Pull Up!

When the local high school football team scores the cheerleaders throw T-shirts, towels and little rubber footballs up in the stands to the eager souvenir hunting fans.  Kids run and scramble for the airborne goodies.  I duck and cover.  My reflexes and vision are not what they used to be and it is a frightening prospect to be struck in the face with a little rubber football, flying bullet-like from the track below, launched by the strong arm of a 17 year old girl into a sea of waving arms.  Time has delivered enough damage to my facade without the assistance of a flying rubber football.  I think about this as I arrive at the game and know what I will do when the team scores.  Duck and cover.  A rational response in a mob with the exact opposite response.

The release of the cockpit transcript of the doomed Air France flight #447 gives me chills.  On July 1, 2009, 228 human souls boarded this plane to fly from Brazil to France and never arrived.  They crashed in the Atlantic, all souls lost.  The cockpit transcripts describe the last horrifying minutes as the cockpit crew attempted to right the plane and save the flight.

The airliner stalled during its climb over the Atlantic.  The pilot was asleep, a younger officer with less experience at the controls.  Data poured into the cockpit at the same time the autopilot turned itself off.  We now know that some of the sensors delivering the data to the flight crew were iced, giving faulty data.  One thing was for sure, the plane lost power and headed down.

Years later and in safety and comfort, pilots tells us that when a plane stalls and begins to descend, the appropriate response is to push the yoke forward, accelerating the fall and gaining air speed so that power can be restored and the plane recovered.  The young pilot at the controls responded by pulling back on the yoke, ordering the descending plane to climb.  It could not.  In the final minutes, the voices in the cockpit were arguing, some yelling, "Go down," some yelling, "Level your wings," and some yelling, "Pull Up!"  The pilot pulled up.  The plane crashed.

It is hard to imagine sitting at those controls knowing the plane is in a steep decline and not pulling up.  And yet, that is what they should have done.  Training, experience, rational forethought must balance our reflexive, intuitive response.  Without that rational, calm, experienced, and informed decision making, we are likely doomed in any given emergency.  Car begins to skid, turn into the skid not against it.  Clothes catch on fire, hit the ground rather than run.  Caught in a rip tide, swim with it, not against it.  On and on, we must learn counterintuitive acts in times of fear that may save us despite our instincts, despite our emotions.

As public school folks collect then receive more and more data regarding student performance, we too can be overwhelmed.  Our elected leaders are.  The scariest of all thoughts to me is that the pilots of public ed are not educators.  Those of us trained and experienced, know what to do.  We know what matters.  We know how to promote student learning, and it is not by collecting more data.

In fact, the data we are collecting is flawed.  Standardized tests do not measure what we teach even when we attempt to teach to the standardized measure.  Unlike the driving license tests, standardized tests for schools are designed to discriminate among students, not demonstrate student mastery.  When the high stakes tests are field tested, the test developers automatically throw out all questions that every student answered correctly.  Why?  Because such a question does not help distribute outcomes along a curve.  No standardized test maker wants most of the kids to do well.  If so, they will be fired.  No, what the policy makers want is a test that can distribute outcomes, not result in a J-Curve, or skewed results to the positive.  And since the tests are designed that way, we should, as professionals, give them little credence.  We know the sensors are iced.

But in the cockpit of public education sits a powerful group of untrained, non-professionals, who continually read the data and demand more data, data from harder tests based on more rigorous standards.  "Pull Up!" they yell.  We do as we are told, and crash.  Our students fare worse when compared to others, so we try more tests, higher stakes, higher standards.  "Pull Up!" they yell.  We do as we are told, and crash again.

For each of you in public ed who are experiencing one of those "years from hell" when budgets are tight, parents are on your case, the standards have gone up, the scrutiny has increased, the high stakes tests have become more so, and the support has gone down, you constantly hear it.  "Pull Up!"

Hang in and you will crash.  Stand up, and maybe we can change some things.  Your state's primary election will determine the next crew of pilots.  Pick some who can learn and support public education.  Step in the voting booth, level your wings.

Don't pull up.