We are all aware of the Common Core issues and the use of standardized testing to determine accountability in our public schools. The Common Core Standards are NOT AWFUL! But the implementation of the techniques being suggested, even forced, on teachers in order to reach these standards TRULY IS AWFUL. It is the least developmentally appropriate practice being implemented in recent educational history and all early educators should band together to stop it.

The Country Mouse and the City Mouse – The other ‘beefs’ I have about the current public education situation is the terrible idea that a single standardized test can measure the value of all children’s learning and that the scores on that test can or should determine the progress of a child from grade to grade level or the value of the work of the teacher in the learning community.

We have to have national standards, but we do not have to use standardized methods of presenting information to children. What we offer them must be relevant to them and meaningful to their life situations in order for the learning to be of value and high quality. Children in the urban inner cities and children in the rural towns must all learn to count, but some will learn by counting how many city blocks they walk to school and some will learn by counting cows! There should never be a mandate for standardized teaching methods except for their being developmentally appropriate for the particular learning community.

Teacher Accountability – As for the idea of accountability and worth of the work of any teacher being judged by test scores, it is just plain stupid. I believe that there are so many more variables in this equation, it is ridiculous and extremely demeaning to suggest that salaries and career advancement of teachers should be determined by children’s test scores, and I am furious with whomever advocates this idea. (Looking at you, Bill Gates and Arne Duncan!)

A teacher’s work should be judged by administrators who have had their own teaching experience and that judgement must take into consideration things like class size, physical condition of the facility itself, the economic level of the community and the effects of poverty (numbers of children with diagnosed special needs including hunger, chronic illnesses, and safety issues) amount and quality of a teacher’s past and continuing education, and above all the quality of administrative, parent, and community involvement and support. No teacher’s work should be assessed by the ‘failure’ of a kindergarten student to successfully pass a single standardized test administered on a computer he does not have experience with.

All That Being Ranted – We do need to find ways to assess our children’s learning and to assess our programs (and teachers) for accountability, so for those children headed into kindergarten, using an ACTIVE and INTERACTIVE MINIMALLY TECHNOLOGICAL testing situation that includes the HUMAN FACTOR and takes a developmentally appropriate amount of time to perform and is based directly, specifically, and purely on the (again) developmentally appropriate educational objectives of your program is ok.

Next Blog: Assessment – Referral