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Bob Shepherd: Why High-Stakes Testing is an Act of Violence Against Students

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2019 //
133

 

Bob Shepherd, our resident scholar, wrote this insightful comment:

Anyone who has taught high-school kids knows that they are extremely emotionally unstable. It’s a difficult time. It’s the time in which we all struggle with establishing an identity that will be acceptable to/accepted by the others around us. One way in which kids do that is by rebelling against their parents and teachers and older authorities in general. This rebellion can take forms both positive and negative.

On the positive side, many turn to resistance against how older people have messed things up for them–have given them human-caused climate change or dying oceans or Trump and his stupid wall. On the negative side, many turn to destructive behaviors of which older people disapprove–drinking and drugs and petty theft (shoplifting) and dangerous sexual experimentation for which they are not ready physically or emotionally. High-school kids tend to be extreme about everything–extremely idealistic and extremely inclined to go further, in their beliefs about the world, than their actual knowledge and experience rationally allow. They are sensitive and volatile and more than a little bit crazy, like caged tigers.

For a long time, great teachers in the humanities (English, history, art, theatre, music, languages) and in the sciences approached as a humane undertaking were able to harness that youthful idealism, that desire to define themselves as change agents over and against the adult world. In every classroom, there is the overt curriculum and then there are the hidden curricula that get taught incidentally. An extremely important part of the hidden curriculum in those classes in high school was always that a great teacher would use great cultural products from the past to harness that idealism and desire for an identity: “I am a writer, a musician, a linguist, a historian, a biologist, in the making,” the student would learn to say of him or herself. “I am Yolanda the poet.” An English class in which the overt curriculum as, say, study of Slaughterhouse Five, would become one in which, because the class was focused on what authors had to say, the hidden curriculum taught that people do (and rationalize to themselves) really stupid and evil things in war. And the kids would get all fired up about that. One in which the overt curriculum as American literature of the Puritan Era would become one in which the hidden curriculum taught Puritan values like individualism and local government and rebellion against tyranny and the horrors that can occur when people don’t practice acceptance and toleration (e.g., the genocide against the indigenous population in the Americas). And because kids were getting something from it–a sense of their own identity or a purpose or cause to be fired up about, they would learn that learning itself was of value. And what would last and be important from that high-school experience–what would not, perhaps, bear its fruit for years but would, indeed, bear fruit, would be that learning.

Not so now. English class has become all about applying item x from the Gates/Coleman bullet list to text snippet y in preparation for the ALL IMPORTANT test that will determine whether the kid will be acceptable for advancement. Kids have been robbed, by Ed Deform, by this testing mania, of humane education, of the hidden curriculum that taught them, most importantly, to become intrinsically motivated, life-long learners. No one ever got fired up by a set of test prep exercises.

We have an epidemic, now, in the US of high-school kids who are extraordinarily stressed out, who don’t see a future for themselves, who cut themselves and suffer from depression and anorexia, who commit suicide. If you teach in a high-school, you see this all the time, but especially at the end of the year, as testing season approaches. The kids, having been herded and cajoled and threatened all year; having spent a year sitting in class for an hour, getting up and moving for three minutes, sitting in another, and doing this six or seven times a day; now face the very real prospect of failure on invalid, capricious standardized tests, and they are stressed, stressed, stressed and ANGRY. The testing is AN ACT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN.

An entire generation of students has now been subjected to the standards-and-testing regime. And the results are in. We now KNOW that it has fulfilled NONE of its promises. It hasn’t improved learning outcomes. It hasn’t closed achievement gaps. But it has narrowed and distorted curricula and pedagogy and made our children SICK.

Enough. Standardized testing is a vampire that sucks the lifeblood out of education. Put a stake in it.

Unapprove
Categories Cruelty, Joy, Students, Testing

Tom Ultican: The Failure of Privatization in New Orleans

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2019 //
14

 

New Orleans is supposed to be the lodestar of the Corporate Reform Movement (or as I call it, the Disruption Movement), but the experiment in privatization is a costly failure, as Tom Ultican demonstrates in this post.

The old, underfunded school system was corrupt and inefficient. The new one is expensive, inefficient, and ethically corrupt because of its incessant boasting about what are actually very poor results.

Comparisons between the old and new “systems” are dubious at best because Hurricane Katrina dramatically reduced the enrollment from 62,000 to 48,000. As Bruce Baker pointed out in reviewing a recent puff study, concentrated poverty was significantly reduced by the exodus of some of the city’s poorest residents, who resettled elsewhere.

Ultican cites Andrea Gabor’s studies of the New Orleans schools to show that the lingering heritage of segregation and disenfranchisement has been preserved in the new all-charter system. The schools that enroll the most white students have selective admissions and high test scores. The majority of schools are highly segregated and have very low test scores.

Be sure to open this link and scroll down to “Individual School Performance,” where you will see that the majority of charter schools in BOLA perform well below the state average.

Do not look to New Orleans for lessons about school reform. But do admire it as a shining example of propaganda and spin paid for by Bill Gates and other billionaires who don’t like public education, democracy, or local school boards.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Education Industry, Failure, New Orleans, Privatization, Students, Teach for America

Carol Burris and Leonie Haimson On the Air!

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2019 //
3

 

Here is news you can use! Carol Burris and Leonie Haimson now have a regular one-hour radio show on WBAI In New York. The show is called TALK OUT OF SCHOOL, and it will appear weekly. WBAI is part of the progressive Pacifica Network.

In their first show, they discussed student privacy, a subject on which Leonie is a national advocate and expert, and they analyzed current controversies about diversity, selective admissions, and racial integration, a subject where Carol has extensive experience as principal of a detracked high school on Long Island.

Leonie is executive director of Class Size Matters and co-founder of the national Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. Carol is executive director of the Network for Public Education.

Next week, Leonie will interview civil rights attorney Wendy Lecker.

Of this you can be certain, this show will be a place to hear talk that is characterized by experience, common sense, and wisdom.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Class size, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Network for Public Education, Parents, Privatization, Real Education, Students

Peter Greene: Does Social and Emotional Learning Belong in the Classroom?

By dianeravitch
September 13, 2019 //
25

Education is always ablaze with the latest fad (think “grit,” “think “self-esteem,” think “character education,” think “growth mindset,” think a hundred other hot topics).

Now it is “social and emotional learning.” You might think that SEL is simply built into the classroom experience. But no, there is now a demand from some quarters to teach it as a separate activity or even subject.

Peter Greene has a few choice words on the subject.

With Peter Greene, experience and common sense go a long way.

He begins:

 

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) has been gathering traction as a new education trend over the past few years. Back at the start of 2018, EdWeek was noting “Experts Agree Social-Emotional Learning Matters, and Are Plotting Roadmap of How To Do It.” But as we head into the new year, many folks still haven’t gotten far beyond the “it matters” stage in their plotting.
I’m here to teach you how to be human.
That’s the easy part. We can mostly agree that SEL matters; in fact, we ought to agree that it already happens in classrooms. It’s impossible to avoid; where children are around adults, SEL is going on. Asking if SEL should occur in a classroom is like asking if breathing should happen in the room. The real question is whether or not it should occur in a formal, structured, instructed and assessed manner. That is the question that starts all the arguments. We can break down the arguments by asking the same questions we ask about any content we want to bring into the classroom.
Why do we want to teach this?
Some SEL proponents have developed a utilitarian focus. Summarizing the work of the Aspen Institute National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development, EdWeek said “social-emotional learning strategies center on research that has linked the development of skills like building healthy peer relationships and responsible decision making to success inside and outside the classroom.” But what happens if we approach what used to be called character education with the idea that it’s useful for getting ahead? Doesn’t SEL need to be about more than learning to act like a good person in order to get a grade, a job, and a fatter paycheck? Are you even developing good character if your purpose for developing that character is to grab some benefits for yourself?
We can reject that kind of selfish focus for SEL and instead focus on the “whole child,” and treat SEL, as Tim Shriver (co-chair of that Aspen Institute) and Frederick Hess (of the American Enterprise Institute) wrote, as “an opportunity to focus on values and student needs that matter deeply to parents and unite Americans across the ideological spectrum—things like integrity, empathy, and responsible decision making.” But then we find ourselves with another problem.
What do we want to teach?
If we’re going to adopt SEL in order to essentially teach students to be better people, then who will decide what “better” looks like? Is “tolerance” going to be one of the virtues, and if so, does that mean that students must learn to tolerate persons who would not be tolerated by their families (be that married gay folks or strict religious conservatives)? Should students be taught to feel empathy for everyone, from Nazis to sociopaths?
The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) identifies five “competencies” for SEL(self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, social awareness, relationships skills). That framework is widely used, but “explained” with a wide variety of definitions (one resource says it includes “achieving useful goals”). All of them are heavily loaded with value judgments; how many arguments have you been in your life about whether or not something was a “responsible” decision or not? Who decides if a goal is “useful?”
We have been down this exact road before. In the 90s, Outcome Based Education was going to be a great new thing in education, but before it could gain traction, a bunch of folks noticed that it included an element of teaching values, and a large number of parents were certain that was not a job they wanted the schools to do. OBE never recovered. As two articles in this packet from AEI note, much of what comes under the SEL umbrella used to be considered the providence–indeed, the whole point–of religious and faith-based education.
Wherever SEL is implemented, expect a huge fight over what will actually be taught.
He has much more to say on the topic. Read it.
Categories Curriculum, Students

Providence: Parents and Students Demand a Seat at the Table in State Takeover Plan

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2019 //
2

Parents and students demand a seat at the table in Providence as state leaders prepare to take control of district.

https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190904/students-parents-demand-formal-role-in-state-takeover-plan-for-providence-schools

A group of high school students and Providence parents have filed a motion with the state Department of Education Wednesday demanding a formal role for parents and students to weigh in on the takeover plan for the Providence public schools.

Parents are joined by several youth organizations, including Youth in Action, Providence Youth Student Movement, Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education, and the Providence Student Union.

The group, represented by the Rhode Island Center for Justice, is asking State Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green to ensure parent and student involvement in the plan for improving the city’s schools, the leaders who will implement it, and the goals, progress and criteria for success for the plan.

The groups argue that students and their parents have a clear, strong, personal stake in the success of the district, and have a legal right to participate in decisions about the takeover.

In their motion, the parents, students and community groups are saying to the state: “No one has a greater stake in demanding improvements in the schools than parents and students, and no turnaround will succeed without a clear plan that includes the community.”

Categories Parents, Providence, Students

Colorado: Students Training to Respond to Active Shooter in School

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2019 //
27

Since the U.S. Senate refuses to consider any regulation of guns, some schools are preparing for the next shooter.

In Colorado, students are receiving training in how to respond if they are confronted by an active shooter.

Colorado was the site of the Columbine massacre in a high school and the Aurora massacre in a movie theater. Last May, a student was killed in a charter school in Douglas County.

The gym at Pinnacle High School echoed with laughter and a few cheers Wednesday morning as students took turns tackling a heavily padded man.

While it might have sounded like a game, the orange water pistol in the demonstrator’s hand served as a reminder of what would be at stake if they ever had to use the tactics they were learning on a real assailant.

The Adams County K-12 charter school spent most of the school day having students practice skills such as barricading their classrooms, evacuating the building — and, if necessary, defending themselves. Many schools near Denver and across the country teach the idea of fighting back as one possible option during an attack, but relatively few have students actually practice what they might do if a gunman entered their classrooms.

Clarissa Burklund, president of Pinnacle’s school board, said officials hadn’t discussed having students do more than traditional lockdown drills until this summer. The May 7 shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch, where three students rushed one of two attackers, showed that teenagers could defend themselves and need to prepare for that possibility, she said.

“I hate that they have to talk about this,” she said with a catch in her voice. “I hate that they live in this society. But they do, and there’s no point in denying it….”

There’s no nationwide tracking of how schools prepare their students for active shooters, but emphasis appears to have gradually shifted from “locks, lights, out of sight,” where students are told to take shelter in their classrooms, to “run, hide, fight,” where they are expected to choose their best option for the situation. Some schools also have started conducting more realistic drills, including the sounds of simulated gunfire, but that practice has spurred controversy, especially when students weren’t aware they were only dealing with a drill.

Little evidence exists to show if one type of active shooter training is more effective than another, and some experts have concerns about emphasizing cases in which students have fought back. The fear is that could encourage students to overlook safer options such as evacuating.

Categories Colorado, Education Reform, Guns in Schools, Students

Detroit: Top Students At Charter School Face Punishment for Critical Graduation Speeches

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2019 //
10

 

At graduation, the top students at Universal Academy in Detroit spoke critically of the school, and now their diplomas arebeing withheld. 

The school might have been proud of their graduates for showing independence and critical thinking, but no.

A piece of certified mail arrived for Tuhfa Kasem this week. Kasem hoped the envelope contained her long-awaited high school diploma.

What she found instead seemed to her like a threat.

Kasem, one of the top students at Universal Academy, surprised school administrators by delivering a graduation speech in May that criticized the school. 

Nearly two months after her speech went viral, an official from Hamadeh Educational Services, the company that manages the school, wrote to Kasem and Zainab Altalaqani, who delivered a similar speech, that they had committed acts “of dishonesty and deceit.” The letters ask the students to meet with administrators, noting that they “have every right to bring an attorney…”

The students say they’re being targeted for putting a spotlight on problems at their school, which sits on the western edge of Detroit. In their speeches they argued that the school employs too many long-term substitutes, and raised concerns that students face punishment or retaliation if they speak up.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Students

Larry Lee: What Matters Most in Education Happens in the Classroom

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2019 //
21

 

Larry Lee reminds one and all that what matters most in education is not what happens in the State House or the think tanks or the conferences, but what happens when teachers meet students.

He writes:

All the battles we wage in the legislature, all the money spent to lobby, all the grand schemes we import from distant think tanks, all the paperwork we choke principals with, all the talk about “data driven”, all the hand wringing because we are not ranked number one in such and such.

Then I visit a school and the world I have just described is a million miles away.  A room of fourth graders could care less about what may happen in the statehouse.  Neither does their teacher.  Once again I am forcefully reminded that there are no classrooms at the state house, in the state capitol, in the think tanks or in the Gordon Persons building that houses the Alabama Department of Education.

I am reminded that education is all about what takes place when a teacher and her students interact.  It is just that plain and simple.

Unfortunately we have hordes and hordes of folks who seem to have forgotten this.  Or did they ever know it?

Categories Alabama, Students, Teachers

New Haven, Connecticut: Students Protest Teacher Layoffs

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
21

 

Students at Hill Regional Career High School conducted a peaceful protest because of layoffs of some of their teachers. 

During their last period, Career students stepped out onto the grassy field behind the school. They carried a wide pink banner with the names of four teachers who received notice last week that they would be involuntarily transferred out of the school. Others held up signs that said, “WTF: Where’s the funding?” “HISTORY has its EYES on YOU,” and “We need our AP classes.”

“Save our teachers!” they chanted. “Save our teachers!”

Many of the students said they wanted to stand up for the educators who had always stood up for them — sometimes in situations that were literally “between life and death,” said Nidia Luis-Moreno, a junior. They said that, so far, they had collected close to 1,000 signatures opposing the involuntary transfers…

After they walked onto the field, students confronted Principal Zakia Parrish about why she had decided to remove two social-studies teachers and a music teacher, who had all made close personal connections with students.

On the other side of town, black ministers rallied in opposition to the students, claiming that the student protest was an effort to preserve “white privilege,” although the photographs accompanying the story did not show many white students in the protest.

Categories Connecticut, Resistance, Students

Valerie Strauss: Florida High School Stops Valedictorian from Giving Graduation Speech, Then Apologizes

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2019 //
31

Valerie Strauss wrote a well-documented and alarming story about a high school valedictorian who was prevented from giving the graduation speech because school officials did not like certain words and topics. When the affair became public, the school board and superintendent apologized and invited the graduate to deliver her speech to the school board, promising to tape it and put it on their website. Sadly, the student lost the opportunity for which she had prepared: the chance to speak to her classmates at graduation. As you will see, Kriya Naidu did not cry “fire” in a crowded theatre. She did not utter hate speech. What she had to say was inoffensive to everyone except those who censored her. What was offensive? Talking about America as a haven for immigrants? As a land of opportunity?

Strauss writes:

Kriya Naidu is the valedictorian at University High School in Orange County, Fla. — but unlike many other students who graduate at the top of their class, she was not permitted to deliver her speech at commencement. School officials didn’t like parts of it.

First, she told WOFL-TV in Orlando, she was asked to edit out several sentences, including a line by rapper Cardi B about overcoming adversity. Then, she said, a school official asked her to prerecord the speech for airing at the graduation, apparently so it could be checked to make sure she hadn’t uttered the edited comments.

She did not prerecord the speech — which focuses on resilience and the fortitude of immigrants — and she was not allowed to give the speech live at the ceremony…

When the story became public, the school system issued an apology to Naidu and her family, according to Lorena Arias, assistant director of media relations for Orange County Public Schools. She said in an email:

“The district has apologized to the Naidu family. The School Board and Superintendent were not aware of the controversy prior to University High School’s graduation ceremony. Kriya has been invited to give her speech at the next school board meeting and to have it professionally recorded and posted to the district’s website and shared on social media platforms. The district is reviewing its commencement practices for improvements.”

In a letter to Naidu, district Superintendent Barbara Jenkins apologized for “unfortunate mistakes” made….

What were the sentences that were deemed offensive?

And I hope you remember, like the rapper and philosopher Cardi B says, “Knock me down nine times but I get up 10.”

I’m sure that all of us in our past four years of high school — while making memories of deans kissing pigs, racoons in vending machines, and toilet fires in the 25 building — have been knocked down.

The problem with that line, the graduating senior told the television station, was the reference to a toilet fire…

In her speech, Naidu spoke about how her family came to the United States from South Africa and their determination to succeed. In an unedited version of the speech, she wrote:

You see, in 1995, my parents emigrated from South Africa and moved here, to America, with only $500 to their name. And with all the opportunities that this country has afforded them, they were able to build a life for themselves and eventually myself and my sisters. And thanks to that, I have made it here today.

But they faced their fair share of challenges. Prejudice, difficulty securing jobs, pay parity and much more. But every time they were knocked down they got back up. Their success is an example of what immigrants, people of color and everyone can achieve with hard work even when they find themselves in a country that seems to work against them. As Lin-Manuel Miranda said, “Immigrants, we get the job done.”

But my parents and I aren’t the only immigrants: Most everyone here in this arena today, if not an immigrant themselves, is descended from someone who moved to America with a dream in their hearts as well.

Asked about what happened with the speech, Carcara, the principal, said in an email:

Thank you for contacting me.

University High School is proud of its Class of 2019 and its valedictorian who challenged themselves throughout their high school years. Valedictorians are role models to their peers and their speech is a moment of inspiration and celebration. School administrators worked closely with the valedictorian providing her guidance after reviewing her speech. She was then given the opportunity to pre-record her speech as is the practice in some of our high schools. We were disappointed that she chose not to do so. We wish her and the Class of 2019 much success in their future.

The school wanted her to prerecord her speech to make sure she did not utter the sentences that it wanted her to delete. She did not prerecord her speech.

 

Categories Florida, Freedom of Speech, Students
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