On a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver tackled the prickly topic of standardized testing. Or rather I should say that he delivered the perfect blend of wit, humor, and devastating statistics which have shaken the testing companies enough so that they have fired back.
Shortly thereafter, Pearson shot back with the perfectly contrived response to such a PR crisis. An attractive African American man, who promotes himself as "a proud product of the Bronx Public Schools" jumped onto a Washington Post blog, and explained how parents who care about the educational experiences their children are undergoing have got it all wrong. Pearson is not the enemy, he argues, but rather the poor, misunderstood multinational corporation that is only trying to make the world a better place.
Seriously? Do we look that foolish?
Based on what I've seen in my classroom, I would guess that the only color Pearson actually cares about is green.
As I have mentioned before, I teach in an urban area. I witness firsthand the impact of the incredible increase in standardized testing which has emerged in recent years. Across my tenure as a public educator, I have grimaced as more and more emphasis is placed on standardized testing, with all of the harrowing woes which accompany such a narrow, misguided notion of educational success. To be sure, the paramount concern of the classroom teacher is determining whether or not their students are learning the material in question, however, the school environment is SO MUCH MORE than this. It is a social environment, in which students interact with peers, authority figures, underclassmen, upperclassman, and all sorts of other human beings. Students have to learn the ins and outs of effective communication and navigate the many diverse personalities which surround them. No amount of technology can supplant this, and in most cases, technology has quite the opposite effect of minimizing the social learning experience.
Schools are vibrant, physical communities where learners and teachers come together towards the common mission of enriching our society and our souls. I am proud to call myself a teacher, or at least I have been. As the testing companies and corporate "reformers" (I much prefer the more accurate epithet "deformers") have pushed forward with their agenda of privatization, their high-minded rhetoric, and their deeply destructive behaviors, I find myself teaching less and less. They talk about rigor in the classroom, but we spend less time now with our students than we ever have. They spout on about preparing students for the world beyond the classroom, but I see school officials who dangerously dilute authentic learning experiences because they are more worried about how they will be rated by state and federal departments of education than they are about the effective education they are offering their learners. I see teachers who are exhausted, overworked, and deeply demoralized by the current educational climate. And worst of all, I see students who are frustrated, angry, upset, anxious, and fearing rather than embracing the learning process.
This is AMERICA! Land of the free and home of the brave! We have to do better! Other countries look to us for leadership. Can we honestly and sincerely tell them that this is the best that we can do? Are we really ok with almost 25% of our children growing up in a state of poverty? Is it really ok that the children of the ultra-rich enjoy private schools that have no worry or fear of Common Core or PARCC, while many public school children have come to dread school? This cannot be the way.
There ARE better, more authentic educational reform agendas out there. Finland has done very well with a sincere societal commitment to the importance of education, proper funding, rigorous teacher training, and a whole host of effective educational practices. Even schools in America do just fine when PISA scores and other international indicators are controlled for poverty. In point of fact, New Jersey public schools have perennially ranked among the best in the nation, so if I may ask, what exactly is it that they are so insistent needs to be fixed?!
To be sure, there is always room for growth and improvement, and sometimes it can be very frustrating to encounter the graduation rates, drop-out rates and other academic indicators emerging from our poorest areas. There IS a crisis in America, but I dare say it is not so much an educational crisis as a social crisis. The divide between the rich and poor only seems to grow year after year. The corporate reformers try to paint poverty as simply an excuse, but I suppose that is very easy for ultra-wealthy white men to do. What do Bill Gates, Sam Walton, or Eli Broad really know about the suffering and devastation which poverty wreaks on the soul? How can they truly place themselves in the position of a teen whose only meal is a free school lunch where the green beans are grey and tomato paste counts as a vegetable? How can they appreciate the life of a student who wakes up early to get their little brothers and sisters to school, then attends school themselves, and then goes straight to a job to help out their family?
And how does the corporate reformer respond to such stresses? By stripping school of its joy and spontaneity, by making automatons out of our children, and creating cookie cutter classrooms that are as lifeless as they are ineffective. Trust me; while teachers may not have all the answers, I can promise you that this is not it.
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