Fred Smith is a testing expert who knows how test scores can be manipulated and statistics can be twisted into data pretzels.
In this post, he calls out Mayor de Blasio for hyping the numbers to make the gains far larger than they were. Leave aside for the moment that test scores are a ridiculous way to measure the quality of education. Leave aside the fact that using them as measures of progress feeds into the privatizers’ narrative. Smith caught the Mayor juking the stats for Political gain.
He writes:
Ignore that tall man behind the curtain as he cranks up the volume.
Bearing a strong resemblance to Mayor de Blasio, he is there to proclaim that, “Since 2013, English proficiency has increased by 54 percent and math proficiency has increased by 27 percent.” But the noise machine can’t hide the fact that there is little substance in all the thunder.
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So, the mayor’s Tuesday press release leads with huge gains in reading and math scores—the major, if-you-don’t-remember-anything-else point he wants us to take away as he seeks re-election.
But the percentage gains are statistical smoke that befogs the mayor’s already clouded efforts in education. And, frankly, they raise questions about the incumbent’s honesty.
Three tricks prop up the testing headline:
1. The DOE press release emphasizes percentage gains, which are current results minus previous results divided by previous results. Evidently, the increase in English scores of 14.2 percent (26.4 percent to 40.6 percent) from 2013 to 2017 wasn’t good enough news. Nor was the 8.1 percent gain (29.6 percent to 37.8 percent) in math. So, the press office reaches into its bag of tricks and insists there has been a 54 percent gain in English proficiency under de Blasio—14.2 divided by 26.4 and a 27 percent boost in math—8.1 over 29.6.
Now, can you imagine the mayor doing this if there had been an increase in the murder rate. Let’s say homicides were up from 6 to 7 killings per 100,000 New Yorkers. Would de Blasio say that murders rose by one percent or by 16.7 percent? You know he would minimize the negative outcome.
2. – De Blasio’s spinners also present 2013 as their baseline year. But Mayor Bloomberg owned the 2013 results and most of 2014’s, as well. De Blasio didn’t arrive at City Hall until January 1, 2014. The English test was given on April 1, 2014.
Why would they go back to 2013? It allows de Blasio to start his story the year the ELA and math results tanked–creating a fictional narrative of tremendous achievement. For 2013 was the year the Common Core-aligned tests descended on the schools and rained rigor down on 440,000 New York City students. De Blasio wants to embrace Bloomberg’s bottomed-out, third-term school years as his starting point, because things could only improve after that.
Had the Mayor begun his account with the 2015 results, he would still have a 10.2 percent increase to boast about in English proficiency (from 30.4 percent to 40 percent6 percent), but only a 2.6 percent gain to show in math (35.2 percent to 37.8 percent) under his control of the schools. That would be nothing to brag about.
Ironically, as he notes, Joel Klein too tried to claim credit for test score increases that occurred before he took office.
Sad that test scores are now a political talking point. Just proves how meaningless they are.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m sorry but Fred Smith sounds like a shill who is attacking de Blasio because he is pro-charter. The most nasty de Blasio critics are the ones who don’t like that he is not kowtowing to the richest charter chains.
“But the percentage gains are statistical smoke that befogs the mayor’s already clouded efforts in education. And, frankly, they raise questions about the incumbent’s honesty.”
“ALREADY CLOUDED EFFORTS”?? “HONESTY”
This is how Trump won. Instead of looking at all his actions — money for renewal schools, universal pre-k, standing up to charters, efforts to integrate schools — the nasty right wingers pick a few words in a statement or press release — the kind of things that ever single politician in history have done — and act as if it is a sign of corruption.
Who is Fred Smith? This reads like a right wing screed — it is designed to characterize the Mayor as corrupt and dishonest. It’s fine to criticize politicians but this is designed to destroy them. The Mayor isn’t just being a politician. He is a lying, dishonest, corrupt person who needs to be defeated. This is exactly what happened to Hillary.
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Fred Smith worked as a testing expert for the NYC Board of Education for many years. He currently advises opponents of high-stakes testing and friends of opt out. He is on our side.
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Why is he characterizing Mayor de Blasio’s effort on public education as “already cloudy”? Say what? As a public school parent, I think the Mayor is doing a very good job. I don’t expect everything I want to happen in 4 years. But I do expect policies to be in place that are working toward the things I believe in.
I am happy he is directing lots of extra money to renewal schools regardless of their scores, even if there is less for the schools that teach more affluent students. I am happy he is actually try to find policies to increase integration in public schools. (I realize it isn’t perfect but he is actually DOING things that are leading to a lot of more integrated schools and not just pretending that a wholesale upending of the system will bring about a miracle.)
As a parent, I see how much more integrated the public middle schools in District 15 are. I see how building an amazing new PS 191 is the first step to getting more affluent parents to come to a school that had previously been limited to the most disadvantaged students. I see genuine attempts to make things better for all students.
To hear Fed Smith use terms like “already cloudy” (as if the Mayor had done NOTHING) and make the truly reprehensible comment that the fact he is doing what every Mayor in recent history has done with regards to presenting what IS a success in the best possible light “raise questions about his honesty”??
This is exactly what happened to Hillary Clinton. I don’t care if Fred Smith supports opt out or not. This is a terrible piece of writing that could have been written by any of the pro-charter trolls who love attacking the Mayor’s honesty and implying he is just as corrupt as Hillary Clinton is!
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I think some of the mayor’s supporters are disappointed that he has capitulated to Eva after she beat him up in the Leg
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I have not seen “capitulation” at all! This is exactly why the progressive movement will lose. They will work to defeat de Blasio for “capitulating” so that we can have another Mayor who gives her the run of the DOE.
The FACT is that the state makes the laws and he is legally obligated to provide space for free. However, do you see him running to hand over whatever space she wants? Do you see Moskowitz attacking him because he has not “capitulated”?
This truly saddens me. It’s like the same people who decided Hillary Clinton was completely in the pockets of the Wall Street billionaires. I have said since the 2016 Presidential election that I believed that Mayor de Blasio was in sincere danger of being defeated by the same two groups of people who defeated Hillary — 1. the right wing billionaires who funded personal attacks in the media against her and made every action into “corruption” and “selling out” and “dishonesty” and turned her into a caricature of a corrupt and greedy politician. and 2. The so-called “progressives” who helped them do their dirty work.
I didn’t like that Bernie Sanders campaigned actively for the DFER’s favorite candidate to take over one of the few states – Virginia – that wasn’t already extremely pro-charter. I NEVER said that Bernie had “capitulated” nor that his “already cloudy efforts” that destroyed public schools made me doubt Bernie Sanders’ “honesty”.
But that is what happened to Hillary Clinton and that is what is happening to Mayor de Blasio. This is a hit job through and through. It could have been about the fact that the Mayor cherry-picked the most favorable statistics from the state test scores — which is pretty much expected by every single politician.
Instead, it specifically questioned his honesty and claimed that he was guilty of many “already cloudy” deeds although as is usual in these hit jobs we don’t know exactly what those corrupt deeds were and how they helped destroy public education.
It’s as if there was no universal pre-k! It’s if there was no attempt to HELP renewal schools instead of simply doing what Bloomberg did and send the worst kids elsewhere (or just let them drop out) and announce success!
This was written by someone who hates the Mayor. I don’t know why Fred Smith hates de Blasio, but if it is because of his education policies, then he is just plain wrong. And someone should tell him that.
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De Blasio will be re-elected. Don’t worry.
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Do you know how many times I heard people say that about Hillary Clinton? I cannot even begin to count.
As I said, there are actions Bernie took that were anti-public education. I did not say Bernie was dishonest. I did not say he had capitulated to the right wing education reformers who want to privatize public schools. I did not say that Bernie’s “already clouded” efforts to destroy public education makes his endorsement of the DFER candidate prove how dishonest he is.
Look at how Fred Smith CHARACTERIZED the simple matter of cherry picking some of the most favorable facts out of the state test scores that WERE an improvement, even if a small one!
The Mayor is “dishonest” and his actions were “already cloudy”. Fred Smith as an agenda and he cannot see beyond his agenda.
If he could, he would understand the directing resources toward universal pre-k and renewal schools are NOT “cloudy”. Instead of pretending they did not happen.
Talk to him and I am certain you will find out he hates Mayor de Blasio as much as certain elements of the left hated Hillary Clinton. He will probably say he will grudgingly vote for the ‘corrupt, sell-out, tool of Wall Street’ de Blasio over the right wing’s candidate. And in making that claim he will help to defeat him. Because “even the Democrats” know what a corrupt sell-out de Blasio is — just like Hillary”.
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^^PS — I don’t mind criticisms of candidates. I criticized Bernie Sanders for endorsing the DFER candidate.
What I did NOT do is characterize it as corrupt and dishonest and a sign of what a sell out Bernie is. And Mayor de Blasio’s cherry picking some favorable facts out of the state test scores is one million times less damaging to public education than Bernie’s endorsement of a DFER candidate to take over one of the few state’s left that isn’t anti-public schools.
So even though I didn’t like Bernie’s endorsement, I never made the nasty implication that he did it because he was dishonest and corrupt.
Fred Smith did. For something far less. For nothing! There is a nasty agenda going on here and it’s important to call it out. It is exactly what happened to Hillary. Not criticism. But attacks on their honesty and implications that they are corrupt and will sell out progressive ideas in a second.
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Bad idea to copy Joel Klein’s data distortions
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It’s also a bad idea to endorse a DFER candidate.
And there is not a single politician alive who cannot be accused of “data distortion” in some way. All you have to do is look up Bernie Sanders and Politifact to see that. You are correct, no politician should do it. It is perfectly reasonable to call it out.
What is NOT reasonable is to say that the politician doing data distortion should have his HONESTY questioned because his “already cloudy” efforts demonstrate how corrupt he is.
“We spend twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation on Earth.” says Bernie. Well, no we don’t. That is called an EXAGGERATION. We spend more but not twice as much more. Just like test scores improved, but if you look at them one way versus another you can say they improved more than they did.
Again, it isn’t pointing out what is exaggerated or cherry-picked in Mayor de Blasio’s claims. I am glad that Fred Smith does that.
It is Fred’s characterization of Mayor de Blasio as dishonest and Fred Smith’s outright lie (in my opinion as a public school parent which he does not seem to be) that de Blasio’s efforts with regard to public schools are “already cloudy”. No they are not. So in my opinion it is Fred Smith who is wrong about that “fact”. I won’t characterize Smith as doing it because he is a corrupt and dishonest person. But that is what he did to Mayor de Blasio.
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^^I am sorry to criticize someone you respect. But Fred Smith said this: “But the percentage gains are statistical smoke that befogs the mayor’s already clouded efforts in education.”
Please ask Fred Smith why he believes the Mayor’s efforts in education are “already clouded”. I think they are a refreshing breath of fresh air after Bloomberg. And I know for a fact that lots of at-risk children are benefitting regardless of what their test scores say. That is because of the Mayor.
What are the exact efforts that Mayor de Blasio has made that allows Fred Smith says are “already clouded” as if he has done nothing but make public education worse since he took office?
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Very touchy . So anyone who points out an inconsistency is a shill . And of course you can not resist the chance to attack Sanders.
Where did that come from. Was Smith a Sanders supporter .
This sounds like the vast left wing conspiracy is out to get Bill . I didn’t notice ,did Bernie endorse one of the Republicans in the race.
At some point your Hillary victimization syndrome morphs into
Trumpisim. They feel victimized as well.
Like Diane said Big Bird gets a second term and that is fine by me.
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Joel Herman, how can I make this easy to follow?
Does this help?
Acceptable criticism: point out that Mayor de Blasio cherry picked facts and explain clearly how his comments (or really, a press release put out by his office!) used a specific start time to show the largest possible improvement. Point out Bernie Sanders cherry picked facts and explain clearly how his comments used wrong numbers to exaggerate US health care expenditures relative to other countries.
UNacceptable criticism: Say that this is a sign of the candidate’s ongoing problem with being truthful and honest and insist that it is more proof of the “clouded efforts” that are typical of all of this politician’s actions.
Is that really that hard for you to understand?
To answer your question about Bernie — I don’t know. Is there a DFER-approved candidate running yet who Bernie wants to help win?
Now how about you answer mine?
Please name some Mayor de Blasio’s “already clouded efforts in education so I can judge how much they ” raise questions about the incumbent’s honesty” as Fred Smith tells me is so.
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^^And Joel, while you seem to believe it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever criticize a politician or point out an inconsistency without making unwarranted character attacks on them, let me reassure you it is true.
Just read the criticism of President Obama to get an idea of how it’s done.
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^^oops, sorry. I mean read the criticism of President Obama from the LEFT. I’m sure there are plenty of right wing blogs with all sorts of criticism of Obama that attacks his morals and ethics and mentions what a corrupt and untruthful liar he is. Just like you approve.
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NYC public school parent
From the left I could do I 95 theses as to what was wrong with President Obama and it started as early as his transition team in 08.
You would like to believe that somehow there is this impervious Republican propaganda machine running around the country making voters believe that Hillary and the Democrats were running a child sex ring out of a pizza store and that is why the election was lost. Now I’m sure that there are some voters who absolutely believe that . In fact maybe even 35% of voters,including one on this blog. But that is not why the election was lost. It was lost on peoples kitchen tables in stacks of bills that have been harder and harder to pay down. As average family incomes adjusted for inflation are 15% lower than they were in 1984.(Don’t ask me why Reich used that data point.) . Now we can blame this on 36 years of trickle down neo liberal right wing policy except when we look at the record much of that
policy has 2 names on it and those names are not Bush and Reagan.
But lets stick to your only issue .
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/04/presidential-proclamation-national-charter-schools-week-2015
Public education has been under attack for several reasons from the the desire to get tax dollars for racially segregated schools to the desire to break the Nations largest unions. But Americas teachers have stood out for decades as the biggest supporters of Democrats .
What a thank you . Multiply that one at least 94 more points and you have the frustration on the left.
The whining left did not cause this defeat. Obama and two Clinton’s did . The whining left will live with their failures, FOR DECADES AND DECADES AND DECADES.
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Joel,
Did you read what I wrote? I don’t think so.
I said, there are two ways to criticize. One is the legitimate criticism that you just made of Obama. The other is to tell us that you DOUBT OBAMA’S HONESTY. Do you? Is Obama a liar? Is he “crooked”?
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, Joel, so tell me if I have this right: “Joel Herman says Obama is a crooked liar who sold out American to rich Wall Street friends because he is ruled by greed.”
It isn’t the ridiculous claims that a politician is “running a sex ring” that damage them.
It is that you — a Democrat yourself, so I know your criticism is trustworthy — just wrote that I should doubt Obama’s veracity because he is dishonest and crooked in a way that no other politician has ever been. You wrote that Obama will sell out America as long as the price is right because he is greedy.
Oh yes, you DIDN’T write that. Why did you forget to attack Obama’s character? You believe President Obama is a corrupt and crooked liar but in all your criticism in the above paragraph you forgot to include that. Why? It’s true, right?
After all, your strong belief that Obama is a greedy and corrupt liar who has done nothing but make efforts to destroy America and the good working class people who live here for his own gain is no different than Fred Smith’s strong belief that Mayor de Blasio is also a greedy and corrupt liar who has done nothing but make efforts to destroy New York City public education and the children.
Do you get it now? There is a difference between disagreement and character attacks. And you wrote a long CRITICISM of President Obama with out once attacking his character. Why, I’d almost believe that you give his character a pass but since I know how much you believe Obama is corrupt and a liar who would sell-out America for money and his Wall Street friends I’m sure I’m wrong. You want us to understand how dishonest and corrupt President Obama is and just forgot to mention it in the screed you wrote.
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“Leave aside for the moment that test scores are a ridiculous way to measure the quality of education.”
Hmmmm. . . . .
There is no “measuring of the quality of education” by anyone anywhere ever. There may be assessing, evaluating, judging, etc. . . all quite subjective by nature but no measuring, by any stretch of the imagination or bastardization of the meaning of “to measure”.
Whatever is measured counts
Whatever counts is measured
And counting whatever measures
Is measuring whatever counts
SomeDam Poet.
The most misleading concept/term in education is “measuring student achievement” or “measuring student learning”. The concept has been misleading educators into deluding themselves that the teaching and learning process can be analyzed/assessed using “scientific” methods which are actually pseudo-scientific at best and at worst a complete bastardization of rationo-logical thinking and language usage.
There never has been and never will be any “measuring” of the teaching and learning process and what each individual student learns in their schooling. There is and always has been assessing, evaluating, judging of what students learn but never a true “measuring” of it.
But, but, but, you’re trying to tell me that the supposedly august and venerable APA, AERA and/or the NCME have been wrong for more than the last 50 years, disseminating falsehoods and chimeras??
Who are you to question the authorities in testing???
Yes, they have been wrong and I (and many others, Wilson, Hoffman etc. . . ) question those authorities and challenge them (or any of you other advocates of the malpractices that are standards and testing) to answer to the following onto-epistemological analysis:
The TESTS MEASURE NOTHING, quite literally when you realize what is actually happening with them. Richard Phelps, a staunch standardized test proponent (he has written at least two books defending the standardized testing malpractices) in the introduction to “Correcting Fallacies About Educational and Psychological Testing” unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag with this statement:
“Physical tests, such as those conducted by engineers, can be standardized, of course [why of course of course], but in this volume , we focus on the measurement of latent (i.e., nonobservable) mental, and not physical, traits.” [my addition]
Notice how he is trying to assert by proximity that educational standardized testing and the testing done by engineers are basically the same, in other words a “truly scientific endeavor”. The same by proximity is not a good rhetorical/debating technique.
Since there is no agreement on a standard unit of learning, there is no exemplar of that standard unit and there is no measuring device calibrated against said non-existent standard unit, how is it possible to “measure the nonobservable”?
THE TESTS MEASURE NOTHING for how is it possible to “measure” the nonobservable with a non-existing measuring device that is not calibrated against a non-existing standard unit of learning?????
PURE LOGICAL INSANITY!
The basic fallacy of this is the confusing and conflating metrological (metrology is the scientific study of measurement) measuring and measuring that connotes assessing, evaluating and judging. The two meanings are not the same and confusing and conflating them is a very easy way to make it appear that standards and standardized testing are “scientific endeavors”-objective and not subjective like assessing, evaluating and judging.
That supposedly objective results are used to justify discrimination against many students for their life circumstances and inherent intellectual traits.
C’mon test supporters, have at the analysis, poke holes in it, tell me where I’m wrong!
I’m expecting that I’ll still be hearing the crickets and cicadas of tinnitus instead of reading any rebuttal or refutation.
Because there is no rebuttal/refutation!
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Sad that test scores are now a political talking point. Just proves how meaningless they are.
Not just political talking points and meaningless. Computer scientist and mathematician Cathy O’Neil says test scores are being used as “weapons of math destruction.”
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Suffice it to quote John Dewey “Our mechanical, industrialized civilization is concerned with averages, with percent’s. The mental habit which reflects this social scene subordinates education and social arrangements based on averaged gross inferiorities and superiorities.”- John Dewey, 1922
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Nearly half of my son’s class got 4’s on both the English and Math. I can’t remember exactly what the numbers were last year, but they were nowhere near as high.
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You can’t really compare one year to another without a lot more data.
For example: I have read criticisms that attack a middle school because the % of students passing the 8th grade state math exam is far lower than the % of students who passed the 7th grade state math exam the previous year. But then you look closely and you realize that a large number of students are missing in 8th grade and it turns out they are the students who are doing the best in math and therefore are taking Algebra 1 Regents instead of the 8th grade math state test. So of course the number of students who pass would be far lower in 8th grade since the best students are missing.
For example: I have seen schools that serve a more affluent crowd where it might seem like the 5th grade test performance is better than the 4th grade test. But most students take the 4th grade tests and then there is a drop off in 5th grade when parents want to support “opt out” on principle. Except for the ones who have high achieving students who believe their 5th graders might have a chance for Hunter College High School and want them to qualify to sit for the exam. Since you need 5th grade test scores to qualify, the parents of the highest performing students might take the exam while the parents who have no interest in Hunter for their kids would opt out.
For example: In 3rd grade there may be low pressure to do well. In 4th grade some parents might hire tutors to do especially well.
It could also be that the state test was easier or the schools are doing a better job preparing students for it or that having more time benefits kids. But it is useful to have a lot more data about who is and who is not taking state tests.
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I was making a 4th grade year-over-year comparison. But yes, more data always makes for better comparisons.
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I find you do that a lot and I don’t get it. You offer up an out of context “fact” as if a reader should know what to do with that.
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It’s anecdotal. Take it for what it’s worth. And how absolutely unshocking that an exchange with you becomes confrontational almost immediately.
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You have a unique definition of “confrontational”. You posted a fact so I assume you felt it was worthy of comment. I very politely explained my reasons for believing that a single fact that you offered would need more data.
I hope you didn’t find my first reply “confrontational”. So I assume it was my second reply where I said I don’t get why you often post single out of context facts. I still don’t. I’m sorry you find that confrontational.
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I think I’m using a pretty standard definition of confrontational. You are confronting me about what you characterize as my habit of posting “single out of context facts.” But I guess we can have an argument about the definition of confrontational if you like.
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Got it.
I’ll try harder to keep my musings to myself about what motivates you. While I doubt you will believe me, I did not intend that post to be “confrontational” although I see how it could come off that way. So I apologize for the tone.
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Not sure which of our intrepid common taters here adjusted my thought of mental masturbation into Mental Mathturbation.
And that’s what all the discussion of standardized test scores are:
Total and True Mental Masturbation of Mental Mathturbation.
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As Woody Allen said, what, now you’re knocking my habits?
Parents at schools like the one my son goes to pay close attention to 4th grade test scores because they have a big impact on where their kids go to middle school. So parents pay attention not only to their own kids’ scores, but also those of their peers.
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Because those parents pay attention has no bearing on whether the whole process is mental masturbation/mathburbation, as it most certainly is.
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True.
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sorry, knocking my hobbies.
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Ha. Duane, I respect your longstanding efforts to rid education of all standardized tests. I agree with most of your points about them although not all of them. But you always make excellent arguments for your POV.
My biggest concern is keeping public education public. That’s why I post here. It is depressing and disheartening to see the faux reformers — really the privatizers — gaining traction.
For years I have been bothered by how reformers distort the performance of students in charter schools on standardized tests and compare them to failing public schools as a means to justify the expansion of charters. In my opinion those distortions were one of the most successful PR campaigns and it allowed charters to gain much more public support over the years from the parents who cared most about their kids’ education! While you don’t believe in test scores, many parents see a charter school with 99% passing rates and a public school with 10% passing rates and suddenly support charters. And those are often the most involved parents! With their growing support, charters have been able to grab more and more resources and more of the most motivated families, making the choice to remain at a public school even more difficult for parents if they have a well-funded charter alternative and their public school is struggling to teach a higher proportion of at-risk kids with even fewer resources.
One way to address this is your POV. The standardized tests are meaningless so why even mention the score. However, many parents — especially those in urban areas — disagreed. They wanted “good” schools and here were charters with high passing rates working miracles for less money. That’s what the reformers were saying and it gave politicians a lot of cover for directing disproportionate resources to charters. And it was easy for them to get parents to believe that saying standardized tests are meaningless was just a handy excuse for teachers who were too lazy or inept to teach students the basics they needed to know.
Because I felt that your argument would not really resonate with the public, I wasted way too much time to show how charters cook the books with the standardized test data. Even though very few people bother to look at it, there is data that certainly indicates cooking of books that should be offered when standardized tests are released. That charter scores are high because they start with a far more advantaged student body, low-performing students are pushed out, grade size shrinks, the % of economically disadvantaged students is mysteriously much smaller in 3rd grade than in Kindergarten, etc. Instead of trying to address the reformers’ dishonesty by saying “test scores are meaningless”, I wanted to address it with data that demonstrated how the books were cooked. I thought that would have more power than just saying the tests were meaningless. Because I believed it was easier for pro-reform politicians to convince the public that those who said “test scores are meaningless” just didn’t want their short-comings as a teacher revealed.
Maybe I’m wrong about that. It has been heartening to see the opt out movement grow — especially among the more educated and affluent parents. Fortunately, the pro-reform movement got greedy and thought if they convinced them their strong suburban schools were actually failure factories just like urban schools and their kids were “low-performing”, they’d have a lot of support for charters. Instead, those parents realized it was the tests that were flawed — just like you believe, Duane! Good for them! Opt out is definitely strongest in the suburbs.
So maybe you were right all along. But I’m still going to point out that the testing data that is out there — especially for urban public schools — is very flawed and cooked. It’s not just massive test prep in charters — it is massive attrition rates that are carefully hidden. And regardless of the value of tests, I think that is important information to get out.
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NYCpsp
Thanks for the kind words and words of encouragement for my “Quixotic Quest”.
I understand what you are saying about how and what people believe. No doubt that most believe “the numbers”. My point, as you know is that all the numbers are bogus, no matter what. But that does not prevent the juking of said numbers, as per charters and even district schools, even state departments of ed to make things look all hunky dory when they are not.
The two thoughts though, showing the juking of those numbers and/or showing that the numbers are bogus are not mutually exclusive and both need to be made. The first to show the, what I believe to be inherent, frauds of private charter school ripoffs of taxpayer funds that should be going to public schools. The second to show just how insanely and wrongly focused we are in this standards and testing regime.
Indeed the tests (and the accompanying “pedagogy” (sic) that focuses on them) are fatally flawed. Wilson definitively proved that in 1997. There has been no rebuttal or refutation that I have seen and I’ve been searching for almost 20 years. None.
As it is, if you would like a copy of my book which goes into all of this in relation to the purpose of public education please email me at duaneswacker@gmail.com and we can work something out as far as payment and getting you a copy. Or you can order it on Amazon. I fill all the orders myself so I know who gets them.
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“Now, can you imagine the mayor doing this if there had been an increase in the murder rate. Let’s say homicides were up from 6 to 7 killings per 100,000 New Yorkers. Would de Blasio say that murders rose by one percent or by 16.7 percent? You know he would minimize the negative outcome.”
He’d say 0,00000166% (since he’d divide 1/100,000 by 6). He’d then say “This, of course, is statistically insignificant, and, in fact, if we consider local population fluctuations due to the increase of illegal immigration and single motherhood, this is 16.7% decrease in murder rate.”
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The percentage gains trick is a common way to exaggerate gains.
For example, Angela Duckworth used it to grossly exaggerate the importance of “grit”.
https://www.academia.edu/25397556/Much_Ado_about_Grit_A_Meta-Analytic_Synthesis_of_the_Grit_Literature
I for one am glad that people like Fred Smith and Cathy O’Neil (Weapons of Math Destruction) are calling politicians and “researchers” on their mathfuscation. They have got away with it for too long.
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I have had the advantage of reading the string of comments that followed my fact-based points on the way Mayor de Blasio packaged the 2017 test results.
New York City Public School Parent took strong exception to my observations, which painted the Mayor in a bad light. I would say that P (I don’t know the poster’s gender) was vehement in objecting to my judgments about his skewed presentation of the test scores. Some might describe P’s words as a diatribe directed at me.
First, thank you Diane for clarifying where I’m coming from. Also, I appreciate the entries by Joel Herman, Mate Wierdl and SomeDam.
I do not propose to address each of P’s flowing denunciations—which are centered mainly on my contention that de Blasio’s manipulation of the test results in an election year adds to a cloudy record of accomplishment in education.
So here are a few rejoinders. My personal report card for this administration: An A for Lip Service; a C for effort; and an F for lack of transparency. The last is particularly egregious.
P must surely know that serious questions have been raised about the efficacy of his Renewal Schools program; the truthfulness of Tweed’s stats on high school graduation rates and incidents of school crimes; laxity in the oversight and award of multi-million dollar contracts; the charade of holding public hearings on matters, such as school closings and co-locations, which are window dressing that allow pre-determined decisions to be rubber-stamped in disregard of community opposition. I invite NYC Public School Parent to read Leonie Haimson’s essential NYC Public School Parents blog to learn of other clouds—well-researched by the City’s top educational watchdog.
P’s passion reveals two other tendencies that puzzle me: There is a confusion between inferences P draws from my account that P takes as implications and wrongfully attributes to me—thereby impugning my motives. Second, I don’t get the need to defend the misuse of data in NYC by globalizing the issue and bringing Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders into the picture. Bernie seems to have failed a test of ideological purity that has deeply affronted P.
But I take strongest exception to P’s overriding justification of de Blasio’s behavior, which comes down to “All politicians do it.” “It” covers a wide range: accepting financial backing (aka pay for play money) from special interests and lobbyists in return for enriching favors—a stench that attaches to Mayor Bill; ignoring the needs of constituents; and saying one thing and doing another. Where are the ethics and morality? P’s defense amounts to saying we should accept low expectations from our electoral process and politicians who will do whatever it takes to win office.
I close with this. If distorting data is the norm and withholding information is the standard, then Mayor de Blasio has reached a high level of proficiency on an insidious scale.
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