Let us do our work!

May 22nd, 2013 No Comments

Speaking at an event sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) incoming Council President, Kentucky Education Commissioner, Terry Holiday, had some choice words for school reformers and Common Core detractors.

Holiday on Teacher Evaluation:

States moved too fast adopting new teacher evaluation systems.
Too many states moved to make student test scores account for 50% of the final teacher evaluation.
Too many states adopted new teacher evaluation systems with the intent of firing teachers.

Holiday on the compelling reasons why Kentucky has taken the lead on adoption of the Common Core State Standards:

Economic

Employers told us they could not find enough qualified workers.
Foreign countries intent on doing business in the Kentucky wanted to know about the available pool of skilled workers.

Human Capital

African-American students have a one in seventeen (6%) chance of graduating from a Kentucky high school college- and career-ready.
African-Americans growing up in Kentucky have a one in four (25%) chance of being incarcerated before their twenty-fourth birthday.

Holiday to Common Core cynics:

“Give us something better or get out of the way and let us do our work.”

An Ominous Sign for Standardized Testing

May 19th, 2013 No Comments

Mel Riddile and I have written at length about problems with the standardized testing being administered in schools across the country. These concerns include the manner in which they are created (multiple-choice questions in order to save money), scored (no penalty for guessing and a low threshold to pass) and finally their use as barriers to graduation and as a significant tool in evaluating the work of teachers and schools.

But the words of a former principal and a retired teacher may quickly become drowned out by a far louder angry voice—the parents.

In a number of states, parents are boycotting standardized tests by keeping their children home on test days. A recent article in the Washington Post sounded the alarm:

“A decade into the school accountability movement, pockets of resistance to standardized testing are sprouting up around the country, with parents and students opting out of the high-stakes tests used to evaluate schools and teachers.

“From Seattle, where 600 high school students refused to take a standardized test in January, to Texas, where 86 percent of school districts say the tests are “strangling our public schools,” anti-testing groups

Test Numbers that Don’t Add Up

May 12th, 2013 No Comments

By Stuart Singer, The Master Teacher

The Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) system has a big problem. Any time there is a headline in the Washington Post that reads: “Thousands Fail High School Math Exams in Montgomery” there is something very wrong.

Here are the numbers in question according to the article:

“Recently released figures show failure rates of 62 percent for high school students taking the county’s geometry final and 57 percent for those taking the Algebra 2 exam. Among students taking the same courses on the honors level, 30 percent to 36 percent failed the end-of-semester tests in January, according to data from the school system.”

The tip of the failure iceberg

A closer look at the results is even more disturbing. Out of a total of 30,000 students taking exams in Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Bridge to Algebra 2 and Pre-calculus, 16000 (53.3%) did not pass the end-of-course tests. When the pool is expanded to include those individuals receiving a grade of D the picture gets significantly worse. Overall 76% (three of every four) of all Algebra 1 students are in this category, the number is 79% (four of every five) in Geometry and Algebra 2 comes in at 73%. Translated into a classroom of 28 students, these results would have 20-22 receiving grades below C on the tests.

The courses labeled as “honors” have equally unsettling data. In Geometry, 56% of the students

“We are on schedule and ready to go.” – Joe Willhoft, SBAC

May 9th, 2013 No Comments

The SBAC consortium has posted minimum computing requirements and a bandwidth calculator that schools can use to measure capacity. It has also said that it would supply paper-and-pencil versions of the assessments for the first three years. Willhoft predicted that some schools in California may decide to do both in the transition, trying computer-based tests in some grades, paper and pencil in others. (The paper version will cost $10 to $12 per student more to administer.)

The minimal computing requirement for a 600-student school will be a computer lab with 30 computers, with students taking the assessment over a 10- to 12-week period.

See on www.edsource.org

States’ Online Testing Problems Raise Common-Core (Implementation) Concerns

May 9th, 2013 No Comments

Technical glitches during recent online assessments in a number of states are prompting worries about schools’ ability to administer common-core testing in 2014-15.

Mel Riddile‘s insight:

While online testing is the way to go, I have been warning everyone that it takes a few years to work out the glitches when transitioning from paper tests to online testing. I should know because I learned this through experience in a state with eleven high-stakes EOC exams at the high school level that were barriers to graduation. We had four years to make the full transition and it was still a huge task. Doing this in one year is a recipe for disaster.

See on www.edweek.org

Desperately in Need of Assistance

May 5th, 2013 No Comments

By Stuart Singer, The Master Teacher

In a recent post, Mel Riddile clearly enunciated one of the most difficult problems with utilizing standardized testing as a measure of the competence of administrative and teaching staffs.

“For the first four years of our SOL tests (SOL stands for Standards of Learning), schools were accountable but students were not. During those four years, some students would often finish three-hour tests in forty minutes. Some would draw pictures on their answer sheets and generally make a mockery of the testing process.

“Knowing that they were at the mercy of the students and completely dependent on their good will, principals tried everything to encourage students to do their best. They offered grade incentives. One school even said that any student scoring proficient would earn a “B” as a final grade in the tested courses. Schools had assemblies and offered prizes. The bottom line is that we were desperate.”

He is not exaggerating the situation. I was there and sadly I must report that he is actually being

High Stakes Tests Create Desperate Teachers and Principals

April 30th, 2013 No Comments

“It’s a sign of a fundamental imbalance: The tests matter deeply for teachers and principals, whose jobs and salaries depend on improving scores. But the lengthy exams don’t matter much to students.” – Washington Post

A colleague sent me a link to an article about a high school principal, who had rescinded a policy that would prohibit participation in sports for students who failed to show up for mandated state tests. To the uninitiated this appears to be another case of an educator making a bad decision. To those, like me, who have led a school in a high-pressure, high-stakes, ‘take no prisoners’, school accountability environment, this decision is exactly what it appears to be—an act of desperation.

For the first four years of our SOL tests (SOL stands for Standards of Learning), schools were accountable but students were not. During those four years, some students would often finish three-hour tests in forty minutes. Some would draw pictures on their answer sheets and generally make a mockery of the testing process.

Knowing that they were at the mercy of the students and completely dependent on their good will, principals tried everything to encourage students to do their best. They offered grade incentives. One school even said that any student scoring proficient would earn a “B” as a final grade in the tested courses. Schools had assemblies and offered prizes. The bottom line is that we were desperate.

I must add that our teachers had excellent relationships with our students and, in most cases, the students would put forth effort simply because their teachers cared so much. However, we had time to build a school personalized school culture that emphasized the importance of student-teacher relationships. I cannot imagine what it would be like to go into a new school that was beginning to develop a positive culture and

Literacy: Every Student, Every Class, Every Day

April 28th, 2013 No Comments

Jackson Central-Merry (JCM) Academy for Medical Technology, located in Jackson, TN, is an inner city, high-poverty (95%), and high-minority (93%) high school of approximately 800 students. Since being restructured four years ago, principal Eric Jones and the staff of JCM have created a safe, orderly, and inviting school environment that supports learning, encourages regular attendance, and promotes positive student behavior. A consistent focus on literacy has enabled JCM to increase student state test scores, improve the graduation rate from 54% to 91%, and produce a significant increase in ACT scores.

The leadership team at JCM understands that real, long-term, systemic and sustainable school improvement begins in the classroom with the mindsets and practices of the teachers. Like every school implementing the Common Core State Standards, JCM is a work in progress. However, JCM has been able to do what few other schools have even attempted to accomplish—change classroom practices by building the collective capacity of the teaching staff using a defined set of instructional practices school wide. Not only do JCM teachers teach bell-to-bell, but they also ensure that reading, writing, and discussion using higher-order thinking and real-world application are an integral part of every lesson each day. Finally, JCM understands that the key to the school’s success is implementation with fidelity.

By Dr. Teresa Littrell McDaniel, Assistant Principal, Jackson (TN) Central-Merry Academy

The onset of the implementation of the Common Core State Standards has raised the awareness of educators regarding the rigor of instruction in many classrooms and the depth at which teachers engage students in rigorous curriculum. I have spent most of my career in Title I, low socioeconomic status schools labeled as “low-performing/target” for failing to meet AYP where, despite the best efforts of No Child Left Behind, the majority of students enter high school significantly below grade level in basic reading and math skills.

In many ways, less than adequately prepared teachers could “hide” in these schools since students are often not expected to achieve at the same level of “good standing” high schools. However, international tests like NAEP and PISA suggest that American students are less prepared than their international peers for college and career.

Perhaps more importantly, business and industry leaders unabashedly proclaim that the “business as usual” status of American schools is not producing a hirable workforce in the global economy. Policymakers seem to be suggesting that we can just identify and fire the bad teachers and hire new ones. But those of us in

The Challenge Index, Baseball and Data Analysis

April 26th, 2013 1 Comment

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

Jay Mathews is one of the most important educational writers in this country. He has brilliantly chronicled the strengths and weaknesses of school policies for decades. He is a “hands-on” journalist who spends hours observing, interviewing and reporting on education. Mr. Mathews’ contributions to academics cannot be underestimated. But because of this influence it is necessary to address some flaws in his statistical analysis of schools in the United States.

Sometimes silence is not golden

When the 2013 Challenge Index was announced I was determined to keep quiet. After all I had already shared my mathematical concerns with this tool on a number of occasions. But then two incidents made it impossible to keep that vow.

The first occurred during a morning news segment on the NPR radio station in San Francisco. It concerned what was referred to as “a sad irony”. The reporter intoned that on the very day the American Indian

More Initiatives Result in Less Education

April 23rd, 2013 No Comments

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

In a recent post Mel Riddile related the story of a teacher whose school was implementing 18 different educational initiatives within one year. Not surprisingly, this onslaught of extra responsibilities left the educator with a sense of despair and defeat. It is a situation that is not unique to this one individual.

In this corner—the administrative staff

Dr. Riddile’s reaction to this situation was predictable and accurate. Among a series of responses he noted:

“These teachers are feeling overwhelmed, and they should! Too many initiatives mean no focus. The initiatives are being implemented too quickly. The initiatives are not being evaluated properly. Time and paperwork requirements for teachers are enormous.”

He then added:

“I wish I could say that this teacher’s experience is rare, but it is actually more typical of what is happening across the country. No rational person would believe that it would be possible to implement eighteen new initiatives at one time.

“Sadly, the lack of focus and the resultant dissipation of effort will not only demoralize teachers but doom all eighteen initiatives to fail miserably.”

While all of these comments represent a reasonable analysis of the situation, there is one factor that may be overlooked. In terms of educational responsibility too often the buck stops at the administrative wing. There is an old saying in sports when a coach of a losing team is removed—“They had to do something; they couldn’t fire the whole team”. The underlying premise is that although he may not be able to throw a pitch,