Will's Snips

There is a saying that U.S. students are the most tested, and the least examined, of any in the world. American policymakers are quick to turn to testing to cure whatever problems they think exist in schools. Because teachers’ judgment is mistrusted, we test students in the United States more than any other nation, in the mistaken belief that testing produces greater learning.

However, nations like Finland and Korea -- top scorers on the Programme for International Student Assessment -- formally test students only in the 12th grade, to inform college admissions, having eliminated the crowded testing schedules used decades ago when these nations were much lower-achieving. Other high-achievers typically test students but once in elementary and/or middle school to see how they are progressing. Those that add essay examinations in high school, like Hong Kong, Singapore and the U.K., increasingly include school-based assessments of project-based activities like science investigations and research papers. None of these nations use the kind of multiple-choice tests common in the United States.

Meanwhile American students, who now spend weeks of every school year from 3rd grade to 11th grade bubbling in answers on high-stakes tests, currently perform well below those of other industrialized countries in math and science, and have more trouble writing, analyzing and defending their views, because they have much less practice in doing so.

The current desire to attach scores from a burgeoning battery of tests to teacher evaluation could make matters worse. Recent research shows that test score gains are highly unstable and error-prone for measuring individual teachers, and that making high-stakes decisions based on these tests causes schools to reduce their teaching of important content and skills not measured by the tests. As a group of leading researchers warned last week before the New York Regents voted on such a scheme, we can expect teaching and curriculum to be narrowed further as teachers focus more intensely on these tests, and we can expect teachers to seek to avoid serving special education students, new English learners and others whose learning is poorly measured by the tests.

At the end of the day, stronger learning will result from better teaching, not more testing, as leading nations have long understood.

Here’s what I did to self-publish:

• I created an account on createspace.com. They are owned by Amazon. Great customer service. You have any question at all you hit a button that says “Call Me” and within 30 seconds they have a customer representative calling your phone.

• I downloaded a Microsoft Word template they provided. This template took into account whether a page was a left page or a right page, it helped build the table of contents, kept the page numbers accurate, etc. In other words, the template used by any publisher in the world when they format your book.

• I made a cover. Createspace had over a million options when you combined their templates with images, fonts, etc. I used one of their photos.

• I saved it as a PDF and uploaded it. I let them pick the ISBN number.

• I picked a price of $7.95. This was the minimum price I could go if I wanted them to distribute it to bookstores, libraries, etc along with Amazon. I get about a $2 royalty per book at that price. But if you chose a price of $20 then you would get about a $14 royalty. Much higher than any publisher will ever give you. I chose a low price because I’m trying to get as many copies out as possible. I have many books to go and want the audience to be happier and happier with each product.  Personally, I would prefer if you get the free book – directions below to get it.

• They sent a proof. Once I approved it, it was officially published at createspace.com. About two days later it was on Amazon.com.

• I hit a button to format it as a Kindle book. Up until now everything was free, but formatting for the Kindle requires some work and costs $69. Three weeks later they sent me the documents formatted for Kindle and I had to use Amazon Author Central to upload the Kindle version. Again, I priced it as low as they would let me. $0.99. Within 48 hours it was on Amazon.

• I also created my Amazon page, linked the RSS feed of my blog to it, created a video and uploaded it, linked my twitter feed to it, etc.

• I’m also giving out my book for free (the PDF, which basically looks like the Kindle version). As of today I’m setting up an automated email to get the free version, but if anyone wants to email me direct feel free to contact me through the Contact button on my blog at jamesaltucher.com and I’ll respond.

-          Here’s how to get a FREE version:

• Email this address: LuckiestPersonAlive@gmail.com
  The subject line has to be:  Luckiest Person Alive Free Book

• You’ll get an email within seconds. There won’t be an attachment but there will be a link to the full PDF on Google Docs. You can read it as a PDF there. OR If you want it as an attachment you can then click “Share” on the right and EMAIL it to yourself (or whomever) as an attachment. All for free.

Transparency is the new objectivity.

But perhaps the most troublesome finding from the surveys is this: More than a third of presidents think the industry they lead is heading in the wrong direction.

Without a change in course, presidents fear, American higher education's standing around the globe could erode. Although seven in 10 college chief executives rated the American system today as the best or one of the best in the world, barely half predicted that a decade from now the United States would be among the top globally.

"We should be worried," said Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York system. "We are in a flat world. We are going to have to evolve."

American higher education has never been a monolith, of course, but the findings of the survey of more than 1,000 presidents, conducted March 10 to April 25 by the Pew Research Center, in association with The Chronicle, suggest how deep its divisions are. What's more, those fractures are intensifying just as the country faces formidable and col­lective challenges, such as meeting President Obama's goal of having the world's highest proportion of college graduates by 2020.

Throughout the survey of presidents, the most positive responses, and justifiably so, came from leaders of highly selective colleges, which have healthy balance sheets, more top-achieving applicants than they can possibly admit, and a strong portfolio of global partnerships.

But they occupy a tiny space in American higher education. The responses of nonelite institutions—two-year, for-profit, and less-selective four-year colleges—largely reflect their more precarious situation. The public institutions among them must grapple with declining state support, while tuition-driven private colleges confront a student market that has said "enough" to paying more. Proprietary colleges face greater government scrutiny and regulation.

All will have to educate a student body that is underprepared, many of whom are from groups that have traditionally not attended college.

"The view from the bottom," said James Jacobs, president of Macomb Community College, outside Detroit, "isn't so bright."

And unless they rethink the way they do business, education experts say, some colleges will be forced to shutter.

"We're staring fundamental change in the face," said Stephen R. Portch, a former chancellor of the University System of Georgia. "Our system is bankrupt, and we've got to have a new model."

As we incorporate new and varied technology tools into our classrooms, they not only have to make sense to us educators but also to our families and communities. How well are we doing at explaining what we’re doing (and why) to those that we serve?

We could quote the research of educational experts like Diane Ravitch, Richard Rothstein and Jonathon Kozol as to why poverty and parental support affect test scores significantly more than any curricular changes a school can provide. We could refer to myriad child psychologists who have documented the deleterious effects of high-stakes testing on our nation’s youth. We could call upon assessment experts who insist that standardized tests were not developed to evaluate teacher effectiveness. And we could examine the last decade of educational results that followed No Child Left Behind: rampant gaming of the system to provide the appearance of growth, narrowing of the curriculum, excessive teaching to the test and virtually no change in the achievement gap.

All of the above would lead the reasonable person to be skeptical about using standardized tests as the engine for school reform. Worse yet, we fear that the competition generated by this approach will reduce the collaboration necessary for true school improvement.

Librarians that are arguing and lobbying for clever ebook lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending library as warehouse as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario.

The situation reflects a larger cultural change in the relationship between students and colleges. The authority of educators has diminished, and students are increasingly thought of, by themselves and their colleges, as “clients” or “consumers.” When 18-year-olds are emboldened to see themselves in this manner, many look for ways to attain an educational credential effortlessly and comfortably. And they are catered to accordingly. The customer is always right.

The battle between Facebook and Google is about who has control of our lives online. And for those who have never lived in a world without the internet, there’s no distinction between online and offline.