Tough Choices? You Bet!
With the national standards and accountability movement in goosestep by the end of the 90’s, a major education reform like NCLB was bound to happen. Unfortunately, the result didn’t quite capture the creativity and innovation the new Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce outlined in their new report Tough Choices OR Tough Times. NCLB just created more frustrating problems across the nation within the same old system offering no real changes to the problems facing our public school system. However, this new report offers a delightful and refreshing glimpse of a democratic education system built as a catchall; almost ensuring no child left behind. Most importantly, the recommendations support the projections of what
So let’s say our education system stays relatively the same…and when I am an old man and Ivory soap is still 99.9% pure, Margaret Spellings is still saying, after many extensions of course, that we will get every child proficient in math and reading in just 8 more years. Either
It is hard not to dream of a better education system and a educated populous when you read Tough Choices OR Tough Times…but the more you read, the more frustrating and depressing it is to hear out nation’s education leaders come up with such a needed plan that will be probably never be implemented.
5 Comments:
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This might be counter-intuitive, but I wonder if it's possible to keep the testing but make it not high-stakes.
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I think test scores can give you some good information, they just aren't nearly as accurate as parents tend to think. During my seven years of teaching I've been in the midst of heated test score paranoia as scores (as they will) jump up and down between different classes. This has caused us to (1) get rid of a good math program, (2)force us into bad teaching habits which I'm not even sure actually raise scores (we better stick in symmetry and mean/median/mode before the test!), and (3) just generally make the teachers at a very good school feel bad about themselves.
I've also read that as tests become high stakes scores improve on those tests w/o improving on parallel tests.
I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I feel that often the argument comes down to test or not to test, and I wish we could find a reasonable middle. Perhaps it will only get worse, but a part of me could see a NCLB backlash coming where parents reassess what makes a good school and looks past math/reading scores in making that decision
, at January 18, 2007 5:18 PM
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As equity is a big concern of mine, I think that testing needs to remain "high stakes" for schools: schools identified as needing improvement (significant portions of their students can't demonstrate a basic grasp of reading and math) should be compelled to seek that improvement. That said, in most cases, there also needs to be a coherent strategy for assisting these schools in capacity-building. Largely, I don't think that students fail to perform at basic levels because their teachers aren't working hard enough, but because teaching is hard work and many people haven't been given the tools to do so effectively.
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Right now, tests help us identify where there are problems and where to target resources (dollars, technical assistance, new staffing). In short, they can indicate "You've got a problem," but they're not very enlightening regarding, "Here's how to fix it." This is particularly unhelpful in the schools where the capacity is the lowest!
I don't know the extent of the problem in Charlie's school. If parents worry that their kids are Proficient rather than Advanced on the state exam, then I agree that the test scores aren't necessarily indicative of a problem; there are other things they should consider in assessing the quality of education at that school. But as a parent, if my kid tested at Basic or Below Basic, I'd think the seriousness of that would eclipse other concerns...
NMD, at January 24, 2007 12:57 PM
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Additionally, I think that a lack of coherent, long-term improvement strategy might help explain the 3 negative things Charlie attributes to "testing paranoia." I'd argue that that's not directly the fault of the test.
By NMD, at January 24, 2007 1:00 PM
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NMD-
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I like what you say about a long-term stategy and hope that more reasonable minds will win the debate. I worry that the public doesn't have the patience, but perhaps I'm being too pessimistic and with more experience of testing people will treat the numbers more accurately.
A simple place to start would be never comparing yearly test scores of totally different groups (06's 8th grade math scores versus 07's 8th grade math scores). The best way to solve this would be by only comparing intact groups (06's 7th grade math scores to 07's 8th grade math scores). But this brings up many complications, like the significant number of kids who move.
I think then the next best choice would be to always use composites of 4 years (the average of the last 4 8th grade test scores).
This might not seem important, but the way most people look at scores is, oh they went up 5% one year, GREAT! Wait they went down 6%? WHY? At my school scores have gone up and down and people have freaked out or applauded us accordingly. And I really don't think it's a healthy or useful way of using tests. , at January 27, 2007 12:04 AM
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Agreed on averages over time as a judge of a school's quality. While I think that the scores of individual students can help w/ figuring out how to target instruction, averages are a much better judge of quality over time. Especially when a 5% change in any score level may actually only be a difference of 10 or so kids!
By NMD, at January 30, 2007 11:03 AM
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