THE MISMEASURE OF EDUCATION pays homage in its
title to Stephen Jay Gould's classic MISMEASURE OF MAN, a book that exposed
much of the sordid history of intelligence testing in the United States and how
it became almost from its inception tainted by racist assumptions and an
obsession with rank-ordering human beings in order to both justify and preserve
social and economic injustices and inequities. Horn and Wilburn take great
pains in the opening section of the book to review much of Gould's work
(including a correction of one error Gould's fervor to expose and undo a host
of entrenched wrongs and disinformation probably led him to too quickly take as
fact. Nonetheless, the authors make clear that Gould's work is seminal in
understanding some of the shaky assumptions upon which a great deal of current
American educational policy is built, not the least of which is the belief that
intelligence is a well-understood "thing" that can be and has already
been identified and measured in individuals and groups.
If the book ended with that opening section, the
authors would have already provided invaluable service to both readers new to
the subject and those familiar with Gould's book as well as other aspects of
educational testing and measurement. It is unfortunate in that regard that both
Gould's book and many of the books of Gerald Bracey, a tireless analyst and
debunker of bad educational research are not required reading for everyone from
the local school building to the US Department of Education who wishes to understand,
let alone attempt to make, educational policy. But this book will give those
who don't have time to explore that larger body of work a solid basis to think
about contemporary education policy initiatives on both the state and national
level. And that is an absolute must as the United States is struggling with
probably the most radical and yet reactionary set of educational programs in
its history: No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and the Common Core State
Standards initiative.
In order to help serious readers better
understand the history that has gotten us to the current state in which
private, corporate, obscenely moneyed interests are virtually dictating
educational policy-making, academic standards, assessment, funding, teacher
evaluation, firing and hiring, shutting down and opening schools, as well as
the rampant growth of for-profit charter schools and for-profit management
companies simultaneously feeding at the public trough and avoiding the same
sorts of accountability (in terms of student learning and growth, teacher
quality, and financial responsibility and transparency that those promoting
these schools demand of traditional neighborhood public schools), and the
relentless push for vouchers, the authors devote the bulk of this volume to
analyzing the history of education "reform" (or as I prefer, the more
honest term, "deform") in Tennessee. Tennessee is chosen for several
reasons, most prominently because it was far ahead of the curve in inviting
private interests to help it shape state educational policy to serve the
interests of profiteers, opportunists, politicians, charlatans, and others
eager to gain access to the public money devoted to educating children in free,
open, public schools. In many ways, as Horn and Wilburn make clear, Tennessee
became a voluntary laboratory for various experiments and manipulations of
public schools that are now becoming the law of the land in all but a handful
of states.
The insistence on marginalizing teachers,
parents, and students, promoting standardized tests as the only valid measure
of educational effectiveness, the blind trust in data as THE solution to all
problems of teaching and learning, the even more thoroughly blinkered faith in
"the free market" in education as the proper way of ending the
so-called learning gap (and ignore the more difficult and embarrassing poverty
gap, social and economic injustices of our entire system, and other factors far
outside the sway and control of schools, administrators, and teachers, all the
while placing the entire blame for shortcomings and failures anywhere but on
those most responsible for and positioned to address the problems the system
has inevitably caused.
The case of Tennessee thus serves as both a
microcosm of most of the policy initiatives promoted by both the administration
of conservative Republican George W. Bush and that of ostensibly progressive
Democrat Barack H. Obama, and a chilling warning of how ineffective these
policies have already been and are likely to be when expanded to other states
and the nation as a whole.
Along with Diane Ravitch's recently published
REIGN OF ERROR, this volume belongs not on the shelf, but in the hands of
anyone who thinks she understands what's wrong with our public schools and how
to go about fixing them, who takes at face value that our schools are failing
and that the solution is to do more testing and bring in private for-profit
companies to make education hum. Ignore these books at your peril and that of
your children and grandchildren.
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