Re: More Fallout from the Testing Explosion

[ABurke5054@aol.com]

A different view is that responsible parents want schools to  teach their 
children important things and want schools to test their  children to see how 
well they have learned them and to identify areas in which  both children and 
schools need improvement -- and where a need for improvement  is identified to 
take action to bring it about.  Consider a school that  served large numbers of 
poor and minority children and wanted to avoid having  itself identified for 
improvement under NCLB by failing to test large  numbers of these children.  
Arguing that it would be "dictatorial  reprisal" for the state to take action 
against such a school is an exercise in  charlatanism.  
 
Now what would happen if all the parents in a school decided to keep their  
children home on testing day?  That would leave the state without  information 
it needs to decide whether a school needs improvement and in  what areas and 
make the state unable to provide additional resources and help to  that school 
through the same mechanisms it is supposed to use for other  schools.  What 
responsible parents would want that?
 
Art
 
In a message dated 10/28/2006 8:48:10 AM Pacific Standard Time,  
pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu writes:


By  the way, anybody know if funding has yet been withheld from any 
school  that has not met its 95% testing requirement?  THAT would make 
a nice  controversy to highlight the undemocratic nature of these high 
stakes law,  for protesting parents to have their kids' school 
punished because they  exercised their rights as responsible parents. 
Dictatorships call that  tactic "reprisals." With Dubyah's numbers 
down, this is a great time for  protests, especially in middle class areas.



From: "Dull, Chad"  <DullC@westerntc.edu>