She said that to students last November. That is very good advice, but I don't think she realizes that might go counter to the goals of Arne Duncan. In fact I wonder if some in Congress truly understand Duncan's goals about testing.
In his world one high-stakes test defines not just the students, but their teachers, their principals, and their schools. I remember raising our kids as teens, and there were bad attitude days I would be appalled to think what they did would define their teacher's future or their principal's future.
So though her advice is quite good, it is not reality anymore.
Michelle Obama: Don't Let Tests Define You First lady Michelle Obama doesn't put much stock in standardized tests.
"Don't let those tests defeat you. Don't let those tests define you," she told a group of about 30 students at Denver's South High School on Monday as part of a day of mentoring in the city.
"When I was growing up, I was never a great standardized test-taker," but she ended up attending Princeton University, Mrs. Obama said. Straight-A grades and a strong essay helped her overcome bad test scores, she added.
The first lady, however, did not hint that she thought standardized tests should go away. Speaking to a student who had asked whether it's fair to use test scores to measure schools when some students don't speak English well, Mrs. Obama said the tests are "part of the system" and can't be avoided.
"You can fight the tests, or you can work with them and turn them into an advantage," she said.
She said she would fight to make sure her girls don't "get lost in all this." They are fortunate they can do that. Many can't.
There's a little known fact about how much power was given to Arne Duncan. From McClatchy News:
How Race to the Top is rewriting U. S. EducationThe program springs from a single sentence inserted in the stimulus law. Though it suggests that Duncan account for things such as teacher quality, data use, new standardized tests and school turnaround, it also allows for "criteria as the secretary deems appropriate."
Duncan had championed contests since he was the CEO of Chicago's public schools, where he experimented with competitive pilot projects. The results, by most accounts, were mixed. Race to the Top was a chance to take the concept national, said Jon Schnur, a former Duncan adviser who's credited with creating the national competition. After repeated talks with Reps. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee, and David Obey, D-Wis., the head of the House Appropriations Committee, Duncan gained custody of just over $4 billion. Schnur conceded that Race to the Top probably would have had few supporters in Congress as a standalone proje]ct.
When Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the No. 2 Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, was asked whether lawmakers grasped the program's scope, he said: "No. I understood it, but that's because I've been following the issues long enough."
Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California, who was then the top GOP member on the House education panel, still pleads ignorance, and called Race to the Top an "administration deal," though he said he didn't press for answers at a small White House education lunch in February 2009. As Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., put it, "You could figure it out if you wanted to."
Did you read that part?
"criteria as the secretary deems appropriate."Did you see the lack of real understanding shown by those in Congress?
As Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., put it, "You could figure it out if you wanted to."
That is just weird to give one man so much power over public education, and to give him so much discretionary money.
It was not long after Arne took office that he set up
confrontations with teachers' unions. Legislatures in New York, California and some other states have enacted laws that limit, to one degree or another, use of student achievement data in teacher performance evaluations. Both national teachers’ unions oppose the use of student testing data to evaluate individual teachers, arguing in part that students are often taught by several teachers and that teacher evaluations should be based on several measures of performance, not just test scores.
“This is poking teachers’ unions straight in the eye,” Mike Petrilli, a vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research group that studies education policy, said of the proposed fund eligibility requirement dealing with student data.
The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said in an interview that she thought New York’s law would not render the state ineligible for financing and that her union would “take advantage very aggressively of the 60-day comment period” on the proposed rules.
..."“This administration is challenging unions on some issues that are at the core of the union agenda,” said Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit group that studies teachers’ union contracts.
One of the best comments I have seen on what is happening is from the blog of the NYC Public School Parents. They said it loudly and clearly.
It's not about the testsStandardized test scores have become the scourge of the American education system. In New York, simply reconstructing the exams and raising the cut scores will do nothing more than address a symptom, one reflected in overly generous assessment of students' academic progress and readiness. While the change is needed, it will also conveniently eliminate a major structural criticism of the current education reform movement that those "reformers" will be happy to see removed; it's not for nothing that the New York Times, NY Daily News, and NY Post editorial boards jumped on the "revise the NYS standardized exam bandwagon" so quickly and enthusiastically. That alone should warn everyone of the underlying reality of this situation and their agenda. To wit: test, test, and test some more; measure, measure, and measure some more; incentivize and otherwise hold teachers, principals, and entire schools accountable based on those results.
..."Just remember -- it's not, and never was, about the exams, but about they are used. Or more accurately phrased, misused. Since that shows no current prospect of changing, little else among the many ills being inflicted on American public education by the misnamed "education reform movement" is likely to be addressed."
They are being used to transform public education completely. As the schools fail, and they will as the tests standards are set higher and higher...they will become something other than a public school.
And they will make a profit you can be sure.
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