New York State released the latest graduation rate data. The grad rate went up by half a percentage point, from 79.7% to 80.2%.
It is good to see more students finishing high school, and their teachers and principals and the students themselves deserve congratulations.
But.
Given the spread of online “credit recovery,” which allows students to make up for a failed course by taking an online course for a few days or a couple of weeks, is the grad rate real or is it margarine?
The recent graduation rate scandal in D.C. should raise red flags everywhere.
Future releases should report on the use of credit recovery courses. The NCAA became so concerned about credit recovery that it disqualified high schools that were allowing students to graduate with fake degrees, in some cases received after answering simple true-false questions. In some cases, with multiple chances to take the multiple-choice exam.
Campbell’s Law is immutable.
“Campbell’s Law is immutable.” Alas–what’s the answer? Stop measuring –or keep measuring but eliminate any consequences for falling short (accountability)? That’s the kind of the way it is anyway. For the most part, states don’t deny a diploma to someone who shows up in high school — even if they don’t pass.
What is it you think you’re “measuring”? What is your standard unit of measurement? Where can I find a certified example of said unit? Does the Bureau of Weights and Measures keep such a thing?
Peter, do you know what Campbell’s Law is? Have you read Daniel Koretz’s “The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better?” I assume the answers are “no” and “no.” I suggest you do so.
You once told me, and I have never forgotten it, “we measure what we treasure.” As I recall, I said that the things I treasured could not be measured. My family, my friends, my pets, for example. You play the guitar. I assume you treasure that. How often do you measure your performance? Or your joy in your performance?
Peter,
If you would like a bit longer of an explanation on the problems of education “standards” and “measurement” please email me at duaneswacker@gmail.com and I’ll send you a copy of my book “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractice in American Public Education.”
In it I discuss the purpose of American public education and of government in general, issues of truth in discourse, justice and ethics in teaching practices, the abuse and misuse of the terms standards and measurement which serve to provide an unwarranted pseudo-scientific validity/sheen to the standards and testing regime, Wilson’s 13 onto-epistemological errors in said regime and how the inherent discrimination in that regime should be adjudicated to be unconstitutional state discrimination no different than discrimination via race, gender, disability, etc. . . .
In the meantime, I’d appreciate your thoughts on the following analysis:
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, including you Peter, 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 my tinnitus instead of reading any rebuttal or refutation.
Because there is no rebuttal/refutation!
All the WRONG things are being measured for measurements sake, Peter. Keep measuring squash. Our young are not squash.
That’s just it, Yvonne. NOTHING is being measured. “All the WRONG things” are being assessed, evaluated, judged, and, even more accurately, guesstimated but they are certainly NOT BEING MEASURED.
Nary a peep, eh Peter.
One might consider that .5% is well within the margin of error of accuracy of the reporting.
Señor Swacker:
Once again, “ya has dado en el blanco” [you have hit the target].
Folks like Peter Cunningham can argue with you and me and others about whether high-stakes standardized tests measure anything at all. Okey dokey… But the level of incomprehension about what a 0.5% increase in something like graduation rates might signify is simply breathtaking.
Perhaps a little English-to-English translation might help those that have drunk deeply of Rheephorm Kool-aid. As I learned—after years of reading to diminish, however slightly, my innumeracy—“margin of error” is a way for statisticians to express uncertainty. One example that might penetrate (hope springs eternal!) is that the same student, taking the same kinds of high-stakes standardized tests over a period of let’s say six months, will score WITHIN A RANGE, so that any particular score/number generated is not only NOT definitive, it HAS TO BE seen in conjunction with the other scores. And I’m not even bringing up the issue of whether or not the “test” is generating numbers that have any relevance to so-called ‘intelligence’ or ‘performance’ or ‘ability.’
Similarly, when some figure like that for graduation rates goes up or down or drives all around town just a teensy-weensy bit—there are an incredible number of reasons why that could be true. Take just this one: there’s still numbers out there that, later on, will be plugged into the current total and drive it up or down, by a little or a lot. And take another one, closely related: just change [as those enamored of corporate education reform are wont to do] your definitions of what “graduation” means or what numbers fit/don’t fit into the total, or what weight is to be given this, that, or the other element that contributes to the graduation total.
Doesn’t make sense? Ah, but that icon of rheephorm, Mr. John Deasy His Own Bad Self, did that last one near the end of his reign of error in LA by making the graduation number go up—he just changed the definition of it so that it appeared that many more students were graduating when nothing of the sort had happened. And, surprise surprise, his contract had incentive clauses [or so it was reported in the LATIMES] that gave him $tudent $ucce$$ based on whether just such a number [and others like it] went up under his peerless leadership.
But then, what can you expect from him and all those other rheephormistas living by their Marxist maxims—
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
¿🙁? You’re kidding me…
Groucho, of course… Not that obscure German guy people keep referring to…
Sheesh!
Anyway/de todos modos, thanks for your comments/gracias por tu comentario.
😎
Your welcome, eh, de nada. Thanks for taking the time to explain further what my simple statement means to those who may not have a clue about such things, e.g., P. Cunningham.
Right Duane and KrazyTA
Small changes over the short term don’t mean much (if anything) because of a certain amount of essentially random variation (caused by a multitude of factors unrelated to the factor(s) of interest — in this case, state education policies)
Real change (if it exists) will accumulate over time and eventually rise above (or fall below) the “noise” (which averages out to zero over the longer term)
So, you have to look at the long term trend.
Two data points determine a line, but they don’t determine a trend.
Lots of people don’t understand this.
YEP! And thanks to you also, SDP for adding a bit more of factual information that, as you state “Lots of people don’t understand this.”
SomeDAM Poet: so very much said in so very few words—
“Two data points determine a line, but they don’t determine a trend.”
🙂
But perhaps an English-to-English translation is required for your concluding words as well: “Lots of people don’t understand this.”
Agreed. But to be more specific: speaking (somewhat sheepishly) for those that suffer in varying degrees from innumeracy, yes, we make up the bulk of that vast majority.
But, if I may say so, we would like to know better. Unfortunately, we are the targets of the mathematical intimidation of that teeny tiny group leading “the new civil rights movement of our time” that understands even less than we do but misuses/abuses the numbers/figures/percentages in order to clear their way to that pot of gold at the end of $tudent $ucce$$ rainbow. But, but, but, one of their spokespeople might say, if they don’t understand the “hard data” then how could they be manipulating it?
Just as easily as John Deasy with his graduation rates. They just hire a few folks that know how to twist and distort the math that they don’t understand—I mean, what’s the point of actually knowing something other than the bottom line?—so that they get the results they need in order to “creatively disrupt” the flow of monies into their pockets and bank accounts. Equally important: don’t forget the swelling of egos.
Oh sure…. I’m just soooooo partisan and unfair when I point out how, when necessary, they make up the numerical successes that underlie their “truthful hyperbole.”
Well, here’s a poser: it is an open secret that the folks providing/manufacturing high-stakes standardized tests give the customer what he/she asks & pays for. For example, what kind of pass/fail rate do you want? In other words, asking the most stubbornly innumerate how much they’re willing to pay for the numbers they so desperately crave.
Now I hear orange-tinted outrage as defenders of corporate education reform leap to their feet and boo and hiss. Don’t I know the difference between “literal” and “symbolic”? To which I might reply: don’t y’all understand the difference between real teaching and learning and Rheeal teaching and learning? Or to put it in terms they understand: y’all know very well the difference between real Benjamins and counterfeit ones.
Thank you both for your comments.
😎
And definitely thanks to you KTA.
“Alas–what’s the answer? Stop measuring –or keep measuring but eliminate any consequences for falling short (accountability)?” The answer is to eliminate “consequences” so professionals can educate without government forcing us to dilute the quality of instruction in order to meet fantasy-based quotas. Alas, that’s what so-called accountability does. That’s what happened in D.C. (and elsewhere). Alas.
“For the most part, states don’t deny a diploma to someone who shows up in high school — even if they don’t pass.” States don’t award diplomas. Schools do. Local community, democratically run schools award diplomas. No one should have the ability to take away the accountability brought by local elections.
Peter Cunningham says:
“Alas–what’s the answer? Stop measuring –or keep measuring but eliminate any consequences for falling short (accountability)?”
I doubt Peter Cunningham will reply to this, but it is clear to me that Peter Cunningham defines “accountability” in a very odd way.
For example, if NY State high schools simply rid themselves of the low performers as the charters with the highest test scores and graduation rates do, apparently that would pass muster with Peter Cunningham.
It is hard for me to fathom what goes through Peter Cunningham’s mind when he twists himself into knots inventing reasons why so many MORE at-risk families would leave the charter school network that is the tops in the state than leave those “mediocre” charters where large numbers of students are failing.
“Ms. Moskowitz asks a lot of participation from parents, as a condition of admitting their children. She told one group, “If you know you cannot commit to all that we ask of you this year, this is not the place for you.” (NY Times, “The Education Crusader” slide show 11/3/2008)
Peter, I challenge youj to answer this question: would you think more highly of public high schools if they simply said to the students “if you cannot commit to all that we ask of you, this is not the place for you”, ejected all the students who won’t graduate, and then celebrated their 100% graduation rates?
Because THAT seems to be what you keep advocating. Just tell the students if they cannot commit to all that is asked, this isn’t the school for them and have them leave. 100% graduation rates guaranteed with whomever is left. Even if it is only 17 students.
Peter Cunningham, why is THAT “accountability” to you? To me is just seems like lying.
Someday we really are going to have to grapple with what a high school graduation means. What does/should it take to get one? Should there be different “levels” or ‘kinds” of diplomas? What does a diploma qualify one to do? What is a school saying about a student who receives one? What do we do with students who can’t or won’t do what it takes to earn one? Is it better to just pass students so they can get a diploma and be able to work, or does that devalue the diploma for everyone else who legitimately worked to earn one?
I don’t think these are easy questions nor do I profess to have any answers. But until we (“we” being a very generic “we”, not really most of the people who comment here – I mean more like politicians, rephormers and other propagandists) stop using things like graduation rates as weapons, we can’t even begin to wrestle with the questions.
Arg, got my thoughts tangled. Make that, “what a high school diploma means…”
I agree completely. Graduation rate has trumped all other cards for a decade in Tennessee. It is the one thing we can measure. We can count how many people are awarded diplomas. Due to the definition of what a graduation rate means, and due to the manipulation of who is considered a part of the “cohort”, the obfuscation of what that rate is becomes a part of the game. A child killed in an auto accident counts against you. Principals loose hair over all this.
Meanwhile, no one knows what it means. We used to wash out kids like it was basic training and call it being tough. Was that any better? I am not sure, but you are correct. Until ewe remove the high stakes associated with graduation rate, any conversation about the meaning of the diploma will be purely academic.
Question – and I mean this absolutely sincerely – if you were a district administrator and you wanted to roll out a new curriculum, learning method, etc., and you need other administrators to pay for it, how do you convince them it’s worth paying for if you plan to give them nothing that says concretely “it worked”.
I think most of us know test scores are soft data or at least limited in usefulness, but, what can such an administrator do to make decisions if the large data that says what’s going on can be trusted to so little and we don’t have something better other than snapshot observations to really know what’s happening and what needs to be done to help students?
It is likely I’d say that the NY data is probably being more impacted by political decisions that lower barriers more than that the children themselves are demonstrably improving at such a system wide clip.
My initial question still stands – I’d love an answer!
Thank you.
If you want to roll out a new curriculum, stop. If you just want to share a lesson idea, but not roll out or roll over anything or anyone, go. Share your idea. If you need to convince administrators to buy a product you’re selling, stop. If you think anything in education is a magic bullet and says concretely ‘it worked’, stop. If you think statistics are more valid than human judgement, stop. If you think your judgement is better than democracy, stop. If you think public education is vital to democratic society and must be preserved from attackers who seek to portray it as broken and in need of repair, go!
Like!
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rawhide
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Though them schools are swollen
Keep them students rollin’, rawhide
Move ’em on, test ’em up
Test ’em up, move ’em on
Move ’em on, test ’em up
Rawhide
Cut ’em out, ride ’em in
Ride ’em in, cut ’em out
Cut ’em out, ride ’em in
Rawhide
Keep movin’, movin’, movin’
Though they’re disapprovin’
Keep them teachers movin’, rawhide
Don’t try to understand ’em
Just give em a test an’ VAM em
Soon we’ll be livin’ high an’ wide
Move ’em on, test ’em up
Test ’em up, move ’em on
Move ’em on, test em up
Rawhide
Cut ’em out, ride ’em in
Ride ’em in, cut ’em out
Cut ’em out, ride ’em in
Rawhide
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rawhide, rawhide
Whichish! Whichish
Whichish! Rawhide! My hide is raw. Tired of getting branded.
Ever feel like this?
People throwing things at me while I perform? You bet I have. I just wish it was the kids throwing spitballs and paper airplanes instead of Coleman and Gates throwing live grenades.
I have a long-time friend, known her since high school, that is a SpEd teacher. She works with the hardest of the hard, emotionally disabled/learning disabled students-8th graders, many of whom are about an inch away from being thrown into prison.
She recently quipped “You haven’t lived until you’ve had a student desk thrown over your head!”
Duane: “She recently quipped “You haven’t lived until you’ve had a student desk thrown over your head!”
…….
One of the worst districts I ever worked in (one year was more than enough) had a fifth grade student hit the head of another student with a chair. This school was managed by a principal who hoodwinked the superintendent into thinking she was the golden one who could do no wrong. If you sent someone to the office you were reprimanded and the student would receive candy.
The music teacher the year before me had sued the principal over her evaluation and won the suit. She got a full year’s salary.
The teachers had, before I came, signed a petition telling all that was wrong with the school. It was ignored because the principal knew how to manipulate the superintendent.
The principal finished her doctorate in education and applied to a wealthy school in the northern suburbs of Chicago. This distract sent out a team to visit our school. Every teacher contacted gave the principal a glowing evaluation. Everyone wanted to get rid of her. She got the job, finished out the year. I heard that a really good principal took her place. By then I was gone.
One more great story from the pit.
It’s amazing how many trip up the education ladder to higher positions, the old Peter Principle being confirmed over and over.
Sounds like typical adminimal behavior on her part, eh! I certainly wouldn’t have given her a “glowing evaluation.” But that’s one of the reasons why all the adminimals with whom I interviewed to become an adminimal wouldn’t hire me-I told things the way I saw them!
And I am glad you asked because you touch upon the problem this whole mess boils down to, that an army of self appointed messiahs, especially tech companies, are attempting to use data to “scale up”. There is no curriculum that works. There is no textbook, online script, or course that works. There is no product that works. There are only teachers who need to be hired and supported to use their own professional judgment from day to day, moment to moment. That’s the crux.
“I think most of us know test scores are soft data or at least limited in usefulness. . . ”
While most may supposedly know that, they are still wrong in their belief. Those test scores are COMPLETELY INVALID and to use them for anything is ludicrous and risible, downright absurd, as proven by Noel Wilson in his 1997 dissertation “Education Standards and the Problem of Error” http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
“Most of us know” that Crap In = Crap Out.
For a brief summary of Wilson’s dissertation and some comments of mine on it:
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To answer your question, and it’s assuming the supe adminimal has the capability, which I doubt for the vast majority of them:
He/she must first have comprehended the rationo-logical underpinnings of the new curriculum, must have explained those to all the members of the school community but especially must have gotten the teachers whom the proposed change will effect to understand and back up the new practice and are willing to back the administrator up in front of the school board. The administrator will have to have spoken with each individual board member explaining in detail those underpinnings and why the proposed change has the potential to improve the teaching and learning process. Yes, the administrator has to become the “head” teacher that he or she is supposed to be in doing the above steps, which are by no means all inclusive/conclusive as this response is just a quick little delving into the matter.
I will be a bit more radical than Duane in my response. Administors should not roll anything out. Top down reform is usually a failure. In history, it has ended with fantastic failure. Stalin takes the place of Alexander III. Napoleon rules instead of Louis XIV.
Administors should try to hire smart people to teach, then ask them what to do. The first level of administration has the obligation of being the political contact with the second level of administration. The second level has the obligation to relate what is needed to taxpayers. If this cannot work, nothing will work.
Roy,
You would LOVEthe book. “Seeing Like a State,” which is a fascinating analysis of the failure of top-down state planning.
Thanks for that recommendation. I found an interesting review.
I cited it in Reign of Error.
Definitely correct Roy.
The supe should be the mouthpiece for the front line workers, the teachers. And no it’s not really that radical. We’ve known about “worker knowledge” for a long time, and only going back a few decades for an example and there were many more prior for the last 150 years, think of the Japanese management brouhaha here in the US, you know, Deming and the likes.
I work in a Manhattan high school, and in my experience, to answer the question the title of this post asks: probably not.
Which is a shame, because if we weren’t fixated on these tests, we could probably actually educate some of our alienated and struggling students. Instead, we set the bar “high” with Regents tests, then contrive ways to raise the bar for kids who aren’t possessed of the skills or ways of understanding that aid them in doing well on tests so they too can graduate.
If the administrators who “run” this system had an ounce of imagination, and actually knew anything about the kids we serve, or tried to understand them, we could really do great work here. Instead, we are serfs to Prentice-Hall, Pearson, and other corporate publishing concerns.
“If the administrators who “run” this system had an ounce of imagination, and actually knew anything about the kids we serve, or tried to understand them, we could really do great work here.”
That’s a 10,000 size, bold and in italics font for that “If”.
Thanks Duane–and of course you’re right…. Working in this system has become pretty depression.
Also, the second use of “raise” in my post was supposed to be “lower.”
How about this whopper that I just read on the NYT!
……
NYTimes.com: Schools That Work
…When you talk to the professors about their findings, you hear a degree of excitement that’s uncommon for academic researchers. “Relative to other things that social scientists and education policy people have tried to boost performance — class sizes, tracking, new buildings — these schools are producing spectacular gains,” said Joshua Angrist, an M.I.T. professor.
Students who go to Boston’s charter schools learn reading and math better and faster than students elsewhere. They are more likely to take A.P. tests and to do well on them. Their SAT scores are higher than for similar students elsewhere — an average of 51 points higher on the math SAT. Many more students attend a four-year college, suggesting that the benefits don’t disappear over time.
When the black and white students finish 8th grade at a Boston charter school, their scores are very similar. By contrast, the black-white gap does not narrow at traditional schools.
The gains are large enough that some of Boston’s charters, despite enrolling mostly lower-income students, have test scores that resemble those of upper-middle-class public schools. The seventh graders at the Brooke Charter schools in East Boston and Roslindale fare as well on a state math test as students at the prestigious Boston Latin school, the country’s oldest public school and a school with an admissions exam.
A frequent criticism of charters is that they skim off the best students, but that’s not the case in Boston. Many groups that struggle academically — boys, African-Americans, Latinos, special-education students like Alanna — are among the biggest beneficiaries. On average, notes Parag Pathak, also of M.I.T., Boston’s charters eliminate between one-third and one-half of the white-black test-score gap in a single year…
His recalls to mind the magnet school I heard about that was producing wonderful results. Principals were visiting this place and wondering how the miracle occurred. Newspapers lauded the methods. Then I met a former student.
She was an impressive person, proud that she had gone to school there. Then she spilled the beans on the miracle.
“You worked hard there,” she told me, “because if you came to school without your homework or did poorly on a test they would send you back to your old school. There were plenty of people lined up to go there behind you.”
Is this the vision we have for school?
Notice how the reporter of this story, David Leonhardt (a huge advocate of no-excuses charters), reveals his own implicit racism in this article:
“A frequent criticism of charters is that they skim off the best students, but that’s not the case in Boston. Many groups that struggle academically — boys, African-Americans, Latinos, special-education students like Alanna — are among the biggest beneficiaries.”
Notice that this sentence implies that “the best” students could never come from the population of “boys, African-Americans, Latinos..” That’s why there can be no skimming, according to David Leonhardt. Because to him, it would be impossible to skim as that to him means “white”. Since the students aren’t white, they haven’t been skimmed. That’s what certain white reporters believe.
Many white reporters like Leonhardt ALWAYS start with the assumption that there are almost no African-American or Latino children in public schools who do well on state tests.
But that’s just not true. In both NYC and Boston public schools, even among the most disadvantaged students, anywhere from 20% to 30% are at grade level or better. There are plenty of students who are “boys, African-Americans, Latinos” who are doing well academically in public schools that have to spend a lot of resources on the students with serious academic challenges, too.
Yes, David Leonhardt, it is possible for a charter teaching students who are African-American and Latino to be “skimming” . Because those charters are teaching only a very small % of the proficient African-American and Latino students in the city. When you assume charter are teaching almost ALL of them, your racist assumptions are showing.
I’m sure that DeVos’s ‘personalized learning’ has nothing to do with teachers being able to do more one on one instruction with students which would translate into fewer students in each class.
She means more technology and testing (personalized learning, competency, mastery) as a route to really get students inspired.
The article starts off with expressing sympathy on how hard it is for her to give away her salary. [Her salary is much less than a million a month for her security. That isn’t mentioned.]
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In Her Words: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Assesses a Year on the Job
In the last 12 months, there isn’t much Ms. DeVos has done that hasn’t been met with a barrage of backlash. But in a wide-ranging interview, she said her agenda had not been derailed.
She plans to push experiential and personalized learning in K-12 and higher education this year.
Ms. DeVos has already begun stumping for initiatives that would give students different pathways to the work force, a mission President Trump has thrown his weight behind in calling for more “vocational schools.”
Ms. DeVos said too many students were being steered toward a traditional college degree.
“I think personalized learning, competency, mastery, that’s a big shift from where education has been,” she said. “But it’s absolutely where most of education has to go.”