#36 Autumn 2002 $4.95 The Education Revolution The Magazine of Alternative Education
Table of Contents: NewsBeing ThereBy Jerry Mintz
Mail and CommunicationsEdited by Carol Morley Home Education News Public Alternatives Charter Schools Waldorf Montessori International News and Communications Teachers, Jobs and Internships Conferences AerogrammeBook ReviewsAERO Books, Videos, Subscription,Ordering Information
The Education Revolution The Magazine of the Alternative Education Resource Organization (Formerly AERO-gramme) 417 Roslyn Rd., Roslyn Heights, NY 11577 ISSN # 10679219 phone: 516-621-2195 or 800-769-4171 fax: 516-625-3257 e-mail: jerryaero@aol.com Web site: http://www.educationrevolution.org
Editor: Jerry Mintz Managing Editor: Albert Lamb Mail and Communications Editor: Carol Morley Director of Information and Communications: Steve Rosenthal Director of Research and Development: Dana Bennis Printer Joel Hymowitz, Sir Speedy Printing, New Hyde Park, NY Webmaster: Peter Christopher
ADVISORY BOARD Alexander Adamsky, Mary Addams, Chris Balch, Fred Bay, Patrice Creve, Anne Evans, Patrick Farenga, Phil Gang, John Gatto, Herb Goldstein, Dan Greenberg, Jeffrey Kane, Albert Lamb, Dave Lehman, Mary Leue, Ron Miller, Ann Peery, John Potter, Mary Anne Raywid, John Scott, Tim Seldin, Elina Sheppel, Andy Smallman, Sidney Solomon, Nick Stanton, Corinne Steele, Tom Williams
AERO and The Education Revolution Magazine
AERO, the Alternative Education Resource Organization, was founded in 1989 as part of the not-for-profit School of Living. The mission of AERO is to build “the critical mass for the education revolution by providing resources which support self-determination in learning and the natural genius in everyone.” AERO provides information, resources and guidance to students, parents, schools and organizations regarding the broad spectrum of educational alternatives: public and independent alternatives, home education, international alternatives, higher education alternatives, and more. The common feature in all these educational options is that they are learner-centered, focused on the interest of the learner rather than on an arbitrary curriculum. AERO, which produces the Education Revolution Magazine quarterly and maintains the Education Revolution website, is the networking hub for education alternatives throughout the world (www.EducationRevolution.org).
The Education Revolution Magazine includes the latest news and communications from the alternative education world as well as conference updates, job listings, book reviews, travel reports, and much more. With our readers’ support we are helping make learner-centered education available to all students throughout the world. We welcome your participation and involvement.
Welcome to the Education Revolution,
Albert Lamb Managing Editor
News
The IDEC’s of March By Dana Matthew Bennis
Although the Albany Free School IDEC adventure of 2002 may pale in comparison to the IDEC odyssey of 2003, the story of the past six months, as told by one of the participants, is an interesting one.
The idea to host IDEC first took form in March of this year, beginning as discussion and brainstorming among a few Free School teachers and AERO staff. As the idea began to take hold, we found much support among the entire Free School community, including parents, teachers, students, and friends of the school. We realized that to be considered as a host school it was imperative that we attend the IDEC this year hosted by Tamariki School in New Zealand.
The Albany Free School is a democratic inner-city school which has been running for thirty three years. We have fifty-five students aged 3-14, seven teachers, and an internship program for four interns each year. Our Council Meeting system brings everyone together to solve immediate issues, and we have All-School Meetings each week to discuss and make decisions about school policies. A student is chairperson at all meetings and each student and teacher has one vote. Classes are non-compulsory and students are in complete charge of their day.
We wanted to host the IDEC here in New York largely in response to the increasing standardization of education in the USA, a test-driven approach that, we learned at IDEC 2002, is taking hold in many other countries as well. With the large number of democratic and alternative schools and home educators in the US as well as around the world, a conference in New York has great potential. Our hope is to demonstrate that there is a different system out there which works, based around democracy and respect for children instead of high-stakes tests and competition.
Our dedication to travel to IDEC 2002 and make this proposal set into motion quite a flurry of activity. Since the cost of travel to New Zealand is so high, we decided on a small group to represent The Free School and AERO at Tamariki. That group was Austin Cavanaugh and David Jordan (7th graders at The Free School), Isaac Graves (15-year old alumnus of The Free School), Jerry Mintz of AERO, and myself. We traveled with Fred Bay of the Paul Foundation, and Meredith Bay, Fred’s daughter. Although the group was small, we still had to do a great deal of fundraising.
One of our first fundraising ideas happened to be one of the most beneficial – creating a magazine about IDEC and democratic education. We set out writing people involved with democratic education across the world and asking them if they wanted to send some of their recent writing to us for the magazine. We also asked people right here in New York, including Chris Mercogliano, director of The Free School, and Tim Graves, Isaac’s father who is a professor of education at Hudson Valley Community College. The whole group spent many days contacting local and national businesses to gather ads for the magazine.
Due to his involvement with two Free School magazines written as fundraisers for their long trips, Isaac has a great deal of experience working on magazines. He expertly took over editorship of the Free School IDEC magazine and wrote the opening editorial. We brought copies of the magazine for each attendee of the IDEC in New Zealand. Our other activities included email and letter fundraising drives, a spaghetti dinner, and a New Zealand party and auction, the last of which was run by auctioneer Jerry Mintz.
One of our more ambitious ideas was to receive a ticket donation from one of the airlines which flies to New Zealand. We spent a great deal of time contacting the airlines, but the state of air travel in the past year has been quite grim. Although no airline gave us a donation, Air Pacific, the principle airline for Fiji, gave us a significant discount. There was a catch, however: we had to stop over in Fiji. And not just stop over, we had to spend several nights there each way, since there is only one flight from Fiji to New Zealand each week. Those of us traveling conferred, and decided to make the extreme sacrifice and spend some time in the beautiful paradise of Fiji!
After 3 months of hard work, we managed to raise nearly $8000. It happened to be just enough! The trip and the conference were amazing. Everywhere we traveled we met friendly and helpful people. As you know from other articles in this magazine, our proposal to host IDEC 2003 was passed! We can only hope to organize the next year’s IDEC as skillfully and effectively as IDEC 2002. We are hard at work already. Congrats to Tamariki!
To be on the list to receive updates about IDEC 2003, email Dana at dbennis12@yahoo.com. For more information on the trip and IDEC 2002, read the article by Jerry Mintz.
What is an IDEC? By David Gribble
David Gribble is author of Considering Children, A Really Good School, and Real Education. He was a teacher at Dartington Hall and helped found Sands School, both in England. He has been involved with IDEC since it began in 1993.
IDEC stands for International Democratic Education Conference. It is not the name of an organisation or a group. What happens is that at each year’s conference a school volunteers to run the conference for the next year. (In practice there has sometimes been delay in finding a volunteer, and for 2000 there had to be a choice made between several schools.) At intervals calls have been made for an official structure of some kind - another one came at Summerhill in 1999 - but in practice the autonomy of individual schools in arranging their own conferences has made for exciting variety.
Once representatives of a school have agreed to run a conference, everything is in their hands - dates, participants, cost, accommodation and style of conference. The length of the conferences has varied between two days for the first one to a fortnight in 1997. Students from both the host school and visiting schools have nearly always played a large part; the conference at Sands in 1997 and the Tokyo conference in 2000 were in fact run almost entirely by students. The longer conferences have included days of sight seeing and varied social and cultural events. Sometimes there has been a full program of prepared talks and workshops, and sometimes the program has been entirely decided by the participants after they arrived; sometimes there has been a bit of both. Some conferences have been funded entirely by the host schools or by outside agencies, but some schools have had to charge a fee. All decisions about such matters are taken by the host school.
The first conference was in 1993, in Israel, at the Democratic School of Hadera. A few teachers and students from democratic schools found themselves at a large conference in Jerusalem, called “Education for Democracy in a Multi-cultural Society.” The participants were mostly philosophers, professors and politicians, so the teachers and students hardly had any opportunity to contribute. A small group was invited to Hadera for two days after the big conference, and the discussions were so stimulating that it was agreed to meet annually.
For the first four years it was known as the Hadera Conference, and I sent out a newsletter two or three times a year. There were few contributors, and eventually it was abandoned. The hope was expressed that the internet could provide a substitute (Jerry Mintz now offers an IDEC listserve: idec@edrev.org).
There are differing views as to the purpose of the IDECs. Some see them as an opportunity to discuss shared problems in a supportive atmosphere, where you know that other people share your values. Others hope to spread the idea of democratic education by inviting possible converts and attracting favourable publicity. Others see the conference as a means of bonding schools so that they can offer support in times of crisis, on the “united we stand, divided we fall” principle. Some see them as a way of improving the public perception of the host schools in their own countries. The purpose of any given conference is decided by the school that is organising it.
The host school also decides who is to be invited. Usually you can get an invitation by simply expressing a desire to attend, but for the second conference at Sands a limit was set to the number of people from any one school, and it was suggested that at least half the delegates from each school should be students.
The 2000 IDEC in Tokyo was organised by a committee consisting mostly of students, and attracted around a thousand participants.
The best way to demonstrate the development of IDEC is a simple list of the conferences and the countries represented there.
1993 The Democratic
School of Hadera
1994 Sands School,
England
1995 The WUK, Vienna,
Austria
1996 The Democratic
School of Hadera, Israel
1997 Sands School,
England
1998 The Stork Family
School, Vinnitsa, Ukraine
1999 Summerhill
School, England
2000 Tokyo Shure,
Japan
Students in Germany Raise a Strong Voice By Karsten Wenzlaff
Just in the beginning of September, two weeks before the Parliamentary Election in Germany, the Federal School Student Organisation of Germany organised a congress, gathering several hundred school students and demanding rapid changes in the educational system.
The congress was held in Darmstadt in the center of Germany, which made it easy for the participants to convene. Lasting three days, the school students had the opportunity to discuss their views with politicians, teachers and parents and among themselves.
One guest was the German Minister of Education, Edelgard Buhlmann of the Social-Democrats, who claimed to have increased spending on education, setting Federal school-standards and giving new initiatives for providing more equal access to education. She was criticized because not enough effort was made to prevent the application of university and high school tuition.
Another guest Otto Herz, one of the famous thinkers in education politics and co-founder of the Laborschule in Bielefeld, a school which is experimenting on new pedagogics and is said to have adopted some elements of Free Education. He said to the school students “While society has changed a lot, the basic elements of school systems haven’t changed for a hundred of years.”
The school students discussed other issues of their school life in various workshops. Topics included were practical (how to organize a school newspaper, how to deal with conflict situations between teachers and school students etc.) and more theoretic (the role of education for society; how capitalism and socialism use school etc.).
Throughout the congress it was voiced by the school students, that they need to have a strong voice in educational issues, that they want more formal and informal rights in the decision making process of school administration, and they want to be the ones to determine the learning process.
At the Idec conference in New Zealand this summer AERO and the Albany Free School were successful in their bid to host the IDEC next year in the United States. It is hoped that many IALA schools and organizations will help and participate in the conference. The date has not yet been set, but perhaps it can dovetail with the PA IALA next summer. It will be held in the Albany, NY area.
IALA Conference in Duluth By Jerry Mintz
The International Association for Learning Alternatives had its 32nd annual conference from June 28th to June 30th 2002 in Duluth MN at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.
There were about 175 people in attendance at this year’s conference. A number that was a little disappointing but not too surprising in the wake of September 11. It was held in the beautiful city of Duluth, which is right on Lake Superior. There were enclosed walkways all around the downtown area so that people could walk from their hotels to the convention center and around the downtown area through them. One startling aspect of Duluth is that it can sometimes be 20 or 30 degrees warmer in the upper part of the town than in the lower part of the town, which is right on Lake Superior. We were told that the Lake usually doesn’t get warmer than 50 degrees even in the late summer so has an air conditioning effect on the town. One of the highlights of the conference was a cruise out into the lake.
The first keynote speaker, Howard Fuller, Director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Milwaukee’s Marquette University and former superintendent of the Milwaukee public schools, turned out to be very fortuitous. This was because it came the day after the Supreme Court made the decision to legitimize private vouchers with public school money, something that Howard Fuller firmly believes in from his experience in the Milwaukee system.
Another keynote speaker was Susan O’Hanian. Among other things she’s written the book One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards, published by Heinemann. Her new book is called Caught in the Middle: Non-Standard Kids and a Killing Curriculum. Her talk was well received as many teachers who are involved with alternative education have been fighting against the standardization and high-stakes testing movement.
The participants came from a variety of geographic locations, such as the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Nebraska, Ohio, Iowa, New York, Connecticut, Kansas, etc. One of the thrusts of IALA will be to help states that do not have alternative education associations to create them. The overwhelming feeling on the part of coalition members is that those organizations will include a wide variety of alternatives ranging from homeschooling through Waldorf and Montessori to a variety of public alternatives including charter schools and public homeschool resource centers.
Changing Schools was the central networking publication for this organization through all of its existence. Five years ago they lost their editor and Changing Schools was kept alive by making it a part of the Education Revolution magazine published by AERO. This will now be returned to the new central office of IALA in Minnesota, which is now staffed by their director, Cathie Hartnett. AERO will help IALA with several services, including the creation of a network of international connections and members.
This was the first official meeting of the organization under this name, the original decision having been made two years ago at a conference also hosted by the Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs and ratified and put into effect last year when a national board was created. This board is chaired by Wayne Jennings, a well-known educational pioneer from St. Paul, MN. Other board members include David Lehman, founder and principal of Alternative Community School in Ithaca NY; Lynn Vincent, president of the MI Alternative Education Organization; Ray Morley, a program manager for the Iowa Department of Education; Elizabeth Quigley, director of Middle Earth, an alternative school in Pennsylvania; Bob Wiley, Executive Director of the Washington Association of Learning Alternatives; Herb Zisselman, Assistant Principal of Phoenix High School in Lawrence, GA; Robert Barr and Don Glines, educational pioneers and ex-officio members.
After considerable discussion back and forth within the board, it was decided that the fledgling Pennsylvania Alternative Education Association will host that next year’s conference; most likely the year afterwards will be hosted by the Michigan Association, followed by the Washington Association. The 2003 IALA conference will be in the Philadelphia area at the Valley Forge Convention Center, June 26 - 29, 2003.
A Learning Journey Through Siam (Thailand) Jim Connor
This is an extract taken from an entertaining account of a group trip that featured an incredibly full itinerary. One of their first stops was at the second annual Global Community Gathering, a conference which brings together alternative projects working with children in Asia.
It was a tiring twenty-four hours of travel from the cold Philadelphia winter to the heat and the bustling streets of Bangkok, Thailand, thousands of miles away on the other side of the globe. With stops in New York, Anchorage, Alaska and Taipei, Taiwan it seemed we had already been traveling for weeks. As the plane touched down, all of our hopes, dreams, fears and expectations of the last few months slowly faded into reality, we had finally arrived in South East Asia. Four months of preparation, including language classes, cooking classes, comparative cultures studies, fundraising and much more, seemed so far away. Here we were, thirteen Americans and one Thai, ready to face the challenges which lay just ahead of us, five weeks of travel together through the enchanting Land of Smiles.
As we exited immigration and customs, we were greeted with smiling faces and the sweet smell of jasmine garlands from dear friends. Nao, who flew a month before us to make preparations, her sister, brother, mother and friends were there to greet us with open hearts and smiling faces. Our friend P’Nart from Ban Thor Phan, Make Dreams Come True and Eli, a student who visited Thailand last year and moved back this year to live a Ban Thor Phan, drove over 6 hours to meet us at the airport. There we were, sitting in the middle of Bangkok’s airport floor, as if it were a long awaited family reunion, eating exotic fruits, wonderful fried breads and fried bananas, trying out the few phrases of Thai that we knew as we waited for our friends from Japan, Korea and Russia to arrive.
Slowly we gathering everyone and emerged into the sweltering heat of Bangkok’s streets to cram into a bus loaded with disco balls, mirrors, flashing lights and a karaoke machine. We were headed off for Nakhon Pathom, home of the largest Buddhist chedi, or stupa, in all of Thailand and the place in which Buddhism is thought to have entered Thailand from its native home in India.
We then moved on to Kanchanaburi, to the famous bridge over the River Kwai, where we met our friends from Moo Baan Dek to have dinner on a floating restaurant just below the famous bridge. After almost 42 hours of travel for our group, we arrived that evening at Moo Baan Dek, Children’s Village School where we would spend the next five days at the 2nd Global Community Gathering (GCG). Following this, we would move to another children’s project, Ban Thor Phan, Make Dreams Come True, located even further west along the Burmese border, for the second half of the Global Community Gathering.
The Global Community Gathering is a gathering which started last year in Thailand to bring together alternative projects working with children in Asia. Last year brought representatives from Japan, Korea, India, America and all over Thailand. This year, students from the Haja Center in Korea and from the Moscow International Film School from Russia would also join us to work on a television series about the effects of violence in this world. The gathering was held in several languages; Thai, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and English. The aim of this gathering is to be together as human beings, and share in all the pleasures that brings. To laugh together, cook together, play together, farm together, swim together, be silent together, and explore new cultures together, all while in the presence of wonderful projects working with children coming from difficult backgrounds.
Moo Baan Dek, Children’s Village School was home to the first GCG last year and is a democratically run community and school, based on Summerhill School in England, which also incorporates aspects of Buddhism. The school serves over 150 children coming from poor, orphaned, and abusive backgrounds. The school is run by All School Meeting which is held once per week and is set in the lush jungle along the famous River Kwai.
We were able to attend the All School Meeting, visit classes with the children, and sleep in the children’s homes to form closer relationships with them. We also joined the children each morning at 5am to work in the organic gardens which were started by the famous Japanese writer, Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One Straw Revolution. The garden supplies most of their food. We then joined in the morning assembly where all of the children do group massage. One of our favorite times at Moo Baan Dek was swimming, bathing, washing clothes and playing together each afternoon in the refreshing water of the River Kwai. We had an international food night where each group cooked food from their country and we participated in workshops at the school on batik, woodworking, painting, ceramics, sewing, weaving and spinning with the students. One day we traveled to the magnificent 7 tiered Erawan Waterfalls and to the town of Kanchanaburi and the famous Bridge over the River Kwai. As our time at Moo Baan Dek came to an end, we all crammed back into the bus for a six hour journey to towards the Burmese border, were we would spend the next several days at Ban Thor Phan , Make Dreams Come True.
Ban Thor Phan, Make Dreams Come True, is currently the home for 27 orphaned, abused and former Burmese child soldiers, situated along the Burmese (Myanmar) border. P’Nart and P’Yu have opened their home to children from all over Thailand and Burma. Rising before the sun, chanting the Sanskrit words, Baba Nam Kevalam, “Love is All,” the children chant and then quietly begin their morning meditation. Again, at the end of the day singing and meditation ease the sun down and welcome in the rising moon over the hazy mountains. This is the peace and harmony of Ban Thor Phan.
Here the children learn how to become more self-reliant and aware that they are in control of their own lives. They are truly loved and cared for, which helps them become strong, caring, independent children. It is truly a place where “Dreams do come True”. As part of their daily activities, the children help in the making of natural tie-dye clothing. From collecting the plants and herbs, to preparing the cloth, boiling the cloth and herbs and finally sewing the clothing on treadle sewing machines, the children all find joy and peace in the work that makes their home such a special place. Besides learning meditation and just becoming part of this magnificent family, we also were able to take a trip to a local Buddhist temple deep within a cave and traveled to the famous Three Pagoda Pass at the Thai-Burmese border.
Our explorations through this enchanting Land of Smiles was an incredible learning experience for all. Everywhere we went we were welcomed in with smiling faces and wonderful food. Exploring another culture is a learning experience which constantly keeps you aware and always pushes you out of your comfort zones. An open mind, clear communication and a willingness to be flexible are lessons which we faced each new day of our travels. This was an experience which all of us will look back on and learn from throughout the rest of our lives.
There will future trips similar to this one which will be focused on natural building projects in Thailand, including bamboo and cob construction, which will be used to support children’s projects. The trips will involve homestays and community service projects and will work to create a space to explore the issues of traditional wisdom being lost to westernization with the local people we meet. Currently, there is a two month trip scheduled for the Fall of 2002 and another trip during the first few months of the new year 2003. For more information, questions, or comments about the trip, please contact Jim Connor and Saowanee Sangkara at The Whispering Seed, 610-668-1850 or email sea.anicca@juno.com.
More Democratic Ping Pong By Jerry Mintz
This is a follow-up to the Ping-Pong story which appeared in 2001 issue of the Education Revolution.
The democratic process in my Boys and Girls Club table tennis program has continued. When I first started the democratic meetings, the kids acted as if it was something like a public school class: talking, not paying attention and so on. Eventually, as they began to realize that every decision they made was the decision for the club, they got more and more serious about the meetings and wanted to make sure that they were in them and that their votes counted.
A more recent issue involved the kids questioning the work ethic of two of their elected supervisors. As a result of that, they had a meeting in which they elected temporary assistant supervisors who would take their places for one week. The idea was this might be a permanent thing and the others might be removed depending upon how it went when they came to the next meeting. The supervisor’s job is to take responsibility for the Challenge Ladder and make necessary changes, as well as resolving any disputes and refereeing any matches where people seemed to have some problem - and basically keeping the program going smoothly.
They felt that two of the more recently elected supervisors were doing a good job but two of the ones that had been in longer weren’t doing as good a job. In fact, there was an issue about one of them that had come up in which the Number One player was saying that he would accept a challenge if people would basically give him a bribe; that is, give him some food or money. That was brought up in a meeting and it was voted that this was not allowed; they didn’t make it retroactive because it hadn’t been a rule before.
At one of the meetings there was a discussion about a new rule we made that you had to accept two challenges a day, which was raised from one. The question was whom you’d have to accept as a challenger. They were trying to put in a rule that you could choose which person you’d accept, because any of the people six places away from you could challenge you. That was voted on and passed.
There were two dissenters: one was a student who was afraid that his challenges wouldn’t be accepted. According to our system we asked the minority to say, if they wanted to, why they voted against. It was thought that this might possibly create a situation in which certain kids could be effectively excluded from being able to make challenges because as soon as they challenged someone, that person could try to get someone else to challenge them and then play that match. We then had a re-vote and the meeting unanimously changed it to the fact that you have to accept the first challenge, and then other challenges in the order that they’re made.
There was another situation that developed: I got a call from one of the students who thought that I should be informed about an incident that had happened that day. It really felt like nothing different from the kind of call that I would get from another staff member when I was running my school. He told me that one of the supervisors had made an error in judgment that day in which there was a conflict going on between an 8-year old and a 9-year old. The 9-year old was calling the 8-year old names and this supervisor, instead of just correcting him on that, took the side of the other boy and was rooting for him during the match. It eventually reduced the 9-year old to tears and he wasn’t even able to continue. The feeling was that this was the wrong approach. So this other, more newly elected supervisor, a 12-year old, was calling me to let me know what had happened.
When I came in we had a special staff meeting. We’d never before actually had a staff meeting of the supervisors – the four kids and the three temporary assistants. We discussed the best way to handle that kind of situation and everyone agreed that the supervisor should never take sides, that they should always be fair in handling these things.
Overall, I think it’s just amazing how these kids, who go to regular public school and have had no previous experience with empowerment and with making these kinds of decisions and taking these responsibilities, have been able to do so.
One day I was walking to the Club on a day when I don’t usually volunteer. I passed by a baseball game on the field as I waked down the sidewalk. As I went out of sight of the field and toward the entrance of the club I barely heard a yell from the field, “Jerry’s here!” When I got to the door there was a line of people to sign up for ping pong lessons—the baseball game had immediately disbanded!
At a recent International tournament (Spinmania) I told this story to Ben Nisbit, former director of the US Association of Table Tennis. It seemed to me that to have a culture at a Boys and Girls Club where table tennis was more important than other sports was unusual. I asked him where else one might find that. “China?” he said. He hadn’t heard of it in the USA. He is working on creating a table tennis curriculum to encourage the expansion of the game.
At the Spinmania tournament, our students swept all the lower level trophies. We won the under 750, under 1000, and went to the finals of the under 13. Another student, 8-years old, went to the finals of the Under 10 division of the New York area Junior Olympic warm-up.
I was recently surprised and flattered when the Boys and Girls Club selected me as Volunteer of the Year. Also, they are talking about spreading this idea on a national level to other Boys and Girls Clubs. Maybe it’s easier to spread the idea of democracy in a non-school situation in which the staff doesn’t have such a vested interest in control as they would in a regular public school where the teachers spend so much of their efforts working on control.
Art Rosenblum By Judy Rosenblum
For those who haven’t heard of him, Art Rosenblum was a pioneer in the environmental and communities movements. We are very saddened by this sudden loss. The following is from the text of a very moving eulogy written by Art’s wife Judy. Jerry.
Art Rosenblum was killed in a car accident last week at age 74. He was a peace activist since the 60’s, a writer, printer, pilot, mechanic, and inventor. From the time Art was a small child, he was ahead of his peers and his time. He was moved by and felt personally involved in the politics around him, as a Jewish child hearing news of events in Europe as the Nazis rose to power. As a teenager, he had strong visions of a different, positive future, and felt that he had a mission to bring these visions into being. When he was 20, he went to Paraguay to join the pacifist community called the Society of Brothers, where they followed the teachings of Jesus and held all things in common. In 1964, he felt a calling from God to leave, and so, at age 38, he struck out on his own for a second time. For two years, he traveled all over the country, setting up print shops for any group that opposed the Vietnam War, asking only room and board in communes along the way.
In 1969, he came to Germantown [in Philadelphia, PA] to start a commune devoted to finding ways to bring about a whole new age of peace and love to the world. He took the Christian teachings that communal life had taught him and continued to use them, believing that human actions against injustice could bring about a true "kingdom of heaven" on Earth. Art began a neighborhood radio station and had parties for the local teens. Here he created a small nonprofit organization called Aquarian Research Foundation. He wrote a newsletter for over thirty years about alternative lifestyles, safe energy, psychic research, and sustainable living. The first five years of the newsletter are published in his book, Unpopular Science. Art had an offset printing press in his dining room, which he used to print newsletters, and also a booklet on natural methods of birth control, which grew into a book that sold over 90,000 copies. When we married in 1976 after a 28-day courtship, I helped him edit the fifth edition. The next year, Art became a pilot at age 49 and started flying all over, bringing people to visit intentional communities. He took in printing apprentices, training them for free in exchange for their help printing flyers at cost for peace groups. In the heart of the Cold War, he printed and distributed 300,000 "Big Party" invitations in 1984 to visualize and celebrate, in advance, the disarmament of the world. In 1988, he flew a Soviet sociologist to visit intentional communities in the U.S., and we wrote and produced the first video on such communities, called Where’s Utopia? He influenced Ted Turner to create the Turner Tomorrow Award, which resulted in the prize-winning book, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. Art got the [Philadelphia] Inquirer to do a cover story on Quinn, and the two writers became friends.
Art learned that children brought up with a lot of love and affection become peaceful adults. He raised our two kids to be loving, free, creative, and caring about the needs of the world. He picked up every hitchhiker on the road that could fit in the car. He took in homeless people to live with us. He championed homebirth, breastfeeding, home schooling, polyamory, communal living, natural foods (especially seaweed), alternative medicine, and every cause that came down the road.
He flew his small plane to Cuba a few times at age 69. He took in young participants in the “Philly Freedom Summer” project to organize support for death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from its inception in 1995. He inadvertently got himself arrested posting “Free Mumia” stickers on city property. He promoted the Disclosure Project’s efforts to get UFO information out in the open. At 74, “seaweed man” still bounded down the stairs two at a time and taught carpentry to our daughter. He spent his last years writing articles on his listserv and teaching our son about electronics and politics. He started a free radio station which the FCC shut down. He threw out our old printing press and got two old copy machines and made handouts about Dennis Kucinich and Israeli refuseniks. On his last drive out, he was transporting a computer that was to be the first in a project to give computers and mentoring to disadvantaged kids in the neighborhood. Art wanted a world without money, where everyone’s needs would be met. He deeply believed that if he worked for the universe, the universe would work for him. And it did, many, many times. He never gave up trying. He said, “The difficult things we do right away; the impossible takes a bit longer”. He didn’t believe in death. He said that death is just a change of lifestyle. He believed in the existence of a spirit world beyond this one, and thought that even after people die physically they can have great impact on the course of events on Earth. Email Judy at: artr@juno.com.
WHY MAKE DECISIONS DEMOCRATICALLY? By Jerry Mintz
It may seem easier in the short run to have to have basic decisions made by a leader or leaders. It just doesn't work well in the long run. When students, workers or members participate in the decisions which effect them, there are several benefits:
They take responsibility for the decision and its enforcement. They know why it was made, and can initiate changes if they become necessary. They learn how to make decisions, in a group and on their own. They learn how to be articulate, advocate for a position, and how to express their feelings. By being called on to make such decisions based upon what they perceive and how they feel, they learn more about themselves and what they really want.
No one ever said democracy is an efficient system. It really is more work. It is just the best one we know.
Fundraising?
Fundraising is about more than asking for money. It is about engaging someone in your cause and giving him or her the opportunity to do good. It is also about organizational credibility. The very process exposes the soul of your organization as you ask others to join you in the journey to do good. Too many volunteers and agency professionals set out with high hopes and find themselves short of their goal and frustrated. Read a short article that outlines eight helpful principles to consider in designing your next fundraising effort. Web: www.glocalvantage.com/scissues/page5.html.
The Democracy.org mission statement is to promote education for democratic citizenship, create and strengthen learning organizations, assist organizations and individuals to make and act on decisions based on ethical principals, and promote character education and service learning. The website provides hundreds of links for grant seekers and resources for nonprofit organizations. http://www.democracy.org.
From Corning Foundation Grants: The Corning Foundation, established in 1952, develops and administers projects in support of educational, cultural, and community organizations. Over the years, the foundation has contributed more than $83 million through its grant programs. Each year, the foundation fulfills approximately 225 grants totaling some $2,250,000. Corning’s areas of involvement have included community service programs for students, curriculum enrichment, student scholarships, facility improvement, and instructional technology projects for the classroom. All requests for support must be made in writing. Application deadline: ongoing. http://www.corning.com/inside_corning/foundation.asp.
Fundsnet Online Services is a comprehensive website dedicated to providing nonprofit organizations, colleges, and Universities with information on financial resources available on the Internet. Web: www.fundsnetservices.com/.
From Samples of Successful Grant Proposals: SchoolGrants receives many requests from people wishing to see examples of successful grant proposals. Several generous grant-writers have shared successful proposals they've written. These samples are provided for your use as examples of what a successful proposal is all about. You can use the samples to learn what a good needs statement contains, to see what goals and objectives are and how the activities relate to those goals objectives, and to see how an evaluation plan is designed. Web: www.schoolgrants.org/proposal_ samples.htm.
Ritalin
Ritalin Psychosis A five year study found that 9% of children treated with methylphenidate(Ritalin) at a Canadian clinic for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD) developed psychotic symptoms. - Dr. Peter R. Breggin, Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology
Vitamin R Ritalin has become a recreational drug for pre-teens and teens. “Vitamin R,” or “R-Ball,” offsets alcohol’s depressant qualities allowing kids to stay out later and drink more. Federal drug enforcers say Ritalin is on the list of ten most commonly stolen controlled pharmaceuticals. The pills are ground into a powder and inhaled or injected.
Medication Regulation Within three days of a story that ran in the New York Post about a mother who was suing her son’s school for forcing him to take behavior modifying medication Brooklyn assemblyman Felix Ortiz's office received calls from 45 parents. Many of them were afraid they were going to loose custody of their children if they did not agree to drug their children. Mr. Ortiz is sponsoring a bill that would control the use of medications like Ritalin in school.
Being There With Jerry Mintz
MAIL AND COMMUNICATIONSEdited by Carol Morley
MAIL AND COMMUNICATIONS
Jerry writes: On the 21st of September we went to the Modern School Reunion at Rutgers University. For those who do not know of the Modern School, it was a trailblazing democratic school stated by Francisco Ferrer in Spain in the early 1900’s. After Ferrer was killed by Spanish authorities in 1909, schools were started in his name all over the world. The Modern School was one which was started in the USA, first in New York City, and then to a community set up in Stelton (now Edison) New Jersey. The last Modern School closed in 1958, but these alumni have been having reunions every year for the past 30 years! Attendees have been as old as 105!
On this occasion the Modern School alumni were interacting with presenters who were graduates of Summerhill, Albany Free School, the Met, Goddard College, and the Organic School in Fairhope, AL. The latter is the oldest, continuously operating alternative school I know, having started in 1907.
The sparks flew! Some people were excited that they movement was continuing in other forms, but some complained that free schools today are too insular, not actively working at changing the world to be a better place, not willing to risk getting their head bashed in a little, as these aged former union workers had done! I told them about some of the work that Summerhill students have been doing lately to promote children's rights in England, at the UN and in Europe.
From The Staff-Run System, by Frederick Martin, Co-clerk, Arthur Morgan School’s Celo Education Notes (May 2002): AMS’s staff-run-by-consensus management system began in the early 1970s and has seen the school through 25 years of growth. Experiential education begins with two basic conditions. First, students get to change and affect their environment: to experiment with the school around them. Second, students meet a consistency and structure that provides accurate consequences to their actions; their experiments will have valid results. The staff-run system allows Arthur Morgan School to provide openness to innovation along with structure. Authority is distributed yet coordinated; every teacher has the power to commit the school’s resources to projects, yet they still work together within the bounds of the community. With a structure in which all staff have some authority, the students have many routes through which to attempt changes. As the staff work together with the students on the various projects that they are spearheading, even the most timid or disorganized student can be encouraged through small steps of growth. Web: www.arthurmorganschool.org.
Grants of up to $2,000 are available to K-12 teachers from the Teaching Tolerance project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group that fights discrimination. The grants are awarded for activities promoting diversity, peacemaking, community service, or other aspects of tolerance education. Requests should include a typed, 500-word description of the activity and the proposed budget. Application deadline: ongoing. http://www.teachingtolerance.org.
The Spring 2002 issue of Communities: Journal of Cooperative Living focuses on the question of what children learn in community. It includes an article by Chris Mercogliano about the Albany Free School called “We Care About Each Other Fiercely,” “My Tribal Childhood” by Kristina Jansen, “A Place in the Tribe” by Daniel Greenberg, “In an Atmosphere of Trust and Connection” by Ron Miller, and “Learning at Greenbriar,” by our own Jerry Mintz, among others. The magazine also has an events calendar, a classified section, a directories listing, and book reviews. It’s available from Communities, Rt 1, Box 156, Rutledge, MO 63563.
The Puget Sound Community School Spring 2002 Newsletter is now online. Although a newsletter can only provide a sampling of the rich diversity of activities that take place at the school, you can still read staff member Dave's Harrison account of the Hiroshima Flame Peace Walk, and staff member Deb’s Schaack humorous view as an archeologist digging through her desk. Website: www.pscs.org/newsletters/spring02/.
From The Power of Continuous Classroom Assessment: Research suggests that the classroom assessments teachers use day in and day out provide one of the most powerful tools available for improving student achievement. Studies also have found that more demanding, intellectually challenging classroom assignments are linked with higher-quality student work. Lynn Olsen reports in Education Week on how Nebraska has embraced flexibility in assessment and created a bottom-up assessment approach that most districts only dream of. Web: www.edweek.com/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=37assess.h21.
A new report by the University of Minnesota's Center for School Change concludes that growth of the alternative programs has had a positive influence on the state's public education system even though they sparked controversy when first created. But oversight of these schools is lacking, according to the report. The study calls on the Legislature to take a closer look at the state's alternative schools, examining contract procedures, student and faculty placement policies, and school district monitoring of learning and financial management. Web: www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/school-change/.
From the UK: Pupils of 7 Will Assess Their Own Teachers, By Liz Lightfoot, Education Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph: Children as young as seven will be consulted about the performance of their teachers under a plan to place schools under a legal duty to consult pupils on all aspects of classroom life.
From Getting Testy Over Tests: A surefire way to commit political suicide a few months ago was to oppose more school testing. The name of the landmark education bill President Bush signed in January – the No Child Left Behind Act – reflected the prevailing mood: to resist standardized tests was to desert kids. The legislation, which mandates annual testing in Grades 3 through 8, passed overwhelmingly. But a change is afoot – the sacred cow of school testing is getting tested itself. The stepped-up criticism of the law and its requirements is to be expected, says U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Eugene Hickok. “Implementation is always more painful than rhetoric,” he says. “But there will be no backing off.” Washington sounds defiant, and so do some educators and politicians in the states. Looks like the fight is on. Web: www.time.com/time/magazine/notebook/0,9485, 1101020610,00.html.
A Chinese Menu Approach to Education New York City has turned eighty schools into learning centers where children and families are free to select from a large menu of activities. The Beacon Centers, as the program is called, offer Judo, chess, GED test preparation, open gym, parenting discussion groups. Furthermore kids get involved in community service and adults volunteer at the centers. The Beacons are open after school, weekends and during summer vacation. There are no fees and you don't have to be a citizen of the U.S. The only requirement is that you be a resident of New York City. The first 10 Beacons were established in 1991 by mayor David Dinkins, who felt strongly that a sense of ownership by the kids and adults was critical to the success of the Beacon Program. The Beacons receive core support from the NYC Department of Youth Service with support from the Youth Development Institute of the Fund of the City of New York. The Beacon Program has been so successful that the Youth Development Institute was awarded a grant in 1995 to enable Minneapolis, Oakland, Savannah and Denver to create similar programs. The governments of South Africa and Ireland have also shown interest in the Beacons.
For more information on the Beacon Program go to the Fund for the City of New York’s website: www.fcny.org.
A new publication called The Whistleblowers is available from Education Now. It is a collection of the philosophies, beliefs, and educational approaches of 12 outstanding individuals, including A.S. Neill, Rudolf Steiner, Mary Leue, and John Holt. Education Now Books, 113 Arundel Drive, Bramcote Hills, Nottingham NG9 3FQ. Tel/Fax: 0115 925 7261.
From High Stakes, Rigidity & Indifference: Middle School Dropout Rates Increase in the Boston Herald: The number of Boston middle schoolers dropping out has skyrocketed during the last five years, sparking fears the city's tough promotion policy is pushing students out of the system. Education researcher Anne Wheelock, who has analyzed the numbers, said the increase corresponds to the sharp hike in the number of students retained in grade because of the district’s tougher stances on promotion and truancy. “These numbers are as bad as I’ve seen in a very long time,” said Wheelock. “There is no excuse for having any 16-year-olds in middle school at all, but this is a crisis Boston creates through a combination of high stakes testing policies, rigid responses to kids at risk and indifference to the most vulnerable kids.”
Private Schools Should Flee State Testing Requirements, by Carolan & Keating, Newsday, 6/04/02: Two of Long Island’s religious schools, Lutheran High School in Brookville and Trinity Lutheran School in Hicksville, have decided to abandon New York State testing standards. To some, this may seem a dangerous move, but it’s actually a healthy development…. Experience in both the public and private schools recently has shown that the Regents exams require too much time to drill, simply to raise scores on these tests. The underlying message: The tests detract from real education, according to differing standards of value….We wonder why more private school educators don’t detach themselves from state control. After all, these are often the same educators who criticize the government system for its hostility to religious values and parental control. Since these private schools have the tools of accountability already in place, and send their students to very good colleges and universities, perhaps they could help their case for educational reform if they did not humble themselves so much before the state. Web: www.newsday.com.
We are pleased to announce the “premiere showing” of the new Paths of Learning website. We invite you to browse our website, link to our website, and use it as “The Resource for Resources” in learning about new possibilities in education. We aim to inspire others to see the possibilities of learning options far beyond the outdated rewards-and-punishment models that continue to dominate mainstream education. If this is your mission too, help us out by letting others know about these resources that exist for facilitating change. Pass this message on to your friends—students, teachers, parents, community organizers, or anyone who could benefit from learning more about creative ways for impacting change in education. The site includes access to Path’s magazines and publications, an education clearinghouse, an online library, and a section devoted to connecting you with others with similar interests. Email: robin@pathsoflearning.net. Web: www.PathsOfLearning.net.
Elizabeth (Betsy) Rose Herbert was born in Philadelphia July 8, 1938, daughter of Morris Rasumny and Margaret Boyden. Betsy attended Goddard College, noted for its experimental approach to education. At Goddard, Betsy’s ventures into student teaching sparked a lifetime of involvement in early childhood education. In 1966 she met Nick Herbert, who was studying Physics at Stanford. Nick and Betsy moved to Boulder Creek, California where they lived together for more than 30 years, married, and raised their son, Khola. With Stella Fein, Roberta McPherson and their children, Betsy formed a homeschooling group, which eventually expanded to form South Street Centre through which many hundreds of parents and kids were able to realize a vision of community-based, child-centered learning. Betsy was an active member of the California Home School Association, the American Association of Educators in Private Practice and the State Commission on Community Service. She participated in the Santa Cruz Cultural Committee and the Ethnic Arts Network and helped produce the children’s programs at the Boulder Creek Library. In 1994, Betsy was awarded the Hammer-Marcum Award. At California State’s newest campus in Monterey, Betsy worked as a consultant to their Service Learning Program. Betsy also taught dance workshops and was a founding member of Bruce Lee’s Company of Strangers - dancing (April 2000) in their last full-length performance “The White Room” at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz. Betsy’s central passion was the search for new ways of living. Her favorite motto: “Don't just say it, do it!” She died (of breast cancer) surrounded by friends on August 18, 2002. A celebration of Betsy’s life will take place at Camp Joy Gardens in Boulder Creek on Sunday afternoon, Oct 20. Details to be announced.
“The Free School” a documentary by first time filmmaker Mika Buser-Ferris is the recipient of this year’s Louisiana Filmmaker Award. This film documents The New Orleans Free School’s 30 year evolution from a private experimental ‘hippie’ school with 29 students in 1971 to an alternative public elementary school presently serving over 300 predominately low-income minority students.
In the early days students decided what to do for themselves, even if that meant doing nothing at all After years of financial strain, the school was faced with the inevitability of closure or becoming part of the establishment, joining the New Orleans Public School System in 1973. Although financially supported by the system the Free School was left on its own and was highlighted as one of the few examples of a “choice school” being provided by the city of New Orleans.
In the 80’s the country moved in to a new era of conservatism headed by the call of President Reagan for an educational return “back to basics.” For the Free School this began a decade long period of constant friction with the School Board. The film recounts the struggles of teachers, parents and supporters of the school in their battle to defend the school’s underlying philosophy and save the school from attempted closure. Today The New Orleans Free School is one of the only public schools called a “free school.”
For more information/stills/screening copy contact: Producer-Mika Buser-Ferris Phone:504-723-3756 E-mail-MPBF1@aol.com (AERO also has copies available on video for $25)
What’s next for Goddard: In its first 30 years, Goddard College was devoted to the vision of creating a college where the theories of John Dewey could be actualized. Under the direction of Tim Pitkin, many exciting minds created a new forum for higher education. They brought together a union of experimental colleges which supported each other and collaborated in month long gatherings of faculty and administrators to share and refine ideas, and propose new avenues for higher education; not the least of which was Goddard’s development of adult degree programs based on the Dewey philosophy. Goddard became a leader in the field of low residency adult degree programs. The Union Graduate School was conceived at Goddard. Many, if not all, colleges and universities have now adopted adult degree programs with some varying degrees of success. Thus, Goddard, a small liberal arts college tucked in the mountains of Central Vermont made significant contributions in changing the face of higher education in this country. Meanwhile, the campus program has sustained a living model of democratic education that continues to attract forward-looking traditional-age students. Always sensitive to the changing educational needs of both traditional and non-traditional aged students, Goddard College is now ready to transform itself into a new model of 21st Century learning.
We plan to revitalize Goddard’s original mission, aligning its traditional focus on democracy with the current global solidarity movement and progressive forces locally, nationally and internationally. We plan to create a new union of experimenting organizations and colleges already involved, at varying levels, in the search for those solutions. Students will be encouraged to be involved with this union of organizations, as resources and for internships and field studies. They will be involved in the planning, publicity and operation of all meetings. Connections with schools and peace organizations devoted to social responsibility in other countries will provide on site and hands on supervised experience. This union of organizations will lead directly to the creation of a new degree offered both on- and off-campus in global responsibility and peace.
While we slept, Goddard College died. It has been hard to get accurate information, but apparently the board decided to close the undergraduate program because: A. The accrediting organizations suddenly required the college to have a large endowment, and B. 90 students was not enough to maintain an on-campus program. They will keep the distance learning going. There is a group interested in somehow resurrecting the on campus program. Jerry.
Widening Gap Between Internet-Savvy Students and Their Schools: A new report says that the “most Internet-savvy (students) – complain that their teachers don’t use the Internet in class or create assignments that exploit great Web material.” Students report that the single greatest barrier to Internet use at school is the quality of access to the Internet – they say it’s too slow and often there's too much censorship. They complained about filtering software, saying it prevented them from reaching legitimate educational materials. The students said they wanted to use the Internet for more of their schoolwork, but teachers too often lacked the imagination to use it for anything other than mundane tasks. Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, says, “Many (students) believe they may have to raise their voices to force schools to change to accommodate them better. And their voices should be added to policy discussions. Educators have a choice: Either they need to adapt or they will be dragged into a new learning environment.” Rather than being beaten down by the technology, teachers must use it, use it, use it, and use it again to do what school is supposed to be about – learning about life and the world around us. Web: www.csmonitor.com/2002/0815/p25s01-cogn.htm.
EmpowerMind, founded by Kimberly Kassner, an interactive and experiential workshop helping individuals discover how they learn through their strengths. It is completely “out of the box” teaching. Web: http://www.empowermind.com/. Tel: (415) 459-3159. Email: kassner@aol.com.
From More Jewish Day Schools Open As Parents Reconsider Values, by Heidi J. Shrager, Wall Street Journal: Jewish communities around the U.S. are creating new day schools even faster than they can be built. Traditionally, most Jewish schools have been affiliated with Orthodox Judaism, the country's smallest Jewish denomination, with stricter religious teachings. But in recent years, non-Orthodox schools have flourished. In 1965, there were 24; today, there are more than 170. By comparison, the total number of private schools has increased by a much slower 53% from 1965 to 2000, the National Center for Education Statistics shows. Non-Orthodox Jewish high schools in particular have blossomed in the past decade, nearly tripling since 1990 from 10 to 27, with 10 more set to open by 2003. In the past, Jewish families typically sent their children to secular schools, sometimes adding Jewish part-time school or summer camp. But increasingly, Jewish parents feel that they, and consequently their children, are losing the meaning of their traditions. Some communities think Jewish day schools—especially high schools—are the answer. To help quash the preconception that Jewish day schools are cocoons shielding children from mainstream culture, learning would be centered on “social justice” in and out of the Jewish world, and secular and Jewish curriculum would be integrated as much as possible. Despite their increasing success, the Jewish day schools still face major hurdles, particularly the costly high schools. Enrollment tends to shrink with each successive grade, as families start to crave diversity and are less likely to take a chance on a new school. Finding qualified staff with the combination of Judaic knowledge plus teaching or administrative credentials is another problem. http://www.wsj.com.
Vouchers: Next Stop State Courts On June 27 the U.S. Supreme court voted 5-4 in favor of the Cleveland voucher program. The plan has been contested since it was established in 1995. Writing for the majority Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said the state-enacted Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program - “is entirely neutral with respect to religion. It provides benefits directly to a wide spectrum of individuals, defined only by financial need and residence in a particular school district. It permits such individuals to exercise genuine choice among options public and private, secular and religious.” Noble Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman, who devised a universal system of education vouchers in 1955 stated the decision tore down a major roadblock. “We are more and more approaching the tipping point.” The Cleveland plan was challenged soon after enactment by the ACLU, People for the American Way and teacher’s unions. Robert H. Chanin, general counsel of NEA stated when the ruling was announced, “This does not end the legal battle. It simply means we no longer have the establishment clause (of the First Amendment) in our arsenal.” The fight is likely to move to the states where 37 state constitutions do not permit state aid to go to religious schools.
Public Wants Vouchers: Terry M. Moe has released the results of a survey of 4,700 Americans concerning their attitudes on vouchers in a book entitled “Schools, Vouchers and the American Public,” published by Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. 60% of those who responded said they were in favor of a system in which every child would be given a voucher to attend a public, private or parochial school at government expense. 32% were opposed, 7% were undecided. (Percentages are rounded in the report.) Parents were more supportive than non-parents. Blacks and Hispanics were more supportive than whites. Those in favor, favor a voucher system in which private schools’ curricula, spending and teacher qualifications are regulated.
Full Tuition Vouchers The state of Florida has made 350,000 students who have been identified as disabled eligible for vouchers. McKay vouchers allow parents who are unhappy with the public school in their district to send their children to any other public or private school. The vouchers cover tuition up to what the state is spending in the families’ current school district.
Teaching To The Test: Parents are concerned that “with standardized tests, teachers will end up teaching to the test instead of making sure real learning takes place” according to a 2002 Public Agenda poll. They have a good reason to be worried. An Education Week study discovered teachers spend a “great deal” or “somewhat” of their time instructing students in test-taking skills. (53% use state practice tests and 49% use commercial test preparation materials.) It turns out elementary and high school standardized tests don't even help with college entrance exams. Researchers found that in 18 states that used high-stakes tests (Amrein & Berliner, 2002) SAT and ACT scores have been going down in more than half the states since the tests were put in place.
No Wallet Left Untouched: Do you ever wonder just how the testing and textbook publishing giants are profiting from Bush’s “Every Child Better Watch Their Behind” act. Here’s how it works. McGraw-Hill manufactures the California Achievement Tests. They then hire lobbyists to use the results of the tests to pressure state legislators to adopt Open Court and Reading Mastering textbooks. Who produces those textbooks? McGraw-Hill! McGraw-Hill, Houghton-Mifflin, Hartcourt General, NCS Pearson and Educational Testing Service all contributed to Bush’s campaign.
Senator Dodd “As for this testing idea, I am frightened to death... If we are going to test every child every year from third grade through 8th grade, I know what's going to happen. We are going to turn our schools into test centers instead of education centers.” The American Montessori Society 2002 Rambusch Lecture
A Laboratory for Democracy, by Scott Willis: “No responsible educator would advocate teaching chemistry without a laboratory. No good chemistry teacher would assign her students textbook readings, then furnish them with chemicals and test tubes and say, ‘You've read about it—now experiment.’ Obviously, that would be a scenario for disaster. Yet U.S. educators may be doing something analogous when teaching students about democracy and the First Amendment, said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center. ‘Freedom takes practice,’ Haynes said. ‘We can teach about the elements of freedom; we can talk about them; we can tell students how the government works or ought to work—but unless they have a laboratory experience, it is dangerous. Freedom can’t be taught out of a book. It has to be lived; it has to be practiced.’ That desire to give students a laboratory experience in freedom sparked the creation of the First Amendment Schools Project, which is cosponsored by ASCD and the First Amendment Center. This initiative is designed to transform how schools model and teach the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. The project serves as a national resource for all schools—K–12, public and private—that want to affirm First Amendment principles and put them into action in their school communities.” For more information about the First Amendment Schools Project, contact ASCD's Mike Wildasin at 1-703-575-5475 or email: mwildasi@ascd.org, or the First Amendment Center's Sam Chaltain at 1-703-284-2808. Web: www.firstamendmentschools.org/.
From Taught to Remove All Thought, by Lynn Stratton, St. Petersburg Times, July 7, 2002: I’m about to become a college dropout for the second time in my life. The first time, I was a freshman in New York City during the last years of the Vietnam War. I decided I didn't want to be a part of what we called “the system.” This time, I’m not a student but an instructor. Here’s the problem: In our zeal for numbers, for measuring our kids so we can report that they really can write because they’ve passed a test, we're focusing on the forest but forgetting the trees. Writing is putting ideas on paper…. expressing what we think. But to make kids pass our standardized tests, we force them to see writing as simply a formula, as anything but what it really is. We forget that we’re not talking about words and sentences and paragraphs; we’re talking about ideas. Ideas can't be measured; they can’t be quantified. Our children, our teenagers, are victims of the Stockholm syndrome; they’ve begun identifying with their captors. Our schools have brainwashed them into believing that writing – that thinking – is simply a matter of numbers. Our young people have had the thinking beaten out of them. But all this has been going on for years. So why am I quitting now? Because it's about to get much worse. Now that we’re to have one seamless educational system, pre-kindergarten through graduate school, the practices entrenched in our schools will become entrenched in our colleges. It’s happening already. The students who have been trained to write this way are now teachers who teach writing this way. More and more, I encounter college writing instructors who insist on the formula: five paragraphs, no more. Be careful not to have too many. Only three ideas allowed. And they can’t stop writing that way. Brainwashing does that. Now, imagine these students, your children, afraid to write, to put their ideas on paper. Imagine them trying to fight for what they believe in – if they’re brave enough to believe in anything at all. Imagine them in business. In medicine. In law. In politics. I no longer can fight this system, the one that tries to deaden our kids, to make them afraid to think. The first time I dropped out of college, I was afraid the system would kill my ideas and make me less human. I didn’t want any part of it. This time, the system is different, but the result will be the same. I don’t want any part of this system, either. – Lynn Stratton has taught writing at the University of South Florida for 13 years. She lives in St. Petersburg.
New School Counters MCAS-Based Mentality, by Anand Vaishnav, Boston Globe, 8/26/02: Barbara Tilson, a suburban mother of two and former piano teacher, is not a radical ‘banner waver.’ But watching the standards-and-testing movement creep to the center of her children's classrooms, this public school parent chose a different educational path: home schooling. Next month, Tilson will send her children several days a week to the Mystic River Learning Center in Medford, where there will be no desks, no rules tacked to the wall, and certainly no tests. It’s a new outlet for home-schoolers whose parents need help, as well as a refuge for those who say Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System and grade-by-grade standards have squeezed the innovation and creativity out of public schools. The center’s founder is Lynette Culverhouse, an Arlington mother and former teacher in England who is well-known in anti-MCAS circles. Her ideas - teachers as facilitators rather than lecturers, students who learn best by reading and studying what they want, exploration instead of regurgitation - are not new. The Mystic River Learning Center is another piece of what some call the ‘unschooling’ movement: putting young minds in charge of what they learn, at their own clip.
State Board of Education Chairman James A. Peyser, a steadfast MCAS supporter, applauded the broadening of choices in education in ventures like Culverhouse’s. And he acknowledged that some schools may have “overreacted” to tailoring their lessons to the tough MCAS test. But he wondered if efforts like Culverhouse's are an overreaction of a different sort, and questioned whom they really help. Most of her students, after all, will come to her more advanced than the peers they left in public schools. “By far the greater focus of the whole discussion is those schools and districts where students are not even becoming competent in basic academic skills,” Peyser said. “And this notion that we need to provide them with a more creative and flexible environment in order to improve performance is belied by every observation and every bit of research that I’ve ever seen. We have to raise expectations for those students, not remove them entirely.''
From Test Case: Hard Lessons from the TAAS, by Jake Bernstein: The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is the latest iteration of the state’s standardized test, the cornerstone of the ‘Texas Miracle,’ an education policy that reportedly helped put the compassion in Compassionate Conservatism. By relentlessly focusing on testing and holding school officials responsible for the resulting scores, this system claims to elevate learning, particularly for previously underserved minority and low-income students. The new test is reported to be much harder than its predecessor, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). This year, third-graders who are unable to pass the reading portion of the TAKS will be held back. Many educators and parents are braced for trouble.
The Texas Education Agency cannot afford to let too many students fail. It would cost the state hundreds of millions in extra expenses at a time when legislators face an estimated $7-billion budget shortfall. A massive failure could threaten the credibility of the new system just as it becomes established. Imagine tens of thousands of angry parents, each with a failed child, questioning the education revolution underway in Texas. They might discover that the much-hyped ‘Texas Miracle’ has done wonders for many constituencies, but it has abused and defrauded the children trapped inside it.
A true measure of TAAS achievement might best be found in the words of Texas college freshmen. When English professors at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi asked first-year composition students to write about the TAAS, the response was overwhelmingly negative….70 percent listed few or no redeeming qualities for the test. These writers are the testing system’s theoretical winners, students who passed and graduated from high school. They describe the test as “meaningless,” “horrible,” and a “waste of time.” Together the essays paint a picture of schools where ever-expanding TAAS practice forced out real curriculum and education came second to the manufacture of high test scores.
As districts frantically try to elevate their scores, they divert scarce instructional dollars from important resources. Laboratory supplies, library research, independent projects, science experiments, oral histories, long-term writing assignments, lengthier books, and new books disappear. Limited moneys instead go for test-prep materials and test drills. The result is education-deficient children and wealthy testing companies.
The business model of education, where ‘kids’ are ‘products,’ might not be very healthy for either children or society. “It beats a child down,” believes Deborah Diffily, former teacher and current SMU professor. “It takes away a fascination for the subject and a love of learning. It takes away a wonderful curiosity children have. It supports memorization, not real thinking.” It also produces a class of students who will be perfect employees for a low-wage economy. They will lack training in critical thinking and be unprepared to find knowledge in the information age. It’s not a good recipe for a vibrant democracy. Observer intern Emily Pyle contributed to this story. Printed from http://www.texasobserver.org.
All But One Company Left Behind, by Chris Hawke, EducationNews: Six months after giving public school principals a chance to propose a new literacy program for their schools, education officials in Albany have decided to reward millions of dollars in contracts to a company with close ties to the Bush administration. As part of his No Child Left Behind education campaign, President George W. Bush last year doled out $328 million for states to invest in reading programs for their poorest schools. New York State put its $82 million toward 251 schools, and told them that as long as the curriculum followed strict federal guidelines, educators in each school district could come up with a program and choose local partners best suited for their schools. Many of the schools’ leaders did just that, spending hundreds of hours crafting proposals and submitting them to the state. But in July, they were told the state Department of Education had made its own decision: The grants the schools get will total half of the $500,000 many of them had hoped for. What is left would be needed for teacher training. And a chunk of the contract—about $10 million—will go to Voyager Expanded Learning, a Dallas-based for-profit company with connections to Bush. According to reports in the Dallas Morning News, Bush received generous donations from Voyager's founder and investors while he was governor, when the company was bidding for a contract to run after-school programs in the Texas schools. In 1998, company founder Randy Best reportedly gave Bush $10,400, while company investors gave another $35,000. And just this March, Bush's former Texas Education Commissioner, Jim Nelson, took a job at Voyager. And on top of that, some city educators don’t like the company's services. The Education Department stands by its decision: “The feds were quite clear, they wanted a single program,” agency spokesman Tom Dunn. “They wanted people to address the reading crisis with one specific set of tools.”
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