'It Feels Like Education Malpractice'

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/it-feels-like-education-malpractice/281837/



***SNIP

A decade later, Sturt has written about the experience in her provocative memoir Davonte’s Inferno: Ten Years in the New York Public School Gulag. I spoke with her about how her time in the classroom affected her views on education today.

You got into teaching at the age of 46, which is later than most. What spurred you to make the big life change?

I had always been a social activist and felt there was a responsibility for the “haves” to help the “have-nots.” I used to fulfill that obligation by tutoring inner-city kids, but my actual career was in fashion design and illustration. I remember thinking: When someone’s on their deathbed, are they really going to think about the dress I designed for them? Not to put down fashion design, but it’s just not enough. I decided to flip the equation and instead of doing social activism part-time, make it a full time job.

You began teaching just as No Child Left Behind took effect. How did you see it affecting your school?

I saw a lot of problems with all the testing, with all the slogans everywhere, as if you were in North Korea or something. It was very strange. … It was all about achievement through test scores. I resented the fact that we were test-prepping them all the time and we couldn’t give them a rich, authentic education.

But if not testing, how should we be measuring a school’s success?

We should do it the way they do in Finland, which is the gold standard for the world. You have high-quality teachers, pay them well, and have a lot of community social support. Finland has the lowest socio-economic segregation out of the 57 countries that take the international test. There’s a correlation between low socio-economic segregation and success. The kids don’t take high-stakes tests in Finland, and the teachers are never evaluated on that.

[progressoid]

1. "have a lot of community social support"

That's a problem here. I don't think many Americans have much respect for education or teachers.

[glowing]

9. Not after 30yrs of telling Americans that the schools are failing the kids

and that it's crappy teachers fault. They initially did this to help bust Unions and have created a siphon of tax payer money into private hands between charter schools, books, testing... All these things add up when the district is still so heavily relying on property taxes to fund a budget and political school boards to create that budget.

The best thing we could do is have the schools funded by Federal means and take the burden off of poor districts to create a school like that of a neighboring wealthy district. AND to place the blame in failing kids on the burden of our politicians whose policies have allowed the socio-economic conditions of poverty, wealth inequality, and lack of substantial paying jobs/ wages that help move people into the middle class or to allow people the ability to move theirselves up.

[liberal_at_heart]

11. well said!

Until our politicians are willing to properly fund education and drop Race to the Top and Common Core, I refuse to vote for them.

[pnwmom]

2. I'm not a fan of testing, but how is it that Finland

obtained its top of the world education ranking if they don't demonstrate it by testing their students?

[Jim__]

3. Why do you say they don't test their students?

The article says they don't take high stakes tests:

We should do it the way they do in Finland, which is the gold standard for the world. You have high-quality teachers, pay them well, and have a lot of community social support. Finland has the lowest socio-economic segregation out of the 57 countries that take the international test. There’s a correlation between low socio-economic segregation and success. The kids don’t take high-stakes tests in Finland, and the teachers are never evaluated on that.

That doesn't mean they don't test them. The article implies that they do take the international test, which I assume is the basis for the ranking.

[d_r]

5. its the international test

[LWolf]

6. Before high-stakes testing mandates,

we still tested students. Once a year, for a few days. There was no lead-up; no teaching to the test, no teaching HOW to test, no pep-rallies, no threats, no frantic data-crunching. It was just one piece of data among others, and not the most important data.

In this case, the international tests used aren't given to every student every year; they are given to a sampling of students at certain grade levels.

[caraher]

10. Here's how

There are two kinds of "how" you could ask about. Regarding rankings, the "how" is that yes, Finnish students have taken a standardized test that does lead to the ranking buzz. But they don't actually much care about it.

The more important kind of "how" is that they do pretty much the opposite of what tends to characterize US "reform" (read: union busting, public school-destroying) efforts. In addition to NOT demanding proof of "progress" at every stage with high-stakes tests, they treat their teachers as valued professionals (good pay, no micromanaging, state-funded education at a master's level).

[LuvNewcastle]

4. "Almost one out of two kids in public school now is in poverty."

A lot of people don't realize how dire the situation is for our public schools. The charter schools they're trying to get going will essentially give up on under-performing students. I think that in a lot of places, the public schools will focus more on behavior modification than on any kind of real learning. It's already that way in a lot of schools. All those schools will do is create a criminal class who will be recycled through the prison system and paid slave wages for cheap labor. We've got an ugly future ahead of us if we don't work on a solution to this. The charter school system is not the answer.

[DeSwiss]

7. Even when education was better......

...and it was surely so much better than what we have now -- it really wasn't that good. Because it was never created for the student's benefit but for the capitalists......

- K&R

LearnLiberty

[Blanks]

8. I'm sure if we took the football fields...

Off of school grounds and used every cent of our school money (and time) on educating our young people, we would do better.

Don't get me wrong, physical education is a necessary part of a well rounded education, but the importance of these sports needs to be put in perspective. You don't need a field with million dollar bleachers (and extensive drainage costs) to play sports. A flat field is all that you need.

We have lost perspective.

[mountain grammy]

12. This is an important story, thanks for posting.

"high stakes" testing has been a failure for education, but very profitable for corporations, which appears to be the priority in all "education reform."

[GeorgeGist]

13. They scoffed when progressives warned ...

that Reaganburg was a shiny turd on a hill.

[Laelth]

14. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth