A Minor Musing About Who Should Pay For Job Training

Governor Daugaard continues to insist that education's primary purpose is preparing one for the workplace over preparing one to participate in broader public square as a citizen. Over at Dakota Free Press, Cory does an excellent job of pointing out the error in that, dare I say, philosophy. Cory concludes,

Unaccounted for in the Governor’s argument is what those aspiring engineers, accountants, nurses, and welders will do with their job-specific high school curriculum twenty years from now when economic forces, experiences, and unforeseen changes of plan render the jobs they thought at age 15 they would do forever untenable, or what knowledge and skills they might find helpful in leading purposeful, fulfilling lives during the two thirds of their working life and the three thirds of their retirement when they won’t be on the job. Those liberal arts still be darned; we’ve got cogs to mill for the economic machine!

If students are to be prepared solely to be chewed up by cogs of the economic machine, Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Kurt Evans throws the proverbial monkey wrench into those cogs by taking Daugaard's premises to their logical ultimate conclusion and then prompting a question that the Governor seems to ignore.

We may need a social consensus for state government to teach elementary students literacy and basic arithmetic, but if a vo-tech does things you don’t like, no government should force you to pay for it.

If the goal of education is to create citizens who can reason and knowledgeably participate in discussions in the public square, then the public should pay for education. If, however, the purpose is solely to prepare someone for a specific job, the public requires only basic literacy and arithmetic. After all, no one wants people holding up the line in the grocery store incorrectly arguing that the person behind the counter gave them the wrong change. In a world of economics uber alles, people still need to read the advertisement copy.

The question then becomes who should pay for the rest. Daugaard never entertains the question. Evans, the consistent Libertarian, hints that the duty should fall on the workplace. Instead of "Our Town Public School" we could have "Fast Food High School" or "Welders and Assemblers Private Institute." A chain of entities called "The Walmart Superschools" could dot the landscape. Whether Daugaard admits it or not, his educational philosophy will eventually lead to the same result only with public funding. It seems reminiscent of the medieval guild system rather than a system to take on 21st Century challenges.

The purpose of education should remain developing citizens who can think creatively and communicate effectively. Schools can improve, but turning them into institutions that create workers prepared for a job that will disappear in 10 years is not going to provide that improvement.

Daugaard's Education Agenda Follows A Democrat's Proposal

That Democrat was, unfortunately, Woodrow Wilson:

Addressing a meeting of the New York City High School Teachers Association in 1909, Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, set forth the requirements of America’s newborn industrial civilization. “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education,” he said, “and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific manual tasks.

Lewis Lapham who reminds readers of Wilson's snobbish assertion points to the logical outcome of a Wilsonian/Daugaardian educational policy. It will accustom students "to the design specs of a society geared to the blind and insatiable consumption of mediocrity in all its political declensions and commercial conjugations."

Lapham even points out why Daugaard's malignant neglect as illustrated by another education commission makes sense, if one is a politician in thrall to corporate interests:

Why would any politician in his or her right mind wish to confront an informed citizenry capable of breaking down the campaign speeches into their subsets of supporting lies? Burden the economy with too many customers able to decipher the hospital bills, or see around the corners of the four-color advertising, and the consequences would be terrible to behold.

Corporate Based School Reforms Fail

Many South Dakota schools had some snow days this week, so it seems appropriate to use Saturday as a make-up day to discuss education.

A new study finds that corporate based school reform is failing:

The reforms deliver few benefits and in some cases harm the students they purport to help, while drawing attention and resources away from policies with real promise to address poverty-related barriers to school success…

The study examines reforms in New York City, and Chicago. The Washington Post reports "little has been accomplished and some harm has been done to students, especially the underprivileged." The Post's article also points out "benefits of corporate-based reform have been exaggerated."

In a related story, John Merrow examines Michelle Rhee's tenure as chancellor of Washington D.C.'s schools. He points out that Rhee has been widely considered a success and copied:

At least 25 states have adopted her ‘produce or else’ test-score based system of evaluating teachers.

But politicians (and citizens) in those 25 states might want to take a closer look at what she actually accomplished. Sadly, DC’s schools are worse by almost every conceivable measure.

Further, Merrow points out that those who need education most were hurt the most under Rhee:

The most disturbing effect of Rhee’s reform effort is the widened gap in academic performance between low-income and upper-income students, a meaningful statistic in Washington, DC because race and income are highly correlated. On the most recent NAEP test (2011) only about 10% of low income students in grades 4 and 8 scored ‘proficient’ in reading and math. Since 2007, the performance gap has increased by 29% in 8th grade reading, by 44% in 4th grade reading, by 45% in 8th grade math, and by 72% in 4th grade math. Although these numbers are also influenced by changes in high- and low-income populations, the gaps are so extreme that is seems clear that low-income students, most of them African-American, did not fare well during Rhee’s time in Washington.

These failures accompany  a cheating scandal that Rhee may have helped cover up. Merrow alludes to Watergate:

This story is bound to remind old Washington hands of Watergate and Senator Howard Baker’s famous question, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” It has a memo that answers an echo of Baker’s question, “What did Michelle know, and when did she know it?” And the entire sordid story recalls the lesson of Watergate, “It’s not the crime; it’s the coverup.”

Even with the defeat of 2012's HB 1234, South Dakota is moving ahead inexorably with the corporate based agenda that will fail. The results of the three city study predict the following as the corporate agenda moves forward in South Dakota:

• Reported successes for targeted students evaporated upon closer examination.

• Test-based accountability prompted churn that thinned the ranks of experienced teachers, but not necessarily bad teachers.

• Emphasis on the widely touted market-oriented reforms drew attention and resources from initiatives with greater promise.

The report beats a dead horse, but because no one seems to listen, the point must continue being made:

The reforms missed a critical factor driving achievement gaps: the influence of poverty on academic performance. Real, sustained change requires strategies that are more realistic, patient, and multipronged. 

What's Holding Schools Back?

George Will contends teachers engage in propaganda and are responsible for holding education is on the wrong path:

The real vocation of some people entrusted with delivering primary and secondary education is to validate this proposition: The three R’s — formerly reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic — now are racism, reproduction and recycling. Especially racism. Consider Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction. It evidently considers “instruction” synonymous with “propaganda,” which in the patois of progressivism is called “consciousness-raising.”

Will then goes on a predictable rant to blame political correctness and a burgeoning bureaucracy for public education's failings. I don't know about the examples Will cites. I have enough trouble getting through all of the literature that I think students need to read and discuss to engage in sensitivity training. Will, however, makes an important point about bureaucrats: "the number of bureaucrats — including consciousness-raising sensitivity enforcers and other non-teachers — increased 702 percent" since 1950 while the number of students has doubled.

This slide from The Tempered Radical provides a supporting visual for Will's point that educrats are making teachers' jobs harder. It also sets the tone for a Monday:

 

The results of the wonks' agenda driven education policies are best summed up by retiring teacher George Conti:

For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, “Words Matter” and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean.

Tweet Of The Day: Education Policy Edition

I wish that retaining quality teachers was as much a priority in the reform narrative as weeding out the bad ones. #edpolicy
— John Spencer (@edrethink) March 31, 2013

Consolidation: An Education Discussion That Should Happen But Won't

Cory points out that there's an important education policy discussion that isn't happening in South Dakota: school consolidation.

It may also be a policy discussion worth having. Do we overstretch our dollars by maintaining too many school buildings and school districts? Does South Dakota have a fiscal obligation to pull back, let some small schools and small communities die, and concentrate its resources on larger communities?

I have no strong feelings on the matter. I have taught in a Class B school and in a Class AA school. My debaters compete against students from large and small schools.

It does seem, however, that the structure of the South Dakota's school systems should be part of any comprehensive plan to improve education in the state. Discussion consolidation may not allow the state's politicians to think they are part of a national conversation, but that discussion won't be as myopic as the current focus on test scores.

My inner cynic doubts that discussion will happen in the next legislative session or the one after that or the one after that. Politicians at every level have learned that one doesn't need to solve any large problems; they merely need to demonize smaller concerns. Daugaard Inc. has created his perfect scapegoat: teachers. He can begin and end all reform discussions by attacking teachers and ignore any needed structural changes.

Everything That's Wrong With Education: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

The picture comes from a late 19th Century and early 20th Century series designed to show what France would be like in the 21st Century:

France in the Year 2000 (XXI century) – a series of futuristic pictures by Jean-Marc Côté and other artists issued in France in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910. Originally in the form of paper cards enclosed in cigarette/cigar boxes and, later, as postcards, the images depicted the world as it was imagined to be like in the year 2000. There are at least 87 cards known that were authored by various French artists, the first series being produced for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris.

It's a bit disconcerting how accurately the artist predicted American education in 2012.

Image Via Wikimedia Commons

Let's look at a few specifics:

• Fill students up with unconnected facts to meet standards of indeterminate worth: check

• Boredom: check

• Technology without context: check

• No serious interaction with materiel: check

The only thing missing is a bubble test and a state bureaucrat looking over the teacher's shoulder.

Education Tweets Of The Week: Teacher Frustration Edition

John T. Spencer nails it

Too often the term "professional" is used to devalue teachers and make them practitioners rather than true professionals #edchat #edpolicy
— John T. Spencer (@johntspencer) June 5, 2012

Teachers are fighting against the factory model of education but also fighting against a manufactured crisis of "bad" schools. #edchat
— John T. Spencer (@johntspencer) June 5, 2012

And yet, you can't push for policy reform without thinking about the way tech is transforming education and society #edpolicy #edchat
— John T. Spencer (@johntspencer) June 5, 2012

You can't push for innovation without recognizing the political structures that need to change #edpolicy #edreform #edchat
— John T. Spencer (@johntspencer) June 5, 2012

Do You Want Fries With That: A Minor Addition To The Education Policy Discussion

At The Madville Times, Cory does a great job of illustrating the folly of Mitt Romney's education plan and why it won't help South Dakotans.

I have a minor addition.  Inherent in Romney's proposal and nearly all reform proposals is the belief that schools should follow a business model.  That idea probably came from the businesses most likely to benefit,  publishing companies like Pearson.

With the advent of the national Common Core standards, schools have two business models.

First, there's the  McDonalds or Walmart model.  I doubt that the country will be better off if it educates students in the same way that McDonalds produces burgers or McNuggets. Walmart doesn't stock its shelves with cutting edge products.  Further, just because people can use a self-checkout doesn't mean students can educate themselves without teachers.  The country needs original ideas, big box or fast food chain thinking won't produce them.

Second, there's the too big to fail model.  It produced some cutting edge thinking: create worthless pieces of paper, have a rating agency assert that those pieces of paper have value, and sell, sell, sell.  That thinking, of course, led to the recession.  If education is in "crisis" now, wait until it's a corporation that too big to fail.

I Muse About The Diane Ravitch vs. Tom Peters Twitter Spat

Earlier today Diane Ravitch tweeted:

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."

How People Think And How To Think About School

A thought provoking look at how people think and create and what schools do to them.

Plains Pops:Totally Random Updates Edition

Romney has released his education plan.  At first blush, it's indistinguishable from Obama's and Bush's. In related news,  Hollywood is apparently ready to give Rocky treatment to charter schools.

Jeff Barth reacts to comments about his video: “I don't care if you don't like [the video]. I don't care if you don't like me. I think it's kind of fun.”  The Dakota War College praises Barth's sincerity.  I still doubt that ironic hipster deconstructionists (IHDs) constitute a major South Dakota voting block.  Heck, I'm unconvinced there's enough of them to fill all of the tables at a Starbucks.


As further proof that Hell is experiencing a cold front, the aforementioned Dakota War College expresses unease at Governor Eddie Haskell's Dennis Daugaard's endorsements in South Dakota's Republican primaries. More importantly, the Madville Times points to Republican legislative candidates running against Daugaard's destructive education measure, HB 1234.

Finally, here's another reading trifecta.  Reporter and blogger Bob Mercer recommends Watergate: A Novel. NPR Books points to 15 summer reads recommended by Indie booksellers, and IO9 takes science fiction fans back to the  1960s.

A Question About Educational Research

Writing in the New York Times "The Stone," Gary Gutting asks an important question:

But how reliable is even the best work on the effects of teaching?  How, for example, does it compare with the best work by biochemists on the effects of light on plant growth? Since humans are much more complex than plants and biochemists have far more refined techniques for studying plants, we may well expect the biochemical work to be far more reliable.  For making informed decisions about public policy, though, we need to have a more precise sense of how large the difference in reliability is. Is there any work on the effectiveness of teaching that is solidly enough established to support major policy decisions?

He answers in the negative, noting:

Without a strong track record of experiments leading to successful predictions, there is seldom a basis for taking social scientific results as definitive.  Jim Manzi, in his recent book, “Uncontrolled,” offers a careful and informed survey of the problems of research in the social sciences and concludes that “nonexperimental social science is not capable of making useful, reliable and nonobvious predictions for the effects of most proposed policy interventions.”

Gutting causes me to wonder how many educational reform policies have been based on unreliable research?

On Education Issues It's RomBama Or OBamNey

The lede from this Fiscal Times article sums it up.

On the surface at least, President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney see eye to eye on a number of key education issues:

Both politicians place great store in standardized testing to evaluate teacher performance and student progress, and both generally back former President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program. Both favor charter schools as an alternative to failing public schools and merit pay to attract better teachers. And both have had their run-ins with teachers unions.

The rest of the article discusses their more substantive differences on student loans.

At the K-12 level, however, the only difference seems to be that Obama wants to spend more money.  Does that fact mean Pearson will support Obama?

The South Dakota Education Debate Summarized

I don't know if P.L. Thomas has ever been to South Dakota, but he certainly understands how education issues were dealt with during the last session.

Inexpert political leaders believe in and act upon a faith in the effectiveness of their cult of personality. They say by their actions, "I can do this where others have not" -- triggering the American cultural faith in rugged individualism.

I didn't know every governor had a sycophant like Elizabeth Kraus, but that rugged individualism must make them irresistible.

Not only does South Carolinian Thomas understand the problem, he also has a great solution,

Universal public education needs a new wall, paralleling the wall of separation between church and state: a wall between education and government and corporate America. Power over funding and broad performance benchmarks can remain vested in political leaders. But granular operational details should be left to educators and local administrators, the people best suited to achieve these goals in their schools and classrooms. Education should be treated no differently than a civil engineering project: government provides funding and ensures the goals of the civil function, and then expert builders and engineers fill in the details, taking into account realities on the ground and utilizing a wealth of experience and training that is completely unavailable to most elected officials. Governors and presidents are no better suited to run schools than they are to run construction sites, and it's time our education system reflected that fact.[emphasis mine]

The bolded part of the quotation should be talking points in the campaign to defeat HB 1234, a bill premised on the idea that a governor knows more about schools than anyone else in the state and tears down any protecting wall that local control may have provided.

Republicans On Education: Let's Create A Double Bind

Sausage and propaganda seem to be opposites.  No one wants to see sausage made but the end result is tasty.  On the other hand, seeing propaganda come together fascinates me, but seeing the end result scares me to death.


That's why watching the Republican efforts to diminish public education produces some gut wrenching ambivalence.  I don't want to watch it happen, but I can't help myself.


Let's begin locally.  In South Dakota, Reverend Hickey invokes President Obama to claim that Republican Governor Daugaard's version of education reform must happen:

As the SDEA announces plans to take HB1234 to the voters this November, I remember listening to President Obama's State of the Union address last month thinking…. sounds like he would have voted for HB1234 in a heartbeat.

After quoting Obama's State of the Union Speech, Hickey writes,

Obama said, instead of "defending the status quo, let's offer schools a deal"… 1. Incentives to attract and keep good teachers. (Applause.) 2. Reward the best teachers. (Applause.) 3. Grant schools flexibility. (Applause.) 4. Boot the bad teachers. (Applause.)

It's almost spooky how closely those comments parallel HB1234. Furthermore, he acknowledges tight budgets have forced states to cut teacher funding. Yet the narrative here in SD is that the funding was cut because Republicans hate teachers.

Chamber of Commerce Republican David Owen joins Hickey, the social conservative extraordinaire, in praising the Obamagaard plan.  Owen claims, "the governor deserves credit for trying to bring some reform to education that matches it up with things that succeed in the economy elsewhere . . . .” Owen goes on to condescendingly observe that teachers "are very, very upset at these reforms.”  Apparently he doesn't believe teachers are capable of understanding him if he uses adverbs like "genuinely," "intensely," "passionately,"or "profoundly."  Perhaps Mr. Owen doesn't believe teachers can be genuine, intense, or passionate, but I digress.


Meanwhile, at the national level, Jeff Bryant notes  there is "growing evidence that the Obama administration's education policies will be a target of the right wing."  He points out,

Now that ideas for education policy that were conceived primarily by right wing think tanks -- standards, NCLB, high-stakes testing -- are firmly in place, thanks in part to the cooperation of Democrats, they are now the exact points Republicans are using to attack Democrats.

I wish that Republicans were undergoing a true conversion, but on this Saturday evening prior to Holy Week, the Republicans tactics bring to mind James 3:10-12,

¹⁰Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
¹¹Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
¹²Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

Occupy The DOE

Valerie Strauss reports that Occupy movement has inspired some to create an Occupy the DOE next week.

A group of activists is planning a four-day protest event starting next week called “Occupy the DOE in D.C.” that is aimed at alerting the Obama administration to growing unhappiness with its education reform policies.

The event includes seminars, led by professors, activists and others, as well as marches and speeches that together are designed to express opposition to the education policies of President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, which critics say have, among other things, increased the importance of high-stakes tests and promoted charter schools at the expense of traditional public schools.

Unlike some other Occupy protests, the organizers of this one got the required permits to stage all of the planned events.

I tend to become skeptical of teachers who brag about getting their lesson plans done on time.  I also worry about the fact that the Occupy Movement has more iterations than television's CSI and NCIS franchises combined.  However, the group's goals seem very sound.

THEREFORE, WE DEMAND AN END TO THE FOLLOWING:

•       ALL high stakes testing and punitive policies that label schools, punish students, and close public community schools

•       ALL high stakes testing that ties teacher evaluations, pay, and job security to high stakes test results

•       Corporate interventions in public education and education policy.

•       Corporate run for-profit charter schools that divert public funds away from public schools

•       Mandates requiring teachers to use corporate approved, scripted programs that sublimate and negate authentic and meaningful learning experiences imparted by varied and rich curricula

Re-reading this list, it seems that South Dakota teachers can sum them up in one sentence: repeal HB 1234.

Quotation Of The Day: The Beginning Of The End Of Public Education Edition

Diane Ravitch gives Arne Duncan a failing grade and concludes,

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.

Diane Ravitch On Teacher Preparation and Testing

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.

Quotation Of The Day: Education and Recipes Edition

From this John Merrow post about the need for innovation and education

Now think about tomorrow. Unless our economy collapses, very few youth now in school will earn a living doing physical labor. Some will do mental labor, but, if we prosper, it will be because the large majority of adults — not just those who grew up rich — are doing ‘creative labor.’ They have to learn to do this ‘work’ in school, which means that innovation must become the norm and not the ‘gee whiz’ phenomenon it now is. In short, we must close ‘the opportunity gap’ if we want better educational outcomes for more kids, and, by extension, a competitive economy down the road.

A barrier to innovation is the accounting/accountability mentality. Suzy Null, a reader of this blog, wrote in part last week:

I think teachers are becoming more like McDonald’s workers. They are given pre-cooked products and a specific “recipe” for preparing them. They are expected to follow these orders religiously in order to ensure that everyone gets the same “quality” experience. If they diverge even slightly, they are told that they are negligent and aren’t doing their jobs. What’s really sad is that the public is so used to mass-produced products and fast food, that they think that uniformity and mass production would be “good” for schools too

It strikes me that many pushing Governor Daugaard's education reforms believe that teachers and McDonald's fry cooks share the same intellect and skill set because teachers didn't major in business.  It also seems probable that the testing regime and evaluation plans the Governor's supporters will mandate will produce students incapable of doing anything but following a recipe.