Sandy Kress

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

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