The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement

SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR November 1999 The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement By Alfie Kohn "Only extraordinary education is concerned with learning; most is concerned with achieving: and for young minds, these two are very nearly opposite." -- Marilyn French Common sense suggests we should figure out what our educational goals are, then check in periodically to see how successful we have been at meeting them. Assessment thus would be an unobtrusive servant of teaching and learning. Unfortunately, common sense is in short supply today because assessment has come to dominate the whole educational process. Worse, the purposes and design of the most common forms of assessment--both within classrooms and across schools--often lead to disastrous consequences. Part of the problem is that we shy away from asking the right questions and from following the data where they lead. Instead, we fiddle with relatively trivial details, fine-tuning the techniques of measurement while missing the bigger picture. Take grading, for example. Much of the current discussion focuses on how often to prepare grade reports or what mark should be given for a specified level of achievement (e.g., what constitutes "B" work). Some educators have become preoccupied with the possibility that too many students are ending up with A’s. From another perspective, though, the real problem isn’t grade inflation--it’s grades, which by their very nature undermine learning. The proper occasion for outrage is not that too many students are getting A’s, but that too many students have been led to believe that getting A’s is the point of going to school. Specifically, research indicates that the use of traditional letter or number grades is reliably associated with three consequences. First, students tend to lose interest in whatever they’re learning. As motivation to get good grades goes up, motivation to explore ideas tends to go down. Second, students try to avoid challenging tasks whenever possible. More difficult assignments, after all, would be seen as an impediment to getting a top grade. Finally, the quality of students’ thinking is less impressive. One study after another shows that creativity and even long-term recall of facts are adversely affected by the use of traditional grades. The data to support these findings are available to anyone who cares to look, and the practical problems of eliminating grades--including the challenge of helping parents understand the benefit to their children of doing so--are solvable for anyone who is committed to the task. That commitment, however, entails some serious reflection about why we are assessing students in the first place. If we are primarily interested in collecting information that will enhance the quality of learning, then traditional report cards are clearly inferior to more authentic models. Unhappily, assessment is sometimes driven by entirely different objectives--for example, to motivate students (with grades used as carrots and sticks to coerce them into working harder) or to sort students (the point being not to help everyone learn but to figure out who is better than whom). In either case, the project is doomed from the outset, not because we haven’t found the right technique but because there is something fundamentally wrong with our goals. The practice of sorting children is accomplished not only by grades (the most egregious example being grading on a curve) but also by standardized testing. So-called norm-referenced tests, like the Iowa and Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, are not intended to tell us whether teaching and learning have been successful. They are designed not to rate but to rank, to artificially spread out students’ scores. Not only are the results reported in relative terms (rather than assessing how well each did according to a fixed standard), but the questions on the tests have been selected with that purpose in mind. The test designers will probably toss out an item that most students manage to answer correctly. Whether it is reasonable for students to know the answer is irrelevant. Thus, to use a test like the ITBS to gauge educational quality, as assessment expert W. James Popham recently remarked, "is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon." Standardized tests often have the additional disadvantages of being (a) produced and scored far away from the classroom, (b) multiple choice in design (so students can’t generate answers or explain their thinking), (c) timed (so speed matters more than thoughtfulness) and (d) administered on a one-shot, high-anxiety basis. All of these features represent the very opposite of meaningful assessment. But that doesn’t mean these tests are irrelevant to what goes on in classrooms. To the contrary, they have a very powerful impact on instruction, almost always for the worse. Teachers feel increasingly pressured to take time away from real learning in order to prepare students to take these dreadful tests. Some of this pressure originates from state capitals, of course. However, school district administrators often compound the harm by adding additional tests, sometimes those that are least informative (by virtue of being norm-referenced) and most destructive (by virtue of how teachers end up creating a dumbed-down, test-driven curriculum). All of this is done, of course, in the name of tougher standards and accountability, but, as any good teacher could tell you, the practical result is that the intellectual life is squeezed out of classrooms. In fact, researchers could tell you this, too. In a study conducted in Colorado, some 4th-grade teachers were asked to teach a specific task. About half were told that when they were finished, their students must "perform up to standards" and do well on a test. The other teachers, given the identical task, were invited simply to "facilitate the children’s learning." At the end, all the students were tested. The result: Students in the standards classrooms did not learn the task as well. Why? For one thing, when teachers feel pressured to produce results, they tend to pressure their students in turn. That is exactly what was found in a second study, conducted in New York. Teachers became more controlling, removing virtually any opportunity for students to direct their own learning. Since people rarely do their best when they feel controlled, the findings of the Colorado experiment make perfect sense: The more teachers are thinking about test results and "raising the bar," the less well the students actually perform--to say nothing of how their enthusiasm for learning is apt to wane. The implications of taking seriously these concerns about grades and tests obviously would be enormous. But even this critique doesn’t get to the bottom of what’s wrong with the current approach to assessment. The underlying problem concerns a fundamental distinction that has been at the center of some work in educational psychology for a couple of decades now. It is the difference between focusing on how well you’re doing something and focusing on what you’re doing. Consider a school that constantly emphasizes the importance of performance! results! achievement! success! A student who has absorbed that message may find it difficult to get swept away with the process of creating a poem or trying to build a working telescope. He may be so concerned about the results that he’s not all that engaged in the activity that produces those results. The two orientations aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, but in practice they feel different and lead to different behaviors. Without even knowing how well a student actually did at a task or how smart she is supposed to be, we can tell a lot just from knowing whether she has been led to be more concerned about layers of learning or levels of achievement. Doesn’t it matter how effectively students are learning? Of course it does. It makes sense to sit down with them every so often to figure out how successful they (and we) have been. But when we get carried away with results, we wind up, paradoxically, with results that are less than ideal. Specifically, the evidence suggests that five disturbing consequences are likely to accompany an obsession with standards and achievement: 1. Students come to regard learning as a chore. When kids are encouraged constantly to think about how well they’re doing in school, the first casualty is their attitude toward learning. They may come to view the tasks themselves--the stories and science projects and math problems--as material that must be gotten through. It’s stuff they’re supposed to do better at, not stuff they’re excited about exploring. The kind of student who is mostly concerned with being a top performer may persevere at a task, but genuine interest in it or excitement about the whole idea of learning often begins to evaporate as soon as achievement becomes the main point. This is related to the discovery by psychologists that intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation tend to be inversely related: The more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward. Thus, it shouldn’t be surprising that when students are told they’ll need to know something for a test--or, more generally, that something they’re about to do will count for a grade--they are likely to find that task (or book or idea) less appealing in its own right. 2. Students try to avoid challenging tasks. If the point is to succeed rather than to stretch one’s thinking or discover new ideas, then it is completely logical for a student to want to do whatever is easiest. That, after all, will maximize the probability of success--or at least minimize the probability of failure. A number of researchers have tested this hypothesis. Typically, in such an experiment, kids are told they’re going to be given a task. Some are informed that their performance will be evaluated while others are encouraged to think of this as an opportunity to learn rather than to do well. Then each student is given a chance to choose how hard a version of the task he or she wants to try. The result is always the same: Those who had been told it’s "an opportunity to learn" are more willing to challenge themselves than are those who had been led to think about how well they’ll do. It’s convenient for us to assume that kids who cut corners are just being lazy because then it’s the kids who have to be fixed. But perhaps they’re just being rational. They have adapted to an environment where results, not intellectual exploration, are what count. When school systems use traditional grading systems--or, worse, when they add honor rolls and other incentives to enhance the significance of grades--they are unwittingly discouraging students from stretching themselves to see what they’re capable of doing. It’s almost painfully ironic: School officials and reformers complain bitterly about how kids today just want to take the easy way out. . . while simultaneously creating an emphasis on performance and results that leads predictably to that very outcome. 3. Students tend to think less deeply. The goal of some students is to acquire new skills, to find out about the world, to understand what they’re doing. When they pick up a book, they’re thinking about what they’re reading, not about how well they’re reading it. Paradoxically, these students who have put success out of their minds are likely to be successful. They process information more deeply, review things they didn’t understand the first time, make connections between what they’re doing now and what they learned earlier, and use more strategies to make sense of the ideas they’re encountering. All of this has been demonstrated empirically. By contrast, students who have been led to focus on producing the right answer or scoring well on a test tend to think more superficially. Consider just one of dozens of studies on this question, which concerns the ability to transfer understanding--that is, to take something learned over here and apply it to a new task or question over there. As a group of 8th graders were about to begin a week-long unit in science class, researchers gauged whether each student was more interested in understanding or in being successful. When the unit was over, the students were tested on their ability to transfer their new knowledge. Regardless of whether their earlier test scores had been high or low, the success-oriented students simply did not do as well as those who were more learning-oriented. 4. Students may fall apart when they fail. No one succeeds all the time, and no one can learn very effectively without making mistakes and bumping up against his or her limits. It’s important, therefore, to encourage a healthy and resilient attitude toward failure. As a rule, that is exactly what students tend to have if their main goal is to learn: When they do something incorrectly, they see the result as useful information. They figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Not so for the kids who believe (often because they have been explicitly told) that the point is to succeed--or even to do better than everyone else. They seem to be fine as long as they are succeeding, but as soon as they hit a bump they may regard themselves as failures and act as though they’re helpless to do anything about it. Even a momentary stumble can seem to cancel out all their past successes. When the point isn’t to figure things out but to prove how good you are, it’s often hard to cope with being less than good. Consider the student who becomes frantic when he gets a 92 instead of his usual 100. We usually see this as a problem with the individual and conclude that such students are just too hard on themselves. But the "what I’m doing" versus "how well I’m doing" distinction can give us a new lens through which to see what is going on here. It may be the systemic demand for high achievement that led him to become debilitated when he failed, even if the failure is only relative. The important point isn’t what level of performance qualifies as failure (a 92 versus a 40, say). It’s the perceived pressure not to fail, which can have a particularly harmful impact on high-achieving and high-ability students. Thus, to reassure such a student that "a 92 is still very good" or that we’re sure he’ll "do better next time" doesn’t just miss the point; it makes things worse by underscoring yet again that the point of school isn’t to explore ideas, it’s to triumph. 5. Students value ability more than effort. How do we react when a student receives a score of 100 on a quiz? Most teachers and parents treat that as news worth celebrating. Those who are more thoughtful, by contrast, are not necessarily pleased. First of all, they will be concerned about the "bunch o’ facts" approach to instruction and assessment that may be reflected by the use of traditional quizzes. Even successful students are not well-served by such teaching. But even when better forms of assessment are used, perceptive observers realize that a student’s score is less important than why she thinks she got that score. Let’s ask how a student might explain doing especially well on a test. One possibility is effort: She tried hard, studied, did all she could to learn the material. A second possibility is ability: If you asked her how she got a hundred, she might reply (or think), "Well, I guess I’m just smart." Yet another answer is luck: She believes she guessed correctly or was just having a good day. Finally, she might explain the result in terms of the level of task difficulty--in this case, the fact that the test was easy. (Notice that these same four reasons could be used by another student to make sense of his grade of 23 on the same quiz: I didn’t try hard; I’m just stupid; it was bad luck; or the test was difficult.) Which of these four explanations for doing well (or poorly) do you favor? Which would you like to see students using to account for their performance in school? Almost everyone would vote for effort. It bodes well for the future when kids attribute a good score to how carefully they prepared for the test. Likewise, those who attribute a low score to not preparing for the test tend to perceive failure as something they can prevent next time. So here’s the punch line: When students are led to focus on how well they are performing in school, they tend to explain their performance not by how hard they tried but by how smart they are. Researchers have demonstrated that a student with a performance focus--How am I doing? Are my grades high enough? Do I know the right answer?--is likely to interpret these questions "in terms of how much ability [he or she has] and whether or not this ability is adequate to achieve success," as educational psychologist Carol Dweck and a colleague have explained. In their study of academically advanced students, for example, the more that teachers emphasized getting good grades, avoiding mistakes and keeping up with everyone else, the more the students tended to attribute poor performance to factors they thought were outside their control, such as a lack of ability. When students are made to think constantly about how well they are doing, they are apt to explain the outcome in terms of who they are rather than how hard they tried. Research also demonstrates that adolescents who explain their achievement in terms of their intelligence tend to think less deeply and carefully about what they’re learning than do those who appeal to the idea of effort. Similarly, elementary school students who attribute failure to ability are likely to be poorer readers. And if children are encouraged to think of themselves as "smart" when they succeed, doing poorly on a subsequent task will bring down their achievement even though it doesn’t have that effect on other kids. The upshot of all this is that beliefs about intelligence and about the causes of one’s own success and failure matter a lot. They often make more of a difference than how confident students are or what they’re truly capable of doing or how they did on last week’s exam. If, like the cheerleaders for tougher standards, we look only at the bottom line, only at the test scores and grades, we’ll end up overlooking the ways that students make sense of those results. And if we get kids thinking too much about how to improve the bottom line, they may end up making sense of those results in the least constructive way. If all of this seems radical, it is--in the original, Latin sense of the word radical, which means "of the root." Indeed, cutting-edge research raises root questions, including the possibility that the problem with tests is not limited to their content. Rather, the harm comes from paying too much attention to the results. Even the most unbiased, carefully constructed, "authentic" measure of what students know is likely to be worrisome, psychologically speaking, if too big a deal is made about how students did, thus leading them (and their teachers) to think less about learning and more about test outcomes. As Martin Maehr and Carol Midgley at the University of Michigan have concluded, "An overemphasis on assessment can actually undermine the pursuit of excellence." That’s true regardless of the quality of the assessment. Bad tests just multiply the damage. Most of the time students are in school, particularly younger students but arguably older ones too, they should be able to think and write and explore without worrying about how good they are. Only now and then does it make sense for the teacher to help them attend to how successful they’ve been and how they can improve. On those occasions, the assessment can and should be done without the use of traditional grades and standardized tests. But most of the time, students should be immersed in learning. _______________________________________ For a more detailed exploration of the difference between focusing on performance (achievement) and learning, as well as citations to the relevant research, please see chapter 2 of The Schools Our Children Deserve.

Copyright © 1999 by Alfie Kohn. This article may be downloaded, reproduced, and distributed without permission as long as each copy includes this notice along with citation information (i.e., name of the periodical in which it originally appeared, date of publication, and author's name). Permission must be obtained in order to reprint this article in a published work or in order to offer it for sale in any form. Please write to the address indicated on the Contact Us page.

Science Night Tonight!

Tonight is

Family Science Night at the Elementary School 

6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

All school families are welcome to attend. 

Come with your family for an exciting evening full of science exploration and discovery! 

 This year’s themes is food, so parents please supervise any students with food allergies.

Coinciding with Science Night is the PTA's annual Book Fair!

Stop by and support the PTA by purchasing a book for your child or your child's classroom.

Wanted!

Sadly, long standing Pleasant Dale Park District board commissioner Carol McMurray tendered her resignation to the park board last week. She diligently served the residents of this district for twelve years while on the board. Carol was the voice of reason in a tumultuous environment these last nine months and she will be missed.

We predicted this would happen once the three musketeers, Brad Martin, Wade Brewer and Colleen Pettrone changed the meeting dates to Wednesdays last month. Carol explained to board president Brad Martin and park director, Katherine Parker that due to a rigid work schedule, she could not attend meetings on Wednesday nights. They knew Carol was unavailable on Wednesday nights, so what did they do? They changed the meetings to Wednesday nights.

Carol explained to us that she could not, in good conscience, remain on the board if she were only able to attend five meetings a year and that was why she resigned. We respect her integrity. Best wishes to you Carol!

It really goes to show you the lack of respect board president Martin and fellow commissioners Brewer and Pettrone have for her and this community.

Oddly, Carol's resignation was tendered to board attorney Vince Cainkar and members of the park board BEFORE the January meeting, yet never even mentioned at the meeting. Why? Most likely so the three stooges musketeers could scramble to find a fourth stooge replacement before the public found out. Thankfully Brad Martin and Wade Brewer didn't have much advance notice or they would have planned another take-over similar to the way they unscrupulously seated themselves back in April. Seriously, Brad, Wade and Colleen should be ashamed of themselves for what they are doing to this community and our much loved park district.

Watch for a similar notice to be printed in the paper for a new board member that will fit their needs.

Wanted: Fourth Stooge New Board Member!

Qualifications - See Below

• Must love power, control and loads of freebies.
• Must have family and friends that can benefit from jobs we will hand them with no experience necessary!!
• Must also have family members that want to boost their sales and cut business costs on the taxpayer's dime.
• Must be able to whisper, pass notes and mumble at open meetings so that the audience cannot hear you.
• Must vote exactly the way we do without thinking, reading or questioning any data, surveys or notes.
• Must love to attend tons of special meetings, especially on mornings when no one else is available.
• Must be able to ignore rules, protocols, emails and phone calls.
• Felony conviction? No problem! Heck, we won't even do a background check!
• Must approve of covering up criminal activity and falsifying documents.
• Must be able to carry on board business over the phone or in person before actual board meetings.
• Must be knowledgeable in violating the open meetings act and avoiding FOIA requests.
• Must be able to disregard fair wage practices and avoid bidding processes.
• Must enjoy wasting public money on brochures and flyers that never get mailed out.
• Must not know, understand or follow any of the Robert's Rules of Order.
• Roofing experience a plus!

If you have any of the above qualifications or are interested in the vacant seat on the Pleasant Dale Park Board, please contact Brad at martin8210@comcast.net , Wade at lincoln.brewer@comcast.net or Colleen at colleenpettrone@comcast.net.

Honest folks that want to work together for the good of the community need not apply!

(All kidding aside, the community really needs some good honest people to help stop this runaway train.)

We Remember...

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Give...

Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.

Please help the people of Haiti by making a small donation to one of the organizations below. You can text donations for Haiti relief from your cell phone. In addition to your donation amount, standard text messaging fees will apply.

Red Cross: Text HAITI to 90999 ($10 donation)

UNICEF: Text UNICEF to 20222 ($10 donation)

Clinton Foundation: Text HAITI to 20222 ($10 donation)

Yéle Haiti: Text YELE to 501501 ($5 donation)

United Way: Text HAITI to 864833 ($5 donation)

Intl Medical Corps: Text HAITI to 85944 ($10 donation)

World Food Program: Text: FRIENDS to 90999 ($5 donation)

UN Foundation: Text CERF to 90999 ($5 donation)

Compassion Intl: Text DISASTER to 85944 ($10 donation)

Intl Rescue Committee Text: HAITI to 25383 ($5 donation)

The Salvation Army: Text HAITI to 52000 ($10 donation)

Common Courtesy - A Thing of the Past at Pleasant Dale Park District

Courtesy: 
1 an act of kind assistance 2 an act or utterance that is a customary show of good manners

3 speech or behavior that is a sign of good breeding 4 consideration, cooperation, and generosity in providing something 

Obviously, by the definition above, common courtesy has gone out that window by the park board and certain staff members at the Pleasant Dale Park District.

Tonight's meeting started on time. It may have been a record. Present were Attorney Joe Cainkar, Park Director Katherine Parker, a Recording Secretary, commissioners Colleen Pettrone and Wade Brewer and board president Brad Martin.


Commissioners Carol McMurray and Ernie Moon were not present because they cannot make meetings on Wednesday evenings. This was told to Brad Martin at the December meeting but he changed the meeting days to Wednesdays anyways, despite the fact that two out of five commissioners cannot be present. Common courtesy would be to work together as a team. Now it will be even easier for the three musketeers to have complete control over decisions and finances without interference or questioning from the other commissioners. Heads up folks - they are doing this in an effort to kick McMurray and Moon off the board. Watch and see what happens. 


When Brad Martin was asked at his January 9th coffee what the board's policy was in regard to returning phone calls and emails. Martin said he didn't know because he hadn't memorized the board policies. It's not  rocket science, Mr. Martin, it's called COMMON COURTESY! He was also asked if he knew in advance that Ernie and Carol would not be able to make Wednesday meetings when he changed the date, he answered with his typical deer in the headlights look and stunned silence. No need to talk Brad; your demeanor says it all. 


If the timeliness of the meeting wasn't a record, the length sure was. Seven minutes. Yup, you read that correctly. It lasted SEVEN minutes. There were so many wonderful things to talk about in the 'end of the year wrap up,' that the entire meeting only took SEVEN MINUTES! Oddly, when Katherine Parker gave her end of the year report tonight she didn't mention the three (or was it four?) grants the park received that Brad Martin spoke of at his January 9th coffee. Hmmm, what happened to the grants? Parker also noted that two developers contacted her and want to convey land to the park district but the park district cannot afford to maintain it. She said, "if the land associations would agree to do the upkeep like mowing and the upkeep" then she would like to pursue it. Again, what happened to the grants?


Another thing worth mentioning is if the park is in the dire straits that Brad Martin spoke of at the July 14th meeting, why in the world do they pay for an attorney to come out to the meeting for SEVEN minutes?? Do they even need him there?? Oh and by the way, we challenge anyone to come up with a copy of the speech Brad Martin gave on the park's financial situation in July. It has been requested by several different people but not one person has received it. Hmmm, wonder why? Apparently it is currently being requested through the Freedom of Information Act. It's sad that it comes down to a FOIA request to get a copy of his speech. Why won't he just provide one? Wouldn't it be common courtesy??


For the umpteenth time, audience members could not hear the meeting because once again the blower was on and Brad Martin mumbled. Even Wade Brewer admitted that it was hard to hear Brad and he was sitting just two seats over from him. It was almost comical to watch the recording secretary crane her neck in Martin's direction so that she could take notes. Why does he look down and mumble when he talks? Why won't he look at the audience and speak loudly and clearly? It would be a common courtesy!


Common courtesy would have been to introduce the new superintendent of parks, Paul Caskey to the audience. After all, aren't we the ones paying his salary?


At the end of the meeting, when several people said they couldn't hear, newly hired park superintendent Paul Caskey said we were being rude and that we came to the meeting with a "negative vibe." If telling the board president for the millionth time that we can't hear creates a "negative vibe," then tell him to SPEAK UP or bring back the microphone system so he won't have to. Incidently, the microphone system is only brought out when Ernie Moon is present. Moon understands that the meetings are frequented by a lot of senior citizens who have a hard time hearing. It is common courtesy to speak in a manner so that those who gave up their evening to come to an OPEN MEETING can hear! So excuse us, Mr. Caskey, but show some common courtesy to the residents of this district and try to understand why everyone around here is so frustrated.


Not one person in the audience heard Martin announce open forum to give the residents a chance to speak. Not one person. At the end of the meeting, when it was thought that Martin skipped open forum because no one heard him announce it, it was suggested they have it right then. Parker said no because the meeting was now in executive session. Wouldn't it be common courtesy to listen to the constituents that gave up their time to come to the meeting. No wonder the meeting only lasted seven minutes!


According to the Open Meetings Act, anyone can record an open meeting. Tonight we brought a video camera to the meeting to tape it. The reason we brought it was because at the December meeting there was some discrepancy over whether a vote had taken place or not. Our meeting notes and what Martin says transpired that night are completely different. This is not the first time. We've also noticed in the past, that several of their meeting minutes are inaccurate. This was brought to Parker's attention however nothing was done about it. Maybe that is what Caskey meant by a "negative vibe." Maybe he didn't like seeing a video camera recording the meeting so that this community can have an accurate account of what is REALLY going on. Maybe he's just not into common courtesy either.


For a copy of tonight's meeting on DVD, please contact us and we'd be happy to help you. After all, it's only common courtesy!

Warning: Snooze Alert!!

Warning: Snooze Alert!!

The Pleasantdale School town hall meeting is coming up and they are going to discuss, are you ready for this, TEST SCORES!! Who woulda thunk it!!

It's hard to believe, but for the third year IN A ROW, they want to drill into your heads their opinion of the importance of test scores. It's no wonder no one shows up for their town hall meetings. Last year only 22 people attended, out of almost 1000 school parents, and the only reason that most of these people attended was because they were already there for the 6th grade parent meeting!

A few months ago Pleasantdale had an evening seminar called Interpreting Your Child's Test Scores. Do you know how many people attended? Four! Wouldn't you think that would be an accurate way to gauge interest on the topic of test scores? Guess not.

Seriously, does our administration really think that the importance of test scores is appropriate town hall meeting material for the majority of our school population? At the December school board meeting the board even admitted the meeting would only be beneficial for 7th and 8th grade parents. If you are a parent of a kindergartener, first or second grader, will this meeting will beneficial to you?

Shouldn't a town hall meeting be beneficial to the ENTIRE community? Our school board is comprised of elected officials to represent and serve the community and whose job is to engage the public in establishing the mission and direction of education. It’s up to them to lead the way in building community involvement and support for public education. They are the district’s vital link to the public – as well as advocates for public education.

Is discussing the current test scores something that will engage the public? Will it build community involvement? Doesn't our school have anything else to talk about other than test scores? Isn't there anything else to proud of?

The highlight this year will be that they are going to pimp out some 8th grade students to tell you how much they love prepping themselves nearly to death and taking dozens of standardized tests. Then they will explain to you how Dr. Wick taught them to find out what problems they got wrong using his ISLIP method and what they can do to get those answers right so the score will go up. It's sad that our administration has to use children as pawns to convince the community of their beliefs. Several weeks ago the middle schoolers spent 2 and a half class periods going over their ISLP and test scores. Can you imagine what this must have been like for those lower scoring kids to learn how poorly they are doing in front of their peers? Talk about social-emotional learning!

Our 8th grade class has been taking Explore practice tests since early October. According to Alfie Kohn, a well recognized expert on education, there is little difference between someone changing a student's wrong answer to the correct one and taking practice test after practice test to get ready for a standardized test. They are both considered CHEATING, only the latter is called legalized cheating.

When students prep continuously for tests, the results are not a true measure of their ability. Test prep skews the results. In  fact, in the case of IQ and psychological tests, it is well accepted that children cannot undergo the same test more than once per year. The second set of results is not considered valid because the results are skewed based on prior familiarity with the questions. How then are our standardized test results valid?

Furthermore, not all good test takers are smart students and not all smart students are good test takers. But when you do something over and over and over, it becomes second nature, kind of like Pavlov's dog. (The phrase "Pavlov's dog" is often used to describe someone who merely reacts to a situation rather than using critical thinking.)

There is a name for this kind of learning - it's called renting or borrowing knowledge. Most Pleasantdale students don't own their knowledge. They can't apply it or even remember it after a short amount of time. That's because they are just borrowing it.

Take for example one of the above level language arts classes over at the middle school. These kids have been analyzing ten vocabulary words a week since the beginning of the year. They have to write each word, provide a definition, use it in a sentence, list a synonym and antonym for the word, determine the root, list what part of speech it is and even draw a picture of meaning of the word. So far this year these kids have learned over a hundred words. Why all this vocabulary? Anyone? Anyone? It's because it is on the standardized tests! Sadly, the above mentioned class recently took a vocabulary test with 100 questions and only ONE student in the class scored above a C-. The rest scored below. Why did these kids do so poorly? It is because they don't OWN the knowledge, they merely borrowed it! Renting or borrowing knowledge to inflate test scores is a phenomenon that is sweeping through many school districts and ours is definitely one of them. Due to the high pressure put on teachers to raise the test scores, creativity, passion and critical thinking have taken a back seat to constant test prep.

Before we go off on anymore tangents, we just wanted to warn you about the upcoming town hall meeting. It's gonna be a real snooze fest. The only good news is that Dr. Fredisdorf will be asking the teachers to go light on the homework that night and not give any major tests the next day.

This will be a great opportunity to spend some quality time with your kids. So go out that night and have some fun!

Alfie Kohn: The Homework Myth

Alfie Kohn, nationally known educational speaker and writer, will be in the Chicago area on Monday morning to give a speech on The Homework Myth. Please contact us ASAP if you are interested in attending!

 Per his website: THE HOMEWORK MYTH

After spending most of the day in school, children are typically given additional assignments to be completed at home - a remarkable fact, when you stop to think about it. What's more, homework in most schools isn't limited to those times when it seems appropriate and important. Rather than saying, "Doing this particular project at home may be useful," our message seems to be, "We've decided ahead of time that students will have to do something every night. Later on we'll figure out what to make them do." We know it causes stress and conflict, frustration and exhaustion. But at least, we tell ourselves, it teaches them independence and good work habits, "reinforces" what they've been taught, and helps them to become more successful learners. Or does it? In this presentation, Alfie Kohn carefully reviews the usual defenses of homework and finds that none is actually supported by research, logic, or experience. He then offers half a dozen reasons to explain why we feel obligated to administer this modern cod liver oil even though there is no evidence that it's necessary - and considerable evidence that it undermines children's interest in learning. This, in turn, leads to a closer look at our assumptions about teaching in general, and practical suggestions for rethinking what students are asked to do both during and after school.


(For more details about this talk, please see the book of the same name.)

From the Book Flap:

A compelling exposé of homework – how it fails our children, why it’s so widely accepted, and what we can do about it. Death and taxes come later; what seems inevitable for children is the idea that, after spending the day at school, they must then complete more academic assignments at home. The predictable results: stress and conflict, frustration and exhaustion. Parents respond by reassuring themselves that at least the benefits outweigh the costs. But what if they don’t? In The Homework Myth, Alfie Kohn systematically examines the usual defenses of homework – that it promotes higher achievement, “reinforces” learning, teaches study skills and responsibility. None of these assumptions, he shows, actually passes the test of research, logic, or experience. So why do we continue to administer this modern cod liver oil – or even demand a larger dose? Kohn’s incisive analysis reveals how a mistrust of children, a set of misconceptions about learning, and a misguided focus on competitiveness have all left our kids with less free time and our families with more conflict. Pointing to parents who have fought back – and schools that have proved educational excellence is possible without homework -- Kohn shows how we can rethink what happens during and after school in order to rescue our families and our children’s love of learning.