A reader sent me this story with this comment: “Bizarro world.”
First Lady Michelle Obama promotes arts education because the arts raise test scores.
The administration said 35 schools would get federal turnaround funding for the arts because early evidence shows that the arts lead to higher math and reading scores.
Time to stop and think. The Bush-Obama high-stakes testing policies have diminished resources, staff, equipment and time for the arts.
The purpose of the arts is not to raise test scores but to express and develop our talents, to enhance our lives, to give us the joy of experience and skill in music and the other arts.
Arts are not a path to picking the right bubble on a standardized test. They are far more valuable than that. The self-discipline required in the arts, the joy of performance is sufficient unto itself.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
endgame…..it’s all that counts and the end justifies the means…..
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Alison Bianco is right. This is more calculated than people realize. “Turnaround Arts” is “arts integration” not arts classes. As they decimate art programs and fire all the teachers, they hire coordinators to train math and English teachers to integrate art into these “more important” subjects. Students do not learn an instrument, they do not learn how to create art.
This is exactly the bogus plan that LAUSD is doing. Enlisting world famous LA artists, raising millions from the reformers for PR. Steve Zimmer backed off his board resolution (which passed unanimously) to have Broadie Deasy make arts a core subject and instead he’s hiring coordinators to help math and English teachers.
Arts integration is nice, but it is not art class. And if you couple it with a total decimation of real arts classes, it’s deceptive. They kill the arts and then use construction paper in math class to give them political cover. It’ll take years for the public to catch on to this. Just like the civil rights claims.
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Cutting art and music teachers is a bad idea. It’s not clear that the goal of this project is to do that.
Here’s an article that appeared in the Minneapolis paper. The Perpich Art School is a state-wide public school that has strongly advocated for art and music teachers all over the state.
http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/259879911.html
Perpich does not see itself as a replacement for teachers. It tries to help strengthen existing arts programs in public schools. Perpich also helps develop collaborations between art teachers and professional artists.
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The arts can help young people in many ways. From the Phllly article:
“In a surprise appearance, the president made his own pitch for arts education. He said it is a necessity, not a luxury.
“The arts are central to who we are as a people, and they are central to the success of our kids. This is not an afterthought,” he said. “This is not something you do because it’s kind of nice to do. It is necessary for these young people to succeed that we promote the arts.”
A few big-name artists, such as actresses Sarah Jessica Parker and Alfre Woodard, performed with students from the schools they have adopted, in Portland, Oregon, and New Orleans, respectively. They also spoke about the change they have seen in their students.
“Our kids are glimpsing the fact that they have an inherent value and that confidence just spreads across their lives,” Woodard said.
Students spoke about what the arts mean to them, too.
“I think that the arts are important to our school because it gives kids an opportunity to see what they want to do in their life as careers and then also because it gives students a level of confidence,” said 8-year-old Sinai Jones, who attends the Martin Luther King Jr. School in Portland, Oregon.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20140520_ap_b66eec26f3854b0c90fc3156fbd61d82.html#iKSHx19Vg6SJvFjB.99
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The arts make a huge difference, and research shows that those who know music get much higher grades in math. Mrs. Obama is one of my favorite people because she knows and understands where we need to do more to help kids.
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Agreed harrisfr.
Here’s a column about the value of drama.
http://hometownsource.com/2014/03/12/joe-nathan-column-turning-the-education-spotlight-to-the-stage/
There are many benefits to the arts. Helping young people express themselves, helping them develop more confidence, helping them learn to work either by themselves or with others on a complex project (like a play, musical, major painting, music program, etc. etc.)
The arts also can help improve attendance and academic achievement. For a variety of reasons, arts should be a part of a youngster’s education.
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If she knows and understands what we need to do to help kids, WHY isn’t she pushing her husband to end Race to the Top and all of the testing?
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I’ll second what Threatened said. Mrs. Obama (along with her husband) is one of the most hypocritical people. Running around saying how important the arts are (and making darn sure her own girls get it) while supporting a system that has done the most to deprive non-elite kids of arts.
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I will third what Threatened said. Everything that this deform movement is doing is the direct opposite of supporting the arts. Art teachers are being let go at alarming rates. Curriculum is scripted and workbook style, not allowing teachers the freedom to incorporate the arts into what they teach. What they are saying versus what they are doing are polar opposites. I have never been more disappointed in a President….( I was angry with Bush’s lies, but not surprised or disappointed)…..
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Could you explain the point of your post, Joe? All you did was quote from the article that Diane linked to, and then you posted another link to the same article.
And do you get why Diane posted this article? Hint, it wasn’t because she’s a rah-rah Obama cheerleader. Do you remotely understand the hypocrisy of a person promoting the arts who has done so much to eradicate them for so many kids?
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Dienne, I understand that Diane, you and some others oppose many things that President Obama has done.
Reading the full article might be useful as I think it points out there are many reasons, not just improved test scores, for promoting the arts in public schools. I also think the Obamas believe there are many reasons to promote the arts.
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So if the Obamas believe that, why are they doing the exact opposite? You can’t deny that reducing or even eliminating arts education has been a direct result of RttT, yet Obama doubles down on RttT every chance he gets. Could you at lease please acknowledge the discrepancy, if not the hypocrisy of it all?
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I completely agree that some schools have responded to federal initiatives by reducing their arts programs. However, some schools serving many low income students also great art programs also have strong test scores and graduation.
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Cripes, Joe. I didn’t ask about what schools are doing. I’m talking about what *Obama* is doing. If the Obamas are so concerned about arts education, what are they doing to promote such education for all kids? We can quibble about federal mandates vs. how schools interpret federal mandates, but it’s undeniable that promoting test scores as the basis for teacher evaluation and the survival of the school does nothing to promote arts education and, in most cases, stifles it.
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Joe, I think the criticism is that there is a perverse incentive to frame everything in terms of raising standardized test scores. I mentioned in a comment below (here) that I don’t know of any artist who got into the field because he/she wanted higher standardized test scores. Why not frame learning outcomes in terms of what makes one a better person and a better citizen, rather than “it raises test scores”?
Under the framework of measuring success by standardized test scores, the next step in this arts initiative may easily be, “how little can we get away with in funding school arts programs and still have those high test scores”? That’s the framework for determining school funding — standardized test scores.
There are things that I appreciate about the Obamas, but they need to demonstrate more thoughtfulness about public education policy. Defining educational quality by standardized test scores isn’t a winner if you want to develop a productive citizenry.
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Strongly agree that there should should be a much wider range of assessments beyond standardized test scores. Also agree that artists don’t go into teaching so they can raise test scores. Also agree that arts have many values, not just their impact on test scores.
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There are so many good reasons for education in the arts, reasons extending further than affect, talent, confidence, and performance. Put simply the arts are good for us–our brains, our bodies, our spirits. The proof is there, demonstrated in study after study, for anyone who cares to see.The arts are not an add-on but something that makes us whole and human. #onceamusicteacheralwaysamusicteacher
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Ugh! Wake up Obamas.
Sent from my iPad
>
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To me, this is reaching. They’ve botched it up (by adopting and perpetuating the “accountability” mindset fostered in the 80s and brought to fruition ad nauseum in 2000); so now they need to fix it, so this is their argument. It’s kind of like the argument that people who go to church live longer.
I think what is happening is Democrats are so gullible for money, they will speak the language of whomever has it so they can get the money and support they need. Underneath they know what is right, but they trust the mighty dollar more than anything, and so their rhetoric will reflect whatever it is they think those with the dollars want to hear. Now that they’ve won the favor of the testing regime, they will come back to say, “and look how the arts strengthen the cause!!” But they still have the same cause: getting money from the testing juggernaut.
And that is why I am not a Democrat at the moment.
What has happened to authenticity?
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Joanna, exactly. This is election year rhetoric bait & switch. Every time the Dems call me for a donation I tell them to call me when Obama fires Arne Duncan and the Dems at CAP & DFER stop mirroring Jeb Bush education privatization policies.
They want to make this next presidential election a referendum on women by positioning themselves as the foil to the R’s disrespect for women. Fine. The war on teachers parallels the war on women. They should be held accountable for their stealth privatization war on all female professions, teachers, state & federal govt positions, and the VA.
I’m sending my donations to the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) and spending my volunteer time in local & regional elections.
I had one young caller tell me, I hear that a lot.
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” It’s kind of like the argument that people who go to church live longer.”
Chuckle. So now they have to figure out how to measure whether their little excursion into the arts raises test scores and perhaps what kinds of programs in the arts raise test scores. Can we sing a math song or do we have to have a real music program? Pearson must be having an orgasm thinking of all the $$$ to be made!
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Learning, too, is not a means to an end… the whole “ready for college ready for work” mantra hinges on the notion that schooling is designed to prepare for something else…
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Michelle Obama also missed the Iris Rotberg article about the role of charter schools in the re-segregation of America. How ironic.
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I taught at an arts magnet high school; although not selected for academics, the students were as strong, even in AP math as any I’ve taught. My granddaughter attends an arts magnet elementary, a great experience.
Besides doing the arts themselves, I think arts involvement allows kids (and even parents and the non-arts teachers like me) a better sense of engagement, even outsides the arts area. I also found the arts kids understood better what it takes to get things done; becoming a good cellist, dancer, visual artist requires work and discipline. And provides payback for that.
But despite all that, one has to avoid claiming cause and effect.
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I voted for Obama twice. I’ve now learned that he and his followers will say anything but can’t back it up by evidence. Great orator. Lousy administrator. Where are his moral principles and who is advising him?
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“Where are his moral principles . . . ?
If anything the Obomber is amoral for he certainly has no morals in regards to killing American citizens.
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He has no moral principles. Valerie Jarrett is a senior advisor to Obama on a daily basis, Zbigniew Brzezinski is advising him in a broader sense on foreign policy as he did Jimmy Carter, Read Brzezinski’s, The Chess Board, and see how his chess moves have been adopted by Obama. Henry Kissinger has direct access to the White House any time. It is all smoke and mirrors. The big banking cartels control him. Obama is a puppet. It is very useful that he is black because the race card can be played whenever anyone tries to criticize his policies. He has numerous impeachable offenses under his belt but somehow he continues to escape prosecution. Michelle knows exactly what she is married to….so any support for her is really laughable. Her genuine interest in the welfare of children is exactly zero.
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whether it’s arts or activities or athletics, all of these help the kids to learn important life lessons & skills, but most importantly, the kids have an investment in their schools. but, that’s right, some people don’t care what kids think (or feel or love, or…) we need to abandon the testing mania & get back to a well rounded education that allows our kids to see all the possibilities!
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That’s too simple, formercheesehead (I thought cheeseheadism was a lifetime affliction). We can’t turn a well rounded education into data points, so we can create all sorts of complicated metrics to see if “well-roundedness” is a worthy goal. Besides, well-roundedness is not a 21st century skill!
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This is so short sighted and sick.
If the only hammer that is valued is the test score, then anything even remotely related will look like a nail.
We will never return to learning for the sake of learning, Art for the sake of Art, Science for the sake of Science, etc., as long as education is always seen as being for the sake of something else –and especially when it is the one and only prescription the government and corporate “reformers” have for combating poverty.
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Cosmic Tinker: just a reminder of an important distinction I know you and others are already aware of.
The posting applies to the schools attended by OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN aka the vast majority.
For THEIR OWN CHILDREN aka the advantaged few:
Sidwell Friends (Barack & Michelle Obama); Delbarton School (Chris Christie); U of Chicago Lab Schools (Rahm Emanuel); Harpeth Hall (Michelle Rhee); Spence School (Michael Bloomberg); and the last shall be first, Lakeside School (Bill Gates).
The leading charterites/privatizers know, personal and up close, what a genuine teaching and learning environment is like. That’s why they picked for THEIR OWN CHILDREN something very different from what they are mandating for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN. Whether they are studiously ignorant of, indifferent to, or conscious of, their own hypocrisy, in practice it comes out to the same thing.
😎
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For some reason, the first thing that came to mind after reading this was Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic…
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Come on Jack, you shouldn’t leave us hanging like that.
“. . .‘What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.?
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Let’s hope Michelle Obama will not be allowed to do to arts education what she did to school lunches: make them so highly unpalatable that students avoid in droves!
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I’d look at it as a positive sign. It’s a recognition that the grim, narrow focus on test and punish probably isn’t appealing to most people. They can’t decouple value from test scores because test scores are the foundation of their entire theory, so they have to bring in more activities that “raise test scores”.
I just couldn’t be further apart from ed reformers. Not only do I disagree with their market-based prescriptions for public schools, I think they’re taking exactly the wrong lessons from US business – “markets”.
A short-term focus on return on investment for shareholders and others has been a disaster for US business. It was the root cause of the financial crash. I have no idea why someone would want to take the worst ideas in business and apply them to public schools. If they insist on making schools into businesses, at the very least they shouldn’t adopt ideas that are discredited in BUSINESS, let alone education. 🙂
We’re supposed to be getting away from this, not infecting the public sector with the same disease the private sector has.
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Yet, this administration allows for the stripping of everything and promotes teaching to the test. In Newark charter schools, North Star Academy in particular, elementary aged children are treated like prisoners. There is SILENCE at all times, unless a child is called on to answer a question. I’m not even sure children are allow to question. Read up on how many of these charters disdain individuality and write demotions all day long, on first graders no less, for an untied shoe, an unbuttoned buttonhole, a non-standard hairstyle, etc. There is no recess, let alone time for art, or self expression of any kind. Maybe Obama’s daughters get art, or drama, or extra curricular activities of their own choice. The rest of our children…they can be fed data in order to fill in bubbles.
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It really is contradictory and incoherent. On the one hand, they promote and (federally) finance the charter schools you describe, and on the other they promote arts in schools. Not only that, they insist public schools should be adopting the methods of charter schools.
My own theory is the incoherence comes from the fact that ed reform is a political alliance as much as is an educational theory, and they have to keep everyone in the ed reformer camp; conservatives, liberals, the ‘accountability’ people, the ‘choice’ people, the ‘arts’ people so you get these huge contradictions that defy all logic and common sense. The messages and mandates don’t hang together because they’re holding a political coalition together, and the members all want different things, and they all get what they want.
I have no idea what an ordinary public school is supposed to do with all these conflicting messages and mandates and directions. It must be absolutely bewildering to school boards and administrators.
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Maybe the disparities are to appease so many differing groups. However, I find it particularly disgusting that there seems to be an underlying assumption by so many of the people in these groups that the harsh discipline in no-excuses charter schools is perfectly acceptable and even admirable, as well as needed, because poor children of color are wild animals in need of taming.
They seem to be unaware of the research indicating that many families in lower income groups already use authoritarian parenting styles in the home, while the authoritative approach is likely to be found in the homes of higher income families and it is much more effective..
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Even the arts are not immune to metrics. There is a product called Smartmusic that can “grade” a musician based on note duration and pitch. My kids absolutely hated it and nearly quit music altogether.
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The arts make us human, which explains a lot about the “reformers,” doesn’t it?
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More political misdirection, intended to once again dupe an abused political base, from a couple who are masters of it…
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Watching Mrs. Obama and Sarah Jessica Parker speak of this renewed focus on arts, I was definitely puzzled. Is Mrs. Obama waking up and beginning to realize the President’s focus has been completely misguided? Mrs. Obama is a very smart woman and mother, and maybe, just maybe, she is trying to rewrite some of this nonsense. Sarah Jessica Parker has influence with the Obamas. I hope she is aware of the damage to the public schools in her neighborhood, and has been sharing her concerns and hopes for public school children with the Obamas. We need more artists, musicians, dancers, and public figures to stand up for children. Not all of them send their children to private schools, and many of them see their own children being diminished by the current policies. Their voice can make a difference.
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Don’t hold out any hope for Michelle. It’s just like when her husband says that teaching to the test is wrong and then in the next breath promotes RttT which allows for nothing but teaching to the test. Never listen to what an Obama (or any other politician for that matter) says – look at what they do.
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Agree, Dienne. Actions speak louder than words.
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The First Lady is married to man whose testing policies have gutted our arts in schools and whose education policy has pretty much reversed Brown vs Board. Disgusted with her as well at this point.
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Please document what you call the gutting. Bushie first initiatd the gutting by insisting that children reach a certain bar. It’s actually a good idea, BUT, poverty and pain get in the way and scream for attention.
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Yes, “Bushie” started it. Obama has doubled down. RttT is NCLB on steroids.
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Poverty is the problem that must be solved… Our Schools Are Not Broken…
Stephen Krashen – June 10, 2011
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2319§ion=Article
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Our district began cutting music and art several years ago. I asked the question once about the reason for these cuts and whether it had to do with not wanting students to use the other side of their brain.\? The person I said this to was shocked, but I continue to ask.
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Reblogged this on peakmemory and commented:
It is a shame that everything has to be justified in terms of effects on test scores. We should teach art because art is valuable in its own right.
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Diane says “Arts are not a path to picking the right bubble on a standardized test. They are far more valuable than that. The self-discipline required in the arts, the joy of performance is sufficient unto itself.”
Thanks for articulating the views I share.
I have spent a lot of time ranting about the status of arts education in public schools, and a federal arts bureaucracy that uses arts education–little dab will do you–in order to justify public funding for its programs, and (in a three-for-one pitch) to help underemployed and unemployed artists get a little income by a grant program that places artists in schools for several days or weeks (a bit like bringing a zoo animal into the school). The third pitch is that the arts an economic driver for communities–quality of life plus multipliers for the economy, especially from the performing arts.
USDE’s arts education programs are evaluated but the criterion voiced by Mrs. Obama. The claims made for the arts–raising test scores, reducing truancy and dropouts, and so on–are largely the product of some journalistic expertise brought into publications from the National Endowment for the Arts and it lobby, Americans for the Arts.
I don’t doubt that studies in the arts and arts experiences without strings attached can modify the ambience of life in in schools, but they are not a panacea. I have a collection of parallel silver-bullet claims related to higher test scores, improved attendance, reduced truancy, etc made on behalf of military training in high school (ROTC), sports, environmental education, cooking activities, clubs and contests in all shapes and sizes. The unrelenting focus on test prep and testing makes all of these candidates for some relief and an opportunity to conduct research that reaffirms the “hawthorne effect”–just paying attention to students in an uncustomary and positive way will have ripple effects…not the same as an “impact.”
I have addressed policy issues in arts education for a long time.
1982). Instant art, instant culture: The unspoken policy for American schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
2001. Can the Arts Win Hearts and Minds?. Arts Education Policy Review, 102(5), 21-23.
2004. No child left behind in art?. Arts Education Policy Review, 106(2), 3-20.
2007. An update on No Child Left Behind and national trends in education. Arts Education Policy Review, 109(1), 25-40
2011. “Report Cards From Hell on the Near Horizon: High Stakes and Ridiculous Expectations.” National Art Education Association, March, Seattle. Research Session.
2012. The Circular Reasoning Theory of School Reform: Why it is Wrong.
Ohio Art Education Association. Super Session.
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BeltWay = BubbleWorld
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People are angry because we as a country aren’t doing what they want with respect to education and they appear to be blaming one party or the other. However, the problem isn’t with the parties it’s with us. Segregation, lack of respect for teachers, etc. are not party specific.
If you think back … the lack of respect for teachers embodied in the those who can do and those who can’t teach mentality is a long standing belief and is root of this whole education debacle we are going through.
Segregation is a whole other kettle of fish.
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Reblogged this on Dolphin.
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In addition to this “Turnaround Arts” program acting like the arts are only useful as a test-score booster, this program very intentionally is NOT interested in giving all kids the arts. In Chicago, the grant was ONLY awarded to three “turnaround” schools led by the AUSL private management company, which members of our appointed board of education have direct ties to: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-05-20/news/chi-3-west-side-schools-picked-for-turnaround-arts-program-20140520_1_ausl-kerry-washington-adopted-schools The extra arts funding is going to schools where veteran black educators are fired, TFA and other inexperienced staff are brought in, and where a culture of test-prep is the norm.
interestingly, this grant was awarded just days after parents held a sit-in at another school to protest the corporate takeover by this same AUSL company: http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/27495183-418/parent-sit-in-ends-at-gresham-elementary-school.html#.U39kUnJdXIc Maybe they figured they could distract the public from the very real opposition to turnarounds.
It is sick how they sabotage and cut community schools while trying to entice parents and community members into buying in to their privatization movement through grants and programs only awarded to “choice” schools. I’m glad to say the parents, students, teachers, and community are not buying their BS!
Shame on Michelle Obama for participating in these privatization schemes.
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It makes perfect sense. After all the teaching to the test and test induced stress that could cause popular teachers to lose their jobs and local schools to be shut down, kids need to relax and the arts offer that break while making kids feel better for at least a short time before they are tossed back into the mosh pit of gritty testing rigor.
But Obama—guided by his partners Bill Gates and those Hedge Fund billionaires—must find ways to drastically change education so that eventually—when the private sector for-profit charter schools take over educating our kids to do better on bubble tests—the high paid CEO’s of those fake schools will be able to report increases in quarterly profits to make their share holders, who are among the 1% of most wealthy Americans, happy as their fortunes continue to grow while poverty skyrockets.
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Ravitch’s comment here really resonates with me. I came to appreciate her perspective because our local school district was entertaining the idea of cutting the elementary music program at the start of the Great Recession, and I really couldn’t understand why. Ravitch’s recent two books gave me a context to understand the situation.
Participating in the arts develops non-cognitive skills that can have a collateral benefit of raising test scores, but I don’t know of any artist who got into the field because he/she wanted higher standardized test scores. The reason the arts get cut is because there is no direct way to quantitatively identify and measure those non-cognitive skills. It’s a “treasure what you measure” scenario.
School boards and administrators find convenient ways to cut arts because it doesn’t easily fit into an “objective, quantifiable, data-driven” framework of decision-making. A decision to keep the arts in schools requires the decision-maker to begin to step outside of conventional data-driven scenarios in education. One very weak redeeming quality of NCLB is that it does recognize the arts as a “core subject.” At least we established in federal law that the arts could be mentioned in the same breath as reading and math. But nothing is compulsory.
Go to a sporting event where the national anthem is performed and notice how hardly anyone in the audience knows the words. And those that do were probably in a secondary school choir class. Why is that? Because learning the national anthem isn’t formally considered a necessary component of good education leading to good citizenship. Possibly because no major corporation can figure out how to monetize that learning outcome, and Pearson hasn’t figured out how to work that outcome into a standardized test… yet. Fewer school kids today know traditional American folk songs or pieces from classic Broadway or the American songbook. I actually find that there is a very unpatriotic outcome to this policy.
I am grateful to live in a college town that is fortunate enough to support the local public schools to a higher degree than most, but even here I find perverse curricular incentives related to standardized test-taking. High school students forego visual and performing art classes for AP Art History and AP Music Theory for there “fine arts” requirement, because students can get an extra grade point and an AP score for college admissions. Enrolling in high school music, theater, or visual art class can actually pull down the GPA of a student who is highly driven to score well. It’s all about how well you can talk about the activity rather than doing it, and the message that high performing students are given is that creating art isn’t as worthwhile as discussing it. Elvis Costello is credited with saying, “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”
It’s entirely certain that our modern-day developing Mozarts, Michaelangelos, Billy Holidays, Picassos, Steve Jobs, Michael Faradays, Meryl Streeps, John Lennons and Paul McCartneys are not being encouraged and developed by our public education system, because their strengths don’t directly align with scoring well on standardized tests in math and English. I think many grade school students face an existential crisis because our education system obligates them to become excellent standardized test takers when they grow up, over nearly every other thing that could be worthwhile in life. I could go on, but I will probably just come across as a resentful, grumpy old man…
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“The reason the arts get cut is because there is no direct way to quantitatively identify and measure those non-cognitive skills. ”
I just want to quibble with you over a word choice. “Non-cognitive” is not the right choice. As far as I know, talent in the arts really requires the participation of our brains. Now that I think about it, I think you may be thinking of the term “nonverbal” although I think the professionals in the arts might quibble with that as well.
In any case, you do not “come across as a resentful, grumpy old man” although as a resentful,grumpy old lady, I may not be the best judge of that. 🙂
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2old2teach: I just want to quibble with you over a word choice. “Non-cognitive” is not the right choice.
I agree that it may not be the right word. In part it is a concept inspired by U of Chicago economist James Heckman’s work in studying the GED in the early 1990’s, a summary of which can be found in the transcript of this radio piece, maybe a third the way in. Heckman uses it as a somewhat general term to encompass all the worthwhile educational and developmental skills and experiences not accounted for in the GED test. Even Heckman acknowledges that it is an imperfect word.
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Grit’s out, fun’s back! yay!
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Ravitch: The self-discipline required in the arts, the joy of performance is sufficient unto itself.
Add to that “the opportunity to communicate a unique vision”.
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How would a standardized test measure this kind of creativity in art. Interesting art usually defies the conventional. How would one document defying the conventional with a standardized test?
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I think she means “the Artfulness of Test-bubble machine Raise[s] Test Scores, eh!?
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Doublethink …
Dou·ble·think [duhb-uhl-thingk]
noun
the acceptance of two contradictory ideas or beliefs at the same time.
Origin:
double + think1 ; coined by George Orwell in his novel 1984 (1949)
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this
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Taken at face value, the 1st lady made a utterly preposterous statement. Looked at through the lense of the way things work in DC and the current climate of cuts to all things education, this is the kind of statement that would appeal to the already clueless idiots in DC making what passes for education policy. In other words, they’ll fund something good like the arts if they think it will raise test scores even though they are too ignorant to realize the entire idea is nonsense. Probably a futile effort as there are far too many bigots and haters in DC and beyond who will discount whatever the 1st lady says just because it’s her saying it. What would the response be if she claimed the sun actually does rise in the east each morning?
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The over arching point is that virtually nothing gets done in DC just because it’s the right and smart thing to do. It’s all a bunch of posturing by corrupt, decadent, self obsessed twerps whom together have the moral compass and intellectual integrity of an amoeba.
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Are you insulting an amoeba? Isn’t there a better compassion? For instance, sewer sludge before it’s filtered, sanitized and turned into compost.
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Yes, I did inadvertently insult the amoeba for which I apologize.
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These people have a less-developed moral compass than do parasitic wasp larvae
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I think “no moral compass” would be a better description, and I’m sure the wasp larvae has a wasp moral compass built in their DNA that’s missing in the fake ed reformers.
For instance, what happens to the wasp that doesn’t do its duty as a wasp to protect the wasp’s nest?
Do human psychopaths have a moral compass?
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Reblogged this on Arts Education Forum and commented:
What does this or any administration intended to do to make sure that all students have access to excellent arts education?
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It plans to test kids until they scream.
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And when they start to scream, they will be sent to psychologists for therapy where they will be taught to repeat how valuable the Common Core Standardized testing is to the education of children and ending poverty.
It is obvious that to the Obama administration, the only way out of poverty is to test your way out and eventually success on the test will come with an offer of an annual guarantee that will cost you 10% of your annual income for life. Without that high test score and the guarantee paid to a Hedge Fund billionaire, you will be denied access to jobs that pay a livable wage and sent to live in communities mired in poverty.
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Only someone as unsophisticated and narrow minded as Michelle Obama would link the arts to test scores.
There are brilliant artists who did not score well in this or that but still became successful in their art discipline.
Someone as untalented as Vampira Michelle should have picked up on that . . . . .
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The hypocrisy of the First Lady is not limited to this bit of blindness. I was talking last week with a teacher at the First Lady’s actual elementary school alma mater — then it was “Bryn Mawr Elementary”; today it is named Bouchet Elementary. There was a photograph from the First Lady’s kindergarten class in The New York Times. But when the First Lady came to Chicago with her husband for the NATO Summit two years ago, she told the world that she was going to take the NATO spouses to visit her old “school” — which should have been Bouchet Elementary.
Instead, the NATO spouses, led by Michelle Obama, wound up at a CHARTER SCHOOL. She did go to the “old neighborhood”, but instead of going over to S. Jeffry Blvd., where her actual real historical elementary school still exists, she took the spouses to the Comer “Campus” of Chicago International Charters Schools (CICS), on S. South Chicago Ave. A half mile away.
The complex history of racial segregation in Chicago’s elementary schools is not the simple-minded version preached by the First Lady in 2014, or featured in her visit in 2012. What is strange about this is how brazenly the propaganda utterances of the First Family become “news” without further examination. The impact of the Brown decision on Chicago’s public schools was minimal, since Chicago maintained its commitment to the maximum number of segregated all-black schools (90 percent or more Black children in the schools).
I helped the U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare do the schools “matching” studies in 1975 and 1976 so that the patterns of racial segregation (and re-segregation) could be made clear. One of the schools that was an prime example of how CPS did its segregating was Bryn Mawr — during the years Michelle Robinson was a student there. In fact, the school is almost a classical textbook example of how Chicago segregated (and resegregated) communities. Maybe that’s why she is (a) avoiding the reality of the history of Bryn Mawr and (b) diverting attention to the magnet schools and charter schools because (c) the massive segregation has deprived the majority of Black children of their right, under Brown, to an equal quality education while (d) enabling a small minority to “escape” the tragedies via magnets, charters and other diversions from desegregation.
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This comment should be a post all by itself so it can be easily reblogged and retweeted.
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Fareed Zakaria recently gave a commencement address in which he stressed the importance of a liberal arts education–he has the pulpit, the experience, and the eloquence to explain what is obvious to most of us.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2014/05/24/exp-gps-0525-witw-graduation.cnn.html
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The Arts teach problem solving and critical thinking in and of themselves.
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