PRIDE of the Eastside

Jane McGonigal, author of Reality Is Brok­en, argued more educators should follow that model. Quoting play theorist Brian Sutton-Smith’s aphorism that “the opposite of play is not work; it is depression,” she noted that the average high schooler will have played 10,000 hours of games by graduation – only 100 hours less than they will have spent in the classroom. She advocated for education to be more like gaming, where epic fails are an accepted part of the learning curve. Yet her vision for innovative, creative, collaborative education is exactly the opposite of teaching to the test and of the direct instruction model – digital learning by repetition and rote – being advocated in Austin, for relevant example, by IDEA Public Schools. Even though new research has shown the value of trial and error, she said, “We can’t imagine a school where we allow students to fail 80 percent of the time.”
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While U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan continued his criticism of No Child Left Behind, Marjorie Scardino, CEO of publishing giant Pearson, has used that law to become a dominating force in education publishing and in testing policy. According to Geoff Fletcher, deputy executive director of the State Educational Technology Direct­ors Association, “To say we’re doing assessments all the time is an understatement.” Yet, he argued, there’s a big difference between teachers checking how students are progressing and the artificial pressures of high-stakes testing.
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Assessment is a huge business. Scardino avoided talking about her own achievements (“Because my mother said that was tacky,” she said) but Pearson has done extremely well from assessment, and continues to do so. Later this month, it launches its latest tool, designed for schools to see whether their computer systems can handle the strains of the next generation of online testing. Products like that are extremely lucrative: According to the UK newspaper The Guardian, in 2011, Pearson’s North American Education division’s gross revenue dropped by 2% to $4.03 billion. At the same time, Pearson’s profits rose 5% to $771 million. Yet some education advocates say her firm deserves a failing grade: After all, Pear­son currently holds a five-year, $500 million contract with the state of Texas for the new State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness program. The implementation has been a catastrophe (see “Not the Brightest STAAR,” Feb. 24) and Pearson’s massive payday at a time when school districts are in financial turmoil has been highly controversial.