Re: A request for an explanation from a Congressional staffer

[Csubstance@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/26/07 9:31:43 AM, monty@fairtest.org writes:

<< As I began to note yesterday, teachers do a large amount of assessing. 
Done 

well, and in proper amounts, it fosters learning via a feedback loop 

(including students learning to self assess) >>

Teacher assessment is at the essence of teacher professionalism. Imagine if 
other professionals were bashed until McGraw Hill had a monopoly on both the 
assessement instruments and the definition of assessment. Suddenly, you'd have 
to wait six months for your MD to tell you what the MRI or x-ray you just had 
said (and maybe you'd be dead by then).

A lot of education pundits with little or no K-12 classroom experience have 
been subtly teacher bashing for decades. One of the cliches is that "teachers" 
don't understand "assessment." That kind of bullshit. It's common even here, 
or at least is quoted from other sources here.

Fact it, "assessment" varies at various levels and with the course of study. 
My son's kindergarten teacher (and her aide) last school year at a CPS school 
was "assessing" (appropriately) every damned day. Sam did homework. Someone 
read it and commented on it, usually both in writing on the paper and to Sam 
himself (who is still just learning to read). 

That's "assessment" except when people are writing scholarly books bashing 
teachers (ever so subtly) or pontificating at AERA.

When I taught novels in my "English" classes, I prepped and assessed each day 
and once a week (with a "test"). The "assessment" was based on what we had 
read and discussed in class that week. You can't "assess" whether a 14-year-old 
child has understood the first four chapters of "To Kill a Mockingbird" with a 
McGraw Hill assessment any more than you could get any real information about 
my five-year-old son Sam without the teacher talking to the family.

The reason I'm so angry about passing along the Toch thingy is that the Toch 
thingy (especially that glow in the dark assertion of data as fact) is so 
dishonest, so filled with teacher bashing.

For a year I taught drafting and shop classes. Most of the claims embedded in 
the Toch essay look even more ridiculous when played out against teenagers 
learning to tune up an engine or, say, replace the brakes in an old car. Give me 
a break (brake?). These guys are like the priests of the Middle Ages. They 
interpret the Word of God to the peasants, and we're supposed to sit there and 
affirm things like Virgin Births and the existence of Angels or face the fires 
of Hell. 

It's the same kind of theology disguised as fact that used to be passed off 
when religion was hegemonic. Only nowadays, corporate dogmas (markets; 
"choice") hold sway.

But in order for them to win, they have to have enablers, like some here, who 
go along with the teacher bashing implicit in the nonsense like those "facts" 
bandied about by Toch (not only this time, but traditionally in his stuff). 
If this were 1700, the guy would be an archbishop and watch out.

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance

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