This article was posted today on Huffington Post. They gave it a wonderful title, better than mine: “Our Kids Today: The Greatest Generation?”
The members of the Providence Student Union are the most creative and best informed critics of high-stakes testing in the nation. They can run rings around the public officials in Rhode Island when they explain the damage done by high-stakes testing. They know that a large percentage of students will be denied a high school diploma because they could not pass a standardized test called NECAP.
I had the good fortune to meet some of the leaders of the PSU when I recently spoke at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. The students drove from Providence, some 45 minutes away. When I spoke, I was introduced by Claudierre McKay, who had distinguished himself as a participant in the student Town Hall on Education Nation. When young McKay introduced me, he presaged everything I was about to say. The students are the consumers of the mandates, why not listen to them?
What I love about the PSU, aside from its determination and style, is that it has mastered the art of political theater. PSU held a zombie march in front of the Rhode Island Department of Education last year to express its contempt for the NECAP as a requirement for graduation.
When officials didn’t listen, the PSU found 60 accomplished professionals to take the test, composed of released items from the actual NECAP exam. 60% of the professionals, distinguished in law, government, architecture, and journalism, failed the high school graduation test.
Most if not all of the members of PSU will easily pass the NECAP; they are very smart young people. They are demonstrating on behalf of their peers–those who are bound to fail because of circumstances beyond their control–because they are new immigrants, because they have a disability that interferes with test-taking, those whose desperate poverty is disabling. PSU understands that a large percentage of students will not earn a high school diploma and their lives will be blighted. With a high school diploma, they have a chance to learn a trade, to be successful in a line of work that doesn’t require algebra. Without one, their lives are ruined.
Does this bother the bureaucrats? Not at all.
But it bothers the students of the PSU.
Recently, they staged a talent show in front of the Rhode Island Department of Education. The point: Students have many talents, and test-taking is only one of them, probably not the most important. These young people will save American education from the dead, cold hands of the robots who now are in charge of the nation’s schools. They have heart, they have creativity, they have wit, they are innovative, they are alive with spirit. They have the qualities that made America great.
They know this great secret: We are not Singapore; we are not Korea; we are not China. We are America. We should cultivate the wit and wisdom of Ben Franklin, the ingenuity of Thomas Alva Edison, the spirit of the Wright brothers. Were they good test-takers? Who knows? Who cares? I bet the guys at Enron and Madoff had great test scores.
Thanks, Providence Student Union, for reminding us of the greatness of your generation. We will do whatever we can to keep the machine from crushing your heart and spirit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You are so right! These kids inspired me to support their cause. I retired from RIDE in 2005, having just led the development of our quite progressive new High School regulations as Director of High School and Middle School Reform. Those regs banned the use of NECAP as a high stakes test…which changed as a result of a conservative Republican governor’s appointments to the Board of Regents. They added the high stakes NECAP requirement, squeezed out Commissioner McWalters and hired Deborsh Gist. These young people are the reason so many care about the outcome of this struggle…and why I will continue to support their efforts to save education from the Educrats at RIDE and DC.
HALLELUJAH!!! The students are joining in – AND – they should know. They are the final recipients of this idiocy.
Fabulous, fabulous. Hip, hip, hooray for the students. They know what’s up. It’s their education. Join the students.
There are so many smart students out there. Go to George1la and watch some of them, especially those in Fresno for the Create California conference recently to put arts back into the California Schools. Listen to the Clovis Orchestra and if you like Spanish music there is a banda band. Poetry is a beautiful 16 year old girl who will amaze you. Talent is there, the problem is that we do not let them use or discover it and Common Core does not do that. As the last word says “CORE”, that only means the center not “ALL.” Automatically, subconsciously, they have told us they did not plan a total program and their subconscious would not let them do that for free, therefore they messed up on what they called it and did not even know it. Guru psychology is what it is and I am well versed in that one. Ruined a few of their minds in the past and for good reason.
We cannot fix our planet, if you have seen the latest within the last two weeks, of the global warming crisis and this did not even include the methane problem with the permafrost or the methane hydrate on the ocean bottom. Methane is 35 times more global warming than CO2 and when it breaks down it breaks down to 4 CO2 molecules to do even more warming.
If we do not have smart students to solve these problems humans will cease to exist on this planet in the not so distant future. Many scientists are already stating that the next “Great Die Off” is now happening since 65,000,000 years ago. Watch out!! Can happen here.
We need more students like those who are so creative and thinking with creative thinking and problem solving at the highest order.
The exam the Rhode Island students is called “NECAP”? How unintentionally funny–the word “kneecap”, used as a verb means to cripple somebody by breaking their kneecaps!
I noticed the same thing. I have to admit, though, that I also wondered why you would call yourself “Bilgewater.” 😉
You beat me to it. 🙂 NECAP? Really? Sounds like something out of Ireland in the old days. Or maybe it was chosen intentionally to suggest what policymakers were planning for children.