We can Change the World

Today I walked another 10 miles, 30 down, and 470 to go!
Today on the Save Our Schools March Florida Facebook Page Sarah asks in regards to Pro NCLB Reformers "How can we help these reformers understand?"

I would like to share the reply I left her within my blog; the place that last year gave me a place to be heard  when I thought I was alone... 

"Salutations Sara, and beautiful Florida, 
the state that stopped Senate Bill 6 last year,
the state that gave us hope when we felt most helpless... 
Sara you ask ~ what can we do to help those reformers understand.

I tell people, every tidal wave has its origins in a single drop of rain. 
Last year I walked from Connecticut to Washington DC protesting NCLB policies. 
I started a Facebook group Children Are More Than Test Scores  (there are now more than 7000 members) 
I started blogging about my walk. 
Everywhere I went on my walk I found others who felt exactly like me.
 I wrote a letter to the President, and while he did not respond- Anthony Cody from Teachers' Letters To Obama did, He even published my letter in his blog.
I met Rick Meyers from New Mexico, 
Rita Solnet, Cerestra Smith, from Florida, Sarah McIntosh Puglisi from California, Sabrina Stevens Shupe, and Yvonne Sui Runyan from Colorado, and Vivian Vasquez from Washington DC. 
At the conclusion of my walk, on Labor Day at Busboys and Poets in DC we wondered could we really change the world?
On that day a few of us raindrops decided why not?
And we've been inviting all the other raindrops to roll into DC this July 28-31 for the Save Our Schools March & Week of Action.

Last year I walked alone...
this year we are bringing an army to DC to take back our schools. 
Sara, come join our wave this July!

Last year I walked 400 miles in 40 days. 
I lost 55 pounds. 
My wife hopes I can lose another 20 pounds ~ so I'm walking 500 miles this year.

My walk did not change the world, but it changed me. 
I learned we are not alone. 
I found hope for change in all the wonderful people I met on the road.

Tell Secretary Arne Duncan the Walking Man is coming back to DC, 
because silence and apathy are not acceptable ~ not last year, not this year,not ever!

460 miles to go...

Jesse
Just in case people are wondering what I was listening today on my walk through the rain...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz6d60ysb-Y

So far past Michael Petrilli's 100% proficiency Reformers' club

Michael Petrilli, ( http://educationnext.org/the-ends-of-education-reform/) tried using some fancy footwork around the criticism of NCLB's 100% Proficiency goal in his article in Education Next, "The Ends of Education Reform" I used his piece to motivate me to walk another 10 miles today, that now places me 40 miles closer to my 500 miles by July 30, 2011.

The premise of his article is that a 100% proficiency goal is the only goal possible if you care about children.

My response to his article is:

Michael, said reformers should clarify the ends that education reform can achieve. “If not 100 percent proficiency, then what? “

This very nature of the 100 proficiency model sums up the moral dilemma and failure of NCLB. The focus is on data not children. It sells public schools as factories that operate proficiency. It disregards a 100 years of legal battles for equity in our public schools. It promises choice, but while delivering lotteries. Any claim choice schools and proficiency testing eliminates poverty and cures special needs is merely the new smoke screen for a return to Plessy vs. Ferguson’s separate but equal.

The struggle for civil rights for children of color and special needs children is America's moral battle that will not be won with proficiency model reforms, but with truly desegregated public schools.  Fifty-seven years after the Brown decision, blacks and Latinos in American schools are more segregated than they have been in more than four decades. NCLB reforms have ignored the issue of desegregation just like they do with poverty.  This is why Michael I am marching to DC this July 30.

Thank you Michael for reminding the road ahead is tough, full of pitfalls, and snake oil sales men with cures for everything. All we need do is bow down to the NCLB/RTTT reformers. Well Michael I am walking, writing, speaking, and fighting your 100 % proficiency model reformers every step of the way. I have walked 40,000 steps closer to DC since yesterday. 460 miles to go, and that Save Our School March & Week of Action train keeps rolling along.  

Children are more than test scores,

Jesse 

click the link if you want to view a little of my walk today:

 

500 miles to DC

Salutations Readers, last year I walked alone, and this year I am on the organizing committee for the Save Our Schools March and Week of Action, (http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/)

Dr. Martin Luther King said: "The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals."

In 2011 we find ourselves faced with an educational reform policy NCLB/RTTT deeply rooted in efficiency... this is a policy that reduces our children, their schools and teachers to test scores.  I guess we could throw our hands up in the air, complain privately, and watch as another generation of children are lost.  Or better yet, we know silence and apathy are not acceptable when it comes to children - now is the time for action, on my part, your part, our part!

Readers, like the old Gospel song “People get ready, there’s a train a coming”,(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTL9myUqLMs) this SOS train is moving beyond endorsements, moving beyond supporters, moving beyond contributions, it is a call to action. We are 53 days from the Save Our Schools March and Week of Action in DC. 

Last year I walked 400 miles in 40 days to reach Washington DC to protest No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top policies.    On that walk I met with parents, teachers, reading specialists, special education teachers, and concerned citizens who told me that the educational policies of Secretary Arne Duncan  are killing the motivation to learn in their schools. The people I met shared their stories about schools where children are being tested or practicing for being tested for 8 to 12 weeks of every school year.   

Sadly some children are spending 60 days of an entire school year either taking, or preparing for the taking of standardized tests.  This translates to one of every three school days being spent on testing, or testing preparation.  Let's make one thing perfectly clear from the start testing is not teaching.

This policy is a moral outrage in my professional opinion.    Perhaps in the minds of  those in Washington DC, testing is what motivates students to learn.   Their legislative policies since 2001 are about sorting, weighing, measuring, and isolating our children, teachers, and schools. A policy rooted in separating the strong from the weak, and punishing the weak while rewarding the strong. In reality this is the most Un-Christian and Un-American educational policy ever devised, and it is an affront to the past 100 years of legal struggle for equality in our public schools.   

“No Child Left Behind” policy amounts to the largest disconnection in living memory between our nation’s leaders and our nation’s parents, children and their teachers.  Our leaders want to determine whether or not our children  are ready to compete in the world market. Children, parents and their teachers need learning to be meaningful.  Policymakers and politicians expect education to be efficient, and to them efficiency means testing. For parents and teachers meaningful means being prepared for life. Thus far, neither McGraw Hill, or Educational Testing Service have a test that measures a meaningful life. 

Fair Test,  (http://fairtest.org/let-them-eat-tests) in 2001, summed up NCLB as "let children eat tests". Just as the French rejected a queen whose answer to starvation was "Let them eat cake" I propose that we reject this "let them eat test policy"

The most tragic point however, about Race To The Top policy is, having spent close to one trillion dollars, ($1,000,000,000,000) there is little or no data to support these policies as having met with success. If Washington's education reform policy were sold as a medicine these reformers would be under arrest for faulty research, for harming children, parents, teachers, and local schools. Instead of having a discussion of this policy, we should be requesting an investigation of serous crimes against our public schools.

Just like that old  gospel song tells us “People get ready ~ you don’t need no ticket to get on board this train…all you need do is get on board.”

As for getting on board, my plans this year are to walk 500 miles in 50 days, but unlike last August when I actually walked to DC, this July I am working and instead will walk 500 miles close to home.  So my blogs this year will be coming to you from the CCSU Literacy Center, where I will do some of my walking on a treadmill parked outside the center. John Foshay and his students will be my June coaches. John recorded most of my walk last year. However my July coaches will be the children in our summer reading program. So expect a few new younger  faces  to be popping up from time to time in this year's Walking to DC blog.

I hope to post pictures, updates, and share letters of support written by the children to the Freedom Riders who are also coming to the Save Our Schools March and Week of Action from New Orleans. Guess you know this will be the summer of reading all about the Freedom Riders at the CCSU Literacy Center.

Lao Tzu the father of Taoism said:"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

Today was my first of 20,000 steps, (10 miles), and the tune that moved me over the 2000 steps today was Joan Baez version of “If you missed the train I’m on”.

Sing the first two verses with me: 

“If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles,
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

Lord I'm one, Lord I'm two, Lord I'm three, Lord I'm four,
Lord I'm 500 miles from my home.
500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles
Lord I'm five hundred miles from my home. “
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_K6z3HiRAs

 Walkers you know….”If you miss the train I'm on you will know that I am gone..You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.”

Lord, I am 500 miles from change,

Jesse