Dennis Walcott and other city and state officials in New York announced that they expect test scores to fall by 30% this year because of the switch to the Common Core.
They keep saying, almost too gleefully, how hard the test is. (Reader, remember that the test is “hard” only because state officials decided to raise the passing mark.)
Walcott said, “It’s time to rip the Band-Aid off, and we have a responsibility to rip that Band-aid off.”
Readers, I have been trying to figure out what that statement means.
Clearly, the chancellor thought it was profound so he said it twice.
What is the Band-aid?
What wound is it protecting?
Why is it good to rip it off?
Doesn’t it inflict pain when you do that?
Why would the chancellor want to inflict pain on so many children?
I welcome your deconstruction of this deep exclamation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Presumably his point was that you can do X slowly, and it’ll be painful for a longer time, or you can do X all at once, and it’ll hurt bad at that instant but overall will hurt less. In this instance, X is probably “adopting Common Core standards in year-end tests.” Walcott, like most people who use the band-aid analogy, probably didn’t think it through any more than that.
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And how many teachers will be judged (fired) by this????
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My two favorite blogs are Diane’s and Paul Krugman’s. Krugman identifies a fixation among the VSPs (the self-important “very serious people” who know basically nothing) of inflicting pain. Things were too easy before the crash, during the bubble, whatever, so now they have to be very hard. This isn’t a way to run an economy (austerity during recession is as stupid as it gets) but it is a way to keep the middle class and lower class blaming themselves, when what’s really happened is recklessness and greed at the top.
That’s where’s the band-aid comes in. It’s going to be painful to tear it off, so it must be the right thing to do! Don’t ask about educating our students to live richer lives, just make things harder! Crack the whip! That’s the extent to which the chancellor has thought about this.
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Perhaps this is like Rhee’s having her 8-year-old students rip off the tape she had them put on their mouths. She set up the terrible situation herself; the students had no choice but to obey. (So much for “choice.”) The students tore off that tape at her behest; they bled, they cried, and she still derives pleasure from telling the story. Apparently being humane is an “excuse,” and remember, with reformers, there are No Excuses.
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As a parent of two very smart children is makes me unbelievably sad that our leaders are so gleeful of the pain and sadness they are about to inflict upon our learners across the country. I wish they would put themselves into the shoes of our children so that they can see what it will feel like to a seven-year old that they didn’t make the grade. All so they can push their own agendas.
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It’s not about kids, especially YOUR kids, because theirs are safely tucked away in tony private schools where they will never have band aids ripped off or tape on their mouths. This is a land grab, a privatization grab, a union busting teacher defaming exercise, and all about greed. We all have to get past this idea that they actually have learning and kids at heart. They don’t have hearts or souls…they sold them along time ago.
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Walmartcott is clearly using “BAND-AID®” as a metaphor for Unions, and he is saying that he thinks it’s time to Rip-Off the Unions — as if they haven’t been ripping off the unions all along.
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Boycott the tests! Parents, protect your children!
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Wolcott is not pulling off a Band-Aid. He is pulling the rug out from under the children’s feet. Watch them fall!
Corporate ed “reformers” have set up a hasty implementation of the CC curriculum and over testing to FAIL as many children as possible in order to create demand for their products.
Anyone would see that children will be hurt when the districts impose CC tests before the curriculum has been in place for two years and the schools can address any glitches. And children will be hurt when brand new tests are made even more difficult by hiking the cut-off scores right out of the box.
It is bad for the children. Parents will become very angry once they see their children’s scores. The spin masters have decided that parents will be mollified to think of their children’s suffering as eventually being good for them, and have crafted this analogy. It is nonsense.
But why would districts choose to hike cut-off scores? First, to lay off masses of teachers b/c of low student test scores. Second, to provide ongoing, built-in demand for ed-tech products.
In a data-driven district, the low test scores “prove” the “reformers” are right, schools are failing, and only more ed-“reform” “solutions” — more tests and curriculum materials, more charters — can boost scores.
Once a businessman (or mayor) has control over the data input and outputs, he can make it all read as he wants it to read, in order to support any initiative or any contract he wants to pursue. And to create an success he wants to highlight.
That’s the purpose of the corporate ed “reform” eco-system of CC standards and tests.
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For whatever reason, this post has left me with a flood of thoughts.
Band aids–a familiar friend to teachers and students (literally, not figuratively). Obviously there is a large number of people in our country who think that schools have been complacent for a long time. I see schools as a three-tier operation comprised of teachers as an entity, schools as an entity and students as an entity. With our economy the way it is, problem solvers and those who want to make a living attempting to problem-solve (or adopting that pretense) have begun really looking at the public school machine/industry/entity/notion as a possible place for waste and/or for breeding waste and underachievement in our society and/or as places to squeeze out excess money to be redirected. They want vast, rapid and easy- to-explain change. Ripping a band-aid off implies it is time to quickly rip off that which has fended off invaders to let the real “healing” begin. Those of us who are in the classroom working know that no matter how complacent any one worker might be, or how the system might need tweaks here and there, that vast, rapid and easy-to-explain change probably isn’t wise. In fact, ripping off a band-aid too early can lead to infection and might also cause a topical wound around the infected area. I think it is just a trite way of saying they think it’s time for forcing something that will hurt, but that they believe will cause healing. Who knows which outcome is true. No matter how evil or greedy some of us think those leading these changes, I think a lot of them truly believe what they are preaching and pushing for. Many with the conviction of their religious beliefs, political persuasions and understanding of an ideal national order.
I think the problem stems from impatient students who graduated from challenging schools expecting immediate high-paying jobs (without additional degrees in traditional education programs) and who have turned to reforming the schools to make that happen. I hope to reach South Carolina’s average teacher salary (as posted earlier today) by the time I’m 50 and I have been teaching for 15 years. And I graduated from a top tier school too. I didn’t realize I was perpetuating a band-aid. In fact, I’m pretty sure I help with the overall health of our schools, preventing the need for band-aids to begin with.
My opinion: we are still recovering from integration shake-ups and Sputnik changes. From the outside, it looks like we have band aids on our wounds. But just as mastering the teaching profession takes time, so does healing from shake-ups like integration and Sputnik (right or wrong those two events were HUGE shake-ups to schools). I am a music teacher and so I am still able to teach without the strain of tests (albeit Essential Standards did muddy up the already sufficient Nine National Standards for Music Education).
As a side note, it’s funny that a politician chose a band-aid for an analogy. Little children (as every veteran teacher knows) often want band-aids for attention. Band-aids cause disruption sometimes (in the middle of a lesson a six-year old is totally sure she needs a band-aid where she picked at a mosquito bite and is willing to interrupt the lesson to make her case) and they also can be a quick distraction for a child who is yearning for TLC. Band-aids are right up there with boo boo balls and boo boo bunnies. A wise teacher knows when to offer up the band-aid and when to convince the child that a band-aid would not let the healing happen, and in both cases is able to keep the lesson going and keep the child who wants or needs the band-aid from hijacking it. Every good teacher has band-aids in the desk. Wise teachers have fun band-aids and know when to use them. We practitioners who have been at it for a long time think in terms of these children and these band-aids. . .but those who want to try and make a living quickly fixing our three-pronged system (even when we didn’t ask them to) don’t see band-aids the same way we do.
As a side note, I have also heard this expression when restless husbands wanted to leave complacent wives. It just means an unstoppable path of change is coming and it is a way to rationalize challenging a comfort zone. . .whether or not it needs to be challenged.
I still think synergy is the answer. If they rip off the so-called band-aid, we just need to have the ointment and salve ready to actually allow for the real healing. “These are the times that try men’s souls. . .”
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“I think a lot of them truly believe what they are preaching and pushing for.”
Yes, all the ones who put their own kids in “no excuses” test factory schools. Like, for instance, just off the top of my head I can think of, … um, … uh, … hang on, let me get back to you on that.
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Somehow they see themselves as set apart. It is a mystery to me too. The thing is, they got into power somehow. I think there has to be more than just bashing them to figure out how to “talk them down”. That’s my opinion. I don’t see a lot of problem solving going on–just fighting. Like it or not we are in a sense in a marriage with these “reformers”–we have to come up with a solution even if the message is for them to just keep to their private schools and stay out of public Ed. Somehow that message is to soft and too late–or not cleverly presented. I know they don’t care what outraged readers of this blog think. The question is how to figure out what they do care about and then talk about it that way. I think the actions of reformers are less motivated by hate and more by just an inability to understand a view other than their own and an understanding that, at the end of the day, they are not set apart. They are part of the equation too.
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Lakoff and Johnson, in their book Metaphors We Live By (1980) write, “If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.” I think it is no coincidence that Chancellor Walcott likened the tests to the pain of ripping adhesive bandages off skin, nor that Merryl Tisch spoke of jumping into the deep end of a pool (presumably where one sinks or swims). How they can live with themselves when they hold power and responsibility for how testing is destroying the education of our young children is beyond my imagination for metaphorical analogy. I’ll have to consult Dante’s Inferno – perhaps there is a verse that applies here.
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Alexandra, see if there is a special circle in Dante for people who enjoy tormenting little children.
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There is the cautionary tale of Ugolino in Canto XXXIII, in the second lowest ring of hell…
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Cruel games and more cruel games. All they know to do is mind games at your expense. Just change the rules of the game so that there is no standard to compare to. Spin, Spin, Spin and more smoke and mirrors. Put them on freeze frame so you can look at what they are really doing.
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The core is a bad joke. It is currently an empty shell with no substance. It will simply create tower of Babel conditions across the land and set back education for a decade. Probably the stupid states who roll it out first will be in chaos first and the more prudent states will learn by their mistake and eventually avoid the stupidity.
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Shame and Blame is what Rookies Do
For me, the “rip the band-aid off” comment reveals the assumption by the chancellor that somehow children are not learning well because they are lazy and coddled. The “no excuse” movement assigns blame (blame teachers and students) and then assumes everyone will jump higher because of their blame, shame, and punishment tactics. This same assumption was behind the recent senator’s ill-conceived attempt to withhold welfare payments from families whose children were not performing to his standards on testing.
This blame and shame approach reveals much about the speaker. Ask any veteran teacher how to promote long-term, resilient, optimal, highly engaged learning and they all know that shame and blame is a rookie mistake. It seeks compliance, rather then deep engagement and always results in short-term, pretend results (Michelle Rhee).
You begin real achievement by engaging, listening to, trusting, and supporting people to begin the work of vigorous learning on their own behalf. Real change begins with trust, not assuming the worst of children, families and teachers.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing for our leaders to turn to our veteran teachers/administrators, trust them, and ask “how can we help, what do you need?” Isn’t it time for our country to assume the best about it’s students and take the next step in promoting healthy, robust learning? Perhaps then we could begin the work of improving how we support struggling students and communities in lasting, long-term policies.
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Amazing how evil and mean spirited some people in power are.Is this. OT equivalent to kicking puppies and slapping babies?There must be a lot of walking wounded in our society that get their kicks hurting kids, no compassion toward their teachers and families. Is our society having an emotional and ethical meltdown? Are many legislators and decision makers reduced to middle school conduct? Lord of the Flies.
I am wondering if the arbitrary 30% drop with CC test results are so carefully calculated & orchestrated to create a new crisis? Then school systems will mobilize and buy mill$$ of teaching, testing and supplemental materials. EVERYONE except kids and teachers will benefit -Profit$$$$$. The myth of closing achievement gaps lives on.
I just cannot believe that teaching is under siege.Kids under siege. Families under siege.
Are we participating in a really bad Educational Reality Show? They are cheap to make and make millions for the creators.
I don’t know where this will end.
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It will end when these drops in scores “prove” public schools are failing, people will vote for vouchers, schools will be privatized, the teaching profession crushed, and the haves segregating their kids in their tony privates supplemented with tax payer money while the rest of us get common scripted curriculum taught by part time test prep specialists with 40 kids in a room at for profit charters.And when there is no more public Ed money to grab, they will move on to the next.
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A disgusting metaphor used by none other than a character equal to Gollum from the Hobbit . . .
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