Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Yvonne elected!
We are very lucky to have elected a new leader in our profession who has both the knowledge and courage to stand up for what is right for Kids! Congratulations go to concerned educator, Yvonne, Vice-President elect, & NCTE President in 2010. Thank goodness we have someone in a leadership position who will speak against the insanity of NCLB and Reading First!
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3 comments:
I'll go down trying!
Besides, I have nothing to loose and even more importantly nothing to gain. Oh the joys of not being in an institution.
One of the main reasons I quit higher education, is because I could not support high stakes testing, DIBELS, scripted lessons, Reading First, and all the nonsense related to the NCLB Act. I needed to be free from being "gagged" even if I was alone. And guess what I am not alone! More and more people, even those who at one point thought NCLB and high stakes testing were good ideas, are slowly understanding the travesties of that kind of thinking.
Unfortunately the politicos, the standardistos, and the business folks will continue to cling on to NCLB and all that nonsense. They are getting rich off the backs of our young. They are collecting political favors from one another. Those who are making huge amounts of money won't give up. Those who want to control the minds of our young won't give up.
Thus, we have to continue to work together and point out all the discrepancies, travesties, and injustices that are going on because of NCLB, a bad act meant to control, put money into the pockets of the corporate testing companies, disempower teachers, and take apart piece by piece our public education system by using fear and punishment. We cannot stop. Too much is at risk. Democracy is just plain hard work.
NCLB, in reality, was crafted to undermine the public education system of this country. It was fashioned to privatize education. And guess what? Since NCLB, our country's public educational system has indeed gone backwards.
The standardistos, business folks, and politicos would like to lead us, the citizens, to believe that our schools are not up to par, because of our teachers. This is not true. If one carefully examines the facts, the correlation is simple. NCLB = weaker schools. The standardistos, business folks, and politicos would like us to think that they have the answers and can save us by fashioning even more standards and subjecting our young to even more tests. This is a fallacy. They made the problem and they continue to be the problem. It's that simple.
Unfortunately, there are those who refuse to contemplate or accept this fact - this universe is ever evolving, and it is to our best interest to evolve towards freedom and diversity for these are assets.
Schools should not be big businesses or even little businesses. The notion of AYP is nuts, and being "at grade level" flies on the face of basic mathematical principles. Being at grade level means average and is based on a normal curve. Lake Wobegon is a fictional place that Keillor made up and he poked fun at Lake Wobegon.
Quote:
"In 1987, John Cannell completed a study later popularized as the Lake Woebegone effect. He reported the statistically impossible finding that all states claimed average student test scores above the national norm. In addition to teaching for the test, he concluded that some teachers encouraged low-ability students to be absent on test days, helped students take the test and allowed outright cheating."
—Sheila C. McCowan, "Using standardized test scores to compare schools is unfair," Buffalo News, July 21, 1999
Link: http://www.wordspy.com/words/LakeWobegoneffect.asp
Schools should not be factories where our young are die-pressed. Egads, our students are different-hooray! Our students have special gifts and interests. Society, especially one that is democratic, should use these gifts and interests of our diverse student population and rejoice in this diversity. Diversity is what made this country strong! Imagine if we didn't have an Einstein, who by the way didn't do well in school, and others like him. What a sorry state this country would be in. I can't imagine not having differing perspectives, for these different perspectives offer an opportunity to examine, to explore, to move ahead.
Schools should LEAD OUT not hem in and stifle.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan
WHOO-HOO! Congradulations!
Okay, but we are together on this one. I can't do this alone!
Yvonne
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