Defending Public Schools: The Nature and Limits of Standards Based Education and Assessment

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Defending Public Schools (Praeger Perspectives)
by E. Wayne Ross (Editor), David A. Gabbard (Editor), Kathleen R. Kesson (Editor), Kevin D. Vinson (Editor), Sandra Mathison (Editor) Review
“These volumes both summarize and provide detailed examples of how NCLB is affecting children, teachers, and communities…..Essential. All levels. Anyone interested in defending public schools.”–Choice

“Always thought-provoking and sometimes controversial, this balanced look at a vast and complicated system addresses upper-level undergraduates through faculty and is recommended for academic libraries or circulating collections.”–Library Journal

“Defending Public Schools is a four-volume set that does not have to be read all at once. With that caveat in mind, the set is valuable in total also allows the busy administrator to read sections of the books on an as-needed basis.”–The School Administrator

“The articles of this four-volume work present an urgent and sobering case for the destructive impact on American education of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act.”–Reference & Research Book News

Review
“This timely series critically addresses the educational debates resulting from the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. From the perspective of national security to classroom assessment, the series analyzes the impact of this revolutionary legislation and other current educational proposals on democratic schooling and classroom practices. A thumbs up to the editors for their careful work in assembling this great series.” – Joel Spring, Professor Queens College City University of New York

“A collection for learning how the attacks on public education are being waged–and how to plan a defense against those that would destroy our educational system.” – David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor Arizona State University

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The Burden of Evaluation

We judge programs, curricula, interventions to assist in finding remedies to problems, to contribute positively to learning what is good and right. But is that the way it actually plays out? In Massachusetts, schools are being overwhelmed by evaluation. The demands for accountability are strong and come at schools from local, state and federal angles resulting in a stunning evaluation burden on school personnel and students. John Brucato, high school principal in Milford, Mass talks about this burden as his school underwent a regional accreditation review and a comprehensive state review at the same time. See Assessment Teams Hog School Time.

Another MA principal summed up the scenario:

“The corridors are crowded with assessing authorities, evaluation teams, accreditation people and a host of others, all intent on monitoring a myriad of federal and state programs to improve our education system. While testing, measuring progress and accountability are recognized as necessary to the educational system, we have reached a point where measurement activities are getting in the way of real education.”

How should we judge when the demands for accountability seriously impede the very thing being held accountable? Perhaps the experiences of MA schools is a starting point.

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A bit of history on accreditation

The Flexner Report of 1910 was an evaluation of medical education in all programs in Canada and the US–Flexner found medical education wanting and his report lead to significant changes in medical education. But for evaluators, the importance of this report is that it was the genesis of accreditation, a model of evaluation based on expert, professional judgement. The New England Journal of Medicine has published a 100 year retrospective look at medical education and still finds it wanting.

Accreditation has changed over the years, moving away from looking at resources and processes, to a more substantial examination of outcomes. But still, the approach holds too fast to simplistic criteria, and still often looks at things like the ration of support staff to faculty, and the number of hours of clinical work, and the office space allocated. And it is common knowledge that accreditation is as much about feting the site visitors as it is about doing a good job of professional education.

There have been few advances in accreditation as evaluation, perhaps the one exception is TEAC or the Teacher Education Accreditation Council. Unlike other accrediting agencies, TEAC holds programs accountable for what they say they intend to do based on reasonable evidence identified by the program being reviewed, rather than an abstract, general notion of what is considered appropriate professional education and preconceived sorts of evidence.

Now, if only someone would do a 100 year retrospective analysis of accreditation qua evaluation…

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It is amazing what misuses educational tests are put to…

Educational and psychological tests have pockets of darkness in their history. A key one is eugenics, the continued connections between mental measurement and racism. The unbelievably goofy pseudo-scientist J. Phillipe Rushton is featured in my home town newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, for his silly study in which he asserts scores on the SAT demonstrate men are naturally smarter than women. Apparently no one told him the SAT doesn’t even predict success in college, let alone success in life. Apparently he is also unaware that even the test publisher says the test isn’t worth much, especially in judgements of merit, when a point spread of at least 125 is necessary to even suggest real differences exist. Rushton can’t even keep his silly science straight – he previously claimed there is an inverse relationship between intelligence and penis size. Seems to me the women have it all over the men based on this theory.

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