The Test of a Great Teacher (This is not a test.)

As a former student who froze at test-taking time, no matter how hard I studied and no matter how sure I was that I would ace it this time (but never did), I was horrified when "No Child Left Behind," a plan linking school funding with student testing, became the law of the land. 

I no doubt learned at least a few things in school, but nobody would ever have guessed it at the time, so lousy was I at test taking.  As a result of my inevitable brain freeze on the very days when I needed it the most, my grades were awful and I spent years feeling dumber than dirt.  (There were 140 students in my high school graduating class and when I found that my grades put me in the exact middle, I was ecstatic.  Really.)
  
There are people--my grandson might even be one of them--who probably see testing as surefire proof that kids are learning what they're supposed to learn.  He was the exact opposite of his grandmother:  He was a gifted student who loved the challenge of tests and actually looked forward to them.  He was the kind of kid who, just for fun, would ask his grandfather to make up math problems for him to solve.  I never saw him sweat over tests.  There's something unnatural about that.  Every normal human being (except maybe "Jeopardy" contestants) hates tests.

I worked with Psych interns and residents at the University of Michigan long ago in the Way Back, around the time the University began to understand that brain-blockage at test time was a serious problem.  They recognized that many of their finest hands-on students were falling behind because of a fear of tests, so they began to offer classes in test-taking.  But here's the odd thing:  Hardly anybody, even in Psych, wanted to admit they fell short in the test-taking department, so they wouldn't enroll.  One intern did, and he was furious when the news that he was taking the class leaked out.

There is a stigma attached to failing tests of any kind.  The word "loser" hangs over the results, and if it happens often enough, the one taking the tests can't help but be marked by those failures.  But that's not to say there is no place for tests.  There's nothing wrong with testing to gauge how well a student grasps lessons (she says now), but when the emphasis is on tests and not on learning, it skews the entire process.

And now, when public schools are under constant attack by the Right, there's something more insidious going on:  Now, if test scores fall short, it's not just the fault of the students, it's the fault of the teachers and ultimately the schools. Whatever else gets done in the classroom becomes increasingly meaningless if a student can't answer questions on a test. "No Child Left Behind" has become a vehicle for downgrading public schools and the teachers who serve them in order to promote privately operated schools funded with taxpayer money, often formulated by the states to do nothing more than side-step the demands of the teachers' unions. It's the perfect weapon.  It's near impossible to teach to the test and still produce students who can broaden their learning skills outside of the classroom.  So kids fail, teachers fail, and schools--public schools with open enrollment where all can attend--fail.  And those who have been waiting for public education to keel over and die gain yet another foothold.

Rebecca Mieliwocki, 2012 Teacher of the Year

 So when Rebecca Mieliwocki, 2012 Teacher of the Year, said this in her speech before the NEA last week, I sat up and listened:

When great teachers are asked to focus on test scores and push them to the forefront of our priority list we give kids a warped and weird education that honors neither the depth nor breadth of human knowledge, but it is an absolute turning of our backs on the uniqueness of each individual child we teach and I refuse to do that.

She went on to try and bolster the waning spirits of teachers who find themselves ready targets in the battle over public education.

It's so striking to me that in our ferocious and noble zeal to not leave even one child behind we may have accidentally left all the teachers behind instead.  If we want a transformation in education, if we truly want innovation and reform, we have got to stop talking about testing and start talking more about developing, supporting and celebrating teachers.  Teachers are the architects of the change we've been waiting for.

At that, she got a standing ovation, but remember--she was in a room full of teachers.  Outside that room there await multitudes who think every word coming out of her mouth is hogwash.  Teachers are the new pariahs.  They want to get rich off our kids and want us to pay for it.  They only go into teaching so they can get three months off in the summer.  They're dumb. They're socialists.  And they insist on belonging to unions.


In any profession there are good and bad players. Teaching is no exception.  But teaching as a whole doesn't deserve the reputation it's been getting, and our kids don't deserve the residual backlash. There's nothing subversive about developing, supporting and celebrating teachers.  There is something subversive about turning education into yet another private enterprise.

 So hooray for public schools and warrior-teachers like Rebecca Mieliwocki.  Teaching our kids to think, to create, to be caring, to be bold can only come about when teachers themselves are allowed to be thoughtful, creative, caring and bold.

They know and I know and you know that can't be taught with a test.

 

The Kalamazoo Promise: How did Obama miss this?

[I’m] here tonight because I think that America has a lot to learn from Kalamazoo Central about what makes for a successful school in this new century.  (Applause.)  You’ve got educators raising standards and then inspiring their students to meet them.  You’ve got community members who are stepping up as tutors and mentors and coaches.  You got parents who are taking an active interest in their child’s education -- attending those teacher conferences, yes, turning off the TV once in a while, making sure homework gets done.

President Obama, Kalamazoo Central High Commencement Speech, June 7, 2010

Kalamazoo, Michigan is currently home to an unprecedented experiment in economic development. Announced in November 2005, the Kalamazoo Promise guarantees full college scholarships to potentially every graduate of the Kalamazoo Public School district. Behind the scholarship program is an economic development agenda that seeks to revitalize the city and the region through a substantial investment in public education. It is an unorthodox approach and one that is drawing attention throughout the United States. If the return on investment in human and economic terms is high enough, the Kalamazoo Promise could serve as a new model for community revitalization and change the way policymakers think about K-16 education.

Upjohn Institute:  Research related to the Kalamazoo Promise

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Something amazing is going on in the Kalamazoo (MI) public schools. Every student who graduates from their schools is eligible to receive a fully or partially paid scholarship to a Michigan public university or community college of their choice. The scholarships aren't based on need, or on highest grade point average, or on ethnic background, or religious persuasion, or on fantastic essays, or on how many clubs they joined throughout their school years.  It's based on location, length of time in the schools, and a minimum 2.0 GPA.  Every child within the Kalamazoo School District boundaries is potentially eligible to receive some help for secondary education.  No strings attached.

The donors for this project insist on anonymity, and I find that refreshingly admirable--I do--but if, after reading about this program, there's one instance where curiosity is nearly killing the cat, this is it.  Who is paying for this? Is it the Upjohn Institute, disseminators of the Kalamazoo Promise information?  Is it Western Michigan University, the evaluators of the project?  Is it the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which, according to the Upjohn info, is funding an initiative called Investing in the Success of the Kalamazoo Promise, "to strengthen the outcomes of the scholarship program by investing in its evaluation and research infrastructure, and deepen community engagement"?  Or is it all of the above, plus a whole lot of other "nice people"?  (The most Upjohn will say about the donors.)


As the self-designated Protector of All Education Public and Free, I'm necessarily suspicious of private interests sticking their noses into our schools.  (One look at the Texas textbook miasma is enough to prove my point.) Their agendas are usually highly suspect, falling in line with their time-honored principal of Total Destruction of Public Education, that Dirty Communist/Socialist Plot to Capture and Brainwash our Precious Commodities.  


So I've looked pretty carefully at the Kalamazoo Promise, and if there is an agenda other than giving their kids a chance at success which may then come back to the community ten-fold,  I can't find it.  I have to admit, it's pretty amazing.


The project is so amazing, in fact, it came to the attention of the White House and the Department of Education as they looked for the one high school in the country where President Obama would be delivering his first high school commencement address.  High School seniors from all over the country were invited to write essays and send in videos presenting their case for winning the honor. (Kalamazoo was one of only two public school districts to race past the 1,000 or so entries and make it into the final six.)

Incredibly, happily, Kalamazoo won.  Here is Katie Couric's segment on the Promise:



And here is the essay:

Kalamazoo Central is a diverse, dynamic and dedicated community of students and staff committed to our district’s mission:  Every Child, Every Opportunity, Every Time. We challenge ourselves to take more AP classes (an increase of 221% in 4 years); we involve ourselves in our community through activism such as PeaceJam; and we take classes such as aviation technology and construction trades that prepare us for careers and college.  Our relationships with teachers and staff empower us all to form a united bond and a belief in our end goal:  changing the world through education.  Since 2006, 91% of all Kalamazoo Central graduates have attended college, affirming a college going culture in a vibrant community of 1700.  The Kalamazoo Promise—free college tuition for all—gives us the opportunity to achieve our college dreams. Our superintendent phrased it best:  

“If you’re looking for a community where going to college is a birthright, then Kalamazoo Public Schools isn’t it; but, if you’re looking for a community trying to send a whole host of students to college, then Kalamazoo Central is a model of that success.” 

We no longer merely hope for a future; we are confident that we are the future.

Considering that our fine Republican legislature decided to cut the Michigan Promise College Scholarship, a $3,000 lifeline for some 100,000 students, as a way of sticking it to higher Public Education in the guise of Saving Our Budget, the success of the Kalamazoo Promise is even more noteworthy.  Which leads me to wonder why President Obama didn't even mention it during his commencement speech.

He lauded the community and the parents and the students, and they truly deserved it--they're truly great--but  The Kalamazoo Promise is big.  It is life-changing.  One thing is leading to another, and  "Promise Zones" are popping up all over the place.  It is a welcome shot in the arm for the chronically ailing Public Education.  How about a little rah-rah from our top Public Servant?  It's right there in the essay:  Free college tuition for all.  It just jumps out at you, doesn't it?  So why wouldn't he want to talk about one of the very reasons why these kids (and their parents and their teachers and their administrators) have worked so hard to get  ready for college placement?  A golden opportunity to give a shout-out to the people who got this thing going, who are keeping it going, and who don't give a care about tooting their own horns.  That in itself is pretty earth-shaking. (I'm guessing they're not politicians.)

June 14 - (Disregard all that I said above about Obama missing an opportunity to praise the Kalamazoo Promise.  He did it, and did it well, and I completely missed it, both in listening to his speech and reading the transcript later.  Mea culpa.  My good friend Ramona (Yes, there are two of us) gave me the quote in the comments below.  Thank you, friend.  I hate it when I'm so obviously wrong, but I would hate it even more if I didn't have a chance to fix it.)

Ramona
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The Battle for Public Schools - Kids? What kids?

On C-Span's Washington Journal, the question this morning was "Should Public Schools receive a bailout?"  The majority of the callers said no.   I don't know where these people live--offshore, maybe--but My God.  I've lived a good long time, as my creaking joints are so keen on reminding me, but how long do I have to go on being amazed and chagrined that even now, even in the 21st century, forces from the dark side are still working on getting us out of the edjamacation business?

(By the way, what's the matter with C-Span?  Am I the only one who's noticing a definite Republican bent to their questions, their newspaper choices, and their programming?  The C in C-Span stands for Conservative these days.  Their idea of Fair and Balanced is moving suspiciously closer to the Fox's lair. That's a pity.)

These days we're looking, talking and acting more and more like some comic's version of a third world country, but so far we've kept the mercenaries at bay when it comes to our most sacrosanct obligation--basic education for all.  The Right Wing in our country have been beating their gums for eons now about the need to turn public schools over to private interests, but so far we've been able to brush them off like the nasty little gnats they are.

They can't rightly come out and admit that their idea of absolute nirvana is a wholly-privatized, for-profit, non-regulated society, so they latch onto the one guaranteed button-pusher:  taxes.  They use the threat of more taxes going to unworthy (read "socialist") causes as their reasons for denying every kid a chance at the American dream.  They know their audience well.  Dreams are for suckers when it comes to doling out their tax dollars.  Who wants to pay more taxes for anything?  Not we.  Cut the funding!  Kill the unions!  Minimum wage for teachers!  Pack those kids into the classrooms!  No free lunches!  Leave no child behind except yours!

 Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote a piece that found its way into the Wall Street Journal, (yes, truly) in which she makes the plea for more government funding.

According to a survey of more than 80% of school districts by the American Association of School Administrators, 275,000 teachers and other school staff will receive pink slips. It's not that these schools will educate fewer children, or that students won't need the personnel and programs that will be cut. But the cuts could rob an entire generation of students of the well-rounded education they need and deserve. Class sizes will swell, and students will lose important classes and programs, such as art, music, physical education, Advanced Placement classes, and counseling and intervention programs for those who need the most help.

Nowhere does she use the word "bailout", but the headline shreiks it.   It's a convenient word--it suggests we taxpayers have a choice.  Should we or shouldn't we keep funding our schools?  Will we or won't we bail them out?

Bail them out from what?  Ourselves?  Our neglect?  Our contempt?   What a sorry state we're in if the best we can do for our schools is to threaten to put them on the auction block if they don't behave. 

The funding for public schools should never be in question.  If you want a voice in how schools use taxpayer funds, fine--do it from within, at the local level. Work hard to make the schools better.  Give the kids a chance. Our education system is being bullied and battered, and in the end it's the kids who take the blows. (Ironic, isn't it, that it's the Family Values mob doing the bullying?  And, as with all bullies, they're not about to pick on somebody their own size. )

Ramona