What's All About Students All About Anyway?

I have been meaning and meaning to write about the Virginia Governor's 2013 education agenda, Part I and Part II, and so I will (belatedly) and unlike my response to his education agenda last year, it will be brief (mercifully).

First of all, as it's sprinkled liberally throughout his agenda, it seems that the Governor hasn't received the memo on the term "achievement gap." Even TFA got that memo and has responded with a good ol' liberal arts-style deconstruction (not that I would ever in my wildest dreams imagine that a Virginia GOP political leader would be caught dead reading such a thing).

And speaking of TFA. . .

1. Teach for America Act (HB 2084):

You probably already know what I think. I have written about TFA before. It's my most popular piece.

The only thing new I have to say is: Why does Virginia need TFA? There are budget and teaching positions being cut across the state and I hear it's hard for our college graduates to get teaching positions. Where is the evidence that there's a teacher shortage anywhere in Virginia? And if there is one, why don't we have a Teach for Virginia instead? Teachers who are being laid off could be given incentives to go and teach in hard to staff areas. Top students at Virginia colleges and universities, especially ones seeking a teacher's license, could also be granted incentives to start their careers in these supposedly "hard to staff" places.

Otherwise, it doesn't seem like anyone's fighting it, so meh.

2. 2% increase for Virginia Public School Teachers

I don't know any other way to say this, so here goes: This is a lie. The governor is pledging a one-time grant of 58.7 million dollars to contribute towards a 2% raise. That means the state will only fund a certain percentage towards the 2% increase and will not re-new that funding next year. Basically, the governor is promising a raise that he doesn't really plan on paying for in any sustainable way. So he's making promises on behalf of broke localities.

3. A-F School Report Cards (School Grading Bill - HB 1999)

This is just a ridiculous idea and unlike some of these other bills, no one else in Virginia supports it--for example, the VEA, VSBA, VASS and the VA PTA are all opposed to it-- except for Jeb Bush. Oh wait, he's not a Virginian. 

If you want to read why school grading bills are a bad idea (and hear a more nuanced version of "ridiculous or "bad idea"), read here and here.

4. Stem-H Incentives

This grants extra money to "high quality people" (um, I think you meant to say highly qualified individuals, Mr. Governor) teaching math, science, technology, health, and engineering. Yes, it's harder to find people able to teach those, but I'm not sure a one-time grant of $5,000 will make the difference. If we raised the stature, education, and pay of ALL teachers, we might stand a chance.

5. K-12 Red Tape Reduction (SB 1189, maybe)

Yeah! Red tape reduction! Wahoo! Because who likes red tape, right?

Wait a minute. The explanation on the VDOE site says, "Local school divisions may be released from Board of Education-approved regulations and standards of quality requirements." Well, which regulations and standards of quality? If it's something stupid, by all means, let's get rid of it. If it's a standard that says all elementary students must have a certain amount of art per week, I'm not so sure I want my kids' school district getting a waiver from that. 

6. Strategic Compensation Grant Initiative

Otherwise known as: Merit Pay. Merit pay for teachers doesn't work.

7. Staffing Flexibility for School Divisions (I think this is HB 2098 or 2066 or both)

From what I've read, this seems to make sense, though if someone can tell me why it doesn't, please speak up in the comments.

8. Educator Fairness Act

The VEA (Virginia Education Association) thought this was a grossly unfair educator fairness act and it seemed so to me, too. Since then a deal has been agreed to that all parties seem happy with, so I will say no more. (But, readers, speak up, if you feel or have evidence to the contrary.)

9. Teacher Cabinet

I'm all for a teacher cabinet to advise the governor. 

10. Governor's Center for Excellence in Teaching

As long as this is to promote excellence in teaching and not excellence in testing, I'm all for it. The proof will be in the pudding, though.

11. Reading is Fundamental Initiative (HB 2114)

Ugghhhh! Again with this reading stuff! Yes, dear readers, that is the sound of my head banging against the wall. I can not get anyone in this state to hear me on this.

I have written about this even more than I have written about TFA. And it's a place where I find common ground with some in reformy pro-TFA factions. If you don't want to take the time to read what I've written, watch this and read this.

The idea behind this is well-intentioned but terribly misinformed. They think that kids can't learn about science and social studies until they can read, that they have to focus on reading as a skill and then learn content. Yes, kids need to learn to decode. Decoding is a skill. Yes, kids should be presented with one-time mini lessons on reading strategies. But reading comprehension is not a skill; it's not transferable. Reading comprehension depends on knowledge. So, if we cut science and social studies and other subject matter "to focus on reading," the kids will not progress. They "can't read" mostly because they're not being taught about enough stuff. They will learn that they are bad at reading and that school is not interesting.

12. Literacy and Algebra Readiness Initiative (HB 2068)

As long as they avoid the pitfalls mentioned in item 5 above, this isn't so bad as far as I can tell--it targets grades K-2 which are the younger de-coding grades. 

As for the algebra part, I happen to be in the pro-algebra group, as in, I think it is necessary and I think people do use it in their everyday lives. Otherwise, I don't know as much about math education except to say that the Math SOLs seems to be far superior to the Language Arts ones. If you have thoughts, speak up (though I'm decided on algebra, so don’t waste your breath there).

13. Funding for Reading Specialists

Meh.

By now, you already know how I feel about teaching reading as a subject past second or third grade and why I think so many American kids struggle with reading, so I'll spare you.

14. Kindergarten Readiness

I'm all for giving teachers for information and diagnostic tools to help them figure out where their students are, but I'd have to learn more about these particular tools and how long they take, if they're developmentally appropriate, and if there a part of our wrong-headed accountability structure.

15.  Effective School-Wide Discipline

I'm in favor of giving teachers more training and practice in classroom management, but I don't know what the particulars are of this disciplinary program.

16. All About Students

Blah, blah, blah, achievement gap. Blah, blah, blah, innovation. Blah, blah, blah, school choice.

This is All About Reforminess a la Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, and ALEC.

Updates to original post: 

I. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this in the Governor’s agenda, but thanks to Kirsten Gray, a parent of two Richmond Public School students and board member of the Alliance for Progressive Values, I just became aware of HB 2096, part of the goal of which is to create an “Opportunity Education Institution.” In any case, this bill seems like bad news. As Kirsten commented,

I do not trust this bill. This “board" is appointed. This "institution" is created by the governor and can take over any failing school (based on data from tests is my guess). We know most of these "failing" schools are predominately in poor areas serving families without means. The charters this "institution" puts in place aren't likely to be charters created by parents and communities. No they are likely to roll in the "for profit" charters. I think they are banking on it. Read all the stuff in yellow in the second half of the bill.

"B. The Board shall supervise and operate schools in the Opportunity Educational Institution in whatever manner that it determines to be most likely to achieve full accreditation for each school in the Institution, including the utilization of charter schools and college partnership laboratory schools."

II. Then, there's SJ327 (which seems related but maybe isn't--thoughts, readers?) According to the VSBA blog, this is another bad bill:

SJ327 is a constitutional amendment that would allow for state takeover of public schools that are denied accreditation.  The constitutional amendment does not set forth specifics for such a state takeover, thus giving the General Assembly broad authority to devise a state takeover in future years.  Most importantly, the constitutional amendment would allow the state to take not only the state share of per pupil funding  but to also take the local share of per pupil funding for each student in a school that is taken over.  In other words, this constitutional amendment would force localities to send local dollars to a state-run entity without any control over what the state does with those local dollars. 

A version of this post has been cross-posted at the Virginia Education Report.

A Rocketship to Disappointment

John Merrow came out recently with a segment about Rocketship charter schools, touting high test scores among their low-income students. Merrow looks at Rocketship through the lens of a provocative metaphor: Is Rocketship doing what Ford did with the Model T, i.e, mass producing quality education?

First of all: Yuck. Though some certainly see education this way, education is not a product, or shouldn't be. It's not a car. It's not an item that can or should be mass produced. Even adorned with colorful cubicles, what a bleak and depressing way to envision to education.

Second of all: Innovative? Rocketship makes no secret that their mission is to raise reading and math standardized test scores. As I said in this post, where I referred to Rocketship education, I fail to see what's so innovative about that. Furthermore, using computer programs to differentiate instruction is hardly new or innovative. The school district where we live chose several years ago not to outfit schools heavily with technology, bucking the tech-innovation trend. Instead, the district invested in a solid technical and vocational program. There are computer labs in each school but each classroom has only about five computers. What do they use the computers for? Among other things, to differentiate instruction, or rather differentiate practice. Students can practice their math facts or other basics at their level. As long as such basics are developmentally appropriate and worth practicing, this is a fine use of computers, but the difference is the students in my district's schools only use them for small chunks of time and only for specific purposes. But such practice is hardly innovative. If anything, it's practical.

If I parked my kid in front of a screen for two hours a day, it might be called bad parenting. In a school, it looks, well, lazy. You better believe that if my kids' school did that, they'd be hearing from me. So not only is not new, it's inappropriate and possibly harmful. Yet, Rocketship does it and is praised for its "innovation" and invited to "scale up."

There is no art and music, so it seems that the majority most of the time is spent on tested subjects. When you see art and music as something that can be relegated to "afterschool," it shows that you don't respect them as the vital disciplines they are.

The report gives a big nod to parental involvement at Rocketship schools, but from what I can tell the parental involvement seems to involve watching and singing along as their children do their Launch (and an opening meeting and song is also not innovative--lots of schools and summer camps do that every day and have been for years) and agreeing that prep for standardized test scores is a priority. Otherwise, there's no exploration in the segment of how "parent involvement" translates at Rocketship Schools. How are parents meaningfully involved at Rocketship? What do they do? What "critical parts" do they play? How much decision-making power and input do they have? (And why doesn't John Merrow ask these questions?)

And don't get me started on the references to unions. Rocketship CEO John Danner starts off by claiming Rocketship is a "start up" and hence can't accommodate a unionized staff. So when it comes to unions, Rocketship is a start up but when it comes to equal public funding, Rocketship is a school. Which is it? And where is this 450-page document that Danner refers to "that literally says minute by minute what teachers are supposed to do"? (And why doesn't John Merrow ask about the existence of such a document?) The real answer: It doesn't exist; it's a boogeyman. The scripted, minute-by-minute aspect of public school days comes not from union contracts, but from management, like, say, um, someone in Danner's position who feels immense pressure to, um, yeah, raise test scores.

Lastly, while Merrow's segment states directly that the computer time may not be "working," it doesn't ask what is it meant to work towards. And it certainly doesn't ask what the heck the kids are actually doing on the computers. What are the programs? What are the games? What are their purpose? What are their efficacy? Are they good programs? (And, yes, again: Why isn't Merrow asking these basic but vital questions? Yes, yes, I get it: Learning matters. But learning what? And how?)

I'm dubious that this quixotic quest for innovation is the lever to improve education and I'm certain that the mass production door is the wrong one to be knocking on. Either way, though, if it's "quality" (another word in education reform discussions I've come to loathe) we're after, the prize ain't higher test scores. High scores are a side effect of good education, not an end. Unfortunately, higher test scores are precisely the prize Merrow exalts and Danner seeks. But not for their children. As this article on another blended learning model in Newark, New Jersey, shows, this is increasingly the prize for low-income kids in schools like Rocketship's because that's what "those" kids need:

Even some technology advocates like Doug Levin of the State Educational Technology Directors Association doubt that this model will ever appeal to middle- and upper-income families whose children are not struggling below grade level. Levin says that’s because those children don’t need as much extra drilling and can use more of the school day for analysis and inquiry.“I think this approach works much better for elementary school aged children who are really struggling to build their vocabulary, to understand basic math facts and operations,” says Levin. “I think as kids get into middle and high school, what the computer can offer in that regard is less.”Levin predicts the computer drilling will succeed in raising the test scores of the low-income sixth graders of Merit Prep.

There you have it.


Updated (1/6/2013): 
Fellow education writer/blogger Adam Bessie recently (and not so recently) pointed out a possible conflict of interest: Rocketship is funded by the Gates Foundation and so is PBS and Merrow's production company Learning Matters (though I can't say what the nature of the arrangement between PBS and Learning Matters is). This was not disclosed during the segment, nor was it disclosed that Rocketship CEO Danner is also on the board of Dreambox, the for-profit company that produces the math software used by Rocketship. I would think it would be journalistic protocol to disclose such relationships.

But what really disturbs me is that Merrow says he had "no idea" of the connection between Gates and Rocketship. I don't understand what kind of basic investigative journalism wouldn't have uncovered that, especially when it's not hidden from the public--it's on Rocketship's website. I'm not a professional journalist, but I would think that would be protocol, as well.

Updated II (1/6/2013): 
Also, see this post on Rocketship (in Milwaukee) by Barbara Miner.

Sandy Hook: Celebrating Lives in the Midst of Death

As my husband and I were reading about and processing the news from Newtown, Connecticut my husband pointed me to Dawn Hochsprung’s twitter feed. “People should read that,” he said. I kind of shrugged. I am quite an active user but after reading this 2011 New York Times article I have mixed feelings about social media and what happens with it when we die. Even though twitter feeds are (mostly) public, I feel as if I am vaguely invading someone’s privacy when I look at the feeds of the living, let alone the deceased. But still, I looked.

This was the tweet that really got to me:

Sandy Hook students enjoy the rehearsal for our 4th grade winter concert - a talented group led by Maryrose Kristopik! twitter.com/DHochsprung/st…
— Dawn Hochsprung (@DHochsprung) December 12, 2012

Just that Thursday night, my sons had performed in their 4th grade winter concert at the public elementary school that serves our community, also a small town in a rural area, also wearing white tops and black pants. The theme was "December Around the World." I was expecting it to be Christmas- and Santa-carol centric, but it wasn't at all. It was actually, well, international, and the Hannukah story wasn't the usual sanitized version.

While his siblings do, one of my sons doesn't like music class that much. He enjoys listening to music and playing instruments but he doesn't like singing, dancing and performing--he's much more of a visual artist. As he complained more and more about “play practice,” my husband and I empathized with him, but kept telling him what a great experience it was to practice a group of songs and put together a show and to perform it. We reminded him that being exposed to many subjects and experiences was part of elementary school and part of being a well-educated individual. These are the moments when my husband and I tell our children that it's important to do things they don't enjoy all that much, that they serve a greater educational purpose (versus doing test prep worksheets). As he got older, we explained he could dedicate more time to his specific interests, but that all of these broader, more various earlier exposures would help him to figure out what those interests might be. As I watched him the night of the performance, I knew he wasn’t enjoying himself, but I was so proud of him singing and dancing and doing his best all the same.

My husband, like me an education blogger and critic of Obama and Bush administration education policies, felt that people should look at these pictures, at her tweets, to see what Dawn Hochsprung actually did besides giving her life in attempts to stop Adam Lanza, and what it is to be an educator in an elementary school. Her life and the lives of the educators who died alongside her may have been epitomized by their last minutes, but that’s not all they comprised. So I felt like, yes, he's right, it does (unfortunately via a terrible tragedy) shine a light on what schools are to communities and on what many educators do every single day.

And just as the all of the educators who died that day behaved heroically, many of the "small" things that educators do are heroic, too. There is heroism in staying late in the evening to put on the 4th grade winter concert, so that a group of kids, some belting it out happy as can be and some more reluctant can feel what it is to rehearse and perform a body of songs. There is heroism in getting a reluctant and stage frightened kid to sing and dance for an audience as if he weren't. There is heroism in sharing the joy of music as your parents and community watch and maybe sing along together at the end. 

The Sandy Hook  teachers may be heroes to the nation in their deaths, but they were also heroes in their community in life.

Sex, Shit 'n Standardized Testing!

First, there was this:

"You get this rage up that we're wasting time testing, and you're making testing shorter and shittier," Coleman said at a Brookings panel Thursday.

That's David Coleman, one of the architects of the Common Core English & Language Arts Standards, and president of the College Board. This isn't the first time Coleman has cursed when speaking publicly about education. Several months ago, he reportedly said in another public speaking engagement, “as you grow up in this world, you realize people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think.”

But people do give a shit about what language you use. As I always tell my students, cursing is not wrong, but there's a time and a place for it and an art to it, and school and academic work (making exceptions for creative writing, but you still have to have a justification for it there) are not some of them. Furthermore, I tell them, when you curse instead of using other words, people think you're not smart, that you're not articulate. And, it lets me, as a teacher, know that you need more vocabulary enrichment.

How are we take one of the lead advocates of the more "rigorous" and intellectual ELA Common Core Standards seriously when he doesn't see fit to use appropriate, professional, and specific language when advocating for the standards and for their accompanying tests. Coleman may be thinking I'm brash, but all I can think is, No, you're full of disdain. Disdain for teachers, disdain for students, and disdain for engaging in any process of education reform.

It also epitomizes a chasm in status and experience between reformers like Coleman and the students they are trying to help. What would happen if a student were to use the word "shit" or "shittier" in a Common Core aligned essay exam? How about on the writing section of the SAT? How about on the College Board's AP English exam? What happens when students curse in school, especially at a "no excuses" school with a rigid, zero-tolerance code of conduct? A white elite like Coleman can curse without consequence in public academic or professional settings, while a poor black kid using the same profanity publicly in a KIPP-esque school would likely face severe consequences.

In the same article, there's this other pro-longer and -better testing statement quoted:

Such changes can bring anxiety for the test takers. Gerard Robinson, the former education chief of Florida and Virginia, put it this way: "I won't pretend that tests don't matter and there's no anxiety -- but I also tell people there's anxiety with sex. There's anxiety with sex, but there isn't any talk about getting rid of that."

Standardized testing is just like sex? What? This, from a former state education chief? Are you kidding me?!?! This guy is in charge of people who educate children? First of all, unlike Coleman's statement, this statement is not in any way logical. Second of all, and more gravely, it's indecent. 

Is that what I am supposed to say to my test-stressed children--that their anxiety surrounding high-stakes testing is just like anxiety surrounding sex? Is that supposed to help? What if a K-12 student asked critical questions about standardized testing and their teacher responded in the same fashion that Robinson answered? How would that go over? Wouldn't Campbell Brown come after him with a pitchfork? Finally, this statement indicates that Robinson, too, is disdainful of criticisms of high-stakes testing and that he refuses to engage with the substance of those criticisms. For teachers, for parents, and for students, this anxiety, this stress, is not a joke, and it's not like sex.

If people like Coleman and Robinson expect parents and teachers like me to take seriously what they say, they need show these topics some respect. Save that other kind of talk for the StudentsFirst locker room.

A project-based loving billionaire with no education expertise is still a billionaire with no education expertise.

Another billionaire is out to reform education. George Lucas has sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4 billion in cash and stock and plans to spend most of his fortune on education. Lucas is already involved in education with an educational foundation that includes the website Edutopia.

Lucas's announcement has led to calls for him to take a different, more enlightened and humane road than the standardized test-based approach to education championed by Bill Gates, the Waltons, and Eli Broad. And rightly so. It has also led to some public hand-wringing from edu-thinkers who feel that Edutopia's approach to education is too nebulous and sparky but bland and will accomplish a bunch of "visionary" nothing.

Look, when people like George Lucas say things like:

"It's scary to think of our education system as little better than an assembly line with producing diplomas as its only goal."

I brace myself for the descent into pseudo-scientific, new-age hokiness. The school-as-factory metaphor doesn't work for me. I don't know what it means. I may have various negative reactions to some of the things that are done in public schools today, but I never think of them as factory-like, partly because I haven't spent much time in factories, and I bet George Lucas hasn't, either.

I also feel the same way about terms like "21st Century learning." Did people's brains work so differently in past centuries than they do today? I don't think so. When you comb through information on the internet, you are relying on the same skills and knowledge-base that you did when you were searching reference books in the library. It's just the tools (books vs. computers) that have changed.

On the other hand, I am just as averse to the term "progressive education," not to mention "ultra-progressive education." Again, I don't know what those terms mean. While policies and the content of some curricula certainly can be so, education and teaching methods are not progressive or conservative any more than a computer or computer software is progressive or conservative. They are tools and ways of doing things.

Edutopia is not some project-based boogeyman that is coming after my children. It's not some cult that has brainwashed teachers. While I may have reservations about some of the ideas they promote, I and most people recognize that Edutopia is a clearing house, a resource. That's all. Also, at this point I'd be happy to see my children spend a little more time on projects and much less on awful high-stakes testing.

I, for one, am glad that George Lucas seems to be staying out of policy, but mostly I think that George Lucas's foray into education is a symptom of a bigger problem. The money in our country is concentrated too much at the top: a few uber-wealthy individuals have out-sized power and influence and the rest of us have too little. There is no more expertise, just wealth and celebrity. This is not the way a democratic, educated society functions.

Whether or not I am sympathetic to George Lucas's ideas, his money will ultimately disrupt and corrupt public education the same way Gates, Broad, and the Walton's money has. The best he could do would be to just give grants for underfunded and unglamorous staples. Your school has no library? Here's a grant to make a library. Your school has no nurse? Here's a grant to hire a registered nurse. The kids at your school have no supervision after school? Here's a grant for sports and extracurricular activities.

A plutocrat is a plutocrat is a plutocrat. And I've had quite enough of the lot of them.

Dear Reformies: Please stop speaking for my children.

(Updated with quotes: 11/4/2012)

“I love teachers – effective teachers," she told a smaller group of lawmakers and educators that day. "No one has a harder job than an inner-city teacher. There is nothing more noble than working as a teacher.
But if you raise some of these issues you are labeled 'anti-teacher' or a 'union-buster.' I'm not a union buster. But teachers have a very effective organization lobbying on their behalf. I want to be effective representing the other side, our children.”

-Michelle Rhee 

"In the 21st century, public schools need the kind of innovation that private firms like Google, Twitter, and Apple exemplify (just as there's room for innovation from non-profits like CK12 or Khan Academy). For the sake of our children, it's time to open our minds, move past ideology, roll up our sleeves together, and get to work."

-Joel Klein 

@anthonycody "I grew up in a liberal family. Certain values were upheld as sacred...You stood with the underdog." Kids are the underdogs.
— Chris Arnold (@chrisarnold) November 2, 2012

To all of the Chris Arnolds, Michelle Rhees, and Joel Kleins  out there:

How many kids do you have? How many are in the public schools? How many kids have you taught? I ask because I am a teacher and am a parent with actual children in public schools and I haven't seen any evidence that the policies you endorse are helping students or helping my children. In fact, I see that the policies you support are harmful: harmful to public schools, harmful to quality education, harmful to students, harmful to my children.

I understand that you don't agree. That you probably believe in the mission of the industry you work for (though not, apparently, enough to tell anyone that you work in said industry). That's fine (though I'd love to know how many kids you have actually, verifiably, and concretely helped by touting the the policies you do). I think your beliefs are misinformed, but everyone has beliefs and, for better or worse, many of them aren't the same as mine.

I understand that you and your superiors and fellow education reform industry leaders  have a living to make. Peddle your gadgets and your software. Be an education consultant or a professional development vendor. Run your "education reform" organization. Add to the ranks of the over-sized lobbying industry. Be a PR flack. Continue the proliferation of "failing" schools, but make a tidy profit at it, too. Raise your money. Make your living. Help politicians to make a living. I could never look at myself in the mirror doing what you do, but that's just me. Everyone needs to make a living, especially writers. After all, who gives "crap" about creativity when the kiddies can't read, right?

But there is a role you seem confused about. See, you represent an ideology. You work for a company or an organization or contributors. You represent them. You don't represent kids and you certainly don't represent my kids. So stop acting as if you speak for my children. Stop ruining their education in their name. You don't know my children. You don't live in my community. You don't work or volunteer in the schools my children go to. You're not helping my children, their peers, or their teachers (not even the excellent ones). You don't know what's best for them and their education. I represent my children. I speak for them. My children speak for themselves. I know them and their teachers know them. And from what I can tell and what they experience, your ideology is all wrong for them and their education. If you have them, you can speak for your own children. If you don't, well, promote your ideology and your business in your name.

Don't you dare promote it in the name of my children or in the name of their education.


Yours truly,

Rachel Levy

In Virginia, the Bigotry of Crude Expectations

Recently (or not so recently by the time I'm posting this), the state of Virginia was granted a waiver from NCLB requirements. This has been a relief for many, but it's also caused further stress, in that it exchanges one yoke for another. Fairfax County, for example, had no plans to evaluate their teachers according to the standardized test scores of their students, but now is being required to due to conditions of the waiver.

However, because the goals in the waiver application for some children are lower than for others, there have also been cries of low expectations and racism. Virginia has since re-written their goals. Certainly, we should not have one set of expectations for one set of children and a lower one for another set simply based on their socio-economic status or race--the outcry is understandable. 

But, to me, those folks have got their eyes on the wrong prize. If boosting scores on low-quality multiple choice tests is their greatest educational goal for Virginia's children, then they've got very low and crude expectations in the first place, and our schools and our children will only rise so high as the low and crude expectation that have been set.

This past summer, I finally read Linda Darling-Hammond's great work, The Flat World and Education. From that, it's clear that Virginia schools also need "adequate funding and equitable opportunities to learn" and "intelligent, reciprocal accountability:"

In the current prevailing paradigm in the United States, accountability has been defined primarily as the administration of tests and the attachment of sanctions to low scores. Yet, from the perspective of children and parents, this approach does not ensure high-quality teaching each year, nor does it ensure that students have the courses, books, materials, supports services, and other resources they need to learn. In this paradigm, two-way accountability does not exist: Although the child and the school are accountable to the state for test performance, the state is not accountable to the child or school for providing adequate educational resources.

Furthermore, test-based accountability schemes have sometimes undermined education for the most vulnerable students, by narrowing curriculum and by creating incentives to exclude low-achieving students in order to boost test scores. Indeed, although tests can provide some of the information needed for an accountability system, they are not the system itself. Genuine accountability should heighten the probability of good practices occurring for all students, reduce the probability of harmful practice, and ensure that there are self-corrective mechanisms in the system--feedback, assessments, , and incentives--that support continual improvement. 

If education is to actually improve and the system is to be accountable  to students, accountability should be focused on ensuring the competence of teachers and leaders, the quality of instruction, and the adequacy of resources, as well as the capacity of the system to trigger improvements. In addition to standards of learning for students, which focus on the system's efforts on meaningful goals, this will require standards of practice that can guide professional training, development, teaching, and management at the classroom, school, and system levels, and opportunity to learn standards that ensure appropriate re sources to achieve desired outcomes. (p. 301)

In Virginia, many make the mistake of using "achievement" and "test scores" interchangeably, as if that's all achievement is. What about research papers, essays, and creative and analytic writing? What about works of art and musical performances? What about science projects, spelling bees, reading olympics, robotics contests, debate clubs, student government, conflict resolution, and mini-UN? What about vocational education? What about teacher-generated assessments and tests? What about looking at the education of ALL of Virginia's children like this Virginia superintendent does? Oh right, subjects beyond reading and math are not important, especially not for low-income children and children of color who need to get their math and reading test scores up before they can engage in rich and meaningful learning. For sub group students, it's "test scores" as "achievement" first and only. 

As long as policy makers and pundits continue to conflate "achievement" with "test scores," and as long as the public accepts that, the achievement gap will remain. As long as opportunity and equity gaps remain, so will the achievement gap. Excluding students who struggle to score high enough on low-quality standardized tests from participating in rich and meaningful learning and making test scores the currency of our public education system is the lowest expectation of all.