Noam Chomsky, Bruno della Chiesa, and Howard Gardner

harvard

Education Roundtable is proud to present a conversation with Noam Chomsky and Bruno della Chiesa, moderated by Howard Gardner. This conversation is a 4 part series that discusses the impact of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Courtesy of Harvard Graduate School of Education (www.gse.harvard.edu)

When to watch:
7pm, every Wednesday
June 19 – July 10, 2013

Since the first show in April 2012, Education Roundtable has tried to uncover truths of the achievement gap. The show started with local education pundits sharing their knowledge and experiences with students that fall under specific No Child Left Behind subgroups. As educators shared the academic challenges of low performing groups, the nation had already started moving to a new curriculum, the Common Core. While curriculum is part of the solution for a better educated nation, the gentlemen in this conversation clearly express with broad strokes the harder and more pressing issues of social inequity. This conversation, Subversive Education shows where education reform and social reform meet by discussing Paulo Freire’s book Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Please submit an essay on your thoughts on this discussion to info@educationroundtable.org for an opportunity to be on Education Roundtable via Skype. The topic of the essay should answer the following question: If you were in a position to effect change in education, what would you change in education, how would you change it, and why would you change it?

•no minimum or maximum words
•essays need to be reflections on the discussion with Noam Chomsky, Bruno della Chiesa and Howard Gardner
•due July 31, 2013
•criteria for selection to be on Education Roundtable is based upon vote on panel of 3 individuals (TV producer, educator, parent)

Please include:
Name
Age (for those who wish to disclose)
Profession
Email
Country
Province or State
City or Town

The Psychological Side of Teaching

At one point, cobblestones paved Princeton, New Jersey’s Nassau Street, the main drag through the small town. Even as a primary grade student entering the town for the first time, I remember my father’s Buick rattling along a road made for horses not cars. The Princeton of that era had dark streets sparsely lined with street lights but fully lined with moms-and-pops, like Country Mouse and Julia’s Jewelry. Walking around the quiet little town, I would always pass by Hulit’s, a shoe store. Today, Hulit’s is still there, but the town is brightly lit at night, and it’s rather noisy. The store has not changed much, not the family who owns it, or even the shop itself.

One of the salesman chatted with me about the store and the industry. While I risk sounding like a financial advisor who looks at hemlines to predict the year’s stock market, I think reviewing the innovations and development of children’s shoes yields a high level understanding of how the U.S. concept of child development evolved. Until the middle of the 1800s, all shoes, grownup and children’s footwear, did not distinguish left and right. Most toddlers did not wear shoes, because shoes were expensive and the time consuming manual craft of shoemaking yielded very few pairs. Interestingly, there is speculation that the shoemakers who painstakingly made shoes for the affluent knew their products were not good for children, so they purposefully had their own children go barefoot for as long as possible or sew inexpensive cloth versions for their little ones.

In the 1980s, Hulit’s carried a brand called Markell, which was a complete departure from Hulit’s traditional inventory. Children showed up with prescriptions for orthopedic shoes that would actually shape young feet with structures inside the shoe. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hulit’s would process the orders as prescriptions partially paid for by insurance companies, and the manufacturer, Markell, would make shoes according to doctors’ scripts.

Previous to Markell, Hulits carried brands like the well marketed Stride Rite, Mrs. Day’s Baby Shoes, a soft and supple shoe with the motto “The shoe of the baby determines the foot of the adult,” and Elefanten. Elefanten’s moto was “Protecting without propping”. Now they carry brands like Umi, that are also flexible.

What happened in the 1980’s? There is no way to understand what was happening in the greater social context that could have contributed to Markell’s market success. However, there was a book that was written in the 1970s that could have contributed to how U.S. citizens in the 1980s viewed children overall. A book that had such impact, its content wound up in the country’s cultural ethos. A Harvard University psychologist named B.F. Skinner, who studied conditioning, published writings that supported designing children.

over a century ago some social scientists began to favor the prospect of designing children (Pavlov 1927; Skinner 1938). As the metaphor implies, the internal dynamics and growth processes themselves are taken as an object of manipulation. This is working on the life being shaped, as opposed to working with it. The life is made to fit ends specified by the designer, as opposed to being shaped toward ends that fit it.

In 1971, Skinner published a book entitled Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Skinner believed in creating a happier and more organized society by engineering human behavior. The book refutes the ideas of free will and individual moral autonomy, because he believed those ideas prevent the scientific process of changing behavior. He supported engineering society and culture, and he justified social Darwinism. He supported a superior culture dominating a lesser one.

Noam Chomsky, the famous linguist and advocate for humanity, refuted Skinner. Chomsky wrote this about Skinner’s book.

Skinner is saying nothing about freedom and dignity, though he uses the words “freedom” and “dignity” in several odd and idiosyncratic senses. His speculations are devoid of scientific content and do not even hint at general outlines of a possible science of human behavior. Furthermore, Skinner imposes certain arbitrary limitations on scientific research which virtually guarantee continued failure. As to its social implications, Skinner’s science of human behavior, being quite vacuous, is as congenial to the libertarian as to the fascist.

Skinner’s experiments on conditioning integrate into education. His work showed that children would continue to do things if they were given positive feedback, like getting an A or praise. If a child were given negative feedback, like getting a D or reprimand, the child would stop doing the task. Memorization, formally called Rote Learning, is another form of conditioning, like memorizing multiplication tables.

The idea of positive feedback, or what Skinner called “positive reinforcement”, sounds like a pretty nice thing to do, doesn’t it? Studies show that praise can backfire. There is evidence that employees who are given extrinsic motivation were more likely to be late for work. Recently, researchers have found positive reinforncement, also called extrinsic motivators, actually suppresses creativity.

Teresa Amabile, a Director of Research at Harvard Business School, asked people to write two poems. For one poem, some people were given a questionnaire in which they were asked to rank the importance of some reasons for writing. This group was considered to be the intrinsic motivation group (another way to say self-motivated). For the other poem, people did not get a questionnaire with reasons for writing, and they were considered extrinsic motivation group. The researchers judged the creativity of poems, and they found the extrinsic motivation poems to be less creative than the poems with intrinsic motivation.

What are educators suppose to do? Some educators step outside the role of teacher, and allow the students to figure out for themselves what they did right or wrong. Let’s illustrate with 2 stories about Bette and Ethan, both 8 year olds, who completed a word problem correctly in math class.

The question was “There are 13 red bears. There are 3 more red bears than blue bears. How many blue bears are there?”

Ethan solved this problem as a comparison model, a new concept introduced in the Common Core.

He took out 13 red bears and put them in as a column. Then he took out 13 blue bears and put them in a column next to the red bears. Then he took away 3 blue bears.

The teacher sees Ethan is finished. She goes up to him and asks, “What is your answer?”

“10,” Ethan replies.

“How did you get that answer?”

“The question says there are 13 red bears. So I put down 13 red bears.” Ethan points to the column of red bears. “This is a comparison question, so I then put down blue bears. I don’t know how many there are, but I know there are MORE red than blue.”

“So what did you do then?” the teacher asked.

“I put down 13 blue bears,” Ethan said.

“Why did you do that?” the teacher prompted for more information.

“Well…the question says that there are 13 red bears, so I used 13 to start with.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Then I took away 3 blue bears,” Ethan replied

“Why?”

Ethan answered, “The problem says that there are 3 more red bears than blue bears, so that’s just another way of saying there are 3 less blue bears than red bears.”

The teacher said to the student, “Ethan, you explained every step and proved that you have the right answer. You showed that you understand the math.”

The teacher told Bette, “Can you please figure out this problem.”

Bette was not taught the comparison method in the Common Core. She said, “That’s easy, it’s 10.”

“How did you figure out that problem so quickly?”

Bette took out a pencil and wrote on her paper, 13-3 = 10.

“How did you know that the problem is 13 minus 3?”

“Three more red bears is just another way of saying 3 less blue bears.” Betty shrugged.

The teacher said, “You explained your answer very well.”

I have met many teachers who empower students to explore and self-critique. They remove their own authority and give it to the child. They wait for the child to develop and guide them through the process of learning. This dialogue is a fictional conversation based upon actual dialogues I had heard between different teachers and students that caused mixed feelings. While I respect how the teacher give children the ability to explore their own answers, I wished there were more emotional feedback for the child. I wished the teacher could have given the child a more emotional response. Perhaps, it is the behaviorist in me who wanted to give Bette and Ethan a high five.

The Common Core – Stay Calm and Carry On

 

While not everyone is completely enthusiastic about the Common Core’s math standards, most would probably agree that the Common Core’s standards is a move in the right direction. There are two summative assessments that have shaped the Common Core standards. There is much politics around summative assessments, and this blog will not venture into that arena, because there isn’t enough data storage in cyberspace to cover that argument.

So let’s go with the simple stuff, what summative tests are. Summative tests gauge how much a student retained after a certain period of time, like final exams. There are two famous international summative assessments. The first one is known as Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and it is administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operative Development (OECD). The second one is Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS). Some education pundits liken the situation of the United States participating in both tests as a man wearing two watches. However, some see great value in taking both assessments, because TIMMS focuses on what a child was taught and has retained, and PISA focuses on how well a child can problem solve. ( You can go to Edinformatics and take some sample TIMMS tests and see PISA questions.) Also, the two tests are geared for different ages, so it gives more data on how U.S. children at different grade levels are doing compared to the rest of the world.

For fourth graders taking the TIMMS in 2011, the average score amongst 60 countries was 500 points. The highest scoring country was Singapore with 606 points. The United States ranked #11 with 541 points. For eighth graders, the Republic of Korea had the highest score of 613 points. The United States was #9 with 509 points.  This sounds like pretty good news.

As for the not so great news, in 2009, PISA showed a different perspective for 15 year olds taking the worldwide assessment. China: Shanghai  was the top ranking country with 600 points. The United States was #31 with 487 points.  The Common Core reviewed the educational requirements of the top scoring nations and developed a curriculum that would address the issues that prevent the United States from being a top performer in the assessments. The educational shift is a drastic one, some describe it as a national experiment that is “…rotten to the core. The corruption of math education is just the beginning.”

Other pundits, like former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, do not support it, partially because the newly formulated curriculum turn the nation into educational lab rats and because the standards were written without community engagement.

Such standards, I believe, should be voluntary, not imposed by the federal government; before implemented widely, they should be thoroughly tested to see how they work in real classrooms…I have come to the conclusion that the Common Core standards effort is fundamentally flawed by the process with which they have been foisted upon the nation… We are a nation of guinea pigs, almost all trying an unknown new program at the same time.

Ravitch, in the same blog, also stated that she is convinced that the Common Core standards will be ubiquitous in the United States.

Now that David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core standards, has become president of the College Board, we can expect that the SAT will be aligned to the standards. No one will escape their reach, whether they attend public or private school. Is there not something unseemly about placing the fate and the future of American education in the hands of one man?

Parents are worried about all the shifts in math curriculum that will take place. Traditionally, students may or may not have received any conceptual understanding before diving in to get the right answer.  They learned the technique of addition by carrying. Everyone born before 1980 knows what that looks like.

carrying

Currently, most New Jersey first and second graders learn the concept of addition with manipulatives, physical objects to teach concepts and techniques. For many New Jersey schools, manipulatives for addition and subtraction are base ten blocks. These are physical individual cubes, rectangles with ten cubes and large flat shapes composed of 100 cubes. For first graders, the individual cubes denote ones, the rectangles with ten connected cubes denote tens, and the flat large square with 100 individual cubes denote 100s. Then there’s a large block that represents 1,000 individual cubes.

Annenberg Learner

Teachers call the individual cubes littles, the ten cubes longs, and the 100 cubes flats. Some might use other names, but you get the picture. For the same problem above, this is how a student would conceptually learn how to solve the problem with base ten blocks.

basetenmanipulatives

Children select 3 longs and 9 littles for 39. Then they select 9 longs and 7 littles for 97. They figure there is a total of 16 littles and 12 longs. They swap out 10 littles for one long, and they see that there are now 13 longs and 6 littles. Then they swap out 10 longs for one flat. There is 1 flat, 3 longs and 6 littles. That means the sum is 136.

Children currently use manipulatives with spiral curriculums, like Everyday Math. Many parents and teachers are not satisfied with Everyday Math because of various reasons. Some educators do not care for Everyday Math, because it teaches concepts that young children are not developmentally ready to receive. As an example, the concept of division is introduced in the second grade. Other educators also do not care for Everyday Math, because it does not go deep enough into a topic before moving onto a new one. Everyday Math did not provide enough problem solving opportunities.

Education leaders looked to top performing math countries to get a better understanding of what they teach. One place the United States looked was Singapore. The Singapore Ministry of Education published is syllabus for primary graders, and it focuses on problem solving.

singaporemathdiagram

The problems were very in depth, and young math learners, who can successfully solve more complex problems and explain the solution, demonstrate mastery.  A student can advance to the next topic after mastering the current one. According to Singapore Math Source, Singapore’s math curriculum requires second or third graders (depending on how the child’s development goes) to solve problems similar to

  1. John has 34 baseball cards and football cards in all. He has 18 baseball cards. How many football cards does he have?
  2. John has 18 baseball cards. He has 3 times as many baseball cards as Paul does. How many baseball cards does Paul have?

What does this all mean to parents? It’s very simple, if your child was on a spiral curriculum, like Everyday Math, your child was moving very fast to cover different topics. In some school districts in New Jersey, teachers have been engaged in what is vernacularly called “unspiraling.” Teachers have been asked to not go onto topics that are not part of the grade prescribed by the Common Core. By academic year 2014-2015, the transition of spiral curriculums to Common Core should be fully in place, and the child’s knowledge and mastery of grade appropriate math topics are aligned with the Common Core standards. Also, teachers have been asked to give more supplemental material for problem solving. So, if you’re worried about whether or not your child will transition into the Common Core, ask your child’s principal or teacher what they’re doing to prepare for academic year 2014-2015. As for whether or not you think the Common Core is a good idea…well, there is enough data storage on cyberspace for your own blog.

Is Parent Choice a Sign of Educational Consumerism?

Funding education has become a debate of reformers and traditionalists. The two poles of argument stand on parent choice in education and public education where all children of all backgrounds come together.

On the side of parent choice, Article 26 section 3 of the United Nations’ The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”

On the other extreme, education historian and advocate Diane Ravitch wrote

Douglas County, Colorado, where choice fanatics run the district. They want students and families to choose schools the way you choose a color for your car or a brand of cereal. In other words, they don’t believe in public education. They don’t believe in the democratic ideal of common schooling, where children from many backgrounds learn together. They believe in consumerism.

In this frictional environment of the education world, how education is funded becomes a much heated topic. In complete support of parental rights to choose the type of school a child goes to, reformers advocate vouchers. Part if not all of their school taxes are returned to them so that they can send their children to a private school of their choice.

Opponents of vouchers, such as the Education Law Center of New Jersey, found that “Voucher programs are often targeted to parents in low-income communities as an alternative to public education.” They oppose vouchers because “…the New Jersey Legislature that would divert tax dollars to private schools, especially at a time when the State is having difficulty providing adequate funding for public schools.”

For middle school students looking forward to high school and their parents, the arguments at the context of a national debate mean very little. What children look for is an environment that they can see as a place where they can grow as students, a place to belong. Parents look at dollars and cents, and they also consider what kind of future a high school can give them.

Children ask, “Do I think I will like it here? Will I be successful?”

Parents ask, “Will my child be educated in a way I think is good for him? How much will it cost? Will he get every opportunity to make it to a good college? Will he be employed?”

Some families have turned to a county-wide public school system, and their costs are paid for by state, county, home town district and federal funding. The child’s home town school district is obligated to provide transportation to the county-wide school. As an example, a child living in Cranbury, New Jersey, who can pass the admissions standards, can attend the Middlesex County of Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies, which is located in Edison, New Jersey. He would go to school for free and get there on a public school bus.

Mr. Paul Munoz, Assistant Superintendent of Middlesex County Vocational and Technical Schools, and Dr. Linda Russo, principal of Middlesex County of Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies share their school system with us. The Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies is a 2013 U.S. News and World Report Gold Medal high school that ranks #146 in the nation and #6 in New Jersey.

Data Shows U.S. Job Market Does Not Demand for Skilled Migrant Workers

“At the current pace of job growth, the U.S. economy wouldn’t reach full employment until 2021.”

Data searchers on the Internet, overwhelmed by the numbers found on the web, could literally either swim in a sea of numerals or drown in it. The site that offers the most visual stimulus for data addicts may be the Census Bureau’s population clock, where number hunters can see in real time how the United States population grows as compared to the world population. According to the United States Census Bureau, on July 1, 2007, the United States population was 301.23 million. On July 1, 2011, it was 311.59 million. In 2007, when the housing market started to decline from its peak in early 2006, the Center of Disease Control (CDC) estimated there were on total 2,423,712 deaths and 4,317,119 births, a net gain of 1,893,497 people. In 2011, when the economy was in the midst of the Great Recession there were 2,468,435 deaths and 3,953,593 births, a net gain of 1,485,158 people.

Some would show that between 2007 and 2011 there was 8.4% drop in birth rate. However, others would focus on the fact that between 2007 and 2011 the United States population grew 3.4%. Everyone can see that while the U.S. population increases, the job market is taking a very slow healing. “‘At the current pace of job growth, the U.S. economy wouldn’t reach full employment until 2021,’ according to Adam Hersh, an economist at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Around the world, political and education leaders analyze these numbers to gain a better understanding of what will become of the world and how education should change to accommodate for not just what happens in the United States but the global workplace. On March 26, 2013, the BBC published an article called “Global migrants: Which are the most wanted professions? “, which has an interactive guide that shows different countries’ demand for skilled immigrant or migrant workers. They used various sources offered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and official government shortage lists available on official immigration websites. Australia’s labor force needs nurses, mechanical engineers, doctors, electrical engineers, IT developers and programmers, IT engineers and analysts, civil engineers,, accountants, dentists, pharmacists, industrial and production engineers, electronics engineers, chemical engineers, mining and petroleum engineers, physiotherapists, psychologists, radiographers, audiologists and speech therapists. According the article, the only two professions in demand in the United States are nurses and physiotherapists.

While the United States does not have any demand for doctors coming from outside the country, internally, there is demand. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook of the United States Department of Labor, the need for physicians and surgeons will grow.

Employment of physicians and surgeons is expected to grow by 24 percent from 2010 to 2020, faster than the average for all occupations. Job prospects should be good for physicians willing to practice in rural and low-income areas, because these areas typically have difficulty attracting doctors.

Here in New Jersey, many educators have caught onto this. In Middlesex County, the Academy of Allied Health and Biomedical Sciences cater to students who have already decided to enter the medical field. Most have chosen to become doctors. Mr. Alex Guzman, principal of the academy and Sasha Lavinsky share their school with us.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting Bilingual Children

On May 13, 2013, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill released a report on dual language learners, Dual Language Learners: Research Informing Policy. The university has a special project, Center for Early Care and Education Research- Dual Language Learners (CECER-DLL), funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation which is a part of the United States Office of Administration for Children and Families. It focuses on dual language learners age birth to 5, their families, learning environments in early care and education center-based programs, home-based child care providers, and Head Start and Early Head Start Programs.

Even before the release of the report, some states, like Massachusetts, have dedicated policies towards young dual language learners. However, many school districts across the United States still utilize standardized questions that are geared for monolingual children when addressing dual language learning needs. Educators, concerned with the possibility that a dual language learner child might need federal IDEA educational supports, use questions that date to the 1970s to find out if a child requires special services. One form provided by a public school district asks parents to check Yes or No to “Speech is not clear enough to be understood”. According to the report, for dual language learners under the age of 5, that is very likely the case, because the sounds of two or more language systems influence speech.

With regard to phonological abilities, as infants DLLs’ are behind monolinguals, but then make significant progress during the preschool years, and eventually, reach the same skill level as their monolingual English speaking peers during the early grades.

Another question the form asks is “What language is generally spoken at home?” While the spoken language may be one thing, the child’s exposure to media may show a completely different picture. The popular website, pbskids.com, has video games like Pinata Party featuring Curious George and The Man with the Yellow Hat. Apparently, El Hombre del Sombrero Amarillo is now bilingual. Because of resource issues, financial and available personnel, some public schools will assess dual language learners in English only. This is where things break down dramatically for preschoolers, because, according to the report, their English vocabulary cannot be comparable to that of monolingual English speakers.

Also, while DLLs’ vocabularies in their individual languages are smaller than monolinguals’ when conceptual vocabularies in both languages are combined, DLLs’ vocabularies are often equal to that of monolinguals.

CECER-DLL released a report in June 2012 that explains in more detail how to properly assess a dual language leaner, Examining the use of Language and Literacy Assessments with Young Dual Language Learners. They recommended assessments in both languages spoken at home, and they test on whether or not a child can understand what is said to them (receptive vocabulary). Expressive vocabulary (what a child says) is also assessed, but it is very likely that a young dual language learner is in what is termed the Silent Period, a duration when there is no talking.

…dual-language approach in which DLLs were assessed in both languages for at least one area of language or literacy development, irrespective of language proficiency or dominance. The most frequent area of development assessed in both the home language and in English was receptive vocabulary.

They also utilized input from parents to allow the assessors to get a better understanding of which language to focus on.

Studies used parent and teacher/caregiver report of children’s language in various ways, including as background information on language exposure, as an initial step, or as sole criterion in determining language of assessment.

They endorsed assessments that scored on how well a child has a concept not vocabulary. These assessments come in a few forms. One type, the assessors present flashcards with different pictures and use a specific word in either of the two language to ask a child to identify a picture from the group of pictures. Some other language neutral tests introduce new vocabulary in either language while presenting a picture that depicts the new word. Then the assessor asks the child to either repeat it or be able to identify the new word amongst a set of flashcards.

In measuring children’s knowledge of concepts rather than vocabulary in a particular language, conceptual scoring would usually present a more valid assessment of children’s knowledge.

Educators who do not believe that dual language learners develop language skills differently from monolingual children will find the most recent release from University of North Carolina to be an eye opener.

Dr. Alejandro Brice, 2012-2014 Chair, ASHA Multicultural Issues Board, Dr. Mahchid Namazi, Assistant Professor at Kean University and Patricia Murray, M.A., LDT/C, Advocate and Educational Consultant Educational Resources for Success, LLC , share their knowledge of how children become bilingual.

New Jersey’s Standardized Tests, NJASK

It’s that time of year again in New Jersey, no, not Christmas. It’s time for standardized testing of third, fourth and fifth graders, the NJASK. The test covers just 2 subjects for third graders, math and English Language Arts. Fourth and fifth graders have to take a third subject, science. For the past few weeks teachers have been preparing their students for the NJASK by practicing writing prompts, critiquing previous essays, and reviewing math facts. Last week in Princeton, New Jersey, fifth graders took the tests, and younger children had to keep a quiet environment so the fifth graders could concentrate. Gym class did away with highly active sports, and younger children learned yoga for a week. While some loved the less competitive and more stretchy activity, others complained that gym was boring for 5 days. To celebrate the one year anniversary of Education Roundtable, this piece focuses on standardized testing, because the first show was entitled “Assessments”.

The New Jersey Department of Education has no rules about whether or not a student can or cannot opt out of the NJASK. However, not all school districts consider opting out of the NJASK an excused absence.

A spokesman for the state Department of Education said there is no statewide protocol for sitting out the tests. “Although the testing is required of schools, it is a local decision whether a student receives an excused or unexcused absence,” said Justin Barra, the department’s communications director.

In 2013, some New Jersey parents opted out. In a national organization called United Opt Out National, parents in New Jersey sought advice on how to go about opting out. A parent in New Jersey, Joe Schwartz wrote in with his thoughts.

We are opting our daughter out (gr 7).  We were told we would have to keep her home for nine mornings (4 of the test administration and 5 make-ups).  We appealed to the county superintendent and then the state director of assessment, who kicked it back to the district.  We are hoping that the school will make a very token effort to give her the test on the make-up mornings so we can send her to school without the pressure and embarrassment of being pulled out of class and sitting for the test. We are also investigating a legal challenge; this may help encourage the district to settle this with as little contentiousness possible.

Other parents help their children prepare for the test, because they know doing well on them will help their children in their academic career. Last year, some parents spoke up about how they prepare their children for the tests.

Jacquelyn Darby, a Union mom, said her basement is set up like a classroom and her fifth-grade son, and twin eighth-grade daughters, do practice test problems there. Doing well in school is not optional, she said. “It’s a requirement and, even when you go to college, it’s all about your language arts and math skills. It’s gotta be their meat and potatoes,” Darby said. “It’s one of those things we have to do. And if we have to do it, I’m for anything to help my child excel.”

Other New Jersey parents opted out their children from the NJASK by submitting a request to their district’s superintendent. Parents like former Assistant Superintendent Maryann Reilly of Morris School District, which serves Morristown and Morris Township, kept her son at home during the week of testing in 2012.  A main reason for opting out, parents feel the standardized tests do not serve the purpose they were designed to serve.

“He has taken it since third grade, and we just decided this year, it was enough,” Reilly said. “We don’t value the measure, and we don’t get anything useful from it. We’re hoping people will wake up and see it is just not appropriate anymore,” she said.

In order to get a more complete picture of the original purpose of standardized tests, parents need to take a look into the distant past. Standardized tests originated in China some time in the 6th century CE. The imperial families used standardized testing as a means to implement social reform, shaping  social structure based upon merit. The imperial examinations used a merit based system to look for candidates to fill civil service positions at the local level in rural districts to higher positions in metropolitan areas. The first Chinese tests covered music, archery, equestrian abilities, arithmetic, writing, and rituals and ceremonies. Later standardized tests included military strategies, civil law, revenue and taxation, agriculture and geography.

In the 19th century, the British Empire colonized parts of China, and learned of the imperial examinations as a means to level the playing field. British administrator, Thomas Taylor Meadows, wrote to the British government explaining the success of standardized imperial examination.

The long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the operation of a principle, which the policy of every successive dynasty has practically maintained in a greater or less degree, viz. that good government consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only, to the rank and power conferred by the offical posts.

He also warned that if the British government did not employ the same system to seek local leadership in British government posts, then the British Empire would collapse. “England will certainly lose every colony she possesses unless she adopts some system of impartial elevation of colonists to the posts and honours at the disposal of the crown…”

Great Britain adopted standardized testing in the 19th century, and from there it spread to the United States. Much like the original usage in imperial China, standardized tests in the military, Army Alpha and Beta tests, searched for officers in a manner that removed bias between people from different socio-economic backgrounds. One of the psychologists that worked on the military test was Carl Brigham, a faculty member of Princeton University who eventually chaired the College Board commission in the 1920s to create the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). From then on, standardized testing became more prevalent.

Facing problems that stem from a highly de-centralized public education system and deeply concerned with educational inequity faced by the poor in the United States, President Lyndon B. Johnson looked to standardized testing for solutions. He created the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that required standardized testing in public schools. In the 1980’s, the United States, heavily competing with Japan for economic dominance, was losing. As the United States wondered why the nation was losing its economic competitive edge to the Japanese, attention turned to education for an explanation. In April 1983, Nation At Risk published a report written by the National Commission on Excellence in Education , and it addressed the dominance of Japanese automobiles by promoting standardized testing. “Standardized tests of achievement (not to be confused with aptitude tests) should be administered at major transition points from one level of schooling to another and particularly from high school to college or work.

In the 1990s, No Child Left Behind under President George W. Bush further extended the weight of standardized tests, and most recently, officials discovered the high stakes of standardized testing has led to not only teaching to the test but outright cheating. In April 2013, The New York Times found Atlanta, Georgia, doing such.

The widespread cheating and test score manipulation problem,” said Robert Schaeffer, the public education director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, “is one more example of the ways politicians’ fixation on high-stakes testing is damaging education quality and equity.

What started off as well intentioned approach to social reform has lost its luster in the course of time. In addition to the unexpected ethical dilemma posed by standardized tests, test questions have become biased. According to the Parent, Student and Teacher Information Guide issued for the Spring 2013 NJASK, The New Jersey Department of Education states

All test questions are carefully reviewed by trained professionals and educators to ensure that the questions are fair and are not offensive to any group of people. After the test, all questions undergo statistical analysis for any racial, ethnic or gender bias. If a test question has poor statistical results from these analyses, it is eliminated from future tests.

There remains a much greater issue, at least on the literacy section. In the 1960s, prominent educators and researchers like Luise Rosenblat discovered that everyone reads everything a little differently. A sample English Language Arts poem in the 2013 NJASK reads “If my grandma didn’t have me, I don’t know what she would do – She’d have to eat millions of cookies and go by herself to the zoo.” Would a child who has never had the opportunity to be with any grandparent be able to connect with the writing and actually understand it? Not every child has the same family circumstances.

The first Education Roundtable show, which focused on assessments and how they might change, introduced Dr. Samuel Stewart, Mercer and Middlesex County Executive Superintendent, and Princeton Public Schools’ Assistant Superintendent Bonnie Lehat. New assessments created by Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) will come out in the 2014-2015 academic year.