A new piece from The Hill gives the lowdown on work to block the half-billion voucher proposal from being slid into legislation in the coming weeks. Even though Spellings and her lawyers are doing the old soft shoe, nobody is buying it. Call today if you are a constituent of any of these House members on the Education and the Workforce Committee.
Full Committee Members and Jurisdiction
109th Congress
(updated February 4, 2005)
John A. Boehner, Ohio, Chairman
"It's important to note that is not Waiver City . . . No one has gotten a waiver yet, and these schools will have to show that they did not meet the state standards because of this disaster and these displaced students."Gracious in defeat, they are not. It should be noted that the disaster she refers to is Katrina, even though the much larger disaster, of course, is NCLB itself. Relief from that one will have to wait until '07.
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"It's a different breed of cat," Miller said of colleges and universities. "We should be asking: What are they learning? Are they learning the right thing? Academe is going to have to come up with answers there."
This is an email from Judy Rabin on a very important event:
I attended the premiere of Lerone Wilson's documentary, No Child
Left Behind, at the Pioneer Theater in New York on Sunday. It is
artistically well-done and very powerful in reflecting the realities
and issues of NCLB -- a MUST SEE.
Here's the link to the web site if you would like to purchase the DVD:
http://www.boondogglefilms.net/store.php
We need to support this young NYU film student and this VERY
IMPORTANT project by not only purchasing the DVD, but by
making sure that it is aired and seen in as many venues and by as
many people as possible -- local theaters, universities and PBS stations.
The idea for the film originated while he was working in a NYC
elementary schoolas a teacher's assistant and was exposed to the
harsh realities of NCLB. One of theteachers said, "Lerone, you have to
do something about this!" and he did.
You will not be disappointed.
Judy
Judy Rabin
Graduate Student
Monmouth University
. . . . Congress passed the “Goals 2000 Educate America” act in March 1994. “Within a month of its passage,” wrote Mike Ferner of Program on Corporation, Law and Democracy, in its summer 2000 newsletter, “the ideological foundation of Goals 2000 was revealed in ‘Reinventing Education: Entrepreneurship in America’s Public Schools.’” It was co-authored by Louis Gerstner, then CEO of IBM. Gerstner and his corporate colleagues define students as “human capital,” urging schools to compare themselves to each other as “Xerox compares itself to L.L. Bean for inventory control.” A “Goals 2000” follow-up meeting 2 years later in 1996 wasn’t even held in a typical hotel conference setting, but a more conducive hideout – IBM headquarters. Fortune 500 planning committee members included luminaries from IBM, Eastman Kodak and Proctor & Gamble. Privatization zealots from the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation attended as resources to promote their conservative education “reform” agenda.
With all that “human capital” in Title 1 public schools, data banks would be critical apparatus. “Thanks to No Child Left behind, we’re no longer flying blind,” echoed Spellings. “This is the time of the year when our schools release their ‘adequate yearly progress’ (AYP) data. That data help states target their finite resources to the classrooms where the need is greatest and most urgent.” Who’s really “flying blind” here? While Spellings was singing “sweet nothings” to attendees, charter and voucher vultures were already circling NCLB “sanctioned” public schools.
. . . . Originally focused on grades K-8, NCLB hustlers have now advanced their draconian sanction schemes to high-schools. Stalled because of the unexpected backlash against privatization of Social Security, Spellings now had to rekindle the high-school coals. “The president and I believe it is time to introduce the principles of No Child Left Behind to grades 9-12,” she gleamed. “We have every right to demand that graduates in Indiana and elsewhere be given the skills to compete in the world and not just be ‘socially promoted’ to life. I know you agree, or you wouldn’t be here today.” But nobody knew what she was going to say before they had even arrived. Maybe they came because it’s just another annual Indiana high-school summit they attend every year. Why should everyone in attendance necessarily “agree” with what she said “or (they) wouldn’t be here”? Maybe some were ordered to attend by their supervisors. Mrs. Jones at Hoosier High is having a baby. Not attending meant she “didn’t agree”? Yeah, she went into labor early too, so she didn’t have to show up.
After listening to the NCLB fan club long enough, you begin to hear the same recordings – over, and over, and over, and over. It’s the age-old marketing gimmick; repeat, repeat, repeat. A consistent drumbeat of NCLB marketplace strategy is “dumbing-down” certified, qualified, experienced education professionals in public schools. Packaging arrogance taught at CEO “reform” academies, they act as if they’ve reinvented the wheels of learning. Their fantasies include driving in “demolition derbies.” Their favorite toys are bulldozers and wrecking balls. Hundreds of new practices (reforms) that have been introduced in public education throughout past decades are deemed meaningless, “outdated.” Targeting Title 1 public schools, their “human capital” privatization bulldozes forward, wearing the label of education “reform.”
Of “social promotion,” who is Spellings to complain? She’s the political candy-stripe who has been “socially promoted” to Secretary of Education because of her long-standing political association with her boss, George W.
Spellings displayed another “social promotion” educator onto the dance floor during her high-school prom in Indianapolis. “The high-school model of today is not much different from that of our grandparents’ day,” said the education chief. “As Bill Gates has said, ‘Training the workforce of tomorrow with today’s high-schools is like trying to teach kids about today’s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe.’” Anybody have any idea how the “college drop-out” made it into the NCLB education club? Hint: Be a multi-(b)illionaire, set up an education foundation for a tax write-off, and toss Title 1 public school districts millions of dollars to implement his “small high-schools” experiments within existing “large” public high schools. Of course, with this brainstorm will come his Microsoft monopoly system into the classrooms to help facilitate the technology learning, testing, teacher training in specialized programs, and school district data processing for NCLB needs. Strangely, nobody is asking why Gates’s “small high-schools” are needed in Title 1 districts, but not in the mostly Anglo, suburban middle and upper-middle class “large” high-schools with student populations numbering 1,500 to 3,000 students. Could it be because of mounting (“shh, hush now…don’t go there…”) socioeconomic inequalities?
“I am encouraged by the unity I’ve seen today and throughout my brief tenure as secretary,” proclaimed Spellings. “While we may feel occasional gusts of opposition, the prevailing wind continues to point toward reform.” First they call their education “reform” marketplace “competition.” Now she complains of “opposition.” Sounds like she’s being tutored by “college drop-out” Monopoly Bill.
Maybe a “reformed” Texas data punch line too: “In God we trust; follow the money.”
Q: But the No Child Left Behind Act was a bipartisan effort to hold schools accountable for the performance of racial and ethnic subgroups that for years schools were able to ignore. Isn't that a sign that there is a growing national commitment to addressing the achievement gap and some of the inequalities in schools you have written about for years?
A: No. It's a preposterous claim that only with the advent of NCLB did we discover suddenly that segregated, minority children have never received the education white, middle-class children receive. Teachers don't need this sociopathic regime of nonstop testing to tell them these students are being cheated. The main function of the accountability regime is to humiliate inner-city principals by telling the public in graphic terms what all of us already knew. President Bush would do more good if he would save all the money wasted on these pathologically repetitive, high-stakes exams and give large financial incentives to good suburban school systems surrounding every major city that would provide powerful inducements to open up their doors to inner-city children.
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One way for the state to address these issuesYes, uniformity. Think of it--if we can intervene at an earlier and earlier age to train these children to behave properly, to learn the Code while they are learning to de-code, and to also appreciate the second-class citizenship that they have inherited, then we can entirely avoid the root causes of poverty, racism, lack of opportunity--at the same time making these children and future soldiers entirely dependent upon and thankful for the dead-end jobs that we will provided them when they become "educated"--if they behave themselves.
is through an accountability system that uses
disaggregated student achievement data and
considers achievement growth as well as
whether students meet the school readiness
goals. Such a system would assess children’s
skills as they enter the pre-K program and
again when they enter Kindergarten. Testing
at both ends of the program would allow the
state to gauge more accurately the effective-
ness of the program. Florida would have to
establish target growth rates for various pop-
ulations—including more growth for low-
income children—if pre-Kindergarten is to
help all children meet uniform school readi-
ness goals.
Breakfast is a rare part of Carey Countryman's daily routine.
But the 16-year-old Union County High School student made an exception this morning.
Monday ushered in ISTEP+ testing and this morning Countryman joined thousands of Indiana sophomores in taking the Graduation Qualifying Exam.
Countryman knows energy and focus are important since there's plenty riding on the outcome of the test.
"The main point is," he said, "and I think every student in the state would agree with me, is everybody is nervous about it. It's graduation we're talking about."
The Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress-Plus is given to students in grades 3-9. The exam measures English, language arts and math skills.
All students -- general education, special education and Limited English Proficiency -- must pass the exam to qualify for a high school diploma.
Students who fail the test can retake it as juniors and seniors.
"The key is you've got to relax," Countryman said of the importance of the test. "If you start to get worked up, you've just got to take a deep breath and keep calm."
The Indiana Department of Education uses ISTEP+ scores to determine whether schools make adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind Act. ISTEP+ testing runs through Sept. 30.
Fourth-grade teacher Kim Morris said preparation is the key. Morris said the families of her 27 students at C.R. Richardson Elementary are well informed. Notes were sent to parents and guardians.
"We tell them it's coming," Morris said. "There are no surprises."
And neither is that student who looks a little tired or distracted. Morris keeps an eye out for students with empty bellies and wandering minds.
"If they're tired and lethargic," Morris said, "I usually get a snack for them to eat. It helps them out."
Daily tests take 30 minutes to 1½ hours.
C.R. Richardson principal Bill Doering said there's a reason testing happens in the morning.
"We trying to get the kids while they're fresh," he said.
College groups had relatively little to say about the national commission, mostly because they knew virtually nothing about it. (Ward told a group of officials from other higher education associations Monday morning that he could offer little insight on its goals.) Members of the panel apparently were approached in late August and have received only a brief form letter outlining its mission in the broadest terms.Remaining consistent with other blue-ribbon panels sent out to study education issues, the illustrious body is heavy on corporate bosses and short on educators, with only two real professors among the 19 members, and one of them is economist and chief among ideologues for the American Enterprise Institute, Richard Vedder.
Advocates for Head Start are justifiably concerned that the fight over religious hiring rights will jeopardize the reauthorization of the Head Start program this Congress. Head Start is too important to be held hostage to such naked partisan politics. JR
September 16, 2005
To: Education and Legal Affairs Reporters, Editors, and Columnists
From: Coalition Against Religious Discrimination (CARD)
RE: Government-Funded Religious Discrimination in Head Start Programs
This week, the House of Representatives will debate legislation reauthorizing the historic anti-poverty Head Start preschool education program – which has helped millions of disadvantaged children by providing access to quality preschool education programs. The House Education and the Workforce Committee approved this measure, H.R. 2123, the School Readiness Act, by a vote of 48-0 on May 18, 2005. Despite bipartisan, unanimous support for the bill in his Committee, Chairman, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), with the support of the Bush Administration, has announced that he intends to offer an amendment on the floor of the House to repeal existing, longstanding Head Start provisions which prohibit religious organizations and churches from discriminating on the basis of religion when hiring or firing staff for positions within this federally-funded program.
The House of Representatives has never voted to repeal existing civil rights protections in a floor amendment, and here it is being done without the benefit of committee hearings, debate, and testimony from experts. This unwelcome action would also undermine the existing broad, bipartisan support for reauthorizing Head Start, one of the most heralded anti-poverty programs in the nation’s history.
Head Start
Head Start is a widely-acclaimed early childhood education program established in 1965. This anti-poverty program serves close to one million disadvantaged preschool children in hundreds of communities across the country. The program has also been a ladder out of poverty for many disadvantaged parents who have become employed as teachers and staff after having first served as volunteer teacher aides in their children’s classroom.
Since 1972, agencies that receive government funding for Head Start – including religious organizations and houses of worship that host Head Start programs – have been prohibited from discriminating on the basis of religion when hiring or firing staff for positions within the federally-funded program. These existing non-discrimination requirements have a history of bipartisan support, and were originally signed into law by President Richard Nixon. The current anti-discrimination language was included in the 1981 Head Start reauthorization bill, signed into law by President Ronal Reagan. These same civil rights protections have been included in every Head Start reauthorization since then – in 1984, 1986, 1990, 1994, and 1998. For 33 years, these fundamental non-discrimination protections have worked well, allowing thousands of Head Start programs in communities throughout the country to flourish while maintaining constitutional and civil rights safeguards against religious tests for employment in federally-funded programs.
The Boehner Religious Discrimination Amendment is Unnecessary
Chairman Boehner has said that he is “committed to adding language to this bill that will ensure faith-based organizations can compete for federal Head Start grants without surrendering their constitutionally-protected right to take religion into account in their hiring practices.” But faith-based organizations do not have a constitutionally-protected right to use federal funds to discriminate on the basis of religion in government-funded positions.
Under current law, faith-based and secular organizations are already equally eligible for Head Start funding. More than five percent of all Head Start programs are administered by houses of worship or religiously-affiliated organizations. These programs currently operate effectively -- and manage to do so without making employment decisions based on the religious beliefs of their teachers and parent volunteer. This success is due, in part, to the fact that these organizations are required to abide by strong constitutional and anti-discrimination safeguards -- protecting beneficiaries from unwanted proselytizing and protecting employees in positions funded by these federal programs from religious discrimination.
The Coalition Against Religious Discrimination (members included below) supports the right of churches and synagogues to perform their religious mission with their own private funds. But federally-funded religious discrimination is always wrong. It is especially damaging in the context of the enormously influential Head Start program.
The Boehner Religious Discrimination Amendment Raises Constitutional Concerns
This proposed change runs afoul of considerations underlying the First Amendment’s prohibitions against the use of direct government funding to promote religious beliefs. When Head Start programs operated by faith-based organizations discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring for government-funded positions, the government becomes associated with promotion of a religious mission in a manner that the Establishment Clause was designed to prevent.
The Boehner Religious Discrimination Amendment Would Damage Head Start Programs.
If Congress approves such an amendment, teachers and staff working at Head Start programs housed in religious organizations could immediately be fired because of their religion. Tens of thousands of already at-risk children could lose their teachers. And Head Start could lose thousands of parent volunteers essential to the success of the program merely because those parents do not share the religious beliefs of the host federally-funded religious organization.
The Boehner Religious Discrimination Amendment is Divisive and Jeopardizes Head Start Reauthorization
The Head Start bill, in its current form, has wide, bipartisan support. The House Education and the Workforce Committee approved the reauthorization legislation by a unanimous vote – retaining existing civil rights and anti-discrimination provisions. These anti-discrimination provisions have enjoyed bipartisan support since President Richard Nixon signed them into law in 1972. Allowing religious discrimination in Head Start programs is controversial -- and will undoubtedly divide legislators as efforts to reauthorize the program move forward.
Two years ago, Congress was unsuccessful in an attempt to reauthorize Head Start due to an inability to reach consensus on a number of controversial amendments – including one similar to the Boehner Amendment – which was not included in the Senate version of this legislation. At that time, Members of the House engaged in heated debate over the anti-discrimination provisions, which had been eliminated during Education and the Workforce Committee markup. During the 108th Congress, on July 25, 2003, the House defeated an amendment, offered by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), to reinstate these civil rights provisions by a vote of 231-199, with only four Republicans voting to reinsert the anti-discrimination provisions and only seven Democrats voting against the amendment. The Senate reauthorization bill stalled; the Committee-approved bill was never received a vote on the floor.
In this Congress, the Boehner religious discrimination amendment would unnecessarily politicize what has been a remarkably bipartisan effort to reauthorize Head Start. On two previous occasions Rep. Boehner has voted to affirm the current anti-discrimination language as part of the Head Start reauthorization (the 1994 and 1998 reauthorizations). But now, as the Bush Administration aggressively promotes its Faith-Based Initiative, the Republican majority is seeking to repeal these longstanding civil rights provisions.
The notion that efforts to eliminate these civil rights provisions are politically motivated was recently affirmed in testimony by an unlikely source -- David Kuo, former Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In testimony, before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources on June 21, 2005, Kuo stated: “[M]any members of the President’s own party expressed equal parts apathy and antipathy towards this agenda. Money for the poor? Why, it will just get wasted, they said. We just need to cut the funds and let the private sector take over. We don’t need more funds, all we really need to do is make sure that we have a huge political fight over religious charities’ right to hire and fire based on their own faith. That way, as I have heard time and time again, Republicans will be seen as fighting for religions and Democrats will be seen as fight against it.”
Advocates for Head Start are justifiably concerned that the fight over religious hiring rights will jeopardize the reauthorization of the Head Start program this Congress. Head Start is too important to be held hostage to such naked partisan politics.
Proselytizing in Head Start Programs is Clearly Illegal
Supporters of the Boehner Amendment argue that discriminating in hiring is essential in the advancement of the mission and goals of faith-based Head Start programs – but they do not assert that proselytizing in Head Start programs is legal. Since there is no dispute that proselytizing and religious activities cannot be integrated into the highly-structured Head Start curriculum anyway, such justifications are wrong. The religious background of the staff and faculty of a Head Start program are irrelevant – since faith-based providers are not allowed to teach religion with federal funds anyway. While the faith tradition of an organization may motivate it to become a Head Start provider, religious beliefs clearly may not be taught with federal dollars.
Conclusion
The expected Boehner amendment to permit religious discrimination in hiring and firing for faith-based Head Start programs is divisive, unwise, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. Congress should reject efforts to burden this historic anti-poverty program with “a huge political fight.” The needs of disadvantaged preschool children and their families should not be held hostage to a partisan effort to inject religion into this essential federal program.
“While we have no interaction in creating general social policy, we do have conversations with members of Congress advising on technical issues. We work across all states, and are a contractor [sic] for 23 different states, so have a broad base of knowledge about what's happening across the nation for anyone drafting legislation at this time. As states and districts implement NCLB--in the earlier grades and potentially at the high school level--we encourage educators, administrators, and policy makers to consult with us. CTB/McGraw-Hill can provide valuable policy resources, technical assistance, and advice. We are not only the leading publisher of educational assessments in the United States; we are also a key resource for information on standards and testing. Our national team of Evaluation Consultants is involved at a grass-roots level in each state-- meeting with educators, helping districts and schools understand the impact of the new law, and offering solutions that meet both the letter and spirit of the law--to improve teaching and learning” (CBT/McGraw-Hill Inform-Online, Spring 2005).
Of the 1,000 tutoring providers on current state approval lists, 63 percent are private companies. In future years, the market for in-school services by for-profit companies is estimated to be $20 to $30 billion. One of the biggest tutoring companies, Sylvan Education Solutions, expected to tutor 20,000 students in 2004, at $20 to $40 an hour. Some companies try to take unfair advantage. In one case in North Carolina, a tutoring company submitted an invoice for providing 48 students a total of 56 hours of instruction at a cost of $37,455—a rate of $674 an hour.It would seem, then, that NCLB's impossible demands that are advertised as accountability, and the draconian sanctions that are offered as remedies, really only apply to those public institutions that are perceived to be in need of extremist makeovers or outright replacement. Left immune from these relentless, bare-knuckled policies are those who are sure to profit from the resulting carnage of what was once the American public education system.
I hope you are doing well. I'm still plodding along at una in
grad school. I'm getting close to student teaching, though.
I'm writing you because I need some advice. I think I told
you, but I know you have a lot to remember, I feel called
to teach in an inner-city school. I've been taking every
opportunity I can in classes to do projects that will be useful
to me once I am there. I've been studying a lot about race
and how white teachers further alienate minority students.
I am terribly conscious of this, and I'm taking every
opportunity to figure out how to NOT be like this. I'm
beginning to see this more and more everyday just by
listening to white teachers who are so narrow-minded in
their thinking and teaching. Anyway, I have a professor,
who I might add reminds me a lot of you, who is requiring
us to observe in the schools. I thought it would be
particularly useful for me to observe in a predominantly
black school in the county in which I grew up. While you
were in Huntsville did you hear of (name withheld)
in Lawrence County?
That is where I observed today.
I left in tears. The teacher I sat in with told me that
the 8th graders did not have enough books in order for them
to take them home, and the 10th graders didn't have any.
I asked her why, and she said that the board of ed told her
they couldn't do anything else for them. She very frankly
told me that they didn't seem to care about the black children.
I asked her what I could do. She told me that if I wanted
to say something to someone to be her guest and use her name
if I wanted to. This really concerns and upsets me. It's
2005 for crying out loud!!!!! What should I do? My mom told
me to call the candidate for superintendent who lost and
talk to him because he really liked stirring things up.
I know I'm meant to do something with this information. I
completely believe in fate. I'm going back out to help this
teacher tomorrow. The school recently merged and became
(name withheld), and so they had to create a new
library for the high school. The district began the bookshelves
but didn't finish them.!
She says she has thousands of books with no where to put them.
Are there any organizations I could write a grant proposal
to in order to help? I need a starting point, and I knew you
could help me.
Thanks so much, Dr. Horn. I have never forgotten how much you
inspired me or the impact you had on shaping how I believe.
My beliefs were always there, but you helped bring them out,
shape them, and you gave me the courage to speak out about
them.