A day in the life of two suits continued

A day in the life of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's search for El dorado 

As usual Secretary Duncan did not meet with children, teachers, or parents today. He did not recommend any books, read to any children, or engage in any dialogue with parents. He did not participate in any community events at a local library.  He did have an article published "Despite cheating scandals, testing and teaching are not at odds" He writes: "Competing in a global economy is the ultimate high-stakes test for American students, and there are no shortcuts to success. Closing our eyes to the knowledge requirements of a 21st century economy will not make them go away." 

My take on Secretary Duncan is that he wants us to know that while America's local school budgets are forcing the layoffs of librarians, Special Needs Para-professionals, along with teachers, he's spending another three hundred and fifty million dollars on a new generation of assessments.
Imagine if you can, our Secretary of Education actually meeting with parents, discussing and listening to their concerns about the increase in class sizes in their local schools. 

Maybe he might be helping to distribute some lollipops, and "I'm a Reader" stickers to hundreds of children.
Imagine if you can, that he manages to get local university football and basketball players, in-coming college freshmen and their lecturers  to volunteer to read to children at a local Read-A-Thon on the library lawn. 

Oh but wait, our secretary Duncan is far too busy to participate in anything  quite so trivial as this; he's our there looking for the "Perfect Assessment" He is working so very hard finding out new ways to contract out that $350 million dollars to some ole publishing company.  There are  endless meetings and dinners to attend with  those testing publishers. 
Amazingly, it's now been ten years,  a full decade of NCLB Reforms, they've spent nearly a trillion dollars, and our United State Department of Education are still searching for that perfect assessment.  Secretary Duncan leads the search for that elusive El Dorado assessment.  He never tires, he never gives up, and he never ceases to find ways to spend more and more of the tax payers money ~ on testing...

While Arne Duncan searches for El Dorado the world of books was truly alive in today's annual  New Britain Reads Campaign, Connecticut. 

It was hot.  It was 90 plus degrees today.  But the lawn outside the New Britain Library was over flowing.   Filled with children and their parents, teachers, CCSU Blue Devil football players, basketball players, female soccer players and some in-coming freshmen.    From 10:00am until 8:00pm ~ all day long ~  these volunteers chose their favorite book and read with great gusto to the children who were sitting on the library lawn under tents, with beach blankets, and lawn chairs.   No New Britain teachers were paid, but 8 volunteered. Maybe Secretary Duncan might want to be this data into his teacher evaluation schemes? 

The Mayor was there, the Provost from the University was there, reading to the kids, and handing out bookmarks with reading tips, fun-stickers.  Adults came from all walks of life to read to children for 10 hours. The Blue Devils Athletes were on hand with the cold water, pretzels and animal crackers.  There were suggested Great Summer Reads for parents and children.
 The volunteers distributed new library cards and gave guided tours of the Children’s room.  They signed parents up for the monthly library newsletter.
This was a good day, no, it was a great day, and nobody even saw a penny of Secretary Duncan's $350 million dollars... Where does this data fit Secretary Duncan in your Race To The Top?

The New Britain Reads Campaign targeted the library today, because study after study shows that library quality (number of books available or books per student) is related to reading achievement at the state level (Lance, 1994), national level (McQuillan, 1998), and international level (Elley, 1992; Krashen, Lee and McQuillan, 2008), even when researchers control for the effects of poverty.

We have to wonder out loud,  why $250 billion dollars was spent  during the last decade, and they now need another $350 million, all  in the search for new perfect assessments?

Dr. Krashen suggests “If more access leads to more reading, and if more reading leads to better reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and a larger vocabulary (for overwhelming evidence, see Krashen, 2004), this means that the first step any literacy campaign needs to take is to make sure children have access to plenty of books.”

Imagine this, rather than spending hundreds of millions on a search for the perfect assessment consider increasing the access to books. Perhaps even consider using NCLB monies to extend library hours.  What about trying to improve library holdings, rather than finding new assessments. Maybe the Department of Education might Google search for the Holy Grail of Assessments, the Fountain of Youth Assessments, or for Shangra-la Assessments?
With all due respect to Secretary Duncan,  forgive me if I don’t join you on your search for El Dorado.  I spent today on the New Britain library lawn reading to children .  There were no people in Giorgio Armani suits.   We  spent our day trying to increase access to books.   Honestly, I can’t think of anything  better than to sit and read a few great books on the lawn with children.
See you in DC,
Jesse

PS Here is a short video of today's Read-A-Thon Mr. Secretary.  
Mr. Secretary here is a newspaper article about our Reader-A-Thon:
http://www.newbritainherald.com/articles/2011/07/20/news/doc4e263aab6b543551291628.txt

A tale of two suits

A tale of two men

As Secretary of Education Arne Duncan goes about his work in DC he meets with the powerful, the mighty, the wealthy. He wears his Giorgio Armani suits, and plays the occasional pick up basketball games with congressional leaders, Senators, and even with the President. He goes about his day wheeling and dealing billions of our tax dollars. He is a busy man far too important to spend any real time with teachers, parents, and children. When his day is done he smiles thinking about the important deals he made.
While Arne wines and dines the Corporate Elite I give out plastic medals to struggling readers, wear silly hats, participate in Readers Theater, sit on the floor and read with children and teachers. Tonight after work I Brought 720 lollipops, 200 hundred “ I’m a good reader stickers, borrowed some 2 dozen beach blankets, 9 beach chairs, and organized 28 adult volunteers for the New Britain Reads Read-A-Thon at the Public Library tomorrow. This day began at 5:PM, and at 10:PM is only now winding down. I have no Giorgio Armani suits, but I do wear the best that Sears has to offer.
As Arne fiddles the rest of us fight the good fight against illiteracy every single day. When my day is done I think about the many hours of hard work put in by my teachers and our children, and celebrate every new letter, new word, new story, and every smile that came my way today. I am marching to DC just to tell Secretary Duncan that children are more than test scores.
See you in DC,
Jesse

A walking Man resistance story

 A Walking Man Resistance Story

People often ask me "why are you walking again"?  I give them the 30-second sound bite first, because children are more than test scores...
Some persist, and I go into the 3 minutes talk.... NCLB has spent nearly one trillion-dollars on education reforms that ignored class size, that failed to hire an army of tutors, that reduced the curriculum to reading, writing, and math pushing out history, art, music, and even physical education for many poor schools...
Finally, for those who persist further, even saying "we understand, we agree, but what can one man do walking? "  That's when I sit down, and we talk, we talk until I have explained and the listener understands "that  this is a Democracy At Risk, this is a Generation At Risk, this is Our Country, Our Children, and we can simply watch it slip away, or we can take it back". 

I quote Howard Zinn: “Don't depend on our leaders to do what needs to be done. Because whenever the government has done anything to bring about change, it's done so only because it's been pushed and prodded by social movements, by ordinary people organizing."
Somewhere in the conversation it always comes up, “so you just started walking"?  And I continue to  explain, "Back in 2004 I put together my very first Children Are More Than A Test Score Conference at CCSU. That was all I thought was needed back then, but I've since grown tired of just talking and debating. By 2006 I started resisting,  in 2010 I walked from Connecticut to Washington DC.  Along the way I lost 50 pounds :-),  and met other resisters.  At Busboys and Poets, (cafe in D.C.) Bess Alwerger, Vivian Vasquez, Sabrina Stevens and I started to dream about a movement, and maybe even a return to DC another year.  Bess CELT brought CELT, and CELT brought the National Council of English Teachers, Sabrina, brought Anthony Cody and the members of Teacher Letters to Obama, Facebook brought Rita Solnet, and her army of friends. Rita brought Diane Ravitch, and before we knew it we became a movement "Save Our Schools March & Week of Action". The SOS movement brought the American Federation of teachers, the Nation Education Association, and too many others to list here.  A movement Howard Zinn would be proud of, a movement joined the Freedom Riders.

 In 2011 I am again walking those miles to prepare for the Save Our School March this July 30.  

Sometimes a person starts to walk away saying good luck saying but, I don't think anyone can change things. I say wait it's been a long road, and yes even before NCLB became the law of the land, I spoke against its focus on standardized assessment.  At each and every opportunity I explained to Connecticut policymakers that the research indicates a heavy emphasis on such testing can only increase behavioral problems, and of course the drop out rate! 

Finally, I give the them my last line of hope "The origins of every tidal wave can be found in a single drop of rain" join us become a raindrop of change. Most leave saying I hope you are right walking man. I hope you are right. On rare occasions, when I go into that rain drop rant, the last person listening might say "let's fight this thing together". 

I say "Walk with me, come to DC with us".

It's close to July 4th, 2011 ~ I'm still persisting, and I am again walking, but this I am walking with a few other raindrops.

My name is Jesse Turner I am one of those ordinary people Howard Zinn talked about.
200 miles down, 300 to go...
Jesse

For my readers who like to know what music inspired me today:

The song of day on my walk this morning was one of my Momma's favorites" A Change Is Gonna Come". I love the Leela James version. I could almost hear Momma singing along with Leela. I could hear her saying keep waking little Jess. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKf5F3EN0uk