Chapter 2

While our initial belief that testing for educational progress would prove we were making progress, as we saw in Chapter 1, that early expectation has not been borne out by test results.  This begs the question:  "Why are we spending so much of the school year testing how much educational progress we are making when we aren’t?"   Testing is expensive, whether measured in dollars or hours.  Educational Testing Service revenue last year was over $1,000,000,000.  But Americans spend that much on dog food each  week.  The budget-busting cost that students (and their teachers) pay is time.  As you saw in Chapter 1, a significant fraction of teachers say their students spend more than a month each year prepping for, and taking,  Standardized tests.  Time well spent?  Chapter 1 suggests not.  It's battle cry:

Don't teach the Standards. 

Teach the Students.

Chapter 2 discusses why our focus on high test scores as the key to post-secondary success is causing such a perversion of purpose in K-12 schools, and does not guarantee that brass ring so many high school kids work so hard to grab.   Recently I read that 83 percent of the employees at Harvard are not teachers.  The article also quoted a study in which students were asked to comment on this idea:

Professors bring material to life.

2nd tier schools (Reed, Carlton, Wabash,) all got scores of 99 out of 100.  Top tier schools (Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA and Columbia) scored 70, where the lowest score possible was 60. 

 Fortunately, Chapter 8 presents an alternative to our present sad state.   

The Standards provide teachers with a whole school year of ready-made lesson requirements.  What will they teach instead?  Shall teachers be left to decide on their own?  Does Harvard attract better, brighter students than some middling state university because  their professors choose better curricula?  This question is addressed in an article by Richard Hersh, which begins this way:

(footnote:  Richard Hersh has served as President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Trinity College (Hartford), and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at The University of New Hampshire and Drake University. He also served as Vice President for Research and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Oregon and was Director of the Center for Moral Education at Harvard University. In his early career he was a high school teacher, professor and dean of teacher education. )

What Does College Teach?

By Richard H. Hersh

"What makes your college worth $35,000 a year?" It's a hard question for a college president to answer, especially because it's usually raised at gatherings for prospective students and their anxious, checkbook-conscious parents. But it also provides an opportunity to cast one's school in a favorable light—to wax eloquent about admissions selectivity, high graduation rates, small classes, and alumni satisfaction.

The harder question, though, comes when someone interrupts this smooth litany: "But what evidence is there that kids learn more at your school?" And as I fumble for a response, the parent presses on: "Are you saying that quality is really mostly a matter of faith?"

The only answer is a regretful yes. Estimates of college quality are essentially "faith-based," insofar as we have little direct evidence of how any given school contributes to students' learning.

This flies in the face of what most people believe about college, and understandably so. After all, if we don't know what makes a school good or bad, then the anxiety-driven college-application process is a terrible waste, the U.S. News & World Report rankings are a sham, and all the money lavished on vast library holdings, expensive computer labs, wireless classrooms, and famous faculty members is going for naught.  And what about SAT scores, graduation rates, class sizes, faculty salaries, and alumni giving?  Surely, a college-obsessed parent might object, such variables make some difference.

Perhaps they do–but if so, we haven’t found a way to measure it. In How College Affects Students, a landmark review of thirty years of research on college learning, Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini found that simply going to college, any college, makes a major difference in a young person’s psychological development:  students come away with improved cognitive skills, greater verbal and quantitative competence, and different political, social and religious altitudes and values.  But although the research found wide variations within each college or university, they were unable to uncover significant differences between colleges, once the quality of the entering students was taken into account.

Education a faith-based  endeavor?  Many devout people have faith that God exists.  Theologians have yet to come up with a proof of the existence of God that atheists agree does the job.  If Hersh is correct, then all the certainty that standardized tests have sought is tossed out, to be replaced by. . .

In spite of the fact that most Americans would seem to be supportive  of the status quo, Chapter 1 called into question the value of all this testing to prove educational progress.

Now Chapter 2 calls into question the conventional wisdom that all the efforts that students put forth to get those high test scores are justified because they lead to admissions to selective schools.   Professor Hersh then drops this bombshell:  

 "Estimates of college quality are essentially "faith-based," insofar as we have little direct evidence of how any given school contributes to students' learning."

Can we never know if a particular school is worth the Herculean effort it takes to gain admission, and the financial burden one must pay to go there?

Felix's story addresses that question.  He was a student in my Chemistry class, first in his family to graduate from high school.  But he was too poor to go to a top school--he had to settle for Fresno State.  A couple of years later I ran into him, and asked him how he felt about the fact that some of his better off classmates were at the schools like UC  Berkeley.  Felix said, he felt bad.  But he clarified that obvious response:  "I feel bad for them.   They are in classes with, in some cases hundreds of students in a huge lecture hall. I'm working one-on-one with a professor using state of the art equipment doing original research."  When Felix graduated from Fresno State,  he was accepted in the PhD program at UC San Diego--on a full ride scholarship. 

Chapter 3 suggests there IS a way to know if a student has been well educated.  It requires a measure of patience.