I think this is an excellent little piece. Additionally, I read a horrifying
article in the January Atlantic today about what now passes for Pre K or
nursery school education. Instead of helpling children to interact with each
other, to play creatively, and to enjoy story time, Pre K is now attempting
to teach children to read and to prepare them for Kindergarten which used to
be what nursery school used to be before our society became obsessed with
competition and acquisition, starting at age three.
Miriam
A Primer on the Damaging Movement to Privatize Public Schools
Friday, 08 January 2016 00:00 By Marion Brady, The Washington Post | Op-Ed
(Photo: Abandoned School via Shutterstock)
When, about 30 years ago, corporate interests began their highly organized,
well-funded effort to privatize public education, you wouldn't have read or
heard about it. They didn't want to trigger the debate that such a radical
change in an important institution warranted.
If, like most pundits and politicians, you've supported that campaign, it's
likely you've been snookered. Here's a quick overview of the snookering
process.
The Pitch
Talking Points: (a) Standardized testing proves America's schools are poor.
(b) Other countries are eating our lunch. (c) Teachers deserve most of the
blame. (d) The lazy ones need to be forced out by performance evaluations.
(e) The dumb ones need scripts to read or "canned standards" telling them
exactly what to teach. (f) The experienced ones are too set in their ways to
change and should be replaced by fresh Five-Week-Wonders from Teach for
America. (Bonus: Replacing experienced teachers saves a ton of money.) (g)
Public ("government") schools are a step down the slippery slope to
socialism.
Tactics
Education establishment resistance to privatization is inevitable, so (a)
avoid it as long as possible by blurring the lines between "public" and
"private." (b) Push school choice, vouchers, tax write-offs, tax credits,
school-business partnerships, profit-driven charter chains. (c) When
resistance comes, crank up fear with the, "They're eating our lunch!"
message. (d) Contribute generously to all potential resisters - academic
publications, professional organizations, unions, and school support groups
such as PTA. (e) Create fake "think tanks," give them impressive names, and
have them do "research" supporting privatization. (f) Encourage investment
in teacher-replacer technology - internet access, iPads, virtual schooling,
MOOCS, etc. (e) Pressure state legislators to make life easier for
profit-seeking charter chains by taking approval decisions away from local
boards and giving them to easier-to-lobby state-level bureaucrats. (g) Elect
the "right" people at all levels of government. (When they're campaigning,
have them keep their privatizing agenda quiet.)
Weapon
If you'll read the fine-print disclaimers on high-stakes standardized tests,
you'll see how grossly they're being misused, but they're the key to
privatization. The general public, easily impressed by numbers and
mathematical razzle-dazzle, believes competition is the key to quality, so
want quality quantified even though it can't be done. Machine-scored tests
don't measure quality. They rank.
It's hard to rank unlike things so it's necessary to standardize. That's
what the Common Core State Standards do. To get the job done quickly, Bill
Gates picked up the tab, important politicians signed off on them, and
teachers were handed them as a done deal.
The standards make testing and ranking a cinch. They also make making
billions a cinch. Manufacturers can use the same questions for every state
that has adopted the standards or facsimiles thereof.
If challenged, test fans often quote the late Dr. W. Edward Deming, the
world-famous quality guru who showed Japanese companies how to build better
stuff than anybody else. In his book, "The New Economics," Deming wrote, "If
you can't measure it, you can't manage it."
Here's the whole sentence as he wrote it: "It is wrong to suppose that if
you can't measure it, you can't manage it - a costly myth."
Operating the Weapon
What's turned standardized testing into a privatizing juggernaut are
pass-fail "cut scores" set by politicians. Saying kids need to be
challenged, they set the cut score high enough to fail many (sometimes most)
kids. When the scores are published, they point to the high failure rate to
"prove" public schools can't do the job and should be closed or privatized.
Clever, huh?
The privatizing machinery is in place. Left alone, it'll gradually privatize
most, but not all, public schools. Those that serve the poorest, the
sickest, the disabled, the most troubled, the most expensive to educate -
those will stay in what's left of the public schools.
Weapon Malfunction
Look at standardized tests from the kids' perspective. Test items (a)
measure recall of secondhand, standardized, delivered information, or (b)
require a skill to be demonstrated, or (c) reward an ability to second-guess
whoever wrote the test item. Because kids didn't ask for the information,
because the skill they're being asked to demonstrate rarely has immediate
practical use, and because they don't give a tinker's dam what the test-item
writer thinks, they have zero emotional investment in what's being tested.
As every real teacher knows, no emotional involvement means no real
learning. Period. What makes standardized tests look like they work is
learner emotion, but it's emotion that doesn't have anything to do with
learning. The ovals get penciled in to avoid trouble, to please somebody, to
get a grade, or to jump through a bureaucratic hoop to be eligible to jump
through another bureaucratic hoop. When the pencil is laid down, what's
tested, having no perceived value, automatically erases from memory.
Before You Write.
If you want to avoid cranking out the usual amateurish drivel about
standardized testing that appears in the op-eds, editorials, and syndicated
columns of the mainstream media, ask yourself a few questions about the
testing craze: (a) Should life-altering decisions hinge on the scores of
commercially produced tests not open to public inspection? (b) How wise is
it to only teach what machines can measure? (c) How fair is it to base any
part of teacher pay on scores from tests that can't evaluate complex
thought? (d) Are tests that have no "success in life" predictive power worth
the damage they're doing?
Here's a longer list of problems you should think about before you write.
Perspective
America's schools have always struggled - an inevitable consequence, first,
of a decision in 1893 to narrow and standardize the high school curriculum
and emphasize college prep; second, from a powerful strain of individualism
in our national character that eats away support for public institutions;
third, from a really sorry system of institutional organization.
Politicians, not educators, make education policy, basing it on the
simplistic conventional wisdom that educating means "delivering
information."
In fact, educating is the most complex and difficult of all professions.
Done right, teaching is an attempt to help the young align their beliefs,
values, and assumptions more closely with what's true and real, escape the
bonds of ethnocentrism, explore the wonders and potential of humanness, and
become skilled at using thought processes that make it possible to realize
those aims.
Historically, out of the institution's dysfunctional organizational design
came schools with lots of problems, but with one redeeming virtue. They were
"loose." Teachers had enough autonomy to do their thing. So they did, and
the kids that some of them coached brought America far more than its share
of patents, scholarly papers, scientific advances, international awards, and
honors.
Notwithstanding their serious problems, America's public schools were once
the envy of the world. Now, educators around that world shake their heads in
disbelief (or maybe cheer?) as we spend billions of dollars to standardize
what once made America great - un-standardized thought.
A salvage operation is still (barely) possible, but not if politicians,
prodded by pundits, continue to do what they've thus far steadfastly refused
to do - listen to people who've actually worked with real students in real
classrooms, and did so long enough and thoughtfully enough to know something
about teaching.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
MARION BRADY
Marion Brady is a longtime teacher; school administrator; nationally
distributed newspaper columnist; consultant to states, foundations and
publishers; contributor to academic journals; and author of courses of
study, textbooks and professional books. His most recent is What's Worth
Learning? published by Information Age Publishing. His website is
www.MarionBrady.com.
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Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
A Primer on the Damaging Movement to Privatize Public Schools
Friday, 08 January 2016 00:00 By Marion Brady, The Washington Post | Op-Ed
. font size Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.
. (Photo: Abandoned School via Shutterstock)
. When, about 30 years ago, corporate interests began their highly
organized, well-funded effort to privatize public education, you wouldn't
have read or heard about it. They didn't want to trigger the debate that
such a radical change in an important institution warranted.
If, like most pundits and politicians, you've supported that campaign, it's
likely you've been snookered. Here's a quick overview of the snookering
process.
The Pitch
Talking Points: (a) Standardized testing proves America's schools are poor.
(b) Other countries are eating our lunch. (c) Teachers deserve most of the
blame. (d) The lazy ones need to be forced out by performance evaluations.
(e) The dumb ones need scripts to read or "canned standards" telling them
exactly what to teach. (f) The experienced ones are too set in their ways to
change and should be replaced by fresh Five-Week-Wonders from Teach for
America. (Bonus: Replacing experienced teachers saves a ton of money.) (g)
Public ("government") schools are a step down the slippery slope to
socialism.
Tactics
Education establishment resistance to privatization is inevitable, so (a)
avoid it as long as possible by blurring the lines between "public" and
"private." (b) Push school choice, vouchers, tax write-offs, tax credits,
school-business partnerships, profit-driven charter chains. (c) When
resistance comes, crank up fear with the, "They're eating our lunch!"
message. (d) Contribute generously to all potential resisters - academic
publications, professional organizations, unions, and school support groups
such as PTA. (e) Create fake "think tanks," give them impressive names, and
have them do "research" supporting privatization. (f) Encourage investment
in teacher-replacer technology - internet access, iPads, virtual schooling,
MOOCS, etc. (e) Pressure state legislators to make life easier for
profit-seeking charter chains by taking approval decisions away from local
boards and giving them to easier-to-lobby state-level bureaucrats. (g) Elect
the "right" people at all levels of government. (When they're campaigning,
have them keep their privatizing agenda quiet.)
Weapon
If you'll read the fine-print disclaimers on high-stakes standardized tests,
you'll see how grossly they're being misused, but they're the key to
privatization. The general public, easily impressed by numbers and
mathematical razzle-dazzle, believes competition is the key to quality, so
want quality quantified even though it can't be done. Machine-scored tests
don't measure quality. They rank.
It's hard to rank unlike things so it's necessary to standardize. That's
what the Common Core State Standards do. To get the job done quickly, Bill
Gates picked up the tab, important politicians signed off on them, and
teachers were handed them as a done deal.
The standards make testing and ranking a cinch. They also make making
billions a cinch. Manufacturers can use the same questions for every state
that has adopted the standards or facsimiles thereof.
If challenged, test fans often quote the late Dr. W. Edward Deming, the
world-famous quality guru who showed Japanese companies how to build better
stuff than anybody else. In his book, "The New Economics," Deming wrote, "If
you can't measure it, you can't manage it."
Here's the whole sentence as he wrote it: "It is wrong to suppose that if
you can't measure it, you can't manage it - a costly myth."
Operating the Weapon
What's turned standardized testing into a privatizing juggernaut are
pass-fail "cut scores" set by politicians. Saying kids need to be
challenged, they set the cut score high enough to fail many (sometimes most)
kids. When the scores are published, they point to the high failure rate to
"prove" public schools can't do the job and should be closed or privatized.
Clever, huh?
The privatizing machinery is in place. Left alone, it'll gradually privatize
most, but not all, public schools. Those that serve the poorest, the
sickest, the disabled, the most troubled, the most expensive to educate -
those will stay in what's left of the public schools.
Weapon Malfunction
Look at standardized tests from the kids' perspective. Test items (a)
measure recall of secondhand, standardized, delivered information, or (b)
require a skill to be demonstrated, or (c) reward an ability to second-guess
whoever wrote the test item. Because kids didn't ask for the information,
because the skill they're being asked to demonstrate rarely has immediate
practical use, and because they don't give a tinker's dam what the test-item
writer thinks, they have zero emotional investment in what's being tested.
As every real teacher knows, no emotional involvement means no real
learning. Period. What makes standardized tests look like they work is
learner emotion, but it's emotion that doesn't have anything to do with
learning. The ovals get penciled in to avoid trouble, to please somebody, to
get a grade, or to jump through a bureaucratic hoop to be eligible to jump
through another bureaucratic hoop. When the pencil is laid down, what's
tested, having no perceived value, automatically erases from memory.
Before You Write.
If you want to avoid cranking out the usual amateurish drivel about
standardized testing that appears in the op-eds, editorials, and syndicated
columns of the mainstream media, ask yourself a few questions about the
testing craze: (a) Should life-altering decisions hinge on the scores of
commercially produced tests not open to public inspection? (b) How wise is
it to only teach what machines can measure? (c) How fair is it to base any
part of teacher pay on scores from tests that can't evaluate complex
thought? (d) Are tests that have no "success in life" predictive power worth
the damage they're doing?
Here's a longer list of problems you should think about before you write.
Perspective
America's schools have always struggled - an inevitable consequence, first,
of a decision in 1893 to narrow and standardize the high school curriculum
and emphasize college prep; second, from a powerful strain of individualism
in our national character that eats away support for public institutions;
third, from a really sorry system of institutional organization.
Politicians, not educators, make education policy, basing it on the
simplistic conventional wisdom that educating means "delivering
information."
In fact, educating is the most complex and difficult of all professions.
Done right, teaching is an attempt to help the young align their beliefs,
values, and assumptions more closely with what's true and real, escape the
bonds of ethnocentrism, explore the wonders and potential of humanness, and
become skilled at using thought processes that make it possible to realize
those aims.
Historically, out of the institution's dysfunctional organizational design
came schools with lots of problems, but with one redeeming virtue. They were
"loose." Teachers had enough autonomy to do their thing. So they did, and
the kids that some of them coached brought America far more than its share
of patents, scholarly papers, scientific advances, international awards, and
honors.
Notwithstanding their serious problems, America's public schools were once
the envy of the world. Now, educators around that world shake their heads in
disbelief (or maybe cheer?) as we spend billions of dollars to standardize
what once made America great - un-standardized thought.
A salvage operation is still (barely) possible, but not if politicians,
prodded by pundits, continue to do what they've thus far steadfastly refused
to do - listen to people who've actually worked with real students in real
classrooms, and did so long enough and thoughtfully enough to know something
about teaching.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not
be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Marion Brady
Marion Brady is a longtime teacher; school administrator; nationally
distributed newspaper columnist; consultant to states, foundations and
publishers; contributor to academic journals; and author of courses of
study, textbooks and professional books. His most recent is What's Worth
Learning? published by Information Age Publishing. His website is
www.MarionBrady.com.
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Charter School "Flexibility" Linked to Major Failures; More Than $3.3
Billion in Taxes Spent
By Jonas Persson, PR Watch | ReportCharter Industry Strong-Arms Public
Officials; $3.3 Billion Spent
By Jonas Persson, PR Watch | ReportCharter Program Expansion Looms, Despite
Probes Into Mismanagement and Closed Schools
By Jonas Persson, PR Watch | Report
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