Mission Statement

BAN THE BUBBLE, SOUTH PASADENA

Draft Mission Statement

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

- Albert Einstein

Ban the Bubble, South Pasadena (BBSP) is a parents' organization and advocacy group devoted to curricular reform in South Pasadena.

We seek a curriculum that emphasizes, above all, conceptual understanding, creative and critical thinking, and probing analysis, rather than rote learning that is easily tested.

We object to the emphasis the District places on standardized testing -- and to the inordinate amount of class time devoted to test preparation.  High test scores are but a flawed, limited measure of minimal competence, one all too easily mistaken for educational success itself.

We are distressed that the state and, by extension, the District permit unaccountable corporations to design standardized tests of particularly poor quality -- even as these companies profit handsomely and, in the process, divert scarce resources from more worthy educational programs.  As one elementary school principal who herself took the tests put it, “[T]he questions were nothing short of ridiculous.  Several of them were ambiguous and seemed designed only to trick children (and adults….the answers were not clear to many of us).” More troubling still, while testing companies use suspect, statistically-flawed methods to design the tests, the results are treated as objective, even scientific, measures of learning and given far more than the very limited weight they warrant.

We regret that vital subjects not tested -- such as history, literature, geography, civics, science, philosophy, physical education, and foreign languages -- are taught in elementary school, if at all, only as afterthoughts. And we think the arts deserve far more than the marginal place in the curriculum to which they are now relegated.  Acquiring a broad base of knowledge, developed through the study of multiple subjects, is no less vital to a sound education than learning to read.  Only by giving our children an early, strong background in many disciplines, through content-rich lessons, can we promote true literacy and stimulate creativity.

       We worry about the increasing use of computer-based reading programs that emphasize recall of minor facts over broad engagement with themes and ideas.  We wish instead to develop in our children the capacity to read both non-fictional and fictional works in their entirety and to engage with them in analytic depth.

       We are disturbed that students are not encouraged, and sometimes are not permitted, to advance much beyond the particular skills and standards tested in a particular year.  Each child must be permitted and encouraged to reach his or her full potential.

We think our students should write, and write, and write -- early and often, because writing is as valuable as it is hard -- rather than take multiple choice tests.  To unleash our children’s creativity and develop their analytical skills, school should encourage them to find their unique voices and reveal their thought processes, not merely hunt for predetermined answers.

We feel strongly that school should strive to prepare our students less for high-stakes standardized tests than for the hard work of thoughtful democratic citizenship, for the analytic emphasis of college, and for the complexities of life that do not present themselves in right/wrong, multiple choice scenarios.

We believe that to rest content with even the highest performance on standardized tests sells our children short, neglecting that most fundamental aspect of an education:  the mental agility to navigate fresh situations and unforeseeable circumstances -- the seed of true learning.

We view our teachers as priceless, and teaching as an art not subject to quantitative evaluation.  We fear that, due to the predominance of standardized testing, our teachers can no longer fully and safely draw on their unique strengths to develop lessons geared to the particular and the long-term needs of their students.  The dominant school-as-testing-factory model serves our teachers as poorly as it does our students, forcing both to slight what truly matters.

We hope, above all, that our students will come to love learning -- and that school will inspire them, encourage them to develop interests and passions, and enable them to pursue these to their depths. We believe that learning is something valuable for its own sake, rather than instrumentally.

      We are disheartened by the effects that No Child Left Behind and the recent test score craze has had on our schools.  South Pasadena can have a truly great school district, if only it has the courage to stop aiming merely for high standardized test scores and start shooting, instead, for the stars.

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Email: banthebubble@gmail.com; visit our website:  http://banthebubble.blogspot.com