Tasks for the 2011-2012 School Year

There are two primary tasks for the 2011-2012 school year: 1) responding to high stakes testing and 2) facilitating more inclusive school environments.

Responding to High Stakes Testing

Recently, many urban principals have kicked off the school year with celebrations of test score gains and the practices that led to them. The celebrations are understandable given the immense pressure to raise standardized test scores and the sad state of American public education. The fact is that raising scores may get some schools to “safe harbor” or minimize the pressure from local districts, but what are we really celebrating?

Several questions arise as we celebrate: Are short term number gains worth what is being sacrificed? Is better teaching happening or is better teaching to the test taking place? When we narrow the curriculum to teach to the test, are students really learning anything that will be of value to themselves, their communities, or the world 20 years from now?  Is the end goal of our educational mission higher test scores or something much greater? Are short term test score gains worth the cost we will pay when we are faced with a generation of people that have limited critical thinking and creative problem solving skills?

With respect to the rabid high stakes testing sensation still gripping public schools, here are a few suggestions for parents and students to get involved:

Parents can join: Opt Out of the State Test: The National Movement

Parents can get informed at: FairTest

Parents should also check out: Parents Across America for information about improving schools and responding to NCLB.

Students can join: The Bartleby Project

Facilitating More Inclusive School Environments

As the new school year begins we have an opportunity to facilitate more inclusive and compassionate classroom environments. While the emotional trauma of being subjected to teasing and bullying is well established, recent studies have indicated that high achieving students of color, particularly Blacks and Latinos also suffer academically from exposure to bullying.

This year No Name Calling Week is January 23-27, 2012. Encourage your school to participate or participate in your own classroom by using the classroom resources and sharing the book The Misfits by James Howe with your students. Students can also take part in a national Creative Expression Contest where they can raise awareness about teasing and bullying.

During the 2004-2005 school year I taught sixth grade gifted English Language Learners at a public middle school in East Los Angeles; my students participated in the inaugural No Name Calling Creative Expression Contest. My English class was very proud when Jessica Carrillo won second prize (view press release here). Jessica’s original story is an inspiration to upcoming authors and this year she should be starting her first year of college. You can view her story below:

Name Calling Hurts by Jessica Carrillo

Name Calling Hurts by Jessica Carrillo from T. Lee

Exciting NCLB and RttT News!

Recently, seemingly exciting and promising news has emerged in the world of P-12 education about No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RttT). Essentially, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that NCLB waivers will be granted to States that agree to implement the Common Core Standards and privatization/charter-school model changes promoted by RttT.

The waiver move is the latest kowtow to the reality that American public schools cannot and will not meet the ridiculous goal of 100% proficiency in Reading and Math by 2014 as NCLB demands – at best, it’s chipping away with a butter knife at a piece of legislation we need to jackhammer into oblivion; at its worst it is a strong-arm maneuver aimed at a deepening of the corporate agenda for public education.

The cheating scandals of Atlanta and those that have not yet been exposed are just the tip of the iceberg in the debacle that an overemphasis on standardized testing has produced in American public schools. It seems everyone can agree that something is terribly amiss but the few who are in a position to effect legislative change remain reluctant to publicly admit that we are headed down the wrong path with NCLB and RttT – by the by, the “growth model” schemes proposed as compromise measures in both will get us nowhere closer to achievement equity than the absolute proficiency models have for the past 10 years.

Even with waivers and the other roundabouts that are sure to come, the fact of the matter is that NCLB remains the law of the land and along with RttT, it is an egregious affront to The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Let's not get unfocused here, we still need to repeal NCLB and remove RttT.

Waivers are not Saviors

During the past 10 years of NCLB implementation, America’s urban communities have lost almost an entire generation of creative/critical thinkers and problem solvers. For too many economically disadvantaged students and students of color, the entire scope of their elementary, middle, and high school experience has been test preparation, scripted programs, and an emphasis on compliance. The outcomes of these disastrous corporate educational policies are just now beginning to manifest in our higher education institutions and society at large.

Any sort of waivers granted to states will not change the real drudgery of teaching and learning in urban schools that NCLB implementation has created; they will not change the demoralization and dehumanization of students and teachers that continues to occur on a daily basis. Unfortunately, new administrators and teachers have been raised up in a climate that promotes and celebrates McEducation and given the high attrition rates for many educators it is all they have ever known.

Understanding the Political Landscape

For a moment, let’s pretend that party lines still mean something. The 111^th Congress had great potential to address No Child Left Behind head on. The fairly young (average age 58.2) Democrat dominated Congress  was comprised of a record number of women (95),  African Americans (41), Hispanics/Latinos (31), Asians/Native Hawaiians/other Pacific Islanders (11), and American Indians /Native Americans (1) – its predominant religious affiliation was Protestant with a strong representation from the Roman Catholic denomination.

In 2009 I warned, “Such a composition may seem to bode well on the surface for restoring American education, but what is unknown is how many members of the 111^th Congress have already pledged their allegiance to sell American public schools down the river to corporate and military interests that are deeply entrenched in the political mechanisms on Capitol Hill and have been steadily working towards the goal of privatization since the 1980s.” (Lee, 2009, “The Human Fallout: Educators' Perspectives about No Child Left Behind Implementation in Urban Schools,” p. 284).

The fact of the matter is that the 111^th Congress had the opportunity to make a positive change and rollback or repeal NCLB, an educational policy gone completely wild - and they failed. Instead, they did absolutely nothing and left NCLB in legislative limbo; instead, they were more concerned with not rocking the boat and maintaining their positions in the corporate pantheon that calls itself our representative Congress.

A Word of Caution

Too many are rallying against NCLB and RttT along party lines instead of seeing the big picture.  While it’s easy to unite and rally against a “bad guy” – a harder task is to understand that the struggle is not against a personality or even the illusory “party lines” that too many hold too dear.

Unlike some of the recent counter-rhetoric, the struggle to save our public schools is not against “Obama’s Education Plan” any more than it was against “Bush’s Education Plan” – this struggle is against a longstanding conglomerate of corporate interests that supersede and outlast presidential appointments and political parties -- deeply entrenched baobabs that threaten to implode our very existence.

Sure, the education summits held by George H.W. Bush set up the playlist for the reforms to come; yes, Clinton primed the dance floor with Goals 2000 and George W. Bush was the dancing fool that announced No Child Left Behind; and now Obama did in fact pop lock Race to the Top in your face to the States. But, it’s all in the family and each of these actions are but tiny brushstrokes in the big picture.

The architects of our current state of P-12 educational policy transcend political party. These think tanks, lobbyists, and corporate/business associations have a staying power that outlives the presidential figureheads that serve as the mouthpieces who present their seedy machinations to the public.

The Time is Now

• It’s time to stand up for our public schools in the struggle against corporate greed and privatization by resisting the establishment of charter schools and vouchers in our local communities.
• It’s time to call our so-called representatives to task and demand that they represent the will of the people and not corporations.  
•  It’s time to monitor and call organizations like the CCSSO, NGA, BRT, ALEC, and others to the floor and tell them to stop mucking around in urban educational policy.
• It’s time to get involved with teacher and administrative training and preparation programs to build up a force of educators committed to public education, social justice, and an increased understanding of pedagogic sociology. 
• It's time for local school boards to mount stronger resistance to federal and state mandates for local education practices; they are seeing firsthand the human fallout of these harmful laws.
•  It’s time for parents, students, and communities to actively resist the overemphasis on standardized testing by opting out or refusing to participate and telling administrators and teachers that we won’t stand for school time being devoted to doing test prep.
•  It’s time to vociferously call out the illegitimacy of the Common Core Standards which have been developed by special interest groups and corporations to represent their CORE and not the core of any community.
• It’s time to Save our Schools.

P.S. I blog, twitter, and facebook infrequently. But, for those who have emailed me, my thoughts about the Save our Schools Conference, March, and Congress are found in the Comments field of the previous post. Please feel free to leave responses or questions about my posts directly in the comments fields and I will publicly respond to each one in due time.

Big Brother, No Child Left Behind, and Race to the Top

The defederalization of American public education is a top priority; ten years of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and now Race to the Top (RttT) demonstrate the abject failure of the federal foray into usurping state and municipal education reform responsibility, authority, and rights. It has been nearly 30 years since the economic elite launched their policy efforts to degrade public schools and the Nation remains at Risk; the proffered corporate solutions are dehumanizing urban schools. Unfortunately, urban educators waiting for their very own educational superman have been disappointed thus far by the actions of the Obama administration. We expected relief and meaningful change but have been assailed by the administration’s tacit support of NCLB; many of us were also blindsided by RttT’s massive push for charter schools and the lockstep advancement of Common Core Standards.

NCLB and RttT are only the most recent examples of educational policies couched in progressive language that function as a political spectacle masquerading as policy benefiting the least powerful actors in society while cloaking an agenda to shame, marketize, and privatize public schools. The implementation of NCLB and RttT certainly have facilitated numerous marriages between districts and corporations; charter schools, test publishers, educational consultant companies, and textbook companies have flourished but little has been done to improve the state of urban public schools.

Recently Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has spoken at length about the deleterious effects of NCLB, but instead of urging its repeal he has merely urged Congress to substantially revamp and reauthorize ESEA; Duncan has also hinted that he may consider granting more waivers to schools and districts in the interim. What remains a mystery is just how Congress can go about refashioning a machine gun like NCLB into a bubble blower without completely melting it down and starting anew.

Granting blanket regulatory relief would be nothing less than merciful as we continue in this protracted 4 year purgatory while Congress wrangles over ESEA reauthorization. According to NCLB mandates, every child must score proficient in reading and math by 2013 – as we inch closer and closer to the absurd 2013-2014 deadline for absolute proficiency, it may behoove the USDE to avoid making America even more of an international laughingstock by rescinding that ridiculous requirement.

However, waivers and empathy won’t be enough to repair the damage. Congress needs to admit a grave mistake has been made and the only way to do that is to repeal NCLB and end RttT. It will take some courage to stand up for what is just instead of maintaining the status quo of corporate mergers and dinner-table business partnerships that have flowed out of DC since NCLB implementation began - those with courage and political influence outside of corporate lobbyists need to stand up for American education now.

There is so much that Congress is actually authorized and constitutionally designed to do that would go a long ways towards improving American public education. Instead of focusing on taking control of curricular decisions from local school districts and state governments and facilitating and promoting the privatization of public schools, the federal government might do better to focus on making policies that address the issues of economic inequity and poverty. Surely children who eat nutritional meals, have access to health care, and get a good night’s sleep in homes located in safe neighborhoods will better equipped to climb the heights of a world-class education. It’s almost certain that parents who have jobs that not only provide stable employment but a living wage along with access to parenting education and resources will be all the more excited to devote a little extra time to support learning as a family unit.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, but we’ve suffered under a decade of NCLB. It’s time to move forward, leave NCLB and RttT behind, and return decisions about schools and educational accountability to States, communities, and educators.