I recently received this email from Tim Farley, an elementary school principal in Néw York:
Here is the link to a blog written in the fall of 2013 by the Head of Schools for Woodland Hill, Susan Kambrich. In this letter turned blog, she writes to her parents of her experience at the annual NYSAIS (New York State Association of Independent Schools) Heads of Schools conference.
Woodland Hill may sound familiar to you and your readers because this is the school that the soon-to-be-former New York State Education Commissioner John King sends his children to. If he were to send his children to public school, his children would attend the Bethlehem Central School District – a highly respected public school in the suburbs of Albany.
In her blog, Susan writes about the featured presenter, Yong Zhao, a highly respected author and professor at the University of Oregon. His message focused on the importance of having an education system that promotes creative and strategic thinking. He posits that the United States has typically produced students who are by-and-large not good test takers, as opposed to students in China. Zhao, according to Susan, also spoke on the importance for the United States to help its students to “develop entrepreneurial qualities such as risk-taking, empathy, confidence, alertness to opportunity…”
Susan continues by writing, “Zhao says that investing in testing will only create good test takers, and test scores are not valid predictors of success. If we invest our resources in tests, we will get good test-takers; if we spend our time celebrating and encouraging our variety of abilities, creativity, and diverse thinking we will better help our students succeed. Testing should be a tool, not the focus.” She concludes with, “Interestingly, he also mentioned that his children went to a Montessori school.”
The reason I bring this blog to your readers’ attention is to highlight the hypocrisy of John King’s personal decisions compared to the decisions he made that affect well over a million students throughout New York state. It appears after reading about Woodland Hill’s philosophy on their web page (www.woodlandhill.org), that they have embraced much of what Zhao says is good for students. Teachers at Woodland Hill have the autonomy to create an individualized education for their students. Furthermore, there is no test-based accountability system at Woodland Hill.
This sounds like an absolutely wonderful school and I have already contacted the school to schedule a tour. I do not begrudge John King for deciding to send his children to Woodland Hill. In fact, I believe all parents should be making these decisions for their children. However, as Commissioner, John King prescribed a very different educational experience for the children whose parents do not have the same opportunities that he has. Many parents can ill-afford the tuition at a school such as Woodland Hill.
Commissioner King has foisting a punitive, highly competitive, rank and sort, test-based accountability school system on all of our children. Mr. King knows all too well the benefits of sending his children to a school like Woodland Hill, but he refuses to allow public school children the same opportunities. This is the epitome of hypocrisy – Common Core, high stakes testing, and data-mining for the masses; an individualized collaborative and creative learning experience for his children.
If Mr. King knows what is best for his kids, shouldn’t he be trying his best as Commissioner to give all New York students the same thing?
Sincerely,
Tim Farley
Education Advocate
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Creativity, the love of learning, exploring new ideas, critical thinking of these ideas, the exploration of humankind’s best thoughts, all of this and more have been traditional educational objectives. TRAGIC that those have been superseded by such narrow visions such as making our children widgets in the production line of ever increasing corporate CEO profits.
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Well said Tim..King should be supporting all students in his state. Thnaks for the nice lette
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equally as sad is “widgetizing” the education profession henceforth making teachers into robotic enforcers of corporate “ed reform” nonsense.
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Absolutely, totally correct. John B. King and his cronies are hypocrites.
But even worse, they are trying to make teachers across the country into hypocrites, too.
Inhumane, demented, perverse……there’s a few additional words to describe what they’re up to.
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Creativity is not inherently constructive. Disruptive innovation is valorized today by politicians and business gurus who live in silos and have no historical memory, e.g., lamp shades made of human skin in the era of Hitler to say nothing of the mass murder of people by repurposing industrial furnaces.
Look also at the marvels to be sure. Polio has nearly been wiped out in my lifetime. If we are blessed with the gift of sight, we can see the “blue marble” called planet earth, and well beyond.
This is to say that teachers, parents, and policy makers concerned with education need to give attention to creative and critical thinking in tandem and with a lot of respect for the contexts in which these acts of intelligence are likely to be valued or not.
Parents rarely value creative play with poop.
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“Parents rarely value creative play with poop. [shit]”
Now you’re talkin my lingo Laura.
But that type of “creative play” is exactly what the edudeformers want us peon public school teachers to do with the Completely Crappy & Shitty Supposed standards-CCSS’s.
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Government officials who are directly involved in education policy (King, Obama, etc) should be forbidden from sending their kids to private schools.
It’s not only the height of hypocrisy for these people to send their kids to private schools, but it removes a powerful incentive for doing what is best for public schools — as well as removing a powerful disincentive for doing things that hurt them.
Any official who does not want their kids subjected to standardized testing would be very unlikely to mandate such testing for public schools if their kids were attending them.
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“Q: Do you give standardized tests?
A: Along with most other independent schools, Woodland Hill recognizes that standardized tests do not adequately measure the full range of a student’s academic abilities. We use detailed evaluations along with narratives to measure a child’s progress throughout the year and from year to year; the progress reports are sent home twice a year. However, we see test taking as a practical life skill and therefore do opt into some standardized testing.”
https://www.woodlandhill.org/the-montessori-experience/frequently-asked-questions/
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“However, we see test taking as a practical life skill and therefore do opt into some standardized testing.”
Well they’re doing their students a grave disservice then.
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Duane,
I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall the day you told your physician how Noel Wilson feels about the MCAT.
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Tim,
I wouldn’t presume to tell my doc how Wilson “feels” about the MCAT. Don’t need to as I can tell my doc how invalid the MCAT is as shown by Wilson of all standardized tests, especially those “gatekeeper” type tests. I have a sneaking suspicion that my doc would agree with me. I’ll have to remember to ask him the next time I see him as on Tuesday I didn’t get to see a doc but a nurse practitioner for them to verify that I indeed do have type a flu.
And I have known many a person to go through med school some of whom couldn’t get high enough MCAT scores and had to take alternative routes to get accepted into med school. Are they “worse” docs? NO!
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I’ve thought to myself for a couple of years now that the children of Obama, Gates, Duncan and King should have to attend schools affected by all of their nonsense.
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The bottom line for the reformers in paid positions to foist their reforms on others is that it is their job to do so, and many are handsomely paid. Doing their jobs may have absolutely nothing to do with their personal beliefs, and desires for their own children. They can easily separate the two because they have no moral compass or consciences, and their greed is bottomless, as is their narcissism.
Politicians take their walking orders from their huge campaign donators; employees take their cue from their bosses, and the non-profits-for-profit employees in high positions are handsomely paid to spew the vision and rhetoric of their masters, quite masterfully.
Do as they say; not as they do. Private schools for their kids; one-size-fits-all for everyone else, as cheaply as possible for all involved, excepting the publishers, the test companies, the technology companies, the consultants, the management companies, etc. TFA = excellent. Traditionally trained experienced teachers = bad. Up is down, down is up.
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Yes, I agree with all of you. Obama’s daughters, Kasich’s daughters, and all of those other evil politicians’ children should have to return to school on January 5 and begin two weeks of practice testing for the PARCC. I have now lost all of that valuable time to teach. Two weeks will be spent in test prep…precious time that I taught my kids will now be gone forever.
I now have to give a test in February too, which will take even more valuable teaching time away from the May test. It is enough to set a teacher crazy. I know there is only so much I can do in a very limited span of time. My teaching time has disappeared. The new common core for my subject is much, much harder too. So, I have much less teaching time with much harder concepts. It is a no win situation for students and teachers alike. Test scores and teacher evaluations for teachers who teach Grades 3-8 Language Arts and Math will fall off the cliff.
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