Critical Thought and Accountability: A 2011 Retrospect

At the annual conference for the National Council for Social Studies, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated that “the need for a useful, fair and rigorous system of accountability remains as urgent today as it ever was” (December 2, 2011). In a July 18^th, 2011 speech, President Barack Obama proclaimed that “A world-class education is the single most important factor in determining not just whether our kids can compete for the best jobs but whether America can out-compete countries around the world” (whitehouse.gov).

Accountability can be used as battering ram when it becomes a means of reward and punishment for all involved in the educational structure of governance. The result is a stagnation of assessment ideology as standardized mandates become the foundation for design. Referencing Free School educator Chris Mercogliano, Miller (2000) states that modern schooling, “is driven by fear – fear that the nation’s economy is not keeping up with competition, fear that children are not learning what we think they should know, fear on the part of the parents that their children will not succeed in school or careers” (p. 133). This sentiment was furthered by a National Research Council panel who perceived a danger to both teaching and learning. “The panel said attaching incentives or punishments (“high stakes”) to test scores pushes teachers to focus on the material that is tested, and leads them to leave out material or entire subjects that are not tested” (Jehlen, July 18, 2011).

Organizations such as the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) posit that when accountability becomes a vehicle for high-stakes assessments, the individual can become lost as a statistic for data. One of AFT’s criteria to insure that accountability is not confined to a single-test mentality states that “high-stakes decisions for students should be reinforced and corroborated by multiple indicators (e.g., teacher judgment, teacher-generated assessments and observations, grades, performance-based tasks, exhibitions/portfolios of student work)” (aft.org). 

The reality is that this reinforcement is influenced by companies such as Pearson Longman that not only publishes what is read, but provides testing materials and centers to over 165 countries throughout the world (pearsonvue.com) controlling what and how assessments manifest. Their allegiance with Educational Testing Service (ETS) includes materials that teach and assess English language skills, align the teaching of knowledge to Common Core Standards, and provide the means to “achieve valid and efficient measurement of abilities using constructed-response items” (ets.org). ETS also collaborates with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) that provides analysis for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often referred to as “the Nation’s Report Card” (ets.org/k12/naep).

Pearsonification

Taking a unique student and quantifying with a common outcome

That has travelled through the Bill and Melinda Gates

Of technological tools

That prepare the American student

To critically think

Within the box of acceptable response

That is scanned

So that a score can cut those

Who do not belong

After 13 years

Dewey or Dewey not remember the Freire way of what education is all about?

References

Characteristics of fair and sound accountability (2011). In aft: A union of professionals.  http://www.aft.org/issues/standards/account/character-acct.cfm

Duncan, A. (2011, December 2). A well-rounded curriculum in the age of accountability:       Remarks at National Council for Social Studies annual conference. 

In Ed.gov: U.S. Department of Education. http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/well-rounded-curriculum-age-accountability

E. Mechaber.  (2011, July 18). Staying Competitive Through Education: The Presidentand American Business Leaders Announce New Commitments (Web logcomment).  http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/07/18/staying-competitive-through-education-president-and-american-business-leaders-announ

Jehlen, A. (2011, July 18). National Research Council gives high-stakes testing an F. In  neatoday: Today's news from the National Education Association.  http://neatoday.org/2011/07/18/national-research-council-gives-high-stakes-testing-an-f/

K-12 education (2011). In ETS: Listening, learning, leading.  http://www.ets.org/k12/naep

Miller, R. (2000). Caring for new life: Essays on holistic education (Vol. 1). Brandon, VT: Foundation for Educational Renewal.

Test Taker Services (2011). In Pearson: Pearson Vue. 

http://www.pearsonvue.com/programs/