The Earth Is Flat But No Polar Bear Will Be Left Behind

Hi So we keep hearing “our public schools are failing”. Time to push the panic button. In a 2012 study, we ranked 35^th out of 64 countries in math and 27^th in science. We suck! And our poor and/or minority kids are performing even worse than other kids. This is the “achievement gap”. Solutions: No Child Left Behind, Common Core, charter schools and……the results are actually a little worse. Doh.

In 2015, the national graduation rate was 83 percent—a record high. (So much for “failing” public schools?). For Asians the rate was 90 percent, for white students 88 percent, Hispanic student 78 percent, and black students 75 percent. And these rankings seem remarkably consistent no matter what measurements you uses: SAT scores, ACT scores, Common Core scores, you name it. Asian students do the best followed by whites, followed by Latinos, followed by blacks.

Is it classroom sizes? Child poverty? The laziness of complacent unionized teachers? The need for more charter schools? The need for more standardized tests? All of these issues have been addressed, if not entirely solved, in one way or another in the past 50 years but progress still seems sluggish.

I don’t have the answer, so for lack of anything else to do, why don’t I use myself as a test case? Allow me to briefly summarize my own academic career……

From kindergarten through 8^th grade I was a good, but not great student. Could I have been great? Maybe, but I didn’t have parents that pushed too hard for straight A’s (believe me, that’s not a complaint) so I generally did well enough. Once high school started, I decided I was going to be “cool”. A bad ass. I had my jean jacket dipped in bleach and an Appetite For Destruction patch sewn on the back. (Sewn on by my grandmother at her sewing machine probably after a meal of chow mein and bread pudding but that shouldn’t subtract from the badassery in any way). I grew myself a killer mullet. I was ready! And of course I purposely tanked in school. Do I look the kind of kid who has TIME for your rules or homework?

But it slowly dawned on me that I was a total failure in the role of a teenage hooligan. Aston Kutcher gave a better performance in Dude, Where’s My Car? Sure, I would bum a Marlboro Red here and there, but I never had the commitment to buy my own packs of cancer sticks and become a full time smoker or even frequent the smoking lounge between classes in school. Sure, I sipped the occasional $3 vodka and Hi-C but I was always terrified my mom would smell it on my breath. Sure, I got sent to the Vice Principal’s office for wising off in class and on the bus, but I was sooo terrified. And my brother had already carved out the angry young rebel role in the house and he did it so much better. He was James Dean to my Kirk Cameron. No mullet, but FULL heavy metal long hair. No jean jacket, but a black biker Hell’s Angels leather jacket. Earring? Check. Me? Ow, that probably hurts. Plus I worried about driving my poor mom to a nervous breakdown if she suddenly had to deal with TWO teenaged punks in the house at once. Worst. Rebel. Ever.

But I pretended for two years anyway.

When my junior year arrived the combination of realizing I was no hooligan and glimpsing the terrifying finish line of high school on the horizon caused me to think I should probably start trying. I had ZERO plans after graduation and I didn’t want to have to go to a junior college, so I decided to become a good student again. The C’s and D’s turned into A’s and B’s overnight.

But that wasn’t the end of the rollercoaster. Fearing I might have scammed them when they let me into UConn and I might be in over my head, I was pretty studious my first couple of years of college and I did well. Then the challenge went away when I knew I could get good grades whenever I wanted to. Boring. Also I had adjusted academically better than socially to school. I had no real friends (due entirely to my own standoffishness) and it started to get to me and I decided I hated school and do I really have to get up and go to class? So I stopped. My clumsy desire to be a rebel resurfaced in a new form. Except I kept going to the one class I liked: Eastern Philosophy and Religion. That made sense to me! So my semester grades looked like this:

F

F

F

F

A

I kind of thought that was a little funny. A stinging indictment of Western Civilization from this undergraduate! I had to meet with the Dean of Liberal Arts over the summer (or maybe it was the Assistant Dean—the Dean was probably on The Riviera) and she told me my semester was so bad they could expel me, but since I was a good student prior that, I would get one more chance. She said, “Were you depressed?”. I said yes and felt gratified that she understood me!

So I did better. Again, fear was a healthy driver. If I didn’t have plans after high school, boy did I have no plans after college, so I better not flunk out. But my grades did become more mediocre—more C’s than before. This was because I had moved to a new dorm where everyone was so social that even I came out of my introverted shell. And……then I took up college drinking and partying. But I had to “make up for lost time” after all those trips to the library on Thursday nights before walking back to my dorm to eat Doritos and drink Coke while listening to the radio on my boom box. So class attendance became sporadic, papers became a little more half-assed—not because I was depressed or rebelling this time, just your garden variety hangovers and indifference. But I stumbled to the finish line and graduated and lived happily ever after.

I provide this brief summary of my checkered academic career to illustrate a point. At times I was a good student, at times I was a bad student, at times I was a mediocre student. And it never had anything to do with the curriculum itself. It was always related to outside the classroom stuff: faux teenage rebellion, college loneliness, Long Island Ice Teas….these were my academic barriers. Nor did my success really have to do with any Dead Poets Society-style inspirational teaching either. (Although I did have some good teachers). When I did well, I can’t really say it was due to my teachers’ brilliance. When I did poorly, I can’t say it was because they failed me. For the most part, they were along for the ride and I was driving the bus—for better or for worse. They always led the horse to water, but sometimes the horse chose to drink, sometimes he chose not to. Or the horse chose to drink Natty Ice instead of water. It less about my teachers and my aptitude than my attitude.

And I have a hunch my experience is not entirely unlike that of most kids. Some are perhaps a bit more mature and grounded than I was and never hit those ebbs in performance. Some have more severe outside-the-classroom issues (like a dad in jail and a mom on crack) which preoccupy them and cause them to lag behind more consistently than I did. But it’s always primarily about attitude. And school itself has a very limited ability to steer attitude. Guidance counselors? Let’s get serious.

And I think our attempts at educational reform which seemingly try to filter that out--the most important factor of all—may be part of the problem. The “high stakes testing” which started with No Child Left Behind in 2002 and continues now with Common Core (a “refinement” of NCLB) seem to float on the fantasy that standardized tests can somehow serve as a magic wand and cure all problems. All you have to do is let test results reveal the problems, close a few failing schools and/or fire a few deadbeat teachers, and schools will get their act together and finally start trying harder and really educate the crap out of our kids. This is probably how Einstein got started! A few heads rolled in his failing German schools and, voila, out came the theory of relativity. Imagined how much more brilliant he could have been if they had charter schools back then. 

Also the Easter Bunny is real.

I think about my wandering in the academic wilderness during my freshman and sophomore years in high school. What if that had happened at a time when schools had Common Core hanging over their necks and this caused them to drill lesson plans more? What if they “tried harder” to get me to study? Would I have likely listened? HECK no. In fact I probably would have pulled away from studying even more if they were making school drearier with more “teaching to the test” boring facts. I didn’t want to do well in school and that was final. Nikki Sixx didn’t care about Earth Science and neither did I.

And turning kids off with this style of teaching may be exactly what is happening. No Child Left Behind was passed 15 years ago. High school seniors weren’t even in kindergarten yet. If high stakes testing worked, we should be seeing results.

The NAEP, aka “The Nation’s Report Card” is a standardized test that is given today and was also given before NCLB. The highest NAEP scores for black students with the narrowest gap was in 1988, the gap is higher now. Hispanic achievement gaps have shown zero improvement since NCLB. SAT scores have declined for all groups since 2006 except Asians. This is despite the fact that the SAT has been dumbed down. Ten years ago they eliminated analogy questions. Recently they eliminated difficult vocabulary words in favor of “evidence based reading”. Like if you said the impeachment of Richard Nixon would divide people into two parties, does two parties mean, like, Republican and Democrat? Or a frat party and an all-night rave? You are also not penalized by penciling in a wrong answer. Yeah I would say that’s dumbed down. They added an essay in 2005 but they took it away again. The College Board wants scores to remain consistent so they felt they needed to dumb down the test as a result of kids’ declining performance.

But that brings us to another reason why using standardized testing as a focal point for education is probably stupid to begin with. You can create any storyline you want. Let’s say you believed in self-fulfilling prophecies and you wanted to instill confidence in our school system because you assume outcomes will improve if more students and parents are buying into the system. You could create standardized tests that yield healthy results. (I don’t mean one of those Facebook tests, mind you. You know, those “Only people with an IQ of 180 can answer this question: the opposite of day is _?”). 

But let’s say you actually wanted to trash public schools and use of the phrase “our failing public schools” lights up pleasure centers in your brain like a Christmas tree. You could design……Common Core. It tests math and language arts. It raises the standards so high that the majority of kids fail the test. Is that really a productive thing? Will that really provide a wake-up call that will result in teachers getting out of the break room and getting every kid college ready—as Common Core promises? Again, this is all based on the premise that those lazy unionized teachers just aren’t trying hard enough. Fire a few of them for low Common Core results and watch the learning flourish! In the end, all Common Core seems to do is build a case that our schools suck. Betsy DeVos and Co. love this because they can then argue that charter schools are the savior. Is that the whole unstated point of Common Core, in fact? 

Except charter schoolkids tank on Common Core too. Oops. And that’s despite them finding clever ways around the law to screen out kids with disabilities as well as other potential poor performing students. They also expel kids like there’s no tomorrow—which should help their scores too. And the teachers have no unions! Still doesn’t help learning. Maybe unions aren’t the culprit after all? The evidence that charter Schools benefit kids seems inconclusive at best—but they do help the rich get richer. If you invest in a charter school, the government gives you 39 percent of your investment money back. (Oh yeah, charter schools don’t really save tax dollars either). That’s on top of the interest you will earn with your loan. So within 7 years, your money doubles. Donate $10 million, wait seven years, deposit $20 million in the bank. The best way to make money is to have money. Tax payer provided subsidies and tax exemptions have turned modern public charity into a huge profit maker. Also, opening charter schools means more buildings—which has created a gold mine for real estate developers. Real estate mogul Donald Trump appointed a charter school fanatic as Secretary of the Department Of Education. I’m sure it’s all just a coincidence.

Another absurdity of the high stakes standardized testing craze: it doesn’t matter to kids. I remember taking those tests in school: the Iowa tests and the like. But they always told us, “Don’t worry about it. It won’t count toward your grade”. And it didn’t matter much for the school or teachers then either. Now teacher heads are poised and ready for the chopping block yet apparently the tests are still meaningless for the kids. They know it won’t affect their grade and, unlike the SAT’s or the ACT, it won’t affect their future. And these tests are now grueling three day affairs. Um, maybe some kids aren’t trying? Maybe a lot of “guess C and move on with your life” is going on? Nothing is on the line for them, everything is on the line for their school and/or teachers. That’s like being a football coach whose job depends on his team’s performance not in the Super Bowl, but in the 3^rd preseason game.

This situation is so bad that apparently some schools bribe kids to try harder. One article I found noted that in the early days of No Child Left Behind, a school in Colorado offered certain kids free iPods, cameras, and other cool stuff if the proctor could tell they were like really into it while taking the test. Another article noted that a couple of years ago in Fairfield, Common Core scores were WAY higher in both math and language arts in one high school compared with the other high school in town. Now this is Fairfield. I don’t think there are any mean streets of Fairfield. I don’t think there are many kids living below the poverty line. So the superintendent dismissed the tests results as invalid because they made zero logical sense. Unless…….one of the high schools offered free pairs of Beats headphones and iPhone 7’s to kids who decided to give a f#%% about their Common Core tests and the other just told them to sit down and shut up?

So standardized testing appears to be a joke. Even if was a valid measuring stick, it seems to do nothing to elevate education. Rather, it apparently just leads to robotic rote learning which bulldozes art class, music class, and even science and history classes because that kind of meaningless fake news nonsense is not going to be on the test. Let’s make school seem boring and like jail to kids. That’s just what these devils need! Performance will skyrocket!

This is so obviously counter-intuitive and I would think all anyone really has to do to see this is reflect back on their own experiences in school or, if they are a teacher, look around. But it seems education has been hijacked from the teachers, principals and even superintendents. Now state Department of Education bureaucrats, US Department bureaucrats, and members of Congress are calling the shots. Oh yeah, and private for-profit test makers. What they put on the tests drives the curriculum. And Common Core tests are kept confidential! A private company issues a private test. Is this still even public education? Standardized testing kids to death may be doing nothing to improve education but the testing companies are laughing all the way to the bank. Imagine if we took all the taxpayer money we give to private test makers and the money we give to billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg to encourage investment in charter schools and instead used it to pay for classroom supplies so teacher didn’t have to pay out of their own pockets? Or maybe hired more teachers to reduce classroom sizes? I know. I’m really living in a dream world.

But recently there has been a huge backlash against Common Core and it might be heading out the door. Maybe the whole era of high stakes testing will bite the dust. I’m not smart enough or informed enough to say what should replace it. But I think restoring education to the teachers and principals would be a good place to start--the ones who actually got degrees in education and committed to a career in education, not billionaire dabblers like Betsy DeVos and Common Core founding father Bill Gates. Bill Gates is a really smart guy, but he’s a computer guy. Mark Zuckerberg is a smart guy, but he’s a social media website creator where people play Candy Crush and post pictures of cream of cauliflower soup. Donald Trump is a smart (?) guy, but he’s a real estate developer. We live in an era in which the super-rich think they can steer areas of society they have no formal training and experience in just because they can.

It might also help if we remember who ultimately decides the fate of our country’s education. It’s not bureaucrats, superintendents, principals, or even teachers; it’s students. Kids decide how hard they are going to try. Just like I did in school, they may sometimes willfully try to not do well. And what can you do? Ground them. Fail them. Keep them back. But what if they don’t care? What can you do then? With that in mind, dare I say the focus should be on making education fun, not just about dreary test preparation? But with a system so overrun by politics and profiteering schools probably have one hand tied behind their backs when it comes to engaging students and building their trust in school and getting them to buy into the idea that it actually benefits them if they take it seriously—they aren’t just being punished through schooling. Distrust in the educational system can’t sully distrust in learning and knowledge itself. 

Cleveland Cavaliers star point guard Kyrie Irving made headlines this weekend when he said he believes the earth is flat. He’s apparently not trolling, but the jury is out on that. His explanation: “I’ve seen a lot of things that my educational system has said that was real that turned out to be completely fake. I don’t mind going against the grain in terms of my thoughts”. See what I mean? He doesn’t trust the educational system. Is there really an achievement gap or just a trust gap which makes some resistant to learning? Finding a way to re-establish trust might accomplish far more than any standardized test ever could. The earth is round. Just don’t ask me to calculate the earth’s circumference---that’s probably a Common Core question fourth graders are now being asked to answer. Better ask them.