Dr. Jay P. Greene has a smashing article online at National Review in which he browbeats NYTimes education columnist Michael Winerip for regularly tugging at the heartstrings of readers, and for assuming that emotional situations should drive education policy:
The New York Times' weekly education column is perhaps the most widely read and influential newspaper space for education policy. The column, which for the last year has been under the pen of Michael Winerip, could be used for a rational discussion of the facts about education. Unfortunately, Winerip uses his weekly space in the Grey Lady to muddy our thinking with tear-jerking anecdotes. The column is perhaps the most dangerous newspaper space in the nation for those interested in education reform.
Hard evidence has no home in Winerip's column. Each week Winerip, a former education reporter for the Times, deploys human-interest stories meant to reduce even the most hardened education reformer to weeping; then, having blinded the reader with tears, he leaps to his favored conclusion — especially when it comes to his pet subject, high-stakes testing.
Winerip wrote about a kindergarten teacher who left the field because she doesn't approve of Florida's high-stakes tests. According to Dr. Greene, there's no evidence presented in the article to show that the students have been harmed by the test; just that the test makes the teacher cry. Literally.
Take Winerip's recent column about a kindergarten teacher in Orlando, Florida. The first half of the story is a heartwarming description of this gentle teacher nurturing her students. "Precious darlings, we have a day that's bigger than big," she tells them. "You are the b-e-s-t — kiss your brains for being so smart." Watching a video of her students, she cries "pink tears" — that is, the happy kind. She's irresistible.
Then, halfway through the article, Winerip lowers the boom. The teacher is quitting because she doesn't approve of Florida's new high-stakes test and thinks it will force her to change her teaching style. Since Winerip devotes virtually the whole article to describing how sad it is that this teacher is leaving, he doesn't provide any real discussion of the merits of her complaint against high-stakes testing. But he does provide a painstaking description of the teacher's last day at school, when she sheds "blue" (sad) tears.
Actually, the column is from March of last year, but it's as unbalanced as Dr. Greene suggests:
...it is easy to imagine all the broken hearts this spring when Ms. MacLeish, 53, sent a letter home saying this would be her last year teaching kindergarten. It was no ordinary goodbye letter. Ms. MacLeish was m-a-d. Her tears were not pink. She fears that the kindergarten world she knows and has raised to a fine art is being destroyed. "A single high-stakes test score is now measuring Florida's children, leaving little time to devote to their character or potential or talents or depth of knowledge," she wrote. "Kindergarten teachers throughout the state have replaced valued learning centers (home center, art center, blocks, dramatic play) with paper and pencil tasks, dittos, coloring sheets, scripted lessons, workbook pages."
Let's see, what's being assumed here? That everyone's heart would be broken when one kindergarten teacher resigns. That high-stakes testing means even good teachers can find no time to help their students develop talents or knowledge; that testing in fact negates such development. That kindergarten is a place where "coloring sheets" are an atrocity and workbook pages are to be feared.
Are we given much information, in this article, about the test that's being opposed? Nope. We're told Ms. MacLeish is quitting because Florida's third-graders take high-stakes tests, and now kindergarteners take no-stakes tests to establish a baseline. Winerip spends so much time describing her tears; too bad he can't use a line or two to note that the baseline testing is being done because nearly a quarter of Florida's third-graders are failing reading, and the goal is to identify the laggers as early as possible.
Of course, Michael Winerip is no stranger to N2P. On May 27th of last year, I pointed out that his anti-testing bias prevented him from doing the most basic of research for his readers:
Let me be the last (probably) to congratulate Joanne Jacobs on her excellent criticism of the anti-testing New York Times - and the apparently inability of its reporters to do basic research. As she notes, a May 21st NYT article claims that children who flunk the third-grade FCAT must repeat the grade. A simple web search, however, turns up an Orlando Sentinel article which clearly states that children may be promoted with flunking FCAT scores if the student's teacher, principal and superintendent all verify that the child is reading at grade level. This judgment may be based on the child's work on a portfolio, in summer school, or on an alternative test. This is the law, and it's very easy to find information about this online.
Is this "loophole" subject to abuse? Are portfolios notoriously unreliable measurement instruments? Yes, and yes. But that's not the point. The NYT author, Michael Winerip, believes that holding children back a grade has no academic benefits. I believe the NYT should insist that their journalists know how to use Google.
And on July 23rd of last year, I tore apart an FCAT-related article by Winerip in which he went for the tear-jerking and completely bypassed solid information, thoughtful questions, or accurate statistical information:
Those of you who read my comments section will notice that many of my readers have recently made logical statements about why third-graders should not be tested under stakes as high as this. I tend to agree with them. However, given that we currently have a culture (at least in Florida) in which third-graders are being held to these standards, it behooves us to examine the data accurately and see what it's telling us.
We can argue all day about whether to promote the kids who flunked, but I'd rather argue about why they flunked. What are the schools not doing that they should be doing? Are the test standards inconsistent with the classroom curriculum? Are kids of this age more likely to have incapacating test anxiety, or are they perhaps unable to grasp the implications of not trying their best? This article could have addressed these questions, but instead it gave us one sob story, one partial-sob story, incomplete data for our conclusions, uncited "overwhelming" research, contradictory statements, and complaints about summer schooling.
Most profoundly, I find it astonishing that the article, which is about the reading portion of the FCAT, highlights the fact that many more third-graders will be held back this year, but doesn't invite its readers to wonder what reading skills the test might be measuring that teachers didn't catch in the past.
Nice to see that Dr. Greene, who has read many more articles by Winerip than I, has reached the same conclusions about the quality of his "reporting."
Posted by kswygert at February 23, 2004 12:03 PM