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480 in the collection
Letter From an Atlanta Meeting
by Tim Babbidge
Coalition for Better Education
On March 17th in downtown Atlanta, in an auditorium on the campus of Georgia State University, a group of educational activists came together to continue the ongoing work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Just as Dr. King had a dream of a nation where his children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, so too did this group have a dream. They dreamed of a nation where their children, where all children, would be judged by the content of their characters as well, and not by their scores on seriously flawed and culturally biased standardized tests.
The Educator Roundtable group meeting that day was not a large one. It was probably about the same size as the groups that began meeting some fifty years ago to plan the demise of the Jim Crow system that had replaced slavery. Like the members of those other groups fighting against oppression and the unjust exercise of power, the members of the Educator Roundtable faced an implacable foe with enormous power. However, like those who came before them, this hardy band of sisters and brothers also believed in what that great champion of American underdogs, Eleanor Roosevelt, had both preached and practiced. The only fights truly worth fighting are those that you can’t possibly win, but somehow manage to do so anyway.
Unlike the groups above, this group had the benefit of the weight of history on its side. They knew, they could not forget given the city in which they met, that another band of underdogs had managed to toss the Jim Crow system onto the ash heap of history where it belonged. They knew that those dedicated groups of civil rights activists had succeeded despite the enormous forces arrayed against them, despite the chorus of naysayers who said that these things could not, should not, be done. In the core of their beings, they knew what those civil rights activists had known, that school systems could not be separate and equal, whether that separation was based on race or on test scores.
Like the groups above, this group was mainly composed of those anonymous folks never mentioned in history books, those folks however, without whom the great events that created great men would never have occurred. There was the professor who organized the meeting, one who put his professional position and status on the line by publicly opposing the educational tyranny that is high stakes standardized testing. There were the inner city teachers who had come two thirds of the way across the continent to speak out against that same tyranny. They had also put their professional positions and status on the line to publicly oppose the mighty, and mightily wrong, position of the National Educational Association on high stakes standardized testing. Finally, there was the parent who had come to Atlanta on her own with no organization to support her, but who, like parents everywhere, was willing to do whatever it took to secure the blessings of public education for her children.
There was one “celebrity” at the event, Susan Ohanian, author of many books on the subject of the damage being done by high stakes standardized testing and the corporate standardization of American education, a folly epitomized by the disaster foisted upon American schools, the hypocritically named No Child Left Behind Act. With her presence and inspiring words, she fulfilled a role as old as time itself, a role played by Dr. King himself, the role of public witness to the abuses of power.
No great plans were laid on this St. Patrick’s Day. No vast sums of money were raised, no armies of volunteers were assembled. Simple people told powerful stories of educational injustices, of children, teachers, and parents abused by the forces of money and political power. They also told stories of injustices resisted by other simple people and of the retributions exacted upon those who dared to stand up for the rights of the educationally oppressed. Those retributions were not as physically violent as those faced by the civil rights activists in whose footsteps they trod, but they were retributions equally unjust.
There was consensus reached that this was a struggle against the forces of money, e.g. the many multiple billions of dollars in public school funding being greedily eyed by the powerful princes of American capitalism. There was also consensus reached that as powerful a motive as that greed was, there was also another enormously powerful motive, one equally eternal. That was the lust for power, the desire by bureaucrats, politicians, and corporate bean counters to centralize control of our nation’s schools in Washington, D.C. and in the corporate boardrooms of New York City. This second motive behind an ever increasing reliance on high stakes standardized testing would remove the control over our nation’s schools from where it had always resided, within the local communities in which our schools, our kids, our teachers, our parents, and all other average citizens resided. This plan for centralized control had already been specifically spelled out in the latest corporate assault on public education, the infamous “Tough Choices or Tough Times” report, with its specific recommendation for the abolition of local school boards.
This meeting ended, as no doubt did many of the above, over food and drink, with both tears and laughter. New friends exchanged addresses and old friends renewed their vows of resistance and allegiance to the cause. All present knew that this would be a long and difficult struggle, but all were renewed in their determination to succeed by the energy created on this special day.
This reporter especially remembered that in his lifetime there had been another foe of democracy vanquished and an iron curtain of oppression lifted. If Communism, a system based upon schools that trained students by rote and regimentation, by massive use of standardized testing, and not the educational freedom of independent thought, could be vanquished by the bright light of free speech, so too could this new and dangerous tyranny being imposed upon American schools be vanquished as well. We shall overcome.
— Tim Babbidge
Educator Roundtable meeting
2007-04-02
INDEX OF NEWS ITEMS Pages: 24
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