If testing and measuring makes for better schools, why are the Obama girls in a school that doesn’t agree?
The Obamas opted for a pricey private school for their daughters. (AP Photo)
In a powerful essay in Education Week, retired educator Alan Jones of Illinois shares his experience accompanying his daughter to look at schools for his grandson.
Jones talks about today’s test-driven education classrooms, codified through No Child Left Behind and incentivized through Race to the Top. He compares schools that measure students almost entirely by test scores to the holistic approach of the Sidwell School attended by President Obama’s girls, saying. “When President Obama talks about good schools, he is talking about schools for other people’s children, not his own.”
Jones makes great points, although comparisons between public and private schools are not necessarily instructive in view of the wide gap in costs. The best private schools in metro Atlanta cost $18,000 to $22,000 a year — and that does not count books and fees — while the average per-pupil spending in public schools in Georgia is around $9,600.
And Atlanta is a bargain compared to private school prices in New York and Washington. Tuition at Sidwell is more than $32,000 per year. (While quality may certainly be the prime reason that U.S. presidents, including Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, enroll their children in Sidwell, a desire to keep their kids out of the public eye is probably another. )
But Jones makes searing points about how a daily diet of drill and test has turned school into an uninspired and unappetizing gruel.
Here is an excerpt but take a look at his full piece in Ed Week:
Nothing could have prepared me for the mindlessness of the hallways, classrooms, and main offices I observed in the coming weeks. I reviewed curriculum with no art or music and only sporadic attempts at teaching science. I followed a school schedule heavily focused on basic literacy skills. I found kindergarten programs with no recess. I observed classrooms where students were required to repeat state standards written on the chalkboard and spend hours completing mountains of worksheets designed to make children more test-savvy.
The schooling landscape worsened when I questioned administrators and teachers about their schools’ instructional programs. What I heard was a form of pseudo-educational jargon that made no sense. The new foreign language of schooling was an incomprehensible mix of educational alphabet soup (RTI, ELL, AYP, LD, BD, ADHD), business metaphors (data-driven, performance-based, TGM), and an urgent plea for more time to prepare students for the state test in March.
Worn out by what I was observing in schools in my community, I wondered what kind of school the president’s children attended… Sidwell students, it seemed, experienced an instructional program that allocated appropriate time for each discipline to be taught well; engaged in instructional activities that were problem-based and interdisciplinary; participated in a rich extracurricular program; and were supervised by administrators and teachers who place children’s social and emotional development on an equal footing with their intellectual growth.
Under this new government-driven regime of testing and accountability, schools are no longer the schools I attended, taught in, or led. This new breed of accountability-driven schools is more interested in reaching some number at the end of the school year than with my grandson’s deep—and untestable—need to be known, respected, and educated.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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137 comments Add your comment
Interesting Observation
February 3rd, 2013
6:43 pm
@bootney farnsworth
February 3rd, 2013
10:45 am
Why do you need the disclaimer to qualify a logical statement? Dude, you’re posting under an assumed moniker. We don’t know who you really are, and we certainly do not care with or without a disclaimer.
Sandy Springs Parent
February 3rd, 2013
6:48 pm
Private Schools succeed because they only consist of one High School and Feeder Schhols at most. They have lean administrative offices, except admissions and fund raising. The successful public school systems in this country are no larger than one to two high schools large with their feeder schools, they have lean administrative staffs. The funds go to educating the student. They are locally controlled. They span a limited core group, say those who live within 5-10 miles of the high school. The teachers are required to live in the district. You are too many different communities of interest in having county wide school districts. I could not live in Milton, nor could I live in South Fulton; I am a just in side the perimeter person who pays very high taxes to live conviently to everything. My children deserve that the Public Schools in my community mirror the private schools in my Community, Marist, Holy Innocents, Holy Spririt, Pace, etc.. Not all of us have the $16,000 -22,000 it costs to go to these schools or the Atlanta Legacy to get into these Schools. Yes, legacy knocks many of us who moved to Atlanta and have no desire to send our children to one of the “Christian” academies that don’t square with our version of Christianity, don’t have the legacy status needed by Marist or Westmister, etc. That is why a Child with a 40 on the SSAT can get into Marist but not much higher scoring girls whose parents or siblings aren’t legacy’s.
I pay the taxes to the City of Sandy Springs, they should have their own school district. Without the Freeloaders I see everyday let 7 kids get out with the Clayton County tag, then their is the Tag with Obama misspelled from Fayette County. My daughter says their are line jumpers from Dunwoody, too fleeing Dekalb. The transfers from Westlake were they buy $40k houses, so go to school there and make it better. If Sandy Springs and Dunwoody have their own districts they can check every single free lunch application and verify that 67% do not qualify. How can they make less than $22,000 and pay 2000 month on rent for over 2 bedrooms. It is funny How the city of Decatur free lunch is only 22%
Home-tutoring parent
February 3rd, 2013
6:49 pm
On Obama’s choice of Sidwell, I think the “conservative complaint” is that the President simultaneously cut the D.C. voucher program that enabled poor, but smart-and-work-willing AfAm kids to escape D.C.’s dreck schools. Security for Sasha and Mahlia was not a concern, as Secret Service would have totally securitized whatever D.C. public schools the Obama girls attended, which would have made the schools safer for these public schools.
The Obamas weren’t interested in helping other black people’s children. But BO wanted public-employees’ election campaign contributions. You can knock Korean-American Michelle Rhee’s superintendency, but she had productive ideas. Poor girl, she didn’t know what the game was. She thought there were honest help-young-Americans-advance goals setting the agenda in public education.
Alfie Kohn has presented great ideas, not his own, but collecting others’ other ideas and re-posting them. Unfortunately, the crux of these, empirically practiced by Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner, are not easily implemented in high-student/teacher-ratio public schools. Alfie also suffers from earning his degrees from Robber-Baron-extraordinaire JD Rockefeller-endowed/guided schools (Brown, Chicago).
Most public school teachers have never been told that their (region-of-state-named, city-named) state universities were originally “normal schools” for 13-14 year old girls, who were sent out to teach 5-13 year olds, and then these “normal schools” became “teachers’ colleges”, a title adopted from Rockefeller’s Columbia-University-affiliated “Teachers College”. Most teachers are ignorant of the fact that their state universities’ Colleges of Education/ Schools of Education, that trained them, had, in the early 20th century, deans and faculty who were graduates of Columbia-affiliated Teachers College.
A good piece to read, for people who do their own thinking, is
http://homeedmag.com/HEM/192/magatto.php
Home-tutoring parent
February 3rd, 2013
7:08 pm
Sidwell Friends isn’t really atop school. Phillips Exeter and Phillips Andover are top achools.
Our kids didn’t get into Harvard or Stanford. We didn’t want to send them away, selfish us. They made the Ivy League, with home-education, but we didn’t want them to think we sent them away when they were 14 because we didn’t love them.
Old timer
February 3rd, 2013
7:23 pm
I have seen what my homeschooled neices are doing…and after having taught comparable ages in public school…..I am amazed by what they do daily and by how much more they do. I have taught is some wonderful schools and crappy schools….but…hen I read a 20 page allegory written by a seventh grader…..unbelievable.
Old timer
February 3rd, 2013
7:24 pm
When
paulo977
February 3rd, 2013
9:02 pm
Mary E ….”However, ensuring that a reasonable amount of time is spent in diagnostic testing, for precise instructional placement and instruction for each student, should not equate with testing as a punitive or evaluative device to assess schools and teachers. The stress is too great upon school personnel with that punitive testing rationale, and that harsh approach for test purposes will only ensure that less creativity, as demonstrated in the Sidwell School model,
______________________________________________________________
Of course . Unfortunately testing has ‘taken over’ much of the school’s curriculum and is now used , by state education officials to assess the depth of EDUCATION in a school and to what extent the WHOLE CHILD is being considered
btman
February 3rd, 2013
9:10 pm
I’ll say this. neither Washington nor anyone in Washington care about your children, all they care about is cutting costs and the next best thing for education. When is the last time i heard anything about how wonderful our schools i are? Almost every article/blog etc…. has to do with how we can weed out bad teachers, testing for evaluations, student surveys etc… I am so sick of the teacher bashing. It really has to stop… Clark Howard recently discussed how the economy is improving to the point where NOW people are leaving their current job for other available opportunities, which hasnt happened at this level in 6 years. Well, guess what? I know of at least a dozen teachers who have either already quit or are not returning next year. They can’t find qualified people to take their place, and i doubt they will. All Math, Science and Special Education teachers.
N. GA Teacher
February 3rd, 2013
9:19 pm
The “Golden Era” of public schools occurred post WW2 until maybe the 70s. Why? Because during that time, public schools were much like privates! They demanded that students do their work or get zeros and fail; students were expected to be well-behaved or were EXPELLED, and students were expected to participate in school activities, whether it be sports, debate, drama, etc. Schools offered multitudes of arts, vocational classes and required at least 3 years of physical education. Parents willingly supported teachers school policies, participated in PTAs, and cared deeply about their kid’s scholastic lives because of a core American belief that each generation can live better with a better education. And you know what? We baby boomers reaped the benefits. Well, fast forward to now, and guess what? The Sidwell Friends of the world continue this! Granted, the elite private schools have always been the exclusive enclave of the upper class, and have a large “hidden curriculum” that deals with class, social mores and pathways to power, but the academic side still does it right! The only exception to this is that public schools still need to offer much more vocational ed.
Progressive Humanist
February 3rd, 2013
9:20 pm
@ Home Tutoring Parent- I see you’re still using that tired argument that only people who attended top flight schools can be competent teachers. If you had any experience in education you’d know that students who look great on paper (GPAs, course work, SAT scores, etc.) do not always provide effective instruction, and students who don’t look so great on paper can actually be fabulous teachers. At the college level, even though UGA has made itself into a relatively prestigious university, some of the poorest scholars I’ve encountered, absolute jokes in terms of research and scholarship, have come out of graduate schools at UGA (and I’m not biased against the school as one of my degrees is from there). It’s just silly to continue to argue that the US News’ ranking of the school completely determines the quality of the graduate.
Mary Elizabeth
February 3rd, 2013
10:35 pm
@Paulo977, 9:02 pm
Paulo, I agree with you. Although testing can assess the correct placement for instruction, testing cannot assess the “depth of education” that is occurring on all levels of a student’s development, nor can testing assess “to what extent the whole child is being considered.”
Teaching is both an art and a science. Those at the top levels of educational decision-making must design educational models that will better allow the “art” of teaching to bloom within the classroom and within each child. That model, then, must include an appropriate amount of autonomy for teachers to exercise their professional judgment with the students under their care. The emphasis should be on teacher training, and not on teacher demoralization.
JSS
February 3rd, 2013
11:31 pm
Hokum, you’re wasting your time. They are trying to demagogue the matter with half-truths. As you point out, for all of the problems in Michigan and California (almost all produced by taxpayer ballot initiatives in the 70s and 80s) they still out produce in terms of tax revenues to the national treasury…
Dr. T
February 3rd, 2013
11:56 pm
Enter your comments here
Sadly, I do not think schools will get any better in this generation. Work ethics, respect for others, personnel responsibility and other human traits which are historically associated with success is lacking with many of our current students and for that matter, parents. Our values have changed greatly. Reality T.V. Programs such as one called ( babies Mimas) which was canceled, was about a man who had 11 children by 10 different women. This is the new us. This is what our society has become. When all Americans decide an or realize that the future of our great nation is at stake maybe things will change. Or, maybe they want…..
Mary
February 3rd, 2013
11:59 pm
When you realize that all these trends in education are first fabricated by Washington elite, you’ll then understand why local control is in “name” only. When States and LEAs take the grant money, we end up with the current status quo, and it will get worse with RTTT – which is NCLB on steroids. Until educators stand up and kick out the feds and take back local control how can we expect anything to get better? The answer is never out of Washington. Let’s get real. Since 1965, Washington interference has created a public education disaster. Teaching used to be a joy for teachers and a great learning adventure for students. If you want to know more about where RTTT is taking the nation, visit the http://www.stopcommoncore.com website.
OTR Links 02/04/2013 « doug – off the record
February 4th, 2013
12:32 am
[...] If testing and measuring makes for better schools, why are the Obama girls in a school that doesn’… [...]
mountain man
February 4th, 2013
6:37 am
If someone could help me out here (Maureen?) – I had heard that there was part of the Georgia Code that said that students could only be retained once, but I cannot find ANYTHING like that in my research. Can someone send me a reference to that Statute?
Dr. Monica Henson
February 4th, 2013
7:11 am
The premise stated is spurious to begin with. Testing and measuring is not needed in the same type and quantity to “make for better schools” when a school is already excellent. A school wouldn’t be excellent if its leadership didn’t already examine all aspects of the school comprehensively, take stock regularly, then develop an action plan to achieve the goals of the governing body and the staff. In a private school, the parents provide a powerful quality control mechanism in the form of voting with their pocketbooks. In public school districts where there is no intra- or inter-district, or any other school choice, there is no similar quality control mechanism unless the families residing in the district can afford private school tuition.
The Obamas are exercising the purest form of school choice, and they are able to afford to do so. Families of means have always had school choice. They shouldn’t be excoriated for simple good luck and/or hard work. They are, however, to be envied by those truly in need and unable to imitate them in choosing the best schools for their children. If I lived in Washington, DC, with school-age children and could afford a school like Sidwell Friends, I’d send them with NO APOLOGY rather than warehouse them in failing district schools.
ZIP code school assignment to public schools enslaves families who cannot afford private school tuition. It perpetuates the monopoly of local boards of education. Thank God that families in this state have finally achieved the ability to make some choices in public education.
John Konop
February 4th, 2013
7:43 am
First in fairness top private school select top students and do not deal with a lot of issues as public schools.
The real issue for public schools is the measurement stick used. Should we focus more on a mean test score or a system based on aptitude that focuses on graduating students with real job skills and or higher education? Unless we change the focus toward real world skills over mean test scores the system will not solve the macro problems. Once we get this right the reforms will fall in place……you can not build a building unless we all agree on the foundation.
Mountain Man
February 4th, 2013
7:55 am
I have looked through the Georgia Code and I do not find any Georgia Law that says that students can only be retained once. I am beginning to believe that I have fallen victim to a pile of BS.
SMH
February 4th, 2013
7:57 am
They’ll spend $30,000 to imprision people and oh look they must help fund the building of a new multi-million dollar stadium for a losing millionaire’s team. This country wastes a lot of it’s resources…period. As the saying goes “Waste not want not”.
Once Again
February 4th, 2013
8:39 am
This guy doesn’t even obey the constitution or care about international law. Why would anyone actually think he cares about the rest of america or the education of its children? Not that Bush was any better.
The real question is just how much longer are you going to subject your children to the government prison system they call schools? Today on WSB they are doing a report on whether the claims of bullet-proof backpacks stand up to real-world testing. SERIOUSLY??? The schools have become so dangerous now that kids need to wear bulletproof backpacks? If you are married or have a partner living under the same roof, why are you not sitting down and seriously taking stock of your finances to try and figure out a way for one of you to stay home and homeschool your children?? Maybe you can’t afford a private school, but can you really afford to continue to do this to your kids?
dcb
February 4th, 2013
8:59 am
Sorry folks – precious few comments on this topic have raised the real issue involved in schooling our kids …. public or private choices not withstanding. And that issue is the home environment. Yes, I feel sorry for many of the caring and involved parents not able to afford or not in communities with private school choices. But they are relatively few in comparison with the entire parent population involved in their public school – especially at the middle and high school levels. Parents selecting private schools are as a whole, more involved and more active in their childrens’ lives – especially their academic lives. It’s time we stopped laying blame on the schools, the teachers, the number of administrators, the curriculum, and all else about the performance and development of our kids. In fact at all levels in both public and private schools, if we would only refocus our attention on true performance and pride in accomplishment rather than the entitlements our society now demands, that would be a great first step. I’m not an Obama fan, but give him credit for having concerns above how it looks politically to send his kids to a non-public school. A lot better than can be said for Carter, for instance, who took the politically correct route of having Amy attend public school during his four years in office while sending she and his other kids to private schools for all of their other elementary and secondary school years.
Mary Elizabeth
February 4th, 2013
9:16 am
@ John Konop, 7:43 am
I agree with you that, for given students, more development of, and value given to, vocational education would help solve many problems within public education. Developing a more vibrant and vital vocational education program, earlier, is part of the attention to individual variances among students that I have long supported.
truth in motion
February 4th, 2013
9:17 am
I hate working in Clayton County. The workload is unrealistic and the pay is horrible. When will a superintendent take the reins. Clayton County needs help.
Jerry Eads
February 4th, 2013
9:19 am
Monica, you missed the point. I brought the piece to Maureen’s attention because I thought it did a wonderfully heartfelt job of decrying that Mr. Obama could send his kids to what a school should be while forcing the “schools for everyone else” to be crushingly depressing hell-holes of test prep for reading and math factoids with no joy of the arts or, for that matter, even recess.
Seems to me we as citizens owe our society good public schools. The very survival of our culture depends on it. I enjoyed the MadMax flicks but I have no desire to live there. Not everyone can afford to run away from their responsibility through “choice.” I have every respect for those who can choose their kids’ schooling (including buying a house near (for example) Parkview or Brookwood). That does not absolve us of our civic responsibility to work toward better schools for everyone.
Concerned DeKalb Mom
February 4th, 2013
11:11 am
Maureen, I certainly hope you remove Tea Party Patriot’s comment above. Disgusting.
Maureen Downey
February 4th, 2013
11:17 am
@Concerned. Gone and banned. Again, let me happily announce that Get Schooled will be moving to a new blog format where email registration will be required. Hope that limits offensive comments. I find people are less likely to spew when they have to authenticate their emails.
Maureen
Atl Parent
February 4th, 2013
3:32 pm
Can you not get the school’s ERB scores? Seems like schools would want to play nice with you.
AlreadySheared
February 4th, 2013
4:22 pm
“If testing and measuring makes for better schools, why are the Obama girls in a school that doesn’t agree?”
“If diet sodas have no calories, why do I always see fat people drinking them?”
Dr. Monica hit the nail on the head: good schools don’t need testing.
LOUSY schools need testing to quantify the extent of their lousiness and provide measurable goals for improvement. Dumping testing in these schools returns us to the time when said schools were able to practice, as George W. Bush so aptly described it, ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations.’
HS Math Teacher
February 4th, 2013
5:47 pm
I remember when the high school exit exam thing was in its’ infancy. I think it was Time magazine that posted a U.S. map, and the states that had exit exams for 4 academic subjects were given one color, those that had 3, another…etc. I noticed states like North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and maybe another one or two other Midwestern States with those populated with German-descent, corn-fed kids, didn’t have any color at all; they were white (slightly funny for the choice of color coding, being a left-of-center mag). Obviously, at that time, those “white” states weren’t too worried about their kids being properly educated when they left the school house doors for the last time.
AlreadySheared
February 4th, 2013
6:01 pm
@HS Math Teacher,
Sadly, I still remember taking the “regents exam” as a college freshman hear in Georgia. Translation “Yes, we know you passed freshman english composition, but we’re still not sure if you know how to write. Take this test so that we can be sure.”
On a more current note, of course even today students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree in some sort of education from an accredited state university STILL have to take some GACE exams to get their teaching certificates. This may be necessary, but it speaks voiumes about how confident our government is in the competence and/or integrity of said state universities.
AlreadySheared
February 4th, 2013
6:02 pm
Ironic? Yes. ‘”here” in Georgia’
Home-tutoring parent
February 4th, 2013
8:56 pm
Progressive Humanist,
I agree with you, completely. You don’t have to attend a top flight school to teach. You do have to attend a top-flight school and earn an A or A- GPA to teach college-preparatory courses, and write effective rec letters. If you attended a university that didn’t require rec letters, you should wonder why. But, even absent this, if your university’s teachers program didn’t effectively require a 3.5+ hs GPA, at least one passing AP-test score (3+), and a 1240+ SAT/ 27+ ACT, it basically said, “You aren’t smart or hard-working, you are perfect for evaluating OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN, IN ACADEMIC SUBJECTS.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong. How about teaching vocational courses?
Home-tutoring parent
February 4th, 2013
10:21 pm
Georgia doesn’t have the most-fantastic schools in America. But Georgians have opportunities.
For example, the top four engineering schools in the world are Stanford, MIT, Cal-Berkeley and Caltech. Three of them are in California. Caltech faculty design WOW! satellites, including the Mars rovers.
Where is Georgia Tech? Pretty high up there.
It’s competing with engineering schools like Cornell. Princeton, Carnegie-Mellon, U Illinois, Columbia, U Washington, Texas A&M, and some others.
The best enginering schools have lots of great faculty in mathematics, chemistry and physics, lsuch as Fields Medal and Nobel Prize winners. Harvard and Yale decided not to compete in engineering. “Too ‘practical’.”
Okay, that’s the way it goes. Georgia Tech has 25 members of the National Academy of Engineering.
Dr. Monica Henson
February 4th, 2013
10:59 pm
Jerry Eads post’d, “Mr. Obama could send his kids to what a school should be while forcing the ’schools for everyone else’ to be crushingly depressing hell-holes of test prep for reading and math factoids with no joy of the arts or, for that matter, even recess.”
Jerry, President Obama is not “forcing” anything on the “schools for everyone else.” The federal contribution to the public education budget in this country is less than 10% of total dollars. Other than IDEA, homeless education, and English Language Learner spending, there is NO federal requirement placed on the states with regard to public education, unless the state elects to receive Title I funds for low-income students. That is where No Child Left Behind began to impose accountability testing–if you take the money, then you must demonstrate what results from your expenditure thereof.
Race to the Top funding is in the form of competitive grants designed to spur innovation. No state is required to apply for RTTT funds.
It is simply disingenuous to pin the failure of those short-sighted local district and building administrators who ARE the ones forcing their schools into hellhole-dom on the feds. Not every principal behaves like a shortsighted idiot. Not every public school is a test-prep hellhole. Those that are have fools for leaders, and that’s a local issue, not a state or federal one.
Progressive Humanist
February 4th, 2013
11:31 pm
Home Tutoring Parent: You think someone needs to have had a 4.0 GPA at a top flight school to write effective recommendation letters? My, you do have some outlandish beliefs. So I guess that means that because you have trouble figuring out where to put commas and can’t identify a comma splice in your own writing (hint: there shouldn’t be a comma in your 3rd sentence, and there’s a comma splice in your quote), then you must not have had a 4.0 at a top flight university. I think someone on another thread mentioned you were an English major. That makes sense. Ironically, English majors don’t tend to be impressive writers, but they are well trained in identifying the most objective view of works of fiction (or in other words, in forming the most “accurate” interpretation of something that didn’t happen). That describes you to a “T”. Tell me, did you do your dissertation on the Hobbit? Dr. Seuss, maybe? I’m sure that training gave you all the skills necessary to critique education, psychology, statistics, research, etc. Or maybe it didn’t give you any of them.
Prof
February 5th, 2013
9:11 am
@ Progressive Humanist. Don’t insult English majors by assuming that Home Tutoring Parent was telling the truth by claiming to be one.