Comments on: What We Measure

By: Sue King

Sue King — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:51:51 +0000

My initial reaction – before looking at the comments – was also “WOW.” I love it when I read something so clearly articulates what I have been feeling, thinking and wanting to express. Now – to determine what I can do in my current role (public school administrator) and as a citizen.

And the book Global Achievement – definitely worth the read!

By: Jeremy Price

Jeremy Price — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:33:07 +0000

I always love reading your thoughtful posts, Doug, and this one certainly didn’t disappoint. Through my graduate studies, I’ve been drawn into the philosophical and humanistic aspects of education in a large part because of my frustration with the reliance on measurement, skills, and accountability in education. I’ve found Martin Buber especially interesting (and wrote a paper for one of my classes on Buber’s educational writings: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9991464/Education-in-Encounter-In-Dialogue-with-Martin-Buber-on-Education), who wrote, “The question which is always being brought forward–’To where, to what, must we educate?’–misunderstands the situation.” He instead advocates for finding responsibility for one another as being the most important purpose of education, although his positions are much more nuanced than I can represent in a few sentences. Critical Theorists of the Frankfurt School (Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer) are all fruitful for bringing up arguments against the “irrational rationality” of contemporary society , including education’s culture of measurement and accountability. (Israeli educator Ilan Gur-Ze’ev [http://construct.haifa.ac.il/~ilangz/] has extended the Frankfurt School’s thinking to education specifically.) I do fear that the “21st Century Skills,” which do provide some nice guidelines, will go the way of standards and become mere checklists. Thank you for the thoughtfulness, and I wish you the best of luck in grappling with these issues….

By: 21st Century Skills - What we measure « Suifaijohnmak’s Weblog

21st Century Skills - What we measure « Suifaijohnmak’s Weblog — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 06:41:02 +0000

[...] Doug Noon What We Measure, Rotherham says, There are also real technical and logistical challenges the movement must [...]

By: Doug Noon

Doug Noon — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:10:39 +0000

Since Newman brings it up, this is the Primer for Education Reformers link from Marion Brady. Thanks, Newman and teacherninja, for the feedback. I'll take a look at that "Global Achievement Gap" book.

By: Newman

Newman — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:15:28 +0000

I second that ‘Wow’. Your writing strikes a chord (And it doesn’t hurt to throw in a Kennedy quote – although I hear Caroline isn’t doing so hot…I digress) with us and I want you to keep doing it. I wish I had something more substantive to add to the conversation.

I will let you know that I am reading ‘The global achievement gap” by Wagner and … hehe … an article that you linked here, Marion Brady’s “Primer for Education Reformers” (readers: do a search for the post, cause it’s worth a read). And, my friend, Shane Baptista, an educational technologist at UNCW, is working on a faculty teaching newsletter with an assessment theme.

It seems that the RFK quote is speaking to economic externalities, un-thought of and unmeasured consequences of actions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalities) It’s a topic I first heard about in AdBusters magazine.

So we have crappy assessments that have strange consequences and we allow the status quo because it’s easy and know one can figure out how to scale better assessments, right?

Well, now I know what to do with my Saturday… thanks for all you do. And did I hear their is a cold snap going on up there?