Negative ? Moi ?

       I have been told that the reason I am so critical of No Child Left Behind and the public school testing culture in general is that I am a terrible teacher with a negative attitude and I am afraid of being exposed. Therefore, it's my fault (as well as my colleagues at my school) that my school is in restructuring, or whatever term is used as the euphemism for failing. Because I dare to question top-down mandates, I have been accused of being negative. More than once it was words, something to the effect of: Why don't you just do what you're told. Mostly, it's looks that say it all: Don't rock the boat, just do it because we're supposed to, because "they" tell us to. You're wasting time complaining, being negative. 

I must say that my principal has never said these things to me by word or by looks. I so appreciate her because she is always willing to engage in dialogue with me. The other day, she  saw me looking disengaged at a Common Core/ Smarter Balanced Assessment training and asked me if I was all right. I shared my concerns. 

We were given sample questions for English/Language arts from the smarter balanced assessment that we will be taking next year. I teach Math, which was one reason I was not engaged, but it was also seeing the sample questions that discombobulated me.  We were to analyze the questions to determine what the skills and concepts were being addressed and what the instructional implications were. There was one sample that really got my goat.  Students were expected to read an opinion piece and determine out of 4 choices which one was a good revision for a passage in the piece. I totally agree that students should read and write opinion pieces, but why should they have to know which revision matches another passage? Getting them to develop a reasonable opinion is a challenge for a lifetime. As you get older, you have to take on more and more complex issues. This is education. It is our job to help them to help them to make better and better arguments for their opinions. Why should we waste time on teaching kids the ability to analyze whether or not a revision is appropriate for an opinion that they may or probably do not care about.

My principal tried to give me the rationale as she saw it, that it is not about writing as much as it is about analyzing, which is a higher order thinking skill, which is what the Common Core is about. She tried to convince me that there was a valid purpose, and I shared my opinion, disagreeing that this kind of activity is meaningful to the goal of analyzing. I believe we had a respectful discussion. 

Okay, now on the positive side - if I were teaching Language Arts or Social Studies, I would focus on the writing and speaking aspect of arguing for their own opinions based on reasonable evidence. If I knew I did this, and I knew that my students could do this and understood what it was to base your opinion on evidence, I would feel I did my job, whether or not it translated to a good test score. 

The Common Core and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium development and implementation was top-down. For Hawaii and other Race to the Top awardees, we had to accept it in order to "win" the competition. If it was helpful and truly for the common good, like seatbelt and drunk driving laws and speed limits, I would be okay with it. But based on the sample questions, I do not know if this is literally a "smarter" "balanced" assessment or just another tool to discredit public education by creating unreasonable questions.

I will continue to look for evidence one way or the other. Our time with our students is precious. We must guard it as much as we can with meaningful and engaging work. We don't have time for less than that.