This is a story that may elicit a gasp from you. That’s what it did to me. Arne Duncan was asked about the breakdown of the computer assessments in Indiana. He responded with a brief soliloquy on how businesses fail and succeed, and why we cannot go back to the olden days of pencil and paper (which no one suggested). Be sure to read the excellent comments that follow the linked articles.
And ask yourself what happens if and when hackers tamper with the tests and the scores.
A reader sent this not-to-be-missed article:
This is our education CEO speaking on the fact that kids in Indiana are on Week Two of a frustrating, time-wasting adventure in standardized testing:
“We should have competition. We should be transparent — I don’t know who that company is, I don’t want to pre-judge — but if that company can’t deliver, there’s an opportuntiy for someone else to come in and do something very, very different… We should not have one problem and then say we should go all the way back to pencil and paper, that doesn’t make sense to me.
This is a business. Folks are making money to buy these service. If those folks are doing a good job to provide that service, they should get more business. If they’re doing a bad job providing that service, they should go out of business…
We’ll get better and better. I do think, directionally, this is the right way to go. We have multiple players playing in these space… Let’s see who’s for real. But again, directionally, having computer-adaptive tests, having the ability to evaluate way more than just fill-in-the-bubble stuff — the critical thinking skills — directionally, it’s the right way to go.”
I am so, so tired of this CEO-speak. I really need Arne Duncan to tell me testing companies are “a business”? Kids are taking these tests. They aren’t his employees.
It’s also dishonest. It’s a rhetorical tactic. No one was suggesting that we “go back to paper and pencil”. His response to every question on this testing regime is to portray his critics as Luddites who don’t understand the “21st century.” It’s a way to shut down critics and it isn’t a response offered in good faith.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What does Duncan have on the President that allows him to keep his job?
Sent from my iPad
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The president and he are compadres on education policy, public school privatization, charter promotion, high stakes testing and teacher bashing.
These aren’t Duncan’s education policies.
These are Obama’s education policies.
The reason why Duncan still has his job is because Obama wants him there.
If he didn’t, Duncan would be hanging out with Van Jones somewhere…
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Who’s Van Jones?
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RBE,
It is time for those who care about public schooling to realize that President Obama is serving out the third and fourth terms of the George W. Bush presidency ( at least in terms of the USDOE ).
AND it will not change.
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And then we’ll get the fifth and sixth terms with a different talking head (unfortunately J. Bush, but don’t quote me on that! I sure hope I’m wrong).
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I wish Elizabeth Warren would run for President.
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What does Gates have? He seems to have free rein.
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MONEY! It’s all about the almighty dollar.
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We need no more evidence that our leaders are working in concert with corporations and view our children as little investments to be either kept or cast aside.
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Failure is success?
Doublespeak.
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
― George Orwell, 1984
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The most telling comment was the one pointing out the the Indiana standardized test is NOT a computer-adaptive test… if it were computer-adaptive we would be accepting the reality that children progress at different rates and the art of teaching is matching instruction to the student, not making the student keep pace with instruction… Instead we have the lockstep factory approach of measuring students the same way quality control used to measure products moving through an assembly line…
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Computer adapted or not these test suffer all the flaws and errors that make them totally invalid. In other words crap in crap out. And no, computer adapted is not individualizing instruction.
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I’m worried about test validity too.
I recently asked Deb Sigman, California Dep’t. of Education’s head honcho for testing, about how she knows the new tests will really measure what they’re purporting to measure. I didn’t get to add this, but here’s the reasoning behind my question: while I think the current STAR history test seems reasonably valid (though not perfect), I don’t believe the English/Language Arts one is. For instance, it purports to test reading comprehension ability when in fact it’s often just trying to test whether or not kids can perform a suite of metacognitive strategies, which is not the same thing as reading comprehension ability. And it doesn’t even effectively tease out whether the kid can perform these strategies. A kid who reads a passage about kabuki theater may get questions right if he has been taught about kabuki theater, not because he has superior “inference making skills”; yet the test pronounces that the kid has acquired inference-making skills (on a side note: I believe most “thinking skills” like inference-making are an in-born faculties that cannot be taught. A toddler who sees a mouse tail sticking out from under a door will infer that there’s a mouse on the other side of the door. She wasn’t taught to do this). I think there are very similar issues with the writing test. I fear the new tests could be similarly flawed, or worse. Sigman says the new math test will rely more heavily on reading. So will a low score mean the kid can’t do math, or just that she can’t understand the non-math parts of the reading passages?
Sigman said my question about test validity was a good one and that they “struggle with this”. She assured us that they have “the best minds in the country from a psychometric perspective” working on this. Still I’m very dubious. I fear the new tests won’t measure what they say they’re measuring, and that the data they generate will be misread and misused, and that they’ll elicit bad teaching practices (just as the STAR ELA tests lead schools to teach long, fruitless, skills-oriented “literacy blocks” that could be better used teaching science, history and other rich content. Teaching content IS teaching reading.)
,
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“The art of teaching is matching instruction to the student, not making the student keep pace with instruction…”
I’m sorry to disagree, but that one of the false premises that has sent American education off the rails. It puts the student at the center of the universe and puts all the onus on the teacher to do everything for the student. If the student doesn’t have to keep pace with anything, how will she mature, intellectually or otherwise? School becomes a self-congratulating echo chamber.
(This isn’t to be taken as a defense of Duncan in any way; I loathe everything the guy stands for. But it’s the misuse of the measurements that is the problem, not the measurements themselves.)
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you seem to assume the tests are themselves reliable. Far too many are not. They contain items with no correct answers, items with more than one correct answer. They often presume knowledge that is not testable content and/or or phrased in ways that are not developmentally appropriate.
The biggest single problem is that they require convergent thinking in domains in which that may well not be appropriate – something especially true in dealing with literature or in interpretation of history. Thus it is also a matter of contention about the tests themselves, not merely how they are used.
Last point – almost all tests are timed. In that case you are confounding the results with the speed of reading/responding, which means the results you get are not merely a matter of indicating the underlying knowledge and skill, even if all the the other issues I have raised (and many more I have not) are successfully addressed. That issue of speed can be allowing too much time and not allowing students who can work faster to move on to the next section. I know last time I did GREs I was grateful as a fast reader to be able to move on to the next section even when I had spent far less than full time on a section. Being forced to sit there and wait doing nothing may well impact performance on subsequent sections even for high-performing students.
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More often than not in the lower levels of elementary school students who are required to “keep pace” with instruction — mathematics instruction — fall behind because of inappropriate learning expectations and pacing that favors exposure over skill mastery. An overlooked aspect in education is the role of development in building the foundation for future learning through appropriate expectations. It then comes down to preventing deficits in learning at the present, rather than reacting to deficits in learning in the future. Perhaps this point of view should be the aim of school improvement.
Please see the study here: http://www.academia.edu/2636016/Mathematical_fluency_as_a_function_of_conservation_ability_in_young_children
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This only reinforces my impression that the Common Core movement behaves very much like a cult. The hierarchy are infallible, the dogma unquestionable, and those at the bottom must do and believe what they’re told or face excommunication.
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Jonestown, we have arrived!
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I completely believe you’re right. The hard questions aren’t being asked because none of the most high believe their plans for ed reform could be failing. They more likely think a lot of change resistant folk are just bellyaching.
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Michael, I need a “Like” button.
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I am having flashbacks.
More immediate – Maryland High School Assessments are on computer and we would regularly have computers time out in the midst of a section of the test and have to reset the computer.
A little further back – I was taking a Graduate Record Exam and the computer I was on crashed. Fortunately I was in the first section (almost finished) and I do not take full time – I had used less than 1/2 of the time for the section – so I was able to start over and get through everything. When I asked how time was managed in cases like this, the tech person said as far as he knew one could not exceed the total time for either the section from when one originally started or for the test as whole. I wondered what the impact would be had I either been slower or further along in the test. Also, I basically remembered all my answers, but not everyone would.
Way back – it was the first issue of one of the journals from AERA after NCLB had been signed into law. I was a doctoral student in educational administration and policy studies, as well as teaching full-time. Inside the back cover was an ad from Harcourt Educational Measurement – based iirc in San Antonio – looking for around a dozen psychometricians. Two things stood out; 1) a Texas based company seizing on the opportunity to make money, and 2) a professor who taught us about testing saying the law was going to require many more psychometricians than were available, so we should expect to see a number of messes before the training stream could be expanded and produce what was needed. OH was he ever right.
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Psychometrics = phrenology = blood letting
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Love it!
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Let’s speak honestly here. Schools that are experiencing financial problems thanks to the hidden costs if Race To Nowhere, cannot afford to purchase all of the computers necessary for online testing. Forcing schools to comply by instituting online testing just places more financial stress upon our public schools. This is however, a brilliant scheme for the billionnaires to make more money on the backs of the American children. Please realize that there are only certain software programs that have been approved by the NY State Education Department for the competition of teacher evaluations as part of the APPR process. Yet again, another way for the billionnaires to make money off of the backs of the American children. These software programs are tedious and time consing. Schools are being forced to purchase software programs to comply with mandates. Software experts who have worked on developing international standards in business would scoff at incredible lack of expertise in the development of this software. It is embarassing. Interesting that the software schools are forced to purchase doesn’t really work well in conjunction with all of the other programs we must use. Standardization they say— ha!! Is anyone aware of the difficulties a district faces when the entire district is using the server as in the preparation if Report Cards?? Ha! The entire system shuts down. There are errors to beat the band. Ha! When all of the children in a district will be taking tests online at the same time, I shudder to think what will happen!!
Don’t get me wrong, I love technology– but I ask when does COMMONSENSE come into our educating of children rather than GREED!
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BLAHrnie already answered your question. From the article “This is a business. Folks are making money to buy these service.”
If you can understand what he means by the second sentence, let’s get together and I”ll buy you a “cold frosty one”.
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I was wondering when someone would comment on that very special sentence!
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Wait, what’s wrong with paper and pencil?
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“…having the ability to evaluate way more than just fill-in-the-bubble stuff — the critical thinking skills…”
These tests that are on-line now are nothing more than fancy paper/pencil tests. The only difference I can see is that “results” are provided more quickly. Therefore, this statement is false (surprise, surprise).
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I agree, Jim.
We aren’t doing children any favors exposing their bodies to electronic devices. In fact, we’re harming them.
http://blog.listentoyourgut.com/making-ipods-and-ipads-safer-for-children/
This isn’t a perfect example of the risks, but then again, I fear we’ve yet to document reality.
I wouldn’t let my kids use these devices if they were in school.
My children are older but I still worry about exposure to electro-magnetic fields.
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They are bombarded by flickering screens and techno-frippery all the time. School should be a sanctuary from all of that – at least partially. “21st century Skills” (a term bandied about all the time and which seems to mean using flickering screens)are useless without the foundation of skills that came before.
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My thought exactly. I work in a school where the kids have laptops. I make them take notes with paper and pencil because I think a tual manuscript writing promotes concentration and reinforces memory. Typing is just pushing buttons; you can train a parakeet to do that.
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What does Arne Duncan have to say about inBloom? When parents in NYS really understand where their kids name, address, disabilities, test scores, etc are stored and that a “sleepy data warehouse” has the ability to sell that data to for-profit app developers and others…Arne Duncan and John King will need to come up with why this is good for kids.
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I am repeating myself here, sorry. I am not a Luddite. My first computer was a CRT screen and a teletype keyboard. About 1992 DEC (Digital Equipment) in Maynard was folding. They quickly got their employees trained into teacher certificates (through “collaboration”) and they “gave” the group I was working with a computer. Immediately I was told to remove my books from my office and all of the literature we prepared was examined and we were told “this is where you make the sale” and told to rewrite publications to put a technology marketing “sales” version to everything….. I even heard it at fund raisers for private/public groups and then I was told to “stop thinking like a teacher”. It was very assaultive; a lot of “jock talk” and “jive talk”; teachers were supposed to be facilitators, “coaches” (I have come to hate that word even before Paterno). I was accused of “not keeping up with technology” and changes. I could run every machine in the building; costly replacements of computers was the theme “throw out the WANG” buy the DEC, APPLE, IBM etc and years of “data” were tossed out
along with test scores, accounting records as each new machine was purchased. Don’t let them call you names like “luddite” or “dinosaur” to tell you that you have to change your value systems or the validity of your curriculum. Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex and someone here in comments has pointed out how the financial fuel in corporations is pushing/driving the public schools; if I hear one more principal tell me “we are a data driven” school I think I will vomit. I would tell Mr. Duncan that “when a grocery store goes out of business the lettuce rots on the shelf”…. I am not prepared to watch that happen to schools and students.
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Arne Duncan is a ________________.
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The best answer is ______________ because “they ain’t nuttin thar”.
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Don’t paper and pencil companies also need to make money?
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But Bill Gates doesn’t run a paper and pencil company. He is one of “The Destruction of Public Education” brain trust…er…money trust.
This is truly about the money. Look at who buys our representatives, governors, and secretaries of education. It’s money. Gates, Koch brothers, WalMart…all of these billionaires dump millions into destroying true education.
And until your average parent realizes that, AND realizes that all the propaganda for privatization/vouchers/charters will NOT benefit their children, we have an uphill battle as educators.
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What’s wrong with going back to “pencils and papers?” What’s wrong with students actually taking time to “draft” writing projects? What’s wrong with using a pencil to cross out ideas that don’t work? Why not use paper to allow kids the freedom to express their ideas? Why not let teachers take paper and pencil drafts and write comments on the paper and pencil drafts? Is it because this sounds too inefficient? Learning is not about efficiency. And it costs a heck of a lot less than the “next generation” of tests.
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Without computer assessments, schools wouldn’t be tethered to budget-straining technology requirements, and might have money for smaller classes, libraries, arts and vocational programs and other inefficiencies. Worse, there might be money to pay teachers a decent wage.
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“Who Gets Called Stupid”
kids who fail the test (newly invented and “secret”)….
teachers (in teacher bashing)
by accountants and bookkeepers
now the accountants and bookkeepers are pushed out by the IT guys
because their data systems are “so much better”. Have you ever watched an
IT type who has time for “trial and error learning”???? I did in 1980s and
as teachers we knew we couldn’t allow that time loss in classrooms; in a class
you would lose your student very quickly unless you said “this is the latest toy”
and you will need to know how to use it. (yes, the latest toys do sell)
Don’t believe it folks. I cannot post actual examples on the comments.
Ted Kennedy compromised on NCLB and where did it get us? The
values that had been carefully developed were cast aside with the
push towards CEO, “entrepreneur” types who call us names and
say their progress into the future is faster and better …. there is a lot
of mendacity surrounding us in communities and schools. I know
that my first husband worked in quality control in the 60s and he
was told “our bombs are good and they work” now you go and get
the data that prove it. My second husband before he died said
he did not appreciate that his work was “bombing babies” in Vietnam.
He is deceaed so you cannot verify those words but he was
very proud of the work he did on Apollo and I will testify that
he did a good job.
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I would like to continue reading comments, but I have to bring my 3rd grader to Target© to buy a new Lego© set. He also mentioned something about stopping off for some Mug© rootbeer afterward. Kids these days! Where do they come up with this stuff?
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LOL
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Like!
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There is nothing wrong with paper and pencil. However, I do see the point of the “adaptive” test. These, in the right hands, can be powerful tools that help determine a teacher’s course of action in the classroom. It is more difficult to create an adaptive paper test. In fact, I am not sure it can be done. At least, not on the level of the computers. Each answer sends the student to a question built to determine a level of competency. This isn’t as bad as it seems. However, when said computer crashes in the middle of a testing session, that is a problem.
BTW: I am in no way defending Arne Duncan as my students and I are living his dream in Chicago. 😉
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It’s official. Our children are guinea pigs for the education business and Arne is the Manchurian candidate chosen by the bloviating billionaires. Time for a microchip update for this buffoon before he self-destructs under his own ignorance and hubris. Duncan, what a disaster in the making.
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“the Manchurian candidate”, totally!
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Ah yes, guinea pigs… but that’s ok, because businesses make mistakes and fail all the time… kids? They’re just collateral damage… NCLB is the ultimate misnomer. (Can you hear the sarcasm through the screen?)
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Arnie is running out the clock until his big payday and practicing his corporate gibberish.
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Yup, job security.
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We are a point in this country where the commitment to the education industry is more important than anything related to educating America’s children. From testing to school governance, entrepreneurialism must be a part of the equation. If not it will not be successful – UNBELIEVABLE
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Thanks to Mitch Daniels, the education funding in Indiana has been drastically reduced and continues to dwindle due to private school vouchers to nearly anyone who wants them. Now that schools are being forced to administer tests on computers school systems are having to resort to a voter referendum to fund upgrades to school buildings to be able to facilitate these testing requirements. This past Tuesday two communities in Indiana voted down the referendum to make the improvements to the physical structure of school buildings built in the 1950s in order to make wireless internet available to the entire school building. So the state does not fund the mandated testing, the testing company proves their incompetence and the state just passed a law liking all state funding, teacher pay, teacher evaluations and the availability of private school vouchers to the test. How can anyone not see that this is a systematic movement to end public education. Sadly Indiana leads the way with the help of the incompetent: Arne Duncan, Mitch Daniels, Tony Bennett and Jeb Bush.
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Computers are wonderful tools, and they present great opportunities for wonderful evolutionary developments in education. Unfortunately, one must remember to consider the human elements. Current reform efforts fail to address the most difficult to control portion of the education equation; student attitudes. Too few students come to class prepared to fulfill their obligations, and this manifests itself in ways ranging from benign inactivity to extremely inappropriate behaviors. While it is true that wonderful teachers achieve fantastic results, no one bats a thousand. I doubt that all the students came prepared even in the ‘good old days’, however there has been a major paradigm shift in acknowledgement of personal responsibility.
I cannot speak with you if you are not willing to listen, and I cannot teach you if you are not willing to try.
Current reform efforts are expensive and ineffective efforts that do not get to the heart of the problem. We are busy trying to ‘sell’ a necessary commodity to a youthful clientele that does not entirely accept it as a necessary foundation to its future.
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I remember the lyrics “no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks – kick the tables, kick the chairs, kick the teachers down the stairs”. Brought to you by the Gates Foundation (ha). No more fine motor skills, no more gross motor skills…eat McDonalds with Mugs Root beer and kick those fat a$$e$ down the stairs.
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He is making his mark heavy and dark.
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The fact that this non-educator was appointed Secretary of Education tells us all we need to know about educational problems in our country.
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Old school bottom line – student learning, growth and development toward becoming a contributing member of society as an adult.
New school bottom line – profit margin, shareholder dividends, dollar harvesting.
Hmmmm, I like new things, gadgets and such but think this new school shift in thinking is going to kill America. Mr. Duncan and his playmates (Rhee, Gates and the other vultures) are laughing all the way to the bank. So sad.
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Arne Duncan speaks like a sewer backing up.
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First, I agree with the comment above, which points out that the test that failed was a multiple choice test. The extended response portion of the ISTEP was given in March using paper and pencil. Second, adaptive tests are fine, however the ISTEP test that was being referred to is not an adaptive test. I’m from Indiana and the test was a complete failure. Sure it is run by a business and if the business fails they should go out of business. Unfortunately, Indiana, under the direction of Bennet and Daniels signed a contract with CTB that still has another year on it. Also, that contract only allows for a $50,000 a day refund for a day in which students can’t be tested. I’m sure that Indiana won’t even get that since we never had a full day in which students could not test. Sadder still is that our school grade is so extensively attached to this test and our teacher evaluations are as well. Even teachers who don’t teach in a tested grade and even a teacher who never taught students who take the tests are highly affected by the results. Literally a teacher who has had every student he or she taught show growth on ISTEP could still be docked for the result of this test, because the results as a whole are a piece of every teacher’s evaluation. With stakes like that, this test has to be reliable! That doesn’t even begin to address our students who had to try to test three or four times before they could complete it. This is unacceptable. I’m all for computers in the classroom and as a testing platform, but once again we have enacted a process before the process was ready and/or before we knew what was needed to make it ready. We also proceeded before we had any idea about what the impact would be. But this is business as usual in Indiana. I asked a legislator how a Title teacher, resource teacher, or special area teacher would be evaluated with the new evaluation system they were then debating about. He bluntly told me they didn’t have those details worked out yet. And yet they passed the law as is. Enough said, don’t you think?
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In New York State an educator is assessed by junk science and deemed to be INEFFECTIVE. If they are rated INEFFECTIVE .two years in a row they are terminated. Arne has been INEFFECTIVE for five years. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. YOUR TIME IS UP.
PENCILS DOWN.
Marge
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I agree Marge! I’m tired of teachers being the only ones “held accountable.”
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I really do not think this is a battle good educators can win through good argument because the good arguments are about good education when the real discussion is about how business can best be served and it is best served, at least in the current business mindset, but turning out “good” workers, people who work too hard for too little and make little fuss (politically) about the conditions of their work and the conditions of their lives. I think it is time for actions that are more direct and that disrupt the workings of the system. I have proposed elsewhere that we engage in the B project next year, asking everyone we know to ask students everywhere to answer every test question with a “B” or a corresponding 2. That just might shake things loose, cause the decision makers to let go of the throats of students and good teachers.
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I recall learning that one of the elements of fascism is the close connection between business and government; the two entities are almost inseparable. Gee, I wonder why I am recalling that fact now…
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Yep. Scares the heck out of me.
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“having the ability to evaluate way more than just fill-in-the-bubble stuff — the critical thinking skills” ??????????
Hummm. The CBT I have seen in Florida is just a less efficient way of administering the bubble-in tests. They are just converted to computer – still largely multiple-guess.
We are begging to go back to paper. If you have 1500 kids to administer three hour tests to, and 100 workstations, well, the math is easy. Now compute that we have eight or more such tests to administer in the last months of school ……. Major disruptions.
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While there is reason to be angry with industrial educational complex (Borrowed from James Moffett) there is a question I think we, educators need to ask ourselves: are we teaching students what they need to know and be able to do to deal effectively with issues such as the critically important one this and other posts are addressing? Do we teach for a healthy skepticism, for inquiry, for high level reasoning or do we, to keep our jobs, pretty much do what we are told to do even though we know why we are being told to do such things? Again, the argument cannot be won when the goals of the parties are so different. You cannot convince someone of the efficacy of an approach if they do not believe in the goals the approach is conceived to accomplish. The corporate folk are not going to be swayed by those who propose methods that lead to highly capable, thoughtful, and forcefully articulate citizens who know their rights and know what is right because these abilities are apt to be turned against those who hold power for reasons other than their willingness to do what is right for the good of the whole.
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“As long as an individual is not explicitly conscious of the ritual character of the process through which he was initiated to the forces that shape his cosmos, he cannot break the spell and shape a new cosmos” (Illich, 1971).
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Hackers? Not to worry. The investors are already lining up to bid for contracts — well, maybe they won’t have to bother bidding — to keep that crucial test data safe. For a modest fee, of course.
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B! You cannot win with reason even though your cause is a reasonable one. Subvert the system. Mark “B” to answer all test questions from now until the bubbles disappear.
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If this were facebook, I’d “like” this comment!
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I would like to hear more. I did post the piece to Facebook.
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Did I read this correctly? He is referring to our education system as a business? Please clear this up for me – someone!!
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That is exactly what he’s saying. No bones about it, either.
And, you know: businesses will sometimes just “up and leave” when the profits they expect aren’t there for them, anymore. A lesson we’ve so painfully learned, here in the USA, over the past few decades.
But I’m sure that would never happen in a privatized education system. Would it…?
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Arne is not very intelligent. Intelligent people know how to listen and really hear their opponents point of view. A good leader listens intently to his/her opponent in order to understand a problelm from all perspectives. He has only his perspective, his agenda. This will be his downfall.
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There have been important questions asked such as “what business are you in?” this is different for education. The public purpose has been lost over the decades so that it is an “individual’s purpose” rather than a Public Purpose (I am speaking here of civic virtue another term that has been lost and is no where in the curriculum). In terms of politics, we have narrowed schooling down to the one purpose set forth by the Chambers of Commerce: “to get a job”…. that is not solely what education is about. (cf Eliot Eisner). Galbraith wrote about the public purpose in terms of education and the arts and humanities. These purposes seem to be lost in our vision for the future. In addition, we have the “Reading wars” and the “math wars” because there is so much competition about the right way to do something and my way is the best way the “only ” way. Even in what I think is an enlightened state such as Massachusetts there is continual argument about the standards (and good people lose their jobs over these argument)…. seasoned educators work on committees at the state level and they are told “the governor knows what he wants to do” so we don’t need to hear from you (veteran educators); and when I approach the congressional office the staff person is not eager to listen to anything that one might consider useful, helpful, “Better”…. but the slick marketers are in with their 5 colored brochures. I have been to so many conferences where the speaker says this is “exciting” (read: sexy) and they sell a snake oil to the audience. I think Lafered said look what is on your cable TV etc and I feel that even some of the best schools have fallen into “reality tv” as far as the academic portion of the curriculum (books selected to be read at the high school level; even with the state standards that we have which I considered to be reasonable .) I am not a strict “luddite” but there needs to be moderation between/among the various goals which lead to standards and selected curriculum and the pendulum is always swinging back or forth; is it 20 year cycles as it seems to be in special education (pull them out, place them back in reg. ed etc)? I remember reading Diane’s book on bilingual education, but the principals I knew were not reading books and the teachers were not attending professional conventions.
Granted I am talking anecdotal evidence from the limited staff I have known …. the colleagues I work with have tried to create a balance (at least in teacher education) but the wrath in the “reading wars” and the “math wars” extends into every nook and cranny.
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You say: “The public purpose has been lost over the decades so that it is an “individual’s purpose” rather than a Public Purpose (I am speaking here of civic virtue another term that has been lost and is no where in the curriculum).” This is certainly true. Civic education has been lost. In this country, the proof is that twice Obama was elected. A parallel is in Egypt, where an Islamist tyrant like Morsi was democratically elected. Both elections are indictments of the civic education of the voting populace. They just don’t know any better.
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Paulo Freire says that the oppressor is never the liberator of the oppressed, that it is the oppressed who must rise to the occasion and teach the oppressor of how his acts are inhumane and, ultimately, diminish the quality of life of the oppressor. Blame is not the issue; the issue is how to bring about the needed change and such change must be generated by the efforts of those suffering from the acts of those who keep them from doing what is necessary to take charge of their own lives; Arne may be the problem but the solution is not Arne’s to discover and apply. Change will come when those under the thumb of those with power do what is necessary to cause the thumb to be lifted. A good sharp prick of the skin is what is needed and I can think of no better way to make the prick felt than to subvert the testing regime; “B” is the right answer.
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thanks for your words; Marshall Ganz was instrumental in the civil rights movement for his work. He says today we have to help “give them a voice” and one way to do it is through stories. I can’t give his whole scenario here but he was on recently with Bill Moyers. Teachers are good at the “stories” necessary to give people a voice.
There is so much in “images” and interpreting them is hard without language…. this site is helpful in that regard because people feel isolated. The front porch is one of the metaphors for the “people who from time to time visit a while and tell stories.” Thanks for your words.
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My blog is simply my blog, an attempt to get out what I am thinking at any particular moment with the hope of provoking discussion that creates new threads of thought that might advance the conversation. Thank you for reading and when I discover how, the site will publish the responses of those who wish those responses to be posted.
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“Standardized Testing Affects 9,100 Students on Oklahoma” –
Top story on the front page of the Tulsa World this week. I live here and was sent home from my test proctor volunteering because the computer system failed. http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Standardized_testing_problems_affect_9100_Oklahoma/20130508_19_A1_Oklaho468869
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There’s nothing (nothing) wrong with paper and pencil. Don’t get above your raising, Arne.
I love technology, but, like pencil (and crayon, and marker, etc) and paper, it is a TOOL that can and should be applied to education. To make it the focal point is myopic and will bring on some serious problems; some of which we’re already seeing.
It’s also very expensive. There are and will continue to be many haves and have nots.
There’s big money to be made here…hence a very big push. Is it coincidence that some of the major players in reform are in the technology/communications business?
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It is not the technology that will harm or save, it is what that technology is used for, be it a computer or a pencil with number 2 graphite in it.
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I am very concerned about the economic divide with children. We gave students Ipads this year and the economically underprivileged students did not have access to utilize them. As a user of technology and a teacher that uses it as tool, Access is something we both should and cant afford to maintain.Teachers were fired to provide these ipads but the culture does not support the diminishment of poverty needed to guarantee access.
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Paper and pencil – the oldest technology. The printing press came before these current day “technologies.” How we use the tools measures progress. Pablo Naruda speaks about those who would seize “victory with no survivors.” And, that is what I worry about . (I will try to look up his whole poem; I may have spelled the name wrong.) Thanks for your perspective ….
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Pablo Neruda.
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Arne Duncan is not a very educated person. He reveals this fact each tme he opens his mouth.
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I do not think Duncan’s actions stem from stupidity. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard according to his bio (so he got into a prestigious school and apparently didn’t just coast through with a bunch of “gentleman’s C’s” like a certain former president). There are other reasons why he ignores the research and the pleas from practitioners–he’s the paid point person, put in the position to carry out a plan. He just needs to force everyone along until the plan (computerized testing, digital textbooks, and high-tech everything else) is in place as much as possible–he doesn’t have to believe in it he just has to push it. (I really believe Gates is pulling the strings.)
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I think you have analyzed the situation correctly. There is a different paradigm in play and he has “bought” into it. The strategy is drawn from marketing/ merchandising. Take a poll, advertise. Take another poll and advertise again. This is what we live with every day and it has become “if it’s popular people will buy it” but that is not the only measure we need in human services in health and education etc. I am driven crazy by the marketing “types” who take the human development research and psychology and use it to their own ends. The ads on TV etc have become more and more reprehensible when fitting into this model of “merchandising” — I won’t even give it the higher quality of marketing.
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Magna in sociology,playing basketball. The grade inflation that runs rampant in the ivies means grades dont really mean what they should. He may actually be intelligent but clearly he isnt very insightful.Not knowing your audience or your actual job is pretty ignorant regardless of his cv.
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Exactly, he is not a very educated person in terms of education. His credentials for his current position are not founded in education. I would like to see him and all of his cronies spend just one week in a Title I school anywhere in this country.
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How often do you think we would have testing if it wasn’t a “business”?
Maybe teacher and ed schools should develop the tests on the state dime and distribute it for free to their districts.
Once the profit motive was taken out, testing would probably be a lot less frequent and used in a lot more reasonable ways.
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I agree. TESTING is not the problem, necessarily. Being held accountable is good; there are bad teachers and we should be able to get rid of them. Teachers and students should be held to standards. But those standards and assessments that actually validly and reliably address them should be written by experts in the educational field, in each subject area — Not by businessmen or technology experts. Education is not a business, and business isn’t going to survive and thrive very long if we continue to treat it as such.
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Does the man know how to speak in full, coherent sentences? Someone needs to provide him with talking points and not let him loose without practice.
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How bright do you have to be to follow orders given to you by Broad and Gates?
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To even begin to believe that A. Duncan is in any stupid is truly foolish and, perhaps, it is the thinking that allows one to think such things that allows things to go to hell without a thoughtful and potentially meaningful reply. The people who are powerful are powerful because they are smart and they are smart at playing the game the rules for which a mildly educated public has allowed them to make. It does not have to be this way, but it is this way because the many, it seems, believes that ultimately things will work out and somehow fairness will prevail because, after all, this is America and simply being in American and being an American warrants such. It tells me that good numbers of people do not know America well, that is, they do not know how power can be taken from a democratic people if the people do not pay attention to their democracy. If such attention were given the civic life, we would have a country of highly informed and thoughtful voters who would understand that what is good for the whole is what is good for all. Instead, something else propels people to decide what they decide and that is the notion that the powerful wish them to hold, that the few who have have because they work harder than the rest. Damn I know some hard working people that do not really have much and a good number of them are teachers! And police and fire fighters and those who work in the offices that are there to keep food pure and airplanes from crashing. So think about that education system and who profits by what it does, or does not do. And then consider why it is that those who are hurt by those who do profit from it do not ascend in mass on those who manipulate the system to make it work for the few they care to benefit by it. Note that Arnie works for a president most of those writing to this blog supported but that president put Arnie in charge of education. What should we say to ourselves about that?
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You make an excellent point. I am still trying to explain to myself why President Obama, the darling of the teachers’ unions, should be so anti-public eduction. I don’t see the profit in it for him, nor do I see an ideological basis for his promoting privatization, unless it is that the large teachers’ unions are not considered reliable allies and that a privatized, fragmented educational system might be easier to keep under control because both public and public funded education will always be seeking some sort of federal money supplement and will have to comply with federal rules to get it. It can’t be that teachers are too stupid, craven, and uniformed not to have seen through President Obama, at least after the first term. But there it is, they supported him and in return he gives them Kool Aid in the form of Federal Aid to Education. Teachers are intelligent (or they couldn’t be teachers) and hard working, and know how to analyze media omissions or lies. I don’t see how the President could pull the wool over their eyes, so I conclude, tentatively, that they (we) thought there would be something in it for us, primarily money, increased spending on education from the federal level to permit the local districts to do more of the good work that a socialist like Obama knows should be done, like his early education initiative. But instead we get a morphed form of NCLB, in RTTT and now CCSS. He’s promoting VAM, which is mostly or wholly unfair in ignoring the impact on student performance of variables over which teachers have zero control. At least in the private school world, the parents are paying cash, and their voices are heard, because they are the paying customers. But in the public school world, parents only pay indirectly, through taxes, and usually are stonewalled by the teachers, and perhaps by administrators. I can understand Obama’s covering up Benghazi because it might have damaged his reelection campaign. I can understand his distributing stimulus money to campaign money bundlers, like the folks at Solyndra (who actually had a wonderful architecture for solar capture, but just couldn’t manufacture the arrays profitably). I can understanding his bailing out General Motors and Chrysler, stiffing the original stock holders and selling the companies to their unions because the unions supported him politically. I can even almost understand his pushing Obamacare through the Senate and House without permitting anyone to know what was really in the bill because it was merely a way of increasing the populations dependance on government for the essentials of life. But to take the support of the teachers and then knife them in the back, with Arne Duncan as the ninja assassin, just strikes me as fundamentally confusing, unless he thinks public school teachers are so really stupid they don’t even understand what’s in their own best interests. Maybe that’s why he sends his kids to the most elite of the elite private schools, so they will learn how to really think, and also know how to hob nob with the rich and famous and thus permit his daughters to attend the schools of Presidents, Yale and Harvard, and eventually marry into the highly educated elite of Washington, New York, and Martha’s Vineyard. It just CAN’T be that he really thinks the USA would be better off with a national curriculum, something which the Constitution explicitly forbids the federal government and reserves to the states. Actually, maybe that’s it, the motive behind CCSS, to promote a nation curriculum so that combined with Obama care, the socialist forces can more easily take over the country. Who Gnu.
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I don’t think the parents who place a child in charter school really have a “voice”. We live in a semi-sovereign nation and I don’t think any of us really have a voice when the country is dominated by corporations and huge funding sources . The people with the most dollars have a “voice” so to speak like Bill Gates. The only thing we can do is band together in professional groups and organizations. Unions have been devastated by the politics. How do we maintain a vigilant democracy when Citizens United is the motto? I don’t think that teachers are incentivized as you say by “federal funds” because there is such a small percentage of the federal funds that get into a state (it used to be 10% or less ; I ‘m not up to date). And, don’t buy the 47% rule that we are all takers if we voted for Obama. That is just another way of creating the superior/inferior verbiage the same way the use the 80/20 rule on Wall Street (20% of the people are doing 80% of the work). They live and play by those rules because it keeps their world view in place that gives them superiority. I just think Obama has been “swayed” by this overwhelming force of dollars from corporate donors (as would seem to fit ever politician no matter what decent values or integrity they came to the forum with.)
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I didnt vote FOR Obama as much as I voted NOT Romney,please let us hope that a truly democratically focused candidate arrives and is not dissuaded by the barrels of money the super secret superpacs will give to the opposition.
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It continues to amaze me that people think there are two parties here in the United States that have differing agendas/policies. On his first day in office, George Bush, Jr., standard-bearer of the party that was supposed to represent limited government signed No Child Left Behind, which brought about the biggest federal intrusion into local education in our history. Then he embroiled us in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A recent study (the Brown University Cost of War project, updated 2013) gives the total cost of those at 6 trillion. Now, I would like for someone to explain to me exactly how the conduct of federal policy with regard to NCLB, national education standards, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would have been AT ALL different if, instead of having Obama in office, we had had G.W. for another eight years. Obama’s policies in both cases have been precisely what G.W.’s would have been. And on issue after issue, this is the case. The Obama administration has deported more illegal aliens than did any previous administration in our history. It has pursued the drug war more intensely than has any previous administration, to the point of raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in states where those are legal. It has consistently defended DOMA and has treated gay marriage not as a matter of fundamental liberty falling under federal jurisdiction but as something to be left up to the states. It has spent 72 billion dollars to create an NSA collocation facility in Utah for recording every electronic communication by American citizens (see the Wired magazine article about this). It has not close Guantanamo. It has fought legal case after legal case to retain the right to do extra-judicial killing of citizens. During the Clinton administration, defense spending was about 400 billion a year. Last year, the Obama administration spent 1.415 trillion. Obama’s health care plan, before it was Obamacare, was Romneycare. It is precisely the program that Romney enacted in Massachusetts. TARP, a G.W. administration program, was continued under Obama.
One could go on and on. It’s amusing to listen to the MSNBC/Fox News ideological battles–to the pretense that there is a whit of difference between, say, a G.W. Bush and a Barack Obama.
I say, welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss. Different rhetoric. Same actions.
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While several have responded to my comments with comments that defend teachers, I ask that we really consider the realities of schooling as they affect the society in which we live. While some students, a good many (but not enough) do get a sound education, the many do not, and this is born out by the current realities of our public decision making process. I ask anyone who thinks that schools, in general are doing a good job, to look at the nature of the arguments that are put before the public and the nature of the public’s response to those arguments. I ask that people look at the kinds of entertainment our society craves and those who are our society’s elite. I ask that people take the time to scan the channels available to us on our cable and satellite systems and the ratings for the various shows that people watch. I ask that people think about why it is that we go to war and what we do at the end of wars in regard to our efforts to make sense of what has happened and what we have done. I do not deny that there are good teachers out there. But doesn’t a sensible person have to ask why it is that the practices of the best and brightest are not held up as the standard for all? Why is it that the conditions of work in so many schools are not the conditions that the best and brightest know to be best for all to receive the decent education they deserve. Why is it that Herbert Kohl still has much to write about in regard to inequities, in terms of the Savage Inequalities he continues to see in the educational system? These are questions I have for those that offer a blanket defense and try to tell me that things are better than I think them to be. The ramifications of the bad in the system are terribly for those who are affected by that bad and I ask that we do all we can to rid the system of that bad.
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please…ladies and gentlemen…let us not feign surprise…the billion dollar pot of money is a huge attractor to greed-heads and ward heelers alike…and Arnie has simply sold his soul to the ed reform demons…we should be outraged, but never…never be surprised.
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Careful Arne- CTB makes 1/2 of the PARCC Tests scheduled to be given in 2014. Take away their business and there goes your test.
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Lets us remember how we got to this poor state of education- 12 years of NCLB and high stakes testing. How many kids will we sacrifice to this experiment? I am a scientist! This test on human subjects (children) would never be approved at an Institutional Review Board. It has no scientific rational to back it up. Prior research does not support its use. It has potential to harm millions of school children. it is being conducted without parental consent.
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the values in NCLB that were brought to the table by some have been totally distorted and misinterpreted after the fact. I don’t blame the people on Ted Kennedy’s team who came to the table for the compromise. I think we have learned a lot after the NCLB compromise . Diane says a few of the same things in her book on bilingual education ….. I have to re read it to see the threads. As an example, I think Silber in Boston really wanted to look at inequities across the state and a test for every district would show where the students were not learning even in the affluent districts. There was a lot of contention about the issue but I believe he had that intent. Then the whole mechanization of testing got out of control; the tail begins to wag the dog. Silber also wanted the state to give the funds for training teachers to BU but he did not succeed in this regard (ie., close the public state colleges and only hire teachers from BU). This idea I did not see as helpful or useful but I give him the benefit of the doubt as to finding where the students were failing across the state. Of course, what those results would mean (or would have meant) in terms of equity and school funding formulas is still uncertain . The political process takes over and the budget slash and burn distorts even the best intentions (I do think we were well intentioned making a “compromise” on NCLB).
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There is nothing wrong with paper and pencil!
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Do you think this was a Freudian slip when Duncan said “Folks are making money to buy these service.”? Shouldn’t it be the folks selling the service who are making the money? Or is it just a given in his world that those who are setting up the companies to make money are themselves profiting?
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