Race and The (mis)Measures of Academic Progress
An Op-Ed by Guest Contributor Jesse Hagopian:
There is a lot of talk in well-financed education reform circles about “closing the achievement gap” – the difference in academic performance between more affluent white children and underprivileged kids of color. Plagiarizing phrases from the Civil Rights movement, these politically-connected reformers talk of a “revolution” in education accountability and claim to be building a high-stakes testing “movement” to measure the needs of students who have traditionally been left behind. Education Secretary Arne Duncan even referred to the opening of the film Waiting for “Superman”– which advocates charter schools and demonizes teachers’ unions in part for opposing the accountability of testing–as a “Rosa Parks moment.”
Cribbing from these reformers, The Seattle School District, in its most recent contract negotiations with the teacher’s union, the Seattle Education Association, pushed through a provision mandating the rating of teachers based on their students’ test scores.
But can these tests improve learning and teaching?
While there can be no doubt our schools need important changes in order to meet the needs of all children, the