Race To The Top is another name for "Pink Slime" brain food given to America's children

Schools Drop ‘Pink Slime’ Beef Filler Like a Hot Potato www.nytimes.com News of the ammonia-treated additive, formally called lean finely textured beef, set off a reaction by schools and an announcement by the Agriculture Department.

NCLB/RTTT's high stakes testing is Pink Slime being fed to the minds of our children.

People can change things. On March 9th I blogged "Can we trust a U.S. DOE that approves of feeding our children Pink Slime?” all over the country others blogged, talked and complained that the United States Department of Agriculture purchased 7 tons of this "Pink Slime" to use for school lunches. The Pink Slime was soon removed from major supermarket chains, simply because shoppers/consumers and bloggers began to question "I wonder does my supermarket sell this Pink Slime?"  When an informed public speaks up and questions leadership decisions ~ wheels start turning, and pink slime disappears from supermarket shelves!  
We are about to turn the corner on NCLB/RTTT reforms. The tide is shifting. I am joining parents, teachers, educators, and students in DC next Saturday.  We will "Occupy" the United States Department of Education. 
No matter where you are next week-end, talk about us Occupiers. Blog about us; write letters to news editors; and talk us up on the social media networks. In DC I'll be conducting my teach-ins, protesting, singing, and occupying the U.S. DOE.  Oh yea, we will also be asking Secretary Arne Duncan to resign! 
Their NCLB/RTTT house of cards is about to fall. 
America's children are more than test scores Secretary Duncan ~ see you in DC.
Calling all concerned souls in the DC area next week to stand tall with us against the Pink Slime Testing Reforms of NCLB/RTTT.
Details for the week-end in DC can be found:
 http://unitedoptout.com/
Join the Revolution, check out our new Save Our Schools website: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/

Ready to occupy

Jesse The Walking Man Turner

Reading between the lines of education reform

Having read Valerie Strauss's blog about Donna McKenna the ESL teacher who dared the DOE to measure her value, 

I began to read between the lines of Race To The Top Reformers. You'll find NCLB/RTTT reformers love to pit parents against teachers, and teachers against parents. They love using the words "accountability for children", "parents, teachers, and schools", but yet they never hold themselves accountable.

In 2001 we passed NCLB and we allocated $1.2 trillion federal dollars to fund this educational reform.   

$1.2 trillion only accounts for about 10% of what we actually are spending, since local and state funding picks up the difference (an additional $9 trilion)
.  These reformers have had their way for more than ten years.
 They have spent most of that money. All this money with little to show for their reforms.  
They will point their finger in blame at others; never at themselves. 


But, last time I checked they were the ones in charge.
 

They claimed that their new testing and standards would save our children in 2002. 

They got their new standards.

They allocated where the money went.
 

They claimed in '02 that Reading First Schools would make every child a reader by grade 3. 

They picked the scientifically based reading curriculums and assessments. 

They supported those schools with extra resources, extra money, extra professional development,.
 They celebrated Reading First Schools everywhere in the media. They held these schools up a model for the teaching of reading. 

But then after 6 years, independent research indicated that the 3rd grade students in Reading First Schools comprehended even less than the control group in the non-Reading First Schools, (2008/9 U.S. First Grade Impact Studies).


In 2004 the U.S. DOE's Golden Child of NCLB/RTTT Reform, New York City's very own Commissioner of Education Mr. Joe Klein said "Children have to be held accountable".  He ended social promotion for third graders. Mayor Bloomberg has since extended this to fourth and fifth graders. To this day researchers advise against what New York is doing.  New York City children and parents are still being left behind. 

In 2008 reformers promised that Race To The Top would have schools compete against each other, and this competition would save our schools. In Summer 2011 Arnie Duncan made a statement that claimed "without NCLB waivers 85% of our public schools will not make Adequate Yearly Progress, (AYP)."

Again, who is still in charge?
   The reformers now find themselves banging their accountability drum for "Teachers all over our nation", and once again the U.S. DOE is promising that new assessments and new standards will save our schools.

While they cannot measure one ESL teacher named Donna McKenna;  we certainly can measure their failure at education reform. 

It's worth reading Valerie Strauss's blog about Donna:

Teacher: I dare you to measure my ‘value’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/teacher-i-dare-you-to-measure-my-value/2012/03/19/gIQAGGNGNS_blog.html

An ESL teacher tells about the reality of her classroom and issues a dare to school officials who insist on evaluating teachers by value-added methods that rely on standardized test scores.

If you are wondering what the walking man is listening to after his walk it's Peter, Paul and Mary's singing If I had a hammer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UKvpONl3No

There are more important lessons than test prepping our children

There are lessons to be learned every day in our schools; lessons that never  appear on the mandated test our leaders use to measure academic success.
I find this lesson begging to be taught, begging for meaning, begging for a place in our classrooms, and I found it in an article from the Hiffington post:

A Virginia high school English teacher is under investigation for allegedly asking the only black student in the class to read a poem in a "blacker" manner. Jordan Shumate, a ninth-grader at George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, Va., says he was reading aloud Langston Hughes' "Ballad of the Landlord" when teacher Marilyn Bart interrupted him. "She told me, 'Blacker, Jordan -- c'mon, blacker. I thought you were black,'" Shumate told The Washington Post.

When the 14-year-old student declined to continue reading the poem, Bart read it herself to demonstrate what she meant. "She read the poem like a slave, basically," Shumate told the Post. When he asked whether she thought all black people speak that way, he was reportedly told to take his seat and reprimanded for speaking out of turn. The poem was written in 1940 about a black tenant thrown in jail for challenging a landlord."It's very, very unprofessional," Shumate told WJLA-TV. "It should not happen. She didn't do it to any other kids. Why did she have to do it to me?"

The student brought the issue to his mother's attention after the teacher reportedly singled him out again during a lesson about stereotypes. Shumate said Bart asked him to explain why blacks like grape soda and rap music. Shumate's mother, Nicole Page, told WAMU that she is "very sad" for her "child's loss of innocence" through the experience. The teacher had also previously asked the student to rap out a poem by black rapper and actor Tupac Shakur, Page said. "We're in 2012 with the first African American president," Page told WJLA-TV. "In this era how could such a statement be made, particularly by an English teacher?" Shumate's claims come after two shocking and racist YouTube videos surfaced in Florida last month that feature white teen girls making disparaging statements against black students. At least one of the incidents forced the video's creators to apologize and leave their Gainesville, Fla., high school. (story link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/18/george-c-marshall-high-sc_n_1358044.html)

Young Jordan Shumate's Youtube video link will be part of my lesson this week. Want to see the face of a young Black America not seen on commercial television?  watch, listen and learn from Jordan Shumate what it feels like to be black in our schools:  http://bcove.me/0bqnam4x 

As Dr. Seuss said " The Places you will go:
" KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS..So be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray, or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So get on your way!"  

My thinking is, there are so many things more important than test scores.
There are things we need to do in our schools.
Things that are more important than making children, teachers, and schools compete against each other.
There is meaningful work needed to be done that is not covered in the new Common Core State Standards.
Work not covered on any state mastery test.
Work on improving our teaching,
Work needed to be done that is more important-than test prepping students,
Work that values Langston's use of dialect in respectful ways,
We can do better,
Our students deserve better.
Jordan certainly deserves better,
And if we could see our children as gifts, not mere test scores, perhaps we might be able to start that work. 
We have teaching mountains waiting, and policy makers who cannot see beyond the numbers.

And most importantly, we have a whole generation that expects more from us than a Race To The Top.


One last lesson missed. This one is from Florida, I found it on a Facebook plea this morning to post a picture on people's walls.
Perhaps this is by far the most important lesson facing our schools, the lesson of a young Trayvon Martin whose only crime was his skin.
Where is the lesson of the February 26, 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in our schools?
Does his tragic death fit within Secretary Arne Duncan's new Common Core Standards? 
How many young African American males have to die, before we teach the lessons most needed in our schools?
May Trayvon Martin be carried in the arms of angels,
May our Lord comfort his family in this their hour of darkness.
May God forgive a nation for failing once again to teach the lessons most needed in our schools.

.s

Silence and apathy are not acceptable,
Jesse
If you are wondering what I'm listening to on my walk this morning it's Bob Dylan's How many miles can a man walk down http://www.wat.tv/video/bob-dylan-blowing-in-the-wind-1a9d1_2g7bz_.html