Critical Education: ‘Critical Thinking’ And State Mandated Testing: The Collision Of State Rhetoric And Teacher Beliefs

Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled.

We invite you to review the Table of Contents below and then visit our web site to read articles and items of interest.

Critical Education
Vol 3, No 5 (2012)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182244

Articles
——–
‘Critical Thinking’ And State Mandated Testing: The Collision Of State Rhetoric And Teacher Beliefs
Melissa Freeman, University of Georgia
Sandra Mathison, University of British Columbia
Kristen Wilcox, University at Albany, SUNY

Abstract

Based on case studies of two school districts in New York State, the authors analyze the contradictory and hegemonic discourse of critical thinking proffered in State curriculum standards and as manifest in state mandated student assessments. Using Gramsci’s (1971) notion of hegemony, the analysis illustrates that dominant groups (such as state administrators or federal policy makers) gain and maintain dominance by projecting their own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it (such as teachers) accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural.’ The ways in which this hegemonic relationship is created and sustained, and it’s consequences, are illustrated in the way teachers make sense of fundamentally contradictory rhetoric and lived practice.

Keywords
Hegemony; Accountability; Critical Thinking

NEPC: Bunkum Awards Spotlight Shoddy Education Research: Grand Prize Winner Says Charter Schools Should be Like Cancer

Bunkum Awards Spotlight Shoddy Education Research: Grand Prize Winner Says Charter Schools Should be Like Cancer

Contact:

Kevin G. Welner, (303) 492-8370, welner@colorado.edu

URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/brhh8u8

Boulder, CO (May 31, 2012)– The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder, has announced via online video the winners of the 2011 Bunkum Awards – presented for the most compellingly lousy educational research for the past year. The video is now available for viewing at http://nepc.colorado.edu/think-tank/bunkum-awards/2011.

The 2011 Bunkum Grand Prize goes to the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), which received the “Cancer is Under-Rated Award” for Going Exponential: Growing the Charter School Sector’s Best. In its report, which advocated the rapid expansion of preferred charter schools, PPI compared those charters to viruses and cancers.

PPI says that it “conducted research about when and how exponential growth occurs in the natural world, specifically examining mold, algae, cancer, crystals and viruses. We used these findings…to fuel our thinking about fresh directions for the charter sector.”

“The Progressive Policy Institute deserves our top award for combining a weak analysis, agenda-driven recommendations, and the most bizarre analogy we’ve seen in a long time,” stated Kevin Welner, director of NEPC. “This report spoke to us in ways matched by no other publication.”

Welner and the NEPC recognized the report for its almost complete lack of acceptable scientific evidence or original research supporting the policy suggestions, as well as its failure to make the case that its suggestions are relevant to school improvement. To view the NEPC review of this report, and for a link to the report itself, visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-going-exponential.

The NEPC also awarded its “Get a Life(time) Achievement Award” to Dr. Matthew Ladner, senior advisor of policy and research for Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. This is the first time NEPC bestowed an individual with a Bunkum Award.

“We’ve never before found someone with an individual record of Bunkum-worthy accomplishments that just cries out for recognition,” stated Welner. “Dr. Ladner’s body of Bunk-work is focused on his shameless hawking of what he and the Governor call the ‘Florida Formula’ for educational success.”

Specifically, Ladner argues that because Florida’s test scores had increased during a time period when Florida policy included things like school choice and grade retention, these policies must be responsible for the scores. Yet decades of evidence link grade retention practices to increased dropout rates, not to improved achievement.

Moreover, Florida’s recent test score results are notably unimpressive, but Ladner continues to promote his favored policies, blaming the scores on a slide in home prices and other factors he says are “impossible” to determine. Learn more at http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/learning-from-florida.

NEPC’s other 2011 Bunkums (full descriptions are available at http://nepc.colorado.edu/think-tank/bunkum-awards/2011):

“Mirror Image Award (What You Read is Reversed),” to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for Learning About Teaching (2011 First Runner-Up). Although the Foundation touted the report as “some of the strongest evidence to date of the validity of ‘value-added’ analysis,” showing that “teachers’ effectiveness can be reliably estimated by gauging their students’ progress on standardized tests,” the actual data show only a modest correlation between teachers’ effectiveness and students’ test scores. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-learning-about-teaching

“If Bernie Madoff Worked in School Finance Award,” to ConnCAN for Spend Smart: Fix Our Broken School Funding System. This report promotes a “money follows the child” funding system that would have the effect of making funding even more inequitable by shifting funding away from students in poverty and those learning English. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-spend-smart

“If Political Propaganda Counted as Research Award,” to the Center for American Progress and the Broad Foundation, for Charting New Territory: Tapping Charter Schools to Turn around the Nation’s Dropout Factories. Drawing on mysterious backwards-engineering techniques, the authors of this report build a foundation for their findings and conclusions that mimics real evidence. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-spend-smart

“Discovering the Obvious While Obscuring the Important Award,” to Third Way for Incomplete: How Middle Class Schools Aren’t Making the Grade. Mixing and matching data sources and units of analysis to such an extent that it’s almost impossible for readers to figure out which analyses go with which data, the report attempts to convince its readers that middle-class schools are doing a lot worse than we think. In fact, the results show the results of middle class schools to be … in the middle. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-middle-class

The word Bunkum comes from Buncombe County in North Carolina. Buncombe County produced a Congressman, Representative Felix Walker, who gained infamy back in 1820 for delivering a particularly meaningless, irrelevant and seemingly endless speech. Thus, bunkum became a term for long-winded nonsense of the kind often seen in politics, and today in education.

The National Education Policy Center unites a diverse group of interdisciplinary scholars from across the United States. The Center is guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence. To learn more about NEPC, please visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/.

Rouge Forum 2012

The Rouge Forum 2012 will be held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The University’s picturesque campus is located 50 minutes northwest of Cincinnati. The conference will be held June 22-24, 2012.

In addition to plenty of time for large group discussions, the Featured Speakers are:

SUSAN OHANIAN
Susan Ohanian will be a Keynote Speaker at the Rouge Forum 2012. Susan’s advocacy work keeps at its core her 20 years as a teacher. Her more than 300 essays on education issues have appeared in periodicals ranging from Phi Delta Kappan cover stories to The Atlantic, Nation, USA Today, Washington Monthly, Extra! (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and numerous education journals. One of her 26 book on education policy and practice introduced the word Standardisto.

Although currently censored at the NCTE online discussion site, Susan’s website received NCTE’s George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honest and Clarity in Public Language. She has delivered the annual MacClement Lecture for Excellence in Education, Queens University, Ontario, Canada, the Helen Oakes lecture at Temple University, and the Biber Lecture, Bank Street College, New York.

Susan notes that although she’s been a featured speaker at both the International Symposium for the Educational Welfare in Seoul, Korea, and British Columbia Teachers’ Federation events, her talk to the Progressive Caucus of the AFT was closed down by angry hoots from the audience.

Susan started a website to protest the passage of NCLB. She had hoped to shut it down by now, but things keep getting worse, so she persists.

MICHAEL PRYSNER
Mike Prysner is the co-founder of March Forward!, an organization of active-duty members of the US military and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict that encourages current active duty service personnel to resist deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a US army veteran that served in Iraq. His rank was corporal and duties in Iraq included ground surveillance, home raids and the interrogation of prisoners. These experiences led him to take a radical anti-war stand. In March of 2008 he testified in the Winter Soldier organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War. Later that year Michael ran a write-in campaign for the US House of Representatives for Florida’s 22nd congressional district (Boca Raton). He is a member of A.N.S.W.E.R. and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. In the recent Occupy movements, he has been active and arrested participating in direct actions.

PAUL STREET
Paul Street is a journalist, author, historian, and political commentator who has authored six books, including The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Paradigm, 2010). Street has a doctorate in U.S. History at Binghamton University and has taught at numerous colleges and universities in and around Chicago. He was the Director of Research and Vice President for Research and Planning at The Chicago Urban League from 2000 to 2005. Street has published a numerous articles, essays, reviews, and editorials in numerous outlets, including ZNet, Z Magazine, CounterPunch, Black Agenda Report, The Chicago Tribune, Journal of American Ethnic History, Journal of Social History, Mid-America, Critical Sociology, Chicago History,Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, Studies in History and Politics, History of Education Quarterly, Monthly Review, Iowa City Press-Citizen, In These Times, Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai, India), Tinabantu: Journal of African National Affairs (Cape Town, South Africa), Synthesis/Regeneration, International Socialist Review, Dissent, Capital City Times (Madison, WI), Black Commentator, Tom’s Dispatch, History News Network, MRZine, Dissident Voice, and Monthly Review.

New issue of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor — Belonging and Non-Belonging: Costs and Consequences in Academic Lives

Dear Workplace and Critical Education Supporters,

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor has just published its latest issue
at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/issue/current

We are extremely pleased to announce the launch of Workplace Issue #19,
“Belonging and Non-Belonging: Costs and Consequences in Academic Lives.”
This special issue represents powerful narrative analyses of academic
lives– narratives that are sophisticated and sensitive, gut-wrenching and
heart-rendering. “Belonging and Non-Belonging” was guest edited by Michelle
McGinn and features a rich array of collaborative articles by Michelle,
Nancy E. Fenton, Annabelle L. Grundy, Michael Manley-Casimira, and Carmen
Shields.

We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our ojs
to review the articles and items of interest.

Thanks for the continuing interest in Workplace,

Stephen Petrina & E. Wayne Ross, co-Editors
Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
Institute for Critical Education Studies
https://blogs.ubc.ca/ices/

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
No 19 (2012): Belonging and non-Belonging: Costs and Consequences in Academic Lives
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/workplace/issue/view/182237

Articles
——–
Belonging and non-Belonging: Costs and Consequences in Academic Lives
Michelle K. McGinn

Contextualizing Academic Lives
Michael Manley-Casimir, Nancy E. Fenton, Michelle K. McGinn, Carmen
Shields

All the World’s a Stage: Players on the Academic Landscape
Michelle K. McGinn, Annabelle L. Grundy, Carmen Shields, Michael
Manley-Casimir, Nancy E. Fenton

Confronting the Myths and Norms of Academic Engagement
Carmen Shields, Michael Manley-Casimir, Nancy E. Fenton, Michelle K.
McGinn

Exploring Emotional Experiences of Belonging
Nancy E. Fenton, Carmen Shields, Michelle McGinn, Michael Manley-Casimir

Required Payment: Extracting a Pound of Flesh
Carmen Shields, Nancy E. Fenton, Michelle K. McGinn, Michael
Manley-Casimir

Fitting Procrustes’ Bed: A Shifting Reality
Michelle K. McGinn, Michael Manley-Casimir, Nancy E. Fenton, Carmen
Shields

The Erosion of Academic Troth: Disengaging from the Ties that Bind
Carmen Shields, Michelle K. McGinn, Michael Manley-Casimir, Nancy E.
Fenton

Critical Education: A Portrait of Black Leadership during Racial School Segregation

Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled. We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of interest.

Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,
Sandra Mathison
Stephen Petrina
E. Wayne Ross

Co-Editors, Critical Education
Institute for Critical Education Studies, University of British Columbia

Critical Education
Vol 3, No 4 (2012)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182243

Articles
——–
A Portrait of Black Leadership during Racial School Segregation
Patricia Randolph Leigh, Beverlyn Lundy Allen
Iowa State University

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to paint a portrait of an African American public school administrator, capturing the essence of his leadership style and educational philosophy during extremely challenging circumstances. This portrait reveals the many creative ways that this administrator handled discipline, secured resources, and ultimately impacted the lives of many students in his district. This research is important in light of the fact that schools across the nation are returning to segregation and an increase in Black superintendents is concomitant with this increase in predominately Black urban school districts. Much can be learned from examining this portrait as administrators find themselves presiding over districts with historically underserved children from low-income families.

Rouge Forum @ AERA [Videos]

To Know is Not Enough:
Rouge Forum @ AERA

Friday April 13, 2012
Vancouver, BC
Videos on the ICESchannel at YouTube (or click on links below)

The Rouge Forum @ AERA brought together world-renowned scholars, teachers, community organizers, and other activists to discuss these questions and others related to activist scholarship, social change, academic freedom, and work in the corporate university as part of this one-day interactive conference at the Robson Square Campus of University of British Columbia in downtown Vancouver.

Introduction to the Rouge Fourm @ AERA 2012
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia 

Session I: What might happen when teachers and other academics connect reason to power and power to resistance?
Patrick Shannon, Penn State University
Ken Saltman, DePaul University
E. Wayne Ross on Canada Border Services Agency’s prohibition of Abraham DeLeon from Canada / the Rouge Forum 
Antonia Darder, Loyola Marymount University (unable to attend)
Abraham DeLeon, University of Texas, San Antonio (turned away at border)
Natalia Jaramillo, University of Auckland (unable to attend)
Discussion I
Discussion II
Sandra Mathison comments on recent labour dispute in British Columbia between the BCTF and government

Introduction to the Rouge Forum @ AERA 2012 Afternoon Session
E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia 

Session II: How can academic work (in universities and other learning environments) support local and global resistance to global capitalism?
Peter McLaren, UCLA
Gustavo Fischman, Arizona State University
Jill Pickney Pastrana, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Ken Saltman, DePaul University
Rebecca Martusewicz, Eastern Michigan University (unable to attend)
Discussion I
Discussion II

Special Session – Great Schools Project
David Chudnovsky
Discussion I
Discussion II

Session III: How do we respond to the obstacles and threats faced as activist scholars?
Stephen Petrina, University of British Columbia
Nancye E. McCrary, University of Kentucky
Brad Porfilio, Lewis University
Elizabeth Heilman, Michigan State University (unable to attend)

ICES at Community Events

  • ICES at at May Day rally Vancouver (1 May 2012)
  • ICES at Occupy Wall Street (16 April 2012)
  • ICES at BCFed & BCTF rally Vancouver (7 March 2012)
  • ICES at BCFed & BCTF rally Victoria (6 March 2012)
  • ICES at BC Secondary Students’ Walk-Out (2 March 2012)
  • ICES at Occupy Vancouver (October-November 2011)

Digest of articles about “testing season” from FairTest

Bringing Real Reform to Schools — a letter from a Connecticut teacher
http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Bringing-real-reform-to-schools-3532712.php

State Officials Throw Out Another Pearson Test Question
http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/02/state-officials-throw-out-another-pearson-test-question/

Pearson Defends its Tests
http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/04/pearson-says-its-tests-are-valid-and-reliable/

No Accountability for Test-Makers
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/04/2783911/whos-accountable-for-the-fcat.html

Beware Corporations Lobbying, Then Profiting from Education Reform
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/may/07/sandra-reinhard-beware-corporations-lobbying/

Guess When This Warning About Testing Was Written
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/guess-when-this-warning-about-testing-was-written/2012/05/06/gIQAQqEX6T_blog.html

Move to Outsource Teacher Licensing Process Draws Protest
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/education/new-procedure-for-teaching-license-draws-protest.html?ref=education

Recommended recent articles from Historians Against the War

Links to Recent Articles of Interest

“Report on Iran’s Nuclear Fatwa Distorts Its History”
By Gareth Porter, AntiWar.com, posted April 18

“A Black Indian March for Peace, 1861-1862”
By William Loren Katz, Portside.org, posted April 16

“Why Washington’s Iran Policy Could Lead to Global Disaster: What History Should Teach Us about Blockading Iran”
By Juan Cole, TomDispatch.com, posted April 12
The author teaches history at the University of Michigan.

“The Afghan Syndrome: Vietnam Has Left Town, Say Hello to the New Syndrome on the Block”
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com, posted April 10

“U.S. Military Atrocities Abroad”
By Ambeth R. Ocampo, Philippine Daily Inquirer, posted April 10
Relates the U.S.-Philippine War to Vietnam and Afghanistan

“Heard the One about the Peace Activist on the Titanic?”
By David Swanson, War Is a Crime.org, posted April 9

“Left Behind: What We Lost in Iraq and Washington, 2009-2012”
By Peter Van Buren, TomDispatch.com, posted April 8

“Waist Deep in Big Muddy, Again?”
By Mark Solomon, Portside.org, posted April 7

“Thinking the Unthinkable on Iran”
By Jonathan Schell, The Nation, posted April 6

“Our Men in Iran?”
By Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker blog, posted April 6

CFP for book on e-learning

Via Dr Petar Jandric, Senior Lecturer at the Polytechnic of Zagreb, Croatia:

We would like to invite you to submit proposal for book chapter for the forthcoming book “E-learning“. The book will be published jointly by The University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and The Polytechnic of Zagreb.

Please find our Call for Chapters attached. You can also find it on our websites:

http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/infoz/hr/index.php/knjiga-e-learning
http://www.tvz.hr/en/tvz-pocetna/poziv-za-poglavlja-u-knjizi/

We look forward to your contributions!

Kind Regards
Dr Petar Jandric, Senior Lecturer at the Polytechnic of Zagreb, Croatia
Prof Damir Boras, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia

New issue of Critical Education: Educating Future Generations of Community Gardeners

Critical Education
Volume 3 Number 3
Educating Future Generations of Community Gardeners
Shane Jesse Ralston
Penn State University, Hazleton

Abstract

In this paper, I formulate a Deweyan argument for school gardening that prepares students for a specific type of gardening activism: community gardening, or the political activity of collectively organizing, planting and tending gardens for the purposes of food security, education and community development. Though not identical, a related type of gardening activism, guerrilla gardening, or the political activity of reclaiming unused urban land, sometimes illegally, for purposes of cultivation and beautification, is also implicated. Historically, community gardening in the U.S. has been associated with relief projects during periods of economic downturn and crisis, urban blight and gentrification, as well as nationalism, nativism and racism. Despite these last few unfortunate associations, the American philosopher John Dewey detached school gardening from the nativist’s tool-kit, portraying it as a gateway to more enriching adult experiences, not as a technique for assimilating immigrant children to a distinctly American way of life. One of those experiences that school gardening can prepare children for is environmental political activism, particularly involvement in gardening movements. Dewey did not mention this collateral benefit. Nevertheless, an argument can be made that garden advocacy—or, more specifically, participation in politically-motivated gardening movements—is an acceptable interpretation, or elaboration, of what Dewey meant by “a civic turn” to school gardening.