A Few Remarks on Rhee's Recent Ode to Testing in The Washington Post

Big Stock Photo Used for Rhee Piece

Michelle Rhee recently wrote an editorial for The Washington Post touting the merits of high-stakes testing.  It was entitled, "Michelle Rhee:  Opting out of standardized tests?  Wrong answer."

When I saw the picture accompanying her piece, I did an immediate double take.  I saw that pencil and the eraser and all I could think about was the D.C. testing scandal.  Rhee handed over thousands in merit pay to school staff for high test scores--which later seemed to be based largely upon grossly over-erased bubble sheets in which answers were almost entirely changed from wrong to right.  Rhee's investigation into it was severely limited in its scope.

Rhee rose to fame, in part, due to inaccurate data.  She started out as a TFA recruit at Baltimore's Harlem Park.  After a very bumpy beginning, she claimed, "Over a two-year period, we moved a group of students who were on average performing at the 13th percentile, and when they left me at the end of two years, they were--90 percent of them were scoring at the 90th percentile or above."  The data turns out to be almost surely false.  The actual data has since been vaporized. Rhee will tell you though that this is what her principal told her.  She swallowed it whole like a bee!

After reading Rhee's article, I can understand why she might not want to debate Dr. Ravitch.  She says, "Stepping on the bathroom scale can be nerve-racking, but it tells us if that exercise routine is working."  I cannot believe she exercises to any degree in using this analogy.  If she did, it would seem that she would realize that much initial weight loss after exercise is due to water loss.  Prepping for tests may raise scores, but it is not real learning.  I would say the scale might be one tool, but what about BMI?  There are many more helpful tools.  One can have muscle weight or one can have the weight of unnecessary, additional fat.  I would remind Rhee that the brain is one of my favorite muscles!

She says "Good educators also want an assessment of how well they are serving students."  The most meaningful assessments are made by teachers themselves and they reflect the real learning in their classroom.  I am tired of the top-secret, top-down Common-Core tests.  Test administrators cannot share the exact content with me, but they have let me know that the tests are foul.  These tests can help no teacher.  Teachers are not allowed to use these end of year tests, whose results roll in over the summer, to inform their teaching in any way.

I would also argue that my value system and the value system of so many other teachers may differ.  We differ among ourselves and we certainly differ from the test makers.  I do not believe that Pearson or any other company has the sole monopoly on what is important for all students to know.  I do not wish to worship at their shrine of biased high-stakes questions.

Rhee says, "My daughter came home from public school one day and said class was a breeze now that 'the test' was over.  And I thought, 'Geez, what are we communicating to our kids if they think the test is the most important thing--and once it's over, learning ends?'"  It's funny.  She doesn't seem to mind all the work prepping to the test.  She only notes that there's a problem when the test is over.  For her sake, maybe someone will move the test to the last day of school so that the whole year can be effectively shaped around test prep, up to the very last, bitter moment.

In another part of her piece, she expresses concerns that students receiving high grades in one school may not objectively be doing well compared to their cohort in other schools:  "And, without standardized testing, that child's parents, teachers and principal would have no idea."  Yet, in private schools many students are not subject to this battery of tests.  And, they get a richer curriculum for their money.  It is not fair.

She also states that we shouldn't "accept the false argument that testing restricts educators too much, stifles innovation in the classroom or takes the joy out of teaching."  I am sure Rhee had unabated pleasure teaching to tests in Harlem Park and then basking in her mistaken data.  Yet, as a lifetime teacher, I can tell you testing restricts me greatly; it "stifles innovation in the classroom" and "takes the joy out of teaching."  Maybe Rhee should come back to the classroom and teach again.  Then, we could take note of some real data earned by her students and her innovations in the classroom.  Perhaps she could show us the meaning of "Highly Effective" as a teacher.  Many seasoned teachers will agree that as a reformer she has seemed anything but "Highly Effective"!