Drape's Takes

I think there have been times when those in power haven't fully understood the long-term effects of policy decisions once made in the name of hopeful progress. Not usually prone to blaming individuals for such lapses in logic, I might even naively believe that decisions like NCLB were originally made with good intentions.

Nonetheless, the following three related precepts illustrate precisely why NCLB has been less than successful, and why high-pressure efforts to measure student, teacher, and school efforts will often result in less-than-desirable and even unintended consequences.

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle:

In quantum mechanics, certain pairs of physical properties, such as position and momentum, cannot be simultaneously known to arbitrarily high precision.

In other words, the more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely others can be measured (see Heisenberg, 1927).

Goodhart's Law:

Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes. (Chrystal and Mizen, 2001, p. 4)

Campbell's Law:

The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

Campbell elaborates by stating:

Achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways. (Campbell, 1976, p. 56-57)

Pep rallies, held (among other reasons) for the purpose of gearing students up for coming tests, might be seen as an unintended and clearly less-than-desirable consequence of the do-or-die pressure put on schools to meet the demands put on them by others.


While these rallies are not new, Will Richardson and others have recently voiced their concerns about the seemingly (likely?) inappropriate efforts made by some in public schools to help their students to pass "the test." I responded to Will's Pep Rally post by wondering aloud:

So Will, what would you recommend that those in the trenches of Public Ed do?

Can you really blame them for giving their all in helping their students to pass the test(s!)? These schools behave as if their very lives depend upon how well their students perform relative to others because - without a doubt - they absolutely do. From charters to vouchers to let’s-all-stay-at-home school, the competition for dollars has never been so fierce.

Nevertheless, perhaps this post wasn’t written to those whose financial backing depends on governmental approval. Perhaps you were writing to the millions of voices out there who don’t read your blog, or maybe even to those voters who once thought they had a chance to actually make a difference.

From a 30,000-foot view, Will, I do believe you’re right! School should be about learning, it should be individualized, and should always feel more HUMAN. But as one on the ground, who’s not yet given up the fight, I’ll applaud those schools for trying to help their kids “succeed” and survive, in order to live yet another day.

Yes, what would you have us do?

I can't wait to read Will's response!

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Hat tip to Chris Lehmann for nudging me toward Campbell's Law, and to John Pederson for nudging me again.

I've been thinking about Stephen and D'Arcy's comments lately, and the feelings they've shared about the importance of their personally-created online spaces.

I can’t let myself play egocentric mind games with numbers. I can’t delude myself into believing this space is Important, or cringe popular because those things aren’t real, and don’t matter.

From my point of view, the online spaces we create are extremely important, regardless of any numbers that might work toward quantifying that importance. As a vehicle that enables my presence within the conversations that take place online, my blog, Twitter account, and other online creations not only serve as a locker for my thoughts, but function as a digitally-preserved representation of my inner self.  Parker J. Palmer insightfully observed that "'We teach who we are', in times of darkness as well as light" (2007, p. xi). Similarly, the teaching we do while sharing online ultimately broadcasts who we are as people: infinitely important individuals who some eventually come to know because of those spaces we've crafted online.


In the end, nevertheless, the quantification of our importance really is meaningless, much less insulting when attempted via Google Analytics. Are we, as humans, really so insecure in our relative performance to one another that we must incessantly measure and compare? To what end? While "progress," perhaps, is gained through adjustments informed by research, the liberating reality of life is that success in teaching and learning comes not in passing the test, but rather in grooming the soul.  Through such grooming come college preparedness, readiness for life, and learning that sticks.

I'm grateful to see that others in this world continue to "attach no more importance to measurable things than we attach to things equally or more important that elude our instruments" (Palmer, 2007, p. xiii). Now, if only more that share this line of thinking would continue to step forward and formally lead our schools.

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Reference:

Palmer, P. J. (2007). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

I got an interesting piece of literature in the mail the other day from my daughter's school. Apparently, they didn't make AYP last year in the area of Language Arts. Consequently, they were kind enough to explain the situation for me.

Of the forty assessments measured by NCLB, [your friendly neighborhood] Junior High made AYP in 39 of the areas. As you can see, one sub-group at [your friendly neighborhood] Junior did not make AYP in the area of Language Arts. Our plan to deal with this issue is two-fold: 1) We will conduct a thorough review of the state core curriculum in Language Arts to insure that major core objectives are being adequately addressed in the classroom, and 2) we will begin implementing practice tests to allow students the opportunity to see the testing format and to gauge their performance throughout the year.

As one familiar with this kind of edu-speak, I thought I'd provide a translation for those of you keeping score at home.

Translation:

Because of NCLB, the federal government makes us test your kid to the max. Unfortunately, we screwed up and didn't get enough kids to take the Language Arts sub-test. Don't worry, we plan on doing better next year so that 1) you can feel confident that your kid is going to a good school and 2) we can still get that money from the federal government. Experience has shown that the best way to deal with this kind of problem is 1) to admit that we really don't know what is going to be on the test and 2) inform you that one of the critical skills we will be teaching your kid is to fill in the bubble.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Image Source: Flickr user COCOEN daily photos

Technorati Tags: nclb ayp bubble ilovetakingtests

As one of the converted, I like this. Really, I do.

Nonetheless, in viewing this video at this stage in my career, I'm left with a number of questions that likely only indicate that I'm getting tired. For example:

• In spending so much time to create (shallow?) connections with such a wide range of educators on a global level, isn't it possible that one might also neglect local relationships that are equally (if not more) important?
• What can we do to consistently maintain a healthy perspective?
  

Shifting gears to a higher plane:

• Do we really think that all teachers need to be this connected?
• Can every teacher (human being) handle all of the information? Are they "bad teachers" if they can't?
• And what about those teachers that take 25 minutes just to create a Gmail account (PEBKAC)? Will it really be worth my time - and theirs - to help them enter the 21st Century? Or are the benefits of such efforts simply not worth the costs?
  

I guess what I'm really wondering is this:

• Is it ever OK to simply leave some teachers behind?

I told you I was getting tired.

Technorati Tags: nclb teachers learning 21stCenturySkills