A reader who is active in the SOS (Save Our Schools) movement wrote:
Dr. Ravitch: Ever since I became involved with the planning of the first SOS March (back in May of 2010), I have treasured your historic perspective on testing and your insight on education reform. You have shown the unique ability to see both the forest and the trees. I wish that more people had your ability to understand how seemingly isolated actions and policies are part of a bigger picture– one driven by the corporate profit and the desire to privatize public education.
Based largely on the information gained from people such as you, I became an activist and have fought hard on both the front lines and behind the scenes against such destructive actions. What I saw scared me and, at the same time, hurt. I truly believe in the importance and power of quality public education.
Nothing, however, hurts worse than seeing the youngest members of your own family hurt by such so-called ed reform.
My grandson, age seven, is a very active, imaginative, and smart boy. When he was five, he was discussing how critical thinking skills could be applied to inventing new playground equipment and finding new uses for that which already existed.
At age six, he decided that he wanted to run for President when he was old enough. He created a campaign poster, a platform to run on, and a children’s action group which focused on improving access to water in Africa and gathering food and clothing for children who had none. His theory was that he needed to practice with small jobs before he took on the world. When visiting one weekend, he decided to practice his Presidential skills by directing the activities of his stuffed animal collection. He assessed his animals by their apparent capabilities, set up skill training centers to teach them how to work better, and set up hospitals to repair those animals with tears and other defects that limited their abilities. You should have seen my messy house!
Now the bad news.
He currently attends an elementary school in a very rural county that prides itself on its school rating. When he entered first grade, they were an “A School.” Honestly, rather than seeing this as a plus, it made me uneasy.
At the end-of-the year student awards ceremony, the only subjects that the principal mentioned were math and reading. He announced that the school had the highest FCAT score for 3rd graders in our state. I noticed, however, that very few students made the all-subject honor role (all As and Bs). After speaking with teachers, it became apparent that all emphasis was on math and reading and, as a result, enthusiasm and achievement in other subjects suffered. Luckily, his own teacher rebelled and actually read the class Isaac Asimov. My grandson now loves science fiction and believes science is important.
This school philosophy, however, is seriously hurting him now. His current teacher has announced that his entire class will not have recess until their AR (Accelerated Reading) scores improve. It turns out that their school declined to a B school, and current scores indicate that they are not improving. Mind you, they have only been in school for 6 weeks.
Imagine how an active, imaginative, and very verbal 7 year old boy will function during a school day that does not include an outlet for him to express himself or learn to socialize with others in an unstructured environment.
As an only child, socialization and the ability to physically play with others is of critical importance. Without such, I do not see how he will be able to fully grow, let alone function in such a restrictive environment for hours on end.
This breaks my heart. I have spend most of my free time for the past 2 1/2 years working with various education advocacy activities. I have helped to coordinate a national rally, marched on DC and our state capitol, lead seminar sessions, and even met with Arne Duncan… I have felt America’s pain and fear and knew something had to be done. But when it affects someone close to you, the pain and fear grows to an intensity that is overwhelming.
Dr. Ravitch. I want to thank you for opening my eyes to what has been happening to public education and for devoting so much of your life to our mutual cause. Now, however, I selfishly ask one thing of you. Please, under any circumstances, do not give up. Do not let up. Do not stop.
Wow, as an educator this made me cry. I can’t believe what we are doing to our children. We need to stop treating them as outcomes and test scores. I do understand the pressure schools and teachers are under, but sometimes we just have to stand up for what we know is right. Besides, if the only thing that concerns this teacher is scores, then she should start researching how physical activity actually improves student learning.
A powerful letter. Thanks for sharing.
Too many schools have been relying on AR (Accelerated Reading) to provide a ‘snapshot’ of where a child’s reading level is. This program by Renaissance Learning has morphed into it’s latest fiasco call STARS testing. STARS testing is one of the NYS approved measures used to evaluate teachers.
Whether it be AR or STARS or the other nonsensical web based assessments, the bottom line is they create flawed data. AR uses a 10 question multiple choice test, Stars uses a multiple choice test that has only 3 choices for each question.
I challenge anyone to provide any valid research that demonstrates and child’s reading capabilities can be truly assessed utilizing only a short multiple choice test where a child can guess and have a 33.3% chance of guessing correctly.
It’s not about the kids, it’s not even about evaluating teachers, it’s about profits for companies like Renaissance Learning.
Taking recess away for that reason is child abuse.. report the school to Child Protective Services.
Recess was taken away from all of the elementary schools in our district this year. That didn’t actually ban it. They just decreed the timeframe for the school day and, after accounting for all subjects, there wasn’t time for recess. They were told to incorporate movement throughout the day.
Saying it again..
Taking recess away for that reason is child abuse.. report the school to Child Protective Services.
To the SOS activist: You are writing about such an important topic. Thank you for sharing your grandson’s story. Sometimes we need to focus on the unique stories of individual children to emphasize why this battle is so important. I smiled when I read about him directing his stuffed animals. It reminded me of my own son, now grown, who is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker. He loved playing with his stuffed animals and action figures — they were the stars of some of his first movies.
Young children need time to run and play, to paint, to build “creations” out of cardboard boxes, to take care of class pets, and act out scenes from stories. When there is fun and joy in a school day, the children will be willing to sit still and focus when “seat work” is necessary or new concepts are presented.
We need to talk about individual children who are having their childhood stolen and their love of learning destroyed. Thank you SOS activist. I also echo your thanks to Dr. Ravitch. I have learned so much by reading this blog and been inspired by the stories people share. It matters.
I see the same thing beginning to happen with my first grader. Her enthusiasm for school is waning under the homework burden (in first grade? Really?), and the curriculum being pushed downward due to CMT testing in third grade. She comes home exhausted. All I hear about is math and reading. Although those are crucial, what about other subjects?
So sad. This is exactly why I made the hard choice to enroll my daughter in a private progressive school. But I realize that not all parents have that option, and even if we all did, it’s a much worse option than providing relevant, exciting, rich and broad learning experiences in the free public schools.
Somehow we have to bring attention to this travesty, but I don’t know how considering that both the media and the politicians are in the tank for rheeform. Some how we’re going to have to do something so massive that we can’t be ignored. The devil on my left shoulder has some ideas that are very satisfying to think about, but I’d rather not end up in jail (not to mention hell). Unfortunately, the angel on my right shoulder has no ideas.
They are going to be using STARS this year in our traditionally progressive district. We have had a push from type A parents who want “accountability.” It isn’t enough that the schools consistently score 96%, 97%, 98%,… on the state tests. I’m sure we can axe plenty of exceelent teachers watching scores seesaw around top numbers. Idiocy.
The state of FL will be implementing pre and post test for preschool children in the state’s voluntary preK programs. The state pays for 300 hours a year, which works out to 3 hours a day, for all children in the state. So of course FL has to know if it is getting its money’s worth. My background is in early childhood ed. I am absolutely appalled that anyone would even consider what is going to FCAT for preKG students.
I, like others, am at a loss as how to stop this madness. I am an administrator at a public school and I try hard to protect our teachers and our students from all of this. But it is getting harder and harder to do that.
Thank you for this post. The measurement craze and not understanding how vitally important recess is for learning hurts me, because it is destroying the whole idea of learning, and teacher being the facilitator of students’ learning. Also, I find it funny how people seem to actually believe in these test scores without questioning whether the tool ever measured exactly what it was supposed to measure. Anyone who has done research knows how hard instrumentation is, and how perfect reliability and validity are hard (impossible?) to reach. Why do we blindly believe in these 98% – results?
I was relieved to read about the teacher not buying into this industry-based philosophy of teaching and learning. Protecting students – and teachers!- from these directives is hard, and the only thing I have found to work well is to empower each teacher to remember that they still can choose how they teach, and provide some more freedom withing the structure for their students. http://notesfromnina.wordpress.com/teaching-how-to-teach-teaching-how-to-choose-using-the-3cs-to-improve-learning/ Following your own teaching/learning philosophy in small choices may make a real difference for a single student and empower them to love learning – even in spite of the goal of school being to mass produce students who just check the right answers in test without ever even attempting to think outside of the box.
What can I add? I’m a retired gteacher (2nd career) and working as a sub. The other day I subbed in a Biology class where kids were doin a lab on genes. Their task was to go to a web site, read and answer questions on a handout. So, not being dumb, they search for the answer to a question and copied it down, on to the next question. I’m sure a lot of learning took place. And this was high school