September 2007 Archives

Dear Diane,

I don't want to spend too much time on testing. But a few words! One: I'm arguing that tests are a poor way to assess schooling. I'm not arguing, as Paul Hoss suggested in a recent response, that given other concerns we can't focus as much on cognitive aims with poor kids. But I do agree with him that we need to provide a lot of support to poor families above and beyond schools so that we are not "distracted" by other issues.

Diane, I don't view the word "politically" negatively. I like and believe in politics. And anytime I turn over something to "experts" I take for granted that I'm going to get a "viewpoint"—which I may agree or disagree with. There may be a "majority" opinion and several "minority" ones, but even where "votes" (politics) decide, that doesn't prove who is right. Power and money have influence; so do good arguments. Fortunately in politics decision are never final; there's always tomorrow.

The "expertise" involved in deciding what kids "should" be reading like completely baffles me. Teachers from time immemorial have thought that whoever taught the kids before they got to them wasn't doing a good job—"they oughta already know x and y". As Richard Rothstein reminds us—so it has been and always will be. So the fact that NAEP is designed by experts doesn't cut it with me. The advantage of the other kind of "normed" test is that we find out how kids actually handle various material given to them. We can then have our wish list. That reporters—and educators, too—have misreported scores is, of course, a problem! Just as they now misreport so-called criterion test scores, too. If psychometricians (test-making experts) had principles or guts they'd discipline their own field. I presume there are state-of-the art standards regarding the proper size of samples, reliability measures, and what tests can claim to predict. Bah! Wrong assumption. Standards are just for kids.

I'd support a normed national test (NAEP-like) in literacy and math given on a sampled basis every few years to assess school districts—for informational purposes. To keep systems honest. States might require individual scores for students, but the federal government should neither mandate it nor reward them for doing so. Schools might also choose to do so. Hopefully all these would be informational—not high stakes, in nature.

When it comes to other subject disciplines let them set standards and try to persuade us to follow them. In fact, Diane, academic disciplines have disputes about what body of knowledge is central and these change over time. Let lay citizens through their own methods decide whether these fit their school and approach. We barely scratch the surface of what is possible today; let us encourage experimentation.

What worries us both now are two central concerns—and having just come back from visiting teachers in Indiana, it isn't a NYC problem!

(1) Test scores are now our definition of "achievement"! Reforms are being driven by finding ways to avoid schools being declared failures. There need to be ways to "red flag" based on data without presuming the school is failing; and solutions should address broader forms of learning than test improvement.

(2) Teachers, parents, students and local communities need to be reconnected to their schools in powerful ways. For the sake of learning and democracy.

The latter is what scared me in Indiana—the extent to which teachers have been cowed into thinking they are not experts. As a result they fall back on priding themselves on dedication rather than expertise. It took a MacArthur designation as a genius before I was acknowledged as an "expert". Otherwise, I was often invited to speak in order to get a "feel" for what life was like on the ground. The Generals gave the marching orders. Of course! But when it comes to schools (at least), as with families, there is no way to second guess from afar. No two kids or communities are quite alike—even though they have much to say to each other. Creating the conditions for "trust"—with skepticism—is the best we can do, plus plenty of resources.

But honest information is essential—how else can those in the field and far from it have real conversation, dialogue, and persuade each other of anything if there is no commonly trusted data. I honestly don't know the answer to this conundrum. I'm hoping that if we can institutionalize the practice of getting multiple forms of evidence from multiple sources we'll be in better shape. In short, your tendency is to look to more centralized federal expertise and me to look to the least centralized local ones. That says something about our histories, which suggests that probably we need a balance of both.

Meanwhile, I'm pondering what we need to do to keep teachers in the field—in the here and now—as a loud, noisy obstreperous voice to speak back to the power of money, corporations, and misinformed media—and reach kids at the same time.

Deborah

P.S. It was a combination of laymen, teachers and psychometricians who convinced NY State that the data collected locally by a group of high schools was more compelling than test scores. Thus a few dozen schools got waivers from having to focus on and meet all the NY State's Regents exams. That's a good example for us to look into—a lesson for the future.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 7:40 AM | Permalink | 9 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Deb,

You make some good points about the distinction between norm-referenced tests and criterion-referenced tests, but I disagree with your characterization of the latter.

The problem with norm-referenced tests, I think, is that you really never show much progress. If it is a test of fourth grade, half the children will be above the norm, and half are supposed to be below. It may be useful to know what the norm is, but it is misleading. I recall that for many years, the New York City Board of Education reported norm-referenced scores, and the newspaper headlines would scream that half the students in a given grade were “below grade level.” Since the norm was established to be sure that half were “below grade level,” such a result was predictable. And the public and news media never understood that the test was designed to get that result.

The promise of criterion-referenced tests is that the test-makers presumably determine in advance that students “ought” to know certain things and be able to do certain operations in a given grade. I hope I am not doing a terrible injustice to the field of psychometrics by my explanation, but I suggest that a good criterion-referenced test would be akin to a test to get a driver’s license, whether it is a written test or a performance test. The applicant must get a certain score on the test or they don’t get a driver’s license; the scores are criterion-referenced, not norm-referenced. It is possible that everyone might get a driver’s license, if all the applicants know and can do whatever is expected by the people who made up the test of state laws and driving operations. And it is equally possible that everyone might fail the test. If we want safe roads and qualified drivers getting licenses, then we should want a criterion-referenced test, not one that is norm-referenced.

Think of the same question in terms of a test of what people weigh. If everyone is grossly overweight, then the “norm” is to be overweight. But if health experts set a certain range of desirable weight for, say, a woman of 40 who is 5’6”, then that is the optimum weight, regardless of what the norm is.

You describe these determinations about what students should know and be able to do as “politically” determined, because they are based on expert judgment, including the judgment of teachers of students in a particular grade. The NAEP standards are based on expert judgments, and when last I participated as a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, the process of setting standards was managed by the American Institutes of Research in a very professional manner.

Knowing that the standard-setting was done by professionals and involved the judgment of nonpartisan people, I get uncomfortable to see this process described as “political.” Calling it “political” suggests that some politicians rigged it to make it too hard or too easy. I don’t accept that because I have seen the process and seen that it is insulated from political influence.

Now, having defending the process, I’ll pass along a bit of hearsay that will stoke your fire as a critic of standardized testing. I recently attended a social event at which I met a long-time employee of the New York State Education Department. I had known this person off and on over the years but not awfully well. When we got into a discussion of the state test scores, she lowered her voice and said, in words to this effect, “When the scores come in, they are ‘adjusted.’ If they are too low, they are raised. They are anything that state officials want them to be. Then they are released. It’s a no-brainer to get high scores.” When we turned to the subject of graduation rates, she confided that it was easy to make them high for small schools: “Just make sure that the high-scoring kids, even in the poorest neighborhoods, go to the small schools, and the remainder are assigned to the large schools. Another no-brainer.”

This conversation reinforced my view that we need national standards and national testing, and that the tests should be conducted by officials with no reputational stake in the results. Until we have national testing, we will continue to have this bizarre situation where the states are reporting remarkable progress while NAEP scores remain flat.

I don’t think that scores on a national test should be a single measure of student progress. I think such scores are important as indicators, but should be used in combination with (as you suggest) grades on written work and examinations conducted by teachers.

As long as we continue to depend on state and local officials to grade themselves, we will live in a constant condition of grade inflation.

As to curriculum, I don’t think we can have a common civic culture, a common democratic culture without some shared knowledge, shared discussions, shared poems, and shared history. I know it is hard, but it is not impossible to agree on what should be shared and to recognize that the shared part of the curriculum need not consume more than about 40 percent of each subject, in history, literature, math, the arts, and science. Certainly in math and science, we do not expect every teacher to make it up as he or she goes along. Every discipline has a recognized body of knowledge (I know that term makes some people cringe, but not me!), and that body of knowledge changes over time, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. It would be a shame if a student were to spend a year in a science class with a teacher who made it up as he went along, with no reference to what anyone else in the field has learned.

There is such a thing as “standing on the shoulders of giants,” and this is what a good education enables one to do, or so it seems to me. Because if you stand on the shoulders of giants, as the saying goes, you can see a lot further.

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 7:45 AM | Permalink | 9 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Diane,

You suggest I needn't worry about annoying those "with more power". But I felt badly recently when (as I mentioned) somebody took after Mission Hill school as a way to attack me on another issue altogether. So they can "touch me"—but not stop me! Alas, my travels remind me that others have less wiggle room—even for saying what's on their minds.

You are right, our disagreements seem to lie in at least two places: (1) the role of standardized tests, and (2) national curriculum vs. local ones. Even in these two areas our views overlap considerably. Let's start with standardized tests.

When confronted by a disagreement between the judgment of a test vs. that of someone who knows a child well, I tend to rely on the latter. That's based on the experience of sitting down with kids and going through items one by one. I was shocked. Their wrong answers were often a sign of intelligence, possibly misapplied, not a sign of reading difficulties. (Read Chapter 6 of "In Schools We Trust".)

It's also based, however, on the arguments made by Steve Koss, in the Sept. 5th piece you sent me ("Tell me the results you want, and I'll find a way to make numbers show it."), who quotes test experts regarding the way these tests are designed. Since few understand p-values et al parents and laymen often believe that the scores rest on unquestionable assumptions.

But today we face a third dilemma. Standardized tests are no longer scored on a so-called national normal curve, but scored "politically." This is not an accusation but a fact. The level of item difficulty as well as scores rest on the judgment of an appointed group of people. This leads, for example, to scoring a 6th grader on how many right answers such "experts" believe he/she "should" or "could ideally" answer right rather than (as in the old days) scoring the test based on how many the median 6th grader does answer correctly—the center of the "normal curve" of scores. This led in the old days to a predictable curve. Today it leads to anything we want.

Opinion-wise—or otherwise—has replaced statistics. That's all I mean by "political" norming. At its worst it leads to the results the New York Daily News exposed with regard to N.Y. state's math test having been made easier this last year. It accounts for test scores all over the country that bear no resemblance to each other as different authorities make different decisions about how hard a test should be and how many right answers are needed. All test-makers know ahead of time how easy or hard it is to get the predetermined right answers for every single item. The selection of items decides the scores. The final scores are no surprise to them; if they were the test-makers would be incompetent.

The old form of norming is what has made such tests seem incorruptible and scientific. It led to other flaws (such as the fact that scores could never—en masse—go up or down for long—without renorming). The new system is living off the reputation of the old style tests, while in fact it rests on a much messier form of human judgment.

I like that messy form, but want to reserve it for when it's a sensible response. The kind done by individual teachers (grades on papers and exams done for a class, etc.), or by panels of experts of various sorts looking carefully at individual performances both acknowledge to being less and more than "scientific". The final "score" acknowledges this by being "signed off" on by real-live names (to whom one can appeal). Which is why the criteria for assessment is public and transparent. Such approaches (even PhDs) are much closer to the way we go about making decisions in "real" life; they respect the power of human reasoning in ways that standardized tests—normed or otherwise—cannot. But each has its flaws.

Some combination of these forms, including the judicious, occasional use of standardized norm-referenced tools (or a third variant we have yet to invent) could serve us well, with none having absolute power over the other, while all together inform our judgment. The argument for a more nuanced system of assessing young people shouldn't seem like anti-testing dogma.

How far apart are we on this, Diane?

Why do I fear lists of state-imposed required songs, historic dates, book titles, etc.? You have more faith than I do in our capacity to keep these "common" lists short. My experience suggests nothing ever gets taken out and much gets added in. I suspect we also disagree on how hard some things are to "learn"—and maybe what we mean by that. Besides I have an appalling rote memory, so memorizing the Gettysburg Address would require eliminating a lot more from the curriculum than it might for you. And finally, we may disagree about how likely they are to be used well vs. abused badly.

But there's no question that the folks making decisions for us now, at least in NYC, neither know the kids well, know much about what is easy or hard to learn, have never studied psychometrics, and haven't thought long and hard about the trade-offs involved in trying to create a form of education that serves democracy well. And they are not embarrassed about it.

Deborah

Posted by Deborah Meier at 8:15 AM | Permalink | 21 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Deb,

I don’t think you should worry at all about annoying those “with more power” than you. You no longer work inside a school; you no longer have to worry about what “they” can do to you because “they” can’t do anything to you. As a writer, you have a public voice and have more power than “they” have. “They” can’t shut you up, can’t touch you, and can’t stop you.

It is sometimes hard to see the line that divides where we agree and disagree. I agree with you—passionately—about the importance of building a democratic culture. Indeed, I think that this is the basic purpose of public schooling. We don’t sustain a massive investment in K-12 schools to produce workers for our economy, but to create thinking citizens for our democracy. As long as we aim for the civic goal, we seem to satisfy the economic one as well. I read a couple of weeks ago that Americans are the most productive workers in the world. That comes from having basic smarts, as well as adaptiveness and the ability to think on one's feet, I would argue.

One might well claim that we have never succeeded in educating thinking citizens for our democracy, that the goal has not been met, not now and not ever, but that is our goal nonetheless. That is the reason we have public education rather than an elaborate system of private schools for the affluent and publicly funded trade and vocational schools for everyone else.

The scores, whether in reading, math, science, or any other subject, are not the goal of schooling. They are an indicator. If youngsters, in large numbers, have not learned and cannot use the basic skills, they are not likely to be prepared to be thinking citizens of our democracy. Thinking citizens need the tools and the power of reading and math, and they need the skills and knowledge of science and history so as to contribute to our common project as a democracy. I would argue—again passionately—that we all need the insights and wisdom and experiences of the arts and literature if we are to advance as a civilization.

Where we disagree is on the question of curriculum. You speak of teachers who complain about being required to teach certain songs and books. I don’t see why that is a problem. We can’t have a common culture if the schools do not teach its rudiments, and we should have a vigorous discussion about what that common culture is. I would want all of our students to read (yes, even memorize) the Gettysburg Address, to discuss the meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. I would want them to know of our heroes, people of all races and conditions, as well as the Founding Fathers. I would want them to learn about the great struggles to extend our democracy, as well as the institutions and conditions that were a stain on our democracy. I would want them to vigorously debate the issues of our times and our past. And, yes, I think there is a reason to learn the songs that we have sung, having no doubt that they will hear thousands of other, non-prescribed songs on the radio and on their iPods and other gadgets.

Where we agree is that things are terribly amiss in American education when the civic purpose of schooling is reduced to the very small goal of raising scores on standardized tests, a goal that is being pursued relentlessly, stupidly, and—frankly—with meager results. It is not “educationists” who are pushed aside—that is the customary phrase that is used to refer to theorists and professors of education. No, it is educators who are being pushed aside, as businessmen, lawyers, MBAs, and other organization men and women move in to rationalize education and run it like a business. Schooling, to be sure, has its business side; decisions have to be made about purchasing, supplies, capital improvements, maintenance, distribution of textbooks, contracts, and so on.

But to allow the people who make business decisions to make educational decisions is nothing short of a disaster. I have sometimes thought that the business takeover of schooling has been facilitated by the appearance of a vacuum in educational authority. If educators don’t take charge, outsiders will. The business leaders think that the problems of education are all managerial; they belittle the importance of curriculum and instruction. They don’t understand anything about the civic purpose of education. And right now, they have the upper hand.

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 9:16 AM | Permalink | 6 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Diane,

There are two possibilities (at least) re our agreeing too much! We can dig deeper into the areas about which we agree, or we can take on what, in other times, might appear to be important disagreements.

There are times to unite before a common threat; but it's also useful to keep the disagreements stirring.

When I was inside a school I had to take care about how much I annoyed those with more power than me. I still should. Some guy in Massachusetts with the Pioneer Institute took umbrage at my "accusing" them of having controlled the Massachusetts Department of Ed from a narrow focus on tests and vouchers, and went after Mission Hill's recent test scores.

Still, I am freer to criticize than my colleagues inside, and shouldn't lose that advantage. As you know, since you hear from these beleaguered insiders, too. Especially since these insiders are the very "educationists" that the new business owners of our schools are eager to get rid of. Their complaints are viewed as the mere "whining" of a defeated species.

So I am afraid. Truly. I think the mayor of NYC, and Eli Broad, are perfectly happy about a future in which most teachers come and go every five or so years. Temps. Easier to manage and harder to organize. A few will rise to leadership positions after a few years of teaching—after getting MBAs?—and the rest of the leaders will come from other fields like law, business, and the military.

I'm not so worried about what this will do to math scores, Diane. What worries me is what it does to the mission of K-12 schooling, plus college in fact, that matters most to us. Building and sustaining a democratic culture is mysterious, and as far as I can tell sometimes it seems to happen by just good luck. It may not be antithetical to getting good test scores, but it's not the same thing. We're not born democrats. It's even possibly an "unnatural" human invention. So where is it—if not in schools—that we imagine the habits of intellect to sustain democracy might develop, not to mention the habits of heart and the social experience that makes it seem do-able, as well as sensible?

I'm going to Russia, in part to just be a tourist, but also to talk about this to a group of teachers who are trying to build a democracy there. That's what we need now in the USA: a task force to study how democracy can be learned. Shall we inaugurate one? The Forum for Education and Democracy is a nascent effort to do so, whose statement of purpose and values is worth looking at. I'd love to hear your critique of our efforts, because we need to build a broad united movement around this idea.

Meanwhile, there is never a time without a few cracks in the sidewalk—or not for more than a few minutes after the paving is laid. I don't urge teachers to stick it out or flee, but as long as they are in front of kids they need to use every resource they have to bring an honest exchange of ideas into the lives of kids, to immerse them in a classroom culture in which all ideas, even silly ones, are taken seriously and explored. Where there is no such a thing as "of course", meaning if you don't "get it," you're stupid. I used to say to kids that even in solitary confinement there are ways to "escape"—if only in one's mind. And even the most totalitarian school isn't yet solitary confinement.

Teachers from other schools used to tell me—in the bad old days—that they weren't "allowed" to do x and y, "had to" teach x and y songs, read certain books, follow the script. I reminded them that until someone threatened to fire them for insubordination they had a choice, and even then….. It's one of the reasons, but not the only one, that we need teacher's unions so badly.

An old friend, and occasional foe these days, named Sy Fliegel, used to promote what he called "creative noncompliance". He was one of the world's greatest experts in it when he helped lead East Harlem's schools along with Tony Alvarado in the '70s and '80s. I fear it may be harder to do so in these days of centralization and the increased infantalization of school principals. But still, I know a lot of folks out there who are, in their quiet ways, fighting back—resisting. (God bless them.) The biggest distortion of truth that promoters of the current NYC utter is the claim that principals now have more autonomy. As a former K-6 and 7-12 principal I say, "bah humbug". (More later.)

They have the freedom to shuffle the deck chairs, but the Titanic is heading for an iceberg and they can't do anything about that, except try to see that there are lots of lifeboats around and lots of kids who can swim until help arrives. And that's a worthy task! Forgive the overwrought metaphors, Diane. I'm trying to finish this off as I head to Indiana in a few moments to talk with folks who are starting a new school! Hopefully I'll feel more optimistic by the time I get there.

Deborah

Posted by Deborah Meier at 11:25 AM | Permalink | 11 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Deb,

I hope we are not disappointing our readers by agreeing more than we disagree. I think I am letting down my part of the bargain by agreeing with you so often, but our areas of convergence became clear from the first time that we sat together almost a year ago to talk about our views about No Child Left Behind. The fact is that you are writing and saying the same things you have believed for a long time, and I am in the process of reconsidering and revising my views on many counts.

I have been doing quite a lot of soul-searching these past couple of years. I don’t think it is because of age, although one can never be too sure about that. I think I am reconsidering first principles because of the very topics that you hit so hard in your latest letter. Living in NYC, I see what happens when businessmen and lawyers take over a school system, attempt to demolish everything that existed before they got there, and mount a dazzling PR blitz to prove that they are successful.

Lest anyone think that what you described is purely a NYC story, consider this: I hear from various people who participated in the judging for the Broad Prize that NYC will win it this year. This is not much of a surprise. When Joel Klein was first named chancellor, Eli Broad held his annual prize event in NYC and handed Klein a huge dummy check and predicted that one day soon this would be his. The $1 million hardly matters to NYC, which has an annual budget that approaches $20 billion, but the prestige is what the city is after. It desperately wants the confirmation from Broad that its new regime has succeeded.

About 18 months ago, I was invited to meet Eli Broad in his gorgeous penthouse in NYC, overlooking Central Park. I hear that he made his billions in the insurance and real estate businesses. I am not sure when he became an education expert. We talked about school reform for an hour or more, and he told me that what was needed to fix the schools was not all that complicated: A tough manager surrounded by smart graduates of business schools and law schools. Accountability. Tight controls. Results. In fact, NYC is the perfect model of school reform from his point of view. Indeed, this version of school reform deserves the Broad Prize, a prize conferred by one billionaire on another.

Thanks for your recommendation about the James Scott book, "Seeing Like a State." I happen to own it, as it had been highly recommended to me by Morton Keller, a historian at Brandeis University. It is a wonderful critique of reforms that seek to overturn the world, of the arrogance of reformers who do not understand the practical wisdom of those who must make decisions every day that respond to unique situations.

As I read "Seeing Like a State," especially its concluding chapters, I kept thinking about the wholesale gutting of the NYC school system by Messrs. Bloomberg and Klein, who are now hailed in the media as our nation’s leading education reformers. Professor Scott, an anthropologist at Yale, would find in NYC a perfect exemplar of men who think they can “see like a state.”

Worse, Deb, they seem to have sought out even the cracks in the sidewalk and tried to pave them over. They seem to have succeeded.

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 8:00 AM | Permalink | 6 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Diane,

I enjoyed (and agreed with) practically every word in your last letter. And I identified with your grief over Molly, too.

I sometimes think I'm exaggerating the dangers facing us—and then I read the Daily News about math scores and think I'm maybe not worrying enough! More on this below.

We may have some sharp disagreements, which we ought to pursue carefully this coming year, but at stake, at the moment, are two greater concerns. One, the continued existence of a public school system. Two, turning the public one that's left into a super-centralized enterprise run by a combination of unaccountable businessmen and distant political interests (ala Mister Barber's British experiment.) Both of these undermine the bottom-line tools for accountability—democracy and honest information.

I note with amusement that, much like education, every few years a new guru arrives with the new answer to how to guarantee business success. He gets fat consulting fees and is soon replaced by another. Yesterday's wonder turns into an ordinary mortal.

You and I are struggling to find democratic ways to bring ends and means together, to serve accountability and good schooling. It's tough. But imposing our pet ideas on over a million unwilling teachers, families, kids is not an answer. Nor is the smash/disappear-the-past strategy. Dictators—too harsh a word for NYC Chancellor Joel Klein?—have an impulse to destroy the old, "fall-back" institutions in hopes that in doing so we can't undo their reforms. That's why I found James Scott's "Seeing Like a State" such a great read, a reminder of what some of us have lived through in the 20th Century. I'm still traumatized by that history of good intentions. Have I over-learned that lesson?

The Klein proclamation in the Daily News is a caricature of the little dictator. An "era is over," he declares. We've gotten rid of the obstructionists—educators. "Accountability", he continues, "isn't optional." Tell that to your friends in high places, Joel, who seem content with their nonaccountability: bail-outs and golden parachutes. See The New York Times, Sept. 2—NY state's fastest growing industry riddled with fraud! Honest data is another victim of dictatorships as the Daily News, generally a friend to Klein, notes in a story on September 4th. "When test scores rise, politicians crow that schools are getting better, but a Daily News analysis of recent standardized math exams and a News experiment suggest another reason: The questions might be getting easier."

Klein acknowledges our discomfort. "Some educators and parents won't be happy, and that's the way it should be. … The truth hurts sometimes." But, too bad, because these tools will "help us manage the entire system more effectively." He truly is a believer. It send chills up and down my spine. It's exactly the mindset that I want schools to help future citizens overcome; because it's a way of thinking (like a State) that is a danger to the concept of democracy itself.

But, Klein and company, like Fred Hess, another pro-business reformer (see The American online July 17) have learned a different lesson from history. Hess urges reformers to "…smash the regulations and support the entrepreneurs who will shake things up." (It's '60s "new left" talk from the right.) Shaking things up over and over is a common thread. You are right, Diane, it does serve a purpose; it makes the objects being shaken feel less and less confident and more hapless. Fear interrupts "resistance."

The other day a friend complained about teachers and principals "resisting" her plans (which I happened to like). We all need to watch our language. Maybe, I queried, they disagreed with you? "Opposition" (even questioning) looks like resistance when given no choice. But, "eventually," as you say in your final sentence, parents and teachers will "find their collective voice and say loud and clear: "Enough'"

I take that same lesson to the school and classroom level. When kids can disagree they are less prone to take their opposition underground, and the same goes for teachers. It's the above-ground way of doing public business that is at the heart of democracy. If there's ever been a regime that hides its policymaking, and is accountable only to itself (including its own manipulated data)—it's the Klein regime. (Oops, I forgot the Bush one.) Enough!

Meanwhile, there are all those kids whose teachers and principals need to figure out how to negotiate the spaces that are left to them. My old mentor, Lillian Weber, reminded us—years ago—that there are those cracks in the sidewalk, where some things manage to grow. It's our job to find them and feed them, she told us. The kids in front of us can't wait. I pass the word on.

Deborah

P.S. For the record, I am not "opposed to tests." More on this later.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 8:25 AM | Permalink | 7 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Deb,

Yup, back-to-school time. I too get that funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, especially when I find myself wandering the aisles of a stationery store, looking at spiral notebooks, pens, and the other accoutrements of starting school and hearing the voice in my head saying that it is time to get ready.

This was not a great summer. I spent most of it trying to get a diagnosis and appropriate care for my beloved 10-year-old dog Molly, who became sick in early July. One vet said she has congestive heart failure and has six months to live; another said she has lymphoma and was hopeless; I am now working with a homeopathic vet who is giving her herbal capsules, and she is looking very well. So I begin the fall with hope.

I am sorry to say that education henceforth will be on the agenda in Congress for a long time to come. Having worked in the federal government in the early '90s and lived in D.C. for four years, where I watched the federal education agenda grow, I see nothing hopeful about this. When it comes to reforming the nation’s schools, Congress is possibly the worst qualified institution to do it. First, they are very far from the schools, in every possible definition of the word “far,” and second, they don’t have a clue about how to reform schools. But typically they think that if they pass a law and give it the right name, they have solved a problem. As we can see from the travails of NCLB, our well-intentioned but out-of-touch Congress has only created new problems.

Now the presidential campaign has begun in earnest, and we will hear more glib promises about fixing the schools by passing the "right" program. The candidates, and the leaders of Congress (in both parties), think that the way to fix the schools is to micromanage them from Washington. They want more regulations, more mandates, more obstacle courses for principals and teachers. If you remember, the report by the Gates-funded bipartisan commission on NCLB offered dozens of recommendations for such things. It seems that we should change the name of the federal program from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to No Adult Left Unregulated (NALU).

I think you are quite right that we must be suspicious of any school district or state that makes extravagant claims about the results of its tests. One thing that I learned while serving on the NAEP governing board was that changes in scores—whether up or down—occur slowly and incrementally. Occasionally a student may make extraordinary progress, perhaps because he or she decided to study harder and more consistently, or a student may see a dramatic decline, probably because of personal problems, but it should ring an alarm bell for parents, the public, and the media when test scores for a district or state show huge changes in a year or two.

Unlike you, I am not opposed to testing. But I don’t support testing as the primary means of educating kids, which seems to be the new business-style way to “reform” education. Testing is not a substitute for curriculum, and testing is not a substitute for instruction. Test prep may help raise test scores, but a cohort of students who have had little more than a steady diet of test prep have been cheated of a real education. In medicine, a thermometer is a valuable tool. But anyone who thinks that they can cure illness by constantly inserting a thermometer and preparing to have one's temperature read is...ill-informed at best and should really go into a different line of work.

Thanks for sending me the Pring letter. Too bad The New York Times did not see fit to print it. I expect that a lot of parents and teachers would want to know that there is another side to Sir Michael Barber’s account of his grand successes in Britain (subscription or fee required). It is unfortunate when our newspaper of record prints a puff piece about a controversial figure without permitting the contrary voices to be heard. (I am appending a copy below of the Pring letter, which is now akin to samizdat, the underground publications in the Soviet Union that circulated from hand to hand.)

My guess is that the business leaders who think they have the cure for the schools are likely to emerge from this era of faux-reform looking like Enron educators. They may get the scores, and they may pull the wool over the eyes of the press. But eventually the day of reckoning will arrive when their incredible test score gains will prove to be ephemeral, indeed in-credible, as in not credible; when the students discover that they never got an education; when educators find their collective voice and say loud and clear: “Enough.”

May that day come soon.

Diane

The following is Richard Pring's letter to The New York Times, reprinted with his permission.

Richard is now Lead Director Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training for England and Wales and Former Director: Oxford University Department of Education Studies

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 8:05 AM | Permalink | 7 Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Editor's note: After a month-long break, Bridging Differences returns today with this entry by Deborah Meier.

Dear Diane,

Summer's over. For 70 years I've approached this time of year with school in mind. With unrealistically high expectations and joy. And a knot in the pit of my stomach.

I wish I could at least be grateful that I'm not dealing with the difficult decisions that so many of my colleagues face in the current climate of so-called "reform." But it turns out to be more discomforting to live it vicariously. In the excitement of seeing old friends and new each fall it's harder to stay mad at "the system."

Education is on the agenda in Congress too this month, and so we'll be hearing painful double-talk from both local and national politicians. My first look at the draft summary was a stunner. It seemed to propose more complex rules and mandates and be fully in keeping with the basic mindset of the original. Let's talk about that very soon.

My summer was "interrupted" by reading Sam Dillon's New York Times account (subscription or fee required) of one Sir Michael Barber's outrageous claims about British schooling. Barber came to the US to tell NYC principals that English education is the way to go: just get on board New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's bandwagon, he urged. Unsurprisingly, Brit Richard Pring's response to him wasn't published in the NY Times, although he currently heads England's major review of all age 14-19 education.

Thirty-five years ago I made a trek to England to observe changes that were taking place in their "infant schools" (equivalent to kindergarten through about 3rd grade). The English had simultaneously just gotten rid of the 11-Plus exams that separated the wheat from the chaff at age 11 and instituted American-style secondary schools. Many prominent educators and journalists—like Joseph Featherstone in The New Republic—wrote about the intellectual seriousness of these new trends, their focus on kids who had preciously been ignored and, above all, the amount of competent writing that they saw kids engage in. Based on spending over six weeks in a few such schools we opened Central Park East elementary in East Harlem. So I have a special fondness for that period in British education.

But times change, and the British have outdone us in launching a "reform by test" movement. Unfortunately they didn't take your or my advice (which might not have been the same?)—in either country as they confronted problems with both promising earlier developments.

Richard Pring has told us that 10 years after Barber's reforms were fully installed the kids are no better prepared—academically or socially. UNICEF reports that children in England are "at the bottom of the league of rich countries in terms of happiness and feelings of well-being" and that they have highest rate of youthful criminality in Europe. I know some will scoff at the notion that we should care about children's "happiness" or "well-being" and will say that becoming a criminal is one's own choice. But I don't, and I suspect you don't either.

What's equally true is that England doesn't stack up well on international measurements in reading and math. The new "toughness" hasn't had much effect on college preparedness, employability, or international test score comparisons, says Pring.

Ohio principal George Wood, a friend of mine, decided a few years ago to call the Ohio Department of Education to ask for the results of studies done on the impact of Ohio's then-10-year-old test-based reforms. "What", he asked, "do studies of college and employer satisfaction tell us about how these reforms are working?" The lady asked him to call back while she looked for the answer. She came back to report that there had been no such studies conducted. It seems we're too busy tracking every little testing blip to wonder whether we're measuring what matters. Whether it's working to produce stronger citizens and better politics? In Ohio?

The good news that Pring brings us is that after a long and expensive detour, the British are now back to asking: "What counts as an educated 19-year-old in this day and age?". I wish we'd begin to talk about that over here, too.

I still remember the 1970s when New York City grades 2-6 test scores zoomed up remarkably. Oddly, no one seemed to wonder why these trends never seemed to make an impact on grades 7-12. No corresponding glee appeared amongst high school teachers; no one was saying, "well, at last, you're sending us better-prepared kids."

Instead, we turned to Business. I think I'm right that half of all businesses fail every year; those that don't include a great many that engage in practices that horrify us (like cooking the books). As an investor I've never received a business report that made what was going on transparent to me. Failing CEOs aren't treated like failing principals—but just open their golden parachutes. So why have we grown accustomed to turning to them for answers?

It would hurt less if it wasn't that I'm still sure that schools can make a big positive difference. There are a vast number of ways that they can do so, but they all start with acknowledging the connection between means and ends.

It leads me, for example, to ask whether kids are being schooled in the company of adults with the intellectual and moral standards for making judgments on matters of importance. If not, forget it. (My grandmother had virtually no formal education, but I never doubted her capacity for intellectual and moral judgment. It did me good to keep company with her.) Our now six-month-long discourse is based, I think, on this commonality. Maybe also on the fact that neither you nor I has enough power to impose our differences on each other! Nor, possibly, neither of us has such a desire.

I'm not looking for a single great "decider." I know from history where that leads us.

Deborah

Posted by Deborah Meier at 10:40 AM | Permalink | 7 Comments | TrackBacks (0)