What has happened I think in Standardized testing in this country is that this enormous group with affluence that scores well has assumed this test measured their inherent goodness, value, intelligences…they have presumed that in this process something is being “known” which serves to assuage man’s basic insecurities and value issues that drive so much of this age of insecurity. So much more can be said about this but as I teach over there on the other side of the track….looking at abilities, talents, knowing as Mark Twain wrote so beautifully in the “Prince and the Pauper” that survival in the world of poverty takes so much that this high scoring group would find difficult to deal with- despite all that test data to verify their “status”-i know the “real thing” and I think actually we all know the real truth too which is why the extremes and emotions and all the anger of the now. I think we know…. Anyway reflecting through the lens of that book, The Real Thing, I see all too often that the failure of one group supports the success of the other…as you have so well articulated and Herdon was compelled to expose.

Having now worked a lifetime in this world of poverty and desire to bear witness about what I learned …i see now that , if I can borrow some psychological tools, one group is a projection or mirror for the other. My little class of poor immigrants scoring poorly on rigged materials stands holding up the mirror for the group that doesn’t like to face some basic truths. It’s hard to feel too good and hold Christian virtues while living high and having more without a kind of system created to give yourself an illusion…”I earned this”,I deserve my fortune, I did it myself, I was better and deserve it, mine have “gifts”, we are somehow “more”.
It’s a whole lot harder to see everone else as not only your equal but quite possibly one you may never equal. ( or as i am often made to recall…the meek…do unto others)
To me writing grade cards reflects this real thing…this kind of symbol of what we can’t yet face as an educational system and fix or at least address, what we can’t get beyond, what we don’t examine and what we impose on children as we project onto them an abysmal amount of unresolved educational societal projection.

And leaving my poor kinds of language connections…the greatest truth I know about kids is tracking them and staying connected through time with them-the one thing the system absolutely will not and does not do …..and that is as far away from how a loving group would ever behave as you can get…….we never reflect in a system like way on the thoughts and perceptions of those we have guided.We don’t follow kids into their lives which would be a report of great help on what we are doing…a much fuller report. And we don’t let the kids “grade” our work as teachers in return… This is no way to run a school…Grades at present are about as useful as all the other myths maintained…..just social sorters.

I have a friend that sits at conferences with a blank card, says what he wants about the child and the work they are doing, asks the parent what grades they feel that fit the child and they fill it in together. It’s no solution but it’s something that makes his peer teachers livid. It’s as if this alone somehow makes a mockery of their work. Listening over the years to perceptions of this from children, parents, teachers, former families has given me incredible insights into what grades actually do….often times they just injure .
And I’m not interested in “doing harm”…what I’m interested in is reading, painting, connecting, drawing, singing, celebrating, outlining, sorting, listing, assessing, designing, sharing, helping, algebratizing, counting, processing, debating, and all the things no card ever really helps me talk about……thanks Doug for a very nice reflection.