I’m sure you’ve heard the very common metaphor used to critique our current national obsession with accountability through standardized testing: “We don’t fatten the pig by just weighing it!” This is usually stated right before someone goes on to discuss the importance of improving what happens in our classrooms before we test the students. You know — we need to prepare our new teachers better, we need to improve our current teachers, we need to implement Professional Learning Communities, we need to monitor and evaluate teachers more often or better, etc.
I used to like that metaphor, but yesterday I started thinking about it and I realized that I no longer feel like it is a great metaphor for what is happening and what needs to happen in our schools. You see, the metaphor just assumes that our only goal is to make the pig fatter and I don’t think that is our real goal at all. If it is true, then it means that our ONLY goal is to get kids to pass the tests at higher rates. Do you agree with that goal? I didn’t think so, and I don’t agree with it either.
What is our real goal? Our real goal is to help prepare kids for THEIR future. That preparedness requires much more than simply being able to pass one test.
A much better metaphor, in my opinion, is “We don’t become healthier by just weighing ourselves every morning.” Notice I didn’t say “We don’t lose weight…” My reason for that is that while most of us do want to lose weight, what we really want even more than that is to be much healthier — and in some cases that might not necessarily mean that we need to lose weight. However, for the sake of explaining why I think this is a better metaphor, let’s begin by understanding why “weighing myself” is a poor way to lose weight, much less adopt a healthier lifestyle.
I don’t lose weight by just getting on the scale every morning to see if I’ve lost weight… I have to do something in addition to weighing myself. I need to make other changes like changing my diet, changing my activity level and exercise habits, or both.
I could simply change my diet by just eating a lot less every day or by adopting any number of “fad diets”. However, just eating less or adopting a fad diet could be as unhealthy as doing nothing and not losing weight. I need to make substantial and sustainable changes to my diet so that I am eating healthier — not just less.
In order to focus on being more healthy — which is different from just losing weight — I also need to change my activity level by exercising more. The interesting thing with this is that I could actually GAIN weight initially by exercising more, especially if I do any weight training with free weights or machines (lean muscle weighs more than fat tissue), so my old measure of weighing myself on the scale is no longer adequate for assessing my health.
I need multiple measures in order to assess my health. I need to measure how much weight I can lift or how many more miles I can walk/run/ride… I need to have blood work done in order to measure things like my cholesterol level… I need to get my blood pressure checked and get regular physical & well woman exams… Simply using one measure — the weight scale — won’t give me all of the information I need.
Changing my health is relatively easy compared to changing the health of our schools. I am pretty much a closed system. Aside from things like pollution and allergens, I can control most of what goes into my body and most of the things that happen to my body. Our schools are not closed systems. We can’t control everything that affects their health, but we also don’t do enough about the things that we can change about their health.
And yet, when it comes to measuring how healthy our schools are, too often we are simply relying on “weighing” them with only one measure — a measure that could be meaningless for certain healthy habits (like exercising).
If we want to prepare our students for THEIR futures, then we need to make substantial and sustainable healthy learning changes to our education systems in addition to using multiple measures to assess the health of our systems. And yes, in many ways I think that means making radical changes to how, when, and where we facilitate learning, and how, when, and where we measure learning.
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Great post! Really hits at the core of the issue. The concept of mission and loyalty to that mission is a powerful way to focus the energy of a school. Too often schools seem like test taking machines or the academic rat race of competition with weighted grades, GPA battles, and the ever capitalistic approach to be first. Imagine what they could be if they were focused on actual learning? Imagine what education could do if it had a focus on well-being?
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Hi Stephanie,
This would be a good lead in to having schools reassess their vision statements. As you’re suggesting, we need to remember that the focus on data and accountability is only one facet of transforming schools.
I don’t hear too many people crying out for more emphasis on environment or engagement, communication and celebration, or curriculum and collaboration.
These are some of the threads that we’ve been focusing on in our school, but the external reviews are heavily biased towards data still.
I’m not going to criticize the focus on data too much, as it has seen improvements for us, but we need to be aware that it’s only part of a much bigger and better picture. -
Great analogy! There are so many other factors that play into this equation. Many happen before a child ever enters our doors – from pre-K experiences (or lack of) to what students bring with them each day. Change definitely needs to happen to help all students succeed, but tests are not the answer.
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Very creative viewpoint!
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You are on to something here. I have been thinking about this concept a lot lately, especially in terms of systemic school reform. We really do have to make sure as the visionaries who are leading folks into the promise land that we have thought through what we are advocating for and not creating the next, latest, greatest thing.
I am taken lately with the work of Geetha Narayanan and her comparisons to the education needing its own slow education movement (like that of the slow food movement in reaction to America’s obsession to fast food and “give it to me now” generation).
Thanks for pushing my thinking a little more on this issue.
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What an apt analogy and illustrative analysis of the problem. I am with you. So I ask…now what? How do make a healthy pig?
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Hi Stephanie,
Very astute observations. I work in a district that has very high – very high – test scores while spending a great deal of time in staff development getting teachers to use more PBL, problem solving, etc. My superintendent, at our opening get together in September said, “I want to thank you for the high test scores. Because the high test scores give us space to do what we know is right. We can teach the way we should because we do well on the tests.” (This is not a direct quote but the idea is close.)This has stuck with me all year. He didn’t care about the scores. But the parents do (the scores are directly related to our housing prices). So we do well, keep parents and the government off our backs, and teach the way we should. And our students are extremely successful in college and beyond.
I have not done more than minimal -here’s how the test is set up – test prep in years. Teach well (using PBL,etc.) and the students do surprisingly well on the tests.
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Thanks for all of the great comments. I apologize for not commenting earlier, but I’ve been a bit “under the weather” and am trying to get caught up on emails and blog posts!
@Charlie I like how you described that — “a focus on well-being”… so sad that in so many cases we are so far from that!
@Pat I agree — testing data can provided us with valuable information, but it is only part of the larger picture. If we focus on things such as culture, climate, communication, and engagement, I truly believe that we would see more increases in achievement on a number of indicators.
@Louise You hint at another important point — there is much that happens outside of the school environment and perhaps we need to “focus on well-being” at the community level as well as at the campus level if we really want improvement.
@Sheryl Thanks for sharing that idea of a “slow education movement” — the phrase really brings to my mind some powerful visions of more responsive and personalized learning environments (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!)
@Dan That’s a GREAT question! Would anyone like to try to answer that? If I had the answer, I could probably write a book and then retire
@Lisa I’m jealous. But you do make a great point — if we focus on solid instruction/facilitation of learning, then the scores will take care of themselves. The problem is when administrators decide that things like PBL have “to wait until we get the test scores up first.” I’ve gotten into some nasty arguments with people before over this. It’s really not a “chicken or the egg” question — solid instruction & facilitation come first.
Pleas continue sharing your thoughts on this post! I would love to read what others are thinking about this
Stephanie
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I’d never even heard about the pig weighing image, but your take on it is exactly right. In my state, we actually weigh the students, in addition to spending 5-8 weeks of the year testing. We cut out recess for most grades, cut back on P.E., have vending machines in the schools — and weigh the students as our main health focus. So I guess this image fits particularly well for us.
Thanks for the post.
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