This morning, over 120 children’s book authors and illustrators sent a letter to President Barack Obama expressing concern for “our readers,” a.k.a. tots through tweens. The undersigned, who include such luminaries as Maya Angelou, Judy Blume, Jules Feiffer, Phillip Hoose, and Jane Yolen, say they fear the preponderance of testing in American schools keeps children from learning to love to read.
Two public policy giants—former White House health care expert Ezekiel Emanuel and education historian Diane Ravitch—recently debated the merits of testing in the pages of The New Republic. Though they differ on some points, they agree on the following: Students would actually benefit from more testing, as long as the assessments are written by teachers who know them and are using the grades for immediate feedback. That kind of test is vastly different from an anonymous standardized exam like the SAT. The artists and writers behind Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and The Phantom Tollbooth didn't keep that in mind in their blanket condemnation of testing in general. Here's what their letter gets right and wrong.
“Recent policy changes by your Administration have not lowered the stakes. On the contrary, requirements to evaluate teachers based on student test scores impose more standardized exams and crowd out exploration.”
True. Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative, which tied teachers’ salaries to their students’ test scores, earned his administration mountains of criticism. “Accountability” has become a watchword for Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan as they try to beef up America’s education performance—and it often seems to be nothing more than a codeword for more testing, even as progressives produce more and more evidence that test scores don’t accurately represent a teacher’s worth.
“We call on you to support authentic performance assessments, not simply computerized versions of multiple-choice exams. We also urge you to reverse the narrowing of curriculum that has resulted from a fixation on high-stakes testing.”
Fair. To give credit where credit is due, the Obama administration has championed a new approach to public school education (the Common Core State Standards) that is precisely designed to “reverse the narrowing of curriculum” in the U.S.—even as Republicans fight the standards tooth and nail. Unfortunately, the standardized tests that are being designed to accompany the Common Core are reported to contain the same, uncreative style of multiple choice questions as the tests we already use, and already know don’t work.
“Our public school students spend far too much time preparing for reading tests and too little time curling up with books that fire their imaginations.”
Silly. You won’t get any arguments from this corner about the wonders of reading, but it doesn’t make sense for schools—public or private—to use their precious hours with students telling them to read on their own. A good teacher, and a good classroom discussion, imparts not just a love of reading, but a love of chewing over the material afterwards. And testing has a role to play. Emanuel writes about something he calls “the testing effect”: “Testing [enhances] learning and retention more than just studying… A young neuroscientist named Andrew Butler has gone further, showing that testing can actually facilitate creative problem solving.”
“Teachers, parents and students agree with British author Philip Pullman who said, ‘We are creating a generation that hates reading and feels nothing but hostility for literature.’”
Strong (even for Philip Pullman). A Pew Poll this summer found young Americans are actually more loyal to print books than their middle-aged counterparts, and even if a depressing number of them are just paging through the Twilight series, “hostility” is not the word.
The letter writers failed to mention something much more pressing: the sharp correlation between reading ability and income level, and between income level and test performance. Last week, The Washington Post reported that children from poor families are the majority in schools in the South and West. As schools teach more and more kids who aren’t growing up with books at home, they assume the responsibility to make the whimsical worlds of children's literature available.
Here's the letter, in full:
Dear President Obama,
We the undersigned children’s book authors and illustrators write to express our concern for our readers, their parents and teachers. We are alarmed at the negative impact of excessive school testing mandates, including your Administration’s own initiatives, on children’s love of reading and literature. Recent policy changes by your Administration have not lowered the stakes. On the contrary, requirements to evaluate teachers based on student test scores impose more standardized exams and crowd out exploration.
We call on you to support authentic performance assessments, not simply computerized versions of multiple-choice exams. We also urge you to reverse the narrowing of curriculum that has resulted from a fixation on high-stakes testing.
Our public school students spend far too much time preparing for reading tests and too little time curling up with books that fire their imaginations. As Michael Morpurgo, author of the Tony Award Winner War Horse, put it, “It's not about testing and reading schemes, but about loving stories and passing on that passion to our children.”
Teachers, parents and students agree with British author Philip Pullman who said, “We are creating a generation that hates reading and feels nothing but hostility for literature.” Students spend time on test practice instead of perusing books. Too many schools devote their library budgets to test-prep materials, depriving students of access to real literature. Without this access, children also lack exposure to our country’s rich cultural range.
This year has seen a growing national wave of protest against testing overuse and abuse. As the authors and illustrators of books for children, we feel a special responsibility to advocate for change. We offer our full support for a national campaign to change the way we assess learning so that schools nurture creativity, exploration, and a love of literature from the first day of school through high school graduation.
Alma Flor Ada
Alma Alexander
Jane Ancona
Maya Angelou
Jonathan Auxier
Kim Baker
Molly Bang
Tracy Barrett
Chris Barton
Ari Berk
Judy Blume
Alfred B. (Fred) Bortz
Lynea Bowdish
Sandra Boynton
Shellie Braeuner
Ethriam Brammer
Louann Mattes Brown
Anne Broyles
Michael Buckley
Janet Buell
Dori Hillestad Butler
Charito Calvachi-Mateyko
Valerie Scho Carey
Rene Colato Lainez
Henry Cole
Ann Cook
Karen Coombs
Robert Cortez
Cynthia Cotten
Bruce Coville
Ann Crews
Donald Crews
Nina Crews
Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Laura Dower
Kathryn Erskine
Jules Feiffer
Jody Feldman
Mary Ann Fraser
Sharlee Glenn
Barbara Renaud Gonzalez
Laurie Gray
Trine M. Grillo
Claudia Harrington
Sue Heavenrich
Linda Oatman High
Anna Grossnickle Hines
Lee Bennett Hopkins
Phillip Hoose
Diane M. Hower
Michelle Houts
Mike Jung
Kathy Walden Kaplan
Amal Karzai
Jane Kelley
Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff
Amy Goldman Koss
JoAnn Vergona Krapp
Nina Laden
Sarah Darer Littman
José Antonio López
Mariellen López
Jenny MacKay
Marianne Malone
Ann S. Manheimer
Sally Mavor
Diane Mayr
Marissa Moss
Yesenia Navarrete Hunter
Sally Nemeth
Kim Norman
Geraldo Olivo
Alexis O’Neill
Anne Marie Pace
Amado Peña
Irene Peña
Lynn Plourde
Ellen Prager, PhD
David Rice
Armando Rendon
Joan Rocklin
Judith Robbins Rose
Sergio Ruzzier
Barb Rosenstock
Liz Garton Scanlon
Lisa Schroeder
Sara Shacter
Wendi Silvano
Janni Lee Simner
Sheri Sinykin
Jordan Sonnenblick
Ruth Spiro
Heidi E.Y. Stemple
Whitney Stewart
Shawn K. Stout
Steve Swinburne
Carmen Tafolla
Kim Tomsic
Duncan Tonatiuh
Patricia Thomas
Kristin O'Donnell Tubb
Deborah Underwood
Corina Vacco
Audrey Vernick
Debbie Vilardi
Judy Viorst
K. M. Walton
Wendy Wax
April Halprin Wayland
Carol Weis
Rosemary Wells
Lois Wickstrom
Suzanne Morgan Williams
Kay Winters
Ashley Wolff
Lisa Yee
Karen Romano Young
Jane Yolen
Roxyanne Young
Paul O. Zelinsky
Jennifer Ziegler
CC: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan