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11.24.05
As you can see there is not a lot of
action on this site. We still would like to use it to
organize teachers against NCLB. Until and if things start
to heat up please use it as a resource to inform yourself
about this detestable law. And visit our BLOG
for even more info.
2.5.05
Got lots of thoughts from a lot of
reading but...Here is what my partner Linda and I want to
do with this site. We want to turn it into the
Move-on.org of Anti-NCLB. We want to get an on-line
petition going and let Washington know that millions of
teachers and parents are totally against NCLB and how it
is structured now. The problem is we are both busy
teachers and not particularly tech savvy. Also there
would be the money piece, especially if it meant buying
and running a server. Can you help in any way?
Please
let us know. and
thanks.
1.14.05
Finally! summer was busy and I kind of
lost my steam.then I did not know what I was teaching
until 3 days before school when I changed grades. then
with the election...-
- Well I'm fired up again but I
probably won't be doing much here. Instead check our
BLOG
and join me to fight to get our public schools back in
local hands.
4.7.04
This article appeared in USA Today and you can read it in
it's entirety here: http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040407/6088957s.htm
The important parts are as follows:
Parents, Not Politicians, Should Define Family
Values- by Bruce Kluger
Every morning, my daughter's third-grade teacher, Lucas,
begins class with a lovely ritual. Strapping on a guitar
and gathering his students around him, Lucas leads the
boys and girls in a medley of numbers he has taught them.
There's nothing as sweet as the sound of children
singing, but my favorite part is listening to them
perform songs from my era -- such as The Byrds' Turn!
Turn! Turn! or The Beatles' When I'm 64.
Most importantly, the exercise teaches the kids about
harmony, both musical and social. But lately, Lucas has
been cutting the sing-alongs short -- and he's not happy
about it.
''The city has mandated high-stakes testing for
third-graders,'' he says, ''so I have to revamp my lesson
plan to prepare them. The sad part is, you should see
these tests. They say nothing about who these kids are as
thinkers and learners.''
Mandatory testing is just one part of a more vexing
problem facing parents: At an alarming rate, people who
never have laid eyes on our kids are deciding what's best
for them. And all too often, they're getting it
wrong.
As we head into campaign season, power players of all
stripes have begun to pervert the definition of the
American family to advance agendas that have little to do
with it. In the case of mandatory testing, the original
idea came not from parents worried about their kids'
education, but from far-removed politicos battling over
arcane policies, federal money and their own hopes of
re-election.
Indecency is a 'wedge issue'
Now comes another example of this disingenuous, ''for the
sake of our children'' ploy: the national crusade against
''indecency.'...In other words, it's all about
politics.
''Every election needs a wedge issue,'' says ACLU
President Nadine Strossen...Still, two can play this
game. If these groups can redefine ''family'' to suit
their mean-spirited ideologies, permit me to do similar
tinkering with the word ''indecent.''
What's indecent to me is that while President Bush can't
seem to raise 12 million American children above the
poverty line, he still manages to raise nearly $600,000 a
day for his campaign.
What's indecent to me is the $1.5 billion proposal to
plunge the nation into a giant ''healthy marriage''
counseling session, even as the No Child Left Behind
program leaves behind a vapor trail.
What's indecent to me is that Christian conservatives
continue to lecture on morality, even in the wake of
their own Roman Catholic child abuse scandal.
Enough already. We need to learn to harmonize. I'm
confident that, even in this combative election year, we
can reclaim the sanctity of family, or at least keep it
from the grips of politics. As Lucas' third-graders might
say while singing their favorite Byrds song, ''I swear
it's not too late.''
Bruce Kluger, a member of USA TODAY's board of
contributors, also writes for Parenting magazine and
National Public Radio. (JF)-
4.6.04
If you haven't checked out the Susan Ohanian site yet, you
must. Through that site I was made aware of an Article in
this April's Kappan. This
article is a must read.
What he says at the end is the truth:
"Ultimately, we must decide whether we will obediently play
our assigned role in helping to punish children and
teachers. Every in-service session, every article, every
memo from the central office that offers what amounts to an
instruction manual for capitulation slides us further in the
wrong direction until finally we become a nation at risk of
abandoning public education altogether. Rather than
scrambling to comply with its provisions, our obligation is
to figure out how best to resist. "
JF
3.29.04
Today I found myself on the site of my union and
professional organization, the National Education
Association (NEA) (http://www.nea.org)
I then checked out their position on
NCLB (http://www.nea.org/lac/esea/eseaposition.html).
Here they state that they support all 11 bills that would
"improve" NCLB (http://www.nea.org/lac/esea/eseahistory.html).
What a bunch of lame, wimpy B.S.! This is the organization
that secretary of education Ron Paige called "terrorists"!?!
Sounds more like spineless supporters of the status quo to
me! This small time tinkering, like the four recently
announced "changes" to the regulations, are cosmetic fluff
and nothing else. Please join me in e-mailing NEA to demand
that they adopt the same position as the Alaska chapter -
repeal this wrong headed act! If it cannot be repealed then
drastic changes need to be made! Write, mail, call now!
JF
3.28.04
Just got back from visiting my family in Connecticut. While
there the home town paper ran this
story. (Meriden
Record-Journal 03/23/2004) It
seems that there is a move afoot in the Connecticut
legislature to mandate 20 minutes of recess per day. That's
right, 20 minutes. The gym teachers think this is a bad
idea. The extra time, the way their thinking goes, needs to
be put into structured P.E. This has all come about because
of all the recent media reports that our kids are all too
fat. I must tell you that I teach in a school that has a
total of 45 minutes per day of recess for kindergartners and
60 minutes for everyone else, when one of our notorious wind
a rain storms hit and last for a week and we have to have
"indoor recess" the kids have so much excess energy that the
whole school seems to vibrate. I must also tell you that a
year and a half ago when my family went back for a visit, my
then two year old son was in constant search of playground
equipment to crawl upon, so I decided that we would take a
stroll to my old elementary school and check out the jungle
gym there. I was aghast. There was absolutely none in site!
It seems that there is no time for outside physical
activities. With all the emphasis on achievement and high
stakes tests we simply do not have the time to excersize our
children's bodies in school! Does this really make sense to
anyone? These are kids we are talking about, active movement
machines. We do not have the time to allow them the time for
the movement that their bodies and minds need, because we
must prepare them for the high stakes tests that will let
everyone know that they and their school is "achieving."
Does this really make sense to anyone?
And then today I get a spam notice, obviously my e-mail
address was gleaned from this site, about this so called
great deal that the teachers in Denver have made. The
Southeast Center for Teaching Quality (www.teachingquality.org)
reports that "On Friday, March 19th members of the Denver
Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) approved "ProComp," a
new collective bargaining agreement that will pay the
district's 4,500 teachers for improving student achievement.
Fifty-nine percent of DCTA members voted in favor of the
plan that will take effect in 2006, contingent upon voters
approving a $25 million school levy increase in November
2005. All new teachers hired after January 2006 will
participate in "ProComp," and current teachers can choose
whether to opt-in. According to the district, "the net
result is that teachers who meet and exceed rigorous
expectations in a fair system will have no artificial limits
on their annual and career earnings."
The plan is noteworthy both for its contents - teachers
receive annual increases for achieving student learning
growth, acquiring additional knowledge and skills, receiving
positive evaluations, and working in schools with the
greatest need - as well as the process by which it was
developed.
*The plan looks broadly at student
achievement. Using an objective setting process piloted for
five years in Denver, teachers and principals meet annually
to set growth targets based on multiple measures of student
achievement data. Teachers can also earn bonuses for
sustained growth on the state assessment and for working at
schools designated as distinguished.
*The plan is about compensation, not just
salary. The plan does not only provide bonuses for meeting
targets; it also aligns compensation and professional
learning around the district's instructional goals and
priorities. Lanes and columns are gone in favor of
percentage increases to a salary index. Teachers will only
receive compensation for graduate degrees and professional
development that fit the district's improvement
strategies."
So let me get this straight, kids do not have time to get
the gross muscle activity that they need, to the point that
a state legislature feels it has to step in to mandate a
paltry 20 minutes a day, because they must be prepared to
take high stakes tests that will prove to everyone that they
have achieved. Now teacher's pay increases will be tied to
these test scores and they will get more money for working
at a school that " is designated at distinguished." Does
this really make sense to anyone?
What happened to the love of learning, the thirst for
knowledge, the quest of the inquisitive mind, learning about
things because it is just plain fun. Does anyone find high
stakes test taking fun? Satisfying? Am I missing something?
I don't get it. Is this what we are trying to pass off as
education in the United States of America in the 21st
century?
If none of this makes sense to you either check out
http://www.fairtest.org/.
This is the site of an organization that is leading the
fight against this high stakes test nonsense. And thanks for
staying with me and taking the time to read my venting.
JF
3.15.04
I have a whole lot of thoughts but not
enough time to put them all down in a logical form. This is
one horrible bill. The tinkering that Rod Paige and his crew
are doing now is for campaign purposes only. First they say
they will give the English language learners one year to
become speakers before they have to take the test in
English. One year! Imagine spending one year in a foreign
country and then taking a test to show what you know in
reading, writing and math, even at a third grade level! And
now today they have given highly qualified teachers three
more years to get bachelors in the other courses they teach.
Three years from today! This is BS!
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Trish's
Wilson's Blog
3
Year NCLB Report Card
NCLB
Report - Needs Overhaul
Misguided for
ELLs
Amerrican
Prospect
Testing
Patience
Black
Commentator
Armstrong
Williams
Bribes+Vouchers=Bush
PFAW
- Voucher Veneer
A
Great Blog on
Charter Schools
NCLB
Going Down
Jim
Trelease on NCLB
Bush/McGraw-Hill
Connection
More
on the Above
from the Nation
Rethinking
a Bad Law - Ed Week
NCLS
says Change It
Shut
Up and Teach.org
SUAT
Resources
Alfie Kohn
Ed.Equity in
AK
Jobs
Education Wis.
Edutopia
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