Archives for category: Global Education Reform Movement (GERM)
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“Not Just Test Scores”

By dianeravitch
September 4, 2012 //
9

Henry Levin, the distinguished economist at Teachers College, has written an important new article in which he explains that test scores are only one dimension of student and national success. The link is only available for four weeks. It is only about 20 pages, so be sure to read it now or soon.

He shows, with extensive documentation, that non-cognitive qualities– like motivation, persistence, the ability to get along with others–are no less important than cognitive qualities and are undervalued in the present climate.

The international race to get higher and higher test scores ignores the non-cognitive dimension. It is a race that will narrow what children learn, what teachers may teach. It is not good for children or societies. It is a race that no one will win.

Here is the abstract:

Ó UNESCO IBE 2012

Abstract Around the world we hear considerable talk about creating world-class schools. Usually the term refers to schools whose students get very high scores on the international comparisons of student achievement such as PISA or TIMSS. The practice of restricting the meaning of exemplary schools to the narrow criterion of achievement scores is usually premised on the view that test scores are closely linked to the provision of a capable labour force and competitive economy. In fact, the measured relationships between test scores and earnings or productivity are modest and explain a relatively small share of the larger link between educational attainment and economic outcomes. What has been omitted from such narrow assessments are the effects that education has on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills and capabilities that affect the quality and productivity of the labour force. This article provides evidence on some of these relationships, on the degree to which the non-cognitive effects of schooling contribute to adult performance, and on the evidence that deliberate school interventions can influence non-cognitive outcomes. It concludes with the view that the quest for world-class schools must encompass a range of human development characteristics that extend considerably beyond test scores. 

Categories Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Testing

Brits Deal with Same Attacks on Schools

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2012 //
6

It was eerie reading this article. Change the names and you would think it was Arne Duncan speaking. Same rhetoric. Different country.

Wheree do these people come from?

What’s their end game?

Categories Global Education Reform Movement (GERM)

How to Win the War of Ideas

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2012 //
6

I am often asked what teachers and parents can do to get across how absurd the “reform” ideas are.

Most important is to reach the public, to enable the public to understand what is happening, and how little evidence there is for any of the reformers’ claims or their strategies.

But here is another tack.

The most effective tool of all may be humor.

The New South Wales Teachers Federation in Australia has begun to create videos to spoof the nonsense that they are dealing with, some of it part of the Global Education Reform Movement (as Pasi Sahlberg of Finland named it) and some imported from the USA.

This video is a mock press conference in which “government officials” explain their verbose and nonsensical plans. It is very funny!

I understand that their next video will feature an interview with an American “education expert” on the glories of privatization.

We really must learn from our friends in Australia. Once something becomes ridiculous, it is hard to take it seriously.

Categories Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), Humor

A Humanity-Biased Educator in Australia Blasts PISA

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2012 //
2

I regularly read the posts from Phil Cullen in Australia, which he calls “The Treehorn Express.” Here is one of his best.

You  will notice that he includes a link to Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet, showing how ideas travel fast around the world.

NAPLAN is the Australian national assessment program of literacy and numeracy.

The Treehorn Express
 
 
Scores, Scores, Scores
The delusional, paranoiac obsession with scores and numbers in educational dialogue, and their use by educators who should know better, constantly diverts attention from the real issues. We have all been guilty of using statements like:- “Finland has the best system in the world, because it topped the PISA tests in 2009.” “USA has a poor system of schooling. It ran 27th on the PISA tests.”  “Australia and New Zealand are in the top ten of the best school systems in the world.” “Asia’s cram schools are raising the stakes.”  What is this system of ranking that has led us to the use of such inanities?
PISA is a Programme for International Student Assessment, operating under the auspices of OECD. It tests only 15 year-olds [considered to be school leavers] in a number of countries to see how well-equipped they might be to face the world at large. Although the PISA is only able to test the testables in reading, mathematics and problem solving, it has no link to any school curriculum and provides great fun for the measurement nerds at OECD, Paris. It is claimed to be “…a powerful tool to shape government’s policy making.”   Heaven knows why. Thus far, it has created chaos and panic amongst those in countries who don’t understand what it is.  It tested reading in 2000; mathematics in 2003; science in 2006; reading again in 2009. For 2012 some 15 year-olds are being randomly selected from about 30 countries to test mathematics and try an optional computer-based assessment of mathematics and reading. PISA carries more punch than it deserves. For curriculum use and for comparative standards, its punch would not explode a paper bag.
It is influential, however. Countries, states and authorities around the world have gone numbers-mad to copy its impetuous ardour:- giving tests invented by local non-school measurers, assigning numbers as scores to each participant, averaging the numbers to declare some ridiculously impossible assessments of teachers, principals, schools and systems; publishing results as if they carried some sort of evaluation of what was going on in regard to teacher competencies, school performance, principals’ curriculum leadership and systems’ organisation.
In Australia, these unreliable, comparative number-scores are used as the basis for serious but totally inaccurate descriptions of pupils, schools, of teachers, of principals; have given rise to an amazing array of gimmickry; enhanced the coffers of private schooling; and enriched the coffers of publishers. Nothing much else. They have been used to describe ‘best’ schools and ‘worst’ schools, ‘good’ teachers and ‘bad’ teachers. Some newspapers have been cruel, with commentators pontificating on standards of schooling. the needs for this and that, They have even been used to describe countries as providing outstanding educational services because of success in this test, that is unfamiliar to most commentators and has yet to be extensively examined as a reliable device for what it says it does.  The Australian Gratten Institute, founded in the same year as NAPLAN, established to advise governments on policy matters, contributes to the heresy by its reliance on numbers to make judgements. It’s report: “Catching Up: Learning from the Best School Systems in East Asia” where after-school tutoring to raise test scores is rife, bases it’s contents on numbers scored. [http://www.saveourschools.com.au ] “The report is seriously deficient and one-sided.” says Trevor Cobbald.   One hopes that policy-makers will consult with humanity-biased commentators and the education community before any serious decisions are taken as a consequence of this report.
And all this malarchy costs over $540million with more to come to prop-up the [officially] failed NAPLAN testing scheme!
The reliance and over-use of Arabic numerals for educational purposes is catastrophic. Measurers are people who dwell on the outskirts of educational activities and who  greatly exaggerate the power of number scores. They should get back in their box with their childish toys.  Number is number. When its hieroglyphics are used for descriptive purposes, scores and marks and numbers are inappropriate. Used for serious evaluation of education’s human effort as they are during the present testing pandemic, the use is satanic.
saynotonaplansaynotonaplansaynotonaplansaynotonaplansaynotonaplansaynotonaplansaynotonaplansaynotonaplansaynotonaplandaynotonaplansaynotonaplan
        [Kelvin Smythe’s criticism of a NZ Shadow Minister’s statement contains some brilliant summaries of the effects of ‘national standards. The Minister then responds.]IMPORTANT READING:     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/eight-problems-with-common-core-standards/2012/08/12/821b300a-e4e7-11e1-8f62-58260e3940_blog.html#pagebreak
                                          [Marion Brady comments: “Future historians…are going to shake their heads in disbelief. They’ll wonder how, in a single generation…democracy has dismantled its engine.”]
Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Testing

What Our Friends in New Zealand Are Reading

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2012 //
1

Allan Allach of New Zealand has compiled a reading list, some drawn from U.S. sources (one from this blog). What is interesting is the commonality of concerns among so many of us worried about the standardization of education, corporate control of schooling, and the worship of data as the goal of education:

 

Weekend Readings
By Allan Alach
One common element of ‘deform’ across the world, is the use of PISA tests to justify the implementation of GERM.  As Phil Cullen observes in his latest Treehorn Express these tests are an offshoot of the OECD, an organisation of economists. Since when did economists have valid educational credentials? This begs the question- why do we take any notice of PISA? Anyone able to explain this to me?
I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.
This week’s homework!
Charter Schools and Corporate Ed Reform
As other countries rush down the charter school road, evidence to the contrary keeps coming out of USA. Naturally our GERM minded politicians take no notice – powerful string pullers behind the scenes? Thanks to Barbara Nelson for this link.
“The following is an excerpt from Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education: What’s at Stake? co-authored by Michelle Fine and Michael Fabricant. The book traces the evolution of the charter school movement from its origins in community- and educator-based efforts to promote progressive change to their role today as instruments of privatization and radical disinvestment in public education.”
New school year: doubling down on failed ed policy
Or ‘how we need to learn from our mistakes”
“This was written by Lisa Guisbond, a policy analyst for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, a Boston-based organization that aims to improve standardized testing practices and evaluations of students, teachers and schools.”
10 Ways School Reformers Get It Wrong
“When it comes to education reform, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel anymore; instead, we’re building square ones.” Nothing else needs to be added. Thanks to Phil Cullen for this link.
Secret Teacher has had it with WALTS, WILFS and other education jargon.
The Guardian newspaper, UK, runs a regular feature where a different secret teacher each time writes about issues of concern. This one is written by an Academy School (aka charter school) teacher, and provides a warning of what is to come.
Yong Zhao on PISA
For the last 18 months or so, I’ve been raising questions about this PISA test programme that is being used by ‘deformers’ all over to justify their educational agenda. Why is a test developed by an economic organisation being used in this way? Why do we give it any credit at all?  Think about it – the PISA tests to determine any country’s educational achievement have exactly the same drawbacks as using tests to determine a child’s achievement. This blog by Diane Ravitch, referencing comments by Yong Zhao, covers this more authoritatively. Getting rid of PISA would be a major step forward.

Technocratic Expansion of Education Data Systems Stirs Privacy Concerns

This is an extremely important article by Anthony Cody.  The online student database system he describes here is also being developed in New Zealand, ready for implementation in 2014. Are similar systems being developed in Australia, UK and elsewhere? This is big brother, people. No exaggeration.  The only thing Orwell got wrong was that he anticipated a far left state, not a right wing corporate based state with fascist overtones. Just to back this up, there’s also another link from a homeschooling website.
Eight problems with Common Core Standards
Another great article by Marion Brady. New Zealand readers might ‘enjoy’ reading this, substituting ‘national’ for ‘common core.’ Aren’t coincidences wonderful?
Thank God for standardized test scores
With the coming publication of ‘achievement data’ for New Zealand schools, as the government rushes in a ‘me too’ fashion’ to join the bandwagon, this satirical article by Joe Bower is timely.
Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Curriculum, Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International

Yong Zhao on PISA

By dianeravitch
August 11, 2012 //
13

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman had a column a few days ago saying that PISA would soon make it possible for everyone to compare the scores of their school to schools all over the world. No one will be average anymore! Just being able to take tests and compare scores will drive us all to the top!

After I read this with a sinking sensation, thinking of the whole world competing to get better test scores (why?), I asked the eminent scholar Yong Zhao to react to this column.

He sent the following as he was traveling in Australia:

“Imagine, in a few years, you could sign onto a Web site and see this is how my school compares with a similar school anywhere in the world,” says Schleicher. “And then you take this information to your local superintendent and ask: ‘Why are we not doing as well as schools in China or Finland?’ ”

Sounds like a commercial for a global standardized testing service? Well, it is. And it is from one of the most influential media outlets The New York Times and endorsed by one of the most popular voices about globalization Thomas Friedman in an op-ed piece last week http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/opinion/friedman-average-is-over-part-ii-.html.

 

The product is OECD’s PISA, the international assessment program that claims to test reading, math, and science skills of 15 year olds. PISA should a great case study of marketing strategy in business schools. In about 10 years, it has been successfully marketed to governments and educational authorities in over 70 countries.

 

PISA has convinced many that it is the gold standard of education quality. Although there are other international assessment programs, which has had a long history, but more countries participate in PISA, which by itself is a great marketing slogan, just like “More Doctors Smoke Camel” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI.

 

 

Up until now, PISA has remained at the system level, reporting averages of groups of students, which has already generated a “PISA Score Race” across the world. With this new round of PISA and the system OECD is developing, it is coming to a school near you and your house. But before you log on and “march to your local superintendent and ask ‘Why are we not doing as well as schools in China or Finland,’ it would be good if you ask the PISA advocates the following questions:

 

  1. Why didn’t the Chinese have a big party celebrating its stunning PISA performance? When the last round of PISA results were released in 2010, China’s Shanghai scored #1 in all three areas, but China, a country eager to celebrate any international achievement, did not even have much national media coverage. In fact, whenever PISA was discussed inside China, it is often associated with “so what?” (Read my blog posts: The Real Reason Behind Chinese Students Top PISA Performance http://zhaolearning.com/2010/12/10/a-true-wake-up-call-for-arne-duncan-the-real-reason-behind-chinese-students-top-pisa-performance/ and The Grass is Greener: http://zhaolearning.com/2011/09/18/the-grass-is-greener-learning-from-other-countries/)
  2. Why the Chinese, who supposedly enjoy the best education according to PISA, spend their life’s savings to send their children to U.S. schools, which supposedly offer a much inferior education? Those who cannot afford to send their children overseas work hard to send their children American schools inside China. If they cannot even do that, they send their children to after school programs modeled after American schools. One of the programs that spread like wildfire in China claims to offer “authentic American K-12 education.” “Attend American Schools in China” is its marketing line.

 

The reason is perhaps best illustrated by OECD itself. A report (http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46581016.pdf)  about lessons to learn from high PISA performers produced by OECD says:

 

Compared with other societies, young people in Shanghai may be much more immersed in learning in the broadest sense of the term. The logical conclusion is that they learn more, even though what they learn and how they learn are subjects of constant debate. Critics see young people as being “fed” learning because they are seldom left on their own to learn in a way of their choice. They have little direct encounters with nature, for example, and little experience with society either. While they have learned a lot, they may not have learned how to learn. The Shanghai government is developing new policy interventions to reduce student workload and to refocus the quality of student learning experiences over quantity. (p. 103)

 

Essentially, the issues (and questions we must ask) are:

 

  1. Is what the PISA measures truly valuable? Ultimately, we all want a great education for our children, but does PISA scores really measure the quality of education our children will need?
  2. What is sacrificed to achieve such high scores? Are the sacrifices worth the scores?
  3. If China has such a great education, why don’t we just outsource it to China?

 

Read my op-ed in Education Week: Doublethink http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/07/18/36zhao_ep.h31.html)

 

In a nutshell, American education is far from perfect, but China is not a model for emulation. For more about China, PISA, and American education, read my latest book World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students http://zhaolearning.com/world-class-learners-my-new-book/or Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Leading-Way-Education-Globalization/dp/1416608737/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Categories Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Testing

In China, the Cost of High Test Scores

By dianeravitch
August 10, 2012 //
6

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and billionaire Bill Gates and gadfly Michelle Rhee wring their hands over American students’ test scores. They look enviously at Shanghai and wonder why we can’t be like them.

But the Los Angeles Times had a story explaining that Chinese educators have mixed feelings about those high test scores. They know that they are squeezing the joy of learning out of their schools and pressuring children to grind, grind, grind. They worry that their students lack creativity and imagination.

Before we follow China’s example, we should think about the qualities that we value. Do we want good test-takers or do we want creativity and innovation? Do we want obedient and compliant workers or do we want divergent thinkers? Which will serve us better in the decades ahead?

Categories Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Testing

A View from New Zealand

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
0

As I have noted before, the idea of introducing a “free market” into education has strong appeal to conservative governments in other nations. Pasi Sahlberg of Finland calls this idea the “Global Education Reform Movement,” or GERM, characterized by testing, accountability, competition, and choice. GERM is now infesting New Zealand, which has a very successful education system.

One of the leading anti-national testing sites is called the Treehorn Express, a blog written by NZ educator Phil Cullen. While the names and organizations will not be familiar to you, the issues will be. New Zealand officials want to introduce charter schools to New Zealand, and this post sees it as a huge step backward that will mean privatization, funding of religious schools, and eliminating the expectation that teachers in these schools must be credentialed.

If you want to see how the global issues are shaped by American developments, and if you want to learn how your peers in New Zealand are reacting, this is a good place to start.

Categories Charter Schools, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International

What We Can Learn from Japan

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2012 //
5

The New York Times had a front-page story about a generational divide in Japan.

The article begins, “As Japan has ceded dominance in industry after industry that once lifted this nation to economic greatness, there has been plenty of blame to go around. A nuclear disaster that raised energy costs. A lack of entrepreneurship. China’s relatively cheap work force.”

The article says that the government’s decision to have a strong yen favors the elderly and protects their pensions, but makes Japanese products prohibitively expensive, which is “hollowing out the country’s industrial base” and “exacerbating the nation’s two-decade-long economic stagnation.”

As I read the article, I thought about how American policymakers look enviously at Japan’s high test scores on international assessments.

And it struck me that the economic problems in Japan are not caused by the schools. And the high test scores are not a source of entrepreneurship, nor have they guaranteed a strong economy.

All this deserves consideration. In our nation, our greatest strength is creativity, innovation, risk-taking, and imagination.

Now our policymakers want us to use Japan and other nations with high test scores as a model, claiming that this will lead us to even greater economic growth in the future.

Japan’s dilemma today disproves the theory on which contemporary corporate-driven school reform is based.

Let us learn from their example.

Economic decisions drive the economy. Creative people build a better economy. Higher test scores do not produce a better economy, nor do they nurture the creative genius needed for future innovation.

Will there be an “aha!” moment when leaders of the corporate reform movement realize they are on the wrong track?

Categories Corporate Reformers, Economy, Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International, Testing

A Debate about U.K. Education

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2012 //
3

A reader in the U.K. Offers a dissent to a previous post:

I think that the current British Government are seeking to emulate the worst travesties present in the US system. This is largely because emulating the best practice in more successful education systems will cost money and as such is the last thing they are likely to do.

I disagree the free schools and academies freedom from following the National Curriculum is not a move towards standardised testing. What it does is give them licence to not teach subjects that they view as peripheral (arts, Design and Technology, Food Technology, RE etc) which is likely to lead on more focus on the subjects that are EBAC subjects. This is likely to result in more standardisation of the curriculum and a significant narrowing of the curriculum. it also allows them to opt out of certain subjects that require expensive specialist rooms or equipment.

The governments decision that Qualified Teacher Status is not needed is a nonsense that can only harm children. It is an attack on the teaching profession and a transparent attempt to worsen teachers pay and conditions and make our ineffectual unions even less effective. It also proves that all their rhetoric about raising the status of the profession was nothing more than a lie.

Their making the process for sacking poor teachers part of the performance management process is ill conceived and makes a poor, meaningless process significantly worse. Their constant teacher bashing displays a dislike of and contempt for the profession that fits in with their decision to allow academies and free schools to employ unqualified teachers.

Sadly there are a large number of teachers that appear to be enthusiastic about the worst of these changes and are determined to be the turkeys that vote for Christmas.

There are those that support performance related pay and local pay bargaining because they for some reason believe these will result in them getting paid more.

There are those career-oriented types that vocally support any nonsense that is introduced without first engaging their brains and looking at it. So desperate are they to appear on message they will endorse any old nonsense and try to make us all embrace it too. When I think of the amount of money that has gone from our schools into the hands of private companies for all kinds of nonsense I despair.

My main concern is that government policy flies in the face of their stated aims.

They say they want to give schools more autonomy:
1) They have dramatically increased the number of schools that are only answerable to the secretary of state for education (and nominally the market).
2) The league tables essentially determine which subjects schools teach and which they focus on most
3) OFSTED (the inspection regime) have a staggeringly prescriptive definition of good teaching which is borderline facistic in its demands that certain things MUST be included in lessons if teaching is to be considered satisfactory or better. Many of these things have little or no evidence to support their inclusion in my opinion.

They say they want to raise the status of the profession:
1) They have removed that requirement that teachers have a teaching qualification
2) They constantly focus on coasting and bad teaching and incessantly denigrate the profession.
3) The constantly misuse statistics and mangle the english language to create the impression that the results are worse than they are.

They say they want to support teachers with behaviour issues:
1) The policy of penalising schools for excluding pupils remains and has in fact been worsened.
2) They constantly claim to have given us new rights. Mostly these are things we didn’t want, need or are not new. (Searching pupils bags, confiscating phones, no notice detentions etc)
3) They have not actually done anything that is likely to make behaviour in schools any better and their constant attacks on the profession are only going to make teachers less respected.

I think that all of these moves are a prelude to privatisation and the creation of a two tier system. The creation of academies once past a certain number of academies will make national pay bargaining impossible. The removal of national pay bargaining is an essential step for the right in the march towards privatisation.
Categories Education Reform, Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), International
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