Sample NAEP fourth grade math question:

"How many fourths make a whole?

Only 50 percent answered this correctly.

Go to ..

http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/itmrls/

for many more where this came from. This question is not a special case.

This is fourth grade and already there are big problems. Should we eliminate this testing because it doesn't test the whole person? Is there "other" knowledge that one could have that would make failure of this test acceptable?

One unfortunate result of this emphasis on testing is that shcools think they are doing a great job when their results on these tests improve. Nothing like setting your sights low.

If you want to give all kids real opportunities, give them full vouchers. Individuals are important, not public schools.

Steve,

"One unfortunate result of this emphasis on testing is that shcools think they are doing a great job when their results on these tests improve".

I agree that most standardized tests are testing minimum competencies at best, however, is it fair to criticize schools for being encouraged by improvement? If the average student is at point A and moves to point C, why would you complain that they are not at point F yet?

I think improvement in schools should be expected and everyone in the system should be held accountable, including via vouchers. However, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss even incremental change for the good. Lasting change is more likely to take place at a slow pace.

Daniel - Satndards (at any level) and progress are better than nothing. The problem is that schools become satisfied with low standards and incremental improvements. Our public school is now driven by achieving these small changes. I have been to school meetings where they analyze the standardized test results and fret over small variations. Low standards are driving our curriculum. Nobody looks at the actual test questions and asks fundamental questions like: What the heck is going on here?

When I tell other parents about NAEP and NSRE test questions and results they are flabbergasted. They had no idea. Our school talks about high standards, but I find there is a huge disconnect between what our school expects and what parents expect.

"If the average student is at point A and moves to point C, why would you complain that they are not at point F yet?"

It's more like the student moving from point A to point C, but really should be at point Q. I am not talking about small differences in expectations. Is it OK if they flunk as long as they are making progress? Public schools eliminate flunking by using spiraling, so I guess progress is more important than meeting high expectations. Schools should be more open to parents about their fundamental assumptions.

I recommend that all parents look at the actual test questions and results and start asking some fundamental questions. Also, look at your school's curriculum to see exactly what the school expects from your child before he/she moves on to the next grade. The affluent get to choose their standards. The poor do not. I never was a big fan of vouchers in the past, but now I see full vouchers as the only solution. The goal is not to save public schools, it is to provide the best educational opportunities for each child.

Many teachers, administrators, parents, and activitists seem to confuse evaluating a student's PERFORMANCE with evaluating the the student's SELF. The two are not the same.

Is this confusion genuine or wilful on their part? Is this actually part of the problem of people over-identifying themselves with their jobs? You know who I mean - the people who consider themselves worthless if they lose their job, because their job defines WHO THEY ARE to themselves and others. It seems a particular failing of Americans in general.

You see it in the sports world, too. If people don't perform in their sport, then they and others consider them to be 'nothings'.

Take it from a perfectionist who had to learn to differentiate the two in order to survive: you are NOT your test scores; your test scores are not a measure of YOU as a person.

Somehow, I don't expect to be listened to or believed.

Successful businesses know that inspecting products after they are produced cannot create product quality. Pursuit of quality using inspection is analogous to standardizing testing of students. At best this type of evaluation will tell you that the processes used to make the product are defective. And it is not the workers or the customers that define the processes being used.

Businesses that exceed customer needs and expectations have learned that it is the system of management, the work context managers create, which produce defects, not the workers within the enterprise. Effective businesses do not make the defects in the first place!

Yet educational experts cling desperately to post production standardized tests to determine whether or not their customers (students & parents) have received what the experts advertise they provide! The experts are surprised and dismayed when the customer declines the opportunity to be tested and the grades of those who do submit are lower than they had hoped.

These same experts blame the customer to explain the systems poor performance. Parents, students, society at large and the teachers, are blamed for the expert’s inability to create a system of education that actually works. Worse yet, the experts reinforce their testing efforts with more tests, mandatory testing rules, financial incentives (rebates) and prescriptive product content (curriculum guidelines) in an attempt to force fit the customer into the preferred profile.

And customers that fail to meet the expert’s performance criteria are often returned to the system to do it all over again (rework) in the same environment that produced the defective product, a ‘failing’ student or school. A majority of the ‘customers’ that experience these corrective actions leave the system and become ‘dropouts’.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Encouraged by public criticism of schools and slick political sound bytes, the experts use the same corrective actions they have tried before and, as in the case of NCLB, governments use threats of financial and career ruin in order to achieve improvement and accountability. The result is a FUD culture, an environment filled with Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

Better testing protocol’s, more and broader content, throwing money at the problem and the introduction of ‘competition’ in the form of charter schools and vouchers, are nothing more than band aides on a wound; a temporary protective device that does nothing to eliminate the defect that created the wound in the first place. These actions merely deflect attention from the root cause, the hundred year old paradigms that rule educational hierarchies.

Tests can be an excellent device for recalibrating the equipment and processes used to create an output that is desired by a customer. This type of recalibration takes place within the processes, not after the product is packaged and shipped. Teachers and students test each other every day in numerous ways, and our teachers and students can use this information to continually improve learning opportunities. A business must conduct this type of activity if they are to maintain process excellence.

This type of ‘testing’ activity takes place within a classroom, not with standardized tests created in legislative halls or administrative offices far removed from real educational processes. Essential to its successful application is an opportunity to engage in this type of activity; and the presence of any degree of ‘FUD’ exponentially diminishes opportunities for continual improvement. Preparation for testing, compliance with curriculum standards and their associated unrealistic delivery timelines (management by target) further denigrates substantive continual improvement.

Instead of devising external controls and methods of 100% inspection to force compliance the experts must work to create environments within which teachers, students and parents can grow and learn through responsible assessment. This is the authentic expression of knowledge gained through student performances that includes the broader community within which schools reside. It requires the hard work of communication, coordination and cooperation, three elements missing in today’s educational environments.

If the experts sincerely ask themselves two questions, “What are we doing?” and “Why are we doing it?” improvement can begin. They must question all that they have learned and erase those mental maps that are leading us to education oblivion on the world stage. How can federal and state agencies provide expert knowledge and lift the burden of bureaucratic drag they have created? What can local boards and administrations do to open the door for teachers, students and parents to explore learning, together?

Politicians must remove education from their electioneering and recognize that they really do not know what they are talking about no matter how good their intentions. We may have many outstanding educators in the legislature, but they to must retreat from what they believe are prescriptions for improvement. They simply do not know. How could they, since politicians and experts are the products of a defective system of educational leadership? Admit it and pledge to support community efforts that encourage a student’s natural ability to learn and the responsible assessment of that learning.

And how can local community leaders support and encourage the efforts of the real educational experts, teachers, students and parents, in their endeavor to encourage learning?

Examine what you are doing, and why you are doing it while communicating, cooperating and coordinating the efforts of your local school leaders, the teachers, students and parents. Yes, the teachers, students and parents; these are the real leaders on education’s stage who are currently smothered by external constraints.

All those that read this must personally answer these questions and then demonstrate their answers through their daily words, behaviors and actions. If you are one of those demanding change seek out the solutions that already work. They are available through books and the web. The Coalition of Essential Schools is an excellent place to start. Be wary of examples such as the so called ‘Houston Miracle’ (the empirical base for NCLB) which was achieved through management of the numbers; they held back ninth graders in order to improve tenth graders scores.

If we do not stop and question ourselves and our beliefs education will remain the morass it is today. Ask any student, the high and low scorers, and they will tell you what they experience is truly insane. And if you listen to them and their teachers really hard they will provide achievable solutions and work to make them a reality.

What is going on in educational reform today reminds me of the parent who screams, in sincere frustration, that he just doesn’t understand his teenage son, since his son will not listen to him. For understanding, just who should be listening to whom?

Testing will not provide the understanding we require, nor will the test results lead us to root cause and a future of effective learning. We cannot improve if we do the same thing over and over again and expect to achieve different results. We will achieve insanity.