A teacher-blogger in New York City sent me this post.
I have a grandson who just started second grade.
I look at this techno-trash and pray that his teachers are not required to pay attention to it.
If this is the kind of “work” that comes out of Tweed (the headquarters of New York City’s “Department of Education”), I have advice for the next Mayor:
Clean out the whole bunch of people who make up these charts, graphs, instructions, mumbo-jumbo statistical nonsense.
Clearly, none of them has ever been a teacher of first grade.
Probably, none of them has ever had a child.
Maybe, none of them ever was a child.
They see children as data.
They see teaching and learning as a statistical exercise.
They value metrics, not children.
Please, Mr. Mayor, send them all packing.
Let them go back to the corporate world where they belong.
Keep them far, far away from children and their teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I cringe at the thought of what these tests will do to the kids: stressing out, tracking, labeling, segregating, and judging them. But if they know nothing different, it will be their “normal”. I presume that Is one purpose in shoving the testing to younger children. Maybe they think that, in this way, education will lead rather than follow “change”. It is just frightening to know that all this so-called data is collected, stored, managed, evaluated, and used for purposes we may not ever know. This is worse than the surveillance and computer usage tracking. This takes minimal moments of data that can be used to frame a child’s destiny. I think it is frightening.
Right before I retired, the teachers had to fill out these grids on a website (I forget the name, Battelle’s????) showing the amount of contact we had with students. I had 6 kids that were so transient, due to rental , marital, or legal issues who were in and out of the classroom several times for weeks, causing untold damage to their learning, let alone to the accuracy of testing or the determination of what the collected data meant! It is now stored to track and blame the teachers for each child’s success or failure as he/she continues through school. AS IF….
But, worse than that, the children’s “performance'” on one day each year will be used to determine their future. We don’t even know who will ultimately be looking and using the data. Teachers have to use it for some diagnostic nature. However, good teachers know how to attend to those needswithout computer generated recommendations that may not be useful or truly accurate. Yet, this “data” is collected and stored forever.
Is the perception that you are slowly being swallowed by the amoeba of tyranny finally getting to you? Don’t blame Bush. Don’t blame me. When will people wake up?
Not an amoeba, more like a whale. And although we’ve been swallowed by Monstro – the fire has started to burn. And where there’s fire – there’s smoke.
Is this the animal to which you refer?
http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/monsters-inside-me/videos/the-brain-eating-amoeba.htm
Maybe we need some water fleas!
I think most folks hereabouts have been awake long enough to see the source of the tyranny, and so they know that drowning the watchdog of democratic government in the Ronnie Raygun Tea-Potty Bathtub will not save them from the Bigger Beast of corporate dictatorship.
Jon Awbrey: “I think most folks hereabouts have been awake long enough to see the source of the tyranny, and so they know that drowning the watchdog of democratic government in the Ronnie Raygun Tea-Potty Bathtub will not save them from the Bigger Beast of corporate dictatorship.” = Excellent response!!!! 🙂
In my opinion requiring students to sit for three hours to take a state exam written in a language they are still learning (because English language learners must take these tests after being in the country for one year) constitutes child abuse. It’s overwhelmingly frustrating and deflating. Last year one of my students began biting himself he was so frustrated. He then refused for three consecutive days to take the test. I admired his resistance (not the self-harming).
Taking tests that are unaligned to their learning needs does not help them learn, tying their score to the teachers’ evaluation too often makes the children a “target” for anxiety and rage. Too, how valid and reliable are these assessments when we consider the conditions under which they are administered? The degree of “teaching to the test” that precedes them? For many of the students the test does not measure their content knowledge, it is simply a language test–and not a very clever one.
It is rather disquieting that so many districts just accepted it as inevitable and then bought in to this “requirement” as if it is for the greater good. Statisticians may love data points, but the use of those to inflict harm or to ignore that harm from the process is inhumane.
Yes. It is the corporations and the extreme agendas of people such as the Koch Brothers that are trying to shut out the majority if Americans who are controlling this mess.
“. . . what these tests will do to the kids: stressing out, tracking, labeling, segregating, and judging them.”
Yep, teacher as police officer, judge, jury, jailer and executioner all in one! What a bargain for the taxpayer.
What an eloquent statement! Thanks for sharing it Diane.
Amen. Well said!
“Maybe, none of them ever was a child.”
Well that is a pretty powerful and to-the-point psychological summary of what we are up against with these mumbo-jumbo statistical cryptographers.
Selma Fraiberg, Virginia Axline, Alice Miller and others have given us loads of insight into the numbed adults who grew up without the benefit of trustworthy, sincere support figures. Why now allow them to engineer an entire educational system that simply reproduces their pathogenic childhoods?
I believe that techno data driven people were never wired in to participating in childhood simplicity. They seem driven by a need to be right, to control things, to resist social interaction. Look at Gates and his followers. Most of wish we had more money, but we surely don’t wish to have his personality or whatever it is that makes him they obsessed.
Reblogged this on Critical Classrooms, Critical Kids and commented:
Diane Ravitch calls the NYC Performance Tasks “techno-trash.”
Wow, but not surprising. These are the same kinds that change unit designations in the military and rationalize it by saying it is good for us all and the country. Same here with the education. A kid with ADHD is not a statistic and neither is an child.
Pearson bought the company that tests for ADHD!
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/8/prweb11061295.htm
“Clean out the whole bunch of people who make up these charts, graphs, instructions, mumbo-jumbo statistical nonsense.”
I’m not a fan of dismissing data-based decision making as mumbo-jumbo. Data matter and we should pay attention to them. They can give insight into what works and what doesn’t. For example, basing teacher pay on student test scores doesn’t improve teaching. We know that because of data.
The charter school movement is not helping. We know that because of data.
Vouchers do not help. We know that because of data.
If you have an objection to how data are used, object to that. But don’t dismiss statistics as mumbo-jumbo. Statistics will show that we’re right.
Arne Duncan and the Dept. of Ed. are flunkies for corporate America. Google Duncan and Broad image and you will see a young Arne cozying up to the #1 destroyer (Broad) of Los Angeles public schools. The system is designed to demoralize and humiliate teachers and train students to be complacent workers for minimum wage. Of course, there will always be rebels to fill the prosperous school-to-prison pipeline. Continuous testing and posting of scores will damage kids’ self-esteem. They will become unquestioning low wage labor. The high achievers are already being trained to become sociopathic managers of the elite system, as they learn that they are better and more deserving than their assessment-challenged peers. If you still don’t believe that we are living in a fascist nation, you have not been paying attention. There is no accountability for the rulers at the top. Neo-llibs are the same as neo-nazis. No gas chambers, just a slow, painful death for the unworthy, around 80% of the US population.
If we look at the jargon of marketing we can see the subtle change in terms. Services are now called “products”. The commercials have been changing the definitions for quite some time now. Look at all the “financial products” that were once services, for example.
This mindset, when applied to teaching, is attempting to remold the perceptions of what learning is! Learning is a process not a product. Teaching is a service not a product. Education is a process service not a commodity. We need to wise up, stand up, and fight back against what big money can do to the lives of average, working (hopefully) Americans.
He who holds the definitions calls the shots. As long as corporations and marketing executives are fabricating new definitions, they are controlling thoughts.
Is it any wonder that experienced teachers are thrown aside? Not only are they more expensive, but they hold the original definitions and purposes of teaching and learning -educating the whole child – near and dear to their hearts.
All very true.
This nonsense has been around for a long time – much too long. I had to give kindergarten students a VERY LONG TEST – a field test for Harcourt in the fall of 2008. They were given a picture in one section with 2 pages of lined paper (college-ruled width) and asked to write about what they saw in the picture. And this was just one part of a multi-part test! The duration was so long that one student blurted out that he needed to take a nap and put his head down! Is this not completely absurd? Nowadays, Pre K teachers spend more time in the hallway individually administering tests to their students while subs teach their classes. Is this what “learning” is truly about? One person mentioned that this is government-supported child abuse. Who could argue with this? When reality is this absurd, the “corporate ed reformers” are completely blind if they think the public will go on believing their PR much longer!
I only hope that at some point soon I can go into my school each day and joyfully teach my students without all the cookie cutter reform nonsense micro-managing the process! Principals should be able to a non punitive role. There are still teachers who teach who remember when a visit by the principal was an opportunity for growth not for punishment! When cookie cutter rubrik check-lists were not in existence. When an observation was an opportunity to show the principal your teaching style and get feedback (yup the lesson plan was organized the way you thought it would work best).
Our school has been implementing the individualized tests in first grade for several years. We also startedvusing Lucy Caulkins’ writing program and Stephanie Harvey’s reading for informational texts. We did up to 5 reading groups in a guided reading setting and used DRA tests quarterly (although that is not how the kits are designed for 4th grade).We implemented the use of Eno boards, document cameras, lap tops and iPads and used Successmaler math. The days were fast paced and exhausting for everyone. We had all of these changes going on and then they added Words Their Way to the mix and the principal wanted to see the spelling lessons integrated into the guided reading groups using leveled books. But the reading groups and the spelling groups didn’t consist of the same students. Still we had to figure out an elaborate way to do this. I about went over the edge! All of this so that we could prepare the students for “the tests” … And our prof dev was very limited so we had to figure it out on our own time.
Our students did very well. But I retired. It is absolutely insane!
Did you need a Ouija Board to help with the Eno board and other mandates??
No. Just listing the multiple forms of tech that we received minimal training on and virtually no followup troubleshooting from the company. We could utilize the eno board but not as fully as it could have been, since we waited over a year to have many features updated to be compatible with Mac computers!
I thought a Ouija Board might help with that wonderful “training” that we get
Duane, I believe we needed TIME, not an Ouija board, but maybe that would have helped. It was just frustrating. My contacts today tell me it has only gotten worse. They have added the MAP tests for the primary grades, too. I was told by a 3rd grade teacher that as of a month into the school year, she hadn’t been able to have even one reading group because of all this stuff that is going on. And, on top of that, they are going to evaluate teachers’ TEACHING skills based on the test results!!!! It makes no sense!
Tis, insane, eh?
And I’m lucky in that I don’t teach in a tested area but they’re trying to figure out how to ensnare us also.
They are somehow trying to connect every teacher’s contact with every student month to month, year to year, in order to point a finger at those who created a child with an inability to pass a test that is constantly changing, constantly graded by different people, constantly designed to confuse the answers, and constantly more dependent on using the computer. We filled out this form, with no prior knowledge that we had to do so. We came in to a teacher’s meeting with a sudden PD about filling out the form online. We had a very short window of time to indicate the percentage of each month that we had a child in our class. I had 6 with withdrawals and re-entries and a child that I finally got into the LD class a week before the test took place (since he had zero comprehension skills).
I retired and don’t know what their scores turned out to be. However, I would guess that they didn’t reflect all that well on me. Our school still did well, even with that, but this stuff will follow the kids all of their lives. And, I may be labeled as to having contributed to their lack of success. It was really difficult to deal with their constant transiency and then also dealing with helping the more advanced kids make AYP.
Ridiculous. (I only mention that our school did well so as to assure people that I didn’t bail out and retire because I was deemed to be a bad teacher).