Carlos Garcia, FCMAT alert!

[langlois-rine@comcast.net]

Dear resisters,
This morning I heard SFUSD supt Carlos Garcia interviewed on KPFA?s morning show.  The first words out of his mouth were that he had to look at the budget.  He said there are great ideas and great programs, but it won?t do us any good if we don?t have the money to pay for them.  Then he said one of the first things he will do is contact the state and ask them to send in a FCMAT team to analyze the financial status of the district.
BIG RED FLAG here.  Bringing in FCMAT sets the stage for having the district declared bankrupt and in need of a huge ?bail-out? loan to be repaid with interest and with onerous strings attached.  This has happened in Richmond, Compton, Oakland, Vallejo and more.  
As Kitty Kelly Epstein has pointed out, FCMAT is not officially part of the state government and is not accountable to any elected officials.  It?s a group of people out of the Kern County office of education (in Bakersfield), whose agenda is, well one can only imagine?.  Maybe some of you have more info on this.
Moving on, when Garcia was asked about the ?achievement gap? he made a comment about the need to use a variety of teaching styles, because "many Latino and African American students are more kinesthetically inclined" (??!!!).
Re NCLB, he said whether we like the tests or not, they are the law and we have to obey the law.  He said at least under NCLB poorly performing students are becoming visible, whereas they were previously ignored and marginalized (Miller's mantra).  He acknowledged research that shows it can take young people 3-7 years to learn another language, and that it?s ridiculous to give them a test in another language after the first year.
So my question is, will he facilitate forums for district administrators and teachers to inform parents of the realities of testing so that the whole community can advocate for change?????
Let's keep up the heat.
Marilyn
P.S.  Rich, thanks very much for the inspiring stories of resistance coming from Mexico!!