Commenter Archive

How is it analogous? Or is it analogous in a way that essentially almost anything could be analogous if you try hard enough? Like, are we entering the slippery slope of talking about slippery slopes now?

So is there a Mac version?

Okay, I'll check it out for sure.

Burt, totally agree. Narrative first!

Yeah, the whole 4 to 5 hours part is where I run into trouble.

Totally looks like Gilliam's stuff.

This is brilliant, Kevin.

Christopher is looking for reliable info. If anyone has any please link it here.

Not really. I'm saying there will always be small fires and the human need to put them out.

Absolutely.

No, I disagree. That's only one factor among many.

Will Sweden is just as unionized and their voucher system is similarly reliant on cultural homogeneity.

Thanks, Tom.

Excellent comment, Tim. Thanks. I think "benchmark" is exactly the word I've been looking for.

I really want to like this but there is one key point here that I don't think are as strong as you assert and two other things that I think are misleading.

First, teaching to the tests and the limitations of tests. It's a refrain that sounds bad and so it's very easy to agree with it without any further exploration of what that means. Indeed, I've always found it ironic that teachers and educational professionals who speak with such disdain of the practice are among those most impressed (and most seeking to impress) by elite success in IB and AP classes, which are classes and curriculum, rigorously designed of course, focused on passing a test.

Surely you see the difference here? AP classes are designed for kids already excelling, and teachers who want to teach generally gifted students. They then teach to nationally uniform tests on specific subjects beyond just reading and math. You may teach to a test, but you do so in vastly different circumstances than those in the current accountability regime. 

Few people like tests so they're easy scapegoats but they're not random and arbitrary. Very well designed tests can measure critical skills like analytical and synthetic ability. They can measure reading comprehension, mastery of concepts, and basic literacy and numeracy. So in the real world teaching to the test need not actually imply a lack of learning, or even learning the wrong skills as is so often assumed. Simply put, if a test measures whether you can read, then teaching to pass the test must necessarily involve teaching reading as it is the sine qua non. If our goal is for children to read, this is not bad.

Measuring all these things is fine, but again the current accountability movement wants testing to be the final word on teacher quality, and largely this has led to less resources for all subjects other than reading and math. I am a big fan of a much more well-rounded education. Reading is good, and we should push literacy for sure, but this says next to nothing about how tests are being used to punish teachers and schools, or how states are gaming the system.

The inherent problems with testing are related to cost and capacity. Very good tests are very expensive so there's less ability to use them, they take time and critically talented people to design them and score them, so there isn't the industrial capacity to simply crank out more at a whim.

Another good reason to have national tests, like the AP tests for instance.

Relatedly, people misuse statistics, science, and tests all the time. The problem with value-added measurement for teachers is not that it's an inherently unfair - conceptually it's designed to cut through bias which places it among the most progressive of evaluative tools - it's that reformers care more about its possibility than limitations and treat it accordingly. Which can be said to your vision of national tests meant only to compare. The very first test would show that 6th graders in Massachusetts are well ahead of 6th graders in Arkansas. The moment Arkansas or the federal government moved to fix that by placing more pressure on systems and people to improve, is the moment that test is no longer simply comparing, it's the next version of NCLB.

Exactly. Nobody is saying tests aren't good tools. I am saying tests have been administered, evaluated, and used improperly. 

In short, the problems identified are less problems with the tools (tests) than they are with how they're used and misused, which in this case track a normal human tendency to do so. I don't see how any plan that relies on smart people not misusing tools is one that is politically or practically viable.

Right - but what are you getting at? Are you agreeing that the current testing regime and accountability movement is fundamentally flawed or not? We did test before NCLB. The national tests we currently administer to test the testing as it were show that no gains have been made at all.

As for the misleading bits, as much as your well-publicized criticism of Bloomberg's reforms in NYC are, even you should know that the assessment tests used to measure progress are state designed tests, so while the phenomenon of states using less difficult tests is both true and overblown (Connecticut, Massachusetts, among others continue to resist that particular pressure) the generally not-so-pro-Bloomberg government in Albany is chiefly responsible.

This is a bit more complicated than you make it sound. Here's a fact: the national, state, and NYC tests and results are all in serious conflict with each other. All this says is that cities and states should not be designing tests by which to measure their success against other cities and states. You need a central arbiter for that. If Bloomberg wants to have tests to measure performance, fine, but he should be much wiser with their results. Tests should not be weapons.

"Both programs – the most federally invasive programs to date in education" I'm going to go with federal efforts to encourage desegregation on this one, this effort involved guns, courts, and riots. It's probably the most invasive in recent memory, granted.

Sure but that goes way outside of the education reform debate. Back in those days, by the way, school choice was used to further segregation between blacks and whites in the south...

So you think every teacher should teach the exact same way in every school across the country? I think that's entirely insane. Pray tell how this is even possible?

States are already moving toward common standards. I believe 43 have already adopted a common set.

No doubt age based grade levels are a crude system. The problem is that there are mo better workable, scalable alternatives. Standards can be very broad and still be useful.

Well more funding is certainly not the only answer or even the only suggestion.

Pat, very different incentives are at work when it comes to universities. I think that's very important.

I think the incentives are much worse now. Human nature will prevent most schools from purposefully failing.

Apologies for the glitches on this post. Google Docs has betrayed me.

Fixed. sorry.

Very well said, BSK. I completely agree that A) standards should be set high and that B) the good teachers, the hard-working experienced teachers need to play a stronger leading role. It has to happen from the bottom-up.

That being said, I don't think Rhee was on the right track at all. What did you love about her plan? Was it the two-tier plan?

And it's cyclical, because communities that aren't well-educated don't value education as much, and don't instill those values as widely, and then their children don't become educated and don't value education as much and don't instill those values in their children who then don't become well-educated and then don't instill those values in their children...

There's exceptions to this rule of course. And spending money and getting good teachers in poor areas can help. But it's a long process with no quick fixes.