Attendance: Richard Sloan (Marin), Susan Schmale (Fresno), Helen Pitton (Fresno), Barbara Flores (San Bernadino), Betty Olson-Jones (Oakland), Virginia Tibbetts (Anaheim), Amy Asaoka-Nakakihara (Anaheim), Lynn DeJonghe (Concord), Glenn Devoogd (Fresno), Susan Harman (Oakland). Two people had the flu, one had a personal emergency, and bad weather down south kept others from attending.

California primary, Feb 5. Rich, Barbara, and Helen will get the names of contacts in the various campaigns. We will push them to take a strong stand on Repeal of NCLB.

Which tests to boycott. Since opting out is legal only for STAR, we will only boycott the tests that are part of STAR (CA Standards Test, CAT 6, CAPA, and Aprenda3), NOT the CAHSEE this time around.

Critical mass. We talked about what would count as a successful boycott, and what would be big enough to protect us. We decided tackling the big districts is foolish, so we will aim for lots of small districts, shut down the whole district, and try to pair rich with poor so the usual attacks don’t hold (“Oh you’re rich, all your kids will go to college anyhow;” and “Oh you’re poor so you’ll do badly”).

Raising money. Lynn will investigate designing and selling our own stamps, charging 50c. We didn’t decide on the text yet. Barbara is the new president of NABE (National Assoc of Bilingual Educators), and was told by them, as well as the Latino higher-ups in NEA (!), to ask for money. So she will! She also just gave a presentation to Cong. Baca, the Chair of the Hispanic Caucus.

Publicity. We will hold a press conference of Big Names the end of Feb in LA, probably at the district office, or maybe the end of March at the Fresno Chavez Conference, when Orfield is here. Let’s talk about this. Susan has already emailed Jeannie Oakes, David Pearson, and Stephen Krashen. She will write to Alfie Kohn and Linda Darling-Hammond. Rich will try Sean Penn, Robin Williams, and George Lucas (all neighbors in Marin). Anybody know Denzel Washington or Martin Sheen? Barbara will ask Tony Plana, a TV star, and is working with the Hispanic Communications Network, who have 248 radio stations nationally on which we can do PSAs. Cindy Sheehan could get us to Ed Asner (Susan will ask). Please let us know if you know famous people who will stand with us.

Materials. Betty showed us OEA (Oakland Ed. Assoc)’s new flyer, 4”x11” card stock, very slick. It cost $500 for 5,000 (a penny a piece). We’ll see if we can put all our relevant info on something that size.

Slogan, framing. We discussed several slogans and settled on Students are More Than Test Scores.

Fear. When Rich Gibson and I toured NorCal in Sept, the biggest things we came away with were how strong the fear is among teachers and administrators, and how outraged we all are. Barbara treats “fear” as an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real. Think about that.

Richard said the CA Dept of Ed is holding a meeting right about now to talk about what to do about the failing districts, including the 99 new ones that were just announced in the LA Times.

Supporters.
What state legislators would support us? Please check with yours, both senators and assemblypeople.
We’ll propose a reso at CABE (CA Assoc of Bilingual Educators), in San Jose, March 6-8.
Susan will talk to Laurie Olsen at CA Tomorrow and ACORN.
Barbara will talk to Shelley Spiegel-Coleman at Californians Together.
Californians for Justice is a natural ally, with offices around the state. Joe Lucido will talk to their Fresno office.
We’re already presenting there. Glenn will talk to Rose Arenas at Fresno, and Barbara will talk to Maria Casada.
What unions will support us? Janitors, hotel workers, grocery workers, longshoremen. They all have kids.
What about the CA branch of ASCD? Lets write an article for them. They have two conferences coming up that we should be at:
Math Symposium - California ASCD and Region VII COE Math Leadership Team, February 5 and 6, 2008, Fresno. Featuring UC professors Harold Asturius, Patrick Callahan, and Phil Daro.
Leadership Summit - California ASCD and CUE present Leadership Summit as one of their preconference events on Thursday, March 6, 2008. It will focus on integrating technology and data gathering to change instruction. The session will help leaders design a program where real "data-driven instruction" takes place.
PTA/PTOs. The National PTA signed on to FairTest’s Joint Organizational Statement, and Erwin Morton, a longtime resister, used to be the CA head. Susan will talk with Erwin.
Each school with ELs has an ELAC (English Learner Advisory Committee), and each district has a similar committee made up of the chairs of the school committees. They’re a natural way to reach parents. My only worry is that this boycott not be seen as only about Latinos. We need to find ways to mobilize African-American parents, too.

Laws. Although the testing law does not say districts have to inform parents of their right to opt out, the Ed Code says that districts must inform parents of all their rights. We will use this to push districts to send notices to parents re opting out.
“Ed Code 51101.1.(b) Parents and guardians of English learners are entitled to participate in the education of their children pursuant to Section 51101 and as follows:
 (5) To be informed, pursuant to Sections 33126 and 48985, about statewide and local academic standards, testing programs, accountability measures, and school improvement efforts.”

Non-profit status. We decided we need to get our own 501(c)3 status. We’ve used CA Tomorrow as our money conduit for years, and it’s time to be our own. Susan will find a friendly lawyer to do it for free.

Other states. Minnesota is considering opting out of NCLB/Title I as a state. They say they only get 6% of their funds from Title I, or $580 million. Utah tried to do this a few years ago, the feds threatened to close some military bases, and they backed down. We’ll see what happens in Minn.

Chavez Conference. Fresno State continues its wonderful tradition of sponsoring an annual Cesar Chavez Conference on March 28-29. The topic is Immigration and Civil Rights, and Gary Orfield, of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, will be featured. They have published several studies highly critical of NCLB.