Peter Greene posted a commentary by Emily Kaplan, a teacher who worked in a no-excuses charter school in Boston, considered one of the best in the city because of its high test scores. Disturbed by the pressure that teachers must exert to get those high scores, Emily left the charter school and now teaches in a public school. She describes the shame and other tactics used to motivate students to try harder to ace the tests.
Yes, the students get high scores on the state tests, which is very satisfying to the charter advocates and helps them in their appeal to get more charters and more funding from private and public sources.
But here is the problem:
The problem is that standardized test scores mean very little. On the only tests that do mean a tremendous amount for these students— the SSATs— students at the school I taught at perform abysmally. Subsequently, these same middle schoolers who often dramatically outperform their wealthy white peers on these tests are not accepted in large numbers to the most selective high schools (and most of those who do struggle socially and emotionally when thrust into student bodies that aren’t upwards of 98% students of color); struggle to succeed academically in high school (81% earn high school grade-point averages below 3.0 in the first semester); and certainly do not thrive after high school, graduating from college at very low rates and, among those who don’t go to college, failing in large numbers to secure full-time employment.
Correlation is not causation, after all; the fact that those wealthy white students who do well on state standardized tests go on to enjoy tremendous opportunities, in education and in life, does not mean that these scores cause these outcomes. This fallacy, however, constitutes the fuel of the no-excuses runaway train, and leads to the dehumanization of children of color at schools like the one at which I taught. At this school, children are deprived of a comprehensive, developmentally appropriate, and humane education; instead, they are subjected to militaristic discipline, excessive amounts of testing (well beyond that which is already mandated by the state), a criminally deficient amount of playtime (in a nine-hour school day, kindergartners have twenty minutes of recess), and lack of access to social-emotional curricula— all so that the people who run their schools can make a political point.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
The test scores at these “no excuses” academies are invalid. It’s important for the public to know that.
Linda,
It doesn’t matter where the “test scores” are from as they are all COMPLETELY INVALID as proven by Noel Wilson in his never refuted nor rebutted 1997 treatise, probably THE most important piece of educational writing in the last 50 years. For those who aren’t familiar with Wilson’s work here is a start:
“Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
It is my opinion that there are tests that are “valid” if they are professionally administered (no peeking or test prep). By that I mean the tests might tell parents how their child is doing compared to other children of the same age. However I agree with you that no test can properly evaluate a human being, who is capable of so many things that a test cannot measure. Anyone who reads biographies knows this.
Linda,
Would you please name one of these tests that you consider valid?
TIA,
Duane
The SSATs are like the SHSATs. They are taken by private school and public school students both and the students are simply compared to one another and not against some nonexistent “standards”. That is because private school parents would be outraged if their child was noted to be “below standards” and if they took the poorly designed state exams (at least in NY State), 30-40% of kids at decent private schools would get 2s. The state tests are designed with ambiguous answers where any one of two answers can be right, because the point of them is to “prove” that students aren’t learning. They want to guarantee that enough students will choose wrong answers.
I have always said that if private school children were forced to take the exact same exams that public school students take, those exams would NOT look anything like the tests we have now. The ERBs (CPT-4) exams that private school students take are very straightforward — the kind of questions that 75-90% of the students on the state tests answer correctly.
The problem with charter schools is they prep to a terrible exam. They FORCE students to put aside their critical thinking and teach them (by punishment and reward) that they should put aside logic and “pick” a right answer that the charter school/test designers have deemed correct.
Then, when those children are faced with tests that actually test what you have learned, they do poorly. It’s a shame because I am certain that if those children had not spent 8 or 9 years being told to put aside logic and reason to help them “think like a not very bright test-designer”, they would very likely do much better on the tests that private school students also take.
Could it just be that the scores the white kids receive are not really valid either? After all, I was able to get higher test scores among a black and Hispanic group by teaching how tests are created and by teaching logical ways to approach the questions. The main issue on reading tests is vocabulary which comes from wide, deep reading and/or experience. If not constructed in fool-proof ways, questions can be answered based on grammatical knowledge alone.
I think a better way of determining if these schools are successful is to do a longitudinal study of students to see how they do in the real world over time. It sounds like a good topic for someone’s thesis, if there are any people left getting an EdD.
Hi Retired teacher,
How can we determine how students “do in the real world over time?” How much money they earn? The status of the job they hold? If they are happy and are enjoying life?
Through the Census and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
http://www.census.gov/
http://www.bls.gov/
Through these two primary information gathering sources, we learn how many Americans have high school degrees, college degrees and how many have jobs in what fields and what the average person earns in those areas.
We can also turn to USDA to find out about who is on food stamps, their ages, etc.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap
Primary information gathering sites like these reveal a lot about America and its people.
Social Security is also loaded with more info on who collects SS.
https://www.socialsecurity.gov/retire/apply.html?gclid=Cj0KEQiA-ZSzBRDp3ITHm5KO_JYBEiQA1JjHHLOV9eQnbe9qMibvZO5feyRB9XqIClvga8yeEeT9ugQaAn_j8P8HAQ
The great thing about primary information souses is that you avoid cherry picked facts that mislead.
I think if they are living independent lives, we can say they are functioning and contributing to society. An easier marker would be college attendance and graduation rates.
“Could it just be that the scores the white kids receive are not really valid either?”
Yes, see my response to Linda above.
Educational standards and standardized testing are the biggest falsehood perpetrated on students ever with far too many teachers and administrators caught in its sticky web. GAGA*ers that most educators are these days.
*Going Along to Get Along (GAGA): Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution** upon their passing from this realm.
**Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
This test, rank and shame movement in the United States is based on only winners count and if you don’t win, you are a loser.
But very few people win and for most of us, the journey through life is more important then joining the ranks of millionaires and billionaires who worship at the alter of money, wealth and power.
There are a little more than 500 billionaires in the United States and less than 10 million households worth 1 million or more. This is less than 3% of the total population of the United States
The Common Core Crap with its high stakes tests and Gulag agenda will turn 97% of the people into crushed failures before they graduate from high school.
What’s more important in life. The journey or the winner’s circle at the end of the journey. And if it is the winner’s circle, then what about all those people who made it half way or 80% of the way or 98% of the way and enjoyed the trip even if they didn’t make it all the way?
Egads … WINNERS & LOSERS. What a horrid concept promoted by idiots. This is called competition by badgering and bullying.
There are people who will do ANYTHING for their egos in order to win. My question is: WHY WIN? For the glory? For the prize? What about INTRINSIC MOTIVATION?
Extrinsic motivation is LOVED by manipulators. Our young and teachers are NOT Pavlov’s dog, though the powers would love them to just OBEY for a ridiculous treat. What are we teaching our young? Only do something worthwhile for an external treat? OY! Their souls will die if this happens over and over again. Pretty soon their NATURAL talents will shrivel up and die.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan: while there are good comments on this thread, yours resonated the most with me.
If I may riff off your remarks, that is why I sometimes describe rheephorm organizations as jobs programs for adults. “It’s all for the kids”!?!?!? Just pr and hype to provide salve for their consciences and an excuse for fattening their wallets at the expense of children.
As for those rheephorm metrics: here’s how to game a high-stakes standardized test. Read many dozens of full-length novels,including some first-rate fiction that is supposedly only for adults, by the time you are in your mid-teens. Graduate HS, keep reading, and then return to school in your thirties. Prepare for the GRE by getting a good night’s sleep and having a tasty light breakfast.
The above: me. I have slowed down a bit, but at the time I could sight-read whole paragraphs at a time when I got involved in reading something really engrossing. Which is why when people would ask me to read something, which I often would with just a glance, they would then ask if I was “speed-reading” [remember that?] and I would reply “No. I just usually read fast.”
Ah, now the rheephormistas chime in. So what’s the test-prep “trick”? The test-prep “gimmick”? There is none. It’s called “being a good and voracious reader.” Since I could quite rapidly pick out and answer [always keeping in mind that the “correct” answer was not necessarily the “right” answer” but that I was to pick the “best” answer aka what the test-maker wanted] I had lots and lots of time left over for the “hard” [aka ambiguous and obscure] questions. I couldn’t tell you exactly how much time I took [so many years ago!] but I do know I was one of the first in the auditorium to finish. And that was after going over the whole thing several times!
I passed by a comfortable margin. And I have found out, over the years, that some folks don’t even finish the darn thing or finish it only by just randomly marking boxes. Me, I was out the door long before the bell rung having a nice lunch to celebrate the end of the tedium…
I thank you and everyone else for their comments.
😎
Using the students in the fashion that the teacher referenced in Peter’s article does/did is UNETHICAL AND IMMORAL-PLAIN AND SIMPLE!
Unfortunately almost all teachers in the here and now use students in the same fashion when they Go Along to Get Along and institute the standards and testing regimes. Yes, you, the teacher or administrator reading this right now, I’m talking about you! Your pathetic excuses for abusing the children-“oh, but it is mandated”, “oh, I need a job” “Oh, I’ll be written up if I don’t do what I am told to do” Blah, Blah, Blah!
Hey GAGAers, see if you can wrap your head around these thoughts from an Aussie, a Frenchman and an American:
From Wilson: To the extent that these categorisations are accurate or valid at an individual level, these decisions may be both ethically acceptable to the decision makers, and rationally and emotionally acceptable to the test takers and their advocates. They accept the judgments of their society regarding their mental or emotional capabilities. But to the extent that such categorisations are invalid, they must be deemed unacceptable to all concerned.
Further, to the extent that this invalidity is hidden or denied, they are all involved in a culture of symbolic violence. This is violence related to the meaning of the categorisation event where, firstly, the real source of violation, the state or educational institution that controls the meanings of the categorisations, are disguised, and the authority appears to come from another source, in this case from professional opinion backed by scientific research. If you do not believe this, then consider that no matter how high the status of an educator, his voice is unheard unless he belongs to the relevant institution.
And finally a symbolically violent event is one in which what is manifestly unjust is asserted to be fair and just. In the case of testing, where massive errors and thus miscategorisations are suppressed, scores and categorisations are given with no hint of their large invalidity components. It is significant that in the chapter on Rights and responsibilities of test users, considerable attention is given to the responsibility of the test taker not to cheat. Fair enough. But where is the balancing responsibility of the test user not to cheat, not to pretend that a test event has accuracy vastly exceeding technical or social reality? Indeed where is the indication to the test taker of any inaccuracy at all, except possibly arithmetic additions?
From Andre Comte-Sponville:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Comte-Sponville [my additions]
And finally from Thoreau:
“The mass of men [and women] serves the state [education powers that be] thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, [administrators and teachers], etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.”- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862], American author and philosopher
thanks for writing this…. truly — thank you….
and i notice no teachers – who are so complicit in this fraud and abuse of children – have responded…
i don’t know what it will take to trigger teachers to stop enabling this… i keep thinking that somewhere deep inside, the ember of a sense of ethics and responsibility to “first, do no harm” to their students will burst into a roaring flame of rebellion and refusal in each and every teacher’s breast…. and i wait, and wait and wait for that and it hasn’t happened, is not happening, will not happen….
a few brave, strong, principled individual teachers are fighting back and refusing to co-operate at some (minor) level, but not enough to make any real change… we haven’t even seen the Garfield teachers’ en masse refusal to test their students be emulated in other places…
and i cry… for our kids and for the damage being done to human ‘civilisation’ and our potential to evolve past where we are at…
Sahila,
You’re welcome! I’ve come to the point of being more “strident” in pointing out how each and every teacher’s and administrator’s decisions and actions help to continue these horrendous educational malpractices that continue to harm so many innocent students. Enough of the “nice talk” as I’ve decided to say it how I see it and what I see ain’t pretty so how I say it won’t be “pretty” either.
Thanks, Sahila and Duane, for trying to turn on the “light”!
What a horrible environment for children (and adults!)
Telling low-income kids their test scores are the key to not being a low-income adult is a barefaced lie.
“Rich parents pass along more than just money to their kids. They also pass along social and cultural capital that help their kids capture the scarce supply of highly-paid jobs. Indeed, even rich kids who do not receive a college degree are 2.5 times more likely to wind up as high-income adults than poor kids who do receive a college degree.” -Breunig
Here’s a Campbell Brown interview with Marco Rubio on “education”.
Oddly, there’s absolutely no mention of public schools.
There’s charter schools and there’s private schools and there’s teachers unions, but actual existing public schools are omitted completely.
Oh, except for selling public schools ed tech. That’s in there:
“Rubio, meanwhile, proposes innovations both in the broad sense, like school vouchers, and in the use of technology”
You wonder if ed reformers realize this- that none of their debates or discussions include public schools. It’s amazing, coming from people who claim to be focused on public education.
https://www.the74million.org/article/exclusive-sen-rubio-says-clinton-owned-by-unions-decries-immoral-system-where-only-the-rich-can-choose-schools
Education “discussions” that ignore 485 million school children (and their parents), while focusing on the 15 million self-selected charter kids. Such blatant disregard will come back to bite them in the end.
It’s just so sad that privately managed for-profit entities that take tax payer money are seen to be the solution to address impoverished children by boot camping them into learning.
It’s not a healthy solution. It just isn’t.
It is as though the human dignity of children and their teachers has become commoditized and monetized, and how sad is that!
We are a very sad society, but through this dysfunction, I also, in my realistic optimism, see enormous nascent opportunities for growth as a culture.
Depressing, infuriating, and yet full of hope all at the same time . . . .
This is a very human experience and consciousness most of us are having.
I think it’s important to develop a test methodology, that would measure student knowledge and progress in a better way, be resistant to test prep and not be cost prohibitive.
Plus, its important to measure not just the absolute level of knowledge, but also incremental improvement of a given student over time, also weighing it against student’s SWD (disability), ELL and income status.
I would be curious to know if such methodology exists and has consensus around it.
But, at the end of the day, where I think some folks get into trouble, is that after debunking the efficacy of the current standardized tests, they sometimes make a larger point that no standardized test can be ever be useful, and that is just not true.
Even with today’s imperfect testing methodology, while a high test score can’t help us tell an average school from a great one, very low test scores (like under 25% of Level 3% + Level 4% scoring students), assuming a typical % of ELL and SWD students, certainly indicates a struggling school.
Either way, parents need a quick and reliable way to tell, how well their child is expected to do at School A vs School B, and even though that may not be easy to accomplish, I think it’s very important to have that as a goal, as opposed to giving up on the testing idea altogether.
You think you can send your child to school A (based on test results) and that tells you how your child will score on tests? Because the test results are all because of the school and not the child?
If that was the case, there’d be no need for charter schools to get rid of half their starting Kindergarten class to get good test results!
If that was the case, we’d know that if you send your child to certain charter schools, they will score well on the state exams, but you can be pretty much guaranteed that they won’t get into any specialized high schools or do well on their SATs because the school is failing to teach the basic thinking and logic skills needed for higher education.
After all, that’s what the “test results” tell us, and you seem to believe that test results tell us everything.
I don’t think testing has to be thrown out at all either. I just object to HOW it is being used and its purposefulness.
@Robert Rendo, I remember when tests were useful for parents to see how their child was doing generally. Could he read and comprehend stories and answer questions about it? Could she add, subtract, multiply and divide and understand story problems? Could he compose a straightforward written response to a question? In fact, that’s how the CTP-4 exams are used by private school parents and schools — as an internal measure to see how students were doing.
Suddenly, it became all about proving how poorly public schools were doing. The exams didn’t exactly become more advanced — they simply became more ambiguous, with cockamamie questions written in the most convoluted way possible. You now had no idea whether a child missed a question because he didn’t comprehend the story, or missed a question because it was so ambiguously written that he didn’t understand the question. Not “what is the main reason that character A did X?” – which would test whether the child correctly identified the motives of character A. Instead it’s “what word in sentence 3 in paragraph 2 best helps the reader understand why character A did X?”, which tests how well the child has been taught to ignore convoluted language and guess what the question is trying to ask.
No wonder no private schools want their students to take these tests! What a true waste of learning time. No wonder kids who spend too much time learning to answer convoluted questions have forgotten how to think.
Yuri – first you have to start by figuring out how to “measure” knowledge. What is knowledge? What would one “unit” of knowledge be? Does each question on a standardized test represent a “unit” of knowledge? How many “units” of knowledge should each child know by what grades?
BTW, we’ve been trying to perfect standardized tests for over 100 years now – how much longer do you think that’s going to take? How much longer do you think students should be subject to tests that even you agree are bad?
BTW, Yuri, I recommend reading MISSION HIGH. There are several stories in the book of kids who chose to go Mission High even though it was “lower performing” over schools with higher test scores, and they felt that they got a better education at Mission. Granted, such stories are anecdotal, but they do show that a school with higher test scores is not necessarily a better school than a “struggling” school. In fact, since whites tend to outscore minorities, I tend to think that many parents want to keep the tests for exactly that reason – it gives them an excuse to send their kids to a whiter school without having to admit that, really, they don’t want their kids in with “those” kids. Instead, they can pretend it’s all about “performance”.
[BTW, Yuri, I recommend reading MISSION HIGH. ] Thanks for the recommendation, Dienne.
[..a school with higher test scores is not necessarily a better school than a “struggling” school.] Of course, this is possible, and test scores by no means should be the only measuring stick.
By the way, here is an interactive dashboard of New York State test scores, that I created for the benefits of parents. On it, you can look at scores for all students, or you can specifically isolate the scores of a given race/ethnicity, SWD status, income or ELL status. https://public.tableau.com/profile/yuri.nazarov#!/vizhome/NYC2015SchoolTestScores/Dashboard
Tim – I think the combination of test scores + professional assessments makes sense.
Yuri,
I agree that parents, voters, and taxpayers deserve an assessment of school performance that is not created by the school itself, or by a district official whose own employment status depends in some part on having positively assessed schools (as is the case with the NYC DOE district officials who perform “Quality Reviews.”).
The elite private K-12 schools take great pains and utilize a lot of their ample resources to holistically evaluate students and staff. Performance reviews and student report cards are given over pages and pages of narrative that exhibit a deep understanding of student and employee work.
But these schools also understand the unavoidable bias that can creep in (in any field), and as a reality check, virtually all of these schools — Sidwell, Chicago Lab School, Lakeside, Dalton, etc. — administer many hours’ worth of standardized multiple choice reading and math tests to every student in some or all of grades 3-8. There is no “opt out” movement.
I can’t sum it up any better than the head of Sidwell’s middle school: “[Standardized tests] help parents and teachers understand more clearly and completely a child’s balance of strengths and needs. Teachers may review the scores in detail, looking for patterns that emerge from one year to the next, and then use that information to be more effective in the classroom.”
Scores + professional assessments seems like a reasonable approach to me.
Tim – Help me out here, which of those schools you mentioned use student test scores as the basis for hiring, promotion, demotion, compensation and retention decisions for teachers? Which of them use student test scores as a basis for student promotion, retention or graduation decisions? Which of those schools post their students’ test scores on “data walls” in the classrooms for all to see, complete with identifying information? Which of those school’s teachers are subject to getting their VAM scores published in the local newspaper? Which of those schools are in danger of being closed, “turned around”, charterized or otherwise punished for their students’ test scores?
YuriN,
Your requests in the first paragraphs can never be granted. To understand why read Noel Wilson’s work I have referenced above. If you wish I’d be happy to read through and discuss this seminal treatise with you (it seems many struggle with understanding what Wilson is proving in his work). Feel free to contact me at dswacker@centurytel.net putting something about “Wilson’s work” in the subject line.
Duane
@ Tim
Do you know a single parent who pays $40,000/year + because they look at the CTP-4 or ERB scores of the students in those private schools in order to determine if those schools are worthy?
Those highly educated and very wealthy parents are investing approximately half a million dollars (!!!) in a private school education and they don’t give a hoot whether the CTP-4 scores of the 3rd graders at Horace Mann are better than the CTP-4 scores at Fieldston or Riverdale? According to you and Yuri N., without that knowledge, those parents don’t really care much about education at all. It’s pretty shocking that you are so disdainful of those private school parents and think they are complete idiots not to base such an enormous financial decision on something other than scores.
Public school parents are told to act like fools and believe standardized tests over their own experience with teachers. Private school parents believe that the child’s elementary and middle school test scores have nothing to do with the school at all and have no interest — NONE — in demanding accountability from their schools. I guarantee you that no Horace Mann parent is demanding that the 4th grade test scores of their children be compared to Fieldston and Riverdale and the teachers at whichever 4th grade is lowest be fired. But in your world view, you are 100% certain that is what parents want. It’s mystifying.
[…It’s pretty shocking that you are so disdainful …]
NYC public school parent (aka parent010203 in other forums). I don’t usually reply to your comments, because you regularly infuse them with moral superiority and disdain toward those, with whom you disagree. You assume the worst personal qualities of parents, who don’t share your opinions, and that is just not the kind of discourse that I am interested in.
“Either way, parents need a quick and reliable way to tell, how well their child is expected to do at School A vs School B, and even though that may not be easy to accomplish…”
Anyone who says this would avoid a school where for 2 years not a single 8th grader scored high enough on the SHSAT to be admitted to any specialized high school. Obviously a parent who judges a school only on the test scores would be avoiding such a school like the plague.
And yet the same person who wrote it is on here praising how wonderful his child’s education is. Obviously when it comes down to it, parents like Yuri N. happily avoid judging a school on their test scores because they are convinced their own experience tells them that those test scores are meaningless.
It’s just ironic that they don’t recognize their own cognitive disconnect. They believe their own experience tells them far more about the education than test scores and feel certain that despite the school falling to educate 2 years of children very well, when their kid is older, they will be fine.
In fact, in practice, such parents seem to agree with Duane Swacker that standardized test scores don’t mean a whole lot. They are choosing a school with low test scores, and dismissing those low scores by saying that it’s because there aren’t middle class children of college-educated parents taking those tests yet.
Dienne,
How many of these schools have unions, tenure, and work agreements that run hundreds of pages long? How many have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and a couple of years to remove an ineffective teacher?
Read the Sidwell head of school’s quote again. Read this “explainer” from the Lab School — http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/ERBAssessments2014.ppt. It is clear that there are expectations for teachers.
And the dirty little secret is that these schools use standardized test results as part of the case for counseling out students. That’s why there’s no opting out. It is wrong to imply that there aren’t stakes for the students.
The important point is this: the elite schools, many of them progressive, all with an embarrassment of resources and a laser-like focus on best teaching practices, believe that it is in the best interests of their students and teachers to administer standardized tests. The parents footing the massive bill insist on the tests as well, to make sure they are getting their money’s worth (being on track with kids who get into elite colleges). If it is being done at the lovely Dewey schools, including the one that Dewey actually founded, it is worth paying attention to.
@ Tim
“And the dirty little secret is that these schools use standardized test results as part of the case for counseling out students. ”
Which basically demonstrates that they don’t use it for evaluating teachers at all – those standardized tests are used to weed out students who aren’t learning enough to score high on a standardized test!
It is basically what certain charter schools copy as their “best practice”.
@ Yuri N.
I apologize for my tone. I just find it hypocritical for you to post here and elsewhere constantly bragging about standardized test scores ONLY of the children who remain in your favorite charter school. In fact, you recently cited the supposedly “high” test scores of SA Bed Stuy 1’s 3rd grade class without noting that nearly 40% of the economically disadvantaged students from the 2nd grade class had disappeared and never took the test with that supposedly high-testing 3rd grade cohort. I assumed it was intentional not to mention that high scores are achieved by getting rid of nearly 40% of low-income students in the 2nd grade class before testing, but maybe you just didn’t know.
Furthermore, I assume you aren’t worried one bit about the fact that for two years the 8th grade students have fared very poorly on the SHSAT. I’m just pointing out that you actually believe that standardized tests aren’t a good measure of the school when it suits your desire to promote a school. Why not just acknowledge it?
How hard is it to acknowledge that you don’t believe that standardized test scores are very meaningful? If you did, you wouldn’t be sending your child to a school where not one child — after 8 years of education — could do well on a standardized test!
“How many of these schools have unions, tenure, and work agreements that run hundreds of pages long?”
Lab does.
Right, Lab, which is part of an institution with a $10 billion endowment and a $3.5 billion annual budget, and which exists primarily to educate the children of the highly paid professors and physicians who work for it, is indeed a unionized exception. As you know first-hand, the vast majority of independent private schools have at-will employment and aren’t unionized.
Incidentally, Tim, how do you think unions and tenure came about? Do you think those sweet and loving administrators were just so nice and kind to their teachers and those awful greedy entrenched LIFO-lifer teachers just demanded more and more and more? Or do you think it might have to do with administrators doing things like threatening teachers’ jobs, eliminating funding, trying to micromanage teaching, using teaching for political purposes, etc. that led teachers to unionize in the first place? Maybe we could look at how those elite private schools deal with their teachers such that most said teachers haven’t felt the need to unionize?
“As you know first-hand, the vast majority of independent private schools have at-will employment and aren’t unionized.”
And, again, why do you think that is? You don’t even hear of attempts at such independent schools to get unionized as you do with many charters these days. Hmm, must be that independent private school administrators are even more draconian than charter school administrations and they silence their staff better.
Either that or independent school teachers are genuinely happy and comfortable with their administrations because they are treated professionally and respectfully and allowed autonomy.
new troll
[Donna
new troll]
Not sure if this comment was addressed to me, but I would encourage you to argue on the issues, instead of resorting to insults. Thanks
Is there anything that can be done about the extreme length of the instructional minutes in the day and also the shortened minutes of recess per day? What about what the ed code says in a particular state? It seems unreasonable and harmful to work these children like this. There are child labor laws on the books – shouldn’t there be protection for children from an unreasonable schedule that removes them from play and interaction?
The first child abuse case was brought by the ASPCA on the grounds that, as an animal, a child has basic rights to be free from harm. Since our child protection laws always seem to be out of date, maybe we need to use some other area of law to protect our children – as you hint, maybe a labor lawyer could bring a child labor case against this kind of “schooling” (I refuse to call it education).
there are a whole bunch of international laws/UN Human Rights Declarations the US has refused to sign on to….
which is why this country can get away with treating its children/citizens so badly…
Only three U.N. countries have not ratified the CRC (Convention on the Rights of the Child): Somalia, South Sudan, and…the United States…. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/11/21/why-wont-the-u-s-ratify-the-u-n-s-child-rights-treaty/…
it’s absolutely appalling…. makes me spit with fury…. and THIS is why the corporations and deformers can get away with what they’re doing….
and teachers should be REFUSING point blank, to help abuse children in this way… they should have been out in the streets years ago, putting a stop to this and educating parents (who trust teachers to be doing the right thing by their children, who trust teachers as PROFESSIONALS, so if teachers are doing this to the kids, it must be OK, right?) so they too could help kill this agenda before it got a foothold…
shame on you all, for being here, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year — whinging and whining and hand-wringing and complaining and indulging in mental masturbation, and going back into your classrooms abusing our children… shame….
there’s that meme doing the rounds on social media, about the hypocrisy of the sentiment around praying for victims of this and victims of that…. prayer doesnt FIX it, doesnt make it better, doesnt undo past, present or future hurt — only ACTION does that… as Pope Francis said: yes, pray for a hungry person and then FEED them…
so — who are you all praying to/waiting for to FIX this mess? God? Your unions? You know your union leaders sold you out…. Whatever happened to personal responsibility for what you are doing to your students? How can you come here every day pretending that you are not abusing them? How can you sleep at night and then get up next morning, go to your classrooms and abuse our children some more, on behalf of the corporations and the ed deformers?
Again i say – shame on you all….
True. Whenever you see large groups of low-income black and Hispanic students testing in the gifted & talented range on state exams it just means that they have been heavily prepped. They don’t really understand the material. This is brought to light when those same kids try to get into a selective high school and do poorly on the SSAT, ISEE, or SHSAT. They always go on to test the same as other kids in their demographics.
The kids at this KIPP high school average 1300/2400 on the SAT. Only a third of seniors passed the STEM regents. Out of 38 seniors only one or two passed each AP exam with the exception of calculus where seven passed. Only 32 percent graduated college ready. http://schools.nyc.gov/OA/SchoolReports/2014-15/School_Quality_Snapshot_2015_HS_M726.pdf
Lets get back to Eva Moskowitz on this. How many 1st graders made/make it to graduation? How many graduates got accepted to select high schools? That’d be zero.
Unless and until these charter schools drill ALL OF THE ANSWERS into these kids heads, they’ll not be able to pass the bubble tests. What of the essays? These kids are not taught to think critically. Basically, they’re not taught to think at all.
I could go on and on, but why bother? Eva knows she is setting her “scholars” (rhymes with dollars) up for failure, and that is totally part o the allure and charm of charter school investors and profiteers–because they want those kids of impoverished families, and especially black and brown ones, to fail in the long run.
Its an end game.
It makes me sick.
Donna, as a father of one of these kids at Success Academy, I can tell that you received some bad second hand information, when you say that, at Success Academy “kids are not taught to think critically. Basically, they’re not taught to think at all.”
I think it’s pretty clear that if two entire cohorts of students who entered Success Academy and were tested as 8th graders in both 2014 and 2015 — if not a single student can score high enough on a standardized test to qualify for a specialized high score, that’s petty much as big of a red flag as anything.
Remember, that is 156 students who were lucky enough to win a lottery for Kindergarten and first grade when “thousands” were on the wait list” . Not one scored high enough for a spot in a specialized high school despite 8 or 9 years of Success Academy’s education. That is not the students’ fault — that’s a failure of teaching, of course.
Yuri, I am sure that just like you, every single one of the parents of all those SA 8th graders was certain their child was getting an excellent education. Unfortunately, the tests proved that they were misled.
Their child’s teachers were actually doing a terrible job, as the test results prove beyond any doubt. I am pretty shocked you are now arguing that we should believe you and not the test results since I have seen you post many, many times about how we should look at the test results of your school to see how well it is doing. Isn’t that what you want us to do?
To be fair to your beloved school, since the results on the state tests are better than the results on the SHSAT, we both can agree that it’s a draw and no one knows if the education at Success Academy is good or pretty much a failure. The only thing that is certain is that all the public schools that have decent state scores AND have graduates who end up specialized high schools are giving their students a much better education than Success Academy does.
Live by the test, die by the test. Who do you trust, the test results or your own lying eyes to tell you whether your child’s teacher is any good? Usually you argue that parents should put their faith in test results. But it seems that perhaps you now agree that judging a school on their test results is only something that someone with an agenda would do. I hope you will remember that next time you post and tell a parent upset about losing classroom space to Success Academy that SA is better than their school because of their test results. Maybe you’ve learned that standardized test results tell you very little except which kids are at the school (and which kids are allowed to STAY in the school.)