The Schools Our Children Deserve:
Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards"

A Forum — October 22, 1999

At this forum, Alfie Kohn discussed the philosophy behind his book, The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards."

Kohn presented two counter-views to prevailing education reform movements. First, he argued that "back to basics" is a misnomer because the United States has never left "the basics." By and large, he feels, the majority of schools have always used "drill and kill" instruction that is too teacher-directed and too much based on learning large groups of "meaningless" facts. He prefers instruction that is collaborative between teacher and student, is challenging and thought-provoking, spends significant time on each topic and in which assessment is embedded and used as a teaching tool. For example, he said, in Japan, students may spend three days on one problem for a deeper and richer understanding.

Kohn also said that the "tougher standards movement" has actually had the effect of lowering the standards that matter such as the depth of student understanding, especially as it often tries to "raise the bar" on "basics" education rather than improving traditional instruction. Kohn sees this as accelerating something that was bad to begin with. He says an emphasis on standardized testing will only increase poor instruction. He argues that back to basics and tougher standards are hurting all youth and that even second rate schools are now third rate schools.

One problem with standards, according to Kohn, is that they create an overemphasis on achievement and test results that can be detrimental to young people by focusing too much attention on performance. It results in more of a focus on how well children are doing than on what they are doing. Under such an approach, Kohn says children lose interest in learning for learning’s sake and become preoccupied with their ability to memorize facts for tests. A focus on achievement leads many children to feel that its not their effort that is important, but their innate ability. As "kids are devastated by failure" they stop trying at all or they seek the easier and quicker ways out – preferring easier tasks. Teacher performance is also harmed by an overemphasis on testing. Kohn cites a Colorado study in which two groups of teachers were each asked to present material to classes of students. Half of the teachers were led to think about having their students perform "up to standards," and their students performed worse than the other class of students whose teachers were told to facilitate their students’ understanding of the material. Kohn wants teachers and students to be intrinsically motivated by a love of learning, not by a desire for better test scores.

Another problem with the standards movement, according to Kohn, is that "it equates higher standards with getting better scores on bad tests." He says the more emphasis on raising test scores, the worse the curriculum and the more our schools become "test prep factories. The intellectual life of our schools is being drained out."

Kohn identified the types of tests he feels are the worst: (1) multiple-choice tests, (2) timed tests (with speed counting more than thoughtfulness), (3) any test given to children under the 3rd or 4th grade, (4) tests given every year or every other year (implying that all children develop at the same rate), (5) tests that leave teachers and students out of the design, (6) high stakes testing (bribes or threats to get high scores), and (7) norm-referenced tests (designed to artificially spread out scores for ranking without providing information on what children really know). In his remarks, Kohn reiterated that high stakes testing takes a bad thing (assessment through bad tests) and makes it far worse, by rewarding or threatening young people based on tests. He also said tests are wrongly used to sort children. "Tests don’t capture what we care about most. What we really care about is excellence and success, not ‘winning.’"

In closing, Kohn said the standards movement lacks two things: democracy and common sense. He said, "we should look carefully at the possibility of educational malpractice." He is actively encouraging parents to unite to reform testing. Parents are organizing in several states, as are some angry teachers. He says that teacher’s unions and civil rights activists should also be upset. Finally, he noted that children should not have to memorize facts that successful adults do not know. He suggested that all adults calling for more testing should have to pass the same achievement tests as children and have their scores published.

Audience comments centered on whether assessments of student achievement are always bad and provided examples of richer assessments like (1) portfolios which thoughtfully collect examples of student work and (2) teacher/parent/student conferences sometimes used in place of grades. Kohn agreed that there are alternatives to standardized tests. He also says that children need a chance to say "I don’t get it," so that they can receive feedback and improve their understanding.

Several audience members defended "true standards-based reform" as trying to get rid of the old system, helping low performing children, developing more collaborative relationships between children and teachers and developing good pedagogy. Another line of audience comments indicated that for historically poor performing schools, even the standards Kohn criticizes may be good because "its the first time children are being held to some kind of standard." Another response was that a certain amount of drilling and working independently is very important and it is not all "drill and kill versus inspiration. Sometimes learning has to be hard."

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