Fwd: re: BRT and high stakes testing

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

Kathy Emery is an education researcher, 
specializing in History of US Education, and 
co-author, with Susan Ohanian, of Why Is 
Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools?, 
which gives a detailed account of how the 
Business Roundtable (BRT) organized the well 
financed campaign to force the state gov'ts to 
implement high stakes accountability regimes 
since the late 1980s.  The BRT and its local 
affiliates are the puppetmasters of politicians 
and the main drivers of the corporate takeover of 
US public education.  Here's her comment about 
the latest  NY Times pro-business editorial and slanted news story on NCLB


> Hello education advocates,
>
> Below are two pieces from the NYT  --  first one 
> is the editorial in today's paper and the second 
> is the "news" article from yesterday on which the editorial is responding to.
>
> in editorial:  notice editorial endorsement of 
> business roundtable's "concerns"  (and a bit of 
> defensiveness about how it is not all about 
> cheaper high tech labor, which it really is)
>
> in "article:"  notice slant of article -- civil 
> rights groups oppose multiple measures!!!!  I 
> was in a workshop once led by Diane Piche -- she 
> was teaching working class parents of color how 
> to use NCLB to get a "better" education for 
> their children-- to individually advocate to get 
> their children into better schools -- using the 
> transfer provision.  It was a PICO/ACORN 
> national conference in Philadelphia put on in 
> 2003 by Temple University's Center for Public 
> Policy.  I raised the concern that encouraging 
> people to act individually undermined the whole 
> point of the conference, which was brainstorming 
> how to create people power (organize 
> collectively) to get more equal distribution of 
> resources (around housing, education, health 
> care, safety and immigrant rights) -- my point 
> was met with stony silence, then some 
> disengenuous BS.  While the Center for Public 
> Policy apparently no longer exists, Diane Piche 
> is alive and well and making news for "all" civil rights groups.
>
> oh, and don't forget (tag at end of shemo's 
> article) teacher unions only care about their 
> pay--so they have no credibility (like the BRT does).
>
> just thought you all might be interested in my 
> take on this.  It has implications for strategy and tactics.
>
> kathy emery
> San Francisco Freedom School
> www.educationanddemocracy.org
>
>
> The New York Times
> September 12, 2007
> Editorial
> What?s Good for Children
>
> America?s business community was an early 
> advocate of reform and a prime mover in the 
> passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, 
> which required the states to improve public 
> schooling for all students. With Congress 
> gearing up to reauthorize the act, business 
> leaders are rightly raising their voices in an 
> attempt to prevent the teachers? unions and 
> their political allies from weakening this important law.
>
> Corporate leaders have complained for years 
> about job applicants who don?t read, write or 
> think well enough. Faced with poorly educated 
> workers at home ? especially in science ? 
> American companies are increasingly looking 
> abroad, not just for lower-paid workers, but for 
> workers with the training and skills to compete in a globalized economy.
>
> With those concerns in mind, the Business 
> Roundtable, an association of chief executives 
> from the nation?s largest companies, spoke out 
> forcefully this week. At a House hearing, the 
> Roundtable?s president, John Castellani, cited 
> troubling provisions in a draft reauthorization 
> bill that would allow schools to mask failure in 
> teaching crucial subjects like reading and math 
> by giving them credit for student performance in 
> other subjects or on alternate measures of performance.
>
> Mr. Castellani voiced strong support for the 
> accountability principles underlying the 
> original law and warned that the draft would 
> allow too many schools to ?game the system? by 
> hiding the records of underachieving students. 
> The provisions, he warned, would weaken the 
> process by which schools are identified as in 
> need of improvement and would replace a 
> ?transparent accountability system? with a 
> tortured and confusing one. As such, the new 
> system could cover up deficits that the current law has clearly exposed.
>
> The draft, the work of the House Education 
> Committee chairman, George Miller of California, 
> contains some good reforms as well. But those 
> ideas would be wasted if states, schools and 
> teachers were not held accountable for the 
> quality of the education they provide. Not only 
> do America?s businesses need better-educated 
> workers, the country needs better-educated 
> citizens as well. And America?s children all deserve a sound education.
>
>
> The New York Times
> September 11, 2007
> Teachers and Rights Groups Oppose Education Measure
> By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
>
> WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 ? The draft House bill to 
> renew the federal No Child Left Behind law came 
> under sharp attack on Monday from civil rights 
> groups and the nation?s largest teachers unions, 
> the latest sign of how difficult it may be for 
> Congress to pass the law this fall.
>
> At a marathon hearing of the House Education 
> Committee, legislators heard from an array of 
> civil rights groups, including the Citizens? 
> Commission on Civil Rights, the National Urban 
> League, the Center for American Progress and 
> Achieve Inc., a group that works with states to raise academic standards.
>
> All protested that a proposal in the bill for a 
> pilot program that would allow districts to 
> devise their own measures of student progress, 
> rather than using statewide tests, would gut the 
> law?s intent of demanding that schools teach all 
> children, regardless of poverty, race or other factors, to the same standard.
>
> Dianne M. Piché, executive director of the 
> Citizens? Commission on Civil Rights, said the 
> bill had ?the potential to set back 
> accountability by years, if not decades,? and 
> would lead to lower standards for children in urban and high poverty schools.
>
> ?It strikes me as not unlike allowing my teenage 
> son and his friends to score their own driver?s 
> license tests,? Ms. Piché said, adding, ?We?ll 
> have one set of standards for the Bronx and one 
> for Westchester County, one for Baltimore and one for Bethesda.?
>
> Representative George Miller, Democrat of 
> California, who is chairman of the committee, 
> countered that district tests would have to be 
> approved by the federal Education Department, 
> which he said would safeguard against any watering down of standards.
>
> The law, a signature initiative of the Bush 
> administration that passed in 2001 with 
> bipartisan support, requires schools to test all 
> students annually in reading and math in grades 
> three to eight and to show all students 
> progressing toward 100 percent proficiency 
> regardless of background. Schools in high 
> poverty areas that fail to show sufficient gains 
> face potentially harsh penalties, including possible closing.
>
> The proposals for changing the law, which has so 
> far tagged 10,000 high poverty schools for state 
> and district intervention, move away from 
> relying solely on test scores in math and 
> reading as a gauge of school progress. They 
> would allow schools to include test results in 
> other subjects, as well as indicators like 
> attendance, promotion, performance in advanced 
> placement courses and graduation rates to demonstrate academic strength.
>
> The draft has also come under criticism from 
> Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and Congressional Republicans.
>
> Mr. Miller said he was not discouraged by the 
> opposition, and indeed, many witnesses praised 
> the proposals as offering much-needed flexibility to the law.
>
> ?I think we?re doing well,? Mr. Miller said 
> after the hearing. ?It?s not easy, but that?s not a surprise.?
>
> Leaders of the teachers? unions ? Reg Weaver, 
> president of the National Education Association, 
> and Toni Cortese, executive vice president of 
> the American Federation of Teachers ? told the 
> committee that they would not support the bill 
> in its current form and that they objected to a 
> proposal to count student test scores in granting pay bonuses.
>
> Mr. Weaver?s testimony produced the sharpest 
> exchange of the day, when Mr. Miller accused the 
> unions of reneging on an earlier agreement to 
> support the measure when it was incorporated 
> into a 2005 bill proposed by Democrats and that 
> was never adopted by Congress, which was then controlled by Republicans.
>
> But Mr. Weaver and Ms. Cortese disputed that 
> account, saying that while they supported the 
> 2005 bill over all, they had expressed concerns 
> about any provisions that would mandate test 
> scores be included in determining pay.