The other day, I was involved in an extended online discussion about proficiency and accountability with about 50 people, mostly inside the Beltway. These are big names, people who make decisions that control your child’s life in school. I got more and more exasperated as the various think tank experts waxed on about how and why parents NEED to know how their child compares to children of the same age in other states and other nations. I couldn’t restrain myself. I let fly that I never wanted to know this as a mother and I don’t want to know it about my grandchildren now. What I want to know is whether they are growing up to be healthy, to be thoughtful, to care about others, to shoulder responsibility, to think for themselves, to be good people. The last thing that interests me is whether their test scores are better or worse than children elsewhere.
This reader left a similar comment. Let’s keep speaking up for decency and character, not pointless competition on tests of dubious value. Let’s all think for ourselves.
This reader wrote:
“Here’s my take on school: I don’t care how my kid compares, I care that he grows up to be a decent happy person. It doesn’t matter if he can compete with China, it matters that he’s not a miserable wretch like most of us who grew up in this ugly system.
“Seriously, we have a our priorities all wrong. It’s not about being the best, it’s not about “success”, it’s about having a life full of love and a modicum of joy. Everyone is so busy trying to be a winner that we’re all losing.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Everyone is so busy trying to be a winner that we’re all losing.”
That says it all in a few words. Shame, shame, shame on Obama!
This is HIS disaster…he owns it now.
ditto and ditto
I wish we could focus on how wrong the policies are rather than making it about politics so much. Why? Because that’s the only way we can prevail, when “education reform” is seemingly a (disastrous) bipartisan effort.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Sometimes it seems like these think tank geniuses believe we’re living in 19th Century Prussia. Efficiency and supremacy aren’t necessarily the worthiest of goals. Take those values to the logical extreme, and what do you have?
All my best teachers in a life long quest for learning and understanding did exactly the same thing — they inspired a love of learning and a desire to understand. Fail at that and we fail the only test that matters.
agree
Here is a free poem on tpt you may like
Scroll to the bottom
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/MaryMath
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You know, at the end of the day, I couldn’t care less if another country is beating out the United States in educational attainment. If so, good for them. May the most intellectual county win.
And no, I don’t want my children pressured. I want them to love learning. If it means they don’t end up going to an Ivy League school, so be it.
What bothers me is not any comparisons in which the U.S., or my children, look bad. What bothers me is my knowledge of my own poor public school education. I was in reputedly “good” schools and a “good” school district, but I read very few children’s classics, and got through my six years of junior and senior high school with one measly year of “world history”–when, to be properly taught, that requires many years. I spent a lot, probably most, of class time doing nothing, or nothing meaningful anyway.
That was in the 1970s and 80s. Things haven’t gotten much worse, I understand, but they certainly haven’t gotten much better. That’s why I’m homeschooling my children. (I’m not religious; I’m agnostic.) Our schools have failed, for well over a generation. And at bottom it’s because education professors, teachers, and frankly the whole culture are anti-intellectual. We don’t care enough about things like reading the classics and history and the ability to construct a coherent argument.
What bothers me is that national treasures like Marva Collins, who know how to bring children out of poverty with the liberal arts, and inspire them to love learning, are ignored, while trendy idiots argue against “rote memorization” of “mere facts” and pretend that education technology and more spending is the cure to all our ills, despite all evidence to the contrary.
If you’re going to describe battling camps of (a) sensitive, meaningful, progressive learning, and (b) insensitive, competitive credential-earning, then I need a third option. The camp that believes in the liberal arts and a little sensible discipline to keep kids learning substantial knowledge, without overwhelming them or turning them off. That’s neither (a) nor (b), but something else. I guess that’s the homeschool option, for now anyway.
Interesting post, Larry. What are you doing now?
What do you mean?
I’m Founder/CEO of a currently tiny startup, Infobitt.com. Before that I wrapped up my work on ReadingBear.org.
Thanks, Joe
“What bothers me is my knowledge of my own poor public school education. I was in reputedly “good” schools and a “good” school district, but I read very few children’s classics, and got through my six years of junior and senior high school with one measly year of “world history”–when, to be properly taught, that requires many years. I spent a lot, probably most, of class time doing nothing, or nothing meaningful anyway.”
Larry, I also went to public schools in the 60s, 70s. Perhaps not the exact time period, but I had a good education in a small town. I would argue that the textbooks in the 60s, by my own judgment, were the best. I was a youngster then, but happened upon a 60s textbook in the last ten years and was amazed at how well written they were–clear and intellectual at the same time.
However, I would add that my education didn’t start or stop at the doors of the school. I continued to read after high school graduation to learn.
When I went to college in my 30s, I read more than was assigned by the instructors and benefited greatly from that.
The point I’m trying to make is that there is some personal responsibility here, too, for one to seek out education outside the school.
It’s plausible that things had changed by the time I entered school. Schools in the 60s were inspired by competition with the Rooskies and the Space Race. But, however that might be, I hated my reading books and most handouts and workbooks we had. I can’t remember a single textbook or workbook that I really liked. We weren’t really assigned chapter books until upper elementary.
As to taking personal responsibility, that’s a fair point; but there was so much busywork and time-wasting and inferior “project” methods and so forth that I do maintain that we could have been taught a lot more even in the time that we used. In short, school was, and remains, very inefficient when it comes to learning the content and skills associated with a decent liberal arts education.
Regarding :
“What bothers me is that national treasures like Marva Collins, who know how to bring children out of poverty with the liberal arts, and inspire them to love learning, are ignored, while trendy idiots argue against “rote memorization” of “mere facts” and pretend that education technology and more spending is the cure to all our ills, despite all evidence to the contrary.”
It seems that according to a regular poster here…George Schmidt…old Marva was a hoax:
See portion of post below:
Full post here:
The “no excuses” narrative, like so many other odious propaganda thrusts since “A Nation at Risk,” had one of its births in Chicago in the Marva Collins Hoax. By the early 1980s, the media presentation of that one had gotten so out of hand that Cecily Tyson played the heroine in a TV special called “Welcome to Success…”
Sadly for those who wanted to believe that all you needed was a firm belief that “All children can learn…” and “a good pair of legs…”, the claims were bogus. A few months after the national publication of the TV “docudrama”, a teacher from “West Side Prep” came to me with stories about how the test scores — and the rest of the “miracle” narrative — were achieved. After a long investigation, I published our findings in Substance under the headline “The Marva Collins Hoax” and all heck broke loose. Marva had refused to answer my questions, of course, but the story got “traction” and soon CBS was revisiting a narrative that they had helped promote (all the way to “60 Minutes”).
The key came when Marva threatened to sue CBS radio (WBBM 780 AM) in Chicago, which had picked up our story and run with it. She invited the reporters to “West Side Prep” to “see the truth.” Things were very intense, with the lawyers looking over the shoulders of the WBBM radio reporters. The morning they were scheduled to go out to the west side to see the miracle, I gave them the script they would be subjected to. The literature lesson would have all the kids raising their hands, but only one would be ready to talk about “Dostoevsky” as his favorite writer. The poetry lesson would be “Who wants to recite Tennyson?”
Again, all the hands would flap, but a selected kid would do the recitation (the only one in the class that actually knew the poem by heart).
Then came the phonics vocabulary lesson, and after the warm up with a couple of tough words, the teacher wrote adiocokenesis (I’m spelling it phonetically) on the blackboard and asked the kids to say it and define it.
Again, there was the selected kid.
The reporters called me later that day and said that the entire three hours they were at West Side Prep had gone as I had predicted, based on my investigations. It was a staged show, down to each kid who had been trained to do one stunt. The trick was to have all the kids raising their hands eagerly wanting to give the “answer.” Only one was really ready, and only the teacher knew that.
The Marva Collins story flapped around for a few more weeks after that, with the Chicago Tribune eventually sending out a veteran reporter to get the whole story. He discovered, as I had, that the same stuff had been repeated over and over and over by the scribes who had dropped into Chicago to visit the miracle, and that much of the reporting was aided and abetted by a well organized clip file. That way of rendering reality was a novelty back in those days, just as a “docudrama” was the forerunner to all the selective memory “Memoirs” that infect the literary world today. The line between fact checked fact and fiction was being blurred regularly, and Marva was able to take advantage of it.
Part of the trick then was to bad mouth regular teachers (“all children can learn…” as if the teachers Marva had worked with in the public schools didn’t believe that, too) and to count on many of the usually white reporters who covered the story to see a miracle because little black kids were performing so well.
Of course, Marva also reported miraculous results year after year on the standardized tests she claimed to use — the CAT back in those days. But as my source told me, the tests were never audited, and the claims — “three years’ gains in one year!!” — were never fact checked. In one case, by the time the story entered its third year one of the kids was “reading” at the 16th or 17th “grade level” (if you assembled the history of the claims).
It was intense at the time, but looking back on it is was merely sad, and a sad forerunner of the “no excuses” nonsense to come. Those of us who taught in the inner city (and during those years I was teaching at high schools on the West Side, including one that Marva Collins denounced as a “failure”, John Marshall High School) were stunned that the fiction could be passed around for so long.
Of course, later, we faced (and debunked) the Heritage Foundation’s “No Excuses” report, and others elsewhere peeled off the claims of similar nonsense.
But it continues because a key part of the legacy is the teacher bashing of regular public school teachers either explicit (as with Marva and “No Excuses”) or implicit (in the case of some of the charter schools, which don’t teacher bash publicly).
I saved a lot of that material for years, but never expected that 30 years later the corporate nonsense would still be peddling it. As everyone is pointing out here, lower class sizes, a competent teacher aide (from the community) in every classroom, and lots of extra stuff can make a difference — over time. Of course “all children can learn.” The tragedy for many of the children I taught during a three decade career in Chicago’s inner city high schools (while I also worked as a reporter and union activist) was that many of them had to learn some very nasty survival skills in order to live out in, for example, the “South Cs” which
Contemptible bit of libel, that. Is there any evidence that the children were prepped in the way described, beyond what a former employee says? Is there any evidence that only one child was able to answer the questions? Is there any evidence that she lied about the test scores? Not from what George Schmidt tells us. I’ve read “Marva Collins’ Way” cover to cover, and she responds credibly to this story. I know from personal experience that educational success like this is possible. I’d be more inclined to believe Marva Collins than her critics, frankly, since her story puts the lie to so much of dogmatic educational ideology and so it’s not surprising that defenders of the System would be up in arms. Schmidt is accusing Ms. Collins of lying. His only evidence, it seems, is a disgruntled employee.
Linda, I would say G.W. Bush owns a lot of this as well. NCLB started all of this madness. I agree with you that Obama has added to the madness.
Sure Rick, GWB is certainly a key player, but he had a lot of help, partisan across the isle. Take a look at the major hitters in the drafting and pushing through NCLB. For instance Ted Kennedy.
It was bound to happen eventually. I’m sure if it hadn’t been under GW’s watch it would have been under the next democrat.
I was involved in an “advisory” capacity for my state (Washington). For the most part we were totally ignored. It was simply Congress telling us “this is a good thing for our country’s children and we don’t care what you teacher’s think.”
One thing that underlies much of what law makers hold to be true is that teachers are not working hard enough. If we only worked harder, our students would be doing better.
Balderdash! My steering committee (big laugh, “steering” – sure like steering a whale with a fishing pole) studied European and Asian teaching methods and reported to our superiors that they needed to have all of the people involved in making these laws to view a video we provided. The video went through a detailed explanation of what curriculum, materials, standards and the classrooms look like in the “high performing” countries. It’s like night and day.
Just one quick example. Review an 8th grade math textbook in Japan. Compare that with one from the US..any major publisher.
The Japanese text is an inch thick, compared to our 3 inch thick textbook.
The key is that our counterparts in the high performing countries operate from the viewpoint of mastery of the key / core concepts, going deep in the exploration and understanding of the math principles.
We do it the other way around, we go an inch deep and a mile wide. Cover EVERYTHING, review everything, etc.
People don’t learn very well that way. I didn’t learn that way very well and it took me most of my 20’s to unlearn all of the bad math habits I had so I could understand and do well in calculus.
Cheers
Jim
Jim,
That sounds about right in regard to depth vs our shallow pursuits here in the U.S.. Just as an aside I’ve lived in Kent and Bellevue for parts of my younger life. I love Washington State. Very progressive.
Take Care,
Rick
I agree completely. Why is our national education program a “race to the top”? That is not the metaphor I want for education.
Amen! This was and is what I want for my children and their children.
Whatever happened to valuing human beings for the sake of being human… not for what they can produce? There is no way to put a value ranking on a human child! Some of the most beautiful gifts to humanity have come from those who have NOT necessarily been “gifted” in ways that politicians deem valuable. How did I wake up in this insane dystopia?
Read this poem…scroll to the bottom
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/MaryMath
As individuals and families, we do not need to know how our children compare with others, but we do need to know whether they can read and write, and can think creatively — equipped to be productive citizens (which includes art, music and sports). As citizens, we need to know how schools are doing — not to punish and disband, but to understand where more resources need to be directed (and not where more profits need to be made!!). The 2013 proficiency scores just published for DC schools tell us that more effort needs to be directed towards poorer and more segregated schools and neighborhoods — big surprise. Much more needs to be done for families starting at birth, before they even enter the schools.
As a nation, we do need to realize that we are in a competitive world, and therefore poor reading, math, and science scores do matter. This is not a “business” model, it is an old-fashioned model of creating in children the ability to succeed by giving them the tools.
Our problems have been long in the making. Already in the 1970s students I taught at Brown University had not been taught to write. Improvement will not happen overnight. It will not be hastened by tossing out experienced, dedicated teachers and replacing them with enthusiastic but completely under equipped and poorly trained Teach for America teachers.
John M
Washington, DC
“The 2013 proficiency scores just published for DC schools tell us that more effort needs to be directed towards poorer and more segregated schools and neighborhoods — big surprise”
The “BIG SURPRISE” is that the “proficiency scores” don’t tell us anything about the teaching and learning process other than a very truncated categorization that has no logical validity. To keep using standardized test scores as “measurements” of the teaching and learning process is the definition of insanity, it’s a Manx cat chasing its tail, it’s “vain and illusory” as Noel Wilson says. To understand why see Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
“instead of telling parents their children need to be well educated so they can compete, we should be telling them their children need to be well educated so they can take part in our democratic society.” http://bit.ly/14wgvDG
Exactly, Jeff. We need good citizens.
Exactly.
“Everyone is so busy trying to be a winner that we’re all losing.”
Yes.
I see this in my students more and more each year.
Despair, anxiety, depression. Everything in their world seems “high stakes”.
It makes me very sad.
And causes me to wonder if perhaps we are all being encouraged to endlessly and pointlessly compete with each other and every fellow peasant across the globe so we fail to notice how we are being looted by our elites.
Just a thought.
You hit the nail on the head. Congrats and kudos!
ALEC has been around for 40 years. Nothing about their agenda has any human being’s best interest at heart, including children, except their own. They are out to destroy everything good about this country, including the one equalizer of our democracy, public education. This group and those that represent them care only for profit margins and wealth accumulation. These people, including many of the GOP, are fascists, as were many Germans pre-World War II. For them it is about keeping/getting total control and power over everything and everyone. They lack a moral compass to see what they are doing is a crime against “humanity”. Our children are pawns in a chess game of class warfare. This is the civil rights issue of our time.
Um, this disaster has been a long time in the making. This societal mess started with businesses refusing to be regulated and monitored when “trickle down” was instituted. “A Nation at Risk” got the wheels turning. Corporations started buying up more and more companies and putting people out of jobs thanks to Bain Capital and friends. The economy kept fluctuating. The Gulf War provided the anxiety needed to fuel the armed “patriots”. Clinton created a opportunities to further create the divide between the parties. Imagined or real. Along comes “W” and 9/11 and the “Patriot” Act which again fueled paranoia and privatizers took full advantage of that with seeds of ALEC smouldering in the background. NCLB put inordinate amounts of pressure on students and teachers to “assure” that everyone would be proficient by 2014. Shootings brought out the NRA factions and then we had the 2008 election with the peculiar collapse of our economy just as a new President was elected. The vitriol embroiled those who are now espousing the beliefs of Ayn Rand and furthering the cause of taking back America to the pre-Civil Rights as RttT was brought forth publicly. Then the Supreme Court decided that Citizens United was good for America. So with full steam ahead the 1% started to buy up everything. Racial tensions are resurfacing. Lies abound. And, after driving out unions and making public workers lose their homes and jobs, not to mention self-respect, thecdo-nothing Congress and the “governors” of several states put the goals of ALEC into motion. Have tampered with every other area, they decided to ramp up the take over of public education, to change the voice, to stomp out science and critical thinking skills in order to dictate the education they deem necessary to create … what? College bound students??? With no jobs available to many of the crushed, brilliant minds of graduates that are now working parttime or not at all because the good-paying jobs have evaporated. They lay “blame” on teacherszand colleges of education, when the blame for corporate problems lies in the nepotism and irresponsible reliance on hedgefund managers et al to cut phony deals and play with Wall Street. And here we are. School has begun. Teachers continue to tend to their duties with the specter of Value Added measures determining whether they deserve to teach, no matter that we have unproven objectives with respect to developmental ability in place via the Common Core. Almost everyone is stressed out. Maybecthe plan is that the CC will itselfcdrive people to private schools for no other reason than those Pearson testsxare designed for major student failure. Am I fed up? Yes! Do I have some typos here? I don’t care. I am sick and tired of the bull that passes for excuses for privatizing schools! I am not a “conspiracy theorist”, but I do say, “Follow the money.” Most of the teachers who arexupset with this insanity have always followed our hearts, not the money. But convince the money lovers otherwise and here they come with their privatizing, unproven farce of education reforms. I don’t buy into this cold-hearted, selfish, and condescending group of privatizers. I have no respect for their intentions. Sorry for the rant. I have simply had it. There is plenty of blame to go around.
Billy Joel could take what you’ve posted and do a new version of “We Didn’t Start The Fire”. Maybe, that would get the general public’s attention!
It is like beating a dead horse, as they say.
A lot of us are on the same page. The use of odious comparison and phony list-making, rank-ordering, and meaningless competition as motivation for education has sickened me for decades. Anyone who ever fell prey to that as a child (successful or not) was victimized to the extent that the joy of learning was diminished.
“Anyone who ever fell prey to that as a child (successful or not) was victimized to the extent that the joy of learning was diminished.”
Exactly. It is coined subjectivization by Foucault, the looping effect by Hacking and internalization by me. Wilson would consider it to be symbolic violence. I prefer to call it violence of the mind, in other words, bullying. To repeat part of my prior report:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
I’ll be interested in ranking public school students (in terms of standardized test outcomes) when our elitist private schools choose to do the same. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
I never thought I could ever agree with Michelle Malkin
She is now my soul sister. This if from the war mongering editor of the NYTimes
“Beck’s soul mate Michelle Malkin warned that the Common Core was “about top-down control engineered through government-administered tests and left-wing textbook monopolies.”
Could you post a link to that?
Yeah, there’s a lot of left-wing textbook monopolies out there —
All worker-owned profit-sharing collective enterprises, of course.
Is it the “left-wing” textbook companies that are removing science and history in favor of “Christianity”?
I hate all this testing of our students and I don’t know how I feel about the Common Core but I don’t think it’s wrong to have a national curriculum. Am I wrong?
I’ve lived and taught in Maryland, Virginia (both DC suburbs) and now New York. I’ve had students who moved from other states to New York where I teach and some really struggle. Why shouldn’t we have a national curriculum?
That isn’t the issue.
The question is whether the curriculum arises from natural consensus among the larger communities of inquiry, pedagogy, research, and scholarship, or whether it is controlled by narrow corporate and special interests.
The curriculum for which you accept is the most chaotic curriculum in this universe…is a money-making-“One-Size Fits All’ Curriculum devoid of the individualization of a child’s talents.
GO BUY
For many years the American philosophy on child rearing was to allow the young child to learn through play. Teachers and parents would be reminded that “education is a journey, not a race.” Kindergarten was such a thrilling place of discovery and fun that many adults held fond memories of this special time in their lives. Generally, schoolwork didn’t become too challenging until the last years of high school, or even college. As a result of this, our fourth graders were among the “dumbest” kids in the world, but oh, how our college students and adults soared!
In contrast to this, some other countries placed great academic stress on very young children. In these places elementary students had hours of homework each night and high school students spent six or seven days a week immersed in heavy duty academics and high stakes tests. When these students got to college, many would relax and “coast” until graduation. These countries were usually way behind the United States in terms of adult innovation and achievement.
Now we are following the lead of these less successful countries. Will we lose our competitive edge? Only time will tell.
1. All work and no play makes Tom and Sally two dull humans
2. I do not want nor have ever wanted my child to be like the friend from another country…..difference is…my child is a happy human as long as my child follows the wise saying…”If you always do the best that you can do when attempting any task… then you are and will be a success”
We raised 3 successful, happy children and my wife and I both taught for 36 years. We did not care an iota as to how our children compared with other children. As parents we made it our job to know how each was doing regardless of how others were doing. Even as an athletics coach and PE teacher, I realize the profound limitations and negatives of forcing competition on children when it is not appropriate. Children need cooperative, holistic learning opportunities; They need to be free to create, explore, imagine, experiment, cooperate, work alone, be exposed to art, music and movement of all sorts both during classroom time and during physical education which every child should have, every day. The competition children should face is their own willingness to challenge themselves, to try to go “beyond” and even to experience failure and know that it is simply a step in the process to successful learning. As a well mentored educator in the neuro-physiological processes of learning, I’m fully aware that not 1 out of a thousand “educators” actually knows how children learn….how the brain processes information and what motivates the brain to store and retrieve memory; Almost as few as who fail to understand the social intricacies of the learning process.
I have 3 little boys, 6, 8 and 10. The last thing I do is compare or think about how they are doing in comparison to other children in other states, other countries or even students in this community. I want them to do their best, work to their potential, grow and be kind and happy people. I think it would be hurtful any other way. Were the people that were pushing for this information actually parents? We already got enough to think and worry about.
Boy did this blog hit home for me. I remember sitting in parent teacher conferences for my daughters and finally asking, “Are they nice? Do they get along with others?” I care more about them developing a good work ethic and finding friends and a job that can make them happy. I don’t see me bouncing my grandchildren on my knee bragging about a state test score.
I read this on a bulletin board once.
Author-unknown
“Success is doing something you have to do better than you have to do it”
So many lovely comments here. I was reminded of an old favorite with a great line about being “…oh so smart”
http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F#/watch?v=EzOIhLJ1C-Y
Sorry, posted link didn’t work. I’ll try once more. The link was to a short clip from the play “Harvey”.
http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F#/watch?v=EzOIhLJ1C-Y
The factory school model is the root of this measurement mania. We put kids in age-based cohorts and use standardized assessments to determine if they are progressing through the agreed upon course of study in time. Comparison and competition is implicit in this model. Instead of abandoning the factory school we keep trying to engineer it by developing clearer courses of study, better assessments, and better ways for the assembly line workers (i.e. teachers) to provide instruction. Until we replace this system with one that allows children to progress at their own rate we will continue debating metrics, curriculum, and group teaching methods.
Quality Control takes the low-performing students and tosses them a to the wolves..They then throw the teachers under a bus..
These teachers and students feel so worthless…yet they have so many skills that are needed to help run our world…
Academic smarts is not the only smarts that these children have to offer.
When will the Obamam-Arnie Plastic Educators figure this out!
Why not then compare
1. Athletic ability
2. Musical ability
3. Communications ability
4. Poetic ability
How many inches in a foot?
It depends on whose foot it is!!
Competition is so much engrained into our national psyche, isn’t it?
You hear the catchy phrases in speeches all the time.
“We must remain competitive!”
“We have to be able to compete in a global market.”
“We must remain #1.”
“We have to be a world power.”
Competition, like any other value, is important and necessary, but that alone is counterproductive. Competition in a robust system of checks and balances that levels the playing field is the kind of competition that works for everyone.
Right now, one of the biggest dichotomies is that we don’t have true competition in the United States despite the fact that the word “competition” is bandied about in all media outlets, by all reformer rhetoriticians, including the president. Everytime there is a major collapse, an industry gets bailed out big time with our tax dollars. When the people in Philadelphia or Chicago are experiencing collapses as citizens and not as corporations, they get diddly squat. When their school systems and pensions implode, as they are now, no government or capitalist crony is found to lend a helping hand. In fact, they’re running from the crime scene they caused, running toward Wall Street, and they’ve dropped Main Street faster than the Food Network dropped Paula Deen.
I guess corporations are more “people” than people.
In the meantime, one of the most telling and chilling aspects of RttT is its very own verbiage, which delcared that we must foster competition in children so that they will be “college and career ready. ”
I happen to agree with that. This is one such function of education.
But it has also become the only function, the only focus, the only lens, and therein lies one of the greatest revelations and inhumanities ever to come from the Obama administration and neo-liberalism.
While competition is as old as the cave man, so are civics. What about preparing our children to be civic participants in a democracy? What about giving them the tools of liberal arts to think outside the box, problem solve, defend and increase equality, and know keenly how all levels of government work. Our young people, for example, should be mandated to learn how our lobbying system works so that one day as adults, they can participate in government and not become passive onlookers who tend to never really understand its mechanisms but feel its injustices as an ordinary, everyday people living, working, voting, and paying taxes here in the United States.
The fact that “civics” is not a central part of RttT in the legislations’s core verbiage says everything.
Could the proponents of the law have given away their trade secret any more effortlessly?
Is “competition” really another way of saying reformers want a society of limited thinkers whose main mission is to be ready, willing, and able to work for large conglomerates? Is this nothing more than a glorified education system that is only interested in producing tenacious, not-too-bright, obedient workers who will one day join a hive and work very hard to enhance the power and wealth of a very few chosen queen bees?
Is this really a high gloss slave system, where young graduates, already dumbed down by a metrics-obsessed K-12 system, will go to work for corporate America, assuming they can find a position, and have to pay back college debt that is the equivalent of 1/3 to 1/2 the price of an average home in a middle class neighborhood? Do they get married later? Do they hold off from having even one child until they are in their mid thirties? Will they have real time to spend raising their children?
How does this brand of focused “competition” really make the United States a family, person-friendly place to live? Or is this just about competing with countries like China and India, the shining beacons of equality and little-top-no corruption that they are.
Add to this scene of “competition” the dwindling unions in the United States and certainly the corruption and hideous decay of education unions, save for the CTU.
Add further a surveillance system used on our own citizenry that only our past enemies could dream about, a demonization of public servants, pensions, social infrastructure, and heros like Bradly Manning and Julian Assange whose risky dangerous behavior brought us more illumination to who we are as a people than almost any other writer, media organization, or philosopher.
Competition is an indispensable component to any viable society, and yet the narrow and exclusionary focus on it, at the expense of fostering humanism and fiscal and social equality, will eventually render our society impotent and anything but “competitive”.
An education system that considers the whole human should not be a race . . . And if it is, we face an inevitable absence of its victory . . . .
We need a complete change of culture…the culture that says we HAVE to be the best in everything. Nuclear armament, waging war to impose our democratic (capitalistic) views on everyone, education, etc. America is not a great society if being number 1 comes at the expense of our humanity and integrity, and that includes education too.
John Goodlad in his book “What Are Schools For” stated:
As regards high grades, Goodlad states that we do not know what high grades mean. They do not predict compassion, good work habits, nor vocational success, not social success nor happiness. He argues against a set of topics constituting the core but is for a common set of concepts, principles and ways of thinking.
It seems they want to have us all give into this giant child competition game…Let the HUNGER GAMES begin.
It is sickening that these kinds of people are in charge. How little they know about the people they are suppose to represent. That is truly scary!!!! That is the sad truth. I hope all these policy makers or “think tanks” rot in HELL!!!!!
People want their children to be able to read and write and understand mathematical concepts. They don’t want to know if their children are “smarter” or “dumber” than other children. They do want their children academically proficient. But that comes through teaching knowledge and skills, not testing for standards. It seems the more we test for standards, the less our children seem to know. We need to make the non-teaching professionals stop wasting time with our children.
Teachers have always played an important role in directing the moral compass of communities and ultimately, our country. Teachers are leaving the profession for a multitude of reasons, and none I know are recommending teaching as a career. Who will be the future teachers? Will they all be two year temps building a resume? Will they follow the corporate agenda without questioning or thinking? Will they live constantly in fear of being fired? Will they see the importance of working together for their community and country, or will selfish winning be the only goal? Will humanity, morals, and decency even count in this scary new world? Will civilization, as we know it, survive?
I believe that for many, the decision to get rid of teachers comes from a distrust of what their perception of what the college professors do to change the values that some want their children to believe. They don’t want their children to underatand other religions or cultures or to think for themselves. They don’t trust the educators to instill in their kids one specific view of the world. And we aren’t supposed to do that because it isn’t inclusive. That doesn’t mean we abandon all beliefs or thatvwe don’t allow kids to pray in school. We just don’t teach them that. We can’t. Even people in the same church or denomination or family don’t agree on how to interpret tbeir religion. How can a teacher please 25+ viewpoints on something that is faith-based? Always somene will disagree and object.
So, by eliminating the influence of educational researchers who are viewed by some as “socialists” they feel they will be well on their way to ridding the US of all that they fear. I find it to be nauseating because the world has so much to offer. People’s differences are interesting. Learning is living not memorizing a mantra of any form.
Look into the backgrounds of those pushing for these changes, financing the privatization of schools, prisons, etc. It is about eliminating, not about uplifting or helping.
Decent and happy makes for a Citizen who feels good, learns what she needs to learn with a lot less tension and doubt in her being, and allows her to look around and stay in touch with how the other citizens are doing in her society. That person can access her gifts more deeply and maybe will “outdo” others someday, not due to competition but simply by being her gifted, generous Self.
You tell ’em, Diane.
Totally agree! My older daughter, a strong reader and writer, who was taught via the Teacher’s College Reading and Writing approaches (PROGRESSIVE!) always had high test scores. My younger daughter, taught in a different school, via a more traditional and much less joyful approach, always had average scores. I never talked about their test scores and didn’t care about comparing them to their peers. I never talked about their college board scores (similarly very high and very average); friends or even acquaintances would often “brag” about their kid’s scores. As a teacher, it’s the same thing. I want my students to be thinkers and to love learning. Some test better than others.
This propaganda is the sickest form of child abuse! Just as sick is the behavior of the many adults (teachers)! It is getting very ugly. This is not the environment I would want my children to be educated in. If we can even call it education.
We used to teach children skills that would provide them with abilities to produce….to make products, to be productive. It now seems that we are teaching children to BE the product. All the testing and measuring and standardizing of the child seems to indicate that we see children as our produce….not as the next generation of producers. Its as if they are a crop to be consumed rather than a new generation of producers. Our mentality of competition shows in the popular programs of the day…Survivor, The Great American Race, American Idol, etc. The attitude that there can only be a select winner and there is only enough good stuff available for the top achiever is drowning us. The culture of competition is so much part of our lives we don’t even realize its taken over. Its most inappropriate in our schools at this time but it is a malaise throughout our culture. The attitude that there are only a few winners and all the rest are losers and you better know which you are at all times it going to take us down. Its like an ever growing barnacle that will sink us. Judging the value of everything (by rigid, narrow standards) has become our national pastime. Of course children are being abused by this practice. We can’t allow our leaders to continue this madness. Thank you for being a voice for the generation of children who are being cheated by this mentality.
” I got more and more exasperated as the various think tank experts waxed on about how and why parents NEED to know how their child compares to children of the same age in other states and other nations.”
So now we know where the heart of the problem is…people in power who are so wrapped up in their egos that they cannot see humanity.
They have to KNOW that they and their children measure up by…measuring each other…without ever questioning WHO designed the measure and why they feel the need to follow that person or persons’ warped ideals….?
“Here’s my take on school: I don’t care how my kid compares, I care that he grows up to be a decent happy person. It doesn’t matter if he can compete with China, it matters that he’s not a miserable wretch like most of us who grew up in this ugly system.
“Seriously, we have a our priorities all wrong. It’s not about being the best, it’s not about “success”, it’s about having a life full of love and a modicum of joy. Everyone is so busy trying to be a winner that we’re all losing.”
Agree wholeheartedly! Today’s news of three teenagers in Oklahoma killing for the fun of it, is an example of how society has let them down. Common Core is only going to put our children on the wrong path- giving them impersonal and uninteresting goals to achieve and for some impossible goals. Common Core takes the joy out of learning. I always told my children that I didn’t care what they did for a living as long as they are an asset to society; don’t become a parasite to society.
AMEN!
Seems that the ONLY solution to any problem in this country is the militaristic, capitalistic, technocratic approach. Duh..can anyone elected to office think outside the box? Answer: NOPE, they are indoctrinated and have not a clue. Plus…$$$$$ reigns. Thus, they use kids and teachers…easy targets for more moolah from the public right into their pockets. SIC.
It’s part of the constant “TINA” messaging of neoliberalism – There Is No Alternative. It’s also known as manufacturing consent – limit what the “reasonable” range of discussion is and give people the illusion of democratic control while restricting real choices as “unreasonable” or “unserious” and defaming any individual foolish enough to promote such “radical” ideas. Our “democracy” is made up of overgrown two year olds being given the “choice” between the blue shirt or the green shirt.
Well said!
It’s the parent’s responsibility to see that his child grows up to be a decent happy person and that he or she has a life full of love and a modicum of joy. To expect schools to do this is in my view, misguided. Not only because schools shouldn’t need to, but also because they won’t be very good at it. That’s not what schools were created to do. Schools should teach kids things that parents might not have the resources to provide – reading writing, mathematics, arts, athletics, foreign language, history and civics, science etc. When schools try to do more than this, not only do they fail, they overstep and become intrusive. Character education? That’s my job. I sometimes wish that I could give a rhetorical shout out to educators, “I really don’t need for you to raise my kids for me, nor do I need for you to instruct me on how to do it. Just prepare them to become literate citizens who can participate in our democracy and help them to acquire some of the skills mentioned above so that they can function in the world”.
As far as the competition part goes, I agree with Dr. Ravitch, I couldn’t care less about how they compare with China. It would be great if my kids liked school and looked forward to going there. With all of the pressure and testing, school often becomes stressful and complicated and never ending. The word “vacation” seems not to be a part of school lexicon. There is ALWAYS an assignment, over the summer, over the winter and spring breaks. Families never seem to have the chance to get away from school and its personnel and forget about them even for a little while, lest we fall behind. Now there is talk of extending the school year. Here’s a news flash. Kids learn things other places besides in school but they have to have the time and space to be able to do this. Education need not be all consuming to be effective. Maybe instead of being constantly scheduled with different activities and homework, once in a while children could just come home from school and lie on the grass in the park or the back yard and look at the clouds.
The whole point is that reading, writing, math, history, etc. can all be joyful things if taught well – connected to students’ natural interests and curiousity. But “teaching” by stuffing kids full of facts and “skills” disconnected from any meaningful understanding or interest, coupled with high-stakes bubble tests, is what kills the joy of learning. It may not exactly be the school’s job to provide joy, but seems that they do have a responsibility not to kill it.
I HATE standardized tests both as a teacher & as a student. I never broke 800 on my SAT’s and had I listened to my high school counselor I would never even applied to college. He said, “You would be wasting your time & your parents money.” I still managed to finish undergrad in 4 years not knowing that I was dyslexic and had A.D.D.
What the SAT & any standardized test failed to measure was my DETERMINATION!!!!!! Now as a special education teacher I tell my students that “The smartest people don’t graduate college. But the one that is the most determined will.”
“Determination” and hard work helped build the U.S. Never forget that.
Very good points, late-bloomer. Thanks for sharing.
I think that many here are mixing togethor two different ideas: competition between people and comparisons between people. We learn if a student is thriving physically, intellectually, and emotionally by comparing that student to other students. Is the student stunted or wasted, is the student reading at grade level, is the student exhibiting the emotional intelligence that is appropriate for his/her age are all questions that can only be answered by comparing that student to other students. One can ask analogous questions about institutions.
You have a point there, but we do not need high stakes standardized tests to tell us these things. Most often teachers and, of course, parents can tell when something is wrong. Diagnostic testing might help us to understand the problem. There is something very wrong if we rely on high stakes testing to”weed out” those who need more support.
Why is it those words of our President de-crying standardized testing ring more hollow than ever before…http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/28/obama-standardized-tests_n_841464.html – how in the world does the rhetoric match up with reality?
Among the many things that I dislike about the MAP is the percentile scores that compare children to children. My students with IEPs for a variety of disabilities may increased their scores over time, but their percentiles continue to drop. I can only imagine how parents feel when they read their child is in the 8 or 3 or even 1%ile.
How was it determined that your students qualified for IEPs if not because of comparisons with other students?
You don’t determine eligibility for IEPs by comparing test scores but by using diagnostic tests and observations.
And comparing the results to other students.
Your point?
In the post I was commenting on the poster said “Among the many things that I dislike about the MAP is the percentile scores that compare children to children. ”
My point is that it is only by comparing children to children that public school systems decide on which child qualifies for an IEP. For students with IEPs, the comparison ship has already sailed.
I should add that my middle son did qualify for an IEP based on the results of an off label use of a standardized exam.
It’s not a black & white, tests or no tests issue. There have always been tests, & their comparison of student results are useful. In my well-heeled NJ suburb in the ’90’s, there were standardized tests given approximately 3 times over the course of k-12, plus practice & actual SAT’s in jr & sr yrs. This was not much different from my public schooling 40 yrs prior.
In 2001 statewide tests were added for 8th, jr & sr yrs. Between 2004 & 2010, statewide tests for grades 3-7 were phased in (these tests have students as young as 8y.o. sitting thro a 3-4 day battery of tests each spring).
All of the additional tests are ‘high-stakes’, w/the stakes being hs graduation & flagging/closing ‘poor-performing’ schools, & starting this fall, teacher evaluations. For the college-bound, add SAT’s [practice, actual & usually 1 add’l round to raise score] (stake= admission).
This is a huge change imposed from the top down in little more than a decade. It is a particularly bitter pill for traditionally top-performing districts such as ours. Residential property taxes support 96% of a school budget intended to pay top teachers for top-notch curriculum. Now we’re stuck with teaching to annual curricula & tests devised by bureaucrats & their commercial-ed lobbyists.
Again my comment was focused on the objection to comparing one student to another.
TE, the MAP is not the same thing as the evaluation assessments, which are part of the initial and continuing qualifying process. Those comparisons are explained in the context of the evaluation/re-evaluation meetings, and are used (if parents have signed consent for initial IEP) to create an IEP. Those comparisons also must be difficult for parents to hear. Student work samples, parent and teacher input, social-emotional-behavioral surveys, observations, etc., are also used to make a more complete picture of the child’s strengths and needs.
I have never heard of anyone qualifying for an IEP with only one assessment, as did your son. I’m not sure if that would be a very quick and easy IEP to write because there would be little to say, or very difficult because there was little to say.
Again I was posting about the original poster’s objection to comparing one student to another. All the evaluations you talk about, work samples, social-emotional-behavioral surveys, observations, etc are compared against the performance of other students at a similar age.
The test was WISC-III, though for an off label use as I said.
I was writing about how parents must feel about it. It often makes them feel sad and discouraged. After the initial and in the IEPs and progress reports between evaluations, those comparisons of where the child began to where the child is at that point are about that particular child.
How exactly are we to remain “competitive” with China, India or whomever is the next destination of runaway capital, when the those who make investment decisions, aka The Overclass, unless our wages fall to their level?
Oh, I forgot, that’s already happening.
Chinas wages are increasing at about 25% annually in some places and the workforce there is shrinking. The process of integrating them into the world economy is nearly complete and I think we will return to a more normal economy.
By then, TE, all of the middle-class jobs in the US will have been outsourced.
That, of course is an exaggeration and do you know they are moving back? It is always a mistake to take a ruler to the last few years of a trend. The world changes.
For what percentage of the Chinese population, TE?
With your relentless drive for non-specificity and incomplete information with a large dollop of disconnect, all to serve as your highest level of expression, please tell us eager readers how many is “some places”, how what percentage of the Chinese population in “integrating them” is “them”, and at what rate is the workshop shrinking?
Once again, we strive to understand you . . .
Don’t you want to be understood?
here is a link: online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130608-700074.html