This is, reportedly, what my daughter’s second grade teacher asked her class during a fit of frustration over their less-than-enthusiastic preparation for the looming standardized testing. Several other parents and I were concerned, but felt trapped in the status quo and didn’t really see any way out of the cycle.
Stressed out schoolkids, suicidal teenagers, kids with eating disorders, over-scheduling starting in pre-school, and rampant cheating in secondary schools are all part of what is making up a ‘crisis’ in American education according to mother-turned-filmmaker Vicki Abeles and her new film, A Race to Nowhere, that is currently touring the country in churches and community centers along with Abeles and panels of experts.
I attended one of the screenings here in Atlanta last night with a group of friends who all have or have had high-school aged children and we were all drawn into the film immediately. We all could identify with scenes of crying third graders at the kitchen table being cajoled to finish homework. We all could identify with handing our kids a plate of dinner or a sandwich as they look for their soccer cleats on the way out the door. We all could identify with the two-sided coin of officially disliking standardized testing but being secretly glad and relieved our kids did well on them. We all could identify with the nagging doubts about what college our kids will be ‘good enough’ to get into.
Abeles does a convincing job of laying out her argument, and takes a balanced approach to HOW we can get ourselves out of this cycle. She gives a call to action at the end of the film for parents, students, educators, administrators, health care providers, coaches, and policy makers. She sees herself as facilitating a nationwide conversation.
My large urban school district is currently facing a possible loss of accreditation over complications in the school board that can be traced back to a large-scale cheating scandal here in Georgia. On the other hand, the schools my children attend have all adopted a ‘reform model’ that strives to address many of the underlying issues in Abeles’ film, but is extremely difficult to execute under the state educational standards and regulations. We are constantly looking for ways around them to implement the basic philosophies because the system is set up for ‘teaching to the test.’
Perhaps one of the most telling comments after the screening last night was from a second grade teacher (and echoed by a nearby first grade teacher). She said that because of austerity measures and budget cuts, her children were not taking the standardized testing this year, and that it has changed the the entire culture in her classroom. She is able to enjoy teaching and the kids are able to enjoy learning on a totally different level with out the pressures on both of them to perform on the test.
Have you seen Race to Nowhere? Have you read any of the buzz? Participated in homework or testing boycotts? Written your elected officials? Signed a petition? Seen the effects of stress in your own children? Do you worry your kids will end up ‘under a bridge?” Is performance pressure another “inconvenient truth?”
Very timely.
Teachers should be allowed to teach instead of worrying about all of this crap. Most of them probably became teachers because they loved doing it. If they love doing it, the kids usually respond by loving to learn. If the teachers are all stressed out over secondary concerns and start threatening kids with nonsenical statements like this one, the kids will match that stress, give the teachers what they demand (even if cheating is required), but they won’t be learning.
Dang–I haven’t seen the movie, but I want to. And I talk about this stuff all day long for work, so I can be really annoying . . .
I haven’t participated in any boycotts re: homework or testing. Or signed any petitions. I tell myself that the best work I can do is with my own kids and with my students, who are training to become teachers.
There ARE good things about the testing. The primary benefit, as I see it, is that teachers/schools can no longer sweep kids under the rug. There were big problems before with teachers telling kids (i.e. special ed. students, English Language Learners, and just academically unsuccessful students) NOT to come to school on testing days so that their test scores wouldn’t be counted against the school. Ouch. Or a school might have looked “successful” because enough white and/or higher income kids were doing well while many other subgroups were doing terribly. Thanks for NCLB (cringe–almost hate to say that phrase), everyone is counted. We know where everyone stands. If African American males at a given school, for instance, do 20-30 percentage points lower than other groups in science, the school knows they’ve got a problem. Multiple problems, perhaps . . .and the idea is that they can figure out how/where to fix the problem.
Also, I think over time, if a district can see that kids in a particular teacher’s class CONSISTENTLY score low in a particular subject, it’s POSSIBLE that there’s a problem there. Not one kid, not one teacher, but once a pattern is established . . .
Everything else about NCLB sucks. (How eloquent is that??)
It is TERRIBLE that the teacher said that to her students about living under a bridge. It’s terrible for so many reasons, it’s difficult to know where to start on that one. It’s TERRIBLE that they have pep rallies before state test days and tell kids to bring caffeinated drinks on test days to enhance their performance (yes, this happened in my sister’s district).
BUT, good teachers have always dealt with dumb rules. They have always found ways to subvert the system. That often means nodding their heads in public spaces and then closing their classroom doors and doing what they know is best.
Lastly, you CAN still be a good teacher within the current system. It’s harder–and that makes it dumb public policy–but it can be done.
To me, it’s all part of a MUCH bigger issue about our increasing obsession with privatizing/corporatizing (that’s not a word, is it?)/commercializing everything. And it has EVERYTHING to do with politics and religion . . .
Because the parents in our school district watched this movie and spoke with the school board, our district is changing its homework policies. Yay parents!
That won’t affect our school, however, because we don’t generally get homework and a good chunk of the student body doesn’t take the standardized tests (and teachers are under no pressure to “teach to the test” or to stop teaching for a couple of weeks while the tests are administered). When I watched the movie (at one of the high schools our elementary district feeds in to) the principal’s reaction to the movie made me hope that by the time my little kids are ready for high school the pendulum will have swung back to less-crazy expectations.
But even if the K-12 schools relax their standards and encourage students to get plenty of sleep and free time to be kids, the colleges are really the places that are driving the stress problems. The college admissions folks are the ones setting entrance requirements (at least out here in California), and if kids want to get into college, they know they have to have a certain [high] GPA, several AP classes, well-rounded educations (which include sports, arts and community service).
There are tons of good colleges (that might be better fit for your high schooler) besides the top 15 that always show up in the various review books. Students and parents would be wise to shop around more and vote with their feet when it comes to education options.
I can’t wait to see it! Thanks for the heads up. I thought the example of the classroom culture shifting was really powerful. I’d love to see that kind of shift in classrooms across the country.
I have one kid who was old enough to make it through high school before NCLB really kicked in, and one that had the misfortune of going through as it was implemented. The second one never enjoyed school as his older brother had most of the time. The younger kid’s classes were much more regimented, more less creative, and were full of standards and benchmarks which had the unfortunate effect of making the teachers much less concerned about the students. It seemed to give them a wall of “professionalism” to hide behind. There was an air of, “Well, I taught that last week, and your kid should have been paying attention,” rather than analyzing why the first approach didn’t work and figure out how to do a better job of teaching. Of course that might just be the district that we live in here.
One of my kids went to one of those big name expensive colleges, and it was a very very good experience for him, and in the end it will probably be worth the money. The younger one is going to a kind of funky small school that’s not very selective– and it’s been really great for him. Getting away from the regimentation that characterized his high school experience has given him a chance to take responsibility for his own actions, and given him the chance to follow his own interests.
Laura, I’m curious as to why your school can evade the standardized tests.
Just read this tonight and thought of your post, Claire:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/20/pennsylvania.school.testing/index.html?hpt=T2
Part of me admires this mom (and the dad/professor who is doing it as well) and part of me thinks they’re just pissing in the wind (rude phrase, I know, sorry, but it captures my meaning so well). It’s a MUCH bigger issue than just sitting out the testing week. In some school districts in Texas, EVERY FRIDAY is “TAKS Day.” So we’re talking about 1/5 of the available instructional minutes. The one testing week is just a drop in the bucket.
Yep, no child left behind legislation caused a wave of testing. Which caused a wave of importing data into computers. Which allowed people outside of the classrooms everywhere to sit in rooms and determine who passed and who failed. By 2012, 100% of all children in schools were supposed to be pass the tests -regardless of ability or disability or any other criteria. The minute the law went into affect every teacher in America KNEW it was ridiculous. What has it caused?
No child left untested
No more money, just more requirements
More failing kids
When I first started teaching, we learned that multiple choice testing was a snapshot in time. It actually doesn’t measure any talent – except the talent of test taking. It won’t tell you if someone is a great problem solver, innovative, creative, inventive, or even smart. I’ve had students mark d all the down the test and pass. I’ve had my super students get test anxiety and fail.
But I truly feel this legislation was never about kids or helping education. America is a super power – we are obviously doing something right, or we WERE. This was about collecting data to PROVE that public education is a failure. Some people are using the failing data to state emphatically that public education does NOT work and funds should be diverted to private institutions.
But I believe public education is what has made America great. It has produced many, many of the world’s greatest thinkers. It is perfect, no. Did this testing mania make it better, no. Is it still an great American ideal that all children regardless of economic status or natural ability can attend a public school, yes.
Angie, if we were in church, we could all say “Amen” after reading your comment.
I completely agree with your assessment that it was to prove that public education is a failure–an insidious goal. Sometimes my students (pre-service teachers) will say “But education isn’t political.” My reply is usually that education is supremely political (unfortunately).
Yeah, Heather- I just woke up to news that our Mayor and city government are contemplating the need for a ‘take over’ of our public school system…. disheartening. And very political.
Yep–this has been going on in Baton Rouge for years. And Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans hastened it. They had to create what’s called a “Recovery School District” (RSD) after the hurricane. And now they just keep adding “failing” schools to the RSD list. All the RSD schools are controlled by the state rather than by their local school districts. And the state is farming out control to non-profits and even giving money to CHURCHES to run schools.