Test-Based Goals: Mission Accomplished?

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Victoria M. Young

What do we want? Don’t you generally hear ordinary citizens say, “I want my children to get a good education”? How many of we garden variety citizens say, “I want my kids to graduate from high school ready to score higher on standardized tests”?

If people don’t understand the proper uses of testing and can’t recognize the misuses of standardized achievement tests, then they can’t possibly know that the country has the wrong goal for public education — set in law and in the minds of Americans.

The “achievement gap” is defined by standardized achievement tests. It can serve as one monitor of equal opportunity. It should not be THE goal of the public education system — but IT IS!

“To close the achievement gap” is a test-based goal set by No Child Left Behind. In Idaho, our state school officer, Mr. Luna, points out that “…results not only show a majority of Idaho schools are high-performing, but also that a vast majority of students are performing at or above grade level in reading and mathematics…While I praise these results, I also know the reality behind this data: Though students are performing better than ever in K-12, they continue to struggle after high school.”

Source: Associated Press

His conclusion is that the standards must be higher and the tests better but that is because he fails to see, or won’t admit, the flaw in the outcome-based (test-based) theory — it narrowed curriculum to what was tested and that isn’t good enough. It isn’t good education; it did meet the test-based goals.

Mission accomplished? – test scores up / students unprepared for life because of a narrowed, test-based curriculum!

UPDATE 5/4/15: The marketing of No Child Left Behind deliberately targeted the largest group we have failed to educate well – black Americans. Why would we continue with this failed outcome-based theory of reform? Because we have been told?

Reflections: Finish the Fight

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Victoria M. Young

“… for far, far too long we have closed the doors of our classrooms so as not to see the inequalities occurring within them. We closed the doors behind us as we met in our committees to argue the wording of our new plans. And our representatives closed the doors to the People and ignored the daily struggles of parents just wanting a fair shot at what they believe is best for their children, a quality education. The children are seated, today. That is the ‘fierce urgency of now.’

What makes us think it is alright to cram students into over-crowded classrooms where maintaining discipline may end up being nothing more than making them sit like a dog? What makes us think that it is acceptable to offer some students activities that stimulate the love of learning and not offer similar opportunities to all? What makes us think that inequality in opportunity is acceptable for America’s children? It isn’t. Voices have risen and been ignored. It is time to stop accepting the unacceptable!”

These were my own words and today, I reflect.

I hope you will also; The March Begins…

A Reflective Lincoln

In a Word – Expectations

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Victoria M. Young

Standards are “things” we decide and use in comparative evaluations. Having expectations is not the same as setting standards.

And to make the right decisions about education reform, we must consider the words of reform for the wizards of the written word would have the public once again believing their propaganda. To be clear, it is standards-based education reforms that we have been witness to and victims of for the last two decades.

The use of the word “standards” is being periodically replaced in documents and in talking points by the word “expectations.”

An expectation is a belief that something will happen. It is not a thing. It is a human emotion, an idea with the potential to convey confidence in another person’s ability to succeed.

“High expectations” cannot simply be set down on paper for others to read and follow; they need to be felt. When students feel someone believes in their abilities and capacity to learn, they grow and “reach higher.” High expectations “work” because the student feels supported in their efforts.

Reaching for goals, together.

So as the last two decades of “reform” of public schools has dragged on, little real change has been accomplished compared to the 70’s and 80’s — gaps in learning persist and schools in many areas have re-segregated themselves to the point where we must revisit the issue of separate but unequal.

And as we do, we should take more than a little time to consider the ideas of Rhona S. Weinstein in Reaching Higher: The Power of Expectations in Schooling. As she explains,

“Change has not been dramatic because we have yet to address the deeply institutionalized roots of expectancy processes in schooling and we have failed to equip teachers and principals with the knowledge, resources, and support to teach all children in ways that help them reach their full potentials.…Suffice it to say that until unbiased instruction is provided to children — resulting in equal exposure to challenging material, equal opportunity to respond and demonstrate knowledge, equally nurturing relationships, and the absence of discriminatory labels and barriers to accomplishment —one cannot fully rule out environmental explanations for the achievement gaps that are documented.”

We should use the power of expectations in our classrooms and communities.

This isn’t saying that all children need a set curriculum for…

“…the danger of a common curriculum and common method is that the individual differences of children (in learning style, pace of learning, and interests) are likely disregarded, ultimately leading to greater rates of school failure.”

This is about developing a school culture — an atmosphere —where the principal, counselors, and teachers have a deep-seated belief that every student is capable of being educated to the limits of his or her talents. And that belief is expressed through words and actions that set the expectations for the student. If they feel they can, they can.

Reason for Hope

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Victoria M. Young

Leaders — NOT the ones you see and hear about in the news but the kind that I saw in action last week at a local high school. There are men and women in the trenches of real school reform that should give us all reason for hope. These are leaders that embrace solutions.

First step – open your arms wide. Take in the community. Connect.

School principals have a responsibility to “work with the teachers … and serve our kids and their families” (to quote another common person). These are the people that make real reform happen. They have the responsibility to improve education for every student but they don’t always have the power, control, and freedom to do it. This is why “we” need to better define the governing roles in our education system.

The principal IS the most important person in the hierarchy of school administration – in my opinion. And in too many cases that I have witnessed, they aren’t being treated as such or allowed the time to do their jobs effectively.

So last week having witnessed a principal working to develop community partnerships by first stressing that the focus is the students was uplifting. And watching him acknowledge through actions and words that it will take teachers, counselors, other staff, and the community to create opportunities for students should serve as a reminder that it is this philosophy of practice that policy and funding should support.

I hope readers out there won’t be fooled again by the language (messaging) associated with the re-writing of No Child Left Behind (called ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act). When you hear the words “restore local control,” ask; “how exactly?”

When principals embrace positive change and have education laws supporting them, great things will happen!

How Our Great Education Institution Was Created

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Victoria M. Young

How do we rebuild what has been so badly damaged?

Start with Public Understanding & Presidential Leadership

“Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” George Washington, Farewell Address

And Abraham Lincoln demonstrated presidential leadership in signing the Morrill Act. It promoted “the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in several pursuits and professions of life.” This set the foundation for the land-grant college system, our agricultural experiment stations, and extension (diffusion) of practical research-based information.

How do we grow a nation?

Lincoln’s belief: “The legitimate object of government is ‘to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves’.”

Look Closely at the History of American Education as the Country Moved Forward

A hundred years later, lawmakers recognized the need to maintain the integrity of educational research by using public institutions of higher learning. The educational visionaries of the time wrote the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. And John F. Kennedy clearly expressed the role of the federal government.

“A century of experience with land-grant colleges has demonstrated that Federal financial participation can assist educational progress and growth without Federal control.”

Regional educational laboratories were developed for the basic research and development of practical solutions to the issues facing schools. They would serve as a the bedrock of excellence promoting use of best practices ( Theory of Action). The information provided was then to be disseminated (diffused) to the schools. But a network to freely disseminate information and assist in training at the local level was never fully realized.

Despite Setbacks Excellent Ideas Were Repeatedly Recognized

And time marched on. The Reagan administration pointed to the Cooperative Extension System as an example of America’s can do spirit. Ronald Reagan recognized that…

“Despite the obstacles and difficulties that inhibit the pursuit of superior educational attainment, we are confident, with history as our guide, that we can meet our goal. The American educational system has responded to previous challenges with remarkable success. In the 19th century our land-grant colleges and universities provided the research and training that developed our Nation’s natural resources and the rich agricultural bounty of the American farm.”

How we make progress is up to us.

Using the right foundational building blocks, an institution for the diffusion of knowledge can be built to last.

(This is the last of a ten blog series on The Road to Educational Quality and Equality that began with The March Begins.)

The Crossroads of Opportunity

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Victoria M. Young

The modern-day march towards equality has always been — at least partially — about public education.

When educational inequality was studied by James S. Coleman, they used tools —surveys and tests— to determine outcomes. And those that saw equal educational opportunity being established in high-minority and high-poverty schools looked further into the means by which educational quality was being improved.

Since researcher Ronald Edmonds and others made their observations known, no one has been able to definitively dispute them. The correlates for effective schools have been expanded; they have been rewritten and renamed; they have been reorganized and re-researched — and they stand as guiding principles.

Edmonds had followed in the footsteps of the leaders of the community school movement. Father of the concept, Frank Manley, drove the idea as far as he could and handed it over to Frank (Francis) Keppel who wrote the essence of it into law as best he could.

Jefferson’s express of the need to educate the common people.

Now, we stand at a crossroads in education law. What principle will we stand upon in order to do right by the children of this country? Will we side with what has proven itself effective, or go with what so many desperately want to make “work”? Will we repeat mistakes of the past only to discover it leaves children behind? Or will we travel the hard but proven path of equal opportunity?

Does a rising tide lift all boats?

It is only when you stand on the shoulders of giants that you can see what they saw. Understanding the concepts of standards, testing, community education, and the personal and shared responsibility of educating a nation of children is the ladder that can take us high enough to see the best way.

The opportunity we have now is to use the law —the reauthorization of ESEA currently called No Child Left Behind— to put in place the foundational principles of equal educational opportunity, the principles of effective schools.

Part 9 of ten blogs on The Road to Educational Quality and Equality that started with The March Begins.

The Crucial Voice of the People

Shining Light on the Truth

Monthly Archives: August 2013