{"id":7308,"date":"2019-06-18T16:26:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T22:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=7308"},"modified":"2019-06-18T16:26:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T22:26:00","slug":"worth-sharing-opinion-why-cant-everyone-get-as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2019\/06\/18\/worth-sharing-opinion-why-cant-everyone-get-as\/","title":{"rendered":"Worth Sharing: Opinion | Why Can\u2019t Everyone Get A\u2019s?"},"content":{"rendered":"Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"\"<\/a>Excellence is not a zero sum game.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve been saying this for YEARS!<\/p>\n

Source: Opinion | Why Can\u2019t Everyone Get A\u2019s?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve been saying this for years! This is a big part of what I address in the essays of my new book, coming out late this year (Death to Deadlines: Gamification and Other Subversive Thoughts on Formal Education<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Source: Opinion | Why Can\u2019t Everyone Get A\u2019s? – The New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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For a generation now, school reform has meant top-down mandates for what students must be taught, enforced by high-stakes standardized tests and justified by macho rhetoric \u2014 \u201crigor,\u201d \u201craising the bar,\u201d \u201ctougher standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a thought experiment. Suppose that next year virtually every student passed the tests. What would the reaction be from politicians, business people, the media? Would these people shake their heads in admiration and say, \u201cDamn<\/em>, those teachers must be good!\u201d?<\/p>\n

Of course not. Such remarkable success would be cited as evidence that the tests were too easy. In the real world, when scores have improved sharply, this has indeed been the reaction. For example, when results on New York\u2019s math exam rose in 2009, the chancellor of the state\u2019s Board of Regents\u00a0said<\/a>, \u201cWhat today\u2019s scores tell me is not that we should be celebrating,\u201d but instead \u201cthat New York State needs to raise its standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inescapable, and deeply disturbing, implication is that \u201chigh standards\u201d really means \u201cstandards that all students will never be able to meet.\u201d If everyone did meet them, the standards would just be ratcheted up again \u2014 as high as necessary to ensure that some students failed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The standards-and-accountability movement is not about leaving no child behind. To the contrary, it is an elaborate sorting device, intended to separate wheat from chaff. The fact that students of color, students from low-income families and students whose first language isn\u2019t English are disproportionately defined as chaff makes the whole enterprise even more insidious.<\/p>\n

But my little thought experiment uncovers a truth that extends well beyond what has been done to our schools in the name of \u201craising the bar.\u201d We have been taught to respond with suspicion whenever all members of any group are successful. That\u2019s true even when we have no reason to believe that corners have been cut. In America, excellence is regarded as a scarce commodity. Success doesn\u2019t count unless it is attained by only a few.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n