Stumped

My self-perception includes among a variety of characteristics the image that I am a reasonably bright person.  Not a genius, mind you, but reasonably bright.  And so it is with no small degree of frustration that I must confess that after hours of cogitation the following issues regarding public education continue to leave me totally stumped.  I cannot understand the following and clearly need some help and insight from someone smarter than me.

 

If high-stakes standardized testing of children is such a wonderful strategy to improve education why did the high-stakes testing movement not begin in private schools?  To this day, private schools are allowed to opt-out of such tests and virtually all of them do so.  In many ways private schools appear to provide a better educational experience than some public schools (though in many ways they do not!)  Why aren’t we looking at the characteristics of those schools rather than inventing new strategies for poor public schools? No, we are improving public schools by adopting models not used in successful schools, but models designed to shame the adults in schools where children are not prepared to do well and parents have limited resources.

 

If high-stakes standardized testing of children is actually a way to improve instruction for children, then why do the test results arrive so long after test administration that it is impossible to alter the instructional model based on the results?  It appears that the only reason to administer such tests to children is to judge the adults.

 

If it is reasonable to judge teachers, principals, and superintendents by the results of student high-stakes standardized tests is it equally reasonable to judge hospital staff by patient mortality rates, or ministers and churches by the arrest records of their congregants, or basketball teams and coaches by average player height, or county health agencies by the number of obese citizens?  None of these measures are of those who provide the leadership or service and all of these measures are of those who are the recipients of the leadership or service.  If that in fact makes sense, then shouldn’t legislatures be judged by the very tests they require of public schools if the legislative intent is to “improve” or “reform” schools?  How can we not judge legislatures and/or departments of education for this “service” to children instigated by an elected body?  If a legislator says, “I support high-stakes standardized tests, more charter schools, vouchers, and value-added teacher appraisal strategies to improve schools,” then why do we not hold the legislator accountable if schools do not “improve” or if any school “fails”?

 

Why is it legal for a parent to opt-out of vaccinating their child when we know there is no linkage between vaccination and autism or any other mental malady, and we know that failure to vaccinate is a dire health risk to the child who is too young to participate in the decision to vaccinate or not, and we know that failure to vaccinate is a large health risk to other children?  Worse, why is it legal for a parent to opt-out of vaccinating their children but it is illegal for a parent to opt-out of the state’s high-stakes standardized test for their child?  Are such tests more beneficial to the child than a measles vaccination?  One would think so.  There is no evidence, however, that any such high-stakes test improve the condition of the child taking the test.

 

And finally, why do we allow elected officials to decide operational procedures in an area of high required expertise as well as highly required intuitive human interaction, empathy and caring?  Allowing the Texas Legislature to make such rules and regulations for public education is tantamount to allowing them to define operational procedures for NASA.  It is worse than that really.  The Legislature does not look to educators to improve instructional outcomes though we know how to do so.  They look to non-educator billionaires and hucksters whose snake oil remedies have never worked.  If they were to make such guidelines for NASA I suspect they would know that Bill Gates is not qualified as a rocket scientist, nor are the Koch brothers, nor Sandy Kress, nor Dan Patrick, nor Gregg Abbott, nor Michael Williams, etc., etc.  And yet, these non-educators continue to hold the position that they know what is best for public education.  Ludicrous.  In fact, insulting!  We continue to look to the non-educated to direct an educational institution.  Allowing the non-educator to propose improvements in education reveals that such people do not know what they do not know and have no interest in knowing even that simple fact.  Why do we allow such nonsense to continue from Congress, to state legislatures, to local school boards?  I have no earthly idea.

 

I remain stumped.