I had a busy and interesting week last week. I went to a workshop with Nick Rabkin, an arts educator who speaks eloquently about the importance of arts in the schools. You can check out one of his columns here. Then I presented at the Fall Forum of the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) in Providence. I love what CES is doing, and it’s a comfort to me to know there are educators who are really thinking through what makes a good school.
I’m no fan of No Child Left Behind, nor of Race to the Top. I’ve been in schools a long time and seen a lot of things, and I don’t think these programs are much of an answer. They don’t really frame the question right. This of course, deserves a longer discussion, and I’ll post more. But for now, I want to post a song I wrote a year or so ago about testing. It’s not on any recording and I don’t know if it will be. And this is just me and guitar. I wrote it after listening to one teacher after another lament the effect of high stakes teaching on their work. LIke I said, Race to the Top doesn’t really shift the focus much from No Child Left Behind. Testing has its place, but it’s no answer. And like I say in the song, it sure isn’t teaching.
Here’s the song. Hope you like it:
Click here – The Ballad of Janice Miller
My name is Janice Miller and teaching is my trade
A lifetime in the classroom here in seventh grade
Twenty-six years of teaching, I’ve tried to do my best
I love my work, I love these kids so I won’t give this test
You say you need to measure, that testing’s how you see
If the kids are learning all the things you think they should from me
But testing isn’t teaching, don’t tell me they’re the same
I think all you really want is to find someone to blame
Some pencil mark won’t measure the life that someone leads
And some number in a box won’t show what it is that that kid needs
And all your faith in testing it has a hollow ring
If some kid’s poor and hungry, the tests don’t mean a thing
Take all the men on Wall Street who think they know the score
And all the politicians who cut our budgets more
Put ‘em in the classroom with thirty hungry kids
Come back in nine months and ask them how they did
My name is Janice Miller and teaching is my trade
A lifetime in the classroom here in seventh grade
Twenty-six years of teaching, I’ve tried to do my best
I love my work, I love these kids so I won’t give this test
You say you need to measure, that testing’s how you see
If the kids are learning all the things you think they should from me
But testing isn’t teaching, don’t tell me they’re the same
I think all you really want is to find someone to blame
Some pencil mark won’t measure the life that someone leads
And some number in a box won’t show what it is that that kid needs
And all your faith in testing it has a hollow ring
If some kid’s poor and hungry, the tests don’t mean a thing
Take all the men on Wall Street who think they know the score
And all the politicians who cut our budgets more
Put ‘em in the classroom with thirty hungry kids
Come back in nine months and ask them how they did
There’s a point of no returning
There’s a point where something breaks
There’s a point where someone’s taken as much as they can take
There’s a point comes when you know that what you’re doing’s wrong
That’s the point where you say no and refuse to go along
My name is Janice Miller, a teacher’s who I am
I’ve never made much trouble, I’ve done the best I can
There’s a million more like me out there, I can’t speak for the rest
But I’m sick of what we’re doing, so I won’t give this test
©2012 Bill Harley and Round River Music (BMI)
Song, story and culture 