“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.