Ed Reform Translation Service

Do you ever have trouble following the thread of the conversation when you talk to these ed-reformer types?  Once they learn the patois of that industry, it's hard to understand what they're really saying.  It's all "data-driven", "no excuses", "you're supporting the status quo", "we have to break up the government monopoloy".  It goes on and on.  What are They Saying?

Thankfully, Chicago blogger Karen Fraid is not afraid to try to sort it all out for us.  My perception is that the reform agenda in Chicago is comparable to the reform agenda in Memphis and Tennessee. 

Take a look at "Volume I" and "Volume II" of her Reform-to-English dictionary.  The Washington Post picked up the posts, and published the first volume.  UPDATE:  Volume III is out!

Here are some of my favorites:

Accountability (noun): The act of holding children responsible for choosing to be born into the wrong families or in the wrong geographic locations.  Alternately, the act of penalizing teachers who do not advise at-risk students to quit school quickly and avoid wasting everyone’s time and money.
High-Stakes Test (noun): An assessment in which the margin of error is often greater than the desired gains; nevertheless, such assessments have the power to close schools, fire teachers, cause children to repeat a grade, defund districts or schools, cause states and municipalities to lose funding, fire administrators, shame communities, stifle economic growth, increase dropout rates, disenfranchise parents and children, increase race-based segregation, increase crime rates, raise taxes, burden local governments, increase poverty, pit neighbors against each other, determine which students can attend well-funded schools or institutes of higher learning…[Editor’s note:  Actually, this term is pretty much right-on. -K.F.]

Incentivize (verb): To make people offers they literally can’t refuse.
21st Century Skills (plural noun): These are what students gain when an educator is replaced with an iPad.  How else will kids ever get enough screen time if we don’t provide it in schools?

School Choice (noun): This is when politicians choose to close a public school and instead choose to pay their campaign donors to operate a charter school.  School choice also refers to subsidizing upper-income families and religious institutions with tax dollars, often redirected from “failing schools.”  School choice also refers to the choice made by charter and private schools to discriminate against students with disabilities, students in extreme poverty and high-risk students by choosing policies guaranteed to skim only the students that they choose.  School choice is also used as a tool to stem the tide of white flight, without having to convince white folks to spend time with those unlike themselves.

Boy, she's good.

Teacher Warns College Profs

Our country continues to have the conversation about how to prepare our children to succeed.  Currently, the focus is on measurements, metrics, data, objective measures, assessments, ad nauseum.  This has had some unintended consequences.  Primarily, by over-emphasizing the results from student performance on standardized tests, we've seen some very fundamental misunderstandings about what that data means and what it can or should be used for.  We've also seen a corresponding de-emphasis on non-tested subject areas and skills.

In answer to college professors complaining about the caliber of students in their students, a Maryland teacher explains how the current testing structure limits teachers and prevents them from doing what they know they should do.  If you're not regularly checking out the Washington Post's education coverage, do.

The article mentions a famous blog post (in EdWeek) from the 2009 Teacher of the Year called "Teachers Should Be Seen and Not Heard".  Here it is.

Too much of the discussion is by consultants, "thought leaders," and politicians who have little understanding of what takes place in the classroom.  If you're aware of any other teachers and career educators that we, here in little ol' Tennessee, should be reading, pass it along . . .

Something New! Anything Different! It's For The Kids!

I'm always glad to see a well-written Washington Post commentary piece.  It makes me hopeful that some of our national politicians might see it.

To me, we're entering the portion of education reform where some of the unintendend consequences start to really play out.  Many of the reforms have been in place long enough that we have some data on what is working and what is not.

This willy-nilly scattershot approach to education reform is not useful in a world of limited resources and bottomed-out revenues.  Especially when said scattershot approach claims to be "market-based" and manages to offer incredible profits to a select few, without the results for our children that we have every right to expect from such large expenditures.

Alway good to re-examine the assumptions.