I love being taken to task, dragged screaming through the streets by my Mom, oh, no, that was my brother — I’m the good one. I am golden and never get into trouble. Despite that, Dr. Stephen Krashen has dropped the other shoe and it landed right on my head. (1)

In a guest blog for EdWeek he points out the all too obvious flaw in my argument about national standards as presented by the Common Core: even more testing!

Yes, I am guilty, I have just endorsed additional testing for children. Santa Claus wears a fake beard, he gives out toys to naughty children and the Tooth Fairy doesn’t build a castle, she throws those teeth away!

No, they don’t. I do believe in Santa Claus but I know that even his gifts often come with bills attached. Still, to anyone who has read all of my previous 50+ posts, first, let me say “Thank you!”; second, let me say “Get a life!”, and finally I will add that you must know from completing that daunting task that I am not in favor of any testing other than the maintenance of checklists to record developmental markers accomplished. I would have gleefully taught these last thirty years without ever giving one single high stakes test had I been allowed to do so!

But Dr. Krashen is correct when he says:

The US Department of Education is developing a massive new testing program, with far more testing than ever before, and they have made no secret about it. (1)

I did not sign on for this. Eat Cuban food? Sure. Invade Cuba? No! In endorsing national objectives that can be employed effectively by educators I am in no way encouraging the subsequent adoption of increased testing, in point of fact in my post I clearly stated:

First and foremost, ESEA must go away. There is no place for the schizophrenic personality disorder that would result from teaching both to the curriculum and the test. (2)

I apologize for being unclear or less than transparent. Rather than increasing testing, I am calling for it to go away in favor of empowering teachers to do what they do best: teach. Co-terminus with adopting national standards for each grade we must also return to the belief that teachers are the experts. They must be allowed to deliver the curriculum and assess as they need to for their records or as they deem appropriate but no one should be telling them how and when to do so.

The greatest argument against high stakes testing is that it puts too much pressure upon our most fragile resource: our children. Yet my own reason for being against the tests is much more selfish — I don’t want to gather data for someone else that does not benefit my own work. When I give a test in April, the results of which will not be released until August when that actual class is three months absent never to return, those results tell me nothing. It’s just someone else’s data.

So, no tests? From my perch in Tucson, I can see the next argument as it approaches now like a massive dark cloud on the southwestern horizon above the Whetstone mountains. “How will we know if we are getting our money’s worth?” “Where is the accountability?” “What about ‘educational rigor’, how is it demonstrated?”

Personally I don’t care, I know how hard my colleagues work, but I understand the problem. How will I offer a compromise? Compromise is important, it is a viable tool, currently out of fashion in our political arena. Ok, you can have your tests, every three grades, but here is my sweet and sour offering: we also must stop social promotion. We have to stop sending children on to the next grade simply because they had a birthday.

What I propose is that children move when they are ready and they are ready when their teachers agree that they are ready. It brings new meaning to the oft maligned term, AYP. Along with establishing core standards to be completed at each level we must recognize that not all children mature at the same rate. Public education needs to change, I agree with this statement but educators should work to change it, not politicians; let them work on how to return to a reasonable dialogue in their workplace — they can fix their own house and let us take care of ours.

Thank you Dr. Krashen, for reading my words and for pointing out the facile nature of my argument. I do apologize but I have to admit I am making this up as a I go along. My articles are not products, they are syntheses and observations; not tenets but more the stuff of wishes, or prayers if you will, for the survival of public education.

1) http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/04/stephen_krashen_testing_and_te.html

2) http://tucsoncitizen.com/tired-tucson-teacher/2012/05/18/the-common-core-standards-and-unfunded-mandates/

If you are an educator you cannot help but have been looking over your shoulder with nervous glances at the approach of yet another new, and possibly scary thing on the education horizon: the Common Core Standards. Having been born from the infamous NCLB now known as ESEA; teachers and other professionals additionally cannot help but be terrified that looming before them is yet another unfunded mandate.

For those of you not currently virally endemic to the education profession, the concept of ‘unfunded mandates’ in a nutshell (which might be a good place to put them) are things that teachers are told to do that are not supported by supplemental materials or additional funding, thereby forcing the schools to find their own way to implement the objectives. This is, of course, on top of whatever else they are already doing and paying for.

Needless to reiterate, nonetheless I will, unfunded mandates have further exacerbated the problems of public education. Having watched NCLB and later ESEA become the bane of educators everywhere, how am I now to feel about the Common Core Standards? As simply as possible I have to say, “It’s about time!”

You heard me correctly. I believe nationally established educational standards are not only welcome but possibly the only way to save this foundering ship that is public education.

Currently a child that goes from one state to another, hopefully accompanied by their parents, faces the daunting task of being placed into the new system in operation where they have arrived. There is no guarantee that any of the skills that they have already mastered are still viable exigencies where they are, nor is there any reasonable way to predict what will be expected of them in their new environment; quite simply, curriculum is set, state by state.

With nationally established standards a good portion of the disconnect will be expunged from the process. Clear objectives, sequentially ordered and evaluated will be predetermined by the established nationwide curriculum.

But, you know there is always a ‘but’, this apparent Shangri-La is not without caveat. If educators are going to be held accountable for a nationally established curriculum some things must change. First and foremost, ESEA must go away. There is no place for the schizophrenic personality disorder that would result from teaching both to the curriculum and the test.

Teachers already know this; they have struggled with it for years. It is one of the reasons I like this time of year so much. I no longer have my concentration divided into two brutally warring camps. The test is over now. Unfettered, I can teach to the previously uncovered objectives and highlight those that I know my students will need next year without concern as to how many test questions actually focus on that skill.

A high stakes test does not think; it does not evaluate students on a daily basis; it does not even give teachers data that can be used for the current class of children. For me these tests are useless. A national curriculum however, that is pure gold.

As usual given a three day weekend and time to myself I spent it reading what others are writing about in my profession. Doesn’t everyone? In actuality my interest was piqued because I spoke with an old friend last week. He was once the co-owner / co-director with his wife of my favorite school of all time. Having since moved to Colorado I don’t get to talk to him nearly as much as I used to. Which is a shame, because after my baby brother, no one makes me laugh as much as my friend in Colorado, and I need as much laughter as I can gather.

It’s like Langston Hughes said, “You have to laugh . . . to keep from crying.”

My friend’s school was a preschool/ kindergarten and I know about preschools because I worked in a bunch of them. It wasn’t that I was fickle, I was a resource teacher in Special Education, early intervention for identified 0-5 year olds. Each year I would move to a new school. Interestingly, I never worked in a bad school. There were a lot of different approaches to early childhood education, probably a surprising number to the uninitiated, but I found that the children were the first concern in each school and that it mattered little if the school was more traditional or innovative in their approach, they still looked at each child and tried their best to supply for their needs and those of their family. It’s what good preschools do.

But that was a long time ago. Since the mid 80s I have worked in public schools, seven of them in various capacities. I have also visited many others.  I still can’t think of a bad school. I can think of some bad teachers, though not too many; a few bad principals, mostly because they were just too inexperienced; and a bunch of real bad ideas.  High stakes testing is first among them.

Like I said earlier I was reading as well as listening via YouTube to some professionals and interested citizens discuss education. Mostly I was thinking about education reform, an elephant that stands right behind the gorilla in my classroom. That’s why I thought of my friend’s school. The first day I walked in, I came out onto the playground and seeing a child sitting on a bench, I said “Hi.” in my usual gregarious manner. Another child standing off to one side looked up at me and smiling said, “You really shouldn’t talk to him right now, he’s there for a reason.” OOPS, I had mis-stepped already and a four-year-old had to bring me up to speed. What kind of school was this? I found out quickly, it was a school that seemed to run almost effortlessly, because the people behind it, the adults worked so darn hard to see that it did. And yet in all that effort there was so much joy. In this school there was, at once, order and choices, structure and flexibility, learning and exploring and relaxing and well, like I said it was my favorite, I could go on forever. When it came my time to leave I did not argue but I remembered as much as I could of what I had learned.

There is a professor at Michigan State University named Yong Zhao who I think would have loved this school. I am guessing of course, based upon what I have read and heard him say. Yong Zhao was a Chinese national living in a rural setting, who was educated in China. He was the first of his family to go beyond third grade and somehow ended up in college. He credits China for not teaching by their methods and that has made all the difference to him. Somehow, despite all his education, he got left behind by Chinese indoctrination. His argument is that the United States does not want to be China, or Japan, or even Finland. He believes our greatest strength is the one thing our current education system is ignoring: our diversity. He says it is this ability to do so many things that has always made us strong and I have to say I agree with him.

Wait, did I say Finland? Yes, currently Finland is being lauded as having the best school system in the world. Their students do not start until age 7, they are taught by teachers who all have masters degrees and all belong to unions. Their schools are well funded but not overly so. And yet despite all these factors that are under attack in our country, they excel. You can read all about it on a site operated by Bob Compton, a philanthropic entrepreneur who has made several films about education including one called “Two Million Minutes”.

Professor Zhao and Mr. Compton do not agree on much. Zhao emphasizes the individual and diversity, Compton cites rigor and support. They even had a debate on education. But in reading both their messages I was able to ferret out one point of agreement: neither sees much value in standardized testing.  Zhao says as much and Compton champions a school system in Finland that offers one standardized test and that comes at the end of student’s entire career.

I believe in school reform, I just don’t call it that. I like to call it learning. Teachers need to learn as much as their students do. Like Zhao I belive that it is our diversity that makes education so hard and the United States so strong. I am going to sit here on this bench and think about it some more. For now, don’t bother me, I’m here for a reason.