Diana Ravitch - a message for New Zealand teachers!

 Diana Ravitch is always worth a read. For those who haven't heard of her I have cut and pasted an extract about her from Wikipedia. What is happening in America is on its way to New Zealand. I am not sure that many principals and teachers realise where our current government is taking them! I hope I am wrong.

'Ravitch critiqued the punitive uses of accountability to fire teachers and close schools, as well as replacing public schools with charter schools and relying on superstar teachers.

While she originally supported No Child Left Behind and charter schools, Ravitch later became "disillusioned," and wrote, "I no longer believe that either approach will produce the quantum improvement in American education that we all hope for." In the major national evaluation, 17% of charters got higher scores, 46% were no different, and 37% were significantly worse than public schools, she said. High-stakes testing, "utopian" goals, "draconian" penalties, school closings, privatization, and charter schools didn't work, she concluded. "The best predictor of low academic performance is poverty—not bad teachers."^[10]

 Of Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Race to the Top program, Ravitch said in a 2011 interview it "is an extension of No Child Left Behind ...[,] all bad ideas." She concluded "We are destroying our education system, blowing it up by these stupid policies. And handing the schools in low-income neighborhoods over to private entrepreneurs does not, in itself, improve them. There's plenty of evidence by now that the kids in those schools do no better, and it's simply a way of avoiding their - the public responsibility to provide good education."<sup>[13]'

On her blog she wrote at first she was a little uncertain of the phrase 'Badass Teachers' ( check them out on Facebook)  but after  giving it thought she wrote the letter below.</sup>

Dear Members of the Badass Teachers Association

I am honoured to join your group.

The best hope for the future of our society, of public education, and of the education profession is that people stand up and resist.

Say "no." Say it loud and say it often.

Teachers must resist, because you care about your students, and you care about your profession. You became a teacher to make a difference in the lives of children, not to take orders and obey the dictates of someone who doesn't know your students.

Parents must resist, to protect their children from the harm inflicted on them by high-stakes testing.

Administrators must resist, because their job is changing from that of coach to enforcer of rules and regulations. Instead of inspiring, supporting, and leading their staff, they are expected to crack the whip of authority.

School board members must resist, because the federal government is usurping their ability to make decisions that are right for their schools and their communities.

Students must resist because their education and their future are being destroyed by those who would force them to be judged solely by standardized tests.

Everyone who cares about the future of our democracy must resist, because public education is under attack, and public education is a foundation stone of our democracy. We must resist the phony rhetoric of "No Child Left Behind," which leaves every child behind, and we must resist the phony rhetoric of "Race to the Top," which makes high-stakes testing the be-all and end-all of schooling. The very notion of a "race to the top" is inconsistent with our democratic idea of equality of educational opportunity.

We live in an era of ignorant policy shaped by politicians who have never taught a day in their lives.

We live in a time when politicians and policymakers think that all children will get higher test scores if they are tested incessantly. They think that students who can’t clear a four-foot bar will jump higher if the bar is raised to six feet.

We live in a time when entrepreneurs are eyeing the schools and their budgets as a source of profit, a chance to monetize the children, an emerging market. Make no mistake: They want to make education more cost-effective by eliminating your profession and eliminating you. Their ideal would be 100 children in front of computers, monitored by classroom aides.What is happening today is not about "reform" or even "improvement," it is about cutting costs, reducing the status of teachers, and removing from education every last shred of the joy of learning.

You must resist, because if you do not, we will lose public education in the United States and the teaching profession will become a job, not a profession.

It is time to resist.

Badass Teachers, as you resist, be creative. Writing letters to the editor is good but it is not enough. Writing letters to the President is good, but it is not enough.

Be creative. The members of the Providence Student Union have led the way. They staged a zombie march in front of the Rhode Island Department of Education to demonstrate their opposition to the use of a standardized test as a high school graduation protest. They invited 60 accomplished professionals to take the released items from the test, and most failed. This convincingly demonstrated the absurdity of using the test as a requirement for graduation. When the state commissioner of education who was the main backer of the tests scheduled her annual “state of education” speech, the students scheduled their first “state of the student” speech.

Act together. A single nail gets hammered. When all the nails stick up, the people with the hammers run away. When the teachers of Garfield High School in Seattle boycotted the MAP test, they won: the test was cancelled and no one faced retribution.

Be brave. When you stand together and raise your voices, you are powerful.

Thank you for counting me as one of your own.

I salute you.

Diane Ravitch

Educational Readings Diane Khan, Nigel Latta, Pasi Salberg, Sir Ken, Michael Rosen, Rip Van Winkle and Dr Suess

 

By Allan Alach

LIfe is getting busy on the educational readings front. This is a selection of the many I could have sent your way, much the the relief of many, I suspect!

I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.

This week’s homework!

Education and the blame game

Dianne Khan’s article is a must read. Really!

‘Who is to blame that some students achieve less than others? Is apportioning blame and pointing fingers actually helpful for anything other than head-line grabbing? Admit it – did you click on this because of the headline, hoping for an easy answer? Well there isn’t one.  It’s a complex issue.’

http://bit.ly/17IRzQp

Great Teachers Don't Teach

Wonder if the people who design the 6 week teacher courses know anything about this?

‘… great teachers engineer learning experiences that manoeuvre the students into the driver's seat and then the teachers get out of the way.’

http://bit.ly/13f4fwK

Nigel Latta on National Standards

"Nonsense"

Bruce Hammonds’ republishing of a Nigel Latta posting about national standards - a must read.

http://bit.ly/1cFGaxx

 

Kelvin Smythe:The not so hidden corporate agenda of National Standards, and PaCT testing

Another republished article by Bruce Hammonds - this time a slight re-editing of a longer Kelvin Smythe article.

http://bit.ly/12AxcLV

The Matthew Effect: What Is It and How Can You Avoid It In Your Classroom? (via Tony Gurr)

Heard of the Matthew Effect before? I hadn’t either, until I read this article.

‘The only reason not to reward the best and brightest for their achievements is to avoid punishing the rest for their shortcomings.’

And:

‘How The Labels You Place On Your Students Affect Their Performance’

http://bit.ly/1atGi6z

Unpacking the sound bite “quality teaching eliminates socioeconomic advantage”

''Queen of the sound bites!"

Recently New Zealand’s Minister of Education Hekia Parata made the unsupported claim that four years of quality teaching would overcome the effects of poverty on children’s learning.  Rubbish but not surprising as this is her usual level of discourse. Save Our Schools NZ blogger Dianne Khan has done the required debunking - a recommended read!

http://bit.ly/13gRB06

Finland's education ambassador spreads the word (via Mike Boon)

‘Pasi Sahlberg was Finland's chief inspector of schools … until it was decided teachers did not need Ofsted-style surveillance. Now his job is global spokesman for the Finnish message.’

We can’t have too many articles about Sahlberg and Finland!

http://bit.ly/14ntJVk

Rip van Winkle and schools

 

An oldie from Bruce Hammonds (2006)  - what has changed?

http://bit.ly/19Q84e0

 

Video Section.

How to Change Education - from the ground up

Video of an hour long webcast from July 1st that features a presentation from Sir Ken Robinson where he ‘delivers the long-awaited follow-up to his now legendary 'Changing Education Paradigms' talk.’

An edited version will be available at some time, if you can’t find one hour in your busy life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HRXhRjfS7Q

Michael Rosen on Education (via Bruce Hammonds)

Author of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.’ Poor quality video but the message makes up for it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DOrd-VaLy7A

Why too often do schools kill curiosity (via Bruce Hammonds)

http://vimeo.com/34853044

Diffendoofer day (via Phil Cullen)

A video variation of the well known Dr Suess story, from Opotiki College, that reflects on the potential impact of tests to rate schools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB3RSa4NBUI

Lester Flockton:National Standards and PaCT – no way to solve the problem of student underachievement..

Highly respected NZ educator

 

Lester Flockton’s article in the latest New Zealand Principal’s Magazine (June 2013) is worth sharing. Lester is a highly respected NZ expert on assessment.

Lester writes:

Make no pact with PaCT!

‘National Standards were foisted ( forced if you prefer) upon New Zealand schools ….by a Government that naively, yet steadfastly , believes this is the way to overcome underachievement for a fifth or so of our students…. America has No Child Left Behind (and the disadvantaged are still behind).England has Key Stage Assessment …( and underachievement continues apace among the disadvantaged). Australia has NAPLAN, which is denting schools and teachers, but not underachievement. Yet until the Key Government arrived on its high horse , saddled up with Bill English’s National Standards, we had no such all –consuming, time- robbing, resource –diverting, ill-proven , technocratic industry.

So thanks to politically packaged half- baked knowledge about determinants of learning and achievement and outright dismissal and intolerance of any robust counter-evidence, we too have climbed aboard and are playing games like America, England and Australia with non-negotiable rules pronounced from on high and policed by the Minister’s Ministry’.

‘New Zealand’s game plan, however’, Lester writes, ‘differs in one very significant aspects from the others’ In New Zealand results are not made just by tests but also by ‘teacher overall professional judgment ( which may include mandatory test results)’. This believes Lester is a stroke of enlightenment but has led to the issue of variability of judgment within and between schools not helped by the ‘recognition that the standards were shamefully concocted, confusing, riddled with curricular flaws’.

 These predictable inconsistencies  ( says Nigel Latta) make any data collected difficult. The Ministry is to publish school comparative data in the near future based on these ‘shonky’ standards ( to quote the Prime Minister) interpretations.

The Government by spreading the false belief that their National Standards will solve the 1 in 5 students failing now have a problem – one of ensuring consistency and to solve the problem they created they are developing resource to ensure consistency between teachers and schools.  Lester quotes Bill English’s claim in the budget that ‘this initiative will make sure that the data teachers use to assess students against the standards is reliable and valid ‘.

"No matter your talents you will be graded by tree climbing!"

Lester responds to English’s’ claim by writing, ‘ Surely Mr English must know by now, that no matter how much political spin is ladled out nothing “makes sure”…of reliability and validity’.

PaCT  ( progress and consistency tool) is the creation of the  Ministry to achieve this reliability but this Lester writes ‘ won’t properly solve the problem  until the wobbly definitions and descriptions of the actual standards from which the data is derived are overhauled and re-written. But also bear in mind , none of this will solve the true problem underlyingunderachievement amongst disadvantaged or difficult children’.

According to the ministry the tool is based on the same principles as the standards themselves, requiring a variety of evidence of learner achievement as the basis for overall judgment and will enhance the ability to track learners’ progress in relation to National Standards.

It is worth remembering, at this point, that both National Standards and PaCT focus on two learning areas only ( literacy and numeracy) and  ignore children’s’ abilities in other equally important areas. Both lead to the narrowing of the curriculum, the ignoring of students’ diverse talents and strengths and contribute to the side-lining of the excellent 2007 New Zealand Curriculum.

 

Some price to pay for political interference! Behind comparative school data has more to do with their privatisation agenda by targeting failing schools and teachers .

If PaCT were to be made mandated then it will further undermine any professional trust that teachers have in the Ministry. At best, Lester believes, PaCT should be seen as a ‘tool to assist schools ‘…..’for in-school use only’.

Lester concludes, ‘Only once the full design, procedures, and uses of PaCT are officially revealed will it be possible to decide whether it is professionally advisable to enter into a PACT with PaCT .

If the tool, is also to be used for more and more funnelling of data to the Ministry of Education, then it likely to become yet another PACT: Performance Accountability Control Tool.

For and against Charter Schools and creative alternative.

Nigel Latta on National Standards

I was recently sent the below article on National Standards by Nigel Latta. Evidently it was posted on his face book page. It struck me as a very sensible comment on National Standards by a person well respected throughout New Zealand for his TV shows on bringing up children and his Darklands TV programmes outlining ways in which criminals early experiences effect their behaviour.

I hope Nigel doesn't mind me sharing his writing - if so I can always take it down.

NSs...nonsense!

I thought it would be great to share with parents /BOT members who  will know of Nigel's' work.

He heads his article:

'National Standards' aren't.

The latest national standards 'results' being reported in the media are utter nonsense. Pure and simple. Even if we ignore the large inconsistencies between the way that the 'standards' are measured (and we can't because the inconsistencies make comparisons all but impossible), and the fact that it assumes all children of a given age are maturing at the same rate (which they don't), and we ignore the impact of little things like child poverty (which some politicians like to do much to their shame), it's still impossible to say anything at all about a change in the numbers when you only have two data points.

They can't say that a difference of 1.2-2% on the various measures between last year and this year is an 'improvement', because we simply don't know.

If you had assessed all of those very same children again the day after they were assessed for these numbers, in the exact same conditions with the exact same measures, then you would also get a different number. That's because in the real world we have this little thing called statistical variation--things never work out exactly the same. To make any meaningful statements about 'improvements' you need meaningful measures (which national standards aren't anyway) over several different data points (i.e. over several )years.

"meaningless noise!"

I wish the media would get that very simple, but very important point. Politicians will spin it as a gain, but it isn't. It's simply meaningless statistical 'noise'.

The government went with national standards because they thought voters would like it, not because it's the best thing for making progress on education. If we really wanted to lift our 'national standards' then, perhaps as a beginning, we'd take more care of the large numbers of our kids living in poverty.

When they produce their 'rankings' of schools I'm pretty sure it's going to show a trend whereby higher decile schools meet/exceed the 'standards' much more than lower decile schools. I wonder why that might be? And who do we blame for that? Teachers?

Don't be sucked in by all this political positioning. My advice is to ignore the national standards tables because they don't mean anything. There's a reason teachers were so opposed to the way these 'national standards' are being used... fundamentally because it's nonsense!

Educational Readings - fighting for education

By Allan Alach

an ode to badass teachers

Join this rapidly growing Facebook group of teachers saying enough is enough!

I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.

This week’s homework!

The Time of the Corporatization of our Public Schools in the Form of Charter Schools Has Come and Gone (via Bruce Hammonds)

‘Charter schools are not the magic bullet and in fact distract from the real issues of poverty and the need for “wrap around” support for students in need.’

http://bit.ly/14qomng

What is SUCCESS?

How does your school define success? How do you? How do the kids? Tony Gurr has the answers.

http://bit.ly/12asOr7

 

Robert Fried on Seymour Sarason

Great book by Robert Fried

This article by Bruce Hammonds, from way back in 2006 when the light of the developing New Zealand Curriculum document was beginning to illuminate primary school education (in comparison to the educational dark ages that we are presently enduring) looks at Seymour Sarason’s book ‘The Predictable Failure of School Reform.’ Published in 1993, this book proves that our politicians are learning failures. 

http://bit.ly/14rjn5y

Eight Ways Of Looking At Intelligence (via Tony Gurr)

‘… eight ways of looking at intelligence—eight perspectives provided by the science of learning. A few words, first, about that term: The science of learning is a relatively new discipline born of an agglomeration of fields: cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience. Its project is to apply the methods of science to human endeavors—teaching and learning—that have for centuries been mostly treated as an art. As with anything to do with our idiosyncratic and unpredictable species, there is still a lot of art involved in teaching and learning. But the science of learning can offer some surprising and useful perspectives on how we educate young people and how we guide our own learning. And so: Eight Ways Of Looking At Intelligence.’

http://bit.ly/14iWhOg

Hyperbole about Online Learning is Not Supported by Research (via Save Our Schools Australia)

One of the corporate dreams is that education can be provided via online tuition, thus cutting out the middlemen (teachers) and also to increase their profit streams. The usual players (Murdoch, Pearson Group, McGraw Hill, for example) are already working on this in the USA and most likely in Australia and New Zealand - have NZ schools wondered why there has been so much emphasis on ensuring all schools have access to ultra fast broadband? Just a thought….

http://bit.ly/143uUJy

A Response to Mitra Part 1: Education and Employability

A Response to Mitra Part 2: Classroom Pedagogy (both via Tony Gurr)

Sugata Mitra has received many accolades for his research with children and learning with computers. Without doubt he has made some extremely vital discoveries, but, as with all new developments, it also pays to look at the other side of the equation, so that we do not follow trends (learning styles for example!) Skepticism is healthy… even if these articles reference John  Hattie…...

http://bit.ly/16sUNmk                        http://bit.ly/14iZgGv

The Hardest Job Everyone Thinks They Can Do

‘Maybe that’s why teachers get so little respect. It’s hard to respect a skill that is so hard to quantify. So, maybe you just have to take our word for it. The next time you walk into a classroom, and you see the teacher calmly presiding over a room full of kids, all actively engaged in the lesson, realize that it’s not because the job is easy. It’s because we make it look easy. And because we work our asses off to make it look easy. And, yes, we make it fun, too.’

http://bit.ly/18eSjvP

Kelvin Smythe:The not so hidden corporate agenda of National Standards, and PaCT testing

This an extract froma longer posting by Kelvin Smythe – and slightly adapted for this posting.

Since the announcement of NZEI, NZPF, AIMS, and CPA joining together to oppose PaCT and national standards we awaited the response from the anti-public school coalition  of John Roughan of the Herald, Bernadette Courtney of the Dominion, Treasury, the prime minister, and Hekia Parata. First one out of the blocks was Key, followed by Courtney. 

Biased editorial writer

‘The time has come for teacher unions to accept that national standards in reading, writing, and mathematics are here to stay,’ she trumpeted. The first paragraph in an editorial in metropolitan newspaper and a whacking great mistake.

I am not going to go through in detail the ‘arguments’ of the Editor except to assure readers that the editorial has dumb, pudding-like naivety which is the editorial’s main source of momentum.

But in an early misstep she says: ‘One of the strongest arguments teachers have advanced against the standards is that there is a lack of consistency in the way that they are applied and insufficient moderation at the national level.’

‘One of the strongest …’

There are others?

For an editor setting out to play dumb, this was a dumb sentence – because it is accurate – a slipup not to be repeated, however. While she is not quite as adroit as John Roughan, editor of the Herald  in total she is far more trenchantly dumb.

Then she comes to the nub of her editorial and the nub of this posting. She responds to claims that PaCT will undermine teachers‘ professionalism and reduce quality teaching.’

‘The claims are ridiculous,’ she declares. ‘Ensuring consistent assessment in reading, writing and mathematics will have no impact on how individual teachers seek to inspire, guide and educate their charges.’

No impact … the gall is breathtaking.

Thousands upon thousands of articles, many based on research have shown otherwise, and hundreds of books, and she knows it, but she is playing dumb. This is dumber than dumber.

One standard to rule them all!!

So let me see: reading, writing, and mathematics are going to be measured for standards, that requires those subjects to be organised for measurement, that requires learning in those areas to be divided into small learning bites, that requires learning to be standardised into standards – learning to small, standardised, measurable bites is an inefficient way to learn, it is a time-wasting way to learn, it is a less interesting way to learn, it is a less challenging way to learn, and it leads to an emphasis on ability grouping. All this is bad for children’s learning. As an example, research in England has shown that the move to enforced ability grouping in mathematics has been the largest contributor to England’s plummeting maths achievement. In New Zealand, ability grouping in maths is now widespread with similar results. The alternative of mathematics based on real-life problem solving has virtually disappeared.

 In reading, an emphasis on ability grouping and comprehension-type activities has resulted in less independent reading and love of books. And don’t get me going on the insincere waffle, adjective- and adverb-laden writing that is being produced. Good work Billy: two metaphors and look at all those adjectives. Plenty of rubric ticks there.

But it gets worse. Because teachers, especially New Zealand teachers like to teach more holistically, the kind of teaching they are forced to do is seen as the teaching the bureaucrats want, as someone else’s teaching; it’s not teachers’ preferred way, so creativity and initiative is reduced.

When curriculum areas are chosen for measurement and national attention, a number of things happen: the chosen curriculum areas are narrowed and pedagogically corrupted; the remaining ones neglected. Yet those neglected curriculum areas are important to the chosen ones and crucial sources of flexible and creative thinking overall.

When you have an education change involving high stakes’ measurement and standardisation of learning, the repercussion throughout the system are profound. What has been described  above being just a fragment of the fallout.

All students to sorted and graded

Teachers know that the drive by the right for national standards is not really about national standards but about providing a platform for bureaucratic control and putting schools down. We know what Editor is setting out to achieve with her dumbness: Providing an excuse for politicians and education bureaucrats to take more control over public schools for the purpose of squeezing the life out of them to the advantage of private schools. And the refrain she wants to induce: Look at those irresponsible, self-serving  teachers rejecting what is good for children’s education – we’ll have to give more power to bureaucrats and politicians to force them to do what they ought to be doing.

The Dominion Editor knows that that PaCT is intended to be used for all kinds of centralised control. She knows this but plays dumb because this is what she wants.

To the Editor national standards are about parents knowing ‘how their children are progressing in the three most important building blocks …’

Don’t make me laugh.

Who needs diversity and creativity

National standards and testing are not about parents knowing how their children are progressing: they are about making way for political and bureaucratic authoritarian control over schools; they are about a rapid growth of private schools for the children of the more privileged; they are about international corporations using education as a source of investment and profit; they are about using education for the neoliberal propagandising of students; they are about achieving wider social and economic neoliberal goals; and, cruelly  they are about appearing to do something for less privileged children when they are actually preparing  them to be part of a disposable generation.

The Dominion Editor knows this and is playing dumb to disguise the real purposes of national standards and testing. Gates, McKinsey, Pearson, Murdoch et al, are not

interested in parents knowing how children in classrooms are progressing – don’t make me laugh (again) – they are interested in how their profit is going and the spread of ideas to advance that profit. National standards and testing both here and overseas provide the foundation blocks for all those corporate and neoliberal purposes. They provide the flags to be planted for neo-colonisation and furthering the power of the corporate elite.

The Editor knows this but blathers on about parents knowing how their children are progressing.

This is not about parents knowing how their children are progressing but about parents being hoodwinked. Youth unemployment will be the major challenge of the future, but the education being advanced for many children is an education for stupidity. A concentration on a narrow version of the 3Rs is not an education for preparing children for the future, it is a preparation for failure and becoming part of a disposable generation – the disposable generation being an inevitable outcome of corporate authoritarianism.  Critical and flexible thinking is being suggested as something to attend to when the 3Rs are accomplished. What nonsense – they should be present in the education of all children, all the time. Anyway, nearly all children accomplish the 3Rs, but where is the learning for critical and flexible thinking? Way down as a priority. National testing and standards, in the light of this, can be seen as a fig leaf to cover the doing of nothing real for children outside the elite class (who will be attending privileged private schools).

Education ought liberate creativity

The Dominion Editor knows all this but does not care, she is on a very different trajectory, a neoliberal trajectory, away from the common good encompassed in the social contract, to a market-driven ideology that emphasises individual solutions to economically and socially produced problems; to an ideology of carelessness and cruelty based on fear, humiliation, and obedience. She is on a trajectory where trust is viewed with suspicion because human motivation is seen as grasping and predatory and where the template for the organisation of society is corporate greed.

The Editor knows that if teachers are given the autonomy to be creative, children will learn to think flexibly and to be critical in their thinking. Children educated in a humane, diverse, and democratic environment; children who develop their own voice – will be more likely challenge corporate authoritarianism and not allow themselves to become tools of an uncaring instrumental tool of repression.

 STOP PRESS: IT GETS WORSE

.

Educational Readings - fighting for our classrooms

By Allan Alach

When spiders unite they can tie down a lion. Ethiopian proverb.

I welcome suggested articles, so if you come across a gem, email it to me at allan.alach@ihug.co.nz.

This week’s homework!

Fighting For Our Classrooms, and For the Human Beings Inside Them

‘It seems as if the same battle is being fought in every aspect of American society. On one side are the forces of egalitarianism, economic opportunity and self-determination. On the other is a well-funded and entrenched elite bent on hijacking our media, our political process and our institutions for their selfish ends. Sadly, the classrooms of this country haven't been spared.’

 

Ring any bells for you?

http://bit.ly/18Tdcxt

What’s the most ‘natural’ way to learn? It might surprise you.

‘Here is a counterintuitive piece on what we consider the “natural” way to learn, from cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham.’

http://wapo.st/17hU1x3

To THUNK or not to THUNK…

There’s life beyond protests in Turkey and to prove that here’s a good thunk from Tony Gurr.

http://bit.ly/16BPMsq

It Makes Me Wonder Why All the Amateurs Have Come to Education

US educational activist (http://atthechalkface.com) Shaun Johnson reflecting on the seemingly endless numbers of amateur experts on education, especially politicians and economists! Right on Shaun.

http://huff.to/14GZMAt

Are College and Career Skills Really the Same?

This US article examines the rhetoric that common core standards are necessary to prepare children for employment and tertiary studies. The connection to national standards rhetoric in New Zealand is very obvious.

‘The second concern is justifying the Common Core on the highly dubious notion that college and career skills are the same. On its face, the idea is absurd. After all, do chefs, policemen, welders, hotel managers, professional baseball players and health technicians all require college skills for their careers? Do college students all require learning occupational skills in a wide array of careers? In making the "same skills" claim, proponents are really saying that college skills are necessary for all careers and not that large numbers of career skills are necessary for college.’

http://to.pbs.org/12RNurf

Telling Time with a Broken Clock: The trouble with standardized testing

Very comprehensive article by Canadian teacher Joe Bower.

‘Ask any parents what their long-term concerns and goals are for their children, and seldom will you hear about test scores and world rankings. Their concerns are compelling, existential and heartfelt. Parents want their kids to be happy, hard-working, motivated, responsible, honest, empathetic, intelligent, collaborative, creative and courageous.’

http://bit.ly/16FReK6

Bill Gates Discovers Money Cannot Buy Teachers

Surprise, surprise. Another neoliberal dream goes up in smoke.

.Not by testing Bill!!!!

‘Ultimately, there are three ways to get people to do something you want them to do. One is to force them, by making the consequences for not complying onerous or unacceptable. The second is to lure them, by offering some sort of bribe or incentive. The third is to get them excited about your ideas, whereupon they may engage with enthusiasm. In my experience, real change in education only comes with the third of these methods, because the first two inspire more resistance than cooperation.’

http://bit.ly/11Y4Mzx

Will New Tests Measure Any Valuable Skills?

‘After more than ten years of national education policies like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, the words accountability and assessment have become synonymous at many public schools with high-stakes testing. The two government programs have attached consequences and rewards to standardized test scores, leading many educators to believe they have to teach to the test. But, as the well-known argument goes, teaching prescribed math and reading content doesn’t help students build the skills like creativity, problem-solving and adaptability they need to adapt in the world outside of school.’

http://bit.ly/11oD9Aa

What Would Socrates Say? (via Bruce Hammonds)

The concept of inquiry learning goes back a very long way to the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. One of his reporting sayings was "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance." I can think of many politicians who would do well to adopt the same self belief. This quote highlights the relevance of Socrate’s philosophy to the 21st century educational environment, without a standardised test in sight.

‘Socrates believed that we learn best by asking essential questions and testing tentative answers against reason and fact in a continual and virtuous circle of honest debate. We need to approach the contemporary knowledge explosion and the technologies propelling this new enlightenment in just that manner. Otherwise, the great knowledge and communication tsunami of the 21st century may drown us in a sea of trivia instead of lifting us up on a rising tide of possibility and promise.’

http://bit.ly/1axU5aK