Sarah Darer Littman is a journalist in Connecticut who writes frequently about education. She is a public school parent. She wrote this post in response to an email sent to all public school parents by the superintendent of schools in Greenwich:
“When I was growing up, my parents had Dorothy Law Nolte’s poem Children Learn What They Live hanging in the wall in our house.
A few lines:
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
“Last year, when Greenwich Superintendent William McKersie proposed to implement the SBAC field tests for juniors smack in the middle of AP’s, SAT’s and Junior Prom, my then junior daughter commented, “That’s just disrespectful.”
“I agreed. As wrote I in a blog post at the time, “Teenagers are human beings. They are not data points.” Furthermore, “as adults, we should be modeling balance for our kids, not cruelty and insanity. The rate of suicide for the 15-24 age group has nearly tripled since 1960. Is it any wonder when the State Board of Ed treats our already stressed out teens like lab rats instead of human beings?”
“Parental uproar forced Superintendent McKersie to back down in less than 24 hours last year.
“Apparently, that has driven him to take stronger, less truthful measures.
“On Thursday, I received the following email:
“I received this email just as I was leaving to meet with my Congressman, Jim Himes, (D-CT4) to discuss education policy issues. Congressman Himes said he wanted to understand why edreform has become so polarizing. At the end of our meeting, in which I showed him data and research about how many claims of charter “success” are actually misrepresentations, I showed him this letter and explained that when public figures are disingenuous and condescending to parents and students, it tends to make people angry – even “white suburban moms,” who might have previously been active participants of the Democratic base.
“Upon returning home, Thursday afternoon, I sent this email to all the members of the Greenwich Board of Education:
“Dear Members of the Greenwich Board of Education,
“I would like to draw your attention to the underlined phrases in Superintendent McKersie’s email, which was sent to parents of Greenwich Public School students earlier today. I assume you are aware of this memo. Are you also aware that the information Supt. McKersie gave out to parents is patently untrue?
“Let me be crystal clear: There is NO legal provision to prevent parents from opting out of the SBAC field tests. If you would like confirmation of this, please watch the video below, in which State Board of Education Chairman Allen Taylor confirmed this point.
“I question why the superintendent, who is being paid with our taxpayer dollars, is lying to parents, and my question to you is: Did the Greenwich Board of Education condone this dissemination of false information?
“On Saturday afternoon, I received this reply from Barbara O’Neill, the Chairwomen of Greenwich Board of Education:
“Perhaps the most distressing part of this was a report to the Board of Ed Thursday night by GHS Student Body President, Guillermo Perez, about a student meeting at the high school.
“We had a mass meeting today that got pretty heated. The juniors are not happy that they have to take SBAC. We’re trying to stay really positive, but they do get slammed with a lot of tests this year –- the SAT, the ACT and this SBAC field test is definitely not something they’re a fan of.
“But we’re trying to stay positive. We know it’s not necessarily the best of situations, but we did explain to them that unfortunately there is no opt out.
“It’s sort of a responsibility to the grades that come after you. Just because it doesn’t count for you doesn’t mean for them it won’t count. We want to gather this data. We want to see how does this test really affect us. How do we teach to the test, so that we can really show the state and everyone else what we’ve got.”
“So now the Powers That Be have students misleading other students. I feel like I’m living the Dystopian unit Mrs Price taught us in 10th grade honors English.
“I know Guillermo – he’s a bright young man and not someone who would purposely mislead his fellow students. So I emailed him, making clear I was writing in “journalist” rather than “Mom” mode, to ask him where he obtained the information on the opt-out.
“As for the SBAC testing, in a lunch meeting that student government’s Excomm had with Dr. McKersie and Dr. Winters, he made it very clear that there wouldn’t be an opt out. The decision comes from above them and it was communicated to us.”
“Last December, recognizing the growing strength of the opt-out movement, CT State Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor sent out a memo to Superintendents giving them instructions to dissuade parents from opting out.
“But when confronted in a hearing in March, State Board of Ed Chairman Allen Taylor admitted there was no state law preventing parents from opting out their children.
“Why are public officials modeling to our children that being disingenuous is acceptable? I don’t lie to my kids. I don’t expect the Superintendent of schools and the principal of their school to lie to them either – or to persuade another student to do it.
” Children learn what they live. I worry about what the purveyors of our current education policy are teaching them. “
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I assume from the superintendents letter that if a parent chooses to opt out, the FBI CIA and NSA will converge on the parents house ..maybe even warranting a navy seal team — where are minds of theses central office/school administrators..
Minds? We administrators don’t need no stinkin minds!
No, just those UN black helicopters! 😉
To answer the question: Because they can get away with lying.
These educrats, GAGAers all of them, know who butters their bread. They don’t give a rat’s ass whether they lie, prevaricate, disseminate falsehoods because they obviously are some of the bestest and brightest that there are in this country. The vast majority of public education administrators (yes, there are some exception-John, Peter, etc. . . ) are the best ass kissers there are who know how to play the political game. And if there is a truism more true than “politicians lie” let me know.
Disgraceful–another form of bullying. Everytime I adminster another useless test, I feel as though I am leading the proverbial sheep to their slaughter. Students need to simply refuse to take these tests. Some are given for the SOLE PURPOSE of garnering data for TEACHER evaluations! If that’s not abuse, I don’t know what is! I have to think that the bullies perceive teachers, students and parents as passive prey, and that is what has to change.
And, at least in my state, we’re not allowed to tell anyone about opting out–even if it’s on our own time and on our own computer. We’ve been threatened by the state superintendent to have discipline against our licenses if we do.
Someone – or, preferably, a whole lot of someones – needs to take that challenge. I don’t think they have a leg to stand on telling teachers what they can or can’t say on their own time and their own computer. State standards are usually pretty clear about what sorts of circumstances merit losing one’s license, and free speech is generally not such a circumstance.
Well send him/her an anonymous letter by snail mail telling him/her to f. . . himself or herself!
Same here on the East Coast. My principal told us that when she went to “principal” test administration training, they told her that they’d partnered with the gov’t to do keyword tracking on our *personal* text messages and Internet usage to ensure compliance with the gag order regarding standardized tests. We are not allowed to discuss them with *anyone*, not even each other, not even “Gosh, that was a tough writing prompt today.”
My cousin graduated from Yale College and is now a successful entertainment executive.
When I once asked her what was the most important thing she learned while at Yale, her response was:
“Winning isn’t the most important thing, it is the only thing.”
I think her response speaks volumes about what is happening in education reform (and elsewhere).
These heavy handed deceiving and lying measures taken by administrators across the country by brainwashing and pressuring students, separating them from parental influence, lying to them…is only steps away from asking students to turn in their own parents. We have many examples in history of just that.
Administrators are protecting their own livelihoods with such threats and made-up consequences. This is over the top indoctrination and a continuation of weakening the American family and its role in public education.
As long as we do not stand up and fight back as a nation, the more warped and out of control this becomes. Where is the line? The line that should not be crossed? By now, the CorpEdreformer$ have learned that the American public will tolerate just about anything, except for a few of us who become isolated ‘disgruntled’ cases.
Why the passivity in the US? We are ripe for all types of exploitation. Very frightening!
Yesterday, my daughter’s AP Psych teacher, who had apparently read a piece in which I was quoted on this SBAC debacle, asked my daughter why I was so up in arms about it since she is a senior and thus doesn’t have to take the test. “Do you have younger siblings?” he asked. When she confirmed that she is my youngest, he seemed perplexed as to why I would be so worked up about a test that none of MY children have to take. Have we really come to the point where it’s so astonishing that a parent would fight for the educational well-being of all children not just their own, or even not just those in Greenwich? Have we really come to the point where I should just delete the email and accept that our Superintendent of Schools is giving out false information to students and parents just because MY kid doesn’t have to take the test? #smh
Sarah Littman: we live in terrible times when a teacher has been so corrupted by “education reform” that he can be perplexed why a student and her mother exercise good moral judgment.
You paid heed to one of the best American principles:
An injury to one is an injury to all. [attributed to the Industrial Workers of the World]
And while I am not a religious person, that is a very old idea:
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” [KJV]
Rephrased in modern terms by Martin Luther King:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Your daughter is lucky to have you as a teacher—you did much more than talk the talk, you walked the talk. This is a lesson for a lifetime.
The best to you both.
😎
I try to live my life by MLK’s statement:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
You can parse King’s letter from a Birmingham Jail forever in the pursuit of correct multiple choice answers but until you take it into your heart and live it, you haven’t learned it.
All I have to say is that these deformers need to stay far, far away from the children I have been entrusted to rear.
Thank you – you know, it makes one wonder if eliminating context and reading Letter from Birmingham Jail solely within “the four corners of the text” as David Coleman prescribes, has made folks forget that you need to LIVE those words, not just analyze them.
I hate to demean any teacher, however “psych” is strongly associated with the testing industry, and the results of their pseudo-scientific games are often destructive to an ethical society. This summer (after you daughter has run the gauntlet) I think both of you should read (and discuss) Steven Jay Gould’s ‘The Mis-measurement of Man’. It is both a history of American psychology and a scathing attack on the tests our kids are now forced to take.
Your daughter, no doubt, finds the workings of the human mind to be a fascinating subject. I do, as well, which is one reason I devoted my life to education. Nevertheless, we need to be aware of the dark side of American psychology. .
If tests are going to be legitimate, then questions need to be field tested. The thing I don’t understand is why field test questions aren’t just imbedded into the regular tests the way they are with SATs and GREs, at least back in the day when I was taking them. A separate field test is overkill, not to mention probably inaccurate because the kids know it is a field test and will just pick any old answer. If you must give a separate test, at least pay districts that administer the field tests the way subjects of psych grad student studies or medical trials are.
Because they are trying to do it fast to meet their roll out time. They could embed the questions if they had more time. Of course they could also pay to have these questions field tested but they are not willing to do that. Much better to coerce students and parents into thinking that field testing is compulsory, I guess.
“If tests are going to be legitimate. . . ”
Here’s the thing, Susan, THOSE TESTS CAN’T BE LEGITIMATE.”
That’s an impossibility as proven in multiple ways by Noel Wilson that shows the inherent epistemological and ontological errors and false assumptions that render the whole process COMPLETELY INVALID. How can something be invalid and still be legitimate??? To understand why read and understand 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.
It’s sort of like asking, “What is the fairest way to enslave a man?”
Sadly, this is not very surprising. From my own experience on a school board, as well as many other former and current school board members I’ve spoken to, superintendents, administrators, and even teachers, routinely lie to the boards, parents, students, and the public in general, to advance their agendas. Typically, they seem to take the attitude of the arrogant technocrat: “I’ll lie to you today for the greater good. You’ll thank me for it tomorrow.”
Of course, some times this is necessary, such as during war or if you’re dealing with a child who can’t yet handle certain facts or emotions. But I’ve found there really is little basis for any sort of “expertise” in education outside of classroom experience. From reading many studies of past reforms, education (read: schooling) has never been a predictive science like physics, chemistry, or engineering. In fact, most studies aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, and most ideas for reform are nothing by world building and gobbledygook.
So, the public has every right to question and challenge those who want to impose changes on the schools. And those who claim the titles of superintendent, principal, and teachers, have no basis for claiming some sort of deep knowledge that reduces everyone outside of their circle to children and imbeciles. Yet that is very much the attitude of our education “professionals” today. They often lie, cheat, and bully to force their agendas on weak boards and legislators without any real care about the cost or affect.
We need to take back our boards and schools. We need to start calling “BS” on the useless, incompetent, and often intellectually fraudulent “research” that floods our bookshelves, news programs, magazines, and papers. We need define what schools are for, accept that educating children is hard, and stop believing all the charlatans who claim to have the royal road to education. If we do, I predict that school budgets will actually decrease while our satisfaction will increase.
“From reading many studies of past reforms, education (read: schooling) has never been a predictive science…”
It is actually worse than this. There is very, very good science that “schooling” affects very few of the outcomes we care about. School-based interventions are worthwhile but will always be limited.
Dang! What ever made me think that teaching was anything but a flim flam operation? Since we will routinely lie to parents and students as well as the community at large for our own benefit, someone sure does need to keep a tight rein on us. Whatever made the public think that teachers should be let loose on their children? I have a feeling that this impression was not what you intended for me to have. Can you expand on your thoughts in a way that doesn’t demonize the practitioners of the institution (public education) I thought you were trying to protect.
2old, I didn’t say “all” teachers. But I’ve seen this myself, can find many who’ve seen it too.
Often the best way to protect an institution is to be honest about its failings. Of course many teachers wouldn’t lie. But many do, especially when they’re pressured by their administration.
Too bad if that’s fogs your rose-colored glasses.
Dear Diane, Thank you so much for starting this blog. What a powerful and informative venue for informing parents and improving the systemic scourges in our schools. I have experienced similar deceptive practices of our administrators. I have seen the damaging effects this veil of misconception can have on both academic and social emotional well-being of our students. It seems our administration has lost sight of the priorities and they have chosen to use our (taxpayer) resources to mislead parents rather than inform parents, support teachers and provide an adequate education for students. It is crystal clear that transparency is unimportant to the administration of GPS. As a group, we have a great opportunity turn our voices into action which has great potential to positively impact all of the students in the Greenwich public school system. If we do not take action, as a group, we are sending a clear message that we have accepted these low ethical standards. We might consider forming a parent advocacy group. Any ideas? Thoughts?
Dear Greenwich reader,
Join the Network for Public Education and learn how to organize your community to demand better schools for all.
Wow.
Good thing all of the administrators here in Rhode Island are paragons of honesty!
On the opposite side of CT from Greenwich, my local high school had 60% of juniors opt out. The administators, under direction from the state DOE, tried at a later date to get them all to just log on to SBAC and log back off so as to nominally show “95% participation.” Most students refused to do that as well.
If McKersie wrote: “The state is freaking out because Arne Duncan might withdraw our NCLB waiver if we don’t have 95% participation and we could lose a lot of money so pretty please can you parents let us use your kids as guinea pigs for the testing companies” – well, that would allow parents to make an informed judgement. What’s interesting is that when I asked the CT State Dept of Ed in January if they’d done any kind of study about the total cost of implementing the Common Core in CT (as had recently been done in Maryland) Kelly Donnelly, the SDE spokesperson, admitted they hadn’t. So we don’t even know if we are better off LOSING the waiver money because we don’t know if the total cost of implementing this train wreck is > than the money we’re receiving from the Feds. Not only that, CT issued CONSTRUCTION bonds to purchase Chromebooks and iPads to run these field tests – technology that will be obsolete LONG before we taxpayers have paid off the bonds. As my Yiddish speaking grandparents would say, “It’s a shanda!”
The high stakes and accountability requirements like that breed cheating and fraud. How awful teachers would ask this of kids.
In my school system, there is an ethics standard that supposedly must be met by teachers (as I type this, I realize that I am uncertain whether or not administrators have to follow it too).
It might be worth it for the OP to learn if there is a similar ethics standard in her community, and if the superintendent is supposed to follow it. I would think that it would be a major breach of any worthwhile standard of ethics to purposefully lie wholesale to the parents of the community about the standardized tests of their children.
Might seem extreme, but the more of these people you nail to the wall, the less the rest of them will try pulling fast ones.
And do what? I recently had a discussion about a similar situation with a school attorney, who said the only action available was for the board to submit a letter of reprimand.
I’ve begun to wonder whether superintendents are worth the expense. We had a long history of schools run by principals and boards.
I don’t know, Moose. Earlier this year I was put on paid leave for a few days and then given a reprimand and a photocopy of our district’s ethics standard when I supposedly told students to intentionally bomb their standardized tests because that would make it easier for them to get diplomas by showing “improvement”. Supposedly, students had told an administrator that I had done this.
It was pure coincidence that this all went into motion the day after a letter to the editor of a local paper I had written was published, wherein I mentioned (among other things) that the testing portion of our new graduation requirement was flawed in part because students could easily show “improvement” by intentionally bombing the test their first time around. Interestingly enough, after an investigation was performed, no students could be found who actually claimed that I had coached them to do this.
What I’m saying is that it may be possible for a group of parents to bullyrag the administrator with a letter of reprimand. Maybe nothing would come of it other than an embarrassment for him as the public became more aware that he was a lying snake. But that’s something.
Just sent this link to my sister who lives in Greenwich, CT with four kids, two still in the Greenwich public schools. Just sent her this link. She’s a brunette ampted-up version of me with enough grit and power to make a special forces marine look like a church quilter. She’s a hammer, everything is a nail. I hope I hear back from her that the sparks have started flying!
Tell her if she wants to contact me, she can reach me through my author website, http://sarahdarerlittman.com
A state “requirement” with NO “opt out option” for…field tests? This is the most absurd of the absurd–of ALL testing (and “field” tests are not actually real tests–they are instruments put out by the $$$ testing conglomerate (mo$tly Pear$on) to (ahem!)
“improve” the “quality” of the tests. Which we’ve seen, clearly, they don’t do, never have done & probably will NEVER do, anyway. Someone please tell me–do the states
(in other words we, the taxpayers) pay for these tests? If so then–of course–field testing is done only for the sake of the publi$hing company making more $$$$.
Or–the other consideration–this is all part of the ALEC plan to further ruin our kids’
education, once again allotting more time to testing and less to actual teaching.
Like Duane, I would say a great, big “NO!” to any field tests. In addition to every other nefarious reason, students are being used as te$t company guinea pigs and lab rats.
STUDENTS should be PAID for taking these tests…even lab rats receive treats.
Parents–in EVERY state–go right ahead and OPT OUT of FIELD TESTS.
And you know what would be even better? Building principals and district superintendents REFUSING to foist them on their children.
Oh–here’s a GREAT question (I’m sure it was vetted!) that was sent to me–MAP Math Test for 3rd Grade: the problem given was to calculate the college dorm fee per quarter based on the cost of the 1st quarter. The ELL 3rd grader (teacher was, in this case, allowed to read Math test ?? to ELL student{s}) taking this test asked what a dormitory is, & teacher explained that dorms are bldgs. on college campuses where students slept. 3rd grader replied that her big sister went to college & slept WITH them. I guess this makes this student “college ready!”