Frank Breslin is a retired teacher. He taught English, German, Latin, and social studies for forty years.
In this article, he writes that Chris Cerf “is driving a stake through the heart of public education by his maniacal insistence on perpetual testing.”
Breslin writes:
“Welcome to New Jersey, Land of Standardized Testing and Education’s Brave New World. Without relentless testing of the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, students cannot hope to survive, let alone prevail, in the Darwinian jungle of this world. So, at least, runs the advertising copy.
Yet, as crucial to survival as these basic skills are, there exists the danger that we can lose our perspective concerning these tests. Amid the incessant drumbeat that the basics alone should be taught and frequently tested, we can neglect the very things to which these basics are basic!
The question, of course, is “Basic to what?” If this question isn’t answered, New Jersey’s students will, indeed, not survive —not because of not learning the basics, but rather, having learned them alone, they needed far more, which they couldn’t get, because it was never offered.”
Please understand the context. New Jersey is one of the highest performing states in the nation on the NAEP.
In fourth grade reading, New Jersey ranks second in the nation, behind Massachusetts.
In eighth grade reading, New Jersey is in a three-way tie for first place with Massachusetts and Connecticut.
New Jersey has a specific problem of low academic performance in its poorest and most racially segregated school districts.
Yet Chris Cerf insists that all public school students must submit to endless rounds of standardized testing.
Breslin says the consequences are devastating to the quality of education: Christopher Cerf is literally ruining education in New Jersey.
Breslin writes:
“Teaching only the basics is the rankest of follies, since one would be taught only to crawl, but never to run; be given only the building blocks, but no idea of what to do with them; be able to survive, but not know the things worth surviving for.
“Yet this is precisely what is occurring in New Jersey today. Chris Cerf, commissioner of education, in essence is saying: “Away with everything except tests and preparing for them! What isn’t tested isn’t important and needn’t be taught! And to make sure that teachers teach to the test, they’ll be graded on how their students perform!”
Breslin suspects that Cerf’s demolition of education in New Jersey is a purposeful, calculated effort to destroy public education so that parents in the cities and the suburbs are so disgusted that they clamor for charters, where teachers and students will be free of Cerf’s testing mania.
He is on to a big idea here. Politicians who want to privatize public education, like Cerf and Christie, are tightening the regulations on public schools, choking them with testing, demoralizing their teachers, at the same time they offer privately managed charters as a refuge from their own policies. in this way, they create a public demand to abandon the public schools that their policies have made unbearable.
They must be stopped. There must be non-stop exposure of their war on learning, their war on communities, their war on public education.
Frank Breslin’s terrific article is a good beginning.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Don’t New Jersey charter public schools have to take the same statewide tests as district schools? I think the answer is yes.
This isn’t a defense of considerable statewide testing…just a note that all public schools have to take them.
Joe, my objection is this: reformers in leadership positions in public school districts take the methods and approach of charter schools and apply them to all schools. I think your framing is wrong. Charter schools aren’t “taking the tests” that public schools adopt. Charter schools (and the reform movement) are driving the testing agenda at public schools, not vice versa.
The mania for standardized testing came from the “reform movement”. The whole mantra from reformers is built around the “no excuses” model that chain charter schools use, with a huge reliance on test scores.
It’s one the reasons I will not support a federal, state or local leader who is a “reformer”. I don’t want my local public school to be modeled after a charter chain. I don’t believe charter schools have done anything to deserve driving the agenda for every public school in the country. The 5% is driving the 95% of schools.
As charter chains consolidate, and the management companies swallow up all the schools, will it be possible for public schools to differentiate from charters? Be LESS like charters? Again, I don’t think charters have shown any evidence that they should be driving the public school agenda, and they are.
Additionally, is there anything school reformers (charters) can learn FROM public schools, or does this just go one way?
Actually, as was clear at a recent national conference, there are a vast array of opinions among people working in charters about the value of various tests. Some of the strongest advocates of portfolio approaches and other applied approaches to measuring student knowledge and progress are in the charter community. Some of the strongest advocates are in district public schools.
Yes, there are things to be learned in both directors. We’re helping promote this, as are others. Here’s a local example:
http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_23076316/homeroom-collaborative-effort-gives-high-school-students-better
He needs to do a comparison between testing 20 years ago and testing now. I’m finding here that people who don’t (currently) have a child in a public school have absolutely no idea what is going on. They assume we’re talking about the tests they all took.
Since school reformers back the testing lock-step, and nearly all of our political leaders and media have swallowed “reform” whole, public school parents and teachers aren’t going to be enough to push back.
The perception of “public school” for most people seems to be a snapshot taken when they (or their children) went to school. Once they’re no longer in the system, they simply don’t see any of this first-hand and when they hear “standardized test” they think “I took those tests and they weren’t so bad.”
I work in a NJ charter school and YES we give the same standardized tests. We are a public school. Not private, and can get shut down if our test scores are not good!
But do you actually get shut down if the scores aren’t good? That’s always a threat in Utah, but it never actually happens.
I teach in a NJ charter school and we give the exact same standardized tests. We are a public school but can be shut down if our students don’t perform well on these tests. Talk about pressure!
I remember reading that DC kindergartners spend one third of their time in school testing under “reform”. The time spent testing is huge because the children are too small to fill in bubbles.
That really hit home for me because I had a son in kindergarten 6 years ago and while he was tested, even then, they didn’t spend one third of the school year on it. My feeling is people don’t see the increase in testing, or fully understand that the tests are “high stakes” and mandatory, so even if they do object they blame the local public school. That’s not only inaccurate, it’s unfair to local teachers and local (elected) leaders who have nothing whatever to do with the directives.
Well, if they didn’t want to destroy public education, why on earth would they hire someone like Cerf? Isn’t that his job?
Diana, Wow! How can I ever thank you for running this and your setting it within such an Olympian context and with such a ringing endorsement! Words fail me. Thank you so much! I’ll be keeping you posted as to how the saga unfolds. Frank Breslin
“Actually, as was clear at a recent national conference, there are a vast array of opinions among people working in charters about the value of various tests.”
That may be true of “people working at charters” but is it true of leaders who come from the “reform movement” who are driving the state and national agenda?
I don’t think there’s evidence for that. Reformers in Texas were lobbying hard against the parent groups to keep “accountability” (testing) in place. Obviously, reformers want to take standardized test results and use them to evaluate teachers. Standardized testing will only become more important as that’s done. I am absolutely dreading the day my soon-to-be 5th grader’s test scores determine his teacher’s employment. I think there will be a lot of unanticipated consequences from that “reform idea”.
I read Bill Gates’ piece on standardized testing and I thought it was purely “political” in the sense that he wanted to get on the right side of the issue. I also thought it was dishonest and patronizing. He used my state (OH) as an example of how the dopes at the state and local level can’t put his grand ideas in properly. I don’t know a single public school teacher in our public school who supports the level of testing they’re doing now. Gates pushed testing. If it’s put of control he should take responsibility for that. An apology is in order, not another lecture to public schools. I see this (purely rhetorical) retreat from testing by reformers as yet another way to blame public schools for the failure of a reform idea.
Can we get a national reformer to admit reformers went over-board on testing? Admitting an error might build trust.
You’ll never hear that from Joe N. He needs their $upport. He always leads with the charter mantra and then throws you the public school bone at the end.
I would encourage all educators to avoid getting sucked into a Charter vs. Public School debate and stay instead focused on the critical issue at hand – the loss of creativity in our schools. We are so highly focused on ‘standardization’ that we push away the simple joy of the teachable moment. Truth is, basic skills will always be important but they will (and have never) been more important than sheer curiosity and enjoyment we can all see on any 5 year old’s face. Unfortunately, over time, with our push to be ‘standards based’ we graduate students who have lost their creativity – and often their curiosity of the world around them. Instead, we graduate students who clammer for direction from the teacher – ‘just tell me what you want me to know, how you want me to present my knowing it, and I will give it to you’. High Stakes tests can’t measure curiosity – and are bias towards students of poverty.
Charter schools are private schools getting public money, they are almost like a separate school district unto themselves. They have an unelected board of directors and the people in the district don’t get to vote directly on the charter school budget. Charter schools are forced on districts that don’t want or need them. Charter schools don’t work in cooperation with the real public schools because, as the Rheeformers say, it’s all about competition not cooperation. Charter schools drain resources and funds from the real public schools because the real public schools have fixed costs that don’t go down when they lose some pupils to charter schools. Overall and on average, the real public schools are left with the more expensive and the more challenging pupils.
Joe Nathan, is this really your example of learning something from public schools?
“Led by the nonprofit Center for School Change, the effort has had a promising start: The number of college-credit classes juniors and seniors took this school year is up by more than 50 percent.
Joe Nathan, the director of the Center for School Change, says a bid to steer low-income students toward college-credit classes is a no-brainer: The classes help these youths build self-confidence, learn what to expect on campus and make a dent in daunting college costs.”
I know you got it from public schools. Our rural district school has had a deal with the local (public! non-profit!) community college for the last 5 years for a 2+2 program kids start as seniors in high school. You got the idea from public schools. So why did you designate yourself the leader in what amounts to a press release celebrating charter schools and your non-profit?
This is not the way to form alliances.
Public schools do not do the paid advertising charter schools do, nor do they have the high profile billionaire-media presence of charter schools. They’re at a real disadvantage. Our charter school promoters planning on taking credit for ordinary public school programs?
Also, why not skip the “miracle” numbers, just once? If it’s up by 50% this year, that’s great, but reformers got us into this current mess with over-use of standardized tests by the obsession with self-reported “miracle” numbers, which always turn out to be inflated or short-lived. Just give that a rest.
Chiara, as you note, high school students taking college level classes is not a new idea. But in this state (and many others around the country), low income students and students of color are under-represented in such courses. We are trying to help change that.
Among other things, we’ve helped produce you-tube videos that feature youngsters from both district and charter schools who encourage youngsters to participate. All of them were produced in part by high school students, some district, some charter. We’ve done 18 You-Tube videos, some in different languages, some featuring youngsters in the Minneapolis and St. Paul (district) public schools. For anyone who wants other examples of student creativity, check out the you-tube videos, especially the first few music videos, here:
About 85% of the article that you commented, on Chiara, is praise for a district public school in St. Paul that has helped more of its youngsters take more of Dual Credit courses. That school was delighted by the publicity, especially since it has received virtually no attention for more than a decade.
The article was mostly about good things happening at the (district) school; and a small amount about the collaboration.
” That school was delighted by the publicity, especially since it has received virtually no attention for more than a decade.”
And why is that Joe? Is it because the huge cadre of celebrity reformers (including reformers in government) have absolutely no interest in public schools, but instead have abandoned public schools to chase “choice” schools?
We’re looking at a 12.5% reduction in state funding for my public school district. The state has always pitched in 12.5% towards any levy we could pass locally. Reformers lobbied for that reduction in state support of public schools, in the interest of “equitable funding” which means they get more funding for “choice” schools. I got an email from a reform group asking me to thank Governor Kasich for cutting my son’s school funding. They were celebrating, because charters got a huge bump in funding, further deregulation, and they also rammed thru a state-wide voucher program.
This isn’t a wealthy district. It’s rural and solidly lower middle class. How is “reform” helping kids in my district? What about our 2+ 2 program? Am I supposed to find a wealthy donor?
Don’t know about your district Chiara, but some rural districts have done well by contacting high school grads. Some of them have done well and many report their high school never asked for a contribution.
Re your 2+2 program What % of the students in your district take advantage of it?
Here’s one rural district that has expanded their program (and received no extra $ to do so).
http://hometownsource.com/2012/07/15/visionaries-are-helping-high-school-students-earn-a-two-year-college-degree/
As to the school I mentioned, it enrolls young women who are pregnant or recent mothers. The local paper has devoted a lot of attention to various district public schools, but not that one.
For those in New Jersey – please take action this November and elect Barbara Buono as Governor. Today she chose her Lt. Governor.
http://www.buonoforgovernor.com/about/Aboutmilly
Educators around the country – please support your colleagues in NJ and support Buono for Governor in any way you can.