Sir Michael Barber is the Big Cheese of Pearson (Motto: All Your School Are Belong To Us), and he recently decided to celebrate Oxymoron Day by delivering a speech entitled "Joy and Data."
While that speech spurred some twitter snark, nobody who wasn't actually in the room ever got to hear it. Barber is like that; he doesn't seem to feel any impulse to get people to like him, agree with him, or praise him. It's hard and foolish to judge from out here in Ordinary Shmoe Land, but don't think that will stop me-- Barber seems like a man who is so powerful, and so sure he's right, that he's not going to waste time trying to justify his ways to anybody who doesn't actually matter.
And Barber's ways are big. Big. His premise, as unloaded in a few different papers, is that if we could collect all the data, we would know everything, and we could predict everything and control everything. We just need all the data.
We do not, however, have all the data about his speech. So we have to depend on what slipped through the tweeterverse.
Barber is aware that not everybody sees the beauty in this relentless cataloging of everything. Quotes the tweeterverse:
There's a tendency to see data and evidence...in conflict with joy and spontaneity.
Well, yes. When Knewton, a Pearson data-grabbing group, describes how collecting data would let them tell you what breakfast you should eat on test day, that seems like a spontaneity-killer.
Valerie Strauss has collected some tweets from Jenny Luca highlighting some of the key points. None of them are encouraging.
The future of education will be more joyful with the embrace of data. Also, don't get things wrong-- the data does not undermine creativity and inspiration, nor does it tell us what to do, nor does it replace professional judgment. And I don't even know how to link to all the places where Pearson has contradicted all of this. I would be further ahead to find links to Jeb Bush condemning charter schools and Common Core. But you can try here and here and here and here.
If we lump all of Pearson's visionary writing together, the picture that emerges is a Brave New World in which every single student's action is tagged, collected, and run through a computer program that spits out an exact picture of the student's intellectual, emotional and social development as well as specific instructions on exactly what the teacher (and, in this Brave New World, we're using that term pretty loosely) should do next with/for/to the student to achieve the results desired by our data overlords.
And here's the scariest thing about Barber. One idea keeps popping up, as in this closing thought from Pearson's 2014 paper on the digital ocean--
Be that as it may, the aspiration to meet these challenges is right.
What I see every time I read Barber is a man who is not following a business plan or a power grabbing plan or even just a money-making scam-- this is guy who seems to feel he is following a moral imperative to Make the World a Better Place. That's what's scary-- you cannot reason with a religious fanatic who is intent on remaking the world according to his own vision.
Yeah, the worst thing about a Barber speech centered on Joy and Data is not that he might be making some cynical marketing ploy or a cheap PR bid, but that for him, those two things really do go together.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
A Great Teacher Story
The Sunday Theater section of the New York Times featured a fun angle on the Kristin Cheneworth vs. Kelli O'Hara competition for this year's Tony-- a visit from the woman who taught both of them in college.
The Oklahoma City University website lists Florence Birdwell as "a force of nature." She has been teaching voice-- musical theater and opera-- for decades. The woman started teaching in 1946. She is 90 years old.
The NYT writer watched some teaching sessions. Birdwell is a great source of quotes.
She turned and addressed the class. “Anytime you make your voice more important than the words, you lose it and the audience knows it,” she said. “They don’t understand why, but they’re just waiting for it to be over.”
A 2008 interview says this about her:
Drawing on the disciplines of metaphysics, philosophy, math, technique and practical insight, Birdwell is a professor of voice who shapes students into stars.
But a thread that seems to run through Birdwell's teaching is the idea of getting out of your own way. Her own path was not clear, nor did it unfold according to plan. In that same 2008 interview, she talks about finding her passion at age 8, screaming wordlessly into a canyon. But when she was 24, an infection in her pharynx ended her dreams of being a singer. In the NYT, here's how that story goes:
“I had a wonderful voice, and I lost it,” she said. “My teacher said, ‘You can’t sing, but you sure can talk.’ ”
Birdwell talks a great deal about honesty. When telling the Times about her teaching philosphy: “Be more honest!” she said. “You have to open up a little bit of your insides. You have to learn about yourself as a person.” When speaking to NewsOK:
The hardest thing is absolute honesty. You have to work it out and think about it and deal with it. Which things are you going to put first? Who do you want to please? What are you trying to achieve in life? It has to be your own inner power that takes you and decides these questions. You have to do it for yourself and not for anybody else, otherwise you give too much in too many different ways and you cheat yourself.
Cheneworth, talking about Birdwell in an interview with ChicagoPride:
She not only taught me to sing technically, but taught me to sing from the soul about what a song actually means.
Don't sing it if ya can't mean it!
Yes, Birdwell teaches the technique, the breathing, the control. But like all good and great teachers, she teaches her students how to be more fully themselves, how to be in the world, how to connect to something that both fulfills and transcends who they are. The NYT focuses on her star pupils, but I have to believe that there are a whole raft of non-famous non-Tony-nominee former students out there who are enjoying richer, fuller lives because they crossed paths with this force of nature. Isn't that the kind of teacher we would all like to be?
The Oklahoma City University website lists Florence Birdwell as "a force of nature." She has been teaching voice-- musical theater and opera-- for decades. The woman started teaching in 1946. She is 90 years old.
The NYT writer watched some teaching sessions. Birdwell is a great source of quotes.
She turned and addressed the class. “Anytime you make your voice more important than the words, you lose it and the audience knows it,” she said. “They don’t understand why, but they’re just waiting for it to be over.”
A 2008 interview says this about her:
Drawing on the disciplines of metaphysics, philosophy, math, technique and practical insight, Birdwell is a professor of voice who shapes students into stars.
But a thread that seems to run through Birdwell's teaching is the idea of getting out of your own way. Her own path was not clear, nor did it unfold according to plan. In that same 2008 interview, she talks about finding her passion at age 8, screaming wordlessly into a canyon. But when she was 24, an infection in her pharynx ended her dreams of being a singer. In the NYT, here's how that story goes:
“I had a wonderful voice, and I lost it,” she said. “My teacher said, ‘You can’t sing, but you sure can talk.’ ”
Birdwell talks a great deal about honesty. When telling the Times about her teaching philosphy: “Be more honest!” she said. “You have to open up a little bit of your insides. You have to learn about yourself as a person.” When speaking to NewsOK:
The hardest thing is absolute honesty. You have to work it out and think about it and deal with it. Which things are you going to put first? Who do you want to please? What are you trying to achieve in life? It has to be your own inner power that takes you and decides these questions. You have to do it for yourself and not for anybody else, otherwise you give too much in too many different ways and you cheat yourself.
Cheneworth, talking about Birdwell in an interview with ChicagoPride:
She not only taught me to sing technically, but taught me to sing from the soul about what a song actually means.
Don't sing it if ya can't mean it!
Yes, Birdwell teaches the technique, the breathing, the control. But like all good and great teachers, she teaches her students how to be more fully themselves, how to be in the world, how to connect to something that both fulfills and transcends who they are. The NYT focuses on her star pupils, but I have to believe that there are a whole raft of non-famous non-Tony-nominee former students out there who are enjoying richer, fuller lives because they crossed paths with this force of nature. Isn't that the kind of teacher we would all like to be?
Standards: Agreements and Assurances
When we talk about standards, we are really talking about two different things-- and only one of them is real.
Agreements
For a while it was in vogue to compare educational standards to manufacturing standards like the standards for electrical outlets.
Those sorts of standards represent an agreement-- the interested parties come to an understanding that in order to play together successfully, we will all agree to play by the same rules. These agreements do not always come easily-- while the AC power that flows into all our homes may now seem like a no-brainer, it is, in fact, the victor of the War of Currents, a battle over whether US homes would be powered by AC or DC power. Think also VHS vs. Betamax, HD vs. Bluray, and Microsoft vs. Apple operating systems. Think about how many various charger cords you have for electronic devices; standards don't always get worked out.
When they do get worked out, it's a matter of folks saying, "Let's make it easier to play together by all driving on the right side of the road" or "Let's make it easier to make money by all using the same currency" or "Let's keep refusing to use the metric system."
Some times the terms of agreement can be dictated by power players. If I control the game, then you must agree to my rules if you want to play. "We control access to the North American continent, so if you want a piece of the action, you must build your railroad cars to our agreed-upon gauge." Microsoft and Apple have not set universal standards, but they dominate the market so effectively that they can dictate the terms of agreement for anyone who wished to play in their sandbox.
Folks who want to set the terms of agreement have two basic avenues open to them-- seduction or force. Seduction has been the preferred method in game platform wars-- "Buy our console and you will get to play the awesome new game Robotic Beavers Disembowel Ninja Cowboys" on the front end and "Create a game for our platform and you'll make a gazzillion dollars" on the back end.
Seduction works best with quality (Betamax) or opportunity to profit (VHS), but when you don't have either going for you (asbestos removal), you need brute force. That would be the part where John D. Rockefeller bludgeons the rest of the oil industry into economic submission, or the part where Wall Street makes sure that the standards for ethical and responsible behavior set by the feds do not actually forbid unethical and irresponsible behavior.
The architects of the Common Core Standards used seduction successfully with industry insiders ("Pearson, this is going to make you so rich") and tried hard to wrap their product in Robes of Excellence (Thanks, Fordham), but ultimately they had not fully reckoned with the millions and millions of end-users of their product who were unwilling to enter a standards agreement either way. That led to the use of brute force (Race to the Top, waivers, and the installation of Core-enforcing goons in state capitals). But sensing that was a long bridge to cross, the CCSS-pushing forces also tried to portray the Core as the other type of standard.
Assurances
People love standards because every standard is a promise-- Do X and you will be sure to get Y.
Do this and you will be sure to get rich. Do this and you will be sure to get a spouse. Do this and you will be sure to get great children. Do this and you will be sure to go to heaven.
There are folks out there making small mountains of money writing books that make these claims. People want to know what rules to follow to get the outcomes they want from life. The marketing genius of the Core (and all its attached education programs) is to say to parents and legislators, "If your kids do this, they are sure to go to college and get a good job."
Standards as assurances appeal to the human desire to Know What To Do. They promise a clear future, with clear choices leading to the desired outcome. And they are completely imaginary. All standards of this sort are completely imaginary. Nobody can tell you exactly what you have to do to become successful or have a happy spouse or rear perfect children. At best, people can tell what has often worked for many people of a certain type under certain conditions at some times in the past. But none of that guarantees that any person who follows those standardized steps will be certain to arrive at the same destination. Insisting that life be whittled down to just the narrow path described by such standards does guarantee that you will miss a great deal of what could have been good and rich and rewarding in your life. You will be the person throwing away diamonds because your rulebook told you to look only for gold.
Promising that following these standards will make every child college and career ready is codswallup. It's baloney. We don't even know what "college and career ready" actually means, and we certainly don't know a set of steps to follow that will bring every student to that place. Collapsing education (and life) down to a single narrow path is for cowards and fools. It's trading the richness of life for the empty promise of a guaranteed future, a promise on which no standard can deliver.
Agreements
For a while it was in vogue to compare educational standards to manufacturing standards like the standards for electrical outlets.
Those sorts of standards represent an agreement-- the interested parties come to an understanding that in order to play together successfully, we will all agree to play by the same rules. These agreements do not always come easily-- while the AC power that flows into all our homes may now seem like a no-brainer, it is, in fact, the victor of the War of Currents, a battle over whether US homes would be powered by AC or DC power. Think also VHS vs. Betamax, HD vs. Bluray, and Microsoft vs. Apple operating systems. Think about how many various charger cords you have for electronic devices; standards don't always get worked out.
When they do get worked out, it's a matter of folks saying, "Let's make it easier to play together by all driving on the right side of the road" or "Let's make it easier to make money by all using the same currency" or "Let's keep refusing to use the metric system."
Some times the terms of agreement can be dictated by power players. If I control the game, then you must agree to my rules if you want to play. "We control access to the North American continent, so if you want a piece of the action, you must build your railroad cars to our agreed-upon gauge." Microsoft and Apple have not set universal standards, but they dominate the market so effectively that they can dictate the terms of agreement for anyone who wished to play in their sandbox.
Folks who want to set the terms of agreement have two basic avenues open to them-- seduction or force. Seduction has been the preferred method in game platform wars-- "Buy our console and you will get to play the awesome new game Robotic Beavers Disembowel Ninja Cowboys" on the front end and "Create a game for our platform and you'll make a gazzillion dollars" on the back end.
Seduction works best with quality (Betamax) or opportunity to profit (VHS), but when you don't have either going for you (asbestos removal), you need brute force. That would be the part where John D. Rockefeller bludgeons the rest of the oil industry into economic submission, or the part where Wall Street makes sure that the standards for ethical and responsible behavior set by the feds do not actually forbid unethical and irresponsible behavior.
The architects of the Common Core Standards used seduction successfully with industry insiders ("Pearson, this is going to make you so rich") and tried hard to wrap their product in Robes of Excellence (Thanks, Fordham), but ultimately they had not fully reckoned with the millions and millions of end-users of their product who were unwilling to enter a standards agreement either way. That led to the use of brute force (Race to the Top, waivers, and the installation of Core-enforcing goons in state capitals). But sensing that was a long bridge to cross, the CCSS-pushing forces also tried to portray the Core as the other type of standard.
Assurances
People love standards because every standard is a promise-- Do X and you will be sure to get Y.
Do this and you will be sure to get rich. Do this and you will be sure to get a spouse. Do this and you will be sure to get great children. Do this and you will be sure to go to heaven.
There are folks out there making small mountains of money writing books that make these claims. People want to know what rules to follow to get the outcomes they want from life. The marketing genius of the Core (and all its attached education programs) is to say to parents and legislators, "If your kids do this, they are sure to go to college and get a good job."
Standards as assurances appeal to the human desire to Know What To Do. They promise a clear future, with clear choices leading to the desired outcome. And they are completely imaginary. All standards of this sort are completely imaginary. Nobody can tell you exactly what you have to do to become successful or have a happy spouse or rear perfect children. At best, people can tell what has often worked for many people of a certain type under certain conditions at some times in the past. But none of that guarantees that any person who follows those standardized steps will be certain to arrive at the same destination. Insisting that life be whittled down to just the narrow path described by such standards does guarantee that you will miss a great deal of what could have been good and rich and rewarding in your life. You will be the person throwing away diamonds because your rulebook told you to look only for gold.
Promising that following these standards will make every child college and career ready is codswallup. It's baloney. We don't even know what "college and career ready" actually means, and we certainly don't know a set of steps to follow that will bring every student to that place. Collapsing education (and life) down to a single narrow path is for cowards and fools. It's trading the richness of life for the empty promise of a guaranteed future, a promise on which no standard can deliver.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Memorial Day
On Memorial Day, there can be no doubt that I live in a small town.
I get up, put on my band uniform, and walk up town to City Hall, where my friends and I in the marching version of our 159-year-old town band grab our hats and our music and get ready to march down the main street (it's named Liberty Street in my town). My brother, sister-in-law, and wife all play in the band; some of the band members are among my oldest friends in the world, and some are former students.
We march down the main drag and end at a tree-covered city park, where folks gather on the grass for a Memorial Day program. Wreaths are laid on crosses, one for each war. The names of all the veterans who died in the last year are read aloud, followed by an honor-guard of local vets firing off a salute, followed by taps (played by two trumpet players, standing in opposite corners of the park, one playing as an echo of the other). You can hear the last echoes of the trumpets fade into the sounds of birds and passing traffic.
There's always a speaker and a speech that may veer off into "next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth" territory, but I can't get offended by any of it. The list of the dead always includes families, and sometimes individuals, whom I know, and I can't help thinking that whether the war was fought in a good cause or a bad one, these are people who did their duty as best they could understand it, even at the risk of life and limb.
It pops me back to a conversation I had with a teacher at an end-of-year gathering Friday night. We were talking about how younger teachers aren't so involved with union leadership, and he said that it may be in part that some people aren't fighters, that they don't want to make enemies. That may seem like a wimpy reason to my big city brethren and sistren, but here in small towns, it's a part of contract negotiations and strikes and battles over the schools-- the people we sit across a negotiating table from are also literally the people next door, the people we sing in church choir with, even the people we're related to. In small town politics there is no such thing as going at someone unrestrained with both barrels blazing as if we'll never have to face each other again.
So I get the "let's not make enemies" concern. But I've had the same concern myself, back in my union president days, and I already knew the answer before he expressed the concern-- sometimes you already have enemies, and the only question is whether or not you are going to stand up to them.
Memorial Day, for me, is a reminder that you don't always get to choose your battles. Sometimes you battles choose you.
After the ceremony in the park is over, my wife and I walked home, walked the dog, graded some papers, took a nap. Then we walked over to my in-laws, because I live in a small town and on a day like today, I can conduct all my business without ever getting in a car. The in-laws grilled some food, we face-timed my sister-in-law in Hawaii, we talked about Stuff, and then my wife and I headed home.
In the end, Memorial Day also reminds me that I am extraordinarily blessed/privileged/fortunate (pick the one that suits your belief system), the recipient of many advantages and benefits that I haven't really earned. Even my battles are privileged ones-- I know that a year from now nobody is going to be talking about how I died in the service of my country or my cause, nor will I have died because I had the misfortune to be seen as threat requiring a lethal response.
In a way, one of my privileges/blessings/fortunes is that I get at least one more year that a bunch of other folks do not. Memorial Day reminds me not to waste it, to try make good choices, to try not to sleepwalk through it. I live in a small place, a place I'm firmly rooted to, and yet in the last year, I've become more closely connected through this little box to a larger, wider world as well, and been given a chance to use my voice in that world. We are living through interesting times, as many generations before us have. Whatever gifts, battles, blessings, weaknesses, flaws, and struggles have come to me, I want to try to rise and meet them with whatever I have that might be of use. I am not a big deal, and I will not change the world. But none of the people whose names were read today were world-changing titans, either. They just did what they felt they needed to do, and I'm pretty sure that's a plenty tall order all by itself.
I get up, put on my band uniform, and walk up town to City Hall, where my friends and I in the marching version of our 159-year-old town band grab our hats and our music and get ready to march down the main street (it's named Liberty Street in my town). My brother, sister-in-law, and wife all play in the band; some of the band members are among my oldest friends in the world, and some are former students.
We march down the main drag and end at a tree-covered city park, where folks gather on the grass for a Memorial Day program. Wreaths are laid on crosses, one for each war. The names of all the veterans who died in the last year are read aloud, followed by an honor-guard of local vets firing off a salute, followed by taps (played by two trumpet players, standing in opposite corners of the park, one playing as an echo of the other). You can hear the last echoes of the trumpets fade into the sounds of birds and passing traffic.
There's always a speaker and a speech that may veer off into "next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth" territory, but I can't get offended by any of it. The list of the dead always includes families, and sometimes individuals, whom I know, and I can't help thinking that whether the war was fought in a good cause or a bad one, these are people who did their duty as best they could understand it, even at the risk of life and limb.
It pops me back to a conversation I had with a teacher at an end-of-year gathering Friday night. We were talking about how younger teachers aren't so involved with union leadership, and he said that it may be in part that some people aren't fighters, that they don't want to make enemies. That may seem like a wimpy reason to my big city brethren and sistren, but here in small towns, it's a part of contract negotiations and strikes and battles over the schools-- the people we sit across a negotiating table from are also literally the people next door, the people we sing in church choir with, even the people we're related to. In small town politics there is no such thing as going at someone unrestrained with both barrels blazing as if we'll never have to face each other again.
So I get the "let's not make enemies" concern. But I've had the same concern myself, back in my union president days, and I already knew the answer before he expressed the concern-- sometimes you already have enemies, and the only question is whether or not you are going to stand up to them.
Memorial Day, for me, is a reminder that you don't always get to choose your battles. Sometimes you battles choose you.
After the ceremony in the park is over, my wife and I walked home, walked the dog, graded some papers, took a nap. Then we walked over to my in-laws, because I live in a small town and on a day like today, I can conduct all my business without ever getting in a car. The in-laws grilled some food, we face-timed my sister-in-law in Hawaii, we talked about Stuff, and then my wife and I headed home.
In the end, Memorial Day also reminds me that I am extraordinarily blessed/privileged/fortunate (pick the one that suits your belief system), the recipient of many advantages and benefits that I haven't really earned. Even my battles are privileged ones-- I know that a year from now nobody is going to be talking about how I died in the service of my country or my cause, nor will I have died because I had the misfortune to be seen as threat requiring a lethal response.
In a way, one of my privileges/blessings/fortunes is that I get at least one more year that a bunch of other folks do not. Memorial Day reminds me not to waste it, to try make good choices, to try not to sleepwalk through it. I live in a small place, a place I'm firmly rooted to, and yet in the last year, I've become more closely connected through this little box to a larger, wider world as well, and been given a chance to use my voice in that world. We are living through interesting times, as many generations before us have. Whatever gifts, battles, blessings, weaknesses, flaws, and struggles have come to me, I want to try to rise and meet them with whatever I have that might be of use. I am not a big deal, and I will not change the world. But none of the people whose names were read today were world-changing titans, either. They just did what they felt they needed to do, and I'm pretty sure that's a plenty tall order all by itself.
The Testing Circus: Whose Fault Is It?
Andrew Rotherham of Bellwether Education Partners, a reformster-filled thinky tank, took to the pages of US News last week to address the Testing Circus and shift the blame for it explain its origins.
The ridiculous pep rallies? The matching t-shirts? The general Test Prep Squeezing Out Actual Education? That's all the fault of the local districts. In fact, Rotherham notes, "a cynic might think it's a deliberate effort to sour parents on the tests." Yes, that's it-- the schools are just making all this up in an attempt to make the public think testing is stupid.
Reformsters have been doing this a lot-- trying to shift the blame for testing frenzy from the policy makers and the reformsters pushing testing policies onto the local teachers and districts. In a video that I cannot, for some reason, link, John White, education boss of Louisiana, argues that it's local tests from teachers and school districts that are muddying the testing water, and so every single test deployed in a classroom ought to come under the control and direction of the state. Or we could go back to Arne Duncan et al suggesting that we need to trim back "unnecessary" tests, which turns out to mean tests developed on the local level.
It is hard to see this working. Can we really mollify Mrs. McGrumpymom by saying, "We know that your child really hated the PARCC and found the whole experience stressful and useless, so we're going to have her teacher stop giving those weekly spelling quizzes. All better, right?"
As with Arne Duncan, who continually seems just oh so mystified about how schools could possibly have gotten so worked up over testing, the reformster mystery here is this: do they really not understand what they've done, or do they understand and are just unleashing the lamest PR campaign ever?
Rotherham blames the Testing Circus on three factors.
First, he thinks it's a matter of capacity. But his explanation suggests that he simply doesn't understand the problem.
What elementary schools are asked to do is daunting though not unreasonable. Getting students to a specific degree of literacy and numeracy is challenging but it can be done.
Bzzzzrtt!! Wrong. Elementary schools were not asked to get students to a specific degree of literacy and numeracy. They were commanded (do it, or else) to raise test scores, and that is what they have devoted themselves to. Achieving a specific degree of literacy and numeracy might help with that goal, but only if the test is a good and valid measure, and that topic is open to debate. On top of achieving the specific degree etc, students have to actually care about the test to the point that they try. Test advocates love to assume this as a given, and they are fools to do so. If I walk into your workplace and assign you a difficult task that seems unrelated to your actual job and which will have no effect on your rating or performance review, exactly how hard will you try?
It is not the reading and numeracy level that is the goal. It is the test score. Test advocates can pretend those are the same thing, but they are not. Schools can hang tough and refuse to start with pep rallies for the tests-- or they can recognize that the nine-year-olds who will decide their fate will do a better job if someone convinces them to try.
Second, new tests. Rotherham repeats a version of a new talking point that makes no sense. The new tests are causing turmoil, stress, and even low scores. These tests are more challenging because they test awesome things like critical thinking and consequently, they are impervious to Test Prep. However, students will do better as everyone gets used to the test. So, the new tests have nothing to do with Test Prep, but students will do better as they are better Prepared for the Test.
Third, new technology. One point for Rotherham, who pretty much admits that making everybody take the test on computer was a bad idea. But I'm going to take the point back because he does not acknowledge that the decision to do so was not a local or classroom foul-up, but a mandate pushed from the highest level of reformsterdom.
Rotherham is correct to argue that some schools have gone berserk on the Testing Circus and some have quietly avoided it. He would like to use this to assert that the Testing Circus is not inevitable, and there I don't think he has a point.
Some states have put more weight on the Big Standardized Test than others. On the local level, some superintendents and principals have gone whole hog on testing and some have done their best to tell teachers, "Just do your job and let the chips fall where they may.'
But Rotherham et al cannot ignore that some pretty big chips are falling. New York teachers are looking at fifty percent of their professional rating coming from test scores, and they are not alone. Nor did states decide to roll test scores into teacher evaluations on a whim-- that 's a federal mandate of Race to the Top and/or NCLB waivers. And all of us the teacher biz can hear the hounds in the not-very-great-distance calling for those same teacher ratings to be used to decide pay and job security.
Nor can Rotherham ignore that some states are invoking considerable punishment for low test scores, using low scores as an excuse to declare that a school is "failing" and must be turned around, replaced, bulldozed, or handed over to charter operators.
Reformsters seem to want the following message to come from somewhere:
"Hey, public schools and public school teachers-- your entire professional future and career rests on the results of these BS Tests. But please don't put a lot of emphasis on the tests. Your entire future is riding on these results, but whatever you do-- don't do everything you can possibly think of to get test scores up."
I have no way of knowing whether Rotherham, Duncan, et al are disingenuous, clueless, or big fat fibbers trying to paper over the bullet wound of BS Testing with the bandaid of PR. But the answer to the question "Who caused this testing circus" is as easy to figure out as it ever was.
Reformy policymakers and politicians and bureaucrats declared that test scores would be hugely important, and ever since, educators have weighed self-preservation against educational malpractice and tried to make choices they could both live with and which would allow them to have a career. And reformsters, who knew all along that the test would be their instrument to drive instruction, have pretended to be surprised testing has driven instruction and pep rallies and shirts. They said, "Get high test scores, or else," and a huge number of schools said, "Yessir!" and pitched some tents and hired some acrobats and lion tamers. Oddly enough, the clowns were already in place.
The ridiculous pep rallies? The matching t-shirts? The general Test Prep Squeezing Out Actual Education? That's all the fault of the local districts. In fact, Rotherham notes, "a cynic might think it's a deliberate effort to sour parents on the tests." Yes, that's it-- the schools are just making all this up in an attempt to make the public think testing is stupid.
Reformsters have been doing this a lot-- trying to shift the blame for testing frenzy from the policy makers and the reformsters pushing testing policies onto the local teachers and districts. In a video that I cannot, for some reason, link, John White, education boss of Louisiana, argues that it's local tests from teachers and school districts that are muddying the testing water, and so every single test deployed in a classroom ought to come under the control and direction of the state. Or we could go back to Arne Duncan et al suggesting that we need to trim back "unnecessary" tests, which turns out to mean tests developed on the local level.
It is hard to see this working. Can we really mollify Mrs. McGrumpymom by saying, "We know that your child really hated the PARCC and found the whole experience stressful and useless, so we're going to have her teacher stop giving those weekly spelling quizzes. All better, right?"
As with Arne Duncan, who continually seems just oh so mystified about how schools could possibly have gotten so worked up over testing, the reformster mystery here is this: do they really not understand what they've done, or do they understand and are just unleashing the lamest PR campaign ever?
Rotherham blames the Testing Circus on three factors.
First, he thinks it's a matter of capacity. But his explanation suggests that he simply doesn't understand the problem.
What elementary schools are asked to do is daunting though not unreasonable. Getting students to a specific degree of literacy and numeracy is challenging but it can be done.
Bzzzzrtt!! Wrong. Elementary schools were not asked to get students to a specific degree of literacy and numeracy. They were commanded (do it, or else) to raise test scores, and that is what they have devoted themselves to. Achieving a specific degree of literacy and numeracy might help with that goal, but only if the test is a good and valid measure, and that topic is open to debate. On top of achieving the specific degree etc, students have to actually care about the test to the point that they try. Test advocates love to assume this as a given, and they are fools to do so. If I walk into your workplace and assign you a difficult task that seems unrelated to your actual job and which will have no effect on your rating or performance review, exactly how hard will you try?
It is not the reading and numeracy level that is the goal. It is the test score. Test advocates can pretend those are the same thing, but they are not. Schools can hang tough and refuse to start with pep rallies for the tests-- or they can recognize that the nine-year-olds who will decide their fate will do a better job if someone convinces them to try.
Second, new tests. Rotherham repeats a version of a new talking point that makes no sense. The new tests are causing turmoil, stress, and even low scores. These tests are more challenging because they test awesome things like critical thinking and consequently, they are impervious to Test Prep. However, students will do better as everyone gets used to the test. So, the new tests have nothing to do with Test Prep, but students will do better as they are better Prepared for the Test.
Third, new technology. One point for Rotherham, who pretty much admits that making everybody take the test on computer was a bad idea. But I'm going to take the point back because he does not acknowledge that the decision to do so was not a local or classroom foul-up, but a mandate pushed from the highest level of reformsterdom.
Rotherham is correct to argue that some schools have gone berserk on the Testing Circus and some have quietly avoided it. He would like to use this to assert that the Testing Circus is not inevitable, and there I don't think he has a point.
Some states have put more weight on the Big Standardized Test than others. On the local level, some superintendents and principals have gone whole hog on testing and some have done their best to tell teachers, "Just do your job and let the chips fall where they may.'
But Rotherham et al cannot ignore that some pretty big chips are falling. New York teachers are looking at fifty percent of their professional rating coming from test scores, and they are not alone. Nor did states decide to roll test scores into teacher evaluations on a whim-- that 's a federal mandate of Race to the Top and/or NCLB waivers. And all of us the teacher biz can hear the hounds in the not-very-great-distance calling for those same teacher ratings to be used to decide pay and job security.
Nor can Rotherham ignore that some states are invoking considerable punishment for low test scores, using low scores as an excuse to declare that a school is "failing" and must be turned around, replaced, bulldozed, or handed over to charter operators.
Reformsters seem to want the following message to come from somewhere:
"Hey, public schools and public school teachers-- your entire professional future and career rests on the results of these BS Tests. But please don't put a lot of emphasis on the tests. Your entire future is riding on these results, but whatever you do-- don't do everything you can possibly think of to get test scores up."
I have no way of knowing whether Rotherham, Duncan, et al are disingenuous, clueless, or big fat fibbers trying to paper over the bullet wound of BS Testing with the bandaid of PR. But the answer to the question "Who caused this testing circus" is as easy to figure out as it ever was.
Reformy policymakers and politicians and bureaucrats declared that test scores would be hugely important, and ever since, educators have weighed self-preservation against educational malpractice and tried to make choices they could both live with and which would allow them to have a career. And reformsters, who knew all along that the test would be their instrument to drive instruction, have pretended to be surprised testing has driven instruction and pep rallies and shirts. They said, "Get high test scores, or else," and a huge number of schools said, "Yessir!" and pitched some tents and hired some acrobats and lion tamers. Oddly enough, the clowns were already in place.
Bell Curve Beatdown
If you are only going to read one blog post this month, it should be this post by Jersey Jazzman about standardized testing. Come for sentences like this one:
This can't be stressed enough in the testing debates: we design tests not based on objective criteria, but on socially constructed frameworks that assume some of us are above average, some of us are below, and most of us are in the middle.
In other words, standardized tests are not designed to answer the question, "How well do these students understand this material." The test manufacturers believe they already know the answer to that question-- some students understand very well, most understand moderately well, and some don't understand at all. If the test results do not confirm that pre-determined result, then the test must be defective, and we have to redesign it.
It's hard to state how contrary that is to common teacher sense. If every student in my class fails a test, I know I need to reteach because I didn't get the material taught. If every student in my class does well, I do a little happy dance because we all nailed that stuff. But in either case, a test manufacturer just blames the test and sends it back for redesign.
And the test manufacturer believes that curve can never change, creating a Sisyphusian task -- we are supposed to make all students above average, and we are supposed to prove it with an instrument that will always, must always, show that only a few excel, a few fail, and most are average. In other words, the standardization crew demands that teachers change the bell curve when they themselves believe that the bell curve can never, ever be changed. Or as Jersey Jazzman puts it-
We're insisting that all children demonstrate high performance on a test that, by design, only allows a few children to demonstrate high performance.
Go read the post. It's a great explanation in plain language of the technical reasons that the standardized testing game is rigged for failure as well as why you have had the nagging sense that the whole testing business is crazy-making and not actually measuring educational effectiveness at all.
This can't be stressed enough in the testing debates: we design tests not based on objective criteria, but on socially constructed frameworks that assume some of us are above average, some of us are below, and most of us are in the middle.
In other words, standardized tests are not designed to answer the question, "How well do these students understand this material." The test manufacturers believe they already know the answer to that question-- some students understand very well, most understand moderately well, and some don't understand at all. If the test results do not confirm that pre-determined result, then the test must be defective, and we have to redesign it.
It's hard to state how contrary that is to common teacher sense. If every student in my class fails a test, I know I need to reteach because I didn't get the material taught. If every student in my class does well, I do a little happy dance because we all nailed that stuff. But in either case, a test manufacturer just blames the test and sends it back for redesign.
And the test manufacturer believes that curve can never change, creating a Sisyphusian task -- we are supposed to make all students above average, and we are supposed to prove it with an instrument that will always, must always, show that only a few excel, a few fail, and most are average. In other words, the standardization crew demands that teachers change the bell curve when they themselves believe that the bell curve can never, ever be changed. Or as Jersey Jazzman puts it-
We're insisting that all children demonstrate high performance on a test that, by design, only allows a few children to demonstrate high performance.
Go read the post. It's a great explanation in plain language of the technical reasons that the standardized testing game is rigged for failure as well as why you have had the nagging sense that the whole testing business is crazy-making and not actually measuring educational effectiveness at all.
This
can't be stressed enough in the testing debates: we design tests not
based on objective criteria, but on socially constructed frameworks that
assume some of us are above average, some of us are below, and most of
us are in the middle. - See more at:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/05/standardized-tests-symptoms-not-causes.html#sthash.39shNQ3R.dpuf
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Charterdom's Paper Hoops
American Enterprise Institute touched off some arguing this month by releasing a report about the mountain of paperwork that charters must climb to see the light of day. Written by Michael McShane, Jenn Hatfield, and Elizabeth English, "The Paperwork Pile-up" sets out to measure and evaluate the paperwork involved in the charter authorization process by way of explaining what they think the process should look like. This has touched off some healthy debate in the charter community, most notably a dissent from the National Association of Charter Authorizers (a group I didn't even know existed).
Why do charter fans want to landscape the paper mountain?
There is a great deal of tension in the Land O' Charters these days, and that's to be expected. Charter lobbyists and advocates have pushed hard to make charter authorization easier than pie (which would be, I don't know, as easy as a pop tart?), but that has opened the door to such fiascos as Ted Morris, Jr., the 22-year-old Rochester NY man who scored a charter even though he'd never actually graduated from college and had an application filled with spirited inaccuracies. The charter authorizers of NY ended up looking especially dopey because Morris's lies were uncovered by one reporter and a handful of bloggers in less than twenty four hours, using a technique I like to call "looking."
This sort of thing makes everybody in the charter sector look bad, and charter misbehavior is pretty easy to come across (seriously-- just google "charter school misbehavior"), so there's an increasing interest in making the Charter Entrepreneur Club a little more exclusive. At the same time, markets are starting to fill up, and charters now have to battle each other instead of simply suckling on the blood of the public school system. So the charter sector is moving from a position of "give charter authorizations to anyone and everyone who wants one" to a more measured approach. Hence, this report from AEI (who, like most free market fans, like a market that's not so free that any riff-raff can get in).
How does the report look to someone who, like me, thinks charters have lost their way more completely than a overfilled clown car with a busted GPS? "I'll wait until someone asks before I offer my opinion," said no blogger ever. So here we go.
Charter Authorizing Do's
The authors offer a quick list of the things charter authorizers should absolutely do when deciding who gets to be a charterista or not.
First, they should state clear performance measures for the charter school and hold the charter to those goals. And see, we're in trouble already, because none of the things that people most care about in a school are clearly measurable. You can't measure critical thinking skills (seriously, you just can't) and you can't measure emotional growth and well-being, so you are reduced either to ridiculous proxy standards (85% of student body will respond to question "How you doin'?" with "I am happy") or settling for unimportant meaningless things that you can measure while convincing yourself that they actually mean something (hello, PARCC).
Second, they should screen out schools "that have no business educating children." That's evocative, but open to interpretation (I, for instance, would put Success Academy and any "no excuses" school in that category). The authors suggest giving curriculum, the governing board, and the staffing plan the once over. Hold this thought for a few paragraphs.
Third, the authorizers have an obligation to look after the taxpayers' money. "As the conduit of public funds, authorizers must ensure that taxpayer dollars earmarked for charter schools will be used to educate students." The authors sneak in a shot about how government is rife with waste and fraud, but this whole point is here just so they can move on to--
Fourth. AEI, as one of the leading sources of Reasonable Reformsterism, likes this construction very much: "It's perfectly right and reasonable for people to like pancakes. Now let me explain why they should be made to eat waffles." The third point was the pancakes, but the fourth "do" is "asking only for the information that is absolutely necessary to decide whether to grant or with-hold a charter." They are correct that charter applications could run into miles of ridiculous detail. But it is also true, for example, that a charter should openly and transparently account for every single taxpayer dollar it takes in and spends. Every last one. If that leads to an examination of pretty much everything, then so be it. If charters want to be public schools, they must operate with fully transparent complete accounting. If they don't want to do that, they need to stop pretending they are public schools.
Charter Authorizing Don't's
The authors now offer a list of things that charter authorizers should not do.
First, don't act like venture capitalists. This point seems to boil down to, "Don't act like they're spending your money so you're entitled to full accountability." This is kind of hilarious from the folks who have been huge fans of the Schools Run Like Businesses school of reform. It is also hilarious to see conservatives argue, "It's just taxpayer dollars. It's not like it's your own personal money." which I'm pretty sure is on the list of Top Ten Things We Hate About Those Tax and Spend Liberals. Venture capitalists do market research and study up carefully on their prospective business; charter school authorizers should want to foster all sorts of attempts at schooling. If writing this point did not create powerful cognitive dissonance for the AEI folks, they must be taking powerful meds.
Second, charter school authorizers are not management consultants. The writers actually type "they should also avoid taking on the role of a Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, or McKinsey & Company." Because taking on the role of those firms would cut into those firms' business. Besides, management consultants are for businesses that are "old and ossified" but charters are young and fresh, like baby bunnies romping through fields or new-grown daisies. It's a silly claim given how instrumental all three of those groups have been in ploughing the ground, setting up, and nurturing new charter schools, but hey-- props for the use of "ossified."
Third, authorizers aren't pedagogical experts, so they should back off about that stuff (somehow balancing the off-backing with the need, up in the "do's," to make sure the charter folks have any business teaching children). They don't need to know the why's and wherefore's.
Fourth, authorizers should not use charter granting as an opportunity to embed their favorite issue into the charter's program. Fair enough.
More Don't-ing
There's also a handy chart that shows a list of some specific items that either qualify as Don't or Really, Really Don't. Those items that a charter shouldn't have to do in order to earn authorization include:
* Explain the advertising plan
* Describe any innovations to be used in the school
* Offer a rationale for choosing the specific location/community.
* Commit to meeting all students’ needs
* Explain how the choice of instructional methods will serve students.
* Justify the choice of financial strategies/goals.
I emphasized the word "shouldn't" above because one could easily mistake this for a list of things that a charter should absolutely have to do. Particularly that second one-- if you aren't proposing to do anything special, different, or innovative, why should you be allowed to operate a charter at all?
But there's an assumption that runs throughout this paper-- people have a right to start up a charter if they want to, and the authorizers should meddle no more than absolutely necessary. Authorizers are the bouncers at an exclusive club; they are necessary to keep the rabble out, but they should never interfere with the members enjoying themselves inside.
The Analyses
The chart I mentioned above divided charter application activities into four quadrants. One was green (okay), two were yellow (not cool, dude) and the last was red (complete waste of time). They dug through a giant stack of charter applications and sorted each task by quadrant. The results-- 42.9% green, 33.9% yellow, and 23.2% red-- aren't very compelling, given their classification of different tasks is highly debateable. But, you know, having that point-something in the data makes it look very precise and sciency.
The Lessons
They learned five things.
1) Many authorizers have been able to simplify the paperwork and still keep "quality control."
2) Authorizers tend to mistake length for rigor.
3) There is a lack of clarity about what charter authorizers are actually supposed to do.
4) Authorizers don't always love innovation as much as they say they do.
5) There's more variation within authorizers than between them.
The irony factor here is kind of huge. 1 and 2 seem like excellent advice for Big Standardized Test manufacturers. 3 is supported by this quote: “We love to see innovation, but at the end of the day, it has to make educational and business sense.” In other words, when you set up schools to be run like businesses-- they are. 3 is also ironic because so many charters offer only one innovation-- NOT taking all students.
More Irony Ahead
The report also includes recommendations. Most are in service of the charters-- authorizers should be re-regulated, rebranded, and rededicated as "guardians of autonomy." They should not be so worried about protecting the interests of the taxpayers and spend more time protecting the autonomy of the charters.
That's not ironic. It's just business as usual.
But the last recommendation? An orgy of irony! The report's point is that people should get "smart regulation" out of their vocabulary, because they keep saying, "Well, cool. We'll get rid of the dumb regulations you just pointed out and replace them with smart ones!"
First, “smart” and “dumb” are in the eye of the beholder. There is an unfortunate tendency for those not actually given the task of creating something to underestimate how difficult and time-consuming it can be.
Does that argument sound familiar? Substitute "teaching" or "schools" or "education." Substitute "good and bad" for "smart and dumb."
Second, no raindrop thinks it is responsible for the flood. Individually, each regulation could be sensible and meaningful, but when combined with hundreds of other requirements, the sum becomes incoherent and onerous.
Well, there's a fine explanation of how you can hit schools with a bunch of standards and some new teacher evaluations and budgetary pressures and the onslaught of resource-sucking charters and even if they seem like a good idea to you at the time, they add up to a perfect storm of disaster. Who knew that I would find a great pair of sentences about the huge mess that is modern education reform buried in a paper by leading reformsters?
Of course, there is one more irony here. Because when it comes to onerous and overly-complex application processes being used to make it harder to jump through the necessary hoops, the charters are masters. It is one of the great creaming techniques-- set up a process and paperwork so demanding that only the most committed and capable families will be able to navigate it all. It has worked so well for the charters, and yet apparently they do not enjoy being on the receiving end of it. See? Irony.
Why do charter fans want to landscape the paper mountain?
There is a great deal of tension in the Land O' Charters these days, and that's to be expected. Charter lobbyists and advocates have pushed hard to make charter authorization easier than pie (which would be, I don't know, as easy as a pop tart?), but that has opened the door to such fiascos as Ted Morris, Jr., the 22-year-old Rochester NY man who scored a charter even though he'd never actually graduated from college and had an application filled with spirited inaccuracies. The charter authorizers of NY ended up looking especially dopey because Morris's lies were uncovered by one reporter and a handful of bloggers in less than twenty four hours, using a technique I like to call "looking."
This sort of thing makes everybody in the charter sector look bad, and charter misbehavior is pretty easy to come across (seriously-- just google "charter school misbehavior"), so there's an increasing interest in making the Charter Entrepreneur Club a little more exclusive. At the same time, markets are starting to fill up, and charters now have to battle each other instead of simply suckling on the blood of the public school system. So the charter sector is moving from a position of "give charter authorizations to anyone and everyone who wants one" to a more measured approach. Hence, this report from AEI (who, like most free market fans, like a market that's not so free that any riff-raff can get in).
How does the report look to someone who, like me, thinks charters have lost their way more completely than a overfilled clown car with a busted GPS? "I'll wait until someone asks before I offer my opinion," said no blogger ever. So here we go.
Charter Authorizing Do's
The authors offer a quick list of the things charter authorizers should absolutely do when deciding who gets to be a charterista or not.
First, they should state clear performance measures for the charter school and hold the charter to those goals. And see, we're in trouble already, because none of the things that people most care about in a school are clearly measurable. You can't measure critical thinking skills (seriously, you just can't) and you can't measure emotional growth and well-being, so you are reduced either to ridiculous proxy standards (85% of student body will respond to question "How you doin'?" with "I am happy") or settling for unimportant meaningless things that you can measure while convincing yourself that they actually mean something (hello, PARCC).
Second, they should screen out schools "that have no business educating children." That's evocative, but open to interpretation (I, for instance, would put Success Academy and any "no excuses" school in that category). The authors suggest giving curriculum, the governing board, and the staffing plan the once over. Hold this thought for a few paragraphs.
Third, the authorizers have an obligation to look after the taxpayers' money. "As the conduit of public funds, authorizers must ensure that taxpayer dollars earmarked for charter schools will be used to educate students." The authors sneak in a shot about how government is rife with waste and fraud, but this whole point is here just so they can move on to--
Fourth. AEI, as one of the leading sources of Reasonable Reformsterism, likes this construction very much: "It's perfectly right and reasonable for people to like pancakes. Now let me explain why they should be made to eat waffles." The third point was the pancakes, but the fourth "do" is "asking only for the information that is absolutely necessary to decide whether to grant or with-hold a charter." They are correct that charter applications could run into miles of ridiculous detail. But it is also true, for example, that a charter should openly and transparently account for every single taxpayer dollar it takes in and spends. Every last one. If that leads to an examination of pretty much everything, then so be it. If charters want to be public schools, they must operate with fully transparent complete accounting. If they don't want to do that, they need to stop pretending they are public schools.
Charter Authorizing Don't's
The authors now offer a list of things that charter authorizers should not do.
First, don't act like venture capitalists. This point seems to boil down to, "Don't act like they're spending your money so you're entitled to full accountability." This is kind of hilarious from the folks who have been huge fans of the Schools Run Like Businesses school of reform. It is also hilarious to see conservatives argue, "It's just taxpayer dollars. It's not like it's your own personal money." which I'm pretty sure is on the list of Top Ten Things We Hate About Those Tax and Spend Liberals. Venture capitalists do market research and study up carefully on their prospective business; charter school authorizers should want to foster all sorts of attempts at schooling. If writing this point did not create powerful cognitive dissonance for the AEI folks, they must be taking powerful meds.
Second, charter school authorizers are not management consultants. The writers actually type "they should also avoid taking on the role of a Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, or McKinsey & Company." Because taking on the role of those firms would cut into those firms' business. Besides, management consultants are for businesses that are "old and ossified" but charters are young and fresh, like baby bunnies romping through fields or new-grown daisies. It's a silly claim given how instrumental all three of those groups have been in ploughing the ground, setting up, and nurturing new charter schools, but hey-- props for the use of "ossified."
Third, authorizers aren't pedagogical experts, so they should back off about that stuff (somehow balancing the off-backing with the need, up in the "do's," to make sure the charter folks have any business teaching children). They don't need to know the why's and wherefore's.
Fourth, authorizers should not use charter granting as an opportunity to embed their favorite issue into the charter's program. Fair enough.
More Don't-ing
There's also a handy chart that shows a list of some specific items that either qualify as Don't or Really, Really Don't. Those items that a charter shouldn't have to do in order to earn authorization include:
* Explain the advertising plan
* Describe any innovations to be used in the school
* Offer a rationale for choosing the specific location/community.
* Commit to meeting all students’ needs
* Explain how the choice of instructional methods will serve students.
* Justify the choice of financial strategies/goals.
I emphasized the word "shouldn't" above because one could easily mistake this for a list of things that a charter should absolutely have to do. Particularly that second one-- if you aren't proposing to do anything special, different, or innovative, why should you be allowed to operate a charter at all?
But there's an assumption that runs throughout this paper-- people have a right to start up a charter if they want to, and the authorizers should meddle no more than absolutely necessary. Authorizers are the bouncers at an exclusive club; they are necessary to keep the rabble out, but they should never interfere with the members enjoying themselves inside.
The Analyses
The chart I mentioned above divided charter application activities into four quadrants. One was green (okay), two were yellow (not cool, dude) and the last was red (complete waste of time). They dug through a giant stack of charter applications and sorted each task by quadrant. The results-- 42.9% green, 33.9% yellow, and 23.2% red-- aren't very compelling, given their classification of different tasks is highly debateable. But, you know, having that point-something in the data makes it look very precise and sciency.
The Lessons
They learned five things.
1) Many authorizers have been able to simplify the paperwork and still keep "quality control."
2) Authorizers tend to mistake length for rigor.
3) There is a lack of clarity about what charter authorizers are actually supposed to do.
4) Authorizers don't always love innovation as much as they say they do.
5) There's more variation within authorizers than between them.
The irony factor here is kind of huge. 1 and 2 seem like excellent advice for Big Standardized Test manufacturers. 3 is supported by this quote: “We love to see innovation, but at the end of the day, it has to make educational and business sense.” In other words, when you set up schools to be run like businesses-- they are. 3 is also ironic because so many charters offer only one innovation-- NOT taking all students.
More Irony Ahead
The report also includes recommendations. Most are in service of the charters-- authorizers should be re-regulated, rebranded, and rededicated as "guardians of autonomy." They should not be so worried about protecting the interests of the taxpayers and spend more time protecting the autonomy of the charters.
That's not ironic. It's just business as usual.
But the last recommendation? An orgy of irony! The report's point is that people should get "smart regulation" out of their vocabulary, because they keep saying, "Well, cool. We'll get rid of the dumb regulations you just pointed out and replace them with smart ones!"
First, “smart” and “dumb” are in the eye of the beholder. There is an unfortunate tendency for those not actually given the task of creating something to underestimate how difficult and time-consuming it can be.
Does that argument sound familiar? Substitute "teaching" or "schools" or "education." Substitute "good and bad" for "smart and dumb."
Second, no raindrop thinks it is responsible for the flood. Individually, each regulation could be sensible and meaningful, but when combined with hundreds of other requirements, the sum becomes incoherent and onerous.
Well, there's a fine explanation of how you can hit schools with a bunch of standards and some new teacher evaluations and budgetary pressures and the onslaught of resource-sucking charters and even if they seem like a good idea to you at the time, they add up to a perfect storm of disaster. Who knew that I would find a great pair of sentences about the huge mess that is modern education reform buried in a paper by leading reformsters?
Of course, there is one more irony here. Because when it comes to onerous and overly-complex application processes being used to make it harder to jump through the necessary hoops, the charters are masters. It is one of the great creaming techniques-- set up a process and paperwork so demanding that only the most committed and capable families will be able to navigate it all. It has worked so well for the charters, and yet apparently they do not enjoy being on the receiving end of it. See? Irony.
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