Scott Kuffel is the superintendent of the Geneseo schools,
District 228, in Illinois. He has been superintendent of schools
there for five years. When he learned that the State Education
Department had decided to raise the passing marks (cut scores) so
that more students would be rated as failing, he was not at all
pleased. The state claimed it was lowering scores to get students
and teachers ready for the new Common Core standards and the PARCC
assessments. Superintendent Kuffel joins our honor roll because he
fearlessly blasted this callous indifference to the students and
teachers. It is great when leaders show leadership. He wrote to his
parents and community that the State Board of Education
was shoving schools and kids off a cliff. He sent out this public
letter to explain how the state was manufacturing failure:
Last week school districts across the state
received an email from Illinois State Superintendent Chris Koch
pertaining to the proposed increase in “cut” scores used for the
Illinois Standards Achievement Test ( ISAT) that is administered
each spring to students in grades 3-8. Cut scores are used to
determine a range of scores necessary to assign a student an
overall performance level of “exceeds standards,” “meets
standards,” “below standards,” or “academic warning,” in the areas
of reading, math, and science.
Superintendent Koch stated in his email to schools that
“the increase in performance levels will align our expectations for
our grade 3-8 students with the more rigorous standards of the new
Common Core State Standards that are focused on college and career
readiness.” ISBE staff has made it clear to districts that the
increase in cut scores is part of the transition to the new
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers
(PARCC) assessment that all schools will be required to administer
beginning with the 2014-2015 school year.
The impact of these new cut scores will be
dramatic. Geneseo CUSD 228 staff applied the proposed new cut
scores to third grade math results from the 2012 ISAT tests. This
would change the number of third grade students who failed to meet
state standards in math from 1% to 17%. Similar trends will be seen
across all grade levels in districts across the state. ISBE has
advised school administrators to prepare to have “tough”
conversations with the many parents who will be alarmed that their
child is now performing “below” standards on the same state
assessment that in previous years they earned a “meets” or
“exceeds” designation. Essentially, Geneseo Schools will become
part of a traditional “bell shaped curve” to inequitably sort and
separate students, for purposes no one really seems to
know. ISBE acknowledges
that Illinois’ previous expectations for grade 3-8 students did not
align to the new Common Core State Standards that are now focused
on success in college and the workforce. So, why are schools
wasting valuable instructional time and resources by continuing to
administer a test that fails to produce meaningful
results? Perhaps the
most distressing aspect of the “transition” from the ISAT to PARCC
assessments and the increase in cut scores is the disregard how
these changes will impact the children in our classrooms. Why are
we subjecting thousands of children and teachers to the stress of
ISAT administration for the next two years and the humiliation of a
pre-determined course of failure on the ISAT? How do school staff
and parents explain to a 9-year-old that their failure to meet
state standards is to due to a statistical adjustment that will
enable ISBE to avoid the public relations disaster of a dramatic
drop in test scores with the new PARCC assessment? How do school
administrators explain to their dedicated teachers that they are
doing an outstanding job of working with children despite a
dramatic downturn in test results?
Furthermore, we will continue to administer a
test in the spring of 2013, called “The Illinois Standards
Achievement Test” (ISAT), but this year it will contain 20% of the
questions that we will eventually see on the PARCC assessment, and
100% of the test questions in 2014 will be Common Core-type
questions. So again, Illinois schools see a “double whammy”, this
time in the form of assessment coupled with increased cuts in state
funding. School
districts across the state face historic cuts in state funding
coupled with an overwhelming increase in state mandates, rules and
regulations. The pace of these changes under the guise of
“reforms,” has accelerated at the same time that schools face
unprecedented budget deficits, due in part, to existing state
mandates. This latest decision by ISBE illustrates the complete
disconnect that has developed between the agency and the dedicated
school administrators and teachers who work every day with the
children in our school districts. It also represents a further
erosion of the local control of duly elected school board members,
who represent the very property tax owners who are paying an
increasing percentage of the cost of education while the state
abdicates its responsibility to fund our schools. Most importantly,
it is not good for the children that we serve.
I dunno, maybe I’m being too harsh, but it seems to me as a superintendent, he has more power than simply the power to write a letter to parents (although I do applaud him for doing so). I know superintendents have to pay their mortgages and buy food just like the rest of us, but think of the impact it would have if someone that high up the food chain took the risk to really stand up by, for instance, joining the Opt Out Movement. What if he had finished his letter by saying something like, “In consideration of all of the above factors, and in consultation with teachers and principals, Geneseo School District has decided to opt out of next spring’s state-mandated standardized testing….”?
It seems like as it is, he’s just giving a very eloquent apology for going ahead and doing what he knows is wrong.
Yep, Yep and more Yeps.
No “hero” in my book. Just one worried that his job will soon be gone, like so many of the urban poor districts have been decimated in the past. He has “gone along to get along” up to this point. He should have been refusing to do this nonsense a long time ago.
“How do school administrators explain to their dedicated teachers that they are doing an outstanding job of working with children despite a
dramatic downturn in test results?”
Easy, tell them all its a bunch of bullshit and that the district will not be participating from here on out.
Maybe this guy has a family to support?
Paul,
No doubt, all good Germans did also.
I really appreciate reading his bold and thorough statement. If parents there are the least bit engaged, it should stir an uprising without him having to be the focal point of what could become a legal battle. He can incite the riot just by lighting the first torch. I would love for our superintendent to have and present such a wise assessment of the situation. Instead, we have a broad-trained guy who mostly asserts the party line. Not sure he has his own ideas, but the broadwashing has him headed in all the wrong directions.
Dienne, you read my mind!!! I believe that I made the same comment on this blog when a New York State superintendent also made similar comments & was named an Education Hero.
Come on, guys–do you think you can follow the courageous lead of the Garfield 12 or the Curie 12? These teachers bravely put THEIR jobs and livelihoods on the line for their schools. Think what you SUPERINTENDENTS out there could do–DOZENS of schools, HUNDREDS of schools, THOUSANDS of schools!
And–perhaps I am being too harsh in making this awful comparison (& I wish I did not have to, but this is the reality of our country today)–
In Syria, children have been killed bodily.
In the U.S., children are being killed in mind and in spirit.
Superintendents, unite, and stop this now. It is WAY past the time for action–American children must be protected.
Agreed.
Well said.
Thank you for reminding us of the Garfield 12.
🙂
Agreed!! So true. Our children should never suffer the wrath of the public schools destroyers.
So true!
Teachers and parents in Illinois need to work to fire Chris Koch now for taking bribes from Pearson Education. Call Governor Quinn and all state representatives and put the pressure on. Ask everyone you talk to, how many stock options does Koch have in private or trust accounts from Microsoft and Pearson Education? The same question should be asked about every member of the Illinois state board of education. Demand that the Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times and all other papers cover these issues. They steadfastly refuse to do any real investigative reporting on Education issues!
Superintendents are people too. Without complete and accurate information, we cannot make informed decisions. When this idea in Ed Reform came about, it was a dictate that all were required to adopt or lose Federal funding . . . and who drove these ideas?
I recently heard a conversation among teachers from a well funded district ( that does serve a broad range of students). The gist of it was that they were amazed that there were some teachers that did not support the Common Core. I was surprised by their total detachment. The full force of reform has not hit them although there are certainly signs. They seemed basically oblivious to the bigger picture.
I don’t know how many school districts there are in Illinois, but I imagine it would be a monumental effort to get a majority of them to stick their necks out. This gentleman is the first I have heard about; being the first takes guts. There is no guarantee that anyone will follow suit.
Then there is this one cent sales tax hike for maintenance on schools in the county where Geneseo is. What happens when they close the schools for failing and hand the buildings off to charters? Will the sale tax collection go on? There seems to be a connection between real estate and school closings. School grades, of course, will have an effect on real estate around schools…is that coming next here?
http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=634066
To those above who state that I am not a hero, you are absolutely correct. I’ve neither made that claim nor asked to be on this honor roll. There is always more that can be done. I’m not going to bore you with the context of the consequences for pulling funding by not taking state mandated tests in Illinois, but trust me, I have explored as many options as possible to direct our district to be non-compliant without jeopardizing essential programs for our students.
And yes, I do need to make mortgage payments and buy groceries for my family, and perhaps it would be more heroic to disregard personal, professional and programmatic damages and “opt out” of state tests… and it may come to that, but for now, we in Illinois still work under guidelines and laws that would require more than just my decision to authorize said “civil disobedience”. There are many in Illinois who join me in trying to return us to a time of more common sense (and yes, it may reference Thomas Paine), creativity, and constructivism. And believe me, we have refused to take part in several “reform” structures and resource draining initiatives that we believe do not improve our mission.
So, you’re correct, I am no hero. I’m a superintendent of a public, PK-12 school district in rural Illinois. The hero is the principal who comes in early on a Sunday morning to replace sod on the football field where vandals damaged the turf before graduation. The hero is the school nurses who makes the difficult call home to parents and tends to a scarcely seen scratch on a kindergartner’s arm. The hero is the AP US History teacher who holds study sessions, at 8 pm at night after kids are finished with their practices. The hero is the art teacher who spends her own money for supplies and materials because she knows the budget is dwindling, but the need for the arts is more important than ever. The heroes are the parents who sacrifice time for fundraising and make meals for another parent who just tragically lost a child. The heroes are school board members who take the criticism and complaints for hiring, for spending, for firing, for taking “hard lines” in difficult times.
The heroes are those who try. They try every day for their “littles” who come with scant learning experiences or understanding of manners. They try for the businesses and realtors in town who pressure for high quality schools because that drives local economies and housing. They try because they believe that what happens today has impacts on tomorrow that we’re never really sure we’ll see.
And those are the heroes in whom I believe. They are the heroes who keep me coming to work every day. They’ve kept me coming to District 228 for 10 years, and I know they’ll keep me coming for a few more. Thanks for listening, and thanks for the many good suggestions in these previous comments. Scott Kuffel, Geneseo CUSD 228 Superintendent
Scott,
Thanks for the very thoughtful reply! As my mom would have said “He has his head screwed on right!”
The Board should be in service to the administration which should be in service to the building administration which should be in.service to the teachers who ultimately should be in the service of/to the students. Which by what you wrote you know and live by. My hat’s off to you!
teachers and staff, not just teachers
Duane, Scott Kuffel just proved that there really ARE hero superintendents. That is, leaders who know what they are doing and willing to denounce malpractice when they see it, at risk of their jobs.
How does dismantling a world-class public education system improve anything? We are a nation of public school alumnus, for the most part, that has made incredible contributions to the world over the many years, despite the many challenges our communities have faced. These trends are destructive, and are undermining the strength of our Democracy.
This superintendent’s hands are tied by the Illinois Code which specifically prohibits schools and parents from opting out of state testing. Students who do not go through standardized testing in Illinois cannot receive diplomas. The state holds principals accountable for students completing state testing. http://www.isbe.net/rules/archive/pdfs/oneark.pdf