A reader posted this comment about the debate over testing:
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The narrative of students as “product” does none of us activists any good, because truly it’s a reformer red herring–whether offensive or not–and it seems to me we should ditch it fast. Children are not the “products” in reformers efforts to change education. Children are the consumers. Reformers aren’t working to “improve” children, their brains, or their prospects. They’re working to SELL them stuff. If reformers cared about the quality of learning American children receive, standardized testing would be the last thing they’d subject them to, because it’s the last thing they subject their own children to. They know it’s a colossal waste of their own kids’ valuable learning time and it does nothing to help them or their teachers.
Reformers do care about whether–actually how many–children will form their latest target audience in the Race to the Top of the education “market,” and standardization is the key to quantity in that biz. The testing, charter, and tech industries live and die by test scores. Without scores, specifically standardized scores in quantity, they’d have a much harder time justifying their existence or creating a market worth the investment. Every industry has its labor issues–must cut costs!–and how can you fire teachers in bulk if you don’t have a single digit number by which to “evaluate” a year’s worth of work? What if you have to rely on messy realities, such as what goes on in real classrooms, to understand the nuanced relationship between mentor and mentee? Forget the extenuations of family, nutrition, opportunity, oh never mind. What’s more, reformers simply cannot reduce overhead by firing the small percent of teachers who are phoning it in. That’s why 2/3rd of New York children HAD to fail the state’s standardized tests and why Cuomo and Tisch aren’t satisfied with the junk VAM they originally okayed that returned only 1% of teachers as ineffective. How can you take over neighborhood schools with charters, and raise millions from financial services execs, if you can’t brag about “higher” test scores in the Wall Street Journal? How can you replace entire urban school districts with a warren of administratively redundant and cookie-cutter charters, if you can’t scream “failing” while whacking at a colorful bar graph? How can you sell booklets and applications and assessments on a big enough scale if the whole school year isn’t building up to a single test that the entire nation of children takes, preferably on a computer? Worse, what if teachers and kids actually read good books together, took field trips, created performances, conducted hands-on experiments in classrooms–using old stuff like recycled soda bottles, eggs, and baking soda of course? Invest in Arm & Hammer stock now!
Reformers will trot out every argument–any argument–to keep standardized testing to vindicate the “business” of education, rooted fundamentally in the need for change on a grand scale. The latest, I see, is the “civil rights issue of our time” argument again–that without annual, universal standardized tests, we wouldn’t “know” that children in high-poverty neighborhood (therefore schools) do not score as well on standardized tests as children in middle and upper class neighborhoods. REALLY? What rock do they live under? Seems to me, folks with a shred of sympathy have understood for decades–centuries?–not only this disparity but the far more serious one that poor children have too slim a chance of moving out of poverty. Anti-poverty organizations have been working to change things all along, but with precious little support from the government OR party-going philanthropists. Sampling and the NAEP would provide, has provided, more than enough data for reformers to glean this nugget. Anyway, NOW THEY KNOW. And what happened? This testing revelation has resulted in the worst atrocities of curriculum-trimming, test-prep, and educational “disruption” being visited upon only the poorest schools and districts. The dawning revelation of social inequity makes a convenient defense when what you’re really trying to do is transforms schools into the next strip malls of America.
Standardized testing has nothing to do with improving education–not for wealthy suburbanites in Westchester and not for needy children in the Bronx. It’s all about scale, and propping up a vast and growing “education industry” that’s only worth the trouble (money) of the likes of Gates, Murdoch, the Waltons, and the Bushes, and, sadly, Obama and Duncan, if it’s standardized and millions of customers–I mean children–are buying.
Reblogged this on blkdrama and commented:
Right to the piint
From today’s Republican mouthpiece, the Columbus Dispatch:
“tests are the surest way to know where kids need help and to measure the effectiveness of teachers and schools.”
Apparently, science and reality are again lost on the Republican Regime running Ohio. Just like climate change, it is almost comical that the Caveman Caucus here continues to beat this drum when the reliance on standardized tests for anything other that one aspect of teacher-led diagnosis is simple minded and ineffective. They can not admit their vast clown show of failed policies have failed America miserably.
This is what happens under one party rule, particularly when it is the misogynistic, GOP Party of Stupid. I left the Republicans after watching their descent into insanity and never had a second thought.
The smug satisfaction of a lot of this is really repellent to me. Very few of these adults lavishing praise on standardized tests had anything like this regime when they were growing up. It’s real easy to blow off the cost when it didn’t apply to any of them.
We must have all been “coddled”, right? If so, where do we get off with the stern, scolding lectures to 3rd graders?
It is an alternate reality for these people. You can write letters, demonstrate facts, explain reason, but it is like talking to an empty shell filled with misinformation and talking points from Foxnews.
Do education “reformers” with school-age children insist upon mandating Common Core and subsequent exhaustive test for their own special snowflakes, many of whom attend private school? If not, why not? That is an inquiry which must be proposed over and over by NYSUT and other supporters of American public schools. If the children of the women and men of the testing industry are free of these constraints, the public must know how and why.
The good people of Poughkeepsie, New York attempted to ask that very question of NYS Ed Commissioner John King back in October of 2013. He cried foul and canceled subsequent parent meetings. He sends his children to a Montessori school.
Margaret M. Nolan: do the leading lights of the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement actually believe in what comes out of their mouths?
An entire posting from this blog, “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!”—
[start posting]
This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.
[end posting]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/23/common-core-for-commoners-not-my-school/
Besides the posting and the article it links to, read the comments thread.
Then consider that rheephorm “thought leaders” find very old and very dead and very Greek guys not suitable for their cage busting antics:
“Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.” [Homer]
I would follow up with the rhetorical question “Wonder why Greeks are not suitable?” but I think you already know the answer.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
This is the way Madison Avenue @ Wall Street works. It’s just another brand-switching campaign to them. Can’t Get No Satisfaction. They have to get the kids addicted to something as early as possible. Cigarettes or Sugar or CyberDope, it’s all the same to them.
Gates et alia look down their noses at teachers in the public schools because they comfort themselves with the notion that we aren’t really all that bright, or we would seek to emulate them. Yet, as we can see from the topic of this post, teaching requires thoughtful analysis, synthesis and critical thinking. I believe the reason Diane’s blog is the most interesting and incisive on the web is due to the participation of educators, the very target of all the polemicists.
“Exactly” with regard to your comment that education reformers look down their noses at educators and any college which is not Ivy League. Teachers and non-Ivy college instructors should be OUTRAGED!
This analysis does make basic sense, but there’s a central flaw–and it’s one that may get in the way of efforts to preserve public education from “reform.” The writer suggests that the reformers and corporate types are even aware of “messy realities, such as what goes on in real classrooms, to understand the nuanced relationship between mentor and mentee? Forget the extenuations of family, nutrition, opportunity, oh never mind.”
The problem is, they’re not. They live in a world where single numerical metrics do matter, because that’s all they have to go on when they’re selling smartphones or apps or real estate–or counting votes in an election. And they believe they are doing good, and they believe their metaphor (which by the way, is not _students_ as products, but _education_ as the product; that enables “reformers” to believe they’re on the kids’ side).
As educators and supporters of education, we might consider adding _education_ to our arsenal of opposition to “reform.” If you set aside the school “reform” cottage industry and focus on facilitators like Cuomo, Jeb Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Bill Gates, even Eli Broad and Wendy Kopp, and on the people who accept them as education experts, the problem becomes: How do we _educate_ these people about the realities of classroom life and student experience? How do get _them_ to come to the conclusion themselves that testing metrics are inappropriate, that the variables are diverse, uncontrollable, and fundamentally immeasurable, and that behavioral correlations with test results are quite specific–making the results useful in very, very narrow applications, but not for outlandish applications like rating teachers.
Anger and sarcasm are fine. But we should also use our skills. “Reformers” aren’t any more grownup than kids, and many of them may be susceptible to good pedagogy.
Just seeing Condoleeza Rice and Bush in the same sentence sends chills down my spine.
” “Reformers” aren’t any more grownup than kids, and many of them may be susceptible to good pedagogy.”
And I have some great ocean front property with great views and white coral sand beaches over at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri to sell you quite cheaply. Call 858-585-0000 now, operators are standing by (I don’t allow them to sit).
Even worse than the edudeformers are the GAGA teachers and administrators who have gone along and continue to get along with all the educational malpractices that are thrown on them. No tienen cojones.
“They live in a world where single numerical metrics do matter, because that’s all they have to go on when they’re selling smartphones or apps or real estate….”
I don’t think that’s true. When it comes to selling either smart phones or real estate, the successful seller is one who understands how people use smart phones or houses in their real lives and who can make the strongest, most direct, personal connections to people. They look at every single, discreet action as far as how people interact with their phones or houses and how those discreet actions flow into meaningful, appealing patterns that can be adapted by any individual user for their personal needs.
They know damn well that dealing with humans is never about a single numerical metric.
It’s possible that some of them actually don’t realize what their policies are doing, but there are some like Bill Gates who certainly understand.
It was no coincidence that the Gates Foundation called for a moratorium on high stakes consequences (eg, firing teachers) for Common Core tests after the ASA and other experts told them in no uncertain terms that student test scores should not be used for such purposes (via VAM) .
It proves beyond any doubt that they are perfectly aware that their policies are not supported by science and therefore unjustifiable.
But, tellingly, rather than simply making an unequivocal statement like “VAM should not be used for firing teachers and making tenure decisions period” (what they should have done) Gates Foundation issued the two year moratorium statement.
Are we supposed to believe that the invalidity of VAM for evaluating individual teachers is going to magically change into “validity” in two years?
A reasonable reading of this is that Gates is simply buying time, letting some of the furor brought on by testing mania, VAM, firings and position papers from ASA and other experts(putting the lie to the policies) to die down.
The attempt to persuade the power-brokers otherwise with facts, critical & persuasive arguments etc is a longtime & ongoing project. But it misses the mark. Legislation, SCOTUS decisions & institutional edicts have already virtually removed the taxpayers from the debate, or we would not have power-brokers filling the void, changing public education for the worse from inside-out via bought legislators & philantho-corporate streams of $ influencing action at every level of government. Power has a different agenda than you or I.
It’s fine to keep educating legislators etc, but the important thing is to speak power to power. Widespread parent protests at every level (from local school boards to state capitols) make elected officials worry about keeping their positions. Widespread parent/child opting out of standardized tests is another way of getting the attention of legislators. If the Opt-Out movement grows big enough it actually threatens the viability of the test-score/VAM/data-base monster by starving it of data.
This is a very powerful piece… a great example of speaking truth to power (even if they are not listening :-). I shared it with the Teacher Union Reform Network https://www.facebook.com/TURNews
http://www.ibtimes.com/blackstone-groups-stephen-schwarzman-says-more-money-wont-improve-public-education-1792794
In examining the Investment site for the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, I noted the presence of Blackstone Group. Why is Schwarzman’s group allowed anywhere near our funds or investments? NYSUT and NYSTRS take note. Mr. Schwartzman would like free, donated work in our schools. Not one cent should go toward his fortune.
I urge the Officers of NYSUT and those of our retirement system to purge our investments of these mean-spirited billionaires.
This is a nationwide problem. With extremely low interest rates pension managers look for higher returns resulting in riskier investments with MUCH higher investment fees. I dare say the fees alone more than offset any “benefit” these riskier funds provide. I also have no doubt a part of those higher investment fees find their way back to campaign contributions to secure the pension dollars. So ironic. The people who scream about unaffordable pensions enrich themselves from those pensions.
What is even more corrupt is that testing companies use lobbyists to secure the votes from legislators to forward their agenda. The legislators then vote against the interests of the most vulnerable children while they “feather their own nests.”
I just got this poll on the Common Core. https://www.facebook.com/coffeeparty/photos/a.313395813326.193473.304981108326/10153575996233327/?type=1&theater
Wonderfully expressed. However, I think it is more than just profits. The OECD and the Trilateral Commission both started developing education models as far back as the early 1960’s that were designed to control the masses and stop large scale political unrest. Yong Zhao makes the point that standardized testing was used more that 1000 years ago in China to protect the interests of the elite class. Some people are actually afraid of an educated creative population capable of thinking for themselves. Democracy is not a universally held value and public education is the cornerstone of a functioning democracy.
The Gates Foundation funded Silicon Valley’s, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education.
Operative words, “knowledge management”.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
It is well documented that business and government leaders view our ranking on the world test performance scale as a “national security threat”. This and the Ultra Left’s concern with closing the achievement gap between minorities and whites at all cost is driving the Common Core education revolution. With revolutionaries coming at children from both extreme ends of the political spectrum our children our in great peril. The middle and moderate ground people must roar like lions to stop the herds of… well you know what they are, from trampling our children. How many children will fall before they wake up and come to their senses? It has and will take a devastating toll on our kids.
Au contraire. The following are examples of the “Ultra Left” and they do NOT support Common Core, high-stakes testing or privatizing education, and they also do not feel represented by the Democratic party, which long ago turned hard right, as “New Democrats” under Clinton, and sold out to big business: The Black Agenda Report, as indicated in their reporting, such as “Corporate Funding of Urban League, NAACP & Civil Rights Orgs Has Turned Into Corporate Leadership” http://blackagendareport.com/corporate-funding-urban-league-naacp-civil-rights-orgs-has-turned-corporate-leadership and The Corporate Assault on Public Education:
It’s not the “Ultra Left” that is concerned about closing achievement gaps – the “Ultra Left” understands full well that it’s a poverty gap and that’s what we’re working to close. It’s the so-called “centrist” variety of so-called “leftists” like Obama and Duncan (who are, in fact, very far right) who are concerned about “achievement gaps”.
Yes, Dienne, exactly. Many of us on the “Ultra Left” believe that politicians in both parties are ignoring poverty and we would like to see them ameliorating it, as well as the declining middle class, such as by promoting jobs programs and jobs with livable wages, instead of expecting education to solve the economic and social ills of our society and scapegoating teachers when they are incapable of doing that all by themselves.
A lot of us would like to see government addressing the grossly inequitable distribution of wealth, such as through progressive taxes on the 1%, including those in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries who are driving up the cost of healthcare, as well as those in the financial sectors who crashed our economy.
We would also like to see politicians address America’s share of the 80 people in the world who hold as much wealth as 50% of the population on the entire planet, as reported this month in Oxfam’s study. “Wealth Having it All and Wanting More”:
Click to access ib-wealth-having-all-wanting-more-190115-en.pdf
The claim of “reformers” that they seek to close the achievement gap is smoke and mirrors intended to conceal reality, because every nation in the world has an achievement gap between low and higher income children (See: “International Tests Show Achievement Gaps in All Countries”
http://www.epi.org/blog/international-tests-achievement-gaps-gains-american-students/ ), which means that politicians and governments fail people in poverty, not teachers and schools in every single nation in the world.
Secretary General of OECD Angel Gurria once said that nations get the poverty rates they are willing to sacrifice. After 30 years of education “reform” based on neoliberal economics policies, poverty has increased, so that now 51% of American children attending public schools are in poverty. http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render
Clearly, our government is willing to sacrifice the majority of our children, who are also among the most at-risk, while falsely claiming to care about them. This demonstrates that the lies of politicians about this being a civil rights issue amount to nothing more than CYA, as they continue to mandate policies that rob students of the joy of learning and stack rank them, regardless of the out-of-school factors impacting learning, while providing profiteering opportunities for billionaire cronies.
To Russell Miller
I would love to repeat your questions, as follows:
1) How do we _educate_ these people about the realities of classroom life and student experience?
2) How do get _them_ to come to the conclusion themselves
that testing metrics are inappropriate, that the variables are diverse, uncontrollable, and fundamentally immeasurable,
and that behavioral correlations with test results are quite specific–making the results useful in very, very narrow applications, but not for outlandish applications like rating teachers
Here is the appropriate answer according to a New York principal Carol Burris, as follows:
“Although our locally elected school boards may not be perfect, they represent one of the purest forms of democracy we have. Bad ideas in the small do damage in the small and are easily corrected. BAD IDEAS AT FEDERAL LEVEL result in MASSIVE FAILURE and are FAR HARDER TO FIX.”
In conclusion, all billionaires are not only smart, strategic and patient but also very manipulative, greedy and ego. Therefore, the answer of how to educate them and how to get them to be reasonably understood the damage from that they intend to make a profit, would NOT be A SIMPLE TASK. Back2basic
As a student in NY state I can say that I like taking standardized tests. I have not always been the most motivated student, but when I am faced with a test, I rise to the occasion and put forth an effort and adjust my work ethic to achieve to the expected standards. Although a standardized test does not tell the whole story, it gives a snapshot of a student’s understanding. Standardized tests provide teachers with a curriculum and a common goal for their teaching. Common core tests have been criticized for being too difficult. They may be difficult, but they provide a valuable quantitative method to compare schools statewide and throughout the country. If a test is so hard that almost every student fails, the state will not allow such high numbers of students to fail. These common core tests will be made much easier if failing rates are as high as they are projected to be. I also think that it is a positive and hopeful sign of educational progress that higher standards are being required of students, teachers, and their curriculum. I have had many teachers not teaching to their full potential because the regents exams are so easy. I am honored to know that Arne Duncan and other common core supporters believe that students, such as myself, have the potential to achieve at such a high level. If the common core ends up a failure, it will be phased out. If it is successful, then I am proud to say that I have been able to be part of such rigorous and valuable program.