Conspiring Against Public Education: Report Cards and Standardized Tests

Recently, I had a disturbing thought.  I have been emotionally railing against standardized testing for a decade now, wary of anything cooked up by state legislators who only seem to look for cheap (or free) and simple solutions to complex problems.  Having some knowledge of what goes into creating, validating, and reporting on those assessments allows me to say with great confidence, "they aren't worth the paper they used to be printed on!"  For the past seven or eight years, paper has been replaced with online tests, even cheaper to deliver, and one more example that our government is more inclined to assume we are better off if every boy and girl is measured against a watered down multiple choice test than to truly look deeply at what great learning looks like.

First, it is important to understand that public education is one of the most challenging opponents to the Conservative minority.  Public schools have the capacity to teach media literacy, challenging students to think independently and critically instead of consuming every media post like it is the gospel truth.

Second, most of the wealthiest people in our country (Musk, Sacklers, Waltons, Bezos, Kochs, Zuckerburg, Gates) have a vested interest in maintaining a majority of lower-skilled and lower-educated client or employee to remain dependent on low wage jobs, little or no benefits, and with poor job security.

In the back of my mind, I began building a case for a back to basics movement orchestrated by the wealthy to lower the quality of public schools, increase competition with private and charter schools where the curriculum can be set by organizations with personal objectives and a means to create a profit margin if they get to select the raw materials (children who learn in a similar manner from one another) and succeed using automated learning processes informed by data.  Think how competing car manufacturers were gobsmacked when Henry Ford simplified his process of building the automobile.  Were Model Ts and Model As the highest performing cars?  Absolutely not.  But that wasn't the objective.  The objective was to make them cheap and in larger numbers, allowing them to be accessible to more families.

If I wanted to destroy our county's faith in public schools, one way I would go about it is to convince common people that they are getting ripped off and an inferior product.  I might design assessments that prevented most students from demonstrating that public school teachers actually did a very good job of teaching students to solve problems, communicate effectively, and manage personal resources.  I don't think I would have to provide better schools, as it would be enough to cast doubt on the public ones.  That might include publishing report cards that were sure to project white and affluent suburban schools as superior, while focusing negative attention on schools that receive children of those who make subsistence their day to day focus.  

What I might not have counted on were rural school districts who were desperate to maintain their independence stealing the test and spending much of the teaching to it.  They would see little consequence of reducing the cumulative knowledge of their teachers to the tested skills, as few of their local constituents have had to demonstrate more than they had to learn "on the job" anyway.  You are willing to give up a lot of high aspirations when you have the security of just living down the street from the little house you grew up in.