OK. Obama/Duncan/Gates School "Reform" Model: The results Are IN !!! Today's NYT: P. A1

[bread_and_roses]

110. No. Students are not "products" - nor is knowledge a "product."

Nor is a school a factory - although that's what they're being turned into - factories to roll out good little obedient regurgitators. We now have kindergartners and first graders (or so I've read somewhere) who get no recess because it takes too much time away from teaching to the tests - oh, and it costs too much. This is insane from a developmental perspective.

Not to mention that a "product" is an inanimate something for which the ingredients/components/materials can be controlled. You tell me how to design a test to judge teacher performance that somehow controls for the kids who come to school hungry, from homes where they've never seen a book, from environments where they've never gone to a zoo, or a children's museum, or or or, or been sang and talked to, or slept through a night without sirens and maybe gunfire? Or who sit in class all day fearful because they are bullied, or have to go home to an abusive adult? We have a test that can judge how good a teacher is by the performance of that student? I don't think so. Nonetheless, that is what these tests you defend so tenaciously are supposed to do.

As for judging knowledge? Understanding? The problems with using conventional testing for judging that beyond the most basic level have been exhaustively explored over many years and I'm not about to go into them.

No. The real "testing" agenda is not about education. It's about union-busting, money, and excluding the poor and working class from the hallowed halls of academe, where they caused such an uproar when the anti-poverty and student grant programs of the 60's allowed them entry.