What Finland and Asia tell us about real education reform

There has been much publicity in recent years about how for more than a decade, Finnish students have excelled in the international comparisons called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), exams given each three years in reading, math, and science to samples of 15-year-olds globally. In the current issue of the New Republic, Samuel E. Abrams, a visiting scholar at Teachers College, explains what Finland did to turn around its education system, starting in the 1970's:

Finland’s schools weren’t always so successful. In the 1960s, they were middling at best. In 1971, a government commission concluded that, poor as the nation was in natural resources, it had to modernize its economy and could only do so by first improving its schools. To that end, the government agreed to reduce class size, boost teacher pay, and require that, by 1979, all teachers complete a rigorous master’s program.

They also banned all standardized testing, as they figured out this takes too much time and too much money out of learning; and now they only give standardized exams to statistical samples of students to diagnose and assess school progress.

According to Abrams, the "only point at which all Finnish students take standardized exams is as high school seniors if they wish to go to university." The Finns "trust teachers" and allow them to "design their own courses, using a national curriculum as a guide."

Abrams is writing a book on school reform for Harvard University Press and has researched the Finnish educational system extensively. I contacted him by email to thank him for his article, and this is what he told me about class size:

• Average class size in 1st and 2nd grades is 19; in grades 3 through 9, it is 21.

• These reductions in class size were won by Finland's teachers' union (Opestusalan Ammattijarjesto, or OAJ) as a concession from the government when education authorities nullified tracking. In 1972, authorities postponed tracking from fifth grade to seventh. In 1985, authorities postponed tracking from seventh grade to tenth. The response from the OAJ was acceptance of the termination of tracking as wise but only if class sizes were reduced, as it would be too difficult for teachers to teach heterogeneous groups if classes remained large.
  

• In addition to science classes, all classes that involve any machinery or lab equipment are capped at 16. This includes cooking (which all seventh-graders are required to take), textiles (or sewing), carpentry, and metal shop.

Abrams' article concludes:

The Finns have made clear that, in any country, no matter its size or composition, there is much wisdom to minimizing testing and instead investing in broader curricula, smaller classes, and better training, pay, and treatment of teachers. The United States should take heed.

Also, see this recent interview with Pasi Sahlberg, another expert on the Finnish educational system. Sahlberg was asked about the current push towards test-based teacher evaluation systems in our country:

If you tried to do this in my country, Finnish teachers would probably go on strike and wouldn’t return until this crazy idea went away. Finns don’t believe you can reliably measure the essence of learning. You know, one big difference in thinking about education and the whole discourse is that in the U.S. it’s based on a belief in competition. In my country, we are in education because we believe in cooperation and sharing. Cooperation is a core starting point for growth.

Recently, McKinsey consultants estimated that if the achievement levels of American students matched those in Finland, our economy would be 9 to 16 percent larger - with the nation's GDP enlarged by $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion.

And yet what lesson have the Obama administration and its allies in the DC think thanks and corporate and foundation world taken from the PISA results? That there needs to be even more high-stakes testing, based on uniform core standards, that teachers should be evaluated and laid off primarily on the basis of their student test scores, and that it's fine if class sizes are increased.

In a speech, Duncan recently said that "Many high-performing education systems, especially in Asia," Duncan says, "have substantially larger classes than the United States."

What he did not mention is that Finland based its success largely upon smaller class sizes; nor the way in which many experts in Asian education recognize the heavy costs of their test-based accountability systems, and the way in which their schools undermine the ability ofstudents to develop as creative and innovate thinkers -- which their future economic growth will depend upon.

As Jiang Xueqin, the director of the International Division of Peking University High School, wrote in the Wall St. Journal:

According to research on education, using tests to structure schooling is a mistake. Students lose their innate inquisitiveness and imagination, and become insecure and amoral in the pursuit of high scores. Even Shanghai educators admit they're merely producing competent mediocrity. ...This is seen as a deep crisis... A consensus is growing that instead of vaulting the country past the West, China's schools are holding it back.

Nor do Duncan and his allies discuss the fact that many Asian education experts are calling for the need to reduce class size in their own countries. For example, a study from the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation revealed that South Korean students are highly disengaged from their classes compared to those in other nations. Their students also scored the lowest in respect or tolerance for others. The answer, according to the authors of the study? "To ...raise their interest in class, much improvement needs to be made including reducing the number of students per class.”


Many of the ideas of the Obama administration are based on a competitive business model, first developed by the right wing of the Republican party, leading conservative commentator George Will to call Arne Duncan and his policies "the Obama administration's redeeming feature."

The fear that many of us have is that these corporate-style concepts will be even more firmly imposed on schools, by means of a bipartisan consensus of the administration and the GOP majority in the House of Representatives.

In the current issue of Education Week, Amy Stuart Wells, a professor at Teachers College, bemoans the destructive group think reflected in this prevailing notion of education reform. She points out how it is "often difficult to distinguish Republicans from Democrats on key education issues, " and that:

"the most agreed-upon solutions—testing, privatization, deregulation, stringent accountability systems, and placement of blame on unions for all that is wrong—are doing more harm than good. Achievement overall has not improved, and the gap between the privileged and the disadvantaged has widened..."

She points out how states now spend five to six times the funds on testing than before NCLB -- with more than 90% of this going to private testing companies.

Yet she also holds out hope, based upon the fact that parents are increasingly pushing back against these misguided, market-driven notions, and mentions the leadership of Chicago's PURE, headed by Julie Woestehoff, one of the founding members of Parents Across America.

It's time that parents provided that third force, to put forward ea positive and progressive vision of education reform, based on small classes, experienced teachers, a well-rounded curriculum, and evaluation systems that go beyond test scores. Check out what Parents Across America believe will improve our schools here and join us.

The Global Infestation of U.S. Educational Ideas: A Cautionary Thought by Author Kay Ann Taylor

Editors: Today we welcome a post by guest blogger, Kay Ann Taylor. Our readers will remember the article that we published in our winter 2009 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy by Kay Ann Taylor, entitled, Poverty's Multiple Dimensions. In today's post, Dr. Taylor reflects on her recent visit to a conference she attended in Istanbul, Turkey where she learned about the extent that the United States focus on standardized testing has had on the educational thinking in other nations. Historically, U.S. educational ideas have had an influence around the world. Our author asks us to think about what ideas we are exporting today and if this is the "best the U.S. has to offer."


Exporting U.S. Education: Is Standardized Testing the Best the U.S. Has to Offer?
by Kay Ann Taylor
Kansas State University


As an educator and an individual, a major personal bias and belief is my non-belief in standardized testing (ST). With the onset and passing of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the festering in American education surrounding standardized testing has reached the status of some god-like or pagan entity that determines the futures of not only our children, but our teachers, schools, communities, country, and impacts our global efficacy. Those who are not educators (politicians) continue to direct and dictate policies and practices to those who are. How can and why does the American public at large and in general succumb to the edicts of this flawed, detrimental, and demeaning measure of human capacity? And, more to the point, why and how did exporting U.S. ST become so welcome, so revered, and, received so uncritically by our global community? Like cancer, the disease of U.S. standardized testing infects the global arena. I remain critical and skeptical regarding the gate-keeping effects of ST in terms of its impact and outcome on the lives, futures, education, thinking, and psyches of the human enterprise.

The polar views in the U.S. regarding ST are far from new. They are divergent in philosophical orientation, utility, purpose, interpretation, and implementation. There are scholars that support ST. Conversely, numerous scholars continue to challenge the oppressive nature of ST in that it lacks context and marginalizes English language learners, learners from low socioeconomic status, creates winners vs losers. Critics argue further that ST in no way represents learning, knowledge, understanding, much less real-life application. Additionally and importantly, some scholars contend that ST is racist and gender-biased. There is a distorted Darwinian element ingrained in ST, i.e., the survival of the fittest, which misrepresents Darwin for one, and rather, serves the interests of those seeking to maintain the status quo. Further, ST represents an outdated factory system of education that serves social efficiency, social control, social reproduction, and maintains the status quo for social mobility, thus begging the question, “Whose interests are served by standardized tests?” Believing that humans can be ranked, filed, and sorted on the basis of ST is one of the most destructive and dehumanizing practices education faces.

Standardized testing is big business. This hit me squarely during a session at the World Council of Comparative Education Societies this June (2010) in Istanbul, Turkey. I co-presented with my former M.S. student (now pursuing her Ph.D. in Russian Literature at another institution while teaching Russian Language at our university) based on her historical and qualitative thesis research in which she compared the first-ever national 2008 External Knowledge Testing in her Ukrainian country of origin to the historical onset of ST in the U.S. We went to our session location in advance to familiarize ourselves with the setting and to ensure the technology was in place. A Lebanese professor, who teaches in higher education in her country of origin, was there to attend the session and started a conversation with us. The title of our presentation, "Border Transmission and Reproduction Déjà Vu: Ukrainian External Independent Knowledge Testing—Reflections in the Mirror of U.S. Standardized Testing," captured her interest. Even before the session began, we discovered our topic was controversial because of our critical perspective.

As conference sessions go, ours was well attended by 25-30 people from almost as many different countries represented. There were two other countries and comparative topics in our session. Questions for all presenters were held until the end after everyone presented. Evidently, I have been naïve for quite some time because I was unprepared for the lively Q&A that followed regarding our research. Until our session, I remained blissfully unaware the extent to which ST from the U.S. has been exported globally. Plainly, we struck a nerve with most of our colleagues. From the discussion that followed directed at our research, it appeared to us that ST not only is well-received by our global counterparts, but that for many, it never was questioned critically regarding the numerous flaws and negative effects noted above.

After our session, I went outside to relax briefly. A young lady who attended our session stopped to visit with me. She is Brazilian by birth and informed me that Brazilian higher education institutions require the GRE. When I brought up my passion for Critical Race Theory (CRT), she smiled and informed me that she studied for three years with Kimberlé Crenshaw, Cheryl Harris, and Claude Steele—all prominent CRT scholars. She likely was the only individual attending our session who was familiar with, understood, much less agreed with, our position.

This experience provided considerable material for my reflection. After returning from the conference, I visited with a colleague and shared what happened. To my surprise, he challenged our critical assessment of ST and informed me that he knows personally an administrator for one of the major testing companies in the U.S. He explained that in his conversation with this person, he was informed that the company exercises care in test construction with the host country’s interested parties to ensure native language and culture are represented and not misinterpreted. After visiting the company’s web site to see for myself, I engaged in more reflection about this phenomenon. What struck me is that what is highly likely in this international ST-creating process is that the same flaws and biases inherent in the U.S. system also are reproduced in each country constructing “culturally sensitive” ST. For example, as stated above, ST represents an outdated factory model of schooling in the U.S., especially in terms of social efficiency, social control, and maintaining social mobility for the status quo. As I continued my conversation with my colleague, I continued to delineate the negative aspects of ST. One comment made by my colleague that struck yet another chord, was his statement that ST in many countries is used for placement in education. This, of course, also caused me consternation as I responded that placement represents tracking—from my perspective yet one more oppressive and outdated practice that remains deeply entrenched to the detriment of many in the U.S. In a final attempt to convince my colleague, I posed the question, “Do we want our students to be good test takers or to be able to understand, engage, embrace creativity, and be able to apply what they know?” It was this question that finally afforded success in relaying my concerns about ST to my colleague.

I continue to contemplate this conundrum of ST plaguing our schools and educational system in the U.S. With every semester since the passing of NCLB, my undergraduate foundations preservice students enter my class increasingly expecting me to tell them what to think and how to do “it”. Colleagues at other institutions indicate similar observations in their parallel classes. I anticipate that this will continue to worsen with each class of K-12 students in our public education environments who are subjected to the edicts of NCLB.

Thus, I now am acutely and painfully aware of the global infestation of ST. The oppressive biases and stultifying effects of ST now appear to be accepted uncritically in numerous countries. Moreover, ST reinforces competition and isolation rather than cooperation, collaboration, and understanding—the latter qualities needed to serve all humans productively in our global setting. U.S. education is revered deeply by many international communities. Will this, in turn, affect the success of international professionals seeking to live and work in the U.S.? Will ST ensure for them that they are no longer required to start their education over in the U.S. in order to pursue a profession they were educated for and practiced, perhaps for decades, in their country of origin but their “foreign” education and experience is inadequate by U.S. standards? I doubt it.

Ultimately, my question remains: Is exporting standardized testing the best practice U.S. education has to offer?

Kay Ann Taylor is Associate Professor of the Foundations of Education, American Ethnic Studies at Kansas State University. Her article, the Poverty's Multiple Perspectives, appeared in our winter 2009 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy on the theme, The Hidden Dimensions of Poverty: Rethinking Poverty and Education.

A Dangerous Proposal

Editor: Today we welcome a post by guest blogger, Joel Shatzky. Dr. Shatzky is a contributor to the Huffington Post where readers can read his series of articles on the topic, "Educating for Democracy." Check out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-shatzky/

In his post to our blog below, Dr. Shatzky asks us to consider a "dangerous" proposal.


A Dangerous Proposal

by Joel Shatzky
“Unofficial” Blogger “Educating for Democracy” on Huffington Post

A number of recent news items on education should demonstrate to educators how little attention the political establishment has paid to the legitimate concerns of teachers. That is because the so-called “educational reform” movements that were initiated during the Clinton Administration, codified by the Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind” program, and intensified by the Obama Administration’s “Race to the Top” have little if anything to do with improving education. They have to do with creating the illusion that they are improving education.

To improve education would mean also improving the social and economic life of young learners who are disadvantaged because of racial, ethnic and class discrimination by an economic system that is consistently failing to provide good-paying jobs to an increasing number of working class and lower middle class workers. This is a systemic problem and using the schools as the whipping boy for its failure is one way in which politicians deal with serious problems: distract the public with a simplistic solution instead of a challenging one.

The fraudulence of the “Educational Miracle” that improved test scores since Michael Bloomberg took control of the New York City schools system was revealed in a report by Daniel Koretz and Jennifer Jennings of Harvard University ( “State’s Exams Became Easier to Pass, Education Officials Say.” NY Times. 7/20/10). The findings of the study which included such practices as “test[ing] a narrow part of the curriculum, particularly in math, and . . .[that] questions were often repeated year to year . . .” exposed the manipulation of test scores to create the illusion of improved learning. The “higher standards” that Chancellor Klein is promising will be no more valid than the present “lower standards” the NYC school system has been promoting since the emphasis will continue to be on test prep instead of education.

The following day (7/ 21/10) The Times reported that 27 states are adopting “National Standards” for their education curriculums so as to be eligible for some of the “Race to the Top” funds by August 2. Laudable as it might be to have “national standards” (France has them), what procedures are going to be used to measure the success—or failure—of schools to “educate” their students up to these standards? Will there be penalties, as there are now, of school closings, student dislocation, loss of tenure, seniority, and, as a consequence, experienced teachers as a product of establishing and testing for these “standards?” If they are so important, why shouldn’t they be required for all schools in the country, private as well as public?

Although I know of no systematic study on the practices of private schools, from their literature and my discussions with private school students and teachers concerning testing, these educators do not spend any significant amount of time, if at all, “prepping” their students for standardized tests. It would be an interesting project to find out exactly how many private and elite public school teachers actually take these programs seriously, especially if they are left alone to teach and not play the role of bookkeepers.

Steve Nelson, the School Head at one of the more prestigious private schools in New York City, The Calhoun School, whose alumni include Ben Stiller, Wendy Wasserstein, the late playwright, and Peggy Guggenheim, the philanthropist, is cited in the school’s website: “While Steve acknowledges that standardized tests can help schools determine which content areas of their programs need strengthening, they fail to benefit students in any real way and can actually cause harm. By measuring a very narrow range of abilities--most notably, the ability to take a standardized test--the tests provide a mere snapshot of the student, and cause him or her to be defined by test scores alone. The tests do not account for different learning styles.”

This statement echoes that of thousands of educators across the nation; the only difference is that The Calhoun School recognizes and limits the potential abuses of standardized tests while public school teachers are increasingly at risk in doing so. Having been born to wealth or privilege is in itself an advantage for any young learner at a private school. The programs spreading throughout the country that will cripple public schools only increase the disadvantage of others.

In the research I’ve done on a pamphlet I’m preparing for those who read my blog, “Why Our Economic System Is Unsustainable (And What You Can Do About It),”
one of the many statistics I’ve discovered is that 43% of working people earn less than they spend and that the average family is going deeper into debt every year since long before the present Recession. This is due, in large part, to the stagnating wages that have, at least for men, remained very much the same as they had thirty-five years ago. By deflecting this wage stagnation through blaming the public schools, the political and economic leaders in this country have an excuse for the increasing trend toward economic—and I would add political—inequality.

The two principal initiators of these school “reforms,” Rod Paige under the Bush Administration and Arne Duncan under the Obama Administration, have been shown to be failures, if not frauds in the case of Paige, in the programs they administered as the superintendants of schools in Houston and Chicago. In Paige’s case, the improved test scores were found, in some instances, to be the product of cheating, and many of the statistics were skewed by not counting drop out rates. In Duncan’s case, some of his “reforms” proved even more lethal as rival gangs, forced to share the same “turf” because one of their schools was closed, began to wage gang wars, reflected in the rise in the recent murder rate in Chicago. Yet there has been no serious re-examination of the validity of Paige’s and Duncan’s programs in view of their actual records as “educators.”

The issues I’ve raised in this blog have been discussed and debated for almost a decade in one form or another as teachers have become more aware of the danger to their profession: its quality, integrity and the respect it should receive as these repressive, anti-intellectual and sorry excuses for “educational innovation” seem to be taking hold throughout the country. The issue of the rise of charter schools would be the subject for another blog but suffice it to say that from what I can see, they do not provide a solution to the problems of school learning and, in many cases, exacerbate them. Diane Ravitch’s study, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, is an excellent analysis of the way in which what might have been a good idea has turned into a nightmare.

But what is to be done? Instead of a Modest Proposal, I would like to offer a Dangerous Proposal. The only way the leaders of this country and enforcers of this policy are going to realize that they have to rethink their agenda is by teachers getting their attention. I believe that evidence of the strength of teacher opposition to testing instead of teaching is through a “Sick of Testing Sick Out”: a national “sick out” that would be determined by education activists and those among the three million teachers in this country who recognize that these destructive practices must stop. They must also offer, as they certainly should, alternatives to testing and a clear explanation as to why these programs have been bad for students.

I am a retiree with a pension and so I realize that there is a danger in organizing a national “sick out” for the future careers of young as well as experienced teachers. But I remember when my parents felt that they had to have a union to protect them from arbitrary treatment by principals and school boards and risked their jobs and pensions to go on strike with Albert Shanker back in the 1950’s. A one-day “sick-out” might be the only way to get the attention of politicians who assume that “business as usual” is the way to solve a serious social issue. In Florida, a “Right-to-Work” state, the Republican Governor vetoed a bill that would have stripped teachers of almost all collective bargaining rights due, in no small part, to a teacher “sick-out” that was supported by a majority of the parents in the state. Yes, this is a “Dangerous Proposal,” but I believe that doing nothing more than discussing and debating issues we know are ruining our public school system and the future of democracy in this country is even more dangerous.

Note: For any readers interested I am providing a link to a video I wrote and performed in (as the “Drill Instructor”) on the difference between “drilling” and teaching.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D712J1V2Jsg&feature=player_embedded


It was produced by ICOPE (Independent Commission on Public Education) ICOPE@yahoogroups.com .

Independent Commission on Public Education -- http://www.icope.org/

The link to my archived blogs on the Huffington Post is:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-shatzky/


Joel Shatzky is an early-retired English Professor who taught writing and drama at SUNY-Cortland (1968-2005) and is presently teaching English and writing at Kingsborough Community College. He has a half-dozen novels, scholarly, and topical studies to his credit, published by UNC Press, Greenwood Publishers and Drybones Press. Shatzky has published articles on theatre and education in the New York Times, Jewish Currents, Studies in Jewish American Literature, Players, and a half dozen other journals. As a playwright, Shatzky has written eight produced OOB shows, among the most recent, “Amahlia,” at 13th Street Rep. His article, “Education for Democracy,” was the lead article in the Winter 2009-2010 issue of Jewish Currents. Another will be coming out this Fall, a review of Diane Ravitch's study, The Death and Life of the Great American School System and an interview with Dr. Ravitch. Shatzky's book on the decline in student literacy, The Thinking Crisis (with Ellen Hill), was published by Authors Choice Press in 2001. Contact Joel at shatzkyj@cortland.edu. My website is joellshatzky.com.

An Impassioned Defense of Public Education: Diane Ravitch's Speech before the NEA

Below is a transcript of the speech by Diane Ravitch that was delivered before the 2010 Representative Assembly of the National Education Association. We reproduce it with her permission in its entirety to inform our readership.

Ravitch's new book,The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, questions many of her earlier commitments as the Assistant Secretary of Education under the President George H. W. Bush. In her impassioned speech before the National Education Association, where she received its Friend of Education award, Ravitch takes a critical look at the state of today's educational reform movement, the consequences that have followed its implementation, and the betrayal of public education as the "backbone of this democracy."


Speech Delivered at the 2010 NEA Representative Assembly

by Diane Ravitch

Thank you, John Wilson. [Ed.: Dr. Ravitch points out that the transcript on the NEA website omitted her acknowledgement of Dennis Van Roekel as well as John Wilson.] Thank you, all my friends in the NEA. Thanks to all my new friends in Colorado and Massachusetts and California. Thank you so much, California. The first time I spoke about my book was before the NEA scholars group in October. But the first time I went public was in San Jose, California. Thank you.

Let me first thank you so sincerely for this honor. I accept it with humility, with gratitude, and with respect for the more than three million educators that it represents.

Next, I would especially like to thank Camille Zombro of San Diego. Without Camille and without her help and the help of teachers in San Diego, I could not have written chapter 4 of the book. Read it and you will see why.

Well, it’s kind of amazing that this convention is being held in New Orleans. I was, just a few minutes ago, interviewed by documentary filmmakers who said to me, “Well, don’t you know that New Orleans is proving a new model?” The new model consists of wiping out public education and firing the unions, and it’s spreading across the country. And I said, “God forbid.” I pointed out to them what we all used to know, which is that public education is the backbone of this democracy, and we cannot turn it over to privateers.

Since my book appeared in early March, I have started out on what I thought would be a conventional book tour, but it really has turned into a whistle-stop campaign. I have been to 40 different cities and districts. I have another 40 planned starting in September. I talked to union members, to school board members, to administrators, to left-wing think tanks, to right-wing think tanks. I have met with high-level White House staff. I have met with about 40 members of Congress. I would say that I have met so far about 20,000 teachers, and after today I think I am going to increase it to 30,000.

And in all of this time, aside from the right-wing think tanks, I haven’t seen met a single teacher who likes what’s happening? I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that No Child Left Behind has been a success. I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that Race to the Top is a good idea.

Wherever I went, I met teachers who understood that there is a rising tide of hostility to teachers, to the teaching profession, and to teachers’ unions. You see it almost daily in the national media, in Newsweek magazine with its dreadful cover story about firing teachers, and Time magazine with awful columns, and in the New York Times and the Washington Post and all of the major media.

And as I talk to teachers, by the end of my talk, I hear the same questions again and again: What can we do? How can we stop the attacks on teachers and on the teaching profession? Why is the media demonizing unions? Why does the media constantly criticize public schools? And why does it lionize charter schools? Why is Arne Duncan campaigning with Newt Gingrich? Why has the Obama Administration built its education agenda on the punitive failed strategies of No Child Left Behind?

And teachers want to know, as you want to know, who will stand up for public schools and their teachers? At every appearance that I’ve made, teachers would come up to me afterward and they would say to me, “Stand up for us. Speak for us. Be our voice wherever you go.” And I promised that I would, and I have.

I promised to speak out against No Child Left Behind. It’s a disaster. It has turned our schools into testing factories. Its requirement that 100 percent of students will be proficient by the year 2014 is totally unrealistic. Any teacher could have told them that. Thousands and thousands of schools have been stigmatized as failing schools because they could not reach a goal that no state, no nation, and no district has ever reached. By setting an impossible goal, No Child Left Behind has delegitimized public education and created a rhetoric of failure and paved the way for privatization.

I will continue to speak out against high-stakes testing. It undermines education. High-stakes testing promotes cheating, gaming the system, teaching to bad tests, narrowing the curriculum. High-stakes testing means less time for the arts, less time for history or geography or civics or foreign languages or science.

We see schools across America dropping physical education. We see them dropping music. We see them dropping their arts programs, their science programs, all in pursuit of higher test scores. This is not good education.

I have been told by some people in the Obama Administration that the way to stop the narrowing of the curriculum is to test everything. In fact, the chancellor in Washington, D.C., the other day announced she plans to do exactly that. That means less time for instruction, more time for testing, and a worse education for everyone.

In speaking out, I have consistently warned about the riskiness of school choice. Its benefits are vastly overstated. It undercuts public education by enabling charter schools to skim the best students in poor communities. As our society pursues these policies, we will develop a bifurcated system, one for the haves, another for the have-nots, and politicians have the nerve to boast about such an outcome.

Public schools, as I said before, are a cornerstone of our democratic society. If we chip away at support for them, we erode communal responsibility for a vital public institution.

Teachers are rightly worried about the Race to the Top. I pledged to keep asking again and again why a Race to the Top replaced equal educational opportunity. Equal educational opportunity is the American way. The race will have a few winners and a lot of losers. That’s what a race means.

Race to the Top encourages states to increase the number of privately managed charters, to pass laws to evaluate teachers by test scores, to promote merit pay, and to agree to close or privatize schools with low scores or to fire all or part of their staff. All of this is wrong.

And thank you for passing a resolution expressing no confidence in Race to the Top. Why expand the number of charters when research shows that on average they don’t get better results than regular public schools? Last year, a major evaluation showed that one out of every six charters will get better results, five out of six charters will get no different results or worse results than the regular public schools. A report released just a couple of weeks ago by Mathematica Policy Research once again shows charter middle schools do not get better results than regular public middle schools.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, on whose board I served for seven years, has tested charter schools since 2003. In 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, charter schools were compared to regular public schools and have never shown an advantage over regular public schools. Charter schools, contrary to Bill Gates, are not more innovative than regular public schools. The business model and methods of charter schools is this — longer school days, longer hours, longer weeks, and about 95 percent of charter schools are non-union.

Teachers are hired and fired at will. Teachers work 50, 60, 70 hours a week. They are expected to burn out after two or three years when they can be replaced. No pension worries, no high salaries. This is not a template for American education.

If we pursue the path of privatization and deregulation, we better keep in mind what happened with the stock market in 2008. And to those who tout the benefits of vouchers and charters, I want you to point out this example to them, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee has had charters and vouchers now for almost 20 years. Twenty years with vouchers, almost 20 years with charters.

They have seen a steadily declining enrollment in the public schools, and meanwhile research now shows that African-American students in Milwaukee, the supposed beneficiary of all of this choice, have test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, test scores that are below those of their African-American peers in Mississippi and Louisiana.

There was no rising tide. Choice promoted no rising tide, and no boats were lifted. While all of this money was invested in choice, there were no benefits to the students.

The Race to the Top plan to use test scores to evaluate teachers is a very bad idea, badly implemented. Legislatures should not decide how to evaluate teachers.

SB6 was wrong in Florida. Thank you to the Florida Education Association and to all the parents and friends who stood with you who defeated that pernicious piece of legislation. And thanks to you for persuading Governor Charlie Crist to do the right thing by vetoing it. Now you have got to make sure that whoever is the next governor will veto it again if it dares to come back again.

191 is wrong in Colorado. Sorry to say that it was passed. It was signed into law, and the teachers may stand to be fired because the test scores didn’t go up consistently. And these are matters that are, in many cases, beyond their control. Teachers should be judged by professional standards and not by a political process. Research does not support evaluating teachers by test scores.

Students are not randomly assigned to classes. Teachers’ so-called effectiveness fluctuates depending on which students happen to be in a teacher’s class. The single most reliable predictor of test scores is poverty, and poverty, in turn, is correlated to student attendance, to family support, and to the school’s resources.

And perhaps we should begin demanding that school districts be held accountable for providing the resources that schools need. Just like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top requires and pressures districts to close low-performing schools. The overwhelming majority of low-performing schools enroll students in poverty and students who don’t speak English and students who are homeless and transient. Very often, these schools have heroic staffs who are working with society’s neediest children. These teachers deserve praise, not pink slips. Closing schools weakens communities. It’s not a good idea to weaken communities. No school was ever improved by closing it.

You know, a lot of teachers don’t pay attention to the national scene. They are busy teaching kids. They don’t pay attention to what’s happening in Washington. But when the Central Falls staff, the entire staff, was fired without a single teacher having an evaluation, the message went out that there is a new game of punishing teachers. And the message also went out when this was endorsed by Secretary Duncan and then reaffirmed by President Obama. This is not a good message.

We should thank our teachers, not fire them, not threaten them, and not close their schools.

Merit pay is another of the useless fads of our time. Merit pay has nothing to do with education. It destroys teamwork. It incentivizes teachers to compete with each other for money instead of collaborating for each other for the benefit of children.

Teachers need to share what they know and work towards one common goal — helping children and young people grow and develop. Merit pay will promote teaching to not very good tests. It may or may not improve scores, but it definitely will not improve education.

I have spoken out repeatedly to defend the right of teachers to join unions for their protection and the protection of the teaching profession. Teachers have a right to a collective voice in the political process. It’s the American way. I don’t see the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post or the pundits complaining about the charter school lobby. I don’t see them complaining about the investment bankers lobby, or any other group that speaks on behalf of its members. Only teachers’ unions are demonized these days.

Currently, there is a campaign underway to eliminate tenure and seniority. To remove job protections from senior teachers would destroy the profession. Supervisors will save money by firing the most expensive teachers. Imagine a hospital staffed by residents and interns with no doctors. Bad idea.

Instead of the current wave of so-called reforms, we should ask ourselves how to deliver on our belief that every student in this nation should learn not only basic skills, but should have a curriculum that includes the arts, history, geography, civics, foreign languages, mathematics, science, physical education, and health. But instead of this kind of rich curriculum, all they are getting is a heavy dose of high-stakes testing and endless test preparation. And as the stakes increase for teachers and schools, there will be more emphasis on test prep and not what children need.

Policymakers have been far too silent about the role of the family. Teachers know that education begins at home, and that when families take responsibility, students are likely to arrive in school ready to learn. We need, not a Race to the Top, but a commitment to provide greater resources for those children who are in the greatest need. Schools and school districts continue to vary dramatically in their access to resources. The role of the federal government in education is to level the playing field, not to set off a competition for money. Nor do we expect the federal government to tell states and districts how to reform themselves based on the Chicago experience.

Around the world, those nations that are successful recognize that the best way to improve school is to improve the education profession. We need expert teachers, not a steady influx of novices.

We need experienced principals who are themselves master teachers. We do not need a wave of newcomers who took a course called “How to be a principal.” We need superintendents who are wise and experienced educators, not lawyers and businessmen.

The current so-called reform movement is pushing bad ideas. No high-performing nation in the world is privatizing its schools, closing its schools, and inflicting high-stakes testing on every subject on its children. The current reform movement wants to end tenure and seniority, to weaken the teaching profession, to silence teachers’ unions, to privatize large sectors of public education. Don’t let it happen!

So here’s a thought for NEA. Print up four million bumper stickers that say, “I am a public schoolteacher, and I vote — and so does my family.”

Do not support any political figure who opposes public education. Stand up to the attacks on public education. Don’t give them half a loaf, because they will be back the next day for another slice, and the day after that for another slice.

Don’t compromise. Stand up for teachers. Stand up public education, and say “No mas, no mas." Thank you.

For an interesting interview with Diane Ravitch, see http://blog.ceaohio.org/wordpress/?p=997

An incredibly important speech on education by Diane Ravitch

That is a brief clip of Diane Ravitch addressing the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association on July 6, where she was receiving an award as the 2010 "Friend of Education."

Please keep reading.

The complete text of Diane's speech can be read here. She has given me permission to quote as much as I deem appropriate, including the whole speech if necessary.

I won't do that. You can follow the link to read the entire text if so inclined.

Let me offer some selections to at least whet your appetite, as well as offer a bit of commentary of my own.

... in all of this time, aside from the right-wing think tanks, I haven’t seen met a single teacher who likes what’s happening? I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that No Child Left Behind has been a success. I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that Race to the Top is a good idea.

I remind readers that the Representative Assembly passed a resolution of no confidence in Race to the Top.

And as I talk to teachers, by the end of my talk, I hear the same questions again and again: What can we do? How can we stop the attacks on teachers and on the teaching profession? Why is the media demonizing unions? Why does the media constantly criticize public schools? And why does it lionize charter schools? Why is Arne Duncan campaigning with Newt Gingrich? Why has the Obama Administration built its education agenda on the punitive failed strategies of No Child Left Behind?

Newt Gingrich - now there's a great ally for a supposedly progressive administration, eh? And during the campaign, Obama railed against NCLB, yet too much of the administration policy continues to rely on the failed policies of that approach.

I will continue to speak out against high-stakes testing. It undermines education. High-stakes testing promotes cheating, gaming the system, teaching to bad tests, narrowing the curriculum. High-stakes testing means less time for the arts, less time for history or geography or civics or foreign languages or science.

We see schools across America dropping physical education. We see them dropping music. We see them dropping their arts programs, their science programs, all in pursuit of higher test scores. This is not good education.

I have been told by some people in the Obama Administration that the way to stop the narrowing of the curriculum is to test everything. In fact, the chancellor in Washington, D.C., the other day announced she plans to do exactly that. That means less time for instruction, more time for testing, and a worse education for everyone.

Some of us have worried about this trend for years - I remember a group of elementary school art teachers asking their state for a test on art so their classes would not be eliminated. As it happens, my course is one in which there is a test that has high stakes - students in theory must not only pass a government course but also a state test in government in order to graduate from high school (although the latter requirement has some loopholes). Let me say that for too many students their course in government gets reduced, especially in the Spring as the test approaches, to drill and kill, practice for the test. For a subject that should excite them, because it has direct affect on their lives, they get bored and frustrated.

In speaking out, I have consistently warned about the riskiness of school choice. Its benefits are vastly overstated. It undercuts public education by enabling charter schools to skim the best students in poor communities. As our society pursues these policies, we will develop a bifurcated system, one for the haves, another for the have-nots, and politicians have the nerve to boast about such an outcome.

Public schools, as I said before, are a cornerstone of our democratic society. If we chip away at support for them, we erode communal responsibility for a vital public institution.

Bifurcated - even worse than what we have by geography, where wealthy communities have excellent public schools rich in resources and the students have access to all kinds of elective courses, and poor communities, whether in inner cities, inner rings of suburbs or the hinterlands, lacking equipment, with decaying buildings, and overwhelmed with students arriving st school with less background and current problems.

democratic society - if we really believe in it, economics would not be the sole basis on which we make arguments about our schools.

Last year, a major evaluation showed that one out of every six charters will get better results, five out of six charters will get no different results or worse results than the regular public schools. A report released just a couple of weeks ago by Mathematica Policy Research once again shows charter middle schools do not get better results than regular public middle schools.

Unfortunately, the general media coverage of the Mathematica report was badly flawed, focused on the schools that did 'better' while not including any of the caveats about even these schools. Charters COULD be used to offer alternative ways of teaching/learning to specific groups of students. Diane's next two paragraphs are very important:

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, on whose board I served for seven years, has tested charter schools since 2003. In 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, charter schools were compared to regular public schools and have never shown an advantage over regular public schools. Charter schools, contrary to Bill Gates, are not more innovative than regular public schools. The business model and methods of charter schools is this — longer school days, longer hours, longer weeks, and about 95 percent of charter schools are non-union.

Teachers are hired and fired at will. Teachers work 50, 60, 70 hours a week. They are expected to burn out after two or three years when they can be replaced. No pension worries, no high salaries. This is not a template for American education.

NAEP is the national report card on education. It is considered the gold standard of educational evaluation. It does not show that charters do better. One reason why some "reformers" like charters is that in many states they are a way around unions, and their teachers can be fired at will.


Let me skip down a bit:

And perhaps we should begin demanding that school districts be held accountable for providing the resources that schools need. Just like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top requires and pressures districts to close low-performing schools. The overwhelming majority of low-performing schools enroll students in poverty and students who don’t speak English and students who are homeless and transient. Very often, these schools have heroic staffs who are working with society’s neediest children. These teachers deserve praise, not pink slips. Closing schools weakens communities. It’s not a good idea to weaken communities. No school was ever improved by closing it.

Reread that please. Yes, you will read stories that supposedly focus on "high-performing" schools dealing with such students. In some cases the claims for high performance are based on selective use of data. In most cases the schools on which such focus is made get more resources (as do many charters), have longer days, etc. The "success" is claimed on the basis of test scores. What is not yet offered is any evidence that there are long-term gains in learning: that the students are developing skills and knowledge that they can apply outside of the test environment. Meanwhile we reconstitute schools. We use one of the four models approved by this administration, even though NONE has any research to demonstrate that they improve education.

There are passages about the right to unionize, which Diane supports, but which "reformers" oppose. Read this paragraph, and perhaps you will understand two things, (1) why teachers are reacting so positively towards Diane; and (2) why we feel unfairly besieged, that the playing field is tilted:

I have spoken out repeatedly to defend the right of teachers to join unions for their protection and the protection of the teaching profession. Teachers have a right to a collective voice in the political process. It’s the American way. I don’t see the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post or the pundits complaining about the charter school lobby. I don’t see them complaining about the investment bankers lobby, or any other group that speaks on behalf of its members. Only teachers’ unions are demonized these days.

Teachers, and those who support them, ARE being demonized. By constrast, Hedge Fund managers (who are making major investments in things like charter schools for tax benefits) and Wall Street Firms (who came close to destroying the economy of this nation and the international community) get bailed out with our tax dollars, continue to pay bonuses, and spend millions to prevent appropriate oversight and regulation. Then they want to have a voice telling us how we should teach, how our schools should be run.

There is so much of value in the speech. By now I hope I have at least convinced you to take the time to read the entire thing.

Let me offer only a few more snippets, skipping over some very important material:

Around the world, those nations that are successful recognize that the best way to improve school is to improve the education profession. We need expert teachers, not a steady influx of novices.

One argument against Teach for America, for example. Now if those in that program actually stayed in teaching, people like Ravitch and me would have far fewer objections. The constant turnover in the schools in which they serve is unfair to those kids. The program benefits many in the TFA corps, and it certainly benefits TFA. It is not clear that the students are getting all that much benefit, and the model is not something that can really address the needs of the millions of students in inner city and rural schools.

The current so-called reform movement is pushing bad ideas. No high-performing nation in the world is privatizing its schools, closing its schools, and inflicting high-stakes testing on every subject on its children. The current reform movement wants to end tenure and seniority, to weaken the teaching profession, to silence teachers’ unions, to privatize large sectors of public education. Don’t let it happen.

The consequences of letting these "reforms" go forward unchallenged will be great damages far beyond the arena of public education. It will be further destruction of what is left of the union movement in this country. It will be increased privatization of what is left of the commons in this country/ It will be a narrowing of opportunity for too many of our young people. It will diminish us as a people as our young people receive narrower and narrower educations.

Diane urges those listening to her to be politically active, to remind people that there are millions of teachers, we vote, and so do our families, to not support anyone who is an opponent of public education.

Stand up to the attacks on public education. Don’t give them half a loaf, because they will be back the next day for another slice, and the day after that for another slice.

Don’t compromise. Stand up for teachers. Stand up public education, and say “No mas, no mas." Thank you.

Diane Ravitch received a rousing ovation for this speech. As a teacher, as a UNIONIZED teacher in a public school, I understand why.

I thought it important that as many people as possible encounter HER words, not just cursory news accounts. I think it important that voices that speak for teachers and for public schools be given as much of an audience as those who have described themselves as 'reformers' and seek to suppress or denigrate any opposing point of view.

That is why I asked Diane, a friend, if I could quote extensively. That is why Diane told me "You are free to cite or quote whatever you wish."

Thanks for reading.

Please pass on the link for her speech.

Peace.