Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Another ridiculous
sounding comment was this one this one by Rep. Dianne Delisi quoted in the
article: “The genius of this bill is, the finance is inexorably linked to the
reform, and the reform will deliver results.” What results is she talking
about?

- Kids and teachers so
stressed out over testing that no one enjoys school anymore?

- A curriculum so ridiclously stuffed full
of “stuff” that
xhref=”http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/view.html?pg=1″ mce_href=”http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/view.html?pg=1″
target=”NewWindow”>students rarely have time to do real critical thinking and
problem solving at school?
- An
environment where extremely important, valid experiences involving music and the
arts are essentially chucked out the window, since those are “extras” we don’t
need for the test?
- Continued problems
retaining high quality teachers, who are not only not paid enough, but also not
supported well by a system that thinks any idiot can teach if they have a
college degree and a scripted curriculum shoved into their face by a raving
administrator so frightened by the prospect of low test scores that s/he has
lost all sense of perspective of what really matters in education, and in the
lives of students?
- Teachers who feel so
much pressure to “cover it all” that they reject out of hand the very idea of
problem-based learning, thematic units, and any type of learning in depth which
produces actual long term memories for students and valid, authentic learning
experiences?!

I am disgusted over the
continued banter by our state legislators about “educational quality” that is so
disconnected from the real world and the actual
classroom.

Hello legislators– have
any of you stopped to wonder why so many people are giving up on the public
schools and opting for home schooling? How can you possibly imagine that more
testing and “Texas miracle” style accountability are going to bring these
families with their students back into public
schools?

Why can’t we stop, as a
state and a nation, putting so much ill-founded faith in standardized tests and
technology, and instead PUT OUR FAITH IN PEOPLE– THE DEDICATED TEACHERS AND
ADMINISTRATORS working their hearts out every day in classrooms across this
great state and nation, trying to make a positive impact in the lives of our
children?

I am so sick of this
“faith-based accountability system.” That is my term, I actually thought of it
myself. Our legislature continues to operate on the blind assumption, grounded
in FAITH rather than facts, that more and more testing will improve educational
quality. They hold up tables of statistics that are published in local and state
papers, but all they have really proven is that teachers can bludgeon students
into doing better and better on a test each year if you spend inordinate amounts
of time taking practice tests and doing inane activities that would likely make
me want to slit my wrists if I was a student in many of these classrooms.
Legislators call for applause, pat themselves on the back, get re-elected, while
huge numbers of students continue to drop out of school or even graduate, but
without many of the real-world skills they need for vocational and lifelong
success.

Sorry guys and gals, I hate
to break the news to you, but we do not live in a multiple choice world. We have
broad consensus that our graduates need
xhref=”http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/skills.htm” mce_href=”http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/skills.htm”
target=”NewWindow”>robust twenty-first century job skills, but we
are still trying to ramp up the production speed of a nineteenth century
treadmill, factory school model.

Is
it any wonder other fairly intelligent people
xhref=”http://homepage.mac.com/iajukes/blogwavestudio/LH20041201110546/LHA20050306084854/index.html” mce_href=”http://homepage.mac.com/iajukes/blogwavestudio/LH20041201110546/LHA20050306084854/index.html”
target=”NewWindow”>like Bill Gates are saying that our system is
broken? I agree we all should strive to raise our expectations for student
achievement. But this is not done effectively and broadly through the stick of
high-stakes testing. You don’t have to be a Rhodes scholar or have your PhD to
figure this out. Go talk to teachers and students in classrooms today. Go do it!
Ask them what the impact of all the testing they are doing has been and is on
the classroom. Are students learning more? Do they love to come to school and
hate to leave at the end of the day, because they are so engaged in valuable,
authentic literacy-developing experiences and relationships that they don’t want
to stop? If they are,
target=”NewWindow”>let me know who they are and where they are. I
might consider moving my family to the area so I can enroll my children in
school there.

I say, the system CAN
be made much, much better– if not
xhref=”http://davidwarlick.com/blog/index.php?itemid=177″ mce_href=”http://davidwarlick.com/blog/index.php?itemid=177″
target=”NewWindow”>reformed for 21st century literacy, if we begin
with this fundamental idea: We must put our faith in people– in teachers and
principals, rather than putting our faith in
testing.

Are you reading this Ross
Perot along with your ideological tribe? I sure hope so. I think we Texans have
put up with this “school accountability leads to great schools and makes
everyone’s life great” lie long
enough.

Am I coming across a little
too strong here?

I don’t think
so.

Will teachers and students
attending the
target=”NewWindow”>2005 Model Schools conference have good answers
about these questions and suggestions for our present educational conditions?
Most likely. Unfortunately I will not be able to
attend.

I’ll be staying in Lubbock
re-taking the high school level TAKS test for writing, which I have failed two
times previously because I could not write a canned response to their boring
prompt, which was devoid of almost all creativity and originality. (Just
kidding. I do wish I could attend the conference, but my reason for not going
will be other workshop commitments I have already made.)