But the idea — let alone the adoption of — a national curriculum appears as a sharp break with the foundation of the American Republic, the commitment to “state’s rights,” to decentralization and a relatively weak central government.

Thus begins the introduction of my forthcoming book, Testing for Tyranny: The Political Significance of a National Curriculum and Testing Regime in the United States.

At present, the push to implement the so-called Common Core Standards (not federal, not national, as Diane Ravitch would have it, but “common,” and so the choice of language is significant) represents a turning point in American history. There are many questions that must be answered about this initiative, the most important one being this: Whose standards are they? Whose interests do they serve?

This question is being posed from a variety of perspectives. For example, a Tea Party activist noted this:

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers (collectively, NGA Center/CCSSO), as the owners of the Common Core State Standards (College- and Career-Readiness Standards and K-12 Standards in English Language Arts and Math), grant this license to the Licensee identified below, subject to the terms set forth herein. The Common Core State Standards are protected by copyright and/or other applicable law, and any use of the Common Core State Standards other than as authorized under this License is prohibited.

And so:

As a parent, where will you go if you feel a change should be made to the ELA or math content to be taught to the students in your neighborhood and community schools? To the school? the local school board? to the state education dept or the state school board? to the federal government? Sorry, it is out their hands. They no longer have control over the content for ELA and math that is to be taught to the students in the states that have adopted the CCSS.

This line of questioning might help explain the choice of language and the administrative mechanisms used to push the standards.  If they were national, this notion of ownership would seem counter productive (who owns the American Flag)? If they were federal, clearly they are in the control of the federal government, owned by it, but presumably on behalf of the people as a whole.. But they are merely “common” — ushered in and controlled by an “association” of associations that is neither federally constituted nor bound to a state, a “public/private partnership” of government leaders and business interests; an entity that does not report to a legislature or even a defined constituency.

And now the Schlechty Center releases, Whose Standards Are They?

Offering a broad minded and thoughtful presentation of standards and their role in education, the paper is particularly significant for the guidance it provides school personnel in organizing discussions about the Common Core Standards in their schools and communities.  It offers a concrete guide for evaluating the Common Core Standards, affirming the right of communities to have a say over the nature and function of the education provided to their youth.

Asking the “who decides” question is by far the most important question to ask when examining the Common Core initiative. Discussions narrowly fixated on implementation, or even concerns about whether national standards and tests will improve education, serve to veil consideration of how contemporary education reform (such as the Common Core) serves to re-articulate governing arrangements such that the vast majority — parents, teachers, administrators, local school boards, and youth — are excluded from involvement in decisions that directly affect their lives, and their future.

Related Posts:

• Race to the Top Assessment Program: Part II – The Political Significance of Assessment Governance
• Race to the Top Assessment Program: Part 1 – Danger, Will Robinson, Irrational Discourse Ahead!
• “Best Urban School District in America” Blocks Access to Websites Critical of “Education Reform”
• Bruce Baker: Smart Guy (Gates) makes my list of “Dumbest Stuff I’ve Ever Read!”
• Detroit Free Press: MEAP may be replaced by national online test

I am sure many have read your May 2, 2011 Open Letter to teachers. I am impressed with its rhetorical slight of hand, how it gently yet forcefully pushes — with all apparent conviction — what more and more of the research community and the public is rejecting.

I presume that it is this broad and growing opposition to Race to the Top (the nearly $5 billion in discretionary monies given to the U.S. Department of Education by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) that caused you to publish your Open Letter. But I do not believe that your rhetoric, however clever, can erase from consciousness the fact that Race to the Top is anti-democratic — imposed through bribery using taxpayer money. It is an open agenda for privatization and the elimination of any last vestiges of democratic governance of and purpose for schooling. Wall Street and various monopolies are attempting total control through for-profit charters, anti-worker legislation, publishing and testing companies, private foundations, and of course, a national curriculum and privately managed testing regime aimed at workers compliance.

Given this reality, I think it is very important to examine how your letter makes its case. And while others have spoken to what is wrong with what you say, and what is wrong with what you propose, I want to focus on something that might be missed, possibly even by you: your letter’s appeal to your personal convictions and beliefs as a basis for legitimating government action.

Your letter constitutes a public sharing of your personal conviction about teaching and the teaching profession. The theory of action appears to be this: teachers believe that you are ill-willed, and have wrong-headed ideas about education. To counter, you are disclosing yourself, and we educators are to be comforted by your stated respect for teachers, and your commitment to fair evaluation systems that you believe will raise the prestige of the profession. You confess, for example, to believing that teachers actually work hard (Well, now, you must be an ally!). And you suggest, although you never really openly say so, that you oppose teaching to the test and the narrowing of curriculum that follows. I should expose the trickery in pretending to address concerns with a curriculum narrowed only to tested subjects with a plan for more frequent testing in all subjects (that is, a national curriculum and series of tests developed by CEOs of corporations, private foundations and publishing and testing companies, with no role for the public). But this is not what I find most striking.

What I find most striking is how you position your personal beliefs and experiences as criteria for the legitimacy of government action. To quote a former president of the United States, you are “the decider,” and you decide based on your beliefs. We the subjects are called upon to accept government action on account of the public expression of your beliefs.

For example, you state: “I have a deep and genuine appreciation for the work you do.” Are the completely invalid pay-per-test-score schemes being imposed in state after state as a result of your Race to the Top competition (referenced in your letter as “sophisticated assessments that measure individual student growth”) somehow now acceptable because the Holy Education Executive has uttered his genuine appreciation for the work teachers do?

Does the fact that you believe “that most teachers did not enter the profession for the money” justify pay and healthcare cuts, layoffs and terminations for those who’s students don’t show enough growth on the “sophisticated assessments” you believe in? After all, you believe the key to reform is building “an accountability system based on data we trust” — so as long as the “data” are trustworthy test hell for parents, students and educators is acceptable? If we don’t go along with “in data we trust” will Senator McCarthy rise from the dead to demand our testimony? (“Mr. Garrison, are you, or have you ever been, or have you ever been associated with, a critic of standardized testing and merit pay for teachers?”)

Equally impressive is how you position yourself as the great leader who has these personal relationships with people — “I am here to help,” you offer (if it were that simple, we could just respond, “thanks, but no thanks!”). You assert, as if it is a settled matter: “We understand that the surest way to [help America’s children] is to make sure that the 3.2 million teachers in America’s classrooms are the very best they can be.” This master lie deserves its own book, but the fact of the matter is the majority of people in America understand that poverty is a very serious and rapidly growing problem. But poverty is brazenly ignored by you and most education reformers. If you want to “help America’s children,” eliminate poverty (and I guarantee the test scores will go up too, without any test prep!).

Like the Royal Wedding which celebrated the grossest forms of inequality, you’re governing strategy is reminiscent of a period of history humanity has fought hard to leave behind: the despotic rule of kings and their royal families. During those times, the beliefs of royalty were all that mattered, and royalty were the only public officially recognized.

So, Mr. Duncan, at the end of the day, I don’t care what you believe. In a democracy, the government must represent the will of the people, not impose its beliefs on them. No one wants a patronizing government that figures its role as “helping.” Any reform that disempowers, any reform that doesn’t help realize social equality, will fail, as the corporate reforms you defend in your letter already have.

Related Posts:

• ARRA Education Funds and the Crisis of Legitimacy
• Secretary Arne Duncan Testifies Before the House Education and Labor Committee
• Mayor Bing Says Eliminating Democratic Control of Schools (“Change”) is Necessary; Ducan’s “Race to Wreck Education” Funds Used as Wedge Against Detroit Voters
• Educational Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
• Clifford Adelman’s “White Noise of Accountability”

While we all make mistakes, the attached letter recruiting subjects for research is a small piece of evidence that appears to confirm our collective worst fears: for-profits are most interested in money, less interested in quality education (I have blocked out the student’s identifying information and the link to the student’s survey). Granted, many faculty, including myself, have participated on dissertation committees of students who produce less than stellar research, write poorly, etc. — and these students attend not-for-profits or publics. No doubt there is a problem with both the preparation of students and the quality of some programs.  I constantly strive to improve the quality of education for my students, but it is admittedly an ongoing challenge. But are for-profits and the model of education they trumpet helping to address these problems?

I think it is fair to single out the for-profits for several reasons. The first is the belief evident in current education policy talk that says markets and the profit motive (ignoring all the fraud, of course), will lead to greater educational access, quality and equality. I have suspected for a long time that for-profit education will at best not achieve these goals. At worst, I fear they will serve to make things much worse.

Research conducted with my colleagues has documented that for-profits receive the highest median Pell per full-time equivalent (FTE) compared to publics and non-profits for the years 1993, 2000 and 2004. This trend might be framed as another form of corporate subsidy. At the same time, for-profits continue to enroll an increasing number of minority students (my most recent research found a huge percent increase in the number of American Indian/Alaskan Natives attending for-profits, for example).

Most interesting is our finding that a smaller percentage of expenses is directed toward instruction at for-profits than non-profits. Sure, maybe for-profits are more efficient, but that line of argument doesn’t solve the problem of why this great efficiency appears to be applied aggressively toward groups that have been and continue to be subjected to discrimination and racist exclusion? Is it OK to “waste” money on rich White kids? (I don’t believe that small class sizes, and small teaching loads for faculty, with a broad range of social and cultural activities for college students, faculty and staff, and plenty of support for faculty developed curriculum and research, is “wasteful”; it just doesn’t line up with the present goals and values of the super rich who now think they reign supreme).

So, we should ask, efficient at what, for whom? Even if a particular student benefits from this type of educational opportunity that does not obliterate the real concern: does the rise of for-profits and marketization more generally herald a new kind of educational stratification, a new means for structuring inequality under the guise of accountability, access and “meeting student demands”? Since for-profits have a greater percentage of Pell eligible students, are we seeing a class bifurcation, especially as publics become less “public” (i.e., affordable)? Add to these concerns the role of for-profits in popularizing the view that education is equivalent to job training — that education has no other, broader social purpose.

Now let’s get back to the Chronicle. The only national newspaper dedicated to covering higher education has moved to sponsor — not simply advertise on their website and print edition, but endorse — email campaigns for a controversial sector of higher education. I for one expect them to cover for-profits in an unbiased fashion. Does the Chronicle of Higher Education actually endorse the for-profit model of higher education, despite the growing concerns that even for-profit PR firms have been unable to eradicate?

Well, upon receiving the first such email endorsement of for-profits, I sent a letter explaining my opposition to this practice to the Chronicle of Higher Education, and received no reply. Maybe the “efficiency” and “opportunity” and “accountability” evident in this recruitment letter will get someone’s attention!

Related Posts:

• Thousand Demonstrate Against California Education Cuts
• Bruce Baker: Smart Guy (Gates) makes my list of “Dumbest Stuff I’ve Ever Read!”
• Teachers have a right to unionize
• Inside Higher Ed: For-Profit Colleges Open Another Front
• Broad Foundation: Facts on the Wrecking of Public Education

Recent news confirms what we have known for a long time: change is coming, and it doesn’t look good. But a key part of contending with change — good or bad — is to step back and analyze how that change is legitimated. In the case of the attack on the right to organize, much can be learned if one examines how the matter is framed and justified.

The nature of the right to organize

Key to attacking teachers is disinformation regarding teachers and their rights. By definition, a right cannot be given or taken away. It is a valid, legitimate claim based in the existence of the holder of the claim. Rights, by their very nature, are not “granted” on the basis of performance, ability, opinion, or any other consideration. I have the right to participate in decision making about matters that affect me, like my working conditions, the condition of my community, the economy in general, etc…whether or not I’m good at math, nice to my neighbors or have friends in high places. I have that right by virtue of being a member of that community, that economy, that workplace. Whether that right is recognized is in practice quite different from whether or not it exists.

So, even if the existence of unions are shown to correlate with some malady, this correlation does not correctly justify attacking a basic right, like that of a group of people with common interests to come together to defend those interests. Does the existence of teachers unions make it harder for administrators to do their job? Sometimes. Does that justify attacking teachers’ right to organize? Absolutely not. This logic would suggest that we should throw harder to educate kids out of school because they make the school’s job harder. Rights establish the boundaries for the negotiation of contending interests, a process which should be governed by the aim of harmonizing those interests, not empowering one group of people at the expense of another as current rhetoric suggests.

So think of it this way, as the right to organize in terms of unions is not simply a matter of “labor rights” but basic to democratic rights in general. Involving all constituencies in making a decision takes longer, is probably a drain on social resources, and might even be properly rendered as “inefficient”. Should we thus abandon the hope that society can be democratically organized? Does this fact negate the claim to have a say over matters that affect our lives? If the process for firing ineffective teachers is burdensome is expanding arbitrary authority of CEO-types with their brooms and bats really a solution? I don’t believe the vast majority of Americans want to wake up in a world run by these broom and bat wielding people.

I hope that these quickly-formulated thought exercises reveal that the logic behind proposals to outlaw or at least largely emasculate collective bargaining are very dangerous. One proposal in fact appears to block teachers from having a say over education policy — so, teachers are key to improving the quality of education, but they should be barred from decision-making (collective bargaining is a decision-making arrangement) about the very thing they are to lead improving? Not convinced?

Certainly, lurking in the public mind is this retort: “yeah, but the teachers are all self interested.” And the billionaires driving school deformation strategies premised on a for-profit model which requires cheap, temporary labor are what, generous and selfless? But let’s actually be serious. What does it mean to be self interested?

Teachers working conditions are students learning conditions

The line that outlawing teachers unions is required so that school boards and parents can be empowered is lunacy. Parents are not empowered if the teachers that teach their children are treated like shit. School boards are not representing the interests of their community if they treat teachers like shit.

More to the point, the line that the problem is that teachers unions only serve the interests of teachers needs to be interrogated. Is self interest wrong? Why is it wrong or socially harmful to want higher wages, better healthcare, and small class sizes, rest and leisure and assurance of being cared for during retirement?

That sounds terrible! I’ll sign up instead for the work camp where I can salute the master every day, as my body cripples and spirit is crushed under the mighty pressure of standards gaps and evaluation evaluation assessments data driven decision-less making brain-numbing ignorance of the 6,000 pound gorilla who just got laid off, has no healthcare and is being evicted, with three children, all of whom are not meeting “benchmark” (although they might be sleeping under the bench, which is not one of the marks). (And, of course, because the gorilla is sooo big, it can’t choose to even live under the bridge, let alone the bench.)

It is a material fact that teachers working conditions are students learning conditions. That is, teachers self interest is connected to their students’ interests. Students under the tutelage of teachers who are themselves under the thumb of a broom or bat totting CEO with unbridled power to hire and fire at will and extend the working day and increase class size at will (all so they can be “empowered to strategically use resources” — i.e., cut costs) will not be served well. Period. Teachers and parents and tax payers have well over one hundred years of experience fighting for real public education. I know its tough, but we need to remember: teachers are tax payers. Teachers are parents. And teachers are mostly women.

So laid out this way, someone is going to have a hell of a time convincing the public that the self-interest of women is somehow fundamentally at odds with parents and the community, and that to counter this, we should put “students first”…because, uh, women are opposed to helping children, and benefit from, uh, illiterate, poorly educated youth?

You know what, I think its time the public eye scrutinized another collective — not teachers, or women, or parents — a much smaller collective, a collective for whom its self interest does not in fact correlate with the general interest!

Bill, Eli, are you there?

Related Posts:

• Thousand Demonstrate Against California Education Cuts
• Evidence on the quality of for-profit higher education?
• Stephen Sawchuk: States Aim to Curb Collective Bargaining
• Anthony Cody: Teachers Beware — They are Coming for Our Pensions
• Inside Higher Ed: For-Profit Colleges Open Another Front

http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au

Yesterday, the Buffalo News reported that the Buffalo Public Schools and the Buffalo Teachers Federation had negotiated a new teacher evaluation system. But what is particularly significant is that the News simultaneously reported on and endorsed the contract negotiated between Washington, D.C. teachers and administration, and promoted it as a model for Buffalo. The D.C. contract — known as IMPACT but not mentioned by name in the editorial — has, according to the Buffalo News, four key components: performance-based teacher evaluation, financial incentives to raise test scores, limits on the protections of tenure, and increased ability of the district to lay off “bad teachers” without “economic cause”. But the News is either unaware or unwilling to report facts unfriendly to its position of support.

While the News editorial characterizes the contact as one where “performance and the quality of teaching, not blind seniority, will determine who is hired and who is laid off,” it downplays the fact that “performance” and “quality of teaching” are determined by student test scores. Following adoption of the contract, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired 165 teachers based on lack of improvement in student test scores over one academic year. The method is said to measure the “value added” to students by their teacher.

Student test scores do not equal good teaching

Despite all the rhetoric supporting the use of scientific research to guide education reform, the amount of evidence against using test scores as a basis for teacher evaluation is very strong. President Obama, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and a host of billionaires who support Rhee are imposing this practice across the country, despite the warnings of the scientific community.

In his video Merit Pay, Teacher Pay, and Value Added Measures, professor Daniel Willingham summarizes the problems associated with what the News is promoting. But he is not alone. A recent report by the National Center for Educational Evaluation estimating the error in using test scores to classify teachers as effective or ineffective predicts that when using only one year of data, 35% of teacher classifications will be wrong (i.e., effective teachers will be classified as ineffective, and ineffective teachers will be classified as effective). For teachers in D.C., that means as many as 57 of the 165 teachers fired in DC might have been inaccurately identified as ineffective. The National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research also released a study examining the technical limits of using student test results to evaluate teachers. Among other things, the report found that different tests yield different teacher rankings.

The degrading effect of incentives

But more important than the technical limitations noted above is the philosophical underpinning of the entire system based on financial incentives to pressure educators to boost student test scores. Based on past practice, this gives rise to treating students as mere conduits of cash, leading ultimately to student abuse and debasement of public education. This is what happened under a similar system in England, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The negative results of what was known as Payment by Results were widely recognized by contemporaries, and the practice was eventually halted. It was precisely this system — one that abused teachers and pushed many competent ones to leave the profession — that contributed to teachers unionizing in Britain. And most interestingly, it was a method of teacher compensation rooted in an effort to reduce spending on public education during a time of great expenditures following the Crimean War.

Related Posts:

• Teachers have a right to unionize
• Stephen Sawchuk: States Aim to Curb Collective Bargaining
• Anthony Cody: Teachers Beware — They are Coming for Our Pensions
• Thousand Demonstrate Against California Education Cuts
• Labor Beat Chicago Video Exposes Duncan’s Record

RTTT is the "Carrot That Feels Like a Stick," says Mike Petrilli (of all people). He "can’t help but feel remorse for the death of federalism."

As I prepare for a talk at DePaul University tomorrow, I’m racing (ha!) to review the assessment program of Race to the Top. After having vented yesterday, several things stand out as politically significant in the assessment competition.

It is key to understand that the content of Race to the Top is bribery. While in the past the main criticism from various quarters was that much of NCLB’s testing requirements were “unfunded mandates;” today they are funded, but in an even more coercive way. Those who do the bidding of Obama, Duncan and a host of venture philanthropists, will receive tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. This itself is significant, for as I’ve noted before, bribery as a method signifies illegitimacy: “The use of the public treasury to bribe educators is an open admission that the path being imposed by the ruling elite cannot be justified” — that is, it is against prevailing public opinion. Despite all the talk about putting children first, kids do not want more testing, they are not craving to have their entire academic experience converted to numbers and letters in some federal database (as RTTT appears to aim to create), nor are they demanding teachers who only spend a few weeks preparing to enter the classroom, high on a mission inspired by the White Man’s Burden. Nor are children and youth narrowly interested in education for a career. So, as is often the case, things are not what they seem. The irrationality of the project requires that its political functions be explored. Eligibility requirements for receiving the competitive grants are a good place to begin.

An Analysis of Select Requirements

To be eligable for the Comprehensive Assessment System (the first assessment competition), the Executive Summary states:

Eligible applicants are consortia of States. To be eligible to receive an award under this category, an eligible applicant must—1. Include a minimum of 15 States, of which at least 5 States must be governing States (as defined in the NIA); 2. Identify in its application a proposed project management partner and provide an assurance that the proposed project management partner is not partnered with any other eligible applicant applying for an award under this category; and; 3. Submit assurances from each State in the consortium that, to remain in the consortium, the State will adopt a common set of college- and career-ready standards…

It will be important to thoroughly explore the degree to which this arrangement has precedent, but there are, it appears, some significant breaks with past practice. Unlike national associations like the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) — which is nonetheless playing an important role in creating national standards — RTTT requires placing some states as “governing” over others and require states in the consortia to sign “assurances” of compliance with the governing state and executive demands at the federal level to receive funding. Whereas CCSSO and possibly other associations are framed as advocacy organizations, this arrangement appears to create new governance structures. It appears to structure a new form of political inequality among states as well.

So what of these new governance structures? First, it is important to take seriously the use of the word consortium. Similar to the increasingly used concept of partnership, consortium is typically understood as “an association, typically of several business companies.” The social and political arrangement in which this makes sense is typically understood as belonging to the private realm of private enterprise, or that of “civil society” in the form of a professional association or “non-governmental agency” — as distinct from the state. But here we have the federal apparatus, under the direction of an executive, and not the law making body, forming through the use of bribes governing structures that do not obviously conform to the U.S. constitution or even state constitutions. What are we to make of a group of states forming a governing alliance that controls curricular content and standards for assessment whether teachers are teaching and students are learning that content, under the direction of executive bodies of the federal government? Will such alliances compete with each other? Will there be a Confederate consortium?

In the Federal Register notice, we find this interesting option:

Application Requirements: An eligible applicant’s application must—1. Indicate, consistent with 34 CFR 75.128, whether—(a) One member of the consortium is applying for a grant on behalf of the consortium; or (b) The consortium has established itself as a separate eligible legal entity and is applying for a grant on its own behalf; 2. Be signed by—(a) If one member of the consortium is applying for a grant on behalf of the consortium, the Governor, the State’s chief school officer, and, if applicable, the president of the State board of education from that State; or (b) If the consortium has established itself as a separate eligible legal entity and is applying for a grant on its own behalf, a representative of the consortium.

It is completely unclear, albeit on its face significant, what it means to allow for states to form a consortium that “has established itself as a separate eligible legal entity.” Such as a private corporation or non-for-profit institution?

Second, what might be most significant about this arrangement is not that it violates states rights (presumably the out for the Obama administration here is that Duncan is not actually forcing any state to apply for these grants) but rather that it restructures executive authority by creating “partnerships” between associations of states that relate as single entities to federal bodies, where these consortia appear to be de-linked both from federal and state law making bodies.

A related criteria for winning the competition is the role given to public institutions of higher education (IHEs). The Summary explains:

The Department gives eligible applicants competitive preference points based on the extent to which they have promoted collaboration and alignment between member States’ public elementary and secondary education systems and their public IHEs…Eligible applicants addressing this priority must provide, for each IHE or IHE system, a letter of intent that—(a) Commits the IHE or IHE system to participate with the consortium in the design and development of the consortium’s final high school summative assessments in mathematics and English language arts in order to ensure that the assessments measure college readiness; (b) Commits the IHE or IHE system to implement policies, once the final high school summative assessments are implemented, that exempt from remedial courses and place into credit-bearing college courses any student who meets the consortium-adopted achievement standard (as defined in the NIA) for each assessment and any other placement requirement established by the IHE or IHE system; and (c) Is signed by the State’s higher education executive officer (if the State has one) and the president or head of each participating IHE or IHE system.

This arrangement appears to have the effect of brining state public education systems under a governing apparatus of consortia of states — neither at the state level nor the federal level — that, in turn, interacts with the federal department of education. Of course, there is much to say about this — the implication of mandating the elimination of remedial courses for example — but that is for another time.

Another feature that suggests significant restructuring of executive power is this requirement stipulated under Consortium Governance. It notes that the “terms and conditions of the Memoranda of Understanding or other binding agreements executed by each member State” must include the “State’s commitment to and plan for identifying any existing barriers in State law, statute, regulation, or policy to implementing the proposed assessment system and to addressing any such barriers prior to full implementation of the summative assessment components of the system.”

Like Race to the Top requirements that bribe states into rewriting their laws — the most notable examples being the removal of caps on charter schools and rules limiting the use of test data for teacher evaluation purposes — this places executive bodies in a quasi-law making role. Along with venture philanthropy and other monopolies, governors and some legislatures are demanding changes to state law to increase state chances for winning Race to the Top funds. While a key point here is the clear focus on emasculating teachers unions and the spreading of massive disinformation about “putting kids first”, the point here is that this structure creates a new governing mechanism, neither at the level of state, nor clearly at the federal level; in some ways, it is not clear that the consortia to be formed are fully public in nature (e.g., a consortium that “established itself as a separate eligible legal entity”). It is important to understand that these changes are enabled by the ARRA, the result of the crimes of Wall Street (while some banks are “too big to fail” public institutions of historic proportion, such as public schools and universities, are being forced to fail).

Another clue that suggests limited public status for these governing structures is the manner in which RTTT insists on technical standards that are, generally speaking, open source or cross platform, while maintaining test secrecy. This ensures the public continues to be blocked from access to test content. Again the notice in the Federal Register is more helpful. It states:

In addition, we are requiring that eligible applicants receiving awards under either category in this competition develop assessment items and produce student data in a manner that is consistent with standards for interoperability, and that they make all assessment content (i.e., assessments and assessment items) developed with funds from this competition freely available to States, technology platform providers, or others that request it for purposes of administering assessments, consistent with States’ needs and with consortium or State requirements for test or item security.

Suggesting that public dollars are again being used to develop technology latter utilized by private entities, the notice reads:

We believe that these requirements will ensure that assessment content developed with funds from this competition is widely available, including to States that are not part of consortia receiving funds under this competition as well as to commercial organizations wishing to further develop, extend, and incorporate the content into assessment products intended for State use. Moreover, we believe that making assessment content freely available will spur innovation in assessment technology and enable technology providers to compete for States’ business on the basis of their developing efficient, effective, economical, and innovative assessment platforms.

It does not appear than that the issue is simply one of state’s rights and the death of federalism. Rather, it appears the very nature and scope of executive power is changing, and working to further distance governance from the public and its will.

Related Posts:

• Race to the Top Assessment Program: Part 1 – Danger, Will Robinson, Irrational Discourse Ahead!
• The Common Core: Whose Standards Are They?
• Clever rhetoric won’t save your undemocratic reform from failure: An open letter to Arne Duncan on the occasion of teacher appreciation week
• Bruce Baker: Smart Guy (Gates) makes my list of “Dumbest Stuff I’ve Ever Read!”
• Detroit Free Press: MEAP may be replaced by national online test

Well, let’s examine the first paragraph of the Executive Summary (since that is how far I got before I had to say something before my brain exploded):

Authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the Race to the Top Assessment Program provides funding to consortia of States to develop assessments that are valid, support and inform instruction, provide accurate information about what students know and can do, and measure student achievement against standards designed to ensure that all students gain the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in college and the workplace. These assessments are intended to play a critical role in educational systems; provide administrators, educators, parents, and students with the data and information needed to continuously improve teaching and learning; and help meet the President’s goal of restoring, by 2020, the nation’s position as the world leader in college graduates.

Wow! If you’re not struck by the incompetence, read it again. OK, wow!

First, validity of these new assessments is presented as a criteria that is somehow separate from providing “accurate information about what students know and can do”. Would you consider it possible to have a valid assessment that cannot provide information about what students know and can do in some domain (assuming for a moment developing such assessments is a straightforward and problem-free endeavor)?

More troubling is this gem: “measure student achievement against standards designed to ensure that all students gain the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in college and the workplace.” Measurement is not the same as comparison. And the phrase “measure student achievement against” is inept and awkward. Of course one might counter that the sentence means to convey that college and career standards should be used to measure student achievement prior to college, or that these standards should be used to validate measures of achievement. But such re-renderings do little to help. By way of some spell developed by Voldemort, this measurement spiral will ensure “all students gain the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in college and the workplace”. Can standards ensure things like this?

Oh, it’s actually quite easy, like, when, uh, the standard measure of weight is used to ensure everyone loses weight! If only obese youth had access to more bathroom scales!

And wouldn’t it be great if schools prepared everyone for college and the workplace? That won’t be a challenge, because all colleges and degree programs are essentially the same, and we all work (those of us who have the will to get a job in this free market utopia) in “the workplace.” I think it is well established, using scientifically based methods, that all workplaces are essentially the same and require the same skills. The psychological literature is bursting with studies demonstrating how easily skills transfer from one domain to the next…that’s why CEOs have proven to be such effective educators.

And, I’m really happy that the Obama administration wants to provide parents with “data and information needed to continuously improve teaching”. Hell, since they, and many teachers, will be out of work, they might as well do something for their country…

Related Posts:

• Race to the Top Assessment Program: Part II – The Political Significance of Assessment Governance
• The Common Core: Whose Standards Are They?
• Bruce Baker: Smart Guy (Gates) makes my list of “Dumbest Stuff I’ve Ever Read!”
• Detroit Free Press: MEAP may be replaced by national online test
• Maryland First State to Bar Schools Releasing Tests to Military

Nussbaum begins by warning of a crisis in education, a crisis rooted in the quest for national profit or economic gain (interestingly enough this point is made without reference to the dramatic increase in the rise of for-profit providers of higher education and the concomitant adoption of an outlook predicated on education being a service and students consumers). She writes:

Radical changes are occurring in what democratic societies teach the young, and these changes have not been well thought through. Thirsty for national profit, nations and their systems of education are heedlessly discarding skills that are needed to keep democracies alive. If this trend continues, all over the world we will soon be producing generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements. The future of the world’s democracies hangs in the balance.

What is most interesting about this line of argument is its assumption that “citizens who can think for themselves” (what about resident “aliens”?), the “ability” to “criticize tradition” and “understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements”, are all skills. Is thinking a skill? Is empathy a skill?

Examining the Oxford English Dictionary, one will find that the noun skill has two distinct meanings, and I think the difference is quite significant. The first meaning listed is essentially grounded in the notion of reason, or discernment and differentiation (and given as a mental faculty of individuals, whereas now there is evidence that thinking is a social, not simply psychological, phenomenon). The second meaning moves us into the moral realm: “That which is reasonable, proper, right, or just.”

The “business community’s” emphasis on education for the development of skills suggests, at first glance, a set of functional capacities (e.g., STEM) tightly aligned with what finance capital says the market can bear and national security deems worthy (e.g., learning Arabic). Yet, it is clear to me that since the days of the development of civil service exams in China and then in the west, a composite notion of skill has pervaded our thinking, both causing confusion and covering over important developments. This confusion reigns in Nussbaum’s essay and is worth further exploration.

She writes: “Indeed, what we might call the humanistic aspects of science and social science—the imaginative, creative aspect, and the aspect of rigorous critical thought—are also losing ground.”

While the word rigorous is almost as hackneyed and misused as the word accountability (rigorous is of course derived from the notion of being inflexible, as when one dies their body becomes rigid, something I hope most can recognize as not being synonymous with notions like “advanced”), what is particularly troubling is the incessant habit of placing adjectives before words in such a manner as to reveal that the writer does not understand them. So an example is “critical thinking.” I’m just not convinced that thinking is a phenomenon that comes in varieties, such that one type of thinking is “critical” and another type is “uncritical”. I’m serious; if we don’t stop this irrationalism, we’re going to soon be offering undergraduates “uncritical thinking” as a prerequisite for courses in “critical thinking”. This reminds me of proponents of “brain-based learning,” as if we were confused as to the organ largely responsible for learning! I’m going to develop the Institute for Foot-based Learning, following in the footsteps (!) of the peripatetic philosophers of ancient Athens.

So back to the problems of skills-as-values. Anyway, what is significant about the designation of some thinking as critical is that it appears to cross over into a moral or values positions (critical means to render negative judgment), beyond any empirically based analysis of forms or types of thinking. That is to say, the kind of thinking that “critical thinking” targets is thinking that is judgmental, opinionated, and so on, and thus, the notion confuses the value and the form of the process and product of thinking. Nussbaum continues:

Given that economic growth is so eagerly sought by all nations, especially at this time of crisis, too few questions have been posed about the direction of education, and, with it, of the world’s democratic societies. With the rush to profitability in the global market, values precious for the future of democracy are in danger of getting lost.

So here we have an assumed linkage of the above mentioned skills to a set of values, which I don’t think is an accident nor a problem unique to this author’s point of view. She continues in the following paragraph thusly:

The profit motive suggests to many concerned leaders that science and technology are of crucial importance for the future health of their nations. We should have no objection to good scientific and technical education. My concern is that other abilities, equally crucial, are at risk of getting lost in the competitive flurry, abilities crucial to the health of any democracy internally, and to the creation of a world culture capable of tackling the world’s most pressing problems.

Wait! I though we were talking about the skills associated with a liberal-arts education, skills that help foster democratic governance? Yes, ability is commonly referenced by thesauruses as a synonym for skill, but is it? Ability, according the OED, is particularly focused on the notion of suitability relative to a particular purpose, or as the quality making some action possible. So, let me pull what I think is a very important observation from my book:

Sociologists point out that there have always been arrangements for formally recognizing the capacity to perform important social roles and to exercise their associated social status and power… Notice that there are in fact two capacities referenced here. The first is the capacity to perform the role itself (functional competency), and the second capacity is to exercise the role’s associated social status and power (what might be called social competency). Notions of ability, of capacity, are bound up with social roles, for ability must have a place for it to be manifest. This quality or state of being able manifests itself in the “physical, mental, or legal power to perform,” according to Webster’s. Note that ability can signify a power inhering in persons—again functional capacity—or a legal power to do something, or social capacity. It is significant, I think, that the etymology of ability is from the Middle English, suitability. In this regard, standardized test-based assessment is the judgment of worth relative to a structural slot or social position—what is deemed of value and who is deemed of value—a process abstracted as achievement or ability.

It is this dual meaning of skill and ability that must be sorted out. In the same breath, we talk about functional capacities and social capacities. In the present circumstance this leads to, among other things, blaming average individuals for what are in reality structural problems, which are covered over by those relatively few individuals who benefit from these structural arrangements.

And of course, educational institutions have been implicated in this social structuring, and the interesting fact is that “liberal arts” education was reserved for those slotted for positions afforded “social status and power”; as access to education was broadened, and the right to vote extended, more limited forms of liberal education were afforded the “masses.” “Liberal education” was the vision so graciously extended to the “masses” by enlightened bourgeois reformers and while progressive in its day and responsible for many positive developments, it imposed the limits of a bourgeois outlook (e.g., “learning is for its own sake”). It cannot move us into the future. It confounded our understanding of skills, abilities and values, and brought with it the view that education was an appropriate means for defending the ranking of humanity, thus not only distorting our understanding of the origin of extant social inequality, but also distorting the process and outcome of education by tightly aligning its acquisition with social rank.

It is thus my (admittedly underdeveloped) thesis that the current emphasis on “skills” is in fact an assignment of lower social value to a larger section of the population than has been practiced in the recent past; the problem is not that the “skills” necessary for democracy are not being “taught”, but rather that what little democracy existed prior to the current push for “accountability” is being eliminated by the reduction of education to “skills development” under the hoax of economic development.

The political arrangement that housed “liberal arts” as an educational form no longer holds sway. Put in a different manner, the aim of the emphasis on skills is not — at the macro level — in the main economically driven, but a political necessity given the extreme concentration of power and complete failure of the current political system to provide people even a modicum of say over their government and the direction of society. In vogue notions of skills are confused with notions of values, and are thus quite complex. The notion of “critical thinking” is not a banner behind which educators should readily line up in the dire hope that by adopting the business-talk of skills somehow a broad and enlightened form of education can be defended and supported.

Related Posts:

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• Clifford Adelman’s “White Noise of Accountability”
• Realism and Social Change
• Are Tests Measures of Test Taking Ability?
• The Questions of Education Reform Are Really Questions of Who Decides

But the English language does not help the discussion of measurement, as measure can signify both a standard and the process of applying a standard for the purpose of measurement, assessment or comparison. Not all applications of standards produce measurements. Applications of legal standards do not yield measurements of criminality. So, to say that a test is the best available measure may be true if by measure one means the prediction of some performance. But prediction and measurement are not the same thing. Measurement is a very specific thing, a claim that a mathematical system corresponds with the phenomenon of interest. This is the criteria of being isomorphic. Standardized tests do not meet that criteria. And, they do not identify a precise object of measurement. Thus, claiming that one must have real knowledge of mathematics to perform “well” (high rank performance) on some math test is not the same as the claim that the math test produces a measurement of math ability. Of course one must have some related skills and general intellectual development to engage with the test in a way society renders valuable. But the outcome of that exercise does not constitute a measurement.

In the course of the discussion, it was argued that test scores are at least measures of test taking ability. My claim is that tests currently in use do not meet the criteria of measurement, and that this fact is hidden, covered over, but in reality, known to psychometricians. My claim is that these tests do not produce measurements of any kind (Walt Haney tried to convince me that they are “weak” measures, which created new problems). This is why I go to great lengths to distinguish between assessment and measurement. Standardized tests are obviously tools for making assessments. They’re just not measurements, and my claim is that this distinction is very significant.

I suppose that part of what is troubling about my argument is my strict use of the word measurement. So, for example, I would agree that a score on a standardized test is a “useful indicator” of how proficient a person is at taking standardized tests in general, but I would object to someone calling that score a measurement of test-taking ability. Creating an indices, Likert scale, etc., with the aid of numbers, may provide “useful” information, and even allow that information to be treated statistically (75% of Americans are opposed to the Iraq war) but the mere assignment of numbers to something in this manner does not in itself constitute measurement. Again, I maintain that the distinction is significant; it is significant that politicians and policy experts routinely call things measurements when the results do not meet the criteria of measurement.

The claim to measurement is made because it enables one to make claims about the origin of social trends. During the rise of intelligence testing, the claim that intelligence was being measured (even though it was known to be a mere classification) enabled reformers to link school performance to what they postulated as variation in intellectual ability (and not ineffective teaching, instruction in a language not spoken by students, or a vapid curriculum). Today, the claim to measurement is required to argue that “teaching ability” or “teaching effectiveness” is the cause of various social trends. No serious scientist believes that student performance on any academic test constitutes a measurement of teaching effectiveness. And, today, even though it is well established that is “normal” for individuals to vary in their rate and depth of learning any content or skill, the useless slogan “all children can learn” is shouted by reformers as if it represents the noblest aspirations of humanity. Even if social inequality were drastically reduced, individual (not group) performance on any valued task — intellectual, social, physical — would vary widely (and this in and of itself is not a social problem).

Finally, as seems to be common when anyone presents a challenge to standardized testing, critics are imputed with the aim of “throwing out the tests.” My book is quite clear that eliminating standardized testing as we know it — while leaving all else intact — would do little good and produce more harm. But blocking the use of high stakes tests would be a positive move. And as for being pegged an anti-tester, I’m the only one (I think) to critique the critics who say standardization is “bad”; again, my aim is to analyze these concepts and structures as they are rooted in definite social and political systems. Standardization in political terms is an advance, and part of the progressive notion of equality. In fact, the tendency now is to undermine, blow off, and ignore standard psychometric procedure (reliability, validity, etc.) and this is destructive and reflective of the larger trend of those in positions of power to act with impunity. As Gene Glass notes, most states don’t even produce the most basic test validation data.

But the actual point is that the standards adopted by a social system change as the system changes; the point is that this is a political fight, and that the fight over standards is political. By political I do not meant to narrowly refer to political parties, but rather I refer to the process by which a society decides who gets what, when, where, and how. Educators can’t wish away this political feature of standards. It is an argument that ultimately says that in order to address the flaws of standardized testing and policy that relies on testing, you have to address the major flaws of the present social system that are reflected in those tools and policies. The failure of “authentic assessment” is as much a political failure as a technical one.

Related Posts:

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• Review of “A Measure of Failure: The Political Origins of Standardized Testing”
• The Common Core: Whose Standards Are They?
• Clever rhetoric won’t save your undemocratic reform from failure: An open letter to Arne Duncan on the occasion of teacher appreciation week
• Bruce Baker: Smart Guy (Gates) makes my list of “Dumbest Stuff I’ve Ever Read!”

One of the underlying tensions of this reform revolves around central tenets of the U.S. system of governance: federalism. The question posed by the framers of the constitution was how to secure national interest without tyranny; how to share power without diluting it; how to avoid civil war among those being “federated.” Underlying the current efforts is a dramatic increase in the role and power of the federal government, especially the power unelected executive branches now exert over state and local education systems. Sometimes explicit, other times implicit, the debate is rendered as one of defending the constitutional status quo — states rights, local control, etc. — or the need to move beyond partisan politics, that this is “for the children” and is not in any way altering who is in control. In pushing for national standards, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reportedly told state Governors: “some people may claim that a commonly created test is a threat to state control — but let’s remember who is in charge. You are. You will create these tests. You will drive the process. You will call the shots.”

So where should one stand? The experience of history yields the following conclusion: neither the past system of “local control” (and its role in defending crimes of segregation and inequalities of wealth) nor the present drive for “innovaation” in the form of “national standards,” “pay-for-performance,” “alternative certification,” and “high quality assessments” along, with a certain kind of “choice,” will serve the interests of the people as a whole.

In contending with how to move forward, what stands to take, it is important to understand that the drive for broad, universal education in the United States was very much influenced by African Americans and workers generally, beginning after the Civil War. The system that emerged was the result of a fight, one that has been continuously waged, between factions and classes over the form and function of eduation. Universal education under their auspices required no admissions tests, no fees or tuition, no “agreement” to accept draconian test-prep methods and humiliation as a basis for enrollment, no rejection of students with special needs. Most important from the point of view of the present is that this model did not adopt the notion of competition as its underlying principal. It was driven by the demand of enlightened humanity, against slavery and all forms of oppression. It was premised on the conclusion that education is a basic human right, with society responsible to ensure its universal provision as a condition for individuals and collectives to fulfill their social responsibility to society. This broad education was a key element in the vision for the advance of humanity that emerged with the end of legal slavery in the United States.

Among conditions of forced illiteracy, education activists of that time and on to the civil rights movement of the 20th century demanded an education far beyond “literacy” and “work readiness” (the limits now imposed by todays “leaders” so that they can profit from global competition). Demands for culture, political decision making and philosophy stood behind practical efforts to raise the educational levels of entire communities in record time following the civil war (whose progress was blocked from further advance by the state-organized racist gangs such as the KKK and the post-Civil War arrangements of legal segregation).

This lesson of history is that if education is to serve the public interest — is to serve the society — the people themselves must set the standards designed to govern the content and form public education is to take. That Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is outrightly bribing states and local school districts into accepting the corporate agenda for schooling by awarding federal funds to only those who comply with this agenda is itself a frank admission that the direction he is driving education is against the public will and the public interest. It is illegitimate as bribery is not a modern basis for securing the consent.

Parents, teachers, families and entire communities reject the vision handed down to them by these “reformers” that says the highest aspiration served by education is that of getting a job or being “ready” for “college” — itself now reduced to more job training. Such a standards smacks of arrangements before the Civil War, where extensive education was reserved only for the rich, with the masses receiving only that which the rich deemed necessary for them to function as workers and slaves.

Related Posts:

• The Common Core: Whose Standards Are They?
• Clever rhetoric won’t save your undemocratic reform from failure: An open letter to Arne Duncan on the occasion of teacher appreciation week
• Detroit Free Press: MEAP may be replaced by national online test
• Clifford Adelman’s “White Noise of Accountability”
• Race to the Top Assessment Program: Part II – The Political Significance of Assessment Governance