If Only We Were All On A Similar Mission As the Mission Outlined by @KristinaRizga in MISSION HIGH

My friend, Dr. Kelly Chandler-Olcott, put a challenge on Facebook the other day that called for a book club on Kristina Rizga's Mission High: One School, How Experts Tried To Fail It, and The Students and Teachers Who Made It Triumph. With trust for Kelly's reading aesthetics, I knew I wanted to order the book as soon as I could - which I did. I spent the weekend finishing the book and thinking about education "reform" (some argue "deform") in the United States. I also pulled from my K-12 education and the 25 years I've taught and worked in urban schools. Actually, it's rather routine to think about my interactions  with high school youth who are often viewed by mainstream America as 'at risk,' 'marginalized,' and 'gapped by their achievements.'

I wish I could say that our current education reform was unique to our country, but it appears our friends in Britain also have been debating the ways a "business-inspired obsession with prioritizing "metrics" in a complex world that deals with the development of individual minds has become the primary cause of mediocrity" (xvii) in schools. While hiking yesterday and thinking about Riga's writing, I listened to Intelligence Squared out of England, "Let's End The Tyranny of the Test. Relentless School Testing Demeans Education." I learned from the program that the demands placed on public school educators in their country parallel our own. It's not that testing is evil. It is that testing is being used in nefarious ways.

In the British debates, Tristam Hunt and Tony Little told one story of a brilliant kid who lost his chance at University because he failed an examination by overdoing his written response in an essay. He drew from resources in his response that were not bound by the test. The Head Master at the school, as well as academics, thought his writing was phenomenal, but when they held it to the parameters of the examination (the rubric forced upon them), they had to agree that the student's writing could not be scored proficient. Rather, it was a failed response and the young man suffered for it. The example is extreme (and I'm sure uncommon), but I think there's much to draw from such an outlier.

That example reminded me of a 10th grade final examination I took in high school. Although the NYS Regents was not until 11th grade, the 10th grade teachers designed an end of the year test in preparation for the junior-year assessment. I arrived to an essay prompt from the exam and immediately went to town. I wrote about a couple of texts I read on my own time (and outside of school) and did, what I thought, was a bang-up job in my response. I left, in fact, feeling very cocky. My teacher agreed that my writing was as good as I thought it was,  but she failed me. She had to. The prompt asked for students to draw from texts "read during the year," which meant school-assigned books that were confined by the constraints of the test. Misinterpreting their intent with the prompt, I wrote about two novels I read beyond school. When I saw I failed I talked to the teacher and she told me she was forced to fail me because I "didn't follow the directions." I debated her, of course, but lost. "I'm preparing you for next year," she authoritatively responded. And she did. She planted a flea in my ear that bites me whenever I think about examinations, and I have chosen her as an example of how NOT to be a teacher in my own career.

Throughout reading Mission High, I found myself reflecting on my pedagogical beliefs, my training in reading philosophers of education, and my lifelong quest to nurture every student as a budding intellectual. My Kentucky teaching experiences were in a school that didn't track (at the time), that looked at student work to inform our instruction, that encouraged diverse thought and high standards, and that pushed teachers and students to think critically, up and beyond tests. When I left there in 2007 and began asking questions of literacy through my research at other schools, I learned that my teaching experiences were highly unusual. The learning in the schools I entered through my research directly catered to the examinations (and, in fact, I witnessed teachers pushed to teach the 11th grade English examinations all the way down in 6th grade). The result? Kids hated reading and writing. They associated learning with on-demand prompts that expected them to write formulaically to crack the code of state tests. The kids were miserable. The teachers were miserable. The policing, however, was extraordinary. The schools were in a constant state of fear. The more 'underperforming' a school, the more ridiculous the mandates were for instruction that didn't work. These were programmed classrooms with play-by-play curriculum and daily inspections that rules were being followed.  Kids who needed lifelong skills to overcome obstacles they were born into were hammered, drilled, reprimanded, harassed, and scolded in accordance to the tests.

In my research, though, I found every kid I met to be a fascinating human being with a wonderful mind, enthusiasm, unique motivations, and wonderful curiosities. They were positioned by their schools, however, as "likely to fail" and "at risk to drop out." The state provided the only lens for which teachers were allowed to look at their students. Similar to what Rizga writes in Mission High, however, I realized the most effective educators gamed the tests because they simply, and passionately, put their students first. The amount of hard work that went into the profession by these teachers was obvious, even when each year the results of state examinations painted a different picture. I kept thinking, "We really are measuring the wrong things."

My copy of Mission High is marked on every page and I appreciated the way Kristina Rizga fused the history of education movements in the late 19th, 20th, and early 21st century with specific context of teachers who were doing amazing work at the school. It is my intent to use this text with my own graduate students. Although I have much to quote from the text, I will finish with the following,

...School reform has to originate from the base of your school, Guthertz and Roth argue. It has to come from and be owned by the staff. It can't be parachuted in from the district or state. Guthertz is disheartened by the national conversation that focuses most of its energy an dollars on "deficit-based" model of sorting and tracking teachers just like we do with students. Instead of asking, "How can we measure and fire 'bad teachers' faster?" Mission High chooses to focus on how to help teachers become better. Most of our country's 3 million teachers are dedicated professionals and need sustained opportunities to improve, Guthertz says. The go-to approach to building a better teacher - occasional common planning of lessons and using test scores and sporadic observations to evaluate educators - doesn't help teachers improve their practice in meaningful ways. Teachers need daily opportunities to plan lessons together, analyze student outcomes, and receive thoughtful, one-on-one coaching.                                                                                            

       Student engagement is not possible without teacher engagement, McKarney says. When teachers are treated with respect as professional, they are intrinsically motivated and engaged in their job. Teachers can't teach for twenty-five years and stay engaged in their work if they are not constantly challenging themselves and given a voice in their growth process. (170)

As I read about Mission High School and the ways they were achieving with students, I kept thinking, "This sounds very Coalition-of-Essential Schools and National Writing Project to me." It was no surprise to learn that both have an influence on the teachers at the school. Why? Because it was evident in the ways the teachers reached young people.

It amazes me that test reformers are ignorant of effective teaching practices yet empowered to dictate poor instruction through test-only paranoia (see President Obama's replacement of Arne Duncan with NYS-evicted John King - more importantly, do research on how students, teachers, administrators, and parents feel about the leadership exuded by these men).

I may have failed my 10th grade English exam in practice for the 11th grade test when I was a sophomore in 1988, but I earned a Regents diploma, studied for my state examinations, prepared for the SAT (did very, very average on them), didn't prepare for the ACT (did very well on them) and went on to a wonderful public university with a fantastic reputation for being an Ivy at a state-school price. I graduated with honors, too. Since, I've earned two Masters degrees and a doctorate, finished additional work in Tokyo, Cambridge, and the Bread Loaf School of English, and have had wonderful successes as a teacher and, now, Director of a National Writing Project site.

I did take tests. They were a measurement. But never, ever has any test been an indicator of what I know and what I am able to accomplish. For this reason, I'm on a mission to help the young people realize they, too, should be critical of the numbers and percentages placed upon them by institutions, especially if they are constructed in deficient ways. Those numbers, I believe, offer a minuscule picture of what young people can do in our nation. I have come to realize they are only important to unimaginative people in positions of power who follow a eugenic-way of knowing. Advocates of these tests are limited in scope of what knowledge really is (Delores Umbridge comes to mind).

People need to read Kristina Riga's Mission High and allow the stories, histories, and descriptions weaved throughout her text help them to understand what's currently wrong with America's educational system.  I am a bit wary and afraid of standardization, especially when controlled politically by politicians, bureaucrats, and business professionals. I will continue to teach students they should be just as critical. I want students to be informed and to question everything. I want them curious and, if I've done my job correctly, I want them to be empowered to write against the policing and tyranny caused by testing practices. I want them to know they are so much more than a test score.