A principal writes about the sharp drop in school grades, caused by a change (again) in the grading system by the state:
“As a principal of a school in Florida who ‘fell’ from a B to a C, despite all the news press of the lack of reliability in the change in grades, our parents will still think our school is ‘getting worse’. In reality, our scores are the same or better than last year. Trying to explain this to parents and ensure their confidence in our school and teachers isn’t shaken is a difficult task.
“Jeb! and his cronies have done an outstanding job of convincing Florida parents that Florida’s public schools are bad and constantly getting worse, even while he tours the country bragging about how he improved the schools in Florida. The damage that has been done by another change in the formula resulting in lower grades will impact educators and students both. Imagine how children feel when they learn their school did worse? These test scores belong to children, children who are being told loud and clear that they are failures as well as their school. I would love for Jeb! to explain his grading formula to a third grade child who now has to repeat third grade because Jeb! and his foundation decided it was time to ‘raise the standards’ once again. How can the FCAT be called a criterion based test when the criteria constantly change for no other reason than we have too many A schools? Can’t have folks believing public schools might actually be doing a good job, you know.
“Frankly, I am very grateful I am close to retirement because the sadness I feel about our Florida public school system is becoming too great to bear. Of course retiring will help me, but who is going to help the children of Florida?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s nice to see a principal speak out, Thanks!!!
Yep, nice, I guess.
“. . . caused by a change (again) in the grading system by the state”
The questions being: Where was the principal prior to having the school’s grade (sic) lowered? Was the principal tooting the school’s horn prior when perhaps it “received” an A or B? Has the principal been “going along to get along”, allowing the banalities of evil that are these sorting and separating mechanisms to go on unchecked/unabated? Or has the principal been fighting this tooth and nail? Sounds to me more like a defeated (as planned) educrat whose lack of principles are catching up to him/her. Did he/she really think that he/she could play the edudeformers’ game and win?
“Imagine how children feel when they learn their school did worse? These test scores belong to children, children who are being told loud and clear that they are failures as well as their school.”
That statement embodies some of the most egregious logical fallacies/errors which permeate the whole educational standards, standardized test regimes and the “grading” (sic) of students, teachers, schools and districts that renders the whole process completely invalid and any conclusions “vain and illusory”. The students are not “responsible” for the supposed fact that “their school did worse”. Why is that thrown upon them for simply taking (actually being forced to take) a horrid assessment device? The only valid logical thing that can be said of a student’s score is that it very poorly represents that interaction of the student with the test at a given time and place. That is all. To assign any other significance is a logical error. The score says absolutely nothing about the student, the school, the teacher etc. . . as some would have you believe (and that belief is so embedded in our schooling culture and society at large that to challenge it is to be seen as being insane, out of one’s mind, even Quixotic.)
And, no the, test scores do not “belong to children”-that is what Wilson describes as an attachment error in his “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 (see below for summary). Test scores are nothing more than, as stated above, a description of an event, the testing event. And it is a piss poor description at that, taking the highly complex human interaction of completing an activity (the test) and turning that description into a letter grade or word-proficient, beginning, etc. . . . Can one say “vain and illusory”?
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms shit in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Duane, while I appreciate your zeal and I agree with your premises and theoretical underpinnings, the reality is that here in Florida all of us are “at will” employees.
The principal at my old Title I school stood up and objected, loudly and often for years, and she was forced to “retire” one year short of her vested retirement date. After dedicating 29 years as a teacher and a principal in our district she was publicly humiliated and forced out and is now receiving a fraction of her pension and struggling to survive. In her early 60’s, she has not been able to find employment anywhere near her former salary level which was already low and insulting and barely able to provide for retirement.
Her replacement, a young, enthusiastic out-of-state reform supporter, drove 70 employees, including teachers, aides, custodial staff, and support staff out of the school and many out of the profession through firing, abuse, and constant harassment. That replacement principal moved away again after her slash and burn policies (which were highly celebrated and lauded by the district) decimated the school over a two year period. In her wake the school lost its culture, a longstanding community of committed employees, and the faith of parents and community members.
The school went from a “B” school (by Florida’s grading standard) to an “F” school in 3 years. The assistant principal committed suicide 6 months after the public humiliation of the former principal in which she was forced to play a large part. The school went from having a dedicated, longtime, experienced faculty and staff to one where the average years of experience of teachers is now less than 5 when it once was 20+.
Four of my former principal’s colleagues who had supported her and stood up with her against the testing and school grading abuse were forced to retire as well or they would have risked losing their pensions after 30+ years in the system. The message was heard loud and clear by every employee in the district. In fact, the new superintendent came in and fired over 400 people, including over 180 teachers and the majority of long-time district support personnel, saying that they were guarding the status quo and unqualified to bring about the needed “reforms” to raise our district’s grade from a “C” to an “A”.
So now we have over 400 people with hundreds of years of experience unemployed, many having moved away and into other professions and the system has not been changed. Unless and until the vast majority of people in education agree to resist and stand together the idealized situation you are advocating only results in the loss of a profession for the unemployed teachers, principals, aides, and support staff and the children lose experienced, caring, and committed school employees that are quickly and easily replaced by compliant, inexperienced people who follow orders and do whatever they are told.
All 13 of our Title I schools received an “F” this year. There are no more experienced principals left; all have retired or left the profession. The schools in the majority white, higher income neighborhoods all received “A” grades and one of those just voted to become a charter to avoid having the district change their exclusive program. Other parents groups at the “A” schools took notice and are exploring similar moves now. If they succeed we will have nothing but Title I schools left under district control which means more segregation, more mobility and churn, and more instability.
The reforms are working quite well in destroying this district and no amount of personal risk and self-sacrifice has been able to stop it. I think you are being too hard on this principal and are not offering a solution to those who follow what you advocate and end up unemployed with a career destroyed and locked out of the profession, resulting in no change and depriving the children of advocates within the schools who do work every day to protect them from the most egregious reforms in every way that they are able, like the principal who wrote this comment.
Chris,
I don’t know FL’s retirement system but something doesn’t seem right about the situations you describe. 29 years in a district and not “vested”? Over 30 years and “risk losing their pensions”? And that’s after having earned an administrator’s salary probably 50% higher than the average teacher’s salary for many years. Something ain’t right, don’t know what, but something ain’t right.
Although there are “due process” rights here in MO, they don’t mean much if an administrator wants to get rid of a teacher. Demand that the teacher does “X” (and make “X” so unreasonable that no one can comply like having a teacher contact and discuss with parents for every time a student doesn’t have an assignment complete that day-yes, I’ve seen it done) and if they teacher doesn’t do “X”, then they are insubordinate and “good bye”.
Or, attempt to have one of your underlings file false sexual harassment charges against the teacher, yep, I’ve been there and that’s when I decided to take a position that paid 15 gs less rather than put up with that crap. Yea, I had been chairman of the “school improvement team” (what a farce that turned out to be with the changing of administration), I did their LEAP (leadership in education program) to hopefully be an administrator but I knew I couldn’t be a part of a system that was so unethical and with the NCLB being authorized. I knew I couldn’t “go along to get along” and in various administrator position interviews I let them know what I believed to be the best course of action for public education. Needless to say I didn’t say what they wanted to hear and never got offered a position, even though I had had many years of successful supervisory work in the non-education realm.
No, one doesn’t have to “go along to get along” and yes, my questioning is harsh, hopefully to wake up people and jiggle their conscience a little for being one of those who’s personal financail security is more important than doing what is right by the students. I’ve yet to see an administrator admit that what is going on is right by the students and I’ve not seen any who fight it until it becomes their own asses in a sling.
Duane, I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. My former principal needed 30 years to earn her full pension. Leaving after 29 years left her with a much reduced monthly check. The same thing happened to my mother in another state after she had an accident at work; her boss coerced her into “retiring” early and then she received a minuscule pension after putting in a couple of decades. The other principals didn’t want the same thing to happen to them.
When you’ve put in a few decades working towards a pension then risk getting a much smaller monthly check for sticking out your neck you have to weigh if it’s worth it suffering through your retirement years with much less or being “right”.
I guess we can insist that we all become martyrs to the cause but when health issues arise and age encumbers you it gets harder and harder to be so “unselfish” when the safety net in this country is being tattered and shredded at the same time. Unemployment is still very high in my area and no one is hiring older, over-educated workers outside of WalMart.
It’s a valid concern to me. It may play into the reformers plan and maintain the status quo but what is the alternative other than starving, sick retirees who live in fear and depression? If we are going to change things we need to have mechanisms in place to support those who take a stand and help them.
Chris, the story of your principal points to the advantage of a defined contribution program. The thirtieth year would have been little different from the twenty ninth.
Duane. Here, have a drink. Calm down a little.
I like the point about “a description of the event.” Perfect. That is what it is.
Now you have to stop lashing out at people who have not caught onto the whole scope and premise of the testing “era,” (for lack of a better word–more on that in a minute). Quit leading with your chin. Understand that it would not be possible for all teachers to have the same epiphanies you have had when you have had them nor for them to respond in one prescribed manner. Your points are excellent. Just factor in that all 50 states have slight differences and that many people are looking at the premise of their career in slow steps.
I hope you are reading or have read Lipman’s new book about Neoliberalism. It almost makes all conversations about education since NCLB moot points. When schools are “blighted” and targeted for obsolescence in the name of real estate values and gentrification in major cities, one realizes we are all just being dragged along because of federal legislation. This book has really opened my eyes. It has brought everything into focus.
Now finish that drink and order the book. You will be glad you did.
Joanna,
Nah, no need to have a drink to calm down, why it’s not even noon here yet (although that wouldn’t have stopped me in the past-ha ha) But I digress!
Let’s see if I can clarify my “leading with my chin”. You stated “Now you have to stop lashing out at people who have not caught onto. . . ” The ones I’m lashing out at are those who when spoken to on an individual basis denounce NCLB and RaTT and the various other educational malpractices that they then go ahead and institute because, ya know, that’s just part of the job and if I don’t I’ll lose my job. I lash out at those who say one thing and then do another. I lash out at those who were okay with NCLB and Ratt as long as they were on the top end and not being kicked around by those policies and who now, being kicked around, even though having been forewarned that they would be kicked around, are now wailing and gnashing their teeth about “poor, poor pitiful me.” And I’m one of the “boys who won’t let them be.” (apologies to LR)
As far as neo-liberalism goes, thanks for the suggested reading. I’ve been following this neo-liberal crap from it’s inception. I had a front seat, so to speak, to an international incident that solidified the whole “Chicago style of economics”, that being the overthrow of the democratically elected Allende by the CIA on the original 9/11 of 1973 (I was living in Peru at the time (went into northern Chile a couple of months later) and read all I could in both English and Spanish about it.)
I have decided in the last year that in talking with any educator I will confront them personally as to why, even though they thoroughly disagree with what they are being told to implement, they continue to do so. May I be a burr in their saddle!
Well the whole purpose of grading schools is to break public schools, isn’t it? If the entire government (both parties) and the financial elites are determined to break the public schools then they will find a way to do it. Students with wealthy parents will go to good private school, and the rest are on their own. (distance learning?/warehouses with on-line learning) Who knows? No, there is no one to stop these huge forces. In most countries in the world, the government is there to support public schools and education. In this country it wants that money – I guess, or it just wants to get out of the education game. Have you ever thought about moving to Canada, Australia, or Europe? It may be the best thing for your children. Think about what America will be like in 20 years. It is one thing if you are getting ready to retire. What about your kids and grandkids? Is this what you want for them? Think about it. You have to find the courage that your grandparents had to start a new life, but now may be the time. How many of us have relatives from other countries who came here for a better life for their kids? Where is the better life? It is not in America, especially not for young people or those looking for jobs. It is only going to get worse. You may have to drive a cab instead of teach, but what is better for your kids? College in Germany (and most of Europe) is almost free, etc. There are advantages. How much does college in America cost? Can your kids even get a job, if they do graduate? It may be time to let go. Think about it. We should be leading an exodus to Canada, to Europe, instead of clinging to the country that only exists in fiction and in our distant memories. We don’t have to live like this.
I totally empathize with the desire to just slam on the breaks, retire and get out of this country. Though I don’t have the means, I have still been exploring the option of moving to other countries. Unfortunately, the foreign country I have enjoyed most is England and, although things function a bit differently over there, public education in England is just as much under attack as it is in the US: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23450685
I don’t know if I could handle watching another public education system being destroyed by elitists, and Scotland’s education system differs, so that might be the better choice if one wants to go to the UK (and has the means, since immigration laws are strict there).
I can tell you that both Germany and Scandinavia are fantastic places. England can’t compare. German teachers have iron-clad tenure and more respect than in America. The average German, Swede, Dane, or Finn is much more intelligent and better read than your average American. You can learn German in a year (understanding) in an immersion situation. They say Norwegian is even easier. Finnish is almost impossible as a second language, so Finland may be out. If I were a younger, single American teacher, I would leave quickly. America is not going a place you really want to follow. You can tutor English quite easily (conversation, etc.). Colleges are almost free. The people are much more attractive and thin. They are more cerebral cultures with bookstores on every corner (not just a few Barnes and Nobles). Their newspapers are still thick and in-depth. If you stay here, you will be working at Costco or teaching distance learning for 10.000 a year, or pushing play on Khan videos. I don’t see this turning around (ever). I met an older American ex-pat in the Alps as a teen, and he said, “Don’t go back to McDonald’s Land.” I should’ve listened. Listen to an old teacher before you are stuck in the “matrix” as well.
I’m already an old teacher. I’m chronologically on the verge of retirement –which I would do next year if I could afford it. But I have no pension and Social Security won’t cover even half of what I pay for rent. So, I will be working until I die. I just don’t want to do that here, because it’s way too stressful, aggravating, frustrating and depressing. And I’d prefer a more moderate climate.
Good points. But at what point do we join together and refuse to keep running?
Do you really think that the global elite behind these trends consider nation-state boundaries as anything more than a technicality, a minor inconvenience, really?
Yes, running to a nearby country—like Canada, while you and your family still have the political and financial ability to do so—might provide temporary respite, for some indeterminate period. (The Frank family thought moving to Holland would make them safe too.)
My mother told me when I was 12 years old, being mercilessly tormented by sadistic bullies, that moving to another school or even another state wouldn’t make any difference because bullies are everywhere; sometimes you have to stay put and fight.
If you and I, the type of people who read this blog, don’t engage in this battle, on behalf of all children, everywhere, who will?
Some of us have to be the modern day town criers. We have to spread the word to our fellow citizens, students and parents.
And if we’re not here to do this, who WILL step into this vacuum and provide the only alternative narrative?
I’m personally torn about all of this as many of us are. I love where we live, our schools and the people of this community.
But I can’t ignore the encircling storm that is gathering around us. And I can’t just pretend it isn’t there or just divert my attention through the endless day to day pleasures and struggles of family, friends, work and everything else.
Thus far, our school district has withstood the vile contamination of charters—always the First Step towards a long term plan for Corporate Control of our schools and turning our tax dollars into profits for an already wealthy and well connected few.
But the vast—some would say obscene—amount of money behind the Privatization Mafia ensures that they’ll be around for a very long time; or at least until the handful of billionaires funding almost all of it, get bored or characteristically “impatient” and decide to move on to the next thing, no longer wanting to have their “brand” tainted with what will inevitably be seen as a complete failure.
Look. I’m tired of running away. This is my home. This is my community. And the students in my young child’s school—all of them—need we adults to stand up and fight back on their behalf. And they’re watching us closely, as they always do, as examples of how people should behave and respond in defense of their values.
It isn’t “them” that should be fighting back in defense of public education. It’s us.
It isn’t “too risky” to demand what we know is needed for our schools, our educators and our children. The much greater risk is accepting the increasingly smaller crumbs they’re tossing from the table and hoping that they won’t come back next year offering even less, with even more strings attached.
It’s not “too late” to stop this privatization tide that often appears as if it is a massive tsunami that will eventually engulf us all.
It’s not. But only WE can stop it and reverse it, right here and right now.
Who’s with me?
Thank you Puget Sound Parent. I also believe that the best solution is to stand up and fight rather than run. You wrote eloquently.
I, too, am sad that after over 30 years of teaching, i no longer feel proud of the district I work in. The administration has “drunk the Kool-Aid” of corporate reform of education. This is one of the worst falacies (that public schools are failing our kids) that the public has been spoon fed. The corporate goal is to bust teacher unions and privitize the schools for their cronies to make a profit-at the expense of the students!
I wrote and spoke of this problem a year ago, during my first (unsuccessful) School Board run in Hillsborough County, FL. Last week, Dr. Ravitch picked up my rant for this year.
Our schools, students and teachers are political footballs; passed, intercepted, but mostly fumbled. Florida’s school grades are a cruel hoax. Teachers are not working harder to help their school achieve an “A” grade; they have had it pulled out of reach too many times. Students are not “rising to the challenge”, as our various Ed Commishes have proudly stated; they are simply doing what they do.
To label a struggling school; ALWAYS in a low SE, minority ZIP Code, as failing is discriminatory. Perhaps this needs to become a civil rights issue. ACLU?
Yes, this really is indeed discrimination, on a massive scale, across the nation, and I cannot comprehend why ACLU and Common Cause have not taken action.
Another thing to consider is that by implementing this grade change, Jeb and his band of pseudo-reformers can keep the system in turmoil, thus continuing the illusion that schools are failing. This will allow him to continue to make a profit financially as he tours the country in his misguided crusade against public education as we have known it.
It’s all about the money. In the U.S. money rules everything.
Agree.
I have relatives in Florida and have always felt sorry for the Florida schools and their students, parents and faculties ever since their grading system came into play. Two schools near my grandmother’s house (a mostly white, solid middle class neighborhood)
always posted the sign “We’re an A school!” whereas another elementary school in a different, run down area of the city never posted a sign in regard to its grade. I really don’t know much about any of those three schools, but having worked in inner cit schools for my entire career thus far, I know not to assume that that one school is truly a failing school. As part of the recently passed Alabama Accountability Act and perhaps 2020 Plan as well, Alabama is going to give each of its schools a yearly report card using the A-F grading scale. I think test scores will only be one part of this, but am not exactly sure and am waiting to see how this actually plays out.