[Fwd: [care] Bush plan, issues and arguments]

[Monty Neill <monty@FAIRTEST.ORG>]

Deb is no longer on ARN-L and not on ARN-state, so I thought I'd forward
her thoughtful piece on Bush testing and voucher schemes and their
relation.

In reply, I sent to the CARE list the following:





I think your argument is correct. Bush's transition team on education
was run by Heritage Institute, and they see the testing as a tool for
vouchers, according to one person I know who met with them. They do not
need to test every grade for this, but Bush believes in testing as well
as vouchers. Plus testing every grade makes it appear as tho they are
"doing something" for public ed - which as you note, won't work on its
own terms (tho it did in TX, however, at least on TAAS, tho not much on
NAEP -- which Bush wants to use to evaluate states).

Can we get groups which oppose vouchers to oppose the tests as well, and
not to end up treating tests as the "reasonable compromise" with Bush?

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• Subject: Re: [care] Bush plan, issues and arguments
• From: Deborah Meier <dmeier@essentialschools.org>
• Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 09:20:12 -0500
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Monty et al,

Re the Bush plan. I was reading the latest Rothstein's NY Times column,
which takes Bush's ideas too literally for my taste--akthough I like his
columns a lot. But two thoughts struck me about the Bush plan, which
confirm for me my suspicion that this is not a "compromise" plan, or an
indicator that Bush is walking away from vouchers, or is now committed to
the poor, etc. And it also suggests he is smarter (or someone is) than
liberals believe. I think it is a huge leap into voucher'ism despite
repeated evidence that there is zero public mandate for privatizing public
education, he is sneaking it in in th guise of something else--a testing
program!
.
1. If the score increase needed to qualify as OK is minute it will
clearly not be of any statistical significance. If it is enough to be
significant, then few schools will quality as meeting the criteria.. That,
as Gerry Bracey will confirm, continuous score rises just dosn't happen
under any natural circumstances. And least of all if it's a test you can't
directly teach (cheat) to. Note the Mass. results. By Bush's criteria
half the schools in the state (?) would be penalized for failing to show
significant improvement. That's a big giveaway in vouchers.

2. Note that it's the schools whose scores count in determining who is
eligible for a voucher, but the students who get the vouchers. Since some
students in such low perfrming schools are doing quite well, it sounds
reasonable to assume that they are the most, not leastl ikely, to use the
voucher--and to be accepted into a private school of their choice. I do
not assume from what I have read that Bush is telling private schools that
they must, by federal mandate, randomly accept all students offered
vouchers. Thus the best students--highest scoring--would be the most
likely to benefit, thus further depressing the test scores for the school
and the educational opportunities for the least advantaged. If private
schools were the best that would simply mean widening still further the
achievement gap. What is surely true is that it would leave the most
troubled and at risk kids behind in those schools he has now labeled as
irreversibly bad..

Given the public's repeated rejection of vouchers, I think this campaign
should be waged as much on that front than on the testing portion. This
could be an opportunity--if Kennedy et al could see it as such, to wed the
ipoisution to standardization and the opposition to vouchers--right or
left. .

Am I right about his plan? Am I missing something--I sometimes am-- and I
haven't read the Bush plan carefully, and am depending on Rothstein's
interprettion?

Deborah








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