Misc. Post 2

 



How Standardized Testing Damages Education

Posted August 20th, 2007 by fairtest

in

• fact sheets
• k-12

How do schools use standardized tests?Despite their biases, inaccuracies, limited ability to measure achievement or ability, and other flaws, schools use standardized tests to determine if children are ready for school, track them into instructional groups; diagnose for learning disability, retardation and other handicaps; and decide whether to promote, retain in grade, or graduate many students. Schools also use tests to guide and control curriculum content and teaching methods.
Aren't these valid uses of test scores?
No test is good enough to serve as the sole or primary basis for important educational decisions. Readiness tests, used to determine if a child is ready for school, are very inaccurate and encourage the use of overly academic, developmentally inappropriate primary schooling (that is, schooling not appropriate to the child's emotional, social or intellectual development and to the variation in children's development). Screening tests for disabilities are often not adequately validated; that is, it is not proven that they are accurately measuring for disabilities. They also promote a view of children as having deficits to be corrected, rather than having individual differences and strengths on which to build. While screening tests are supposed to be used to refer children for further diagnosis, they often are used to place children in special programs. Tracking hurts slower students and mostly does not help more advanced students. Retention in grade, or flunking or leaving a student back, is almost always academically and emotionally harmful, not helpful. Test content is a very poor basis for determining curriculum content, and teaching methods based on the test are themselves harmful.
Who is most hurt by these practices?
Students from low-income and minority-group backgrounds are more likely to be retained in grade, placed in a lower track, or put in special or remedial education programs when it is not necessary. They are more likely to be given a watered-down or "dummied-down" curriculum, based heavily on rote drill and test practice. This only ensures they will fall further and further behind their peers. On the other hand, children from white, middle and upper income backgrounds are more likely to be placed in "gifted and talented" or college preparatory programs where they are challenged to read, explore, investigate, think and progress rapidly.
How do tests control curriculum and instruction?
In many districts, raising test scores has become the single most important indicator of school improvement. As a result, teachers and administrators feel enormous pressure to ensure that test scores go up. Schools narrow and change the curriculum to match the test. Teachers teach only what is covered on the test. Methods of teaching conform to the multiple-choice format of the tests. Teaching more and more resembles testing.
Does "teaching to the test" increase student capabilities and knowledge?
This depends on whether the test is good. For multiple-choice tests, "teaching to the test" means focusing on the content that will be on the test, sometimes even drilling on test items, and using the format of the test as a basis for teaching. Since this kind of teaching to the test leads primarily to improved test-taking skills, increases in test scores do not necessarily mean improvement in real academic performance. Teaching to the test also narrows the curriculum, forcing teachers and students to concentrate on memorization of isolated facts, instead of developing fundamental and higher order abilities. For example, multiple-choice writing tests are really copy-editing tests, which do not measure the ability to organize or communicate ideas. Practicing on tests or test-like exercises is not how to learn even the mechanics of English, much less how to write like a writer.
Don't standardized tests provide accountability?
No. Tests that measure as little and as poorly as multiple-choice tests cannot provide genuine accountability. Pressure to teach to the test distorts and narrows education. Instead of being accountable to parents, community, teachers and students, schools become "accountable" to a completely unregulated testing industry.
If we don't use standardized tests, how will we know how students and programs are doing?
Better methods of evaluating student needs and progress already exist. Good observational checklists used by trained teachers are more helpful than any screening test. Assessment based on student performance on real learning tasks is more useful and accurate for measuring achievement - and provides more information - than multiple-choice achievement tests.
Are other methods of assessment as reliable as standardized multiple-choice tests?
Trained teams of judges can be used to rate performance in most any academic or non-academic area. In the Olympic Games, for example, gymnasts and divers are rated by panels of judges, and the high and low scores are thrown out. Studies have shown that, with training, the level of agreement among judges (the "inter-rater reliability") is high. As with multiple-choice tests, it is necessary to enact safeguards to ensure that race, class, gender, linguistic or other cultural biases do not affect evaluation.
How do other nations evaluate their students?
The U.S. is the only economically advanced nation to rely heavily on multiple-choice tests. Other nations use performance-based assessment where students are evaluated on the basis of real work such as essays, projects and activities. Ironically, because these nations do not focus on teaching to multiple-choice tests, they even score higher than U.S. students on those kinds of tests.

http://www.fairtest.org/facts/howharm.htm

Misc. Post 1

The U.S. education system needs to undergo dramatic reform, President Obama said today -- with new investments but also with new policies.

"You can't defend a status quo in which a third of our kids are dropping out," the president said this morning during a live interview on NBC's "Today Show." "You can't defend a status quo when you've got 2,000 schools across the coutry that are drop out factories."

The Obama administration has introduced a sweeping set of education reforms -- some of which have met some resistance -- such as the $4 billion "Race to the Top" initiative. The program offers educational grants to states that meet certain reform criteria. The president today called it "probably the most powerful tool we've seen for reform in a couple of decades."

While $4 billion is a relatively small figure to spend on education, Mr. Obama said it's "enough to get people's attention."

Furthermore, he said, money alone is not the solution to education reform.

"Money without reform does not fix the problem," he said.

The president said he expects "Race to the Top" to continue to meet resistance from politicians whose states may not be getting aid immediately. He also acknowledged that other players, such as teachers unions, can act as barriers to reform. Yet he said that many unions are cooperating with states to improve their education plans.

"I'm a strong supporter of the notion a union can protect its members and be a part of the solution instead of the problem," he said.

Part of the administration's educational reforms also include plans to close the poorest performing 5 percent of schools in the nation, turning some of them into charter schools.

"There's no silver bullets here," the president said. However, he said, "There are some charters that have figured out how to do a very good job. What we've got to do is look at the success of these schools and find out how do we duplicate them... What I'm interested in ... is fostering these laboriteies of excellence."

But while he said the education system needs to be revamped, Mr. Obama added properly investing in education still plays an important role.

"Those who say money makes no difference are wrong," he said.

For instance, the administration is going to focus on training 10,000 new math and science teachers, Mr. Obama said. He also said spending money to keep schools open an additional month would be a wise investment.

"I think we should have longer school years," he said. "We now have our kids go to school about a month less than other advanced countries."

The president acknowledged his own daughters, Malia and Sasha, would not get the same quality of education in the Washington, D.C. public school system that they receive at the private school they currently attend in the District.

"The D.C. public school systems are struggling," he said.

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Incredible and Invigorating, story. Very long but very inspiring and worth the 20 minutes. I was introduced to this video from my Non-Western Worlds professor in regards to stereotypes. I relate this to a lot of the themes we have covered in this semester, including one in which to Never assume. I Hope you enjoy!!!

Family Guy's subtle response to parents who blame Family Guy

As I mentioned during class, I feel that a lot of the problem with kids and cartoons are that who is allowing them to watch them. I for one am a huge Family Guy fan and there is a reason that it is rated R. If parents have problems with there children learning from them, perhaps they should not let them watch them. As for Disney Cartoons, there is honestly no harm in letting your children watch these. The light subliminal messaging that so many people argue is nothing but excitement for young children.

Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us: Christiensen

"The impact of racism begins early. Even in our preschool years, we are exposed to misinformation about people different from ourselves. Many of us grow up in neighborhoods where we have limited opportunities to interact with people different from our own families....Consequently most of the early information we receive about "others" people racially, religiously, or socioeconomically different from ourselves- does not come as a result of firsthand experience. The secondhand information we receive has often been distorted, shaped by cultural stereotypes and left incomplete. . .Cartoon images in particular the Disney movie Peter Pan, were cited by the children as their number one source of information. At the age of three, these children had a set of sterotypes in place."pg126

"Pam and Nicole swore they would not let their children watch cartoons. David told the class of ocming home one day and finding his nephews absorbed in "Looney Tunes." I turned that TV off and took them down to the park to play. They aren't going to watch that mess while I'm around." Radiance described how she went to buy Christmas presents for her niece and nephew."Before I would have just walked into the toy store and bought them what I knew they wanted-Nintendo or Barbie. But this time I went up the clerk and said, "I want a toy that isn't sexist or racist."pg 134

"Students have also said that what they now see in cartoons they also see in advertising, on prime time TV, on the news in school. Turning off the cartoons doesn't stop the sexism and racism they can't escape, and now that they've started analyzing cartoons, they can't stop analyzing the rest of the world. And sometimes they want to stop. Once a student asked me, "Don't you eve get tired of analyzing everything?"pg 134

COMMENTS


ITS CALLED ENTERTAINMENT!

While reading this article I am not sure why but I was enfuriated, not only am i a huge supporter of Disney and most other cartoons that I have watched while growing up but it also aggravated me to know that Christiansen was changing other peoples opinions. I understand on an academic level the importance of understanding why we must question the "cartoons" as to notice the hidden messages. As adults we understand the hidden messages but as children we do not. I don't think that is fair to accuse a single source such as "cartoons" as the only reason for why we are the way we are. As in our Media presentations I've realized that there are multiple reasons why we are the way we are. In a previous class I had we took the Media in general and tore it apart so there was nothing left. We talked about the negatives and  some how talked about the food industry, I stopped eating meat for a month or so and attempted to become "vegan". Someone elses point of view on such a thing changed the way i ate, I think that is a huge symbolism as to how crazy someone can get in your head. We as a society become routined by the ways of life. In my family we eat meat and we love it, when reviewing the negatives of the food industry i was so convinced that I couldn't eat meat ever again.
Looking at the cartoon Cinderalla on a different approach, children watch it and see the simple things in life. They enjoy the colors the visual stimulation they get from watching cartoons, it keeps them content. When children watch cartoons they are not saying in their head "Wow look at the way Cinderella is so WHITE, and look how shes being portrayed poor and then turns rich"



Where We Stand: American Schools In The 21st Century Part 1

The Education System in America

I think that if President Obama actually did what he said for our Educational System things would be drastically different. We shall see how it turns out.

Ben Stein - America's Education Crisis

This just shows the difference in people of todays society. It also shows our failing Education system. :(

Gender Roles-Interviews with Kids

Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing down syndrome Kliewer

"He tells the most amazing stories. I know you've heard him. But he'll just [she made a series of babbling sounds] -like that. And he'll be acting it out, incredibly dramatic, and you'll have absolutely no idea waht he's saying. Nothing. Zero. Nothing. There's not one intelligible word in there. But I know him. And I'd say, from knowing him watching him here, at home, that it's all story-related. The first time I tried reading Where the Wild Things Are, which is his favorite book, he couldn't sit. He had to be up, dancing in the middle of the circle, acting it out. He just couldn't resist. He could not help himself. It got all the kids going. We were all Wild Things and it just came alive!"pg203

"Schools ahve traditionally taken a narrow position when defining and judging student intellect. The presence of a thoughful mind has been linked to patterns of behavioral and communicative conformity associated with competence in logical-mathematical thinking and linguistic skills. Assessments of how well a student conforms to expectations(measurements through which students come to be defined either as smart or as lacking intellect) tend to focus teacher attention on the child's adeptness at responding to classroom-based math and language tasks.These evaluation instruments supposedly measure either a student's understanding of a transmitted knowledge base (hence, preexisting one) related to math and language, or the students ability to discover the knowledge base through carefully contrived activities."pg 205

"Educating all children together reconfigures the representation of Down syndrome from burden toward citizenship. "pg 213

"One can visualize ther reconceptualization of Down syndrome and disability by returning to the metaphor of the gap first describe in Chapter 3.Community banishment of students with Down syndrome stems from their lack of behavioral and communicative conformity to school standards that form the parameters of intellectual normality."

COMMENT


This is another case of someone not being efficient enough in school. If these people would realize the work load they are placing on these students it would be a different matter. Standardize testing has become priority when in all actuality yes the intelligent level of students is important but the reason why they are doing poorly in the first place is because the testing has taken over.
In stead of making school fun and stimulating and actually making these children want to go to class and learn they are making it a place of dread and boredom. These are children not adults, we can't just sit them in a classroom and tell them to sit there and do this work. They need to be engaged in hands on visual audio classwork. Get them motivated and then the standardized testing scores will skyrocket. Make the material that is priority on the testing fun and these children will understand it. We can't be labelling students anything but students, but doing so we are setting them up to fail.

Anyon Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Schooling



"In the two working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical , involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice. The teachers rarely explain why the work is being assigned, how it might connect to other assignments, or what the idea is that lies behind the procedure or gives it coherence and perhaps meaning or significance. "

"In math, when two digit division was introduced, the teacher in one school gave a four minute lecture on waht the terms are called (which number is the divisor, dividend, quotient and remainder). The children were told to copy these names in their notebooks. Then the teacher told them the steps to follow to do the problems, saying, "This is how you do them." The teacher listed the steps on the board and tehy appeared several days later as a chart hung in the middle of the front wall:"Divide, Multiply,Subtract, Bring Down.The children often did examples of two-digit division. When the teacher went over the examples with them, he told them what the procedure was for each porblem,rarely asking them to conceptualize or explain it themselves:"Three into twenty two is seven; do your subtraction and one is left over."

"One of the teachers led the children through a series of steps to make a 1-inch grid on their paper without telling them that they were making a 1 inch grid or that it would be used to study scale. She said "Take your rule. Put it across the bottom Now make a mark at every number. Then move your ruler down to the bottom. No, put it across the bottom. Now make a mark on top of every number. Now draw a line from..." At this point a girl said that she had a faster way to do it and the teacher said, "No, you don't;you don't even know what I'm making yet. Do it this way or its wrong."After they had the lines up and down and across, the teacher told them she wanted them to make a figure by connecting some dots and to measure that, using the scale of 1 inch equals 1 mile. Then they were to cut it out. She said, "Don't cut it until I check it."

COMMENTS

When thinking about how we can change "This" referring to the problems with our recent educational system, my answer is "impossible for one person to change." We can all preach and say things such as "Everyone can make a difference one person at a time (TRUE) but realistically i find it incredibally hard to believe that people will make the change.The educational system we have today has evolved over years and years, it cannot be fixed in a day or maybe not even in the equivalent amount of time that it took to evolve.Perhaps if i were born in a different era, I could have made a difference in which it might be implemented in todays society. Who would maintain such a structure? Sounds rediculous but seriuosly, I don't see it happening. During my own education I've had teachers tell me how extraordinary i was at writing then literally the next semester my teacher completely shut me out and marked all my essays like a two year old wrote them. One teacher is taught to teach one way and the other another way.
 Regardless I think that a teacher is going to teach however way they want to.



MacLaren Race, Class, and Gender

"Ogbu claims that within the black community itself, there are informal and formal sanctions against blacks who step into what their peers and the black community in general regard as the "white cultural frame of reference." School learning in white-controlled institutions often is equated with abandoning the imperatives, values, and collective solidarity of black culture."pg 227

"Mainstream schooling offers working class students little choice but to negotiate a life for themselves somewhere among the psychologists office, the compensatory program set up to remediate their deficiencies, and the streets where they will eventually be dumped. If the economic climate is good perhaps they will end up in low-skilled, low paying jobs. If they are lucky, they will get jobs in teh service sector, perhaps in retail, selling hip-hop clothes on Melrose Avenue."pg230

"Teachers must be aware of how school failure is structurally located and culturally mediated, so they can work both inside and outside of schools in the struggle for social and economic justice. Teachers must engage unyieldingly in their attempt to empower students both as individuals and as potential agents of social change by establishing a critical pedagogy that students can use in the classroom and in the streets."

COMMENTS

During the Diversity Event I attended A.L.L.I.E.D, I encountered something I had never realized before.  I learned about the experiences of certain people about being under represented. We heard many stories but few stuck out to me, one in particular:
One story about an African American female stood out to me the most. When this female was younger in her elementary school class a child had reported twenty dollars missing. The principal proceeded to check only the African American students while questioning them. When the principal found twenty dollars in the same young girl’s belongings the girl continued to tell the principal it was from her mother. Not believing the child the principal called the parent and had it confirmed. How can someone with so much authority be so ignorant? The principal of all people should be representing nothing less than a positive example of himself/herself. If events like these are still taking place what exactly does that say about our educational system?



Aria Rodriguez: Why Can't She Remember That?

"Supporters of bilingual education today imply that students like me miss a great deal by not being taught in thier family's language. What they seem not to recognize is that, as a socially disadvantaged child, I considered Spanish to e a private language. What I need to learn in school was that I had the right-and the obligation-to speak the public language of los gringos."pg17

"My mother! My father! After English became my primary language, I no longer knew what words to use in addressing my parents. The old Spanish words(thoes tender accents of sound) I had used earlier-mam and papa-I couldn't use anymore.They would have been too painful reminders of how much had changed in my life."pg23

"Behind this screen there gleams an astonishing promise: One can become a public person while still remaining a private person. At the very same time one can be both. There need be no tension between the self in the crowd and the self apart from the crowd."


COMMENT

I believe personally that when someone speaks another language how amazing it is. To me its almost like playing instruments or sports, some times it comes natural and someone can be good at a lot of things. During my High School years I took Spanish and catched on quickly then started to struggle. I am somewhat of an average student and if I struggled with learning another language which is a fairly easy language to learn, Can you imagine the difficult of learning English;One of the hardest languages to learn.Being brought up one way and being forced to do something because of society must be a challenge. In my service learning I havent seen any of the kids speak another language.

Dennis Carlson:Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

"At the level of state educational policy, it is noteworthy that no state currently recognizes gays and lesbians as legitimate minority or cultural groups to be considered in textbook adoption or to be included in multicultural education ; and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality. In 1993, for example the gay rights movement claimed a major victory in the signing into law of a Minnesota bill that makes it illegal to discrimiate against lesbians and gay men in employment and housing."pg 236

"To the extent that gayness is recognized in the curriculum, it is likely to be in the health curriculum, where it is associated with disease."pg 237

"Second, homosexual teachers were presumed to be lecherous and develop "ridiculous crushes" on students." pg 237

"The official policy in most school districs is in fact identical to that of the U.S. military, namely: "Don't ask, don't tell." pg238

"In Sears study, one young man remember: "When I was changing classes I had all the books in my hands looking down and walking up. I'd hear someone mutter "Faggot and have my books knocked down. People were walking over me as I am trying to gather my books."pg 239


COMMENTS

In so many ways is the treatment of gay and lesbians unexeptable. There have been countless suicides due to topic. Whether people are gay or straight doesn't matter, the U.S. of all things to be considered is the fact that our founding fathers set up to the system in which we have now and one major contribution to their train of thought was everything they hated while being under Britains rule. Not everyone thinks alike or dresses the same, everyone is entitled to THEIR own brain.
What one wishes to do is not our problem, we are all individuals thinking for ourselves not for others. The mere confusion among being gay and a rapest/creep is nothing less than a stereotype. Why one person/teacher can be accused of something because of their sexuality is beyond me. In terms of giving these children the knowledge of gay/straight, I say that is the parents job not necessarily the school. This is such a controversial topic it boggles my mind.Bullying is completely unexceptable, how would you feel spending a day in that child or adults life? School should be a place to make friends learn and just have fun; Not be a place where you rather run away or kill yourself.  

Kozol: Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Education Apartheid

 "It really does come down to that-if the rich continue to hoard wealth and abuse the other 95% of society then they continually make themselves superfluous. By doing so, they recieve the same treatment that they dole out to the less unfortunate. This effect is clearly seen throughout the US presently as life as we know it is disintegrating before our eyes and chaos increasingly rules." pg1

"All people are due equal education and everything else that goes along with maintaining a healthy society. "pg 2 

"In Chicago, by the academic year 2002-2003, 87 percent of public school enrollment was black or Hispanic; less than 10 percent of children in the schools were white. In Washington D.C., 94 percent of children were black or Hispanic, less than 5 percent were white. In St. Louis, 82 percent of the student population were black or Hispanic; In Philadelphia and Cleveland, 79 percent; in Los Angeles, 84 percent, in Detroit, 96 percent; in Baltimore, 89 percdent. In New York City, nearly three quarters of the students were black or Hispanic."

"Its more like being hidden,''said a fifiteen year old girl named Isabel I met some years ago in Harlem, in attempting to explain to me the ways in which she and her classmates understood the racial segregation of their neighborhoods and schools. "It's as if you have been put in a garage where, if they don't have room for something but arent sure if they should throw it out, they put it there where they don't need to think of it again."

"I wish that this school was the most beautiful school in the whole why world."

"If you close your eyes to the changing racial composition of the schools and look only at budget actions and political events, says Noreen Connell, the director of the nonprofit Educational Priorities Panel in New York, "you're missing the assumptions that are underlying these decisions." When minority parents ask for something better for their kids, she says, "the assumption is that these are parents who can be discounted. These are kids who just don't count-children we dont' value."

"This then is the accusation that Alliyah and her classmates send our way:"You have. . . .We do not have." Are they right or are they wrong? Is this a case of naive and simplistic juvenile exaggeration? What does a third grader know about these bigtime questions of fairness and justice? Physical appeareances apart, how in any case do you begin to measure something so diffuse and vast and seemingly abstract as having more, or having less, or not having at all?"


COMMENTS

We have made such a huge issue over the desegregation of our schools in the past but yet to return to a period in time where we are almost completely 360 in the Brown vs. Board of Ed. decision.I believe the statistics to be louder than anything, the numbers just go on and on and continue to astonish me. In terms of the last 2 quotes I chose, I believe that a lot of the children don't recognize of having more or having less or nothing at all.
We need to honestly give the children of our future equal opportunities for education. How can we send children to these prestigious schools and then sit back and ignore the fact that other children are at an extreme disadvantage. Standardized testing is a huge problem. These teachers and school districts are "doing" what they have to in regards to their occupation.
To stand out and go beyond the educational necessities of these children would be an outlaw. I think we need to reconsider what is in the childrens best interest; and by making them take these monotonous stardized tests repeatively just so we can see the "progression" or is it "retrogression" of these kids. Stop wasteing time and money on something that isn't for the benefit of these kids, because its clearly not working and not only is it making it harder on the teachers and parents but most importantly the students.

An Indian Fathers Plea

This reading made me realize how serious it is in term of Education, that we do not treat children like objects of a grocery store. This reading has broaden my awareness of the problems with "labeling" children. Every child no matter what there background or culture has something to bring to the community and classroom. Just because one is brought up a certain way doesn't necessarily make them slow or special in a bad way but makes them more culturally aware. I believe Wind-Wolf to have a clear advantage into the understanding of nature and many other different teaching that the Native Americans probably taught him since he was a infant.

Delpit The Silenced Dialogue:Power Pedagogy in Educating other Peoples Children

"How can such complete communication blocks exist when both parties truly believe they have the same aims? How can the bitterness and resentment expressed by the educators of color be drained so that the sores can heal? What can be done?"pg23

"I want the same thing for everyone elses's children as I want for mine." "To provide schooling for everyone's children that reflects liberal,middle-class values and aspirations is to ensure the mainenance of the status quo, to ensure that power, the culture of power, remains in the hands of those who already have it."pg 28

"I didn't feel she was teaching us anything. She wanted us to correct each other's papers and we were there to learn from her. She didn't teach anything,absolutely nothing.
Maybe they're trying to learn what black folks knew all the time. We understand how to improvise, how to express ourselves creatively. When I'm in a classroom, I'm not looking for that, I'm looking for structure, the more formal language.
Now my buddy was in [a] black teacher's class. And that lady was very good. She went through and explained and defined each part of the structure. This [white] teacher didn't get along with that black teacher. She said that she din't agree with her methods. But I  don't think that white teacher had any methods. pg 31-32


COMMENTS

When first reading this controversial article I was a little overwhelmed by the introduction statements into given by people and the way they felt about this cultural topic. The first quote or questions rather, I chose because these are questions I was quite curious about myself. She answers these by saying "I believe the answer to these questions lies in ethnographic analyis, that is, in identifying and giving voice to alternative worldviews." By making ALL views prominent it would end the confusion between cultures. Is this the best answer?
 The excerpt from the student who had a white teacher and black teacher and had experiences from both of them. I really think this is a lot more powerful then we might realize, not only is this the view of many more people like this student but it happens both ways. A white teacher could have a black teacher and could resent them. How can people treat and view people like this? If a teacher is good or bad has absolutely nothing to do with their skin color nor where they came from it. It is peoples individuality that makes them the person they are whether educator,engineer,scientist,student, parent or whatever the case may be.

The five aspects of power as Lisa Delpit would put it:

1.Issues of power are enacted in classrooms

2.There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is, there is a "culture of power."

3. The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power.

4.If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier.

5.Those with power are frequently least aware of-or least willing to acknowledge-its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence.