---

From the Archives

Teachers in Georgia are confronting state officials, including the Governor and State Superintendent of Education about testing.  Teachers say that testing is too overwhelming for students.  In my own view, high-stakes tests are not needed to ensure “accountability” in our schools.  Professional teachers are quite able to evaluate students in their courses.  If there are end-of-course tests, they should be teacher made.  If the state wants data, use the method of testing used by NAEP.  Only a sample of students are “tested.”  This post is a cornerstone article that takes a critical look at the common core, and high-stakes testing.  Given that testing is in the news, I thought the post should be re-published.

---

We think the Common Core and high-stakes tests are the antithesis of the progressive values upon which this nation was founded. The idea of having a single set of standards and associated assessments appears to remove individuality, creativity and innovation from American classrooms.  As a result, undue stress has been imposed on students and teachers

Authoritarian & Undemocratic

Common standards and high-stakes tests (assessments)  were conceived and developed in an undemocratic and authoritarian manner.  This has minimized our freedom to have an education system that empowers its citizens to a life that is rooted in progressive ideals.  Conservative thinking and conservative think tanks act in their own self interests.  Their corporate partners, especially publishers and testing companies, have benefited financially.  Together, they are working to take over pubic education and open it to for-profit corporations and privatization. The danger of  privatization is that the profit motive might replace the moral mission of educating all children.  Schools might not accept students who might affect their bottom line which making sure students achieve high test scores.  Profit is tied directly to test scores. How can we authentically believe that an education system that uses student test scores is good for its citizens?  Not only are test scores used to assess student performance, they are also being used to evaluate teacher, administrator and school performances.  In some states, teacher’s job performance and pay will be determined using  VAM scores, which have been shown to be unreliable. Teaching is so much more than teaching to the test in order to amp achievement scores.  It is about establishing ethical and moral relationships with our students; it is about helping student learn how to learn; it is about caring for student’s aspirations and goals, and giving counsel as needed. Yes, teachers want their students to understand the content of their courses, but not at the expense of life long affects of their courses including attitudes and values.  There is artistry to teaching.

Test Scores as a Measure of Competitiveness

Achievement scores of American students are targeted as the end all of education.  Why?  Because of the erroneous assumption that test scores are the bellwether measure of America’s competitive edge. Nothing could be further from the truth. Competition and competitiveness have been used to argue that America’s schools are failing.  Some argue that American students are not educated to the level that will enable them to compete in a global market.  As a result, chief state education officials, governors, education department bureaucrats, conservative think tanks, and corporate organizations have pushed accountability standards and high-stakes testing.  I call this authoritarian spray.  Raising achievement test scores is the major goal of accountability standards.  Politicians use the mantra of “competitiveness” when they talk about the need to “reform” schools. There is ample evidence that student test scores are not a barometer of U.S. economic growth, or depression.  U.S. test scores did not cause or contribute to the Great Recession, any more than they caused the Economic Boom of the 1990s. In Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform, Iris C. Rotberg, Research Professor of Education Policy at The George Washington University, concluded that continuing to use student test scores is not a valid argument to understand a nation’s competitiveness.  According to Rotberg, a nation’s competitiveness is too complicated.  Its impacted by other variables as identified in the World Economic Report.  She puts it this way:

Other variables, such as outsourcing to gain access to lower-wage employees, the climate and incentives for innovation, tax rates, health-care and retirement costs, the extent of government subsidies or partnerships, protectionism, intellectual-property enforcement, natural resources, and exchange rates overwhelm mathematics and science scores in predicting economic competitiveness.

It Started Here

Common Core and High-Stakes Tests had a beginning. We can trace the present morass to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001.  NCLB supports standards-based education reform based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education.  The Act required states to develop assessments in basic skills. States were required to give these assessments to all students at select grade levels in order to receive federal school funding.  The Act did not assert a national achievement standard; standards are set by each individual state. However, with the fact that 46 states have “adopted” the Common Core State Standards, individual state standards are a relic of the 1980s and 1990s. How did this happen?  How did 46 state governments agree to adopt a single set of standards for all of their students in mathematics and English/language arts?  Why would they give up the autonomy that they had in setting educational goals for students in their own schools and districts? The movement to standardize education nationally does not align with the basic progressive principles that helped shape the course of American history and education.  These principles include freedom, equality, human dignity, tolerance, and the celebration of diversity.  It has taken several centuries for these principles to come realities, and over time, each of these principles was articulated by individual Americans such as Thomas Jefferson, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, John Dewey, John Muir, Rachel Carson, and on and on (for further discussion on this, please see: Lakoff, George (2006-10-03). Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision (Kindle Locations 117-123). Macmillan. Kindle Edition). In the view of many progressive educators, the authoritarian nature of common standards and common assessments looms as a challenge that must be changed.  The effects of this authoritarian plan are clearly visible when you read headlines such as “All teachers fired at a Rhode Island School,” “More than 60% of students fail the social studies end-of-year test in Georgia,”Students on the “projected to fail” list will be involved in a “Blitz” session.”

How Common Standards Got In & Developed Rapidly

Governors and state commissioners of education from across the United States formed the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). “The goal was to develop a set of shared national standards ensuring that students in every state are held to the same level of expectations that students in the world’s highest-performing countries are, and that they gain the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for success in post-secondary education and in the global arena” (from Understanding Common Core State Standards by John S. Kendall, Copyright © 2011 by McREL). The Common Core State Standards was a joint effort of The Council of chief State Schools Officers   (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA).  You can read my blog post that traces this history. Behind this initiative is to make sure that as a nation we are economically competitive in the global environment.  Again, this group used the “competitiveness” argument.    Much of the distress here is that the CCSSO and NGA officials accept what they see as poor performance of American students on international tests such as PISA and TIMSS.  Data that has been reported on this blog and in research publications does not support this basic rationale that drives the common standards movement. In a peer reviewed study of the common core standards-development  process, researchers at the University of Colorado, questioned whether the common core standards movement was an effective reform tool.  In general research on standards-based reform is weak, according to these researchers.  They also report that:

The NGA/CCSSO standards-development process was completed quickly—in approximately one year—by Achieve, Inc., a private contractor. This brief raises several concerns about the development, content, and use of those 500 pages of standards and supporting documents. For instance, the level of input from school based practitioners appears to be minimal, the standards themselves have not been field tested, and it is unclear whether the tests used to measure the academic outcomes of common standards will have sufficient validity to justify the high-stakes consequences that will likely arise around their use. Accordingly, it seems improbable that the common core standards will have the positive effects on educational quality or equality being sought by proponents, particularly in light of the lack of essential capacity at the local, state and federal levels.

The Authoritarians

At a Chicago meeting in the Spring of 2009, CCSSO and NGA brought together representatives from 41 states and there they agreed to draft a set of common standards. They hired Achieve, Inc., which was founded by the NGA, to draft a set of common core standards in math and reading.  They had until the end of the summer to have a draft of the standards, and one year to have a full set, grade-by-grade. When the National Science Education Standards were developed in the 1990s, it was done by teams of professional science educators, including K-12 teachers and university scientists.  When the common core was commissioned and developed it was done in secrecy behind the doors of Achieve.  According to the University of Colorado researchers, the development of the common core took a path that undermined one of the tenets of research, and that is openness and transparency.  Here is what William J. Mathis, author of the University of Colorado study said:

By contrast, Achieve work groups met in private and the development work was conducted by persons who were not, with apparently only a single exception, K-12 educators. The work groups were staffed almost exclusively by employees of Achieve, testing companies (ACT and the College Board), and pro-accountability groups (e.g., America’s Choice, Student Achievement Partners, the Hoover Institute). Practitioners and subject matter experts complained that they were excluded from the development process.

Funding for the common standards was provided by the U.S. Department of Education, the Gates Foundation, and other foundations.  Only one classroom teacher was involved in the review of the common standards, with nearly all reviewers being university professors.  There were no school administrators in the review process. The process used to create the Common Core and High-Stakes Tests was authoritarianism at its best.  Governors and high ranking education officials, speaking for administrators and teachers in thousands of schools across the country, were saying that there was something wrong with your schools, and that they have a solution to fix them. The solution was to impose on you a set of standards in mathematics and reading/language arts that you will be held to account.  In fact, the authoritarians decided, with the help of the U.S. Department of Education to develop a set of national tests that will be used to hold all teachers, administrators and schools accountable. Are the authoritarians accountable to anyone?  No!

Values

The self-interests of a few groups, including but not limited to NGA, CCSSO, Achieve, a few testing and publishing companies, the Gates Foundation, & yes, the U.S. Department of Education along with 47 state department’s of education, is driving the common standards and assessments movement. The value that is missing from this movement is empathy and responsibility.  The groups that are leading the common standards movement have framed the it as a top-down enterprise, and assume that they have the authority to create standards that states should adopt. There was great reluctance by states to adopt the common standards at first, but, when one of the key players in the movement, the U.S. Department of Education, decided that proposals for the second round of Race to the Top Funds should indicate that they were going to adopt the common core, things changed.  Even though only 11 states were funded in the Race to the Top, most of the states have adopted the standards—in a heavy handed way.  Common Core and high-stakes tests are the norm. There is no empathy for the work of teachers, administrators and schools in creating environments that help students become learners in the 21st Century.  Governors and legislators have used their authority to put into place policies that are determined to unfairly evaluate teachers using statistical methods that have been shown not to be valid, and unreliable.  It’s as if teachers are the enemy, and we need to find the bad ones, round them up, and remove them from the teaching profession. What are the values that promote this kind of thinking and policy making? Not the kind of values that attracted us to become teachers in the first place.  Teachers have chosen the education profession because they want students to love the subjects that they teach, and to take with them a positive attitudes about the content they are studying.  Karen Borders, a science teacher in Lakebay, WA, an award winning educator says this about why she teaches:

My students are not passive learners of science, they ARE scientists. They embrace the idea that they are empowered to own their learning. In addition to creating a love of learning within my students, I am intentional about equipping students with wonder, teamwork strategies, and problem-solving skills for jobs that may not exist yet.

The kinds of progressive values that I think should be fundamental to educational reform are missing from the top-down reform that is consuming American education.  George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist, who studies why the mind makes meaning, has written extensively about progressive values and how they impact politics, and our way of life.  As we look at the standards movement, Lakoff’s research is helpful in understanding the common standards movement, as it has played out over the past few years. Dr. Lakoff uses the metaphor of the family to talk about two kinds of ways to organize : the strict father family, and the nurturing parent family.  The strict father family is a conservative view of order, while the nurturing parent family is the progressive view of order. Let’s take a look how we might use these metaphors to examine the Common Core and high-stakes tests movement and an alternative view of schooling.

Conservative Metaphor

In my own analysis, the top-down governance of schools based on the NCLB Act and the common standards is likened to the “strict father family.” You can read about this in my post, K-12 Education Viewed Through the Lens of Conservative Values & World-View. There is no room for debate in the strict father family, in the sense that the father decides what is best of everyone. Schools have adopted the strict father family model. The rules of behavior are very clear. Schools must adhere to a set of basic skills set forth in state standards now, but very soon by the common standards. Schools should foster strict discipline when it comes to making sure that students master Common Core and high-stakes tests. There is no recourse (except perhaps a summer of misery taking classes to prop students up for another test). The strict family metaphor, or the traditional view of schooling removes control from teachers, and administrators by locating the power of curriculum, assessment, standards in the hands of outside officials, who are in turn controlled by Federal regulations.  The decisions are made outside the normal realm of the classroom.  Father knows best.

Progressive Metaphor

In the progressive family, the “nurturing parent family,” things are very different.  The decisions that are made by based on the progressive values of empathy and responsibility. In this case, teachers and administrators are guided by empathy for their students and families, but also know that they must act responsibly to ensure that the curriculum and associated instructional approaches are based on what they know about their own students, their aspirations, and goals. In this progressive view, teachers and administrators are the deciders, and work in the best interests of their students.  Educators in this environment also know that they need to be held to the highest level of the standards of their profession, whether it be mathematics, science, history, or reading. Responsible educators have known for years that their work with students is more complex than simply following some outsider’s lists standards. Common Core and high-stakes tests actually holds these teachers back. It involves establishing a community of learners in their classroom and in their school, and using the kinds of teaching methods that bring out of students their desire to learn. It acknowledges that student’s learn by constructing their knowledge through interaction with others and the world, and that not all students will learn the same stuff, at the same rate, and at the same time. There  you have it.

Summing Up

You might want to watch this video of Dr. Lakoff speaking on FORA.tv where uses the family as a metaphor to look at conservative and progressive views.

Resources

Lakoff, George, (2008). The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain Mathis, William (2010). The Common Core Standards Initiative: An Effective Reform Tool?