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Re: Fw: A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights
I remind those on the ARN list of the national civil rights organizations
that have signed the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB calling for
major changes in the law. They include ASPIRA, Children's Defense Fund,
LULAC, NAACP, NAACP-LDF, National Alliance of Black School Educators,
National Urban League, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund,
Hmong National Development, Indigenous Women's Network, Japanese American
Citizens League, National Association for the Education and Advancement of
Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese Americans, Native Hawaiian Education
Association, National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community
Development, National Conference of Black Mayors, National Federation of
Filipino American Associations, National Indian Education Association,
National Indian School Board Association, Organization of Chinese Americans,
Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Southeast Asia Resource
Action Center (SEARAC).
In addition, a range of other groups for whom civil rights is a significant
part of their mission and their actions, such as ACORN, ACLU, Center for
Community Change, National Coalition of ESEA Title I Parents, People for the
American Way. Also, among the more than 20 national religious organizations
are a number that are comprised of or focus on people of color.
The Statement and the full list of signers can be found at
http://www.fairtest.org/joint%20statement%20civil%20rights%20grps%2010-21-04.html
or at www.edaccountability.org.
Even some civil rights groups that have supported the law and present
themselves primarily in that fastion appear supportive of some significant
changes to the law along the lines of the Joint Statement.
I think Jim's article is powerful and raises concerns that the civil rights
community should address - but it remains true that most civil rights
organizations do not think NCLB is fundamentally sound. To the contrary,
they know the federal government must make major changes to its primary K-12
education law if it is be helpful to the children the civil rights groups
seek to help.
Monty
PS - I expect Art to remind us that the NAACP joined in the Connecticut suit
over NCLB. That's been hashed over enough, and here I simply remind people
that the NAACP continues to use and circulate the Joint Statement, long
after joining in the litigation.
----- Original Message -----
From: <aburke5054@aol.com>
To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 10:19 PM
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights
One reason we have NCLB is that civil rights groups got tired of the
diminished vision of public educators giving innumerable reasons why
children can't learn, why accountability won't work, why standards aren't
for poor kids and minority kids, and what the schools really need is more,
more, more money.? And James Crawford claims that America's civil rights
groups have such "diminished vision" they just don't know what's good for
them.?
Art
-----Original Message-----
From: Monty Neill <monty@fairtest.org>
To: rethinkaccountdc <rethinkaccountdc@yahoogroups.com>;
ndsgroup@yahoogroups.com; RScriticalteach
<RScriticalteach@lists.execpc.com>; care@yahoogroups.com;
ARN-state@yahoogroups.com; ARN-L <arn-l@interversity.org>; arn2-strategy
<arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 3:19 pm
Subject: [arn-l] Fw: A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights
This is a very important article by Jim Crawford in the June 6 issue of
Education Week. Monty
----- Original Message -----
From: James Crawford
To: Monty Neill
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 12:28 PM
Subject: Fwd: A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights
Education Week, June 6, 2007
COMMENTARY
A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights:
No Child Left Behind and the Growing Divide in How Educational Equity Is
Understood
By James Crawford
At the core of today's debates over school accountability lies a
contentious
question: Does the federal No Child Left Behind Act represent a historic
advance
for civil rights, or a giant step backward for the children it purports to
help?
This argument has divided the civil rights community itself, along with
its
traditional allies in Congress. One side supports stern measures designed
to
force educators to pay attention to long-neglected students and enable all
children to reach "proficiency" in key subjects. The other side argues
that the
law's tools of choice-high-stakes testing, unrealistic achievement
targets, and
punitive sanctions-have not only proved ineffective in holding schools
accountable, they also are pushing "left behind" groups even further
behind.
Disagreement is especially acute among advocates for English-language
learners,
known in the shorthand of K-12 education as "ELLs." These students pose a
fundamental challenge for the No Child Left Behind accountability scheme,
owing
to the near-total absence of valid and reliable assessments of their
academic
achievement. Usually tested in English, a language they have yet to
master, ELLs
tend to perform poorly in both reading and math. Indeed, the law defines
them as
students who have difficulty meeting state standards because of the
language
barrier. Nevertheless, under every state NCLB plan, English-language
learners'
scores on invalid tests must be included in "adequate yearly progress"
calculations, and, where they fall short of AYP targets, schools must
undergo
"corrective action."
In other words, high-stakes decisions about the education of these
students are
being made on the basis of data generally acknowledged to be inaccurate.
Schools
with an ELL "subgroup" are being labeled and punished for failure-not
because of
the quality of instruction they provide, but because existing tests are
unable
to measure what ELLs have learned.
While acknowledging this reality, the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund and the National Council of La Raza have emerged as
uncompromising defenders of the No Child Left Behind law. They oppose
exempting
English-language learners from standardized tests, regardless of the
tests'
validity, for more than the one year that is currently allowed by federal
regulations. In the words of a MALDEF lobbyist, leaving English-language
learners out of No Child Left Behind's accountability system would mean
"removing the incentive to teach them." The two organizations favor
increased
funding to develop appropriate assessments, hardly a controversial idea.
In the
meantime, however, they insist on the continued use of flawed assessments
to
judge schools and, by implication, to make flawed decisions about
educational
programs.
Critics of NCLB-style accountability-who now include a substantial
majority of
educators working with English-language learners-cannot see how such a
blunt
instrument could produce academic benefits. More importantly, they point
to the
law's harmful impact on minority students generally and on ELLs in
particular.
The perverse effects are well-documented: excessive class time devoted to
test
preparation, a curriculum narrowed to the two tested subjects, neglect of
critical thinking in favor of basic skills, pressure to reduce or
eliminate
native-language instruction, demoralization of teachers whose students
fall
short of unrealistic cut scores, demoralization of children who are forced
to
take tests they can't understand, and, perhaps worst of all, practices
that
encourage low-scoring students to drop out before test day.
No one questions that, because of the No Child Left Behind law,
English-language
learners are receiving more "attention" than ever before. But, as many
educational researchers and practitioners can testify, results in the
classroom
have been far more negative than positive. Supporters of the law have
generally
declined to respond to what educators are reporting, and instead have
accused
the law's critics of opposing accountability or believing that minority
children
"can't learn."
How could civil rights advocates disagree over such fundamental issues?
The only
plausible answer is that there is a growing divide in how educational
equity is
understood. Some clues can be found in the changing terminology used to
discuss
school reform.
Once upon a time, civil rights advocates were united in pursuing the goal
of
equal educational opportunity. They fought against racial segregation in
public
schools and demanded equitable resources for all students. Their focus was
on
"inputs," pushing state and local officials to provide adequate school
facilities, well-designed instructional programs, effective teachers, and
attention to the effects of poverty-such as parental illiteracy, poor
health,
and malnutrition-that pose obstacles to learning. In those days, the enemy
was
clear: a two-tier system that provided an inferior education to many
children on
the basis of skin color, language background, class status, and place of
residence.
But in the No Child Left Behind era, the words equal educational
opportunity
have largely faded from the public discourse. In their place, there is
talk of
eliminating the "achievement gaps" between various groups of students.
The latter term was seldom heard in the 1980s or 1990s, as is shown by a
quick
archive search of major newspapers, including The New York Times, The
Washington
Post, the Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and
Education Week. Then, around 1999, "achievement gap"suddenly burst into
the
popular lexicon. The credit is largely due to then-Gov. George W. Bush of
Texas
and his political guru, Karl Rove, who were planning a presidential
campaign in
which school reform would figure prominently.
Their strategy-which ultimately proved successful-was to seize an issue
traditionally "owned" by Democrats and give it a "compassionate
conservative"
spin. By stressing the achievement gap, candidate Bush redefined civil
rights in
the field of school reform: "Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged
children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require
anything
less-the soft bigotry of low expectations." Retiring the Republican theme
of
dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, he called instead for an
enhanced
federal role based on the Texas model of high-stakes testing.
In 2001, key Democrats in Congress, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and
Rep.
George Miller, encouraged by certain liberal advocacy groups, joined
forces with
the Bush administration and with Republican leaders in Congress. The
result was
bipartisan passage of the No Child Left Behind Act late that year.
Eliminating achievement gaps is paramount among the law's goals; equal
educational opportunity is not. In fact, the latter term-which had been
prominent in previous versions of the federal Elementary and Secondary
Education
Act-appears nowhere in NCLB. (No doubt an anonymous congressional staffer
performed a search-and-delete operation on the bill, just as one did with
the
word "bilingual," which was also expunged.)
What's the significance of this shift in terminology? Achievement gap is
all
about measurable "outputs"-standardized-test scores-and not about
equalizing
resources, addressing poverty, combating segregation, or guaranteeing
children
an opportunity to learn. The No Child Left Behind Act is silent on such
matters.
Dropping equal educational opportunity, which highlights the role of
inputs, has
a subtle but powerful effect on how we think about accountability. It
shifts the
entire burden of reform from legislators and policymakers to teachers and
kids
and schools.
By implication, educators are the obstacle to change. Every mandate of No
Child
Left Behind-and there are hundreds-is designed to force the people who run
our
schools to shape up, work harder, raise expectations, and stop "making
excuses"
for low test scores, or face the consequences. Despite the law's
oft-stated
reverence for "scientifically based research," this narrow approach is
contradicted by numerous studies documenting the importance of social and
economic factors in children's academic progress. Yet it has the advantage
of
enabling politicians to ignore the difficult issues and avoid costly
remedies.
If educators are the obstacle, there's no need to address what Jonathan
Kozol
calls the "savage inequalities" of our educational system and our society.
In other words, despite its stated goals, the No Child Left Behind law
represents a diminished vision of civil rights. Educational equity is
reduced to
equalizing test scores. The effect has been to impoverish the educational
experience of minority students-that is, to reinforce the two-tier system
of
public schools that civil rights advocates once challenged.
English-language learners, for example, are being fed a steady diet of
test-prep, worksheets, and other "skill building" exercises from a menu
mostly
reduced to reading and math. Their language-learning needs are
increasingly
neglected by the marginalization of bilingual and even
English-as-a-second-language
instruction to make time for English language arts items likely to be on
the
test. Meanwhile, more-advantaged students are studying music, art, foreign
languages, physical education, science, history, and civics, getting to
read
literature rather than endure phonics drills, and participating in field
trips,
plays, chess clubs, and debate tournaments-all "frills" that are routinely
denied to children whose test scores have become life-or-death matters for
educators' careers.
Ironically, in numerous ways, No Child Left Behind is increasing the
achievement
gap, if academic achievement is understood as getting an all-round
education
and, with it, an equal chance to succeed in life. True civil rights
advocates
cannot and must not ignore the reality behind the rhetoric.
James Crawford is the president of the Institute for Language and
Education
Policy (www.elladvocates.org), a nonprofit advocacy group in Takoma Park,
Md. He
can be reached at bilingualed@starpower.net.
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