I had planned to write about my 19-month (and counting) struggle to pry loose documents from Washington, DC, and the coverup of the cheating that went on there.

But then I began reading the galleys of Teaching with Heart.  It’s a collection of poems that inspire, motivate (or shore up) teachers as they go about their work.  Accompanying each poem is a paragraph or two by the teacher who submitted it.

I had agreed to write a blurb for the book but put off the reading until the last moment.  Up against the deadline, I began reading early this morning.  Hours–and a few tears–later, I emerged, feeling stronger personally–and more optimistic about education’s future.

Dozens of poems spoke to me, but none so much as “Purple,” by Alexis Rotella.

When I read “A Battle over School Reform: Michelle Rhee versus Diane Ravitch” two weeks ago, I felt as if I had entered a time warp.  This article couldn’t be new, I remember thinking that it must have been written a few years ago.  But no, it is dated January 2014, suggesting to me that the author, John Buntin, relied on old news, inaccurate data and a stack of clichés.  “Rhee vs. Ravitch” is his hook. Indeed, he writes:  “Reading Rhee (sic) and Ravitch’s books together is like watching two accomplished pugilists fight a 15-round bout…. Think of this as an attempt to score the fight.” In one corner, Buntin has Rhee representing ‘education reform.’ And in the other corner, Ravitch represents those who oppose reform–a semantic choice by the author that seems meaningful.  He ignores Washington’s erasure scandal that calls into question Rhee’s claims of academic success, and he fails to mention the current conditions of public schools in Washington, two points that readers have a right to know about.

Buntin hardly seems like an impartial fight judge. He writes of Rhee’s ‘most impressive accomplishments’ while she was in Washington; however, his tone when discussing Ravitch is markedly different.  She writes ‘with grim determination’ and ‘like General Sherman marching to the sea,’ he notes.

His real goal, we discover at the end of the piece, is not to referee a Rhee-Ravitch bout but to find a new heavyweight champ.  And so he urges us “….to step back from Rhee and Ravitch’s specific disagreements and consider the ingredients of educational excellence from a different perspective. That is precisely the strategy pursued by journalist Amanda Ripley in her new book, The Smartest Kids in the World (And How They Got That Way).”

Rhee and Ravitch are both wrong, he says, although–because Rhee believes that teacher quality matters (and Ravitch doesn’t?)–Rhee is apparently less wrong than Ravitch: “In the world described by Ripley, Ravitch’s complacency is misguided. But so is the reformers’ narrow focus on standardized testing. The best way forward is likely more nuanced, and more complicated. {{1}}

Upset by his factual errors and the central argument of the essay, I wrote Mr. Buntin, as follows:

Dear Mr. Buntin,

I have a couple of observations about your Rhee/Ravitch piece that I hope you don’t mind my sharing. The first is a minor quibble about the firing scene. We filmed that as part of my NewsHour coverage–we followed the young Chancellor for her entire three years in DC (12 NewsHour reports).  Only later did we include it in our film for Frontline.  I allowed Oprah to use the footage, and Davis Guggenheim appropriated it without our permission for “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” although he did eventually pay us for using it.
My second objection is substantial and has to do with Rhee’s record as Chancellor. Not long after she departed, USA Today broke the story of widespread erasures on the DC-CAS, the city’s standardized test, during Rhee’s first and second years.  We covered that in our Frontline film. However, AFTER the film I obtained a copy of a confidential memo that made it clear just how much she knew of the erasures and how she failed to act.  That is summarized here:  http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6232
While “Rhee vs. Ravitch” is a compelling headline and a sexy feature, it’s a roadblock to understanding American education.  Ravitch is a passionate advocate who argues from facts.  In contrast, Rhee’s policies were tried, and they failed. By almost every conceivable measure, the DC schools are no better than before her tenure. In key areas of student attendance, graduation rates, and principal and teacher turnover, they are worse.  Central offices in abutting districts have shrunk, but DCPS’ has grown considerably. Even DC’s most recent gains on NAEP, which began 12-15 years BEFORE Rhee’s tenure, seem to have been fueled by an influx of better-educated families (gentrification) and quality pre-school. Here’s a summary: http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6490
I urge you to revisit this story.  There is a titanic struggle going on in public education, one that is complex and deserving of coverage.  Using Michelle Rhee as symbolic of ‘one side’ is misleading, unfortunately.  Wendy Kopp and Teach for America might better represent one side and Ravitch another, although the issue has more than two sides.

Thanks for reading this,
John

He has not replied.

The magazine that published Mr. Burton’s article, GOVERNING {{2}}, describes itself as “the nation’s leading media platform covering politics, policy and management for state and local government leaders. Recognized as the most credible and authoritative voice in its field, GOVERNING provides nonpartisan news, insight and analysis on such issues as public finance, transportation, economic development, health, energy, the environment and technology.”

The magazine, which first appeared in 1987, says its core readers are “elected, appointed and career officials in state and local government, including governors, mayors, county executives, city and county council members, state legislators, executives of state and local agencies, and those holding professional government positions…”

Those men and women ought to have accurate information. Perhaps they get it when the magazine reports on transportation, public finance, energy and other key issues, but GOVERNING let its readers down when it published Buntin’s superficial piece about public education.

GOVERNING claims to have 85,000 readers. This blog does not always reach that many readers every week, so I hope you will share this post.

Superficial opining like Mr. Burton’s muddies the waters, not a good thing at a time when clarity is needed.

—-
[[1]]1. Here’s the link, if you’d like to check it out for yourself:
http://www.governing.com/topics/education/gov-michelle-rhee-versus-diane-ravitch.html [[1]]

[[2]]2. For more about the magazine and its publisher, the Governing Institute, go here: http://www.governing.com/about [[2]]

These five test questions may explain why American students score lower than their counterparts in most other advanced nations.  The first is a sample problem offered by the University of Wisconsin/Oshkosh {{1}} to high school math teachers. It was designed with the stated goal of ‘Closing the Math Achievement Gap’:

Jack shot a deer that weighted (sic) 321 pounds. Tom shot a deer that weighed 289 pounds.   How much more did Jack’s deer weigh then (sic) Tom’s deer?

Basic subtraction in high school?  The second comes from TeacherVision, part of Pearson, the giant testing company {{2}} :

Linda is paddling upstream in a canoe. She can travel 2 miles upstream in 45 minutes. After this strenuous exercise she must rest for 15 minutes. While she is resting, the canoe floats downstream ½ mile. How long will it take Linda to travel 8 miles upstream in this manner?

While the second problem does not contain language errors, its premise is questionable.  Will some students be distracted by Linda’s cluelessness?  Won’t they ask themselves how long it will take her to figure out that she should grab hold of a branch while she’s resting in order to keep from floating back down the river?  What’s the not-so-subtle subtext? That girls don’t belong in canoes?  That girls are dumb?

And I found this on a high school math test in Oregon:

There are 6 snakes in a certain valley.  The population doubles every year. In how many years will there be 96 snakes?
a. 2
b. 3
c. 4
d. 8

Remember that these are math problems for high school students!  They require simple numeracy at most, and “Snakes” can be solved by counting on one’s fingers.

Next is an example of what lies ahead for 8th graders–not high school students–under the new Common Core National Standards, which are supposed to introduce much needed ‘rigor’ to the curriculum.  This question (without illustrations!) is from New York State’s sample tests.

Triangle ABC was rotated 90° clockwise. Then it underwent a dilation centered at the origin with a scale factor of 4. Triangle A’B’C’ is the resulting image.  What parts of A’B’C’ are congruent to the corresponding parts of the original triangle?  Explain your reasoning.

Did you go ‘Huh?’ I did.

The fifth and final question was given recently to 15-year-olds around the world on a test known as PISA (for Programme in International Student Assessment):

Mount Fuji is a famous dormant volcano in Japan.  The Gotemba walking trail up Mount Fuji is about 9 kilometres (km) long. Walkers need to return from the 18 km walk by 8 pm.
Toshi estimates that he can walk up the mountain at 1.5 kilometres per hour on average, and down at twice that speed. These speeds take into account meal breaks and rest times.
Using Toshi’s estimated speeds, what is the latest time he can begin his walk so that he can return by 8 pm?

For simplicity, let’s call these problems ‘Deer/Canoe/Snakes,’ ‘Triangles’ and ‘Fuji.’  Those high school problems are far too easy.  With enough practice, just about anyone can solve undemanding problems like that and, consequently, feel confident of their ability.

Note that ‘Fuji’ is not a multiple-choice question.  To get the correct answer to this engaging question, students had to perform a number of calculations.  The correct answer (11 AM) was provided by 55% of the Shanghai 15-year-olds but just 9% of the US students.

Speaking of confidence, the PISA results reveal that American kids score highest in ‘confidence in mathematical ability’ despite underperforming their peers in most other countries.  Is their misplaced confidence the result of problems like ‘Snakes’ and others of that ilk?

School is supposed to be preparation for life, but spending time on problems like ‘Deer/Canoe/Snakes’ is like trying to become an excellent basketball player by shooting free throws all day long.  To be good at basketball, players must work on all aspects of the game: jump shots, dribbling, throwing chest and bounce passes, positioning for rebounds, running the pick-and-roll and—occasionally–practicing free throws.

Come to think of it, basketball and life are similar. Both are about rhythm and motion, teamwork and individual play, offense and defense.  Like life, it can slow down or become frenetic. Basketball requires thinking fast, shifting roles and having your teammates’ backs.  Successful players know when to shoot and when to pass. As in life, failure is part of the game.  Even the greatest players miss over half of their shots, and some (Michael Jordan!) are cut from their high school teams.  And life doesn’t give us many free throw opportunities.

But if school is supposed to be preparation for life, why are American high school students being asked to count on their fingers?  That mind-numbing and trivial work is the educational equivalent of shooting free throws.

Now to ‘Triangles,’ which represents education’s brave new world of the Common Core, adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. In this new approach, students will be exposed to higher and more ‘rigorous’ standards. The hope is that the curriculum, locally developed to reflect the standards, will challenge and engage students.  I suggest you read ‘Triangles’ aloud.

Triangle ABC was rotated 90° clockwise. Then it underwent a dilation centered at the origin with a scale factor of 4. Triangle A’B’C’ is the resulting image. What parts of A’B’C’ are congruent to the corresponding parts of the original triangle?

Are you feeling ‘engaged’?  Imagine how 8th graders might feel. If ‘Deer/Canoe/Snakes’ are the educational equivalent of practicing free throws, then solving problems like ‘Triangles’ is akin to spending basketball practice taking trick shots like hook shots from midcourt—another way not to become good at the sport.  I worry that questions like ‘Triangles’ will impede the understanding and appreciation of math for the 99% who are not destined to become mathematicians.

If our schools persist with boring, undemanding curricula, our kids will be stuck at the free throw line, practicing something they will rarely be called upon to do in real life.  If, however, in the name of the Common Core’s ‘rigor’ we give our kids lifeless questions like ‘Triangles,’ schools may end up turning off the very kids they are trying to reach.

—-

[[1]]1. Wisconsin source: http://www.uwosh.edu/coehs/cmagproject/many_word/documents/1_Dear_Hunting_Problems.pdf The web page notes that ‘slightly more difficult problems are coded with a shamrock/diamond.’  Here’s one of those: “In the first half of a recent game, the Packers scored 14 points on touchdowns and 9 points on field goals. In the second half, they continued scoring, and they ended the game with 43 points. How many points did they score in the second half?”  [[1]]

[[2]]Pearson source: https://www.teachervision.com/tv/printables/botr/botr_140_3-3.pdf [[2]]

According to the Journal of American Medicine in 2000, somewhere between 44,000 and 98,000 people die every year because of problems they developed while under a doctor’s care.  The Greek term for ‘doctor-caused’ problems is Iatrogenesis.  (By the way, Wikipedia ups the ante, asserting that 225,000 deaths every year have iatrogenic causes, but it includes pharmacists, psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists among the killers.)

I raise this point because it seems to me that the widespread cheating in American schools is the result of the educational equivalent of iatrogenesis.  It is educator-caused, the result of threats and intense pressure to raise scores on standardized tests.  Take your pick of cities where some principals and teachers have cheated to raise student scores, and I think you will find that the ‘doctor’ at the top put intense pressure on his or her minions to “perform or else.”

The ongoing trial in Atlanta is the poster child, of course.

If Washington, DC, had courageous political leadership and a strong newspaper like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I have no doubt that the DC students whose scores were falsely inflated would be getting an apology and perhaps some remedial compensation, as the Atlanta students will soon receive. My colleagues at Learning Matters and I have carefully documented what I called “Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error” there.  In other cities (Columbus, Ohio; Baltimore; El Paso, Texas, et cetera), adults have been caught breaking the rules.

(Many others have resisted the pressures and temptations to cheat, and their honesty should be acknowledged. I am personally grateful to the few who have blown the whistle.)

Because, like Mr. Shakespeare, I have “small Latin and less Greek,” someone else will have to construct a word to mean ‘arising from an educator’ to describe what has been happening in our schools.  “Edugenesis,” perhaps?

Unlike Iatrogenesis, “Edugenesis” doesn’t literally kill people.  However, it has ruined careers and blighted lives.

On a positive note, I sense the tide is turning, and so perhaps a new coinage is no longer necessary.  The backlash against excessive testing seems stronger than ever, and many knowledgeable people are recognizing that our system uses standardized tests to evaluate teachers, while other countries use them to assess students (which is what they are designed to do).  The AFT’s Randi Weingarten has just turned her back on using VAM (value-added measurement) to assess teachers.  Respected superintendents like Josh Starr of Montgomery County, Maryland, have called for a moratorium on high-stakes testing during the transition to the Common Core.  The tireless Diane Ravitch, once a lone voice crying in the wilderness about the tyranny of machine-scored testing and the war on teachers, now has 70,000 Twitter followers and countless readers of her blog.

Will the backlash against excessive testing bring down with it the national effort to raise academic standards, collateral damage as it were?  These are interesting times, to be sure.  And hopeful too……

What can you say about a company that–in just one year–produced major films about education for Frontline and Netflix, 20 reports for the PBS NewsHour, 36 web-only pieces, 25 “Why I Teach” essays, a new web series called “Follow the Leader,” and 50 major “Taking Note” blog posts (including several that exposed Michelle Rhee’s failure to investigate clear evidence of cheating by adults on Washington’s standardized tests)?

You might say, “Wow.”

And what if I then told you that just 8 of us accomplished all this for about $1.6M?

I’m hoping  you will say, “Wow, that company deserves to be supported.”

If you are having that reaction, here’s your opportunity, because Learning Matters, the non-profit organization with that track record, has received a challenge grant of $150,000 from the Brin Wojcicki Foundation.  However, to earn the $150,000, we must raise the equivalent amount in the next few months.

Meeting the challenge will put us in the black for 2014, because $300,000 amounts to nearly 20% of our annual budget.  Meeting the challenge will also guarantee another year of probing coverage of education’s toughest, most important issues: the Common Core, expanding early childhood opportunities, deeper learning, the arts, leadership gaps, student debt, the uses of technology and more.

While we are hoping for a few major gifts, we know that we won’t be able to climb this mountain without help from a supportive network of small donors.  We hope we can count on you for help.

Please keep in mind that every fully tax-deductible gift is worth twice that amount to Learning Matters. We get twice the bang for your bucks, and you can feel twice as good about helping us.

We will be creating an icon on our website that will fill up as gifts come in. You may donate online or mail your contribution to Learning Matters, 127 W. 26th Street, Suite 1200, NY NY 10001.

All of us at Learning Matters feel blessed.  We have the privilege of reporting in depth on complex education issues for the 1.4 million people who watch the NewsHour, America’s most respected news program.  Our challenge is to choose from among dozens of significant issues and hundreds of compelling stories.

Ahead in 2014: We are bringing back The School Sleuth, whose exploits in 2000 brought us our first George Foster Peabody Award. This time the aging detective will be investigating ‘blended learning’ and other new-fangled stuff in America’s classrooms.

Thank you, and best wishes for the holidays from all of us at Learning Matters.

We are excited to announce the premiere of a new Learning Matters production, “Follow the Leader,” a web-only series that will, we hope, reveal a great deal about the men and women who lead American education. Your guide in this new series is Sam Chaltain, an educator and writer of great sensibility and intelligence. The first leader we chose to follow for a day is Josh Starr, the current Superintendent of Schools in Montgomery County, Maryland–and someone on the short list, we hear, to be Chancellor of the New York City schools.

Here’s the link to the 2-part series.

Here’s what Sam sent to his contacts: “Since his surprising victory last month, New York mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has sparked curiosity around the country as to whether his education policies will be the sort that make a progressive like John Dewey proud.

Speculation abounds as to whom he might choose to become the next schools chancellor of NYC — and recently, I spent a day with one of the leading contenders, Josh Starr, as part of a new web series for Learning Matters called “Follow the Leader.”

I did everything he did — from 5:30am workouts to 3-hour budget meetings. Along the way, I learned a lot about what it’s like to be an urban superintendent and got a preview of the type of leadership he might bring to the top job in New York City.”

Of course, we would love to hear your reactions to the premiere edition (post them here, please). And we want your recommendations. What other leaders would you like Sam to follow for a day? We’re operating under a big umbrella, meaning that we are defining ‘leader’ very broadly. We look forward to hearing from you.

Next Wednesday in NYC, Lee Hirsch, the producer of “Bully,” will be showing clips from his remarkable film and talking about the growing problem of bullying in our schools (and beyond).

Please  watch the trailer:

Once you’ve done that, I am certain you will want to be at the JCC of Manhattan Wednesday evening, December 11th at 7:30 to hear from Lee, ask your questions, and perhaps share your own stories.    I hope to see you at 334 Amsterdam Avenue (76th Street) on Wednesday.  Please call 646.505.4444 to make a reservation, or write me so we can hold a place for you. Tickets are only $15, and you get a glass of wine out of the deal too, if you choose.

The topic of bullying has been swept under the rug for too long. As Lee will tell us, it’s a problem we can solve, and must solve.

Like many of you, I gave thanks for our public schools and their teachers during American Education Week, which just ended. Now, during Thanksgiving week, I suggest we give thanks for our public libraries.

First of all, they’re everywhere: “If you have ever felt overwhelmed by the ubiquity of McDonald’s, this stat may make your day: There are more public libraries (about 17,000) in America than outposts of the burger mega-chain (about 14,000). The same is true of Starbucks (about 11,000 coffee shops nationally).”  So wrote Emily Badger in the Atlantic Cities back in June.   She adds that libraries serve 96.4% of the US population.  While that does not mean that nearly everyone uses a public library, they could if they wanted to.

Public libraries are aggressive because they have to be; they need people coming through their doors, and so they provide internet access, loans of DVDs and more, all with the endgame of promoting literacy.

The strategy of meeting the public’s needs seems to be working: Library membership and usage are up in most parts of the country, even though public financial support has been declining.  Here in New York City for example, circulation, participation in educational programs and the number of visitors are up by 45% on average, although funding from the City is down 18%, according to the Library’s President, Tony Marx.

New York’s public library system could be a national model for how to work with schools. NYPL main library and its branch libraries deliver books to about 600 of the city’s 1700{{1}} public schools, when requested by students and teachers.  The aim, Dr. Marx told me, is to supplement school libraries “…so that those libraries can also circulate from our 17 million books and better meet needs, rather than forcing students and teachers to rely only on the books they have in their own small collections.” His goal, he said, is to support school libraries and learning everywhere–and to give every child a (free) library card.

I have been a fan of libraries for a long time, probably because, when we were kids, our Mom was a regular patron of our local public library.{{2}}   In the Preface to The Influence of Teachers, I wrote:

Just a few years ago, libraries and schools were the places that stored knowledge—on microfiche, in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and in the heads of the adults in charge.  We had to go there to gain access to that knowledge.

Not any more.  Today knowledge and information are everywhere, 24/7, thanks to the Internet.  Unless libraries have been closed because of budget cuts, they have adapted to this new world.  Most have become multi-purpose centers with Internet access that distribute books, audio books and DVD’s.  Librarians encourage patrons to ask questions, because they need to keep the public coming through their doors.

By contrast, schools remain a monopoly, places where children are expected to answer questions, by filling in the bubbles or blanks and by speaking up when called upon.{{3}}

Those thoughts can be condensed into a bumper sticker: “People go to libraries to find answers to their own questions.  We make kids go to schools to answer someone else’s.” It’s not that simple, of course, because there are schools and teachers that insist on students taking control of their own education, and some teachers pose questions that they themselves do not know the answers to—and then enlist their students in figuring it out. {{4}}

But schools in general aren’t changing fast enough. It’s time to recognize that, because our children are growing up swimming in a sea of information, it’s incumbent upon adults to make certain that the institutions we force kids to attend are teaching them how to formulate questions, not merely regurgitate answers to the questions we pose. Meeting that challenge will require a sea change by the people in charge, and all the talk about ‘deeper learning,’ ‘blended learning’ and ‘flipped classrooms’ won’t amount to much if we don’t make that fundamental change.

The old saying, “If you can read this, thank a teacher,” still resonates. but I would add, “If you are a reader, you probably should thank a library.”

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah, everyone……

—-

[[1]]1. Dr. Marx said his goal is to provide that service to every public school within the next two years.[[1]]

[[2]]2. And one of my sisters ended up working there for many years.[[2]]

[[3]]3. Page 5. The book was published in 2011 and is available on Amazon.[[3]]

[[4]]4. For an example, watch this remarkable piece[[4]]

I write the songs that make the whole world sing.
I write the songs of love and special things.
I write the songs that make the young girls cry.
I write the songs, I write the songs.

No doubt that the Barry Manilow tune is now playing in the heads of most readers.{{1}}    But who “writes the songs” in the larger sense of the term?  Who and what determine how we look at the world, what you might call our ‘political narrative’?

We know this matters. Time and again research has shown the power of preconceptions over conclusions and decisions. If people are led to believe that a particular artist’s work is masterful or a certain composer’s music is sophisticated, that’s what most people are likely to see and hear.  When a teacher is told that her students have low potential, those kids somehow end up performing poorly; conversely, if the teacher is told the students are gifted, that’s how they do in class.  That’s the influence of the narrative.

What I find intriguing is the power of the current narrative about public education, which goes this way: “Effective teachers are the cornerstone of quality education, and, because so many of our public schools are failing today, it stands to reason that our schools must have a surfeit of ineffective teachers. Ergo, to reform education, we must drive out those bad teachers and replace them with quality teachers who will produce higher scores on standardized tests.”

Once one accepts that narrative, it makes sense to evaluate and fire teachers based on student test scores.  Accept that narrative, and it’s logical for the federal government to award millions of “Race to the Top” dollars to states which agree to evaluate teachers based on test scores.

When I wrote about the public narrative about education just three years ago, the two sides were engaged in a fierce battle, and the outcome was still in doubt.

“On one side in this battle is a cadre of prominent superintendents and wealthy hedge fund managers.  Led {{2}} by former New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, 15 leading school superintendents issued a 1379-word manifesto in October 2010 asserting that the difficulty of removing incompetent teachers ‘has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future.’

This side believes in charter schools, Teach for America, and paying teachers based on their students’ test scores.  Publicly pushing this ‘free market’ line is a powerful trio: Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for ‘Superman’ movie; NBC’s semi-journalistic exercise, Education Nation; and Oprah Winfrey.  And if one movie isn’t enough, this side also has The Lottery in the wings.

It has identified the villains: bad teachers and the evil unions that protect them, particularly Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers.

The other side is clearly outnumbered: The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the two teacher unions; many teachers and some Democrats.  Its villains are No Child Left Behind and its narrow focus on bubble test scores in reading and math. This side’s far weaker megaphone is wielded by historian Diane Ravitch, a former Bush education policy-maker turned apostate.{{3}}

No longer. Now those in what I named the “Better People” camp rule. Their view has become the lens the world is viewed through, ‘the new normal.’ Of course, teachers will be judged{{4}} by their students’ test scores–and perhaps fired if scores aren’t high enough.  It’s ‘the new normal’ to accept that we are losing the education race to most of the rest of the world. It’s ‘the new normal’ to set a ‘college for everyone’ goal. And it’s ‘the new normal’ to support universal early childhood education, even if that means school-like conditions for three- and four-year olds.

Diane Ravitch argues in “Reign of Error” that our schools are not failing, and I don’t intend to repeat her arguments here.

What I am interested in are the consequences of accepting this narrative. Of course, it makes life simpler, even black-and-white. Unfortunately, the current narrative has, from my perspective, at least SIX negative consequences.

1) MORE TESTING.  I’ve given up trying to count how many days are given over either to testing or to test-prep in what are called ‘the testing grades.’  Standardized testing used to begin in third grade, but now we are seeing the downward push for testing in second and even first grades. And while I hate giving free publicity to anyone who’s seeking to make money from our testing obsession, I have to provide at least one example of wretched excess, so here it is: http://www.ixl.com/math/pre-k Some teachers have developed practice tests for kindergarteners, to get them ready for their future.

2) TEACHERS BEING JUDGED BY SCORES OF STUDENTS THEY DO NOT TEACH.  That’s right. It’s now possible for a teacher to be rated based on the test results of kids she or he has never seen, let alone taught!  There’s no standardized testing regimen for physical education, music and other ‘fringe’ subjects, but ‘fairness’ demands that all teachers be judged by test scores…and so that’s happening.  The alternative, by this logic, is to create standardized tests for those subjects–and that’s happening too.  The adjective ‘Kafkaesque’ comes to mind.

3). A NARROWER FOCUS. The ‘narrowing’ of the curriculum to emphasize the tested subjects has been going on for some time now. Equally disturbing is the concentration on ‘on the bubble’ students who are close to meeting the standard that will keep their school from being disciplined.  Those two steps make school less interesting for everyone, but particularly for gifted students, who, because they are already certain to meet the (low) benchmark, don’t get the stimulation that their giftedness requires.

4) MORE ANSWERS, LESS INQUIRY.  Bubble tests are blunt instruments that require correct answers and little else.  But true learning is messy, uneven and often quite sophisticated.  Getting things wrong–failure–is a large part of genuine education, but the value of making mistakes and learning from them is what today’s narrative does not recognize.  The disease of perfectionism is contagious and insidious.  The admissions committees of some elective colleges eliminate candidates who earned a C in one subject in 9th grade. And why not? They have thousands of applicants with straight A’s all through high school!  Parents hover, ready to complain—or even sue–if their child gets a low grade.  In some classes students who dare to say ‘I don’t understand’ or ‘I don’t know’ are mocked by their classmates (even though they themselves are equally uncertain).

The focus on getting the right answer at all costs–as opposed to asking questions and learning to cope with ambiguity–is an especially dangerous outcome today, because our kids swim in the Internet’s 24-hour sea of information and data.  But ‘information’ can be partial, misleading or wrong. Because not all information is true, young people need to develop the skills that enable them to sift through the flood of information and separate truth from half-truth and falsehood.  They need to be, in the jargon, ‘critical thinkers,’ but the best way to develop those ‘habits of mind’{{5}} is through trial-and-error.  They learn from making mistakes–preferably in the ‘safe’ environment of a classroom.

Our test-score-driven system is, inevitably, an answer-driven system.  Students are rewarded for regurgitating the correct answers.  Teachers encourage that because their livelihoods depend on enough students getting enough correct answers. Some parents encourage it because they want their children to qualify for a top college.

5) “TEACH ME, OR YOU’LL GET FIRED”  That’s what some high school students told their teachers in Washington, DC, a few years ago, according to those teachers.  I have since heard similar tales from other teachers. These are examples of a system turned upside down.  Apparently those students have absorbed the narrative–it’s all about the teacher–and interpreted it to mean that, while they have no responsibilities, they do possess the power to get people fired. All they have to do is flunk.

6) MORE CHEATING. You know these awful stories: Atlanta, Georgia; Columbus, Ohio; Austin, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland, Washington, DC.  And on and on…..

Not everyone accepts the narrative, of course.  Paul Tough has written convincingly about the importance of ‘grit,’ a quality that some value above straight A’s on a report card. Some politicians–California’s Jerry Brown comes to mind–want to limit the frequency and number of standardized tests.  A few hundred public schools are actually led by teachers, and in those schools testing counts for less. Hundreds of school boards in Texas have taken a stand against excessive high stakes testing, and last year some teachers in Seattle flat out refused to administer one standardized test they found to be egregiously irrelevant.  Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers and others have called for a moratorium on high stakes testing to judge teachers while the new Common Core National Standards are rolled out, on the assumption (thus far correct) that the new tests will result in lower scores.

How can the narrative be changed?  One crucial step is to identify those who benefit from the current one.  That means following the money.  Are there significant interests who actually benefit from failure?  They need to be called out.

A second step is to persuade those on the sidelines that their long-term interests are being damaged by the current narrative.  And since 75-80% of households do not have school-age children, that’s a big group.  Those folks need to understand that answer-based (“regurgitation”) education is not keeping America competitive.  They need to know that using high-stakes testing to hold teachers ‘accountable’ is a not a proven strategy but a gamble that could do lasting harm to public education.

The third step is peace talks.  This suggestion comes out of a conversation I had with Kent McGuire of the Southern Education Fund and Jerry Weast, the former Superintendent of Schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, recently.{{6}} Weast and McGuire believe that it is in the best interests of warring parties to come to the table, because, even though they disagree bitterly on a raft of ‘adult’ issues, they have a common enemy, failure.

Nobody wants our children to fail. Weast and McGuire believe that should be enough to bring people together.

Peace talks wouldn’t be easy. The warring parties would have to agree on a definition of ‘success,’ for one thing.  For that to happen, they would first have to agree to focus exclusively on young people.  Discard everything else….tenure, evaluating teachers, class size, pay scales, merit pay and all the other adult issues.

The unions, the school boards, the charter school folks, the schools of education, the superintendents, the state leaders, Teach for America, and everyone else would have to agree to decide what ‘success’ in education means.

One rule for a successful marriage is to fight only about the thing you are fighting about. No fair bringing up the mother-in-law or the no-good drunk of a brother-in-law.  And no fair bringing up the fight you had last month either.

To change the narrative, we must decide what we want our young people to be able to do and become once they leave school.  And we must keep arguing about that–and only that–until some resolution is reached. Having that argument would certainly be a better use of our energy than the demonizing ‘blame game’ that is now going on.

The complex definition of success that would emerge could become the new narrative.  I think it’s time for a new song.  Who’s ready and willing to help write it?

—–

[[1]]1. And it’s probably going to keep on playing in your head for the rest of the work day. Sorry about that. By the way, Barry Manilow did not write the song. Bruce Johnson did![[1]]

[[2]]2. If I were writing that paragraph today, I would add names: Paul Tudor Jones and the Robin Hood Foundation, Whitney Tilson and other hedge fund powerhouses, Tim Daly and others at The New Teacher Project, and some major foundations, and others.[[2]]

[[3]]3. The Influence of Teachers (Page 6)[[3]]

[[4]]4. The distinguished emeritus UCLA professor James Popham laid out very clearly why standardized test scores are not adequate for judging students, let alone teachers, in this well-argued piece from 1999.[[4]]

[[5]]5. The great Deborah Meier’s wonderful phrase[[5]]

[[6]]6. The occasion was a Board meeting of the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, DC, whose Board I have just joined. IEL will be observing its 50th Anniversary next year.  While I am new to the Board, IEL was my first non-teaching job, after I finished graduate school, back in the fall of 1973.[[6]]