A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times printed an adulatory interview of Sir Michael Barber about what needs to happen in American education. Mr. Barber was at one time a close educational advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair. As best I can make out, he advised him to do more testing at every grade.
Recently Mr. Barber (sorry, but being an American, I can't bring myself to call him Sir Michael) has been working for the McKinsey consulting firm and advising American educators, most notably Chancellor Joel Klein of the New York City Department of Education. His advice, it appears, is to decentralize authority to each school and hold principals and teachers accountable for test scores. Maybe his advice is more nuanced than that, but that is the main point that has come through the public media. In what was said in the papers to be a response to Mr. Barber's advice, Chancellor Klein wiped out the regional structure of the school system and essentially set 1500 schools afloat as little islands on their own, with only minimal supervision. At the end of each year, test scores will determine which students get promoted and which get flunked, which adults get a bonus and which get fired.
But is Mr. Barber's theory right? A British education official, Richard Pring, who is now responsible for reviewing the education of students from 14-19 in England and Wales, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times that was never printed. The Pring letter was circulated on the Internet, and I sought and obtained Mr. Pring's permission to reprint it here in the Huffington Post. It ought to cause school officials in the U.S. to slow down and think twice before buying the line that Mr. Barber is selling. It may be time to reflect on the possibility that a nation of good test-takers is not necessarily a well-educated nation.
Herewith the letter from Richard Pring that the Times did not print:
Editor
New York TimesDear Editor,
I have read with interest the report of Sir Michael Barber's address to New York Principals on the lessons to be learnt from Britain on how to improve schools. (NYT 15 Aug. 07) However, may I along with so many in England who have seen the consequences of the innovations led by Sir Michael, urge caution. Not everyone agrees with his analysis, and indeed the £1 million Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training in for England and Wales, which I lead, is not, in the light of evidence, presenting such a rosy picture.
It is not surprising that Sir Michael, having been Director of Standards and Effectiveness at the Department of Education and Skills and then head of delivery in the Prime Minister's Office at No. 10, should have finally moved to McKinsey's, which believes that what is real can be measured and what can be measured can be controlled. In the last few years, England has created the most tested school population in the world from age 5 to age 18. School improvement lies in scoring even higher in the national tests, irrespective of whether these tests bear any relation to the quality of learning, and schools which see the poverty of the testing regime suffer the penalty of going down the very public league tables.
The results of the 'high stakes testing' are that teachers increasingly teach to the test, young people are disillusioned and disengaged, higher education complains that those matriculating (despite higher scores) are ill prepared for university studies, and intelligent and creative teachers incleasingly feel dissatisfied with their professional work. I believe it is no coincidence that, according to the recent UNICEF Report, children in England are at the bottom of the league of rich countries in terms of happiness and feelings of well-being, or that England now criminalises 230,000 children between 11 and 17 each year (the highest in absolute and relative terms in the whole of Europe), or that nearly 10% of 16-18 year olds belong to the Not in Education, Training and Employment group, despite the massive investment in that group over the last ten years. And why should one expect anything else as most of their day light hours consists of preparing for tests, totally disconnected from their interests and concerns, present or future?
The Nuffield Review is starting from the basic question, never asked by Government during Sir Michael's turn in high office, namely, 'What counts as an educated 19 year old in this day and age?'. The answers which we are receiving from teachers, universities, employers and the community would point to a system very different from the one which Sir Michael nurtured and is now selling to the United States.
Yours sincerely Professor Richard Pring Lead Director, Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training for England and Wales Former Director: Oxford University Department of Education Studies
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1. Establish a national test to measure student progress more accurately;
2. Raise compensation levels for high-quality teachers, especially in the areas of science, math and Special Education;
3. Provide better information on school performance to parents;
4. Eliminate district boundaries between schools allowing parents to choose the right school for their children, regardless of where they live;
5. Allow greater flexibility for schools to hire and fire teachers;
6. Make school funding more transparent by attaching education dollars to the student instead of the school district. For more information, visit www.paths2choice.com.
Standards and standardized testing was never an issue before educational policy and practice turned away from skills teaching and toward feel good, furry, fuzzy, and if you misbehave or are a slow reader, you will be labeled "disabled" and then no standard or achievement criteria will ever touch you. Who are we kidding here? Educating kids isn't about taking a test to see if your school will make "annual reasonable/expected progress." It's about teaching each kid skills that will allow them to succeed in life -- a process managed by very skilled, educated, dedicated teachers who do what they do because they love kids, not because of some silly federal mandate.
Similar for the current fascination with frequent testing.
At some point the frequency of testing tells more about the standard deviation of the test than about improved knowledge content -- let alone love of and thirst for future knowledge -- in the testee.
If a kid takes a test in the morning, and the same test in the afternoon, NYC's Chancellor Klein will be left to wonder how the kid went dumb over lunch.
Kids are not assembly-line widgets in need of more six-sigma QA; they are developing people in need of TLC, with developing minds in need of inspirational teachers.
Please take the following test to prove you read the previous portion of this comment:
1. What is the eighth word of the first sentence?
2.What is the tenth word of the last sentence?
3. What is the last word of the sentence that discusses the leader of the most powerfully armed country in the world?
4. Who is responsible for the education of a population which is unconcerned with havng a nuanced understanding of the complex conditions upon which the fate of mankind depends?
Please hand in your papers when you are done, and collect your degree.
Worth repeating. Do I pass?
"The Nuffield Review is starting from the basic question, never asked by Government during Sir Michael's turn in high office, namely, 'What counts as an educated 19 year old in this day and age?'. The answers which we are receiving from teachers, universities, employers and the community would point to a system very different from the one which Sir Michael nurtured and is now selling to the United States."
Kentucky asked that question 20 years ago and then based a K-12 curriculum and assessment system based on the answers. Kentucky defined what students should know and be able to do by the end of the 4th, 8th and 12th grades. Even then employers were saying that critical thinking and writing were key skills across a wide spectrum of jobs, so the tests consisted primarily of open-ended questions requiring written answers, n0t the multiple-guess bubba-sheet sort. Standards were set high because that's what employers, educators and parents wanted.
Because the test was based on a broad community definition of what students need to know and be able to do, teachers were encouraged to "teach to the test." (When I hear that testing causes teachers to "teach to the test," I wonder if these critics are suggesting that students be tested for skills and content that haven't been taught to them. Is education a trick adults play on kids?)
While goals for student learning and school performance in Kentucky are set at the state level, schools (through their elected school councils) and individual teachers are given wide latitude in determining how to meet the goals.
This system has resulted in significant and widely acknowledged improvements in student performance, with the most dramatic gains coming in rural elementary and middle schools.
Kentucky's system has not produced perfection, but it is based on the reality that both teaching and learning and the management of educati0n are complex and that simplistic, nostalgic, romantic fixes won't help very much.
Some go beyond the classroom to bring disgrace to other areas of occupation. I actually had to send a Special Agent of a federal criminal investigative agency to a remedial English composition course. The reason was that he could not prepare a coherent investigative report for submission to a US Attorney without having it completely rewritten by a supervisor. The kicker here is the man had a masters degree in English. You can't make up things like this. It was not uncommon...but an English major? I swear to God it's true.
On the plus side the guy was a hell of a good undercover man. After I retired he became a supervisor in New York. Don't ask.
Of course, for the social dominants that want to rule (find out more about the social dominants at this website:http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ You can download the PDF, it's worth the read.), the latter are much more easily manipulated. THAT is their goal, obviously.
I agree that tests are a lousy way to measure learning. However, I'd rather see kids who can't/won't think at least be able to do basic math and problem-solving, and have some reading comprehension skills, than see kids who can't/won't think be able to graduate without even those most basic necessities.
If kids can pass grade-equivalent tests similar to the GED, then I can rest assured that they can probably understand some written material and can deal with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and beginning problem-solving. That certainly does not mean that they're educated, but they will have the most basic skills available to them for later use.
Who to blame? Well... as an example... I lasted 2 months as a 6th grade math/science teacher in a very small school system. The mother of one of my 6th grade students loved to tell me how horrible a teacher I was. When I gave my class a multiplication quiz, I discovered that her 6th grade daughter couldn't do simple multiplication (quiz grade 5/20 on problems like 3 x 4 = ?; most of the class got above 90%). What did she do for a living? She was the system's 4th grade teacher. You tell ME where the problem lies.
Of course, if we test too much, more kids will drop out - and we'll eventually have even fuller adult education / GED classes. It will fall on us to teach thinking to adults who are already "set in their ways." *That* should be fun.
There 'correlation' between grades and "intelligence" is even lower & very often those with higher grades are much less creative. School is a game. Learn how to play it & most anyone can get decent grades in most subjects given sufficient effort.
Standardized tests don't measure anything except how good one is at test-taking (& perhaps rapidly tests are finished). Beyond that they measure how well one has memorized the material that is to be on the test, Not how well one Understands & is able to apply the concepts being addressed, much less one's creativity.
Our public K-12 school system is based on a model over 150 yr old designed to produce large numbers of 'cookie-cutter' good-citizens for factories & farms work & who'll conform & obey boss-man's rules. It assumes very few are capable of, or are needed to, attend college.
Thus the Majority of high school graduates 'can't' begin to comprehend the simple principles on of the theory of evolution & believe science is a matter of elietist opinion? It's no wonder the media aim for the LCD. The government benefits from an unquestioning, uncaring population.
The best predictors of a child's school success are: 1) how often parents speak & their vocabularies; 2) how many books the Home has & how often parents read; &, 3) how much parental oversight (not help w/homework--simply guidance & stressing education's values) children recieve. Thus, those who do best in school & afterward are generally those whose parents were well-educated & continued learning in every aspect of their remaining lives.
The only truly good high schools in this country are based on the old European model as exemplified by private schools like Choate Rosemary. There all focus of education is on communicating what Has been learned through writing, oral presentation & discussion. Memorization & retention of information is assummed, not taught or tested.
Instead of trying to decide which Procrustean Bed we shall all agree to misfit all students into...
...why not try what Milton Friedman, a real conservative, suggested back in the 1970s? Allow families to choose the school for their students, and if the government wants to pick up the bill for that, fine. Schools and families should be allowed to choose each other. School administrators, principals, teachers will go to the school formats they can stomach, parents will send students where they seem to do best, and the schooling profession/industry can finally get some sense of what really works... because what works will be the schools that still have students.
There is a very good chance you're right on target, and the "old European model" is what we'll all end up with in the end. My personal thought on all the government subsidized human service industries is simple: first, show me what the rich want for their own families. There's probably a good reason to demand the same type of service, even if performed on cheaper real estate.
"There all focus of education is on communicating what Has been learned through writing, oral presentation & discussion. Memorization & retention of information is assummed, not taught or tested." -- Really! Such a simple point, yet its at the heart of understanding all pedagogy.