This is the most important story you will read today. It is a warning about where School Choice is heading, what it will do to the democratic institution of the public schools, what it has already done to the schools of one district in California. If we don’t reverse the tide, more districts will be drowned by choice and debt.
Retired physics teacher Tom Ultican has been researching the Destroy Pubkic Education movement. This movement creates nothing positive. It tears down what once belonged to the community, paid for with their tax dollars.
The story of Inglewood, California, is a textbook case of the destruction of a small district, brought low by NCLB, then strangled and left for dead by a series of Broad-trained superintendents and the steady expansion of privately managed charter schools.
The story of Inglewood is an indictment of the so-called reform movement, which destroyed the public schools of that district.
Are Public Schools in Inglewood, California a Warning?
Ultican begins:
“In 2006, the relatively small Inglewood Unified School District (IUSD) had over 18,000 students and was a fiscally sound competent system. Today, IUSD has 8,400 students, is 30% privatized and drowning in debt. In 2012, the state of California took over the district, usurped the authority of the elected school board and installed a “State Trustee” to run it. IUSD is on its sixth state appointed trustee in six years.
“This crisis was created by politicians and wealthy elites. It did not just happen. Understanding the privatization of Inglewood’s schools through the choice agenda is instructive of the path that could lead to the end of public schools in California…
“NCLB set the table. Students in poor communities were guaranteed to produce bad test results. Billionaires were pouring huge money into developing the charter school industry. State leaders were putting privatization friendly leaders in charge of school districts. The state trustees were never in place long enough to provide stable leadership.
“Eli Broad attended public school and went on to become the only person ever to develop two Fortune 500 companies, Sun America and KB Homes. Broad, who is worth $6 billion, decided that public schools should be privatized and established a school for administrators to promote his ideology.
“In Oakland, the first state trustee was a Broad Academy graduate named Randy Ward and three more of the next 6 superintendents who followed Ward were also Broad trained. Oakland suffered nine superintendents in 13 years.
“In Inglewood, one trustee was a charter school founder who was concurrently serving as a board member of the charter school and the last two superintendents were Broad trained. Inglewood received six state appointed trustees in six years.
“How much longer before large school districts like San Diego and Los Angeles – with 25% or more of their students in privatized schools – are forced into bankruptcy and taken over by the state? Both districts are currently running massive deficits caused primarily by charter school privatization and unfair special education costs.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“….What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”
― Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
Inglewood was and is obviously still a laboratory experiment funded by elitist and racist oligarchs and the evidence trail stretches all the way to serial liar Donald Trump proving the fact that these mostly white billionaires and multimillionaires want to drastically segregate the United States and make sure minorities and everyone that lives in poverty does not receive the same education that rich white kids get.
3.4 percent of Inglewood’s population is white.
49.7 percent is Hispanic
43.1 percent is Black
20.7 percent live in poverty
https://statisticalatlas.com/place/California/Inglewood/Race-and-Ethnicity
Article: The Peoples’ Capitalism | OpEdNews
The Lodestar’s Lodestar
Article 25
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”
All the other articles are represented in one way or another in Article 25. We must look to it for the criteria for determining whether every human being has the essentials for an adequate living and nothing less. If they do, then it is at least partly due to some form of socially responsible capitalism. Adequacy, of course, is the minimum standard. Millions of Americans and billions of other peoples have far less than an adequate standard of living. They have a miserable standard of living.
Developing criteria, or indicators of progress and reaching the goal, used to be among the mainstays of my working career, but no more. I shall turn that responsibility over to a taskforce of special people to be identified next.
Imagine a salesman trying to sell that concept to the Koch brothers, the Waltons, Eli Broad, Betsy DeVos, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, et al. Is there anyone on that list that didn’t grow up in wealth and inherit a fortune — maybe Eli Broad?
Bill Gates didn’t inherit a fortune but his father had enough to send him to a very expensive private school and support him financially when he started Microsoft.
Lloyd, my quote re Lodestar is from a brilliant writer at Oped — Gary Brumback, who is currently reviewing his book… you should read his stuff… I know you would love it.
https://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Peoples-Capitalism-by-Gary-Brumback-Aristotle_Capitalism_Capitalism-Failures_Capitalism-Over-Humanity-180604-982.html
From the article (you all knew I would spot this):
“Unfortunately, the big standardized test is completely useless for evaluating schools, teachers or learning. In 1997, an Australian, Noel Wilson, wrote a definitive paper, “Education Standards and the Problem of Error,” showing why standardized testing should not be used to evaluate schools or teaching. His work has been verified repeatedly.”
Thanks Tom Ultican for helping to spread the word!
Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” is THE MOST IMPORTANT educational writing in the last 50 years, bar none, and can be found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
For those not familiar with Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted treatise here is a brief outline of it and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
And there is a whole lot more in his work. Much more than a short summary can touch on. All educators should read and comprehend this masterpiece of critical enquiry into the standards and testing regime malpractices.
Duane, I knew you would spot Wilson in Tom’s great Post.
Yes, it’s an excellent post!
You just gotta know, I can’t help myself. 🙂
I was thinking of Duane when I wrote it.
I think it comes down to objective tests seem like such a good idea. The theory of standardized testing is so seductive that recognizing the illusion is difficult. Wilson’s work is magnificent but it is not easy to understand. Seeing the profound truths he is trying to share is not easy. Ted Kennedy supposedly had a big heart and George Bush seemed like a good old boy but neither one of them were ever revered as intellectual giants. Like so many powerful elites, they did not know what they were doing when it came to education policy.
Great point, but Of course the current agenda for the evaluations of teachers is bogus.
It began 2 decades ago, and what you are seeing now, the utter contempt for teachers and the schools, is the direct result of the total lack of accountability for those who wrecked the careers of our most dedicated professional teachers.
Before they invented the ‘evaluation scam’, they were fabricating charges to get rid of our best, experienced, professional teacher-practioners, LA got rid of tens of thousands, http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
so it is not surprise that public schools failed and are being replaced by charter schools.
All the while the media ‘sang a song’ of those “old, lazy, tenured teachers.” The only stories about teachers featured how they hurt kids as this American Scandal played out. This happened to me, as you know… but others might want to see what they did, before they tried to find me incompetent. http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
THE PLOY in the PLOT to end public education DEPENDED on the removal of the authentic teacher-practitioner, the PROFESSIONAL who knew WLLL — WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE — and how to enable the learning of REAL SKILLS .
The privatization of the schools is not just about the money being made by these charlatans. You see, In order to create an ignorant citizenry, who elects total incompetent weasels like Trump, AND to END DEMOCRACY (WHICH DEPENDS ON SHARED KNOWLEDGE, according to E. D. Hirsch ! http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf
You see, the oligarchs who run the show here, had to rid the nation of those who know how to get children to do work and to THINK critically — i.e ,to compare and contrast what they see and read to prior knowledge!
Get rid of ‘the prior’ facts and voila, you get a a president who lies over 3001 times https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/05/01/president-trump-has-made-3001-false-or-misleading-claims-so-far/?utm_term=.47c082653f5c
and models contempt of the law, for an ignorant citizenry which then believes anything, if they they hear it repeated, and in this transformational era of endless reptetiton of lies — in that anarchic place the internet- the media created alternative facts!
“Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are.
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”.
You won’t get a degree WITHOUT passing….TESTS
You won’t become certified WITHOUT passing ….TESTS
Do you think Wison was JUST talking about STANDARDIZED
tests? If so, WHAT, makes the results of tests
(not called standardized) valid and not “vain and illusory”?
No, Wilson was not necessarily only talking about standardized tests but also standards themselves. Again, I make the distinction between diagnostic assays that don’t usually have right and wrong answers and student standardized tests where there are correct and incorrect answers.
I also distinguish between local teacher(s) made classroom(s) subject matter/grade level assessments that cover what has been taught in class. A standardized test is a completely different ballgame as it is not based on class covered curriculum.
As it is any assessment should have as its primary purpose to help the student learn. Standardized tests definitely do not have that primary purpose, not even tertiary as the students never get to see any of the questions and which ones they got correct or wrong. Standardized tests have completely different fundamental, albeit invalid, purposes. Being invalid because they do not help the student learn. It is in the review of the assessment questions and answers by the student checking his/her own understanding and metacognating about her/his learning where the pedagogical rubber hits the road.
Now, when talking about assessing student work one has to take into account what Wilson has delineated as the four frames of reference in assessing and how each has its own source of errors and invalidities. I tend to agree that the best assessing frame is that of the Responsive Frame that involves a give and take of the teacher and the student. It is narrative based and functions much like an apprenticeship type relationship or a medical residency where the learner is in control of their own learning, getting feedback from the teacher, master craftsman, experienced docs and nurses.
And, again, read and understand Wilson’s work. My summaries and explanations leave out so much that is in his brilliant work.
As far as “You won’t get a degree WITHOUT passing….TESTS
You won’t become certified WITHOUT passing ….TESTS”
I say “No shit Sherlock” 🙂 In other words one has to play the adult games to get that degree or certification. Notice that those are adult games entered into voluntarily. K-12 schooling is not voluntary and students are not of age to agree to that sort of adult game. We shouldn’t be subjecting still developing children to those kinds of adult games.
When I taught in Watts, my teaching was specifically tailored to get my students to the next level from where they were. Still is. I will never forget an eighth grader who came to my class unable to write his own name. He had given up. I allowed him to “pretend” write for me about whatever he wanted, and it worked. After years of his struggles with forced instruction regarding phonemes and morphemes and subject-predicates, he finally just opened up and wrote to express ideas. He once “wrote” ten pages. That was my assessment, an assessment without judgment. It worked. I hope his 9th grade teacher built on that.
I was told by many in Watts that Inglewood had less notorious but more ruthless gangs and violence. If standardized tests are given to cities in those dire straits, failure is guaranteed. If you beat a dog for not speaking proper English, you will not train the dog to “speak” at all when requested, or to roll over, or to stay, or to sit, or to in any way be a ‘good dog’. The testing and takeover of Inglewood was never going to improve the schools, but only to privatize them.
I think I get it.
The adult games’ tests, “to get that degree or certification”
are voluntarily valid…