This diary will discuss the education reform movement in America and mostly rebut the diaries that I have seen lately that need serious clarification and correction.
I am a teacher and will have my Master's in Education in July, so I do know quite a bit about this subject. This diary may take you out of your comfort zone, but it will clean your mind like a dentist cleans your teeth. Trust me, I'm a teacher.
Please recommend this diary- not because what I write is really awesome or whatever, but just because there has been WAY too much misinformation about this issue on this website. And DailyKos is WAY too good for some of the diaries that have been posted about this issue. They've been biased, one-sided, and wrong.
So I've never asked to be recommended, but please do just so it can reach more people. Too many diaries have ended up on the main page which are actually making people dumber. And as a teacher, that really bothers me.
I will basically present myths that I have seen and discuss them from my point of view. Don't ever forget, in your comments and in mine, that the MOST important criteria is what is best for the students. Bar none. Nothing is more important than the students. Repeat after me... nothing is more important than the students.
Here is the Table of Contents:
I. Standardized testing is terrible and it's ruining education.
II. Standardized testing means teachers have to teach to the test.
III. Standardized testing doesn't give a true sense of what the kids know.
IV. Standardized testing compared with merit pay gives the wrong incentives and cheating occurs (see Atlanta).
V. Charter schools are bad because (insert your reason).
VI. Conservatives/Wall Street are taking over the reform movement.
VII. Mr. Coleman, you're wrong because (insert your own personal anecdote about how I'm wrong).
IX. Wrap up.
X. Comments.
I. Standardized testing is terrible and it's ruining education.
I picked this first because it's so important to debunk. Please read this if you want to truly understand what is going on in schools near you.
First, why do we even test at all? Who thought up this dumb idea? We test because we need to know whether and to what extend the students are learning. Can I repeat that? Thank you. We test because we need to know whether and to what extend the students are learning. If we don't test, we are shooting in the dark. We MUST know where the students are at to teach them more and better. If we don't know where the students are at, it is very difficult to teach them more and better.
Imagine your child's school. You go in in November and you ask everyone there, "How are the kids doing?" Imagine if they all said, "You know, they're doing great. We can't prove it, but trust us, they really are coming along very well." That's from the 1970s. We don't do that anymore. We have to know where to help students in the same way scientists want data on how to cure disease, and ignorance is the worst disease. We need data, we want data, we love data.
Here's another amazing fact: the state tests aren't the only place we get the data. We ask teachers. We ask the students. We talk to the parents or guardians. We give them projects and they write papers. They collaborate and work in groups MUCH more than we did as children. The more data, the better. We want data.
State tests are a very important part of teaching because they give us data about students- and it's only one part.
II. But standardized testing means teachers have to teach to the test.
Actually, the highest performing schools in the country don't teach to the test at all, and schools that do 'teach to the test' are being strongly urged to change. How do schools do this? They teach above the test. The best schools know that test worksheets are boring and useless to students, so they don't use them. Instead, they teach the content deeper and more analytically than the test calls for. That way, the school knows for sure the students got it.
Example: If a state test in elementary wants students to multiply 12 * 6, here's what a great school now does. First, the school applies the problem, so the student knows when it's appropriate to multiply. The student can also explain what multiplication does, why we do it, and they can describe why it's different from other math problems, like adding. They see real world examples that tell the students multiplication is very important, and they must know how to do it. She'll know more than one way to get the answer, like adding 12 6s, or adding 6 12s. If a student masters all these things, will she be able to multiply 12 *6? She'll be able to do a lot more than that.
Now, does that sound more rigorous than when you went to school? It is. Did we teach to the test? No, we taught above the test. And we have tests to thank, because we know all these strategies work. How do we know? Data from test scores. We test thousands of students every day and we know what works. Because we test.
III. Standardized testing doesn't give a true sense of what the kids know.
Maybe, but compared to what? If you are like me, you went to school decades ago when we had no idea what the we knew, because we didn't test them in a scientifically meaningful way. Actually, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I live in Texas, and Texas (deep breath) was progressive in this area because it tested before most states had even bothered to think about it. We are low in graduation rates for other, ahem, conservative reasons.
Here's better idea- if the test sucks, and we hate it, could we take a look at these tests and improve them for next year? Could we throw out the easier questions once we know students have mastered it, and give them one harder? If we think a skill is important, and the test doesn't cover it, could we add it to the test? If the test is too much trivia, could we make it more rigorous? Can multiple choice questions test hard skills like analysis, evaluation, and application? The answer to all these questions is yes, and it's happening as you read this in every district in America.
IV. Standardized testing compared with merit pay gives the wrong incentives and cheating occurs (see Atlanta).
I agree. Test scores shouldn't directly be tied to pay, and most research shows it's not as effective as other factors, like making sure students and teachers have a supportive environment, adequate resources, a safe classroom, and good professional development. As a result, I predict that a strict 'scores-for-pay' system will not last. Keep in mind that many areas of the country are experimenting, and sometimes we find some duds. It happens. If you personally feel it's going to become the norm, do something about it. Tell your school board. Run for the school board. But my prediction is that this type of scheme won't last.
Nevertheless, teachers should be held accountable (please agree), and unions are often on the wrong side of this issue (this could be a whole other diary). This is because the goal of every school should be about the student first and last. If unions' job is to protect teachers, these incentives can and do cross wires sometimes.
V. Charter schools are bad because (insert your reason).
(They hurt children in poverty). I can't speak for every charter school. But in Texas, most (almost all) charter schools do not spring up in the suburbs. They go into the inner cities and they serve mostly underserved students. Because they are based on a lottery system, they do not pick and choose students who can go there, and they're always free. As a result, charter schools get mostly the same students as other schools. They have comparable populations of special education students, and students who are behind in grade level.
(They receive private money). See below.
(They hurt public schools).
Maybe, but if you lived below the poverty line, and your student had five years to learn to read before it's too late, would you care that the public school 'lost' your child? Please don't say yes.
Charter schools are so new that we truly don't have the data yet to know if they're hurting public schools. The only kink in the system is that charter schools can deny a student based on behavior. This rule is mainly based around the fact that public schools have more resources to help such a student, whereas a charter school doesn't.
In sum, I predict that charter schools will be a net benefit to public schools. This is because charter schools have innovated in many ways that public schools should emulate, like-
Requiring teachers to stay later to help struggling students (very difficult and time consuming in union states, but crucial for these students)
Holding teachers more accountable in general (good for teachers and students)
Lengthening the school year (highly recommended)
Using more data to guide instruction (highly to the nth power recommended)
As a data-driven community, we want to know why a charter school outperfoms a public school so we can emulate it over and over again. If a public school can't stop gangs and fights and drugs in the same area that a charter school serves, maybe they should start collaborating and compare notes. Students will benefit.
VI. Conservatives/Wall Street are taking over the reform movement.
Please... and prepare for snarkiness. 3-2-1.. Why don't you just replace 'conservatives' with 'the devil' and save room in your diary? This is just not accurate. I'm a liberal teacher and I'm telling you, it's just not accurate.
The reality is, most of the people in the educational reform movement are the ones who were there before, and many are liberal, like you and me. Some aren't, but it's actually very hard to tell the difference. The liberals didn't vote for Bush, but they do want to see data from tests because of the reasons I described above.
Yes, a lot of private money is going to education, but so what? If a child learns to read because Goldman Sachs paid for it, would you object if it was your daughter or son and it mightn't have happened otherwise? Please don't say yes. As a liberal, please don't say yes.
Some people say this money will dry up, but a lot of this money (like Gates' foundation) goes to research that is trying to find what works in teaching children so every school in the nation can use it. So if they money dries up, the results remain, and we have gained more knowledge about what it takes to make education work. We must do this now. We can't wait a single day.
We know exactly what it takes to teach a kindergartner from poverty how to read (phonics and phonemic awareness and practice), and that is thanks to some private money. For the sake of our students, don't knock it. We can't wait a single day.
VII. Mr. Coleman, you're wrong because (insert your own personal anecdote about how I'm wrong).
Scientists don't use anecdotes to study cells and neither should you use anecdotes to make generalizations about education. It's just not appropriate, even if it sometimes feels good. Instead of listening to horrific anecdotes from blogs, do some research and try to find some real data. If you get 10 teachers in a room and you want to hear horror stories, trust me, you'll never leave. But that's true in any workplace. Don't focus on it and gather data. Again, we are going to have some duds in education. We will experiment and we will sometimes fail. But we won't give up.
IX. Wrap up.
If you remember one thing from this diary remember this- the reform movement is driven by data and science and that's a good thing. If it's bad but it stays because of politics, expect and advocate to see it fall by the wayside. Am I too idealistic? I'm a future principal, and that's what I'm going to do. And trust me, they're not going to fire me for it. They'll promote me. And I live in Texas. Don't mess with it.
We are smack in the middle of a very exciting time in education. There are going to be mistakes and missteps. It doesn't mean Wall Street is secretly taking over education and selling it short to Goldman Sachs. Please take your conspiracy somewhere where a teacher who knows better can't read it.
Don't think for a minute that education isn't improving in leaps and bounds right now. It is. I can show you the data. It's going to take some time, and there will be missteps. But it is happening. Where would we be without the reform movement? I don't know, you tell me. Show me it would be better with data. We'll have a good discussion and I'll listen.
Visit a school near you. Ask them questions. Join their leadership team. Get involved. It will be the best thing you will ever do.
Just remember, if you visit a school and you see something you recognize from this diary, I told you so.
X. Comments
I would truly love to have as many comments as possible. I will try to respond to as many as I can (maybe not immediately because my hand hurts, but I will).
Especially if you have questions and want to learn more about what I wrote, please ask. I'm a teacher, it's what I do.