Accountability, assessment, English majors and whether 'tis nobler to take arms against a sea of troubles or to master the competencies in Common Core Reading Standards 1, 2 and 4

An article by Michael Godsley, a high school English teacher in San Luis Obispo, Calif., sums up what "college readiness" standards, accountability, assessment and the politicization of the K-12 curriculum since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 have done to the old idea of studying English and the humanities in order to be "exposed to great thoughts and deep advice, and the opportunity to apply them to [one's] own life in [one's] own clumsy way" -- which is more or less why I decided to switch my major to English in grad school.

Godsley's point is that NCLB, Common Core and the "teaching to the test" they have imposed on classroom teachers "emphasize technical skills like analyzing, integrating, and delineating a text" to the exclusion of literature and thus impoverish the K-12 curriculum.

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By the way: There's still time to write the U.S. Senate Education Committee, which is conducting hearings on NCLB and standardized testing, at FixingNCLB@help.senate.gov. They are hearing a lot from proponents of testing, testing and more testing. They need to hear from the rest of us.

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You can read the whole thing on The Atlantic magazine's website. I'll just quote a couple of Godsley's vignettes. They tell a story. First this:

I remember when, 10 years ago, my students spent an hour sharing their favorite lines from Father Zossima’s sermon in The Brothers Karamozov and how and why it affected their own lives. One student was visibly moved by the idea that suffering for a loved one might be a blessing available only in a life on Earth, not in heaven. A few different students called it "their favorite class ever." This morning, my student-teacher—a college student I’m training to be a classroom educator—used a hip-hop poem as a primary text and started the class by saying, "Today we’re going to practice Reading Standards 1, 2, and particularly 4" in reference to the anchor standards that the students had on their desks. If this sounds a little dry, I’m partly to blame—for a month, he’s been watching me ask the students to explicitly reflect on their progress in each of these technical areas. In any case, with habits like these, he’s sure to land a permanent job in the fall.

Then this, a few paragraphs down:

Later, a kid who reminds me of the teenager I was in high school—a boy who is at different times depressed, excited, naive, and curious—asked me why I became an English teacher. I smiled in self-defense, but I was silent …, not knowing what to say anymore.

I like vignettes, and I like stories. I like the way they get a point across. But I don't like this story.

Michael Godsey, "The Wisdom Deficit in Schools" The Atlantic website 22 Jan. 2015 http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/the-wisdom-deficit-in-schools/384713/.

Dear Senate Education Committee: It's time to put NCLB, Common Core in the time-out corner

Here's my letter to Congress asking a moratorium on the standardized testing in No Child Left Behind. NCLB is up for renewal, and I've been sharing material on how to lobby Congress about it on my Facebook page, but I'm also posting here because I want to link to a couple of other websites.

Not sure how much good it'll do … but, hey, they asked for input …

With the Elementary and Secondary Education Act(ESEA) up for reauthorization this year, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is convening hearings that begin today. Alexander, chair of the Senate Education Committee, has issued a press release vowing to "fix the No Child Left Behind law, wrapping up six years of committee work and sending a bill to the Senate floor within the first few weeks of 2015." He's also asking for public input at this email address:

FixingNCLB@help.senate.gov

Here's mine. I sent it in this morning:

Dear Senator Alexander

I am writing to urge you and the Senate Education Committee to draft legislation: (1) declaring a moratorium on all high-stakes standardized testing; and (2) specifically rescinding the accountability testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act until a national education policy can be worked out with input from teachers and child development specialists in addition to the corporate school reform advocates and standardized test vendors who now dominate the field. However benign their intent may have been, NCLB and the testing component of the Common Core initiative are seriously flawed, and their implementation has done serious damage to children and educators, especially in low-income school districts.

As a college freshman English teacher (now retired), I am familiar with the kind of “college-readiness” standards Common Core purports to address. But the sample essay questions I have seen from the PARCC tests in media accounts are so poorly designed that they do not validly measure anything – except perhaps the haste in which they were cranked out by people who obviously were not familiar with in-class essay writing processes. They ask students to write about so many unrelated issues that I couldn’t have argued a coherent thesis in the time given, and I spent my entire career as a writer, editor and writing teacher. I understand the situation is worse in the math components of PARCC, and the whole concept of testing younger children for college-readiness has been called into question by child development specialists. It’s time to put NCLB, Common Core and PARCC in the time-out corner and replace them with a humane, educationally valid system.

You won’t remember me, but I covered your gubernatorial administration and met you as a cub reporter in Oak Ridge, Tenn. I remember how you helped us move past a dark period in Tennessee government and strengthened our system of education. As chairman of the Senate Education Committee, you in a unique position to do the same with regard to national education policy, and I trust you will do the right thing again.

 Peter Ellertsen
 Springfield, IL (13th CD)

PARCC, if you're not familiar with the alphabet soup of school reform, stands for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. It's part of Common Core.

How -- and why -- to write Congress

Here are some tips from Peter Greene, a language arts teacher in western Pennsylvania who writes a delightfully curmudgeonly blog called "Curmudgucation: A grumpy old teacher trying to keep up the good classroom fight in the new age of reformy stuff." He writes:

You do not have to be brilliant or super-articulate. Just speak from the heart. Don't write Moby Dick in email form. Keep it brief (aka "readable") and if you have a lot more to say, send several emails. If you just have a sentence or two and can't figure out how to add to that, just send that. If you've read something that really said it for you, email a link to the piece and write "Read this. I believe it's true."

But whatever you do, don't sit silently hoping that Congress does the right thing. You can bet the farm that DC is swarming with lobbyists and "activists" who are making certain that their point of view is heard up close and personal. We know that the unions that are supposed to represent the teacher point of view are unlikely to do so.

It's on us. It's time to speak up. It's time to speak your truth. Will they hear us and listen to us? Who knows, But I do know this-- there is no possibility that they will hear us if we don't speak.

Greene's readers are mostly teachers, but you don't have to be a teacher to lobby your elected representatives.

So I'd add this: It's kind of a fill-in-the-blanks approach:

1. Tell them what you want 'em to do. Like "stop the @#$%ing standardized tests." But that's me talking. You can read Alexander's press release and decide what you want to say.

2. Briefly state why you're interested in the legislation.

You don't have to be a teacher for your voice to count. I didn't have to worry about K-12 mandates, but I graded lots of essays -- and these PARCC essay "prompts" (i.e. the questions) sucked. So that's what I wrote about. If you're a student, or you've been a student and you have an opinion on just exactly what standardized tests measure (or don't), share it. A lot of parents write in, too. If your children aren't in school yet, here's a Washington Post story on standardized testing in kindergarten. It's scary.

Finally, whether you're a teacher, a student, a parent or whatever, it doesn't hurt to let them know you're a voter. I just mention my congressional district when I sign my name. I think it's a polite way of letting them know I'm watching. In fact, I'm going to send copies of my message to Illinois' senators and my U.S. representative, too.