It's Not the Amount of Time, It's What You Do with It.

When I was a student in elementary school I hated writing. Heck, I pretty much disliked most of the activities in school that weren’t recess, lunch, and gym class.

I still have some of my old report cards. My teachers’ comments are pretty telling.

“Does not work to his ability.”

“Shows serious lack of effort on writing assignments.”

“His grades do not reflect his ability.”

It’s not that I didn’t have the talent to be a good writer. I’m now a published author and have had articles I’ve written appear in numerous publications. The problem during school was that I didn’t see any relevant reason why I should write about boring stuff I didn't care about.

The issue was certainly not that we didn’t have enough time to learn writing in schools. Forcing me to do more of it without finding different ways to motivate me would have made me hate writing even more.

Here in the United States we seem to have no limit on the number of education decisions we make that fly in the face of what we know about learning.

For over a decade now, there have been calls to extend school years and school days as a way to improve America’s international education ranking on PISA tests and to close achievement gaps.

In the past two decades No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RttT) have caused schools to adopt educational practices that contradict what we know works in the most highly performing education systems in the world.

We have evaluated teachers and allocated school funding based on junk science standardized test data.

We have pressured teachers into using pedagogical models in classrooms that reduce learning.

We have narrowed the curriculum and eliminated history, science, the arts, and humanities – especially from schools in high-poverty areas.

Extending the amount of time that students spend in schools will not solve these problems. It’s not as if our American students do not spend enough time learning.

American teachers already spend among the most time in the world teaching students. Other countries may have more school days, but American teachers are among the world leaders in instruction time.

It’s time to use what we know about learning, what we’ve learned from highly-successful school systems, and input from teachers in the classroom to drive our educational decisions.

We need more humanities, arts, and creativity in schools. This is what allows us as humans to see beauty in the world. It’s what allows us to make connections between subjects. It’s what makes us create the emotional connection with content that allows us to store learning in our long-term memories.

We need to shift accountability measures from standardized test data to measures that ensure all of our students have access to quality educational opportunity. Our relatively low ranking on international tests is driven primarily by the inequities in our system and our society. 

We need to focus more on intrinsic motivation and less on extrinsic rewards in schools. Our school mission statements talk about creating “life-long learners,” yet our schools are driven by grades and test scores. We know that extrinsic and intrinsic motivation can be inversely correlational. As we rely on rewards to motivate kids we destroy their ability to become the life-long learners for which we strive.

If we really want an excellent and equitable education system we need to focus more on what our students are doing in school instead of how much time they spend there.

Why Don't Parents Appreciate "Reforms"?

We keep hearing over and over again that recent education "reforms" are good for children.  Proponents of this "reform" movement will say, "Sure, selfish teachers and those nasty unions hate what we're doing, but it's good for students and their parents."

I find that a bit curious.  In my 16 years of teaching I've never had a parent say any of the following things:

• "I really wish my child had more students in their class.  She is getting too much attention from her teacher."
• "My child is too engaged in your class and has too much fun learning.  Please do more test prep with him."
• "I'm really upset that my child is becoming too well rounded.  I'd really appreciate if you stopped teaching her anything but reading and math."
• "My child's school has too many resources, the facilities are too nice, and I hate that it's so easy to learn in that environment.  I wish they would let the place get run down a bit."
• "Kindergarten was terrible for my child.  She would have been so much better off if it wasn't available.  My child would have been so much better prepared for first grade if there was no kindergarten."
• "It would be so much better for my child if they eliminated all of those extracurricular activities."
• "Instead of spending money on children, I wish the school would give more to companies that publish test-prep materials."
• "All that learning time is bad for my child.  I wish you would spend less time letting them learn, and more time testing how much they learned."
• "I love the stress my child feels during the three weeks the state tests are given."

You would think if these "reforms" were making our schools so much better that parents would be more aware of the great changes going on.  Maybe they just don't know what's good for their kids as well as legislators do.

I don't fight against high-stakes standardized testing, budget cuts, allowing for-profit charter school management companies to siphon public school funds, and the influence huge test-prep corporations have over legislators because I'm a member of a teacher's union or because I am worried about my job.  There's a much more important reason.

Like every other teacher I know, I chose my career because I wanted to help help kids find the potential inside themselves so that future generations are better than mine.  I want kids to love learning, and to develop their talents so that they have every opportunity to be successful in their lives.  Like every other parent I know, I want the same things for my own children. 

I fight because "reform" is stealing the future from our students and my children.

Seeing Reform Past Our Own Noses

It's been about two weeks since I wrote my last post.  It's not because I haven't had ideas.  On the contrary, I've had about five topics I wanted to write about in the past couple of weeks and couldn't find the time.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was hoping that I'd be writing a post today summing up my experiences at EdCamp Philly.  I was really excited to go to my first edcamp, and had it on my calendar since the day they announced the date.  Unfortunately, the fan belt in my car broke about 20 miles north of Allentown on the way down.  Instead of collaboratively learning about assessment practices and pedagogy, I learned that to make sure when Toyota says they checked your belts and hoses that they really mean it, and that the Chestnuthill Diner in a town called Saylorsburg, PA serves a really good breakfast for an amazingly cheap price.  You can't beat eggs, homefries, corned beef hash, coffee and toast for less than 6 bucks.

What I do want to write about is how we sometimes stumble to see educational reform globally.  I've noticed in many education conversations I've had recently in person and on social media sites that we each tend to see educational reform through the lens of our own experiences when we were in school.  I guess this is natural, and I'm sure that I'm guilty of it at times.  But, it's also dangerous if we are trying to build an educational system that meets the needs of all students.  

Because changing the system based on what would have worked for you or me is only a move forward if it doesn't infringe upon someone else's opportunity to be successful.  The problem is not that the system wasn't designed to do what would have been good for you or me.  The problem is that the system didn't allow for teachers to meet the needs of every child, including you and me.   

Standardizing education, whether it's through nationalized curriculum, standardized testing, coming up with standards for "college and career readiness", or any other means eliminates our ability to customize education for all students.  No matter what we change those "standards" to, there will always be kids whose needs aren't met by them.  Most people aren't "standard." Until we allow for and encourage customization, there will always be a pretty significant population who leave our schools with a legitimate complaint that the system didn't work for them.

And it's not acceptable to deny a percentage of students the opportunity to learn because their talents don't match what is easily measured.

On a separate note, this is the 100th post since I started the blog a little over a year ago.  Thank you to all who read, comment, debate, and share.  I hope that you've had as much fun and gotten as much out of reading as I have from writing.

Friday's Five - Influencing Political Change

Many people, including teachers, are turned off by politics.  It's understandable.  Lately it seems that every candidate is bought by corporation and special interest money, and is more interested in following their party's line than doing what's best for the country.

Image Credit: nyaltnews.com

With Pennsylvania's primary approaching next week, I've been thinking of how our students have increasingly been hurt by politicians who further their agendas in the name of "educational reform", and what options we have as educators to change that trend.  After all, if we are so fed up with politics that we avoid the process, who will advocate for real education reform?  Here are five suggestions for getting involved.

1. Check the voting record of both your state and federal representatives and senators.  Just because someone claims that they are have supported education doesn't mean that they really have.  After all, those cutting funding, firing teachers, mandating endless student testing without educational benefit, and creating unfunded mandates for our schools are claiming that all make education better.  A simple Google search with your representatives name and "voting record" will probably get you what you need.
2. Do research for yourself instead of blindly following the advice of others.  Teachers unions and organizations will undoubtedly be happy to tell you for whom you should vote.  Don't be a sheep being led blindly.  Research the candidates to make sure they actually believe in the same things you do.
3. Follow the money.  If you know what corporations, individuals, and organizations are donating big money to a candidate, you have a pretty good idea of what policies they are likely to support.
4. Prioritize education.  If we as teachers don't vote based on what candidates are likely to do right by our students and schools, should we really be surprised that others don't either?
5. Spread the word.  If you find a candidate who you really believe is going to make a difference, share that knowledge with everyone you know.  Blog about it, campaign for them, talk about it in the faculty room.  If there isn't a candidate you can support, spread the word about the issues that matter.  Tell the world how harmful certain policies are to your students.  Blog about positive reforms you like to see.  Your voice is louder and more influential than you think.  Use it for good!

Swimming Upstream

For the past few days I've been really excited about a few ideas that I've been working on for my students in the next month or two.  One involves a lesson where we'd research ancient civilizations and what archaeologists do for a bit and then create artifacts from a made-up civilization.  If I could find another 5th grade class willing to do the same we could exchange artifacts and use the techniques of archaeologists to try and figure out information about the other class's civilization.  Another lesson would focus on studying the mathematics and science of flight by building a life-size set of wings. 



Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net



I have no doubt that these lessons would lead to excitement, engagement, authentic learning, higher order thinking, and collaboration within and among my students.  The problems I keep running into are logistical.  Like most schools, our day is segmented into 40 minute periods.  Rarely do I have my students for more than 80 minutes at a time.  The money to fund these projects will have to come from somewhere - probably my pocket unless I can find someone to donate what we need.  We will need to collaborate with experts but the computers available to students have neither webcams, nor Skype installed.  The students in my math class and my reading classes are different.  I'll have to sell the projects to special area teachers and see if I can get them to work with us. 

All of these logistical problems can and will be overcome, and I plan to go ahead with both projects.  I just wish that our schools were set up for real learning.  We all want students to be actively engaged, but our system is set up to make it so easy to have them sitting in rows silently working out of a textbook.  Sometimes doing the really great stuff that everyone agrees is wonderful for students is difficult to organize and pull off in this environment.  Sometimes it feels like we're swimming upstream.

Risk Adversity and Fear of Failure

At Educon's opening panel discussion there was much talk about how our society has become adverse to risk taking, and how that fear of failure has stifled both student learning and reform efforts in our schools.  I've thought a lot about that over the past two days.

The current trend of school districts buying textbook programs with scripted lessons for teachers to follow is a perfect example of how this problem is manifesting itself.  With such lessons you will never get great teaching, but you also (theoretically) will prevent students from sitting through a failed lesson.  Schools are betting that the mediocrity will accumulate over the course of the year so that a high enough percentage of students can pass the state tests, thus preventing the school from being designated a "failure."

Image Credit: renjith krishnan

There are many negative effects of these scripted lessons.  Teachers never get to try new teaching strategies and learn what works and what doesn't.  They never get to learn from failure.  Teachers stop thinking creatively about new lessons.  Since they are being less creative, they are less able to teach their students to be creative.  Teaching becomes a lot more boring when you are simply reading a script, and students learn less from unenthusiastic teachers.

Students are suffering directly from this risk adversity, too.  Lately the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students in my school have been preparing for the school's science fair.  I've asked many of them what experiments they are planning to do.  Every student I've asked has referred me to a book of science fair projects where the procedure, outcome, and explanation are provided.  This is not science, and those aren't experiments.  The thought of our students trying something and failing has become so unpalatable to us that we have reduced science to the same scripted replication our teachers are being forced to follow.

Science, especially at the elementary school level, should be about wondering why things are the way they are, solving problems, trying new things, learning from failure, discovery, and exploring the world around us.  Experiments should be designed because students have a question they are curious about and have developed ways they think they can test answers.  They should be forced to interpret results.  In short we need to put the higher order thinking back into our schools in science and all subjects.  

Fear of failure never led to greatness.  In order for our schools to be great we need to move past our fear and let teachers and students take risks.

Friday's Five - Myths in Education

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you, my readers, to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page.  If you'd like to make suggestions about future topics or discuss topics I bring up on the blog with others, make sure you click the "like" button on the right hand side of the page to join A Teacher's Life for Me on Facebook.  Don't be shy about sharing the blog and Facebook Page with others.  Each post has a "Tweet" button on top and buttons on the bottom that allow you to share in several ways, including e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

We live in an age where information is free and easily accessible.  There are many benefits to 24-hour cable news, high speed internet, and social networking.  Many of my previous posts have focused on ways that we can prepare our students for the information age.  Being able to identify bias and misinformation is of paramount importance when being constantly bombarded with new facts, ideas, opinions, and theories.

In this post I'd like to examine a few beliefs about students, education, and schools that are both widely believed and untrue.  These myths about education are holding us back in developing the 21st century education system that our students deserve.  They have permeated our culture to the point that educators often base decisions on these bits of misinformation.  Many people call for "educational reform," but until we are willing to focus on the learning process of each student, "reform" will continue to mean change that benefits a few people in position of power.

Myth #1 - Failure is a bad word.

Our fear of failure has crippled us.  Failure is an opportunity to learn.  One quality shared by all successful people is the ability to learn from mistakes.  Walt Disney was in financial ruin and had lost his most well known character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to a competitor before creating Mickey Mouse.  Abraham Lincoln lost a senate election before becoming the greatest of American presidents.  We could spend all day making a list of people who failed and then became great success stories.  We focus so heavily on the "right answer" in class and not on the critical thinking that goes into decision making that we rob children of the opportunity to grow from their mistakes.  We focus on correctness and not on learning.  As a result, the one thing our children learn best is that failure is not something to learn from, but something of which to be ashamed.  Imagine a world in which people, companies, and governments did not learn from mistakes, but rather repeated them over and over again.  That world will soon be a reality unless we start teaching our children to think differently.

Myth #2 - All students need to learn the same information.

Do you think that Steve Jobs, Maya Angelou, Yo-yo Ma, Warren Buffett, and Lady Gaga needed to learn the same content in school to become successful?  Do we really believe as a society and an educational system that the ability to find the right answer to math calculations and getting the main idea from short passages are what paved the way to success for those who achieve it?  Successful people have a few things in common, none of which is reading and math ability.  They are innovative in their fields.  They are passionate.  They understand others and how to communicate with people.  They learn from failure.  These are the things that should be focus upon in schools.  The information that students learn should be determined by their strengths and passions.  I'm sure that Lady Gaga didn't need a high school computer programming course or Algebra II, but that Steve Jobs would have found both interesting and useful.  We need to allow our students to identify that which will allow them to be successful, and then provide the opportunity to pursue those passions.  Standardization kills greatness and promotes mediocrity.

Myth #3 - The teacher is the most important factor in student achievement.

I'll be the first to say that teachers should never use parents or a student's home life as an excuse for a student not learning.  Actually, I did.  Doing so allows us to stop examining what it is that we can improve upon in our own practice.  With that being said, however, a plethora of studies show that socio-economic situations are a vastly higher factor in student success than the teacher in the classroom.  Several recent studies have shown that student achievement in US schools with low poverty is higher than schools in countries that have similar low poverty levels.  Those same studies show that our high poverty schools perform as well as those in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Until we begin to address the inequities in how we fund schools and the issue of poverty we will never be able to claim that we are doing a good job of educating our future generations.

Myth #4 - Good grades are an indicator of future success.

This myth happens to be based on past fact.  A few decades ago it was true that if a student worked hard, attended school, and got good grades that they would be able to find a good job.  It simply isn't true any more.  Due to the speed at which knowledge is growing, we are preparing our students for jobs that don't even exist yet.  Employers aren't looking for workers who are good at reading, 'righting, and 'rithmatic anymore.  They want employees who can think on the fly, bring new ideas to the table, and adapt to rapidly changing economic environments.  Those are things that are all but ignored right now in schools, and certainly don't show up in a student's grades. 

Myth #5 - Teachers will improve if we provide financial incentives.

I think that everyone agrees that it would be fantastic to have a great teacher in front of every student.  The question becomes "How do we develop those great teachers?"  Merit pay seems to be the current focus.  The problem is that most teachers don't know how to get better.  Most teachers were educated in a system that was well designed for the factory model of the Industrial Revolution.  The college courses they took were rooted in the same model.  For the past decade we have not only followed the same model, but have taken it a step further by focusing increasingly on narrow standardized tests that are the ultimate example of a desire to place the importance on knowing information rather finding and using it.  In order for us to improve the quality of our teachers, we need to provide them the opportunity to learn how to prepare students for the 21st century.  They need professional development.  They need to be encouraged to network with other teachers, discuss great pedagogy, and share successes.  They also need to be allowed to take risks in their lessons, have lessons fail, and learn from their mistakes.  Merit pay allows for none of those things.  It simply provides more money for teachers in better socio-economic areas and punishes teachers working with our most needy students. 

Now, it's your turn.  What are your thoughts on the above myths?  Do you disagree?  What other popular beliefs about education are holding us back from giving our students opportunities to learn?  What suggestions do you have to overcome such misperceptions?  Please share with us in the comment section and pass the post along to others, both inside and outside education, via Twitter, Google+, Plurk, or Facebook so that we can hear as many points of view as possible. 

Friday's Five - A Vision for Schools

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you, my readers, to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page.  If you'd like to make suggestions about future topics or discuss topics I bring up on the blog with others, make sure you click the "like" button on the right hand side of the page to join A Teacher's Life for Me on Facebook.  Don't be shy about sharing the blog and Facebook Page with others.  Each post has a "Tweet" button on top and buttons on the bottom that allow you to share in several ways, including e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

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About a week ago, Michael Richards posted a question on Google +:  If you were to create a public school from the ground up what would be one of the first things you would do?  There was some great discussion in the comments, and the question and comments really got me thinking.

I've said many times before that educational reform is not enough to fix our system.  We need educational revolution.  But, what does the ideal school of our future look like?  If we started from scratch, and ignored every pre-conceived notion of what "school" is and focused only on optimizing an environment for learning, what would the end result be?

I honestly still have no idea.  It's such a large, exciting problem.  This week, however, I'm going to list five core values that on which I would base a new school.  I encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

1. Content isn't as important as what you do with it. - Right now we treat students as empty containers waiting for  us to fill with knowledge.  We have endless lists of facts that students must learn, and we require few of the skills that will allow students to succeed in life.  We argue over the best way to test the acquisition of these facts, and forget that 90% of this content can be found within 30 seconds by students if we allowed them to use the phones in their pocket.  It's time to demand more.  Whether through Project Based Learning, Service Learning, Activism, or some other process, students will use content as a means to achieve their goals, not as an end.  
2. The most important role of administration is to hire the right people and professionally develop them. - It's been well documented that the quality of the teacher is the largest in-school factor in whether a student will learn.  With that in mind, schools should not only seek out the best available talent when hiring teachers, but make a large investment in professional development.  This doesn't necessarily mean paying money for training sessions, but rather promoting the use of professional learning networks, unconferences, webinars, and other readily available and under-utilized resources to inspire teachers and keep them continually improving their pedagogy.
3. The focus will change from the "3 Rs" to the "4 Cs." - As I mentioned above, we've evolved past the point where knowing how to read, write, and calculate will allow one to be successful in life.  Much more important for today's students are the ability to Create, Collaborate, Communicate, and Critically Think.  These are not skills that only gifted, advanced, or smart kids need to have.  They should be woven into the very fabric of our schools so that every lesson demands the development of them.
4. School should not be a place separate from the "real world." - We have to stop separating school from life.  School should be real.  Students should be working on real problems, learning real lessons, and helping real people.  Otherwise they will continue to view school as a time requirement that has no benefit to them in the "real world."  Get rid of textbooks; they are heavily biased, expensive, outdated, and filled with exactly the types of pseudocontextual problems that drain student motivation.  Instead, use sources with which students can interact, create, and analyze.  For example, instead of banning Wikipedia, challenge students to identify the bias, extract the facts, and debate the truth.  Then, allow them to change mistakes they find.  
5. Put the focus on the students. - It seems obvious, and almost a cliche.  We rarely do it, though.  We give tests that can be easily graded instead of project based assessments that take more time.  We make decisions based on what will lead to the fewest lawsuits, not based on what will give students the greatest opportunity to learn.  We assign grades to students that parents can understand because we don't want to hear complaints rather than focusing on important skills that can't easily be quantified.  We make students sit at desks so that they can be managed more easily, not because it's the best learning environment.  We separate biology, chemistry, and physics because it's easier to teach that way despite the fact that they are intimately connected.  We do the same with algebra, trigonometry, and geometry.  We teach in 70 or 140 minute blocks.  The list goes on and on.  This is probably the biggest reason that we need a revolution instead of reform.  It would be nearly impossible to change all of the ways that adults have molded the system to fit their needs rather than the needs of students.

Now it's your turn.  What are your thoughts on Michael Richards's question?  Is there a core value that you would list above my five?  Do you disagree with any parts of my list?  Is reforming our current system enough?  Share your thoughts below in the comment section, and please pass the post along to others.  I'd love to hear their thoughts, too.  

Give Teachers the Autonomy to Be Great

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It's funny how things work sometimes.  I was sitting in a math curriculum meeting yesterday where we were trying to develop an action plan for transitioning from Pennsylvania's current standards to the Common Core Curriculum which will become law in 2013.  A group of elementary teachers and administrators from our district were debating the problem of having to balance great pedagogical practices like concept development, project based learning, and talking about math in the classroom versus the need to practice skills and teach standardized test taking strategies.  Not one person in the room was arguing that skill practice and test prep were what's best for our students, but several expressed that not focusing in these areas would lead to a drop in test scores.  I found myself thinking, "What if we didn't need to have this absurd argument?  What if we as teachers were trusted enough as professionals to actually focus on best teaching practices to just teach effectively?"

It was almost at that exact moment that I got an e-mail pointing out that a quote of mine was used in a Washington Post article by Vicki Davis entitled The Greatest Teacher Incentive:  The Freedom to Teach.  (If you are unfamiliar with Vicki, her Cool Cat Teacher Blog is amazingly informative and insightful, and one you should consider checking out.)

The discussion at the meeting and Vicki's article got me thinking about how different, and how great our schools would be if we gave teachers the professional autonomy they deserved.  What if, instead of blocking all social networking sites and sending the message that teachers cannot be trusted, we opened those sites up and encouraged teachers to network with other professionals to improve their craft?  What if, instead of handing teachers a scripted textbook teachers' manual and demanding that they follow every lesson, we challenged teachers to collaborate to create lessons that were better than the textbook?  And what if we then encouraged them to share those lessons with others?  What if, instead of devising policies to punish "bad" teachers and ensure that all are mediocre, we identified ways to help all teachers continually improve their teaching and devised policies that allowed teachers to be great?

You cannot make a logical argument that our education system wouldn't be greatly improved if those, and other changes to give teachers more professional discretion were made.  Autonomy is a great motivator.

Lately, many states and politicians have tried to use money as a motivational tool in the form of merit based pay.  I've seen studies that show how this type of reward system doesn't work, but I think the following example is a better way to show how much more motivational a move towards trusting teachers would be.

Imagine you had two friends who needed your help with something in which you both had the expertise to help and truly enjoyed doing.

When you go to help the first friend, they refuse to listen to your advice, even though you are more knowledgeable about the subject than they are.  Throughout the task, they bark orders at you, treat you like you are incapable of completing the task, and refuse to let you have access to some of the tools in the toolbox that you know would make the job easier.  They demand that you do it their way, and promise to give you a few bucks when the job is completed, but only if it is done completely correctly.

At the second friend's house, you are greeted warmly and feel thoroughly appreciated.  You are given the freedom to complete the task any way that you wish, and your friend offers assist you in any way that they can.  Despite the fact that you sometimes run into difficulties, your friend encourages you by telling you that they trust your ability in this area, and they have confidence that you will overcome any challenges.  Your friend never offers you money for helping.

In which scenario would you be more motivated?  In which do you think you would do a better job?

Unfortunately, many public educators feel like they are stuck reliving the first scenario again and again.  There is a serious lack of morale among teachers, and it's having an effect on the next generation.  We want students to learn creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration to excel in the 21st Century workplace, but we punish teachers for being creative, enforce policies that discourage critical thinking, and block the tools that would allow teachers to collaborate.  How can we realistically expect teachers to teach their students these skills in that environment?  Is it really a shock that we are falling behind other countries?

It's time to start encouraging teachers to be more than "proficient."  It's time to start giving them the professional autonomy that they deserve.  If we do that, our students and communities will benefit.  If we do that, we could be great.

A Response to the Atlanta Cheating Scandal: Nonviolent Protest

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I've read several blog posts and articles in the past few days on the standardized test cheating scandal in Atlanta.  Most fall into one of two categories.  Either those who cheated are being vilified as criminals, or their actions are being touted as an inevitable result of high-stakes testing.

Those viewpoints are not exclusive.  What those educators did was reprehensible, and did a disservice to those of us trying to fight against the damage the current standardized testing culture does to our students.  It gave another reason for people to bash teachers and education.  Those whose minds can be changed are not going to be swayed by immoral behavior.  This kind of wide-spread cheating was also rather predictable.  I've covered the absurdity of tying student test scores to teacher and school evaluation in past posts.

In order for the general public to listen to those of us calling for real educational reform, we must hold ourselves to the highest of moral standards.  Cheating on tests cannot be an option.

Instead, school districts should simply refuse to administer the tests.

We know that they are harmful to our students.  We know that they are harmful to our schools.  We know that they have been harmful to our profession.

Don't we have a moral responsibility as educators to not harm our students, schools, and our profession?

JEFF WIDENER/The Associated Press

Think about what would happen if dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of school districts started refusing to give state tests and instead simply focused on good teaching.  What if the message we sent was, "We understand that you may fire us or cut our funding, but we refuse to harm our students any more for your political benefit."  This is the kind of message that resonates.

This is the kind of movement that led to Civil Rights reform, gave women the right to vote, gained India it's independence from Great Britain, and has changed the political landscape in the Middle East in the past 6 months.  Certainly it can help us change the system so that our students start receiving the quality education and opportunities they deserve.

Truth is Truth.  Let's start doing something about it other than cheating or complaining.