As historian-teacher John Thompson explains, reform spokesmen were really outraged by John Oliver’s brilliant send-up and put down of our nation’s obsession with standardized testing and its primary beneficiary: Pearson.
Some used the typical manipulation of test data to claim big gains in 1999 allegedly caused by NCLB, signed into law in 2002.
Others must have been embarrassed by scenes of children chanting pro-testing propaganda, like happy robots.
The fear and trembling by reformers showed that Oliver hit exactly the right spots.
Thompson writes:
“Its hard to say which is more awful – the way that stressed out children vomit on their test booklets or schools trying to root inner-directedness out of children. On the other hand, even reformers should celebrate the way that students and families are fighting back, demanding schools that respect children as individuals. Even opponents of the Opt Out movement should respect the way it embodies the creative insubordination that public schools should nourish. …,
”
“Reformers need to understand two things. First, their obsession with the punitive is showing. The more they condemn others for not understanding that George Bush was right and “accountability must have consequences,” the more they convince the general public that their devotion to reward and punish is bad for children.
“Second, we live in the United States of America, not some sort of command and control system imposed by social engineers. Public education is supposed to prepare students to think and express themselves as individuals. Schools aren’t a farm club for the corporate world. They shouldn’t socialize children into being Organization Men and Women, conforming to dictates from above. Reformers may believe that they know the one right answer, but they should be ashamed of that their policies seek to produce only square pegs for square holes.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Recent Reformist rhetoric seems to have accountability for schools and teachers as the single-most important reason for having the tests. Old rhetoric was more student-oriented (i.e. the need for parents to know where their children stood).
“(i.e. the need for parents to know where their children stood).””
But even that is approached as punishment.
Schools are “lying” to parents and only the brave reformers, guardians of truth, can bring them to heel.
That just isn’t the language of a cooperative or collaborative relationship. There’s no reason to approach public schools in that manner.
Accusing someone of “lying” is throwing a bomb. It makes a working relationship impossible. They don’t want to work with public schools. They want to dominate them.
Chiara, I hope you don’t think from what I wrote that I buy (or have ever bought!) any of their rhetoric — now or earlier. My point is that they’re trying a new line. I’m 100% with you.
Possible factors for shift:
•PARCC’s decrease in members. How does one “compare performance across states” when PARCC is down to ~12 members?
•Reports that PARCC readability levels are out of whack–so comparisons w SBAC questionable.
As if those aspects matter …
•PARRC released sample parent report that shows ~2 lines of limited information–but it’s printed in color!!
To see his brilliant work cut and paste this link ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k
or type in John Oliver Common Core in Youtube
“Schools aren’t a farm club for the corporate world.” Corporations, of course, have the audacity to assume that their purpose is the main reason to educate our young people. Even this notion is flawed in that not all jobs require the same type or level of skill. We all can agree that all workers need some adequate level of reading, writing and reasoning. Beyond this, the work world of a fire fighter is not the same that of a banker. Many careers require specialized training to enter, and some people will not be a good fit for one type of career, but will be right at home in several others. I don’t see American parents clamoring for more career ready programming in elementary school.
Through a comprehensive education, children can explore their gifts and learn how they may develop their talents. The world of work is diverse, and the “one size fits all” template of many reformers short changes too many students, and it closes doors to too many others.
Reblogged this on education pathways and commented:
If you haven’t seen John Oliver’s video, celebrate the end of the school year by doing so. Get those endorphins flowing. Then read this post. The last paragraph is perfect!
Starring John Oliver as Toto
I’m a public school parent and I’m confused about the whole “lying” accusation from the US Dept of Ed and their fellow “movement” members.
If the old state tests were “lies” didn’t this same batch of ed reformers promote those tests as “the truth” 15 years ago?
Sometimes literally the same people told parents the state tests were The Truth. Now they’re a pack of lies pushed by public schools to avoid accountability?
When do ed reformers accept some responsibility for their own policies?
Um…they don’t. No accountability starts at the top, w/Arne Duncan. No accountability needed from Pear$on. Waiting for any is fruitless, so continue the opt out, the push back, the students protests–the actions that will make the difference.
Yes, WE did, yes, WE can & yes, yes WE WILL!!
“Reformers may believe that they know the one right answer, but they should be ashamed of that their policies seek to produce only square pegs for square holes.”
no matter how hard you have to hammer the round pegs into those same square holes.
Who is to blame for the reform movement’s obsession with standardized tests?
Public schools:
“It turns out, surprisingly enough, when adults in a school make tests into a big deal – telling kids they really matter, wearing matching shirts for solidarity, holding pep rallies, emphasizing test prep rather than teaching and launching parent-teacher association campaigns to make sure everyone is fortified with enough snacks – the kids pick up on it. A cynic might think it’s a deliberate effort to sour parents on the tests.
Exasperating? Yes. But the schools are to blame as much as any test, test company or public official. “
Yes, schools put a lot of pressure on kids because of these test scores. But schools wouldn’t have done that if the deformers hadn’t made the test scores so “important” in the first place.
Public schools are even blamed for the policies that are trying to destroy those schools.
Yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch wrote yet another desperate plea for testing to hold teachers and schools “accountable”. They dismiss teachers’ objections as mere fear of being evaluated and concern over lower performance evaluations. Others concerned about the federal role are dismissed as ideologues or uninformed.
The best statement in the editorial is “No one, however, has proved that the Common Core standards and the PARCC tests aren’t sound.” This reasoning is a low threshold. Just because no one has proven something false, does not mean it is true. If science and research was done this way, we could inject patients with a concoction from the corner drug store and insist “nothing happened, so we must’ve cured the common cold”.
They also quote Achieve as a reliable source, referencing “proficiency” with the NAEP as the widely accepted standard, and insisting the secret, non peer reviewed PARCC tests are more difficult.
Someone needs to remind the editorial board about Russel’s Teapot:
Russell’s teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others, specifically in the case of religion. Russell wrote that if he claims that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong.
Cool, New York Teacher. Love the post.
“The best statement in the editorial is “No one, however, has proved that the Common Core standards and the PARCC tests aren’t sound.””
Excuse me!!!! Or better “Excuse the editorial!!!” Ignorant writer of that quote.
YES, It has been proven that ALL educational standards and standardized testing aren’t epistemologically and ontologically sound, in other words COMPLETELY INVALID. Noel Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted 1997 dissertation shows exactly that those two sides of the same coin educational malpractices are SO FUNDAMENTALLY and CONCEPTUALLY FLAWED that to use them is the HEIGHT OF IDIOCY and UNETHICALNESS.
“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.
Diane, you must have an opinion about the ‘stuff’ on this thread! One contributor commented that some ‘reasoning’ has a low threshold!! That seems to holds for most of what appears here!!! Is it bad form to as someone to be a little clearer, or will that break their spirit!!!! Enough said. I hope this doesn’t get me kicked off the blog!!!!!
I can’t figure out what you are objecting to in my post. I was arguing the Dispatch made a claim that uses faulty logic. See NY Teacher’s example of Russell’s teapot.
MathVale: on the rheephorm menu—
Word Salad. Cognitive Dissonance.
Best consumed while clutching pearls and falling onto a fainting couch.
But it neither tastes great nor is it less filling…
😎
For every new phenomenon, a term is required:
A “Harris Tempest in Russell’sTeapot” is an objection to objections about faulty logic combined with a paranoia that one will be kicked off the blog.
That Common Core standards and companion tests (PRACC and SBAC) can assure 21st century, critical thinking skills or predict “college and career readiness” are unfalsifiable claims. That such claims cannot be disproved does not make them true. The burden of proof is on the supporters of the Common Core to prove their case. And, as Carl Sagan used to say, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,”
Gates Foundation says that in ten years will know whether they worked or not. (Meant to be read with sarcasm)
http://www.bipps.org/kentucky-state-researchers-dont-use-college-career-readiness-rates-primary-indicators/
“the OEA pointed out today, it isn’t ready now for use to judge important programs and policies, and that includes forming performance judgments about the Common Core State Standards.”
KY, the first, STILL can’t say and now WON’T… Don’t Use CCR!
Hmmmm Ohio Algebra—-I wonder what public school parents will think in 10 years if they find out they have been denied free and appropriate public education.
Only signatures of two public officials required to implement Common Core across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Kent, why do you keep expecting to be kicked off the blog? I don’t censor opinions. I kick people off if they use certain four-letter words, if they insult me, or if they engage in conspiracy theories (like, Sandy Hook never happened). Insult me, and I will indulge you.
And she’s a saint for allowing you to insult her and the rest of us all the time, Kent. What is your purpose for being on here, anyway? I truly want to know.
By “‘stuff'” did you mean shit? If not what stuff are you referring to with ‘stuff’??
doodoo. I hear the four letter words all day long.
“That seems to holds for most of what appears here!!!”
You included, eh?
What is your beef? Oh never mind. I assume you are not happy because you can’t come up with any ideas to get people upset with any “incendiary comments” that are racist and insulting like My Lai reference?
Perhaps it is that Oliver’s critique hit a nerve, an act that nearly always causes an acutely painful and often exaggerated response!
Oliver’s piece (which I only saw yesterday after reading this post) is the most brilliant and effective reporting/commentary on testing that I’ve seen anywhere. Somehow he managed to move past the propaganda of the politicians and the mainstream media and the charter advocates and testing companies to hit virtually every shady aspect of this regime of terror and corruption. Facts, analysis and very importantly, the well-deserved mockery that will help burst the testing bubble. And funny, of course.
Here’s another problem that I think the usual suspects have with what Oliver did. A tyrant can handle rebellion — to a degree, he expects and respects it, even as he crushes it.
But ridicule? Being laughed at? That’s another thing entirely. It strikes directly at the gravitas the social tyrants of the corporate education reform movement depend on. And once begun, it cannot easily be ended.
“No great movement designed to change the world
can bear to be laughed at or belittled.
Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.”
– Milan Kundera
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.