Richard P. Phelps recounts his experiences as the director of assessment for Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools. Phelps was expected to expand the notorious IMPACT testing program, meant to evaluate teachers. Phelps visited hundreds of administrators and teachers and asked their advice about how to make the program better. They gave him good ideas, and he passed them on to top staff as recommendations. The professionals’ advice was rejected by two top reformers.
Phelps’ article was posted on the blog of D.C. activist Valerie Jablow. She acknowledged its origin in this editor’s note:
[Ed. Note: In part 1 of this series, semi-retired educator Richard P. Phelps provided a first-hand account of what went down in DCPS as ed reformers in the early days of mayoral control pushed standardized tests; teacher evaluations based on those tests; and harsh school penalties. This second part looks at the cheating scandals that arose in the wake of such abusive practices. Such accounts are all the more important now that the DC auditor has just released a bombshell report of poor stewardship of DC’s education data. Both articles appeared in Nonpartisan Education Review in September 2020 and are reprinted here with permission. For this part, the author gratefully acknowledges the fact-checking assistance of retired DCPS teacher Erich Martel and DC school budget expert Mary Levy.]
Phelps came to realize that the “reformers” really didn’t care about improving education or helping children. They were padding their resumes, building their career prospects in the lavishly funded reform world.
Phelps writes:
Alas, much of the activity labelled “reform” was just for show, and for padding resumes. Numerous central office managers would later work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Numerous others would work for entities supported by the Gates or aligned foundations, or in jurisdictions such as Louisiana, where ed reformers held political power. Most would be well paid.
Their genuine accomplishments, or lack thereof, while at DCPS seemed to matter little. What mattered was the appearance of accomplishment and, above all, loyalty to the group. That loyalty required going along to get along: complicity in maintaining the façade of success while withholding any public criticism of or disagreement with other in-group members.
Unfortunately, in the United States what is commonly showcased as education reform is neither a civic enterprise nor a popular movement. Neither parents, the public, nor school-level educators have any direct influence. Rather, at the national level, U.S. education reform is an elite, private club—a small group of tightly connected politicos and academics—a mutual admiration society dedicated to the career advancement, political influence, and financial benefit of its members, supported by a gaggle of wealthy foundations (e.g., Gates, Walton, Broad, Wallace, Hewlett, Smith-Richardson).
Despite their failures, the elites who led DCPS moved on to remunerative positions. The game goes on. And it’s not “for the children.”
Wow. Always knew all of this. Surprised by the source. But make sure you read all of both of his articles. This guy is not on our side. Despite some excellent points about why the tests are a destructive non-measure of good teaching, by the end of the second article (link found at bottom of first article), I had the impression that if the author had his way, every student and every teacher would be evaluated in every subject. The man who wanted to expand DC testing fourfold concludes article two with a message that “true reform” (my quotes and phrase) will only come form independent accountability entirely removed from educators (including everyone from teachers to top policy makers). Thank you to the author for (finally) coming clean about widespread Ed Reform dishonesty, but you’re still missing some extremely important points — friends here can better explain them — of why high-stakes testing is so harmful.
he is frighteningly like various other critics who make the beginning of a book or article or study sound as if it is going to open the door to light where testing/reform is concerned, but frustratingly ends up simply pushing more of the same. Even more dangerously, many of these ‘critics then get interviewed on big TV news shows as ‘education experts’
Phelps advertises himself as a fellow of The Psychophysics Lab.
What the hell is that?
Sounds kooky whatever it is.
Are you talking about this? “U.S. school systems are structured to be opaque and, it seems, both educators and testing contractors like it that way.” To me it’s a lie. US school systems have always been transparent as to financial details, as stewards of responsible tax-spending. (That’s why we find out sooner or later about procurement fraud.) We know the breakdown for admin/ teaching/ materials; we even know salary details. Are we opaque on curriculum? Course offerings have been public info since long before the internet age. Textbooks whether selected by state or local BOE can be determined with a little hunting or asking.
My info as a parent dates to just before NJ implementation of CCSS, but I was privy to the NJ implementation of NCLB testing via tutoring. It seems to me that any opacity refers to the implementation of NCLB testing & accountability systems. Tests were never available to teachers/ parents/ students, just grades – thanks to the privatize companies providing them. Scores were always subject to opaque state ‘cut score’ algorithms, thanks to the politics of high-stakes evaluations.
Phelps’ complaint of ‘opacity’ is simply part and parcel of privatized testing, and the politics of high-stakes sorting/ ranking of teachers and schools via their test scores. From where would one select “genuinely independent third parties, hired by neither the public education establishment nor the education reform club” to audit the unholy mess of ed-industry-/ politically- motivated implementation of an educationally fraudulent testing system? The former [the public education establishment] is held hostage to the latter [the education reform club] via the latter’s $clouty access to a corrupted govt.
Your comments about our transparency are spot on. Amen!
Adding to your list the transparency of our gradebooks, assignments, updates, and supplemental materials (all provided digitally) and I think we can hammer home the final nail about who’s transparent and who is opaque.
And that whole bit about not having access to the test always had a “beware for whom the bell tolls” vibe, no? Threatening our credentials if we breach the almighty secrets of the secret order of test makers is brazen balderdash, yet here we stand threatened. Again. Signing some affidavit of secrecy. I mean, who do these people think they are? These folks are right up in your face opaque and just daring us to say something. And each year we do. We happy few.
Alas, the test makers and their ilk are the marionettes, see how the politicians dance. O me, O life…
As part of the efforts of the San Francisco elite to dismantle their democratically elected school board, they referenced DC schools as a shining example where appointed boards seem to work really well. According to one of the leaders of this movement, former hedge-funder Patrick Wolff, “Major urban cities are often really the only ones that tend to gravitate towards this appointment-based system, and it tends to work well for them from what we have seen”. From the view of their elitist bubble, they are either hopelessly naive, or choose to remain completely uneducated in what’s happening in the privatization world. Neither of which is acceptable.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/Parent-Group-Proposes-Eliminating-School-Board-16010264.php?fbclid=IwAR3cCaNrAtItT_u6zoQLbflwq_7udl1rIVZnU8e94vV056PfJU0x9LOkkng
Phelps’ notes on teacher input are illuminating. Teachers frequently suggested testing framing the actual teaching year: pretest in late Aug/ early Sept, test in late May/ early June. “Rejected because the test development firm with the DC-CAS contract required three months to score some portions of the test in time for the IMPACT teacher ratings scheduled for early July delivery, before the start of the new school year. Some small number of teachers would be terminated based on their IMPACT scores, so management demanded those scores be available before preparations for the new school year began.” And so on. Every single recommendation he outlines was rejected, either because it didn’t work with the testing co’s ability to deliver scores, or the admin’s reqd schedule to deliver consequences of scores. Right here we have the nutshell of how VAM doesn’t work on the ground. Even if one were to buy into the ludicrous premise behind VAM, it was clearly unimplementable. DC admin’s answer? Insert Nike motto.