A Series on Resisting the Threat to Public Education: all Americans to join the fight against the corporate agenda for public schools
Harman, Susan & Meier, Deborah
TOO MANY Americans have bought into the idea that most of our nation's problems can be blamed on our school system, and that the only way to solve them is through "school reform." It's an old...
...We believe that—although schools cannot do it all— there is a great deal to be learned from research about what a progressive agenda for school reform might look like...
...Why is the economy in bad shape...
...students in the international competitions...
...Together they have relentlessly sold a story that has wasted our time, energy, and resources and pointed us in the wrong direction...
...The slogan about leaving no child behind may be grandiose, but it is surely a worthwhile goal...
...Why do poor and minority children score so much lower on tests than better-off white children (the notorious "achievement gap...
...Why are so many young African Americans and Latinos in prison...
...The awarding of six billion dollars in NCLB grants for the Reading First program has been the object of investigation by the U.S...
...Look at the lousy math scores of U.S...
...It's an old story, but it became the bipartisan line in 1983 with the publication of A Nation at Risk and came to fruition in the catastrophic No Child Left Behind Act of 2001...
...this is the history of NCLB...
...Beginning in August, other articles have appeared online, including Kathy Emery's documentation of the agenda of the corporate wing of the reform juggernaut...
...DEBORAH MEIER is a senior scholar at New York University and has spent the past forty-five years as a public school educator, activist, and writer...
...It is our hope that policymakers and other citizens can use this information to mobilize in resisting this attack on our public education system and democracy...
...No matter what the question is, these alarmists have the answer...
...The corporate agenda was implemented quite effectively under Governor George W. Bush in Texas and came to be known hyperbolically as the "Texas Miracle," because it apparently resulted in high test scores, high graduation rates, low dropout rates, and a narDISSENT / Fall 2008 n 79 RECLAIMING EDUCATION rowing "achievement gap" between students of color and whites...
...Teachers are engaging in the "soft bigotry of low expectations" and have allowed some students to fail to meet high standards without any consequences...
...SUSAN HARMAN is a semi-retired principal, teacher, psychologist, and writer, and the Coordinator of Ca1CARE, the California resistance to misunderstood standards and high-stakes testing...
...There will continue to be other online pieces documenting the destructive impact and current disarray of the coalition that brought us NCLB...
...Many researchers have carefully examined, challenged, and refuted various aspects of this radical reform agenda, and their arguments have appeared in a variety of academic journals and books, but only rarely have they been published in magazines aimed at a general public...
...Schools help promote a bleeding heart, welfare state mentality, and we need to reform our accountability measures...
...The 1983 assault of A Nation at Risk (ANAR) is the subject of Gerald Bracey's opening critique in this issue of Dissent...
...False stories lead to false solutions...
...Department of Education inspector general's office...
...Reading First's dismal record has been well documented, and for fiscal year 2008 Congress cut its funding by 61 percent...
...Readers will find a critique of the program by Stephen Krashen online as well as another article by Gerald Bracey on international comparisons of test scores and what they do and don't mean about our schools...
...To the contrary, these radical reforms were intended by some of their leading proponents to dismantle our public education system, one of the hallmarks of our democracy, and replace it with a market system that is, by its nature, unaccountable to those it serves...
...In these pages we intend to connect the dots between the many pieces of research, thus demonstrating that the educational "crisis" is not what the public has been led to think it is, that almost no research supports ongoing federal policies, that the media have been irresponsible and complicit in hiding the truth, that the proposed solutions are unsupported and dangerous, and that the devastating consequences are not "unintended...
...We hope that each account will help readers make connections between the current wave of education reform and the larger attack on public institutions and public life...
...An odd alliance pulled this story together, led by corporate interests, neoconservatives, and the media, and joined by civil rights organizations, activists, some institutional liberals (such as Senator Ted Kennedy), and some school leaders eager for the attention that brings money...
...Why are students unprepared to accept the responsibilities of adult citizenship (voting, earning a good living, taking care of their children...
...In this issue, Dissent begins a series of articles, some of which will appear in print, others on its Web site, in which we will offer a different story...
...But before we knew how fraudulent the Texas data were, Bush exported his "miracle" to Washington, D.C., and forced it on the entire country as the 2001 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB...
...They didn't learn how to read in school...
...The "miracle" turned out to be a mirage, as Linda McNeil argued online in her contribution to this series...
...As a result, the fact that much of their research calls into question the rationale behind NCLB remains a well-kept secret...
Vol. 55 • September 2008 • No. 4
