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The public-school system has seen many changes in the last 40 years and the standardizations and restrictions placed on teachers are said to be the cause of that.
“Standardized testing is probably more about funding than it is about student success or student engagement.” Mickey Miller said. “I’m not sure how standardized testing can identify the need of what the student’s going to need out into the world and that’s what we need to be preparing them for.”
Mickey Miller, lecturer at Murray State University, attended public school from grades kindergarten through 12th grade, in Humphreys County Tennessee, as well as his children and grandchildren.
Miller has been teaching at the college level for the past 15 years and has seen a tremendous change in the way incoming freshman, coming from a public school, value school.
“Our public education and across many dimensions aren’t preparing our students for higher education.” Miller said. “Everything from a work ethic to how to study, to how to synthesize and process information.”
Standardized testing in public schools has only been a requirement for the past several years. Currently, the K-PREP test and the ACT test are both requirements in the state of Kentucky. K-PREP for grades third through eighth. The K-PREP test awards student four levels of achievement. The highest being distinguished, then proficient, apprentice and the lowest being novice. Students’ are given one of these four titles based on their performance on the test, and in turn the school receives more state funding upon higher scores.
Another form of testing, the ACT is required for 10th and 11th grade, and this test determines many factors on college admissions. This test is timed and students receive a score that they will use to apply to admission to most all universities.
Miller blames the change in public education today on the change in culture and parenting that he has seen over the past 15 years. “It stems from family values and how students when children are being raised and what their experiences are growing up.” Miller said.
Many people believe the arts have been minimized due to the fact that standardized testing are taken so seriously in public schools today.
“Somewhere there’s got to be a better balance I analysis,” Miller said.
Original Format
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k6Zr8RSIjyHyFF5BadEKb2n1QqIH8s9D/view?usp=sharing
Transcript:
Lauren Campbell: 00:00 Okay, so, um, okay. Hello, this is Lauren Campbell's, today is October 30th, 2018. I will be interviewing Mr Mickey Miller and our interview topic is public education around the 19 eighties before the stronghold of standardized testing. Mr Miller, do I have your permission to conduct this interview?
Mickey Miler: 00:22 Yes you do!
Lauren Campbell: 00:22 Okay. So the first question, just tell us a little bit about your background in public education. Um, where did you attend grade school and if you're comfortable telling us the years
Mickey Miler: 00:34 Yeah uh, I started uh. I was born in 1955, so I started in public education in a rural Tennessee county, um, before kindergarten we did not have, we, we're so rural. There was no kindergarten and preschool straight to the first grade and uh, it was uh, an elementary school grades a first grade through eighth grade, no junior high and it was a school of about 400, which served the complete western end of the county. And uh, across those eight grades I think we had in that at that time we had two seventh grades and two eighth grades, but all the others were just single classes.
Lauren Campbell: 01:13 Okay. And in high school were you in public school for high school?
Mickey Miler: 01:16 High School, Public School. The waverley. This is in Humphreys County, Tennessee. Waverly high school. They called it central high school. But uh, it wasn't, it wasn't the only high school that was the larger of the two schools in the county and had roughly about 600 students there. But it was public education
Lauren Campbell: 01:36 and grade school first through eighth or even high school. Were you involved in other things other than um just going to school and extracurricular activities. Yeah.
Mickey Miler: 01:46 Oh yeah, yes. Uh, now that we didn't have as much opportunity and that was the disadvantage of a rural school sport wise, the only thing we had was, was a junior high basketball. We had men and women's junior high basketball, but we had a lot of things in the rural communities. You had a 4H they would come into your schools and you would participate in four h and I was involved in that. Uh, we had starting in the fourth, starting in the third grade, that's when our classrooms, that organizational structure. And we had a president and a vice president, sergeant at arms and we would do a programming under the direction of the instructor or the teacher and uh, pretty much from the fourth grade on, I was either the president or the vice president of the class through, through elementary school. And uh, it wouldn't, it wouldn't a lot.
Mickey Miler: 02:40 I'm just trying to think, but I can't really identify anything else we did extra curricular.
Lauren Campbell: 02:45 In high school. Did you play any sports?
Mickey Miler: 02:47 Did Not in high school I was not involved as I was an elementary school. The high school we went to, we had a graduating class in the eighth grade of 33, but we went to a class that they were to be 160, so we kinda just got absorbed in the classroom. There was more opportunity there. But with my family I did not, I didn't have the ability to participate in sports or in band. I was in band for just a short period of time and that did not work at all. And uh, so I got involved in other things. I worked quite a bit when I was in high school and things like that involved in church I was, I was pretty busy in other ways.
Lauren Campbell: 03:28 Um, so when you were in grade school first through twelfth, did you all have standard at standardized testing then?
Mickey Miler: 03:40 Yeah, we did. I do recall that we would have these designated times to where we would, um, we would be evaluated not on content that we had discussed, but I don't remember it being as a feature now that it is in schools. Um, it was just something that we did and we never knew if the results come back or anything. So it wasn't, it wasn't that poignant an issue then.
Lauren Campbell: 04:07 And, um, when you think about your whole grade school experience, public school experience, really, is it a positive.
Mickey Miler: 04:14 Oh, great school. Yeah.
Lauren Campbell: 04:16 Loved it?
Mickey Miler: 04:18 Yeah our school our elementary school has it's a function of the, of the community there, the professors. Um, Gosh, we knew our lunch, our lunch ladies, we knew them. They were moms. They uh, you'd get off the bus in the morning. Of course it was rural. So you rode the bus, it wasn't want, wasn't like today where all the kids are transported by their parents, but yeah, you got to school and you could smell the bread baking, you know, and it was just like, and everyone knew the principal, the principal knew everyone's name, he knew the all 400 something kids names and knew where they lived, knew their parents. Uh, same thing with the fact if I had an issue at school, uh, I didn't want my teacher because she would call my parents, you know, she would talk to mom and dad and I didn't want that. She, she knew them. And uh, but it was, it was a good culture. It was a more caring community. It was a smaller community, but the, but the faculty. And like I said, the janitorial state, you knew everybody. One, you knew everyone, you knew everybody.
Lauren Campbell: 05:13 Do you feel that, um, because you're still in the Tennessee, right? Do you feel that the atmosphere and culture and everything surrounding public education has changed since your experience?
Mickey Miler: 05:27 Yeah, I've even got some of that documented. I did some, I did an audit back in 1999 through our leadership Humphreys County program and I got to go visit the very schools that I attended, you know, 30 years before and uh, amazing the shift. Uh, there was, uh, there was just a cultural shift. Um, um, I had, course you know, I can, I can speak to how the student has changed over those number of years. Faculty change to the role that faculty have is much different. Um not as much accountability as there was back in, uh, when I was there and I actually audited I audited a math teacher in high school that I had in 1973. This was in 1999. He had been teaching since 1955, so you can do the math there, but he was at the twilight of his career, but he had, he had shifted tremendously, the excellence that he commanded when I was there. He, he just wasn't doing that anymore. He couldn't do that.
Lauren Campbell: 06:31 Yeah and do you think that there is a factor to that? Do you think that the pressures put on teachers nowadays to perform well for standardized testing has anything to do with the change?
Mickey Miler: 06:41 he was he particularly. He and I had this discussion. He was a bit disenfranchised because of some of the things the state required. Now, it wasn't about the learning of the math, the application, but it was about that and then his frustration was because the classes that he had, we had a math team. Math club called Mu Alpha Theta. It was an honor society. They would. They would every year go to Nashville and compete against schools three and four times our size and they would come back with the trophies. They will perform at that level of excellence and I'm looking at is his trophy case and his name was Mr Knight, K N I g h t Mr Knight. I said Mr Knight I don't see a trophy in here since 1983. What's happened? He says a lot's happened since then and things have changed and, and he didn't use these words, but it was at the, the restrictions placed on it, but some of these standardizations and these scores that we're trying to achieve uh probably hindered him and what he was able to do.
Lauren Campbell: 07:35 And um. Do you think that there is a better way to. UMM. [inaudible] Cause I mean you have to prepare students for the future. Um, and I think that we have turned towards standardized testing as preparing them.
Mickey Miler: 07:54 Yeah. I'm going to interrupt you. Well you just pushed a button? Um, standardized testing is probably more about funding than it is about student success or student engagement. I'm not sure that and not I've not grown up in this standardized world as, as my children and my children's children have, but I'm not sure if I understand how standardized testing can identify the need of what the student's going to need out into the world and that's what we need to be preparing them for, for what they're going to put the world needs when they go out there. How can they serve the world? Whether it be in business nonprofits so forth um, but for me it's the purpose of standardized testing that I think is misdirected and if you, and if you test for the score, you're not necessarily testing for the content or for the learning.
Lauren Campbell: 08:52 Right. And so you mentioned that had kids and kids' kids and I'm sure they. Did, they both go through public schools?
Mickey Miler: 09:00 the same school I went through both of them.
Lauren Campbell: 09:02 And even then when, I know your kids are probably a little older than me, but even then, did you see a difference in their um participation in um, their experience with public education? Did you see a difference then?
Mickey Miler: 09:18 Sure. Uh, in, across all the dimensions of the curriculum that was shifting because it was being mandated differently by the state and federal agencies. And then these, these, these teachers that I told you about that we're a very caring and people centered people that they were retired and then would come to these new, this next generation who didn't share the same values. They didn't have the same paradigms around the, the professor, student teacher, student relationship. So yeah, they had a completely different experience than I did. Uh school was bigger, there was just a lot of factors that changed it. But
Lauren Campbell: 09:52 um, a lot of people say nowadays that the arts and the extracurriculars and the more hands on we're preparing you for the future, things are being pushed out of the way because of things like standardized testing and performance. And um, you kind of already touched on it already, but do you feel that those things are, should be as important and considered just like the testing and the, and the performance of students?
Mickey Miler: 10:24 Well Band is good. Music is good, but if you're not going to be a music professional or if you're not going to take that. Of course I realized when you were 12, 13 year old, you know, you don't know what you're going to be doing with it. But, and there's of course there's been research on, you know, the how band students fair bit or, and academics because of the discipline and the learnings and the way you have to learn music theory and all that. But cause phrase was as important. Got To remember now the Lens I'm looking through, I'm looking through a lens that came through the 19 fifties and sixties, but what I've noticed is is that a 13 year olds today do not read as well as 13 year olds, 50 years ago. Thirteen year olds do not write as well today and communicated. These are communication tools do not write as well. I can't speak to the math because they don't know what the math curriculum is like, but I've looked at exams that were students were given back in the 19 forties and fifties when there was this emphasis on, you know, coming out of World War Two, there was a symphysis on self reliance and growth and and the, and I can't pass those exams. I can't pass the high school exam that some of them take because the emphasis was on physiology and on government and in the world. Geography and civics and and we're not. We've walked away from that while we've walked. What we're hitting, we're, we're, we walked toward arts at the expense of that. So somewhere there's got to be a better balance in analysis and if you're going to be, if you're going to be an art major, go take art, learn to read, learn to learn to balance your checkbook.
Lauren Campbell: 12:08 And um, as a college professor you get to see for the most part, unless they're nontraditional student, you get to see that student right after they finished their public education journey. And um, so throughout all of your years, how long have you been a professor?
Mickey Miler: 12:23 15
Lauren Campbell: 12:23 Throughout 15 years which I'm sure the answers probably obvious, but have you seen and what kind of change have you seen in the those incoming freshmen?
Mickey Miler: 12:32 Oh boy. Okay. Here's where I get fired.
Lauren Campbell: 12:36 Well, say whatever you can,
Mickey Miler: 12:38 and this is not a reflection on the students or reflection on where they have come from. Our public education and across many dimensions aren't preparing our students for higher education. Everything from a work ethic to how to study, to how to synthesize and process information. To add, to summarize how to ask the critical question. Uh, we just not, we don't do that anymore. It's a very rote learning. R O, t e rote learning and it's a design for I need to study to this so that I can get the grade I'm, I'm interested in the grade and I'm seeing less and less interesting than not. It's not going away. There are still some amazing students, but I see less and less interested in the learning and its application outside of academia.
Lauren Campbell: 13:23 Is there something specific that you think you can pinpoint to say this is probably the reason why that change is happening or.
Mickey Miler: 13:31 No? No, it, it, it, it's, it's more complex than that. It's, it's, it's, it stems from, you know, family values and how students when children are being raised and what their experiences are growing up and everyone has a different experience and people grow up in different socioeconomic backgrounds. And uh, I've got a relative to my wife's family, teaches in an inner city school in Arkansas and what she deals with is a totally different issue than what we deal with in the schools where I'm from because she has a different socioeconomic background her students less monies from the state. They have a different set of issues that she deals with, so sometimes it's just making sure the students had eaten something that day. It can be at that level. It's more complex than just one thing.
Lauren Campbell: 14:16 Right, right. Understandable. If you were going back to when you said you've seen the change in kind of attitude and work ethic and if you were given the chance to go into the public school system, say it'd be the principal of the high school, um, what kind of change would you think you might implement to better prepare and would you change the way standardized testings are taken if, if there was no Kentucky Board of Education and no no rules and, and you did what you want. Would you keep standardized testing? Would you take it away?
Mickey Miler: 14:50 I probably do away with it. If I didn't do away with it, I would work under an umbrella, will have an understanding that the standardized tests you'd given in western Kentucky might not be an appropriate tool for the for the test that you would want to give an eastern Kentucky or if you know if you're going to look at it at the state level, but again, I would first think to what end, why are you doing the standardized test if you're doing it because this mandate mandated because we have to determine who the top performers are so that our funds can be distributed accordingly. That's not a good tool for that and it doesn't do It actually does a disservice to the students because you're punishing them for already being disadvantaged and that's a. that's a bit of a problem.
Lauren Campbell: 15:31 So you would say that if we had say test, they need to be tailored to each individual,
Mickey Miler: 15:40 at least at least fit the demographic of the region and of the culture. You know what someone in a rural county may be skilled at might not serve anyone well in a metropolitan area and vice versa. You know, everyone has expertise in something. I don't care if you come from the farm or if you come from a family of academia and academicians, everyone knows something. They've got a skill set, they're just different schools. Standardized testing does not allow for that in my judgment.
Lauren Campbell: 16:11 Um, do you, kind of switching gears a little bit, but do you think, um, which I know you weren't a public education first through twelfth grade teacher, but do you think that um teachers are paid enough for the amount of pressure that's put on them to perform well? Because I've heard a lot of times that, um, you know, they just want good scores produced. So Do you think that the amount of pressure and things that they received, do you think they're
Mickey Miler: 16:43 Well, I think that was two questions. Are they paid enough? Um, let's go back. What we're asking them to do is not appropriate. I mean, are they educators or are they babysitters or are they a teachers today have to deal with issues that they did not have to deal with when I was, when I was 10 years old, the cultures and world, the world's changed. We're asking teachers, your child spends more waking hours with your teacher than they do with your parent, so they're going to have more influence on them in terms of the concept of who they are as concept of self into their instruction. They're going to mold and shape them. Now, do we pay? How much is that worth? Uh It's worth a lot more than they're getting paid. I'm not so sure that this something they need to be asked to do. And so I think we need to relook it even that we need to look at the role of the education system. What is it? Is it to shape us, create our society, or is it to educate our society?
Lauren Campbell: 17:41 Do you think?
Mickey Miler: 17:42 Oh, they don't get paid enough.
Lauren Campbell: 17:44 Got It. Do you think that, um, just with what I've gathered from what you've said, there's been a big change and it probably isn't a positive change since when you were in public education, do you think that we will one day make a change in, become more, um, go back to the basics and prepare students for?
Mickey Miler: 18:09 I do not think we will. You want me to talk about that for a while?
Lauren Campbell: 18:15 Sure.
Mickey Miler: 18:18 Some of the, and I'm going to use the word rhetoric, but some of the influences happening right now is, is, is a, is a pattern of adopting the more socialist approach to our government, to our culture and, and whether you like socialism or not, it socialism doesn't allow you the liberty that, that other forms of government do when someone tells us what to think and not what to think about, but when they tell us actually what our views and our, you know, our, what our agenda should be, that's pretty hazardous and that's what we're now seeing in our education system. It started I think years ago and there's some documentation on this. There's a, there's a book written by a scholar and I think, she's since retired is called the intentional dumbing down of America and she chronicles public education and in the lower divisions and even in the universities for about the last 80 years and she sees a pattern here of where curriculum changes have been designed not to educate but to influence and that's with common core now that's prevalent in our, in our lexicon we mentioned common core and that's just another example of it. It's the flavor of the decade right now and there'll be something new when that goes away, they'll be something else, but I don't, I do not see it getting better. Not In the uh not in the sense of what our was to understand from the fifties and early sixties, but that's another discussion.
Lauren Campbell: 19:52 Okay, well uh on the topic of standardized testing, how public schools have changed. You have anything else to add that I didn't ask you but that you.
Mickey Miler: 20:02 No. Well, yeah, yeah, we could. We could talk about this and and and not and really never come to the end, but uh I guess that the construct of standardized testing, I think there needs to be a really strong look at why do we do it, what is, what is the real reasons that we find that standardized testing is necessary and if we come up with the answer that we want and we need to make it apply to that and not use it for other motives, but it needs to be about the benefit of the, of the, of the child learner or the adult learner and then which will go out and add value to our, to our culture, our nation, our country, our world, whatever. Yeah.
Lauren Campbell: 20:43 Alright well that is all the questions I have for you so thank you.
Mickey Miler: 20:43 Thank you for that. Thank you Lauren.