It's a little dip. True. Still, wasn't No Child Left Behind supposed to fix this whole mess? Didn't President George W. Bush and a bipartisan group in Congress promise that NCLB was going to eliminate racial gaps in education? Didn't politicians guarantee this massive new law would insure that every child was proficient in reading and math by 2014?
States were going to raise all kinds of standards--and if test scores didn't go up they were going to be firing a whole bunch of teachers.
So, it's fair to ask, "How are we doing?" If you're a teacher, and you've been getting your brains beat out by the media for most of the last decade, you see this brief item in the New York Times today and you have to wonder:
For the high school class of 2012, the average score on the critical reading section of the SAT college entrance exam, 496, was down 1 point from the previous year, as was the average writing score, 488. The average math score, 514, was unchanged. Also unchanged: only 43 percent of the 1.66 million test-takers achieved the benchmark score, 1550, that indicates readiness for college. Among students whose parents have bachelor’s degrees, though, 60 percent were college ready. The College Board, which administers the test, says those with the benchmark score have a 65 percent likelihood of achieving a B- or higher grade average in their first year in college.Two points? That could be a statistical anomaly.
Or: it could be our "leaders" in education reform can't tell the difference between s--- and standardized testing. I'm thinking, "Charge of the Light Brigade" here, if you know your history. (More on that later.) First, let's look at the bigger picture. I blogged on this same topic a year ago, just after returning home from a bicycle ride across the United States. Now all I need do is quote what I said last fall:
[The] weeks and months are ticking by; and we're now less than three years [two today, as hope for academic miracles grows faint] removed from a time when reformers promise they can take us to a state of absolute academic perfection, when every child in America will be proficient in reading and math.
By now don't you...have to assume the first sweet fruits of success are finally ripe for picking?
So how is the BIG REFORM PUSH going?
I was heading out the door to run a few errands last week--catch up on chores that went untended while I was pedaling--when I passed the TV and heard Andrea Mitchell on CNN mention declining SAT scores. Mitchell went on to say that Michelle Rhee would be on after a commercial break to explain.
God. Not Rhee again. That woman's sour mug can be seen on TV more often than Law and Order reruns.
I was in a hurry and didn't get to hear Rhee spout. But I'm sure it was fun. Remember her? The woman with the PLAN to save education? The lady who blames teachers for all the nation's academic failings? The Joan of Arc who was going to save the Washington, D. C. schools with a relentless focus on standardized testing data?
I wish I'd had time to listen to what she said, because SAT scores fell again for U. S. high school seniors in 2011. It's enough to make education reformers weep.
Or, this morning, to weep yet again. Unless you're Michelle Rhee. As head of the school reform organization known as Students First, she's had a good year. At the time of my last writing on this subject, she was busy putting final touches on a speech about education reform to be delivered at Kent State and deciding how much to charge for her wisdom.
Hmmm...$35,000 sounded about right. Maybe Rhee should call her organization Rhee First, if you actually think about it.
So: how were we doing then? Not so good. Not so good:
After almost a decade of "reforms" under No Child Left Behind, after all the preaching of geniuses like Rhee and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan here's where we land: Critical reading scores sagged three points in 2011, to 497, the lowest on record. [A year later and now down to 496.]
Writing scores fell two points to 489. [For 2012: 488.]
Math was down one: to 514. [No pain, no gain?]
Since 2002, when the standardized-testing craze swept America's schools and education experts began acting like zombies in an old science fiction movie--all promising improvement if only we followed them, followed them, followed them--we have been in slow decline.
HERE'S THE GRIM PICTURE IF WE TAKE THE DECADE as a whole. Since NCLB became law SAT scores are down from 504 to 496 in reading. They're down in math from 516 to 514. Despite billions of dollars spent on all kinds of reforms reformers have demanded, we still don't have one point of gain. And in six short years, since a writing test was instituted, seniors have lost nine points, down from 497 to 488.
It's as if reform is making our students dumber.
Rhee, Duncan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein (his long-time chancellor) in New York, Chester Finn Jr., Steven Brill, the producer of Waiting for Superman and various know-it-all governors will, of course, continue to blame this nation's "school crisis" on classroom teachers and push their own brand of solutions. We already have way more charter schools, just as they wanted. We have more vouchers too. We have way, way more standardized testing. And when students fail to meet "standards" we "evaluate" teachers, put the burden entirely on their shoulders, and fire them by the thousands.
So why isn't this working? We've listened to experts and we're going nowhere fast, unless you count backwards. I said it last fall. I'll say it a little more emphatically now:
Here's the first problem: We allow school reform to be driven by people like Rhee and governors like Kasich [John Kasich in Ohio], Scott Walker (Wisconsin) and Chris Christie (New Jersey), who either went to private schools, send their children to private schools, or both.
These are people who want to fix the schools they didn't care to attend.
Secondly, we listen to people like Rhee and Duncan who have only the briefest classroom experience, or like Klein, none at all, and lack insight. It's an odd trend, really. If you placed the top ten names in education reform today and all U. S. Secretaries of Education end to end, from the founding of the Department of Education in 1979 until this moment, their classroom service would not equal ONE thirty-year elementary school veteran in Peoria, or Pocatello, or Pompano Beach.
Perhaps most importantly, we have spent the last decade focusing on teachers and measuring what they do and writing PAPER STANDARDS.
We haven't demanded anything from STUDENTS.
This idea that if only we get better teachers into classrooms then every student can be a success is shallow and simplistic. It's like saying, "If only ministers gave better sermons sin in the United States would disappear."
A year ago, I feared that America's education generals were blind. Today, I'm more worried than ever. I'm beginning to think they're not blind at all. They're just arrogant fools. They're like the Earl of Lucan, Lord Cardigan and Lord Raglan, British officers at the Battle of Balaclava (1854), who confused their own orders and sent six hundred cavalrymen of the famed Light Brigade charging down the wrong valley, with Russians on both sides and Russian cannon bottling them up at the end. Every man in the ranks could look down that valley and tell the attack was doomed from the start, and at least one officer, a Captain Nolan, tried to redirect the attack--but down the valley they thundered, and horses and men were cut down by the hundreds. It was bravery wasted, slaughter without gain.
If you read what Wikipedia says about Cardigan's leadership that day, you can substitute "Duncan" or "Bloomberg" or "Klein" (except that they compound problems by leading from the rear) and know where we stand in education today:
Cardigan survived the battle. Although stories circulated afterwards that he was not actually present, he led the charge from the front and, never looking back, did not see what was happening to the troops behind him. He reached the Russian guns, took part in the fight, and then returned alone up the valley without bothering to rally or even find out what had happened to the survivors. He afterwards said all he could think about was his rage against Captain Nolan, who he thought had tried to take over the leadership of the charge from him. After riding back up the valley, he considered he had done all that he could and then, with considerable sang-froid, left the field and went on board his yacht in Balaclava harbour, where he ate a champagne dinner.No. Our leaders in education reform aren't blind. They see where we're going; and they're too arrogant to admit they're leading good troops the wrong way. Like Lord Cardigan they have no interest in looking back and even though their policies continue to fail they keep right on giving expensive advice and drinking the champagne.
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| I noticed something odd when I pedaled up Tioga Pass into Yosemite on a bicycle. It's a rise in elevation of 3100 feet in ten miles and I had to do some very serious sweating. So far: when experts talk about education reform the only people they call on to pedal harder are America's teachers. WHEN DO WE ASK MORE FROM OUR STUDENTS AND THEIR PARENTS? |
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