Most of the readers of this blog are educators. Most don’t like high-stakes testing and the idea of punishments and rewards based on test scores. Many are ready to throw them both out as an assault on teacher professionalism. Many admire Finland, for example, where standardized testing is a non-issue and American-style accountability is unknown.
I thought it was important for everyone to read what Mike Petrilli has to say about Atlanta and what the cheating scandal means for the future of testing and accountability. Mike is a strong advocate of both. He is the #2 at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which advocates for testing, accountability, charters, and vouchers. I was on the board of TBF for many years. I left a few years ago when I realized that I no longer shared its agenda. In fact, I have dedicated all my energies to opposing its agenda, which I once supported.
Of the entire corporate reform world, at least of those I know, Mike is probably the most reasonable. I hold out hope that one day he may follow my lead and realize he is on the wrong side. At least, he wrestles with the issues, and that’s a hopeful sign.
He reminds me that in my last appearance in the corporate reformers’ academic journal, Ednext, I debated John Chubb on the subject of the future of NCLB.
His view: Mend it, don’t end it.
My view: End it, don’t mend it.
My view today: NCLB is a disaster; Race to the Top is a worse disaster. There is no way to mend a disaster. We need a new vision that begins not with data, but with a knowledge of child development combined with a passion for learning and for real education, not spreadsheet data.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I find it very funny that he uses the comment “through the baby out with the bath water. Thats exactly what the reformers have been doing with closing schools and firing teachers. Instead of wanting to help schools and teachers with whatever they need to help students succeed, they just want to “through the baby out with the bath water”. There argument is that if it doesn’t work why try to fix it. I say to them, if testing doesn’t work why try to fix it.
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new vision. Absolutely.
I am pushing for that in NC. I write to the powers that be in Raleigh a lot. It’s time for synergy. We are not a state where we can protest anything. So teachers are looking for energy in our leadership that is positive. To me, synergy is the only way that can happen. No fighting. Just new ideas that acknowledge where we’ve been, what has worked and hasn’t worked for other states, and a new vision.
I have ideas.
I have lots of ideas.
I am still wondering what other states serve as models at this point? Finland being so different from USA, are there any models or bits from different things attempted within our 50 that are getting it right?
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The push for high test scores is taking TN to a new low. Here’s a great editorial about the bill to take TANF funds from needy families if their children make bad grades or miss school. http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/apr/10/david-cook-column-let-them-eat-grades/?opinioncolumns
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There are some well-intentioned people on the other side of this standards and accountability debate. Some of these are people have considerable experience, ability, power, influence, stature. Many hold positions of authority over federal, state, and local education and have worked in the field for years. Many are knowledgeable, highly successful businesspeople with a genuine interest in giving back, in putting their brains, energy, and financial resources behind what they think of as a public service initiative. Unsurprisingly, some ordinary citizens think to themselves, “Well, surely this person knows what he or she is talking about.”
But people who rise to lofty positions–our equivalent of the nomenklatura–are often incredibly disconnected from the actual situation on the ground, on the assembly line, in the branch offices, in the local shops, in the classroom. This is definitely the case here. This sort of disconnect has led to the development of a new term for a lofty place of disconnect, somewhere in the clouds, where people make decisions with consequences they don’t understand: the adminisphere. It’s used in statements like, “Did you see that email? The guys in the adminisphere don’t think they’ve screwed this up enough yet.”
I think of such people, the powerful ones who are backing the current deform, and I am reminded of this line from the gospels, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
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yes, I agree. I think that’s what happened in NC. We took the money and now we have to follow the reforms. I personally think the lesson there is not to take federal money unless absolutely necessary (which I suppose the leadership must have figured it was but hindsight says it might not have been the best choice). I figure taking federal money is like taking money from your parents–you have to think really hard about the strings attached. Synergy. That’s the only way to move forward.
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Years ago, Robert Graves put together a collection of essays with one of the best titles ever:
Difficult questions, easy answers.
That’s what the obsession with data is. It’s an easy “answer” to a difficult question. Such answers are, of course, extraordinarily dangerous.
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bingo. The one thing I know I can say to people who seem to want to argue easy, generic answers is just that—there are no easy answers to any type of public education policy and anyone who thinks that there are easy answers either does not really care to be a part of the conversation, or is not really thinking about it.
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The central problem is the tests themselves. They are flawed. NO test can adequately measure the complex acquisition and synthesis of knowledge/skills our students possess.
NO TESTS AT ALL WOULD BE BETTER THAN WHAT IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING IN SCHOOLS. We test because we do not truly know our students. All this testing is so impersonal. As I hand my students their state test booklet some of them say to me, “But you know me as a reader. Do I really have to take this test?”
The insane emphasis on testing and and the subsequent cheating are the results of profit-driven “reforms”. If clear thinking people have any say, one fine day this will be completely illegal.
The last job on this planet I would want is that of Michael Petrilli. His job is to defend educational “reforms” which are simply indefensible.
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Thank you for saying this!!!! It cannot be said often enough. These tests are incredibly flawed instruments and we are leaning on them much too hard. And with all that leaning upon them, they are, predictably, crashing down upon people’s heads. Unfortunately, the heads that they are crashing down upon are those of kids and teachers.
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I would put it slightly differently than readingexchange: We test because we cannot know each student the same way a classroom teacher knows the student. Even if the classroom teacher attempts to tell us about the student they know, how do we interpret statements about the student? One teacher’s great reader might be another’s average.
In my institution the average GPA of a student in the education school is much higher than the average GPA of a student in the engineering school. Is that a cause for concern? Is the engineering school attracting less diligent students? Does excellent mean something different in the school of engineering than it means in the school of education? The only way to answer these questions is for these students to have a common experience that might be used as a yardstick.
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So once again, we have a situation where a trained, experienced, and highly educated teacher’s direct assessment of their students’ skills and abilities is met with skepticism.
I know how my students “rank” in regard to school, state, and national norms. I also know them as incredible people whose complex skills and abilities surpass anything that a local, state, or national test could ever assess. Teachers, in general, also know these things without all the standardized testing!
If you, and other, so called “reformers” respected, believed in, appreciated, and were in awe of the infinite creative and intellectual abilities in our students as well as their future creative potential, you would NEVER EVER sit them in front of the lame tests they have to endure year in and year out.
But students are NOT understood and respected so the horrible testing cycle continues. WHAT AN INCREDIBLE AND EXPENSIVE WASTE OF HUMAN POTENTIAL AND RESOURCES.
For the love of humanity, stop defending the indefensible. Just stop it!
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I think the faculty in the engineering school and the faculty in the education school are all trained experienced and highly educated teachers. I don’t know how to interpret their assessments without having their students have a common experience.
School, state, and national norms must be constructed from some common experience.
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“School, state, and national norms must be constructed from some common experience.”
… Even if these measures are entirely inadequate? Wouldn’t your line of reasoning just continue the testing folly we already have? You have to stop believing in the illusionary power of testing. It just is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s too expensive and time consuming. Time spent on engaging instruction will yield far greater benefits for our students. Testing will never achieve this goal.
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Why do you feel the need to compare students in the engineering school with those in education? I seriously doubt that they value the same set of skills. What makes a good engineer (I’m tired of everyone having to be “excellent.”) is not necessarily what makes a good teacher or vice versa. As a psychology major in undergraduate studies, my curriculum was entirely different from my husband’s in engineering. There is no common yardstick: there is no reason for a common yardstick. There is no value in trying to develop one set of standards that measures “excellence” in every endeavor the same way.
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I’m with “2old2tch”: “There is no value in trying to develop one set of standards that measures “excellence” in every endeavor the same way.” I’d take it a step further. High GPA students in teacher prep programs won’t necessarily be the best teachers. When my dad was a school principal, he used to beg the central office to send him more candidates who were “B” students. He knew that the teaching quality has more to do with how teachers relate to kids than their grades in college. This was verified in my own experience. I had to overcome some of my own good-student biases before I could become an excellent teacher. High tests scores didn’t help me, either.
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Like 2old2tch, I too am curious as to why you needed to compare the school of engineering with the school of ed?
In fact, it seems you frequently mention schools of education, even when they are not the topic of the discussion.
Your use of “the ed ed school AT MY UNIVERSITY does this that or the other” or “the students in the ed school AT MY UNIVERSITY are this that or the other” often feels pejorative.
Are you intending to insult us?
At any rate, as “2old” said…
What makes a good teacher does not necessarily make a good Z, Y or Z..and vice versa.
There is no value in using the same yard stick.
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Ang,
There is no insult intended. I chose these examples because the school of education has the highest average grade awarded to undergraduates in my university and the school of engineering has the lowest average grade awarded in my university.
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let me answer these questions at a couple of levels.
At a personal level, I often advise students about possible potential courses of study. When I am advising a student that trained, experienced and highly educated teachers have evaluated as good, but not excellent, should I recommend a path where almost all students are evaluated as excellent like the education school or should I recommend a path where most students are evaluated as very good like the engineering school? Will I simply be setting a student up for failure by advising him or her to go to the education school? Should I not advise those students to go to the engineering school because it is more hospitable to students of good, but not excellent, academic performance?
At a higher level, the institution needs to worry about resource allocation. At my institution, 80% of the students in the education school are evaluated by the trained, experienced and highly educated teachers there as excellent, but less than half of the students are evaluated as excellent by the trained, experienced, and highly educated teachers in the engineering school. Both schools want more resources for more students, deeper learning, and so forth. Should the institution send more resources to the education school because so many of its students are excellent? Should it devote more resources to the engineering school because it’s students are mostly mediocre? Is it possible that the meaning of excellent and mediocre depend on standards in each school? Without a common student experience, the answers to these questions are unknowable. What would you recommend?
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Like most things in the Government, end it don’t mend it. We end up spending more money to fix what should not even exist. Time to be efficient, and cut our losses. We aren’t just talking about the loss of money this time around…this is about the loss of childhood.
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well said!
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What do you mean by “most things in Government”? As much as people wail about the “gummint”, most people are awfully fond of an awful lot of what government does. I personally like public libraries, national/state parks and well-maintained roads to get there on, for instance. I’m also rather fond of the social safety nets and I think they should be expanded so that no one has to worry about bankruptcy, poverty, homeless or starvation because of one illness, accident or job loss. And while I’m not much for either the police or the military in general, I do like some degree of protection and orderliness. And perhaps most of all, I like having public schools that do their very best to turn out thoughtful, well-rounded, inquisitive citizens to keep all of these things and keep improving on them.
Some day the gummint haters are going to get what they think they want (they’re already getting it in doses), but they’re not going to realize what they’ve lost until it’s gone. I guess some people just have to hit rock-bottom. I just hope we can salvage something and rebuild after that point.
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I just looked up the meaning of “data.” Just as I thought, it means facts and statistics. The first synonym given is “information.”
Sadly, the “reformers” have stolen this word and given it a restricted meaning. They have ignored the mountain of good research in education that has taken place over the last fifty years and have instead focused their movement on false data and junk science. They have described the latter as “data based” while ignoring the solid body of knowledge that we have.
Diane, the “data” is on our side. We DO know a great deal about how children learn but this information is being ignored. I hope we continue to emphasize this fact until most people are aware of it.
We are presently in the midst of a stupid period in education, but we’ll come out of it. We usually do.
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You’re right. The “reformers” are willfully ignorant about learning, teaching, schools, and education in general. Every Bill Gates education article or interview I’ve ever read or heard is loaded with inaccuracies and bogus assertions. Ditto for Eli Broad. They can afford to buy research intended to support their predetermined agendas. And they pay to have their misguided policies adopted without any evidence back them up. It’s no wonder their motives are under suspicion.
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From the article: “Try this thought experiment: What would happen if U.S. schools ceased all standardized testing — and related consequences?”
Well, we could actually concentrate on the teaching and learning process and not focus so much time, energy and money on the completely invalid processes of educational standards, standardized testing and the “grading” of students, teachers and/or schools/districts as shown by Noel Wilson in his “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
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I tried your thought experiment at the advice of Alfie Kohn and my daughter ended up in progressive school because of it.
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I left … I have dedicated all my energies to opposing its agenda
Denis Doyle, Diane Ravitch, Warren Simmons, Susan Traiman, and Robert Schwartz, A New Compact for Ohio’s Schools: A Report to Ohio’s Educational Policy Leaders, March, 1999 (Denis Doyle, Diane Ravitch, Warren Simmons, Susan Traiman, and Robert Schwartz): “We know that the usual tendency of elected officials is to allow complex, politically charged cases like DeRolph [Ohio school funding litigation] to play themselves out in the courts. … But given the urgency of the education reform agenda, and the need to encourage local educators to focus full attention on implementing such important initiatives as the 4th grade reading guarantee and the strengthened high school graduation requirements, we urge the state’s political leaders not to take the path of least resistance.”
Ironically, these initiatives helped Ohio win RttT funds–which don’t contribute much toward helping schoolchildren learn to read. Fourteen years after the 1999 report, we’re working on the 3rd grade reading guarantee… At best, Common Core might bring improvements for Ohio schoolchildren.
Other than spending money we don’t have, can any of the expert authors above suggest an actionable plan for addressing court-mandated improvements in Ohio public education? Are Ohio schoolchildren to be collateral damage in proxy wars spawned by the Finn-Ravitch “Clash of the Titans?”
Seems Sherman Dorn was right about Accountability Frankenstein.
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Eric, that’s a low blow. The Achieve report of 1999 was very much of its time, in line with the ideas of the Clinton administration. It endorsed early childhood education, professional development and support for teachers, new investment to upgrade buildings, and alignment of standards and assessments. Nothing about charter schools, nothing about closing schools, nothing about firing teachers.
http://www.achieve.org/new-compact-ohios-schools-report-ohios-educational-policy-leaders
To say this report laid the groundwork for Ohio winning a Race to the Top grant 11 years later is nonsense.
FYI: I was not one of the authors of the report. I was asked to read and comment on it.
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… initiatives helped Ohio win RttT funds…
RttT funds were narrowly won, in part, by highlighting the same SB 55 commended by the Achieve report.
Nothing about charter schools, nothing about closing schools, nothing about firing teachers
Point taken–thanks. Ought Ohio schoolchildren be heartened to know ed policy has gone from bad to worse during the last decade and a half?
You’ve made the case that the 1999 report would be an improvement over policies adopted with the $400M RttT bribe.
Ohio needs a credible cost-out for policies that would improve over the 1999 recommendations. Is any ed policy expert (in or out of an ed school) up to that task?
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dianerav: Thank you setting a good example of allowing a wide latitude of discussion even when commenters sometimes overstep the bounds of civil discourse.
Perhaps it depends partly on the time of day and my mood, and perhaps even the alignment of the stars and the planets, but sometimes I will find myself on a kind of autopilot, agreeing—or disagreeing—with much of what I read on this blog without thinking through why I agree or disagree. That is why I try to wait to sort to things out. However, even [especially?] when I disagree vehemently with some of the posters here, I try to remember that you give respect to get respect. And that means taking responsibility for what one writes and says.
Example: while I strongly disagree with Michael J Petrilli and have on more than one occasion poked fun at his policy stances, I do admire [without reservation, no sarcasm or snideness intended] his willingness to speak his mind in a civil way.
I am not perfect. The owner of this blog is not perfect. Nobody who posts on this blog is perfect. When folks dishonor themselves, they should take the first step in making the effort to restore their own honor. A simple apology for lying and smearing would have sufficed, but without it, the commenter has made a bad mountain out of what should have been a very small molehill.
I will not be reading anything else under the handle of the person who went out of his way to obliterate his own honor.
Not just my dos centavitos worth. Honor and respect are non-negotiable.
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commenters sometimes overstep the bounds of civil discourse. … I will not be reading anything else under the handle of the person who went out of his way to obliterate his own honor.
Huh?
This was a profitable and cordial exchange–assuming the “low blow” was a bit of hyperbole earned by a blast from the past.
Dr. Ravitch correctly points out that the ed standards movement from the Clinton era was hijacked by NCLB/RttT. Since Ohio is obliged to fund a “thorough and efficient system” of common schools, it’s important to distinguish between constitutionally mandated accountability and ed policy blunders.
It’s also remarkable that the report identifies Dr. Ravitch as a member of the “review team” if her simply reviewed a document authored by others.
The entire state was poised to go the route Montgomery County, MD chose. Instead, NCLB swamped the ed policy mindshare boat.
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The enormous bulletin boards at my child’s elementary school are full of bar graphs and pie charts that show testing data of children in the building. This doesn’t help me as a parent understand what my children are learning in school/what I should be reinforcing at home (values or academic content), nor will it remind the children as they pass through the halls why learning is important or useful. How quickly can we articulate this new vision? Please? As an educator myself, I can’t help but think we need to start teaching writing again, which would not only give value to the children’s own lives and ideas, but also provide practice of complex thinking and organizing skills. But writing is difficult to test in a standardized way, so it has been dropped from the curriculum. With so much focus on testing and data it actually seems like we are aiming way too low.
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Thank you for getting of of the Fordham Institute board. They are a tool of the corporate privatizers and are bought and paid for now as is obvious. We have to thank and praise people who learn they have supported a problem organization and ethically leave. This is the sign of a “Real Person.”
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Good for you, Wendy. WE are the change we are waiting for! Our old worldview is breaking down and a new one is emerging. We’re outgrowing our old worldview, based on Value Judgment – behavior controlled through external values of right and wrong, good and bad, reinforced by the fear of guilt and threat and punishment (behavior modification). Whether we know it or not, we’re already creating a new worldview based on Value Fulfillment
In this new worldview we live by value fulfillment and practice idealism. In other words, we individually determine the qualities of life and being we value most, our ideals, and actualize them to the best of our ability. Instead of thinking of our children as blank slates we need to write on, empty sponges we need to fill or clever robots we need to program, we think of them as living, loving, growing and changing aspects of consciousness. When we support them in becoming who they love to be and doing what they love to do, natural passion does the rest. Instead of assuming that we know what’s best for our children, isn’t it time to start asking:
What do we want most for our children, ourselves and the world?
To evolve beyond creating a world of predators and victims, a what-works-best-for-me world, we must stop letting thoughts of fear, separation, scarcity and competition dominate our thinking. By asking, WHAT WILL WORK BEST FOR ALL OF US, we take everyone and everything into consideration. Not only do we acknowledge our oneness and separation, we accept that, more than just being products of creation; we are creation itself!
■ What will work best for ALL of us in personal terms? (What is the best way for us to fulfill our own unique potential in support of ourselves AND the world?)
■ What will work best for ALL of us in terms of business? (What is the best way for us to sustain the health and well-being of the planet and humanity?)
■ What will work best for ALL of us in terms of education/learning? (What is the best way for us to learn and grow? What are the most important things for us to know and understand?)
■ What will work best for ALL of us in terms of the environment? (What is the best way for us to treat the earth and its resources?)
■ What will work best for ALL of us in terms of peace? (What is the best way for us to treat ourselves and each other as individuals and nations?)
In life and business, how many of us ask: is what I’m doing good? Is it worthy of my time and intention? Do my actions improve the quality of life or undermine it? Do they improve humanity’s chances for survival or threaten it?
“Education” or learning includes doing for ourselves what others will not or cannot do for us. As Mahatma Gandhi, and many others have said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
We can live for the love of being and creation or run from the fear of suffering and death, our two primary impulses. One orientation is based on oneness, cooperation and sharing while the other is based on separation, competition and exploitation. What will work best and make us happy? What do we want most for our children, ourselves and the world?
Here’s a link to a letter I wrote to School Administrators, Teachers, Parents and Students in 2010: http://realtalkworld.com/2010/09/04/letter-to-school-administrators/. It discusses the difference between Project-Centered Education (new school) and Program-Centered Education (old school).
Pete – http://realtalkworld.com
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having (creating) a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“How you define yourself and the world around you, forms your intent, which, in turn, forms your reality.” – Seth
In other words, we create our reality from what we choose to believe about ourselves, and the world around us.
If we don’t CONSCIOUSLY choose our beliefs, we unconsciously absorb them from our surroundings.
If our beliefs, attitudes, values and expectations create our reality, can we afford not to question them?
The more we love, understand and appreciate ourselves, the better we treat ourselves, and the world.
Blessings of love and understanding be to us all!
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I don’t think Mr. Petrilli will join the opposition to corporate education reform until he takes a good, hard look at the assumptions behind his arguments. That may not happen while he’s in the pay of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Wikipedia says the Institute’s stated mission is “to close America’s vexing achievement gaps by raising standards, strengthening accountability, and expanding education options for parents and families.”
This agenda, like all corporate reform, gets the policy cart ahead of the evidence horse. Readers of your blog will recognize the unwarranted assumptions built into the Fordham mission statement: equating standardized test scores with student achievement (and equating this “achievement” with learning), believing that “high standards” are the key to a good education, an unquestioned faith in rewards and punishments for teachers and schools and the tacit belief that “options for parents” are more important than equitable funding. And so on. Instead of making use of what we do know about teaching, learning, and children (and the problems poor kids face daily), the Institute and other corporate reform advocates just keep peddling their misplaced priorities and wishful thinking.
Here’s a suggestion. Maybe Mr. Petrilli could take a three-month sabbatical from the roles of foundation administrator and lobbyist, and instead become a learner. Spend the time talking with lots of students, teachers, parents, and scholars, even some of the speakers at the recent Occupy the DOE 2.0 protests. That way he might find out what the abstract Fordham euphemisms (“achievement gap,” “standards,” “accountability,” and “options”) actually mean to real people in real life. He might be surprised.
But will his thinking change? I’ve got my doubts. Anyone who believes that “the drive toward the real-world standard of college acceptance at elite universities, via Advanced Placement exams and high SAT scores” should be a major preoccupation of American schools… That person might have a tough time learning from the actual real world.
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Maybe Mr. Petrilli would listen to Sir Ken Robinson?
http://www.chicagogrid.com/news/ted-star-sir-ken-robinson-offers-solutions-chicagos-schools/
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