Re: Kozol to Kennedy

[QCao009@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/3/2008 11:13:21 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
monty@fairtest.org writes:

Note  that a few of us were concerned about Kozol's formulation in his letter 
of  multiple measures in a way that seemed to be tests plus other 
non-academic  things; I encouraged him to refer to "multiple sources of evidence of 
student  learning" that would include varied classroom and local  assessments.  
Jonathan has assured me that he had spoking about multiple sources of evidence  
of learning with Kennedy at the meeting, but in his haste did not include that  
in his writeup. He will also further address concerns about the inappropriate 
 uses of tests on ELL students. He is meeting with Kennedy again in the near  
future.


Monty:
 
ELL and ESE are the two key "accomodation" areas.  They have not been  
addressed in any meaningful way, and children and families are effectively  pushed 
out while testing continues to be pushed down and marketed in the guise  of 
improving education for ELL and ESE.  ESE students get a meaningless  paper 
attendance certificate before NCLB.  They get one now.  What's  the difference?  
Vouchers and "opportunity" scholarships ship them out to  private schools for a 
year and two and they come back, worse off than  ever.  ELL education is tied 
to teacher training and meaningful curriculum  changes, not tinkering and 
lowering testing standards and causing more division  within the student body and 
teacher ranks.  
 
The bottom line is NCLB touted improvement and reform, and funding or  no 
funding, it has provided neither.  Jonathan came to talk to us at FSU  when I was 
there and he is sensitive to ELL needs.  He didn't address  ESE then.  We 
cannot talk about one group without mentioning the other,  since a number of ELLs 
have been misclassified and put in speech therapy  for years in rural 
districts simply to get them some services when no ELL  curriculum was available.  
NCLB has not addressed that either. 

Quan



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