November 12, 2004

• Day #6
  Coalition of Essential Schools fall Forum
  “Equitable Schools for a new Democracy”

  Quotes:

  Ted Sizer – founder

  “personalization of teaching is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”
  “high-stakes testing is blatant malpractice”
  “we must be clear in our words, and transparant in our actions.”

  Lewis Cohen – new President CES

  “deeply concerned that those who voted for Bush believed that Saddam
  was involved in 9/11 and had WMD’s, despite all the evidence, including
  Bush himself, saying that these things were not true…what does this
  say about our system of education?”
  “The education system has been designed to sort us, maintain the status quo of wealth and power”
  “Are students being handed pre-conceived truths, packaged for rote
  memorization, or the real tools to become powerful and informed
  citizens?  This is the question we face today, the crossroads we
  are at.”
  “CES educators are the torch bearers for the Enlightenment.”

  Lani Guinier – Harvard Law School prob.

  “My theme for tonight is learning from losing…stepping back from the
  expericne to understand the failure without labeling yourself a
  failure” (referring to Kerry’s loss, as well as to students’ failures”

  “We need to not re-double our efforts, but examine the rules of the game.”

  “The title of this conference is equitable schools in a new
  democracy…but the question is, are we even living in a
  democracy?  On CNN, a news reporter was praising the electoral
  college as a way to give minorities a voice.  Do you know the
  history behind the electoral college?  It was created to maintain
  the status quo on slavery! Slaves were considered to be 3/5 of a
  person, this helped the south inflate its population, and therefor the
  number of representatives it had, and therefor the number of electoral
  college votes.  It’s not surprising that 50 of the first 72 years
  of the electoral college, we had white southern slave owning
  presidents!”

  “Democracy is about the opportunity to participate in making choices, not simply saying “yay or nay” to politicians.”

  “What do we learn from losing?  We learn to RE-INVENT the connection between participation and education.”

  “Building paths to participation in a meaningful democracy…this is what education needs to be, not learning to take a test.”

  Talking about law school… “The socratic method used in law school
  does not make sense anymore.  It was used in a time when most
  lawyers were litigators, that is no longer the case.” 

  “The LSAT is a poor predictor of law school success.”

  This was my first time in such a big community of educators. 
  Usually, when I would be in a room like that, it was for some Jewish
  holiday, or in class with studetns, or a sports event, but no…this
  was real.  This was an opportunity to have my beliefs re-affirmed
  through this amazing organization that is in its 20th year of working
  to make every school small and personalized.

  Well…people are waiting for the internet…more updates to come.
  -dan

  • 1:38 am
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