The high-stakes testing mania in general and No Child Left Behind in particular have reduced too much of public education to a system to be games. Some people play the game sincerely and seriously. The teachers and principal in Linda Perlstein's Tested are such players. They have doubts about the value of the state test, but they strive mightily to get their impoverished students over that barrier. After the test is given in late spring, they start acting like real teachers in a real school -- they take the kids to museums and aquariums and to watch the Blue Angels perform. They make art and write poetry. But only in the short time between the state test and the end of the school year.
Some people play it cynically, doing whatever it takes to get children close to the passing score -- the bubble kids -- off the bubble and into the magic kingdom of "proficient." The "sure things" and "hopeless cases" are ignored. Or emphasizing the increasing passing rates on a required test as students enter their senior year, not taking into account the massive dropouts that have occurred along the way. Or establishing "leaver codes" in sufficient number that a school can have over 1000 9th-graders, fewer than 300 12th-graders and zero dropouts.
Some play it as if they have lost all sense of proportion and common sense. The Texas Education Agency refused to grant a waiver from the state test for a young woman hospitalized after a serious automobile accident that killed her brother and left her memory impaired. Her school dispatched an assistant principal to administer the test in the hospital. Fortunately, one of the girl's teachers overheard what was up, got to the hospital first and told her to refuse to take it. In Colorado, a father, a teacher himself, sought to opt his daughter out of the state fifth grade test. Fine, said the superintendent, but she won't be promoted to sixth grade.
In Washington, a willing testee who simply couldn't think of how to respond to a writing prompt was harangued by his teacher, then by his principal and then by his mother. Unable to respond, he was forbidden to attend a post-test party at which pancakes were served and the movie Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events shown. He was told he had ruined everything for everyone else at the school and suspended for a week.
And some play it desperately. On March, 27, 2008, the Houston Chronicle reported that a middle school principal told a group of teachers that he would kill them and kill himself if the school's science scores did not improve. He was not, the teachers said, joking. "You don't know how ruthless I can be," he is alleged to have said. The incident is being investigated as a "terroristic threat."
At this point we should be asking HAVE WE GONE COLLECTIVELY MAD?
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities," said Voltaire. In a world that contains Clear Skies, Clean Waters, Healthy Forests, an Axis of Evil, Iraqi Freedom, Family Values, Patriot Act, and No Child Left Behind, it is a good reminder for our time.
If readers have other examples of absurdities, I would love to hear about them. You can write to the blog or to me directly at gbracey1[at]verizon.net
A good question to always consider: "Who benefits?" In this case, it is the textbook manufacturers, testing companies, and testing experts - many good ole friends of the former governor of Texas!! Surprise, surprise . . . And, of course, those who intend to privatize schools.
This tin foil hatter thinks not.
work with. Most of the kids were on probation for everything from petty crimes to felony. Less than 10%
were at the time attending a regular school. When I visited the "special alternative" school they were attending what I encounter was what I would discribe as "juvenile Hall annex" - a day-care program to
keep them off the street between 8:30am and 3:30pm. Very little attention was given to teaching basic
school curriculum. Of course the assigned "teachers" could not set "rules of conduct within a classroom environment" because the discrict was receiving government funding base on attendance and nothing that will "upset' the student (grown teens at times twice as big as the instructor).
Within the period I was involved with the program (4 years) not less that 3 teens per year died from
drug overdose or car accident when they were intoxicated.
Only two (2) of over 200 kids I knew personally within those 4 years made a success of the program
One became an undertaker assistant and another a California Park Ranger.
"The Crisis in Democracy" paper, written for the Trilateral Commission, 1975, New York University Press Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki.
It outlines how the oligarchy can regain its power. One, is lowering the standards of education, a surfeit of which, they felt, was responsible for the social uprisings of the Sixties; women's rights, civil rights, and the anti-war movement. Soon all we will be required to do is simple addition and subtraction and sign our names with an X.
The second tactic, reign in the Press, which they felt, again, was too free and added to the climate of rebellion by daring to print the truth. Look at the consolidation in all forms of media today and their Corporate Ownership, and they have accomplished that, handily.
Third, the growing wealth and political power of the middle class, especially home ownership, wasTHE real threat, so they put into play several economic programs. These led directly to the subprime meltdown, the negative growth in wages for workers, and the offshoring of our industry, destroying unions and the power of workers. With no job, no home, and no hope, people have no power and don't see the inexorable destruction of our Constitution and way of life.
Which of these is the most crucial? My money is on education, precisely because the founding fathers placed so much value on it as the one thing that would make our country great.
Those people who wear tin foil hats are giving us a bad name.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-298.html
Teacher unions have an interest in seeing incompetent teachers leave the field- they make the rest of us look bad. The only thing teacher unions do is make sure that due process is followed.
In my district, teachers have three years on an "annual contract." That means that for your first three years, the principal can simply not hire you back. No explanation requred. Nothing could be easier than dismissing a teacher during their first three years. After that, the teacher has "tenure," but that only means that there is a process that must be followed to dismiss them. If the teacher is incompetent and the principal follows the procedure, the teacher will be dismissed. The union can't block it. When the teacher is incompetent, the union has no interest in blocking it.
That's the real world. I hope you'll stop repeating this old saw about unions keeping incompetent teachers on the job. In fact, my active involvement in my union has made me a much better teacher and much more well informed citizen. That's what teacher unions REALLY do.
It is a sad state of affairs that the federal government, which arguably has no constitutional right to dictate education policy, can withhold desperately needed funds to schools if they do not comply with an Orwellian education policy that harms children (especially our nation's most vulnerable and impoverished children) and is literally destroying public education while diverting hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to business interests in the name of "failing" public schools.
But it's worse than that. Consider that it was devised by disciples of Grover Norquist, who promised to shrink government to the size where we can "drown it in a bathtub." Their definition of government most definitely includes the public schools. The entire structure of the law is designed so that eventually, a large majority of public schools will be designated as "failing" in order to create a political outcry that eventually enables Norquist and his gang to finally achieve their dream of private school vouchers. The fact that NCLB's draconian sanctions became law without providing schools the resources they need to meet its onerous requirement is further proof that this is part and parcel of a conspiracy to destroy the public sector in education, as well as every other sphere in which it operates.
Of course, long ago.
"Beatings will commence until attitude improves." Thanks, but no thanks.