Ann Cronin is an educator in Connecticut.
In this post, she explains what real achievement is, and it has nothing to do with test scores.
There are all kinds of suggestions for improving student achievement – privatize public schools, increase the number of standardized tests that students take, implement national standards, and enforce no-excuses classroom discipline. None of these practices, however, have made a bit of difference. That is for two reasons. One reason is that the underlying causes of poverty and racial injustice have gone unaddressed, and the other reason is that standardized test scores can never measure achievement and, instead, reliably indicate only one thing: the income of the parents of the test taker.
So the first step in increasing student achievement is to redefine what we mean by achievement. I recently witnessed something that crystallized for me what real achievement is.
She recently attended a ceremony in her community where high school seniors and adults were honored for community service.
When it was time for the second adult recipient, Roseanne Sapula, to give her speech, she spoke about how honored she was to receive the award she regarded as prestigious and how she had tried to write a speech but gave up. It was clear that she gave up because her volunteer work with the Monday Night Social Group, a group comprised of 40 special needs individuals of high school age and older, was so close to her heart that it was hard for her to explain her interactions with those in the group in a short speech. She did tell the audience that thinking up new adventures for those young adults and new ways for them to be part of the larger community was her “calling”.
As Roseanne was talking, she looked out in the audience and spotted one of the members of the Monday Night Social Group, Jacob, Fialkoff, a 20 year-old whom I later learned has cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder. She called out to him and asked him a favor. She explained to the audience that Jacob is scheduled to sing the National Anthem at the opening of the Connecticut Special Olympics and that he has a beautiful voice. She asked Jacob if he would sing it right there for all of us.
Jacob hesitated, probably feeling unprepared and that it was too much of a challenge at that moment. Roseanne, aware of his hesitation, asked him again, telling him that she would not be at the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics and would love to hear him sing the National Anthem. He still hesitated. Roseanne then asked him if he could do it just for her. He softly said OK.
He sang beautifully.
Jacob’s singing the National Anthem, unrehearsed and on the spot out of love for the person who asked him, is what is missing in the conversation about increasing student achievement, which has been the illusive national goal since the passing of “No Child Left Behind” in 2001. We have tested and prepared kids for tests. And achievement doesn’t budge. We have declared that urban schools are “failing schools” and opened charter schools. And achievement doesn’t budge. We have put in place Common Core standards. And achievement doesn’t budge. We suspend and expel students at high rates, particularly in charter schools. And achievement doesn’t budge. That’s because we have been looking in the wrong places for achievement. We have been looking at standardized tests.
What a narrow definition of achievement has ruled our nation since 2001, and even earlier.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The test mongers are clueless. They haven’t any notion how complex and diverse human ability is, and they don’t understand much of what ends up mattering simply isn’t testable, just as they don’t understand that their standardized tests in ELA don’t measure what they purport to measure. The whole standardized testing apparatus is a resource-sucking cancerous growth on U.S. elementary and secondary education that crowds out the healthy parts of schooling. Time to give it some radical treatment.
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“haven’t any notion” and “they don’t understand”….sorry, but they DO have a notion and they DO understand. They just don’t care. What matters in life can’t be sold, purchased or measured so it holds no meaning for the test mongers and their cabal of investors and data lords.
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I think what we have learned over time is that many people do what they are told without thinking or questioning whether it is right. Don’t be one of those people.
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We have a problem with moral breakdown in our society. Too many people go through the motions without ever thinking about what they do and how it affects others. What people will do to children, old people, the infirm and the indigent just so that they can make a buck is abhorrent.
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I was thinking of the test mongers among administrators and state department officials. But yes, yes, of course. The oligarchs who orchestrated this nonsense know perfectly well what they are doing, and many of those administrators and state department officials are simply Vichy collaborators who understand who is handing out the goodies.
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“. . . and many of those [teachers] administrators and state department officials are simply Vichy collaborators who understand who is handing out the goodies.”
Or as I call them–GAGA Good German, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no dissent teachers, administrators and state department officials who know who butters their bread–“Hey I’m just following orders and the law” types.
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Clearly Ms. Cronin is on the right track. The arts are just the beginning. Allow me to quote Dr. Angela Dye:
““when achievement is restricted to grades, (test scores) attendance, and behavioral compliance, the robust nature of learning is inadvertently restricted… traditional school outcomes as level B achievement can occur in the absence of learning how to work and learn independently; (A level learning includes) learning how to synthesize, transfer and apply knowledge to the world beyond the classroom; learning how to value self as subjects and not as objects; and learning how to engage in and share power in democratic spaces.”
Racial injustice has a lot to do with the learning process. We must be careful, however, when addressing poverty as a root cause. When poverty leads to childhood stress, the learning process is damaged; when poverty leads to malnutrician, the learning process is damaged; when poverty leads to drinking too much Flint Michigan water, the learning process is damaged. And there are many more. However, when some can overcome those issues, they will do fine. My point is don’t lump everyone into the same group. Look for details.Those who overcome poverty allow fake politicians to lump them together and say “poverty is not destiny”; This is the scam that must be countered.
More important is to design a system that allows teachers to be empowered and takes children on their pathway to success using demonstrated proficiencies as achievement, certainly not a test. Helping those in need is a great example but there are many more. What if instead of seeing on a test “Name the steps of the scientific method”, we had student demonstrate those steps in a project?
What if kids presented to a university a portfolio of learning rather than an artificial SAT?
And on and on. Sorry about the trolling but this is detailed in my book “Stop Politically Driven Education”. I only troll because it is damn well time teachers take back their profession. This can only be done from the trenches because politicians don’t have a clue, and certainly don’t give a damn!
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You are not a troll. And an FYI….my daughter has been looking at colleges for the past 6 months and every one has stated that they are not specifically looking at SAT/AP/ACT scores for admissions (“test optional” is the wording used) and many of these schools want to see a portfolio of work. It’s not perfect, but there is small change happening at the college level. If the College Board could finally be exposed for the fraud (and racist) that it is, this whole standardized testing nightmare will crumble to the ground.
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[I]t is damn well time teachers take back their profession.
Amen to that!
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As a music teacher in a center school, I read your story with tears in my eyes. Indeed my school is failing if one looks at the assessment scores yet my students are all achieving at their own pace, in their own way. Duh, isn’t that what special education is about? I hope the powers that be don’t exclude students like this from a free, appropriate education in the future because they fail the formal assessments. Standardized testing can’t standardize each individual special needs student even if all of them now fall under the category of being intellectually disabled. After all even Ferraris don’t race along with go-carts. Just because there is a big push for technology and computer data that personal relationship and understanding component IS the foundation for what makes a great teacher for all students. I guess there isn’t a way to exploit that for profit so it’s not part of the equation.
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A complex, diverse society needs people in all their beautiful variety, not ones who have been subjected to an attempt to mill them identically!!!
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“I hope the powers that be don’t exclude students like this from a free, appropriate education in the future because they fail the formal assessments.”
I used to tell my students that I never wanted to hear the four letter “F” word in my class. . . not the one that ended in “k” but that ended in “l”. So many students were conditioned to see themselves as “failing” or “failures” if they didn’t get all the answers perfect-“I’m going to fail this test”. . . .
Why is it that the only grade in the scale of A through F that has an actual word meaning is F?
What a damning indictment that so many believe that giving one’s best effort is “failing”. . . Eff that s#!t.
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Anyone that has taught non-traditional students understands that achievement is as diverse as the students are. It is ironic that many students that failed the CCSS tests have gone on to college and beyond. There are many ways to demonstrate achievement. We are long overdue in fighting back against this insidious practice of rating and ranking. I taught for many years without standardized tests. Students learned, took local tests and still went on to college or vocational education.
Growing up, my neighbor who, was about five years older than me, had cerebral palsy. His mother was a widow whose husband had died in WW II at Anzio Beachhead. When I was in high school, my neighbor went to work. Her son, Jerry who was a young adult with cerebral palsy, was alone during the day, although he could get food out of the refrigerator for himself. His mother left a cut up sandwich for him and jar of milk with a straw that he could access. His grandparents lived upstairs so he could call them in an emergency. Jerry was clever and resourceful. He even had his CB license as there was no internet in those days. In the spring and fall when I got home, I would bring Jerry outside where there was more activity and interaction with the neighbors. His nickname for me was “the warden.” I would often read to him. He loved non-fiction. At one point I tried to teach him to read, without success I might add. I think spending time with Jerry taught me patience and helped me prepare for a career in teaching. To this day my favorite movie is still “My Left Foot.”
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I love it. What gets me is that the Pew Research on The Principles of LEARNING produced volumes on THE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS, because the entire research was on WLLL –what learning looks like.
Performance is what it looks like when skills are learned. Be it the ability to play a piano or violin, ride a bike, or to write clearly or to do complicated math algorithms, PERFORMANCE is the key.
Of course we hear not a word about this expensive research but YOU Diane saw the volumes and know what Pew studied across the US, including in my classroom, when I was theNYC cohort, and they saw the end product — the portfolio of writing from Septmeber to June!
“How did you do this?”they asked, and then, Pew sent experts to sit in my room for 2 years to see what performance looks like when teaching 7th grade writing is the objective.
Of course the research was erased… so the tests could replace GENUINE EVALUATION and AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT –>> which was BTW… the THIRD Principle of Learning… and it was not ABOUT TESTING!!!
Oh, as you all know, I was erased, too… can’t have genuine teachers doing authentic practices when you are about to replace public education with magic elixirs: no evidence required
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
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Yesterday, something happened in a family conversation that demonstrates why testing is all wet. My family was traveling and my daughter was doing a crossword having to do with natural history. There was some question that I got right in my mind but that my wife, whose natural history background is way more extensive and deep than my own, could not. It was precisely because she had a great deal more knowledge that the simple answer was obscured.
Because of this paradox, testing with short, factual questions is not legitimate. So is it more legitimate to test with open ended or essay questions? This too is problematic. Students who do not write well will look worse than they really are.
I do not know the answer, but more numbers to describe student achievement is not the answer.
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“So is it more legitimate to test with open ended or essay questions?”
Neither!
The problem is that tests are used to evaluate students from the outside of the student instead of having the students assess themselves as part of the learning process. What I mean is that tests are used to judge students supposed merit when they should be another way for students to learn more about what they are learning.
Using tests as a diagnostic tool (yes there are times that using a diagnostic test is necessary for determining disabilities, that is not what I am talking about, I am talking about everyday classroom learning) is a fools errand that harms the teaching and learning process. Teaching should not be a diagnostic activity but should be one of advancing the student’s learning through the teaching and learning process.
Until we get out of the teacher as diagnostician role using false standards and tests and back into being actual teachers assisting children to learn we will continue to harm the very students we are charged with helping.
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