Anthony Cody's stuff

[MONICALUCIDO@comcast.net]

Read Anthony Cody's stuff below first; then see my response...

Everything he says is true--except the statement that, "when teachers begin 
to realize how we have been unfairly burdened, we will begin to find our 
collective voice ." Teachers DO realize that they are unfairly burdened, but 
they are burnt and worn out from the daily grind. I continually talk to others 
at different sites about this and it is the most common answer. Folks, WE ARE IN 
A WAR. If EdTrust and friends get their way, things will never go back. Reading 
the NY times today, maybe there is hope with parents. BUT we have to take the 
lead and stop the abuse first.

    There will always be someone from the corporate world who will undermine 
teachers' love of helping children learn. Why? Because they have unfounded and 
illegitimate ideas about what education should be so that it meets THEIR ends 
$$$$$. They tell the lie that all children must be educated exactly the same 
(mostly with test prep) so that when those same children grow up they will be 
easier to manipulate as consumers and voters. The corporate media bombardment of the public that this type of education is helpful is 
in itself irrational, yet creates so much fear and angst people buy it (schools 
have been collapsing for forty years, don'tcha know?) The corporate refusal to 
think rationally about education affords them the ability to maintain the 
illusion of being "supportive" and "helpful", while committing evil. They want 
to impress the APPEARANCE of free will and choice to citizens, but still have 
the power to funnel the public into their way of thinking and their coffers.
      Society has begun to lose contact with children because the big neon 
message pounding all of us from the industrial sector reads: "NEED WORKERS NOW: 
SPOTS OPEN FOR OUTSOURCING". Thus, children simply become commodities for the 
"future of America", rather than simply being valued as people who are living an 
experience as humans in need of love. Parents must be informed by teachers that 
there is more to their child's existence than being competitive clay ready to be 
molded. Why do we as "professionals" continue to allow the abuse of NCLB to 
continue without an absolute cry and boycott/march to protect the innocent we've 
sworn to  educate? 

Joseph Lucido
Educators and Parents Against Test Abuse
Educator Roundtable
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
> Interesting.  Anthony Cody was a lauded middle school Science teacher 
> in Oakland.  A friend who was a hands-on Science guru told me that 
> Cody was the real deal (about 6 years ago).  Then I heard that Cody 
> was appointed to a district level position (not an administrator, I 
> believe).  So, he's on Jerry Bracey's [eddra] list.  A potential ally?
> 
> RSVP,
> 
> Pete
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >From: "Anthony Cody" <anthony_cody@hotmail.com>
> >
> >
> >I think the current climate has teachers on the cusp of active
> >resistance, but there need to be some new understandings before that
> >will catch fire.
> >
> >In the first place, most teachers (81% according to one study I just
> >read) entered the profession to make a difference. The rhetoric of No
> >Child Left Behind demands that schools teach all children. The fact
> >that it actually stigmatizes the schools and teachers, and damages our
> >efforts by driving us towards test prep is masked by the call for
> >accountability.
> >
> >Up until this point, teachers have not had an effective response to
> >this. We have tended to decry the standardized tests as an inadequate
> >and shallow measure of student performance, but we have not offered a
> >clear alternative. As a result, it has looked as if we are unwilling
> >to be accountable for student learning. We need to do a better job
> >articulating what good, authentic assessment looks like. We need to
> >make our assessment practices more public, and show how valuable
> >formative assessment can be in promoting learning. We need to showcase
> >high quality student work, so the public knows what we mean when we
> >say this is more powerful than standardized testing at not only
> >measuring but also promoting student learning.
> >
> >There is a bigger picture here as well. If you take a step back, you
> >can see that there are tremendous inequities in our society. We have a
> >huge income gap, we have gaps in housing ownership, unemployment,
> >health care -- all sorts of things that affect the health of a
> >community. But at some point we decided that schools would fix these
> >things. Maybe it was during the Civil Rights Movement, when school
> >desegregation was supposed to do away with racism. Well, racism is
> >still with us, and many schools are as segregated as they ever were.
> >But the schools are still supposed to fix all this, while society
> >takes a pass on actually addressing the underlying conditions that
> >promote inequality. Teachers are left holding a lot of tension, a lot
> >of pain -- that society does not want to deal with. The President
> >wants to pretend that all these inequalities would go away if schools
> >would do their jobs and get every child to proficiency by 2014.
> >
> >And teachers are silenced -- in part because we WANT to help every
> >child! We believe in that vision far more deeply than our president
> >ever has! We want our schools to teach every child as best we can, so
> >why should we resist a law that holds us accountable for that?
> >
> >The truth is that the law, in holding schools and teachers solely
> >accountable, lets the rest of society off the hook for addressing the
> >underlying conditions that produce unequal educational outcomes. In
> >Oakland we have had more than 500 murders in the past five years.
> >Studies are showing that as many as 30 of the school-age children are
> >suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder -- which results in
> >ADD-like behavior. But the schools have to be closed if they can't get
> >every one of those children to proficiency. We have schools where as
> >many as 25% of the students suffer from asthma. This means they miss,
> >on average, three days of school a ear, and lose sleep and the ability
> >to work at school due to asthma attacks.
> >
> >I think when teachers begin to realize how we have been unfairly
> >burdened, we will begin to find our collective voice. NCLB has mainly
> >impacted the lowest performing schools thus far, but starting this
> >year, as the demands ratchet up, even more schools will be declared
> >failing, and parents and teachers will start protesting more loudly.
> >There is disarray among the proponents of NCLB. Some simply want more
> >of the same, through national tests and a closing of loopholes. But
> >they must admit the law has not provided the growth they promised.
> >This is our chance to step up and offer a better way. The state of
> >Nebraska has a remarkable program that is actually meeting the demands
> >of NCLB without ruining their schools. They have something called the
> >School-based Teacher-led Assessment Reporting System that allows
> >districts to create their own assessments to meet state standards.
> >This is some creative non-compliance in action.
> >
> >Anthony Cody
> >National Board Certified Teacher
> >Oakland, California