A post of comments

I thought this exchange in the comment section of my last post warranted a full post, because "anonymous" presents a very valid and common critique, and one I wanted to make sure my position on was clear. Plus I liked my response :)

-Elliot

Comments: All right, lots to respond to in that short comment!

First off, I'm not sure what a "lefty" perspective is -- if a "lefty" perspective is not simply assuming the underlying paradigms of education are necessarily sound, yes. If a "lefty" perspective is working toward an educational system which produces thoughtful individuals -- ones which have high-level critical thinking skills, skills which have been shown by every study (left and right) to reduce poverty, drugs, crime and unemployment -- yes. If a "lefty" perspective is offering a solution to an educational system which has dropped the U.S. into the bottom one-third of industrialized nations, yes.

What we're proposing isn't shockingly new, either. In fact, there are many isolated school districts and schools (public, private and charter) which engage in education much in the way we envision. Almost without fail, these case studies perform better on every imaginable metric than "traditional" schools. If you want an example close to my home, check out Arlington County's H-B Woodlawn program.

Now, to your specific critique on the utility of testing: I agree. The public demands it right now, and we're NOT proposing doing away with it. This is why I opened my post on evaluations by saying "Pragmatically, schools need some system of evaluation...we live in a world of supply and demand, and colleges and employers only have so many slots to fill and need some way to discriminate among applicants. Moreover, it would be nice to have an occasional method of check progress in elementary, middle and high schools, if for no other reason than to prove that our proposed paradigm works."

But my point is this: What is the ultimate goal of testing? If it's just to determine aptitude or, as a friend of mine suggested, determine how much has been learnED among a set of students, it does a mind-bogglingly poor job of it. Talk to any teacher and she or he can tell you about tests which indicate nothing except how well that student is guessing on a given day or how well they're regurgitating what's been drilled into their head (If you've been following along, refer to my "geographical glossary" story).

Yes, outcomes do matter. I'm not saying they don't, I'm not saying they shouldn't, and I'm not saying our proposed reforms won't have them. Even soccer leagues have ways of breaking ties come the playoffs. But when we give SUCH extreme prejudice to outcome over process, the process aspect gets lost in the shuffle. It constantly reinforces the paradigm of learning what to think instead of how to think, because as tests are currently designed, knowing how to think is less of an advantage than the rote knowledge.

"People fail, and that's the point," is only an appropriate sentiment IF the evaluation is fair. If person A is a better critical thinker than person B, but person B has memorized more than person A, it's entirely possible person B does better on the SOL (and recieves all the benefits that goes along with that). The utility of testing is predicated on -- should be, at least -- tests which truly evaluate. It's very hard to argue our current testing regime does that.

Thanks for the comment! We really do encourage dissent -- we want to be forced to refine our ideas, defend them.

- posted by Elliot H. @ 1:42 PM