More Teaching, Less Testing Act w/ Congressman Jamaal Bowman

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Hey there, you're about to tune in to our latest podcast.

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My name is Chris McNutt, and I'm part of the Progressive Education Nonprofit Human

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Restoration Project.

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Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this is brought to you by our supporters,

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three of whom are Elliot Baer, Zainab Balbaki, and Windy Firon.

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Thank you for your ongoing support.

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You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org,

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or find us on social media and YouTube.

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In today's discussion, we're speaking with Congressman Jamal Bowman, serving New York's

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16th district since 2021.

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Bowman was a crisis management teacher in an elementary school in the Bronx, who eventually

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founded his own public school, the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, a middle school

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in Eastchester in the Bronx.

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For years, he maintained a blog on changing school policy and standardized testing, with

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a focus on being deeply involved in the opt-out movement to encourage families not to take

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standardized tests, as well as centering pedagogy on social-emotional health and restorative

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justice.

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Congressman Bowman's team reached out to Human Restoration Project to talk about the

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More Teaching, Less Testing Act, which will be linked in the show notes.

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Ostensibly, the policy lessens the number of standardized tests given each year in schools,

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limiting the number of tests, and finding other ways to gather that data, such as through

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a smaller but representative sample size.

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Please note that Human Restoration Project is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, and that

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this interview is not an endorsement of Bowman or his electoral campaign.

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Thank you, and enjoy the show.

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Congressman Bowman, again, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule

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to join us today, and I just want to talk to you more about the More Teaching, Less

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Testing Act, but before we dive into it, I just want to learn more about you and your

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school experience, because I was browsing through your blogs and your Wikipedia, and

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I didn't know that you used to be a teacher, a school founder, you were a principal in

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the Bronx.

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Can you describe about your experiences as an educator, your perspectives on education

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just broadly?

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Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, I worked in education for 20 years before running for Congress.

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Started my career as an elementary school teacher in the South Bronx.

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Did that for about five or six years before becoming a high school dean of students and

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guidance counselor at the High School for Arts and Technology at the MLK campus near

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Lincoln Center.

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I was there for about three or four years, and it was at that time where I really felt

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drawn to the idea of school leadership and really just building a school that unlocked

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the unlimited potential of our kids, because I learned so much over my first eight years.

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My entire career, I worked in Title I schools, which are schools either in low income communities

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or serve children from low income communities.

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And I really hate to term low income, I think a better term is historically neglected and

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historically marginalized communities because they are low income because of previous policy

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decisions that have been made over several decades.

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So I started elementary school and saw the lack of resources and the lack of a vision

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for our kids.

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And when I started working at the high school level, I thought that that would kind of shift

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and change.

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But what I saw was this culture of not just low expectations for our kids, but a lack

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of vision for what our kids were capable of.

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A lot of the neoliberal sort of language is around low expectations and really demonizing

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teachers and schools, but for me, it was more about a lack of vision.

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And so I pursued school leadership, got into an amazing program, New Leaders for New Schools,

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wrote a proposal to open up my own school, and I had the opportunity to do that.

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And we opened in September 2009, the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action Middle School, where

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I served as principal for 10 and a half years.

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And just for a point of clarification, this was a district public middle school, not a

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charter school.

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It's a very important distinction I want to make there.

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And so yeah, man, I love, education is my life.

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Serving children is my life's work, and I'm very proud to continue that work here in Congress.

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And it's just, you know, there's so many exciting things that can happen in education,

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if we're honest and have the right conversation, and really center equity and our humanity

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as part of that conversation.

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For sure, for sure.

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And it's awesome, honestly, is to have an educator who is a representative, because

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I think oftentimes there are a lot of promises offered to educators from leaders across the

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country that don't necessarily ever come to fruition.

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I did want to briefly talk about what that school was like.

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I used to teach also in a Title I school for 10 years.

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That was a progressive school, a public school that focused on project-based learning, that

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focused on alternatives to testing, etc.

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What was your vision for the school that you founded?

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Yeah, it was exactly that.

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It was on project-based learning, it was on interdisciplinary curriculum, it was on restorative

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justice, and it was on a holistic curriculum that really tried to tap into the multiple

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intelligences.

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You know, I was always so frustrated by our overemphasis and obsession on just math and

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ELA test scores.

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And because that was our obsession, the entire school design was around making sure our kids

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were ready to pass math and ELA tests at the end of the year.

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I was just frustrated by this because there are so many other aspects of learning and

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so many other opportunities for kids to show their learning as opposed to showing it only

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on a test at the end of the year that was multiple choice, short response and extended

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response.

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And so we tried to be very creative and innovative in shifting our curriculum more towards something

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that was interdisciplinary and project-based.

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In order to do that, teachers had to receive the supports they needed in order to shift

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from one way of delivering instruction to another.

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So we spent a lot of time on teacher professional development around the issue of project-based

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learning, but also on unit development and unit design.

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Understanding by design was a philosophy that we learned a lot about and used backwards

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planning to align our instruction to end of the unit projects that kids would then display

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for their teacher and for their classmates.

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And so, but this is, again, it's a struggle because teachers aren't trained in this way.

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So we really had to go outside the box and really invest a lot of resources in getting

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teachers trained in that way.

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Our science class no longer was just a science class, it was a STEAM class, English and social

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studies were no longer separate classes, they were humanities classes, and we implemented

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a lot of Socratic seminar in those spaces.

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Math, you know, it was a struggle to do some project-based learning with math, it always

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is, right?

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But there were resources out there, again, just with the pressure of the test and teacher

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training and time and all those things, it was hard to get it there, but we did it as

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much as much as we could.

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But we had other courses like, we had a horticulture class where kids, yeah, where we brought

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in, you know, curriculum around climate justice and agriculture and sustainable agriculture

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and kids had an opportunity to grow fruits and vegetables and share them with the community.

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That's a project-based course.

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We had a computer science course where kids were learning Python code and every unit was

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aligned to a project that they had to present.

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So, you know, we implemented project-based learning as much as possible because we also

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know, you know, when you look at Bloom's taxonomy, the top, you know, creativity is the pinnacle

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of it.

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And so, project-based learning is directly aligned to Bloom's, directly aligned to creativity

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and it's directly aligned to what kids are going to be doing, you know, in post-secondary

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opportunities whether it's higher ed or real-world work experiences and so it made sense to us

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to take that approach.

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That's so sick.

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It's like right in our wheelhouse too and the experiences that you're talking about.

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Plus, not to mention, I'm sure you found that, you know, kids rise to that occasion.

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I think part of that neoliberal narrative that you're talking about is that it tends

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to be that those who are in power that have a lot of money will send their kids to these

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rich, progressive, $50,000 a year schools where they do the things that you're talking

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about.

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But yet, they propose that for the kids who are, you know, historically marginalized that

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have been, that poverty has not been eliminated before, they are subjected to the sit and

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get rote memorization because that's what they need, quote unquote, like scare quotes

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there.

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So, like that environment is just so interesting, especially as we talk about scaling that to

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something that could be statewide or national, which I think, yeah.

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No, I would just say I think the project based approach is more in alignment with how kids

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naturally live, engage and learn.

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I mean, from them going to the park, meeting strangers that they never met before, building

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relationships with them, getting to know them, getting to know them, making up games on the

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fly and playing those games, that's all that's natural.

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You know, that's naturally how kids engage and exist within the world.

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That's actually naturally how people engage and exist within the world.

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And so, you know, the project design, the, you know, the curiosity that's inherent in

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it, the critical thinking that's inherent in it, the creativity that's inherent in it,

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the social and emotional intelligence that's inherent in it is really, really key because

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you know, we've overemphasized and over-focused such as academic excellence without doing

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the social and emotional intelligence work.

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I think project based learning does that.

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And you know, I don't even like to call it progressive education.

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It's just quality education, like education education, right?

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And so, you know, that's how we got to think about, that's how we got to talk about it.

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We got to design our learning spaces more so in alignment with how people naturally

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engage with the world, particularly how kids do.

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Right.

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It's also just more in alignment with the things that many folks are advocating for

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like college and career readiness, which often in practice, what people do in order to do

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that is have kids, you know, take a lot of tests, have them sit and get, have them do

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more, I guess, like traditional or I would argue just boring ways of learning.

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But the fact of the matter is, is that we do a lot of community focus groups and talk

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to business leaders.

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We talk to faith leaders, et cetera.

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We talk to them about what do kids need to know?

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Like what are the things that you're looking for?

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And the things that they're looking for are things that you find in project based learning

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because it requires much more academic, again, this word has been used in kind of nefarious

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ways, but rigor.

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It's difficult to do really great projects and kids are going to learn more.

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Kids are going to be more worldly.

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They're going to understand more about their community and they're going to act on it,

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which is much more than we could request on a short paper assignment or a few multiple

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choice questions.

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100%.

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It's whole brain, whole body, whole community development.

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Like that's what we're talking about, not just, you know, myopic, small aspect of cognitive

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development.

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When you learn in this way, it lights up the brain and inspires the heart and the body

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and it supports everything that's healthy in living and community.

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So it's, you know, it's a revolutionary approach that should be happening everywhere.

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And it's inspiring, but to your point about kids, you know, rising to the occasion, kids

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are excited to working this way, working this way.

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So it's not even about rising to the occasion, they just, this is intuitive for them.

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And that needs to be part of our design in schools across the country.

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Speaking of, I think that's really good context then for back in, I believe it was March earlier

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this year, you introduced the more teaching, less testing act as a way to move the needle

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on that and move towards schools that act like this.

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And I think also just help the teaching profession sustain itself in a space that can be often

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very dehumanizing.

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Could you explain to just listeners about what is the purpose and rationale of the bill?

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What are you looking to accomplish with it?

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Yeah, so we're testing too darn much.

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I mean, that's the bottom line.

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You know, we test kids every year in grades three through eight, and then at least once

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in high school in the areas of ELA and math.

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And we say that our goal is to close the achievement gap and to get all kids to 100% literacy rate.

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And so there are many problems with this entire theory of change.

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One being, where's the research to support that more testing leads to higher literacy

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rates and closing achievement gaps?

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That research didn't exist before the bill, it still doesn't exist now.

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States are using third party vendors to create the tests, who then sell them to states and

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then states implement them so you don't really have classroom teacher input and scholar input

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in the actual creation of the tests.

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And there have been many cases, like court cases, that have questioned the validity and

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reliability of the tests in terms of giving us the data that we say we are seeking.

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So the More Teaching Less Testing Act moves away from annual standardized testing and

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shifts the focus back towards what I call the magic of teaching and learning in the classroom.

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What really drives student learning is excellent classroom instruction connected to consistent

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formative assessment.

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Now formative assessment comes in the form of everything from exit tickets at the end

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of the class to question and answers, the question and answer process during class during

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lessons, giving kids immediate feedback, and then guiding them to to the next lesson and

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making sure parents are engaged in understanding, you know, what's happening in the classroom

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spaces and are up to date consistently as to how their kids are doing, instead of waiting

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to hear for the one exam.

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So more teaching, let's focus more on teaching and learning and curriculum design and curriculum

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development and instruction and really supporting kids with their social, emotional, and cognitive

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needs.

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That's the key.

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And the data that the state claims it needs in terms of just being forward-facing and

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letting the state know or the country know how our kids in grade four or seven are doing,

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you don't need to test every year to get that data.

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You can choose which the bill proposes to test, you know, maybe fourth grade and seventh

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grade instead of every year, or take some form of sample in fourth grade or seventh

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grade or some form of sample in grades three through eight.

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That gets you the data you need so that the state can know, okay, we have some challenges

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here, some gaps here, let's go in with some resources to help support what needs to be

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done in those spaces.

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This entire system that we have in place now is connected to No Child Left Behind, which

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is all about targeting teachers, demonizing teachers, demonizing teachers' unions, labeling

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them as failing teachers, labeling schools as failing schools, so that the schools can

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then close and be reopened as charter schools.

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This was all about a neoliberal charter school movement and agenda towards, you know, really

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getting rid of public education in our country as we know it, and they've made a big dent.

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But thankfully, public schools are still standing and parents, by and large, continue to support

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their public schools.

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Right.

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It requires fighting back because even if they don't necessarily turn into a charter

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right away, they also just lose their autonomy, like what we're seeing in Houston, for example,

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where you have basically a charter school leader operating a school like this militaristic

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authoritarian style charter at a school that's not even actually doing poorly on standardized

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tests, ironically enough, which makes it especially interesting.

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Yeah, the Houston situation is really crazy because, you know, there was one school that

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so-called performed poorly one time, and now the state is coming in and taking over

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the whole school district.

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And that was apparently part of state law, like if one school does poorly once, the state

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can take over.

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So now we have a full state takeover of the Houston school district in a state where they're

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looking to ban books in a city where they're turning libraries into detention centers.

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This is almost like a textbook example of the school-to-prison pipeline.

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And so it is neocolonial so-called free market education ideology is seeping into our schools

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and is hurting the most vulnerable people, which are children and particularly children

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from challenging circumstances.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I have a couple of questions about the logistics of the bill.

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Before we dive into that, I think it might be worth noting on how do you work to change

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the narrative that the role of schools is to bring people out of poverty?

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So it's like for some context for that, the way that a lot of times the standardized tests

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and more traditional forms of education have been weaponized is this myth that if you get

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kids to pass all the tests, they go to college, then you will eliminate poverty.

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Whereas most folks have recognized like that's not how it works.

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You have to actually use policy to get rid of poverty.

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And arguably, if you use policy to get rid of poverty, everyone's test scores will go

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up because they tend to just measure your zip code as opposed to actually measuring

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some kind of school quality, whatever that might mean.

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How do you actually like change hearts and minds to recognize why these changes even

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need to occur broadly?

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My experience, people, the majority of people intuitively know the truth and have been hesitant

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to push back on the propaganda that's been out there around testing and charter schools

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and college and this being a pathway to ending poverty.

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Intuitively, people know that there's something else afoot here.

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And so that's a good place to start because when people then begin to speak out about

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that intuitive truth, what you see is a galvanizing of community standing up and saying, hell

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yeah, like I felt this, I knew this.

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And what's exciting is you have the research that has been aligned to the intuitive truth

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that communities have felt.

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And now we have a movement pushing back against the overuse and misuse of standardized testing

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and the lies we tell ourselves about education and kids and community.

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America has this horrible problem.

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We use propaganda to move from one generation to the next without really holding ourselves

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accountable in terms of what has happened historically.

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So you can't learn about redlining, right, and then accept the propaganda that, well,

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if our kids do great on these tests, we'll get out of poverty.

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That's not how it works.

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You can't learn about mass incarceration and the targeting of certain communities

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and believe the propaganda.

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You can't learn about gun trafficking and the trafficking of crack cocaine and opioids

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into communities and then believe the propaganda.

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Like the reality, the propaganda doesn't meet the facts on the ground.

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And even that idea that good test scores, go to college, go to college, you get out of poverty.

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Even that idea is rooted in this, again, neocolonial ranking and sorting, winners and losers ideology.

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And so, yeah, some might get to that point, right?

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Some might get out of poverty because of a quality education, right?

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But they also might be in tremendous debt because there's been no conversation about

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or no policy around how darn expensive higher education is, right?

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And so, you know, you have the expenses of higher education.

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You have underemployment and unemployment.

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You have capitalism and market-based economics as it relates to housing and child care

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and transportation and all these things.

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So, you know, you're feeding them one lie without even giving them the real education

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they need to deal with the, you know, the blood spurt of capitalism in America.

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And so, you know, again, people intuitively know the truth.

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It's just important to, you know, stand up and speak that truth and connect that truth

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to what research and data and reality tells us.

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And the fact of the matter is that once you establish this, you can show them the results.

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I'm sure you found when you were a school leader that when you do like some kind of expo night,

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exposition of learning, some kind of event where people come in and see what kids do,

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it will blow their minds.

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When you take away the testing component and you just focus on cool student projects where

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you get them out in the community and they get to like report out on what they did,

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there was never a time, even at times where I thought the project was a little,

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as the kids would say, it was a little sus.

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It was like, man, I don't know if that's really that great.

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The parents were shocked because it was the first time that their kid has been able to

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express themselves in a meaningful way and actually was able to make an impact in the

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real world.

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Because the fact of the matter is, is that those tests never go anywhere, nor do we ever

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actually use that data for anything.

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I would struggle to find a teacher who actually is adjusting like, oh, I'm going to teach this

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slight, this activity slightly different, and that's going to make a one point difference

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on test because we don't have the data quickly anyway.

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So I did want to go back to the pragmatics of the implementing these changes, because

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you had said before that a huge barrier to implementing this is that teachers do need

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professional development.

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It's not like we can just kind of strip away all of these kind of faux accountability measures,

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but then also expect that schools just inherently get better right away.

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There's a PD component there, a support component.

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Does the More Teaching, Less Testing Act account for that in any way?

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Not so much.

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This is step one towards other more transformational, more comprehensive

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legislation that we're going to be working on and introducing as an office.

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We are two or three years behind in terms of the need to reauthorize ESSA, the Every Student

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Succeeds Act, which is the next iteration of Race to the Top, which was the next iteration

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of No Child Left Behind, right?

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And so during that reauthorization, God willing, we're able to do it next cycle.

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That is the moment where, okay, now it's time to reimagine education in America,

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because right now what we are doing is not just harmful to kids, it's harmful to families,

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communities, and larger society.

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I mean, in New York City right now and many places, they're not even trying to roll back

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from the over-testing, even though the research is clear that we need to.

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They're actually doing more testing.

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They're doing these things called interim assessments, where we assess kids every six

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to eight weeks so-called in alignment with the test at the end of the year

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so that we can get the data, see where the gaps are, teach to the gaps, right,

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and to get kids ready for the end of the year test.

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So now as opposed to just the one test at the end of the year, they have three or four or

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some cases five interim assessments during the year that lead up to this.

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So this is just education malpractice.

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And so when it's time to reauthorize ESSA, that's an opportunity to reimagine education

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in our country from a legislative perspective.

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But in terms of the national mass education movement that's needed,

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podcasts like yours and other ways to get out there and push back on what's happening

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in our schools is essential.

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And I was involved in something called the Opt Out Movement in New York State,

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which then became a national movement where parents should say, you know what,

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I'm refusing to allow my kid to take the test this year.

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And that started happening in the hundreds of thousands of parents across New York State,

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and they were forced to change their approach, to change curriculum,

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to change standards, to engage parents more.

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And it literally broke the education system that, you know, Governor Cuomo

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was trying to push at that time.

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We need that kind of resistance as well everywhere, because this is not,

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we can't wait for us here in Washington as policymakers to do the right thing,

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or even statewide policymakers to do the right thing.

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Everyone is biased, everyone has an agenda, and their bias and agenda right now

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is about continuing to push the charter narrative, right,

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and continuing to attack and demonize teachers.

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But now it's about attacking LGBTQ students, trans students, black history and culture,

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banning books, like this is what's happening.

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And so we need a major pushback against all of that.

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So that we can get to whether we need to go sooner rather than later.

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We need to do this right now, man.

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And so it's not just, you know, it's moving Congress in the right direction,

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but we need outside forces to help grow this education movement across the country.

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– Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it's going to be grassroots.

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There's no offense to you and your position, but I just think about the ability for Congress to pass anything.

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To support what we're trying to do here.

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I mean, members of Congress, we're very comfortable, right?

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We're chilling, we're not doing much, not me, but others.

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We have to be forced, right?

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And so we need the people on the outside to force us to do what's right on the inside.

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– Do you anticipate, just briefly from like the national politics angle,

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that Republicans actually might be more likely to pass a bill like this,

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considering that it is technically less federal control?

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Because I mean, you're getting rid of, like their whole thing,

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and I'm not saying we should do this,

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but their whole thing is like we should abolish the National Department of Education.

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Well, a big part of that is, I mean, arguably the testing industry and how that works.

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Is there any movement to be had there?

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00:28:36,300 --> 00:28:41,900
– I think there is, but not at the present moment with this current

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iteration of the Republican Party.

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The MAGA influences are strongly entrenched.

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It's very, everything is very partisan right now as it relates to education.

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They're more focused on the culture wars than they really are on teaching and learning.

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And so because of where we are at this moment, no, I do not see that happening.

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And this is why next year's election is so critical, not just of the president,

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and not just regarding the Senate seats that we need to win back.

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We need to win back and grow.

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But also in the House, Democrats have to take back control of the House.

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Now, again, the Democratic Party isn't perfect either.

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The Democratic Party has been complicit in a lot of the charter movement stuff that we see

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across the country.

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But we have to take back control of the Education and Labor Committee

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so that we can bring some, at the very least, baseline common sense

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back to the education conversation as it relates to K-12 schools.

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I also think if we take back the House and grow the Senate, we will reauthorize ESSA,

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which gives us a chance to deal with some of these bills accordingly.

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And there are some Republicans, not the chair right now who would be ranking member if we

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took it back, Virginia Foxx, but there are some Republicans who are open to having conversations

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about this piece, the testing piece, but also about career and technical education.

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I think those two pieces provide an opportunity for bipartisan support.

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And I'm going to do everything in my power to push for this.

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God willing, we take back control of the House next year.

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That's incredible.

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And I appreciate you sharing all of this, Congressman Bowman,

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and joining us here on our brief little podcast talk about making a change.

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And I appreciate your message surrounding that grassroots action, having teachers fight for

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what's right so we don't become subjected to the endless culture war, but also we can actually

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improve how schools function.

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00:30:50,220 --> 00:30:51,580
So I appreciate you being here.

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That's right. I appreciate you, man.

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00:30:52,700 --> 00:30:53,420
Thanks for having me.

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00:30:53,420 --> 00:30:57,500
We need a collective vision for education and it's going to take a grassroots coalition

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and get us there.

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00:30:58,540 --> 00:31:01,340
So thank you so much for doing your work and for having me.

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00:31:04,220 --> 00:31:05,980
Hey, thanks again for listening on the podcast.

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00:31:05,980 --> 00:31:09,660
As a reminder, you can find our podcast on pretty much any place that you listen in.

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00:31:09,660 --> 00:31:12,620
That could be Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.

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00:31:12,620 --> 00:31:16,380
Also, be sure to check out our donation drive at humanrestorationproject.org

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00:31:16,380 --> 00:31:19,820
slash support, where you can find some cool donor gifts, as well as

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00:31:19,820 --> 00:31:22,620
tribute to this ongoing work to restore humanity to education.

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00:31:22,620 --> 00:31:26,860
As a reminder, we are a nonprofit organization and your donation is tax deductible.

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Thank you.

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