Re: Sandy Kress

[Marilyn Langlois <langlois-rine@comcast.net>]

Susan--
Thank you for attending this event and reporting back.  It must have been a
gruelling experience!  Good you spoke out however you could.  There's so
little truth at such gatherings.

Marilyn

> From: Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>
> Reply-To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
> Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 22:25:51 -0800
> To: CA Resisters <ca-resisters@interversity.org>, ARN state
> <ARN-state@egroups.com>, arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com, eddra@yahoogroups.com,
> Walt Haney <haney@bc.edu>, North Dakota Study Group
> <ndsgroup@yahoogroups.com>, literacyForAll@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [ca-resisters] Sandy Kress
> 
> I went to hear Kress today at UC Berkeley. He was charming and
> engaging, and was warmly received. I was appalled.
> You may not know who he is. He was very influential in the Texas
> Miracle/Mirage. He was the president of the Dallas school board. He was
> very influential in?some say he wrote?NCLB. He is a lobbyist for McGraw
> Hill (Open Cult, SAT tests, 1st or 2nd largest testing company),
> Pearson ( which is the 3rd largest testing company and owns National
> Computer Systems, which scores most tests in US), ETS (which runs CAs
> testing, now that its into K-12 testing), Kaplan (test prep), HOSTS
> Learning (Kumon tutoring), and Community Education Partners (SES
> afterschool tutoring). Whew!
> Bruce Fuller introduced him, and afterwards scolded me for not
> appreciating his background. Which is???
> He said he supports NCLB because of its stand re civil rights and
> global competitiveness (a lot of blah blah about Indian engineers).
> Where was Jerry when we needed him.
> He showed charts of NAEP increases and gap closings, but, unlike
> Spellings, he didnt attribute them to NCLB, but to the
> standards/accountability movement in general. [Is this a crack in their
> unity?]
> He referred to the Aspen Institute report as "great reading" and made
> it seem to be Bushs plan.
> He recommended the following "fixes":
> 1. greater differentiation among AYP failures, so that schools who fail
> in only one category, eg, arent lumped with those who are just
> generally trash
> 2. using growth instead of pass/fail
> 3. different treatment of ELs and speds, but he didnt say how, even
> when questionned
> 4. closing of N size and other statistical loopholes [cant remember
> what this meant]
> 5. enforcement of choice; when someone asked about interdistrict
> transfers, he said he strongly supported them, and that the Title I
> money should go with he kid (vouchers). He said not to private schools,
> but interdistrict transfers. He never mentioned the word Vouchers.
> He referred to my own personal shibboleth, No Excuses schools, as if
> those on these lists havent totally discredited them.
> He put up some charts from the US Chamber of Commerce about 60% of new
> jobs needing post-secondary education, but somebody pointed out that he
> "cleverly" didnt say BAs, but only "some". What are the figures here?
> He said we need to strengthen NCLB with
> 1. incentives for higher standards
> 2. focusing on the "S" in ESEA, ie middle schools
> 3. giving teachers more money in exchange for "effectiveness"
> 
> There was a panel who responded:
> Goodwin Liu, who teaches at UCB law school, and was quite good. He
> called him on the NAEP scores, and said they happened before NCLB. He
> said schools need more resources (duh). And he put up lovely charts of
> "longitudinal NAEP scores", which he said were different from regular
> NAEPs. What are these?
> Kathryn Baron, NPR, told some stories.
> Laurie Mireles, a grad student, asked about ELs, and didnt get much
> answer, except that he juxtaposed National Council of La Raza
> [traitors] and those bad states that arent teaching English. Oy vey.
> During Q & A he mentioned Appleseed, which is pushing parent info re
> choice [anybody know them?].
> He said his criterion for high school success is that a kid can
> function at a community college without remediation. Interesting.
> He said his kids teacher is outraged by the many benchmark tests she
> has to give. He said thats not part of NCLB and blamed "administrators"
> for those, when clearly Reading First (which is part of NCLB) requires
> them. He blamed administrators for the narrowing of the curriculum. He
> blamed administrators for pervasive fear.
> When I accused him of using TX as a model, when Haney and Valenzuela
> have demolished it, he said Jay Greene and the Census Bureau have good
> dropout data that shows TX is miraculous. ?????
> He mentioned Reading Street, by Pearson, as a good program. Anybody
> know it?
> He said he has "some problems with NEA", but gets along well with AFT.
> Duh.
> I made what may have been a strategic mistake. I spoke first, because I
> wanted to be sure to get a chance. I wasnt kind. It may have made all
> those academics feel sorry for him, because everybody was balanced and
> gentle. But maybe they would have been anyway.
> In retrospect, I think the audience didnt know very much (with one or
> two clear exceptions, including Mark Wilson). They couldnt challenge
> him because he sounded so knowledgable, funny, nice, and concerned
> about the downtrodden. Fuller said to me he doesnt think the lobbying
> is very relevant. Gee, making money from a law you wrote?
> If we didnt know this before, I think Kress is a dangerous reptile,
> like the rest of them. As much as I believe in the free exchange of
> ideas, Im outraged that UC Berkeley chose to give him a platform. I
> felt dirty afterwards, and came home and took a shower.
> If you have questions, Ill try to answer them.
> Susan