Read More on Education from J. M. Beach
Can We Measure What Matters Most? Why Educational Accountability Metrics Lower Student Learning and Demoralize Teachers, Volume 1
“J. M. Beach provides a devastatingly effective analysis of the accountability metrics that have wrought so much havoc in the American system of schooling. The accountability pandemic is now a global phenomenon, pushed by governments around the world. As Beach shows, the problems with this system are legion. He makes the case for why accountability metrics are the problem, not the solution.”
David F. Labaree, Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University. He is author of How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning, Someone Has to Fail, and A Perfect Mess.
“J. M. Beach offers a searing polemic against quantification and top-down management in education. Skillfully navigating a broad range of topics, he reminds us of the importance of authentic learning, and shows how we might once more elevate that aim. While Beach is a skeptic of what passes for school reform these days, he ultimately offers a hopeful view of what educators, young people, and communities can accomplish together.”
Jack Schneider, Assistant Professor of Education, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Co-Editor of History of Education Quarterly, and Director of Research at Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment. He is author of Beyond Test Scores, Excellence for All, and A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door.
“Beach has done an amazing job of blending the wisdom of many of the world’s most thoughtful educators with his own ideas about what makes for better schooling. Both volumes deal with issues of assessment and accountability, and the desperate need for more humane systems of using these tools and ideas. These highly readable and well referenced books both inform and stimulate.”
David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University. He is author of 50 Myths and Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools, Collateral Damage, and The Manufactured Crisis.
In his two new books, Beach delivers a two-part assault on the logic of using measurement-based accountability regiments to reform educational systems. In Part 1, Can we Measure, Beach expertly excoriates the accountability movement that has dominated our k-12 public schooling system for decades showing how it has dismantled student learning and teacher morale. Although the chorus of accountability critics has grown louder and stronger over time, Beach’s interdisciplinary approach involving the lessons from history, philosophy, management, measurement, learning theories, motivation, and higher education makes a uniquely powerful contribution to the school reform debate.
Sharon L. Nichols, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at San Antonio. She is author of Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools and Educational Policies and Youth in the 21st Century.
The Myths of Measurement and Meritocracy. Why Accountability Metrics in Higher Education are Unfair and Increase Inequality, Volume 2
“Beach argues that the accountability movement, which has already done so much damage to American public schools, is now coming after higher education as well, and he shows that this effort is not only based on faulty measures but also promises to lay waste to a system that is the envy of the world.”
David F. Labaree, Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University. He is author of How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning, Someone Has to Fail, and A Perfect Mess.
“‘Playing school’ is endemic throughout K-12 and higher education. Evaluation--both of students and of educators--is how we score the game. In this scholarly exploration of the sociology, economics, philosophy, and history of contemporary education, Josh Beach explores how and why the scoring rules became bogus and antithetical to supporting learning and improving teaching, rewarding behavior that undermines learning. The current quagmire arose from the postwar push for ‘scientific’ management--and viewing education as a consumer product--enabled by questionable measurement practices, irrational reverence for numbers, and a generous helping of the equivocation fallacy (e.g., conflating students' response to the prompt, ‘how effective was the instructor?’ with actual teaching effectiveness). I recommend this book to anyone who relies on, is subjected to, or engages in the evaluation of teaching and learning.”
Philip B. Stark, Associate Dean for the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Professor of Statistics, University of California at Berkeley
“This book is thoughtful, well-informed, and passionately argued.”
Jack Schneider, Assistant Professor of Education, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Co-Editor of History of Education Quarterly, and Director of Research at Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment. He is author of Beyond Test Scores, Excellence for All, and A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door.
“Beach has done an amazing job of blending the wisdom of many of the world’s most thoughtful educators with his own ideas about what makes for better schooling. Both volumes deal with issues of assessment and accountability, and the desperate need for more humane systems of using these tools and ideas. These highly readable and well referenced books both inform and stimulate.”
David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University. He is author of 50 Myths and Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools, Collateral Damage, and The Manufactured Crisis.
In this book, Part 2 of his series, Beach focuses on higher education policy, exposing the inequities of opportunity that stem from an overreliance on accountability metrics for evaluating educational quality. Collectively, this two-part series delivers a well-researched evidenced based argument for why it is past time we abandon the overreliance and narrow use of tests and measurement systems for holding educators accountable throughout the k-20 educational pipeline.
Sharon L. Nichols, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at San Antonio. She is author of Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools and Educational Policies and Youth in the 21st Century.
“J. M. Beach, in his densely researched book The Myths of Measurement and Meritocracy, shows how the educational assessment enterprise has been marked by a lack of rigor, by poor theory, and by unclear intentions. Too many assessment metrics have become a veneer bearing no relationship to the experience that lies behind it. They promote schooling rather than education, endurance rather than learning, obedience rather than enthusiasm. And Beach, because of his belief in the real and enduring promise of education, is not satisfied with this mis-measured chimera.
Beach’s book serves as a warning to teachers, administrators, and families alike: don’t believe everything you see just because it’s stated with two digits after the decimal point.
In order to make data meaningful, you need an accurate theory,” Beach writes. And educational assessment has often been dragged forward by misshapen and mechanistic theoretical models that do not bear scrutiny. Good teachers produce good learning. Good learning is shown by good grades. Good students will recognize good teaching. An accumulation of good grades leads to a good degree. A good degree will lead to a good job, and a good job to a good life. Beach carefully shows the disconnect in each link of this causal chain, the rickety Rube Goldberg device that looks clever but would never in fact work.”
Herb Childress, partner at Teleidoscope Group and former Dean of Research and Assessment at Boston Architectural College. He is author of The Adjunct Underclass and The PhDictionary.
How Do You Know? The Epistemological Foundations of 21st Century Literacy
"The ability to learn and reason is badly taught in our public schools, and deserves a radical upgrade. The pathway for this crucial improvement is clearly marked out in Beach’s How Do You Know?"
Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University.
"Beach outlines the kind of curriculum that has long been needed to clarify the mysteries of intellectual culture, a culture that otherwise will remain a secret society reserved for the few. It won’t help students much to learn masses of factual information unless they learn "how to use" that information, which for Beach (drawing on the important work of psychologist Deanna Kuhn) means being able to use what they know to make arguments, which includes assessing the arguments of others. This argument literacy lies at the core of Beach’s proposed critical thinking curriculum for the 21st century, and nobody I know has said all this better than has Josh Beach in this book."
Gerald Graff, Emeritus Professor of English and Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, and 2008 President, Modern Language Association of America.
"A giant step towards a comprehensive theory of literacy that would help to explain its role in the shaping of mind and society."
David R. Olson, University Professor Emeritus, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto .
"Beach forges a wide and studious path across much of philosophy, science and psychology in an effort to answer the question of how we can know. His answer -- to commit to open argument, grounded on values of truth and freedom -- doesn't resolve all concerns. But I agree that it is the best one we have, and today's world makes it more urgent than ever that we embrace it."
Deanna Kuhn, Professor of Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
"This is a book that calls for a wide readership – basically, anyone interested in the role of critical and rational thinking in a democratic society, the compelling need to teach individuals to make discerning evaluations of the array of information encountered, and the importance of understanding the premises of scientific theories, methods, and empirically grounded claims. Providing a sweeping (and deeply engaging) historical, philosophical, and cultural context for his argument, Beach makes it clear why an expanded definition of literacy must include a focus on how we know what we know, what psychologists call epistemic cognition. Such a definition of 21st century literacy would be an invaluable one for the muddled and complicated times in which we are living. Seldom is a book of such scope and depth so imminently readable and engaging."
Barbara Hofer, Professor of Psychology, Middlebury College.
"Beach helps us understand how in a pluralistic society we got to culture wars, alternative facts, the era of post truth, spin and fake news and how to develop an interdisciplinary approach to knowing, judging wisely and acting skillfully. He explores the relationships amongst subjectivity, biology, culture and the objective world. Since we can’t trust our subjectivity, our biological brains, cultural influences, authority, or the news, Beach asks what do we do? How do we distinguish sophistry from truth? For practical, critical thinking to succeed, it needs to incorporate the foundational elements of science: empiricism, rationality, and open debate. Beach proposes that to have respectful democratic deliberations, we need an education that helps us critically understand and evaluate our knowledge and premises about value, offering a way to knowledge and out of our divisiveness."
Robert Frank, Professor Emeritus of English and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Oregon State University.
"This book makes a critical intervention into a very old problem: what does it mean to be an ‘educated’ person, to be a citizen in the classical sense? Working in a vein that stretches back from Richard Rorty through John Dewey to Horace Mann, Josh Beach offers pragmatic solutions to the question posed by The Uses of Literacy for 21st century Americans."
John Cline, Lecturer in Engineering Communication, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin.
Gateway to Opportunity? A History of the Community College in the United States
"Josh Beach’s Gateway to Opportunity does a fine job of outlining the dilemmas that community colleges face now, and the dilemmas that colleges as well as historians and policy-makers need to chew over. It asks us all to think long and hard about the educational institutions we create, and why they seem so contradictory. I like to think that faculty and administrators could use this book to forge workable proposals and solutions." W. Norton Grubb, David Gardner Chair in Higher Education
“Josh Beach is a courageous visionary among those who seriously consider the community college and its place within the larger U.S. system of higher education. This book reflects both his critical nature and the boldness he brings to analyses of higher education. It paves new ground for re-envisioning the community college and the larger educational system of which it is such a critically important element.” Robert Rhoads, professor of Higher Education and Organizational Change at UCLA
“This book not only raises important questions about the educational practices and effectiveness of community colleges historically, it also provides detailed analyses and case studies that should inform policy debates and decision-making in the twenty-first century. Educators, researchers, administrators, and government officials concerned about the future of community colleges, and U.S. higher education in general, cannot afford to ignore J. M. Beach’s findings and conclusions” V.P. Franklin, University of California Presidential Chair, Distinguished Professor of History and Education, University of California, Riverside
“Josh Beach expertly uses the lens of history to provide a penetrating and insightful account, examining the challenges facing community colleges. Some will find this an uncomfortable read, but all will find it thought provoking. Its detailed history and analysis of community colleges is not used to reinforce their current practices, but opens up the ‘long conversation’ and demands in us a reconsideration of what they might be." Martin Jephcote, Cardiff University School of Social Sciences (UK)
"Focuses on issues of access and effectiveness in a critical evaluation of community colleges; including a cautionary case study of California" The Chronicle of Higher Ed
"A strength of this book is Beach’s focus on the community college as an evolving social institution, a perspective not common in previous literature. Another strength is Beach’s focus on the dilemmas faced by community colleges as presented from the perspectives of faculty, administrators, state officials, local communities, and students." NACADA Journal (National Academic Advising Association)
"Beach's focus on the community college as an evolving social institution offers a perspective not found in earlier literature... For readers interested in the history of the community college as a social institution, this book offers a concise treatment of its subject with numerous references to many important articles and texts that have reported on change and practice at the community college. Approaching the community college as a social institution offers a perspective that should be used more often to better understand the development, changes, and dilemmas in the history of this uniquely American experiment in post-secondary education." Community College Review
"Although the book seems primarily intended for policymakers and administrators, Gateway to Opportunity nevertheless makes two important contributions to the history of the community college. First, Beach extends The Diverted Dream into the more recent past. The book discusses tuition increases, financial exigencies, employer contract training programs, and provides a particularly thorough treatment of the movement for institutional accountability... Second, Beach emphasizes racial segregation to a greater extent than Brint and Karabel." History of Education Quarterly
"The question of whether or not [community colleges] expand access by democratizing higher education or constrain access by diverting students away from higher-prestige institutions is one that is continually and hotly debated... J.M. Beach critically and comprehensively reexamines this well-worn territory in an effort to connect the origins of community colleges with the institutions that they have become in today's higher education milieu... Beach elucidates provocative questions that educators, colleges, and policy makers must consider." Harvard Educational Review