Greed and Power.
Those two words seem to be the slogans for education today. I have always know there is big money in education, and with the constant whisperings of the “school budget” with “staff layoffs” and “school resources,” you can’t help but know that money has been the fuel for our education system for a long, long time.
It’s a constant threat and pressure point; I feel like our schools are in saucepan on stove burner which is set to high, and every school district is waiting for that moment for the water to boil and overflow because there is too much to pay for, and never enough money to support it.
I did not—in my embarrassingly naïve way—realize that the greediness of the education system was also deeply intertwined with the fact that the standardized tests we use and are so tightly bound to are also part of a “new and lucrative market”( Hoff, 24) for publishers. I felt myself get slapped across the face when I was reading because I never put 2 and 2 together. I just realized that using tests like the ACT is very profitable for some people. Sure, it is destroying the ambition, diversity, creativity, and passion of our children in the classroom, but hey…as long as someone is making money, what’s the real harm?
Excuse my sarcasm, but isn’t greed one of the seven deadly sins? When has greed ever been positive or constructive?
My fear is that this type of greed is a political, social, and economical giant. It is something that cannot easily be destroyed or changed. And after doing our first four units, and learning that school is a basically another place for “big business,” I am worried about if this greed will ever change in American education.
It was also eye-opening to read that a “national curriculum is a mechanism for the political control of knowledge” (35) and how you could see that “in the top down curriculum…teachers and students have little recognized power” (Sleeter and Stillman, 43). I have always liked the idea of the Common Core Standards, but then I realized that it really does take the power away from me as the teacher, and worse—the students.
Students seem to have little say or choice in what they want to learn. We have clearly seen that with what they must read, what they must write, and how they must demonstrate what they learn—which is through these standardized tests.
This idea of students and power has made me think about the attitudes of our students—they know they don’t have power or control over their educational surroundings, so they do one of two things: they resist and rebel; thus becoming those “disrupted, problem children” or they become apathetic and quit trying.
So is this what our educational system has come down to? A power struggle over money? A system where our students and future generations are nothing more than bodies to control and squeeze money out of? It makes me wonder what other deadly sins our schools will be willing to commit next.
Resources:
Here are some comics I thought would help add some humor to this my somewhat dark and tense discussion!
Hi Amber,
ReplyDeleteLet me start by saying that the comics on standardized testing were pretty funny—I especially enjoyed the first one with the employer asking what skills the prospective employee had.
On another note, You attributed the motivation for standardized testing in large part to greed. Undoubtedly, this plays a role in it. After all, there is a lot of money in education and in testing. As Hoff (1999) hinted, people are needed to design the tests, print and distribute the tests, assess the tests, distribute the scores…and the list of jobs goes on. While the magnitude of the fiscal impact of testing can hardly be debated, I am not so sure that greed drives the standardized testing agenda.
Remember, testing was initially appealing in part because it “removed the subjectivity of individual teachers’ grading methods” (Hoff, 1999, p. 22). I think that this appeal is still present today. Also, with all of the recent news of data ‘hacking’ and the tracking of social data, I am starting to believe that America is simply addicted to data. People are used to seeing statistical evidence of events and are increasingly demanding to see it in education.
Overall, I will not argue that standardized isn’t a bit extreme. Furthermore, I think that standardized testing is corrupt, like many lucrative industries in America. However, I do think that many people, if not most, approach testing with a clean conscience and with a confident belief that testing is the best means to serve students.
Sincerely,
Edward Nelson
I absolutely love your post and your realization that companies like the ACT are making money and lots of it. It is something that so many of us - myself included - sometimes forget. Do you also realize how much money the Advanced Placement (AP) makes? Just like the ACT they are making money off all these AP courses across the country, the teacher workshops and the testing. If you really get into what these AP courses are about you will see exactly what you said, “it is destroying the ambition, diversity, creativity, and passion of our children in the classroom, but hey…as long as someone is making money, what’s the real harm?” Just this year I began teaching in a high school heavily invested in the AP program and just yesterday I listened to my principal promoting taking those AP classes to everyone - I felt like I was watching an infomercial. I teach General Science to 9th graders and then one PreAP Courses and I can tell you that the rigor and creativity is not in my PreAP Courses but it is in my General Science course. Those AP courses are working all year after a score on the AP exam that in turn might get them some college credit, but in reality how many really get a good enough score to translate into college credit? Not many is the answer!
ReplyDeleteHere is an excellent article on the subject:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/05/ap-surges-as-tool-for-sch_0_n_1486369.html
I really appreciate your post because I currently teach AP Literature. I went to an AP workshop and I was listening to some of the teachers talk about how ALL, and I mean ALL, of the class writing and assignments is focused on the AP exam. It was so sad. I have been trying to teach AP with the emphasize on how to become better readers and writers, and how to write creatively like our authors, and discuss. While I do some AP exam prep, that is not my focus, because I think that burns students out and shuts them down for learning. Thanks for the reply--you got me thinking!
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DeleteAmber,
ReplyDeleteThis is a powerful post! Thanks for sharing your honest thoughts. I'm with you on this… I think there are some deeply troubling and problematic issues with the current testing regime in this country. When the happiness and educational success of kids AND the wellbeing and security of teachers is jeopardized for profit, I have real concerns. So, I wonder, what is to be done? What action can be taken? What alternatives can be considered? I feel as if some kind of "assessment" or "measurement" is obviously useful to us as educators, but how might we approach this differently? School- or district-wide portfolios? Project-based assessments? What else is out there?
I also wonder the extent to which the CCSS is actually being used appropriately. If we look at the standards as guides, there is a whole lot of room to adapt to individual teaching situations, contexts, etc. and to create lessons that really speak to kids where they are. However, the way the CCSS have been taken up and adopted have often narrowed the curriculum and diminished the extent to which teachers can be creative. Do you think the CCSS are inherently bad? (A lot of people do.) Or, do you think there is a way to have them, or something similar, that might be beneficial?
Best,
amanda