We have a plethora of governors, legislators, and state commissioners of education who are gaga over standardized testing, They can’t imagine a child who is not taking a test today, tomorrow, and next week. They want to test everything: not only reading and math, but the arts, science, civics, history, foreign languages, physical education, you name it and they want to test it.
When the test-lovers see low scores, they want to find the teacher swho did it and fire them. They can’t see any reason for low scores other than those darn teachers. They want “great” teachers and they figure the way to get them is to keep teachers insecure and intimidated. That’s sure to attract the best and brightest!
When the test-lovers see low scores, they not only want to fire teachers, they want to close the schools where those kids are enrolled and hand them over to private managers. The private managers will kick out the kids with low scores and find some students who have a better shot at getting those better scores. That’s called progress. Nobody wants those kids with low scores. Send ’em back to the public schools that haven’t been closed yet.
I have a modest proposal for the officials–elected and appointed–who are so test-happy.
They should take the tests and publish their scores. If they aren’t willing to take the tests and publish their scores, they should pipe down.
Just a thought.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would love to see that.
Yes, the test-crazed officials should eat their own cooking–take the tests and publish your scores. If too low, we will fire you. And Diane is absolutely right about the selective private charters that will be given command of the closed former schools. Just look at what “Superman” Geoffrey Canada did in his famous Harlem Children’s Zone–when the 8th grade cohort performed too low to become a sterling incoming class for the new HS he planned, Canada simply fired the whole 8th grade–sent all the “low performers” back to the public schools that don’t get his $50-plus million/yr from Wall Street. Then, Canada recruited a select group of incoming 9th graders that would make the new HS look like a success. This is how privatization works…many thanks to wonderful Diane, whose school truths travel with the speed of light….ira shor
All those test-loving officials might be reluctant to take their marvellous test, much less publish results. After all, they have an excuse, along with the material the test covers, they may also have forgotten many of their teachers. Who could those officials, then, blame? They wouldn’t blame the tests for being full of random facts that were “covered” in the months leading up to the testing.
In reality, education is the process of helping children make their own connections to the information explored in their classrooms, textbooks, worksheets, video clips, etc. The fundamental thing is that each learner makes their own personal connections. Children are unique. Their “results will vary” by the nature of individuality.
Any attempt to evaluate ANYBODY by a standardized test will inevitably result in the classic spread of results, unless, perhaps, the classroom is so modified that the goals are to make each child as close to a duplicate of every other one.
That makes me wonder. Do the test-loving officials really care about the dozens of individuals in a class, hundreds of children in a school, the thousands in an urban district, the millions in our wide country. Or, horribly, do they really care more for the statistical mean? The mean (not to be mentioned as “average”) is easier to measure, after all. And, of course, by some magic I’ve yet to grasp, NCLB will ensure no child is below that mean. All children will magically race right to the top of the normal distribution (bell curve).
Clearly, the officials think the testing will make it so.
I suggest if they take the tests and cannot pass them, they not be allowed to require anyone else to take them. And they should be required to take them before they inflict them on children.
Legislators should be required to take and pass all of the tests before they are allowed to require students to take and pass them. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
To add to the proposal, I’d like for all their kids to attend the public schools and I wuold like their kids taking the same tests they’re imposing on the public school kids.
….they can also sit through the wasted hours of test prep, take test prep on their vacations to do just in case they get “bored”, sit quietly and do nothing with the remaining time, get stomach aches, cry, bite their nails, throw up, lose sleep, hate going to school and the list of negative effects grows. I would imagine things would be different if they were asked to endure such situations…
Actually, I would like to invite them to go to a 2nd grade classroom as I did today to help proctor a test. It was a real eye opener and I couldn’t help but think that this is abusive. I
I think that is a wonderful idea and I think we need to make that a reality. The publishing of teacher’s ratings is unfair. There are factors that are beyond the teachers control in some cases because the rules of education go beyond the classroom.Those who make the rules should be held accountable for those rules.Publish their success and failures because they set the standards and the criteria whether its acceptable or mot
Diane, here’s my story about this in Iowa: http://bit.ly/Iw4qEq