The Failure of Final Exams

I recently heard a story that reflects a common occurrence in our current school system.  The narrative arc of the story will sound familiar.  An Honors level teacher gave a final exam to their class.  The teacher prides themselves on being “difficult” so very few learners passed the exam.  Parents complained to the building principal about the poor grades.  The principal then met with the teacher and suddenly more learners passed the exam. 

Let’s deconstruct this story through the lens of learning.  After all, we tell ourselves that kids go to school to “learn” so it seems appropriate to use learning as a lens.

Learners are grade obsessed (or parents are grade obsessed)

            The parents and learners in this story did not complain to the principal about a lack of learning.  Rather, they complained about the grades on the final exam. Most were concerned about the ramifications of the poor grade on their learner’s grade point average and class rank.

Our society is infatuated with rankings.  Look around and you will find almost everything in our life is ranked highest to lowest.  Never mind the fact that the criteria for the rankings often have little to do with what is purported to be measured.  For example, the “best” colleges are often those that manipulate their admission and graduation numbers to make them look “selective” thus placing them on a list of “best” schools. What makes a college the “best” really depends on so many factors centered on the needs and desires of each individual learner.  In the same vein, class rank and GPA trick learners and parents into believing that learning may have occurred when in actuality both criteria have little to do with actual learning.  Learners learn to “play the system” to artificially inflate GPA and class rank.  It is our job to change the focus from artificial measures of success (things like GPA) toward meaningful measures of success that reflect learning.

What does the final exam grades “prove”?

            If I could ask the teacher one question it would be, why didn’t your learners learn anything in your class?  The job of a teacher is to facilitate learning (thus, in the world of Mass Customized Learning we call teachers learning facilitators).  In our system, we attempt to measure learning through exams…in this case a final exam.  I argue that since the teacher’s students di so poorly on the test that they did not do their job and make sure students learn.  This is the problem with our current system.  It has been ingrained in teachers that to be viewed as “rigorous” they must fail students.  Many schools celebrate “hard” teachers for having the reputation of not giving “A’s”.  By doing so, the narrative of schooling is that the artificial measures of success (grades) are more important than the stated purpose of school, which is learning.  Organizational energy that could be spent developing techniques to assure learning occurs goes toward manipulating grades.  What is the usefulness in that?  Our educational system wastes valuable capacity propping up systems that have nothing to do with learning.  Educators must challenge the systems that do not support learning to assure that students are learning.

Algorithm Kids

I am going to veer off the topic of the last two blogs to talk about “algorithm kids”. My middle daughter had a difficult time sleeping a few weeks ago and had an upset stomach for a few nights.  Since this is a little bit unusual my wife and I talked about what could be causing her illness.  We both agreed that her nausea was precipitated by her anxiety on taking the State-mandated tests.  At the same time, I was reading a collection of Joe Bageant’s essays and in one of the essays he described how the educational system is simply turning kids into algorithms. This gave me an insight into our educational world.

Before I get to my insight, I am going to share with you what my wife and I tell our kids about the State tests.  First, we ALWAYS tell them that we do not care how they do on the tests.  What is important to us is what they have learned in school.  We try to monitor the actual learning that takes place throughout the school year.  We are very specific about our definition of learning too…we do not include something memorized for a short time so they get a good grade on attest as “learning”.  We want to see evidence that they have an understanding of a concept that is unique and transferable to other contexts.  Admittedly, this is a high bar but one we feel is achievable.  The State tests (whether they are the Keystone or PSSA) will not give us this kind of information. Second, we want them to try to do well on the tests but we also are frank with them about our motivation for them to do well.  We both believe that preparing and trying your best is what is important and not the actual result.  Theoretically, if the school has done their job, the results on these tests should be good.

            I do not want my children, or ANY CHILD, to simply be an algorithm. I want my children, and ALL CHILDREN, to be wrapped in a system of support and caring that supports intellectual and emotional development.  I do not want my children, or ANY CHILD, to be in their “zone of proximal development” based on where an algorithm thinks they should perform on a silly test.  I want my children, and ALL CHILDREN, to have learning experiences that are customized to their entire being.  I do not want my children, or ANY CHILD, to be in the red, green or yellow “zone of growth” in a “growth model”.  I want my children, and ALL CHILDREN, to learn the power of creativity and harness their imagination for lifelong learning.  I do not want my children, or ANY CHILD, to be labeled as “in need of support” because they did not do well on a meaningless State test.  I want my children, and ALL CHILDREN, learn about the power of learning from their mistakes and using critical thinking to make decisions. 

We have allowed our educational system to become “anti-children”.  We assume that our educational system is bad because “numbers” are not where some think they should be (an arbitrary accounting by any measure) forgetting that each number represents tens, hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands of our children.  It is time for us to speak against the nonsense that has been peddled as education reform over the past 15 years and focus on what is important…children.

Let's Unbundle "School"

Industries are being disrupted by people and organizations that are utilizing technology to reframe the traditional business role.  Disrupters study an industry in an effort to determine its most essential components.  By doing this, disrupters do not approach the problem with a technology in mind.  Rather, they concentrate their time on doing the heavy mental lifting required to analyze the functions and outputs of an industry.  I recently watched a 60 Minutes episode that discussed how the banking industry is in the process of being totally disrupted.  Just think about how bank branches are becoming obsolete and you can get a picture of the disruption occurring in this sector.  In the piece, they talked about how the banking industry has become “unbundled”.  New companies are creating services that target these specific pieces of the old banking industry; oftentimes with more access and efficiency for consumers.  I think it was a fascinating piece.  Of course the question that came to my mind after watching the show was this: How can we unbundle schooling and is that even a good idea?  In many cases the disruption that occurs because of unbundling is already occurring.  Educators better pay close attention to this trend!

Schooling encompasses what must people think about when they think of K-12 education.  People think of school busses transporting kids to a building where learning happens.  Schooling is a broader term than education or learning and reflects the industry that dominates the K-12 sphere.  So, if schooling is unbundled, what would it look like?  I will offer you my opinion on unbundling schooling.  This is a work in progress and there are many ideas that need to be examined more closely.

I believe “schooling” can be broken into three distinct categories.  These categories can also be broken into their component parts.  The three categories that make up schooling are: education, social, and cultural transfer.

EDUCATION:   Education is the intellectual growth that (hopefully) occurs in our schools.  Education is the stated purpose of schooling; it is also the area in which the government and most reformers concentrate their efforts.  I believe there are four component parts of education: Learners, learning, instruction, mandates (and its cousin…assessment).  For all of the curriculum directors out there, you will notice that I did not name curriculum as one of the component parts.  I did this for two reasons.  First, the curriculum space has been significantly disrupted already.  The choices for schools to chose curricular options have increased significantly over the past ten years.  This has created (in my opinion) a marketplace where an aware education leader can purchase almost any curricular option they can envision.  Their job is simply to assure the curricular option serves the purpose for their school and learners.  Second, in today’s environment, curriculum is just not as important as its sibling, instruction.  Great instruction is paramount as we move into the future of unbundled school options.  Instruction is changing constantly as we grapple with how increase student engagement in a face to face, blended and virtual learning environment.  Instruction is the area where education leaders need to concentrate their efforts in a fluid learning environment.  Finally, learning is the basis of education.  If a learner does not learn, then there is no education.  Creating meaningful learning environments for learners that reflect our current century is the number one challenge in education.  One final note, we assume that everything we do is geared toward the learner...but does that really happen in "schooling"?  It seems to me that schooling is an adult oriented institution.  In order to significantly change schooling (and education) we must become radically learner centered.  This will place the priority on the learner and their learning.

Social:             Over the course of my career I have heard so many people say, “The school Board can pass a multi million-dollar budget with no questions, but change the football coach and you will fill your auditorium with concerned citizens!”  My answer to that is, “Good”.  While I was superintendent, the most festive time for our community revolved around Friday night football games.  This was an opportunity for the community to come together and celebrate the youngsters of their community (those in the band and cheerleaders included).  Why is this a bad thing?  “Social” can be broken into at least five component parts: sports, clubs, band, chorus, cafeteria.  Maybe education leaders and schools should spend more of their time worrying about the social aspect of their students.  Why is this important?  Think about how most people in communities connect for opportunities, whether the opportunities are for jobs or social climbing.  Most jobs do not require a high school transcript; people receive opportunities through word of mouth and people that they know.  When I was a superintendent in Ridgway I asked a successful businessman what academic skills are essential for his new hires.  I thought that algebra might be his answer.  His answer was that he likes to hire farmers and ex-military because when  a machine breaks down at two in the morning those two people will not wait for a boss to show up later in the morning, they will try to figure out a solution now.  No mention of academic credentials.  Just previous work experience and word of mouth.  I believe this happens more than education reformers would like to admit.  I believe the reality is that the social aspect of schooling needs to be embraced and developed.

Cultural Transfer:        Cultural transfer consists of the hidden (and not so hidden) cultural norms that get passed from one generation to the next.  Schools serve as a transfer agent for these norms.  The component parts of this category are (but not limited to): Structure of society, obedience, conformity, patriotism, individualism, entrepreneurship…  I can name more (and you can too!) but those serve as a good start.  With the eroding of community structures in many places, the schools have filled an important role in inculcating students in how to act in society.  This is an almost completely ignored aspect of schooling and needs to have more attention paid to it.

I will spend time in the next blogs discussing ideas about how each one of these areas can

become “disrupted”, or how they are starting to be disrupted already.