Just received from a friend, Joan Baratz Snowden:
My daughter’s new elementary school principal sent this to all the students as they received their state standardized testing scores this week:
“We are concerned that these tests do not always assess all of what it is that make each of you special and unique. The people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you– the way your teachers do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way your families do. They do not know that many of you speak two languages. They do not know that you can play a musical instrument or that you can dance or paint a picture. They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them or that your laughter can brighten the dreariest day. They do not know that you write poetry or songs, play or participate in sports, wonder about the future, or that sometimes you take care of your little brother or sister after school. They do not know that you have traveled to a really neat place or that you know how to tell a great story or that you really love spending time with special family members and friends. They do not know that you can be trustworthy, kind or thoughtful, and that you try, every day, to be your very best… the scores you get will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything. There are many ways of being smart.”
My friend reported her daughter who did well on the test shrugged about her scores, but read the letter over and over and held it close to her heart announcing, “I really love this.”
True. Tests don’t teach; nor do they reveal all the qualities you name above that make students human beings. It is difficult to understand why administrators believe that one test taken on one day is capable of judging a student’s capability to learn. The people who “manufacture” these tests are not interested in education, only in reaping in the bucks that tests cost. Every head is a world, and every child has his/her way of learning, and that should be respected.
Please don’t throw administrators under the bus on this matter. Let’s put the blame where it belongs…politicians. Educators have been fighting this movement for many years.
Depends on what administrators you’re talking about. Some have fought valiantly against the nonsense, but many, most notably the Broad-trained ones, have leapt right aboard the testing and “accountability” express.
ok..like everything there are exceptions, but mostly in my experience administrators just learned to adapt to the what they were told to do.
I’d throw 95% of the administrators with whom I’ve dealt under the bus. The blame also belongs on the GAGA teachers who blindly implement what they are told to implement even when they know that whatever is implemented is educational malpractice.
drext727, if you’re an administrator then maybe you part of the 5% or so who have fought and lost jobs, been pushed (more like thrown) out the back door, then I say “good on ya” and good luck. Otherwise I know that the Karmic Gods of Retribution await you!
I have been an administrator and I currently back in the classroom. Most of the adminsitrators do what they are told by the politicians. If adminsitrators were the creators of the law then I’m with you, they are to blame. You hit the nail on the head. Administrators that fight the system do get fired.
This posting is one of the reasons I am a frequent visitor to this website.
Thank you, KrazyHistoryLady!
😄
A refreshing read. Thank you, Diane.
I wish more Principals were like this. However, I think many in Arizona have bought into the current system, or they will most likely lose their jobs. However, I wonder how some Administrators live with their choices.
I remember a high school principal I worked under who understood “great kids” well. He himself had been in Special Education and was pretty bad at public speaking. There was a young man who had turned himself around with the help of a mentor from the Carter Center, a superb homeroom teacher with a Ph.D who taught her high risk boys herself for part of the day, his ROTC Instructor, and the principal. Although it took him a couple extra years to finish high school (He was nearly 20) and he was never what could be called a “good student” the principal pronounced him a great kid and he received the Most Improved award his senior year. He was homeless for a while, fought, was classically ADHD, failed the written portion of his driving test 3 times, and was very sexually active in high school. He could have made a good living selling drugs in his inner city community. But teachers and administrators saw that special spark and gave him the attention he needed to be the man he could be. He has now been a police officer in a major city for over a decade. It’s all he ever wanted to do. It’s not all about the test.
This is inspiring. Thank you for sharing this!
Thanks so much for sharing this. As educators we have to look at the whole child and understand what our students and their families are dealing with. We have to show them that we believe in them and are in it for the long haul.
Politicians of all stripes, in an out of public schools look at what keeps them in their jobs, not what is good for society. The letter which is shown in this blog is FANTASTIC.
Regarding Dottie’s comments:
It IS difficult to have to drink hemlock, be crucified, run for your life etc. That is what separates the “men from the boys”, from statesmen to politicians. Too few men, too few statesmen, way too many politicians
Standardized tests don’t measure squat!
Or is that diddly squat?
And I ain’t talkin bout Bo!
“These tests don’t mean diddly.” That’s what I used to tell high school juniors when I was required to prep them for the ACT. Then I’d go into a long explanation as to why. I don’t think all of them believed me, though.
Sure wish that students AND teachers were able to shrug off test results like this or even learn something useful about a student, but unfortunately the high stakes nature of testing makes it almost impossible. No threat of being retained, school closure, teacher firing, or other negative consequence. This is how it was when I was in elementary school in the 90s. In fact, I don’t remember taking a test every year or even multiple times a year. Ugh!! Boooooo for high stakes tests!!
The administrators in a school district make all of the difference in how teachers teach and how students learn. I feel blessed that my children’s school district has administrators who work tirelessly to ensure that the teachers address every child’s individualized learning needs. Administrators and teachers have such difficult jobs.
That is absolutely beautiful. I think I will be brave enough to print it out and hang it in my classroom.
Reblogged this on Book Smart – A Parents' Guide to What Kids are Reading and commented:
Every school child in America should get a letter like this with his or her test scores.
Congrats to that principal. I think young kids should also be told that even if they do well on the test, it doesn’t make them better than their classmates who don’t do as well.
They should know that doing well on the test doesn’t necessarily translate into doing well in “real life.” But then the teacher would be going against one of the big claims of the Common Core supporters. Maybe that would be too confusing for young children. I think older students, at least, should be told outright the whole thing is a sham.
As a former principal I think this represents a meaningful & important gesture. I love that this leader took the time to remind kids of their significance & value.
Bravo to the Principal!
Tests, Tests, tests… One major newspaper recently claimed that if states tried to produce their own alternative to Common Core Standards it would be much more expensive. I wonder why can’t states club together to develop something that is open source and free? We know that the best things in the world are always free. It felt so good in the 90s when the world community believed in free internet, free programming languages and tools were developed, etc. This prevents the monopoly from overwhelming the market. Because the big bad company can always buy out all the competitions except the free resources that are never for sale.
It is very inspiring when Sandra Stotsky offered free ELA standards.
May be if many educators put together free standards, textbooks, etc.
then those who so desire will not have to walk far for a full set of educational materials for running full K-12 successfully. Some countries already have all their textbooks free online and see nothing wrong with this. (I did not see this in English speaking countries though).
I do believe that full K-12 of various versions and specializations are not hard to create given so many motivated teachers in US. Make an open source K-12 standards and all the needed materials and let everyone contribute and have a permanent open source copyright so that big bad companies never get a chance to eat them up….
“… the scores you get will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything.”
This sentence is the only part I would leave out. I don’t want any child to define themselves by these tests. It leaves the door open for a child who does poorly to say, “I’m nice, but I’m still stupid.” Otherwise, I can see that letter being saved by a lot of kids.
But this principal makes it perfectly clear that there are different kinds of smart..
Academic is not the only smart.
I, for one am stupid when it comes to art…If you told me I had to paint like the “A” talented art student….in order to pass the art test..
I WOULD FLUNK….so there teacher..Give me my much deserved F for ART..
But I accept that I have other smarts…I am an individual…
Students all have their own individual talents and these talents are what we need to build…
But no……we are on a “One Size Fits All” path to Stepford Robots with nothing but feelings of FAILURE……because I can not score as well as Johnny A does on a test..
THIS IS JUNK EDUCATION….PERIOD…
2o2t has it right. The principal has it wrong. The scores cannot tell one anything as the whole process is so fraught with error that the results and the conclusions drawn are invalid.* Why would we want students to begin to believe that these tests say anything valid at all when they don’t?
*Again see Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 to understand why.
I totally agree. I just don’t like that one statement about the tests telling you something. What is that something? What are the kids who don’t do well going to assume that something is?
well said, neanderthal!
I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Arnie’s Race to the Top Group should be made to read that letter before every Stampede to the Bottom meeting they have..
Some principals act like Robots…How many do you want to fire this year??? Oh..the ones that make the most money….We will make sure they get 35 of our low-performing high absentee performers..
You hear some of the assistants say to the teachers..and I have heard this..
“We do not want you to say anything negative about our DOE..You must work with us and say all good things…or….?
Or what? I am outta there and 100% better off…
And then the principal sent a follow up letter to the parents outlining all the reasons that the tests and accompanying test prep is wrong and harmful to students and their learning. And that he was enlisting them to sign a letter to the state superintendent explaining why they were opting their children out of the tests and all test prep was being cancelled for real teaching and learning.
AAAHAHH!, Damn alarm!. Time to wake up I guess.
Wouldn’t it be nice if it was all just a bad dream?
I agree that this is a great letter from the principal and a very good perspective for all of us to have. In my experience, most teachers and administrators recognize that OF COURSE tests are only one aspect of a student’s education, but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. It seems that many of you are advocating for no standardized tests at all. Am I interpreting that correctly?
I’m not against standardized tests. I like to know where my child stands when compared against his/her peers. I take all tests with a grain of salt of course–it is ONE test in the course of a school year. But along with many other things, it’s a tool I use as a parent to see if what my child’s grades are, what the teacher says about him/her, my view of his/her abilities and what his standardized tests are roughly aligned; and to see if there’s consistency from one year to the next.
“Am I interpreting that correctly?”
For me you are. When you read and understand the complete invalidity of the process of educational standards, standardized testing and the “grading’ of students as outlined by Noel Wilson in his never refuted nor rebutted “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” you will understand why. If you don’t read it then you have chosen to remain ignorant of the most pernicious, malicious educational malpractices of our times. See: “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
“I like to know where my child stands when compared against his/her peers.”
To each his own but when the “measuring device”, the test is so inaccurate why would you believe the results. I never gave a rat’s ass about what my kids did in comparison to others. I only cared about how they were doing in relation to themselves.
Pure awesomeness, @DianeRavitch – this should be shared very widely!
No test is a measure of the whole child. Get over it. If the state tests are not valid or reliable measures of what they allege that they are testing, bash them. But if not, don’t ignore them and call them irrelevant. Use the results productively.
One person deserving of her school principal position!!! Should be promoted to board of education chancellor.
This letter has recently been used verbatim without attribution by the head teacher of a primary school in England. She copied it from you blog and put it in a letter to every pupil of her school after they received their KS2 results (Key Stage 2 test) over her signature. Her letter went viral and when she was interviewed by the BBC she admitted the source without in any way apologising. Some people think this was not a good example to set pupils as it is plagiarism, for which students are severely down marked if caught.
See further comments: this letter, verbatim, was written and distributed many years ago at Jackson St. School in Northampton, Massachusetts, and written by principal Gwen Agna. Yes, I agree, the original author should be credited.
Someone stealing your ideas!
http://www.today.com/parents/test-scores-will-not-tell-you-everything-read-viral-letter-1D79933379
Yep! Read a similar story on the BBC News website on 15 July and shared. That article had nearly 900 (mixed) comments.
This letter was written by my friend Gwen Agna, who is a wonderful public elementary school principal and educator, and the sentiment is emblematic of the tone set overall at the school. The school is infused with caring and warmth for each child. It’s a smart, generous-hearted place, and I’m so glad to know my friend Gwen.Over the years, I’ve learned so much from her.
I am a proud teacher of Jackson St. School, where our visionary principal Gwen Agna, honors all our efforts, students, families and teachers. She wrote and has been sending out this letter for many years. It’s wonderful that it is being used around this country and others, but I do think it’s important to credit her original letter.
Kim, thanks for using the word “visionary” which escaped me as I wrote my comment. Gwen Agna is indeed a visionary principal, and Jackson St. School is an inspiring school where students, teachers, families, and community members are respected. I’m so happy the letter is going viral and that others are inspired enough to use it themselves. But credit where credit is due? The author is Gwen Agna!
And now a Dutch teacher has send out a letter that is a direct translation from the letter that was send out by the Barrowford Primary School in the U.K, who copied it from Gwen Agna.
This proofs to me teachers are not very creative 🙂
‘Good idea’s have to be copied’ the school replied when asked if they didn’t think it was necessary to credit ‘the original copy’.
http://www.dvhn.nl/archief/Brief-aan-leerlingen-overgeschreven-20851344.html
The original letter was written in 1999. I wrote it because the kids at my school in Longmeadow, MA were so anxious about the MCAS. And yes, Gwen read a version of it at a school committee meeting later that year. Here’s an article that was written in BuzzFeed years later. https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriasanusi/a-retired-american-teachers-17-year-old-letter-is-still-bein