E Wayne Ross – Page 137 – Critical Theories in Education

British Columbia: Teachers poised to strike

The British Columbia Teachers Federation—armed with an overwhelming mandate from its 42,000 members—announced plans last week for escalating job actions, culminating in an full-scale walk out by October 24.

Starting today (Sept 28) teachers will begin a modest job action aimed at inconveniencing administrators, by refusing to supervise students outside of class, except voluntary extra-curriculars, attend management meetings or complete report cards.

If there is no progress in contract talks by October 11, the teachers union will launch rotating strikes around the province, which will be followed by a full strike on October 24.

Because the Liberal government of BC has declared education an essential service, the BC Labour Relations Board will rule on what level of teaching would have to be maintained during a strike. The BCTF has not indicated if it will or will not abide by the rulings made the Labour Board.

Below are links to a number of articles from the national and local press, was well as the BCTF regarding the job actions/strikes:

The Province: Teachers take action today (Sept 28)

Why teachers are primed to strike (Sept 28)

BCTF: Teachers take a stand to restore services (Sept 28)

BCTF: BC Premier Gordon Campbell blames schools boards (Sept 28)

BCTF: A message to parents from your children’s teachers

Video message from BCTF president Jinny Sims (Sept 27)

Vancouver Sun: BCTF needs a lesson in marketplace competition (Sept 27)

Globe and Mail: B.C. teachers poised to strike (Sept 24)

Teachers vote 88.4% for strike (Sept 24)Teachers take action today
They refuse to supervise kids, write reports

Elaine O’Connor, with a file by Ian Bailey
The Province

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

B.C. teachers begin job action today by withdrawing administrative and supervisory duties.

It’s not supposed to impact students, but that’s not the case in some districts.

In districts with adequate non-union and board staff, schools are calling on principals, vice-principals and district staff to supervise students before and after school, and during recess and lunch.

But smaller districts are already overhauling their school day due to job action. Students in Fort Nelson schools, for example, will see recess eliminated, lunch hour shortened and the school day cut because the district doesn’t have the extra staff to take on supervisory duties.

“We’re a small district,” said Diana Samchuck, superintendent for the five-school, 1,177-student district.

“The fear is someone will be out on duty who is not used to doing student supervision and they’ll be thinking of their primary job task and not see something and we’ll have an accident on our hands.”

In Kelowna, the district has cancelled recess, so all students will be dismissed 15 minutes early.

In the first stage of B.C.-wide job action, teachers are refusing to supervise students outside of class, except voluntary extra-curriculars, attend management meetings or complete report cards.

Vancouver’s University Hill principal Jill Philipchuck said she, her vice-principal, and a district staffer will watch the 525 students over lunch. But it’s staff relations, not extra work, that are her big concern.

“Because teachers are not attending meetings, it makes it difficult to work as a team and to work collaboratively,” she said. “We may need to make a lot more unilateral decisions.”

The B.C. Teachers Federation continues to talk with the employer. BCTF reps met with Associate Deputy Minister of Labour Rick Connolly again yesterday to try to find common ground.

But Premier Gordon Campbell hinted that legislating teachers back to work might be the only solution.

“Legislation is always an option, and unfortunately for us in British Columbia it’s always been required since province-wide bargaining was brought in. We were hopeful the BCTF, the union and the employers would be able to come to a resolution. So far they haven’t been able to,” Campbell told The Province.

B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils past-president Terry Watson said parents are nervous.

“The first round includes items not supposed to affect students in classrooms, but they do affect who is supervising the kids. That’s a change parents are anxious about.”

Surrey’s Christina Woodworth has a six-year-old at James Ardiel Elementary and a 12-year-old at Como Lake Middle School in Coquitlam. She’s frustrated by the lack of information about school plans and concerned about interim supervision.

“You’ve got 300 kids on a school ground. They may not be able to recognize the different dangers that are out there,” she said.

eoconnor@png.canwest.com
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From TheTyee.ca
Why Teachers Are Primed to Strike

Link Address: http://www.thetyee.ca/Views/2005/09/26/Teachersstrike
Published: 2005-09-26 23:00:00
By John Malcolmson

TheTyee.ca

Campbell government’s freeze strategy ignores widening salary gap.

BC teachers have conducted a province-wide strike vote and given their leaders a mandate to initiate job action. Planned strike action is aimed at pressuring the employer and the government to negotiate a new collective agreement. Teachers have worked without a contract since the last one expired in June of 2004.

Labour disputes tend to be messy situations. In the course of collective bargaining and the run-up to a strike situation, many issues get thrown into the mix. Within the current context, however, two “big picture” issues come to the fore.

Big issue #1: Salaries

First is the question of salary. Teachers expect to receive a “reasonable” increase in the new agreement. The employer, backed by government, is determined to hold the line on any hike for teachers. This would freeze teachers’ salaries for all of this past year and at least an additional year.

It is useful to look at the salary increase issue in the context of recent negotiation experiences and outcomes. The last collective agreement ran three years before ending in June of 2004. BC’s newly-elected liberal government imposed that agreement after contract negotiations became deadlocked. In it, teachers got 2.5 percent increases in each of three years. Consumer prices in Vancouver and BC rose at virtually the same rate over that period so real salary levels stayed near-constant.

If one goes back farther in time, a different picture emerges. A Category 5 Vancouver teacher earning the maximum salary saw her earnings grow just under 10 percent between June of 1998 and June of 2004. Prices over that period increased at a faster rate and have climbed another 1.5 percent in the past school year. What this means is that earnings lag inflation by about four percent over the last seven years. This is a significant but not enormous drop. However, what galls teachers is the fact that a salary freeze would be imposed at a time when economic growth, rising energy prices and increased federal transfers have pushed BC’s public accounts far into the black. And current forecasts have the province’s finances staying out of deficit territory over the full term of a new collective agreement.

So, if government can afford to reduce corporate taxes and put more cash in the pockets of big business, why is it loathe to pay teachers a “reasonable” salary increase? If it can put more money into roads, buildings and infrastructure, why not into supporting those who makes our public services work?

An aging teacher staff

These questions acquire a different urgency when looked at in light of the ongoing ageing of BC’s teacher population. At the start of 2003/04, almost two-thirds of our teachers were over age 45 and a full 43 percent of BC teachers were aged 50 plus. The latter group is within five years of possible retirement. Given recent layoffs of younger teachers having less seniority, that percentage is almost surely higher today.

BC’s post-secondary system does not graduate anywhere near the volume of education students to offset this impending attrition. Years of compressed funding at colleges and universities have left these institutions ill-prepared to meet the challenge of supplying enough teacher replacements to address staffing needs for the near-future.

The advancing retirement bulge means that we will have to attract and retain new BC grads here as well as compete nationally and beyond for more bodies if we are to replenish teachers’ ranks. Historically, this has been the approach BC has taken to address this need. A sizeable chunk of BC’s teachers were educated elsewhere in Canada and many internationally. They migrated here to start or continue their teaching careers.

This “strategy” may have worked in the past. However, today’s teachers are aging everywhere in Canada. School authorities and provincial ministries across the country all face a need to replace the high volume of educators expected to exit the system in the coming decade. It is a classic situation where demand will increase at a rate outstripping available supply. The winners in this kind of market scenario will be those offering, guess what — superior salaries, good pensions (which are tied to salaries) and decent career working conditions.

It is for reasons like this that the BCTF is working to focus attention on the yawning teacher salary gap between cities like Vancouver and urban centers in provinces like Alberta and Ontario. A just-published report by staff researcher Colleen Hawkey and titled “Inter-city Teacher Salary Comparisons, 2005-07” provides some startling comparisons with what teachers earn in other parts of the country.

For example, a new Category 5 teacher in Vancouver this September actually earns $329 more than her counterpart in Toronto, but after 10 years on the job, will trail the annual Toronto salary by almost $10,000. The same Vancouver teacher lags her starting colleague in Edmonton by more than $5,600, a gap which doubles in size over the next decade of movement up the experience grid.

These gaps are calculated for the current year only. They will grow in size if a salary freeze is imposed in BC. This is because teachers’ salaries are not frozen in these other jurisdictions.

If a new Alberta teacher can earn thousands more starting out in Edmonton, why make the trek to BC? Or, if a young teacher is struggling to pay the bills here in this province, why wouldn’t she take a long and hard look at a Toronto or Ottawa career that promises $300,000 more in lifetime earnings and a better pension to boot? There are surely good reasons these folks might come to or remain in BC, but we would do well remembering that nice scenery and Lotusland winters will only go so far.

Big Issue #2: Working and learning conditions

The second “big picture” issue referenced at the start concerns working conditions. In crucial respects, this is the real story of the current contract stand-off. BC has seen a wholesale deterioration in school working conditions since the last imposed settlement stripped out class size and staffing provisions.

In the past four years, salary and other cost increases have forced our school system to cannibalize itself. Since negotiating working conditions was made ultra vires and in the face of ongoing budget restrictions, class sizes have increased and thousands of teachers have been let go. Schools have become more difficult places to work and, for students, more difficult places to get an education.

This year, the province pumped an additional $150 million into school operating budgets. Judging from its strategy at the bargaining table, the Ministries of Finance, Education and Treasury Board are eager not to let much of this increase find its way into the pockets of teachers or other staff.

Back to freeze mode

School budgets are projected to re-enter freeze mode next year and remain there into 2007/08. This much was re-affirmed last week in Carole Taylor’s budget. Her speech to the legislature mentioned the word “education” only once, in the context of plans to build new relationships with First Nations.

Accompanying budget documents confirm that last spring’s forecast of a two-year school funding freeze remains the Liberal party line.

What better way to lock the freeze down than to put the clamps on a teacher salary bill which currently accounts for more than a half of all public school spending? And what better tool to free up money for other priorities, including corporate tax cuts, than to engineer a multi-year respite from rising cost pressure on the school salary front? Many parents and other members of the public may not relish the prospect of a school shutdown this fall. However, we would all do well to remember that, as messy as labour negotiations are, they provide a vital forum for raising and resolving issues necessary for our schools to adapt for the future. By short-circuiting this process, a legislated settlement blocks such adaptation. Given the issues at stake, we will all lose with that outcome.

John Malcolmson is a consulting sociologist doing research and evaluation in the fields of public education and education finance, literacy, labour relations, justice issues and social policy. He publishes the digital newsletter Finance Watch, where a version of this appeared. To subscribe, email financewatch@shaw.ca
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Wednesday » September 28 » 2005

BCTF needs a lesson in marketplace competition

Michael Campbell
Vancouver Sun

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

You know things are a bit whacky in the ongoing teachers’ labour dispute when the lawyer for the BCTF argues in front of the Labour Relations Board that there is no evidence to suggest that lengthy disruptions or lockouts do long-term damage to education. Lawyer Diane MacDonald is quoted as telling the B.C. Labour Relations Board: “We have had job actions in the past that have been up to three months’ duration without significant impact on the student body.”

Given that my wife and many dear friends are teachers, I think it’s a safe bet to say that if I argued the same thing at home I’d get into a little hot water. Can you imagine how popular I’d be if I said to my wife: ‘Why don’t you phone in sick for a couple of weeks. After all, it won’t make any difference to the kids’ education.’ Not to get into too many personal details, but the response wouldn’t be pretty.

We find ourselves in this bizarre world where a BCTF lawyer is arguing that the federation’s own members aren’t necessary for significant periods of time when it comes to students’ education, while the Ministry of Education argues that they are. Talk about role reversal.

Given that this is the calibre of discussion, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised when I hear the BCTF argue that teachers’ wages must be competitive with Alberta. Even if the BCTF’s demand for a salary increase of 15 per cent over three years is accepted, it will put teachers with 12 years experience earning $73,298, which is about $4,700 less than their counterparts in Edmonton.

I appreciate that salaries do not make up the entire teacher compensation package — which also includes sick days, other forms of paid leave, employer pension contributions, paid vacation, dental and medical benefits. But the point is that, in this one area, the BCTF believes that being competitive is important. As BCTF head Jinny Sims says: “We certainly hope that the employer will consider the need to offer competitive salaries to attract bright graduates and to keep experienced classroom teachers in B.C.”

The B.C. Business Council couldn’t have said it better. The difference is that, for the BCTF, the importance of being competitive with other jurisdictions stops with teachers’ salaries, and certainly doesn’t extend to issues like tax rates, especially for business.

And this brain cramp is not unique to the BCTF. It seems to be a regular feature in the world view of many major unions.

Canada’s largest private-sector union, the Canadian Auto Workers, argues that special tax breaks in the form of subsidies are needed for big U.S. auto manufacturers in order to encourage investment in Canadian plants. Yet they strongly oppose corporate tax reductions in other sectors. We also have the NDP opposed to lowering business taxes, yet supporting special tax breaks for major American and Canadian film companies. Organized labour supports special tax breaks for labour-sponsored mutual funds, while opposing business tax reductions in other areas.

The intellectual inconsistency is breathtaking. The appreciation for the need to be competitive in terms of wages, tax rates and regulatory environment should not be confined to few self-serving areas. All Canadians will benefit when a broader policy approach toward competitiveness is adopted that extends past the concerns of a few special interests in business or labour.

Michael Campbell’s Money Talks radio show can be heard on CKNW 980 on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.

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B.C. teachers poised to strike
Union announces escalating job action; province vows to prevent class disruptions
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
Saturday, September 24, 2005 Page S1

VANCOUVER — Armed with an overwhelming strike mandate, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation unveiled plans yesterday for escalating job action by the province’s 42,000 public school teachers, culminating in an all-out walkout by Oct. 24.

The Liberal government immediately vowed to prevent any disruption of school classrooms, setting the stage for yet another bitter showdown between the long-standing adversaries.

The wide gulf between the two sides was underscored later in the day when, for the first time in the long dispute, the BCTF disclosed its salary demands.

The union is seeking annual wage increases of 4, 5 and 6 per cent over three years, a direct challenge to the government’s two-year, mandated wage freeze for all public-sector employees.

“Teachers need and deserve a reasonable salary increase,” said a BCTF bargaining bulletin, arguing that pay hikes are justified by cost-of-living increases and a widening wage gap between B.C. teachers and their counterparts in Alberta and Ontario.

Further inflaming the pending confrontation is the teachers’ determination to roll back Liberal legislation banning them from negotiating class sizes. The union won that right from the previous NDP government in return for giving up a wage increase.

Education Minister Shirley Bond said the government is committed to keep the schools running, despite the strike plans.

“Education is absolutely essential . . . and we will consider all of our options to make sure that students stay in the classroom,” Ms. Bond declared yesterday, less than an hour after BCTF president Jinny Sims announced the union’s vote and strike strategy.

She charged that the teachers union has stalled attempts to negotiate a new collective agreement so it can be in a position to strike this fall.

“I am continually disappointed by the practices that are being engaged in by the teachers,” said Ms. Bond, noting that a government-appointed fact-finder is meeting with union and school trustee negotiators.

The teachers’ strike vote was 88.4-per-cent in favour, with about 80 per cent of the union membership taking part.

“This is a historic day for teachers,” Ms. Sims said.

“We have voted yes to restore student learning conditions to where they were in 2002.

“Since then, they have deteriorated incredibly, and our bargaining rights were legislated away. . . .We know that students have always benefited when teachers take a stand.”

Starting Tuesday, teachers intend to begin modest job action aimed at inconveniencing administrators.

That would include refusing mandated supervision outside regular classroom hours and not submitting student attendance information.

If there is no progress by Oct. 11, the teachers union will launch rotating strikes around the province, followed by a full strike on Oct. 24.

Complicating the situation, however, is how far the teachers can legally withdraw their services.

Education is included under the province’s essential services legislation, so it is up to the B.C. Labour Relations Board to rule on what level of teaching would have to be maintained during a strike.

Ms. Sims was coy on whether the union would comply with LRB restrictions.

“The membership will make that decision,” she said. “The labour board has not yet made any rulings. This is our action plan and we will proceed accordingly.”

Also at the teachers news conference was Leann Buteau, a Vancouver high-school teacher working with special-needs students and the mother of a young daughter with learning disabilities.

Ms. Buteau said she voted to back strike action to improve conditions for students with learning problems. She said her high school has 50 students with difficulties, but funds for only five psycho-educational assessments a year.

Hugh Finlayson, CEO of the B.C. Public School Employers Association, said government intervention may be the only way to solve the bargaining impasse with the BCTF.

“If a dispute is intractable, if mediation doesn’t work, then you have to take action. As it sits right now, this is an intractable dispute.”
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Teachers vote 88.4% for strike
Parents brace for escalating measures

Janet Steffenhagen; With a file from Jennifer Chen
Vancouver Sun

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Teachers are seeking a 15-per-cent wage increase over three years and will begin job action in public schools next week that will affect administrators but not students, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation announced Friday.

But that limited action will escalate to rotating strikes starting Oct. 11 and a full-scale, province-wide walkout Oct. 24 if there is not significant progress at the bargaining table in the meantime, BCTF president Jinny Sims told a news conference.

She wouldn’t say where the rotating strikes would begin but promised to give parents 72-hours notice.

“It’s a historic day for teachers in British Columbia,” Sims said, noting that 80 per cent of the union’s 42,000 members participated in a strike vote this week and 88 per cent them — 27,990 — were in favour of job action. “I am proud of our members today — of their courage and their commitment.”

The BCTF said in a news release that it is seeking wage increases of four per cent in 2004 (its last contract expired in June of that year), five per cent in 2005 and six per cent in 2006.

The government has declared that teachers, like other public servants, will get nothing in 2004 or 2005.

Sims said that during the first phase of teachers’ job action, classroom instruction will continue but teachers won’t supervise students outside of class, attend meetings with management, send attendance reports to the office or communicate with principals and vice-principals. Extra-curricular activities will not be affected, Sims said.

The union originally announced that phase one job action would start Tuesday. But it took the plan to the B.C. Labour Relations Board for approval Friday night, and it was not clear when the board would grant approval, possibly delaying the start of job action until Wednesday

Education Minister Shirley Bond, responding to the union’s announcement, said her government intends to keep students in class, but she would not say whether that means there will be a back-to-work order.

“I remain committed, as does this government, to saying education is absolutely essential . . . and we’re going to make sure that students stay in classrooms.”

Sims said teachers have three goals in negotiations: the restoration of learning conditions that were in place in 2002, a “reasonable” wage increase and the return of full bargaining rights, which were curtailed in 2001 when the Liberals passed a law declaring education an essential service.

That law prohibits a withdrawal of services that would seriously disrupt the education program. The Labour Relations Board has been holding hearings — which are expected to resume Monday — to determine what level of job action is permitted before instructional services is seriously disrupted.

Sims hotly rejected a suggestion from the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, which bargains for the province’s 60 school boards, that union requests for contract improvements and a pay hike would boost education spending by 35 per cent a year.

“That’s a totally bogus figure,” she said. “It’s a fabrication.”

The 35 per cent figure cited by the employer includes not only the three-year, 15-per-cent wage increase put forward by teachers, but also other proposals currently on the negotiation table, such as an early retirement incentive package.

Sims said earlier that an improvement in classroom conditions is the top priority, with 98 per cent of respondents to a recent union survey indicating they want learning conditions enshrined in their contract as they were in early 2002. That included class-size limits, restrictions on the number of special-needs students in any one class and a requirement that schools have a certain number of specialty teachers — such as librarians, counsellors and ESL teachers — based on student numbers.

Leann Buteau, a teacher at Gladstone secondary in Vancouver, said she voted for a strike after seeing 38 students in a History 12 class, including six with severe learning disabilities. The class has desks for 26 students and textbooks for 24. As well, there are 50 students waiting for psycho-education assessments, but only five can be assessed each year, she said.

“It was time for me to stand up and speak out for all of our students’ learning conditions. That’s why I voted yes.”

Although teachers are ready to strike, Sims said they are also prepared to bargain at any time. She described the appointment of deputy labour minister Rick Connolly as a fact-finder as “a ray of hope.” He has been asked to meet the parties, determine if a negotiated settlement is possible and report to government by Sept. 30.

Bond said she was disappointed the union did not wait for Connolly to finish his work or the labour relations board to issue its ruling on essential services before announcing strike plans.

Many parents picking up their children at Lord Roberts elementary Friday supported the teachers’ proposed strike.

The teachers’ call for higher salaries and improved conditions in schools seems fair, said Zoran Jermilov, standing with his 10-year-old daughter and six-year-old son. “For example, this school has only one telephone for the whole school,” he said.

jsteffenhagen@png.canwest.com

ACTION PLAN

If there is no major progress in bargaining, BCTF president Jinny Sims, pictured above, promised these measures Friday:

FROM This Tuesday No out-of-class student supervision. No meetings with management. No attendance reports. No communication with principals.

Tuesday Oct. 11 Rotating strikes

Monday Oct. 24 Full-scale, province-wide walkout.

WHAT IT WOULD COST

According to figures provided by the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, the total salary paid out to the province’s 33,314 full-time and part-time teachers in 2004/05 equaled $1.977 billion.

p A four per cent increase to that total would add $79 million, bringing the teacher’s payroll to $2.056 billion in the first year of the contract.

p A five per cent increase would cost a further $103 million, for a total payroll of $2.158 billion in the second year of the contract.

p A six per cent increase would cost a further $130 million, for a total payroll of $2.288 billion in the third year of the contract.

Ran with fact box “Action Plan” and “What It Would Cost”,which has been appended to the end of the story. Also See:Editorial, Letters, C6

Changing bad education policy

The Forum for Education and Democracy has a nice article by Ann Cook and Phyllis Tashlik summarizing how parents, students, and educators in New York State battled and won a victory against perhaps the most committed proponent of test-driven education in the US, New York State Education commissioner Rick Mills.

While the outcome in NYS was limited to students in publicly supported alternative schools, this is a story of how organizing and political pressure can work to change bad education policies, which should give hope to others, like the folks in California who were rallying against high school exit exams over this past weekend.

Pennsylvania: Evolution lawsuit

http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/10/07/id

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2002522889_evolution27.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-na-dover26sep26,1,4383005.story?coll=la-news-learning

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/05275/581245.stm

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/12797106.htm

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/12793013.htm
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051001/INTELLIGENT01/TPEducation/

Does God wear a lab coat?
The latest round in the culture wars pits Christians advocating ‘intelligent design’ against secular parents who want kids taught evolution only. Is there a middle ground? SHAWN McCARTHY surveys the view from Harrisburg, Pa.
By SHAWN MCCARTHY
Saturday, October 1, 2005 Page F3

Brown University professor Kenneth Miller proclaimed from the witness stand this week that he is a Christian Darwinist — a position that would be considered oxymoronic by more extreme partisans in the acrimonious debate over the teaching of biology in the United States.

Mr. Miller was the first witness in the case of Kitzmiller v. the Dover District School Board in Pennsylvania, the latest U.S. legal battle pitting Christian opponents of evolutionary theory against advocates of separation of church and state.

Eleven parents are suing the Dover school board for introducing the concept of “intelligent design” — which holds that the world was created by an “intelligent designer” who set evolution in motion — into biology class. The parents argue that intelligent design is a thinly disguised version of creationist theology and, as such, does not belong in a public-school science class.

But the Kitzmiller case is not just a scene from the current culture wars, sparked by the rising aggressiveness of U.S. fundamentalist Christians. It is a 21st-century instalment of the centuries-old contest between religion and science, a conflict that most famously led to the trial of Galileo Galilei by the 17th-century Inquisition.

Prominent scientists have often dismissed traditional religion as mere mythology and superstition, just as Christian leaders have denounced evolutionary biology as godless and evil.

On the stand this week, Mr. Miller sought to bridge those two solitudes, arguing that society should render unto science that which is scientific — and leave matters of faith to religion.

A Roman Catholic who co-wrote the leading biology textbook in the United States, Mr. Miller insisted there was no conflict between faith and science. “I believe not only are they compatible, but they are complementary,” he said.

He is a fervent opponent of the intelligent-design movement, the latest salvo in Christianity’s 146-year-old war on Charles Darwin’s theory that all species evolved from a single life form over billions of years through a process of natural selection.

He testified that the movement’s reliance on a supernatural designer is unscientific. But he criticized prominent Darwinists who fail to distinguish between scientific theory and philosophical speculation when they assert that the theory of evolution reveals a godless universe that is unfolding in a random manner.

“I believe God is the author of all things, seen and unseen, and that would include the laws of physics and chemistry,” he told the Federal Court.

But where Mr. Miller sees an unseen planner, other scientists perceive no plan at all, other than nature’s laws. Since it was first advanced in the mid-19th century, Darwinism has been extended beyond the realm of natural science and — through Social Darwinism — become associated with a mechanistic world view that sees man bound by laws of natural selection and survival of the fittest.

Richard Dawkins, the Oxford University zoologist and prominent evolutionary theorist, summed up this worldview in his 1986 classic, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

Mr. Dawkins dismissed religion as “the big lie.”

Theistic scientists argue that thinkers like Mr. Dawkins have poisoned the well of public discourse by creating the impression among lay people that the evolutionary theory necessarily entails atheism. And in a country like the United States, where 78 per cent of poll respondents identify themselves as believers, such a perception is bound to cause problems.

“In the context of the war between evolution and creationism in the United States, the problem is perhaps less with believers who read the Bible as a literal account of creation, and more with believers who read Richard Dawkins as a literal account of evolution,” said William Grassie, executive director of the Metanexus Institute, a Philadelphia-based think-tank dedicated to bridging the worlds of religion and science.

Mr. Dawkins took his ironic title, The Blind Watchmaker, from an early version of intelligent-design theory espoused in 1802 by English cleric William Paley, who argued that, much as a watch suggests the existence of a watchmaker, the evidence of complex design in the universe indicates the existence of a designer — that is, God.

Current proponents of intelligent-design theory resurrect Mr. Paley’s watchmaker analogy by arguing that evolution fails to account for exquisitely complex organisms in nature. That complexity, they argue, reveals the existence of a designer.

The movement to promote intellectual design has its genesis in the creationist battles that have been waged throughout the United States. In a 1987 ruling in Edwards v. Aguillard, the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited the teaching of creationism — a literal biblical account of man’s origins — on the grounds that it was a sectarian religious belief.

As a result, proponents have refined their approach to offer an alternative that does not directly mention God. Mainstream scientists have overwhelmingly rejected intelligent-design theory as unsupportable and untestable.

William Behe, a biologist at Lehigh University who will testify for the school board at the Kitzmiller trial, argues that throughout nature, scientists can see examples of organism that are “irreducibly complex” and could not have been the product of evolutionary processes alone.

But for every one of the examples Mr. Behe provides, Mr. Miller suggests evidence that they are not at all “irreducible” — but comprise constituent parts that had different functions before their appearance in particular organisms.

In the intelligent-design textbook, Of Pandas and People, which the Dover board purchased and recommended students read outside the classroom, authors Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon argue that evolution has failed to provide answers to key questions such as the beginning of life from an inanimate world, or the differentiation of species through a slow mutation process.

Robert Pennock a professor of philosophy, science and technology at Michigan State University, testified this week that scientists continue to work on the unanswered questions of evolutionary theory — but that those gaps do not imply a supernatural answer.

The intelligent-design movement, which is largely backed by fundamentalist Christians, appeared to receive some support this summer when a Roman Catholic cardinal wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times criticizing “neo-Darwinism.”

Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna and lead editor of the 1992 Catholic catechism, wrote that neo-Darwinism — described as “an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” — is incompatible with church teaching.

Mr. Miller rebutted his coreligionist, saying he was mistaken to assert that modern Darwinism is inherently atheistic because it was guided by random variation and natural selection.

“Biological evolution fits neatly into a traditional Catholic understanding of how contingent natural processes can be seen as part of God’s plan,” Mr. Miller wrote in reply to Cardinal Schonborn, “while ‘evolutionist’ philosophies that deny the Divine do not.”

Shawn McCarthy is The Globe and Mail’s New York City bureau chief.

Analysis: ‘Intelligent design’ case to undergo 2-pronged test

Sunday, October 02, 2005

By Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the parlance of the sports world, defense attorneys in the federal “intelligent design” trial will have to come from behind when testimony resumes this week.

They’ll have a tough time overcoming the first week of testimony, in which plaintiffs and former board members from Dover Area School District said the school board was motivated by religion when it changed its biology curriculum last year.

The case pits the school district against 11 plaintiffs, who believe that intelligent design — a concept that says biological complexity presents evidence of a designer — is a Trojan horse that brings God into public schools.

First Amendment professors and constitutional law attorneys following the case seem to agree. After the trial’s first week, it appeared that certain board members were motivated by religion, and not an educational purpose, when they amended the curriculum to include intelligent design.

“I would certainly say that from what I have seen thus far, I find the evidence troubling,” said Valerie Munson, an Eckert Seamans attorney who specializes in church-state issues. “The school board’s policy will probably be found to have a religious purpose, and to advance religion, in violation of the First Amendment. In other words, it [will] fail both the purpose and the effects prongs of the constitutionality test.”

But she also adds that the trial, expected to last more than five weeks, is in its early stages, and the defense team, Thomas More Law Center of Michigan, has yet to offer any evidence. “Cases are never a slam dunk,” she said. “If they were a slam dunk, they would never be going to court.”

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III is being asked to apply the two-pronged test to this case, in which the plaintiffs claim the Dover board violated the Constitution’s establishment clause.

The first test is the “effect” test — whether the theory itself, and its appearance in the ninth-grade biology curriculum, is religious in nature. In other words, to be legal, intelligent design must neither promote nor inhibit religion.

The second test can be called the “intent” test — even if the judge does not determine that intelligent design is an inherently religious concept, he may find that the school board had the purpose of promoting religion. In legalese, the school board must have a bona fide secular purpose in teaching intelligent design.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, must win just one of these match-ups, not both. A third prong, the “entanglement” test, is not being applied.

As with the criminal court system, the burden of proof lies not with the defense, but the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are striking blows on both sides — using expert witnesses to argue that intelligent design isn’t science and using witnesses to show that school board members wanted to bring God into the classroom.

The expert witnesses — two biology professors and a theologian — have testified to the “effect” side of things, arguing that intelligent design, because it infers a creator from biological evidence, is biblical creationism, updated with new scientific terminology.

But the fact witnesses, testifying to the “intent” test, have provided the most compelling evidence, said Eugene Voloch, First Amendment professor at UCLA. The courts, he said, have left the door open for “intelligent design” in a perfectly crafted test case, but this isn’t such a case.

The school board, based on what he’s read, was “animated by a desire to promote the biblical account” of creation. This week, plaintiffs testified that, over a two-year period, the school board intermittently discussed God, religion and creationism, before finally changing the biology curriculum in October 2004. Board meetings were like “old-time Christian tent revivals,” a former school director testified.

“It’s conceivable that if the court was looking only at the ‘effects’ test, the board might have a shot,” Voloch said.

Marc J. Randazza, an attorney with Florida-based Weston, Garrou, DeWitt & Walters, a First Amendment law firm, agreed with his colleagues.

“The first problem I see is testimony that clearly demonstrates that the majority’s motivation was to promote the Christian [theory] of creationism. Although there has been some attempt to characterize this as promoting intelligent design as a means of offering an alternative theory to Darwinism, I can’t see a shred of honesty in this characterization.”

He said the plaintiffs also win the “effect” challenge, but not as convincingly.

(Bill Toland can be reached at btoland@post-gazette.com or 1-412-263-1889.)

October 2, 2005
In Pennsylvania, It Was Religion vs. Science, Pastor vs. Ph.D., Evolution vs. the Half-Fish

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 30 – When Casey Brown testified this week, she embodied the pain and division the intelligent design controversy has wrought in Dover. Mrs. Brown sat stiffly on the witness stand, her mouth as tight as her gray ponytail, recounting how she had run for school board on the same ticket as the board members now facing her from the defense table.

The board is being sued by 11 parents who say that intelligent design is creationism cloaked as science, is inherently religious and has no place in a ninth-grade biology class.

Mrs. Brown said her political alliances and friendships had become strained in the last couple of years as some board members had pressed for changing the biology curriculum to teach creationism on par with evolution. They wanted to buy an intelligent design textbook, “Of Pandas and People,” in place of the newest edition of the standard biology text.

Under cross-examination by Patrick Gillen, a soft-spoken defense lawyer, Mrs. Brown was asked whether she recalled visiting the home of a board member and admiring a carving of the Last Supper.

“The Lord’s Last Supper, yes sir,” Mrs. Brown said. “I had never seen such a beautiful carving.”

But she said she did not feel comfortable when the board member asked her if she was a born-again Christian. She also said she felt disturbed when another board member, who was among those most insistent about teaching creationism, drove her home from a meeting and asked the same question.

Suddenly, his manner changing, Mr. Gillen pounced: these were Mrs. Brown’s friends, she was in their homes, in their cars, and she found it offensive to be asked about religion?

“Yes, I do, and I still do, sir,” she said.

A bite in his voice, Mr. Gillen asked if she thought religion should not be discussed at all.

“I wouldn’t presume to discuss religion within normal circumstances,” she said, “except within my own family.”

Mrs. Brown and her husband quit the board the night members voted 6 to 3 for intelligent design.

Worlds in Conflict

The trial presents a particular challenge for the journalists from science magazines. In the courtroom hallway during a break last week, Celeste Biever, a reporter for NewScientist, was interviewing a courtroom regular, a bearded local pastor who says he considers evolution a lie.

“You want half-bird, half-fish?” she asked, drawing a dotted line on her notepad.

“Yeah, why not,” the pastor said.

Later, out of the pastor’s hearing, Ms. Biever said with fascination, “He thinks evolution is a bird turning into a fish turning into a rabbit” – one straight line of common descent, instead of a tree with common roots.

Ms. Biever was finding that she could not cover the trial the way she would a classic courtroom face-off. When you put intelligent design up against evolution, she said, “It’s not a head-on collision between two scientific arguments; it’s orthogonal,” with the opponents coming at each other from right angles.

“It’s apples and oranges,” Ms. Biever said.

Her readers do not take intelligent design seriously, she said, so she was striving for “local color.” Her readers want to know, she said, “Why is this happening here?”

“We’re not just science cheerleaders, and I don’t want to overlook any valid argument for intelligent design,” Ms. Biever said. “As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t heard one yet.”

As for the pastor, after four days of listening to science experts dismantling the case for intelligent design, he was unimpressed.

“They’re babblers,” said the pastor, the Rev. Jim Grove, who leads a 40-member independent Baptist church outside of Dover. “The more Ph.D.’s you get, it seems like the further away from God you get.”

Dover school board members were well aware they were inviting a lawsuit over church-state issues when they voted last October that biology students should hear a statement telling them that there were gaps in the theory of evolution and that intelligent design was another theory the students should examine.

But the board forged ahead, having been assured that they would have the backing of the Thomas More Law Center, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to providing legal representation to Christians, and its chief counsel, Richard Thompson.

One Side of the Culture War

In courtroom breaks Mr. Thompson occasionally sits next to board members and puts an arm around their shoulders. White-haired and dapper, he has said little in court, leaving most of the cross-examination to his two co-counselors.

But this week, he became the public face of the intelligent design movement, stepping into the ring of cameras and microphones outside the courthouse each afternoon, taking every question until, one after another, the reporters slipped away.

As a former Michigan prosecutor who tried repeatedly to convict Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Mr. Thompson is comfortable in the spotlight. He failed in his prosecution of Dr. Kevorkian and eventually lost a bid for re-election; voters told pollsters they did not share his outrage over assisted suicide.

Mr. Thompson’s major argument in defending the board is that intelligent design is not religion, but science. He is, however, absolutely open about his own religious motivations.

During the lunch break on Thursday, Mr. Thompson said he founded the law center to defend Christians who he thought were losing the culture wars. The center was initially financed by Thomas Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza. Both men are Roman Catholics.

“There are two worldviews that are in conflict,” Mr. Thompson said. “I do feel that even though Christians are 86 percent of the population, they have become second-class citizens.”

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The Mysteries of NOLA: 25 Questions about the Murder of the Big Easy

From Tom Dispatch
The Mysteries of New Orleans

Twenty-five Questions about the Murder of the Big Easy

By Mike Davis and Anthony Fontenot

We recently spent a week in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists, and neighborhood folks. Even as the latest flood waters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration.

Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn’t the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward, but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple “incompetence” or “failure of leadership,” locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect — the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city.

In almost random order, here are twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people we spoke with. Until a grand jury or congressional committee begins to uncover the answers, the moral (as opposed to simply physical) reconstruction of the New Orleans region will remain impossible.

1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans (majority Black) side and not on the Metairie (largely white) side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities?

2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward — the most deadly hit-and-run accident in U.S. history?

3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods?

4. Why did Mayor Ray Nagin, in defiance of his own official disaster plan, delay twelve to twenty-four hours in ordering a mandatory evacuation of the city?

5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an “Incident of National Significance” until August 31 — thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?

6. Why wasn’t the nearby U.S.S. Bataan immediately sent to the aid of New Orleans? The huge amphibious-landing ship had a state-of-the-art, 600-bed hospital, water and power plants, helicopters, food supplies, and 1,200 sailors eager to join the rescue effort.

7. Similarly, why wasn’t the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5?

8. Why does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld balk at making public his “severe weather execution order” that established the ground rules for the military response to Katrina? Did the Pentagon, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggests, fail to take initiatives within already authorized powers, then attempt to transfer the blame to state and local governments?

9. Why were the more than 350 buses of the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority — eventually flooded where they were parked — not mobilized to evacuate infirm, poor, and car-less residents?

10. What significance attaches to the fact that the chair of the Transportation Authority, appointed by Mayor Nagin, is Jimmy Reiss, the wealthy leader of the New Orleans Business Council which has long advocated a thorough redevelopment of (and cleanup of crime in) the city?

11. Under what authority did Mayor Nagin meet confidentially in Dallas with the “forty thieves” — white business leaders led by Reiss — reportedly to discuss the triaging of poorer Black areas and a corporate-led master plan for rebuilding the city?

12. Everyone knows about a famous train called “the City of New Orleans.” Why was there no evacuation by rail? Was Amtrak part of the disaster planning? If not, why not?

13. Why were patients at private hospitals like Tulane evacuated by helicopter while their counterparts at the Charity Hospital were left to suffer and die?

14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, potable toilets, cots, and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision — as many believe — to force poorer residents to leave the city?

15. The French Quarter has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the nation. Once the acute shortages of food and water at the Superdome and the Convention Center were known, why didn’t officials requisition supplies from hotels and restaurants located just a few blocks away? (As it happened, vast quantities of food were simply left to spoil.)

16. City Hall’s emergency command center had to be abandoned early in the crisis because its generator supposedly ran out of diesel fuel. Likewise many critical-care patients died from heat or equipment failure after hospital backup generators failed. Why were supplies of diesel fuel so inadequate? Why were so many hospital generators located in basements that would obviously flood?

17. Why didn’t the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn’t such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals?

18. Why weren’t evacuee centers established in Audubon Park and other unflooded parts of Uptown, where locals could be employed as cleanup crews?

19. Is the Justice Department investigating the Jim Crow-like response of the suburban Gretna police who turned back hundreds of desperate New Orleans citizens trying to walk across the Mississippi River bridge — an image reminiscent of Selma in 1965? New Orleans, meanwhile, abounds in eyewitness accounts of police looting and illegal shootings: Will any of this ever be investigated?

20. Who is responsible for the suspicious fires that have swept the city? Why have so many fires occurred in blue-collar areas that have long been targets of proposed gentrification, such as the Section 8 homes on Constance Street in the Lower Garden District or the wharfs along the river in Bywater?

21. Where were FEMA’s several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television.

22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross?

23. Why isn’t FEMA scrambling to create a central registry of everyone evacuated from the greater New Orleans region? Will evacuees receive absentee ballots and be allowed to vote in the crucial February municipal elections that will partly decide the fate of the city?

24. As politicians talk about “disaster czars” and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed “new urbanism” in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city’s ordinary citizens in their own future?

25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy?

Race, income and the “test score” gap

Here are to recent articles from The New York Times that illustrate the contradictions people are confronting in efforts to close the so-called “achievement” gap.

In Wake County (Raleigh), North Carolina the schools are using an “integration by income” approach to closing what is more appropriately described as the “test score” gap. The New York Times describes this as the most successful and ambitious effort to create economically diverse public schools. (This is an approach that has also been tried in LaCrosse, WI; St. Lucie County, Fla.; San Francisco; Cambridge, Mass.; and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC.)

In Wake County, only 40 percent of black students in grades three through eight scored at grade level on state tests a decade ago. Last spring, 80 percent did. Hispanic students have made similar strides. Overall, 91 percent of students in those grades scored at grade level in the spring, up from 79 percent 10 years ago.

The Wake Count board of education had two motives when it decided to make economic integration a main element in the district’s strategy: board members feared that the county’s three-decade effort to integrate public schools racially would be found unconstitutional if challenged in the federal courts (which in recent years has made a habit of declaring districts under desegregation orders as now “unified”), and they took note of numerous studies that showed the academic benefits of economically diversifying schools.

[Note that the federal courts’ pattern of ending desegregation plans in urban districts across the US has resulted in the REsegreation of schools in the US to level not seen since the late 1960s. For more on this see the Harvard Civil Rights Project recent report “Schools More Separate: Consequence of a Decade of Resegregation”.]

While there has been success in Wake County, there is opposition from some quarters, most particularly white, middle class parents.

On the other hand, wealthy school districts, like the one in Princeton, NJ, are not ammune to the built in racial and class biases of standardized tests, as illustrated in an article in today’s New York Times,The Achievement Gap in Elite Schools.

What the Times article illustrates is that simply having economic integration in a school system doesn’t rectify the deleterious effects of education and assessment that relies on fundamentally racist and classist standardized tests.Below are the NYT articles on Princeton, NJ and Wake County, NC:

September 28, 2005
The Achievement Gap in Elite Schools
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
PRINCETON, N.J.

AN uneasy amalgam of pride and discontent, Caroline Mitchell sat amid the balloons and beach chairs on the front lawn of Princeton High School, watching the Class of 2004 graduate. Her pride was for the seniors’ average SAT score of 1237, third-highest in the state, and their admission to elite universities like Harvard, Yale and Duke. As president of the high school alumni association and community liaison for the school district, Ms. Mitchell deserved to bask in the tradition of public-education excellence.

Discontent, though, was what she felt about Blake, her own son. He was receiving his diploma on this June afternoon only after years of struggle – the failed English class in ninth grade, the science teacher who said he was capable only of C’s, the assignment to a remedial “basic skills” class. Even at that, Ms. Mitchell realized, Blake had fared better than several friends who were nowhere to be seen in the procession of gowns and mortarboards. They were headed instead for summer school.

“I said to myself: ‘Oh, no. Please, no,’ ” Ms. Mitchell recalled. “I was so hurt. These were bright kids. This shouldn’t have been happening.”

It did not escape Ms. Mitchell’s perception that her son and most of those faltering classmates were black. They were the evidence of a prosperous, accomplished school district’s dirty little secret, a racial achievement gap that has been observed, acknowledged and left uncorrected for decades. Now that pattern just may have to change under the pressure of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Several months after Blake graduated, Princeton High School (and thus the district as a whole) ran afoul of the statute for the first time, based on the lagging scores of African-American students on a standardized English test given to 11th graders. Last month, the school was cited for the second year in a row, this time because 37 percent of black students failed to meet standards in English, and 55 percent of blacks and 40 percent of Hispanics failed in math.

One of the standard complaints about No Child Left Behind by its critics in public education is that it punishes urban schools that are chronically underfinanced and already contending with a concentration of poor, nonwhite, bilingual and special-education pupils. Princeton could hardly be more different. It is an Ivy League town with a minority population of slightly more than 10 percent and per-student spending well above the state average. The high school sends 94 percent of its graduates to four-year colleges and offers 29 different Advanced Placement courses. Over all, 98 percent of Princeton High School students exceed the math and English standards required by No Child Left Behind.

So is the problem with the district, or is the problem with the law?

The answer seems clear to those parents – mostly black, but some white and Hispanic – who have been raising the issue of the achievement gap for years. While the Princeton community includes a slice of black bourgeoisie attached to the university or nearby corporations, most of the African-American population came here a century or more ago to serve as the butlers, maids, cooks and chauffeurs of a university and town with a nearly Southern fondness for segregation. The high school, for instance, did not integrate for nearly 20 years after its founding in 1898, and the elementary schools waited until they were compelled by state law in 1947.

As far back as the 1960’s, according to the local historical society, black students suffered from “low expectations from teachers” and a high dropout rate. In the early 1990’s, an interracial body calling itself the Robeson Group – in homage to Paul Robeson, the most famous product of black Princeton – mobilized to recruit more black teachers and help elect the first black member to the school board.

Despite such efforts, the achievement gap remained. A tracking system for math separates students in middle school. The high school, while not formally tracked, has such a demand for seats in Advanced Placement classes and honors sections that a rigid hierarchy exists in effect. Guidance counselors find their time consumed by writing recommendation letters for seniors who routinely apply to 10 or more high-end schools.

And until the No Child Left Behind law was enacted there were no concrete consequences for failing to address the resulting disparity. Which may be why a number of black parents here credit the federal law with forcing attention on the underside of public education in Princeton. It requires all districts to reveal test results and meet performance standards by various subgroups, including race.

“If you scratch the surface of this town, a lot of contradictions are going to emerge,” said Ron Plummer, a project manager for a technology company and a co-chairman of the school district’s minority education committee. “I do have some suspicions when measurements come from standardized tests alone. But if it’s going to shine a bright light on the inadequacies of the system, especially as it regards children of color, then I’m all in favor.”

In any case, there can be a tone of defensiveness, even smugness, among certain school leaders in Princeton. “We’re proud of our F,” said Lewis Goldstein, the assistant superintendent, referring to the contradiction between the district’s overall success and its standing under No Child Left Behind. “It’s as if you handed in your homework and the teacher handed it back and you got a 98 on it and an F. That’s the situation we’re in.”

TO be fair to Princeton, it is hardly the only community to include both a large number of superachieving students and a smaller but persistent number of low-income, nonwhite stragglers. Princeton, in fact, belongs to an organization of 25 similar school districts, the Minority Student Achievement Network, which includes Evanston, Ill.; Shaker Heights, Ohio; and Eugene, Ore., among others, that are working to find techniques to address the issue.

Princeton’s superintendent, Judith Wilson, has accepted the challenge of reducing the achievement gap. As a newcomer to the district – she arrived last February from the working-class, half-minority district in Woodbury, N.J., near Camden – she sounds less beholden than some of her colleagues to Princeton’s exalted sense of itself.

“If the gap can’t be narrowed in Princeton,” she said in an interview in her office last week, “then where can it be narrowed? There can’t be a question here of resources, or of community support, or of quality of staff. So if we can’t impact the students who are not born into privilege, then where can it happen?”

E-mail: sgfreedman@nytimes.com

September 25, 2005
As Test Scores Jump, Raleigh Credits Integration by Income
By ALAN FINDER
RALEIGH, N.C. – Over the last decade, black and Hispanic students here in Wake County have made such dramatic strides in standardized reading and math tests that it has caught the attention of education experts around the country.

The main reason for the students’ dramatic improvement, say officials and parents in the county, which includes Raleigh and its sprawling suburbs, is that the district has made a concerted effort to integrate the schools economically.

Since 2000, school officials have used income as a prime factor in assigning students to schools, with the goal of limiting the proportion of low-income students in any school to no more than 40 percent.

The effort is the most ambitious in the country to create economically diverse public schools, and it is the most successful, according to several independent experts. La Crosse, Wis.; St. Lucie County, Fla.; San Francisco; Cambridge, Mass.; and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., have adopted economic integration plans.

School officials here have tried many tactics to improve student performance. Teachers get bonuses when their schools make significant progress in standardized tests, and the district uses sophisticated data gathering to identify, and respond to, students’ weaknesses.

Some of the strategies used in Wake County could be replicated across the country, the experts said, but they also cautioned that unusual circumstances have helped make the politically delicate task of economic integration possible here.

The school district is countywide, which makes it far easier to combine students from the city and suburbs. The county has a 30-year history of busing students for racial integration, and many parents and students are accustomed to long bus rides to distant schools. The local economy is robust, and the district is growing rapidly. And corporate leaders and newspaper editorial pages here have firmly supported economic diversity in the schools.

Some experts said the academic results in Wake County were particularly significant because they bolstered research that showed low-income students did best when they attended middle-class schools.

“Low-income students who have an opportunity to go to middle-class schools are surrounded by peers who have bigger dreams and who are more academically engaged,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who has written about economic integration in schools. “They are surrounded by parents who are more likely to be active in the school. And they are taught by teachers who more likely are highly qualified than the teachers in low-income schools.”

To achieve a balance of low- and middle-income children in every school, the Wake County school district encourages and sometimes requires students to attend schools far from home. Suburban students are drawn to magnet schools in the city. Low-income children from the city are bused to middle-class schools in the suburbs.

Some parents chafe at the length of their children’s bus rides or at what they see as social engineering. But the test results are hard to dispute, proponents of economic integration say, as is the broad appeal of the school district, which has been growing by 5,000 students a year.

“What I say to parents is, ‘Here is what you should hold me accountable for: at the end of that bus ride, are we providing a quality education for your child?’ ” Bill McNeal, the school superintendent, said.

Asked how parents respond, Mr. McNeal said, “They are coming back, and they are bringing their friends.”

Not everyone supports the strategy. Some parents deeply oppose mandatory assignments to schools. Every winter, the district, using a complicated formula, develops a list of students who will be reassigned to new schools for the following academic year, and nearly every year some parents object vehemently.

“Kids are bused all over creation, and they say it’s for economic diversity, but really it’s a proxy for race,” said Cynthia Matson, who is white and middle class. She is the president and a founder of Assignment By Choice, an advocacy group promoting parental choice.

The organization wants parents to be responsible for selecting schools, and it objects to restrictions that, in certain circumstances, make it difficult for some middle-class children to get into magnet schools.

“If a parent wants their kid bused, then let them make the choice,” Mrs. Matson said. “But don’t force parents to have their kids bused across town to go to a school that they don’t want to go to.”

Supporters of economic integration contend that the county offers parents many choices but that the school district needs the discretion to assign some children to schools to avoid large concentrations of poor children. “I believe in choice as much as anyone,” Mr. McNeal said. “However, I can’t let choice erode our ability to provide quality programs and quality teaching.”

The board of education had two motives when it decided to make economic integration a main element in the district’s strategy: board members feared that the county’s three-decade effort to integrate public schools racially would be found unconstitutional if challenged in the federal courts, and they took note of numerous studies that showed the academic benefits of economically diversifying schools.

“There is a lot of evidence that it’s just sound educational policy, sound public policy, to try to avoid concentrations of low-achieving students,” said John H. Gilbert, a professor emeritus at North Carolina State University in Raleigh who served for 16 years on the county school board and voted for the plan. “They do much better and advantaged students are not hurt by it if you follow policies that avoid concentrating low-achievement students.”

One sign of the success of the Wake County plan, Mr. Gilbert said, is that residential property values in Raleigh have remained high, as have those in the suburbs. “The economy is really saying something about the effort in the city,” he said.

About 27 percent of the county’s students are low-income, a proportion that has increased slightly in recent years. While many are black and Hispanic, about 15 percent are white. Moreover, more than 40 percent of the district’s black students are working- and middle-class, and not poor.

Wake County has used many strategies to limit the proportion of low-income students in schools to 40 percent. For example, magnet schools lure many suburban parents to the city.

Betty Trevino lives in Fuquay-Varina, a town in southern Wake County. Ms. Trevino drives her son, Eric, 5, to and from the Joyner Elementary School, where he goes to kindergarten. Students are taught in English and Spanish, and global themes are emphasized at the school, which is north of downtown Raleigh, more than 20 miles from the Trevinos’ home. With traffic, the trip takes 45 minutes each way.

“I think it works,” she said of her drive halfway across the county, “because it’s such a good school.”

Many low-income children are bused to suburban schools. While some of their parents are unhappy with the length of the rides, some also said they were happy with their child’s school.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” LaToya Mangum said of the 55 minutes that her son Gabriel, 7, spends riding a bus to the northern reaches of Wake County, where he is in second grade. On the other hand, she said, “So far, I do like the school.”

The neighborhood school has been redefined, with complex logistics and attendance maps that can resemble madly gerrymandered Congressional districts.

The Swift Creek Elementary School, in southwest Raleigh near the city line, draws most of its students from within two miles of the school, in both the city and suburbs. But students also come to Swift Creek from four widely scattered areas in low-income sections of south and southeastern Raleigh; some live 6 to 8 miles from the school, while others are as far as 12 miles away.

Ela Browder lives in Cary, an affluent, sprawling suburb, but each morning she puts her 6-year-old son, Michael, on a bus for a short ride across the city line to Swift Creek.

“We’re very happy with the school,” Ms. Browder said. “The children are very enriched by it. I think it’s the best of both worlds.”

Of the county’s 139 elementary, middle and high schools, all but 22 are within the 40 percent guideline, according to the district’s data. Some are only a few percentage points above the guideline, while others are significantly higher.

The overwhelming majority of the 120,000 children in the district go either to a local school or a school of their choice, officials said. Slightly more than 85 percent of students attend a school within five miles of home and another 12 percent or so voluntarily attend magnet or year-round schools.

Although the figures can be calculated many ways, Mr. McNeal says about 2.5 percent – or about 3,000 children – are assigned to schools for economic balance or to accommodate the district’s growth by filling new schools or easing overcrowding in existing ones. Most of those bused for economic diversity tend to be low-income, he said.

A school board election will take place in October. While the board has continued to endorse economic integration, some supporters worry that that could change one day.

“It’s not easy and it can be very contentious in the community,” said Walter C. Sherlin, who retired two years ago as an associate superintendent. “Is it worth doing? Look at 91 percent at or above grade level. Look at 139 schools, all of them successful. I think the answer is obvious.”

To debate or not to debate ID

In his commentary for Inside Higher Ed, Gerald Graff, a professor of English and Education at U Illinois, Chicago, argues that there are good pedagogical reasons for “teaching the controversy” of evolution versus so-called “intelligent design.”

[Graff coined the phrase, “teach the controversy” is his writing about the cultural wars (and he’s concerned about how the religious right has appropriated the phrase in their efforts to bring religion into science under the guise of ID).]

I think Graff makes a good case and I’m inclined to agree with him. Evolution, as Graff points out, is about has solid a scientific theory as there is, so the issue is not about “gaps” in Darwinian thinking.

There is nothing gained pedagogically by merely dismissing the creationist poseurs behind ID. And, there is plenty of room for students learn about ways of knowing, rationality/irrationality, religion and science by engaging the debate.

Graff thinks

“Scientists like Coyne and Dawkins concede that debate should indeed be central to science instruction, but they hold that such debate should be between accredited hypotheses within science, not between scientists and creationist poseurs. That’s hard to dispute, but, … I can at least imagine a classroom debate between creationism and evolution that might be just the thing to wake up the many students who now snooze through science courses. Such students might come away from such a debate with a sharper understanding of the grounds on which established science rests, something that even science majors and advanced graduate students now don’t often get from conventional science instruction.”

The point being that teaching that relies merely on reference to authority is not the way to create students who understand their world and can thinking critically about it.

Vancouver Sun: Teachers make gains in the classroom

Teachers make gains in the classroom
Although teachers have failed to get class sizes put back into their contracts, they’ve finally convinced almost everyone, including the government, that action is needed to help special needs students

Janet Steffenhagen
Vancouver Sun

September 24, 2005

B.C. teachers won a major victory in their battle for improved classroom conditions before they voted this week in favour of strike action to press their contract demands.

After years of talking, they have finally convinced almost everyone — including government — that something needs to be done about the challenges many face in teaching large classes with growing numbers of students who have special needs affecting learning and behaviour.

But their union has made zero progress in persuading its education partners or the Liberal government that the answer lies in a return to the situation that existed in 2002, when teacher contracts set the rules around class size and composition

That leaves the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, on the verge of a strike that could shut schools around the province next month, with no significant support for what it says is its number one bargaining priority.

The union insists it won’t sign a collective agreement unless it receives a written guarantee from the government that student learning conditions will be restored to 2002 levels.

Its members, who say they can’t provide quality education when they are balancing so many demands with little support, want those guarantees to be part of a new collective agreement.

They look back to 2002, when their contracts included class size caps, limits on the number of special-needs students in any one class and strict requirements and formulas to ensure every school had a certain number of specialty teachers, such as ESL teachers, special-education teachers, counsellors and librarians.

“Our working conditions and our students’ learning conditions have deteriorated incredibly since that time,” union president Jinny Sims said Friday in announcing plans for an October strike.

Not everyone accepts that.

Groups representing school trustees, principals and vice-principals and parent advisory councils acknowledge that class size, class composition and special-needs education need attention — especially in the Lower Mainland — but over all, they say the education system is better than it’s ever been.

They are sounding more positive than they have for several years because of an infusion this year of $150 million into the education system — money that government urged boards to spend on class size, special needs, school resources and libraries in recognition of concerns raised by teachers.

But the over-riding message from these groups is that decisions about student learning must be made at the local level, not at the bargaining table.

“School boards believe that the best decisions are made locally,” said Penny Tees, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association. “Schools and districts need to be responsive to their local communities.”

Both she and Tom Hierck, president of the B.C. Principals’ and Vice-Principals’ Association, say schools have never been better and they aren’t hankering for 2002.

“I think we’re doing a pretty fine job,” Hierck said. “Have we got it perfect yet? No, there’s always room for improvement. But fixed language generated either from Victoria or from union headquarters in Vancouver isn’t the recipe for success.”

School board chairs Linda McPhail of Richmond and Shawn Wilson of Surrey said they, too, think education has improved since 2002. Wilson said one reason is technology.

“Through the effective use of technology, teachers are addressing a number of important learning enhancements, including but not limited to, the gender gap, diverse learning styles, peer sharing and editing, safe and responsible interaction with students around the world and the ethical use of modern communications technology,” he said in an e-mail.

McPhail said districts have to set their own priorities because their challenges are different. For example, ESL is a major concern in Richmond, where two-thirds of the students have received or are receiving ESL assistance. Each month, Richmond receives 100 new ESL students, McPhail said.

While ESL is a shared concern in the Lower Mainland, it wouldn’t be a major issue in rural and remote districts.

Teachers argue that they know more about learning conditions in the classroom than principals or parents. And many insist the only way they can be sure their concerns are addressed in all B.C. schools is through strong contract language.

Without that language, there is a danger that promises and good intentions can be forgotten. “Principals will work around it, as they’re doing now,” said Surrey teacher Peter Bonell. “They will say one thing but mean another.”

Bonell also worries that some teachers, especially younger ones, might be afraid to speak out if learning conditions are decided through local discussions rather than through collective agreements.

“It’s happening now in the schools. A young teacher comes in, they’re worried about keeping their job and getting a permanent position. They will not kick up a fuss.”

But even the NDP has abandoned its call for the restoration of learning conditions in the teachers’ contract. Education critic John Horgan said it’s time to look for other ways to help teachers with their workload, because the government isn’t likely to budge.

Horgan backs the teachers when they talk about deteriorating classroom conditions, saying the government’s decision to relax the rules about class size and class composition is bound to lead to poorer outcomes. While students might continue to get high marks on tests, they won’t learn critical thinking skills from teachers who feel overwhelmed, he said.

“I support local autonomy for school boards, absolutely. I believe that people in communities have a better understanding of what those community needs are,” he said. “But at the same time, government has a responsibility and an obligation . . . to respond when their edicts are clearly not working on the ground.”

Education Minister Shirley Bond said she is taking action.

This year, for the first time since class-size caps were removed from the contract, the ministry will monitor class sizes in all grades in B.C. to ensure boards obey the rules that were placed in the B.C. School Act in 2002.

“I’m going to be asking school districts to report to us about their class size issues,” she said. “I want to make sure that boards are respecting the legislation . . . and if there are issues with larger class sizes in specific districts, we believe we should hold school districts accountable for that.”

Teachers should be consulted about class size and composition but not during bargaining, she said. “Parents and this government have said clearly that deciding class sizes is not simply up to the BCTF and the employer.

“Parents have a stake in that discussion [and] need to be participants. But if you [make] class size a negotiating issue, it leaves out those people who have a role to play.”

She said school planning councils, which include principals, teachers, parents and — in some cases — students, should have a key role in deciding class size and composition. Kim Howland, president of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, said her members want those decisions to be made locally.

The B.C. School Act sets maximum class size numbers for primary grades, but requires only that school districts not exceed an average of 30 students in Grade 4-12 classes.

The BCTF says that “flexibility” has allowed schools to put far too many students in certain classes — especially science, English and social studies.

But Hierck said averaging allows schools to offer more opportunities than they were able to do in 2002.

For example, he said, a small school can now offer Physics 12 to a handful of students because a neighbouring school has more than 30 students in core academic courses.

Those trade-offs aren’t always recognized by those who complain about larger classes, he added.

To make those trade-offs more transparent and to ensure parents are supportive, Hierck suggested the ministry should change the law to require individual schools to meet class size averages rather than having district-wide averages. Horgan agreed that might be an improvement.

Cathie Camlie of the Learning Disabilities Association of B.C. said classroom conditions haven’t improved since 2002 for students with learning challenges, but nor were they good in 2002. S

he said the lack of attention to special-needs children in public schools is leading to the “privatization of special education,” with parents who can afford it hiring special tutors to help their children.

Her main complaint about Liberal changes to education is the de-targeting of special-education funds.

When school boards no longer received money targeted for special needs, many stopped identifying those children, she said. “That was especially true for gifted kids,” she said. “It virtually wiped out the identification of gifted kids.”

But her organization’s chief concern is the lack of training for teachers in dealing with special needs. “If anyone wants to do one thing to help kids with exceptionalities it’s teacher training,” she said, noting that a BCTF study several years ago found 40 per cent of teachers in Coquitlam and Nanaimo felt they were ill-prepared to deal with special-needs children.

Rita Irwin, associate dean of teacher education at the University of B.C., said her big regret about changes between 2002 and 2005 is the loss of art education.

“If you talk about the quality of schools when it comes to the arts, it’s definitely gone down,” she said.

“But if you’re talking to the average parent who is really concerned about numeracy and literacy, then the students are probably getting a pretty comparable [experience].”

Paul Shaker, the education dean at Simon Fraser University, who has worked in four countries and five American states, said he’s encouraged by the quality of B.C. schools. But he said there is room for improvement, especially in areas such as fine arts, special needs and ESL that tend to be cut when resources are tight.

“I don’t think the system is saturated with money by any means. Obviously there’s enough money in the system to do a very good job because a very good job is being done. But a better job could be done.”

jsteffenhagen@png.canwest.com

7 Deadly Absurdities of No Child Left Behind

This short piece by Gerald Bracey is one of the best overviews/critiques of the No Child Left Behind Act that I’ve seen. Highly recommededed.

You can download it as a PDF here.

Or read it below.

THE SEVEN DEADLY ABSURDITIES OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

Gerald W. Bracey

Gerald W. Bracey is an Associate of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, Ypsilanti, Michigan and a fellow of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University. His most recent book is Setting the Record Straight: Responses to Misconceptions About Public Education in the U. S.: Second Edition (Heinemann, 2004).

A recent website headline read “Revolt Against No Child Left Behind Spreads to 47 States.” It’s about time. If one considers Iraq and Katrina to be twin disasters for the Bush Administration, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) makes it a trifecta. Although the law consumes over 1100 pages, its most egregious flaws can be quickly described as The Seven Deadly Absurdities:

1. The law uses the phrase “scientifically based research” 111 times and demands that such research support any educational programs that a school or district adopts. The U. S. Department of Education judged that the reading program favored by New York City lacked such support and withheld $47 million in grants until the city caved. But there is no scientifically based research—or any research—to support the law’s mandates. No research supports NCLB’s contention that the way to improve schools is to test every child every year and to fail schools and districts that do no make the required—and wholly arbitrary–Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Indeed, research argues against the use of such high-stakes testing as an instrument of school reform. Tests that serve as useful monitors lose their credibility, validity and value when high stakes are attached. As researcher Donald Campbell noted many years ago, the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more the indicator and the users are likely become corrupted.

2. NCLB lacks research support because NCLB depends solely on punishment. As schools fail to make the arbitrary AYP, the law imposes punitive, increasingly harsh sanctions. The law follows the grand tradition of “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”

3. Even those who think punishment can motivate people would never use it as NCLB does. It punishes the entire school for the failures of the few, often the very few. If a school’s special education students fail to make AYP, the whole school fails. If a school’s English language learners fail to make AYP the whole school fails. If a mere 5% of any group fails to show up on test day, the whole school fails. NCLB requires schools to report test score data by various student categories— ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special education, etc. Most schools have 37 such categories (California has more). Schools thus have 37 opportunities to fail, only one to succeed.

4. The law demands that all students must be proficient in reading, math, and science by 2014. In his 2003 presidential address to the American Educational Research Association, testing expert Robert Linn projected it would take 61 years, 66 years, and 166 years, respectively, to get fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-graders to the proficient level in math. Alas, Linn’s projections are wildly optimistic. They assume that each increase in percent proficient is equally easy to attain. It is obvious, though, that it is easier to make AYP the first few years than in the last few when schools will be working with children for whom all previous efforts have failed. Indeed, stories abound of schools currently targeting “bubble children”—those on the bubble near a passing score—in order to maximize their chances for making AYP.

Moreover, Linn created his projections from national results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, not data disaggregated by ethnicity. In the 2003, though, only 5 percent of African-American eighth graders and 7 percent of Hispanics were proficient in math. Only 37 percent of whites, 43 percent of Asians, and 15 percent of Native Americans reached this plateau. A recent journal article found the 100% proficient requirement so irrational it could well be unconstitutional.

5. As a consequence of #3 and #4 above, California projects that by the deadline year of 2014, NCLB will label 99 percent of its schools “failing.” California students generally do poorly tests, but high-scoring states will experience massive failure as well. For instance, in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, only 6 of the 41 participating countries outscored high-flying Minnesota in mathematics and only one of 41 attained a higher science score. Yet the state’s Legislative Auditor projected that by 2014, NCLB will find 80 percent of Minnesota’s schools wanting. A September, 2005 study estimated a 95% failure rate for six Great Lakes states, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.

6. Any school that fails to make AYP for two consecutive years must offer all students the option to transfer to a “successful” school. Thus, if a school’s special education students or English Language Learners fail to make AYP two years in a row, the school must offer all students the “choice option” in spite of the fact that the school succeeded for the other 35 student categories.

In cities and rural areas, the choice option is a farce. To exercise choice in some rural areas entails a two-hour ride. In some parts of Alaska and Hawaii it requires airplanes. In 2004-2005, Chicago had 200,000 students eligible, but only 500 spaces for them. Although New York had more eligibles than Chicago—about 350,000—in 2003-2004, only 8,000 students chose to transfer. These 8,000, though, apparently created so much havoc in the receiving schools that principals rebelled. Responding to these principals, public schools Chancellor, Joel Klein, deliberately flouted the law, permitting only 1,000 transfers. Thus far, the Department of Education has not responded to Klein’s scofflaw defiance.

7. This is the biggie: Schools alone cannot possibly accomplish what NCLB demands. But this is what NCLB mandates. It commands schools, all by themselves, to close the achievement gap between affluent and poor, majority and minority. This is ridiculous. The gap appears before kids reach school—one study found that the three-year-olds of professional mothers used more words when interacting with their mothers than mothers on welfare used in interacting with their three-year-olds. That’s right, three year old kids in one group used more words than adults in another group. After all, if one assumes a six-hour school day and a 180-day school year, then between birth and age18 children spend only 9 percent of their lives in schools. Family and community factors such as poverty affect achievement (asthma and low birth-weight infants are epidemic in some city slums; fathers and libraries in short supply). Poor children enter school well behind their middle class peers. They learn the same amount during the school year, but they lose the gains over the summer and they fall farther and farther behind. Critics blame the schools for what happens in the months the schools are closed.

Other absurdities exist–for instance, the contention that any student not “proficient” is “left behind” promotes a false dichotomy. If the threshold for “proficient” is, say, a test score of 80, then a child who scores 79 is “left behind.” In actuality, achievement is a continuum, not a dichotomy.

Some have always viewed NCLB as yet another Bush administration Orwellian Double Speak program doing the opposite of what its name implies—like Clean Waters, Clear Skies, Healthy Forests. Behind the cover of its idealistic-sounding moniker, No Child Left Behind really intends to increase the use of vouchers, increase the privatization of public schools, transfer large sums of public funds to the private sector, reduce the size of the public sector, and weaken or destroy the teachers unions (two Democratic power bases). It is working.

Although children and their teachers lose under the law, the testing companies have benefited mightily from it. F. Peter Jovanovich of the mammoth Pearson Education looked at NCLB and said, “This reads almost like our business plan.” Then-Educational Testing Service vice president, Sharon Robinson, reportedly called the law “The Test Publishers Full Employment Act.” The law gifts testing companies over $2 billion annually.

The hot properties currently, though, are those that provide tutoring and other instruction that the law designates as “Supplementary Educational Services.” Nationally, some 1800 providers can collect as much as $2 billion dollars a year. And, while the law holds public schools accountable for making progress or not, it visits no such sanctions on these private companies. The test preparation and tutoring companies have no obligation to prove that their programs actually work and no “scientifically based research” supports the contention that they do. No one is looking at the results of the Supplementary Educational Services. U. S. Department of Education spokespeople are on record saying that they merely want to create conditions such that “the market [for providers] can be as vibrant as possible.” (In fact, such services were not a part of the original plan. That plan called for vouchers to send students to private schools. The supplemental services were added when Congress rejected the voucher provisions. If FEMA had responded as quickly to Katrina as the administration turned to vouchers as part of its Katrina repair program, Michael Brown might still head the agency).

An enduring mystery of NCLB is that prominent Democrats such as Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and George Miller of California supported its passage. In spring, 2004, Senator Kennedy and Representative Miller received information, both by email and postal service mail, explaining the logic of the outcomes described above. Senator Kennedy did not respond. From Representative Miller’s office, a staffer emailed a single sentence: “I certainly hope not.” From such a response one must conclude that Congress is not giving NCLB the critical scrutiny it requires.

The current law mandates annual testing for all children in grades three through eight in reading and math with science to be added in 2007. It also requires testing in one high school grade, to be decided by each state. President Bush has proposed extending the testing through the high school years. Given the chaos that the current law is producing in the lower grades, Bush’s proposal constitutes the domestic equivalent of invading Iran.

Notes:

(i) Formally, Campbell’s Law states, “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures, and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”

(ii) The speech was published in the October 2003 Educational Researcher.

(iii) Wiley, Edward, Mathis, William and Garcia, David. “The Impact of the AYP Requirement of the Federal “No Child Left Behind” Act on Schools in the Great Lakes Region. www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0509-109-EPRU.pdf.

(iv) Betty Hart and Todd Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young Children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes, 1995.

(v) “Alexander, Karl, Entwisle, Doris, and Olson, Linda, “Schools Achievement, and Inequality: A Seasonal Perspective. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Summer, 2001.

(vi) Bracey, Gerald W., No Child Left Behind: Where Does the Money Go? www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0506-114-EPRU.pdf

(vii) Ibid.