A teacher writes:
I went to a meeting today and had my eyes opened – WIDE. As a teacher at a ruraL schoo, we are a little behind on this VAM thing. Needless to say at district wide meetings I get to meet teachers from all over, some from much larger suburban districts. They already have their pay based on students’ and the school’s improvement on tests.
WELL, the teachers have figured the whole student improvement thing out- DISTRACT THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF THE STUDENTS DURING THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR TEST – Yep, that is exactly what many of them are doing. Play music, talk on the phone, talk to other teachers very loudly, clean the room…do what ever you can to lower your students scores at the beginning and then have a silent, well ordered room, with hints everywhere at the end of the year, Success. The test isn’t fair, why should teachers have to play fair
Diane Ravitch's blog 
SWEEEEEET! My kind of dissent. Civil disobedience. Passive aggressive. YESSS!
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My school didn’t give calculators for the beginning of the year math test and they are going to give them at the end of the year test to improve our “growth”
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My, my, my it would neeever occur to me to do such a thing. ;0)
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I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. In Florida, the Legislature would just end up mandating strict conditions for the pre-tests like they do with the end of year tests. How sad it is that it’s come to this, but it has.
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There is a student version of this here in Rhode Island, too. I was speaking to a retired administrator today who laughed and pointed out that it wouldn’t take our students long to figure out how to game the NECAP graduation requirement. See, if students score a “1” on the NECAP, they only need to show “measurable improvement” in order to be allowed to graduate.
SO, it makes sense for the student who knows he isn’t likely to score well on the NECAP to totally bomb it his Senior year so that he can show “measurable improvement” on his second take.
Of course this won’t work out well for his teachers, who I’m assuming will be stuck with his first final test score as their VAM instrument. But it works well enough for the student!
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In Ohio our VAM isn’t even based on a pre and post test at all. It’s ONE paper and pencil bubble test at the end of each year which is compared to where those same students fell on the bell curve the previous year. It’s based on DERIVED scores on a test that is over the standards at the next consecutive year. Wow.
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Same in Tennessee.
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Sad
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Louisiana only has one test.
Kids are compared year to year.
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Campbell’s Law at work!
Of course, the problem is that those nefarious, incompetent
teachers who tampered with the wonderful, standardized testing will be to blame for any VAM issues later.
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Too funny – I have been telling my fellow math teachers this for two years. As Terry says however, it could backfire here. In Gates County Florida, the statistics are so thin and the logic so stretched, they could determine that:
1. Poor beginning scores represent the student response to an already perceptibly hostile learning environment. The higher ending scores must therefor be “normed” down to account for the teacher produced disadvantage the student had to overcome.
2. High beginning scores with lower ending scores are cause for the ending scores to be “normed” even lower. The students had to overcome an increasing hostile learning environment just to minimize their losses. This extra-effort on the students’ part should not be reflected positively (less negatively) in the teachers’ VAM
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I have strong anecdotal info that the idea of gaming these tests is spreading among students. Including, not surprisingly, those at high performing schools who love their school and their teachers. They are talking of doing badly in the beginning and slowly ramping up thru the year as a way of defending their school. I look forward to the puzzlement over the summer learning gap increasing.
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CitizensArrest: you have pointed out an obvious and expected result of high-stakes standardized testing as it is often used today.
The leading charterites/privatizers are not simply gunning for teachers, or even the entire staff of schools, they are going after students and parents as well. Part of their mindset includes severely underestimating the resourcefulness and integrity of their intended targets. Hence when students at “high performing schools who love their school and their teachers” figure out what’s going on, they game the very system that was set up to enforce failure on their teachers, their schools and themselves—in order to provide ‘irrefutable’ proof of success [according to the ‘education reformers’ most cherished measurement!].
And the pushback by the edubullies is sure to include appeals to reason and honor—ignoring the fact that their unreasonable and dishonorable requirements have created extremely strong incentives for doing just what you describe.
ArneRhee&Co: can you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y?
🙂
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…and in Illinois, K12–Virtual Charter Schools–has come to the suburbs! One school district–board & administrators–made mincemeat out of the snake oil salesman by making statements/asking questions such as, “Isn’t the money you’re collecting per pupil (and isn’t it a bit excessive? What are you using it for when you have no physical building, no school lunch program and no transportation costs?) being taken from our school district revenue?” “Isn’t your CEO making $21.5 million? Our superintendent is only making $250K!” “How much money do you spend for advertising?” “What kind of plan do you have for special ed. students?In this district, we have a continuum of services.Can your program provide that?” “This is very unusual to have a vendor come to us.Usually, we go to them.Please tell us why our students would do better in your program than in our district, where 97.5% of our students meet or exceed on the ISATs?” It was
WONDERFUL!!! Looks like this district is NOT going to approve the charter.
However…the company may appeal the ruling at the state level.
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In PA, one junior class of students realized that there was absolutely no value to the state test and completely bombed it…intentionally. Now the district gives students who pass the test an out on finals senior year. At another school, an group of 8th graders were so upset with the principal that there was a coordinated effort at bombing the test because they knew it could have negative repercussions!
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“I look forward to the puzzlement over the summer learning gap increasing.”
And after that puzzlement, comes all year school!
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As Larry Summers said at a conference I attended on health care given by MBAs, you guys will always find a way to game the system. He is right.
There is always a way around statistics.
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Did Economist Larry find the time to inform you of your lack of innate ability in science?
😉
Why does anyone care what this guy thinks or says?
I love Naomi Klein’s take on him:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-04-19/opinions/36826655_1_economic-adviser-bubble-boy-larry-summers
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Wow! That was some article! I am not a fan of Larry Summers because of obvious reasons but I was surprised at his pessimistic outlook…..he was right. The point is anything can be rigged!
I try to learn from superior minds -like his, perhaps – more like Diane and you, Ang and others :). Best, Angela
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We thought having students score poorly on the pre-test would be the best way of showing improvement. But, our Student Learning Targets had to show that at least 70% of our students reached “Good.” In some teachers’ classes, not one students passed the pre-test, which meant they had to move from 0 to 70 by the end of the year. So, in our parish, the more students scoring in the range they want, the fewer need to “move” to reach the magic 70%.
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Reblogged this on Transparent Christina and commented:
Never in Delaware. No cheating here either.
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It is truly sad that we must hope our students fail to show growth. Shame on those who push these testing policies.
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In Colorado, we just finished our ‘end of year’ tests. There is no pretest. It is year to year. The only thing that we have going for us is that our 6th graders apparently come from a school with such low standards that it’s nearly impossible not to get a jump in their scores.
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So sad that we are teaching children that to lie and cheat is okay (game the system). I’m not comfortable with this message.
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I’m with you, Jaded. We can each choose what we answer to, and then we answer to it. That’s how we own the ground we stand on, young or old. Yes, we do have a choice.
Teach power.
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Yep, just heard an 8th grader testify last night at a forum on high-stakes testing that the kids at her school now know to bomb the first test, do OK on the second, and then to actually try on the third. These tests are beyond dumb. And cruel. One former special education student also spoke on how demoralized and depressed she felt after testing. At my hospital, we have had a number of kids hospitalized after testing-related melt downs. Absolutely unforgiveable.
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Katie Osgood: as always, truth to power.
Thank you so much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
An abrazón [big hug] from KrazyTA.
🙂
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And, Katie, we have had kids IN the hospitals (physically ill students, as well) whose homebound teachers were ordered to administer the tests so that their schools would have 100% participation! One such case was a student who had just been hospitalized after a suicide attempt. According to the principal, this did not exempt her from having to take the test.
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“At my hospital, we have had a number of kids hospitalized after testing-related melt downs. Absolutely unforgiveable.” You are absolutely right! How can any thinking and feeling adult condone this monstrous misuse of testing and abuse of students? I guess if you’re a follower of David Coleman (aka Common Core Czar), in the real world no one gives a sh-t what people think and feel. How tragic!
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Oh, God, Katie you’re so right. Today we all had to proctor the MCAS, and I watched a 16 year old girl fight to keep back tears, trying to keep her lips from twisting as she fought down her anxiety attack all on her own. There were 5 adults in the room, watching her pull out her hair and surreptitiously drop it on the floor next to her.
We couldn’t even talk to her because there’s a script! Scores would be invalidated if we deviated from it. I went and found the principal, who found the counselor who was working with her, who came in and at least asked if she was okay. The girl had to say yes, because to admit otherwise might mean removal from school to a “special” program.
Meanwhile, a tenth grade boy I’ll call “Jacob” wasn’t so lucky. Administrators pulled him out of the test room, out of fear he might vomit from anxiety, and told him he would be transferred out of the school to a program for emotionally disturbed kids against his will.
These are charming and cooperative kids, who can do well academically in a comprehensive environment if we just help them manage their anxiety. I taught Jacob last term, and he was fine. He has a legal right to a public education in a least restrictive environment, but even I don’t know how to fight for him. He says he wants to stay at school.
How can we let anybody do this to them?
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This takes me back.
That’s exactly the message the advisers from Mass Insight gave my district when they first set it up as a proving ground for their corrupt services. Low-ball your early scores, then later improvement under our consulting contracts will be easy to demonstrate.
My science curriculum coordinator happily explained it to me, at the time, because it just seemed so clever to him. Then, as the lies mounted, it all stuck in his craw. He started standing up to them, and they fired him.
I taught both his wonderful daughters, right here in our underfunded urban school. It was for them, I think, that the truth turned out to matter to their daddy.
Colleagues, please, let’s just think more deeply. The truth does matter, raise it up! There’s no way to out-lie these seasoned cheats and liars; don’t help them build that world.
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AMEN!
It’s so disheartening to me to read of educators, people of great integrity and having influence on the lives of their students, demonstrating these kinds of behaviors.
The eduformers out there would have a field day with stories such as these. As Jimney Cricket use to say: Let your conscious be your guide.
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Is this what 21st century skills look like??? So sad.
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Last response was for Katie.
Also, Chemtchr, I agree. Integrity is priceless even if the reformers don’t have it.
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VAM in Florida is only based on the FCAT, and its once a year. So no way to do this…
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For now. We will have universal EOCs soon enough. PARCC will replace FCAT and then you may feel free to coach your students into failure!
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Bomb the pre-test and try on the post-test is a charter school game that has existed for years. We have three former charter teachers on our staff and they explained that kids really game the system without teacher factors. If schools reward improvement and punish with remediation on subjects, then the kids will really game it.
The EAA in Detroit just played this game. They claimed grotesque amounts of achievement while their state scores were beyond dismal.
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Why would we as teachers do this. It is against the oath I took as a teacher 35 years ago. We never take out the problems with others on the the students. That’s going against what we are.
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IN Arizona, all reference material on the walls (Multiplication charts, teacher made charts, grammar and convention rules, etc.), must be covered up or removed, because finding and using reference material in the classroom is not as good as memorizing every thing you’ve ever heard a teacher say.
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We just finished giving “Mirror Tests” which will tell us how our students will score on the end of year exams. This is the message we received from our district’s testing administrator:
“Please remind your teachers as to the purpose of these tests. The intent is for teachers to analyze the data and let this analysis drive their instruction between now and the actual CST. It is to inform them as to what they need to reteach and/or provide interventions for their students. This is the purpose of the Teacher Rational document and the Item Analysis report in OARS. These two together provide teachers with invaluable information as to what their students (individually or collectively) are not understanding.”
I guess this means we are now down to 2 semesters (120 days) of teaching and 1 semester (60 days) of test prep.
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Is it really called the “Teacher Rational” document? The whole business is irrational enough to feel at home in Wonderland.
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This “technique” would not work in Florida. The VAM is calculated with an insanely complicated formula based on student test scores in previous years. We give 2 diagnostic tests plus a “mock FCAT” before the real one but these are district created tests and do not figure into the VAM. Technically, according to the law, teachers must be evaluated over the course of 3 years before their VAM can be established. Unfortunately, we have never had 3 straight years when the state did not change the test in some way. Soon the FCAT is going away and the Common Core, PARCC and EOCs are coming in. Supposedly, teachers’ VAMs cannot be calculated until the tests shake out and are “normed” but that won’t stop the state from publishing the scores of any teachers found wanting, no matter how defective the tests.
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I find the “diagnostic” tests a waste of time and useless to identify student weaknesses because students do not take them seriously. They know know that the scores don’t count toward grades or the “real” FCAT, so they just christmas tree or bubble in random answers. It would be better to give the teachers the standards and allow them to create their own assessments. Of course, that would assume that teachers know what they are doing!
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