The AP Stylebook, the bible of newspaper folk everywhere, has decreed that the term "illegal immigrant" should no longer be used:
The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally.
AP apparently now feels that there's no acceptable way to refer to people who are in the country illegally. Neither "undocumented immigrant" nor "unauthorized immigrant," is acceptable, and neither is anything else. Labels are flatly not allowed, despite the fact that we label people all the time. Kevin Drum is a blogger. Barack Obama is a politician. Etc.
As a grammar teacher, I am happy that AP has decreed that illegal describe an action rather than a person. The distinction seems intuitive. I am not unsympathetic to Drum's complaint; some term needs to replace "illegal immigrant." Further, labels are sometimes necessary. I am not just a teacher. I am an English teacher.
For many, however, the simple label frequently seems insufficient. They must create a "them" to demonize. These folks seem unsatisfied asserting Barack Obama is a Democratic politician. They want to be more forceful: Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. Since that sentiment might be seen as too dramatic, they settle for labels: Barack Obama is a Marxist Kenyan anti-colonialist politician. For local examples, read any recent post here.
It seems that the only positive labels are the ones that one gives to one's self:
I don't like labels. I am a conservative liberal radical skeptic who believes in good education for all: blog.nj.com/njv_bob_braun/…
— Diane Ravitch (@DianeRavitch) May 25, 2012
I don't know if any stylebook has rules for that phrasing.
Jan Carr, a self described "scrappy public school mom" points out that real education is more than a bubble test; she rightfully asserts that a complete education is "inextricably entwined with books, literature, writing, and the life of the mind; it develops critical thinking." She also asks some questions I would like to hear answered:
For me, many years later, the task is this: determine the bias of those currently attempting to bury our public education system in data and testing requirements. One motivation is obvious: there’s profit to be made. If education can be wrested from the classroom – from teachers, principals, and other actual educators – and the focus shifted to cold data and analysis, then tech companies and faux educational corporations can gorge themselves at the public trough. Hey, if it looks like greed and smells like greed, it’s greed! But there’s another, underlying motivation. It seems no accident that prominent among those who would hijack our nation’s public education system are powerful billionaires such as Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, and Rupert Murdoch. . . . Why do they want students reduced to a string of data, our kids to fill in bubbles, not learn to think? Perhaps because kids who think critically will ask questions, key questions. For instance, why is there an increasing and radical disparity of wealth in our nation? And who exactly controls our nation’s political system now that corporations are free not only to pour money into lobbying, but also to anonymously contribute boatloads of bucks to political campaigns?
To have a real democracy one needs an educated populace. Why don’t these billionaires want our kids to think critically? And why are they trying to bust the union that serves and protects our nation’s schools? What exactly are they afraid of?
I haven't seen either Prometheus or John Carter, but I apparently am going to have to if I want to understand the following analysis that seems to come from a planet other than Earth. I have no other explanation for why Matthew Di Carlo is a senior fellow at the non-profit Albert Shanker Institute in Washington, D.C. would write the bolded analysis below.
In education discussions and articles, people (myself included) often say “achievement” when referring to test scores, or “student learning” when talking about changes in those scores. These words reflect implicit judgments to some degree (e.g., that the test scores actually measure learning or achievement). Every once in a while, it’s useful to remind ourselves that scores from even the best student assessments are imperfect measures of learning. But this is so widely understood – certainly in the education policy world, and I would say among the public as well – that the euphemisms are generally tolerated.
One thing is clear. The tests are the linchpin of the attack on public education. The politicians throw about test scores as evidence that our entire public education system is a failed enterprise. (For a recent example, see my review of the Council on Foreign Relations report, which made the absurd claim that public education is a "grave threat" to national security.)
If it were "widely understood" that scores from even the best student assessments are imperfect measures of learning," even the best spin doctor could not make them "the linchpin of the attack on public education."
Teachers, principals: @tom_peters says my criticism of privatization & testing juggernautis too "negative." Let him know what you think. — Diane Ravitch (@DianeRavitch) June 3, 2012
I'm not sure what Peters said to prompt that response, but I'll take this tweet as one that sums up his view:
@DianeRavitch My life's work is supporting strong-minded/radical point of views. But it is clear that negativism is a fatal change strategy. — Tom Peters (@tom_peters) June 3, 2012
It's Sunday morning, so let's be clear; even though Diane Ravitch is doing God's work fighting against the testing for testing's sake regime, she's not God and can error. Peters too is a mere mortal, so for all of his calls for excellence and demanding a "Wow!," he has mediocre days.
I'm a fan of both people. I became a Peters fan 1990s when I heard him give a talk on a local PBS station. The talk elaborated on the following paragraphs:
Can you put fun, love, passion, anarchist and thrill in your official credo, for your 10-person accounting group, your newly opened record shop, or the $50 million division you run? If not, why not?
I can read a "corporate culture" in about five minutes. So can you. Whether the subject is (a) a new restaurant, (b) a corner grocery or (c) IBM, GM or GE, you can feel the vibes in a flash. They broadcast "dull" or "exciting" with the utmost clarity. If you're bored out of your wits in the reception area (after being ''badged,'' undoubtedly), you're going to be bored out of your wits with each and every subsequent encounter. Are there exceptions to the rule? Not many.
Kawasaki wants us to be raging, inexorable thunder-lizard evangelists. Roddick hunts for anarchists. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield champion weird. And I want us to breathlessly pursue dramatic failures and flirt with firing. Funny thing, neither I nor Kawasaki nor Roddick nor Cohen nor Greenfield is even being a little bit facetious.
How about it?
Peters wrote the above paragraphs in 1992. This morning, Larry Smith wrote,
Remember that passion is necessary for a great career, but it is not sufficient. There's no magic here. Success also demands persistence, focus, discipline, independence of mind, resourcefulness, experimentation and high creativity.
"Independence of mind," "resourcefulness," "experimentation," and "high creativity" sound like qualities that broadcast excitement, so the intervening two decades don't seem to have changed the qualities Peters claims lead to excellence.
If memory serves, NCLB and subsequent policies sprang from the poorly phrased question: "Is our children learning?" Students and the country might be better served by adapting one of Peters's pet phrases into a question: "how can we produce raging inexorable thunder-lizard evangelists"?
NCLB, RTTT, and whatever Romney will propose have no chance of producing "raging inexorable thunder-lizard evangelists" or "anarchists." The policies will produce "dull" students and teachers who never ask "is it weird enough?" Instead, those polices will continue to force schools to emphasize the "common."
Because he peppers his little essay with the phrase "college and career," I suspect, however, that he agrees with Thomas Jefferson who infamously claims,
“A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels, and the time lost in that reading which should be instructively employed. When this poison infects the mind, it destroys its tone and revolts it against wholesome reading. Reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected. Nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all the figments of fancy, and nothing so bedecked comes amiss. The result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life."
This objection has several flaws. First, those who suggest that elementary and secondary education exists only to prepare students for a career come perilously close to asserting that students exist only to do the work of their employers, so they do not exist as end to themselves. One does not have to be Kant to understand the moral risk of seeing human beings primarily as means to profit others.
Second, focus on what Jefferson calls "all the real business of life" or being college and career ready in Coleman's case leads to missing the gorilla because one is too focused on watching the bouncing ball. For those unfamiliar with the experiment, this YouTube video illustrates the problem. In this case, the bouncing ball serves as a metaphor for test scores.
Finally, a comment on Ravitch's post reminds all of us that fiction is a necessary tool in any effort to speak truth to power:
“…A good writer is the watch-dog of society. His job is to satirize its silliness, to attack its injustices, to stigmatize its faults. And this is the reason that in America neither society or government is very fond of writers.” ~ John Steinbeck
One hopes Coleman is merely too focused on test scores. That mistake is forgivable; believing that human beings should be treated as a means to end or attempting to limit efforts to expose injustice is not.
We will someday view this era as one in which the nation turned its back on its public schools, its children, and its educators. We will wonder why so many journalists and policymakers rejected the nation’s obligation to support public education as a social responsibility and accepted the unrealistic, unsustainable promises of entrepreneurs and billionaires. And we will, with sorrow and regret, think of this as an era when an obsession with testing and data obliterated any concept or definition of good education. Some perhaps may recall this as a time when the nation forgot that education has a greater purpose than preparing our children to compete in the global economy.
I hope that Dr. Ravitch is correct that the nation will regret it's decision. If so, citizens may attempt to rebuild public schools. On the other hand, many people, including the local residents who have employed Paul Dorr, will cheer that demise not matter the long term consequences.
The Republican Governors' Conference must have assigned a group project. Writing in The Answer Sheet blog, Diane Ravitch shows how Governor Daugaard's merit pay, continuing contract, and testing proposals seem to have been plagiarized.
Gov. Jindal is in a race to the bottom with other Republican governors to see who can move fastest to destroy the underpinnings of public education and to instill fear in the hearts of teachers. It’s hard to say which of them is worst: Jindal, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Rick Scott of Florida, John Kasich of Ohio, or .... There are so many contenders for the title, it’s hard to name them all.
They all seem to be working from the same playbook: Remove any professionalism and sense of security from teachers; expand privatization as rapidly as possible, through charters and vouchers; intensify reliance on high-stakes tests to evaluate teachers and schools; tighten the regulations on public schools while deregulating the privately managed charter schools. Keep up the attack on many fronts, to confuse the supporters of public education.
The governors appear to be working from the ALEC playbook, ALEC (or the American Legislative Exchange Council) being an organization that shapes model legislation for very conservative state legislators.
Using the right coded language is a very important part of the assault on public education: Call it “reform.” Say that its critics are “defenders of the status quo,” even though the status quo is 10 years of federally mandated high-stakes testing and school closings. If possible, throw mud at the defenders of public education and say that they only have “adult interests” at heart, while the pseudo-reformers — the rich and powerful —are acting only in the interests of children.
Soon after I spoke, Jindal’s newly selected State Superintendent John White had a conference call with reporters to challenge what I said, which was odd because he was not present and did not hear what I said. He had no substantive response to my research review showing that charters, vouchers, and merit pay don’t produce better education. He had no substantive response to my critique of the vagaries of value-added evaluation of teachers. Instead, he pointed to the New Orleans model as a paradigm of “reform,” meaning, I suppose, the benefits of closing down public schools, turning the children over to private management, breaking the teachers’ union, and hiring inexperienced, uncertified teachers.
Ravitch's comments do prompt a few sardonic questions.
1. Did the Governor come up with his "I'm a lobbyist for the students" line by himself or did the other Republican governors help him with his homework?
2. Dr. Ravitch puts Governor Daugaard in the too many to mention category. Does that mean he's not in the top 20% of Republican governors and won't get merit pay?
3. Was there a special session about ignoring evidence or are these governors just winging their responses?
4. Is the Governor hoping to create a South Dakota miracle or a South Dakota model of reform? (I hope he remembers that the Texas miracle was based on a lie and that the data do no not support a New Orleans model or Michelle Rhee type reforms, but then again, I'm a hopeless romantic. I still hope my students will use the study guide to remember the names of Greek gods and heroes.)
Two quick important takes from this must read Diane Ravitch piece at the New York Review of Books:
First on testing,
The main mechanism of school reform today is to identify teachers who can raise their students’ test scores every year. If the scores go up, reformers assume, then the students will enroll in college and poverty will eventually disappear. This will happen, the reformers believe, if there is a “great teacher” in every classroom and if more schools are handed over to private managers, even for-profit corporations.
Finland provides yet another reminder that testing doesn’t produce results nor does it serve as a proper determinant of merit pay. Then on teacher preparation,
Finland’s highly developed teacher preparation program is the centerpiece of its school reform strategy. Only eight universities are permitted to prepare teachers, and admission to these elite teacher education programs is highly competitive: only one of every ten applicants is accepted. There are no alternative ways to earn a teaching license. Those who are accepted have already taken required high school courses in physics, chemistry, philosophy, music, and at least two foreign languages. Future teachers have a strong academic education for three years, then enter a two-year master’s degree program. Subject-matter teachers earn their master’s degree from the university’s academic departments, not—in contrast to the US—the department of teacher education, or in special schools for teacher education. Every candidate prepares to teach all kinds of students, including students with disabilities and other special needs. Every teacher must complete an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in education.
Because entry into teaching is difficult and the training is rigorous, teaching is a respected and prestigious profession in Finland. So selective and demanding is the process that virtually every teacher is well prepared. Sahlberg writes that teachers enter the profession with a sense of moral mission and the only reasons they might leave would be “if they were to lose their professional autonomy” or if “a merit-based compensation policy [tied to test scores] were imposed.” Meanwhile, the United States is now doing to its teachers what Finnish teachers would find professionally reprehensible: judging their worth by the test scores of their students.
Finland’s national curriculum in the arts and sciences describes what is to be learned but is not prescriptive about the details of what to teach or how to teach it. The national curriculum requires the teaching of a mother tongue (Finnish or Swedish), mathematics, foreign languages, history, biology, environmental science, religion, ethics, geography, chemistry, physics, music, visual arts, crafts, physical education, health, and other studies.
The whole article needs to be read, but I would like to make two quick observations. First, neither the South Dakota legislature nor U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are doing anything to get the state or nation close to Finland's teacher prep standards. Second, although STEM classes are important parts of the curriculum, it also focuses on philosophy, history, and art. Again, the U.S. seems willing to assign those areas of study to the dustbin.
The reformers don’t care that standardized tests are prone to measurement error, sampling error, and other statistical errors.1 They don’t seem to care that experts like Robert L. Linn at the University of Colorado, Linda Darling-Hammond at Stanford, and Helen F. Ladd at Duke, as well as a commission of the National Research Council, have warned about misuse of standardized tests to hold individual teachers accountable with rewards or sanctions. Nor do they see the absurdity of gauging the quality of a teacher by the results of a multiple-choice test given to students on one day of the year.
Diane Ravitch, an education historian who worked served in the George H. W. Bush administration and worked for the creation of national standards that may have become the basis for NCLB is now a vocal NCLB and RTTT opponent. Apparently, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan learned how deal with political opponents in Chicago where he served before taking his current post. I suppose he could be communing with the ghost of Richard Nixon. From this Mike Klonsky post,
Suggestion for journalists, especially ed writers: Ask Secretary Duncan or his press guys Cunningham or Hamilton about DOE staffers assigned to the secret Ravitch Group. Word from dept. insiders is that such a group has been meeting regularly.
Is Duncan really spending badly-needed (especially after the Obama/Boehner debt deal) funds to have this relatively large group of DOE staffers strategize how to undercut criticism from Diane Ravitch?
Are they really so worried about DR's criticisms of DOE policy that they're spending their time trying to dig up personal dirt on Diane to feed Ravitch debators and detractors like Michelle Rhee, David Brooks and Jonathan Alter their lines? Maybe even ask some of the folks over there at Politico or Dropout Nation. They might know something.
Maybe the situation doesn't rise to an "Enemies List" or Nixon's plumbers, but it does fit a disturbing pattern.
Another political apostate David Frum, a former George Bush speech writer, asked a provocative rhetorical question a couple of days ago.
In February 1982, Susan Sontag made a fierce challenge to a left-wing audience gathered at New York’s Town Hall:
Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader’s Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right? . . . .
If I can’t follow where most of my friends have gone, it is because I keep hearing Susan Sontag’s question in my ears. Or rather, a revised and updated version of that question:
Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Wall Street Journal editorial page between 2000 and 2011, and someone in the same period who read only the collected columns of Paul Krugman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of the current economic crisis? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right? [emphasis in original]
The arguments of the Circle and CASE both have merit. But the Circle’s approach is more urgent. Public spending on poverty and global health programs is a sliver of discretionary spending and essentially irrelevant to America’s long-term debt. A political argument giving equal weight to cuts in poverty programs and reductions in entitlement spending is uninformed about the nature of the budget crisis, which is largely a health-entitlement crisis. A simplistic philosophy of “shared sacrifice,” focused mainly on cuts in discretionary spending, requires disproportionate sacrifices of the most vulnerable. If religious people do not make this case, it is difficult to determine what distinctive message they offer.
If Bill Kristol starts advocating cutting back on military adventuring, I know the following will soon occur.
. . . . the NEA President to communicate aggressively, forcefully, and immediately to President Barack Obama and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that NEA is appalled with Secretary Duncan's practice of:. . . .
Let's provide some historical context for elections since 1988.
1988 Dukakis got 86%
1992 Clinton got 88%
1996 Clinton got 91%
2000 Gore got 86.5%
2004 Kerry got 86.5%
2008 Obama got 79.8%
2011, Obama got 72%.
Unlike Clinton, in his endorsement for reelection Obama dropped 7.8%, while Clinton went up 3%.
And Obama's percentage in 2008 was already the lowest in the past 5 elections.
This is far from "overwhelming" support by historical standards.
Those numbers according to Teacher Ken mean the vote was something other than overwhelming by historical standards. Overwhelming or not, the endorsement is a stupid decision.
First, Obama's education record is dismal. The Washington Postdescribes an individual teacher's frustrations that echo mine. Teachers supported Obama to "stand strong for public schools and break from a federal education policy of 'testing, testing, testing.'" However the results have been something different.
Three years later, all the standardized tests are still there. In some places, they are beginning to be used to fire teachers. Lately. . . the solutions to all of public education’s troubles seem to boil down to a refrain: “Blame it on the teacher[s] who works [their] tail[s] off for 14 hours a day."
Further, education historian Diane Ravitch who tweets with the handle @DianeRavitch has tweeted the following: "Obama education policy is worse than NCLB because of increased pressure for high-stakes testing, judging by teachers by scores." and "Suppose we might refer to the Bush-Obama education policy since NCLB and RTTT [Race to the Top] are so well aligned, bipartisan."
In short, President Obama has done nothing that teachers supported him to do and he may well have made matters worse.
Second, the vote to endorse and the vote to issue disapproval seems to indicate that Duncan is a wild card who is acting without Obama's approval. The President appointed Secretary Duncan. The President has shown a willingness to overrule his generals. The New York Times reported,
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, said Thursday that President Obama’s new schedule for drawing down forces there was “more aggressive” than he had recommended and increased the risk that the military would not meet all its goals.
Teachers are now supposed to believe that the President can overrule a general but not a secretary of education. It's much more logical, Duncan is putting Obama's policies in place.
Third, NEA may have felt pressured to make the endorsement now so they hold the Representative Assembly every July. The Chicago Tribunereports
Because the NEA's representative assembly, its primary policymaking arm, meets once a year, union leaders said they faced a dilemma of either being early or late in determining their political support. The group typically makes an endorsement in July preceding the presidential election.
The endorsement is the most important political tool that NEA has. They have squandered it.
Given that Obama's policies are no better than President Bush's policies, all this early endorsement accomplishes is re-enforce the idea that teachers are lap dogs of the Democratic party.
Instead of promoting innovation, creativity and imagination, the current obsession with raising test scores discourages these things. Students are learning to pick the right answer and being penalized for thinking differently. Subjects that spark students’ imagination, like the arts, are being squeezed out of the school week. And some districts plan to develop standardized tests for all subjects, which are guaranteed to do damage to students’ ability to think creatively.
All this in the name of beating other nations on scores—which has little bearing on our success as a nation.
Yes, our schools need to improve. But they should pursue proven strategies, under which schools, families and communities work together to make sure that children arrive in school ready to learn. Our schools need experienced teachers and a curriculum with more time for in-depth study of history, science, civics and other subjects that prepare students for the duties of citizenship. After all, that’s the primary purpose of public education: to sustain our democracy.
I realize that most comparisons with New York City are doomed. We non-New Yorkers believe that Gotham's residents are a bit self-centered. Ok, we think they're a lot self-centered. For example, we think this map accurately reflects their view of America.
Then there's this Pace Picante Sauce Commercial.
There are of course the obvious differences. New York City is, well, a city governed by a mayor. South Dakota is a state governed by a governor. New York's chief executive, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is one of the richest people in America. South Dakota's chief executive, Governor Dennis Daugaard, is not.
Creative destruction is now the rule, not stability. The Department treats schools like stores that can be easily closed and opened with a new name, rather than vital public institutions that need help and should be improved.
One should notice some obvious similarities. Neither Bloomberg nor Daugaard view schools as "vital public institutions." It's unclear if Governor Daugaard wants to treat "schools like stores," but it's clear that the Governor views them as expenses that need to be cut. In both South Dakota and New York public schools "destruction is now the rule, not stability."
The most obvious difference is that Bloomberg's destruction is "creative" whereas Daugaard's is merely destructive. Because I believe creativity is important and should be fostered, I offer the following modest suggestions to make Daugaard's assault on South Dakota's schools more creative.
This first one is too late, but Daugaard should have marketed his 6.6% budget cut as a 6.66% budget cut. Granted, more students might have been home schooled because the number 666 has some negative associations with the anti-Christ, but the symbolism would have been awesome (Revelation 13:18). After all no one can buy or sell without the mark of beast (Revelation 13:16). Schools are going to be able to buy any new supplies under the new budgets. The people who have been laid off are going to have a lot tougher time buying groceries.
Second, Daugaard could change his first name to Draco; it's not that different from Dennis He seems to love the one size fits all approach to budget cuts. South Dakota's Department of Education could add the standard that no students can pass a world history class until they could identify Draco's claim to fame or define draconian.
Third, the Governor could establish his small state bona fides and have South Dakota do something that's the complete opposite of an action that a big city school system has taken. For example, a Chicago school has forbidden students to bring lunches made at home. Daugaard could construct a budget that demands that schools fire all food service personal and have students bring their lunches. Each school could add a version of Cupcake Wars to the curriculum. I'm not sure that the show is educational but PTA bake sales should have improved product.
Finally, the Governor seems fond of political cliches. In his inaugural, he uses several of them. For example, he said, “Self-reliance is the essential complement of individual liberty,” He also said that "it’s important not to abandon hard work" because work "gives us a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of self-worth; so it has many benefits. . . ." While these phrases may be true or comforting, they most certainly qualify as cliches. Movies such as Bull Durham illustrate that cliches need to be taught. To help schools who have fewer staff members than they need, the Governor could create his own class and stream it over the web. Not all of us will have a private tutor like Crash Davis.
A little over a year ago, I wrote a post about a David Gelernter article, commenting favorably about his assertion: "There are brilliant, admirable people at Internet institutes. But if these institutes have the same effect on the Internet that education schools have had on education, they will be a disaster."
Education schools have done little to help education, but education leaders who lie have done far more harm. Two recent Diane Ravitch articles forcefully remind us of that fact.
The theory behind NCLB was that schools would improve dramatically if every child in grades 3 to 8 were tested every year and the results made public. Texas did exactly this, and advocates claimed it had seen remarkable results: test scores went up, the achievement gap between students of different races was closing, and graduation rates rose. At the time, a few scholars questioned the claims of a “Texas miracle,” but Congress didn’t listen.
In fact, the “Texas miracle” never happened. On federal tests, the state’s reading scores for eighth-grade students were flat from 1998 to 2009. And just weeks ago, former first lady Barbara Bush wrote an opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle opposing education budget cuts on the grounds that Texas students ranked in the bottom 10 percent in math and literacy nationally. After two decades of testing and accountability, Texas students have certainly not experienced a miracle when judged by the very measures that were foisted on students across the nation. [emphasis mine]
This week USA Todayreported that the remarkable gains in test scores that former Washington DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee pointed to in an effort to vindicate her controversial reforms are, at best, controversial. At worst, they are fraudulent.
The article points out that "Rhee emphasized a need to raise scores, restore calm to chaotic schools and close those with lagging scores and small enrollments. She paid bonuses to principals and teachers who produced big gains on scores. She let go dozens of principals and fired at least 600 teachers." Rhee created what was called an "education Ponzi scam" that paid on improved test scores but cost people their jobs if scores did not improve. Hence, some administrators may have cheated to increase their test scores.
According to Dana Goldstein, the cheating was predicable:
In the social sciences, there is an oft-repeated maxim called Campbell’s Law, named after Donald Campbell, a psychologist who studied human creativity. Campbell’s Law states that incentives corrupt. In other words, the more punishments and rewards—such as merit pay—are associated with the results of any given test, the more likely it is that the test’s results will be rendered meaningless, either through outright cheating or through teaching to the test in a way that narrows the curriculum and renders real learning obsolete.
In the era of No Child Left Behind, Campbell’s Law has proved true again and again. When the federal government began threatening to restructure or shut-down schools that did not achieve across-the-board student “proficiency” on state reading and math exams, states responded by creating standardized tests that were easier and easier to pass. Alabama, for example, reported that 85 percent of its fourth-graders were proficient in reading in 2005, even though only 22 percent of the state’s students demonstrated proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gold standard, no-stakes exam administered by the federal government.
Commenting on the Rhee situation for The Daily Beast, Ravitch concludes that Rhee's apparent success "now appears to be a chimera." Rhee's very real monster has made her "the national spokesman for the effort to subject public education to free-market forces, including competition, decision by data, and consumer choice." Like the alleged Texas miracle, Rhee and her supporters have made popular a formula that will produce terrible results including "cheating, teaching to bad tests, institutionalized fraud, dumbing down of tests, and a narrowed curriculum." Ravitch points out,
This formula, which will be a tragedy for our nation and for an entire generation of children, is now immensely popular in the states and the Congress. Most governors embrace it. The big foundations endorse it. The think tanks of D.C., right-wing and left-wing, support it. Rhee helped to make it fashionable. If she doesn't pause to consider the damage she is doing, shame on her. If our policymakers don't stop to reflect on the damage they are doing to public education and to any concept of a good education, then our nation is in deep trouble.
Given the effect of Governor Daugaard's budget on South Dakota schools, I'm not sure the state's schools can withstand much more damage. We may indeed be "in deep trouble" if schools are forced to try to follow reforms like those Rhee championed.
On the other hand, a Diane Ravitch editorial reminds Newsweek readers that "Obama has not sought to turn back NCLB. His own approach, called Race to the Top, is even more punitive than NCLB." More frighteningly, Ravitch says,
The Obama agenda for testing, accountability, and choice bears an uncanny resemblance to the Republican agenda of the past 30 years, but with one significant difference. Republicans have traditionally been wary of federal control of the schools. Duncan, however, relishes the opportunity to promote his policies with the financial heft of the federal government.
So the right wants to use local and state government to make my life miserable, and the Democrats want to use the federal government to make my life miserable.
A couple of days ago I quoted Adam Frank who wrote, "In poem or paean, in music or metaphor, in silent homage to whatever powers make sense to the heart in that moment, we may (or may not) find our way." I can think of two small pieces of literature that fit the present situation. Stanzas two and three of "The Charge of the Light Brigade" seem to fit the political situation, at least metaphorically.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
. . .
Cannon to right of them
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
. . . .
The other is James 3:1 "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." I always thought that passage was reserved for people who taught Sunday school. I guess it applies to those of us who teach Monday through Friday school as well.
The Answer Sheet blog publishes an interview with Diane Ravitch. I applaud Ravitch for her efforts to give voice to "[p]eople [who] are worried about what is happening today; they detest NCLB and they now realize that Race to the Top is more of the same and probably worse" She is, however. too optimistic when she says, "As a historian, I cling to the belief that bad ideas eventually lose steam and that evidence will eventually prevail."
When asked what she'd tell President Obama about educational reform, she replies.
I would tell him that charter schools in the aggregate don’t get better results than regular public schools. I would tell him that his push to have teachers evaluated by student test scores is wrong, and that standards for evaluation should be designed by professionals, not by politicians. I would urge him to stop using language of failing, punishing, closing, and firing and speak instead of improving, building, supporting, and encouraging. I would urge him to think about ways of strengthening American public education because it is one of the foundational elements of our democracy. I would urge him to speak about the importance of a strong curriculum for all kids in every school, one that includes the arts, history, literature, foreign languages, civics, economics, physical education, science, and mathematics. I would urge him to recognize that high-stakes testing in basic skills steals time from everything else that should be taught and that it is thus undermining education. I would also implore him not to recommend testing every other subject, as there would soon be no time for instruction, only testing. [Emphasis mine]
Ravitich begins the previous statement by saying that she would tell the President "to change course before it is too late." I fear it already is. Ravitch herself admits,
. . . . I have met with many Democratic members of Congress. I have met some really impressive members who understand how destructive the current "reform" movement is. Many agree with me that the emphasis on evaluating teachers will simply produce more teaching to the test, more narrowing the curriculum, more gaming the system. They have heard from their constituents, and they don’t like what is going on. But frankly, these same Congressmen and women tell me that they are probably helpless to stop the President’s agenda. The Democratic leadership will give the President and Secretary Duncan what they want, and they will have the support of Republicans. That leaves the Democrats in a quandary. They were not happy to see Secretary Duncan campaigning for his approach with Newt Gingrich. Maybe it will turn out to be a winning strategy for Secretary Duncan. He may get what he wants. It just won’t be good for American education or our kids. [Emphasis mine.]
In short, it seems as education will be the bipartisan issue. Both sides will agree to destroy the public schools. The Republicans will do so to get revenge on the teachers unions who have supported Democrats for most of my lifetime. The Democrats will be content to throw teachers under the bus because that support has been so unwavering that teachers probably have no chance of being heard by Republicans.
Yet I do not agree with Ravitch that we should chiefly rely on experienced educators. We certainly should consult them and win them over, but we have been relying on them, and they have failed us—not least in their response to the No Child Left Behind law. Ravitch strongly criticizes NCLB for its narrow emphasis on reading and math and its reduction of schooling to preparation for tests. Her analysis is factually accurate. But to understand why the law failed we need to imagine what might have happened had our experienced educators responded differently to it.
The law would have had a much more beneficial effect if educators had reacted with more insight to its provisions. NCLB was quite right to place a dominant emphasis on the development of language ability and reading skill. Verbal skill is known to be a chief constituent of adult success and effectiveness. But verbal ability is not, as the schools wrongly assumed, simply a how-to skill. It is largely a knowledge-based skill. NCLB did not, after all, mandate that the schools must practice reading strategies at the expense of a strong curriculum in literature, history, science, and the arts—the very kind of schooling that, according to the findings of cognitive science, would raise reading abilities by systematically building background knowledge. The decision to teach strategies instead was made by experienced educators who had been indoctrinated by education schools into an anticurricular point of view, emphasizing “how to” read, and giving quite inadequate attention to what should be learned to build up needed knowledge (Hirsch, How to Save the Schools, 13/5/2010). [Bold Mine]
Some of the blame goes to those who love what Emerson in "Self-Reliance"calls the "foolish consistency [that] is the hobgoblin of little minds. This consistency is "adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines" I'm pretty sure that and school principals, district superintendents, and secretaries of education at all levels also have a love affair, metaphorically, of course, with that same foolish consistency.
As comforting as passing the blame is, however, it strikes me that Cassius in Shakespeare Julius Caesar has it right, "The fault . . .is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, . . ." I just hope we get a chance to fix the mess we created.
At The New Republic’s online symposium on education reform, Kevin Carey attacks Diane Ravitch’s baseball analogy. He writes, “Diane, you live in Brooklyn--haven't you heard of the 2009 World Series Champion New York Yankees, whose nine starters averaged 25 home runs apiece during the regular season? If the teachers in the Bronx were as good as the baseball players, students there would learn much more.”
Everyone has heard of the New York Yankees. Carey, perhaps, hasn’t heard that there are small market teams that have to make do with a single all-star or three or four all-stars. Schools are small market teams who have to rely on Sabermetrics and a few defensive specialists, not the bombers who earn the Bronx its fame.
Further, the fact that the Yankees “averaged 25 home runs apiece” doesn’t really help his argument. Under most state implementations of NCLB rules a team average isn’t good enough. Every player needs to hit .300 and 25 home runs.
