The nation’s leading anti-testing organization has issued a call to its supporters to turn out and welcome Secretary Duncan if he visits their communities on his cross-country bus tour.
Tell him why his teach-to-the-test policies are failing. Tell him why high-stakes testing is bad for the quality of education. Tell him that children need time to play and dance and sing, not just take test prep. Tell him that it is wrong to ditch physical education and the arts and recess for more testing.
Greet him warmly. Of course, the tour starts in Silicon Valley, where the edu-entrepreneurs are heavily represented.
Here is the FairTest message.
Give Arne’s “Bus Tour” a Warm Welcome
Once again, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is running a “back to school” bus tour, starting in California on Sept. 12 and winding east to DC (see http://www.ed.gov/blog/topic/bustour/ for full schedule).
FairTest encourages assessment reformers to give Duncan the “welcome” his destructive policies deserve. A handful of people is sufficient to make a big impact. You can leaflet the locations where Duncan and his surrogates stop, challenging their policies while educating the media and the audience. The National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing provides a succinct critique of federal testing policies (see http://www.fairtest.org/national-resolution-highstakes-testing)
The tour starts in the Redwood City/Silicon Valley, California area. Other stops include: Sacramento, California; Reno and Elko, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Rawlins, Rock Springs, and Cheyenne, Wyoming; Denver and Limon, Colorado; Topeka and Emporia, Kansas; Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri ; Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Evansville, Indiana; Lexington, Kentucky; Charleston and McDowell County, West Virginia; Roanoke and Richmond, Virginia.
If Duncan’s bus tour is visiting your region, please help make the public aware of the growing grassroots resistance to high-stakes testing. Feel free to call on FairTest at any time for assistance in your important work.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Let’s hope the bus gets a flat tire. 😛
Speaking of how testing is ruining education, can someone link to an article laying out the case for how children are being harmed by the high-stakes testing, especially when it is being tied to teacher evaluations?
I teach in a small district, and our board is now considering VAM. They won’t care about how unfair it is to teachers, since they view all teachers as scum. They may, however, be persuaded by arguments that such a system will be harmful to the kids. Of course I can tell anybody who will listen about how tying test scores to my evaluation will narrow my instruction and force me to teach to the test instead of developing the whole child. I’ve been telling people for years about how stressful the testing is for the kids, and of course once it’s linked to evaluations things will be even more stressful for them. I need, however, to have an article, the more scholarly the better.
Thanks.
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My filing system is not too cool or organized, but I’m quite sure some of the readers here will be able to provide you with plenty. If you are a member of a union, have you sought out their assistance?
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The union knows about this, but it’s small and not too powerful. I am hopeful, though.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/three-ed-reforms-parents-should-worry-about-most/2012/08/23/88895c7c-ec95-11e1-aca7-272630dfd152_blog.html#pagebreak
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This is from 2000 by Alfie Kohn
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/staiv.htm
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http://truth-out.org/news/item/11361-outing-act-test-and-punish-doesnt-educate-but-is-profitable-for-testing-companies?key=27541100
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It annoys me to no end that opportunistic appeaser, Randi Weingarten, is joining in on this propaganda tour in West Virginia.
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Why do I have the feeling that this tour resembles Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?
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Bill and Ted got to learn from Socrates. The rheeformers would be more likely to talk to those who convicted and killed him.
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She is the Neville Chamberlain of education.
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On September 12 Duncan will be in Sacramento to discuss school reform with area superintendents and mayors. No teachers invited.
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And while campaigning for O, I’m sure he’ll be seeking teacher votes. Vote your conscience folks. I’m sure Kevin (St. Hope & My Hands are Roaming if your 16) Johnson with Michelle will be there.
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What a colossal waste of money. Laughable PR at its finest. The comment section for the government webpage Diane linked reminds me that a good chunk of teachers have no idea what is going on.
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And sadly, when they do, it will be too late. Arne will keep on smiling.
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Many if not most of the teachers hear at my poor rural conservative Missouri district “have no idea what is going on.”
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Looks like he’s following the Red States brick road. A tour where he’s not likely to encounter any “trouble.” I hope teachers, parents and others can make it to these stops and challenge his misguided policies.
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And in Salt Lake City, where I am, there’s no information about when the meeting is. It’s at a struggling middle school where there will be a “round table about school improvement.” We all know what THAT means.
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I noticed that too, he isn’t even dipping a toe in the NE.
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I see that he doesn’t have time to visit Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey or any part of New England.
What’s with Arne and tours? Remember the one a few years back with him, Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton? What I call the “What Are YOU Doing Wrong Tour”.
Does this tour have a theme song?
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WOW! Nowhere in the northeast. Shocking. Once again, well, maybe not. Arne Duncan, you should be ashamed, but of course, you are not, because this does not affect you or any of your big money friends and donors. You and your boss should be ashamed.
FIRE DUNCAN! Hire Ravitch!
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I wonder if they’ll be shutting down the highways like they usually do whenever such important dignitaries come through. Ah, he may not be quite an important person to receive that treatment.
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Thank you, Alan and Urbanlad, for the articles!
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I read this on School Matters….I wonder what Randi thinks when she it pushed down a few notches:
Weingarten Patrolling the Web to Urge Patience for Obama/Gates Agenda
Posted: 07 Sep 2012 05:43 AM PDT
This morning Mark Naison posted a thoughtful response to the President’s corporate kowtowing and hope-turned-hype speechifying, and who else besides AFT’s own CEO, Randi Weingarten, quickly responded with this:
Mark- I normally agree w/ you-and as you know even in our endorsement of the President we specifically raised our concerns w/ the national policy’s fixation with testing. What I don’t get is when the President and the party promotes a platform that at least sounds like they are listening, why not give him the benefit of the doubt.
You are so right ant teachers being demoralized- the biggest culprit are the cuts,and the push to privatization.
I would love to see the data on the worsening of diversity. I see it, but have no numbers.
My response:
Yes, listening. Obama/Gates have been listening for a long time, which has gotten us exactly nowhere. Or better yet, we are further behind now in terms of corporate control, privatization, and teacher demolition than we were under Bush/Cheney. They listen closely, mouth some bromides about keeping dialogue open, and then do everything they can to subvert and coopt the resistance to the destruction of real learning, public schools and the teaching profession.
Unfortunately for teachers, children, and parents, their leading surrogates are the presidents of the two national teachers’ organizations, who are at the ready to tamp down any further resistance by urging patience. If there is anything in the “platform” that signals a departure from the corporate onslaught against schools, teachers, and real learning by children, I suggest to you that it is nothing more than empty words intended to placate a profession on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
Meanwhile, you, Ms. Weingarten, and your bosom pal, Mr. Van Roekel, continue to do the same as they, talking out of both of your mouth, depending on whether you are trying to snooker teachers into another bad deal you’ve signed onto behind closed doors, or making nice with Gates and Broad or the education industry.
If you would really love to see some data on diversity, why don’t you spend some of the AFT millions on some research on the segregation, containment, and dehumanization of millions of poor school children across this country? Why don’t you hire some of those researchers who have lost their positions to corporate foundation hacks, some real researchers to do some real research on the conditions of unequal funding, the school turnaround industry, the KIPP chain gangs, or the TFA missionary society, the takeover of public schools by corporations.
But I forgot–your budget goes to elect politicians with plans to crush teaching, create apartheid systems of schooling, and create data monitoring systems from B to D (birth to death). You, Ms. Weingarten, represent the problem in its most insidious form. If you had any character, you would resign and let teachers with a moral compass redirect the AFT to the social justice mission that made it a force for positive change, rather than a corporate subsidiary.
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Here is the link:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/09/weingarten-patrolling-web-to-urge.html
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Interesting to note no stop in Chicago is listed. Could I possibly have read correctly? Arne Duncan is not going to stop in Chicago. Think about that.
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Darn, Arne is not swinging by New Mexico….I would love to chew the fat with him over a steaming bowl of menudo! It would probably bring him to his knees!
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“. . . a steaming bowl of menudo”–¡Qué sabroso, eh!
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Oh, and dunk funcan!
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