[regional_school] Jerry Brown Proposal Puts the Testing Juggernaut on Ice
- From: "William Cala" <wcala@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 10:40:10 -0400
Posted this morning at Living in Dialogue:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/05/california_gover
nor_puts_the_t.html
California Governor Puts the Testing Juggernaut on Ice
California Governor Jerry Brown has taken a big step towards reducing
the testing mania in the nation's most populous state. Up until his
administration we have been on an accelerated path towards the
comprehensive data-driven system that test publishers and corporate
reformers have convinced leaders is needed to improve schools. But in
the May budget outline from Brown's office, he makes it clear he is putting
on the brakes.
From the Thoughts on Public Education blog comes this:
Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing to suspend funding for CALPADS, the state
student longitudinal data system, and to stop further planning for
CALTIDES, the teacher data base that was to be joined at the hip with
CALPADS.
What is even more encouraging is the explanation Brown offers, which
shows a great deal of understanding of these issues. The document
states:
A number of problems have been identified with California's
state testing, data collection and accountability regime. Testing takes
huge amounts of time from classroom instruction. Data collection
requirements are cumbersome and do not provide timely - and therefore
usable - information back to schools. Teachers are forced to cub their
own creativity and engagement with students as they focus on teaching to
the test. State and federal administrators continue to centralize
teaching authority far from the classroom.
The (Brown) Administration proposes to deal with these
issues by carefully reforming testing and accountability requirements to
achieve genuine accountability and maximum local autonomy. It will
engage teachers, scholars, school administrators and parents to develop
proposals to
(1) reduce the amount of time devoted to state testing in schools;
(2) eliminate data collections that do not provide useful information to
school administrators, teachers and parents; and
(3) restore power to school administrators, teachers and parents.
The goal is to improve the learning environment in every
classroom, thereby encouraging the demanding pursuit of excellence. The
May Revision proposes to suspend funding for CALPADS in 2011-12 pending
this continued review of data collection requirements.
Praise be!
Jerry Brown is unusual among our nation's governors. He got a bit
more involved than most in on-the-ground school reform while he was
serving as mayor of Oakland. He learned the hard way how schools are a
reflection of deeper social issues. In a statement he wrote to respond to
Arne Duncan's Race to the Top a year and a half ago, while he was
California's Attorney General, he said:
You assume we know how to "turn around all the struggling
low performing schools," when the real answers may lie outside of
school. As Oakland mayor, I directly confronted conditions that hindered
education, and that were deeply rooted in the social and economic
conditions of the community or were embedded in the particular attitudes
and situations of the parents. There is insufficient recognition in the
draft regulations that inside and outside of school strategies must be
interactive and merged.
Even more revealing was what he wrote about federally-driven education
"reform":
The basic assumption of your draft regulations appears to be that top
down, Washington driven standardization is best. This is a "one size fit
all" approach that ignores the vast diversity of our federal system and
the creativity inherent in local communities. What we have at stake are
the impressionable minds of the children of America. You are not
collecting data or devising standards for operating machines or
establishing a credit score. You are funding teaching interventions or
changes to the learning environment that promise to make public
education better, i.e. greater mastery of what it takes to become an
effective citizen and a productive member of society. In the draft you
have circulated, I sense a pervasive technocratic bias and an uncritical
faith in the power of social science.
We all know that Secretary Duncan did not heed Jerry Brown's
thoughtful advice, and still has not. But Brown's proposed budget takes
on the testing machine from the top, and that is a very hopeful sign.
By the way, yesterday I shared news of a new book, The Myths of Standardized
Tests. The authors will be guests at a free Save Our Schools March webinar
Thursday night, May 19, at 8:30 pm Eastern time, 5:30 pm Pacific time.
Please register to join the conversation here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MythsRegistration
What do you think? Might this be a sign of sanity?
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/05/california_gover
nor_puts_the_t.html
Anthony Cody
__._,_.___
Reply to
<mailto:anthony_cody@xxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Re%3A%20Jerry%20Brown%20Proposal%20
Puts%20the%20Testing%20Juggernaut%20on%20Ice> sender | Reply to
<mailto:arn2-strategy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Re%3A%20Jerry%20Brown%20Propos
al%20Puts%20the%20Testing%20Juggernaut%20on%20Ice> group | Reply
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arn2-strategy/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJwcTBrcmxlBF9TA
zk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE5MTE3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDgyMzUzBG1zZ0lkAzU1NzEEc2VjA
2Z0cgRzbGsDcnBseQRzdGltZQMxMzA1NzI3Mjc5?act=reply&messageNum=5571> via web
post |
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arn2-strategy/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJldnRwbG1pBF9TA
zk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE5MTE3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDgyMzUzBHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA250c
GMEc3RpbWUDMTMwNTcyNzI3OQ--> Start a New Topic
Messages in this topic
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arn2-strategy/message/5571;_ylc=X3oDMTM0Z3Rra
mRnBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE5MTE3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDgyMzUzBG1zZ0lkAzU1N
zEEc2VjA2Z0cgRzbGsDdnRwYwRzdGltZQMxMzA1NzI3Mjc5BHRwY0lkAzU1NzE-> (1)
Recent Activity:
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arn2-strategy;_ylc=X3oDMTJlcGk0ODFqBF9TAzk3Mz
U5NzE0BGdycElkAzE5MTE3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDgyMzUzBHNlYwN2dGwEc2xrA3ZnaHAEc3
RpbWUDMTMwNTcyNzI3OQ--> Visit Your Group
<http://groups.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTJkNmg4amlhBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzE5M
TE3NzQEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDgyMzUzBHNlYwNmdHIEc2xrA2dmcARzdGltZQMxMzA1NzI3Mjc5>
Yahoo! Groups
Switch to:
<mailto:arn2-strategy-traditional@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Change%20Delivery%
20Format:%20Traditional> Text-Only,
<mailto:arn2-strategy-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Email%20Delivery:%20Dig
est> Daily Digest .
<mailto:arn2-strategy-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Unsubscribe>
Unsubscribe . <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> Terms of Use
.
<http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=1911774/grpspId=1705082353/msgId
=5571/stime=1305727279/nc1=1/nc2=2/nc3=3>
__,_._,___
Other related posts:
- » [regional_school] Jerry Brown Proposal Puts the Testing Juggernaut on Ice - William Cala
