Who Is Protecting the Status Quo?
When an educator questions the dominance of testing as a tool for school reform, you will often see that educator criticized for ‘protecting the status quo.’ As an example of this accusation, here is a link to a recent opinion piece in the Detroit News. The article supports the new Michigan Educational Achievement Authority, which is designed to be a turnaround program for the lowest 5% (as measured by test results) of the schools in that state. The headline reads, “Let’s Stop Protecting the Status Quo.” (Read the whole article for a flavor of the way test scores become the sole determinant of what constitutes a ‘failing’ school.)
The problem with this accusation is that actually, any attempt to improve schools through means that relies on its measurement of success via test data simply works to replicate social inequality. Thus, this accusation of ‘protecting the status quo’ is actually a Orwellian attempt to protect the status quo.
In Good Education in an Age of Measurement, Gert Biesta criticizes what he calls a “common sense view of what education is for,” a view that exists in the void of any broader frame of the “aims and ends of education.”
He writes,
“The prime example of such a ‘common sense’ view about the purpose of education is the idea that what matters most in education is academic Who Is Protecting the Status Quo? | educarenow:
“The prime example of such a ‘common sense’ view about the purpose of education is the idea that what matters most in education is academic Who Is Protecting the Status Quo? | educarenow: