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Task Force Members:
Robert Kozma, Acting Chair (San Francisco, CA)
Kathleen Knight Abowitz (Oxford, OH)
Kathy Emery, Ph. D. (San Francisco, CA)
Eleanore Lee (Berkeley, CA)
Bruce Menin (Newburyport, MA)
Edward L. Whitfield (Greensboro, NC)
Policy Resources | NCLB/Testing | Standards | Purposes/Goals | Diversity | Research Organizations | Higher Education | Educational History | Curriculum | Educational Activism | Case Studies
Harvard Civil Rights Project
Reliable, relevant, and up-to-date research on equity and education. It is a wonderful resource for progressives who are attempting to formulate educational policies and programs that serve all citizens.
Donald Arnstine, Democracy and the Arts of Schooling
See Chapter
One online.
"I think that parts of this book are brilliant. Arnstine has explicated a set of distinctions (sometimes in ways that are quite original) that enormously clarify the nature of learning and the possibilities and difficulties of promoting it in schools. He has set those distinctions in opposition to certain deep assumptions that ordinarily shape our thinking about such matters. The book is well written, a pleasure to read, engaging, fluent and vivid. The scholarship is creative and shows long experience and even wisdom." -- Thomas F. Green
David Berliner, "Our impoverished view of educational reform," Teachers College Record (in press).
This thoroughly researched and passionately argued AERA Distinguished Lecture, given by David Berliner, Regents' Professor at Arizona State University and previous President of the American Educational Research Association, describes the powerful impact of poverty on schooling in this country. He claims that while the emphasis of our current educational policies is on improving underperforming schools by making them more accountable through high-stakes testing, the real "900 pound gorilla" that is shaping and limiting what can happen in our underperforming schools is poverty. He demonstrates that the United States is among the "leaders" of the industrialized world in child poverty and that this poverty is closely associated with race and ethnicity. Poverty is also associated with a cluster of other conditions, such as chronic illness, malnourishment, inadequate child care, and a toxic environment—all of which limit what children can do in schools. He shows that while non-minority schools in the US are among the top performing schools in the world, minority schools are among the worst, approaching the performance of schools in developing countries. He contends that while current policies assume that under performance is due to failing, uncaring, and under-motivated administrators, teachers, families, and students, school improvement can only happen when the underlying conditions of poverty are addressed. Testing, accountability, threats and punishment will not address these problems. Under-performing schools will improve only when policies and programs provide these schools, teachers, and students with the resources they need, and when we raise the minimum wage, provide women with equal pay for comparable work, make health care coverage universal, and build affordable housing.
Harold Berlak, From Local Control to Government and Corporate Takeover of School Curriculum: The No Child Left Behind Act and the 'Reading First' program.
Harold Berlak, Does the No Child Left Behind Act and State Testing Mandates Improve Schools and Increase Educational Opportunity?
James Popham, F for Assessment
A brief but clear explanation of how current standardized tests are being misused from someone who has spent his career creating the tests.
LynNell Hancock, How Are the Kids?
How the media has failed to accurately report on the effects of high-stakes testing
Mark Solomon, The problems with No Child Left Behind
Critical editorial of NCLB
Deborah Meier and George Wood (Eds.) Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004).
Susan Ohanian
Education writer and tireless opponent of all the horrible effects of NCLB
Alfie Kohn
Writer and lecturer on the negative effects of competition and standardization. His website includes a message board on parenting issues.
U.S. Department of Education No Child Left Behind website
Center for Education Policy
Think tank that publishes research on public education. Their website analyzes NCLB
American Federation of Teachers' analysis of NCLB
National Education Association' analysis of NCLB
Other resources cited by the NEA
No Child Left
Website that analyzes and criticizes NCLB
Deborah Meier's six alternative assumptions to the high-stakes testing agenda
From Deborah Meier, Will Standards Save Public Schools
"'State standards and high-stakes tests will not help to develop young minds, contribute to a robust democratic life, or aid the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens. By shifting the locus of authority to outside bodies, it undermines the capacity of schools to instruct by example in the qualities of mind that schools in a democracy should be fostering in kids -- responsibility for one's own ideas, tolerance for the ideas of others, and a capacity to negotiate differences."
Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian, Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools?
The authors explain how corporate money, CEO's and business interests have shaped the current trends in education policy-making. Their research shows how public education's responsibility to democracy and the public interest are being undermined by corporate interests.
James Popham, The Truth About Testing
You can read 3 chapters online by going to Publications > Books > Browse by Author
How did we come to have so much high-stakes testing in our schools? What does this kind of testing show us about our children, and how does it help them learn more? The author explores the consequences of high-stakes testing, and recommends better assessment alternatives.
Nel Noddings, "Thinking About Standards" in Phi Delta Kappan, November 1997 pp. 184-189
The current national standards movement may create more illusions than real improvements in opportunities for educational success for all students.
National Center for Fair and Open Testing
The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) works to end the misuses and flaws of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, teachers and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial.
Fairtest and Assessment Reform Network related links page
Provides a list of sites to organizations and networks allied with FairTest.
Stephen Krashen, a reading and bilingual education expert
Joint Committee on Testing Practices
A consortium of educational organizations and the American Psychological Association that promotes the ethical and practical uses of tests.
Performance Assessment
The New York Performance Standards Consortium represents 28 schools across New York State. Formed in 1997, the Consortium opposes high stakes tests arguing that "one size does not fit all." Instead, they advocate performance assessment as a more accurate measure of student achievement.
The Learning Record
"The Learning Record is a powerful assessment process developed first in England for literacy (reading, writing, speaking, listening) for use with low-income children, many of whom had first languages other than English. …The LR is a process through which students take charge of their own learning and document their learning. It is also a means to more strongly integrate parental involvement into the school."
Forum for Education and Democracy
The Forum for Education and Democracy aims to re-center the democratic purpose of our public schools. Offers a host of resources, programs, and ways to get involved.
National Council on the Teaching of English
See position statements on Assessment and Testing at:
Home > About NCTE > Overview > Our Positions > Positions by Category > Assessment & Testing > Article:11887
Heather Voke, High-Stakes Accountability Strategies: What Do We Know About Sanctions and Rewards?
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Home > Publications > Newsletters > Infobrief > Archived Issues (October 2002, Issue Number 31)
High stakes accountability approaches involve rewarding or sanctioning students, teachers, and schools on the basis of changes in student test scores. Voke examines the evidence on the effects of high stakes strategies on learners and teachers.
Donald Arnstine, Democracy and the Arts of Schooling
See chapter one online.
"I think that parts of this book are brilliant. Arnstine has explicated a set of distinctions (sometimes in ways that are quite original) that enormously clarify the nature of learning and the possibilities and difficulties of promoting it in schools. He has set those distinctions in opposition to certain deep assumptions that ordinarily shape our thinking about such matters. The book is well written, a pleasure to read, engaging, fluent and vivid. The scholarship is creative and shows long experience and even wisdom." -- Thomas F. Green, Syracuse University Emeritus
Jonathan Kozol, The Night Is Dark and I am Far From Home
It is out of print (which is the only reason we refer you to Amazon).
Kozol describes in detail how the curriculum and pedagogy of both public and private schools prevents students from thinking critically and paralyses students from acting upon their consciences.
Gerald Bracey, Setting
the Record Straight: Responses to Misconceptions about Public Education in the U.S., 2nd ed. (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2004).
"Bracey knows there are three kinds of lies in education policy: lies, damned lies, and the statistics that reactionary reformers tout as evidence in favor of dismantling our public schools. In this second and substantially updated edition of the hard-hitting Setting the Record Straight, Bracey, whom Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews called 'one of this country's most authoritative defenders of the work of public school teachers,' goes toe-to-toe with the opponents of quality public education."
David Bollier, Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of our Common Wealth, Routledge, 2003. In particular, Chapter 9, "Enclosing the Academic Commons," p. 135-146.
At a time when the right has been so united and focussed on dismantling the public infrastructure, many progressives are rediscovering the idea of "the commons," our shared human wealth. Our public schools and our higher education system are part of this commons.
David Orr, "Loving Children: The Political Economy of Design," in The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture, and Human Intention (New York, Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 198-219.
Orr is the chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College, and this chapter from a recent book is "a meditation on the larger patterns of our time and their effects on children. My argument is that the normal difficulties of growing up are compounded, directly and indirectly, by the reigning set of assumptions philosophies, and ideologies, and even mythologies by which we organize our affairs and conduct the business of society – what was once called 'political economy'." (199)
David Orr, "What is Education For?" from Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004)
Orr suggests there are six myths that structure the foundations of modern education in our society. 1) that ignorance is a solvable problem and not a part of the human condition; 2) that with enough knowledge and technology, we can manage planet earth, 3) that knowledge, and by implication human goodness, is increasing, 4) that we can adequately restore wthat which we have dismantled – the disciplines of knowledge now fragmented into bits and pieces…5) that the purpose of education is to give students the means for upward mobility and success, 6) that our culture represents the pinnacle of human achievement. Orr suggests ways to re-think education on six different principles that are based in responsibility to a sustainable world.
Nel Noddings, Ed., Educating Citizens for Global Awareness,(New York: Teachers College Press, 2005).
An edited book developed in association with The Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, an international peace institute that envisions a world-wide network of global citizens developing cultures of peace through dialogue and understanding. Chapters on global citizenship and gender (Peggy McIntosh), Place-Based Education to Preserve the Earth and its people (Noddings), Internationalizing Social Studies Curriculum, Teaching about Religious Pluralism in the Secondary School.
Alfie Kohn, What Does it Mean to be Well Educated? And more essays on standards, grading, and other follies (Boston, Beacon Press, 2004).
There are many good essays here; we could select a few goodies to recommend, such as "What Does it Mean to be Well Educated?" or ""Confusing Harder with Better" which critiques the standardized tests, or "Turning Learning into a Business." Kohn writes short, very readable essays. He is against corporate take-over, behaviorism in schools, and wants classrooms where kids can explore ideas, ask great questions, and stop worrying about grades. He wants more narrative feedback for students, better curriculum, and less emphasis on control and management.
George S. Counts, Dare the School Build a New Social Order? (New York: Arno Press, 1969).
Counts (1889-1974) was active in progressive education circles when he presented a series of papers in 1932 at national education meetings. This essay was part of these talks, and makes the argument that teachers do not simply reproduce the existing society, but should play a leading role in transforming society to be more just and democratic for all citizens.
John Dewey, "The Democratic Conception in Education," Chapter 7 from Democracy and Education (New York: Free Press, 1916).
George H. Wood, A Time to Learn: The Story of One High School's remarkable Transformation and the People who made it happen. (New York: Plume, 1998).
Wood offers guidelines and advice based on his experience as a principal of a high school in a rural district in Ohio. Very readable prose. Wood's vision is progressive and community-oriented.
Deborah Meier, "The Road to Trust," in the American School Board Journal 190 (9) (September 2003).
"It's no wonder that most citizens aren't concerned about the demise of public education: It's been a long time since education felt like a public enterprise -- except for who pays for it. This shrinkage of public participation in school governance represents an enormous and utterly unnecessary loss -- for our kids' learning and their relationship with the adult world, for the status of public education, for the relationship between citizens and their government, and for democracy itself. It's at the heart of what's gone wrong with education and what must be changed."
Deborah Meier, In Schools We Trust
A visionary look at trust and schools that takes on some of today's hottest education issues—from testing to small schools—all grounded in stories of the innovative and hugely successful public schools Deborah Meier has famously founded.
Ed Whitfield, Diversity: What Schools Leave Out
This is a series of essays that arose out of Whitfield's conclusion that the problem of creating a "fair, wholesome, supportive society where people approach their potential" has not been examined closely enough. He believes that "too many of the things that are being done in the name of that goal simply don't make sense." His essays are a contribution to looking more closely at the problem of school integration.
Ann Berlak and Sekani Moyenda, Taking it Personally: Racism in the Classroom from Kindergarten to College
Berlak and Moyenda examine how teacher credential programs do not succeed in preparing teachers to deal with "at risk" students, even programs that consciously attempt to do so. A must read for those who want to deal with racism in the classroom.
Kathy Emery, The Politics of Ebonics: The Intersection of Voice, Language, Culture and Identity
There is a pattern in the research literature on Ebonics speakers and writing—when Ebonics speakers learn to write in Standard Classroom English, the lose their voice. This paper is an attempt to explain why.
Research Unit of the Educational Studies Policy Laboratory at Arizona State University.
CERU, directed by Professor Alex Molnar, conducts research, disseminates information, and helps facilitate dialogue between the education community, policy makers, and the public at large about commercial activities in schools. CERU is guided by the belief that mixing commercial activities with public education raises fundamental issues of public policy, curriculum content, the proper relationship of educators to the students entrusted to them, and the values that the schools embody.
Rethinking schools
They put out a magazine and provide resources for progressive teachers.
Harvard Civil Rights Project
Our mission is to help renew the civil rights movement by bridging the worlds of ideas and action, and by becoming a preeminent source of intellectual capital and a forum for building consensus within that movement.
Robert K. Fullinwider and Judith Lichtenberg, Leveling the Playing Field: Justice, Politics, and College Admissions (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004).
Ami Zusman, "Challenges Facing Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century" for American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges, edited by Philip G. Altbach, Robert O. Berdahl, and Patricia J. Gumport, second edition (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Text in Word and graphs/table in Excel.)
Forum: "How Can Colleges Prove they are Doing their Jobs?" Chronicle of Higher Education, September 3, 2004, especially comments of Joseph C. Burke, "The Word 'Public' is the Key."
Richard C. Atkinson, Patricia A. Pelfrey, "Opportunity in a Democratic Society: A National Agenda."
This paper is the basis for the Third Annual Nancy Cantor Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Diversity, delivered by Richard C. Atkinson President Emeritus of the University of California, on May 18, 2005 at a national conference at the University of Michigan titled "Futuring Diversity: Creating a National Agenda." Atkinson discusses the struggle to maintain diversity specifically at the University of California system and more generally in state institutions of higher education--and his critiques of standardized testing.
The
Morrill Act: Act of 1862 Donating Lands for Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts
This legislation established our land grant university system and laid the groundwork for the idea of public universities serving the public interest. In many ways we have gone astray, of course. But perhaps the original populist inspiration of the Morrill Act can lead us back to a consideration of the public good.
Kathy Emery, The Business Roundtable and Systemic Reform: How Corporate-Engineered High-Stakes Testing Has Eliminated Community Participation in Developing Educational Goals and Policies (PhD Dissertation)
Kathy Emery, Alternative Schools: Diverted but not Defeated
Why has there been consistent opposition to a centralized, standardized and bureaucratic public school system since its inception yet only three alternative school "movmements" – this paper offers one answer.
Nancie Atwell, In The Middle: Writing, Reading, Learning with Adolescents
Atwell details how to create a literacy program that really works.
Interactive Mathematics Program
Research on Open Court (aka Open Cult)
Education Not Incarceration
Education Not Incarceration is a group of teachers, parents, students, and community members who are outraged by the current cuts in education funding. We believe that the state budget needs to prioritize education funding, as well as funding for other important social services, over increased spending on prisons.
Commercial Alert, an action organization and site that includes a lot of material on education, particularly K-12.
Small Schools as promoted by the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) are based on Ten Common Principles: 1. Learning to use one's mind well 2. Less is More, depth over coverage 3. Goals apply to all students 4. Personalization 5. Student-as-worker, teacher-as-coach 6. Demonstration of mastery 7. A tone of decency and trust 8. Commitment to the entire school 9. Resources dedicated to teaching and learning 10. Democracy and equity
Community Schools are based on Five Conditions for Learning
Condition #1: The school has a core instructional program with qualified teachers, a challenging curriculum, and high standards and expectations for students.
Condition #2: Students are motivated and engaged in learning --both in school and in community settings, during and after school.
Condition #3: The basic physical, mental and emotional health needs of young people and their families are recognized and addressed.
Condition #4: There is mutual respect and effective collaboration among parents, families and school staff.
Condition #5: Community engagement, together with school efforts, promote a school climate that is safe, supportive and respectful and that connects students to a broader learning community.
Parent Cooperative Preschools International
PCPI is a non-profit international council dedicated to the family and the community. PCPI represents more than 50,000 families and teachers, providing on-going support to families, educators, and social agencies who recognize the value of parents as teachers of their children and the necessity of educating parents to meet the developmental needs of their children. Membership is open to schools, councils, libraries, and individuals who uphold its purposes. The organization was founded in 1960 on the initiative of Katharine Whiteside Taylor who was inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame in 1996 in recognition of her work on behalf of cooperative child care.
Mississippi Freedom Schools 1964:
The curriculum of the summer Freedom Schools was a series of documents that, taken together, offer the best example of a progressive, experiential curriculum that emphasized student-centered teaching and learning-by-doing.
In the summer of l964, forty-one Freedom Schools opened in the churches, on the back porches, and under the trees of Mississippi. The students were native Mississippians, averaging fifteen years of age, but often including small children who had not yet begun school to the elderly who had spent their lives laboring in the fields. Their teachers were volunteers, for the most part still students themselves. The task of this small group of students and teachers was daunting. They set out to replace the fear of nearly two hundred years of violent control with hope and organized action. The schools were an integral part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project (later known as Freedom Summer). The long-term aim of Freedom Summer was to transform the power structure of Mississippi. The short-term aim of the summer project was to challenge the legitimacy of the all white Mississippi Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City in August of 1964. To do this, organizers needed to create a parallel state party that was truly representative of the people of Mississippi—both blacks and whites. To create a truly representative political party, the vast majority of disempowered African Americans would need to develop the self confidence and organizational skills required of active citizens. Freedom Summer's three programs, distinct yet reinforcing each other, were voter registration, Freedom Schools and Community Centers (see Prospectus for the Mississippi Freedom Summer.) The Freedom Schools' major contribution to that process was to implement a curriculum based on the asking of questions whose answers were sought within the lives of the students. This curriculum is of value to anyone interested in alternative education, especially in the context of small school and summer school programs with a focus on citizenship education and social activism. This website offers teachers and students, as well as scholars and interested citizens, a chance to peruse and use any of the original documents created for the Freedom Schools.
Finland:
Finland is an example of a country that has made a major commitment to progressive social policies yet at the same time has one of the most competitive economies in the country. This case gives lie the Republican claim that there is a trade-off between developing the economy and supporting progressive social programs, like universal health care and free, high quality education. Indeed, the case of Finland would argue that is in the best interests of both our society and the economy to invest in education and other progressive social programs. For example, while Finland has the 13th highest standard of living in the world and was rated as the world's most competitive economy by the World Economic Forum, it has among the lowest in economic disparities in the world, with the ratio of the income of the top10% to that of the bottom 10% being 5.6 (this compares to 17.7 for Singapore and 15.9 for the US). Finland spends 6.4% of its GDP on education (this compares to 5.7% in the US). The school system in Finland is highly decentralized and decision-making is distributed across sectors. Each school writes its own curriculum based on very general guidelines from the National Board of Education and developed through discussions among teachers and parents. As a result, school curricula may be quite diverse across the country. Schools and teachers are also given the authority to select teaching materials that correspond to the curriculum. Businesses also work closely with schools. Nearly one third of secondary students are enrolled in vocational education. "Despite" its progressive policies, Finland has accomplished that "holy grail" of conservatives—high test scores. Their students scored 2nd among 40 countries (US scored 28th) on an international assessment in math and scored at the top in reading, science and problem solving skills (US scored 19th, 22nd, and 29th, respectively). The Ministry attributes the country's excellent performance on these exams to free, high quality education across the country, high quality teachers with a high degree of autonomy, development-oriented assessment that gives students feedback on their progress, and a socio-constructivist approach to learning that treats students as autonomous learners who are guided to develop their study skills and plan their life career. The nation's educational vision, policies, and programs reflect progressive values and can be examined by clicking here.