Marc Tucker Digs Up New Rationale for Public School "Unbuilding"

Marc Tucker is at it again, with a newly-excavated rationale for blowing up public schools and universities.  

My reaction:

Tucker continues to weave a narrative that entirely ignores the systematic formation in the early 20th Century of a racist and classist education system that reflected the prejudices of social efficiency zealots, who threw open the doors to the new education factories they built for exploitation by succeeding generations of snake oil salesmen with a never-ending supply of fake remedies for manufactured problems.

The learning "crisis" of American schools in the 1970s grew from an unacknowledged fear of racial integration and social progress. The rise of testing accountability, which was based on the same racist testing technologies from the eugenics era earlier in the 20th Century, functioned to efficiently label, sort, and segregate students, and to further incentivize the monetization of public education by what has since become the testing-technological complex.

Mr. Tucker's half-baked history lesson and his blinkered rationalizations would clear the way for another generation of capitalist plunderers who know nothing about schooling, learning, or teaching, this time centered in Silicon Valley and backed by another generation venture philanthropists with self-serving solutions. With new schemes in the making for increased monitoring, surveillance, data sharing, neurological reprogramming (SEL), and increased screen time isolation, the paternalist threat to humane learning environments and democratic institutions has never been greater, and the opportunities for social capital investment predators has never been higher.

There is nothing new in Mr. Tucker's tired tirade that we haven't heard before. His suggestion to allow a new generation of "scientific" managers to "unbuild" public schools and public universities expresses an antiquarian faith in the ingenuity of capitalist enterprise in education that is as undeserved as it is irresponsible.

Ravitch Warms to Tuckerism: Can Randi Be Far Ahead?

I posted the other day on the new (old) Tuckerism that Joe Nocera was promoting (again) in the New York Times.  

Obviously, Tucker's THL (Testing Hysteria Lite) has resonated with the neolibs as a way to stave off the revolution against testing, while preserving its worst features and maintaining the attack on collective bargaining and due process.  

Here is a key Tucker conclusion tucked into his report:


In the most facile and misleading way, Diane Ravitch has posted a select few points of the new old Tuckerism that Tucker and the Hillaryites obviously want Ravitch readers to know.  She clips them directly from Tucker's summary:

Here are his key points:

“The ideas outlined by Marc Tucker in Fixing Our National Accountability System signify a departure from conventional thinking on the issue of accountability. Rather than focus on punishing teachers for the results of a system that others designed, the core components of this report rest on three fundamental principles:

1) Testing: Instead of testing all of our students every year with low-quality tests, students would take high-quality accountability tests, covering a full core curriculum, only three times in their school career. In some off years, tests in math and ELA would be administered only to samples of students by computer and would not carry high stakes for teachers or students.

2) Use of Data: Data from these tests would be used to identify schools that might be in trouble, and to deploy a team of expert educators to assist in resolving the issues with the help of districts and/or states. This data would be available to the general public but it would not include a rank or grade.

3) Policies for Professionals: Enact policies that make it attractive for our nation’s strongest teachers and principals to work in the most at-risk schools – these very same policies would also make teaching an attractive career for some of our best high school graduates and transform teaching into a high status profession.”

Here are a few captures from the report, itself.  I suggest you read the whole thing.  I will be posting on it soon.

Let's begin with what Tucker wants to do with the test scores that will continue to central to his next generation of doing more of the same:

And, finally, the ultimate rationale for another generation of testing, sorting, monocultural thinking, teacher bashing, and central planning by businessmen:

 The saddest part about all this is that it perpetuates the false notion that schools, alone, can solve educational inequality or low national test scores.  Educational inequality is simply a reflection of the deeper inequalities that are getting worse the as we continue we ignore them. 

Testing Hysteria Lite, by Marc Tucker

If you were to believe the spin in the New York Times the other day, you would think that Marc Tucker, who has long been Hillary Clinton's main man on education issues, had decided that high stakes testing was a thing of the past: "Tucker would not abolish tests, but he would have fewer of them. And they would have a different purpose."

I downloaded Joe Nocera's new Tucker bible, Fixing Our National Accountability System, and grabbed a few highlights so that you can see what all the excitement about, right? (Click to enlarge.)

But here is the real bottom line message for the new Tuckerism, which looks remarkably like the old Tuckerism.

Gates Revives Tuckerism, the Plan to Make Senior High School for Elites Only

In 2006 dweeb oligarch, Bill Gates, funded the writing of a plan to undercut American public high schools and to create an outlet for working class students to test out of high school and into a voc ed after 9th or 10th grade. The plan was called "Tougher Choices for Tougher Times," and it offered a vision of high school as contract charter schools that are funded at the state level without local input or oversight. Here is a review of Tuckerism by EPI, and here is part of a post from last year on how the plan was moving forward, all the help of the prostitutes who run the NEA:

Did I say something about union sellouts earlier today? Bracey just posted at ARN the Ed Week link below that announces the NEA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers have split the spoils from the corporate charter school blitzkrieg that is now being unleashed against public education. They have agreed to support the Tucker Plan (Tough Choices or Tough Times) that was pumped out of the sludge tanks in 2006. See here and here and here for reviews of the plan. Here is the beginning of the evaluation by Miller and Gerson:

The "Tough Choices or Tough Times" report of the National Commission on Skills in the Workplace, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and signed by a bipartisan collection of prominent politicians, businesspeople, and urban school superintendents, called for a series of measures including:

(a) replacing public schools with what the report called "contract schools", which would be charter schools writ large;

(b) eliminating nearly all the powers of local school boards - their role would be to write and sign the authorizing agreements for the "contract schools;

(c) eliminating teacher pensions and slashing health benefits; and

(d) forcing all 10th graders to take a high school exit examination based on 12th grade skills, and terminating the education of those who failed (i.e., throwing millions of students out into the streets as they turn 16). . . . .

Well, now the new Tuckerism is going to be piloted in 8 states as a result of Race to the Trough, and it looks like the initial phase is intended to create deeper class divisions by reverving senior high school for those who may have a shot a four year university education:

Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college.

Students who pass but aspire to attend a selective college may continue with college preparatory courses in their junior and senior years, organizers of the new effort said. Students who fail the 10th grade tests, known as board exams, can try again at the end of their 11th and 12th grades. The tests would cover not only English and math but other subjects like science and history.

. . . . .

The program is being organized by the National Center on Education and the Economy, and one of its goals is to reduce the numbers of high school graduates who need remedial courses when they enroll in college. More than a million college freshmen across America must take remedial courses each year, and many drop out before getting a degree.

“That’s a central problem we’re trying to address, the enormous failure rate of these kids when they go to the open admission colleges,” said Marc S. Tucker, president of the center, a Washington-based nonprofit. “We’ve looked at schools all over the world, and if you walk into a high school in the countries that use these board exams, you’ll see kids working hard, whether they want to be a carpenter or a brain surgeon.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided a $1.5 million planning grant to help the national center work with states and districts to get the program up and running, Mr. Tucker said. He estimated that start-up costs for school districts would be about $500 per student, to buy courses and tests and to train teachers.

To defray those costs, the eight states intend to apply for some of the $350 million in federal stimulus funds that Education Secretary Arne Duncan has designated for improving public school testing, Mr. Tucker said.

NEA Joins Corporate Raiding Party on Public Education

Did I say something about union sellouts earlier today? Bracey just posted at ARN the Ed Week link below that announces the NEA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers have split the spoils from the corporate charter school blitzkrieg that is now being unleashed against public education. They have agreed to support the Tucker Plan (Tough Choices or Tough Times) that was pumped out of the sludge tanks in 2006. See here and here and here for reviews of the plan. Here is the beginning of the evaluation by Miller and Gerson:

The "Tough Choices or Tough Times" report of the National Commission on Skills in the Workplace, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and signed by a bipartisan collection of prominent politicians, businesspeople, and urban school superintendents, called for a series of measures including:

(a) replacing public schools with what the report called "contract schools", which would be charter schools writ large;

(b) eliminating nearly all the powers of local school boards - their role would be to write and sign the authorizing agreements for the "contract schools;

(c) eliminating teacher pensions and slashing health benefits; and

(d) forcing all 10th graders to take a high school exit examination based on 12th grade skills, and terminating the education of those who failed (i.e., throwing millions of students out into the streets as they turn 16). . . . .

The hounds are loose. Here is the news from Ed Week:

By Catherine Gewertz

Washington

The nation’s largest teachers’ union and two leading business groups said today they have become partners in the work of a blue-ribbon commission trying to revolutionize American education.

The announcement by the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers marks the next step in taking the ideas in a high-profile December 2006 report, “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” from proposals to practice. The report, by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, called for sweeping, systemic changes in education funding, assessment, school management, and teacher pay and training. ( "U.S. Urged to Reinvent Its Schools," Dec. 20, 2006.)

At a news conference here, leaders of the National Center on Education and the Economy , which sponsored the commission, also said that Arizona, Delaware, and New Mexico would begin the planning required to rework aspects of their education systems to reflect the commission’s framework. In doing so, the new states join Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Utah, which signed on to do likewise in October. . . .

Tuckerism Replaces Taylorism in Colorado Education Reform

Everyone committed to education reform at the beginning of the 20th Century wanted to be known as a progressive. Progressive meant forward thinking, science minded, backwards shunning, philosophy scoffing, utility seeking, elitist enabling, common people patronizing, business friendly, efficiency driven, waste avoiding. A great deal of the inspiration of the time came from Frederick Winslow Taylor's The Prinicples of Scientific Management, still in print today and still hailed by many CEOs as the best book on management ever written. It was Taylor's little book that inspired time and motion studies, assembly line techniques, and the fixation on the elimination of waste in organizations.

His book came at a critical time for the early education reformers, who were busily trying to create respectability in 1911 for a new academic discipline to train superintendents and other school administrators to run America's public school system, then experiencing explosive growth. John Franklin Bobbitt, Elwood P. Cubberley, and Joseph Mayer Rice borrowed Taylor's ideas to create a "scientific management" of school systems, thus assuring that the future of schools would be guided more by economic concerns than by pedagogical ones. A history of schools done on the cheap went all the way back to Colonial times, and the new quantifiable management strategies of the early 20th Century offered a future that would be fixated even more on efficiency. It also set the stage for a long war with the teachers, who saw children as people rather than units or numbers, and who saw themselves as educators rather than production workers.

We can look back from 2008 to 1908 and see, in fact, the same 19th Century economics and science guiding education reform today as it did then. The biggest difference today is that business is not only interested in schools preparing future employees and assuring social control among the populace, but now business would like to assure that the charter school business does the preparing, with taxpayers to foot the bill for what was once a civic responsibility of elected representatives. Today's corporate socialism offers another example of corporate excess driven by corporate feeding on the jobs that cannot be exported. If not checked, it promises to gobble up the civic and civil space required for a democratic republic to exist. And it seems that Obama and Clinton, both, are oblivious to the reality of the corporate charter solution and the enabling that results when urban schools are turned over to mayors' offices to run.

And so the new generation of efficiency zealots are so similar to the ones at the beginning of the last century. For yesterday's Taylorism stands to be replaced by a 2.0 version inspired by Marc Tucker, whose connections to the Democrats promises him a shot at imposing his new efficiency model if Clinton or Obama is elected.

Today in Colorado there are signs that Tucker has found a petri dish to grow his own culture of 21st Century Taylorism that he spelled out in the fear-mongering Tough Choices or Tough Times, offered in a summarized form for the Kappan last year. (Here is the critique of Tuckerism offered by EPI. Read it!!).

Essentially, the Tucker solution aims to use, what else, testing to eliminate waste in school systems of the 21st Century. Better tests, of course!! Tuckerism envisions a P-22 curriculum designed for the corporate state, with testing as the trigger for moving through the system. In fact, 10th graders may test out of high school if they can pass a test, which will guarantee them acceptance into a state college or a vocational school. This test is for the low fliers, especially those who are at risk of dropping out. Solution here: test students out of school before they can drop out. And if they can pass the test, then they will not need remedial courses in college--more efficiency.

Now for those who are more capable and more ambitious, they can pass the same test in 10th grade at a higher level to stay IN high school, thus assuring them a Gold Plated honors diploma and a spot in the Research One universities or the exclusive liberal arts colleges. In other words, students have to score higher to stay in high school, where one can imagine then an unending series of AP exams to get them ready for college--and to eliminate the necessity of taking intro level college courses. More efficiency. Of course, family income (the gold), as it always has, will continue to determine who gets the Gold.

And this is the basis for the big talk of education revolution in Colorado. I am still wondering what happens to the 11th graders who don't pass the test low enough to get into trade school or who don't pass it high enough to stay in high school.

If this is the best that Democrats can do in terms of education improvement, they should never have been elected or they should never be elected. This is The Old Sham Redux, perpetuating the same stupidity based on the same old thinking and inept notions that seriously threaten our future as democratic republic. It would be better to let the entire current structure crumble than to put under it a new foundation made of the same faulty foundation materials, while hoping for different results. Unfortunately, Colorado parents, teachers, and children seem on the verge of a new edifice based made from the same sand.

Here is a bit from the Daily Sentinel last week to give you an idea of the same tired old crap, recycled for Colorado audiences:

Monday, February 25, 2008

The governor’s office and state lawmakers plan to unveil a comprehensive education reform proposal this week aimed at fundamentally rewriting the state’s content standards and standardized tests.

Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, said the bill will work in three phases: first, to strengthen Colorado’s course content standards; second, to mesh the new standards with the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests and “deal with the very real deficiencies in CSAP” tests; and, third, to create a new diploma for advanced-level students.

Penry said the proposal, co-sponsored by Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, and Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Golden, will mark a revolutionary alignment of curriculum standards from preschool through high school.

“It will attempt to create a new philosophy, a belief system that in order to succeed in the 21st century marketplace, all kids need something beyond high school,” said Evan Dreyer, spokesman for the governor, “whether that’s vocational education or certificate training or traditional college.” . . .

And here is a very sensible commentary from the Denver Post last week by someone concerned with children. It reminds us that "quality doesn't depend on doing the wrong thing better":

By Angela Engel

Article Last Updated: 02/24/2008 08:30:21 PM MST

In 2000, Citizens for Quality Public Education published "Senate Bill 186 and The Truth About Colorado Educational Reform," a report warning about the consequences of grading schools based solely on standardized test scores.

Under the leadership of Gov. Bill Owens, SB 186 was passed anyway. At that time, my daughter, Sophie, was 4 months old. The following year, the federal No Child Left Behind was enacted.

Since then, everything the report cautioned concerning high-stakes testing has come to pass: narrowing curriculum, negative school climates, disenfranchised teachers, frustrated parents, and children who quickly losing sight of the value of their own education.

Not only were the Citizens for Quality Public Education correct, but all of the outcomes associated with education reform over the past decade have demonstrated failure. Consider the following:

• Dropout rates have increased significantly. Since the implementation of high-stakes testing, including NCLB and SB 186, Colorado's dropout rate has nearly doubled, from 2.4 percent in 2003 to 4.5 percent in 2006.

• Students now have fewer course electives. A survey by the Center on Education Policy found that since the passage of NCLB and high-stakes testing, 71 percent of the nation's school districts have reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music and other subjects.

• Recess has been reduced or canceled. According to the National Parent Teacher Association, nearly 40 percent of U.S. schools have either canceled recess or are considering doing so because of the time constraints of standardized testing and budget cuts. Over the past 12 years, DPS has decreased physical education time by an average of 40 minutes per week.

• More than a dozen schools have been closed down. High-stakes testing promised to close the achievement gap, but instead districts are closing schools predominantly in low-income areas. Cole Middle School is on its third conversion in a decade, now that KIPP has abandoned its students. Before SB 186, Cole was a thriving school for the performing arts.

By all indicators, the state's version of school reform has not worked. Even test scores have remained mostly flat, despite the millions spent on McGraw-Hill tests, curriculum guides, and after-school tutorials. Littleton and Cherry Creek, some of the highest performing districts in the state, haven't been meeting federal guidelines for "adequate yearly progress."

The biggest complaints of parents include large class sizes, too much homework, insufficient time for our children to eat lunch or play outside, decreases in programming, and stressful learning environments. These complaints are echoed in the appallingly high turnover of teaching staff.

Assessments aren't the problem; high-stakes testing is. And there is a difference. In very simple terms, the problems we are facing today are the result of an education system that has been redesigned to serve the state. We need a system that serves our children.

Standardization and high-stakes testing rest on a paradigm of uniformity and conformity. If we graduate an entire generation proficient on a single skill set and mindset, we will have failed because our future will depend upon adaptability, imagination and collaboration.

The danger of this game is that it reinforces the misconception of a failing educational system, when what we really have are failing priorities and policies. We can no longer afford to defer the responsibility of our children to a one-size-fits-all test, or "all or nothing" reforms.

This session, Sen. Mike Kopp will introduce Sernate Bill 61, requiring exit exams for 11th-graders. Sen. Peter Groff is sponsoring Senate Bill 130, establishing a two-tiered system for accountability while maintaining the real barrier to innovation: CSAP.

It didn't work in Florida and it won't work in Colorado. Quality doesn't rely on doing the wrong thing better.

Before adding more layers of legislation, our government representatives first need to clean up the mess they've already created.

Sophie is 8 years old now; our children simply can't afford to wait any longer for the legislature to come to terms with its mistakes.

Angela Engel is project director for the Children's Action Agenda.