Kohn, Alfie. (2004). What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? and More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies. Reviewed by Mohammed S. Almosa, University of Minnesota

	Kohn, Alfie. (2004). What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? and More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies. Boston: Beacon Press. Pp. xv + 194 $16     ISBN 0-8070-3267-0 Reviewed by Mohammed S. Almosa University of Minnesota October 4, 2004 What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? serves as a window to many of Alfie Kohn’s writings and encompasses some of the foremost polemic and polarizing issues in education: standardized tests, accountability, and the relationship between business and education. Kohn is unique in his unwavering stance against standardized tests and their negative impact on education. The experience of my native country, Jordan, where tests orient all of basic education toward “teaching” rather than “learning,” resonates with Kohn’s views. Of course, the impact of standardized tests in Jordan is more critical than in the United States because of incredibly fewer possibilities for failing students, occurring in the High School National Exam at a rate of more than 50% in 2004. Kohn’s concern for and prediction of what American education might become is the prevailing reality in Jordan: schools turn into test-prep centers. Kohn wants to prevent that. In this fascinating and thought-provoking book, he argues against standardized tests, grades, rewards and punishment, accountability, competition, and merit pay. These create a recipe for catastrophe, he warns. He poses foundational questions about the purpose of schools and the meaning of education. Kohn is a consultant and an ex-schoolteacher who widely lectures in the United States and abroad, and who has written several books on the subject of tests and standards. Central to What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?, and to Kohn’s writings in general, is his relentless exposure of standardized testing’s negative impact and how this reality dislocates education from schools. Kohn is a fervent believer in the abolishment of standards and grades, and argues for educational reform that instead turns schools into “caring communities.” What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? includes 18 essays published between 1999 and 2003. Also, during that time, he published two books, The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools (2000) and The Schools Our Children Deserve (1999), which both argue against the “accountability fad” in education. Earlier, in 1996, he wrote Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community, in which he addresses discipline in schools and provides ways for teachers to eliminate discipline problems, mainly by working with students to “make decisions and solve problems” and by creating a classroom that is based on “respect and dignity” (Kohn, 1996, p. x). In 1993, he wrote his best-selling book Punished by Rewards, which argues against all forms of extrinsic motivation. The essays in What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? range from a short piece that lists just a few of the ways in which schools have suffered from the request to raise test scores, at one end, to a longer essay, at the other end, on the reassessment of Abraham Maslow’s psychological theories, which Kohn wrote for “a book about humanistic psychology and education.” In between are essays that appeared in twelve periodicals variously intended for educators, according to Kohn. Kohn explains that all of the essays are about goals: “In many cases, my purpose is to argue about the value of one objective as opposed to another” (p. xiii). Kohn builds on his past books and throughout this new collection refers to numerous other education experts and studies. A recurrent theme in many of the essays, as one would expect, is the impact of standardized testing on education. At the end of Kohn’s book, The Case Against Standardized Testing, he provides a list of active ways parents and other groups can protest against tests, including writing letters to the press and boycotting tests. Being an activist against tests seems a little unusual for an academic, but it does not overstate the situation at all. It reminds us of the seriousness of the problem (Harlen, 2002). “What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated,” the book’s title essay, raises imperative questions about the meaning of education and what students need to learn to be considered well educated. He poses questions such as: When do we know education was successful? Or, what should education be successful at? Should not we reflect on the “proper purposes of education”? Should we define well educated by “seat time,” “job skills,” “test scores,” “memorization of a bunch o’ facts”? “Is it possible to agree on a single definition of what it means to be well educated?” Of course, no consensus exists as to what every high school student should learn in order to be considered well educated, argues Kohn. He asks, should we have one set of knowledge for all countries all over the world? Further, is this set of knowledge viable for this time and a century ago, or should it change over time? According to Kohn, we have to recognize the striking absence of meaning in the term “well educated.” Any attempt to gain consensus for a definition, he asserts, has to be rooted in time and place. Kohn concludes that knowing how to think is a meaningful objective of education and we should not spend much time on remembering a list of facts. (So, the “cultural literacy” argument does not sit well with Kohn.) Our main objective, according to Kohn, should be lifelong learning, which is to acquire the desire and the means for more education. This Dewian concept may be hard to obtain without having students immersed in learning and far away from the pressure of tests or rewards. The second chapter, “Turning Learning into Business,” examines the influence of business on education and rejects the hidden message business interests convey: that “test scores are a useful and appropriate marker for school quality” (p. 11). This chapter argues that the influence of businesses on schools is connected to an emphasis on standardized testing. One example: Standard & Poors, which is owned by McGraw-Hill, one of the largest manufacturers of standardized tests, has offered to evaluate and publish the performance of every school district in the United States. Further, Kohn argues, private, profit-oriented businesses managing schools is another aspect of “milking schools.” He sees vouchers and charter schools as a means, to some extent, to undermine public education altogether. He cites education historian David Labaree, who concludes: “We find public schools under attack, not just because they are deemed ineffective, but because they are public” (p. 16). He demonstrates the connection between advertising and schools and concludes that the private sector is controlling the schools. Kohn laments the involvement of such ideologies in education and points out the contradictory goals of business and education. Obviously, Kohn is not a fan of private education. He quotes Kari Delhi, from a study published by Orbit, “Shopping for Schools,” about the British experience: “When schools have to compete for students, they tend to adopt ‘safe,’ conventional and teacher-centered methods, to stay close to the prescribed curriculum, and tailor teaching closely to test-taking” (p. xi). In another chapter that deals with the overemphasis on achievement, Kohn warns about the dangers of coercing students to study harder only to determine who is better than whom, rather than trying to help everyone to learn. When schools pressure teachers to raise test scores, students do less than well, because they do not perform well under such stress. Kohn posits that students should focus on what they do rather than focusing on how well they do something. In other words, educators need to pay more attention to the efforts of students than to their abilities. In fact, Kohn argues for the complete abolishment of grades and suggests the adoption of “authentic assessment” as an alternative. This approach would allow schools to assess students’ performance by gathering information about students and share it with them and their families. Abolishing grades, according to Kohn, opens up possibilities that are more meaningful and constructive. These possibilities might include block scheduling, team teaching, having teachers spend more time with each student, and giving teachers the option to explore other ways of evaluating their students. True to his convictions, Kohn would like to see in the meantime, until grades are abolished, grades as invisible as possible. In another chapter titled “Standardized Testing and Its Victims,” Kohn draws on some striking data about the impact of testing. He affirms that, “as a rule, it appears that standardized-test results are positively correlated with a shallow approach to learning” (p. 55). One explanation for this is that students are not learning for the sake of learning, but rather preparing for the sake of the exam, or a grade, and of course only study the material that is expected in the exam. Also, he asserts that the “problem with tests is not limited to its content. Rather, the harm comes from paying too much attention to the results” (p. 37). Other victims of tests are educators. Many teachers have been leaving education “frustrated by the difficulty of doing high-quality teaching in the current climate” (p. 56). In addition, according to Kohn, standardized testing is a retreat from fairness and equity. Obviously, since adequate preparation for tests requires resources and may depend on cultural background, then many minority students will not do well. He warns, “If states persist in making a student’s fate rest on a single test, the likely result over the next few years will be nothing short of catastrophic” (p. 60). It will be an “educational ethnic cleansing.” He explains this as resulting from the high pressure of single exit-exams, which force minority students and those who don’t have the means to prepare for the exam to drop out for fear of not making it. Furthermore, he warns that even higher scores in a given school should be a cause for concern because of what that school had to do to raise its students’ scores. That might include eliminating valuable time in science classes or at recess in order to prepare for the standardized tests. Fortunately, some universities and colleges are making changes to their admission requirements in order to lessen the influence of standardized tests, according to Kohn. Richard C. Atkinson, president of the University of California, instructed his administrators to drop the SAT from the university’s acceptance criteria and recommended “that all campuses move away from admission processes that use narrowly defined quantitative formulas and instead adopt procedures that look at applicants in a comprehensive, holistic way” (p. 70). Kohn lists nine schools in the nation, ones he knows about, that teach without grades and suggests that some universities are interested in the unconventional applicant, someone who doesn’t have a perfect resume. In another chapter, Kohn argues against educators’ use of the phrase “good job,” and offers five reasons to stop saying it: first, it manipulates children and makes them dependent on our approval; second, children become praise junkies; third, we steal their pleasure by telling them how to feel; further, they lose interest in the task they do; and, finally, as a result, the ominous phrase reduces achievement. Kohn tells us that children who receive praise for a creative task will stumble in the next one and don’t do well as children who don’t get praise to begin with. Because praise creates pressure “to keep up the good work,” it gets in the way of doing so. This reduces the child’s behavior to simply a measured value and ignores the “thoughts, feelings, and values that lie behind behaviors” (p. 109). He suggests ways of talking to children without the habitual utterances of “good job.” He also discusses the issue of violence in schools, which can be attributed to many factors including guns. Kohn asserts that violence in schools might also be attributed to a lack of community. Many schools have missed opportunities to create community because of the pressure of standardized tests and to become “test-prep centers.” Students have to compete with each other to get ranked; the message they get is that their success can be curtailed by the success of others. In another short essay, Kohn reflects on the events of September 11, 2001, and points out their multifaceted context. He asserts that nothing can justify such shocking acts against the United States; at the same time, Kohn investigates the roots of the problem by reminding us of the U.S. involvement in the world against the wishes of other people. In relation to schools and the curriculum, he recommends, and I share his recommendation, that the standards by which our schools should be measured is the extent to which the next generation comes to recognize and embrace the belief that “the life of someone who lives in Kabul or Baghdad is worth no less than the life of someone in New York or from our neighborhood” (p. 130). This book is engaging from beginning to end. All people involved in education, including parents of young children, will find it relevant and thought-provoking. Undoubtedly, Kohn is a vocal proponent of the disposal of tests and grades, standards, rewards and punishment, and competition. He promotes, instead, authentic assessment and sees education’s priority as producing caring and loveable people rather than “intellectual development.” He also envisions schools organized around “problems, projects, and questions” rather than being organized around facts, skills, and disciplines. Considering the overwhelming enthusiasm about accountability, tests, and standards that expressed by many people--including many parents--the feasibility of Kohn’s argument appears to be rather slim. Yet, relieving students, teachers, and families from the pressure of tests strikes this reader, and perhaps many others, as sheer merit. Alfie Kohn’s book is a fantastic read. References Harlen, W. (2002). [Review of the book: The case against standardized testing: Raising the scores, ruining the schools]. Assessment in Education, 9, 1, 141-144. Kohn, A. (1996). Beyond discipline: From compliance to community. Alexandria, VA: ASCD About the Reviewer Mohammed S. Almosa is a PhD student in Educational Policy and Administration/Comparative International Development Education at the University of Minnesota. He has previously taught adult basic education and in middle and high schools in Minneapolis. At the moment, he is working on his dissertation, “A Critical Analysis of the Representation of the Arab World in Minnesota Schools.”