Yong Zhao On Arne Duncan Being "Stunned" About Cheating In Atlanta

What was Secretary Duncan’s true feeling about the cheating scandal in Atlanta?

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said he was “stunned” by the cheating scandal in Atlanta Public Schools revealed last week. Given that English is my second language and I wanted to make sure I do not misunderstand the Secretary’s feelings about one of the largest scandals in U.S. education, I went to dictionary.com and found the following definitions of “stun:”

1. to deprive of consciousness or strength by or as if by a blow, fall, etc.
2. to astonish; astound; amaze.
3. to shock; overwhelm

So what was Mr. Duncan’s feeling? In the spirit of test-based education, this makes a great item on the next standardized test for our children:

What was Secretary Duncan’s true feeling about cheating in Atlanta?

A. He was deprived of consciousness or strength
B. He was astonished, astounded, and amazed
C. He was shocked and overwhelmed
D. All of the above

Using my well-honed testing taking skill developed in China, I went at the task and eliminated “B” and “C” first because both contain the element of “surprise” in that he was surprised to find out there were such massive cheating going on in schools. This cannot be true or I refuse to believe it is true because as Secretary of Education, Mr. Duncan must have read the numerous reports of suspected and confirmed cheating incidents in the nation’s schools, including but not limited to places such as Boston, Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Chicago, where he served as its education chief.

Yong Zhao

Yong Zhao On Data

A Pretense of Science and Objectivity: Data and Race to the Top

Education has a new god: data. It is believed to have the power to save American education and thus everything in education must be about data—collect more data about our children, evaluate teachers and administrators based on data, and reward and punish schools using data.

The US federal government has been dangling $4.35 billion to recruit worshipers through the Race to the Top (RTT) program, and possibly a lot more through the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Already 40 states have somehow made the conversion, although only two (Delaware and Tennessee) were deemed to have developed a system powerful enough to generate more converts in schools and thus rewarded with a total of $600 million. Other states will have a second chance and many are working to rewrite their pledges.

Both Delaware and Tennessee did an excellent job pledging to build an education system around data. The Delaware application for RTT lists three strengths that “few states can match:”

1. Delaware’s state-of-the-art system (emphasis original) captures longitudinal information about both students and teachers, and links them together. Today, the State can quickly analyze the performance of any teacher’s students over time, can track how graduates perform in college, and can link teachers to teacher preparation programs, providing rich opportunities to use data to drive performance at the system, school, and classroom levels.
2. Delaware’s rigorous statewide educator evaluation system is based on the most respected standards for teaching and leading. The system provides a multi-measure assessment of performance that incorporates student growth as one of five components…an educator can only be rated effective if they demonstrate satisfactory levels of student growth.
3. Delaware’s newly-defined regulatory framework for school turnaround gives the State the authority to intervene directly in failing schools and requires schools to demonstrate results b achieving AYP within two years. (p. A4-A5)

All three are about data. With the RTT money, Delaware promises to become even more faithful—moving from data-rich to data-driven (watch the panel interview on Youtube). The State will “administer up to three formative and summative assessments per year per student in core subjects” (p. B-10), provide “immediate information that a teacher will use” (p. B-10), “provide data coaches to aid in the use of assessment data,” make tenure and licensure decisions for new teachers based on student performance (D-8), and include in teacher and administrator annual evaluations (p. D-16). With all these plans, Delaware will be “poised to promote data-driven instruction across all schools” (p. B-23). (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase1-applications/delaware.pdf)

Tennessee embraces data as enthusiastically as Delaware. Its RTT application begins with a poetic piece that asks the reviewers to:

Imagine, for a moment, a new day that is coming for Tennessee’s children and families, teachers and principals, and the State’s economic future….It is a day when middle school students will have the benefit of formative assessments, with immediate results so their teachers can measure their progress and make adjustments in time for the annual test. And then principals will use that student achievement data as a significant part of more rigorous teacher evaluations, and work with their teachers to help them succeed (p. 10).

I could go on, but you could read the applications and/or watch their presentations/panel Q&A on youTube (quite fun, actually).

More at the link.

Yong Zhao On High Stakes Testing (America & China)

I have posted a couple things by Yong Zhao before, and this piece, from his book, is incredible.  Here is just a snippet:

I was not good at math (although later in life I developed computer software on statistics, learned to do computer programming with complicated databases, and designed computer games). I was not particularly good at English, either, considering that I had only two years of English taught by a teacher who himself was only a high school graduate and barely knew English. But to avoid math, I chose to major in English language education, and luckily my scores in Chinese language, history, and geography were high enough for me to be admitted to the newly developed English Language Education major at Sichuan Institute of Foreign Languages in Chongqing, China. If I had been born a year later and had to take the exam in 1983, I am sure I would not have been able to get into college because I would have failed the entrance exam's math portion, on which I scored 3 points out of 100.

h/t JB

Yong Zhao On Race To The Top

Over the Top
Six Tips for Winning 'Race to the Top' Money
By Yong Zhao

I have been reading through the voluminous document published in the Nov. 18, 2009, Federal RegisterRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader, giving the final versions of application guidelines, selection criteria, and priorities for $4 billion in competitive grants under the Race to the Top Fund, the largest education grant program in U.S. history.

From news reports, op-ed pieces, and blog posts, I can guess that many states are working hard now to prepare their applications. My reading of the criteria leads me to suggest that the following are winning strategies and actions to include, even though they may be inconsistent with research findings or common sense.

1. Stop paying teachers and principals a salary. Instead, pay them on a per-standardized-test-point basis each day. At the end of the school day, simply give each student a standardized test. Then calculate what the teacher and principal will be paid that day based on the growth of the student, that is, on how much the student has improved over the previous day.

This is true accountability and is sure to keep teachers and principals on their toes. (It also seems to be the true intention behind this requirement: “At the time the State submits its application, the State does not have any legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers at the State level to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation.”)

But to do it, you must not ask the question of whether this accountability will lead to better teaching. You also will need to ignore the fact that “accountability” has driven many teachers out of the schools, and to forget about attracting highly qualified talent to the teaching profession.

2. Remove all “non-core” academic activities and courses and reduce all teaching to math and reading. What the U.S. secretary of education wants is “increasing student achievement in (at a minimum) reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the [National Assessment of Educational Progress] and the assessments required under the [Elementary and Secondary Education Act]” and “decreasing achievement gaps between subgroups in reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the NAEP and the assessments required under the ESEA.” Actually, no need to teach students these subjects; just teaching them how to pass the tests may be even more effective.

But to do so, you have to forget the reasons for education in the first place, ignore all research findings about the negative consequences of high-stakes testing, and suppress any desire to care about the students’ emotional well-being, to cultivate their creativity and entrepreneurship, or to consider their interests and strengths.

3. Make sure every child takes courses in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the more the merrier. This is because, as the guidelines state, “Emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” is a “Competitive Preference Priority,” worth 15 points, and you either get 15 points or nothing.

But this requires you to ignore research findings such as those from Lindsay Lowell and Hal SalzmanRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader, showing that “over the past decade, U.S. colleges and universities graduated roughly three times more scientists and engineers than were employed in the growing science and engineering workforce,” and that “there is no evidence of a long-term decline in the proportion of American students with the relevant training and qualifications to pursue STEM jobs.” You also must not think about what children will really need to be successful in the 21st-century global economy, such as cross-cultural competencies, foreign languages, and digital capabilities.

4. This suggestion is only for the states of Alaska and Texas, because the others have already committed themselves to doing it: Develop and adopt “a common set of K-12 standards … that are supported by evidence that they are internationally benchmarked and build toward college and career readiness by the time of high school graduation.” The other 48 states have signed on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative spearheaded by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. So I guess the initiative counts, even though it covers only two subjects.

Well, there may be a small problem: how to prove that the standards are internationally benchmarked. Did the authors benchmark against national standards in Canada, our closest neighbor, or Australia, a large federation of states like the United States? Of course not, because these countries do not have national standards. Or perhaps they benchmarked against China, since it is our perceived competitor. Probably not, because China has been reforming its curriculum over the past two decades and loosening its national control on curriculum. Or perhaps it is against the Program for International Student Assessment or the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study—yet these are tests, not curriculum standards.

To wholeheartedly embrace this suggestion, states have to overlook the damages national standards can do to education, and not take into consideration the fact that having national standards neither improves education for students nor narrows achievement gaps.

5. Write in lots of money for testing companies and assessment consultants in the application, because you will be rewarded for “developing and implementing common, high-quality assessments.” In the spirit of this recommendation, I would also suggest that you promise to test the students more frequently, at least twice a day—once when they come to school and once when they leave—because this will help you collect more data to meet the data-systems requirement and hold teachers accountable.

Of course, what this means is that you cannot think about students’ individual differences, the need for diverse talents, or the costs of standardized tests. You cannot think about who will eventually benefit from the assessments either. And in no way should you worry about the corruption that high-stakes standardized testing brings with it.

6. Oh, and while you’re at it, include a proposal to bar all children under the age of 18 from entering museums, public libraries, and music events; lock up all musical instruments in schools, and fire all music, art, and physical education teachers; close sports facilities; disconnect all Internet connections; and cut down on lunch time, because the Race to the Top initiative wants to lengthen the school year and school day, and all these are distracting kids from studying for the tests. Of course, these actions will save money as well.

But that requires you to discard the notion that creativity, talent, and technology are important for the future. You must also not think that a healthy society needs musicians, artists, and athletes. Nor can you assume that a well-rounded human being is essential for a democracy. Of course, you should also deny the fact that creativity, art, design, and music play significant roles in the world of science and technology today.

But other than all that, your new federal funding should enable you to do great things.

Saved Due To Lack Of Indoctrination (Re-posted because you should watch it)

A 21st Century Education
Yong Zhao
No Child Left Behind and
Global Competitiveness

Yong Zhao is the University Distinguished Professor of Education at Michigan State University, where he also serves as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education and currently serves on the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council’s Committee to Review the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays International Education Programs.

Zhao received his Ph.D. in Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. His research interests include diffusion of innovation, teacher adoption of technology, computer assisted language learning, globalization and education, and international and comparative education. Zhao has published extensively in these areas. He has been invited to lecture on issues related to education reform, globalization, and technology in more than 10 countries. He received the 2003 Raymond B. Catell Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association.

Zhao asks whether it’s sensible for American students to emulate their Asian (particularly Chinese) counterparts by adopting rigorous science and math curricula and an extended school day in order to stay “competitive” globally. While Zhao recognizes that there are fundamental problems with American public education, he praises the culture of education in this country, a culture that prizes ingenuity, entrepreneurship and individuality and celebrates personal expression for its own sake. He criticizes No Child Left Behind, asserting that standardized testing in a limited number of subjects as a way to measure performance is inadequate to meet the real challenges of the 21st century.