A mom in New Mexico doesn’t understand why the schools in her state treat her twin sons as failures and refuse to acknowledge their strengths. Is there room in our schools for children who are gifted with their hands and highly skilled at fixing things but not so good at taking standardized tests?
She writes:
I recently retired (forced out, actually) after 30 years in education. I still have three kids in school; one thankfully will graduate this year. She has no desire to go to a traditional college, although extremely capable. She fears it will be too much like high school..She has plans to go to a cosmetology school.
But it’s my twin 14 year old boys I’ve always worried about. Every year on every standardized test they are on the “cusp.” Not proficient, but just barely. Now as they get older and more aware it frustrates them. They are all boy, can operate every power tool in the house, build elaborate shelves, swings, chairs, and recently have convinced their dad to let them “work on” his 1977 pickup that’s been sitting idle for 20 + years.
They are avid hunters, can build a campfire if needed, fix most broken items in the house, and willingly take electronics apart to figure out how they work.
They are in no AP classes because they cannot make the grade. They are in lower level classes with most teachers who have the attitude that they won’t learn much (which they really haven’t because of the teachers attitudes toward them.) They can’t join the robotics team because it’s for Gifted only.
They are super bright, capable, hands-on kind of boys. One has decided that mechanic or welding school is in his future. He has no confidence that he could even make it to college, The other still has aspirations of going to college, but that too is being squelched with his poor performance on PARCC (which, btw, scores were just released to parents –it’s February!)
I am saddened that my own kids have been robbed of developing at their own pace. I too was a late bloomer. My high school teachers never thought I could make it through college. I have an Ed.S. In educational leadership.
How does a parent turn this around?? My husband and I have saved all our lives so we could help our kids through college, but guess what, our educational system, has destroyed that dream.
Thanks, Superintendent Hanna Skandera and Governor Susana Martinez.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My son was in the same boat, although he tested more at below basic. I opted him out of all standardized state tests after 3rd grade. He has now graduated from High School, is an Eagle Scout, and training to be a commercial airline pilot, which will be done in about another year.
He is inching his way through college with about 60 units after 4 years. Each in his or her own time. My goal was to get him through school without the system doing too much harm.
He does not like “college” because his talents were not testable. Hang in there New Mexico Mom. Your boys have you. That is what matters most. Try to keep them away from the test scores if they do them harm.
Most educators, like us, know the tests are limited in what they measure and I have never seen any instruction change to meet the needs of my son after reviewing his scores. it was about what he couldn’t do rather than what they should do.
Los Angeles Mom
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Bravo!
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As long as these young men finish high school, they can always go to a community college. I have had many students at my community college who had similar stories from high school, but found something that they liked in either vocational/technology or college transfer.
I had one student who needed developmental courses in math because his high school tracked him just like these boys, but he went on to finish the developmental math, earn an A.A. degree, earn a B.S. in Physics, and finally a master’s in Computer Science.
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The only FAILURE in sight is the FAILURE of the reform movement to recognize multiple pathways for success. Gates, Coleman, Duncan, Obama, et. al. have FAILED your sons. Political will has FAILED your sons. Their FAILED policies and FAILED programs and FAILED laws have all FAILED your sons and hundreds of thousands just like them. The only FAILURE in sight is not owned by your boys, not by a long shot.
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May we ask where she received her Ed. S.?
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That’s five comments for today, VA
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I think you asked that question so you can find a way to discredit this mother. You are great on finding bogus ways to discredit people and dismiss them like you dismissed Singer’s piece on Pearson, because he wasn’t an anointed journalist working for the often biased and flawed traditional profit over truth motivated corporate media, and, according to you, doesn’t understand how corporations work.
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Why?
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I don’t see why mom’s educational doctorate is anyone’s business but her own,and has nothing to do with the issues she’s talking about. I agree with Mr. Lofthouse. You want to judge Mom’s comments based on the prestige of the university where she gor her doctorate. How dare you!
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Truly too kind, Diane.
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True, comments here assassinate the character of public figures who put forward terrible policy.
But, just as when class discussions degenerate into character assassination of those in the discussion, especially cheap shots and inappropriate allusions, it is time to remove the transgressors from the debate. In this case, ultimately it means removal from civilized society. Nothing has to happen overtly. It is all about internal senses of credit and respect.
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University of NM… Why does that matter?
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Virginia, you asked “May we …?”
Does that mean virginasgp is more than one person, or, if virginasgp is only one person, has he/she elected him/her the voice of everyone that comments on this blog and even the voice of Diane?
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I think Diane deleted my comment about Akademos wanting to not only ban me from this board but apparently lock me up away from “civilized society”. I can only imagine Akademos is a huge Trump supporter. I guess Diane figured my 5 comment quota was up.
In any case, judging from the program reqts of the Ed. S. “certificate” at the University of New Mexico, she took “Data Informed Instructional Leadership”. That must mean she understands VAMs. It also means she should easily pass the Florida FELE exam that so many teachers on here complained about. If I pay her administration fee, any takers on whether she would pass? Maybe Governor Martinez can follow Florida’s lead and upgrade the reqts for these degrees.
But I don’t understand the frustration with the welder career. Those boys will earn a good living and enjoy it more. The only ones calling that path a failure are the politicians and teachers who say only a college degree is useful. That’s silly. And they will be heeding the call of one Marco Rubio who challenged kids everywhere to stop wasting their lives and do something productive (more welders, “less” philosophers). Bravo I say.
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Ask welders how much is their student loan?
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Depends on where they learned to be a welder. If they went to a community college, probably no student debt. But if they were suckered by one of the ads and propaganda from a private sector vocational school, maybe $35,000 and the no one wants to hire them because the for-profit school cut so many corners to boost profits, the student didn’t end up with the skills necessary to be a welder.
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Internship
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An internship is good as long as the intern is paid at least minimum wage while they are learning from a master welder.
For instance, when I earned my teaching credential back in 1975-76, it was through a year long, full time, paid internship (minimum wage) in an urban residency program where I was assigned to a master teacher’s fifth grade classroom in a public school where the child poverty rate was close to 100%.
The pay wasn’t much but it was much better than having to pay someone else to learn and what I learned served me well for the next 29 years.
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We will have a generation of lost students as long as we allow colonial thinking to dominate our educational policies. This is a problem in Great Britain where, if you don’t cut the muster on one exam, you can leave school at sixteen if you can find an apprenticeship program. This is a bad policy to emulate. One of the best aspects of our educational policy is that we have traditionally encouraged second chances. As mentioned above, community colleges offer training in high yield programs like plumbing, welding, and wind turbine technology. The IBEW, the electrician union, also offers apprenticeship program in many cities. There are opportunities for students with different types of intelligence, and, in many cases, these lead to lucrative, high demand careers.
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You make a very important point, retired teacher.
For all of it’s many shortcomings, public education in the US has often been about second chances, which, as someone who initially dropped out of college but eventually went on to become a career teacher, I have personally been a beneficiary of. However, that is being lost as the so-called reformers continue their hostile takeover of public education, and push their obsession with sorting and ranking students, teachers and schools.
It’s one of the many crimes they have committed, and continue to commit.
As for New Mexico Mom, I hope your sons have not had their self-self-image and self-esteem destroyed by these venal posers who’ve infested the schools. As you describe your boys, it sounds as if they are on their way to becoming fine, successful young men.
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I was a late bloomer—very late. At seven, my mother was told I was retarded and would never learn to read or write. I wasn’t retarded. I had dyslexia, that they didn’t know about back then, and needed glasses. My mother, with advice from my second 1st grade teacher since I was held back a year, taught me to read at home. I taught myself how to write and it took a long time. I never took advanced classes in high school. I never took advanced math in high school. I barely graduated and then joined the Marines and ended up fighting in Vietnam where I decided, thanks to a very close call with a sniper, to go to college. I went to college on the GI Bill and struggled for the first two years in a community college near where I grew up. It took me five years to graduate on the Dean’s honor roll with a BA in journalism. I went to work in middle management for a truck company but a few years later I decided I wanted to teach. I earned my teaching credential during the 1975-76 school year. I’m an avid reader. I’ve written four award winning books and one of them hit Amazon’s top 100 list and was number one in its genre, historical fiction.
I’m a horrible test taker—-always have been. In today’s world, the corporate public education reformers and their autocratic, psychopathic billionaire oligarchs would have guaranteed that I stayed retarded and left behind. I never took the SAT/ACT when I applied to that community college in 1968 right after I was honorably discharged from the Marines, and I don’t know why I was so fortunate to avoid that Orwellian test designed to destroy the lives of those who do not do will on bubble tests or any tests for whatever reason. That community college did give me a reading test to see what my reading level was and I did okay on that test and was not required to take bone head English. Maybe that’s because as a child, my parents, both high school drop outs, were avid readers and I grew up to love reading too and I read hundreds of not thousands of books. In fact, instead of doing homework at night, I was reading science fiction and fantasy paperbacks or historical fiction—sometimes two books a day. I visited the high school and local libraries often because my family was too poor to buy books new.
Tell your sons not to let those fraudulent corporate tests designed to rank and punish teachers and children define who they are or who they will become. Life is a journey taken one step and one day at a time and that journey does not start with a test score or end with one. Those tests were designed by corporations to make profits and nothing else. Those rank and punish tests are all phony—if anything they are a tool of the devil to destroy as many people as possible and subject most of us to the tyranny of the few.
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We have three children. All successful. Our son is dyslexic. Our youngest daughter has a fear of testing. The oldest was an average student. They all graduated from college with two earning Master Degrees. ALL are successful today. But, fortunately for them they finished high school in New Mexico before New Mexico Governor Martinez and Secretary of Education Skandera gave to town with their standardized testing, PARCC, VAM, school grading system, demoralizing Teacher evaluation system, etc. We are positive that at least two of our children would have given up any thoughts of college. The NM standardized system of today would have destroyed at least two of our children’s self-esteem and will to continue their education. I was told by a very bright motivated high school senior from the Class 2016 that all this testing is stealing her education. Many, many Students in New Mexico have had their education stolen because of all this damn standardized testing.
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The above comments are but a very FEW of the kinds of things happening because the politicians know more than the educators who have spent their lives in study AND on the firing line.
“Oh when will they ever learn, Oh when will they ever learn”?
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They, the politicians, will never learn as long as the big corporations are telling them how to make decisions concerning our children’s education. Politicians listen to the big money first and the little people last.
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Unfortunately, though, it isn’t just the politicians. I have a log of stories about students whose parents were told the child should be institutionalized (at age 2), would never be able to graduate from h.s., would never make more than 6 months progress in a year, etc., etc., and those comments came, not from politicians, but from teachers, administrators, and child psychologists.
The child to be institutionalized is a fully functioning adult who graduated from college with honors the same year I received my master’s–both of us “late”; the one who can’t graduate from h.s. got an IB degree and is about to graduate from a four-year college; the one who can’t make more than six months’ progress in a year was admitted to all the colleges of her choice, including 3 top-ranked colleges. They all had educated ongoing parental support.
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Mom, your story is similar to many others. Thomas Jefferson called the purpose of education, “Raking a few geniuses from the rubbish”. We are still doing that. No child is rubbish. Genius evolves in many ways and when the kids are ready, not when the system allows.
We must support the genius in all kids. It is clear that there is genius in your kids. Let them follow their dreams whatever those dreams are. And don’t let anything get in their way. If their dream includes college, go for it even if you start at a community college, there is a way.
When I was very young they said don’t consider college. Now, a BS and MA degree later , a teacher and principal as well as an author, evidently they were wrong.
The standardized test is NOT an indicator of real, whole child achievement. It is for book learned kids that may not have a lick of common sense.
It is what kids can do that is important. Remember Dr Howard Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligence. Let your kids find their genius and follow through on it. And tell them to never forget how wonderfully they are!
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I find it abhorrent that your sons can’t join the robotics team! Really, you should go to the Principal, and if not successful, the Board. Extracurricular activities should be open to everyone. Threaten to litigate, because there is no reason to be that exclusionary! If your sons are excluded, its likely others are, too. The children you fight for are not just your own, but are all of the children who will come your sons’ school after yours.
Round up some parents and storm a Board meeting. Every School Board has a public comment time. Mine has a 3 minute limit. So I’m speaking up! The school board in my district meets every two weeks, so I’m writing a speech every two weeks. Stand up and read them your letter! My speech last week to my Board got a standing ovation! I Longtime Board members said they’d never seen that before. Part of my speech was quoted in our local paper. I posted the enitre speech on my Facebook page, and it’s gone viral around my town. I’m sitting at Starbucks (writing my speech for the next Board meeting!), and I just ran into a City Council member, who I know, but is not in my circle of friends. He just told me he loved my speech and agreed with a lot of the things I said! I had no idea that anyone else felt the same way I did, but it turns out that A LOT of other people feel the same way, and I bet if you seek out other parents you will find that a lot of them would agree with you! And they don’t have to be parents of kids who don’t test well. My kids are both GATE, and I feel strongly that your kids should be able to join robotics! I don’t live in your state, but if I did, I’d come and speak at your school board’s meeting! I really would!
The testing issue is much bigger. Diane Ravitch is doing everything she can to keep it in the forefront of people’s minds, but she’s not going to be able to do it alone. It’s lucky that she’d established herself as a national voice in the field of education already, so she can use her voice in at a national level. Most of the rest of us don’t have that kind of audience, but we have our local friends, Board members, and legislators. Go meet with your School Board members. Each of them. One on one. Tell them what you’ve said. There is nothing so passionate as a parent advocating for their own child! Not only are you passionate because you love your children, but no one knows them better than you!
We’ve been blessed to live in a country where we can speak up. So many others in this world, especially women, cannot speak out about injustice. But we can. So use your voice! Organize! Fight for your kids. Fight for ALL of our kids! You will never, ever, ever fight for anything more important.
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What a wasted last eight years for public education in this country — as if the eight years prior to that represented Nirvana! Race to the Top was pablum intended, apparently, to enslave young people to public service so that taxpayers can pay off the students’ loans. It’s time for the federal government to get out of public education, to decommission the Dept. of Education, to decontaminate public school students so they realize it’s okay to enter the trades and not go to college. Did anyone read this mother’s word?
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New Mexico Mom, my heart goes out to you. I’ve seen the pall that comes over kids- who know they are capable of so much, then they see their test scores and it starts to wear them down. They begin to doubt themselves. Your little guys sound like mechanical geniuses to me. Don’t let anyone or anything take that away from them.
I’ve been interested in the “Maker Space” efforts that have happened in some places. Students create, build, and collaborate. They become social hubs, too, where the ability to craft is celebrated. Some time and imagination could help a lot of kids who’d like to do robotics club.
John Adams said — ‘Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write .’
“Tenderly and Kindly”
No testing involved.
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Stories here resonate, even from another era, before the test and data mongers started phony projections of paths to success or failure based on test scores. Encourage the boys by honoring and supporting their affinities for invention. Public libraries are offering maker spaces, minimal fees for materials, so are some artisan/artist collectives.
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Honestly, the though of standardized testing is horrible. This nation is based upon the “progress” each student has throughout the school year. These test don’t even measure that. They measure a student at a particular moment in time. This could be either when the student is doing great or having a bad day. Most students who fail these exams consistently have this mindset that they are a failure and they will continue to fail. Having students begin testing at such a young age is not great; if they fail a few times, they will believe they are not fit out for school. Kids at a young age usually don’t have a large attention span and won’t focus. As they get older, they get accustomed to this type of environment and don’t pay attention in school or to their surroundings, causing them to fail. I recently wrote an article discussing how these type of test affect certain students in the classroom, here’s a link. http://www.educationandtheenvironment.com/blog/students-with-asd
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