Steve Nelson laments the current policies in education, which are secretly tied to measurement and data. These are the policies cook up by economists, he says, not educators.
Educators seek development, not accountability. What matters most can not be measured.
He writes:
“Measure the wrong things and you’ll get the wrong behaviors.
“This simple statement succinctly characterizes why the American education system continues beating its head against the wall.”
And he writes:
“After nearly 20 years of reading, observing, teaching and presiding over a school, I’m convinced that this simple statement — “Measure the wrong things and you’ll get the wrong behaviors” — is at the root of what ails education, from cradle to grave. Measuring the wrong thing (standardized scores of 4th graders) drives the wrong behaviors (lots of test prep and dull direct instruction). In later school years, measuring the wrong thing (SAT and other standardized test scores, grade point averages, class rank) continues to invite the wrong behaviors (gaming the system, too much unnecessary homework, suppression of curiosity, risk-aversion, high stress).
“Measuring the right things is more complicated and less profitable. But if we measured, even if only in our hearts, the things that we should truly value (creativity, joy, physical and emotional health, self-confidence, humor, compassion, integrity, originality, skepticism, critical capacities), we would engage in a very different set of behaviors (reading for pleasure, boisterous discussions, group projects, painting, discovery, daydreaming, recess, music, cooperation rather than competition).”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The entire model of education as a product rather than a process runs contrary to everything we’ve learned about inquiry, learning, and knowledge over the last couple hundred years.
Great point. With products, everything is transactional. With a process, everything is experiential.
The main thing about products is that they can be packaged. Their means of production and distribution can be capitalized and controlled by corporate entities. Their value can be disconnected and misappropriated from the labor that it takes to create and sustain them.
I don’t like to blame economists as a whole, if only because there is a handful of lefties left standing in the Sodom & Gomorrah of capitalist corporate libertines. But it’s true that the vast preponderance of them do not grasp the very idea of process thinking.
John,
I think what economists think of when they hear the word “process’ is “manufacturing process” for which reducing variation is actually the goal.
But as Yong Zhao has pointed out, that is precisely the opposite of what one should do to prepare children for the future.
Most economists are not very good systems thinkers. Instead they look at individual components and/or the “output” and don’t appreciate that everything is connected. In fact, most of them don’t even take into account that the economic system is embedded in the much larger (and vastly more critical) ecological system. the latter fact has led to the current ecological crisis.
My primary problem with most (mainstream) economists is that they believe that they don’t even need to understand the underlying science behind what they are modeling. As with the case of VAM, they simply think they can make a model (that might have nothing to do with reality) and plug in numbers. It’s mathturbation run amok.
“Nonstandard Deviation”
(versification of Yong Zhao)
Deviation from the norm
Anathema to school reform
But variance is future’s seed
And not a thing that we should weed
Never confuse outliers with out-&-out-liars …
Yes, indeed.
I agree with him about measuring the wrong things. But the right things can’t be measured and it creeps me out to even think about trying. Next thing you know, all kids will be required to take a Pearson bubble/click-and-drag/short answer test of “creativity” and teachers will be evaluated based on the results. If you think VAM as it now exists is a nightmare….
When the wrong things are measured based on the wrong assumptions, we wind up with the wrong conclusions claiming there is a presumed causal relationship. VAM immediately come to mind.
“I agree with him about measuring the wrong things. But the right things can’t be measured and it creeps me out to even think about trying.”
That was exactly my reaction. We already try with some of the rubric nonsense that tries to distill out the “essential” for scrutiny.
Please read my book, THE GEOGRAPHY BEE( Amazon), about a teacher who teaches all the RIGHT things and pays the ultimate price. Dr. Marie Fonzi
” But if we measured, even if only in our hearts, the things that we should truly value ”
How can one even measure a value?
Treasure maybe, but measure?
Judging value is a value judgment
Economists think that you can measure the value of something by asking enough people what they are willing to pay for “it,” whether in payment is in cash, labor, inconvenience, opportunities of one kind foregone in order to secure others. Economists have never had a more prominent role in determining educational policy than in the last several decades. Their publications populate the reports of think tanks and government policies, overwhelming those from educators. Many have senior positions guiding how foundations invest in education. That is one of many reasons market-based “solutions” have been forwarded as if a panacea for everything in education. And, educational research has been infected with so much economic reasoning and statistical methodologies that it is often no longer recognizable as relevant to living, breathing, human beings.
You know you’ve been marginalized when only 13% of those in the media talking about education are educators.
Their publications populate the reports of think tanks and government policies, overwhelming those from educators.’
My guess is this is because they are filled with numbers making them seem ‘scientific’.
But much of what economists produce has nothing to do with science.
It’s little more than mathturbation: “analysis’ that has nothing to do with reality and that is often not even good mathematics.
Economists have “science envy” which “inspires’ them to use lots of statistics (even though they don’t know how to properly use them much of the time) and invent jargon like “aspirational trajectories” based on terms from physics about which they have not a single clue.
It would be comical if the application of their mathturbation (eg VAM) did not have such serious ramifications.
Must be that the economy has been so bad the economists had to find another field – public education.
People just don’t know about W. Edwards Deming’s work. Google his name. His work is awesome. Here’s one link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
And then there’s Arthur Combs, another great person. He was one of the first doctoral students of Carl Rogers. One link: http://www.emich.edu/dartep/handouts/Dispositionsproceedingssession_P.pdf
Used their work in my research and writing. Check them out. We need to change the ridiculous factory paradigm being used since the REGIME of testing, standards, and repression.
Interesting that this post lands the same day as Education Trust-Midwest’s Michigan Achieves plan. Education Trust compares Michigan’s 4th grade reading scores to other states and shrieks that we’re falling disastrously behind.
The unfortunate reality is that test scores have increasingly become the ONLY thing used to measure school and teacher quality. Tests, regardless of their quality and the students’ sincerity in taking them, have monopolized the conversation.
The Education Trust proposal uses the word “data” so many times that it’s mind-boggling. They also heap praise on Tennessee and focus on its teacher evaluation system which is nightmarishly scripted and specifically designed to, you guessed it, improve test scores!
Nelson references “gaming the system” and that’s where we’re at right now. It’s all about getting test scores. Aside from blatant cheating, schools are increasingly about improving those scores. It doesn’t matter how they get it. I teach in a three high school district. One of our schools tried a new reading program and received improved test scores. But in a survey, students said they hated reading more than students did five years ago. So where’s the long-term payoff?
(Side note: I find it amazing that Ed Trust screeches about test scores at the elementary level and bemoans Michigan’s lack of progress in the last decade. But we have more charters than ever! I thought choice was the key to reform! Michigan is very choice-y. But then this is what happens when an entire agenda is based on the trends of a single standardized test. Also, I would note that Michigan has had an awful economy for the last decade. Maybe those scores continue to demonstrate the relationship between income levels and test scores. Nah, that’s all silly, I guess. We must copy Tennessee and Florida!)
Follow the money for Educaton Trust:
From their site,
“Our heartfelt thanks to:
Laura & John Arnold Foundation
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Carnegie Corporation of New York
The College Board
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Joyce Foundation
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The Kresge Foundation
Lumina Foundation
State Farm Companies Foundation
The Wallace Foundation
The Walton Family Foundation”
Pretty much says it all as to their “take” on educational issues.
Children’s literature often captures it best:
“Said the nightingale to the inch worm, measure my song! And the inch worm did. . .inch by inch until he had inched away.”
TAGO!
Also why CCSS doesn’t want kid exposed to too much kiddie lit – they might learn to think for themselves.
The right things seem to have been left behind in favor of the rigid over testing that is now taking place. Such a shame.
There is no time line for learning. We all learn throughout our entire lives. What real difference does any of this standardization make?
Thank you!
Real difference in bottom line for some companies!
When it comes right down to it, I don’t think the reformers have any idea what it is they are supposedly “measuring” (eg, with standardized tests and with VAMs)
They use a lot of buzz words but never even define what they mean.
Test scores are the weapons of choice for anyone who is determined to dismantle public education. Whether the scores and the tests have any validity, reliability, integrity no longer matters.
Like all (or almost all) of us, I agree with the post. That’s why I find efforts to “improve” the tests to be a fruitless exercise in chasing one’s tail.
“Measure the wrong things and you’ll get the wrong behaviors.”
BINGO!
Value generating systems are the narrative of power.
NoBrick,
If I may adjust your last sentence:
“Value generating systems CAN BE the POWER of NARRATIVE” without resort to “measuring”.
Love this article because it hits the nail on the head. It’s kind of like “Celebrate what you want to see more of”.
Man, I could take that last statement in many directions-ha ha!! Could be fun, eh!?!?
AMEN! Do we want to send stressed-out, competetive, narrow-minded individuals on to careers and colleges? Or would it be better for our society to have emotionally healthy, caring, creative problem-solvers?
Dear Diane, Frustrated California Kindergarten, here. New topic – I love this blog – the comments, the conversations, and those who keep us updated on this ongoing saga. But there are some crucial voices missing from this dialog. We hear from teachers, principals, administrators, parents, media, and other citizens who care about public ed. What’s missing here are the voices of students. I want to hear what they have to say. Students who have had positive and negative experiences at charter schools, students speaking about testing, students speaking about how they feel about school, if students are aware of what is raging around them… any and all students who wish to comment themselves, or have a parent or teacher send in their comments. I want to hear from the people we really work for – the kids. What do you all think? California Kindergarten PS – I tried to spell dialogue this way, but Spell check slapped my hand.
“. . . if students are aware of what is raging around them…”
Most administrations go out of their way to make sure the students don’t know of “what is raging around them” through sanctions on teachers and threats of termination.
I’ve always made sure my students are at least partially aware of these things (but then again I teach highschoolers) and most are quite cognizant of all these nefarious educational malpractices that are foisted upon them. They have lived, have been the lab rats for these malpractices and don’t appreciate it at all.
Diane,
Somehow my topic ended up here. I didn’t mean to respond to this particular post. I was trying to introduce a new topic about hearing from students. Did that get lost somehow?
California Kindergarten