By John Whitfield

Susan Ohanian spoke at the Twenty-Ninth Annual Statewide Conference for Teachers of Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students on January 25th and 26th in Oakbrook, Illinois. She spoke on the Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy (DIBELs) Madness and the threat of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Above: Susan Ohanian presented two sessions on January 25 and January 26 for Illinois bilingual educators. Substance photo by John Whitfield.

Susan’s presentation was a call to action, as she presented her insider’s look at the inadequacy of the NAEP reading assessment, and why you should care.

Ms. Ohanian, the author of more than a dozen books, representative of the Vermont Society for the Study of Education, and the “Resistance News” editor for Substance, spoke of the motives and the real agenda of corporate America, and why they are bashing our public schools. Much of her talk has also appeared in her book (with Kathy Emery) “Why is Corporate America Bashing our Public Schools?” and in her monthly articles here in Substance.

One of the first things Ohanian did was remind “Blue State” listeners from places like Illinois that the problem we face with high-stakes testing has had bipartisan support. Long before a bipartisan coalition made “No Child Left Behind” the law of the land, the same pressures to misuse standardized tests in the name of “school reform” had already swept Chicago, which began this regime in 1995 when Mayor Daley took over the city’s public schools.

“The “Testocrats” have not arisen from a right wing conspiracy,” Ohanian said. “Though George Bush Sr. had a plan in the late 1980’s, Bill Clinton, as governor of Arkansas, took part in Bush senior’s ‘Education 2000 Summit.’” Clinton wanted something national, and now the NCLB with teeth is just a reinforcement of those previous agendas. The original votes for “No Child Left Behind” came from Republicans and Democrats. Clinton praised Richard Daley’s Chicago version of “school reform” in his State of the Union messages in the late 1990s, long before “No Child Left Behind” had a name and more than a thousand pages of text.

Susan pointed out that professional levels (“standards”) that were way too high were as much an attack on public schools that serve all children as the testing programs (“accountability”) that enforce them. She also maintains that the majority of teachers and parents oppose these perversions when they are presented honestly, but that our voices are drowned out by corporate media voices and manipulation when we dare complain.

“They talk about, ‘jobs for the global economy’, but in reality jobs are basically the same,” she said. As she and other critics have noted, many of the high-tech jobs that supposedly require strict high school “standards” are being outsourced to Asia. They are leaving the USA not because there are more trained people in other nations, but because (mostly) American corporations can pay people in places like India or China far less for the same work. In her work, Ohanian challenges people to think behind every cliché currently being spread as part of corporate “school reform.”

Ohanian took on many of the critics of American public education who are funded by the same corporations. In particular, she cited the “Education Trust” which constantly is quoted in the corporate media about the “Achievement Gap.”

“Education Trust says a high school diploma is worthless,” she said. But, Ohanian counters, ”the rest of your life may be worthless without one.” She notes regularly that many of the strict “standards” now mandated under “No Child Left Behind” are simply forcing students who once followed vocational and other tracks to leave high school.

Though Susan agrees that college education isn’t for everybody, a huge number of kids are being pushed out, and not allowed to pass. And people in the service industries are not being paid a living wage.

She cites an example familiar to readers of Substance. For example, 522 African American students in Birmingham, Alabama were pushed out of high school after the state of Alabama threatened to take over their schools because of high numbers of “failures” on standardized tests. Test scores went up because the kids who were scoring lowest were kicked out of school. In response, one Birmingham activist protested and was fired from a teaching job there. He went on to found an alternative school called “World of Opportunity” (WOO) to serve those students who were pushed out by Birmingham to raise the public high schools’ test scores.

Susan said she learned from her friend, Steve Orel (who speaks five languages) not to use the word “dropout.” Many kids drop out because of poverty and many are forced out, as they were in Birmingham. [A discussion of this question began in the Letters section of the January Substance].

She also warned her audiences to beware of the current national move to use DIBELS with young children. To take a closer look at DIBELs, go to http://usse.net/dibels (not the official), and / or “DIBELs, What it is, and What it does”, edited by Ken Goodman, to find out how this instrument has impacted children’s lives. The DIBELs information is free and can be downloaded.

The Orwellian abuses of language are not limited to discussions of national security or the War in Iraq, but are also a major part of the current situation facing public schools. One needs to watch out for “weasal” (suspect) words such as “highly qualified teacher”, and “education reform”. “Just what are they reforming? “ Ohanian asked her audience.

One thing that hit home for me was Susan saying beware of the word “rigor.” Many of us in Chicago have been told to make our classes more rigorous. Is “rigorous” always what children need? If you think “rigor” is a good thing look it up, as Ohanian did. You’ll find it defined, “a cruel act, cruelty, severity of life.” Her discussion got me to thinking about my ESL classes from the previous year, misleadingly trying to ratchet up the English class work because of administrative orders, which only turned the kids off. I wore them out, and they lost interest.

She pointed out that a major problem facing all teachers is the use of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). As she has reported previously in Substance, she noted that Florida Governor Jeb Bush was on the NAEP board. NAEP — the National Assessment of Educational Progress — is unthinkingly called “the nation’s report card” by many in the media who don’t examine what NAEP reports and why. It is a matter of anything that will allow the private sector to take over public education. What is happening needs to be documented. Susan thinks the tide is turning, because more people are speaking out.

Susan ended talking about “the Librarian of Basra”, by Jeanette Winter, an account of how a heroic librarian who saved some books. The book was passed around. The scene was March 2003. “Shock and Awe” was in full swing in Iraq. Everyone knew, thanks to the American media monopolies, that Saddam Hussein had to be overthrown because he had “WMDs” (weapons of mass destruction). “Embedded” reporters travelling with soldiers turned the death and destruction into something like a high-adrenaline video game.

Iraq — under various names — has been a place with a history that can be traced back more than 2,500 years. Books and historical records have always been treasured there. The Bush administration’s main ally in the Iraq invasion and occupation, Great Britain, was moving on the city of Basra in southern Iraq. Knowing that British troops were coming and that Iraqi soldiers were on the roof top of her library, the librarian knew that the library would be the scene of a battle. Though the library burned to the ground, the librarian of Basra managed to save 30,000 books.

Susan Ohanian was in Chicago to remind us that now it is for us to rescue our profession. Her website is: www.susanohanian.org.