Why the debate between Diane Ravitch and Merryl Tisch was remarkable
Diane Ravitch, the former assistant secretary of education who has led a national revolt against standardized-test-based school reform, sat down next to Merryl Tisch, the chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, this week to “debate” policy and practice on the MSNBC show “All In With Chris Hayes.”
The event was remarkable, and not because Tisch agreed to sit down with Ravitch, as fierce a critic of hers as there is (and there are many).
What was so striking was the way Tisch repeatedly countered — or, rather, didn’t — Ravitch’s direct critiques of the New York testing and teacher evaluation regime as well as the growing opt-out movement in which parents are choosing to disallow their children from taking the state-mandated exams. In fact at one point, after Ravitch listed problems with the Common Core-aligned standardized tests that New York students are mandated to take, and Tisch responded to her, Hayes said this to Tisch:
“I just want to point out something. That was interestingly non-responsive to what she said, right? She’s saying this does not work as a diagnostic tool for the child or for the teacher, you’re saying this is a diagnostic tool for the taxpayer who is funding the system to see if the system is working, right? Those are distinct.
It was equally striking how Tisch repeatedly talked about the “diagnostic nature” of the Pearson-created tests, saying that school districts have told the Board of Regents that they want to design curriculum around the results of the tests. What? As Ravitch noted, the test results aren’t returned until the new school year has begun and students have new teachers. Even if the results came back a day later, teachers nor students are allowed to see which questions the students got wrong. Teachers don’t consider these tests “diagnostic.” Educators want to design curriculum that is rewarding and useful for students, not around tests that have sometimes controversial content and highly questionable value.
Tisch also seemingly attempted to diminish the opt-out movement. When asked by Hayes if she wanted to say anything to parents about the tests, she said: “Actually, I would say to our parents that our kids have got caught in the labor dispute between the governor and the teacher’s union.” What she means is that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pushed through the legislature changes to the state’s teacher evaluation system that use standardized test scores to a larger degree to evaluate teachers than before — an assessment method condemned by many assessment experts. In her remark to Hayes, she seems to be suggesting that parents opting out their children don’t really understand the political dimensions of their decision.
She also made the following statement:
If you talk about income inequality in this country, income inequality is directly tied to the achievement gap for our poor students. Those students, if they are not given access and opportunity to high-quality education, they simply cannot move along at a continuum.
As Hayes briefly pointed out, the causal connection she seems to be implying — that achievement gaps cause income inequality — is not fact. It’s true that students who don’t have access and opportunity to high-quality education can’t move along an academic continuum, but she didn’t ever explain exactly what the Common Core tests that New York State is using have to do with high-quality education.
You can judge all of this for yourself by watching the video below and reading the transcript that follows.
Here’s the transcript, which I am publishing with permission from MSNBC. It starts with Hayes giving an introduction to the issues and his guests.
CHRIS HAYES: Eight former Atlanta public school teachers were sentenced to prison today, some ordered to serve up to seven years for their convictions in the cheating scandal that rocked the city and the nation two years ago. Investigators found that Atlanta teachers, under intense pressure to meet targets, had changed or erased student’s answers on standardized tests. And that scandal, one of the worst cheating scandals in the country’s history, provides one small window into the possible impact that high stakes testing can have on some school districts.In the past 13 years of No Child Left Behind, many teachers across the country have openly revolted against testing regimes that they say put too much focus on data and force them to teach to the test.Now parents are getting involved and organized and they’re turning the push to opt out of standardized tests into a full-fledged movement. Today, in New York State, tens of thousands of students in grades three through eight sat down to take the English language arts examine as part of a state assessment designed around New York’s Common Core standards. The math test is next Tuesday.But many of their classmates were sitting out the test today amid outcry from parents concerned about the pressure it putsWhy the debate between Diane Ravitch and Merryl Tisch was remarkable - The Washington Post:
