The 21st Century Principal

"Metric fixation is the seemingly irresistible pressure to measure performance, to publicize it, and to reward it, often in the face of evidence that this just doesn't work very well." Jerry Muller, The Tyranny of Metrics

There is absolutely no doubt that many 21st century education leaders (and politicians) are infected with the metric-fixation disease. The mad illness persists in spite of the fact that no achievement gaps are closing, and no miraculous gains (in their own standardized tests) has occurred.  Perhaps its time find a cure for this persistent disease that is distorting education. The only vaccination against this malady is a sudden jolt of common sense and the realization that not everything worthwhile in this world is measurable. 

Muller, J. (2018). The Tyranny of Metrics, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.

If you really want to look for evidence of how federal initiatives like "Race to the Top" and "No Child Left Behind" have impacted schools, you only need to read the findings of this study: "Study Snapshot: Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?" In that study, it is very clear that our schools have increasingly short-changed and abused young students with their testing fetish. In this study, researchers compared kindergarten classrooms from 1998 to 2010. Here are some of findings that should make both educators and policymakers feel ashamed.

• While academic instruction increased, time spent teaching the arts substantially decreased.
• Students were increasing taught using textbooks and workbooks.
• Amount of time students were given for play has decreased.
• During the time period 1998 to 2010, kindergarten has increasingly become like first grade in 1998.
• Kindergarten teachers are more likely to subject students to standardized testing in 2010.
• These kinds of practices are more pronounced at schools serving predominantly low-income students.

In 2011, I made clear my concerns with "Test Pep Rallies" with my blog post "Test Pep Rallies: Good Practice or Waste of Time?" I still feel that such practices are more harmful than useful. As in my earlier post, I still believe that:

• Test Pep Rallies potentially harm students and learning. It's one thing to encourage a student to do his or her best; it's another to place emphasis on performance levels, where self-worth might be wrongly tied to test results. In my thinking, Test Pep Rallies have too much potential for making state test results too important, especially if held for the purpose of promoting test performance. Encourage students to always do their best, not just when testing season comes along.
• Test Pep Rallies reinforce the "Culture of Test Prep" in schools rather than worthwhile learning. Very little worthwhile learning takes place in schools where test prep is the goal for everything the school does.Its one thing to use data in decision-making; its quite another to use test results to determine everything that happens. Test Pep Rallies are about Test Prep, not about celebrating accomplishment. They're shortsighted practices for the short term that has not lasting impact on anything.
• Test Pep Rallies are a waste of time. Why do we even want to elevate a standardized test to such a high level? Students could be celebrating real learning and accomplishments instead of focusing on a test no one will pay attention to five or ten years in the future.

Do PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) scores really matter? One would think so, because every time the latest round of scores are revealed, there’s a barage of “Sputnik-like” declarations of educational doom and gloom within the United States, all reminscent of when the Soviets launched the first satelite into orbit. Just like it did then, each time these scores come out, the declarations of“educational third world country” status is declared anew. The United States’ future economically is seen a bleak, and tales of woe begin. But there are some really good questions to ask about PISA.
If the United States suddenly vaults into first place in the PISA rankings will our country suddenly experience full employment and economic prosperity for all?

Will American businesses suddenly find all those “mythical-but-can’t-find-qualified workers?

Do PISA rankings by country really mean anything?

I would say “No” to all these questions. The United States’ “weak” rankings in PISA scores tell us absolutely nothing helpful nor does it indicate all the gloom and doom that policymakers public policy wonks like Arne Duncan have claimed in recent years.

Having a number one ranking in PISA scores is not a ticket to the economic promise land. Nor does it mean that we should take up the short-sighted view that our education system’s purpose—from kindergarter to higher education— is to feed the “human capital” machine for corporations. Sure, we want out students to be employable, but making sure they score high on an international test won’t do that. That’s short-sighted thinking. Education should never be about preparing students for the factory sitting down the street; it should be about preparing students so that they can learn and adapt for jobs their entire lives. It is simply short-sighted to see education as worker-training program. We need to train our students to be able to learn for a lifetime, be creative, be critical thinkers, and adapt to whatever comes their way. The jobs down the street will probably move to another country in a few years any way.

Using PISA data, or any standardized test data such as SAT as a scare-tactic and propaganda tool is a moral problem. Those who do that, are like the barkers selling a special elixir guaranteed to fix what ails. They should have the same credibility as snake oil salesmen. It is simply policymakers pushing their own brand of reform with the cry of “wolf.” Sure, our schools can always improve. We can teach our students more effectively. But, this clarion call of doom and gloom every time a round of PISAscores or any standardized test scores needs to met with skepticism if not just ignored.

I feel a bit obligated to explain why there have been so few posts to The 21st Century Principal blog this year. I am continuing my doctoral work through Appalachian State University, so I’ve spent countless hours reading about the French philosopher Michel Foucault and value-added model research. Now I am sure someone might want to ask what could these two subjects possibly have in common?

Well, I am working on a poststructural analysis of current accountability practices. What I hope to be able to do expose even more of the bizarreness behind our continued fetish with using standardized tests to measure everything in education. Somehow, we in the United States just can’t let go of this “If-it-breathes-let’s-test-it approach to education. The faith that if we somehow are able to find “just the right standards” and the “right tests to measure them,” our students will excel in school in life remains strong, and the United States will be number one in international tests, and all our students will find companies just dying to give them high paying jobs because of their superb test performance. I hope you notice the sarcasm.

I just don’t have the time to write blog posts like I was, but I am still reading and writing and learning. And, I am still just as critical of our accountability and testing fetish as ever.

News outlets are reporting everywhere that “SAT Scores Slip Slightly” and “NC’s SAT Scores Drop, Even as More Students Graduate” but does it really mean anything?

Before the state politicians and state educational system leades start to panic, let me make this as clear as I can: IT MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The SAT is a standardized test and comparing the scores from one year to the next is a meaningless and fruitless exercise. There is no meaning to be gained by even reporting this information. It is about as newsworthy as reporting that it was hot again today and it will be hot again tomorrow!

Educators need to stop responding with panic about the rise and fall of these tests from year to year. Instead, we need to remind everyone of the stupidity of making these comparisons each in the first place. We shouldn’t brag when the SAT scores go up, and we certainly should not accept responsibility when they go down. It is education malpractice to even acknowledge that there is any meaning in comparing national standardized tests from year to year. So what is my administrative and professional response to the SAT scores drop or any national standardized test results? You just read it.

"The test obsession is making public schools, where nine out of ten American children are enrolled, into unhappy places." Anya Kamenetz, The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed with Standardized Testing---But You Don't Have to Be

At the center, high stakes accountability and standardized testing policies are an attempt to justify public education. Politicians need quantification for the expenditure of tax dollars for education, no matter what the quality of the accountability system providing them with that justification. Various groups of people are happy with the massive increase in standardized test administration in spite of the fact that such testing has indeed began to suck the life out of our public schools.

Politicians want these accountability systems for a variety of reasons. Some are fine with public schools being unpleasant places because they do not want them to exist in the first place. They want evidence that public schools are performing poorly, and testing gives them the evidence. Other politicians blindly see these tests as the "objective" tools of salvation for public education. They have the faith that "objectivity" is possible, and that tests can fairly measure all that is worthwhile in schools. They are true believers in standardized testing.

Then there's the federal and state level policy makers who want all this standardized testing too. They see them as vital "measures" that tell them how schools, principals, teachers, and students are doing. Test scores give them purpose. "Let's get those test scores up!" becomes their focus, without which the existence of their job is questionable. They find the justification in what they're doing rooted in standardized testing.

Finally, there are administrators, from the national to the school level, who want these massive testing systems too. It gives them an "easy and simple" way to measure how their teachers are doing their jobs and how students are performing. No judgments are required: if a school, teacher, or student doesn't get the score, "dump'em." That makes leadership all tidy and neat, because there's no need for thinking, and there's no need for courage either. Test scores are used by school leaders as evidence of their own leadership as well; when scores go up, they feel validated. If scores drop, they can blame the teachers under their charge, the students, or lack of support from elsewhere. In addition, focusing on test scores is an excuse by many to ignore advocating for social justice and true actions taken to deal with poverty.

It's simply true, a lot of educators and politicians need test scores, otherwise, they don't have justification for their existence or evidence of their success. If there's nothing to count, then they can't show anyone "numbers" which, in their eyes, is the only convincing evidence of success in this thinking. But what if there are other ways to show success?

Maybe, it's time to rethink the high stakes accountability and testing paradigm. Maybe, if accountability is ultimate goal, there is a way to get that without this continued chasing of shadows. Perhaps, it we really put our heads together we could find a way to really improve schools and know it, rather than this multi-decade search for the measure and punish tactic that will work.

“Every act of measurement loses more information than it gains, closing the box irretrievable and forever on other potentials.” Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science

The problem with accountability and testing lies within a single assumption: “that which is the most important content to be learned can be reduced to a single test or be captured in a test question.” If life were a dance between a, b, c, or d, then standardized tests could capture the essence of learning, and we could be satisfied that a correct or incorrect answer on multiple-choice questions actually tell us whether substantial and important learning has taken place. Sadly though, nothing worth while or lasting can be reduced to that level of simplicity.

As Wheatley points out, when observations, in this case tests, are created, choices are made as to what is to be tested and what is to be ignored. That ‘subjective choice’ reflects all manner of value judgments and decisions regarding importance. Hence, the very ‘subjective nature’ of tests like those being administered is questionable. The observation choices made by those who write the very questions on tests reflect their own subjective choices regarding importance. That’s why no standardized tests are ultimately entirely objective. As Wheatley points out, “Every observation is preceded by a choice about what to observe.” The person who makes those choices are exercising their subjective opinion regarding that is worthwhile to learning and what is most important.

To claim that state standardized tests or any standardized tests are “subjective” masks this fact: these tests reflect the subjective judgment of those whose wrote and designed them. It is simply their opinion regarding what is valuable enough to be tested. Next time someone throws the term “objective measures” or “objective testing” at you, remember this. The quest for ultimate objectivity in testing is a fool’s errand.

What the testing and accountability crowd does not get is the impact teachers have on lives. No bubble sheet can capture that, and you won't find it in standards. Each of us has a teacher or teachers that have impacted our lives. In my own, there was fifth grade with Ms. Case and sixth grade with Ms. Williams. Ms. Case captured my imagination in reading with Old Yeller which she read to us lovingly everyday. Ms. Williams encouraged me to explore my interests in the stars and science. These teachers fired my curiosity for learning and exploration. The impact teachers have on lives can't be measured using EVAAS, ACT, or SAT. As much as we would like to reduce teaching to numbers, it can't be done.

This video of a surprise party for a teacher of 40 years will move you to tears. In spite of the test score fetish our education leaders and politicians have, there are still teachers touching lives. Let's make sure that continues.

One of the most insidious by-products of the age of testing and accountability is the suggestion that educators should "focus on bubble students" in order to raise a school's test scores. For those who might not know what the term "bubble student" is, in education lingo, the bubble student is the student who has the greatest chance of demonstrating growth or an increase in test scores. Many a scheme has been devised to determine who these students are, and talk to any educational or curricular material salesmen, and you are more than likely going to hear this phrase: "Our materials will help you identify those students who have the greatest chance of demonstrating growth, and we give you the materials to focus on them."

Is there not anyone else who feels a bit of disgust at this sleazy sales pitch and idea? Basically, the suggestion is this: you can identify those kids who have the greatest chance of demonstrating higher test scores and focus on them. This also implies that "less focus" will be on other students for whom gains will be harder and more resource-intensive. Whatever happened to teaching "all students?

We have our testing and accountability culture to thank for this perversion. Because test scores become the ultimate indicator of quality, any strategy is on the table, including ignoring some students in order to help those who show the greatest promise of demonstrating growth. If I were a parent of a lower-ability student or a gifted student, who are usually likely victims of "bubble-student" strategies, I would hire a lawyer immediately. There's a pretty good chance that behind the use of such talk is the idea that the school is going to purposefully focus on "money students", that is, students who have the greatest chance of producing test scores, and neglect those at the very bottom and the very top who aren't going to demonstrate the greatest test score gains.

The practice of focusing on "bubble students" or "money students" as its also called is unethical and perverse. No one would suggest to a physician that he only treat those who have the greatest chance of healing. I certainly don't want a mechanic who only takes the easiest cases of repair, and writes the others off as too resource intensive. Any suggestion of this strategy for raising test scores has zero place in schools.

The practice of focusing on bubble students is a direct consequence of this fetishization and idolization of tests present in education today. Make test scores the ultimate goal, and you get perverse educational practices like focusing on the bubble students and ignoring other students because they are less likely to "bring the gains desired." By the way, any sales person who uses that in pitching his products, has immediately lost a sale.

"We would like to dethrone measurement from its godly position, to reveal the false god it has been. We want instead to offer measurement a new job—that of helpful servant. We want to use measurement to give us the kind and quality of feedback that supports and welcomes people to step forward with their desire to contribute, to learn, and to achieve." Margaret Wheatley, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time

Want to know what's wrong with testing and accountability today? It's more about a "gotcha game" than really trying to help teachers improve their craft. Over and over ad nauseam, those pushing these tests talk about using test data to improve teaching and thereby student learning, but that's not what is happening at all.

In American education, despite what many testing and accountability advocates say, testing is driving our education system. Decision after decision is based on what will "produce the best test scores." What's wrong with that? Nothing at all, if those tests truly and accurately capture worthwhile learning, but sadly, our quest for the "Holy Grail" of tests has not been productive. All the tests and bubble sheets we subject students to are incapable of capturing real learning. I don't have the same faith in testing that many educators have. There will never be a test, nor a set of standards that saves education.

I suggest that we do as Wheatley suggests in her book Finding Our Way. Let's "dethrone measurement," in this case testing and reveal that it is a "false god." We've had well over 10 years of "test worship" and absolutely nothing to show for it. No Child Left Behind began elevating testing to deity levels, and Race to the Top has only elevated testing even higher, to the point that we're now deciding the fate of teacher assistants, teacher careers, student promotions, even the status of whole schools based on single test scores. We have made "tests" our crystal balls through which we can identify a bad teacher or bad school. We have test scores to tell us how much impact a kindergarten teacher might have on future earnings. Really? Do we really believe in the power of tests and the power of data that much?

We do need to dethrone testing a bit and make it a servant of good education rather than the dictator it has become. I'm afraid that won't happen until this fundamental faith in the infallibility of test scores ends. Let's hope our education system isn't destroyed first.

The Obama Administration announced its latest plan today that would tie federal funding of teacher preparation programs to test scores. Duncan and the Obama Administration are seeking to place the federal government in the middle of teacher preparation. I suspect this measure will only make it more difficult to convince young people to become teachers and educators, and it will likely have some perverse affects on teacher preparation in this country just as the use of testing for high stakes decisions has had on schools and classrooms.

On closer examination, this proposal contradicts research, logic, and common sense.

• There is no evidence that using high stakes tests as a means to improve teacher preparation programs will work. There is plenty of evidence that using tests (as has been done under NCLB and Race to the Top) to make high stakes decisions has had quite a few unintended consequences in schools and classrooms. These consequences have included things like the over-emphasis on test-prep, teaching to the test, narrowing the curriculum to test content, cutting of arts programs, use of programmed instruction, and cheating, among many others.  One can only imagine what those effects will be on teacher preparation programs when tests are used to determine continued federal funding. For example, teacher candidates will now perhaps be well-versed in things like test-prep and teaching to the test, as opposed to engaging students in authentic instruction. Perhaps teaching candidates can also learn how to narrow the curriculum so that it focuses only on what is tested . The effects of using high stakes testing to make high stakes decisions is well-documented in the research, and adding testing stakes to teacher preparation will most likely affect those programs in adverse ways just as it has in schools and classrooms.
• Surprisingly, the Obama administration's idea of tying test scores to teacher preparation programs comes even after the American Statistical Association recently stated that value-added formulas should be used with caution, because teachers only account for less than 15 percent  (or even less in some studies) of the variability in test scores. In other words, most of what happens in the classroom is beyond a teacher's control. Perhaps the Obama administration is still looking to find "Superteachers" as John Kuhn has called them who are capable of performing miracles. Unfortunately, I am afraid there are so few, if any, especially in an environment, which his policies have created, that is so hostile to teachers and the education profession in general. The important tenet of accountability is that you hold individuals accountable for that which is in their direct control. This policy violates that tenet in many ways.
• Many state tests aren't of high enough quality to be even considered for using in this high stakes manner, and the use of commercial tests like ACT and SAT makes little sense because they haven't been designed for this purpose. Add the fact that, once again, there are entirely too many teachers not subject to test scores. That's the same issue with his Race to the Top and NCLB waiver policy. State tests were mostly designed to tell what students know, not tell how well teachers are teaching. Once again, Arne Duncan and the Obama administration are pushing for using tests in still another way for which they weren't designed.
• This new policy of using test scores to evaluate teacher prep programs should also have some interesting implications in practice. I could easily see this policy exacerbating the problem of getting good teachers in high needs schools. In addition, I could also see this policy affecting which school's graduates choose to teach in as well. It's common sense. Are you going to select teaching in a school where test scores are abysmally low, and your job is to somehow miraculously to raise them? As a teacher prep program, are you going to encourage your graduates to teach in schools with historically low test scores? Perverse education policy often brings about perverse practice.

 As this Politico article points out, Duncan is expecting a great deal of opposition to this latest plan, (See Barack Obama Cracks Down on Poor Teacher Training.) How could he expect things to be different? Educators and parents grow tired of all the testing and emphasis on testing. What will be more interesting to see is whether he and  the rest of the Obama Administration will be willing to listen to educators on this matter. Sadly, the history of this administration and Arne Duncan probably provides that answer even as I ask the question.

“Simply put, smart superintendents don’t poke hornets’ nest with sticks.” John Kuhn, Fear and Learning in America: Bad Data, Good Teachers, and the Attack on Public Education

Since the dawn of No Child Left Behind all the way through the Obama administration’s signature Race to the Top program, finding school administrators willing to criticize these federal programs and what they've done to public education is often difficult. As Kuhn points out, smart administrators “don’t poke hornets’ nests with sticks,” because it isn’t the smartest thing to do politically, but that is exactly what Kuhn does in his book, Fear and Learning in America: Bad Data, Good Teachers, and the Attack on Public Education. He takes on, with wit, energy, passion, and solid logic all the current education reforms that seem to be directed toward tearing down the teaching profession and public education brick by brick.

According to Kuhn, this anti-public education agenda began all the way back when the media, policymakers, politicians, and even educators uncritically accepted the problems with public education outlined in the Reagan-era education report, A Nation at Risk. This report set our nation on its current path of education deform because no one critically questioned its broad negative declarations about public education in the United States. As pointed out in Kuhn's book, this report "spurred a rising tide of negative reports" that were often accepted entirely at face value and uncritically, often, even by the educational establishment.

Throughout Fear and Learning in America Kuhn repeatedly takes on these education reform measures and those pushing them. He takes on the obsession with standardized testing in this country and the use of what he calls "standardized junk science" or the use of value-added measures to evaluate teachers. Kuhn also points out that "At some point education reformers stopped asking teachers to be accountable for quality teaching and started asking them to be accountable for miracles" and that the current reform movement powered by "policymakers, journalists, and think tank wonks embraced the pursuit of superteachers as a way to fix schools, and, ipso facto, society."  This "pursuit of miracales" as Kuhn calls it, has left teachers with three choices all bad: "perform miracles, fail, or cheat."

John Kuhn's book Fear and Learning in America is both entertaining and informative. He disperses anecdotes throughout the book that communicate the often unforgotten and human side to what this current reform agenda has done to our schools. He describes how all these measures have ultimately placed public education in America in "The Educational Dark Ages" where there are those well-meaning reformers who are pushing change out of noble intentions, but there are also those pushing these reforms who have more sinister and self-serving agendas. He goes on to point out that current educational reformers have conveniently discarded poverty and all other achievement-influencing variables because they have been deemed either off limits or too difficult to tackle.

Unlike some of the current books examining the anti-public education sentiments in the United States, Kuhn does not just passionately detail what's wrong with current education reform; he offers at the end of the book his own ideas on what can be done to improve education in America for all students. These all stand in contrast to the current educational reform agendas being pushed by state and federal policymakers and politicians.

I have read several books that examine this American phenomenon of attacking public schools, but Kuhn's book, Fear and Learning in America: Bad Data, Good Teachers, and the Attack on Public Education is one of the best yet! It's readable, entertaining, and passionate style make it both a page turner and an inspiration for any educator interested in the current state of public education.

One of the leading educator organizations in this country is calling for an end to the over-reliance on standardized testing in accountability practices.They are calling for what is called "multimetric accountability" by which, according to their press-release includes:

• not using standardized test scores as the "sole measure of student achievement, educator effectiveness, or school quality."
• having an accountability system that "promotes continuous support and improvement and that also is: "public and transparent, includes a range of subjects beyond English and mathematics, and that incorporates non-academic factors such as measures of school climate, safety, and parental engagement."

One sad fact about public education in North Carolina is that the Holiday season comes on the eve of our state's massive semester testing push, at least in high schools. In North Carolina this year, we're testing students with state tests more than has ever been done in history. It is pretty clear that the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's new philosophy of education is: "If it moves, and breathes, then test it."

While we in North Carolina are state-testing students more than ever, there are also all those state mandates that come with all those tests, that districts scramble to try to fulfill. These are those types of mandates that policymakers and accountability at state and federal levels come up with, but never really see the effects. They never see the pain and struggles people go through to implement these near impossible mandates. Take for example the simple idea that every test administration must have a proctor. Though our state education leadership has created this new creature of accountability and testing called a "Roving Proctor" to ease the almost impossible task of finding proctors, they still don't understand that schools only have so many sources of breathing human beings to put into classrooms. There's not exactly a line of community volunteers out there who are willing to spend three or four hours of their lives staring at kids as they fill in bubble sheets or stare at computer screens. Perhaps the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction think "Proctors grow on trees!" Sadly, they don't, so many districts are having to shut down almost everything to move bodies around to cover all of the proctoring. That alone is a sign of how absurd all this state testing has become. Perhaps everyone in Raleigh, from our state superintendent down to the janitors in the education building in Raleigh should fan out to schools across the state and serve as proctors.

No matter, how you stack it, many of us in high schools see Christmas vacation as the eve of semester testing, and season of testing is like a black cloud moving into position over our schools. In addition, no matter what rhetoric comes from Raleigh, we are subjecting students to more state tests than we ever have in history. Somehow our state leaders believe that changing the name of some of these tests from Measures of Student Learning to Common Exams to what they now call North Carolina Final Exams somehow means they aren't state tests. They are, and testing  has grown into a monster that drives almost everything we do at the local school level. No wonder there are places in other states where parents are saying enough is enough!