You failed the test- who's fault is it

Folks are failing- why is that?

 

There are lots of milestones that require a passing test score in order to move on.  In some states, if you want to earn a high school diploma you need to pass a high stakes assessment at the end of high school.  Some courses in high school and college require a high stakes assessment to pass the course regardless of how well you have done all semester.   And then there are the various professions that require passing an exam in order to be fully licensed, social work, medicine, law, pharmacy, engineering and accounting are all professions that require the passing of a licensing exam.  Doesn’t matter how well you did in school, you must pass the qualifying exam.

But what happens when a certain demographic consistently does poorly on a particular exam.  Where does the fault lie or is there any fault to lie at all.

To fully understand the parameters of the problem, it’s important to segment the various variables that could be to blame.  Is there a particular school or schools whose students are so poorly prepared that they do not do well on the exam.  Years ago, there was a voc-tech center in a school district whose students rarely passed the state exam for cosmetology.   Students from other schools in the state did ok, but this one school did not.  So, the fault line was clear.  That school needed to get its act together.  Most times it isn’t that easy to pinpoint the weak schools which are not doing the preparatory work that they should be doing.

When our Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal”, it was referring to our “inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.   It was not referring to our intellectual abilities, our attractiveness or out athletic prowess.  Nor to the many other abilities folks possess in unequal amounts.  Therefore, it is entirely possible that people fail tests simply because they are not sufficiently competent to pass or they did not prepare well enough.  That's not a fault line, just confirmation that we are not all created equally when it comes to various abilities.

Finally, high stakes tests bear a particular burden.  They must be reliable in the statistical sense.  What that means is that the test must discriminate between the people who are sufficiently competent to enter the profession (or graduate) and those who are not.  In these instances, discrimination is a good thing.  We would not want someone dispensing our prescription drugs who earned entry into pharmacy because there was an insufficient number of a particular group who were pharmacists so it was decided to add a few points to those people’s scores  and/or give them an easier test. Would you want to drive over a bridge if construction were guided by someone insufficiently skilled. We would all suffer as a result.  Determining whether the test discriminated for the good (allowing only the qualified into the profession) or discriminated for  bad reasons that had nothing to do with allowing only qualified people to enter the profession ( keeping out everyone who has red hair) is the job of the statisticians who develop tests and who are responsible for ensuring both the validity (does the test deliver the same scores consistently) and the reliability ( does the test measure what it says it does) of all tests,  but particularly those whose results have very high stakes consequences.

People fail tests and people pass tests.  When examining test results, it is as important to examine the characteristics of the passers and the failures and to segment the various variables that influence test scores.  It’s just too easy to decide the test is bad. 

Two truths and a lie

 Two Truths and a Lie

 

The teacher just told me my daughter Cocoa is an excellent reader.   She is attentive and does well in class.   I am struggling with that idea.

Last fall when the state did its all-school testing, Cocoa was not testing on grade level.   Really not even near it?

So why did the teacher tell me that Cocoa was such a good reader?   Here’s the other thing.   Cocoa’s grades in reading and language arts are very good.

Was the teacher lying to me last fall when she told me how well Cocoa was doing? Or are the test results lying to me now when they are showing such poor results.

Turns out the answer is yes and no.

A child’s grades often have little or nothing to do with the actual grade level of achievement for the child.  A pretty big chunk of a child’s grade is sort of the emotional response of the teacher to the child.  Cocoa comes to school neat and clean.  I dress her in cute stuff.  And she knows better than to be disrespectful to her teacher.  She does her work as she is told and does her homework when she has it.  I don’t hassle the teacher and I send back all the notices or whatever when they are called for.  Cocoa is a pleasure in class and she tries hard.  The teacher will give Cocoa the benefit of every doubt.

Then there is the principal and how he will rate Cocoa’s teacher.  Teachers who give kids lots of low grades are not loved by principals.   Low grades make parents complain.  Low grades make parents ask why is this happening.  Low grades can make parents demand individual testing and the next thing you know someone is talking special ed.

On the other hand, the test doesn’t care how really cute and well-behaved Cocoa is.  The test goes by the very statistical measurements of what skills are considered typical for every grade level.  And that is another issue about tests.  The test developers determine what skills are expected at every grade level by TESTING lots and lots of children at that grade level.  The skills that most of the kids at that grade level can do are then determined to be a measurement of what is expected for that grade level.  There is NO skill set for each grade level that has been handed down by some god of testing.   That is why each time a test is re-developed different skills show up as appropriate for different grade levels.

That brings me back to Cocoa.  Was the teacher lying last fall when she told me how smart and great in reading Cocoa was or is she lying now when she reviews the not-so-hot test scores with me.  Turns out I heard two truths and a lie.  The trick is to figure which is which.

Who you gonna blame?

 Who You Gonna Blame?

 

There are 156 schools in Baltimore City.   In 23 of those schools, not a single child tested as proficient in math.  Thirteen of those 23 schools were high schools.  At one Baltimore City high school, 77% of the students were reading at the elementary level and some even at kindergarten level.  Over the entire system, just 7% of kids in grades three through eight tested on grade level in math.

Surely heads need to roll for these results.    The big question is whose head is on the chopping block.  Lots of folks are looking to the woman who is the CEO of the school district.  But chances are there have been a few minutes since she taught in a classroom and had direct impact on students.

The problem is two-fold.  First of all, no one can teach in a chaotic environment and no kids can learn in that kind of environment.  But our political correctness is preventing us from suspending or in any way separating out the kids with behavior issues from those who are well behaved and ready to learn.   Many of the kids with behavior issues have learning difficulties and would be much happier being smart rather than bad.  But given that they don’t seem to have that choice they will pick bad over dumb any day.  Bad has some aplomb to it, dumb has none.

Then there is the second issue and that is the quality of the teacher in the room.  The City is down quite a few teachers for a variety of reasons, most of which has nothing to do with salary so let’s move beyond that.  The City is in a spot where they are hiring any warm body with a degree, a degree in anything.  BUT once the teacher is in the classroom, there is no support for that teacher other than the pacing guide.  Doesn’t really matter how much a person loves the kids and is enjoying being with them, teaching requires much more than love, it requires a very specific skill set. ( We had a bite out of that love apple in the early days of special ed when we retreaded teachers to be special ed teachers.)  Just because a person went to school doesn’t mean he/she can teach any more than you can be a physician just because you have been sick.

These teachers need strong support.  They need mentors that are in the room with them on a regular basis.  They need very structured staff development to teach them how to craft a lesson, how to teach that lesson and what to do when the lesson is a flop!.  They aren’t getting that.  What they are getting is a pacing guide that tells them what to teach and when to teach it but nothing of the how.

Finally, lots of these school resource officers need to be replaced with school social workers and outreach pupil personnel staff to go into homes and help families that exist with parenting skills.  And some of these kids need to be taken out of the living situation that is called a family but is really a farm raising kids to subsist on the street.

So who you gonna blame?  Every citizen in the city who prefers to finger point rather than actually do something to begin constructively fixing the problem.   Firing the woman at the top won’t do much if the foundation is rotten.

What will the 9 Justices do?

 What will the Nine Justices do?

 

Parents of children with disabilities have two laws that protect and defend their children.  One is IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.   This law provides for each child with a disability to receive a free and appropriate education at public expense, better known as FAPE.   It does NOT provide for any monetary compensation.  The law also requires that families exhaust all administrative avenues before moving to the judicial system to address their concerns.

Then there is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which does allow for monetary compensation.

The family of a child who is deaf sued the Sturgis Public Schools in Michigan for failing to provide their son with a qualified sign language interpreter.  The school district and the family resolved their claims of discrimination and failure to provide FAPE.   The family then followed that up with a suit requesting damages through ADA.   The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the claim saying that by accepting the IDEA settlement the family had not fully exhausted their options under IDEA and, therefore, could not make claims under ADA.

The family has said that the Sixth Circuit’s decision requires families to turn down all IDEA settlements and forgo their ability to immediately receive an IDEA-mandated FAPE if they want to pursue their non-IDEA related issues.

More than a dozen advocacy groups, former staff members of the U.S. Office of Education and professors in disability law have filed amicus briefs on the family’s behalf.  Family advocacy groups say the lower court’s decision will further burden families requiring them to jump through more hoops to get the benefit of both laws for their children.

On the other hand, several groups representing school leaders have filed briefs on the side of the school district.  School districts and administrator groups say to support the family will create a culture of litigation rather than what is in the child’s best interest. 

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision when it adjourns for the session in June.