This is a speech I hope Arne Duncan will give one day. I don't necessarily expect you to write a FULL SPEECH back in the comments, but I'd love to know the issues you hope the Secretary will touch on in major future addresses.
The Speech:
With my basketball playing limited recently because of my schedule and a nagging injury, I have been thinking about the sport and its similarities to education. That's what I want to talk about today.
Some of you may know that I am comfortable on the court. I played a lot as a kid, was team co-captain at Harvard and then competed in an Australian pro league. I still play regularly and have been on the team that has won three national Three on Three titles in the past few years.
I know something about education too -- maybe even more than my critics would have you believe. I grew up in my mom's early childhood program, and I was CEO of CPS (Chicago Public Schools) for seven years.
What I have come to realize is that we are focusing too much on test scores -- to the detriment of real learning. That's like a basketball coach paying attention only to wins and losses while neglecting the fundamentals of the game.
Here's what I mean. In basketball you compete to win, of course, but you play and practice a heck of a lot more than you actually compete in games against other teams. And that's what should happen in school, if you think of big high-stakes tests as those competitive games.
In both, of course the scores matter, because winning is better than losing, but think about how you get those good scores in basketball. It's not by practicing 'winning.' No, it's by working on the elements that make up the game: passing, foul shots, jump shots, rebounding, diving for loose balls, defending, and so on.
When teachers devote a lot of time to practicing test-taking, they are going down the wrong path. That's like trying to practice "winning" when they should be working on the essentials of the subject, the elements of "victory". Teachers should be helping with the academic equivalent of rebounding, passing, defending and so on. If you're an English teacher, your students should be reading, writing, rewriting and arguing their points, and so on. As E. D. Hirsch, Jr. has noted, "If we want our children to do well on reading tests, they should be reading -- not practicing taking reading tests."
Friends who have been around Washington longer than I point out that, ever since No Child Left Behind, we have gotten away from the essentials of learning and focused instead on high stakes tests. We used to give high stakes tests just three times -- in fourth, eighth and 12th grades -- but now, because of NCLB, schools are required give them every year. In my basketball analogy, that's like sending teams out to play in tournaments all the time, without giving them time to get game-ready.
Want an example? Take Connecticut, which had invested a fair amount of money to develop some pretty good (largely non-bubble) tests that were going to be given every other year, until the previous administration made it stop, effectively saying, "Test every year or lose your federal dollars." Connecticut fought back but lost the battle. Washington forced it to throw out its much better tests and replace them with cheap, off-the-shelf bubble tests.
And so, from now on, our policy will be to encourage more of the basketball equivalent of practicing the elements of excellence. I urge teachers to translate 'rebounding, passing, defending, foul shots, three pointers, et cetera' into their academic counterparts in their particular subjects, and concentrate their efforts there. When a coach does that, winning takes care of itself. If we do that in our classrooms, winning -- doing well on accepted measures -- will also take care of itself.
The Department will do its part by granting waivers from some of No Child Left Behind's rules, to states that apply and qualify. But it's up to ordinary Americans to get involved, to help figure out what we want for our children.
Thank you.
Now -- what do you want to hear from Arne Duncan? Seriously!
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John Merrow: Who Is America's Most Influential Educator?
John Thompson: Helping John Merrow Draft Arne Duncan's Big Speech
post by Professor Mark Naison. Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program
http://coopcatalyst.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/why-president-obama-must-remove-arne-duncan-as-secretary-of-education-if-he-hopes-to-win-re-election-2/
It might as well be ... "I know something about being a pilot too - maybe even more than my critics would have you believe. I grew up at my Dad's business at the airport, and was CEO of an airplane manufacturer for 7 years." That hardly makes one truly understand what it is to be a pilot ... to think like a pilot, to understand what pilots and airports really do, to understand the workings of the entire airport and all that goes into successfully flying an airplane or jet, or what should be done to really help pilots and airports do their best work. Especially when your mentors are business people with experience in other fields, pretty much none in airports or being pilots.
I believe the best person for this job is either Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond or Diane Ravitch. Either of those two individuals are highly qualified to make informed decisions about public education in America.
Here's what I'd like him to say.
It is with deepest regret that I tender my resignation as Secretary of Education of the United States. I realize that the job was overwhelming and beyond my capabilities and expertise. I allowed my ambition to blind me and in doing so have done a disservice to public education and the teachers that are dedicated to the service of our students. I trust my replacement will be chosen wisely for their expertise, knowledge and experience in the education field. I trust the damage I have done through implementation of Race to the Top will be reversed with the dissolution of that program. I urge the next Secretary of Education to work diligently to dissolve or fundamentally revise No Child Left Behind. I urge the nation to put their trust, once more, into the hands of the education professionals who have the best interests in the future of our children at heart; our teachers.
Yeah, he's unlikely to give that speech either.
Geitner
Salazar
Vilsack