Michael Hynes is a veteran superintendent of schools in New York. His district–Patchogue-Medford– is one of those where about half the students opted out of state testing. He has a better vision for education than that of New York State or the federal government.
He writes:
Public Education and what it stands for has been taking a beating not only in New York but across this great nation for far too long. It is my belief that the people who think they know all the answers (policy makers and corporate reformers who are non-educators) are getting in the way of the leaders who understand what our students truly need and deserve.
There is no better time than right now since there is a four year moratorium in New York related to the development of new standards, teacher/principal evaluations and state assessments. Now is the time for our school leaders to have a collective voice about a number of items we have solutions to.
Nobody likes to live in regret….my biggest fear is ten years from now, history will question why school leaders didn’t push back or voice their concerns against the agenda of changing public education. Now is the time to have our collective voices known. A compendium of our ideas and opinions will be sent to the Board of Regents, Commissioner of Education, the heads of the Senate and Assembly and our Governor. It is my hope to have this information ready for the public by November.
Here is a letter that was sent to every NY Superintendent:
Dear Superintendent Colleague:
It is a privilege and honor serving our school communities as educational leaders. It is a remarkable experience like no other. As superintendents, we are entrusted and responsible for our communities’ most prized possessions, the children. We are responsible for everyone’s safety as well as a child’s academic, social and emotional growth. It is a tightrope walk between the balancing acts of educator and politician twenty-four hours a day… seven days a week.
Like any leadership position, a school leader deals with obstacles on a daily basis. But the impediments we face have grown tremendously because of the mandates our state and federal governments have put in place over the past several years. These mandates are at a point that I believe is interfering with our work to best serve our children and our communities. And while there is much anti-public school sentiment that we read about in the news, there is also a rising awareness of the harm that is happening as well as growing frustration among our parent bodies and community leaders. In light of the harm our schools and children have endured, and to put our schools back on the right track, I write to suggest that now is the time to speak out against:
• The overemphasis and overreliance on assessing our children
• The disproportionate use of state tests to evaluate students and teachers
• The hard push for technology as a substitute for teaching and the lack of professional development
• The demonization of teachers and administrators
• The over emphasis on ranking and sorting students and staff into impractical and unrealistic categories
• The early push to be college and career ready, even in Kindergarten
• The insufficient discussion about alternate paths for students, such as vocational school or military opportunities
• The chronic government underfunding of special education
• The use of un-validated and not-fully-transparent tests that have high stakes attached
• Curriculum that sets unachievable standards for our most vulnerable learners
• Protecting personally identifiable student data
The list can go on and on. I realize we have many educational leaders who are relentless advocates for their school district and students. They are innovators within their domains but are hesitant to voice their apprehensions outside of their schoolhouses. The messages from the state have led many to stay quiet, but I believe that now is the time we can act as a whole. By acknowledging our shared concerns, we can send our own message that the time for change and for putting children first is now.
I would love to see New York State educational leaders push for more recess, play and begin redirecting the important focus toward educating the “whole child.” Together we can concentrate on supporting all our children by addressing their social, emotional and academic needs. Now is the time to promote more project-based learning opportunities for our schools. Together we can push the pendulum toward a thoughtful school that will harvest the talents of our students so they are
educated … and move away from a clinical habitation where students are trained to perform well on standardized tests. Parents, students and educators are looking toward our educational leaders now more than ever.
As a beginning, I am looking to collect the thoughts/opinions of superintendents from across the great state of New York in a qualitative nature that support the bulleted items above as well as other issues you think need attention. My hope is to collate the majority of our sentiments on the above mentioned items listed in this letter and with your permission, send a compendium to our state’s education policy makers, including the Board of Regents, Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, the heads of the Senate and Assembly, as well as the head of the Education Committees, and Governor Cuomo. I am happy to include anonymous postings if that is what anyone wants. I am requesting that your statement is limited to 300 words or less. It would be beneficial if your statements were sent via email to me at mhynes@pmschools.org no later than Friday, September 30th. Once completed I will send
you a copy.
Please feel free to contact me at your earliest convenience with any questions you may have. Thank you for your time and continued commitment to all our children.
Respectfully yours,
Michael J. Hynes, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Nobody likes to live in regret….my biggest fear is ten years from now, history will question why school leaders didn’t push back or voice their concerns against the agenda of changing public education.”
I also wonder about this failure to succeed in “pushing back” agains such an obvious convergence on educational malpractice and demonizing of public education. So-called reforms instituted by federal and state officials, and supported by all too many educational groups, have overwhelmed many efforts to organize for collective resistance.
The steamrolling continues in almost every state. I suspect that job insecurity amplified by the economic meltdown stalled collective resistance.
I hope that many more superintendents, principals, teachers, and parents–especially parents will join the campaign to stop policies that call for educational malpractice as if perfectly normal and above criticism.
LikeLike
Well stated, Laura. “Reform,” based on nothing more than hot air and bias, has captured our leaders. More professional teachers and administrators should get involved in authentic reform, but they parents should lead the charge as they are not so easily dismissed. “Reform,” which borrows its flawed logic from the business world, is really a hostile takeover. The sooner people understand this, the better for them. We need real reason and strong opposition on our side. We have to fight for public education, or it could become the next endangered species.
LikeLike
“. . . has captured our leaders.”
First they are not “my leader”.
And they weren’t “captured”. Those “leaders” (as sic of a usage as can be) have willingly and enthusiastically implemented and enforced these malpractices. May they rot in hell for having chosen the expediency of their own self importance and monetary rewards over justice for the most innocent, the children in their charge.
From one of the world’s premier thinkers:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [and/or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Andre Comte-Sponville in “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” [my additions]
LikeLike
“Now is the time to have our collective voices known.”
While technically true and better late than never but where the hell have those voices been for the last 15 years? And not only voices but ACTION??? Until I see ACTIONS such as returning the testing materials back to the state with a note that the supe can’t be a part of educational malpractices that harm many children.
Show me the worn soles of the shoes of the supes who have ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING to stop, impede these malpractices. Oh, I know there are no shoes with soles that worn.
Leader this and leader that, self-congratulatory bullshit. Leaders of lambs to the slaughter like the many Good Germans in the 30s and 40s. True leaders put themselves on the line first not last as all these supes do.
Sorry, no I’m not sorry, these supes are Johnny Come Latelys who haven’t done squat, except to harass those of us who have put our jobs on the line by speaking out and refusing to participate.
Come on Mr. Hynes, put your cojones on the line and refuse to be a part of these malpractices by mandating that your district will not participate.
I doubt that will happen, no I don’t doubt, I’m sure that won’t happen.
From one of America’s premier writers:
“The mass of men [and women] serves the state [education powers that be] thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, [administrators and teachers], etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. SUCH COMMAND NO MORE RESPECT THAN MEN OF STRAW OR A LUMP OF DIRT.”- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author and philosopher [MY EMPHASIS]
LikeLike
Interesting choice of words.
There are many superintendents who are speaking out and doing the right thing. We do need more of them to do so. It is unfair to paint them all with one broad brush. I know many who are speaking out and making a difference. My point re: my letter is…I want more to speak up so it is one unified voice across the state.
LikeLike
Thanks for replying, Michael.
But please don’t be afraid to say what you think about my comments, I can handle it. I do not mean to impugn your current motives other than to say that speaking out is not enough.
I’ve seen the herd mentality at play in administrative discourse and actions and it has never come close to actually DOING SOMETHING CONCRETE for the benefit of the students, i.e., refusing to participate in the malpractices that the herd has so diligently implemented over the years.
And I’ve felt the administrative hooves running all over me not only for attempting to speak with the herd members, who always seem to have to take a very important phone call (damn near every single time) but also in taking the ethical stand by not being a part of the many schemes hatched to satisfy the testing gods-raising the scores.
And yes, I have paid the price being hounded out of a district and having to take a 30% pay cut to continue teaching in another district. Not to mention being ostracized and other teachers not wanting to be seen with that crazy Spanish teacher who challenges the idiocies forced onto the staff, even though the staff agrees with what I have challenged. Have you paid that kind of price?
What my intent is to try to burn into your heart the understanding that words aren’t enough and that in your position of supposed “leadership” you would choose to do the ethical and just course of ACTION. Because in the meantime many many students are being harmed by the path of inaction you have chosen to take.
Am I being too strident and harsh? Not when one considers the consequences of implementing the malpractices that you, the leaders, do.
Don’t open your heart on my account though, open it for yourself so that you may truly become a “hero” of public education by being one of the first to put your position on the front line.
LikeLike
Right you are, Duane. The inner philosophical (and financial—think Detroit) corruption of the public schools is what has brought them to this state of attack. But aside from you, I see no self-knowledge therein.
It is a shame that those who lead education and those who follow them have themselves thrown away the credibility of many public school systems, a great idea at the start, a true service to society, but no longer, and are permitting themselves by their progressive ideological lockstep to perdition (symbolized by their unions’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton, the epitome of using government for financial self aggrandizement) to further the growth of equally corrupt charters, brick and mortar as well as cyber.
When “reform” of the entire progressive agenda has come to be lodged in the honest but inept hands of a Donald Trump, progressivism should damn itself for its sins.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I certainly wouldn’t consider Trump to have “honest hands”, quite the contrary.
It is not “progressivism” that “should damn itself” because it is each individual’s decision to implement those malpractices which I so stridently condemn. It’s not the political philosophy of the individual that matters but their actions and discourse (and I don’t exclude myself from that condemnation). Seen good and bad in all political philosophies which is why I choose none to describe myself other than free thinker.
LikeLike
Hello Harlan Underhill: I have two contributions to your recent note: First, I have seen no evidence from either those who lean Republican or Democratic that either has a lock on ignorance or bad will about education and its relationship to our form of government and the social order that flows from it. Second, my guess is that many of Donald Trump’s early teachers are dead now. If so, the walls of their coffins have been rubbed clean from their inhabitants having rolled over in them so often. Catherine
LikeLike
I don’t live in New York; however, what a wonderful letter. Below, I’ve abbreviated an earlier note to add here regarding MEASURING with some quoted material. The first part is 298 words, but with further quoted material, it’s circa 700 words. For what it’s worth:
ON MEASURING LEARNING, some might MEAN by “measure:” “to give an intelligible, verifiable, and reasonable account.” But wishes aside, often it merely means “counting items.”
Unfortunately, many who have power to set policy for the rest of us, along with many scientists, are laboring under a set of limiting ideas. That is, many come to education with a bad paradigm in place concerning SCIENCE. Here, “science” doesn’t mean critical-scientific method as applied to ANY data. Rather, in common usage, “science” has morphed to mean natural and physical data ONLY.
With such thinking in place, what is “scientific” must logically leave out specifically-human data and does not relate to the science of development as applied across-the-board to all aspects of human beings. In this case, that limited thinking flows into a similarly-limited view of the fullness of educating the whole human being, with the implications for students’ psychological, social, moral, political, spiritual and generally cultural being. Limited ideas about measurement, testing and assessments tend to follow.
This grand oversight was deposited in this century from the last two; and is now playing havoc with us all.
With that in mind, below, is a take on MEASURING and HUMAN DEVELOPMENT (AKA education), from the philosopher, Bernard Lonergan in his “Insight: A Study of Human Understanding” (2000/Collection 3/pp. 488-90).
“Our first observation must be negative. The extraordinary success of the physical sciences naturally enough led investigators of the organism, the psyche, and intelligence to a servile rather than an intelligent adoption of successful procedures. In physics and chemistry, measuring is a basic technique that takes inquiry from the relation of things to our senses, to their relations to one another. But when one mounts to the higher integrations of the organisms, the psyche, and intelligence, one finds that measuring loses both in significance and in efficacy. . . .”
That’s 300 or so words. But here is a continuation of the above quoted material with my brief comments for clarity, and a follow up, which brings the whole note up to a little over 700 words:
“It (measuring) loses its significance, for the higher integration is, within limits, independent of the exact quantities of the lower manifold it systematizes. Moreover, the higher the integration, the greater the independence of lower quantities, so that the meaning of one’s dreams is not a function of one’s weight, and one’s ability in mathematics does not vary with one’s height.”
“Besides this loss in significance, there is also a loss in efficacy. Classical method can select among the functions that solve differential equations by appealing to measurements and empirically established curves. What the differential equation is to classical method, the general notion of development is to genetic method.” (ME: Genetic here, then, refers to the science of development and not to the study of genes). “But while the differential equation is mathematical, the general notion of development is not” (ME: and so doesn’t follow numerically-base measuring). “It follows that, while measurement is an efficacious technique for finding boundary conditions that restrict differential equations, it possesses no assignable efficacy when it comes to particularizing the general notion of development” (ME: or by inference human beings who are much more complex and whose higher orders of psyche and intelligence have different, and much more variable, schemes of recurrence as developmental.”
. . . “Regular physical events are apt to recur in some single determinate scheme. But organic, psychic, and intellectual events are recurrent, not in single schemes, but in flexible circles of ranges of schemes. Nor is that all. There is the fact of development.” (ME: development occurs differently in, is interactive with, and occurs across all schemes and ranges.)
“Concomitantly the flexible circle of schemes of recurrence both shifts and expands. Operations that initially were impossible or extremely awkward and inefficient become possible, spontaneous, economical, rapid and effective. . . . The physicist must” (he gives analogy) . . . . “Similarly, the biologist, the psychologist, and the intellectual theorist have to operate not only in the light of a general notion of development but also in accord with more specialized directives.” END QUOTE ME: . . . according to research-to-application developments in each field, e.g., education, philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc.
Much of that actually goes on anyway in classrooms across the land because generally teachers know what education is; and the best of them know both intuitively and theoretically-technically. However, testing and assessments often falls to others’ minds and hands; and so the oversight rears its ugly head; and a recognition of its vagaries inspires blogs like this one and letters like the one above from Michael J. Hynes, Ed.D., Superintendent of Schools in New York.
LikeLike
If I may summarize what Catherine is saying:
The misuse/abuse of the terms standards and measurement by educators and pyschometricians including fundamental onto-epistemological fallacies and contradictions in conjunction with the amazingly complex process that is teaching and learning can only render any conclusion from the standards and measurement malpractices COMPLETELY INVALID.
Catherine, a question for you:
Have you read Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error”? If so, your thoughts please.
LikeLike
To Duane: No, I haven’t read Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error”? I’ll see if I can find it. In the interim, your thoughts? Catherine
LikeLike
Catherine,
I’ll post a link below in a separate post so as to not totally “Chiletize”/stringbean the response. See below.
LikeLike
Also, when you read it, if you have any questions feel free to email me dswacker@centurytel.net if you wish to discuss any part.
LikeLike
Addendum and response to others’ notes: My own note above refers to deep-set thinking errors. However, I am convinced that, like others here, some in power are also completely, and quite literally invested-in and identified-with destroying anything publicly funded, anything that is in fact for-the-people, and anything that falls under related publicly-ordered oversight and regulation.
LikeLike
I think part of the assault is ideological, and the other part is greed. Corporations want access to public money to, as has been well stated before, socialize the risk of their investment, and privatize profit. This explains the increasing corporate presence in utilities, health care, education, prisons and elder care. I am sure there are other examples as well.
LikeLike
Amen Catherine, this assault has little to do with education and much to do with the destruction of Public Goods or Common Goods.
http://www.alternet.org/visions/chomsky-corporations-and-richest-americans-viscerally-opposed-common-good
It is also an assault on educations role k-U, worker drones being preferable to an educated populous.
“In other words: educate them the “right way” — to be obediently passive and accept their fate as right and just, conforming to the New Spirit of the Age. Keep their perspectives narrow, their understanding limited, discourage free and independent thought, instill docility and obedience to keep them from the Masters’ throats.”
To be fair Chomsky was referring to an earlier period. A period interrupted for a brief time But one they seek to return to.
LikeLike
Retired teacher
Yes there is greed and certainly the revolving door between political appointees,Think Tanks and those who will profit from ed reform is revolting. But it is difficult to see how the Billionaire Philanthropists and Hedge fund club on Wall Street are in it for the money. Too many players dividing the pie. It’s the ideology. (IMHO)
LikeLike
To Joel Herman: Yes–no broad-brush; but generally It’s one of the common human conditions: well-meaning ignorance, money, power, and/or ideology; and the ideology can be political and/or religious; or just what one philosopher calls: libido dominandi. Catherine
LikeLike
Here’s today’s visit to the echo chamber. Bellweather Ed, which is some sort of national ed reform lobbying group.
Read it yourself.
You will not find a single positive mention of a US public school. Loads of cheerleading for charters. Nothing positive on specific public schools or districts.
50 states, tens of thousands of schools, and all of these thousands of paid ed reform advocates can’t find a single positive thing to say about any of them.
That’s not “science”. It’s marketing.
LikeLike
I think Bellwether is paid to root for charters. Secretary King’s wife works there.
LikeLike
Hallelujah!
Educational professionals on every level have found themselves in a dark recess … and in a long wait for some figure of courage and conviction to stand forward and raise common sense concerns about this reform gone wild.
We are in the midst of a great reform-mess that is no longer under any sort of proper control. Edicts arrive daily …from sources on high … that seem ever more disconnected from the realities of the classroom. Hyperbolic theories gain immediate approval … only to be coughed out after great discomfort and unease. Tried and true practices are ridiculed because they bear age … and haven’t the sexy accoutrements of this technological moment. We seem intent on glitter rather than substance. And our children are caught in this ugly churn.
Truth has become a reform casualty. In fact, deception is now an expected obstacle. Stakeholders have become jaded, suspicious, and ever angry that their local schools … the home of neighborhood innocence … have become cruel laboratories of reform-mania with small regard for the sweet souls who appear each day with extra-wonder.
Parents and school leaders like Dr. Hynes have suffered reform shenanigans for a long while … and they’ve done all in their power to make those in policy positions realize the educational harm they see on a regular basis. Parents have witnessed the fallout more than others. They know their children … and they know educational malpractice when they see it. To suggest this resistance is some sort of imaginary affliction is asinine. And Dr. Hynes has shown rare daring in standing side-by-side with parents … and putting his professional reputation on the line.
I hope Dr. Hynes’ splendid display of professional courage morphs into a sweet infection … and that, at long last, we will see the administrative and teaching ranks fold in behind him and speak out about the harm that’s being done to children.
Dr. Hynes is not anti-reform. He understands clearly that schools should be in a constant state of reflection … and reform when that reflection says so. And he is aware that each school has a different constituency … a different community to service and a different student body to embrace. That reality requires specific remedies and cures … school by school. Schools have different cultures and different personalities. Once that’s acknowledged, then the real work of designing proper reforms and remedies can begin.
It’s about time that some important voice challenged all that is wrong with the current moment of reform. Dr. Hynes has not presented a vision of perfect schools … because there is none. This is, instead, a declaration that all schools can become more perfect with conscious effort. But that effort will not be delivered by disconnected theoreticians and beard-scratching, classroom-allergic savants who live in some ivy-covered enclave.
Real reform … the sort that shines schools, smiles children, soothes parents, and reflects well on a community … comes from the energy and innovation of the professionals who unlock those school doors every single morning. Perhaps Dr. Hynes is uncorking local professionalism and community pride as the tonic for a reform that is now entirely deformed.
This is the moment to remind our own local superintendents that it’s time for them to stand with the community that hired them.
In a few days, we should all ring up our local school leaders and ask them point blank … Have you the same courage and leadership of Dr. Hynes? And give them good thought-food for the waning days of summer.
Denis Ian
LikeLike
“. . . school leaders like Dr. Hynes have suffered reform shenanigans for a long while … and they’ve done all in their power to make those in policy positions realize the educational harm they see on a regular basis.”
Horse manure! They haven’t suffered a damn thing. Those “leaders” have all Gone Along to Get Along for the last 15 years. See my two posts above about those supposed “leaders” and their complete lack of concrete action that could have way more forcefully delineated “the educational harm”. They chose to be silent and enacted the malpractices. And through their silence and their enacting the malpractices they are accomplices in that “educational harm”. They should be stripped of their credentials and not allowed anywhere near students.
LikeLike
Please accept my heartfelt salute to you, señor Swacker. It is worth to repeat your expression, as follows”
[start paragraph]
From one of the world’s premier thinkers:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . .
To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [and/or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . .
Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls].
To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . .
Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Andre Comte-Sponville in “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” [my additions]
[end paragraph]
In short, in the particularly NATIONAL EDUCATION ASPECT, the transparency, validity, and foundation of all BASIC CURRICULA must be UNCHANGEABLE and HONORED for life and forever, except to be added or modified to reflect all upgraded or new learning. For instance:
1) Languages: 24 or 26 alphabetical letters in our Latin based system.
2) Math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
3) Science: physics, electricity, mechanics, chemistry… There are all basic formula that learners must master according to their complete level in learning.
4) Educators will upgrade their new teaching science only if it is applicable to their teaching career, like in the post-secondary education.
5) ELL, ESL, Special Ed and primary educators must upgrade their knowledge in certain cultures, and psychology that they teach young, challenged and new learners.
In the same vein, all educators from all levels from teaching to administrators who commit to their educational and teaching career with tenure after 10 years, their pension and their teaching licences are valid for life. This is how to protect them to speak up on behalf of students.
All set-up and implant evidences to defame educators will be seriously punished regardless how the conspiracy from the corrupted authority well works to hurt any renowned educator. Back2basic
LikeLike
For Catherine (and of course all else that are interested):
My summary does not do justice to Wilson’s work (even though Noel read and critiqued it for me). There is a whole lot more said and every time that I read it I get something new–and I’ve read it at least a couple of dozen times.
“Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
LikeLike
Dr. Hynes, and a small group of superintendents in NY have been fighting for years. This letter is not Mike’s first act of resistance. These superintendents have not only supported parent test refusals, they have spoken at a multitude of public forums for 4 years informing parents about the evils of corporate ed reforms. These superintendents were the only ones not invited to Commissioner Elia’s meetings with Long Island Administrators, they have been repeatedly threatened and isolated for speaking out but they have not been silenced. I see no purpose in belittling Dr. Hynes’ effort to push his colleagues out of their safety zones. Parents and teachers in the Opt Out movement on LI know how helpful Dr. Hynes and his small band of brothers- Joe Rella, David Gamberg, and Steve Cohen (and Bill Cala upstate) have been in growing the resistance.
LikeLike
Dr. Hynes you are simply a treasure and a national hero. I hope school leaders take your powerful letter and begin to join the fight to save public education. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE FOR OUR CHILDREN!
LikeLike
I am a 30 year teacher from NYC, and I applaud Dr. Hynes’ letter and efforts on behalf of the students and teachers of his state. it is clear that he is in fact risking his career, being in a position of superintendent and speaking out against these damaging education reforms. You and several other superintendents in NYS have stood up for your communities and it has not gone unnoticed by those in the education activist movement. On behalf of the teachers, parents and students of New York, thank you. To those who would detract from the significance of your letter, rest assured that it is their own lack of integrity that allows them to malign someone who represents what administrators should be. Keep up the good work. ^o^
LikeLike
MIchael Flanagan,
“To those who would detract from the significance of your letter, rest assured that it is their own lack of integrity that allows them to malign someone who represents what administrators should be.”
Why don’t you address me personally? I’m the one doing the “detract(ing) from the (supposed) significance”. I stand by what I’ve written. When I see concrete action, action that prevents the harms to the students which these supes have willingly implemented, then I will commend them. Not before!
As far as “it is their own lack of integrity that allows them to malign someone who represents what administrators should be.”
If you believe that administrators should be implementing malpractices that are known to cause harm to the innocent, the children who are the students (and the standards and testing regime surely does so), you need to look at your own concept of what an administrator should be, because as it is it is sorely lacking in ethical and justice grounds/regards. Your conception of what an administrator should do reflects the Go Along to Get Along Good German attitude that allows these “banalities of evil” to continue. And your attitude also allows these evil malpractices to continue. Yes, I’m calling you, Michael, out on this.
But to express my displeasure at your comment about my supposed “lack of integrity” in a more humorous fashion:
LikeLike
Ok Duane, I give you credit for the Pee Wee Herman clip, so I will respond to the call out. I am not sure why you have this much animosity towards an administrator, who sets himself up above the rest? My colleagues have worked with Dr. Hynes and others like Dr. Rella, and seen first hand how they are winning over communities and creating an environment where nearly 50% of Long Island parents opted their children out of the exams. There was even an increase in test refusals in NYC over last year, based solely on the activism of Long Island Parents, teachers and Administrators. I teach in the city, and have seen first hand what lengths school district will do to silence people from explaining parent’s rights to opt out of standardized testing. That is real leadership. We in the activist movement that have children and jobs to risk, recognize it in others who share that same risk. I agree that Common Core and high stakes testing is completely wrong, and inappropriate. I predict even higher opt out rates this coming year in conjunction with more resistance to Common Core, as long as we unify and stick together. That is how those of us with no real power, will take down the billionaires and corporations who are destroying our public education systems. We will not stay strong and united, if we tear down the efforts of those in educational administration who help with that resistance. NY is leading the nation in push back on HST and CCSS, but we have a ways to go. We are demonstrating real results, not just radicalized rhetoric. It is too soon to throw our allies under the bus. It will take all of us.
LikeLike
Michael,
“I am not sure why you have this much animosity towards an administrator, who sets himself up above the rest?”
The animosity is not directed at the individual. He is just the example given in this post. I’ve stated the same here before for quite a number of different supes and administrators who have been glorified for their “speaking out” against the malpractices which they implement. I’m speaking out against the “do as I say not as I do” attitude, for that is a less than courageous attitude notwithstanding what Diane and others here have to say.
I contend the impact would be enormous if Dr. Hynes were to actually TAKE ACTION against implementing what he is speaking against. HUGE!
What’s the phrase “Actions speak louder than words”. And that can be taken to mean that through inaction a supe’s words become inaction, meaningless nonsense because the harms to the most innocent are still occurring. Or it could mean that a supe could help galvanize the country against these malpractices by taking action to not implement them.
Which one will be the first?
Personally, I wouldn’t bet on any being the first. That is how little regard I give to their ethical and professional integrity.
LikeLike
Nice that Duane was able to find a teaching job with a big cut in pay in an untainted district 30 miles away, and is no longer an instrument of corporate ed reform. I guess he must not teach in NY, or has left the public schools. In NYS, only private schools escape the state tests. In NYS, there are NO teaching or administrative jobs in public schools where districts don’t inflict these awful state tests on our students. That is why we help parents know they can reject participation in testing . Teachers and admins can resist test prep, and fight inappropriate curricula with varying consequences, and many do- but no district can choose to ignore state tests in NY. Perhaps Duane thinks teachers should just quit. Some have- but that does not stop the tests- in fact, teachers quitting is part of the design of these reforms. They cannot wait to see veteran teachers and our salaries and potential pensions leave. The no-excuse charters that replace out shuttered public schools are far worse for our children. Many states now have teaching shortages but that has not stopped the reforms- it is just an excuse to privatize public schools, hire TFA temps, or remove all teaching certifications as a requirement for teaching as several states have done. Fortunately teachers like Michael Flanagan, and Marla Kilfoyle, stay to organize resistance within their buildings, protect their students as best they can, inform parents that they have the power to halt this system with test refusals. NY teachers like Sheri Lederman and others have filed law suits, and and we put political pressure on school boards and legislators. We also stay to build better union leadership from our locals on up. I was able to retire from teaching 4 years ago, but have not retired from the fight.
LikeLike
You’re right Terry, I’ve not taught in NY. It doesn’t matter what state, educational malpractices are just that, malpractices. And like you I retired, a little over a year ago. And like you I have not retired from the fight.
Yes, I was able to find a different district (which has all the deforms thrown at it) in which to teach after being run off by the principal who then went on to become the supe of that district. And that woman’s action regarding me were evil. I won’t go into detail here but it was dead wrong to attempt to destroy my career. When I was starting my masters in ed admin and she was finishing hers, I asked her, as a colleague and equal “What are you going to do when they ask you do something you don’t believe in?” Her response: “I’ll do it”. And that’s the kind of gutless administrators I’ve seen-almost 100% of administrators with whom I’ve dealt.
So, even though I was certified to be an administrator, I refused to give the “yes” answers, to give what they wanted to hear and therefore could never get a position. Which was fine because I realized I couldn’t ethically cheer lead and enforce the malpractices that almost ALL administrators have implemented. I preferred working with authentic students not plastic self serving administrators.
I’ve never said anything about or telling teachers to quit. Bad guess on your part-ha ha.
My purpose in stridently challenging those who implement nefarious and harmful malpractices is hopefully to reach some part of their being that may awaken a conscience that has been suppressed by their “leader” ego. Because as I see it 99.99% of the administrators are a huge part of the educational malpractices implementation willing to sacrifice their students and staff in whatever many fashions they may in order to keep their own positions of semi-authority.
As Jim Hightower says “Even dead fish go with the flow” and that is what those 99.99% do in the same brain dead fashion as those fish in implementing malpractices that harm students.
You were a teacher, Terry. How can you justify harming students as occurs now (as administrators do)?
By the way, I’m not sure why you may think I was “an instrument of corporate ed reform.” You have me confused with that statement.
LikeLike
Yes, I know I don’t play nice. I’m tired of playing nice and being diplomatic when so many innocents, the children, the students are being bullied, violated and harmed by the malpractices that are willingly implemented by those supposed “leaders” and their toady teachers in public education.
I know my attitude and stridency doesn’t win me any friends with those who can bury and hide the harms they are causing students in their hearts and quite frankly “I don’t give a damn!”
LikeLike
You accuse NY teachers who remain at their jobs as abusers, since a refusal to administer state tests is in almost all cases, all the reason needed to be fired. In your logic, they either leave or be fired. I’m suggesting that while you were at your previous district, you too were an instrument of corp ed reform until you left. You had options to work in a different district in your state- where according to you, you don’t have to be a tool of abuse. NY teachers don’t have a choice to change districts like you did- all districts have the same mandate. That is why we so appreciate admins like Dr. Hynes. I get that you view people like him as you view Arnie Duncan, or John King.
LikeLike
All districts in Missouri have the same mandates.
Please explain to me how I was “an instrument of corp ed reform”. I have no clue as to what you are referring. I fought against the nonsense that the administrators did. I didn’t participate in the test pep rallies, I refused to wear the t-shirts that they printed up letting them know that although they cut out funding for student field trips they had money for that nonsense. And of course the principal lied saying I threw the shirt across the room at her when I set it on the table and suggested they give it to a student who might need a clean new shirt. I challenged the logic (actually illogic) behind their actions at staff meetings, I refused to give the ACT, Missouri’s standardized test for all juniors, etc. . . .
You got the wrong “corp ed reform” guy in your sights there, Terry.
The fact is that Dr. Hynes and the teachers implement those educational malpractices that harm students. That fact cannot be denied. Yes, he has spoken out against them which is fine and dandy but it does not negate his and all the rest of the administrators and teachers actions.
And no, I don’t view Dr. Hynes as I view Duncan or King. He’s just a notch below, sweet words while inflicting harms on children doesn’t cut it for me.
Basta con esto.
LikeLike
Here is a list of questions for every parent to ask their public school for a ‘quality’ education: What will my child be assessesed on in September (so we can do a quick review first and not have to repeat another year on the same topics)? Oct., Nov., Dec.? When are the assignments due? When are the quizzes and tests? What are the study guides? How many grades will be required for each class? What percentage of the final grade are assignments/quizzes/tests worth? How can any child figure out/meet your requirements/succeed when educators/adults don’t even know what they are?
We would need: all of our regular curriculum for about 1,300 grades before any extra testing (16 days of standardized tests last semester,) all work returned daily with corrections and an automated phone call to contact numbers any time students are released early (after-school activities get cancelled or bad weather). #nosyllabusfor7classes #students’rights?
LikeLike