It's "That Time of Year" Again

THE WRONG KINDS OF TESTS

While the supermajority in the Indiana legislature is busy thinking of ways to label students, further reduce collective bargaining for teachers, and divert even more taxpayer money to private schools through expansion of the nation's most expansive voucher program, teachers in the state's public schools are still trying to do the best they can for their students during a difficult part of the school year.

Yes, it's "that time of year" again, and instruction time will be limited while the tool used almost exclusively for labeling, blaming, and punishing, is filled out, and shipped off for grading.

It's time to take...

I've posted comments in the past from an experienced Indiana teacher who has been writing to me on and off for the last year. The last time was during last year's testing window. The latest email came yesterday.

This year, my teacher friend commented on how developmentally inappropriate the tests are...

[Where is the data] that shows how critical thinking, problem solving, abstract thinking, etc. are developed in the brain? I'm certain there is also data that shows the impact of genetics on these areas, as well as a scale showing that these 'aptitudes' grow/develop in stages in a child. It would also show that these aptitudes, and the time frames by which they develop, vary widely...very widely. Therefore, the tests are fatally flawed as a tool to determine 'skill' levels. Kids develop very differently, and I bet that very bright kids can blossom well after third grade.

I reminded her of the work done in developmental psychology by Piaget and Vygotsky. Given a rational approach to education her questions and my response would be the start of an interesting discussion about Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage (ages 7 through 11) and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, but we don't live in a society with a rational approach to education.

DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE

I put Piaget and Vygotsky aside and instead wrote,

I will assume that this discussion on testing is not about whether we ought to have the tests or not. Because, believe it or not, there was a time when not every grade from K through 12 wasted weeks of the instructional year on testing specifically for the purpose of giving the school and school corporation a grade, evaluating teachers, and giving "reformers" fuel for privatizing public education through the redirection of funds to charters and vouchers. And, despite what you might have heard from legislators and politicians, that IS what the tests are used for. Frequent meetings about "data" are an expensive waste of time. The point of the meetings is finding ways to increase test scores – to "improve the data." The time spent on helping kids learn – really learn, not just improve their test scores – is limited. The tests and everything surrounding them are a monumental waste of time.

The school system in which this teacher works focuses on test scores, not because they aren't interested in true, high-quality education, but because, in order to survive in Indiana, public schools have been forced to obsess over tests, tests, more tests, and even more tests. Administrators, school board members, parents, students, and teachers, are all sick of the testing, because it really doesn't give the teachers anything more than what they already know from professional observation in the classroom and teacher assessments. It should not be used to guide instruction because 1) the results are rarely returned in a timely fashion, 2) it's unreliable information and 3) there are dozens of variables which are never tested that are important to the teaching/learning process. Student test scores based on arbitrary standards are pretty low on the list of what ought to be used to determine what to teach next. Unfortunately, testing companies are still out to make a buck and there are plenty of politicians who are willing to help them for a cut of the profits dumped into their campaign coffers.

Nevertheless, the questions my teacher friend asked were about the developmentally appropriateness of the tests. So I added,

I do think that 8 and 9 year olds are capable of higher level thinking...analysis, elaboration, evaluation, and synthesis. Critical thinking and problem solving are also within the skill range of many 8 and 9 year olds. The problem arises when someone has to come up with a contrived method of evaluating a child's way of using those skills. That's where 8 and 9 year olds have trouble because abstract thinking develops slowly. By 8 and 9 many children have grown to the point of understanding abstracts...but the understanding is still "childish," fluid, and unstable. For example...it's often during second and third grades when kids finally begin to understand the truth about Santa Claus...that he can be understood as an abstract, rather than a concrete human being (or elf). Even those who still believe are beginning to see that something isn't quite right with the story (Every chimney in the world in just one night?), and it takes a while for this understanding to sink in. The development of an internal understanding of abstraction doesn't just suddenly appear...it grows.

So, a well-written achievement test for third graders WOULD include questions about abstract thinking, and higher level thinking skills, because some of the kids might be at that level and a good standardized test always has a sizable amount of material at a higher level to help identify higher achieving students.

The important words in the last paragraph are "a well-written achievement test" and "a good standardized test." Neither of those phrases apply to ISTEP, or IREAD-3, or likely any test based on "standards" as we define them today.

THE WRONG KINDS OF WAYS

In Rise Above the Mark, Linda Darling Hammond said,

The problem we have with testing in this country today is that, number 1, we're using the wrong kinds of tests, and number 2, we're using the tests in the wrong kinds of ways.

The tests we use aren't fair because they judge children based on developmentally inappropriate standards. Achievement tests aren't designed to be "fair" or "unfair" in the way they judge students. They aren't designed to "judge" anything at all! They are designed to measure students' knowledge of the tested material.

If standardized tests are used at all they should be used by teachers and parents to identify areas of need for students and guide educators in planning for instruction. If that's not what's happening then we should stop using them. Period.

STOP using test scores to judge children.
STOP using test scores to evaluate teachers.
STOP using test scores to grade schools.

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Look! Something Shiny!

Look, it's a shiny New Improved! Test guaranteed to distract you from the dirty, faded, ISTEP+ test that cost the state billion$ and never really worked.

The ISTEP+ is gone (or at least, it will be...soon...um, maybe), and the supermajority in the state legislature, composed almost exclusively of non-educators, will choose which standardized student achievement test to misuse next.

Hours of work, funded by taxpayer dollars, will result in the students of Indiana again being threatened by taking a new standardized test developed to measure student achievement.

When the New Improved! Test is put in place everyone will be happy, school children will smile (no more throwing up on test booklets!), teachers and administrators will breathe a collective sigh of relief, and "reformers" can continue working toward their goal of privatizing education in Indiana.

But there's a blemish beneath the surface of the shiny New Improved! Test.

It will be misused, just like ISTEP+ was misused.

The New Improved! Test will immediately be misused in at least four ways.

• It will be misused to grade the state's K-12 schools and school corporations using a flawed A to F grading scale. Student achievement tests are developed to measure student achievement, not schools. Prediction: The New Improved! Test will determine that schools which choose students from wealthy homes will be graded "A." "F" schools will get the students from high poverty areas. Coincidentally, communities which house "F" schools will also be labeled as "failing."

• It will be misused to make high stakes decisions affecting students. The New Improved! Test won't be able to measure creativity, determination, perspective, intuition, honesty, courage, perseverance, thoroughness, flexibility, fluency, originality, elaboration, confidence, self-control, curiosity, or wisdom, but it will still give "valuable information" about student placement. Some students will still lose their schools to "state takeover." Consistent education will be disrupted. Students will lose a complete curriculum and focus only on Reading and STEM.

• It will be misused to evaluate teachers. Student achievement tests are developed to measure student achievement, not evaluate teachers. Prediction: The New Improved! Test will determine that high poverty schools are filled with ineffective teachers. Effective teachers apparently only choose low poverty schools.

• It will be misused to prove that public schools are "failing." Prediction: Charter schools (even those which get D or F on the grading scale) and private schools will be the only hope for the children of Indiana. There will be no reason to invest in public education. Instead, more charters will need to be opened. More voucher money will be allocated. More public schools will be labeled "failing" and then closed.

The Indiana Senate, run by a supermajority of "reformers," has agreed to eliminate ISTEP+, but public schools will continue to be damaged, public school students will continue to be labeled and shortchanged in their education, public school teachers will continue to be vilified, and corporate "reform" will continue without pause.

Thank you, New Improved! Test, for doing exactly what ISTEP+ did to improve education in Indiana. Nothing.

Oh, and until the New Improved! Test is chosen, approved, and implemented, ISTEP+ will still be misused in the same old way.

Senate agrees to eliminate ISTEP

The legislation creates a 22-member panel to study alternatives and make recommendations to the governor and the General Assembly this December. Some things the panel must consider are the feasibility of using existing national tests, reducing the time and costs associated with the test and transparency and fairness.

Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis, the author of the bill, said he doesn’t like how the Senate narrowed the scope of the panel to only testing instead of overall accountability systems for teachers, schools and students.

He also noted he doesn’t agree with putting testing experts directly on the panel.

A conference committee is a small group of legislators from both sides of the aisle appointed to hammer out a final compromise.

Another sticking point with Democrats is that GOP lawmakers have made Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz a member of the committee – but not the chair. Gov. Mike Pence would appoint the chair.

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Post #1,000 – What Matters to Students

BLOG ENTRY #1,000

This is entry #1,000 for this blog.

My very first post on this blog was titled, as was the blog at that time, On Beyond Thirty. I had just finished my 30th year as an elementary school teacher in my local school system, and was anxious to express the frustrations I felt at some the changes happening to public schools throughout the nation. At the time, however, I didn't realize how much more difficult things were going to get.

For the most part, over the last 999 posts, I've focused on the damage "reformers' have done to public schools, with an occasional nod to music and baseball.

1,000 STUDENTS

Over the 40 years I've spent in public education either as a classroom teacher, a pull-out reading specialist, or a volunteer, I've taught about 1,000 students (not counting my college years as an intern and student teaching).

I started teaching at a time before computers and the internet. In my first blog entry I wrote,

...my first class of third graders had no clue what a personal computer was, and had never heard of an iPod, an SUV or a hybrid car. They listened to music on records made of vinyl, or on cassette tapes, watched movies on film projectors in theaters or on TV broadcast, didn't have cable TV, and would have thought that "internet" had something to do with moving fish from the end of the hook to the boat.

In those days teachers were aware that educational fads came and went. Each year, it seemed we were introduced to some new idea which would help us make every child a success. None of those ideas worked for everyone, of course, but most of us tried everything and kept the parts that worked for us. We all knew that there would always be some children who would challenge our abilities to teach the curriculum.

In that way, our teaching philosophies and teaching methods changed and grew. Today, in Indiana, experience doesn't count for much according to the state legislature, but we knew that a good school had a mix of young teachers and veterans. We learned from each other, and our students benefited.

RELATIONSHIPS HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED

Over the last 40 years one educational concept has helped me more than any other; Building good relationships between teacher and student. Students benefit when teachers build positive relationships in the classroom. In Relationships Matter, I wrote,

The goal of education should be to build lifelong learners, not test takers. Skills like perseverance will be of greater benefit than parsing sentences or finding the greatest common factor of two numbers.

Academics are important, but it's who we are and who our students grow to be that determines our success in life...much more than the facts we know or our score on the SAT or other test.

The concept of good relationships came home to me late last year when I received a visit from a former student. I wrote about that in Tests Don't Measure Everything.

The Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education (NEIFPE) is currently running a social media campaign focusing on things in public education which work (click here). The student I wrote about in Tests Don't Measure Everything wrote her story which will be published on the NEIFPE blog at the end of February. In it she said,

Right after Christmas that year, my family had a particularly hard weekend. My mom and dad fought a lot, but we were all used to it and didn’t think much of it. Things seemed different, however, and we were all old enough to recognize it. They sat us down and told us they were getting a divorce. We were also moving, which meant changing schools and leaving our home behind. I was devastated. My family was falling apart and everything I knew and loved was about to change.

That Monday, I went back to school. I was sad and withdrawn. I remember sitting with my sister at lunch instead of my friends. She was a fifth grader and equally despondent. There was nothing we could do to fix our parent’s problems. We would walk home quietly together and then sit up in her room. Each day was never ending. By Wednesday of that week, I was a mess. I was holding in so much, and there wasn’t anyone to talk to. I had stopped participating in class and withdrew socially. Mr. Bloom knew it immediately.

I am sure there was a moment where the other kids saw Mr. Bloom come over to me and kneel down by my desk. I am sure someone came in and watched the classroom for him as he quietly walked me to the adjoining room. I don’t remember any of that. But that day was a defining moment in my childhood. As we went and sat down in the other classroom, he quietly asked me what was wrong. I remember that being all I needed to hear…he knew I was hurting and I began to sob. At that point, I didn’t care. He didn’t need to say anything because what I needed was to be held and rocked like the broken child that I was. This man, this father, this teacher recognized that I was going through something horrible. My world was upside down and he knew it. It was everything I needed at that exact moment. I needed to feel safe and comforted by a grown up I trusted. My parents were dealing with their own emotions, and I felt so alone. He listened when I told him what was happening at home. He explained that it wasn’t anything I had done, and he told me that it would get better…it was exactly what I needed to be told at exactly the right time.

What may seem insignificant to an outsider was life changing for me, even at nine years old. I had enough common sense even then to realize things were going to be a lot different after this school year. But I had someone who cared and made the rest of that school year awesome. School was my escape. I joke to my mom even now that Mr. Bloom’s talk saved me from years in therapy. He was the one reliable person in my life that year. His class was my safe place and he made my days normal. For this I am forever grateful.

I remembered that incident when I talked with her, but I had no idea that it was as important to her as it was...so important that she remembered it in such detail 30 years later.

I also remember a letter I got from a student. It was written from prison. I wrote about it 2 years ago.

The adult Joe wrote to tell me that his father had recently died. He said that, at the end of the year in third grade, I had helped him create a Father's Day card. I remembered that. It was common for us to make Mother's Day cards in May each year, but Father's Day takes place after school ends for the summer. For some reason, I decided that particular year, that I would have my class make Father's Day cards as well. I don't think I had ever done it before...and I don't remember doing it again. I told the students to save the cards after they got home for the summer...and to give them to their fathers (or another important male relative) on Father's Day.

Joe's letter reminisced about the Father's Day card. He wrote how I had helped him think of things to write, spell words he didn't know, and illustrate the card. Then he told me that the card he made that day was the last contact he ever had with his father. For that young man the fact that I had decided to make Father's Day cards with my class became a significant life fact a few years later.

I wish I could say that I was instrumental in the lives of each of the one thousand students who passed under my educational care, but, of course, I wasn't. There were students who I had trouble with, and with whom I was unable to develop the kind of relationship they needed. Those are the students I failed. Those are the students to whom I need to say,

"I'm sorry that I wasn't the person you needed at that time in your life."

As the adult in the room, it was my fault...my weakness...my responsibility. It was my failing that I was unable to help some of the children I worked with. I know that their letters to me, should they ever write, would be very different.

IT'S ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIPS

School curriculum is important. Teacher effectiveness is important. Maintained facilities are important. Sufficient resources are important.

But the relationship that teachers build with their students makes or breaks the learning process.

In his post, A Bill of Rights for School Children, Russ Walsh includes ten "rights" to which students are entitled, including a well-staffed, well-resourced, clean and safe neighborhood school, and the right to developmentally appropriate instruction. He also includes,

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. [emphasis added]

In their rush to blame teachers for low student achievement "reformers" fail to understand that a score on a standardized test isn't all there is to school. They don't understand that the human interaction between student and teacher is every bit as important as knowing who invented the spinning jenny or when World War I ended. I don't believe that any of my students would ever write to tell me that they were glad I taught them math facts, how to spell their, there, and they're, or how to fill in circles on a bubble test.

When Henry Adams, great-grandson of the second president, and grandson of the sixth, wrote,

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean influence as a "test facilitator."

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A Big Red "F" For Indiana

Indiana legislators and "reformers" love letter grades...so communities (via their schools) are graded as A through F using already invalid ISTEP scores. Those grades are good for things like getting campaign donations from privatizers, bashing public school teachers, and directing real estate agents to where the money is, but not much else.

Now that the Network for Public Education has given Indiana a grade of F because of the failure to actually help improve student achievement and public education, legislators will likely complain that these grades aren't valid...that they're biased (irony alert)...or even more likely, they'll ignore them completely.

An editorial in Sunday's (Feb. 14, '16) Journal Gazette summarizes the report about Indiana...

State gets poor marks in dedication to schools

Indiana earns Fs for supporting teacher professionalism, resisting privatization and investing school funding resources wisely. It earned Ds for rejecting high-stakes testing and giving children a chance for success. Indiana public schools continue to serve the vast majority of students. Public school enrollment this fall was 1,046,146 students, compared to 84,030 non-public students.

The poor mark for high-stakes testing won’t surprise anyone familiar with the state’s continuing struggles with ISTEP+, the standardized test administered to students in grades 3 through 8. Indiana also is among a handful of states requiring third-graders to pass a reading test to be promoted to fourth grade.

The state did get a B in school finance...and a D in High Stakes Testing and Chance for Success, though, as we'll see I disagree with the High Stakes Testing grade.

The grade card then, is 3 Fs, 2 Ds, and a B – not the worst in the nation (thanks to Arizona, Idaho, Texas and Mississippi), but certainly not anything to be proud of.

The complete report from Network for Public Education (NPE) can be found here...

My comments, and my grades, along with NPE's, cover three of the categories. These three alone would be enough reason to change the political leadership in Indiana in November (if not sooner). Add to that the refusal of the Republican governor to work cooperatively and respectfully with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, an actual teacher, and we have a serious situation for Indiana's school children.

[On an interesting side note, the current State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), Glenda Ritz, used to be a Republican. She switched parties in order to help us get rid of former SPI and "reformer" extraordinaire, Tony Bennett. She recognized that his and then Governor Mitch Daniels' policies were damaging the public schools in our state. Suellen Reed, the SPI before Tony Bennett, also a Republican, is currently on the advisory board of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, a pro-public education group fighting "reform" and privatization. She served for 16 years as SPI under Democratic and Republican Governors in a congenial atmosphere which disappeared with the Daniels/Bennett administration.]

FAIL: HIGH STAKES TESTING

Indiana uses the ISTEP to grade schools and evaluate teachers, neither of which is a valid use of a tool meant for measuring student achievement. Last year's ISTEP mess has at least encouraged the legislature to rethink the test and likely go with a different provider. However, grading schools and teachers using student achievement test scores will probably continue no matter what test is used.

Indiana also uses the ISTEP to label each school and school system on an A through F scale. Schools and neighborhoods are then either damned or lauded. That judgement is based, for the most part, on the economy of the families whose children attend the school since standardized tests have a direct correlation with family income. The D and F labels attached to low-income schools are detrimental to the community, to its families, and to its children. Students and their families are punished for having low incomes. Teachers are punished for working in high poverty schools.

Furthermore, Indiana uses a reading test, IREAD-3, to prevent students from being promoted from third grade to fourth. The rationale is that they need a year to catch up. Research into retention has shown time and again that students who are behind in third grade don't catch up through retention, and in fact, fall even further behind. The money for IREAD-3 would be better spent on early intervention (see here, and here, and you might as well check this out, too).

NPE used various criteria in which to give Indiana a D. They also figured their grade before the monumental failure of last year's ISTEP. My feeling is that the overuse, abuse, and misuse of tests in Indiana is reason enough to award the state a BIG RED F.

NPE Grade – D
My Grade – F

FAIL: PROFESSIONALIZATION OF TEACHING

NPE graded states on their ability to treat teachers with respect as professionals. Indiana fails.

The legislative chairs of the respective education committees (Robert Behning, chair of the House Education Committee, and Dennis Kruse, chair of the Senate Education and Career Development Committee) seem to take pleasure in depriving public school educators of their rights. In 2011 they led the drive to

1. eliminate due process for teachers. In the past administrations which wished to terminate a teacher had to allow the teacher a hearing with an impartial mediator. This allowed the teacher to present her case in front of someone who was not involved with the school system and could rule impartially. We call this Due Process. The law was changed in 2011. Now, teachers who are to be terminated can request a meeting with the superintendent or the school board. The chances of a fair and impartial hearing are reduced. This is what was meant by the term tenure in K-12 education in the state. Indiana teachers no longer have it.
2. reduce collective bargaining to only salary and insurance. Teachers and school systems no longer have the right to negotiate things like class size, evaluations, prep time, or parent teacher conferences. Teachers now must do what they're told, despite the damage it might do to student learning. The collective bargaining law changes (actually all the law changes in 2011) were meant to punish the teachers unions in Indiana, which they have done, but they also limit the flexibility that school systems have in negotiations as well. The supermajority in Indiana doesn't seem to understand (or care) that negotiations and bargaining is a process that takes two parties: the teachers and the school system.
3. use student achievement test scores to evaluate teachers. Why is it that there are fewer "bad" teachers (based on student test scores) in wealthy areas? Why is it that schools in high-poverty areas always seem to have many more "bad" teachers? Because student test scores reflect the level of parental income. Using student achievement test scores to evaluate teachers (and schools) is quite simply a misuse of tests and should be stopped.
4. force schools to abandon the step-scale for teacher pay and eliminate seniority. Apparently the supermajority and its "reformer" donors don't consider experience a benefit in public schools. I wonder if they would be happy with an inexperienced teacher for their own child...an inexperienced surgeon taking out their appendix or an inexperienced attorney defending them in court. The truth is, experience matters, in every job or profession.

The legislature and the governor also have a problem listening to the elected educational professional in the government, the State Superintendent of Public Education, Glenda Ritz. Instead they've worked tirelessly, and successfully, to limit her influence on Indiana's education policy. Apparently they believe that the auctioneer that leads the Senate education committee, the florist that leads the House education committee, and the radio talk show host who sits in the governor's chair, all know more about public education than someone who

• is a National Board Certified Teacher with two masters degrees

• is a former Teacher of the Year

• has 33 years of teaching experience in public education

Or perhaps it's that she's a Democrat and former union leader who got more votes than their "reformist" friend, Tony Bennett...

Here's an irony for you...the legislature is "studying" the reason for the looming teacher shortage.

NPE Grade – F
My Grade – F

FAIL: RESISTANCE TO PRIVATIZATION

Public Education is a public trust. It should be funded and controlled by the public through democratically elected school boards. President John Adams wrote,

"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves."

Indiana has the most expansive voucher program in the nation, diverting millions of dollars from public schools to private, mostly parochial schools.

Indiana politicians also favor privately run charter schools over public schools by methods such as loan forgiveness (even when the school closes), additional special-favor loans to charter schools, and support for the proven failure of virtual charter schools.

In Indiana "failing" public schools end up as "failing" charter schools, which then become "failing" parochial schools getting taxpayer dollars. Instead of redistributing tax money reserved for public education to private corporations and religious organizations, the state ought to help students in struggling schools. In the past, Indiana was one of the few states where struggling schools got higher funding than schools in wealthy areas. That changed in 2015. Now, the better you do on standardized tests, the more money you get.

State budget proposal shifts aid toward wealthy schools

...changes in the funding system proposed Monday appear likely to funnel most of those extra dollars to wealthy and growing suburban school districts, while some of the poorest and shrinking districts could actually get less money.

So, instead of putting money where it's needed, the state "rewards" schools for high performance, forcing students in poorer areas to do more with less. Those same students are then "blamed" for "failing" and their schools get closed or turned over to a charter company. The failure of the state to provide for the students is blamed on the school, the teachers, and the students, and privatization gets the PR boost, and the profits, it was after all along.

NPE Grade – F
My Grade – F

FAIL: INDIANA

The state of Indiana is lead by a "reformist" governor and a "reformist" supermajority in both houses of the legislature. Their goals appear to be the complete privatization of public schools, the deprofessionalization of public school teachers, and the elimination of Indiana's teachers unions, all accomplished through testing.

Things are not likely to change soon. Politicians talk a good game, but they are driven by the need to be reelected, which means they respond to those who pay their campaign expenses, i.e. donors. And the biggest contributors are the corporate donors who use public education tax revenue as a source for profit.

If Indiana wants to improve its public schools...and we ought to pause to think about whether or not that's actually true...which will benefit all our children and our communities, we're going to have to change things. Poverty is the main cause of low achievement. As long as Indiana's 22% child poverty rate, the same rate as the nation's, continues, we'll have struggling students. At this point it will take several generations to undo the damage done by the last 12 years of the supermajority legislature and the last two governors.

There are no “silver bullets” when it comes to improving schools. The myth that “three great teachers in a row” can close the achievement gap has always been a ploy. However, if states are willing to invest time and money guided by the right values, we will see steady progress for our public schools and our nation’s children. 

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