Bridging Differences

Dear Diane,

Sometimes an outrageous sentence does get attention. But there is, I contend, merit to thinking about the ways in which schools are a form of “incarceration.” Nonattendance is crime called truancy. Kids are indeed “locked up” or “in” for 5-6 hours for 180 or more days a year, whether they or their families like it or not.

Is it a good idea? Yes! A closer reading than some readers engaged in would have noted that I was crystal clear on one point: I approve of compulsory schooling. At least in the world we live in. I recognize that it was a progressive step forward to have made schooling a requirement for 10-12 years. (And one that doesn’t yet exist for most children in this world. Even in industrialized China there are still tuition fees for public education.)

But, but. We’ve done so at a price.

From the very first day that I spent in a Chicago public school as a substitute teacher I recognized the special taste of fear—on the part of both many of the students and most of the adult staff. Including me. It was a fear not so different than prison employees probably feel, and which gets more and more blatant as youngsters get older. “They” outnumber “us”. Ergo the first priority: “control.” If we “let up” chaos will prevail. The atmosphere was noticeably more fearful in schools with students of color, a bit less so for poor white kids, and least of all in public schools with white middle class students.

Am I exaggerating? Not by a lot.

In a variety of ways all the usual freedoms that people in our society enjoy are removed. One needs permission to go to the toilet. One needs to walk, often silently, in line. One must sit still at all costs. One is not supposed to speak unless called upon. One cannot freely associate with ones chosen friends. And for many years—and it applies still in some places—the penalties for not obeying are pretty severe—including corporal punishment and solitary confinement of a sort. Even one’s own parents often have limited access to their children while in school, and few rights to overrule the school’s decisions or influence policy. (One NYC PTA just discovered that their longstanding tradition of sponsoring a monthly Pizza lunch was breaking a nonnegotiable citywide rule!, New York Post, March 16.)

The irony is that expulsion, of course, is the ultimate punishment.

I am arguing for a recognition that whenever one removes such freedoms one has a stronger obligation to “do no harm.” Without recognizing the “peculiarity” of the institution of schooling one misses something critical. Ruling over an involuntary “workforce”—in school or out—is not ideal. The side effects are important to recognize. Unlike school people, military men acknowledge the special qualities of a draft army versus a volunteer one. We civilians forget this too often when it comes to schooling.

We’re preparing kids to be grown-ups-- members of a democratic community, and a voluntary workforce—under circumstances that are neither democratic nor voluntary. It creates contradictions. I occasionally said to kids, “What are you doing here if you don’t want to learn?” It seemed like such a natural point to make. Imagine my surprise however when one young man took me at my word. His mother called me. He claimed I told him he might as well go home. She knew he was lying, but…. I told her he wasn’t lying. I simply hadn’t intended him to take me seriously (although no doubt I sounded dead serious). We both had a laugh over it. She sent him back.

It’s perhaps why I favor erring on the side of graduating kids we aren’t sure meet our standards rather than not graduating them if we aren’t sure whether they meet our standards. The opposite policy is the one we actually employ. After at least 12 years of involuntary schooling we better be very sure before we deprive them of an entry ticket into the workforce—and even then at not very decent paying jobs. That means looking each kid in the eye and defending our decisions as in his or her best interests.

We should be sure we use their precious time, energy, and natural enthusiasm for learning from start to finish. We should be sure that the school day is, at least, an interesting and vital experience. We should demand that we put at the command of the school every condition and resource necessary, to give all kids what the wealthiest and wisest parents provide for their own. (Even if we can’t prove it raises test scores.)

It also means taking seriously our claim that democracy is the first and best means, not the last resort. Yes, Diane, as you’ve noted in your last letter, there’s precious little “public” about how we operate some of our large urban, predominantly low-income school systems. The Pizza story is just the silliest, but hardly the worst, of what schools confront daily, The very least we owe youngsters are schools that believe in the very system of governance that they are intended to serve.

Democracy was invented as a means for holding our rulers accountable—except when it comes to schools?

Deb

Posted by Deborah Meier at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Deborah,

So we took our show on the road for the first time!

For our readers' benefit, let me explain. On March 7, Deborah and I blogged live—I guess that's what you would call it—at Channel 13's "Celebration of Teaching and Learning" in New York City. Before an audience of about 250, mostly teachers and principals, we talked about whether the business/corporate model would "save" our schools. (Some of those in the audience were not New Yorkers, as educators were sent to the event by their local public television stations, and I know we had people from other states and cities.)

Who controls our schools? Should the schools adopt a model of operations based on "results" (test scores) and "incentives" (paying teachers, students, and principals for higher test scores)? Are test scores the "profits" of the school system? Who are the stockholders?

This is one of those big issues that affects many school systems, not just New York City. It also happens to be an issue—or related set of issues—where Deborah and I find ourselves mostly in agreement. Interestingly, two days later, on March 9, The New York Times Magazine featured a discussion of education philanthropy titled "How Many Billionaires Does It Take to Fix a School System?" This was a good follow-up to our discussion, especially its fundamental assumption that one or more billionaires have the "answers" that have somehow escaped the lesser minds of ordinary educators who toil in the classroom. As you once said to me, Deborah, the new generation of reformers seems to believe that anyone who knows much about schooling is part of the problem; only those untainted by actual direct experience in education have the insight to "fix" a school system. If they are a parent, a teacher, or an administrator, they are self-interested and somehow disqualified from solving the problems.

In our discussion, Deborah made the interesting point that successful business organizations focus on the means, not the ends. I pointed out, borrowing from a recent post by eduwonkette at edweek.org, that corporations do not necessarily tie pay to performance; that we have recently seen examples of huge compensation packages to executives after their company went bankrupt or experienced a major downturn; the executives walk away with many millions while their stockholders and employees are left empty-handed. Certainly, lawyers are not compensated based on performance, but rather on billable hours (our school system in New York City is run from the top by a cadre of lawyers).

Too bad that our session was not videotaped for television. We had great questions from the audience, including one young man who works for Chase bank and was formerly a student at Deborah's school.

Debbie, it was fun being on with you. We were able to do in person what we try to do on the blog. Engage in a lively exchange; show respect for one another; probe controversial issues; try to be intellectually honest; speak our minds candidly and fearlessly.

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Deb,

Your description of CPESS and other Coalition schools sounds like a memory from a distant past. Education is now in the grips of a very different mindset, one that seeks to turn schools into businesses or to use business as a model for success in education. Test scores have become the coin of the realm, simply because they provide an objective measurement. The problem is not testing kids, but using the scores to make judgments about students, teachers, principals, and schools. I have never been opposed to testing, but I think it is bizarre to assume—as most newspapers and pundits and policymakers now seem to do—that the tests are robust enough to make these consequential judgments about people and institutions.

I remember when I visited your school. I was impressed by the seriousness of the atmosphere and the dedication of the staff. However, I know how often people said, "If only we could clone Debby Meier." They meant that as a compliment to you, but also as an implicit acknowledgement that what you did could not easily be replicated. If it were easy to replicate, it would have spread across the nation. But it didn't. It remained a rare and fragile flower, not a hearty plant that could be transplanted or could—as gardeners say—naturalize or spread on its own.

We come back to our fundamental difference about the value of a common curriculum and of testing. I continue to think there is great value in knowing that children will encounter a common curriculum in history, science, and other subjects, even if they move from one school to another in the same district, or move to another city or state. No point rehearsing all the reasons, but at bottom I believe that we already have (weak) national standards, embedded in the textbooks and tests, and that we already have international standards in mathematics and science, where our students do poorly.

Yet I think this discussion, which you think is intertwined, is not entirely germane to the issues I raised about grading schools based on state test scores. We agree that the way this is done in New York City is harmful to schools and reveals nothing that will enable schools to improve. Indeed, if schools were to turn themselves into testing mills, doing nothing whatsoever other than test prep, they would be considered exemplary.

The issue that I raise is two-fold: One, how did American education fall so effortlessly into the control of Know Nothings from the world of business, law, and politics? and, Two, how can we—that is, the American public—begin to talk again about schools that prepare students not only to take tests but to be engaged and thoughtful citizens, to participate in and enjoy the arts, and to have the interest and capacity to read a book that was not assigned by a teacher?

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Diane,

I’ve been pondering your letter. The grading system is so absurd as to be intriguing. How could it have happened? It suggests a disconnect between the people making decisions “downtown” and reality of humongous proportions. Its source though puzzles me—since these are not dumb men. How could they have been led so far astray?

Ordinary common sense should have led Jim Liebman (the author of the NYC grading scheme) to have junked it before going public. For just the absurdities you pointed to. But ordinary common sense doesn’t work when you hire people to make important decisions who know literally nothing about the field itself. But disrespect for educators is so deep and pervading that none were apparently seriously consulted. No one apparently asked a school person: “Does this make sense?” “Are the results credible?”

It’s part of what makes me particularly nervous, Diane, at your belief that “national standards” would be based on genuine “expertise”. Not only do I have my concerns about the reliability of even honest experts—in the face of ordinary human bias—but we’re living in a world in which expertise is scorned when it comes to the fields you and I care about. Lawyers and financiers are at the top of the pyramid. Regardless of the nature of the decisions involved. The Kleins et als of the world will soon be grading scientists and scientific truths. This is not merely a phenomenon of right-wing “crazies”, but so-called sensible centrists—like Bloomberg et al.

Wacky indeed. But also scary.

It is not just test-score wacky either. In the high schools, 55 percent of the grade went to improvement in “courses passed”. Imagine how this encourages the dumbing down of courses!

When we started CPESS (Central Park East Secondary School) in 1985 we were above all interested, ala Ted Sizer’s seminal work, in building an educational model that totally bypassed the idea of graduation by credit hours (courses passed). We built instead a system of “accountability” based on a review of work accomplished and knowledge demonstrated in 14 fields. Ted Sizer called them “exhibitions”. It’s worth rereading Sizer’s books today. The old CPESS school got a waiver from the state of New York for its radical redesign. Kids took courses, but ala Cambridge, Oxford, and the world of doctoral candidacies, we came up with a graduation committee review and defense of student achievement. We claimed a student could graduate (however unlikely) who had failed every course, but passed all 14 subject reviews! (Fourteen was absurd, but that’s another story.) We told kids they might stay with us forever—we were in no hurry to get rid of them—but they would get our diploma only if they proved to us that they were ready. It meant that the teachers of course were there to prepare kids to do the kind of work that would meet our standards, which were—in turn—open for public review and critique.

We also engaged researchers to follow up on our students after they left us to see whether our standards held up in the real world. After all, accountability ought to be just another word for accepting responsibility for the impact of one’s work. (I keep reminding myself that democracy is built around the idea of accountable authority.)

Not only did CPESS have graduation committees for each student, but we brought in outside experts every year to examine different areas of practice—subject matter, as well our standards of evaluation. We videotaped sessions as well as archived work. Other schools in the Coalition of Essential Schools network tried other approaches built around the same underlying concepts of responsible authority. No two did it exactly the same way. A state-organized panel of independent experts—mostly in educational testing and assessment—concluded that graduates of these schools considerably outperformed comparable students. But maybe that’s irrelevant, as Nebraska’s Chris Gallagher notes, in a charming satire in Rethinking Schools (winter 2007-08). You can have so much more fun “sitting around and devising indexes and rankings and play with imaginary numbers.”

It’s brutally demoralizing to discover that a dozen years later the system has learned nothing from our work, and has at great cost installed such shabby and ill-informed judgments in the name of “accountability”.

Yes indeed, Diane, you have got it right.

Deborah

P.S. There are still a few dozen schools in NY State benefiting from that late 80’s waiver. They are holding on by the skin of their teeth, constantly forced to compromise—or get Cs, Ds and Fs! How much longer can they hold out? I do not know, but I‘d not guess for long unless…But that's for another letter, Diane.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

Editor's note: Bridging Differences returns today from its holiday break with this entry from Diane Ravitch.

Dear Deb,

Let's talk about grading schools and about when it is appropriate to close schools. It seems that the accountability idea has become the overrriding passion in American education: Everyone must be held accountable, everyone must have their feet held to the fire on a regular basis, and every decision will be based on test scores. Students better raise their scores or they fail; teachers better raise their students' scores, or they will not get a bonus and might get some sort of sanction; and principals must see to it that their school scores continually go up, or they may be fired (or, if the scores do rise, the principals are in line for fat bonuses).

Hardly a day passes without a story from another school district about the adoption of bonus pay for teachers and/or principals, as well as other incentives or sanctions based solely on scores. Houston just got a big sum from the Gates Foundation for merit pay, and the state of New York just received a big grant from Gates to install a new value-added accountability system. It seems to be happening everywhere.

I find myself (once again) in the uncomfortable position of seeing ideas that I have supported as part of a broader set of reforms turn into unhealthy obsessions. I feel like someone who said that people should wear hats and then turned around to discover that people were talking about nothing else but their hats and walking around naked. Maybe there is a better metaphor to express my frustration about the new fanaticism about testing and accountability as the key element of the corporate culture imported into American education. I'll rely on our readers to suggest a better metaphor. As I recall, looking back on what I have written over many years, I always believed that a strong curriculum, sound instruction, and good working conditions were necessary preconditions to testing and accountability.

Deb, I think that one of the things that has occasionally drawn us together is that we both have a vision about education, what it might be, even when we disagree about this or that detail. Now I find that no one seems to talk about education anymore, just testing and accountability. Is it the market mentality that has taken control? Is it the business/corporate model that is driving all discussion of policy? Why is everyone submitting to these mindless, soul-less accounting schemes?

Take the latest grading system to come from New York City. Since our mayor apparently plans to run for president and intends to cite his education reforms, we should write about what is actually happening here. Our chancellor hired a law school professor to design the city's grading plan. The grading system gives each school a single letter, from A to F. This is no report card, which would measure inputs and outputs on a variety of particulars. Nope, just a single letter grade. Imagine if your child came home from school with a letter grade instead of a report card that pointed to her or his strengths and weaknesses; I certainly would find it objectionable.

The grading system has produced some very strange results. More than half of the 400 schools that are on the state or federal list of weak schools received an A or B from the city's Department of Education. A school that is on the state's very small list of "persistently dangerous" schools was awarded an A. At the same time, 99 schools that are in good standing with the state or federal government received a D or an F. Some schools that are recognized as outstanding schools in their community received a D or an F.

How did these strange results come about? The city Department of Education decided to base the scores overwhelmingly on changes in state test scores over one year, and to place most emphasis on "progress." Thus a school where 90 percent of the students met state standards in the first year, but only 87 percent in the next year might get a D or an F. And a school where 20 percent of the students met the standards in the first year, but saw an increase of a few percentage points in the next year might get an A or B.

Thus some really outstanding schools have been stigmatized as failures, while some very low-performing schools boast an A or B. This makes no sense to anyone, but the city has taken its new and unproven scoring system and decided to close 14 schools that received a D or F. Now, maybe these are truly awful schools, but some of them have gotten passing marks from both the state and feds. Some apparently are beloved community institutions. We will see what replaces them. My guess is charter schools and small schools. Will they be better? Who knows?

There remain many questions. Not only whether the scoring system is a valid measure of anything, but whether the tests on which they are based are sound enough to sustain these weighty decisions that determine the future of a school community. Somehow it strikes me that schools should be given extra support to help them get better, that closing them should be a last resort, not a first step.

What do you think?

Diane

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

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.

Posted by Deborah Meier at 7:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

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

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)

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.)

Posted by Deborah Meier at 7:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBacks (0)

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

Posted by Deborah Meier at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

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

Posted by Diane Ravitch at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Diane,

The intellectual and informational inaccuracy, sloppiness and thoughtlessness of so much of education reporting still shocks me—I know I ought to have gotten over it. The story you told me about the reporter who bought NYC's claims that the latest NAEP results are a sign of the DOE's success is such a perfect example.

Investigative reporting is a lost art. They too often see themselves as conduits for press releases, with perhaps one quote from someone "on the other side" to show that it's impartial. It's their style even when I'm delighted with it! E.g.: I loved the front-page story in the Boston Globe proclaiming the success of the Pilot Schools in Boston, with its obligatory demurer from one critic. But that's not good newspaper reportage.

Thanks for alerting me to the fact that NAEP scores—representing the only national comparisons available—demonstrate that NYC hasn't moved forward or back since Klein and Bloomberg took over; except in one test at one grade level. Since tests are all the DOE cares about they can't, like me, claim that testing is not the only way to judge their work.

Another example. I ran into a headline today—NY Times, I believe—proclaiming that while we're not doing badly compared to most European rivals, we are being badly beaten by Asia. Yes, Japan and Singapore do better. But Asians? Neither China nor India are doing better—nor are their scores even mentioned in these international comparisons. Americans believe it must be true because they are the primary locations of outsourcing, and we've bought the lie that outsourcing is related to our poor public educational system—rather than appallingly low wages in outsourced sites. The headlines shouldn't obscure these realities.

Yes, wouldn't it be nice if there was something comparable to Consumer Reports on education. Maybe we can interest them in working on this?

Such a "simple" idea. Reporting that is not self-interested, that tries to explain the complexity of automobiles (toasters, etc.) in ways that acknowledge that we're not all looking for the same thing, and that we might want to easily scan the alternatives to see what the trade-offs are. I want 4-wheel drive, but….I also want…. And on and on. We don't actually have to reinvent the wheel.

I think "accountability" has to start by separating the different purposes and audiences to which we feel accountable. For example, I'm accountable to my students—they have a right to know what I think of their work and how it can be improved. I'm accountable to my colleagues to share my work in the interest of improving collective practice. I'm accountable to families to bring them into the full picture of what I see happening and what I hope together we can do about the situation. This can include standadized tests. But since such tests are designed to be statistically indirect "indicators"—at best (see psychometrician W. James Popham's piece in Education Week…), it would be odd if we ignored the fact that we have access to direct evidence. We have the hard data—the kids and their work.

But while individual schools are the best place for this assessment to originate, there's the kind of data needed by more distant publics: professional and lay, politicians and academics.

Some years ago we designed a 5-year "experimental" project in NYC—with $50 million in Annenberg funds, to explore a large-scale experiment with the above in mind. It involved an institute at Columbia headed by Linda Darling-Hamond, Michelle Fine at CUNY and other research backup, about 130 schools with 50,000 students, organized into 15 networks. It gave schools direct access to their full budgets and a great deal of freedom from union, city and state mandates in return for developing new forms of accountability. It managed to get the support of the then-chancellor, mayor, teachers' union and state commissioner. Unfortunately, as we were about to "go", both the chancellor and the commissioner departed and their replacements said "no way."

It's an oddly distorted version of this idea that emerged 10 years later under Bloomberg and Klein. It gutted what we believed was the essence of the plan: that it was voluntary, small scale (the size of the average American city), invited networks to develop self-designed plans, and had the support of some of the best independent research institutions in town to track different aspects of the work as it played out over time. We hoped that the work would help us find answers suitable to the various audiences involved. We were genuinely curious and thought it quite likely that we would end up with some shared agreement about "what works" and many different answers as well!

We lost that chance. So, now maybe you and I can try to imagine what some of these different solutions might have looked like.

D

Posted by Deborah Meier at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)