High-stakes testing, segregation, and the undermining of democracy: OCCUPY the DOE

Across the country, educators and activists are organizing to stand up and fight back against the corporate controlled education reformers. In this week's show we speak with teachers, teacher educators, students, parents and community members who are part of a growing movement to opt out of and demand an end to high stakes testing.

We begin at San Jose State University, where professor Roberta Ahlquist talks about the ways high stakes testing damages our students, our schools, and our understanding of the kinds of people and communities we want to make. Professor Ahlquist, co-editor of the book “ Assault on Kids: How hyper-accountability, corporatization, deficit ideologies and Ruby Payne are destroying our schools” helps us understand how high stakes testing is part of larger ideology that is leaving us with schools that are more segregated and that deny the human potential of all students.

Next we hear from Aisha Daniels, a high school junior from Florida, who opted out of the state tests about why she opted out, and the response from teacher, schools, administrators and classmates. Aisha's mother Ceresta Smith is an organizer of United Opt Out, an organization whose purpose is to draw attention to the devastating impact of high stakes tests and to offer guidance, support and solidarity for students and parents who choose to Opt Out.

The Opt Out movement will be in Washington DC March 30- April 1 to OCCUPY the DOE and demand an end to high stake testing. In the last part of this week's show, Education Radio producer Barbara Madeloni joins the organizers of Occupy the DOE at one of their weekly skype meetings to talk with them about how they came to the movement, how they understand what is happening in education, and what we can do to resist. She speaks with Morna McDermott, associate professor Towson University, Ceresta Smith, 23 year veteran National Board certified teacher, Laura Murphy, community member and charter member of the Save Our Schools march, Tim Skelar, associate professor Penn State Altoona, Peggy Robertson, former public school teacher, parent and blogger at pegwithapen, and Shaun Johnson, assistant professor at Towson University and host with Tim Skelar of at the chalk face.

Listen and join us to OCCUPY the DOE in DC, March 30- April 2, 2012.

Get more information about Occupy the DOE.

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Educating for Obedience: The disastrous impact of education reform on young children

Nancy Carlsson-Paige

In this weeks program we talk to Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Professor Emerita of early childhood education at Lesley University where she taught teachers for more than 30 years. She is also a respected author and the founder of the University's Center for Peaceable Schools.

Nancy discusses how schooling can meet the developmental needs of school-age children; and how current corporate education reform policies are harming young children's social, emotional, cognitive and physical development.

She talks pointedly about how current standardized curriculum and testing regimes and the privatization of public education causes great harm to young children's development; exacerbates inequality and undermines the human potential to engage in social change.

Nancy also talks at length about the horrendous impact virtual schools have on the lives of young children.

Click here to learn more about Nancy Carlsson-Paige

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Audit Culture: Snuffing the Life out of Teacher Education

In this week's program Education Radio looks at how audit culture is being used to undermine and privatize teacher education, decoupling it from higher education and turning teacher development into technical training.

Speaking first with Christine Sleeter, Professor Emerita, California State University, we look at how the assault on teacher education connects to the larger neo-liberal effort to privatize public spaces. We then examine the specific measures being used to devalue, de-humanize and undo the democratic the work of teaching and teaching teachers.

Ann Berlak, of the California State system, helps us understand the technical rationality behind the current push for a national teacher performance assessment. Celia Oyler, Associate Professor of Education at Teachers College Columbia University, brings us into the absurdities of the National Council on Teacher Quality's grading' of school of education, and the dangers of privatization found in the new Relay Graduate School of Education, founded by educational management companies Achievement First, Uncommon Schools and KIPP. Finally, we speak with Julie Gorlewski, from State University of New York New Paltz, as we examine how teacher educators can respond to this assault by naming it for what it is and making spaces to fight back and claim the liberatory potential of our work.

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Program 19: Pacifica Audioport (podcast)
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