Teaching to the Test
Tags: #flunk, #drop out, #retention, #social promotion, #graduation rate, #exit exam, #left behind, #Light's retention scale
Standardized tests - nobody knows how to write standardized, machine-scoreable test questions that say how well a kid can think. Nobody. A nation of good test-takers is not necessarily a well-educated nation. The human brain doesn’t make sense of experience by clicking between school subjects. In the real world, everything connects to everything, and the connections are at least as important as the facts being connected.
The public core of what being a citizen of democracy is should be decided by us. Not decided by the rich educrates who endow the University gravy train, or the government program who is lobbied by the connected, and feeds private enterprise: but a citizen-led discussion about the common purposes of education in a democracy. Trying to standardize the young (especially now that the Chinese are determined to de-standardize them to encourage creativity) is a recipe for disaster. Kid Creativity has declined steadily since No Child Left Behind was put in place!
TESTING
Public institutions are provided for the general welfare of our communities
NOT the private mercantile interests of its citizens.
States are moving toward one nationwide standardized test - Some States have adopted the Core Curriculum
Children in Singapore are only educated to take tests It doesn't work for them, They don't learn english, so why should it work for the U.S.?
RETENTION - SOCIAL PROMOTION - COSTS OF EXIT EXAM - HOW LONG DO CHILDREN HAVE A RIGHT TO STAY IN SCHOOL?
CHEATERS
CHEATERS The Great Accountability Hoax
The ubiquity of cheating scandals across the nation. The scandal of high-stakes testing is not limited to New York and Illinois.
Teachers are not solely the cause of student progress. If students fail to make progress in their studies, there are many reasons for their failure. The causes of academic success or failure include the students' own effort; the students' regular attendance or lack thereof; the family's support or lack thereof; the family's poverty and its effects on the student's health and well-being; the school's resources; the district's oversight or lack thereof; and the quality of the test itself, which may be subject to random variation. It makes no sense to hold the teacher alone accountable when student performance is affected by so many different influences.
Should the teacher get a bad evaluation if students have a poor attendance record? Should the teacher be harshly judged if her students don't speak English or move frequently from school to school? Should the teacher get an F if the student has poor eyesight or suffers from other undiagnosed health problems? Should the teacher be considered a failure if the student's family offers no support for his learning?
Since the 1920s, American schools have experimented with merit pay plans. None has ever demonstrated success. Teachers will bend their efforts to raise test scores, but achievement nonetheless lags. The reason for this is that teaching-to-the-test does not yield good education. The students may learn test-taking skills, but they don't learn how to generalize what they have learned to new situations. Thus, even when state reading scores go up, in response to intensive coaching, national test scores remain flat. As the national tests become more demanding—in 8th grade—the scores don't rise at all.
Our nation has now had eight consecutive years of rising reading scores at the state level, yet the national scores for 8th grade students have not budged from 1998-2009. The reason for the discrepancy is that students are learning test-taking skills, but they are unable to understand complex materials or to demonstrate their progress on a test that is not the state test.
Test scores do not identify the most effective teachers. A teacher who produces big score gains one year may produce none the next year, depending on which students happen to be in his or her class.
"Sec. Duncan is....touting Sam Houston High School as evidence that reconstitution is successful. Indeed, the school was closed under a low-performing rating and achieved recognized status two years later. Good for them, right? But wait—here is what REALLY happened. The school was low-performing because too few African-American students could pass the state math test. After its shuttering and re-opening, the 9-12 school [was divided into two] schools—one a 9th grade center and the other a 10-12 school.... When the school was split, the number of African-American students fell to fewer than 30 in each school which, in Texas, is too small to be considered in the accountability ratings. Voila! The school is now acceptable, even though the combined African-American scores would have made the school low performing. Further, a new initiative called the Texas Projection Measure (TPM) was applied. ...The TPM uses a new statistical analysis to see if students who did not pass are on track to pass at the end of that level of schooling.... Now the school is recognized. But, under the old rules, the school would STILL be LOW PERFORMING. This is the type of Enron smoke-and-mirrors that our CEO-leaders are using in education like they used in business to provide 'evidence' that their theories work." Without an alert media, how do we avoid such massive....yes, lying?
A Double Standard on Test Scores implications for a longstanding debate about the efficacy of vouchers. The competition with charters and vouchers did not lead to higher scores for African-American students in regular public schools. There was no rising tide, no boats were lifted.
Under Pressure, Teachers Tamper With Tests
Pearson, has a $254 million contract with the state on the FCAT and they haven't reported the results. AND Pearson entered into an agreement with Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland in which the huge education publishing company will pay MCPS $2.25 million to develop new curriculum that Pearson can then market as coming from the high-achieving school district.
Of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as educators tampering with children’s standardized tests. But investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere this year have pointed to cheating by educators. Experts say the phenomenon is increasing as the stakes over standardized testing ratchet higher — including, most recently, taking student progress on tests into consideration in teachers’ performance reviews. Colorado passed a sweeping law making teachers’ tenure dependent on test results, and nearly a dozen other states have introduced plans to evaluate teachers partly on scores.
CHEATING AND FALSE REPORTING BY THE DEPT. OF EDUCATION
FEDERAL READING PROGRAM IGNORED LAW & ETHICAL STANDARDS - Cheaters - Reading First was a cornerstone of NCLB
What horrible things are going on in your state?
STATE EXAM - HOW DID YOUR SCHOOL DO? How do I find information about my child's school? Most State Education Pages are providing the public with either sample tests or released questions from previous exams.
ASSESSMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
WHO IS EVALUATING THE EVALUATORS?
- Help Kids on Standardized Tests
- Standards and Assessment
- How Do Students Compare?
- Report Card Info
- Preschool Assessment
- High School Assessment
- Special Ed Assessment
Articles
Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT)
Schools To Get Long-Delayed FCAT Scores
The FCAT is used to monitor students' progress and schools' compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind act. Third graders must pass the reading test to be advanced to fourth grade, while high school students must pass the 10th grade reading and math tests to receive a standard diploma.
New Florida Education Laws Phase Out High School FCAT June 30, 2010
State laws go into effect that change the path to graduation for Florida's high school students. New methods of assessment will replace the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Ellington says the "end of course" tests will be standardized throughout the state, and written by current FCAT-grading company NCS Pearson, with some teacher input.
6/25/10 2010 PEARSON FLUNKS
http://cbs4.com/local/fcat.pearson.tests.2.1773148.html
BUT Florida Dept. of Education STILL pays Pearson, which has had previous problems administering tests in Florida and other states. It's in its first year of a four year contract with the state. The Minnesota-based company has a $254-million contract to grade the 4.4 million tests, which are given to about 1.8 million elementary, middle and high school students annually. Four years ago, they underscored 44-hundred students who took the SAT. The company settled for nearly $3 million. Pearson's contract with the state runs through 2013 with an option to extend it until 2015.
NCS Pearson, which administered the tests, told the Florida Board of Education in June that it had computer problems which delayed getting the results out on time. Under the contract, Pearson was supposed to release the first batch of results in April. The State Board of Education has also announced it is seeking $3 million from the company for not complying with their contract terms. According to the contract, the company could be fined up to $250,000 a day for each day the results are late. The total penalty cannot exceed $25.4 million. The $3 million is for the third grade math and reading portions of the FCAT and 10th grade FCAT retakes delivered last month. The likely cost in Miami-Dade alone: $2.3 million. Broward believes its costs could rise as high as $1.8 million. Pearson spokesman Adam Gaber reiterated that the company accepts responsibility for the mess and stressed that it intends to fulfill all obligations to the state.
NCLB USES A FLAWED MEASURING STICK TO JUDGE SCHOOL PERFORMANCE
The federal law No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is using the wrong measuring stick to identify failing schools, says Harvard University's Paul E. Peterson in the new issue of Education Next. To make the laws accountability system work, he proposes two fixes: (1) Using a more accurate method to measure schools academic progress; and (2) Holding students, teachers, and administrators -- not just schools -- accountable for improvement. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, has announced that Congress will consider changes to NCLBs method of measuring schools progress this fall. Currently, NCLB looks not at how much individual students learn from one year to the next but at whether a schools students are making adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward full proficiency -- a standard each state sets individually -- by 2014. Peterson proposes moving to an A to F scale that focuses strictly on student growth. This was not possible when NCLB was originally enacted because most states had no way of tracking student progress over time. However, since 2002, states including North Carolina, Texas, and Florida have put such systems into place. Peterson recommends that Congress mandate tracking systems in all states as a way of identifying those schools that are effective and those that are not. States that have both tracking systems and high proficiency standards could have the option of using the A to F scale as another way of showing that its schools are making AYP. As the distortions brought about by NCLBs current method of measuring progress intensify, states will be motivated to move to the new system sooner rather than later.
AFTER-SCHOOL OFFERINGS DECLINE IN URBAN SCHOOLS
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=645089
As another school year approaches, many of the extracurricular activities that have long interested Milwaukee students are relics of the past. Although there are notable exceptions, gone are the days when city high schools had an array of sports, a drama club, a school musical, a band, an orchestra, a choir, an active yearbook and an assortment of other organizations. The gap in test scores and graduation rates between the city and suburban high schools has attracted the most attention from policy-makers and the media in recent years. But others worry that there's another gap that's just as meaningful: the difference in the richness and breadth of the high school experience available to children in cities and suburbs as urban districts slice after-school activities and clubs. "No one is measuring the importance of extracurriculars in keeping kids in school," said David Powell, a Vincent High School teacher who has worked to build strong forensics teams. "You go to Marquette (University) High School, to Brookfield East and other schools with high ACT scores, and there is a high value, and a powerful emphasis, on academic extracurriculars." There's no single reason why the decline in extracurricular activities has been more severe in cities, reports Sarah Carr in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Some blame budget cuts or the back-to-basics emphasis of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Others point to the shift toward smaller high schools, which often cannot offer a full range of activities. Regardless of the cause, educators and students worry that the glue that held some kids to school has disappeared.
2007 Nine states (AR, IN, KY, MD, MA, NJ, OH, PA, and RI) have agreed to share an Algebra II end-of-course assessment from Pearson Educational Management. The test should be ready for implementation next spring 2008, although not every state will use it immediately. The only other such test-sharing agreement is among four New England states (ME, NH, RI, and VT), spanning third- through eighth-grade.
2007 ACT's latest national curriculum survey highlights the persistent gap between what high schools are teaching and what colleges want incoming students to know. Specifically, high schools tend to offer less in-depth instruction of a broader range of skills and topics, while colleges often seek students with a more in-depth understanding of a selected number of fundamental skills. Why the disconnect? According to ACT, the primary problem is state academic content standards, which teachers are required to follow. Therefore, many states are creating P-16/20 councils to coordinate goals and expectations across all the levels of education.
2007 Information Literacy Test video will introduce you to the important features of the iSkills assessment including sample tasks from both the Core and Advanced Levels of the Assessment.
DRAMATIC RISE IN CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS FALLING BEHIND ON NCLB GOALS
The architects of the federal No Child Left Behind Act hoped that showering schools with extra money and expert advice over several years would make them succeed. But a new study shows that only 10 out of hundreds of low-scoring California schools facing severe consequences under No Child Left Behind have improved enough to get off of a state watch list this year. At the same time, the number of schools facing such consequences for failing to get enough students scoring at their grade level has jumped from 401 last year to 701 this year, says the Center on Education Policy, in its latest look at how the federal law is working in California. Federal law offers five options for schools identified for corrective action: reopening as a charter school, replacing teachers and the principal, hiring an outside agency to run the school, being taken over by the state, or "any other major restructuring." Nanette Asimov reports in the San Francisco Chronicle that the California Department of Education has refused to take over any schools, saying it is too poor and overworked for the job.
Protests Over State Testing Widespread
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26346-2001May14.html
Test-weary protesters in nearly a dozen states hoisted placards outside state capitols and hosted debates in high school auditoriums last week as they kicked off what organizers touted as "a month of resistance to testing." In what is becoming a springtime ritual during prime testing season, parents, teachers, and students have been voicing their objections to states' growing reliance on tests to gauge student achievement and the impending high stakes that could make it harder for many students to move on to the next grade or earn a diploma.Most of the demonstrations drew relatively small crowds—70 protesters in Detroit, 100 in Northampton, Mass., 300 in Los Angeles—but the largest, at the state Capitol in Albany, N.Y., saw more than 1,500 marchers against the regents' exams.
Resources and Advice For New Teachers
Monty Neil, the executive director of FairTest,
a Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit group that opposes most standardized testing and advocates what it says are fairer methods of student assessment.
THE #1 DIFFERENCE IN CHILDREN'S SCHOLASTIC SUCCESS
Research done by US military schools has shown success depends on parental involvement. You can model their success by simply inviting your parents into your school and ask them to be active in the classroom. Make parents feel welcomed anytime they can come, and call their employers asking them to give parents time to come. Parents who are supported by the work place and encouraged to actively participate in the classroom will improve test scores more than any other single activity.
2007 SURVEY OF EXTERNAL SUPPORT FOR K-12 SCHOOL DISTRICTS
Despite the fact that nearly every school and district in the K-12 market experiences some level of support from the surrounding community, very little research has been done in the area of community/school partnerships. This survey by DeHavilland Associates offers insights into how community/school partnerships are structured and what types of relationships schools and districts have established. Key findings from this survey include: (1) When asked to rank the importance of current partners to their efforts, respondents put individual businesses first, parent organizations second, and booster clubs third; (2) When asked to rank the partners with whom they'd most like to develop relationships, business coalitions came in first, followed by individual businesses and regional/national foundations; (3) Most school districts do not have established systematic procedures to recruit and monitor partnerships; (4) There were clear differences in the responses of suburban, urban, and rural schools and districts. Those in suburban areas note generally higher levels of support from community-based partners; those in urban areas receive greater support from institutional partners (nonprofits, foundations, and postsecondary institutions); and those in rural areas record below-average levels of support from every partner with the exception of booster clubs; and (5) 46 percent of school districts report receiving support from a local education fund or school foundation.
The New Mexico Public Education Department has created, "Working Together: School-Family-Community Partnerships, A Toolkit for New Mexico School Communities." The purpose of the Toolkit is to assist educators and education partners with information, resources and strategies to help strengthen parent and community involvement.
REPORT CARDS
CITY AND STATE CHEATERS
This paper describes factors leading to corruption in K12 standardized testing, such as cheating by teachers, administrators, and students, "teaching to the test" (often cutting out creative curriculum elements), and exclusion of low performers from the test process. From the Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University.
Testing High Stakes Tests: Can We Believe the Results of Accountability Tests?
N.Y.C. Probe Levels Test-Cheating Charges
More than 50 New York City educators face dismissal after an independent auditor accused them of helping students cheat on standardized tests given by the city and the state.
SAT Problems Even Larger Than Reported NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/education/23sat.html "Everybody appears to be telling half-truths, and that erodes confidence in the College Board," said Bruce J. Poch, vice president and dean of admissions at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. "It looks like they hired the people who used to do the books for Enron. My next question is what other surprise we're going to hear about next."
2007 The U.S. Education Department reported nationwide, 73% of 12th-grade students achieved a "basic" reading score in 2005, down from 80% in 1992, according to the NAEP a sampling test the government calls the "nation's report card." Sixty-one percent scored at or above the basic level in math.Could these disappointing results be blamed on stupid, malformed tests and the are making so much money for the companies who publish them?
COMPARE State-To-State Performance
A STATE-BY-STATE REPORT CARD ON EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued a state-by-state report card on educational effectiveness that shows Americas K12 schools are failing their students and putting Americas future competitiveness at risk. The report graded all 50 states and Washington, D.C., on nine broad categories including academic achievement, return on investment, truth in advertising, rigor of standards, and data quality. The report and accompanying recommendations for reform were prepared with John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress and former Clinton White House chief of staff, and Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Education is critical to the American dream. Unemployment rates for those without a high school degree are 8.1 percent compared with 2.2 percent for college graduates. Yet, approximately 40 percent of all U.S. college students take at least one remedial course, and most students who take remedial courses never earn a college degree.
Reports of Disaggregated State, School System (LEA) and School Performance Data for 2003 - 2005
Average scale score in READING for 4th-graders in public schools, by race/ethnicity and state or jurisdiction: Selected years, 1994 to 2003.
The MATHEMATICS scores of 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students were higher in 1999 than in 1973
SAT essays scored on quantity, not quality, teacher says Perelman studied every graded sample SAT essay that the College Board made public. He looked at the 15 samples in the ScoreWrite book that the College Board distributed to high schools nationwide to prepare students for the new writing section. He reviewed the 23 graded essays on the College Board Web site meant as a guide for students and the 16 writing "anchor" samples the College Board used to train graders to mark essays. He was stunned by how complete the correlation was between length and score. "I have never found a quantifiable predictor in 25 years of grading that was anywhere near as strong as this one," he said. "If you just graded them based on length without ever reading them, you'd be right over 90 percent of the time." The shortest essays, typically 100 words, got the lowest grade of one. The longest, about 400 words, got the top grade of six. In between, there was virtually a direct match between length and grade. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/223569_esat10.html
The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest)
Advocacy organization working to end the abuses, misuses and flaws of standardized testing and ensure that evaluation of students and workers is fair, open, and educationally sound. We place special emphasis on eliminating the racial, class, gender, and cultural barriers to equal opportunity posed by standardized tests, and preventing their damage to the quality of education. Based on four Goals and Principles, we provide information, technical assistance and advocacy on a broad range of testing concerns, focusing on three areas: K-12, university admissions, and employment tests, including teacher testing. FairTest publishes a quarterly newsletter, The Examiner, plus a full catalog of materials on both K- 12 and university testing to aid teachers, administrators, students, parents and researchers. See our order form on this Web site! FairTest also has numerous fact sheets available to educate you on standardized testing and alternative assessment.
Monty Neil, the executive director of FairTest,
a Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit group that opposes most standardized testing and advocates what it says are fairer methods of student assessment. Advocacy Resources by State
UNWARRANTED INTRUSION
According to Harvard professor Richard Elmore, the federal government is now accelerating the worst trend of the current accountability movement by making performance-based accountability mean testing, and testing alone. In this interesting reality check, Elmore states that the standards and accountability movement is in danger of becoming the testing and accountability movement. He charges politicians with trying to take credit for improving schools with without committing themselves to serious increases in funding.
"PencilsDown"
is an attempt to use the Web to form a grassroots community opposed to the higher, meaner standards of testing," Stager said. The site's first goal is to learn how much standardized testing costs in every state, and whether or not parents are allowed to keep their kids from being tested.
Students Against Testing - BOYCOTT THE TEST Organize a student boycott of the standardized tests at your school and leave the tests blank - here's how!
High-Stakes Testing for Dentists?? What Dentists and Teachers Have in Common
Computer-Savvy Students Perform Poorly on Handwritten Composition Tests 7/2000