The talk about "rigor" particularly irritated me. I pointed out to some of my fellow teachers that "rigor" is defined as "harsh and unyielding." That was not the way I wanted to teach.
Have you ever wondered about the amazingly effective campaign to sell the Common Core standards to the media, the business community, and the public? How did it happen that advocates for the standards used the same language, the same talking points, the same claims, no matter where they were located? The talking points sounded poll-tested because they were. The language was the same because it came from the same source. The campaign to have “rigorous,” “high standards” that would make ALL students “college and career-ready” and “globally competitive” was well planned and coordinated. There was no evidence for these claims but repeated often enough in editorials and news stories and in ads by major corporations, they took on the ring of truth. Even the new stories that reported on controversies between advocates and opponents of the Common Core, used the rhetoric of the advocates to describe the standards.
This was no accident.
And though we always talked about the need to push our students to do the best that they could, I don't recall everyone saying that we must have our children meet "higher standards."
I believed in challenging my students to do their best and giving them goals to attain, but not everyone was capable of accomplishing the same work. Not in education; not in any field.
But suddenly, everyone was using those expressions. I did not think anything of it, since people in education are notorious for hopping on the bandwagon for every new thing that comes along and adopting whatever jargon goes with it.
This, however, was a bit more than that.
Those phrases, as noted education blogger and historian Diane Ravitch writes this morning, were field tested through financing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to sell Common Core State Standards.
This was no accident.
She details how this happened in an excellent blog post.
One online definition of "rigor" is as follows: "rig·or noun \ˈri-gər\
ReplyDeleterigors : the difficult and unpleasant conditions or experiences that are associated with something
: the quality or state of being very exact, careful, or strict"
I submit that public education fails to enforce upon all students the effort to being "exact, careful and strict". Said another way, students through the 12th grade in school should learn to follow accepted "rules" (OK, call them standards). Public schools fail, rather miserably to achieve that goal, at least in my view. Bill and Melinda Gates seem to feel that way as well.
Students should "rigorously" follow and achieve "high standards" is another way of stating such a goal and that means all students through the 12th grade. Following American tradition, if they do that they are expected to be career ready upon graduation.
A now deceased Supreme Court Justice once said, Ethics is knowing the next right thing to do and not just what is your right to do, or words to that effect.
Randy calls for almost a free for all approach, let individual students and teachers decide whether or not the student has achieved, in level of knowledge and behavior, "high standards". I submit that approach has not worked over the last 50 years in public education.
A High School diploma should mean that the individual receiving same has become an adult, "career ready" if you will to enter a modern society and become a productive citizen, whether that student goes to college (as an adult), attends a trade school (as an adult) or immediately begins to work to earn a living, productively.
Our public schools today miss that mark, in my view, by a wide margin and something must be done to do much better, simple as that.
Anson Burlingame
Simple as that. Just waive your wand and make every kid "career ready". Anson, I find it amusing that you state that the "free for all" approach has not worked over the last 50 years". Does that 50 years include your education as well, or did it get conveniently worse after you made it through? Are you prepared to call this wonderful new "rigorous" approach a complete failure when in a few years they find that even more kids are left behind and failing? My guess is probably not. After all, the whole point to this push in education is to set schools up to fail with the hope that it eventually lead to tremendous profit for privately run schools. What will be your reasoning when every good teacher is driven out of the profession because they no longer want to be mindless droids with no creativity, simply spouting out word-for-word the for-profit lessons laid before them? There is an enormous difference between a "free for all" approach, as you so eloquently label it, and an approach that gives teachers the freedom and flexibility to teach in a way that they feel most benefit their students. The teachers are, after all, the ones with the degrees in education and the passion and desire to enter the teaching field. Yet it seems you would rather have bureaucrats with financial agendas dictating school policy.
ReplyDeleteAnson's response is a perfect example of what has happened to American education. Does he, or anyone else, truly believe that the vast majority of teachers go into education with the idea of having an easy job? There are some, just as in any other profession, who should be removed. But most of us want to educate children so that they will be informed and tntelligent citizens. That is trite, but it is true.
ReplyDeleteBut here is the reality of the stiuation. As soon as "rigorous" standards were put in place, a huge money making industry arose to measure those standards. Then another industry arose to prepare for those assessments. In order to keep those two industries going, legislators are lobbied in order to keep the measuring system in place. It does not matter if it is effective. It matters that someone is making money. Hence, when W put in NCLB, in order to be a part of the prized reading program, books could only be ordered from a certain text and publishing company. In Texas. One hand washed the other.
In addition to the somewhat arbitrarily and poorly thought out milestones of academic achievement, schools are also forced to have high attendance rates and high graduation rates and are rewarded for fewer discipline issues. In order to get students to stay in school and pass in order to graduate. teachers are forced to lower standards so that their students can trip over the stage and receive a diploma. Would those teachers like to have higher standards and rigor? Of course they would. But too frequently, they are caught between the numbers of students passing and the numbers of students doing well on the lobbied-for assessments. With no support with classroom discipline, and with attendance records being altered so that the education gods will rain money down upon the districts, teachers cannot possibly maintain high levels of rigor.
Unfortunately, despite the false label of "professional learning community" that most districts claim, teachers are usually the last group ever consulted about what needs to be done in education. Education has become a cesspool for new job positions never dreamed of ten or fifteen years ago. In order to justify those jobs, each must have an agenda to fulfill requiring meetings, programs to be implemented, and assistants. Teachers must just bear with and implement multiple programs that are neither teacher inspired nor teacher driven.
Sadly, none of this has made America one bit smarter. There is ample evidence to show that the influx of technology, testing, and programs has not improved student academic achievement significantly. What has happened is that many students have diplomas that have no value, and many, many teachers have left the profession out of frustration. The burdens placed upon them are huge--counselor, academic and career advisor, behavior monitor, social worker, and last, academic provider. Their pay has not gone up in proportion to the expectations, and in many states, those who are crying out the loudest to keep the assessed standards and expectations higher (in order to keep getting campaign funds from the lobbyists) are doing everything they can to suppress teacher unions and teacher pay.
Make up your mind, America, about what you want in your schools. You cannot have high academic standards and soft discipline. You cannot pay your academic experts a peon's salary and maintain a body of highly motivated, dedicated educators. You cannot have academic improvement as long as teachers are stretched in a dozen directions at any given moment with classrooms full of students who know they can pass with little effort. Improvement in education in America will happen learning is no longer a numbers game, and when teachers are paid highly enough to attract the best candidates from our college graduates. Academic improvement will occur when students are expected to be in school, and when the learning environment is protected at all times from misbehavior and constant interruption.
I find myself in strong agreement with most of what "anonymous 12:27" wrote above. He or she and I could have a meaningful discussion about how best to proceed forward, in my view. Believe you me, I have observed first hand the "you can't do that" directed towards good teachers, coming from administrators too busy to go into classrooms and really see what is going on, day to day. So for that "anonymous" I think there is huge ground for improvement to better support GOOD teachers.
ReplyDeleteAs for my 50 year bench mark, yes I compare how I was taught long ago (graduated from HS in 1960) to how kids are taught today. TEACHERS taught me, some really good, and some not so good, for sure. The ONLY standardized tests that I took was one IQ test and the SATs for college entrance. The rest were "home grown" tests developed by teachers based on what they taught in classes and by and large most of them were "tough tests". In math for example I NEVER took mulitple choice tests as teachers graded papers based on not just one answer but the reasons that answer was reached. You can't do that with a mulitple choice test but such are far easier to grade, are they not?
As well how about graded homework? I used to have a ton of it and so did every kid in my various classes in public schools. And graded "pop quizes" were a real pain as well, several times a week with no heads up whatsoever.
As well, it was far more important to my teachers (and thus to me) to be able to "simply" read, write and do arithmetic at or above grade level each year than to show my "creativity". I did not attend public schools all my life to learn what color to paint a room or arrange the furniture, or paint a picture. I attended those schools to learn to read, write and do the math on increasingly difficult subjects, each grade, year after year. Sure worked for me and I can name the teachers that really helped me along the way in that effort. But I could not tell you the name of a single "administrator" that helped me learn, how to read, write and do math at increasing difficult levels each year.
Anson
12:27, I wanted to tell you that I think your post regarding the issues that education is facing is my favorite that I have seen on this blog. I am surprised that no one else has commented.
ReplyDeleteWhen a story about C.J. Huff is posted, it always gets many comments. However, no matter how many errors Huff and the Joplin administration are making, nothing will truly get better for teachers as a whole unless the core issues you describe here are addressed. I have tried to make many of your same points, I have just not done so in as concise and thorough a way as you laid out. I wish that everyone had your understanding of the real problems facing education as opposed to the limited, outsider views expressed by those such as Anson.
I would have a very hard time right now recommending the teaching field to anyone considering it. Too many things have to change in order for teachers to feel valued again. You are simply asked to do the impossible. How do you judge how well a teacher is doing? Is it solely on test scores? Is it on the ability to care for 30 kids at once and tend to all of their emotional and educational needs? Do you rate teachers on their ability to inspire students to become lifelong learners? If so, how do you measure that? Are test scores more important than classroom management?
Trying to rate teachers is like trying to rate parents. What makes a good parent? If a child grows up with limited education and has little success in the workforce, but lives a truly happy life, has that parent failed. What about a child that eventually becomes a wealthy business owner but suffers through 4 failed marriages? How do we rate that person's parents? If a student tries recreational drugs, is that the parent's fault? What if a parent is completely inattentive but their child grows into a well-adjusted adult. Is that successful parenting since the end result is positive? Does a child have to be religious in order for a parent to succeed? There are simply some things that can't be measured. Unfortunately, all of the money to be made from education, through testing and the materials used to prepare for testing, are dependent on attaching numbers that have very little value.