Education - high stakes testing
Originally posted by Pat Buoncristiani
As an educator I am deeply disturbed by the grip that high stakes testing has taken on American schools. I watched the breadth and depth of curriculum and learning shrink as the focus was more and more relentlessly on the raising of test scores. This was particularly true in so called low achieving, low socio-economic schools. I am presently in Australia and fear a similar trend is developing here. Learning how to think takes time. How do we protect thinking time and creativity in our schools when our teachers are anxious and fearful about the next round of test scores? We work with schools introducing and implementing Habits of Mind and I am conscious that the schools that seek our help are typically schools with middle class populations, where parent involvement is acceptable, where there are books at home and time for conversation. How do we ensure that the teaching of thinking is central in the schools where most of the kids come from single parent families, where the breadwinner holds down two (and sometimes three) different jobs, where there are few or no books and where fatigue makes conversation a chore rather than a pleasure. These schools struggle with test scores and the pressures on teachers are huge. Communities of generational poverty will perpetuate if we cannot break the cycle and help them become thought filled, creative communities.
As an educator I am deeply disturbed by the grip that high stakes testing has taken on American schools. I watched the breadth and depth of curriculum and learning shrink as the focus was more and more relentlessly on the raising of test scores. This was particularly true in so called low achieving, low socio-economic schools. I am presently in Australia and fear a similar trend is developing here. Learning how to think takes time. How do we protect thinking time and creativity in our schools when our teachers are anxious and fearful about the next round of test scores? We work with schools introducing and implementing Habits of Mind and I am conscious that the schools that seek our help are typically schools with middle class populations, where parent involvement is acceptable, where there are books at home and time for conversation. How do we ensure that the teaching of thinking is central in the schools where most of the kids come from single parent families, where the breadwinner holds down two (and sometimes three) different jobs, where there are few or no books and where fatigue makes conversation a chore rather than a pleasure. These schools struggle with test scores and the pressures on teachers are huge. Communities of generational poverty will perpetuate if we cannot break the cycle and help them become thought filled, creative communities.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sean Kirwan on -
Hi Pat,
This is an excellent point. This kind of pressure that this placed on young school kids, not just in the states, but in many countries leaves school leavers coming up short when they enter "the real world".
I recently spoke with a high level banking official (not the most popular people right now) in Ireland. He commented that they strayed away from graduates who achieve to marks. The thinking behind this was that the over the years this particular bank found these top achievers often had difficulty working with people in everyday situations. Instead the bank favoured applicants the next results bracket down (merit opposed to distinction) because of the likelihood that they would be more rounded and capable.
In my own experience I can see how this approach has some merit. During my college years I often studied alongside people with lots of RAM. These students could comfortably absorb large amounts of information over a short period of time and regurgitate it during exam time. This information was then quickly forgotten. To quote Homer Simpson “every time I learn something new it pushes something old out of my brain”.
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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on -
There is a lot in this one post, so I want to simply address the point of testing. While I acknowledge that testing tends to focus effort on the things that are easy to measure and leave the rest to languish, there is the problem that if you just leave it to the teachers to decide what the standards should be, some teachers will try to push themselves and their students - and some won't.
I guess my response is to ask some questions: Why can't everything be tested? What is an example of a useful skill that can't be demonstrated via a suitably contrived test? Why can't students' work be monitored throughout the year and spot-tested to stop cramming?
I wonder whether the argument of "some things are difficult to test" actually masks the real problem. The tests I have seen for primary school students (you buy two lollies at 20c each and pay $1, what change should you receive?) seem very sensible. No-one would argue that a child should not know this.
On the other hand, once you step outside of basic reading and writing, adults cannot agree on what is important and what the answers are. If a child writes an essay lauding John Howard's Prime Ministership then depending on the teacher he may get a top grade or may be thrown out of the school.
To solve this problem perhaps parents should pick their childrens' subjects like picking items off a restaurant menu. A particular parent may choose for their child:
- Reading/writing/'rithmetic
- World history from a Stalinist perspective.
- Australian history from a metalworker's perspective.
- Sex education featuring stories of happy couples.
- Home maintenance.
Look I know this would be tough on the teacher but maybe we need to rethink the role of teachers.
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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on
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Pat may be deeply disturbed that democratically elected governments from both sides of politics disagree with her on the importance of testing.
For myself, I am deeply disturbed that she wrote this piece and then nicked off.
So the Australian government have decided to test every child to see whether they can do basic arithmetic etc. What is the response from the teaching profession? Hysteria. What is Pat's response? Echoing the hysteria.
Participating in a vigorous attack on the first modest proposal for change helps ensure that the enthusiasm of prospective reformers is nipped in the bud.
The de Bono Society offers an ideal forum for exploring improvements to education without pandering to partisan interests, but the uptake from mainstream educators has not been evident.
Why are mainstream educators disinclined to participate in reform? Perhaps they see the education system like a temperamental cow: best kept stable so that it can be more easily milked.
Or maybe it's like travelling in a boat - rock it with reform and some of the passengers will start falling out.
Really, we should start expecting more from ourselves and from others.
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Permalink Reply by Pat Buoncristiani on
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No Phil. I haven't 'nicked off'. Nor do I echo any 'hysteria' you may have sensed in the reactions of Australian teachers to any proposals to test basic skills in mathematics or literacy. Nowhere in my contribution have I argued against testing. What I have done is warn about the unintended but dire consequences of making high stakes testing the central focus of an education system. I wrote of my own experiences as the principal of schools in both Australia in the late 1990s and the USA from 2000 - 2005. In my low income, largely black US school I watched with growing distress as the curriculum narrowed, teachers were made into the implementers of other people's lesson planning in an attempt to make it all teacher proof. Stress among teachers and more importantly among young students rose. Every minute of the day was filled with what was described as 'laser sharp instruction' directed solely at improving test scores. Data was analysed and analysed again in the apparent belief that it held all the answers to underachievement. If it wasn't measured it was no longer important. There simply was no time in a mandated pacing guide to teach children how to think, to be creative or to allow them to play - my 4 to 12 year olds were permitted 15 minutes recess per day! It didn't have to be like this.
When I read that Julia Gillard was taking her lead from Joel Klein and the New York City schools' experiences my blood ran cold. I have had a feature article published in The Age, in the quarterly magazine Dissent and have communicated my fears directly with Julia Gillard's office. No, I haven't 'nicked off'. Hopefully the debate goes on.
In the meantime I am heartened by what I have heard and read from Kenneth Robinson (TED and his book The Element). I am not against testing. It is essential that we measure our achievements, have relatively objective standards and maintain a focus on high achievement. But please, let us not have as our model a regime that takes the ills I experienced as a result of high stakes testing and magnifies them in the mistaken view that the most important thing our schools can do is produce good test takers. I am assured by Gillard's office that the klein/Bloomfeild NYC model is not the only model being examined. I am also assured that no overseas model will be copied, that Australia will research and implement its own accountability system.
"It is important to remember that there is no intention to adopt one particular model from another country. Australia has the opportunity to develop its own system of accountability for schools and not uncritically adopt practices used in other countries" Reporting and Accountability Branch letter to me on June 30th, 2009
You ask, Phil, why we can't test everything. We could, but every test takes time from teaching. We tested four curriculum areas every nine weeks in grades 3, 4 and 5. We were required to spend a week in test prep before each testing session. We lost so much valuable teaching time. When I have my annual physical my doctor doesn't test every body system I have. He talks to me, looks at me, listens to me, evaluates some basic but important data that gives him a sense of my overall well being. Then I trust him and his professional expertise to recognise if and where we need to do some deeper testing. Let's trust teachers and their professional expertise. Sir Ken Robinson argues that there are three basic components to our systems of education - curriculum, assessment and teaching. He argues that every education system in the world is undergoing a period of reform (when has this not been the case?) but that almost without exception the focus tends to be on the content of curriculum and the nature of assessment. If, instead, the focus was on the quality of teaching perhaps we would be more ready to allow teachers to get on with their jobs, trusting in their professional expertise and then testing the fundamental systems that the measure the overall health of education. Testing would become the means it ought to be and not the end it has become in too many places.
I don't know how you can design an easily administered, cost effective standardised test that measures the capacity for creative, innovative thought. I DO know that that will be one of the most important capacities for the future and something our schools need to engender if our children are to make a success of the world 20 years from now.
Phil Bachmann said:Pat may be deeply disturbed that democratically elected governments from both sides of politics disagree with her on the importance of testing.
For myself, I am deeply disturbed that she wrote this piece and then nicked off. So the Australian government have decided to test every child to see whether they can do basic arithmetic etc. What is the response from the teaching profession? Hysteria. What is Pat's response? Echoing the hysteria.
Participating in a vigorous attack on the first modest proposal for change helps ensure that the enthusiasm of prospective reformers is nipped in the bud.
The de Bono Society offers an ideal forum for exploring improvements to education without pandering to partisan interests, but the uptake from mainstream educators has not been evident.
Why are mainstream educators disinclined to participate in reform? Perhaps they see the education system like a temperamental cow: best kept stable so that it can be more easily milked.
Or maybe it's like travelling in a boat - rock it with reform and some of the passengers will start falling out.
Really, we should start expecting more from ourselves and from others.
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Agreed. Although I suspect we can teach much about creative thinking by using the curriculum content we already have. Any thinking requires something to be thought about ... the curriculum content can do very nicely much of the time. And so, again, it comes down to the ability of the teacher to infuse thinking into the curriculum without assuming it must mean bringing it in as an extra and at the expense of something else. Teachers can and do teach the history of Europe as a set of dates and events. Creative teachers teach thinking in a focused manner, perhaps using the CoRT tools, but also using the history of Europe as the content of thought. Research tells us that the best way to teach thinking is within the context of a curriculum where students can see the extent to which the thinking serves their learning needs.
Kim Jones said:Brava, Pat
for the salvo across Gillard's bow for her unimaginative and unashamedly business-model-driven championing of the Klein NYC Schools experience
Nevertheless, you go on to say:
I don't know how you can design an easily administered, cost effective standardised test that measures the capacity for creative, innovative thought. I DO know that that will be one of the most important capacities for the future and something our schools need to engender if our children are to make a success of the world 20 years from now.
Yes, that indeed is the point that brings many of us together here. But - you have to teach creative thinking in schools before you can test it. Testing creative thinking or the capacity for creative thinking sounds a bit like the last thing that we need because then it would become academicised like everything else and that kills creativity stone dead. Most of what could be tested about creativity relates to its output anyway, and that is usually unavailable for appreciation before it exists. The skill must be taught; that in itself takes us right to the top of the mountain instantly, Pat. To get "Parallel Thinking" taught as a skill you may well have to throw out something else from the curriculum. So be it in my humble view. So - that is where the effort for reform needs to go as never before.
Meanwhile, the "easily administered, cost effective standardised test that measures the capacity for creative, innovative thought" has been around since the 70s. It's called CoRT and information about it is available on this website.
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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on
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Thanks for the reply Pat,
You seem to be under the impression that this conversation is about education and testing and so forth. It is not.
Let me explain:
In society people will naturally form groups of individuals with common interests. These groups may become powerful and dominate other groups. This situation is very dangerous because the more powerful groups can exploit the rest of society, repeatedly returning for an ever increasing share of the pie. Not only may they take resources from other groups, but also block important improvements that do not suit them.
To fix this problem we have governments: some elected, some not: It doesn't matter - they all have the same fundamental duty to preside over the nation and ensure that it does not become hijacked by special interests.
Some people think that they have a duty to complain about the government in the same way that a baby needs to tell everyone it's hungry. I don't agree.
When a judge sits in a courtroom he is treated with respectful language and actions, even by people who disagree with what he is saying. This is done because we want court cases to reflect civility and due process, not the will of an angry mob.
Just as we allow a frail old judge to preside over a court, a government minister should not be endlessly jeered by teachers, "Hey there's plenty of us and only one of you and what would you know you've never been a school teacher anyway.... etc."
I've written a poem which might illustrate this point further:
When people find their needs align
They tend to mutually opine
And line up like so many swine
To eat up all the food.
When time to move to different pen
They poo on shoes of master's men
And it never does occur to them
That they could be less rude.
Pat, if you are not merely echoing many other educators complaints about changes to the system:
1. Please explain what a succession of federal government education ministers have been trying to do in the field of greater teacher accountability - and do so respectful of the ministers' position and assume their good intentions.
2. Forget you ever made the statement, "I don't know how you can design an ..." and start designing improvements to the education system that address the requirements you've articulated in step one.
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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on
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Rees,
Re:
po Children design their own education
This is a reasonable provocation, and would undoubtably lead to interesting and valuable ideas.
When I started to formulate a response to Pat, I started with a concept fan and that also produced many useful ideas.
But what is the use of producing ideas when they are just going to be attacked or ignored?
Pat makes a big deal about the fact that she is attacking the idea of "high stakes testing" not "publication of standardised testing", but that does not change the fact that when the Education Minister proposes changes she is met by a barrage of outrage from the profession - no praise, no suggestions, no awareness of their own conflict of interest.
This disease is everywhere. Health care is going to require huge changes with the retirement of the baby boomers. A couple of years ago the Australian government said if you've got the flu and want a certificate to take to your boss, you can see a pharmacist if you don't want to wait in a doctor's surgery.
These changes were attacked by the doctors and ignored by the pharmacists.
Hopeless.
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Hey Phil- I don't think I 'attacked' anybody. In my initial post I simply described the situation in the USA as I saw it, from my own direct experience. I tried to explain that fear, of any kind, tends to diminish the ability to think creatively and with clarity. It was Julia Gillard's contact with Joel Klein that worried me, not Julia Gillard's plans. In fact I clearly stated that I was reassured by the letter I received from her department. I also reject the idea that all the proposed reforms have been met with hostility - vigorous discussion and testing of ideas, yes, but not hostility. Implicit in everything I have said is the suggestion that we need to look beyond standardised tests, we need to teach thinking in a focused manner (as, indeed, the Victorian VELS explicitly require).
Your comment that governments have a "fundamental duty to preside over the nation and ensure that it does not become hijacked by special interests" is laudable. Unfortunately I live for six months in the USA - a country where special interest groups have hijacked the health system, financial systems, insurance, farming, media etc etc etc. Look at the power of Billiton and Rio Tinto, the resistance to work place reform in Australia. Interests conflict, the government is tugged this way and that by powerful special interest groups. It is up to the governed to do, as Don Chipp said so succinctly "Keep the bastards honest". We do that, surely, by challenging, questioning, demanding. I believe we have a duty to do this. I'm not "pooing on my masters' shoes" as you put it. I'm simply expecting them to listen, to explain why their shoes are pointing the way they are and why they expect me to follow when they start to walk.
You also said the following: "You seem to be under the impression that this conversation is about education and testing and so forth. It is not." Actually, I did begin the thread and hence the conversation, and yes, I was concerned about testing and education. I was concerned because we need to guard against the loss of time to teach thinking.
You have asked me to do two things:
"1. Please explain what a succession of federal government education ministers have been trying to do in the field of greater teacher accountability - and do so respectful of the ministers' position and assume their good intentions.
2. Forget you ever made the statement, "I don't know how you can design an ..." and start designing improvements to the education system that address the requirements you've articulated in step one."
When I was a principal in Victoria in the 1990s the government attempted to bring in a form of testing that would resemble what I have seen to be so destructive in the USA. It involved 'league tables' and invidious and unfair comparisons. Parents simply kept their children at home on the day of testing and invalidated the data. The tests continued, but for a different purpose. These tests (the LAP tests) became a part of a much broader canvas of assessments that were both teacher/classroom based and externally evaluated. Step by step Australian governments have evolved assessment methods that are, in my opinion, vastly superior to the one shot assessments that have become characteristic of the USA - and especially Joel Klein's NYC. This evolution has taken place because people have spoken out!
The question that began with "I don't know how you can design an ..." was purely rhetorical. I do what I can by writing and working with schools and teachers in Australia and the USA to keep the teaching of thinking front and centre in our schools. It's a tough call in the USA. Much easier in Australia.
Phil Bachmann said:Rees,
Re:
po Children design their own education
This is a reasonable provocation, and would undoubtably lead to interesting and valuable ideas.
When I started to formulate a response to Pat, I started with a concept fan and that also produced many useful ideas.
But what is the use of producing ideas when they are just going to be attacked or ignored?
Pat makes a big deal about the fact that she is attacking the idea of "high stakes testing" not "publication of standardised testing", but that does not change the fact that when the Education Minister proposes changes she is met by a barrage of outrage from the profession - no praise, no suggestions, no awareness of their own conflict of interest.
This disease is everywhere. Health care is going to require huge changes with the retirement of the baby boomers. A couple of years ago the Australian government said if you've got the flu and want a certificate to take to your boss, you can see a pharmacist if you don't want to wait in a doctor's surgery.
These changes were attacked by the doctors and ignored by the pharmacists.
Hopeless.
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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on
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OK. So ... where do we agree?
Phil Bachmann said:
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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on
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Pat,
Where do we agree? For starters I propose:
- That it is particularly important to help students from low-achieving schools.
- That the breadth and depth of your (Pat's) teaching experience provides you with insights and information that few others have.
- That testing emphasises subjects that are tested over things that are not tested.
- That thinking should be taught in schools.
- That testing should occur.
- That quality of teaching is at least as important as the curriculum content.
- Governments should resist the temptation to buckle to special interest groups but sometimes they do.
- That the Victorian Essential Learning Standards requires teaching of thinking (not necessarily de Bono), and we should be grateful for this.
- That people should not always blindly do what the government tells them to do.
- That 'league tables' comparing schools may hide important facts that are difficult to represent numerically.
I guess you could review what I have written in previous posts and should you find something you agree with, add it to this list.
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Permalink Reply by Phil Bachmann on
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Rees,
Thanks for the boost. Yes I really like de Bono's Logic Bubble concept. "Future Positive" has always been one of my favourite books.
Finding changes to a system which will not cause someone some loss is very difficult.
I agree that lateral thinking is ebne and OPV is required.
All in all, Rees, well said.
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