Here’s a link to a thought provoking article that challenges the benefits and virtues of testing.
“I happen to believe that efforts to raise test scores dramatically and in mass, such as is called for by NCLB, is a fool’s errand that can only end in failure or (more likely) fraud.”
As a parent who has sent two kids through the system, and former educator myself, I submit this article as one who no longer has ‘skin in the game’. However, I believe all of us have a flesh and blood investment in this issue, because the corporate mindset and methods that now so heavily dominate education, inform almost every aspect of our lives.
In my opinion, this is not a turn for the betterment of society, or the health of the planet.
*As a personal footnote, I will not be attending the public forum hosted by the school board, but urge anybody who feels this might be a valuable opportunity to do so. My unanswered letters to the board, and the termination of my tenure after long service, without review, is all I need to know on how things work here at this point in time.
testing, 1,2,3… is this on?
Two things jump out at me. The first is that using statistics to test just a sample of students and extrapolating how we are doing isn’t something that is discussed much, (despite our desire to give kids good math educations.)
The second is the bit about test scores being a “particlarly poor” way of evaluating teachers. How much are teachers being evaluated by their student’s scores?
Later in his essay he talks about how odd it is to think that every student can achieve the same high test scores. “The insistence that any student can achieve the highest scores on testing instruments is both empirically unfounded and intuitively wrong. ” Right. Garrison Keillor says kids in Lake Wobegone are all above average as a (math) joke, not a statement of fact.
testing
There are multiple forms of intelligence and one of our important tasks as educators is to identify special interests, strengths and aptitudes in our students. Some students have genius in working with their hands, others with quickly identifying visual patterns and some with communicating with other people – just three quick examples.
Collecting data on individual interests and aptitudes could be a very valuable use of data and testing. In the elementary grades we have been encouraged in the past to employ a variety of teaching strategies (visual, auditory, tactile, interactive) so as to reach the greatest number of our students with the material we are teaching.
Educational testing could be based upon a a scientific model where the tests are given at random times to a representative sample. However, by having testing happen at specific times of the year for all children it begins to resemble a sporting event with cheerleading and a desire to improve numerically for the sake of numerical success. Pressures exist to raise scores at all costs.
The subject areas in which we do not conduct high stakes testing are often those areas that lend themselves to higher order thinking and the making of connections. When students are engaged in subject matter they are motivated to become better readers and better problem solvers. If you want to test a young child’s ability to use a spoon, you will get very different results depending upon what is in the bowl. Ice cream tends toward higher scores than cold oatmeal.
testing
This is the part that stood out to me:
“What’s illiberal is taking the vast diversity of human productivity and ways of flourishing and declaring only a tiny sliver of it actually productive or important. That’s illiberal.
“Our educational ‘crisis’ is actually an economic crisis, a manufactured outrage that insists we focus on teachers and their unions in order to avoid focusing on the breakdown of the social contract, we were told, we would live under. The test scores are telling us something, but it’s not what ed reformers think. They’re telling us not that teachers have failed, but that we have created a society whose definition of human success is totally flawed, and one that has to change to survive.”
Once upon a time in Vermont...
… there was the Vermont Design for Education. It’s actually a pretty remarkable public policy document, and reflects a quite different approach to education reform.
Here’s a link:
http://www.discoverwriting.com/vermont-design.pdf
For those that don't click on links...
Here are the “Premises for education in Vermont,” from the Vermont Design for Education, May 1968. How well do they hold up today?
“1. The emphasis must be upon learning, rather than teaching,
2. A student must be accepted as a person.
3. Education should be based upon the individual’s strong, inherent desire to learn and to make sense of his environment.
4. All people need success to prosper.
5. Education should strive to maintain the individuality and originality of the learner.
6. Emphasis should be upon a child’s own way of learning – through discovery and exploration – through real rather than abstract experiences.
7. The development of an individual’s thought process should be primary.
8. People should perceive the learning process as related to their own sense of reality.
9. An individual must be allowed to work according to his own abilities.
10. The teacher’s role must be that of a partner and guide in the learning process.
11. The development of a personal philosophy, a basic set of values, is perhaps the most important of human achievements.
12. We must seek to individualize our expectations of a person’s progress as we strive to individualize the learning experiences for each person.
13. The environment with which students are encouraged to learn must be greatly expanded.
14. The school should provide a structure in which students can learn from each other.
15. To provide a maximum learning experience for all students requires the involvement and support of the entire community.
16. Schools should be compatible with reality. learning which is compartmentalized into artificial subject fields by teachers and administrators is contrary to what is known about the learning process.
17. Individuals should be encouraged to develop a sense of responsibility.”
…
The report then goes on to list some suggestions for attaining quality education in the state. I’ll leave it to someone else to report on the suggestions.
Dreams, revised
What an interesting document, and a fascinating opportunity to juxtapose former VT ideals, with what comes though Lises’ recent post with School Board and Administration Officials.
It’s hard to tell if the School Board now is an agency within WSESU, rather than having the charge of ombudsmen. I always thought their role was supposed to be the later, but perhaps the former is the new normal?
The “VT Design For Education” that was drafted in the year and season of Martin Luther King’s assassination-forty six years ago- certainly reflects a greater commitment to individuation. You can hear and feel the knowledge and passion gleaned by reformists from Dewey to Montessori in the mission.
The suggestions for implementation are well worth reading. And compared with the present state of our schools, it’s an eye opener. I won’t summarize their points however. It seems to me there is a small faction in town who care about this, but the greater majority are willing to let things roll, no matter what is happening.
Vermont Design for Education (1968)
This is truly an inspiring document. Thank you for posting it here. If you want more background on this Vermont Department of Education statement of core values and on its relevance to current trends in education check out this link:
http://susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=246
Susan Ohanian is from Charlotte, VT. She is the author of “When Childhood Collides with NCLB”. NCLB is, of course, No Child Left Behind. I am slowly discovering the large and growing network of books, websites and organizations that are asking insightful questions about the direction of education. Questioning is at the heart of education.
Our local schools are subject to same pressures as schools across the country. Vermont is not an oasis of sanity in the world of public education… we are confronted by the same challenges, pitfalls and wrong turns as everyone else.