“You raised the test scores, you probably reduced the quality of learning.”
Alfie Kohn, renowned author and outspoken critic of standardization, argued against Common Core State Standards during his lecture Thursday night in the University Center Auditorium. Brought to campus by the Central Programming Council’s Issues Committee, Kohn presented his concerns regarding the direction of American educational reform.
“I want to argue that raising standards and accountability, while it sounds good in a sound byte on the evening news, is multiply flawed when you think about it carefully,” Kohn said.
Kohn, who has followed the education reform movement since George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, expressed concern that the drive to raise standards places pressure on administrators that trickles down to teachers and students. These pressures, he said, focus students’ attention on future evaluations, hindering their ability to concentrate on learning.
Knox County Schools teacher Karen Latus asserted that the pressure caused by Common Core’s strict standards affects her colleagues’ ability to educate.
“When you focus on (standards) and pursue those to the point that you’re forgetting about the people in front of you, then you’ve lost the overall reason why you do what you do,” Latus said.
Kohn stressed that educational reform in the United States has begun to emphasize collective improvement on paper, rather than individual education in reality.
“Higher standards, by definition, mean that all kids will never be able to meet them,” Kohn said. “It’s a competition, and we’ve decided that if everyone is successful, that means we are sanctioning mediocrity.”
Kohn argued that success in standardized testing is a reflection of improved test preparation and memorization methods, not educational enrichment. Test results, he said, are not only a bad indicator of success, but also undermine the instructor’s ability to teach effectively in the classroom.
“High test scores are the last thing you want if you care about kids who think deeply and critically and creatively and love learning,” Kohn said.
Latus, also a member of local advocacy group Students Parents and Educators Across Knox County, noted the importance of paying attention to educational reform developments, as well as questioning those reforms on behalf of students and educators.
“There are a lot of things that teachers can’t or won’t say out of fear of being seen as unprofessional or losing their job, so we really need the community and parents to start asking questions,” Latus said.
The drive to raise standards resonated with other area educators present at the lecture.
“We’ll keep changing the definition of ‘proficient’ if too many kids reach it,” said Anderson County teacher David Williams in an email. “The truth is, we’re asking teachers to make all students more successful than average students were a generation ago.
“We’re asking teachers to do something that’s never been done before.”
For more information, visit alfiekohn.org or speaktn.com.
