Re: Accountability Backlash as seen by Finn and Kanstoroom

[Michelle <5alive31@HOME.COM>]

B"H

Hey Susan!

You've got them running!  tee hee!  Make them answer to you, woman!  When
they stop talking and start defending we have one half the fight!

Michelle

From: Susan Ohanian <SOhan70241@AOL.COM>


   The Accountability Backlash
from                        Brookings Papers on Education Policy: 2001

Chester E. Finn Jr. and Marci Kanstoroom

  If standards-based reform remains a wishful claim in some states, in oth-
ers it has already yielded signs of backlash. In several jurisdictions, the
advent
of high-stakes testing has meant that children are beginning to be held
back,



  152                           Brookings Papers on Education Policy: 2001

sent to summer school, or denied diplomas. In a few places, teachers'and
prin-
cipals'jobs or salaries are being tied to student and school performance.
This
has provoked some angry responses. However, while media accounts of back-
lash are plentiful, the extent and seriousness of this opposition are not
clear.
Though veteran education writer Peter Schrag contends that this backlash
"touch[es] virtually every state that has instituted high-stakes testing,"
nobody
has yet quantified this phenomenon or done any responsible research.22
  Examples of backlash can be split between two main categories: those that
represent opposition to the fundamental concept of standards-based reform,
and those that represent objections to the way that standards, tests, or
account-
ability measures are being implemented in a particular place at a particular
time.

  Hostility to the Basic Concept
  Efforts to set external academic standards, measure pupil and school per-
formance with tests, and attach consequences to that performance have had a
long history of opposition in America. The view that no test is a good test
seems to be deeply rooted in U.S. colleges of education. Many educators sym-
pathize with the idea that a regime of high-stakes testing interferes with
cre-
ative teaching, serious learning, and the healthy development of children.
They believe that youngsters learn best when they explore subjects at their
own pace and construct their own meaning from classroom activities. They
believe that the teacher's role is to impart the skills, knowledge, and
habits of
inquiry that he or she deems to be most worthwhile, and to do so on his or
her
own schedule and via methods and materials of his or her own choosing. In
an atmosphere of high-stakes assessment, test preparation usurps the cur-
riculum and blocks children from developing a true love of learning and
gain-
ing higher-order thinking skills.
  This view of education is at least as old as Rousseau and dominated Amer-
ican education for most of the twentieth century. Hirsch terms this system
of
ideas the Romantic Thoughtworld. It does not conform to what is known about
human learning, motivation, or effective schooling, particularly for disad-
vantaged youngsters, but it does occupy a well-worn place in the pantheon of
education theories and can be held by honorable people.
  Such philosophical hostility to standards-based reform underlies much of
the backlash. A shelf of recent books by veteran antitesting activists and
new
recruits conveys the antitesting view with fair clarity. In One Size Fits
Few,


                               153

Susan Ohanian defies the very idea that all students should master the same
material and urges teachers to refuse to teach to the state's academic
standards
or to administer the state's tests. One encounters similar sentiments in
Alfie
Kohn's The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Class-
rooms and `Tougher Standards' and Peter Sacks's Standardized Minds: The
High Price of America's Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It.23
  Journalists writing about standards often turn to a small coterie of
testing
critics for comments on the reforms. In addition to those just named,
familiar
figures are affiliated with an advocacy group called FairTest (the National
Cen-
ter for Fair and Open Testing, which essentially opposes all standardized
tests),
with the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing
(CRESST, headquartered at UCLA), or with the Center for the Study of Test-
ing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy (CSTEEP, at Boston College). All
three
are organizations composed of testing experts who, for the most part, do not
think much of testing in general and high-stakes testing in particular.24
  In response to a report of a cheating incident in Potomac, Maryland, Monty
Neill, the director of FairTest, said, "Schools are turning into test
coaching
centers, caught up in this frenzy of trying to look their best."25 Alfie
Kohn, in
a Richmond Times-Dispatch article on the implementation of Virginia's Stan-
dards of Learning, argues, "This is not about helping kids become critically
[sic], curious, creative thinkers. It's about cramming forgettable details
in
short-term memory, or else."26 While such commentators are often presented
as if they were fair-minded experts, most have consistently opposed
standards
and tests for many years.
  While the Romantic Thoughtworld is nearly always found on the political
left, philosophical opposition to standards-based reform also sometimes
comes
from libertarians and conservatives who believe ardently in local control,
mar-
ketplace mechanisms, and school-level pluralism as governing principles for
education and who do not trust the state to decide what all children should
learn. Mary O'Brien, a parent who is leading a grassroots protest against
the
Ohio proficiency tests, contends that the state should not be trying to
control
the curriculum of local schools.
  Whether it comes from left or right, however, this sort of backlash does
not
have much to do with high-stakes testing or standards-based reform as these
are being implemented in America today. Rather, it is grounded in ideologi-
cal rejection of state-prescribed standards, tests, and accountability in
general.
  Furthermore, the backlash needs to be kept in perspective. Though such
people are typically loquacious, prolific, energetic, and persistent, they
do
not



154
represent the views of most Americans when it comes to education reform. A
recent Public Agenda study found that solid majorities of employers (87 per-
cent), college professors (79 percent), parents (79 percent), and
schoolteach-
ers (60 percent) were in favor of high-stakes tests for promotion.27 Clear
majorities of all these groups say it is better for a child to repeat a
grade
than
to be promoted to the next level without having learned the requisite
skills.
  A major reason for the strong support for standards among employers and
college faculty is concern over the meager skills of high school graduates.
Though today's vigorous economy masks the problem, many young Ameri-
cans are not acquiring necessary skills and knowledge from their schooling.
Three out of four employers and college professors say that contemporary
graduates have only fair or poor skills in grammar and spelling and the
abil-
ity to write clearly.28 Majorities give similar ratings for basic math
skills.
  While two-thirds of high school parents told Public Agenda that their
child
will have the skills to succeed on the job, only 33 percent of employers say
that the young people they see have what it takes.29 And while two-thirds of
parents believe that getting a high school diploma signifies that a
youngster
has mastered at least basic skills, just 39 percent of employers and 33
percent
of college professors concur. The latest figures suggest that a third of
college
freshmen must take at least one remedial class in reading, writing, or math.
This split between relatively complacent parents and mostly alarmed employ-
ers and college professors helps to paint the backdrop for the current
debate
about standards-based reform and high-stakes testing.
  Opponents of such reform often seek to portray the public as rejecting
stan-
dards and tests-and they may resort to questionable means of documenting
this position. The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) held
a press conference in June 2000 to announce the results of a survey that the
organization claimed showed that Americans do not believe in
one-size-fits-all
tests. "Registered voters and public school parents value individual talents
and
contributions,"said AASA executive director Paul Houston. "The idea that
every
child should be treated the same is a profoundly un-American idea." Yet the
questions posed by this survey seemed to be deliberately phrased to elicit
oppo-
sition. Respondents were asked, for example, whether they agree or disagree
that "A student's progress for one school year can be accurately summarized
by a single standardized test." That 42 percent of voters strongly disagree
with
that statement or that an additional 20 percent somewhat disagree is not
sur-
prising. But standards and accountability need not reduce a student's
perfor-
mance to a single test score. Few of its proponents contend that it should.

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