Arne Duncan to 8-Year-Old Woodrow Wilson: "No College for You"

categories: Education Politics, Standardized Tests, Unschooling Alternatives

Published April 26, 2009 @ 09:43AM PT

Connect the dots:

From CNN's (poorly titled) "10 Homeschooled Celebrities":

Woodrow Wilson studied under his dad, one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS).

He didn't learn to read until he was about 12. He took a few classes at a school in Augusta, Georgia, to supplement his father's teachings, and ended up spending a year at Davidson College before transferring to Princeton.

From an interview with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (which I swear I've seen, but need help to cite), on the value of standards and standardized test data:

[We have to be honest enough to] look a second grader in the eye and tell them if they’re on track to get into a good college or not.

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Comments (9)

Instead of telling a second grader (or a high school freshman) what we as adults feel they should be doing after they graduate (likely based on assorted standardized tests), how about giving them options instead?

We should be helping kids find and develop their talents and passions while they are in our classrooms and then, as a nation, give them choices for their post K12 education that go beyond college or no college.

Posted by Tim Stahmer on 04/26/2009 @ 10:56AM PT
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Hear, hear, Tim. Duncan's so all over the place with his ideas in interviews it's like trying to walk a bird, but he does occasionally talk about alternatives to college that I hope he does more than talk about.

Posted by Clay Burell on 04/27/2009 @ 01:29AM PT
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Hey Clay: Found the transcript where Duncan said that quote. "Secondly, behind that, we want to have great assessments. I want to be able to look a second grader or a third grader in the eye and say, you’re on track to graduating from college, or you’re not. And this is your strengths and this is your weaknesses. You have to have great assessments to do that."

http://www.c-span.org/newsmakers/aduncan.htm

The link as well. It's from CSPAN Newsmakers back in February.

We do need assessments. They are integral to so many other things. However, what does Duncan mean when he says we need "great" ones. More bubble tests? I hope not. There is a good article on Bridging Differences on what testing actualy tests.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2009/04/dear_diane_those_were_five.html

Posted by Derek Viger on 04/26/2009 @ 05:49PM PT
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Good assist, Derek, thanks for that :)

The dots I'm suggesting we (and gobs of home-schoolers and developmental psychologists) connect boil down to this: readiness varies from child to child, and doesn't happen on an age-based timeline. Telling 8-year-olds there's something wrong with them for not fitting a standardized shoe goes against this knowledge, and promises to do pyschological damage to the kid - "I'm sub-par" - and the kid's attitude toward learning.

Some schools in Denver, maybe others, are experimenting with a model that allows students to progress from "grade to grade" individually, based on their mastery of the skills and content at each level, regardless of age. While that sounds like a managerial nightmare for teachers, it at least takes into account the individual, organic nature of child development. I don't hear anything so "outside the box" from Duncan and Co.

We do need assessments, like you say. It's the what, how, why, and to what purpose that are the killers.

Posted by Clay Burell on 04/27/2009 @ 01:26AM PT
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I've been reading as much as I can find about outcome-based education. It seems to follow that Denver model you mentioned.

However I have read more than a few articles stating that outcome-based education has proved to be a failure when it was tried here in the 90s. My common sense tells me it is a viable method as described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-based_education#United_States

Am I missing something? Is the Denver project something completely different and I am misinterpreting the processes?

Posted by Derek Viger on 04/27/2009 @ 05:12AM PT
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It amazes me when I see statements like this because I don't understand how we can write off a child's future like this. Teachers wrote off my husband like this when he was in school but luckily he had the inner strength to go on. He was told that he wouldn't amount to much because he was the student that didn't fit the mold. After getting his GED in the navy, he went on to become a judge and actually got to see some of these teachers in his courtroom. Luckily he didn't write them off in the same way they did him! When he retired, many people told me that he was a wonderful judge because he was so fair and impartial.

Posted by Pat Hensley on 04/27/2009 @ 05:47AM PT
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Clay, I'm usually with you on this, but I'm sorry, when my students end up coming out of second and third grade not reading, they're screwed. We have a sixth grader like this, cannot read, and is working on decoding at age 12. He should have been identified LONG ago for services. He may go to college one day, but it'll be a minor miracle if he does. See, there is a big difference when you are the un-schooled child of a minister with a masters degree, and the son of a drunk, semi-itirent worker without papers. Somewhere between Waldorf, and Success for All there lies a solution, but I think the commenters hit on something, that it won't be the same for all kids.

Posted by Alice Mercer on 04/27/2009 @ 05:46PM PT
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Sorry to be late getting back to you on this one, Alice.

I agree with the thrust of your comment. All I was trying to suggest here is that there's a danger in identifying students as defective for not developing by the institutional schedule.

(More than anything, I just found the Wilson story worth sharing, and juxtaposed it with Duncan's quote to see what people thought.)

Posted by Clay Burell on 04/29/2009 @ 09:48AM PT
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I've done my own post on how this plays out, but there is also some stuff from Deven Black (spedteacher) too. Basically, we're ALL right, the problem is having stupid blanket policies and approaches, instead of looking at each child as an individual.

http://mizmercer.edublogs.org/2009/05/23/stupid-esl-and-special-ed-tricks/

Posted by Alice Mercer on 05/23/2009 @ 01:00PM PT
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Clay is an American high school Humanities teacher, technology coach, and Apple Distinguished Educator who has taught for the last eight years in Asian international schools. According to law, he's married to his wife. According to his wife, he's married to his Mac.