Thread by @webdevMason

*inhales* 🚀 Okay! Here is a THREAD on accountability on education.

https://twitter.com/mrgunn/status/1122947893084573696

In a very real sense, we’re already drowning in “accountability” — the past 20 years of education reform have been about defining tightly-specified standards and introducing new carrots + sticks for states, districts, & schools.

As Daniel Koretz notes in his book Measuring Up: “while we have far more data than we had twenty or thirty years ago, we have fewer sources of data that we can trust.” With all the carrots and sticks came shortcuts, “inappropriate” test prep, and rampant cheating.

But did we see gains on our standardized measures? Some states did. On their own state tests, at least. But these were generally not reflected on national measures, and analysts tend to reach the following conclusion, presented in interpretive emoji: 😬🤨😕🙁☹️😑

Koretz’ book was published in 2008, so about a decade of data is absent. But he does a superb job of summing up the results of reforms up to that point: basically, reading scores remained essentially stagnant. Early math scores jumped, but gains largely disappeared by high school

The NAEP (our major national measure) showed no significant change in reading scores 1973-2004. Math scores for young kids showed impressive improvements, but they slowed by middle school, and by age 17 the improvement was too small to be statistically significant.

SAT verbal scores declined significantly 1972-1980 and had showed no real signs of recovery by the time Koretz published. SAT math scores appeared to slowly but steadily improve through 2005.

What about the last decade? On the NAEP, young kids appear to be improving... and those gains seem to be just about completely lost by high school graduation. Before the SAT’s major revision in 2016, reading scores had plummeted to an all-time low & math scores were backsliding.

On the PISA, the main standardized OECD global measure, American kids sometimes do a little better, sometimes do a little worse, but have remained consistently “meh” relative to everybody else.

Meanwhile, as education researcher & documentarian Vicki Abeles writes in her book, Beyond Measure: kids now spend more time studying & less time outdoors. From the early 1980s to 2003, mean homework load grew by 50%. 40% of districts nationwide cut time for non-tested subjects.

Former Stanford Dean of Admissions Julie Lythcott-Haims writes that 11% of American kids are now diagnosed with ADHD, a diagnosis that entitles them to testing accommodations. A little over half of those are on medication. 1 in 8 teens admits to having abused Adderall or Ritalin.

And a *ton* of researchers and writers are noting strong and disturbing trends in children’s sleep quality, rates of severe mental illness, and suicide rates. We can’t pin these definitively on schools or testing culture, but we *can* say that The Kids Are Not Alright.

Arne Duncan, Obama’s Secretary of Education — who oversaw a flurry of dismally-performing reforms — wrote an entire book defending the test culture he helped create, then pinned the blame on teachers trained on “educational theory” rather than “crucial skills” training.

Hmm.

(Forgive me a tangent: one of Duncan’s recs is that all 4-year-olds be put in preschool, bc vast numbers of 5-year-olds are “1-2 years behind” & often “these children never catch up.” The data do not support this, and the very idea of academically remedial 4-year-olds is insane.)

Are the teachers to blame? In their book Most Likely to Succeed, Tony Wagner & Ted Dintersmith quote a Gallup director: “teachers are dead last among all professions… in saying their ‘opinions count’ at work and their ‘supervisors create an open and trusting environment.’”

Are teachers poorly educated — “an industry of mediocrity” — as Duncan suggests? Frankly, I have a hard time arguing with that; everyone else seems to be.

But this theme repeats itself across my readings: teachers feel disempowered re: curricula & pressured to produce test-takers. Duncan, for his part, shifts the focus to teacher pay. But as it turns out, *teachers are willing to take a large pay cut* to get out of public schools.

(It is time for a kitten break)

TLDR; policy-makers blame teachers & funding, teachers blame top-down policy & are willing to slash their incomes to work in private schools, the US is second only to Luxembourg in $/student spent, and the kids are sick, tired, & overmedicated. And they still suck at tests.

And... all of this is probably sort of moot. As Dintersmith & Wagner explain, “in today’s world, if you can’t invent (and reinvent) your own job and distinctive competencies, you risk chronic underemployment.” The test prep generation is wholly unprepared for this.

College isn’t fixing it. Dintersmith & Wagner, on a recent Gallup poll: “96 percent of provosts — the senior academic officer for a college — believe their institution is effective at preparing students for careers, while just 11 percent of business leaders agree.”

Annmarie Neal, former chief talent officer at Cisco: “[Students] are achievement driven, rule-oriented, compliant, linear, singular in focus. [The workforce requires leaders] to be relationship or collaboration driven, rule-defining, creative & innovative, lateral & polymathic."

Similar arguments are made by Abeles and Lythcott-Haims, and these are broadly reflected in the bulk of recent popular literature by education researchers and business leaders when they talk about employment for the next generation. Creativity and cognitive flexibility are king.

I'm going to approach this from another angle and describe what I want for *my* kids...

I know an amazing couple in LA. They have extremely successful careers in the music industry: one plays in a popular rock band, the other is a highly accomplished violinist. They’ve helped write & consulted on a number of hits, scored films, worked with headliners across genres.

One of them had a terrible time in school. Frequently flunked out of classes, wrote angsty teen notes about how loathsome the whole thing was. Focused on playing in the band they formed as a teenager, which eventually took off & generated several Billboard Hot 100 hits.

The other excelled academically, but also followed a passion for music. Played & taught children to earn a living, rented a near-uninhabitable flat in a *barn* to save money, used the savings to buy property young. Became a Grammy-nominated, world-class performer.

When I met them, they were trying for children. I said I was really looking forward to being a mom one day. At one point, one of them suggested I get some fertility testing done, just to be safe. I took that advice, and… the results weren’t good. At all.

I’d only met them the one time, but I let them know that things hadn’t turned out the way I’d hoped. These people — **who had met me ONCE** — offered to host me in their home and help me through the process if I decided to pursue fertility preservation options.

So I did. I stayed in their guest bedroom, reeling hormonally. The protocol required 2-4 self-administered injections per day, and I was terrified of needles. So they gave me my shots — all of them. They brought me along to jam sessions & dinners so I wouldn’t miss my timed doses

They’ve started two separate entrepreneurial endeavors in entertainment tech and biotech, both of which are early-stage but garnering considerable interest in their niches. And they have two little girls now, who they absolutely dote on. ❤️

They have help, but they’ve still restructured their careers and projects around being present parents. They love them *so much.* They want to respect and foster whatever interests and talents they might manifest. They’re thrilled with their burgeoning personalities & differences

A few weeks ago, I visited them to get some much needed baby-time. As I was heading out, I mentioned that I was feeling less stressed about finding a way to have a family. I just have a sense that it’s going to work out, if I keep following this crazy thing I love. And she said:

“If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need somewhere to stay — and you have your baby, and you need a place for both of you — we’ll always have a place for you here. For however long. I just want you to know that.”

(I totally teared up writing this. What did I do to have people like this in my life?)

I throw this onto a thread about accountability in education because I think we have profoundly fucked up in the way we think about this. The goal should be to create people like these. Smart, curious, passionate, loving, generous, how-can-I-possibly-deserve-you human beings

Is that what we’re doing? Does anyone think that’s what we’re doing?

How do we do that? *Can* we do that?

I mean, I don’t know, but I just can’t imagine any time spent trying to answer those questions is wasted time

Right?

/end