Tag Archives: congress

What Is the Diagnosis?

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As a veterinarian, when presented with a sick animal, the first step in problem solving is a good history. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. For example, in a crisis, you skip the history taking and go directly to doing what’s necessary to save a life.

The objective of a good history is to gain clarity as to what happened that may have contributed to or created the problem. A good history guides us in deciding the proper tests to run — always with the goal of making the correct diagnosis.

In education reform, we have been “reforming” at a steady clip for over 30 years. The patient —the public education system—is not cured after being given prescription after prescription resulting in little to no lasting improvement. The main diagnosis? The standards aren’t “high” enough and the tests aren’t good enough.

Let’s look back.

Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education reported that we were “A Nation at Risk” and since then the general public has believed that standards were both the problem and the solution. So we set our course for reforms based on standards and testing.

Leaders declared a crisis in education. But In making a diagnosis at that time, findings from the early 1900’s and mid 1930’s about standardization of instruction were ignored. Let’s pick up where we left off.

We misdiagnosed both the problem and what that famous report said.

It is important that we know this because when we look at the patient today, the initial problems still exist but our misdiagnosis and the wrong cocktail of prescriptions have made the patient in some ways worse.

Because the country is addicted to the treatment —dependent on tests to tell us how the patient is doing — we are monitoring our system to the brink of death. Therefore, it’s time to thoroughly re-evaluate the patient.

A wise old vet school professor once advised,

“if you see a patient back three times for the same thing, you need to get a new set of eyes on the problem. You’re missing something.”

The history? Another set of eyes looked at the problem and their diagnosis was quite different. The Sandia National Laboratories gave good explanations concerning both the interpretation of test scores and the proposed (now in action) “reforms.”

Censorship is as detrimental as a lie.

Censorship is as detrimental as a lie.

Some powerful people silenced the report.

#TruthBeTold ? We’ll only hear the truth when we demand it.

My prescription to revive the dying patient is this:

  • Demand Congress remove the federal mandate for yearly standardized testing  under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) /(ESSA) Every Student Succeeds Act and replace it with grade-span checks on the system at 4th,8th, and 12th grades only in addition to the random use of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
  • Reopen the conversation about national standards. Is it what we want or do we want national guidelines (benchmarks) around which we tailor standards to fit our local needs? That discussion needs to happen in the open.
  • Let’s get new eyes on this issue and start with a full and truthful history. Dig up the Sandia findings.

Let’s clearly hear the truth.

A Common Enemy of Public Schools

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Common Core, and its foreign and domestic associates, has become the common enemy of American public schools.

This is not a conspiracy theory; this is our reality.

There is nothing right about our public school children’s education standards being set and controlled by a private, non-profit organization that holds the copyright. “Associations” are not public institutions.

There is nothing right about a foreign entity like Pearson Education Corporation (with all its many “divisions” and names) lobbying Congress for passage of laws that benefit them — it shouldn’t matter if they do have their own 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax-exempt Pearson Foundation to dole out trinkets as part of their public relations campaign.

Check out the chart on the Center for Responsive Politics site and think back to the major education laws passed. The pattern indicates that the heavy lobbying occurs just before and even harder after the major laws “make it.” Think it might get harder once more people actually get a chance to read the laws Congress passes?

The year 2009 is of particular interest; it is the claimed birth date of Common Core. Out of the ashes of financial ruin — the seed money for Common Core testing was ours. H.R. 1 Act is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

This is the education-industrial complex at work on the federal level. The states are targeted also.

It has become a dirty business but worth doing.

The testing addiction is killing education. FORCED to pick our poison?

The testing addiction is killing education. FORCED to pick our poison?

I found this comment from Joanne:

“Scripture states that ‘The LOVE of money is the root of ALL evil.’ 1 Tim. 6:10 (Caps mine for emphasis.) And so it is and easily seen in our education system, that same system being used to brain wash America’s children en mass.

I’m amazed and disheartened by parents who choose to remain uninformed concerning these issues, who are so busy being entertained by electronics & social media to watching television nearly non-stop or perhaps extremely involved in their kids extra-curricular activities to the point of being UNINTERESTED or uninvolved with the very heart of the system forming their children’s impressionable minds. Our children are the FUTURE. If the direction in which our nation is being taken isn’t halted and REVERSED soon I’m concerned that America’s future will be very bleak indeed.

America…. what has HAPPENED to you?” (Thanks for asking Joanne)

When people know about what is happening, how can they not get it? I think they will…share what you learn with those that may not know what you know.

Answer for yourselves, is Common Core a Tool or Weapon?

History Repeats

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Some have marched across this bridge before.

Many crossed this bridge before.

Standards-based education reform of public schools has been tried before.

Around 1913, the industrial “efficiency movement” focused public attention on outcomes but when educators attempted to “routinize teaching,” or standardize it, it didn’t work according to Robert J. Marzano and Jon S. Kendall in “The Fall and Rise of Standards-Based Education.”

And by the late 1930’s research completed by the Cooperative Study of Secondary Schools Standards concluded, among other things, that standardized test scores as the sole means of evaluating schools tended to make “instruction point definitely to success in examinations,” cultivated “a uniformity that was deadening to instruction,” “thwarted the initiative of instructors,” and can “destroy the flexibility and individuality of an institution.” In addition to bringing about a rigid curriculum, the study concluded, this type of testing had little validity for identifying superior and inferior schools and a better method was available. In 1939!

But the plans were set aside while the country addressed the needs of World War II. We moved on, it would seem, unaware of what had come before. And in the process, we changed from looking to improve education by providing the necessary “inputs” to a heavier focus on “outputs.” (Recall the Coleman Report) So that is how we ended up repeating our standards experiment with an even greater emphasis on test scores.

By 2001, the country had become convinced that we needed a federal accountability system and the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) Act was it! The law focused all of our attention (and dollars) on accountability for all schools totally based on student outcomes as judged by standardized test scores.

We replaced individual “performance” standards with state “curriculum” standards. Now we risk setting national curriculum standards instead of recognizing that children need us to identify their individual strengths and weaknesses and work with them to attain a level of mastery of the classroom curriculum. This isn’t a proposal that gets away from being held accountable to a standard; it’s one that is responsible for meeting the needs of the individual student along with educational standards. This is a philosophy that can take us from a classroom culture of test preparation to a culture of educating each child to the fullest extent of his or her talents — meeting the standards for American excellence and equality.

We made tremendous progress in the sixties and seventies because we followed an educational philosophy focused on providing the necessary “inputs” to the hardest to teach students. Desegregation of schools peaked in the 1980’s and a narrowing of the achievement gap occurred during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Now, the focus is the gap, is the test, is the score, and, the gap persists.

In the march towards equal opportunity in education, we got stuck in the ditch of standardization of children because we set test scores as our goal — in law and in the minds of Americans. The Modern Standards Movement politically overpowered, but did not destroy, the Modern Community Education Movement.

If we can only come to understand standards and their proper use, we have a shot at getting it right— in the minds of Americans and in law.

The big question is; does Congress know enough to get it right this time?

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The March Begins. was the first in this series On The Road to Educational Quality and Equality. Next Up: What Do YOU Mean “Standards”?

There is No Controversy?

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Told by spokespeople for our representatives, reporters in Idaho are repeating the “fact” that the portion of the immigration bill giving citizenship to highly skilled immigrants in order to fill jobs Americans can’t (?) do is not controversial. I repeat (as they have multiple times in print and on air), there is no controversy. Really? There should be!

At Our Own Risk

At Our Own Risk!

The following was originally published in Idaho as a letter to the editor in 2011:

Easing visa restrictions for high-skill immigrants is necessary according to Representative Labrador [ ID] and his American Innovation and Education Act. The problem he targets is “to help people who have offers of employment but face a [immigration] processing backlog…” He claims it will help domestic students. Those closely associated with efforts to improve our STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education in this country have heard similar verbiage for over a decade.

Congress won’t address problems they created through No Child Left Behind so we need to import talent that we failed to cultivate in our own country. They see a “brain drain”; I think it’s more of a loyalty drain.

This country messed up a perfectly good public education system and took down three generations of students in the process. We feel no obligation to make things right?

It’s not hard to see “How Online Learning Companies Bought America’s Schools” (Lee Fang). What’s harder to see is how we the people allowed Congress to sell us all down the river. We had better open our eyes to the slippery slope of importing high-skilled talent because we have overlooked our own American potential. Is this how we make America strong as a nation?

Beware: Education and Immigration

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Will we see “unintended consequences” of “immigration reform” play out in the “education reform” arena?

Things happen for a reason. Sometimes seemingly unrelated things happen.

Once in awhile, you need to put two and two together, and, if you see red flags flying, ask questions especially if bipartisanship on the part of Congress is in the equation.

In the aftermath of 9/11, restrictions on foreign worker visas for temporary (lower-paid) science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-related (STEM) jobs had some large corporations seeing the need to help improve U.S. public education in order to help fill their needs. As part of a grant sponsored by a corporation, I was invited to be part of a team from my district attending a Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) Institute. It was one of the best learning experiences of my life – very hands-on – so much fun!

So, a decade or so later, I’m riding the Metro in D.C. and strike up a conversation with three young women, engineering interns from Puerto Rico. They all had attended what they described as their top-notch engineering university for their bachelor’s degrees and they talked freely about the costs there versus here. I was thinking it was about a tenth of what it costs our U.S. students.

And then there is the election of Idaho U.S. house representative, Raul Labrador – the winner in my district, twice now. He introduced The American Innovation and Education Act. It is immigration “reform” allowing citizenship to those STEM master’s and doctoral graduates who have a job offer here in the U.S.- to keep their talent here. They say it will be to fill jobs that can’t be filled by Americans. Really? Or is it just one more way to hire for lower wages since these foreign students paid less for their undergraduate work? They can probably afford to take jobs for less pay.

Beware these words:

“Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.” President Obama

The first part of the sentence is true to the principle upon which this country was founded, welcoming immigration. The second part??? I don’t know; they are two different things in my mind. Is this picking winners and losers?

Are these students the more privileged of other countries and already have a head start – in the competition with our own students? Will there then be any reason to genuinely help the public education system, as I believe LASER was trying to? Eyes and ears should be on this one as it passes through Congress.

Reform: Do Not Pass Go

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Missing something? Then, do not pass go. Instead, step back. Do an assessment of the state of education —a local, state, or nation level assessment.

Now ask yourself; to realistically evaluate and set the direction of reform, why are we looking to and at the same people with the same mindset that created the status quo? How will they create change? Will it be real education reform if it is based on the same principles that led to the same policy types and practices that have failed to show real and lasting progress on the “education reform” front?

It is insane to keep repeating the same mistakes. But it is part of our reality; face it. And face the fact that we must change the nation’s guiding principles of reform.

In Idaho, voters rejected education “reform” laws that lawmakers put in place…. But we sent the same lawmakers back for another round. Face the fact; we need new leaders.

Nationally, we saw congressional obstructionism lead to a downgrade of our national credit rating and overall the nation sent most of those same lawmakers back to face the same issues,… again.

People, there is only one way out — a plan that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Targeted — a SMART plan. And it is essential that it has NOT ONLY the consent of the people, but it MUST BE PUSHED by the people. DO NOT PASS GO; let’s push a plan that measures what matters most to us.

Our participation in governing is the only thing that can stop the insanity.

Get involved. Learn more about reform.