Jonathon Kozol explains why he is fasting:

[LWolf]

Jonathan Kozol is an educator, an author, and an activist. If you aren't an educator, you may never have heard of him. I've read some of his work; Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools has a prominent spot on my professional shelf. You can learn more about him here, at his home page:

http://www.learntoquestion.com/seevak/groups/2002/sites/kozol/Seevak02/ineedtogoHOMEPAGE/homepage.htm

Jonathan Kozol is fasting to protest NCLB; he calls it "my personal act of protest at the vicious damage being done to inner-city children by the federal education law No Child Left Behind, a racially punitive piece of legislation that Congress will either renew, abolish, or, as thousands of teachers pray, radically revise in the weeks immediately ahead."

That's the point. The reason I'm putting this here in GD instead of in the Ed forum. I've been posting about the damages done by NCLB here at DU since I became a member in 2002. I've watched the march of destruction on public education go forward unhampered. NCLB is up for renewal NOW. If ever you wanted a chance to influence this destructive piece of public policy, the time is now.

Here's a <snip> from Kozol:

At a moment when black and Hispanic students are more segregated than at any time since 1968 (in the typical inner-city school I visit, out of an enrollment that may range from 800 to 4,000 students, there are seldom more than five or six white children), NCLB adds yet another factor of division between children of minorities and those in the mainstream of society. In good suburban classrooms, children master the essential skills not from terror but from exhilaration, inspired in them by their teachers, in the act of learning in itself. They're also given critical capacities that they will need if they're to succeed in college and to function as discerning citizens who have the power to interrogate reality. They learn to ask the questions that will shape the nation's future, while inner-city kids are being trained to give prescripted answers and to acquiesce in their subordinate position in society.

In the wake of the calamitous Supreme Court ruling in the end of June that prohibited not only state-enforced but even voluntary programs of school integration, No Child Left Behind -- unless it is dramatically transformed -- will drive an even deeper wedge between two utterly divided sectors of American society. This, then, is the reason I've been fasting, taking only small amounts of mostly liquid foods each day, and, when I have stomach pains, other forms of nourishment at times, a stipulation that my doctor has insisted on in order to avert the risk of doing longterm damage to my heart. Twenty-nine pounds lighter than I was when I began, I've been dreaming about big delicious dinners.

And one more <snip>:

It was, however, on the testing issue that I received the most explicitly unqualified and positive response. Several of the senators made a lot of time available to think aloud about the ways in which to get rid of that sense of siege so many teachers had described and to be certain that we do not keep on driving out these talented young people from our schools.

The only member of the Democratic leadership I have been unable to get through to is the influential chairman of the education panel, Senator Ted Kennedy, who, one of his colleagues told me flatly, will ultimately "call the shots" on this decision. I've asked the senator three times if he'll talk with me. Each time, I have run into a cold stone wall. This has disappointed me, and startled me, because the senator has been a friend to me in years gone by and has asked for my ideas on education on a number of occasions in the decades since I was a youthful teacher and he was a youthful politician.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kozol/why-i-am-fasting-an-expl_b_63622.html

How many DUers will call, or will write, to Senator Kennedy about NCLB this week? The current draft on the table does not remove the damaging practice of high-stakes testing. It's inadequate, and it may doom us to many more years of harm, should it pass. The window of opportunity to effect change is closing rapidly.

Will you be a part of the force for change?

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Oh how I love Kozol!

Thanks for posting this. He is a true hero to all educators in America.

[LWolf]

2. He is one of our champions, isn't he?

You're welcome. It helps to know that there are some who stand up for us, who speak out for us, who are there for us, and for our students and their families.

I was at work from 7am to 7:45 pm tonight; back to school night. We had a big turnout, and I came away energized, because the parents in our little community are supportive. We are a team, and there is very little of that antagonistic, blame/divide spirit that seems to permeate the public consciousness these days.

Kozol also said, in that same piece,

<snip>

The justification for this law was the presumptuous and ignorant determination by the White House that our urban schools are, for the most part, staffed by mediocre drones who will suddenly become terrific teachers if we place a sword of terror just above their heads and threaten them with penalties if they do not pump their students' scores by using proto-military methods of instruction -- scripted texts and hand-held timers -- that will rescue them from doing any thinking of their own. There are some mediocre teachers in our schools (there are mediocre lawyers, mediocre senators, and mediocre presidents as well), but hopelessly dull and unimaginative teachers do not suddenly turn into classroom wizards under a regimen that transforms their classrooms into test-prep factories.

I'm not working at an urban school. It's not suburban, either. It's a small rural school in a small rural community, with an anti-intellectual, semi-literate majority culture. Yet still, we find common ground to create a partnership that works for the highest good of the students, with that goal in mind: everything is driven, not by data, but by the students. Guess what? Our data is pretty good; better than the more suburban areas in our district.

I'm glad that our parents don't see us as the enemy.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Sounds like you made a good move

I am considering my options for next year. All I know for sure is I can't keep doing what I am doing. It isn't fair to my kids and they deserve better. But even moving to another district won't get me out from under NCLB. I am thinking maybe Catholic school. I absolutely need to either make a difference for kids or get the heck out of the business of education.

[LWolf]

7. No move is safe from NCLB.

My move was a good one; I moved to a state that wasn't ahead of the nclb gun with high stakes testing, and that takes a more balanced look at students. At least they did. Oregon's standards weren't "high enough," and under federal threat things are changing. I recognize the changes, and know that the "good" is going to be slowly worn down each year under NCLB just like it was in my old district, if we don't get rid of the destructive elements.

I paid a really high price for my move; I took a MASSIVE pay cut. That, and taking on a couple of dependents I didn't have before, has me struggling financially. Still, I go to work with a smile, I really enjoy what I do, and I can still take some pride in what I'm doing, too. That in itself was worth the cost, because I was at the exact point you mention.

I could not continue doing what I was doing. I hated it. It compromised my principles as an educator, and I could feel the tension building as I pulled into the parking lot every day. Our campus, full of great teachers, was like a war zone, with no one smiling, and everyone headed to their rooms to slam the door and stay out of sight until we could creep out at the end of the day. It got to the point that the prospect of a staff meeting had my stomach in knots and my head pounding. And our test scores were the best in a large district!

No wonder teachers are leaving the profession. The time to act, if we are not going to be saddled with destructive policies for another decade or more, is right now. It's easy for public ed to slip below public notice; the propaganda has the public well-trained to shrug and blame the schools and teachers. This is really right up there with war and civil liberties, though. Whole generations of future voters are being trained, rather than educated.

[LeftishBrit]

24. And to many educators outside America too!

Too late to recommend, but here's a kick!

[G_j]

3. K&R

what an amazingly committed person
our children need REAL advocates like him

[cmd]

4. I will

If Jonathan Kozol can fast, I certainly can make some phone calls. Thanks for the call to action.
(I love Kozol!)

[LWolf]

6. Thank you!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Reader Rabbit]

8. Thanks for the heads-up, lwolf!

I'm going to print this out to show folks at school. Think I'll write a letter to the editor of the local paper and send a few emails or make calls to local media, too!

[LWolf]

9. Thank YOU, Reader Rabbit,

for taking this and running!

:loveya:

[slipslidingaway]

10. Too late for an R but I'll kick it n/t

[Gabi Hayes]

11. I HATE that fricking recommend rule! if ANY thread deserves to be on the Greatest Page, this does.

our school is on its second year on the AYP list, for one group....which will NEVER come close to making the requisite improvement (purely a demographic matter....we're in a very low income pocket of a large, fairly well-off district), so we'll be taken over in the next few years. unless, of course, the dems see fit to change things. I'm not holding my breath, and I hold Ted Kennedy responsible for this, much along the same lines I hold that asshole Biden responsible for Clarence Thomas. Kennedy isn't venal, at least on the level of Biden, but he SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER, unless he did, and still went along. I wonder what was going on behind the scenes

[slipslidingaway]

12. Many important threads get lost in the important entertainment

of the day. I have not been following this, but at least know that it deserves more exposure.

[Gabi Hayes]

13. the entire public education system is under determined attack, from a combination of

corporatists, religious fanatics, and political ideologues, aided and abetted by the likes of Ted Kennedy, whose motivation remains unfathomable

anybody who's done a bit of checking will find that the overall goal of these maniacs is a PRIVATELY run system of schools that are religiously based, with the ten commandments providing the basic tenets of educational principals

do some checking

[slipslidingaway]

14. Thanks, it just goes from bad to worse n/t

[Gabi Hayes]

16. as I told a friend who just discovered Blackwater yesterday....it's SO

much worse than you realize

can you imagine how bad it really is...how much stuff we have no idea about?

and we/I have found out enough to have made me physically, chronically ill, I think, without half scratching the surface.

[slipslidingaway]

18. Gosh if we only had a media and yes it would be nice to

go back to a state of oblivion sometimes.

[LWolf]

15. At this point, there is no district in the nation

that is safe. It doesn't even matter what your class, or your school produces in the way of test scores. When just one school in a district doesn't make AYP, the whole district, and every school, must adopt whatever changes are mandated.

Of course, there will always be some who don't make AYP; socio-economic factors have a significant enough effect on test scores to guarantee it.

Corrupt methodology tied to corrupt scores and use of scores, all wrapped in a nice package to guarantee the new, improved "big brother" version of public education.

And the political powerholders, including Democrats, support this.

[Gabi Hayes]

17. you are absolutely correct, and it's what they WANT:

the end of public education. not publicly funded, though. federal money will still be available, but there will only be privatized institutions of 'learning' to receive government funds.

faith-based initiatives is the pilot program

[LWolf]

21. I agree.

That's why I'm so hard-nosed when it comes to the weak, cosmetic suggestions for "improvement" we're offered in the reauthorization draft.

The march to privatization will continue.

[proud patriot]

19. I have read Kozol , I am an Educator

Love his work

[PCIntern]

20. Well, it WAS Yom Kippur...

and I fasted...

Is that good for anything?

Had a great break-the-fast tonight, BTW.

L'shana Tovah to all DUers!! May we have Peace in the New Year.

[EFerrari]

22. I will. Sorry, too late to rec.

:kick:

[doni_georgia]

23. What NCLB is doing to the kids at my school

Our school (a middle school in metro Atlanta) did not make AYP this year because too many special education students failed the state test. In an effort to prevent a repeat performance, our school is now reviewing all IEPs in an effort to move kids out of special education to reduce our special ed. numbers. Sure we have some kids who were put into special ed. for bogus reasons, but that is certainly not the majority of cases. So instead of focusing on teaching, the special ed. teachers are having to review hundreds of IEPs to see which students can be weeded out. The likely candidates are kids who are in special ed. for OHI (other health impaired - ADHD being the largest number of these kids), and kids who are EBD (emotional bahavioral disorder). Both of these groups are kids who have a very hard time functioning in a regular classroom with 30 kids and one teacher. But if they are put back in regular ed - with 1200+ regular ed. students, their failing test scores won't matter as much. That's the fact. Does anyone care about the education of these kids - obviously not. NCLB has made it all about numbers.

As for writing Senator Kennedy, I have already done so (snail mail no less) along with writing my own senators and congresscritters. Personally, I think before anyone is allowed to vote in legislation concerning public schools, they should have to spend a few weeks in a classroom. These people making the decisions haven't stepped foot in a classroom since they graduated, and for many of them, they have never seen the inside of a public school classroom except for photo ops.