Touchy-Feely
Time Magazine's cover story about Michelle Rhee is lighting up the blogosphere. One particular passage from the story is attracting special attention:
“The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely,” she tells me one afternoon in her office. Then she raises her chin and does what I come to recognize as her standard imitation of people she doesn’t respect.... “People say, ‘Well, you know, test scores don’t take into account creativity and the love of learning,’” she says with a drippy, grating voice, lowering her eyelids halfway. Then she snaps back to herself. “I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t give a crap.’ Don’t get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don’t know how to read, I don’t care how creative you are. You’re not doing your job.”
This quotation clearly unsettles Core Knowledge blogger Robert Pondiscio, who counts himself a supporter of many reforms Rhee champions. He worries that her bare-knuckles manner will backfire, and he objects that good teachers are by definition "touchy-feely."
I share his concern, and I'll add another. Are we so sure champions of standardized test data are NOT touchy-feely? Do current standardized assessment systems really offer reliable, objective measures of student learning? Some researchers question the validity of widely-touted state test-score gains--in New York City, for example.
As Harvard assessment expert Daniel Koretz reminds us, state test results can be anything but straightforward.
Let's face it. Education remains a touchy-feely business, moreso than many of us would like. Business-minded reformers are hardly immune to this problem.
All the more reason to invest more time, energy and resources in much better accountability and assessment systems. That would do all of us--soft-hearted and hard-nosed alike--a world of good.
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December 1, 2008 | Posted At:
December 1, 2008 | Posted At: 11:28 AM | Author: Alexander Russo | Category: Urban Ed
RHEE: "The Thing That Kills Me About Education Is That It's So Touchy-Feely."
It's hard to say anything new about DC's Michelle Rhee, and folks are going to have a field day with the TIME cover picture of Rhee using (on?) a broom (Can She Save Our Schools?).
But there there are in fact some things worth noting in this profile, including several lively anecdotes, the increasing involvement of Randi Weingarten in the DC negotiations, and Rhee's questions about Obama. And there are some great flame-thrower quotes from Rhee, of course:
"The thing that kills me about education is that it's so touchy-feely. People say, 'Well, you know, test scores don't take into account creativity and the love of learning.' I'm like, 'You know what? I don't give a crap.' Don't get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don't know how to read, I don't care how creative you are. You're not doing your job."
http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2008/12/r...
My main concern about this
My main concern about this article is that someone is giving credence to an adult who uses the term, "I don't give a crap." In my classroom, I would give a student, "10 seconds to rephrase that comment." A "flame thrower" is the perfect way to describe this comment.
KLKeene
I agree--the term did make me
I agree--the term did make me cringe a bit, too.
I think that if you have a
I think that if you have a love of learning, and you don't do well on tests, then the tests are probably not designed well. Tests should measure how much and how well a student has learned. If a students loves to learn, naturally, he/she will try to learn, and (if not handicapped) ultimately succeed.
I also find it... well, interesting... that politicians try to dissect and analyze test scores and education, and then legislate based on their conclusions without actually asking the students what we think about how accurate tests are. Sure, many answers will be immature and sarcastic, but there would be some honest ones. The actual students are a huge resource that is currently widely untapped.
And yes, I myself am a student in high school.
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