The Pitfalls of Reform: Its Incompatibility with Actual Improvement

193 Pages·2013·1.01 MB·English

by  John Tanner

The Pitfalls of Reform
Its Incompatibility with Actual
Improvement
John Tanner
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ForMadelineandallourkids

Contents
Foreword vii
Introduction xiii
I:ChangestotheEducationalImprovementFormula xix
1 TheEducationalFormula 1
2 TheParadigmofSchoolReform 5
3 TheTroublewithRigor 21
4 TheIdeaofEducationalStandards 29
5 StandardizedTests 53
II:Accountability 79
6 AccountabilitywithintheEducationalFormula 81
7 TheBiggerIdeaofSchoolAccountability 91
8 LocatingSuccess 107
III:TheNextGenerationofChange:MovingAwayfroman
UnfitFitness 127
9 FomentingtheRightChanges 131
10 CauseandEffectandInefficiencies 141
Conclusion:TheBirthofSomethingGreat 151
Afterword:TheFutureofSchooling 153
Bibliography 163
v
vi Contents
Index 165
Foreword
Five minutes after first meeting John Tanner some years back, he informed
me that his intentions were to change the world. I wholeheartedly endorsed
hisintentionthenandevenofferedtojoininhisefforts;thisthoughtfulbook
iscertainlyastepinthatdirection.
Creating a better public education system has become almost a national
obsession—andwithgoodreason.Plausibleclaimscanbemadethatahigh-
quality public education system is the key driver for our economy, will
preserveourdemocracythroughthedevelopmentofaneducatedvotingpub-
lic,providesourbesthopetorealizeequityofopportunityandresultsforall
Americans,andenablesindividualstorealizepersonalfulfillment.
This obsession has led to significant efforts from the classroom to dis-
trictstostateeducationagenciestoanincreasingroleforthefederalgovern-
ment.Commitmenttoimprovementremainshigh.
Unfortunately, and as is discussed by John in this work, research and
reasoning lag behind many of the improvement initiatives, operating from
personal experience, research drawn from other fields of study—or most
troublesome—picking and choosing palatable portions of research while
leaving behind politically difficult or economically costly changes that are
integralto success.Weendupwith policiesthat mandatechanges in behav-
iorwhileassumingthatimprovementcanbeachievedbyrefiningoursingu-
lar efforts—and that the core of the system is correct. In reality, as John
pointsout,thesystemisorganizationallyandphilosophicallyflawed,andno
amountofimprovementinsingularareaswillchangetheoveralloutcomes.
AtthecoreofJohn’sthesisisabasicconcernwiththenotionsofaccount-
abilitysweepingthenation.Johncomesatthisfromahighlyknowledgeable
perspective,havingworkedhisentirecareerintesting.Heknowsthefieldof
standardized testing, having been in it. His insights and opinions are highly
vii
viii Foreword
knowledgeable and respected. He is not an outsider taking angry shots at a
troublesome system; he is one of the creators of standardized testing ques-
tioning how it is currently being used and for what purposes. As such, his
viewsdemandourattention.
Student assessment is not the same as system accountability. Assessing
studentsandgaininganunderstandingregardingwhattheyknoworareable
to do is a vital component of accountability, but it is the easiest part of
accountability. Once we know where students stand in their learning, the
harder part is understanding why we are seeing the results we are seeing.
Why is one gender performing better than the other? Why do some of our
English-languagelearnersexcelwhenothersdonot?Answerstotheseques-
tions enable teachers to change, hone, and refine practice to produce better
results. And answers to these questions are not available through standard-
izedtesting.
John takes a fundamentally different look at teachers than that seen in
most of the current accountability debate. Instead of blaming teachers, John
identifies the faults in our system of education that make the job of teach-
ing—and the success we hope for students—almost impossible to realize,
going so far as to note that “teachers are actually succeeding at a much
greater rate thanwehavearightto expectgiventhat somuchof thesystem
actually runs counter to their success.” While the quality of instructional
practice can always improve (in the same way that the quality of medical
care can improve or the political functioning of Congress can improve), the
reasons for the lack of overall success in our educational system are not the
fault of individual teachers, but rather the organizational design of the sys-
tem.
As John logically lays out, we have established an accountability system
based on the premise that rising standardized test scores indicates overall
system improvement—even as these tests fail to measure the fullness of the
learningexperience,tendtooperateatlowerlevelsofcognitivedemand,and
were never designed for such actions. Even more problematic, originally
designed as a system check—not a check on individual student progress—
rising test scores have been assumed to always indicate a higher-quality
learning system, when in reality, rising test scores can often indicate more
rotememorizationandincreasedstrategiestoteachtothetest.
Inmanycases,successasmeasuredthroughrisingtestscoresisactuallya
false positive of successful changes in practice and better learning for stu-
dents.
John also digs into the problematic results of the sanctions that are used
within accountability systemsbased solelyontestscores.Hecarefullytakes
the reader through an explanation of why standardized test scores almost
always mirror the demographics of the students taking these test scores—
essentially because standardized tests are designed to do so. When schools