To the editor:
I continue to be both surprised and disappointed by the response ("Hurricane Wagner," February 5, 2009) by some conservatives to my book, The Global Achievement Gap, and their claims that I don't believe in testing, don't value academic content knowledge, and lack skills as a researcher.
Anyone who has read the book knows that I am a strong advocate for accountability. I spend most of one chapter analyzing the difference between good and bad tests. My critique of NCLB is precisely that the standards for accountability, which rely mainly on multiple choice factual recall tests, are too low and are putting our country at a serious competitive disadvantage, compared to many countries that use open-ended, constructed response assessments to test critical thinking skills. I advocate for a national writing test and use of the Collegiate Learning Assessment and PISA tests for accountability purposes. And I spend an entire chapter discussing the importance of holding schools of education and teachers to a much higher standard of demonstrated excellence for certification and re-certification and suggest ways of phasing out the tenure system. Finally, I describe two public charter schools that succeed in teaching their predominant minority students both rigorous academic content and 21st century skills, while holding themselves to the standard of graduating 100 percent of their students, and sending nearly all to four-year colleges.
As to the charge that I don't care about academic content, interested readers might want to peruse pp. 261-263 of my book where I make very clear my views on the importance of academic content knowledge and cultural literacy. Besides, as anyone who has spent time in classrooms knows (I have 16 years of teaching experience), you can't teach critical thinking without strong academic content.
Finally, while my skills as a qualitative researcher may be subject to debate, one cannot so easily dismiss the words of scores of senior executives from some of the country's leading companies whom I interviewed--as well as nearly a dozen studies that I cite--all of which substantiate my point that we are not graduating sufficient numbers of students with the skills needed for careers, college, and citizenship in the 21st century.
We need to move beyond polarizing, and often polemical, debates and turn our attention to discussions of what to do about this growing crisis that threatens the future of both our students and our nation.
Tony Wagner
Co-Director
Change Leadership Group
Harvard Graduate School of Education