Yes, No, Maybe

For twenty-two years I taught; I manage technology now. After "No Child Left Behind" the children began to disappear and teaching became increasingly less fun. Think of all the ideas about humanity and the curious things that humans do that can be explored through literature. Gone. Vanished. Replaced by the era of standardized testing. The tests, we were assured, measured mastery of the curriculum and slowly but unalterably became the curriculum.

Students became data. I spent one year with a principal who insisted we submit annotated class rosters every few weeks. Students were labeled yes, no, maybe based on our judgment of whether or not they would pass the state test. Students labeled no and maybe required additional information about what we were doing to insure that they came up to speed by the testing date. Students who were excellent human beings, but unable to pass exit tests in English, math, science and social studies were denied diplomas. The question became not, "What can you do well, " but "What can you not do?" Perfectly good humans were cast out of the system because they could write an excellent essay but couldn't factor.

Now, place a new layer called "value-added" on top of this system of measure. Value-added is the idea that each student must grow one year's worth each year. If a ninth grade student comes into class with a score of 9.0 and leaves with a score of 10.0, then that student has grown one grade level during one year of education. Label that student yellow. If the student grows less, place a red label and if more, a green label. All students labeled green are judged to have had a value-added experience because each one has grown more than one educational year during the educational year. Next, start devaluing all teachers who have yellow or (shudder) red students. Take this idea and extend it backward to Kindergarten (Yes, standardized tests in Kindergarten) Kindergarten teacher brings students 1.1 years. First grade teacher must take 1.1 and make at least 2.1 or better. . . say 2.2. Second grows the children to 3.3. Third to 4.4. Fourth to 5.5. Fifth to 6.6, sixth to 7.7, seventh to 8.8, eighth to 9.9, ninth to 10.10. Because the school year is 10 months long, 10.10 is really 11 (math you know). In the end, the expectation is that if a student enters a fifth grade class with ninth grade skills, he or she will exit with 10th grade skills and that the average high school graduate will walk across the stage with college level skills.

My question is where did the students go? In my classes all the students were reduced to red, yellow, green yes, no, maybe. It's as if they had become pieces in some engineering puzzle, each one built to exact specification and designed to function identically. I even had one principal who announced to proud parents at graduation, "You sent them to us as works in progress and we return them to you now as finished products."

The individuals are gone both from teaching and among the students. Education has become a factory built upon the best business models and in the colleges the professors are complaining that students are coming to them without thinking skills, without ideas and opinions, wanting only to know what they need to do to pass the test. The question no longer is whether one agrees or disagrees with the main idea, but only can the main idea be identified along with its supporting details. The issue of whether the supporting details actually support is moot. Can you spot them? Now, that's important.

Imagine a world where there are all these colors and the only requirement is to know red from blue, but not to think of passion, heat or danger when confronted with red or cool, weary, down-in-the-dumps malaise when blue.

Look at all those footprints -- imagine that all first graders have size one feet, all second graders, size two. . . Heaven forbid that some children should grow faster and others slower than some predetermined rate. And, imagine all those poor souls out there who are abandoned by our educational system because they cannot fit into some predetermined set of boxes. Abandoned because they are late bloomers or abandoned because it takes them a little longer than average to wrap their minds around some concept or other.

Look at all those students around you. Who cares whether they are kind or what their favorite activity is or what they secretly want to do when they grow up. . . None of that is important. Are they red, yellow, green? Yes, no, maybe?