Student-led conferences are a trending topic in the educational world. The idea of a student-led conference, as described in the YouTube video titled Student Involved Assessment, is that a teacher meets with both a student and their parent, with the hope of shifting accountability back to the student. Having both a student and their parent in the room with the teacher during a conferences opens up communication between the three parties. According to When Students Lead Parent-Teacher Conferences by Countryman and Schroeder (1996), what parents hear at home from their student is often quite different from the information that a teacher expresses during a conference, forcing parents to side with one party or the other. Teachers are then forced to either advocate for the student, or act on the defensive about their own practices. During student-led conferences, students are forced to have an honest conversation with their parent about their grades and classroom performance.
I am lucky enough to work at a school that requires students to enter the room with their parent during conferences. However, these meetings have never been deemed "student-led", nor have I put much effort into making the student the initiator during the conference. After viewing this YouTube clip and doing a little further research, I have decided to make my upcoming Parent-Teacher Conferences (on Wednesday) student-led. Although student-led conferences take a great deal of preparation, I believe that I can slowly start to implement this now, although time is limited, and build upon it in the coming quarters.
To begin, I will need to prepare students for their conference. Students need an opportunity to reflect upon their performance and evaluate their efforts. According to Countryman and Schroeder (1996), students should be assessing five different areas of focus that I have described below:
-Do I express my ideas clearly?
-Am I self-motivated to do my work, and do I take the initiative when I need help?
-Do I think deeply, or give up on difficult work?
-Am I involved in school activities?
-Do I collaborate and work well with others?
Students will be given these questions during a class period prior to their conference, and have adequate time to journal about their responses. I particularly like these reflection questions because they cover student performance on multiple levels, not just academics.
It is then suggested by both Countryman and Schroeder (1996) and the YouTube video that students create a portfolio of work to share with their parent. My plan is to simplify this, and have students select two pieces of work; something they are proud of, and something that demonstrates what they need to work on. Students will share this work with their parents during the conference.
The final piece of advice that I gathered from When Students Lead Parent-Teacher Conferences is to allow students uninterrupted time to present their reflections and portfolios to their parents. By asking parents to write down their questions on an index card during the conference and saving them until the end of the meeting, it allows the student to calmly present their self-evaluation without feeling threatened or nervous by an angry parent. I plan to use this practice as well during my conferences on Wednesday.
I have sat through many conferences when students deny any awareness of their low grade and parents angrily begin punishing students before they even leave my room. It is my hope that by slowly changing students to the moderator of their own conferences, parents will give their child an opportunity to explain their progress and weaknesses.
Countryman, L.L., & Schroeder, M. (1996). When students lead parent-teacher conferences. Educational Leadership, 53, 64-68.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Friday, October 25, 2013
Performance Based Assessment- Self Reflection
With all of the anti-testing going on in the educational world, I am often very hard on my self regarding how I assess my students. My typical unit includes some lecture (broken into small chunks), small quizzes, a lab or two, and a test at the end of the unit. I have struggled to move away from the culminating test. I think that this is partially due to my own schooling, which was incredibly structured and traditional. I also think it is due to a false idea of performance tasks that I had and the amount of extra work that goes into planning a true performance assessment task.
I am going to describe a unit that I recently completed with my eighth grade Physical Science class, to demonstrate the types of assessments that I use in a typical unit. The unit started with a small intro to electricity, relating it to their previous unit on magnetism. During the first class, the boys were given laboratory supplies and tasked with making a light bulb light. Students were able to complete this task, and concluded that they had to make a circular, connected path for the electricity to flow. The following class period, the students took notes (using the SmartBoard and lecture) about the features of circuits. Another day, the students were given a battery, piece of wire, lightbulb, and miscellaneous items such as crayons, toothpicks, paperclips, etc. The students had to determine which objects completed the circuit, and which objects stopped the flow of electricity. For homework, students had to describe conductors and insulators. Small quizzes were administered about these topics. The unit took a turn when students began calculating different factors of a circuit such as voltage, resistance, and current. At this point, students did a lot of independent work solving equations. At the end of the unit, students took a written test.
Although I pride myself in the small laboratory/hands on lessons that I do in my class, it is a challenge to make these activities open ended and explorational. In addition, I find that my tests are often heavy with recalling information, and light on "constructed response" (Darling-Hammond, 2010). However, I do believe that my free response questions (although few) are often thought provoking and demand students to recall and apply information. Below are three example questions from the test that my students took on electricity.
--A travel toaster uses three 2Volt batteries and has a power rating of 1.8Watts. What is the current of the circuit?
-- Draw a series circuit with two resistors and one switch. If the switch is closed, will all of the resistors function?
--Compare and contrast series and parallel circuits.
The examples that I provided are very similar to those given by Darling-Hammond from the New York State Regents Exam. On that assessment, students were asked to draw and label a circuit and analyze the circuit under certain circumstances. I believe that my constructed response questions would be in the "analyzing" or "applications" area of Bloom's Taxonomy. The questions require students to recall information, and either relate it to other information or translate it into a different situation. I struggle to find ways to develop higher order thinking assessments with my young students.
The small explorations described in my electricity unit are examples of performance tasks that I use with students. In addition, I have had students design and implement their own labs to help during this unit. I have always had the false idea that a performance task needs to be an incredibly large project that occurs at the end of the unit. This is in fact, untrue. All of the small hands on work that I do with my students is a form of assessment. Perhaps with time I can find more merit in these tasks and minimize the weight of written tests. Until then, I need to work on rewriting my tests so that they require students to synthesize their own ideas, using what they learned throughout a unit.
I am going to describe a unit that I recently completed with my eighth grade Physical Science class, to demonstrate the types of assessments that I use in a typical unit. The unit started with a small intro to electricity, relating it to their previous unit on magnetism. During the first class, the boys were given laboratory supplies and tasked with making a light bulb light. Students were able to complete this task, and concluded that they had to make a circular, connected path for the electricity to flow. The following class period, the students took notes (using the SmartBoard and lecture) about the features of circuits. Another day, the students were given a battery, piece of wire, lightbulb, and miscellaneous items such as crayons, toothpicks, paperclips, etc. The students had to determine which objects completed the circuit, and which objects stopped the flow of electricity. For homework, students had to describe conductors and insulators. Small quizzes were administered about these topics. The unit took a turn when students began calculating different factors of a circuit such as voltage, resistance, and current. At this point, students did a lot of independent work solving equations. At the end of the unit, students took a written test.
Although I pride myself in the small laboratory/hands on lessons that I do in my class, it is a challenge to make these activities open ended and explorational. In addition, I find that my tests are often heavy with recalling information, and light on "constructed response" (Darling-Hammond, 2010). However, I do believe that my free response questions (although few) are often thought provoking and demand students to recall and apply information. Below are three example questions from the test that my students took on electricity.
--A travel toaster uses three 2Volt batteries and has a power rating of 1.8Watts. What is the current of the circuit?
-- Draw a series circuit with two resistors and one switch. If the switch is closed, will all of the resistors function?
--Compare and contrast series and parallel circuits.
The examples that I provided are very similar to those given by Darling-Hammond from the New York State Regents Exam. On that assessment, students were asked to draw and label a circuit and analyze the circuit under certain circumstances. I believe that my constructed response questions would be in the "analyzing" or "applications" area of Bloom's Taxonomy. The questions require students to recall information, and either relate it to other information or translate it into a different situation. I struggle to find ways to develop higher order thinking assessments with my young students.
The small explorations described in my electricity unit are examples of performance tasks that I use with students. In addition, I have had students design and implement their own labs to help during this unit. I have always had the false idea that a performance task needs to be an incredibly large project that occurs at the end of the unit. This is in fact, untrue. All of the small hands on work that I do with my students is a form of assessment. Perhaps with time I can find more merit in these tasks and minimize the weight of written tests. Until then, I need to work on rewriting my tests so that they require students to synthesize their own ideas, using what they learned throughout a unit.
test anxiety--> school shooting
I found myself incredibly frustrated by a recent blog post from Diane Racitch. In the post, Ravitch presents a letter from an administrator in Spark, NV where a school shooting recently occurred. The administrator, Dr. Debra A. Feemster, argues that the school shooting was partially due to the amount of testing occurring in the district. Feemster states, "I feel that given the relentless, inflexible and unyielding focus on "test-taking" and school rankings and scores, etc., could have possibly contributed to this horrible school shooting. When teachers and counselors are spending an inordinate amount of time preparing, worrying, and focused on test results, their time to connect with students is limited and scarce." I feel that the negativity towards education reform is incredibly contagious. Parents and teachers are quick to blame the reforms for any non-ideal results or incidents they see.
I often feel that Diane Ravitch falls in this category. Her views on standardized testing and common core are incredibly strong and she is incredibly vocal. Many teachers and parents who do not take the time to educate themselves on current educational reforms, hear Ravitch's opinions loud and clear.
The comments on this blog post are intense. I actually stopped reading them because it pains me to see educated adults argue the way that these bloggers were doing, especially when hiding behind the keys of a computer. (It's the same feeling I get when I watch The Real Housewives of New York.) One blogger comments that they think the post is outlandish, the next responds by accusing her of being insensitive to Feemster's loss, etc.
I think that people need to focus their energies on what is at hand; grieving a teacher's loss or standardized testing stresses. The two are not intertwined. Before one blames common core for a school shooting, they need to educated themselves from varying viewpoints on both the shooting and educational issues.
I often feel that Diane Ravitch falls in this category. Her views on standardized testing and common core are incredibly strong and she is incredibly vocal. Many teachers and parents who do not take the time to educate themselves on current educational reforms, hear Ravitch's opinions loud and clear.
The comments on this blog post are intense. I actually stopped reading them because it pains me to see educated adults argue the way that these bloggers were doing, especially when hiding behind the keys of a computer. (It's the same feeling I get when I watch The Real Housewives of New York.) One blogger comments that they think the post is outlandish, the next responds by accusing her of being insensitive to Feemster's loss, etc.
I think that people need to focus their energies on what is at hand; grieving a teacher's loss or standardized testing stresses. The two are not intertwined. Before one blames common core for a school shooting, they need to educated themselves from varying viewpoints on both the shooting and educational issues.
Thoughts on San Diego School Reform
In the late 1980s, the San Diego school district hired a non-educational superintendent. Alan Bersin, a former federal prosecutor, entered the district with a strong force. Having previously worked for Clinton's drug and immigration administration, Bersin brought a very political approach to the already well-admired school district. With the help of Anthony Alvarado from New York City's District 2 schools, the duo changed the face of education in San Diego. Bersin dominated the politics and PR of the reform, while Alvarado oversaw the instructional side.
The duo quickly mandated the Balanced Literacy program, increased professional development for all teachers and staff, and more principal observations of teachers. While the teacher unions objected the incredibly fast implementation, the plans moved forward and in 2000 a formal plan was released, titled Blueprint for Student Success in a Standards-Based System. This plan focused on prevention, intervention, and retention.
What happened in the following years was that a large percentage of San Diego teachers and administrators left the school system. With brand new teachers coming in, Alvarado and Bersin were given the "clean slate" that they needed- fresh teachers who would not object to the district mandates. However, even these teachers disagreed with the totalitarian model. One San Diego teacher comments by saying, "[The teachers] bonded, we spoke in code words. They spied on us, videotaped our staff development meetings, with the camera pointed at the audience, not the presenters. Sometimes we agreed that no one would talk. We would sit quietly, in a form of passive noncompliance" (Ravitch, 2010).
The common theme of all major school reforms of modern day is why are non-educational leaders running schools and school districts? From Bersin in San Diego, to Bloomberg in NYC, business model reforms are failing. Schools are not factories that can grind out numbers day in and day out. Threatening teachers and schools only drives teachers to raise test scores untraditionally, where little learning is being done. To learn is to truly understand material, so much that it can be transferred and applied to other applications. Why not ask the teachers, the ones in the classroom, how to best assess this understaning?
Ravitch, D. (2010) The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. Philadelphia, PA: Perseus Books Group.
The duo quickly mandated the Balanced Literacy program, increased professional development for all teachers and staff, and more principal observations of teachers. While the teacher unions objected the incredibly fast implementation, the plans moved forward and in 2000 a formal plan was released, titled Blueprint for Student Success in a Standards-Based System. This plan focused on prevention, intervention, and retention.
What happened in the following years was that a large percentage of San Diego teachers and administrators left the school system. With brand new teachers coming in, Alvarado and Bersin were given the "clean slate" that they needed- fresh teachers who would not object to the district mandates. However, even these teachers disagreed with the totalitarian model. One San Diego teacher comments by saying, "[The teachers] bonded, we spoke in code words. They spied on us, videotaped our staff development meetings, with the camera pointed at the audience, not the presenters. Sometimes we agreed that no one would talk. We would sit quietly, in a form of passive noncompliance" (Ravitch, 2010).
The common theme of all major school reforms of modern day is why are non-educational leaders running schools and school districts? From Bersin in San Diego, to Bloomberg in NYC, business model reforms are failing. Schools are not factories that can grind out numbers day in and day out. Threatening teachers and schools only drives teachers to raise test scores untraditionally, where little learning is being done. To learn is to truly understand material, so much that it can be transferred and applied to other applications. Why not ask the teachers, the ones in the classroom, how to best assess this understaning?
Ravitch, D. (2010) The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. Philadelphia, PA: Perseus Books Group.
Friday, October 18, 2013
The Validity of a Test
While browsing the Facebook page for the Badass Teachers Association, I came across the following post:
A large group of Facebook followers commented on Chace's regarding students who simply draw imagines in the "bubbles". Urban Dictionary refers to this phenomenon as "Christmas Treeing". It was then stated that these score sheets are removed from the testing sample and simply shredded. Other readers responded that they are familiar with students who attempt to create patterns on their answer sheets. I believe that there are also a large number of students who simply make a mistake. Students fill in answers on the wrong section of an answer sheet. Students accidentally skip a problem and then all of their answers are out of place for the remainder of a section. I am certain that in addition to the Christmas Treeers, a large students fall into the "oops" category. Lastly there are the students who are simply having an "off day". This group includes the students who woke up or went to bed too late, or perhaps students who got in trouble that morning and have simply shut down.
How can we take the results of a test seriously if we know that student responses are flawed? Throwing out score sheets of students who simply do not care is not a solution. These students, who I am assuming fall into the lower academic range, are a testimony to what is being taught and learned in classrooms. It is possible that the removal of these students scores are raising the overall average. Is it right to have so much merit leaning on one test? Perhaps smaller, more frequent assessments gives a larger data pool for each student, allowing one to average their test scores.
In my classroom, I am under the approach that more assessment is better. No, I don't test or quiz my students daily. However, I do check in with them, near daily, to assess their understanding. This allows students to have a large range of grades when I am calculating quarter or semester grades. It's possible that a student who ends up with an A had an F or two along the way.
I am in favor of some testing. It is necessary to track student progress over time, and also to evaluate the efficiency of a school as a teaching institution. However, I don't think that testing once a year is the way to accurately obtain this data.
A large group of Facebook followers commented on Chace's regarding students who simply draw imagines in the "bubbles". Urban Dictionary refers to this phenomenon as "Christmas Treeing". It was then stated that these score sheets are removed from the testing sample and simply shredded. Other readers responded that they are familiar with students who attempt to create patterns on their answer sheets. I believe that there are also a large number of students who simply make a mistake. Students fill in answers on the wrong section of an answer sheet. Students accidentally skip a problem and then all of their answers are out of place for the remainder of a section. I am certain that in addition to the Christmas Treeers, a large students fall into the "oops" category. Lastly there are the students who are simply having an "off day". This group includes the students who woke up or went to bed too late, or perhaps students who got in trouble that morning and have simply shut down.
How can we take the results of a test seriously if we know that student responses are flawed? Throwing out score sheets of students who simply do not care is not a solution. These students, who I am assuming fall into the lower academic range, are a testimony to what is being taught and learned in classrooms. It is possible that the removal of these students scores are raising the overall average. Is it right to have so much merit leaning on one test? Perhaps smaller, more frequent assessments gives a larger data pool for each student, allowing one to average their test scores.
In my classroom, I am under the approach that more assessment is better. No, I don't test or quiz my students daily. However, I do check in with them, near daily, to assess their understanding. This allows students to have a large range of grades when I am calculating quarter or semester grades. It's possible that a student who ends up with an A had an F or two along the way.
I am in favor of some testing. It is necessary to track student progress over time, and also to evaluate the efficiency of a school as a teaching institution. However, I don't think that testing once a year is the way to accurately obtain this data.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
How young is too young?
Educational Historian Diane Ravitch recently tweeted a link to an article in the NY Daily News titled Kindergarten gets tough as kids are forced to bubble in multiple choice tests. The article highlights the Common Core Math testing of kindergarteners in New York schools.
Teachers commented that their kindergarten students were "bewildered" by the tests. For starters, their students do not know their alphabet yet. This makes filling in choice A, B, C, or D incredibly difficult and confusing. In addition, teachers commented that many of the students do not know numbers so it is difficult to make sure the child is on the correct problem.
Madhabi Chatterji, a professor of Measurement-Evaluation and Education at Columbia University claims that these teachers' observations are spot on. Chatterji argues that the Kindergarten test assumes that the child has already grasped concepts such as reading left to right, respond to oral instructions in writing, and sit still for an extended period of time.
Although I am no professional, I agree with both Chatterji and the interviewed teachers. I teach middle school students who often have a hard time following complex instructions on their standardized tests. I cannot imagine what a kindergarten room would look like during testing. Kindergarten should be a time of learning how to learn, and being exposed to school. The amount of time that it will take to get all students prepared for the test, on the correct page, etc is valuable time that could be otherwise used in the classroom to actually teach to the child.
Perhaps there are other assessments that could be used in place of written tests for kindergarteners. For example, students could create audio recordings with the help of a teacher demonstrating their competence in saying the alphabet, counting to a certain number, etc. Or, students could be recorded when asked questions about material covered throughout the year.
School should be a place where students feel comfortable, not scared. If students are crying because of testing, then something is definitely wrong the system.
Teachers commented that their kindergarten students were "bewildered" by the tests. For starters, their students do not know their alphabet yet. This makes filling in choice A, B, C, or D incredibly difficult and confusing. In addition, teachers commented that many of the students do not know numbers so it is difficult to make sure the child is on the correct problem.
Madhabi Chatterji, a professor of Measurement-Evaluation and Education at Columbia University claims that these teachers' observations are spot on. Chatterji argues that the Kindergarten test assumes that the child has already grasped concepts such as reading left to right, respond to oral instructions in writing, and sit still for an extended period of time.
Although I am no professional, I agree with both Chatterji and the interviewed teachers. I teach middle school students who often have a hard time following complex instructions on their standardized tests. I cannot imagine what a kindergarten room would look like during testing. Kindergarten should be a time of learning how to learn, and being exposed to school. The amount of time that it will take to get all students prepared for the test, on the correct page, etc is valuable time that could be otherwise used in the classroom to actually teach to the child.
Perhaps there are other assessments that could be used in place of written tests for kindergarteners. For example, students could create audio recordings with the help of a teacher demonstrating their competence in saying the alphabet, counting to a certain number, etc. Or, students could be recorded when asked questions about material covered throughout the year.
School should be a place where students feel comfortable, not scared. If students are crying because of testing, then something is definitely wrong the system.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Bloom vs Common Core
I would guess that every teacher has heard about Bloom's Taxonomy at some point in the career training. The infamous pyramid displaying how students progress from lower to higher order thinking is a faculty room staple. If you are not familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy, check out the image below.
Benjamin Bloom split learning into three domains: cognitive, affective, and psycho motor. The cognitive realm investigates the intellectual side of students. Bloom categories students into six levels of cognitive learning, as seen above. Students progress from knowledge, the rote memory of facts, to evaluation, where they can dissect and value information and transfer it to other parts of their life.
I wonder what Benjamin Bloom would say about the Common Core...
If you check out the Common Core State Standards, specifically in Science Literacy, you will find a list of standards. Phrases such as, "determine the meaning", "analyze the structure" and "compare and contrast" are spread throughout the standards. I believe that Bloom would categorize these Common Core learning tasks as falling into either the application or analysis level of cognitive thinking. That being said, I did not find any standards that required students to work at the synthesis or evaluation level of cognitive thinking. While Common Core definitely tasks students with doing more than rote recalling of facts, they are lacking in the intense tasks that will require students to activate prior knowledge and create new information of meaning.
I worry that although the standards are asking students to work at a moderate to high level thinking, teachers may not be aware of what level of cognitive ability they are assessing. Too often recalling information is thought to be synonymous with understanding and opportunities to create higher order thinkers are lost.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Common Core Opinions
This morning, MSN's Today Show had a feature about today's teachers and the problems they face in the classroom. Interviewed were two public school teachers; one of whom has being teaching for 25 years, and the other who started her teaching career just two weeks ago. The feature began by stating that there are over 3 million public school teachers this year, 300,000 of which are brand new in the classroom.
Forty five states and Washington, DC have already adopted the Common Core Standards. The teachers in the Today clip worried most about the appropriateness and engagement of the standards. The veteran teacher argued that her primary concern in the classroom has always been to create academically rigorous lessons. She didn't feel that she needed the standards to force her to do this. The teacher continued by commenting that she had an eight year old student inquire if her job standing was a result of his test score and that she was worried about the amount of pressure this mindset would create for the young student. It sounds like the common core murmurings and dissatisfaction are reaching the students and affecting them on an emotional level.
Being a teacher at a school that does not follow the Common Core Standards, I decided to take a small poll. I asked some of my fellow teachers if they were content with the miscellaneous standards that different subjects are using, or if they think we should adopt common core. All of the teachers were dissatisfied with the system that we are using; teachers find the standards that they wish to use and find most appropriate, and follow them as they see fit. For example, I am using a mixture of Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards. All of my colleagues say that they feel a little lost with their curriculum and wish they had more concrete standards to follow. They don't know if adopting common core is the solution they see fit.
It seems like we always want what we don't have....including standards. Those with them, dread them. They bad mouth them till no tomorrow. Those without the standards ask for more structure. They feel lost and hope to have a better understanding of where their students stand in comparison to other schools. What's the right answer?
Forty five states and Washington, DC have already adopted the Common Core Standards. The teachers in the Today clip worried most about the appropriateness and engagement of the standards. The veteran teacher argued that her primary concern in the classroom has always been to create academically rigorous lessons. She didn't feel that she needed the standards to force her to do this. The teacher continued by commenting that she had an eight year old student inquire if her job standing was a result of his test score and that she was worried about the amount of pressure this mindset would create for the young student. It sounds like the common core murmurings and dissatisfaction are reaching the students and affecting them on an emotional level.
Being a teacher at a school that does not follow the Common Core Standards, I decided to take a small poll. I asked some of my fellow teachers if they were content with the miscellaneous standards that different subjects are using, or if they think we should adopt common core. All of the teachers were dissatisfied with the system that we are using; teachers find the standards that they wish to use and find most appropriate, and follow them as they see fit. For example, I am using a mixture of Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards. All of my colleagues say that they feel a little lost with their curriculum and wish they had more concrete standards to follow. They don't know if adopting common core is the solution they see fit.
It seems like we always want what we don't have....including standards. Those with them, dread them. They bad mouth them till no tomorrow. Those without the standards ask for more structure. They feel lost and hope to have a better understanding of where their students stand in comparison to other schools. What's the right answer?
Opting Out
A new movement is occurring in New York Public Schools. Due to parents' outrage at the rigor of the most recent standardized tests, a growing number off parents are preparing to "opt out" of this year's testing. According to Diane Ravitch's blog post Common Core Tests in NY Spur Opt Out Movement, action has already begun. Several thousand parents, teachers, and administrators have already protested the cause.
I am incredibly torn on this issue. Part of me relates back to my earlier post, NY State Testing- How High Should They Set the Bar?. My gut reaction is to argue that although the tests are incredibly difficult, they still serve a purpose. Tests will motivate teachers to push their classes to learn more and hold them to a higher academic standard. In addition, children can still be compared with other children who take the test. Therefore, just because a child scores lower on this test than they did in the past, every child taking this test is scoring lower. Most likely, children will still score in the same percentile rank (top 10% of NY testers, bottom 10% of NY testers) regardless of their percent correct score.
In contrast, expectations need to be realistic. I am sure that some of the standards being tested are above and beyond the academic reach of the average student. Perhaps the tests can be adjusted after another year or so to test understanding at a more realistic level.
That being said, opting out creates an entirely new issue. My prediction is that the majority of parents who are boycotting testing are parents of students who once scored in the academically elite category and have since dropped down to failing. I don't anticipate a lot of parents of students who failed the old exams, and continue to fail on the more rigorous exams, to contest the new testing. If this is in fact the case, the testing results this year will be incredibly skewed. This will create the opposite of the normal standardized testing issue. It is rumored that schools try to remove their lowest testing students from data in one way or another, in NY the higher students may be the ones missing, leaving data incredibly inaccurate.
I am incredibly torn on this issue. Part of me relates back to my earlier post, NY State Testing- How High Should They Set the Bar?. My gut reaction is to argue that although the tests are incredibly difficult, they still serve a purpose. Tests will motivate teachers to push their classes to learn more and hold them to a higher academic standard. In addition, children can still be compared with other children who take the test. Therefore, just because a child scores lower on this test than they did in the past, every child taking this test is scoring lower. Most likely, children will still score in the same percentile rank (top 10% of NY testers, bottom 10% of NY testers) regardless of their percent correct score.
In contrast, expectations need to be realistic. I am sure that some of the standards being tested are above and beyond the academic reach of the average student. Perhaps the tests can be adjusted after another year or so to test understanding at a more realistic level.
That being said, opting out creates an entirely new issue. My prediction is that the majority of parents who are boycotting testing are parents of students who once scored in the academically elite category and have since dropped down to failing. I don't anticipate a lot of parents of students who failed the old exams, and continue to fail on the more rigorous exams, to contest the new testing. If this is in fact the case, the testing results this year will be incredibly skewed. This will create the opposite of the normal standardized testing issue. It is rumored that schools try to remove their lowest testing students from data in one way or another, in NY the higher students may be the ones missing, leaving data incredibly inaccurate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)