Accountability and the purpose of schooling
The sixth in a ten-part series on the topic of public education in a liberal society.
This post is the fifth in an exchange between Patrick J. Casey and I on the role of public education in a liberal society. Read the introduction to learn more about the impetus for this project and our aims for the exchange. Click here to read the first full exchange, click here to read the second full exchange, click here to read the third full exchange, and click here to read the fourth full exchange.
Our first full exchange focused on the topic of mandatory civic education and defined what we mean when we speak of liberal society; the second exchange outlined some assumptions we have about education; the third exchange dug into areas of agreement and disagreement between Patrick and me, mostly surrounding whether to reform or rebuild our educational system; in the fourth exchange, per Patrick’s request, I lay out my vision for public schooling to which Patrick responds; and in this exchange we share our views on accountability and define the purpose of public schooling.
Patrick,
I hope you were not offended by my comment about “never working”. I started working for non-profits after I stopped teaching so I certainly have no room to talk. I sit in a comfortable chair and drink coffee while I “work” just like the academics do. Usually when I talk about academics who’ve never worked it’s in reference to academics who have never spent time in a classroom, including to conduct research, but have a lot to say about what schools and teachers should and shouldn’t be doing. I just wanted to clarify that.
Regarding compulsory schooling: I, like you, have come to think that schools are not the best place to be educated. And I do think that the compulsory nature of them is part of the problem, perhaps the problem. I also think that public schools are not necessarily a net bad, and I understand why a nation would want them in place. I think part of the problem is truth in advertising, which is why I wrote the article on the purpose of public schools. The motives behind having a public school system have never been to receive an education for the sake of being educated. Thus, making arguments about how schools should improve based on the premise that they should offer a well-rounded education don’t go anywhere—but I can’t give it up, I still make these arguments. I think a liberal arts, or classical, education should be a part of K-12 schooling but I understand why it is not. One would have to argue why it is a net good for society, specifically the economy, before elected officials and tax-payers would get on board with that form of education. Since the release of the A Nation at Risk report, the federal government has ramped up their focus on ensuring that schools can produce citizens (but really, workers) who can compete in a global economy. Like I stated in my article, this is the social efficiency purpose. I think a liberal arts education fits well within this purpose, but I think one would be hard pressed to convince a politician of that. This is where choice comes in. If there was more choice within the public system, kids might be more likely to find a school that offers a more well-rounded curriculum, but like I stated before, you’d have to first get rid of standardized tests because they force schools to conform to a uniform curriculum. But as long as international tests are administered, such as TIMSS and PISA, I don’t see this happening because politicians want districts to prep for these tests. They want US students to come out on top on the national stage.
My initial thoughts about compulsory schooling, and why I wanted to write more about it, was that I suspect that compulsory school laws stifle innovation in regards to school reform. There is little incentive to overall a system if you have guaranteed consumers, for lack of a better word. But now that I think about it, the problem might also be our hyper focus on outcomes. I suspect that politicians and the like would be hesitant to try anything new if they couldn’t administer a standardized measurement tool that would allow them to compare the new ideas to the old. But doing this would defeat the purpose of implementing a novel reform. For example, I know of one public school that switched to a curriculum that focused on mastering subjects rather than measuring learning based on the number of hours a subject is learned—in other words, learn a topic for X amount of time, assess, then move on. But when student test scores started to go down using this new system, the principal switched back. The teachers thought that the new model was working, and that, in the long run, the students would still be at the same level as their peers or above, but the risks associated with dropping test scores was too great, so the principal caved. Novel ideas about how to fundamentally change schools cannot manifest in a system that requires conformity.
There would be far-reaching implications if compulsory school laws were abolished—how to pay for the public school system would be the biggest, I imagine. And I am not sure I even want to make the argument that the laws should be abolished, but I do think there needs to be more conversation about the downsides of compulsion.
I don’t have a problem with assessments. They are necessary to gauge what kids know and whether, upon completing a course or grade level, they met the stated objectives. I grew up taking Indiana’s state test—ISTEP—at the start of the school year. At that point, the tests were diagnostic. The results would give teachers an idea of the knowledge of their incoming students. The high stakes standardized testing system that was instituted as a result of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) changed the purpose of these sorts of tests. Instead of being diagnostic, it became a mechanism for administering funds and measuring teacher effectiveness. State tests are now administered at the end of the school year, and the primary reason for administering them is accountability. Teachers should be held accountable, but when you switch the primary purpose of testing from assessing what students know to assessing how well teachers are doing their job, the incentive for teachers will be to teach to the test. This is one problem I have with standardized testing since NCLB.
The other problem is the sheer volume of tests administered. They start in 3rd grade and continue on through high school. I am less familiar with the high school level, but at the elementary and middle school levels, some districts (maybe all, but I don’t know) administer three tests per year prior to the big one (either PARCC or Smarter Balanced in Common Core states) to ensure that students are prepared for the big one. That’s four standardized tests administered in one year, and each test takes approximately one week to complete. It’s too much, and this problem has been a primary impetus for protests against standardized tests, such as parents opting their kids out of the tests.
I do not claim to have expertise in testing and accountability, but there has to be a better way to authentically assess student learning and evaluate teacher effectiveness. I think your random sampling idea is one to consider, but we do already have NAEP, which paints a broad picture of how kids across the nation are doing in school. Other countries, like Ireland, administer assessments when students are moving from one block of schooling to another—e.g., from middle school to high school—which is standardized but much less frequent. If we want to keep some form of standardization, Ireland’s model, which other countries also employ, seems less all-consuming and less ripe for being gamed, but, admittedly, I don’t know much about the contents or consequential nature of those tests.
Regarding the SAT and ACT, I don’t have a problem with those tests. They are one measure among others that colleges look at when deciding whether to accept a student; they are not, as far as I know, the end all, be all of college admissions. Plus, I agree with you that they help more marginalized students get a leg up and are less subjective than grades. Illinois, and perhaps other states, uses the ACT as their high school exit exam. This seems like a good idea to me because a high school graduation exam is required in all states that receive federal funding (which is all states) so why not have them take a test that they will need to take anyway if they want to go to college. Plus, this may help with the issue of disparities in test prep based on socioeconomic status. If a high school requires either the ACT or SAT then they likely offer test prep as a course.
I’ll end with your question regarding teaching gender roles, gender, sex, religion/religious difference, and evolution. At this point, I am unconvinced that teaching gender roles has any place in a public school curriculum. Teaching objective facts about human anatomy that are supported across the scientific community (i.e., there is a consensus) seems fine to me. Teaching sex education, however, seems like dangerous terrain. I used to be supportive of it, but I’ve come to understand the perspective of parents more on this issue—that the subject is one that ought to be taught at home. I know high school teachers who would not agree with me, especially the ones who have seen too many unprepared teens get pregnant, but as hard as it might be to watch a young woman go down a path that the teacher thinks is damaging, teachers need to understand that they are not the student’s parent. Teaching what scientists know about evolution also seems fine to me. But I know that there are objections to teaching evolution, and this gets at the issue with compulsion. I am not opposed to the ability of students to opt out of classes that go against their beliefs. Or for evolutionary biology to be an option rather than a requirement. However, in my pie-in-the-sky view of being educated, I would hope one would enroll in classes that counter their beliefs to learn about the beliefs of others, not to change their mind, which of course could happen, but to strengthen their own views. I agree with Mill: “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” I have the same opinions about religion courses. They should be an option in a public school system.
Where shall we go from here? I keep circling back to the purpose of schooling. If that’s not settled, it seems really difficult to determine whether religion or evolution should be taught and when it’s appropriate to allow students to opt out of subjects. And if we allow students to opt out of anything and everything, then why is school compulsory? I could keep spiraling, but I’ll stop here.
Sam
Sam,
Oh, I don’t really get offended—don’t worry about that! My Dad used to say something like, “If you’re trying to offend me then you’ll have to tell me that because otherwise I won’t take it that way.” I adopted that as a rule of life pretty early on, so no worries.
I’m grateful for the information you provided about testing. I didn’t realize that No Child Left Behind represented such a substantial shift in the purpose of standardized testing—shifting its purpose from a diagnostic test to determine what students do or don’t know (which, as you say, seems it would have legitimate uses) to essentially evaluating teachers. And yes, I can imagine if I were in a teacher’s shoes, I too would be tempted to simply teach to the test in that situation. That’s clearly what happened during the year of high school I spent in Florida. We wasted the whole month of February studying for the FCAT in English and Math class! Meanwhile, with block scheduling, we spent much of the rest of the year sitting and staring at the walls.
When I was in high school in PA, we were told that the PSSA tests were also used to allocate funding. Not only that, but that a portion of the allocated funds could be used towards student events. So, if we as a class did well enough, then there would be direct benefits for us—prom tickets would be cheaper, if I recall. I remember being so annoyed by this (since I believed that city schools were massively underfunded) that I intentionally bombed the tests as a kind of protest. I don’t mean that I just didn’t take it seriously. Rather, for much of it, I read the questions carefully and chose the wrong answer. My year was the last that didn’t have to pass the PSSAs to graduate, so I could get away with doing that. My Mom was so upset when she got the scores that she wouldn’t let me see them. I still think that is pretty funny.
I think you’re absolutely right to focus on the telos of schooling—or of education more broadly. I mentioned G.K. Chesterton in an earlier post. He’s someone I have learned a lot from and he serves as a constant sparring partner. One of my favorite pieces of writing of his (which I assign a lot in philosophy classes) is “Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy,” which is the opening essay to his book Heretics. It’s a brilliant essay (I think you’d like it) which touches on questions of free speech, being “PC,” and the importance of philosophy. But he also argues—with rhetorical flourish that only Chesterton can muster—that the least practical thing is being practical. The most practical thing, he says, is to be theoretical. He means that the idea that we should get busy doing stuff—reforming the education system, to bring it into contact with our discussion—without first theorizing about the purpose and value of education is absurd. If you don’t think about what you’re doing, if you don’t go back first to philosophy, you could be doing all sorts of things that may not be helpful. Change is not the same thing as progress. In order to have progress, you have to have a fixed goal that you’re moving towards. So, thinking about the purpose of schooling and education is the most practical place to begin.
This is why I enjoyed your piece on the purpose of public schooling so much. There you detailed the four theories about what the purpose of such schooling is: social mobility, social efficiency, democratic equality, and now, social justice. Two things that you hint at in the piece that I found particularly interesting are (a) that perhaps schooling could have more than one goal and (b) that perhaps if we order the various goals or values properly, we might be able to get them all simultaneously. Indeed, this latter suggestion—that when values conflict, proper prioritization is essential—is central to my own thinking on such issues.
I don’t see any reason to think that schooling can’t have more than one purpose. Lots of things do—clothes, for instance. They protect us from the elements. But, second, they also have a “modesty” function (though I tend to think calling it “modesty” is more appropriate when talking about, say, Chris Hemsworth—with me it’s more like mercy to everyone else!). A third function is something like manifesting a person’s personality through style.
I do think that there has to be a kind of hierarchy among purposes or values, however, at least when there are conflicts between them. Frequently, it seems like multiple purposes can happily co-exist, but sometimes they do come into conflict—and in that case, we should think hard about which to prioritize. Is protection from the elements more important than style? That leads me to your second suggestion which is that one way of deciding upon the most important purpose is to choose the one that allows us to most reliably attain the others.
That leads me to a question: which purpose do you think ought to be set up as paramount? Is it one of the four you mentioned in your piece for Discourse—or is it something else? I think that would be the place to start if we wanted to try to pin down what ought to be compulsory and what not. Though, in my mind—and I think you agree, whether it’s compulsory to learn something or be competent in something is different from where one has to learn it.
P.S. I just learned that the Dutch essentially have a school choice program. Do you know anything about that? I think I know some people who went through their school system, so I could probably follow up with them.
Patrick