Phil Cullen writes The Treehorn Express in Australia. He regularly reports on that nation’s slavish copying of the worst American ideas, especially testing and accountability. The Australian national testing program is called NAPLAN.
FELLOW EDUCATORS : Please send this along to people in schools as extensively as you can. Those who already do…..thanks from Treehorn and the other kids.
The Treehorn Express
http://treehornexpress.wordpress.com
Teacher Proofing
USA has a penchant for branding and packaging things as neatly as possible. As far as schooling is concerned, a canny money-hungry educator can extract bits from the regular school curriculum, invent a catchy vogue-word to describe what-ever-it-is that needs attention, then wrap the contents up and peddle it to the gullible. Bingo! Legs 11 ! Holidays at Waikiki. If it cannot be wrapped up, it is branded and sold in bulk…. as ‘Models’….. by sweet-talking peddlers at conferences and seminars;…. and cocktail parties..
This comes as little surprise when it is a fact of life that schooling in America is owned and dominated by well-heeled corporate plutocrats., whose political influence in the other three English-speaking GERM countries is becoming as extensive as it is in the old US of A. The teacher-proofing edubusiness is big time and is exercised in many forms. Its enormity and influence is far, far more extensive than the ordinary Michael Dundee Aussie would believe.
Sage educators in the UK and in NZ don’t usually do this. Despite the heavy hand of neoconservatism that all countries share, they have always tended to treat teaching as a noble profession that actually pupils [aka teaches] children according to each child’s frame of reference. The child is the package. The teacher’s role in the act of teaching and evaluating and moving ahead is total. Unsubstantiated, untested, unprofessional, gimmicky quackery stops at the classroom door of their lively learning centres, where the child is treated as the centre of the universe and its performance is judged by its interest in learning. Diagnosis and evaluation is part of each activity. A school’s reputation is based on the way it treats children. If parents want to know about the best school around, they go to a reliable source…..the shopping centre…get the real deal……certainly not to unreliable, crooked test results, used by the unwitty for comparative purposes..
Of the four English-speaking, politically-controlled education systems – the GERM countries – Australia religiously follows what the USA does; no matter what… blindly as a rule. It’s all high stakes data-laden emotion-free performance-testing stuff which Americans love. Aussie unemotional, couldn’t-care-less, morally corrupt testucators now use it without second thought. Bugger the feelings of kids. Obediently, we followed the ‘Kleinist Model’ holus-bolus, called it NAPLAN, and continue to maintain its demonic philosophies with the sternest controls possible…. Iraq-like.
How many of us teachers have tried and become enthused – for a while – by some such package, only to find that the package takes over the teaching? Precious school time is devoted to completion times and corrections while our own professional judgement and modes of evaluating take a back seat? In ancient times, I was an SRA structured reading and IMP specialist. Mea culpa. I hope such indiscretions are forgivable.
How often have we been seduced by brand names for special movements and innovations; and have crossed swords with colleagues until things settled down and the next craze came along? We have discoursed about…. open and traditional…. phonics and whole-word….new maths and maths…persuasive and traditional…..child-centred and subject centred….composite and multi-aged….charter and mainstream…..education and testucation….child-based and didactic….?
There is a new list on the way from up-above…..data-driven instruction, blended learning, differential learning, closing the achievement and talent gap, student-centric instruction, yap, yap. Makes one ever wonder what ever happened to classroom teaching as a descriptor?
In America it is said: “Schools nationwide continue to adopt student-centric instructional models that use data to empower teachers and engage learners. Data-driven instruction has moved beyond the education-buzzword sphere to educators’ daily lexicon.” So, Kleinism aka Naplanism is now permanently embedded in many of that nation’s schools…..more so in ours. The article continues : “In this ASCD Smartbrief Special Report, we provide a round-up of news about recent trends in data-driven instruction, blended learning and stories about how some schools are preparing the next generation of data scientists.” Getting everybody ready to be rocket scientists! Thinkers and learners?
Read this? ……some schools in Utah have lengthened the school day from six-and-a-half hours to eight to cope with data collection and marking. There is a national lobby for longer school hours. “The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) is dedicated to expanding learning time to improve student achievement and enable a well-rounded education. Through research, public policy and technical assistance, we support national, state and local initiatives that add significantly more school time for academic and enrichment opportunities to help children meet the demands of the 21st century.” [Using didactic instruction for eight hours per day shouldn’t be very exhausting, compared to three or four hours of serious teaching, should it? Good idea?]
Whatever happened to test-free composite-strategy teaching ? [That’s a new vogue word that I just invented to keep up with the Yanks]
The sorts of initiatives that we have imported [e.g. charter schools] and embedded in the data-laden environment of NAPLAN and its hellfire cobbers are a serious threat to our future. Such restrictions to serious school learning will continue (“The whippings will continue until morale increases” policy. ) in Australia while we continue to adopt the American mind-set. Schools in Australia are not run by teachers any more, but by remote control.
Political control of national testing programs is the most successful method of isolating teachers from effective teaching known to mankind; and that kind of conditioning suits the package-deal spirit of teacher-proofing.
Coercion always induces low level acceptance of a profession as a profession, so the outcome is that better teachers are quitting; neophytes with potential don’t last long; and better-quality applicants don’t want to join the profession because of our leaders’ grossly unprofessional attitude to children and their teachers. Make no mistake. This is a critical issue.
The Deseret News of Salt Lake City makes this point following an America of the future conference: “The level of despondency within the profession is too high for our future to be safe. A fairly dispiriting conversation, to be sure, but the response to the host’s penultimate question left me feeling downright sad at first, and, then, upon reflection, a bit confused. Replying to the query ‘Do you think the quality of teaching will decline in the years to come?’ each panellist explained her sense that the profession and, thus, the state of education were in decline. To paraphrase the veteran teacher of the group, ‘I’ve encountered many great teachers in my years in the profession, but it’s getting harder and harder for these folks to hold on. At the same time, it’s getting more difficult to attract new people into teaching.’ Listening to that assessment about a core element —the core element?— of our public education system, how can you not become despondent?”
With the teacher-proofing of Australian schools based on the American MODEL, how can we not feel even more despondent down under? Let’s bring the child back into the equation, get rid of the rubbish and start TEACHING. {PLEASE NOTE. Those teachers who fly in the face of the coercion and teach without reliance on data…..please hang in there. The kids need you.}
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If you wish to receive The Treehorn Express direct, please contact me.
cphilcullen@bigpond.com
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Phil Cullen {…..kids and their teachers first} 41 Cominan Avenue Banora Point 2486 Australia 07 5524 6443 0407865999 cphilcullen@bigpond.com
http://primaryschooling.net/ http://kelleyandcullen.net/ http://qldpriaryprincipals.wordpress.com
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I hope this accountability phase gets balanced out. . .like how microwave dinners were all the rage in the 80s and then it balanced back out to where most folks know you can’t JUST eat microwave dinners and expect to be healthy. Our society tends to overdue it on things, and then slowly works back towards equilibrium. I am looking forward to equilibrium in our schools.
“most folks know you can’t JUST eat microwave dinners and expect to be healthy.”
Why am I just hearing about this now?
hee hee.
Please don’t let it take 20 more years for accountability talk to wear out its welcome.
Actually, having found that term in speeches back in the 90s, I think we are at the 20 year point for it. So I think we are and will round the corner on this. . .we have to.
overdo it, rather.
teacher-proofing reminds me that we spend a lot of life trying to figure out how to avoid life; we can learn something every day from every one—-that’s how I was raised to relish the world and the people in it, anyway
“Kleinism” – sorta like Rheeform. Both words are vile and revulsive. I have a feeling that neither one of them felt love from their parents. Both are sterile and cold. Klein, I don’t know much about, however, as a mother, Rhee leaves a lot to be desired. For one thing, she should actually be IN her daughters’ lives, and she should have thought twice about marrying her current husband, who has a history of making sexual affronts to young girls. On second thought, having her daughters live with their daddy is a good idea, huh?
Neither of them exudes warmth. Something is deeply wrong with both of them.
I just read a telling article in an alumni magazine all about one man’s (Clayton Christensen) business concept – “disruptive innovation”. Sadly, our nation’s children and teachers have become pawns in a corporate-centric world being constantly moved over the chessboard so that opponent’s kings can be check-mated. “Edupreneurs” .. you pick from a string of them – the latest being David Coleman – are trying to play Christensen’s concept (which really is a statement of the obvious put through marketing and given a “brand”) to become the KING – the last man standing – the American Idol – the Survivor – the Bachelorette – you name it and the corporate world is going to find that “ONE PROFIT MAKING IDEAL that is going to be ON TOP (henceforth profitable) rendering everything before it useless. This may work for products??? Think cell phone and landline. But it certainly is not working for the basics of humanity – our quest to learn. Just the mere attempt to try to be the “disruptive innovator” is destroying public education (well there is a lot more contributing to this destruction too like poverty and a failing democratic process on a national level).
I mentioned before.. this era of “guru-ization”. Ravitch totally nails it in this recent article with the revolving door of “next best” and “this way or the highway” style public education that has taken professional control from teachers totally away and put it into the hands of what I will say are wanna be “disruptive innovators”. I am thankful for her existence on a daily basis!!!
We need to bring back teacher control. Yes, teachers who constantly keep updated and read about various education ideas and actually pick and choose those components they professionally feel will merit use in their particular classrooms. When you get a program like Balanced Literacy developed by someone with a lot of ed experience but it suddenly becomes THE ONE PROGRAM in NYC… it serves not to benefit but to disenfranchise because it is expected (no demanded by authorities) to be implemented in a one-size-fits all kind of way. The business model has perpetuated “guruization” by dangling the potential for enormous profit off of “that one idea” that goes forcefully viral. Let’s keep these ideas but not let the corporate world co-opt them!
Coleman’s theories need a good looking at by people who actually have education (not testing experience). Teachers are perfectly capable of looking at his ideas and tossing out everything that does not work. But this is not how it works. They must follow ALL OF IT despite their experience telling them otherwise. Dare I say this but if teachers were allowed to choose from their readings what and how to implement various components of various education ideas… success might be a lot more prevalent. And yes, most teachers I work with WANT TO GO TO PD’s that are not PR brainwashing events but one’s of their choosing that actually help them in the classroom. One fabulous teacher I know, paid on her own dime (as we usually do when we want REAL PD’s) and could not talk enough about a “brain and the young child” conference she attended (led by a neurologist). Instead we are forced to attend conferences where non educators are trained specifically to teach educators and their bosses are getting heaps of money to inflict nonsense on these teachers. These trainers never can answer the nitty gritty real questions that teachers ask because they have not had the requisite classroom experience. And quite often they are charged with selling their company’s “brand”. The superintendents meanwhile get to “check off” that their county’s teachers have been provided “essential training” from their superintendent’s “check-list” that satisfies likely a govt entity that provides funding to their county! Junk food PD’s.
I feel sorry for our “down under” friends… their govt.’s willingness to follow the US public education model truly will put their nation’s most valuable (their young) “down and under”.
“disruptive innovation” is rationalizing being a pill.
I forwarded this to someone I know in Australia who is a conscientious mom and the founder of a major certified organic product line (my former vocation before becoming immersed in education reform and after being a state prosecutor!). She knows a lot of people down under and I am hoping she will help spread the word. Thanks for posting this, Diane.
Deborah,
Phil Cullen always has good posts from Australia. Like me, he is trying to rally opposition to high-stakes testing. Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch owns a large part of the media in Australia, and he loves testing and privatization. Also, when Joel Klein was chancellor of the NYC schools, he visited Australia and sold the education minister Julia Gillard on the “New York City miracle.” (She subsequently was prime minister: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Gillard). She bought it hook, line, and sinker, and imposed a national curriculum and testing. Apparently no one told her about the collapse of the NYC test scores in 2010.
Not exactly on-topic, but germane nonetheless, here’s another piece of the global Shock Doctrine: water wars in Detroit: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2014/jun/25/detroits-water-war-a-tap-shut-off-that-could-impact-300000-people?CMP=twt_gu
Diane, thanks for this post. Like others I am in awe of your ability to “keep on-keeping on-with this blog.” I hope that you and others are intellectually aware that your daily activity of selecting and commenting on posts, and the responses to posts, are creating an unprecedented “data-rich” historical account of the absurdity of U.S. policies. Clearly others are doing that work as well.
This post from Phil Cullen in Australia is filled with imaginative idioms and jargon, at least to my ears. I recognize a few from more than one professional trip, but those were before the onset of the Great Disaster In American education.
I particularly like Phil’s construct ” test-free composite-strategy teaching.” TFCST can be forged into a lovely graphic for all the forms of communication needed to propagate this innovative and totally disruptive panacea. It can be pronounced Tee-fee-cyst (3 syllables) or abbreviated to TFC giving it a certain resonance with Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Thanks, Laura Chapman. The purpose of the blog is to arm defenders of the commons with the information they need to stand their ground against marauders who want to steal what belongs to all of us. And to encourage teachers and parents by showing them that they are not alone, that their concerns are not only justified but that the research and history are on their side, the side of public education.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” We must defend our democracy from the depredations of the 1% and their lackeys.
I thought Cullen’s “test-free composite-strategy teaching” was an attempt to explain what skilled teachers do: stay educated on education pedagogy and pick and choose what works in an individual classroom led by a particular teacher. Rather than buying in to the latest one-size-fits-all program to be followed with lock-step precision, teachers are free to use their professional judgement. Am I missing something?
I also noticed that Cullen referenced ASCD as a reflection of current accepted practice. As one of our sell-out national organizations, I have been extremely disappointed with their lapdog acceptance of reform rhetoric. I still belong just to keep up-to-date on how the debate is being framed, but I can’t read through an issue like I used to and feel that I am getting quality information. Too much of their journal has become an infomercial for corporate based education reform.
I just have to say it, what kind of name is that NAPLAN…all I can think of is either Nap Land (which is pretty correct after being subject to one PD after another about CCSS) or Naplam, which was and is a nightmare of a weapon, so I guess that is pretty good description of what it will do to your schools. Either way..WE ARE NOT THE COUNTRY YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ON THIS!
I was just thinking that NAPLAN is an abbreviation of NAPSTER (now defunct peer-to-peer file sharing software that allows you to steal music) LANDing in Australia. This is definitely not the sort of model any other countries should follow. My real fear is that it travels across the pacific ocean and highjacks the brain of Japan’s education ministry bureau. It’s gonna be a total nightmare to teachers and students who are already suffering from rigid school culture and instruction skewed toward test-taking mentality.
The insane irony is that for years in New York City, the Department of Education recruited young teachers from Australia even helping with some relocation expenses, and hired expensive consultants, the Aussies, who came here and acted as mentors and providers of PD in numerous schools, ostensibly to bring the pedagogical techniques and wisdom from Down Under to NYC schools. Maybe it’s a conspiracy: perhaps next we’ll be inviting Finnish experts and will indoctrinate them?
Sounds like educational NAPALM to this Vietnam vet
” “Schools nationwide continue to adopt student-centric instructional models that use data to empower teachers and engage learners. Data-driven instruction has moved beyond the education-buzzword sphere to educators’ daily lexicon.”
When I read something like this I immediately think “what fu#&!*g bullshit-data driven drivel”.