Why I Feel Like I'm Talking To Myself

I am a bit nutty, I admit, but I don't generally talk to myself. However, when I talk about education, I feel like I might as well be talking into a strong wind. Nothing I say or think really makes it into any of the education policy decisions made in this country. And all of my observations about NYC schools takes reporters at the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets eons to discover. 


Let's take Exhibit A:


"Triumph Fades On Racial Gap in New York City Schools"



This article reports that Bloomberg and Klein have finally realized that the achievement gap between racial groups is not diminishing, despite the fact that both of these men have been saying that it has for the past five years. Unfortunately, the test that they were basing all this on was, well, too easy. 


"But the test scores that the mayor and the chancellor chose to highlight were the state standardized tests, and they built their entire system around it, with schools’ A-through-F grades, teachers’ bonuses and now tenure decisions dependent on how well their students performed on the tests."


Now, here is my problem. I could have told Bloomberg and Klein this a few years ago. Most teachers probably could have. Those of us in the classroom, on the proverbial "frontlines", see that the achievement gap is bigger than just test scores. If you really want to measure the gap between blacks and Latinos and other groups, you have to look at everything from reading levels to the academic proficiency with which students enter the system. While test scores from 2004-2009 painted a rosy picture for government officials, showing a steady leveling of scores, in the classroom, the situation remained dire with black and Latino students continuing to face huge challenges and educational stumbling blocks. 


For the reporter who wrote this story, I'd like to make a suggestion. Perhaps you could look into the fact that the government "based their entire system" around testing. This is a huge story. There is something wrong when teachers, students, and schools are all evaluated based on ONE TEST in math and ELA. Most teachers have known for years that this system is ludicrous and would ultimately fail. If a teacher used one data point to determine students' grades for an entire year, the rest of us in the profession would balk. We would laugh. We would perhaps flog him or her.  


But of course, no one asked us. 


I would really like to see a story written in the New York Times by a real, breathing, honest-to-God teacher. What a novelty. A teacher, an educator, a person who steps into a school every day, writing about education for the general public. Then maybe I'd feel less like a mumbling fool talking to herself on the street.