The Defining Issue of Our Time

I was at Minnesota's Education Conference last week. Wow! Amazingly good stuff--differentiated instruction, positive behavior strategies, cognitive coaching, boys and reading, team-teaching, the latest technology--nothing but thought provoking, stimulating, creative, research-based ideas for improving teaching.

It was instructional nirvana. One problem though: as is clearer with each passing year, in many cases, there's not time, nor resources, nor energy to bring innovative ideas and practice to the classroom. There is only one thing that really matters in education right now: scores on standardized tests.

I'm not trying to be flip, or anecdotal, or bitter, or even political. I just need to name the elephant in our classroom because without saying that there is an enormous impediment to creative, dynamic, effective instruction, we, as teachers, will slowly have our passion, our energy and our connection to education drained from us.

It really has gotten completely out of control. With another 11 million tests in science being added next year, the total hovers somewhere around 50 million annually across the nation. That's two zillion ovals to fill in for those of you keeping track. That does not include practice tests of course, which are easily more numerous than the real thing.

Jonathon Kozol spoke on Friday to a packed ballroom of thousands. Afterward, there was a lengthy Q and A. Teacher after teacher, some with voices quaking and tears rolling asked him, implored him, beseeched him with questions about what they were supposed to do around all the standardized testing. Open resistance? Quiet despair? Civil disobedience?

Kozol hemmed and hawed. Well, don't get the principal fired, especially if they're decent. Well, don't get yourself fired--how can you help things from the sidelines? Well, don't get your school in trouble--it wouldn't do if the whole staff were let go.

While there was not, and probably is not, a clear answer to that question, there is and there must be a clear strategy from the one organization designed, equipped and resourced to assist teachers when they are being asked to do things that keep them from fully realizing their professional responsibility to educate children.

It is high time that our union dues go toward creating a systematic, organized, reality-based campaign to tell the truth about standardized testing.

You see, it is no longer just about No Child Left Behind and how punitive and counter-productive are its fundamental policies. As professionals, it has now come down to a much more basic equation: we cannot provide the kind of curriculum and pedagogy our children need to grow as learners while we have an enormous testing animal blocking anything else from happening.

It really is that simple.

It has to be said, and it has to be confronted, and the public has to know.

There is no research behind standardized testing that says it improves learning, achievement or instruction. There is no transparency and so we do not even know what are on these things. But, we do know that the vast majority of standardized tests are low quality measures, easily gamed or easily blown off. We also know they in no way represent adequate preparation for the world our children will move into. And, we also know that despite being unreliable and of low validity, the tests themselves have become the one and only thing that determine how schools are viewed, judged and funded.

This is a lousy educational strategy designed and implemented by people with no experience, understanding or training in education.

Most importantly: it is not working.

There's more, of course. The narrowing of curriculum. The damage to brain development. The dumbing down of learning and the public's understanding of what education is.

Across the board, there is nothing good that will come from adopting an education strategy that uses standardized testing as its core principal.

That's the truth. It's not about politics. It's not about "accountability". It's not about closing the "achievement gap." None of those things matter as long as teachers can no longer create innovative curriculum, work with kids where they are at and bring new pedagogy and ideas to our classrooms.

We know more today than ever about how to teach effectively. We've got more tools and technology, more resources and the best trained professional staff in the history of public education. There are some notable deficits, mainly in organizational structures, leadership and of course, the considerable challenges of urban districts.

But in the main, more than ever before, we have the knowledge, tools and ability to educate our kids to their full potential, and so, as professionals, we need to stand and deliver a single clear, compelling message to the public:

If you want quality instruction, world class curriculum and innovative pedagogy, we can give that to you. But, if all you want are test numbers, the only thing we can do is warn you that our learners will not realize their full potential, our best teachers will not stay on the job, schools will become dull, boring and vapid test-prep factories and our entire public education system will be ruined.

Any questions?