“A Nation at Risk” Twenty-Five Years Later

In a report for the libertarian Cato Institute, former New York Times education columnist Richard Rothstein, takes the 25th anniversary of the Reagan Administration’s A Nation At Risk report to analyze its flaws; how it perpetuated the lie that public schools were collapsing; and how warped the public’s view of the relationship between schools and the economy.

Rothstein illustrates three fundamental flaws in the arguments presented in A Nation At Risk. First, the report wrongly concluded that student achievement was declining. Second, it placed the blame on schools for national economic problems over which schools have relatively little influence. Third, it ignored the responsibility of the nation’s other social and economic institutions for learning.

Rothstein concludes:

A Nation at Risk was well-intentioned, but based on flawed analyses, at least some of which should have been known to the Commission that authored it. The report burned into Americans’ consciousness a conviction that, evidence notwithstanding, our schools are failures, and a warped view of the relationship between schools and economic well-being. It distracted education policymakers from insisting that our political, economic, and social institutions also have a responsibility to prepare children to be ready to learn when they attend school.

There are many reasons to improve American schools, but declining achievement and international competition are not good arguments for doing so. Asking schools to improve dramatically without support from other social and economic institutions is bound to fail, as a quarter-century of experience since A Nation at Risk has demonstrated.

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

The Rouge Forum web page is only partially updated with material from our recent Rouge Forum conference in Louisville because we are in the midst of a three week long fight with our service provider. Those who are looking for papers, videos, powerpoints, and other material from the conference–well, we believe they will be up in one week. Here is what we have so far, with apologies to others:
http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/reformorrevollution.htm

We have 19 people already nominated for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee. We will close nominations one week from today, at midnight. The Steering Committee will guide Rouge Forum actions between conferences and will meet once a year, probably in the fall. Other meetings will be online or on conference calls. Nominate yourself or someone else! Email rgibson@pipeline.com

About 250 people attended the Chavez Conference in Fresno, California, hearing presentations from education resisters from all over the US. Susan Harman, of Calcare, made the case for test boycotts. We’re hoping to see districts, large and small, walking away from test frenzy–and taking up Freedom Schooling where kids learn things that matter. 96 California districts are already sanctioned under NCLB. People in those districts have nothing whatsoever to lose.

What are school superintendents doing about the sanctions? In one district, the superintendent announced he would “shuffle the cards,” that is, he is going to transfer every middle and high school teacher and most elementary teachers. Those who are waiting for another shoe to drop, as with a substantive plan for curriculum and instruction or a remedy for class size, will have a long wait. The shuffle is his entire plan.

The test boycotts could merge with, or build, the Mayday marches planned for this year. School workers, parents, kids, marching together on Mayday to protest the wars, the attacks on education and health care, xenophobia, and booming racist inequality, will learn far more by voting with their feet, in the streets, than in school on that historical day.

Here is the decade-old, and timeless, Rouge Forum May Day Flyer.

Nearly 130 people signed on to our Rouge Forum updates in the last month bringing our list to 4640, a new high. Welcome to all our new friends.

*a piece from CounterPunch of the Schools-to-War Collision

*An informative, free, video on the build-up for the Iraq invasion

*And a classic short piece, a cannot miss, demonstrating the old slogan, “Don’t mourn, Organize!”

And to close, a piece of “The People, Yes” by Carl Sandburg:

“Get off this estate.”
“What for?”
“Because it’s mine.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From my father.”
“Where did he get it?”
“From his father.”
“And where did he get it?”
“He fought for it.”
“Well, I’ll fight you for it.”
— Carl Sandburg

Thanks to Adam, Gina, Amber, Wayne, Joe, Roger, Bill B (for the reminder on the poem) Elaine, George, Susan O and H, Paul and Mary, BigM, Tommie, Bob, Marie, Sharon, Sean, Molly, P, Dan H and Jennifer, Christine, Christina, TC, Erin, and Sneaky Pete.

All the best, r

Call for Papers: Universities and Corporatization

New Proposals
http://newproposals.blogspot.com/
http://www.newproposals.ca

Call for Papers for Volume 2, Issue 1.

The Editorial Collective invites submissions for Volume 2 of New Proposals.
We encourage the submission of papers that take a politically engaged
stance. We are interested in full length articles (3,000 to 5,000 words) as
well as shorter commentaries (up to 2,500 words).

Papers should be no more than 3,000 – 5,000 words. References and citations
are to be kept to the minimum required to advance your argument. Articles
can be based in original research, synthetic reviews, or theoretical
engagements. We look forward to -in fact expect- a diversity of
perspectives and approaches that, while they may disagree on the
particulars, they will share with the Editorial Collective a commitment to
an engaged scholarship that prioritizes social justice.

New Proposals is a transnational peer-reviewed journal hosted at The
University of British Columbia in collaboration with the UBC Library
Journal Project.

Call For Papers, Volume 2, Issue 2 (Fall 2008)

Universities and Corporatization

What is the role of the university and the meaning of education at the
beginning of the twenty first century? How are corporate money, influence
and ideology shaping the face of the university? How do crushing debt loads
constrain student choices and shape the kind of education they seek and
receive?

Over the past few decades, people in many countries have experienced a
steady corporatization of their universities. University administrations
are increasingly structured on a corporate model and academic success is
defined by profit. For this upcoming special issue of New Proposals, we are
interested in articles and commentaries that analyze this situation in
different countries and regions. We welcome contributions that ask the
following kinds of questions: How is the privatization of the university
expressed and experienced in diverse settings? How do ‘audit culture’
governance systems exacerbate bureaucracy and influence the allocation of
resources? Has the debate about this issue been framed differently in the
case of public versus private universities? To what extent have faculty,
staff, and student unions and organizations intervened? How have public
intellectuals responded to this issue in different countries in the past
and present? Have various countries and different systems of education been
more or less successful in resisting this corporate model?

For this special issue, we welcome shorter commentaries (up to 2,500 words)
as well as full length articles. In particular, we are interested in essays
that develop a comparative perspective.
________________________________________________________________________
New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/newproposals

HNN Poll: 61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency Worst

mcelvainepoll4-1-08-c.jpegHistory News Network Poll: 61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency Worst

A Pew Research Center poll released last week found that the share of the American public that approves of President George W. Bush has dropped to a new low of 28 percent.

An unscientific poll of professional historians completed the same week produced results far worse for a president clinging to the hope that history will someday take a kinder view of his presidency than does contemporary public opinion.

In an informal survey of 109 professional historians conducted over a three-week period through the History News Network, 98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success.

Texas principal threatens to kill teachers if test scores don’t improve

The collective idiocy of the high-stakes testing regime seems to have reached its apogee as a Texas middle school principal threatened to kill a group of science teachers if their students did not improve their standardized test scores.

Principal John Burks made the threat in a Jan. 21 meeting with eighth-grade science teachers.

Veteran teacher Anita White told the Houston Chronicle that Burks said “if the TAKS scores were not as expected he would kill the teachers.” White said “He said ‘I will kill you all and kill myself.’ He finished the meeting that way and we were in shock. Obviously, we talked about it among ourselves. He just threatened our lives. After he threatened to kill us, he said, ‘You don’t know how ruthless I can be.’ “We walked out of the meeting just totally dumbfounded because it was not a joke.”

Rouge Forum 2008 – Conference update & more

Dear Friends,

The Rouge Forum Conference 2008 was one of our best ever. Thanks especially to Adam and Gina for all their hard work to make the conference possible. Below is a preliminary evaluation from some of the conference planners.

Here is a link to papers and power-points that were presented (if you have yours and want it up, please send it to me).
http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/2008/documents.htm

In early April, we will have videos of presentations up on the Rouge Forum site.

One of the recommendations that came out of our conference was to establish a Rouge Forum Steering Committee. If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else to the steering committee, please email: rougeforum@pipeline.com

And you can find conference photographs here. http://www.ewayneross.net/Rouge_Forum_Conference_2008/Photos.html

This coming weekend quite a few friends from the Rouge Forum will be at the Chavez Conference in Fresno, discussing what to do about the coming schools-to-war collision.

Here is a related piece: http://www.richgibson.com/schoolresistance.htm

If, like many of us, you were disappointed by the turnout at the anti-war demonstrations this past week, perhaps you could share your thoughts on the Rouge Forum discussion list. To join the list, please email rougeforum@pipeline.com

Of the groups that organized the rallies and marches, the largest was probably UFPJ which, somehow, managed to cut the size of the demonstrations to about 20% of what they were five years ago. But size alone is not everything, as we know. At issue as well is what it is people learned about why things are as they are and what to do.

Here is a criticism one Rouge Forum member wrote after attending UFPJ planning meetings and participating in online discussions. See “Where is the Movement?”

Substance News, the hard copy voice of the test resistance, is just sixteen bucks a year. Subscribe here
http://www.substancenews.com/content/view/20/43/

Thanks to Adam, Gina, all the Loisville gang who put together a phantasmagoric conference, MP, Pirate Jenny, Amber, Candace, Ellen, Jane S., Sally S and Sandy H, Milton, Wayne, Jerry, Sid, Alan S, Bill J, the Marshman, Tommy and Bob, Kelly, Donna, Bill F, Greg, Beau, Jill N, Bob K, and ZG.

all the best, r

“You don’t care what the American people think?”

“You don’t care what the American people think?”
http://www.salon.com/ politics/ war_room/ 2008/ 03/ 19/ cheney/ index.html?source=rss&a…

Vice President Dick Cheney appeared — from Oman — on “Good Morning America” Wednesday. During Cheney’s appearance, ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz mentioned public opinion polls on the war in Iraq. Here’s the conversation that ensued, including Raddatz’s original comment. Video of the exchange follows. RADDATZ: Two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting. CHENEY: So. RADDATZ: So? You don’t care what the American people think? CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better.

Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

Just a brief announcement, a reminder of the Rouge Forum Conference in Louisville coming up on March 14 to 16. Here is the conference schedule.

This will be the biggest Rouge Forum conference yet. It’s our eleventh year as the only education based organization in North America that has had the limited courage and common sense to link the regimentation of schooling and high-stakes exams (NCLB) to the system of capital, its promises for perpetual wars and meaningless jobs, its incessant drive for profits, and resistance through reasoned analysis, action for school and social change. We bring a wide variety of views together bound by a tradition of friendship. Plus we are fun. Come join us.

Here is conference organizer Adam Renner’s piece directed to the conference theme: Reform or Revolution? and an upcoming Counterpunch article, The Schools to War Collision; Whither the Resistance?

Joe Lucido’s piece, Democracy is not a Spectator Sport, was published in the Fresno Bee, demonstrating that there are still some openings in the corporate press for reasoned resistance work in education. It’s worth the candle.

Wherever you are from March 15 to 22, we hope you will march, protest, raise hell, and take direct action against the fifth year of the invasion of Iraq. We note that March 16th is the 40th anniversary of the war crimes committed by US troops at My Lai. Four decades of slaughter, and more. Enough.

Those in the Fresno area are welcome to join us at the Fresno conference at the end of March, and please sign on to the Calcare web site.

Thanks especially to conference organizers Adam and Gina, Sean, Connie Lane, Doug, Wayne, Barb V, Bonnie M, Kathy K, Sue H, Greg, Bill, Tom, Bob, Susan, Sherry, Candy, Denise, Tony H and Kino, Charlie, Kritz, Gary F., Chris C, Lisa, and Jill.

All the best, r