Heather Vogell, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has spent a year studying the testing industry.
The series she is writing about testing for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution should receive a Pulitzer Prize. See here and here.
What she has uncovered is that the tests are flawed, that errors are common, and that students are denied a high school diploma because of errors made by the testing companies.
When I read about students who dropped out of school because they failed a test–because the test answers were wrong or mis-scored–it makes me feel that the testing companies should be subject to criminal prosecution.
Those students will not have a diploma, they will not be able to go to college, they will not be able to get a good job to support themselves and their family, because of a bad standardized test.
Let me repeat: Testing companies that inflict real harm on real people should be subject not just to fines, but to criminal prosecution.
The testing industry is ruining the lives of other people’s children while they rake in profits.
And they suffer no consequences. Only the students do.
Let’s face it, folks.
Our nation is overdosing on standardized tests.
Why?
Because the people in charge–in Washington, D.C. and in the state capitols–don’t trust teachers.
They don’t trust teachers to make their own tests, as teachers did for generations, and as teachers in other nations still do.
This has to stop.
Start planning now for the spring testing season.
Opt out.
Do not let your child take the state tests.
Do not administer the tests.
Encourage your school to opt out.
Encourage your entire district to opt out.
Stop the machine.
Stop the destruction of the lives of children and young people.
Take control away from the technocrats and demand a real education, not a system whose only purpose is to rank and rate students based on flawed instruments.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As was correctly said to me once many years ago, the problem with standardized bubble in multiple choice tests is that there are always 4 wrong with only one correct answer, therefore you are feeding your brain with more wrong thought than right thought, and also creating a system which neutralizes right and wrong choices because they are presented within an equal format.
Never thought of it that way before.
There are many such kinds of unintended teaching in this whole test-kids-until-they-scream approach. We are teaching, for example, that learning is acquisition of a set of discrete, measurable objectives. And we are teaching that it is not intrinsically motivated but imposed from without.
Please tell me how to stop this juggernaut. As a former school board member, I spoke recently at a board meeting in protest of Common Core and the increase in standardized testing. Might as well be talking to nine cardboard cutouts.
Don’t worry. I won’t take silence for an answer.
“Stop the machine.” There is no other way. This is not rhetoric, it is not ideology and it is not a pipe dream.
Opting out of spring testing season would mean teaching in the deepest sense of that word, today and every day after.
While I understand your suggesting that miscreant test-makers be subject to criminal liability, I am not aware of any common law that would support such a charge. Nor am I aware of any jurisdictional statutes that would allow such a prosecution. Of course, I could be wrong.
I do think a negligence action is possible, although an attorney would know better than I.
I do agree though that legal action with some monetary damages usually gets people’s attention pretty darn quick.
The angle that might be taken is one of civil rights as the nature of standardized testing is to sort and separate students on some supposed scale after which the students are sanctioned or rewarded with “goods” (scholarships given or witheld, graduation allowed or denied, etc. . . ) from the state. The state in essence through the standardized testing process “discriminates” against some students in a fashion that is in no substantial way different than race, gender or age in that, most would agree, that this thing we call “intelligence” very much has a biological/genetic basis that cannot be overcome by schooling in the sense that a severely mentally disabled youth with cerebral palsy most certainly cannot “perform” to the level of most other students. In essence with the standardized testing regime we have state sponsored discrimination much as we had state sponsored discrimination with “separate but equal” or when women weren’t allowed to vote.
This too shall pass as those two forms of discrimination have.
Exactly. And history makes fools of those who stand up in defense of discrimination.
“Because the people in charge–in Washington, D.C. and in the state capitols–don’t trust teachers.”
Seems fair since no one I know trusts them.
Ditto there’s a growing problem of leadership having all the privileges and benefits without the responsibility and consequences. The educational system is a small example of that.
On my drive in this morning I popped in one of my old Fugees CDs, which takes me to the hood in my mind (I taught in an “inner city” setting with security guards and metal detectors for a few years).
These thoughts crossed my mind regarding too many standardized tests:
1. more kids likely to be put on meds
2. the notion of slower, deeper, closer, contemplative reading for the purpose of standardized test performance doesn’t mesh with the way one has to think in the hood. My perception, based on experience, of children in that setting is that they have to be quick and reactive.
As a music teacher I have often been complimented for meeting children where they are. So if I work with a group of children and the only song they know is Row Row Row Your Boat, we start there. We sing Row Row Row Your Boat and then we work on it and then we add more songs and if it comes time for a performance and Row Row Row Your Boat is our strongest song, we put it in the performance. And we do it well.
As I step back I think:
When TFA started out, they were aware that a business as usual approach does not work in the hood. So they created their approach. And we all know what that has turned into. On the flip side, many career teachers might be inclined to want children to be where they need them to be (and now that the pressure is on, they really do. . .which emphasizes point 1 on my above list even more) and some might not know how to meet the kids who are reactive and quick (in a street smart sense).
So on one side you have TFA fighting for themselves, but with a nugget of perceptive need early on that yes, there does need to be someone who will meet kids in the hood (for lack of a better way to put it) where they are and help them grow from there. On the other side you have a frustration that has stemmed even more standardization (or blind belief in it by those following it, even if they didn’t come up with it) because many figure if school is like a mill, then we’d better truly improve the daily run of the mill (so they use more technology, more lofty goals of where to get to, etc.)
The best professional development I ever heard was a lady in Ft. Leavenworth, KS and from her I learned two valuable things:
1. we don’t have strengths and weaknesses; our strengths are our weaknesses
2. our students want to know us
And this leads me to the conclusion that education (or for now, schooling, as Diane differentiates in her book) has gotten too far away from personal relationships between student and teacher. So in a way we do need to take a cue from TFAs initial observation (that those in challenging environments cannot just be approached with business as usual in the education setting type mindsets), but yet the “improvements” now proposed to fix the business as usual approach also will not work and will in fact do more harm for the reasons I listed in my first list.
Maybe that is the middle ground. To understand the culture of a condensed poor and minorty situation. Neoliberals have concluded that busting up the condenseness (word?) of those situations is what has to happen. But I know full well that I could not approach the inner city of Kansas City, Missouri the same way I approached upper middle class Charlotte, NC. I had to get in and meet those kids where they were and go from there. This requires knowing the children and their situations. And it requires letting them know you.
It means education is about people, which is why it is not sexy and not easily solved. Schooling cannot look the same for all Americans because not all Americans are the same. So the issue of equity has to rest in:
opportunity to go to school and teachers being treated fairly and on an equitable scale (not pitting them against each other), and an understanding that goals are good, but that children have to be met where they are.
I would ask the following questions of those who are quick with the answers that have been presented lately:
1. What the hell is the global economy anyway?
2. What can you tell me about five different children you know who are not the same race you are? Where do they live? What do they do after school? What do their parents do?
3. If the power went out indefinitely (didn’t TIME magazine just publish an article about 1/5 of the world not even having electric lights), could you still teach your lesson? What would it look like? What would be the desired outcome?
4. What do you hope your students’ futures look like? How are you going to help make that happen?
5. What bugs you about the world? Who else does it bug? Why?
6. What is the most important thing to you?
7. If you had to spend a week in the hood, what would you do?
8. If you found yourself without a home next week, where would you go?
9. If you had no car, no cash and no coat, where would you go to get help?
10. If you spent a year in the situations described in 9 and 10 and you were 10 years old, what would you look forward to each day?
“It means education is about people, which is why it is not sexy and not easily solved. Schooling cannot look the same for all Americans because not all Americans are the same”
Joanna, these statements are why I don’t understand why social science isn’t involved in the educaiton “debate” as opposed to economists. We deal with people, not numbers.
Thank you for a wonderful, thoughtful–and thought provoking–post.
Thanks for supporting and promoting the Opt Out Movement, Diane.
My present teacher job is as a reading coach to students, Partnership Zone. RIIT, big push for high scores. As a teacher in my building, I have made a decision to stop talking about the test and push strong literacy skills and reading with my students. I will not help with the test nor participate in any intervention ideas that the school may be implementing.. Hopefully I am successful in turning other teachers away from this testing crap… We have hurt our students enough and I am sorry I was a part of it.. Moving Forward….
And then there is the issue of the validity of the ELA tests as assessments of GENERAL reading and writing ability. This is a BIG one, and it’s almost never discussed. It needs to be. These aren’t valid instruments. They don’t measure what the purport to be measuring. That is, I believe, demonstrable. Reading and writing are complex–they involve many, many very different abilities and sets of knowledge, and no simple, single test can validly measure these in students beyond the level of absolute beginners.
cx: “what they purport to be measuring”
“. . . then there is the issue of the validity. . .”
It shouldn’t be an issue by this point in time as Wilson back in 97 showed the complete INVALIDITY of the epistemological and ontological assumption of educational standardsrds and standardized testing. Not only that but he demonstrated thirteen sources of errors in the process of making education standards, the giving of the standardized tests and the dissemination of the supposed results of the tests that make that aspect INVALID also.
Until all educators and policy makers understand that all the conceptual and logical errors nullify, umdermine and refute any sense of validity in these educational malpractices we will continue to harm many innocent students. And that is an ABOMINATION!!
False ideologies such are educational standards and standardized testing can only result in ERROR and HARM to those who have to come under its sway, the students.
Read and understand, and then pass on Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
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 logical 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 crap 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.
After several decades of life on this planet, I’m still old-fashioned and can’t believe that these tests and answers aren’t vetted several times. Especially since the stakes for all are so high. Silly me. Perhaps a few major lawsuits and resignations are in order. But silly me, what am I thinking- that will never happen.
Speaking only for Kentucky, I know that test items and answers are vetted multiple times. How do I know? I’ve served on those state-level committees.
I would suggest contacting your state DOE to find out what processes they have in place for this vetting process.
It doesn’t matter whether the “tests and answers aren’t vetted several times”
The whole process is so fraught with so many errors as to be a false ideology and worrying about whether a test or answer is vetted is akin to debating “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”.
Our district purchased an online program for the kids to test-prep in math at home. It’s horribly inequitable, of course, because low income kids here (40%!) don’t have online access at home. My 5th grader is actually good at math, he’s quick and intuitive with it, but I already see that any “score” he gets on this year’s battery of tests will have more to do with his parents ability to pay a cable bill than his ability to answer test questions correctly.
My sense is they actually ran out of time to do the required test prep, so they’re sending it home. I don’t blame them. I know the local people had absolutely nothing to do with this, and absolutely no input into the mandates. If they have to send it home in order to preserve instructional time, that seems like a reasonable plan to get around a profoundly dumb system.
The scores won’t be valid or useful, though. My kid has an edge. Obviously.
“I don’t blame them”
I do!
Their is absolutely no valid justification instituting any educational practice that is completely INVALID, UNETHICAL and UNJUST. And that is what standardized testing is.
The “Go Along to Get Along” mentality is what has allowed us to get to this point in these insane educational malpractices.
Asked about 30 people – president of Minnesota’s statewide teacher union, rural, urban and suburban supts, and charter directors what advice they’d give to people about “opting – out” of testing. Here’s a link to a brief column quoting a number of them.
http://hometownsource.com/2013/09/25/joe-nathan-column-educators-urge-meeting-students-opt-tests/
They
* agreed parents had a right to opt out (which I’ve learned from a number of meetings with parents many parents don’t know about)
* asked that parents talk with them (educators) before making this decision
* felt that different tests provide different value – but that at least some provide valuable info
* felt some frustration with fairly frequent changes in Minnesota’s statewide testing program (similar to what’s happened in other parts of the country)
I see no basis for criminalizing errors in tests unless there can be shown to be fraud. Civil action is, however, perfectly possible and will likely improve the quality of the tests. However, I suspect that the adverse consequences are going to be pretty difficult to establish.
One thing to keep in mind is that precedents may be set for civil actions by students and their parents against individual teachers and school districts that did nothing about weak teachers. What is the difference between a flawed result on a test and flawed grades from a class?
“What is the difference between a flawed result on a test and flawed grades from a class?
Absolutely nothing. Both are based on false premises with the main one being that it is logically impossible to “quantify a quality”. The epistemological and ontological assumptions of attempting to “quantify (stanadardized testing) a quality (of the teaching and learning process) do not and cannot stand up to scrutiny as Wilson has shown (and many others).
I believe that the best way to attack this educational malpractice beast of standardized testing will be to focus on the discriminatory effects of the whole process than denies some citizens (students) their rights to a free and appropriate education.
Duane:
I am not going to chase you down this philosophical rat hole. No measurement is perfect. Agreed. All have errors. Agreed.
We measure things for a purpose. If the purpose is not legitimate, then there is no need to measure anything. If the purpose is legitimate, then we do the best that we can to recognize the limitations of any of our measurement systems. The rest of what Wilson says is well trodden territory in psychometrics and not worth endlessly repeating.
Bernie
What is the purpose of standardized testing?
How do we know that one’s stated purpose is “legitimate”?
“The rest of what Wilson says is well trodden territory in psychometrics and not worth endlessly repeating.”
It is??? If so please point to any rebuttal/refutation of what he has to say. I’ve never been able to find any. If you have a rebuttal/refutation to his work please explain it. I’m all eyes and ears.
But to say that “the rest. . . is well troddent territory” doesn’t cut it. I’m from Missouri, so please Show Me that “well trodden territory”
Duane:
There is no rebuttal to Wilson because he is largely stating known limitations in any psychometric, physiological and most physical measurement systems. Tests for reliability, content validity and construct validity never assume perfection or even close to perfection. These issues are in any standard text on psychometrics. The never ending issue about G is but an illustration. It boils down to the usefulness of the measure. Anyone who has ever tried to develop a measure of any psychological attribute comes face-to-face with all these issues.
As to the distinctly philosophical question of determining legitimacy, I have no sharp answer. Colleges with large numbers of applicants for relatively small numbers of places, despite all the issues and questions, still use SATs as screening devices. One can argue that their widespread use means that they find them useful.
Thanks for confirming that there is no rebuttal! (at least that you know of) I keep looking and asking and yours is the first to admit that there is no rebuttal. But for me, that is not what this discussion is about. And you bring up some interesting points in regards to “perfection” and “legitimacy”. If I may respond to both.
Neither Wilson nor I are demanding “perfection” in measuring, what we are insisting upon is that those who tout the “usefulness” of these supposed “measuring devices” be completely honest about the limitations of these practices. Not only that but also to acknowledge that the epistemological and ontological basis for the standardized tests be consistent with logical thought. Just because something is used does not mean it is justified.
Take the infamous G. It has been used to justify many a past practice that we now consider horrendous, such as sterilization of the “feeble minded” and many others in which individuals have been ostracized or have been shunted off to the fringes of society to live a quite wretched life. Now those who supported those things more likely than not were all well-intentioned but the proof is in the pudding and we now realize that the recipe was fatally (literally in some cases) flawed, much as somewhere down the road, hopefully beginning now, that standardized tests have the same fatal logical, conceptual and social justice flaws.
And the above thoughts show that the legitimacy of practices have nothing to do with usefulness. So as of now you have not shown me how you can still justify the use of such flawed instruments such as standardized testing when the “recipe is fatally flawed”.
And although I think I know what you are saying/implying with “distinctly philosophical question” I see it more as a logical question, that then effects the legitimacy and justness realms.
Duane:
A quick note since I cannot spend the time to completely respond. Those who sterilized individuals with severe mental limitations were intent on that outcome anyway. IQ tests were a smoke screen. They would not sterilize somebody because they went random on an IQ test. Observations by experts were the primary mechanism used to justify the barbaric practice.
I never said standardized tests are fatally flawed and I do not agree with your and Wilson view. I said they are imperfect and their limitations should be recognized. Your argument against standardized tests does reduce to a demand for perfection. If we move away from the emotional issue of standardized tests in schools to say blood alcohol tests. These are also imperfect both in construct and in administration, but for identifying drunk drivers they are useful. Wilson’s and your argument says we should drop these as well, does it not? If not, why not?
Bernie,
I’m enjoying this conversation. Thanks!!
I’ll have to respond tomorrow, if you don’t mind, as 4:45 rolls around rather quickly.
I do look forward to continuing the conversation (I did read your other response).
Tomorrow, eh!
Duane
Una cosa mas.
Contrary to what you imply, the psychometric fudges and limitations of psychometric “measurement” (an oxymoron in my mind) are not widely known. Quite the opposite is true in that the vast majority of folks have no clue whatsoever of what we are discussing and how those “problems” effect our viewpoint and understanding of the inherent invalidities of the whole standardized testing regime. I would bet that 999/1000 folks, if asked, would tell you that standardized tests are valid which as you know doesn’t make them any more valid.
Duane:
All teachers who have taken a course in testing should know this. If they don’t then it is down to the instructor. Those arguing for the use of testing to assess teachers and schools also know this. Your argument is better directed at how exactly they use such measures. As I have said before, the need for a metric is first defined by what you are trying to do. Much of this for me goes back to Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem applied to choices and the need for simple easily legitimated measures that have the right degree of granularity. That is where our dependence on seniority came from in making personnel decisions like promotion and retention. The validity of seniority as a measure of effectiveness or productivity is now widely questioned.
Bernie,
I’m not sure how Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem comes into play here. Please explain.
And what do you mean by the “right degree of granularity”. Again please explain and if you would how these two concepts come to bear on what we have been discussing.
“The validity of seniority as a measure of effectiveness or productivity is now widely questioned”
Now that “validity” is only valid if the only thing one is considering is effectiveness/productivity (and I combine those as basically meaning the same thing for the sake of this argument) but there are many other considerations, age, gender, life situations of employee etc. . . , involved in making personnel decisions. So that to give all weight to effectiveness/productivity severely restricts the criteria with which one should use in making those decisions.
Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem essentially says there is no way to develop a simple ordering when multiple people are ranked on multiple characteristics. If you want to guarantee an ordering then you have to impose a solution. The solution might involve a single characteristic or a fixed weighting of the characteristics. Whatever it is, it is arbitrary.
The right degree of granularity means that your metric must allow you to distinguish between individuals sufficiently to allow you to make your decision. We used to settle foot races by who broke the tape first and swimming races by who touched first. That proved to be insufficiently granular to produce a single winner so we created photo finishes and touch pads – which afford greater granularity. My favorite example that involves seniority is in the movie Zulu where Michael Caine and Stanley Baker, who are both Lieutenants, have to decide who is in command at Rorke’s Drift. Fortunately, despite Baker’s lack of combat experience, he wins by virtue of having a few days of seniority.
You are right Seniority can be justified using other reasons, but it is still an essentially arbitrary criteria. Seniority does have the benefit of possessing the granularity needed to distinguish between individuals in many situations. In Alexander Dumas’ the Man in the Iron Mask, the first born becomes King by virtue of being born a few minutes ahead of his brother.
Thanks for the clarifications!
That’s what I thought you meant by granularity.
And correct me if I’m wrong on this: In referencing Arrow’s theory basically what you are saying is that some human judgement/criteria other than a “perfect” mathematical solution is needed in rank ordering.
If so I would argue that the granularity of the rank ordering devices that are standardized tests are no where near fine enough to make the types of distinctions that are needed and that very human subjective decisions are made as to what the “cut” points are resulting in a less than “scientific” ranking than the test makers and policy wonks would have us believe.
Duane:
The ordering is different. First you need to settle on what you are trying to do. Then you figure out what tools will help you get there. Then you use the tools. Finally you can assess whether the tools helped or not.
The granularity of the tests is not the issue. SAT scores, for example, are plenty granular. The issue is the error bars. Colleges typically set cut-off scores, which, of course, are arbitrary but not without some rationale – but this makes their decision making process much more tractable. They then have ways of weighting a students scores on the application – all arbitrary but with some rationale. They finally aggregate the information and come up with a classification of the candidates including those who are wait listed. My guess is that at the margin they are using these scores down to one or two decimal places – which again is arbitrary and technically without justification. (I seem to be quoting from movies a lot, but the scene in Legally Blond of the selection decision-making process that allows Reese Witherspoon into Harvard Law School nicely encapsulates the above scenario without the actual quantifying of the decision.)
This quasi rational process is full of errors, false precision and arbitrary decisions. Yet the alternative is to randomly select candidates or introduce some kind of pricing mechanism. There is no malevolence involved: Incompetence and silliness yes, but there is no reason to attribute malevolence.
I believe you are correct when you say that no malevolence involved. People are acting upon what information they have at the time (and none is ever anywhere near complete or perfect). It’s all we can do.
But at the same time to acknowledge that a process (standardized testing) that produces “information” that is so flawed as to render said information invalid and does cause harm to so many (here the concepts of subjetivization/internalization comes into play) who are defenseless against said information is not to imply malevolence to those doing so but to insist that such invalid processes be not used so as to not continue the harm.
Now you may argue that that harm is not great enough to override the invalidities and then we’d disagree.
I ask/demand better processes and in doing so one must acknowledge that the current processes are fatally flawed, I believe they are. And it appears you don’t.
So where does that leave us? I’ll continue fighting what I consider to be one of the most egregious educational malpractices we’ve invented, ranking right up there with “separate but equal” and “girls can’t/shouldn’t learn certain subjects”. Due to its inherent harm causing structure standardized testing will eventually end up in the trash can of failed educational practices.
Duane:
You tried to get a fastball by me. I also do not believe in “separate but equal” or that women should not learn or cannot learn certain subjects. My willingness to accept the limitations of standardized testing for some purposes does not make me a Neanderthal. Their sub-optimal and flawed use in evaluating teachers and schools largely reflects the absence of efficient alternative means of assessing effectiveness in any way that allows cross unit comparisons.
Bernie,
Slider perhaps that didn’t “slide” enough-ha ha!
Speaking of the Grand Old Game, magic number = 1 for El Birdos 2013 edition.
I’m just not sure that there really is that big of a need to have “cross unit comparisons” in the realm of public education. Help me out on that need.
Duane:
Good luck with the Cardinals. I guess we will meet in the WS.
As for comparisons, NYC has 143 public elementary schools. If you are going to do anything with limited resources based on the differential educational effectiveness of these schools you are going to have to do some comparisons. For example, you have 10 additional reading specialist slots, where do you put them. At the State level it becomes even more imperative. Note I am not saying that the quantitative measures should be the primary determinant – but they do become a consideration.
Not sure I follow the discussion.
Here is a stab. None of the validity question is anything more or anything less than cir relational as far as I can tell. Sat/act is highly correlationally predictive of college success. So since it is cheaper for admissions folk to just use this as a shorthand for a student’s entire vita, they do. What else is there to argue about??? If this did not work well, they would not do it. Cc tests on the other hand are a work in progress. Rather than test them upfront, rttt monies and waivers are being used with a we’ll work out the kinks later attitude. Our kids deserve better.
There is a poll and a discussion group about Common Core’s impact on testing now at http://www.gpsnetwork.org/welcome/poll/
I am 100% behind opt out. The “test” returns to the school too late to be of any value. And secondly, it is of no value anyway b/c it takes a whole different mind set than does real learning. However, an alternative must be available and here is one especially relating to reading http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-are-they-afraid-of_830.html
The militaristic, capitalistic, technocratic approach FAILS again. But, this mindset sure makes the few richer and at the same time is destroying democracy, because those in power are really fascists and running scared. These folks are just empty, arrogant wells with no souls.
Hello, can please someone clear my confusion. I have postgraduate degree in math. I looked at SBAC tests for math for 6th grade and it look to me like a set of puzzles, but mathcounts or matholympiads are easier than SBAC, because on SBAC the main problem you can’t figure out what question means most of the time. They call it rigor. Ok, suppose now the kids will be really trained to solve puzzles, they will become very smart as a result of Common Core lessons taught in school. But the Common Core lessons in school mean actually relaxing the requirements – group work, 3×4=11, explanation matters more than right answer. On test however wrong answer will be scored wrong, and no group work there. So there is a very big disconnect. I just attended Common Core presentation meeting in Cupertino, CA where kids could try SBAC for the first time in the back of the room on small laptops while the presentation was going on. My nieces (very good diligent students) were horrified after trying the math and ELA tests on the laptops in the back of the room. In English SBAC exam there are long passages and then they have to type in the evidence – all questions we saw are same type. My niece was saying this questions in English exam give her feelings that she is the criminal in a court and she had to present evidence that she did not do the crime so she doesn’t have to go to jail. She also cannot type fast. Here Common Core is not implemented yet and these are first meetings selling the common core. The parents got to see SBAC as their kids were trying it on laptops in the back of room. The parents felt they could not solve anything either. Since that was open question answer session somebody asked that we don’t understand how to solve these problem ourselves. So the answer was that even though you might be well educated and have a nice job, you were not exposed to this rigor in your childhood, so you cannot solve these problems. However the 21st century demands this kind of “rigor” so our kids need to be trained in this. Cupertino is one of top performing school districts in SF bay area and parents were told common core is great and it will make the kids step up to the demands of 21st century. This was the very first presentation and nobody saw the new stuff in classrooms yet. So all questions from parents were mostly how to help children to achieve the rigor. The district officials told that they have this new method called teamwork in class where kids will explain each other and that will magically make everyone be able to solve SBAC. Can you please tell me what to do. My sister was really upset she was about to cry, and her kids said please take us out of school for those days when these tests are given, we don’t want to break our heads. Can you please tell me for CA what is consequences of not taking SBAC next year. Will the kids get failing grade? Will they be thrown out of school? Will they have to repeat their grade? My nieces don’t want to homeschool. They love their public school, their friends, their teachers. They come happy from school every day (Common Core in not yet implemented). They wait whole summer for the school to start again. What should we do in this situation? My sister is thinking about private school but can’t really afford it, and her daughters don’t even want to go to any other school than the public school they are enrolled in right now.
In CA SBAC will be given in 2014-2015 school year they will be in 7th and 8th grades that time.
Also do you know when kids can enroll in Community College full time if they drop school, only in 10th grade? And then they will have to take GED which is also common core aligned now
Thank you so much
Preeti
It’s a bit too convenient that not trusting teachers means you can allow your cronies to rake in billions of dollars by replacing them, with their own tests, standards, curriculum, data warehouses, TFA/TNTP, charter schools, voucher schools, etc. None of those profits could have been made so readily and so thoroughly without vilifying teachers.
Sadly, England is now following our nefarious lead: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9900402/Teachers-should-be-judged-by-pupils-examination-results.html
Bernie it isn’t once a year std testing. Your average elem student faces four rounds of cc/nclb testing yearly with all the interim tests they conduct to monitor progress. And most districts employ other non cc/nclb tests on top of that. I how hazard an avg of more like 6-8 std test rounds per year, although more days than that in many cases as they frequently do the reading and math separate days. In all, a kid in 3rd can expect 20 days worth of std testing or std testing prep. I’ll grant that some of this is real learning, but at what cost? And yes, that truly is an INCESSANT rate.
I have been saying this from the beginning–it’s all about the tests. Stop the testing, & the whole, rotten system will shut down. This was planned years ago. Think ALEC.
ALL about the money for Pear$on & their ilk. The only response is for EVERYONE to Opt Out, & that would include a national teacher-walk out–refusal to give tests. Town by town. City by city. State by state. Teachers don’t give them (&, remember, NO consequences for the brave Curie 12 & Garfield 12–in fact, they STOPPED the testing not just in their schools, but in the entire DISTRICT! PLUS the fact that the parents supported the Garfield 12 (the Curie 12 didn’t need it back then), & so many opted their kids out (97% or 98%–someone correct me, please), that there wasn’t enough data to do ANYTHING with. Imagine a nationwide walk out–biggest non-violent protest ever. We’d be doing Dr. King proud.
Yes, WE can…and we WILL!
(And–retired teachers do your part–volunteer to hand out Opt Out materials (can get at United OptOut website) all over town–START NOW!!
Yes, retiredbumissthekids, I think you are right on target. Incessant testing is the linchpin, the foundation upon which this perverse process of corporate education “reform” is built, and opting out, on a massive scale, is the key to seeing the house of cards fall.
For those who need info on opting out, here is a link to United Opt Out National: http://unitedoptout.com/
Every parent, teacher and community member who cares about children and public education should get involved in the national Opt Out movement immediately.
CT, When you say incessant testing what do you mean. Is once a year, every year, incessant?
I agree. However … you can bet … the local districts won’t walk out. They are too afraid to. Most of them talk about “how long they can endure the insanity” but with restrictions in speech and action by the school board, it is difficult to get them to take any action. They even acquiesed to frozen pay for years with increasing contributions to health care and higher copays. People don’t want to lose jobs. So, it is being held over their heads to make this work, no matter how completely ridiculous and contradictory it is. When the Ohio Education Association is embracing the Common Core and the public is embracing the “grades” for their schools, the political sleight of hand rules the day. It has been carefully orchestrated by those who wish to take over public education.
I wouldn’t have much of a problem with the CC, in that it is workable to use as an umbrella framework for planning local curricula. It is the testing to which I object more vehemently. The punitive nature of the test crosses the line of humane behavior to students, teachers, and districts. This will help no one, fix nothing, and make things worse for far too many people.
People need to be reminded how passively enduring high-stakes testing for years –18 years of it in my city!– has only resulted in more tests and higher-stakes. History has shown us that the imposition of standardized testing and consequences will be ever increasing and never ending as long as teachers and parents keep putting up with it.
vote the bums who support testing out in 2014!
I do worry that an end goal is that in a few years teachers won’t write any tests at all. The system is already giving them about four tests as it is, and why stop there? Just deliver eight or so more from a corporate source per yr and there won’t be a need to write any of your own period. How on earth is a small set of oligarchs getting this through, when parents and citizens mostly think it is hooey?? Is this some kind of psychological wound that elite adults feel they need to inflict on children out of libertarian angst??? Maybe it is not enough that adulthood is all assessment all the time for most people, we feel the need to prepare kids for that life?
Duane Swacker: I looked up “quixotic” in the dictionary/thesaurus of my word processor and then I googled the term.
The more negative “foolishly impractical” and “unrealistic” and “impulsive and often rashly unpredictable” were not the only equivalents (there were a few more positive ones like “visionary” and “idealistic”) but I would say that, on balance, the negative connotations far outweigh the more positive ones.
That said, I do not think you are on a quixotic quest re Noel Wilson. What is “foolishly impractical” and “unrealistic” and “impulsive and often rashly predictable” are the behaviors and beliefs of the high-stakes standardized testing crowd regarding their Holy EduMetrics.
They feel they are wielding an impressive weapon of incalculable power and versatility. Rheeally!
In reality they are in a dark alley with a paper cutout version of a pair of dull kindergarten scissors, trying to assault alert innocent bystanders who are armed with high powered weapons.
When the lights finally get turned on and the intended victims see what’s really up, it ain’t gonna be a pretty sight.
It’s just taking you a while to turn on the lights. I know you’ll make it, because you have a lot more patience than I do.
Keep on keepin’ on. I know you will, because you have a lot more patience than I do.
🙂
Upon further reflection and LG’s comment below, I apologize to all the viewers of this blog for an inappropriate way of expressing my feeling that the leading charterites/privatizers are assaulting public education.
My bad. No excuses.
😦
Last spring in a nearby community, a promising young high school senior took his own life after learning he had failed a portion of the standardized test. Why do we subject our children to this narrative that a test score is what defines a person?
Here’s a problem with opting out: If a child does not take the test, it counts as a failure. Teachers’ lives are dependent on their students doing well. If a teacher does not show “growth” for two out of three years, he/she can be fired in Ohio. In Tennessee, licensure is tied to student growth. If we take zeros for our students, we can lose our licenses and/or our jobs. What can we do about that???
If the whole school opts out, you are safe.
Bonny:
Before I retired, we had a saying: “Never invite the client to shoot themselves in the foot.” You and the parents at the school have a tough decision.
I have a technical question. If the assessment is based on change scores how does a student not taking a test count as a failure? What happens if a child is sick? If the child moves to another school or grade? I am sure there are answers but I am puzzled by designating them as failures.
dsm @10:58
You miss an important point about how and why schools use SATs – alternative measures of academic readiness such as GPA have more potential flaws than do SATs. No school I am aware of uses just SAT scores. College selection folks use them largely to ensure that inflated GPAs do not hide poor preparation. The Reese Witherspoon spoof makes this clear: Her 4.0 GPA as a Fashion Major carried weight only because she scored a 1175 on her LSATs.
Your point about developing tests on the fly is well taken.
teachers should write and print the tests via a non-profit cooperative of teachers.
If no one could financially profit from it, it’s unlikely that we would have more testing than we need.
It would probably take a lot of wind out of the corporate ed reformers sails if something like that got on ballots all over the country.
Mike:
Both the College Board and ETS are not-for-profit corporations. The issue in testing is not the presence or absence of a “profit” , but the usefulness of the test and its results and the overall cost. Many have understandably criticized the College Board for its costs which can quickly mount up for college bound seniors who apply to a number of colleges.
I would argue for a strong push back by schools and colleges against what amounts to a monopoly in order to make sure that CB does not create a price umbrella for other test providers – shades of AT&T in the bad old days..
I want to share a story about just this issue.
I went to high school in California in the early 1980s — the era of minimum competency tests. I took a test called the “Write” Test, which tested writing. The tests had two parts. One asked the student to write a short essay. The second part involved the student answering a number of multiple choice questions. The test was remarkably easy. (One typical question that I still remember: The animal that says meow is spelled (a) cte, (b) cat, (c) cet, (d) kat.) The results came back; I had failed. I did fine on the essay, but I got less than 10% on the multiple choice.
The guidance counselors snickered when I came into the counseling office: “Oh, this is the gentleman who had some trouble with our little test.” They wanted to move me from honors to remedial English. My English teacher was dumbfounded, since I was doing very well indeed.
What had happened? My homeroom teacher had one more student than he had test booklets. So he went across the hall, to another teacher’s classroom, and got an extra one, which went to me. When he read the directions, he instructed us to bubble in, “B” under the heading “Test Form.” I raised my hand and pointed out that my booklet said Form “D.” He said that I was to follow his directions, and so I did.
When i got my failing results, I knew what the problem had been. I told my mother, of blessed memory. She told the counseling office, which disbelieved her. She called the testing company, which also disbelieved her (“How many times have we heard that story, Lady?”) But she persisted. They told her they had no way to find my individual test, claiming it was in a pile in a warehouse. Spending days and days on the phone with the testing company, my mother finally cajoled them into searching through that pile and regrading my test by hand. The company called to tell her I had gotten every question correct using Booklet/Answer Form D.
Thank goodness for my mother’s fierceness. But imagine if the test weren’t just a single one given once in 10th grade, but one of several standardized tests given to everyone every year. The odds of a technical error increase dramatically, and the odds of catching it fall equally. We’re playing a dangerous game.
Gary:
Good for your Mum. However, there is another takeaway from your story.
The takeaway from the story is that testing is quite fallible — subject not only to measuring error, design error, statistical error, but also basic human error. So let’s be very careful before we rely on them for too much.
This was in GoLocalProv.com this morning. It’s about more ways standardized tests harm students:
How the NECAP Fails Everybody
Monday, September 30, 2013
Guest MINDSETTER™ Carole Marshall
At the beginning of September, I had an opportunity to take an inside look at the system that’s grown up in the last couple of years around high-stakes, standardized testing in Providence. I was offered a job tutoring students at a Providence high school for the three weeks leading up to the NECAP English assessment which starts this week.
I had mixed feelings about accepting the position; the NECAP assessments, which Rhode Island students take in their junior year, were the reason I left my position teaching high school English in June 2012. I taught Providence students for two decades. In general, I am in awe of them. Every day, they use their wits to move through landscapes scarred by poverty, violence, and uncertainty, toward a system of education they need to believe in. For the most part, they retain their youthful exuberance and optimism. I left when I could see that, by virtue of the new testing climate, I was being forced into the role of year-round drillmaster instead of teacher.
Working for a Turn-Around Company
But as I considered the job offer, I realized I might be able to do some good as a temporary drillmaster. The NECAP wasn’t designed to be used as a determinant of graduation but that’s how it’s being used in Rhode Island. This year’s seniors who failed the test when they took it in 11th grade were told they wouldn’t be graduating unless they could show improvement this year. As a result, there are many hard-working, ambitious 12th graders this year, living with extreme anxiety about whether they’ll improve their score and receive a high school diploma. I imagined that, regardless of my feelings toward the test, I could help those seniors if I took the job. They would be anxious to learn what they needed to know to graduate, and I’d do everything I could to help them pass the test and get their diploma.
In the end, I accepted the position.
A school administrator I knew had offered me the job, but I soon learned I would be working for a company based in Florida, Cambium-National Academic Educational Partners (NAEP). The company was embarking on its second year of a three-year, $5 million contract with Providence Public Schools, to turn around three schools that had been designated “failing.”
I agreed to drop by on the Wednesday before my program was scheduled to begin, to meet the Cambium consultant who I’d be taking my orders from and to get a copy of the curriculum. That would give me a few days to become familiar with the material and plan my classes.
When I got to the meeting, it turned out that the consultant was still in Florida and the program would have to be delayed a day until she arrived. Also, they didn’t have a curriculum to give me. I met instead with the principal and assistant principal who assured me that I didn’t need to see the curriculum in advance because there was really nothing to prepare. My job was going to be extremely easy and exactly the same every day: I had a reading strategy to teach, a packet of readings to use, and a few multiple choice questions at the end of each reading to go through with the students. That was the whole plan for every day until the end of September.
It seems to me that a company that is making millions to turn a school around would want to be there from the beginning of the school year, and would have the curriculum for its test prep class ready at least five days before the program begins. But I would be wrong.
And I was also wrong, completely wrong, to assume I’d be working with 12th graders to help them retake the NECAP, improve, and graduate. The students I’d be working with, they told me, were going to be as easy as the alleged curriculum; they were 11th graders who had been cherry-picked as the most likely to get a score of proficient or almost proficient.
The practice of cherry-picking students shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me; it wasn’t the first time I’d seen it used. As counter-intuitive as it may seem to help the students who least need it while ignoring the students who could really benefit from it, both the turn-around company and the school administrators have good reason to do it. They need to get data that shows improvement in the school if they want to keep their jobs; the 12th graders who failed last year don’t figure into that sort of thinking. By concentrating on the students most likely to succeed, they ensure that the test points skew higher, and they avoid the punishments that low scores could mean for them. It’s just one of the ways data points can be manipulated to look like improvement at a school, but it certainly doesn’t mean that schools are delivering a better education to their students, which is what climbing scores are widely and mistakenly believed to show.
Cherry Picking, and Other Concerns
I thought about quitting at that point but I decided not to. The program was going to go forward whether or not I agreed to it, so I might as well be the one to do it. I stood my ground on the curriculum though, and warned that if I didn’t have it by the end of the day, I couldn’t do the work. The plan for the month they described was so repetitive that I knew I’d have to plan carefully to find some way of sparking the students’ interest every day.
For the next few days I exchanged emails and phone calls with the people in Florida. While laced with sweet sentiments, their communications turned out to be a series of delaying tactics, giving them time to actually create a curriculum. It was finally delivered to my drop box on Saturday night. That gave me two days to prepare.
I would be teaching the 11th graders a strategy called Search and Destroy, a simple, four-step system for using clues such as titles, illustrations, and the questions at the end of each reading, to get oriented to a passage. It wasn’t new to me; it’s a time-honored practice for teaching test-taking, and, if it’s taught right it can be a decent exercise in using critical thinking skills. A week would be sufficient; three weeks is brutal overkill. Obviously the turn-around company and school administrators were not about to take any chances with test scores.
I looked over the short readings in the practice packet. Only one or two had even a vague connection to urban students’ lives.Not the first one; it was an excerpt from Growing Up, a memoir of the 1930’s written by Russell Baker. Fifty years ago, when I was a teenager, I actually read Baker’s New York Times columns. As an aspiring writer, I studied his style and puzzled out his understated jokes. Should urban students today be expected to have encountered subtle humor, The Saturday Evening Post, or a gas station referred to as a filling station? Even if they somehow can decode words like intervening, beckon, and maxim, what would they think of the mother who forces her timid son out into the streets of a city every day for three years to sell magazines? Surely, the turn-around company could find readings that weren’t quite so culturally biased.
On Monday, I gathered my materials and drove to school. The schedule had me teaching five classes a day, approximately 60 students in all. Classes would be 45 minutes long, half of the school’s normal 90 minute-long periods. It was only when the classes began to meet that I realized that the students were being pulled out of the same regularly scheduled class each day for the rest of the month to attend the tutoring. Some students would be pulled out twice a day to attend tutoring for both the English and Math NECAPS.
For the regular teachers of these students, it would be a disruptive nightmare, but for the students, it could mean the end of any college aspirations. They would be missing almost a month of classes. Missing Phys. Ed. or Art was bad enough, but how could a student recover from the interruptions in classes like Physics or Foreign Languages? Suburban parents would never allow this to happen, but in urban schools the schedule switches are often sudden, mysterious, and unattended by such niceties as informing the parents.
It took a couple of days for kinks in the schedule to be worked out. The 11th graders drifted in, confused and concerned about missing classes. I was concerned too; during the first couple of days, when I heard from students that they were missing academic classes like Physics or Foreign Languages (never the two tested subjects, of course!), I sent them back to their teachers. Teachers had been directed not to penalize students for missing work, but even if they didn’t, the students would be at an enormous disadvantage. The students, however, kept on being sent back to me.
As promised, the 11th graders were very cooperative. I explained that this was a class to prepare them for answering multiple choice questions on the English NECAP test they would be taking the first week in October. My sole goal was to make sure that they wouldn’t suffer any anxiety about whether they could graduate next year. They were pretty much all on board with that sentiment. I had to allay worries that they were sent to me because they were “losers;” I explained that in fact they were sent to me because they were “winners.” They were confused about that, unacquainted as they are with the concept of cherry picking, but relieved.
By Friday, I was beginning to know my students: I could identify the ones who already had the skills I was teaching and for whom this was a complete waste of time; the ones who could use the skills and would even enjoy a week, but no more, of what we were doing; and the ones who even three weeks of coaching couldn’t help. Those were the students with reading disabilities. Not that they couldn’t be helped; they desperately need reading teachers, trained professionals who are able to correctly interpret diagnostic tests and successfully treat the wide variety of reading disabilities encountered in high school classes. However, several years ago in a cost-cutting measure, Providence removed all the reading teachers from the city’s high schools.
Better Ways to Spend $5 Million in Schools
There are many ways that $5 million could be spent on measures that really help schools improve. Providence high schools can improve, and they had been improving in the years leading up to high-stakes, standardized testing. They improve when teachers are given a chance to make decisions together, when students can connect with adults who know and care about them, and when schools are led by administrators who are invested in the community. Communities also have to have a little faith in their schools, instead of buying the smoke and mirrors of profit-based school turn-around schemes.
Carole Marshall has devoted the past two decades to teaching urban youth as a high school English teacher in Providence, Rhode Island. Prior to that, she worked for a number of leading newspapers in the United States and Europe. She was on the New York staff of The Financial Times of London and subsequently worked as the U.S. business correspondent for The Observer of London, based in New York.
Very predicatable. The obsession with “a year’s growth” based on test scores puts in place the VAM for districts. ALL students need to advance a year, even if they are at the top of their class, or if they peaked early. In order to fulfill the demands of the data crunchers and justify the reshuffling of teachers, they have decided to spend millions and millions of dollars to go through this exercise. They aren’t teaching the students to be “college ready” but they are trying to make them “test ready” … and it is sick.
There was a day when teaching was considered a profession. As a profession, those who taught were trusted with the education and the evaluation of the student. I grew up in schools that worked that way. Many of you did as well.
My first few years in teaching, it was still pretty much that way. While I dreaded the work of creating fair final exams and then grading them, there was satisfaction in knowing that my kids were doing the same kind of work they had done all year, and that I was the one doing the grading of it.
What has happened?
In my 18th year of teaching now, I no longer write any finals – the state writes them all. I no longer grade any finals – a bubble reading machine does that. I no longer have to consider whether and how to set a curve on their final exam – the state does that. I no longer am even allowed to administer the final to the students I have spent a whole semester with – a teacher outside of my content area must do that. I can’t even proctor the exam.
I spend months building a relationship with my students, slowly but surely getting to know each of them, and them getting to know me. We laugh together, we struggle together, we get mad at each other sometimes. Some days are hard, some not so much, but all of them are interesting.
My favorite comment from my kids remains, “Mr. Worley, you don’t understand. I so look forward to coming to your class each day.” It doesn’t matter whether they like math or not, whether they are particularly good at math or not. In our class, we are united in the notion that our day can be better as a result of having been in math class that day. For whatever reason.
What has happened?
It’s easy to point the finger at politicians and power-wielders who have precious little understanding of just what K-12 education looks like on a daily basis. And certainly these people continue to harm public education for what appear to be selfish reasons.
But we in the education camp have to take some responsibility as well. For far too many years we allowed union representatives to dig in their heels on issues related to rethinking education. We tolerated teachers who should have been quickly removed, protecting with union rights instead of taking a stand for a high level of professionalism. And with every story in the news, trust deteriorated.
Don’t misunderstand me. I have belonged to the teachers union. I was a building representative and believe strongly in the value of collective bargaining rights.
What I’m saying is, we allowed the union to take our voice. And, as a result, we lost our place at the discussion table. Now that sentiment is generally anti-union across the country, teachers are no longer welcome to have a voice, because they don’t feel they need to welcome us. Here in North Carolina we see a state General Assembly passing one piece of vicious attack legislation after the other against educators.
At some point we, the teachers, the ones who love this profession and who are passionate about the kids we serve, need to rise up and reclaim our rightful place as professionals. I’m not sure how. I’m not sure who can or will lead such a rising. But I am certain it needs to happen soon, before public education is dismantled and turned in to a private sector business.
Because education will be dead then…
I couldn’t have Said it better myself. The tests streets out change children and teachers, while tests makers swim in the profits…
“Stop The Machine!”
One kid in my Class (6th Grade) Opted out of the PSSA’s because of Memory loss from a medication for a disease. Guess what? He was not allowed. He was sitting, the hole session, taking his hand through his hair. We have to end this. Soon. Now. Forever.
-Christopher J. Palmer
[ CV School District, PA]