September 22, the State Board of Education will be conducting its final interviews to replace Doug Christensen as Commissioner of Education. I personally liked Christensen. I don’t know what his stance was on home education, but he fought valiantly for Nebraska’s STARS system and resisted education chairman Ron Raikes’ bill to require a single, statewide assessment. He even had to stand up to the US Department of Education.
“We just told the Department of Education that if they were really trying to [serve] all kids and close the proficiency gap that high-stakes testing isn’t the way to do it,” says Doug Christensen, state commissioner of education. “We told them we would show them that we had a better way.” How Nebraska Leaves No Child Behind
Maybe I never knew his stance on home education because he was too busy fighting the powers that be in order to effectively serve Nebraska’s public school children to worry much about us home educators.
Brian Gong, executive director of the National Center for Improvement of Educational Assessment, said Christensen has been influential in the national testing debate for years.
“Doug Christensen and his staff have been leaders in the nation in saying the form of the assessment and the form of the accountability should be as local as possible,” Gong said. “That obviously has been a minority voice, but one I think that people have really appreciated and have been thinking a lot about.” Omaha World Herald
And that is really the crux of why I was sad to see him go. Ted Kennedy, of all people, praised our unique system which successfully incorporated the accountability measures of No Child Left Behind and Nebraska’s historic commitment to local control. Certainly the system was not perfect, but it was far better than the direction Raikes is leading us.
In the end, Raikes won and Christensen resigned. We have four finalists, and I’m not sure I’m happy with any of the choices.
- Roger Breed, superintendent of Elkhorn Public Schools
- Virginia Moon, superintendent of Ralston Public Schools
- Dan Hoesing, shared superintendent of Laurel-Concord, Coleridge, Newcastle and Wynot public school districts
- Larry Ramaekers, superintendent of Aurora Public Schools
On a purely gut level, I’m leaning toward Virginal Moon. But I’m not sure that her resistance to Omaha public schools taking over smaller school districts as Omaha expands necessarily speaks to her broader educational or governing philosophy.
I doubt any of the candidates will be quite what I would like them to be. Maybe I’m unfairly biased, but the finalists were chosen by the State Board of Education.
Actually, I think Ramaekers will probably get the position. He sounds like a Commissioner of Education.
And like Meyer [the President of the State Board of Education], he also said the new education commissioner must work to rebuild relationships with members of the Legislature and the governor’s office.
“I think that in the past, the Department of Education has not been as active of a player in that as maybe it should be,” Ramaekers said of assessment and state aid. “I want to make sure the Department of Education is at the table.” Grand Island Independent
Someone to “heal” the “damage” done by Christensen. At least that is how I read it. Someone who isn’t quite so much a leader, but is ready to let that whole “standardized-tests-are-not-legitimate-measures” thing go.
Once that is out of the way, they’ll have a little more time to turn their attention to those homeschoolers. After all, how do we really know what they are learning if they don’t take The Test?
homeschool education Nebraska Board of Education Doug Christensen
“….Someone to “heal” the “damage” done by Christensen. At least that is how I read it….”
Great minds think alike!!!
I can’t help but think Christensen should not have left. It is when good men stand down, evil men will take their place.
This might have been an acceptable reason for him to resign.
http://www.leadertalk.org/2007/04/sweeping_change.html
Too bad it was written on April 1.
“but the finalists were chosen by the State Board of Education…”
In the private sector it would be called, “insider trading, or conflict of interest,” severely punishable under law by: government
Re: acceptable reason for him to resign.
That article was written April 07:
‘Posted by Chris Lehmann on April 01, 2007′
It’s now September 08, and Spellings is still DOE secretary.
Was DOE secretary promised to Christensen then he was duped? Was it a ruse to get a barrier for NCLB out of the way?
Sorry–I guess I wasn’t clear enough. It was an April Fool’s Day post.
That actually is a legitimate question that needs to be answered clearly and forcefully in the public square by the homeschooling community, and with something other than, “It’s none of your business.”
The difficulty, I think, is that while, as Chistiansen & Co. argue, “the form of the assessment and the form of the accountability should be as local as possible,” that doesn’t match up with the nature of accountability.
Good assessment is local, but good accountability by definition is non-local: you need to communicate the nature of your work to people outside your own community.
Whether or not they do so in a valid way, tests scores (and letter grades) are intended to communicate the quality of a student or a school efficiently to people (legislators, employers, admissions counselors, etc.) who are not members of the learning or professional communities that they are required to manage, judge, and regulate. A portfolio of history or math papers with student reflection and commentary (to pick one non-test form of assessment) is fine to show your fellow students, historians, or mathematicians how well you know your stuff; but it often won’t mean a thing to your local state senator or Joe Voter who wants to make sure the kids aren’t “falling behind.” They need something that comes out of the learners’ context and crosses into theirs and tells them what they should do. Despite their many limitations, test scores are concrete, actionable information.
If we aren’t able to provide that sort of information on our own terms, then I think we will eventually be obligated to provide it on others’ terms. I understand that the demand to be accountable to outsiders has the potential to be oppressive (not to mention just plain annoying), but it also has the potential to be a place of positive engagement. What strategies could homeschoolers use to communicate well with outsiders? How could better “assessments,” meaning better practices of communicating our work as learners to outsiders, help shape our society’s notions of what learning is and to whom it belongs?
The difficulty, I think, is that while, as Chistiansen & Co. argue, “the form of the assessment and the form of the accountability should be as local as possible,” that doesn’t match up with the nature of accountability.
I disagree. While a school system isn’t exactly accountable if it only answers to itself, there is accountability when it answers to the parents of the children it serves. For the public school system, I do think there needs to be additional levels, ie., someone to appeal to when the district isn’t responding as well as other options.
But my senator doesn’t need to know that my daughter is behind in spelling and ahead in math.
You can’t mandate a single test for all students without also controlling what is being taught and the way in which it is taught at every level tested. The older a child is, the less significant the potential problems.
How could better “assessments,” meaning better practices of communicating our work as learners to outsiders, help shape our society’s notions of what learning is and to whom it belongs?
I don’t think that is possible by completely adopting the prevailing notions regarding testing. I think one of the things which homeschooling has brought to education in general is just by being there as an alternative. Testing serves a purpose, but not the one that lawmakers are trying to make it serve. The companies who design these tests themselves say that they cannot be used as a single determining factor for a student’s academic learning. They are one independent measure, intended to check a teacher against state standards because in general, the testing results will line up with what she says her class is doing. Their will be anomalies, but so long as the district has greater control, they can adjust for that and trust the teacher’s judgment. On the other hand, if she says her students are all excelling (or flunking) and the test shows radically different results, there is probably a problem.
This paradigm exists to give parents, not the greater society, tools for measuring the performance of the schools their children are attending.
At least here in NE, we are not held to state standards. A test based on them would make little sense, and would inevitably restrict the freedoms of some homeschoolers. Not us so much (at least not anymore), because I’m a former school teacher and while I am much more relaxed than I used to be, I still tend towards structuring our lessons in a more schoolish way. Not everyone does, and I don’t think we can force them all into that box, even if the goal is to improve our engagement with society.