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From: Justin Escher Alpert <[email protected]>To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]>;"[email protected]" <[email protected]>Sent: Friday, August 16, 2013 5:26 AMSubject: Standardized Testing Objectively Measure Subjects We Subjectively Choose; Music Theory
Mr. Christopher D. CerfCommissioner of Education
State of New Jersey
Dear Commissioner Cerf:
My ten-year-old daughter Skyler Rose will be entering the fifth grade this year at Mount Pleasant
Elementary School in the Governor’s hometown of Livingston. She is, right now, completing atwo-week program at a very expensive summer camp up in Connecticut. I should be so fortunate
to have the means to pay for such an experience to fuel Skyler Rose’s personal growth and
passion for learning with another mind-expanding experience next summer.
This summer, during my time off, finding my own rhythm in walks through the rolling green
hills of suburbia, I have been contemplating education and standardized testing and its inherent
flaw. The standardized tests seem to objectively measure subjects that wehave subjectively chosen… subjects that we collectively felt were important as part of our Paths
in figuring out the Universe.
Now, after school testing is completed, the school year kind of slows down. Lessons become a
little more creative as we sputter out the remaining weeks to meet the arbitrary (and, upon
reflection, somewhat capricious) 180-day school year standard. This year, we discovered that
many of the children who set the standards, they actually left our schools half-a-week early toattend these expensive and expansive sleep-away camps where the mind may wander and learn
and stretch and grow so that it may incorporate new ideas come the fall.
Commissioner, we who set the standards… we know what is important in the education of our
children. We choose the standards Commissioner . And we hate the standardized testing,
Commissioner. The tests are testing our children on the standards that they are setting,and they are setting those standards because they are the ones who set the objective standards
that we subjectively choose for them to set.
Think about that for a minute.
Commissioner Cerf, I play guitar with the rock and roll band The Stiff Joints (you should come
and see us play sometime). Now, imagine a world, Commissioner, where the subjective standard
that we objectively test for was in Music Theory (standards do change… we no longer test onLatin or slide rules or handwriting, for example). And imagine, Commissioner, that we all out
here in the leafy-green suburbs, after a lifetime of music education from our parents who were
themselves musically inclined, spent eighteen years at home teaching our children about musicappreciation and rock and roll history and jazz and rhythm and arpeggios and scales and the
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mathematics behind scales and how the brain processes music and an infinite other number
musical dimensions. Now, imagine back in the urban districts, the parents of those children have
had limited musical experience themselves and don’t realize the importance of occupying all ofthat musical space growing up and/or could not afford the same bevy of extra-curricular
activities or space at summer conservatories for their children as we provide for ours. Now
imagine, Commissioner, that we have standardized tests and we are going to prep all of ourchildren with the same material to meet the same standards. And you get to the first samplequestion and it asks:
1. Which one of the following represents the intervals of a major scale?
A. WWHWWWH
B. WHWWHWW
And the kids who didn’t ever spend time in front of a piano or with a guitar in their hands in
extra-curricular activities or at summer conservatory, those kids would stare blankly. And those
kids who might grow up in concrete blocks with Sponge Bob as their babysitter, we would haveto quickly teach them about wholes and halves and what a major scale looks like and what a
minor scale looks like. Maybe by drilling into rote memory they could remember a sing-songy,
“ Major is Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half ,” but it would be meaningless. It
would have no context . And it would become boring very quickly.
Meanwhile, Commissioner, out here in the winding quiet streets of suburbia, we would point out
to the kids on their expensive instruments passed down from generation to generation (by peoplewho understood the importance of a musical education) how the pattern fits, and, come test time,
by mentally running their hands over an invisible fretboard or keyboard, they would instantly
and instinctively be able to call up a sing-songy, “ Major is Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole,
Whole, Half ,” and the testing would be kind of tedious and boring and they would finish theirschool year and pick up their real instruments and go off to summer conservatories where they
may actually play and learn and incorporate ideas and develop a thirst for exploring new musical
ideas.
Meanwhile, back in the urban districts, we would use testing not as a diagnostic tool , but as a
diagnostic claw hammer to the skull, labeling the schools as failures and children in thosedistricts would grow up thinking that they were failures. And they would get bored and drop
out. So the State would take over their school districts and send in private vulture companies
that thrive on the carrion with an endless supply of better and better theories about how to drill in
“Major is Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half” to the absolutely frustrated kidswho never developed those skills from an early age at home. And we would richly compensate
the Superintendent of the urban school district for minute incremental statistical increases in
competency based on the standards that we subjectively choose for our children when they get
back from summer conservatory.
Now, if 6 turned up t o be 9…
Commissioner Cerf, Jimi Hendrix took “Major is Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole,
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Half” and threw it against a wall and picked up the pieces and made something interesting and
rewrote musical history. In the process, he shattered our expectations and inspired a generation
of musicians… people who were dedicated to instinctively learning the underpinnings to “Majoris Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half” and using that scale as a skeleton upon
which they may construct their own interpretation of the musical universe. And they didn’t have
to learn it exactly the way Jimi learned it, on a cigarbox guitar with one string. They didn’t haveto know everything that Jimi knew at the age when he learned it. They were free to exploremusic appreciation and rock and roll history and jazz and rhythm and arpeggios and scales and
the mathematics behind scales and how the brain processes music and an infinite number of
other musical dimensions to their heart’s content. And along the way, if their experiences werediverse enough, they would have learned one way or another that “Major is Whole, Whole, Half,
Whole, Whole, Whole, Half.” But their journey was unique… it was their own… it was equally
valid… and it was interesting and compelling.
We need to rethink the mission of education, Commissioner Cerf. Perhaps we need,
not quantitative measures, Commissioner, but qualitative measures. We should no longer test on
(an actual question from the NJ Ask ), “Louise is pushing a basket of apples. What are two thingsLouise could change to make it easier to push the basket?” Perhaps our time and efforts would
better be spent making sure that each of the children in urban districts actually have a chance this
fall to climb the hill at Wightman's Farm and pick… and snap… and bite into… and suck… and
savor… and throw away apples with reckless abandon. Those children would process that question very differently. Perhaps an effective education would ensure that each
little “Louise” has had the tactile experience of actually filling and trying to push a basket of
apples (or, for that matter, experiencing the National Treasure that is the Jersey Shore, playingwith sand as the tide comes in, studying fluid dynamics). Perhaps labeling inner-city schools as
failures just because students do not conjugate their verbs well is to focus on the wrong
thing. We, we who raised the children who are setting the curve, we know that by participating
in more robust creative learning from passionate and knowledgeable teachers, they will learn just by creatively working with others… they will learn to conjugate their verbs better over the
course of their life-long education… even if they didn’t pick up on those nuances at home in the
first five years.
When I go throughout the State, Commissioner, and I meet people who work as teachers or
administrators in the “failing” urban distr icts (one of whom, a Kindergarten teacher, I met at hersecond job as a waitress... you can't make this stuff up), and I ask, over and over again, “What do
you need to change?” The answer that I get back all too often is, “The Parents.”
So we reflect on that. Imagine that . The parents who set the standards in our generation,subjectively choose the standards for today’s children. And we are the ones with the knowledge
and affluence to provide the safe space in extra-curricular activities and summer programs for
constant real-world challenges and growth that push our children to appreciate and love the life-
long path of learning. Perhaps the standardized testing warps our priorities,Commissioner. Perhaps it cheats us to a false ending when it is in fact the means that is
important. Perhaps the questions that urban districts must ask themselves are very different than
the questions that we ask ourselves in suburban districts. Perhaps the urban districts need tolook more holistically at families that may not be led by someone who graduated from a
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suburban education system… that may not recognize the importance of education… that may not
speak English well… that may not be well-nourished… that may not themselves have ready
access to the time away from their life stresses to be treated well and to learn and grow and failand succeed and ponder the meaning of life.
To what extent, Commissioner Cerf, are the standardized tests themselves doing us adisfavor? They are neither wanted nor needed by urban or suburban districts alike. Walk intoany classroom and within five minutes you can have a good measure of a teacher’s effectiveness
by how engaged her children are in the process of learning… by how the educator confidently
and intuitively deals with problems as they arise… by how the master of the craft of teachingcreatively spins the rules of teaching, just as Jimi did with the rules of music. We out here in the
suburbs know that eighteen years of constant engagement by knowledgeable and passionate and
creative and diverse instructors and personalities inherently gives a broad basis of undefinable
tools for entry into adulthood… no standards needed . By what measure are we shortchanginghonesty by setting a 180-day educational standard? By what measure are we failing our students
by imposing standards that they may not have been equipped to strive for during their five years
prior to the State’s half-year education obligation kicking in? Should we begin to think morecreatively, Commissioner Cerf? Does the imposition of standards ruin the creative process that
is so integral to avid open-minded learning? Should we throw the rules against the wall and pick
up the pieces and make the process of education interesting again?
Wall Street may not be able to invest in a Candidate Christie in 2016, but it could invest in
education and infrastructure in The Garden State under Governor Christie’s
leadership today. Those investments in education and infrastructure would pay immediatedividends. Rather than ensuring that we exceed the conforming educational standards set across
the country from New Hampshire to New Jersey to Colorado to California, perhaps we might
free ourselves as educational virtuosos, and tear up the rules, and set new standards and make
the pursuit of education compelling. At least that is what we are trying to do out here in thesuburbs… when we can get away from all of the standards imposed by the State… standards
that we have set and now serve only to limit our imaginations going forward.
The time has come to return local control of urban public school districts to the supervision of
the responsible adults who live within those districts. As long as we are diligent against
corruption, it does not matter what the cost… we need to invest in ourselves. The urban schooldistricts need to be the incubators of new home grown ideas to serve the needs of their
communities. They need to participate in the process of devising and striving for their own
standards of excellence because that is how they grow and attract new and knowledgeable
residents to add to the flavor of the community. It wouldn’t be lowering the bar… it would be freeing them from intellectual shackles. We have a moral and constitutional obligation to give
students and parents alike the tools and instruments that they need to reach for additional
building blocks as they see fit in the quest for new knowledge. There is nothing more frustrating
in life, Commissioner, than being told by other people what the answers in your life should be. To set standards based on what has worked for us, is, I am afraid, to misunderstand
the scope of God’s infinite knowledge.
Thank you for your leadership, Commissioner Cerf. Thank you for mending ties with the
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teachers unions. Thank you for raising private Wall Street investment for public education and
infrastructure. Thank you for devising new standards as stakes in the future to which we may all
strive. Thank you for making the passion and creativity of New Jersey public education anexample for all the world to see over the course of the next three years.
Sincerely,
Justin Escher Alpert
Livingston, New Jersey
