Outcome vs. Process: Different Incarnations of Personalization

This was written by Yong Zhao who is the author writes and speaks about education reform. He blogs here and tweets here. This post was found here.


by Yong Zhao

There are different views of personalized learning. My advocacy for personalization has been occasionally misunderstood as supporting the narrow view of personalized learning driven by big data and learning analytics with technology or online learning in general. Below is an excerpt of a chapter from a book I coauthored with a group of teachers and school leaders: World Class Learners Bundle to be published by Corwin. Hope it helps clarify my take on personalized learning.–Yong

To personalize is to design or produce something to meet individual requirements. In education, personalization is often used in the forms of “personalized learning,” “personalized education,” or “personalized instruction.” The term personalization is often used interchangeably with individualization, and sometimes with customization. The general idea is to enable individual students to have an educational experience that meets their individual needs.

Although it is has long been recognized that individual students have different needs and high-quality education cannot be “one size fits all,” personalization in education has different meanings and realizations in practice because education has many components that can be personalized, individualized, or customized. For example, personalization can happen at the pace of learning by allowing students to learn at their own speed. Personalization can also be employed to enable students to choose when and where they learn. It can also be used in ways that allow students to have a choice of work assignments in the classroom. Furthermore, personalization is a strategy that enables students to demonstrate their learning by creating a product of their own choosing.

Generally speaking, personalization can be put into two categories: process personalization and outcome personalization. Process personalization enables students to enjoy choice in the learning process, whereas outcome personalization allows students to define the end results of their learning. Process personalization is by far the most prominent version in education today because the current education paradigm has a predetermined outcome for all students. That is, no matter how one gets there, we want everyone to get to the same place: mastery of the knowledge and skills prescribed in the authoritative curriculum or standards.

Personalization of the Learning Process

Although the outcome remains the same, the journey to the destination can be personalized to accommodate different needs, abilities, learning styles, and interests of students. Some of the most common aspects of individualization or personalization that have taken place (or should take place) include pace, content, product, learning environments, and assessment.

Personalization of pace: For all sorts of reasons, students come to school with different abilities and thus will acquire the same content at different speeds. To accommodate different abilities in students, schools have been encouraged to allow students to progress at their individual pace. One of the earliest experiments for self-paced learning is programmed instruction advocated by behaviorist psychologists such as B. F. Skinner in the 1960s (Skinner, 1968). Skinner and like-minded individuals relied on technology to enable students to pace their own learning and receive feedback. With the advent of modern computer technologies, individualization of learning pace became more prominent with computer-based learning. Today, the tradition continues in the form of personalized learning with the support of Big Data and learning analytics technology. Personalization of pace can also happen in the classroom by permitting students to work at their own speed. At the school level, one form of personalization is ability grouping or tracking, which puts students into different classes that move at different paces.

Personalization of content: Content can also be personalized to meet individual needs. Although all students in the traditional educational paradigm need to master the same content as prescribed by curriculum standards, they can be exposed to different content that best suits them. For example, following the principles of differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, 2001), students can be given different tasks based on their level of understanding of the content to be covered using Bloom’s Taxonomy. To accommodate different interests and learning styles, students can also choose different genres of content. For instance, different kinds of texts, novels, or short stories can be used to meet the needs of individual students at different reading levels. The media used to present the content can also be individualized. Some may prefer reading, others listening. Some may learn best from audio, others visual, and still others physical manipulation.

Personalization of product: Students often need to produce some sort of product (e.g., papers, exhibits, or exams) to demonstrate their mastery of the intended content. To accommodate different levels and styles of learning, the type of products expected of students can be personalized. Some students may prefer to write a paper, others may choose to compose a song. Some may demonstrate their learning by constructing a product such as a poster, others may create a multimedia interactive book. Some students may choose to take a traditional test, while others may design a video game.

Personalization of the learning environment: Where and how learning occurs can also be individualized. Although the same standard and content is expected of all students in the traditional paradigm, students may choose to learn in different places, from different sources, and with different arrangements. With the wide accessibility to online resources, students do not need to learn the content from the classroom alone nor do they need to learn from the teacher only. They could also learn from field trips and extended trips. Moreover, students could choose to take courses online from other institutions. In terms of how students can learn, they could learn by themselves, or in collaboration with others. In the classroom, a teacher can create different learning environments to support personalized learning. Teachers may use different grouping strategies to accommodate student working styles and preferences or they can create different physical arrangements in the classroom for different learning purposes.

Personalization of Outcome

Personalization of the learning process has tremendous value in improving student learning. It is undoubtedly a major improvement over the traditional one-size-fits-all teaching practices. Thus, personalization has been advocated for decades as an effective approach in the traditional education paradigm to meet the needs of individual students, especially students who have disabilities or are judged to be less ready for certain school tasks. However, it is not enough for cultivating the creative and entrepreneurial talents we need in the new world, as discussed in World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students (Zhao, 2012). A different level of personalization is needed: personalization of learning outcomes.

Personalization of learning outcomes takes personalization to a different level by allowing students to pursue their strengths and interests. It does not accept a prescribed curriculum or set of standards as common to all students, as in the traditional paradigm. Thus, the goal of education is not to fix students’ deficits measured by external standards. Rather, this level of personalization assumes that all talents, skills, and knowledge are of equal value and thus all learning outcomes are valuable. As a result, instead of forcing or luring all students to master the same knowledge and skills, this approach asks for personalized educational experiences that support the development of individual talent. Recent developments in technology also enable students to have access to global educational resources, hence providing opportunities for students to construct a learning environment that meets their diverse needs.

Strength-based personalization: Allowing students to personalize their outcomes is to enhance their strengths. Thus, strength-based personalization requires teachers to not focus on what the students cannot do. Instead, the teacher looks hard at what each student can do and uses that as a starting point to build an individualized pathway for the student. In other words, rather than having students follow a predetermined curriculum, schools follow students and work with them to co-create the curriculum, which is highly individualized. The curriculum emerges as student learning progresses. To do so, schools need to offer a broad range of courses or other learning activities for students to explore their strengths. In this model, the school becomes a museum of learning opportunities. Students can choose to take advantage of any of these opportunities, as museum visitors would any of the exhibits. Teachers become curators of learning opportunities and also “tour guides” for students. They do not impose but can certainly mentor, motivate, and challenge.

Passion-driven personalization: Personalization can also be driven by students’ passions, which can be different from their strengths. That is, what a student may be good at can be different what he or she is passionate about. Students’ interests should be considered as legitimate sources of motivation; what students are passionate about has intrinsic value, although it may or may not coincide with the prescribed curriculum. To support personalization driven by students’ interests and passions, schools need to develop mechanisms to identify students’ interests. Schools must treat these interests seriously once they are identified, and schools must develop courses and learning activities accordingly.

In summary, personalization of learning outcomes is not mutually exclusive with personalization of process. In fact, it requires all of the different strategies of process personalization. But it goes beyond process personalization by extending personalization beyond a predefined curriculum. Curriculum standards may still be valuable as a guide for specific subjects and domains, should students choose to master that subject or domain. However, students are not forced to learn what has been prescribed, particularly at a prescribed time, location, and pace.

From Detesting to De-Testing

This post was featured in Cathy Rubin's The Global Search for Education: Our Top 12 Teacher Blogs.

How do you balance preparation for high stakes assessments with teaching and learning in your classroom?


In my classroom, I have replaced tests and grades with projects and performances collected in portfolios. It’s been 10 years since I used a multiple choice test to assess my students, so it’s safe to say that I do not agree with having to administer a standardized multiple choice test for the government at the end of an entire year of making learning visible via blogging.

Teachers are repeatedly told that the best way to prepare students for standardized tests is to teach the curriculum, but this is at best misleading. We know that multiple choice tests require a certain amount of test taking skills, and that students who have a better understanding for the nuances of multiple choice tests can score well without having learned what the tests claim to be measuring.

So how do I live with myself when I have an obligation to administer standardized tests that I don’t support?

In his article Fighting the Tests: A Practical Guide to Rescuing Our Schools, Alfie Kohn writes:

Whenever something in the schools is amiss, it makes sense for us to work on two tracks at once. We must do our best in the short term to protect students from the worst effects of a given policy, but we must also work to change or eliminate that policy. If we overlook the former – the need to minimize the harm of what is currently taking place, to devise effective coping strategies — then we do a disservice to children in the here and now. But (and this is by far the more common error) if we overlook the latter – the need to alter the current reality — then we are condemning our children’s children to having to make the best of the same unacceptable situation because it will still exist.

In the short term, I teach the curriculum the best I can, and I waste as little time as possible preparing students to fill in bubbles. However, as test day approaches we do a practice test in small groups to reduce anxiety and increase familiarity. The best teachers act less like conduits for the tests and more like a buffer that protects students from the harmful effects of testing, so I also assure students and parents that I do not use the standardized test as a part of their report card.

In the long term, I tweet, blog, write articles and talk with anyone and everyone about how and why standardized tests are broken and how and why the alternatives to the tests are far more authentic. I go out of my way to make the alternatives to standardized tests so obviously better that parents and students see the tests as an unfortunate distraction from real learning.

To advocate for authentic alternatives to standardized tests I actively work with my Alberta Teachers’ Association to create local public events with speakers such as Sir Ken Robinson, Alfie Kohn, Pasi Sahlberg, Yong Zhao and Andy Hargreaves. I’ve joined a political party in Alberta and influenced their education policies. I wrote Telling Time with a Broken Clock: the trouble with standardized testing and co-edited De-Testing and De-Grading Schools: Authentic Alternatives to Standardization and Accountability.

Together parents, students and teachers join together to opt-out of testing.

Classroom Technology: Nightmare or Dream?

Technological advances in our schools in the last 10 years have been remarkable, and there is no doubt that technology will continue to disrupt our schools in both helpful and harmful ways. To be clear, I love technology and use it every single day. I teach with it and learn with it. It's important to remember, however, that technology cannot be allowed to have a monopoly on innovation in our schools. If public education is to survive the next 10 years, we need to see how technology and personalization can be read as either a dream or a nightmare, depending on who is writing the story.

If Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Arne Duncan, and Michelle Rhee are writing the plot, then personalization in learning is about using technology for union busting, test score analytics and the marketization of our children's minds. In this story, the rich get a computer and a teacher but the poor get just a computer. Herein, technology and personalization isn't about learning – it’s about money. In this story’s final chapter technology functions as a Trojan horse, sneakily shouldering an army of economists and shadow industries that have been stalking public education for a very long time, waiting for an in.

If Sir Ken Robinson, Pasi Sahlberg, Alfie Kohn, Yong Zhao, Linda Darling-Hammond, Will Richardson and Diane Ravitch are writing the plot, then personalization is about student excitement, creativity, intrinsic motivation, curiosity and citizenship. In this story, all children are given computers and teachers, even when it’s cheaper to deny some students the latter. Herein, personalization and technology is used for the purposes of universal education not subordinated to the interests of big business.

Personalization and technology can be about collaborating to discover our passions (the dream) but it can also be about competing over profits (the nightmare). Worse still, personalization can turn into a kind of hyper-personalization, where computers are given to students with zero facilitation from real life teachers. This is akin to pilotless flying and surgeonless surgery and yet this is precisely the vision of many in power, a vision where technology uses the learner, instead of the learner using the technology. However, this can only become a reality if good people remain silent. Classroom innovators and public educators must speak out against the nightmare narrative of technological implementation (of Gates and Murdoch) so that technology and personalization can assist the dream of learning for all.

Fooling the Emperor: how is creativity misapplied in China?

This was written by Yong Zhao who is the author writes and speaks about education reform. He blogs here and tweets here. This post was found here.

This was originally published in China-US Focus on October 23, 2014. Adapted from my book Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World.

by Yong Zhao

China’s capacity for innovation has become a hot topic for China, the U.S., and the rest of the world today. There is no question that China must innovate its way out of the “middle income trap.” But whether the country – which over the last thirty years has proven to be able to make everything – can create anything new remains questionable.

The question is not about whether the Chinese people are creative. Creativity is human nature. Genetically speaking, creativity should not have any ethnic bias or favor any one nation. If creativity is evenly distributed, China should have its equal share of the same genetic stock of creativity as any other nation. Given that its population size is more than three times of that in the United States, China should possess three times the number of great creative geniuses such as Steve Jobs. It also claims to be the only ancient civilization that has a non-stop history of over five thousand years and the most powerful empire in the world, which should have given it more time to accumulate creativity and innovation.

But China has produced very few inventions in science and technology that matter much in the modern world, at least not enough protect the nation from Western aggressions backed by scientific and technological innovations. Even today, despite its stunning growth in patent applications and scientific publications, the country has yet convinced many of its ability to innovate and invent.

China apparently has failed to turn its creative potential into significant innovations and inventions. What happened to all the creativity China had? How does creativity get lost in China?

Speculations abound. No single reason can be used to answer such complex questions. But a major culprit is the authoritarian spirit that advocates complete obedience to authority and results in policies that rewards compliance and punishes defiance. While many people believe obedience results in less creativity, it actually can boost creativity, making people more creative. But the creativity is not productive, in fact counterproductive because it is applied to simply demonstrate obedience, without actual compliance, resulting in token compliance – a form of cheating.

For example, to show compliance to the government’s anti-corruption wishes, which include measures such as prohibiting government officials to enjoy expensive alcohol and elaborate banquets in luxurious restaurants, Chinese government officials have been found to be extremely creative: they put ultra-expensive alcohol such as Moutai in Coke bottles or ordinary drinking bottles; they move elaborate banquets to farm houses; they bring chefs from five-star hotels to cook their “working meals” in their local cafeterias. To comply with environmental regulations, local officials in more than one place creatively ordered mountainsides painted in green. In more than one provinces, local officials rushed to cover paved roads with soil and plant vegetables and soybeans to show the inspectors their compliance with government regulations about conserving farmland.

Shangyou Zhengce, Xiaoyou Duice, literally “the higher authorities have policies, the lower have countermeasures,” has become a common phrase to describe the phenomenon of “emperor-fooling.” This is why in China, the authority seems to always have their demands met and wishes granted by its people, albeit at great cost with wasted resources and creativity.

China’s recent campaign for innovation has met the same fate. To stimulate innovation, the government has employed all sorts of carrots and sticks. The Chinese people have again applied their creativity to realize the government’s wish.

Last month, a number of convicts received a reduction of prison term as a reward for their patented inventions. Former police chief of Chongqing Wang Lijun, now serving a prison term of 15 years for abuse of power was granted 254 patents, 211 of which were filed in one year. His counterpart Wu Changshun in Tianjin has 35 patents granted. Most of their patents were related to police equipment and accessories. They were commercialized but mostly purchased by their own departments, and earned them both royalties and fame.

About 10 years ago, Chinese governments showered money and glory upon Chen Jin, who claimed to have invented a sophisticated computer chip Hanxin #1 (or China Heart/Chip #1), which turned out to be a chip he bought from Motorola. However, he creatively hired some migrant workers to remove the Motorola label and managed to pass the inspection of Chinese officials and experts. A professor at Jinggangshan University found a creative way to have over 40 papers published in international journals, which earned him hundreds of thousands of RMB. But these papers were later retracted, together with about 30 from the same university, for fabricated and falsified data.

There are many more forms of creative and entrepreneurial token compliance. Fabricating research papers and faking journal publications for sale have become a multimillion-dollar enterprise in China, so has the creation and sailing of junk patents. Less courageous professors, medical doctors, nurses, engineers, and professional researchers resort to other forms of creative compliance: publishing the same paper in multiple places, splitting a paper into multiple publications, creatively modifying existing publications, or plagiarizing. As a result, China now receives more patent applications than the U.S. and publishes millions of scientific papers. But the majority of them are of low quality.

By nature, Chinese are no less creative than other people; nor are they less inclined to take risks, or more predisposed to cheating. The authoritarian spirit of absolute obedience to authority seems to direct creativity to risky cheating in order to realize the wishes of the high authority, which may or may not be shared by the people. In other words, while the emperor’s wishes cannot be denied, but people can creatively fool him.

China’s future rests on its ability to turn creativity into constructive innovations and inventions. But whether it can do so depends on how quickly it can change the authoritarian mindset.

Reading the PISA Tea Leaves: Who is responsible for Finland's Decline and the Asian Magic

This was written by Yong Zhao who is Presidential Chair, Associate Dean Global and Online Education, College of Education at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Catching Up or Leading the Way and World Class Learners. He blogs here and tweets here. This post first appeared here.

by Yong Zhao

“Finland Fell from the Tip of PISA,” says the headline of a story in the largest subscription newspaperHelsingin Sanomat in Finland, according to Google Translate (I think it should be
Finland Falls from the Top of PISA). I don’t know Finnish but thanks to Google Translate, I was able to understand most of the story. The gist is that Finland has fallen from the top in the current round of PISA.

This is big news, with significant implications not only for the Finns but also for the rest of the world that has been looking at Finland as the model education system since 2001 when Finland was number one in the first round of PISA. Although results of the 2012 PISA won’t be officially unveiled until 10am GMT, December 3rd.the leaked story, published on November 30th, has already sent the Finns and others to speculate the causes of Finland’s decline. “The reasons are seen in the teachers’ continuing education in poor and outdated teaching methods and technology,” writes the Helsingin Sanomat story (courtesy of Google Translate).

While the Finns are right to be concerned about their education, it would be a huge mistake to believe that their education has gotten worse. Finland’s slip in the PISA ranking has little to do with what Finland has or has not done. It has been pushed down by others. In other words, Finland’s education quality as measured by the PISA may have not changed at all and remains strong, but the introduction of other education systems that are even better at taking tests has made Finland appear worse than it really is. In 2000 and 2003 when Finland was number one, only two East Asian education systems were included: Korea and Japan. In 2009, there were seven from Eastern Asia: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Macao. Six out of the seven ranked top 10 in math, five in science and five in reading and Shanghai took number away from Finland. I have not seen the 2012 results yet and will miss the big moment on my way back to the U.S. from Hong Kong, but I can guess, as the Helsingin Sanomat already suggested, the East Asian education systems did very well again, squeezing further Finland down the league table.

An even bigger mistake is to assume that the Asian systems have made significant improvement and surpassed Finland. The Asian systems have always done extremely well in international tests, especially in math. The top scoring education systems in another major international assessment, the TIMSS, have always been Eastern Asian since 1995: Singapore, S. Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan. Mainland China has yet to participate in TIMSS.

The 2009 PISA results have already begun to shift the world’s attention away from Finland to Shanghai. I fear that the 2012 PISA will complete that shift and make Shanghai and other East Asian education systems THE model of education because the magic potion that East Asian success in international tests is very poisonous.

The recipe for the East Asian success is actually not that magical. It includes all the elements that have been identified as the symptoms of the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) by the great Finnish education scholar Pasi Sahlberg: Competition, Standardization, Frequent Testing, and Privatization. In East Asian high PISA performing systems, these ingredients are more effectively combined and carried out to an extreme to result in entire societies devoted to ensure that their youngsters become excellent test takers.

While the East Asian systems may enjoy being at the top of international tests, they are not happy at all with the outcomes of their education. They have recognized the damages of their education for a long time and have taken actions to reform their systems. Recently, the Chinese government again issued orders to lesson student academic burden by reducing standardized tests and written homework in primary schools. The Singaporeans have been working reforming its curriculum and examination systems. The Koreans are working on implementing a “free semester” for the secondary students. Eastern Asian parents are willing and working hard to spend their life’s savings finding spots outside these “best” education systems. Thus international schools, schools that follow the less successful Western education model, have been in high demand and continue to grow in East Asia. Tens of thousands of Chinese and Korean parents send their children to study in Australia, the U.K., Canada, and the U.S. It is no exaggeration to say that that the majority of the parents in China would send their children to an American school instead of keeping them in the “best performing” Chinese system, if they had the choice.

The East Asian education systems may have a lot to offer to those who want a compliant and homogenous test takers. For those who are looking for true high quality education, Finland would still be a better place. But for an education that can truly cultivate creative, entrepreneurial and globally competent citizens needed in the 21st century, you will have to invent it. Global benchmarking can only give you the best of the past. For the best of the future, you will have do the invention yourself.

(May append later. Gotta run to the airport)

China Enters "Testing-free" Zone: The New Ten Commandments of Education Reform

This was written by Yong Zhao who is Presidential Chair, Associate Dean Global and Online Education, College of Education at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Catching Up or Leading the Way and World Class Learners. He blogs here and tweets here. This post first appeared here.

by Yong Zhao

No standardized tests, no written homework, no tracking. These are some of the new actions China is taking to lessen student academic burden. The Chinese Ministry of Education released Ten Regulations to Lessen Academic Burden for Primary School Students this week for public commentary. The Ten Regulations are introduced as one more significant measure to reform China’s education, in addition to further reduction of academic content, lowering the academic rigor of textbooks, expanding criteria for education quality, and improving teacher capacity.

The regulations included in the published draft are:

1. Transparent admissions. Admission to a school cannot take into account any achievement certificates or examination results. Schools must admit all students based on their residency without considering any other factors.
2. Balanced Grouping. Schools must place students into classes and assign teachers randomly. Schools are strictly forbidden to use any excuse to establish “fast-track” and “slow-track” classes.
3. “Zero-starting point” Teaching. All teaching should assume all first graders students begin at zero proficiency. Schools should not artificially impose higher academic expectations and expedite the pace of teaching.
4. No Homework. No written homework is allowed in primary schools. Schools can however assign appropriate experiential homework by working with parents and community resources to arrange field trips, library visits, and craft activities.
5. Reducing Testing. No standardized testing is allowed for grades 1 through 3; For 4th grade and up, standardized testing is only allowed once per semester for Chinese language, math, and foreign language. Other types of tests cannot be given more than twice per semester.
6. Categorical Evaluation. Schools can only assess students using the categories of “Exceptional, Excellent, Adequate, and Inadequate,” replacing the traditional 100-point system.
7. Minimizing Supplemental Materials. Schools can use at most one type of materials to supplement the textbook, with parental consent. Schools and teachers are forbidden to recommend, suggest, or promote any supplemental materials to students.
8. Strictly Forbidding Extra Class. Schools and teachers cannot organize or offer extra instruction after regular schools hours, during winter and summer breaks and other holidays. Public schools and their teachers cannot organize or participate in extra instructional activities.
9. Minimum of One Hour of Physical Exercise. Schools are to guarantee the offering of physical education classes in accordance with the national curriculum, physical activities and eye exercise during recess.
10. Strengthening Enforcement. Education authorities at all levels of government shall conduct regular inspection and monitoring of actions to lessen student academic burden and publish findings. Individuals responsible for academic burden reduction are held accountable by the government.

Green Evaluation: China's latest Reform to Deemphasize Testing

This was written by Yong Zhao who is an internationally known scholar, author, and speaker He is the author of Catching up or Leading the Way and World Class Learners. Zhao blogs here and tweets here. This post was first found here.

by Yong Zhao

Last week the Chinese Ministry of Education launched another major reform effort to reduce the importance of testing in education. In a document sent to all provincial education authorities on June 19th, the Ministry of Education unveiled guidelines and a new framework for evaluating schools.

China has engaged in numerous systemic reforms over the last few decades, with the goal to minimize the impact of testing on teaching and learning. “However, due to internal and external factors, the tendency to evaluate education quality based simply on student test scores and school admissions rate has not been fundamentally changed,” says the document. “These problems [of evaluation] severely hamper student development as a whole person, stunt their healthy growth, and limit opportunities to cultivate social responsibilities, creative spirit, and practical abilities in students.” To solve these problems, the Ministry of Education realizes that more serious reforms are needed to change how schools are evaluated.

Dubbed “green evaluation,” the new evaluation framework attempt to end the use of test scores and success rates of sending students to higher-level schools as the only measure of education quality. Instead, it drastically broadens the scope of indicators. The framework includes five areas:

• Moral Development indicated by Behaviors and Habits, Citizenship, Personality and Character, and Ambition and Beliefs.
• Academic Development indicated by Knowledge and Skills, Discipline Thinking, Application Abilities, and Creativity.
• Psychological and Physical Health indicated by Physical Fitness, Healthy Living Habits, Artistic and Aesthetic Taste, Emotional Health and Self-regulation, and Interpersonal Communication (social skills).
• Development of Interest and Unique Talents indicated by Curiosity, Unique Talent and Skills, and Discovery and Development of Potentials.
• Academic Burdens indicated by Amount of Study Time (e.g. class time, homework time, and time for sleep etc.), Quality of Instruction, Difficult Level of Classes, and Academic Pressure.

The overall idea is to reduce the importance of test scores and academic burden. It is quite interesting to see that schools are to be evaluated based on how much academic burden they put on students. By the way, it is just the opposite of what the U.S. and some other Western countries are trying to do—the more burden (long school days, too much homework time, etc.) the school puts on students, the worse the school will be judged. Student engagement, boredom, anxiety, and happiness will also be used as measures of education quality.

Debunking the Persistent Myth of Lagging U.S. Schools

This was written by Alfie Kohn who writes and speaks about parenting and education. His website is here and he tweets here. This post was originally found here.

by Alfie Kohn

Beliefs that are debatable or even patently false may be repeated so often that at some point they come to be accepted as fact. We seem to have crossed that threshold with the claim that U.S. schools are significantly worse than those in most other countries. Sometimes the person who parrots this line will even insert a number -- “We’re only ____th in the world, you know!” -- although, not surprisingly, the number changes with each retelling.

The assertion that our students compare unfavorably to those in other countries has long been heard from politicians and corporate executives whose goal is to justify various “get tough” reforms: high-stakes testing, a nationalized curriculum (see under: Common Core “State” Standards), more homework, a longer school day or year, and so on. But by now the premise is apt to be casually repeated by just about everyone -- including educators, I’m sorry to say -- and in the service of a wide range of prescriptions and agendas. Just recently I’ve seen it on a petition to promote teaching the “whole child” (which I declined to sign for that reason), in a documentary arguing for more thoughtful math instruction, and in an article by the progressive journalist Barbara Ehrenreich.

Unsurprisingly, this misconception has filtered out to the general public. According to a brand-new poll, a plurality of Americans -- and a majority of college graduates! -- believe (incorrectly) that American 15-year-olds are at the bottom when their scores on tests of science knowledge are compared to students in other developed countries.

A dedicated group of educational experts has been challenging this canard over the years, but their writings rarely appear in popular publications and each typically focuses on just one of the many problems with the claim. Here, then, is a concise overview of the multiple responses you might offer the next time you hear someone declare that American kids come up short. (First, though, I'd suggest politely inquiring as to the evidence for his or her statement. The wholly unsatisfactory reply you’re likely to receive may constitute a rebuttal in its own right.)

1. Even taking the numbers at face value, the U.S. fares reasonably well. Results will vary depending on subject matter, age, which test is being used, and which year’s results are being reported. It’s possible to cherry-pick scores to make just about any country look especially good or bad. The U.S. looks considerably better when we focus on younger students, for example -- so, not surprisingly, it’s the high school numbers that tend to be cited most often. (When someone reduces all student performance to a single number, you can bet it's the one that casts our schools in the worst possible light.)

But even with older students, there may be less to the claim than meets the eye. As an article in Scientific American noted a few years back, most countries’ science scores were actually pretty similar.[1] That's worth keeping in mind whenever a new batch of numbers is released. If there’s little (or even no) statistically significant difference among, say, the nations placing third through ninth, it would be irresponsible to cite those rankings as if they were meaningful.

Overall, when a pair of researchers carefully reviewed half a dozen different international achievement surveys conducted from 1991 to 2001, they found that “U.S. students have generally performed above average in comparisons with students in other industrialized nations.”[2] And that still seems to be the case with the most recent data, which include math and science scores for grade 4, grade 8, and age 15, as well as reading scores for grade 4 and age 15. Of the eight results, the U.S. scored above average in five, average in two, and below average in one. Not exactly the dire picture that’s typically painted.

2. What do we really learn from standardized tests? While there are differences in quality between the most commonly used tests (e.g., PISA, TIMSS), the fact is that any one-shot, pencil-and-paper standardized test -- particularly one whose questions are multiple-choice -- offers a deeply flawed indicator of learning as compared with authentic classroom-based assessments.[3] One of them taps students’ skill at taking standardized tests, which is a skill unto itself; the other taps what students have learned and what sense they make of, and what they can do with, what they've learned. One is a summary statistic labeled “student achievement”; the other is an account of students’ achievements. Anyone who cites the results of a test is obliged to defend the construction of the test itself, to show that the results are not only statistically valid but meaningful. Needless to say, very few people who say something like “the U.S. is below average in math” have any idea how math proficiency has been measured.

3. Are we comparing apples to watermelons? Even if the tests were good measures of important intellectual proficiencies, the students being tested in different countries aren’t always comparable. As scholars Iris Rotberg and the late Gerald Bracey have pointed out for years, some countries test groups of students who are unrepresentative with respect to age, family income, or number of years spent studying science and math. The older, richer, and more academically selective a cohort of students in a given country, the better that country is going to look in international comparisons.[4]

4. Rich American kids do fine; poor American kids don’t. It’s ridiculous to offer a summary statistic for all children at a given grade level in light of the enormous variation in scores within this country. To do so is roughly analogous to proposing an average pollution statistic for the United States that tells us the cleanliness of “American air.” Test scores are largely a function of socioeconomic status. Our wealthier students perform very well when compared to other countries; our poorer students do not. And we have a lot more poor children than do other industrialized nations. One example, supplied by Linda Darling-Hammond: “In 2009 U.S. schools with fewer than 10 percent of students in poverty ranked first among all nations on PISA tests in reading, while those serving more than 75 percent of students in poverty scored alongside nations like Serbia, ranking about fiftieth.”[5]

5. Why treat learning as if were a competitive sport? All of these results emphasize rankings more than ratings, which means the question of educational success has been framed in terms of who’s beating whom.

a) Education ≠ economy. If our reason for emphasizing students' relative standing (rather than their absolute achievement) has to do with “competitiveness in the 21st-century global economy” -- a phrase that issues from politicians, businesspeople, and journalists with all the thoughtfulness of a sneeze, then we would do well to ask two questions. The first, based on values, is whether we regard educating children as something that’s primarily justified in terms of corporate profits.

The second question, based on facts, is whether the state of a nation’s economy is meaningfully affected by the test scores of students in that nation. Various strands of evidence have converged to suggest that the answer is no. For individual students, school achievement is only weakly related to subsequent workplace performance. And for nations, there’s little correlation between average test scores and economic vigor, even if you try to connect scores during one period with the economy some years later (when that cohort of students has grown up).[6] Moreover, Yong Zhao has shown that “PISA scores in reading, math, and sciences are negatively correlated with entrepreneurship indicators in almost every category at statistically significant levels.”[7]

b) Why is the relative relevant? Once we’ve debunked the myth that test scores drive economic success, what reason would we have to fret about our country’s standing as measured by those scores? What sense does it make to focus on relative performance? After all, to say that our students are first or tenth on a list doesn’t tell us whether they’re doing well or poorly; it gives us no useful information about how much they know or how good our schools are. If all the countries did reasonably well in absolute terms, there would be no shame in being at the bottom. (Nor would “average” be synonymous with “mediocre.”) If all the countries did poorly, there would be no glory in being at the top. Exclamatory headlines about how “our” schools are doing compared to “theirs” suggest that we’re less concerned with the quality of education than with whether we can chant, “We’re Number One!”

c) Hoping foreign kids won’t learn? To treat schooling as if were a competitive sport is not only irrational but morally offensive. If our goal is for American kids to triumph over those who live elsewhere -- to have a better ranking -- then the implication is that we want children who live in other countries to fail, at least in relative terms. We want them not to learn successfully just because they’re not Americans. That’s built into the notion of “competitiveness” (as opposed to excellence or success), which by definition means that one individual or group can succeed only if others don’t. This is a troubling way to look at any endeavor, but where children are concerned, it’s indefensible. And it’s worth pointing out these implications to anyone who uncritically cites the results of an international ranking.

Moreover, rather than defending policies designed to help our graduates “compete,” I’d argue that we should make decisions on the basis of what will help them to develop the skills and disposition to collaborate effectively. Educators, too, ought to think in terms of working with – and learning from – their counterparts in other countries so that children everywhere will become more proficient and enthusiastic learners. But every time we rank “our” kids against “theirs,” that becomes a little less likely to happen.

NOTES

1. W. Wayt Gibbs and Douglas Fox, “The False Crisis in Science Education,” Scientific American, October 1999: 87-92.

2. Erling E. Boe and Sujie Shin, “Is the United States Really Losing the International Horse Race in Academic Achievement?” Phi Delta Kappan, May 2005: 688-695.

3. See, for example, Alfie Kohn, The Case Against Standardized Testing(Heinemann, 2000); or Phillip Harris et al., The Myths of Standardized Tests(Rowman & Littlefield, 2011).

4. For example, see Iris C. Rotberg, “Interpretation of International Test Score Comparisons,” Science, May 15, 1998: 1030-31.

5. Linda Darling-Hammond, “Redlining Our Schools,” The Nation, January 30, 2012: 12. Also see Mel Riddile, “PISA: It’s Poverty Not Stupid,” The Principal Difference [NASSP blog], December 15, 2010; and Martin Carnoy and Richard Rothstein, “What Do International Tests Really Show About U.S. Student Performance?”, Economic Policy Institute report, January 28, 2013.

6. Keith Baker, “High Test Scores: The Wrong Road to National Economic Success,” Kappa Delta Pi Record, Spring 2011: 116-20; Zalman Usiskin, “Do We Need National Standards with Teeth?” Educational Leadership, November 2007: 40; and Gerald W. Bracey, “Test Scores and Economic Growth,” Phi Delta Kappan, March 2007: 554-56. “The reason is clear,” says Iris Rotberg. “Other variables, such as outsourcing to gain access to lower-wage employees, the climate and incentives for innovation, tax rates, health-care and retirement costs, the extent of government subsidies or partnerships, protectionism, intellectual-property enforcement, natural resources, and exchange rates overwhelm mathematics and science scores in predicting economic competitiveness” (“International Test Scores, Irrelevant Policies,”Education Week, September 14, 2001: 32).

7. Yong Zhao, “Flunking Innovation and Creativity,” Phi Delta Kappan, September 2012: 58. Emphasis added.

Richardson: Rethink Assessment

This was written by Will Richardson who is a parent, author, speaker and educator who has been writing about the intersection of social networks and learning for the past decade, most recently at WillRichardson.com. He blogs here and tweets here. This is an excerpt from his book Why School?

by Will Richardson

With few exceptions, all the things our children are using to connect and learn outside the classroom -- social media, cell phones, Internet connections -- are banned inside classrooms. In my kids' case (and they have more access than many), school is the only place in their lives where they can't use the technology they carry around in their pockets and backpacks to answer questions.

The only place. Why is that?

Those of us who have shifted our learning lives to online networks and communities know the potential power that resides there. Education author Jay Cross says, "Knowledge is moving from the individual to the individual and his contacts." That couldn't be truer in this abundantly networked world. It's not what I know, it's what we know. And my reality is that I would suddenly become much dumber if you told me I had to disconnect when seeking answers or solving problems.
This Will Be on the Test

Remaking assessment starts with this: stop asking questions on tests that can be answered by a Google search. Or, if you have to ask them, let kids use their technology to answer them. More often than not, we ask questions that can be easily answered by technology. That is unfortunate.

Take a quick look at any of the state standardized tests for graduation, and you'll see more of those than you can imagine.

For instance, from the New York State Regents global history and geography test:

"Which geographic feature impacted the development of the Gupta Empire?"

No lie, this was a question every potential graduate in New York State was supposed to answer in 2011. I'm not sure about you, but I'd never even heard of the Gupta Empire.

The answer choices were: a) island location; b) volcanoes; c) monsoons; and d) permafrost.

Let's be serious for a second. Can you think of any reason why this little tidbit would be important for your son or daughter to have stored away in his or her brain, aside from needing it for the test? And if I announced that I had a free iPad for the first person who emailed me the correct answer, what would you do right now?

I don't even have to answer that. 
These are the questions we ask when we're operating as if information were scarce. Our tests are loaded with questions whose answers almost everyone is guaranteed to forget as soon as the test is over. I'm not saying there might not be some profound learning we can take away from the story of the Gupta Empire (which was, according to Wikipedia, an Indian dynasty that was the model for classical civilization). But I am saying that we don't take anything away from answering a question like that, except for wondering whether we got it right or wrong. (The correct answer for the question above, by the way, is c) monsoons.)

The effects of assessments like these have implications far beyond their impact on our students. The problems with standardized tests are summed up quite well by Yong Zhao, a professor at the University of Oregon:

By imposing upon schools and teachers unrealistic, meaningless, and arbitrary goals, high-stakes testing has corrupted the spirit of American education, intoxicated the education environment, and demoralized educators. By forcing schools and teachers to teach to the test, it has narrowed the educational experiences of millions of children and thus deprived our children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, of a real education. It has wasted valuable, precious, and dwindling public funds that could have been put into educating rather than testing our children. It has generated unnecessary fear, anxiety, and loss of confidence in our children. It has distracted us from addressing the real challenges facing education today: poverty, globalization, and technological changes. It has taken away the opportunities and resources for exploring innovations that may lead to true improvements in education. But most importantly, it has eroded the traditional strengths of American education that have made America the world's center of innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and democracy.

Instead, let's make sure that at least some of the questions we ask our students on assessments require them to tap into the vast storehouses of information that reside online as well as the networks of people who can help them sort out the answers. For instance, what if we asked (and only if it were worth asking), "In what ways have the inventions and works of the Gupta Empire had an influence on our modern culture?" That's a bit different from making a choice from a list. It would require an ability to think critically about the world. And it would be most complete if it also tested for a student's ability to access the resources and experts now available online.

In other words, let's scrap open-book tests, zoom past open-phone tests asking Googleable questions, and advance to open-network tests that measure not just how well kids answer a question, but also how literate they are at discerning good information from bad and tapping into the experts and networks that can inform those answers. This is how they'll take the real-life information and knowledge tests that come their way, and it would tell us much more about our children's preparedness for a world of data abundance.

Let’s also shift our assessments of students' mastery to ones that examine mastery in action. Performance-based assessments, where students actually have to do something with what they know, tell us volumes more about their readiness for life than bubble sheets or contrived essays.

No question, these types of assessments are more inefficient, subjective and time-consuming than the traditional variety. But they're worth it.

Please Read: Yong Zhao

This is another post in a series that I wish to call Please Read. My purpose here is to randomly and inconsistently provide a handful of links on a certain topic that should be read.

I am thankful for the work for Yong Zhao. I was fortunate enough to be a part of a group that brought Zhao to Red Deer this year for our Teachers' Convention. Here are two recent pieces by Zhao that I think are worth the read.

Here's the introduction to Zhao's new book

Here's a post by Zhao on why standards and testing will be at best unhelpful and at worst harmful

Please read: Hargreaves, Kohn and Zhao

This is another post in a series that I wish to call Please Read. My purpose here is to randomly and inconsistently provide a handful of links on a certain topic that should be read.

I am thankful for the work of Andy Hargreaves, Alfie Kohn and Yong Zhao. After reading books by all three and hearing each of them speak, I've come to see them as shining lights in the dark that is education reform.

Alfie Kohn Interview: Will the Common Core Benefit Children?

Yong Zhao Interview: Will the Common Core Create World-Class Learners?

What is ailing American Schools? An Interview with Andy Hargreaves

Yong Zhao is coming to Alberta

Two years ago, Red Deer, Alberta was proud to play host to Pasi Sahblerg and Dennis Shirley. Last year, Red Deer was ecstatic to welcome Sir Ken Robinson, and this year I'm pleased to be a part of the effort to bring Yong Zhao to Red Deer to continue the dialogue on progressive education.

click to view

Yong Zhao will be speaking in Red Deer on February 8, 2012. Harvest Centre at Westerner Park 4847A 19 Street, Red Deer, Alberta.

Register and purchase tickets here.

Yong & Joe

I had a blast listening to Yong Zhao today. He provides us with such a powerful message. His site is here at http://zhaolearning.com

There is a real paradox revolving around this whole China story. Canada and the United States are looking across the Pacific Ocean, and are envious of China's centralization and standardization. We aspire to be more like the Chinese - we want more standardization and more accountability through high-stakes testing. 

And yet the Chinese are looking across the Pacific and wish they were more like us. They are envious of our creativity, ingenuity and individualism. There is a real 'grass is greener over there' scenario going on here. 

The scary realization we need to make here is that they are right - we have it right, but we are squandering more and more of it every time we longingly look east.

Here are my posts involving Yong Zhao's work:

People's Republic of Standardization

Accountability and George W. Bush

Yong Zhao: We need to listen to this guy!

Yong Zhao: data are not god

Input vs Output: Rethink Accountability

Yong Zhao: 11 minute video

Education Hell

High Test Scores, Low Ability

High Test Scores, Low Ability

This article appeared in the New York Times Opinion Pages.

Yong Zhao is the University Distinguished Professor in the College of Education at Michigan State University. The author of "Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization," he often blogs about education issues.

Teachers sorting college entrance
exams in Chengdu, Sichuan Province,
in June 2009 (AP)

There's a frustrating paradox in Chinese education. On the one hand, millions of college graduates cannot find a job -- at least a desirable job that pays substantially more than what a migrant worker makes. On the other hand, businesses that want to pay a lot more can't seem to find qualified employees.

Multinational companies in China are having a difficult time finding qualified candidates for their positions. According to a recent survey of U.S.-owned enterprises conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, 37 percent of the companies that responded said that finding talent was their biggest operational problem. A separate study by McKinsey Quarterly found that 44 percent of the executives in Chinese companies reported that insufficient talent was the biggest barrier to their global ambitions.

The explanation: a test-oriented educational environment.

China invented the keju system, which used tests to select government officials. It was a great invention because it enabled talents from across the society to join the ruling class regardless of their family backgrounds. Hence, a great meritocracy could be created. But it evolved into a nightmare for China as the system gradually changed into one that tested memorization of Confucian classics.

Keju is dead now but its spirit is very alive in China today, in the form of gaokao, or the College Entrance Exam. It's the only exam that matters since it determines whether students can attend college and what kind of colleges they can attend. Because of its life-determining nature, gaokao has become the “baton” that conducts the whole education orchestra. Students, parents, teachers, school leaders and even local government officials all work together to get good scores. From a very young age, children are relieved of any other burden or deprived of opportunity to do anything else so they can focus on getting good scores.

The result is that Chinese college graduates often have high scores but low ability. Those who are good at taking tests go to college, which also emphasizes book knowledge. But when they graduate, they find out that employers actually want much more than test scores. That is why another study by McKinsey found that fewer than 10 percent of Chinese college graduates would be suitable for work in foreign companies.

Chinese educators are well aware of the problems with the gaokao system and have been trying to move away from the excessive focus on testing. But seeking other valid indicators of strong academic records will take time, especially in a country of 1.3 billion people.

Education Hell

The other day, I had an awesome conversation with a South Korean hair dresser. While she cut my hair, I peppered her with questions about how school was different in South Korea compared to here in Canada.

Here's roughly how I remember the conversation:

Joe: "What was school like in South Korea?"

Kelly: "It was very different. I was at school from 7:30 to 10:00 pm. There was no free time. No physical activity. Just school. 7:30 am to 3:00 pm is school, and then the evening is academy. Elementary kids go to academy until 8:00 pm and high school kids goes until 10:00 pm."

Joe: "Did you like school?"

Kelly: (Laughing) "No not at all. I hated school. No one likes school. Did you?"

Joe: "Well, there were parts I liked about school, and some parts that I definitely did not like, but remember I had lots of free time during my school career. Even though I went to school, I did lots of other things."

Kelly: "Oh, but you also had parts of school you didn't like?"

Joe: "Oh sure. There were parts of school I hated."

Kelly: "Well, focus on what you hated, and that's like me."

Joe: "Do you know anyone who liked school?"

Kelly: (laughing) "No! No one likes school. I knew no one who liked it. There is so much pressure from teachers and parents to be competitive. It's not like that here in Canada. That's I why I love it here. There's so much more freedom and it's relaxed."

Joe: "What did you do in class most the time?"

Kelly: "The teacher talked a lot. You know, lectures with the chalkboard. I was very quiet. I never talked out. I only talked when I was called on by the teacher. If you misbehave, you get hit."

Joe: "Hit? By the teacher? With their hands?"

Kelly: "Oh no. Not with the hand, but with the stick. Hitting with the hand is bad. Hitting with the stick is good. If you misbehave you also might be made to stick with both arms straight up in the air, and you have to hold them up for 15 minutes in front of everyone."

Joe: "What if a parent objected to this treatment of their child?"

Kelly: "What?"

Joe: "What if a parent complained about their child being hit?"

Kelly: "Why would a parent complain? This is a part of how we do things in our culture."

Joe: "Did you have tests?"

Kelly: "Big tests. Lots of pressure. Very competitive. The test to get into college is very important. If you fail, you have to wait until next year to write it again. In the mean time, you go back to academy."

I thanked Kelly for the wonderful haircut and the conversation, and I was on my way.

As I reflected on this story, I thought of a post by Yong Zhao where he shared a news story that is making headlines in China titled A Helpless Mother Complains about Extra Classes Online, Students Say They Have Become Stupid Before Graduation:

Since my daughter began 7th grade (first year of middle school), she has had extra evening classes. At that time, the class ends at 18:50 and I accepted it. But ever since she entered 9th grade, the evening class has lengthened to 20:40. For the graduating class, the students have to take classes from 7:30 to 20:00 on Saturdays. There are also five weeks of classes during the winter and summer school vacation. All day long, the students don’t have any self-study time, or physical education classes…

This kind of practice has seriously damaged students’ health. They have completely lost motivation and interest in studying. My child’s health gets worse day by day. So is her mental spirit. She has begun to lose her.

Two thoughts come to mind when I hear these heartbreaking stories:

Firstly, I found William Chamberlain's comment on Yong Zhao's post very profound:

I would prefer my students to be little “dumber” but a whole lot happier.

And secondly, in the late 1950s, Erich Fromm wrote:

Few parents have the courage and independence to care more for their children's happiness than for their 'success'.

There are lessons to be learned from education hell, but I would hope they are realities to be avoided rather than replicated.

Yong Zhao

http://newlearninginstitute.org/21stcenturyeducation/

If you haven't read Yong Zhao's book Catching Up or Leading the Way, you should.

Input vs Output: Rethink Accountability

In his book Catching Up or Leading the Way,Yong Zhao presents a provocative alternative to high stakes, test and punish, output measuring accountability:

Expanding the definition of success of schools should not be limited to only outcome measures, because many factors affect student learning. How well students perform on a math test at a given time is affected by their own ability and efforts, their family environmnent, their peers, and their previous math learning experiences in addition to their current teachers and math learning. It is simply misleading and worng to use students' performance on tests to judge the degree of a school's success. A mnore just and useful way to judge the quality of schools is to assess the quality of input and hold schools accountable for providing the best educational environment for all students.

An input-oriented accountability system measures the quality of schools by looking at the quality of educational resources and opportunities they provide to each student. Rather than holding schools accountable for raising test scores, which is partly beyond the control of schools and teachers, we can hold schools accountable for ensuring that all students have the same high-quality educational opportunities.

Here is a sample of indicators of the quality of a school in terms of input:

• Physical Environment: Does the school provide safe, clean, and inspiring physical environment?
• Facilities: Does the school provide adequate facilities to support learning and development of diverse talents?
• Teachers: Does the school have a staff that is highly qualified and motivated  to help students learn?
• Curriculum: Does the school impliment a broad and rigorous curriculum relevent to help students learn?
• Leadership: Does the school have strong leadership that inspires teachers and students to achieve their best?
• Innovation: Does the school encourage and support teacher innovation?
• Opportunities to be different: Does the school make arrangements to enable students who have different talents to pursue them?

I've written about our current narrow measures of learning, and Yong Zhao's list of quality indicators align well with what caring adults and professional educators know to be important.

For more on Yong Zhao's ideas on rethinking accountability, listen to this interview.

Yong Zhao: data are not god

Yong Zhao wrote a must-read blogpost on how data-rich is no longer good enough. Data driven is the new 'saviour' of education.

He rightfully warns us to be mindful of our data-driven effervescence.

Read Yong Zhao's blog post: A Pretense of Science and Objectivity: Data and Race to the Top

Yong Zhao: We need to listen to this guy!

I was first introduced to Yong Zhao's ideas when a friend of mine loaned me his book Catching Up or Leading the Way. I devoured the book in short-order.

I am fascinated by Yong Zhao's Chinese-American perspective; he is unique in that he has a very informed take on both educational systems.

His perspective is incredibly important right now because Zhao can act like our educational magic eight-ball. Give him a shake and Zhao says: the US wants want China wants to throw away.

I have written about the Finnish Paradoxes, but now we need to look at the China-US education reform paradox. These two power-house countries each have an interesting take on moving forward.Yong Zhao summarizes very nicely in his book Catching Up or Leading the Way that in the end, it makes very little sense for developed countries like the US and Canada to fret over 'catching up' to developing nations like China. We got where we are by leading the way, and for some reason we are now turning around to follow those who are trying to catch ujp with us.

Yong Zhao's message is a big deal. Take some time and follow these links to make yourself informed.

Accountability and George W. Bush

"Accountability is an exercise in hope. When we raise academic standards children raise their academic sights. When children are regularly tested, teachers know where and how to improve. When scores are known to parents, parents are empowered to push for change. When accountability for our schools is real, the results for our children are real."

-George W. Bush U.S. Department of Education, 2002.

I was watching Charlie Roy's slidecast for Yong Zhao's book Catching Up or Leading the Way when I came across these words that belong to George W. Bush.

On the surface, his statement might sound like it makes a heck of a lot of sense, but if you are involved in the education system, you can start to scratch the surface of his words to find very little real substance.

Here is a break down of the fallacies found in George W. Bush's words:

Accountability is an exercise in hope.

Not necessarily. If accountability means high-stakes testing that brings along top-down rewards and punishments that is more about doing things to teachers than working with them, then accountability is less about hope and more about manipulation.

Until accountability regimes focus around trusting teachers to know their students progress best, accountability will continue to do more harm than good.

When we raise academic standards children raise their
academic sights.

Now this is a dangerous assumption. Simply raising the bar to a challenging height does not do anything to guarantee anyone will be able to jump over the bar. A study conducted by Harvard Business School called Goals Gone Wild: The Systemic Side Effects of Over Prescribing Goal Setting debunks some serious misconceptions we have when it comes to goal-setting. One of its strongest messages revolves around the problems that arise when goals are prescribed in a forceful top-down manner, such as does No Child Left Behind and the accountability pillars in Alberta, Canada.

When children are regularly tested, teachers know where and how to improve.

Today, more than ever, assessment has morphed into standardized tests. The problem arises when you use standardized test scores to hold teachers and schools accountable for low scores when there is research stating that "noninstructional factors explain most of the variance among test scores when schools or districts are compared." (Alfie Kohn)

Because we mistakenly believe that standardized test scores tell us about learning in the classroom, we focus our attention on holding the teacher and school accountable. We would become far less distracted if more people understood that the test scores really tell us about the socio-economics of our society and that we need to focus our attention more on holding our society accountable for what is truly the number one opponent of education: poverty.

Until we refuse to be distracted by things like merit pay and school closures based on test scores, our efforts will result in little educational progress for all students.

When scores are known to parents, parents are empowered to push for change.

Another assumption here is that we think we know what those scores mean. James Popham put it best when he said, "employing standardized achievement tests to ascertain educational quality is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon. Tablespoons have a different measurement mission than indicating how hot or cold something is. Standardized achievement tests have a different measurement mission than indicating how good or bad a school is."

Instead of pushing for change that addresses the real problem -poverty - we are distracted by pushing for change at ONLY the school level.

When accountability for our schools is real, the results for our children are real.

Unfortunately, George W. Bush was right, but not in the way he would have liked to have been. The insurmountable damage high-stakes testing has inflicted on our children's education is very very real. I am convinced we will look back on the accountabilty programs like No Child Left Behind and we will hang our heads in shame as we ask ourselves "how the hell did we become so distracted by test scores."