The Néw York Times opposes the opt out movement and asserts–with no evidence–that the rigorous Common Core standards and tests will raise achievement and close the gaps among racial groups and between affluent and poor.
This is magical thinking. Or wishful thinking. Or illogical thinking.
Alarmed by the fact that 20% of students didn’t take the tests, the Times’ editorial asserts that the test boycott could damage the Common Core standards: “The standards offer the best hope for holding school districts accountable for educating all students, regardless of race or income.”
If the editorial means that teachers, principals, and schools will be punished for low scores on unrealistic tests, it is right. Heads will roll. People will be fired. Schools will be closed. Chaos and disruption are not good for children or learning.
Will these standards and tests ensure that all children have an excellent education? No. Setting standards a grade or two above where children will not make the children smarter; those who are most advantaged will move ahead, while those who are lagging will fall farther behind.
Why does the editorial board defend standardized tests whose cut scores are absurdly high, guaranteeing that most children will fail? Why defend tests that fail almost every student with disabilities and almost every English language learner? Why defend tests that actually widen the achievement gaps? These tests accomplish the exact opposite of what the Times says it wants: an excellent education for all.
Has common sense deserted the editorial board of the New York Times?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s not magical thinking. It’s an idiotorial.
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On the topic of parents opting out of standardized tests, these two videos are mandatory viewing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvKVkitKOgk
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Eiz406VAs
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I hope you and others will write a letter or op-ed sharing your views.
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Whoever Linda is, good job on the comments to the editorial!
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WHere are the ” Linda ” comments that you and others are referencing? I did not find them here or in the comments section after the article. I am puzzled.
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Common sense is nowhere to be found when people think that the test has anything to do with real, whole child achievement, something kids can actually use in their future. And it forces those who learn better through whole child teaching to learn in the way the are least able. Thus the set up continues
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“test has anything to do with real, whole child achievement”
I agree overall, Cap, with your sentiments although I wouldn’t use the word “achievement” as that focuses on an end product and not the teaching and learning process itself-“. . .whole child “development” or “advancement” or “flowering” perhaps better completes your thought.
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One of the most difficult aspects of this war is how much psychometrician thinking appeals to so many wonks/experts that haven’t taught. But it’s common sense … and most of them, if they went to a university w/an educ school or not, have never for a second doubted they are smarter than teachers and entitled to opine and impose judgments on these lesser people. When I moved from asst. dean of a law school to a faculty position in an educ school, my law school friends treated me as thou my IQ had gone down by a third or more, and as thou I’d been exiled to a strange tribal land, still w/o most modern means of thought.
If this mode of thinking can so capture Obama and both Clintons, then educators have to remember how much disrespect and disdain these “best & brightest” types carry for educators, especially for classroom teachers. That attitude is evident in almost all policy processes re educ, where teachers’ ideas, if heard at all, are heard wrapped in complete condescension. The things in teaching that separate most of the best among us are rarely quantifiable or subject to standardization. The heart of teaching … it sounds soft, old school feminine and simplistic to these folks that believe themselves smarter than almost everyone – but certainly than all teachers. They have no idea why or how a superior kindergarten teacher does what she does, so they either objectify it or sort of pat the bunny – like they would praise one of their nannies. Good at a needed task, but not to taken seriously.
My best friend in college was a good student, but hardly the same success as the honors types I hung with in classes. But as a middle, then HS teacher teacher he was gradually magical and still is. His excellence was the manifestation of his wholeness as a person and of his complete dedication to kids of all sorts. I’ve met many as good as him in their own way across the 35 yrs I’ve taught. My teaching was at a university where I was told by a senior colleague pre-tenure to avoid teaching awards, lest I be seen as trivial. He was kidding but I think we all know the joke wasn’t a lie.
So, here’s my deal for reformers and opiners: just as I refuse to take seriously about parenting anyone that hasn’t raised children – not indirectly by nanny, but hands on – I will not take seriously anyone w/advice or an opinion about teaching that isn’t very, very good at it right now. And becoming good at both those tasks is learned as you go and takes time and many missteps. So, for all the people w/something to say about teaching, show me some bona fides or shut the hell up.
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Spot on ! And as a personal anecdote…I was actually met with comments , sadly by administrators at my first teaching job no less!) that ran akin to ” Why would you waste all that money at an Ivy League school to become a teacher?”SERIOUSLY?? We don’t want smart educated becoming teachers?? Some of them actually were well meaning and simply meant ” That’s a lot of money in loans and debt that will be hard to replay with your career choice.” But sadly, others truly meant it wasn’t worth getting a top tier educator to merely become a teacher….that is how ingrained our disrespect for the profession is. Even educators see them selves as “lesser” professionals…..
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Sorry, this was typed in haste without contact lenses in and before coffee!
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If you want to contact the writer of this editorial, send him a tweet at @brentnyt
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Mike ~ you hit the nail on the head.
Bashing & harming teachers has its roots in a ‘reality show’ smarmy hate toward teachers, for decades. Many carry this deep hate with them through every avenue of their lives. At every opportunity, they bash, vote, and spout their deep disdain toward teachers.
Without too much psychobabble, it appears that they are stuck psychologically in middle school (sorry, middle schoolers), gathered together via ivy league polisci/economics BS, and found a brotherhood on social media, while the richest wonker is footing the ‘Bill’ for All Things-Bill-Hates … for eternity.
Recognizing the quality of decent human beings who educate, nurture, care for, love and guide our children…is just something these marginal ‘middle school kids’ laugh at. They will never grow up! Remember the Peter Pan Syndrome?
Bill Gates will never run out of $Zill & the supply of children for them to exploit, will never end.
How will decent people be heard?
How will decent people stop the Gates-Teacher-Bashing-Reality-Show? Mess with their access to our children! Their bread & butter.
OPT OUT your children by the millions, America!
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“. . . anyone w/advice or an opinion about teaching that isn’t very, very good at it right now. And becoming good at both those tasks is learned as you go and takes time and many missteps.”
Yes and that time frame is a minimum of ten years. Even after twenty years of teaching, things happened in class that hadn’t ever happened before. How I handled them, though, had changed quite a bit.
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I think there is false view about education. You can’t teach someone to be intelligent or have a high I.Q. They either have it or they don’t. You can educate people to the best of their ability. Everyone can learn to play a sport, but ability varies. No one would deny that with sports. I imagine that these tests are very hard for kids with an I.Q. under 110 or so. It would be better if they used these tests to determine who goes to college. But that is already being done with SAT and ACT, etc. These tests are designed to find the high I.Q. kids and the winners will be the same ones who score highest on all the other tests. Ability varies, and kids are born with a certain (I.Q.) or intellectual ability whether we like to believe that or not. “The Blank Slate” by Steven Pinker describes this well. Thinking that all kids can play pro sports or be an Einstein is false understanding of human nature.
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” It would be better if they used these tests to determine who goes to college. But that is already being done with SAT and ACT, etc.”
NO! It would be better if we didn’t use these wasted resources and educational malpractices of standardized testing for anything. They are best thrown onto the trash heap of failed ideas such as phrenology, eugenics, the four humors, earth centric astronomy, etc. . . .
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I suggest going to the original article to read the comments there, too. I agree with the commenter above about Linda’s comments on the original. VAM is the Sword of Damocles. And many other are made. Thank you to Mike Sacken, too. If only the pundits and wannabes tried their hand at teaching and educating. Got in the trenches. Found out how truly difficult this job is. I find it intriguing how they think this kind of test which the teacher is not supposed to read or talk about, and then never sees the actual results of the students he/she teaches, much less an item analysis, can improve teaching and learning. When I taught, kids would take timed achievement tests in math. Some kids would get 20 out of 40 questions correct. The problem was they did not finish the test. They were slow, methodical workers. They got 100% of the answers right on the first 20 questions. They might not have needed more instruction on the questions they missed. How could we know? They didn’t try those. Those tests were designed in the old-fashioned way. Yet they provided me, the teacher, with some valuable data I could actually use to try to improve my teaching. (Of course the end of year testing did not allow me to reach those students moving on, but I could explain to parents and to the next teacher what I believed to be a problem area for the child.) How about the child who misses a lot of questions because he/she skipped a question and bubbled in the right answer on the wrong line, then continued to put the right answer on the wrong line. That happens more than most realize. (Though in this day and age perhaps it has been drilled into the poor kids’ heads not to do this.) We could see the correct pattern of answers and then looking at the original to see where the mistake occurred. It would be a waste of time and money to offer remedial math help to a child who simply made a “clerical” or eye/hand error, Or we need to find a way to get the child to work faster. All test results and the analysis should be “local” and that is the classroom. Between the teacher, the child and the parents. The idea that these tests can help improve education is wrong. However, the complexity of the problems we face is daunting. We should try letting educators without a pre-conceived agenda work to improve our schools. I suggest a visit to some of the best schools and classrooms in the country to see what is possible. Then use those for models. They exist and we should be wise and utilize them.
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“Has common sense deserted the editorial board of the New York Times?”
Entirely.
For quite some time now.
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Common sense has deserted the editorial boards of most papers. Just yesterday the Chicago Tribune wished for a Hurricane Katrina-type storm to hit Chicago.
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At least Twitter is having the good sense to make sure the author of that one knows just how badly she messed up.
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What?????
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That New Orleans editorial was the epitome of neoliberal thought. Arne Duncam has said it before. Many reformers said it before. They see the instant wiping away of the bothersome lower classes of people,less intelligent than they are, the non-producers as a huge opportunity to take over and do things their way without the messiness of democracy.
Disgusting but it helps expose them for what they are.
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Those of us who are against the so-called “reform” movement have to ask ourselves why we are not being heard. Why, for instance, can the Times and so many other media accounts of the “reform” movement miss the mark and get it absolutely wrong–indeed the exact opposite of the way things are.
I think what we critics of “reform” have not discussed is why Bill Gates, the Waltons, The New York Times (not to mention the Post!) are motivated to create a public discourse which is pro-testing, pro-privatization (charters), and pro-corporate models.
In fact, when I have tried to talk about reformers’ “motivation,” I’ve been told, that this doesn’t matter, that we can’t know Bill Gate’s or the Time’s editorial board’s “motivation.” We should only argue the facts and the effects of this pseudo-reform movement.
I think this is wrong. Motivation is the key.
What is “in it” for the reformers? Why would Obama cast his lot with the sheer idiocy of an Arne Duncan? Why do Bill Gates and the Waltons (among many others) care about education in the first place? Why the investment of time and money? Why do they maintain objectives and tactics which are unreal, dangerous, and ultimately counter-effective? Why are they deluding themselves and avoiding reality?
Sure, there is money to be made in education. That’s part of it. But the real agents of “reform” already have more money than will ever need.
Rather, the important and more powerful motivation is social and psychological. The powerful motivation is the narrative, or the discourse, the reformers are telling themselves and pushing on an unsuspecting public with what amounts to sheer propaganda.
I think the answer is simple and it is the key to making a counterargument: Motivation.
In short, those in power such as Gates, the Times, Arne Duncan/Obama, are using education to deny the glaring social inequities in our society. The glaring, offensive, and intolerable gap between the wealthiest of the wealthy and the lack of social mobility, the destruction of the working class, and the complete loss of the social mobility which is supposed to be the hallmark of our democracy—all this is just too much to face by those in power.
These are extraordinarily rich people, or people who are dependent on extraordinarily rich people, such as Michelle Rhee or Arne Duncan. Most of them come from at least the upper middle classes and by dint of effort and some basic smarts have become very, very rich. It is simply too much for them to face the complex realities of social inequity in this county.
In fact, there are no easy answers for the horrible economic situation in a country where—everyone agrees—such inequities should not be happening. But rather than face the complex realities of social inequity and economic stagnation for the new working poor, the “reformers” have an easy out: Education.
If they can make the argument to themselves that it is simply disruption, privatization, charterization, testing, and accountability that matters, then they do not have to face the shame of their own wealth and the lack of it in the majority of people who should be (but economically are not) their fellow Americans.
To put it bluntly, it is simply too much to recognize that you are just a lucky rich shit.
Rather than face this, start creating the machine of educational reform. Then you can blame it all on bad teachers, students who don’t have enough “grit,” and communities who simply can’t play the game of reform.
Thus, if teachers, kids, and communities can’t play the reform game, it is their own fault.
They just don’t have the “grit” and staying power. They are then defective. The problem is with the poor and working poor, not the rich. The reformers, then, are excused from all responsibility, because after all it is then the fault of defective public schools, teachers, students, and local communities.
The rich, starting the engine of testing- and accountability-based reforms then can sit smugly and securely on their perches of wealth and power and be exonerated from the terrible and anti-democratic economic situation now found in the United States.
But, alas, my fellow critics of the so-called reform movement won’t take this tactic in making the case for public schools as a central part of a democracy.
I ask: If the reformers are making a personal argument against teachers, students, public schools, and local communities which are poor, working-poor, immigrant, non-native English speaking, or of color, why then can we not make the case that reformers really are all about punishing those far poorer themselves to justify their economic and social supremacy.
It’s time to make the personal argument.
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I think their motive is ultimate power and control – building a totalitarian regime. It’s the old saying about the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. If they can control education (and the media), they’re hoping to create a docile citizenry that will contently live in poverty while the 1% live in luxury.
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I agree. ANd here is a what if: what if the powers that be get the general populace so hooked on and dependent on technology and energy , then somehow take total control of it ?? A bit paranoid and farfetched? maybe not…..
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An analysis worthy of Sun Tzu. We must first know the enemy, and their motivation, if we have a chance to survive and overcome their attacks.
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Sad, but ultimately true. Power and control are major motivators, especially for those who see themselves, at the very least, as “king makers”. The unfortunate reality is that those in the middle class and below are essentially slaves to these people.
I feel caught in a nightmare not of my own making, but made by people who have never spent a day in my (or any other public school teacher’s) shoes in a high-poverty public school.
If I speak my mind, I’m insubordinate, even if my experience and common sense tells me we are hurting children in significant ways. So I quietly use these inappropriately designed standards, administer the tests to my high school students (special ed, mind you) following the rules, and watch my students randomly bubble answers (because they can’t even read, let alone understand, the questions) simply to be done, then put their heads down for the remaining 90 minutes in resignation – “another test I bombed….see, I knew I should have stayed home. I really must be dumb” written on their faces.
Yet, I do nothing but complain to other teachers in the same boat. Why? Because I will lose my only source of income and health insurance. At age 60, I can’t risk these. So then I live with the guilt of knowing I’m hurting the students I otherwise fight for every day.
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Quite correct Arthur, quite correct!
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Tests are a way to measure the achievement gap. A test might do a poor job of measuring the size of the gap by overstating or understating it, but the test can not change the size of the gap.
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“Tests are a way to measure the achievement gap.”
Horse manure, TE!
Those tests “measure” nothing. What is “the achievement gap”? And I mean a precise definition that supposedly can be “measured” and how do we know that that gap is something that is measurable? Please show me where the “standards” for the measurement may be found. Are those standards a metrological standard or a documentary standard? Who has sanctioned the/those standard(s)?
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Duane,
It seems to me that you have two ways to go here. You could say that here is an academic achievement gap between the relatively wealthy and the relatively poor. If you take this position I would ask you what evidence you have that any such gap exists. Alternatively you could say that there is no
academic achievement gap between the relatively wealthy and the relatively poor. In that case you should use criticize anyone who suggests there is such a gap and advocates any change in education funding or practice that seeks to adress this nonexistent gap.
I will be interested to see which horn you choose.
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te, why are you putting words in Duane’s mouth? He hasn’t said anything about an academic ‘gap’. You have.
There is a clear and easily measured INCOME gap amongst many Americans today and it is easier to see in public schools than just about anywhere else because that’s where all children congregate at one time in the same place.
Your beloved tests DO measure that income gap although that’s not what they claim to do and much fakery has been utilized to overlook that fact by the reformists and their supporters.
Blaming teachers because poor families do not have the resources and means to raise their children the same way the wealthier parents do makes no sense whatsoever yet it drives everything we talk about here on this blog about the reformists.
The tests measure what the most privileged children can do, call that ‘normal’, set it as a ‘standard’, and then label any child who can’t do the same things ‘at risk of failure’; Why? Where is the logic in that kind of system? How could it ever bring ‘improvement’ when it instantiates the status quo as the golden mean?
Some Friendman-loving economists delight in the idea of claiming that teachers can eliminate inequality and the income gap through rigor and CCSS. What idiocy!
Yes, it does appeal to the darker nature of conservatives, neoconservatives, and liberals to believe that their greed need not be mentioned or considered regarding its role in the income gap. So much more comfortable to tell hardworking, underpaid teachers to magically erase economic inequality in the few hours a day they have students in a classroom.
Please tell us the next steps in the magical economist plan to end poverty and income inequality through test scores. Suppose every poor child in every inner city school in the USA suddenly scores high on these tests. Then what? The Ivy League still has only X number of admissions per year. Wall Street hires only X number of future millionaires per year. Where do the millions of poor children go to get that piece of the golden pie?
Who is going to hire them and pay them big money when the vast majority of workers are underpaid and overworked now and the vast majority of new jobs are low-paying service work? Which billionaires are going to give up part of their greed hordes to loosen up money for those ‘successful’ students to lift themselves, their families, and their neighborhoods out of poverty?
Tell me, please, because that’s the part that is always left out of the reformist magical formula. How will doing well on a test end poverty?
It’s all a big bucket of BS and I’m tired of having it shoveled over me when I played by the rules that were in place when I became a professional educator.
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Chris,
I will give my argument in a slightly different way using your example of the income gap. If we try to measure the income gap, we first have to measure income and need to make some decisions where the right decision is not obvious.
First we need to talk about income over what period of time. We might decide to use monthly, annually, or lifetime earnings. Next, we would need to decide if we will look at individual or household income, and if we look at household income how we will adjust for household size. Next, do we measure income pre or post tax? Do we include the value of government programs that the household benefits from in our calculation, and if so, how do we value those government programs? We might want to consider geographic location and adjust for different costs of living. Reasonable people can make different decisions about these things and come up with different measures of income and thus different measures of the income gap.
Does going from having a measure of income that shows a lower income gap to one that shows a higher income gap change any individual’s actual circumstances? No. In the same way a change in cut scores or test difficulty does not change any actual achievement gap.
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First, in response to TE’s response to my queries:
As mentioned by Chris, I haven’t said anything about “the achievement gap” but asked you about the definition(s) of that term. NO ANSWER! And then I asked that you show us the standard(s) and what type they are and who sanctions those standards. NO ANSWER.
Should I waste my time and effort in responding when the fundamental questions about “measuring” the “achievement gap” aren’t being addressed???
Second, in TE’s response to Diane about my postings and her and/or no one “challenges his arguments”:
I’m not sure why it would be Diane’s position to challenge my postings (other than for the crudeness I sometimes display out of my frustrations with people posting what I consider to be inanities). Perhaps the answer, TE, lies in the fact that there are no legitimate challenges to what I post about the epistemological and ontological (E&I) problems involved with the concept of “measuring” the teaching and learning process. (Part of the problem I have with economics is that professions insistence that any and everything can be quantified and monetized.)
So, TE, should I waste my time and effort in attempting to clarify that those E&I problems really do matter and that by glossing over and/or ignoring them that they will magically disappear and educational standards, standardized testing and the accompanying VAM/SLO-SGP, all abominations of educational malpractice, will suddenly be valid?
I think not! Actually, I know not!
P. S. (for Diane), “Clearly they measure something. . . There is no question that they accurately measure family income.”
Again, no, they don’t measure anything. The tests may assess something (and that something is not specified to a degree that allows for “measuring” it), they may show correlations between some things, i.e., test scores and family income/wealth, they may attempt to supposedly “measure” something but they are a chimera, falsehood and E&I COMPLETELY INVALID.
Word usage matters. Using the wrong words delivers the wrong connotation, meaning, and significance. Using the wrong words distorts our understanding of the teaching and learning process and plays right into the hands of those seeking to destroy one of the most successful educational adventures of all times-American Public Schooling.
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Tests mainly measure testing gaps.
You want an accurate measure of the achievement gap, check poverty rates and zip codes.
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Akademos,
How do you know that poverty creates an academic performance gap if you do not believe standardized tests have any meaning?
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TE,
The issue is not whether standardized tests have “any meaning.” Clearly they measure something. The question many raise is the misuse of standardized test scores and the error of taking them as the most valuable measure of education. They are not.
There is no question that they accurately measure family income. Why bother with the tests when you can skip them by asking parents for their tax returns?
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Dr. Ravitch,
You and I may think that standardized tests can be meaningful, but Duane posts that all standardized tests are meaningless at least a couple of times a week on your blog and no one challenges his arguments. If memory serves, you have read famous Noel Wilson’s work, but have remained silent on it’s merits. Perhaps now would be a good opportunity for you to endorse Noel Wilson’s work and bring it to the attention of your publishers.
I would be interested in knowing exactly what you think to be the most valuable measure of education. I do suspect that there are many students from relatively poor households that would prefer to be judged on their individual merits rather than there household income.
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TE, I am not opposed to testing. I oppose their current misuse as the means of punishing students, teachers, principals, and schools. Standardized tests are just not that good. It is like judging character by shoe size. What size shoes do you wear?
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teachingeconomist, why aren’t you angry that private schools in NY State are not opting IN their students? How can those parents know if their teachers are any good? How can we know if the tests are good or if they are just designed for most kids to fail if we are not also seeing how much the scores at private schools are declining and how poorly educated their students are? What happens if “only” 30% or 40% of the students at the elite private schools in NYC fail? Will their parents feel good because hey, only 30% of my children’s peers at private school can’t meet grade level standards, and 70% of the public school students are, so we are proud. NOT. They would attack those standards as outrageous, which is what they are. But since no one is pressuring those private schools to opt in by telling them, as YOU believe teachingeceonomist, that there is something terribly wrong with those parents, they get away with it.
Giving a test designed for 70% of students to fail to public school students while private school students take an entirely different test normed so that that most of their students look to be “above average” is about as irrational as anything I have every heard you promoting. No real scholar would ever propose that such a test had any meaning whatsoever.
Teachingeconomist, prove you are NOT a hypocrite and attack every private school that refuses to force their students to take the exact some state tests that public school students do. Will you do it? Or can we assume that your silence on that issue proves that you don’t believe in these tests as a valid measurement at all and are simply trying to force public school students do take an exam you know is rotten to the core? Or will you come up with some slimy way to justify the refusal of those private schools to participate because you know the test is a piece of junk?
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“In contrast, the ontological status of psychometric entities in education and psychology are scientifically eccentric because raw score rank order reliability and correlation are virtually their only claim to material status which, not surprisingly, has severely inhibited their maturation as scientific disciplines. Raw score structures provide only fleeting glimpses of a reality that is dependent on particular item sets and samples. A logical consequence is fragmented and discontinuous constructs that are virtually impossible to consolidate or integrate into an overall body of scientific propositions.
Nikolaus Bezruczko rasch.org
” . . . but the actual record of such testing is questionable, to say the least. It is often based on dubious binary assumptions and, critically, its test-retest reliability has been shown in several studies to be hopeless. If you retake the test after only a five-week gap, there’s around a 50% chance that you will fall into a different personality category compared to the first time you took the test.”
Hard News by Russell Brown
“Psychometricians should be given credit for the techniques that they have developed to address the methodologically thorny problem of measuring an unobservable attribute — or better, a mix of attributes – that is presumably important in explaining variation among people. They have developed ways to differentiate individuals along a continuum, using their responses to test items that elicit the unobservable attribute of interest. They have also advanced methods to attempt the teasing out of the attribute of interest from other influences on item response. In short they have developed logical, defensible ways to address the sampling challenge and the dimensionality aspect of the representational challenge.
Their attempts to compute practical intelligence “scores” with interval scale meaning, however, may have real shortcomings. IQ scores, while easier to compute than g factor scores, are imperfect measures of the latter. And the justification for interval scale measurement relies on a faulty chain of logic that links the problematic assumption of a normal distribution of intelligence with a transformed score that is not a pure indicator of that construct.”
Scott Winship, paper
I could go on. te, your post implies that Wilson is the only critique of psychometry yet courts in both Great Britain and the US (the Supreme Court, no less) have prevented their use in high-stakes, job-related decision making precisely because of the inexact nature of the pseudo-science of psychometry.
It begs the question of why so many educated people claim that it is a reliable and useful tool, especially when it damages and destroys the lives of so many because of its imperfections and half-baked ideas.
Tests are useful for students when they are designed by the teacher and the results are used by the teacher to inform instruction and no other use is appropriate or ethical.
Bean counters can find other date to create their charts, graphs, and tables to fuel their speculations!
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Chris,
Duane is free to correct me if I am wrong, but I believe his position is that ALL standardized tests (and teacher assigned grades as well, isn’t that right Duane?) are invalid, not just standardized exams that try to measure intelligence. From his perspective, cognitive tests that measure IQ and cognitive tests that are used to diagnose learning disabilities or Alzheimer’s disease fall pray to Wilson’s critique.
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Actually, TE, I try to post the about the COMPLETE INVALIDITY of STANDARDIZED TESTS everyday and more than once a day as any given post or comment may warrant.
Since I choose to not be “connected” when I get out into the woods, onto the rivers to float and fish (actually anytime I’m away from my computer), I sometimes do not post. If I am “connected” I almost always post in an attempt to prove a corollary of mine to counteract what are widely received “true” aphorisms of those who seek to control others:
“A lie told often enough becomes truth”–Lenin
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” ― Hitler
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”–Goebbels
My corollary states:
“If you tell the truth often enough it still remains the truth and it is spread further and more widely believed. And that truth serves to lessen injustices and to liberate people from the widespread falsehoods that are perpetuated by those who seek to control, exploit and profit off the ignorance of others.”
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Thanks, Chris in Florida, for providing a wider context to the many invalidities involved in the psychometric realm of errors, falsehoods and fudges.
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The NYTimes Editorial folks have not lost their minds. They have not lost their ability to reason or think logically. They have not lost IQ points. In fact, the editorial is remarkably consistent with not only their past coverage of Ed reform and its opponents (us), but also their world-view, overall positions, and most importantly, their CLASS allegiances .
The NYTimes has long been the newspaper of the well-educated, established and establishment, monied left. The NYTimes is neoliberal in its economic outlook. The NYTimes believes deeply, as a founding cornerstone of its philosophical alignments, in the kind of meritocracy that assumes an Ivy League education is better than all others and is always associated with intelligence rather than family circumstance. The NYTimes is the standard-bearer of the left that emerged after 1968 and has grown into the all-dominant left….the left that abandoned the labor politics of the 1930s and embraced identity-politics as the guiding principle, while at the same time moving right economically and assuming neo-liberal economics as a given. This is what the NYTimes is today. Liberal on identity and rights politics and neo-liberal economically and on economic justice. This means that it is the paper that is comfortable to read for the urban, hyper-educated, hyper-wealthy that inhabit Wall Street, park ave, hedge funds etc.
This is also why the NYTimes has come out so strongly in favor of Ed reform. It’s is the ONLY position the paper could have ever taken given the above.
Ed reform is, at bottom, not about education but about economics. It should come as no surprise that the NYTimes has chosen the neo-liberal economic view.
This also encapsulates our chief challenge as the folks opposing corporate Ed reform. We represent an almost extinct left. Because we oppose Ed reform, we are also standing up for economic justice and stating that the neo-liberal economic program is not truth, but a choice. We are standing opposed to so many who are “in our side” according to the political definition of our time. So many folks on today’s “left” are for Ed reform. It is a problem for us that the NYTimes is the “paper of record” and is THE main respected news source in the country.
Our fight is first a fight over old lines within the left. Perhaps without even knowing it, we represent a left that hasn’t been articulated much since before the 1960s.
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Yes, you have stated a fundamental truth. One which has left so many of us “disenfranchised” from politics because nobody represents us anymore.
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I totally agree with you, Allison – and I am a political science person who believes we have an obligation to participate and vote in the political process as a citizen of this country.
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yes!
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To Arthur, Dienne and NYSTEACHER
How do we put the deformers on the defensive?
Point to funding options and ask why maintain poverty while getting good PR for wasted money? Why maintain status quo in your industries and pet philanthropies while you could be doing do much more? Why disable public services and safety nets while funding untested private enterprise? Why always avoid the root causes? Why only yuppify and privatize and ignore?
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You know what, if the New York Times puts politics and class issues over reality, way over reality, then it must be time for major media upheaval.
Because this is tragic for the nation and the world.
Time for new kinds of outlets to take over. Not that this hasn’t already started.
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The NYT is a liberal paper in the sense of Edmund Burke’s notion of liberalism. The NYT supported the reforms The New Deal only to that extent that they acted as a response to radicalism. When The New Deal instituted extensive federal government projects to directly ameliorate the tragedy of The Depression, the support of the NYT flew out the window. Just follow the NYT presidential endorsements: the NYT supported limited federal interventions in the economy that would directly affect the life of working class and poor citizens (see, for example, its lack of support for FDRs far reaching direct interventions).
What we see now is an extension of long held NYT political economic beliefs. This paper has never supported any solutions by the ‘Left’. it does not have the capacity to go against the educational trends that are supported by established big business, that would directly affect the lives of what is now called the 1%. Similarly, such a power shift would empower teachers (unions), students, parents and communities. That flies in the face that all the NYT holds dear. The NYT is a liberal paper in the sense that liberal is tantamount to conservative. There is no other way to understand the ignorant conservative writings of Frank Bruni and David Brooks, or why the NYT editorial board refuses to take into account the research and findings that do not support its ideological positions.
We will not move the NYT from its business oriented positions. The central question is how to mobilize a political movement that will stem the tide of privatization of public schools and the institutionalization of an approach to education and its pedagogy that only benefits the masters of the economy.
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All of what you say is true because when you think about it, big business funds the NYT with its advertising.
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I just thought it was poorly reasoned. They admit that some of the parents’ complaints are legitimate and then they put the entire duty for “accountability” on parents and schools- parents are ordered to turn over kids for testing and schools are ordered to close achievement gaps.
If some of the complaints are legitimate shouldn’t politicians and policy makers be held accountable also? Accountability seems to only travel DOWN in ed reform, to the people with the least power and little influence.
Why not start with the promises that were made to parents and schools on Common Core and see if ed reformers are holding up their end of the bargain? Parents were told the obsessive and reductive focus on test scores would end and that schools would receive additional support to conduct this experiment. Has that happened? Parents were told politicians and policy makers need this data to “close achievement gaps” Are they doing that? HOW are they doing it? If “close achievement gaps” means we just get the ed reform recipe of charter schools, vouchers and teacher sanctions, why would public school parents who disagree with that approach go along with testing?
They obviously don’t believe ed reform is improving their schools. Isn’t it the duty of the people in federal and state government to SHOW them how ed reform is improving existing public schools?
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It’s just infuriating because this happens again and again in the US. We’re told “mistakes were made” and ordered to accommodate the people in power who made the mistakes, and go along, because now we’re in it and we all have to work together!
Back up there. Start at the beginning. Does the opposition to Common Core have anything to do with the fact that they revamped thousands of public schools and launched an experiment on tens of millions of public school students with virtually no public debate or input? These are “public schools”. People feel they own them, because guess what, THEY DO. Public debate would have been messy and loud and contentious and ed reformers might have had to to compromise some of their positions, but that’s part of the “public” in public schools. If the “public” in public schools means we all have a duty to provide data for the good of the whole system whether we agree with testing or not, didn’t ed reformers have a duty to allow public input using that same general theory? Why do they only pull out the “public good” argument when they’re compelling compliance with an unpopular mandate?
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I’m usually very much in agreement with Diane. But I have to say I’m not at all sure about the characterization, “New York Times Thinks…”
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Tough to get past this:
“This ill-conceived boycott could damage educational reform — desperately needed in poor and rural communities — and undermine the Common Core standards adopted by New York and many other states. The standards offer the best hope for holding school districts accountable for educating all students, regardless of race or income.”
The Editorial Board of the NY Times
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There is no thinking to be done. The editorial board of the NYT has always been pro-reform, which is why they got rid of Michael Winerip, who was more interested in teacher and educator voices.
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I have a “public good” argument against “choice” in my state. The ed reform focus on “choice” in Ohio is harming existing public schools. They’re doing damage to our schools because they did (and do) no analysis of the effect of “choice” on existing public schools or the system as a whole. Obviously setting up three publicly-funded school systems -charter, private and public- affects existing public schools. Why are our schools never considered when they’re setting up “choice” systems? I didn’t agree to have my local school serve as the public safety net for Ohio’s freewheeling and unregulated privatized system(s). I think that’s a raw deal for my school.
Where are the ed reformers who are shouting about how we all have a duty to consider system-wide effects as far as testing on “choice”? Public schools just take the hit for their recklessness and inability to admit there are systemwide effects to running three school systems? “Public good” doesn’t enter into “choice” at all yet they pull it out to scold us on testing? That’s convenient. It’s all individual choice unless it’s another unfunded mandate on existing public schools?
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Diane,
I think one problem seems to be the assumption that Common Core is a good thing. No one has seemed to check with top notch teachers and college professors to see if these “standards” are achievable – which we know they’re not! How could they be so blind? Why not demand that a six year old fly by flapping his wings, and then blame the teacher? I fear that distrust of teachers’ unions fans the fires of mistrust. Yesterday, two former board members of my local school district – with whom in friendly – informed me that TENURE is the problem, citing two instances when poor teachers were paid not to teach. Really? Two out of hundreds, and you throw away the baby with the bath water? Really?
How can we get the powers that be to understand that the Commin Core shouldn’t be their bible? And that teachers aren’t the problem?
Beth
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Common sense left the editorial board when its business end began to run its editorial and reporting end. I say trace the Board of Director’s and the Time’s chief executives connections and you will see why they take this obviously “reformy” position.
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“The New York Times” like so many detached elitists suffer from misinformation. The editorial staff probably attends the same fundraisers as the billionaires where they listen to the propaganda from pro-charter groups. They are in serious need of facts, which is funny, because facts should be a staple in their diet. Instead, they have formed opinions based on prejudice and politics. The facts tell a different story. Standardized testing does not improve outcomes for poor students, and may do more harm than good. They only way to improve the education of the poor is to invest time, money and research into addressing the problems surrounding poverty. “The New York Times” staff is hurting its credibility by allowing their editorials to have no basis in fact. They need to do their homework, and try to arrive at unbiased conclusions. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don't-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx
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Using test scores to raise test scores. Such self referential thinking reminds me of a dog chasing its tail. ‘Round and round the puppy goes, spinning off, to where, who knows?
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Last week I put up a comment with examples of the NYT CCSS cheerleading. No one commented or paid attention it semed.
Susan Ohanian did an amazing job of looking at every mention of the CCSS for a year. The result was an astounding list of very similar talking points appearing in news articles and editorials over and over and over. Unquestioning, not interested in talking to opponents or affected parties, simply parrots squawking the same supportive spin again and again.
The Gray Lady has become little more than a propaganda arm for the neoliberls and Friedman economic neoconservatives.
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“Ugly and Uglier: A Year of Common Core at the New York Times”
http://www.susanohanian.org/core.php?id=835
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“I haven’t seen any corrections on all their many many other Common Core misstatements. The New York Times’ meticulous correction when, say, they misspell someone’s name, is done to reassure readers of their precision, their devotion to accuracy. Get the small things right. Willfully and deliberately obfuscate,distort, and lie about what matters.”
— Susan Ohanian
blog
August 02, 2015
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Sorry, Chris.
Our attention is fleeting and so much is going on, down.
We don’t have ADHD but AMRFD, anticipatory media and research failure disorder.
Here’s some good news on another front.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/15/controversial-teacher-evaluation-method-is-on-trial-literally-and-the-judge-is-not-amused/
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With all the info out there about how these tests do not evaluate school performance or teacher quality, they still sing this song of ‘reform,’ the orwellian word for deforming the schools so they wil fail.. Who runs the show at the NY Timees, Eli Broad or David Koch?
This inability to change the media reminds me of how hard the activists like Betsy Combier, Karen Howtiz, Norm Scott and Lenny Isenberg worked to dissemnate the reality of the civil rights abuse that was underlying the removal of the core veteran teachers.
Over the sixteen years since I experienced this abuse and was harassed out of nYC at the height of my success, nothing has changed, and I have never read anywhere of this scandalous abuse of the sixth amendment. The only thing the media reported was those ‘bad’ teachers.
This is more of the same propaganda, and the reason that nothing changes.
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The editorial has garnered 462 mostly pro opt-out comments, it appears, as of 11:09 am.
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As of 11:16, 475 comments. About 2 comments per minute.
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Comments hit 485 at 11:21, as expected. 8 out of 10 of the last comments were clearly against the editorial board’s view.
But the 485 remained frozen through 11:27. ???
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Still frozen at 485 as of now 11:30am.
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Online issue, standard maintenance, unprepared for load or doing something sleazy?
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Okay, hit 501 as of 11:35.
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Frozen at. 501 for over 10 min. Perhaps there are moderation issues, waves, breaks, etc.
Last 10 comments more mixed, but more lengthy, focused and intelligent comments against the editorial than the silly, unjustified ones for. Leonie Haimson chimed in there with an impressive comment, as usual.
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One commenter in that last batch complained that teachers with the summer off are inundating the comments section.
Shouldn’t teachers be interested and have a say in education?
Near noon on a Saturday???!!!
Give me a break!
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I love that old “summers off” canard. NOT. I have not been paid for the 7 weeks I’ve had off this summer; our salaries are pro-rated from the 10 months we work so we can get something during the summer but if you figured my hourly wage counting those 7 weeks I’d make a little more than the 18 year old cashier at the grocery store next door.
I go back to work next Tuesday having spent about $2000 of my own money to attend professional development that I chose that helps me as a teacher, as opposed to the ‘one-size fits all’ crap that the district will make me sit through next week.
I’m going to play Reformist Bingo and see how many times I hear ‘rigor’, ‘higher-order thinking’, ‘college and career ready’, ‘test scores’, and all the other hogwash. Something, anything to keep my sanity those 2 days of soul-crushing idiocy and time-wasting!
God knows those administrators have to do something to justify their existence besides the sadistic constant observations and walk-throughs and long, useless, boring meetings that contradict everything they tell us about ‘best practices’ BINGO!
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Be sure to get your official Bingo card at
http://nyceducator.com/?m=1
And in NYC teachers don’t receive 75% their own retro pay from about 5 yrs back until 2018, 19 and 20. 10 year delay in pay needed for families! That’s lux comfy, ain’t it?
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579 comments.
A commenter notes the NY Times is a business, not a public service and not a battleground. That the comments won’t matter, and the fight must be fought at the campus level.
Well, this level of outpouring is significant in itself. And the NY Times is experiencing it. And people across the nation are participating in and watching this spectacle.
Many commenters are quoting and otherwise referencing Diane Ravitch. One professor disagreed about testing itself, but agreed with all the rest. He then posted links to his own work. Oh, Brother. Don’t get me started on today’s integrity of research and studies in education.
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Aka demos: I left a comment last night when there were only 7 other comments. My comment is now #1 pick of readers, recommended by 275 others.
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Great! Looks like the section is closed now.
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579
And “The Comments Section is Closed”
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“This is magical thinking. Or wishful thinking. Or illogical thinking.”
Or it’s just plain NO Thinking at all!
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I believe these statements are meant to cause a large response and help improve their bottom line. It is almost always about money. Solution, encourage everyone to stop buying and reading the Times and any associated publications. Let them preach to the choir and only the choir and see if their choir is large enough to keep them financially sound and if their owners are able to support these positions when the money stops rolling in. Just my opinion.
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You’re not alone in that opinion.
But for the editors of arguably the most significant newspaper worldwide to make themselves appear stupid, corrupt and unreliable to a major faction of their readership, for money, is beyond shame and chill. It’s dark, dark comedy.
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And that’s why every parent and educator should leave a comment on this stupid editorial or tweet your view to the editorial writer for education, Brent Staples
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We are spending too much time in the chaos of this situation and not enough time using this moment to challenge our thinking to create educational enviroments that support every child to reach their full potential. It’s time to focus on the questions: What does an excellent education look like, sound like and feel like? What best practices using brain research and a growth mindset are we currently using that work and what do we need to stop doing, change or add? How will we make the identified funding for resources and training available? What measurements will we use to determine growth for our students and staff to ensure that we are continuously challenging ourselves to provide the best learning environment for every child? We’ve spent an enormous amount of time in the problem. It’s time for a week long educational summit with passionate, bright educational and global leaders to sit in a beautiful calm enviroment with good food and an amazing facilatator/s to work on the solutions together.
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Staples is a thorn in the side of public ed
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Creating a model of excellence is not a staple it is a necessary movement that needs to happen for our children now. It’s time to bring great minds together who value an excellent education for every child over politics. We need to start collaborating on creating the solutions to move us forward in a positive direction.
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Sorry think I misunderstood your comment. You were referring to the author. Lol, agree
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