Steve Cohen and David Gamberg are highly respected superintendents on Long Island. In this post, they explain why so many parents object to the current climate of high-stakes testing. With leaders like Cohen and Gamberg, who think that students need and deserve a real education, you can understand why Long Island is the epicenter of the Opt Out movement in New York and perhaps in the nation. Their article appeared in the Suffolk Times-Review, a local newspaper on Long Island; I should not quote so much of it, but it is such a powerful article that I could not resist. Open the link and read it all. Both of these superintendents, by the way, are already members of the blog’s honor roll.
They begin:
A mere four years ago, and for decades prior, one could not find any substantial evidence of students opting-out of standardized testing. At first glance, the current, heated, conflict over state testing and the “opt-out” movement appears to be a dispute between those who believe in and those who dispute the value of state tests. But this conflict goes deeper. It is a conflict about what is good for children and adolescents, about how children learn and thrive, and about how to raise young people to enter into and contribute to their communities as mature members of a democratic society.
Those who support testing contend that facing tests, and the concomitant adversity that one might experience (even if the test is developmentally inappropriate) are a part of life. To do otherwise is considered weak, and represents a failure to develop the “grit” necessary to fully engage in life’s challenges. For these people, it is inconceivable that locally developed assessments — perhaps even more purposeful and useful assessments — could accomplish that very same goal. Living in a culture of fear as we do, many people believe that it is necessary to impose carefully guarded secret tests from above to make sure that we hold incompetent adults — untrustworthy teachers and administrators — accountable for the abject failure of some children who graduate from our public schools….
They write that the so-called reformers, like Governor Cuomo and the Legislature, are fixated on basic skills and compliance with the demands of the state. What they care very little about is the broader, civic and humane purposes of education.
Broad learning in the arts as well as in the sciences, in literature as well as in history, economics, psychology, plus athletics, independent study and community service, is a notion that seems to be beyond the scope of this version of school improvement. Indeed, to reformers, failure to create a “live to work” system of public education will mean that the next generation will not be able to “compete” with young people in other countries for good jobs. In particular, these education reformers believe that African-American, Hispanic, and poor children generally are most at risk if these reforms are not adopted immediately — despite the cruel fact that these tests have increased the “performance gap” between poor and middle class children. People who believe in this “reform” conception of public education insist that current state tests are absolutely necessary to help children learn what they need to know.
Many defenders of current state tests also find it morally reprehensible to break the rules, even if the rules support a broken system. To be an agent of change, and seek to be in favor of a better system is considered wrong and virtually un-American to these people. The system is what it is, and everyone should be quiet and obey the rules. Our founding fathers, who were patriots, would have had a hard time understanding why they risked their lives to establish our democracy if they believed that adherence to the official way of doing things could not be challenged. We would suspect that the likes of Washington, Franklin and Jefferson would do far more than simply opt-out of tests.
People who reject these ideas believe they have no other way to express their dislike of this conception of public education than to deny reformers the “data” needed to keep education reforms moving ahead, by refusing to have their children take these tests. The governor and the Legislature have ignored the deeply felt beliefs of hundreds of thousands of parents who believe that public education is too complex, and too important to the future of their children, to be characterized adequately by a wooden, mechanical conception of childhood development.
They believe that education must be more than the crimped enterprise of getting young people ready for future jobs that may well not even materialize. People who “opt” their children out of these tests believe that public education should not deny young people broad exposure to the deep intellectual and moral heritage of modern democratic society; it should not dismiss local traditions of providing community service; it should not ignore the immense variety among young people’s interests, abilities and needs. Underlying the “opt-out” movement is the belief that there are many highly successful school systems around the state that have taught children to read, write and learn mathematics at the highest levels for decades, while also providing these children with serious exposure to science, history, various arts, athletics and a host of meaningful community experiences. Underlying the “opt-out” movement is recognition of the reality that helping poor children cannot be done by testing them. Underlying the “opt-out” movement is the belief that teachers by and large have contributed greatly to the high-level achievements of countless public school students. Underlying the “opt-out” movement is the belief that a simplistic and suffocating approach to improving education is bad for children — all of them. People who reject these “reform” ideas wonder why the reformers themselves send their children to private schools that work more or less the way hundreds of successful public schools work.
Reblogged this on donotmalignme and commented:
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Go away reformers. Leave me and the kids alone.
In today’s cryptoquote the quote was: When the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned and the last fish caught then we may realize we cannot eat money.
May I add: When the last public school has been decimated, the last great teacher has quit the “profession” and the last great ideas have been obliterated from the “educational process”, maybe then the powers that have done this may realize that they “cannot eat money”, the society which then exists cannot sustain the life style they wish.
Absolutely so alright on! The fox is minding the hen house.
What a cogent, mindful, articulate, and honest article by Cohen and Gamberg. Hat tip to them both.
Btw, current powers don’t get it and/or don’t care. But WE do and doing something about it!
Reblogged this on Critical Consciousness – Spirit of Paulo Friere.
Eloquent, courageous, and powerful. Thank you, Steve Cohen and David Gamberg.
This is just what NV needs right now. Our SBAC testing computers are crashing and kids can’t take the tests for days now. When was this originally written? Apr. 22, 2015? Thank you for your expertise. Linda Buckardt
This is the best anti test statement I have read yet and I have read at least one hundred. God bless Steve and David! Exceptional writing!
Not bad but not the best ani-testing statement. The best anti-testing statement is Noel Wilson’s complete destruction of the epistemological and ontological foundations of the educational malpractices that are educational standards and standardized testing. Every other statement palls in comparison. Take out the root and the dandelion will die. 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. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
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.
Duane, the problem is that the article you posted is not in language that is accessible or persuasive. It is an interesting read, if you are in the mood for an academic treatise, but long, compound sentences, highly modified, with multiple commas and lengthy asides before coming to the point, plus leading of with words like “Epistemological” and your references to “Wilson channelling Foucault and his concept of subhectivization”……render it much less effective, in that it is dense, dry, labyrinthine, and esoteric to the point of being incomprehensible to the vast majority of readers. It is a philosophical argument, and as such it is not emotionally compelling. That is to say, it is a bit of a chore to read. It may be well-argued, but it doesn’t matter if most people glaze over after a couple of paragraphs. Part of effective writing is holding the attention of the audience. The article above is persuasive because people who are unsure about the CCSS and testing may read it; I assure you, only the converted will attempt the article you cite.
Well said! Oh, for more superintendents like these, using the bully pulpit for good.
What makes their statement so much more powerful than others is the fact that they are speaking from the inside. They have access to all the facts and behind the scene dialog.This Californian really admires New Yorkers, especially those that come from Long Island. Lots of moxy in that region!
“What makes their statement so much more powerful than others is the fact that they are speaking from the inside.”
Many have been speaking out from the “inside” a lot longer than these supes. And many of us have paid the price. Noel Wilson (see my response to you above/below) was an “insider” (far more so) and his work has been out for almost two decades now.
What I see in your statement is “authority worship”. Unfortunately authority worship (think religious and/or military modes of thinking)has a long history in human history.
Many parents, students, teachers and others (even lawyers, right FLERP!) have been saying these things for many manyyears. The vast majority of supes haven’t said a peep until this crap started to effect their own districts/jobs.
“Lots of moxy in that region!”
More likely “shit’s finally hitting the fan in that region” soiling what used to be “exempt by zip code” regions.
Here’s four great videos to watch regarding the New York opt out movement:
and… some humor…
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.