Raising Small Souls Video

http://www.raisingsmallsouls.com/animalschool/animalschool.swf

Where are our educational dollars going?

            Do you know where your educational dollars are going? Most people assume, and with good reason, that the property taxes and other taxes that contribute to education that we all pay do go to fund public education. Whether you have children of school age or no children at all, the allocation and spending of our hard-earned money on education should be a concern to us all. In the U.S. we believe in a free public education for every child, as that is what is most likely to help students grow up and become productive, tax-paying citizens like the rest of us. If we do not teach children well, they can and often do become a burden on society. It is much cheaper to educate children well and get them a high school diploma than it is to have them in and out of correctional institutions all their lives.

            No Child Left Behind has forced us to spend our education dollars on testing services that give us a one-day, one-shot look at what students know on a multiple-choice exam. These testing companies, such as NCS Pearson, Inc. are private companies taking money out of the general education fund for this one day test. Did you know that the new STAAR test that will replace TAKS cost nearly $1 billion just to develop?! On top of that, NCS Pearson charges Texas schools nearly $95 million per year (up from $9.5 million per year in 2005) just to administer and grade the standardized tests, which unavoidably contain some flaws in their construction and wording. This causes us to wonder if the tests actually measure what they are supposed to measure. How much of a difference would it make if we were to spend that money on resources, teachers, and buildings for our public schools?

            With the progressively higher passing rates on the standardized tests every year (which are unattainable and unrealistic goals), schools that provide services in their communities are being labeled as failures and this is being used to rationalize the closing of schools. What are these neighborhoods going to do? Most Americans cannot afford to send their children to private schools, so closing the neighborhood school does little to help most of us.

            NCLB is resulting in the privatization of public education in more ways as well. This includes money being spent on test-prep programs that do not teach the students any of the content knowledge but instead how to answer specific types of questions, boring materials to help students prepare for the test, as well as Supplemental Educational Services required by NCLB. All of these programs and projects take money directly out of our education fund and puts it directly in the hands of private, for-profit businesses.

            Where have we gone when we are willing to spend millions, indeed billions, of dollars on a one-day, one-shot test but we cannot agree to educate all of our children equally? These private companies are sucking money out of our already meager and underfunded education funds and they do not make education any better. The standardized testing reform movement, like many educational reforms, has not delivered as promised. We, as a society, owe it to our children to take a step back and see if our children are benefitting from the privatization of education. If not, as concerned citizens, we should start a discussion as to what the next steps towards improving the education system in our local communities and states should be, including all shareholders. No one group or body should make all the decisions that affect us all.

The Blueberry Story by Jamie Vollmer

The Blueberry Story
A business leader learns his lesson.
by Jamie Robert Vollmer
Special Note: The author of this story was gracious enough to give us permission to reprint his story and added this comment. "I have received many kind words for telling the Blueberry story, but the real credit goes to the teacher. I took some license with her comments for publication, but she was eloquent and passionate; she did an amazing job of both crystallizing the message and waking me up. My teenagers would have called me a "slug" had I not been changed by her words."

'If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't be in business very long!"

I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in- service training. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the middle-1980s when People Magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the "Best Ice Cream in America."

I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the Industrial Age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge society." Second, educators were a major part of the problem: They resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! Total Quality Management! Continuous improvement!

A school is not an ice cream company: It can't send back its inferior blueberries.


In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced—equal parts ignorance and arrogance.

As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.


She began quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream."

I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, ma'am."

"How nice," she said. "Is it rich and smooth?"

"Sixteen percent butterfat," I crowed.

"Premium ingredients?" she inquired.

"Super-premium! Nothing but triple-A." I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.

"Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?"

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap. I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie.

"I send them back."

"That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all. Every one. And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a business. It's school."

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!"

Schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.

And so began my long transformation.

Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.

None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a postindustrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.

Jamie Robert Vollmer, a former business executive and attorney, is now a keynote presenter and consultant who works to increase community support for public schools. He lives in Fairfield, Iowa, and can be reached by e-mail at jamie@jamievollmer.com.

Testing is flawed

High-stakes testing is a flawed idea. Students must work year-round to study for just one test that determines high stakes decisions, putting an extreme amount of pressure on all students. These tests influence such decisions as the hiring and firing of teachers and administrators, the closing of schools, and the livelihoods of teachers and administrators. They are touted as a way to make our education system “measure up” and to become the best in the world, but just testing more is no way to improve education.

Testing does have a place in education, among a variety of assessment options, as one indicator of student achievement. How we go about assessing student learning in an intelligent, valid, and reliable way is open for debate, but it is difficult to argue with the fact that high-stakes testing is not telling us what we want to know about education. It is completely ludicrous to grade individual teachers, administrators, schools, and even whole districts on the performance of students as young as 8 years old once per year!

There are very few things in life that are based on a single item. Some may argue that a job interview is one, but that is incorrect. If the determination of whether you got the job depended just on one piece of documentation, such as your resume alone, then it would be comparable. Instead, with a job interview, we look at transcripts, resume, letters of recommendation or references, as well as portfolios of work and often an in-person interview. Using one of these documents alone would not be sufficient or satisfactory, so we should not do the same thing with education.

The pressure high-stakes tests put on young students is driving them away from education. Horror stories abound of students getting sick on test day, missing school, and students crying the day of the test. What are our students learning when we do this to them? How transferable is this skill (if you can call it a skill)? Even if teachers and administrators work diligently to ensure that the students do not feel pressured, they do not succeed. Young people are incredibly adept at judging a situation and feeding off the vibes in the room, and no matter how hard they try, our teachers and administrators are unable to completely conceal their stress.

            There has been an outcry in recent years that we need accountability in education, but, ironically, there is nobody that is able to hold the testing companies accountable for producing valid and reliable instruments. The testing companies keep their tests behind a veil and do not allow anyone to verify that the actual test questions are appropriately worded, written at grade level, that possible responses fit the question, or that there is only one correct answer. When test questions have been released, there have been a myriad of these exact problems found with them. So what are we actually able to ascertain about student learning from standardized testing? Not much at all. What is the damage we are doing to our students? It is yet to be seen but will no doubt be egregious.

Flawed Education Expectations

            Even with more money being put into education nearly every year, there are other factors to consider when determining if education is being successful. Expecting massive growth rates every year in knowledge from our students is both unfair and unrealistic. Yes, we have increased the amount of spending on public education nearly every single year, and yes, sometimes we show no growth in knowledge on standardized tests (which is not a fair indicator). But we tend to forget that every year the population of the United States grows by 3 million people each year and that prices for all items rise every year, making each educational dollar go a shorter distance.

            Every single year more students are entering our nation’s public school system. To expect teachers, administrators, and school boards to not only educate more students every year, but to show gains in subject areas on flawed indicators such as standardized tests, is ludicrous and unfair. The vast majority of individuals in education are not in it for the money—let’s face it, there are literally hundreds of jobs that are more lucrative and less demanding than being a teacher. Instead, these people care about our students and want to teach them to be the best they can be.

            It is not realistic for businesses to grow in profitability and show gains like we expect in education. Of course, we have seen it in numerous examples, which includes ENRON, WorldCom, AIG, and Bear Stearns, businesses in which they had to show more and more growth for their stockholders and ended up costing not just their employees lots of money, but taxpayers as well.

            What we need in education is realistic expectations that are formed by all concerned parties. This includes parents, students, teachers, administrators, staff, and legislators. For any one group to try to tell everyone else what needs to happen and to set up expectations and sanctions based on that one viewpoint is absurd and goes against our democratic origins. While the issues surrounding education are wide-ranging and include more than budgets, the cost of education is a main focal point for much of our population, especially those with simple messages.

            We should expect our schools today to teach our students both knowledge and skills. We should hold each other accountable as well as schools for the education of the nation’s children. We are all a part of this and the education of our children has very real consequences for everyone involved. Let’s come together to have a frank discussion of realistic and attainable expectations after we have asked for background information first for a change.

The Business Model Does Not Fit Education

            My daughters have been overwhelmed with the testing frenzy in schools since they were of testing age. Both of them test extremely well and score high, but the pressure to succeed affects everyone in their school and district. The business model has been touted by many in our current educational climate as the new panacea. It will answer the questions we need answered, provide a framework for improving education, and enable us to compare schools to each other with standardized testing. The business model does not fit in education and has been inappropriately applied. The differences are 1) the raw materials, or students are different than in business, 2) businesses do not check for quality on just one day of the year and base all their decisions on that one test, and 3) businesses do not check every single item for quality control, instead taking a sample.

            Students are in no way like the raw materials used in business and manufacturing. In business, the raw materials are standardized when the deal is made with the supplier, which is impossible and unethical in education. Children in the United States come from numerous different backgrounds, home situations, material possessions, and values because of our freedom—something we are proud of in the United States and hold dear. There is no way to ensure that each child comes to school with the exact same experiences and preparedness as the next.

            The high-stakes tests students take in the United States are taken on one day and are just a snapshot of what students know. There is no way a business would not check throughout the production process to see if the product is coming out as planned. Besides belittling our students by considering them products, that is exactly what we do with standardized tests—take student performance one day of the year as an indicator of the quality and quantity of their education throughout the year. If this was the case no business could survive.

            Finally, it is impossible and unnecessary for businesses to quality control every single product—instead, they take a sample of the products produced to check for quality control in a variety of ways instead of just one test. This gives them a snapshot on performance and specifications that is both generalizable and much more economical than testing each item. Again, considering students products is insulting, but that is what the business model does. Testing every single student on one single indicator, a high-stakes standardized test, does not tell us whether students are learning or teachers are teaching.

            We need to reconsider the measures we use to determine if our education system is working. Students are free, thinking, independent individuals—like we all are in the United States. We need to consider the aspect of who we are educating when determining what type of model to use in education. That is the beauty of living in a democracy—we are all able to voice our opinions, and if a model does not work, we should change it. The business model does not fit education and we should change it.