Re: URGENT

[<alanyoung@mchsi.com>]

I just want to thank all my friends who have responded to our sudden threat here in Iowa. With your help, we will put this fire out and save thousands of children from its grip. We have already flooded house member with research, especially on the education committee, and are pushing for a public hearing which will not only slow down the process but allow time and opportunity for our voices to be heard through systematic means. We have a new activist group here in Iowa with a growing statewide infrastructure of @200 activists. This was set up to lobby against inadequate school funding due to over 5 Billion dollars of tax cuts since 1996. But I am on the steering committee and we will use this group against this threat as well. The group is called Education First and can be accessed at educationfirst@mchsi.com. We already organized an 1 and 1/2  rally outside the capitol with @ 2000 people . . . when it was -20 wind chill factor. We would have had many more if it was warmer. So with your help and our growing infrastructure, we have a chance.

You have really come through today and helped me almost instantaneously recreate my previous arsenal, with a few great new pieces as well. I am deeply grateful and vow to you that I will use all our resources here to fight this pernicious bill. So from those of you whom I know personally to those who are kindred spirits online, I thank you and will keep you posted as to the progress we are making. I would love to see the many of you I have met previously again and meet those of you whom I've yet to meet in person. This really is more than an argument or a fight, but is a labor of love that we share. I am proud to work along side you all. If you have any other ideas, strategies, research, or just want to say hey, please contact me. Thanks again.

Alan
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: alanyoung@mchsi.com 
  To: care@yahoogroups.com ; Ed&Democracy ; RScriticalteach ; ARN-state@yahoogroups.com ; ARN-L ; arn2-strategy ; ACTNOW2003@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 8:59 AM
  Subject: Re: URGENT


  Hi all my wonderful activist friends. I really need your assistance. About a year and a half ago, I led an effort to put down a huge anti-social promotion/pro-retention push where I teach in the Des Moines Public Schools, Iowa's largest school district with over 30,000 students. I did so with a flood of email articles on the myth of social promotion and being on grade level and standardized tests as accurate measures of a child's growth, the facts the harms of retention and other research which showed the fallacy of even posing the question the way these simpletons do when they get involved in ed reform. Well, the over 25 articles that I sent via email (and did not make hard copies of) have been lost due to a computer virus and the phantom is rising again, except not in my district but in the state.

  Yesterday, while I was doing student-led portfolio conferences at my school until 9:00 p.m., our republican dominated senate snuck a bill through SF 2246 which will hold all 3rd graders back in Iowa if they are more than 1 year behind grade level (whatever that means) in reading. This was not on the radar screen. It came out of nowhere. All our efforts here this year, which have been extensive, have been on massive tax cuts leading to the underfunding of our schools with major cuts for the 4th year in a row.  Didn't see this coming at all, so we are up against it and I lost all my ammunition. I have begun this morning to marshal some research, but would truly benefit from your help. The House has been voting on pure party lines and I have to sway just a few people to make this not happen. They will come out an talk with me and listen if past experience is an indicator. I have been successful in the past, but must have stuff in hand so that can have something to stand on.

  Do any of you have at your fingertips articles and research that could help me? I not only have the ability to email these folks with the database that I have set up, but am planning to go down to the capitol and lobby them later. I need these as soon as possible. I know there were some great ones from the Harvard Educational Letter, Phi Delta Kappan, etc, and I am beginning to recreate my library on this, but not as quickly as needed to address this particular problem today and Monday, Last time in Des Moines, the barrage worked quite well and the focus switched from a reactive, punitive, retention/test focus to a proactive, supportive, dropout prevention/authentic assessment focus. It was not just the content, board members said, but the sheer volume of research that I provided and how truly one-sided it was that changed their minds. Members said it worked, because they simply had not looked at the research. I truly think that I can do the same with a few House members in our 53-47 Republican dominated House. Thank god we have a decent governor, but I need to get things to him as well to assure a veto my efforts fail in the house. 

  So, Monty, Bob, Anne, Alfie, Susan, Jerry, Evans, George Sheridan, George Schmidt, Deb, Sue, Carol, Juanita, Larry, Jackie, Mickey, Kristina and whoever else in this fine resistance movement has a good article on the problems of retention, please forward to me ASAP so that I can slay this monster. I appreciate this, the schoolchildren of Iowa appreciate this. Many thanks.

  Alan
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Monty Neill 
    To: care@yahoogroups.com ; Ed&Democracy ; RScriticalteach ; ARN-state@yahoogroups.com ; ARN-L ; arn2-strategy 
    Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 1:23 PM
    Subject: [care] radio on NCLB


    The radio show Democracy Now will do a show tomorrow on NCLB. Looks like I will be on it. I am being taped between 8 and 9 am EST. The show is aired on Pacifica stations and others at various times. You can listen on the Pacifica website http://www.pacifica.org/ - so sometime tomorrow it should be available - today's show is already up.

    Monty
    Monty Neill, Ed.D.
    Executive Director
    FairTest
    342 Broadway
    Cambridge, MA 02139
    617-864-4810    fax 617-497-2224
    monty@fairtest.org
    http://www.fairtest.org


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