Bridging Differences Taking a Holiday Break
Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch are taking a short break from their blog for the holidays. Bridging Differences will return in January 2008. Happy holidays to all, and we'll see you in the new year.
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Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch are taking a short break from their blog for the holidays. Bridging Differences will return in January 2008. Happy holidays to all, and we'll see you in the new year.
Dear Diane,
It's hard to resist making one more stab at it—but there's something beyond logic that pulls us apart on this one! Do send me the California standards you refer to so I can see what you mean by "consensus". Of who? What "compromises" were made along the way? Were they worth it?
And: Are the California standards without "stakes"—just a source of voluntary information—for faculty, students, school boards and the public? But I fear that our correspondent Paul Hoss—who favors such national standards is more realistic in how he sees them being used—as high-stakes tests. His support for them is, in fact, built on such an idea.
A reader asks whether I'd feel differently if it wasn't the State that was setting the standards. Yes, I would. I am very concerned at the impact that a single SAT score has on young people's futures and have joined FairTest (the nation's sole counterweight to the massive testing industry's sales job) in their campaign against its misuse. But Rachel is right. The fact that it's a private choice makes it more palatable to me. Ditto with the math community's publishing their "consensual" viewpoint on what constitutes a good math education and doing their best to promulgate that view—short of mandating it. Although I equally treasure the minority viewpoint—the hold-outs. Over time they often turn out to be ahead of the curve. Ditto for history, science, et al. The Getty Institute at one point had an enormous—and I think harmful—impact on art education through its influence on setting standards for K-12 art. But it was "an influence". It stopped being helpful when it became California's officially sanctioned K-12 art's curriculum.
I also realize that like Richard Rothstein (see Rothstein's American Prospect article, Dec. 17, 2007 ) I see the assumptions that the feds are less biased than locals is happenstance. For example, it was the federal court that turned down voluntary local efforts to end segregation this last year, even as it was the same court that mandated integration a half-century ago.
To change the subject—sort of. It occurs to me that between the ages of 5-18 we are all expected to try to be equally good at "learning" everything we are obliged to study. That means in fact, that we are required in reality to spend more time at the things we are not "naturally" interested in or talented at than those things we take to like a duck to water. An odd way to prepare for a life in which I hope we mostly do the opposite! That's assuming schools (or families) have provided the time for youngsters to develop the passions and interests that make them truly "special" to the world, and which make life itself wonderful to live.
One concern I have about all attempts to assume there ought to be the one-best curriculum or course-of-study is that it squashes, rather than expands, our zest for what strikes our fancy. I know, Diane, that this sounds flaky, but the more I watch young people the more strongly I feel about it. What they need, above all, is exposure to adults who are living their lives with intellectual passion, playfulness. Who are always chasing a new idea or a new way to think about an old idea. And by "ideas" I include far more than what we neatly divide up into academic disciplines.
The old NAEP—with its information-gathering core—doesn't kill that. It may even offer another source for teacherly curiosity: "I wonder how my students would answer that?" "Hmm, if I'd worded it differently…." But it is clearly a hard battle to keep such "standards" from turning into efforts to decide what everyone "ought to" think (know?), and then into tools for "making them" do so.
This week's Sunday New York Times Magazine piece on medical diagnosis, ends with a quote I think is relevant, but I'm not sure exactly how. "Doctors," says author Lisa Sanders, too often "look to the medical literature rather than looking at the patient for their answers." Sanders concludes by quoting Sir William Osler, "a 19th century doctor considered by many the father of modern American medicine" (as follows): 'We miss more by not seeing than by not knowing.'"
Have a wonderful holiday season, Diane (and readers).
Deb
P.S. Diane and I are saving for 2008 some amazing stuff about NYC's two newest passions—grading all its schools A-F and giving all 4- and 5-year-olds an IQ test! Both, naturally, in the "name" of equity. My New Year's wish is for both to disappear but…I fear it will take more than New Year's wishes.
Dear Debbie,
I don't agree with your judgment—and the judgment of some (but not all) of our readers—about whether it is feasible to craft useful standards. It is difficult, but not impossible. I'll explain why I think this is so.
First, I served on a committee charged with developing history standards for the state of California in the mid-1980s. The committee included historians; knowledgeable teachers and administrators from elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools; geographers; child-development specialists; and people from various disciplinary organizations. We wrangled, we discussed, we debated. We talked about concepts and details. We parsed every word of every draft. Eventually we ended up with excellent standards for teaching history (including geography, economics, civics, and government) from kindergarden to twelfth grade. The standards were reviewed by over 1,000 teachers, and improved as a result. There were public hearings. Eventually the standards were endorsed by the state Board of Education in 1988. Since then, they have been updated in light of changing events (e.g., the collapse of the Soviet Union), and they have been re-endorsed by the state Board of Education. I believe they have helped to strengthen and enrich history education across the state, expanding world history from one required year to three required years and adding age-appropriate study of history in the elementary grades, among other things. I consider it a minor miracle that those standards are still in use, 20 years later, when California has thrown out and revised its standards in every other subject.
Second, to those who say that consensus is impossible, I would point to the brilliant and still unappreciated work of the College Board from 1901 to the 1940s. For nearly half a century, the College Board examinations in many subjects were written and graded by teachers and professors in collaboration. Each year, groups of teachers and professors met to agree on the standards and to write a syllabus. Each year, many thousands of students "sat" for the examinations, and these examinations were graded by teachers and professors. Working together, and working for a non-governmental private organization, these scholars established high standards for the nation that have never again been equaled. If you are wondering why this wonderful arrangement has disappeared, the answer is that the College Board decided to scrap the system and replace it with the "scientific" multiple-choice tests that were the wonder of the psychometric world. So fast, so easy, so effortless, so easy to grade by machine instead of fallible human judgment! (I wrote about this turn of events in an essay for The Chronicle of Higher Education called "The Fall of the Standard-Bearers." I judged it a mini-tragedy that this wonderful system based on the hard work and judgment of practitioners was replaced by the content-free, curriculum-free SAT.
Third, to those who say that issues like evolution make it impossible to have meaningful standards, I say "Nonsense!" Political scientists have long known that the smaller the political unit, the more likely it is to produce and reproduce local biases. This is why the federal government—not localities or states—was responsible for establishing and enforcing standards for civil rights laws, because it was the political agency most removed from local prejudices. In my seven years on the National Assessment Governing Board, I never heard anyone speak a word on behalf of creationism. Yet we know that creationism is alive and well on local school boards and state school boards. The very nature of the federal government guarantees that deliberations about national standards would be open, transparent, subject to verification by scientific authority, and unlikely to cave in to political pressures from small intense organizations.
It continues to amaze me that so many people, including you, think that national standards are an impossibility or are dangerous when so many other nations have managed to develop them. As I have written on more than one occasion, I would not want "stakes" attached to them by Congress or the federal government. I think that the federal government's role is to set standards and to produce good information. It should be left to state and local school boards to decide how to act on that information.
Diane
Dear Diane,
“Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a Republican who represents western Michigan's culturally cohesive Dutch Calvinist communities, opposed NCLB from the start because he thought it would 'tear apart the bond between the schools and the local communities'… He thinks accountability belongs at the local level," notes conservative writer George Will in The Washington Post's Dec 9th issue. Peter and George and I agree.
That’s the first part of my answer to your query, Diane. I am not in favor of arriving at a single definition of being well-educated. And while we could agree on some minimal competencies, that’s hardly what we want to set forth as “standards”—which I view as an aspirational noun, our flag of high hopes.
Anther way to think about it is noted in an amazing little piece in Educational Horizons (Fall 2007) by Fritz Mosher, Susan Fuhrman and David Cohen. They suggest that we have an inadequate conception of the goal of education which results in a discussion of outcomes that “takes place in an empirical vacuum.” Amen.
But equally surprising is a second argument—which is at the core of your letter: your confidence that we could arrive at a consensus! It is so instantly clear to me that it would be either divisive or silly for us to try! As the Northwest Lab once noted, it would take another eight years simply to cover what’s in most state curriculum guides—or what we now call standards. Could we narrow them down? Sure. It could be based on what I see as the critical turning points in history, for example; the books that I see as having that right combination of appeal and importance; to what I see as what’s at the heart and soul of science (the experimental mindset?); and the mathematical competency that can’t be done on a computer and which every citizen must wrestle with. In short, my standard is indeed related to my aspirations for citizenry—what I wish everyone knew before I got up on the speaker’s rostrum to make my argument in favor of x or y or z. But I know it’s absurd! Because people whose expertise and honesty I very much admire disagree with me! Like you. Or George Will.
But even then I’d have to take into account a third dilemma: the political biases of the citizens who send their kids to my school or classroom, not to mention their particular situation, local circumstances, recent history. In a democracy I am, within some bounds, accountable to my community, even if simply in order to be effective with their kids. It’s not enough to have "the law" on my side, I need the actual kids on my side, too.
And then, fourth…I’d have to keep an eye on what is likely to appear on some test for college admissions, SATs or the like, and squeeze that in.
Not to mention, fifth, realizing that each individual student is, hopefully, going to learn more in the 60 years after s/he gets his/her high school diploma than the 12 years before that. My most important contribution requires keeping my eye on that long future stretch of time and how and what my classroom or school did to ignite interest, passion, curiosity, along with a conviction that it’s all important and worthwhile. And do-able.
So even if we could arrive at a consensus, which might be possible if you didn’t let folks like me in the room while you decide, the rest are problematic. This is, to some degree a peculiarly “American” problem—our “melting pot” or “quilt” dilemma. But it’s also related to our size and sense of who “we” are. But finally it’s because we have a far more layperson conception of education—and a healthy distrust (in my opinion) for all elites. There is no American Academy that can pass final judgment on what all kids should speak like. Even prestigious scholars disagree. Even if one side “wins” the political battle for preeminence for a time, the other side doesn’t just give up, but fights on, upsetting the apple cart for the next generation.
At best maybe what we need, in Gerald Graff’s words in a book called "Clueless in Academe," is to view academics as a place to debate, show off, try out, both old and new ideas, over and over, making them in the process “ours”. Ideas come in the form of projects, art works, architectural wonders, inventions, information, as well as a new take on an old subject. It’s the “having of wonderful ideas” that all children have a right to, ideas powerful enough to shape their own futures. It’s not something to be put off until graduate school—it starts at birth, and good schools keep it going day in and day out thereafter.
Deb
P.S. For more on this, see my short chapter in Profession 2007, the Modern Language Association’s annual journal of opinion. (Subscription or fee required.)
Dear Deb,
I don’t understand why you are so certain that any state or national standards are beyond consensus, or that they will be entirely arbitrary. You also think that it would be politically and technically impossible to agree on what students should know.
I don’t agree.
I don’t think it is at all impossible, politically or technically, to arrive at standards and assessments that avoid partisanship and ideology. Consider that reading, mathematics, and science are already assessed internationally. There is already a consensus among educators representing dozens of nations about what knowledge and skills should be assessed at different grade levels.
Mathematics and science should be the easiest fields to reach a consensus, because—while there are certainly many controversies in both fields—it is also quite possible to identify important knowledge and skills that can fairly be tested. I just looked at the NAEP test. A typical fourth-grade question: “The Ben Franklin Bridge was 75 years old in 2001. In what year was the bridge 50 years old?” The student is given a choice of 1951, 1976, 1984, or 1986. There is a single correct answer. The student who answers this question correctly knows that she must deduct 25 from 2001 to get the answer of 1976.
It is equally possible to set standards for history and assess them, so long as those who are setting the standards draw the line between discussing controversies—an essential in teaching and learning history—and imposing a particular point of view about history. One would expect high school students who have studied world history, for example, to be able to describe the essential ingredients of totalitarianism, especially with reference to government denial of basic rights and freedoms. One would expect students who have studied American history, for example, to be able to write a brief essay on causes of the Civil War or to analyze the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Setting standards is not easy work; I don’t mean to suggest that it is. But I think that the value of standards is, first, an assurance that students are acquiring important skills and knowledge, regardless of where they live, and second, an assurance that students who move from one district to another will not skip, repeat, or miss important studies. Given the enormous mobility in our society, it seems to me to make sense to have some broad curriculum guidelines—not a straitjacket for teachers, but a syllabus that provides coherence and stability, e.g., agreement in a state about when students will study state history, U.S. history, and world history, with a brief description of the major ideas and themes of each year of study. Absent such an agreement, students may move and find themselves taking state history—or some other course—again and again. I don't expect to persuade you but I think it might be useful to get our disagreements out into the open (again!).
Diane
Dear Diane,
There's a streak of naivete about you that is both delightful and infuriating! The notion that we have come to a consensus on what constitutes the well-educated 8-, 12- or 18-year-old, on what body of facts and scientific truth we all agree is essential, and finally that we have a way to get at this that will not impact on narrowing or distorting the curriculum—all seem far-fetched. Politically, not to mention technically, this seems beyond our current human capacity.
Add to it that such a testing system would demonstrate that huge majorities of the students in some states are failing by these standards and it seems politically even more unlikely. Of course, that's perhaps one of the few reasons I'd like it. How about, for starters, if we agree that we do not give any test to high school students before trying it out on all state and federal legislators—as a kind of base line? We might also test trustees of universities and major corporations.
I wrote a book, "Will Standards Save Public Education," in 2000 (Beacon) in which I set out the assumptions underlying test-based standards and contrast them to an alternate set of assumptions. If you didn't read it—it might help us to see where we diverge.
Remember, what we're arguing about are mandated state-sponsored tests about intellectual truth. The information, while not high stakes re. students in your proposal, is high stakes for the intellectual and democratic assumptions upon which the nation rests. The fallout of testing is, as we both agree, not irrelevant as some test-makers argue in claiming no responsibility for the narrowing of the curriculum. But there is narrowing of many sorts, and any national system in a nation as diverse and huge as ours has serious reverberations. How would yours avoid it?
Which reminds me of what we face in NYC right now at the other end of the spectrum—not 18-years-olds but 4- and 5-year-olds. NYC has sent principals (no names because this is supposed to be super confidential) copies of practice tests which they are expected to hand out to parents who must come to school to get them. Such parents must promise to reveal nothing about the pre-tests, in exchange for being able to use the information to help prepare their children. Hush hush. One outcome available to parents who agree is a leg up on getting their kids into gifted and talented classes—open to the top 5 percent of national test-takers. (Despite our knowledge of how IQ tests—which these are—differentially impact on kids based on economics and race—NYC is proposing this as part of its drive for equity!) What happens to the information garnered from the other 95 percent?
Erikson Institute's Sam Meisels, perhaps America's most eminent expert on early childhood, has written extensively on the unreliability of early childhood testing. We know a lot—and it's all bad news. On the basis of this, Congress agreed to remove standardized testing for Head Starters. But not NYC 4-5-year-olds. If anyone reading this letter has the inclination—please write, call and holler! It's coming next to you. I wonder who, in the field of early-childhood education, they consulted? Or did they just assume that based on their experience in business, law, Wall Street, et al they knew best?
And imagine, officially involving parents in the test-prep game! I suppose they can claim that this is leveling the field! It's also—if they knew anything about norm-based testing (which these are)—further corrupting the instrument itself once we prep for it! IQ tests are based on the assumption that everyone is taking it under the same conditions as the population they were normed on.
I see national testing as another nail in the coffin of a nation prized for being creative and innovative. I know, Diane, that textbooks often establish dumb standards, too. But whatever leads you to believe that these tests won't repeat what's already in (and not in) those textbooks??? At least now some schools—and not just private ones—can ignore them or use them as mere back-up. There remains another way to get good information without dumbing education down; sampled in-depth testing (which NAEP started out doing) could be invaluable, based on interviews, performance tasks, writing samples, etc.
We could feed our adult thirst for knowledge without mandating that schools deprive kids of a taste of the real thing. I know, I know—only some kids now get that kind of education; but what's kept me going for 40-plus years is trying to spread the real thing to more and more kids. I know it's do-able; but it's getting harder and harder.
Deb
Dear Deb,
As usual, you raise lots of interesting questions and you sharpen our clear differences. Yes, I do think we should have national testing. This idea that fifty states should each have their own standards and their own tests is nutty. We are not getting higher standards; we may even be getting lower ones.
How did we get to this point? President Clinton's Goals 2000 pushed the states to create their own standards and tests (Clinton, to his credit, actually preferred national tests, but he couldn't persuade the Republican Congress to go along with his proposal for such tests). Then along came NCLB, and President Bush wanted a bigger emphasis on standards and testing, but knew that his own party would never accept national testing. So he built on the idea that each state should set its own standards, develop its own tests, grade its own progress towards the goal of having every student "proficient" in reading and mathematics by the year 2013-2014. Since the bill passed Congress in the fall of 2001, I assume that the goal of 2013-14 was based on the idea that this was the amount of time (12 years, starting in 2002) necessary to raise the achievement of children who were then in kindergarten.
As we both know, and as everyone knows who thinks about the matter, we will not reach the goal of having universal proficiency by 2014, unless we define "proficiency" to mean low-level, basic literacy.
Writing this goal, no matter how impossible and absurd, into federal law put pressure on the states to come up with plans to demonstrate that they intended to do it. How crazy was that? So every state has a year-by-year plan in which they will raise "proficiency" and "achievement" towards that elusive goal. This in turn guarantees that the states will dumb down their tests and focus relentlessly on test prep so that they can at least try to fulfill their promises to the feds.
We all know the results of this grand illusion.
First, we know from studies such as the one by the Center on Education Policy, that the curriculum has been narrowed in a majority of schools; many children are not having any chance to study the arts, history, or anything else that is not going to have an immediate impact on their reading and math scores. Though I would argue that children will get much higher reading scores if they spend more time learning history and engaging in the arts, school officials aren't willing to take the risk. The scores must rise! And they must rise by constantly drilling the kids in how to take tests and in practicing the kinds of test items that they are likely to encounter on the state tests. As a result of this idiocy, we may be losing a generation of young people who associate schooling with the worst kind of drudgery and test grind.
Second, we know from studies such as "The Proficiency Illusion" by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (where I am a trustee) that many states are using a very low-level definition of proficiency in order to inflate their scores and claim progress. There are states that tell the public that a large majority of the students are "proficient," and getting ever more proficient. Yet the proportion of students in these states who are proficient or even basic on NAEP remains nowhere near what the states are claiming.
We have a fundamental problem of honesty here. The public is being misled in most states about academic gains. NAEP is the only measure that is maintaining a consistent standard across the fifty states.
Yes, I believe we should have a scheme of national testing. Yes, you are right, I do not think that there should be "stakes" associated with national testing. I think that we should have national tests so that we have better information. Having watched the misuse of test results in NYC these past few years—where tests are being used to reward, punish, and grade students, teachers, principals, and schools, I would hate to see national tests corrupted in these ways. I see two healthy uses for national testing (I don't expect you to agree): First, the tests should provide information that is reliable and consistent. Second, the tests should provide information with a diagnostic value, so that educational shortcomings can be addressed in a timely manner.
The irony is that we already have national standards. They aren't exactly written out in a single document or series of documents. But if you want to know what they are, look at the handful of standardized tests given in states and districts; look at the textbooks used in the great majority of classrooms. These are not the standards that you or I would want; but there they are. I recall that about ten years ago, I gave a lecture in Wyoming on the subject of national standards and national tests. Several people in the audience, not surprisingly, objected, saying that they preferred their standards to be written in Wyoming. I pointed out that the textbooks most widely used in the state came from a New York City-based publisher and that the tests used by the state came from a testing company in New Hampshire. No one could point out what was especially local or Wyomingesque about their standards and tests.
I agree with your concern for democracy in our society. I don't think the problem is uniquely limited to what happens in schools. The changes in the mass media have made all of us feel like spectators and consumers of other people's decisions. This requires another discussion.
Diane
