During my K-8 school years, there were three distinct classes in which students were grouped. I referred to these in an earlier blog titled, Reading Unleashed, so they may sound familiar to my regular readers. Cardinals, Blue Jays, and Robins, each represented a level of perceived intelligence. Although the titles were gone by sixth grade, everyone still was keenly aware of their assigned bird category.

From my particular class, several students got to take special field trips on a bus that would pick them up one day a week and take them to a destination unknown to the rest of us who were left behind. When we asked about this special trip, we were told that the selected students were “gifted” and therefore needed something different from the rest of us. It was difficult watching these classmates leave and even more disheartening hearing their incredibly awesome stories about what they had done all day when they returned.

We observed a tight bond forming among these student that did not include the rest of us who stayed behind. Perhaps unintentionally, but nonetheless uncomfortable, it created the haves and have-nots scenario that followed us through eighth grade and beyond. I wondered why all of us couldn’t have the same opportunity and then maybe we would become “gifted” as well.

I also wondered about the “special” class in our school that might never get to take that kind of field trip. I was curious how it was determined that some of us were special, some were gifted others were average or below average. Was it based on our grades, a test we took, who our parents were?  At one point I even asked why all the kids in all the classes couldn’t take a special field trip like the gifted students did. This was met with a reprimand so no further discussion was possible.

Years later, when I became a teacher myself, I better understood why students were grouped and labeled. Sorting students is part of teaching. Grouping students by perceived ability makes teaching them a bit easier and when you have 25 or more students in a classroom, grouping become even more necessary. Within my classroom I had students who were labeled as gifted, special, average, and at-risk. Most teachers find this combination of labels in their classrooms as well, especially at the elementary level.

While I may not have told them verbally, I labeled my students via grades, ability grouping, and my own expectations. I could juggle multiple groupings without missing a beat. I was considered a great teacher and won several awards to prove it. After teaching for several years,  I experienced an epiphany that forever changed my schooling paradigm regarding labels and grouping. This awakening came some time after seeing young ones frequently frustrated, giving up, exhibiting distracting behaviors, and resorting to cheating. These were not just the students who had “favorable” labels. I had to ask why.

I told myself that this was normal, that kids didn’t want to work hard even those who seemed to learn more quickly. I told myself that kids were basically lazy and had to be forced to listen and work in class and that grades would reinforce their hard work. I also battled a fair share of pride in my own teaching skills deciding that it must be more the students’ fault than mine. Denial and stubbornness eventually led me to ask a few serious questions that sounded something like the ones below.

1. Are my students really learning and how do I know?
2. Are the labels and expectations I’ve attached to my students getting in the way of meaningful learning?

I did not perform well on this short quiz. In fact, I failed. I was guilty as charged and I knew it. This is when I decided that labels were ineffective and damaging to both teachers and their students. How did I come to grips with my blatant disregard for meaningful learning in a system that paid and honored me for doing it?

I could no longer teach this way. I broke the mold and did away with ability groupings in my classrooms. I also decided to remove all labels from my vocabulary, practices, and expectations. It didn’t happen overnight and my colleagues viewed my renegade behavior as out of the box and too risky. I really didn’t care about what they thought, I cared more about how my students were going to access their own learning.

When I worked with a small group of kids, which was most of the time, I made sure that they could not identify themselves by their previous labels. My student were learning a lot from just being with each other. This was harder work for me but worked remarkably well for my students. However, I was still stuck with grading labels as my school and district demanded it. My grading practices evolved over time to include more student input by way of class meetings, much less homework, and more verbal and written feedback. I also saved myself a ton of money and my students a ton of extrinsic anxiety by getting rid of stickers, point systems, prize bags, class charts for behavior, and all the other bribery tactics I had come to value so much.

My last few years of teaching were simply amazing. The energy and learning in the classroom was obvious. Students were more independent, more on task, and even more engaged as they felt empowered to learn without a label. Parents noticed too and often asked for their child to be in my classroom. I proved my own theory. The joy and freedom to learn far outweighs any confining labels we place on our children in school. Labeling, and certain kinds of grouping along with teacher expectations can do irreversible damage to an otherwise eager learner. I took this discovery with me into my administrative roles encouraging and enabling teachers to think more out of the box.

In many classrooms, schools and districts, we still label, we still group by ability, and we still hold biased expectations, even if we think we don’t.  It is just easier that way. Over the years, we’ve enacted laws to ensure access for students labeled as gifted, disabled, and language learners. It is understandable that these laws were created to address any discrepancy in access to learning.

What seems to be overlooked however, is the inequitable circumstances and practices that occur as an unintended consequence of these very labels. Students are labeled, sorted, and pushed through the system without opportunities for positive deviation. Apparently, no one seems to mind very much as long as we believe that every child is learning.

The real question is…learning at what cost?

Find my book here!

In my previous blog, “Speaking of grades…” I addressed the practice of grading student work and why it is pointless. In the current K-12 schooling world, this equates to treason. So why should we abandon a long-held, highly revered practice? Simply put, it is a waste of precious time, a deterrent to and an imprecise measure of learning.

Over the years, teachers have used various grading programs, reporting systems, and feedback terminology only to find themselves held captive to school board policy that typically mandates what and how grades are to be assigned. In many cases, school policy trumps good practice. Apparently good practice and policies don’t necessarily align.

Most school systems demand that student work is graded and report card grades are given at the end of each semester or trimester as a means of communication with students and their parents. Teachers may have some flexibility on how they arrive at the grades they give, or as some teachers say, “the grades that students earn,” but the notion that grading is beneficial, meaningful, or accurate is highly questionable.

There has been plenty of research to support the negative effects of grading. However, teachers, students, and parents have come to believe that it is one of the ten commandments in schools to which strict adherence is required. Any attempt to tamper with grades is a recipe doomed to failure. Doing so might be akin to dismantling our monetary system or changing our customary units of measurement.

Change is difficult, unnerving, and risky, especially when it involves the entrenched, age-old practice of assigning grades for school work. I suppose one could argue that grades serve as incentives much like a paycheck does as our young students eventually become productive workers in society. On the flip side of that argument is strong and compelling evidence that suggests otherwise. Please see a quote below from Alfie Kohn referenced from his January 2010 blog titled, “Getting Rid of Grades” as an example.

“As for the research studies: Collectively, they make it clear that students who are graded tend to differ from those who aren’t in three basic ways. They’re more likely to lose interest in the learning itself. They’re more likely to prefer the easiest possible task. And they’re more likely to think in a superficial fashion as well as to forget what they were taught. (For summaries of the relevant research and arguments, see the books Punished by Rewards and The Schools Our Children Deserve, the article “From Degrading to De-Grading,” and the lecture DVD “No Grades + No Homework = Better Learning.”)

“The question, then, is how we can summon the courage to get rid of letter and number grades, replace them with reports of students’ progress that are more informative and less destructive, and help parents and students to recognize the value of doing so.”

This is the million dollar question that begs an answer – now. There are, however, a few obstacles in our way.

Many colleges and universities request student transcripts listing grades and overall grade point averages (GPA). Some don’t, but those are few and far between. This is an example of the proverbial tail wagging the dog. Secondary educational institutions use grades for sorting students. College entrance exams and placement tests are also used to sort even further. This practice begs the question, “do grades really provide the kind of information needed for college admission?”

The K-16 system is built on what is good for the system not the student. It is much easier to sort by grades and scores on entrance exams than to review student portfolios and school narrative reports. Human perspective, insight, observation and intuition are all but lost on the robotic sorting and stamping of students into pre-fabricated molds of higher education. It is no wonder that the numbers of students dropping out of college or repeating courses is staggering. Young people are sucked into this cyclone of sorting early on and often end up frustrated, in debt, and without real direction.

Our nation, local communities and specifically parents seem to want a K-16 grading system. They believe it provides them with important student performance information. They also believe that it is a visible sign of accountability attached to the question, “how are our schools performing with our public tax dollars? In a sense, that is a fair question. The problem with that mindset is twofold.

1. First and foremost, grades are not accurate or equitable measures of learning given that they are comprised of multiple and varying criteria often subject to change.
2. Secondly, school performance measured by way of grades or test scores is unsubstantiated and faulty accountability  given that factors beyond the school’s control are not figured into the equation.

Even with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, there is HOPE.

Hope#1 – teaching/learning coaches (teachers) that would come alongside children to support, encourage and guide, not constantly evaluate. Evaluation needs to be self-directed, self-imposed, and self-reflective in order to be effective and meaningful.

Hope#2 – school boards that would run on a platform and follow through with an agenda that emphasizes deep, authentic and lasting learning not grades and test scores. School policies need to honor and reflect child-centered practices without sorting, grading and labeling in order to create the best conditions for learning.

Hope#3 – training and support for coaches/teachers on how to provide effective verbal and written feedback based on student incremental improvement not standards met by the arbitrary end of the school year. Grades and grading programs need to transition to more narrative and performance/portfolio based evidence that students co-create and re-evaluate regularly. 

Hope#4 – parents become active partners with their students as they transition to a gradeless environment. Parent conferences and student reports are frequent and transparent providing each partner (students, teachers, parents) with a clear understanding of accomplishments, challenges and future goals. 

Brave and fearless teachers and parents please check out the YouTube videos and Facebook Community below.

A teacher’s grading story

A parent’s perspective

Teacher FB community for throwing out grades

MindShift Article on Grading Here

In eighth grade, I was asked, along with three other students, to design a Fresco for the school library.  We were asked to capture the Seven Wonders of the World and were given time during religion class to create this masterpiece.  We stayed in the classroom in the back row while we worked on this project so we could still hear the religion lesson.  In about a month, the fresco was done and mounted on the back wall of the library.  That same day we were given a test on the content that had been covered in religion class while we were being important artists.  Much to my surprise I received a D on the test.

I had never received a D in any subject, and it really scared me. I was not a young person who often went head to head with the nuns or any teacher for that matter, but in this case I believed that the D was unfair and wanted a chance to redo it.  I explained that I was not able to fully attend to the lesson because my mind was in India drawing and chalking the Taj Mahal and in Egypt stacking the bricks to the Pyramids. Sister Mary E looked me in the eye and after a few stern questions agreed to allow a redo the next day.  I studied the notes that a friend had given me who wasn’t drawing and then took the test which resulted in a solid A.

Pleased that I received an A, and restored myself in good standing, I was certain that I would probably get an A on my report card since I had done fairly well over the grading period.  My final grade was a B and the reason that was given was to teach me a lesson about paying better attention in class.  Sister Mary E did not give me full credit even though I was given the opportunity to retake the test and had earned it.

I determined that school was just a “catch you” kind of place with rules that changed depending upon the teacher’s mood.  While I appreciated her offer to redo a test, it seemed pointless if it made no real difference.  Grades became a game of chance and the teachers held all the cards.  I learned how to navigate this reality and stayed on top of the game at the expense of losing more than a few opportunities for real learning.

To be perfectly blunt and out of the conventional school box, grades do not accurately reflect learning. They are devised based on a myriad of factors, none of which promote  learner growth , a better understanding of concepts, or the desire to tackle more difficult challenges.

A quote from this article above sums it up quite well.

“School is about teaching kids how to follow rules, and having grades as the emphasis is how they do that…”

I don’t believe that grades are motivators to learn. They are however, motivators to get better grades. Schools are basically “grading factories” with winners and losers.  I read something a smart young man said recently on his twitter feed and it seems appropriate to repeat here. “School is the place where knowing how to learn goes to die.”

Heard of a great book on this subject that looks interesting, Hacking Assessment: Ten Way to go Gradeless. Check it out here at Amazon

My high school years were impactful for me, but not in the amount of knowledge I amassed or remembered. It was more about learning to navigate a treacherous but necessary path that would eventually lead to the prized treasures of popularity, good grades, and the right classes. I found my existence of daily chatter and laughter at the lunch table an adequate diversion for the time being.

I participated in many school activities like pep rallies, basketball games, dances and a few stints at public service.  Reminded of Kennedy’s call to action and service as a younger student, I ran for the school’s Student Council at least a couple of times to no avail. Chuckling now, I am reminded of the movie Forrest Gump, when his fans shouted, “Run Forrest Run!” That was me.

I had a few faithful friends who cheered me on even though I obviously lacked the “look” and was not quite up to a par with those who were in the right classes and seemingly favored by the teachers. I told myself over and over after those experiences that I was just not smart enough, or pretty enough, or popular enough to deserve being “chosen” and that I should just stop trying.

Not many young teenagers possess the poise and confidence to stand before a large group of peers and wax persuasively eloquent. It was obvious I couldn’t. I was an “above average” student from a blue collar family who just wanted to make the whole high school experience better for all of my peers. Being the determined person I am, I threw my hat into the ring one more time and won the VP slot in my junior year. With that bit of success, I pressed on to win the coveted “President” of the class in my senior year of high school.

Similar to our voters in the United States, my young classmates were in three different camps – those who were tired of me running for office, those who didn’t care and wouldn’t vote, and those who actually thought I could accomplish something on their behalf.  Apparently there were more of the later, and I was granted the job. Now, years later, I enjoy the perks of that service as I often plan our high school reunions. One is coming up soon.

There is an incredible opportunity in schools to promote youth leadership in a number of ways.  Most schools sponsor student councils or organizations in which students can experience a leadership role and participate in the planning and evaluating of school events, activities, and sometimes rules. Some offer leadership roles by way of  older students supporting younger students on the campus. There are also many other types of opportunities outside of school that provide students with leadership experiences, such as Scouts, Red-Cross, 4-H clubs, and various others.

What is rarely seen in school leadership roles for students is the ability to interact meaningfully with real issues that affect them. The school system is in power – not the students. This is by design, to keep order, but disenfranchises most students who may become complacent, docile, and in some cases rebellious.

“William Glasser suggests that 95 percent of classroom management issues occur as a result of students trying to fulfill a need for power. Power is not a finite pie. When we share power with our students, it doesn’t mean that we “have less power” —but it can mean we’ve created more possibilities for learning and leadership.” 1

When we give students as much participatory democracy as possible and more authentic learning experiences, we empower them.  There are multiple ways to do this in a classroom/school. Allowing them to design the physical layout of their classroom space, giving them the opportunity to choose topics of interest for lesson planning, and the ability to assess their own work is empowering. This can work surprisingly well. It takes commitment and determination on the part of the teacher and the student. It also requires the teacher/school to relinquish some power.

Studies described in The Harvard Education Letter identified intrinsic motivation as a key childhood characteristic among adults who became leaders. We need to foster relationships that hone in on students’ interest, hopes and dreams so we can build on these together. Schools rarely do this. Instead they provide a common curriculum in a vacuum of regulated procedures that suck the life out of real learning. Many smart teachers know this already and are striving to move the pendulum in the right direction.

Leadership Challenge: To all the parents, teachers, principals, school boards and central office leaders; please encourage and support young people taking charge of their own learning. That is how you prepare them to be productive and contributing adults.

1. Ferlazzo, Larry. “Cultivating Student Leadership.” Education Week. February  14, 2012. Accessed September 28, 2016. http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2012/02/14/tln_ferlazzo_leadership.html

NPR article

September 12, 2016 7:00 AM ET
Anya Kamenetz

 I read this article this morning via Twitter and was curious regarding this recent research about student performance.  Anya gave important data results of the study and suggested that the Superintendent of Baltimore County Schools wants to take a look at how they design their talented and gifted programs for their students in light of this research.

Her assessment of the research was somewhat myopic however, leaving one to wonder whether or not she really read the findings. I read the findings and it screams for a substantial shift in how we group children for learning in school. In most schools everything is predicated on a “grade level” construct. Everything!

Here is a quote from the findings from the Johns Hopkins School of Education, Institute for Educational Policy.

“Currently, the evidence suggests that between 15% and 45% of students enter the late-elementary classroom each fall already performing at least one year ahead of expectations. Our initial question – How many students are learning above grade level? – needs to be extended. The more important questions may be:

1. How should we reorganize our schools, now that we know that large numbers of these students exist?
2. How can we best meet these students’ learning needs, if they already have mastered much of the year’s content before the year has even started? And lastly,
3. How can schools balance the potential for excellence against the need to achieve basic proficiency, when the variation in student achievement within classrooms and schools is so vast?

The current K-12 education system essentially ignores the learning needs of a huge percentage of its students. Knowing this, 20 years from now we may look back and wonder why we kept using age-based grade levels to organize K-12 education for so long.”

Research link

What this research says to me is that forcing children into a grade level schemata of schooling ignores the fundamental principle of learning. Not only does it disenfranchise those they have identified as the 15%-45% of children already performing above grade level, it also leaves out those that are not at the identified grade level. The teacher is left to navigate this divide and to bring every child forward. By virtue of the school design (grade levels) this is always a challenge.

A quote from my book, Learning Unleashed on this topic.

“…Setting an arbitrary end date by way of completing a grade level is ludicrous and flies in the face of everything educators learn in undergraduate psychology courses and have come to understand more clearly from brain research…children learn in different ways and at different rates.”

My book offers a solution to this perplexing problem.https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475829198

This quote from the research is worth repeating. I just wonder if anyone is really listening or really cares.

“The current K-12 education system essentially ignores the learning needs of a huge percentage of its students. Knowing this, 20 years from now we may look back and wonder why we kept using age-based grade levels to organize K-12 education for so long.”

Music to their ears  Please enjoy the link while you read.

     With a new school year starting my mind often wanders to those “back-in-the-days” when I was in school.

      In my Catholic elementary school, we went to a different room for music class and there I learned new songs I had never heard before.  We listened to various selections and we all sang on cue when Sister ML tapped the baton and snapped her fingers.  I enjoyed hearing the music as my body found the rhythm and beat. However, most of us did not move because those who did were publicly humiliated, sent to the back of the room, ordered to face the back wall and to think about their actions. Seriously.

I never quite understood how to keep your body still when it seemed so natural to move with music like I had done at home, watching mom and dad dance to their favorite swing music from the 40’s.  I relished the departure from that school rule when I was at home where my mom, sisters, and I would jump to the newest songs we played from our 45 RPM rock-n-roll collection.

But, in school, that was far from the way we were taught music appreciation. So, in order to comply with the demand of “no movement unless requested by the teacher” I learned to “move” in my mind.  That seemed to work for me, however, not so much for a few others who often found themselves facing the back wall, repeatedly. Maybe the public school kids were able to move more in music class. Maybe it was just Sister MJ who was opposed to swaying children. I will never really know for sure.

“How is it that for most people music is a powerful part of their personal life and yet when we go to work or school we turn it off?”1

I know a lot has changed since the early 1960’s and schools have discovered the powerful impact that music has on a child’s learning… OR HAVE THEY?

According to John Hopkins University School of Education here are just a few benefits of music in schools.

Music helps us learn because it will–

• establish a positive learning state
• build a sense of anticipation
• energize learning activities
• change brain wave states
• focus concentration
• increase attention
• improve memory
• facilitate a multisensory learning experience
• release tension
• enhance imagination
• develop rapport
• provide inspiration and motivation
• add an element of fun
• accentuate theme-oriented units

Schools where music is an embedded, vital part of every day, are far more likely to see happy and engaged children. Hearing a favorite or familiar composition, melody or song while learning is simply music to their ears! Listen and learn. Click the link above.

1.http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Arts%20in%20Education/brewer.htm

In first grade, I was taught how to recognize words and then read them in short sentences. There were three distinct reading groups, and I was fortunate to be a Cardinal because I caught on to reading sentences quickly.  We all had a chance to rehearse reading from a book that the teacher gave us. If we read it rapidly without making a mistake we were called Cardinals, if we took a long time, but got most of the words right we were called Blue Jays. If we stuttered or got stuck on words the teacher would just say, “…okay stop, that’s enough – you’re a robin.”

The Bluebirds were not far behind the Cardinals, but the robins never seemed to catch up by the end of the year.  On one hand, I felt proud to be a Cardinal and on the other, I felt sorry for those poor little robins that seemed to look so defeated, frequently stumbling over the words.  I wondered how long they would remain a robin and if they ever had a chance to become a Blue Jay or Cardinal. A few unkind children in the class gave the robins another name, “the dumb kids” and that description followed many of them throughout their school years.

Why do I still remember these details after 56 years? I am convinced this is an example of school gone wrong. What is so incredibly sad, is that it still happens today. The bird names have given way to more “updated and relevant” descriptors, but children are still grouped by ability for ease of lesson delivery. Textbooks, assessments, and worksheets all feed into this phenomenon with regularity and by design. By the way, the children know what their labels mean even if those labels seem non-evaluative.

Why is it so important to quantify the level of achievement for something as basic as learning to read when we know that it happens at different times for different children? Why do we feel so compelled to pronounce degrees of performance in the learning arena of school? Why do we create artificial time periods that offer rewards and punishments for student growth in reading?

You fail first grade if you don’t achieve everything that is outlined to learn within that time frame. What if in another month or two, or even another year you learned to read? What if it took you even longer than that? We are so intent on labeling children that we lose sight of the fundamental fact that each child learns differently at different rates?

Learning is organic, unique and different for each child, fueled by interest, creativity, and curiosity.  How better to kill that innate creativity and curiosity than to package learning into an adult-constructed box governed by our notion of value, time, and space.  The joy of learning becomes lost when it is packaged in evaluative terms, forced upon us, and given strict time limits. 

The art of reading can be joyous, exhilarating, and frustrating at the same time. What would happen if we allowed children the opportunity to discover and perfect this art without quantifying, evaluating, or placing deadlines on it? What if we gave them as much time as they needed and supported them in whatever way necessary in order to achieve their goal of becoming a reader?

Just a few positive outcomes:

• Happier, self-directed children
• Cost savings on remediation and retention
• Truly valuing diversity
• Defeating the ill-effects of labeling i.e. (failure, slow, at-risk, etc.)

I will never give up this dream…NEVER!

As a young child growing up in the city, I made friends with a few boys and girls in my neighborhood. From them, I learned hop-scotch, jump rope and how to play tag.  I taught them how to catch “lightning” bugs and look for worms. We played in the alley behind our houses and never ventured off too far.

The general rule of thumb given to us by our mothers, was to play close enough so that you can hear a call to come home.  We all knew to come home when the streetlights came on.  Most of the time, we had little problem following these rules except for an occasional forgetful moment when we missed the call because we were shouting or didn’t seem to notice that it was getting dark.

We made up our own “get-along” rules and mostly everyone agreed to follow them.  Occasionally, someone would get angry and an incident would occur.  One such incident happened when Stevie told me that girls can’t play baseball when I wanted to join an “all-boys” game that had started a few minutes before I arrived in the alley.

He decided to push me down to make his point. I was not usually aggressive, but somehow this perceived injustice led me to find a small brick on the ground, which I promptly hurled across third base where it made contact with the right side of Stevie’s forehead.  That obviously proved that I could throw and therefore play baseball with the boys, but I also realized that he was bleeding.

In an attempt to hide my shame for what I had done, I ran away from the alley to the front of my house where my mother and Stevie’s mother just happened to be sitting and chatting on the front porch steps.  I said my quick hello and flew past them up the stairs to my room to escape my demise.  As soon as I ascended the last few steps, I heard Stevie coming from the back of his house crying loudly that I had thrown a brick at him.

Needless to say, I learned the importance of a sincere apology, how to process my punishment of being grounded in the house for a few days, and how to negotiate conflict in a much more appropriate manner in the future.

From that point on, Stevie invited me to be on his team whenever the boys were playing baseball in the alley.  I literally bumped into Stevie many years later at an elementary school reunion and after discovering who he was, I apologized once again for what I had done.  He had no recollection of the event, but found the story quite amusing and admitted that even if he had remembered he would not likely repeat it for fear of repercussion from his friends and family that a little girl had “walloped” him.

When feasible, allowing a child to navigate conflict without immediately rushing to intervene, enables them to develop important decision making skills that can’t be learned any other way. I am not saying that I condone bullying, but when it happens, in some cases, it has the potential to teach important life lessons.

The natural process of how we learn is amazing.  How we think through difficult situations and problems, tackle a challenge or assess a threat, is quite unique and often depends upon what we have seen, heard, or experienced very early in life.  To be clear, I never saw anyone in my family throwing bricks at each other! I brought my own standard, (er…um…brick) to this particular situation. Thankfully, my standards have evolved and improved over time.

Full EdNext Article click here

My comments are in (bolded parenthesis), the article references in quotes.

“In 2013, the Education Next poll showed 76 percent of teachers and 63 percent of parents supported the standards (common core). By 2015, the same poll found that just 40 percent of teachers and 47 percent of parents supported them.” (Some of the why according to EdNext): “We start testing on standards we’re not teaching with curriculum we don’t have on computers that don’t exist.” (said almost every teacher in every school) …”massive technology failures, owing to insufficient preparation and contractors who failed to deliver the needed technology upgrades.” (a forced expense on local school districts during a time of severe budget cuts)…”testing times and proficiency benchmarks viewed as developmentally inappropriate and, in some cases, a waste of resources” (weeks of testing virtually shutting down learning 3-8 and 11)…”States varied widely in how well they communicated with educators, parents, and the general public about the new tests”…(same as lack of communication on the common core standards themselves which were rushed through and approved by state boards of education without local school districts and community input.)

“Through Race to the Top, the administration offered $4.35 billion in funding through a competitive grant program designed to encourage (bribe) states to enact the feds’ preferred school-reform policies—(fed budget carrot dangling here) including the adoption of better standards and assessments. Most states were willing to sign on to Common Core and the aligned tests to improve their chances of winning a grant…”(not for the sake of better standards or testing, but to help defray the horrendous effects of the budget crisis gripping schools across the country.)

(EdNext went on in the article to say that the tests are better than what we had before and that some states are still using them. Comforting or excuses?)

Now my two cents worth, without the parenthesis.

Who really benefits from the so called college and career ready standards and assessments? Why do we believe that these standards are the best for our students? Why do we believe that these high stakes test are worth whatever we are paying for them? Why do we punish English language learners, children with special needs, and those kids that don’t do well with the force-fed type of learning that catapults them into a testing frenzy?

• Who has cashed in on this colossal experiment?
• When will we stop using kids performance on tests as a determination of teacher effectiveness?
• This is NOT the great equalizer of fairness and equity as some of our elected officials and test-bent organizations, publishing companies, and philanthropic donors have purported.
• It does not address poverty and access.
• It is a red herring.
• It is a travesty that has taken our children and teachers hostage without remorse.

I know – I perpetrated this crime myself, for which I am truly sorry. I stand guilty as charged, but hope that my voice can reach those who are still in the trenches – those who know in their gut that good teaching and learning is not measured in high stakes tests or legislated mandates.

Real learning comes at different times, in different ways, with different children, working alongside a skilled teacher/facilitator, without the use of bribes, rewards, punishment, artificial deadlines or irrelevant testing and evaluation. This my friends is doable, sustainable, and a responsible and urgent alternative to what we are currently doing in our schools.