Education boondoggle may cost dearly

"Teachers aren’t against testing. Teachers invented testing."

The person quoted is Jesse Hagopian, a nationally recognized Seattle teacher who led a boycott against standardized testing. He made the remark recently as keynote speaker in Kahului during Hawaii State Teachers Association’s Institute Day.

Hagopian has been traveling the nation to draw attention to the growing movement against standardized testing that is including teachers, students and parents. He also is crusading against teacher evaluation that is tied to standardized test results. His passionate plea for reason led to a rare standing ovation by Maui HSTA members.

His rationale for opposing the national trend in mandatory standardized testing is multifaceted, but most of it boils down to this: fairness.

Standardized tests are not fair — not to teachers, nor students, nor parents. They are not fair to schools struggling to meet the costs of basic educational needs. Further, they are not fair to taxpayers, because, of course, school districts have to spend a great deal of taxpayer money on this testing. If, in fact, the results are largely meaningless, the money is wasted.

A large body of statistical evidence exists that disputes the validity of standardized test results, particularly if the results are to be interpreted as fair and accurate representations of student progress. But aside from the research and citations, the fallacy of using standardized testing for measurement of student progress and teacher effectiveness is simply a matter of common sense.

Standardized testing is being used as a means of quality control — basically what would be happening at factories to ensure the products manufactured are of uniformly good quality. Does it make sense to view human beings in the same light? Are schools factories that churn out uniformly good students? Are students cars? We may as well view them as crash-test dummies.

Standardized testing does not account for student diversity.

How fair is testing that is based on factors beyond teachers’ control? Is it reasonable to conclude that teachers should be accountable for student attendance? Should they be responsible for making sure students have been fed, sheltered, provided a bed to sleep? Should they be teaching non-English-speaking households the host language so parents are able to help their children with homework? Should they police students’ homes to make sure they are not being abused?

How fair is it to hold teachers responsible for student achievement years beyond the time they are teaching them? Is this reasonable? Yet it is part of teacher evaluation.

Our state’s educational reform makes no more sense than President George W. Bush’s "No Child Left Behind." The latter resulted in more mandatory testing than teaching, expensive private educational consultants, lock-step teaching and classrooms that discouraged diversity, or at least failed to account for it. President Barack Obama’s "Race to the Top" is sadly more of the same. Tragically, our state Department of Education, with more familiarity with Hawaii’s demographics, has done no better.

Do not be fooled by claims that Hawaii teacher evaluation reflects the Charlotte Danielson method that is the latest thing in many districts across the country. The author has stated that it was not meant for teacher evaluation, and has warned that "cherry-picking" aspects of it to suit a local school board, just as Hawaii has done, would be to invite lawsuits.

Nor was it collaborative. The model in use now was rolled out long before teacher contract negotiations called for collaboration.

Already, it is underfunded, by at least an estimated $34 million, because there are not enough administrators for teacher observation.

Is it politically correct to throw money at anything that is being ballyhooed as educational reform?

This looks like boondoggle. It smells like boondoggle.