The Injurious School Culture Enforced by High-Stakes Testing

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “The Injurious School Culture Enforced by High-Stakes Testing” [Hake (2012)]. The abstract reads:

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Abstract: Richard Flarend of the Physoc list relayed an AP press release “Fourth-graders who flunk reading have faces marked” at http://usat.ly/QTRkd8 and concluded that an injurious school culture led to this mistake. More generally, an injurious culture with consequences more serious than face marking is currently being forced upon most U.S. schools by the high-stakes testing mandated by NCLB.

In “Public Defender: Diane Ravitch takes on a movement," David Denby at http://nyr.kr/RPfOkF wrote (paraphrasing; supplemented by references to Ravitch's critiques in The New York Review of Books; bracketed by lines "#####. . . . "):

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Diane Ravitch has emerged as one of the leading opponents of the education-reform movement. She has:

1. Written a series of scathing rebuttals of reform measures in The New York Review of Books:
a. "The Myth of Charter Schools" http://bit.ly/h0Lx8Q;
b. "School 'Reform': A Failing Grade" http://bit.ly/TclFCY;
c. "Schools We Can Envy" http://bit.ly/QqtdTi;
d. "How, and How Not, to Improve the Schools" http://bit.ly/RPBDAO;
e. "Do Our Public Schools Threaten National Security?" http://bit.ly/10hxmth;
f. "In Mitt Romney's Schoolroom" http://bit.ly/TcmHxS; and
g. "Two Visions for Chicago's Schools" http://bit.ly/SKjkeA.

2. Written some two thousand posts on a blog http://dianeravitch.net/ she started in April, which has received almost a million and a half page views.

3. Published The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education [Ravitch (2010a)] at http://amzn.to/pAjeZU.

4. Barnstormed across the country giving speeches berating the reform movement, which, in addition to test-based “accountability,” also supports school choice and charter schools (public institutions that often receive substantial private funding and are free from many regulations, such as hiring union teachers in states that require it), and which she calls a “privatization” movement. The reform movement has the support of President Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan; it is also championed by the Republican Party; by many governors, mayors, and schools chancellors; and by a variety of wealthy entrepreneurs and fund managers, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Whitney Tilson. It has changed educational thinking in states such as Florida, Wisconsin, and Louisiana, and in cities such as Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

5. Argued that the reform movement is driven by an exaggerated negative critique of the schools, and that it is mistakenly imposing a free-market ethos of competition on an institution that, if it is to function well, requires cooperation, sharing, and mentoring.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52


REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 19 Nov 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012. “The Injurious School Culture Enforced by High-Stakes Testing,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/SaQB3W. Post of 19 Nov 2012 17:25:15-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Microsoft's Lesson For Public Education

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post “Microsoft’s Lesson For Public Education” [Hake (2012)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: EDDRA2’s Mike Martin at http://yhoo.it/Pw1ks5 wrote: (paraphrasing):

"Everyone in education should read 'Microsoft's Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant' at http://vnty.fr/M4dJvA. . . . . . What educators need to know and to trumpet widely is precisely Microsoft's ‘astonishingly foolish management decision’ to focus on ranking employees instead of focusing on consumers - a ranking system that Bill Gates is now trying to impose on public education. . . . . Gates’ ideas will stop teachers from developing education that is effective for children and instead focus on things that look good in the evaluation system.”

As sequels to the above, see the Microsoft/Gates put-downs at, e.g.:

1. Barbara and David Mikkelson’s Urban Legend “Car Balk” at http://bit.ly/RAGFjJ;

2. Louis Menand’s hilarious “The End Matter: The nightmare of citation” at http://nyr.kr/McQrGm;

3. Gene Glass’ insightful “High Button Shoes and Education Reform” at http://bit.ly/KcWqIs.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Twitter http://bit.ly/juvd52
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE

". . . . it is time to speak some truth to power in this country: MICROSOFT WORD IS A TERRIBLE PROGRAM"
- Louis Menand (2003)


REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 07 July 2012.
Hake, R.R. 2012. "Microsoft's Lesson For Public Education," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/MdbtVq. Post of 7 Jul 2012 13:54:43-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to several discussion lists. a

Menand, L. 2003. "The End Matter: The nightmare of citation." New Yorker, 6 October, online at http://nyr.kr/McQrGm.

Mike Martin, Gene Glass, Louis Menand, Bill Gates, Urban Legend, Microsoft, ranking systems, General Motors

Khan’s Video Lectures: Educational Failures or Harbingers of Educational Success?

Some blog followers might be interested in “Khan’s Video Lectures: Educational Failures or Harbingers of Educational Success?” [Hake (2012b)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In a “60 Minutes” program of 11 March 2012 titled “Khan Academy: The Future of Education?” http://bit.ly/FPnIFH, Bill Gates said: “There's a website that I’ve just been using with my kids - Khan Academy - this one guy doing some unbelievable 15 minute tutorials.” . . . . Then host Sanjay Gupta exclaimed: “That's right, Bill Gates, one of the smartest and richest men in the world, was using Sal Khan’s free videos to teach his own kids!”

In a post of 16 March “Khan’s Video Lectures on Acceleration and Newton's Second Law" [Hake (2012a)]," I criticized Khan's “unbelievable” video lectures on those subjects as EDUCATIONAL FAILURES. However, they may also be HARBINGERS OF EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS.

MathEdCC’s perceptive Clyde Greeno put the optimistic perspective as follows (paraphrasing and generalizing Clyde’s “math” to “education”):

“. . . .apart from Khan’s presentations, the instructional technology that he has developed can greatly expedite national and personal efforts to improve teaching and learning. . . . Khan was an engineering student who was reared through the American traditional public perceptions of what ‘education’ is and how teaching should be done. . . . . Khan did NOT write the educational scripts . . . . and must not be blamed for their educational flaws. In fact (unlike so many ‘experts’), Khan might still be educable . . . . or responsive to enlightened guidance for improving the quality of his video library . . . . from those who can offer something better than complaints. The ‘harnessing’ challenge is clear: use the same instructional-media technology to do what should be done . . . . perhaps even by educating Kahn.”
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References
which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake

“Today with the help of over fifty. . . .[[or is it “fifteen”??]]. . . million dollars, most from the Gates Foundation and Google, Khan has been able to hire, with competitive salaries, some of the most talented engineers and designers in the country. . . . . The team is working to create software they hope will transform the way math is taught in American classrooms.”
From “60 Minutes” http://bit.ly/FPnIFH at 5:30 min – “Khan Academy: The Future of Education?”


REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 18 March 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012a. “Re: Khan's Video Lectures on Acceleration and Newton’s Second Law,” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/yPSjFE. Post of 16 Mar 2012 09:11:07-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were also transmitted to several discussion lists and are on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff”" at http://bit.ly/wEdup7 with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2012b. “Khan’s Video Lectures: Educational Failures or Harbingers of Educational Success?” on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/FPFWXZ. Post of 18 Mar 2012 15:23:26 -0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are also being transmitted to several discussion lists.