More test results, more confusion

Is there really a single true interpretation of a set of education statistics?  This week’s release of 4th and 8th grade NAEP scores certainly doesn’t make me think so. Here are the basics from the actual NAEP report, the Nation’s Report Card.

- At grade 4 the average mathematics and reading scores were higher in 2007 than in all previous assessment years. At grade 8, this was true for math.
- At both grades 4 and 8, the percentages of students performing at or above Basic and Proficient were higher in 2007 than in all previous assessment years in math, and higher than in 1992 and 2005 in reading.
- White, Black, and Hispanic students at both grades 4 and 8 scored higher in 2007 than in all previous assessment years in math, and higher in reading than in 1992.

See how those statistics have some interesting twists?  Like, what happened to reading scores between 1992 and 2005?. 

And while NCLB proponents count any increases in scores since 2003 as a success for NCLB, opponents, like anti-testing group FairTest point out that “Gains from 2000 to 2003, before NCLB went into effect, were significantly greater than they were from 2003 to 2007, when NCLB was the law.”

The report touts the narrowing achievement gap between minority and white students, but in Illinois, “while...minority and poor pupils made important gains on the tests, the gap also narrowed because the progress of white and more affluent pupils was minimal,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

Muddying the Illinois analysis even more is the stark difference between our extremely minimal upward progress in NAEP scores ("Illinois pupils showed slight improvements in math and reading last spring but did not keep pace with the rest of the nation,” says the Trib) and our rapidly increasing ISAT pass rates. The same Trib article points out:

On the national reading exam, for example, only 30 percent of the state’s 8th-graders scored at or above the proficient level, a drop from 35 percent in 2003.
But there has been an 18 percentage-point gain—from 64 percent to 82 percent passing—on the state 8th-grade reading exam in the same period.

It’s not the NAEP that determines AYP.  It’s the ISAT. Which state officials tinkered with quite a bit in the last few years. See where we’re going with this?

So, as usual, a ton of statistics, but few clear answers to the question of how well students are learning.

Interested in reading more?
Alexander Russo rounds up a few of the main national stories here.
The actual statistics are here.  There are one-page pdfs for each grade level by state, like this.

Labels: Illinois, News

Discipline

"In Chicago-area public schools, African-American students are five times as likely to be suspended and nearly eight times as likely to be expelled as white students,” reports the Chicago Tribune this week. 

The Trib analyzed “little-noticed” 2004-2005 school year data from the US Department of Education and saw that “In every state but Idaho...black students are being suspended in numbers greater than would be expected from their proportion of the student population.”

These statistics aren’t particularly new; I feel like we heard this a few years ago, back when zero-tolerance discipline started making the news.  The question is, what now?

Alexander Russo wonders if it isn’t time for “differentiated discipline” to go along with all that differentiated instruction we’re all doing.

The Trib article mentions a program called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS), which seems to be funded by the US Office of Special Education Programs.  According to their website, “The purpose of school-wide PBS is to establish a climate in which appropriate behavior is the norm.” The system focuses on preventing issues rather than punishing students after the fact.

Thoughts about either of these solutions?  Anyone’s school implementing PBIS?

Labels: Conversations, News

Another kind of teaching shortage

This week’s Newsweek references a study by the NEA on the gender breakdown of the teaching profession:

[T]he number of male schoolteachers is hovering at a 40-year low. Only one quarter of our 3 million teachers are men. In elementary schools, the problem is more acute—just 9 percent are men, down from 18 percent in 1981. “If kids do not see males in the classroom, they begin to believe teaching is only for females,” says Reg Weaver, president of the NEA. Unless more men become teachers, says Weaver, the shortage will continue to be a self-perpetuating problem.

The article highlights a few new organizations dedicated to recruiting and mentoring male teachers, but I haven’t heard anything that sounds likely to turn the trend around completely.  Perhaps it’s time to bring back this amazing brochure from 1980?  Perhaps it could use just a tiny bit of updating…

Labels:

Figuring out school funding

On October 6, Golden Apple is co-sponsoring a forum on school funding in Illinois.  In preparation, check out this incredibly easy to follow three-part series featuring forum speaker Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.  If you’ve ever wished you could get a good basic overview of the issues, this is your chance.  The segments are about 8 minutes each.  If you’re only going to watch one, try Part II:

Part I
Part II
Part III

Labels:

Excellent teaching

Last year, Chicago’s troubled Sherman School was reopened, with a brand new staff and administration, as the Sherman School of Excellence under the auspices of the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL).

The Tribune recently celebrated the start of the school’s second year with a look back on its first, focusing on 8th grade teacher Montie Apostolos.  Check out the Trib’s nifty multi-media coverage, including all three of the feature articles on Sherman as well as video interviews with Montie and three of her students, a photo album, and an interactive class portrait.  (More info on Sherman and links to WBEZ’s radio coverage here).

I’m thrilled when I see good teaching featured for multiple days on the front page of a major daily paper.  I am amazed at the work Montie Apostolos does in incredibly difficult circumstances.  (Golden Apple’s CEO Dom Belmonte pays tribute in his letter to the editor).

I hope I do nothing to diminish my admiration of her work by mentioning my fear that this type of coverage of good teaching--if it’s the only type of coverage available--can distort the public’s picture of teachers.  If excellent teachers only appear in popular media as extraordinary, larger-than-life figures, then what about all the ordinary excellent teachers?  I worry that far too many people see teaching as a profession populated by a tiny number of miracle workers and a huge number of hacks, when in fact teaching (like most professions) has a tiny number of hacks, a small number of miracle workers, and a huge number of really creative and hardworking professionals.

Labels:

The Straight Dope on Vocabulary

If you live in the Chicago area, and pick up the Reader each week, you’re probably familiar with The Straight Dope, a fascinating weekly Q and A column authored by the mysterious Cecil Adams ("the world’s smartest human being” according to the website).  This week’s question caught my eye:

A speaker at a recent school board meeting claimed the vocabulary of the average American grade school student was 25,000 words in 1945 and about 10,000 today. This is pretty disturbing if true. What do you think?

Cecil’s reply, in part:

I’ll tell you what I think: with nonsense like this spreading unchecked, we should be worried about our kids’ critical reasoning, not their vocabulary. A 20 percent decline, maybe, but 60? No chance.

Despite being plainly absurd, your factoid has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and even science journals, each typically citing other such appearances as backup.

Visit the column for the complete explanation, an interesting look into how a totally garbled mash-up of facts can turn into a completely false piece of conventional wisdom.

Labels:

Focusing on the long term

As the new year starts, many of you are working in schools that are embarking on radical changes.  Merit pay.  Restructured calendars or school days.  Completely new staff, mission, philosophy.

Golden Apple’s founder, Mike Koldyke, has played a major role in many of those transformations.  In this month’s Catalyst, Koldyke explores what it takes to produce real, lasting changes in schools. 

Here’s an example of misguided activity on my part. Not that many years ago, I had an idea to improve Englewood High School—one of the city’s worst—through a combination of curricular enhancement, such as athletics, music and so forth. I said to then-CEO Paul Vallas that if he found a good principal, I would raise the money for music, athletics and other after-school activities.

Well that was an incredibly well meaning, but naïve idea. We did add some surface things, but the principal was not up to it, other leadership was not strong, and there were far too few teachers who were really devoted to change.

I could show up at a football game, and parents would cheer. But nothing was happening at Englewood. Maybe just a better football team. The school remained a mess.

So beware of the do-gooder who hasn’t learned the hard lessons of what it takes to change an elementary school or a high school. It requires a major infusion of men and women who are trained and deeply committed to working with those kids over a five-, ten-year period to change the dynamic and the culture of that school.

As educators, we’ve all seen trends come and go.  (This 1993 article outlines a few. I particularly enjoyed the reference to laser discs and their super high-tech brand new competitors, CDs!) And I think we all know that what Koldyke says is true - real change takes time and commitment.

So, what is the stumbling block? Why are schools seemingly unable to implement reforms that will take ten years to really take effect?  A few things occur to me:
- It’s hard to measure school change over ten years.  In ten years, schools will have a completely different set of kids, and likely a lot of new staff members, even a new principal.  With all those moving parts, is it even possible to compare year ten with year one?
- It’s hard to ride out the wave of change when you’re working with kids. Sometimes changes make things worse before they get better, but what ethical teacher or principal would feel comfortable doing something a second time that seemed to decrease student performance? 
- We don’t know what we’re measuring or how best to measure it. Standardized test scores? Grades? Attendance? Happiness? If we’re not collecting the data we need, we can’t analyze it.
- As Koldyke points out, lots of “do-gooders” are in it for a quick buzz.  Without long term funding, even the best reform will sputter out.

Ten years from now, where will your school be?

Labels:

Next on my reading list

I confess that I haven’t read a whole book about education in a long time.  I’d be willing to bet that many of you haven’t either.  (When I make presentations on TEN to pre-service teachers, I always remind them that they’re probably our best source for books and articles on education, because they have to read them for class).

It looks like my next education book has been picked out for me, though.

Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade by former Washington Post reporter Linda Perlstein has been all over the education media this summer.

Perlstein spent a year in a Maryland school that has been touted for its success on standardized tests.  According to one reviewer,

[S]he opens a window into a school that has become over-the-top test obsessed. Along the way, she weaves in extensive discussions of federal education policy, pushing readers to the conclusion that the standards and accountability movement in general—and No Child Left Behind in particular—have gone badly awry.

I’m intrigued by reviews that paint the book as part of a new crop of books that explore education through the eyes of actual teachers, without idealizing and idolizing a single amazing teacher.  Perhaps this is one step toward real teacher voices having some sway in the public discourse on education? 

Anyone reading/read this?  Share your responses.

Reviews, some from mainstream journals and others from education bloggers:

Tales from the classroom updated for the testing era - Washington Post
Back to School: Could teachers become the new lawyers? - Slate.com
Review - Daily Kos
Testing: an examination of its effects on one school - Daily Kos
Tested - Joanne Jacobs
‘Tested’ examines difficult choices - USA Today
Nitwit author makes nitwit obervations - D-Ed Reckoning

Labels:

Read more in the archives»