Sounding an alarm

As a passionate believer in public education I am obliged to sound an alarm because not doing so is a moral failure. What I’m seeing play out in my school right now is indeed alarming. We currently have two weeks of school left and another round of standardized testing has just been scheduled. Since April the library, which has two class sized computer labs, has been given over completely to testing. Instead of having students come to the library because it has the densest concentration of resources in the school with its books and technology, students are coming because it is a testing center. That is a misapplication of the funding the people of Washington, through its legislature, believe was allocated to promote reading and assist students with research and the completion of class projects, in other words a library program.

To be fair, students have been able to check out books and on a very limited basis to print papers. This is largely because I am a strong advocate for student access to library resources. But it is easy to imagine a zealous administration bent on completing the necessary 95% tested requirement that is in force from OSPI, completely eliminating student access to maintain a “proper testing environment”.

Right now SBAC has been completed but the ELL students are taking the STAMP test, and teachers have started sending students into the library to print, figuring that the testing has eased up. But, yesterday we learned that we need to test 116 students because one of the grantors to our City Year program needs the data from MAP as part of the funding requirement for next year and they won’t accept SBAC or any of the other data that has been produced this year. Here is the explanation for this late entry into the data race from the principal’s email,

“At the start of this year, we had planned to take the Amplify test for literacy and MAP test for math for all scholars.  The Amplify testing has been completed for some time.  The spring math MAP had been planned for June for all scholars to show growth between fall and spring, as we have done for many years in a row.  It had also been written into some of our grants.   

This year, due to the scope of the SBAC, I decided to try to reduce the amount of math spring MAP testing.  To do this I needed to work with two major grant organizations, the City of Seattle Seattle Families and Education Levy and the Diplomas Now grant.  The City of Seattle staff were able to switch our grant to remove Spring Math MAP.  The Diplomas Now partnership receives Federal AmeriCorps funding as a major source of funding to pay for City Year Corps members—for this grant, we were not able to make the change to remove Spring Math MAP.  Additionally, we also need to include literacy MAP for scholars on the focus lists.  The end result of this is that we have reduced the number of Denny scholars who are going to take the Spring MAP down to 116 (the group who benefit from direct support by our City Year Corps Members).”

What I see as unfair is this, these 116 students are already some of the most stressed students in the school. Many of them are the same ELL students who are STAMP testing in the very next room. STAMP is in addition to SBAC which is required of all students. ELL students also take the additional  WELPA. Now all of a sudden they have to do MAP, merely to satisfy a foundation hungry for data. This is exploitative and predatory in my opinion. I envision vampires sucking data from our student body to feed some corporate greed. It seems so clearly wrong to subject these children to this degree of over testing that not resisting it is a moral failure. These children do not understand why they are being tested and their parents don’t even know that they are being tested.

It saddens me that our leadership has struck this Faustian bargain with these public/private partnerships and have relinquished so much decision making to out of sight authorities.

One librarian's view of testing

As the school librarian I have a special vantage point for observing standardized testing in action. Not only do I have a finger on the pulse of how technology is managed in my school, in the district and across the state but I watch as every teacher brings their classes to one of the two labs in the library  to test from April until the end of the school year. This is my 6th year watching the parade as it takes over the library for testing. At the beginning of my assignment as librarian I was a MAP testing coordinator but I resigned from that after 3 years and I was able to establish a higher degree of professional best practice in my library with the time that was restored to my primary function. Librarians manage information and resources related to information, we are specialists but we are not assessment specialists, we are information and technology specialists. Our territory is books and computers.

In addition to refusing to continue as the testing coordinator I began pushing back in other ways too, through the Building Leadership Team (BLT) and with direct talks with my administrators, until last year I managed to keep testing out of the library for all but 3 weeks of the year. Previously the library had been requisitioned for as many as 14 weeks one year. This year the longer period of library closure resumes.

We are in full swing with SBAC testing and the library has been commandeered to be used as a testing site. The computers are off limits to students all day for any purpose other than SBAC. Students needing to come into the library to work on a project or print a paper need to wait until after school  and hope it is not too crowded. I have some flexibility letting kids come in to check out books but only because I have forcefully defended students’ rights to access. The pressure from admin to cast everything aside for the sake of the tests is real. So the library will again be used for testing almost exclusively from early April until the end of the school year. I find the idea of limiting student access to the very expensive resources in the library a shameful waste.

I’ve been asked to speak from my experience as the technology committee chair in my school, as someone very familiar with the adoption, roll-out and implementation of technology. To do so I’d like to relate this sketch of how decision making and project implementation really works in our district. Last year our technology committee analyzed the needs of our school and developed a plan to implement the rollout of new tech in the form of laptop carts. We thought that the district allocation was short by about 60 computers. Our request for additional machines was denied and we went ahead and planned for the arrival of 78 new laptops. Protocols were developed, the carts were placed in team leader home-rooms marked, labeled and put into service. About two months into the school year, sometime in November, word comes down from central that we will be getting two SBAC carts (60 computers) because they determined that we didn’t have adequate access. Nevermind that we already told them that last year, the key element is that we only got an increase in resources in order to support the tests not for student use in their project based learning.  

As a librarian it looks to me and many of my colleagues that the entire educational industrial complex created standards to prepare the market for the sale of tests, curriculum, tech gadgets, software and ultimately charter schools. It is part of a long-term strategic campaign. I know that people want to label this position, my position, as being prone to conspiracy theories. But it is not a conspiracy theory at all, it is a marketing plan. It is fairly well established that investors are eager to exploit the emerging market in the ed sector as privatization methodically shreds public schools like tractors tilling the fields.

Even when I was a high school student I was philosophically opposed to standardized testing  and I still have the same feelings but now I have experience from the other side of the coin and solid evidence of the pernicious nature of the these tests. They do not simply exhibit inherent racism but are actual tools of social control in line with the market forces that are in the hands of the extremely rich. This situation of over-testing has developed in the most undemocratic of ways, with the likes of Bill Gates, Rupert Murdock and the Koch brothers purchasing influence over decisions that should be made by the people most affected rather than this tiny handful of plutocrats. It was bad when I was in school and is now intolerable. It has to stop.

“You cannot feed the hungry on statistics” - David Lloyd George

The entire staff of Seattle Public Schools received a very threatening letter from Superintendent Nyland this week. To call it disturbing is sadly an understatement. Assuming the newish head of Seattle schools knows that his letter is provocative, then perhaps he wants to have it on record for the Feds that he was obeying the letter of the law? If he doesn’t understand the provocation, his naivete is troubling indeed. What kind of leader wants to firm the resolve of his opposition? What is the purpose of the letter? Intimidation? The assertion of authority? Whatever his motivation the end result is clearly negative.

The language of the letter has that hollow Orwellian tone of misleading ed reform propaganda and the content is full of logical fallacies. For instance, “Although the amount of SBA testing time for each individual student is relatively small (about eight hours depending on grade level), because of our limited technology, the administration of the test is spread out through much of the spring months”. The time that the student is directly engaged in the test event is not the only time the student spends with the testing material because there are also test prep sessions and practice tests. Also, the spread out nature of the schedule impacts computer labs and student access to them for long periods of time, essentially from April until the end of the school year.

Elsewhere Nyland insists, “The SBA however, does take several steps in the right direction”. This however is purely his opinion, there is no knowing whether this is the right direction for several years until we have more data. And opinions will still vary. Later he tries to illustrate a point with a forced binary, “The challenge of our times is whether we face those challenges with a GROWTH mindset or a FIXED mindset” as if these options were dependent on the common core when in fact no standards can guarantee this. Indeed, Mr Nyland then goes on to praise the work we’ve done in Seattle. “The growth over the past six years has been exemplary district-wide and includes more schools of distinction than any other district in Washington.” But this was all done prior to the adoption of the common core. Aren’t there some cliches that fit here about fixing what ain’t broke?

The FAQ that Mr. Nyland linked in the letter left out several important questions. The following questions are in no way exhaustive, they just happen to be the ones that occur to me. Ask another teacher and I’m sure you will get another set, probably more relevant than mine.

Why was my school given a budget cut while spending to implement SBA was increased?

What about the 30% of Seattle children who are not in Seattle Public Schools who do not take the test? What does that do to our norm referencing?

But the biggest question is who sets the standards? When it comes to the development and marketing of the common core it sure looks like Bill Gates and his education club having been doing this work. Was the development of these standards consistent with the model of democracy we really want to teach our children? Because there are some problems with the process of setting these standards and that is a bad thing for our democracy.

The rich divert their money into tax-exempt foundations that specialize in influence peddling. Instead of taxing the rich to amply fund education for WA state’s students we let foundations dangle (with all kinds of strings attached) money to fill the school budget gaps This ultimately relinquishes decision making power to a small number of influential individuals making for a narrow and unhealthy vision of what education should be. We can call this the corporate vision of ed reform. The common core are their standards.

There is another vision for education, one that is focused on the humanity of our students and not on their test scores. Yes, it is an expensive endeavor to educate our children but wouldn’t the tax-exempt foundation money be better used if it were equitably distributed tax revenue rather than a stream to continue filling the already overflowing coffers of the rich? Wouldn’t it be better to have our students making new knowledge in creative projects rather than hunkered in front of computers prepping for and then taking tests? We can call this the community based vision for education, one that serves the needs of the community and not the global market.

Economic justice will not be delivered by the rich who pay to have the laws written in their favor. Their greed and lack of compassion blind them to the realities faced by most people most of the time. It is the voice of the people that can secure economic justice and the efforts of individuals that challenge the power structure. These standardized tests based on the common core are a tool of social control. Mr. Nyland, you have no right trying to silence the dissent that is exposing the insidious nature of these tests. Unfortunately you have failed and earn no credit for your letter.

Bullying from a position of power

It is rich that Nyland accuses Greenberg of harassment, intimidation and bullying when it is Nyland who is harassing and bullying Greenberg. Nyland’s behavior is the kind of behavior usually displayed by individuals with emotional behavior disorder. Perhaps superintendents learn this behavior because of their positions of power and its corrupting influence. It might develop in people without previously displaying itself as a characteristic. Regardless of how it develops in this case the behavior seems related to a type of cowardice. A cowardice Greenberg does not seem to be displaying. In fact, Greenberg is not being intimidated by Nyland’s harassment and bullying  because he is the one with the courage to discuss the most serious reasons people are bullied in the first place: racism, sexism and other forms of bias that Nyland seems unwilling to discuss publicly.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

I have noticed that having just a little knowledge about something can lead to problems. Anyone at the beginning stages of learning a language has probably faced a situation where you say something well enough to a native speaker who then thinks you actually speak the language as they begin rattling off sentences that you have no hope of understanding. Or you begin working on a simple leaky faucet that becomes a major overhaul of your pipes and only a plumber can put it right. This is also called “getting in over your head” and it is exactly where some public school administrators are at when it comes to standardized testing, except that in this case the problems are not individualized but passed onto students, their families and ultimately our society as a whole.

The appeal of standardized testing is easy to understand. It promises to be an objective measure of a student’s knowledge or cognitive ability in an easily digestible and usable form. This “objective measure” has all of the trappings of science which lends it an illusory sense of  credibility. Tradition and economic realities have solidified the status of standardized testing and there is an assumption that the tests do what the creators of the tests say they do. These are powerful rationales which seem to make sense but they represent only a partial knowledge of something which is in fact even larger and very difficult to understand in its fullness. Unfortunately, the appeal is built on a false premise and therefore draws  incorrect conclusions.

The truth about the appeal of standardized testing is that it is an easy way out. Reducing students to scores makes it easier to manage their educations and relieves teachers of the very difficult task of assessing them using more in depth and meaningful methods. Although our society is currently caught up in a love affair with “big data”, there are limits to its accuracy and usefulness, and it can lead to lazy thinking which in turn leads to false conclusions. This lazy thinking is what bothers me most because administrators use data that is descriptive as if it were prescriptive, treating the end result as a symptom that can be isolated and fixed with specific interventions. That approach is “finger in the dike” patch work and lulls its users into a sense that they are accomplishing something because they can point to the numbers with reverence. But, as Stephen Jay Gould so thoroughly demonstrates in The Mismeasure of Man, this type of testing is inherently biased and is, in fact, based on 19th century racist theories about the inferiority of Black Africans and Native Americans.

This sorting of human intelligence has been used in the past as a justification for social policies such as slavery and the displacement of native populations and military capability. It is now being used to maintain or channel people into classes. An incomplete understanding of the background of the tests yields an incomplete understanding of what the tests do. The marketers of these tests highlight the ability of the tests to measure some cognitive functions such as recall or reading comprehension without mentioning that the tests are even better at measuring economic status. Another omission is that these tests can not measure intelligence and do not have the ability to predict individual success. But hey, it’s marketing.

We’ve been sold a shoddy bill of goods. But quality control has been hindered by those with too little knowledge and too much authority. Ignoring the political economics of standardized testing whether through denial or ignorance limits our ability in the education community to appreciate quality education when we see it. It limits our ability to recognize where we have gone wrong. It’s time to stop accepting mediocrity with a smile. I think it is time to “return to sender” and stuff these tests where they belong.

Boom-town Education Spending

Any longtime Seattle resident driving around town today can easily point to the number of cranes and other building machinery as evidence that we are in a big-time boom cycle. At the same time we can point to our schools for evidence of poverty in spite of the wealth accumulating all around.  To say that this discrepancy is upsetting is a bit of an understatement.  How dare our leaders claim scarcity when it is clearly artificial?

Scarcity. Part of the most rudimentary economic equation. Supply and demand. But we are fully into the swing of the 21st century with its huge technological advances and the economic equation at this point is far from rudimentary. Economic laws have been studied, researched and experimented upon. We are in an economic stage completely infused with the ideology and programs of Neoliberalism, an ideology that recommends privatization, deregulation, free markets and personal affluence and overlays and blends in with the economic objectives of both the Democratic party and the Republican party. We have greater productivity than ever before, markets flooded with product, unmanageable piles of consumer waste, many signs of historic abundance. So how else can it be true that there is scarcity unless it has been manipulated to appear so?

I for one am (We are) tired of hearing the same claims over and over; I’m fed up and unwilling to accept them anymore. This seems to be a sentiment shared by many, which has been expressed by the State Supreme Court in the McCleary decision. There is money and there is a way to get to it and the State is obligated to fulfill its duty of providing adequate education to the state’s citizenry. Let the taxing begin. The one percent have more than enough personal wealth, it was produced by the people in the first place and only ended up in their pockets because they were in the right place at the right time. They own the organs that crank out the myth of scarcity but they don’t own the minds of the people. Minds are more important than money.  It’s time to invoke a new mantra: mind over money.

Minds are supposed to be nurtured in school. Minds that will ultimately mature and be set to the task of creating new wealth. With our multi-tiered educational system many minds will benefit from school. The wealthy have the best shot, since they have the best private schools and are advantaged in every possible way. Many students in public school have a very good shot but far too many do not and the poor have the least chance of all. Money can help nurture minds and lift up the poor. This is money well spent because innovation comes from well nurtured minds, especially those from lower stations because they simply have farther to go and come up with bigger schemes. This is a major source of new wealth.

Though money can nurture minds it cannot make new minds while minds are the only source of wealth since wealth is a construct of the human mind. This means that when we do not spend enough on education we are selling ourselves short by limiting the potentialities of all available minds. We need them because we will be facing increasingly more difficult problems and Neoliberalism is blind to the most pressing problems confronting us now and into the future.

The best way for Seattle to maintain its trajectory of prosperity is to put the money where it will be most effective. While building new office towers and apartment buildings all over town has some justification, it pales in comparison to spending more on education. There is a fountain of creativity, innovation and new wealth bubbling through the corridors of our public schools. It’s a lot of work tapping into it, it takes a lot of money to gear up and create an environment that is capable of teaching everyone but don’t tell me the money isn't there. Be honest and tell me someone just doesn't want to spend it on the poor. I won’t even ask why because I already know. Our prosperous state and our wealthy city can and should provide for the education that our students deserve.

Seeds of Destruction

It’s back to school and as usual we begin the year with several days of professional development. This is generally a good way to get teacher heads back in the game after a rejuvenating summer. The focus this year is on that double edged sword we commonly refer to as technology, aka educational technology or edtech. I consider it a happy thing from my point of view as the school librarian who is responsible for teaching information technology. I was the person who planned and set up most of the day’s activities with the edtech themes of collaboration and communication. I arranged sessions on digital storytelling, video production, the SmartBoard, our school’s class web pages and on collaborating on projects with schools around the country and around the world. But there was one rather long session that I was not responsible for setting up. The one on using our district’s new gradebook program from Pearson. And that is the one that made it clear to me that what we were doing was sowing the seeds of our own destruction. We are building and implementing systems that will ultimately further decay our influence, power, and professional stature. The way it is happening is exploitative and sneaky.

My school has been implementing a system of standards based grading for the last four years. When this process was initiated by our principal, I was an early adopter of the concept. In fact I had begun doing something very similar in a Math class I was teaching 8 years ago, before it was even on the principal’s radar. I was trying to make a grading system that was more fair and focused on each specific skill that I was teaching. My support for the principal’s initiative was based on my own experience creating a more accurate grading system but further because it was also a move toward my actual preferred pass/fail system. Standards based grading is a way to remain conscious of removing behavioral issues from academic grading, which I also support. But if technology is a double edged sword, the same can be said of standards based grading. There is a notion of equity on one edge but the other edge has been tempered by corporate America and the realization struck me during the training how that is so.

We are learning to use Pearson’s new addition to their gradebook of a standards based grading option, which two schools in the district are piloting, mine and one other. Both the incorporation of the use of technology in the classroom and the implementation of standards based grading promise a leveling of the playing field which will help eliminate the “achievement gap”. Yes, both have the potential to help educators achieve that goal but simultaneously both further the agenda of corporate education reformers and pave the way for a more streamlined, cost effective system that can generate profit. This is how the demonic brilliance of our capitalist system works. Corporate managers have very long time lines with distant event horizons well plotted. They have time to watch the workforce produce goods and services and they don’t even have to limit their scope to their own employees because any independently developed idea can ultimately be bought (or back engineered). So all of the work that we as teachers do to implement standards based grading ultimately becomes an asset of Pearson.

Here’s a bit of what the gradebook program looks like. When a teacher creates an assignment it is entered into the program by selecting which CCSS standard will be learned by the students. These are all preloaded into the system and there are complex algorithms that weigh scores and average all of the student’s work over the quarter. These programs can differentiate ad infinitum and are capable of tying directly into the standards based Smarter Balance testing that is being put into place this year. But here is the troubling part and I can easily envision this coming down the road. Once the dust settles in a few years and the entire district is on the system, cost cutting initiatives like using software to teach the standards will be sold as a way to personalize education while quietly resulting in a reduction in the teacher force.

As these systems form and gel, opportunities will arise to increase profit by cutting labor costs. It is naive at this point in time to think that this is not the ultimate goal of the corporations behind ed reform. Neoliberal front-men who push ideas like standards based grading are largely unconscious of their complicity with these corporate goals, having been suckered into believing that they are working toward equity when in fact they are helping to increase and solidify the stratification of our society and the implementation of a profit driven education system. All of the work teachers put into creating this system of standards based grading is done out of sincerity and I admit it is oh so easy to be swayed by the hype. Claims of equalizing access to a rigorous education are superficial, they seem to make sense and I don’t want to blame teachers for going along to get along but there is a point when things get ridiculous. Except it won’t be funny when teaching jobs are turned over to Pearson’s machines.