Jason Stanford attended a conference in Austin to mark the 50th anniversary of passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And don’t you know, the people who were responsible for No Child Left Behind think they acted in the tradition of civil rights leaders.
He writes:
“At the Civil Rights Summit celebrating the Civil Rights Act’s 50th birthday, everyone agreed that equal opportunity to education was a civil right. If that’s true, then who are today’s Freedom Riders and who is standing in the schoolhouse door? Education reformers see themselves as modern-day civil rights heroes, but the real continuation of non-violent protest can be found in the parents and students in the grassroots opt out movement that is refusing to take standardized tests.
“In this fight, the power is almost all on the side of those who assume you can make a pig heavier by weighing it a lot, to put it in terms LBJ would have liked. And without any sense of shame or embarrassment, those who created this testing culture see themselves as his descendents.
“On the issue of education, we’re dealing with the meaning of America, and the extent of its promise, and in this cause the passion and energy of Lyndon Baines Johnson still guides us forward,” said George W. Bush in his speech at the LBJ Presidential Library.
“Bush started it with No Child Left Behind, but Barack Obama’s Race to the Top is no better. Education Sec. Arne Duncan called Common Core “the single greatest thing to happen to public education in America since Brown v. Board of Education.”
“One of the problems with this policy discussion is that the pro-testing crowd can’t understand how anyone could be against using tests to measure learning.”
Stanford writes that Bush, Margaret Spellings, and Sandy Kress can’t see any problems with the current round of high-stakes testing that can’t be fixed by more and better tests. One longs to see he three of them take the eighth grade math tests and publish their scores. I am willing to bet they might be less enthusiastic if they did.
Jason Stanford thinks that the true heirs of the cilvil rights protests are not the testers but the parents and students who opt out. They do not face the physical peril of the original civil rights movement, but they have demonstrated they are willing to stand on principle for what is right, without money or power to support them, just the conviction that the standardized testing industry does not hold the key to civil rights or equity or justice or better education.
Frankly, the people who brought us NCLB should stay quiet until it disappears into the mists of history, unlamented.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The reformer’s re-write:
I Have a Scheme
I have a scheme that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its education policy: “We hold these standards to be self-evident, and that all tests are created to punish, humiliate, and quantitatively define developing children.”
I have a scheme that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the computer, where personalized adaptive instruction and assessment will make the all college and career ready.
I have a scheme that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of confusing and convoluted multiple choice test items designed to trick students into failing
I have a scheme that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the value of their standardized test scores.
I have an unimaginably money making scheme today!
LikeLike
cx. I have a can’t miss, gobs and gobs of money making scheme today.
LikeLike
I’d give you a standing ovation, but my corporate overlords would beat me for it. Well played.
LikeLike
Thanks.
LikeLike
Agreed. I can’t keep saying enough how angry I am watching my youngest grandchild – eight- not being educated. If it wasn’t for all we do at home, she would have no idea about history, thinking skills, geography, civics, reading and comprehension skills, etc. Every day she comes home with her two pages of math and one timed one-minute speed reading sheet–no textbooks, workbooks, nothing. They are like sponges in second grade and she is totally dependent upon her family to use her terrific thinking skills and desire to know more about everything. We’re not pressuring her, we’re just responding to her desire to learn about the world around her. Now, I’m seeing the same thing with my grandchild who’s a freshman in high school. Accelerated classes are now teaching what everyone learned in high school when I taught school. We know that every child learns to the best of their ability, but we at least have to expose them and bring out their inate curiosity. I would go out of my mind sitting in the classes today, just getting ready for one test or another.
LikeLike
I personally resent the CC testing because the Obama Administration and ed reformers generally have used public schools as political punching bags for years.
It burns me up to watch all these public teachers, administrators and students working their asses off to make these tests go smoothly, when they’ve been treated so poorly by this administration. The gleeful reporting on the “successful” CC testing is the most positive attention I’ve seen paid to public schools since Bush came into office.
I’m shocked these public school people are capable of tying their own shoes, let alone putting in Duncan’s giant initiative, given how they’ve been portrayed.
The CC may be worthwhile, but boy it is hard not to be cynical given the last decade of “ed reform” and what I see as a decade-long political campaign to discredit public schools to achieve a specific policy objective, which is the growth of charter schools.
I don’t have a whole lot of trust left. I don’t think anyone is looking out for public schools, and I’ve been watching this in Ohio and nationally for a decade.
LikeLike
There are no true heirs to the civil rights movement. It died intestate and its legacy went to the state, to use as it saw fit.
LikeLike
I share your opinion, Jason, and thank you for pointing out the “wolf in sheeps’ clothing”.
As someone who grew up in the south during the Civil Rights era of the Freedom Riders, I agree that those who speak up AGAINST the oppressive environment of Common Core are defending the rights of children.
It was after I observed the psychological impact of the increasingly punitive environment of standardized testing in my school that I joined others to protest. It is difficult to stand up to authoritarian school administrators who are in denial and not recognizing the impact this environment is having on children. After my protest were ignored and I was scapegoated and bullied by the administration, I resigned in protest and am now more determined to fight Common Core.
I perceive the Common Core Environment as “totalitarianism” and “behaviorism” that is causing social regression and will impact our democracy. Children need freedom in learning that allows them to use their imagination and curiosity for self-discovery, that will foster higher level thinking skills and ability for scientific thinking, and inspire intrinsic motivation and love of learning. They do not need to be “conditioned” with punitive age inappropriate focus on performance and reward/punishment. Those methods of authoritarianism and behaviorism may be effective for training dogs and zoo animals, but it is a cruel and ineffective way to treat children. It is not “Teaching”, it is “Programming”. For children, the Common Core environment is a form of master/slave oppressive environment of hard work and drudgery motivated by fear and intimidation.
As a school counselor, during the time I was trying to advocate for the children and being “bullied” by administration, I wrote this protest article about our need now for Freedom Riders. It is long, but for readers who lived in the south during Civil Rights era, you will be able to relate. This same “system” has returned with Common Core.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The System
On a three year march to Exemplary status at the elementary school where I have worked for the past 5 years, the principal has implemented what she calls her “system”. As the school counselor, I have expressed concerns about that system, not just the one at my school, but others like it. I have advocated for the students, since they are the ones whose lives will be most impacted by it, and because the psychological damage will not be visible for years. AISD has ignored my concerns by assisting the principal with bullying and threats and attempts to keep me quiet by destroying my credibility, and taking away my job. I cannot share the principal’s pride in the Exemplary prize because I know what it cost the students. Instead, I am sad for what they lost.
Why would I continue to stay in a hostile environment when I have already reached retirement eligibility and could live in the cool mountains of NC near my family? It is because I do not want to abandon these children without knowing that they are in good hands. They deserve an environment that will protect and preserve their natural talents and gifts, that will allow them to become their own person, and not be turned into an automaton produced by a factory school in Texas.
Students have strong emotional bonds with their counselors. They know I care about them. They know they can talk to me and I will listen empathically. They trust me. We have shared many experiences, bad times and happy times. I have been in their homes and worked with their families. For years I have created guidance activities to help them develop a strong sense of self. I have used art & creative activities to help stimulate their imaginations and help them develop good problem solving skills. I have encouraged them to think for themselves, to connect with others by sharing their ideas, and to value the ideas and opinions of others. I have nurtured them with kindness and respect and watched them grow for five years. Many of them live in harsh circumstances, and they have an even greater need for gentleness, along with kindness and respect. However, in complete disregard for my students’ bonds with me as source of their emotional support, the principal has no place for me or my advocacy in this system.
I do not fit into the system’s 3 R’s, one of which is the right people. The right people are those who think the same way as the principal. I would not call it a system, I would call it a regime. The system will break young children’s spirits, take away their imaginations and lead them into despair. It creates institutional dependency. It is the same kind of dependency and helplessness that results from entrapment in any oppressive environment. This system, which has been implemented into one of Austin’s historic minority schools, is now being celebrated and perpetuated by descendants of people who once bravely fought against it and called it immoral.
I was introduced to the system when I entered first grade in a segregated all white school in an ambivalent southern culture that had a split personality as opposite as black & white. It was pretty on the upside, but it had a dark underside. I grew up thinking that our culture was normal, until the Freedom Riders came into my home state of North Carolina in 1960 with a powerful message that woke me up. It really woke me up. I wanted to be on their bus! I cheered them with my heart as I watched TV and saw their courageous peaceful persistence unflinched by the hostility and cruelty that met them throughout the south. Those brave young people are some of the best role models to grace the chapters of history, but their message is once again being ignored. Their message is being ignored every day that a young child walks into a Texas school to be initiated into an oppressive system that leads to institutional dependency from sophisticated “bullying”.
How could my family and community have lived in that split culture for so long and not recognized that it was immoral? It was because we grew up thinking it was normal. It was because we grew up in socially isolated white segregated communities with people who all thought the same way about our culture and never questioned the status quo.
As a child, I did notice that people of the black culture were treated differently. When we went shopping in the city, I would notice the “Colored” and “White” signs over the drinking fountains, but our ambivalent culture conditioned us to ignore anything that didn’t fit into our “perfect” world.
I was conditioned by high expectations to focus on my own performance and interests and not to interfere with other people’s affairs. If something seemed “not normal” in our perfect world, we learned to ignore it and keep up appearances at all costs, even if that meant ignoring cruelty and indignities to ourselves and others. We were in denial and overly self- absorbed, the classic hallmarks of southern pride and narcissism passed down in most white families of the south for generations. Those are the same characteristics that I believe led to the system I observe in my school today. The system that conditioned black people of the south to be submissive for a hundred years after the Civil War, is the same system that is teaching the students in my school that submission to oppression is normal. It is not a racial issue, it is about abuse of power.
It is loss of freedom in learning that will not allow children to maintain their individuality, their ndependence, or their dignity.
The competition of measuring schools by test scores has led to this system. It is the wrong measure. The true measure of success will come when the child has to function on his own. Fifty percent of our college students in Texas drop out and never complete a degree. It isn’t because they can’t pass the admissions test. They have learned to be good test takers. Is it because they are products of this same system? They don’t have a strong sense of self, they don’t have a purpose or sense of direction. They are like boats afloat in an ocean without a rudder. They can’t think for themselves. They are indecisive and have difficulty making decisions. They don’t have an identity of their own. They struggle with relationships. As young children, they were incarcerated in classrooms with teachers who had absolute control. They were taught to depend on someone else to tell them what to do and how to think and what to learn. They were conditioned to shut down their own original thoughts and creative ideas and focus focus focus. They were obedient, well behaved children who performed well, trusted authority and never questioned it. They became submissive and codependent, which are the major symptoms of the system.
The more overly ambitious a principal becomes, the more oppressive the environment. Children in high performing schools have become trophy children. They are being exploited at any cost. Pride, in this case, is not a virtue. We should be reminded of over ambition as “a particular kind of evil” that Shakespeare illustrated so well in Macbeth, one of his darkest and most powerful tragedies. It is that same dark tragedy that forces children into a system that will rob them of their greatest gift and best tool for their future, their imagination.
The high performance rating and new status of this Title I School created emotional contagion in AISD’ higher echelon. The principal was invited to teach all the other principals how to implement the “system”. It is becoming pervasive. Who questions the absolute power given to one person who will impact so many lives. What process did AISD follow to evaluate the psychological impact of this system on young children? Who were the mental health consultants and child development specialists who approved it?
The children in my school live in the difficult circumstances of a low socio- economic area. However, they are as intelligent and talented as any other children in Austin. Putting them into a rigid school environment with chronic stress from obsessive testing and non stop boring rote drill day in and day out resembles a prison. Isn’t that the opposite of what they need? They need structure that allows freedom to create and explore. They need kind and respectful positive behavior modeled for them by people who have empathy. They need time to relax their brains and move their bodies. They need imaginative play. They need a stress free lunch break to socialize with their peers, rather than repetition of the 1000 words on the cafeteria wall. Do they need their brain held captive every thinking minute of the day by someone drilling it with with forced learning? This behavioral engineering is mind control. These are children, not computers.
The perceptions of this system, which I and my principal have, are as opposite as the black and white culture in which I grew up. We perceive things according to our own experiences, and our interpretations of those experiences in relation to our world. Therefore, people who place a disproportionate emphasis on scores over social and emotional development, tend to perceive things according to their own needs. Those who have not been trained to recognize psychological impact on children will think this system is efficient and gets results. It is efficient and it does get the results the principals and administrators want. This system, which AISD is perpetuating in order to bring them recognition and fame through exploitation of children, is the same poisonous pedagogy that conditioned the children of Germany for decades leading up to WWII. This system was efficient then, just has it has been efficient throughout history for leaders who abuse power. It produces adults who are obedient and submissive to authority, follow orders and perform well on assigned tasks, lack emotions of empathy or guilt, and are unable to think for themselves.
Frederick Douglas said: “It is easier to build a strong child than to fix a broken man.”
As a child, the only thing I knew about Frederick Douglas came from my pre-Civil Rights Era 5th Grade North Carolina history book: He was an outlaw slave, a renegade. He was a violent and dangerous man who inspired slave uprisings throughout the South, where many innocent southern white people were attacked and murdered. My book and my teacher made him sound evil. That one paragraph in an elementary school book probably caused generations of little white girls in the south to fear black men. I trusted that information at the time. I was only 10, and the Freedom Riders had not yet arrived.
What changed my perception of Frederick Douglas, in spite of the fact that I am a product of the Old South? My perception now, which I hope is more accurate, is that Frederick Douglas was using his experience as a former slave, and his brilliant talents of writing and oratory, to inspire people to take action against a particular kind of evil.
That particular kind of evil has woven its way in and out of history. It was perpetuated by my slave-owner ancestors through ignorance and denial, just as it is being perpetuated now by the “system”. It is the opposite of freedom. Our democratic system was based on equality, and established a balance of power to prevent that particular kind of evil. However, when systems are allowed to be put in place to govern young school children, and the regime requires that everyone think alike, it is a dangerous sign. It can lead to abuse of power. It can lead to totalitarianism, which is the opposite of democracy. It already has at my school and other schools across Texas.
Is it not time that we listen to the messages of Frederick Douglas and the Freedom Riders?
Joyce Murdock Feilke Autsin Texas jfeilke@icloud.com

LikeLike
Brova, Joyce! BRAVO!!!
LikeLike
Correction:
Bravo, Joyce! BRAVO!!!
LikeLike
We, the USA, are an oligarchy now. Who controls education? The rich and powerful. Hard to know how to proceed except to continue to make a lot of noise and vote them out. The Supreme Court is now 5-4 in favor of the aforementioned.
LikeLike
The frightening thing about the Common Core environment of “Authoritarianism and Behaviorism” is that it does produce children who will have codependency.
We can observe products of this system now more than ever in our self-absorbed and “dumbing down” society from increasing authoritarianism as a result of environmental fear and insecurity. Those who created Common Core obviously grew up in this environment and consider fear and intimidation as “normal” ways to motivate children.
The more fear and insecurity in the environment causes more need for control, and the more rigid people become in their thinking. It is “black and white” thinking of Narcissism Behaviors and Borderline Behaviors that is the driving force behind Common Core.
Many people do not recognize “psychological abuse” to children if they consider it normal to be disrespected and “bullied”, or to manipulate and control others through punishment and reward to get what they want. They don’t recognize “bullying” from employers, teachers, or parents. For three generations since WWII our children have grown up in increasingly more authoritarian families and/or schools as a result of chronic stress in the environment (economics, war) and desensitization from a more callous culture (exposure to chronic trash tv, violence, dominance from fearful parents).
Too many people now fear questioning “authority” because they have become indoctrinated to be submissive. The chronic stress in our society has conditioned most people (except for the 1%) to function in a “survive” mode, which causes them to be more callous and unable to connect emotionally to others. Common Core has the same dysfunctional dynamics as that in “covert” Narcissistic families with codependency. (Alcoholism or workaholism are the most visible addictions in those families). Outwardly it appears high functioning in work environment, but inwardly the codependency causes a lack of self identity and independence and chronic depression and anxiety.
This of us who can recognize that Common Core is causing psychological damage
to children must keep speaking out and using civil disobedience to protest!
LikeLike
Can we stop with this? If we have to ask, there are no natural heirs to the civil rights movement. Education or any other policy, we shouldn’t force this.
LikeLike