What are we testing?

What are we testing?

I wrote initially wrote this before reading the previous blog post, but I since modified it to be somewhat of a response on my thoughts to standardized testing.

I am not the biggest advocate for standardized testing, but I also do not believe the standardized tests should be thrown away with.  I think the true issue with standardized testing is how the current system uses the information from test scores.  I don’t think test scores should be used as a gauge for teacher efficacy but rather as a gauge for the efficacy of the system as a whole. 

Right now, by and large, urban school systems are failing their students.  Despite the best attempts of school or district staff to manipulate the numbers or pick and choose, most systems have been making little to no overall progress.  This is what the test scores should be used to evaluate.  If the scores show that an urban district is scoring half as well as a suburban district, the question should be what are the shortcomings of the system rather than the shortcomings of individual teachers. 

 I think once that is looked at we can address some of the real issues that are facing urban education.  While believing, students in urban environments can achieve at the levels of suburban students,  I do not believe the same model that serves suburban students can work to get equitable results in urban areas.  Perhaps then if we refocus our use of test score to investigate more of the systemic issues we can finally start using the scores to help students rather than judge teachers.

An initial response might be that testing focusing solely on district efficacy would lead to cheating, just as the head of Atlanta Schools allegedly led the cheating in her district.  But, if the scores were used to measure district efficacy, I think there would be less interest at the school level to cheat.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/education/atlanta-cheating-scandal-reignites-testing-debate.html?_r=0

Cheating with High-Stakes Testing - Inevitable?

Cheating should be something that teachers teach their students NOT to do, but it is becoming increasingly more common for teachers and administrators to cheat on standardized tests.  There have been numerous cheating scandals across the country, and the latest cheating scandal in Atlanta has brought this issue back to the forefront.  An Atlanta grand jury indicted 35 teachers, administrators, and principals for their participation in cheating on standardized tests.  

A recent article by Jason Stanford for the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-stanford/standardized-test-cheating_b_2993239.html  discusses this issue of high-stakes testing and feels that this pressure makes cheating inevitable.  No Child Left Behind offers no incentive to catch cheating, so why not cheat?  There are rewards and punishments attached to test scores and everyone wants to look good.  But, when I read this article and others like this, they compared this cheating scandal to the Lance Armstrong situation or steroids in baseball.  When I think of those scandals, I think, who was harmed in that situation?  In those cases, the public was fooled into thinking these athletes were more than they were, but no one was really hurt in the matter.  But in these cheating scandals with schools making themselves look better than they are, they are hurting kids.  Children are ultimately not receiving the education they deserve, not getting the right instruction, and not being taught by people who believe in them if they’re willing to cheat.

I understand that there needs to be some way to measure the effectiveness of a school and it’s teachers, but I wonder if standardized testing is really the right answer.  Stanford brought up that standardized tests have been around in education, but only in recent years have there been punishments like school closures or rewards like bonuses attached to them. So, perhaps the process of standardized testing would work better if there weren’t these high stakes.  In an ideal world, district leaders would look at a school with weak data and use that to decide how to help it improve.  Instead, that data is generally used to shut the school down.  If we moved more towards using the data to help improve our schools, instead of punish them, maybe standardized testing would make a better impact. 

What I feel from this scandal and reading this article is that the state of standardized testing needs to be seriously evaluated on a national level.  I hope with this scandal in the national news and Common Core and the PARC tests on the horizon, that a stronger testing system that is better for kids can be created.

Will an Increase in Spending on Renovations Increase Student Achievement?

The Baltimore Sun recently reported on the new budget approval for Baltimore City Schools. With 1 billion dollars financed to the city over a six-year period, many dilapidated buildings will either be updated or completely renovated, while some underutilized buildings will be closed entirely. In the Sun article, a local delegate stated, "This investment in the schools in Baltimore City… will pay a huge dividend in the future, not just to the citizens of Baltimore but to the entire state.”  Another sentiment was, "Fifty new or fully renovated schools will keep people in the city, will help the schools support the teachers and the children better.” My question is, will these new renovations help students achieve?

While updated or renovated buildings will not be the magic solution to closing the achievement gap, I do believe modern facilities will allow students and teachers alike the opportunities to increase student achievement. First, outdated gyms, computer labs, and science labs are three of the most important facilities within a school community. With technology and testing advancing at such high levels, functioning computer and science labs would allow students the chance to improve skill and knowledge of complex subjects. A modern gymnasium could have the potential to inspire students to participate in extra curricular activities as well as engage the whole community in sporting events, field days, or special events like graduation. Updated and renovated buildings could also increase student attendance and teacher retention. If the buildings are clean, temperature controlled, safe, and provide support for teaching and learning, everyone wins. It is not to say that a stacked building, with all the latest amenities, will automatically assure teacher retention (new buildings like Digital have not seen an increase in such) but if you enjoy the physical building you work in, aren’t we more likely to stay? While a billion dollars wont buy student achievement, I truly believe it is a right step into increasing the will to work for student achievement in Baltimore City.

Find the rest of the complete article here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-schools-vote-20130329,0,5745422.story

The Challenge of Sitting Still

I just finished reading an article in the New York times that was dedicated to the issue of ADHD in our society. The article, which I recommend to anyone interested in this fairly recent phenomenon can be found here http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/health/more-diagnoses-of-hyperactivity-causing-concern.html?ref=education.

I have to admit I am writing this blog with a somewhat negative outlook. I searched for education articles in the New York Times this morning and the two that first caught my attention were this one and a breaking news headline about the Atlanta Public Schools' teachers and administrators who were caught cheating and how they had just surrendered to law enforcement. I decided that was too much for me to tackle so I am going to handle the somewhat broader topic of ADHD.

Apparently, in recent years, ADHD diagnoses have skyrocketed for children in the U.S. Over the last decade, the number of diagnoses has risen by 53%. Almost 20% of American high school aged boys have been diagnosed with ADHD. It seems to me that if one out of five boys are suffering from a disease (it is listed in the DSM) then we need to focus, as a society, on what is causing this extreme increase in affected children. The artcicle shares other troubling quotes from doctors and experts about the problems with over diagnosing the disease and the negative impact that the over diagnoses can have on the diagnosed children as well as their peers (ADHD meds are being sold to friends or peers for various purposes none of which involve using them as the prescription dictates). With this disheartening news comes the question of why? Why do so many of our young people, especially lower income males, suffer from ADHD? And do they really have ADHD? Or do we classify their bahvior as so asocial and innapropriate that we decide, as a soceity, they must be suffering from ADHD?

Personally, as a teacher, I teach several students who are incredibly disruptive some mornings and are perfectly behaved others. I quickly figured out that the mornings when they sit quietly and complete their assignments are the mornings that they took their medication before school. I have seen it, I enjoy the days when they are quiet, and yet I am not convinced that every student who takes medication needs it, or if they do, I am convinced there must be a more holistic approach to tackling this issue that clearly impairs a large percentage of children.

The article sites a number of reasons why the diagnoses have gone up, you can agree or disagree with them as much as you like but, as teachers, I think we can all understand how they came about. The main reason for the increase in diagnoses is that medications have become less stigmatized and parents are turning to them if there is even the slightest notion that their child is having trouble focusing. If a student's grades drop, especially in communities where parents are highly involved in their child's life, the parent looks for an explanation and the easy answer is that the child can't focus. Another reason is for behavior. If a child is acting up, the parents are quick to sedate them with medication. Most of us have seen this method first hand and, as wonderful as it is when the child is finally quiet, some part of me feels bad watching them sit there, sedated into submission. There are many other reasons (some children, especially high schoolers, ask to get a prescription because they know they can sell the pills to friends), but the reality of the situation is that many more children are taking medication and most of them are taking it because school is not working for them without the medication.

I'm going to end this post by posing a question, one that I have given a lot of thought to over the last 18 months. Why do we make our children sit still from 8 until 3 every day? We, as adults, dread meetings, we dread PD days, we dread a 9 to 5 job that has us at a desk all day. Why do we force our children to do exactly whay we dread?



The research that was done for this article on ADHD was extraordinarily broad and inclusive. I checked out the actuak study and was impressed by the methods used and the data collected.