Kevin Bosworth, a teacher at Olathe East High School in Olathe, Kansas, wrote to tell me about a class discussion of grades and tests. A student shared her poem with the class, and Kevin shared it with me. The reformers and disrupters now say they are intrigued with social and emotional learning. Let them read this and see what they have learned.
Hello my name is worthless
Name number and date
State your class and hour
Let the rubric pick your fate
Your value as a human
Can be measured by percent
All that matters is the value
That the numbers represent
We promise that you matter
You’re more than just a grade
But you better score one hundred
Or else you won’t get paid
They require our attendance
We’re brain dead taking notes
So we can barf back up the knowledge
That they shove down our throats
Each human life is precious
And every childhood has worth
But if you fill in the wrong bubbles
Then you don’t belong on earth
They question our depression
They wonder why we’re stressed
When our futures are decided
Doing better on a test
They tell me that I’m gifted
That there’s no need to despair
But if you only read the numbers
I’m a living waste of air
I might think I have talents
But there’s no worth in art
Because it can’t be measured
By a number on a chart
The people say I’m flying
The numbers say I’ll crash
My letter grades ‘ll prove it
I’m worthless human trash
They use standardized procedures
To find the worth of kids
But I don’t fit in boxes
Without spilling out the lids
Some kids don’t fit the system
But differences can’t stay
They put us in the garbage
And throw it all away
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perfect. We are, alas, involved in this inane ritual today. I’ll reblog this in the hopes that some of my students see it.
Reblogged this on Mark's Text Terminal.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Every member of Congress and every “reformer” should get a copy of this poem. Students are so much more than a score. Standardized tests are more harmful than good. Comprehensive schools that allow students to develop their talents to the best of their ability are what we should be focusing on instead of cutting the arts, sports, libraries and vocational options. As Diane said in her meeting in Queens, how are students going to develop their talents unless they are exposed to a rich and varied curriculum? High school should be a time when students explore what interests and excites them to help them plan for the future.
live now interrogation of Devos on the Hill
Kids differ. They are not widgets, to be identically milled by a standardized system.
The high-stakes tests being used by our states are neither valid nor reliable and couldn’t be, given the “standards” they are based on and the construction of the tests. (See this: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/how-to-prevent-another-parcc-mugging-a-public-service-announcement/.)
But even if they were valid and reliable, their actual cost in dollars, their opportunity cost in time lost to test prep, and their cost in terms of the psychological damage that these tests do to kids is simply too great. The current testing system is child abuse. A parent has a duty to remove his or her child from abusive situations. Opt out.
But that’s not all, an entire generation (20 years) of the standards-and-testing regime has brought about ZERO improvement on the very measure that the Ed Deformers have taken as the be-all-and-end-all of education–test scores, and it has had ZERO effect on achievement gaps.
How long do we have to continue an UTTERLY FAILED POLICY? For how long do these children go UNHEARD?
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/the-coring-of-the-six-hundred-with-apologies-to-alfred-lord-tennyson/
“I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.”
— Albert Einstein, Saturday Evening Post interview, 10/26/1929
“There’s no bullet list like Stalin’s bullet list.”
—Edward Tufte, “The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint”
Well said! We should be helping students explore possibilities instead trying to pigeonhole them with rigid, pointless, stress inducing standardized testing.
Bob,
After a quick review of the testing site in Kansas (https://www.ksassessments.org/), I am unable to find anything at stake for students, teachers, or school based on these exam scores. There were references to using the exam results for curriculum and instruction review and improvement. Did you find something different for these exams?
Apparently Kansas doesn’t comply with federal law. Of course, Kansas doesn’t fund public schools and doesn’t believe in paying teachers enough to retain them.
I was writing about high-stakes standardized exams in ELA generally. Yes, Kansas seems to have made a movement toward sanity by not making these tests high stakes, but they are still required by federal law to waste time and money giving them.
Yes, parents have a duty to OptOut their children. In some states, they don’t even have the right to fulfill that duty. So wrong! The testing just needs to stop. I am reminded of the tearful student from Florida who was featured on Last Week Tonight’s “Standardized Testing” segment years ago. She did everything right, but the test forced her out of the classes she deserved to take. What a joke our collective legislators and government executives have become that they can’t see justice from campaign donations.
Education oligarchs like Bill Gates who placed a job posting for an “officer” to accelerate digital learning and find investments e.g. PRI’s ( a grant with a big difference, with PRI’s, foundations expect to get money back by a specified time), do what they do.
We are the many, who can take down the oligarchs. This students’ poem makes the compelling justification.
Many decades ago, Gates pointed out that the big costs in schools were facilities and teacher salaries. Why not get rid of both by replacing education of prole children with depersonalized learning? But in order to do that and sell educational software “at scale,” these people needed a single national bullet list to key the products to–thus the push for the Common [sic] Core [sic]. It’s sickening and so transparent that it’s astonishing, really, that more politicians haven’t seen through this. Well, not that astonishing–they are very well compensated for looking the other way, however much damage is being done to kids by Coleman’s childish bullet list, by high-stakes testing, by depersonalized learning software, by the distortion of curricula and pedagogy to turn it into test prep.
I am so tired of the 1% trying to monetize and financialize everything of value to the middle class and poor.
retired teacher-
How else can the 99% be ripped off? The rich already exploited labor, taking all of the gains from worker productivity.
retired teacher,
In this case, at least, the folks benefiting from this exam are the School of Education at the University of Kansas.
Uff!
High-stakes testing is a war on kids and on humane education. IT NEEDS TO BE ENDED.
LIKE!
That student is smart and aware of our educational system.
I think it is important to tell our children that they are more than just a number, and telling them about how Stanford judges them might be important even if the acceptance rate to Stanford is about 5% of the total applications.
How important are SAT and ACT scores to be accepted to Stanford?
“Standardized testing is one of the application requirements that can highlight academic preparedness. There are no minimum test scores required to be admitted to Stanford, and there is no score that guarantees admission. At Stanford, we review applications holistically, meaning every component of the application is valuable to us as we get to know each student.”
https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/freshman/testing.html
Our daughter was accepted to Stanford. Her SAT and/or ACT scores were below the average that is reported by Stanford. She was really stressed about that and my attempt to calm her down didn’t help much. I kept telling her that those test scores were not the only thing used to determine what kind of person she was. I said they were only one element of a complex holistic method universities like Stanford use.
But her high school GPA was 4.65, way above Stanford’s acceptance average of 4.18, and she was involved in extacurridur activities throughout middle school and high school. She graduated from high school as a scholar-athlete with the athletic awards to prove it and she also had medals from extracurricular academic competitions earned while she was in high school.
When Stanford says it reviews applications holistically, I think they mean it.
Our daughter was accepted to Stanford and graduated from Stanford — without having above average SAT and/or ACT scores.
I think SAT and ACT scores are only mainly used by universities like Stanford to break ties when the rest of the holistic person is a match making it difficult to choose.
Wow!!!!! So powerful!!!!!!
“When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”
Geeze, Bob. Exactly the EQ– the essential question which (as we all know) always leads to the crux of the matter!
I have been saying that over and over, everywhere for over a decade now. To me, it is so simple — dumb the people down, and then they can change what Americans know about history and science (for example) and thus, they elect a president who makes them feel good about ignorance.
Our democracy depends on shared knowledge, https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/hirsch.pdf which is why those who are intent on taking over must END public education–thus, they can dictate a curricula that dumbs people down ! Look who is giving history lessons to the kids in North Carolina, https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/05/north-carolina-plans-to-adopt-koch-funded-social-studies-curriculum/
A state that was the envy of the south has new policies! https://www.ncjustice.org/publications/the-unraveling-poorly-crafted-education-policies-are-failing-nc-children/ Diane offers all the proof one needs https://dianeravitch.net/?s=North+Carolina
”Think about that, and ask yourself; what better way to end the future then to “GET ‘EM YOUNG,” and see that they are kept in poverty.” Below are things I have said endlessly, to no avail:
“This is so easily accomplished. You see, there are almost SIXTEEN THOUSAND separate school systems in FIFTY states, and most folks I meet do not know what is afoot in the district next door, let alone the schools in their own districts!” Here is a link to my series at OEN where I post most of what Diane reveals here: https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html?f=15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html
Maligned in the meida as ‘failing,’ so many school systems are ripe for conquering with ‘policies’ issued by legislatures, with not an educator on board. https://dianeravitch.net/?s=legislatures
” Moreover,’ I often write in my essays on this TRANSFORMATIONAL ERA:, “the average American is stressed and busy, and DISTRACTED by SCREENS (and the “Trump Circus” ; they are CONFUSED by the disinformation from the tsunami of ‘pundits’ and ‘talking heads’ hired by the lobbyists to push magic elixirs as ‘choice’.
And, Bob, it works against us that most people do not really know (WLLL) WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE. https://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Bob, everyone went to school— and thus — everyone knows what schools need to do! A roomful of computers with kids quietly at work, and a pretty bulletin board, and parents do not notice the lack of conversation, or conferences with the teacher, or the absence of bookshelves lined with BOOKS.
In the end, Diane, Carol, Leonie, Anthony Valerie, Mercedes,Peter , Lloyd, Ciedie — and all who put the TRUTH out there, cannot compete with the DISINFORMATION weaponized by the lobbyists and THE $$$ of the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf which controls what people know! I mean, look at what is known: A Layman’s Guide to the Destroy Public Education Movement https://tultican.com/2018/09/09/a-laymans-guide-to-the-destroy-public-education-movement/
BTW: I bought over 1000 books at garage sales, so my students could read for 20 minutes each day. They often finished reading the wonderful books that night, and some read over 150 books in the 10 months they were in my class… and wrote a weekly reader’s letter about each one—in the program that put them at the top of all the NYC READING AND WWRITING (ELA) tests (like the ones that AOC took)… and made me the ’talk of the town..and the NYC cohort for The Pew research on Learning!)
Oh…and I wrote my entire curricula based on 30 years of experience, BUT I had only one computer (for my records — in the nineties.)
Of course, when I was sent to the rubber room, the principal gave my library to other classrooms…but that is how they ended the schools— ridding the classrooms of genuine professionals like I was so they could “push personalized learning and sell educational software, and Rob the people of their tax money, to pay for those who loot charter schools.”
There’s something else happening that is going to give more power to the misleaders, the liars, the trolls, and the Trumps, and that the paywalls popping up on one REAL media site after another until most people will never get to read or hear the REAL news.
For sure, the fascists will always make sure their misinformation campaign is free.
Kevin Bosworth, should you read this, may I use this poem in a letter to the editor with attribution to Olathe East High School?
I asked Kevin if I could use the student’s name. He said yes but I was not comfortable doing it.
I am also not asking to use the student’s name. I think it would be wrong and put him/her in a position he/she does not understand. It could even put his/her life and future in jeopardy. But I would like to attribute it to the school. This poem is so incisive. It deserves a very large audience.
East Olathe High School in Olathe, Ks.
Her name is Jacqueline “Jake” Holloway. I asked her directly if I could put her name and she agreed.
Some dam poet – I think you have some competition !
Our daughter refused to take the PSAT in 2004, having a huge argument w/her advisor over it (the advisor is a wonderful person {she is a family friend who was the advisor for our daughter & 2 nieces; we just had her over for brunch, & she just met daughter & boyfriend for breakfast at Christmas}& she wouldn’t face any consequences had our daughter not taken it, but she just thought it would be good practice for R to do so, for the SAT {she did NOT take the SAT but the ACT, which she didn’t need anyway}–the college–& her first choice [& early admission acceptance]– she went to didn’t take test scores).
If these students in E. Olathe–or anywhere–can’t opt themselves out–for G-d’s sake, parents, PLEASE opt them out! In some places, parents aren’t allowed to opt students out–the students have to opt themselves out (yeah, & this works really well for students who are non-verbal & have disabilities).
Or–better yet–since teachers all over have been striking & walking out anyway, how about a NATIONAL walk out? I was watching Fahrenheit 11-9 the other night, & the West VA. 55-county strike did the job. & even more effective, if there’s a Pear$on campu$ in your city, organize the strike out there.
It’s beyond time…
My heart aches for this student, and ALL students, as they slog thorough yet another year of mind-numbing, souless, uselss, testing.
I spent the last hours of my day today reading Le Petit Prince with my students. As part of our discussion, we talked about the theme “grown-ups just care about numbers.” I emphasized that while the school system classifies them by their numbers, they they are more than their test scores, that they do not define them as people.
Fortunately I am in a non-tested subject, where I can be a radical and actually TEACH the children. Otherwise, I would be expected to uphold the “STUDENT SCORES DRIVE INSTRUCTION” line.
Student scores cannot drive instruction because you can never know why any particular response was incorrect. The variables include, apathy, fatigue, absenteeism, inattention/distraction, knowledge deficit, test anxiety, illness, vocabulary deficit, poorly written item, untestable standard, learning disability, language issue, etc.
Student scores cannot even drive test prep.
The relentless testing of children does drive them away from a varied and enriched curricula and more meaningful school experiences.