In this article, the author describes the history of classroom research and notes that, despite potential for present day application, many of those who currently develop observational systems for evaluating teachers appear to be unaware of this literature. The author describes what we know about effective teaching, the limits of using this information, and the need for identifying new important outcomes of schooling that can be used in teacher evaluation.
This paper reviews the literature on teacher effects and focuses on value-added measures and their use in evaluating teachers. Suggestions about the use of value-added measures and about the future of teacher effects research are provided.
In this study, the researchers surveyed all 50 states and the District of Columbia to provide an inclusive national growth and value-added model overview.
by Corinne Herlihy, Ezra Karger, Cynthia Pollard, Heather Hill, Matthew Kraft, Megan Williams & Sarah Howard
This paper explores how state education officials and their district and local partners plan to implement and evaluate their teacher evaluation systems, focusing in particular on states’ efforts to investigate the reliability and validity of scores emerging from the observational component of these systems.
Teacher assessment using value-added models of teacher efficacy suffer from a fatal flaw, namely, that a myriad of exogenous (unaccounted for) variables affect student test score growth and result in unstable estimates of teacher competency from class to class and year to year.
This article discusses the intended and unintended consequences of high-stakes teacher evaluation. The potential for high-stakes teacher evaluation to meet the intended outcome of a better teacher workforce and improved student achievement is assessed, and the costs of doing so.
This study examines accountability in teacher education in an era of testing. It compares how multiple professions evaluate program outcomes and identifies concerns with overemphasis on value-added models as the basis for assessing the impact of teacher preparation program graduates. Suggestions are offered for possible alternative paths.
This article discusses the papers in the special issue of Teachers College Record addressing broad themes of reliability and validity that raise cautions regarding the usefulness of recent approaches to high-stakes evaluation of educators. Implications are drawn for the long-term health of the teacher labor market.
*Education Commercialization Complex parallel to permanent war economy *UFT failure to broadly attack, on principle, the test-regime
We see that this permanent war against teachers economy, just as the military has had "black budget items," items that were kept secret, "for the good of the people," we have Common Core questions that are kept secret-- NY's State Education Department is only selectively disclosing some questions. Since the government cannot use the national security excuse, what excuse could they use? -Corporate private security or copyright. Baloney.
The real reason is that publicization of the tricky questions, hello, will expose what illogical, inappropriate questions the Common Cores brings into English and math, as At the Chalk Face reports in "New York ELA day 2 disaster #FAIL #Pearson #NYSED." The blog site reports several substantive issues with the Common Core questions. This is the negative consequence of privatization of test publishing functions by the international corporate giant, Pearson PLC, away from what historically had been a public function under the aegis of the New York State Education Department.
However, from the organization that we would expect to hear much criticism, the United Federation of Teachers, whose members were in touch with the tests, we have heard limited anecdotes of trouble, mixed with praise for the Common Core, as indicated in this April op-ed column in the Daily News by the UFT president, Michael Mulgrew. The leader mentioned the lack of a curriculum, the fact that test prep is not teaching and that teachers are over-burdened with paperwork. The union should issue a broad, comprehensive critique of the way that tests are hijacking the purpose of education, are vulgarizing the learning experience and are degrading teachers. Contrast this limited critique with the multiple details from the Chalk Face blog a week earlier.
This is reflection, once again, of the detachment of the union leadership from rank and file (regular non-officials) teachers on the ground. Contrast the union's alternating complicity or silence with this regime with the on-going critique launched by the union's MORE caucus, on their website and in person, for example at the union's delegate assembly. (The union's pretenses at critiquing the evaluation system are ephemeral window dressings.) Otherwise, we would have heard fire and this depth of detail from Mulgrew, and probably less enthusiasm for the Common Core.
Diane Ravitch mentions in "What is the Goal of Common Core testing?" that Rick Hess predicts that Common Core anxiety, prompting some parents "to demand “reforms” and an escape from their neighborhood schools." As she says, reformers will gloat over failing scores (no doubt to continue the failing schools line).
FAIRTEST has warned about the misuse of standardized testing for
years. As an organization, it serves an invaluable purpose and
exists on a shoe-string. It should be funded by Gates, Broad, and
Walton. Instead it is funded by you. Here is FAIRTEST’s chronology
of Pearson’s testing errors over the years.
PEARSON’S HISTORY OF TESTING
PROBLEMS
compiled by Bob Schaeffer, Public
Education Director
The uproar over Common Core has once again hit New York State.
The Lower Hudson News has a story, "Parents assail education officials on N.Y. school reforms,
Long Island hearing is first of 4 planned"
The press story picked up the news that teachers have been seeing first-hand: that the tests are overwhelming to students and the education system. At root is the Common Core and the intertwined role it plays with high-pressure high-stakes testing.
The growing focus on testing in New York’s schools is sickening students, bewildering parents and threatening to undermine public confidence in the state’s education
system, speaker after speaker said Tuesday at a public hearing on the
state’s “reform” agenda.
Jeanette
Deutermann, a mother of two from Bellmore, said she had to take one son
to the doctor last year because he was so stressed out by test
preparation.
“I don’t care about the data; I don’t care about the statistics,” she said. “I care that I want my son to like to learn.
Deutermann,
who started a Facebook page for parents on Long Island wanting to pull
their children from state-directed tests, was addressing the state
Senate’s Education Committee. The committee Tuesday held the first of
four planned hearings on the state’s ongoing reforms: the Common Core learning standards; new teacher
evaluations; tougher state tests; new student data systems; and more.
State
Sen. John Flanagan, R-Long Island, chairman of the committee, said it
was the first opportunity for the public to comment on the reforms. A
few hundred people filled a small auditorium at Suffolk County Community
College, cheering loudly as parents, teachers, senators and others
questioned and ridiculed the state Education Department’s agenda.
Deutermann called on the seven senators in attendance to rein in the state’s reliance on testing.
“We are not going to allow our children to take part in this,” she said. “We need help.”
Notice how the parents are up in arms over the constant testing, namely, the pre- and post- tests. --Something that we too often hear NYSUT affiliates such as the UFT going along with, merely seeing their role in aiding implementation. Looks like many of the unions are behind the times and the parents are ahead of them on this issue.
Marianne Adrian, a parent of three from Levittown, said that young students are affected when
they take pre-tests that are really designed to show how little they
know in September. Many students are taking such tests over the next few
weeks.
“Once you break their confidence, it is really hard to build it up,” Adrian said.
Postscript: Perdido Street School reports that Common Core has gotten such a bad reputation that many boosters now are counseling to skip mentioning the program directly by name, and has gone as far as to pay sports stars to shill for the controversial standards. As I've said, if the standards were so compelling, there would be no need to steer millions of dollars to a p.r./propaganda campaign for Common Core.
My name is Jeanette Deutermann. I am the parent of a fifth grader and a second grader. I became involved in this movement almost before it could be called a movement. I became involved when the high-stakes testing and the test driven curriculum it creates, significantly changed my 10 year old’s attitude towards school in profoundly negative ways. He went from a child who looked forward to school in the morning and would return home talking about the projects and interesting things that went on in the classroom, to a child who cried at night, had stomach aches, and begged to stay home in the morning.
This behavior began abruptly during the middle of his third-grade year, two months before his first state assessment. The behaviors continued until the day I told him he would not be participating in the 4th grade state assessments, a little over a year later. The relief on his face told me all I needed to know about what was causing his dramatic shift. But he is not out of the woods just yet. The months and months of inevitable test prepping and lack of adequate time for teachers to fit in any inspiring, passionate, and creative lessons in the months leading up to the exams, will still be a challenge to overcome. There are tens of thousands of stories just like mine, some much worse, from across Long Island and throughout New York State.
Parents are waking up to the harsh reality of what a test-driven curriculum means for our children. It is how we woke up that is most disturbing of all. We were not sought out by activist groups. We were not approached by educators looking to protect their jobs. We were not bought, coerced, forced, or manipulated. We were just being parents. We saw our children crying at night over months and months of test prepping homework. We heard our children say, “please don’t make me go to school”. We saw our 8, 9 and 10 year olds wake in the middle of the night asking, “What will happen if I do bad on the test?” On test days we watched our children break out in hives, refuse to eat, throw up, lock themselves in school bathrooms, shake, sob, and lose their smiles. These are not isolated instances, but an epidemic.
My research into high-stakes testing and data mining, has led me to create the Long Island Opt-Out group. We have over 9,700 Long Island families who have joined, and well over a thousand students who refused last years assessments just on Long Island alone. People say to me “Wow! Almost 10,000 people! Isn’t that amazing?”. Frankly, no; It is not amazing. What these numbers mean, is that 9,700 parents have experienced the same heartbreak I have, while watching the effects that excessive high-stakes tests have on their young children. Nine thousand seven hundred parents have had to educate themselves on why their elementary school children no longer enjoy going to school. Nine thousand seven hundred parents have been forced to stand up against the unethical policies forced upon the schools they love. Nine thousand seven hundred parents are tired of testing companies, rather than teachers, evaluating their children. Nine thousand seven hundred parents have had enough.
When students test scores are tied to a teacher’s evaluation, you change the relationship between the teacher and the student. Even the best teachers, who try not to focus on the fact that his/her students scores can end their career, are affected by this harmful practice. Can you imagine the pressure that puts on a young child who loves their teacher?
I’ve been contacted by thousands of teachers, too afraid to speak publicly, who tell me stories of horror from their classrooms, and what these test are doing to their teaching styles and to their students. Stories of kindergarten children who begin crying when the teacher takes out her timer because they know it is yet another local exam they will be administered. Stories of special education students begging through tears for their teacher to PLEASE just help them to understand a word they do not know so they can answer a question on the ELA assessment. Or the third-grade teacher who herself broke down crying when telling me that she feels responsible for the abuse to her students when administering hours upon hours of developmentally inappropriate tests to seven year olds who are being set up to fail.
The State Education Department will say that they do not understand why the children are reacting this way, when they clearly warned them ahead of time that most of them would fail this year’s assessments. In fact they predicted that only 30% of our children would pass, before the test was even given. The SED used phrases such as “jump into the deep end of the pool”, and “rip off the band-aide”. After the damage was done, the SED tells children “not to feel like failures”. But that is exactly what our state’s young children feel like. Young children spent three quarters of their year test prepping daily, attend early morning test prepping classes for months leading up to the tests, and are subjected to pep rallies and school songs which include lyrics such as “we will score fours”. The day of the tests arrived. Students across New York State sat in front of a test that they did not understand, and could not complete. They left the tests feeling like failures. They were labeled failures by the SED. This was not a failure of our schools, but of the State Education Department’s mandates that are choking the life out of our students, teachers, and schools. The SED tells us they have set the bar high to align with the path to college readiness.
Why is it then that hundreds of eighth graders across Long Island scored one’s and two’s on the eighth grade math test, yet when taking the Algebra Regents [exam] two months later, scored above 80, meeting the state’s college ready standard! It just doesn’t make sense. How can we tell an eighth grader they are not ready for ninth grade, but they are ready for college? The bar for proficiency has been set artificially high.
This needs to end, and we cannot afford to wait. Parents have been backed into a corner. We allowed changes to happen in our schools through this Regents reform movement without realizing the damage that was to come. Many have said these reforms will fail by their own right. But by then, the damage to my children will have already been done. My 10 year old is already counting the years he has left before he will no longer be forced to go to school. “College and career ready” will be of no use for the tens of thousands of students who will burn out long before their college days are upon them. Inferior teaching to the test practices that dominate the school year are a direct result of tying teacher evaluations to our children’s test scores. Through the regents reform movement, the education system of New York, which has once been a source of pride for teachers, parents, students, and citizens, is now one of fear, anger, humiliation, depersonalization, frustration, and sorrow. This movement to end high-stakes testing and data mining is growing rapidly. I have had close to a thousand new members join just over the past few weeks. We are committed. We are organized. We are not going away.
New York State’s children need you to save them; and they need to be saved now. Help us stop high-stakes tests tied to teacher evaluations. Help us protect our children’s private records and data. Help us save our public education system. Please help us restore the love of learning to our children.
*UPDATE: Toxic endorsement alert: Tisch in video interviwe discusses why Bill Thompson has the best temperament to lead New York City - scroll to end
Listen: audio link to Merryl Tisch's appearance on Brian Lehrer's show on WNYC radio TRANSCRIPT OF DR. TISCH FOLLOWS THIS INTRO While conscientious educators support standards, critical thinking, the development of thoughtful reading and writing skills, a growing number of educators are expressing concern over how David Coleman's Common Core is achieving this and how the tests are being used against students and teachers. Click the link to access the audio file of Lehrer's interview with NYS Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, on the Common Core State Standards and the tests, aired on August 15, 2013. After his introduction, he expresses his appreciation for Tisch's mother-in-law, "Billie and all she's done for WNYC." Yet, Lehrer's questions reflect a measure of independence and address some of the controversy around the new standards. [For more on the Common Core, read my critique, "The Common Core and Gates' Education Commercialization Complex," of its Gates Foundation origins, the secretive, undemocratic manner in which it was created by non-governmental bodies and how it has serious pedagogical flaws for teaching English and teaching social studies. For more on Dr. Tisch, Chairwoman of Thompson for Mayor, see "Who Is Destroying Public Education in New York State?" Under her leadership, the Board of Regents appointed Commissioner John King, who imposed the teacher evaluation system on New York City. At least she has Ed.D. degree, compared to the state-installed Camden, N.J. superintendent.]
NYS Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, with her appointee, NYSED Commissioner John King, at the historic 8/7/13 NYS Common Core-based test score announcement. Note her straight face, despite the context of being close to people ensconced in the Education Commercialization Complex.
[Tisch begins after Lehrer begins with a statement on the very low scores on the elementary and middle school New York State tests, in New York City, less than a third proficient, Yonkers 16 percent, 6 percent in Hempstead.]
Well obviously, this is a very stressful time in schools, school districts and believe me, all of us who are interested in education in teachers, principals, students, parents understand the stress.
I would want to underline the fact that it would be a mistake to interpret the decline in test scores as a decline in student learning or quite frankly, very importantly, a decline in educator performance.
The results of these assessments I think will give educators, parents policy makers and the public a more realistic picture of where students are in this pathway to becoming college and career-ready, to be well-prepared for a world that really awaits them as they graduate from high school.
We're at a moment of transition. I believe we are at the beginning of a generational change to make sure the students in the United States and for our particular region, New York State, are prepared to be competitive in the 21st century economy.
[Lehrer spoke to the implementation of the tests before the curriculum was fully implemented.]
The preparation across the state has been uneven. Two and a half years ago, New York State announced that we were shifting to the Common Core. In some districts there has been a magnificent amount of capacity building around professional development to teach to the Common Core, other districts not so much.
I would like to remind your listeners that New York State spends over a billion dollars a year, over a billion dollars a year, towards profession development.
It is going to be our ability to target those dollars to make sure that every teacher in every school district gets the preparation that is required in order to teach to this higher new standard.
As for curriculum, for Common Core, Commissioner John King, with whom the Board of Regents works, Commissioner King often says you cannot deliver Common Core curriculum in a box, that's not what this is. This is about being able to teaching students to read challenging texts, We're going to support teaching them to support their arguments with evidence drawn from the text, to write from sources, to achieve deep conceptual understanding. For all of those parents listening out there would say one thing: for years we have been hearing intently to people saying that so much classroom time is wasted on drill and kill, in other words, just teaching kids something that they can spin back in a standardized test. This is a move away from that. If this movement is successful and I hope it will be, we will be moving away from classrooms that drill students just for the purpose of regurgitation.
[Lehrer asked whether the tests were "based on that deeper standard of comprehension and that ability to think . . ."]
It's been uneven, I go to schools across the state. I went to a school, very high needs school, very large comprehensive high school, with a lot of immigrant students, students from varying backgrounds and I sat through a professional development hour with teachers, where they were producing curriculum in line with Common Core. It was fantastic to see. I'm not going to name the school.
I went back and I checked in with the principal of the school. I said I know you're getting all these kids from middle school coming into your high school. Tell me what you're seeing. He said from the middle schools I'm seeing a lot of preparation on Common Core. Unfortunately from surrounding middle schools, very little.
It is been the unevenness of the preparation that we are seeing that is contributing to the plummeting of the scores.
I would say every time a new test is given, scores go down. There's no question about that. It's a format, it's a new way of doing things.
I would say with targeted professional development, with educators, parents and students getting used to the formatting, the new requirements, you're going to see a steady rise.
I would say one thing to your listeners, I would urge you all to look at what happened in Massachusetts, undertook this hard work 15, 17 years ago, where they decided Massachusetts was going to lead the pack in terms of high standards. It was a very painful few years, very like what we're going through in New York. Massachusetts emerged as the gold standard in terms of achievement across economic spectrum, across ethnic spectrum for the country. We have something to learn from, we've seen this play out before. But I would urge every to understand that this decline should not be interpreted as a decline in student learning or in educator performance.
{Ed.: Rather, see this testimony of Sandra Stotsky, the Senior Associate Commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Education, from 1999 to 2003, a major designer of the education standards to which Tisch referred. She was involved at the validation stage of the Common Core, but she refused to sign the validation statement for it. In her testimony to the Michigan State Legislature she made a point to say that she is not a libertarian or opposed to the idea of national standards per se.}
I would urge everyone that the decline does not mean a decline in student learning or educator performance.
[A caller mentioned the three days in a row of 90 minute tests in English, then a week of the same in math. Students were unable to finish the test. His own third grade son was getting sick just from the tests.
Some of his students were unable to finish the test, weeping, students that had scored 4, the highest level, in previous years.]
It stresses me beyond anything you can imagine that children felt so upset with the testing.
I would say first of all, the highlighting of the testing, in terms what's been going on in the press, in terms of what parents are reading in their local newspapers, that added to the stress. I would say teachers were well aware that this was the first year in New York State where student test scores were going to be used as a barometer for teacher performance.
I think that all of those factors, coupled with the new format of the test and the new requirements of the test have added to an unusually stressful situation. Anyone who that thinks that we are out there to stress children, I would say, then you don't know us.
I would say one more thing, in New York State 80 percent of the youngsters graduate from high schools, when they go on to two year colleges, they need to be remediated in math and English. That means they are paying the are paying college tuition for high school credit. What happens is, when you look at the completion rates, after six years in a two year college, the graduation rates hover between 22 and 24 percent. Which means our young adults are not prepared to do college level work where they leave our high schools and are leaving these programs in huge amount of debt. I would say the urgency is clear in the numbers.
[The caller interjected about his students' low scores, and his own son getting sick.]
I would say, that [the low test scores] is a challenge for the adults. Students will perceive a message from us. If we set this out as a new baseline, as a place where we all feel need to go, in order to not only ensure the future of our state, for the future of our country, their future, in order to be able to educated to participate in the greatest democracy in the world and not to be left out. If adults are going to pass their stress along to students, I would urge them not to.
As I said, this was an unusual perfect storm of events. I am expecting as this first wave of data comes across our desks, I'm expecting that the level of the rhetoric will change to an intense focus on professional development around curriculum development and instruction.
[A teacher favored the Core but commented on the professional development as focusing on test scores and convergent thinking.]
You know, I would remind your listeners, Brian, that we took a lot of this into account as we designed the system.
We went to the federal government. We said that New York State was going to be probably the first state, with the exception of Kentucky, to move to the new Common Core assessments. And the one thing we don't want to do is identify our schools, our teachers or our students as failing. Our waiver requirement to the federal government we sought and got permission not to identify any schools or school districts as failing, based on this new set of tests. We're kind of holding schools and school districts harmless [sic].
Additionally, one of the things that we did, knowing that teacher evaluation was going to kick in across New York State, with the exception of New York City, we created the algorithm about teacher evaluation, where we said, based on this new test, we would effectively have the same number of teachers performing in each of the categories, the bottom category to the top category, and ultimately, that is what we did create.
We worked closely with the teachers' union in the design of evaluation. We worked very closely with the state, with the legislature, very closely with the governor's office.
In New York State there is a law. The law says that state tests are going to align with Common Core standards, that there will be an evaluation system based on student performance, but we were very clear, very clear in New York State that we were not going to overly count student test scores to evaluate teachers.
[Lehrer then paraphrased Dr. Diane Ravitch's contention that the tests "reflect the the National Assessment of Education Proficiency, NAEP, standards, which really measure if the student is doing work that will get them an A, proficiency equals an A. So, when we say 70 percent of the students in New York City tested not proficient on the new state test so 70 percent failed the test, Diane Ravitch says, that's misleading . . . Does she have a point?"]
You know I always-- I never comment on what Diane says, she's obviously a great scholar and very thoughtful, we just have a divergent opinion here. I would say, however, that over the years, Diane has changed her mind about testing, first she was for testing, then she was against it. I would also remind everyone that she did sit on the NAEP board and so she is very knowledgeable about the use of testing, et cetera, et cetera [sic]. I don't discount discount anything Diane says but I would say to your listeners one thing, New York State is committed to educating every student, no matter where they live, no matter what their socio-economic background is, to a standard, and that standard is to align them with the possibility that when they graduate from high school and have a high school diploma in New York State they actually have a choice: do they want to pursue a career or do they want to pursue higher education. Right now, across this great country and this great state, many youngsters and we can visualize where those youngsters live, graduate high school with no choice at all. Now we can sit back and be complacent about that or we can have really tough conversations about it.
[Lehrer asked about the passing grades of 3 or a 4, about whether they measure A level work or did that measure merely grade level work.]
In my opinion, it measures grade level work.
I would say that this new push to Common Core will change the paradigm of testing. For a decade testing has been driving instruction and curriculum...this obsession with "drill and kill" has been driving what kids are exposed to in the classroom and how classroom time is used. If we start to focus on critical thinking and the development of critical thinking, I believe that instruction and curriculum and best practice will drive the test. That is a paradigm shift, and that is why we are taking this on.
[Lehrer asked whether a better test can co-exist with not teaching to the test.]
Tisch: absolutely.
[Lehrer: "Let's hope it works out that way. NYS Board of Regents chancellor Dr. Merryl Tisch thank you for coming on and answering our questions."]
* * * TISCH ECHOED A NYSED OFFICIAL'S LINE THAT PARENTS ARE TO BLAME FOR PASSING TEST STRESS ONTO THEIR CHILDREN
See "6 Insulting Things NYSED Keeps Repeating" at Stop Common Core NY's News page.
[See also, the other Stop Common Core in New York State page.]
Tisch's criticism that parents are to blame for passing their stress onto their children is an echo of the line that the NYSED Associate Commissioner is pushing, as Stop Common Core NY reports:
Ken Wagner, Associate Commissioner of NYSED, told the New York Times that he was worried that the concerns of parents were rubbing off on their children, causing kids to suffer anxiety about the state tests. He’s then quoted as saying, "My heart goes out to any kid that’s suffering stress or anxiety, but we have to think very strategically about the messages that students are getting from the adults they are around."
Two major problems with this: (1) the parent concern was a direct result of kids’ anxieties and fears, not the other way around; and (2) who gets to make the “strategy” regarding what messages kids get to hear from their concerned parents? If there’s one thing that’s getting very tiring around here, it’s listening to state officials trying to tell parents how to parent. It’s especially tiring because the parental “advice” they’re offering has nothing to do with kids–it has only to do with not making their corporate buddies mad.
Of Tisch, Stop Common Core NY wrote of her cold response to reports of children getting sick from the tests:
Merryl Tisch, who is also not technically part of NYSED, is the Chancellor of the Board of NY Regents. She was seen in a recent Wall Street Journal piece responding to reports from principals, teachers, students, and parents of kids breaking down crying during and after tests, vomiting during tests, and not wanting the leave the bathroom–all due to the anxieties and stress of the overwhelming English-Language Arts testing during the last three days. Her response was that she visited several schools and only saw one kid crying. The Wall Street Journal then goes on:
But she called it a “healthy problem.” It would be worse, she said, if tests were described as unfair or poorly done. Last year, for example, the state had to toss out questions related to a passage that was widely ridiculed for being confusing. “I would be so bold as to say they were better than most people expected them to be,” she said.
So, it’s healthy for our kids to suffer this way, according to the obviously out-of-touch and basically stone-hearted Tisch. And we’re going to go ahead and join the growing camp of people with test design experience who suggest that this year’s tests are not just poorly done and unfair (which we can only assume from the stories we’ve heard, since we can’t see the tests for at least another year). They are a flat-out disaster. They are, as Chris Cerrone has written, a #fail–with a hashtag!
Teachers and parents alienated by the tests might interested in the issue of the tests and profiteering would find Alyssa Figueroa's "8 Things You Should Know About Corporations Like Pearson that Make Huge Profits from Standardized Tests" enlightening reading.
The privatizers love to rant about how the parents are not involved or are not protesting in the cities. Well, when you have state education executives lecturing down to parents as you see above from Wagner and Tisch, when you take away elected school boards, when you have puppet Panel for Educational Policy and when you have sham local democracies in the Community Education Councils (CECs) you weaken the political culture for parent engagement.
* * *
Some WNYC listener comment gems; note the doublethink (the simultaneous acceptance of two contradictory beliefs as correct) that JHC notes (10:38 AM):
A listener commented:
Brian
thank you for this segment. There is so much to say...I don't know
where to start!
First,
I find it ironic that Tisch cites Massachusetts as the "gold
standard". Brian did you know before this segment that Mass
actually rejected the Common Core curriculum as inadequate and will
not be participating? Did you know that NYS adopted the Common Core
BEFORE it was released...basically buying a product sight-unseen?
OF
COURSE, all children should graduate from HS "college or career"
ready. However, there is nothing to indicate that extensive
standardized testing, administered year after year, does anything to
enhance student learning. So, my first question would be...why do we
need to test so frequently? Why not just test at benchmark years?
Could it be because Pearson stands to make so much money from this
increased testing? Who in NYS is going to benefit from Pearson
donations...we've got to follow the money!
Brian
we need to follow the money on the Common Core and it's mandatory
testing component. There are just 2 or 3 corporations who are going
to be selling these products to us, at whopping profits. THAT is the
real story here...we are about to privatize education, removing all
local control and even national control...handing the reigns of our
educational system to Pearson, inBloom and PARCC. THAT is the story!
Another listener commented:
I
was disturbed by Chancellor Tisch's responses to the teacher who
spoke about the impact testing was having on his students. Either she
was patronizing him or she really didn't understand his point at all.
. .She speculates that over time has everyone will become accustomed
to the tests and every one will feel more comfortable with them. This
is absurd and shows her obvious lack of concern for the sensibilities
of our teachers and the children and their families. Testing
has it's place but there are many other, less stress inducing ways to
do evaluations and assessments. Testing is just less time consuming
and more cost effective over time and more profitable for the
companies that produce them and whose Boards of Directors have the
ear of the Chancellor.
Another listener commented on the cut scores and how parents will only learn of their children's test scores on August 26:
I
also want to hear about the "cut scores." Were they
determined (4 being highest, 1 the lowest) after scores around the
state came in? Is the "proficient" rating equal to the
NAEP's "proficient" rating, which experts say is equivalent
to an "A"? Parents deserve much more transparency from the
State Education Department. It is disgraceful that we find out our
children's individual scores starting August 26. Our schools pay out
of their own budgets to implement the testing program, which is
equivalent to a mass experiment across the state. Parents across NY
state, via CECs, school boards, and other means, are coming together
to ask questions about the New York state regimen, and we are
entitled to more answers. For residents and parents who are
interested, please go to changethestakes.com
dba from nyc
Since these scores will ultimately be tied to teacher evaluation with Danielson, then most teachers would have been judged ineffective on the testing component of the evaluation. So let's say we get a pass this year. What will happen next year when test scores -- I am certain -- will not increase? Will all of these students' teachers be fired when they get 2 consecutive ineffectives as required by the evaluation? And why didn't the students of all of Bloomberg's new schools, with young energetic teachers who replaced the old "deadwoods" who were pushed out when schools were closed, perform better throughout all these years he's controlled the schools? The main problem underlying this "reform" movement is that these "reformers", including King and Tisch have no classroom teaching experience and wouldn't last 5 minutes in a typical high needs school.
Aug. 15 2013 11:20 AM
Rocco P. Hill from NYC
Brian thanks for holding her to that Diane Ravitch question. It is absurd that, as the Chancellor of the NYS Board of Regents, Tisch "will never comment on anything that Diane says!"
. . .
Three questions that I wish were asked:
1. Why are some states pulling out of CCSS?
2. What happens to NYS when RttT money runs out?
3. Is it true that parents are split down the middle on the entire premise of the testing associated with Common Core?
Aug. 15 2013 11:03 AM
Matt
As a college teacher, I absolutely disagree with Tisch that tests will help make my students more ready for plenty of reasons.
But, even more fundamentally than that, doesn't she just SOUND like a total phony speaking a party line?
Aug. 15 2013 10:48 AM
Jennifer from Westchester
Has Ms. Tisch read over the NY State workbook materials herself? They are frought w/errors an questionable answers. These kids are not being taught the humanities anymore-very poor history, politics, social studies, arts etc....and a bunch of math and grammar drills. I think the regents are in bed w/the testing companies and their very lucrative constant changing of the curriculum and the materials the schools keep having to buy or else funds will be cut. Ms. Tisch-the kids are suffering from your politics. You are insensitive.
Aug. 15 2013 10:45 AM
Bob from Huntington
This is not a "higher standard," as your guest maintains, this is a different standard that comports with the desires of industry leaders and their political allies to create a population of workers more attuned to their needs. So kiss
social studies and history good bye. We don't need a population of disgruntled workers capable of discerning where the political and economic developments of the last 40 years have placed them--less well off than their parents and grandparents.
A recently retired teacher writes here about the deficiencies of students educated entirely under Bush and Obama education policies:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/09/a-warning-to-college-profs-from-a-high-school-teacher/
Aug. 15 2013 10:39 AM
JHC from NYC
In the last 5 minutes, Dr. Tisch has said "The drop in test scores should not be read as a drop in educator performance." Also, "This is the first year these tests are being used to gauge educator performance." (Paraphrases, but accurate ones.) Which is correct?
Aug. 15 2013 10:38 AM
TISCH EDUCATION AUTHORITY OVER NYC, BY VIRTUE OF NYS AUTHORITY
Tisch has tried to separate herself from the issue of whether she has authority over New York City schools. But Peter DeWitt, writing in Education Week, and noting her role leading Bill Thompson's mayoral campaign, stressed that her statewide authority sets the parameters for what happens in New York City schools.
"Run" the city's school system is such an ugly word. It's
easier to control all the schools in New York State by setting policy
that will force them to comply. With increased accountability and
mandates that control every move that schools make, as Chancellor she
certainly does run schools.
TOXIC ENDORSEMENT ALERT:
Regents Chancellor Tisch explains why Thompson has the best temperament to lead New York City. She makes it clear that implementation of "roll-out" of the Common Core is the paramount objective of teachers and schools. "The reason to test to the Common Core is because the Common Core is being rolled out." What circulatory logic!from City & State site. Yes, we need to practice close reading, but we also need to employ logic in expository writing. Whoops! That might lead us to personal narrative, which de facto national commissioner of education David Coleman says is a no-no.:
[Editor's Note: The following — Our Schools are Not Broken: The Problem is Poverty — by Stephen Krashen was originally given as the Commencement Speech, Graduate School of Education and Counseling, Lewis and Clark College on June 5, 2011. All footnotes appear at the end].
"Broken" schools?
We have been told repeatedly that our schools are "broken," that our teachers are inadequate, that our schools of education are not doing their job, and that teachers unions are spending all their time protecting bad teachers. The evidence is the fact that American students do not score at the top of the world on international test scores. One observer claimed that American students are "taking a shellacking" on these tests. (1)
The impact of poverty
Not so. Studies show that middle-class American students attending well-funded schools outscore students in nearly all other countries on these tests. (2) Overall scores are unspectacular because over 20% of our students live in poverty, the highest percentage among all industrialized countries. High-scoring Finland, for example, first on the PISA science test in 2006, has less than 4% child poverty. (3)
Reduce poverty to improve education, not vice-versa
The fact that American students who are not living in poverty do very well shows that there is no crisis in teacher quality. The problem is poverty. The US Department of Education insists that improving teaching comes first: With better teaching, we will have more learning (higher test scores, according to the feds), and this will improve the economy. We are always interested in improving teaching, but the best teaching in the world will have little effect when students are hungry, are in poor health because of inadequate diet and inadequate health care, and have low literacy development because of a lack of access to books. (4) Also, studies have failed to find a correlation between improved test scores and subsequent economic progress. (5)
The relationship is the other way around: "We are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.” (Martin Luther King, 1967, Final Words of Advice).
At least: Protect children from the effects of poverty
If poverty is the problem, the solution is full employment and a living wage for honest work. Until this happens, we need to do what we can to protect children from the effects of poverty. This means (1) continue to support and expand free and reduced breakfast and lunch programs ("No child left unfed," as Susan Ohanian puts it). It means (2) make sure all schools have an adequate number of school nurses; there are fewer school nurses per student in high poverty schools than in low poverty schools. (6)
It means (3) make sure all children have access to books.
Access to books > more reading > literacy development
There is very clear evidence that children from high-poverty families have very little access to books at home, at school, and in their communities. (7)
Studies also show when children have access to interesting and comprehensible reading material, they read. (8)
And finally, when children read, they improve in all aspects of literacy, including vocabulary, grammar, spelling, reading and writing ability.9 In fact, I have concluded that reading for pleasure, self-selected reading, is the major cause of literacy development. Making sure that all children have access to books makes literacy development possible. Without it, literacy development is impossible.
The power of libraries
In support of this chain of logic, a number of studies show that school library quality and the presence of credential librarians are related to reading ability. The leader of this research in the United States is Keith Curry Lance, who, with his associates, has reported that school library quality is related to reading achievement in a number of different states. (10)
Related to the poverty issue, the results of some recent studies have suggested that access to books, either at home or at the school library, can mitigate or balance the effect of poverty: The positive impact of access to books on reading achievement is about as large as the negative impact of poverty. (11)
Access can close the gap
A stunning example of the power of books to close the gap between different groups is Fryer and Levitt's (2004) analysis. They reported that white children did better than African-American children on tests administered on entrance to kindergarten. When socio-economic status was added to the analysis, about 2/3 of the gap was closed. When books in the home was added to the analysis in addition to socio-economic status, the entire gap was closed: There was no difference between the groups. (12)
Unfortunately, public and school libraries across the country are suffering tremendous budget cuts, and school librarians' hours are being reduced. (13)
As Isaac Asimov wrote, "When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself" (from his autobiography, I, Asimov).
How to pay for it: Reduce testing
We can easily afford to protect children from many of the effects of poverty. The obvious step is to halt the drive toward increased testing and reduce the amount of testing we are paying for now.
The astonishing increase in testing
It is widely acknowledged that NCLB (No Child Left Behind) required an excessive amount of testing. Not well known is the fact that the US Department of Education is planning to spend billions on a massive new testing program, with far more testing than ever before, all linked to national standards. The new plan will require, as before, tests in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, but it also includes interim testing, and may include pre-testing in the fall to be able to measure growth during the year. In addition, the US Department of Education is encouraging testing in other subjects as well. The tests are to be administered online, which means a huge investment in getting all students connected. (14)
No evidence supporting the increase in testing
There is no evidence supporting the idea that tests to enforce national standards will have a positive impact on student learning. In fact, the evidence we have suggests that it will not: States that use more high-stakes tests do not do better on the national NAEP test than states with fewer, (15) and the use of the standardized SAT does not predict college success over and above high school grades. (16)
Countries that use standardized tests for course examinations did only slightly better on the PISA, a test of reading given to 15 year olds, and the use of such tests to compare schools and to make curricular decisions has a near- zero correlation with PISA scores. (17)
Of course, the administration has argued that these will be new and better tests, more sensitive to growth in learning, able to chart student progress through the year, and able to probe real learning, not just memorization. Before unleashing these "improved" tests on the country, however, there should be rigorous investigation, rigorous studies to show that these measures are worth the investment. Right now, the corporations and politicians insist that we take on faith the claim that these tests are good for students. Such claims exhibit a profound lack of accountability.
In contrast, there is overwhelming evidence that dealing with poverty is an excellent investment, one that will not only improve school achievement but also affect quality of life and personal happiness.
To summarize:
1. American education is not broken. Our less than spectacular international test scores are not because of bad teaching, but are because of our high rate of child poverty.
2. Reducing poverty will improve educational attainment, not vice-versa.
3. A reasonable first step is to protect children from the effects of poverty: No child left unfed, more health care, improve access to books.
4. We can easily pay for much of this by reducing testing.
Notes
1. Bonstell, A. 2011. America's academic meltdown, Orange County Register, May 5, 2011.
2. Payne, K. and Biddle, B. 1999. Poor school funding, child poverty, and mathematics achievement. Educational Researcher 28 (6): 4-13; Bracey, G. 2009. The Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/Bracey-Report; Berliner, D. The Context for Interpreting PISA Results in the USA: Negativism, Chauvinism, Misunderstanding, and the Potential to Distort the Educational Systems of Nations. In Pereyra, M., Kottoff, H-G., and Cowan, R. (Eds.). PISA under examination: Changing knowledge, changing tests, and changing schools. Amsterdam: Sense Publishers. In press.
4. Berliner, D. 2009. Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. Boulder
and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential; Coles, G. 2008/2009. Hunger, academic success, and the hard bigotry of indifference. Rethinking Schools 23 (2); Rothstein, R. (2010). How to fix our schools. Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief #286. http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/ib286; Coles, G. 2008/2009. Hunger, academic success, and the hard bigotry of indifference. Rethinking Schools 23 (2). http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/23_02/hung232.shtml; Krashen, S. 1997. Bridging inequity with books. Educational Leadership 55(4): 18-22; Martin, M. 2004. A strange ignorance: The role of lead poisoning in “failing schools.” http://www.azsba.org/lead.htm.
5. Zhao, Y. 2009. Catching Up or Leading the Way? American Education in the Age of Globalization. ASCD: Alexandria, VA.; Baker, K. 2007. Are international tests worth anything? Phi Delta Kappan, 89(2), 101-104.
6. Berliner, D. 2009. op. cit.
7. Di Loreto, C., and Tse, L. 1999. Seeing is believing: Disparity in books in two Los Angeles area public libraries. School Library Quarterly 17(3): 31-36; Duke, N. 2000. For the rich it's richer: Print experiences and environments offered to children in very low and very high-socioeconomic status first-grade classrooms. American Educational Research Journal 37(2): 441-478; Neuman, S.B. and Celano, D. 2001. Access to print in low-income and middle-income communities: An ecological study of four neighborhoods. Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 1, 8-26.
8. Lindsay, J. 2010. Children's Access to Print Material and Education-Related Outcomes: Findings from a Meta-Analytic Review. Naperville, IL: Learning Point Associates. http://bit.ly/9lKPPa
9. McQuillan, J. 1998. The Literacy Crisis: False Claims and Real Solutions. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Publishing Company; Krashen, S. 2004. The Power of Reading. Portsmouth: Heinemann and Westport: Libraries Unlimited; Lindsay, J. 2010. op. cit.
10. Lance, K. 2004. The impact of school library media centers on academic achievement. In Carol Kuhlthau (Ed.), School Library Media Annual. 188-197. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. (For access to the many Lance studies done in individual states, as well as studies done by others at the state level, see http://www.davidvl.org/research.html).
11. Achterman, D. 2008. Haves, Halves, and Have-Nots: School Libraries and Student Achievement in California. PhD dissertation, University of North Texas. http://digital.library.unt.edu/permalink/meta-dc-9800:1; Evans, M, Kelley, J. Sikora, J. and Treiman,D. 2010. Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 28 (2): 171-197; Krashen, S., Lee, SY, and McQuillan, J. 2010. An analysis of the PIRLS (2006) data: Can the school library reduce the effect of poverty on reading achievement? CSLA (California School Library Association) Journal, 34 (1); 26-28; Schubert, F. and Becker, R. 2010. Social inequality of reading literacy: A longitudinal analysis with cross-sectional data of PIRLS 2001and PISA 2000 utilizing the pair wise matching procedure. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 29:109-133.
12. Fryer, R. and Levitt, S. 2004. Understanding the black-white test score gap in the first two years of school. The Review of Economics and Statistics 86 (2): 447-464.
13. American Library Association, 2010. The State of America's Libraries. American Libraries (Special Issue).
14. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development. (2010) ESEA Blueprint for Reform, Washington, D.C.; Krashen, S. and Ohanian, S. 2011. High tech
testing on the way: A 21st century boondoggle? http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in- dialogue/ /2011/04/high_tech_testing_on_the_way_a.html. Apparently even the president of the United States has not been aware of the amount of testing the Department of Education was planning. On March 28, 2011, the President, in response to a question at a townhall meeting, commented that "we have piled on a lot of standardized tests on our kids" and suggested that we "figure out whether we have to do it every year or whether we can do it maybe every several years," as well as use other criteria. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- office/2011/03/28/remarks-president-univision-town-hall
15. Nichols, S., Glass, G., and Berliner, D. 2006. High-stakes testing and student achievement: Does accountability increase student learning? Education Policy Archives 14(1). http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v14n1/.
16. Geiser, S. and Santelices, M.V., 2007. Validity of high-school grades in predicting student success beyond the freshman year: High-school record vs. standardized tests as indicators of four-year college outcomes. Research and Occasional Papers Series: CSHE 6.07, University of California, Berkeley. http://cshe.berkeley.ed; Bowen, W., Chingos, M., and McPherson, M. 2009. Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America's Universities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
17. OECD 2011. Lessons from PISA for the United States, Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264096660-en
