I have been in the coaching profession for over 40 years and have in that time attended many conferences and clinics. These clinics are positive affairs which commend the coaches, affirm the work they are doing, honor those who have gone before, and present ideas to improve performance. Most coaching magazines and publications basically follow the same format.
I am also an educator with over thirty years in the classroom and ten more as an administrator. In these capacities I have attended innumerable conferences and seminars. The atmosphere at these events is entirely different. Educators are informed that the educational system is failing, that those who have gone before us produced poor results, that our methods are ineffective. Most books and publications mirror the conferences and it has become worse in recent years
Pick up an article about education and seemingly without fail these articles accentuate the negative, taking educators to task and pointing out the never-ending failures of our system and the wonderful successes of other systems. These reports cherry-pick facts, and present less than honest information to disparage education. They selectively choose statistics regarding international testing. One report cited the 2006 PISA tests in math and science while ignoring or dismissing the TIMSS 2007 data and the 2009 PISA tests in Reading.
I am not one who puts much faith in standardized test results. Nonetheless reporting of these results should be balanced. On the 2007 TIMSS test the United States ranked ninth in math and eleventh in science with an overall global ranking of eleventh. Considering our poverty rate is over 22% and the countries to which we were compared largely have poverty rates of less than 10%, the results were rather good.
In fact, when the 2009 PISA scores were disaggregated to take poverty into account, the results are even more telling. When PISA test scores of school districts in the United States with a poverty rate of between zero and 10% were compared to test scores countries of the world with a poverty rate between zero and 10%, the United States ranked first. When test scores of school districts in the United Sates with a poverty rate of between 10%and 25% were compared to test scores countries of the world with a poverty rate between 10%and 25%, the United States again ranked first. The same is true in regard to the higher poverty rates.Link
The United States has a overall poverty rate of 22.7%. Yet in absolute terms, regardless of poverty, the US outperformed Denmark with a poverty rate of 2.3%, Sweden with a poverty rate of 3.6% and France, with a poverty rate of 7.3%.
Nonetheless, a study by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) claimed that the United States lags “far behind the highest scoring countries including South Korea, Finland, Singapore, China and Canada”. (Emphasis mine.) And what is the basis for this oft-repeated mischaracterization regarding China? The answer is Shanghai’s scores on international testing. Yes … I am serious. They point to the fact that Shanghai is ranked number one out of all the countries of the world on international tests. Seriously.
Please find a map of the world.
I'll wait.....................
Do you have a map? Great. Now find the country of Shanghai.
What’s that you say? Shanghai is not a country? Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good bashing. Did you also know this? Only 35% of high school aged children in Shanghai are allowed into high school and many of them do not finish.
I’ll put this very bluntly. Anyone who truly believes that the Chinese are educating all their students better than the United States is educating its students is not intelligent enough to discuss educational policy. And furthermore I question the credibility of any study that reports this dishonest example as fact, and the credibility of any person (Hello Arne Duncan) who cites this dubious data.
A 2007 report by the Urban Institute pointed out that not only do US students fare relatively well on international tests in math and science but, contrary to popular opinion, the United States does indeed produce enough scientists and engineers to fill the demand. Link The reason that engineering work is being outsourced to China and India is exactly the same as the reason that blue-collar jobs are outsourced. The American workers are better educated and more productive than their third world counterparts (and most of their first world counterparts too). But the people in those countries work for less and that is the reason that the jobs are going there. This is an obvious fact but one which the neo-liberal apologists refuse to acknowledge.
Even more troubling is the almost child-like faith that “reformers” have in testing, especially if the results can be used (or skewed) to attack public education. Most often when ones hears “student achievement” we can simply substitute “student test scores”.
Ken Robinson speaks of the necessity of “divergent thinking”, the ability to see different ways to interpret a question and to see multiple ways to solve a particular problem. The Michigan Association of School Boards listed the following “21st century Survival skills”:
1) Critical Thinking/problem solving
2) Collaboration/leading by influence
3) Agility and adaptability
4) Initiative and entrepreneurialism
5) Effective oral and written communication
6) Accessing and analyzing information
7) Curiosity and imagination
Isn’t it interesting that the method of assessing whether or not students are acquiring these skills is the multiple choice test. Not only that but in an age in which creativity and originality are essential, students are being saddled with a one-size fits all curriculum, a singular method of assessment and a single “correct” way of teaching. It is a wonder that the so-called reformers’ heads aren’t exploding from the cognitive dissonance.
Test scores are not synonymous with student achievement. A recent study found that high school GPAs were a better predictor of college success than SAT scores. Link But the “reformers” totally distrust teachers and are not likely to give credibility to the teachers’ evaluation of students regardless of the data.
Beyond that, this begs the question of defining student achievement and student success. I will give a personal example. Since that popular neo-liberal author, the unctuous Tom Friedman, can condemn the entire education system based on the opinion of one Romanian student, I feel it is fair for me use an anecdotal example to buttress my case.
A few years ago I was at a track meet and one of my runners was winning another 400 meter race. She had been involved in track since her freshman year and was an excellent sprinter. One of my coaching colleagues commented that I probably was sad to see her go. “On the contrary”, I replied. “I am delighted that she is graduating.” I hadn’t thought she would make it. Track was the hook I had, but it took a great deal of work to keep her in school and to keep her eligible. But she perservered and graduated. The week after graduation she stopped by the house. As she sat on the back deck with me and my wife, she repeatedly mentioned how important we were to her staying in school. As she left she gave us a hug. “Thank you”, she said. “You are the reason I graduated.” Was this a success? She did very poorly on our state standardized tests so I perhaps I failed her. If she had dropped out and not taken the tests, our school average would have been better. In the end I don’t really care what her test scores were. Heresy? Oh well.
This case is not extraordinary. There are many similar examples I could cite, as could any other veteran teacher. These are successes regardless of what Arne Duncan or Michelle Rhee or other critics have to say.
Unfortunately the Obama administration joins in the chorus of negativity. It's point man, Arne Duncan, stated that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans", a cruel, heartless statement which should have disqualified him from any governement position. His "educational reform" movement in Chicago was as unsuccessful as Rod Paige’s Houston “miracle” despite all the hoopla to the contrary. Duncan’s Race to the Top is attempting to impose the failed policies of that model on the nation. These policies, such as more Charter schools (see Stanford University’s CREDO Report), merit pay(see the New York study on merit pay) and of course more standardized testing, have not been proven to be effective.
And so it continues. After the constant negative attacks on education, even by our alleged allies, it is little wonder that the public has been open to the reactionary Republican solutions to fix our "broken system".