Re: [arn2-strategy] Re: [ARN-state] letter on NCLB, NAEP, Joint

[aburke5054@aol.com]

 Wait a minute. New Orleans schools are the responsibility of New Orleans and Louisiana, not the federal government. Before Katrina NO was one of the most inefficient and corrupt systems in the nation. Whether the feds should have, or could have given more direct aid to to NO schools, I don't know, but trying to pin the plight of the NO schols on Presdient Bush and Secretary Spellings is as silly as blamng them for the hurricane.
 
 Speculating as Harman does on what is going on in one school and claiming that speculation somehow proves a general truth is an exercise in silliness. Can you say "schematized thinkikng?"
 
 Art 
   
  -----Original Message-----
 From: jhorn@monmouth.edu
 To: arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com; ARN-state@yahoogroups.com
 Cc: rethinkaccountdc@yahoogroups.com; RScriticalteach@lists.execpc.com; arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com; arn-l@interversity.org; care@yahoogroups.com
 Sent: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 6:02 AM
 Subject: Re: [arn-l] [arn2-strategy] Re: [ARN-state] letter on NCLB, NAEP, Joint Statement in Ed Week
 
  Evidence to support what you are saying.
 
 Wednesday, January 24, 2007
 http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/
 Orleans Public School Children Wait-Listed While Charter Schools Bar Their Doors
 
 For the poorest citizens of a devastated New Orleans who were hoping to hear some encouraging words this week from their President, they will have to wait. They will wait, just like 300 of their children who are now waiting and wait-listed because there is no place for them in the very sick Recovery School District.
 
 But there are some in the Big Easy that the Decider and his Secretary of Education have not forgotten: the 17 new charter schools that the privatizing President hopes will serve as a model for the nation. They enjoy new everything and a mandated teacher-student ratio of 1:20.
 
 In the meantime, there are the children of the Recovery School District, those children from the public schools prior to Katrina who were on the NCLB list of failures. The Recovery District (another Orwellianism) is still 73 teacher short of what they need for their legal limit--a 1:25 teacher-pupil ratio. These children are now jammed into 18 schools, with 300 wait-listed while waiting for seats that have been refused them by the charter schools.
 
 We can know, of course, that when Spellings sends in Jay Greene and other Walmart scholars from Arkansas to do her comparative research on test scores between the charter students and the rest who are waiting for a place to sit down, the new charter schools are going to win that contest. If true comparisons show charters no better than the publics, which true comparsions have shown, then the Secretary will create some phony, manipulated comparisons. Anything to crush the enemy--the public schools.
 
 Phyllis Landrieu, the Orleans Parish School Board president who prayerfully thanked Katrina's merciful destruction of the public school system a few months back, must be giving thanks once more for the overcrowding in the Recovery Schools that her 17 charter schools will be competing against when the LEAP comes to town once more in March.
 
 Asked if they'd consider increasing class sizes to help offset crowding in the Recovery District, Orleans Parish School Board President Phyllis Landrieu said it's too early to say.
 
 "That's not something we can answer quickly," she said. "The board will have to talk about that."
 
 
 
 -----Original Message-----
 From: arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com on behalf of Susan Harman
 Sent: Wed 1/24/2007 9:40 PM
 To: ARN-state@yahoogroups.com
 Cc: rethinkaccountdc; RScriticalteach; arn2-strategy; ARN-L; care@yahoogroups.com
 Subject: [arn2-strategy] Re: [ARN-state] letter on NCLB, NAEP, Joint Statement in Ed Week
 
 Its getting clearer and clearer to me that the differences between
 low-scoring and high-scoring schools for the poor boil down to 1)
 selectivity and 2) money.
 1) They either exclude difficult or low-scoring kids initially, they
 hold them over excessively, or they "counsel them out". The best
 example of this is in Oaklands KIPP where 3/4 of the black boys
 disappeared between 5th and 8th grade. That is, although the kids in
 these schools are poor, theyre not the cross-section of the poor that
 ordinary public schools deal with.
 2) They have enough money to pay teachers to lengthen the day and
 provide intense tutoring, maybe making up for the first 5 years of poor
 childrens lives which were spent settings not conducive to school
 success. KIPP, again, keeps kids in school for 70% more time than
 regular schools.
 To sum, the difference in test scores is the difference in kids first
 five years. More time (which amounts to more money) and getting rid of
 trouble-makers and low-scorers are the only differences which make a
 difference.
 Unfortunately for those of us who care about curriculum and pedagogy, I
 dont think these are relevant. (Well, theyre relevant to Learning, but
 not to scores. And who cares about Learning.) And its certainly not the
 far right's darling, Attitude. The rest is noise.
 Susan
 
 Begin forwarded message:
 
 > From: "Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>
 > Date: Wed Jan 24, 2007 8:41:22 AM US/Pacific
 > To: "rethinkaccountdc" <rethinkaccountdc@yahoogroups.com>,
 > "RScriticalteach" <RScriticalteach@lists.execpc.com>, "arn2-strategy"
 > <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>, "ARN-L" <arn-l@interversity.org>,
 > <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>, <care@yahoogroups.com>
 > Subject: [ARN-state] letter on NCLB, NAEP, Joint Statement in Ed Week
 > Reply-To: ARN-state@yahoogroups.com
 >
 > From the Jan. 24, 2007, Education Week - www.edweek.org -
 > Letter
 >
 > Let Systemic Changes Replace NCLB Sanctions
 >
 
     
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