This letter was written by a first grade teacher in upstate Néw York:
She writes:
(Un)Intended Consequences
Today was the first day of the NYS ELA tests. I must state right from the outset that my students do not take these tests. Not yet. But in two short years, they will. And yet, these tests had an effect on my students today and will continue to do so in the days to come. You see, these tests have a ripple effect. The immediate effect is that my students who receive services such as reading and resource will not receive these services for the next TWO WEEKS since the teachers who provide these services are proctoring the state tests. They will also lose services when some of these same teachers are pulled out to score the tests in the subsequent weeks. (They will lose out again when we begin the SLO testing in May, but that is for another post). The longer term effects are more devastating. You see, their education has been hijacked by these tests. Although my “Firsties” are not taking these tests yet, they are preparing for them and will continue to do so throughout their Elementary years.
When I started teaching oh so many years ago, we focused on thematic instruction and integrating all subject areas so that our students had opportunities to make connections. We taught in ways that honored many learning styles, student’s individual differences and developmental stages, along with their individual needs. We understood (and still do) that each child has different intelligences and learning styles. My walls and windows of my classroom were covered with songs and poems, student artwork and artifacts of student learning. My little ones sang and read and played. We taught using literature with rich language and focused on building background knowledge. Children were encouraged to synthesize knowledge and draw conclusions using what they knew and what they were learning. We used a tremendous amount of glitter and paper and encouraged children to express themselves in ways that played to their strengths. We did projects and had lots of hands-on learning with manipulatives. I assessed through observation and working directly with students.
Over the years, we have had to move away from what we know is right for kids to what we are told we must do in order to prepare students for the tests.
At first, teachers knew that we could use those tests to help identify areas where students needed further instruction and where we could improve our teaching. We accepted that our 4th and 8th grade students would be tested and we knew how to prepare them. We focused on those areas and we saw growth. We didn’t like “No Child Left Behind” but we could work within it.
Fast forward to “Race To The Top” and Common Core and the use of the tests to evaluate teachers. Without going into all that is wrong with this, let me just say how it has affected my little ones:
My walls are no longer covered with songs and poems and artwork. That has been replaced with “anchor charts”, “I can statements” and “Learning targets”. We barely use construction paper and I have not purchased glitter in 3 years. There is no time for art projects or creative expression. Children can no longer choose their learning. They write to prompts and must write different genres at certain times. Math is done on paper and manipulatives are few and far between (except when I pull out the old stuff). Reading is “close reading” and answers to questions are to be solely based on the text, without synthesis of prior knowledge.
Assessment is daily and must be documented along with being scripted (because Big Brother is watching). Modules are scripted, teacher led and boring for little ones. We have to have 50% of text presented as informational text. Students have to write essays before they even have automaticity of letter formation. ALL THIS IS DONE SO THEY CAN PREP FOR THE TESTS. My students will take keyboarding in 3rd grade so they can take the tests online…BEFORE SOME OF THEM EVEN HAVE THE PHYSICAL HAND SPAN TO USE A KEYBOARD.
Our littlest learners are preparing for these tests as soon as they enter school. We know that. We know that our colleagues in grades 3-8 depend on us to lay the foundation. We know that our little ones are being used as weapons to help destroy public education. We know that they cannot possibly do well on these tests as they are written 2-3 grade levels above their current grade level and that an arbitrary “cut score” will be determined AFTER the tests are scored to manipulate the data. We know that we cannot discuss these tests and that they cannot be used to inform instruction nor to inform us of our students’ progress. These tests are solely being used to create false data about our students and our schools. They are being used to make our public schools look as though they are “failing” and that our teachers are incompetent. They are creating a pressure cooker atmosphere.
Our Bully of a governor wants to turn our public schools into For-profit Charter schools (which are little more than test prep factories that do NOT have transparency of finances). He is beholden to his hedge fund donors and his big $ donors. In addition, he has publicly stated that he wants to break the teacher’s union. Our children’s education has been hijacked. Our teachers are being abused by an agenda that puts money over what is right for kids. Our society’s future is being manipulated to create a country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, both in terms of dollars and education and opportunities. The simple fact that the private schools where the children of the elite attend do not have to participate in these tests or this curriculum, is very telling.
Today’s refusal numbers are encouraging. This is a lesson in civil rights and civil disobedience. We are teaching our children that they have a way of changing what is wrong in our government and our society through nonviolent means. We are teaching them that they have a voice. We are showing them that we can all create change. We are also showing them how to stand up to Bullies. And THAT is a great lesson that no amount of test prep can compare to.
Reblogged this on Critical Consciousness – Spirit of Paulo Friere and commented:
well worth reading
As a newly retired first grade teacher in NM, I must say that this letter from a NY teacher duplicates my experiences entirely. The classroom used to be an exciting learning place. Under CCSS and testing, everything about teaching is now being dictated by administrators, many of whom have little classroom experience. Their demands come from above them from experts and politicians with NO classroom experience. Teachers can no longer do what is right for kids without being subjected to negative consequences. As she points out, those on the low end of the totem pole (innocent and trusting students) suffer the most. They are being told at a very early age that they are FAILURES.
“Our Bully of a Guv”
Our Bully of a Guv
May have his eyes on POTUS
But people have no love
For bullies, POTUS taught us
I’m in Northern NY and I would estimate, and it’s be pretty close, that our students who receive remedial reading (25% of my class) miss at least 20 -25 days because of DIbels testing and Common Core.
Common core is a dog’s dinner, CC is a DD.
Oh, how well you described the many problems of CC and its testing!!!!
You sound so much like a group of teachers that I know. They are the most outstanding teachers to grace the field of ed. but aren’t as brave as you in speaking out. These educators/expert teachers are suffering greatly under the heavy burden of CC denying them the academic freedom to follow good pedagogy. They must have sleepless nights knowing how their students are being deprived of a good education which they could give them if they could throw off the asinine yoke of CC and its aligned testing. Unless we unite together as Ghandi and King and defend the rights of children, parents, and teachers we will soon be singing, “Where have all our teachers gone, long time passing…CC destroyed everyone long time ago.”
“These educators/expert teachers are suffering greatly under the heavy burden of CC denying them the academic freedom to follow good pedagogy.”
Then damn it don’t play along, quit being GAGAers.
“They must have sleepless nights knowing how their students are being deprived of a good education which they could give them if they could throw off the asinine yoke of CC and its aligned testing.”
Then damn it throw off that yoke and refuse to GAGA.
Duane-GAGA? My brain is functioning slowly today, please define….
@ twenty-nine years: GAGA: Going along to Get along
I heard through the grapevine that there is a recruitment of teachers to correct the exams and that they only want teachers who are paid on the low end of the pay scale, meaning they want new teachers. I suspect they want new teachers because they are easier to manipulate persuade.
They should pay temp workers to proctor the test and let the schools staff stay home that day. Then, let the teachers grade the essays at regular pay.
Isn’t grading the the writing a higher skilled task than policing the exams?
They are paying four times as much to police and watch kids take an exam on a computer, than to grade the writing in the exam. Just another example of the mad cow testing system they are running.
I score tests for a grade level that I don’t teach, another day of missed instruction for my students.
Commenters like Tim and WT continue to blame teachers for the demise of authentic instruction, the disappearance of excitement and fun in the classroom, and the anxiety experienced by some of our youngest students. They bemoan the seemingly endless scripted, test-prep lessons and insane amounts of Common Core homework that have driven many young students to dislike school more than ever. Thank you for setting the record straight regarding the real the source of all that is wrong at the classroom level with the high-stakes pressure of Common Core testing. Principals, supervisors, curriculum specialists, superintendents, and consultants are the ones that should have the finger pointed at them for succumbing to the demands of Arne Duncan and Governor Cuomo and their failed Race to the Top educatio agenda.
That’s simply not true in my case. I have been careful to blame principals and superintendents for the test prep as well. It is particularly bewildering to me that the same superintendents and principals who are actively facilitating and encouraging opting out are also continuing to test prep and narrow the curriculum.
What happens when the old guard of teachers retire? What happens when all we have left are the younger ones who know no other form of teaching than The Common Core.
You know Pearson and the masterminds of the Core are betting on this. In fact I bet they are trying to alter teacher training right now.
Sadly, of course they are. Try to find a graduate level teaching textbook NOT written by Pearson, and currently in use. Good Luck.
Excellent description of the problem and your experiences. Let’s get a nationwide movement to put a definitive end to standardized testing and instead work for not only a return but a proliferation of creative teaching and learning.
This beautifully articulated article should be reprinted in every major newspaper and magazine. This teachers should be interviewed on every major talk show. Teaching is becoming a lost art. Anyone can follow a script, but without inspiration and joy, there is no learning. The saddest day for me was seeing the back bulletin board that used to display art work, poems, creative writing, etc. being turned into a “Word Wall”. A classroom setting should be inviting and the joy of learning should be evident. For many of our students school is their only escape from the outside world. Walking into the classroom should be filled with wonder and excitement. Sadly today it’s all about worksheets purchased from Pearson.
So does this worry anyone with pre-k? Why would the ed reform approach to pre-k be any different than the ed reform approach to K-3?
I’m not a teacher, but I’m a parent of two kids, so I’ve gotten to see how classroom instruction has changed over time as the result of NCLB and RTT. This commentary is accurate. Thanks for explaining this so well.
Parents’ opposition to the tests is about much more than not liking the two weeks or month of direct test prep that comes right before the test in grades 3-8. (That length of direct test prep is for schools with mostly middle class kids, but there is even longer, even more soul-cramping, curiosity-crushing direct test prep in schools with poorer children, who are typically far behind from the beginning of their school years).
Our opposition is based on seeing how “accountability by testing” has ruined the classroom experience for all kids, even the youngest children, even in the years before the test, and forced school at all levels to adopt what we parents can see are inappropriate educational practices that do not give our kids the broad, full education we want for them. Tragically, the kids who are the most far behind in academics, the ones who most need the enriching classroom experience, because they are in schools with high concentrations of poverty and less educational opportunity at home are the ones getting the most extensive test prep, teach to the test curriculum.
A standardized test, no matter how new and improved, can only tell you so much about a child’s education. The “new and improved” Pearson tests for NYS (to the extent we have gotten information at all, via published sample questions and leaked test items from kids) show even more the limits of testing, as we see that tests alleged designed to test “critical thinking” and deeper thought don’t really do so. How do you evaluate the better answer in a multiple choice question with many decent choices, without thinking you have to think like the test maker? Is that teaching kids critical thinking or that teaching kids that one way of thinking is right? What if your rationale for your choice is better? Your reasoning isn’t reflected by filling in A,B,C, or D. And in a short answer or essay, how do you evaluate original thought or critical thinking when the test -scorers have to adhere to a strict rubric without much fine-tuning available (because then it would get too subjective and wouldn’t be standardized)? According to the rubric, kids can’t bring in outside knowledge to connect thoughts in their essay (since that would not yield a standard result and would disadvantage kids without much outside knowledge), yet don’t we want kids to learn to connect ideas from different sources and form independent thought?
The test makers seem to want little kids to perform meta-analysis of mechanics of writing rather than focusing on the ideas and thoughts created by the writing, and the questions themselves seem like they are written by someone who thinks there truly is just one right way to interpret a passage, one author main idea, one author purpose behind a certain bit of writing mechanics (and the Testmakers are the mindreaders that know what that is), instead of realizing that a written work is a work that invites reader engagement, and the reader can create meaning him or herself.
The math problems are similarly problematic, as the questions are convoluted and very subject to improved scores via teaching testing strategies rather than real math, and “explain your answer” questions that are scored via rubric that can’t handle solutions demonstrated and explained beyond a narrow band of acceptable explanations.
Federal and state mandated testing needs to end NOW. I don’t want low-stakes standardized tests. (I can see the need for no-stakes, voluntary NAEP testing, with a proper sampling group, but no more.) Our society has gotten confused about what test results mean, about what education should be, and the stakes ratcheted so high with them that the only way we can step back from this test-centric education is to get rid of testing. My kids will be opting out of each and every “mandatory” standardized test until these tests are gone.
“A standardized test, no matter how new and improved, can only tell you so much about a child’s education.”
NO! it doesn’t “tell you” anything, That standardized test suffers all the falsehoods and errors in epistemology and ontology that renders any conclusions “vain and illusory” in other words COMPLETELY INVALID. Noel Wilson has proven so in his never refuted nor rebutted treatise “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.”
The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Thanks, Duane, for a very thorough and time consuming summary of Wilson’s analysis of standardized tests. The most damaging as you noted is the internalizing of the test result.
I would add that the whole process of taking an inappropriate test further destroys a student’s self worth/self image which can never be regained in many instances. When a student fails at something that appears important in his/her eyes, that student will forever doubt him/herself.
Sounds like a GAGA teacher to me.
“The Second Law of Learno-dynamics”
The universe is black and cold
As heartless as can be
Our schools should break the lifeless mold
And help to set us free
Thank You Diane for publishing my essay! I’m honored to have the opportunity to share my thoughts.
Kate,
I didn’t publish your name because I never publish names without the writer’s ok. Most teachers are afraid to use their names for fear of retribution.
I take full ownership of my opinions. I’m tired of the fear. We need to speak out and tell everyone. I’m honored to have you publish this. 😄
The veil of fear cast over our profession in NYS is somewhat exaggerated. Witness the simple fact that not one teacher has been brought up on charges related to speaking out against Common Core testing. Most of the fear, has in fact, been a result of the infamous Iannuzzi memo/emaiil we all received in March of 2014.
The NYSED has never issued any warnings or threats against any individual teacher or group. The only valid threat can come from the school district/BOE that they work in. The burden of proof placed on a district is almost impossible to meet which is why, despite the tremendous amount of opposition expressed through social media, no district has chosen to act. NY is also an anti-SLAPP state, which protects individuals against any lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.
Teachers in other states have been directly threatened by their state education departments. My guess is that most of these threats against licensure and careers are more bluff and bluster with no existing statutory law to back hem up. The 14th amendment formally defines United States citizenship and protects various civil rights, including free speech, from being abridged or denied by any state. It also guarantees due process and equal protection rights. Any teacher being threatened by a state education department should ask for a copy of the specific statute that they are in violation of. The opposition to the federal Common Core, test-and-punish agenda is so new, it is doubtful such laws exist.
I am a teacher, not a lawyer and would appreciate any corrections to these statements if any lawyer finds inaccuracies in the above information. I don’t understand why our union legal department doesn’t help us understand the truth about speaking out against the malpractice of Common Core Testing.
NYSTeacher, I don’t agree with your generalizations. NYC teachers who spoke out against mandates found themselves in the Rubber Room and many never learned what the charges were thanks to a weakened union.
That’s because the teacher doesn’t own the classroom.
Funny what ownership brings: power.
NYS Teacher, the veil of fear is very real in our district. There are no direct reasons to be afraid of retribution should one speak out against this nonsense, but lots of subtle, almost silent directives to tow the line. We have a very young and naive staff.
I blame a lot of it (fear) on newer members of our local and a lot of older ones for that matter just not staying up on the ever changing events with common core, Opt-Out, and government interference etc.
If the administration says something they automatically take it as truth. I learned long ago to fact check everything that needed to be and have caught the administration in many lies over the course of almost 3 decades.
This is why the Union is so important for protections and it’s also why Andrew Cuomo hates NYSUT.
Solidarity will win over political corruption, but it’s going to a major effort on our behalf.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Much as I feel for our NY colleagues, gaze south and see where it can all end up as we demonize the profession further. FL is an “annual contract” state. Every year I receive a “reminder” that I am an annual contract employee and will be “considered” for renewal of that contract by the district. The union is run by old contract “Continuing Contract” teachers pending traditional retirement and promotion, but the only ones free to speak under any hope of retaining employment. State law dictates that we cannot be provided anything but an annual contract. The district can then terminate, my word, without cause by merely not renewing. No reason is required for not renewing. Teaching is becoming a haven for those too foolish to seek employment elsewhere, dedicated, or those incapable of employment elsewhere, inept. It’s a terrifying mix. For FL: http://www.flsenate.gov/Committees/BillSummaries/2011/html/0736ED
Read the words of these teachers as they look upon the kids they teach for the very first time in amazement. goo.gl/v0BZHP The implications? This discovery, expressed so congruently by these teachers (“I wish I knew about this 20 years ago”), reveals just how deeply flawed and damaging to young minds our learning culture is–and how buried under the mantle of control and authority we all are.. The good news: Opt Out has crashed through the institutional walls. The numbers of parents opting out have been extraordinary. We are indeed standing up. The bullies are watching and wondering. In another year Testing conceivably could be dismantled. But Opt Out cannot stop at Testing, and it cannot end up caught short on What Now? Opt Out leaders need to begin framing the principles and crafting the workings of Transformation. To stop Testing and not leverage this power into a Transformative push, as I have said before, will surgically remove the tumor and not the cancer. Deep and Sweeping transformation must be the objective. The adoption of an organizing principle is key to framing a new future that is not pyramidal, autocratic, and controlling. We must rise above the mess. We must apply different thinking and language to free ourselves from the thinking and behavior that created the old-school machinery to begin with. In a word, we need Vision. There are far too many personalities and gurus who will want to play a role or seize power as the walls begin to fall. We are all too ready to embrace false gods as we negate the great power in ourselves (one of the supreme lessons of old-school culture), and if we don’t recognize this weakness, we will continue to re-create the same old problems. By adopting Principle, rather than Personality, we can keep clear-headed, and learn to follow its spirit. To empower the young, and build a learning culture that nourishes their gifts, we must create new pathways, guidelines, mechanisms and Rights that help us keep our learning culture vital, and strong enough to resist the advance of 3rd Party interference and dictate. Principle is where we must start to begin framing a new future for our children. goo.gl/rsF0yv
Jeffrey, lets start by going back to the NY State Learning Standards that were in place before CC standards entered the picture.
Why don’t you just go back to educating the children to be free?
NYS Teacher, you stated that,”The veil of fear cast over our profession in NYS is somewhat exaggerated.”
If you are in a district where the superintendent does not support the CC and its aligned testing, you do not have to fear. You are free to fulfill your obligation of speaking out in defense of your students. But not all teachers have a superintendent that is so enlightened.
There is definitely a chill in the air and teachers are frightened especially if they are not on the same page and may have take extra time to develop a lesson than allowed when the supervisor walks in. They will be and have been written up. What teacher wants a paper trails in her/his file? They will be and have been written up for negative comments over heard by a supervisor.
The federal govt., e.g., has threatened districts about opting out such as:
★ Arne Duncan Threatens to Step In if Opt Outs Continue to Grow 4/22/15
We just have to wait and see what punishment Arne Duncan will try and impose.
NYS Teacher, you can’t say with certainty that no teacher has been brought up on charges for speaking out against CC. You can’t say for certain that no teacher has been brought up on charges because he/she ignores the CC standards and adheres to good pedagogy.
Certainly the law is on the teachers’ side but litigation can be expensive and drawn out especially if a teacher doesn’t have the support of their local union.
There are many ways of punishing the teachers and keeping them in line- stacking the classes is a big one.
Powerful words. Thank you Kate for your courage, honesty and truth.
Oh Kate……….you summed it up perfectly. What a wonderful (yet painfully true AND sad) article about what teaching used to look like “back in the day”. When all of us dinosaurs retire, what will happen? It makes me shudder.
I see this pain daily. My children get no morning recess and are totally exhausted by lunch. The afternoon time feels like we are waging psychological warfare as they need some down time and I need to push through the curriculum.
I read an article a while back that stated that our brains are wired for short bursts of direct instruction (15 minutes) followed by either physical activity or a quiet reflective activity. This helps move the new learning from short term memory to long term memory. Without this, no new long term learning takes place. I see that my children need some time to assimilate all the curriculum they learned in the morning. I remember as a child that teachers often read to us after lunch to ease us back into the learning cycle. I remember art projects that connected into our holidays, cultural and learning experiences. (Art teaches children to see through observation). I remember music that connected our own emotional experience with other cultures. (Music helps students develop inner hearing needed for reading. Music also accentuates patterns and math reasoning). These methods are a type of indirect instruction but their value is incalculable. And the most important aspect is that they allow for assimilation of direct instruction. They deeply engage children and increase a desire to learn. These activities are a necessity for young children. They are not just so much fluff.
As an early childhood educator I am sickened by this regiment that assumes young children learn the same way that adults do. They are hurting our children in multiple ways and it needs to stop!
How is Common Core different than the Iraq War?
Quasi private contractors? Business management sysytems. Pre-crime algorithms. Your news brought to you by the CIA.
Your country left you at the train station.
I am a First Grade Teacher from upstate NY and I agree 100%!!!
Wonderful post, which captures exactly why we (and our son) opted out of the PARCC and CMAS tests here in Denver. Still, the prep for those tests permeated the curriculum, the subject matters, the atmosphere. As the poster here notes, “Today’s refusal numbers are encouraging. This is a lesson in civil rights and civil disobedience.” John Dewey would have agreed. This is a lesson in what it takes to sustain a genuine democracy: “Until the democratic criterion of the intrinsic significance of every growing experience is recognized, we shall be intellectually confused by the demand for adaptation to external aims.” In Democracy and Education Dewey understood, nearly 100 years ago, the implications of standardized testing–of externally imposed aims and measures–and he gave us as complete an argument against such impositions as we’ve ever had. I urge people to read (or reread) his book. There’s no better, no more sustained, defense of the humanity and autonomy of both teacher and student, no better defense of teaching as an activity which functions best when it cares for the individual children in each of our classrooms. The whole book is easy to find, free, online.
Here are two longer quotations from Dewey’s Democracy and Education which bear directly on the testing issue.
The larger issue is the destruction of education’s significance:
“In contrast with fulfilling some process in order that activity may go on, stands the static character of an end which is imposed from without the activity. It is always conceived of as fixed; it is something to be attained and possessed. When one has such a notion, activity is a mere unavoidable means to something else; it is not significant or important on its own account….Every divorce of end from means diminishes by that much the significance of the activity and tends to reduce it to a drudgery from which one would escape if he could.” (Dewey, Democracy and Education, 1916, pp. 109-110; from online text, Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication)
He focuses, here, on the effect first, on teachers, then on students:
“The vice of externally imposed ends has deep roots. Teachers receive them from superior authorities; these authorities accept them from what is current in the community. The teachers impose them upon children. As a first consequence, the intelligence of the teacher is not free; it is confined to receiving the aims laid down from above. Too rarely is the individual teacher so free from the dictation of authoritative supervisor, textbook on methods, prescribed course of study, etc., that he can let his mind come to close quarters with the pupil’s mind and the subject matter. This distrust of the teacher’s experience is then reflected in lack of confidence in the responses of pupils. The latter receive their aims through a double or treble external imposition, and are constantly confused by the conflict between the aims which are natural to their own experience at the time and those in which they are taught to acquiesce. Until the democratic criterion of the intrinsic significance of every growing experience is recognized, we shall be intellectually confused by the demand for adaptation to external aims.” (Dewey, Democracy and Education, 1916, pp. 114)
Ah! Another Dewey fan like my husband. His doctorate focused on John Dewey during which time he was totally immersed in John Dewey. John Dewey was born in VT; got his doctorate in Johns Hopkins; taught at Chicago U where he had a lab school; taught at Columbia (my daughter can hear his voice echoing in the hallways.) He also taught at the U of Michigan and lived on a farm in Hunt. LI. Dewey’s works of 47 volumes contains 29 books, 588 essays 1079 entries- a true genius!
One of John Dewey’s tenets that is meaningful to me:
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
(CC maintains that it is in preparation for college and the work place.)
As you know David but others may not, basic for John Dewey was developing critical thinkers by starting with the child in relationship to the curriculum and ending with the child – applying information to the child and to his/her environment. The child comes with experiences and interacts with the environment. Through interaction adjustments are made and learning takes place. Learning isn’t the mind taking a picture and then reproducing it. It’s not a mechanical process e.g. when children memorize – give right answers.
Everything students study should be related to the students in some way but CC doesn’t want background knowledge to enter the picture. CC limits higher order thinking skills of analyzing and comparing to “close reading.” However, for John Dewey the development of the imagination was most important but CC ignores it.
Thank you, Mary! I am a Dewey scholar, too. Glad to hear your thoughts.
After reading this yesterday I went to a couple of our first grade teachers and said,” Did one of you write this?” I seriously thought it could have been either one of them., Needless to say it mirrors their thoughts 100%.
Thank you for posting this as I have been thinking about this over the past two weeks. My children are not old enough to take the tests yet, but it does affect them. They both have lost their teacher for a time because the teacher was proctoring. They have also lost use of the library, because it is being used for testing. What a shame!! It’s incredible to me that young children lose the use of their library, because of testing. How is this helping improve education in this country?
How timely this post is!
Just this morning, as I was driving them to school, one of my twin daughters told me that she really missed pre-school. (She and her sister are now in the first grade.) I asked her what she liked so much about pre-school. She said, “We did a lot of art projects.
Me: “Don’t you do art in first grade?”
Daughter” “No, we don’t do any art either.”
Me: “Only in art class, right?”
Daughter: “Only in art class. We don’t do centers anymore either. I really miss that.”
Me: “When I was in first grade, we didn’t do centers but we did get to do a lot of art projects in our class.”
Daughter: “Why can’t we do that?”
I wasn’t able to answer that because I had to stop for a dump truck, but it’s not the first time I’ve had conversations like this with my daughters. They always tell me how much work first grade is and that they never get to play. Their brother is four years older than they are, and even he has noticed how different their work is from when he was in first grade. He had even had their teachers when he was in first grade. He loved school, they don’t.
Diane, Thank You for printing Kate’s article. I have seen her teach and have been in her classroom over the years and it was a wonderland for learning. It was a place that children came to realize that learning was exciting and rewarding. I don’t know for sure’ but I don’t think any of her children left each day without wanting to come back tomorrow.
I know Kate, I know her passion for teaching, I know Kate’s love of each child that comes into her classroom. I know my daughter! I am her Mom.
To all of you here who see the truth and understand it’s despicable implications, keep fighting the good fight for our children and their future. This “educational reform” has made me literally sick for two years and if I’m going to live to see my grandchildren educated in this state, I have to retire in June after 26 years in public education. Cuomo, Pearson, and all of their collective insanity Must. Be. Stopped. If you are under the age of 40, and teach in today’s toxic environment, understand that unless you are able to speak with your brave words and actions, you will be assisting this regime in their plan to dismantle pubic education. Teaching children is a calling that should not be reduced to data driven madness for the sake of profits and wealthy one-track minds.
As a student, I have had many experiences with standardized testing, whether it was the ACT or SAT for college, or elementary school state exams. I completely understand how incredibly stressful they can be, as I have had many nervous breakdowns resulting from standardized testing. These tests have the ability completely remove all the fun from learning, as they can make everything about a single number instead of the joy you can have while learning about a new topic. Also, I do believe that exam scores do not represent a student as a whole, as there is so much more to a person than just a number on a page. For example, according to Fairtest.org, these tests are not reliable measures of “student achievement”, especially when looking at their “ability to understand and use complex material”. How can we trust these exams to measure students’ abilities when there are so many uncontrollable variables that can result in the inaccurate representation of a student? On the other hand, I can also understand how standardized exams are beneficial. In fact, according to research by testing scholar Richard Phelps, “93% of studies have found student testing, including the use of large-scale and high-stakes standardized tests, to have a ‘positive effect’ on student achievement”. Also, standardized tests allow schools to measure student achievement, which can in turn allow a school to make sure that each of its students are on track. This also allows teachers to identify which of their students are struggling with certain materials and help them become more proficient in those materials. Without standardized testing, how would we measure a student’s achievement in and unbiased way in order to assure that students are where they are supposed to be in their education? Even though we will never be able to remove all the uncontrollable variables of standardized testing, it is as close as we can currently get to an even playing field. Overall, standardized testing is not exactly black and white, as it has both major benefits and disadvantages to students.