The answer to the headline’s question — Did Arne Duncan Really Say, “Testing Is Sucking The Oxygen Out Of The Room”? — is no, he didn’t really say that. What he really said was,
“I believe testing issues today are sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools.”
There’s a Grand Canyon-sized divide between seeing “testing,” and “testing issues” as the problem. Duncan’s remarks Thursday, where he said states can take a year longer to use high stakes test scores in teacher evaluations, probably reflect two issues. One, he’s actually taken a few baby steps toward the realization that our obsession with testing is causing some negative consequences he didn’t foresee. Two, he’s scared crap-less about losing teacher support for Common Core. Teachers were leaning in his direction in the early implementation of the standards, but their support has been eroding steadily, as has the support of the general population. So Duncan is listening to teachers — he said that a bunch of times in his prepared remarks — and trying to gain back their confidence and support by saying, Clinton-like, “I feel your pain” when it comes to standardized testing.
Color me skeptical about whether or not Duncan has experienced a genuine change of heart on standardized testing. His statement is pretty weak tea. It sounds more like an effort to pacify educators than a commitment to change policy. On the other hand, he said some things that give me a tiny ray of hope that he, and, by extension, Obama, are beginning to realize the limitations and liabilities of our testing mania. It’s not much, but it’s something to build on.
A few quotes from Duncan’s prepared statement:
“[I]n too many places, it’s clear that the [testing] yardstick has become the focus.”
“No school or teacher should look bad because they took on kids with greater challenges. Growth is what matters. No teacher or school should be judged on any one test, or tests alone — always on a mix of measures.”
“No test will ever measure what a student is, or can be. It’s simply one measure of one kind of progress. Yet in too many places, testing itself has become a distraction from the work it is meant to support.”
“I’m concerned, too, when I see places where adults are gaming tests, rather than using them to help students.”
“And we also need to recognize that in many places, the sheer quantity of testing — and test prep — has become an issue. In some schools and districts, over time tests have simply been layered on top of one another, without a clear sense of strategy or direction. Where tests are redundant, or not sufficiently helpful for instruction, they cost precious time that teachers and kids can’t afford. Too much testing can rob school buildings of joy, and cause unnecessary stress. This issue is a priority for us, and we’ll continue to work throughout the fall on efforts to cut back on over-testing.”
Weak tea. Baby steps. But it’s a starting point, a sign Duncan is beginning to feel the pressure. People need to continue the assault on our overemphasis on standardized testing to let Duncan know that his baby steps aren’t nearly enough.
This article appears in Aug 21-27, 2014.
When NY State implemented Common Core standards and tested students on tests based on those standards before the curriculum to teach those standards had been used in classrooms the student scores were a lot lower than they had been. Middle class parents in wealthy suburbs of NYC complained. Duncan’s response was, “Maybe your children are just not as smart as you thought they were.” That one response created more animosity towards the common core among parents who vote and make political donations than any single other event in the political back and forth over the Common Core standards. The truly awful way Common Core was implemented in New York was a real turning point. Teachers, who are now evaluated based in significant part on student test results, turned from supporters of the common core to opponents. The two national teacher unions were forced by their members to back away from supporting the Common Core.
By making federal NCLB waivers and Race to the Top federal grants dependent upon adoption of the Common Core Duncan also violated federal policy and possibly federal law. His actions gave Republicans more ammunition to attack overreaching by agencies of the Obama administration. If you like the Common Core you have to acknowledge that Duncan’s role has been counter-productive. If you hate Common Core you have to be thankful that Duncan has antagonized several major constituencies in the education community. All this shows that President Obama should have picked a real educator, such as Linda Darling-Hammond, instead of a political hack who happened to be one of his basketball buddies as US Secretary of Education.
In theory, the Common Core Standards make sense seeking to provide educational content and teaching motivating students to dig deeper and demonstrate new proficiency in the limited subject matter at hand. And theory is fine until placed into practice without aggressive in depth professional development of the teachers who will be held accountable for student learning on these tests; tests that have never been subjected to the rigor of standard research into their reliability and validity.
Even in the doubtful case that this research is ever conducted establishing the testing as reliable and valid, the results themselves should never be used to punish teachers without adequately controlling for factors beyond those teachers and administrator are proven capable of effecting positively.
Bush and Obama have again attempted to transform public education to the perennially discredited factory model, a model abandoned each time it’s been hawked as “the solution” to poor performance. They have raised the stakes based on a perception that the US is failing to keep pace with other nations, i.e. we are facing a National Emergency. Both have stopped just short of declaring a “War on Failure to Learn” and establishing an Education Czar” (although Duncan appears to chafing at the bit for that crown).
Worse yet, for over a decade testing has dominated classrooms and negatively effected our students classroom lives while creating an atmosphere of fear and loathing among our teachers.
Walt Disney’s Davey Crockett advised “Be sure you are right then go ahead.” That advice should have been considered before embarking on yet another crusade, this time unleashing an army of private educational buccaneers/snake oil salesmen on our schools.
Standardized Testing, at every Grade Level/Subject, in our Public School System is necessary because of the heterogeneity of Instructional Programs of Schools and Classroom Teachers. We need an objective measure that indicates that our Students are being taught properly. This is the sole function of Standardized Testing and the necessity for their existence.
We have lost, as a Nation (particularly here in Arizona), an understanding of the fundamental importance of Education for the long term survival of our Democracy. In his first Annual Address to Congress on January 8, 1790, President Washington said that Education was “the security of a free Constitution”…that, through Education a free people would know and value “their own rights”…..and would be able “to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness”.
The Common Core Standards will highlight those States/School Systems/ Schools that have a viable/productive Public Secondary System and those that do not so that corrective measures can be taken; if necessary via a complete reorganization of the Administrative and Instructional Staff.
The problems with Francis’ comments include the fact that Common Core standardized tests are not administered in every grade level or subject area. In fact, only two subject matters are measured and only in two grades each year. Additionally, more states are dropping the Common Core Standards and developing their own tests making comparisons between states problematic. More importantly the tests have not and cannot now be evaluated using the accepted criteria for assessing tests, reliability and validity. Add to this the fact that there are no common standards for the curriculum, the mode of instruction or teacher training and professional development and you have the perfect storm guaranteeing another decade of floundering.
Finally, think through the ramifications of completely reorganizing the administrative and teaching staff of schools failing to achieve at least a passing grade on the Common Core tests. In many cities this equals more than half the schools. End game? Increasing numbers of schools judged too poor to continue educating students. Increasing numbers of teachers leaving the profession and decreasing numbers of aspiring teachers changing their plans and entering other degree programs. Finally, and more importantly, tens or hundreds of thousands of students will be caught in the quicksand of shifting priorities, instructional methodologies and a decimated curriculum (no testing in the arts, foreign languages or history) throughout their public school lives.
The accountability end game relies on district and state interventions in “turning schools around.” Given the resources available at those levels, especially in the poorest districts and states, the result will be systemic breakdown. Ask yourself, who are the school improvement interventionists at the district and state levels and how prepared are they to turn around anything but the swivel chairs in the offices of the bureaucracies they inhabit?
US education faces many serious issues but the Common Core Standards married to accountability schemes represents a cure far worse than the disease.
Mr. Spanier: Our System of Public Education at the Local Level is in CRISIS! We need to hold Local Systems accountable. Standardized Testing, like Common Core, will do exactly that…..we need to implement rigorous Academic and Behavioral Standards, otherwise the slid downhill will continue!!
The potential problems with any standardized testing are legion. Among the biggest problems are that norm referenced tests are designed to generate a normally distributed curve of scores…NOT to measure how well students have learned the standards they were taught. Because of that they include many questions students were never taught. The tests used to assess learning on common core standards were even worse than the typical norm referenced tests because even the questions that were supposed to be easy were based on material that had often never been taught. Unless curriculum aligned with the new standards is provided to teachers and taught to students then most students will not score at the proficient level on tests aligned with the new standards.
As even Secretary of Duncan is beginning to understand…he is a slow learner and it has taken a lot of repetitions for him to get even this far…standards and the testing that goes with the standards must be properly implemented. BUT even if the tests are properly implemented the use of standardized tests as part of teacher evaluations is a flawed strategy. Unless you do what William Saunders attempted (and ultimately failed) to do and account for all the other variables not related to teaching (poverty, dysfunctional families, homelessness, etc…) to get a more or less correct picture of the “value each teacher adds” to the education of students then the scores students achieve are not connected enough to the quality of teaching to assess any teachers. Without an accurate “value added” formula all the use of tests as part of teacher evaluations will show is the erroneous result that middle class kids are predominantly being taught by great teachers and poor and minority kids are taught by mediocre (or worse) teachers. That is the real problem with Duncan’s approach that teachers figured out long before their unions did. This is not accountability. This is scapegoating teachers in poor communities for the failure of societal institutions to work well for all children.
“…..This is scapegoating teachers in poor communities for the failure of societal institutions to work well for all children…..” pray tell!!! what does this gibberish mean???
Francis, the phase you quoted from Marty’s comment isn’t gibberish. It’s a good, concise statement of what I tried to point out in at far more length in my post, http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archi…
The only thing I’d add to Marty’s statement is that schools and school districts are scapegoated along with teachers.
Francis Saitta’s comments demonstrate why he is unfit to be a member of any school board whether it be college or K-12.
It is the people, not a test, that holds others accountable, unless you are an authoritarian.
Thanks David for your clarification that not only will teachers be held accountable (scapegoated) but schools and districts as well. We can look even further down the line (as Vermont this past week) and consider the necessary next steps when EVERY school and district is judged to be Failing (in this case on the basis of the NCLB testing). This brings us to the inevitable end game question of what next steps are to be taken when we finally recognize there are too few qualified State interventionists and too few proven interventions to attack a host of problems needing to be addressed locally.
I first wrote an article on educational accountability in 1974 arguing teachers alone cannot be held responsible for students failing to learn due to the same variables we see at play today, forty years later. When I wrote that piece, behaviorists and the behavioral objectives movement held sway. Today it’s NCHB, RTT, Common Core, PARCC, etc.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. To understand this completely read Larry Cuban’s Inside the Black Box of Classroom Practice. Cuban is in my estimation the most knowledgeable writer/practitioner on school reform today.
Hey Gallagher!!….READ Below PLEASE…and try to understand if that is at all possible!!!!!!!!!…and…..you are still BITTER about the loss of your candidate for the PCC Board…..LOL
Our System of Public Education at the Local Level is in CRISIS! We need to hold Local Systems accountable. Standardized Testing, like Common Core, will do exactly that…..we need to implement rigorous Academic and Behavioral Standards, otherwise the slid downhill will continue!!.
I wonder if it would make any difference if instead of being training schools for mostly dead-end jobs in the old paradigm, schools fostered critical thinking, independent thought and tailored the instruction to the needs and skills and desires of the INDIVIDUAL children who arrive at their doors instead of mashing them all into square holes for the profits of corporate America?
Critical Thinking in TUSD??
I was in a Parent/Teacher Conference at a TUSD High School recently where I supported the Parent’s decision to move his child, who was in my Math Honors Class, to another School District. The Principal “hit the ceiling”…called me into the Office…yelling at me said: “don’t you know the meaning of don’t bit the hand that feeds you” My reply: I will continue to represent what I feel are the best Academic Interests of my Students. This Principal issued me a Written Reprimand quoting the Section of TUSD Policy stating that all criticism of the District must go through an Administrator….NO OPEN CRITICISM!!!!
Critical Thinking in TUSD?? If you dare…you are History….LOL
Yeah Chet, it would make a difference, a huge difference. There are schools and organizations that subscribe to your vision (you are not alone).
Common Core, like its predecessor No Child Held Back, is conceptually DOA and will after a respectable period of time be buried and forgotten as another bad idea, poorly implemented. In the mean time, parents will continue to rise in rebellion – not just the political fruitcakes who see a conspiracy behind every curtain – moving their children out of public schools and into other available learning environments. The teaching profession will be damaged but not destroyed by another school reform movement foisted on them; teachers are great at offering lip service to the latest and greatest while continuing the struggle of educating their students as best they can given dwindling resources.
I wonder how much revenue would be freed for teachers and students if all the state and federal mandate compliance officers and mid level bureaucrats were eliminated. Enough ti buy every teacher classrooms supplies for a year? Let’s form a study commission and issue a report.
Misters Spanier, Chet, and Safier: You are mutually supportive in your condemnation of Standardized Testing, such as Common Core, as a measure of the effectiveness of Instructional Programs. Can I ask what Classroom Experience you all have? And, without Standardized Testing, what is (are) your objective measure (s) of a States/School Districts/Schools Academic Programs?
Francis, I taught for more than 30 years in public high schools, mainly English. I was teaching when the heavy push toward standardized testing began in the 1990s and have watched it grow with No Child Left Behind.
Thank you Mr. Safier: Second Question:
And, without Standardized Testing, what is (are) your objective measure (s) of a States/School Districts/Schools Academic Programs?.