Seth Godin Discusses Failure of Educational Model

Best selling author Seth Godin discusses the failure of our educational model that's built around producing factory workers.

Godin explains that it wouldn't take very many passionate parents to start schools down the right path. Parents just need to realize that they and their children own the learning and they are not the property of the government. For ideas on how to do this read my free guide downloadable from the right column on this blog: Fix The Schools, Not the Child.


Source: http://www.LeeStranahan.com
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Why I Don't Like Standardized Tests

Guest post by Cathy Earle

As an educator, I am sometimes called upon to teach children test preparation skills. I do so because these particular children are going to have to take a particular test – it's a reality. However, the first step of my test prep lesson is to tell the children that I don't like standardized tests, especially high-stakes tests. I don't believe they should have to take them, and, I tell them, I didn't subject my own kids to them.

Here are my major reasons for my antipathy toward standardized tests:

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Disorganized Sports + Unstructured Play

When asking children: 

What is your favorite part of school?

It is not uncommon to get this answer:  

Recess!!!

I still like to play :)

Sadly, in schools today, recess is on it's way toward extinction.  On a parenting group I belong to, student's back to school schedules were shared.  Sadly, very few included time for recess. Yet at a recent conference I listened to brain researcher John Medena  who shared that activity, movement, and exercise is crucial for boosting brain power.  Not only does play make you smarter, this article points to play being a great way to alleviate ADD / ADHD symptoms. Unfortunately, educators are in a state of panic in our test prep obsessed education system, no longer able to think clearly about what is truly best for our children. 

If today's teachers and administrators had the opportunity to pull themselves away from the worksheets and bubblesheets they would find that play is an essential component of student success as pointed to in the article Can We Play by Psychologist David Elkin.  In the article Elkin shares that recess is already extinct in more than 30,000 U.S. schools that have eliminated recess to make more time for academics and that children’s time spent outdoors has fallen 50 percent since the 1990s.
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The Kids Know Best - They Don't Want the Test!

Kids are speaking out!

Last June I shared a frustrated 5th Grader's Smart Advice About Standardized Testing. Today I bring you 12-year-old Anthony Herrera who was a victim of K12Online and South Carolina Virtual Charter Choice to Make Profit Even If It Means Making Children Sick. Anthony wrote the letter and taped the video below because he wanted to tell people what's going on, and thank everyone for the support he and his family have been receiving from those who value the well-being of children over test scores.  



Here is Anthony's letter.
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Uniting to Ensure Best Options for Students, Parents and Teachers

This post was also shared at Cooperative Catalyst.  If you'd like to read it there go here.  There are some really good comments!


Social media has become a mobilizing force in bringing together students, educators, and parents who are frustrated with the data-driven, standardized, one-size-fits all learning taking place in publicly funded schools today. Many of these groups have popped up with members joining and uniting against a system designed to reduce children to nothing more than standardized, easily measurable data to appear on a future chart that can bolster the ratings and egos of policy makers and business leaders.  Despite the fact that many educational leaders, educators, parents, and students know this is wrong parents like Gretchen Herrera are being forced to engage in practices that hurt children with threats of school closures and students being left behind or kicked out for failure to comply.

One of the biggest movements gaining momentum is the opt out of state testing with social media sites being created in the form Facebook groups, Facebook pages, and Yahoo groups which are connecting parents, educators, and students who are frustrated with forced government schooling policies.  In the past there was little information available to the public when it came to opting out of tests. Not surprisingly this information was hard to access and inconsistent.  This is, in part what the government agencies are banking on.

Fortunately with the advent of social media and Web 2.0 tools, concerned individuals are able to unite to find, share, and collect information.  One such effort to collect this information is The Opt Out of State Standardized Tests – Site.  Upon joining, group members can contribute relevant information from their state.  The beauty of this site is that the information is created and owned by anyone concerned about this issue.  The site is open to all concerned individuals who can find general and state by state information as well as a number of social media groups and pages to join.
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A Fundamental Principle: No Unnecessary Testing (NUT)

By Stephen Krashen | Original PDF

Summary: Do not invest 4.5 billion on new standards and tests. Instead, work on
improving the NAEP to get a picture of how our students are performing, and
continue to use teacher evaluation to evaluate individual student performance. We
should begin by cutting back testing, not adding testing.

No Unnecessary Testing (NUT) is the principle that school should include only those
tests and parts of tests that are necessary, that contribute to essential evaluation and
learning. Every minute testing and doing “test preparation” (activities to boost scores on
tests that do not involve genuine learning) is stolen from students’ lives, in addition to
costing money that we cannot afford these days.

If we accept the NUT principle, it leads to this question: Do we need yearly standardized
tests closely linked to the curriculum? Do they tell us more than teacher evaluation does?
This issue must be looked at scientifically. If, for example, standardized tests given in
every stage are shortened, given less frequently or abandoned, will student performance
be affected? Would NAEP scores be affected, or high school graduation rates, or life
success?

My prediction is that teacher evaluation does a better job of evaluating students than
standardized testing: The repeated judgments of professionals who are with children
every day is more valid that a test created by distant strangers. Moreover, teacher
evaluations are “multiple measures,” are closely aligned to the curriculum, and cover a
variety of subjects.

There is evidence supporting this view for high school students: In a study published in
2007, UC Berkeley scholars Saul Geiser and Maria Veronica Saltelices found that adding
SAT scores to high school students grades in college prep courses did not provide much
more information than grades alone, which suggests that we may not need standardized
tests at all. More recently, Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson (2009) reached similar
conclusions.

For those who argue that we need national standardized tests in order to compare student
achievement over time and to compare subgroups of students, we already have an
instrument for this, the NAEP.

The NAEP is administered to small groups of children who each take a portion of the test
every few years. Results are extrapolated to estimate how the larger groups would score.
No test prep is done, as the tests are zero stakes: There are no (or should be no)
consequences for low or high scores. Our efforts should be to improve the NAEP, not
start all over again, and go through years of fine-tuning with new instruments.

Gradually improving the NAEP will also solve the "standards" problem, as the NAEP is
adjusted to reflect competencies experts in education consider to be important.

If we are interested in a general picture of how children are doing, this is the way to do it.
If we are interested in finding out about a patient’s health, we only need to look at a small
sample of their blood, not all of it.

My predictions, however, need to be put to the empirical test. A conservative path is to
start to cut back on standardized tests, both in length and frequency, and determine if this
has any negative consequences.

A radical path is to throw everything we have out, without any evidence that it is
inadequate, and waste $4.5 billion on new standards and new tests, tests for all subjects
and to be given to every child every year.

The conservative path is the only rational option, when funds are so scarce, and it is an
essential exercise of our responsibility to students. It is also the solution to those who are
calling for a longer school year and a longer school day: less time testing and doing testprep
means more time for instruction and learning.

Bowen, W., Chingos, M., and McPherson, M. 2009. Crossing the Finish Line:
Completing College at America's Universities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Geiser, S. and Santelices, M.V., 2007. Validity of high-school grades in predicting
student success beyond the freshman year: High-school record vs. standardized tests as
indicators of four-year college outcomes. Research and Occasional Papers Series: CSHE
6.07, University of California, Berkeley. http://cshe.berkeley.edu

Opting Out of Standardized Testing - A National Movement for All

I have been an ardent supporter of all parents, students, and educators interested in opting out of state tests.  They usually want to know two things:

1. What are the laws in my state?


2. How do I find others who are in my state?

In response to this, I have created a site where anyone can share state by state information and use the discussion board on each page to connect with those from their area. 

Please add information about your state by clicking on the picture below.

If you are on Facebook, you can connect with others interested in opting out in these groups.

Parents & Kids Against Standardized Testing (Opt Out of State Testing)

• Page for parents, teachers, students of all beliefs and backgrounds.

Parents & Kids Against Standardized Testing ( Opt Out of State Testing )

• Group for parents, teachers, students of all beliefs and backgrounds.

OPT OUT OF THE STATE TEST : The National Movement

• Group for parents, teachers, students whose primary focus is the preservation of public schools through the opting out of state tests. Members supporting alternatives to public education are not welcome in this group.

OPT OUT of State Tests: Parent/Student Support against Standardized Testing

• Group where parents frustrated by public school policies and mandates like standardized tests can feel comfortable to explore and share ideas about non public education alternatives.

Opt Out of State Tests Facebook Group Tells “Certain” Parents/Students/Teachers - You’re Not Welcome Round Here

This was supposed to be a post about encouraging you to join the “Opt Out of the State Tests” group on Facebook. Some of you may remember last week when I excitedly shared with thousands of my followers on Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook that there was a new group in town that was created for the purpose of supporting parents, educators, and students interested in opting out of standardized testing. What I didn’t know is that they didn’t have interest in supporting “ALL” parents. You see, the group leaders made it very clear that folks like me weren’t wanted around those parts.


I wish I had known of their bias before I invited thousands of people to the group. I would never knowingly invite members of my personal learning network to a group that discriminates against those who do not share the group leader's approved religious beliefs, political affiliation, or learning methods. Because of their bias, I deeply apologize to those who I unintentionally mislead. Before I was aware that this was a group bound by intolerance, I was thrilled as more and more esteemed peers from my personal learning network joined the group. Parents, students, and educators had a platform to talk, discuss and share ideas. There were rich conversations from people of varied backgrounds. 

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Standardized Tests: Merely A Symptom of the Disease

Guest post by Teresa McCloskey


I recently discovered there is a surge of parents across the nation who are protesting the use of standardized testing in our schools and encouraging parents to opt out (here’s the group).  I have read articles comparing the testing to child abuse and articles from teachers who are promoting the “Save Our Schools” campaign while seeking testing reform.  I have also seen articles about the cheating related to these tests like this one and this one by school staff and administrators – understandable as there are federal dollars attached to the outcome.  Baltimore and Atlanta are surely not alone, but they happen to be districts which have been caught thus far.  One article even asked whether innovative children could start to blackmail teachers in relation to turning in higher or lower test scores.

It is apparent the issue of standardized testing has more questions than answers, but in reading these articles and seeing the debates on which method of measuring the success of children’s learning in the public system, I keep coming back to the same point of view – the tests are not the problem, the entire institutional system known as public education (or government controlled education) is broken and failing.  


To debate standardized testing is akin to debating on how to treat slaves better and how to determine which slaves are being the most productive on the plantation.  Why are more people not questioning why we have enslaved our children in this inhumane system which more closely resembles a prison or mental hospital than anything related to what their lives outside of school will look like?

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Public schools that don't require high stakes tests

Did you know that if you live in New York and you don’t believe high stakes tests are what is best for kids there is a coalition of high schools which have pioneered the creation of educational communities synonymous with active student learning, exemplary professional development and innovative curriculum and teaching strategies for 21st century students? Yep there is.  In fact many of the schools and leaders have even been nationally recognized through such honors as New American High Schools, 21st Century Schools, and Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence.


These Consortium schools have devised a system of assessment and they document how their work meets and exceeds New York State Regents standards through a system of rigorous commencement-level performance-based assessment tasks. Performance on these tasks is reflected on student transcripts. The tasks require students to demonstrate accomplishment in areas such as analytic thinking, reading comprehension, research writing skills, the application of mathematical computation and problem-solving skills, computer technology, the utilization of the scientific method in undertaking science research, appreciation of and performance skills in the arts, service learning and school to career skills. Experts external to the schools, from universities and the business world, participate in reviews of student work.
           
You can visit the Member High Schools to discover if there is a school near you.  You can find out about schools and programs in other areas at The Coalition of Essential Schools website.