StickWithANose

This fluff piece in EdWeek really touched a nerve. On its surface, the article is another contribution to a long line of Horatio Alger stories documenting the unlikely success of government officials who have risen to the top of their profession, but there is an internal contradiction to this story that raises my blood pressure.

This article documents the life history of Arne Duncan’s new assistant secretary for K-12 education, Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana. It’s a sweeping story of a young woman overcoming the “soft bigotry of low expectations” of her teachers to become a successful educator, and now administrator, in her own right.

Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana knows about low expectations.

After all, as a 1st grader in California, she was assigned to the “Buzzards” reading group—the lowest in her classroom—despite the protests of her Mexican-immigrant parents that she could already read in her native Spanish. In high school, a counselor told her she had no chance of going to UCLA.

Now, she’s U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s pick for assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, in charge of implementing K-12 policy under the No Child Left Behind Act…

Ms. Melendez got to this point in her career by vaulting over the low expectations of her early years—indeed, attending and graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles. She went on to get her Ph.D. in language, literacy and learning from the University of Southern California. Her career path saw her rise from a classroom teacher through district-level leadership ranks.

In many ways, this is a story that hits close to home. The young Stick began each school year with the joyous honor of being assigned to the “Buzzards” reading group based on my scores on the standardized tests I’d taken the previous Spring. As the school year progressed, I was moved up the food chain of reading groups only to repeat the process again the following school year. The key here is standardized assesments. The Stick has always had trouble with these tests from the ACT to the GRE, and they have been a constant impediment throughout my academic career… a career that has progressed from being an educator for six years to the completion of a PhD.

I have extensive experience proctoring standardized assessments as well as more authentic measures of literacy. What troubles me is that the standardized assessments [scientifically constructed don't you know] being pushed on states by Arne’s Department of Education are poor instruments for gauging student achievement, especially for literacy. [see the work of Andre A. Rupp & Marsha Riddle Bully] The skinny is that these assessments mask variations in the component skills of reading and provide a flawed assessment of overall student skills!

The number of students whose academic potential are being circumscribed by flawed assessments is unknowable, but I would speculate that there are many young Sticks out there whose potential is being wasted because of our blind insistence on the results produced by these ’scientifically-based assessments.’ The success that Melendez de Santa Ana has enjoyed is surely being denied to many students like herself by policies that she is now in charge of promoting! Perhaps there is more to Melendez de Santa Ana’s rise in the ranks of the education establishment than her immutable drive for success…

“Her selection nearly rounds out the Education Department’s top leadership team, a mix of Washington insiders, foundation and think tank education experts, school district leaders, and confidants from Mr. Duncan’s time as schools chief in Chicago.”

Ah, yes. Being a useful tool to the powerful does have its rewards. Just ask Thomas Sowell. He hasn’t had to produce real scholarly literature since 1981.