The folks at PARCC have set cut scores. You just don't need to know what they are.
The one published cut score is the one that draws the line between levels 3 and 4 ("not quite good enough" and "okee dokee"). That's set at 750 on a scale of 650 to 850. The other levels of cut scores, the projected percentages of students falling within the various troughs-- that's all secret for the time being.
There are three takeaways here for the general public.
There are no standards here
When you set an actual standard, an actual line that marks the difference between, say, ready for college and not ready for college, you set it before you do the measuring.
In my classroom, the grading scale is set before the students even take the test. In fact, before I even design the test. 70% is our lowest passing grade, and so I design a test on which someone would have to display the bare minimum of skill and comprehension to get a 70%.
The PARCC folk are saying that they will draw a line between college ready and not college ready-- but not before the test has been taken. How does that even make sense. How do you give a test saying, "This will show whether you're ready for college or not, but at this moment, we don't really know how much skill and knowledge you have to have to be ready for college."
This is the opposite of having standards. Standards mean setting the bar at six feet and saying, "You have to clear this bar to be considered a good jumper." This is saying, "We don't know what a good jump height would be, but we are going to judge you on whether you're a good jumper or not, but we're not going to put the bar up until after you jump."
Why are we setting cut scores now? Do we know the difference between a student who is college ready and one who is not? Is there some reason to believe that changes from year to year?
Transparency
We have just about reached the point where the only way PARCC could be less transparent would be for them to require students to take the test blindfolded in a dark room on computers with the monitors turned off. This has to be the worst service ever provided by a government contractor.
Useful feedback
This is why I bust a small gasket every time somebody tries to justify these tests because they provide such useful feedback to districts and classroom teachers. PARCC is providing the most useless, data-free feedback imaginable-- and the school year has already started.
Says PARCC, "Some of your students have scored a varying levels on a test that may or may not have put them on a certain level. You can't know about the questions they answered, which ones they got wrong, or what specific deficiencies they have. And we won't even tell you the simple rating (grade) we're giving them for a while yet. But go ahead and take this gaping hole where data is supposed to be, and use it to inform your instruction."
Meanwhile, PARCC is parcelling out information on a need-to-know basis, and nobody needs to know.
UPDATE
PARCC yielded to pressure and coughed up a bit more information, including the rest of the cut scores. Mercedes Schneider has the full story over at her blog.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Strikes and Democracy
Last night I was asked on twitter if I'm embarrassed by the striking Seattle teachers.
Shouldn't I be? My position on charters has been pretty clear, and recently I've been talking about my support for the Washington court ruling that charters are unconstitutional. I've been exceptionally clear that I believe charters, as currently practiced, are undemocratic in part because they are not run by an elected board and are therefor unaccountable to the voters and taxpayers.
I believe the implication (twitter's 140 characters depend a lot on implication) was that if I believe in the swellness of an elected school board, should I not also believe that teachers are obliged to let that elected school board be their guide and not get all unruly with strikes and stuff?
The answer is no, I don't, but the challenge is to articulate why, because my critic is correct in suggesting there might be an inconsistency there. I don't think so. Let's see if I can explain.
How is a government supposed to work?
We regularly conflate the ideas of how a government is put in place, and how it functions once there.
A monarch could inherit the throne, but once on it, be scrupulous about listening to all voices and supporting the rights of all people. A leader could be put in place by a legitimate election and begin behaving like a tyrant once in office. An elected group could meet in secret and never reveal their processes to the public.
We like democracy because as processes to put officials in place go, it seems the most naturally inclined to be open and inclusive. But the fact that it's democratically put in place doesn't guarantee that a group functions in an open and inclusive way.
Democracy is messy
The openness and inclusiveness are just as important as the electing, because that's part of where accountability comes from. It's not just that you have to stand for election every few years-- it's that every time you sit down to meet about your elected position, any member of the public who wants to can come and tell you what they think.
School boards (and city councils and congress) don't always love this part, and will sometimes try to bend the law to get around it. That's why we have things like sunshine laws-- because a democratic process of election is not enough to insure a democratic process of operation.
Democracy in action bothers lots of folks, specifically the same folks who hate it when the pictures in the living room are hung in a disorganized hodge-podge and one of them is tilted. Democracy in action is messy, noisy and inefficient. It ties our fate to the fates of Those People. And it unleashes a variety of contesting contrasting contentious forces.
In other words, if you think that democracy is when we elect a bunch of people and then just sit back and leave them alone while they decide whatever they decide, you are mistaken. American democracy in particular is designed so that the majority can't just force the minority to shut up.
Democracy is not a boisterous campaign followed by an election followed by blissful, compliant silence.
Democracy and Pressure Points
Once a group (such as a school board) is elected, they have to start functioning at the intersection of many different interests. Taxpayers. Parents. Teachers. Local government. And on any given issue, the clash of interests may become vocal and even harsh. In this way, democracy provides a means test for how much folks care. Are you really concerned about how much kale is served in the cafeteria? Are you willing to give up an evening to go complain to the board? To do it several times? To call and write and walk with a protest sign? Each escalation helps the board answer the question, "Just how much do people really care about this?"
So parents come and stand at line at a board meeting to make their point. Taxpayers write letters to the editors and hold demonstrations. And teachers, occasionally, go on strike. Because that's how they show a board just how important the issue is. The elected officials, because they have to conduct their business in plain sight, have to hear about it.
See, accountability of elected officials doesn't just mean that every so many years they must stand for election. It means that all the time in between they must spend listening to their constituents, reading what they say, and feeling whatever pressure those constituents can bring to bear on them.
Democracy and CEOs
The CEO model of leadership hates all of this. The CEO model says you get one genius visionary leader-guy, and then set things up so that nobody can interfere with him as he implements his vision. Depending on his political leanings, he may be presented as someone who has only the best interests of the poor and the downtrodden at heart-- but the poor and the downtrodden don't get to tell him how they think he should do his job.
There are arguments to be made for this model in certain settings. But it is not democracy.
Democracy and Dollars
Our challenge as a nation has become the free flow of money into the process-- not just the election process, but the operating process. Money gets some people extra attention. Charter fans have been quick to point out that the judge who ruled against charters has taken money from unions (all the law would allow-- about $1,900). But of course the law that he thwarted was passed in Washington with the help of millions and millions of dollars in financing from billionaires (including some from out of state). Money gets in the way of an open and inclusive process.
Democracy and Charters
So my problem with charter governance is that it is democratic in neither election nor operation, and that effectively means that they are accountable to nobody.
Charter fans will argue that they are accountable to authorizers, and in some states must actually hit test result targets to stay in business. I am not impressed. Hitting test scores is a nearly-useless metric for determining whether a school is working or not. Do parents complain because Junior didn't score high enough on the Big Standardized Test? Certainly not as often as the express concern about learning, grades, nurturing environment, positive atmosphere, sports, etc etc etc. Parents have hundreds of concerns, and in most current charter arrangements, they can communicate those concerns to nobody.
They can't start any conversation with, "I voted for you..." and they certainly can't go speak out at a public board meeting. They can't ask questions about finances and where the dollars are going. And the list of things parents can't do is nothing compared to the list of undoable things for taxpayers who fund the school, but don't send students there. The message from charters to taxpayers is, "Give us your money, but don't ever EVER try to talk to us about anything. Ever."
Did I Mention the Mess
Schools are public institutions set up to meet the needs of the community. As such, they are required to respond to a zillion different constituencies with a double-zillion priorities and concerns. That means the operation of school districts will always be a tug of war with a million ropes, a balancing act that never reaches equilibrium. That means that some districts will be, at times, out of balance or the site of fairly brutal "discussions" about how to fix things.
The only alternative is to find ways to shut some voices out of the conversation, and while in the worst of times that can become the public school district path (mayoral control, anyone), that disempowerment is Plan A for charters. "Just sit out in the hall. Shut up. We'll be in this locked room deciding what's best for you."
The problem of democracy is that everybody gets the power to be part of the discussion. That's why we insist on educating everybody-- so that the discussion won't get too clogged with people who don't know what they're talking about.
There have always been people who thought the solution for democracy was to only allow a voice to people who deserve one. That's not democracy. It ignores our foundational documents (governments get their power from the consent of the governed). Yes, if everyone has a voice, then sometimes those voices get angry and raised and all activisty. That's part of democracy. The alternatives that we periodically consider may be neater and quieter and more orderly, but they all involve stripping citizens of their voice and their power, and that is just fundamentally wrong.
Shouldn't I be? My position on charters has been pretty clear, and recently I've been talking about my support for the Washington court ruling that charters are unconstitutional. I've been exceptionally clear that I believe charters, as currently practiced, are undemocratic in part because they are not run by an elected board and are therefor unaccountable to the voters and taxpayers.
I believe the implication (twitter's 140 characters depend a lot on implication) was that if I believe in the swellness of an elected school board, should I not also believe that teachers are obliged to let that elected school board be their guide and not get all unruly with strikes and stuff?
The answer is no, I don't, but the challenge is to articulate why, because my critic is correct in suggesting there might be an inconsistency there. I don't think so. Let's see if I can explain.
How is a government supposed to work?
We regularly conflate the ideas of how a government is put in place, and how it functions once there.
A monarch could inherit the throne, but once on it, be scrupulous about listening to all voices and supporting the rights of all people. A leader could be put in place by a legitimate election and begin behaving like a tyrant once in office. An elected group could meet in secret and never reveal their processes to the public.
We like democracy because as processes to put officials in place go, it seems the most naturally inclined to be open and inclusive. But the fact that it's democratically put in place doesn't guarantee that a group functions in an open and inclusive way.
Democracy is messy
The openness and inclusiveness are just as important as the electing, because that's part of where accountability comes from. It's not just that you have to stand for election every few years-- it's that every time you sit down to meet about your elected position, any member of the public who wants to can come and tell you what they think.
School boards (and city councils and congress) don't always love this part, and will sometimes try to bend the law to get around it. That's why we have things like sunshine laws-- because a democratic process of election is not enough to insure a democratic process of operation.
Democracy in action bothers lots of folks, specifically the same folks who hate it when the pictures in the living room are hung in a disorganized hodge-podge and one of them is tilted. Democracy in action is messy, noisy and inefficient. It ties our fate to the fates of Those People. And it unleashes a variety of contesting contrasting contentious forces.
In other words, if you think that democracy is when we elect a bunch of people and then just sit back and leave them alone while they decide whatever they decide, you are mistaken. American democracy in particular is designed so that the majority can't just force the minority to shut up.
Democracy is not a boisterous campaign followed by an election followed by blissful, compliant silence.
Democracy and Pressure Points
Once a group (such as a school board) is elected, they have to start functioning at the intersection of many different interests. Taxpayers. Parents. Teachers. Local government. And on any given issue, the clash of interests may become vocal and even harsh. In this way, democracy provides a means test for how much folks care. Are you really concerned about how much kale is served in the cafeteria? Are you willing to give up an evening to go complain to the board? To do it several times? To call and write and walk with a protest sign? Each escalation helps the board answer the question, "Just how much do people really care about this?"
So parents come and stand at line at a board meeting to make their point. Taxpayers write letters to the editors and hold demonstrations. And teachers, occasionally, go on strike. Because that's how they show a board just how important the issue is. The elected officials, because they have to conduct their business in plain sight, have to hear about it.
See, accountability of elected officials doesn't just mean that every so many years they must stand for election. It means that all the time in between they must spend listening to their constituents, reading what they say, and feeling whatever pressure those constituents can bring to bear on them.
Democracy and CEOs
The CEO model of leadership hates all of this. The CEO model says you get one genius visionary leader-guy, and then set things up so that nobody can interfere with him as he implements his vision. Depending on his political leanings, he may be presented as someone who has only the best interests of the poor and the downtrodden at heart-- but the poor and the downtrodden don't get to tell him how they think he should do his job.
There are arguments to be made for this model in certain settings. But it is not democracy.
Democracy and Dollars
Our challenge as a nation has become the free flow of money into the process-- not just the election process, but the operating process. Money gets some people extra attention. Charter fans have been quick to point out that the judge who ruled against charters has taken money from unions (all the law would allow-- about $1,900). But of course the law that he thwarted was passed in Washington with the help of millions and millions of dollars in financing from billionaires (including some from out of state). Money gets in the way of an open and inclusive process.
Democracy and Charters
So my problem with charter governance is that it is democratic in neither election nor operation, and that effectively means that they are accountable to nobody.
Charter fans will argue that they are accountable to authorizers, and in some states must actually hit test result targets to stay in business. I am not impressed. Hitting test scores is a nearly-useless metric for determining whether a school is working or not. Do parents complain because Junior didn't score high enough on the Big Standardized Test? Certainly not as often as the express concern about learning, grades, nurturing environment, positive atmosphere, sports, etc etc etc. Parents have hundreds of concerns, and in most current charter arrangements, they can communicate those concerns to nobody.
They can't start any conversation with, "I voted for you..." and they certainly can't go speak out at a public board meeting. They can't ask questions about finances and where the dollars are going. And the list of things parents can't do is nothing compared to the list of undoable things for taxpayers who fund the school, but don't send students there. The message from charters to taxpayers is, "Give us your money, but don't ever EVER try to talk to us about anything. Ever."
Did I Mention the Mess
Schools are public institutions set up to meet the needs of the community. As such, they are required to respond to a zillion different constituencies with a double-zillion priorities and concerns. That means the operation of school districts will always be a tug of war with a million ropes, a balancing act that never reaches equilibrium. That means that some districts will be, at times, out of balance or the site of fairly brutal "discussions" about how to fix things.
The only alternative is to find ways to shut some voices out of the conversation, and while in the worst of times that can become the public school district path (mayoral control, anyone), that disempowerment is Plan A for charters. "Just sit out in the hall. Shut up. We'll be in this locked room deciding what's best for you."
The problem of democracy is that everybody gets the power to be part of the discussion. That's why we insist on educating everybody-- so that the discussion won't get too clogged with people who don't know what they're talking about.
There have always been people who thought the solution for democracy was to only allow a voice to people who deserve one. That's not democracy. It ignores our foundational documents (governments get their power from the consent of the governed). Yes, if everyone has a voice, then sometimes those voices get angry and raised and all activisty. That's part of democracy. The alternatives that we periodically consider may be neater and quieter and more orderly, but they all involve stripping citizens of their voice and their power, and that is just fundamentally wrong.
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Washington Charters and Godwin's Other Law
Over at the Flypaper, the bloggy wing of Fordham Institute's reformster website, Robin Lake had a point to make about the recent Washington State ruling that found the state's charter law unconstitutional.
I get that she's pissed. Lots of charter-loving folks in Washington are, and on the one hand, I don't blame them-- as I observed before, the court's decision to hold onto the ruling until the Friday before schools were supposed to open was, at a minimum, pretty unkind and inconsiderate of the 1,200 students who thought they were going to start school. On the other hand, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a reformster group of which Lake is director, might try saving some of that outrage for the many charters across the country that have closed up shop without warning, even in the middle of the school year. But yeah-- it was a sucky way for the Washington court to handle it.
So that's probably why she looked around for a grumpy comparison and landed in the Kremlin. I'm pretty sure this violates Godwin's Lesser-Known Second Law-- when you drag Russian commies into an argument, you're done. If Lake is going to use such over-the-top, ill-fitting analogies, how will she get anyone to take her seriously? Wow, I've never tried concern-trolling before. It's kind of fun. Next time I'm at Wal-Mart, I'm going to look for a Tone Police hat!
So if we can get past the walls of the Kremlin, do we find Lake making a point (or saying things that make the pro-charter position clearer)?
Lake leads with the argument that the court was allowing itself to be jerked around by a 100-year-old law, and goes straight to Why Charters Are Needed Regardless of What the Law Says. She's a Seattle mom, and her observation is that South Seattle suffered through the urban drain phenomenon-- good teachers gravitate to well-supported, well-funded schools, and the poor schools get the lesser teachers. Therefor, charters.
I've heard this argument many times, and it still sounds to me like, "A bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves." Or maybe, "My family's house was getting run down, so the only choice was to get myself adopted by a different family."
Why does the charter argument always run, "Because these schools are undersupported and underfunded, we must set up charters for SOME of the students there" instead of "Because these schools are undersupported and underfunded, we must demand that proper support and funding are provided so that the schools can properly serve ALL the students there." This is a point on which I fundamentally disagree with charter folks.
Lake writes:
By giving these schools true control over their programs, staff, and curricula, and by opening them to all families, authors of the charter school law resurrected the true American vision of public schooling: equal access to great instruction and accountability for results.
Would it not be cheaper, more efficient, and useful to a far larger number of students if we brought these freedoms and support and empowerments to the public schools? Yes, the resources invested in charters "save" some students. How many more might have been saved if those resources had been invested in public schools?
Particularly since the second part of her statement is not true. Charters do NOT provide equal access to all students, but only to the select few. And charters do NOT provide accountability for results, because they do not operate transparently, openly, or by answering directly to elected representatives of the taxpayers. And charters have yet to demonstrate that they know anything about educating students that public schools do not already know.
We need to stop romanticizing an obsolete version of “local control.” Community members ought to have input in area schools and hold them accountable. But checks are also needed to protect poor and minority students from the neglect of the powerful. These families need better options—
Community members should not have "input"-- they should have control. And they should have accountability-- which does not come from school operators who do not have to answer to anyone except the owners, stockholders, or corporate sponsors of the school. Poor and minority students do need to be protected from the neglect of the powerful-- on this we are in complete agreement. But I do not see where charters provide such protection-- particularly for the poor and minority students who are left behind in a public school that has been stripped of desperately needed resources by the charter schools.
The families do not need better options.
They need better schools. They ALL need better schools-- not just the "fortunate" or "deserving" few who get into charters.
There's no question that local control comes with its own set of issues and a need to protect the rights of those with less power. But Lake is romanticizing charter/choice systems when she imagines that they provide any such protection, or responsiveness to the community, or stability in the neighborhood, or solutions for ALL students.
When Lake talks about the "needless chaos" of the Washington ruling, she is correct. When she suggests that charters were going to be the salvation of Washington, or any other, schools, she is incorrect. I'm going to steal my closing from Martha Hope Carey 's piece at Edushyster:
But what the case in Washington underscores most is the elemental choice made by charter proponents all those years ago, as they crafted the Minnesota legislation, variations of which are now on the books in 42 states. The choice was: do we work together as a community to best provide the state-mandated education of all our citizens and do so in a way that continues to be overseen by the electorate, which may mean re-allocating resources and (gasp) raising taxes, or do we just let private groups of folks do their own thing, using our taxes, in the name of education?
And if we've decided that when Americans work together as a community etc etc etc is somehow reminiscent of Communist Russia, then we've lost sight of our own national character and history as well.
I get that she's pissed. Lots of charter-loving folks in Washington are, and on the one hand, I don't blame them-- as I observed before, the court's decision to hold onto the ruling until the Friday before schools were supposed to open was, at a minimum, pretty unkind and inconsiderate of the 1,200 students who thought they were going to start school. On the other hand, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a reformster group of which Lake is director, might try saving some of that outrage for the many charters across the country that have closed up shop without warning, even in the middle of the school year. But yeah-- it was a sucky way for the Washington court to handle it.
So that's probably why she looked around for a grumpy comparison and landed in the Kremlin. I'm pretty sure this violates Godwin's Lesser-Known Second Law-- when you drag Russian commies into an argument, you're done. If Lake is going to use such over-the-top, ill-fitting analogies, how will she get anyone to take her seriously? Wow, I've never tried concern-trolling before. It's kind of fun. Next time I'm at Wal-Mart, I'm going to look for a Tone Police hat!
So if we can get past the walls of the Kremlin, do we find Lake making a point (or saying things that make the pro-charter position clearer)?
Lake leads with the argument that the court was allowing itself to be jerked around by a 100-year-old law, and goes straight to Why Charters Are Needed Regardless of What the Law Says. She's a Seattle mom, and her observation is that South Seattle suffered through the urban drain phenomenon-- good teachers gravitate to well-supported, well-funded schools, and the poor schools get the lesser teachers. Therefor, charters.
I've heard this argument many times, and it still sounds to me like, "A bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves." Or maybe, "My family's house was getting run down, so the only choice was to get myself adopted by a different family."
Why does the charter argument always run, "Because these schools are undersupported and underfunded, we must set up charters for SOME of the students there" instead of "Because these schools are undersupported and underfunded, we must demand that proper support and funding are provided so that the schools can properly serve ALL the students there." This is a point on which I fundamentally disagree with charter folks.
Lake writes:
By giving these schools true control over their programs, staff, and curricula, and by opening them to all families, authors of the charter school law resurrected the true American vision of public schooling: equal access to great instruction and accountability for results.
Would it not be cheaper, more efficient, and useful to a far larger number of students if we brought these freedoms and support and empowerments to the public schools? Yes, the resources invested in charters "save" some students. How many more might have been saved if those resources had been invested in public schools?
Particularly since the second part of her statement is not true. Charters do NOT provide equal access to all students, but only to the select few. And charters do NOT provide accountability for results, because they do not operate transparently, openly, or by answering directly to elected representatives of the taxpayers. And charters have yet to demonstrate that they know anything about educating students that public schools do not already know.
We need to stop romanticizing an obsolete version of “local control.” Community members ought to have input in area schools and hold them accountable. But checks are also needed to protect poor and minority students from the neglect of the powerful. These families need better options—
Community members should not have "input"-- they should have control. And they should have accountability-- which does not come from school operators who do not have to answer to anyone except the owners, stockholders, or corporate sponsors of the school. Poor and minority students do need to be protected from the neglect of the powerful-- on this we are in complete agreement. But I do not see where charters provide such protection-- particularly for the poor and minority students who are left behind in a public school that has been stripped of desperately needed resources by the charter schools.
The families do not need better options.
They need better schools. They ALL need better schools-- not just the "fortunate" or "deserving" few who get into charters.
There's no question that local control comes with its own set of issues and a need to protect the rights of those with less power. But Lake is romanticizing charter/choice systems when she imagines that they provide any such protection, or responsiveness to the community, or stability in the neighborhood, or solutions for ALL students.
When Lake talks about the "needless chaos" of the Washington ruling, she is correct. When she suggests that charters were going to be the salvation of Washington, or any other, schools, she is incorrect. I'm going to steal my closing from Martha Hope Carey 's piece at Edushyster:
But what the case in Washington underscores most is the elemental choice made by charter proponents all those years ago, as they crafted the Minnesota legislation, variations of which are now on the books in 42 states. The choice was: do we work together as a community to best provide the state-mandated education of all our citizens and do so in a way that continues to be overseen by the electorate, which may mean re-allocating resources and (gasp) raising taxes, or do we just let private groups of folks do their own thing, using our taxes, in the name of education?
And if we've decided that when Americans work together as a community etc etc etc is somehow reminiscent of Communist Russia, then we've lost sight of our own national character and history as well.
FL: Bonus Plan Hits a Snag
Florida had a wacky idea-- let's give teachers a bonus for something completely unrelated to their job performance, and so was born the Best and the Brightest bonus program.
Teachers would be given a frosty $10,000 for having high SAT/ACT scores. This is potentially both expensive (Florida set aside $44 mill for this), and it's also crazy pants. Presumably that's why Florida did not also consider bonuses for students who were in the Bluebird reading group in third grade or who were regularly chosen to clean the erasers.
While the whole idea is silly and insulting and some teachers were fully prepared to tell the state to take its $10K and stick it where the mangroves grow, you can bet some Florida teachers were willing to keep a straight face all the way to the bank.
Except...
Now it turns out that an official transcript from your college, which lists your SAT score, is not good enough.
No-- you have to have an official straight-from-the-College-Board paper listing your score. This may be a bit of a problem if you took the SATs back when Nixon was President or you're not a compulsive packrat or you correctly noted that once you were admitted to college, your SAT score would never ever matter again in your entire life.
The deadline is October 1, so good luck getting a new printout from the College Board in time. Of course, new hires-- like, say, Teach for America candidates who are fresh out of college and headed down to Florida because they heard about the sweet $10K bonus-- I'll bet lots of those guys may still have their official SAT papers from just a few years ago.
Boy. It's almost like Florida only wanted to use the bonus to attract a certain kind of "teacher" to Florida, and the state wasn't really interested in rewarding the Best and Brightest that they already had.
Teachers would be given a frosty $10,000 for having high SAT/ACT scores. This is potentially both expensive (Florida set aside $44 mill for this), and it's also crazy pants. Presumably that's why Florida did not also consider bonuses for students who were in the Bluebird reading group in third grade or who were regularly chosen to clean the erasers.
While the whole idea is silly and insulting and some teachers were fully prepared to tell the state to take its $10K and stick it where the mangroves grow, you can bet some Florida teachers were willing to keep a straight face all the way to the bank.
Except...
Now it turns out that an official transcript from your college, which lists your SAT score, is not good enough.
No-- you have to have an official straight-from-the-College-Board paper listing your score. This may be a bit of a problem if you took the SATs back when Nixon was President or you're not a compulsive packrat or you correctly noted that once you were admitted to college, your SAT score would never ever matter again in your entire life.
The deadline is October 1, so good luck getting a new printout from the College Board in time. Of course, new hires-- like, say, Teach for America candidates who are fresh out of college and headed down to Florida because they heard about the sweet $10K bonus-- I'll bet lots of those guys may still have their official SAT papers from just a few years ago.
Boy. It's almost like Florida only wanted to use the bonus to attract a certain kind of "teacher" to Florida, and the state wasn't really interested in rewarding the Best and Brightest that they already had.
Coleman's New SAT
The unveiling of David Coleman's New, Improved SAT Suite is just around the corner, and that means its time to ramp up the marketing blitz for this great new product.
The College Board website is freshly festooned with a festive font that shows that the new SAT Suite is ready to hang with the cool kids. I mean, you can follow the SAT on twitter! All the young persons are following the twitter, right?
The whole business seems charmingly cheesy in its commercial crassness, but it stands as one more part of David Coleman's crusade to redefine what it means to be an educated person in this country. We've been watching this come down the pike for a while; what can we spot now that it's almost here?
I Can Has Skillz
The new SAT comes complete with a new motto-- "skilled it." And copywriters have made sure that theme permeates the site. "Bank on skills." "Show off your skills." "Let's talk skills." "Skill Mail." "Calling all skills." "U of Skill." "Skilled in class. Skilled for college." "Take the test that measures the real skills you've learned in class to show colleges you've got what it takes." Can you spot the unifying feature here? Only one of the blurby graphics mentions the K word-- "Show off the skills and knowledge colleges want most."
The SAT suite has been brought in line with the many unappealing qualities of the Common Core-- a disregard bordering on antipathy when it comes to actual content knowledge.
Granted, the SAT has always been a soul-sucking hypocrite when it comes to this issue, subjecting generations of students to verbal tests that claimed to measure reasoning while actually just being expensive, complicated vocabulary tests. But our new goal seems to be to turn the SAT into PARCC's step-brother. I could, if I wished, prepare my students for the Big Standardized Core test by doing nothing all year but reading newspaper articles and pages from storybooks, followed by multiple choice questions. Coleman wants to take the SAT to that place-- the place where a student's worth is judged by their ability to perform the right tricks.
This is the Coleman vision of education. An educated person doesn't Know Things. And educated person can Do Things. After all, what's the point in knowing things if you can't turn your knowledge into deliverables, use it to add value, grab it like a might crowbar that you can use to pry open the secret moneybanks of the world. Do you think Coleman had to know anything to write the Core or re-configure the SAT? Of course not-- he just had to Get Things Done. An educated person has marketable skills. What else do you need?
Co-opting Khan
Part of the new SAT initiative has been to try to shut down the lucrative SAT prep industry, and to that end, the College Board has teamed up with Khan Academy to provide free test prep of their own. There's even a nifty video of Coleman and Khan videoconferencing about how swell it all is; Coleman seems to think that the Khan academy stuff will achieve college and career readiness all on its own (because that's the core of what it's all about now).
Free seems like an excellent price, especially to build such brand recognition. I'm just going to go ahead and type "There's been such a demand for more tools that give more in depth preparation that we are pleased to make these available for a small fee" now so that I can link back to it a year from now when I want to show off my prognostication skills.
Not For Stupid Eggheads
The new SAT push has been weirdly anti-intellectual. The website is repeatedly clear about how it has thrown off the shambling shackles of smarmy smartitude, pointing out that the test will measure what you learned in high school (provided your school followed Coleman's blueprints) and what you need to succeed in college (a bullshit claim that's not backed up with anything concrete for the same reason that Coleman can list the tools you need to trap a Yeti). And this:
If you think the key to a high score is memorizing words and facts you’ll never use in the real world, think again. You don’t have to discover secret tricks or cram the night before.
Yup. They list the secrets of success: take hard courses, do your homework, prepare for tests (but not with test prep?) and ask and answer lots of questions.
So What's Inside?
In addition to links to the Khan stuff, the site has samples and explanations for each of the test sections. A page gives a general description, noting once again that cramming facts and flashcards won't be necessary, and takes a chatty tone, even using the word "stuff."
Reading
The reading intro includes a sideways definition of reading, opening with the lilting line, "A lot more goes into reading than you might realize — and the Reading Test measures a range of reading skills." That includes Command of Evidence, Words in Context, and Analysis in History/Social Studies and in Science.
A quick look at the sample questions shows selections including Ethan Frome, a piece about commuting's cost in productivity, a piece about turtles navigating sea migration, and a 1974 speech by Barbara Jordan (all excerpts, of course). The intro to the Jordan speech lets us know that it was delivered in the context of impeachment hearings against Richard Nixon, and it opens with this paragraph:
Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution as a whole, it is complete, it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.
It also includes a quote from Federalist No. 65. Then it asks what the best description of Jordan's stance would be (correct answer-- an idealist setting forth principles). And, as seems required in standardized reading tests, a couple of question require the test-taker to speculate on the author's thoughts, feelings, and intent. This test is well-aligned with all the other BS Tests that Common Core has inflicted on us.
Writing and Language
Well, now I just want to punch myself in the brain. This is basically an editing exercise, with a certain amount of spelling, punctuation and usage questions, along with a few tasks that involve making the stylistic choice preferred by the kind of boring white-bread dull writers whose work is favored by test manufacturers. The goal is to insure that nobody on earth could have prior knowledge of the content, so the work is often selected from the Big Book of the Most Boring Damn Pieces of Writing Ever Written, so that it's a chore just to look at their lifeless prose spread out against the page like a patient etherized upon a table.
SAT Essay
I have a sneaking suspicion that Coleman oversaw this makeover personally. You'll read a passage, explain how the author builds an argument to persuade the audience, support your explanation with evidence from the text. You have fifty whole minutes to do it and--
You won't be asked to agree or disagree with a position on a topic or to write about your personal experience.
In other words, the top scoring essays should all be close to identical.
Worst. Standardized. Writing. Test. Ever.
The only good part is that it's optional. Somehow, I don't see any colleges finding this particularly useful.
Key Content Differences
So what's actually different about the test? Well, the College Board says these are the key changes--
Words in context-- "Many questions on the new SAT focus on important, widely used words and phrases found in texts in many different subjects." I'm not sure how the College Board measures importance of words and phrases, but I do know that description sounds like part of the cover copy for the dozens of new test prep books about to come out so that people know what to put on their flashcards when they're cramming the night before.
Command of evidence-- The College Board already knows what the point of a selection is, and they already know which words and phrases in the selection are the important evidence. In effect, the College Board has figured out how to turn a multi-paragraph excerpt into a larger, trickier multiple choice question. As always, no personal thinking or interpreting allowed. Read the selection and come up with the right answer, supported by the right evidence for the right reasons.
That's exactly how college works, right??
Math that matters most-- You know I'm not a math teacher. The CB tells us what Most Important Mat is on the test. But the methodology described seems... well... "Current research shows that these areas are used disproportionately in a wide range of majors and careers." So, you know-- know only the things that will help you get a job. College is High Class Vocational Training, right? That's what an educated person is, right-- someone who knows how to leverage what they can do into a nice payday?
Also, they repeat their line about how all this will be real-world related. You know, like Ethan Fromme and Barbara Jordan's 1974 speech quoting the Federalist papers in regards to Nixon's impeachment.
Oh-- that last part goes with the new SAT focus on US Founding Documents and the Great Global Conversation they started. Really.
Expanding the market
Of course, the context of all this is not just David Coleman's desire to impose his own vision of education on the entire country. The context is also that the College Board needs to get revenue rolling into their cash-strapped coffers.
Some of this they have accomplished by conning some states into making every student take the test. And they've had government-backed success with other products, like the AP tests that are part of some schools' evaluation. I know I'm just a simple English teacher, but I would love to sit in on the conversation where a corporate rep convinces elected representatives that it's a good idea to make all the citizens of a state buy his product. It's impressive and unprecedented.
But that's not enough-- the SAT folks are also expanding their reach by adding new testy treats, like the PSAT 8/9, "a test that will help you and your teachers figure out what you need to work on most so that you're ready for college when you graduate from high school." It tests the same stuff as the SAT, PSAT and PSAT 10 (Oh, yeah-- there's a PSAT 10, too) so that your students can be using our products throughout their entire career. Ka-ching!! And what could be better test prep than taking the test manufacturers test prep test annually?
Not enough cross-marketing? Don't forget-- the PSAT will now give you recommendations for which AP courses you should be taking! Ka-chingggggggg!!
College Board's Big Roll of the Dice
This could go great for the CB. Just as the PARCC made noises about encroaching on their territory (why don't colleges just go ahead and use Core Test scores for college admission), the SAT is now positioned to push the various Common Core Big Standardized Tests right out of the market. They've already got the product, they have the experience, and they're run by the guy who wrote half the standards you're trying to test. Plus, they already have a long standing (if unfounded) claim to being monumental measurers of post-secondary preparedness.
With so much product and government backing, they could do the Coke and Pepsi trick of pushing all other colas off the grocery store shelves.
On the other hand, even more colleges could decide to do the right thing and stop holding their future students hostage to a money-sucking test industry that still, after years of playing this game, does not predict future college success better than a student's high school grade point average. The rewrite of the SAT could be David Coleman's New Coke, finally highlighting just how obsolete and useless his product is. This could finally kill the beast.
We shall wait and see. In the meantime, I will stay obnoxiously optimistic and partially positive. Also, I'll grudgingly round up test prep materials for my suffering juniors.
The College Board website is freshly festooned with a festive font that shows that the new SAT Suite is ready to hang with the cool kids. I mean, you can follow the SAT on twitter! All the young persons are following the twitter, right?
The whole business seems charmingly cheesy in its commercial crassness, but it stands as one more part of David Coleman's crusade to redefine what it means to be an educated person in this country. We've been watching this come down the pike for a while; what can we spot now that it's almost here?
I Can Has Skillz
The new SAT comes complete with a new motto-- "skilled it." And copywriters have made sure that theme permeates the site. "Bank on skills." "Show off your skills." "Let's talk skills." "Skill Mail." "Calling all skills." "U of Skill." "Skilled in class. Skilled for college." "Take the test that measures the real skills you've learned in class to show colleges you've got what it takes." Can you spot the unifying feature here? Only one of the blurby graphics mentions the K word-- "Show off the skills and knowledge colleges want most."
The SAT suite has been brought in line with the many unappealing qualities of the Common Core-- a disregard bordering on antipathy when it comes to actual content knowledge.
Granted, the SAT has always been a soul-sucking hypocrite when it comes to this issue, subjecting generations of students to verbal tests that claimed to measure reasoning while actually just being expensive, complicated vocabulary tests. But our new goal seems to be to turn the SAT into PARCC's step-brother. I could, if I wished, prepare my students for the Big Standardized Core test by doing nothing all year but reading newspaper articles and pages from storybooks, followed by multiple choice questions. Coleman wants to take the SAT to that place-- the place where a student's worth is judged by their ability to perform the right tricks.
This is the Coleman vision of education. An educated person doesn't Know Things. And educated person can Do Things. After all, what's the point in knowing things if you can't turn your knowledge into deliverables, use it to add value, grab it like a might crowbar that you can use to pry open the secret moneybanks of the world. Do you think Coleman had to know anything to write the Core or re-configure the SAT? Of course not-- he just had to Get Things Done. An educated person has marketable skills. What else do you need?
Co-opting Khan
Part of the new SAT initiative has been to try to shut down the lucrative SAT prep industry, and to that end, the College Board has teamed up with Khan Academy to provide free test prep of their own. There's even a nifty video of Coleman and Khan videoconferencing about how swell it all is; Coleman seems to think that the Khan academy stuff will achieve college and career readiness all on its own (because that's the core of what it's all about now).
Free seems like an excellent price, especially to build such brand recognition. I'm just going to go ahead and type "There's been such a demand for more tools that give more in depth preparation that we are pleased to make these available for a small fee" now so that I can link back to it a year from now when I want to show off my prognostication skills.
Not For Stupid Eggheads
The new SAT push has been weirdly anti-intellectual. The website is repeatedly clear about how it has thrown off the shambling shackles of smarmy smartitude, pointing out that the test will measure what you learned in high school (provided your school followed Coleman's blueprints) and what you need to succeed in college (a bullshit claim that's not backed up with anything concrete for the same reason that Coleman can list the tools you need to trap a Yeti). And this:
If you think the key to a high score is memorizing words and facts you’ll never use in the real world, think again. You don’t have to discover secret tricks or cram the night before.
Yup. They list the secrets of success: take hard courses, do your homework, prepare for tests (but not with test prep?) and ask and answer lots of questions.
So What's Inside?
In addition to links to the Khan stuff, the site has samples and explanations for each of the test sections. A page gives a general description, noting once again that cramming facts and flashcards won't be necessary, and takes a chatty tone, even using the word "stuff."
Reading
The reading intro includes a sideways definition of reading, opening with the lilting line, "A lot more goes into reading than you might realize — and the Reading Test measures a range of reading skills." That includes Command of Evidence, Words in Context, and Analysis in History/Social Studies and in Science.
A quick look at the sample questions shows selections including Ethan Frome, a piece about commuting's cost in productivity, a piece about turtles navigating sea migration, and a 1974 speech by Barbara Jordan (all excerpts, of course). The intro to the Jordan speech lets us know that it was delivered in the context of impeachment hearings against Richard Nixon, and it opens with this paragraph:
Today I am an inquisitor. An hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution as a whole, it is complete, it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.
It also includes a quote from Federalist No. 65. Then it asks what the best description of Jordan's stance would be (correct answer-- an idealist setting forth principles). And, as seems required in standardized reading tests, a couple of question require the test-taker to speculate on the author's thoughts, feelings, and intent. This test is well-aligned with all the other BS Tests that Common Core has inflicted on us.
Writing and Language
Well, now I just want to punch myself in the brain. This is basically an editing exercise, with a certain amount of spelling, punctuation and usage questions, along with a few tasks that involve making the stylistic choice preferred by the kind of boring white-bread dull writers whose work is favored by test manufacturers. The goal is to insure that nobody on earth could have prior knowledge of the content, so the work is often selected from the Big Book of the Most Boring Damn Pieces of Writing Ever Written, so that it's a chore just to look at their lifeless prose spread out against the page like a patient etherized upon a table.
SAT Essay
I have a sneaking suspicion that Coleman oversaw this makeover personally. You'll read a passage, explain how the author builds an argument to persuade the audience, support your explanation with evidence from the text. You have fifty whole minutes to do it and--
You won't be asked to agree or disagree with a position on a topic or to write about your personal experience.
In other words, the top scoring essays should all be close to identical.
Worst. Standardized. Writing. Test. Ever.
The only good part is that it's optional. Somehow, I don't see any colleges finding this particularly useful.
Key Content Differences
So what's actually different about the test? Well, the College Board says these are the key changes--
Words in context-- "Many questions on the new SAT focus on important, widely used words and phrases found in texts in many different subjects." I'm not sure how the College Board measures importance of words and phrases, but I do know that description sounds like part of the cover copy for the dozens of new test prep books about to come out so that people know what to put on their flashcards when they're cramming the night before.
Command of evidence-- The College Board already knows what the point of a selection is, and they already know which words and phrases in the selection are the important evidence. In effect, the College Board has figured out how to turn a multi-paragraph excerpt into a larger, trickier multiple choice question. As always, no personal thinking or interpreting allowed. Read the selection and come up with the right answer, supported by the right evidence for the right reasons.
That's exactly how college works, right??
Math that matters most-- You know I'm not a math teacher. The CB tells us what Most Important Mat is on the test. But the methodology described seems... well... "Current research shows that these areas are used disproportionately in a wide range of majors and careers." So, you know-- know only the things that will help you get a job. College is High Class Vocational Training, right? That's what an educated person is, right-- someone who knows how to leverage what they can do into a nice payday?
Also, they repeat their line about how all this will be real-world related. You know, like Ethan Fromme and Barbara Jordan's 1974 speech quoting the Federalist papers in regards to Nixon's impeachment.
Oh-- that last part goes with the new SAT focus on US Founding Documents and the Great Global Conversation they started. Really.
Expanding the market
Of course, the context of all this is not just David Coleman's desire to impose his own vision of education on the entire country. The context is also that the College Board needs to get revenue rolling into their cash-strapped coffers.
Some of this they have accomplished by conning some states into making every student take the test. And they've had government-backed success with other products, like the AP tests that are part of some schools' evaluation. I know I'm just a simple English teacher, but I would love to sit in on the conversation where a corporate rep convinces elected representatives that it's a good idea to make all the citizens of a state buy his product. It's impressive and unprecedented.
But that's not enough-- the SAT folks are also expanding their reach by adding new testy treats, like the PSAT 8/9, "a test that will help you and your teachers figure out what you need to work on most so that you're ready for college when you graduate from high school." It tests the same stuff as the SAT, PSAT and PSAT 10 (Oh, yeah-- there's a PSAT 10, too) so that your students can be using our products throughout their entire career. Ka-ching!! And what could be better test prep than taking the test manufacturers test prep test annually?
Not enough cross-marketing? Don't forget-- the PSAT will now give you recommendations for which AP courses you should be taking! Ka-chingggggggg!!
College Board's Big Roll of the Dice
This could go great for the CB. Just as the PARCC made noises about encroaching on their territory (why don't colleges just go ahead and use Core Test scores for college admission), the SAT is now positioned to push the various Common Core Big Standardized Tests right out of the market. They've already got the product, they have the experience, and they're run by the guy who wrote half the standards you're trying to test. Plus, they already have a long standing (if unfounded) claim to being monumental measurers of post-secondary preparedness.
With so much product and government backing, they could do the Coke and Pepsi trick of pushing all other colas off the grocery store shelves.
On the other hand, even more colleges could decide to do the right thing and stop holding their future students hostage to a money-sucking test industry that still, after years of playing this game, does not predict future college success better than a student's high school grade point average. The rewrite of the SAT could be David Coleman's New Coke, finally highlighting just how obsolete and useless his product is. This could finally kill the beast.
We shall wait and see. In the meantime, I will stay obnoxiously optimistic and partially positive. Also, I'll grudgingly round up test prep materials for my suffering juniors.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
AP, Please Do Your CCSS Homework
Sally Ho, who works the Nevada/Utah beat for the Associated Press, tried her hand at a Common Core Big Standardized Test Explainer. She needed to do a little more homework, including a few more things not written by Common Core Testing flacks.
She sets out with a good question. Last year students were supposed to be taking super-duper adaptive tests that would generate lots of super-duper data. But in many states the computerized on-line testing was a giant cluster farfegnugen, and in many other states there was an "unprecedented spread of refusals."
So what is the impact of the incomplete data?
Common Core History
Ho's research skills fail her here, and she goes with the Core's classic PR line: The Core is standards, not curriculum. Also, it was totally developed by governors and state school superintendents "with the input of teachers, experts and community members." It's pretty easy to locate the actual list of people in the room when the Core was written.
Ho locates the opposition to the Core strictly in the right wing, reacting to Obama's involvement and a perceived federal overreach. Granted, she's a Nevada-Utah reporter, but at this point it's not that hard to note the large number of people all across the political spectrum who have found reasons to dislike the Core.
What Happened Last Year?
Ho's general outline is accurate, though her generous use of passive voice (the Clark County School District "was crippled") lets the test manufacturers and states off the hook for their spectacular bollixing of the on-line testing. She also notes the widespread test refusal (go get 'em, New York).
She also dips into the history of incomplete data, noting Kansas in 2014 and Wyoming in 2010. She might have spared a sentence or two to note that nothing like this has happened before because nobody has tried data generation and collection on this scale before.
How Are Test Scores Usually Used?
States are required to test all students and use their scores to determine how the school systems are doing, which can affect funding. Some states use the data for a "ratings" system. A few are using it as a part of teacher evaluations. In the classroom, schools generally share the data with teachers who use it to guide curriculum decisions and measure individual students.
True-ish, true (particularly with air quotes around "ratings"), true-ish, and false. We can call it etra false because it's not possible to effectively do all of those things with a single test. Tests are designed for a particular purpose. Trying to use them for other purposes just produces junk data.
How Will Incomplete Scores Affect the Classroom?
Ho has a wry and understated answer to this question: "Direct impacts on the classroom are likely to be minimal." I think that's a safe prediction from an instructional standpoint, though she rather blithely slides past "most states aren't using it for teacher evaluations yet," which strikes me as rather blandly vague, considering we're talking about the use of junk data to decide individual teachers' fates.
Still it's true that, since the test data never provided anything useful for classroom, having less of a useless thing doesn't really interfere with anyone's teaching. And if there's a teacher out there saying, "But how shall I design my instruction without a full Big Standardized Test Data profile of my students," that teacher needs to get out of the profession.
Ho might also have addressed the issue that in most states the data, incomplete or otherwise, doesn't arrive before the start of the school year, anyway.
She also claims that everyone says that test scores don't make the final call on grade promotion, which will come as news to all those states that have a Third Grade Reading Test Retention policy.
Oh No She Didn't
Ho answers the question of "Why even bother to test" with the hoariest of chestnuts, the Bathroom Scale Analogy-- "a school district trying to tackle chronic problems without standardize test scores can be like trying to diet without a scale." It is a dumb analogy. I have ranted about this before, so let me just quote me on this:
The bathroom scale image is brave, given the number of times folks in the resistance have pointed out that you do not change the weight of a pig by repeatedly measuring it. But I am wondering now-- why do I have to have scales or a mirror to lose weight? Will the weight loss occur if it is not caught in data? If a tree's weight falls in the forest but nobody measures it, does it shake a pound?
This could be an interesting new application of quantum physics, or it could be another inadvertent revelation about reformster (and economist) biases. Because I do not need a bathroom scale to lose weight. I don't even need a bathroom scale to know I'm losing weight-- I can see the difference in how my clothes fit, I can feel the easier step, the increase in energy. I only need a bathroom scale if I don't trust my own senses, or because I have somehow been required to prove to someone else that I have lost weight. Or if I believe that things are only real when Important People measure them.
Ho tries to hedge her bets by going on to say that of course you need other data, but the basic analogy is still just bad.
What's Next?
Studies looking at the validity of scores that states do have, which is kind of hilarious given that most of the BS Tests have never been proven valid in the first place.* So I guess states will try to find out if their partial unvalidated junk is as valid as a full truckload of unvalidated junk. That is almost as wacky as the next line:
For the next testing cycle, states say they don't expect problems.
Ho might want to check the files and see if the states expected problems this last time. You know, the time with all the unexpected problems. But Nevada has a new test manufacturer, Montana has no Plan B, and New York is leaning on parents. So everything should be awesome soon. And anyway, there's plenty of year left before it's time for the next puff piece on Common Core testing. Can I please request that AP reporters use that time to do some reading?
*I originally wrote that they have never been studied for validity; that's not true. Studies are out there. I and others remain unconvinced by them.
She sets out with a good question. Last year students were supposed to be taking super-duper adaptive tests that would generate lots of super-duper data. But in many states the computerized on-line testing was a giant cluster farfegnugen, and in many other states there was an "unprecedented spread of refusals."
So what is the impact of the incomplete data?
Common Core History
Ho's research skills fail her here, and she goes with the Core's classic PR line: The Core is standards, not curriculum. Also, it was totally developed by governors and state school superintendents "with the input of teachers, experts and community members." It's pretty easy to locate the actual list of people in the room when the Core was written.
Ho locates the opposition to the Core strictly in the right wing, reacting to Obama's involvement and a perceived federal overreach. Granted, she's a Nevada-Utah reporter, but at this point it's not that hard to note the large number of people all across the political spectrum who have found reasons to dislike the Core.
What Happened Last Year?
Ho's general outline is accurate, though her generous use of passive voice (the Clark County School District "was crippled") lets the test manufacturers and states off the hook for their spectacular bollixing of the on-line testing. She also notes the widespread test refusal (go get 'em, New York).
She also dips into the history of incomplete data, noting Kansas in 2014 and Wyoming in 2010. She might have spared a sentence or two to note that nothing like this has happened before because nobody has tried data generation and collection on this scale before.
How Are Test Scores Usually Used?
States are required to test all students and use their scores to determine how the school systems are doing, which can affect funding. Some states use the data for a "ratings" system. A few are using it as a part of teacher evaluations. In the classroom, schools generally share the data with teachers who use it to guide curriculum decisions and measure individual students.
True-ish, true (particularly with air quotes around "ratings"), true-ish, and false. We can call it etra false because it's not possible to effectively do all of those things with a single test. Tests are designed for a particular purpose. Trying to use them for other purposes just produces junk data.
How Will Incomplete Scores Affect the Classroom?
Ho has a wry and understated answer to this question: "Direct impacts on the classroom are likely to be minimal." I think that's a safe prediction from an instructional standpoint, though she rather blithely slides past "most states aren't using it for teacher evaluations yet," which strikes me as rather blandly vague, considering we're talking about the use of junk data to decide individual teachers' fates.
Still it's true that, since the test data never provided anything useful for classroom, having less of a useless thing doesn't really interfere with anyone's teaching. And if there's a teacher out there saying, "But how shall I design my instruction without a full Big Standardized Test Data profile of my students," that teacher needs to get out of the profession.
Ho might also have addressed the issue that in most states the data, incomplete or otherwise, doesn't arrive before the start of the school year, anyway.
She also claims that everyone says that test scores don't make the final call on grade promotion, which will come as news to all those states that have a Third Grade Reading Test Retention policy.
Oh No She Didn't
Ho answers the question of "Why even bother to test" with the hoariest of chestnuts, the Bathroom Scale Analogy-- "a school district trying to tackle chronic problems without standardize test scores can be like trying to diet without a scale." It is a dumb analogy. I have ranted about this before, so let me just quote me on this:
The bathroom scale image is brave, given the number of times folks in the resistance have pointed out that you do not change the weight of a pig by repeatedly measuring it. But I am wondering now-- why do I have to have scales or a mirror to lose weight? Will the weight loss occur if it is not caught in data? If a tree's weight falls in the forest but nobody measures it, does it shake a pound?
This could be an interesting new application of quantum physics, or it could be another inadvertent revelation about reformster (and economist) biases. Because I do not need a bathroom scale to lose weight. I don't even need a bathroom scale to know I'm losing weight-- I can see the difference in how my clothes fit, I can feel the easier step, the increase in energy. I only need a bathroom scale if I don't trust my own senses, or because I have somehow been required to prove to someone else that I have lost weight. Or if I believe that things are only real when Important People measure them.
Ho tries to hedge her bets by going on to say that of course you need other data, but the basic analogy is still just bad.
What's Next?
Studies looking at the validity of scores that states do have, which is kind of hilarious given that most of the BS Tests have never been proven valid in the first place.* So I guess states will try to find out if their partial unvalidated junk is as valid as a full truckload of unvalidated junk. That is almost as wacky as the next line:
For the next testing cycle, states say they don't expect problems.
Ho might want to check the files and see if the states expected problems this last time. You know, the time with all the unexpected problems. But Nevada has a new test manufacturer, Montana has no Plan B, and New York is leaning on parents. So everything should be awesome soon. And anyway, there's plenty of year left before it's time for the next puff piece on Common Core testing. Can I please request that AP reporters use that time to do some reading?
*I originally wrote that they have never been studied for validity; that's not true. Studies are out there. I and others remain unconvinced by them.
Don't Fix Your Building
Up a floor from the publishing offices of the Journal of Obvious Conclusions, we find the Journal of Dumb Questions, which probably wants dibs on this working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research-- "Investing in Schools: Capital Spending, Facility Conditions, and StudentAchievement."
I should probably be less hard on these guys-- after all, they are economists. And this is exactly the kind of stupid question we'll waste time on as long as we think the purpose of schools is to "raise student achievement" (aka "get higher test scores").
Here's the premise:
Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether it actually changes the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student achievement.
Yup. The roof in your school may be leaking, the bathrooms may be crumbling, and the heaters might not work, but before you go throwing a lot of money at the problems, let's ask the important question-- will fixing any of those things raise test scores?
The answer is, apparently, no. Now, I don't know how you pretend to research this. I could buy the paper on-line, but I can think of almost anything that might be a better use of my money (though I guess spending it on school improvement would not be on that list). The suggestion of the summary seems to be that they studied only schools that underwent big capital spending programs and looked to see if their students suddenly got better test scores. In related research, studies show that food does not make people healthy because today I ate a meal and I'm not any healthier than I was a week ago, so clearly eating food doesn't improve my health.
In other words, not only research that addresses a stupid question, but which "researches" it in a stupid way. Kudos to you, NBEC. But they persevere to arrive at this conclusion:
Thus, locally financed school capital campaigns – the predominant method through which facility investments are made – may represent a limited tool for realizing substantial gains in student achievement or closing achievement gaps.
Also, a bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves.
Yes, I can imagine school boards across the country, meeting in emergency session. The superintendent tells them that the students are cramped, the floors are sagging, the pipes have burst, and there are alligators in the basement. "We need to make some major improvements to the building," she says. But now, armed with this research, the board members will be able to look her in the eye and ask, "Yes, but will repairs raise test scores."
This is the kind of foolishness you get when you start using one bad metric for your measure of success. Should we buy a new book series? Should we paint the crumbling walls? Should we offer ice cream in the cafeteria? Should we lower class sizes? Should we let teachers wear blue jeans? Should we make an effort to be nice to students? Should we have a new anti-bullying policy? Should we have an art show? Should we take a field trip? Should the principal let me send Alice to the office when she's having trouble getting over the death of her grandfather?
There are so many questions that a school needs to answer, and so many questions for which "But will it raise test scores" is not a useful part of the conversation. This research may be a big slice of stupid, but it's a big slice of stupid that is right in line with the times.
I should probably be less hard on these guys-- after all, they are economists. And this is exactly the kind of stupid question we'll waste time on as long as we think the purpose of schools is to "raise student achievement" (aka "get higher test scores").
Here's the premise:
Public investments in repairs, modernization, and construction of schools cost billions. However, little is known about the nature of school facility investments, whether it actually changes the physical condition of public schools, and the subsequent causal impacts on student achievement.
Yup. The roof in your school may be leaking, the bathrooms may be crumbling, and the heaters might not work, but before you go throwing a lot of money at the problems, let's ask the important question-- will fixing any of those things raise test scores?
The answer is, apparently, no. Now, I don't know how you pretend to research this. I could buy the paper on-line, but I can think of almost anything that might be a better use of my money (though I guess spending it on school improvement would not be on that list). The suggestion of the summary seems to be that they studied only schools that underwent big capital spending programs and looked to see if their students suddenly got better test scores. In related research, studies show that food does not make people healthy because today I ate a meal and I'm not any healthier than I was a week ago, so clearly eating food doesn't improve my health.
In other words, not only research that addresses a stupid question, but which "researches" it in a stupid way. Kudos to you, NBEC. But they persevere to arrive at this conclusion:
Thus, locally financed school capital campaigns – the predominant method through which facility investments are made – may represent a limited tool for realizing substantial gains in student achievement or closing achievement gaps.
Also, a bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves.
Yes, I can imagine school boards across the country, meeting in emergency session. The superintendent tells them that the students are cramped, the floors are sagging, the pipes have burst, and there are alligators in the basement. "We need to make some major improvements to the building," she says. But now, armed with this research, the board members will be able to look her in the eye and ask, "Yes, but will repairs raise test scores."
This is the kind of foolishness you get when you start using one bad metric for your measure of success. Should we buy a new book series? Should we paint the crumbling walls? Should we offer ice cream in the cafeteria? Should we lower class sizes? Should we let teachers wear blue jeans? Should we make an effort to be nice to students? Should we have a new anti-bullying policy? Should we have an art show? Should we take a field trip? Should the principal let me send Alice to the office when she's having trouble getting over the death of her grandfather?
There are so many questions that a school needs to answer, and so many questions for which "But will it raise test scores" is not a useful part of the conversation. This research may be a big slice of stupid, but it's a big slice of stupid that is right in line with the times.
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