The newly appointed chair of the California State Board of Education Linda Darling-Hammond spoke to the national conference of the American Association of School Administrators (the School Superintendents Association) and denounced the American reliance on high-stakes testing as a reform strategy.
If America wants to be the world leader in education, then it should look to other countries as a model for success, says Linda Darling-Hammond, a leading educational researcher, in her Thought Leader session Thursday at the AASA national conference.
Countries such as Finland and Singapore have been among the highest-scoring countries in international comparisons. Unlike the United States, these countries provide broad support for children’s welfare, said Darling-Hammond, president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute in Palo Alto, Calif.
“They take care of children. Health care is usually universal. There is income security and (state-paid) preschool,” she told a room full of superintendents, education advocates and business leaders at the AASA conference. In effect, those countries educate “the whole child,” she said.
Darling-Hammond was the keynote speaker for the AASA Sobol Lecture, named for the late New York education leader Thomas Sobol, a vehement supporter of equity in education and for involving parents and teachers in policymaking decisions affecting classrooms. Sobol passed away in 2015.
With more than 25 books and research articles on education, Darling-Hammond is influential in policymaking circles. Once rumored to be a potential candidate to lead the U.S. Department of Education during the Obama administration, Darling-Hammond this week was named by Gov. Gavin Newsom to lead the California State Board of Education. The board’s responsibilities range from school financing to testing requirements and teaching standards. She is the first African-American woman to take the helm.
Darling-Hammond noted that economic conditions for many families and schools nationwide worsened in the post-No Child Left Behind policy era, particularly in the wake of the 2007 Great Recession. Wages stagnated. Poverty is on the rise and more families are homeless now, she said. Such factors contribute to poor educational outcomes.
The Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind policy, passed by Congress in 2002, increased testing requirements for schools nationwide and set penalties for schools that failed to demonstrate improvements in student achievement, she contended. Proponents then said the policy would hold teachers, schools and school districts accountable for closing gaps in student achievement, or they would risk federal funding cuts or even closure of failing schools.
The fallout is apparent. Schools began testing children more frequently. They music, art and even recess — despite neuroscientific research demonstrating that they are critical for a child’s emotional and social development, Darling-Hammond said.
“If all of that testing had been improving us, we would have been the highest achieving nation in the world,” she said.
Now, that’s the Linda Darling-Hammond we all know and love!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I agree. This is great, but how does she reconcile selling out to Pearson for edTPA? Now Schools of Education are “teaching to the edTPA” at significant cost to teachers of color, teachers with disabilities and diverse language learners?
The edTPA pass rate last year was 72%; there were approximately 18,000 pre-service teachers who went through the program. Would you want your child in front of a teacher who could not pass?
Are you really convinced that failure to pass the edTPA is any indication of a lack of ability to teach? Conversely, are you convinced that ability to pass the edTPA is any kind of guaranty of an ability to teach?
If edTPA Is a meaningless test, why should future teachers be required to pass it?
Have you looked at the edTPA exams?
“Now, that’s the Linda Darling-Hammond we all know and love!”
That’s the Darling-Hammond I heard in the late ’80s. She was a champion for helping poor students and an advocate for equity. At that time she totally supported public schools as the most efficient and effective way to serve diverse students. Even at that point she was skeptical that charters would bridge any gaps because they had the right to be selective. Little did she know what a monstrous lobbying machine privatization would create! I don’t know if her views changed from her time at Stanford, but I hope she can bring some sanity and equity to California as it is much needed.
Why was LDH silent and out of action during the worst assaults, when testing regimes, tech invasions, and looting of public districts to fund private charters over-ran schooling? The political tide is shifting amid teacher strikes and rising voices for social democracy, so perhaps LDH is smart enough to engineer a career-saving move by shifting sides. Not much courage or integrity in such a move, late and little after others did the heavy lifting.
Simple. It’s easy to speak up now that it’s the Trump administration leading the privatization charge. But when the “good guys” were in charge (whom LDH hoped to work for), many people were nowhere to be seen.
And what does “silent” mean. GOP senators and reps being “silent” about this miserable human of a president defines “silent.” Dr. Hammond is not silent.
Go to the policy institute website – look where she has worked often behind the scenes – read what she’s written. No it’s not 100% anti-reform because at the root of some reform were good intentions, good ideas, and valuable practices if they had not been co-opted by politicians and corporations (let’s face it – old line – shouldn’t defining “being able to read” mean the same thing in Mississippi as it does in other states?
Professional is not an either/or ideology. And, yes, many professionals explore ideas and work with others to find out maybe it’s not the best so they seek balance and move forward.
And, for the cynical as if she and others only speak up when it’s safe – Please. It’s WE hoped LDH would work for the good guys.
Not only is the test not reform, it is the weakest and least effective means of assessment. Assessment is only as good as the information gathered and it’s application to the education of the child. However,we cannot say that the test is poor but then complement countries as successful,based on the test.
Assessment is only as good as the information that the student learns about his/her learning. The purpose of all assessment should be to help enable the student to learn more about his/herself in his/her learning.
I am growing more and more uncomfortable with evaluation in general. The word means “to get the value out of” taken literally, and perhaps it needs to go back there for a lesson.
One value of a teacher-made test is to hold the student immediately accountable to be able to be conversant in the material. While this may be necessary, it tends to create students who value the grade more than the learning. We all agree that a student is better if he or she goes to the library and seeks to dig deeper into the subject at hand. But how do you place a value on what a student has done in his regard?
Most people use a stacking method in their evaluation. Student 1 is unconsciously compared to student 2 as essays or even math problem solutions are compared.
I am not sure what to do.
Here are some possibilities that I favor, Roy: Use evaluation for diagnosis. Use formative evaluations, in which the learning experience and the evaluation are the same thing. Operationalize evaluation by using the ability to create a concrete product becomes the evaluation mechanism. Yes, little Yolanda can create a web page using a text editor and HTML code. Yes, little Marco can write an original fable containing animal characters, a conflict, and a moral.
What does a teacher seek to gain from assessment? Is the student able to use the information that the teacher has provided? Where is the student weak? What information did the student miss that they really need to know? How do they seem to engage with information most successfully? What methods of assessment are most likely to show a particular student’s knowledge?
I’m sure others can come up with other questions, but if assessment doesn’t answer some variation of these questions for the teacher and/or the student what good is it?
The time to talk about amnesty for Vichy collaborators with the testing regime is AFTER the occupation has ended. Yes, the tide of battle has turned, but the occupation is still very much in force. We are a nation of data walls and data chats, of textbooks and online educational programs containing activities and exercises that are little more than test prep. The damage that has been done to our schools is incalculable.
Sorry. I am extremely bitter about how the whole high-stakes testing regime has destroyed ELA. I’m glad that Dr. Darling-Hammond has seen the light about high-stakes standardized summative testing, but is she committed to eliminating top-down, universal mandates that force all of US PreK-12 education into a Procrustean box designed by testing companies and EduPundits? Has she truly learned the lesson about the unintended, disastrous consequences of top-down, mandated standardization and regimentation? Does she understand the value of local-level, bottom-up, innovation as a means to achieve continuous improvement, or does she want to substitute one tyranny for another?
Unfortunately, I suspect the latter. Look at where she is in the hierarchy.
“does she want to substitute one tyranny for another?” An Orwellian cynicism here, it seems. I think I understand Orwell and Bob too. Bring in the Who. Meet the new Boss, same as the old boss.
Top down reform came to our rural school not through the politics of charter schools and vouchers but from the state department as interpreted by local administrative figures eager to jump on board the hell bound train of top down reform.
Top down reform came to our rural school not through the politics of charter schools and vouchers but from the state department as interpreted by local administrative figures eager to jump on board the hell bound train of top down reform.
Extraordinarily well said, Roy. That’s exactly how it usually happens. It’s all a matter of the incentives. Many an administrator leading a school that will receive a state letter grade based on test scores or be evaluated based on those scores or get merit pay based on them will make sure that what happens in his or her math and English classes is test prep. I’ve seen this first-hand. To hell with reading novels and writing essays. Here’s the online test prep.
…and it all turns principals into cops and superintendents into sargents and all up the line.
Yes, it’s really terrible. You have to ask yourself, how can one pretend to expertise in education and be totally oblivious to the dire consequences for curricula and pedagogy of Coleman’s puerile “standards” and of high-stakes standardized testing? Such people obviously have no idea what is actually happening, now, in schools and in educational publishing houses as a result of this nonsense. No clue. Support for this crap is extraordinarily telling. Either the person is on the Deform payroll, or he or she is completely out of touch.
I am also grateful that Dr. Darling-Hammond is using the fora to which she has access to speak out about the need to address the biggest issue in American education, poverty. She can do a lot of good there, and it’s not what Ed Deformers want to hear. They want the fixes that they can profit from and don’t want to engage in the costly business of addressing the major underlying issue. I’m very glad that she’s doing that.
Forgive any cynicism in the following:
Political leaders are almost universally wind blown thinkers. Trying to figure out what a political figure thinks is difficult at best. Who would have ever thought Nixon would have sought better relations with China? Who would ever have thought George Wallace would have renounced his pledge of “segregation forever.”
Perhaps political individuals are made up of interactions more than the rest of us. They seem capable of justifying some of the most outlandish diversions from their stated philosophy. I do not fault someone for changing their mind.
“wind-blown thinkers.” That is a phrase worth stealing, Roy! I shall try to remember to credit you!!!
It is not the change of mind, Roy, that bothers me. It is the general mindset, unchanged, that a few Educrats have the right to be the deciders for the rest of us, to do our thinking for us. This often comes with the territory in the EduPundit racket.
There’s a big difference between that and a free forum of competing ideas in which the truth prevails that encourages innovation and diversity in curricula and pedagogy.
The gold standard here, for me, is the example set by Dr. Ravitch. She, like Dr. Darling-Hammond, is an extraordinarily gifted and intelligent person. What did Dr. Ravitch do? She paid attention. She wasn’t an ideologue. She saw what Ed Deform was doing to the country and very publicly, at great potential personal and professional cost, threw herself into the battle against Ed Deform. That’s what courage and discernment and heroism look like.
Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Diane is my hero, and Linda D-H is my new president of the California Board of Education. Yes!!!
IMHO, Some veteran teachers deserved to be respectfully called Doctor even they only have many master degrees, while some young teachers or administrators have doctorate degree without wisdom and teaching experiences = do not deserve to be respected at the titled “doctor” at all.
I wish I can call all of respectful veteran Teachers with title Doctor, but all of my respectful veteran teachers refuse to be called doctor. So, I prefer to address them as Guru.
Hi Guru Master Bob Shepherd:
I would like to repeat your perfect expression:
QUOTE: “the value of local-level, bottom-up, innovation as a means to achieve continuous improvement”
I also complete agree with my Guru Master Duane E Swacker:
QUOTE: “Unfortunately, I suspect the latter. Look at where she is in the hierarchy.”
In short, in the world history, all dictators use the same “unintended, disastrous consequences of top-down, mandated standardization and regimentation” to maintain their power and ego.
But all true Angels and Saints sacrifice their wealth, knowledge, and experience to lift up all unfortunates people who are lessen than them; or share to co-operate with others to do all common good for community, society and the world to be in peace and happy to learn in their own pace on their own path of life.
Yes, I adore Dr. Ravitch for many of my own reasons. The outstanding sainthood personality is Dr. Ravitch’s tolerance and generosity of her precious time, finance, knowledge, experience, and wisdom in order to cultivate many readers of both in USA and in many other counties like I am in Canada. Back2basic
According to scientists working non-stop to regenerate our beautiful planet, Daniel Christian Wahl in Spain, Joe Brewer co-creating a regenerative environment and eventually a university in Costa Rica, and many others, I would like to begin the process of co-creating an elementary school in the west valley of Phoenix that develops into a conscious ecological regenerative preparation for life. This takes many people coming together to co-create a creative, integrated curriculum that includes all the content areas in a child-centered natural learning process where everything relates to everything else.