My son, who is in the teaching profession, has reminded me that most teachers care about kids, know how to teach, and don’t need advice from outsiders like me. I agree. This is not about them. It is about public policy, or more specifically, the testing regime.
I never took the SAT, though it probably existed. Instead, I took the “ACT” (I think). These were general tests given perhaps yearly. I don’t recall being grilled on anything more than basic abilities in math, science, reasoning and language. I received the results in a percentile form, and have never been told what my “IQ” is. Such testing was important to identify strong students as part of the culling process, as these would be our future technicians, scientists, and blah blah blahs. It was a system that relied on testing, but not a testing regime. I have struggled with the idea, as do teachers including Polish Wolf, who wrote this piece about a testing scandal in Atlanta. NCLB had created perverse incentives, people have responded accordingly, and now we must punish them.
It might have cleared up a bit this morning, but the fog persists. This is a 2008 study on violent war deaths that puts the number suffered by Vietnamese during the American invasion, 1955-75, at 3.8 million. That’s another subject, of course, but I know that if I were to randomly ask any product of American education, including those who do well on our tests, what the number of casualties was, the answers would be 1) “Huh?”, or 2) 58,000, the number of American deaths. The 3.8 million number is an answer to a question that is not asked.
It is not that we test or that we ask questions. It’s that there is far more human knowledge than can be tested, and far more to education than can be measured by regurgitation. Deciding on a testing regime cedes power to those who decide what questions are asked. Grilling kids on their absorption of mandated subject matter does not measure true learning. In the larger picture, testing narrowly constricts educational objectives. Kids cannot move in independent directions. They must study what is taught. What is taught is mandated by the state. The testing regime stifles independent thought, creativity, and human freedom. It limits the mind. In the end, we don’t know the answers to questions not asked. It’s a form of thought control.
Is testing necessary? Yes. We need to measure basic skills. But testing as we now do it is but another tool of the state to stifle creativity and human freedom.
That’s where I am at with this complicated subject at this moment. They have taken something good and useful, testing, and perverted it to other ends. Rather than using it to aid, we now use it to stifle education, independent thought, and human freedom.
Piece of Mindful 
Would the BMJ study perhaps be a “tool” of the powers to be?
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Not sure what you mean. In general, I am advocating that we be free to pursue our independent paths, being sure that schools supply us with basic tools.
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Let me be “creative”.
Why for instance would their (BMJ) study only include warring nations and exclude civil actions?
Cambodia specifically comes to mind with 1.8 million deaths.
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Are you justifying one via the other? Remember, without the US bombing campaign where they dropped more bombs on that country than during all of World War II, there would be no Pol Pot. Also remember that the US funneled aid to him via China. So if you want to bring Cambodia into the equation, put it under the US column too. We own it.
PS: It is also interesting that you know about Cambodian atrocities, as they were crimes supposedly committed by enemies. Part of a thought control regime is that we know about those crimes, but not our own. You are a great set-up man.
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You obviously heard of “Operation Eskimo”.
That’s where we funneled money across the Bering Strait to aid Stalin’s murderous campaigns.
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No, I’ve not. But WTF anyway? You’re all over the map. What do you think about our testing regime?
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I’m “moving independently”.
Re-read your 3rd to last paragraph.
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Again, what do you think about the testing regime, your own words and thoughts, independent they may be.
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Thought control? See: Chompsky’s “Necessary Illusions.” Oppression, according to whom? Oppressive regimes separate, indimidate, encarcerate, and assassinate any revolutionary expressing thoughts that might cause people to organize and demand freedom, equality, and justice for all. Our anti-democratic system is no different, just harder to see behind the barrage of smiley faces and lower prices. Oppression knows no bounds when power-elites feel that their hard-earned status quo is threatened. Criminalization of all kinds of “deviant” behavior, or thoughts of deviant behavior, is the underpinning of the police state in which we live. Testing is a top-down control mechanism aimed at students, faculty, administration, board members, and citizens of the community. It is important for everyone to know who’s calling the shots, and who’s enforcing the ever-changing “criminal code.” If I’m not mistaken, under the Patriot Act, no crime is necessary to trigger an enforcement action which could lead to rendition, indefinite encarceration, torture, and death. Testing is just one step with incredibly broad sweep along what has become for many the “school-to-prison pipeline.”
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“Thought control” is Orwell’s circus dog, that’s all.
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I know you want to turn this into some anti-war/govt. conspiracy witch hunt but the facts of the Atlanta teaching scandal centers around Math scores and testing, theft and coverups.
Quote: ” Investigators say Atlanta’s school district orchestrated a culture of cheating to benefit those at the top.
Nearly 200 educators admitted to taking part in the massive scandal: they tampered with students’ standardized tests and corrected answers to inflate scores. Some teachers had pizza parties to erase wrong answers and circle in the right ones. One principal allegedly handled altered tests wearing gloves to avoid leaving her fingerprints.
At one middle school, 86 percent of eighth-graders scored proficient in math, compared to 24 percent the year before. Prosecutors say that progress was a criminal mirage.
“The four principle crimes that are charged in the indictment are the statements and writings, false swearings, theft by taking, and influencing witnesses,” Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Jr. said.”
Now who I be “independent” if I believed 2+2=5?
We’re talking Middle School Algebra, Mark.
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Yeah, we get all of that. One of the points that PW made was that NCLB incentivized the behaviors with payments. You’re the econ101 guy, so you get that, right?
In the meantime, what do you think of e testing regime?
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Tests, or the act of testing is racist.
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I hear you – I actually understand what you are saying here and have wrestled with the knowledge that some minority kids don’t do well on tests, others excel. I trust you agree that the differences are cultural – we are all equipped to adapt to our language and environment, and everything we need to survive is in place at a very young age – maybe even by 24 months. But cultural differences don’t transfer well as kids mature.
If you are saying that there are racial differences in IQ, I would beg to differ, as I don’t think that any scientist has offered up evidence other than cultural. I suspect that if you took a kid from Brazil or Namibia at birth and brought him/her here, the kid would adapt very well and test out within the normal range.
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2+2=5 is arithmetic, not algebra, swede.
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If given as a multiple choice question I’m sure 75% of the students in Atlanta would designate that equation as calculus.
Before pizza party correction night.
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Your first paragraph vaguely remembers what we talked about. But it did allow you to set up the rest of your argument.
In point of fact, I never accused you of “telling teachers what to do.” I actually accused you of doing the opposite – you have vague complaints about what teachers are doing to students, but you are not in the least bit equipped to develop a schedule and/or pedagogy to replace it. You’re taking a 30,000 foot view, complaining, and not offering any solutions. And no, “teaching kids to think critically” is decidedly NOT a solution. It’s a cop-out.
And again, there are very few teachers who have substantively changed their pedagogy as a result of testing. “teaching to the test” is largely a myth – although it does happen from time to time.
I think we agree that there has to be some testing and that it should be part of a larger model for determining how students and schools are doing. And I think we agree that the way it’s being done now is stupid. Despite that, we still manage to talk past each other quite a bit because we’re looking at this from decidedly different angles.
All that being said, this Atlanta scandal has shaken me quite a bit. I’m wondering if common standards, testing, and teacher incentives are like communism – they sound nice in the abstract but lead to perverse incentives in the real world. I don’t know the answer to that. I think that the Obama administration has taken positive steps, but it will be instructive to see what the results are over time.
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We are not talking by one another. We just use different words. And I do not see how, when schools and teachers are graded on testing results, that teaching to testing is not a factor in teaching. How can it not be? How can you look at Atlanta and not see a connection?
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One more thing: To my knowledge History is not included on any of the most widely-used standardized tests.
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If I implied that it was or should be, I did not mean to. I used the Vietnam casualty example because it is a question that is not asked, therefore no one is capable of answering or even thinking about it. That’s thought control, like it or not. But I meant it only generally – if the tests are standardized nationwide, then per se the kids don’t know what they don’t know.
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Following on the idea that “kids don’t know wht they don’t know,” the Texas Board of Education has for years held incredible power over content in textbooks used in schools nationwide. Testing measures the efficacy of content indoctrination. If the battle over content has been largely lost, doesn’t that make the battle over testing somewhat superfluous?
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