Utah's Brave New Pre-K World

Utah has decided that pre-school can be delivered as a software package.

As reported Emma Brown in yesterday's Washington Post, the state has decided-- with the generous financial assistance of the federal government-- to try shrinking the entire pre-school experience into fifteen minutes a day of computer time.

You get an idea of the kind of thinking involved here when you see the name-- Utah Preparing Students Today for a Rewarding Tomorrow! UPSTART!! In it, children will deal with a series of games, songs and lessons, aided by two cartoon raccoons named Rosy and Rusty (fun fact: Utah is one of the few states in the US where raccoons do not live). [Update: One of the hundreds of new things I've learned this week is that while all sorts of sources say that raccoons are not a US Southwest thing, raccoons are totally alive and well in Utah and other nearby places. There's a lesson there about raccoons and authoritative sources.]

Why has Utah decided to launch this brave new world in which fifteen minutes of computer-and-mouse-time (because if there's anything three- and four-year-olds are great at, it's operating a computer mouse)? Well, Utah is one of ten states that doesn't fund pre-school, and it is at the bottom of the barrel for per-student funding in K-12. So you could explain the appeal of this idea as the sponsor of the bill, State Senator Howard A. Stephenson,  does:

“We want to reach the greatest number of children with the resources that we have,” Stephenson said. “I don’t think we’re being cheap at all. We’re being smart.”

Or you might go with this theory:

“It’s wishful thinking by state legislatures,” said Steven Barnett, the director of the National ­Institute for Early Education ­Research at Rutgers University. “We want preschool, we want to get these great results, but we don’t actually want to spend the money.”

Yeah, why provide expensive high-quality preschool when you can just sign everyone up for some software?

On the one hand, the whole idea is horrifyingly dumb, presuming that fifteen minutes with a computer will reap the same benefits as a program with social interactions and human-based playtime. On the other hand-- did these guys just re-invent Sesame Street? Brown takes an extraordinarily gentle hand in her article, she notes that many early-childhood experts say that interaction and socialization, particularly through play, are critical elements in a pre-school program, to which Brown says this:

It is not clear whether or how an online learning program can teach those kinds of skills; evaluations of Upstart have not measured what children learn in that realm.

Yeah, that's an easy one. What the UPSTART program teaches small children about social skills is absolutely nothing at all. And while UPSTART claims to address the issue a little, mostly they don't really care:

Claudia Miner, a Waterford vice president, said Upstart officials teach parents how they can bolster their children’s social skills. But she said that lawmakers are most interested in the program’s potential effect on literacy. “You don’t measure social skills in third grade; you measure reading skills,” she said in an e-mail.

Let's go look.

From the moment you hit the UPSTART website, things do not look good. There are a couple of demo videos, right up there in the corner by the picture of a nine-year-old boy happily sitting at a computer. Let's look at the one about the alphabet and--oh, boy. Where Sesame Street always had the wisdom to sell us the alphabet one letter at a time, this song hits the whole list. It uses "small" letters instead of caps, and it references iguanas, valentines and flapjacks. And the tune is not exactly catchy.

On youtube, this is an "early reading" resource. The math demo is a bit better, with undead seagulls (the animation, almost five years old, is a little sad) singing about zero to the tune of the Banana Boat Song, a tune often used to great effect.

There's also a testimonial reel featuring a whole bunch of very happy white moms (okay, it's Utah, but seriously-- no men or non-white folks care about their kids education?) The theme here is that having children who can complete academic tasks at a young age is really awesome. Feel free to insert the entire discussion about how having your child recite the alphabet at age two has no long term benefits at all. Plus you get the classic "I was clueless" thread, where mothers had no idea what to do with their child until the programmed opened up their world. I'm more interested in the mom who says her child is now addicted to learning, which may be true albeit alarming, but I'd lay odds that what the child is addicted to is playing video games on the computer.

The entire program is the creation of Waterford Learning, a Salt Lake City company that has been in the education materials K-2 game for about thirty years, so I'm sure this expansion seems like a natural to them. But the idea of plunking kids as young as two in front of a computer screen strikes me as just such a bad idea, particularly when the benefits are so tenuous and probably non-existent. On the other hand, all we're really talking about is a little around-the-house tutoring program, so parent judgment will have to rule. Letting a screen get your kid ready for school really is as old as Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood (with the exception that Sesame Street and Fred Rogers really did try to address socialization issues with kids).

There are some potential side benefits. Brown reports that Waterford has supplied some parents with laptop computers, internet hookups, and in the case of some very isolated families, solar panels to power the whole business. That's not nothing,

But to do all this and claim that you are providing pre-school for students in your state is just silly. Why not hand out coupons for discounts at MacDonalds and call that your school lunch program, or set up log-ins for all high school students on Sparknotes and call that your high school English program? Maybe every Utah high school grad could be given a copy of Animal House and that could count as going to college.

What prompted Utah to try this, beyond their epic cheapness when it comes to education? Well, along with missing the habitat information about raccoons (sloppy, WaPo-- sloppy), and failing to actually look at the program's website, Brown also forgot to mention that State Senator Stepehnson's district includes Salt Lake City, home of Waterford HQ. So the senator is fulfilling a good traditional legislative duty-- bringing home the bacon for the good folks who helped put him in office. Utah is going to pay about $5.3 million this year. That should be more than enough to help the good folks at Waterford Learning enroll their own kids in a high quality pre-school where live humans interact with small humans in a rich, socialized, play-filled environment.

Career Ready

Today, as I do every year, I took a half of a professional day to take to of my yearbook staffers up to the county Tech Center-- what we used to call a vocational-technical school.

Our county's version is a shared school, shared and supported by several different school districts in the area. The school has its own staff and administration, and oversight is exercised by representatives of each of the contributing school districts. The school offers over a dozen programs, from home health care to welding to cosmetology to auto repair technician to machinist to heavy equipment. The construction shop regularly works on what we in the stodgier corners of education would call a performance task-- they build a house.

Most of the instructors are men and women who have worked the field they teach. There's a protective services track taught by retired cops, and the heavy equipment shop now has a focus on the oil industry, aided by folks who know it first-hand.

I love this day. It humbles me and reminds me of just how much is being accomplished by the same students who are not, shall we say, deeply inspired by grammar worksheets and long-form essays. It reminds me to see my classroom through their eyes-- all morning this student was operating heavy machinery that could easily kill a person, exercising responsibility and mature judgement, like a grown professional, and this student was doing heavy lifting and lugging and standing for three hours. Now these same students have to sit in a desk and ask permission to go pee. Is it any wonder they get a bit itchy in my classroom?

They all do plenty of book learning at the tech school, and most work with some version of computer technology. They learn how to gather and exercise professional expertise and judgment. They learn how to make adult choices and they learn how to see the connection between actions and consequences.

What possible benefit will they get from being drilled on how to select "correct" answers on a one-size-fits-all Common Core Big Standardized Test? How can I possibly, seriously, with a straight face, teach works of literature to them using David Coleman's approached to reading that treats every work of literature as the basis for a college English paper?

To say that any part of the Common Core Complex of reforms will help these students become more career ready is the saddest, cruelest kind of joke. My vocational students include many who are not geared for the standard academic fare. They are not any less smart, less capable, or less valuable than my college-bound hard-core honors students-- they're just using a different set of tools to travel a different sort of path (just like--surprise-- everyone else). But because they aren't so focused on playing the game of multiple choice tests and canned curriculum, they end up sacrificing time that could be spent exploring new, cool, exciting stuff to instead do more test prep and practice.

The effects of ed reform on these students are deeply unfortunate, because these are students who have historically been too-often considered less than because they are "only" going to jobs instead of college. College-educated teachers often need to check their pro-college bias at the door. Confronting these students with one more pointless task that labels them losers and makes school seem even more like an exercise in bizarre activities unrelated to the world they see-- it doesn't help. Do they need to build strong skills in reading and writing? Absolutely. Can they get just as much out of the classics as traditional college-bound students? Sure (remind me to tell you about the time that our AP seniors held a debate about MacBeth-- and it was judged by the vocational seniors, who were also MacBeth experts). But the important skills and classic works have so much value over and above just getting ready to do well in a college class.

I know what the data says about how only college-educated folks will survive and thrive in the new economy. I also know how many employers tell me that there aren't enough welders. I know that my own logitudinal anecdotal study of my former students tells me that many grow up to be not-particularly-wealthy blue collar workers who are good solid citizens, raise happy families, and live rewarding lives.

But successful on their own terms or not, I can't remember a time I've looked at a former vocational student and thought, "Damn-- if only we had given Pat more drill on answering multiple choice questions for bad standardized tests. That would have made Pat's life so much better."

Every school ought to have a full-blown vocational program, and every teacher ought to go watch their students learn in such programs. And policy makers should stop trying to jam them into a one-size-fits-all educational program that ignores their goals and skills and direction in life.

The Central Liberal Reformster Fallacy

It crops up many places, but today it was front and center in Michael Grunwald's piece for Politico. In "Obama vs. Teacher Union: It's Still On" Grunwald lays out the ongoing beef between teachers unions and the administration, which is first in his display of lesser fallacies. Framing the conflict as one between unions and the administration isn't quite right, as the unions have been largely friendly and compliant with the administration, and most of their official squawks of disagreement have come only after considerable prodding from membership (NEA and AFT still officially think Common Core is Just Fine, Thanks).

Grunwald then goes on to posit that John King on paper looks like a great choice to bind the wounds, resorting to the John King Story, which seems to be how we're going to sell this exemplar of upward failure as a serious faux secretary of ed. Grunwald gives  a quick gloss to King's "former teacher" credential; King taught a grand total of three years, including two in a charter. The King story always includes a chapter about how his public school teachers saved him, but it never includes a thoughtful consideration of whether his favored reforms would support those kind of teachers today, or force them to stop focusing on what children need and devote more time to test scores.

Grunwald includes the story of King's charter-founding awesomeness. He skips over the secret of King's charter success-- sky high suspension rates and the push-out of countless students. And he skips over the huge disconnect in King's story-- the man who talks about how school was a safe, nurturing place for a troubled orphan went on to establish schools where children must walk in step and speak only when allowed. One wonders how many troubled orphans King's schools have suspended or pushed out. Grunwald isn't going to ask.

Grunwald's piece is laced with other little fallacies, like uncritically observing that most states have adopted "higher standards," even though there's no basis on which to say the various mutated forms of Common Core are "higher."

But running through Grunwald's article is the Central Liberal Reform Fallacy.

But Obama has always taken the reform side of the public education wars; in The Audacity of Hope, he criticized liberals who “defend an indefensible status quo, insisting that more spending alone will improve educational outcomes.”

The unions often argue that the deep problems of urban education have their roots outside the school, with impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhoods stripped of hope. King worries about those problems, but like Duncan and President Obama, he worries even more about using them as excuses for problems inside the schools.

“Yes, we should have better health care and housing and criminal justice reform,” King told me. “But school can save kids’ lives. It saved mine.”

This is the construction at the center of the liberal support for reformster policies:

The problem is really bad, therefor our solution will work.

Which gets us to this conversation:

Critics: Your proposed solution will not work.
Reformster: Are you saying the problem doesn't exist?

The Obama administration wants to hold teachers accountable for whether or not students learn. But it has no working instrument for measuring student learning, and it has absolutely no clue how to tell whether teachers have aided in that learning or not.

It's that simple. The administration, both under Duncan and soon under King, wants to prove its solutions work by arguing that problems are real and that education is a Good Thing. Nobody sensible is arguing about either of those points-- many, many of our students are suffering under poverty, systemic racism, and a host of other issues, and many of our public schools have failed, either by lack of will or lack of resources, to successfully fully address the needs of those students. That's the truth.

But it does not follow from that truth that Common Core (or any national standards) will help. It does not follow that making a standardized test (especially one that poorly measures a small sliver of a full education) the central point and purpose of public education will help. It does not follow that evaluating teachers with a system no more valid or reliable than a roll of dice will help. It does not follow that dismantling public education and selling the pieces to people whose primary concern is not education, but dollars-- that won't help, either.

That's the fallacy. That's the part of the equation that we need to be talking about. Or rather, that those who are so sure of their own rightness and caring and feeling need to join the ongoing conversation about.

King says at the end of the article, "Every kid deserves the kind of opportunity I had." That's a nice thought. A better thought is to explain how, exactly, you think your policies will lead to it happening. That's the great missing link of ed reform.

Campbell Brown Snubbed Again

Campbell Brown, journalist caterpillar transformed into reformster butterfly, has been snubbed again.

When Brown set up her website, one of her stated goals was to help drive the political discussion of education. With an eye toward the 2016 Presidential race, she had set up two educati0n discussions for candidates-- one in New Hampshire for the GOP, and one in Iowa for the Dems.

But this morning Politico announced that the Iowa beauty pageant has been snubbed. None of the five candidates (come on-- did you even know there were five of them) have RSVP-ed. In fact, most have not even called to say "Nothankyouverymuch."

Writer Michael Grunwald is assisting Brown in painting the snub as the result of pressure from those pernicious unions, and while it's certainly true that Brown, in her new role of Rhee Lite, has not won any union love, I'd like to offer another explanation.

The NH beauty pageant happened, but it was not exactly a rousing success. Of the something-teen GOP candidates alive and kicking at the time, Brown scored just six-- Bush, Kasich, Fiorina, Christie, Jindal, and Walker. Millions of viewers did not tune in or log on, and no news was made. And yet then-- and now-- Brown did not offer any explanation for why ten-or-more GOP candidates did not come out to play with her. But Iowa is simply not the first and only time she's been snubbed playing this Presidential job interviewer game.

I admire Brown's guts-- she has tried to make herself into a major campaign player just by insisting that she is. But her attempt failed.

Sure, "Those unions are out to get me because I'm so big and scary, so I must be really important" makes a good narrative for keeping her brand alive. It's certainly more energizing than, "No Presidential candidates want to come talk to me because I'm nobody important and they have better things to do than talk to me and help me strengthen my brand."

Brown and some other reformster pilot fish will gladly claim they've been put upon by the union, because that makes them important. It's an old and venerable trick-- hell, if I could get Campbell Brown to attack me in print, my bloggy street cred would go way up-- but it doesn't always work. And to pretend that the Democratic party, which just fell all over itself lionizing the departing and union un-loved Arne Duncan-- well, that party hasn't shown all that much concern about upsetting the teachers unions.

At best, Brown is just a victim of the old internet adage "Don't Feed the Trolls." But it's just as likely that her Iowa shindig failed because she's just not that important or relevant.

All the Feels

One hallmark of reformsterism has been the relentless insistence on data and research. Decisions must be data-driven, while programs must be research-based. We must make the delivery system of education just as scientific and mechanical and bloodless as a toaster assembly line.

Which is why it has been so curious to see all the reformster feelings on display. Deep feelings. Heartfelt feelings. Just the announcement of the departure of Arne Duncan and his replacement by failing-upward poster boy John King has been a feeling-fest. Just, really, all the feels.

Duncan's announcement included a whole list of things he loves. With tears. The Politico profile is just full of the feels, with Ted Mitchell tearing up, and a hammering home of a point often made about Duncan-- that he just cares so much. He cares about kids. In fact, some folks in the USED circle are certain that nobody anywhere on the planet cares about the kids as much as Duncan does. And I can actually believe that, well, he thinks so. It would frankly explain a lot-- Duncan the righteous crusader who doesn't have to listen to anybody because nobody cares like he does. And so Duncan can ignore all the research based evidence that would suggest VAM should be data-driven over a cliff-- he can ignore that. And he can keep puzzling over why schools have become so test-focused even as lots of people try to tell him. And he can keep bragging about only the United States Education Department-- not teachers or schools or even parents-- will tell the truth about how kids are doing.

All of that because Duncan just cares so much more than everyone else.

And the feels just keep on coming as we contemplate the anointing of John King, who like many beloved reformsters before him (looking at you, She Who Will Not Be Named from DC) does not have a single actual success to his name. King's track record includes charter schools that are a showcase of charter worst practices, shoving vast percentages of students out the door (in violation of USED policies) so that the few students they are willing to teach can bring in good numbers. King couldn't deal with the public, couldn't work with teachers, and had to bail out of New York as a failure in the state education leaderly post.

But King has a story, and his story is (and I say this without irony) absolutely a great one. Tough childhood, turned around by a dedicated teacher, making his way up in the world. Go over to Peter Cunningham's $12 million reformster PR site, and the headline "Because I believe in all kids, I support John King" leads to an article that is mostly John King telling his story (also, a bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves-- what the heck does believing in children have to do with thinking John King would make a good USED sort-of-secretary). Never mind that King does not consider whether his beloved teacher could survive and save other young John Kings under current USED policies. The story gives all the feels.

And now reformsters are trying to build a groundswell for King with tactics like #ISupportJohnKing on the twitter, and the tweets (before the hashtag was hijacked by public education supporters) have been all about "believing" and "the children."

In fact, so far, I haven't seen any support for King's Congress-sidestepping appointment that are based on research or data. Nothing to say how his great policies in NY helped students, or how he has shown his ability to manage the sort of detail and policy that a USED acting-like-a-secretary must manage.

The support is all about the feels. He ran a charter school (but let's not talk about how, exactly, that worked out-- don't bring up the data because that's just mean). He has a great, touching story. He believes in all the children of the world. That is all great, and lord knows I'm not above poking readers in the feels now and again, but my dog also has a great story and loves every child he has ever met, believing that they all have godlike powers, and my dog would make a terrible part-time-pretend-secretary of education.

The folks in DC occasionally opine that they would like policy ideas judged on merit, and lots of olks in these debates ask that things not be made personal (which, despite my general tone of mockery, I actually agree with). But if you want those things, you can't also ask that players be judged on their personal qualities, and you can't claim to be making decisions based on "I know this guy and he's Good People."

Duncan and King will both have to be judged on their policies and their effectiveness in working well with stakeholders, not on their feelings. I am in no position to judge the latter, but the evidence about the former does not speak in their favor. Instead of trying to give us the feels, how about showing us some evidence? It's not tat feelings and motivation don't matter-- but when you keep punching me in the face, I'm not so interested in how you feel about it.

LA: How To PARCC Up Parents

One of the ongoing challenges of selling the Big Standardized Test is trying to convince folks that the BS Tests are generating some sort of real data. With that in mind, the Louisiana Department of Education has whipped up an awesome video to model how teachers should try to convince parents that the PARCC exam wasn't a huge waste of everyone's time and money.

Emily Martin will be our teacher exemplar; some poor uncredited woman plays the part of Jonah's mom. Emily will show us how to have "an effective parent conversation" about the upcoming PARCC scores (hey-- that must mean they're finally being released! cool!).

Martin opens with a cheerful greeting and delivers some small talk about really enjoyinghavingjohnnyinclasshe'salotoffunokayletsjustetonwithit. Her delivery needs some work, but hey-- she has the highly complex PARCC data on her mind.

Martin says that she wants to be sure that Mom understands the information in the PARCC report from the test that Jonah took last year. She has a packet!! With her name and email on it. The packet looks to be actually a file folder, and the contents would be about two pieces of paper. But Martin has included her name and e-mail on a card. Plus the URL for the Louisiana Believes website.

Jonah's mom starts working her line, because in this "conversation," the parent part seems to be saying "Um-hmm" many, many times. I will report when Mom gets to say her first actual word.

Martin is going to warm Mom up with a sample test result sheet, because we need to warm Mom up for the moment she see's her child's scores and her brain explodes. Also, we need to pad this conversation out because presenting BS Test results is all about trying to make a grain of sand look like the Rock of Gibraltar.

Because here's the thing about the PARCC results. They are bupkus. They are the hair on the pimple on the butt of the world's smallest flea. It is absolutely astonishing that so much testing can result in so little actual information. It's as if somebody chopped down a redwood to make a toothpick.

Now, I hope I didn't get your hopes up-- Jonah's Mom is not here to get Jonah's scores. Not yet. Jonah's Mom is here so that Martin can start the process of managing Mom's reaction to the scores, and to do that, Martin has dragged this parent into school in order to walk her through the state's parent guide to the score.

This is our toothpick guide, and as Martin tries hard to make it look like something, I want you to remember that, according to the guide, the PARCC report will give the following information:

* the student's overall score, rated 1 through 5
* a reading score (1-3)
* a literary text score (1-3)
* a non-fiction reading score (1-3)
* a vocab score (1-3)
* a writing score (1-3)
* a written language score (1-3)
* a writing conventions score (1-3)

That's the rich data we're looking at. But back to Ms. Martin.

Martin is now explaining how the "breakdown" will be super valuable to her because it will show her where the students need extra support. I believe that "where" can best be described as a vague wave accompanied by "somewhere over in that general direction, ish" Remember-- those breakdown scores are just a matter of poor, okay, or swell ratings. So if you tell me, as a teacher, that Jonah is doing okay at reading non-fiction, I know... what? There is literally not a single assessment which I use that does not provide more data depth than this PARCC report.

Martin slips in that the emphasis of all these new standards is college and career readiness, also a bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves. Mom has been upgraded to repeating, "Okay," and I wonder if parents will also be shown this helpful modeling video so that they understand that they aren't supposed to be asking questions or pointing out foolishness or generally doing anything in this conversation except nodding cheerfully. Because it may turn out that some parents are not committed to that script.

Anyway, Martin is "very excited" about the "detailed information" that she's going to be receiving about Jonah and his friends, which is an odd thing to throw in-- "I'll be watching your kid and all the kids." Martin points at the page (she does this a lot) to show where the comparison of school, district and state will be, so that Mom can see if she's keeping up with Jones.

"What I want to prepare you for-" Uh-oh. Time for Martin to let Jonah's mom know that his scores may have tanked this year. But Jonah is a strong student, and Martin would guess that in the past he's done well-- wait! Guess?? Does Martin not have access to Jonah's previous scores? That seems like a huge mistake. Anyway, it may be possible that with the increased rigor and the new standards, his score might not be as great this year. Martin doesn't know because she hasn't seen Jonah's scores yet, so although it's October and he's been in her class for a while, she still hasn't seen the state data that would give her the straight poop on what kind of student he is. He's been awesome and doing great work and meeting a\or exceeding all her expectations, but still-- his scores could suck.

But Martin assures her that the low test score she may see doesn't mean that Jonah is less smart or has learned less or that he's not progressing the way he's supposed to be and I'm pretty sure at this point a real parent is not saying "okay" so much as they're saying "then what the hell is the point of looking at this score if you already know how my son is doing in school??" But the low score is just a reflection of the new standards, and as teachers and students get more comfortable, the scores will go up. So the PARCC measures comfort?? Maybe instead of strong, moderate and weak, student areas should be marked Serta Perfect Sleeper, comfy old couch, and pile of rocks.

Now Martin is on to the specific example scores, as I listed them above. She says these will give us very specific ideas about where Jonah needs work, and now I think the real parent is trying not to laugh, but Jonah's mom nods and says "okay." Martin tries to make hay out of saying that a strong in literary text paired with a weak in non-fiction would give her an instructional brainstorm, what with all the rich, deep information included in those two ratings.

And now she give Mom a quiz, and looking at the second column, asks Mom to show her where the strengths are, because Louisiana feels an important part of this is to be condescending to parents and treat them as if they are nine-year-old students in your classroom??!! I am happy for Jonah's Mom though, who know gets to speak a whole sentence of words to give her answer. "Excellent," says Martin. And Martin again pretends to think these star ratings are a really powerful tool for instruction, because if a person came into my room and said, "Hey, that student there is pretty okayish in writing stuff," that would give me a very powerful sense of exactly what lessons I needed to craft for that child. I could individualize instruction-- and the good news there is that since there are only three possible ratings, I only need three possible lessons to cover all my personalized instruction. Awesome.

Martin will now, and not for the last time, reassure Mom that Jonah's score will not have a big effect on his future or cause him to be held back a grade. This is just part of a "body of work that describes your student's accomplishments" and "it's really designed to be tailored information" and I have no idea what the hell that is supposed to mean, and from the look on Martin's face, neither does she. Jonah's mom says. "This is great" and Martin replies, "Yeah, great" in a tone that suggests "Shut up and stop going off script, you loose cannon." I'm pretty sure that real live parents are going to be rough on this "conversation" model.

Martin is going to send this parents guide home with Mom, who might want to stick it on her refrigerator. Maybe right next to the instructions on How To Read a Thermometer and How To Operate a Light Switch. Martin also directs us to where there are questions about stuff, which basically seems to lead to a discussion of things your student will do next year irregardless of this PARCC nonsense.

Now Martin will provide a specific plug for a specific activity-- the writing journal. Oh, and here's an old favorite-- she used to do crappy journals, but now that they have the standards and the PARCC, the journal will do awesome things. Evidence. Critical thinking. Unicorns. And Martin never heard of how to teach before the new high standards came along. She cheerfully indicts herself-- "In the past, I would have accepted any lazy crap, but now the standards make me do more." Also, the standards magically increase what students can do. Hurray, the standards.

This journal baloney is supposed to be an example of how the PARCC helps her design instruction, because a fish has no feet.

One last thing-- results on the test will not be used to determine student promotion. Want to be clear on that. Scores are part of larger process, because students and teachers are still getting used to the standards. Also, check out the website. With sample test items. Here at the end, Mom asks her first question (Do I need a user name or password?) for the entire "conversation." Jonah's mom is very grateful, and Martin remembers to thank her for taking time off from work so that Martin can read her a printout from a website that Mom could read at home.

I do wonder how many parents will show up for these sessions, and how many of them will leave the session with the feeling that PARCC is a huge waste of everyone's time, as exemplified by the meeting that just wasted their time. I'm sure somebody at LDE thinks they're being clever and proactive about managing expectations, but it's hard to manage people to be excited and grateful about a big poop sandwich.

Gates Says Some Stuff

Like many teachers, I could not tune in to Bill and Melinda Gates' trip down Ed Reform Memory Lane because I was busy doing my actual job. This seems metaphorically perfect-- Gates talks about schools while, meanwhile, teachers are in schools doing actual work. However, I've scanned some accounts of the speech from this afternoon, and I think I've piece together the general drift of his gist. So let me channel my faux Gates voice to summarize what you, I and all of us missed today.

So, hey there.

It's been fifteen years since we started trying to beat public education into submission with giant stacks of money, and it turns out that it's a hell of a lot harder than curing major diseases. Turns out teachers are not nearly as compliant as bacteria. Who knew?

Actually, there's a whole long list of things that came as a surprise to us. Teachers and politicians and parents all had ideas about what ought or ought not to be happening in schools, and damned if they would just not shut up about it. At first stuff was going great and we were getting everyone to do just what we wanted them to, but then it was like they finally noticed that a bunch of clueless amateurs were trying to run the whole system, and they freaked out.

I have to tell you. Right now as I'm sitting here, it still doesn't occur to me that all the pushback might be related to the fact that I have no educational expertise at all, and yet I want to rewrite the whole US school system to my own specs. Why should that be a problem? I still don't understand why I shouldn't be able to just redo the whole mess without having to deal with unions or professional employees or elected officials. Of course nobody elected me to do this! I don't mind, really-- happy to take over this entire sector of the government anyway, you're welcome.

I have noticed that when you give teachers really shitty feedback based on crappy tests, they prefer that you just shut up and leave them alone. This is bad. How will they know whether they're crappy teachers or not, or whether they're doing well or not. Surely they don't think by just using their professional judgment and paying attention to their students they'll be able to figure out how they're doing all by themselves? Where are the numbers and the charts and the data? I tell you-- it's almost as if they think they understand things about teaching and education that I do not, and that surely can't be right.

I'll admit-- we were a bit naive about rolling all our ideas out, and by "we" I mean various state governments that we spent our money on. Those guys just screwed up the implementation. I know the ideas themselves were sound because, you know, I do. I mean, not everybody messed it up. In Kentucky they stayed the course on using standards to prep for those tests, and damned if that test prep didn't pay off in higher test scores. What else could anyone possibly want.

And resistance to Common Core. Well, some of that was just crazy people telling internet lies. And the rest was people who just wanted to assert their autonomy, like all the people who work in public education wanted to make a point that they don't actually work for me. My bad. Sometimes I forget that there are people like that. Although Melinda will tell you that teachers actually all love the Common Core. Love it.

Look, I'm a simple man. I had some ideas about how the entire US education system should work, and like any other citizen, I used my giant pile of money to impose my will on everyone else. It's okay, because I just want to help. We're not done yet-- I'm going to keep trying to fix the entire teaching profession, even if nobody in the country actually asked me to do it. And no, I don't intend to talk to anybody actually in the profession. What do they know about teaching? Besides, when you know you're right, you don't have to listen to anybody else.