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[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program (Fighting Back)
Well, you called me an idiot for discounting Susan Neuman's testimony in TIME so I suppose calling me dyslexic is graciousness of a sort. You'll have many more opportunities to demonstrate graciousness as long as you persist in tilting against the windmills of the imaginary horde of privatizers. Art -----Original Message----- From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net> To: arn-l@interversity.org Sent: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 5:48 pm Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program (Fighting Back) I will be gracious and suggest that as you age you are becoming dyslexic. You totally misinterpret what I said. ----- Original Message ----- From: <aburke5054@aol.com> To: <arn-l@interversity.org> Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 5:52 PM Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program (Fighting Back) You mean that in the summer before the election, Democratic leaders are not falling all over themselves to promote a signature law of the Bush administration? What can Miller and Kennedy be thinking? Your claptrap about "Disaster Capitalism" and the "usual suspects" and "some voucher proponents" does not in any way support a claim that NCLB is now or ever has been a tool for destroying public education. The fact that people were proposing drastic interventions in schools since the early 90s undercuts the argument that NCLB was sprung out of the blue by the Bush administration, test publishers, the Business Roundtable, and who knows what other little green men. Art -----Original Message----- From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net> To: arn-l@interversity.org Sent: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 9:31 am Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program (Fighting Back) I think that those who saw NCLB as a means of privatizing schools were operating from the Politics of Disaster or, as Naomi Klein puts it, Disaster Capitalism. They were opportunists. Recall that the original bill called for vouchers usable at private schools, which, at the time, some voucher proponents thought would spring up just like gas stations and fast food restaurants. Miller is no longer behind it. He has seen its problems. "I can tell you there are no votes in the U. S. House of Representatives for continuing NCLB without making serious changes to it...What I really want is to be the proud co-author of a law that works" (from a Miller speech, July 30, 2007). Kennedy dropped it functionally as soon as Bush failed to fund it at proper levels (no level would ever make it work). I say that the capitalists were simply opportunists because the educational world was moving very much in the direction of NCLB at least as it pertained to poor kids. Consider this: "As to schools that fail to make adequate progress, the enforcement process initially will involve a series of graduated stateps to be taken after a school is identified as failing, but before sanctions are imposed--including technical assistance, consultations in the school community about corrective steps, and visits from an inspection team that can requisition any needed resources--should enable many schools to come into compliance without the imposition of sanctions. "Where school systems continue to fail, despite assistance, sanctions may include institutional penalties uch as loss of decision-making authority and, ultimately, claosing the school, as well as individual penalties, such as reductions in pay and dismissal and/or transfer of the principal and other staff." That is from the "Enforcement" section of "Making Schools Work for Children in Poverty, the report of the Commission on Title I, often called the Hornbeck Commission for Dave Hornbeck, the former Philly Supt who chaired it. December 1992. All you need to do to get to NCLB is to lay out a timetable for progress (AYP), specify precisely what constitutes a failing school, specify more concretely the sanctions and set up a calendar for them, too. While some of the members of the commission were the usual suspects--Kati Haycock, Marc Tucker, and Cynthia Brown, for instance, many were not: Henry Levin, Hayes Mizell, Joe Nathan, Bella Rosenberg, Ramsay Selden, Bob Slavin, Mike Smith, and Anne Wheelock (this is not an exhaustive list). You can get the 31-page document itself via Google, but I didn't see any listing for the document with commission commentary and supplementary statements of individual members such as George, Bella and Anne, all of whom obejected to varius components, especially the assessment system which they saw as unworkable. The Commission argued for performance tests that would measure higher-order skills. Ha. George Miller has currently plumped for the same stuff. I don't recall how I got the full document, but I think it was through my JSTOR access via AERA. You definitely want the full document if you can get it. The document that contains the commission's proposals is ERIC ED 362 618. The document that contains the proposals and commentary (about 3 times as long) is ERIC ED 373 120. Jerry ----- Original Message ----- From: <aburke5054@aol.com> To: <arn-l@interversity.org> Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 10:32 AM Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program (Fighting Back) You think you're being flattered because someone finds your argument incredible? Flat-earth theorists must be basking in the glow all over the place. Taking Susan Neuman at face value might show that some of the law's misguided supporters had bad intentions. But that does not mean that is why the law came about or that the law is working as a tool to destroy public education. You are still left with the fact that the nation's leading civil rights groups are standing by NCLB's accountability provisions - the very part of the law that you claim is destroying public education - that Miller and Kennedy are behind it, as are many liberal and progressive groups, and the nation's leading media don't see NCLB as a tool to destroy public education. You are also left with the facts that more money is going to public education and that the public is reasonably satisfied with public education. Charles Barone, who served as a staff director for Miller and for the House committee and who actually wrote parts of NCLB, gives no credence to Neuman. During the campaign, Hilary Clinton said she herself wrote the teacher-quality part of NCLB. In the face of all this, am I really supposed to believe that the last word on NCLB belongs to Susan Neuman? Jerry says to take her testimony to the bank because she was there, but, sorry, this is beyond incredible. Art -----Original Message----- From: Tauna Rogers <taunar@plateautel.net> To: arn-l@interversity.org Sent: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 8:22 pm Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program (Fighting Back) Gosh Art, I'm flattered. I was worried my idea was stupid and too forward of me, yet you found my post "totally incredible". Have you forgotten Susan Neuman and Time magazine? I think Neuman has barely touched the tip of the iceberg, which is not to say that I don't think some of the lnaw's misguided supporters had good intentions. Please don't bother with your next smart-alecky remark. ----- Original Message ----- From: <aburke5054@aol.com> To: <arn-l@interversity.org> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 9:13 PM Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program (Fighting Back) Do you really believe that if NCLB had the horrible effects you say it has and that if it really were a tool to discredit and privatize public education, the nation's leading newspapers would not have caught on, so much of the nation's civil rights establishment would not have caught on, so many African-American and Hispanic parents would be supporting it, and George Miller and Ted Kennedy would be supporting it? I find this totally incredible. Art -----Original Message----- From: Tauna Rogers <taunar@plateautel.net> To: arn-l@interversity.org Sent: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 10:29 am Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program (Fighting Back) I could only stomach it in small doses. I listened to just a bit of Hanushek, all of what Ladd said, and nothing from Bennett. I noticed ED in '08 was behind the fear mongering event. How can we fight back and get some media coverage of our own to expose the myths and propoganda they are perpetuating? The massive scapegoating and efforts to undermine support for public education? As the election nears, we can expect much more of this ED in '08 funded (choose your naughty word). And of course it isn't just ED in '08. Maybe I'm naive and please forgive me if the following is presumptuous of me but I just want to put something out there to kick around. I noticed C-Span accepts suggestions for events to cover. There are any number of organizations and individuals seeking to save and strengthen public education and democracy. A number of you on arn and eddra alone are experts, more than qualified to debunk and expose the propaganda. A lot could be exposed about NCLB too.Would it be practicable to unite, pool resources, and organize an event for coverage? If I'm being stupid here, let me down easy! Tauna ----- Original Message ----- From: "Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org> To: <arn-l@interversity.org> Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:16 AM Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program not mine - I won't watch it either - was Solomon's critique. Be well, Monty ----- Original Message ----- From: "Horace B Lucido" <hbl04@csufresno.edu> To: <arn-l@interversity.org> Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 4:56 PM Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program Monty, Watch this program? Why get sick on such a nice day? I would much rather read your take....at least I got a good laugh out of that. Your honest appraisal is enough for me. Rog Rog ( Horace ) Lucido, Physics Instructor, Ret. Program Evaluator Adjunct Faculty, Fresno Pacific University Educational Consultant Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse ( EPATA ) Assessment Reform Network Central Valley Coordinator Phone: 559-277-1312 Cell: 559-355-4215 email: lucid4@cvip.net ----- Original Message ----- From: Monty Neill <monty@fairtest.org> Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2008 11:47 am Subject: [arn-l] Fw: [eddra] C-Span Program To: ARN-L <arn-l@interversity.org>, arn2-strategy <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>, ndsgroup@yahoogroups.com ----- Original Message ----- From: mbsolomon@aol.com To: eddra@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 2:11 PM Subject: [eddra] C-Span Program In case you missed it, C-Span aired a 4-hour program on the Economic Implications of the Crisis in American Education Notice that the title tells you that it was not intended to be an analytical discussion, but instead to try to explain why American education is broken. Unbelievably, they chose Bill Bennett, the great educational bloviator and Eric Hanushek, the thin-air economist to help bash public education. You can watch the entire 4 hours below, but I want to simply, quickly, point out how inane some of this stuff is. Hanushek, for example thinks that if there is a correlation between two variables, it proves cause and effect---and he gets to choose which variable is the cause and which is the effect. He offered the vacuous proposition that if the U.S. schools could improve test scores by a small amount, it would raise the gross national product such that it would pay for all of education in America (at 2:20). He further told his audience that if the schools could get rid of the worst 10% (as I recall) of teachers, U.S. students would be near the top in international tests. Of course, Bill Bennett gives rise to projectile vomiting, so you should skip his blathering from 1:31 to 2:05. The bright light of the entire show was Helen Ladd from Duke University who brought some light into a reasonably dark day. The program can be seen at: rtsp://video1.c-span.org/15days/e062708_education.rm ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars. __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Calendar MARKETPLACE ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Blockbuster is giving away a FREE trial of - Blockbuster Total Access. Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity a.. 2New Members Visit Your Group Yahoo! Groups Join people over 40 who are finding ways to stay in shape. 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