TFT Interviews Jersey Jazzman Sunday!

A Teacher Poem

The New Ideal Teacher - A Poem

The New Ideal Teacher
By David Lee Finkle

The new ideal teacher
Is driven by data,
And kids become points
On her test-score schemata.
Winnie is a "1" and must be forced to make a gain.
Theo is a "3" and that's a score he must maintain.
Freddy is a "5"; there's no more room inside his brain.
The new ideal teacher
Wants things she can measure;
If it fits on a chart,
Then it's something to treasure.

For the new ideal teacher,
It's shame or it's merit.
She's caught in between...
Well, a stick and a carrot.
The scores control her destiny, for better or for worse.
If scores are high, then there could be more money in her purse.
If low she might discover her career is in a hearse.
The ideal teacher's wallet
Is empty or padded
Depending on value
Deducted or added.

The new ideal teacher
Does not plan her lessons.
Her classes are all pre-
Fab learning-gains sessions.
Today is lesson thirty-seven; tomorrow's thirty-eight.
Page by page the pacing guide ensures she won't run late,
Just like the teacher down the hall and in some other state.
Original thought
She's been taught
To self-censor.
She pops lessons out like big Pez dispenser.

The new ideal teacher
Doesn't question or query.
She does as she's told;
She's compliant and cheery.
When someone says, "It's best for kids!" she'll never even blink.
When she is told her pay's been cut, her spirits never sink.
When buried under new reforms, she'll never raise a stink.
She'll teach critical thinking
From a book off the shelf,
But she never would think
She might think for herself.

The new ideal teacher
Can prioritize:
She puts first things first,
And she won't compromise.
Good test scores are number one; they lead to higher pay,
Which, of course, is number two-- more money makes her day.
Fidelity is third: give her a script; she'll never stray.
The new ideal teacher
Is stalwart and steadfast.
The system comes first,
So her students come dead last.

The Real Mr. Fitz

A Concerned Father And 8th Grade Test Prep Classes: Updated Again & Again & Finally Again

A father is concerned for his 8th grade son's new-found worry over high-stakes tests.  Sorry about all the italicized question marks posing as names.

Dear Principal ?????? of ?????? Middle School,

I have a comment and a question or four.  My son, ?son?, brought home a flier that asked him to participate in a test prep class because he scored a 3 in ELA, but it was a low 3.

The class was presented as an opportunity for him to improve his score.  Why would he need to bring up his score?  He scored proficient.  And the test has no bearing on his life.  None whatsoever.  Why would you tell him that his score was low and that he needs a class to improve his score?  And if his score was low in ELA, why isn't he being tutored in ELA as opposed to being tutored on how to take a test?  Who is teaching the class? How many kids are in the class? What is the curriculum of the class?

I am very concerned that he is being used as a way for ?school? to raise its AYP due to fears of PI status.  I want to know the real reason for the class, why my son was asked to participate, and I would like to know if kids who scored Below Basic or Basic are being asked to participate in the test prep class.

The simple act of telling him he should take the class has instilled in him the notion that he is a bad test taker and not the good student he actually is; he is an A student, as you know.  He is active in school leadership and has always performed very well academically.  He is now not sure if he is a good student.

High-stakes tests cause kids to question themselves, all for nothing.  The state tests have no impact on my son, but have a huge impact on the school, unfairly in my opinion.

I am very upset with the decision to offer the class to my son--effectively telling him he needs it--without first consulting his parents. 

I am aware my son can opt out of the state test, as can any child if their parent wants them to.  I am aware that teachers are not allowed to offer this information.  I am free to offer it, and I will encourage all parents of public school students to kindly refuse to take the test.

A await your response.

--?father?, father of ?student?

Okay, there is the email from the concerned father. And now for the Principal's response.

Mr. ????, Thank you for you email. You are correct, ?son? did score in the low Proficient range last spring. The class is being offered to the students who we feel can benefit from working in small groups on test taking strategies and dissecting some of the pre=release questions from the California Department of Education. This is not intended to be a negative experience for our students, we hand select the students that we are extending an invite to for participation. I understand clearly how this has impacted ?son? and will let him know that we did not intend make him feel negative and that the class is totally optional.

?Principal?
Principal, ????? Middle School

Notice not one question was answered, but another offer was made to make the son uncomfortable. And the father's response to the response:

I would prefer you not mention anything to ?son?. I know the class is optional, as does he. But he is now convinced he needs it.

Again, do not mention anything about our correspondence to ?son?.

--?father?

And a bit more from the father because that previous email needed to go out immediately to stave off more unwanted nonsense from the Principal to the son:

The flier said he would be tutored in the area he scored poorly in, ELA. But that is not true? It is pure test prep?

And I still would like to know which kids were invited, and why.

Again, this conversation between you and me (and those cc'd) is not for ?son?.

--?father?

You knew this response was coming from the Principal:

Mr. ?father?, I am sorry, but I already spoke to ?son?. We will support what ever decision is made regarding his participation.

Principal, ????? Middle School

I don't know about you, but this is exactly why the high-stakes tests do nothing of value for kids. Please, opt your kids out of the high-stakes tests!

Update: Some more of the exchange is dribbling in. This from Dad:

I am very upset you would talk to my son before talking to me. I am also concerned that none of my original questions were answered.

Please, answer my previous questions about who was invited to participate (broken down by B, BB, P, or A), who the class actually helps (students or school's AYP), who is teaching it, what the curriculum is, and also please tell me the status of ?school? in terms of Program Improvement.

I am concerned that the class is a response to not making AYP last year and has little to do with helping educate my son but instead is a method to raise the average score of ?school? students on the CST--I hope I am wrong, but as a former teacher I am pretty sure I am right. I really want, and deserve, answers to these questions.

--?father?

And the response from the Principal:

Mr. ?father?, I will be glad to discuss the class with you and the teacher Ms. ?teacher? in person not thru a shared email. I am not at liberty to share with you who was selected or how. If you would like to know how the class is structured and what material will be used, please schedule a time with Ms. ?teacher? to come in and observe the class. It is unfortunate that you do not see the value in what we are doing at ?????, and ????? Class is only one of the many positive experiences that we offer to our students. If you want to set-up an appointment with me, please email your contact information.

Thanks,
Principal, ????? Middle School

There you go. The principal won't answer the questions. Do you know why? She isn't allowed to, because the class is for the school, not the kids, and to admit that would be an admission of malpractice. But that's what high-stakes tests do, they cause educators to commit malpractice, and then lie about it.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Update II: Response from Dad:

That is an incredibly unsatisfying response, and a bit condescending. I am not asking for the names of students participating, I am asking for their rank only.

When I taught I attended a meeting where the principal told us to focus on Basic students because raising them would help AYP, and focusing on Below Basic students would not help because they were unlikely to make Proficient. I was astounded at the time and said something. She didn't like that. I am now concerned this was not limited to my principal, but is a district directive. Your statements sound very similar to what I heard a few short years ago. I would love to be wrong.

I have told you that the class has caused my son to question himself, yet you claim that I "do not see the value in what [you] are doing at ?????," as if the damage to my son's sense of self was a benefit to him. Please.

I would like a meeting with you and whoever is in charge of the class, its participants, its structure, its intended purpose and knows its history.

Please let me know a time this week.

Update Again: And the final response from the principal:

Mr ?father?, I will arrange for a meeting on Thursday. We will be glad to share with you an overview of the program. You will not be given the other information that you have requested. I am concerned that you have stated that we have harmed your son with our invitation and I must state that ?son? has not been forced to participate, and he indicated to me that he wants to attend. Since you have such strong feelings about the opportunity, we will be glad to resend the invitation. You do not have to agree with how we support and engage our students at ?school?, but it is unfair of you to indicate that we are only focused on a select student population and not engaged in addressing all of our students needs. You did not send your contact information, please email a phone number where you can be reached tomorrow and I will call you with a meeting time to confirm our meeting. This will be my last email, I will contact you tomorrow.

Principal, ???? Middle School

Notice how she phrases that part about the father's feelings about the "opportunity" she has provided. Tell me, is the principal wrong here when she tries to spin the class as an opportunity, or is it actually an opportunity?  And does she mean rescind or resend?  She is concerned that the father stated there was harm done to the son; she is not concerned about the harm, but about the statement.

Also, she has the contact information for the father--it's all over the son's file, as is the mother's information, as all students' files should have.

And what kid, who is concerned about doing well, as this son is, wouldn't want to take the class the teacher says he should take because he fucked up the test so badly last time?  So yeah, I'm not surprised the kid, like most bright, interested, grade-centric kids, wants to take the class.  That's why the parents should be asked first, not the kid.

I would love comments.

Update III: The dad chose not to have a meeting.  He realized it would do nothing except make him mad and possibly put the son in an uncomfortable situation.

But the kid went to the class on Tuesday and Thursday.  I will paraphrase for you what the kid reported back to the father about the 2 sessions.  The kid pretty much confirmed the dad's fears that it was about AYP.  The teacher apparently told the prep class exactly why they were chosen: because they were all low 2s and hi 3s hi 2s and low 3s and could impact the school's AYP.  This was told to the class, explicitly, and the teacher referred to the class as her "special team" of kids who are going to raise the school out of PI status, or keep them from going into PI status.

So, here we have one of the greatest examples of the horrors of high-stakes testing.  Schools now use students as a marketing tool.  I hope the kids are getting paid and not working for free.

Now would be a good time to check out the bartleby project.

Final Update: Yes, this is actually about my son and me.

NAEP Scores Rising For 20 Years

This chart is from a Mother Jones article. Notice that the scores of our kids have been rising for 20 years, yet the gap persists. Why does the gap persist even though* scores are rising? Because child poverty in America is too high and rising. If you disaggregate* the data you see that the lowest-scoring* kids come from poverty and our highest-scoring* kids come from affluence. It couldn't be clearer, or more ignored by reformers.

*Edited cuz I'm stupid.

Michael Marder Confirms Poverty Is The Problem: Updated

For those of you who remain convinced Charters are better, your debunktion is here. For those of you who think poverty can be overcome by schools and teachers, your debunktion is also here.

Update: From The Texas Tribune:

Michael Marder prefers pictures to words. A sentence can be constructed to support any position, but data cannot be so easily dismissed. Lately he's been looking at data about public education in Texas, and his findings have suprised him.

Marder, it should be noted, has a vested interest. In addition to being a professor in the University of Texas' department of physics and a member of their highly regarded Center for Nonlinear Dynamics, he is also the co-director of the university's UTeach program, which focuses on preparing and encouraging university graduates to become secondary math and science teachers — a boost of which the state desperately needs.

Apparently Test Scores No Longer Matter. WTF?

From Jim Horn:

...Which is what happened on May 5, as the New York Times published an op-ed by racialist charter advocate and co-author of The Bell Curve, Charles Murray, who now declares that the real reason that parents should advocate for charters and vouchers should have nothing to do with test scores anymore, test scores that are made irrelevant by the facts based on factors beyond the school—and, no, he’s not talking about poverty:

Cognitive ability, personality and motivation come mostly from home. What happens in the classroom can have some effect, but smart and motivated children will tend to learn to read and do math even with poor instruction, while not-so-smart or unmotivated children will often have trouble with those subjects despite excellent instruction. If test scores in reading and math are the measure, a good school just doesn’t have that much room to prove it is better than a lesser school.

So, then, if the good voucher schools of Milwaukee or the good charter schools of the U.S. are made bad by “cognitive ability, personality, and motivation [that] come mostly from home,” then it is not the fault of the good voucher and charter schools, which remain good, according to Murray, even as we stock them with urban students of defective cognitive ability, personality, and motivation. Apparently it is not the fault of perfectly good medicine that the unresponsive patients remain ill. (Note that the terms “poor” or “poverty” are unmentioned in the Murray op-ed).

The real reason for parents to choose charter schools, Murray argues, is that they offer a choice of “highly traditional curriculum long on history, science, foreign languages, classic literature, mathematics and English composition, taught with structure and discipline.” Aside from the total compliance “structure and discipline” that would make the “best” urban charters entirely unacceptable to middle class parents in the leafy suburbs, the kind of curriculum-rich charter school that Murray describes is even harder to find in poor neighborhoods than the 17 percent of charters that simply do a better job at raising student test scores...

Read the whole thing at the link.

Dan Willingham On The NAEP

I think too much pedagogy is based on belief with no facts. Reading scores get cruddy due to this, as Dan Willingham points out:

The belief that kids will be better readers if we simply get them to read more is rooted in the belief that reading comprehension is a transferable skill that, once mastered, applies to any text. That’s true of decoding, but not of comprehension.

What’s needed is a substantial knowledge base. Knowledge of the content they are likely to encounter when reading the sorts of materials we expect them to read confidently: newspapers, magazines, and serious books.

That knowledge should be accumulated beginning in Pre-K, with read-alouds, activities, field trips, and the like. It should continue throughout their education.

Until we start paying more attention to content, expect flat reading scores.

Yong Zhao On High Stakes Testing (America & China)

I have posted a couple things by Yong Zhao before, and this piece, from his book, is incredible.  Here is just a snippet:

I was not good at math (although later in life I developed computer software on statistics, learned to do computer programming with complicated databases, and designed computer games). I was not particularly good at English, either, considering that I had only two years of English taught by a teacher who himself was only a high school graduate and barely knew English. But to avoid math, I chose to major in English language education, and luckily my scores in Chinese language, history, and geography were high enough for me to be admitted to the newly developed English Language Education major at Sichuan Institute of Foreign Languages in Chongqing, China. If I had been born a year later and had to take the exam in 1983, I am sure I would not have been able to get into college because I would have failed the entrance exam's math portion, on which I scored 3 points out of 100.

h/t JB

From The Mouth Of A Test Scorer...

From Schools Matter comes this from an experienced scorer:

We'd have to score enough student essays accurately during a training session to prove we could do the job in a standardized way, a process that allowed the testing company that hired us to claim just how capable, consistent, and qualified its employees were.

It was a nerve-racking experience to know our jobs hinged on those "qualifying" tests, but in the end we part-timers needn't have worried so much.

After two days of training, nearly half the 100 people applying for the job failed the tests and were fired. Our unemployment lasted only about 12 hours. The next morning nearly every one of us flunkies was hired right back, an employment rebirth that occurred just as soon as the testing company realized it was short on personnel.

I asked the HR representative about the 70 percent accuracy on the qualifying test we were required to get in order to keep the job. To which she informed me that they had decided 60 percent was good enough after all.

Go read the rest at the link.

Saved Due To Lack Of Indoctrination (Re-posted because you should watch it)

A 21st Century Education
Yong Zhao
No Child Left Behind and
Global Competitiveness

Yong Zhao is the University Distinguished Professor of Education at Michigan State University, where he also serves as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education and currently serves on the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council’s Committee to Review the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays International Education Programs.

Zhao received his Ph.D. in Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. His research interests include diffusion of innovation, teacher adoption of technology, computer assisted language learning, globalization and education, and international and comparative education. Zhao has published extensively in these areas. He has been invited to lecture on issues related to education reform, globalization, and technology in more than 10 countries. He received the 2003 Raymond B. Catell Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association.

Zhao asks whether it’s sensible for American students to emulate their Asian (particularly Chinese) counterparts by adopting rigorous science and math curricula and an extended school day in order to stay “competitive” globally. While Zhao recognizes that there are fundamental problems with American public education, he praises the culture of education in this country, a culture that prizes ingenuity, entrepreneurship and individuality and celebrates personal expression for its own sake. He criticizes No Child Left Behind, asserting that standardized testing in a limited number of subjects as a way to measure performance is inadequate to meet the real challenges of the 21st century.

Jim Horn Blows My Mind

Just read:

The Nation Exposes Obama's Cynical Education Gambit

While many of us were out busting our humps to gather up a few dollars and votes for the change we thought we could believe in, the Harvard boys were cutting backroom deals with the multi-billionaire oligarchs to fully engage their plan to corporatize American public education, beginning with the urban schools.

There is no wonder that Spellings and Paige were running around breathless and wild-eyed, even as it became clear that McCain was going down. The insiders knew the Bush charter plan would not only go forward under Obama, but it would be slammed into overdrive by the clan of vulture capitalists and tax credit leeches who paid plenty to play the high stakes game for control of American schooling.

From The Nation's Dana Goldstein [link changed], where the story picks up on Obama's decision to invite the three stooges to the White House recently to proclaim the new post-partisan victory for philanthro-capitalism, disguised neatly under the banner of civil rights--with one particularly well-paid civil rights advocate getting a half-million for his time:

. . . the single-mindedness--some would say obsessiveness--of the reformers' focus on these specific policy levers ["free market competition"] puts off more traditional Democratic education experts and unionists. As they see it, with the vast majority of poor children educated in traditional public schools, education reform must focus on improving the management of the public system and the quality of its services--not just on supporting charter schools. What's more, social science has long been clear on the fact that poverty and segregation influence students' academic outcomes at least as much as do teachers and schools.

Obama's decision to invite representatives of only one side of this divide to the Oval Office confirmed what many suspected: the new administration--despite internal sympathy for the "broader, bolder approach"--is eager to affiliate itself with the bipartisan flash and pizazz around the new education reformers. The risk is that in doing so the administration will alienate supporters with a more nuanced view of education policy. What's more, critics contend that free-market education reform is a top-down movement that is struggling to build relationships with parents and community activists, the folks who typically support local schools and mobilize neighbors on their behalf.

So keenly aware of this deficit are education reformers that a number of influential players were involved in the payment of $500,000 to Sharpton's nearly broke nonprofit, the National Action Network, in order to procure Sharpton as a national spokesman for the EEP. And Sharpton's presence has unquestionably benefited the EEP coalition, ensuring media attention and grassroots African-American crowds at events like the one held during Obama's inauguration festivities, at Cardozo High School in Washington.

"Sharpton was a pretty big draw," says Washington schools chancellor Michelle Rhee,
recalling the boisterous crowd at Cardozo. Rhee is known for shutting down schools and aggressively pursuing a private sector-financed merit pay program. Some of the locals who came out to hear Sharpton booed Rhee's speech at the same event, despite the fact that her policies embody the movement for which Sharpton speaks.

The $500,000 donation to Sharpton's organization was revealed by New York Daily News columnist Juan González on April 1, as the EEP and National Action Network were co-hosting a two-day summit in Harlem, attended by luminaries including Chicago schools CEO Arne Duncan. The money originated in the coffers of Plainfield Asset Management, a Connecticut-based hedge fund whose managing director is former New York City schools chancellor Harold Levy, an ally of the current chancellor, Joel Klein. Plainfield has invested in Playboy, horse racetracks and biofuels. But the company did not donate the money directly to Sharpton. Rather, in what appears to have been an attempt to cover tracks, the $500,000 was given to a nonprofit entity called Education Reform Now, which has no employees. (According to IRS filings, Education Reform Now had never before accepted a donation of more than $92,500.) That group, in turn, funneled the $500,000 to Sharpton's nonprofit.

If one person is at the center of this close-knit nexus of Wall Street and education reform interests, it is Joe Williams, who serves as president and treasurer of the EEP's board and is also the executive director of
Education Reform Now. But it is through his day job that Williams, a former education reporter for the Daily News, exerts the most influence. He is executive director of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a four-year-old PAC that has gained considerable influence, raising $2 million in 2008 and demonstrating remarkable public relations savvy.

The group's six-person team works out of an East Forty-fifth Street office donated--rent-free--by the hedge fund Khronos LLC. In recent months, DFER has had a number of high-profile successes, chief among them a highly coordinated media campaign to call into question the work of Obama education adviser Linda Darling-Hammond, once considered a top contender for the job of education secretary. During the same week in early December, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe published editorials or op-eds based on DFER's anti-Darling-Hammond talking points, which focused on the Stanford professor's criticisms of Teach for America and other alternative-certification programs for teachers. Less than two weeks later, Obama appointed DFER's choice to the Education Department post, Chicago schools CEO Duncan.

During campaign season, DFER donated to House majority whip James Clyburn, Senator Mark Warner and Virginia swing district winner Representative Tom Periello, among others. The organization regularly hosts events introducing education reformers like Rhee and Fenty to New York City "edupreneurs," finance industry players for whom education reform is a sideline. DFER is focused on opening a second office, in Colorado, a state viewed as being in the forefront of standards- and testing-based education reform. The group successfully promoted Denver schools superintendent Michael Bennett to fill the Senate seat vacated when Obama named Ken Salazar as interior secretary. Bennett led the school system with the highest-profile merit pay system in the nation.

During the Democratic Party's national convention in Denver this past August, DFER
hosted a well-attended event at the Denver Museum of Art, during which Fenty, Booker, Klein, Sharpton and other well-known Democrats openly denigrated teachers unions, whose members accounted for 10 percent of DNCC delegates. With Clyburn and other veteran members of Congress in attendance, many longtime observers of Democratic politics believed the event represented a sea change in the party's education platform, the arrival of a new generation. While progressive groups such as Education Sector, Education Trust and the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights
have long attempted to push free-market education reforms to the Democratic Party, it is only with the arrival of DFER that the movement has had a lobbying arm with an explicit focus on influencing the political process through fundraising and media outreach.

"For a lot of groups that are dependent upon both private money and government
money, there's a tendency not to want to get involved in the nitty-gritty of politics," Williams said in a March 31 phone interview from Denver, where he was meeting with Colorado politicians, setting the stage for DFER's expansion there. "Our group--what we do is politics. We make it clear: we're not an education reform group. We're a political reform group that focuses on education reform. That distinction matters because all of our partners are the actual education reform groups. We're trying to give them a climate where it's easier for them to do their work."

The education reformers who came to prominence in the 1990s, including the founders of Teach for America and the Knowledge Is Power Program, the national charter school network that fought unionization in one of its Brooklyn schools, often went to great lengths to portray themselves as explicitly apolitical. Nevertheless, "a lot of those people are, politically, Democrats," says Sara Mead, a DFER board member and director of early childhood programs at the Washington-based New America Foundation. "One of those things that DFER does that's really important is to help give those people a way to assert their identity as Democrats. It's important for those groups' long-term success, but also for Democrats, to the extent that some of these organizations are doing really good things for the kids whose parents are Democratic constituents. It's important that those organizations are identified with us rather than being co-opted by Republicans, as they were in the past." . . . .

So let's see, if I am working for a an outfit like KIPP or TFA, and I don't want to proclaim my political allegiance, I can funnel money through DFER to pay off the politicians who will make the decisions that favor the benefactors and oligarchs who are funding my programs.

Is this what you might call non-identity politics??

I think this must signal the end of the two party system, since it no longer matters which party you belong to--in the end, the oligarchs will buy either.

Has Howard Dean announced for 2012 yet?? As an Independent?? He's a shoo-in.

The NAEP Mystifies Spellings

Another failed Spellings test: People love to misstate about public schools. Consider Margaret Spellings’ op-ed column in this morning’s Post.

Spellings, Bush’s education secretary, was waxing about her own genius again. This is a miserable passage:

SPELLINGS (5/4/09): It's no accident that the United States has had nine straight years of increasing scores for elementary school students. In the decades before No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2002 and the state reforms that led to it, taxpayers spent hundreds of billions of dollars on education and hoped for the best. Since No Child Left Behind, we have expected results. The law required that every student in grades three through eight be assessed annually in reading and math, that those results be disaggregated and that the information be provided to educators and parents. And that is exactly the age group for which we are seeing results. Consider: In the 10 years since 1999, reading scores for 9-year-olds have risen eight points; in the nearly three decades before that, scores rose only four points. In the past 10 years, math scores have increased 11 points, while in the nearly three decades prior, scores rose only 13 points.

For the record, it’s clear that Spellings is referring, in all particulars, to scores from “long-term trend” assessment conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the NAEP). For the reading scores in question, click here, then click ahead to page 9. For the math scores in question, click down to page 29.

Those are the score to which Spellings refers. But good God. The passage above is just awful.

For starters, Spellings claims “nine straight years of increasing scores for elementary school students.” Scores have gone up in the period in question, but uh-oh! The NAEP doesn’t test every year! In its long-term trend assessment, the NAEP tested 9-year-olds (and 13-year-olds; and 17-year-olds) in 1999, 2004 and 2008. There is thus no way to know if scores increased for “nine straight years.” In six of the nine years in question, no scores existed.

Spellings’ ineptitude spirals from there. Minor point: Few people will know what she means when she says that No Child Left Behind requires that test results “be disaggregated.” (Does the Post have editors?) But consider the problem with the way she describes the past decade’s score gains:

She starts by saying that we have expected results like this “since No Child Left Behind.” Immediately, she starts citing test results which predate the famous program! No Child Left Behind was signed into law in January 2002. It thus had no effect on the school year ending in June 2002, or on those which preceded it; its requirements were implemented somewhat gradually over the next year or two. Despite these obvious facts, Spellings seems to give the law credit for changes in test scores dating back to the 1998-1999 school year. Among 9-year-olds, scores bumped way up in the period between 1999 and 2004, substantially more than in the period from 2004 to 2008. Presumably, No Child Left Behind would have had relatively little effect on scores in that first five-year period. But Spellings attributes all the gains in the period since 1999 to the effects of No Child Left Behind. And of course, her Post editor lets her. (We’ll guess about motive tomorrow.)

But then, Spellings has always been good at one main thing: Inflating the greatness of her own program. Her technical skills almost always seem weak. Let’s consider another problem with her analysis of these data: Unless we’re mistaken, Spellings is actually understating the progress made by 9-years-olds from 1999 to 2008. As we’ve noted, a change in procedures created a bit of statistical complexity during this period. (This involves the inclusion of more kids who have disabilities or who are “English language learners.”) We’ll defer to those who may understand this program’s reporting regime better than we do. But if we’re not mistaken, Spellings understates when she says that 9-year-olds bumped up eight points in reading during this period. If we’re right, the greatness she grants herself in one way she takes away here, in another.

These NAEP data are very important. Spellings’ account of the data is clownish. Clearly, significant progress was recorded by 9-year-olds from 1999 to 2008—but this progress almost surely started before No Child Left Behind took effect. Indeed, it looks to us like the progress may have been a bit more pronounced before Spellings’ law took effect. But testing doesn’t occur every year. For that reason, it’s very hard to nail down claims like this using these limited data.

Spellings plays a lot of games in this piece, making things look very bright. But then, Obama played puzzling games last month, painting the opposite picture (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/11/09). People love to misstate about public schools. Question: Does anyone think this topic deserves to be reported with care?

h/t The Daily Howler

British Teachers Boycott Testing

94 Percent of British Teachers Vote to Boycott Testing Next Year

It's official and not close. Thank God for the moral courage of these teachers to act on their convictions. The boycott is happening unless British officials agree to entirely new assessments.

Will the NEA and AFT suits notice, or are their swollen heads too far up their arses to have any hope of extraction? From The Telegraph:

Head teachers have voted overwhelmingly to back a boycott of national tests for seven and 11 year olds, rounding off one of Labour's worst weeks in office.

The move is a personal blow to Ed Balls, the children's secretary, whose speech to the National Association of Head Teachers annual conference just before the vote failed to placate school heads who want to see "an end to the tyranny of annual testing".

A joint boycott by heads and classroom teachers could spell the end of Sats, taken by about 1.2 million primary schoolchildren every year.

Despite warnings from the Government that the action would be "unlawful" and urging from Mr Balls to "act responsibly", 94 per cent of delegates at the conference in Brighton voted to support a ballot of members for the disruption of next year's tests.

Heads believe the papers in English, maths and science have narrowed the curriculum and damaged teaching and learning.

Sue Sayles, a past president of the Association, said: "It is our moral duty to show Ed that we have balls."

Steve Iredale, a primary head teacher from Barnsley, who proposed the motion condemned the ritual of annual testing and the use of flawed data to judge schools and heads.

"It is a mechanistic education system which reduces children's learning to numerical nonsense," he said. . .

CST And Standardization

I sure do hope that all other 2nd grade classrooms in California had district gardeners weed whacking right outside their classrooms all during the Math CST today; otherwise, the "standardized" part of the test won't be standard!

Why Is There An Achievement Gap?

Diane Ravitch on the McKinsey report:

But Klein and Sharpton use it [the McKinsey Report] to say something that the report itself does not say, which is that the only reason that the gap exists is because of subpar teachers and principals. Thus, if a school system can change its teachers and principals, the gaps should close. Klein has been in charge of the New York City public school system for the past seven years. He has replaced 80 percent of its principals during this time; the number of teachers he has replaced has not been reported. Yet according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, there has been no decline in the achievement gap among racial and ethnic groups in New York City since Klein took charge. [emphasis mine]

All data points to poverty as the main reason for the achievement gap. But when moneyed interests get to pay for biased research, anything can be the cause of the gap!

Resist the temptation to blame teachers and schools. Blame poverty. Then end it.

The Achievement Gap Has Been Narrowing For 35 Years!

Here are a couple graphs that show the narrowing of the achievement gap since 1973. All the talk about the horrors of public schools, and teachers, and the rest is just manufactured hysteria. I am not saying that the gap is something we should be fine with; I have argued many times that we need to address the reasons for the gap because the gap is unacceptable. I have talked about ending poverty, and stuff like that. You know, stuff that could work, instead of finding a way to ruin public schools and teachers like we have apparently decided to do now.

Merit Pay: It Won't Work

Diane Ravitch on merit pay:

What's Wrong With Merit Pay

Dear Deborah,

Over time we have developed a very solid and smart community of readers who like to argue with us and with each other. That is as it should be. And of course we need to bridge differences—or disagree—with them, too, as we do with each other.

So the subject today is merit pay. This is an important topic because it has become clear that President Obama has decided to hang his hat on this idea. It has not yet been explained just what he means by merit pay. Does he mean that teachers should be paid more for teaching in what is euphemistically called “hard-to-staff” schools? Or paid more for teaching in areas where there are shortages, like certain kinds of special education or subjects such as math and science? Or paid more for mentoring other teachers? Or paid more for teaching longer days?

I would call such compensation “performance pay,” rather than “merit pay,” because teachers are paid more for doing more.

But I have a feeling that what the Obama administration has in mind is paying teachers more based on their students’ “value-added” test scores. So if their students see increases in their scores, they will get “merit pay” to reward their supposedly superior teaching.

I believe that this is the direction the administration is heading and that it is the purpose of the millions that will be spent on data warehouses in every state. And it is why Secretary Duncan has told the governors that they will get their stimulus money only if they collect and report data to the U.S. This was an odd request because some of the data he asked for is already available, such as the gap between state and NAEP scores (previously published in Education Week, for example, and no secret).

There are several reasons why it is a bad idea to pay teachers extra for raising student test scores:

• First, it will create an incentive for teachers to teach only what is on the tests of reading and math. This will narrow the curriculum to only the subjects tested.
• Second, it will encourage not only teaching to the test, but gaming the system (by such mechanisms as excluding low-performing students) and outright cheating.
• Third, it ignores a wealth of studies that show that student test scores are subject to statistical errors, measurement errors, and random errors, and that the “noise” in these scores is multiplied when used to make high-stakes personnel decisions.
• Fourth, it ignores the fact that most teachers in a school are not eligible for “merit” bonuses, only those who teach reading and math and only those for whom scores can be obtained in a previous year.
• It ignores the fact that many factors play a role in student test scores, including student ability, student motivation, family support (or lack thereof), the weather, distractions on testing day, etc.
• It ignores the fact that tests must be given at the beginning and the end of the year, not mid-year as is now the practice in many states. Otherwise, which teacher gets "credit," and a bonus for score gains, the one who taught the student in the spring of the previous year or the one who taught her in the fall?

I believe that our readers are right when they predict that merit pay of the stupidest kind is coming. I predict that it will do nothing to improve our schools. A few weeks ago, the conservative Manhattan Institute released a study showing that merit pay had no impact on test scores in 200 schools in New York City that are trying it. In fact, scores went down in larger schools that offered bonuses. This little experiment in schoolwide bonuses is costing taxpayers $20 million a year.

Now it is possible that scores may go up in later years; this is only the first year, after all. But what is most interesting is the subdued release of this study. When the Manhattan Institute releases a study, it often holds a press conference to announce the results. This study, however, had no fanfare; its study was quietly posted on MI's Web site; no press conference, no press release. Somehow I suspect that the study would have been released with bells and whistles if the scores had flown upward.

Here is my prediction: Merit pay of the kind I have described will not make education better, even if scores go up next year or the year after. Instead, it will make education worse, not only because some of the "gains" will be based on cheating and gaming the system, but because they will be obtained by scanting attention to history, geography, civics, the arts, science, literature, foreign languages, and all the other studies that are needed to develop smarter individuals, better citizens, and people who are prepared for the knowledge-based economy of the 21st Century. Nor will it identify better teachers; instead, it will reward those who use their time for low-level test preparation.

Is it possible to have an education system that mis-educates students while raising their test scores? Yes, I think it is. We may soon prove it.

Diane

Diane Ravitch On Test Score Inflation And Other Nonsense

The School Reform Miracle That Wasn't

Dear Deborah,

We in New York City were treated to an amazing show in early April. A group that calls itself the "Education Equality Project" held a conference and attracted such stellar educators as Arne Duncan, Joe Biden, Newt Gingrich, Margaret Spellings, and Michelle Rhee. The conveners of the conference were New York City's Chancellor Joel Klein and the Reverend Al Sharpton. The purpose apparently was to talk about how important it is to close the achievement gap between whites/Asians and Blacks/Hispanics. On this count, no one disagrees. The problem, as ever, is how to accomplish this laudable goal.

Chancellor Klein and Reverend Sharpton (dubbed "the odd couple" by the New York City media) have the answer: more testing, merit pay, and charter schools. This combination and a willingness to knock down the teachers' unions, derided as "adult interests" whose agenda conflicts with "children's interests," are the key strategies that they believe will lift up the scores of poor and minority students and close the gap.

There was a bit of an embarrassment for the EEP a day or so after the conference concluded when columnist Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News published an article saying that a hedge fund in Connecticut that was interested in obtaining control of various gambling enterprises in New York State had generously contributed $500,000 to "encourage" Rev. Sharpton to get interested in improving education. It seems that the money was contributed to some group called Education Reform Now, which passed it on to Democrats for Education Reform (an advocacy group for charters, also headed by a hedge-fund zillionaire), which passed it on to the Education Equality Project or maybe directly to Reverend Sharpton's organization, the National Action Network. Being somewhat unsophisticated about how that kind of money gets passed from one hand to the next, I am not sure about the money trail, but Mr. Gonzalez nailed it.

What is the evidence for the formula offered by Klein and Sharpton? The great success of New York City under the reign of Mayor Bloomberg. This celebration made me think that it was time to publish a critique of the miracle of New York City. I sat down and wrote an article for The New York Times, debunking the Bloomberg-Klein claims and showing that the test scores and graduation rates have been artificially inflated. My article appeared on Friday, April 10.

Sad to say, Secretary Duncan—who likes to expostulate about the importance of data—swallowed the New York City claims without any verification. As I showed in the article, Secretary Duncan has been on a crusade to persuade the nation's urban mayors that they should follow Mayor Bloomberg's lead and they, too, can push through radical reforms without dissent. They, too, can close public schools and replace them with charter schools. They too will see great results.

The only missing piece of his argument is that New York City has not achieved great results. Instead of truly raising the graduation rates with better-prepared students, it has been gaming the system, practicing "credit recovery," whereby students get graduation credits for courses they failed or never even attended. The city further boosts the graduation rate by adding in GED students and not counting students who were discharged (many of whom were actually dropouts). As a result of all this gamesmanship, the graduation rate keeps climbing, yet 3/4 of the graduates who enter our local community colleges need to be remediated in basic skills. Remember that social promotion was eliminated? Not.

This is not improved education. It is statistical legerdemain.

Why do people swallow this swill? There are many reasons, but most of them come down to the supine media that is too lazy to check facts. And, of course, there is our complacent, compliant, and complicit State Education Department, which loves to claim victory, even when kids are learning nothing.

What a sad state of affairs.

Diane

Obama Spouts Very Wrong Education Numbers: Updated

I remember seeing those "Get Disappointed In Someone new" bumper stickers and thought, how self-defeating! But now, oy vey...

From the St. Petersburg Times:

In his first major education speech, President Obama endorsed charter schools, merit pay for teachers and increases in school spending. He justified his agenda partly by saying American students are slipping compared to counterparts around the world.

"We've let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us," Obama said in the March 10 speech to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "In eighth grade math, we've fallen to ninth place."

Since Obama brought up math, we decided to check his. Turns out we had to pull out the red pen.

We asked the White House to defend Obama's claim, and received no response. His claim that eighth grade math students in the United States are in ninth place internationally almost certainly comes from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, a periodic comparison of math and science achievement carried out since 1995 by research institutions and government agencies worldwide.

The most recent study , published in 2007, did indeed show U.S. eighth graders in ninth place behind five East Asian countries and Hungary, England and Russia.

But it was misleading to say they had "fallen" to ninth place. In 1995, they came in 28th . In 1999, they moved up to 19th . In 2003, they climbed to 15th . So rather than falling, U.S. students have actually improved in the past decade.

We considered giving the president partial credit since American students did come in ninth. But the point of his statement was that they had "fallen" to that position and that mathematics performance in the United States is getting worse relative to other countries. And that's just plain False.

Update: FactCheck.org did some, uh, fact checking....

It's Official: Arne Duncan Is A Business Roundtable Reformer

Here we go! Arne Duncan supports a longer school year, mandatory summer school for low achieving students (get them ready for prison?), and makes it clear that getting money for schools is a game that must be played, not a right that should be fulfilled. From WaPo:

With $5 Billion Fund, Duncan Seeks to Fuel Innovation in Schools

By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 26, 2009; Page A19

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said yesterday that he will leverage a $5 billion fund to shape school reform, rewarding states that push for classroom innovation with federal stimulus dollars and denying extra aid to those that do not.

Duncan's comments detailed how he will manage the Race to the Top Fund, an unprecedented pot of cash created by the stimulus law that extends Washington's reach into local school affairs. No other education secretary has controlled such a fund. Duncan said he will dole out the money based in part on how states and school systems spend tens of billions of dollars in other stimulus funding intended to prevent layoffs and program cuts and help educate children who live in poverty or have disabilities.

"States that are simply investing in the status quo will put themselves at a tremendous competitive disadvantage for getting those additional funds," Duncan said in a conference call with reporters. "I can't emphasize strongly enough how important it is for states and districts to think very creatively and to think very differently about how they use this first set of money."

Overall, the stimulus law pumps about $100 billion into public schools, universities and early childhood education. Most of the funding for school systems will be distributed through long-standing formulas that incorporate such factors as the number of students from low-income families or in special education. But experts said schools hit hard by the economic downturn are hungry for new funding. That could make education officials more willing to experiment with performance pay, extended school days and other efforts that Duncan wants to encourage through the $5 billion fund.

"States are going to be panting to get these extra dollars," said Jack Jennings, president of the D.C.-based Center on Education Policy.

A survey of more than 850 school administrators in 48 states released yesterday by the Arlington County-based American Association of School Administrators found that a growing number of schools have been forced to increase class sizes, lay off employees and cut back programs meant to help struggling students.

Duncan said that in general he supports efforts to extend the school day or year for disadvantaged children, new approaches to overhaul low-performing schools and performance-pay programs. He challenged educators and policymakers to "think differently" about school spending.

"Some of this has to do with resources; some of this has to do with thinking innovatively and having the political will and the courage to challenge some of these status quos," Duncan said.

The stimulus law calls for most of the $5 billion to go toward supporting efforts to create better tests and shore up data systems to track student achievement. The fund includes $650 million for partnerships between schools, or schools and nonprofit groups. The money could be used to support charter schools, which are publicly financed but independently run. Separately, the stimulus law provides $200 million for performance-pay programs for teachers.

How I wish Linda Darling-Hammond had gotten the EdSec nod. Oh well, at 46, I suppose I could find a new career!