15 Fatal Flaws of Test-Driven Factory Schooling

America's current education policies (e.g., NCLB, RttT) rely on and promote authoritarian, test-driven schooling, so how can inform others of the problem with this approach?

For five years, I've been studying authoritarian, test-driven schooling, trying to understand what are its central flaws. One can slice this different ways, but here's my list of the central flaws of authoritarian, test-driven factory schooling.

1) It cannot help us reach the goals we care most about because it focuses on what is easiest to quantify (i.e., test scores), not what matters most for children and our future.

2) It assumes children need to be MADE to learn and thus winds up relying on extrinsic motivation--which is a second-rate approach to motivation for students and teachers alike.

3) It assumes standardization is best, when in fact, profound individualization of student outcomes, learning methods, and pacing is best for healthy learning and development.

4) It assumes "academics" are what children need to learn, when in fact, much of traditional academic content is unnecessary or even harmful.

5) It assumes teaching more academic content earlier and faster is better, when in fact, learning less, later, and slower is often better in the long run.

6) It usually assumes separate-subject instruction is better, when in fact integrated curriculum and learning from life is frequently superior for the goals we value most.

7) It ignores and even tramples on children's basic needs, thus directly causing a wide range of emotional, social, behavioral, motivational, and learning problems.

8) It was never designed to be effective for all children, and it isn't.

9) It emphasizes correct answers and certainty, but a focus on correct answers stifles critical thinking, and allowing uncertainty is crucial for deep learning.

10) Because of its emphasis on external authoritarian control, it does not develop the knowledge, skills, and habits of initiative, self-motivation and self-management necessary for mature adulthood, for active citizenship, or for an entrepreneurial economy.

11) Its emphasis on allegedly core academic subjects and learning "the basics first" traps learners and teachers alike in a self-perpetuating dead end from which it is almost impossible to escape.

12) It is based on what is convenient for the adults, not what is best for children.

13) The standardization mindset creates a tendency to view children as the problem--and then to drug them, punish them, or bribe them into learning or behaving (and fitting the mold)--rather than changing one's goals and methods, including an end to standardization.

14) It is based on a footrace metaphor (i.e., who's ahead, behind) that prevents focusing on what is important--which is optimizing individual children's development and learning.

15) In the end, authoritarian, test-driven factory schooling tends to value what is effective in the short run for boosting test scores on a narrow range of academic subjects. However, this focus is precisely what tends to be less in effective in the long run for the whole child and for the goals we value most.

So, when people say "We need to hold teachers more accountable or use high-stakes testing or make education more standardized," we can say "Authoritarian, test-driven, factory schooling is simply the wrong paradigm--it is less effective in the long run for the goals we value most. Most of what matters is not on the tests, carrots and sticks are a primitive approach to motivating students and teachers, and standardization is good for cars but terrible for kids."

American Education: A Race to Nowhere

Where is American Education in 2010?

American education is headed at high speed in the wrong direction.

Smart and caring CEOs and politicians who do not understand education very well have controlled American education policymaking for decades now. The result of this has been disastrous: the American people have been misled repeatedly about how our schools are doing and about what really works for the goals we value most. The degree to which the American people have been misled about education is staggering.

Recent education policies have hurt children, hurt families, and hurt our nation. Current policies (No Child Left Behind Act [NCLB], Race to the Top [RttT], and endless for-profit charter schools) seem as if they were designed by a group of people who sat down and said "OK, now let's do the opposite of what the best research suggests." Or to put it differently, the same kind of thinking that led to our financial meltdown is now guiding educational policymaking in America and many other countries. Predictably, these policies have slowed and sometimes reversed our educational progress as a nation, and a great deal of damage has been done to student learning and development, to families, and to teachers and the teaching profession.

So, people who understand children and understand education need to take action to stop this train wreck, and head education in a healthier direction. In the coming weeks and months, I'll explain through this blog why accountability, student achievement, teacher pay for test scores, so-called "scientifically-based teaching methods," back-to-basics, so-called "measurable outcomes," scripted instruction, rigorous academics, accelerated teaching, incentives, and national standards are not the solutions to our educational challenges--THEY ARE THE PROBLEM!!!

Authoritarian, test-driven, factory-style schooling is simply the wrong paradigm for our children and our future, and that means that the things that are part of that outdated paradigm are what we need to outgrow, not embrace. Furthermore, while we foolishly chase test scores, other countries are making much wiser decisions.

I'll also explain the power of framing and then, in each post, I'll give specific examples of how we can re-frame the educational debates around that issue. Language is power, and it's time for people who understand education well to use language more effectively, so we can return sanity and quality to American education and to the lives of children, families, and educators.