Miller in Oakland

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Last Friday (7/20) was an event called "From No Child Left Behind to 
Every Child a Graduate", sponsored by the Alliance for Excellent 
Education, Frisco Ed Fund, Stanford's School Reform Network 
(Darling-Hammond), and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 
Education Fund. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? They said their funders were 
liberals.
The keynote speaker was George Miller. This was my second event with 
him in less than a week. Ive reached a maximum level of frustration. 
Ill try to calm down enough to report.
1. He opened by saying they had beat back in Congress the cuts in 
education accounts.  However, they are still $56 billion behind what 
was promised. 
2. He supports the loan forgiveness program for teachers and other 
civil servants. 
3. He was pretty much entirely focused on "maintaining accountability". 
But, he said that the top-down model is not sustainable. (Hasn't he 
heard of Oakland, which is geographically next door to his district, 
and which has suffered under state control for 4 years? Or Vallejo, 
which is just the other side of his district, also under state control?)
4. He touted New Orleans and Chicago as models!? Ive asked his office 
what he means re Chicago. Waiting for a reply.
5. He said he was the "proud author of NCLB" and that "communities and 
politicians are now accountable," but NCLB "hasn't worked in the way it 
was intended." He hopes to become "the proud author of a revised NCLB 
that works."
6. He said hes "become a convert" to "multiple indicators", but he said 
there are no good models. Doug Christensen (Nebraska State Sup of Ed) 
believes Linda Darling-Hammond (co-sponsor of the event) and George 
Wood have told him about Nebraska, which has what is perhaps the best 
model: all locally run. Christensen, Darling-Hammond, and Wood plan to 
tell him again.
7. He will support a growth model, but said its premised on the state 
having a student ID system so they can track individual kids. No 
system, no growth model. And I read in the paper that CA has just 
defunded its student ID system...
8. He and another speaker both mentioned the 2,000 high schools in the 
US that are "dropout factories". They added that half of them made AYP. 
Which tells us what?
9. He supports "performance pay" for both principals and teachers, but 
didnt say what it will be based on. Lets all guess.
10. Jill Wynns (sp?), a Frisco school board member, asked him about 
changing what counts as "proficient". (It is currently set at about 
80%.) He gave the Bush line about the reasonableness of expecting all 
kids to perform at "grade level" (which, if it means anything at all, 
means 50%). She pointed out that GL isnt the same as Proficient. He 
shrugged and said "grade level, proficient, who cares when theyre only 
scoring in the teens?" His lack of arithmetic ability (50 = 80) may not 
matter if they go for a growth model, but its pretty upsetting.
11. Somebody (Harvey?) asked from the floor how to get Silicon Valley 
to pony up a little for education, and he said that wasnt in his power. 
How about TAX THE RICH?
11. And just by the way, he claims impeachment is impossible, because 
the Patriot Act gave Bush the power to do everything hes done. Really.
Susan Harman, Harvey Smith
 

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