Failed DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee still doesn’t get it
Michelle Rhee still doesn’t get it.
The former D.C. schools chancellor and now leader of a national organization that pushes corporate school and attacks teachers unions, just wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post that uses bad analogies and a number of straw men to argue against the growing “opt out” movement in which parents are refusing to allow their children to take high-stakes standardized tests. A small but growing number of educators are refusing to administer the tests, too.
What prompted the opt-out movement? Parents, students and teachers have become alarmed by the amount of time schools now take around standardized tests (fourth-graders in the Pittsburgh Public Schools have to take 33 standardized tests mandated by the district or state this school, for example) and by what is done with the results. The scores are used for high-stakes decisions about educators in a way that assessment experts say is unreliable and invalid, and the testing obsession has led to a narrowing of curriculum — some kindergarten students now don’t have time for recess because they are learning reading and math — that gives short shrift to subjects including science, history and the arts.
Rhee writes this about opting out:
This makes no sense. All parents want to know how their children are progressing and how good the teachers are in the classroom. Good educators also want an assessment of how well they are serving students, because they want kids to have the skills and knowledge to succeed.
Well, yes, parents do want to know how their children are progressing and how good the teachers are. And good teachers of course want to know how well they are serving