‘Shadow councils’ give voice to Palestinian Youth

by Andrew Beale | November 12, 2012

Bashaer Othman as acting mayor of Allar. (Facebook)

Disillusionment may seem unquantifiable, but Sharek Youth Forum has found a way to measure it. The organization, based in the West Bank capital of Ramallah, found in a 2011 survey of over 1,000 West Bank youth that 62 percent of Palestinian youth don’t trust in any existing political party. But Sharek didn’t stop at releasing the statistics; in 2009 it also created a network of “shadow councils” in communities across the West Bank to help young Palestinians create an alternative for themselves.

The shadow councils do not, as yet, have any legal power to govern in their towns. What they do have, though, is 9,000 members in 11 districts, unaffiliated with any political party, working week after week on youth issues often ignored by the municipal governing bodies in the Occupied Territories.

“They have the power of youth,” says Wisam Shweiki, Sharek’s project manager and head of the youth council program. The councils, he believes, give young people “the power of being able to generate and advocate for what they believe in or don’t believe in through mobilizing.”

He offers an example: In the village of Beit Fajjar, the municipal council decided to cut off electricity to several families’ homes due to late payment. Members of the city’s youth council, however, had a different idea about how to solve the problem. They demanded that they be put in charge of collecting the electricity bills in order to give families a chance to pay before their power is cut. The youth council held a candlelight vigil outside the mayor’s house, effectively shaming him into ordering the power turned back on. Shweiki said the youth council has been in charge of collecting the electricity fees since then, and no one’s power has been turned off.

When I spoke to the president of Beit Fajjar’s youth council, Ahmad Dirya, he told the story in a much more succinct manner. “We stayed in the streets until they turned on the lights,” he said. “People need these lights. We talked to everyone in the streets and made the streets active.”

Next, the council came up with a four-stage plan to get the power turned back on. The first stage was rallying popular support using social media. Next came the vigil, its numbers swelled by the social media campaign. Third, they raised the issue with local media, making sure the area’s newspapers were all aware of the campaign. Finally, they agreed to help collect the money needed for electricity payments by going door-to-door with the electrical company’s collection agents. He said the youth council was able to convince people to pay their bills because people in the community trusted the youth council in a way they never trusted the municipal government.

The relationship between youth councils and such governments, however, is not always adversarial. In fact, Sharek Youth Forum coordinates with the municipal government of each village before attempting to start a youth council there, and it works with the West Bank’s Central Election Committee to ensure the youth councils’ election bylaws are not violated.

The youth councils have different election rules than the municipal governments, including stipulations that members must be between the ages of 15 and 22, and that they cannot belong to any political party.

Coordination with local government has allowed one youth council member in particular to attract the attention of the international press. Sixteen-year-old Bashaer Othman, now widely known as “the world’s youngest mayor,” served as mayor of the town of Illar for two months during her summer break from school. Othman said that, although she served as mayor with the consent of the town’s municipal council, she took a very different approach to governing from that usually seen in Illar.

Most Palestinian youth are not interested in voting for one party or another during elections, but she was able to increase young people’s interest in the youth council by implementing social programs. For example, Othman partnered with local businesses to create an internship program for recent college graduates, which she says reduced unemployment in Illar.

Othman’s appointment as mayor challenged other aspects of traditional Palestinian society as well.

“Women and youth in Palestine are neglected when it comes to dealing with politics,” Othman told me. “When I wanted to help the people of Illar, some of them did not accept that a young girl was in charge of things.”

Creating a space for women to influence civil society is an important aspect of the youth council program. Shweiki told me that some of the youth councils initially resisted the idea of incorporating women into the councils, but Sharek worked to change their attitudes. Now, 35 percent of youth council members are female, including three youth council presidents. The idea of creating opportunities and representation for Palestinian youth takes different forms from council to council. In the village of Taybeh, for instance, one of the main concerns is education.

Taybeh Youth Council coordinator Suzan Massis said that the members of her council took it upon themselves to increase opportunities for young people in Taybeh to go to college. The council organized a series of activities, including festivals and sporting events to raise money for residents to go to college. It also created a phonebook for the village — a first — by collecting all the information and designing the book themselves. All the proceeds from the sale of the book, as well as a magazine the youth council created, have gone toward tuition for students. So far, they have paid tuition for six students.

The Taybeh council also holds educational camps to teach students skills outside of a conventional classroom setting. They’ve offered courses in communications, time management, and democracy and gender, as well as practical, vocational subjects such as basic electrical circuitry and HTML.

Massis said the focus on personal initiatives like this is intentional. “The council doesn’t take a policy role,” she said. “It stays away from politics [to] focus on the youth. The youth [don't] need more politics. They just want to focus on their social life.” The youth councils have so far largely escaped the notice of the Israeli occupation and have been able to work without the interference of security forces. The occupation, however, figures prominently in the lives of Palestinian youth, and council members are no exception.

“The main problem is psychological,” she said. Young Palestinians cannot enter Israel, for instance, although its borders surround them on three sides. In addition to the feeling of imprisonment, this prevents them from gaining employment there, leaving them to fend for themselves in a West Bank whose economy is severely crippled by Israeli controls. “Other problems may be economic,” she added. “And sometimes the soldiers make checkpoints, and students may be delayed getting to university.”

Despite the problems of life under occupation, the youth councils continue their work, generating democracy for disenfranchised and disillusioned young people.

“After two years, after they’ve been through this experience and they’ve received this training,” Shweiki said, “they’ve seen what they can do by joining the efforts without being divided.”

The Hopeless Position of the World Economy

Written by Niklas Albin Svensson  

Tuesday, 06 November 2012- marxist.com

In the past week, the mood of the global financial markets has once again turned sour. The disastrous position in the Eurozone, coupled with a slow-down in China and poor figures from the United States has led to a new sell-off. All the indicators are now pointing at that we are entering into a new down-turn.

Economy in the doldrums

Illustration: LatuffIn the latest (October) World Economic Outlook, the IMF has revised down its growth forecast for the world economy by 0.2 points for this year and 0.3 points for next. Spain and Italy have had their growth forecasts further reduced and are now to remain in recession throughout this year and next. The Euro area as a whole is predicted to contract by 0.4% this year and only grow by 0.2% next year.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the IMF now considers the situation to be much more volatile. In April, it thought world growth for 2013 would be at least 2% and possibly as high as 6% but now it puts the lower mark at 1%. Predictions are of course only predictions, but they give an indication of the increased anxiety of global capital at economic prospects.

Their predictions are not plucked out of thin air. Recent data show a decreased confidence of the capitalists in the prospects for the world economy. The Purchasing Managers’ Index, which gives an indication of how demand is developing, is now negative in both advanced economies and what the IMF terms “emerging markets”. Germany, which was considered the powerhouse of the Eurozone, has seen its index fallen from 49.2 to 48.1 (anything below 50 indicates a contraction). For manufacturing the figures were as low as 45.7 in October whereas they were 47.4 in September. This is driven by the car industry, which is suffering from chronic overcapacity. The index has now been below 50 since February.

The car industry in trouble

The car industry plays a particular role in the world. Not only are nine million people directly employed in this industry but it is estimated that each of these workers supports five other workers in other industries and the service sector. This makes over 50 million jobs across the world that depend on car production. In the largest economies in the world – Japan, USA and Germany, the car industry plays a particularly important role.

The car market has now been contracting in Europe for 12 months. September saw a year-on-year decline of 10.8% in new car registrations. All major markets, other than Britain, are contracting. This is on top of an already existing excess capacity which has been estimated at 33%, which equals around 10 million cars or 26 car plants. With no end to the recession in sight, car companies are now announcing one closure after another. Ford, which is expecting to lose $1.5bn on its European operations this year, has already announced closures of three plants. Peugeot Citroën and General Motors have announced the closure of one plant each.

Thousands of workers are set to lose their jobs. Aside from the personal difficulties for these thousands of workers, it will deal further blows to the European economy. In Japan, car manufacturers are in trouble after the recent dispute with China has made their sales drop between 36 and 49 per cent, compared to a year ago. Here the economic crisis has fuelled political instability which in turn has served to further deepen the crisis.

The lack of confidence in the future has now led a number of large US companies outside the car industry to start to lay off workers. DuPont, Xerox, UPS and 3M all reported poor conditions and warned of bad results. They cite not only conditions in the Eurozone but also in the US and Asia. Dow Chemical announced that they were shutting 20 plants, sacking 2,400 workers to save $500m and are going to save another $500m by cutting capital spending (investment). DuPont is planning to sack 1,500 workers. They all cite lack of demand as the reason.

The debt mountain

US debt 1870-2008. Graph: Recognitia blog
What is the source of this “lack of demand”? Basically, this is the poor purchasing power of the working class, which has seen its income under attack ever since the early 1980s. The effect is multiplied by the huge amount of debt that has been accumulated over the same period in order to counteract the effects of the former.

A fact that is rarely discussed in bourgeois media is that in the 1990s and 2000s households, companies and the state accumulated unprecedented levels of debt. McKinsey Global Institute produced a report in January 2010 (and an update in January 2012) which gives some idea of the scale of the problem. Generally, US total debt levels (including government, corporations and households), over time, has been around or below 140% of GDP. Even during the so called roaring twenties total debt never exceeded 160%. However, in the mid-1980s the total debt was already above that level. By 2000, the total debt had reached 227% of GDP and then by 2008, it had reached 296%. At the height of the great depression total debt reached 258% (1933). That means that even before this crisis hit, debt in the US had reached the level it had at the height of the crisis of the 1930s.

The debt is distributed unevenly in different countries. Spain, for example, has extremely high non-financial corporate debt (140% of GDP), Japan has very high government debt (200% of GDP), the UK has very high financial institution debt (200% of GDP) and the US has very high household debt (100% of GDP). The point is that for a whole period, credit was increased as a means of putting off the crisis. Partly this comes as a natural tendency within capitalism, and partly it was a conscious effort by politicians and central banks to put off the crisis. Interest rates were kept excessively low and a huge number of regulations that were put in place after the 1929 crash were abolished.

Household debt has doubled in many countries. In the US, for example, it increased from 48% of GDP in 1980 to 98% in 2008. In Spain it increased from 30% in 1980 to 85% in 2008. Even prudent Germany managed to increase its household debt from 51% in 1991 to 71% in 2000, although it subsequently reduced it to around 64% in 2009. Mortgage rates were very low and the requirements to take out a mortgage were non-existent, even to the point of lending money to people who obviously couldn’t pay it back – the so called sub-prime mortgages.

Corporate debt also exploded, mainly in finance, but also in non-financial companies. Even whilst state and household debt in Germany was decreasing in the second half of the 2000s, corporate debt was still increasing. Over the period 1991 to 2009, financial institutions increased their debt from 33% of GDP to 80% of GDP and other companies from 48% to 69%. In Spain, the construction sector fuelled a boom in corporate credit, rising from 49% for non-financial corporations in 1990 to 137% in 2008. The Spanish banks which are now being bailed out by the state increased their debt from 12% to 68% in the same period.

This massive explosion fuelled the past 20 years of boom but now the hangover is coming.

A lender of last resort

As mortgage holders are defaulting on their mortgages and companies are failing to make their payments, the banks take the hit. Because all the banks in the world have bought debt from each other in an impenetrable web of obligations, it is impossible to tell really who owes who what. No one actually knows, not even the heads of the banks, what mortgages and corporate debt they have on their balance sheets. In order to refinance their debt to each other, the banks had to turn to the government, who graciously supplied them with ample funds. Thus, the state and the tax payer became the lender and borrower of last resort.

It is worth briefly looking at the effects that the recession of 1929 had on debt levels. After the crisis US debt levels increased rapidly from 160% of GDP in 1929 to 260% in 1932 as the economy went into free fall and contracted 26%. As the economy rebounded in the mid-1930s with 10% growth per year, debt levels went back to 180%. This was done at the cost of a lost decade in terms of growth. Between 1929 and 1938 the economy grew a measly 3% and if it wasn’t for the rearmament programme in 1939 and the Second World War, the recession that started in 1938 probably would have continued.

Governments in the present crisis have pursued a quite different policy to that of the US in the 1930s. Whereas the US pursued a harsh austerity policy in the immediate aftermath to 1929, between 2008 and 2011, governments across the world were adding bank debt to their own balance sheets and letting budget deficits increase massively. This was partly inevitable and partly a conscious decision. The G20 summit in London in April 2009, for example, agreed on a $1.1tn stimulus. With the Greek crisis of 2010, this policy was thrown into reverse but even after the last couple of year’s austerity, the budget deficit in the US is 8.7% of GDP. In the Euro Area the deficit is 4.1% of GDP, in China it is 1.1% and in Japan it’s 9.7%.

The Maastricht treaty stipulated that no government should exceed a 3% deficit and that the government debt should not exceed 60%, in order to ensure financial stability. This kind of prudence wasn’t adhered to before the crisis (even by Germany), in spite of monetarism being in fashion and after the crisis it has been completely thrown overboard. Out of the G8 countries that together represent half the world economy, only China would today fulfil those criteria, with most governments running over 4% deficits and having debts of over 80% of GDP. Out of the G20, which represent 80% of the world economy, only eight would pass.

What this means is that government spending is keeping the world economy afloat by borrowing massively on the credit markets.

Measures running out

The Greek crisis was the first major obstacle on the stimulus road to get out of the crisis. What it showed was that the markets are not willing to lend money to governments indefinitely in the hope that the economy will recover at some point so that the government can repay the debt.

Once the investors started to look into what real possibilities existed for the Greek government to repay its debts, they quickly drew the conclusion that lending to Greece was very risky business. So, in order to cover themselves, they quickly started demanding impossibly high interest rates. In April 2010 they started rising fast and reached 12%. That made it impossible for Greece to borrow money on the markets. The European Union and the IMF stepped in to bail the government out. In rapid succession thereafter followed Ireland and Portugal, who also had no chance of repaying the debt they had accumulated.

For the last two and a half years, the EU governments have been fire fighting. They are desperately trying to prevent the markets to draw the same conclusions about Italy and Spain as they have drawn about Greece, Ireland and Portugal. The governments are now looking for “credibility”. They must prove to the markets that they are willing, and able, to take serious measures against the working class. That means savage cuts to the yearly budget but also long-term cuts to future pension liabilities. They must also prove themselves competitive on the international market, so they must attack trade union rights and wages in the private sector. All this is done in order to placate the markets and keep the lines of credit going. It is misleading to say that the governments are doing it for “ideological reasons” as has become fashionable on the left.

The problem for the bourgeois governments is that the effect of the sharp austerity programmes has been to immediately plunge countries deeper into recession. Greece has been in permanent recession since mid-2008 and the economy has shrunk by 14%. The Irish economy has shrunk by 15% and the Portuguese by around 3%. All these countries are now on a rapid downwards slope and Spain and Italy are joining them.

Another line of attack has been the printing of money. The British, US and Japanese governments have all been engaging in what they euphemistically termed “quantitative easing”.

After reducing interest rates to zero, this was the main policy they could work out to stimulate the credit markets. Effectively this means printing money. Five years ago, this would have been seen as sheer madness and completely unfeasible to bourgeois economists. Today, it is the only measure they can think of.

For the last three years, the US Federal Reserves has created $2tn of new money, the Bank of England has created $600bn, and the bank of Japan around $830bn. Although this money did not directly wound up in anyone’s pockets, it brought down interest rates for companies and governments. The ECB has been conducting its own version of quantitative easing and provided €1tn of cheap credit to companies and governments at the beginning of this year. In spite of these enormous interventions, there is no sign of a recovery. Rather, everything is pointing in the opposite direction.

Desperate times

Photo: Jeff McNeillThe situation is becoming increasingly desperate. The stimulus way out of the recession failed in 2010 and austerity is proving disastrous at the moment. Quantitative easing is no miracle cure. Politicians and central bankers are now clutching at straws, attempting to find some kind of easy way out.

Normally, printing money would lead to inflation but with the economy in a depressed state, inflation has been kept at bay. Also, the central banks attempted to keep the newly created money a few steps removed from the real economy. The banks, for example, have used this cheap line of credit to try to improve their balance sheets, preventing it from entering into circulation. Now, however, they are throwing caution into the wind.

Over the last couple of weeks, the central banks have explained how their policies are not working. The Bank of Japan recently announced yet another quantitative easing programme, as the Japanese government can’t seem to agree on a new budget. Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, says that their policies are reaching their limits. One of the main candidates to replace him, Lord Turner, said that the Bank of England needs to tear up the rule book on monetary policy and imply that it should cancel the debt that is owed to it by the British government. In plain terms, he is proposing that the bank prints money to finance government expenditure. They have even invented a new word for it “helicopter drops”. That is taking quantitative easing to a new level and is, as the FT points out, “the ultimate heresy”.

What does it mean?

The economy is in a bad state and it’s not getting better. Governments around the world have no idea of how to get out of the situation. We are facing years of austerity, sluggish growth and recessions. Debts have to be brought in line and excess capacity in industry has to be brought down. Mervyn King is one of the more outspoken of the bourgeois economists. On 24 October he said that younger generations might have to live under the shadow of the crisis “for a long time to come”.

The rosy calculations of the IMF of return to growth in 2013 have nothing to do with reality. The crisis will continue for years to come. Capitalism which only produces for profit, can no longer find any profit in satisfying people’s needs because people have no money. Across the globe “demand” is falling or at least no longer increasing. Protectionism is rising, as can be seen in the recent China-Japan dispute as well as the wrangling in the European Union. All the attempts to reflate the bubble are failing.

For the working class this means only one thing. We cannot turn back the clock. The boom of the last 20 years was built on sand. All attempts to find a solution to the present crisis within the confines of Capitalism are doomed to fail as the system itself is failing.

Today humanity is richer than we have ever been before in history. The world production is today 150% greater per person than it was in 1960 in spite of world population more than doubling. We have tremendous resources at our fingertips. Under Capitalism, however, this potential remains inaccessible. If resources were planned rationally there would be no need to close factories and sack workers. These resources would be put to use to the benefit of humanity. Under Capitalism, however, they will be squandered.

In any rational society, more wealth and more productive potential would mean that we get better schools, better hospitals, better pensions and better housing. Under Capitalism, it is quite clear, it means the opposite. The anarchy of the markets and the chronic inability of workers to buy all the things they produce have led the system into its most serious crisis ever. Yet, across the board the leaderships of all parties of the left as well as the trade union leaders are clinging to the system.

The labour movement needs to urgently prepare to organise a serious struggle against this crisis. This means first of all to fight against the austerity measures that the capitalists are imposing on the mass of the population in one country after another. But even this struggle would not be sufficient if capitalism – the cause of the crisis – is not overthrown. Only by nationalising the banks and the big monopolies under a rational plan can a new socialist society arise from the collapse of the old.

Black Agenda Report 6th Anniversary Celebration Video

 

Since 2006 the mission at Black Agenda Report [http://blackagendareport.com] has been to challenge the current crop of black political and cultural misleaders with a vision of a new black politics of struggle, one that takes into account class differences among blacks so as to confont the prison state, and deal with the many other oppressive aspects of everyday black life which our misleaders ignore. 

 
On Friday, October 12 most of the Black Agenda Report team gathered at Harlem's historic Riverside Church to celebrate our sixth anniversary. We were joined by Dr. Cornel West, who took part in an extended dialog with BAR executive editor Glen Ford, and a panel discussion featuring Margaret Kimberley, Jemima Pierre, Richard Wolff, P. Sainaith, Anthony Monteiro and Marsha Coleman-Adebayo.

The celebration was organized and hosted by BAR's Nellie Hester Bailey, and sponsored by Riverside Church's Social Justice Ministry.

Jaribu Hill Speaks Out About Capitalism & Police Terror

Sister Jaribu Hill is a veteran Black Liberation Freedom Fighter and Cultural Worker who is also an activist lawyer working and organizing within the Mississippi Workers Center.

She is speaking at an October 2012 Workers World Forum held in New York City.

Human Rights Simply Explained
Useful Videos for Educating Folk About the Basics and Power of Human Rights

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." This is what it says in the very first Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The idea of Human Rights is one of the most important fundaments of human co-existence. At the same time human rights are subject to fierce debates and Human Rights violations are common all over the world.

But what exactly are Human Rights? Who is responsible for protecting them? And do they really apply to all people? These are the question the newest animated Video clip in the WissensWerte series deals with.

Click "CC" in the navigation bar for chinese subtitles.

WissensWerte is a project of the german non-profit organisation /e-politik.de/ e.V. (http://www.e-politik.de). It is realized by Jörn Barkemeyer and Jan Künzl
(edeos- digital education http://www.edeos.org )
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Focus Human Rights: Violations, History, First Dimension

First part of the series "Focus Human Rights". It deals with Civil and Political Rights, with Human Rights violations and the history of Human Rights.

This film marks the start of the project "Focus Human Rights". The series will consist of an overview clip and of one clip about each of the three dimensions of Human Rights.

The first dimension involves the Political and Civil Rights, the second dimension deals with the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the third dimension consists of the Collective Rights.

In addition, a number of cross-cutting issues are explained. For example: the history of Human Rights, the role of non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, or the problems of the Human Rights system.

Together, the overview clip and the three specific clips provide a profound knowledge about the topic Human Rights.

By Jan Künzl und Jörn Barkemeyer

More information about the project:
http://www.edeos.org/en/projects.html

Chicago Teachers Union Organizer Brandon Johnson Sums Up The Racial Impact of the Chicago Strike

Post Slavery Racism Defined

Assaulting Austerity: 
The Capitalist Way Simply Explained


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Why Do They Hate Us?



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WAR = JOBS

Blackfolk Organizing: The New Cool

ORGANIZING IS THE NEW COOL
film trailer
Organizing is the New Cool explores the origin of The FTP Movement and how they mobilize against social injustice and oppression. Viewers will be taken on a journey through the life of concerned citizens who want for their people what they want for themselves: Food, Clothing, Shelter and Justice For All!

Organizers, community activists, freedom fighters and artists come together to speak on society's challenges with the focus on finding practical solutions. This documentary encourages the viewers to obtain self-leadership and empowerment to make radical changes within their environment. Coming Soon!!!

CONTACT:
•  www.organizingisthenewcool.com
•  http://www.youtube.com/user/OITNCDocumentary

14 year old Autum Ashante & Pops, Batin Ashante Speak On College and "Normal Everyday" Life

Sister Autum is attending Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. Her plan is to go Cuba's Latin America Medical School (ELAM) after she completes undergrad work in two years. ELAM is a world-class medical school that is absolutely free. There are currently several dozen Black and Latino US students attending.... And we now have several graduates back in the US practicing medicine in their communities.

Autum also wants to serve her people thru medicine... and that is the underlying purpose of ELAM: to graduate excellent doctors eager to serve their people rather than pursue big pharma and big salaries.

Check Sister Autum out on Facebook and youtube.

An Open Letter to Our Black Youth
 

www.theafricanamericanchild.com

We, the individual members of the NATIONAL BLACK EDUCATION AGENDA (NBEA) are mothers and fathers, grandparents, God-parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters entrusted as the loving adults and tradition-keepers who hold together our own Black families. We are also your neighbors, mentors, counselors, coaches, pastors, teachers and professors. It is in the spirit of love and family responsibility, that we write to you— our urban African American youth— and extend our heartfelt apology.

Each one of us deeply regrets that America's education system and its urban schools have failed you so miserably, for so long. Many of us work in the schools. Many of us also run after-school or cultural enrichment and college-prep programs. We have an inside view and know exactly what the education system's problems are and who is responsible for them being, and staying that way.

We are writing this letter to you because from this day forward, we refuse to allow public perception to continue to blame you for the gross failures, racist practices and educational negligence of a society. America is a very wealthy nation run by grown-folks who make laws and education policies, yet in every area pertaining to Blacks and other people of color, there are just too many shameless, selfish adults of every racial background who aren't abiding by the very laws and rules they get paid to enforce.

This country has consistently undervalued the African American people. Stolen and brought here in chains, it does not acknowledge that its wealth was created by the centuries of forced labor, toil and tears of our ancestors. Nor does it readily recognize our vast Black history of accomplishments, scientific, technical and every-day inventions, intellectual gifts, cultural contributions, patriots and heroes except for using them during the month of February to try to sell the world a false notion that African Americans on the whole, are seen as valued and important. If that were true, then there would be no excuse for why the national priority isn't making right your schools; ensuring that you excel by affording you the exact same, rich opportunities to advance yourselves to lead the same kind of happy, successful and productive lives promised and realized by others in America.

The NATIONAL BLACK EDUCATION AGENDA (NBEA) formed because we know this. We know our African American history and the history of America, and we are stepping up to lead our Black youth in knowing it too. This country cannot fathom how deep our African-ancestral blood still runs within our families, providing us the individual will to endure and determination to struggle to overcome the horrible atrocities of discrimination in the most basic areas of life; equality in housing, jobs, access to healthy food, medical care and education. Remember that racial injustices, poverty and the inhumane conditions we endure, can never define who you, or we are as a people. The famous African American— the U.S. poet-laureate, Maya Angelou has written a poem called "Still I Rise"­ and we want you to find it, read it and take it to heart.

Know that the NBEA is growing our membership to survive any obstacles put in the way of demonstrating our abiding love for you— our glorious and brilliant Black children— and we will put forth the energy to see that you not only rise, but thrive.

The NBEA is individually related to each of you by a shared African ancestry, and our work is to create a sort of national family reunion of African-centered consciousness and principles that demonstrate respect for each other, our diverse experiences, knowledge, education levels, talents and gifts. As one giant Black family across America, the NBEA is hereby declaring to use all of this in our collective protection of your educations. We will no longer allow what you learn about yourself as a child of African ancestry, and your human potential to contribute to the betterment of your family, community and this society, to be controlled solely by others.

We promise to do everything in our power to positively change what your educational paths and schools are like, only we need your help.

First— we need you to honor life. It is never too late to love and respect yourself and decide once and for all, to take ownership over your academic and social lives. We need you to continue to make positive choices and allow your brilliance to shine through everyday, in everything you do. This means you must study, demonstrate self-discipline, Black pride and a personal determination to do what you can to avoid the trouble that seems to be around every urban corner.

Next, we know you are resourceful! We know you have dreams, goals and great ideas. We encourage you to keep following them along a positive path. We need you to step up as a leader in your own life. Do your best to help your parents and/or those whose roofs you live under, and remember to be respectful of our elders— forgiving them even if they aren't especially of you. Stop and consider what they must have endured in their lives to make them who they are. Treat yourself and others kindly, and know that good and decent people come in all colors of the human rainbow.

Please send us an email teaching us about you and the positive things in your life, along with a picture. Let us acknowledge your pride and share your accomplishments with your national Black family.

When we roll-out our Regional Action Groups, get involved and help the NBEA put your ideas and role-modeling to work for other young sisters and brothers.

We are asking you to take control over you— and think very carefully about how you choose to respond to challenges and hardships. Think about your individual power to overcome adversity, remembering that violence begets more violence. Giving up your inner peace because you are carrying hatred and grudges gets you nothing, and takes you no where good. We urge you to do things that invest in your brain, are healthy for your body and give you peace of mind: exercising, practicing a sport and expressing your hurts and hopes through the creative power of music, art, dance, writing and other positive outlets. If you believe in a higher power, invest in your faith. And make time to read everyday. Knowledge really is the base of your power. When you continuously fuel your brain, no one can hijack or steal it away from you. If you don't own a library card, get one. Read the "Autobiography of Malcolm X," even if you've seen the movie. The library will let you download free audio books for your iPod or phone. Hear the true stories of how our oppressed people have endured for centuries and learn what they did to make good and productive lives for themselves. Through the transformational power of books, find those that inspire and allow you to escape to distant lands. Allow yourself to travel the limitless world of your imagination. Hold on to that.

Should the problems you face be more than you can handle, look to your parents and if that's not an option, seek out a caring teacher, religious leader or youth worker in your community to talk to. Don't stop looking for help if any one person lets you down— decide never to give up on yourself.

As we lovingly make this request of you— we know change isn't easy. But we "feel you" and we've got your back. Meanwhile, the NBEA and our allies are fierce in demanding that this nation's schools and system of education implement policies that respect your intelligence, your parents, and your rights.

Again, change will not come easily. Just know that we believe in you— our brilliant, beautiful Black children, and we believe in our united power to make a difference in your lives, schools and communities. Hold onto hope and do your part. We are here for you. Know that we love you because we are you. You belong to us and we belong to you.

Lastly, we need you to know from America's history that every single time Black people in this country have decided to organize and mobilize, the nation has shifted a little more towards freedom and justice for all. That is our undeniable legacy. Our Black education agenda is a movement that will soon make history in this same manner: moving all of us closer to freedom and justice for all.

True that.

Signed, with love, hope and respect,

The members of the National Black Education Agenda

September 8th, 2012

www.theafricanamericanchild.com

This excellent article could just as well been written about Jane Addams — or any of the countless schools that are doing right by their students while being damned by "data" and "statistics" —

http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/mission-high-false-low-performing-school

Everything You've Heard About Failing Schools Is Wrong

Attendance: up. Dropout rates: plummeting. College acceptance: through the roof. My mind-blowing year inside a "low-performing" school.

By Kristina Rizga | September/October 2012 Issue

Illustration by Jon Krause

    "SPEEK EENGLISH, TACO," THE GIRL with the giant backpack yelled when Maria asked where to find a bathroom. The backpack giggled as it bounced down the hall. It had been hours since Maria began looking for a bathroom. Anger boiled inside her, but she didn't know any English words to yell back. That was the hardest part. Back in El Salvador she'd always had something to say.
The bell rang. A flood of shoulders and sneakers swirled around Maria, and she couldn't see much until the sea of strangers streamed back into classrooms. Then she stood alone in the hallway.
It was Maria's first day at school, her first week in the United States. Her middle school in San Francisco was the biggest building she'd ever seen. It was bigger than the entire Best Buy store she'd walked through in awe on her first day in the city.
Eventually, Maria found her way to class, a special setting for Spanish-speaking newcomers. There she would practice English words for colors and numbers, learn how to introduce herself and how to say thank you. By eighth grade she was moved into mainstream classes, where she struggled. It didn't help that her math teacher started each class by saying, "Okay, my little dummies." He spoke really fast. Maria never raised her hand in his class.
One day Maria stopped by the administrative office, looking for someone to help her with multiplication. She took her spot in line behind a middle-aged woman who chatted with her in Spanish as they waited. Maria said school was really hard for her. The woman told her not to worry. "Latinas usually don't finish high school," she said. "They go to work or raise kids."

The woman was right, statistically speaking, and Maria's middle-school experience all but ensured she'd join the 52 percent [1] of foreign-born Latinos who drop out of high school. She graduated from eighth grade without learning to speak English. She had a hard time writing in Spanish and didn't know how to multiply.

And then everything changed. At Mission High, the struggling school she'd chosen against the advice of her friends and relatives, Maria earned high grades in math and some days caught herself speaking English even with her Spanish-speaking teachers. By 11th grade, she wrote long papers on complex topics like desegregation and the war in Iraq. She became addicted to winning debates in class, despite her shyness and heavy accent. In her junior year, she became the go-to translator and advocate for her mother, her aunts, and for other Latino kids at school. In March, Maria and her teachers were celebrating acceptance letters to five colleges and two prestigious scholarships, including one from Dave Eggers' writing center, 826 Valencia [2].

But on the big state tests—the days-long multiple-choice exams that students in California take once a year—Maria scored poorly. And these standardized tests, she understood, were how her school was graded. According to the scores, Mission High is among the lowest-performing 5 percent [3] of schools in the country, and it has consistently failed to meet the ever-rising benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act [4]. The law mandates universal "proficiency" in math and reading by 2014—a deadline that weighs heavily on educators around the nation, since schools that don't meet it face stiff penalties.

IT WAS WITH THESE PENALTIES on his mind that Mission High principal Eric Guthertz got ready for work one morning in 2010. It was his wife's birthday, and also the day California was supposed to release its list of "persistently low-performing" schools—schools that the state deemed as urgently in need of improvement. As he put on his tie, he recalls, "I told my wife, 'I hope we dodged that bullet!' But I was kidding, because I was convinced we wouldn't be on that list. And on my ride to school, I was feeling bad for the principals" who would.

It wasn't long after he got to the office that the phone rang. It was the district. Mission was on the list.

Guthertz was in shock. His teachers had been working so hard, he thought. What would they say? How about the parents, the students? Where would he get extra resources to bring up the numbers? Mission's test scores and college acceptance rates had been going up. But for purposes of the list, that didn't matter.

Maria arrived at Mission barely speaking English. By the time she left she'd been admitted to five colleges. Photo by Lianne Milton

A few months later, Guthertz got another call from the district. This one was of the good news/bad news variety: As a low-performing school, Mission qualified for additional funding—but only if it agreed to undergo a major restructuring [5]. Options included replacing the principal and either revamping the curriculum or replacing half the staff; closing the school; or turning it into a charter. Guthertz had been promoted to his job less than two years earlier, and the district was allowed to report this change to the federal government as a replacement of the principal—a loophole that bought Mission some time. But San Francisco's oldest comprehensive public high school [6], founded in 1890, would still have to show dramatic growth in scores by 2014 or face more interventions, including possible closure.

Around the same time that Guthertz was digesting this news, I was calling education officials in search of a school that would let me spend time inside its classrooms. I was looking for a grassroots view of America's latest run at school reform: How do we know when schools are failing, and why is it so hard to turn them around? Is the close to $4.4 billion spent on testing since 2002—with scores now used for everything from deciding teacher pay to allocating education budgets—getting results? Is all that data helping us figure out what really works, or seducing us into focusing only on what the tests can measure?

If you wonder why you haven't read many accounts of how these questions are playing out in real life, there's a reason: It's easier for a journalist to embed with the Army or the Marines than to go behind the scenes at a public school. It took months to find one that would let me play fly on the wall. Once Guthertz opened the door at Mission, it took months more for some teachers, wary of distortion and stereotyping, to warm to me. In the end, I'd spend more than 18 months in Mission's classrooms, cafeterias, and administrative offices, finally watching the Class of 2012—including a beaming Maria—show off their diplomas.

I'd expected noisy classrooms, hallway fights, and disgruntled staff. Instead I found a welcoming place, satisfied students and parents, and an 88 percent college acceptance rate.

The surprises began almost right away. Judging from what I'd read about "troubled" schools, I'd expected noisy classrooms, hallway fights, and disgruntled staff. Instead I found a welcoming place that many students and staff called "family." After a few weeks of talking to students, I failed to find a single one who didn't like the school, and most of the parents I met were happy too. Mission's student and parent satisfaction surveys rank among the highest in San Francisco.

One of the most diverse high schools in the country, Mission has 925 students holding 47 different passports. The majority are Latino, African American, and Asian American, and 72 percent are poor. Yet even as the school was being placed on the list of lowest-performing schools, 84 percent of the graduating class went on to college, higher than the district average; this year, 88 percent were accepted. (Nationally, 32 percent of Latino and 38 percent of African American students [7] go to college.) That same year, Mission improved Latinos' test scores more than any other school in the district. And while suspensions are skyrocketing across the nation, they had gone down by 42 percent at Mission. Guthertz had seen dropout rates fall from 32 percent to 8 percent. Was this what a failing school looked like?

WHEN MARIA TURNED THREE, SHE stopped hearing the voice of her mother in the mornings. No one explained where she'd gone, but when Maria was seven, her grandmother explained that her mom had crossed three borders to find work in California. Maria and her older brother were raised by her grandparents in the village of San Juan Las Minas in El Salvador. Their aunt Angelica came to visit when she could.

Maria doesn't remember much from those days except for her auntie's soft, soothing voice. Angelica had two children of her own, but she didn't mind when Maria started calling her "mom." When Angelica left, Maria kept to herself. Her grandparents were busy growing vegetables, raising cows and chickens, and looking after Maria, her brother, and four cousins.

Angelica ran a corner liquor store in San Salvador, two hours away. To stay in business, she had to pay off the MS-13 gang each month. They left her alone most of the time, except the day they shot one of her customers in the store. Maria was there. A piece of the man's head dropped on her foot.

Angelica loved escaping the city for Las Minas. "I'm like you, Maria. Like a little girl," she used to say when they played soccer together or climbed the mango trees.

Maria remembers everything about the day of her auntie's funeral. Angelica's tall body in a light wooden coffin beside the kitchen table, surrounded by candles. The scent of wax giving way to the smell of beer and sticky sweat as the day wore on. The 20 strangers in the house, their shiny, shirtless bodies covered in tattoos of letters, numbers, and devil's horns: symbols for MS-13. As the house got hotter, the men's voices grew louder. They started playing poker, roaring at their own jokes.

Maria, now 12, was praying near the coffin. She could see her auntie's dark hair through the white lace covering her face. It had been a week since she'd last heard from her. "Don't worry," Angelica had said. "I'll take care of everything. I'll pay off MS-13."

MAKING THE GRADE

But she couldn't. She didn't have enough money. Three days after that call, she was found at the entrance of a San Salvador hospital, naked and barely alive. The doctors said she'd been raped and tortured for days. There was nothing they could do to save her.

Maria tried to focus on praying, but the men who'd invaded her grandparents' house got louder, throwing cards across the table and spitting on the floors. Maria gathered her courage and walked toward them. "Be respectful or get out of my house!" she shouted. The men's heads turned. For a few moments, the house was quiet. Then the men started laughing.

They left only after Angelica was buried, and they'd taken all of Maria's grandparents' money.

"Why don't you come to America?" Maria's mother asked her on the phone a week after the funeral. She had been talking to her about coming to the States since she was seven. "I'd always say no," Maria recalls. "I loved my auntie more than anything. I didn't want to be in any other country but mine. But when my auntie died, I had no one close left."

Maria was the youngest passenger on the bus crossing El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico toward California. Her mom had paid the coyote $3,000, and Maria's ride was easy. No wandering through the desert. The coyote bought them chicken for dinner every night. At home, her grandparents cooked chicken only when relatives came over on Sunday.

THE FIRST TIME MARIA SET FOOT IN Mission High, she thought it looked like a church. The facade and doorway were decorated with intricate Spanish Baroque moldings. Heavy iron chandeliers adorned the ornate ceiling above the entrance hall. The light glittered on spotless yellow linoleum. As Maria and her middle-school classmates toured the library, courtyards, and cafeteria, she noticed that people seemed friendly. Even the security guards were cracking jokes. Principal Guthertz regaled students with the school's history and famous alumni: Carlos Santana, Maya Angelou. There were after-school programs—the Latino student club, soccer, creative writing. Maria asked a few students if they liked Mission. To her surprise, all of them did.

Everyone Maria knew outside of Mission told her not to go there. Her mother's friends said she should pick a better school. Maria's friends said Mission had gangs.

Guthertz introduced Maria to Amadis Velez, who spoke to her in Spanish. He told her that he'd be her English teacher. On the wall, Maria noticed Velez's diploma from the University of California-Berkeley, surrounded by photos of Frida Kahlo, César Chávez, and Salvador Dalí. "He was so welcoming," Maria remembers. "He kept making jokes about our English, making us laugh. After I met Mr. Velez, I knew I'll be going to Mission."
"She didn't speak a lick of English when she started in my ninth-grade English class," Velez recalls. "That year, there were only two students whose English was worse than Maria's." Velez also noticed that Maria's Spanish grammar was about two years behind her Latino classmates'. Maria was 5 feet tall and weighed about 80 pounds. "She was tiny," Velez remembers, "but very spunky, and her leadership and popularity among students stood out to me right away."
Maria loved that she had a class with Velez every day. He taught her English and geography in the 9th grade, and history in the 10th. He often checked in with her in the afternoon. All kinds of worries kept pouring out in their conversations. Could Velez explain the word tariffs? What's this thing, analysis? Who could teach Maria how to multiply?
"I thought of myself as a really bad student back then," she recalls. "I didn't believe in myself. But Mr. Velez always told me not to give up, to keep going, keep pushing."
One day, Velez sat her down, took out a piece of paper, and started charting her path to college. He said that she needed to transfer into regular English classes as soon as possible to prepare for college. He also explained that California was one of 12 states [8]that allow undocumented students like her to pay resident tuition rather than out-of-state rates, which can be twice as much. Velez said that Maria was not eligible for any government grants or student loans, but there were private scholarships, and he'd help her get them. All of this was possible, he said, if Maria kept her grades up, did all of her homework, and worked twice as hard as her classmates who already knew English. He said he'd be there for her no matter what. He told her to have fun and to laugh a lot.
Most days Maria did well and felt good about her progress. She met with Velez after class to review her grammar and plan for college. He urged her to write more complex sentences. By the end of 10th grade, she was writing essays that didn't fit on one page. She earned an A in Mr. Velez's modern world history class.

Maria's history teacher, Robert Roth, at a picnic celebrating Mission's gain in test scores. Photo by Winni Wintermeyer
Then one morning, over breakfast, she found an envelope on her mother's kitchen table. Inside were the results of the standardized tests she'd taken a few months before. Her stomach tilted. She'd done much worse than she'd anticipated. In history her score was "far below basic," the lowest ranking.
What Maria didn't know was that only 19 percent [9] of Mission High's Latino students scored "proficient or above" in history. The vast majority of Latinos, at Mission High and statewide [10], scored similar to Maria.
She knew that Velez thought she was smart. But this was the first grade she'd gotten from people outside of Mission, and it made her wonder. Was Mr. Velez wrong?

EVERY SPRING ACROSS THE NATION, students in 3rd to 11th grade sit down to take standardized tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Each state comes up with its own tests, based on its own list of curriculum standards students have to master in each grade. In most states, standardized tests consist primarily [11] of multiple-choice questions.

People who fought for these tests wanted to raise expectations for all students. They knew that for decades students of color, the learning disabled, and poor students weren't challenged, often stuck in segregated and underfunded schools and shuffled into vocational training. Education historian Larry Cuban pins the beginning of the move toward high-stakes testing to the passage of theElementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 [12], which sent significant extra funding to low-income schools neglected by local school boards.

By 2001, testing was at the core of a business-inspired approach championed by a loose coalition of corporate leaders like Bill Gates and education officials like Michelle Rhee, the heroine of the documentaryWaiting for "Superman."

The policies were also designed to find out which reforms were improving achievement. "Class size reduction, whole language instruction, everything under the sun has been tried in our schools," Arun Ramanathan, the executive director of the Oakland think tank Education Trust-West [13], told me. "But how could we assess if there are any returns without reliable data? How could we know what we can scale up?"
As more states started using standardized testing, urban education reformers in the '70s and '80s were able to flag the outliers [14]: schools that were reducing the achievement gap between white, middle-class students and students of color and the poor. Cuban believes that this data helped to dismantle the idea that poor, minority, immigrant, or disabled students couldn't learn.
By 2001, when the Bush administration was pushing No Child Left Behind through Congress, testing had undergone a political transformation: Now it was at the core of a business-inspired approach championed by a loose coalition of corporate leaders like Bill Gates [15], idealists like Wendy Kopp [16] of Teach for America, and maverick education officials like Washington, DC, schools chief Michelle Rhee [17], the heroine of the documentaryWaiting for "Superman." Standardized tests, many of these reformers believed, could bring hard-and-fast metrics—and hardcore sanctions—to a complacent world of bureaucrats and teachers' unions. Closures or mass firings at low-performing schools, bonuses for high-scoring teachers, and an expansion of charter schools were supposed to disrupt a system that, in the reformers' view, had failed students and the companies for which they would one day work.
No Child Left Behind was animated by this faith in metrics. It mandated that states use test scores to determine whether schools were succeeding or failing, with the latter required to improve or accept punitive measures. NCLB passed with bipartisan support, and many civil rights groups were behind it.
Ten years later, a growing number [18] of education advocates say they didn't anticipate how high-stakes testing would change instruction for the worse. Among the converts is education historian Diane Ravitch, who served as assistant secretary of education in George H.W. Bush's administration and was an ardent champion of NCLB. "Accountability turned into a nightmare for American schools," she wrote in a 2010 Wall Street Journal op-ed [19], "producing graduates who were drilled regularly on the basic skills but were often ignorant about almost everything else... This was not my vision of good education." In his studies, Cuban has also found that an increasing proportion of lesson time is spent preparing students for tests, and the curriculum is being narrowed to what is on those tests—even though many researchers agree that cramming for multiple-choice, a.k.a. "bubble," tests contributes very little [20] to actual learning.

The godfather of standardized testing warned that test scores were "fallible and partial indicators of academic achievement" and made it "extremely difficult to assess" the key skills people should gain from a good education.

The overwhelming emphasis on testing has led some schools and districts to cheat. An investigation [21] by the state of Georgia last year found widespread test-tampering in Atlanta, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution [22]has identified similar patterns in hundreds of districts nationwide. Some schools have also cranked up discipline and school-based arrests, leading struggling students to drop out [23]—and thus improving scores.
Overall, the last 10 years have revealed that while Big Data can make our questions more sophisticated, it doesn't necessarily lead to Big Answers. The push to improve scores has left behind traditional assessments that, research indicates, work better to gauge performance: classroom work and homework [24], teachers' grades and quizzes, the opinions of students and parents about a school. In his recent book The Social Animal, conservative columnist and veteran education commentator David Brooks identifies this bias [25]—to emphasize and reward what we can measure, and ignore the rest—as a key reason why technocratic promises in social policy have largely failed to materialize. Research, Brooks notes, shows that the key to success is more often found in realms that resist quantification—relationships, emotions, and social norms.
Even the godfather of standardized testing, the cognitive psychologist Robert Glaser [26], warned in 1987 about the dangers of placing too much emphasis on test scores. He called them "fallible and partial indicators of academic achievement" and warned that standardized tests would find it "extremely difficult to assess" the key skills people should gain from a good education: "resilience and courage in the face of stress, a sense of craft in our work, a commitment to justice and caring in our social relationships, a dedication to advancing the public good."

IT WAS EIGHT IN THE MORNING, AND the lights were off in Mr. Roth's history class as winter rain tapped on the windowsills and warm moisture filled the room. In the flickering light of a television screen, Maria could see her friend Brianna breaking small pieces from a muffin and dropping them into her mouth. Maria lowered her chin into her hands. Her right leg, sheathed in dark blue jeans, bounced on the linoleum floor.
On the TV, Paula Crisostomo was waving a protest sign in the face of a police officer and arguing with her father, a Filipino immigrant wearing a blue work shirt. "I told you to stay away from these agitators!" he yelled at Paula. Based on a true story, Walkout captures the 1968 school protests [27] in East Los Angeles. About 22,000 Latino students participated, inspired by a teacher named Sal Castro. (One of them—Antonio Villaraigosa, né Antonio Villar—is now mayor of LA.) Back then, most Latinos were forbidden from speaking Spanish in class. Curricula largely ignored Mexican American history, and Latinos were steered toward menial labor.
In the film, students could be seen shaking the metal gate of their school, locked shut by officials to prevent them from walking out. The students rattled the bars chanting "Viva la Raza!" while police stood on the other side. The gate broke. Maria's entire class erupted in applause as the teens flooded into the street.
After the film ended, Robert Roth switched on the lights and turned to a class sitting in motionless silence. "Any thoughts, anyone?"
"It's incredible to see how courageous Paula was," said a student from Nicaragua named Catharine. "She lost confidence so many times, but whenever she lost it, her friends were there to support her."
"In middle school I was told to speak only English at home," Maria said next. "I think that's wrong. I already do at school. They shouldn't tell me how to live my life."

"I can relate to Paula, how people don't believe Latinos are smart enough for college," Yessenia added. "These stereotypes make me want to prove them wrong."
"Speaking of stereotypes," Brianna said, "I was in the bathroom with five other black girls, and we were fixing our hair. Two Asian American girls come in and they run out right away, thinking that we are going to bully them. I want to fix that. I'm a nice person!"
Roth jumped in, "Rebecca, you were talking to me about this kind of stereotype the other day. Do you mind sharing what you said?"
"When we moved to St. Louis from China," Rebecca said, "we went to an all African American school. My parents were telling me to stay away from black students. They said don't trust them, run away. But they were all really nice to us. A lot of times it's coming from parents, but they just don't know."
At the end of class, Brianna and her friend Destiny came up to Maria. "What's 'Viva la Raza'?"
"It kind of means being proud to be Latino," Maria explained.
"How do you say it?" Brianna asked, and Maria told them. "Viva la Raza! Viva la Raza! Viva la Raza!" the three chanted out loud, fists in the air, laughing.
As students shuffled out, Roth reminded them, "A short reflection on this film is due next time. And please! Don't summarize, analyze. Why is this important? How does it connect to other things we learned?"
The following Monday, Roth passed back his students' homework essays. On Maria's he'd written, "It's a B this time! See me about this, OK?"
Maria showed up at his office the next day. "Some of the stuff you've been writing is so powerful. You are really getting there, Maria," Roth said, lowering his reading glasses and putting down a folder.
"Why isn't it an A then?" Maria half-smiled, and pulled out her homework. "Is it because of bad grammar?" She pointed at Roth's corrections on her paper.
"Look, writing is primarily about ideas," Roth told her. "Language, grammar, and style are important tools to express those ideas. But don't start by focusing on a few grammar mistakes, or you'll get stuck and ignore the bigger issues." He explained why he made certain corrections, but he spent most of the time talking to Maria about the elements he deems essential "to getting your thoughts out": thesis, evidence, analysis, and conclusion. "Did you organize your thoughts in a way that made sense?" he asked her. "Did you back up your opinions with evidence? Did you go deep enough?"
Roth explained to Maria that she'd summarized and discussed Walkout really well, but when it came to analysis and conclusion, her writing seemed rushed. "What are the connections between these protests and the African American struggle for civil rights?" Maria gave a few examples. Roth suggested that she think more about why these efforts were successful. "How did these walkouts change things? Why are we studying this?"
Photo by Lianne Milton
A few weeks later, Maria presented a research paper on equal access to education. While rewriting her essay about Walkout, she'd discovered that some Latino parents were organizing school boycotts even before the onset of the civil rights movement. "Did you know that Mendez v. [28] Westminster [28] happened eight years before Brown v. Board?" Maria announced to her class. In the 1946 case, Latino parents won the first-ever anti-segregation lawsuit in federal courts. "It helped the Brown v. Board attorneys to win their arguments before the Supreme Court," she explained. "The Mendez case was the beginning of the end for Plessy v. Ferguson, which said that 'separate but equal' is fine."

"LISTEN! ONE MORE DAY BEFORE THE big bad test," Roth announced one spring day as he passed out a test that included some practice questions from the California STAR test—the final exam in US history as far as the state was concerned.
Maria and her classmates had been working with their teachers for a month to prepare for the state exams. Principal Guthertz, who has been known to eat live worms in front of students as a reward for higher test scores, promised to get a famous chef to cook a free meal for the entire school if scores went up again, as they had in the past three years.
"All I'm asking you to do is to take it seriously. Do it for the school," Roth said as he passed out the test. "Let's do a quick review together."

Principal Guthertz, who has been known to eat live worms in front of students as a reward for higher test scores, promised to get a famous chef to cook a free meal for the entire school if scores went up again, as they had in the past three years.

"Who was the first Catholic president? Give me three things about the New Deal!" Dozens of students shouted out answers. "You are going to nail this test!"
As Roth retreated to his desk, Maria stared at the rows of empty bubbles. A sharp, pounding pain filled her head. She picked up a pencil and read the first question:
During the late 19th and 20th centuries, urban immigrants generally supported local political machines that:
(a) discouraged the new immigrants from participating in civic affairs.
(b) were usually supported by urban reformers.
(c) provided essential services to the immigrants.
(d) reminded immigrants of political practices in their homelands.
As always, Maria started translating the words into Spanish. Then she got to discouraged. She'd seen the word many times before, but it was usually in a context where she could guess the meaning of the passage without knowing every term. In this short sentence, though, there were no hints.
She tried to remember the word's meaning for a few minutes. Nothing.
Affairs was another word she'd heard before but couldn't remember. She translated the rest of the sentence—new immigrants from participating—but that didn't help. She took a deep breath and translated the rest of the answers. B was a possibility, she thought, but something felt off. C seemed right. But what about A? What if that was really the answer? There was no way of knowing. She filled in C for now.
"Five more minutes, everyone!" Roth interrupted. An ambulance siren wailed outside. Maria had spent too much time on the first five questions, and now she had to rush. She translated another page and randomly bubbled in the rest.
When she switched to the written section of the test, her leg stopped bouncing. When the bell rang, Maria kept writing, and didn't stop until Roth collected the pages from her.
Roth waited until the last student had left the room, and we looked over Maria's test together. She got almost all the answers wrong on the practice multiple-choice section, the only one that would have counted for the state. On Roth's essay question, she got an A+.

IN 2010, LATINOS MADE UP THE majority [29] of California's public school students for the first time. At Mission High, more than half the students are immigrants, and Guthertz says 20 percent have been in the United States for less than two years.
After just one year in the country, Maria had to take the same test as native speakers, even though studies show [30] that immigrant teens take at least four years to become proficient in English—and that's with constant focus. Maria scored "proficient" in history for the first time in the 11th grade.
A look at Maria's schoolwork, on the other hand, is a glimpse at a learner's progress. In the quizzes and tests designed by her teachers, in her research papers, essays, art projects, class discussions, and presentations, what you see is an intellect battling to find its voice: developing research and analytical skills, the ambition and empathy to immerse herself in worlds beyond her own, and the tenacity and confidence to tackle challenging problems and keep rewriting her papers even as she wrestled with the basics of her new language.
Roth has been teaching in inner-city schools for 24 years. He has been able to find ways to cover most of the core standards for the high-stakes testing without neglecting courage, craft, intellectual curiosity, and justice. But he struggles to keep the balance, and study after study shows that's true for many teachers. At Mission High, many teachers told me that there is simply no way to cover all of the standards while also maintaining a rich curriculum and actual research projects.
Yet despite a mountain of evidence that standardized tests reveal a very narrow slice [31] of information, in most states they still determine a school's fate. In some, such as New York [32], students' scores on the standardized tests also play a major role in grade promotion and high school placement. And in several states [33], up to 50 percent of the evaluations that determine teachers' job security and sometimes pay are based on a week's worth of tests rather than a year's worth of learning.
In the broader context of education reform, standardized testing data has been seen as absolute proof of specific policies' effectiveness. Pick up almost any news story on education—whether it is about charter schools, teacher bonuses, class sizes, or teacher unions—and the go-to evidence is gains or losses on the tests without regard for other measures, even easily available quantitative data such as dropout rates, student attendance, teacher attrition, or college enrollment rates.

It's not that reporters are blind to the other factors. Just like overworked school administrators, they simply use the data everyone talks about. And while the perspective of actual teachers and students might provide more nuance, there are few opportunities for exploring them. Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi noted in an essay for the American Journalism Review [34] that access to schools has been greatly constrained as administrators, fearful of sanctions, increasingly seek to control the message. It doesn't help that most of today's newsrooms simply can't afford to let a reporter spend time in a school for a month, let alone a year, as I did for Mother Jones. It's more efficient to look up scores online and make a few phone calls.

Given all that, it's no surprise that much of the debate is reduced to stereotypes. Waiting for "Superman" is a perfect distillation of education clichés, pitting charter schools run by enthusiastic reformers against sclerotic unions and incompetent administrators.

Just like overworked school administrators, education reporters simply use the data everyone talks about. Most newsrooms simply can't afford to let a reporter spend time in a school for a month, let alone a year, as I did forMother Jones. It's more efficient to look up scores online and make a few phone calls.

"I have seen about 20 rounds of classroom reform in my teaching career," Roth told me recently. "You know what I haven't seen? Serious dialogue with teachers, students, and parents. They can identify successful teaching, but they are rarely a part of the discussion."

Seeking alternatives to high-stakes testing doesn't mean giving ineffective teachers a pass, Roth added. "With all of that testing money floating around, I hope education reformers can spend some of it on finding a more holistic instrument"—one that would include a wide range of hard data as well as a deep look at student work.

ONE DAY AS WE SAT ON A CURB NEAR her mother's apartment, Maria told me she'd learned more in her years at Mission than ever before. "I'm shy," she said. "I don't speak that much in other classes, but Mr. Roth teaches me how to do it. He taught me that it's okay to argue even when I still have a lot of questions. As long as I give examples, support my point, and stay with it. Before, I would give up easily and not defend my point of view." Beaming, she added, "Now I argue, and I love winning."

But while debating was one of Maria's favorite things about school, she spent most of her time in Roth's class researching and writing papers. "That's how I prepare for the debates and learn how to express myself clearly."

"Mr. Roth tells me that I will get an A, if I am dedicated to working on my weaknesses," she told me. "What I really like is that he shows me exactly how I improve each time. In the past two years, I've seen Mr. Roth probably a thousand times to discuss each written assignment."

Maria told me that she used the textbooks to make an outline of important dates, names, and events, and to look up definitions of new words like "laissez-faire." She used the outlines to write papers. But Maria didn't remember many of these facts from year to year. What she did recall were her research papers, presentations, and art posters.

She plugged a small memory card into my laptop to show me what she'd learned.

"Oh, I really liked this one," she exclaimed, opening a paper titled "Latinos in the 1920s." As her class focused on the Roaring '20s, Maria found that Latino dances like the bolero, rumba, and tango were entering mainstream American culture. This led her to research Hollywood, where she made her favorite discovery. "Dolores del Río was the first Mexican movie star to gain interest to white audiences," she wrote in her paper. "Dolores showed the world that height does not matter at all if you want to be an actor, because she was very famous and beautiful even though she was very short like me!"

TEACHING TO THE FORMULA

Wonder how test scores are used to figure out if a teacher is any good? This equation, put together by Mathematica Policy Research for the Washington, DC, public schools, might terrify or reassure you, depending on your faith in multiple-regression models. It estimates a teacher's "value added"—the difference between test scores predicted on the basis of students' characteristics (such as poverty, special-ed status, or attendance) and how kids actually perform in a particular class. —Erika Eichelberger [35]

"Last year, I became really interested in African American history and their struggles," she explained, clicking through presentation files on Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, Ella Baker, and W.E.B. Du Bois. "Learning about this motivates me not to give up." She opened a "Reconstruction Defeated" paper from the previous year. "I wanted to find out how did government justify treating African Americans unfairly with Jim Crow even though the Constitution said that all men and women were equal," she told me. "Through this paper, I became really interested in the 14th and 15th Amendment."

As I handed the memory card back to her, Maria said that as a sophomore she'd been determined to go back to her middle school to find the woman who'd told her that she'd never go to college. With her senior year under way, there was simply no time for that. She'd soon be filling out college applications and had recently been elected Latino student club president. She helped new immigrants at school. She also volunteered at a senior housing project through the Latino club, helping older neighbors. "And in my free time, I babysit my little cousins," she told me. "From now on, I only have time to talk with you over lunch at school."

ONE DAY THIS PAST SPRING AS I lingered in Roth's room after class, a young teacher rushed in. "Robert, I've been teaching for years, but I'm really struggling this semester." Her students' grades were not showing any progress, she said, and they seemed to be losing interest. As the two looked over her grading book together, they realized she was attaching most of the grade to homework assignments and wasn't giving significant points on the work students did in her class. Those assignments showed that they were learning, but since her struggling students only saw the Fs on their homework, their engagement was dropping.

"I'm a history teacher. I believe in systemic change and macro-level conversations. But what most people don't realize is that biggest reform at schools lives at the micro level, and it has to do with improving the craft of teaching."

Roth's colleague, Pirette McKamey, has been teaching English and history for 24 years and is now the instructional reform facilitator at Mission High. She calls this kind of one-on-one mentoring "mucking in the dirt." "Every day, there are hundreds of small intellectual conversations all over the school about student work," explains McKamey. Along with Roth, she also co-leads a committee focused on improving achievement for kids of color, in which faculty review student work and grading policies and read the latest research. "What did the kid write? What did the kid produce?" McKamey says. "That's all that should matter."

An ample body of research shows that this kind of mentoring and peer review helps teachers figure out ways for struggling students to improve. But it doesn't show up in standardized tests—and for many, it's pushed aside by the constant battle to ratchet up scores.

Before NCLB there was a movement [36] in many states, including California, to come up with reliable, unified rubrics for using classroom work to measure achievement—to move toward a mix of standardized tests and teacher assessments, something shared by most of the world's top-performing school systems, from Finland to Hong Kong. But that effort got largely steamrolled by NCLB's focus on high-stakes testing.

"I'm a history teacher," Roth says. "I believe in systemic change and macro-level conversations. But when it comes to schools, what most people don't realize is that it's about work at the micro level. The biggest reform at schools lives at the micro level, and it has to do with improving the craft of teaching."

There are some signs of a shift at the macro level. In 2009, President Obama asked [37] states to "develop standards and assessments that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st-century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity." The federal government has allocated $330 million for developing tests for a new set of standards, known as Common Core [38], that will hit classrooms in 2015. Supporters say that while the new tests will still include multiple-choice questions, they will also offer some opportunities for writing, and the lists of standards will be shorter, leaving teachers more freedom.

But many education experts are skeptical. A recent Brookings Institution study [39] finds no correlation at all between the testing standards and student achievement. Even Common Core advocates such as Ramanathan concede that there's a disconnect. "California has long been considered to have some of the best standards in the nation," he says, "but we also have some of the worst student outcomes."

Roth, who has been coaching fellow teachers for two decades, told me that standards can act as a "political security blanket" and a general guideline, but they can't help teachers with the more important tasks: figuring out how to apply the material in the classroom and gathering evidence to measure real understanding. Roth's filing cabinets are filled with different lesson plans. But every year, he creates another folder for each class, and approximately 50 percent of the material is new. He then adjusts everything throughout the year based on what works with his students.

I observed the same in other successful classrooms at Mission. "I adjust my lessons and tests every day," says a popular young math teacher named Taica Hsu. "The student body changes every semester, and what worked last year most likely won't work next year."

The Obama administration has softened some of NCLB's impact, granting waivers [40] to more than half of the states from the law's most punitive section, which calls for all students to score "proficient" in math and English by 2014. But even in the waiver states, standardized tests [41] remain the dominant measure for schools.

MIDWAY THROUGH MARIA'S SENIOR year in 2012, she was watching Waiting for "Superman" in Mr. Velez's college expository writing class. They were learning about achievement gaps, test scores, teacher unions, charter schools, and different solutions offered to "fix" schools like Mission. In one scene, DC's Michelle Rhee was shown firing the principal of a low-scoring school, and then the film cut to scenes of teachers and parents protesting school closures.

"Which facts in the movie shocked you?" Velez probed as the movie ended.

"What we spend on prison inmates," one student called out.

"Why is it so hard to fire a bad teacher?" said another, visibly upset.

"I was shocked how low test scores [42] are in California and DC," added a student with big headphones around his neck.

"California test scores are low, but the movie didn't mention we have the most immigrants here," countered a classmate. "Our English scores are bad, but that doesn't mean our school is bad."

"What would you do to fix schools?" Velez asked. Students took turns calling out responses as Velez wrote down their suggestions on a whiteboard: Make the tests more meaningful…Allow our teachers to write these tests…Don't test immigrant students in the first two years…Give more money to public schools in California…Make it easier to fire bad teachers…Ask students which schools are good and bad…

"Will they close Mission like those schools in DC?" Maria asked.

The shouting stopped.

"We won't let them," another kid responded, and the class burst out laughing. Velez kept writing.

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Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/mission-high-false-low-performing-school

Links:
[1] http://blog.chron.com/immigration/2010/05/52-percent-of-adult-latino-immigrants-are-drop-outs/
[2] http://826valencia.org/
[3] http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/pl/tier2.asp
[4] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:HR00001:@@@D&summ1&
[5] http://data.ed.gov/grants/school-improvement-grants
[6] http://mhs-sfusd-ca.schoolloop.com/aboutmhs
[7] http://www.pewhispanic.org/2011/08/25/hispanic-college-enrollment-spikes-narrowing-gaps-with-other-groups/
[8] http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/immig/in-state-tuition-and-unauthorized-immigrants.aspx
[9] http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2010/ViewReport.asp?ps=true&lstTestYear=2010&lstTestType=C&lstCounty=38&lstDistrict=68478-000&lstSchool=3834082&lstGroup=5&lstSubGroup=78
[10] http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2010/ViewReport.asp?ps=true&lstTestYear=2010&lstTestType=C&lstCounty=&lstDistrict=&lstSchool=&lstGroup=5&lstSubGroup=78
[11] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/406650-gao-nclb-report
[12] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/406651-esea-of-1965
[13] http://www.edtrust.org/west
[14] http://www.motherjones.com/documents/406652-history-of-testing
[15] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204485304576641123767006518.html
[16] http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/how-micromanaging-educators-stifles-reform/255543/#
[17] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-rhee/why-im-proud-of-student-a_b_848560.html
[18] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-usa-education-testing-idUSBRE85B0EO20120612
[19] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575109443305343962.html
[20] http://edpolicy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/beyond-basic-skills-role-performance-assessment-achieving-21st-century-standards-learning_4.pdf
[21] http://gov.georgia.gov/00/press/detail/0,2668,165937316_172445682_173112104,00.html
[22] http://www.ajc.com/news/cheating-our-children-suspicious-1397022.html
[23] http://advancementproject.org/sites/default/files/Federal%20Policy%20ESEA%20Reauthorization%20and%20the%20School-to-Prison%20Pipeline%20-%2003%2009%2011.pdf
[24] http://educationnext.org/portfolio-assessment/
[25] http://www.npr.org/2011/03/07/134329412/david-brooks-defines-the-new-social-animal
[26] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/us/robert-glaser-cognitive-psychologist-and-expert-on-student-testing-dies-at-91.html
[27] http://www.pomona.edu/magazine/PCMSP08/FSmaninthemiddle.shtml
[28] http://library.fullcoll.edu/friends/pdfs/Aguirre-MendezvWestminster.pdf
[29] http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Latino-kids-now-majority-in-state-s-public-schools-3166843.php
[30] http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/scmsAdmin/uploads/004/297/AERJ%202008.pdf
[31] http://dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=156
[32] http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/23/more-parents-are-saying-no-to-pearsons-field-tests/
[33] http://www.nctq.org/p/publications/docs/nctq_stateOfTheStates.pdf
[34] http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=5280
[35] http://www.motherjones.com/authors/erika-eichelberger
[36] http://edpolicy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/beyond-basic-skills-role-performance-assessment-achieving-21st-century-standards-learning_3.pdf
[37] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/fact-sheet-race-top
[38] http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards
[39] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/newsletters/0216_brown_education_loveless.pdf
[40] http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/26-more-states-and-dc-seek-flexibility-nclb-drive-education-reforms-second-round
[41] http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/nclb-waivers-could-signal-attempts-by-obama-to-undermine-law/
[42] http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2011/2012457.pdf

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