Fairtest's response to the SOTU:

[LWolf]

For info about Fairtest, go here:

http://www.fairtest.org/


There is no link at this point for the response; it came by email:

for immediate release, Wednesday evening, January 27, 2010

REACTION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA'S STATE OF THE UNION **PROPOSALS ON SCHOOL "REFORM"


President Obama deserves praise for proposing increased funding for the nation's public schools, particularly if the additional money goes to classrooms serving children who have been left behind.

However, the President's plans for a national competition to improve schools embraces the failed high-states testing policies embodied in "No Child Left Behind." The "Race to the Top" program actually intensifies the damaging consequences of over-reliance on standardized exams: declining graduation rates and increased dropouts; good students and teachers turned off by dumbed-down learning; and too many classrooms becoming little more than test prep centers. Misusing tests to rank and judge teachers will make these problems worse.

A "world class" education requires major assessment reform. Other nations which produce superior performance test far less and attach far lower stakes to those tests.

A cosmetic makeover of "No Child Left Behind" is not adequate. The fundamental approach must be overhauled, as candidate Obama recognized in his campaign speeches. Washington needs to start helping schools get better, not piling on more tests and punishments. Otherwise, the Administration will just be repackaging warmed-over educational snake oil.

[FBaggins]

1. I presume that's "high STAKES" testing policies?

Anything supporting teachers should be better proof-read. :-)

Other nations which produce superior performance test far less and attach far lower stakes to those tests.

Interesting. On what is that claim of superior performance based if not the type of statistics that they oppose using?

The problem here is one that we run in to in business all the time. How to properly assess performance. They are, of course, correct that test scores just can't tell you everything that you need to know (and create their own problems). But if you take away test scores AND graduation rates AND dropout statistics... how shall we measure success and failure?

[LWolf]

2. Why not ask him?

What the claim of superior performance is based on?

He's got this response on the website now, along with contact information.

The problem here is not how to assess student performance, or how to assess teacher performance. The problem is in the persistence in believing that student test scores assess, not students, but teachers.

Teachers do not control all the factors that affect student outcomes. Using student performance to assess them is invalid as well as unethical.

There are ways to assess teacher performance, some better than others. Look at Charlotte Danielson's work for just one of many models. They just aren't good political tools. They don't produce fodder for politicians.

Is that really the question, though? How shall we measure success and failure?

I assume you mean student success and failure. Tests, performance assessments, a portfolio of work showing growth over time....all of those can be used to measure student success or failure.

Perhaps the real questions might be: What are the causes of student failure? Can we adequately address all of those causes?

Any answer that does not include poverty, illiteracy and/or anti-intellectualism in the family, community, or society, and free will does not address the question.

Education is not a business, and the business model doesn't fit. Students are living, breathing people of free will, and with varying backgrounds and abilities, not products. We aren't manufacturing or selling learning. We offer opportunities. What people do with those opportunities is up to them.