I love San Diego. I wrote a chapter about its experience with top-down reform in the late ’90s and early 2000’s in my book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” Broad and Gates poured money into a plan to remake the district. Eventually, the voters tired of constant disruption and voted out the reformers.
Since then, San Diego has made a remarkable recovery and now has a knowledgeable superintendent who is an experienced educator. Better yet, the school board and the teachers work together and have a shared vision.
I met Superintendent Cindy Marten when she was a principal. I could see her love for the children and her respect for teachers. For her courage in doing what is best for children, I add her to the honor roll of the blog.
The district made this announcement:
SAN DIEGO – San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten May 4 announced a significant reduction in the amount of high-stakes standardized testing at local schools. Instead, the former teacher and principal said the district will focus on providing classroom educators with more meaningful measures of student progress in real time. The dramatic changes are expected to improve student well-being and academic outcomes.
“The changes we are announcing today will improve the well-being and performance of our students by allowing teachers to teach and students to learn in an environment that values and supports them as individuals,” Marten said. She added the new testing system will help the district continue to provide students with project-based, collaborative learning in classroom settings customized to the needs of a diverse student population.
Effective the 2016-17 school year, the specific changes announced today will:
• Stop the district-wide collection of interim assessment data and DRA test results, eliminating the need for teachers to waste valuable classroom time entering and uploading data for the central office.
• Replace irrelevant district-wide data collection requirements with real time reporting on student progress for teachers to use when and where they need it to support student learning.
• Empower teachers to analyze student learning results, and revise lessons to meet individual student needs.
• Support local schools as they develop common formative assessment plans, identifying relevant measures that give insight and critical information about how students are developing in literacy and mathematics.
“We want to give classroom teachers and neighborhood schools the tools they need to measure the progress of our children in ways that reflect the unique needs of every student. That is how we will keep our commitment to maintain quality schools in every neighborhood,” said Marten.
San Diego Unified has a history of national leadership on the issue of student testing under Superintendent Marten, having previously reduced the number of interim assessment tests by 33 percent (from 3 to 2) and increased the age at which testing starts — Second Grade instead of First.
“Our experience has shown that student outcomes improve when district officials release their control over assessments and encourage schools to select assessments aligned with a framework for learning, relying on principals, teachers and area superintendents to work in partnership, as they receive the necessary support from the central office,” said Marten.
A major factor behind the changes announced today was the recent study showing the overuse of standardized testing is harmful to area students, according to some 90% of San Diego’s teachers. The study was conducted by the San Diego Education Association.
“We are pleased San Diego Unified has decided to put the interests of our students first and moved to reduce high-stakes standardized testing, which we know from our research is contrary to students’ well-being,” said Lindsay Burningham, president of the San Diego Education Association. “A true reflection of student achievement and improvement is always done through multiple measures and can never focus on just one test score.”
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Contact: Linda Zintz – 619-725-5578 or lzintz@sandi.net.
so nice to hear some good news for a change …
This is incredibly exciting. Cindy is truly a hero. I am completely baffled why all districts do not follow her lead. Great job Cindy.
John Inman Ed.D., M.A., Ed.M., DDPE Creating educational solutions where learners develop individual gifts and realize their potential Seattle, WA john@learningexceptionalities.com http://www.learningexceptionalities.com 425-954-7256
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I read in today’s newspaper that there was a record number of complaints, (10,392) in fact, to the OCR last year. The vast majority have to do with special education, and many have to do with standardized testing. Many states are ignoring IEPs and testing modifications, all in the name of collecting data. The only way to protect the best interests of children is to Opt-out.
Yes, Diane, San Diego is a splendid place. When I taught there in the ’90s, the administration and the union collaborated together rather than attacking one another. That’s apparently still true. And, there were more teacher education colleges per capita than anywhere else in the nation, programs of great and longstanding tradition. That led to high quality schools.
I miss San Diego. Now I teach in LA, where the administration and teacher education programs are both close to Eli, and the unions are under siege.
Oakland’s Mayor Libby Schaaf, is going to be among the participants, at the harvard graduate school of education’s conference, later this month. (Diane pointed out that harvard appears to prefer politicians, to scholars, with the notable exception of participant, “two-tier” Roland Fryer.)
A member of the community might want to send info. to Schaaf, about KIPP (also, a conference participant). The recent PR Watch report, relating to the organization’s spending and request for redactions, by the Dept. of Ed., would be an excellent source to provide. Deutsch 29’s blog post, of an interview with Roland Fryer, would also be welcome information, for Schaaf, I’m sure.
Just a reminder, the “epicenter” for venture/vulture education scheming was the Bay area.
Philanthropy Roundtable, which posted an article, written by an employee of a Gates-funded organization, with this quote, “…reformers…declare ‘We’ve got to blow up the ed schools’ “, announced at its site, the forthcoming Sept. meeting of people who plan to or, have spent at least $100,000 on their ed “philanthropy”.
It’s funny how we only hear about the districts that adopt the entire ed reform agenda.
Are there other large districts who tried the ed reform approach and then went their own way? I’d be very interested in hearing about that. San Diego can’t be the only one.
I like the use of the adjectival phrase “in real time.” High stakes tests never assess progress in real time, which is a serious injustice to struggling learners with inadequate funds of memory or attention and focus deficits….
They never assess progress in real space either.
They operate in imaginary time and space — also known as misconfiguration space
“I like the use of the adjectival phrase “in real time.””
Were I still teaching and I heard that phrase I’d run as far and as fast as I could away from the source of that statement. It’s code for “We’re watching you 24/7!”
You got it, Duane. I had a data guru administrator come to me and tell me I wasn’t using the computer data enough to make grouping decisions for small group activities in which the computer said certain students had weaknesses. He was sitting in his damn office monitoring what I looked at and how often! He was not a special ed administrator, so it completely blindsided me that he even had jurisdiction. Nobody including him had ever said he was supervising. So I started looking at the stuff even though it was not useful. Since he had never taught the program nor had any experience in the subject matter or in special ed, his opinion meant nothing to me. The guy was such a slimeball, he used a goal statement I wrote for the next year in a PD workshop as evidence against me that I did not use data effectively. I know for a fact that another teacher wrote close to the same goal. She was not targeted. It never made sense to me since the PD course was training in using the data tools.
“San Diego Cuts Back on Testing to Focus on Children’s Well-Being”
But shirley there must be a test to measure well-being (and a VAM to hold teachers accountable for lack of student well-being growth)
Didn’t Stanford produce one of those?
They did. And don’t call me Shirley.
So cutting back 1/3 on COMPLETELY INVALID, bogus standardized testing is supposedly good?
HORSE MANURE!
I read this wonderful news as I have so many others like it – fearing it will end with a Broad or Gates take over. May San Diego have safe and continued success.
But what will they be using to generate real time data, and how will teachers use it? What is san diegos plan to meet accountability requirements? I found this all very vague ….
The language scared me a little bit as well. Real time these days means carrying around your ipad inputting data. There really has to be a balance between recording data and actually interacting with students. It would be well worth their time to run some pilot studies on real time data collection and reflection after the fact. It would be quite interesting to have a fellow teacher writing a running record under each condition and then comparing records between teachers to decide when and which kind of assessment is appropriate under different conditions. We don’t walk around recording our daily lives; we live them (at least when people are not busy snapping selfies). I feel really old now; I don’t now and never did find a need to turn learning into an exercise in data collection. I did not enjoy those occasions when IEP goals required me to count behaviors to meet some artificial learning goal.
Hi Emily,
San Diego Unified has some administrators who cite and tout Dr. Marzano ‘s program in broad, public settings I thinks it’s safe to say. I’m from San Diego, with a story you might find supportive of your views. No answers here, but the same questions and a few more. This blog maintains the highest standards, and reflects values about debate that I share and endorse. Some conversations just need to be offline and private. Read the WIKI entry for this district, very short but speaks volumes.
Is this really true? It certainly sounds too rational to be true these days.
Well, smart money says don’t believe it.
Reading the news release more carefully, it looks like they really haven’t done anything to reduce SBAC testing. Only some additional standardized testing that they had instituted internally. At most, this may bring SDUSD in line with most other California districts by reducing excessive testing that existed prior.
This article gives a different take on the situation. Sad if it is true:
https://emilytalmage.com/2016/05/07/san-diego-if-it-sounds-to-good-to-be-true/
I will check with friends in San Diego. The superintendent Cindy Marten is no fan of standardized testing. As a principal, she ran a progressive, child-centered school. She is no advocate for standardization.
It is very important that people look into Marten’s involvement with StriveTogether, a program of Knowledgeworks, an influential organization pushing the “personalized” learning CBE approach. http://www.knowledgeworks.org/about-knowledgeworks
Ohio residents in particular should take note as much of the work being undertaken there is based on work done in Cincinnati and Toledo.
Click to access 314031p2.pdf
http://www.knowledgeworks.org/knowledgeworks-foundation-receives-multimillion-dollar-grants-public-education-ohio
There is definitely more going on here than the headlines indicate.