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Fair Public Schools?
Accuracy in Academia ^ | April 14, 2006 | Malcolm A. Kline

Posted on 04/14/2006 8:22:37 AM PDT by JSedreporter

Educators who oppose standardized testing and vouchers claim to have the best interests of students at heart but it is a claim worth examining.

“The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has promoted high-stakes testing for school accountability,” Monty Neill of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing writes. “Its claim was that without ‘accountability,’ the public will abandon public education, and that the use of standards and tests would lead to educational improvement.”

“This was never a good argument, though it appeared to address the justifiable anger directed by racial minorities and low-income communities against second-class educational opportunities.” Fair Test, which Neill works for, is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Neill penned his thoughts in a letter to the editor of Rethinking Schools magazine.

“The extremist advocacy group, the National Center of Fair and Open Testing (FairTest), delivers monthly vituperatives to its membership attacking the validity and fairness of the SAT,” Richard P. Phelps writes in his book, Kill the Messenger: The War on Standardized Testing. “Indeed, one of its primary sustaining causes is to convince colleges to quit using the SAT in their admissions decisions and to celebrate those that do.”

“If you read only FairTest’s literature, you might believe that its campaign against the SAT has been very successful.” Here’s one way of gauging its success: In a recent survey, the Pew Charitable Trust found that one-fifth of students in 4-year colleges and one-third of students in 2-year colleges “have only basic or below basic quantitative literacy skills,” according to The Education Reporter.

“If high stakes are attached to any simple set of measures, harmful consequences will ensue,” Neill warns. “The less power a person or group has, the more those consequences will affect them.”

“There are people who will distort and misuse even well-intentioned efforts to assess and evaluate—those who oppose public education, think schooling based on rote instruction and standardized testing is good enough for poor kids, or those who think schools alone can solve poverty and teachers should be blamed when that does not happen.”

Should they? Just ask Larry Hoffman of Madison, Wisconsin. “I haven’t taught since 1998, but I hope to return to the classroom,” Hoffman writes in another letter to Rethinking Schools. “When I was teaching 5th grade in the Milwaukee Public Schools, a teacher from another classroom came into mine and proudly announced that everyone in my class would receive a goody bag of grooming and personal hygiene products (from Procter & Gamble, etc.)”

“I interrupted, stating that it was just a trick to get us to buy more of their products, and we wouldn’t take part,” Hoffman recounts. “Well, you can imagine the immediate flak I got from the kids, who all came from low- and lower-middle income homes—and the damage I had done to my anti-commercialism cause for the remainder of the school year.”

“Since then, I’ve often thought about that situation, wondering how I would do things differently from the very beginning of the year.” So what did Larry learn from the experience? As it turns out, not much.

“As I recall, I hid the goods and never did hand them out,” Hoffman remembers. “One positive thing that came of the incident was my increased self-esteem as I cautioned the principal that I would go to the union if he compelled me to distribute the stuff.”

Imagine. And Milwaukee is the birthplace of the voucher movement in which the poor demanded the right to take their children out of failing public schools and put them in more successful private ones that give frequent tests. Could they have been trying to get away from teachers like Larry and their unions?

One of our readers offered expert opinion on the role that teacher unions play in bringing about educational progress. “I am a recently retired public school teacher with over 30 years experience (including 4 as a principal) who formerly was an aggressive member (picket captain during West Virginia’s only teacher strike) of the NEA/AFT for over 20 years and I strongly believe there is no hope for public education as long as teacher unions maintain power,” Karl Priest writes. “I left the union for my last ten, or so, years.”

“I also strongly believe the teacher unions are contributing to the ruination of the United States of America.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: aft; education; nea; publicschool; sat; schoolchoice; schoolreform; testing; unions

1 posted on 04/14/2006 8:22:39 AM PDT by JSedreporter
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To: JSedreporter

"One positive thing that came of the incident was my increased self-esteem..."

And as susual, that's what its all about. Right?


2 posted on 04/14/2006 8:28:01 AM PDT by Pessimist
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To: JSedreporter

Seems Yale has done away with the SAT for certain terrorits.


3 posted on 04/14/2006 8:31:44 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn
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To: JSedreporter

Am I the only one who is noticing how many unions are killing their employers financially?


4 posted on 04/14/2006 8:44:55 AM PDT by capt. norm (W.C. Fields: "Hollywood is the gold cap on a tooth that should have been pulled out years ago.")
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To: JSedreporter

The attack on standardized testing is two-fold in purpose. The teachers know that the the results of standardized tests puts the current failing status of the public school system squarely on them. Johnny's inability to read or make change for a dollar without help from a Cray computer is the direct result of their failure to teach him those skills.

The other half of it is that, to obtain a license/certification for most professions, a standardized test is given and must be passed. That's true if you want to be a lawyer, doctor, CPA, real estate sales person, plumber, electrician, truck driver, pilot, teacher, computer geek, beautician/cosmetologist, nurse, etc., etc.

Protest against standardized tests all you like, they are a part of life and our society. Deal with it.


5 posted on 04/14/2006 8:53:48 AM PDT by DustyMoment (FloriDUH - proud inventors of pregnant/hanging chads and judicide!!)
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To: capt. norm
Am I the only one who is noticing how many unions are killing their employers financially?

Nope. And the sooner they kill the goose that has provided them with a lifetime of golden eggs, the sooner the union mindset will go the way of the dodo bird.
6 posted on 04/14/2006 8:55:29 AM PDT by DustyMoment (FloriDUH - proud inventors of pregnant/hanging chads and judicide!!)
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To: JSedreporter
Educators who oppose standardized testing and vouchers claim to have the best interests of students at heart but it is a claim worth examining.

As far as I know, that extremist teacher that showed the obscene Bush bashing video is still not in class. The ranting geography teacher was rewarded for his indoctrination. Right now, 2 teachers are in court for child rape. The other 2 got a slap on the wrist and told to be more careful next time (don't get caught).
Our local collage has a remedial reading class, because the high school graduates can't read. They can protest just fine, though.
In our area, the teachers union wants more money. They've threatened to take away the children's recess time if we don't obey and hand over the cash.

Yep. It's all about the children alright. (s)

Save the kids. Support school choice.

7 posted on 04/14/2006 9:08:16 AM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal.")
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