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/.