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School Creativity Indices: Measurement Folly or Overdue Response to Test-Based Accountability?

Posted by Michael M.K. Saturday, February 4, 2012 0 comments

Daniel T. Hickey
A February 2 article in Education Week surveyed efforts in California, Oklahoma, and other states to gauge the opportunities for creative and innovative work. One of our main targets here at Remediating Assessment is pointing out the folly of efforts to standardize and measure “21st Century Skills.” So of course this caught our attention.
What might come of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Smith’s search for a “public measurement of the opportunities for our students to engage in innovative work” or California’s proposed Creativity and Innovative Education index?
Mercifully, they don’t appear to be pushing the inclusion of standardized measures of creativity within high stakes tests. Promisingly, proponents argue for a focus on “inputs” such as arts education, science fair, and film clubs, rather than “outputs” like test scores, and the need for voluntary frameworks instead of punitive indexes. Indeed, many of these efforts are described as a necessary response to the crush of high stakes testing. Given the looming train-wreck of “value-added” merit pay under Race to the Top, we predict that these efforts are not going to get very far. We will watch them closely and hope some good come from them. 
What is most discouraging is what the article never mentioned. The words “digital,” “network,” or “writing” don’t appear in the articles, and no consideration of the need to look at the contexts in which creativity is fostered is present. Schools continue to filter any website with user-generated content, and obstruct the pioneering educators who appreciate that digital knowledge networks are an easy and important context for creative and knowledgeably engagement. 

Most teachers continue to forbid students from using Wikipedia—why not let them learn how encyclopedic knowledge is created by teaching them how to edit entries that interest them? Debate clubs are fine for the few students they typically attract. But they present argument as a rarified performance art that the rest of the students find meaningless—why not help students learn to blog at the intersection of their values and academic topics?
Rebecca Itow has worked with Angie Cannon at Bloomington (IN) High School North to create and refine a fine high school English module on argument; it is posted at Digital Is where innovative teachers like Angie have implemented it. It is a great example of how new media tools and participatory learning can foster innovation and creativity while accomplishing conventional academic goals. But many teachers won’t be able to use it because their school system won’t let them complete the digital poster in Glogster or view the examples of argument at YouTube.
So yes, it is heartening the states are finally realizing that a decade of test driven reforms has driven creativity and innovation out of schools. But they should also realize that overblown concerns over plagiarism and privacy obstruction are leading a generation of students to assume that the most natural and easy outlet for their creative expression has nothing to do with school. And that is a shame.

Finnish Lessons: Start a Conversation

Posted by Michael M.K. Thursday, February 2, 2012 0 comments

Rebecca C. Itow and Daniel T. Hickey
In the world of Education, we often talk of holding ourselves and adhering to “high standards,” and in order to ensure we are meeting these high standards, students take carefully written standardized exams at the state and national level. These tests are then used to determine the efficacy of our schools, curriculum, and teachers. Now, with more and more states tying these scores to value-added teaching, these tests are having more impact than ever. But being so tied to the standards can be a detriment to classroom learning and national educational success.
Dr. Pasi Sahlberg of Finland spoke at Indiana University on January 20, 2012 to discuss accounts of Finnish educational excellence in publications like The Atlantic and the New York Times, and promote his new book, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? One of his main points was that the constant testing and accountability to which the U.S.'s students and teachers are subjected do not raise scores. He argued that frequent testing lowers scores because teachers must focus on a test that captures numerous little things, rather than delving more deeply into a smaller number of topics.
 
This point addresses an important discussion that needs to occur: while we push for educational reforms, the reforms are largely the same old ineffective practices with new names. Linda Darling-Hammond makes this point eloquently in The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future. States across the nation are adopting the Common Core Standards. These new standards are certainly an improvement over the patchwork quilt of obsessively detailed state standards that they replace. But the manner in which these standards are used to shape practice may be devastating. There are so many standards to be covered within one year of one subject, and within each standard are several skills to be addressed. Perhaps we are asking schools to focus on too much in a short amount of time. Dr. Sahlberg made this point by sharing that Finland teachers focus on a few skills deeply, rather than many skills shallowly, and students are tested once – at the end of their senior year. The result: Finnish students are making top scores on the PISA survey and generally scoring high in most subject areas.
One of the reasons Finland does not put a huge emphasis on standardized testing, Dr. Sahlberg reported, is because while they claim to make education equitable, they really widen the achievement gap. He shared the comic below to illustrate this point:

http://weknowmemes.com/2011/10/the-educational-system-comic/
Now, Dr. Sahlberg was quick to point out that we mustn’t think that we can take Finland’s system, implement it in the U.S., and expect it to suddenly raise achievement. Of course that won’t work. But what we can do is have a conversation about our approach to assessment, how we (appropriately and inappropriately) use the results of the assessments we take, and what we might learn from others who are experiencing success. Having this conversation does not mean that the United States is inadequate – it means we are smart, that we are reflective, and that we realize there is a problem and that we need to fix it.

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