In one of his eloquent essays, Paul Thomas puts standardized tests into perspective: They cannot be tools for equity. They were designed to sort and rank, and they are biased towards those who start with the most advantages.
He writes:
High-stakes, standardized tests are, as Audre Lorde stresses, “the master’s tools.”
For those of us seeking educational and social equity and justice, then, we must heed Lorde’s call:
For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change….
The essential flaw with continuing to cling to high-stakes standardized testing is two-fold: (1) the tests are race, class, and gender biased, and (2) the demand that we raise test scores keeps all the attention on outcomes (and not the policies and practices that create the inequity).
Read it all. It is thoughtful and important.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes Diane , you must drive this idea home. This is the biggest argument the Reformers are using to sway the public. It is an outright lie that it is closing the achievement gap. As a parent I am on the front line of the battlefield. I’m certain from my clear view that it is breaking the spirits of African Americans, Latinos and Low Income Whites. Killing them and their parents is more like it! Stop the reformers with the TRUTH.
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Exactly. Why wouldn’t you want to encourage people by testing them what they do know and give them confidence, rather than spend untold hours proving what they don’t know, plus demoralize them? That is just crazy.
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This is my favorite quote from the article because it points out that the testing is smoke screen to misdirect attention from the inequities of our society. In other words if we can blame teachers and schools, we can justify ignoring all the inequities of funding and poverty.
“The accountability movement and the increased stakes linked to standardized testing have focused the gaze even more narrowly on individual children and educators. That tunnel-vision allows the privileged to avoid addressing social and educational inequity because marginalized groups are forced to work at the “master’s concerns,” not their own.”
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Very important piece from Paul Thomas. Using Lorde’s idea of “the master’s tools” gets to a big part of “our side’s” difficulties in defending public education from the privatizers. Movements like Opt Out are laudable, but are still essentially guerrilla actions against the reformsters in power.
Meanwhile, the NEA and AFT as institutions continue their delicate dance toward eventual endorsement of Hillary, even though all signs point to her continuing the destructive educational policies of her two predecessors while forthrightly vowing to “listen to teachers.”
Unless the high stakes are removed from the tests, unless we return to recognizing these tests as one data point among many along the educational journey, unless we get serious about equitable funding and fighting poverty, we will continue down the road to perdition.
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Brad and others,
If the choice comes down to Hillary and Scott Walker or Hillary and Jeb Bush, I will fight for Hillary. If either Walker or Bush is elected, it is the end of public education.
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But we need to do everything possible – move mountains if we must – to keep it from being a Hillary vs. Walker/Bush showdown in the first place. We must resist the meme that Hillary is inevitable.
In any case, I’m not really sure there is that much of a difference. Walker or Bush will continue with the education policies they’ve already begun, which will attempt to destroy public education quickly, but will (hopefully) provoke much more reaction. Hillary will do the same basic things, but more quietly and more slowly and there will be very little outcry (except for those of us who have been crying out in the desert all along) because she’s a Democrat.
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All true but it always comes down to a choice of two people.
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There’s always more than two POTUS candidates on my ballot. When both major parties have been bought by and represent big business, it’s time for the 99% to get behind another party or independent. We should learn from other countries that have done it.
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All true BUT… what a travesty! Don’t you think?
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THE HELP NEVER COMES: We knew before NCLB which kids were falling behind, it was those in poor neighborhoods. We collect economic data from every US family not only through the IRS but also through the Census Dept. Add to this the government’s own data on schools funding – they know how much suburban schools get and how much urban schools don’t get.
So the NCLB initiative could have more effectively helped students using existing economic measures to allocate extra support resources like Finland. This would have meant a boom in JOBS – more teachers, counselors, clinicians, specialists, aides, paras, and social workers.
Instead, we said “lets run some tests”, and they did – changing school for every kid, every year by ranking quality based on outcomes on bubble exams instead of common sense. Right away, they had excellent new data showing exactly which individual students were low or failing. But the support never came. The extra teachers never came, the support services never came. In fact, there were cuts – drastic cuts and staff reductions, peaking in 2009, while the testing continued. In 2010, NY tests went from 4 days to 6 days!
HAD ENOUGH: In 2015, NY parents finally had to act, boycotting the tests by the hundreds of thousands. They knew the system was never set up to help anyone but testing firms. And as Congress began to question annual tests and respond to the NY-led protest, we heard anew, this time from “civil rights groups” that the testing is needed to help identify marginalized kids.
These groups are not only blind to the history of NCLB, they are blinded by corporate cash, “business friendly” lobbying groups and the “revolving door” of an industry that exists on the periphery of education, but just not in classrooms.
To these civil rights leaders – what good is the testing without the eventual support? if it’s not coming, why test? Why not rely on economic data, crime statistics, or even drop out rates? And finally, if you accept reformer cash, why should we believe this is about children?
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Excellent article. However, this issue is threefold, not twofold, and should always be addressed as such. This is a matter of social, educational and economic justice (SEEJ). If testing and standards were going to bring about all that its supporters claimed it would, we would have witnessed social, educational and economic justice prevailing by now across America, instead of the grossly inequitable distribution of wealth that has been dramatically increasing throughout these decades of education “reform,” to the advantage of “the masters.”
Economic justice cannot be eliminated from the equation because that’s the key to it all and the very thing the overlords are trying to divert attention away from, so that they can continue to make huge profits while not dealing with it.
Maybe regularly using an acronym like SEEJ and establishing an advocacy group in that name would help people to recognize and take action in support of social, educational and economic justice
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Reteach for America,
Agreed.
So long as there is huge economic inequality, there will be achievement gaps between haves and have-nots
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“Testing Reality”
Testing’s always been a way
To keep folks “in their place”
For polls or other racist sway
It biases by race
From “A DAMthology of Deform”
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Dienne, I so agree with you. This has happened before–what Romney would do (destroy public ed. quickly) vs. Obama (it will happen at a slower rate). NCLB grew to be RT3. NAFTA may soon turn into TPP.
Yeah–right–again, “the lesser of 2 evils.” But, as the wise Ken Previti has stated, “The 2 evils are still…evil.” And just look what Obama gave us (& it’s the gift he keeps on giving)–Arne. And he never, not once, put on his “walking shoes.”
BUT–& here is the GOOD news that we didn’t have in 2012 or at any other time–haven’t we all wished for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders to run?
And now–BERNIE SANDERS IS RUNNING!! So–STOP all the whining–we DO have a REAL choice now. EVERYONE–in every village, berg, ‘burb, town, city & state–start sending money–as much as you can (whatever from the 99% can–& WILL–counter what comes from the 1%–look at Al Grayson in FL (& what a state THAT is!!)–for we all know (we didn’t grow up on Pear$on curriculum!)–that 99% is > than 1%. And–BTW–from past blogs–it’s not don’t mourn, organize,” it’s “don’t agonize…ORGANIZE!” (unionspeak). So people, find the Bernie 2016 website (they’ll probably contact you first) & get off your duffs/get out your checkbook.
Yes, WE can and yes WE WILL! Enough!
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