Late last night, I posted a commentary that connected two seemingly unrelated communications. One was an article in Slate by psychologist Laurence Steinberg, saying that our high schools are not rigorous enough, our seniors are not learning enough, and bemoaning both kids and schools. It happened to arrive about the same time as a letter in my inbox from a teacher in upstate Néw York.
I pointed out that when I was a member of the NAEP governing board (NAGB), we devoted an entire meeting to discussing the well-known problem of seniors not caring about NAEP scores. They know that NAEP counts for nothing, and many turned in blanks or doodled or made silly patterned guesses to show their disdain for being asked to take yet another test of no significance.
When Steinberg saw my post,he tweeted (I paraphrase): when given a choice between anecdote and data, I choose data.
I responded that Mark Twain said there were lies, damn lies, and statistics.
The serious answer is that before one uses data to condemn or judge people, one should evaluate the quality of the data. In this case, I can testify as a fact that the governing board studied the 12th graders’ lack of motivation to comply. We thought about offering cash or pizza parties for agreeing to take the test seriously. No one had a good answer. The data are not reliable.
Maybe the Puritans started the tradition of saying that the younger generation is going to hell. Why can’t we ever stop wailing about the kids? Whatever they are, they reflect the society they were born into. I expect great things from them, despite the obstacles we older folks place before them, despite our dysfunctional politics, despite adults’ misguided priorities, despite all the bad educational policies our kids must overcome.
At the time I wrote last night, little did I know that the teacher and the professor graduated from the same college and had long ago had a similar exchange.
The teacher wrote this morning:
“Thanks to Diane for posting my original letter and for working so hard on behalf of teachers and our students.
“I turned on the computer this morning to look for my letter and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw my name mentioned alongside a reference to Dr. Laurence Steinberg. You see, Dr. Steinberg and I exchanged a number of letters many years ago about an op-ed piece he had written in the Times. I’d used his piece in my classes back in the early 1990s and my students took great issue with it. They were, to put it nicely, mad as hell at Larry.
“[Dr. Steinberg….. can I call you Larry? The fact that I’ve bumped into you again this way in the middle of the internet after all these years is just a little weird, isn’t it? We ought to get together someday. I’ll buy you a coffee. Hell, I’ll even pay for your lunch. We both graduated from Vassar College so we can talk about the beautiful campus there when we need a break from arguing about education.]
“Suffice to say, that if I had to re-do my correspondence with Larry again there’s definitely things I would do differently. And, I’d like to think that Larry might feel the same way.
“But, Larry, Diane couldn’t be more right. Many of these tests are bogus. And, the kids know it. They’re certainly smart enough not to waste their time, especially considering the fact that we all seem to have so much less of that time nowadays.
“I’m so tired of hearing the same old cliche, “Kids today….blah, blah, blah….” After teaching in a high school for 26 years, I can say that these “kids today” are much more serious and hardworking than my own classmates back in the 1970s. They have to be. We’ve given them no choice.
-John Ogozalek”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
quote: “We thought about offering cash or pizza parties for agreeing to take the test seriously. No one had a good answer..”
I’m assuming this little pizza party went nowhere. We have had discussions of this in schools — how do you motivate children? I was in on one part of the discussion where I said “please don’t use food as a reward because these children came through the camps and were boat people”…. one man at the table understood ; he was from the Democratic Congo (and had escaped with his family)…. my only point today is you need to know the student and state top down decrees will never get this element of teaching — there was one superintendent who banned pizza parties in the district but not because of the country of origin of the students — there were other issues.
LikeLike
“Maybe the Puritans started the tradition of saying that the younger generation is going to hell.”
No, way before the Puritans. It’s in dispute (as are many “facts” of history) but that complaining goes back at least as far as the Greeks and probably as far back as humans have been around.
LikeLike
That was my first thought, too. Though KrazyTA added it below, here’s confirmation:
“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.” ― Socrates
LikeLike
I am a teacher and I agree with much of what you wrote. I work in a VERY diverse district (over 70 languages spoken at home) and we have every different “kind” of kid. Unfortunately, the ones you read about in the news and the ones that people complain about are the ones who are apathetic and do not have parental involvement at home. I have so many bright, funny, caring, responsible students who are proud of their grades and of their school. I rarely read about them in the paper or see them getting the same attention as the group of boys who beat up a random driver on the way home from school.
LikeLike
In his book The Educated Imagination, the great literary critic and scholar Northrup Frye mentions one of the earliest surviving texts that is not simply a record of the amount of grain in some granary–a Sumerian fragment that says that children no longer obey their parents nor honor the Gods.
“I tell you,” says Utur to Shemush. “These kids today!”
Deformers have been crying this cry for a long time indeed.
LikeLike
Robert D. Shepherd: those old dead Greek guys were just as apt to repeat clichés as anybody else—
“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.” [Socrates]
Maybe a not-so-long ago German guy would better serve us:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” [Albert Einstein]
Most especially, why do self-styled “education reformers” keep thinking that failed ideas like merit pay and management by the numbers and forced ranking will work if we just do it enough times?
Maybe an old dead Greek guy in a better moment could help us out here:
“Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.” [Plato]
Now that makes ₵ent¢, er, sense.
Sorry. Believe me to a 98% “satisfactory” [thank you, Bill Gates!] chance of certainty that for just a moment there I slipped into Microsoftie auto-disconnect mode.
😎
LikeLike
Your posts are always such a delight, Krazy!
LikeLike
Kids today.
I think that sometimes people forget that kids are real human beings, not just data points. They have individual histories and personalities, thinking brains, and ideas of their own. The ones who think outside the test are the ones I like the best.
LikeLike
“Grown ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: What does his voice sound like?” The Little Prince
LikeLike
I was just thinking about that quote. Maybe we should send all the “reformers” a copy of that book.
LikeLike
Anyone who thinks today’s kids are dumb… challenge them to a race to program a DVR to record, send a text message, or crack a wifi code.
LikeLike
Dienne and Paige, I just finished re-reading this book as my 8th grade Honors student worked tirelessly on an essay about it. We were both shocked and dismayed , however, when my daughter stumbled across the fact that THE LITTLE PRINCE is now an common core EXAMPLAR text for grades 4 and 5! Of course the kids can red the text at that age….but the ideas are just too abstract and they don’t have the maturity to understand their significance. Even my VERY bright daughter struggled to really get to the deeper meaning. With a ton of encouragement and guidance from her parents , she succeeds, but what about the average kid? How will they succeed?
LikeLike
Bastardizing THE LITTLE PRINCE should be a crime. A capital one.
LikeLike
Great replies, Diane and John.
Kudos to those who call out the deformers and their typically suspect “data.” It’s sometimes said that it’s easy to lie with statistics. No. It’s easy to lie (to one’s self and to others) with improperly gathered, derived, and interpreted statistics.
As Michael Fiorillo says, “Beware of Geeks bearing grifts.”
But the days when people can use phony numbers to promulgate propaganda and not have those numbers subjected to examination are over.
LikeLike
If you think kids are dumb, try asking adults some simple questions about science, history, politics, or current events. If you really want to embarrass an adult just give them a simple math problem to solve. So many pots calling so many kettles black.
Teachers can be just as bad when we blame earlier grade levels for how little students know or do. Simple fact is, no matter how well something is learned, if you don’t use it, you lose it.
LikeLike
While I do not find kids dumber than ever, I have noticed a general shallowness and lack of curiosity that I blame on the consuming nature of social media. Now get off my lawn before I call the cops!
LikeLike
lol
LikeLike
We seem to run the same narrative through our heads as each group/generation of students heads off into “reality,” whatever that means. Kids today have it so much harder than kids in the past. Bull. Each generation faces challenges unique to their milieu. I grew up during duck and cover and came of age during the Vietnam War and the Civil rights Movement. My parents grew up during the depression and WWII. My father was called into service in both WWII and Korea (when I was a baby). My kids have grown up during the era of the plutocracy even though we didn’t really know it. Their lives were definitely shaped by the machinations of people with more power than sense. They chose not to get caught up in our various forays in the Middle East although several members of their extended family became career military. While they are comfortable with technology, which took off in the midst of their childhood, they see it as a tool to expand their skills, not as a panacea for the world’s ills. Only one of them ever sounded like a fringe lunatic; we put it down to his rural, live off the land lifestyle. It turns out he was the one who came closest to understanding what was going on behind the scenes. I think we all know where we will be heading if the bubble bursts. So the kids just coming of age will have a tough road, but no tougher than those before them. I don’t know who ever thought that growing up is or should be easy. I wish it was easier for those unfortunate enough to get stuck on the bottom of the heap. They get old too fast. I don’t envy the 1%. From the outside looking in, too many of they seem far to interested in admiring their own benificence between spa visits and cruises. (Shows you how little I know about the high life!)
LikeLike
“more power than sense” – That’s a great line!
LikeLike
“But speaking of ages, you will often hear it said that the age of the world we live in is particularly bad. I am impatient of such talk. . . . It is immodest of a man to think of himself as going down before the worst forces ever mobilized by God.” –Robert Frost, “Letter to The Amherst Student“
LikeLike
“Each generation faces challenges unique to their milieu.” Yes, and I’m afraid that this generation of children will not be able to overcome the corporate assault on their education if we don’t do something drastic to change course.
LikeLike
People who love and trust ONLY data (no matter how ‘good’) are only avoiding the pain of visiting and being involved in a “failing”/closing school. How many “failing”/closing schools have: Duncan, King, Cuomo, Steinberg, Friedman toured?
Here in NYC, for over a decade, struggling community High Schools been eviscerated, leveled, chopped up and left for dead.
Our impoverished, black, brown youth have been experimented on and in the process their educations have been stolen. Just when I thought the tide might turn and a better day was ahead for the fiercely intelligent kids I love, along came the push for Universal Pre-K, long overdue, desperately needed and a worthy policy shift in every way…
However, despite the fact that not every High School in New York is a disaster, many are war torn communities. Contact me: info@pfsany.org, let’s tour the rubble — THEN let’s take a look at that data.
LikeLike
I don’t know how we can talk about a sense of justice with our kids when they can visibly see charters that get more than they do.
My kids are actually really passionate about a lot of things. We’ve had conversations that might not fit into standardized data well, but sure as hell made them think and turn over what we want as a society and why.
What I see in classrooms now is behaviorism run amok – it’s all a series of carrots and sticks – both for the teachers and the students. Because that’s what we can see, measure and control. It’s hard to both build and measure intrinsic motivation – yet we know that’s what drives most people. Why is it when teachers are offered more money or more time, they always say more time?
Why when people move, do they not typically just go for the place with the highest property values and the lowest taxes, but instead, value the schools for their children?
We are not a completely logical species, and this behaviorist milieu is destroying what humanity our kids have. Heck, when it comes to the NAEP, disregarding it IS a logical and rational thing for them to do.
Why do these people believe that cracking the whip harder and upping the stakes and rewards will improve things (if indeed they truly believe that) – doesn’t our DATA indicate that this is a poor way to educate people? Do we have any solid evidence backing the Gradgrind approach?
Yet, even the measures they use or manipulated to the point where they are about as far from objective data as you can get – have we figured out the perfect algorithm to predict human choices based on inputting Y questions or Z rewards? Indeed this assumption that we are not all unique individuals and can be translated into some data point that overall will instruct computers at some point as to exactly what we need is beyond Orwellian.
I hate putting on a tin foil conspiracy hat – but at what point will they realize the only way you can get compliant, predictable people, who will fit a measurable model, is to break their humanity, drug them into a state where if they are not obedient, they become so, and tell them over and over again that they are not special and that this is all for the best even if they intuitively know it hurts them to comply.
If we want innovative, creative, and happy people, who will push the boundaries of what we already know, how does assuming everyone must hit some minimum boundary that disproportionately focuses our resources on those who might never reach our arbitrary minimums while bringing down the education of our brightest? That is unless you define our brightest as those who can afford to not be in this meat grinder…
LikeLike
M, we have reviewed your data. Please report to Room 101 for rectification, immediately. –MiniLuv
LikeLike
To use either data or anecdotes is to do an incomplete and flawed analysis. And when data and anecdotes conflict you obviously are missing something critical.
LikeLike
I thought most people knew that “it’s the kids these days” is a cliche statement, usually stated in jest.
LikeLike
From the Reformish lexicon:
failure. n. What schools in the United States have been doing
those people. det. phr. Proles and their barely trainable children
kids these days. n. phr. Data points
LikeLike
And students who are now in high school are the product of school deform – all their schooling has been with NCLB, narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test. Should we wonder why they show little knowledge about history, science or the arts?
LikeLike
I teach in a school that is 100% English Language Learners, all immigrants who can only enter the school if they’ve been in the country for less than year.
My colleagues frequently bemoan the diminished skills of incoming students, which is something I believe can be quantified, since my building assignment is to assess students for placement in their classes. In recent years, the math proficiency of our incoming students has declined precipitously, although that could very well be specific to our school, it’s location and the student population it draws from.
In my experience, today’s students are just as intelligent, and no less respectful, as young people have ever been, but what is different is
1) Their attention span and academic stamina are not what they were. It’s ever harder to get them to do the sustained reading they will need to truly be “college ready.” I attribute this to the overstimulation of contemporary culture and the Internet.
2) They are less able to perform basic non-academic, survival-based tasks. I saw that with my daughters’ peers as well: many of the skills that young people were once taught in classes such as home economics and shop have disappeared, and it’s now seemingly expected that one will pay professionals to do that work, even if it is useful, easy and satisfying.
I vividly remember being taught how to sew by Mrs. Paris in my fourth grade public school class. I never became good at it, but I can patch my shirt if necessary. Needless to say, teaching children a life skill like that, and the fine motor development that goes along with it, is prohibited in the Common Corporate world that is being imposed on us.
Bring back recess, home ec and shop!
LikeLike
You know one way to become more patient is to try to learn another language while helping them learn ours. Why not? There is no finish line in being educated. If a person ever feels frustrated, they should challenge themselves to learn new things too.
LikeLike
I forgot essentially everything I learned in metal shop, wood shop, and auto shop. I can no longer time an engine, and I’ve never owned a lathe. I didn’t particularly like the classes, to be honest, but I think they were worthwhile anyway. There is truly nothing else in K-12 comparable to those experiences.
LikeLike
Agree, Michael.
Things I got from the then required vocational type classes:
I can patch, sew on a button and hem.
I can check my oil, change a tire.
Correctly use a saw, drill, and several other bits of equipment.
Make household budgets.
My first formal cooking lessons were at school, those I continued and now love to cook.
The other things I got from those classes is an appreciation for those tasks and others ( drafting, surveying etc).
We should bring back home ec, shop, etc. very useful stuff.
LikeLike
I agree. I have been teaching 12th grade for many years; it is the highlight of my day. I often say I would rather be in a room full of teenagers than adults. My day goes downhill when I have leave my classroom and deal with the adults in charge. Since appr we have to give pre test assessments. I had a sophomore write about pie, not the mathematical pi, but pie cherry pie, apple pie. This boy wrote this because he knew the test was a joke and he rightfully treated it as such. Kids know bs when they see it and treat it accordingly.
LikeLike
This just in: Data show widepread data abuse.
More data after this commercial break.
“Tired of failed schools? [hiss. boo. hiss.] Sick of whiny excuses from members of teachers’s unions? [hiss. boo. hiss.] Try new DEFORMY MAGIC. Poverty? No problem. Hungry students? No problem. Students with crack addicted moms? No problem! DEFORMY MAGIC now available in more rigorous CC$$ varieties. Same NCLB you’ve loved for over a decade, in two exciting new flavors! [applause] Offer void in sane nation states.”
For centuries, scholars and casual readers alike have looked at Coriolanus and Hamlet and considered the latter the better play. But that’s just anecdote. New data show that Coriolanus is actually the superior play. Professor Laurence Steinberg of the Harvard School of Numerology explains. . . .
LikeLike
I am tired of surveys too.
We get them constantly. How about conversation?
Also, the survey era indicates that sometimes things are rolled out too early.
All NC teachers got a survey on professional development for our common core essential standards course of study. And this week I had to do a PLC survey.
I appreciate the wanting of input, but it seems like the ship has sailed and now there is a need for data to plan the voyage.
I guess they are trying.
Trends get old though. Academia should be above trends. But maybe that’s not possible. ?
LikeLike
From the Rheformish Lexicon:
H.S.N.I.P. acronym, prop. n. Harvard School of Numerology in Public Policy
LikeLike
For what it’s worth, bemoaning the downfall of society and the disrespect and foolishness of young people goes back at least to Caesar Augustus. Not sure whether that makes it better or worse.
LikeLike
Yes it was that darn Jesus of Nazareth back then wasn’t it?
LikeLike
And, of course, Diane’s name for this post comes straight from the song “Kids” in Bye, Bye Birdie, which was a huge hit when I was growing up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlqmu-ZpQ3E
LikeLike
This isn’t just a high school senior thing. My observations based on 17 years of experience in an elementary school: Kids will put more effort into a paper/pencil test than they will into a computer test. They’ll put more effort into a fill in the blank/answer in your own words type tests than they will into a multiple choice test. They will put more effort into tests that are connected to what they are currently learning than they will into tests that span a whole grade level (and then some). They will put more effort into shorter tests than into longer ones. I’m convinced that the results on many of these tests have more to do with mental preparedness than they do with actual achievement.
The other thing I have observed is that when the FCAT first came out, my students took it seriously. Each succeeding year they took it a little less seriously. Now, it is little more than a yearly ritual of random bubbling. No amount of persuasion on my part has made any difference. Perhaps it is another example of familiarity breeding contempt…
LikeLike
The tests become “white-noise” to many.
In education (and probably most other endeavors) there is a struggle that is fundamental to human nature: INTENSITY v. DURATION. They are generally not compatible mind sets for most humans. What made Michael Jordan so great was his ability to maintain his competitive intensity night after night, for almost 20 years.
Your observations regarding student effort on tests is spot on. In NYS, testing in grades 3 to 8 was a prime example of duration defeating intensity. NINE hours of testing over 6 days; students with IEPs hit the lottery: 18 HOURS available.
The fact that academic EFFORT (INTENSITY) is inversely proportional to TIME (DURATION) allotted is a major issue with the Person testing we saw last year.
Further proof that these TESTS are TRAPS; they are intentionally written to TRICK, CONFUSE< and WEAR DOWN students, designed to break their will. They do this in large part by purposefully violating the intensity v, duration axiom. Disgusting.
LikeLike
Well said. And I agree with your point about tricks. Since, as an ESE teacher, I read the math and science portions of these tests to my students, I get to see what is exactly in them. There are more than a few questions that don’t test knowledge of the subject area; rather, they test if you’re crafty enough to catch onto the trick. In elementary school no less.
These assessments really shouldn’t be used to hold students back a grade (as they do in FL for 3rd grade). They tell me nothing about my students that I don’t already know. And, yet, they want to tie teacher evaluations to them? They’re not even a good measure of what the students can do. Using them to measure what teachers can do is just asinine.
But, then, I would guess that if I was to craft policies that told civil engineers (to pick a random profession) how, when, and why they should do their jobs and grade them on the number of accidents occurring on their roads (even if they didn’t actually design the roads in question), they would think that many of my ideas were asinine, too.
LikeLike
“Kids will be kids” – I can’t think of a lazier argument.
LikeLike
No one said “kids will be kids.”
LikeLike
“Maybe the Puritans started the tradition of saying that the younger generation is going to hell. Why can’t we ever stop wailing about the kids?”
I heard John Abbott address this question in a presentation he gave last year. The generational conflict started 100k years ago when the human species began the adolescence brain expansion.
Instead of just copying parents as young children mostly do, teens begin to assimilate their own ideas. It has been a “problem” for society ever since. It has also served as an engine of evolution and the human ability to adapt more rapidly. His solution, view teen years as an opportunity instead of a problem.
Read http://www.21learn.org/archive/adolescence-a-critical-evolutionary-adaptation/5/ See Section Four. The Deep History of the Human Race – where, and when, our mental predispositions were formed
LikeLike