Peter Greene–who seems to read everything–saw an article in USA Today, quoting an employee of the Wall Street hedge-fund managers’ group “Democrats for Education Reform,” which may or may not actually have any Democrats in its membership (but we will never know). She said it was important for students to take the state tests because property values hinge on test scores! Really! Without high test scores, the property values in high-wealth Scarsdale, a suburb of New York City, might plummet.
The DFER spokesperson said:
“Schools are one of the biggest differentiators of value in the suburbs,” she said. “How valuable will a house be in Scarsdale when it isn’t clear that Scarsdale schools are doing any better than the rest of Westchester or even the state? Opting out of tests only robs parents of that crucial data.”
Gosh, state officials never told us that the importance of the state tests was to shore up property values in elite suburbs. What then is the reason for students in low-income communities to take the test? Their scores might hurt their property values. Same for working-class neighborhoods. This argument is actually a good reason for everyone to opt out except for elite suburbs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I thought the idea was to get all the schools performing equally well.
Oh, now the achievement gap is a good thing to be maintained. Sure.
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I’ve suspected all along that real estate developers bent on gentrification were one faction promoting corporate ed reform in all its ugly guises. I guess this clinches it. Have they no shame? Do they not care at all about the quality of life of the hapless victims of gentrification? We live in Dickensian times.
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I agree! There is no basic human decency in the business culture of today’s world
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Bullsh*t.
I know I’m not being civil when I contend “bullsh*t” but that’s not even strong enough when I see blatant falsehoods being propagated on this site.
We alienate many people who would otherwise be on our side when we write “there is no basic human decency. . . ” or ” the corporate takeover of . . . “. Those are instantly recognized as being untrue by the many who do not have those beliefs/opinions and those illogical and invalid thoughts only serve to make it look like education is full of a bunch of nincompoops who know nothing of “the real world”.
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No decency, no ethics, and no shame. That’s Wall Street. Goes double for the real estate speculators.
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Yes Duane, I agree. Generalities are BS. I am sure there are few good businessmen just like there a few good teachers.
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….just like there are a few good teachers.
But nincompoop? Now you have really offended me ;/
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Betsy,
First, no, I didn’t call you a nincompoop. Re-read the sentence.
Second, “I am sure there are few good businessmen just like there a few good teachers.”
Is that what you really wanted to say. If it is I say “bullshit”. But I hope that isn’t what you meant.
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I admit to being irreverent in my second statement.
I do believe that corrupt business practices are rewarded more often than they are penalized. The corrupt culture within the business community (think ALEC) is crippling our democracy.
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By the way, I am a teacher. In all of the years that I have been teaching, I have collaborated with and learned from scores of excellent teachers. I can count on one hand the number of teachers that I thought might have been better suited for a different career.
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Glad to see it in print; My colleague and I had been trying to point this out for many years. Most teachers, however, drank the Kool-Aid. Why else would KB homes and a certain former mayor have been so interested?
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As sick as this is, it explains why parents in one of our local upscale areas are so test score obsessed. So the kids need to organize and negotiate with the realtors.
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Oh, my. More selling fear.
They should roll out the national security team again. Remember that, from when they were promoting the Common Core?
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Sorry. I can’t get past the $5000 bail for the “parent” that nearly killed the Long Island teacher this week. And the other kids joining in. Perhaps if Cuomo didn’t demonize teachers, we’d see more focus on security. Seems teachers are expendable in America.
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There is a sickness in our culture here in America. Exceptional indeed!
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I hadn’t heard about this. Do you have a link?
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/teacher-choked-punched-kicked-irate-mom-cops-article-1.2188560
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Just bothers me.
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Cuomo and the other anti-teacher governors who berate and demean teachers should be held accountable for these attacks.
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Yep, schools should be treated similar to airplanes. Whatever punishment one would get for attacking a flight attendant like that should be what that person deserves.
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Remember Adrian Fenty, former mayor of DC during Michelle Rhee’s reign? He is on the DFER board. Cory Booker was a former board member, and while I don’t mean to bash Rachel Maddow because I watch her show often and I like her on every other thing she reports on, it is no secret she is buddies with Cory Booker which may explain her silence on this fraud that is being perpetuated on public education.
What I want is for the DFER and it’s silently complicit allies in the media is to ask themselves: why are we on the same side as ALEC?
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WELL! I’m glad to know where that talking point about real estate values is coming from. It’s been used here in Missouri:
http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/missouri-representative-rone-wants-to-hear-about-sbac-testing-problems-from-teachers-and-education-personnel-this-teacher-starts-the-ball-rolling-add-your-voice
Thank you for this information. Representative Rone might be interested to hear this bit of news.
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What I find particularly impressive is that this wasn’t some loose cannon talking out of school. This was DFER’s spokesperson sending out a well-considered and vetted message.
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“How good are the schools?” point has always been an issue with young families when they buy real estate. I remember the first house we bought (in 1978, yet without children), the number one selling bullet was “how good the public schools were” in the area. This should be a no-brainer for those looking at 2015.
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The fact is there are people who make poor financial decisions to live in a district with good schools. They do this at the expense of saving for their retirement. What will happen to them when they age? Houses are lousy investments. Will their children, who are sure to secure well paying jobs due to their attendance at a good school, support them?
The no-brainer should be that people purchase a house they can afford while still saving for their retirement.
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This level of ridiculous fear-mongering shows a lot of desperation. The opt-out movement is working! Keep it up parents.
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well when all the Park Slope folks decide to leave the city, they can find opt-out friendly suburbs in NJ!
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crossposted
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-Testing-To-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Argument_Education_Important_Testing-150417-637.html#comment541691
with this comment: “Would you believe the liars are at work at the hedge funds to push testing….. so that schools will fail and be replaced by charters which they are heavily invested in…Read the lies that the lying liars are promoting now… would be funny of it weren’t tragic.”
Submitted on Friday, Apr 17, 2015 at 4:41:44 PM
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Thank you Julie for sticking up for our kids!!
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/common-core-whats-right-for-special-educations-students/
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A better question than “How might opt out affect property values in the suburbs?’ is “How is Governor Andrew Cuomo affecting all NY state property values and overall desire to even reside in NY State?”
It’s hard to believe 9andgetting harder every day) that a relatively short time ago, NY State was still run by people who were not stark raving mad.
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This writer is either a rich idiot or just an idiot, either way, his opinions are worth less than the paper on which they are printed.
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College and career readiness is a given. Raising property values for sure, But, DFER has only begun to scratch the surface of the awesome power of Common Core testing. CC test scores have the potential to intimidate despots and terrorists across the globe. When the national proficiency rate hits 50+ %, they will be dismantling their centrifuges, disarming their IEDs, giving up their weapons, and begging forgiveness.
Common Core scores will soon be sent into space as part of the SETI program. What would encourage extraterrestrial contacts or visits more than our third grade success rate on PARCC and SBAC? I Love Lucy show doesn’t hold a candle to a planet full of children who can infer author’s tone or intent. The unintended consequences of world peace, increased property values, interstellar relations, and undiscovered wonders will make all the temporary discomfort and anxiety well worth it.
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And with this comment, YOU have become my new favorite poster here.
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As one other commenter noted, this is not new “news.”
Real estate agents have been selling schools –– okay, test scores –– for quite some time.
And, while realtors cite may cite state test scores, even though most know virtually nothing about those scores, two of the test scores they promote the most are the ACT and the SAT. They likely don’t know much about them either.
Both the ACT and SAT are merely proxies for family income. That’s about it. They just don’t measure much of anything else. College enrollment experts say their research finds the SAT predicts only 3-14 percent of the variance in freshman-year college grades, and nothing after that. As one noted, “I might as well measure shoe size.” The ACT is only marginally better.
As I’ve noted here often, both ACT, Inc. and the College Board were instrumental to the development of the Common Core. Both organizations are avid supporters of it. And both say they have “aligned” all of their products with it.
So, even though some parents are opting out of the Common Core tests, and even though the NEA and the AFT seem (finally) to be increasingly resistant to Common Core testing (though both organizations endorsed Common Core), the fact is that the Common Core is already here.
Has the NEA or AFT come out against ACT or SAT or PSAT testing? Have they argued that Advanced Placement courses aren’t really worth very much? Have parents?
We’ve known for some time that poverty affects the developing brains of children. New research confirms it. A recent study at MIT “found differences in the brain’s cortical thickness between low-income and higher-income teenagers.” Not surprisingly, those differences found their way into test scores. Another recent study found that low-income children had brain surface areas 6 percent smaller than those of upper-middle class kids. That typically translates into less brain density, and then into less ability for ” language, memory, spatial skills and reasoning.”
Again, this is not new “news.” But it is what we ought to be focusing on. And Common Core testing will not do much if anything to alleviate it. Nor will ACT or SAT tests.
We have an awful lot to learn about improving pubic education. Brain development ought to be at the center of the discussion. So should educating for democratic citizenship.
We have a very long way to go to make public schooling what it can and should be.
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democracy said:
“Real estate agents have been selling schools –– okay, test scores –– for quite some time.”
Very true. Since at least the mid-20th century, according to this:
http://www.homeschoolnewslink.com/homeschool/columnists/gatto/guerrillacurriculum.shtml
“The war-cry of “a quality education” was not the product of educators, but the invention of the real-estate industry. At least that business can be thought of as the principal distributor of the educational hysteria which flooded across America from the 1950s onward. The first rush of its advertising/public relations initiative was spearheaded by realtors, too.”
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BL,
“At least that business can be thought of as the principal distributor of the educational hysteria which flooded across America from the 1950s onward.”
“from the 1950s onward” is the second phase of that business based hysteria. The first phase was from the late 1890s to the 1950s. For an excellent read (and note some of the same “business thinking”-counting the number of pencils a teacher had and many others) of that period see Raymond Callahan’s “Education and the Cult of Efficiency”.
In my reading of the historical business influence on public education we are in a third (and clearly the most damaging) period from the 1980s to now wherein the high falutin business players are attempting to destroy public education through “carpet bombing-educational standards and standardized testing) the schools in order to save them”.
But Noel Wilson has already nuked those two educational malpractices.
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To understand the COMPLETE INVALIDITY of those educational malpractices that I alluded to above see: “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.
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional 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 the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
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. And 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 attempts to measure “’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.
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Thank you, Duane, for those excellent points. It made me think of this from United Opt Out’s Why People of Color Must Reject Market-Based Education Reforms, http://www.unitedoptout.com
“Many schools that are predominately black and brown are placed under sanction for low test scores for math and reading. NCLB requires this as a “remediation” effort to help schools meet proficiency requirements for math and reading. Herbert Khol, in his article titled “The Educational Panopticon” said this in regards to the remediation efforts:
“The French philosopher Michel Foucault extended the use of “panopticon” to characterize social institutions such as prisons, hospitals, mental asylums, and schools which institutionalize constant surveillance and exert mind control, often without the knowledge or awareness of the people being controlled. When I talk about an educational panopticon I mean a system in which teachers and students are under constant scrutiny, allowed no choice over what is learned or taught, evaluated continuously, and punished for what is considered inadequate performance. In this context students and teachers are forced to live in a constant state of anxiety, self-doubt, wariness, anomie, and even suppressed rage…People who make and administer high stakes tests know the moral and personal costs of subjecting all students to them. People who insult and denigrate teachers by forcing scripted curriculum on them are perfectly aware that they are forcing teachers to act against their conscience and students to close down their minds. What must be raised and answered for is the moral cost of creating joyless schools that resemble panopticons.
“His description is apt in what is going on in many of the schools placed under “sanction.” Elective courses are replaced with test prep classes, and meaningful, project- based learning is far too often prohibited. If honors, gifted, and Advanced Placement courses are offered at all in sanctioned schools, two-thirds or more of the students are labeled “low-performing” and will never benefit from such course offerings. Additionally, “bubble students” – those close to achieving proficient test scores – are often taken out of their non-testing classes to sit for test prep sessions. Furthermore, in some cases, the emphasis on test scores has coerced schools and districts to discriminate against those students who are predicted to score low on the test, like English language learners and those with learning disabilities, for instance.”
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Thanks for the excellent reply and bringing in the “constant surveillance” aspect. It is subtle and insidious but very real and people have a hard time verbalizing that which they know in their hearts is happening. Many refuse to acknowledge that the “panopticon effect” exists.
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I see many commenters have really gotten worked up over this post. My reaction is laughter. It is ludicrous to suggest students should take a test to benefit property values, but if it is that important then I would suggest that realtors PAY students to participate in the process.
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