PARCC is touting two new radio spots that feature a couple of Teacher of the Year winners touting the wonderfulness of the PARCC.
The National Network of Teachers of the Year produced a "research report" last year that determined that the Big Standardized Tests are super-duper and much more better than the old state tests. Was the report legit? Weelll.....
The report was reviewed by three-- well, "experts" seems like the wrong word. Three guys. Joshua Starr was a noted superintendent in Maryland, where he developed a reputation as a high stakes testing opponent. He lost that job, and moved on to become the CEO of Phi Delta Kappa. Next, Joshua Parker was a compliance specialist with Baltimore Schools, a teacher of the year, and a current member of the reform-pushing PR operation, Education Post. And the third reviewer was Mike Petrilli, head of the Fordham Institute, a group dedicated to promoting testing, charters, etc.
The study was funded by the Rockefeller Philanthropy advisors, while the NNTOY sponsors list includes by the Gates Foundation, Pearson, AIR, ETS and the College Board-- in other words, every major test manufacturer in the country that makes a hefty living on high stakes testing.
So the study's conclusion that tests like the PARCC and the SBAC are super-excellent is not exactly a shock or surprise, and neither can it be surprise that one follow-up to the study is these two radio spots.
The teachers in the spots are Steve Elza, 2015 Illinois TOYT and applied tech (automotive trades) teacher, and Josh Parker, a-- hey! Wait a minute!! Is that? Why, yes-- it appears to be one of the reviewers of the original study. Some days I start to think that some folks don't really understand what "peer review" means when it comes to research.
Anyway, the spots. What do they say? Let's listen to Elza's spot first--
A narrator (with a fairly distinct speech impediment which-- okay, fine, but it's a little distracting at first) says that Illinois students took a new PARCC test. It was the first time tests were ever aligned with what teachers taught in the classroom! Really!! The first time ever, ever! Can you believe that? No, I can't, either. And some of the best teachers in the country did a study last year to compare PARCC to state tests. And now, 2015 Teacher of the Year, Steve Elza:
Every teacher who took part in the research came to the same conclusion-- PARCC is a test worth taking. The results more accurately measure students' learning progress and tells us if kids are truly learning or if they're just repeating memorized facts. Because PARCC is aligned to our academic standards, the best preparation for it is good classroom instruction. As a teacher, I no longer have to give my students test-taking strategies-- instead I can focus on making sure students develop strong, critical, and analytical thinking skills. Our students were not as prepared for the more rigorous coursework in college or even to start working right after high school.
Sigh. First, "truly learning" and "repeating memorized facts" are not the two possible things that a test can measure, and any teacher who is not teaching test-taking strategies is not preparing her students for the test. I'm glad Elza is no longer working on test-taking strategies in auto shop, and I'm sure he's comfortable having his skills as a teacher of automotive tradecraft based in part on student math and English standardized test scores. The claim that PARCC measures readiness for the working world is just bizarre. I look forward to PARCC claims that the test measures readiness for marriage, parenthood, and running for elected office.
The narrator returns to exclaim how helpful PARCC is, loaded with "valuable feedback" that will make sure everybody is ready for "success in school and life." Yes, PARCC remains the most magical test product ever manufactured.
So how about the other spot? Let's give a listen.
Okay, same narrator, same copy with Illinois switched out for Maryland. That makes sense. And now, teacher Josh Parker:
Every teacher who took part in the research came to the same--- hey, wait a minute!! They just had these two different teachers read from the same script! Someone (could it be the PARCC marketting department?) just put words in their mouths. Parker goes one extra mile-- right after "analytical thinking skills" he throws in "PARCC also pulled back the curtain on a long-unspoken truth" before the baloney about how students were unprepared for life. Also, Parker didn't think there was a comma after "strong."
One more sad piece of marketing for the PARCC as it slowly loses piece after piece of its market. It's unfortunate that the title Teacher of the Year has been dragged into this. The award should speak more to admirable classroom qualities than simply be a way to set up teachers to be celebrity spokespersons for the very corporations that have undercut the teaching profession.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Ace That Test? I Think Not.
The full court press for the Big Standardized Test is on, with all manner of spokespersons and PR initiatives trying to convince Americans to welcome the warm, loving embrace of standardized testing. Last week the Boston Globe brought us Yana Weinstein and Megan Smith, a pair of psychology assistant professors who have co-founded Learning Scientists, which appears to be mostly a blog that they've been running for about a month. And say what you like-- they do not appear to be slickly or heavily funded by the Usual Gang of Reformsters.
Their stated goals include lessening test anxiety and decreasing the negative views of testing. And the reliably reformy Boston Globe gave them a chance to get their word out. Additionally, the pair blogged about additional material that did not make it through the Globe's edit.
The Testing Effect
Weinstein and Smith are fond of "the testing effect" a somewhat inexact term used to refer to the notion that recalling information helps people retain it. It always makes me want a name for whatever it is that makes some people believe that the only situation in which information is recalled is a test. Hell, it could be called the teaching effect, since we can get the same thing going by having students teach a concept to the rest of the class. Or the writing effect, or the discussion effect. There are many ways to have students sock information in place by recalling it; testing is neither the only or the best way to go about it.
Things That Make the Learning Scientists Feel Bad
From their blog, we learn that the LS team feels "awkward" when reading anti-testing writing, and they link to an example from Diane Ravitch. Awkward is an odd way to feel, really. But then, I think their example of a strong defense of testing is a little awkward. They wanted to quote a HuffPost pro-testing piece from Charles Coleman that, they say, addresses problems with the opt out movement "eloquently."
"To put it plainly: white parents from well-funded and highly performing areas are participating in petulant, poorly conceived protests that are ultimately affecting inner-city blacks at schools that need the funding and measures of accountability to ensure any hope of progress in performance." -- Charles F. Coleman Jr.
Ah. So opt outers are white, rich, whiny racists. That is certainly eloquent and well-reasoned support of testing. And let's throw in the counter-reality notion that testing helps poor schools, though after over a decade of test-driven accountability, you'd think supporters could rattle off a list of schools that A) nobody knew were underfunded and underresourced until testing and B) received an boost through extra money and resources after testing. Could it be that no such list actually exists?
Tests Cause Anxiety
The LS duo wants to decrease test anxiety by hammering students with testing all the time, so that it's no longer a big deal. I believe that's true, but not a good idea. Also, parents and teachers should stop saying bad things about the BS Tests, but just keep piling on the happy talk so that students can stop worrying and learn to love the test. All of this, of course, pre-supposes that the BS Tests are actually worthwhile and wonderful and that all the misgivings being expressed by professional educators and the parents of the children is-- what? An evil plot? Widespread confusion? The duo seem deeply committed to not admitting that test critics have any point at all. Fools, the lot of them.
Teaching to the Test
The idea that teaching to a test isn’t really teaching implies an almost astounding assumption that standardized tests are filled with meaningless, ill-thought-out questions on irrelevant or arbitrary information. This may be based on the myth that “teachers in the trenches” are being told what to teach by some “experts” who’ve probably never set foot in a “real” classroom.
Actually, it's neither "astounding" nor an "assumption," but, at least in the case of this "defiant" teacher (LS likes to use argument by adjective), my judgment of the test is based on looking at the actual test and using my professional judgment. It's a crappy test, with poorly-constructed questions that, as is generally the case with a standardized test, mostly test the student's ability to figure out what the test manufacturer wants the student to choose for an answer (and of course the fact that students are selecting answers rather than responding to open ended prompts further limits the usefulness of the BS Test).
But LS assert that tests are actually put together by testing experts and well-seasoned real teachers (and you can see the proof in a video put up by a testing manufacturer about how awesome that test manufacturer is, so totally legit). LS note that "defiant teachers" either "fail to realize" this or "choose to ignore" it. In other words, teachers are either dumb or mindlessly opposed to the truth.
Standardized Tests Are Biased
The team notes that bias is an issue with standardized tests, but it's "highly unlikely" that classroom teachers could do any better, so there. Their question-- if we can't trust a big board of experts to come up with an unbiased test, how can we believe that an individual wouldn't do even worse, and how would we hold them accountable?
That's a fair question, but it assumes some purposes for testing that are not in evidence. My classroom tests are there to see how my students have progressed with and grasped the material. I design those materials with my students in mind. I don't, as BS Tests often do, assume that "everybody knows about" the topic of the material, because I know the everybody's in my classroom, so I can make choices accordingly. I can also select prompts and test material that hook directly into their culture and background.
In short, BS Testing bias enters largely because the test is designed to fit an imaginary Generic Student who actually represents the biases of the test manufacturers, while my assessments are designed to fit the very specific group of students in my room. BS Tests are one-size-fits-all. Mine are tailored to fit.
Reformsters may then say, "But if yours are tailored to fit, how can we use them to compare your students to students across the nation." To which I say, "So what?" You'll need to convince me that there is an actual need to closely compare all students in the nation.
Tests Don't Provide Prompt Feedback
The duo actually agree that test "have a lot of room for improvement." They even acknowledge that the feedback from the test is not only late, but generally vague and useless. But hey-- tests are going to be totes better when they are all online, an assertion that makes the astonishing assumption that there is no difference between a paper test and a computer test except how the students record their answers.
Big Finish
The wrap up is a final barrage of Wrong Things.
Standardized tests were created to track students’ progress and evaluate schools and teachers.
Were they? Really? Is it even possible to create a single test that can actually be used for all those purposes? Because just about everyone on the planet not financially invested in the industry has pointed out that using test results to evaluate teachers via VAM-like methods is baloney. And tests need to be manufactured for a particular purpose-- not three or four entirely different ones. So I call shenanigans-- the tests were not created to both measure and track all three of those things.
Griping abounds about how these tests are measuring the wrong thing and in the wrong way; but what’s conspicuously absent is any suggestion for how to better measure the effect of education — i.e., learning — on a large scale.
A popular reformster fallacy. If you walk into my hospital room and say, "Well, your blood pressure is terrible, so we are going to chop off your feet," and then I say, "No, I don't want you to chop off my feet. I don't believe it will help, and I like my feet," your appropriate response is not, "Well, then, you'd better tell me what else you want me to chop off instead.
In other words, what is "conspicuously absent" is evidence that there is a need for or value in measuring the effects of education on a large scale. Why do we need to do that? If you want to upend the education system for that purpose, the burden is on you to prove that the purpose is valid and useful.
In the absence of direct measures of learning, we resort to measures of performance.
Since we can't actually measure what we want to measure, we'll measure something else as a proxy and talk about it as if it's the same thing. That is one of the major problems with BS Testing in a nutshell.
And the great thing is: measuring this learning actually causes it to grow.
And weighing the pig makes it heavier. This is simply not true, "testing effect" notwithstanding.
PS
Via the blog, we know that they wanted to link to this post at Learning Spy which has some interesting things to say about the difference between learning and performance, including this:
And students are skilled at mimicking what they think teachers want to see and hear. This mimicry might result in learning but often doesn’t.
That's a pretty good explanation of why BS Tests are of so little use-- they are about learning to mimic the behavior required by test manufacturers. But the critical difference between that mimicry on a test and in my classroom is that in my classroom, I can watch for when students are simply mimicking and adjust my instruction and assessment accordingly. A BS Tests cannot make any such adjustments, and cannot tell the difference between mimicry and learning at all.
The duo notes that their post is "controversial," and it is in the sense that it's more pro-test baloney, but I suspect that much of their pushback is also a reaction to their barely-disguised disdain for classroom teachers who don't agree with them. They might also consider widening their tool selection ("when your only tool is a hammer, etc...") to include a broader range of approaches beyond the "test effect." It's a nice trick, and it has its uses, but it's a lousy justification for high stakes BS Testing.
Their stated goals include lessening test anxiety and decreasing the negative views of testing. And the reliably reformy Boston Globe gave them a chance to get their word out. Additionally, the pair blogged about additional material that did not make it through the Globe's edit.
The Testing Effect
Weinstein and Smith are fond of "the testing effect" a somewhat inexact term used to refer to the notion that recalling information helps people retain it. It always makes me want a name for whatever it is that makes some people believe that the only situation in which information is recalled is a test. Hell, it could be called the teaching effect, since we can get the same thing going by having students teach a concept to the rest of the class. Or the writing effect, or the discussion effect. There are many ways to have students sock information in place by recalling it; testing is neither the only or the best way to go about it.
Things That Make the Learning Scientists Feel Bad
From their blog, we learn that the LS team feels "awkward" when reading anti-testing writing, and they link to an example from Diane Ravitch. Awkward is an odd way to feel, really. But then, I think their example of a strong defense of testing is a little awkward. They wanted to quote a HuffPost pro-testing piece from Charles Coleman that, they say, addresses problems with the opt out movement "eloquently."
"To put it plainly: white parents from well-funded and highly performing areas are participating in petulant, poorly conceived protests that are ultimately affecting inner-city blacks at schools that need the funding and measures of accountability to ensure any hope of progress in performance." -- Charles F. Coleman Jr.
Ah. So opt outers are white, rich, whiny racists. That is certainly eloquent and well-reasoned support of testing. And let's throw in the counter-reality notion that testing helps poor schools, though after over a decade of test-driven accountability, you'd think supporters could rattle off a list of schools that A) nobody knew were underfunded and underresourced until testing and B) received an boost through extra money and resources after testing. Could it be that no such list actually exists?
Tests Cause Anxiety
The LS duo wants to decrease test anxiety by hammering students with testing all the time, so that it's no longer a big deal. I believe that's true, but not a good idea. Also, parents and teachers should stop saying bad things about the BS Tests, but just keep piling on the happy talk so that students can stop worrying and learn to love the test. All of this, of course, pre-supposes that the BS Tests are actually worthwhile and wonderful and that all the misgivings being expressed by professional educators and the parents of the children is-- what? An evil plot? Widespread confusion? The duo seem deeply committed to not admitting that test critics have any point at all. Fools, the lot of them.
Teaching to the Test
The idea that teaching to a test isn’t really teaching implies an almost astounding assumption that standardized tests are filled with meaningless, ill-thought-out questions on irrelevant or arbitrary information. This may be based on the myth that “teachers in the trenches” are being told what to teach by some “experts” who’ve probably never set foot in a “real” classroom.
Actually, it's neither "astounding" nor an "assumption," but, at least in the case of this "defiant" teacher (LS likes to use argument by adjective), my judgment of the test is based on looking at the actual test and using my professional judgment. It's a crappy test, with poorly-constructed questions that, as is generally the case with a standardized test, mostly test the student's ability to figure out what the test manufacturer wants the student to choose for an answer (and of course the fact that students are selecting answers rather than responding to open ended prompts further limits the usefulness of the BS Test).
But LS assert that tests are actually put together by testing experts and well-seasoned real teachers (and you can see the proof in a video put up by a testing manufacturer about how awesome that test manufacturer is, so totally legit). LS note that "defiant teachers" either "fail to realize" this or "choose to ignore" it. In other words, teachers are either dumb or mindlessly opposed to the truth.
Standardized Tests Are Biased
The team notes that bias is an issue with standardized tests, but it's "highly unlikely" that classroom teachers could do any better, so there. Their question-- if we can't trust a big board of experts to come up with an unbiased test, how can we believe that an individual wouldn't do even worse, and how would we hold them accountable?
That's a fair question, but it assumes some purposes for testing that are not in evidence. My classroom tests are there to see how my students have progressed with and grasped the material. I design those materials with my students in mind. I don't, as BS Tests often do, assume that "everybody knows about" the topic of the material, because I know the everybody's in my classroom, so I can make choices accordingly. I can also select prompts and test material that hook directly into their culture and background.
In short, BS Testing bias enters largely because the test is designed to fit an imaginary Generic Student who actually represents the biases of the test manufacturers, while my assessments are designed to fit the very specific group of students in my room. BS Tests are one-size-fits-all. Mine are tailored to fit.
Reformsters may then say, "But if yours are tailored to fit, how can we use them to compare your students to students across the nation." To which I say, "So what?" You'll need to convince me that there is an actual need to closely compare all students in the nation.
Tests Don't Provide Prompt Feedback
The duo actually agree that test "have a lot of room for improvement." They even acknowledge that the feedback from the test is not only late, but generally vague and useless. But hey-- tests are going to be totes better when they are all online, an assertion that makes the astonishing assumption that there is no difference between a paper test and a computer test except how the students record their answers.
Big Finish
The wrap up is a final barrage of Wrong Things.
Standardized tests were created to track students’ progress and evaluate schools and teachers.
Were they? Really? Is it even possible to create a single test that can actually be used for all those purposes? Because just about everyone on the planet not financially invested in the industry has pointed out that using test results to evaluate teachers via VAM-like methods is baloney. And tests need to be manufactured for a particular purpose-- not three or four entirely different ones. So I call shenanigans-- the tests were not created to both measure and track all three of those things.
Griping abounds about how these tests are measuring the wrong thing and in the wrong way; but what’s conspicuously absent is any suggestion for how to better measure the effect of education — i.e., learning — on a large scale.
A popular reformster fallacy. If you walk into my hospital room and say, "Well, your blood pressure is terrible, so we are going to chop off your feet," and then I say, "No, I don't want you to chop off my feet. I don't believe it will help, and I like my feet," your appropriate response is not, "Well, then, you'd better tell me what else you want me to chop off instead.
In other words, what is "conspicuously absent" is evidence that there is a need for or value in measuring the effects of education on a large scale. Why do we need to do that? If you want to upend the education system for that purpose, the burden is on you to prove that the purpose is valid and useful.
In the absence of direct measures of learning, we resort to measures of performance.
Since we can't actually measure what we want to measure, we'll measure something else as a proxy and talk about it as if it's the same thing. That is one of the major problems with BS Testing in a nutshell.
And the great thing is: measuring this learning actually causes it to grow.
And weighing the pig makes it heavier. This is simply not true, "testing effect" notwithstanding.
PS
Via the blog, we know that they wanted to link to this post at Learning Spy which has some interesting things to say about the difference between learning and performance, including this:
And students are skilled at mimicking what they think teachers want to see and hear. This mimicry might result in learning but often doesn’t.
That's a pretty good explanation of why BS Tests are of so little use-- they are about learning to mimic the behavior required by test manufacturers. But the critical difference between that mimicry on a test and in my classroom is that in my classroom, I can watch for when students are simply mimicking and adjust my instruction and assessment accordingly. A BS Tests cannot make any such adjustments, and cannot tell the difference between mimicry and learning at all.
The duo notes that their post is "controversial," and it is in the sense that it's more pro-test baloney, but I suspect that much of their pushback is also a reaction to their barely-disguised disdain for classroom teachers who don't agree with them. They might also consider widening their tool selection ("when your only tool is a hammer, etc...") to include a broader range of approaches beyond the "test effect." It's a nice trick, and it has its uses, but it's a lousy justification for high stakes BS Testing.
WA: Charter Miracle
Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education as Private Business Funded by Public Tax Dollars (okay, I just added that last part for clarity) is over at Campbell Brown's million dollar charter promotion site being Very Alarmed about Washington State.
Unless the legislature acts within the next 10 days, we will be the first state in the union to intentionally shut down a group of high-performing schools that serve mainly disadvantaged students.
The shutdown will come because the charter set-up created in Washington state is illegal, a violation of the state's constitution. The court in Washington observed what we already know-- that a charter is not a public school because it is not answerable to a publicly elected board.
Reformsters have been pushing hard for charter schools in Washington for years, finally getting a law on the books in 2012. One charter opened in the 2014-2015 school year. Eight more opened last fall. These are the schools that Lake is so deeply concerned about.
Of course, the ruling from the court came down before the eight schools ever opened, so from Day One, they knew that the school was violating the law. They were just hoping-- and continue to hope now at the eleventh hour-- that the legislature will somehow pass a new law that makes them legal again. So any sympathy for those schools has to be balanced by the fact that the courts had already told them that the law they were depending on was illegal-- and they opened their doors anyway. It is too bad that about 1,100 students will have their school year disrupted-- but everybody knew this was the probably outcome when they walked in the door on the very first day.
But Lake assures us they are awesome schools-- even though they have been open for about five months!
It's a miracle! In just a few months, we can already tell that these schools are superb. They hold weekly ceremonies to recognize students who advance through reading levels. They have an "intentional learning culture." They have a longer school day! They swear that their students are doing really well!
This, I think, is the real story here. Not that charter schools opened in violation of the law and are now surprised that the law hasn't been changed to suit them in time. No, the real story is that Lake and her buddies know how to identify an outstanding school in just five months! See-- when push comes to shove, even they don't believe in this data-driven Big Standardized Test based evaluation of schools. You just know, because you're there, looking at the kids, and you can see it. And people should just take your word for it.
I look forward to seeing Lake apply this method to public schools, just as I continue to look for Lake and other charteristas expressing similar outrage when another charter closes in the middle of the year, sometimes with no advance notice at all.
But shame on all of us if we let misinformation and interest-group politics shut the door on new hope and opportunity for the kids who need it most.
Presumably she's referring to interest-group politics different from the interest-group politics that funded the passage of the illegal charter law in the first place. Or maybe she means the interest-group politics of the state constitution, or the taxpayers who want a say in how their money is spent. I am sure that Washington charter fans have not given up, and will be back with a new law soon. Maybe next time it will be a law that is actually legal.
Unless the legislature acts within the next 10 days, we will be the first state in the union to intentionally shut down a group of high-performing schools that serve mainly disadvantaged students.
The shutdown will come because the charter set-up created in Washington state is illegal, a violation of the state's constitution. The court in Washington observed what we already know-- that a charter is not a public school because it is not answerable to a publicly elected board.
Reformsters have been pushing hard for charter schools in Washington for years, finally getting a law on the books in 2012. One charter opened in the 2014-2015 school year. Eight more opened last fall. These are the schools that Lake is so deeply concerned about.
Of course, the ruling from the court came down before the eight schools ever opened, so from Day One, they knew that the school was violating the law. They were just hoping-- and continue to hope now at the eleventh hour-- that the legislature will somehow pass a new law that makes them legal again. So any sympathy for those schools has to be balanced by the fact that the courts had already told them that the law they were depending on was illegal-- and they opened their doors anyway. It is too bad that about 1,100 students will have their school year disrupted-- but everybody knew this was the probably outcome when they walked in the door on the very first day.
But Lake assures us they are awesome schools-- even though they have been open for about five months!
It's a miracle! In just a few months, we can already tell that these schools are superb. They hold weekly ceremonies to recognize students who advance through reading levels. They have an "intentional learning culture." They have a longer school day! They swear that their students are doing really well!
This, I think, is the real story here. Not that charter schools opened in violation of the law and are now surprised that the law hasn't been changed to suit them in time. No, the real story is that Lake and her buddies know how to identify an outstanding school in just five months! See-- when push comes to shove, even they don't believe in this data-driven Big Standardized Test based evaluation of schools. You just know, because you're there, looking at the kids, and you can see it. And people should just take your word for it.
I look forward to seeing Lake apply this method to public schools, just as I continue to look for Lake and other charteristas expressing similar outrage when another charter closes in the middle of the year, sometimes with no advance notice at all.
But shame on all of us if we let misinformation and interest-group politics shut the door on new hope and opportunity for the kids who need it most.
Presumably she's referring to interest-group politics different from the interest-group politics that funded the passage of the illegal charter law in the first place. Or maybe she means the interest-group politics of the state constitution, or the taxpayers who want a say in how their money is spent. I am sure that Washington charter fans have not given up, and will be back with a new law soon. Maybe next time it will be a law that is actually legal.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
PTA Sells Out
Shannon Sevier, vice-president for advocacy of the National PTA, took to the Huffinmgton Post this week to shill for the testing industry. It was not a particularly artful defense, with Sevier parroting most of the talking points put forth by test manufacturers and their hired government guns.
Sevier starts out by reminiscing about when her children took their Big Standardized Tests, and while there was fear and trepidation, she also claims to remembers "the importance of the assessments in helping my children's teachers and school better support their success through data-driven planning and decision-making."
I'm a little fuzzy on what time frame we'd be talking about, because Sevier's LinkedIN profile seems to indicate that she was working in Europe from 2009-2014. Pre-2009 tests would be a different animal than the current crop. But even if she was commuting, or her children were here in the states, that line is a load of bull.
"Support their success through data-driven planning and decision-making" is fancy talk for "helped design more targeted test prep in order to make sure that test scores went up." No BS Tests help teachers teach. Not one of them. There is no useful educational feedback. There is no detailed educational breakdown of educational goals provided to teachers on a timely basis, and, in fact, in most cases no such feedback is possible because teachers are forbidden to know what questions and answers are on the test.
So, no, Ms. Sevier. That never happened anywhere except in the feverishly excited PR materials of test manufacturers.
Mass opt-out comes at a real cost to the goals of educational equity and individual student achievement while leaving the question of assessment quality unanswered.
Like most of Sevier's piece, this is fuzzier than a year-old gumball from under the bed. Exactly what are the costs to equity and individual student achievement? In what universe can we expect to find sad, unemployed men and women sitting in their van down by the river saying ruefully, "If only I had taken that big standardized test in school. Then my life would have turned out differently."
The consequences of non-participation in state assessments can have detrimental impacts on students and schools. Non-participation can result in a loss of funding, diminished resources and decreased interventions for students. Such ramifications would impact minorities and students with special needs disparately, thereby widening the achievement gap.
Did I mention that Sevier is a lawyer? This is some mighty fine word salad, but its Croutons of Truth are sad, soggy and sucky. While it is true that theoretically, the capacity to withhold some funding from schools is there in the law, it has never happened, ever (though Sevier does point out that some schools in New York got a letter. A letter! Possibly even a strongly worded letter! Horrors!! Did it go on their permanent record??) The number of schools punished for low participation rates is zero, which is roughly the same number as the number of politicians willing to tell parents that their school is going to lose funding because they exercised their legal rights.
And when we talk about the "achievement gap," always remember that this is reformster-speak for "difference in test scores" and nobody has tied test scores to anything except test scores.
More to the point, while test advocates repeatedly insist that test results are an important way of getting needed assistance and support to struggling students in struggling schools, it has never worked that way. Low test scores don't target students for assistance-- they target schools for takeover, turnaround, or termination.
The Sevier segues into the National PTA's position, which is exactly like the administration's position-- that maybe there are too many tests, and we should totally get rid of redundant and unnecessary tests and look at keeping other tests out of the classroom as well, by which they mean every test other than the BS Tests. They agree that we should get rid of bad tests, "while protecting the vital role that good assessments play in measuring student progress so parents and educators have the best information to support teaching and learning, improve outcomes and ensure equity for all children."
But BS Tests don't provide "the best information." The best information is provided by teacher-created, day-to-day, formal and informal classroom assessments. Tests such as PARCC, SBA, etc do not provide any useful information except to measure how well students do on the PARCC, SBA, etc-- and there is not a lick of evidence that good performance on the BS Tests is indicative of anything at all.
I'll give Sevier credit for stopping just sort of the usual assertion that teachers and parents are all thick headed ninnimuggins who cannot tell how students are doing unless they have access to revelatory standardized test scores. But PTA's stalwart and unwavering support seems to be for some imaginary set of tests that don't exist. Their policy statement on testing, says Sevier, advocates for tests that (1) ensure appropriate development; (2) guarantee reliability and implementation of high quality assessments; (3) clearly articulate to parents the assessment and accountability system in place at their child's school and (4) bring schools and families together to use the data to support student growth and learning.
BS Tests like the PARCC don't actually do any of these things. What's even more notable about the PTA policies is that in its full version, it's pretty much a cut and paste of the Obama administrations dreadful Test Action Plan which is in turn basically a marketing reboot for test manufacturers.
Did the PTA cave because they get a boatload of money from Bill Gates? Who knows. But what is clear is that when Sevier writes "National PTA strongly advocates for and continues to support increased inclusion of the parent voice in educational decision making at all levels," what she means is that parents should play nice, follow the government's rules, and count on policy makers to Do The Right Thing.
That's a foolish plan. Over a decade of reformy policy shows us that what reformsters want from parents, teachers and students is compliance, and that as long as they get that, they are happy to stay the course. The Opt Out movement arguably forced what little accommodation is marked by the Test Action Plan and ESSA's assertion of a parent's legal right to opt out. Cheerful obedience in hopes of a Seat at the Table has not accomplished jack, and the National PTA should be ashamed of itself for insisting that parents should stay home, submit their children to the tyranny of time-wasting testing, and just hope that Important People will spontaneously improve the tests. Instead, the National PTA should be joining the chorus of voices demanding that the whole premise of BS Testing should be questioned, challenged, and ultimately rejected so that students can get back to learning and teachers can get back to teaching.
Sevier and the PTA have failed on two levels. First, they have failed in insisting that quiet compliance is the way to get policymakers to tweak and improve test-driven education policies. Second, they have failed in refusing to challenge the very notion of re-organizing America's schools around standardized testing.
Sevier starts out by reminiscing about when her children took their Big Standardized Tests, and while there was fear and trepidation, she also claims to remembers "the importance of the assessments in helping my children's teachers and school better support their success through data-driven planning and decision-making."
I'm a little fuzzy on what time frame we'd be talking about, because Sevier's LinkedIN profile seems to indicate that she was working in Europe from 2009-2014. Pre-2009 tests would be a different animal than the current crop. But even if she was commuting, or her children were here in the states, that line is a load of bull.
"Support their success through data-driven planning and decision-making" is fancy talk for "helped design more targeted test prep in order to make sure that test scores went up." No BS Tests help teachers teach. Not one of them. There is no useful educational feedback. There is no detailed educational breakdown of educational goals provided to teachers on a timely basis, and, in fact, in most cases no such feedback is possible because teachers are forbidden to know what questions and answers are on the test.
So, no, Ms. Sevier. That never happened anywhere except in the feverishly excited PR materials of test manufacturers.
Mass opt-out comes at a real cost to the goals of educational equity and individual student achievement while leaving the question of assessment quality unanswered.
Like most of Sevier's piece, this is fuzzier than a year-old gumball from under the bed. Exactly what are the costs to equity and individual student achievement? In what universe can we expect to find sad, unemployed men and women sitting in their van down by the river saying ruefully, "If only I had taken that big standardized test in school. Then my life would have turned out differently."
The consequences of non-participation in state assessments can have detrimental impacts on students and schools. Non-participation can result in a loss of funding, diminished resources and decreased interventions for students. Such ramifications would impact minorities and students with special needs disparately, thereby widening the achievement gap.
Did I mention that Sevier is a lawyer? This is some mighty fine word salad, but its Croutons of Truth are sad, soggy and sucky. While it is true that theoretically, the capacity to withhold some funding from schools is there in the law, it has never happened, ever (though Sevier does point out that some schools in New York got a letter. A letter! Possibly even a strongly worded letter! Horrors!! Did it go on their permanent record??) The number of schools punished for low participation rates is zero, which is roughly the same number as the number of politicians willing to tell parents that their school is going to lose funding because they exercised their legal rights.
And when we talk about the "achievement gap," always remember that this is reformster-speak for "difference in test scores" and nobody has tied test scores to anything except test scores.
More to the point, while test advocates repeatedly insist that test results are an important way of getting needed assistance and support to struggling students in struggling schools, it has never worked that way. Low test scores don't target students for assistance-- they target schools for takeover, turnaround, or termination.
The Sevier segues into the National PTA's position, which is exactly like the administration's position-- that maybe there are too many tests, and we should totally get rid of redundant and unnecessary tests and look at keeping other tests out of the classroom as well, by which they mean every test other than the BS Tests. They agree that we should get rid of bad tests, "while protecting the vital role that good assessments play in measuring student progress so parents and educators have the best information to support teaching and learning, improve outcomes and ensure equity for all children."
But BS Tests don't provide "the best information." The best information is provided by teacher-created, day-to-day, formal and informal classroom assessments. Tests such as PARCC, SBA, etc do not provide any useful information except to measure how well students do on the PARCC, SBA, etc-- and there is not a lick of evidence that good performance on the BS Tests is indicative of anything at all.
I'll give Sevier credit for stopping just sort of the usual assertion that teachers and parents are all thick headed ninnimuggins who cannot tell how students are doing unless they have access to revelatory standardized test scores. But PTA's stalwart and unwavering support seems to be for some imaginary set of tests that don't exist. Their policy statement on testing, says Sevier, advocates for tests that (1) ensure appropriate development; (2) guarantee reliability and implementation of high quality assessments; (3) clearly articulate to parents the assessment and accountability system in place at their child's school and (4) bring schools and families together to use the data to support student growth and learning.
BS Tests like the PARCC don't actually do any of these things. What's even more notable about the PTA policies is that in its full version, it's pretty much a cut and paste of the Obama administrations dreadful Test Action Plan which is in turn basically a marketing reboot for test manufacturers.
Did the PTA cave because they get a boatload of money from Bill Gates? Who knows. But what is clear is that when Sevier writes "National PTA strongly advocates for and continues to support increased inclusion of the parent voice in educational decision making at all levels," what she means is that parents should play nice, follow the government's rules, and count on policy makers to Do The Right Thing.
That's a foolish plan. Over a decade of reformy policy shows us that what reformsters want from parents, teachers and students is compliance, and that as long as they get that, they are happy to stay the course. The Opt Out movement arguably forced what little accommodation is marked by the Test Action Plan and ESSA's assertion of a parent's legal right to opt out. Cheerful obedience in hopes of a Seat at the Table has not accomplished jack, and the National PTA should be ashamed of itself for insisting that parents should stay home, submit their children to the tyranny of time-wasting testing, and just hope that Important People will spontaneously improve the tests. Instead, the National PTA should be joining the chorus of voices demanding that the whole premise of BS Testing should be questioned, challenged, and ultimately rejected so that students can get back to learning and teachers can get back to teaching.
Sevier and the PTA have failed on two levels. First, they have failed in insisting that quiet compliance is the way to get policymakers to tweak and improve test-driven education policies. Second, they have failed in refusing to challenge the very notion of re-organizing America's schools around standardized testing.
Monday, February 29, 2016
Why Teach?
It's hard to read about the history of education and then in the same mindset say, "yay, I want to be a teacher!" Figuring this all out.— Mel Katz (@mel_katzz) September 6, 2015
Man, it just sucks to be a young person contemplating teaching these days. It's not just that so much of the news about the profession, or that states are crying about shortages while districts say they're not hiring, or that so much security is being stripped, or that so many layers of crap have been dropped on the classroom, or that poverty has become so widespread in the nation, or that looking closely at our institutions reveals embedded layers of racism and classism, or that education has so few attackers and so few supporters, or even that so many old farts will tell you, "For the love of God, young'uns-- don't go into teaching! It's a terrible idea!"
First, I want to apologize on behalf of Old Farts everywhere. We should really knock it off with delivering Discouraging Words, which are at best annoying and at worst disrespectful, as if Kids These Days are incapable of making their own career choices.
Second, I want to be clear that I teach in a rural, small town setting where we are not very wealthy, but don't have the heartbreaking level of poverty found in some parts of the country. There are hundreds of thousands of teachers who have a much harder job than mine.
There are many reasons to stay away from classrooms these days. Lack of resources, but an excess of blame. Low levels of pay, but high levels of disrespect. Large challenges to overcome, but tiny tools with which to tackle them. Many people who want to tell you what to do, but few people who want to actually help you do it. And when you start to peel back the educational onion, layers of institutionalized racism, classism, and decisions driven by politics, greed, power-- everything except the needs of the children.
So why step into a classroom? I've taken up a few miles of bloggy bandwidth considering all of these questions, but I think the bottom line is simple--
Teachers step into schools for the same reason fire fighters run into burning buildings-- because that's where you find the people who need the help.
If you want to help young humans grow and strengthen and learn and build themselves up into their best, most human selves, then you have to go into the school, into the classroom. Not that there aren't other ways and places to help, but if you want to help young humans learn to read and write and think and understand and build a greater vision of themselves, then a school is where it's at.
That school might not be in the best of shape. It may not be run by the best of leaders. It probably isn't fully funded. It may be twisted out of shape by the flames of testing and the heat of political games. And the people who are supposed to be helping you, supporting you, may be throwing flaming molotov cocktails at your head.
But all of that is background noise. The only question that matters is, "Do you want to teach students, and can you do it here?"
The answer to the second part might be no. Your tank might be empty, or the obstacles at your particular school might be too great. I'm not going to judge. You can only do what you can do.
But there have always been obstacles in the culture and problems baked into the system. I'm not saying don't fight them-- I'm saying someone who waits for perfectly calm educational seas to set sail will never get out of the harbor.
So we go into school because that's where we find the people who need us. That's where we can do the work. The obstacles aren't what keep us from doing the work-- they're the reason the work needs to be done in the first place. Let's go teach.
MA: Charters Hate Compromise
This morning's Boston Post Globe reports that a "Bitter Fight Brewing over Mass. Charter School Expansion" (though it could also have been "Mass Charter Expansion"). And while the battle has not been "brewing" so much as "going on for a while now," the article centers on one question-- can the legislature come up with a compromise on increasing the number of MA charters, or will the whole mess end up as a ballot initiative in the fall?
Massachusetts jumped on the charter bus with real enthusiasm back in 2010 when they saw it as a way to grab some Race To The Trough money (charters had been around for considerably longer, but RTTT really ramped the business up), but of course that money is no longer available, and local districts and taxpayers are noticing what charter school "hosts" everywhere notice-- that funding a new entitlement for students to attend private school at public expense is costly.
The battle is playing out mostly in the Senate-- the charter-reformster industry has already purchased themselves a governor and a House of Representatives in Massachusetts.
Reporter David Scharfenberg suggests that in the past, charter legislation has been an area of compromise, but this time offers a different summation:
“It’s the pure charter play this time,” said Martha “Marty” Walz, a management and public affairs consultant who helped usher the 2010 bill into law as cochairwoman of the Legislature’s education committee.
The governor has tried to sweeten the pot by budgeting more money for the big pile used to re-imburse districts (temporarily) for the money sucked out by charters, but Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg is moving above that, suggesting that legislators look at issues "from financing, to governance, to admission and retention of hard-to-educate populations, like special needs students and English language learners."
The charter industry doesn't much like that idea.
“We have the highest-performing public charter school sector in the nation,” said Mary Jo Meisner, executive vice president of communications at the Boston Foundation, which has been a strong charter advocate. “Opening that up to radical change is a scary thought.”
Continued Meisner, "How are we supposed to have high performing charters if we serve the same students as the public system? Our success depends on being highly selective with our student body and booting students who make us look bad back to the public schools." Ha! Kidding-- the charter industry continues to avoid anything remotely like honesty about these provisions. In fact, the charter industry and #1 Fan Governor Charlie Baker continue to read the own PR so much that they believe they would win a ballot fight (plus they know just how many giant piles of money they threaten to throw at such a ballot question- about $18 million total).
Senator Patricia D. Jehlen is unimpressed. “If a bully comes and asks for your lunch money one day and you give it to him, does that keep him from coming back the next day?”
Fighting tough union leader Barbara Madeloni has different thoughts as well.
“We want to go to the ballot box, that’s what our poll numbers are telling us,” said Barbara Madeloni, president of the union. “I really think the narrative about charter schools is shifting.”
Shift though it may, the signs are clear-- charter schools in Massachusetts have key government positions on their side and they want their giant pile of money, and they want it unencumbered by any sorts of rules that require them to be part of public education's mandate to educate all students. Once again, charters really could be a part of a robust and fully- (and honestly-) funded public education system, but in states like Massachusetts, it seems that what the current charter industry wants is to exist outside public education, in a special bubble where all they have to do is operate some very selective schools and rake in some very large piles of public tax dollars. Here's hoping that the Massachusetts voters set them straight.
Massachusetts jumped on the charter bus with real enthusiasm back in 2010 when they saw it as a way to grab some Race To The Trough money (charters had been around for considerably longer, but RTTT really ramped the business up), but of course that money is no longer available, and local districts and taxpayers are noticing what charter school "hosts" everywhere notice-- that funding a new entitlement for students to attend private school at public expense is costly.
The battle is playing out mostly in the Senate-- the charter-reformster industry has already purchased themselves a governor and a House of Representatives in Massachusetts.
Reporter David Scharfenberg suggests that in the past, charter legislation has been an area of compromise, but this time offers a different summation:
“It’s the pure charter play this time,” said Martha “Marty” Walz, a management and public affairs consultant who helped usher the 2010 bill into law as cochairwoman of the Legislature’s education committee.
The governor has tried to sweeten the pot by budgeting more money for the big pile used to re-imburse districts (temporarily) for the money sucked out by charters, but Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg is moving above that, suggesting that legislators look at issues "from financing, to governance, to admission and retention of hard-to-educate populations, like special needs students and English language learners."
The charter industry doesn't much like that idea.
“We have the highest-performing public charter school sector in the nation,” said Mary Jo Meisner, executive vice president of communications at the Boston Foundation, which has been a strong charter advocate. “Opening that up to radical change is a scary thought.”
Continued Meisner, "How are we supposed to have high performing charters if we serve the same students as the public system? Our success depends on being highly selective with our student body and booting students who make us look bad back to the public schools." Ha! Kidding-- the charter industry continues to avoid anything remotely like honesty about these provisions. In fact, the charter industry and #1 Fan Governor Charlie Baker continue to read the own PR so much that they believe they would win a ballot fight (plus they know just how many giant piles of money they threaten to throw at such a ballot question- about $18 million total).
Senator Patricia D. Jehlen is unimpressed. “If a bully comes and asks for your lunch money one day and you give it to him, does that keep him from coming back the next day?”
Fighting tough union leader Barbara Madeloni has different thoughts as well.
“We want to go to the ballot box, that’s what our poll numbers are telling us,” said Barbara Madeloni, president of the union. “I really think the narrative about charter schools is shifting.”
Shift though it may, the signs are clear-- charter schools in Massachusetts have key government positions on their side and they want their giant pile of money, and they want it unencumbered by any sorts of rules that require them to be part of public education's mandate to educate all students. Once again, charters really could be a part of a robust and fully- (and honestly-) funded public education system, but in states like Massachusetts, it seems that what the current charter industry wants is to exist outside public education, in a special bubble where all they have to do is operate some very selective schools and rake in some very large piles of public tax dollars. Here's hoping that the Massachusetts voters set them straight.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
$100,000 Garbage Workers
Ha-- you thought that was some sort of snarky figurative expression in the title, but no-- courtesy of CNN Money, here's an article about the garbage workers in New York City that make over $100K annually.
While we keep insisting that every child must graduate from high school and immediately hit the college trail, garbage workers, including the two high school dropouts profiled in New York City make over $100K. And the article reports that garbage worker salaries are growing faster than other salaries in the country.
This looks like a fine example of the invisible hand at work. Cities (particularly huge ones) need garbage workers. Need, as in "can't function at all without them." Not a lot of people have the desire or the skills for garbage work, and so cities offer more and more pay to convince people to do the work. It's elegant and simple.
There are other blue collar jobs like this. Welders, for instance, are in constant demand. I teach many future blue collar workers, and from them I've learned about jobs that I never knew existed, like the former student who traveled for years with a hotel upgrade crew that simply traveled from city to city, remodeling the next hotel in the chain that was due to be upgraded. Roofers, construction workers, heavy machinery operators, linemen-- all sorts of jobs that, as Mike Rowe always said, make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
When we discuss work and compensation, we often fail to distinguish between different kinds of work. I don't mean blue collar vs. white collar. I mean necessary vs. unnecessary. As a culture, we employ a vast number of people doing things that nobody actually needs to do at all.
If all the garbage workers in the country vanished overnight, we would have a major crisis on our hands within a week, and virtually everybody in the country would be alarmed. On the other hand, if every McDonald's in the country vanished overnight, there would be no crisis for anyone except the people who work in Micky D's and the people who make money from it.
That distinction makes a huge difference in leverage. Whenever someone argues against a living wage by saying, "If they want to make better money, they should take a better job in a cheaper city," I want to ask, "But don't you need somebody to do that job in your city?" However, the answer to my question in many cases is, "No. " But not with garbage workers-- we need somebody in our city to do that job, and so we pay whatever it takes to make that happen.
And so, while contemplating the $100K garbage workers, it hit me-- it's not just that many folks think anybody can do a teacher's job, or that reformsters are trying hard to turn teaching into a low-skills job that anybody can do. It's also that lots of folks think it's a job that doesn't need to be done. Nobody, the thinking goes, really needs to learn about quadratic equations or the Boer War or that Shakespeare guy. Sure, reading and writing are swell, but don't we all pretty much have a handle on that by fourth grade or so? After that, isn't it all just training for a particular line of work? Do we really need middle and high school for anything?
We are disinclined to pay a lot of money for people to do a job that we don't think actually needs to be done.
In this arena, reformsters are both helping and hurting. On the one hand, corporations like Wal-Mart and McDonald's benefit from having very wealthy constituencies, the corporate chiefs who depend on the corporation for wealth and use that wealth and power to look after their business interests. Until the rise of corporate reform, with its big money charters and multi-billion dollar testing manufacturers, education had no such constituency. Nobody was making Walton-style money from public education. On the other hand, reformsters have done their best to reduce education to the process of getting ready for and taking a Big Standardized Test, which is an outstanding example of a job that doesn't need to be done at all.
And so we get hit pieces like the Boston Globe opinion piece slamming school district employees who make over $100K. The writer was comparing teachers to Navy Seals when she should have been comparing them to garbage workers-- "Over a 100 grand! Who do they think they are?! Garbage workers??"
I don't begrudge those workers a cent. New York needs them in a way that it doesn't need any other profession (including banksters on Wall Street). But I do envy them their recognition for being an essential part of life in the Big Apple, and I question the single-minded tunnel vision education focus on college as a goal for all students. Go to college, kids, so you can make good money. Who knows? Study hard, and some day you might even make garbage worker money!
While we keep insisting that every child must graduate from high school and immediately hit the college trail, garbage workers, including the two high school dropouts profiled in New York City make over $100K. And the article reports that garbage worker salaries are growing faster than other salaries in the country.
This looks like a fine example of the invisible hand at work. Cities (particularly huge ones) need garbage workers. Need, as in "can't function at all without them." Not a lot of people have the desire or the skills for garbage work, and so cities offer more and more pay to convince people to do the work. It's elegant and simple.
There are other blue collar jobs like this. Welders, for instance, are in constant demand. I teach many future blue collar workers, and from them I've learned about jobs that I never knew existed, like the former student who traveled for years with a hotel upgrade crew that simply traveled from city to city, remodeling the next hotel in the chain that was due to be upgraded. Roofers, construction workers, heavy machinery operators, linemen-- all sorts of jobs that, as Mike Rowe always said, make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
When we discuss work and compensation, we often fail to distinguish between different kinds of work. I don't mean blue collar vs. white collar. I mean necessary vs. unnecessary. As a culture, we employ a vast number of people doing things that nobody actually needs to do at all.
If all the garbage workers in the country vanished overnight, we would have a major crisis on our hands within a week, and virtually everybody in the country would be alarmed. On the other hand, if every McDonald's in the country vanished overnight, there would be no crisis for anyone except the people who work in Micky D's and the people who make money from it.
That distinction makes a huge difference in leverage. Whenever someone argues against a living wage by saying, "If they want to make better money, they should take a better job in a cheaper city," I want to ask, "But don't you need somebody to do that job in your city?" However, the answer to my question in many cases is, "No. " But not with garbage workers-- we need somebody in our city to do that job, and so we pay whatever it takes to make that happen.
And so, while contemplating the $100K garbage workers, it hit me-- it's not just that many folks think anybody can do a teacher's job, or that reformsters are trying hard to turn teaching into a low-skills job that anybody can do. It's also that lots of folks think it's a job that doesn't need to be done. Nobody, the thinking goes, really needs to learn about quadratic equations or the Boer War or that Shakespeare guy. Sure, reading and writing are swell, but don't we all pretty much have a handle on that by fourth grade or so? After that, isn't it all just training for a particular line of work? Do we really need middle and high school for anything?
We are disinclined to pay a lot of money for people to do a job that we don't think actually needs to be done.
In this arena, reformsters are both helping and hurting. On the one hand, corporations like Wal-Mart and McDonald's benefit from having very wealthy constituencies, the corporate chiefs who depend on the corporation for wealth and use that wealth and power to look after their business interests. Until the rise of corporate reform, with its big money charters and multi-billion dollar testing manufacturers, education had no such constituency. Nobody was making Walton-style money from public education. On the other hand, reformsters have done their best to reduce education to the process of getting ready for and taking a Big Standardized Test, which is an outstanding example of a job that doesn't need to be done at all.
And so we get hit pieces like the Boston Globe opinion piece slamming school district employees who make over $100K. The writer was comparing teachers to Navy Seals when she should have been comparing them to garbage workers-- "Over a 100 grand! Who do they think they are?! Garbage workers??"
I don't begrudge those workers a cent. New York needs them in a way that it doesn't need any other profession (including banksters on Wall Street). But I do envy them their recognition for being an essential part of life in the Big Apple, and I question the single-minded tunnel vision education focus on college as a goal for all students. Go to college, kids, so you can make good money. Who knows? Study hard, and some day you might even make garbage worker money!
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