As far as publishing the scores goes, we have to recognize that politicians really only care about two things: getting elected and not getting defeated in the next election. This isn’t to say that they don’t also care about other things, but these are clearly their two main concerns. If educators and parents aren’t bringing sufficient money (or “constituency”) to the table to have an impact, then they need another lever. Getting politicians to take the tests and publish their scores offers the ability to affect public opinion and mobilize voters against politicians, which brings a constituency to the table and offers the opportunity to affect positive change.

Then we can get into a discussion of why they (politiciians AND voters) don’t need to know what they want all the kids to know, and the value of the test, and the value of the curriculum, and why it is why it’s not the teachers but the standards that fail the kids. Why they’re so hypocritical. Get the kids to ask their parents and adult relatives and politicians to take the test. This should be a national movement.

Expecting them to sit down and listen to our concerns is naivety to the extreme. These people want to privatize the entire education sector with all these tests, and charter schools, and private school vouchers, and virtual classrooms, and Khan’s Academeys and Revolution K-12s and StudentFirsts. Unless we agree to unilateral disarm (disunionize and everything else) they’re not going to stop.

Grades are always noisy data. But that’s okay, because the grade is about did-you-meet-expectations, not here’s-what-you-know. Denying that it’s possible to know the latter, however, feels like giving up. Or giving in. Or sliding down a slippery, slippery slope to the bad place.

Please, let’s not conflate DATA on student achievement and effective teaching with state and federal systems of TEST-based accountability. There’s room in the middle of that Venn diagram, sure, but we’re not talking solar-eclipse style here.

My question is this: How do we ensure that students, especially low-income students of color who have been the victims of generations of shafting by a racist infrastructure, receive rigorous instruction that prepares them for college and career? I don’t think it starts and ends with a test that takes a few hours for a few days, but should that be part of the system? How could it not?

Whether they take the exams or not, it doesn’t matter. So what if a 50 year old politician can pass an Algebra 2 exam, most people couldn’t pass it 3 years after taking it. What matters is that we are getting our students to be better at mathematics.

We that being said, at some point we need to put our data together and develop a math K-12curriculum based on Dan’s ideas, and other sources.

I honestly don’t think it would be hard to find federal folks who wouldn’t do terribly well either. Given the number of people in the House of Representatives and some of the idiocy that comes out of their mouths on a regular basis, I’m confident that there are quite a few who would embarrass themselves if they had to take any part of one of these high-stakes tests that are supposed to measure general readiness for college. I’d have paid a lot to have had George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan take the SAT or ACT.

Even in the US Senate, there are some folks I suspect are not very bright, though it’s clearly a more select body and only has 100 members. Nearly all US Senators are lawyers, I suspect, and so I’d expect a somewhat better than average verbal facility. Still, I worked on Wall Street as a proofreader with two very prestigious firms, and I know for certain that some pretty high-powered attorneys aren’t great at some of the things the ACT and SAT try to test in their “English” sections.

Regardless, I think the exercise would be well-worth the risk. Of course some politicians would do well. It would be silly to suggest that none or few would. But again, let’s start at the state level and work up to the US Senate. I believe the results would be provocative.