Opting Out Has Never Looked Like a Better Idea

I recently wrote about standardized tests and the need to get rid of the High stakes attached to them. Several news articles came out this week that need a follow-up blog on standardized tests. There's good news and bad news.

Let's get the bad news out of the way first.
Some of the results from the PSSA were released this week that show declines in almost every area of every grade. Why? Two reasons -
1. They aligned the tests to follow the Common Core (PA calls it the PA Core, but it's practically the same) so they are more rigorous (I hate that word) and
2. they set the test scores too high so many students will fail.

Even though the state readily admits that the tests can't even be compared to last year's tests, they are still insisting on judging schools and teachers on whether their students made certain gains. Ninety percent of a school's performance score is based on these PSSA scores.

Read about that here: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/84114-pa-says-2015-standardized-test-scores-drop-precipitously-because-of-added-rigor?linktype=related_articlepage

Alison McDowell, and opt out organizer in Philadelphia writes:

"The state knew at this time last year that significant numbers of students would "fail" the new PA Core-aligned PSSA tests. Yes, even before the students took the test. They are "failing" because the cut scores are set AFTER students take the tests. They can set the scores to "fail" a predetermined number of students.  This is exactly what happened in New York state in 2013.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/29/the-scary-way-common-core-test-cut-scores-are-selected/

"Chris Shaffer from the District told me they would have the PSSA scores in about a week. The drops described in the article are not happening just in Philadelphia. I heard from the West Chester, PA superintendent that the results are the same in his high-performing district. Mr. Shaffer said letters would go home to parents in September, but scores might be available online in late August via the parent portal.

"If you are thinking about opting out this year, you can send in your intent to opt out letter at the beginning of the school year. Sample letters are available here: http://www.workingeducators.org/announcing_our_opt_out_toolkit

"Sending in letters early will put the state department of education on notice that we do not accept these tests that are designed for failure as a valid measure of assessment for our children.

"Note that many high schools use 7th grade PSSAs as part of their admissions process (but not all). Also starting with the class of 2017 (unless the 2 year moratorium passes and it hasn't yet), students must pass English, Algebra, and Biology Keystones. Those that opt out of the tests are compelled to take a semester-long online course or Project-Based Assessment, which I cannot recommend. If the moratorium does pass, rising juniors and sophomores would not have the Keystones as a graduation requirement and could opt out without consequence. We'll have to see how things progress with the Keystone exams."

 

The good news is that Temple University in Philadelphia has joined hundreds of other colleges and universities in getting rid of the SAT/ACT requirement. So the whole purpose of getting your kids used to standardized testing so they'll do well on the SAT is now moot. Cue applause all around. For decades, college admission officers have been saying that high school performance is a much better indicator of future college success than SAT/ACT scores. Nice to know they're putting their convictions into policies.

You can read the article here:

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20150714_Minority_applicants_flock_to_Temple_after_it_dropped_test_requirement.html

 

OPT OUT
There are many groups that are offshoots from the United Opt Out group. Facebook has bother National and state groups for opt out. Don't delay, have your letter ready the first week of school.

Still learning!

No High Stakes Testing!

The scores for the PSSA (Pennsylvania’s state standardized test) just came out. Rumor has it they are not good, with 70% of the students scoring below basic in math. 70% failure rate??????? When I was in college learning how to be a teacher constructing a test was one thing we learned about. It should have a variety of opportunities for responses, should include multiple choice, fill in the blanks, essays, and true-false questions. We learned that if we gave a test based on what we taught that saw more than 50% failing, that there was probably something wrong with the test, that it didn’t measure what we actually taught, that we should find out what the problem with the test was, re-teach the material and retest. If 70% are failing the test, there is a disconnect between what is being taught and what is being tested. We already know there is a problem in the math curriculum, expecting students in Algebra 1 to master concepts from Algebra 2/Trigonometry. If they are testing these concepts on the test, then the failure rate is understandable. Teaching/testing concepts that require advanced math in a beginning level course is plain old stupid. Stuff like this is happening all over the United States, it’s no accident.

Since No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and continuing with Race to the Top (RttT), education has been assaulted by corporate reformers bent on privatizing public schools, union busting, and setting public schools up for failure and takeover. Education budgets have continuously been decreased as prices for books, supplies and heating oil rise. Teacher pensions have been continuously under attack and many states have not contributed to the pension funds for decades. Teacher tenure, which in reality is only due process in K-12 schools has been attacked to get rid of the most experienced teachers with advanced degrees who earn more money than new teachers, balancing the budget on the backs of the school employees.

Professor Jesse Turner, an educator from Connecticut, has been walking to Washington DC and meeting with education activists along the way to highlight the dangers of standardized tests and other education “reforms.” He met with a few dozen activists in Philadelphia the other day after they accompanied him across the Ben Franklin Bridge from Camden, NJ to Philadelphia. With Independence Hall as a backdrop, he addressed the need to stop the reforms that aren’t working and to get rid of high-stakes tests for students. He called for a moratorium on the Keystone tests and the PSSAs, and for a fair-funding formula for public schools. Teachers, parents and students shared their stories about the devastating effects of these tests on students and teachers. They admonished corporate-education-supporting politicians NO JUSTICE, NO VOTES.

Teachers assess students every day, several times a day, in various ways, only some of which require an actual test. Looking at writing samples, listening to a discussion, judging a poster for accuracy and creativity, Listening to a child explain a math problem to his peer, reading and answering questions in reading groups, noticing what kind of questions a child asks can also give some indication of whether they understand a concept. Watching a group of students put together a play about an historical figure, write a song about a science concept. There are many more ways to determine if a child is progressing. The idea that only a standardized test can tell if a child is succeeding is ludicrous.

A standardized test is a way, however, to gather information quickly and compare it nationwide. The NAEP tests, given every 2 years in specific grades, do just that. Even the NAEP's results do not come back in enough time to make a difference that year for the child that took them. When I went to elementary school, we took ONE standardized test in 4th grade to determine our IQs. The rest of the year, our teachers tested us weekly in spelling and math, monthly in history and geography and civics, (we didn't have science until 6th grade). We had January and June exams. These exams were usually locally made and cumulative but didn't count for the whole grade in the report card. I believe they counted for 25% of your grade. My second standardized test was the PSAT and then the SAT. And that was it until I took my National Teachers Exams my senior year of college.

We don't NEED standardized test to tell us which kids are having a problem. In fact, we can probably sit down with the child and ascertain what the problem is quicker than they can take a standardized test. Sometimes we can't figure out how to help the child and that's where the IEP process takes over. Speaking of IEPs, do you realize that kids can't be declared Special Ed unless they are performing two full years or more below their grade level? Special Ed kids have to take these grade level tests with no accounting for where they CAN perform. The only accommodations are the teacher reading the directions and a longer testing time and a small group atmosphere. As if taking 4 or 5 hours to complete a 1.5 hour test will make a big difference. Either you can or you can't do it, whether you can't do it in an hour or in 4 hours, it's still not going to make a difference.

To hold up graduation or promotion because a child cannot perform on a standardized test is a travesty. You are willing to bet that a test taken on one day can judge a child better than a year's performance in class? I don't think so. One day of testing negates 4 years of high school tests, projects and reports? No.

As a teacher, I can see a place for standardized tests, but not the high stakes these tests come with. My last year of teaching (I retired in 2012) brought me a class of 25 fifth graders. Two were homeless, one who had a mother who was an addict. One girl's mother had just died that summer, one boy's mother had a stroke and was bedridden at home, two kids received special ed services, one boy arrived in November having never attended a regular school. He had been in a 6-students class for emotionally disturbed kids for the previous 5 years. He required constant attention and a TSS worker who never materialized. Another young man was on his 5th school in the past 2 years because he had emotional problems at all the others and was seeing a shrink twice a week. Yet another young man had anger issues and was under a psychiatrist's care. Two kids arrived mid-year from a local charter school that counseled them out because they were failing (both kids were performing 2-3 years below level). Another girl had been shuttled back and forth from relative to relative because she was manipulative and mean. She needed psychiatric help but was not receiving any. That's almost HALF my class with issues that would prevent them from learning and doing well on tests.

The rest of the class? I saw 6 at or above grade level and 7 were one year below grade level. I taught my heart out that year. Brought 2 kids three levels forward in reading, stopped one of the kids from running out of the class when frustrated, found hidden talents in several kids that caused higher self-esteem and therefore higher school performance.

How did we do on the PSSA? The on-level kids did great! A couple of the one-year-below kids were able to make proficient on either math or reading. One of the special ed kids did well in writing. The emotionally disturbed kids bombed the tests because they refused to take it once they got frustrated. The standardized tests they took didn’t begin to scratch the surface of all the students learned  that year or any of the years before.

If you asked me whether that year was a success, I could give you at least one success for each child in that room. Indeed, some of the kids performed beyond my wildest dreams. I was told at some point that some kids were assigned to my room simply because I had infinite patience and was non-confrontational with the emotionally disturbed kids. Many years, I'd get the kids no one else wanted. If I were to be judged on their overall test performance, I'd be judged as an ineffective teacher. But I wasn't ineffective at all. My students left me in a much better place than they arrived, not because of any test, but because I tried to work with them in the ways they needed me to.

Truly, a standardized test cannot tell you whether a child has learned or not. It only tells you that the child is good at taking a standardized test. The writing test tells you that your child can follow a rigid template and use multi-syllable words. That template destroys any kind of creative response to a prompt and the essays all end up sounding the same. It’s disgusting what the writing test has done to creative writing.

Standardized test cut scores are set every year AFTER the test has been taken. Why? So the appropriate number of students will fail. What is that appropriate number? What ever will make a bell curve. There will always be low-scoring students because that’s the way the test is set up. If by some chance everyone who took the test did well and ranked in the proficient area, they’d take those cut scores and make it so only 25% of the kids scored proficient and 25% score below basic, even though their results would have earned everyone a proficient score the year before. They can set the cut scores anywhere they wish to make it look like kids are failing or kids are progressing well. The scores have nothing to do with what a child knows and has learned, the scores are manipulated each year.

What to do? Until the standardized tests become low-stakes tests and aren’t the determiner of promotion or graduation, the only choice is to Opt Out. Join the movement, it’s been growing exponentially for years. Older middle schoolers and high schoolers can simply refuse to take the test. Elementary schoolers can be opted out by their parents refusing the tests for their child in writing to the principal and superintendent after viewing it.

Still learning!

NY's Governor Cuomo is So Wrong

Before I begin, I must thank my hubby for fixing my computer so I could continue to write.

The NY State budget passed with a few amendments that have nothing to do with the budgeting of money. Or maybe it does...

The other night, Gov. Cuomo signed a budget bill that contained the provision for changing teachers' evaluations for the worst. A foe of teachers all throughout the state, Cuomo has done everything he could to help his charter school buddies and thwart the teachers all over the state. He has slashed budgets, reduced pension plans, sneered at teachers in unions, funneled money to his favorite charters over the needs of the kids in the same neighborhoods. He has expressed disbelief that only 2% of the teacher have been found unsatisfactory, and has made changes to the evaluations so that only 2% will be found satisfactory this coming year.

http://dianeravitch.net/2015/04/01/new-yorks-outrageous-new-teacher-evaluation-law/

Now, 20% of a teacher's evaluation depends on test scores of their students. The rest comes from principal observations, meeting professional development goals and other jump-through-hoops requirements. Next year, scores will count for 50% of a teacher's evaluation, and no matter how well they do on the other points, cannot be found satisfactory unless the students improve their scores by a certain percentage. Also, the person observing the teacher in class will be an outside administrator, probably not trained in the teacher's subject area. An additional requirement is that a teacher will be fired with two back-to-back years of bad test scores. In Florida, a teacher's attendance is taken into account so that if more than 10 days are used, the teacher must be found minimally effective. This goes for maternity leave, surgery, broken bones, cancer treatments, etc.

Do I have to state the obvious that basing a teacher's evaluation on those things will be a big problem?

Before I expound on what is wrong with his bill, I need to clear something up. There really aren't that many bad teachers out there. We only hear about the bad ones though in the media. My senator, Pat Toomey, introduced a bill to investigate every person in the school at their expense to find the sexual predators. Out of all the teachers in the US, less than 300 were found to be guilty of sexual predation. I figured out the percentage last year. I think it came out to be 0.06% of all the teachers. Really? So you punish the 99.94% of the teachers who are NOT sexual predators.

Most teachers I know do their job well, teaching with respect and caring and eager to learn new things about their field and about their students. Are there some mediocre teachers out there? Yup. Are there some bad ones? Yup. If they are in your child's school, talk to the principal about getting rid of them or making them learn better methods of teaching. It is the responsibility of the principal to document unsuitability and submit the needed paperwork in order to get help for a teacher or to get them fired. The principal has that responsibility. Unions don't want bad teachers, but they will make sure there is documentation and not arbitrary and capricious accusations against a perfectly good teacher who disagrees with the principal on certain things. There is not room for revenge where political, philosophical, or practical differences may arise between teacher an administrator.

1. Basing any part of a teacher's evaluation on a student's test scores is statistically invalid according to the American Statistical Association. They have stated numerous times that the use of test scores as well as the formula used to determine the VAM (Value Added Metric) is of no use in determining whether a teacher is effective or not. It is junk science. Look back in my blog entries to find the citations for this statement.

A student's score determines what that student knows about memorization of facts and test-taking strategies, not their future success in a "College and Career Ready" atmosphere. Many colleges these days don't even require a student to take the SAT or ACT, basing their admissions on portfolios and records of high school work. A student's high school records more accurately determine their success in college than the SAT or ACT.  So using this statistical interpretation to judge teacher effectiveness is wrong for 20% but more than doubly wrong for 50%.

Not only are teachers in poor districts going to have a problem with this, but teachers in rich districts and those who teach gifted kids will find themselves rated ineffective according to scores. For the kids who typically score in the 90th percentile and above, the advanced kids, it will be very difficult to get them to improve enough to satisfy the formula. A kid who scores 98% one year may score 97% the next and that will be counted as a teacher's negative influence, despite the fact that the kid is very gifted. Conversely, a teacher in a high poverty district will have most students scoring lower because of the effects poverty has on their brain development, not because the teacher hasn't taught them well.

2. Principals have typically observed teachers to determine who well they do their job. There are provisions for drop-in observations, longer informal observations and hour-long formal ones. In Philadelphia, the formals happen twice a year supposedly, and any day can find your principal poking their head in to see how things are going. A principal who knows the kids will be able to see how far Raj has come in his ability to finish an assignment. It might  not get finished, but 60% is way better than 10% or nothing. Someone who knows the child will be able to see that Rami is raising her hand sometimes and participating where she just sat disengaged last year when her mother died. A principal will recognize the trust that has developed among a teacher and their class so that students feel safe enough to ask questions and express disagreement without being ostracized. A principal will appreciate that jumpin' Jack Flash has stopped bolting out of the room when he got frustrated and is instead asking for help or signaling discomfort without disrupting the class. A good principal will notice how far Janine has come even though she is still at least a year behind in reading and math. (That won't show up on a test score.) A great principal will recognize that, no matter how many things are on the evaluation rubric, that many things that count can't be measured and that things that can be measured don't always count.

An outside admin has not seen a beginning teacher struggle and finally find her feet and begin to be effective with her students. They see an inexperienced educator who makes a lot of mistakes, even though she's really getting the class to work together. An outsider doesn't see the effort a teacher puts into getting her students to the point where they CAN pay attention and maybe learn. They don't see how this teacher tutors kids at lunch or outside of school time, how he buys clothes, shoes and supplies for kids in his room who don't have those things, how he has raised the self-confidence of the whole class from September to now, how the kids who were quick to curse him out in the beginning of the year now are respectful.  Some days just might be bad for either the teacher or the kids and the teacher should have the right not to be observed then. Outsiders are welcome to observe, but not to judge.

3. Counting pupil and teacher absences against them for evaluation is a slippery slope. I am not talking about teachers who milk the system and are a chronic problem. The teachers I do mean are the ones who are taking their 89 days childbirth leave, or those who have had tumors removed and need to be out 4-6 weeks to recuperate, the teachers who were in an accident and have broken bones or a concussion. Not all schools are handicapped accessible and can accommodate a person on crutches or a wheelchair. A teacher in Florida recently wrote to say that he had a lung tumor removed and was out 2 weeks. Those 2 weeks took him from being an highly effective teacher to a minimally effective teacher with all other scores being advanced. This teacher had students who were ALL proficient or advanced at their tests.

4. A teacher's class is not the same year after year. The amount of learning that goes on is not the same year after year. The standards for each grade are not the same year after year. Life events easily change the tenor of the class for students. Deaths, incarcerations, physical, mental or emotional abuse, neighborhood tensions, and the physical well-being of the child grossly affect how the student is able to concentrate on the tasks at hand and perform well in school and on a standardized test. Change one of those situations and it can send a student into a tailspin that might take them years to recover from. My class this year may have more smart kids than last year's class or vice versa. It may have more kids in need of emotional support than last year's class. Both of these will affect the outcome of the test scores with none of the above things taken into consideration. A troubled child can't concentrate and won't test well. A child who reads on a third grade level in fifth grade won't test well. A child who just arrived from Haiti last year won't test well on a grade level test. Who will want to teach the ELL kids, the Special Ed kids, the PSD kids? No one. They'll bring down your scores. The best teachers might be found in the rooms with these children, the ones who never give up on a kid, who find a way to motivate them each day. Are you going to waste the talented teachers' abilities by holding them to higher scores every year for kids they've never seen before? Every high poverty school will be decimated, every teacher of the gifted will be let go as well as the IEP teachers, ELL, and those who dedicate their careers to the kids who need an alternative education. Every school will have new teachers with no experience, no connection to the community, and no institutional memory to help foster a true community in the school.

What a terribly bad idea has been foisted on the residents of New York and its school children! What are we going to do about it? Please suggest some things below or at least spread the word and call your NY state legislators and complain or get them to introduce a bill to rescind.



Still learning!