Season 2, Episode 3: The Fires Burning Behind the SAT and Patriotic Education

Hey, Michael.

Hey, Diane. How are you?

Well, after a short, literally breath of fresh air, the smoke is back and the fires are raging here in California again. And, you know, it's so weird because unlike the pandemic, which can be actually hard to see sometimes, the fires are so real and present and, and they really helped me to understand that there aren't easy problems that our world's facing anymore. We're facing a bunch of big, long term, really deadly challenges. And that makes me realize that what we talk about here is so important. The way these big problems get solved is through collaboration and community driven projects and grounding ourselves in science. And, well, it's basically everything we talk about on this podcast.

No, I think that's exactly right. I mean, it's interesting. I'm coming out of my fast for Yom Kippur over the last few days and I took away from it just the need to have humility this year as we discuss these problems because they're so complicated and there aren't easy solutions. There are unintended consequences for lots of solutions. Science itself isn't even, you know, ever settled. Right. It's a field that by definition continues to update our best understanding at the moment through the work of hypothesis generation, testing and learning, which is, of course, something you do in your own schools, which is, is, I think, so admirable because it doesn't fix a spot and preclude the opportunity for conversation. And it's why I think that this season of class disrupted is so important. Because, you know, obviously we're trying to help keep parents and educators, allow them to keep their fingers on the pulse of what's happening right now, what matters, and the way that we're processing it and thinking about it is the best we can.

Michael, the yes, and the fires are not the only burning topics. If we thought for a moment things were going to calm down, we were terribly wrong. I've got a doozy that I really want to get your take on. I've been waiting for this conversation. It has to do with SATs, student competition on the football field, but not playing football. And the idea that clear is kind. What have you got this week?

Well, so I'm excited to get into that topic and I'm not sure if I'm one upping you here with mine, but I imagine many of our listeners saw that President Trump came out and said he wanted a 1776 commission to, in essence, promote. And I'm putting quotes in our zoom chat here, but patriotic education and Mike Petrilli who we both know and who leads the Fordham Institute, a right of center education think tank. He came out with a provocative piece arguing about how such an effort could do some good, actually. And in this time of important conversations around race, I would just love to break down this topic with you.

Well, I'm equally excited by this one. You know, I love curriculum. So let's jump into this recent flare up around history curriculum.

All right, so everyone roll up their their sleeves. But a couple weeks ago, Trump celebrated Constitution Day, for those that don't know September 17th by proposing creating this. And such a commission actually isn't without precedent if you look at it sort of broadly. Right. And what I mean by that is more creating commissions to talk about patriotic celebrations or themes, not necessarily national curriculum or something like that. But as with many Trump's proclamations, it lacks a lot of details and it creates a lot of room for us to imagine what might fill in the blanks. So we get a little bit of a chance to do that, I suppose, today. But of course, it's clearly a reaction to some of the controversial things that have been going on in the teaching and discussion around US history, the 1619 Project at the New York Times, and more specifically, I think, than the project, its uptake in many classrooms as curriculum and more broadly, I think from the rights perspective, things like the use of Howard Zinn's work to teach US History and so forth. Now, I thought Mike Petrilli did a good job of making a few points and so I'd encourage people to read his piece. But you know, he did say first that such a patriotic education in quotes shouldn't just be a blind cheerleading that America is great and we should love America and so forth. It instead should present a clear eyed view of our nation's history, the good and the bad, the warts and everything, as well as what? And this is me for a moment saying, you know, what President Abraham Lincoln said, which is this sense that the United States should be the last best hope of earth to continue to move forward and make equality for all and so forth. You know, really what I would say the founding spirit was trying to accomplish, albeit very imperfectly, at the country's founding. What else struck me is, you know, a few other points that hit me, Diane, and then I'm dying to know how you translate this down as a leader of schools, is that there's a lot of hypocrisy around President Trump sort of suggesting that there might be a national curriculum component to this, either implicitly or explicitly. You Know, he and his administration railed against the Common Core, which was not a common curriculum. It was a set of standards largely around reading and math. And they went at it. You know, the federal government has no role on this and so forth. And I agree with that. And then here's sort of this suggestion of a federal curriculum, which is hypocritical at worst, odd at best, in my mind. The second thing that occurred to me, that is, for those who had an immediate reaction against just the notion of there being such a curriculum, forget about where it originated, is that there is this historical fact that our public school system, for better or worse, was grounded initially in this notion of inculcating the values of democracy and patriotism for the purposes of assimilation. And some of that had some nasty tones toward groups with certain religious backgrounds and of certain dissent from different European countries and the like actually, back then. But it was a core founding element of our system of public schools. And then I just. Two other quick points, which is, you know, Mike did a good job of saying that the job of A well constructed 1776 commission, though, would in. In essence be to construct a demilitarized zone, and I'm quoting him here now, between the weaponized histories of the far left and the far right. So to forge one that's honest, critical, and patriotic, and most importantly, one that empowers the next generation to stand on shoulders of giants and help our country continue to get closer to living up to its founding ideals that I know we both feel are important. And I think that's the big set of points there. But I'd love your take. You lead schools. How would you think about giving advice to parents and educators and policymakers about how we should think about this controversial topic of teaching history?

Yeah, I mean, this is a lot. And so I'd love to get to the teaching part of it, but before we can even get to the teaching part of it, I just have to say this idea of a commission or national curriculum, Michael, it's a terrible idea. It is just a terrible idea. And, you know, you've started us down this path of kind of the historical context. But let me just like, break that down to a really simple sentence, which is, politicians and the political process have never done a good job of defining curriculum, period. It's not their job. They aren't good at it. As you noted. They don't even think they should do it, and they shouldn't. It's never about the kids. It's always about satisfying interest groups and gaining political ammunition to use against your opponent. And, you know, at this moment in time, where the country is literally divided in half on these very issues, it seems pretty clear to me that the mere suggestion of a national history curriculum is all about political posturing and picking a fight with the other party. You know, and, you know, I appreciate Michael, but he's being naive at best. The notion that a commission can, like, stake out a demilitarized zone. I mean, all of the work towards the Common Core, they never even thought about touching history because it is the most politicized, the most, you know, like, why you would think you could go there in this moment in time is just, you know, not a good idea. I have to say, I think this is one of the worst ideas I've seen in education in a while. It's 100% about adults with absolutely no interest with regards to kids and. And no respect for educators.

Yeah. So I'd love you to go there, Diane, because, like, so. So. And. And I think implicit in your comments is it's unlikely to get a lot of momentum or go anywhere. Right. It's not going to get funded by Congress, clearly, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. But I do think it's an interesting conversation because these are live conversations that educators are having in their classrooms. And parents, given, you know, what we've talked about, that they have a lot more choice. Right. They're creating their own micro schools. They're asking questions about curriculum because they're seeing it up close. They get to look over and see their kid in zoom. How do you think about navigating these tough waters as an educator?

Yeah. I think this is the. Really. This is the fruitful dialogue for us to have here, which is, you know, you've just pointed a reality. Teachers, and now parents across the country are deciding what history they're going to teach their kids. No one on high is deciding that. At the end of the day, the doors close, people go in, they teach their kids. That's a reality. And so I think the things. What I've learned about the teaching of history over many, many years at this point is, first of all, what it should not be. And what it should not be, Michael, is how most of us learned history in this country, which is like, memorize a bunch of facts and dates and names, spit them back on a test, like, listen to sort of events and things that happen that seem kind of stale and irrelevant and not understanding how it connects to our current experiences in life. That is not the way to teach history. What we need to do when we think about teaching history is keep the goal in mind that history is valuable when people have an understanding of the past that they can connect to and learn from as they navigate the present and the future. I mean, these problems we're facing, they can be informed by our history and the history of the world. That is really useful knowledge and understanding for us to collectively have. But you don't get it from facts and dates and names and figures. You get it. And all the best historians and the true teachers of history will tell you the key things you have to do in teaching history is give kids a broad understanding of the historical timeline, whether it be of our country or our world. And how that timeline works in conjunction with big trends and ideas. Like, that's the understanding of history. It's like a big framework that you really aspire for kids to get. And then the second key thing is you have to build curiosity and skill for them so that they can continue to learn and integrate that knowledge throughout their lifetime. And those, to me, are the two big goals of history that do not line up with most curriculum and most teaching practices today.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, my brother's a historian now. He writes books, right. On Robert E. Lee's a biography of and president George Washington recently is post presidency. And the reason I bring that up is just listening to you say. I always remember one of his favorite experiences in school was his. It was a fifth grade teacher who did current events conversations every single day from the newspaper. And I remember him coming back with some gory stuff. But it brought the present and connected to history in a way that made it live for him. I think that I don't think I actually ever had. And you know, I'm. I was a history major in college. It came alive for me when I got to college. But history was my least favorite subject. Secret all the way through schooling. And so hearing you talk about that and remembering that our history is fundamentally the stories and narratives that we tell and the facts sit underneath that. But it's not about starting with the facts. Right. Is really important. And if we can understand those currents, then hopefully we can at least have productive conversations and understand where different people are coming from in these controversial times as we're trying to frame a way forward for the country right now, which to me would be the most productive place to end this.

Yeah, Michael, you're pointing to two really critical points. One, this is the biggest missed opportunity we have right now. Kids care deeply about what's happening to their world. There's a perfect opportunity to get them deeply interested in history in relation to their world. World and how it could play out. And second, everyone's worried about kids engagement in school. Well, when done right, history is potentially the most engaging subject for our kids at this moment in time. They're living it every day. And so we're just missing opportunities when we're not thinking about teaching in that way.

Yeah, it's a great way to leave this first part of the conversation. And I want to pivot us to the second part because that was meaty, it was controversial. I suspect people are going to have some hot takes, let us know them. But I want to pivot to the second part because it's equally hot, if you will. And I also think it's engaging of a very different sort. So, Diane, tell us again about the sats and what's going on.

Oh, Michael, part of me is like, again, really, we're coming back to this.

Haven't we addressed this again?

Yeah, but seriously, the plot thickens and I'm going to just try to break it down with a few, like, key players in this plot. So let me start with the large majority of colleges, and you correct me as I'm going through this if I'm messing anything up, but basically the majority of colleges have modified their application requirements for this year's seniors in high schools who are applying for next fall admission. And they've done this because so many students weren't able to take the exam last year during their junior year because the school's closed. And then the trend continues into this fall. And at face value, it seems like what they're doing is good and right and responsive. I think.

Yeah, I think 1,000 schools that I saw at last count have said test optional now. And that's given the number of schools that are open access. That's basically a majority of the 4,000 institutions.

It is. So they're kind of player number one. Player number two is the College Board. They're the givers of the SAT. And they chose not to offer an online version of the test. That's the decision they made. They took a long time to come to it, but did. And so they're continuing to try to work to online offer the tests, as they usually do in schools across the nation with local educators as proctors in regular school buildings. And even though they're expecting significantly fewer schools to be able to offer it, they're still moving forward, which is honestly starts to be a little bit of a head scratcher here. Right.

Revenue. Revenue Revenue. Sorry. Keep going.

So that inter. Let's go back to our first character, then colleges. Why is this happening? Well, you know, from my view, Brene Brown asks us to practice clear is kind. And colleges are not being clear or kind because in fact, they're being really pretty cagey about this. So you mentioned test optional, but that is only one of three fine print things that colleges are doing. Test blind is one, and in my view, that is clear inclined. To test blind means don't send us scores. We're not going to look at them. Your admission is not based on your scores this year, period. Full stop. Very few schools have gone test blind. Very, very few. The others are doing something they call test neutral or test optional. And these kind of merge together for me because basically it's kind of like, well, the tests aren't required, but if you send them, we'll look at them and they can only help you. They can't hurt you. And it becomes super muddy really quickly because let me move to our third character, students and parents. And these folks are reading this fine print. It's different from every college. It doesn't match the headlines. They're trying to understand what these things mean. And most importantly, what's coming out is they don't trust the colleges, Michael. They don't believe them. And so when they read optional, they don't read it as optional. And so you've got parents scurrying to try to figure out how to get their kids to take these tests so all their work is not thrown aside. And your partner writes extensively about. I mean, you know, this. All right, so let me wrap up this first opening summary with a hyperlocal example that enters a fourth character now, which is high school educators. And what is happening here playing out across the country is we've got a local superintendent of a high school district who literally sent a video recording to every single family telling them that their children will have a competitive advantage in college admissions this year if they submit SAT scores. And so his district is going to offer the exam on their football fields in October because none of the other high schools in our area are cleared for being in the building. And they couldn't even even meet the COVID requirements if they were. Michael, you can tell this gets me pretty fired up, so I'm going to stop there. You know so much more about this than me. What is going through your head when I tell you this story?

Oh, my God, so many things are going through my head, Diane. So 1. Let me just start from the big Premise, which is that, you know, I'll get into the policy questions that you just asked in a second about how colleges have communicated this and how it's been interpreted by big headline is that test optional, test blind, test neutral. Colleges are not. Like, there's not an advantage to be gained by going multiple states away taking an SAT on the football field. It's crazy. Like, parents and students need to calm down about it. It is not going to hurt you. It's not going to probably help you that much either. And it's just going to show, like, I'm so obsessed about this that I had to figure out a way to get around it. It, like, and, and in some ways, I don't think that's the signal, actually, you want to be sending to colleges right now who are looking for people that are more balanced and, and have some perspective more broadly beyond just a test score. So I, I actually think it's, I think it's way overhyped at the moment. And I think it's really unfortunate that parents, students, and even worse, frankly, a superintendent is saying, this is going to give you this big leg up. That is the part that burns me up the most, is that the superintendent would send that video recording. I just think it's the height of irresponsibility, Diane. So I'll start there and then, I mean, I think your bigger point is a good one. By not communicating clearly, colleges, no surprise, have sort of wrought this upon themselves. And, you know, one of the realities that comes out of Jeff Selingo's book, and he's my co host on a podcast, we do feature you. His new book is called who Gets in and why? And one of the things that comes out of it is that colleges benefit from the admissions process being incredibly murky. They benefit from it not being super transparent. Students and parents on the one end, think it's a process about meritocracy and sort of playing the game that we've talked about makes no sense as a game. But the reality is that colleges have their own agendas. They're trying to fill out a particular class as a holistic body to do certain things. Sometimes those considerations are around. We want different academic profiles, we want different interest profiles. Sometimes it's geographic. We want someone from South Dakota. Like, that's really important to us. We want someone from South Dakota. That's random. And so what you get when you read Jeff's book is, frankly, before everyone started going test optional, the SAT scores actually didn't matter that much to begin with. At A lot of schools anyway, like, they would look at it basically when there was a discrepancy that they couldn't understand in someone's grades, or more to the point, when a low income applicant was applying from a school that they didn't know much about and they couldn't figure out was the coursework actually rigorous or not? Because coursework is a way better predictor of how you're going to do in college than test scores when you look at them alone. And they would just look at it basically to say, hey, can we help out this low income, often minority applicant? To, you know, to say, yeah, they're going to be able to cut it here and we feel confident letting them in. That's more how those tests were used. And honestly, like people like myself that were debating like, you know, marginal points, right? Like swings of 30 points did not matter. Did not matter was the conclusion that you took away from it. And last, last point. DIANE and then I'll, I'm curious your reactions to this, but is that so much of this is being driven by, I think, people's obsession over we have to list as many activities as we're involved in, we have to show as many test scores as we're involved in. We have to take 10 SAT, two tests. All the stuff of more is better has become sort of the philosophy which I think colleges are starting to swing against. And I just hope it gets communicated clearly because it should be more about who are you as a you unique individual not trying to run this rat race, that zero sum.

Well, Michael, everything you're saying. So this is why I wanted to talk to you about it. And I will just tell you about an internal conversation my school leaders are having that came in this context and they were really worried that they were going to be if we chose not to give the test, which we do not believe we should because we're working towards kids being whole people and fulfillment and passion and knowing yourself versus this just laundry list of activities, let's be

clear, like the laundry list and the tests right now, that's not contributing to

what and we, we believe that although, as you noted, there's a good reason to not trust the people who are telling us this. And we've so but we, we believe that we hold on to that. We believe that's best for our kids. And one of the worries that came up is when we know for a fact that colleges actually compare kids against each other, they compare them within their school and within their district and basically they do this by looking at they asked on letters of rec like, how good is this kid compared to others? They ask on GPAs by stack ranking kids and they look at their kids classes and programs and they say, what's the most you offered? And we compare you against the most that's offered and did you take the most rigorous program? And so the worry that surfaced was, well, if, if this gets offered in our area or at some of our schools, will the kids who choose not to take it then get penalized because they could have taken it versus when they couldn't take it? And so that was a very real fear that came up. I'm super proud of my organization for steering away from that and holding strong to our values and what we truly believe is right for kids. But it's a hard, hard local choice that educators are having to make with so many factors that play.

And it's an unfair ask on you. Right. I mean, just to say it like, clearly, because colleges haven't been clear about this to your point earlier, and because it's often in their interest not to be super clear about this either, that's putting pressure on educators at a time when it's really hard to be an educator as it is. Right. And there's so many decisions that have nothing to do with the teaching and learning all around, the choreography of how do we educate and so forth that are incredibly important in communities right now. And this is just one more thing that I don't think has to be there, frankly. And that's what's from my perspective. It's like hearing you say that you had to have this deep conversation. You ended up in a place that I think makes sense. But how much time did that take away from all the other important things right now on your plate? And I'm just going to be honest, if you're a parent listening to this, if you're an educator, I don't think this should be anywhere near your top 10 list. That's my take.

Well, reassuring and I, trust me, I shared your perspective with our team and it was definitely influential. You know, we're all about hope. We don't like to tear things down. We like to offer solutions. So. And you know, I sometimes get called the crazy lady in the room. So I've got a crazy idea, Michael, that I'm just gonna throw out there that ties these two ideas back together. What if colleges right now, who've all come out and said they believe in diversity, they believe in equity, they care about all these things, they've all made these statements about their purported values. What if they said, forget the sat? You know what? Why don't you as applicants, tell us everything you know about the Great Migration or redlining in America or some of these history topics we've been talking about. Forget commissions that are gonna like, mess around for five years and not get anything done. If colleges came out tomorrow and said, you know what, we're gonna let you record a two minute extemporaneous video where you tell us everything you know about this. Or you can Write a quick 20 minute, timed right, tell us all you know, and we'll actually factor that in because that matters about, you know, that's the diversity of knowledge we want on our campus. That's the curiosity, because this stuff's not getting taught. Imagine the impact that would have on skyrocketing the history knowledge and learning in this country. People would be chasing after it on their own time because it was valued. You know, what about that crazy idea?

I love it. So, two quick reactions and then we can wrap up. Which one? You know, it speaks to something that actually drove me to spend a lot more time in higher ed several years ago, which you and I have talked about, which is that. But when I started in K12, it was sort of. I had this view of, we started at the beginning and we'll reform the system, ground up, if you will. And the more I was in the system, I realized how dependent K12 educators are on our higher education system. And if our higher education system is pointing at the wrong things for society, then that's going to trickle back into the K12 system. And I think that's fundamentally what we're facing. And as you talk about it, this would be our higher ed system doing something really positive. And then the second thing I'll just say is that for people out there who may be listening, who are worried not just about diversity of background or race or things like that, but also thought, right, your idea would get at both. And that's a really cool thing because it would cause you to grapple and openly think about some of these issues, not with just a regurgitation, but with a critical eye. And how positive would that be to foster a conversation where we can talk with each other as opposed to past each other? That's something I would hope for.

Love it. Thanks for that. Well, let's wrap up. Quick question. What do you. What are you learning, thinking, watching, doing this week?

Yeah, good question. Honestly, I'm. I'm still coming off the Yom Kippur. I don't know if High is the right word when you fasted for 25 hours or I think it's 23 in my house because of kids. But, but, you know, it was, it was just every year I read about forgiveness and I take something different from each each year. And so I'm just really, I'm still processing that. Like I, and just, you know, I trying to think about what does that mean? And I'm going to spend a little bit more time internally, like inside myself this week thinking about how do I want to live that out for this year ahead. What about you?

Yeah, I so admire the traditions around, around that holiday. So I went back to school. Michael I just finished a course that I took through the Yale School of Management, an online course on diversity and inclusion. Super humbling experience to be a student again. Overall, super positive. I learned a ton with my critical educator eye. There's room for innovation there in that space still, but it was good. And a big notable takeaway for me is the importance of process and structure in meetings to really foster inclusion. There's some small, easy, really powerful takes that we can make that will just change the engagement of everyone. It was validating and illuminating.

That's a wonderful place to leave it. And I bet a bunch of people will be curious and want to check it out. So I encourage them to do so. And stay tuned because we'll keep talking about these issues and more on the next episode of Class Disrupted.

Sam.