Dear Chris,
Hey, cousin. Sorry I'm behind on writing, but just read this article--More than 5,000 Mississippi third-graders could be held back this year for low reading scores. Yeah, my buddies and I are freaking out. It's all we could talk about at lunch yesterday; Fat Joey couldn't even get down his entire juice box, he was so upset.
I've been feeling bad for you down in Florida, and we both remember what happened to Cousin Alice in North Carolina. I just didn't figure it was really going to happen here.
You and I-- we've both been enjoying third grade. It's been the best grade so far-- better time for recess (well, at least back in September before they cancelled recess so we could do more test practice) and I love my teacher. She is so awesome and I just want to see her look at me like she's proud. Kind of like my mom-- I swear, I would walk through fire for that woman and her peanut butter sandwiches. And man-- it is so much fun to learn stuff. Third grade is just the bomb.
You remember my plan. I was just going to not learn to read. Just kind of a goof. True, I want to make Miss Chalkthumper proud, and I want to make my mom proud, and I love it when my dad hugs me and says, "Good job," and it's just so much fun to, like, understand stuff! I could understand stuff extra hard, all day, like a boss.
I was just going to not learn to read. Stand up for myself, stick it to the man, not live in little boxes, not actually try to learn that stuff.
But now they tell me we have to learn to read, or at least learn to pass the reading test, or else we can't go on to fourth grade. Well, hell, that just changes everything!! I wasn't going to try to learn to read, but now that my fourth grade promotion depends on it, I will totally take a different approach to school and like try and stuff (which I so wasn't going to before they threatened me).
I'm sorry I ever made fun of you for living in Florida and having to actually try in third grade. And I'm really sorry about Cousin Alice, who my mom says is just not very bright so they just sit her in a room every day and tell her they expect her to stop being dumb, so stop already. No wonder she sits in the corner and won't talk to anybody at family reunions.
But I guess if they threaten me, I have to learn to read whether I feel like it or not. It's funny-- I always thought that mostly what got me to do things in school was just that it was so much fun and making my teacher and my parents proud made me happy; I might even do a special project just for a pack of gummi bears. But I see now that threats and punishment are what reallymake me want to do my best. I just hope the idea doesn't spread through the whole school. Otherwise in fourth grade they'll probably tell us we have to learn calculus or else they'll beat us. man, school just gets harder and harder.
Later--
Your cousin,
Pat
Friday, May 8, 2015
Being an Audience
And here we are again-- a nationally famous comedian speaks up, and suddenly all sorts of folks are paying attention, even though actual classroom teachers have been saying the same stuff for years.
Mind you, I'm not complaining that John Oliver (like Louis C. K. before him) has put some education concerns in front of the nation's flea-like attention span. And he and his crew did a really good job of putting together a wide-ranging, yet punchy and clear, explanation of the issues.
So why is the world listening to him, at least for a few moments, when they didn't listen to the rest of us? I think the answer can be understood in one word.
Audience.
People get listened to because people are already listening to them.
This is partly a crowd-based hive-mind in action. Everyone else is listening to that guy? Then I will listen to him, too.
But it's also basic media motivation in action. Magazines feature well-known names not because some editor is thinking "Ten million twitter followers?! Muffy de Celebutante must be very wise," but because some editor can do the math-- if Muffy's on the cover, ten million pairs of eyeballs may follow her there.
When some newshuman calls up Diane Ravitch to represent a side of an education debate, I'd like to think that it's because she is well known as a wise and thoughtful speaker who knows what the hell she's talking about. But I'd be a fool not to think that her blog's twenty million hits doesn't have something to do with it.
When She Who Will Not Be Named was on every cover and in every article about education, it was not because she had failed as a teacher, as a superintendent, and as an advocacy group leader. It was because she could be counted on to draw a crowd.
Folks like to say that we're in the internet age, and knowledge is the new currency. Maybe, but I suspect it may also turn out that we are in the attention age, and having eyeballs aimed at you is the new currency.
I think that's worth remembering, because it's hugely empowering-- each of us has, figuratively or literally, a pair of eyeballs and the ability to aim them.
Attention is the power we get to exercise, and how we exercise it matters. I stopped mentioning She's name because it swelled her google count, made her appear to have status and importance. It added to her audience. For the same reason, I do not link to The Website To Which I Will Not Link, because every hit they receive makes them look more important, like they are commanding a larger audience. The absolute worst thing that could happen to them is not a firestorm of disagreement and controversy; the absolute worst thing that could happen would be having to report to their wealthy corporate backers that there were only seventeen hits on the site last month.
Being a mindful netizen is like being a mindful consumer. You are not going to Change Everything with your personal clicks, but every click is a push in a good direction or a bad one. If you head over to TWTWIWNL every hour just because it pisses you off, bad news-- you are helping make them look great. You are giving them the power to say, "We are an important voice in the ed debate, as witnessed by our traffic counts. People should listen to us. Regular media should amplify us."
You may think that you can have little power in this ongoing debate, but you have, at a minimum, the power of being an audience. You can read regularly the writers whose voice you value. You can amplify those voices by posting links and tweeting and emailing. If you think, "Boy, more people should be paying attention to that lady," well, then, you can be part of the solution to that problem.
Do we occasionally need to hold up egregious posts and articles for well-deserved coal-raking? Sure. But when you drive 1,000 angry readers to the Regularpressmagazine.com website, don't imagine that the publisher is crying, "Oh, so many people are yelling at us." Mostly he's saying, "Hot damn!! That got great traffic. The advertisers will love this. Write up some more just like that!" Trolling really is a thing, because clicks are clicks and audience is power.
Be an active audience. Tweet. Retweet. Link. Post. Pass along what speaks to you. Amplify the voices that are saying what you think needs to be said. Your attention raises the profile of the people you support. That's how a movement grows more voices. Maybe, even, voices as well-respected as the voices of prominent comedians.
Mind you, I'm not complaining that John Oliver (like Louis C. K. before him) has put some education concerns in front of the nation's flea-like attention span. And he and his crew did a really good job of putting together a wide-ranging, yet punchy and clear, explanation of the issues.
So why is the world listening to him, at least for a few moments, when they didn't listen to the rest of us? I think the answer can be understood in one word.
Audience.
People get listened to because people are already listening to them.
This is partly a crowd-based hive-mind in action. Everyone else is listening to that guy? Then I will listen to him, too.
But it's also basic media motivation in action. Magazines feature well-known names not because some editor is thinking "Ten million twitter followers?! Muffy de Celebutante must be very wise," but because some editor can do the math-- if Muffy's on the cover, ten million pairs of eyeballs may follow her there.
When some newshuman calls up Diane Ravitch to represent a side of an education debate, I'd like to think that it's because she is well known as a wise and thoughtful speaker who knows what the hell she's talking about. But I'd be a fool not to think that her blog's twenty million hits doesn't have something to do with it.
When She Who Will Not Be Named was on every cover and in every article about education, it was not because she had failed as a teacher, as a superintendent, and as an advocacy group leader. It was because she could be counted on to draw a crowd.
Folks like to say that we're in the internet age, and knowledge is the new currency. Maybe, but I suspect it may also turn out that we are in the attention age, and having eyeballs aimed at you is the new currency.
I think that's worth remembering, because it's hugely empowering-- each of us has, figuratively or literally, a pair of eyeballs and the ability to aim them.
Attention is the power we get to exercise, and how we exercise it matters. I stopped mentioning She's name because it swelled her google count, made her appear to have status and importance. It added to her audience. For the same reason, I do not link to The Website To Which I Will Not Link, because every hit they receive makes them look more important, like they are commanding a larger audience. The absolute worst thing that could happen to them is not a firestorm of disagreement and controversy; the absolute worst thing that could happen would be having to report to their wealthy corporate backers that there were only seventeen hits on the site last month.
Being a mindful netizen is like being a mindful consumer. You are not going to Change Everything with your personal clicks, but every click is a push in a good direction or a bad one. If you head over to TWTWIWNL every hour just because it pisses you off, bad news-- you are helping make them look great. You are giving them the power to say, "We are an important voice in the ed debate, as witnessed by our traffic counts. People should listen to us. Regular media should amplify us."
You may think that you can have little power in this ongoing debate, but you have, at a minimum, the power of being an audience. You can read regularly the writers whose voice you value. You can amplify those voices by posting links and tweeting and emailing. If you think, "Boy, more people should be paying attention to that lady," well, then, you can be part of the solution to that problem.
Do we occasionally need to hold up egregious posts and articles for well-deserved coal-raking? Sure. But when you drive 1,000 angry readers to the Regularpressmagazine.com website, don't imagine that the publisher is crying, "Oh, so many people are yelling at us." Mostly he's saying, "Hot damn!! That got great traffic. The advertisers will love this. Write up some more just like that!" Trolling really is a thing, because clicks are clicks and audience is power.
Be an active audience. Tweet. Retweet. Link. Post. Pass along what speaks to you. Amplify the voices that are saying what you think needs to be said. Your attention raises the profile of the people you support. That's how a movement grows more voices. Maybe, even, voices as well-respected as the voices of prominent comedians.
Teachers Policing Teachers
Should teachers be calling out, or even reporting, their fellow teachers? Should teachers be responsible for policing our own ranks?
After all, when Mr. McStumpnugget sits in that room, sucking relentlessly for years, the rest of us suffer. We pay a price because, for many people, Mr. McStumpnugget becomes the face of teaching and every time there are contract negotiations or discussions about teacher accountability, people are thinking about how much they want to stomp on him. And if he teaches next door, or upstream of us in the same department, we end up teaching downwind of the Pig Farm Poop Lagoon. Outside of his students' parents, I'm not sure there's anybody who would like to see Mr. McStumpnugget shape up and/or ship out more than I.
So why am I not out there working the problem? Here are a few answers to that question.
Actually, I am
I have a good relationship with my principal, so I can bitch about Mr. McS. I might even have a good enough relationship with Mr. McS that I can easily say, "Dude, if you show one more movie, I am going to jam gum in all your room's power outlets." I may be helping and supporting his students. I might even be teaching parents how to most effectively register their complaints (because their complaints will always carry more weight than mine). I may even be having regular face-to-face confrontations with Mr. McS.
None of this is happening out in public. Maybe you have a burning desire to have M. McS publicly shamed, but I don't see any value of it.
And to tell the truth, it will be a long road before I get to this point. When it comes to calling out my fellow teachers, there are several things that make me slow to stand up and start whaling away.
Different strokes
It's hugely important to distinguish Teach Well from Teach Just Like Me. I can point to teachers who have a classroom approach completely different from mine. They are so authoritarian or loose or personal shary; they spend time on things I don't think deserve classroom time. They run their classrooms in ways I would not in a million years. But before I start bitching about how awful that teacher is, I had better ask a simple question-- are students thriving and succeeding in her classroom?
And here's the thing about that question-- the answer is almost always, "Yes."
An awful lot of the reformster program seems bent on standardization, on having teachers who work pretty much the same way. That strikes me as completely backwards. The more your building is packed with different styles, methods, approaches, temperaments and techniques, the better the chance that every child who passes through the building will find at least one teacher to connect with in a meaningful way.
That also means most students will find someone they don't connect with at all. Walk into any building in the country, and you cannot find a single teacher that was not, at some point, profoundly and deeply hated by several students.
The test remains-- do some students thrive in that teacher's classroom. What "some" means is always going to be debatable, but this is still the most important question. And based on that question, there are many teachers with whom I disagree, but that doesn't mean I think they need to be fixed.
Rough patches
Teachers, like all humans, have lives. I would love to believe that while my previous marriage was melting down that I was still bringing my A game to the classroom, but I think it's safe to say those days were not my professional peak. Nor do many of us look back at our first few years and think, "Boy, I wish I were as good today as I was back then." We have all been there. So when a colleague is hitting a rough patch, the tendency is to try to help her through it, not get up in her face.
Administration
Because most schools have no formal structure in place for dealing with colleague issues, much of this comes down to administration. Not everyone has a working relationship that allows her to walk into the principal's office and say, "I am concerned/frustrated/pissed off about Mr. McS." In fact, if you are working in a school where the principal personally hired Mr. McS, expressing professional concerns about him may simply be a quick path to professional self-immolation.
Meanwhile, even the most reasonable principal on the receiving end of negative input about a staff member must now decide whether he's listening to a useful professional observation or an angry squawk born of some real or imagined slight.
The Missing Link
As I just suggested, the missing link is some sort of formal process. My hunch is that almost no schools in America have any sort of mechanism in place for teachers to police their own ranks. The oft-stated notion that teachers have their own thin blue line or code of silence about fellow teachers that "everybody knows" should not be in the classroom-- that perception is fed by the fact that even if a teacher wants to call out another teacher, there's no real way to do it.
So what's the fix?
The power structure of a school is a weird thing-- it looks basically like a really big pancake with a cherry on top (the cherry would be the building administration). Unions have long resisted the idea of letting teachers do any sort of evaluation of other teachers because they have (rightly, I think) sensed that allows power dynamics to potentially run amuck and tear the pancake to tatters. At times, the relationships and group dynamics in my building have been toxic enough; had we thrown a teacher's power to police other teachers into the mix, we would probably disappeared in a chalk-colored mushroom cloud.
But-- teachers have information about other teachers that nobody else has. Let me tell you a story...
Years ago I worked with a woman who most people thought was a flake. Her room seemed chaosy. She seemed frazzled much of the time. Her own students thought they were just wasting time and screwing around in her class. But I taught directly downstream of her, and year after year, I would inherit her students and year after year, when we pre-assessed a unit, they would Know Stuff. I would ask them how they already knew those things and they would scratch their heads and say, "Well, I guess we learned that last year from Mrs. NotHerRealName?" They hadn't thought she was getting the job done. I'm not even sure she knew if she was getting the job done. But I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was getting the job done.
Of course, there was no formal avenue for me to say so. Just as there is no formal structure in place for me to file a professional complaint about Mr. McS. We don't have a system that allows either. I can only bitch and moan unofficially, which is its own set of problems.
So what's the answer to getting teachers to police other teachers? The answer is
That's the wrong question
The goal should be to create a system that includes teachers, students, administrators and community members is an ongoing process of helping each teacher be the best that she can be.
One of the many, many, many, many problems with teacher evaluation systems like Andy Cuomo's two-observations-and-a-test-score approach is that they won't even find the problem teachers you're looking for. All Mr. McStumpnuggets has to do is land some test scores and not suck for two observations and he can go on being a nightmare for the entire rest of the year (especially in Cuomo's model, which expressly forbids including any other information in the teacher evaluation).
Finding bad people and throwing them away is backwards, both for teachers and for students. The goal is for everyone to become the best they can be. If someone's Best They Can Be is not suitable for teaching, then let's deal with that. But let's not be surprised by it after a single observation or a sudden negative report from a fellow teacher.
Teacher evaluation ought to be about helping teachers improve and grow, not about trying to play gotcha with the people we suspect of suckage. The beauty of a system that works to lift every teacher up is that it models what we should be doing in the classroom-- working together to lift everybody up. Our goal should not be to try to catch people being bad, but help them more often be good.
I would be interested to read about any models out there of such a program-- I'm sure such things must exist where teachers and administrators collaborate to create an atmosphere of excellence where everyone has the tools, support, and help they need to thrive and grow. In such a school, having teachers "police" each other would be both unnecessary and beside the point.
After all, when Mr. McStumpnugget sits in that room, sucking relentlessly for years, the rest of us suffer. We pay a price because, for many people, Mr. McStumpnugget becomes the face of teaching and every time there are contract negotiations or discussions about teacher accountability, people are thinking about how much they want to stomp on him. And if he teaches next door, or upstream of us in the same department, we end up teaching downwind of the Pig Farm Poop Lagoon. Outside of his students' parents, I'm not sure there's anybody who would like to see Mr. McStumpnugget shape up and/or ship out more than I.
So why am I not out there working the problem? Here are a few answers to that question.
Actually, I am
I have a good relationship with my principal, so I can bitch about Mr. McS. I might even have a good enough relationship with Mr. McS that I can easily say, "Dude, if you show one more movie, I am going to jam gum in all your room's power outlets." I may be helping and supporting his students. I might even be teaching parents how to most effectively register their complaints (because their complaints will always carry more weight than mine). I may even be having regular face-to-face confrontations with Mr. McS.
None of this is happening out in public. Maybe you have a burning desire to have M. McS publicly shamed, but I don't see any value of it.
And to tell the truth, it will be a long road before I get to this point. When it comes to calling out my fellow teachers, there are several things that make me slow to stand up and start whaling away.
Different strokes
It's hugely important to distinguish Teach Well from Teach Just Like Me. I can point to teachers who have a classroom approach completely different from mine. They are so authoritarian or loose or personal shary; they spend time on things I don't think deserve classroom time. They run their classrooms in ways I would not in a million years. But before I start bitching about how awful that teacher is, I had better ask a simple question-- are students thriving and succeeding in her classroom?
And here's the thing about that question-- the answer is almost always, "Yes."
An awful lot of the reformster program seems bent on standardization, on having teachers who work pretty much the same way. That strikes me as completely backwards. The more your building is packed with different styles, methods, approaches, temperaments and techniques, the better the chance that every child who passes through the building will find at least one teacher to connect with in a meaningful way.
That also means most students will find someone they don't connect with at all. Walk into any building in the country, and you cannot find a single teacher that was not, at some point, profoundly and deeply hated by several students.
The test remains-- do some students thrive in that teacher's classroom. What "some" means is always going to be debatable, but this is still the most important question. And based on that question, there are many teachers with whom I disagree, but that doesn't mean I think they need to be fixed.
Rough patches
Teachers, like all humans, have lives. I would love to believe that while my previous marriage was melting down that I was still bringing my A game to the classroom, but I think it's safe to say those days were not my professional peak. Nor do many of us look back at our first few years and think, "Boy, I wish I were as good today as I was back then." We have all been there. So when a colleague is hitting a rough patch, the tendency is to try to help her through it, not get up in her face.
Administration
Because most schools have no formal structure in place for dealing with colleague issues, much of this comes down to administration. Not everyone has a working relationship that allows her to walk into the principal's office and say, "I am concerned/frustrated/pissed off about Mr. McS." In fact, if you are working in a school where the principal personally hired Mr. McS, expressing professional concerns about him may simply be a quick path to professional self-immolation.
Meanwhile, even the most reasonable principal on the receiving end of negative input about a staff member must now decide whether he's listening to a useful professional observation or an angry squawk born of some real or imagined slight.
The Missing Link
As I just suggested, the missing link is some sort of formal process. My hunch is that almost no schools in America have any sort of mechanism in place for teachers to police their own ranks. The oft-stated notion that teachers have their own thin blue line or code of silence about fellow teachers that "everybody knows" should not be in the classroom-- that perception is fed by the fact that even if a teacher wants to call out another teacher, there's no real way to do it.
So what's the fix?
The power structure of a school is a weird thing-- it looks basically like a really big pancake with a cherry on top (the cherry would be the building administration). Unions have long resisted the idea of letting teachers do any sort of evaluation of other teachers because they have (rightly, I think) sensed that allows power dynamics to potentially run amuck and tear the pancake to tatters. At times, the relationships and group dynamics in my building have been toxic enough; had we thrown a teacher's power to police other teachers into the mix, we would probably disappeared in a chalk-colored mushroom cloud.
But-- teachers have information about other teachers that nobody else has. Let me tell you a story...
Years ago I worked with a woman who most people thought was a flake. Her room seemed chaosy. She seemed frazzled much of the time. Her own students thought they were just wasting time and screwing around in her class. But I taught directly downstream of her, and year after year, I would inherit her students and year after year, when we pre-assessed a unit, they would Know Stuff. I would ask them how they already knew those things and they would scratch their heads and say, "Well, I guess we learned that last year from Mrs. NotHerRealName?" They hadn't thought she was getting the job done. I'm not even sure she knew if she was getting the job done. But I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was getting the job done.
Of course, there was no formal avenue for me to say so. Just as there is no formal structure in place for me to file a professional complaint about Mr. McS. We don't have a system that allows either. I can only bitch and moan unofficially, which is its own set of problems.
So what's the answer to getting teachers to police other teachers? The answer is
That's the wrong question
The goal should be to create a system that includes teachers, students, administrators and community members is an ongoing process of helping each teacher be the best that she can be.
One of the many, many, many, many problems with teacher evaluation systems like Andy Cuomo's two-observations-and-a-test-score approach is that they won't even find the problem teachers you're looking for. All Mr. McStumpnuggets has to do is land some test scores and not suck for two observations and he can go on being a nightmare for the entire rest of the year (especially in Cuomo's model, which expressly forbids including any other information in the teacher evaluation).
Finding bad people and throwing them away is backwards, both for teachers and for students. The goal is for everyone to become the best they can be. If someone's Best They Can Be is not suitable for teaching, then let's deal with that. But let's not be surprised by it after a single observation or a sudden negative report from a fellow teacher.
Teacher evaluation ought to be about helping teachers improve and grow, not about trying to play gotcha with the people we suspect of suckage. The beauty of a system that works to lift every teacher up is that it models what we should be doing in the classroom-- working together to lift everybody up. Our goal should not be to try to catch people being bad, but help them more often be good.
I would be interested to read about any models out there of such a program-- I'm sure such things must exist where teachers and administrators collaborate to create an atmosphere of excellence where everyone has the tools, support, and help they need to thrive and grow. In such a school, having teachers "police" each other would be both unnecessary and beside the point.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Tests and Threats
Weighing the pig does not make it fatter.
This is not news, and yet the recent push-back by supporters of the Big Standardized Tests have included, among their various paeans to testing, the repeated assertion that testing leads to improved achievement. Take Valerie Strauss's piece written by a Pearson executive
Tests are a means to an end – showing what individual young people have learned and how schools are preparing them for their next step in college or their careers. New annual state tests, supported by Pearson and other testing companies, will help students and teachers in those crucial life choices. Strong accountability and assessment systems are pivotal to ensuring equity for all students. We share a common goal with the teachers, parents and students we serve – to ensure that every single child graduates from school ready for success in life on her or his own terms.
If you want a more protracted version of the same thing, read the New York Times conversation between Kevin Welner and Patricia Levesque, which reminds me of conversations about personal responsibility that I've had with my chocolate lab. Some people are just deeply committed to Not Understanding.
The connection between Taking Tests and Getting Better Educational Results is always shrouded in mystery. On twitter this week, someone tried hard to show that BS Tests lead to better education. Or scores. Or something. Somehow.
The Somehow part is always left out. I don't think this is because reformsters don't know what it is, but because they understand that it doesn't play well. The closest they come to explaining is the magically vague word "accountability." And the process that they believe in, but are reluctant to describe, goes like this.
* Students take BS Test
* Results come back
* We catch the lazy sonsabitches who are doing a crappy job
* We punish them so they will get off their asses and do better next time
* Start next round of testing by reminding everyone that they better do well, or else
The backbone of the BS Test narrative is not the actual tests; the policy stands on the strong two legs of Threats and Punishment.
Hell, the tests barely matter. Look at how little time the reformsters have spent making damned sure that those tests are excellent and accurate and valid and reliable. Look at how little time and effort they have spent holding test manufacturers accountable for the contents of those tests. Look how little discussion there has been about making sure that the BS Tests are not loaded with cultural bias, that they are in fact a fair measure for poor and minority students. Now compare that to the amount of time reformsters have spent arguing, lobbying, angling for and pursuing the policies that will properly punish teachers and schools that bring in low scores.
We have entire bodies of regulation on state and federal level discussing how to properly punish, retool, transform, and otherwise beat into submission "low-performing schools." Compare that to the amount of government oversight brought to bear on making absolutely certain that the indicators of Low Performance are accurate and valid and reliable and true.
It's like we've set up a cancer hospital and spent gazzillions of dollars staffing it and filling it with machinery and tools and treatment plans, but at the admissions desk all you have to do is walk in and say, "Hey, yeah, I think my neighbor has cancer" and they'll grab your neighbor and go to town on him. (Of course, our system is also like a cancer hospital that treats your cancer by beating you with pointy sticks and throwing you in a cage with angry badgers.)
Nobody has tried to deliver a great BS Test, because nobody asked for one. Leaders like Duncan and Cuomo and Bush just wanted something to generate "proof" that a bunch of public schools suck so that we could all start leveraging threats and punishment to make them shape up. Lately folks Peter Cunningham and the ed reform universe's angriest citizen have been pretty explicit about their diagnosis-- teachers and their unions are deliberately doing a crappy job so that they can be guaranteed lucrative cushy jobs while simultaneously keeping minorities beaten down.
They don't need or want a great BS Test-- they just need proof that public schools suck so that they can holler "gotcha" and start punishing and replacing.
Weighing the pig to make it fatter does make sense if you think that A) the farmer is starving the pig on purpose and B) once you have proof, you can use threats and punishment to make the farmer feed the pig properly (or just take the pig away and make the farmer pay somebody else to raise it).
This model says a great deal about what its adherents think of teachers in particular and human nature in general. We don't have to tell them that tests don't improve student learning-- they know that. But the tests give them a hook on which to hang the true transformative force in education-- threats and punishment.
This is not news, and yet the recent push-back by supporters of the Big Standardized Tests have included, among their various paeans to testing, the repeated assertion that testing leads to improved achievement. Take Valerie Strauss's piece written by a Pearson executive
Tests are a means to an end – showing what individual young people have learned and how schools are preparing them for their next step in college or their careers. New annual state tests, supported by Pearson and other testing companies, will help students and teachers in those crucial life choices. Strong accountability and assessment systems are pivotal to ensuring equity for all students. We share a common goal with the teachers, parents and students we serve – to ensure that every single child graduates from school ready for success in life on her or his own terms.
If you want a more protracted version of the same thing, read the New York Times conversation between Kevin Welner and Patricia Levesque, which reminds me of conversations about personal responsibility that I've had with my chocolate lab. Some people are just deeply committed to Not Understanding.
The connection between Taking Tests and Getting Better Educational Results is always shrouded in mystery. On twitter this week, someone tried hard to show that BS Tests lead to better education. Or scores. Or something. Somehow.
The Somehow part is always left out. I don't think this is because reformsters don't know what it is, but because they understand that it doesn't play well. The closest they come to explaining is the magically vague word "accountability." And the process that they believe in, but are reluctant to describe, goes like this.
* Students take BS Test
* Results come back
* We catch the lazy sonsabitches who are doing a crappy job
* We punish them so they will get off their asses and do better next time
* Start next round of testing by reminding everyone that they better do well, or else
The backbone of the BS Test narrative is not the actual tests; the policy stands on the strong two legs of Threats and Punishment.
Hell, the tests barely matter. Look at how little time the reformsters have spent making damned sure that those tests are excellent and accurate and valid and reliable. Look at how little time and effort they have spent holding test manufacturers accountable for the contents of those tests. Look how little discussion there has been about making sure that the BS Tests are not loaded with cultural bias, that they are in fact a fair measure for poor and minority students. Now compare that to the amount of time reformsters have spent arguing, lobbying, angling for and pursuing the policies that will properly punish teachers and schools that bring in low scores.
We have entire bodies of regulation on state and federal level discussing how to properly punish, retool, transform, and otherwise beat into submission "low-performing schools." Compare that to the amount of government oversight brought to bear on making absolutely certain that the indicators of Low Performance are accurate and valid and reliable and true.
It's like we've set up a cancer hospital and spent gazzillions of dollars staffing it and filling it with machinery and tools and treatment plans, but at the admissions desk all you have to do is walk in and say, "Hey, yeah, I think my neighbor has cancer" and they'll grab your neighbor and go to town on him. (Of course, our system is also like a cancer hospital that treats your cancer by beating you with pointy sticks and throwing you in a cage with angry badgers.)
Nobody has tried to deliver a great BS Test, because nobody asked for one. Leaders like Duncan and Cuomo and Bush just wanted something to generate "proof" that a bunch of public schools suck so that we could all start leveraging threats and punishment to make them shape up. Lately folks Peter Cunningham and the ed reform universe's angriest citizen have been pretty explicit about their diagnosis-- teachers and their unions are deliberately doing a crappy job so that they can be guaranteed lucrative cushy jobs while simultaneously keeping minorities beaten down.
They don't need or want a great BS Test-- they just need proof that public schools suck so that they can holler "gotcha" and start punishing and replacing.
Weighing the pig to make it fatter does make sense if you think that A) the farmer is starving the pig on purpose and B) once you have proof, you can use threats and punishment to make the farmer feed the pig properly (or just take the pig away and make the farmer pay somebody else to raise it).
This model says a great deal about what its adherents think of teachers in particular and human nature in general. We don't have to tell them that tests don't improve student learning-- they know that. But the tests give them a hook on which to hang the true transformative force in education-- threats and punishment.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
How the Rich Folks Live
If you don't peruse the real estate or lifestyle section of the Washington Post, you probably missed the elegant Potomac estate of Joe and Cynthia Bruno.
Enter through a custom gate, past an Italian-style fountain. When you step into the home you'll stand on a diamond-inlaid marble floor under "a colorful two-story crystal chandelier hand-carried home from Venice."
It took seven years to create the 20,000 square for estate, complete with seven fireplaces, four kitchens, and more chandeliers than the owners can keep track of. And, you know, it's still a warm, homey place. "Gathering the sculptures, sconces and swag for the dozens of rooms in the Bruno home generated years of happy memories and laughter."
They even dug out space for a grotto underneath the estate, accessible through a secret door in the media room. Fountains, statuary, and a totally swell juxtaposition of modern and classical-- the game room is furnished with a16th-century liturgical cabinet from an Italian cathedral. Wine cellars, tasting room, grand living rooms, libraries, signed Steinway piano, Swedish grandfather clock from 1823, lanterns from London, and a portrait of Joe Bruno as the Godfather. Professionally finished basketball court.
The Bruno's are actually planning on downsizing now that their twenty-something daughters have grown. Don't fret for them-- "they have a near-replica of the property, although about half the size, in a condominium in Florida."
The article helps put the "scene" in "obscene." You can see plenty of pictures with the article.
Why am I sharing all this? Would you like to know what business Joe Bruno is in?
Joe Bruno has "since 2004 has served as president of Building Hope, a nonprofit that provides business, technical and financial assistance to public charter schools." So bookmark the article, and the next time somebody is talking about the charter school industry as champions of the underclass in America, just click on over to this profile so you can remember just how well the champions of the underclass, paid with our tax dollars, manage to live.
Enter through a custom gate, past an Italian-style fountain. When you step into the home you'll stand on a diamond-inlaid marble floor under "a colorful two-story crystal chandelier hand-carried home from Venice."
It took seven years to create the 20,000 square for estate, complete with seven fireplaces, four kitchens, and more chandeliers than the owners can keep track of. And, you know, it's still a warm, homey place. "Gathering the sculptures, sconces and swag for the dozens of rooms in the Bruno home generated years of happy memories and laughter."
They even dug out space for a grotto underneath the estate, accessible through a secret door in the media room. Fountains, statuary, and a totally swell juxtaposition of modern and classical-- the game room is furnished with a16th-century liturgical cabinet from an Italian cathedral. Wine cellars, tasting room, grand living rooms, libraries, signed Steinway piano, Swedish grandfather clock from 1823, lanterns from London, and a portrait of Joe Bruno as the Godfather. Professionally finished basketball court.
The Bruno's are actually planning on downsizing now that their twenty-something daughters have grown. Don't fret for them-- "they have a near-replica of the property, although about half the size, in a condominium in Florida."
The article helps put the "scene" in "obscene." You can see plenty of pictures with the article.
Why am I sharing all this? Would you like to know what business Joe Bruno is in?
Joe Bruno has "since 2004 has served as president of Building Hope, a nonprofit that provides business, technical and financial assistance to public charter schools." So bookmark the article, and the next time somebody is talking about the charter school industry as champions of the underclass in America, just click on over to this profile so you can remember just how well the champions of the underclass, paid with our tax dollars, manage to live.
Can Test Boosters Reboot?
Andy Smarick has half of a great post at the Fordham Institute blog.
Smarick suggests that the opt-out movement is testing the ed reform movement, and that the movement is not achieving a Proficient in humility. He catalogues many of the dismissive, condescending responses that have been written to opting out, seeing them as analogous to the dismissive responses to common-core standards pushback all those year ago.
But I'm concerned that education reform's propensity for pride may have taken an even more unfortunate turn with opt-out. One emerging narrative is that we should be suspicious when certain groups of people question our policy preferences.
That's a fair read. From Amanda Ripley to Merryl Tisch, the message being broadcast is that people who question the awesomeness of the Big Standardized Test are fools, racists, and hysteria-addled loons. Smarick suggests that this is not conducive to dialogue (though many reformsters like Tisch don't seem particularly interested in dialogue), and there might be a better response.
We could disparage them. But that would only serve to insult and incite.
Or we could humbly listen, respectfully argue our case, and make the necessary course corrections.
And up to that point, he's really onto something. But I'd like to suggest something more. I think the opt-out explosion suggests that more is needed than a tweaking. I'd like to suggest a reboot.
Policy reboots are great things. I reboot some portion of my classroom every year. Instead of just getting out last year's materials, I go back to the beginning and ask, "What do I want to accomplish? What would be the best way to do that?" Sometimes I reach the exact same conclusion that I did in previous years; sometimes I do not. Often I now know things that I didn't know when I first chose my approach, and so rebooting helps me find a better path. I use this as a teaching thing, but in general I think it's a bad life principle to do something today just because you did it yesterday.
So I'm going to pretend for a moment that I accept all of the stated goals of the high-stakes testing regimen, and I'm just going to go back to the beginning for each. If this is my goal, what would be the best way to pursue it?
Inform Instruction
The idea here is that data will help me decide in my classroom how best to change what I do. Data will also help my building principal and superintendent decide how to adjust and improve curriculum.
Right off the bat, I notice that I need two different data streams. My classroom data needs to be swift and granular. I need to know how all my students did today so that I can plan what to do tomorrow. But the school and district data don't need to be so granular—in fact, too much detail will make it too easy to lose the forest while staring at the hairs on an aphid's back. The school and district also need to decide whether they A) want to fine-tune the instruction for a particular cohort of students and adjust to meet their needs, essentially creating instructional change that follows those students like a wave or B) fine-tune a system that sits in place as each cohort passes through it. One requires data for customization while the other requires data for One Size Fits All.
So a large-scale, national-level test may not be my best choice for informing instruction at all.
This is particularly true when you remember that one policy change that absolutely nobody has suggested is shortening the school year. Yet by using a testing system that eats up days and weeks of time, that is exactly what we've done. I would look for assessment methods that would not require us to reduce instructional time.
Making Failure Visible
One of our goals is to find failing schools and rescue them. To do that, we'd need to agree on what "failing" and "rescue" mean. Until we can agree on what success is supposed to look like in a school, we have no idea how to collect that information.
However, here's one thing I believe is true about failing schools; none of them are a secret. In 10-plus years of test-driven accountability, have we ever found a school that turned out to be terrible, but nobody knew it until the test results came out? Some activists welcome the tests from a belief that the government will have to listen to them when they say poor schools are in need of resources and assistance. Maybe we could just work it out so the government listened to them.
The best way to get a picture of a school is to listen to the people who know the school--parents, teachers, alumni, community members. If I wanted to know how a school was doing, I'd talk to those people--not just look at the narrow results of a standardized test. I don't believe that failing schools and the students struggling through them are invisible;I just don't think people in power were ever really looking (not until there was money to be made by "rescuing" them).
Evaluating Teachers
I've mapped out a system for evaluating teachers; you can find a fuller picture of my plan here. What I definitely would not do is try to evaluate some teachers by testing students they don't have in subjects they don't teach.
Provide Parents With Information About Student Achievement
Why would I look for a proxy to tell me how my child is doing in school when I can look directly at how my child is doing in school. I would call for all manner of transparency, from public access to data about the district to opening avenues for parent-teacher communication, from the high tech of cyber-communications to the low tech of evening office hours for working parents. Transparency is not achieved by an extra test unrelated to the usual business of the school, particularly not when the contents of that test are a secret.
Taxpayer Accountability
Again, we first need to know what the taxpayers want the school system to do. Ask 100 citizens what they consider most important in a school, and I don't believe that any number will answer, "I don't care what else you do as long as those kids score well on a Big Standardized Test." Taxpayers should expect and receive accountability, but coming up with the instrument will be difficult. Again, the cheapest and most direct means would be transparency;let people see as much as possible of what's going on behind the walls (without violating student privacy).
It occurs to me that pro-test folks might think I'm engaging in some sort of rhetorical ju-jitsu here, but let me assure you, I am not. One thing that continues to amaze and intrigue me about the test-driven accountability movement is that these folks have a list of Very Important Things they want to accomplish, and they have somehow focused on an instrument that is a lousy way to accomplish any of them. It's like watching someone who says, "You must prepare me a gourmet meal or else!" and then hands the cook a can of Spam, a hammer, and a box of matches.
There are discussions worth having about the value of some of these goals, but if these really are your goals, in high-stakes standardized tests you have chosen the exactly wrong instrument.
Educators have been telling you this for over a decade. Parents and students are now telling you as well. It is time to step back and consider what would truly be the best ways to achieve your stated goals. Because Big Standardized Tests are not it.
Originally posted at View from the Cheap Seats
Smarick suggests that the opt-out movement is testing the ed reform movement, and that the movement is not achieving a Proficient in humility. He catalogues many of the dismissive, condescending responses that have been written to opting out, seeing them as analogous to the dismissive responses to common-core standards pushback all those year ago.
But I'm concerned that education reform's propensity for pride may have taken an even more unfortunate turn with opt-out. One emerging narrative is that we should be suspicious when certain groups of people question our policy preferences.
That's a fair read. From Amanda Ripley to Merryl Tisch, the message being broadcast is that people who question the awesomeness of the Big Standardized Test are fools, racists, and hysteria-addled loons. Smarick suggests that this is not conducive to dialogue (though many reformsters like Tisch don't seem particularly interested in dialogue), and there might be a better response.
We could disparage them. But that would only serve to insult and incite.
Or we could humbly listen, respectfully argue our case, and make the necessary course corrections.
And up to that point, he's really onto something. But I'd like to suggest something more. I think the opt-out explosion suggests that more is needed than a tweaking. I'd like to suggest a reboot.
Policy reboots are great things. I reboot some portion of my classroom every year. Instead of just getting out last year's materials, I go back to the beginning and ask, "What do I want to accomplish? What would be the best way to do that?" Sometimes I reach the exact same conclusion that I did in previous years; sometimes I do not. Often I now know things that I didn't know when I first chose my approach, and so rebooting helps me find a better path. I use this as a teaching thing, but in general I think it's a bad life principle to do something today just because you did it yesterday.
So I'm going to pretend for a moment that I accept all of the stated goals of the high-stakes testing regimen, and I'm just going to go back to the beginning for each. If this is my goal, what would be the best way to pursue it?
Inform Instruction
The idea here is that data will help me decide in my classroom how best to change what I do. Data will also help my building principal and superintendent decide how to adjust and improve curriculum.
Right off the bat, I notice that I need two different data streams. My classroom data needs to be swift and granular. I need to know how all my students did today so that I can plan what to do tomorrow. But the school and district data don't need to be so granular—in fact, too much detail will make it too easy to lose the forest while staring at the hairs on an aphid's back. The school and district also need to decide whether they A) want to fine-tune the instruction for a particular cohort of students and adjust to meet their needs, essentially creating instructional change that follows those students like a wave or B) fine-tune a system that sits in place as each cohort passes through it. One requires data for customization while the other requires data for One Size Fits All.
So a large-scale, national-level test may not be my best choice for informing instruction at all.
This is particularly true when you remember that one policy change that absolutely nobody has suggested is shortening the school year. Yet by using a testing system that eats up days and weeks of time, that is exactly what we've done. I would look for assessment methods that would not require us to reduce instructional time.
Making Failure Visible
One of our goals is to find failing schools and rescue them. To do that, we'd need to agree on what "failing" and "rescue" mean. Until we can agree on what success is supposed to look like in a school, we have no idea how to collect that information.
However, here's one thing I believe is true about failing schools; none of them are a secret. In 10-plus years of test-driven accountability, have we ever found a school that turned out to be terrible, but nobody knew it until the test results came out? Some activists welcome the tests from a belief that the government will have to listen to them when they say poor schools are in need of resources and assistance. Maybe we could just work it out so the government listened to them.
The best way to get a picture of a school is to listen to the people who know the school--parents, teachers, alumni, community members. If I wanted to know how a school was doing, I'd talk to those people--not just look at the narrow results of a standardized test. I don't believe that failing schools and the students struggling through them are invisible;I just don't think people in power were ever really looking (not until there was money to be made by "rescuing" them).
Evaluating Teachers
I've mapped out a system for evaluating teachers; you can find a fuller picture of my plan here. What I definitely would not do is try to evaluate some teachers by testing students they don't have in subjects they don't teach.
Provide Parents With Information About Student Achievement
Why would I look for a proxy to tell me how my child is doing in school when I can look directly at how my child is doing in school. I would call for all manner of transparency, from public access to data about the district to opening avenues for parent-teacher communication, from the high tech of cyber-communications to the low tech of evening office hours for working parents. Transparency is not achieved by an extra test unrelated to the usual business of the school, particularly not when the contents of that test are a secret.
Taxpayer Accountability
Again, we first need to know what the taxpayers want the school system to do. Ask 100 citizens what they consider most important in a school, and I don't believe that any number will answer, "I don't care what else you do as long as those kids score well on a Big Standardized Test." Taxpayers should expect and receive accountability, but coming up with the instrument will be difficult. Again, the cheapest and most direct means would be transparency;let people see as much as possible of what's going on behind the walls (without violating student privacy).
It occurs to me that pro-test folks might think I'm engaging in some sort of rhetorical ju-jitsu here, but let me assure you, I am not. One thing that continues to amaze and intrigue me about the test-driven accountability movement is that these folks have a list of Very Important Things they want to accomplish, and they have somehow focused on an instrument that is a lousy way to accomplish any of them. It's like watching someone who says, "You must prepare me a gourmet meal or else!" and then hands the cook a can of Spam, a hammer, and a box of matches.
There are discussions worth having about the value of some of these goals, but if these really are your goals, in high-stakes standardized tests you have chosen the exactly wrong instrument.
Educators have been telling you this for over a decade. Parents and students are now telling you as well. It is time to step back and consider what would truly be the best ways to achieve your stated goals. Because Big Standardized Tests are not it.
Originally posted at View from the Cheap Seats
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Who Has Been Saved?
The supporters of high stakes testing are pushing back.
Peter Cunningham, at the Website Which Shall Not Be Linked, takes a swipe at John Oliver's piece (which he describes as "tedious") and suggests that teachers unions and middle-class white folks are involved in a clear conspiracy to keep poor minority folks trapped and beaten down (I'm not sure how his rhetoric fits into the quest for "better conversations")
Meanwhile, a coalition of civil rights groups has released a statement of support for the testing regimen, ending with this line:
But we cannot fix what we cannot measure. And abolishing the tests or sabotaging the validity of their results only makes it harder to identify and fix the deep-seated problems in our schools.
There's much to discuss, but I want to ask just one question.
Who has been saved?
We have had this regimen of testing, this revenue-generating stream of dis-aggregated data collection for over a decade. For over ten years we have been collecting test scores so that, having measured, we can then fix. So again I ask.
Who has been saved?
Where is the urban school system where the state has said, "Damn-- this school is in trouble. Get some resources and help and support in there stat. Divert tax dollars and raise more. Hire the best educational experts to help." And then, having sent the educational marines, the state could then watch their efforts pay off and declare, "Thank God for the test results. We have saved this school system."
Where is that school? Who has been saved?
Now, we've identified plenty of "failing systems." But from New Orleans to Newark, from Detroit to Little Rock to Holyoke, the response has not been to help the school or community. The response has been to cancel democracy, shut down the duly-elected school board, and effectively silence the parents, students and taxpayers of the community. Then, once governance of the school system has been stripped from the community and handed over to other interests, the schools have not been repaired, but replaced. Charter operators have been handed the keys to the candy store and allowed to reap profits while "rescuing" some small percentage of the students while leaving the rest to stew in public schools that now have-- well, not MORE resources than before their problems were "discovered," but LESS.
The community members are disenfranchised. The public schools are stripped of resources, not assisted. And some students (only those found worthy) are allowed to "escape" to charters that may not be in their community, may not be doing anything different than the public school except carefully skimming students, may be rolling back the clock on segregation, may not even be getting results any better than the public school.
Who has been saved? What has been fixed?
Cunningham's piece also runs the litany of problems in failing schools. Low graduation rates. Achievement (aka test score) gaps. Low-income students with low college completion rates. These are just a few of the absolutely true, absolutely critical issues that we need to be addressing. Cunningham does not explain how taking a standardized test will help.
Here's a suggestion. Speak honestly.
If your argument for the tests is, "We need to find and label the schools that must be closed. We must find the communities that are not fit to have a voice in their own governance so that we can take democracy away from them because their test scores suck and that is why they can't have nice things--" Even if what you should really be saying is, "Look, we're not going to try to save all the kids; some just aren't worth it. We'll save a select few and dump the rest like ballast on an over-burdened balloon--" If that's the true purpose of the Big Standardized Test, then just say so. Let's have an honest conversation about that. Let's talk about what the BS Test can actually tell us. Let's talk about what the "data" from the test can tell us, and what we can do about it.
Because this story about how the tests are like a big diagnostic medical test and the doctors are just waiting to whisk the worst patients to an operating room where they will receive the best care that modern science and top dollar can buy-- well, that story is getting old. We have been doing this for over a decade, and we keep watching patients get whisked away to that magical operating room, and yet not one of them has emerged alive and healthy. Most have not emerged at all. And in the meantime, more patients keep showing up, suffering from diseases spawned by inequity and injustice.
Maybe test results could be used to fix education. I tend to doubt it, but let's say it's possible. That's not how the data has been used for the past decade-plus.
If you are going to insist on this story of how we need the data in order to save students or schools or communities, then, please, answer just one question.
Who has been saved?
Read the NPE statement on testing, test-resistance, and inequity.
Peter Cunningham, at the Website Which Shall Not Be Linked, takes a swipe at John Oliver's piece (which he describes as "tedious") and suggests that teachers unions and middle-class white folks are involved in a clear conspiracy to keep poor minority folks trapped and beaten down (I'm not sure how his rhetoric fits into the quest for "better conversations")
Meanwhile, a coalition of civil rights groups has released a statement of support for the testing regimen, ending with this line:
But we cannot fix what we cannot measure. And abolishing the tests or sabotaging the validity of their results only makes it harder to identify and fix the deep-seated problems in our schools.
There's much to discuss, but I want to ask just one question.
Who has been saved?
We have had this regimen of testing, this revenue-generating stream of dis-aggregated data collection for over a decade. For over ten years we have been collecting test scores so that, having measured, we can then fix. So again I ask.
Who has been saved?
Where is the urban school system where the state has said, "Damn-- this school is in trouble. Get some resources and help and support in there stat. Divert tax dollars and raise more. Hire the best educational experts to help." And then, having sent the educational marines, the state could then watch their efforts pay off and declare, "Thank God for the test results. We have saved this school system."
Where is that school? Who has been saved?
Now, we've identified plenty of "failing systems." But from New Orleans to Newark, from Detroit to Little Rock to Holyoke, the response has not been to help the school or community. The response has been to cancel democracy, shut down the duly-elected school board, and effectively silence the parents, students and taxpayers of the community. Then, once governance of the school system has been stripped from the community and handed over to other interests, the schools have not been repaired, but replaced. Charter operators have been handed the keys to the candy store and allowed to reap profits while "rescuing" some small percentage of the students while leaving the rest to stew in public schools that now have-- well, not MORE resources than before their problems were "discovered," but LESS.
The community members are disenfranchised. The public schools are stripped of resources, not assisted. And some students (only those found worthy) are allowed to "escape" to charters that may not be in their community, may not be doing anything different than the public school except carefully skimming students, may be rolling back the clock on segregation, may not even be getting results any better than the public school.
Who has been saved? What has been fixed?
Cunningham's piece also runs the litany of problems in failing schools. Low graduation rates. Achievement (aka test score) gaps. Low-income students with low college completion rates. These are just a few of the absolutely true, absolutely critical issues that we need to be addressing. Cunningham does not explain how taking a standardized test will help.
Here's a suggestion. Speak honestly.
If your argument for the tests is, "We need to find and label the schools that must be closed. We must find the communities that are not fit to have a voice in their own governance so that we can take democracy away from them because their test scores suck and that is why they can't have nice things--" Even if what you should really be saying is, "Look, we're not going to try to save all the kids; some just aren't worth it. We'll save a select few and dump the rest like ballast on an over-burdened balloon--" If that's the true purpose of the Big Standardized Test, then just say so. Let's have an honest conversation about that. Let's talk about what the BS Test can actually tell us. Let's talk about what the "data" from the test can tell us, and what we can do about it.
Because this story about how the tests are like a big diagnostic medical test and the doctors are just waiting to whisk the worst patients to an operating room where they will receive the best care that modern science and top dollar can buy-- well, that story is getting old. We have been doing this for over a decade, and we keep watching patients get whisked away to that magical operating room, and yet not one of them has emerged alive and healthy. Most have not emerged at all. And in the meantime, more patients keep showing up, suffering from diseases spawned by inequity and injustice.
Maybe test results could be used to fix education. I tend to doubt it, but let's say it's possible. That's not how the data has been used for the past decade-plus.
If you are going to insist on this story of how we need the data in order to save students or schools or communities, then, please, answer just one question.
Who has been saved?
Read the NPE statement on testing, test-resistance, and inequity.
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