Across the country, parents, teachers, and students are beginning to pushback—hard—against the misuses and abuses of standardized testing in our educational system.

First, most people do not understand what standardized achievement tests are actually designed to measure. They are not designed to measure what students have “learned” over a specific period of time or from a specific teacher. Therefore, attempts to use them for that purpose are at best misguided, at worst, deceptive. For more on this point, I recommend listening to the recent interview of Jim Popham by Steve Hargadon at Future of Education.

An expert on tests and testing, Popham reminds us that standardized tests by nature of their design sort students based on socio-economic backgrounds, not academic accomplishments.

Because our federal and state governments have tied such high-stakes to the results of these misused tests, we have created additional crisis situations for students and teachers, particularly for those already facing the most challenges, as my colleague NYC teacher Jose Vilson reminds us.

I cannot do justice here to the many aspects of the testing/evaluation issue, or to the far-reaching debate over it among teachers and students around the country. That debate is yielding some important ideas, however, that deserve closer attention. In a series of articles sponsored by Education Week’s Teacher Magazine, several teacher-leaders connected with the Center for Teaching Quality have offered some much needed clarity and advice on better ways to assess what students are learning and how teachers are teaching. In one of those series, Testing at the Crossroads, teachers look at the growing resistance to standardized testing starting with the much publicized refusal of teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School. In another series, another group of outstanding teachers offer ideas from the field on how to better measure student learning.

Likewise, my teacher colleagues and I have long been examining the issue of how to improve teacher evaluations. Back in 2011, I made this still pertinent observation on teacher evaluation:

How can we evaluate such rich complexity with all the varying levels of performance and experience they represent across the largest profession in America—with a few five-minute walk-bys and a checklist? Hardly. The old factory evaluation model, which was never a good fit for education, will be even less so as we move further into the potential of immersed learning and interconnected teaching. One principal trying to evaluate an entire faculty whose members practice a dizzying variety of pedagogical skills will be painfully ineffective. Like our students, teachers need assessment of our work based on a combination of measures and reviewers, with teachers taking responsibility for our own professional growth based on mutually established, student-centered goals.

To get there from here will require transformed thinking and some significant power shifts, neither of which, history reminds us, come easily. But I believe we are on the verge of such a shift as teaching finally morphs into a true profession. One of the trademarks of a profession is peer review of each other’s' work against high standards established by the profession.

Some of America’s best teachers have been offering up our expertise on how to improve assessment of students and teachers for quite a while now. Thankfully, there are signs that those valuable ideas are gaining well-deserved attention, but the fight against politically expedient assessment and evaluation must continue.

Cross-posted at National Journal: Education Experts

I’ve just returned from a meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and I am thrilled about where this important organization is headed.

I also feel the need to set straight some disparaging rumors about NBPTS and encourage people to look more closely at what is an important front in the education reform battle in this country.

First, it is important to note that while the staff of NBPTS has been reduced due to reorganization, that staff now includes a significant number of NBCTs—including the Chief Operating Officer, Andy Coons. Another is the Director of Standards, Kristin Hamilton.

NBPTS has also matured to the point that the majority of the Board of Directors (15/26) are NBCTs including (besides me): Kimberly Oliver-Burnim (former National Teacher of the Year), and Glenda Ritz, newly elected state superintendent of Indiana. The majority of the NBCTs are practicing classroom teachers.

Under the direction of new president, Ron Thorpe, NBPTS has made some important changes and earned some much-deserved respect both nationally and internationally. Responding to the needs of NBCTs and candidates, the Board has recently (some would say, finally) shifted to electronic submission of the portfolios, upgraded its website, and other moves to make it more accessible and user-friendly for NBCTs and potential candidates.

Another exciting development, again thanks to the prodding of NBCTs, has been to make better use of the vast NBPTS database of accomplished teaching resources (videos and teacher reflections). Thus was born ATLAS [Accomplished Teacher Learning and Schools].

The National Board is getting its first look at the use of ATLAS in a three-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Education through its Investing in Innovation (i3) program.  Working closely with Linda Darling-Hammond and the Stanford-based Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium (edTPA), along with AACTE, the two teacher unions, Deborah Ball’s team at Michigan, and evaluator AIR, ATLAS will be introduced into teacher prep and induction programs.

While ATLAS was originally imagined as a support for teacher preparation and early career development, pilot programs in the states of Washington and Maine are now using the resource to train principals to be better observers and evaluators of teachers. National Board has received other inquiries, too, regarding professional development for teachers faced with implementing the new Common Core State Standards and other content areas. Whenever and wherever this resource is used, it extends the teacher voice into the way the profession works. (Building a True Profession, Part III)

One rumor I would like to smack-down is that the NB certification process is being run by Pearson. That is an insult to my fellow NBCTs, Board members, and staff who have fought hard and long to maintain both the independence and the quality of National Board Certification. Currently, Pearson is contracted to handle the logistics of the certification process. However, the development of the standards, as well as how they are assessed, scored, and reviewed is all under the control of NBPTS. The unfortunate glitch in release of candidate scores a couple of years ago, was a problem with Pearson’s logistics, but the scores were never lost (just regretfully delayed). National Board Certification was and remains a process created and run by teachers, for teachers.

Most important, NBPTS stands poised to help bring the teaching profession to one of its most elusive, yet essential goals: The development of a true profession. If we, educators, want to be treated like professionals, we have to be a profession. That means setting and maintaining standards for who enters, stays, and excels in this profession. It means holding ourselves and each other accountable for standards and ethics we have developed. To paraphrase Thorpe:

Governments do not create professions. Neither do businesses nor foundations. By definition, professions are created by those in the profession. If teaching is going to claim its rightful state as a true profession, then teachers and other practitioners must make sure [our]voice guides the work. That voice should exert itself through the standards of accomplished practice and the path that all teachers travel to become accomplished. Both will put teachers in a position to define the key terms of [our]work and will create the habits of mind that need to become the profession’s norm. ]We] teachers must realize, however, that no one will do this for [us]. [We] either do it for [ourselves],or through [our]silence agree to comply with the vision others have for [us].

As a parent (we have raised 11 children and put them through public school) and as a public school teacher, I deeply resent much of the rhetoric being used to promote so-called “school choice.” 

Much of this rhetoric is aimed at parents in communities that have been historically underserved by public education systems. Therein lies the hypocrisy.

I’ll use my own community as an example; you can change the names to fit your situation.

For generations, our community has had an openly unequal educational system for black and white children. The court battle has focused on the issue of desegregation; the bigger issue is unequal resources. Parents, students, many teachers, and even some administrators have been fighting to change these flagrant inequities (e.g., one school had fully-equipped science labs; the other had none, etc.) As the community would try to take these issues up the chain of authority (local school district, local school board, state dept. of education, state school board, federal department of education, federal elected officials…) we got promises, a superficial change or two, a committee, a plan, and more years of frustration.

Meanwhile, the state of Mississippi enacted legislation in 1997 called the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP). This program is a funding formula created by the Mississippi State legislature, after lengthy study and debate.

What is MAEP?
The state formula used to establish adequate current operation funding levels necessary for the programs of each school district to meet a successful level of student performance as established by the State Board of Education using current statistically relevant state assessment data.
Purpose:
Ensure that every Mississippi Child regardless of where he/she lives is afforded an adequate
educational opportunity, as defined by the State Accountability System. (from Mississippi Department of Education)

Since it’s adoption, the formula has only been fully funded by the legislature twice (both times in an election year), which has led many opponents of the program to call for its repeal (MPB). This year, legislation to expand charter schools has raced through the state legislature, being pushed by the governor and others. Yet, once again, the MAEP will be underfunded.

Don’t give the schools, especially those serving Black and poor communities, the resources they need and deserve to at least reach minimal thresholds of adequacy; then act shocked at their underperformance. Is a school a failure when failure was clearly the intention all along?

The same political structure (in some cases the same individuals) that have conducted or colluded with decades of deliberately making the schools that serve children like mine inferior to the ones that serve their own children, now feign concern and offer longsuffering parents the “choice” of charter schools.

Here’s the lie: It’s a false choice.

Had these public officials and institutions fulfilled their legal and moral obligations (or would they yet), I wouldn’t have to make a “choice” for my children or grandchildren between continued inadequate education and a real one. That’s not choice; that’s extortion.

The concept of charter schools is not a bad one, and I know there are some very good ones that have made a difference in the lives of children and communities.  But let’s be clear: True school choice means I live in my chosen community, surrounded by great public schools and other educational options. Maybe there’s one that specializes in innovative fine arts programs, another that has pushed forward with hybrid classes, and yet another known for its community service learning projects.  Every public school in every community adequately funded, staffed with fully-trained, qualified teachers, and housed in safe, clean facilities.

Choose right.

I've joined with some great education friends to encourage a broad grassroots defense of public education.  The Network for Public Education hopes to build what fellow co-founder and NPE president Diane Ravitch describes as "a
huge social network of parents, students, teachers, administrators,
school board members, and all others who believe in public education and
sane educational policy that focuses on a full and rich education for
all children."  

Fulfilling the uniquely American promise of public
education has been an unfulfilled dream for too many of our children for
too long. It's time for those of us who understand the value of public
education to stand up, loud.

Check out the NPE website (where you can also join) or follow on Twitter: @NetworkPublicEd

A wonderful piece from Hechinger Report on the often overlooked, unaddressed, and largely avoidable obstacles that prevent qualified students from entering college.