Mary Ann Whiteker, superintendent of the Hudson Independent School District and Texas Superintendent of the Year, told the State Board of Education that she has given up on the “testing and accountability game.” A veteran administrator, she is now trying to shape the curriculum to meet the needs of the students. This is a video that is well worth watching.
Texas has the good fortune to have a significant group of superintendents who realize that the longstanding regime of testing and accountability has not helped their students. In 2006, thirty-five of these creative superintendents got together and started meeting regularly to plan a new “vision statement” to describe what they wanted to do. They produced their document, meant to lead the way to a new approach to children across the state, and you will see Mary Ann Whiteker holding it up as she speaks. If you go to this link, you can learn about the process of writing the document. It is supported by the Texas Association of School Administrators. Open this link to find the document that changed her views of what children need.
The Vision statement has a number of important principled statements. Here is one:
We envision schools where all children succeed, feel safe and their curiosity is cultivated. We see schools that foster a sense of belonging and community and that inspire collaboration. We see learning standards that challenge, and intentionally designed experiences that delight students, develop their con dence and competence, and cause every child to value tasks that result in learning. Ultimately, we see schools and related venues that prepare all children for many choices anWed that give them the tools and attitudes to contribute to our democratic way of life and live successfully in a rapidly changing world.
Here is another:
The schools we need are community-owned institutions. They are designed and established as learning organizations, treating employees as knowledge workers and students as the primary customers of knowledge work. They are free of bureaucratic structures that inhibit multiple paths to reaching goals. Reliance on compliance is minimized, and generating engagement through commitment is the primary means to achieving excellence. Leadership at all levels is honored and developed. All operating systems have well-defined processes that are constantly being improved. Attention of leaders is focused on the dominant social systems that govern behavior, beginning with those that clarify beliefs and direction, develop and transmit knowledge, and that provide for recruitment and induction of all employees and students into the values and vision. The evaluation, boundary, and authority systems are submissive to the directional system, allowing for major innovations to ourish, new capacities to emerge, missions to be accomplished, and the vision to be realized in an increasingly unpredictable world.
Whether you agree with every statement in the document, you must give credit to these visionary superintendents for taking the steps to steer Texas away from its expensive and useless obsession with standards and accountability.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well stated. I hope more superintendents come to the same conclusion, especially in red states where there is intractable support for “choice.” When parents realize that the purpose of test and punish is to destroy their neighborhood school, the opt out movement should spread to red states. Standardized tests do not offer useful information, and they serve to narrow curricula and actually detract from a meaningful learning environment. The rankings resulting from standardized testing do nothing to improve outcomes for students, and they serve to demoralize and stigmatize the poor, classified and ELL students. It is good to know some superintendents are taking a stand against the status quo. I would have preferred if Ms. Whiteker had used the term “future voter or civic responsibility” in reference to students rather than “customer,” as this term reflects the business view of students and “reform” lingo.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Diane, I watched some of the video and was amused that she thought she was being “courageous”. Not sure I would call the following things courageous:
1. Saying we would educate every child to be interested in learning, promote curiosity, and focus on every possible subject BUT…
2. Never holding ourselves accountable in any way, never measuring anything, and always telling each other we are the “greatest teachers in the world”.
But I was disappointed that she stopped there. I figured she would partner up with Bernie Sanders and expand the manifesto:
3. All adults will work in any job they want
4. Adults will be stimulated by their jobs at all times, never having to complete boring or unpleasant work
5. Workers will be paid astronomically high wages and everybody will be paid the same (or according to their needs)
6. Workers can take as much vacation as they like and retire at any age (such as 52 like many teachers)
7. Liberal professors will tell everyone what to do even if they have no research to back it up. Those professors just know everything by intuition.
Now that’s change we can believe in!
Please link to the manifesto in your “Bernie Sanders and expand the manifesto”. TIA, Duane
Duane, why it’s here and it’s over here and over here.
Or you might go to the source and see here.
Diane, please consider removing this person. He never advances any conversation or learning and persists in straw man attacks such as those in this post (all adults can work any job they want etc. . .) None of this is helpful or warranted.
Thanks.
Timothy, Virginia offers nothing useful wherever it posts, and often complains that its posts are deleted. Just ignore it.
If you look at ed reform and public schools at the state level, it’s remarkable how much of it it is completely about testing.
When they came out with those stats, testing is “2%” of time in public schools (or whatever) they should have made a companion set to measure how much of ed reform policy and practice re: public schools consists of a singular focus on tests.
I think it would be 90% of ed reform time and energy in Ohio. They spent all of last year’s legislative session on tests and they’re on track to do it again. Public schools literally get nothing from these people except tests.
I’m not surprised superintendents are questioning when the benefit arrives- what it is they’re racing TO or FOR. It was bound to happen eventually.
Chiara: let me add one—
It’s all about what rheephormsters are running away FROM: responsibility, accountability and transparency.
And when the chickens come home to roost? Take a lesson from LAUSD: turns out that John Deasy was just about the only one responsible for throwing away a third of a billion [yes, Billion, not Million] dollars on iPads and MISIS [not to include other stuff].
Yes. Not the LAUSD BoE. Not Eli Broad and his army of enablers, enforcers and salespeople. Not the LATIMES. Nope.
And Mr. Deasy got $60,000 severance pay and a soft landing in the Broad Academy.
One thing they don’t run away from: $tudent $ucce$$.
😎
Time bombs
This 2% claim is nothing more than a bogus sound-bite.
If you tell a class of 9 year olds that there is a ticking time bomb in the school that will go off in April and that they have to spend from September to March learning how to diffuse bombs (in lieu of more important activities), then the 7 hours spent actually diffusing the bomb doesn’t begin to paint the picture. More voodoo math from the politicians.
The video of the one superintendent’s presentation is interesting, but the link to the “vision statement” is well worth the time it takes to read it in it’s entirety.
The vision and goals for education should be child centered. A school is not a business where the students are commodities and the institution is a profit maker.
The purpose of government is to protect its citizens, not abuse them as a means to increase the wealth of a select few.
This is 2016, not a hundred years + ago when labor was cheap and expendable.
For shame that we are still being taken advantage of, all in the name of progress.
The question is not whether “she” gives up the testing and accountability regime but whether she has instructed her district to not participate in any way, shape or fashion with the testing. Can she or has she done so?? If the district is still doing the testing then her words are hollow. I hope someone can document that I am mistaken about hollow words and hollower deeds.
Good point. My Texas Super occasionally broadcasts anti-testing messages in his internal messages to staff. Good for warm fuzzies, and little else, as nothing at all has changed. Check that, things are getting worse.
She’s still enthralled with “standards” which are the flip side of the educational standardized testing coin. What ever happened to having a good curriculum???
I have not gone beyond reading the extracts that you provided, but I found myself a little uncomfortable with the choice of language that still retains a whiff of business speak. Can we please reclaim the language of education and get away from trying to sound businessy? Knowledge workers…really? And students are still customers. No!
Did anyone read down to page 13, Article 1 “The New Digital Learning Environment?” This document is a slick vehicle for online proficiency/competency-based learning. All the nice things said in all the other sections don’t matter a whit if “virtual learning” holds a place that is “equally valued and supported” as learning with live human teachers in the company of real children (see below). Folks, they want taxpayer funds to support Ed-Tech and content management companies at the same level as actual certified teachers (actually they probably want more, but will settle for a 50/50 split for now).
The TASA folks and the corporate interests whose agendas they are advancing are trying to lull people into a sense complacency, hoping we’ll feel like we’re finally being heard. They presume we aren’t paying close enough to notice the poison pill inserted into the middle of this document. If you don’t believe me. I think the list of “thought leaders” from the mid-winter conference TASA held just a few weeks ago shows just what type of education they are advancing. Not surprisingly there were many online education advocates in the room including Tom Vander Ark. http://www.tasanet.org/domain/263
From Article 1 of this document page 13:
“I.c The potential of learning anywhere, anytime, “any path, any pace” must be embraced. Future learning will be a combination of learning at school, virtual learning, learning at home, and in the community.
I.e Virtual learning should become the norm in every community to meet the needs of students who prefer such an environment.
I.f The secondary school credit system should be expanded beyond school walls so that any place/any time learning, including virtual learning, are equally valued and supported.”
And this language from page 3 is straight out of the CBE playbook :
“J. Schools where students advance based on their learning and performance instead of seat time, courses are dominant over classes, and use of time and space is flexible and innovative.
P. New learning standards dictating major changes in how schools are organized, the assumptions and beliefs on which their culture and structure are based, meaning the factory model must give way to more flexible ways of achieving the standards.”
This legislation affirming virtual online education in Texas was passed, with significant input from parties like iNACOL in 2013: http://tea.texas.gov/index4.aspx?id=2147512267
Wow, and if you are looking for a bit more detail on this document, these implementation tables are pretty eye-opening. Just jump right in with Article 1: http://www.transformtexas.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/matrix.pdf
I worked for her for years, she’s all about the test scores. I once sat in a meeting where one of her people told a group of 3rd grade teachers if they didn’t bring up the benchmark scores, b/c “only” 83% passed, heads would roll. This group of teachers had a 98% passing rate in reading the year before and were told it wasn’t good enough b/c not enough kids were commended. She was also a big advocate of the “Open Court Police” where teachers were required to teach from the Open Court script, and monitors from the district made sure the correct word walls were up for the week.
Not buying her conversion
Mike in Texas,
I believe in conversion. Read my book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” where I describe my conversion experience. A completely revised version will be published in June
Wow I guess I must be really naive? I thought the linked paper was the best thing I’ve read in years. It really made my day to think there were 31 sch supts in Texas looking to change the ed policy discussion in this direction. I even liked the way they tucked the CBE stuff way down in the doct, giving it a nod yet making it clear (I thought) that such systems are a small part of the whole. And as to the speaker being ‘all about the test scores’, I heard her saying we tried it and it’s no good, has bought us nothing, & she seemed to feel really bad about all the harm done to students in the name of Ed reform.
Sp&Fr Freelancer, I urge you not to condemn the superintendent for past bad ideas. We should welcome her into the fold for discovering she was wrong.
Yes, exactly, Diane. I must have worded that poorly. A post above suggested the speaker was really all about the test scores; I meant to say she stated she seemed to be rejecting that past and sorry for the harm it had done children. I thought both the video & doct were terrific, & surprised at negative responses.
Many of these superintendents have a known history of implementing reform policies. Proceed with caution. The words are eloquent, but words are cheap in Texas. I smell a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Agreed. Now that the winds of change are blowing against the so called “reforms” some people are changing their tunes. In my case I listened to the aforementioned supt. talk about how we need to treat our schools like a business and think about our customers. She drank the reform Kool-Aid big time, and I’ve yet to see enough to believe she has really changed her colors.
Mike, so did I. Let’s encourage redemption.
Diane, I have read several of your books, and the part where I disagree with you is that you seem to think your old reform buddies like Chester Finn mean well. I completely disagree; not only do they mean to do harm but they plan to help themselves and their friends to money that should be going to the nation’s schoolchildren.
I have direct experience with the person you are holding up a shining example. Her school district was all about looking good and getting the big test scores.
From today’s Wall Street Journal:
In 2015, U.S. News & World Report ranked the Scottsdale school run by the Basis charter-school operator, grades five through 12, as the top charter and second-best public high school in the country. All Basis students take AP classes, and 96% pass their exams, compared with 57% nationwide. More than 90% of students scored proficient in math on state tests while only about half of students districtwide do. The school is particularly well known for its science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and foreign-language programs, which include Mandarin and Latin.
Like most charter schools, Basis Scottsdale doesn’t offer teacher tenure. Teachers are paid bonuses based on the number of students who pass AP exams with high scores. The school randomly selects students by lottery and has drawn many middle-class Asian families to the area with the promise of a free, top-flight education. There are nearly 1,200 students on the wait list.
James Byron S.,
The eminent researcher Gene Glass has written extensively about BASIS. It accepts hundreds of students but graduates only a small proportion. The rest leave. The majority of its students are white and Asian. It enrolls few black or Hispanic students. Some BASIS schools have no ELLs, no poor kids.
BASIS is an elite private school funded by taxpayers.
Diane, more than once I’ve argued with choice proponents (I am one) that there was a good deal of self-selection happening with charter schools. But, I accept that and have no problem with it. I just want to be honest and straightforward about it. My point in posting that from the WSJ was that good schools are going to hold teachers accountable and, in my opinion, some sort of testing is inevitably going to be a part of doing that. A teacher’s job is to impart knowledge. Testing merely gauges how much knowledge has been imparted. If a school leader is not looking at test results at some level, that school leader is incompetent at best, irresponsible at worst. Of course, in a rigorous situation, the teacher’s own testing will be a good guide. Hopefully, that is happening in this superintendent’s schools.
That said, I recently wrote a short piece about the education triangle where I argue, and will stand by it, that testing was made high-stakes and based on state curriculum standards, not by legislators so much as at the education establishment’s insistence in an effort to keep control, make everything “fair,” and make sure kids were punished if they didn’t do their best on the tests. The education establishment kept achievement test results secret for years. There was no reason to do so except to protect the incompetent from ever being held accountable.
As for my reasons for having no problem letting elites have their schools, it’s simple. Those who are motivated to learn should be allowed to without the distractions of those who don’t. I wish those who don’t (and their parents) could be repeatedly thrown out of schools in a choice-only world where they would, at some point, have no choice but to confront their own lack of work ethic and decent values. Alas, all we do is enable them, and hurt the truly motivated in the meantime. It’s immoral on multiple levels.
I am in favor of schools for elites if they pay for it. I don’t want to pay my taxes for schools that exclude it kick out kids they don’t want. If you want to send your kids to a private school, go right ahead. But don’t ask me to pay for it.
We have socialism in roads. Rich people get roads in really nice neighborhoods. Nobody says tax-funded roads must only go in poor neighborhoods or mixed-income neighborhoods. But for the most part, roads are pretty much the same regardless of neighborhood. Why does this sort of thing change only for education? Only in education are people arguing that the only right thing is for it to be government provided. Roads are built by private contractors.
As for serving all comers, BASIS does mostly locate in rich neighborhoods. But KIPP, which locates otherwise, is no less picky about its customers. Both serve kids/families who are motivated to learn.
I want my tax dollars used to educate kids, not to provide warehouses for them, and not to provide thrilling working environments for adults. Our public schools are constantly saying “get lost” to kids now. Just look at the dropout rate. A full-on choice system would force positive change not just on the part of providers, but also on the part of families and kids. Right now, public schools blame the kids and parents for shortcomings (and legislators, and testing, and school choice, and, and and). Many parents and kids blame the schools for the failures of the kids. Full-on choice would require everybody to look at themselves for their failures and push them to more success. It’s easy to blame a monopoly school for all your kid’s woes, but a bit harder when you have a choice of schools.
I’m glad the kids at BASIS are rising to their full potentials rather than being dragged down by others who don’t care. And where your tax money isn’t really going to BASIS, given where you live, mine did when I lived in Arizona, nowhere near Scottsdale.
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Kayla Kirkpatrick, if you are looking for this post, it is still online: https://dianeravitch.net/2016/02/16/texas-superintendent-of-the-year-tells-state-board-i-have-given-up-the-testing-and-accountability-game/