Re: The Chew Leap? Having done it, I can only say...

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Chew refused to administer the WA tests and got benched, you published 
the Chicago tests in your newspaper and got booted.  Your situations 
are not at al the same - except perhaps that in your eyes both of you 
are Heroes of the Revolution, First Class.  Of the many ironies in your 
case, one that particularly strikes me is that parents probably had the 
right, under FERPA, to see their child's testing materials.  Why throw 
away your career outing a "secret" test that wasn't a secret at all?

I don't think that raising that issue would have helped you win your 
copyright case - you were essentially laughed out of court on that one, 
but I think that FERPA imight have given you a foot back in the door in 
front of the hearing officer.  Probably a long shot, but in hindsight 
at least a lot better one than the First Amendment defense.  The 
teacher lost because he didn't do his homework.  The world is full of 
irony and maybe this is another step in the evolution towards spirit 
that Parkany is on about.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Csubstance@aol.com
To: dkeikoa@hawaii.rr.com; arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 1:39 am
Subject: [arn-l] The Chew Leap? Having done it, I can only say...



4/24/08

Having pioneered the "Chew Leap" in Chicago nine years ago and having 
been
through nine years of blacklisting I can only say that we need to build 
a bigger

movement before we recommend such actions on a wide scale. See
www.substancenews.com. "Legal Fight." It's our old website.

If either teacher union had given unequivocal support to those actions, 
we
would have ended high-stakes testing a decade ago.

But the question is equally asked for parents and students, not just 
for
teachers.

While massive resistance to high-stakes testing would end it all 
tomorrow, we
can't even get around to electing public officials who are unequivocal 
in
their opposition. I haven't heard a U.S. Senator since Paul Wellstone 
who
understood and said that so-called standardized tests are bullshit.

As to anybody who wants to recommend resistance, we have done it many 
times
in Chicago, occasionally to good effect. Two years after we published 
the CASE
tests, the Curie High School teachers announced they would refuse to 
give the
CASE tests and Arne Duncan dumped the tests. But nobody followed that 
up with
a refusal to give the Prairie State and ISAT exams, and there hasn't 
even been
discussion of the problems with those exams in years.

Locally here, once Debbie Lynch lost the presidency of the Chicago 
Teachers
Union, the union's leadership abolished the "Testing Committee" that 
sponsored
the forum during AERA in 2003 on testing (Monty; Susan; and many others 
well
known here spoke at that event, which I helped organize when I was on 
the staff
of the Chicago Teachers Union).

At some point the resistance is going to have to focus and move 
forcefully
together again. But having witnessed a lot here in Chicago (and watched 
some of
the consequences), I'd recommend some careful organizing over the next 
year.
For the past several years, we've had these individual stands (students 
and
teachers; sometimes parents) and as of yet they are still waiting for 
the number

of allies we'll need to make some breakthroughs.

This is a lot like the Iraq War. The other side is just using executive
authority to continue to ram through their policies. In Chicago, we had 
one of
the
largest and most militant protests against the Iraq War when the war 
began
(people stopped traffic on Lake Shore Drive, among other things). The 
executive
power just continued doing their war anyway. Ditto with the tests.

Until we get used to planning for the long haul and perhaps dropping 
the
illusions about how change takes place...

Anyway...

George Schmidt
Editor, Substance

www.substancenews.net

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