When it comes to public education, debates almost always seem to be two-fold. One issue in particular that we’ve been discussing recently is that of standardized testing. Standardized testing has some really intricate implications as to what sort of message it is sending schools and what sort of goals it aims to achieve (or actually does achieve). Many of the articles we’ve read, such as those by Au (2009), demonstrate some of the serious issues with the No Child Left Behind act and the intense fascination our federal government has placed upon using standardized testing as a means of measuring school and teacher efficacy and, furthermore, basing funding bonuses or cuts on it (as Race to the Top went on to do).
Keeping this in mind, as I started reading Fabricant and Fine’s “Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education (2012), it is becoming even more clear how extremely crucial monetary support is being sucked out of lower-performing public schools. In Rachel Aviv’s article, “Wrong Answer” (2014), a prime example of times this sort of trend can produce some extremely negative consequences is given. In a lower-performing urban school with its back against the wall, teachers and administrators will resort to seemingly unethical practices in order to ensure that the federal government see that their school is making “adequate yearly progress.”
Calling what Lewis did “unethical” is a topic to be debated in and of itself. As Lewis claims in the article, before there was an increase in focus on the standardized testing, students were showing slow, steady, intangible signs of progress (2014). Of course, the standardized tests were not able to accurately measure this sort of positive change (and if they could, it probably still wouldn’t have been enough to qualify as “adequate yearly progress.” Even so, every school is unique in the fact that it contains a completely unique population and demography of students, which means that the methods by which the schools’ teachers must go about providing students with a maximally beneficial education are all unique as well. “Standardization,” in this sense, is clearly a roadblock.
In regards to charter schools and standardized testing together, it seems very clear that one shared unintentional consequence of each is the sucking of public school funds. With charter schools receiving monetary support from private corporations that public schools simply do not see, and poor test scores resulting in lower federal funding, poor-performing (typically urban) schools are essentially doomed in this era of education reform. This reduces modern education reform to somewhat of a Michelle Rhee-type of “purification;” of which the implications are indeed very grave and rooted firmly within socioeconomic and civil rights issues.
Comments
6 responses to “Disinvestment, Charter Schools, and Standardized Testing”
Justin,
Like you, I always was confused on why the US Department of Education would set up policies that would take away money from struggling or low-performing schools. Aren’t these the schools that need the money most? How can a school improve from one year to the next with less and less money? Furthermore, I believe that shutting down failing schools is also not the answer. There a certain message being given when schools are closed: at some point you can be failing so much that its better to just completely give up.
However, to play the devil’s advocate, I don’t think that the policy makers take away money from schools because they are heartless or money driven machines. Instead, I think people generally (and people who run schools) are inherently money driven. Policy makers use money as an incentive because it’s what produces results. Brill pointed out that the Race to the Top money was what finally got states to make significant changes. Could these same changes occur in the education system without the motivation of money?
Justin,
I like the way that you described standardization as a roadblock. It supports the idea that every student is the same, and that every school is the same, when there is clear evidence that this is not the case. Treating everyone similarly definitely works for the majority, but for the people who fall through the cracks, it is extremely detrimental. In our society, the people who fall through the cracks are kids of low socioeconomic status who go to schools with less resources. This standardization of expectations is harmful, because some students have a further way to go to meet these standards. They have to overcome their neighborhood, statistically more illnesses, and may not have enough food in the morning to even start them off on the right foot. Once they get to school they are also disadvantaged because these schools do not have adequate resources to bring students up. I would really like to look at more data about the Harlem Children’s Zone, because I think that it puts much more emphasis on social programs and reforms than is usually seen.
I definitely agree that measuring “adequate yearly progress” is often not a good way to define improvement of schools. In an urban school, with problems like Courtney describes in her response, engaging students and parents enough that they show steady attendance may be one form of their “progress,” though that would not be directly measured by a standardized test. Students, families, teachers, and, in effect, schools, are so variable to start with that trying to standardize them can actually have negative effects. This is clear in the dozens of urban schools that have been closed because they don’t show improvement in the ‘standard’ way the government endorses.
An interesting idea to contemplate is that maybe the tests themselves are not the problem, but the standard is. A solid argument can be made for the case that tests are a good way to determine how much material a student knows about a particular subject. Maybe instead of doing away with the tests themselves, a standard should not be set which is then used to determine if the school is successful or not and potentially closed down. I think we can all agree that the varying levels of socioeconomic status is a a large influence on a child’s ability as a student. Many factors play into this such as family, income level, neighborhood, etc. Because of this, it would not make sense to have the same standards for every public school in a state.
It is possible for tests to be created and administered to students but the results not be used to conclude how well the school is doing or if it should be shut down. If anything, a school not performing well by the current standards should be allowed to remain so that students will not have to subjected to the stress of transferring schools. Or even allow the standards to remain but if a school does not meet them, don’t just close it down. In my opinion, the root of the problem with standardized tests is not the test themselves but using the results in a way that negatively affects the students and thus the community. Perhaps standardized tests can continue but their negative effect on the public education system can be reduced or ideally, eliminated.
Your points about standardized testing and monetary aid highlight just how outdated the system is. To me, it seems as though the No Child Left Behind Act would have been something that was passed in the decades after World War II, not in more recent presidential administrations. Instead of celebrating differences and allowing different schools to foster in their own regard, standardized testing attempts to pigeon-hole diverse students across the country, and as an effect, has s discriminatory effect. Your post also reminds me about the discussion we had in class a few weeks ago about policy and financial aid for public schools. Professor Feuerstein pointed out that the policy makers involved with No Child Left Behind wanted to highlight the schools that were failing with solid proof of standardized test scores. This old-fashion ideology of some types of students being better equipped than others is another further fueled by the fire of standardized testing.
Justin, I also agree with your statement of standardization being a roadblock. Every student,school, and teacher is unique and measuring them all under the same criteria seems almost ridiculous.
However a main point of yours that stood out to me that I also have become aware of is that it seems the monetary support that is being removed from the lower performing schools. These lower performing schools tend to be schools in lower socioeconomic areas, and the removal of this financial support can only hurt these districts. I recently read an article in the Washington Post that relates to my group’s podcast topic about the real problem of school reform. One of the ideas was that school reform does not address poverty and those students who are not receiving full meals, a good night sleep, or parental support at home. The article emphasized the fact that great teachers does not and cannot overcome poverty that some of these children are facing. The removal of monetary support from these schools is only making this poverty worse and unfortunately I am not sure what we can do to change this.