Valerie Strauss published a terrific column by a Chicago public school parent, Karen McKeegan Fraid.
Fraid has written a wonderful translation of some of the reformers’ favorite phrases, which they repeat ad infinitum.
It begins thus:
“Assessment (noun): A test made by a corporation and protected from peer review and public scrutiny by intellectual property laws and strict confidentiality agreements.
Data-Driven Assessment (noun): A test made by a corporation and protected from peer review by intellectual property laws and strict confidentiality agreements whose purpose is to provide numbers too complicated and nuanced for the general public to understand, but vague enough that they can be molded into a variety of purposes as the need for “data” to support reforms arises.
Failing School (noun): A school for poor children of color whose intended funding subsidizes corporations.
For the Children (phrase): This actually doesn’t mean anything. The Reformy equivalent to chanting “USA! USA!”
You can see the possibilities of exposing the rhetoric that masks failed and harmful policies.
What is promising is that people are beginning to see behind the rhetoric and the mask. That is a danger to the corporate reformers, who use words to deceive and mislead.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hard to know where to start on the list. But how about assessment…isn’t this, done properly, a vital tool for educators? Isn’t assessment vital to know whether students are understanding the info that the teacher hopes students will learn?
Of course assessment can be done badly..whether at the classroom, school, district or state level. But this definition seems to dismiss assessment entirely.
Joe,
Have you ever read “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce?
I believe that the above referenced column is in a similar vein.
Authentic assessments happen all the time that is what professionals do….before they were demoted to data technicians…don’t you already know that given your history in many types of schools?
Imagine Joe, teachers assessing their students and determining strengths and weaknesses without testing them CONSTANTLY!
Teaching is a human interaction based upon trust and respect. It is not a science or a business developed by edufrauds.
Yes, Linda I agree with what you wrote that “Authentic assessments happen all the time that is what professionals do.”
So I was surprised to see such a blanket dismissal of the term “assessment.” as
“Assessment (noun): A test made by a corporation and protected from peer review and public scrutiny by intellectual property laws and strict confidentiality agreements.
Assessment can be something quite different that how it was defined.
Well said, Linda!
Joe,
But you miss the point, we are being overtaken by standardized testing, benchmark testing, picking the right bubble, CMT’S, CAPT, NWEA MAP, SBAC etc….less and less assessments are teacher designed. Where do you think all this mandated testing time is coming from…….A loss of instructional time, that’s where. We assess them to death and all were are assessing is the assessments.
“Poverty (noun): The worst curse word ever known to Reformers. Never, never, ever, ever say the word “poverty” out loud. If nobody ever mentions it again, it will magically cease to exist.”
Great post. ‘Should be shared at professional development meeting everywhere.
Oops … “meetingS”
In the interests of full disclosure, in her work Ms. Fraid was torn between two dedicatory quotes that summed up the Rheephormista guidelines when using Eduspeak.
These were the initial two finalists:
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” [Mark Twain]
“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” [Albert Einstein]
Strangely, they lost out to:
“To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another.” [John Burroughs]
😦
*SATIRE ALERT•
Good comment! 🙂
Prole, n. Any person not a member of the oligarchical, decision-making class
State, adj. Forced upon states by a small, distant, totalitarian authority. See “Common Core State Standards”
Transparency, n. Making it clear to proles what the small, distant, totalitarian authority has decided that they must do
Charter school chain, n. Group of schools founded by the idiot brother, cousin, or golfing partner of a plutocrat or politician for the purpose of diverting public funds to deliver maximum profits at minimal cost in teacher salaries
Teacher, n. Minimally educated trainer or overseer tasked with inuring students to random, mindless test prep and test taking in preparation for serving as input to the bottom rung of a service-based economic system (“Will you be taking your chai on the veranda Mr. Walton?”)
Student, n. Member of the prole class in his or her role as potential input to the bottom rung of a service-based economic system
Curriculum, n. In the aggregate, standards-based “learning materials”–mostly unrelated on-screen worksheets–prepared by one of the monopolies granted access to a real-time national database of student scores and responses that serves as a portal for delivery of those learning materials
Teaching, ger. The act of assisting students in the booting up of their computers so that they can do their standards-based worksheets on a screen (see “Curriculum”)
Free market, phrase. System of exchange whereby individuals are free to choose what they have been told they can choose
Standards, n. pl. List of one-size-fits-all, content-free abstract skills not describing world knowledge or specific procedural knowledge, prepared by a small, distant, totalitarian authority to drive the training of the proles by narrowing the curriculum (See “Curriculum”). Standards serve as the principal engine of value-added measurement.
(NB: Freedom from all content is aspirational and not entirely obtainable in practice. However, the mindlessness of prole training activities will increase over time as the system is refined. See “Value-added measurement.”)
Value-added measurement, phrase. Primary control mechanism for the new system of prole training
Robert,
May I use these in my own Devil’s Dictionary of Education? With a proper TOTH to you, of course!
A few examples (not completely finished yet) from my Devil’s dictionary:
BBC: Billionaire Boys Club-comprised of the elite of the elite of those providing funding for the edudeformer’s teacher bashing and public school destroying agenda. They suffer from an extremely virulent and incurable form of the White Man’s Burden. If they had a conscience they would have committed hari kari by now. See Broad, Eli, Gate, Billy the, Walton’s, the.
Bovine Excrement: That which exudes from the mouths of the edudeformers on a too frequent basis. Also what the edudeformers base their perfidious claims concerning the current state of public education is this great land.
Edudeformers: A certain elite hubristic breed who have had minimal contact with the teaching and learning process in public education but propose the most outrageous solutions to imaginary problems they say plague American public education that are, of course, leading to the tragic downfall of American Imperiousness. See: Gates, B., Duncan, A., Broad, E., Rhee, M., King, J., Vallas, P., Bush, J., Levesque, P.,
Evaluation, Teacher’s: A blunt instrument of destruction used to beat teachers into submission to the powers that be in a school.
Going Along to Get Along: Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process.
Innovative Spirit: That esprit de esprit that only true teachers of excellence take into the classroom every minute of everyday and every other minute of their lives.
Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
Tenure: A misnomer for “due process rights” for public school K-12 teachers in some states. It assures that the teacher cannot be arbitrarily dismissed for something like your administrator’s lover is in need of a job and yours is the one he/she wants. It also ensures that if a teacher is involved in a job action he/she will have the right to go before an arbitration committee of a kangaroo court usually made up of the superintendent and a few of his/her toadies.
TOTH: Tip of the Hat
: )
Ambrose Bierce. We need him now. Some of my favorites among his definitions:
arrayed (pp). Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamppost.
love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Love the Going Along to Get Along and the Karmic Gods of Retribution, Duane! Hilarious.
Robert,
May I use yours in my dictionary?
Duane
of course
Thanks, will give proper TOTH’s.
I think the term “21st Century skills” need be further clarified to read,
“Actually, none–no need for creative thinking, critical analysis or any kind of tool needed to question authority and right wrongs. Skills (?) acquired from education in the 21st century actually include:
1. Ability to accept minimum wages, with no questions asked.
2. Ability to accept job(s) with no benefits, no questions asked.
3. Ability to apply for food stamps and/or to stand in long lines to receive food from food banks, no questions asked.
In other words, ability to work at WalMart, and don’t ask any questions!!
I was WONDERING what those 21st Century Skills were! Thanks for the clarification! LOL 😛
good stuff!
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Brilliant. Please share with your favorite ed reporter.
Volumes 1, 2 and 3 are out!