Robert Reich posted this on his Facebook page:
Robert Reich
“I’ve been a teacher for most of my life, and few professions are more intrinsically rewarding. Yet I’m troubled by the direction we’re heading in, especially K-12 education. It makes sense for all kids to be brought up to a minimum level of proficiency in English and math, and standardized tests can help insure they are. But we’ve gone way overboard.
“We’re turning our schools into test-taking factories. We’re teaching children how to take standardized tests rather than how to think. The irony is we’re doing this at the very time when the economy is becoming less standardized than ever. Computers and software are taking over all routine, standardized tasks. The challenges of the future require the ability to solve and identify new problems, think creatively outside standard boxes, and work collaboratively with others. An obsessive focus on standardized tests can make our children less prepared for this future rather than better prepared.”
What do you think?
He has more than 5000 likes on this post, it has been shared 2177 times, and more than a thousand comments — in just an hour!!!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I LOVE Robert Reich. He speaks intelligently. This is just another example.
Do I agree? I just spent 3 weeks testing K students one at a time. Yes, I agree.
Were you testing to see if they could tie their shoes?
I hope.
There is no time for learning to tie shoes. It isn’t tested.
I’ve done the individualized testing at second grade. It’s painful to watch kids you know can do something try so hard to do it and feeling like a failure when they finish. To say nothing of the fact that the teacher is off line until the testing is finished…
Please expand on what you did! We’ve got strong stomachs.
Thanks!
I have been saying this for years now. Standardized tests have damaged education. I only hope we are seeing the tide turn ..My grandsons will be in public school soon and one will need services. I am angry because I let it happen.. I will continue to fight even though I am retiring this year. I will be a constant in the field of education. It is my passion.
Hopefully Mr. Reich will be hitting the talk shows in support of teachers and against privatization of our public schools.
Why is there an assumption that standardized testing does not/cannot assess ” students ability to solve and identify new problems, think creatively outside standard boxes, and work collaboratively with others.”? And why is there an equally pervasive assumption on this blog that as a rule teachers more consistently encourage and develop critical and creative thinking when they are NOT required to prepare students for standardized tests? Even if one reaches the common sense conclusion that we’ve gone “overboard” with testing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that doing less of it will result in better teaching and learning. A healthier discussion would be one that carefully articulates the strengths, weaknesses, and functions of various approaches to assessment, and then offers a vision for testing/assessment that moves American schooling forward rather than sideways or even further backwards.
Testing is not teaching except in the most limited sense. More testing takes time away from teaching. High-stakes testing skews what teachers do when they teach. Testing should inform instruction.
Have you ever “taught” a class of elementary students? The way to progress is a clear understanding of human growth and development….and age appropriate activities. …and fun…you have to have some fun.
Before the standardized test movement, I was free to select the assessment method depending on the objectives and content covered. Did I test? You bet I did, but I also had projects, portfolio assignments, journaling, team assignments, presentations, demonstrations, etc. Not everything being assessed is best done with a test.
I agree wholeheartedly about the need for a discussion of the value and role testing plays in the educational process, and about BALANCING it with other forms of assessment. As a teacher at the high school level when high-stakes testing hit the public school system, I can assure you there was no discussion of any kind. Teachers were told what was happening, ordered to get on board, and pressured to make sure students performed well on the tests.
Our opinion, our expertise, our experience? Was never figured into the equation.
“Why is there an assumption that standardized testing does not/cannot assess ” students ability to solve and identify new problems, think creatively outside standard boxes, and work collaboratively with others.”?”
Because it doesn’t.
If you require further information/support/explanation, please see numerous posts on this blog by Duane S. and democracy. They will explain how standardized testing doesn’t measure much of anything at all.
Thanks for the plug, Ang. I had posted my response before I got to yours (I read these in order oldest with responses to newest).
And you are correct about “how standardized testing doesn’t measure much of anything at all.”
Standardized tests aren’t “measuring devices” never have been and never will. Numerization of results to scientize the process does not mean something is “measured”. It’s amazing how so many, especially educators, can’t understand that simple logical statement. And that particular piece of illogical thought/illogicity is at the heart of many educational malpractices and the ensuing harm caused to many innocent children.
And it is that “harm” that bothers me the most because it doesn’t have to be there, and it shouldn’t be there but too many are willing to be GAGAers (my way of saying “good nazis”).
Ang & Duane Swacker: informed understanding = baseless assumptions but unsupported proof by repeated assertion = clinching winning argument????
So in the best American tradition, for the benefit of the viewers of this blog who have not closed their minds and shut down their hearts in mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$, a list of some of my favorites:
Banesh Hoffman, THE TRYANNY OF TESTING (2003).
Gerald Bracey, READING EDUCATION RESEARCH: HOW TO AVOID GETTING STATISTICALLY SNOOKERED (2009)
Daniel Koretz, MEASURING UP: WHAT EDUCATION TESTING REALLY TELLS US (2003)
Phillip Harris, Bruce M. Smith, and Joan Harris, THE MYTHS OF STANDARDIZED TESTS: WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU WHAT YOU THINK THEY DO (2011)
Todd Farley, MAKING THE GRADES: MY MISADVENTURES IN THE STANDARDIZED TESTING INDUSTRY (2009)
Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn, THE MISMEASURE OF EDUCATION (2013)
Pardon? What American tradition? This one—
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” [Frederick Douglass]
Game, set, match to Frederick Douglass, Ang and Duane Swacker.
😎
Read Noel Wilson to understand the epistemological and ontological errors which permeate the whole educational standards and standardized testing regimes that render said processes completely invalid. When you have read and understood it you will then understand why some of us are completely against those educational malpractices, and in being against them we aren’t “assumming” or have “pervasive assumptions” as Wilson has logically shown why everyone should be against them. See: “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Is this a term paper?
Hey Joe*,
Do you teach?
Can you read more than a simple text message?
It seems to me that you’ve commented before on the length of my posts and others. I challenge you to read the whole study!
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3JsuWz4xWc
Here is something brief and interesting.
Check out this You tube
Dr.Luksik is right, though I wouldn’t use a red meat issue like climate change as an example. As a fifth grade teacher in 2001 I noticed that the State reading tests began having odd questions and even the teachers did not know the answers. One example was a story about a tropical bird accidentally being released in the classroom and the children were all excited. Children were asked their opinion about how they would feel. Would they feel that this was improper and should be remediated or should the bird be allowed to fly around the room and the kids be entertained. It is against Federal law to give psychological tests to children without written permission. A leader of this movement was BK Eakman in her book, the Cloning of the American Mind.” I have attached an ad that you may remember. The picture on the screen might be Mr. Gates.
then:
Here is the video once the psychological test is done. Mr, Gates or Mr.Duncan appear “cloned” on the “Smartboard” screen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwT6mgXsZvU
I am a retired teacher and adjunct in literacy studies.
A link could be sufficient. I try to get to my ideas in the least amount of words. It’s just the nature of this medium. I am sure that your own ideas are excellent. A summary and a link is usual in this medium. Susan Ohanian does a great job as an example in her postings. No personal judgment.
Joe,
Duane posts this summary of Wilson’s argument every once in awhile when he spots a newbie poster or an old poster with a short memory. The biggest takeaway from Wilson and this blog for me is understanding the difference between measurement and assessment. I have gotten what I need out of the post, so I skip it when Duane posts it again. I think Duane has probably found that more people actually read his summary than would go to a link. He has tried other means of spreading “the word.”
Ratner
Your rock is getting lonely without you.
What standardized test “evalution” determines that you can work “collaboratively” with others? Do we want education to move “forward” or “schooling” to move forward. Your point is well taken that teachers may not be good at what they do, when not giving tests, but testing will not help that.
Let’s go back to the previous thought, those who control schooling do not want to build into the system the opportunity for teachers to work independently and collaboratively. This is why teachers are forced into “commercial” “staff development” by those who write the teaching guides and the tests. If teachers are not permitted this opportunity, it filters down to the students.
The NSA must be all over that site.
Good.
Standardized tests have been around for a long time, I remember taking them back when I was in elementary school in the 60’s. They are useful for telling us what kids know, and where they are at in their education.
Diane, I think you’ll agree, it all went wrong when funding and job security was tied to test scores. Also, when the testing industry began to get greedy and got into bed with politicians. I was teaching high school when NCLB was enacted, the head of our local teachers association shook his head and stated, “Mark my words, this will lead to teaching to the test.”
As an elective teacher, I didn’t think this would affect me much. Was I wrong!! My entire department was let go, and others in elective areas, a total of 30 teachers in a two year period were RIF’d. In my next teaching job, I was expected to teach math if our test scores in math were not what they should be (I’m not a math teacher). Same for Language Arts and Science. A large number of students each semester were routinely taken out of my classes for tutoring of the tests on a weekly basis, and I was expected to pass them even though I rarely saw them in my class or they did any of the work.
Now I teach at the University level at a private, prestigious college where the standards for admission are high. Yet, as an instructor, I’m amazed at what these students cannot do, especially in the areas of problem solving and critical thinking.
Robert Reich, another American hero.
Thank you Robert Reich. We the good teachers of American public schoosl are in the trenches still fighting the good fight every day trying to keep our heads above water before the next wave of “reforms” and data driven everything overruns us overwrought teachers.
Excellent points…as an art teacher for over 15 years at the same school, (so basically my kids are coming from a consistent community), it bothers me so much that they look at me for THE answer. “Well, there are 22 of you in class…so there are 22 answers.” They truly cannot deal with this…they struggle with the vagueness…the concept that there isn’t just one answer. Kids who have been raised on standardized testing need an answer…only one. They can’t deal with multiple ideas and multiple solutions. The really frightening thing is that in the post-modern times we are in more than one answer and more than one way of thinking is needed. We are crippling our children, hobbling them to only think in one way-the standard way. Marketing to them is being made much easier b/c they will all want the same thing-a new car, expensive jeans, elaborate furnishings and clothes…a generation of consumers never questioning, never thinking for themselves. And what’s going to happen when we dinosaurs are gone? The younger generation of teachers except a lot of this nonsense. They are all plugged-in to the one answer way of thinking.
Think??? What is that? We only have five letters in our “new alphabet”: A,B,C,D,E
Requiring students to think outside the realm of the tests that they must take is usually discouraged. It really is like the Abilene Paradox (look it up). We all know that excessive testing is bad but yet we continue with. We minimize teacher creativity to the point of only teaching the test of objectives. All other objectives are not relevant.
http://davidrtayloreducation.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/teachers-the-best-trained-fleas-in-the-state-of-texas/
In an Abilene paradox a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of many of the individuals in the group.[1][2] It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group’s and, therefore, does not raise objections. A common phrase relating to the Abilene paradox is a desire to not “rock the boat”.
Reich is always spot on.. Let’s hope he produces one of his white board videos on high stakes testing
THANK YOU ROBERT REICH… THANK YOU THANK YOU! “Ed reformers” must be called out on the barrage of nonsense they have been espousing and inflicting on everything and everything having to do with public education. Testing is the “icing on the cake”. We need brilliant thinkers in all capacities to call out the wrongs! In his spacewalk, Neil Armstrong uttered the iconic words, “”That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Having Robert Reich address the public education takeover is huge… “That is one small step for the future of our public schools, one giant leap for restoration of checks and balances in our democracy”…. I hope we will hear more from you Professor Reich. What a happy day… thanks again Robert Reich!
I was very grateful to see Reich’s stance in “Inequality for All”, but frankly, I think it’s about time he took a stand on K-12 public education. HIgh-stakes standardized testing is not a new issue. We’re talking about 12 years of standardized tests under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), longer in many locations, as well as ever increasing numbers of tests now, with the roll out of Race to the Top (RttT) and the Common Core national standards.
If you look at the “Inequality for All” website, Reich was curiously silent on K-12 education, so this is a good start. However, Reich does not go far enough. For example, Reich made no mention of the ongoing national assault on public school teachers, the primary aim of which is to break unions and deprofessionalize the field, replacing unionized career educators with low paid non-union workers, such as the five week trained “teachers” from Teach for America.
Reich also said nothing about the scheme to privatize public education. Does he not realize that, under the guise of “school choice,” neighborhood schools are being closed and replaced with unregulated or minimally regulated charters that have no elected boards or PTAs, which effectively eliminate community participation and democracy in education? That benefits no one more than corporate and entrepreneurial profiteers, such as the 16 charter school CEOs in NY who earn $500K per year –more than Obama is paid?
Reich wrote, “It makes sense for all kids to be brought up to a minimum level of proficiency in English and math, and standardized tests can help insure they are.”
When was the last time Reich administered standardized tests in his college courses? Oh right, the current Zeitgeist embraces the belief that people who were trained to be educators cannot determine the proficiency levels of students in their classes. Only subject matter experts in college, who were never tained in education, are permitted to figure that out themselves. This could change though, even in private colleges, if the government decides to tie mandated testing to federal funding there (student financial aid under Title IV), as it did in K-12 public education.
On his “Inequality for All” website, Reich indicates strong support for Obama’s new policy plan for higher education. As a college professor, Reich should know about the fiscal issues of colleges, because their funds are certainly not going to the majority of college faculty, 70% of whom across this nation are non-union, low paid contingency workers with no benefits. He should also know better than to support the plan for higher education without very carefully scrutinizing it, because it is as much a TROJAN HORSE as K-12 policies are under NCLB and RttT.
If Reich does not fully understand what’s happening in education, then he should read Diane’s book, “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools”
I was very grateful to see Reich’s stance in “Inequality for All”, but frankly, I think it’s about time he took a stand on K-12 public education. HIgh-stakes standardized testing is not a new issue. We’re talking about 12 years of standardized tests under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), longer in many locations, as well as ever increasing numbers of tests now, with the roll out of Race to the Top (RttT) and the Common Core national standards.
If you look at the “Inequality for All” website, Reich was curiously silent on K-12 education, so this is a good start. However, Reich does not go far enough. For example, Reich made no mention of the ongoing national assault on public school teachers, the primary aim of which is to break unions and deprofessionalize the field, replacing unionized career educators with low paid non-union workers, such as the five week trained “teachers” from Teach for America.
Reich also said nothing about the scheme to privatize public education. Does he not realize that, under the guise of “school choice,” neighborhood schools are being closed and replaced with unregulated or minimally regulated charters that have no elected boards or PTAs, which effectively eliminate community participation and democracy in education? That benefits no one more than corporate and entrepreneurial profiteers, such as the 16 charter school CEOs in NY who earn $500K per year –more than Obama is paid?
On his “Inequality for All” website, Reich indicates strong support for Obama’s new policy plan for higher education. As a college professor, Reich should know about the fiscal issues of colleges, because their funds are certainly not going to the majority of college faculty, 70% of whom across this nation are non-union, low paid contingency workers with no benefits. He should also know better than to support the plan for higher education without very carefully scrutinizing it, because it is as much a TROJAN HORSE as K-12 policies are under NCLB and RttT.
If Reich does not fully understand what’s happening in education, then he should read Diane’s book, “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools”
I was very grateful to see Reich’s stance in “Inequality for All”, but frankly, I think it’s about time he took a stand on K-12 public education. HIgh-stakes standardized testing is not a new issue. We’re talking about 12 years of standardized tests under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), longer in many locations, as well as ever increasing numbers of tests now, with the roll out of Race to the Top (RttT) and the Common Core national standards.
If you look at the “Inequality for All” website, Reich was curiously silent on K-12 education, so this is a good start. However, Reich does not go far enough. For example, Reich made no mention of the ongoing national assault on public school teachers, the primary aim of which is to break unions and deprofessionalize the field, replacing unionized career educators with low paid non-union workers, such as the five week trained “teachers” from Teach for America.
Reich also said nothing about the scheme to privatize public education. Does he not realize that, under the guise of “school choice,” neighborhood schools are being closed and replaced with unregulated or minimally regulated charters that have no elected boards or PTAs, which effectively eliminate community participation and democracy in education? That benefits no one more than corporate and entrepreneurial profiteers, such as the 16 charter school CEOs in NY who earn $500K per year –more than Obama is paid?
On his “Inequality for All” website, Reich indicates strong support for Obama’s new policy plan for higher education. As a college professor, Reich should know about the fiscal issues of colleges, because their funds are certainly not going to the majority of college faculty, 70% of whom across this nation are non-union, low paid contingency workers with no benefits. He should also know better than to support the plan for higher education without very carefully scrutinizing it, because it is as much a TROJAN HORSE as K-12 policies are under NCLB and RttT.
“It makes sense for all kids to be brought up to a minimum level of proficiency in English and math, and standardized tests can help insure they are.”
What is this minimum level of proficiency and how does a standardized test (by definition remote from learning) help insure that students are minimally proficient. I really still question if we are able to articulate what proficiency looks like in real time. I’m sure my highly successful father was taught the vagaries of comma usage, but he certainly didn’t seem troubled by his lack of facility with this pesky punctuation mark nor were the people who were dependent on him for his financial expertize. I suspect that this proficiency that we seek has more to do with a rather more global ease with certain facets of human endeavor. We seem to be trying to create a very pedestrian Renaissance man.
Reblogged this on Arts Education Forum and commented:
In my last post – A Whole Education for a Whole Society, I mentioned Robert Reich. I also frequent pull from Diane Ravitch, so it seems fitting to reblog this post.
OMG. Sorry, my message did not appear right away, so I thought the issue was that it was too long and I tried shortening it. Never thought it would end up being posted so many times!
I hope the snowball is not traveling too fast or is too large now to stop!
It is more like an avalanche…….BUT…
Thanks to Diane and the many blogs around this country..
“Stop the Common Core from sea to shining sea”..
and our new equipment…..
There is hope..
We soon figured out that we were not the only ones trying to dig out …one at a time..and that was the best feeling in the world….
As Diane has continued to recruit the warriors and train them with the truths, we have found out that this is not a hopeless situation..
This war consists of many battles..but it is not lost.
They are actually outnumbered.
Keep that in mind..
Their snowball is out of control….and has caused an avalanche..but , as I said…we have the right equipment and millions of warriors….and we keep digging..
Having standardized test in and of itself is fine – a piece of information. As a staff schools can look for trends, monitor progress of individual students, look for outliers and surprises – students who perform much better or much worse than what a teacher might see on a daily basis. But as we all know – the stakes have been raised and there is a mentality that these scores the ultimate goal of education. I was so lucky to teach in an era where problem solving, appreciating fine literature, writing fluently and developing the whole child were valued. It is so demeaning to the field of education and to children and teachers to think we can reduce learning to a number.
I spent the morning testing kids on our division’s benchmark tests. This was a math test, testing them on things we haven’t covered yet, I lost a whole morning of instruction, Tomorrow, I have to leave my class again to do one on one testing (same test) because this child is so disruptive. Did I mention I’m testing self-contained 5th grade LD students who are not even close to grade level. In addition, I lost count of how many times the computers had to be re-booted. Ridiculousness.
I would love to present the Testing Generals some data on the amount of time spent testing, the number of test administered, and the costs of these tests…
I find that data very difficult to obtain as I have asked the Great Lords of the Testing Hierarchy….
That is one secret they do not want revealed!
Fed up: you have hit on the essence of standardized testing in this era as it is actually implemented.
Measurement of what you already know the kids don’t know comes before teaching them what you know they don’t know. This will confirm to the bean counters who are bashing teachers, schools and public education that they didn’t know what you hadn’t taught them yet—
So in their eyes and according to the EduMetrics of their High Holy Church of Testolatry, the kids will have to engage in yet more testing [and its associated drill-and-kill test prep] until it is proven that you, they and everyone else are unworthy failures and need to be fired and/or punished and/or shamed.
Of course, your simple prescription of trying to teach them what they need to know before they take the test that tests them on what they need to know—
What do you know?
You’re a teacher!
Krazy props!
Illegitimi non carborundum— a mock-Latin aphorism that means “don’t let the bastards get you down.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Professor Reich is right on!
If the intent of standardized testing over the past decade, under NCLB, had been so that teachers could increase student learning, then formative tests would have been used and the results would have included item analysis, so that teachers could target interventions for individual students. Instead, summative tests were used and teachers received the results, with no item analysis, in the summer –after students left their classes. These kinds of tests have been purely punitive, in order to tag teachers and schools as failing.
That was a very cunning way of further promoting the manufactured crisis claimed in the 1983 “A Nation at Risk,” setting the stage for “free” market capitalism to take hold as the supposed savior of public education, including firing teachers, shutting down schools and handing buildings over to profiteers waiting in the wings to privatize education.
You need to post this again and again. and again…making sure everyone reads this Wise Post!!
In 2005 Daniel Pink wrote a book titled, “A Whole New Mind: Why Right- Brainers Will Rule the Future.” The back cover states, “The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers-creative and emphatic “right brain” thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn’t.” This premise convinces me that standardized tests are not the answer. The six senses he introduces are: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning.
I see none of these being identified as needed for being college ready CCSS, do you?
Blunt and to the point.
We are not teaching children to become critical thinkers.
We are not teaching children anything except how to pass a state mandated test and the test consists of thousand of standards from the most chaotic,cluttered and useless “coporation made curriculum”.
Kids should be kids..
They need the math basics and they are not getting it from anywhere.
They need to read.. They are not..They are reading passages.
Grown-ups should be responsible for solving the big problems that are in the real-world.
Children need to learn so much more in school than how to pass a test but they simply are not..they are not..they are not..they are not..
BTW.. Great Post!
I agree
I’m mostly a Robert Reich fan, but have to ask, Professor, why did you wait so many years to speak out on a very straightforward issue of fairness? Kids, parents, and educators have been under assault for a long time by the Democratic administration we helped elect–twice–and we could have used your voice as one who has a platform in the mainstream media. At any rate, glad you’re now speaking out.
Beyond Frustration – When it comes to utter and total nonsense the drivel written on cerebral hemispheric differences may exceed that written on epigenetics.
Reblogged this on Pilant's Business Ethics Blog and commented:
“Test taking factories” are less educational institutions and more cash cows for the testing industry.