Anthony Cody was not heartened by Marc Tucker’s vision of a new accountability system with fewer tests. In this post, he explains why. If ever there was a need for close reading, he believes, this is it.
Cody writes:
“Tucker’s plan is confusing. In a proposal in which accountability remains closely tied to a set of high stakes tests, Tucker cites the “Failure of Test-based Accountability,” and eloquently documents how this approach doomed NCLB.
“Tucker speaks about the professionalization of teaching, and points out how teaching has been ravaged by constant pressure to prepare for annual tests. But his proposal still seems wedded to several very questionable premises.
“First, while he blames policymakers for the situation, he seems to accept that the struggles faced by our schools are at least partly due to the inadequacy of America’s teachers. I know of no objective evidence that would support this indictment.
“Second, he argues that fewer, “higher quality” tests will somehow rescue us from their oppressive qualities. He also suggests, as did Duncan in 2010, that we can escape the “narrowing of the curriculum” by expanding the subject matter that would be tested.
“It is worth noting that many of the Asian countries that do so well on international test contests likewise have fewer tests. This chart shows that Shanghai, Japan and Korea all have only three big tests during the K12 years. However, because these tests have such huge stakes attached to them, the entire system revolves around them, and students’ lives and family incomes are spent on constant test preparation, in and out of school.
“Third, and this is the most fundamental problem, is that Tucker suggests that the economic future of our students will only be guaranteed if we educate them better. Tucker writes:
“Outsourcing of manufacturing and services to countries with much lower labor costs has combined with galloping automation to eliminate an ever-growing number of low-skilled and semi-skilled jobs and jobs involving routine work.
“The result is that a large and growing proportion of young people leaving high school with just the basic skills can no longer look forward to a comfortable life in the middle class, but will more likely face a future of economic struggle.
“This does not represent a decline from some standard that high school graduates used to meet. It is as high as any standard the United States has ever met. And it is wholly inadequate now. It turns out, then, that we are now holding teachers accountable for student performance we never expected before, a kind and quality of performance for which the present education system was never designed. That is manifestly unfair.”
“Tucker then repeats what has become the basic dogma of education reform. The economy of the 21st century demands our students be educated to much higher levels so we can effectively compete with our international rivals. Education — and ever better education to ever higher standards — is the key to restoring the middle class.”
But Cody objects:
“I do not believe the economy of the 21st century is waiting for some more highly educated generation, at which time middle class jobs will materialize out of thin air.
“Corporations are engaged in a systemic drive to cut the number of employees at all levels. When Microsoft laid off 18,000 skilled workers, executives made it clear that expenses – meaning employees, must be minimized. Profits require that production be lean. There is no real shortage of people with STEM degrees.
“On the whole, it is still an advantage for an individual to be well educated. But the idea that education is some sort of limiting factor on our economic growth is nonsense. And the idea that the future of current and future graduates will be greatly improved if they are better educated is likewise highly suspect.
“Bill Gates recently acknowledged in an interview at the American Enterprise Institute, “capitalism in general, over time, will create more inequality and technology, over time, will reduce demand for jobs particularly at the lower end of the skill set.”
“This is the future we face until there is a fundamental economic realignment. Fewer jobs. Continued inequality and greater concentration of wealth.”
Cody argues for a different vision, in which accountability goes far beyond teachers and schools:
“For far too long educators have accepted the flagellations of one accountability system after another, and time has come to say “enough.”
“We need to learn (and teach) the real lesson of NCLB – and now the Common Core. The problem with NCLB was not with the *number* of tests, nor with when the tests were given, nor with the subject matter on the tests, or the format of the tests, or the standards to which the tests were aligned.
“The problem with NCLB was that it was based on a false premise, that somehow tests can be used to pressure schools into delivering equitable outcomes for students. This approach did not work, and as we are seeing with Common Core, will not work, no matter how many ways you tinker with the tests.
“The idea that our education system holds the key to our economic future is a seductive one for educators. It makes us seem so important, and can be used to argue for investments in our schools. But this idea carries a price, because if we accept that our economic future depends on our schools, real action to address fundamental economic problems can be deferred. We can pretend that somehow we are securing the future of the middle class by sending everyone to preschool – meanwhile the actual middle class is in a shambles, and college students are graduating in debt and insecure.
“The entire exercise is a monumental distraction, and anyone who engages in this sort of tinkering has bought into a shell game, a manipulation of public attention away from real sources of inequity.”
Cody says:
“We need some accountability for children’s lives, for their bellies being full, for safe homes and neighborhoods, and for their futures when they graduate. Once there is a healthy ecosystem for them to grow in, and graduate into, the inequities we see in education will shrink dramatically. But that requires much broader economic and social change — change that neither policymakers or central planners like Tucker are prepared to call for.”
Thank you, Anthony, for your common sense in response to utter nonsense.
““I do not believe the economy of the 21st century is waiting for some more highly educated generation, at which time middle class jobs will materialize out of thin air.”
Standing ovation!
Speaking of:
“Business executives and politicians endlessly complain that there is a “shortage” of qualified Americans and that the U.S. must admit more high-skilled guest workers to fill jobs in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. This claim is echoed by everyone from President Obama and Rupert Murdoch to Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.
As longtime researchers of the STEM workforce and immigration who have separately done in-depth analyses on these issues, and having no self-interest in the outcomes of the legislative debate, we feel compelled to report that none of us has been able to find any credible evidence to support the IT industry’s assertions of labor shortages.”
My son works in this industry and he says the same thing.
The Obama Administration promotes the skills gap constantly. They are promoting it today, at the Dept. Of Labor.
Why did they swallow this whole? CEO’s told them this so they just started repeating it everywhere?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/27/bill-gates-tech-worker-wages-reforms-employment-column/13243305/?AID=10709313&PID=6154686&SID=11o626mh72j7l
The idea that we have a “shortage” of “qualified” workers, especially STEM workers, is one of the most ubiquitous reasons I hear for why we need “reform”. But it boggles my mind – can people be completely unaware of how many extremely qualified STEM people we have out of work?
Hear, hear! Anthony is eloquent and right on target!
I have not trusted Tucker ever since I read his Dear Hillary letter, and considering her neoliberal leanings, I would not put it passed Hillary to implement such a plan if elected president:
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/
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“The idea that we have a “shortage” of “qualified” workers, especially STEM workers, is one of the most ubiquitous reasons I hear for why we need “reform”. But it boggles my mind – can people be completely unaware of how many extremely qualified STEM people we have out of work?”
The skills gap is endlessly useful to employers and politicians. It’s the best theory ever. It takes the entire burden of training workers, stagnant wages and unemployment off employers and politicians and shifts it onto the public, or the workers themselves.
The Obama Administration is madly in love with it, even when their own labor and census dept numbers don’t back it up. They are married to the “skills gap”. We will never, ever pry them away from it, no matter how many annoying facts get in the way.
They’re promoting apprenticeships now. But why should the public pay to train workers for a specific company or job? Employers used to pay for that. They SHOULD pay for it. I have no idea when we all agreed to shift that cost over to the public.
It’s just one more subsidy to certain employers. I’m tired of subsidizing them. They’re flush with cash. Pay to train your own workers.
http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/siemens-2014/the-us-ignores-how-the-rest-of-the-world-bridges-the-skills-gap/162/
I get why politicians and “reformers” latch on to the alleged “skills gap”, but I can’t understand how most people do. I personally know dozens of STEM people who either are or have been out of work, often for long periods, as well as some who are no longer working in the field. I know my experience isn’t necessarily reflective of everyone’s experience, but other people don’t know any unemployed STEM people?
Plus, one has to question the value and worth of some STEM goods and services. So, I become a master at web-design and get hired by Yahoo to search out the latest “viral videos” and news-blurbs, to post at the Yahoo site. So? Is that worth 40-60 K/yr? While our farm workers who do a much more important job (feeding vs informing about latest vain trend) make 50% of that? We are techno-obsessed and oversaturated on useless, vain and futile, information that does NOTHING to make our lives better. Yet, we pay people that do much more important work, ex. agriculture sector, a pittance and many of them are a crop away from bankruptcy. God have mercy on our frivolous economic system!!!
Right on, sort of! The problem with the lack of jobs and relocation of jobs in other countries is not one of education, and the solution is not education unless you factor in the right education of the political class regarding the economy. The idea that expanding government on the backs of taxpayers, including businesses, and with every growing debt is a major cause of inequality and inefficient education. End the Federal Reserve. End fractional reserve banking. Put money on a solid footing. Let the free market thrive, including the free market for wages.
We had a “free market for wages” for centuries. It was called “feudalism”.
The “free” market is only as free and liberating, redemptive, as the values of those that control it. IMO, it is better called the “fallen market” because it is driven by the lusts and sins of fallen mankind. Think: a entertainer (ex. pro-athlete, or singer) will make more in one year than 99% of our farmers make in a decade or lifetime? As if food production was less important then entertainment? If the NFL collapses life goes on and few would care. If our farmers go bankrupt, life stops and all will suffer. So, how does the “free” market allow for such vanity, futility and inequity? Lebron James is worth that? His “good or service” (if it even can be defined as “work”) is 1000 times more valuable, important, vital than a farm worker? Really? “What manking highly values, God abominates”, as Jesus said.
Who is Marc Tucker?
From the “Dear Hillary” letter
“Clear national standards of performance in general education (the knowledge and skills that everyone is expected to hold in common) are set to the level of the best achieving nations in the world for students of 16, and public schools are expected to bring all but the most severely handicapped up to that standard.”
“School professionals are paid at a level comparable to that of other professionals, but they are expected to put in a full year, to spend whatever time it takes to do the job and to be fully accountable for the results of their work.”
from the same letter: “Radical changes in attitudes, values and beliefs are required to move any combination of these agendas. The federal government will have little direct leverage on many of the actors involved. For much of what must be done, a new, broad consensus will be required. What role can the new administration play in forging that consensus and how should it go about doing it?”
I guess Tucker was wrong about that one, wasn’t he?
Who needs consensus when you’ve got concentses?
On a lighter note:
“The Cat in the Hat comes back”
The Cat in the Hat says “VAMs are bad
They really make our teachers sad
And wrongly hold them accountable…
…Please disregard my former bull”
My numbered Things are put to bed
And now I’ll use the Bills instead
Gates and Clinton — as opposed to Things —
Leave no mess or bathtub rings
This article does a great job pointing out the moral, ethical, issues of our society, as tantamount to the pedagogical issues.
To quote: “”The idea that our education system holds the key to our economic future is a seductive one for educators. It makes us seem so important, and can be used to argue for investments in our schools. But this idea carries a price, because if we accept that our economic future depends on our schools, real action to address fundamental economic problems can be deferred. We can pretend that somehow we are securing the future of the middle class by sending everyone to preschool – meanwhile the actual middle class is in a shambles, and college students are graduating in debt and insecure.
“The entire exercise is a monumental distraction, and anyone who engages in this sort of tinkering has bought into a shell game, a manipulation of public attention away from real sources of inequity.”
Cody says:
“We need some accountability for children’s lives, for their bellies being full, for safe homes and neighborhoods, and for their futures when they graduate. Once there is a healthy ecosystem for them to grow in, and graduate into, the inequities we see in education will shrink dramatically. But that requires much broader economic and social change — change that neither policymakers or central planners like Tucker are prepared to call for.”
So, as long as our capitalism (value of capital, worship of capital) is supreme, and our socialism (value of humans) is secondary, we will continue in our chaotic state. Our problems are moral and ethical in nature, not technical or educational. We need to apply the solutions and moral decisions we already know will work (those our consciences tell us are right), but we don’t. We think the invention of a new “app” will solve our problems, our sins, when we already fail to practice that which we know is right. We don’t need more analysis and better data, but a change of course according to what we know is morally correct. We fail to practice that which we already know is right (and we know we fail at doing so, but believe something “better” will come). This is wwhy the Creator declares us all “inexcusably guilty”, for we fail to do the good we already know to do (sins of ommission), besides practicing the wrong we inherently know is wrong (sins of comission).
As long as the upper 5% view the rest of us as their servants and debtors, capitalism will fail the masses, because the wealth hoarders continue to refuse to be more just in their wages. Read James 5:1-10, for God’s opinion of unjust profits, unfair wages and hoarding of wealth and assets.
“And the idea that the future of current and future graduates will be greatly improved if they are better educated is likewise highly suspect.”
I agree with Cody’s skepticism towards claims that the overall education of the population is the key determinant of the performance of the national economy, but I don’t agree with him on this statement.
We have always aimed to, and have always accomplished, each generation having an overall better education collectively than its predecessors. I would advise any of our students to learn as much as they can in our schools to be literate and generally well educated. And for the high school student I would advise them to consider what they want to do with the first part of their adulthood and seek out learning that would suit their aspirations.
Perhaps the future holds billions of Walmart jobs. Then let’s make Walmart jobs pay better and include shorter hours and more vacation time. Free time is necessary for citizens to be fully active politically. Our current overwork/underpay situation damages democracy. The little people need time to march in the streets when the billionaires get uppity. Then let’s educate kids to use their minds well –even if the marketplace finds no need for their brainpower.
“Walmart Workers”
Walmart’s workers wall to wall
Billions at their beck and call
“Little people” have no dreams
Or so the Waltons think, it seems
we can escape the “narrowing of the curriculum” by expanding the subject matter that would be tested. Unbelievable BALONY
I wish there was also a column titled “What Tucker got Right” because IMO there are some important suggestions worthy of serious attention. A close reading of Cody’s critique will not be informed unless it is coupled with a close reading of Tucker’s report. It may read like pie in the sky to some and nonsense to others, but trust me, as someone who has followed the work of Marc Tucker for decades, this guy is an influential at the highest policy levels. I predict some of his suggestions will find their way into the eventual reauthorization of ESEA and, if we’re lucky, might even be taken up by some states as they become more and more disillusioned by the absence of payoff from investments in huge data centers, new tablets for the kids and Pearson books.
I’m well aware that the backlash against high-stakes testing is growing and have joined the Opt-Out effort in my state, but it is naive to think that the US is going to go from the current state of over testing to one of no testing. Thus, Tucker is smart enough to try a straddle. Further, while it may be that the skills gap is nonexistent, this is hardly the main thrust of Tucker’s proposal. One can certainly agree that we want a well-educated citizenry and that our strategies for educating disadvantaged students needs major rethinking and differential resourcing. Tucker argues that teachers want to be professionals, that teacher unions need to transform themselves and become proactive champions of a top quality teaching force and that Theory X management is counterproductive. Does anyone not agree?
My bottom-line to faithful readers of Diane’s blog: read the full report. Take note of what you’d embrace as well as what you’d scrap. And be realistic about how likely anything close to these conditions is possible. I for one hope they can be pondered seriously and pursued in some form; nothing comparable has come forward to change the current narrative that is taking our education system into the ditch.
Spoken like a GAGer!