A Discussion About What is to Be Done

Within the Testing and School Reform Movement

offered by Rich Gibson, November 2006

At the outset, I want to clearly state my respect for Monty Neil and the difficult work he does, and in that context to not so much argue with him, but with tendencies within the anti-testing movement that appear, to a limited extent, in the case he initially made.

There is a disagreement, on this list, and in the anti-test (and anti-strangulation of literacy) movement, about key questions that must be answered. These questions could be posed to nearly any group seeking change in nearly any situation in the world, but they are set up here in relationship to the NCLB which is, after all, an international phenomenon.

Some of those questions are:

What is the social context of No Child Left Behind?
Why does NCLB exist?
What are the apparent goals of NCLB sponsors, and what are their underlying goals?
Who gains from NCLB?
Who suffers?
Why is it that so many teachers support NCLB, with but modest reforms?
Why did the two teacher unions (along with the US Chambers of Commerce, Broad Foundation, et al) demand the NCLB, and why do their leaders refuse to do anything substantive to even develop a reform movement?
Who does, and who does not, support the abolition, not reform, of NCLB?
What should be done in regard to NCLB, and the social context that set it up?

There are right and wrong answers to those questions.

Here are some mostly wrong answers

NCLB is the result of bad people (Bush etc) seizing control of political power in the US and its social context is the corruption of our democracy conducted by those bad people.

NCLB has good intent, that is, schooling equality, but it is made perverse by bad people who use NCLB for profits and privatizing. What is needed is to defend public schooling.

All kids could gain from NCLB, but because those bad people keep distorting public education, they don't and therefore teachers and kids suffer.

Teachers support NCLB because they just do not understand it.

The unions really do not support NCLB, they want to change it, and there is a good chance they will take action to do so.

Abolition of NCLB is not realistic, and therefore, only reform is on the table.

The way to win reform is through the electoral channel, through legal action, through research, writing letters to the editor, activity in professional organizations, and perhaps calling some mass demonstrations in Washington DC.

Here are some mostly right answers
NCLB exists for the purpose of social control, to regulate what people learn and how they come to learn it and to replace the mind of the teacher in the classroom with the mind of capitalists in power. That is the goal of any boss, in any work place, but it is the desperate need of the ruling class in the US today.

NCLB's social context is rising inequality, the promise of perpetual imperialist war, the eradication of freedoms, deepening racism and segregation, booming nationalism (required for war), rising irrationalism (religious mysticism, etc), impending international bankruptcy, an all out attack on the working class' standards of life---all made necessary by the declining position of the US as a world power.

This is not, then, a matter of bad people in power, but a rotten social system, capitalism, which can now offer nothing but this decaying social context, in crisis. NCLB is a method of class rule.

NCLB's came into being as part of a process initiated shortly after the victory of the Vietnamese people, in the late 70's, when ruling classes in the US realized that schooling in de-industrialized America, was now a key, centripetal, point of social life, and the schools had to be reined in. From the 1980 "Nation at Risk" to NCLB is a logical progression, reflecting economic and social demands of capitalism. NCLB is a creature of both the Democratic and Republican parties acting in concert, because they too are forms of class rule, really reflecting the overarching agreement and common interest in domination, and secondary disagreements, of the US ruling class, which does exist.

The united ruling classes which created NCLB (which was always a bi-partisan project) have no good intent whatsoever. They do not care a bit about the children of the working class, particularly not black, latin and immigrant kids, but not about any kids but their own, and they never have, except to find ways to convince those children that they have something in common with their rulers, for example, same nation, same race, etc. That makes it possible to win those children to go fight and die, against the enemies of their enemies in imperialist wars.

There is no single public school system in the US, and never has been. Schools are absolutely segregated by class and race. What is taught in these segregated schools varies not only in content, but in teaching methods, and, of course, in materials, supplies, books, technology, geographic space, aesthetic qualities, and so on. These are not our "public" schools, but their Capitalist Schools, arms of their government, which is not a neutral body, but a weapon of the rich.

Much of what goes on inside capitalist schools amounts to teaching lies to children, now using methods so obscure that the children learn to not like to learn, a great achievement for the powerful. Surely, some teachers seek to teach otherwise, and NCLB exists in part to wipe them out or force them to capitulate.

Truly wealthy people send their kids to private schools, which, like the church, seek to pick off some of the best and brightest of the poor, to turn them against their own origins.

There is no defense of this kind of not-public education, none that does not simply on one hand excuse the inexcusable conditions of prison education projects that typify many "public" schools in, say, Detroit, or Compton, and on the other hand, ignore the role of government as a tool of wealth, implying that the capitalist government is some kind of nonaligned body and thus misleading people into an endless series of cul-de-sacs.

Who suffers from NCLB? For the most part, poor and working class kids, parents, and school workers. Bogus science is employed to prove that their oppression is the result of natural processes. For them, NCLB assaults every central issue of life

Labor (find a serious study of the labor movement and its communist roots in NCLB, or the roots of exploitation),
Love (sensuality and sexuality is eradicated, as are aesthetics and loving communities),
Rational Knowledge (teaching that all gods are myths is unthinkable in US schools), and
Freedom itself (always a battle on any job, let alone the elimination of fun and wild spaces). All these are under NCLB attack, illegal to teach in most schools, yet they are life and death matters.

Teachers mostly support NCLB for a variety of complex reasons, one of them that they do not grasp it, do not understand that the more they do NCLB, the more they set up the wreckage of their own livelihoods. Pay rates are already being linked to test scores, as we warned a decade ago. Soon teacher pay will be directly related to the class and race of the kids they teach. The ignorance of much of the teaching forces can be traced to their own educations, and particularly to the vapid requirements of colleges of education, where teaching methods are, more often than not, split apart from substantive goals, thus turning teachers into missionaries for capitalism, and schools its missions.

But teachers have for the most part never been in the forefront of progressive movements (Oaxaca not withstanding). Indeed, the vast majority of teachers have historically been among the most reactionary elements in society, Nazi Germany and fascist Japan for example. Teachers, in the US, are among the last people with health benefits, some job protections, and predictable wages. In short, many of them back NCLB because they are paid off for it, and they know it, and, at the other end, they are full of fear of losing those very limited privileges.

Teachers do fight back, on occasion, as Detroit demonstrates, in very complex ways. But it is rare for teachers to truly put the needs of their kids first, and it is even rarer for the teacher unions to do that. How many teachers have been fired for refusing to abolish their own academic freedom, for refusing to conduct the racist tests, for organizing parents and kids to boycott exams--or how many have even tried? Without new leadership, and new ideas, it is unlikely the US teaching force will do more than trail behind the rebellions of students, who will be forced to rebel as hope is eliminated in schooling.

Racism inside a 90 percent white teacher work force plays a role that is hard to measure, but has to be there. Why teachers would allow the obvious child abuse that is NCLB is, I believe, partly related to racism.

Teachers are the most highly organized people in the US. The two unions are the largest unions in the US, the NEA the largest by far. The unions supported the drive to NCLB every step of the way, to the extent of taking out full page ads in the NY Times demanding it, in conjunction with the Chambers of Commerce, the Broad Foundation, etc.

The teacher union leaders are themselves incredibly privileged people, making well over $400,000 a year (not much in comparison to many CEO's but still incredible wealth). The last thing these union leaders want is a truly class conscious base of school workers because, on one hand, they would have nothing to sell to the employers, and on the other hand, a class conscious mass of teachers would never collaborate in the creation of leaders like the current union leadership. There is no big difference between the teacher union leadership, and the leadership of the entire AFL-CIO, except to say that the American Federation of Teachers leadership leads the most reactionary sections of the AFL-CIO.

Both teacher union leaderships are products of, and gain from, US imperialism, and they know it. That is the source of their remarkable salaries. US imperialism is also the source of some of the pay that is passed along to teachers, but the gulf between teacher pay, and union boss pay is notable, and while union boss pay is going up, teacher pay and benefits are under assault.

Both unions leaders promote the idea that has guided both unions, and the AFL-CIO, for decades now; the idea of "New Unionism," that labor, government, and business must act together in the national interest. This, of course, abolishes the reason most people join union, that is, that working people and their bosses have mostly contradiction in common, and thus turns the unions' leaders into mere arms of the bosses.

False "reform" groups like the Teacher Union Reform Network, promote the same essentially fascist ideology of the unions, unity of labor, business and government. The reform they want is more of this, not less, which is why some of their leaders, like Rochester AFT boss Adam Urbanski, are listed on the Broad Foundation web site as "heroes".

Inside the US, the teachers' unions support NCLB, with a few minor tweaks, in order to promote the social control of the ruling class.

Outside the US, it plays out in both the NEA and AFT working in concert with the AFL-CIO's projects in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency sponsored National Endowment for Democracy, the American Institute for Free Labor Development, and similar maneuvers to destroy indigenous, usually radical or Marxist, movements around the world, like their recent activity in Venezuela.

There is no way to reform these unions, which do not unite people, but divide them, along lines of job, social class, industry, and even now, race and sex. Teacher unions do not, for example, typically welcome other school workers, nor are students and community people included as voting members in union meetings, because those people do not pay dues---the bottom line of capitalism. But students, community people, parents, and others, are absolutely vital to school worker power.

Winning, against NCLB, has to involve winning against capitalism. It would be far better to lose in a struggle against NCLB, yet within that struggle create more and more people who understand what class struggle is and how to conduct it, than it would be to "win" a few minor reforms vs NCLB, and to fool people into thinking that is a victory. Besides, as the US declines as a power, its rulers, all of them, are going to be more and more desperate to enforce programs like NCLB, and most certainly less open to reasoning about it.

But even a serious reformer, as distinct from an anti-capitalist revolutionary, should recognize that teacher power does not lie at the ballot box, where one chooses which millionaire will oppress one the least over the next few years, nor in the courts, now fully stacked against the working class--as has ever been their purpose---but in the schools and the communities where teachers work. The geography of power should be very clear.

The crux of the matter, to win anything, and to sustain that victory, is to have a mass of people who have the understanding, and willingness, to take action to control their work places, in this case the schools, to close them and open them at will. Absent that, nothing that is won can be kept, as we can see from the dozens of union contracts that employers have simply re-opened, mid-term, demanding concessions.

There is nothing wrong, inherently, with marches on Washington, DC, etc. However, a mass teacher march on Washington to abolish the NCLB is very unlikely, for reasons noted above, and even it was successful, it would be a mass march of white people---drawing from a population that is about 90 percent white, which is a big problem that would need to be overcome, by organizing kids and parents too. At some point, such a march might be possible, but for the time being it makes sense to organize on the job, for on the job and community action, in and around schools.

Only the abolition of NCLB should be on the table, even for reformers. There is no way to "fund" NCLB and make it anything but a rotten, racist, anti-working class project. It can no more be reformed than slavery itself.

Surely research against the NCLB is important, as is constructing reason in any context. That research, demonstrating the anti-working class nature of NCLB, the goals of its sponsors, its impact on students and teachers, its role as a material attack on the livelihoods of school workers, is done. More research is never wrong, much of current research and calls for action disconnect that research from the social context that created the NCLB, to pretend that school reform is possible without social and economic reform.

This is to do extraordinarily disjointed work, what might be called "un-whole" within whole language. Capitalism in decay created the NCLB. That is the whole that arches over its particulars. NCLB is a servant of decay.

The crux of the matter is to connect reason to power.

Working for change in professional groups can have a remarkable impact. NCSS, NCTE, AHA, ASA, etc, have a wide audience, but they are hardly the key source of school worker power or social change.

That said, the best thing to do to the NCLB is to shut down the schools at test time, and to create freedom schools for kids where they can actually learn why things are as they are, and what they, as powerful people collectively, can do about it---well beyond opposing a series of insipid exams. Of course, that is risky.

But people are being positioned where they must fight to live---as the California grocery strike, the LA transportation strike, the Detroit Teachers Strike, and Oaxaca, all witness. The battle for social control is a two-way battle, and despite all its flaws, Oaxaca is a hint that it can be won--and a warning that without anti-capitalist leadership, it can be lost, with what may be devastating consequences.

Closing capital's schools takes organization, and action---all of which should be directed at the goal of creating a mass base of class conscious people who are truly prepared to lead the fight to go beyond the horrific offerings of capitalism in crisis.

Why are things as they are? Because class struggle is intense, and abundantly easy to see now. Within an international war of the rich on the poor, we see the rich divided and at war with each other as well, imperialist wars---and if Iran is attacked, the beginning of World War 3. Not to rise up and say that is to deny a reality that is pounding itself into every day life, and to mis-lead people. NCLB is about class struggle.

The Rouge Forum, Substance, and very very few other groups are taking up that challenge, in limited ways. Justice cannot be won without organization.

Some teachers, perfectly positioned in US society, will indeed fight back. We need to organize to meet a well organized and ruthless enemy.

The Rouge Forum is sponsoring a conference in the first weekend in March, in beautiful downtown Detroit. Set aside the date and watch for further announcements soon to come.

best r

At 0128 PM 11/5/2006 -0500, you wrote

When will leading opponents of NCLB stop ignoring the gorilla in the room? Corporate America is pulling the strings here--and I'm not talking about McGraw-Hill profits. The corporate plan is much bigger than that.

I am very disappointed in the wishy-washy advice for resistance that Monty offerswrite a letter, talk to your legislator (the very legislator who already sold schools out to the highest bidder). We're going to have to be willing to do a whole lot more than that. We need to scare Congress, not approach them on bended knee. I still like Carole's idea of a march on Washington.

Susan O.

Yetta Goodman wrote
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> SubjectAstute political analysis of NCLB reauthorization > DateThu, 2 Nov 2006 111123 -0500
> FromJames Crawford <jwcrawford@COMPUSERVE.COM
> <mailtojwcrawford%40COMPUSERVE.COM>>
> Reply-ToJames Crawford <jwcrawford@COMPUSERVE.COM
> <mailtojwcrawford%40COMPUSERVE.COM>>
> ToELLADVOC@ASU.EDU <mailtoELLADVOC%40ASU.EDU>
>
> Rethinking Schools, Fall 2006
> http//www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_01/over211.shtml
> <http//www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_01/over211.shtml>
>
> Overhauling NCLB
> It's time to mobilize for an education law that actually improves schools
>
> By Monty Neill
>
> The federal law that is wreaking havoc on educational quality across the
> nation, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is due for reauthorization by
> Congress in 2007. While many observers believe this will not be
> completed until after the 2008 presidential election, we need to begin
> mobilizing now to ensure that the next version of the longstanding
> Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is a very different law in
> several critical regards.
>
> The importance of changing the law can scarcely be overemphasized. While
> state laws and district practices have often promoted the same harmful
> policies as NCLB, the federal law has made such programs more onerous,
> adding more testing and layers of counterproductive "accountability"
> mandates. And NCLB has made it harder and less likely for states or
> districts to implement improved assessment and genuine school
> improvement programs. Over-hauling NCLB should be a political priority,
> not only for groups working at the national level, but also for local
> and state individuals and organizations, many of whom have potentially
> powerful ways to reach out to and influence members of Congress.
>
> To ensure that the new ESEA provides positive assistance to low-income
> children and their schools, three key things are necessarya clear,
> widely agreed-upon vision of what the law should be; an aroused,
> mobilized, and organized force to support change; and an understanding
> of the various positions in Congress and what it will take to produce
> major changes in the law. Each of these points could easily be a
> separate article, but after short comments on the first two points, I
> will focus on the third.
>
> Five principles should guide thinking about a new law.
>
> First, the goal should be high-quality teaching and learning to benefit
> the whole child, not drill-and-kill to artificially inflate scores on
> mostly multiple-choice tests in a few subjects.
>
> Second, a new law should focus on the capacity of schools to improve,
> including adequate resources, professional development, and stronger
> parental involvement.
>
> Third, any accountability structure must use multiple forms of evidence
> as the basis for making decisions, not just scores on standardized tests.
>
> Fourth, sanctions must be a last resort and tailored to meet specific
> problems, not arbitrary actions using one-size-fits-all formulas. They
> should also be designed to build capacity for improvement, not to punish
> schools and districts.
>
> Fifth, the new law should effectively empower educators, parents, and
> communities to work together collaboratively, rather than move
> decision-making responsibilities ever further from local communities. It
> should also include equity and civil rights protections to ensure that
> local empowerment does not mean the power to ignore low-income, racial
> minority, English-language learning, or disabled children.
>
> The "Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB," signed by 90 national
> education, civil rights, and religious organizations, outlines key
> components of what the new ESEA should include. The Forum on Educational
> Accountability is carrying on this work by developing more detailed
> proposals on capacity building, assessment, and accountability and by
> facilitating collaborative action among dozens of groups.
>
> National groups will need to effectively mobilize their constituents to
> persuade members of Congress to revamp NCLB. This education and pressure
> could take multiple forms, as suggested in FairTest's "Seven Ways to
> Work to Overhaul the Federal Education Law," including holding public
> forums, passing resolutions, writing letters and op-eds, and meeting
> with members of Congress and state legislators.
>
> Examining the Consensus
>
> For a mobilized constituency to persuade Congress to pass a beneficial
> education law, it is vital to consider the thinking that underlay
> passage of NCLB in order to demonstrate that NCLB is not meeting its own
> goals. (After all, the main stated NCLB goal is a good one"Ensure that
> all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a
> high-quality education.") It is also necessary to grasp the varying
> views of NCLB supporters in order to respond, where possible, to their
> needs, or to counter and isolate proposals that are harmful. (Among
> other things, proposals to expand testing, intensify sanctions, develop
> a national test, and promote privatization are likely.)
>
> Two prominent, pro-NCLB conservative analysts, Frederick Hess and
> Michael Petrilli, have argued that since the late 1980s, presidents
> (Clinton and both Bushes) and Congress have forged a "Washington
> consensus" that revolves around three agreements
>
> First, that the nation's foremost education objective should be
> closing racial and economic achievement gaps. Second, that excellent
> schools can overcome the challenges of poverty. And third, that
> external pressure and tough accountability are critical components
> of helping school systems improve.
>
> This "consensus" sidesteps some major issues such as privatization while
> ignoring the harmful educational consequences of cheap, test-driven
> "reform" and ever-more-distant bureaucratic control over schools.
> However, because this consensus does exist in part, it is a useful tool
> for thinking about the "bipartisan" agreement supporting NLCB.
>
> Hess and Petrilli argue that despite some strong opposition and very
> thin support among the public and especially among educators, this
> consensus is likely to hold in Congress. But they also worry that the
> consensus could fall apartBush is weakening, and Republi-can
> Congressional leadership has changed while the most conservative
> Republicans are balking at the intrusiveness of the law as well as its
> funding requirements. They conclude that the law's survival may depend
> on Demo-crats, especially Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. George Miller, who
> helped craft NCLB and remain as party leaders of the relevant committees.
>
> Historically, as the "Washington consensus" on education evolved,
> members of the black and Hispanic caucuses in the House opposed both a
> national test and much of NCLB. They don't believe high-stakes testing,
> for example, leads to fair outcomes or improved schools. As NCLB was
> being considered in the House, white liberals and some conservative
> Republicans joined these caucus members in promoting amendments -- such
> as eliminating the requirement to test in every grade 3-8 -- that would
> have made NCLB far less onerous. Though support for such amendments was
> gaining quickly, time ran out.
>
> Historical analysis suggests that pressure to change the law in
> fundamental ways will come from both the right and the left. Progressive
> educators are not likely to have much impact on Republicans, but could
> -- in alliance with mainstream education, civil rights, and other groups
> -- develop a push to change the views of key Democrats.
>
> It is the white liberals who may be pivotal. Like Kennedy and Miller,
> many believe NCLB is a step forward in civil rights, though they decry
> the refusal of the Republicans to fully fund the law. Evidence to show
> the law is not working as they intended, pressure from civil rights
> groups, and strong alternatives could move more members of Congress
> toward different legislation.
>
> What About the Gap?
>
> It's time to dismantle the intellectual and evidentiary underpinnings of
> the "Washington consensus." The political heart of NCLB is its professed
> goal of closing racial and economic achievement gaps. Bush successfully
> marshaled rhetoric such as "the soft bigotry of low expectations" and
> "which child would you leave behind?" to support NCLB and present
> Republicans as favoring equity. Meanwhile, many Democrats, led by Bill
> Clinton and many governors and members of Congress, accepted and
> promoted the unproven notion that standards-based, test-driven
> accountability would improve schools serving low-income children.
>
> But the test-and-punish structure in NCLB will not overcome the systemic
> inequities of race and class, the real "gap." While promoting
> educational equity is essential and should be the central focus of
> federal support, real progress will require more money and a shift away
> from the mania for "accountability." The truth is that test-based
> accountability for schools is not effective at closing real opportunity
> and learning gaps.
>
> Despite supporters' claims that NCLB has led to tangible progress,
> results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
> suggest only modest closure of score gaps in some subjects and grades
> and no change in others. As Jaekyung Lee of the Harvard Civil Rights
> Project has pointed out, racial gaps closed substantially for younger
> children from the 1970s into the late 1980s, mostly likely because of
> policies that attacked racism and poverty. As federal policy retreated
> from equity concerns, however, one result was that the score gaps
> widened. They began to close again in the late 1990s -- but still not
> for high school students.
>
> The primary narrowing has been in math. This is due to an intensified
> emphasis on math instruction. However, as educators are pressured to
> teach to state tests, NAEP gains appear to be mainly in rote learning,
> not conceptual understanding or problem-solving.
>
> The price of the focus on accountability testing has been narrowed
> instruction in the tested subjects and increased focus on rote learning
> -- what Jonathan Kozol has termed "cognitive decapitation." It has also
> led to reduced instruction in history, art, and other subjects not
> included on high-stakes tests.
>
> With no gains in NAEP at grade 12 for any racial group, with independent
> studies showing that high-stakes tests -- including state graduation
> exams -- don't produce improved learning results but do increase dropout
> rates, it is becoming increasingly clear that the focus on high-stakes
> testing is an educational failure.
>
> This Democrat-Republican alliance not only created the "Washington
> consensus" on testing, it fostered a public discussion in which schools
> are scapegoated. Congress must be challenged over the notion that
> schools alone can overcome the effects of racism and poverty. Reports by
> influential groups such as Education Trust claiming to have identified
> thousands of "high flying" schools -- ones in which low-income kids
> score high -- are misleading. Yes, there are many excellent schools and
> great educators accomplishing great things with low-income children. But
> as Designs for Change pointed out in a recent study of Chicago, echoing
> the work of educators such as Deborah Meier and Ann Cook, they do not
> succeed by turning their schools into test-prep programs.
>
> We should learn from truly good schools. But if the federal government
> was serious about leaving no child behind, it would address low wages
> and unemployment; lack of good housing, medical care, and nutrition;
> community instability; and segregation by race and class. Because
> schools do have an important role to play, Congress should craft
> policies that put reasonable expectations on educational systems. Then
> it should focus support on strengthening beneficial practices to help
> schools meet them.
>
> In the absence of rational policies and adequate funding to actually
> improve schools, the idea that "tough accountability" will induce
> sustained improvement is at best misguided and at worst a deliberate
> game to undermine educational quality, particularly for low-income
> children, and privatize public schooling.
>
> Educators and activists must explain to those members of Congress
> willing to listen why NCLB cannot lead to equitable, high-quality
> education for all. They need to use emerging proposals to promote a
> strong, beneficial partnership among the levels of government. They need
> to engage in extensive public education and mobilization. And they need
> to create conditions in which those members of Congress who are not
> willing to consider reason and evidence understand that their tenure in
> office will be put at risk.
>
> References
>
> For more details on NCLB and its harmful consequences, see the FairTest
> website, www.fairtest.org <http//www.fairtest.org > <http//www.fairtest.org>>, as well as articles
> in Rethinking Schools.
>
> "Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB" is on the FairTest website and
> the Forum on Educational Accountability website,
> www.edaccountability.org <http//www.edaccountability.org > <http//www.edaccountability.org>>.
>
> "Seven Ways to Work to Overhaul the Federal Education Law (ESEA/NCLB)"
> is available at
> www.fairtest.org/nattest/Seven_Ways_To_Overhaul_NCLB.html
> <http//www.fairtest.org/nattest/Seven_Ways_To_Overhaul_NCLB.html > <http//www.fairtest.org/nattest/Seven_Ways_To_Overhaul_NCLB.html>>.
>
> Hess, F. M., and Petrilli, M. J. "Whither the Washington Consensus?"
> (American Enterprise Institute, 2006.)
> www.aei.org/includeBRub_print.asp?pubID=24487
> <http//www.aei.org/includeBRub_print.asp?pubID=24487 > <http//www.aei.org/includeBRub_print.asp?pubID=24487>>.
>
> Lee, Jaekyung. "Tracking Achievement Gaps and Assessing the Impact of
> NCLB on the Gaps." Harvard Civil Rights Project, 2006.
> www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/newsBRressreleases/NCLB_report06.php
> <http//www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/newsBRressreleases/NCLB_report06.php > <http//www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/newsBRressreleases/NCLB_report06.php>>.
>
> FairTest Examiner. August, 2006, August. "Harder to 'Fly High' than Ed
> Trust Claims" and "Teacher Quality Important, But Cannot Overcome
> Poverty," both at www.fairtest.org/examinertoc.html
> <http//www.fairtest.org/examinertoc.html > <http//www.fairtest.org/examinertoc.html>>. Summaries of Harvard Civil
> Rights Project and Design for Change reports are also in this issue.
>
> Designs for Change. The Big Picture, 2006. www.designsforchange.org
> <http//www.designsforchange.org <http//www.designsforchange.org>>
>
> Monty Neill (monty@fairtest.org <mailtomonty%40fairtest.org>
> <mailtomonty@fairtest.org <mailtomonty%40fairtest.org>>) is
> executive director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open
> Testing, located in Cambridge, Mass.
>
> --
> Yetta M. Goodman
> Regents Professor Emerita
> University of Arizona, College of Education
> Language Reading and Culture - Room 532
> Tucson, AZ 85721
> Home Address
> 7914 S. Galileo Lane
> Tucson, AZ 85747-9609
>