New issue of Critical Education: “Why the Standards Movement Failed: An Educational and Political Diagnosis of Its Failure and the Implications for School Reform”

Part 2 of Larry Stedman’s analysis of the failure of the standards movement, just published by Critical Education.

Why the Standards Movement Failed: An Educational and Political Diagnosis of Its Failure and the Implications for School Reform
Lawrence C. Stedman

Abstract

In the first paper, “How Well Does the Standards Movement Measure Up?,” I documented the movement’s failure in diverse areas—academic achievement, equality of opportunity, quality of learning, and graduation rates—and described its harmful effects on students and school culture.

In this paper, I diagnose the reasons for the failure and propose an alternative agenda for school reform. I link the failure of the standards movement to its faulty premises, historical myopia, and embrace of test-driven accountability. As part of the audit culture and the conservative restoration, the movement ended up pushing a data-driven, authoritarian form of schooling. Its advocates blamed educational problems on a retreat from standards, for which there was little evidence, while ignoring the long-standing, deep structure of schooling that had caused persistent achievement problems throughout the 20th century. Drawing on reproduction theories and analyses of the neoliberal reform project, I make the case for repealing NCLB and Race to the Top and outline a progressive framework for reconstructing schools.

Historians Against the War: Links to recent articles

“How the Power of Myth Keeps Us Trapped in War”
By Ira Chernus, TomDispatch.com, posted January 20

“Tunisia’s Democratic Revolution”
By Stephen Zunes, Truth-out.org, posted January 19

“Violence Doesn’t Work”
By Howard Zinn, CommonDreams.org, posted January 18 (from the September 15, 2001 issue of The Progressive)

“From Military-Industrial Complex to Permanent War State”
By Gareth Porter, CommonDreams.org, posted January 17

“Ike’s Warning Resonates: 50 Years Later, Obama Should Learn Eisenhower’s Lesson about the Military-Industrial Complex”
By Melvin A. Goodman, Baltimore Sun, posted January 17

“Twisting MLK’s Message of Peace”
By William Loren Katz, ConsortiumNews, posted January 17

“It’s Still the Same Old Story—From Guns to Nukes”
By Lawrence A. Wittner, History News Network, posted January 17
The author is a professor of history emeritus at SUNY Albany

“An Assassination’s Long Shadow”

By Adam Hochschild, New York Times, posted January 16
On the murder of Patrice Lumumba, January 16, 1961

“Historians Criticized as Often AWOL from Public Debate over ‘War on Terror’”
By Peter Schmidt, Chronicle of Higher Education, posted January 12

“How Many Gitmo Alumni Take Up Arms? Not Nearly as Many as the Department of Defense Is Claiming”

By Peter Bergen, Kathleen Tiedemann, and Andrew Lebovitch, Foreign Policy, posted January 11

Educating for Peace in a Time of Permanent War: Call for proposals:

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

FOR A BOOK ENTITLED

EDUCATING FOR PEACE IN A TIME OF PERMANENT WAR:
ARE SCHOOLS PART OF THE SOLUTION OR THE PROBLEM?

Under Contract
Routledge / Taylor & Francis

Co-editors Paul R. Carr (Lakehead University, Orillia) & Brad J. Porfilio (Lewis University)

Afterword Zvi Bekerman (Hebrew University)

SCHEDULE

1. Chapter proposals due: February 28, 2011
2. Feedback and decisions from editors to contributors: April 4, 2011
3. First drafts due to editors: July 15, 2011
4. Feedback on first drafts from editors to contributors: September 5, 2011
5. Final drafts by contributors due to editors: October 14, 2011
6. Manuscript to publisher: December 1, 2011
7. It is our expectation that the book will be publisher in early 2012

Statement of aims
This project responds to a defined need to add to the literature in a critical manner, providing scholars, educators and others interested in peace and peace education with a nuanced, complexifed analysis and, importantly, strategies to better understand how schools engage with the notion of war and peace, and, moreover, what they can do to become part of the solution related to creating societies that strive to establish peace as a foundational component to socio-cultural, economic and political manifestations framing relations and experiences.

This CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS seeks critical contributions from scholars who are concerned with the unchecked infiltration of the military within schools, whether it be through the curriculum, through pedagogy, through policy, through experiential learning, or through military recruitment. As Paulo Freire and other critical theorists, including Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, bell hooks, Joe Kincheloe, Antonia Darder and others have acknowledged, education is a political process, and it should, necessarily, address human suffering and oppression. The willful neglect, combined with our individual and collective complicity within the military enterprise, sometimes referred to as the military-industrial complex, takes place at many levels, including ignorance of militarization at home and abroad, tacit support for military conflict in spite of alternatives for peace that exist, an uncritical reading of history that glorifies war and patriotism, a lack of critical engagement to promote peace over war, and a general reluctance to infuse a more critical pedagogical experience interwoven into education that would allow for deliberative democracy and engagement that seeks to contextualize and bring to life diverse epistemologies, value-sets, disciplines, theories, concepts, and experiences.

Little is done in schools at the formal and informal levels to address war and peace, especially in relation to what can and should be done to bring about peace, and this volume seeks to provide a range of policy, pedagogical, curriculum and institutional analyses aimed at facilitating meaningful engagement toward a more robust and critical examination of the role that schools play (and can play) in framing war, militarization and armed conflict.

We are particularly interested in the connection between war and peace. Many excellent texts deal specifically with peace and peace education, and we are hoping that this volume will make a more explicit connection between war/conflict/militarization and peace in and through education. We are also interested in nuanced, alternative, critical interdisciplinary studies that bring to light how we know, understand, engage with, and problematize war within our societies, and, particularly, within our schools. This manuscript is intended for an international audience, and we welcome proposals from scholars in diverse contexts, geographical locations and disciplines.

ONE LINE DESCIPTION OF THE BOOK

Ignorance is no defense, and may even be construed as complicity in the quest for what Peter McLaren calls “permanent war”.

If education is not about peace, then is it about war?

Can a society have education that willfully avoids considering peace as its central objective?

FOCUS

This book intends to better articulate how schools are part of the war industry, and, importantly, how schools can do peace education by examining war.

War is not a nebulous, far-away, mysterious venture; we are involved in perpetrating and perpetuating it, and education about and against war can be as liberating as it is necessary.

If war equates killing, can our schools avoid engaging in the examination of what war is all about?

This book shines a light on the pivotal role played by schools and education in ending or continuing war.

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

1. Submit the following by February 28, 2011, to Paul R. Carr and Brad J. Porfilio: prcarr@gmail.com & Porfilio16@aol.com
2.
a. Title of proposed chapter
b. Author(s) and complete institutional titles and contact information
c. A 150-word biography for each author
d. A 300-word abstract of the proposed chapter, including what research methods are being used, theoretical and conceptual framework used, focus, and findings (or expected findings), and how the chapter is directly connected to the focus of the book.

Co-editor biographies

Paul R. Carr is originally from Toronto, and now resides in Montreal. He was recently an associate professor at Youngstown State University, where he taught courses in multicultural education, the sociology of education, diversity and leadership, and qualitative methodology, and is now an Associate Professor at Lakehead University (Orillia) in the Departments of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Studies. His current research is broadly concerned with social justice, with specific threads related to critical pedagogy, democracy, media literacy, and intercultural education. In 2007, he co-edited The Great White North? Exploring Whiteness, Privilege and Identity in Education (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers), which won two national awards, and, in 2008, co-edited another book, entitled Doing Democracy: Striving for Political Literacy and Social Justice (New York: Peter Lang). He recently finalized two other edited books: the first in French entitled Les faces caches de l’intercultural (Paris: L’Harmattan), and the second, with Brad Porfilio, entitled Youth Culture, education and resistance: Subverting the commercial ordering of life (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers). He has recently authored book entitled Democracy and critical pedagogy: Does your vote count? (New York: Peter Lang). Paul is the co-founder and co-director of the Global Doing Democracy Research Project, which aims to produce a range of studies on the international level, leading to critical, comparative analysis of how democracy and education can be more effectively connected.

Dr. Brad J. Porfilio is Assistant Professor of Education at Lewis University in Romeoville, IL. He teaches courses on critical pedagogy, qualitative research, globalization and education, multicultural education, foundations of education, and curriculum theory in the Educational Leadership for Teaching and Learning Doctoral Program. The Educational Leadership Program at Lewis University is unique in its critical and transformative focus where students are prepared to become transformative educational leaders who are deeply discerning, knowledgeable and approach the educational system as a potential avenue for challenging and transforming the status quo. Dr. Porfilio received his PhD in Sociology of Education in 2005 at the University at Buffalo. During his doctoral studies, he served as an Assistant Professor of Education at Medaille College and D’Youville College, where he taught courses across the teacher education spectrum and supervised pre-service and in-service teachers from Canada and the US. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, edited volumes, and conference papers on the topics of urban education, critical social studies education, neoliberalism and schooling, transformative education, teacher education, gender and technology, and cultural studies. He recently published three co- edited volumes: The first, co-edited with Curry Malott, The Destructive Path of Neoliberalism (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers), the second, co-edited with Paul R. Carr, Youth Culture, Education and Resistance: Subverting the Commercial Ordering of Life (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers), and the third, co-edited with Curry Malott, Critical Pedagogy in the 21st Century: A New Generation of Scholars (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing).

Paul R. Carr Brad J. Porfilio
Lakehead University (Orillia) Lewis University
prcarr@gmail.edu porfilio16@aol.com

Announcing the Purple Thistle Institute! Radical social change from below

Announcing the Purple Thistle Institute!
RADICAL SOCIAL CHANGE FROM BELOW

The Purple Thistle in East Vancouver, Coast Salish Territory is super‐pleased to announce that in JULY 2011 we will be running a three‐week summer institute. We’d be thrilled if you would consider attending.

WHAT IS IT? The PTI will be something like an alternative university, or maybe better: an alternative‐to-university.

The idea is to bring together a bunch of engaged, interested people to talk about theory, ideas and practise for radical social change. We’ll have a great time, meet good people, get our praxis challenged and with luck refine and renew our ideas, politics and energies.

Importantly, the conversations will very deliberately cut across radical orientations – anarchists, socialists, lefties, progressives, anti‐colonialists, anti‐authoritarians, ecologists of all stripes are welcome.

The idea is to work, think and talk together – to articulate and comprehend differences sure – but to find common ground, get beyond factionalized pettiness and stimulate radical ecological and egalitarian social change. We want to get good people with good ideas together to talk and listen to each other.

WHEN IS BEING HELD? July 4th – 23rd, 2011

WHAT WILL THE SCHEDULE LOOK LIKE? Essentially all three weeks will follow the same pattern. We will be running 6 days a week with Sundays off. We will be offering 8 morning classes of which participants will be able to choose up to four to attend. Then we will all have lunch together, then every afternoon community work placements will be offered. Evenings will be a mix of open‐space activities, shows, speakers, films and free time.

WHAT WILL THE CLASSES BE LIKE? We have put together an awesome roster of instructors and speakers including Astra Taylor, Cecily Nicholson, Carla Bergman, Am Johal, Matt Hern, Geoff Mann, Glen Coulthard and lots more. The classes will be fairly rigourous (loosely at an upper‐year university level) and include a certain amount of reading and some writing. Attendance is not mandatory and you can engage with as much or as little as you like. The classes include: Decolonization, Activist Art, Urban Studies, Deschooling, Understanding Economics, Contemporary Social Philosophy and Critical Theory.

WHO IS THIS FOR? The PTI is for anyone, of any age, but we will be giving priority to youth, racialized and low‐income folks. As mentioned the classes will be pretty rigourous intellectually, but please don’t let that scare you off. The language will not be overly academicized and as long as you like to read, think, talk and listen you’ll probably be OK. The one real requirement is that you are keenly interested in radical social transformation and come with a generous spirit ready to listen and collaborate.

WHAT WILL IT COST? The three weeks are priced on a sliding scale: $350 ‐ $500. This includes lunch six days a week. If you are coming from out of town, need a place to stay and want to kick down an extra $100 we will find you a good billet who will give you a bed and feed you. There will be a few bursaries available, but we are going to need most people to pay at least the minimum.

HOW DO I APPLY? Hit us with an email at institute@purplethistle.ca and we’ll send you a formal application and instructions.

David Noble, academic and activist, dies at 65

Globe and Mail: David Noble, academic and activist, dies at 65

David Noble, one of North America’s most prominent critics of the corporatization of academia and a groundbreaking researcher on the influence of technology on society, died Monday evening at age 65. He passed away in hospital unexpectedly of natural causes with his family at his side, friends said.

Prof. Noble rose to prominence for his critiques of technological automation, which he argued had been a method of depriving workers of power. He worked at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology and later at York University in Toronto, where he quickly became known for his political activism.

In 2001, he was denied an appointment to the J.S. Woodsworth research chair at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University, despite the backing of faculty, which he blamed on his activism against corporatization. Seven years later, he settled out of court with the university, which acknowledged that it had made mistakes.

A Jew and an opponent of Zionism, Prof. Noble garnered an angry reaction from York in 2004 when he published a pamphlet accusing a school fundraising body of being “biased by the presence and influence of staunch pro-Israeli lobbyists, activities and fundraising agencies,” and proceeded to name members of the group who had ties to Jewish organizations. After York condemned his actions, he sued the school for defamation, a case that was due to go to trial next year.

Two years later, he launched a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission against York’s practice of cancelling classes on some Jewish holidays, maintaining that it constituted discrimination against non-Jewish students. The university changed its policies before the case was heard.

“He was very vehement, vibrant, intense,” said Denis Rancourt, a former University of Ottawa professor and a close friend of Prof. Noble’s. “He was very energetic and exciting to be around in terms of all the ideas.”

Mr. Rancourt credited Prof. Noble with motivating his students’ activism and described his intense passion.

“One time he called me after an opera performance to express that the singer was so powerful that he was convinced we would all live forever,” he said.

He had planned to retire from classroom teaching this summer, he said.

“He was very courageous in his ability to unwaveringly speak truth to power,” said Yavar Hameed, his lawyer. “He was unafraid to speak up against the corporatization of education.”

The Canadian Arab Federation issued a statement on his death: “Canada lost a truly noble person, both in name and in the essence of his character.”

Prof. Noble is survived by his wife, three children and two brothers.

Close Guantánamo with Justice Now

The Historians Against the War Steering Committee has joined the Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International, and other groups in endorsing a statement being prepared for the January 11 ninth anniversary of the establishment of the Guantánamo prison camp. The statement, entitled “Close Guantánamo with Justice Now,” is on-line at http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2010/12/29/guantanamo.pdf. Jeremy Varon of the New School history department is helping to recruit individual signers with academic affiliations (the varied list currently includes Noam Chomsky, Todd Gitlin, and Michael Berube among many others). Anyone wishing to sign can send an e-mail to Jeremy at jvaron@aol.com with name and affiliation.

Adam Renner, our friend

Dear Friends,

Adam Renner, the Rouge Forum Community Coordinator, has died at 40.

Adam was a wonderful friend, teacher, writer, musician, martial artist, and honest, caring man. His courage had taken remarkable forms–from being willing to sacrifice to help others, to always learning, and altering his views, on the path to discover what is true in order to make the world a little better. What could be a more powerful legacy?

As an educator, author, and friend, Adam embodied the interaction of ethical theory and determined practice.

His skills as the Rouge Forum Community Coordinator were exemplary–from gently moving along a meeting when it needed to move, to organizing the 2008 Louisville Forum, to editing the Rouge Forum News, and, above all, being key to forming a caring community where people could bring differing views, share them, and feel not only sane, but valued: family.

We offer our deep sympathy to Adam’s wife, Gina Stiens.

A Service & Celebration of Life will be held on Tuesday, December 28th, 2010.

Both will be held at Shiloh United Methodist Church, 5261 Foley Rd., Cincinnati, OH 45238

The Service begins at 11:00AM.

The Celebration will be immediately following, 12:00-2:00PM.

The attached link is in Adam’s memory. You can add to it yourself by clicking below.
https://sites.google.com/site/rougeforumremembersadam/

Good luck to us, every one.

Rich Gibson and Amber for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee

The year in music—My favorite albums of 2010

I used to post much more often about music here at WTBHNN, but I thought I would at least continue the tradition of my yearly favorites list. See my annual reviews dating back to 1998 here.

Before I get to the list, some observations about purchasing, streaming, and sharing music.

For many years I purchased around 100 albums years, give or take 10 or so. With the “digital revolution” my album purchases have trended upward, for example: 110 (2007); 158 (2008); 149 (2009); and 188 (2010). (Unlike my teenage son, I rarely buy single tracks. Although I did buy two 7″ vinyl releases from Robert Pollard this year).

Only 73 of my 188 album purchases were actual cds, so I’m downloading over 70% of the music I buy (and the majority of that is from eMusic).

I’m streaming music more than ever. I have a subscription to Napster and stream their 2.5 million tune catalog and internet radio throughout my home. I’ve also recently subscribed to Sirius radio. I continue to share music among friends, but even taking all that into account, I’m spending more than ever on recorded music. Hmmm…

View my 2010 cd collection here. You’ll see I did a little back catalog purchasing of Rolling Stones releases (particularly the 1994 Virgin cds, since the 2010 remasters don’t sound nearly as good.)

E. Wayne’s Favorite Albums of 2010
(I don’t claim these are the best albums of the year, but they’re the ones kept going back to. And I know there are many albums I picked up this year that just haven’t gotten the attention they deserve, so I reserve the right to change my mind in the future.)

The Top Ten
1. Bettye LaVetteInterpretations: The British Rock Songbook
2. Danger Mouse & SparklehorseDark Night of the Soul
3. Robert Plant Band of Joy
4. JJ Grey & MofroGeorgia Warhorse
5. Solomon BurkeNothing’s Impossible
6. Sharon Jones & The Dap KingsI Learned the Hard Way
7. Broken Bells Broken Bells
8. Boston SpaceshipsOur Cubehouse Still Rocks
9. The Black KeysBrothers
10. Shelby LynneTears, Lies, and Alibis

Honorable Mentions
Los LobosTin Can Trust
Massive AttackHeligoland
GalacticYa-Ka-May
Charlie MusselwhiteThe Well
Porcupine TreeThe Incident (released in 2009, but PT was my most listened to band of the year)

The 2010 Mixtapes

Wayne’s 2010 Faves – Rock/Post-Rock

  1. Silk Rotor – Robert Pollard
  2. Breakdown Into The Resolve – Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
  3. We Used to Wait – Arcade Fire
  4. Tender Heart – Alejandro Escovedo
  5. Angel Dance – Robert Plant
  6. Vaporize – Broken Bells
  7. Revenge (feat. The Flaming Lips) – Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse
  8. Paradise Circus – Massive Attack
  9. The Blind House – Porcupine Tree
  10. Written In Reverse – Spoon
  11. 27 Spanishes – Los Lobos
  12. I Believe In You – Black Dub
  13. Kong – Bonobo
  14. Hunted By A Freak – Mogwai
  15. John the Dwarf Wants to Become an Angel – Boston Spaceships
  16. The Money Shuffle – Richard Thompson
  17. Stereo (Remastered) – Pavement
  18. Feeling In the Dark – Dwight Twilley Band
  19. Valleys of Neptune – Jimi Hendrix

Wayne’s 2010 Faves – Rhythm

  1. The Word – Bettye LaVette
  2. The Game Gets Old – Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
  3. I’m Leavin’ It Up To You – Jimmie Vaughan (w Lou Ann Barton)
  4. Heart Of Steel – Galactic, Feat. Irma Thomas
  5. Nothing’s Impossible – Solomon Burke
  6. Harlem River Blues – Justin Townes Earle
  7. Testify (Parts 1 & 2) – The Isley Brothers (that’s Jimi on guitar)
  8. Only In Amerika – Dr. John & The Lower 911
  9. Everybody Thinks You’re an Angel – Mose Allison
  10. Have Blues, Will Travel – Smokin’ Joe Kubek & Bnois King
  11. Everlasting Light – The Black Keys
  12. The Sweetest Thing – JJ Grey And Mofro
  13. Sad and Beautiful World – Charlie Musselwhite
  14. Tramp – Steve Miller Band
  15. Too Hard To Love You – Guitar Shorty
  16. Season Man – Tony Joe White
  17. Tragedy – Peter Wolf (w Shelby Lynne)
  18. Rains Came-  Shelby Lynne
  19. Mixtape – Tift Merritt
  20. Porter Wagoner’s Grave – Marty Stuart
  21. Me And The Devil – Gil Scott-Heron

Critical Education: How Well Does the Standards Movement Measure Up?

Critical Education has just published its latest issue—the first of a two part examination of No Child Left Behind policies and the standards movement by Lawrence C. Stedman.

We invite you visit our web site to review this and other articles and items of interest.

Critical Education
Vol 1, No 10 (2010)
Table of Contents
http://m1.cust.educ.ubc.ca/journal/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/21

Articles
——–
How Well Does the Standards Movement Measure Up? An Analysis of
Achievement Trends, Academic Course-taking, Student Learning, NCLB, and
Changes in School Culture and Graduation Rates

Lawrence C. Stedman

Abstract

This is the first of two papers examining the standards movement. In it, I review data from NAEP, the SAT, the international assessments, transcript studies, and NCLB assessments, as well as surveys and case studies of changes in curriculum and pedagogy. The picture is a bleak one. Over the past quarter century, achievement has stagnated, dropouts and aliteracy have grown, and large minority achievement gaps have persisted. The quality of student learning remains poor. School changes, stratified by class and race, have constricted instruction and harmed students and teachers. NCLB has made things worse, not better. Even in the two areas where the movement has achieved some success—lower grade math achievement and high school academic enrollments—the gains were largely superficial, other forces such as teaching-to-the-test and social promotion contributed, and serious deficiencies remain.

In the second paper, “Why the Standards Movement Failed,” I examine the educational and political reasons for the failure—including its misconstruction of pedagogy and links to the neoliberal reform project—and propose a progressive alternative.

Rouge Forum Update:

Our heartfelt good wishes to Rouge Forum Community Coordinator, Adam Renner, now hospitalized, and his wife, Gina. Get well, Adam!

The Rouge Forum update is linked here.

There you will find the latest news, in its social context, as well as classic Rouge Forum posters, flyers, and more. Plus fun!

We will start next year with announcements from, especially, India, China, and Canada, as well as updates on the resistance, in schools and out.