“Craters. Burnt houses. Women weeping for sons and daughters. Suffering. In my profession, there is no chance of unemployment. The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity
to believe that someone will care.”
― Marie Colvin,

I try not to write on back-to-back days, but at times it can’t be helped. Currently, there is no shortage of subject matter, and there remains a lack of clarity.

So buckle up, enjoy the ride and we’ll try and hit as many topics as possible today.

I debated all week whether or not I wanted to broach the subject raised by a new Peter Green piece. I have such admiration for the man, and I’ve been working on my ability to let things pass, but ultimately, I decided it warranted some kind of comment.

These days, school policy conversations are rife with accusations of indoctrination. Too often incidents of indoctrination are dismissed. Greene adds his voice to the discussion, sharing a personal story.:

In the fall of ’72, I was a high school sophomore, and Lois Anthony was a fresh-out-the-package social studies teacher who somehow drew the short straw and got the 10th grade honors class.

Every class has its particular challenges. The challenge of teaching sophomores is that they already know everything worth knowing and why are you, you old person, bothering them by trying pretend that you know things they don’t?

But Miss Anthony was game. And boy was she a lefty. We studied the election as it unfurled, and she did her best to get us to understand that the war was wrong and we should get out as soon as possible, and Nixon was a bad, bad man and nobody responsible should vote for him. She even brought in speakers, including a local newspaper guy who had some Big Feelings about the war and the necessity of getting out. Of all the teachers I’ve known, not one tried harder to sell a particular point of view than Miss Anthony.

I can’t imagine just how frustrated she was by her complete and utter failure.

Most of the students in the class brought their own set of beliefs from home, and while we would rather have died than admit that we were sticking to our parents’ worldview, we were. Some tenderhearted folks were already in her camp. And then, well, she had me and a couple of my friends. We were, collectively and singularly, That Guy.

He describes the reaction to Ms Anthony’s efforts:

We argued for the domino theory. We argued for American awesomeness. We were not far enough around the bend to adopt overtly racist stances, but mostly we were vocally supportive of everything Miss Anthony opposed. We argued just to argue. If she had argued against eating baby seals, we would have used our spare time after school to create a Baby Seal Cookbook. It wasn’t that we had anything against her–we liked her just fine. But it was fun to adopt a stance and then charge hard at it, to turn ideas over and play with them.

While Greene acknowledges that perhaps he and his classmates would have been more susceptible under different circumstances, or strategies, he argues that the ability of one person who sees a kid a minimal number of times a day is not likely to be an effective means of indoctrination.

But when people argue that children are being indoctrinated just by being in a room with someone who has Certain Beliefs, I think of Lois Anthony. Indoctrinating the youths is a hell of a lot harder than culture panic folks imagine it is. I arrived at my own set of beliefs thanks to a long and complicated journey, and I know some cultural panic comes from the idea that I and others must arrive at certain destinations only if some underhanded pied piper is leading us down paths we would never normally travel. But I remain pretty sure that all the Lois Anthonys in the world can’t lead students down paths they aren’t willing to travel.

While I don’t disagree with Mr. Greene – the teacher is seldom the root cause – I will push back on the idea schools don’t indoctrinate. Schools are all about indoctrination; reading, writing, and arithmetic come second.

We start with indoctrinating students on the importance of compliance. Think about the average school day, how much is devoted to encouraging compliance, and how much is about student learning?

The ones that won’t comply, are the kids are the kids usually the ones iin trouble. How many times does a kid hear, “Once you get out in the world, they won’t put up with this”?

We label those kids as bad kids, although many of them are the smartest kids in the classroom. Our test measures a kid’s ability to comply as much as anything. Learn the things we tell you are important, and you’ll be rewarded – what is that if not compliance.

And don’t give me the “kids need to learn these things to be successful” bullshit. No study links student performance on standardized tests to success in life. In fact, some of our most successful adults were B students in K-12.

Honestly, I’m not sure that any of our tests are actually measuring the right things. And there is evidence to support that doubt.

Studies continue to show that our standardized tests don’t necessarily measure what they think we do.

In an article for Forbes magazine, Peter Greene (Yes, the same Peter Greene) cites a new paper from Jamil Maroun and Christopher Tienken that set out to determine whether a state’s big standardized test measures student learning, teacher effectiveness, or something else. The answer here is “D”.

“The tests are not measuring how much students learned or can learn,” says Tienken. “They are predominately measuring the family and community capital of the student.”

The report repeats the previously established worth of student background knowledge in performing well.

Wealthier families don’t just have more resources in their homes (including their own educations). They have a wealth of social capital, what Robert Putnam in Our Kids, a powerful study of children and social capital, calls “informal ties to family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances involved in civic associations, religious institutions, athletic teams, volunteer activities, and so on.” Social capital provides easier access to varied experiences, which in turn build background knowledge.

On a side note, the Putnam book is one of my favorite books ever read.

The research holds true for Math as well.

Math tests now involve lots of reading. While earlier generations may have only dealt with the occasional “story problem,” those are now frequent and routine. This can skew students’ math test results. Says Tienkin, “They understand the mathematics, but they don’t comprehend what the question is asking them to compute.”

Greene points out that the report supports several conclusions,

First, we can once again recognize that the standardized tests used to make definitive statements about student learning and teacher effectiveness, to assess the quality of administrators, to declare a school “failing,” to pinpoint student academic weaknesses and strengths— these tests are in fact simply reflecting the demographics of the students’ families. Maroun and Tienkin write:

The results from the state-mandated standardized tests used in New Jersey have not been independently validated for all of the ways the results are used, yet some education leaders rely on them for decision-making purposes.

That stands true for every state where big standardized test data is used in these ways.

Second, if policymakers must insist that the big standardized test scores must be used for this wide variety of policy purposes, research like this suggests that the best way to improve test scores for students from less resource-filled backgrounds might be to provide them with wider and deeper experiences aimed at building background knowledge, rather than bombarding them with test prep exercises and workbooks.

Education centered around high-stakes testing has been pushing schools down the wrong road for twenty-some years. This study is a reminder that by generating data that does actually says far more about a school’s demographics than its effectiveness.

In debating levels of indoctrination, we need to acknowledge that in the age of scripted teaching, outside entities have considerably more power over what’s taught in the classroom than in the past.

In Greene’s time, a single teacher would likely prepare their own lesson plan, often without additional collaboration. As the kids say, “Shit, ain’t like that anymore.”

Teachers are given very scripted instructions and scripts, citing specific examples. What students are exposed to in ELA, is often reinforced in Math and Social Studies later in the day. So it is not just one 50-minute block we are talking about.

Complicating things even further is the alignment between what kids are exposed to in class, and what kids view outside of school. Have you watched Disney Plus lately? There is a message in every show, whether you want it or not.

This continued barrage of input that is unreflective of the values of some parents creates discord.

I’m not saying that some of the messages have not improved our society. In many ways, we’ve become a much more open and welcoming society, but in other ways, we’ve sorted people into silos.

Educators Carol Burris and Johann Neem have discussed the challenges in depth. Neem puts it quite succinctly.

So I think we must be aware that there is a tension there. Mainstream Americanism doesn’t mean racism. But it also may not mean always being “anti-racist.” It means embracing a world where there are complex issues and the school doesn’t have one position on everything, as you said earlier. Because I worry that the schools are generating distrust in a world that’s already distrustful and polarized. And the public schools are so important that anything that starts to tip the scales towards privatization frightens me.

Burris’s response should be on the wall of every school building:

Maybe it’s a reflection of my age, or reflection of my experience, but I do think that every public school should be a place that welcomes every child. That means that it welcomes all children, not only based on ability, race, and ethnicity, but also on values. And there should be a place, in the social studies classes of a public school, to debate, right? To debate capitalism versus socialism, progressivism versus conservatism. But when a school’s website only shows one sliver of that, that becomes problematic. I do think that it would be helpful for public schools to sometimes take a deep breath and reflect on the fact that their parents come from all different places, that their faculty may hold various political opinions, and work hard to make sure that everyone, no matter their belief system, can comfortably send their child to the school, and not feel as though anybody is trying to push them one way or the other. That’s what we want for learners: to be critical thinkers, to be exposed to different ideas, and then to come up with their own conclusions.

So while I don’t disagree with Greene, I think we need to widen our scope of conversation. We also need to focus on unintentional consequences as well as intentional ones.

As I tell my kids, whether intentional or unintentional, the outcome is often the same.

– – –

This week the Tennessee House took up a bill that would limit the displaying of flags in school buildings. The primary focus of the bill has been interpreted as being about the Pride flag.

House Representative Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood is the primary sponsor of the bill in the House.

According to the sponsor the bill has gone under several revisions since first being introduced. He frames his bill as a means to protect parents’ right to decide what values their children are going to be taught in schools. .

During this week’s committee meeting, Representative Harold Love (D-Nashville) raised the question of whether a flag of a college would be permissible. He was told it would be.

He followed up with a question about the flag of a school band. That would also be permissible due to being representative of a university or school.

Interestingly, debate arose over whether a Tennessee General Assembly flag would be allowed. Legal ruled that while it was not clearly defined in the bill under the heading of “political subdivision”. This would leave the decision up to local schools, and any subsequent legal action would be directed towards them, with the courts being empowered to define the scope.

Love argued that this was another example of a need for clear definitions in policy.

Several individuals asked to speak to the committee in opposition and were granted permission.

Presenter Erica Boten argued that the proposed legislation could potentially rob teachers of their First Amendment rights. Recent Supreme Court rulings have ruled repeatedly that teachers don’t shed their First Amendment rights upon entering the building.

The speaker made a solid case that the banning of flags could bleed over into coffee mugs, tattoos, or other personal items. If it starts with flags, where does it end?

“If your beliefs are firmly held they should not be threatened by the beliefs of others”. Said Boten, “If we want the American Flag and the Tennessee Flag to mean something, we can not be passing laws that exclude certain groups.”

Representative Sam McKenzie (D-Knoxville) asked if the Nazi flag could be displayed in the classroom, because of its historical context, which is permissible under the proposed bill. Legal again answered that this would be a question for the courts.

A roll call vote was taken and the bill passed by a vote of 12-4. Representative John Gillespie (R-Memphis) was the only Republican to vote no. Chairmen Mark White (R-Memphis) passed on voting.

The bill will now move on to the Calendar and Rules Committee.

– – –

Governor Lee’s push for Education Freedom Accounts has distracted attention from Tennessee’s third-grade retention law, now in its second year. This year, not only third-graders will be at risk for retention, but fourth-graders as well.

The law provides several provisions that allow for third-graders who fail to score proficiently on annual TCAP testing to avoid retention. However, lost in the shuffle is the rule that requires those who avail themselves of the tutoring and summer camp provisions must show adequate growth on their fourth-grade TCAP test.

Estimates say that at least 5K students could be retained this year, in addition to any third-graders.

On Friday the State Board of Education looked at proposed rules that would ease some of this risk for both 3rd and 4th grade.

A proposal was made by the board chair that the SBE add a rule for third graders that would allow an appeal to be made for advancement, provided that they score over 40% on a universal screener, 100% of school officials and parents are in agreement supporting advancement, and tutoring for 4th grade be agreed to by all parties. After a lengthy discussion, the proposal was tabled until a special meeting in two weeks. The tabling came with instructions for the TDOE to work with the board of education staff and craft policy.

The proposal runs the risk of being out of alignment with current law.

The board then took up the law’s fourth-grade retention portion.

Only those students who fail to meet expectations remain at risk, and all special circumstances remain in place.

For those fourth graders who are still at risk, the TDOE is proposing using two methods for calculating adequate growth – they would run a calculation using just the ELA portion and also a calculation using full TCAP results including all subjects. Furthermore, the TDOE will utilize either the initial TCAP or the retake, whichever benefits the student.

The department is also proposing that for any student who requires less than 1% growth to meet adequate growth, any amount of growth would be considered adequate growth.

Board member Ryan Holt informed the board that he would be bringing a resolution to the specially called meeting that would ask the General Assembly to shift the 3rd-grade retention law to focus on first and second grade. There appears to be support from several board members for that initiative.

I question the value of increased testing for first and second-graders. Those early grades are important for learning how to school, as much as anything else. To throw increased expectations right out of the box, for kids who may not be mature enough to handle the pressure, should raise some concerns.

Remember the line, always beware of the well-intentioned man.

The TDOE hopes to have retention projections to districts on at-risk students by February 26th. Final designations on retention will be made by July 1.

The motion to adopt the TDOE’s proposed definition of adequate growth was accepted with a unanimous vote.

– – –

Locally, Metro Nashville Public Schools is celebrating the results of a recent study showing the district as one of the fastest recovering districts in the country coming out of the pandemic.

“We applaud Metro Nashville Public Schools for the progress their students have made in recovering from the pandemic, making improvements from 2022 to 2023 of more than a half of a grade level equivalent in math and nearly a third of a grade level equivalent in reading,” said Council of the Great City Schools Executive Director Ray Hart. “While there is more work to be done, district leaders, staff, and families should be commended.”

Key points from research among districts involved in the study:

• MNPS ranked 3^rd among top 100 districts in math growth from 2022 to 2023
• MNPS ranked 6^th among top 100 districts in reading (English Language Arts) growth from 2022 to 2023
• MNPS was one of just two large urban districts that ranked in the Top 10 for both math and reading.​

Per MNPS:

The Education Recovery Scorecard, a joint effort by the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard, the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford, and the Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis, casts a light on the achievements of MNPS. The scorecard distinguishes our district for surpassing national education recovery trends, emphasizing our strategic, inventive, and successful strategies to secure such notable results.

In reaching their conclusions, the creators of the scorecard took state results, after converting them onto a common scale, and combined them with NAEP results. It is a complex and opaque process conducted by experts from Stanford and Harvard.

Worth noting is that despite the massive growth, MNPS still remains below pre-pandemic achievement levels. It’s further worth noting, that the lower you are, the more opportunity you have for growth.

Tina Stenson with the district’s research team was asked at Tuesday’s press conference when the district would reach pre-pandemic levels.

“I have not calculated that far out yet and am still working through the methodology that this group used,” said Stenson.

In other words, we are celebrating success, while not quite sure how accurate that success is.

The celebration is once again centered on results that are nearly a year old. Students will again take the standardized test in April.

MNPS has long pointed out the fallacies of standardized tests, but now, since they show explementary work by leadership and teachers, they are true barometers.

So what are we really celebrating and promoting at this week’s press conference?

I’ll leave that to you to decide. But we can’t keep talking out of both sides of our mouths and expect to retain any kind of credibility.

– – –

Time to rattle the cup a little bit before I head out the door.

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Categories: Education