Tony Wagner Quotes
We teach and test things most students have no interest in and will never need, and facts that they can Google and will forget as soon as the test is over
Many would disagree about Wagner’s assertion that students will never need the material that is the content of most school testing. It is true that a significant proportion of students have little interest in the material tested for, there is little question that math, reading, word usage, and critical thinking are useful and this is the bulk of the content of most testing. Wagner is an enthusiast for Google and the Internet, but he seems to forget that one has to read, think critically and have a good working vocabulary in order to even use the Google and the Internet.
Tony Wagner, Founder and Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group, E-Mail to Tomas Friedman, Match 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The testing movement that was a part of the so called educational reform of the George W. Bush Administration’s educational reform program that also had bipartisan support also had unintended consequences which some however predicted. Curricula changes and music, art, home economics, civics, physical education tended to get deemphasized or dropped as all schools were focused on was the test performance; school economic and ethnic segregation became worse as publicly available test scores by school and district tended to persuade parents who could afford alternatives (including moving) would avoid poor testing schools. By conditioning school funds and teacher salaries on test performance, teachers tended to avoid the poorer testing schools in favor of those with students who would score well. Perhaps worst of all cheating was rampant, where teachers and school administrators would change test scores or get teachers the tests just before they were administered. School systems misclassified poor testing students as having mental or learning deficiencies so they would not bring the average down. Some states and large school systems, would encourage poor testing students to drop out of school so they would not bring down the average.
The Governor had just ordered the withdrawal of the State from the “Common Core” national educational standards and testing program. Louisiana has always had a relatively poor education system and the test scores of Louisiana Students were very poor compared with students from other states. However, this was embarrassing, and instead of trying to improve the education in the State, the Governor wanted the State to have their own tests so they could lower the standards and appear to have better results in percentage of students passing. The State Superintendent of Education, however, claimed the Governor did not have the authority to withdraw from the common core, and a political and legal battle began.
