In a victory for teachers who boycotted the MAP tests this year, the Seattle superintendent Jose Banda said that the leadership team in each high school could decide whether to take it. For other schools it remains mandatory.
Archives for category: Testing
Jeff Larsen writes:
Okay, I’ll bite. There are problems with some AP courses, but I think you’re painting with a broad brush here. My story is obviously anecdotal, but here at Lowell HS (just outside Grand Rapids, MI), our AP teachers aren’t focused on the test, nor do they teach “a mile wide and an inch deep” (that will happen, however, with Common Core). We take all students who want to attempt the course; those who succeed (in class and on the exam) find themselves better prepared for their first year of college than the average student. I’d also suggest that a 2002 study of AP course rigor isn’t relevant; there have been many changes to the courses over the past 11 years.
It doesn’t matter if my AP Lit students are Harvard-bound (where AP credits mean zilch) or heading to Grand Rapids Community College, they come back to tell me and my colleagues that what we put them through was more difficult than their first year of college.
We’re proud of our US News & World Report ranking because we aren’t one of those selective schools at the top, but we are keeping up with the more affluent districts in our region. It’s easy to take shots at the College Board, Jay Matthews, and the charter schools at the top. But it’s not fair to lump all AP teachers, courses, and (especially) students, into that group.
Full disclosure: I’ve taught AP Lit for 14 years, AP Language for 5, and have worked as an AP Lit Exam Reader for 7. While I take a week’s pay from CB, I know that the time I spend working with other teachers and professors is the most valuable professional development I’ve had in almost 20 years of teaching.
High school rankings by popular media usually take into account how many students take AP exams. Some high schools push students to take AP courses whether or not they are prepared, just to satisfy the rankings. But are the AP courses an appropriate measure of high quality?
A few of the nation’s top private and public high schools have dropped the AP courses, on the belief that their teachers created better courses than the AP. See here and here .
A reader responded to an earlier post about the Tucson BASIS charter schools by questioning the value of AP courses and tests:
“Here is the essence of what Tim Steller wrote about BASIS-Tuscon: “the Basis schools require students to take eight AP courses before graduation, take six AP tests and pass at least one…That naturally helps Basis place high in the U.S. News rankings” And, it is ALL about the rankings. And the College Board’s Advanced Placement program (which Diane neglected to mention).
Steller adds this important point in his article about BASIS, made by an education consultant: “AP has pulled the wool over people’s eyes across the nation…”
Actually, it’s the College Board that has “pulled the wool over people’s eyes.” About AP, to be sure. But also about the SAT and PSAT, and Accuplacer, the placement test used by more than 60 percent of community colleges. They’re all mostly worthless, more hype than reality.
Consider the Advanced Placement program, pushed shamelessly buy the College Board, and by Jay Mathews at The Washington Post (Mathews started the Challenge Index, a ranking of high schools based on the number of AP tests they give).
A 2002 National Research Council study of AP courses and tests found them to be a “mile wide and an inch deep” and inconsistent with research-based principles of learning.
A 2004 study by Geiser and Santelices found that “the best predictor of both first- and second-year college grades” is unweighted high school grade point average, and a high school grade point average “weighted with a full bonus point for AP…is invariably the worst predictor of college performance.”
A 2005 study (Klopfenstein and Thomas) found AP students “…generally no more likely than non-AP students to return to school for a second year or to have higher first semester grades.” Moreover, the authors wrote that “close inspection of the [College Board] studies cited reveals that the existing evidence regarding the benefits of AP experience is questionable,” and “AP courses are not a necessary component of a rigorous curriculum.”
A 2006 MIT faculty report noted ““there is ‘a growing body of research’ that students who earn top AP scores and place out of institute introductory courses end up having ‘difficulty’ when taking the next course.”
Two years prior, Harvard “conducted a study that found students who are allowed to skip introductory courses because they have passed a supposedly equivalent AP course do worse in subsequent courses than students who took the introductory courses at Harvard” (Seebach, 2004).
Dartmouth found that high scores on AP psychology tests do NOT translate into college readiness for the next-level course. Indeed, students admit that ““You’re not trying to get educated; you’re trying to look good;” and, “”The focus is on the test and not necessarily on the fundamental knowledge of the material.”
Students know that AP is far more about gaming the college acceptance process than it is learning.
In The ToolBox Revisited (2006), Adelman wrote about those who had misstated his original ToolBox (1999) work: “With the exception of Klopfenstein and Thomas (2005), a spate of recent reports and commentaries on the Advanced Placement program claim that the original ToolBox demonstrated the unique power of AP course work in explaining bachelor’s degree completion. To put it gently, this is a misreading.”
Ademan goes on to say that “Advanced Placement has almost no bearing on entering postsecondary education,” and when examining and statistically quantifying the factors that relate to bachelor’s degree completion, Advanced Placement does NOT “reach the threshold level of significance.”
The 2010 book “AP: A Critical Examination” noted that “Students see AP courses on their transcripts as the ticket ensuring entry into the college of their choice,” yet, “there is a shortage of evidence about the efficacy, cost, and value of these programs.” And this: AP has become “the juggernaut of American high school education,” but “ the research evidence on its value is minimal.”
As Geiser (2007) notes, “systematic differences in student motivation, academic preparation, family background and high-school quality account for much of the observed difference in college outcomes between AP and non-AP students.” College Board-funded studies do not control well for these student characteristics (even the College Board concedes that “interest and motivation” are keys to “success in any course”).
Klopfenstein and Thomas (2010) find that when these demographic characteristics are controlled for, the claims made for AP disappear.
Yet, the myths –– especially about AP, the SAT and PSAT –– endure.
Meanwhile, the College Board is promoting the Common Core and says it has “aligned” (cough, wink) its products with it. And people believe it. Stopping corporate-style “reform and the Common Core is easier said than done. Parents, students and educators are going to have to remove the wool from over their eyes. And that means abandoning blind belief in the College Board and the products it peddles.”
The Teachers College community is divided about the institution’s decision to honor Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the New York Board of Regents. Tisch has made her mark as a champion of high-stakes testing and charter schools.
Professor Celia Oyler wrote the following message to her graduate students:
“An Open Letter to Graduating Master’s Students in the Elementary and Secondary Inclusive Education Programs
I will not be attending convocation this year as I am on parental leave. I know if I were attending I would not be able to remain silent while Merryl Tisch is given a TC Medal of Honor. Her actions while Chair of the New York State Board of Regents have wrought incredible damage upon our noble profession.
Merryl Tisch has ushered through the Board of Regents many policies with which I vehemently disagree; these include: decoupling teacher certification and master’s degrees from university-based teacher education (approving Relay Graduate School of Education); allowing InBloom to collect and sell private data on each K-12 student in New York State schools; and requiring all school districts to tie teacher evaluation to Value Added Measures based on student test scores. There are numerous problems with using student test scores to evaluate teachers (Value Added Measures). See here, here and here to start.
Despite these well-documented concerns, Teachers College’s initial press release indicated that TC was awarding Merryl Tisch this honorary degree because of her efforts to establish this system of teacher evaluation. To be honest with you all, when I first read the press release, I sobbed. My chagrin is shared by many. For instance, read New York State Principal of the Year (2013) and TC grad Carol Burris’s comment about Merryl Tisch on Diane Ravitch’s blog posting about the Tisch award.
If I were at the graduation convocation, I would wear a sign on the back of my robe. It would probably say, “USING STUDENT TEST SCORES TO RATE TEACHERS DISHONORS US”. Some people are suggesting that students and faculty could turn their backs when Tisch is talking; other people have the idea to hold up signs. In any case, I know that I couldn’t be silent. I would feel complicit; my silence would be condoning the award. I would make sure to sit next to a colleague or two or three who would also agree to take an action with me.
I cannot sit silently while teachers across this country are being viciously attacked and demeaned by the junk science of VAM. For instance: A district in Florida fired A Teacher of the Year based on her VAM. In Los Angeles, a well-loved community-minded teacher committed suicide after his VAM scores were published in the newspaper and he was ranked as one of the lowest teachers in the district; he specialized in welcoming children who spoke little English.
When I was a child, I voraciously read all the books I could find about the Underground Railroad, the Abolitionist Movement, the anti-Nazi movement (including the White Rose Society), the Civil Rights Movement. As a teacher I often included a focus on the South African anti-apartheid movement. For as long as I can remember, I have asked myself, “Would I have stood up?” “Would I have had the courage to defend the side of freedom and justice?”
There are activists in the educational community and TC alumni who are debating whether to call for a protest of the Merryl Tisch award at your graduation. While there are different opinions on this topic, they are all asking if there will be a protest from the graduating students. They realize that you are entering teaching at a very difficult time and they admire your courage. They are hoping that as beginning teachers you can find small ways to protect both the children and our profession by protesting the horrible anti-child and anti-teacher policies pushed through with Race to the Top funding. They hope you are entering the field of education knowing we need to fight courageously for an education that is based on children’s individual needs and does not try to reduce them to test scores; that you want to teach subjects even if they are not on the tests, such as the arts, music, drama, science investigations, and social studies inquiries. I have assured them you are visionary and courageous and that you see urban communities of color as full of multicultural resources and assets to be cultivated rather than as sinkholes of deficits that need to be corrected into middle class mainstream discourses as measured by the tests.
My heart is beating as I type these words, as I know that public education is under an organized assault by corporate reformers who seek to script your curricula and make you teach to their tests. These corporate reformers—The New Schools Venture Fund, the Gates Foundation; the Broad Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and so on—seem to have nearly unlimited funds.
What we have on our side is our vision for a different kind of education: one that supports children to dance and sing and debate and play and create and dream and make art and design projects that show their ideas about how to make the world a better place. What we have on our side is our belief in humanity, relationships, solidarity, diversity, democracy, freedom, justice, and equality. I know that none of you entered our teacher education program with the mere goal of helping children score well on a standardized test. You entered teaching to touch the hearts and minds of children, and to listen to and value their stories. And to tell them through your words and your actions, “I see you, I expect huge successes from you, and I love you.”
Please walk with dignity into St John the Divine, no matter what you choose to do or not do about Merryl Tisch. And always remember that no Value Added Score can EVER measure how much value you have added to a child’s life.”
With love,
Celia Oyler
In my list of categories on this blog, the words “Texas” and “testing” are side-by-side. One of the biggest stories in the nation today is how ordinary folks–moms, dads, and students–in Texas are slaying the monster that ate their education.
Over the past 20-30 years, Texas became drunk on testing. The lobbyists for Pearson–headed by Sandy Kress, the architect of NCLB–made sure that Pearson won a five-year contract for nearly $500 million in 2011 at the same time that the legislature striped away $5.4 Billion from the public schools.
After I wrote a post about the last minute flurry of bills about vouchers and charters and online charters in this legislative session (which ends May 26), I received this informative comment about the state of education in Texas:
“Texas public schools will survive. Sen. Patrick is doing some good things by shepherding HB5 through the Senate. He learned from his mistakes in past sessions when he championed the expansion of testing. I should let him use my time machine to see what a confusing and hopeless mess expanding charters and vouchers will be leading to graft and corruption.
There’s lots of bills that need help! HB5, HB2836, HB866 primarily. Not only will HB5 reduce standardized testing, but it will put some controls in place such limiting benchmark testing by districts and removing testing company lobbyists from state education committees and other policy making bodies. Sandy Kress and others were allowed to sit on various committees while being paid by Pearson. The others will strip testing in lower grades as HB5 only deals with the 15+ End-of-Course exams in High School which my daughter is taking now along side her AP exams.
Thanks to other groups as well, one of which is in the chambers tweeting updates including photos-Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessments. They are active on facebook and send out regular and timely email calls to action. They’ve also been out barnstorming around the state for nearly a year having just spoken at Eanes ISD to parents and other interested members of the community.
The other group is Houston’s Community Voices for Public Education that stays in touch with Houston’s local communities producing and holding meetings in multiple languages. CVPE members have packed Houston Independent School District Board meetings and motivated students, teachers, parents and professors to testify about the damage that standardized testing does to those that need a real education most. Besides the State required tests, HISD has been doing benchmark testing for years adding to the testing mania. At some campuses benchmarks are given on a 2-3 week cycle. CVPE just last week spoke again before the Board requesting limits on this and pushing for HISD to track and report the time and expenses related to benchmarking. This is a district that slashed nearly 1,000 staff two years ago and then adopted a TNTP inspired teacher appraisal tool within months that required way more of everyone left.
Texans are realizing that we’ve been doing the accountability thing the longest, (spending 90 million a year on testing alone!) and have little to show for it. The spending inequity is stark in Texas and to think of all the services and opportunities that we could have provided to kids that went to Pearson’s bottom line is heartbreaking.
The first school I worked at in Houston was on the East Side and already by the late 1990’s the band was gone. The school paper eliminated. The auto tech space was being converted into classrooms for the extra math and reading teachers and tutors that were on their way. I scratched my head thinking that a healthy journalism program would be great way to inspire kids to write. Administration decided that workbooks were the way to go. Wealthier schools and districts did not do this as parents would not have stood for it. Those schools and districts are still doing fine. In suburban Dallas, Allen High School is about to break ground on a 60 million dollar football stadium. Man, what I could have done with a piece of Pearson’s 90 million or Allen’s 60 million.
Make those calls to your representatives and then to Governor Perry and Lt. Governor Dewhearst. They need to hear from real Texans, not Bloomberg, Broad, Gates and Waltons.”
In a rare break from its established stance of applauding whatever Mayor Bloomberg’s Department of Education does, the New York Daily News published an editorial ridiculing both Pearson and the schools’ chancellor Dennis Walcott.
Only
Sat week the News had an editorial defending the Pearson Common Core tests, even though the vocabulary and content of the fifth grade exam that was available to the editors was age-inappropriate.
What seems to have moved the editors to high dudgeon was that Pearson made so many errors in scoring the high-stakes exams for preschoolers hoping to enter a kindergarten for gifted and talented.
A deeper question might have been to ask why there are G&T programs for 5-year-olds.
The latest administration of the SAT has been canceled in South Korea, due to allegations of widespread cheating. The nation is known for its “hyper-competitive academic environment.”
Test questions that were on the exam scheduled for May 4 were circulating in test prep centers. Staff members at some test prep centers were detained for questioning.
Thousands of students were affected.
The article says:
“Though academic cheating is a world-wide concern, high-profile scandals over unfairly earned or bogus qualifications are commonplace in South Korea. Those seeking top government office are among those who have been caught with plagiarized dissertations or fake degrees. Huh Tae-yeol, the chief presidential secretary, issued a public apology in February—when he was still a nominee for his post—for copying part of his doctorate degree in 1999. He argued that standards at the time weren’t as stringent.”
South Korea has the highest number of college graduates among the advanced nations of the world and high scores on the international assessments.
Joe Bower teaches in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. He blogs at http://www.joebower.org.
He wrote this for us:
DO I SERVE YOU OR ARE YOU TO SUPPORT ME?
As a classroom teacher, I spend the majority of my time working with students while they are still learning, so I have an intense understanding for how important it is for kids to be engaged in learning by doing projects that are in a context and for a purpose.
Without the information (read: observations) that I gather from such projects, I could not call myself a teacher, nor could my students call themselves learners.
But how often is data defined like this?
As a classroom teacher, I have absolutely no use for data that reduces learning to a number for the convenience of administrators, policy makers and others who wish to judge the classroom without ever stepping foot in the classroom.
I will not be an accomplice to those who have needs and have absolutely no intention of ever even meeting my students. A system with authentic accountability would never ask me to do so.
If you are a politician, superintendent, schoolboard trustee, administrator or someone else who rarely visits the classroom, you might be thinking to yourself: “I need spread-sheet friendly data to report the successes, failures and growth of the schools.”
To you I say: “As a classroom teacher, am I here to serve your needs for your spreadsheet, or are you here to support me so that I may better serve my students’ needs
If you read State Superintendent Deborah Gist’s description of K-12 education in Rhode Island, you got a pretty upbeat assessment.
Tom Sgouros, her most persistent critic, sees a different story.
He sees a state wedded to high stakes testing and unable to look beyond the testing regime.
Here is the absurd consequence of the terrible ideas that have dominated education policy in the US. for the past 20 or so years.
The governor and legislators in Michigan have stripped more than a billion dollars from the public schools even as they better test scores. Now, as they plan to cut public school budgets even more, they want to tie teachers’ salaries to test scores.
The fact that test-based incentive have failed and failed and failed does not have any bearing on the state’s policymakers. No doubt they can claim they are marching in step with Arne Duncan, who believes that test scores must be a significant part of teacher evaluation.
The formula of slash and burn is not good for children, not good for schools, and not good for the quality of education. The tests will rule every decision. I wonder how many of the legislators could pass the tests that will determine the reputations and lives of teachers.
