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Re: Ken Goodman on politics and NCLB
La Raza, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the Citizens'
Commission on Civil Rights, other liberal and progressive groups, and
George Miller and Ted Kennedy support NCLB in its widest outline.
Trying to paint these organizations and individuals as part of an
"all-out conservative attack on democracy and freedom of thought" is
pure madness.
Art
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
Sent: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:35 am
Subject: [arn-l] Ken Goodman on politics and NCLB
Ken Goodman correctly points out that NCLB is part of an all-out
conservative attack on democracy and freedom of thought, and that it
must be defeated in the political arena. The time is past for trying
to convince the paid agents of the ruling class (politicians, civil
rights misleaders, etc) that they are harming children. The time is
now for educating public school parents and everyday people and
convincing them to throw the bums out. And for starting some
dramatic actions against the tests this year.
From: Ken Goodman <KGoodman@u.arizona.edu>
That alternative- actually not alternative since it preexisted and was
what the attack on public education focussed on- is whole language -
the
comprehensive positive pedagogy that is language centered and positive
building on learner strengths. That's why NCLB focussed on the "reading
wars" and why the campaign against public education concentrated on
marginalizing whole language and framing the problems in education as
phonics vs. whole language. Whole language became the target because it
worked with all kinds of learners in all kinds of settings and because
it empowered teachers to use their professional knoweldge to liberate
learners. That's why the attack focusses on marginalizing teacher
education and deprofressionalizing teachers and their unions and
professional organizations.Whole language brings humanism and science
together. It represents a coming of age of teachers as professionals.
It's continuing popularaity in Latin American, Asia, Oceana, and
Scandinavia is not an accident either.
"The Dominant ideology" is a well financed and powerfully supported
political campaign - a prime example of the "movement conservatism"
centered in the neo-conservative think tanks with the strong support of
the National Business Roundtable and which controls the educational
policies of both parties The way to fight it is political and not
curricular- they know well that the simplistic negative methodology
they
support can't work- they want it to fail to further discredit public
education.
A major aspect of movment conservatism is coopting the very groups who
should be opposed to the intents of the movement. They have convinced
La
Raza and the NAACP to support NCLB by framing their campaign as reform
to eliminate the educational gap for minorities. -using techniques like
paying minority media people to push their campaign.
We won what we could by expsoing the harm being done and the
absurdities
of NCLB- we got a stalemate. But to defeat NCLB we need now a massive
political campaign of resistence that forces the politicians to respond
to angry parents, students, and professionals.
Ironically many they have correctly known that they could play on the
vested interests within professional education by waving money at us
(even if it isn't real money) and offering a few perks to those willing
to play their game.
NCLB is a political campaign and the way to defeat it is by waging a
grass roots political campaign
Ken Goodman
James Crawford wrote:
> With due respect to the scholars you mention, what's lacking is a
> coherent policy response to the standards-testing-punishment
> framework. Progressive educators who hope to challenge this dominant
> ideology need to articulate an alternative vision -- a set of themes
> -- that makes sense to policymakers and to the public. Not just a
> collection of complaints about current policy, but an affirmative
> approach to improving schools.
>
> I think such a vision is lacking today. A broad and inclusive
> discussion is needed to develop one. If people believe that such a
> vision exists -- or at least elements of one -- I'd love to hear
about
> it. No doubt we all have ideas about what should be included.
>
> Of course, we already have a wealth of research on ways to
strengthen
> schools, make them more equitable, address rather than suppress
> diversity, foster a love of learning, upgrade the teaching
profession,
> design reasonable accountability systems, use assessments in
> productive ways, provide adequate funding, and numerous other
matters.
>
> Most of this knowledge is now being ignored by the politicians.
That's
> true in part because there are powerful economic interests
supporting
> a system based on high-stakes testing and skill-building pedagogies.
> But it's also true because there's no comprehensive challenge being
> mounted to the dominant framework, which a lot of well intentioned
> people take seriously but would be open to rethinking.
>
> My argument is that, to be effective advocates, we need to pay more
> attention to framing our position -- and to engaging the political
> system effectively. These are areas where progressive educators have
> been quite weak in the past. But it doesn't have to be that way.
>
> Jim
>
> Yetta Goodman wrote:
>
>> Notes from Yetta Goodman
>>
>> Those of us who have worked in the fields of literacy and second
>> language research, teaching and learning for many years have always
>> been for something.
>> We need to recognize that we don't have to start over again. We
have
>> years of work by many scholars (Ruiz, Moll, Gutierrez, Krashen
Freeman)
>> who write to scholars, teachers and the public in accessible ways
>> about what programs and classes should look like. They also provide
>> information about the research and
>> theories that support such practices, i.e., the power of inquiry
>> curriculum that integrates language variation not only in terms of
>> second language but including the roles of dialect variation as
well.
>>
>> We need to find lots of ways to convince Congress that we have
always
>> been for accountability but assessments in classrooms that provide
>> good information for teachers to use to inform
>> curriculum are not the same as national or state wide tests that
>> provide numbers for comparison purposes. Major testing policy
>> scholars have been saying that for years. National / International
>> testing provides one kind of information for comparison purposes
but
>> assessments that teachers use for evaluation with students and
their
>> parents must provide other kinds of information including teacher
>> insight and knowledge.
>>
>> We need to help politicians realize that schools need federal
dollars
>> but if those dollars come with too many strings attached (mandates,
>> laws) they tie the hands of local professional educators and
interfere
>> with innovative practices that take into account the knowledge we
>> have developed during the last century about the teaching and
>> learning of second language learners.
>>
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