Please watch and share this two-minute, eloquent and passionate statement by teacher Jesse Hagopian. Each of his students have lives. He knows them. They have their individual problems and needs. They are more than a score.
Please tweet, share on Facebook, share with your friends.
This video was created by videographer Michael Elliott, with the invaluable assistance of Kemala Karmen, and sponsored by the Network for Public Education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dr. Ravitch – I think you forgot to include the link, so I cannot watch the video.
I would whole heatedly agree that students are not test scores…that being said, I go back to my same question I ask all the time – where should there be accountability and how should it show up? In a perfect world we would have all great teachers who would be doing great things for their students, and no accountability would be needed. We could trust the teacher…but it’s not a perfect world, so…Where is the balance?
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That balance was always there. Was it a perfect balance? No, sometimes it tilted in favor of the teachers but the majority of the time it tilted in favor of the administrators (by the way many times with little thought as to the effect on the students).
Your incessant pounding on “accountability”, after being shown many times that that “accountability” has always been there, perhaps not to your own particular satisfaction because you happened to see a few examples of supposedly “bad” teachers, belies the intelligence that I know you possess. Your incessant pounding shows a disdain for actual flesh and blood teachers, the vast (and by vast I mean 99.99%) majority who come to the classroom daily and do an admirable job of working with and helping the students to learn.
And no, “in a perfect world . . .great teachers would be doing great things” is not a satisfactory nor reachable goal, it is a ludicrous and risible one. The statement is a disguised back-handed slap at all teachers.
Don’t give a damn about supposed “great” teachers, never tried to be one and found that those who proclaimed that X teacher was great had ulterior motives for doing so. Define, jlsteach, what exactly is a “great” teacher, please.
By the by, here is a link (through FB):
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=network%20for%20public%20education%20-%20npe
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There are many forms of accountability, not just standardized tests. Teachers access students in many ways, and teachers themselves can be evaluated in several ways. Many of the on-going forms of assessment are much more authentic and revealing than the “one size fits all” standardized test that has little value in planning instruction.
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Correction: assess
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disguised back-handed slap. Yes.
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I say look for growth and not “proficiency”, the latter of which gets to be defined by a bunch of policy makers who know little to nothing about teaching and learning.
What goes on for ELLs and testing in NY State, for example, is diabolical, and is driven by two women up in NYSED who don’t know their derrieres from their elbows about cognition. They are pure opportunists who would sell their mothers into slavery if it would advance their careers.
Standardized testing is but one of many lenses through which to view student growth. David Carlucci and Sandra Galef, who represent Westchester County, both voted to test-and-punish policies that harm all children. They should be voted out. Carlucci is part of the IDC.
Hagopian is right. “Uprising” is a great word, and people cannot approach this with tender hearts; they must present pitchforks and torches towards their elected officials and policy makers.
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The concept of educational growth suffers the same onto-epistemological fallacies that plague any attempts to measure anything in the teaching and learning process.
Please, NF, tell me what the agreed upon standard unit of measurement of “academic” growth is. . . . .
. . . . . .
Hmmmm, there is no standard unit of measure of academic growth, so how the hell can that growth be measured????
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Mr. Swacker,
Growth is growth, but I don’t think there has to be a pre-defined notion of what is proper or adequate growth. Those definitions are obviously politicized in the USA.
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Call me Duane, please. The thing is, is that too many believe that “educational or academic” growth is measurable. I was surprised to see you call for using growth as an indicator considering I believe you know the onto-epistemological problems with the concept of “measuring growth.” And you are correct that the definitions are politicized, not only that but fallaciously used for nefarious practices.
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Asked and answered. Please find a new hobby.
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Standardized testing is not capable of identifying good teaching or quality of schools. It is too fraught with error to be used as such a gauge. That was the big underlying problem with NCLB and RTTT, they were based on data sets that were little more then random number generators.
The best – out of school district accountability systems – are the regular inspections by accrediting agencies that have been taking place for decades. Typically they send a team of seven or so administrators to a school where they Review all data and operating documentation; interview students, teachers and parents; observe classes; and provide detailed feedback.
This is genuine accountability done by professional educators from other counties. It may not be perfect but it certainly beats accountability that only measures the community’s economic status.
There are reasons that schools in middle class neighborhoods are never judged negatively by standardized testing no matter how backward their program is.
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VAMdumb number generators
“VAMs are Craps”
To judge a teacher, roll the dice
The VAMs are craps, and job the price
To keep a teacher, roll a seven
When coming out, or roll eleven
A 2 or 12 will crap them out
And also 3, the lousy lout
When point’s established, a 7 roll
Sends the teacher down the hole
But point repeated ‘fore a 7
Keeps them in the Seventh Heaven
The VAMs are mathy as can be
And oh so fair, as you can see
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Yep!
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Scotland has external school inspectors, from what I’ve read (echoing a point tultican made). Ever considered that, jlsteach?
Our middle school is one of three that feeds into a regional high school. The teachers there say that our kids are the best prepared in certain subjects. Yet test scores say our kids are the same or worse. To me this is an indication that the tests are bad instruments. Teaching to these bad tests is deforming education. This sort of accountability has proven counterproductive. Better no accountability than invidious accountability, don’t you think?
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Accounting is a business practice and test scores have been used as if credits or debits. Accountability also acts as a metaphor for “balancing the books,” so that outflows are reconciled with inflows of (money) or credits. I think this is a screwy concept for education because human beings are not like a fixed currency with a calculable exchange rate (e.g., five nickels = one quarter.
If you keep going with the metaphor, then the questions proliferate. Who should be the bookkeeper? Who puts the money in the pot? Who takes it out? What is being counted as actual money and what has been morphed into “as if money?” What happens when teachers are rated as a “value added” widget in education or not? What happens when students are viewed as human capital? As more or less productive investments? Who can and should be an auditor or serve in the capacity of an inspector general?
I know this: Bean counters look at the money spent on schools and expect to see a simple relationship with test scores as if the test scores ARE money.
Big bean counters like to think that the fate of nation’s whole economy depends on rising test scores. Among these are self-appointed experts who say: “Throwing more money at schools won’t improve them.” When was the last time a boom in the economy was credited to students and workers in education? But if the economy tanks, bean counters are quite willing to blame schools and teachers for not producing those high test scores, equated with being “economically competitive.”
Forget accountability. Celebrate individual learning and projects that students work on together. Get students involved in thinking about what they have learned and why it matters to them, or friends, or parents, or others.
Does than mean anything goes? No, but a radical scaling back of pre-occupation with accountability is really needed. That would do a lot to get rid of a lot of the nonsense, meanness, and anxieties that are being taken for granted as if wise, just because some bean counter said so and worse, relied on standardized test scores as if those are objective and producing high scores is the purpose of education.
The whole outcomes-only accountability approach to education is wrong, a fraud that should not be permitted and would not be permitted even as a premise for operating a business.
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I have often wondered how all the art and architecture of ancient Greece would have figured into GDP according to the reckoning of today’s lamestream economists.
I suspect that it would have been assigned a value of zero. After all, of what value could a temple with a bunch of buff statues be?
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Like!
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Poet: you made me say, “Ha!”
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“Where should there be accountability and how should it show up? ”
There should be accountability for all of the people who have pushed the test and punish “accountability” scheme.
And their names should show up in an online database so that districts around the country know not to hire them when they are looking for Superintendents and principals.
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It’s been a while since I watched this eloquent video (busy day and I only have time for a quick comment), but I seem to recall it had to do with caring about students. If you care about students, you have to see them as human beings with a myriad of untestable talents and challenges. It had nothing to do with managers firing teachers or shuttering public schools, both bedrocks of communities. The bottom line is that everyone involved with public education must ask her and/or himself the question, Do I see students as people or as statistics?
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Now that I have a little more time today to (cough) actually watch the video before posting, I realize it’s not the video I was thinking of, but this one is equally if not more powerful in driving home the point, the same point. I care about my students, not what edu-tourists and profit seekers think of me. What’s your profession? I bet you’re better at it if you are able to care about what you do than if you have to worry about your supervisor. And I bet your supervisor is a better boss if able to supervise you directly than if being micromanaged by computer algorithms.
Bill Gates knows how to build a company and monopolize against competition. He also knows how to nearly destroy his monopoly with reliance on stacked ranking. He knows how to ruin public education with that stacked ranking too.
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Having re-read your question, your same question as you aptly put it, it struck me that the word accountability has taken meaning beyond it normal usage. It seems to some to imply a sort of religious postulate to start your reasoning out in a proper direction. Unfortunately, as you point out, it is not a perfect world.
Because the world is not perfect, holding people responsible to do a good job is a personal sort of thing. All the merit pay schemes and credentials required, all the higher salaries and academic awards given to excellence, all the evaluation and testing has not changed the landscape at all. There are still some people who are not perfect in the eyes of others. The trouble is, no one can decide who the schmucks are and who the heroes are.
In an imperfect world, we cannot hope for accountability in the sense it is being used today in the political world. Modern purveyors of educational correctness would march through the schools like St Just in the streets of Paris, calling for the heads of those they think incompetent. Like St Just, they would guilotine the innocent.
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So, if you were given a super-power that would magically eliminate every “bad” teacher in America, how many of the three million of us would vanish? Five percent? Ten? Ok, let’s go with a mere two percent. So you have magically rid our classrooms of 60,000 “bad” teachers. Now what? That secret supply of “great”, unemployed teachers to the rescue? Ha!
Ask any building principal if they would like such a super-power.
Oh that’s right – they do have that ability and they don’t even need a reason (for three years) much less a magical super-power. But you want more, test-based accountability? Using tests in just two subject areas that were never intended to measure the quality of instruction? Do you also use a thermometer to measure the quality of your family vacation?
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I have to credit Kemala Karmen, the writer, producer on the project. There’s no way we could have made this series without her.
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For a clue about what we’re up against, please read the article by the distinguished scholar, Sarah Chayes… http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/22/trump-and-path-toward-kleptocracy-pub-70118
Unwittingly, or not, the movement toward blurring lines between private and public sectors, and respective objectives (profit at the expense of the common good) should be setting off alarms far and wide.
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I read your link and found it interesting. we are currently seeing the formation of public-private partnerships as a way to provide solutions to social problems and rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. This arrangement breeds cronyism, nepotism and other forms of corruption. It is a brazen opportunity for kleptocrats to use public funds to fleece the public. We have seen a lot of this in privatization from crooked authorizing agencies, real estate deals and valueless cyber instruction. There’s a reason that Micheal Milken is invested in cyber instruction. he gets to use tax dollars to provide valueless education. It is easy money with lots of profit, and he can socialize the risk and privatize the profit. When the private sector gets involved in a public function, there is often little to no accountability, and this is what kleptocrats want, the unfettered ability to fleece us of our tax dollars.
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Why is Michael Milken allowed to get public money for anything?
He’s a convicted fraudster and was barred by the SEC from the securities industry.
“From junk bonds to junk schools: Cyber Schools Fleece Taxpayers for Phantom Students and Failing Grades”
https://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/10/12257/junk-bonds-junk-schools-cyber-schools-fleece-taxpayers-phantom-students-and-faili
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That shows how ridiculous the laissez-faire policy of handing public funds to people like Milken is. It makes more sense to keep the public money, public and private money private. The co-mingling is an invitation to fraud, embezzling and little to no accountability.
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Ah, the true irony of calling NCLB et al “accountability” measures…
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When you hand money to a fraudster, you can be pretty sure of what is going to happen.
It’s like handing a fish to a seal.
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YES.
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He is an excellent spokesperson for Teachers and I would recommend all Teachers speaking out as he does!
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Standardized test scores are for the purpose of finding “objective measures” of students. It is openly for the purpose of objectifying students.
It is considered toxic to objectify women and minorities, but that is what we’re doing to students in this system.
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Please say it again and again. You have made the perfect analogy. Objectifying anyone is a horrible injustice, lying at the base of all human atrocities.
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Second that.
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“The basic goal”
Objectify
Commodify
To sell and buy
Is basic “Why?”
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Snow day here so I finally got a chance to watch this video. (Thank God for snow days. There are things I’d never get around to without them.) Well said, Jesse, very well said.
Take care everyone going out there on the roads. It’s been an especially tricky winter.
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