Join Me in a Fist Shaking at Politicians

Before you groan and skip this particular blog, I just want to reassure you that I am not referring to Obama or to any specific political party. This is not a my-guy-is-better-than-your-guy rant. It can’t be, really, because I don’t even know who is responsible for this little gem. All I know is that Plato was right, when someone wants a building built they go to a construction expert, if they want a ship built they go to a ship builder, but when they want a government built they all think they are qualified experts. And unfortunately, this mentality spills over into education. When they want an education system built, they do not go to the experts, they make their own decisions.

Recently the Utah legislature has done just that. They have made two (that I want to rant about) decisions that are completely ridiculous, despite warnings and pleadings from the experts.

A bit of background: Every year the State Core (which is what determines what teachers are supposed to teach) designates a certain type of writing that the students are supposed to learn. In 9th grade the emphasis is persuasive writing. The 9th grade teachers spend about half the year teaching persuasive writing. Then the district assigns the Direct Writing Assessment (DWA) and every ninth grader has to write on the same prompt. The essays are then sent off to be scored by district-trained specialists, and by the end of the year the students get scores back that reflect their current ability, and therefore their likelihood of passing the UBSQT (the test every Utah student has to pass in order to receive a diploma).

Flashing back to the present: Like everyone, the legislature is looking at ways to cut costs and save money. One of the ways they are doing this–handing over the DWA to artificial intelligence. Instead of having humans with brains read and grade the essays, they are having them submitted on the computer for an AI program to read and grade. Our district has been using this program for years. We know it’s a fun tool to help kids develop their editing skills. We also know it has serious limitations and is NOT reliable as an assessment tool. We have seen, first hand, students who have tricked the program by writing one paragraph and then copying and pasting it 4 more times and getting an almost perfect score. Or one student who wrote nothing but the letter “L” over and over but put in spaces for words and paragraph breaks. We have also seen students write fantastic papers that the AI marked as “unscorable” or “off topic” because it was too metaphorical. Bottom line, we now have a high stakes test with a completely unreliable score.

And the second brilliant decision? They moved the test from 9th grade to 8th grade. The 9th grade teachers tried to tell the legislature that the students are not yet ready for serious persuasive writing in 8th grade. Not to mention it diminishes the effectiveness of their teaching if they spend the year focusing on a type of writing that the students were assessed on the previous year. The 8th grade teachers tried to tell the legislature that they are barely getting through the core curriculum as is; there is no way they have time to add a completely new section (one that, may I reiterate, the 9th grade teachers spend almost half a year on). But does the legislature listen? No.

Why? Because when this fails no one will die and no property will be damaged. No buildings will collapse. No ships will sink. No consequences will fall on them because, most importantly, no money will be visibly lost. Before it fails it will be millions of dollars saved. After it fails it will be swept under the rug and replaced by something new.