Re: Fwd Hickock

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

On Jun 5, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Monty Neill wrote:

> Several times a week Art has commented on the NAACP involvement in  
> the CT suit. One might have the impression that the NAACP has  
> become a staunch defender of NCLB. Not true.

Thanks for the clarification, Monty. It's unfortunate that you had to  
let a few facts ruin Art's perfectly good story. Oh, well . . .

Just to be clear on what I was arguing, re: "Where I might disagree  
with Peter is when he says that the NAACP is acting to violate civil  
rights of young people while acting also to try to protect them."  
While the NAACP is clearly opposed to NCLB, they are subject to the  
same kind of perverse, paradoxical logic that classroom teachers are.  
No classroom teacher that I know wants to teach to the test, dumb  
down the curriculum, and focus only on raising the test scores of  
kids on the verge of making the cut score (aka "the bubble kids.")  
Yet this is precisley what they must do in order to satisfy the  
demands of raising test scores under AYP and federal accountability  
law. Teachers are left with no choice. Analogously speaking, the  
NAACP does not want to side with the federal government on a law that  
they clearly oppose. But, given the circumstances, they felt they had  
no choice.

Of course the NAACP doesn't want to violate the civil rights of  
minority children. But in backing the Bush administration, this is  
precisely what they are doing. Yes, we can get angry at the NAACP for  
caving to Bush in the same way that we can get angry at teachers for  
caving to NCLB. Or we can get angry at Bush and NCLB for putting them  
both in this horrendous dilemma.

---
Peter Campbell