Re: re organizing

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

Thank you Kathy for sharing your insights and stressing the need for
building relationships.  You said

> I think calling for boycotting the test without having built an
> infrastructure that includes coalitions of parent and teacher organizations
> is not going to stop the tests.

I agree.  I have always envisioned a large scale test boycott being preceded
by months (maybe a year or more) of regular meetings among teachers and
parents at elementary schools, and among teachers, parents and students at
secondary schools, to gain a better mutual understanding of each other's
issues and build solidarity.

My vision for the actual boycott days would be one of maximum inclusion,
transparency and Gandhian "constructive program".  In other words, on
testing days, invite the community, media and administrators to visit
schools and watch teachers (who with parental support are declining to
administer the tests) and students engaged in authentic learning
experiences.

my 2 cents,
Marilyn

> From: "Kathy Emery" <mke4think@hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
> Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:46:49 -0700
> To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
> Subject: [ca-resisters] re organizing
> 
> Susan,
> 
> It's not really about "impressing parents", but developing deep, working
> relationships with them, which you did when you started your school.  It's
> about working with parents on their issues, and then, in the course of that
> work, using the situations as they come up as teachable moments to help them
> analyse what's going in terms of the bigger picture.  As Myles Horton said
> that Highlander was all about, it was about helping people analyse their own
> experiences, and then helping them analyse other people's experiences.  then
> they could go out and organize others.
> 
> Organizing 101: start with people where they are at.  If they are upset that
> that the bathrooms are disgusting or that their child is not learning to
> read - that is what you begin to organize around.  but while you are
> organzing around those issues, you begin to talk about why the bathrooms are
> disgusting or why their child is not learning to read.  the problem with the
> latter issue is that there are too many teachers who don't have the cultural
> competence to understand their role in the failure of children not learning
> to read.
> 
> I have attended a few IEP conferences where the teachers blamed the parent
> and child for the problems they were facing without accepting any
> responsibility themselves.  This defensiveness is a major obstacle to anyone
> trying to organize teachers and parents on a systemic scale.
> 
> I think calling for boycotting the test without having built an
> infrastructure that includes coalitions of parent and teacher organizations
> is not going to stop the tests.  A boycott designed to provoke an over
> reaction from administrators or state officials could be a good organizing
> tool, the overreaction creating sympathy from those not directly involved
> but close enough to see what is happening.   Remember the Nashville sit-ins
> DID NOT desegregate the lunch counters.  It was the boycott of all of the
> downtown businesses that did that.  the boycott was only possible becuase
> the middle class blacks saw how awful the students were treated by the
> police, it garnered their sympathy and willingness to engage in doing
> something.  that they were offered something they felt they could do was key
> to the success of the direct action.
> 
> anyway . . . I think that we need to think very strategically about how to
> build a movement, and we need to learn from experienced organizers how to
> organize.  That is why Jean Anyon in Radical Possibilities points to PICO
> and ACORN as necessarily the types of groups that teachers who want to stop
> high stakes testing need to form alliances with.  Coalition building means
> changing your thinking a bit, however.   Movement building must be creative
> and flexible, yet disciplined and organized.
> 
> kathy
> 
> 
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>
> Reply-To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
> To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
> Subject: Re: [ca-resisters] CBEE Calls for tougher school accountability
> Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:38:58 -0800
> 
>> teachers need TO ACT (and not just begin to talk) in a way that  impresses
>> parents.
> What do you think will impress parents? If youre right that opposing  the
> tests alienates parents, boycotting them wouldnt be an action that  would
> impress, right?
> Susan
> 
> On Wednesday, March 14, 2007, at 09:27 AM, Kathy Emery wrote:
> 
>> thanks, George, for posting this article:
>> 
>> I think this paragraph by the CBEE guy is particularly revealing:
>> 
>> "The defenders of the status quo argue that more money is needed to  raise
>> student
>> achievement. The best way is to raise expectations. Instead of meeting
>> minimal
>> API growth targets annually, schools should focus on raising every
>> student's
>> academic achievement to grade-level proficiency. Parents would  strongly
>> agree."
>> 
>> These are the talking points that the BRT and allies pound again and
>> again:
>> 1.  teacher opposition to high stakes testing equals "defending the  status
>> quo" -- a status quo that has never served poor and working  class parents
>> of color, a status quo in which an achievement gap was  built in -- so
>> "parents ...agree" that the status quo must go, and  therefore, necessarily
>> agree with the only vision of fundamental  reform being put forth -- high
>> stakes testing.   the more teachers  argue about how HST is "destroying
>> public schools" that we must  "defend public schools" the more the are
>> associated with defending the  historic achievement gap.   (notice the
>> parallel to:  opposition to  the war in Iraq = supporting the terrorists,
>> democrats oppose the war,  so dems support terrorists -- this syllogism has
>> the parallel just so:   public schools produce an ach gap; teachers support
>> public schools;  teachers support an ach gap).
>> 
>> 2.  HST justifies underfunding of schools -- all you need are "high
>> expectations"  and "high standards"
>> 
>> until teachers stop talking about HST as destroying public schools and
>> start talking about the need to fundamentally transform schools so  they
>> promote social justice, they will lose the propaganda battle with  the BRT
>> and fail to win the support of parents and other community  members that
>> they so desperately need to stop the high stakes testing  juggernaut.
>> 
>> even more, teachers need TO ACT (and not just begin to talk) in a way  that
>> impresses parents.  right now, they are doing neither.
>> 
>> kathy
>> 
>> 
>> Kathy Emery, Ph. D.
>> SF Freedom School
>> www.educationanddemocracy.org
>> 4828 19th Street
>> SF CA 94114
>> 415-703-0465
>> mke4think@hotmail.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ----Original Message Follows----
>> From: George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>
>> Reply-To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
>> To: CA Resisters <ca-resisters@interversity.org>
>> Subject: [ca-resisters] CBEE Calls for tougher school accountability
>> Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:32:16 -0700
>> 
>> Review of study about school accountability misses the mark
>> By James S. Lanich -
>> http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/135491.html
>> Published Sunday, March 11, 2007
>> Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E3
>> 
>> 
>> SPECIAL TO THE BEE
>> 
>> The review of our study of the California school accountability system
>> misses the
>> mark for accuracy and honesty. We proved the state's Academic  Performance
>> Index
>> is a failure and should be abandoned. It's confusing, goals for  student
>> academic
>> improvement are minimal, and worse, the API hides achievement gaps.  Our
>> students
>> are on the losing end.
>> 
>> The defenders of the status quo argue that more money is needed to  raise
>> student
>> achievement. The best way is to raise expectations. Instead of meeting
>> minimal
>> API growth targets annually, schools should focus on raising every
>> student's
>> academic achievement to grade-level proficiency. Parents would  strongly
>> agree.
>> 
>> Focusing on grade-level proficiency as the minimum standard for  success
>> works.
>> The article failed to review the bulk of the report that explained  very
>> clearly
>> that the "cavalry" is made up of the high-performing schools  throughout
>> the state
>> identified by California Business for Education Excellence, many with
>> large
>> numbers of low-income, minority and English-learner students. These  high
>> performers should serve as role models. These schools don't focus on
>> meeting
>> minimal API requirements. Instead they work to ensure every child is
>> reading and
>> doing math at grade level each year.
>> 
>> Here are the problems with the API.
>> 
>> The API improvement asked of schools each year is set way too low. For
>> example, a
>> school with a starting API score of 500 or lower -- there were 425  schools
>> with
>> this API or lower in 2005 -- could successfully meet its minimal  growth
>> targets
>> each year, but it would take somewhere between 42 to 53 years for that
>> school to
>> reach an 800 API. That is simply too long. Our children don't have a  shelf
>> life.
>> 
>> The API hides achievement gaps. A school's API score is one number  that
>> averages
>> the test scores of all students in the school on the statewide  standards
>> test. A
>> few students, usually the white and Asian students, raise the average
>> enough so
>> the school meets its API growth targets but, at the same time, that  school
>> still
>> often has subgroups of students -- usually poor, ethnic minority  students
>> --
>> stagnating or even declining in academic proficiency.
>> 
>> While API scores rise, six out of 10 students in grades 2 through 11  score
>> below
>> grade-level proficiency in English and math on state tests, while more
>> than seven
>> out of 10 African-American and Latino students score below grade-level.
>> California's school accountability system is an illusion. The focus  must
>> be on
>> getting all students to grade-level.
>> 
>> About the writer: James S. Lanich, president of California Business  for
>> Education
>> Excellence, is responding to the Feb. 14 op-ed article "Saving state's
>> weak
>> schools: Where's the cavalry?"
>> 
>> George Sheridan
>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>> If you want to help support the operation of Ca-Resisters,
>> visit http://interversity.org/donations.html and pitch in!
>> -----------------
>> Thanks in advance!
>> -Eric Crump
>> 
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>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>> If you want to help support the operation of Ca-Resisters,
>> visit http://interversity.org/donations.html and pitch in!
>> -----------------
>> Thanks in advance!
>> -Eric Crump
>> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> If you want to help support the operation of Ca-Resisters,
> visit http://interversity.org/donations.html and pitch in!
> -----------------
> Thanks in advance!
> -Eric Crump
> 
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