Re: Carl Chew chews up the WASL

["GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>]

Just noticed an error in using site vs. sight that SOME people might choose 
to comment on.  Let's chalk it up to my coming in flying high on the Ariel 
Quartet, four "kids" from Israel.  Kids is used advisedly--they have been 
playing together for 10 years and are now 22 and 23 years old.  Burned up 
the house with Mozart and Beethoven.  If you get the chance to see them, go.

JB
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "GERALD BRACEY" <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 11:00 PM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Carl Chew chews up the WASL


> And anyone who characterizes NCLB as "discussions about tests in reading 
> and mathematics" should see a shrink about psychologically induced 
> blindness. Or at the very least, apply for a job with the Iraqi government 
> or the Bush administration's foreign policy branch.
>
> My June Kappan column will summarize the outcomes seen in a 4-year 
> longitudinal study of what happens when NCLB rides into town.  It is not a 
> pretty site.  If you want to see the original and not my summary, check 
> out the September, 2007 issue of the American Educational Research 
> Journal.
>
> The ranks of the seeing grow daily.
>
> JB
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <aburke5054@aol.com>
> To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
> Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 10:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [arn-l] Carl Chew chews up the WASL
>
>
> Introducing Nuremberg, "body counts," and slavery into discussions of
> reading and math tests in the public schools demonstrates only a moral
> compass badly askew.  How low and desperate can you get?
>
> Art
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>
> To: arn-l@interversity.org
> Sent: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:04 am
> Subject: [arn-l] Carl Chew chews up the WASL
>
>
> It is gratifying to see so many resonating to the trials of Carl Chew.
> The
> following has been posted at www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey.
>
>
> Chew on This
>
> One seldom hears about The Nuremberg Precedent in education except in
> history
> class discussions of the post-World War II trials of Nazis.  Some Nazi
> leaders
> said they could not have known the consequences of their policies and
> orders and
> others said they were just following orders.  Their judges said “that’s
> not good
> enough.”
>
> The body count from No Child Left Behind grows daily and one wonders
> when the
> perpetrators will be called to account.  In a decent nation, the larger
> society
> holds the government accountable.  In a program like NCLB, the
> government holds
> the citizenry accountable.
>
> Now comes Carl Chew, a 6th grade science teacher in Seattle to say
> “enough.”
> That last sentence might at some point be altered to read “former 6th
> grade
> science teacher.”  On April 15, Mr. Chew refused to administer the
> WASL, the
> Washington Assessment of Student Learning, which serves to satisfy the
> NCLB
> testing requirements.
>
> Administrators tried to dissuade Mr. Chew from his act of civil
> disobedience,
> then escorted him from the school.  Three days later, Superintendent
> Maria
> Goodloe-Johnson sent Mr. Chew a letter that began, “This letter is to
> inform you
> that I have determined that there is probably cause to suspend you from
> April
> 21, 2008 through May 2, 2008 without pay for your refusal and
> insubordination to
> your principal’s written direction to administer the WASL at Eckstein
> Middle
> School.”  What happens May 5 is not clear (May 3 is a Saturday).
>
> In writing to explain his action, Mr. Chew expressed his love for
> teaching, for
> his students and for his fellow teachers, and expressed sorrow that his
> act had
> cause pain for some people, but added “I could no longer stand idly by
> as
> something as wrong as WASL is perpetrated on our children year after
> year.”
>
> This indictment was not a general statement or an impetuous one.  It
> was
> followed by a list of 24 thoughtful reasons why WASL is bad kids,
> parents,
> teachers and schools and nine reasons why it is “just bad.”  One can
> only
> imagine that the perpetrators of WASL—and its many look-alikes, like
> the Nazis
> at Nuremberg, knew what the consequences of their policies and actions
> would be.
> A few examples:
>
> Bad for kids:  “There is no middle ground—children either pass or fail
> which
> leaves them confused, guilty, and frustrated” (this is one of the grand
> absurdities of NCLB—you’re either proficient or left behind.  Learning
> doesn’t
> occur in such either/or dichotomies.  It occurs in continua, in all
> likelihood,
> multidimensional continua; Chew later observes that many students who
> were
> simply told that they had failed were, in fact, very close to the
> passing score
> and that many of these children cried on receiving the results).
>
> Bad for teachers:  “A majority of teachers loath the WASL, but feel
> unable to
> speak out freely against it due to their fears of negative consequences
> for
> doing so” (many, many examples show that these fears are real; they are
> reinforced in many cases by principals’ contracts which mandate
> specific
> increases in test scores each year as a condition of employment).
>
> Bad for parents: “Most parents are misled by official statements about
> what the
> purpose of the WASL is” (it is the academic equivalent of saying we’re
> going to
> war in Iraq to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction).
>
> Bad for schools: Washington State will spend $56 million in 2009 just
> to have
> the damn things graded by a private corporation.
>
> I can only hope that people will one day look back on high-stakes
> testing the
> way they now look back at slavery—in disgust and a with sense of
> horrified
> wonder: what were they thinking?  To mix metaphors, you don’t build a
> house with
> a wrecking ball.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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