It's the guns.

So it's been a while.

I was working on a School Choice series of posts prompted by an article in The New York Times, and then Uvalde happened. Suddenly charter schools didn't seem like the most important thing, but I couldn't find a way to write about the murders of those kids and their teachers, so I didn't.

There's little I can add to the frustration and anger others have expressed over our inability to stop or even try seriously to address the horror of heavily armed marauders entering schools and destroying children with weapons of war. Like many of you, I have participated in countless "live shooter" drills over the years and been part of more than a few incidents that were not drills. Fortunately, for the most part, nobody died, but that's just luck. I know that many of you have not been as lucky.

And every time it happens, especially when the massacre is big enough for other people to notice, we say "Help us! Please, do something!" And every time, all we hear is what we can't do. And whether the reason is mental illness or gun culture or politics or (a misreading of) the Second Amendment, teachers look at their students and each other, and we see dead people.

I think about the thousands of students I got to know over my twenty-five years in the business. I think about the books we read and the debates we had. The bad jokes. The perfect days and the times we kind of hated each other. I think of the fantasy futures they dreamed for themselves, and I think of their families and the plans they all made together. I think of secrets they shared because they knew I'd never tell. They knew I'd never hurt them on purpose.

Then I think about all the teachers and counselors and custodians I've known, including many friends still working in schools and wondering if they will be next. And I think of the deans and administrators and coaches and office techs and cafeteria workers I've met. And I put them all into a movie in my brain where I can picture their faces and hear their voices, and I wish I could think of an ending where everybody gets their fantasy future just like I did, but right now I can't. All I see is dead people.

What a society cares about is always right in front of us and it isn't what we say. For a long time teachers have known that in this country we don't care about most kids. If we did, schools would look like luxury boxes in brand new sports arenas and educators would get paid like hedge fund managers. 

Instead, we shop for bargains. For an enormous number of us, school is provided grudgingly, not as a common good but as some kind of giveaway to somebody else's kids. It's run by people we don't understand and don't trust and our kids come home asking uncomfortable or unanswerable questions. We do not like school.

We pretend otherwise. We pretend to believe school is a great leveler, the gateway to opportunity. It's where we learn that we're all in this together, members of one nation. It's where we send "our babies" to learn to think, to grow, to laugh, cry, and make the memories they'll cherish the rest of their lives. Just like us. It's where we send them to be safe because we can't always be there. 

But it's just pretend. Once the Big Shots and their progeny are safe in their well-appointed secure locations, we pit parents and schools against each other in a grim hunger games for what's left over. Crumbling schools. No counselors no nurses no music no art NO NEW TAXES!  Failing schools. Test scores! Teachers union! Teachers are racists. Teachers are groomers. This is what we really think of schools. We hate them.

Every teacher knows this. What has shocked me is how little we care for the kids in them. I admit I shouldn't be surprised. I have seen kids come to school hungry and in tears. I have had to intervene when adults shamed their kids and screamed at them or called them names. I did not think we would stand back and let them get murdered. 

That's what we're doing. The adults in this country have determined that guns are more important to us than our children. That's why, instead of addressing the easy availability of weapons of war, we'll try anything else. One door. Armed guards. Armed teachers, for fuck's sake. (You might want to ask a few principals about this first.) We will do anything except fix the problem because we have decided that these kids--these particular kids--are expendable. They are almost always somebody else's kids, anyway.             

I knew I shoulda turned left at Albuquerque

It's good to be back.

I wrote most of the following post over a month ago. Then my wife and I and two dogs went on a road trip in a camper van because we never had. Now it's five weeks and seven thousand miles later and we're back in L.A.  

At some point in your life you have to do things because if you don't, you never will. 

The trip was incredible and I may talk more about it in future posts once I've had some time to make sense of it. I just want to acknowledge that, for those of you still in the game, getting up at 5:30 every morning, making phone calls and grading papers every night, lots of things have gotten worse. 

One thing that hasn't? Retirement is fucking awesome. 

What's up, Doc?

I began this whole blog adventure with the announcement that I had retired and written a book. Well, that was a year ago and so far I am alarmingly close to becoming an example of how to waste a perfectly good retirement. Do not let this happen to you. 

Those of you toiling every day in unsafe conditions for no credit and very little money while ruled by imbeciles whose only concern is avoiding the critical eye of their superiors long enough to move up another rung on Peter Principle's ladder know that the job is impossible. 

Only it's not. Not quite. Used to be that summers were awesome. I remember actually thinking "There's no vacation like a teacher vacation." I'm sure it was because I finished every semester of every year completely destroyed, and then you walk out of the building on that last day and your room is done and your rollbook is turned in and you've got all your signatures including the computer nazi (used to be the AV coordinator) and you were free. Really free. Fucking free.

And you didn't have to think about school or school kids or for fuck's sake school administrators for months. You could breathe. You could laugh. You could drink all day and sleep at night--or the other way around. Anyway, I could. If you're married with kids, your mileage may vary.

That wasn't true the last five or ten years of my career. I had summer trainings and  hilariously named Professional Developments. I had extra lesson plans and tests to write to satisfy consultants and administrators who never read them but criticized them anyway. It was not the same feeling.

And then I retired, and it's all good once again. Like when the world was young.

What I'm saying is that retirement is totally fucking worth it, and I haven't even done it right yet.

But I'm going to. After back surgery left me pain-free for the first time in ten years, after rehabbing for a year and losing twenty pounds just by walking every day because I now have time to walk every day, I'm about to do one of those things retired people say they're going to do when they retire but often never do. I'm going on a cross-country road trip in a camper van. 

Never done it before--camped my way across the country. There's lots to teach myself and lots of unknown unknowns that I'll just have to solve on the fly. It's project-based learning! Unlikely to show up on any state-sponsored standardized test. What would the standards even be? 

ELA r.m.20.22.1

• Consult general and specialized reference materials to select routes and identify appropriate stops.

ELA i.s.20.22.1

• Interpret signs and symbols in context and analyze their role in travel.

Math v.v.20.22.1

• Solve problems involving velocity and other quantities that can be represented by vectors.

Math v.v.20.22.2

• Given two vectors in magnitude and direction form, determine the magnitude and direction of their sum.

As you can see, this set of "standards" is like any set delivered to you by people who have no idea what thinking is or what students do or what a real classroom looks like. These, like all of them, are as worthless as an ELA standard that says, "Write a sentence" without dealing with "about what?" and, fundamentally, "how well?" Standards are easy; analysis is hard. Evaluation is hard. Coming up with meaningful rubrics? Hard.

What would a rubric for my trip look like? How well do I have to interpret signs and symbols, understand their context, and analyze them? How do I know well from a little less well from not well at all? What if I make a mistake and end up someplace wonderful? Does that count for me or against me?

And how would you test for it? State-sponsored standardized tests use the same yardstick for everything whether it is meaningful or not. How successful is Hamlet? How "proficient" is Between the World and Me? Standardized answer? One hundred seventy-six pages.

How do you measure a project requiring multiple skills and a broad range of expertise, which is as much art and chance as math and evidence? How well did you perform your trip? Six thousand miles. How did you do with those vectors? Thirty days.

Bullshit.

Success, proficiency, mastery. If I survive the trip and have fun, I won't need to ask myself if I had enough fun to be proficient. I'll be a success. 

I may write about school if something in particular gets under my skin, but mostly I'll just keep you posted on the joys of retirement--if only to give you something to look forward to and encourage you to keep going. It gets better.

Okay. One more.

Test Scores are bullshit. Secret data is evil bullshit.

Peter Greene @palan57,  Senior Education Contributor for Forbes and author of the excellent CURMUDGIFICATION CURMUDGUCATION (updated and corrected) blog, has a new article in Forbes that describes legislation now before Congress. The bill, whose title is long enough to look like satire but just long enough to be acronymically shortened to "the America COMPETES Act," contains a "College Transparency" amendment introduced by Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI). 

Aimed at supporting "'the next generation of American workers,'" according to Levin, the amendment means to help "'our young people transition seamlessly into good-paying careers is to make sure that high-quality education and job training is affordable and accessible to all.'" 

What does the bill do? From Greene's article:

It requires the government to collect student-level data reporting enrollment, persistence, retention, transfer, and completion measures for all credentials, plus any other data the advisory committee deems necessary.

The bill also requires the collection of “post-completion outcomes for all postsecondary students, including earnings, employment, and further education” both immediately after leaving postsecondary education and “at time intervals appropriate to the credential sought and earned.” That data collection is to be periodically checked against data held by other agencies, such as Defense and the Social Security Administration. But this calls for lifetime data collection of anyone who attended a postsecondary institution.

Dressed up as a way to help the U.S. compete economically around the world, the legislation, the article notes that the law ensures that if you "Go to college or any other post-high school institution... the federal government will watch you for the rest of your life." It is, as Greene puts it, "a plan for lifetime data tracking of college students."

Is this what we want? To cavalierly feed students to the machine?  Affected students might be forgiven for one day shaking their heads and lamenting, like the miners in Matewan, "We've had about all the help we can stand." (h/t John Sayles) Better yet, "We asked for help, and this is what you give us?"

The truth is, that's not the half of it. Data collection and student tracking is being done right now in public schools all the way down into elementary. It's secret--or at least not discussed in polite company among educators who don't want to acknowledge the truth. And it's done by the government and government-sponsored entities. 

My experience, from Answer Key:

This is so bad I suppressed my own awareness of it and my own complicity in its collection. Thank you to my friend Mike for reminding me. 

In today’s Los Angeles Times there is an Op-Ed written by Caleb Scharf, Columbia University’s director of astrobiology. Just the title creeps me out: “We are our data, our data are us.” In the article, Scharf compares the “informational ocean” we’re all swimming in to a living system, and even though he asserts that this “externally held information” (not in our DNA) is nothing new, I still find myself terrified.

But that’s not the problem. We are all undeniably swimming in and under this Panthalassa of bytes of data, and some of that data will be harvested and used for purposes good and ill. However, schools should not be collecting student information for use by other entities. And they are.

Attendance rates and test scores are easily identifiable examples of student information collected by schools. However, thanks in part to stressed resources, lots of schools have accepted the help of outside vendors in order to provide services that in a different universe might have been understood to be the natural province of the schools themselves. Not-for-profit organizations and specialists have set up shop on campuses all over the country and collect student information in a variety of ways including surveys and having kids fill out forms in order to participate in the vendor’s program. Much of this data is then shared under the rubric of “scholarship program” or “college outreach.” Don’t forget to check the box!

Even the laptops I passed out in class for our research project were little data dynamos. Of course, the district monitored every website visited by every student, but so did The Google. And no doubt so did Microsoft and Amazon. Every Yahoo News click was another bitbyte in some kid’s digital profile. I suppose someone could argue that everybody knows that everybody knows everything anyway, and that kids are savvy and experienced digital consumers and fully informed of the risks and exposure, but nobody says that about kids and drugs, and nobody who knows anything about kids would say that anyway.

No matter what, by permitting ancillary entities to occupy campuses and operate this way, and by distributing and utilizing our own technology without sufficient regard to the implications, schools effectively sanction these practices. And whether it’s browsing histories from school laptops, or household education, family size, and even income information though a “We’re here to help” not-for-profit, this covert data collection should be illegal and is just another example of why data is evil bullshit.

What am I supposed to do about it? Resist. Like with many of the institutional outrages described in this book, a teacher’s capacity to curb this abuse is limited.  However, I urge you to resist. Make sure your students are thoroughly informed of their options “Don’t check that box!” including their option to withhold their participation. Remind them that sharing their information, even for school, even on a school computer, has risks and help them protect themselves from those risks. Don’t be thinking years from now that you could and should have done more. Don’t be me.

We are collecting data on students, sometimes little kids, right now--data that will be attached to them forever. We are allowing district-affiliated tech platforms like Schoology and Naviance, and teacher favorites such as Google Classroom and ClassDojo and Kahoot!--and about a bazillion others--to collect student data. We utilize public platforms like Zoom and YouTube and TikTok, and every one of them tracks kids. Every administrator, every superintendent, every teacher knows it. We are complicit.

What choice do we have? we say to ourselves. Public schools are starved for resources. Education Technology companies offer "solutions." And besides, the kids like it. Yes, for the children. And finally: It doesn't matter anyway. The world is a digital matrix and we are our data. That may very well be true. But do schools have to be instruments of collection?  

Everyone knows that when it comes to Big Data, the consumer is the product. In schools, without asking or even honestly discussing it, we are selling our students. 

Data (scores from state-sponsored standardized tests) is bullshit. Part Three, part two

Are we there yet?

So, like I said, in my continuing education I've discovered a lot of people who can and have discussed and argued the pointlessness and destructiveness of the present testing regime. Their outstanding work includes academic studies and personal narratives and lots of stuff in between. I continue to work my way through them.

In the meantime, what can I offer? I can share my own experience and let readers decide what is similar and what is different to their own. I can talk to you and to other teachers like I've been there because I have. I know what you're going through because I went through it, and I came out the other side healthy, happy, and retired.

So here's one final, personal rant on data. I have other stuff to say, after all.

This, from Answer Key:

Data is bullshit, and professional developments about data are nuclear powered bullshit and tough to take without going completely insane. Besides all the philosophical reasons for opposing the toxic testing-industrial complex, and all the moral reasons for fighting against the reduction of human beings to data points, the numbers are phony. It’s all a fraud. The data do not mean what they say the data mean.

Now if you are tasked with administering these tests and you happen to be arithmophobic (an arithmophobiac?), you may not notice or want to, but the tests do not measure what they purport to. They are not reliable. They are not valid. First of all, if you’ve ever given a ten question multiple choice quiz to your students, you will know that even if you test exactly the same material again a week later, sometimes the same student will score higher and sometimes their score will go down. Shit, if you've ever taken an "ideal mate" quiz online--I almost wrote in a magazine, which tells you how old I am--you know that one day you'll wind up with Barack Obama and the next week you'll be yearning for Courtney Love.

And before you start sputtering about the difference between questions of preference vs. matters of fact, take a look at the questions students are asked on these exams--not that you're allowed to talk about them. There may be clear answers in algebra, but the relative strength or weakness of evidence, or of an opening sentence, or the interpretation of an extended metaphor are subjective and open to...well...interpretation.

Performance on a task including an examination depends on any number of factors including most recent experience, blood sugar level, and the quantity and intensity of available distractions. That is why no teacher worth the name would ever rely on a single assessment given a single time to evaluate a student in any significant way. We give tests, but we also give projects and writing assignments short and long, formal and informal. We assign debates, we listen to conversations and questions and we try to get a comprehensive, meaningful picture of what each student knows and can do along with some idea of what they need--particularly from us--in order to be able to know and do more.

In other words, it's the opposite of the testing-industrial imperative. And the opposite of what most people who are not teachers mean when they say "data."

And it’s even worse than that. In addition to not measuring what a student has learned, the tests don’t deliver even within their own narrow objectives. They do not measure what they say they do.

I’ll give you an example: My school hired a group of education consultants to boost our test scores. (Hilariously, we were not allowed to acknowledge that’s what we were doing.) We had days and days and days of meetings with these “experts”--only the math and English departments of course, because (sotto voce) That’s what we test. Meanwhile, everyone else could work on what they needed to do to prepare for actual teaching.

And when we were through with these literal weeks of PDs, we had created five exams to give in each class, one every five weeks and each test would assess five distinct standards representing five discrete skills. That’s five, then five weeks later a different five, then a different five, until we get to twenty-five. Why twenty-five? They’re the ones that occur most frequently on the Big Test in the spring.

And so, after each test we would look at how dismal our scores were and compare them to the previous test to see if they went up or down. In a PD about *data* we would assemble in the elementary cafeteria and show each other our dismal scores (our students’ scores) and make up a story about why our scores might have gone down or up, and we’d make posters and cut out student names and put up the posters around the cafeteria and go one-by-one around the room and tell our stories and answer for our sins. That is, those of us in the math and English departments. All others adjourn to your rooms to work on teaching stuff.

The tests were all different and tested different standards and skills. We were told we could not test the same things twice to see if we had made progress. We compared scores from different kinds of tests and had to pretend that the improvement or decline from one test to the next meant something. “Wow, those kids really got it this time.” “Oh (downward inflection), that’s disappointing. What did you do differently?” “I taught different stuff!” And we did this for years.

I tried several times during the early days of this catastrophe to point out that we were not actually measuring progress or the lack of it. “It’s apples to orangutans!” “Five answers to five questions is not a valid measure of proficiency!” “Who chose four correct answers as the benchmark for proficient? And why?” “Skills? Standards? I looked at the data and my student scores precisely tracked their reading levels. Aren’t we really just assessing their reading?” I was... unheard.

And there’s more. We were required to give the exam--in English--to every single student. Boost scores? Shhh! Yet we were required to prep for and administer the exams to seniors who would never be taking another test in high school. Our ELD teacher was forced to give the exam--in English--to newcomers to the U.S. who had been in country for a week and as yet spoke zero English. For these students and others, as for the teachers in their classrooms, the tests were a deliberate insult.

<snip>

To defend standardized testing, you are likely to hear some version of business management guru Peter Drucker’s assertion that “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” I once heard “We measure what we value,” which I thought was ridiculous because my students and I valued collaboration, humor, persistence, flexibility, and lots of other things depending on the day. None of these ever showed up on the standardized exams--not that I’m discussing what did show up because, of course, that would be breaking the oath they make us all sign to protect the market share and business model of testing companies. You might ask yourself why we are not allowed to discuss these top secret contents. Wouldn’t that help us better prepare our students? Wouldn’t it lead to better exams? Good questions all, but beside the point. And the point is profit.

What I found is that, far from measuring what we value, we instead assign value to the measurements themselves, as long as they can be readily obtained and easily expressed. The measurements are the point, not what they measure. The numbers are vital to a system that employs thousands and thousands of people who interpret the numbers, explain the numbers, compare the numbers, and thousands more who come to your school to tell you how bad your numbers are and what you should do to make them marginally less bad. All the while, mind you, not measuring what you value. They don’t care about what teachers value or what students value. This is what they value.

Do not fall for it. You may have to give the tests, but you do not have to believe in them. Do not adopt their self-serving framing that everything can and should be quantified. It can not. But when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Big money in nails.

I know you know this. I know you have a million stories just like this and much, much worse. I know that many of you are tortured by the knowledge that the relentless testing is preventing you from serving your students better. I know I was. You and I know that, regardless of advertising, testing is an insidious form of control that shifts power away from the classroom and limits what students learn and teachers teach. Testing is a crucial component in a weapons system armed and aimed directly at public education.  

But, and I know this is pretty rich coming from a retired guy, please please please please please please please don't give up. We all know that what is happening is wrong, but we don't yet know how to stop it. Still, your students need you, and I'm living proof that you can survive--at least for twenty-five years. If you are in a position to speak up, resist and push back, I urge you to do so. If you are not in that position yet, you will be if you stay long enough. 

I'm going to keep fighting and looking for ways to win. I'm going to shift gears from ranting to strategizing. If you have any brilliant ideas, please read this blog and comment here. Or contact me directly at nowwaid@gmail.com. 

For the time being, I'll be shifting another kind of gear as well. I began this joyride by announcing that I was retired and loving it. I think I even wrote that the best retirement advice you'll ever get is "As soon as possible." Well that's all still true, but it's a year now and it's time for me to do some real retirement stuff, so I'll be taking a road trip across the country and back. By camper van. Because that's what you do. 

I think I'm going to post about the trip a little, just to give a glimpse of the delight that waits for you on the other side. Over the rainbow. Please stay tuned and stay in the fight.

Hey! It's the weekend! Have a cocktail--or several. Turn your clocks forward and, when you do, remember that there will never be enough time to do everything you need to do. Start with the things you really want to do, and go from there. 

Data (scores from state-sponsored standardized tests) is bullshit. Part Three, part one

I've been advised that I need to broaden my vocabulary when it comes to data. "Bullshit" is imprecise and banal. I will strive to be better.

But first, two things: I have used "bullshit" because it perfectly reflects the bad faith with which test scores are put forward as accurate measures of student learning, and because I like the percussive "b."  It helps me forcefully convey my frustration and anger at this bad-faith waste of time and students' lives.  

Also, when I quote from Answer Key, I'll keep the bullshit in its original form.

When I talk about data I'm really talking about two categories of information. The first category is useful information. It's the kind that promotes rational decision-making and leads to effective action. It includes all kinds of stuff from miles-per-gallon to blood sugar levels to price per square foot. In schools, attendance, reading levels, numeracy, class size, number of credentialed teachers, these are useful data.

On the other hand, there's a lot of information out there that is not useful, either because it's inaccurate or because it doesn't mean what it pretends to mean, or because it doesn't lead to any action. This information is useless. It is often used to pretend something is true. I will call this fake information. 

For example, the drive from Los Angeles to New York is about six hundred miles and takes about two days. You don't want to start a trip thinking this is accurate or you might find yourself in Gallup, New Mexico, looking for the Empire State Building. Also, this:

Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?

Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.

Some inaccurate information is deliberately inaccurate. A lot of COVID disinformation is this and it's worse than not accurate. It's cynical, strategic, and potentially deadly. 

Second, sometimes information doesn't mean what you think it means. A lot of this is advertising, and a lot of it is deliberate sleight of hand. Colgate's famous 2007 ad "stating that 80% of dentists recommend their product" is one example. A reporter selecting the most expensive gas station on the planet to dramatically represent the price of gas is another. In some schools, a 100% graduation rate means not counting students who were "counseled into alternative settings." Charters are notorious for this. 

The third kind of fake information is useless because it either is not or cannot be used. One country has launched a nuclear strike which will destroy your city in eighteen minutes. There are things you can do with your eighteen minutes, but none of them will stop the missiles. 

Undoubtedly the worst, most evil type of fake information is that which is collected or generated with no intention of acting on it. Often it's generated for a reason other than the one advertised. This category was invented for state-sponsored standardized testing to which millions of k-12 students are subjected every year. 

Ask most people not in education why students are tested so much, and the first thing they're likely to say is either "To find out what they know" or "They're tested how much?" A lot of people think of testing like it's the good old days, you know, when you took a final to pass your class and an SAT to get into college. Sometimes, somewhere in there was a PSAT for practice. Each one of these tests had real stakes for the students taking them, and the big standardized ones were voluntary. It was a long time ago, but I think I recall taking my SAT on a Saturday. And I had to pay for it. 

That is no longer the testing environment in which we live. There are still final exams and final projects, and students usually feel connected to them because they are based on the work they've been doing in class and because the results will be reflected in their final grade.

In my school, the district required that we turn over school days and school staff to the administration of both the SAT, which was paid for by the district, and the PSAT, which was also paid for by the district and which we started administering in the eighth grade. There is a powerful equity argument for making the tests available, but eighth grade is just ridiculous. The school didn't know how to make a schedule when whole segments were testing in classrooms (we didn't have a common area big enough to hold the testers) while other students were changing classes.

That's just a start. Now come the state-sponsored standardized tests. I know I've posted this chart before, but it illustrates the second semester experience in California schools.

And for dessert, there are extra tests that schools are required to develop in order to practice for the other tests. In a "nice career, be a shame if something happened to it" way, the district offers administrators consultants and materials and programs to help raise test scores. The equation looks something like this:

stagnant test scores + consultants, materials, programs = more practice tests = stagnant test scores - time, resources

And then districts punish schools, their students, teachers, and administrators for "failure" to raise test scores by offering--you guessed it--more consultants, materials, and programs until finally one day, lots of people quit or get fired and the dance begins anew. It's the circle of Life in Schools.

And for what? If the point of all this was to improve instruction, this is certainly not the system we would construct. With state-sponsored standardized tests, there is no opportunity for meaningful analysis by classroom teachers and no comprehensive plan for addressing the issues raised (and I don't mean the predictable default position of "Fuck the teachers, let them figure it out.") However, and this is important, not only is the information produced by these state-sponsored exams effectively useless, the tests do not even measure what they say they measure. They do not show what the profiteers and hucksters and fanatical true-believers say they show.

In an earlier draft of this post I included a lengthy excerpt here from Answer Key talking about reliability and validity, but I don't feel like doing that anymore. As I've been educating myself on this issue--now that I'm no longer consumed by the day-to-day battle for classroom survival--I have discovered how many people have been fighting this fight for years, and it feels like anything I have to say has been said much better than I can, and said over and over.

My latest wake-up call in an ongoing series comes from Dr. Mitchell Robinson, associate professor and chair of music education, and coordinator of the music student teaching program at Michigan State University. And it comes via a paper he wrote in 2014 in which he writes powerfully and eloquently much of what I've been trying to say. A few relevant bits:

Perhaps the most pernicious trend that drives current education reform initiatives is the singular and sole reliance on data as evidence of student learning and teacher effectiveness (Berliner and Biddle 1995).

And, regarding "stack ranking," a system of "dividing employees into arbitrarily predetermined 'effectiveness categories,' based on ratings by managers" (sound familiar?):

The main problem with using stack-ranking systems in teacher evaluation is that the approach is predicated on a series of faulty assumptions. Proponents of this approach believe that:

• teachers are the most important factors influencing student achievement,
• effective teaching can be measured by student test scores and is devoid of context,
• large numbers of American teachers are unqualified, lazy, or simply ineffective, and
• if we can remove these individuals from the work-force, student test scores will improve. (Amrein-Beardsley 2014, 84–88)

The argument is seductively convincing. There is, however, little to no research-based evidence to support any of these assumptions.

Robinson goes on to dispute each one of these assumptions, and I encourage you to read the whole paper, but I do want to include one example, as I don't think I have yet ranted about this specific defect in the current testing/accountability model. On child poverty, from the paper:

Similarly, much of the rhetoric surrounding the so-called “teacher effect” not only ignores the role of poverty in student learning, but actively dismisses this concern.

<snip>

Again, the research here is abundantly clear. When results are controlled for the influences of poverty, nearly every international test of student learning shows that American students score at the top of the rankings. For example, when test scores for U..S students on the 2009 Program for International Assessment (PISA) exams were disaggregated by poverty levels, American children from middle– and upper–socioeconomic status families per-formed as well or better than students from the top three nations in the rankings: Canada, Finland, and South Korea(Walker 2013a).

It occurs to me that I have very little to add to what Dr. Robinson, Diane Ravitch, Peter Greene at Forbes, Bob Shepherd (and here), Jan Resseger, Dennis Shirley, the people at FairTest, and many, many others have said better than I ever could, and they've been saying it for a long time. I want to acknowledge authors whose books I haven't even had time to read yet because I was, you know, teaching--authors such as Alfie Kohn; Anya Kamenetz; Daniel Koretz; Peter Sacks; Harris, Smith, and Harris; David Hursh; and Arlo Kempf, and others who have done the hard work and heavy lifting to make the case against testing in the face of intense opposition. In fact, the argument has been made, and the argument has been won. So what's the trouble?

It's impossible to get someone to understand something 
if their paycheck depends on their not understanding it. 

The trouble isn't that we don't know. The trouble is that we won't do. 

Time for a change. As I continue my education, I'm going to try and shift from ranting about something we all know to talking about what we can do about it. We just got a new boss in LAUSD, and I don't think the best argument is going to be enough. What are some real strategies for putting an end to this madness?

First, however, I do have one other thing to offer: my own experience. Next time I'll do a last post on data and then let it go for a while. I have other stuff to say, after all.

Next time:  Data (scores from state-sponsored standardized tests) is bullshit. Part Three, part two

People Are Saying

Front Page News?

In a front-page article that smells a lot like finding something to write about, Los Angeles Times education writer Howard Blume reports on public sentiment regarding public education based on a U.C. Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll partially funded by the Times and conducted more than two weeks ago. 

From the subhead: "Poll shows decline in trust by parents who say education suffered during the pandemic." Not exactly breaking news.

In a startling combination of "duh, tell us something we don't know" and "wait, I don't think the data mean what you think they mean," Blume goes on to describe the poll as asking "voters to give schools a letter-grade rating from A to F" and then comparing the responses to the same question from 2011! Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll, concedes that "'the impact of COVID has probably contributed to it.'" You think?

A quick Google search of "pandemic impact on schools and education" yields 292,000,000 hits. Now, that's not always an indication, but anyone who has been alive for the last two years has been inundated with reports about the negative impacts of the pandemic on students and schools. Search "covid pandemic education" in Blume's own paper and  the L.A. Times coughs up over 280,000 results. 

From Blume himself: 

• February 10: "New threat to COVID-era education: Black and Latino teachers are leaving the profession."
• January 7: "LAUSD determined to open amid increase in infections; Montebello schools will delay term."
• January 6: "Omicron stresses schools across California to the limit as they fight to stay open."
• January 4: "Omicron wave is inundating California. How to protect yourself and others."

That's just a selection from this year alone. Big hits from times gone by:

• November 2021: "About 44,000 LAUSD students miss first vaccine deadline and risk losing in-person classes."
• October 11, 2021: "Facing major campus disruption and firings, LAUSD extends staff COVID-vaccine deadline."
• July 25, 2021: "Austin Beutner’s tenure as L.A. schools chief marked more by crisis than academic gains."
• On September 7, 2021 The Times Editorial Board weighed in: "Learning loss is real. Stop pretending otherwise." 

Sounds bad, right? And that's just the COVID stuff. There's no shortage of related doom-and-gloom:

• From Blume February 2: "Economic segregation in schools has worsened, widening achievement gaps, study says." 

And a bonus track--a re-release of an oldie but a goodie:

• From Mackenzie Mays January 11, 2022: "California schools face funding crisis as student population declines."

Public Education, you really need a new press agent. I haven't even mentioned fake "CRT" outrage and the erasure of history, or the war on LGBTQ+ youth. Book bans? Seriously? It's no wonder "parents have overwhelmingly concluded that the quality of education worsened during the pandemic."

But have they? How might people have reached that conclusion? Blume reports the polling as if it is based solely on parents' experiences with their own schools, ignoring the impact of his own reporting on pubic opinion. Even if the results of the poll were meaningful, the only person who thinks the decline in "trust" is surprising or noteworthy appears to be Blume. Maybe DiCamillo.

And then there's the poll itself. Let's check off the misleading and useless "A to F" grade framing. It obliterates nuance and prevents respondents from differentiating among different functions of their schools--for example "A" for instruction, "F" for safety. Next, notice the crossed out "their" because the poll asks about California public schools, and for the gazillionth time in a row, people rate their local schools more highly than schools in other parts of the universe. Oh, and while we're at it, some of the worst grades for public schools came from parents with their kid in religious, private, or charter schools. Which is surprising. Said no one ever. 

Even though respondents identified as "Black" in the survey rated California schools overall more highly than those identified as "White non-Hispanic," the question of why Black voters are more critical of their local public schools is a really good one and could have been further explored in the survey. It was not. There is a tantalizing little tidbit, though, in the fact that Black voters are "more likely than... voters in other racial or ethnic subgroups to view standardized testing as hurting rather than helping education." Maybe it's because their schools are subjected to a more burdensome testing regime, and they see first-hand the deleterious effects. Just thinking out loud, here.

A word about the "voter" - "parent" conundrum. The poll seems to have included responses from 8937 registered voters and was conducted in English and Spanish online from February 3-10. However, although it does break down some responses according to "Parent of a school-age child," it seems to combine the demographics in its overall statistics. Hence, the significant support actual parents have for their schools is diluted by attitudes more likely formed through interaction with media reports. 

For example, if I'm reading Table 1 correctly, and I like to thing that I am, 69% of parents with a child in school rate the school an A, B, or C, while 56% of voters with no child in school do so. That's still a pretty high percentage for people whose sources of information are out of date and/or indirect (i.e. strongly influenced by this kind of reporting), but since the raw data indicate--again, if I'm reading correctly--that 77% of respondents were "not a parent/legal guardian of school-age child," the difference is significant and skews approval downward.

And even more important, if you look carefully, you'll note that the table shows parents whose child is enrolled in an actual "traditional public school," and who therefore presumably know something about it, rate the school at 77% positive (A, B, or C). Yet somehow Blume still concludes that the sky is falling.

The problem with the article is not so much its accuracy as its tone. Instead of comparing "trust" from a survey from over ten years ago, an equally accurate account of the actual, unmediated poll results might read, "Even after two years of crisis, most parents still favor their local schools." 

Or, although the raw data is a bit confusing to this lay person, it looks like this one might fit: "In spite of manufactured outrage, Los Angeles County voters see teacher unions improving schools."

One of my favorite results:

Suggested Headline: "California Voters Reject Standardized Testing: Declare 47% to 42% that tests 'Hurt Education.'"

There's more. 

A not-so-brief word about charts. Although the online version of the article includes a comprehensive chart plotting attitudes in 2011 against those in 2022:

The chart in the print version of the Times included only data broken out by race and region. Passers still mostly outpace failers, but it looks close, right? See if you can spot what's missing:

 

Hint: A "C" is a passing grade. If the "C"s had been included the results wouldn't even look close. That was my conjecture, so I created a chart that does include them, along with the "no opinion"s.

Here it is without the "no opinion"s, the way the Times printed theirs:

I was unable to find the complete data from the 2011 poll for comparison, but even if we stipulate that yes, public confidence has weakened, there is no reason to manipulate the data or massage the charts to be extra scary. By omitting the substantial number of respondents who only gave their schools a "C" because, I don't know, two years of a pandemic, the Times makes the decline more dramatic. If the "C"s are included on the positive side of the ledger, readers get a different, more accurate picture.

There's more. 

In a forty-one paragraph article, we find out in paragraph twenty-eight that "A different California poll [PACE/Rossier] found voters giving the state's schools higher marks." Blume's answer? Certainly not to acknowledge that the poll on which he relies for the entire article may not be as authoritative as advertised. 

Blume does not address the conflicting results or attempt to reconcile them. He simply drops in a barely relevant quote from U.S.C.'s Rossier School of Education education policy professor Julie Marsh with a potential explanation: pandemic fatigue! I taught English for twenty-five years, and this is the lamest wink at a potential counter-claim I have ever seen.

As I've written, the purpose of the multifaceted, sustained assault on public education is to destabilize and enfeeble public schools, clearing the way for privatizers and profiteers to pick up and exploit the pieces. In paragraphs thirty-one and thirty-two of Blume's article we arrive at what I suspect is the point. 

I'm concerned about the eroding public trust we have in our public schools, [Professor Marsh] added.

Voucher proposal advocates hope to capitalize on that discontent.

This is followed by seven paragraphs on teachers unions. The first two quote the chief of the "American Federation for Children" without identifying the organization as a "dark money group that promotes the school privatization agenda via the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other avenues." The next paragraph refers vaguely to "disenchanted L.A. Unified parents" who are promoting a voucher initiative because they "fault teachers unions and district officials for what they regard as inadequate education during the pandemic." 

We're granted one paragraph of rebuttal from an Eagle Rock parent who praises unions for "'looking out for students.'" Then it's right back to bashing, as someone identified as a "Contra Costa County parent" has a lot to say. Like the first detractor, this critic is given two full paragraphs in which to accuse teachers--through their union--of actually advocating for "'policies that are detrimental to students'" and "'harming the kids with their fear-driven advocacy.'" If that sounds like canned criticism to you, give yourself a "more astute than big-time journalist" merit badge. 

That these anti-public school activists are given such outsized space to promote their ideological agenda is unfair and reeks of bias. That these individuals and organizations are not properly identified is outrageous. 

Perhaps the most potent superpower journalists possess is the framing of a story. Selecting what to report and how to report it shapes the argument and determines the reader's understanding of an issue. The data behind colorful charts and assertions put forth as facts can be difficult to parse. What every reader can understand, however, are headlines like these:

Public schools given poor grades by voters

and

Poll shows decline in trust by parents

and

A third of voters give L.A. schools a D or F

(which is itself an embellishment, as the number is 27%)

and online, a headline double whammy with a new modifier:

Confidence in California public schools declines sharply; a third give L.A. a D or F

Again, returning to where we started, "Poll shows decline in trust by parents who say education suffered during the pandemic" is not news. What hasn't suffered? Who hasn't suffered? In a cynical demonstration of creating the news rather than reporting it, the Times funds (in part) the survey that tells us what we already know, cherry-picks the results, slaps on a sensationalized headline or four, and then prints it all as if it's front-page news. 

After a decades-long relentless assault on public education, Blume and the Times (and DiCamillo?) are shocked! shocked! to report that public confidence has eroded. Except they're not really. The narrative of "declining confidence" in "failing" public schools is essential for their destruction. It doesn't have to be honest. It just has to be effective. 

With friends like Howard Blume and the L.A. Times... Well, actually we need better friends. In the meantime, the beat goes on.