13: Examining standardized testing

Her most recent book, which we'll be chatting quite a bit about today, is called The Test Why our schools are obsessed with standardized testing But you don't have to be. Thank you so much Anya for being on the show. I'm so glad to connect with you. Scott Yay. So, I was wondering, well, you know, I'm very curious why

you wrote this book. But in researching, you're talking about this book and stuff I've know there's an interesting backstory in the sense that the book that you originally sought out to write was not the book that you wrote. Is that correct? Yeah? Basically, yeah, So you know, I had written a previous book, Diyu, which was all about innovations in higher ED. And you know, it's a disruptive story because there's a lot of change happening in the

higher ED world. And I really wanted to kind of make a continuation of that story and talk about kind of disruptive change and evolution in K twelve education. But what I found was there were so many more roadblocks to kind of system wide change in the K twelve universe, particularly in the public schools that nine out of ten

students attend. And the major roadblock there was the existence of these standardized tests and the fact that every school essentially is being held accountable for the results of these very like weak, limited, and somewhat outdated measurements of just a couple of different skills. And when you say everyone is being held accountable, who are they being held accountable by?

We talk about the federal government. Well, the federal government issues that the major mandate and they're the ones responsible for this test driven transformation through the No Child Left

Behind law in two thousand and two. But you know, on top of the federal mandate, which is that state you know, schools test every child once per year grade three through eight in math and reading, plus once in high school states and districts appiled a lot of requirements on top of it, so really the mandates are coming at every level. Wow, and you're arguing that this is not necessarily a good thing? Is that an over understatement

of the century? In fact us ten us ten to start ten things, ten reasons why it's not necessarily a good thing. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to give it all away because I want people to definitely read your book. But let's discuss a couple pick let's let's you know, can you pick one right now?

We can talk about Yeah. I think probably the most relevant to your audience is number one, which is we're testing the wrong things, you know, right, So, uh, and that's kind of a basic I talked to one of the researchers I talk to who really thinks deeply about assessment, Huburkhard, and he's actually responsible for writing some of the math standards of the common Core. He said, there's two kinds

of errors in measurement. There is, uh, there's systematic error, and there is sort of the kind of error where you're not really statistical statistical type of error. So you know, you can either have you know, not quite precise enough measurements, and you have a little bit of error there, or you can be totally looking at the wrong thing, like

looking in the wrong direction. And so you know, the kind of errors that we're making in assessing students really are kind of systematic because we're not looking at we're looking at very limited samples of performance on just a few kinds of tasks, and we're extrapolating from that huge amounts of you know, decisions about student performance, about student knowledge, about the quality of schools, about the quality of teaching, and all of this might be wrong at a really

basic level. I mean, just to take one factor that everybody's kind of familiar with, which is test anxiety. You know, twenty five to forty percent of people have in bad enough anxiety when they then to take a test that

their scores are going to be depressed. And so the type of people who might be sensitive to their environment, who might be very conscientious, who might be you know, noticing a lot of details, people who are really talented are not getting their performance measured accurately by these tests. And that's just one kind a problem with what we're testing. Okay, so this is you say, a million things. They're they're interesting.

So there's so one literal thing. There's a whole literature on the impact of like, for instance, math anxiety and what it does to the brain is literally it literally shuts down because that's a common one math anxiety. When you know, when I just say the word math right now, a lot of my listeners, do you see their prefaunt the cortex is shutting down, and we don't want that to happen. We want them to listen to the rest

of this interview. So puppies, puppies. I'm going to save it by saying something to reactivate puppies, and then then the people the opposite end of the math, the math part of the brain activates. But yeah, so so it's it is a serious issue. How you know, when you say the word talent, I mean that's a loaded word as well. Right so, but what we're really saying there, I think is you're not we're not really measuring with

someone's full potential because there are all there's factors. Anxiety doesn't really if you're really anxious in your prefought the cortex to shut down or the brain the center part of your brain associated with with working memory as not

optimally functioning. Then the point there is that we're not really getting a good assessment of your of your intellectual capability, right well, and I mean I think I would argue that we're not measuring potential at all, you know, And that's a really really serious issue, right because these tests, the roots of psychometrics are based on a concept of intelligence that is fixed, hereditary and unitary intelligence quotient. And that was the belief from the earliest days of the

attempts to measure kind of mental functioning. And that's no longer what we think. We no longer believe in intelligence is being fixed, hereditary, unitary. So you talk to Okay, not everybody believes in it, but but you know, some people, I personally think that is true. I read a whole book called on Gifted saying that I go, yeah, exactly exactly, so, right, so we have a lot more complex sense of and intelligence. And actually, I mean, these tests are no longer meant

to be, you know, measuring aptitude per se. They're meant to be achievement tests. But even then, you're inculcating a really fixed mindset because you're testing knowledge at a point in time and then you're imputing something about performance. And it's very problematic because these tests are so highly correlated with family income and minoriti group status, you know, much

more so than anything innate. But it's very problematic because the results of these tests are so highly correlated with income and minority group status, and yet we're imputing all of these qualities of aptitude and intelligence to them. Okay, so that is an excellent point. And we do know that SES and a lot of environmental factors are correlated with test performance. There it's what is really tricky. And I read about this a little bit in my book.

It's very true. It's hard to like separate out all of these factors because they all form a nexus, right, They're all correlated with one another. So IQ is highly correlated with test performance, it's a fact. But IQ itself is also highly correlated with se S and all that. So you're not making the argument that that i Q is is just a measure of background socidal you know, and I don't think you know that anyone would really can really make it strong. It is measuring some set

of skills. Those set of skills that it's measuring itself aren't innate in the sense that that there are some people who are just born with with these intellectual functions, whereas there's some people who aren't born with them. I think that we know enough in science know that's certainly not the case, and I don't I think even the most diehard are hardcore IQ researchers would admit that is that that just because something has a heritability coefficient doesn't

mean that it's purely innate. We know a lot about how genes work and how genes are fundamentally interacting with the environment. So you're not I want to just make clear what you're not arguing. Right, as far as I can tell, you're not making a strong extreme argument along the lines of these tests are merely tracking background and they have no utility or no, they're not measuring any skills. You're but you're highlighting and correct me if I'm wrong,

and please elaborate on it. You're highlighting the extent to which environmental opportunities really do have an impact on test scores. Am I right? Well, okay, so here's let's get back to the point of why we're testing kids in the first place. Okay, we're testing kids in school in public schools to find out how they're doing, how much they know, and find out how the schools are doing how well

they're teaching them. The kid's income and background is not relevant to how to either case in some sense, Like in other words, you know that a poor school full of high poverty kids has a harder job to do in terms of teaching, and you know that the kid has much more to overcome, and there's a lot of noise in that signal when you're testing them with giving them these tests, and what you're really possibly quite more in, what you're possibly much more interested in is how well

is this school functioning as an ecosystem to provide a learning environment. How hard are the teachers working? And you're also potentially much more interested in how hard are the kids working, What is their attitude, like, what is their motivation to learn? What is their growth from year to year? If you can measure that somehow much more than what they know at a point in time. And so it's the wrong kind of instrument to get that kind of information.

That's a very good point. That's a very good point. And it's not instrument that measures deep reflective thinking, right

as well? Yeah, Well, and another big thing that it misses I think you know is a Laiguinear, the civil rights expert, has a book out called The Tyranny of the Meritocracy, and she's drawing on Scott Page's work at the University Michigan about the power of diversity, and she's and they're saying, you know, intelligence is and merit more broadly is an emergent factor of people who are able

to collaborate in diverse groups. And you know, the way that we have high achieving the way that we get things done in America and in great high achieving societies down the world and organizations is we integrate the talents of many different people and we manage to create projects that showcase the best of all of them. And individualized tests where everybody is only responsible for their own answers.

Are so far away from measuring these kinds of high level collaborative skills and communication skills that we really need in that are really twenty first century skills and that perhaps potentially are possessed at a higher frequency in by groups that are coming. You know that I do represent diversity in many different ways. Yeah, so this argument also what you're doing here as well as you're broadening the

conceptualization of intelligence as well. So there are lots of things that you're doing here and that that that that move the agenda towards what you would are what you're arguing, we should be that moving towards if we really care about certain outcomes that we say we care about. Now. Of course, if you if you if you just equate IQ kind of skills with intelligence, then that's a different

argument than you're making. But it seems to me, am I right, you're kind of like broadening opening and opening intelligence up to interactions with other humans as well. Well. I mean, again, I want to bring back to the question of what is a school supposed to do? Well, I love that question. Yeah, right, because a school the point. I don't think that the point of public school is to raise everybody's IQ level, because that seems like a

feudal project. I agree, absolutely agree, or even to increase intelligence. I'm even sure that should be the role of school. I mean, there is such a thing as a flint effect, and we do talk about people getting smarter, you know, sort of colloquially, but yeah, in general, what we're trying to do is develop people's potential as you talked about, and also create learning communities. I think to a certain extent, I think that's a very novel idea create learning communities.

It really does broaden the assessment outside of just an individual head right right. So under our current system, who do you think is most falling between the cracks? It seems like correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like most of the attention is focusing on students who are just on the border of passing, whereas we might be letting really high ability students who need lots more

challenges as well as because of the learning disabilities. They seem to be really significantly fallen between the cracks and our system. Do you agree with that? Sure? I mean, the researchers that I talk to call what you're talking

about educational triage or educational rationing. And it's a rational response to an incentive because the teacher gets rewarded for moving kids over the mark of proficiency, and so there's no reason for them to work with the kids who are hopeless cases to be terrible about it, or the kids who are already hitting the ceiling at the top of the test, because that that kind of growth isn't

going to be registered. So you know, there's some hope that adaptive testing will be able to show the kind of growth that kids are making across the spectrum where every kid is kind of given a test and the questions change based on their answers as they go along. But in general, yeah, I mean, standardization is the opposite

of individualization. So to the extent that we're trying to design our schools around basic proficiency in math and reading, and the more we turn up the stakes on those two outcomes, we're going to get a narrowing of effort and take focus away from other goals and from other types of students. Yeah, and you talked about other goals, these other goals, these other what is the point of school?

And you know, philosophers of education have been arguing this for hundreds of years, you know, so there is no you know, think either me or you have the the the answer, you know exactly that that would have applied everyone. But I would I'd love to hear some of your ideas about about ways we could be using measurement in a more productive fashion too, to get it and assess how we're doing in terms of getting what we want

out of students. Do you mind if I go through the four quite ingenious examples that you have in your book and kind of talk through them with you, would that be okay? Please? So, so one you talk about something called statistical sampling. I mean you say, you know, we can use the same tests, but but use fewer of them. Could you talk a little about what that would look like? Sure? I mean, sampling is used by

school systems around the world. It's also used in the Nation's report Card, which is one of the longest standing measurements of American student learning, as well as PISA, the Program for International Student Assessment uses sampling as well. And you know, sampling gives you a big picture without having such a heavy burden of testing. You can make sure that you're getting representative of performance. And also you can over sample minority groups if you want more nuanced information

of those historically disadvantaged groups. But you know, it's just a way to get a good amount of information for less overall burden of testing. Okay. And then another one is stealth assessments, and I think con Academy might be an example of that. Yeah, I mean con Academy, dream Box Scholastic has a couple of products. Students around the country in public schools are already using these kinds of

software and blended learning settings. And basically what that means is that every check mark, every answer they give on their homework, every answer they give in class, can be recorded and analyzed in a very rich dashboard type display. And this is sort of inherently more fluid than a stop and test or three hours on three hours in April, because you're giving a picture of student acquisition and knowledge

over time. And Valerie Shoot, who coined the term stealth assessment when she was at ETS, points out that businesses used to close down at the end of year to take stock literally, and today we have just in time inventory, we have you know, price guns, and all they have to do is look at you know, their records at the end of the day and they have they know exactly what to do and it orders the next thing

from the warehouse automatically. And so why can't we do that in schools as well and avoid this process of sort of burden some record keeping. Yeah, I really like this phrase. I think you've talked about invisible integrated assessment. It's being a way of describing stealth assessment, right, right, and you know the idea here especially, I mean, you know, people talk about obviously a lot about growth mindset and summative testing, which is the big test day, you know,

really gives you kind of an all or nothing feeling. Yeah, yeah, and that's where a lot of the anxiety comes from. But if it's like, you know, you got to you got six out of ten today, but you'll get eight out of ten tomorrow, that's a much different picture of student achievement, both for teachers and for students themselves and for parents. Yeah, something that's revisable. Would you say that

like a project based learning falls within that category? Well, project based learning I deal with as a separate category in the in the book, I call it team butterfly. Yeah, and performance based assessment portfolio based assessment, and that include that under multiple measures. Well, it's it is a multiple measure, yeah, exactly. You know, it can be one of a multiple measures.

It certainly could be thought of as an integrated assessment as well, because you are integrating your integrating assessment into the process of learning. I could just say it falling within you know, both yeah, absolutely, and the other part of it. I think that's really key with project based learning is that you are also eliciting self reflection and

self assessment as a key part of that process. So you know, so like you need you need students to be doing reflection and also giving feedback to their peers, which is really fun thing to watch in a performance assessment setting. Yeah, and you really don't see that as often in such a competitive environment that the standardized test environment sets up. So yeah, I really like that. I am a big fan of project based learning and discovery

based learning. So this idea, you know, combining the self and the multiple measures and this whole idea of big data, I really I think that is probably a big wave of the future is as invisible as possible. You know, have people learn in a way that they're enjoying and having fun and they don't know that they're being assessed. I mean, I'm having fun in this I'm having fun

right now chatting with you. Right Like if someone said ahead of time, they're like, you're going to be graded on this podcast performance, I don't think I would be having as much fun. And I don't think like I don't know if I'm doing a good job, but I definitely wouldn't be doing as good a job whatever job I'm doing, you know, so well, I think that's you know, it's very interesting to think about that, because, you know, I think that seeking feedback and conducting kind of self

audits is a high performing kind of activity. Yeah, standardized testing, you're really taking away people's responsibility for understanding the outcomes of their learning because it's all externalized. It's all kind of inside a black box, and neither teachers nor students

really are active in that process. So, you know, it's interesting that you say that because I was actually, as as I talk about in the book, I was able to serve as a sort of performance assessor for a student in performance based school here in New York City. And basically what that meant was you a dog barking in the background. I'm sorry, Yeah, that's my neighbors done. Oh cool, Okay. Basically what that meant was I met this girl for coffee and she talked to me about

Prime Prejudice for an hour. And she had done a ton. I mean, she'd read the book so many times, she'd watched all of the adaptations, she'd read the criticism, she'd talked to her mentor about it. But all, what it all came down to was basically this informed conversation where she had to impress me, and she totally impressed me. And she sounded like, you know, beyond an undergraduate level

of understanding about this novel. And you know, that's very authentic because talking about what you know and showing people what you know is a major way in which we're assessed and audited in the real world, in the adult world. And so you know, it's kind of as rigorous as it gets, although it also seems quite informal at the same time. Absolutely, and you relate to that, I mean, you include game based assessments. I mean you cover like a wide range of potential ways of getting at knowledge.

And I like this idea of having people explain or talk and not explain, but talk about like what interests them, you know, and that you're assessing it. Yeah, but it's not framed as I'm going to evaluate your soul right now, right Well, I mean the psychometricians have held the keys to the kingdom for so long. Well, I like that phrasing.

I like that. I mean they really successfully created so a lot of the foundations of modern statistics and social science in the process of inventing this field, and they mystified it. Really, I think the dog wants to be once a voice. I think the dog wants to be involved in this conversation. They really successfully created and mystified this field behind all of these statistics. I mean, the psychometricians are the guys that brought you the Bell curve.

They brought you regression analysis, they brought you correlation co efficients, literally, and they blinded us with science and they made us all believe that these numbers and these presentiles represent who we are. But you know, I really believe that we need to take that back and say, assessment is something that we all do. It's a natural part of our lives. We all make judgments, and we all gather evidence for those judgments, and you know, and it's a natural part

of teaching and learning as well. Sure, and I can hear their voice in my head though, saying, well, you know, there's an issue here of like objectivity. So a lot of approaches that people are proposing alternative approaches, we don't actually know that it works scientifically. We don't know that it's actually leading to better outcomes or it's objectively capturing.

So you know, the nice thing that psychometricians really like about really well controlled things is that everyone has the same script, right, everyone has the same items, and there are multiple multiple choices. Even more exciting to psychometricians because there's you know, they can really control, have control. The interesting thing that all this research in my own field of positive psychology and and uh and everything we know about optimal human flourishing is that the more that you

relinquish control, the better outcomes you actually get. So it creates it, I mean, it creates quite a dilemma for psychometricians who want to make sure that we can still

objectively measure this this stuff. Well, I mean, I'm not sure that I have the full answer to that, but I think that there may way to square the circle in the sense that if you get really curious and really humble about the types of data that you're gathering, right, and you don't just rely on one outcome, you get it gets you know, it's never going to be totally objective,

but you get more, it gets more objective. Like you know, James Heckman, right, Nobel Prize any Economists is a guy that told us that non cognitive skills make up more than half of what you need to be successful, right, And he found that out by looking at longitudinal data, the hardest, you know, really hardcore data. Yeah, I mean, we still don't have very good from a psychometrical perspective,

assessments of a lot of these non cognitive traits. So a lot of schools, like you know, Kip et cetera, use a character report card to uh and it's it's it's it's it's completely subjective. It's it's teacher ratings, you know, and you know, different teachers might have different preferences for different students. So there's still is a great need to figure out a way of more objectively looking at some

of this stuff, just just from a fairness and equity perspective. Sure, sure, yeah, I talk about that along in the book, and I think, you know, again, I feel like, you know, multiple measures isn't right. And it's in I talked to, you know, Josh Starr. He's recently left as super intended of Montgomery County Public Schools, but he was successful in integrating both

student and teacher engagement data into school report cards. So he gives the Gallop Student Survey, which asks about hope, engagement and well being and that's based on you know, many many millions of instances of giving the survey to employees where Gallup's been able to correlate the answers to you know, stock market performance for these companies. So you know it has not not psychometric validity, but it has

some you know, some real world predictive validity. And the way that Josh used them in Montgomery County, you know, they would do things like emotional well being walkthroughs, so they would send people to schools and kind of walk around and say, what's happening in these classrooms that's promoting engagement or not promoting engagement, And how can we correlate our eyewitness observations with what people are saying on these on these surveys, and also with things like disciplinary outcomes,

visits to the school, nurse absenteeism. You know, all of these things are inputs into the social emotional health of a school as an ecosystem. If that's how like Scotland does their inspects. Yes, yes, yeah, really good stuff. And so there's a way of combining all of these different approaches that you're talking about, like use them all, you know, just just just get a lot of a lot of different data points to to not so it really, it really is. The overall thing here is to get away

from standardizing it. Right, Well, that's exactly right. And you know there's obviously a tension here because when you talk about imposing accountability measures, you want to be lightweight about those in positions, But when you talk about a school's process of self improvement or the process of gathering evidence so that student, you want to be really comprehensive and continuous with it. So the question there is sort of how much responsibility can we trust our schools and our

districts with for promoting optimal performance? And how much are we going to try to impose from the outside in a really punitive frame, Because the ultimate justification that I see being made again and again for high stakes and standardized testing is that we think the kids are going to get short changed if we don't give these tests, right, and then we can't trust every school to do a good job. We can't trust every teacher to do a

good job. That's right. That is definitely a core belief lying behind the idea of accountability, right, Yeah, we're holding teachers accountable. Yeah, No, I think that's right. I keep in my head. I keep going back because I don't feel like we actually answered the question of what the purpose of school is. We talked about so many things that we don't think it is. Yeah, what do you think?

Can we both do? We both agree that, like the purpose school is definitely more than just learning about knowledge? I think so, okay, okay, so we can start there at least and say, so, so we can go build that and then do incorporate social emotional development into that? I mean, yeah, I think definitely. So, I mean, let's look at us. Let's let's take a sociological put our

sociologists cap on for a second. Boy, it's been a while that well, I mean because I mean when I say sociologists, it's like, I guess it's a little bit Marxist too. It's like, who pays for this school? Who built the school? Right? Taxpayers paid for the school. Taxpayers build the school, And what do the taxpayers want? What do they want? They? Well, Weaver surveyed them and ask them what they think the optimal outcomes are that they're

paying for. Well, so, so, one thing is that workers want kids to be safe in a building during the day. One thing is that the state wants everybody to have a certain you know, to speak English, to have a certain set of social mores, let's say, to know how to behave in groups and within institutions. That the state is a model, that the school is a model institution. So it prepares little workers, little you know, for the workplace.

It prepares us on an ideal level, it prepares us to be citizens, not only within institutions, but within kind of the country as a whole engagements. Yeah, I mean exactly right, citizens the basic requirements of citizenship, and the reason we have a public a public school system is because, right, we don't we don't necessarily believe that parents or families should be responsible for that entirely on their own. Yeah, I mean those are what about well being? Well being

that is that important and all social welfare. I think is important that that parenting or raising children is not solely the responsibility of the nuclear family. So if you can think of there's certainly a huge amount of emotional investment that goes into that, as anybody who has a kid can tell you. Well, I said, well, like like subjective well being, like happiness. Well, I don't know that everyone would agree with that. I don't know if I yeah,

I'm just wondering. I'm just bringing this up. Is this something you know? Is it like like, for instance, the idea of well being in positive psychology goes well beyond just happiness, So things like meaning, you know, this is this is this is an interesting thing? Like like something that standardized tests and teaching the standarized tests clearly neglects

is meaning meaning makes it just neglect It empties the test. Yeah, I know that's exactly right, it right, Yeah, yeah, it empties all meaning and context, yes, all personal meeting, as well as connecting it to your day and future self. Yeah. So completely agree with that. And so maybe this these should be I mean I think that they, you know, should at least meaning should be affused more into the curriculum. Yeah, I think that that's I think that's yeah, I mean

I could. Yeah, I'm totally on board with that. I mean, I'm I'm curious about it, as you know, on the broadest possible level of consensus that we could reach. But you know, I certainly think, you know, just from a retailitarian standpoint, right, we want to promote happiness and we want to promote curiosity. We need innovation and curiosity. Oh, I love that you're actually recognizing creativity is important. I love that. I mean, you know, I come I was a fast company writer and I am a come from

a tech background. I think you know that that part of things. We don't move forward, you know, on an economic basis without that. So it's pretty it's important for a whole bunch of reasons. Absolutely, And you know it's funny you said, I don't know we could reach a consensus about I really I like that way of thinking. So I can tell you something from giving talks to educators and stuff that there seems to be consensus about. There seems to be consensus that standardized tests don't are stupid.

So it's almost like everyone has a consensus about that, yet that's still the predominant thing. Obviously, that's why that's obviously your book is all about that. But I'm saying that. But there needs to be more voices like yours. I mean, like, how can your book and these things you propose, how can you really make a change to publicity policy makers? Because I think that the majority of parents reading your book will have a consensus that your book is on

the right track. Well, I'm glad that you say that. Thank you. I believe it, I really believe it. Yeah, you know, I mean I do see as being at a moment, a moment of possibilities. I don't think that the legislative Proposals House is going to float probably on Friday on you know, this week that we're talking on some reauthorization, and I think that there's it's going to fall well short of you know, the changes that we're talking talk about the Republican Senate bill that they've been

drafting to eliminate federal mandate on standrized testing. Yeah. Yeah, so that's a big deal. If that goes through, it is a really big deal. And it's it's opposed by a lot of people. I mean, I'm both there's there's a real debate about it because you know, is this really being done in the spirit and intention of innovative solutions or is it just a matter of sort of

abdicating a federal mandate? Yeah, And I and I really hate like when it gets it's obviously political, but I feel like something like this shouldn't be political, you know, like both Democrats, Do you agree with me? You know what I mean? Yes, it's too important to be. Yeah, it's too important, like like we don't need like it's not a Republican Democrat thing. It's like the future of children, right, I know, I know, I know, I wish she could

be removed from this sphere of politics. And in some ways, you know, it is. I mean, this is one of the crazy things about the American school system is how local it is and really a lot of times and there's such a split between how people feel about education policy and how they feel about their kids school and

their kids teacher. Yeah. No, absolutely, and so at all different levels in terms of making a change into public policy level, teacher training level, I think is also important, you know, administrative level, and from going back to the federal level. Again, like Artie Duncan has studies concerned about testing,

but he also believes they're important educational tools. But couldn't we make a case to him that, like, there are lots of things that could be educational tools, and then the whole universe of things that could be educational tools, this is not one of the best well, you know, it's it's a really tough conversation and I actually, I mean I found myself in a room I don't think this was off the current with the group at the department about a small side group, and I was really

surprised at how vociferously they were defending the status quo and testing even though they sort of liked hearing about the potential alternatives. But they felt like they were very long way off. And you know, that's a political issue of not wanting to see the ground that you've already staked out until something new comes along. But it certainly is I mean odd the odd things that give me hope, Scott, like one of them is I think this social emotional

research is not going away. Everybody sees like the importance of it is so strong, that data is so strong, or character traits more generally, Well, that's right exactly. I mean noncognitive whatever you want to call it, mindset skills have it's the parts of your brain and the parts of being human that are not you know, academic absolutely, by the way, I you know, the term non cognitive is such a non correct representation of what those kids are.

They are cognitive, I mean very cognitive, you know, like like big persevering amidst setbacks, as it very much involves

a mindset of resilience that yeah, totally. And planning, as I mentioned, executive functioning right, planning allegate resources yes, for the executive functioning frame, the empathy frame, yes, as well as you know, dare I say imagination, you know, which doesn't come from the executive network, comes from a new brain network that's been discovered called the default mode network, or the imagination brain network as I like to call it. Yeah. Yeah,

it's pretty pretty unimportant. So here, so here. But here's what's exciting. What excites mean yeah, is the push toward universal preschool. Because we talk about the benefits of universal preschool. It's one hundred percent about this stuff. Does that mean like free? Does that mean free? It means expanding the public mandate? Is that a possibility? It's something that a MoMA's been talking about like crazy, and it's something that's expanding over thirty states in the last few years. Holy cow,

that's great. I know. It's also something early early, early word is that Hillary Clinton is making it a big cornerstone of her kind of run for president. The research is really strong, you know, I mean, you know, the research and it's all about I mean, of course, it's about academic achievement, but it's much more in their early years about sort of the nurturing side of school. Oh yeah, I mean at that stage it's all about play and curiosity. Yeah yeah. But like I want every school to be

more like preschool. I love preschool too. And when we start talking about what high quality preschool is, you know, states have to evaluate their public preschool programs and they can give the kids horrible standardized tests, and some of them are. But what other states are choosing to do or alongside it, if they're choosing to look at things like teacher training, teacher preparation, teacher pay, student you know, school resources and the kinds of you know, outcomes that

we're talking about. So yeah, maybe that trickles up, that's my hope. Yeah. And you know, as you know, from an economic perspective, Heckman's found a preschool, a good teacher can can save so much money or such a such a valuable investment when you look to see how those kids grow up in contribute to society. Of course not I don't think that school should be all about, you know, what is the child going to contribute to society economically?

Someday that shouldn't be the sole purpose of education. But if if you're talking to policy makers who care about that stuff, obviously that's one argument for a good, good preschool. Well, and that's exactly what this where this push is coming from. It's coming out of that research. And that's why I have such faith in it, because you're right. I mean, this is been shown. It's really good research, it's over time, and it makes the case in terms that and that

everybody can understand. Absolutely. Uh. You think about a lot of parents that are fed up with the current system, and what I find fascinating is that, and you talk about this in your book about a lot of them are opting out. They're just saying, you know what, So they're like, I'm done with this, So done with this. Now that happens at different levels. They're they're they're they're there's homeschooling, right, there's there's unschooling movement, which is growing.

What other kinds of things are you seeing that when you're researching your book, did you talk to some of these parents you've decided to opt out? Yeah? I mean, and you're totally right to point out it's happening in all kinds of different ways. I mean, the opt out movement is associated with simply, you know, keeping students home from standardized tests. But I find that, you know, across the board, the parents I talk to, you know, most of the time, they're motivated by a really clear issue.

Their kids don't want to go to school anymore, or they hate school because of this test. And you just start asking questions about why does my kid have to take this test? And what's the point of this test? Is that technically illegal? It's like not like it's not the same level as truancy, right, Like can you actually say, you know what, my child's not going to take standardized tests? Is that like legal? It has been it is, it is.

It has been explicitly permitted in several states by this either the state attorney general or the superintendent of education. So there's been sort of special dispensation given to parents. And then this state law requires the school to administer the test. The stay law doesn't explicitly require the parent to send the kid to school on the test day exactly it would be. I have not heard of a single case where any kind of legal means were used

to stop parents from opting their kids out of school. Well, you'd have to involve truancy case to do that. I mean, this is this is just mind bolt. This is fascinating. So you're saying it's technically possible if the parent decides to just completely opt out of the standard of the federal mandates all this stuff and the child still does really well GPA wise, they could still get into a

good college. Oh my god, of course, right, So state tests don't have individuals, right, right, so you can as a parent decide, you know what, I bet my child is going to have better chances of getting to a good college and doing well in terms of the academic curricum in our school GPA wise if we focus more of our attention on deep learning and figuring out the child's identity and what kind of major they would really

want to do, etc. Et cetera. Para can just make that decision and they wouldn't be there wouldn't be like legal consequences. Oh you know, I had a parent call into a call in show yesterday in San Francisco and she said, before there was an opt out movement, I just opted my daughter out of all the tests because she didn't like tests. And she did find you went to great college and now they're whole movement about it. But I just decided that was the best thing for

my kid. I mean, you know, it varies from place to place. So there are states where there are high school exit exams and have you potentially have trouble getting a high school diploma if you didn't pass those tests. But in most cases there are alternative means of assessment. And they have to be because you have students coming in from out of state, you have students who have been home schooled, you have students who have various illnesses

and disabilities, and they don't have state test scores. So the districts have to have alternative means of assessment. They just might not advertise them. And so, for example, in New York State, you have the right to request a portfolio based evaluation for competitive high school and if you're willing to jump through those hoops, and if you are, you know, educated and well connected and have the resources and the confidence, you can certainly get your kid out

of any test you want. Well that's data. I mean, why hasn't anyone done a study comparing the outcomes of those we've opted out versus those who are still in the I mean, what if you look at and find out find like even better outcomes. That's data that public SUPPOLICI because when they want to know that, I mean sure, honestly those the best way to do that would probably be to match families from public and private schools, because private schools don't give these tests. That's right, that's a

good are independent schools? Yeah? And more finally yeah, yeah, I mean I just daught on me. That's like, we have so much information there that we can actually use to show whether or not to empirically test the value of being in a standardized testing culture and opting into that exactly. So interesting. So what do you think of

Finland's that everyone talks about Finland? Right? So you knew that was that question was coming because I did read a really interesting article about it the other day on on what they're there there there. It's so it's so interesting because on the one hand, the reason why I'm like stuttering here is because on the one hand, they actually are all about I don't know, I don't know if they really are about individualization, right, because they're actually

all about like equality, right. So I've actually confused right now what exactly is? So tell me what's so good about Finland. You know, I'm not a Finland fetishist. Oh is that a thing? Totally in the world of education, totally and mostly because I'm not. I mean, I don't

know if I would say I'm an American exceptionalist. But like, I see so many things that are unique about us, and I also don't see I'm sort of counter to the declinest narrative of American education, which has been so current for so long, which is like, decade after decade, we're failing, We're dying, We're at a security We're a

security risk, and I just don't see that. I mean, I think that as a nation, we have many flaws and many complexities in our society, but I don't see proof that our education system is our big Achilles heel amongst all the things that are wrong with America, you know, I point economic inequality and our lack of a healthcare system as the things I would fix, right, right, But the finished education system is remarkable, right for its attention

to basically equalizing resources, and they have good outcomes. I mean, they have good outcomes in terms of like life outcomes, right, Yeah, So I just wonder, like what what what what can we learn from them and what do we not want to repeat from them? Well? I think I think we can learn from their focus on equalizing inputs as well as outcomes. Okay, I like that, Yeah, just on a

basic on a baseline level, that's what I would say. Yeah, like from an economic perspective and a you know, healthcare perspective well, and also describing I mean, how do we define accountability? Right? Like, I drew a lot from the Broader Boulder approach, which was presented in the nineties and again when Obama was running for office, and this idea that accountability isn't just about holding schools accountable for their test scores, but it's about holding states and districts accountable

for their schools. And how do you justify not giving more of your resources to schools that serve the highest needs students? Absolutely? Yeah, So that's an interesting quest. It makes me think about gift and talented programs. Have you

been putting great thought into gift and talented programs? You know, It's been coming at up a lot for me recently, and I've been thinking about opening up an investigation into them and learning more about them, because I think I can help you with that, it's a fascinating community and a lot of them their heart really is in a

good place. Yeah. And I also I just think like across the spectrum, like I've been also spending more time thinking about special education teachers because I think that they're probably some of the most skilled teachers out there. And in both cases is what you're looking at is special needs well and individualized plans right and planking to students' strengths, helping them develop what they what they care about most. Absolutely, Yeah.

I mean there there those in the margins in any in any in any sense or fall or certainly falling between the cracks and the standardized environment. Yeah, absolutely absolutely. So I want to You've been so generous with your time. I just have one more question we can end on I thought would be appropriate place to and how can people play and win the testing game in our current environment?

You know, obviously you have this great vision for the future, but under the current world that we live in right now, your your parent, you have to send your child to the school. You have to. They don't want to opt out. How how can they How can you win this game? So I have an acronym which is t E. S t to remember a side of the wind with strategies

that's great for parents. Tease from manage the test, which means teach kids about what tests are for and how they work and kind of demystify what the psychometricians a mystified and use test taking strategies. I think give good, high quality test taking strategies are really just good critical thinking strategies, so they can help you outside the test.

E is for manage your emotions and energy, so you know, using good mental habits, basic kind of hygiene, health and hygiene, good sleep, good eating, and dealing with emotions head on. Managing self motivation. I think that you know, you know, in order for students to do well on tests, they have to want to do well. In order for them to want to do well, they have to be pretty committed to the outcomes, not in an anxious way, but really understanding how school performance and how learning is going

to work for them in the big picture. And helping them kind of apply learning and get to enjoy learning in many different settings I think can be really helpful for that. And then finally, manage your tone, so I talk about the most important person that you need to work on as yourself. You know, if your child is really anxious about test taking, the chances are that they pick that up from you because parents are really anxious.

And what kind of messages are we sending explicitly or implicitly about the importance of these tests and where they fit into a child's life. Are we able to think critically about them or we able to laugh about them? And sort of what is the overall conversation that goes on in your home around learning, around achievement, around curiosity, or on motivation. Yes, and that tone operates at different levels too, like teachers set the tone, the community order

community set the tone. So yeah, yes, I absolutely love that. Anya. Thank you so much for your time today and really Ring quite a remarkable book that I hope a lot of policy makers and educators read. Oh it was so fun talking with you, Scott. I can't wait to listen to this. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode

just as performative. Foper it if you don't like to read the show notes for this episode or your past episodes, if you go to the Psychology Podcast dot com