Art, social justice, and a culture of care (click this link, then "Preparing teachers for the 21st century")

The IES study on "Reading First"

Greg Toppo on the "Reading First" study

George Miller's response to the study

Ellen Gamerman on why
Finnish kids are so smart

Democracy at risk:
The need for a new Federal role
in education

Hello, Everyone,
Last month I said I would use this space for my third of three rationales for art in the schools: "Art, social justice, and a culture of care." The material below pre-empted that, but a link to the rationale is at left. It is a Powerpoint presentation that university educators might find useful in their teacher prep courses, regardless of discipline.

NCLB: Abolish or revise?
A couple of years ago two things about the No Child Left Behind Act seemed clear to me:

1. It should be discarded altogether and replaced with something new. Modify it? Shmodify it.

2. Convincing Congress to discard it was possible.

The first point remains arguable. However, as a growing consensus among educators familiar with Capitol Hill suggests, the second point no longer is. Not only are members of Congress moving away from the notion of discarding NCLB, but increasingly the mention of doing so irritates them, which can make them less willing to discuss modifying it. This should not surprise us. History shows that laws, especially Federal laws, tend to be changed incrementally. Understandably, abolishing NCLB continues to appeal to many educators, but they speak at a distance from contemporary Congressional currents.

In the end the only question that matters is this one: What is best for kids in schools? The answer regarding NCLB is for education activists to work with Congress to modify the most egregious aspects of No Child Left Behind. Legislators are ready to hear this. Efforts to abolish it have become worse than a waste of time; with sentiments on Capitol Hill what they are, such efforts are now counterproductive.

Washington trip in 2009
The above points are doubly timely because I am organizing a group trip to D.C. in early 2009 in anticipation of a vote on the law. The group consists of members of several education advocacy organizations who will join the NET in updating legislators about research on how children learn. We need to speak with a united voice.

Following two days of meetings with legislators, we plan to hold a press conference, on the Capitol steps perhaps, that could bring much-needed national attention to NCLB. Education seems to have vanished from the radars of the presidential candidates, and what little we do hear from them---all three---sounds troublingly uninformed. Seven NET members have signed on for this trip. There is room for more.

Warm regards,
Dennis