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WGA Strike puts stopper on new
episodes of many popular shows
By Alana Gibson
Staff Writer
Television is fast approaching disarray.
Before the writer's strike, students sat
comfortably in dorm rooms and lounges
across campus loyally following their
favorite television shows. Now many sit,
eyes scrunched and fingers crossed, hoping
that Grey's Anatomy got in as many scripts
as they could before the strike. They cry
alone at night without The Word from The
Colbert Report.
The bedlam is over contract negotiations
between Writer's Guild of America (WGA)
and Alliance of Motion Picture and
Television Producers (AMPTP). The focus is
new media content. Writers of the evolving
webisodes would like to get paid when their
material is watched.
"What we must have is a contract that
gives us the ability to keep up with the
financial success of this ever-expanding
global industry," Patric M. Verrone,
president of WGA, said to Time magazine.
Picketers from Hollywood to New York
lined up to protest, BlackBerrys and water
bottles close at hand.
"Who's got the Power?" was hollered
through a bullhorn in Los Angeles.
"No money? No do\A^oads. No
downloads? No peace," was chanted in
Rockefeller Center, New York.
Picketers included Tina Fey, the creator
of NBC's 30 Rock and Steven Peterman, an
executive producer of Hannah Montana. A
handful of shows like Two and a Half Men,
and The View have also felt the wrath of
this strike.
What does this mean for the weekly
gatherings that take place across campus, as
viewers anticipate each week's cliff-hanger?
Re-runs and reality television seem the only
consolation.
The last industry-wide strike, in 1988, left
thousands of people out of work, and some
estimates claimed strike-related losses as
high as $500 million.
J. Nicholas Counter, president of the
Producer's Alliance, said to the New York
Times, "We were on strike for five months in
1988. The issues this time are more difficult
L Picketers at a WGA rally In Culver City, CA on Nov. 9
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and more complex."
Now, media is in much more competition
regarding viewer's attention with the
advancement of the Internet, and invention
of MP3 players, and DVD's. Face it, there
are better things to do.
Viewers can . expect more foreign
programming from international writers
not covered by the WGA, or they can
expect to be bombarded with more tasteless
material until an agreement in made. If
worst comes to worst the remote just might
get substituted for a good, old-fashioned
book.
NCLB
Continued from page I
our most challenging schools."
This proposal has been criticized as
an attempt to displace accountability
from the state to individual teachers.
"I think (providing incentives
based on test scores) makes a really
negative impact on teachers," said
A^stant Professor of education
studies Julie Burke. "In my experience
as a teacher in public school and as a
teacher-educatorit's very detrimental.
It causes a whole chain reaction of
unsustainable pressure that gets
put on the kids because the teachers
have pressure on them because the
principals have pressure on them,
because the superintendents have
pressure on them."
The Bush administration
introduced NCLB in 2001 in an effort
to increase the accountability of
teachers for their students' progress,
and provide parents more fre^om
in selecting ^eir child's school. It
emphasized reading and math skills
and mandated that all children read
at grade level by 2014.
"Seems like a reasonable thing to
ask, to have every child reading at
grade level by 2014, or being able to
do math at grade level by 2014," said
Bush in a recent statement addressing
his plans for reauthorization. "So
now is the time not to roll back
the accountability or water down
standards."
Individual states are required to
develop standardized assessments
in math, reading, and as of this
school year, science, to be given to all
students in a particular grade.
An adequate yearly progress
(AYP) for each school is assessed and
funding is based on which schools
have shown improvement.
"Measuring results helps teachers
catch problems early, so children
who need help - extra help can
get that help," Bush said. "In other
words, you can't determine whether
a child needs extra help unless you
measure."
Critics of the AYP system claim
that schools with large populations
of students with social or cultural
badcgrounds that set them at a
disadvantage are the ones that
need extra funding to attract better
teachers and tutoring programs, and
their test scores may not qualify them
to benefit from extra federal funding.
'Tf you want to improve student
performances instead of penalizing
teachers
and penalizing the schools
by taking away money because
they're not meet the average yearly
improvement they need to throw
money at those schools to provide
tutors and resource officials," said
Assistant Professor of Political
Science Robert Duncan.
The National Education
Assodation(NEA)hasbeenespecially
critical of the AYP requirement and
has asked Congress to re-evaluate its
effectiveness.
The NEA Web site states, "The
adequate yearly progress (AYP)
formula is a highly inaccurate and
arbitrary yardstick for measuring
progress. TTie law sets predetermined
benchmarks for students' proficiency
without taking into account schools'
starting points. Furthermore, its
testing of students with disabilities
and English language learners is
neither valid nor reliable."
Many scholars believe that the
requirement to fulfill testing quotas
encourages teachers to "teach to
the test," focusing on a narrow area
of skills specific to scoring high on
the state's standardized tests. States
develop their own standardized
tests, which means they can make
the contort less challenging to boost
their scores. A study done by the
Department of Education in 2007
indicated tiiat the rigor of the states'
tests account for most of the observed
diffoences in scores between states.
In order to provide proof of
improvement NCLB has strongly
emphasized statistics and test scores.
'Tt turns knowledge that's
worffi knowing into a measurable
commodity," Burke said.
In shaving the curriculums down
to the borre, "core" knowledge, not
coincidentally knowledge that is
measurable by a number such as
math and reading skills is now taking
up time that us^ to be reserved for
history, art, music, and social and
cultui^ exploration.
"We've lost a lot of opportunities
for kids to develop on a social level,"
said Associate Professor of Education
Studies David Hildreth. "Right
now (kids are) being expected to
do things that take away from their
opportunities to play, to be creative,
and to mess about. It's good to have
high expectations, without a doubt,
but not at the expense of a kid's being
a kid."
Under NCLB, schools are given
incentives tomeetyearly achievement
requirements and receive bonuses
for scoring exceptionally high. Some
scholars claim that this rewards
system provides an incentive for
schools to push out disadvantaged
and non-English speaking students.
Many parents have argued tlrat
under the pressure of NCLB, teachers
are not differentiating among
different student ability levels. They
focus their efforts on tiiose students
who are performing below the
standard, b^use that is where the
incentive lies.
"Because it's all about bringing
people up to that minimum level of
performance, we've ignored those
high-ability learners," said Nancy
Green, executive director of the
District-based National Association
for Gifted Children, to the Washington
Post. "We don't even have a test that
measures their abilities."
One of the chief criticisms of
NCLB is that is has been severely
under-funded. On one side, federal
funding for education increased
almost 60 percent between 2000-
2003. However, Bush's budget for
2008 includes $61 billion for the
Department of Education, a $1 billion
cut from 2007's allotted budget.
"The government's not putting its
money where its mouth is," Duncan
said. "You could probably cancel
one B-2 bomber and pay for this for
years."
Many states have struggled
finand^y to keep up with the
demands for highly qualified teachers
and rigorous tutoring programs that
are required under NCLB.
"Why should states have to spend
their own money to promote and to
implement federal mandates," said
Reg Weaver, president of the NEA.
The Bush administration maintains
that statistically, the achievement gap
in reading in math between minority
students and white students has
been slowly but surely dosing.
According to NAEP assessments,
math scores for fourth and dghth
graders have reached all-time highs,
and reading progress for nine-year-
olds has improved more in the
past five years than in the previous
28 years combined. Bush and his
administration remain resolute that
the program is working, though they
adniit it is "a work in progress."
"In theory it's a great idea, because
who would want to leave a child
behind?" Hildreth said. "Tlie actual
implementation of that has not been
followed through very thoughtfully.
There has not been enough funding
and enough research about how to
best do that."
Whether or not NCLB gets
reauthorized this year is still up
in the air. Without the bipartisan
support that the act initially had in
2003, and in wake of the critidsms
it has received from respected
organizations like ATF, NEA and the
National Health Assodation, which
daims that the profound pressures
put on the teasers and students
is creating unhealthy dassroom
environments. Bush may have a hard
time pushing the renewed NCLB
through congress.
"The House education committee
is rushing forward at reckless speed,
and, if this keeps up, the result is
going to be a sloppy law that is worse
than the current law," said Edward
McElroy, president of the American
Federation of Teachers. "It is dear
from the just-released discussion
draft that lawmakers have a lot of
work to do before anyone can say
they have gotten it right."