Bruce Baker of Rutgers has reviewed the research on effective schools and designed a “research-based” school that is guaranteed to produce higher test scores.
He calls his school the “Econometric Academy of Achievement Test Excellence.”
Every teacher will have exactly four years of experience, no more, no less, because research shows that is the point of maximum impact on test scores.
Students will be loaded with carbs on testing days.
Students will be renamed prior to entry into the school, because certain types of names are associated with low scores while others are associated with high scores.
All teacher salaries will be based entirely on loss aversion tied to test scores gains.
Really.
This is so good you have to read it yourself.
And maybe you will conclude that we need not school reform but reform of the zany ideas that now dominate the research agenda. Maybe call it the “nutty professor reform movement.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A Professor at at Rutgers? Hmmm, I have feeling none of this applies to his tenure on the job, his students, their diets, or their names. Do as I say, not as I do.
LikeLike
Read it carefully….it is a parody on the reform movement. Teachers cannot stay past four years because as the “research” says we are not any more effective after that….read the complete paper. It is absurd but funny.
LikeLike
LOL! You know what, nothing would surprise me in this enviornment!
LikeLike
I have often said lately that sure sure sign of a problem is when satire and reality become indistinguishable.
LikeLike
From the article:
“This stuff is fun to ponder (in a warped, academic sort of way), and potentially interesting as a research topic. But it’s all highly questionable in terms of usefulness for improving school quality (note that I said school quality, not test score gains!).”
Finally, someone else who understands and differentiates between quality (effective teaching and learning) and “test score gains”, i.e., “student achievement”.
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing Bruce Baker’s “Not So Modest Proposal.” Just as this walks a thin line between satire and reality, so does Yong Zhao’s “What’s Still Missing in American Education and How to Out-educate China?” If Baker is channeling Swift, Zhao might be channeling Twain: http://ow.ly/cLAiI
LikeLike
Duane,
Thanks for picking up on my anything-but-trivial parenthetical. Reformy-types frequently (okay… pretty much always!) conflate school quality, teacher quality, and “statistically estimated [with error and potential bias] differences in test scores,” assigned to teachers or schools.
Public opinion polls on these topics are the worst, often asking whether the respondent agrees that teachers should be compensated or dismissed on the basis of “teaching quality,” or if schools should be reconstituted on the basis of “low quality.” When phrased this way, the respondent is essentially being ridiculed by the pollster for supporting “quality blind” decisions if he/she chooses to respond that decisions should NOT be made on this basis. Only a fool would make “quality blind” decisions, right?
Well, in reality, perhaps only a fool would make high stakes decisions on what ends up being marginally relevant, highly error prone/inconsistent and likely-to-be-flat-out-wrong [due to unmeasured factors] information – even if that information is characterized as in indicator of “quality.”
These characterizations/mis-characterizations matter greatly, especially in the realm of public opinion and shaping public opinion.
Bruce
In a previous series of posts Matt Di Carlo and I discussed what happens when hack, politically motivated pollsters choose to characterize tenure as a guaranteed job for life or “permanent” job and then ask whether the respondent agrees that teachers should have this guarantee. See: http://shankerblog.org/?p=3695 & http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/on-ignorance-impartiality-a-comment-on-the-monmouth-u-poll-on-ed-policy/
LikeLike
You’re welcome! Enjoyed reading it! Just wait until some edudeformer gets a hold of it and actually suggests/tries to do it, probably with a lot of slick PR thrown in.
“These characterizations/mis-characterizations matter greatly, especially in the realm of public opinion and shaping public opinion.” Not only in the realm of public opinion but also in the realm of educators themselves.
Last year, like every year, my district brings in an “expert” (usually meaning they paid way too much and the person was from out of state) motivational speaker early in the year to address all the district’s teachers in our high school gym. The speaker this time said she would use all the methods that she was espousing in the presentation, one of which would be presenter/listeners interaction. She asked at times for our thoughts. Well she kept on and on about “raising student achievement” and some of my fellow faculty who know me could see the steam rising from my head. I finally got fed up and raised my hand. I could see the looks from some of my colleagues that basically said “Oh shit, Swacker is going to challenge her on something”. And they were correct but you know it’s not “polite” to challenge the obvious educational expert.
Basically, I brought up the fact (as I’ve done with our new Super and Asst Super) that “raising student achievement” as shown by standardized test scores is the wrong focus, that we should be focusing on how to increase student’s ability to learn, to focus on the process and not the “product” (a product that is totally invalid to begin with). Well she thanked me and proceeded to keep talking about raising “academic achievement”. AY, AY, AY!
Thanks for the links, I’ll be reading them. By the way have you read what Wilson has articulated about the many errors and invalidities involved in educational standards, standardized testing and grades? If so, do you have any thoughts on his work. If not, I ask that you read them. I have referenced them here about every fifth entry or so. If not, here are the links: “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577 and “A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at:
http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5index.html
LikeLike
Bruce,
After reading about the Monmouth poll, I guess we should amend that sage ol saying to “Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and Public Opinion Poll Results”, eh??
LikeLike
kindly mail me some references with valid statements about the topic “There is no hope of doing perfect research”
LikeLike
Brilliant surreal parody, as we continue our journey through the looking glass!!!!!!!!!!
LikeLike