Archives for category: Students
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Tests Are Loaded with Errors

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2013 //
63

Heather Vogell, a stellar reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has done in-depth investigative reporting on the standardized tests that now are used to determine the fate of students, teachers, principals, and schools.

She has found a surprising number of errors, though not surprising to those familiar with the testing industry.

Read this article. How should a student respond to questions where all the answers are wrong?

What does it do to students when they realize the questions or answers are wrong?

Here is an idea for this tireless reporter: investigate how much money the testing industry spends to lobby Congress and the states to maintain their hold over the minds of our students and the very definition of education.

Readers, after you read Heather Vogell’s excellent articles, please read Todd Farley’s eye-popping exposé of the testing industry called “Making the Grades.”

You will never forget his description of how student constructed responses are scored and who is doing it (minimum wage temps).

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, Students, Testing

What Mario Savio Said 50 Years Ago

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2013 //
15

Funny, I kept thinking about this famous speech of student leader Mario Savio, who led the Berkeley student protests in the 1960s. And a reader read my mind after reading Liz Rosenberg’s post where she explained that she and her partner would not look at their child’s test scores. They don’t care. They don’t matter. They don’t care if their child has higher or lower scores than children of the same age in Hong Kong or France. Stop the machine.

This reader takes me back 50 years with this comment:

“As a retired educator with 30+ years service in Special Education, I can only say BRAVO to Liz Rosenberg, her partner and all the parents and educators who have joined in the struggle to turn back the tide of what has become the dominant paradigm for “Educational Reform”. Diane has provided a critical mechanism for cross-country communication by those who oppose these so-called reforms, Reading Liz Rosenberg’s communication, I am drawn back some 50 years to the words of Mario Savio one of the spokespeople for the Berkeley Free Speech Movement:

““There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

We are at that moment that Mario Savio spoke about. I take heart from those who resist the machine of “Educational reform”

Categories Parents, Students, Testing

A Datapoint Writes a Letter to Arne Duncan

By dianeravitch
September 11, 2013 //
20

Almost a year ago, I posted a letter from a sixth-grade
student in the DC public schools who wrote about herself as a data
point. She identified herself as Noa Rosinplotz. The letter was so
articulate that many readers were certain that it was not written
by a child. In time, I received letters from well-known
journalists, including her mother, attesting to the fact that Noa
exists and that she really was only 12. Now Noa is in seventh
grade, and she shared this letter.

You might want to visit her
Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Datapoints-Inc/309583325823040

Noa speaks for a generation of data points:

Dear Mr. Duncan,

I’m writing you because I got my DC CAS results in the mail.

See, I thought you might want to know what they were. I certainly don’t. I
mean, the first thing I noticed in that packet was the paper. It’s
fancy and green-a pretty light green, which sort of fades out when
it gets to the end of the paper.

I thought you might want to know,
Mr. Duncan. Your system paid for my thick pastel green paper, and
for all the ink that goes into telling me that I got a 91% on
Reading Literary Text. Oh-I forgot to introduce myself. No need-I
got Advanced, which is what you’re wondering.

I bet you’re also wondering how I feel about that. Am I happy, relieved, perhaps
surprised? But I forgot-you don’t have to know, Mr. Duncan, because
all that matters is I got Advanced.

But I’ll tell you anyway. You can’t know every child in this country and their reactions to the
pretty green paper. But at least you can know me, just one
datapoint, one spot on the chart. When I saw that green paper, I
didn’t hold it up to the light or smile or show it to my parents. I
tossed it back on the table and went to eat an August nectarine.

Let me tell you what’s on my sheet, Mr. Duncan. It says my name,
student ID, teacher, birthday (ours are barely a month apart, Mr.
Duncan), and the city I live in, Washington, DC. You live here too.
I wonder if you’ve ever seen me on the street, riding my bike or
walking with friends. Your eyes probably went right over me and you
forgot me milliseconds after remembering.

You might know me, though, in the back of your brain, as Advanced. Let’s get back to
the sheet, though. Want to hear what I can do? I can read sixth
grade informational and literary texts and analyze author’s purpose
and supporting evidence. I can use and analyze diverse
organizational structures to locate information, interpret and
paraphrase information, interpret subtle language, analyze
relevance of setting to the events and mood of a narrative, and use
stated words, actions, and descriptions of characters to determine
their feelings and relationships to other characters.

But that’s not all! I can use tables to compare ratios! I can solve problems
involving finding the whole when given a part and the percent! I
can multiply slash divide multi digit decimals! I can use order of
operations to evaluate expressions with multiple variables and
whole-number exponents, solve an inequality that represents a
real-world math problem, analyze relationships of ordered pairs in
graphs slash tables!

Aren’t you proud of me, Mr. Duncan? I can see
you, in my head, reading this and thinking: “That girl sounds like
a real charmer. I mean, how many girls who can describe overall
pattern with reference to the context in which data were gathered
are there out there?”

But I don’t care, Mr. Duncan, I don’t care. I
can fill in bubbles and I can write my name nice and neat up in the
line on my answer sheet where it tells me to do so. I can use scrap
paper efficiently and check whether a pencil is #2 with a single
glance. I know the testing procedures, I know my testing seat, and
I know how to leave adequate time for BCRs.

Aren’t you proud of me, Mr. Duncan?

Because this is what I have learned. This is what No
Child Left Behind has taught me. I have learned to be a puppet and
take their tests and get a fancy green paper every year in the
mail, except for when it’s just a gray photocopy. I am twelve years
old and I know as well as anybody that standardized tests do
nothing but cause pain and stress for everybody involved. And oh,
have I learned. I’ve learned more than I ever thought possible.

School has taught me things, and tests have taught me other things.
I can speak Spanish fluently and find palindromic numbers and write
letters to education officials and formulate a hypothesis and
everything in between. But on test days, none of that matters.

All that matters is the busy work in front of me, the math problems and
confusing passages that swim beneath my vacant gaze and leave me
thinking of anything, everything but what lies ahead in the next
two hours. And after all this is done, after we drink water and use
the bathroom and return to our daily lives, what happens?

Fancy green papers are released and people’s fates are decided. But we,
the students, we, the people, are never consulted. We care and we
take the tests and we don’t like it. Do you want facts, Mr. Duncan?
I’ve got plenty. Oh, and by the way, I looked for a student survey
to show you here. There were none. ·

For my science experiment last
year, I gave our 5th grade citywide benchmark, the Paced Interim
Assessment, or PIA, to a group of English professors at various
universities across the country. Their average was a meager 89%,
much lower than one would expect from some of the experts on the
English language in the US. Nobody got a perfect score. · According
to a survey of Indiana teachers, 85.7% of teachers disagree or
strongly disagree that standardized testing is an accurate measure
of student achievement. ·

A mere 22% of Americans “believe
increased testing has helped the performance of local public
schools”, according to a poll released by PDK/Gallup · After the
implementation of NCLB, students faired no better on the PISA,
dropping from 18th place to 31st place in mathematics
internationally. · A New Mexico high school teacher, citing his
students’ impatience with standardized tests, revealed that the
kids had started drawing designs on their bubble sheets instead of
taking the actual tests: “Christmas tree designs were popular. So
were battleships and hearts.” ·

I was going to put a test question
here, but that’s making it too easy for you. Look at one yourself.
· And you know the rest, Mr. Duncan. Ask Google. Google will tell
you more. I’m not asking for you to stop these tests, Mr. Duncan. I
know it isn’t your fault. I just want you to hear a student’s
opinion. You have kids-they can tell you. Nobody listens to the
datapoints, so we must make ourselves heard.

Your job is to support us, Mr. Duncan. Please, do so, the best you can.

Listen, and look out for me on the streets of the nation’s capital. I’ll do the
same. Maybe on the basketball court, maybe in a café or a diner.
You might be downtown, taking your kids to the movies or boating on
the Potomac. You might be on the same bus as me, or waiting at the
same stoplight. We’re both people, Mr. Duncan, and you know that.

So listen and read this. Maybe it’ll make you think, change your
mind on all this. And if you do end up reading this, I’m the
Advanced kid with a purple bracelet on her right wrist and long
curly hair. Smile at me if you see me, but I won’t smile back. Not
until the fancy green paper stops arriving at my doorstep in
August. Sincerely, Advanced with a purple bracelet on her right
wrist

Categories Duncan, Arne, Students

A Brave Superintendent in Long Island

By dianeravitch
September 5, 2013 //
10

Steven Cohen is superintendent of the Shoreham-Wading River
Central School district on Long Island in Néw York. At a time when
others quietly acquiesce, Superintendent Cohen spoke out in
“Newsday.”

He wrote that the schools are being swamped by a
tsunami of untested “reforms,” at the same time that their budgets
are restricted by Governor Cuomo’s 2% tax cap, which voters may
override only by winning 60% of the local vote. Costs don’t stop
rising, so many district will be forced to cut teachers and
essential services to students. He bravely calls out the state
Regents for forcing a “reform agenda” on public schools that may
yet hurt children.

For his courage, insight, and willingness to
speak against an unjust status quo, Steven Cohen is a hero of
public education.

“By Steven Cohen Shoreham-Wading River Central
School District

“Shoreham-Wading River’s greatest challenges in the
2013-14 school year are the same as those of sister districts
throughout Long Island and the rest of NYS. Will we find ways to
preserve, and where possible improve, valued educational programs
without having sufficient resources to cover increasing costs? Will
NYSED’s demands to implement untested — and very controversial —
changes in curriculum standards and assessment, called for in the
Regents Reform Agenda, help or hurt children?

“We do not control increasing pension costs. We have little control over increases in
the cost of medical benefits. We have little control over costs
associated with state mandates. We are bound by the new tax levy
limit. What we do control is the size of our teaching and support
staffs. So if we do not get help to meet increases in pension
costs, health costs and mandate costs, either we must ask our
communities to provide greater resources by a supermajority vote
(while the economy continues to sputter), or we must increase class
size, eliminate valuable programs, or do both. And while we
confront these difficult fiscal problems, we are required to train
new teachers and retrain veteran teachers to instruct students
according to new, untested, curriculum standards, and assess both
students and teachers by methods whose reliability is highly
uncertain.

“Our public schools are being told to do things that no
private schools are forced to do. Private schools have not embraced
the so-called benefits of the Regents Reform Agenda (why not?). An
entire generation of children is being put at risk of receiving a
defective — and perhaps damaging — education should these
untested “reforms” prove to be what many of us fear: false gods.
Will the Regents, many of whom send their own children to private
schools that are not hobbled by insufficient resources, or subject
to their own “reforms,” insist that all children — whether they
learn in public, private or parochial schools — be forced to
benefit from their recommended improvements? “These are the
challenges we face in 2013-14.”

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Budget Cuts, Honor Roll, New York, Students, Teachers

Are You a Hero Superintendent?

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2013 //
29

Over the past several months, I have honored several superintendents who have stood up for their students, their staff, and their community schools.

I have identified hero superintendents in Michigan, New York, Oklahoma, Illinois, and elsewhere. We need to find them and thank them.

These are men and women who have upheld their ethical responsibility to their profession and to children.

They have spoken out boldly and fearlessly against the misuse of standardized tests to judge teacher quality and to label schools as “failing.” They have spoken in support of professional standards for teachers and for teacher and principal evaluation. They have withstood the bullying of uninformed politicians and arrogant policymakers. They have refused to bow to misguided conventional wisdom. They have been a source of wisdom and inspiration for their staff and their community.

When the superintendent is a hero, he or she enables the staff to act with dignity and professionalism.

Do you have a hero superintendent in your community?

If so, send me public statements they have made so I may highlight their courage and integrity.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Honor Roll, Students, Supporting public schools, Testing

What in the World Were State Officials Thinking?

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2013 //
18

Howard Schwach taught for more than 25 years, developed
test items for the state, and worked on curriculum development for
special education students. He
recently reviewed sample items from New York’s Common Core tests
and professed astonishment.

 

He wrote:

 

From the
first moment that I looked at some practice tests for the English
Language Arts tests that were given recently, I knew that the kids
and their teachers were in trouble. In his long
experience as a teacher and test writer and curriculum developer,
he said, “there was one guiding principal: never test
students on skills or material that you have not taught and
practiced. To do so not only would have been
unfair to the students, but it would have made the tests unreliable
and downright useless at a measure of student ability and
knowledge. That is why, when I looked at the
practice test, my first thought was that the questions were in the
deep end of the pool when the kids were just learning how to
swim. One that stuck in my mind was a passage
from a 1920’s magazine about aspirin. Because
the source article was written nearly 100 years ago, it contained
some archaic language and syntax that would have been confusing to
today’s adults, nonetheless eleven-year-olds.
So the kids were at a disadvantage right away, trying to
figure out the words they had never seen before, working them out
through context. Then, the question called for skills that have
never been tested before, nor taught by the teacher who showed me
the sample questions. She admitted that she had been “teaching to
the old test” for the past several years, trying to keep her kid’s
all-important test scores up while trying to keep her
job. “Education has nothing to do with what we
have been doing for the past couple of years,” the teacher admitted
with a nervous laugh. “It has been all about the
numbers.”

 

He found questions that had two right answers.
He found questions that would send the kids into tears. And he
wondered, “What in the world was the state thinking?” Indeed, what
were state officials when they tested students on material they had
not been taught, using unfamiliar vocabulary, having ambiguous
answers, with the certainty that most students would fail? Was it
John King’s inexperience that led him to align the state cut scores
with NAEP’s proficiency levels? Did he not understand that NAEP
proficiency is not a “passing” mark but a measure that connotes
“solid academic performance”?

 

What were they thinking?

Categories Common Core, New York, Students, Testing

What He Learned at the “Worst School in Texas”

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2013 //
18

Education debates in D.C. and the media tend to be
dominated by what economists and think tanks say. What is needed
most and seldom heard is the voice of teachers. Here is a brilliant
new voice that should get as much air time as Bill Gates, Joel
Klein, and Arne Duncan. What are the chances? In
this article at Salon, John Savage describes his
experience teaching at J.E. Pearce Middle School in Austin, Texas,
which the state education commissioner called “the worst school” in
the state. Why was it the worst school in Texas? Savage considers
the reformer thesis: Teachers with high expectations can work
miracles. This is the line from Michelle Rhee and Teach for
America. Savage quickly dashes that fantasy–or his experience
dashed it. He writes: “In the last decade a new species of
educational reformer has captured the public’s attention. Talk
show-friendly celebrities like former Washington, D.C., Schools
Chancellor Michelle Rhee, and award-winning movies like “Waiting
for Superman,” have gained fame by blaming teachers for the
achievement gap between poor students and middle-class students.
“The appeal of this educational axiom — ascribing student
achievement to teacher quality — is understandable. It suggests a
silver bullet solution: improve teaching and you improve test
scores, especially for poor students. And because test results
predict life outcomes — the likelihood of securing a job, getting
divorced, going to prison—better teaching can lift students from
poverty. Or so the thinking goes. “Some have called this narrative
the myth of magical teaching. We yearn to believe it. We yearn to
think that caring, hardworking teachers can change the world, or at
least their students’ lives. Like American Exceptionalism and
Horatio Alger stories, this supposition has become part of our
national mythology. As an idealistic young educator I, too, gladly
accepted the myth of the magical teacher as reality — that is,
before Pearce shattered my naïveté.” He discovered: “Here is the
hard truth about my experience: I didn’t have much of an impact.
Sure, I made a small part of the day more pleasant for some
students, but I didn’t change the course of any of my kids’ lives,
much less the nature of the school. A middle-class teacher coming
into a low-income school and helping poor students realize their
true potential makes for an excellent White Savior Film, but
“Dangerous Minds” isn’t real life. Real life at Pearce is
survival.” Reform after reform came and went: “We have poured money
into high-poverty schools, and we have replaced entire teaching
staffs, but to little avail. Teachers aren’t the problem, poverty
is. Moreover, segregating our poorest students in high-poverty
schools, as we often do, exacerbates the problem. “After parsing
fourth-grade math scores, education theorist Richard Khalenberg
concluded, “low-income students attending more affluent schools
scored almost two years ahead of low-income students in
high-poverty schools. Indeed, low-income students given a chance to
attend more affluent schools performed more than half a year
better, on average, than middle-income students who attend
high-poverty schools.” “If socioeconomic status is a primary driver
of academic performance, and if student achievement suffers in
high-poverty schools, why do we continue to organize schools in a
way that predetermines some for failure and then blame teachers?
“There are ways we can make education better for all students —
socioeconomic school integration, investing in early childhood
education, providing the wraparound services students need — but a
myopic focus on teacher quality won’t fundamentally improve
schools.”

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Texas

Juan Gonzalez: Harlem Success Academy Suspends Losers

By dianeravitch
August 28, 2013 //
72

In this article in the New York Daily News, award-winning investigative journalist Juan Gonzalez examines the high suspension rates at the Harlem Success Academy charter schools of Eva Moskowitz.

Gonzalez writes:

“Success Academy, the charter school chain that boasts sky-high student scores on annual state tests, has for years used a “zero tolerance” disciplinary policy to suspend, push out, discharge or demote the very pupils who might lower those scores — children with special needs or behavior problems.

“State records and interviews with two dozen parents of Success elementary school pupils indicate the fast-growing network has failed at times to adhere to federal and state laws in disciplining special-education students.

At Harlem Success 1, the oldest school in the network, 22% of pupils got suspended at least once during the 2010-11 school year, state records show. That’s far above the 3% average for regular elementary schools in its school district.

“Four other Success schools — the only others in the network to report figures for 2010-11 — had an average 14% suspension rate.”

The kids pushed out by HSA then go to the public schools, which compare unfavorably to HSA, which got rid of them.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/success-academy-fire-parents-fight-disciplinary-policy-article-1.1438753#ixzz2dHGn7FFB

Categories Charter Schools, Harlem Success Academy, Special Education, Students, Testing

Can You Run a 4-Minute Mile? Why Not?

By dianeravitch
August 27, 2013 //
12

David Gamberg is superintendent of the Sourhold district in
Long Island, Néw York. He
understands something that state commissioner John King
does not. Children are different. They develop in different ways
and at different rates. They have different strengths and
weaknesses. Experienced educators know this. The standard for high
achievement in mile-long races is 4 minutes. Runners tried for
years until 1954, when Roger Bannister
broke the barrier. Now many runners have, and it is the
standard. Does that mean you are a failure if it takes you 9 or 15
minutes to run a mile? No. Should all children score “proficient”
on a test that was deliberately made so hard that only 30/35% would
“pass”? What about the kids who are gifted artists and musicians?
What about those who can fix things and are great at solving
practical problems? What about those who are English language
learners? Should they “fail”? Should they be denied a high school
diploma? Sure, it is necessary to test kids periodically to see how
they are doing, but tests should be used to help kids and teachers,
not to punish them.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Common Core, New York, Students, Testing

Larry Lee Writes to Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli about Alabama Accountability Act

By dianeravitch
August 25, 2013 //
9
Larry Lee is a native of Alabama who has taken a great interest in community schools. A few years ago, he was the lead author of a report about ten outstanding rural schools in Alabama. If you read it, you may find yourself crying when you learn how hard parents, teachers, principals, and communities are struggling to educate the children of poor rural communities. He wrote about the importance of creating a culture of expectations and building trust among parents and the community.  He wrote about schools that “build a sense of family.” Larry, who is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education, was not a supporter of the Alabama Accountability Act. He didn’t see how it would help build the trust and community support that he knew was crucial to these rural schools that were struggling to do their best against the odds. When he read an article in the Alabama press written by Beltway insiders Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Michael Petrilli, he was not at all pleased. He wrote a letter.
Dear Mr. Finn,
You and Michael Petrilli recently had an op-ed piece on al.com that stated in the lead paragraph….
Cotton State conservatives are rightfully proud of the brand-new Alabama Accountability Act, which will allow thousands of students to escape failing public schools starting this fall, and take publicly-funded scholarships to the private schools of their choice. Experience from other states indicates that these scholarships will provide a lifeline to the children in the 79 failing schools recently identified by state superintendent Tommy Bice.
Since I live in Montgomery, Alabama, and spend a great deal of time staying abreast of education issues in this state, I would like to comment on your op-ed.
Obviously you have little knowledge of the Alabama Accountability Act, and even less knowledge of Alabama and the “failing” schools identified.  (which are 78, not 79 as stated in your article.)
School began here on aug. 19, the day your article appeared, so those students from “failing” schools who are availing themselves of the opportunity to transfer have largely done so by now.
and you might be interested in knowing that rather than the “thousands of students” you predict will escape, the number as of thursday afternoon was 6.  as in SIX.  that’s right, out of nearly 30,000 kids who attend these 78 schools, only six (as of the afternoon of aug. 22) were transferring.
After all the chest pounding and grand standing by those legislators who passed this law and boasted that they made sure no one in education knew what they were doing, after all the work done by the state department of education and the revenue department to come up with data, to reprogram computers, to come up with new rules, to set up new units to deal with this law, after more than $50 million was set aside from this coming fiscal year’s education trust fund budget to offset the impact of this law—it is a HUGE FAIL.
It is the Hindenburg of Alabama legislation.  and I’ve been watching for a long time since I am older than you are.
The numbers never worked.  It was no more than a fairy tale.  It defied logic.  It ignored reality.
Rather than asking two very important questions 1) why are these schools failing and 2) what can we do to help them, it instead twisted the old adage “if you are in a hole you need to stop digging,” into “if you are in a hole, you need a bigger shovel.”
My hope and prayer is that if we learned just one thing from this very expensive and pointless exercise, it is that anytime this state sets out to develop education policy, professional educators should be at the table.
Larry Lee
334-787-0410Education precedes Prosperity
Categories Accountability, Alabama, Students, Supporting public schools
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »