I have a confession: some times I can't take it. Yes, some times when I can't take it, I do as Peter Finch from Network instructed us to do and go to my window and scream, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more!" Other times, I sit down at my computer and scream into the cyber-void.
But at other times, I think about giving in to the Dark Side as Darth Vader urged Luke to do. As Garrison Keillor remarked a couple years ago in reference to being a Republican, it would be so easy, wouldn't it? How wonderful it would be to truly believe that all we had to do was punish teachers for being lazy! What a bounce I'd have in my step if I believed in the power of market competition and "choice" to solve all those nasty problems! How splendid it would be to put a "Throwing More Money at the Problem Is Not the Solution!" bumper sticker on my car. Ah, to be a conservative! What bliss!
So, donning my steel helmet and black cape a la Darth Vader, here are my dire, satirical predictions for Education in America by the year 2020. I think this qualifies as The Worst Worst Case Scenario, i.e., Conservative Utopia.
Note - for the satirically-challenged out there and to anticipate the claims of "utter nonsense" and paranoia, please understand that "satire" is defined as "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues."
Here we go . . .
1) The dark forces of The Standards and Accountability Movement will engulf higher ed in the next 10 years.
2) Expect to see publicly-funded institutions of higher ed be subject to NCLB-like provisions, including:
a) standardized testing
b) standardized exit exams for graduating seniors
c) standards-based and standardized curricula that attach specific measurable outcomes to every course
3) Expect to see more talk about "Universities are not doing their jobs" and "The Chinese are gonna eat us for lunch" and "If we don't act now, our grandchildren will all be working at drive-thru curry restaurants." This talk will fuel above-mentioned reforms.
4) Wild card prediction: higher ed will become compulsory, at least a 2-year associate's degree, by 2020 (cf. "The Chinese are gonna eat us for lunch" and "If we don't act now, our grandchildren will all be working at drive-thru curry restaurants.")
5) K-12 and higher ed will become inextricaby linked; state boards of K-12 education and higher education will merge into one PreK - 20 Board of Education; this body will create the content standards and standardized curricula for all PreK - 20 classes; students will have e-portfolios of their work, starting at preK, that will attach to them and follow them for their whole lives, past their academic careers and into their professional lives; these will replace the traditional resume; employers will know everything there is to know about prospective employees, including how many detentions they got in the 8th grade. This will give new meaning to the threat, "This will go on your permanent record."
6) The pedagogy of the future will be The Revenge of the Lecture; superstar "teachers" will be trained as motivational speakers and will deliver course content to students in K-20. They will be paid in excess of $150K per year. This will attract people and convince them to go into "teaching" rather than yacht refurbishing or investment banking. Before, during, and after the lecture, classroom paraprofessionals will be scurrying about in either face-to-face settings or online as students watch the lecture via a laptop/tablet computer. These paraprofessionals will all have 2-year associate degrees from community colleges. They will be paid $30K per year. There will be a 20:1 ratio of superstar "teachers" (aka "subject matter experts," aka "Learning Managers," aka "Paraprofessional Facilitators," aka "Make Me Feel Good About Working for $30K Per Year'ists") to paraprofessionals and a 500:1 ratio of superstar teachers to students. This means that each paraprofessional is responsible for 25 children, the currently accepted class size level. (This, by the way, is not that different from what Chris Whittle, Edison's CEO and founder, envisions.)
Funding Model:
500 students @ $10K per student = $5,000,000
1 superstar teacher @ $150K = $150,000
20 paraprofessionals @ $30K = $600,000
NET SURPLUS - $4.4 million per 500 students
($10K per student is about what the current average funding level is, so this will need to be adjusted up in the future.)
7) There are roughly 47 million students currently enrolled in grades K-12. There are about 3.25 million full-time and part-time teachers in public schools. In the above funding model, the 47 million students would be divided into 500 member cohorts and assigned one rock star teacher. So 47 million divided by 500 = 94,000 groups of students, thus 94,000 rock star teachers. So we go from 3.25 million teachers to 94,000. The AFT and the NEA will be dead by 2020, abolished by popular demand for being obstructionist and mired in corruption and self-interest (The argument "Aren't all unions mired in corruption and self-interest?" will have finally won.) The 94,000 rock stars will be members of a professional organization that is funded largely by the Gates Foundation that trains them in how to be Highly Skilled Managers Adept in Multimodal Assessment and Team Building Through Pay for Performance Pedagogy Models (PfPPM). Rock star pay is tied to the performance of the members of their 500-member cohorts, aka "children." Rock stars are also trained in management Strategies that Maximize the Performance of Paraprofessionals (SMPP) under their supervision.
94,000 rock stars @ $150K a pop will cost $14.1 billion.
You'll need to hire 1,880,000 paraprofessionals (1 paraprofessional for every 25 kids, with 20 paraprofessionals assigned to each rock star). 1,880,000 paraprofessionals @ $30K a pop will cost $56.4 billion.
Added together, the cost of rock stars and paraprofessionals comes to $70.5 billion per year. Compare this to the $500 billion that is currently spent on public K-12.
The $429.5 billion difference (aka "net surplus") represents The Educational Pot of Gold for private, for-profit educational management organizations (EMO's) like Edison.
EMO's will dominate "public" education in 2020. The $429.5 billion in public funds will be carved up amongst a handful of both privately-held and publicly-traded companies like Edison, Kaplan, Princeton Review, White Hat, and others that will enter the market over the next 10 years.
Thus, "the teaching profession" will have been turned over to motivational speakers/educational performance managers. The work of education will be performed by paraprofessional serfs who will sing about the opportunity to make a difference and work with kids. Because their health insurance is tied to the scores of their students (low scores = higher deductible), they are motivated to put in the hours necessary to improve students' scores so they can trim healthcare costs. They love the fact that they are teaching ONLY 25 students as compared to the 35 and 40 students they were teaching in 2010. Since the paraprofessional serfs are not teachers, they do not complain about reading from and following a scripted curriculum. In fact, they love it! No more guesswork! No more lesson planning! And, since the majority of assessments are multiple choice and conducted online, they never have to grade anything! This gives them tons of extra time to give more drills and more tests. The students do all the work; the serfs just click a few buttons now and again and read from the manual. What a time-saver!
Because the students are motivated and entertained by the daily Pump Up Your Scores! lesson given by their rock star, they cheerily complete the daily online assessments. Since they take these assessments daily, and since automatic feedback is provided the instant they submit an answer to a multiple-choice question, the students get really good at taking the assessments. Since they get really good at taking the assessments, their scores go up. Since the students and serfs and rock stars are all assessed on the basis of their test scores, and since serfs' healthcare is tied to test scores, and since rock star bonus pay is tied to test scores, everyone is incredibly happy. It's WIN-WIN-WIN!
Best of all, parents are happy, too. They see their children's test scores go up and up and up. Look at them go! They occasionally glance over the shoulders of their children as they watch the rock stars on their computers. The rock stars are so funny! They are so smart! And they are so cute! And they actually like me AND my children!
The rock stars make the occasional visit to the classrooms, to look the serfs in the eye to thank them for their hard work, to shake hands with this month's top test taker, and to dine with members of the local PTA. The PTA members all crowd around the rock star, asking him for his autograph, posing for pictures, and bragging to the unlucky parents the next day, "I actually met Billy's teacher! Oops . .. sorry. I mean Learning Manager!"
Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
PBS Newshour Report on NCLB Impact on NYC School
This great piece from the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is about 10 minutes long.
It does an excellent job (one of the best I've seen or read) of concisely describing AYP, federal sanctions, and the paradox of how a good school can be labeled a failure. If you can't watch it, there's also a transcript you can read.
It does an excellent job (one of the best I've seen or read) of concisely describing AYP, federal sanctions, and the paradox of how a good school can be labeled a failure. If you can't watch it, there's also a transcript you can read.
Baltimore Schools Fall Under NCLB
And so it begins . . . The 7 middle schools targeted for takeover "are to be taken away from the direct operation of the Baltimore city school district, and will be reopened as charter schools or taken over by other entities — universities, nonprofit groups or for-profit private companies."
How long before St. Louis public schools follow? And are suburban schools safe?
NY Times
March 30, 2006
Maryland Acts to Take Over Failing Baltimore Schools
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
BALTIMORE, March 29 — Invoking the federal No Child Left Behind law, the Maryland school board voted today to take control of four Baltimore high schools with chronically low achievement and strip the City of Baltimore from direct operation of seven more middle schools.
In approving the request of Maryland's superintendent of schools, Nancy S. Grasmick, a longtime advocate of the school standards movement, the state board took the most drastic remedy provided under No Child Left Behind, one reserved for schools that have failed to show sufficient progress for at least five years.
It is the first time that a state has moved to take over schools under the federal law, according to the federal Education Department, which praised the vote. One of the board's 12 members opposed the state takeover of the high schools, and one member was absent.
By taking a step that other states have so far taken pains to avoid, Maryland guaranteed that its experience would be watched closely by other states, many of which are likely to face the same tough decisions in responding to failing schools as the law's testing regime expands in coming years. The takeover goes into effect in July 2007.
"Clearly, Maryland is leading the way in terms of state actions in dealing with schools with low test scores," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, which has closely tracked state responses to No Child Left Behind. He said the state would now have the onus of showing that it could bring improvement. "The buck stops with the state now," Mr. Jennings said.
The state and city have long struggled over Baltimore's troubled school system, which has been plagued by poor test scores and deteriorating buildings.
The high schools designated for takeover here — one with only 1.4 percent of the students passing the state biology exam and another with only 10 percent passing the algebra exam— have failed to show improvement for nine years, said Ronald Peiffer, Maryland's deputy superintendent for academic policy. That is longer than No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, has even been in existence.
In addition to the high schools, seven middle schools are to be taken away from the direct operation of the Baltimore city school district, and will be reopened as charter schools or taken over by other entities — universities, nonprofit groups or for-profit private companies — but will remain under city supervision.
City officials and community leaders were enraged by the move, accusing the schools chief of bad faith, of failing to deliver needed resources and of playing politics.
"This is unprecedented," said Mayor Martin O'Malley. "No other state superintendent in the history of the country has ever tried to do what Dr. Grasmick is trying to do in this election year." Mr. O'Malley vowed that the city would do all it could to fight the takeover, "whatever it takes."
The issue is particularly charged in Maryland, where the governor's race is likely to pit Mayor O'Malley, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, against Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican. In his last race, Mr. Ehrlich asked Dr. Grasmick to be his running mate, an offer she turned down.
Mr. Peiffer, the deputy superintendent, said politics were not a factor. "Some of these schools have been failing for 12 years under three different governors," he said. "Regardless of when you do this, there's going to be somebody, there'll be a governor, there'll be a mayor and there'll be a cry of politics. What you have to do is to do the right thing."
The No Child Left Behind law seeks to have all students reach proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014 and threatens public schools with sanctions if they do not adequately improve performance. Last year, 27 percent of schools in the nation failed to make adequate progress, according to preliminary Education Department figures.
While Baltimore is roughly on a par with many other struggling urban systems, standardized tests have been in used there since well before No Child Left Behind became law in 2002. That has created a longer record of school performance.
"Not too many states came into No Child Left Behind with as many schools involved in intervention as Maryland did," Mr. Peiffer said. As states build longer records of testing, he said, "they are going to have similar discussions about alternative governance."
Maryland's action is not the first time that a state has stepped in to take control of troubled schools. Ohio officials for a time took over the Cleveland school district, and New Jersey has taken control of schools in Newark in the past.
But this is the first time that a state has taken over schools using No Child Left Behind, which sets targets for improvement and lays out stiff penalties for falling short of those goals. Ray Simon, deputy federal education secretary, said Maryland "should be commended for taking historic and decisive action on the side of Baltimore students."
In Arkansas, where officials invoked state law to take over three districts for fiscal mismanagement, the schools commissioner, Ken James, said he might make the same decisions as Dr. Grasmick in a few years. Several schools have shown inadequate improvement for four years now, he noted.
"If they consistently show no improvement and are not able to turn the tide, that will be one of the potential situations that we face here in a couple of years, " Mr. James said.
How long before St. Louis public schools follow? And are suburban schools safe?
NY Times
March 30, 2006
Maryland Acts to Take Over Failing Baltimore Schools
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
BALTIMORE, March 29 — Invoking the federal No Child Left Behind law, the Maryland school board voted today to take control of four Baltimore high schools with chronically low achievement and strip the City of Baltimore from direct operation of seven more middle schools.
In approving the request of Maryland's superintendent of schools, Nancy S. Grasmick, a longtime advocate of the school standards movement, the state board took the most drastic remedy provided under No Child Left Behind, one reserved for schools that have failed to show sufficient progress for at least five years.
It is the first time that a state has moved to take over schools under the federal law, according to the federal Education Department, which praised the vote. One of the board's 12 members opposed the state takeover of the high schools, and one member was absent.
By taking a step that other states have so far taken pains to avoid, Maryland guaranteed that its experience would be watched closely by other states, many of which are likely to face the same tough decisions in responding to failing schools as the law's testing regime expands in coming years. The takeover goes into effect in July 2007.
"Clearly, Maryland is leading the way in terms of state actions in dealing with schools with low test scores," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, which has closely tracked state responses to No Child Left Behind. He said the state would now have the onus of showing that it could bring improvement. "The buck stops with the state now," Mr. Jennings said.
The state and city have long struggled over Baltimore's troubled school system, which has been plagued by poor test scores and deteriorating buildings.
The high schools designated for takeover here — one with only 1.4 percent of the students passing the state biology exam and another with only 10 percent passing the algebra exam— have failed to show improvement for nine years, said Ronald Peiffer, Maryland's deputy superintendent for academic policy. That is longer than No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, has even been in existence.
In addition to the high schools, seven middle schools are to be taken away from the direct operation of the Baltimore city school district, and will be reopened as charter schools or taken over by other entities — universities, nonprofit groups or for-profit private companies — but will remain under city supervision.
City officials and community leaders were enraged by the move, accusing the schools chief of bad faith, of failing to deliver needed resources and of playing politics.
"This is unprecedented," said Mayor Martin O'Malley. "No other state superintendent in the history of the country has ever tried to do what Dr. Grasmick is trying to do in this election year." Mr. O'Malley vowed that the city would do all it could to fight the takeover, "whatever it takes."
The issue is particularly charged in Maryland, where the governor's race is likely to pit Mayor O'Malley, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, against Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican. In his last race, Mr. Ehrlich asked Dr. Grasmick to be his running mate, an offer she turned down.
Mr. Peiffer, the deputy superintendent, said politics were not a factor. "Some of these schools have been failing for 12 years under three different governors," he said. "Regardless of when you do this, there's going to be somebody, there'll be a governor, there'll be a mayor and there'll be a cry of politics. What you have to do is to do the right thing."
The No Child Left Behind law seeks to have all students reach proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014 and threatens public schools with sanctions if they do not adequately improve performance. Last year, 27 percent of schools in the nation failed to make adequate progress, according to preliminary Education Department figures.
While Baltimore is roughly on a par with many other struggling urban systems, standardized tests have been in used there since well before No Child Left Behind became law in 2002. That has created a longer record of school performance.
"Not too many states came into No Child Left Behind with as many schools involved in intervention as Maryland did," Mr. Peiffer said. As states build longer records of testing, he said, "they are going to have similar discussions about alternative governance."
Maryland's action is not the first time that a state has stepped in to take control of troubled schools. Ohio officials for a time took over the Cleveland school district, and New Jersey has taken control of schools in Newark in the past.
But this is the first time that a state has taken over schools using No Child Left Behind, which sets targets for improvement and lays out stiff penalties for falling short of those goals. Ray Simon, deputy federal education secretary, said Maryland "should be commended for taking historic and decisive action on the side of Baltimore students."
In Arkansas, where officials invoked state law to take over three districts for fiscal mismanagement, the schools commissioner, Ken James, said he might make the same decisions as Dr. Grasmick in a few years. Several schools have shown inadequate improvement for four years now, he noted.
"If they consistently show no improvement and are not able to turn the tide, that will be one of the potential situations that we face here in a couple of years, " Mr. James said.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Voices of Dissent 1: Interview With Susan Ohanian
"All I know is if teachers remain silent, they are going to lose their profession. In many cases, the profession is dead: when you're reading a script, you are not a professional."
Susan Ohanian began teaching in a New York City high school in the late 60's. Almost at once, she fashioned herself as both educator and activist. Throughout her career, she has challenged the educational status quo, recently publishing a widely-respected book (with Kathy Emery) called Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools? Her web site -- http://www.susanohanian.org -- is one of the pillars of the anti-NCLB, anti-high-stakes testing movement.
In this interview, Susan calls on teachers, professional organizations, and unions to speak out against high-stakes testing. As she says, "You certainly can't be an activist if your mouth is shut."
Susan Ohanian began teaching in a New York City high school in the late 60's. Almost at once, she fashioned herself as both educator and activist. Throughout her career, she has challenged the educational status quo, recently publishing a widely-respected book (with Kathy Emery) called Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools? Her web site -- http://www.susanohanian.org -- is one of the pillars of the anti-NCLB, anti-high-stakes testing movement.
In this interview, Susan calls on teachers, professional organizations, and unions to speak out against high-stakes testing. As she says, "You certainly can't be an activist if your mouth is shut."
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math
The lead story in today's (3/26/06) NY Times confirms what many of us already knew - NCLB is destroying public schools and depriving a generation of poor minority children of any exposure to non-tested subjects. (full story here)
According to the Times story, a survey by the Center on Education Policy found that since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music, and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math. The center is an independent group that has made a thorough study of the new act and has published a detailed yearly report on the implementation of the law in dozens of districts. "Narrowing the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern," said Jack Jennings, the president of the center, which is based in Washington.
The survey (coming out later this week) looks at 299 school districts in 50 states. It was conducted as part of a four-year study of No Child Left Behind and appears to be the most systematic effort to track the law's footprints through the classroom.
The historian David McCullough told a Senate Committee last June that because of the law, "history is being put on the back burner or taken off the stove altogether in many or most schools, in favor of math and reading."
For more and more children, the exposure to social studies --- the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, how the government runs, how laws are passed, US and world history, etc. -- has been eliminated. The sociopolitical implications of poor black and Hispanic children not learning about the Civil Rights movement, not learning about women's suffrage, not learning about the US Civil War, and not learning about any historical or contemporary instance of civil disobedience is more than just chilling. It smacks of an Orwellian attempt not merely to rewrite history, but to get rid of it.
Please note: I do not mean to imply that this is a deliberate effort on the part of those who crafted the legislation and all those who currently support it. Bush, et al, are not that smart. But the unintended consequences of NCLB are as follows:
Thus, as one of its major unintended consequences, NCLB creates a huge pool of very cheap labor. Those with high school diplomas will be able to enter slightly higher-paying jobs, as they will have the basic literacy and numeracy skills necessary. But because they will have been exposed to nothing but the basics, often in school systems characterized by extraordinarily rigid discipline that reward students for doing as they are told (Edison, KIPP, etc.), these high school graduates will likely function as docile cogs in a larger corporate machine. And, not having been exposed to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Gandhi, to Malcolm X, to Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony, they will have little reason to question their fate. And little sense of any other possibility.
As horrible as this news is, we need to use it to press for substantive reforms. This could be a turning point for those of us who support social and economic justice as it applies to public education.
According to the Times story, a survey by the Center on Education Policy found that since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music, and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math. The center is an independent group that has made a thorough study of the new act and has published a detailed yearly report on the implementation of the law in dozens of districts. "Narrowing the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern," said Jack Jennings, the president of the center, which is based in Washington.
The survey (coming out later this week) looks at 299 school districts in 50 states. It was conducted as part of a four-year study of No Child Left Behind and appears to be the most systematic effort to track the law's footprints through the classroom.
The historian David McCullough told a Senate Committee last June that because of the law, "history is being put on the back burner or taken off the stove altogether in many or most schools, in favor of math and reading."
For more and more children, the exposure to social studies --- the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, how the government runs, how laws are passed, US and world history, etc. -- has been eliminated. The sociopolitical implications of poor black and Hispanic children not learning about the Civil Rights movement, not learning about women's suffrage, not learning about the US Civil War, and not learning about any historical or contemporary instance of civil disobedience is more than just chilling. It smacks of an Orwellian attempt not merely to rewrite history, but to get rid of it.
Please note: I do not mean to imply that this is a deliberate effort on the part of those who crafted the legislation and all those who currently support it. Bush, et al, are not that smart. But the unintended consequences of NCLB are as follows:
- more and more students are dropping out of school
- those that do not drop out are pushed out by school administrators looking to get rid of students that will dampen test scores
- drop-outs and push-outs alike will have little chance of getting good jobs, so they will enter the workforce and take whatever jobs they can find in the service economy, jobs that do not carry health insurance or any kind of protections against being fired or laid off
- those that remain in school will graduate with the most basic literacy and numeracy skills possible and will have had no exposure to critical thinking and analysis of any kind
Thus, as one of its major unintended consequences, NCLB creates a huge pool of very cheap labor. Those with high school diplomas will be able to enter slightly higher-paying jobs, as they will have the basic literacy and numeracy skills necessary. But because they will have been exposed to nothing but the basics, often in school systems characterized by extraordinarily rigid discipline that reward students for doing as they are told (Edison, KIPP, etc.), these high school graduates will likely function as docile cogs in a larger corporate machine. And, not having been exposed to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Gandhi, to Malcolm X, to Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony, they will have little reason to question their fate. And little sense of any other possibility.
As horrible as this news is, we need to use it to press for substantive reforms. This could be a turning point for those of us who support social and economic justice as it applies to public education.
Friday, March 24, 2006
What is the cost of doing business as usual?
GM announced on Wednesday that it will offer buyouts and early-retirement packages ranging from $35,000 to $140,000 to every one of its 113,000 unionized workers in the United States who agree to leave the company.
Yet these workers will have no health insurance if they accept this offer. Many are too old to be retrained easily into new jobs, and there's little chance that they can find any jobs at all in the economically downtrodden ares where the factories are, thereby forcing these workers to move to new cities. And even if they can find jobs, there's little to no chance that they will be paid as well as they were and receive both healthcare and pensions. In all of this, there is no discussion about the CEO's or the top managers of these companies taking pay cuts, nor is there a discussion on the part of shareholders to settle for less profit and less return on their investments in the near-term in exchange for helping these workers and these families.
So what is our commitment to? Ever-more profits? Ever-more dollars? Or to children and families? Surely wisdom and common sense would tell us, "It doesn't have to be one or the other. We can have greater and greater profits AND protect and serve families." But it's becoming increasingly clear that greater and greater profits come at the expense of families.
How much profit is enough? And what is the cost of doing business as usual?
Yet these workers will have no health insurance if they accept this offer. Many are too old to be retrained easily into new jobs, and there's little chance that they can find any jobs at all in the economically downtrodden ares where the factories are, thereby forcing these workers to move to new cities. And even if they can find jobs, there's little to no chance that they will be paid as well as they were and receive both healthcare and pensions. In all of this, there is no discussion about the CEO's or the top managers of these companies taking pay cuts, nor is there a discussion on the part of shareholders to settle for less profit and less return on their investments in the near-term in exchange for helping these workers and these families.
So what is our commitment to? Ever-more profits? Ever-more dollars? Or to children and families? Surely wisdom and common sense would tell us, "It doesn't have to be one or the other. We can have greater and greater profits AND protect and serve families." But it's becoming increasingly clear that greater and greater profits come at the expense of families.
How much profit is enough? And what is the cost of doing business as usual?
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Jay Greene on Talk of the Nation
On Talk of the Nation today, Jay Greene argued that students who take and pass exit exams show they have the skills that employers are looking for. But more and more classrooms are focused on prepping students for the test, not giving them the skills that employers want and need. After all, a multiple choice test can't measure critical thinking skills, communication skills, and team-building skills -- all things that employers say they want. But in prepping students for these kinds of exams, students are not taught these things. So are we really preparing them for the future, or are we preparing them to be good test-takers?
In the article in TCR Record that Greene mentioned (http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_33.htm), the issue posed is as follows:
"Whether the high stakes of high stakes testing are in fact motivating schools to manipulate results without actually improving real student achievement is a question that can be investigated empirically. By comparing results from high stakes tests with results from other standardized tests administered around the same time, we can determine whether the high stakes associated with high stakes tests are distorting test results. If high stakes tests produce results that are similar to the results of other tests where there are no incentives to manipulate scores, which we might call “low stakes” tests, then we can have confidence that the high stakes do not themselves distort the outcomes. If, on the other hand, high stakes tests produce results that are not similar to the results of low stakes tests, then we should be concerned that schools have managed to produce results on high stakes tests that are inaccurate reflections of actual student achievement."
The conclusion reached is as follows: "The report finds that score levels on high stakes tests closely track score levels on other tests, suggesting that high stakes tests provide reliable information on student performance."
The idiocy of this conclusion is staggering. What Greene fails to take into consideration is the logical conclusion that ALL test prep -- whether "high stakes" or "low stakes" -- results in both manipulation of results and a narrowing of the curriculum. Because the results of "high stakes" and "low stakes" tests are the same, he naively (or willfully and blindly) concludes that they must be produced under the same conditions, i.e., no manipulation of data and no narrowing of curriculum. But this could be argued from the opposite perspective, i.e. the results are the same precisely because they were produced under the same conditions (data manipulation and narrowing of curriculum).
Greene naively asserts that there are no incentives to manipulate scores or instruction in so-called "low stakes" tests. Yet the evidence speaks to the contrary.
The Center on Education Policy reported last year that 27 percent of school systems say they are spending less time on social studies, and nearly 25 percent say they are spending less time on science, art and music. In another study from 2004, the Council of Basic Education surveyed 954 principals in 4 states in different parts of the country: Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, and New York. They all reported that their schools were spending less time on social studies, art, and foreign languages. According to the Council of Basic Education’s report, 47% of high-minority schools reported decreases in social studies instruction.
In more and more classrooms, teachers are told to identify the low achievers, the high achievers, and the kids just on the verge of passing the state test, the so-called "bubble kids." Jennifer Booher-Jennings (American Educational Research Journal, Summer 2005, Vol. 42, NVo. 2, pp. 231-268) notes the practice of teaching to the bubble kids -- what she calls “educational triage” -- has become increasingly widespread in response to accountability systems, and has been documented in Texas, Chicago, California, Philadelphia, New York, and England.
Booher-Jennings interviewed a teacher at an urban elementary school in Texas; the teacher had this to say about "educational triage" and teaching to the bubble kids: "I guess there’s supposed to be remediation for anything below 55%, but you have to figure out who to focus on in class, and I definitely focus more attention on the bubble kids. If you look at her score [pointing to a student’s score on her class test score summary sheet], she’s got a 25%. What’s the point in trying to get her to grade level? It would take two years to get her to pass to the test, so there’s really no hope for her...I feel like we might as well focus on the ones that there’s hope for."
"Data-driven assessments" such as those administered at Edison schools and an ever-increasing number of other public schools lead quite logically to the phenomenon of "educational triage," i.e., teaching to the bubble kids. In defense of the schools that engage in “data-driven assessment,” their approach is not indicative of the school avoiding accountability, shirking its role, and looking for wiggle room. In fact, such an approach is both efficient and logical under NCLB's terms and conditions that determine what "efficient" and "logical" are. It actually shows how well schools follow orders and how well they do their (new) job. Public schools are doing exactly what they are told, are towing the party line, and are doing what is logical and efficient under NCLB. Cutting social studies and other non-tested subjects is also logical and efficient under the logic that defines NCLB.
Finally, as David Berliner and Sharon Nichols point out in "The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing," (executive summary at http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0503-101-EPRU-exec.pdf) the logic of test prep leads to the fulfillment of Campbell's law (no relation), i.e., "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” Berliner and Nichols conclude, "Applying this principle, this study finds that the over-reliance on high-stakes testing has serious negative repercussions that are present at every level of the public school system."
In the article in TCR Record that Greene mentioned (http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_33.htm), the issue posed is as follows:
"Whether the high stakes of high stakes testing are in fact motivating schools to manipulate results without actually improving real student achievement is a question that can be investigated empirically. By comparing results from high stakes tests with results from other standardized tests administered around the same time, we can determine whether the high stakes associated with high stakes tests are distorting test results. If high stakes tests produce results that are similar to the results of other tests where there are no incentives to manipulate scores, which we might call “low stakes” tests, then we can have confidence that the high stakes do not themselves distort the outcomes. If, on the other hand, high stakes tests produce results that are not similar to the results of low stakes tests, then we should be concerned that schools have managed to produce results on high stakes tests that are inaccurate reflections of actual student achievement."
The conclusion reached is as follows: "The report finds that score levels on high stakes tests closely track score levels on other tests, suggesting that high stakes tests provide reliable information on student performance."
The idiocy of this conclusion is staggering. What Greene fails to take into consideration is the logical conclusion that ALL test prep -- whether "high stakes" or "low stakes" -- results in both manipulation of results and a narrowing of the curriculum. Because the results of "high stakes" and "low stakes" tests are the same, he naively (or willfully and blindly) concludes that they must be produced under the same conditions, i.e., no manipulation of data and no narrowing of curriculum. But this could be argued from the opposite perspective, i.e. the results are the same precisely because they were produced under the same conditions (data manipulation and narrowing of curriculum).
Greene naively asserts that there are no incentives to manipulate scores or instruction in so-called "low stakes" tests. Yet the evidence speaks to the contrary.
The Center on Education Policy reported last year that 27 percent of school systems say they are spending less time on social studies, and nearly 25 percent say they are spending less time on science, art and music. In another study from 2004, the Council of Basic Education surveyed 954 principals in 4 states in different parts of the country: Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, and New York. They all reported that their schools were spending less time on social studies, art, and foreign languages. According to the Council of Basic Education’s report, 47% of high-minority schools reported decreases in social studies instruction.
In more and more classrooms, teachers are told to identify the low achievers, the high achievers, and the kids just on the verge of passing the state test, the so-called "bubble kids." Jennifer Booher-Jennings (American Educational Research Journal, Summer 2005, Vol. 42, NVo. 2, pp. 231-268) notes the practice of teaching to the bubble kids -- what she calls “educational triage” -- has become increasingly widespread in response to accountability systems, and has been documented in Texas, Chicago, California, Philadelphia, New York, and England.
Booher-Jennings interviewed a teacher at an urban elementary school in Texas; the teacher had this to say about "educational triage" and teaching to the bubble kids: "I guess there’s supposed to be remediation for anything below 55%, but you have to figure out who to focus on in class, and I definitely focus more attention on the bubble kids. If you look at her score [pointing to a student’s score on her class test score summary sheet], she’s got a 25%. What’s the point in trying to get her to grade level? It would take two years to get her to pass to the test, so there’s really no hope for her...I feel like we might as well focus on the ones that there’s hope for."
"Data-driven assessments" such as those administered at Edison schools and an ever-increasing number of other public schools lead quite logically to the phenomenon of "educational triage," i.e., teaching to the bubble kids. In defense of the schools that engage in “data-driven assessment,” their approach is not indicative of the school avoiding accountability, shirking its role, and looking for wiggle room. In fact, such an approach is both efficient and logical under NCLB's terms and conditions that determine what "efficient" and "logical" are. It actually shows how well schools follow orders and how well they do their (new) job. Public schools are doing exactly what they are told, are towing the party line, and are doing what is logical and efficient under NCLB. Cutting social studies and other non-tested subjects is also logical and efficient under the logic that defines NCLB.
Finally, as David Berliner and Sharon Nichols point out in "The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing," (executive summary at http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0503-101-EPRU-exec.pdf) the logic of test prep leads to the fulfillment of Campbell's law (no relation), i.e., "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” Berliner and Nichols conclude, "Applying this principle, this study finds that the over-reliance on high-stakes testing has serious negative repercussions that are present at every level of the public school system."
Monday, March 13, 2006
Claude Steele in Young, Gifted, and Black
I just finished Claude Steele's chapter in Young, Gifted, and Black. Fantastic stuff. The issue of "stereotype threat" is very troubling, and he presents very powerful evidence to support his claims.
I found areas of his argument that were troubling:
- his argument provides a solid rationale to abandon high-stakes testing altogether, given the self-fulfilling prophecy that racial minorities are likely to experience when taking such tests
- in my school district, we give tests to students once a month via Tungsten, thereby creating a high-stakes environment throughout the school year via these "mini high-stakes tests"; what effect does this have on minority performance? what effect does this have on minority self-image? how likely will such a practice create "effort optimism" (Theresa Perry's term) if kids -- esp. minority kids -- keep doing badly?
- although he cites ways that students might be convinced that such tests are "racially fair," the overwhelming evidence that I've read points to the fact that these tests are not racially fair; so should we really try to convince minority kids that these tests are fair?
- his ideas for creating racial trust and "identity safety" seem nice in theory, but this means that the accuracy of assessments depends on/is predicated on the pre-condition that all minority students who engage in high-stakes testing feel safe in their identities -- how likely is this to happen? And even if it could happen, how can you accurately and objectively measure whether or not minority children feel safe in their identities? And if you could measure this accurately and objectively, would this mean that the results of these identity assessments would then trump the results of the high-stakes content standards assessments? In other words, say a minority kid does poorly on a state standardized test, but the identity assessment reveals that she does not feel safe as a minority student about being a minority. So would the test scores be adjusted slightly? Or would they be thrown out?
- what this all suggests to me -- surprise, surprise! -- is that a single, high-stakes measure that is used as the sole means for determining AYP is fundamentally flawed
I found areas of his argument that were troubling:
- his argument provides a solid rationale to abandon high-stakes testing altogether, given the self-fulfilling prophecy that racial minorities are likely to experience when taking such tests
- in my school district, we give tests to students once a month via Tungsten, thereby creating a high-stakes environment throughout the school year via these "mini high-stakes tests"; what effect does this have on minority performance? what effect does this have on minority self-image? how likely will such a practice create "effort optimism" (Theresa Perry's term) if kids -- esp. minority kids -- keep doing badly?
- although he cites ways that students might be convinced that such tests are "racially fair," the overwhelming evidence that I've read points to the fact that these tests are not racially fair; so should we really try to convince minority kids that these tests are fair?
- his ideas for creating racial trust and "identity safety" seem nice in theory, but this means that the accuracy of assessments depends on/is predicated on the pre-condition that all minority students who engage in high-stakes testing feel safe in their identities -- how likely is this to happen? And even if it could happen, how can you accurately and objectively measure whether or not minority children feel safe in their identities? And if you could measure this accurately and objectively, would this mean that the results of these identity assessments would then trump the results of the high-stakes content standards assessments? In other words, say a minority kid does poorly on a state standardized test, but the identity assessment reveals that she does not feel safe as a minority student about being a minority. So would the test scores be adjusted slightly? Or would they be thrown out?
- what this all suggests to me -- surprise, surprise! -- is that a single, high-stakes measure that is used as the sole means for determining AYP is fundamentally flawed
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Missouri Virtual Public School
A bill to create the Missouri Virtual Public School (HB 1275) is being considered in the MO state legislature. This bill potentially opens the door to giving NCLB new teeth by giving parents an option to transfer out of their districts.
As an educational technology advocate, I'm very excited about the possibility of enhancing kids' educations via technology, especially in rural areas that have limited access to more advanced subject matter. However, as a public school advocate, I'm troubled by the potential role these virtual schools may play in undermining public education.
Year 2 AYP sanctions under NCLB allow students to transfer from a school that is on the "needs improvement" list to another school within the district that is not on the list. However, since NCLB only allows transfer within the district, where are students going to go if all the schools in the district are on the list? Furthermore, where can students go if there is only one elementary or middle school in the district?
So under HB 1275, can students "transfer" to the Missouri Virtual Public School if their schools are placed on the "needs improvement" list? If virtual schools are used as options in the NCLB/AYP school transfer process, many students will benefit, but many more will be left behind. The research on distance education programs shows pretty clearly that certain types of students benefit from this environment, i.e, those that are more focused and self-directed with good time management skills. While a good percentage of the population of public school students fit this profile, a large number don't.
Of even greater concern is the extent to which private, for-profit entities will be involved in offering these services via the Internet with little to no accountability provisions built in. Is the Missouri Virtual Public school going to operate as a charter school? If so, how will it be managed? Missouri's experience and the rest of the country's experience with charters has been mixed at best. One of the more troubling aspects of charter schools is their lack of accountability. While this is troubling enough in brick and mortar institutions where students have face-to-face accountability, it is even more troubling when no such tangible aspect of accountability exists.
As an educational technology advocate, I'm very excited about the possibility of enhancing kids' educations via technology, especially in rural areas that have limited access to more advanced subject matter. However, as a public school advocate, I'm troubled by the potential role these virtual schools may play in undermining public education.
Year 2 AYP sanctions under NCLB allow students to transfer from a school that is on the "needs improvement" list to another school within the district that is not on the list. However, since NCLB only allows transfer within the district, where are students going to go if all the schools in the district are on the list? Furthermore, where can students go if there is only one elementary or middle school in the district?
So under HB 1275, can students "transfer" to the Missouri Virtual Public School if their schools are placed on the "needs improvement" list? If virtual schools are used as options in the NCLB/AYP school transfer process, many students will benefit, but many more will be left behind. The research on distance education programs shows pretty clearly that certain types of students benefit from this environment, i.e, those that are more focused and self-directed with good time management skills. While a good percentage of the population of public school students fit this profile, a large number don't.
Of even greater concern is the extent to which private, for-profit entities will be involved in offering these services via the Internet with little to no accountability provisions built in. Is the Missouri Virtual Public school going to operate as a charter school? If so, how will it be managed? Missouri's experience and the rest of the country's experience with charters has been mixed at best. One of the more troubling aspects of charter schools is their lack of accountability. While this is troubling enough in brick and mortar institutions where students have face-to-face accountability, it is even more troubling when no such tangible aspect of accountability exists.
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