publiceducation.org/nclb_actionbriefs.asp
Public Education Network NCLB site.

Monty Neill is executive director of the Boston based FairTest (http://www.fairtest.org) and chair of the Forum on Educational Accountability (http://www.edaccountability.org), which is spearheading the Joint Statement.

Spring 2007

NCLB: Classroom Cast System

Classroom Caste System

By David Keyes
Monday, April 9, 2007; Page A13
Washington POst

Written five years ago to reduce the "achievement gap," the No Child Left Behind Act has in fact created a gap in American education. Its pressure to raise test scores has caused many schools to give poor and minority students an impoverished education that focuses primarily on basic skills.

As it comes up for reauthorization, members of Congress should consider the unintended consequence of the act: a new gap between poor and minority students, who are being taught to seek simple answers, and largely wealthy and white students, who are learning to ask complex questions. In my work as an elementary school teacher, I have seen this new gap and I worry about its impact on my students' future prospects.

Although supporters and critics of No Child Left Behind agree on little, both would acknowledge that testing lies at the heart of the law. Schools approach the act's testing requirements differently, depending on the students they serve.

Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools remain largely segregated. Schools serving mostly wealthy and white students have a distinct advantage when it comes to testing. Their students are far more likely to be raised in an environment that gives them the necessary tools to succeed on tests. They grow up with the intellectual abundance their wealth provides: books, educational videos and Baby Einstein games, to name a few. Having these resources may not make children smarter, but it does educate them in many of the skills -- such as letter sounds and addition facts -- that are covered on standardized tests. Knowing their students are likely to succeed on tests gives these schools freedom to teach higher-level thinking skills.

Poor and minority children also come to school with rich backgrounds. They speak foreign languages, make music, tell vivid stories and have other skills not typical of their peers. Their backgrounds, however, often do not provide them with the academic skills needed to succeed on standardized tests. Fearful of poor test scores that can bring punitive measures, schools spend an inordinate amount of time preparing their students for the tests.

Schools often use test-prep programs to try to raise test scores. The problem with these programs is that they teach the skills covered on tests, and only these skills. Poor and minority students spend hours repeating "B buh ball" and two plus two equals four. Every hour spent drilling basic skills is an hour not spent developing the higher-level thinking skills that are emphasized in wealthier school districts.

I have worked in both types of schools. Currently, I teach in an almost exclusively minority, high-poverty elementary school. Administrators require teachers to strictly adhere to a months-long test-prep program. My students recoil at the sight of their test-prep books. Last year, some of my students cried, wracked with anxiety over the tests.

My students are 7 and 8 years old.

I did my student teaching in an almost exclusively white and wealthy school. There, the students studied the role of quilts on the Underground Railroad, brainstormed plans to save wolves from extinction and performed dances based on retellings of Cinderella. The children learned to think and they loved it.

At the end of the year, test results will come out for these two schools. Educators and politicians will trumpet any reduction of the so-called achievement gap. This misses the point. Students will leave these two schools and schools like them with a widely varying set of skills. As the achievement gap is being reduced, another gap is being created. Students in largely wealthy and white schools are learning to ask larger questions; students in poor and minority schools are only being taught to answer smaller ones.

The effect of this gap will be long-lasting. Students taught higher-level thinking skills will be able to compete for jobs at the upper echelon of the 21st-century economy. Students who receive an impoverished education focused on basic skills will be stuck at the bottom.

The No Child Left Behind Act is creating a caste-like system in which students' future prospects are likely to be similar to those of their parents. This undemocratic development is at odds with a society that prides itself on being a meritocracy. As Congress debates the renewal of the law, members should consider not only whether the act is reducing the achievement gap but also the skills gap it is creating.

The writer is a second-grade teacher at Bel Pre Elementary School in Silver Spring.