[AAACE-NLA] Freire and Standardized testing

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Folks,

There is a nice article in today's New York Times (available online) that includes both Freire and standardized testing.

It's under "Education," "On Education," by Freedman.

The school is elementary, in Georgia (hello, Art!).

It seems to encapsulate, or integrate, two of the dilemmas we have talked about here.  As a former school teacher and administrator, it feels right;  other  reactions?

Finding a father at the local laundromat and getting him to participate in educating his daughter;  talking to the priest and getting him to change church class times, seems like working with the boundaries of the local problem, very much in the Freirian tradition--also, the Kozol position in "Illiteracy in America."

The difficulty for us, of course, is that attendance is not mandated for adults.

Also, without  a national system many efforts are ad hoc and patchwork.  Read the many emails here and one must be struck by the multiplicity of efforts and contributing organizations.  The structure seems to come in the funding  and whatever measures for accountability are used.  If one really tried to map adult education efforts in a comprehensive way I think one would go mad.

Andrea