Senechal writes, "together [these techniques] raise a barrier. Instead of bringing the subject closer to the students, this heap of tools proclaims: “No entrance! The subject is too hard without spelled-out skills, too boring without adornment, and too frustrating without pep talks and cheers!” These techniques may be gimmicky and ineffective in the ideal classroom Senechal is envisioning, one in which every student is on grade level and prepared to eagerly engage with the day's lesson. But Senechal specifically criticizes DCPS for using these methods, and that is why her argument is so problematic.
Despite recent gains, the district traditionally had some of the lowest test scores in the nation. Over half of students are not proficient in reading or math. High schoolers who have been failed by their district for years and struggle with literacy will likely find The Darkling Thrush dense and impenetrable. These students often lack reading comprehension strategies and skills, cannot decode many of the words, and disengage out of frustration. By clarifying objectives, reviewing vocabulary, teaching explicit strategies for analyzing the text and incentivizing hard work, teachers can enable students with behind-grade-level skills to tackle complex subjects.
These practices Senechal dismisses as gimmicks should be rigorously evaluated to ensure that they benefit student achievement, because like any technique, if they don't work they will take time away from learning. As long as they continue to prove effective for educating students who are below grade level, DCPS should encourage teachers to use them. If teachers can teach their students effectively using different techniques, that should be acceptable too.
As for Senechals' criticism of "teaching to the test," again, all I can say is that the testing is not an evil. Charter networks like Achivement First, which have produced outstanding academic results for their students have internally developed interim assessments which are administered as often as every six weeks. Assessing students is necessary to determine whether or not they are learning the material! Teachers and principals use data to provide targeted support to struggling students. A WaPo story covered this phenomenon earlier this year:
At Sousa Middle School, Principal Dwan Jordon has filled a huge white board with the names of each of his 271 students and their standing on last month's DC-BAS, an interim assessment given to help prepare students for the spring DC-CAS: green marker for proficient, red for below proficient, orange if they are on the cusp of proficiency.
"We know our kids 100 percent. We know what kids need extra help," said Jordon, another new, data-focused Rhee hire.
There are legitimate and pressing criticisms to be made of poor standardized tests; they do in fail in many ways including not emphasizing literature. There are two solutions to subpar standardized tests: lobby for the improvement of standardized assessments so that "teaching to the test" means teaching rich content, or develop appropriate assessments internally. Abolishing testing is not one of those two solutions.


