[Peace-discuss] California Governor Puts the Testing Juggernaut On Ice

[Jenifer Cartwright]

Occasionally we win one... --Jenifer
-----Original Message-----

California Governor Puts the Testing Juggernaut On Ice

by Anthony Cody

Education Week Teacher
Teacher Blogs - Living in Dialogue

May 18, 2011

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/05/california_governor_puts_the_t.html

California Governor Jerry Brown has taken a big step towards
reducing the testing mania in the nation's most populous
state. Up until his administration we have been on an
accelerated path towards the comprehensive data-driven
system that test publishers and corporate reformers have
convinced leaders is needed to improve schools. But in the
May budget outline from Brown's office, he makes it clear he
is putting on the brakes.

>From the Thoughts on Public Education blog comes this:

   Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to suspend funding for
   CALPADS, the state student longitudinal data system, and
   to stop further planning for CALTIDES, the teacher data
   base that was to be joined at the hip with CALPADS.
http://toped.svefoundation.org/2011/05/17/calpads-put-on-ice/

What is even more encouraging is the explanation Brown
offers, which shows a great deal of understanding of these
issues. The document states:

   A number of problems have been identified with
   California's state testing, data collection and
   accountability regime. Testing takes huge amounts of
   time from classroom instruction. Data collection
   requirements are cumbersome and do not provide timely -
   and therefore usable - information back to schools.
   Teachers are forced to cub their own creativity and
   engagement with students as they focus on teaching to
   the test. State and federal administrators continue to
   centralize teaching authority far from the classroom.

   The (Brown) Administration proposes to deal with these
   issues by carefully reforming testing and accountability
   requirements to achieve genuine accountability and
   maximum local autonomy. It will engage teachers,
   scholars, school administrators and parents to develop
   proposals to

   (1) reduce the amount of time devoted to state testing
   in schools;

   (2) eliminate data collections that do not provide
   useful information to school administrators, teachers
   and parents; and

   (3) restore power to school administrators, teachers and
   parents.

   The goal is to improve the learning environment in every
   classroom, thereby encouraging the demanding pursuit of
   excellence. The May Revision proposes to suspend funding
   for CALPADS in 2011-12 pending this continued review of
   data collection requirements.

Praise be!

Jerry Brown is unusual among our nation's governors. He got
a bit more involved than most in on-the-ground school reform
while he was serving as mayor of Oakland. He learned the
hard way how schools are a reflection of deeper social
issues. In a statement he wrote to respond to Arne Duncan's
Race to the Top a year and a half ago, while he was
California's Attorney General, he said:

   You assume we know how to "turn around all the
   struggling low performing schools," when the real
   answers may lie outside of school. As Oakland mayor, I
   directly confronted conditions that hindered education,
   and that were deeply rooted in the social and economic
   conditions of the community or were embedded in the
   particular attitudes and situations of the parents.
   There is insufficient recognition in the draft
   regulations that inside and outside of school strategies
   must be interactive and merged.
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2009/09/jerry_brown_to_arne_duncan_thi.html

Even more revealing was what he wrote about federally-driven
education "reform":

   The basic assumption of your draft regulations appears
   to be that top down, Washington driven standardization
   is best. This is a "one size fit all" approach that
   ignores the vast diversity of our federal system and the
   creativity inherent in local communities. What we have
   at stake are the impressionable minds of the children of
   America. You are not collecting data or devising
   standards for operating machines or establishing a
   credit score. You are funding teaching interventions or
   changes to the learning environment that promise to make
   public education better, i.e. greater mastery of what it
   takes to become an effective citizen and a productive
   member of society. In the draft you have circulated, I
   sense a pervasive technocratic bias and an uncritical
   faith in the power of social science.

We all know that Secretary Duncan did not heed Jerry Brown's
thoughtful advice, and still has not. But Brown's proposed
budget takes on the testing machine from the top, and that
is a very hopeful sign.

By the way, yesterday I shared news of a new book, The Myths
of Standardized Tests. The authors will be guests at a free
Save Our Schools March webinar Thursday night, May 19, at
8:30 pm Eastern time, 5:30 pm Pacific time. Please register
to join the conversation here.

What do you think? Might this be a sign of sanity?

[After 18 years as a science teacher in inner-city Oakland,
Calif., Anthony Cody now works with a team of experienced
science teacher-coaches who support the many novice teachers
in his school district. He is a National Board-certified
teacher and an active member of the Teacher Leaders Network.
With education at a crossroads, he invites you to join him
in a dialogue on education reform and teaching for change
and deep learning. For additional information on Cody's
work, visit his Web site, Teachers Lead.
http://www.teacherslead.com/ ]

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