Educators fortunate enough to attend Constructing Modern Knowledge 2010 got to witness an amazing conversation between two of America’s most provocative and accomplished educators, Alfie Kohn and Deborah Meier (watch this site for video in the near future). Mark your calendars for a mind-blowing Constructing Modern Knowledge 2011, to be held July 11-14, 2011. Registration details will be posted here in early September.
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Alfie began his CMK 2010 remarks by reading the draft of a stunning editorial he was preparing for publication in Education Week. The article, Turning Children Into Data: A Skeptic’s Guide to Assessment Programs, is a must read for any educator, parent or policy-maker who cares about children. Ken Bernstein also blogged about this article in The Daily Kos.
Kohn’s article begins with:
Programs with generic-sounding names that offer techniques for measuring (and raising) student achievement have been sprouting like fungi in a rainforest: “Learning-Focused Schools,” “Curriculum-Based Measurements,” “Professional Learning Communities,” and many others whose names include “data,” “progress,” or “RTI.” Perhaps you’ve seen their ads in periodicals like this one. Perhaps you’ve pondered the fact that they can afford these ads, presumably because of how much money they’ve already collected from struggling school districts
and then continues to list six questions that need to be asked…
- What is its basic conception of assessment?
- What is its goal?
- Does it reduce everything to numbers?
- Is it about “doing to or “working with”?
- Is its priority to support kids’ interest?
- Does it avoid excessive assessment?
As always, Alfie supports his arguments with research-based evidence and common sense. Given the load of horse manure recently published by John Merrow and echoed by Grant Wiggins who displays contempt for teachers, Alfie Kohn’s column could not have come at a better time. Please share it widely.
Perhaps you’d like to leave a few copies around at Back-to-School Night along with his small book, The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools.
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