It's the Least Wonderful Time of the Year : (

Aaaahhh!  It seems spring has arrived here in North Carolina and that can only mean one thing for public school kids all over the state...no not spring break....End of Grade Testing!!

Thanks to NCLB, we are forcing creativity and critical thinking right out of our classrooms in favor of discrete pieces of disconnected knowledge or "choosing the best answer" (as though there's only one plausible answer).

Our nation, to a large degree, is obsessed with the standardized test, yet I am still unable to locate a job where you are asked to fill in a bubble sheet with the correct answer to a problem.  You expect this obsession from the so-called "reformers" (Bill Gates, etc.), most of whom neither attended nor worked in a public school (yet know all of the solutions to the problems).  But, what is truly disheartening is when our own Secretary of Education, Senators, and even the President himself extol the virtues and value of standardized test scores.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hugo90/5422793573/

What do these tests really tell us?  Are they really an accurate representation of what a child has learned over the course of a year?  Maybe.  Can their performance be solely attributed to the work of their teacher or school?  Definitely not.  We treat children as though they are products assembled in schools by teachers, but in reality children are complex, social beings, with a wide range of talents, motivations, abilities, and experiences.  All of these factors must be considered when we look at the education of children.  Shouldn't be be expected to educate the whole child?

What has made America unique as a nation has always been our ability to innovate and it has been through innovation and creativity that we as a nation have ensured our status as the strongest, most agile economy.  By limiting what (Reading/Writing & Math) and how our children learn (drill and practice, rote memorization) to the exclusion other topics (arts, science, social studies) and strategies (collaborative learning, inquiry based learning) we are developing a generation of children who are not taught the value of creativity, innovation, and problem solving.

A standardized test is nothing more than a snapshot in time of what a child might or might not know.  My issue is not with testing per se, it is with all of the ancillary issues that come with the testing.  We talk at length about the value of time in schools.  Instructional time, the length of the school day and school year, time lost due to distractions, etc.,  but we never talk about lost instructional time due to test prep!  In some instances we are losing as much as a month in preparation for testing.  We place entirely too much time and emphasis on testing.

To make matters worse we have elected (and appointed) officials calling for higher stakes testing.  Senator Lieberman wants to tie federal dollars to teacher evaluation that is based predominantly on student test scores (http://www.ctmirror.org/story/11847/liebermanteacherevalutions) and both Secretary Duncan and President Obama calling for a greater emphasis on "teacher effectiveness" as measured by student test score gains (I wonder if President Obama completed a multiple choice quiz before deciding to commit the US military to Libya or if a multiple choice test he took in school helped him arrive at his decision).


As far as I can tell we are the only nation who is this test obsessed (with the highest achieving nations following a very different model, Finland, Singapore).  The highest achieving nations respect their teachers as professionals and pay them accordingly.  This respect for professionalism includes additional planning and collaboration time.  Time which can be used to develop authentic assessments, which more accurately portray what a students know and can do. 


Until we decide to elevate the status of the profession in a similar fashion we are likely to remain on the same track...I just hope there's a light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train coming the other way.

It's little wonder that the average teacher leaves the profession after just 3 short years...would you stay?

First Day of the New Blog

A New Day

So, I've decided that it is time for me to "go all in".  I have either taught public school or been involved in the preparation of public school teachers for 15 years now and think the time has come for me to dedicate some time and energy to voicing my opinions to those outside of my family.

On Friday, I participated in a local newspaper interview with a faculty member in my college about the links between poverty and education.  Overall, we both felt really good about the outcome (but we'll have to wait until the article appears before making a final decision).  How fitting then to log into my Twitter account and see this quote by Joel Klein (Former NYC Schools Chancellor)  " They have it backwards.  We're never going to fix poverty until we fix education".  

My first thought was exactly....then I realized my mistake...

This is not and if-then equation!!!  These issues are related, but "fixing" education will not fix poverty,  poverty is much too complex an issue, there are both systemic and systematic factors that contribute to poverty.  The United States has the highest rates for childhood poverty in the industrialized world (23% of children in 2007).  It is a question of basic needs, if you live in poverty and can not have your basic needs met (food, shelter, safety) it is terribly difficult to learn.

I'm sure it's much easier to to be glib about the relationship between poverty and education when you leave a position that pays $250,000 (http://nymag.com/guides/salary/14497/index5.html) for one that pays $2 million (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-04/news-corp-s-klein-gets-2-million-a-year-salary-1-million-signing-bonus.html).