Tweaking an Invalid System – Still Invalid

INDIANA A-F GRADES FOR SCHOOLS

Steve Hinnefeld's blog, School Matters: K12 Education in Indiana, is one of my regular reads. His reporting and analysis of the privatization of public education in Indiana is invaluable. He regularly takes the legislature and governor to task for their political- rather than researched-based approach to so-called "education reform" in our state.

I say that because I want to be clear at the beginning of this post that I am a fan of School Matters. I intend this post to be, not a criticism of his post, Good news on school grading, but an extension.

That being said...

Good news on school grading

The state is shifting to a system that’s supposed to count student growth on test scores as much as it counts performance, a fairer approach if you’re going to grade schools — which we are. Indiana is also moving to a new method of measuring growth, relying on where student scores fall on what’s called a Growth to Proficiency Table.

The important words in that paragraph are...

...a fairer approach if you’re going to grade schools — which we are...

TESTING 101

I recently quoted Diane Ravitch,

...a cardinal rule of testing is that tests should be used only for the specific purpose for which they were created.

Student achievement tests are, in Indiana and other states, being used for many purposes besides that for which they were created. We use student test scores to

• evaluate student learning

• grade schools

• promote or retain students

• provide a ranking for teacher bonuses

• evaluate, promote, or fire teachers

• evaluate school corporations

What is the purpose of achievement tests? Here is a simple definition from UCDavis:

Achievement tests measure the extent to which a person has "achieved" something, acquired certain information, or mastered certain skills - usually as a result of planned instruction or training. It is designed to efficiently measure the amount of knowledge and/or skill a person has acquired, usually as a result of classroom instruction.

Student achievement tests are developed for evaluating student achievement, the first bullet, above. The other uses by the state are not included in the development process for the tests...and therefore ought not to be used. To do so is an invalid use of the test.

A FAIRER APPROACH

Focusing on growth equalizes the results of tests somewhat, but it doesn't eliminate the fact that we are using tests in the wrong way – to make high stakes decisions about things for which the test was not created.

...IF YOU’RE GOING TO GRADE SCHOOLS — WHICH WE ARE...

A student teaching supervisor from a state university in Indiana posted this from one of her student teachers. The student teacher wrote...

Overall, I'm observing how many different ways our education system is broken but especially our special education system. Testing is incredibly frustrating to watch in this classroom. I watched a student completely fail all parts of his ISTEP in front of me. It really is discouraging in many ways but is also motivating. I know I'm not a superhero but if there is any time to be in education and try to stop kids from being failed by a broken system-it's now!

Even a pre-service teacher understands that inappropriate testing must stop. Making tests harder doesn't help. Changing tests doesn't help. No matter how you tweak an invalid system it's still invalid.

Replacing ISTEP+ isn't enough. We must put an end high stakes testing and put an end developmentally inappropriate testing.

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Random Quotes – March, 2016

THE RIGHTS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

A Bill of Rights for School Children

I included this in a post from February, as well as in my last Medley, but I can't seem to let this excellent post by Russ Walsh go without one more comment.

This quote reminds us, yet again, that there is more to the education of our children than school. Targeting teachers or "failing" schools ignores the main source of learning difficulties children have. Blaming parents or teachers unions doesn't take into account the social aspects of a child's life. Politicians and policy makers would do well to look in the mirror when they're looking for reasons children struggle in school.

From Russ Walsh

It seems obvious that if we are going to improve public education in the economically struggling inner cities, we must take a holistic view. We must attack poverty with as much vigor and energy as the education reformers bring to their lobbying efforts in support of opening more charter schools. We must provide children in the inner cities with more services than schools in affluent areas because these children need more help to become proficient learners. This means wrap around services like medical and dental screenings, increased availability of counselors to help children navigate the trauma of their daily lives, home-school counselors that assist struggling families in providing experiences for their young children that will help them when they get to school, and professionally run and developmentally appropriate pre-school programs. All of these things will help and they will help much more than sending a child across town to a new charter school that has promised to raise student test scores.

WHERE DOES THE EXPERTISE LIE?

TEACHERS NEED TO SPEAK UP

As Long As We’re Silent, Nothing Will Change

Teachers need to find their voices.

There are consequences when teachers speak up. Sometimes they get push back from administrations and school boards. Sometimes they are treated unfairly.

But there are consequences when teachers don't speak up. Our students lose. We are our students' only political voice.

From Edushyster

As Long As We’re Silent, Nothing Will Change

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

TESTING

New Jersey’s Bad Idea: Using PARCC as a Graduation Requirement

The so-called "accountability" of using tests to rank communities, schools, teachers, and students, is an inappropriate and invalid use of those tests. Simply put...

From Diane Ravitch

...a cardinal rule of testing is that tests should be used only for the specific purpose for which they were created.

Badass Teachers Association: Thank You to The National Opt Out Movement!

The "choice" crowd insists that public tax revenue pay for their "choices" of charter or voucher supported parochial schools, but when parents "choose" to opt their children out of developmentally inappropriate, and generally invalid standardized tests, those same "reformers" demand "accountability."

from Denisha Jones of the Badass Teachers Association

"Parents, students and teachers must remember that opting out is a form of civil disobedience. You are not asking for anyone's permission. You are informing the school of the decision you made as a student, as a parent with your child, or as a teacher of conscience, who can no longer sit back and allow the test-and-punish system to destroy public education. By denying the testocracy the data they need to rank and label children as worker bees or managers, you reclaim public education as a system that educates all children to use their full potential to make the world a better place."

Less Resources, Harder Tests: Common Core in the Last Days of Obama

"Raise standards."

"Make the tests harder."

As Alfie Kohn said in 1999, "We're Confusing Harder With Better."

If children have trouble reading at what is currently considered "grade-level," a lexile level of 450 for third grade for example, it doesn't mean that they will learn more if we increase the difficulty of material for their grade. President Bush (2) decried the "soft bigotry of low expectations," but he, and most "reformers" apparently, don't understand the hard bigotry of inappropriate expectations.

from Steven Singer

Impoverished students have traditionally had a harder time scoring as well [on standardized tests] as their wealthier peers. But the policy response has been to make things MORE difficult. How does that help?

Consider this: If a malnourished runner couldn’t finish the 50 yard dash, forcing him to run 100 yards isn’t raising standards. It’s piling on.

Do Aurora Public School Parents Know they can REFUSE the PARCC and/or CMAS test?

The number one enemy of education is still on the loose in our schools: high stakes testing.

From Peg with Pen

[emphasis in original]

Next week our children will be subjected to a racist, classist test (PARCC/CMAS) that will be used to rank, sort, and order our children - ONCE AGAIN - to prove that our school is "failing" (not so - we are UNDER-RESOURCED). Once again we will subject ourselves to a vicious game that is meant to fail everyone - the children, the teachers, the district and the community. Our brilliant, creative children, many who speak two languages, many who come from homes lacking books, adequate nutrition, and health care, will be asked to "persevere" on a test that is developmentally inappropriate and demands that they sit for hours each day staring at a screen (7 days for 3rd/4th and 10 days for 5th). The children are not allowed to read when the test is done; this is educational malpractice upon education malpractice. How this decision was made I am unsure, as I am not a part of the testing team. I do hope that this decision will be abandoned before testing begins on Tuesday. These children deserve to read a book when this horrific test is done - and to require them to sit/stare rather than read, is denying them their right to learning time during the school day. I wonder if the parents know this is happening?

The fights and the battles to do what is best and right and just for children are never ending. Exhausting. And crushing.

POLITICAL "REFORMERS"

TEACHER PRIVILEGE

The Obligations of Wealth

A thoughtful and insightful piece...

As teachers, we are often privileged in ways our students aren't...and will never be...and it's often the case that we owe that privilege to the children we teach and their families.

From Peter Greene

I know there are teachers who feel once they've put in the school work that they've been paid to do, they are entitled to shut themselves up at home and that they owe the community nothing. I respectfully disagree. I have resources that many people in my community do not, and I have those resources precisely because those people gave some of their resources up. I owe them.

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2016 Medley #6

America's Priorities, Charters,
Testing, TFA, Reform

WHAT ARE AMERICA'S PRIORITIES?

A Bill of Rights for School Children

If we really cared about the future of this country we'd make our children a national priority. They are the ones who will lead this country through the 21st century and beyond. Right now we have the highest child poverty rate in the developed world. We guarantee a dismal future when we allow nearly a quarter of our children to grow up in poverty. All the posturing of politicians are empty words to those children. They'll grow up, as Carl Sagan has suggested,

...as disadvantaged, as unable to cope with the society, as resentful for the injustice served up to them. This is stupid.

The U.S. needs to join the rest of the world and ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children should be guaranteed safety, food, education, health care, equality, the right to free expression, and the right to play. These would guarantee children the right to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Public education advocate and blogger Russ Walsh has written A Bill of Rights for School Children. We would do well to adopt this as well...

1. Every child has a right to a free, high quality, public education.

2. Every child has a right to attend a well-staffed, well-resourced, clean and safe local neighborhood school.

3. Every child has the right to be taught by well-informed, fully certified, fully engaged teachers who care about the child as a learner and as a person.

4. Every child has the right to a school that provides a rich and varied curriculum that includes the visual and performing arts, integrated technology, and physical education.

5. Every child has a right to a school that provides a rich and varied extra-curricular program including athletics, clubs, and service learning opportunities.

6. Every child has a right to instruction that is well-planned, engaging, and collaborative.

7. Every child has a right to instruction that is developmentally appropriate.

8. Every elementary school child has a right to daily recess.

9. Every child has the right to go to a school with adequate support personnel including librarians, nurses, guidance counselors, and learning support specialists.

10. Every child has a right to an element of choice in the educational program, including the right to choose to take advanced level courses. 

PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

Mother of Girl Berated in Video Assails Success Academy’s Response

You've probably seen the video that went viral of the teacher at one of Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy charter schools berating and belittling a first grader. This article brings up a very important point which many parents aren't aware of when they engage with a charter management organization. There may not be a way to file a complaint or discuss the problem when the school doesn't have to be accountable to a publicly elected school board.

Seeking to hold someone accountable for what happened to her daughter, Ms. Miranda went into a Department of Education building in Brooklyn to ask about filing a complaint, but was told that Success was independent from the school district. She said that Ms. Nicholls, the principal, had given her information about how to reach Success’s board of trustees, and that she had sent a letter, but she was not optimistic that she would get a response.

You can write to the corporate board, but there's nothing making them pay any attention other than corporate profits. These people are for-profit which means that children are secondary. A commenter named Patricia wrote [emphasis added]:

This parent went to the DOE to file a complaint and was told that Success was independent of the district; how are we to expect major changes in a system when parents don't even understand how that system works. My guess is that this mother represents many hardworking parents who simply want a good public, local education for their children; they have no idea that they're actually handing their kids over to a private school completely outside the purview of local government that's funded with their own tax dollars.

National Poll Shows Overwhelming Support for Reigning in Charter Schools

Speaking of parents who want a "good, public, local education for their children..." here's an article discussing a poll which shows that parents want neighborhood schools!

America's public school system, through each state's system, supposedly guarantees a free, appropriate, public education. It's never been perfect, but destroying it, instead of fixing it isn't rational. Parents and communities want improved schools in their neighborhoods not unaccountable charter schools. [emphasis added]

• Overwhelming majorities, as high as 92%, back proposals to strengthen transparency and accountability, improve teacher training and qualifications, implement anti-fraud measures, ensure high-need students are served, and make sure neighborhood public schools are not adversely affected.

• 92% of voters support requiring companies and organizations that manage charter schools to open board meetings to parents and the public.

• 90% of voters support requiring companies and organizations that manage charter schools to release to parents and the public how they spend taxpayer money.

• “School choice” ranks last in a list of the biggest concerns voters have for K-12 education, with only 8% listing it as a concern.

• Far more popular than “school choice” or unaccountable charter schools is the concept of community schools, which serve as community hubs, ensuring that every student and their family gets the opportunity to succeed no matter what zip code they live in. 

Whom Do Charter Schools Serve?

Finally, the money keeps flowing from the taxpayers pockets to the charter operator's bank accounts with little or no accountability.

And now, irony climbs atop irony. Charter schools that have creamed high scoring students from the public schools are labeling high percentages of the students "autistic" to increase their state allotment from under $10,000 per regular student to about $20,000 per "autistic" student. And then they report no expenditures for special programs.

TESTING

Teacher: Why Am I Testing This Child?

The number one enemy of education is still on the loose in our schools: high stakes testing. Policy makers, pundits, and politicians all bow down to the gods of accountability, even though high stakes tests don't measure what they use them for.

Diane Ravitch wrote, "Tests should be used only for the specific purpose for which they were created."

Any other use constitutes test misuse and abuse.

Student achievement tests are created to measure how much of a particular curriculum students have learned. We still misuse the tests and abuse schools, teachers, and students by

• punishing students for not learning

• punishing teachers for having students who don't learn 

• punishing schools for having students who don't learn

And probably sooner, rather than later, we will begin punishing schools of education for graduating teachers who have students who don't learn.

The important phrase here is "students who don't learn." There are dozens of reasons why children struggle to learn, and most of them have little to do with school or teachers.

“In all seriousness, the level of absurdity is reached when a profoundly disabled student is required to be tested and the testing looks something like this… a teacher pulls a chair up to the student’s wheel chair and reads a test question to the student. The student has nearly no use of his limbs or body but can turn his head. Then the teacher reads the possible answers “A”… blah blah blah “B” … blah blah blah and then the teacher holds up a sheet with letters on them and tracks the students eyes trying to guess at where the child’s eyes are looking at A, B, C or D! Meanwhile most of the test material (if not all) is not even relevant to the child or part of the child’s learning day. His day is focused on physical therapy to learn to swallow or to increase motor movement in his very stiff arms and legs. He is well below grade level because along with his physical issues there are cognitive ones too. Is this really the best use of this child and teacher’s valuable time to force him to endure a grade level test based on his chronological age because EVERYONE MUST BE TREATED EXACTLY THE SAME so that data crunchers are happy?”

The Flawed Premises of Reform

Tests measure what the designers wrote them to measure. In recent years states have asked testing companies to make tests which will measure that which cannot be measured. Anxious to keep the money flowing from the states' treasuries, the testing companies have complied, even when the results are invalid and unreliable.

People want education reduced to a single number that they can rate as good or bad. The public doesn't want to be bothered by such things as disabilities, poverty, or social unrest. Those and other variables, which determine the validity of the tests, aren't interesting enough for politicians, journalists, and test-makers to discuss with the general public. Since people don't understand science and statistics, they don't understand the impact of variables. Politicians get money from test-makers and voters to provide answers. So, tests become the answer to everything that ails public education, and, by extension, the nation.

if we want better and more equitable results from our education system, we should... measure whether our kids are meeting them

Also sounds sort of sensible, and yet we do not know how to do it. It really is as simple as that-- we do not have a large-scale, standardized instrument that can measure all learning for all students in a standardized, one-size-measures-all manner. Instead of asking, "What's the best way to measure critical thinking" test manufacturers have asked "What's something we could do on a standardized mass-administered test that would pass for a critical thinking measure?"

TFA: BAD TEACHING, BAD FINANCES

Study examines Teach For America’s impact on costs, hiring at 5 school systems

Fire expensive teachers because they are too expensive...and then hire Teach For America temps who end up costing even more.

Is there even the slightest pretext among "reformers" that they're interested in student achievement?

Five major U.S. school systems – in Atlanta, Chicago, eastern North Carolina, New Orleans and New York – paid finder's fees that ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 per TFA corps member per contract year, a research team found in its examination of the organization's contracts with the school districts.

The financially troubled Chicago Public Schools paid TFA nearly $7.5 million in finder's fees between 2000 and 2014 – a time period when the school system also underwent significant budget cuts, closed numerous schools and laid off thousands of teachers, according to the study, published in Education Policy Analysis Archives.

The research team found similar payouts in Atlanta, where six school districts paid a total of $5.3 million in finder's fees for 690 TFA corps members who taught in the district's schools between 2007 and 2014.

REFORM

How Do You Explain the Corporate Assault on Public Education to Friends Who Know Nothing About It?

...you have to give them examples of what “education reform” actually means....

Like “teachers are evaluated as ineffective or effective by the test scores of their students, even though research demonstrates that this is a flawed method”

Like “uncertified, inexperienced teachers who are assigned to the kids with the greatest needs”

And for a fanfare: “Our nation has pursued failed market-based policies for 15 years. It is time to do what works, based on evidence and experience.”

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Baseball Interlude: No Foreigners Allowed?

Tis the season, it seems, for anti-immigrant fear mongering.

Phyllis Schlafly, the great-granddaughter of a European immigrant who lived in Canada before coming to the US, wants to ban foreigners from playing on U.S. professional baseball teams.

When I first saw that I thought it was a joke...an article from the Onion. But no. It's no joke. Schlafly, whose great-grandfather emigrated to the United States from Scotland, wants to ban all foreigners from playing professional baseball in the U.S.

Why?

THEY CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH AND ARE STEALING JOBS

First, because they

cannot speak English

Should we deny people jobs because they can't speak English?  Perhaps Ms. Schlafly has forgotten that this country was taken from the natives – who didn't speak English – and then built by immigrants – many of whom didn't speak English.

A good portion of the food Schlafly puts into her anti-immigrant mouth every day was likely picked and processed by people who don't speak English.

And what about stealing jobs? Does Schlafly make sure that everything she puts on her native born body or into her home is manufactured by native born Americans, in American factories, owned by Americans? What about her cell phone? What about the computer she uses to write her poison? What about the car she drives, the TV she watches, the microwave in which she heats up her coffee.

The hypocrisy takes my breath away...

LITTLE LEAGUE GRADUATES

Second, we shouldn't allow foreigners to play baseball because they

did not rise through the ranks of Little League

I didn't make this up. She actually wrote this.

Yes, it's true that Little League baseball was started in the US in 1939, but as of 2016 Little League International supports baseball for children in 80 countries around the world including places rarely associated with baseball such as Uganda and Turkey. So, saying that no foreign born player has risen through the ranks of Little League is very likely untrue, especially those who hail from the baseball rich cultures of the Dominican Republic, Venezuala, Mexico, and Japan.

And...what? Little League is now a prerequisite for playing professional baseball? Where did all the pre 1939 baseball players come from? Where did Honas Wagner play Little League? What about Christy Matthewson? Was Three-finger Brown a pitcher in Little League before he lost parts of two fingers in a farm implement accident?

Just to be sure I'll check the article to make sure it's not from the Onion...

NO GIRLS NEED APPLY

Third,

Baseball is a wonderful activity for boys and young men.

If you are going to write about Little League and baseball, you ought to know something about it. Little league (unlike organized, professional baseball) is not gender exclusive. Girls are actually allowed to play baseball with boys. In fact, a girl, Mo'ne Davis of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pitched a shut out – a two-hitter – during the Little League World Series in 2014.

I wonder...if Mo'ne Davis decides to pursue a career in professional baseball would Schlafly approve because she's an American, and came up through the ranks of Little League.

AMERICANS ARE BETTER?

Fourth,

All six of the six recipients of the top awards this past season are native born American, but more than a quarter of Major League Baseball players are foreign-born

Yes, I knew that all six of the six recipients of the top awards in 2015 (MVP, Rookie of the Year, and Cy Young) are native born Americans.

Past winners, however, include Dominicans, Cubans, Venezualans, Canadians, Mexicans, and Japanese. True baseball fans recognize names of stars like Albert Pujols, Miguel Tajeda, José Abreu, José Fernandez, Miguel Cabrera, Félix Hernández, Joey Votto, and Ichiro Suzuki. Cherry picking one year of award winners does not mean that all the players descended from immigrants are better than all the players who are immigrants.

BASEBALL, HOT DOGS, AND APPLE PIE

Let's just carry this a step further. Does Ms. Schlafly want us to ban all foreign born workers from getting paid for jobs in the U.S.? How about actors? Should we keep them from working on movies or TV programs made in the U.S.? Should we ban all foreign born writers? all foreign born musicians? Why single out baseball players...let's ban all foreign born professional basketball players, soccer players, tennis players, hockey players. Think of all the jobs that could go to Americans!

But baseball, and other sports, reflect the fact that the United States is a nation of immigrants. The anti-immigrant/false patriotism spouted by bigots like Schlafly has no place in any professional sport in this country. Indeed, it has no place at all in our nation.

In the best tradition of this nation, immigrants like the players mentioned in the paragraphs above, come to the U.S. to improve their lives, just like Schlafly's Great-Grandfather Stewart did when he came to the U.S. in 1851 from Scotland. If the U.S. had Schlafly's no-foreigners-allowed policy back then, chances are Phyllis Schlafly would have grown up as a Canadian.

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL

We live in a smaller world than humans of the past. National boundaries are not corporate boundaries. Goods and services are mobile. Even those things "Made in USA" are likely to have foreign parts.

People, too, are more mobile than before. It doesn't take 2 months to sail from Europe to North America any more. We've seen the Earth from space...national boundaries aren't visible.

Sooner or later people are going to have to accept that all of us live together on one, small planet.

Which is the more "American" policy? Locking our door in fear of the stranger, or welcoming the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free?"

It's time we outgrew our antiquated tribalism.

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