The Connecticut State Board of Education hired a new state commissioner who pledged to raise the graduation rate, close the achievement gap, and “Ensure that all students have increased access to opportunities and advantages that they need to succeed in life.”
What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that what every new commissioner promises? Has any new commissioner in any state achieved those goals?
Ann Cronin, veteran educator, explains why these are tired cliiches and what a visionary approach would look like.
First, would be to change the term “graduation rate” to something like the graduating of well-educated high school students. Currently, graduation rates make good headlines but can mean very little in terms of student learning.
“Credit retrieval” is a common practice in public schools with low graduation rates. “Credit retrieval” allows students to make use of often dubious computer programs that, in no way, equal courses in academic subjects, yet the students get credit for the academic courses. In doing so, students increase the graduation rate for their schools but do not have adequate learning experiences.
Charter schools have another way to increase their graduation rates. They “counsel out” students who are likely to not graduate before they get to be seniors which leaves only a pre-selected group as seniors and, unsurprisingly, they all graduate. And lo and behold, the charter school has a high graduation rate. For example, one year at Achievement First’s Amistad Academy in New Haven, 25 students out of 25 in the senior class graduated, but 64 students had been in that class as ninth graders.
A visionary way to increase the number of students who receive a high school education is to not count the number of students who receive high school diplomas but rather count how many of the students who begin a school as ninth graders complete the coursework necessary for graduation. For example, some innovative public high schools hold Saturday classes with actual teachers instead of plugging kids into commuter programs. The applause should be given to high schools who deliver a quality education to all the students who begin their high school education in the school not to the schools who either give credits without the academic content and skills or who dismiss those who won’t make for a good statistic.
Read her essay to see her critique of “closing the achievement gap,” which is impossible when the gap is based on standardized test scores which are designed to have a gap.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Simply untrue that closing [or narrowing] of the achievement gap is impossible based on test scores – class size reduction in the early grades has been shown to narrow the test score gap by about 36%. Smaller classes in the middle and upper grades have been shown to significantly narrow the graduation rate gap.
A “gap” is baked into any standardized test burned in a bell curve. The bell curve is designed not to close but to represent a normal distribution.
Leonie,
Would you please give us the link or links to the study(ies) that proclaim that narrowing by 36% and/or the narrowing of graduation rates?
In my mind there is no doubt as to the benefit of smaller classes and which greatly outweigh the increased costs in staffing (perhaps which eliminating the costs of the testing malpractices would offset).
But why even care about those standardized test score gaps when the whole process of the standards and testing malpractice regime is completely invalid?
Data based on high stakes testing encourage any system to devise ways to reduce the negative consequences of scores. All standardized tests will result in a “gap” as defined by the bell shaped curve. Standardized testing is not a valid way to define “success.” In fact, privatizers have exploited the misuse of the bell shaped curve to cause harm to schools, students and teachers. Standardized test scores have been used to put public schools on the defensive.
The emphasis in education should not be data collection which encourages schools to develop ways to unload the underachieving or difficult to educate. Some schools offer credit retrieval or recovery programs. These “solutions” address the data, but not the requisite learning in order to get a high school diploma. These are accommodations to designed to game the data collection system. The emphasis in education should be real learning, not standardized scores that serve to highlight inequities. This is not only true in Connecticut. It is true everywhere.
EXACTLY: “The emphasis in education should not be data collection which encourages schools to develop ways to unload the underachieving or difficult to educate.” Everything we need to know in this one sentence.
“Standardized test scores have been used to put public schools on the defensive.”
Mark Garrison in “A Measure of Failure” explains the historical background of how standardized tests have been used to “put public schools on the defensive.” All should read and understand what he is saying.
Well stated RT!
“The emphasis in education should not be data collection. . . ”
Exactly! That emphasis causes harms to the very being of students.
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? [data collection] 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, i.e., datat] 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]
It’s quite precarious in CT right now. Hedge funder Dalio is paving the way for charter expansion by controlling taxpayer money with zero public oversight. https://ctmirror.org/2019/07/07/government-less-transparent-than-before/amp/