"Let's just get back to telling the truth about our kids and our schools — the progress, the outcomes, the good, the bad, and the ugly — and trust that people will get beyond their differences and do the right thing for their kids," said Arne Duncan, secretary of Education in the Obama administration, in an interview with Rick Hess.
Once upon a time, reformers tried to improve education by holding schools accountable for students' achievement. Duncan hoped to link teachers' pay to their students' progress. It was very unpopular.
These days, neither party supports accountability. The truth is too painful. "Vibes" are in.
Wisconsin raised its very low expectations for students in 2012, writes Alan Borsuk in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Higher standards didn't raise achievement, and it make the school system look bad. Now the state education department is lowering the bar and adopting new language.
The "cut scores" will be lower, so more students will look as though they're doing well. The names of the categories will change to avoid "deficit labeling," Borsuk writes. "Advanced" remains the same, but "proficient" is now "meeting" expectations, "basic" has become "approaching" and "below basic" will be called "developing."
"Developing" is a popular euphemism. What skills has the student developed? Any? Nobody knows, but it sounds nicer. And unsophisticated parents may be fooled.
Education officials can't say which category is the equivalent of grade level, he reports. It may be somewhere between "approaching" and "meeting." Or not.
"After a decade of aiming higher, Wisconsin has joined a broader trend to lower its academic aims for students, at least as measured by where the bars are set, and it has gone to more palatable labels for results for many students," Borsuk concludes. "Maybe this will serve to encourage more students to get engaged with school and to see that they have paths to success. Or maybe the more-attractive-looking outcomes overall will resemble the old Miller Lite commercials around the slogan of 'tastes great, less filling'.”
Once again, one can have high standards or high levels of success. When drawing from the general population, one cannot have both.
Raising expectations didn't "make" the schools look bad. They showed that the schools were bad.
Ann in L.A. (but raised in Milwaukee)