Tell me again what test scores mean?

Tell me again what test scores measure?

There are lots of ways to measure how good a teacher is.   Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) all teachers were going to be evaluated based on the standardized test scores of their students.   This idea makes so little sense as to be ridiculous.  Yet state after state chased the money and began to link teacher evaluations to standardized test scores of students.   Now many, many states and school systems are rethinking the standard.

First of all, this requirement makes the assumption that there is a 1:1 correlation between teaching and learning by the student.  There are multiple reasons why kids don’t learn something.   Most obviously is the fact that the student may not have the ability to learn the material no matter how well it is taught.   Or there may be other aspects of the child’s life that are putting learning way down on the child’s priority list.  The child’s parents may be separating or fighting regularly.  The family may be suffering some economic trauma with income dramatically reduced.  A pet may be sick or has died.  A member of the family may be very ill.  When a child is experiencing life trauma, there isn’t much energy left over for learning.   Today, many schools have pacing guides that require the teacher to move on according to a pre-described schedule.  Teachers don’t have the luxury to go back and re-teach what the child has not learned.  Great teaching is wonderful and important but it can’t guarantee that the child will learn.  And some children need multiple exposures to the content before they learn it.

The idea was to use standardized tests as an independent measurement of what a child has learned.  Then teachers would be evaluated by this measurement.   The purpose was to move the measurement method to something more objective so that a principal wouldn’t rate a teacher highly because the principal liked the teacher or poorly is she didn't like the teacher.   Principals and school systems would need to use the objective test measure instead of some more subjective measures.   The fact is that standardized tests are not necessarily valid measures of what a child has learned.  They can measure what has been learned as measured by the test but as anyone who has ever been tested can tell you, much more was learned than was measured on the test. 

So how can good teaching be measured objectively if we insist that it be linked to learning.  Just maybe good teaching cannot be measured independently of each specific student. 

There is no teaching, good or bad, unless it is linked to learning.   And there is no such thing as the same model of teaching being “good” for all students.  What is perfect for some students is just the opposite for others.  Searching for an objective measure of good teaching is a fools’ errand.  Good teaching is very subjective.   Oh sure, there are guidelines and requirements for a good lesson or lesson plan.  These characteristics can easily be checked off by any evaluator.  But if you want to know what good teaching is, skip the test scores and just ask a couple of kids.  Their answers will be subjective and spot on.

What If We met kids’ needs?

What if we met students's needs?

Students spend the better part of their youth in school. What would happen if we actually met their needs?    Instead it seems we are intent on meeting the needs of teachers, administrators and politicians.   Kids have a great need for verbal skills.  They need to be able to argue their position among friends and bullies.  As adults their ability to take and argue a position will be a critical work skill. 

Teachers want the students to stay on track so they can meet the demands of the pacing guide.  Too many discussions will slow down the schedule and no one will be happy with that except maybe the kids.  Principals need to make sure material is covered in time for the tests. 

Students need to know how to work in a multi-ethnic world.  That is the world they live in now and it will be even more so when they grow into adults.   Yet administrators and politicians are working very hard to design school catchment areas that are as ethnically homogeneous.   It is more politically expedient to do that but it is not in the best interests of the students.

Teenagers get to bed late.  High schools are scheduled to open the earliest of the three levels.  That makes the scheduling easier for the transportation folk.   It doesn’t seem to matter when teachers complain that kids are sleeping through the first two periods of the day.  

Young children need to play and move.   Through play they develop basic social skills.   Motor learning and movement is basic language.   Providing opportunities for group problem solving is not just a child skill it’s the basic negotiating skill of the adult world.   Social skills count as the basis of all other social learning.    But administrators are anxious to be able to tout their higher standards which for some reason means more academic learning and less play and motor/social learning.

And here’s a thought- maybe if schools met the needs of kids rather than adults there would be fewer behavioral problems.   Now there’s an idea!

What would happen if education were useful?

What would happen if education were useful?

How much of what we spend huge chunks of our lifetime and great amounts of money on is actually useful?   Of course I am speaking about formal education.   Public education costs take the lion’s share of local and state budgets.   The hours spent in school consume the bulk of our childhood.   What are we doing this for?

I am reminded of Frost’s poem about two roads diverged and he took the one less traveled by.  It is time to assess the road most travelled by and what are we gaining along that road.

The Kirwan Commission in Maryland has recommended dramatic increases in funding for education.  Much of the money is for increases in teacher salaries and the addition of pre-k and expansion of kindergarten.  For the last decade, we have become obsessed with increasing standards as measured by high stakes testing.  To my knowledge no one is evaluating the usefulness of the accumulation of all that knowledge.  And that is assuming that the students really store that knowledge once the testing is done.

Initially, public education was established so that the United States would have an educated electorate as we moved toward full suffrage for all citizens.   What is the point of education at public expense today?   We keep asking citizens to spend more and more money but we don’t seem to be evaluating the content of that expensive education.  Some of the most failing local school systems in Maryland spend the most money per pupil.  As I have said frequently, paying a bad teacher more money does not make that person a better teacher.  Although it does make the person a better paid bad teacher.

We are now requiring that all kids take algebra II in order to receive a high school diploma.  No one seems to need to explain why that is, except it increases standards- standards for what!?

Our kids need to be taught basic economics.  The last great recession made it clear that most citizens don’t recognize that a mortgage offer or a loan offer that seems too good to be true, probably is.   Our national credit card debt is on the rise again.   Do people know what they are paying for things when they add in the credit charges?   Do students know how much it really costs to live?   Adolescents dream of fancy cars and big houses but have not a clue about apartment rent or taxes.

Last year the Speaker of the House of Delegates in Maryland died.   He was the longest serving Speaker of the House.  There was lots of coverage in the local media.  A few weeks ago I asked students in a graduate level courses about the event. Not A Single Person in the Class knew what I was talking about!  These people are all college graduates working on an advanced degree.  We teach kids about algebra II, about settling of the colonies ad nauseum, and about physics.   Yet most graduates can’t write a grammatically correct sentence, understand enough civics to knowledgeably vote nor figure out their own financial situation.

Not sure we are getting our money’s worth for public education.  What would happen if education really were useful!

Give me a ring?

Give me a ring?

Some schools are just saying no to cell phones.   They are seen as disruptive to the educational process.   Frustrated educators say they cannot compete with apps, text and games.   Some kids are sexting.  Educators say that allowing students to spend so much time on their devices is just feeding an addiction that would be better terminated.

The Grand Rapids Michigan school district has banned cell phones at any time during the school day, even at lunch.   The superintendent said kids are less anxious when not tied to their phones.  More than 30 schools and/or whole districts have implemented some sort of restrictions on cell phone usage in the last year and a half.  California has passed legislation that gives local districts discretion if they want to restrict or ban the use of cell phones.  Four other states have approached the issue with mixed results.  Arizona tried to pass legislation that would ban the use of electronic devices in the classroom unless allowed by an authorized educator.  The legislation failed.   Maine tried to adopt rules restricting the use of cellphones in the classroom, but allowing them in the front office.  This legislation also failed.  Maryland wanted to appoint a task force to study the issue and report back to the legislature.  That didn’t even get out of the gate.   Utah wanted to require individual school systems to develop a policy on the use of cell phones that would be submitted to the state department of education.  That, too, flopped.

Some teachers have asked administrators to restrict the use of cell phones.  But why is there so much push back?

The biggest push is from parents not the kids.   They want to be able to reach their children in case of an emergency.  Oddly, this is one of the big reasons some school safety experts do not want the students to have cell phones in school.  In case of a real emergency, school safety people say they want the students to be following staff directions and NOT looking at screens. Some parents highly resent that they cannot contact their children whenever they choose, emergency or not. When schools do implement cell restriction policies teacher say they are too difficult to monitor and take as much time away from instruction as the phones themselves.  They also say that the students are pretty adept at using the phones undercover.  

The most rational direction seems to come from the organization Common Sense.   The notion seems to be that cell phones are now an ubiquitous part of our lives.   We need to teach kids how to appropriately use them and to develop a plan not a ban.  Give me a ring when you figure that out.

Is Special Education Worth the Cost?

Is Special Education Worth the Cost?

Or as the saying goes, is the juice worth the squeeze?  Recently a talk show host suggested that the taxpayers were being taken to the cleaners with the high cost of special education and that the results were not worth the investment.  She used as her example of special education costs the per pupil costs for a special education center in Baltimore City.  She then compared their 4-year graduation rate with the graduation rate of other schools, including a high school for which students qualify by exam and grades.

Not sure whether to attack her logic first or her values.   Both are seriously flawed.

Let’s start with logic.   The very fact that these students are in a special school indicates that whatever their disabilities are, they are sufficiently severe that they cannot be accommodated in a general ed school.   This situation is all the more meaningful in an era of least restrictive environment where administrators do whatever they can to educate children with disabilities in a general education environment with plain kids.   When a system places a child in a public separate day school, that child has significant challenges.   Additionally, that school will also offer more robust staffing for related services such as speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and clinical services.   Parent counseling may also be an option.   These services cost money!  This talk show host was clearly logically challenged.   One of her statements was, “I don’t know but I am sure that most of this money is being spent on administration.”.   If she acknowledges that she doesn’t know, how can she be sure!   It is also confusing to me why the magical number of graduating in four years is so important.  Isn’t the goal of a high school education to prepare a student for employment, post-secondary education or both?   So if it takes a year longer to do that isn’t the time spent well worth the investment?  The woman compared apples and grapes and came up with lemons.

Now onto the values issue.   Children with disabilities have the right to a free and appropriate education at public expense.   They have had this right since 1975.   If you disagree with this right, would you send these kids home with nothing but day care like facilities or worse hidden in their homes or into the warehouses that stored them.   Providing children with disabilities an appropriate education is good for the kids and good for our society.   From the point of view of the students, an appropriate education enhances their abilities and helps them to have a self-actualizing life, something we want for ourselves.   From the point of view of society, an appropriate education for people with disabilities can give us tax payers rather than tax users.    The Harbour School’s follow-up graduate survey shows that our students have gone on to good paying jobs with salaries that are taxable as well as providing benefits that would otherwise have to be paid by the taxpayer.   As to the higher cost of an education for a child with disabilities, that is a paper tiger. It costs more to educate a kid in high school than it does to educate a student in elementary school.   It costs more to educate a physician than it does an accountant.  No one is suggesting we make those costs equal, either by increasing one or decreasing the other.

So the question of whether special ed is worth the cost is kind of irrelevant.   The US Congress settled that issue a long time ago and President Gerald Ford agreed.

There Just Isn't Room

There Just isn’t Room

Test scores do not seem to be budging and when they do it is often, particularly in math, that they are trending down.  We are all about test scores so all this superfluous stuff like music, art, physical education and performing arts need to be squeezed or cut out all together.  There just isn’t time! In the old days these courses were called minors and the important classes were called majors. That poor logic, unfortunately, makes sense to many school administrators.   It is no wonder test scores are so low.

First of all, let’s look at what these so called “minor” subjects bring to the student.   The ability to problem solve is a critical academic skill.   It is also a skill that is used and refined in the arts. Problem-solving is an extension of creativity.  Employers regularly tell us they are looking for employees who can problem solve and are creative.

Secondly, for many students the arts are where they are successful.  The arts are what bring them to school every day and sustain them through the often boring and failure inducing academic “major” courses.  Without having the arts to look forward to as a break in the school day, many kids just wouldn’t come to school.  Every child needs one place where he or she can shine.  Often it is these performance based areas.

Thirdly, teachers of the arts relate differently to the students than do teachers of academic subjects.  There are no state tests in the arts, so there are no pacing guides.   Teachers do not need to be on a particular topic on any given date.  So teachers can relate to the kids and talk to them about their lives without being concerned about losing their place in the pacing guide.    It is natural to chat with a colleague while working on a piece of art or trying to get a rendition of a scene or song just right.   Many students are dealing with violence, addiction, divorce, serious illness or socio-economic issues.   Handing a student a book or a worksheet doesn’t cut it when the child has real problems.   Teachers of the arts can meet students where they are emotionally and can develop that cherished teacher-student bond of trust.  

Fourthly, the arts and music make a great coping mechanism for kids under so much stress that they feel they cannot work.  Listening to music on a device or drawing in a notepad can help a child move to a different mental state and calm down.  If we welcome the arts into our classrooms, we will see kids thrive.

But none of this is possible if there are no arts people in the building.  We need to make room.

Test Should Discriminate

Tests should Discriminate

Tests are designed to discriminate and that is good.  The purpose of a test is to discriminate between people who are good at something and those people who are not.   The key issue is not that tests discriminate.  The key issue is whether the test uses relevant factors in making its discrimination.

For example, driving tests are designed to determine who should be allowed to drive a car and who should not be allowed to have a license to operate a vehicle.   Almost all people would agree that knowledge of traffic regulations is a relevant factor in driving a car.   Vision would also be a relevant factor.   And it is.  But vision can be modified by eye glasses or contact lenses to the point where visual acuity is sufficient to operate a motor vehicle.   If vision cannot be sufficiently modified then the individual cannot be allowed to drive a car.   However, most people would agree that eye color or hair color are not relevant variables and that they should not be used.   On the other hand, some variables such as the ability to parallel park a car have now been determined to be used so infrequently that it is no longer tested in driving tests.

This same paradigm can be used in analyzing math test scores.  There has been a great deal of consternation of late about the decline in math scores on standardized tests.  Some have suggested that the issue is elementary school teachers, who are considered to be generalists, and not sufficiently skilled in math to teach it.  That argument begs the question of why are high school students also having declining math scores when most high school math teachers are specialists in the field.  Next up for concern, is the curriculum itself.   Local school districts with declining scores are rushing to change up the curriculum and the teaching methodology that goes with it.  The theory is that a different and, of course, better curriculum will yield better test scores.   Changing the curriculum has been the “go to” for school systems needing to improve test score since the millennium and yet test scores do not vary that much.   We could blame the students and suggest that climate change is lowering kids’ abilities to do math.  But no one with good sense would go there so we won’t.

To me the most obvious culprit in the declining test scores is the measuring tool being used to take the measure.   Almost 20 years ago a curriculum known as Common Core was developed by educators across the country (NO, it was not imposed by the feds) to create a common standard among states for educating kids so that the skills of a fifth grader in Alabama would be similar to the expectations for a fifth grader in Oregon.   In order to measure how kids were doing in meeting these Common Core standards companies were paid large sums of money to develop the tests that would make the measure.  Maryland chose the group of tests known as PARCC.   From the beginning everyone rushed to teach to the test so their scores would be great.  Teachers were not involved in developing the Common Core curriculum.  It was done by state level educators.   If someone had deigned to ask those same generalist elementary educators, they would have  quickly learned that the children would not be at the developmental levels appropriate to the skills being demanded of them.   In order to worship at the throne of the God of Rigor, skills were pushed down from higher grades to lower ones.   If the kids’ developmental levels are not there yet, no amount of good teaching is going to make the plants bloom before their time.   There is also the issue of relevancy because scores decline as kids get older.   Try to convince an adolescent that the tasks of algebra II are useful in their daily lives, or even will be useful when they become adults.   Good luck with that.

Last school year was the last time Maryland gave PARCC tests.   Now Maryland will give the MCAP ( Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program) test.   This set of tests will be shorter than PARCC and we are assured that it will be just as rigorous- all bend to rigor.  But the big question is – will the scores be better.   If not, we will again blame the usual suspects:  teachers, curriculum, poor schools.  There is a big elephant in the room but we will not see it.   It will have the letters MCAP written big and bold on its side. And it will discriminate, but will it be discriminating on the correct variables.