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GET 'EM WHILE THEY'RE YOUNG

Children see more than 20,000 commercials a year on average, andcorporations spend more than $12 billion a year to market to children- 20 times the amount spent a decade ago.

At the same time, in the past 10 years childhood obesity has becomea major public health problem. The fast food industry is the biggestadvertiser on televion. McDonald's alone spends $600 million peryear on advertising. (Source: Advertising and Promoting to Kids,Third Annual Conference, Sept. 14 in New York City.)

PEDAGOGY OF THE ABSURD

Ken Goodman of the University of Arizona has begun issuing awardsfor what he characterizes as The Pedagogy of the Absurd.

Recent winners (or losers, as he also calls them) include:

• The Republican minority of the Fairfax County Virginia Board ofEducation who, having imposed particular phonics programs as partof several approved for use by schools in the county, petitionedthe governor to force all the schools in the county to use onlythose phonics programs. When they were criticized for being partisan,they said that they had offered to let the Democrats on the boardsign the petition.
• The Los Angeles Board of Education for announcing it will hireteachers with only a high school diploma.
• George W. Bush for his presidential campaign slogan, "PhonicsWorks!" (announced Aug. 30). As part of his pledge to supportlocal control of education, Bush is promising to take federalsupport from schools that don't use the right phonics programsand give it to parents as vouchers so they can send their kidsto schools that do.

BIRTH OF A MYTH

The following is from a recent e-mail by Gerald Bracey, an educationalwriter based in Virginia:

"On September 4, an op-ed essay by William J. Bennett claimedthat 'nearly half of all high school graduates have not masteredseventh-grade arithmetic.' This is a peculiar statement for severalreasons. First, we don't test high school graduates. Second, Bennettprovided no definition of 'mastery.' Third, there is no commondefinition of 'seventh grade arithmetic."

"Seeking a citation, I contacted Mr. Bennett's office. His officereferred me to The Book on Knowledge, a guide to making money by investing in for-profit educationby Michael Moe, Director of Global Growth Research for MerrillLynch. Moe sent me the book and, indeed, the statistic appearson page four in a list of 'facts' (in quotes because most of themare spun to make American schools look bad and are closer to beinglies than being facts). There is no citation for where the statisticcame from. On to Moe's office.

"Contacting Moe, I was advised that it is 'an interpretation of1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests.'Examining the NAEP 1996 Mathematics Report Card, in which theU. S. Department of Education presents the NAEP results, I canfind no statistic that is remotely close to the one promulgatedby Mssrs. Moe and Bennett. Indeed, Mr. Moe could not have beenmore fanciful if he had simply drawn the 'statistic' from thinair.

"One would hope that a former Secretary of Education would bemore careful in choosing the statistics he uses to slander Americanpublic schools. The one he cited doesn't even exist."

MORE THAN POCKET CHANGE

Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) is a pro-vouchergroup formed just in time for the November presidential elections.It is headed by Bush education advisor Howard Fuller, former superintendentof Milwaukee Public Schools and now with Marquette University.In a promotional article about the campaign, Fuller is quotedas saying the alliance is beginning operations with a budget ofnearly $900,000. The money comes primarily from foundations, includingthe Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee, the JoyceFoundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Milton & RaeD. Friedman Foundation.

One of the campaign's main activities has been to place newspaperads in national newspapers and in Black community newspapers.

GOOD AND BAD NEWS

The average SAT mathematics scores this year hit the highest markin 30 years, the College Board announced in September.

Math scores increased three points to 515. Verbal scores remainedstable and averaged 505. The maximum scores is 800 for each sectionof the test.

On the negative side, the gap remained between white studentsand students of color. Whites had a combined score of 1158 comparedto 860 for African Americans and 928 for Latinos.

TEXAS DROPOUT RATES

Supporters of George W. are fond of citing Texas as an educationalsuccess story. One statistic they don't mention: dropout rates.

More than 40 percent of African-American and Latino students whoenter ninth grade do not graduate. The figure is 25 percent forwhite students (source: Boston College professor Walter Haney,in his essay, "The Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education."

COINCIDENCE?

Thomas Fonfara of the influential Quarles & Brady law firm inMilwaukee was authorized this August to lobby on behalf of theMilwaukee Public Schools. Since January 1999, Fonfara has alsobeen a lobbyist for CTB McGraw-Hill.

In September, the Milwaukee School Board Finance / Personnel Committeewas to consider a request from the administration to buy an essaytest from CTB McGraw-Hill.

BUMPER STICKER OF THE MONTH

"High Stakes Are for Tomatoes" (made by the anti-standardizedtesting group FairTest).

QUOTABLE QUOTE

"'Accountability' usually turns out to be a code for tighter controlover what happens in classrooms by people who are not in classrooms- and has approximately the same effect on learning that a noosehas on breathing."

Author and anti-testing activist Alfie Kohn.

Fall 2000