Monterey County Herald

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Test results have come out again and our Nancy Kowtowski, Superintendent of Monterey County Schools has made the typical dull droning, pronouncement. The weighty wordage sound bites are worthy of any empty late night Congressional hearing before a vacation.

 

“With two years of test results, we know that while student achievement is headed in the right direction, progress needs to be accelerated to prepare students for success.”

    Translation 1 (For the community.) “Um…we’re doing kinda’ better.”

    Translation 2. (For educators) “Uh..huh.”

 

Monterey’s Superintendent Diffenbaugh’s rang with a similar verbiage… “I’m extremely proud of all of our students for how hard they’ve worked last year.  With the help of teachers and support staff, MPUSD students continue to demonstrate progress on the new statewide assessments.”

   Translation 1. (For the community) “Um…we’re doing kinda’ better.”

   Translation 2. “(For educators) “Uh huh.”

 

If one looks at these all-important magical scores one will see…

Eighty-two percent of Carmel students met or exceeded standards in English, a 2 percent increase from 2015. The same was true for 72 percent of students in math.

In Pacific Grove, 71 percent of students met or exceeded English standards, up 4 percent from last year. In math, 57 percent of students met or exceeded standards, up from 54 percent last year.

In Salinas, the Alisal Union School District gained 4 percent in English, as 24 percent of students met or exceeded standards in 2016. In math, 18 percent of students met or exceeded expectations in 2016, up from 13 percent in 2015.”

 

Sooo,  Carmel gets     82% (Eng) & 72%  (math)

            Pacific Grove   71% (Eng) & 54% (math)

            Aisal                 24% (Eng) & 18% (math)

 

    If one plugs in Monterey and Castroville the scores are also according to the economic well-being of the community.  It becomes evident to those who have their glasses on for a longish time scores reflect economics. And that the preoccupation with standardized testing actually is subtractive to learning. Why? Because it sucks money out of the classroom. It forces teachers to teach to and for tests. It forces kids to spend ungodly amounts of time testing. (Finland which has the highest performers in the world has 1 test – at the end of high school) And the ugliest of all - testing sucks money, resources, energy, and good pedagogy out of the classroom. 

 

Diane Ravitch an advocate against testing writes…

 

“The test results again show that children in wealthy schools are more proficient than children in poverty; that children in regular education are more proficient than children who are differently abled; that children whose first language is the same as the test writers are more proficient than children for whom that language is a new language. These outcomes are so stable over time that one wonders why we need an expensive and extensive testing program to reveal these results. Indeed, standardized tests have been telling this story since their inception over a century ago.  What standardized tests have also been telling us for all these years is that there is very little correlation, if any, between outcomes on these tests and success in life.”

 

Testing has become a vehicle of major profits for the publishing companies. And testing is just one prong of the many headed spear the ed reform interventionists have thrust upon our public schools. We need superintendents, board members, principals and teachers willing to take back our public education. They need to stand up and actually declare the current barrage of standardized testing is wrong. All evidence shows that. To not do so is wrong and just feeds bureaucratic continuation. And that causes staff meeting after staff meeting highlighting test score minutiae, breaking scores down like preparation for another failed assault on Fallujah. Schools need bright motivated people teaching (who currently disdain public teaching in herds because of testing and ed reform), smaller classes (particularly in communities of poverty) wrap around services, and massive amounts of stimulus in the arts and music.  

 

In the meantime, prepare for more imperiously wordy, tedious, circular, and affirmative testing pronouncements translating to…uh huh. (At least when Roman Emperors paraded at the head of victories, a slave stood behind and whispered, “You are only a man. You are only a man. You are only a man.” 

 

Might be fun to try whispering that at a board meeting sometime.