Diana Senechal’s guest column at the consistently brilliant Gothamschools.org put my jaw on the table. She passed New York State’s sixth grade ELA and seventh grade math tests just by filling in A, B, C, D on a loop! After checking her work against the answer key and score calculator, she got a 2! On the fifth grade test, she discovered that she could fill in C for every answer— and pass!

This would be a disconcerting revelation at any time, but Senechal’s essay comes on the heels of new Obama administration directives to states to use test scores as a key determinant in teacher effectiveness, as The New York Times reports. The message: if you want access to the desperately needed billions in stimulus funds, make test scores a centerpiece of school life. This is disheartening, given President Obama’s articulate critiques of the shortcomings of the punitive, test-crazy culture of No Child Left Behind.

Testmania is not exclusive to Bush and Bloomberg. Barack Obama seems to have bought in.

This year, my charter school is adopting an Essential Schools-style "exhibition" performance-based assessment model in which, throughout the year, students create portfolios of accumulated evidence of learning. At the midpoint and end of the year, they present their portfolios in what’s called a “presentation of learning.” The portfolios and their accompanying presentations are strong instruments of accountability because the students will have to show their stuff to their peers, teachers, family members, and members of the community.

This kind of authentic assessment is so much more supportive and illustrative than a corporate-made bubble test. If President Obama and Secretary Duncan are so bent on expanding charter schools, why not jump on one of their finest ideas? The bureaucratic craving for easy data via basic skills multiple-choice tests is dangerous and counterproductive, and as Diana Senechal is the latest to reveal, a farce.

Writing about teaching for
the eyes of non-teachers is important work. Frank McCourt did it more
successfully in the past decade than just about anyone else I can think of.

I read ‘Tis in the spring
of my first year teaching, and his frenetic passages on the suffocating
minutiae that dominate the school day set off fireworks in my brain. This is
exactly what I’m going through! I
thought. And there I was teaching fourth grade in the Bronx in 2003 and he was
writing about a vocational school in Staten Island in the sixties. Our
experiences are all connected! Who knew?

I’d had no idea, trapped
in my classroom box, that my everyday anxieties, fears, and successes were
parallel to that of so many teachers around the world. This realization,
boosted by Frank McCourt’s writing, was the central motivator that kept me in
teaching. You’re not alone, and what you’re doing matters.

McCourt’s latter two
books, ‘Tis and Teacher Man, aren’t perfect, but they are great material for
sparking discussion on classroom life for teachers and non-teachers alike.

Mr.
McCourt passed away earlier this week, but his legacy of writing authentically
about teaching is one that buoys TLN members and so many
educators across the country.

There is a singular
exhilaration in seeing your name and your words in print. It’s thrilling and
motivating. It’s terrifying and liberating. It’s something every student should
experience many times.

My small 2009 senior
class—only 20 students— published a paperback literary anthology as the
culminating project of 12th grade English and the experience, while messy, was the most empowering of the school year. Our book of raw poetry and
impassioned prose, Truth Be Told: Diamonds in the Rough, has become a hit in
the school community and fired up future classes to outdo the Class of ‘09.

I was introduced to the
importance of “going public” with student work in a “Teaching of Writing” class
led by Erick Gordon at Teachers College, Columbia University. Erick is the
founder and director of the Student Press Initiative, an organization dedicated
to partnering with classes to publish books of student work. The SPI website
explains:

“SPI is built upon the
premise that writing for publication provides young people with authentic
audiences. When students realize the power and potential of an audience of
their peers and the community at large, writing becomes purposeful thereby
inspiring them to produce their best work. We believe that when a young writer
finds an audience, she will find her voice.”

Amen. Students need more
than just their teacher to be their audience in order to unlock their finest
potential. In my grad school class with Erick, the teachers-in-training
composed our own book of New Yorker-style profiles of educators. It was a brilliant assignment; I knew
that both my peers and my profile subject would be carefully reading every word
I wrote, so it had to be good. The accountability was built-in and the project
was fun. Our final product was The Questions Themselves: Profiles of
Educators, a cool-looking paperback with a cover designed by a class member. It sits on
a shelf right next to my desk.

Organizations like SPI are
popping up, tapping into this often dammed-up wealth of student capability. In
San Francisco, 826 Valencia was so successful it expanded to become 826
National, with sites in several
cities across the country. In Washington, D.C., Capitol Letters connected celebrated
novelists Edward P. Jones and George Pelecanos with students at Cardozo High
School to publish the student anthology The Way We See It: Complete Coverage
of the Nation's Capital From the Inside Out.

But here’s the magic part:
you don’t need to partner with a team of experts at a nonprofit to publish a
book. The secret weapon is available to all, and it's lulu.com. This website is
a miracle. Intended for self-publishing authors, lulu.com is a one-stop shop
for assembling, printing, and selling professional-looking books. (I promise
I’m not on their payroll.) Two weeks after my students handed in their final
drafts to me, we were holding gorgeous, shiny paperbacks in our hands. (Who knew a back-cover barcode could stir such excitement?) Next
year, I’ll be better equipped to scaffold the publishing unit and hopefully the
improvements will be seen in our tangible product. (A bonus: my
administrators loved it.)

It’s hard to find ways to
share stuff; publishing a book often isn’t practical. I’m guilty of letting my
assignment inbox become a vacuum where my students hand in writing they may
have worked extra-hard on and I end up being the only one to read it. But after
the success of Truth Be Told: Diamonds in the Rough, I’m going to seek ways for every unit to have
some sort of community tie-in, whether it’s on a class-to-class level,
school-wide, or outside the campus. Kids perform at a higher level when their products are
seen. Adults do too.

This spirit of “going
public” is in direct conflict with the culture of test prep, in which students
are expected to work their hardest on assessments that they will never again
see, and graded by people they will never meet. Yet this is a front where
teachers have to lead.

What are some of your
greatest successes—or blunders—in going public?