I was so pleased to read this commentary. I am an elementary school teacher who has taught the kids who struggle more than the kids who succeed easily throughout my career. I have taught ESL-heavy classes and I have taught in an ICT (integrated co-teaching classroom) where 40% of the students have special needs for the past three years. My students do not ace the state tests, but they do make consistent progress. The focus on differentiation exists only until the students test. It is absurd.

I thoroughly enjoy teaching the low-performing students, and I wanted to continue my career working with these students; however, I don't know if I will be able to if I am continually rated as ineffective by doing so. It is a sad day for kids because teachers are going to want to run away from teaching the students who need the most support.

Thanks for all the kind words. When I started teaching ESL, I made it a point to go out and really learn a second language, rather than simply take the required 12 credits. I have often thought it would be a good idea to send the Regents to take these tests in Chinese or something so they'd know exactly what they were asking of our kids.

Actually the kids we teach are quite capable. The only thing most of them really need is a little more time.

Very important points. Here's a great irony:

When I was 22 years old, and teaching at Rikers Island, in a program which, among other things, taught many students to read and write for the first time. Those particular young men were transformed by this opportunity and many left with a feeling of home and a desire for learning. I will never forget the young man who had been homeless and was committing petty crimes in order to get food and shelter in jail for the night. He wrote his first letter in his life to his sister and they were re-united. He was moving on toward what my English language learner students refer to as, "a better life."

We deny that pure joy to older adolescents who come to this country. Instead, we have to force-feed them "academic vocabulary" to suit the needs of an exam. Many of our immigrants also cannot read or write in their native language. So the infusion of formulas for compiling phrases into essays is an experiment in Theater of the Absurd. When, nevertheless, they manage to "meet the standards" as outlined in rubrics which look like badly designed real estate contracts, these immigrants are near collapse. They are also cynical about or frightened of the possibilities of higher education. They know very well what they do not know.

Who do we have to beg, borrow or steal from to get these kids as fair a shake as their prison counterparts?

Well said.

look at some families from other nations they take the kid to work landscaping or building a walkway watch and learn and if the elite in the banks would do what they need to do then we would have long bypassed the need to use a social security number to get a loan or what everelse so stupid, and do not give any one your info what ahppens when u get a car accident all the info on the drivers id, whyis it not writen in code,, the are not loking ou t for the for the tax paye r but we sure can clean up the mess, what a joke billions into homeland security and they have no clue who is a citizen or has a green card, tschau gruesse aus der schweiz roly

“Still, passing does not constitute mastery.”

Arthur’s point of having students pass an exam without the mastery, required at the college level, should be a concern for all in our city. Do we really want students to pass a regents at the cost of “depriving them of the time and instruction they need” to garner mastery?

Why do educrats in power still think that language acquisition and fluency for the ELLs is supposed to be within a certain time frame and as natural as those born here? He states that “expecting the same thing from them and kids who have been speaking English all their lives is ludicrous.” I truly feel that it hinders the child’s natural stages of learning.

Would you expect a child entering 9th grade to be tested in Calculus at the end of the school year? Of course not. It takes time and time is the operative word in having mastery. Every child acquires the language at a different pace. Options and differentiations are supposed to be provided. If we want our children to succeed, then those in Albany should create differentiated exams that will place our children first. One size fits all English Regents is unfair for our ELLs.

Is anyone up there in Albany listening?

Great article.

“Still, passing does not constitute mastery.”

Arthur’s point of having students pass an exam without the mastery, required at the college level, should be a concern for all in our city. Do we really want students to pass a regents at the cost of “depriving them of the time and instruction they need” to garner mastery?

Why do educrats in power still think that language acquisition and fluency for the ELLs is supposed to be within a certain time frame and as natural as those born here? He states that “expecting the same thing from them and kids who have been speaking English all their lives is ludicrous.” I truly feel that it hinders the child’s natural stages of learning.

Would you expect a child entering 9th grade to be tested in Calculus at the end of the school year? Of course not. It takes time and time is the operative word in having mastery. Every child acquires the language at a different pace. Options and differentiations are supposed to be provided. If we want our children to succeed, then those in Albany should create differentiated exams that will place our children first. One size fits all English Regents is unfair for our ELLs.

Is anyone up there in Albany listening?

Great Article.

I'm assuming Goldstein also supports choice provisions, since schools of choice are designed to meet the needs of different kinds of kids?

Well said sir! As an administrator in Texas, I too see the students labeled as ESL or in our case Bilingual being held to a standard that may or may not be realistic. We are just now starting to uncover how to best intervene with our second language learners. To compound the challenge we face, many of our students come from economically disadvantaged homes. Regardless if they were born in the US or made it hear by way of their parents, most of the 480 students we educate are English Language Learners. I wait for the day, law makers, who have never been teachers, stop spending billions of dollars on state testing and use that money to really change education for the better!

Great article.

I would propose that the penalties for schools that don't graduate students in 4 years be recinded. Then the following be done for learning different students - especially ESL students:

1. first year in high school be treated as a emersion in English year with emphasis to reading and writng.
2. then the next 4 years be "three semesters long" whihc would mean that summer school is actually a planned part of school.
3. these students should not be scheduled for more than 3 main subject (ie. math. science, English and history). This would ease the courses that require most of the student's time for readings, homework, research, exams and research. Perhaps these course should be exbanded to more that 1x daily.
4. Small group support for homework help and class prep be offered. We actually had the student in small groups of 5-8 students (like a resource room) review the homework, readings and prepared to class participation. This brings the students to a more even plain with other students in the class - a heterogenious class.

This might bring the ESL and the learning different students to a point of learning along with just learning the test.

I spent most of my teaching career with second language learners. It was always a challenge to have them take the required tests, and see their low scores, when I knew that they had made enormous progress. There wasn't anything that showed where they started and how far they had come.
Speaking of writing, I am a bit appalled that several of the postings are from teachers and administrators who do not write correct English, and have numerous words misspelled. What's with that?

Thanks Arthur you have just written what so many of us are thinking. I work in a New arrivals school for immigrants and refugees and I too heard the great news recently of come core, however, I also heard that if the school fails so will the teachers. Like you I work long hours at school as do my colleagues and we are always trying new ways to teach content to ESL students but as you state so well "all children" have a developmental need and we are being asked to do the ridiculous. I know we all have high standards but this expectations are not fair or just period. I would like to very much to send some of our decision makers to Vietnam or China for a semester with no language skills and see how they do in the public schools there. Cheers and thanks for giving teachers a voice.

What you are describing implies trusting teachers. It implies that we trust teachers to be competent, to screw up sometimes, but always to help students be the best they can be. Silly man! The "neoreformers" (many of whom never attended a public school or taught an ESL student) have not only drunk the Kool Aid, they've reframed the conversation. Teachers bad. Schools failing. Poverty not the issue.
Your column belongs on the front page of every newspaper and the lede on every cable news programs. We need to shout it loudly and clearly every time we can: Human beings are not widgets. All kids can learn. In their own way. In their own time.

Salutations Arthur, thank you for putting to pen what we teachers have known for years. Children are more than test scores, and so are their teachers. Many parents and teacher reject this notions of educational reform salvation coming in the form of standardization.
I find myself wondering how after decade of failed education reforms via NCLB and RTTT, and a trillion federal dollars wasted on them we can be returning to more of the same via new standards and new assessments round 2. Call me crazy, but we been there did that one from 2001 to 2012. Let's all be honest we did try this one, and it failed. So why are we trying it again?
It is essential to realize that the U.S. Department of Education already spent a trillion dollars spent on NCLB/RTTT. That is only 10% of what we spend on public schools. Local communities and states spend an additional 90%, and the only innovative about these reforms are federal mandates that dictate how every dime is spent. Nearly 10 trillion dollars over a decade gone, and no one is questioning the DOE in DC. We don't need more of them we need a cop to arrest someone.
Am I the only one that feels our children and schools were robbed? Children, parents, teachers, and schools deserve something better than a repeat of more of the same!
Thank you Arthur for telling on it on the mountain for us.
Jesse Turner
Children Are More Than Test Scores

I particularly like Shelly Brevda's suggestion, as it recognizes the challenges and poses a realistic solution.
Goldstein points out in his post, "when my supervisor asks me to train kids to pass it, I do," and that statement reveals the discriminatory nature of our current testing policy. We "train" monkeys and doges, not people. All humans are entitle to learn, to grow, and to participate in our community. To punish schools for taking the time to get it right is--at best--misguided policy.

Hello iam trutly in this with you as far as each child learns different,that is so true and there needs to be more teachers that take the time with kids weather they have emotional problems or not they the teachers in public school i believe are out for one thing the check and it proves it by how the kids today are not makeing the grade. so lets help do our besat to educate them .

Thank you for this insightful article..as an EFL teacher from the Philippines I have high regards for the American system of Education, and I also believe that teaching to the test won't create a long term impact to the students, hence we are depriving them of what they ought and should know...

Mr. Goldstein,

Are you the same Arthur Goldstein who taught my freshman English class at Townsend Harris H.S. in the mid 1980's? If so, you were spot on then, and even more so now!
I work facilitating a couple of grants for the state of CT around human rights/history/cultural diversity. The kids in my programs all have different cultural backgrounds, some are immigrants, several struggle with English. Through the dedication of their teachers and peers, all of these students are engaging,learning, and comprehending the material. They're getting there at different rates, but because my programs are about teamwork and cooperation as WELL as acheiving the curriculum standards, it feels and looks more like a team effort to success rather than a race to just getting the basics accomplished.
I'm lucky, my programs are an enrichment. We can take the time to work with each kid individually and we incorporate their cultural background with purpose. For our work, it's this very individuality that makes the classroom interesting and dynamic to everyone student in the room.

This is a great piece wth a number of noteworhty ideas in it. Having taught internationally as well as in the States, I have been able to see both what over emphasis on standardized testing does to students and the benefits of not relying so heavily on standardized assessments. I feel that measuring growth, as some above have stated, is not only a much more sensible way of doing things, it also gives the kids themselves (or learners at any level, for that matter) a yardstick to see wherte they have come and what improvements are still both possible and needed. Arthur writes a very thought provoging and compelling article.....