Ethan's Story. Commentary on high stakes test obsession.

[madfloridian]

Crossposted in General Discussion for visibility.

The story is from 2013. It was told so well by the Orlando Sentinel's Scott Maxwell.

Florida's test-obsessed style of education hits disabled families hard

Just teaching Ethan to say "yes" or "no" — or even keep his gaze focused — was an accomplishment.

So the idea of asking this 10-year-old to solve math equations on an FCAT test seemed ridiculous.

But this is Florida — where the standardized test is king.

So the state made Ethan take it anyway. He spent six hours over the course of two weeks being led through a test.

And then he was asked about eating a peach.

That was the question that set Andrea on fire.

Ethan, after all, can't eat peaches. Or any fruit. Or food at all.

He gets his food through a tube.

Ethan passed away in February 2014. I have not seen the video until now. I found it at the
blog of the NEA president.

Scott Maxwell heard of another child who was blind being shown pictures of animals and being asked which one was the monkey, the elephant, and so on. So he asked some questions about it. He went to the state with his questions. The response.

"These summative assessments used in Florida are one way to measure student mastery of these standards," came the email response from a spokeswoman.

Mastery of the standards?

[elleng]

1. :-(

[Demeter]

2. The wastefulness is stupid; the cruelty is unforgivable

We have to take back EVERYTHING these idiots have defiled and cleanse them. The idiots can go hang.

[Igel]

3. I'd flip your subject line.

This stupidity is wasteful; this unforgiveness is cruel.

But I know that this is a combination of a few factors.

A messiah complex. We are responsible for making society perfect. Education = $ and equality is measured in $. It's more blind than the kid in the story, but people like that.

Distrust. We measure things in $ because we need to measure things. If it can't be measured, we can't verify that others are doing what they want. They might not be. We can't allow that.

The distrust is not entirely unmerited. In numerous cases where responsibility has been assigned for making society perfect, since it's impossible to make society perfect and to correct for all the imperfects imperfect families heap upon their children teachers and administrators have abused the rules and broken the rules to avoid being held accountable and being punished for not doing the impossible. Since they break the rules, that allows the self-styled messiahs to claim that it is possible to make society perfect if we just followed their rules.

That means we need more rules to allow us to measure things better. And along the way, we increase standards so we make society even more perfect and the measurement of a person's worth and contribution to society in $ is even more certain.

Cotton Mather, the WCTU, Bush and Ted Kennedy, Obama and Duncan. Spare us from reformers who think to make society perfect. When frustrated, their first impulse is to spare no sacrifice of anybody else's gold or lives in pursuit of their goal. Some sacrifice their own families and not just strangers. A very few--but only a very few--sacrifice their own gold and well-being. But usually they're the last to be offered. (Society would be better off, IMHO, if they led the way.)