Are educators conning kids by lowering testing standards?
There is too much focus on the wrong problems
Today, I’m taking on a piece in The Free Press about how math and reading scores in K-12 schools aren’t improving as much as we think due to curriculum standards being lowered. This, they argue, gives a false impression that we are solving problems in the public education system. My main problem with the piece is that it, like most other takes on education, avoids the real problem with standards altogether to find some reason for rules and tests—more coercion.
I wasn’t expecting to write a piece on “How American Educators are Conning Kids” when I read it yesterday, but the points brought up in this article are too significant to move past quietly. Also: here at Open Society, we take children seriously. Hopefully this offers readers a glimpse into the issues proponents of TCS have with the public educational system. And there are many.
All students left behind
According to the FP piece, there is a crisis in the nation, “And that crisis, according to the latest Nation’s Report Card, is bleak: U.S. students are further behind in reading and math than they were in 2012… What’s more, American students in the bottom 10th and 25th percentiles ‘are performing lower than they did in the early 1990s’.”
This is always a huge sticking point for parents, educators, and governments. It goes something like this: If students’ test scores are declining, that necessarily means they’re not learning— or at least, at the level they should at this particular age.
False. Test scores measure how well someone is at taking tests. It wouldn’t make sense to compare scores with former students either. For instance, unlike in 2012, most students now have easy access to things like artificial intelligence and smartphones: great tools to help people explore their interests. And a true privilege that many around the world still don’t possess. Nevertheless, if a students math score goes down, the solution shouldn’t be higher standards in order to pass the course; it should be providing helpful tools like high-tech calculators and cool YouTube math videos.
Upside down, up downside
The article mentions a massive “achievement gap”—the difference in academic performance between student groups. In America’s case, socio-economic school districts. And according to the FP, “[T]he U.S. now appears to have one of the largest in the world, compared to other wealthy nations.”
But how do we know the study isn’t concluding that good grades reflect the fear and shame kids experienced taking the test? Do higher scores mean the student had less fear of punishment or a desire to avoid it? Do they mean the student understood the material or memorized the notes the morning of the test? Any of these explanations for the scores are readily available to the one whom chooses it and not another. This means they’re little more than useless, and at least arbitrary and subjective.
A major issue with these studies are the misinterpretations of them. As the common but much-flawed approach goes: we start with data and then find a theory to fit it. We test it over and over, affirming our theory we found in the data. But that's not how it works. We actually start with an idea about how students learn, and then test it—seeking criticism, not affirmation (Sorry, Haidt). A faulty interpretation of ‘following the data’ leads people to think falling test scores mean children aren’t learning, or learning less. But rest assured, they are learning—all the time. They’re just not learning or demonstrating their knowledge of the stuff adults impose on them. And they have that right! It’s the rules and coercion schools use that typically push students into taking tests, not their interests.
Each student is a person with problems and interests unique to them. To compare one student with another, or an entire generation with another, simply doesn’t make sense. We know that some students learn at a slower pace, some are more interested in the material, others prefer certain methods or games, and many lack support inside or outside of class. There are countless reasons why one student or an entire generation might learn differently or know different things—it’s not inherently bad to have lower test scores.
Standards are for mimics, not learners
There’s a big problem in the ‘common sense’ educational theory: we expect — and desire — students to be the same. But in order to learn, one must create. And that involves deviating from the norm and standard. So what do mandatory curriculum standards of any kind, lower or higher, have to do with creativity? Nothing at all.
Shouldn’t the goal of education be for students to disobey, going above and beyond existing knowledge? If society wants to program AI robots, then our public school system is doing its very best. If we want students to improve their understanding of the world, the school system has utterly failed. No raising or lowering of standards will help that.
The FP article explains how “Oklahoma lowered its “cut scores”—which is the score a student needs to hit on a test to be considered proficient.”
The problem, apparently, with that decision wasn’t that the students had lower standards, it was that it lacked transparency: “many Oklahoman parents assumed their kids had vastly improved at math and reading when, more likely, nothing had changed.”
And as more states and districts followed Oklahoma’s lead, “almost nine in 10 believed their child was at or above grade level in reading and math. In fact, data suggests less than half of American kids are able to perform at grade level in these subjects. Grade inflation is likely to blame,” according to the commissioner of the study.
It’s easy to see how the presumption of grade inflation leads parents to have a false impression of what their child actually understands. And I think that’s a fair point. But it’s only fair because the traditional, coercive style of education and parenting forces children to manipulate and maneuver adults to solve their own problems—shielding themselves from further embarrassment and torment.
1) It’s bad parents aren’t paying closer attention to their child’s interests and challenges. If they were, they wouldn’t be under some mistaken belief about their child’s proficiency in a particular subject. In other words, the parents would know their child wasn’t ‘getting it’ by paying attention. 2) The alleged false perception grade inflation gives parents is positive because it shows that students have a decent level of proficiency. If the students weren’t somewhat proficient, the parents would’ve noticed there was a disconnection.
Tests and curriculum standards may seem like they can give a good glimpse of what someone knows, but they often do the opposite. The relevance of a child’s proficiency in solving a specific problem is entirely dependent on their individual problem-situation; their desire to achieve proficiency. If reading is an important step in their pursuits, they’ll learn to be better readers.
Comparing apple seeds to apple trees to apples
Achievement gaps do not mean individual students have less knowledge than the class or person before them. That’s obviously false. Students this semester have more knowledge of the internet and AI, and of events the class before was learning about — sprouting new, better problems to solve the former students never even imagined. One thing the new generation of students undoubtably has equipped is knowledge their parents probably still don’t possess, like the workings of social media and new ways of communicating with others (Skibidi-Ohio-Beta-something).
What seems to be the problem here?
There was one great part of the entire FP piece, and it perfectly summarized the problem society has with educational theory: “You can’t solve a problem you don’t know you have.”
Too often, I find myself criticizing educators, parents, and government entities for trying to solve a problem that wouldn't exist if not for another issue they refuse to reconsider: a rules-based system that relies on fear and punishment to impose ideas on individuals, while demanding they meet an arbitrary standard of proficiency. Slowly, we’re seeing some improvement on that front.
“Meanwhile, the drive toward lowering standards is spreading fast. Last November, voters in Massachusetts decided to drop the requirement that students pass an exam in order to graduate from high school.”
Beautiful progress! Now, under the traditional view of education, we’ll have to wait and see if those same students can read and perform basic math in 10 years. I’m confident they will have that ability. If not, we have plenty of tools to help them—just like the rest of us who endured even more tests, heightened standards, and punishment than they did.
Just keep swimming—if you want
But the FP still doesn’t get it. They say lowering standards in schools is “like telling everyone that they’re a great swimmer when you know half of us really are drowning.”
Not true. It’s more like trying to mold a great swimmer who doesn’t even like swimming! Our school system is the one drowning them, not their inability to swim. And instead of helping them get out of the pool to focus on something they can enjoy and excel at, this piece argues for adding more water, waves, and drills.
Going back to the FP’s misguided interpretation of the problem of education: it’s not about test scores or curriculum standards—it’s really all about having fun. I know that sounds radical (and it sounds radical just to say it’s radical), but people learn — and they learn best — when they want to understand something important to them. And the only way to do that is by forming ideas about it, and through criticism, correcting errors—incrementally improving one’s understanding of the problem and, thus, potential solutions.
If we get too caught up in improving test scores or deciding which standards to compare students against, we’ll miss the point of school: to learn. Tests, standards, curriculums, and all the rest are obstacles. That’s the problem that needs solving before worrying about any standards.
Read the full article I’m reviewing:
Check out Dr. Naomi Fisher’s newsletter on ‘unschooling’:
