What Happens in Great Schools

After 40+ years of reporting about education, I am absolutely convinced that, in the very best schools, the students are the workers and the work they are doing is meaningful. What they do–their product–depends upon their ages and stages, but the concept doesn’t change.

In these schools, teachers are conductors, directors, supervisors, guides or docents.

This observation flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which holds that teachers are workers whose job is to produce capable students. That gets further bastardized when ‘capable’ is defined by test scores until we end up thinking, “The work of teachers is to add value, which is measured by higher test scores.”

If you had been traveling with me the past few weeks, you would Turkeyhave seen three examples of outstanding education: My 3-year-old granddaughter’s pre-school, a 12th grade science class in a public high school in Philadelphia, and a journalism class at Palo Alto High School in California.

The 3-year-olds were working on a project designed to help with fine motor control and decision-making (with some American history mixed in, I imagine). My granddaughter and her classmates took the work seriously. {{1}} The product, a Thanksgiving turkey, has value (perhaps priceless to the parents who receive the fruits of the labor).

The Philadelphia 12th graders were also serious workers. Their assignment was to design age appropriate toys for babies and infants, toys that will amuse and stimulate brain development. Stage two of the task: come up with an advertising campaign to sell the toy they designed.

Philadelphia 1That’s a serious project, with a real product. Science teacher Tim Best designed it in broad strokes, with some clear goals, including learning a great deal about brain development. By 12th grade at this school, students are accustomed to working together on projects; they hold each other accountable, although Mr. Best is also monitoring their progress.

Tim Best and other teachers at Science Leadership Academy told me that projects are designed to teach both content and process.Philadelphia 2

Tim explained, “I learned by memorizing science words, but I don’t ask my students to memorize science words. I’d rather them experience the science and learn science by doing science, and, therefore, they’re learning science process in addition to science content. And science process, you could argue, is almost more important for the general person who is not going to be a scientist.”

He added, “‘Reading chapter two and answering the questions at the end of the chapter’ is not teaching either science or process.”

Palo Alto 1I think the journalism students at Palo Alto High School must be the luckiest kids in the world. Their brilliant teacher, Esther Wojcicki {{2}}, and her talented colleagues {{3}}, give them the opportunity to produce meaningful journalism in a number of formats: a newspaper, radio programs, a daily television program and five magazines.

This is real-world work: The print {{4}} publications are advertiser-supported, and none can come out until the students have the signed advertising contracts in hand. “This is not selling Palo Alto 2Girl Scout cookies,” she told me. “This is how the real world works.”

With opportunity comes responsibility. At Paly the journalism students hold each other accountable, the faculty is paying attention and–most powerful of all–their work is public. Among Esther’s former students is James Franco, the actor-painter-writer. Recalling her class, he wrote, “(T)he important pedagogical aspect of working on the paper, that I understood subconsciously then, Palo Alto 3and that I understand explicitly as a teacher now, is that my work was being seen by a public, and that that changed the work. I wasn’t writing for a school grade as much as I was writing for independent readers.” {{5}}

What’s essential in all project-based learning is the absence of a ‘right’ answer or ‘right’ product. It truly is a journey, one which may also teach the instructor a good deal. Tim Best told me that projects that have a predetermined answer are merely recipes, not a journey of discovery. Good journalism is by definition an inquiry: Journalists are supposed to ask questions they don’t know the answers to.

In ‘faux projects,’ the work quickly loses meaning, and most students do not retain what they were supposed to learn. They may absorb material and regurgitate it successfully on tests, but that’s not genuine learning.

Those students in Philadelphia and Palo Alto are engaged in what’s called ‘blended learning,’ a mix of technology and human teaching. The machines and the teachers are interdependent, truly blended. Think of a chocolate milkshake, as opposed to putting oil and water in the same container.

The popular phrase, “Learning by doing,” is an incomplete thought, a phrase lacking an essential object. Doing WHAT is critical. In the three good schools I just visited, kids don’t get free rein to do whatever they feel like doing. Adults design (or help design) the projects, and they monitor progress. Teachers help students formulate questions and give guidance when they go off track or get discouraged.

“Time on task” is another incomplete phrase. What’s the task? Is it meaningful or trivial? Are students memorizing the periodic table and the major rivers of the United States, or are they measuring air or water quality in their neighborhoods and sharing the data with students in other places in order to make sense of it? Many educators make the mistake of focusing on the amount of time students are spending on the assignment (believing that more is better, of course) but fail to think critically about the tasks they are assigning.

The best schools {{6}} are serious about the ‘what’ and the ‘task,’ because the adults in charge of those schools are not obsessed about control.

Unfortunately, too many schools focus on regurgitation of information, a process that is encouraged and rewarded by the testing regime and the public focus on scores on standardized tests. It takes courage to swim against the tide, to challenge the conventional wisdom.

We need to celebrate and encourage teachers like Tim Best and Esther Wojcicki and their like-minded colleagues.

And maybe our K-12 schools should emulate what happens in the best pre-schools.

—-

[[1]]1. If it hadn’t been Fathers/Grandfathers Day, she would have had time to add more feathers. I’m sure her Thanksgiving Turkey will be resplendent before she takes it home to her parents.[[1]]

[[2]]2. Full disclosure: Esther is a friend and the Chair of the Board of Learning Matters, my non-profit production company.[[2]]

[[3]]3. Paul Kandell, Paul Hoeprich, Brett Griffith, and Margo Wixom.[[3]]

[[4]]4. They are also on line, of course.[[4]]

[[5]]5. Taken from the foreword to her forthcoming book, “Moonshots in Education.”[[5]]

[[6]]6. Tom Vander Ark has published his list of 100 schools worth visiting. Palo Alto HS makes the list, along with a lot of ‘no excuses’ programs and some ‘blended learning’ and project-based programs.  It’s quite a mix, and ‘worth visiting’ seems to be a carefully-chosen phrase, stopping short of a full-throated endorsement. http://gettingsmart.com/2014/11/100-schools-worth-visiting [[6]]

Jesse James, Meet Baker Mitchell

Suppose Jesse James were to return to earth today. Would he pick up where he left off, robbing banks and trains, or would he find a better way to try to make money? Would he give up crime and go straight?

If I were a gambler, I’d bet that Jesse would abandon his native Missouri and move to North Carolina. There’s money to be made there–legally–and not just in tobacco, textiles and hogs.

Jesse James, meet Baker Mitchell.

Of course you’ve heard of the notorious criminal Jesse James {{1}}, but you may not be familiar with Baker Mitchell. He’s a businessman who has figured out a completely legal way to extract millions of dollars from North Carolina in payment for his public {{2}} charter schools.

I read on the internet that Mr. Mitchell is the salt of the earth, a successful entrepreneur from Texas who decided to devote his retirement years to improving the lives of disadvantaged children, when he might have chosen to go fishing and play golf. He’s a “Liberty Leader” who uses “his energy and charitable dollars to change education for the better — to drive education paradigms back to more traditional, classical methods with their proven records of accomplishment and success.” All that must be true because I read it on the internet. {{3}}

So Mr. Mitchell, now 74, moved from Texas to North Carolina and opened some charter schools to help children. He now has four and has been talking about opening more.

And why wouldn’t he? Even though none of his publicly-funded schools is set up to run ‘for profit,’ about $19,000,000 of the $55,000,000 he has received in public funds has gone to his own for-profit businesses, which manage many aspects of the schools. That information, and more, can be found in Marian Wang’s brilliant reporting for Pro Publica.

Here’s a short excerpt:

Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell’s chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.

The schools buy or lease nearly everything from companies owned by Mitchell. Their desks. Their computers. The training they provide to teachers. Most of the land and buildings. Unlike with traditional school districts, at Mitchell’s charter schools there’s no competitive bidding. No evidence of haggling over rent or contracts.

The schools have all hired the same for-profit management company to run their day-to-day operations. The company, Roger Bacon Academy, is owned by Mitchell. It functions as the schools’ administrative arm, taking the lead in hiring and firing school staff. It handles most of the bookkeeping. The treasurer of the nonprofit that controls the four schools is also the chief financial officer of Mitchell’s management company. The two organizations even share a bank account.

Pro Publica reports that Roger Bacon Academy rents land, buildings and equipment from Coastal Habitat Conservancy LLC, which Mr. Mitchell also owns. Until last year, he also sat on the charter school Board of Trustees.

Mr. Mitchell seems to have experienced a learning curve. At first he billed his own charter schools for only two line items: ‘Building and equipment rental’ and ‘Management fees,’ for a total of just $2,600,878 in FY2008 and $2,325,881 in FY2009.

But apparently he was learning how the system works. In FY 2010 he added an innocuous sounding line item, “Allocated costs,” for which he billed $739,893, cracking the $3,000,000 barrier.

In FY2011 he added more line items:

Staff development & supervision: $549,626
Back office & support: $169,357
Building rent-classrooms: $965,740
Building rent-administration offices: $82,740, and
Miscellaneous equipment rent: $317,898.

The grand total for FY2011 was $3,712,946.

Jesse James was shot by a member of his own gang; if he were alive today, he might be dying from envy.

Mr. Mitchell broke the $4,000,000 barrier in FY2012, when the same line items totaled $4,137,382.

According to the audited financial statements for FY2013, Mr. Mitchell’s companies received $6,313,924, as follows:

16% management fee: $2,047,873
Administrative support: $2,796,943
Building and equipment rental: $1,474,108

Dig into the audited statements (here and here) and you get some idea of where the $6,313,924 did not go. For example, the schools spent only $16,319 on staff development {{4}}, which works out to less than three-tenths of one percent. They report spending just $28,060 on computers and technology, which is also about three-tenths of one percent.

Are you curious to know where the money comes from? In FY2013 Mr. Mitchell’s schools collected nearly $9,000,000 from North Carolina and the federal government. Local school districts paid Mr. Mitchell’s schools anywhere from $4095 to $1,712,328, depending upon the number of students from that district.

Don’t forget charitable contributions. Mr. Mitchell’s schools report receiving a whopping $93 in donations.

Of course the entire $15,000,000 that has gone to Mr. Mitchell’s companies has not been profit; surely there were legitimate expenses, such as building maintenance, insurance, utilities and so forth. That’s a logical leap, but we have to infer because he does not have to disclose spending. These are public dollars (all but that whopping $93 donation), but the public has no right to know how its money is being spent because the charter schools aren’t actually spending the money; his for-profit businesses are. Non-disclosure is fine with him, as Pro Publica reported.

Mitchell has also expressed frustration with a state law passed this summer that requires charter schools to comply with public records laws. Still, the new law does not apply to charter management companies such as Mitchell’s. (emphasis added) The board of Mitchell’s charter schools has repeatedly tangled with local news outlets that have made public records requests seeking salaries and other financial details from the schools. Last month the StarNews of Wilmington filed a lawsuit against the schools’ nonprofit board, alleging that it has violated the state public records law. (The board chair for Charter Day School, Inc., John Ferrante, did not respond to requests for comment.)

Mitchell himself has taken a hard line against disclosures of financial information concerning his for-profit companies. For private corporations, he wrote on his blog in July, “the need for transparency is superfluous” and is simply a mechanism for the media to “intrude and spin their agenda.

(At this point please go back and reread footnote #3, perhaps the key takeaway from this piece.)

How the great state of North Carolina, once known for its pro-child education policies under the leadership of former Governor James B. Hunt, Jr, became a playground for canny profit-seekers {{5}} is carefully explained in sharp detail by Ted Fiske, the former education editor for the New York Times, and Duke Professor Helen Ladd. Read their piece, and you will understand that I am telling the truth when I say that, while Jesse James was an out-and-out criminal, Mr. Mitchell is operating within the law.

I’m guessing that Jesse James, wherever he now resides, is wishing he could return to earth, renounce his criminal ways, move to North Carolina, and open some charter schools {{6}}.

—-
[[1]]1. “Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, gang leader,bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death.” This is taken from his Wikipedia entry.[[1]]
[[2]]2. Charter watchers often write about the difference between for-profit charter schools and non-profit charter schools. I am wondering whether this may be a distinction without a difference.[[2]]
[[3]]3. You can find more lavish praise for Mr. Mitchell on the same website, the John William Pope Foundation. [[3]]
[[4]]4. He does keep an eye on his teachers, Marian Wang reports: “Mitchell’s company has managed the schools’ staffs with similar rigor. A strong sense of hierarchy took root as the schools expanded. When a new corporate office was built to house the management company, teachers jokingly began calling it the “White House.” From the “White House,” Mitchell and other top administrators could watch teachers in their classrooms via surveillance cameras installed in every classroom, in every school. During a tour of school grounds with this reporter, Mitchell and the school’s IT director discussed surveillance software called iSpy. “We need to call it something else,” Mitchell offered with a chuckle. “Call it iHelp or something.” Mitchell said the cameras give administrators the ability to observe teachers in action and offer them tips and coaching.”[[4]]
[[5]]5. They can be found in other states, of course. Some citizens in Buffalo, New York, are concerned that Carl Paladino, an elected member of the school board there, has a conflict of interest because of his investments in four charter schools. [[5]]
[[6]]6. Remember that scene in ‘The Graduate’ where an older adult male gives young Dustin Hoffman career advice? “Plastics,” he tells Hoffman, that’s where the money is. If that movie were remade today, the adult would be whispering, “Charter schools.”[[6]]

Why We Have Schools

What do schools produce? And who are the workers in schools? The familiar answers to those old questions are 1) “Teachers are the workers,” and 2) “Their job is to turn out capable graduates.”

Both answers are wrong for the 21st Century. In 21st Century schools, students must be the workers, and their work product must be knowledge. Teachers play a vital role, of course, but as docents/conductors/managers/coaches/guides….and learners.

In 21st Century schools, students do work that matters to them and engages them in the moment. They are not assigned tasks that ‘will help them later in life’ or that supposedly ‘will be important when they are in college.’ No hollow assurances or deferred gratification, but genuinely valuable work instead.

In the course of doing work that matters, they also acquire skills they will need to navigate life successfully, such as writing and speaking clearly and persuasively, manipulating numbers, formulating questions, and working with others.{{1}}

Most of our schools haven’t gotten the memo, unfortunately. They practice ‘regurgitation education’ where students memorize the state capitals, the elements, the great rivers of the world and how Congress enacts legislation. {{2}}

Choosing the work in a 21st Century school is a collaborative process led by adults. In other words, kids don’t get to do whatever they feel like doing (or not doing). The work has to be directed toward serious learning goals, and it has to be challenging. {{3}}

One day last week I watched a (public) high school science teacher work with 12th graders setting up a project in their “Science and Society” class: Teams would design toys for an infant or toddler that would facilitate brain growth and stimulation. Each team could choose the age they were designing for, but their work would have to be based on neuroscience. Once they designed the toy, their next job would be to create an advertising campaign for their product.

Smiles all around from the workers, even though this would not be a walk in the park.

Over the next few weeks they will produce designs and plans for new toys….and in the process they will sharpen and grow a valuable skill set that will help make them successful adults.

What’s particularly interesting is that the project does not have a ‘right’ answer. In creating the assignment, the teacher didn’t have a ‘recipe’ in mind or a specific outcome for the project, although the learning goals were clear.{{4}} But he’s on the journey with his students, trusting them to take responsibility for their learning, even as he monitors their progress and helps whenever necessary.

Are we as a nation moving to create schools like that one? Sadly, no. We aren’t ‘rethinking’ schools. Instead we are ‘reforming’ them to improve test scores, close achievement gaps, lower the dropout rate and beat Finland.

I think that’s the wrong direction, but change is in the air.

The backlash against excessive testing, which seems to be growing stronger, now threatens to sweep away the Common Core State Standards and the Smarter Balanced and PAARC tests that have been designed for it.

The establishment is fighting back. This from the President last Wednesday:

I have directed Education Secretary Arne Duncan to support states and school districts in the effort to improve assessment of student learning so that parents and teachers have the information they need, that classroom time is used wisely, and assessments are one part of fair evaluation of teachers and accountability for schools. {{5}}

Two pillars of the establishment, the Chief State School Officers and the Council of the Great City Schools issued a joint statement of concern that acknowledged that some students are taking too many tests and that something had to be done about it.

That general view was soon echoed by the Center for American Progress, Chiefs for Change, and others.

Secretary Duncan soon issued his own statement:

Educators, parents, and policy makers need to know how much students are learning; that’s why thoughtful assessment of student learning and student growth, including annual assessments, is a vital part of progress in education. Assessments must be of high quality, and must make good use of educators’ and students’ time. Yet in some places, tests – and preparation for them – are dominating the calendar and culture of schools and causing undue stress for students and educators. I welcome the action announced today by state and district leaders, which will bring new energy and focus to improving assessment of student learning. My Department will support that effort.

The gist of these “Yes but” messages seems to be “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Which some translate as “We need testing to determine how our teachers are performing.”

Secretary Duncan followed with his own op-ed in the Washington Post, which begins by suggesting that test scores tell him how his children are doing: “As a parent, I want to know how my children are progressing in school each year. The more I know, the more I can help them build upon their strengths and interests and work on their weaknesses. The more I know, the better I can reinforce at home each night the hard work of their teachers during the school day.”

Just one paragraph later, he writes, “Parents have a right to know how much their children are learning; teachers, schools and districts need to know how students are progressing; and policymakers must know where students are excelling, improving and struggling.” The gist: scores are being used to help students do better.

As I read it, the Secretary’s op-ed skirts the issue on the table: the use of scores to punish {{6}} teachers. That policy, and the consequences for education of excessive amount of testing, are what many people are concerned about.

I think the establishment is either fighting the last war or, worse yet, deliberately refusing to confront the inherent contradiction of trying to build a better education system without including teachers in the design process.

President Obama’s statement focused on ‘the effort to improve assessment,’ which would seem to mean ‘better tests,’ but what protesters want, right now, are fewer tests and backing away from what’s called ‘test-based accountability.’ {{7}}

And the protesters also want a serious conversation about the purposes of schooling.

Not talk about ‘school reform’ but a serious effort at ‘rethinking’ schooling’s purpose.

The Secretary’s and the President’s comments notwithstanding, this is not Washington’s issue. All it can do at this point is back off, because it’s too late in the President’s second term for this Administration to take leadership. However, small states (Delaware or Vermont, for example) or somewhat larger ones (Colorado, Tennessee, Washington or Oregon, perhaps) could decide to own this issue. Wouldn’t that be interesting (and refreshing)?

The first question for any statewide conversation is “What do we want our children to become and be able to do when they are adults?”

Then comes the hard but important work of creating more {{8}} schools that will help them get there.

—-

[[1]]1. 21st-century skills include “interpersonal” skills (complex communication, social skills, teamwork, cultural sensitivity, dealing with diversity); “personal” skills (self-management, time management, self-development, self-regulation, adaptability, executive functioning); and the “cognitive” skills of non-routine problem solving, critical thinking, systems thinking.[[1]]

[[2]]2. For an eye-opening look at what high school is really like, please read Grant Wiggins’ blog post, written by a veteran teacher who shadowed a student for one day:  Then read this to discover the identity of the author. As of this writing, about 650,000 people have read the article, so read and share please.[[2]]

[[3]]3. But not ‘rigorous’ please, because that word ought to be anathema to anyone who’s serious about learning.[[3]]

[[4]]4. Specific scientific knowledge, testing hypotheses, using the internet to search for information, collaboration, et cetera.[[4]]

[[5]]5. Notice that the word ‘test’ does not appear anywhere in his statement.  That’s becoming a toxic word because of its association with bubble-testing. Apparently ‘assessment’ remains safe to use because it connotes sophisticated, even individualized ways of measuring learning.  Chiefs for Change also avoid ‘test’ and ‘tests’ in their statement, opting for ‘assessment.’ [[5]]

[[6]]6. You may find that word judgemental, but I would argue that it is accurate. Scores aren’t being used to reward teachers, just to ‘evaluate’ them.  Keep in mind that most everywhere else tests are used to diagnose student progress, not teacher performance.  That is what they were designed for. [[6]]

[[7]]7. That’s not all they want. Here’s a report from a publication on the left: http://truth-out.org/news/item/26851-the-movement-for-public-education-at-a-crossroads [[7]]

[[8]]8. ‘More’ is the operative word, because these schools exist.[[8]]

How Much Do We Test?

Day of the Dead
San Francisco's Day of the Dead procession - photo sent by Ellen Schneider, her comment on what is happening in public education

The results of our survey are beginning to come in. In hopes of encouraging more superintendents and school boards to provide data, I offer this early report, with the caveat that it is based on information from a handful of the nation’s 14,000 school districts.

The average number of mandated, machine-scored standardized tests administered in a district in a year: 22.

Of those, all but one are reported to be mandated by the state, not the district. (While there are no federally mandated tests in public education, the federal No Child Left Behind Act does require that students in grades 3-8 be tested in reading and math. {{1}})

Eleanor Chute of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cautions that some mandated standardized tests, such as DIBELS, are not machine-scored, which means the reported number may be higher. In September Ms. Chute reported on the steps that the Pittsburgh School Board was taking to reduce ‘excessive’ testing. Those eye-opening numbers deserve your attention:

The biggest reductions are planned in grades 3, 4 and 5 where the number of periods spent in testing are to decline from 85.5 periods to 41.5 periods. After school board member Sherry Hazuda was told one period equals 45 minutes, she said, “No wonder people are complaining when you see it like that.”
“This has a great impact on the amount of time our children have to learn,” said board member Carolyn Krug, who said it will reduce stress as well.
In kindergarten, the number of periods spent testing is to be cut from 13 to 11. In grade 2, the reduction is from 45 periods to 26. {{2}}

Districts report that the average lag time between when students take a test and when the results become available is nearly two months.

This confirms the conventional wisdom. However, the situation may be worse than it appears because so-called “end of year” tests are often given well before the school year actually ends. If those tests are administered in mid-May {{3}} and school ends in late June, then the results–which arrive during the summer when teachers are off–don’t come into play for four months, and only after the kids have moved to new classrooms and new teachers. Here’s where the journalist’s question, “Who benefits?”, is worth asking.

We asked how many mandated tests a student would take if he or she went through the system from kindergarten to graduation. The average: just over 37 tests in 13 years…

Is that a lot? Kids generally aren’t subject to mandated, machine-scored standardized tests in kindergarten, first or second grade. The pattern I am most familiar with is testing in grades 3-8, grade 10 and grade 12, and only in English Language Arts and Math.

Districts report that, on average, testing occurs in about 40 of the 180-day school calendar.

If you’re a percentage person, that means that on 22% of the school days, some children somewhere in the district are taking one of these tests {{4}}. It does not mean that schools come to a standstill on those 40 days.

How about ‘test prep’ time? Here I fear that the numbers reported so far may not be reliable. One district said its teachers spend ZERO hours preparing kids for tests, while another reported its teachers spend 100 hours.

So far no school district has reported disciplining, firing or giving bonuses to teachers based on student test scores.

Many states now require using student performance as a piece of teacher evaluation. How much scores should count is what is being debated. Judging teachers by test scores is only going to increase down the road, because the Administration’s “Race to the Top” program requires it.

No district reports that cheating by students or adults has been a problem.

We need more hard data.

*

HERE’S THE SURVEY FORM. PLEASE ASK THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR TESTING IN YOUR DISTRICT TO FILL IT OUT AND RETURN IT TO ME.

MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS JMERROW@LEARNINGMATTERS.TV

Number of Students in District _______
Name of District ______ (this will be masked in survey results)

Students in our district will take ____ standardized, machine-scored tests during the course of the year. (We are seeking the number of different tests given. So, if a particular test is administered to three grade levels, that counts as three tests, not one.)
Of these tests, ___ were selected by the district, and ____ are required by the state.
A student who attends our district from Kindergarten through graduation will take ____ standardized tests during his or her time in school.
There are ____ days on our 180-day calendar when a standardized test is NOT being administered.
Some test results determine a child’s promotion, while others are used to evaluate schools and teachers. Is this the right approach? How useful is this information? Should we test only a carefully drawn sample of students when we want to evaluate schools, instead of testing every student?
Right now we test all students in only ____ subjects. However, if we are going to evaluate all teachers according to their students’ scores, we will need to test in more subjects, including art, science, social studies and music.
There is a ____ month lag time between the administration of a test and the delivery of the results.
Our school district spends $_____ per year to buy and score standardized tests. (These out-of-pocket costs do not include the labor costs.) This amounts to less than _____ % of our annual school budget.
We devote _____ hours per year to testing, out of approximately 900-1000 hours of actual class time during the 180-day school year.
In addition, many teachers devote an estimated ____ hours to what is known as ‘test prep.’ The numbers vary from teacher to teacher and school to school and are difficult to pinpoint.
Last year we removed ___ teachers because their students’ scores did not go up sufficiently.
Last year we distributed $$ _____ in cash awards to teachers whose students’ scores went up well beyond the expected level.
Last year we investigated ___ incidents of alleged cheating on standardized tests, ___ by students and ___ by teachers and other administrators.

—-

[[1]]1. Thanks to Diane Ravitch for calling my attention to my initial inelegant phrasing.  The Feds don’t say which tests to use, but they do require testing.[[1]]

[[2]]2. Her story on the extent of testing in Pittsburgh received (well-deserved) national attention.  http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2014/09/09/Pittsburgh-schools-to-make-big-cuts-in-testing/stories/201409090234 [[2]]

[[3]]3. For example, Pennsylvania’s “Keystone” exam, the PSSA (for Pennsylvania State System of Assessment) is given in mid-May.  Pittsburgh is moving up the opening of school to try to get more of the curriculum covered before the kids are tested on it—what a concept–which means that the lives of children and families are being reordered to accommodate the machine.  Why not move the test date to later in the school year?  Because then there wouldn’t be enough time for the machines to process the answer sheets!  [[3]]

[[4]]4. Please bear in mind that the data presented here does not include teacher-made tests (which are generally recognized to be the most effective way of measuring student knowledge). [[4]]

Angry About Drag Racing, Town Bans Jaywalking

Bizarro, Nevada, October 1–In a powerful response to hordes of young adults using Main Street for drag races “day and night,” an angry City Council voted to impose $250 fines and 30-day jail terms for jaywalking. “These damn hot rodders are endangering our citizens, and the only way to stop them is to keep our citizens out of the streets.”

Well, OK, that didn’t happen. There is no town of Bizarro, Nevada, and I hope no one would pass laws to punish the victims…but that’s what came to mind when I read a Wall Street Journal report about schools’ beefing up test security, headlined Schools’ Test: Beat the Cheat.

The gist of the article: Because no school district wants to be “the next Atlanta,” where intense pressures from leadership led to massive cheating by some principals and teachers, they are investing heavily in security measures to keep students and teachers from cheating. But the Journal article says nothing about addressing the cause of widespread cheating, the pressure from leadership to produce high test scores. It might have at least raised the question of whether districts were treating symptoms, not causes.

Here’s an analogy: Imagine you are sitting on a bed of nails and screaming in pain–and, to cure the problem, someone gives you strong pain pills and then stuffs a gag in your mouth to stop you from screaming. Problem solved, right?

The reporting is flawed in another important way. The Journal cites as the leading authority on cheating prevention the founder of Caveon Security, John Fremer. Clearly no one did a simple background check. If they had, they would have learned that Caveon’s track record includes some significant failures, starting with Atlanta. That’s right: Caveon was hired by the Atlanta School Board to investigate allegations of cheating…and its investigators found nothing wrong!

“Caveon couldn’t find its ass with either hand,” said one of the two lawyers who led the subsequent investigation demanded by Georgia’s governor; that’s the one that found the cheating, identified the alleged cheaters, and produced the indictments. (The trial began on September 29th.)

Caveon had been hired by the (so-called) “Blue Ribbon Committee” established to look into allegations of cheating in Atlanta. Caveon looked–and reported finding nothing wrong in what turned out to be the epicenter of cheating by adults on standardized tests. Dr. Fremer told me that while he ‘knew’ there was widespread cheating going on, that was not mentioned in his final report. “We did not try to find out who was cheating,” he said. “Our purpose was to rank order the schools beginning with those with the most obvious problems (of unbelievably dramatic score increases), in order to make the task of investigating more manageable.” In other words, Caveon produced a list!

Dr. Fremer admitted that he knew some Atlanta teachers were lying to him, but he said his hands were tied because he didn’t have subpoena power.

Georgia’s investigators are contemptuous of Caveon’s efforts, labelling it a ‘so-called investigation.’ Richard Hyde, one of the three leaders of the investigation, told me that “either by coincidence or design, it was certain to fail.” Mr. Hyde denied that Caveon needed subpoena power because its investigators were representing a governmental agency, and under Georgia law it is a felony to lie to someone representing the government. What’s more, Mr. Hyde said, Caveon had a fundamental conflict of interest–it was investigating its employer, at least indirectly, because the “Blue Ribbon Commission” (which Mr. Hyde dismisses as “The Whitewash Commission”) included a deputy superintendent of schools.

Robert Wilson, another leader of the Georgia investigation, is even blunter. Of course Caveon didn’t find cheating because “Caveon couldn’t find its own ass with either hand,” he scoffed. Why anyone would hire Caveon was, he said, beyond him–unless they didn’t want to find out anything.

Dr. Fremer seemed hurt and offended by the criticism. “We try to be non-emotional,” he said, acknowledging that “People who listen only to the law enforcement side do not respect us.”

Caveon also conducted two deeply flawed ‘investigations’ into allegations of cheating in Washington, DC, again finding nothing of consequence.

For the full story:

Penetrating the Smokescreen
Michelle Rhee and the Washington Post
Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error

Having failed to tells its readers of Caveon’s track record of failure in Atlanta and Washington, DC, the Journal then reports–without irony–that security providers like Caveon are enjoying a huge upsurge in business. Mr. Fremer says that Caveon’s revenue has grown by 40% every year for the past three years.

Failure pays! There’s a lesson for Wall Street Journal readers.

In another interesting omission, the Journal reporters do not cite Washington as a place where cheaters prospered. Houston and Philadelphia get mentioned but not our nation’s capital, where then-Chancellor Michelle Rhee handed out large bonuses to principals whose schools had made ‘unbelievable’ gains on the city’s standardized test….and where student answer sheets were discovered to have an inordinately high rate of ‘wrong to right’ erasures.

Buried deep in the WSJ article is one person’s expression of concern that schools are overcompensating, spending money on testing security that ought to be spent on art, music, teaching and learning. But that person is Randi Weingarten, familiar to WSJ readers as the strident president of a teachers union.

For a newspaper that focuses on financial matters, the article is notably short of numbers. We don’t learn how much money any district is spending on enhanced security. That dollar figure would be useful to have, because it could then be translated into terms we can understand: number of assistant teacher positions, number of counselor slots, and so forth.

Even deeper in the article is one parent’s complaint that her child’s school now resembles a prison.

There’s stuff going on in the testing arena that might also have been part of the Journal’s coverage. (Perhaps it will come up in future pieces.) I’m referring to growing evidence of a ‘great awakening’ about the impact of test-based school reform.

Consider Massachusetts, for example:

The new chair of the state Board of Education raised concerns about the focus on standardized test preparation in Massachusetts schools, as board members on Tuesday discussed whether some districts give too many practice tests to prepare students for the MCAS.

Board chairwoman Margaret McKenna said some schools test students 20 to 25 days per school year, including practice and pre-tests. Board members said some school officials are blaming the state for the test prep focus.

“What I keep hearing is the districts keep saying it’s the state; the state keeps saying it’s the districts,” said McKenna, who was appointed to the board by Gov. Deval Patrick in August.
McKenna said the intention of the test seems to have gotten lost.

“I think it’s time for the state to say, ‘Wait a minute here, that is not the intention.’ We’ve got to figure out a way to make sure people are not teaching to the test,” said McKenna, who spent 22 years as president of Lesley University in Cambridge.

And in Florida:

The Lee School Board struck down the district’s proposed testing calendar at its Tuesday night meeting, effectively eliminating 68 tests from grades kindergarten through fifth grade and putting assessment decisions back in teachers’ hands.

The motion passed 3-1 with Cathleen Morgan in opposition and Chairman Tom Scott absent due to illness after school board members deliberated the necessity of district-mandated tests.  ….

(Board member Mary) Fischer said the amount of testing in recent years have been a form of “child abuse.”

“We’re supposed to have a learning environment for kids that is safe, and makes them ready to learn,” Fischer said. “So when they’re coming in afraid of the testing, and you tell them they’re failing and parents are stressed out, it negatively impacts children in a psychological way.”

Two well-placed political types recently told me that legislators in their states (one eastern, one western) were hearing one message from constituents: ‘Too much testing.’

The left is salivating about what it sees as–and hopes is–a growing revolt against ‘excessive’ testing. FairTest publishes a weekly scorecard, an example of which you can find here. Regular updates are at fairtest.org.

The proper adjective for the right might be “concerned.” Some stalwarts have published a Guiding Principles statement headlined “An Open Letter On School Accountability To State Superintendents of Education and Governors.” While you may be interested to see who has signed it, and who has not, please don’t let that keep you from reading what they have to say about the dangers of overreacting to the pressure to dial back on accountability.

But the canary in the mine–real evidence that test-based accountability may be counter-productive–is this year’s Broad Prize for Excellence in Urban Education. Every year I can remember there have been four or five finalists, but this year only two of the 75 eligible districts were deemed to be doing well enough to be considered for the Prize. The judges use a ‘green, yellow, red’ grading system in a bunch of categories; one judge told me that, of the 20 semi-finalists, most scored ‘yellow’ or ‘red’ in most categories. It was, he said, a cause for concern.

Ben Weider of the blog 538 does a wonderful job of deconstructing the issue here, in a piece entitled “The Most Important Award in Public Education Struggles to Find Winners.” The headline may suffer from hyperbole, but the article is well-reasoned and sourced.

The key point: the NAEP scores of most of the Broad Prize winners have been flat for years. These are the districts that have been living and dying by test scores, and it’s not working.

Mixing clichés, the canary in the mine {{1}} is also the elephant in the room. It is an issue we cannot afford to ignore, because, if things are so bad that only two of 75 urban districts are making significant progress, then we shouldn’t be doubling down on that approach to schooling. Rather, those who are concerned about urban education should examine general practices in urban districts. I’d suggest starting by questioning the frequency of bubble testing, their purposes and the use of their results {{2}}.

Public school districts shouldn’t be spending time, energy and money on strategies to prevent cheating. Those resources ought to be devoted to creating a more challenging curriculum that gives students more control over their own learning and engages them in the deeper learning of project-based classes. Technology, when ‘blended’ with (and by) skilled teachers, allows students to dig deeper and soar higher, and that’s what our young people need to experience when they go to school. More ‘rigorous’ training in regurgitating information (and passing tests) is a flawed strategy, and all the expensive security measures in the world will not obscure that truth.

—-

[[1]]1. Speaking of a canary in the mine, I was struck by Geoff Canada’s comments at the Broad Foundation Award event on Monday.  Mr. Canada, the creator of the Harlem Children’s Zone, is well-known for his anti-union stance, his role in “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” and his alliance with Michelle Rhee, but on Monday he went way ‘off message’ to criticize excessive testing. We often test without purpose, he said, giving tests in March or April but not getting results until late August.  If I heard him correctly, he was saying that we test too much and trust teachers too little.  Mr. Canada was responding to my tweeted question, but I wasn’t the moderator and so could not push him on what he was saying. But if an educator with the following and stature of Geoff Canada is questioning testing, something is happening.[[1]]

[[2]]2. The US uses test scores to evaluate, rate, punish and (sometimes) reward teachers. Most advanced countries use testing and assessment to assess students![[2]]

Looking Back (Part 6)

The news that ‘only’ 14,700,000 American children are now living in poverty {{1}} prompted this look back at my reporting for NPR about the emotional development of children, an important but often unrecognized aspect of life for some children growing up in poverty.  Food, healthcare, shelter and education matter, but love and affection are vital if a child is to have a decent chance of becoming a functioning adult {{2}}.

Here, briefly, are the stories of Lisa, Roy and Mary, three young people who, for a host of reasons, were growing up without the emotional supports they needed.

Merrow: “OK, let me give you a spelling test. How do you spell ‘cereal’?
Lisa: S-E-I-A-L-A.

She told me that she had lived in ‘13 or 16’ foster homes.  Lisa was 9 years old when, at the end of a long conversation, I gave her an impromptu spelling test..

Merrow: How do you spell ‘sugar’?
Lisa: Sugar. S-H-U-G-E-R.

At the time, Lisa was living in a Texas mental institution for children.

Merrow: How do you spell ‘couch’?
Lisa: Ooo! Couch. C-  No.  K-A-O-W-C-H.
Merrow: How do you spell ‘soda’?
Lisa: S-O-A-D.

Lisa was a charmer.  At one point she asked me what I was going to do with the recording.  When I told her it was for a radio program, she exclaimed, “Oh, yuk.” She  paused and then added, “Don’t put it on AM. Put it on FM.”

I took the bait. “Why,” I asked?

You can hear the laughter in her voice. “Because we usually don’t even listen to FM. We only listen to AM {{3}}.”

Her doctor said that Lisa had been abandoned at age two by her natural parents. They left her with some relatives, who in turn gave her to other friends, who then left her on someone’s doorstep; those people eventually brought her to the Department of Human Resources.

At the end of the conversation, Lisa asked me if I liked her. I said yes, of course.  Then she asked me if I really liked her…and pulled her dress up over her head, an incident I wrote about recently.

Sexual behavior like that was also part of her sad history, a ‘survival’ tactic she had apparently learned early.  Her doctor told me that she would go to school without any underwear and would do cartwheels in the playground.  She was, he said, looking for affection–albeit in the most inappropriate way.

***

Roy: I smoke, and I’m 18. Can’t read. Can’t read or write
Merrow: Not at all?
Roy: No, I can’t read or write at all.

At the time of this conversation, Roy was an involuntary patient at a Texas mental hospital for adolescents {{4}}.

Merrow: How about those words up there on the board? Can you read any of those?
Roy: No, Just too hard for me. Really, I can’t read those.
Merrow: There’s a word up there. Can you read that one?
Roy: B-E?
Merrow: Yeah, what does that say?
Roy: BE?
Merrow: That’s right. How about the word that comes before it, T-O?
Roy: T-O? To?  I think it’s ‘TO.’  Yeah. (laughs)

A few years earlier Roy had been arrested and jailed in Austin for a minor offense. In jail he attempted suicide.  Later, when the police found him living in a park (‘like an animal,’ his doctor said), he was confined to the mental hospital, where he had not caused any problems..

Merrow: How about the word that comes before that, H-O-W?
Roy: ‘TAH’?
Merrow: No, it’s an H
Roy: ‘WHO’?  I don’t know. I can’t really do it right. I ain’t much in reading.
Merrow: How about O-W? O-W is what you say when somebody punches you.
Roy: “OW” (laughs)
Merrow: So, now put the H in front of it. What have you got?
Roy: Um, ‘HOW’?  HOW!

Psychotropic drugs like Thorazine, Mellaril, Prolixin, Haldol and Moban (and sometimes electroshock {{5}}) were the normal treatments in Roy’s institution and in most public mental health facilities.  He was taking a daily dose 800 mg of Thorazine when I met him.

Merrow: Yes. You could read those three words in a row. Go ahead.
Roy: Uh, ‘How to be.’

Early in our conversation Roy yawned and asked me, ‘How long will you keep talking?’

Merrow: Ready to stop?
Roy: Yeah, I think I am.
Merrow: Okay, thanks a lot.
Roy: Okay.

He paused, and I waited. After a short time, he began again; the words spilled out.

Roy: I mean, I didn’t tell you the whole story. Um, when I was nine years old, my step-dad and my mom met each other and, well, they used to knock me around all the time, my step-dad did.

When Roy was 14, he finally felt big and strong enough to turn on his abusive stepfather. He defended himself with a baseball bat…and he ended up in a juvenile institution, based, he said, on the testimony of his stepfather.

***

Sometimes I feel so down at heart
I feel like I might fall apart
But then these words come back to me,
‘Just take your time, and you’ll be free.’

19-year-old Mary wrote that song, which she sang for my tape recorder.  Like Roy, she was confined to a Texas state mental hospital, but this was her third confinement.  She talked about wanting to escape and hitchhike home to Houston, even though her previous hitchhiking trips had ended badly, one in a multiple rape.  (It was that story that got my program banished from the airwaves in Texas.)

She told me that she had not told her doctors about being raped, but he was aware of her sexual activity. “I know that she has had some–she’s quite flirtatious with some of the guys back on the ward. I don’t have any personal knowledge of her having had sexual activity with anybody around here, while she’s here. But it might have happened,” the doctor said.

At one point Mary said someone–meaning me–needed to massage her ‘sore’ shoulder. Later she asked me to come closer to tell her if she had ‘sleep in her eyes.’  I declined both invitations.

Music mattered very much to Mary, who broke into song during our conversation, including this song she made up on the spot to end the interview.

This is the last song I’ll ever sing for you.
It’s the last time I’ll tell you
Just how much I really care.
This is the last song–
But I’ll sing more later on.
Right now it’s time for lunch
And I think I’m gonna be gone.

One was nine, one 18 and the other 19, but the conversations–not just the spelling tests–are eerily and sadly similar.  If you listen to them in their entirety, you will discover even more connections: their strong need to be heard, to feel a connection, to matter–and their shocking histories of mistreatment by those closest to them.  Sexual and physical abuse is another tie that binds them.

Roy and Mary told me stories they said they had not told their doctors. My heart went out to all three, but especially to young Lisa, who seemed destined to travel the awful road that Mary was on.

The two NPR programs aired in 1978. To meet Lisa and her doctor, click this link.  To get to know Roy and Mary and their doctor, click here.

When we said goodbye, Roy assured me that he wasn’t going to attempt suicide again.

Roy: I think I can make it.
Merrow: Want to shake on that?
Roy (laughs): Yes
Merrow: Okay
Roy: I guess that’s all I can say now. Bye.

I met them 36 years ago. Today Lisa would be 45, Roy 54 and Mary 55. I hope they made it somehow.  At the time, we asked the hospitals to keep us informed, but that did not happen.

The doctors treating Lisa, Roy and Mary were not optimistic about their patients. Lisa’s doctor feared she would end up as a prostitute or in serial, abusive marriages. Roy’s best bet, his doctor said, was vocational remedial education and, perhaps, a job as a janitor or greenhouse worker.  Mary’s future was even darker because of her apparent addiction to street drugs.

I would not be allowed such access today, but I am virtually certain that, if I were, I would meet today’s versions of Lisa, Mary and Roy in every public mental health facility.

Our world has gotten better in many ways, but, when it comes to caring for children and the least fortunate among us, we have such a long way to go.  Some people seem to think that some combination of dedicated teachers, ‘no excuses’ schools and more tests will pull these children through.  Perhaps those folks should have been watching Ken Burns’s film, “The Roosevelts,” for a better understanding of what government can accomplish in times of crisis.

—-

[[1]]1. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/us/politics/census-report-poverty-income.html?_r=0 The poverty rate for children under 18 declined last year for the first time since 2000, the census bureau said, and the number of children in poverty fell by 1.4 million, to 14.7 million.[[1]]

[[2]]Children growing up in affluence or middle-class comfort are not exempt from emotional deprivation and neglect, of course. Poverty makes it tougher for well-meaning adults to care for their young, but certainly not impossible.[[2]]

[[3]]I think Lisa had somehow figured out that NPR was ONLY on FM. Maybe she couldn’t spell, but she was clever and smart.[[3]]

[[4]]4. Austin State Hospital was the first state facility of its kind built west of the Mississippi. In 1856, the governor of Texas signed a bill providing for the establishment of the Texas State Lunatic Asylum. Construction started in 1857, and the first patients were admitted in 1861. The facility was renamed the Austin State Hospital (ASH) in 1925.

Today, the original building serves as the administration building for a modern, innovative facility providing psychiatric care to a 38-county region in Central Texas. ASH admits over 4000 patients in a fiscal year, with about the same number of discharges, and has an average daily patient census of 292. The focus of recovery is stabilization for people with  acute psychiatric illness and support of their return to the community. ASH provides care through three large services – Adult Psychiatric Services, Specialty Adult Services, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services. … Child and adolescent programs offer services to children to the age of 12, an adolescent girls unit, and an adolescent boys unit.[[4]]

[[5]]5. Two percent of the cases, the director of that hospital told me.[[5]]

A Teacher Speaks Out

Dear Friends and other readers,

How do classroom teachers feel about standardized, machine-scored testing?   Below is a letter from a young classroom teacher whose identity I am not revealing.  This teacher, who has been teaching more than 6 years, fears retribution, apparently with good reason. The letter arrived last week.

Hi Mr. Merrow,

We’ve corresponded before.  I’ve been teaching in (WITHHELD) public schools for the past (WITHHELD) years.  I’m an ESL teacher but am also certified in Remedial Reading.  I want to tell you about administering of the (STATE NAME WITHHELD) test to 3-5 grade ESL students last April.  This event was the thing that broke the camel’s back for me when it came to deciding whether or not I could continue with a career in public school education.

As I’m still teaching in (WITHHELD), I chose to email you rather than respond on your blog. They told us they can monitor our social media use and ‘discipline’ us based on that, so…

For three solid weeks I had to administer a computer-based test that was not only too difficult for my students to navigate (computer issues, not having adequate keyboarding skills, English language deficits, etc.) but had specific lessons to be taught prior to the exam, lessons that were bizarre at best.  As any good teacher would tell you, you don’t teach a lesson and test on it immediately, yet the (WITHHELD) exam seems to think it’s perfectly fine.  Hmmm.  My third grade students were instructed to cite three sources in their answers, yet this is not a skill that they are taught in the third grade.  The layout/format of the test was such that most students simply answered the questions, and didn’t read the passages.

As teachers, we were instructed to give no help other than say, “Do your best.  I can’t help you in any way.  Do your best.”  We could touch the computer only to log on a student.  Some computers crashed up to 11 times each test session.

The most heartbreaking part, the one that tipped me over, was having to test a third grade student who had only been in the country a few weeks and was suffering trauma due to family issues. She had to be tested on the math part.  She spoke no English.  She was faced with a math test of mostly word problems. She looked at us pleading for help, but all we could say was, “Do your best…”

We used Google Translation to try to tell her that it was OK, she could just guess, just finish the job, etc. but she really didn’t understand.  This child had to take THREE Math sections.  She understood nothing.  When she finished each day (it sometimes took hours), I had to return her to her regular classroom with both of us in  tears. After I told her classroom teacher what had happened, the teacher would be in tears, too!

What did this measure?  What did this tell us about our teaching?  What did this do to help the student?  NOTHING. If she was reluctant to come to school before the test, now she was MORE reluctant.

All states give a ‘pass’ to ESL students who have been in the country less than a year, but ONLY on the English Language Arts part.  You could literally arrive in the country on Monday, and if the Math test is administered on Tuesday, you must take it.  But today’s math tests include “explain your answer.” Or they are word problems.  Or they test on math aspects that the student may not have been taught yet in his or her country.

The party line we get is “Math is universal…”  Rote calculations, yes, but word problems, and introduction of geometry and algebra concepts in third grade are not universal.

I love teaching my students, but I feel, as do many of my ESL colleagues, that our voices are irrelevant.  And when we complain that the tests are not measuring anything or that they test skills that have not been taught, we are told (or at least the message is implied) that we are ‘negative,’ ‘lazy,’ ‘old-school,’ et cetera.

Thanks for letting me vent.  I know that there are MANY ESL teachers who are feeling the same way.

Do you have any advice for this young professional?  Stick it out, or find a new line of work?

How many other teachers feel as this one does?  Can our system afford to drive away teachers like this (GENDER WITHHELD)?

Three weeks of testing, sometimes for three or more hours a day?  Have we lost our minds?

The current ‘moratorium’ is the ideal time for state-wide conversations about testing and assessment.  I hope many of you are asking your school boards and superintendents to fill out that form I provided last week.

For your convenience, here it is again:

Students in our district will take _____ standardized, machine-scored tests during the course of the year.  Is this an appropriate number?

Of these tests,  _____ were selected by the district, and  _____ are required by the state.

A student who attends our district from Kindergarten through graduation will take  _____ standardized tests during his or her time in school. Is this number too high, too low or about right?

There are only  _____ days on our 180-day calendar when a standardized test is NOT being administered. {{1}}

Some test results determine a child’s promotion, while others are used to evaluate schools and teachers. Is this the right approach?  How useful is this information?  Should we test only a carefully drawn sample {{2}} of students when we want to evaluate schools, instead of testing every student?

Right now we test all students in only  _____ subjects.  However, if we are going to evaluate all teachers according to their students’ scores, we will need to test in more subjects, including art, science, social studies and music.  Is this advisable?

There is a ____ month lag time between the administration of a test and the delivery of the results.  Is this acceptable?

Our school district spends $_____ per year to buy and score standardized tests. (These out-of-pocket costs do not include the labor costs.)  This amounts to less than _____ % of our annual school budget. {{3}}  Is this amount low, high or about right?

We devote  _____ hours per year to testing, out of approximately 900 hours of actual class time during the 180-day school year.  Is this amount excessive, too little, or about right?

In addition, many teachers devote another  ____ hours to what is known as ‘test prep.’ The numbers vary from teacher to teacher and school to school and are difficult to pinpoint, but nevertheless the issue merits public discussion.

Last year we fired  _____ teachers because their students’ scores did not go up sufficiently.

Last year we distributed $$ _____ in cash awards to teachers whose students’ scores went up well beyond the expected level.

Last year we investigated  _____ incidents of alleged cheating on standardized tests,  _____ by students and  _____ by teachers and other administrators.

—-

[[1]]1. Be prepared to be surprised by the answer here because Lee County is not alone. Christina Veiga of The Miami Herald reported a story headlined ‘In Miami-Dade the Testing Never Stops.”  She wrote, “Out of the 180-day academic year, Miami-Dade County schools will administer standardized tests on every day but eight.” http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/09/01/4322452/in-miami-dade-schools-testing.html#storylink=cpy[[1]]

[[2]]2. This is a perfectly plausible approach, as we reported on the PBS NewsHour recently, http://learningmatters.tv/blog/on-pbs-newshour/watch-testing-schools-instead-of-students/12470/[[2]]

[[3]]3. This number will probably NOT be high because most schools buy cheap tests. In Lee County, Florida, for example, the $5,258,493 it spends on testing is not even one-half of one percent of the district’s budget.[[3]]

So There’s A Moratorium. Now What?

Those seeking a moratorium on using high stakes tests to judge teachers seem to have gotten what they asked for. What happens now?

Remember that a “moratorium” is nothing more than ‘a suspension of activity.’  It does not imply any pro-active behavior or a re-examination of current policies. It’s merely a time of doing nothing.  Should we celebrate because Bill Gates, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Washington (DC) Superintendent Kaya Henderson, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have gotten what they wanted?  I don’t think so.

This very limited moratorium means that scores on the new Common Core standardized tests won’t be used to evaluate teachers in many places.  That’s what some might call a necessary but hardly sufficient action.

This moratorium doesn’t mean that a truce has been called between the warring sides in the battle over teacher job protection and evaluation. That war is ongoing, sadly.

And this moratorium doesn’t mean that school districts are now going to examine the role or amount of standardized bubble testing.

And there’s a lot of it {{1}}.  Take Lee County, Florida, recently in the news for flirting with the possibility of defying the state on its testing requirements. Believe it or not, that system will be administering a standardized test to some it its students every single day of the school year. Reporter Emily Atteberry of the News-Press wrote, “If the testing calendar is approved, there will be an exam administered every day of Lee’s 180-day school year.  A News-Press analysis of the district’s tentative testing calendar found that there are 175 tests administered over 95 testing windows throughout the year. Some of the testing windows are more than a month long. While there aren’t 175 different tests, many are administered multiple times throughout the year.”

For a close look at the staggering amount of testing there, here are the testing calendars for elementary, middle and high schools there.

On his blog, Secretary Duncan wrote, “Where tests are redundant, or not sufficiently helpful for instruction, they cost precious time that teachers and kids can’t afford. Too much testing can rob school buildings of joy, and cause unnecessary stress.”

The Secretary also questioned the number of tests schools give.  “And we also need to recognize that in many places, the sheer quantity of testing – and test prep – has become an issue. In some schools and districts, over time tests have simply been layered on top of one another, without a clear sense of strategy or direction.”

I suggest we take the Secretary at his word and request the following from our school superintendents.  For convenience, here’s a simple fill-in-the-blank format.

Students in our district will take _____ standardized, machine-scored tests during the course of the year.  Is this an appropriate number?

Of these tests,  _____ were selected by the district, and  _____ are required by the state.

A student who attends our district from Kindergarten through graduation will take  _____ standardized tests during his or her time in school. Is this number too high, too low or about right?

There are only  _____ days on our 180-day calendar when a standardized test is NOT being administered. {{2}}

Some test results determine a child’s promotion, while others are used to evaluate schools and teachers. Is this the right approach?  How useful is this information?  Should we test only a carefully drawn sample {{3}} of students when we want to evaluate schools, instead of testing every student?

Right now we test all students in only  _____ subjects.  However, if we are going to evaluate all teachers according to their students’ scores, we will need to test in more subjects, including art, science, social studies and music.  Is this advisable?

There is a —- month lag time between the administration of a test and the delivery of the results.  Is this acceptable?

Our school district spends $_____ per year to buy and score standardized tests. (These out-of-pocket costs do not include the labor costs.)  This amounts to less than _____ % of our annual school budget. {{4}}  Is this amount low, high or about right?

We devote  _____ hours per year to testing, out of approximately 900 hours of actual class time during the 180-day school year.  Is this amount excessive, too little, or about right?

In addition, many teachers devote another  ____ hours to what is known as ‘test prep.’ The numbers vary from teacher to teacher and school to school and are difficult to pinpoint, but nevertheless the issue merits public discussion.

Last year we fired  _____ teachers because their students’ scores did not go up sufficiently.

Last year we distributed $$ _____ in cash awards to teachers whose students’ scores went up well beyond the expected level.

Last year we investigated  _____ incidents of alleged cheating on standardized tests,  _____ by students and  _____ by teachers and other administrators.

I hope you will join me in a spirited public discussion {{5}} about testing.

A few superintendents are speaking out about excessive testing. Unfortunately, their powerful messages are strong on emotion but woefully short of factual information. For example, Mark Cross of Peru (Illinois) Elementary District 24 sent this letter to parents.

Miami-Dade School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho recently published an op-ed in the Miami Herald that is also short on specifics.

His op-ed followed some careful reporting on testing by the Miami Herald.

Rhode Island plans a 1-year review of testing, but the call to action {{6}} is also devoid of data.

Study groups are one thing; action is another. Kudos to the Pittsburgh School Board for voting to reducing the hours devoted to testing in the early grades.  A paragraph from Eleanor Chute’s report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette indicates how out-of-control testing had become:  “The biggest reductions are planned in grades 3, 4 and 5 where the number of periods spent in testing are to decline from 85.5 periods to 41.5 periods. After school board member Sherry Hazuda was told one period equals 45 minutes, she said, “No wonder people are complaining when you see it like that.”

Are you doing the math?  85.5 periods is roughly 60 HOURS of class time devoted to giving standardized tests to 8-, 9- and 10-year olds!   Going forward, only 30 hours!  (Bear in mind that a full school year has perhaps 900 hours of class time, meaning that Pittsburgh’s young children were devoting 7.5% of that time to taking bubble tests.)

FairTest, the anti-standardized testing organization, seems to think the tide has turned in the battle against over-testing. It recently published “Testing Reform Victories: The First Wave,” celebrating what it calls “an explosion of resistance {{7}}.”

FairTest is hardly a neutral observer. In fact, everyone seems to have significant skin in the game, making it difficult to identify an organization {{8}} that could credibly lead an inquiry into the role of standardized bubble tests in public education.

I can think of only one candidate, the National Network of State Teachers of the Year. NNSTOY, which was founded in 1980, has an Executive Director, Katherine Bassett, whose goal is to make the organization ‘impactful,’ one Board member told me recently.  NNSTOY’s list of 25 partners includes so many players–including Pearson and the National Council on Teaching Quality, two of the left’s favorite whipping boys–that I doubt if any of them wields much influence.  Boards set an organization’s policies, and most of NNSTOY’s Board members are classroom teachers who have been honored within the profession for their skill and dedication.

Would NNSTOY call on superintendents and school boards to fill in the blanks on the document above and then engage in a public-spirited discussion of the goals and purposes of schooling?

Someone has to….

—-

[[1]]1. Superintendent Nicholas Gledich of District 11 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, wrote to remind me that “There have been several studies of testing and lost instructional time.  One study of two urban school districts performed by the AFT in 2013 found that testing takes 20-50 hours per student per year. Test prep can take from 60 to more than 110 hours per pupil per year.  At a cost of $6.15 per hour, this amounts to a cost of of $700 to $1000 per year per pupil just on testing, the equivalent cost of adding an hour to the school day. (“Testing More, Teaching Less;” Howard Nelson, 2013).[[1]]

[[2]]2. Be prepared to be surprised by the answer here because Lee County is not alone. Christina Veiga of The Miami Herald reported a story headlined ‘In Miami-Dade the Testing Never Stops.” She wrote, “Out of the 180-day academic year, Miami-Dade County schools will administer standardized tests on every day but eight.”  [[2]]

[[3]]3. This is a perfectly plausible approach, as we reported on the PBS NewsHour recently. [[3]]

[[4]]4. This number will probably NOT be high because most schools buy cheap tests. In Lee County, Florida, for example, the $5,258,493 it spends on testing is not even one-half of one percent of the district’s budget.[[4]]

[[5]]5. I raised this general issue with David Hornbeck, the veteran educator who served as Superintendent in Philadelphia and State Superintendent in Maryland and Kentucky. He suggested a deeper conversation, by pursuing the following lines of inquiry:

-How does the testing program contribute to or detract from collaboration among teachers?

-How much planning time (and training to use it effectively) does the system provide teachers for data analysis and instructional improvement based on assessment results?

-When assessment reveals that a school repeatedly is not doing well, what system is in place to help the school improve its performance? How much money is spent on it?

-How much more money would a system need to have an assessment “system” that would result in “test prep” that actually scaffolded learning that is valued and, thus, encouraged?

-How could time be used to make assessment an integral part of the instructional program? How much more time would have to be devoted to assessment to make that a reality? [[5]]

[[6]]6. When Reporter Linda Borg asked readers to vote on whether Rhode Island schools were testing too much, 73% of the 1409 voters said ‘No.’[[6]]

[[7]]7. Here’s one example from the report: “After hearing mounting concerns about too much teaching to the test, Virginia lawmakers passed legislation to reduce the number of state tests from 22 to 17 in grades 3 through 8. ‘Overwhelmingly, we heard concerns that the ‘teaching to the test’ mentality was depriving students of the opportunity to derive substantive value from the material as opposed to memorizing factoids and regurgitating information without having synthesized it,’ said Mike Webert, a Virginia legislator. A state task force is considering further reductions.” [[7]]

[[8]]8. In Tennessee this week Secretary Duncan challenged the PTA to lead a debate about education during the 2016 Presidential campaign, but he did not speak specifically about the role of standardized tests, as reported by Education Week. [[8]]

Something’s Coming (Something Good)

“Something there is that doesn’t love more bubble tests
And students bubbling and learning how to bubble
When they might be making robots or reading Frost….”
When I adapted Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” earlier this year, I was aware of the growing resentment among parents, teachers and students toward machine-scored tests and test-prep. However, I had no idea that it would–pardon the pun–bubble to the top with such energy.

That said, some of what looks like support for reduced testing may turn out to be something quite different.  What people say is not as important as what they do!

A lot has been happening.  In late August the Lee County (FL) School Board voted, 3-2, to opt out of the state’s testing program, in what one Board member called ‘an act of civil disobedience.’  For six days Lee County, the 37th largest school district in the US with 85, 000 students, was the epicenter of the ‘too much testing’ movement, but on August 27th the Board reversed itself, again by a 3-2 vote.  The School Superintendent had expressed grave concern about the possible penalties, financial and otherwise, that Florida might impose if Lee County boycotted the state tests, and that apparently was enough to push one Board member, Mary Fisher, to change her vote.

For a list of what Florida could do to penalize boycotting districts, click here.

Robert Schaeffer, the Public Education Director of the anti-testing organization FairTest, has lived in Lee County for 15 years. By email I asked Bob what had just happened there. After acknowledging that he has been collaborating with the protestors, he added{{1}}:

“As expected, given the announcement that one member had reversed her position in the face of a massive, disinformation campaign by the Superintendent, the Lee County School Board just voted 3-2 to override its previous decision. However, four of the five board members spoke out against “test misuse and overuse” as well as “the punitive use of standardized exams.”  The two Board members who opposed the original motion (allegedly due to the lack of an implementation plan) pledged to take their concerns to a meeting of the Florida School Boards Association, which is holding a statewide conference beginning tonight, and one threatened a lawsuit against unfunded state testing mandates.
“After the vote, several Board members said that there would be a public workshop next week to discuss how to move forward to reduce testing overkill, and two members pledged that they would make implementation motions at the Tuesday night, September 9 regular Board meeting.The hundreds of parents, teachers, students and taxpayers who packed the room viewed the decision as a temporary tactical setback, not a long-term defeat, for the assessment reform movement.”

The Palm Beach County Schools are reported to be flirting with a possible boycott.

If something like this can happen in Florida, an epicenter of what is called ‘test-based accountability,’ then the rest of the country ought to be paying attention.

It’s not just Florida, of course.  This spring as many as 80% of students in some New York City public schools were opted out of standardized testing by their parents.

The Superintendent of Schools in Colorado Springs, Colorado, says he wants to test randomized samples of students to gather data about school effectiveness, which would reduce the number of bubble tests that all students now have to take.

More than half of the school boards in Texas supported a resolution calling upon the State Board of Education to reduce the number and significance of bubble tests.  That was two years ago, and the Texas Legislature got the message. It passed a bill drastically reducing the number of standardized tests required for graduation, and Governor Rick Perry signed the bill into law in June 2013.

The rebellion may be spreading to New Mexico, where concern about computerized testing is growing.

In Vermont the State Board of Education has called upon the United States Congress to get its act together and do something about No Child Left Behind, which expired in 2007 but remains the law of the land as long as Congress fails to act.  “The motivating force behind the statement is that there is too much testing,” State Board member William Mathis told the Rutland Herald. “Teachers are complaining about it. Parents are complaining about it. We’re just running from one test to the next. It’s tedious, and it’s not the best use of taxpayers’ money.”

But it would be a mistake to assume that every expression of concern is genuine.  In Rhode Island, where students have been protesting over-testing, State Superintendent Deborah Gist{{2}} seems to be taking a stand on the issue.  According to the Providence Journal’s Linda Borg, Gist and Katherine E. Sipala, president of the Rhode Island School Superintendents’ Association, have created what they call “The Assessment Project” to study the issue.

Their letter to local superintendents reads, in part:
“Over the past year or more, many of us have heard from some students, teachers, and parents who expressed their concerns about over-testing in our schools. We share their concerns, and we want to take action on this matter. None of us wants to test students too much, and each of us can consider ways to streamline the assessment process, to eliminate assessments that do not advance teaching and learning, and to ensure that we use assessments to help us make good decisions about instruction. If assessments do not give us information that informs instruction, we should not administer those assessments.”

To this observer, Gist and Sipala’s message is hardly newsworthy. Rather than a call to action, it’s seems to be a politically safe call for ‘more study.’

I have noticed that those who are upset about testing are being careful to avoid coming across as ‘anti-testing.’ Instead, they say that they are protesting ‘over-testing’ or ‘too much testing,’ which is a far cry from being opposed to all testing.  Language matters, and if their voices are to be heard, they have to fight the ‘anti-testing’ label that some supporters of the status quo will try to stick on them.

Education Week’s Stephen Sawchuk provided this thoughtful overview recently, pointing out how No Child Left Behind still hangs over every state and school district that has not been granted a waiver by the Secretary of Education.

In late August Secretary of Education Arne Duncan weighed in with his own call for a 1-year moratorium (which the NEA called ‘common sense’).

It’s possible that Mr. Gates and Secretary Duncan were motivated by their desire to save the Common Core National Standards, which are under increasing attack from both the right and the left. Perhaps they are now wishing they had taken the time to disentangle the Common Core and the laudable idea of higher standards from the accountability mess and its roots in ‘the business model of education’ that both support.{{3}}

As the lyricist Stephen Sondheim wrote in “Something’s Coming,”
Something’s coming, something good
If I can wait
Something’s coming, I don’t know what it is
But it is gonna be great{{4}}.

Will the “something” that’s coming to the world of bubble testing be good?  Is what lies ahead “gonna be great,” or will there be lots of words but little action?  Who knows?  That’s not up to reporters; that’s in the hands of parents and concerned citizens, educators and activists—and the politicians who listen to them.

By the way, you may read the rest of ‘Mending School” here.

If you would like to own your own copy of the fully annotated, four-color, 24″ x 36″ wall poster, simply click here or send your tax-deductible contribution to Learning Matters, 127 West 26th Street, Suite 1200, NY NY 10001.

Oh, I sent the “Mending School” poster to Secretary Duncan, gratis, and I am sending one to Deborah Gist in Rhode Island.

[[1]]1. He sent virtually the same message to Diane Ravitch. [[1]]
[[2]]2. Full disclosure regarding my own relationship with Deborah Gist. She was State Superintendent when Michelle Rhee was Chancellor, and it was her office that detected the unusual patterns of ‘wrong to right’ erasures that strongly suggested cheating. Instead of taking direct action, Gist exchanged memoranda with Rhee for months, during which time Gist applied for and got the Rhode Island job. Because I believed then–and still believe–that the public ought to know Gist’s version of those machinations, I begged her to speak to me on the record. She refused. When Rhee’s organization, StudentsFirst, rated state education programs, Rhode Island received the top score, which some interpreted as Rhee’s way of thanking Gist for her silence. [[2]]
[[3]]3.It’s also possible that Secretary Duncan’s friends and handlers in the White House have realized they need the votes of teachers in the midterm elections, just two months away.[[3]]
[[4]]4.As most of you no doubt know, “Something’s Coming” is a love song of joyous anticipation from “West Side Story.” More here.[[4]]

Looking Back (Part 5)

(For the past few weeks I have been traveling down memory lane and then posting entries on my blog. Memories aren’t sequential, I’ve learned. As evidence of that, here is one from my year away from college.)

I’ve been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember-but I’ve been only a fan, not a player. In my case ‘fan’ is short for fantasy, not fanatic. As a kid in the ’50s I spent hours starring in imaginary baseball games, throwing an old tennis ball against the barn wall and pretending to be Johnny Logan or Red Schoendienst in the field, Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron or Stan Musial at bat. In real life, unfortunately, I was pretty awful, invariably one of the last chosen for pickup games and almost always the rightfielder. But I had one glorious moment when I was 20, an accidental invitation to try out for the St. Louis Cardinals and a brief – very brief – chance to sit in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ dugout during a game.

In 1961 I had taken a year off from Dartmouth and was working in Kansas as a reporter-photographer for The Leavenworth Times. I was restless, enthusiastic and energetic, and I managed to get myself fired in February of ’62, largely for being a pain in the neck.{{1}}

Jobless, I was free to do whatever I wanted, so I decided to hitchhike around the country. I took to the road, intending to wend my way south, toward warm weather and, more important, spring training.

I had read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road at least twice and was ready for adventure. And I had plenty of them: I met hundreds of interesting, lonely people, including a couple of gigolos in New Orleans, got run out of a small town in Idaho by roughnecks who amused themselves trying to run me over, spent a night or two in jail and talked my way into Disneyland and into the Seattle World’s Fair on opening day. But no memory shines as brightly as spring training of 1962 at Al Lang Field.

Carrying only a sleeping bag and a dark blue flight bag with a Pan Am logo on it, I headed for St. Petersburg, Florida, where I knew I’d find the Cardinals, and Bradenton, where the Braves trained. Along the way I found places to sleep where I could, in fraternity houses, once in jail in West Memphis, Arkansas, (my choice, not theirs) and under the stars, snug in my sleeping bag. Coming into St. Petersburg toward the end of one afternoon, I asked the driver I had hitched a ride with to drop me as close as he could to Al Lang Field. He did so, and I still remember feeling awestruck, standing outside the park.

I walked right in–no guards, no passes, no questions. My awe turned to confusion because dozens of ballplayers were walking off the field, clad in nondescript, ragtag uniforms that looked more high school than major league. Still on the field standing around home plate, however, were several men in full Cardinal uniforms. Later it occurred to me that they must have been comparing notes on the hopefuls who had just tried out, would-be ballplayers who had paid their own way to St. Pete. That explained their uniforms, as well as what happened next.

Suddenly, one of the Cardinals spotted me at the edge of the field. At 6′ 2″ and 185 pounds, I must have looked like another young hopeful. He walked over and said, “You’re too late, kid. I’m sorry.”

I had no idea what he was talking about and was too intimidated to ask. He must have taken my silence for shyness, and so he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Where’d you come from, kid?” he asked. “Kansas,” I answered truthfully, and his expression grew sadder. “Jeez, I’m real sorry, but we just finished. It’s all over.” I didn’t say anything, and after another minute he asked me how I’d gotten to St. Pete. Hitched, I told him.

“What position you play?”

Rightfield. I answered truthfully, and third base, I added, not so truthfully, because that was Eddie Mathews’s position. He squeezed my shoulder. “You look like you can hit the long ball,” he said. That didn’t seem to be a question but an assumption suggested by my athletic build. I wasn’t about to tell him the truth.

After another silence, he smiled. “Tell you what, kid,” he said. “We’ve got a game tomorrow with the Pirates. You come here a couple of hours early, and I’ll let you hit a few. See what you can do. Whaddya say?”

I was stunned. He was mistaking me for a ballplayer, and he thought I had major league potential!  I thanked him and left in a daze. I had just been invited, sort of, to try out for the St. Louis Cardinals. A genuine major league coach had looked at me and concluded that I might be a longball hitter! For a few minutes I was 11 or 12 again, in a coiled batting stance like Stan the Man, hitting against Lou Burdette or Warren Spahn.

Slowly I came back down to earth. Not only was I not a major league prospect, I was in a strange city. It was dusk, and I had no place to sleep, I hitchhiked to Florida Presbyterian, now Eckerd College, and met some guys who let me crash on the couch in their apartment. At dinner we all laughed at the prospect of my actually trying out the next day–wouldn’t it be funny if I held the bat by the wrong end or threw the ball underhand! In fact, I had no intention of embarrassing myself by going through with the charade and trying to “hit the long ball,” But we all decided to watch the Cardinals-Pirates game, anyway.

Spring training was relaxed and informal in ’62, not the cash cow it is today. The elderly man taking tickets glanced at my old press card and let me in. He didn’t seem to notice when I handed the card back to the next guy, who used it and handed it back to the next guy, until all six of us were in. We sat in the sun for a few innings. but I was feeling cocky and wanted more excitement. I went back to the field entrance and stood near the Pirates’ dugout, watching the game and stealing glances into the dugout at more of my heroes. While I was there one of the Pirates left the dugout, crossed in front of me and went under the stands. He lit a cigarette, and when he took off his cap I saw his nearly bald head and realized that he was Dick Groat, one of the best shortstops in baseball.

I walked over to him and asked for a cigarette. He gave me one, and I told him about my invitation to try out for the Cardinals. Groat was amused, probably because I made fun of that Cardinal coach for having been taken in by my appearance. When he had finished his cigarette, he asked me to tell the story to “some of the guys” in the dugout. A minute later I found myself sitting on the bench. Bill Mazeroski was there, and so was Roberto Clemente, and I hoped my new college friends could see me. Groat told me to tell the guys my story. I started to, but I never finished.

“Who the f**k  is that?” a loud gravelly voice demanded. “Get him the f**k out of here!” It was the tough-talking, cigar-smoking manager of the Pirates, Danny Murtaugh. I waited for Groat or someone else to speak on my behalf, but no one did.

Murtaugh advanced, glowering at me, but then dismissed me with a derisive wave.

“Get your ass out of here. This is the big leagues.”

I left, but not before hearing Murtaugh say, “What are you clowns up to? If you guys want to win, then pay attention. That kid doesn’t even look like a ball-player.”

Every fan’s story should have a hero, and mine is no exception, although it took me a long time to figure out who the hero was. It wasn’t Groat, Mazeroski or any of the other Pirates I’d sat with during my brief major league career. {{2}} No, the hero was that Cardinal coach. I am certain that he had not seen major league potential in me; I’m sure he believed that I was a kid with big dreams, and he wasn’t going to break my heart simply because I was a few hours late. I wish now that I knew who he was…and that it hadn’t taken me so long to appreciate his gesture.

—-

[[1]]1. Which I wrote about in part one of this series[[1]]

[[2]]2. Dick Groat hit .294 that season.  Clemente hit .312 and won a Golden Glove.  Mazeroski hit .271, while Eddie Mathews, my childhood hero, hit .265, drove in 90 runs, and walked 101 times.  All four made the All-Star team.  (Time was I actually knew statistics like that. No longer–I had to look it up.)[[2]]