Kathryn Berger knows something that legislators don’t know. Students are hungry for real literature and art but we feed them standardized tests.
They crave authenticity, but our policymakers impose standardization, which is inauthentic.
See this video she made.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Outstanding.
Gates and the fellow whom he appointed to be the decider for the rest of us–David Coleman–have, via high-stakes standardized testing and Lord Coleman’s puerile bullet list, effectively destroyed the English language arts in the United States. Now, instead of reading whole works of literature and engaging authentically with those in discussion and writing, what students do is inane exercises, based on the test question formats, in applying skills from Coleman’s list to random snippets of work taken out of context. It’s a travesty, and a whole generation of students has been robbed.
My teachers should have ridden with Jesse James
For all the time they stole from me.
–Richard Brautigan
Parents: Opt your kids out of the abusive, unreliable, invalid tests. English teachers: Take back your classrooms. Politicians and state department officials: Wise the hell up and scrap the pedagogically useless standardized tests. You have a duty, when abuse is occurring, to intervene, to stop it.
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“Politicians and state department officials: Wise the hell up and scrap the pedagogically useless standardized tests. You have a duty, when abuse is occurring, to intervene, to stop it.”
More importantly, the teachers and administrators should realize that duty which I discuss in Ch 7 “Ethics in Education Practices” of my book “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractices in American Public Education”:
Ethics in regard to students and towards practices and performance, are the two categories that interest us and warrant further commentary along with a quick caveat about ethics toward the profession of teaching itself. Obviously teachers’ main ethical concern should primarily be directed toward the student as noted by the AAE code: “The professional educator deals considerately and justly with each student, and seeks to resolve problems, including discipline, according to law and school policy” and “the professional educator makes a constructive effort to protect the student from conditions detrimental to learning, health, or safety.” What happens when “law and school policy” actually hinder those dealings as hinted at in the end of the statement? The answer to follow. Or from the NEA code: “the educator shall make reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to learning or to health and safety.”
In regard to ethical considerations in relation to professional competence and practices the NASDTEC code states: “The professional educator demonstrates responsible use of data, materials, research and assessment . . . and the professional educator acts in the best interests of all students. . . .” And the AAE code offers: “The professional educator assumes responsibility and accountability for his or her performance and continually strive to demonstrate competence. The professional educator endeavors to maintain the dignity of the profession by respecting and obeying the law, and by demonstrating personal integrity.”
Would not “personal integrity” entail not only “respecting and obeying the law” but to stridently opposing and challenging the law or policy that mandates the malpractices of educational standards and standardized testing that are “detrimental to learning, health or safety” of the students? Unfortunately, teachers are under constant pressure to institute and maintain those fundamentally and fatally flawed malpractices. The vast majority of public school educators, especially administrators, believe that upholding the ethics toward the profession and its practices holds sway over upholding ethics towards the students. While doings so may be quite beneficial to the educators, it serves to cause harm to the students as their interests play second or third fiddle to administrative decrees which is backwards to the interests of justice for the student.
That teachers and administrators put more emphasis in compliance with state department of education or federal directives and/or laws should not and cannot trump justice for the students.
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Students are being short changed if they are not being taught to really read, write and think. I introduced by poor elementary ELLs to literature from day 1. We started with picture books as a “read aloud” even though some of my students didn’t even know how to hold a book. Every beginning class for my ESL students included some form of shared reading. I wrote a number of grants, and recycled my own children’s books to build a classroom library. Pretty soon my beginning ELLs would hand me book we had already read and ask for it to be reread. They were developing an appreciation for literature and an interest in books. Writing is a natural extension to reading, and they reinforce each other. There is no better way in my opinion to teach students to read, write and think. As Frank Smith said, “Reading is thinking.”
One back to school night some high school students were at my elementary school to raise money for their AP English class trip, and two of my former Haitian students were in the group. These young people had clearly learned to appreciate literature. Good readers and writers are not born. They are made by teachers and in some cases families as well.
I just saw a special on the future of work. It was mostly about AI and robotics. Most routine jobs will be taken over my machines. Perhaps the 1% knows there will be fewer opportunities in the future so they want to ration those opportunities for their own children in their pricey private schools. The rest of the students will be relegated to sitting in front of a screen. Then, they can apply for their basic living income of $1,000 per month. This could become a reality if we stand for it.
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True, and they will deny us books …… because reading is thinking, and heaven help us, we must control the masses!
I am always looking for literature for my ELL’s. It’s almost impossible to obtain enough copies for a complete class set. I have spent countless of hours in front of a copier.
How many students are being denied the tactile experience of holding an actual book in their hands?
The saddest part is when students ask me, “Why can’t we have real books?”
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The National Gallery has been offering “professional development” for teachers fo a long time without calling it that…more ike an invitation to come and learn with colleagues from around the nation. This teacher is spot-on with her points and has made good use of the energy field created by that participation.
Of course the small amounts of federal funding devoted to museums (not just art museums) is on the chopping block, also for public libraries, along with a small USDE arts education program, the latter evaluated for “efficacy ” by the same twisted criteria as nearly everything else: Did the program boost reading and/or math scores (I kid you not). The criteria have not changed since 2007.
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