Last weekend I attended a joyous family wedding and thus was preoccupied and failed to notice one of the seminal moments in reformer history. This was Michael Barber’s speech on “Joy and Data.” Barber is the chief education adviser to Pearson, and he gave this speech in Australia, hoping to debunk the claim that an undue emphasis on data takes away the joy of learning. Barber’s goal was to demonstrate that joy and data go together like a horse and carriage.
Valerie Strauss wrote about Barber’s speech here, and Peter Greene did his usual sharp vivisection of Barber’s ideology here. Strauss collects some of the witty Twitter responses to Barber’s speech; Greene contrasts it with Pearson’s activities and Barber’s publications.
Strauss summarizes:
“In his speech, Barber argues that the pursuit of data has wrongly been accused of sucking the creativity out of learning but that in his world view, data and joy are the two elements that will together improve learning systems around the world in the 21st Century.”
Greene says that Barber’s speech was a celebration of Oxymoron Day. He summarizes Barber’s Big Speech:
“The future of education will be more joyful with the embrace of data. Also, don’t get things wrong– the data does not undermine creativity and inspiration, nor does it tell us what to do, nor does it replace professional judgment. And I don’t even know how to link to all the places where Pearson has contradicted all of this. I would be further ahead to find links to Jeb Bush condemning charter schools and Common Core….
“If we lump all of Pearson’s visionary writing together, the picture that emerges is a Brave New World in which every single student’s action is tagged, collected, and run through a computer program that spits out an exact picture of the student’s intellectual, emotional and social development as well as specific instructions on exactly what the teacher (and, in this Brave New World, we’re using that term pretty loosely) should do next with/for/to the student to achieve the results desired by our data overlords.”
Greene is struck by the scary thought that Barber actually believes what he is saying; arguing with him would be like debating a religious fanatic.
As I read this contemplation of joy and data, I found myself wondering whether Mike Barber might be a cyborg. So I started reading about cyborgs and became persuaded that thos is not the right term to describe a man who confuses quantification with emotion. The right word seems to be android.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“We are more susceptible than we may think to the “dictatorship of data”—that is, letting the data govern us in ways that may do as much harm as good. The threat is that we will let ourselves be mindlessly bound by the output of our analyses even when we have reasonable grounds for suspecting something is amiss. Or that we will attribute a degree of truth to data which it does not deserve.”
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger & Kenneth Cukier. (2013). Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 166.
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Best ways to help the world? Big data. Survey says……….X
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Who is Michael Barber and why is he giving real data professionals a bad name?
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“Ode to Data”
(slight modifications to “Ode to Joy” by Friedrich Schiller)
O friends, no more these sounds!
Let us sing more cheerful songs,
more full of data!
Data, bright spark of Davinity*,
Daughter of Adnauseam,
(Teacher)Firing-inspired we tread
Thy spanktuary.
Thy magic power re-unites
All that school boards have divided,
All men become numbers
Under the sway of thy mathy wings.
Whoever has created
A national standard
Or has won
A Race to the Top
All who can call at least one charter theirs,
Join in our song of praise;
But any who cannot must creep tearfully
Away from our circle.
All creatures drink of data
At nature’s breast.
Just and unjust
Alike taste of her gift;
She gave us dollars and the fruit of the mine,
A tried (Facebook)friend to the end.
Even the worm can feel contentment,
And the cherub stands before the God of Data**!
Gladly, like the heavenly Pearsons
Which He set on their cour$e$
Through the splendor of the testament;
Thus, brothers, you should run your Race to the Top,
As a lamb going to the slaughter!
You billion$, I embrace you.
This data is for all the world!
Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving Father**.
Do you fall in worship, you millions?
World, do you know your creator?
Seek him in the heavens;
Above the stars must He dwell.
*David Coleman
**Lord Gates, Commander Data himself
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If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything.
DATA – one of the many FALSE GODS.
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Wouldn’t people just recognize the joy in data use? If it is there, would they really need this highly-paid consultant to point it out and if it isn’t already there, why isn’t it just showing up spontaneously? It’s not like people set out to make things grim and horrible.
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“…arguing with him (Barber) would be like debating a religious fanatic.”
Yes, like debating a religious fanatic who is also enriching himself by selling indulgences.
Fanaticism and the will to profit and power are extremely dangerous combinations.
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Ed reform can’t fail it can only be failed. The approach isn’t grim and joyless, so the leaders/managers don’t have to change anything- lower level people are simply applying the theory incorrectly.
It’s really the all-purpose answer to every critic.
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You’re absolutely right, Chiara, and I accept full responsibility for my crimes against reform over the years. Oh, how I loathe myself…
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It’s nice he mentioned ethics. What are the ethics involved in Pearson relying on school children to develop product they then sell back to school children? The tests are mandatory. Maybe Pearson could kick back some of Sir Michael’s consulting fees and reimburse the people doing all the work. We could put it in a college fund for them.
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“Ohio charter-school group calls for sponsor exclusions from proposed rules
Higher-rated Ohio charter-school sponsors should not be required to report how they spend their money, and no sponsor should be required to spend state money only on oversight and assistance of their schools, an association told lawmakers on Wednesday.”
“Rules shouldn’t apply to charter schools! We’re special!”
I bet they call themselves “agnostics” 🙂
I’m actually glad public schools are required to do detailed financial reporting, and I couldn’t imagine any citizen of this state objecting to a publicly-funded entity required to report financials.
We’ll see if the “ed reform movement” captured lawmakers meet their demands or if they protect and monitor public funds on behalf of ALL citizens, not just their preferred “sector”
It’s been widely reported in Ohio that charter schools pay teachers btwn 35 and 40% less than public schools. I’m curious where that difference is going, especially because public schools are constantly ordered to mimic charter schools. I don’t want teachers paid 40% less in my son’s school. I live here. That doesn’t benefit my son, me or my community. Thanks but no thanks on that “innovation”.
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“I couldn’t imagine any citizen of this state objecting to a publicly-funded entity required to report financials.”
Agreed but being “required to report financials”* is required by law is not the same as actually “reporting financials”. The Dept of Defense has never completed the required yearly audits. See https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/bulletins_98-08/#appa and below for details of requirement.
*OMB BULLETIN NO. 98-08 – Audit Requirements for Federal Financial Statements
August 24, 1998
OMB BULLETIN NO. 98-08
TO THE HEADS AND INSPECTORS GENERAL OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND ESTABLISHMENTS
SUBJECT: Audit Requirements for Federal Financial Statements
1. Purpose. This Bulletin, which includes an Attachment and Appendices A through H, establishes minimum requirements for audits of Federal financial statements. The Bulletin is issued under the authority of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, as amended, and the Budget and Accounting Procedures Act of 1950, as amended. It implements the audit provisions of the Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-576), as amended, the Government Management Reform Act (GMRA) of 1994 (P.L. 103-356), and the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-208). The requirements of this Bulletin are set forth in the Attachment.
2. Applicability. The provisions of the Bulletin apply to audits of financial statements of executive departments and agencies and certain components of these agencies, listed in Appendices A and B, respectively.
3. Effective Date. The provisions of this Bulletin are effective for audits of financial statements for fiscal years ending on or after September 30, 1998. Audit reports shall be submitted to the agency head in sufficient time to enable the agency head to meet the due date for submitting the audited financial statement under GMRA, no later than March 1 following the end of the fiscal year for which the financial statements were prepared.
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Michael Barber and the rest of the rheephorm crowd: what they mandate an impose on OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN is not what they ensure for THEIR OWN CHILDREN.
What are they good at?
Double talk. Double think. Double standards.
And as the NJ Commissioner of Education likes to put it: doubling down on whatevers.
😎
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“If we lump all of Pearson’s visionary writing together, the picture that emerges is a Brave New World in which every single student’s action is tagged, collected, and run through a computer program that spits out an exact picture of the student’s intellectual, emotional and social development as well as specific instructions on exactly what the teacher (and, in this Brave New World, we’re using that term pretty loosely) should do next with/for/to the student to achieve the results desired by our data overlords.”
Oh there won’t be a teacher. No need for that expense. The software that calculates the student’s intellectual, emotional, and social development will be the same software that decides what is needed next for that student. It’s a simple if statement in a programming language. If (studentx.score < minScoreRequired) { repeat previous section }. No expensive teachers needed. No empathy. No compassion. No child development knowledge required. No knowledge needed of ways to teach special ed students. It's in the hands of the programmers at Pearson.
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Next time Pearson refuses to share data let’s use a Barber’s own words about guarding against the dangers big data: “but it is also possible to see it as part of a new democratization in which data is everywhere and belongs to everyone rather than just the experts.”
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