Re: Weapons of Mass Instruction

["Arthur Hu" <arthurhu@attbi.com>]

The wacky bottom line of this is that NCLB is bad, but WASL
and the ridiculous harder-than-WASL senior projects are 
good.


They just don't get it.

-----Original Message-----
From: arn-l-owner@interversity.org
[mailto:arn-l-owner@interversity.org]On Behalf Of William Cala
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2003 7:34 AM
To: arn-l@interversity.org; ACTNOW2003@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [arn-l] Weapons of Mass Instruction


TESTS: WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION

James Harvey thinks we've badly missed the boat on school reform,

misjudging everything from what's required to what it will cost. He views

the No Child Left Behind Act as unmistakably hostile to teachers and

school administrators. In his view, "Tests have become the nation's latest

weapons of mass instruction." He writes that federal officials are now in

a position to make decisions that would have been unimaginable even two

years ago. They've established the criteria for disciplining schools,

removing principals and teachers, and even defining appropriate curriculum

for American classrooms. What surprises Mr. Harvey is that this truly

radical reversal of respect for local school control has been put in place

with scarcely a peep of protest. Harvey offers four common sense ideas for

school reformers and points out that learning takes place in a lot of

places besides schools -- and that a genuine reform strategy would worry

about them all.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/134688604_harvey04.html