It has long been suspected that states were lowering standards in order to show the necessary gains in reading and math scores to remain in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act. Since the states get to define proficiency and then have federal funds tied to meeting that goal, is that any surprise? One thing is certain: No Child Left Behind has changed the face of education in America. Despite its tenets for local control, the level of federal control over local school districts has reached an unprecedented level.
Under No Child Left Behind, individual schools and school districts can be punished for repeatedly failing to meet the federal standards, including restructuring schools and possibly closing them in extreme cases. SFGate
The central government, which has no constitutional authority over education, can close a local school for failure to meet its standards, determined primarily by scores on standardized tests. There is more pressure to perform than ever before. But is it working? Some interesting research is coming out that indicates that the state of education in America today is no different than it was prior to this act. A Berkely report scheduled to be released Wednesday and a Harvard study reach similar conclusions.
The Harvard study suggested that the act was not accomplishing its goals. A summary of the study concluded that “the national average achievement remains flat in reading and grows at the same pace in math after NCLB than before.” Like the Berkeley report, it based its conclusions on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. LA Times
For all its accountability and research based techniques, No Child Left Behind has had little effect on the actual outcomes it strives to meet. Why? Because it is missing the key ingredient. In fact, if this one ingredient were present, the rest would not be needed. Parents.
Maybe that means you give up some personal time. Maybe it means that Johnny’s in one sport instead of two. If you’re a single parent, it may mean reaching out for help from a neighbor, relative or someone else who will support you. If you have a special needs child, assess your physical limits and find ways to fill in the gaps without sacrificing “learning time” with your child. Then take another step—a hard one. Look inside yourself. Honestly ask yourself if your actions model what you want your child to be and do. It’s not about you; it’s about your child and what type of adult he or she will become. Buzzle.com (This article is well-worth reading in its entirety.)
If parents had not stepped out of the lives of their children, we would not need education reform. The single greatest factor indicating school success is parental involvement. The socio-economic status of the family, teacher pay, teacher training, classroom equipment, curriculum are all secondary. If the parents are involved, these barriers seem to disappear. Education is not just the right of the parent. It is the responsibility of the parent.
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Indeed. The reason that teachers (and schools) have absolute, primary responsibility is that they have little political clout and no one (certainly no one in government) listens to them. Dumping on teachers will cause no potential ballot box distress for politicians of any party (apart from those in massively unionized states on the coasts).
But imagine the uproar is parents were actually called to account for little Johnny and Suzy! Imagine still the uproar if their were consequences not only for Johnny and Suzy, but for the parents (and I use that term lightly)! Not a chance. Politicians know which way the wind is blowing, and it’s always blowing against teachers.
As a taxpayer, I thought the entire point of schools was to ensure the education of those kids whose parents couldn’t teach them themselves.
If all the responsibility of kids failing to learn is parents’ responsibility, as your post implies ( In fact, if this one ingredient were present, the rest would not be needed.), then we could save absolutely billions of dollars by shutting down all schools, firing all the teachers and bureaucrats and school custodians and secretaries and etc.
I presume you do not actually work in education, as you obviously believe that the evidence is that schools have nothing important to do with kids learning and I presume you are moral enough not to accept money for results you are not going to deliver. So why are you fussed that individual schools and school districts can be punished for repeatedy failing to meet federal standards? According to your argument, they are absolutely useless as the only ingredient is parents, so why shouldn’t the schools be closed down and the money spent on something useful?
>>so why shouldn’t the schools be closed down and the money spent on something useful?
What a great idea! Sign me up! I think that neighborhood educational cooperatives could educate the vast majority of children better than the current system.
Burn it all down and start over…
Tracy,I used to work in education, hence my interest in public education although I homeschool my children. My degree is in education and I taught for two years in a district consisting entirely of at-risk students. I also worked in the parental involvement office. I can tell you from experience and from the research I have read that parental involvement is the key factor in student success. That does not necessarily mean that the parents know everything the children are learning or even that they speak English. Part of the goal of the program I worked in was to empower parents and to help them feel confident approaching teachers with concerns and questions and to help them realize that they played a vital role in their children’s education. One of the sessions that really struck me was helping illiterate immigrants who spoke little or no English support their children in learning to read.
If mom and dad think education is important and do all they can to support their child’s education, the child is most likely to succeed, even in impoverished conditions, with a lack of teacher quality, lack of district funds, etc. The child a fellow teacher worked with whose father tore up books and told his son, “What, you think you are better than me?” did not have near the chances of my impoverished child whose mom made sure homework was done, whether she could actually read what her child wrote or not.
If all research indicates that parental involvement is the one factor that outweighs all others, shouldn’t we be spending more time trying to figure out how to increase parental involvement?
I do not “obviously believe” that schools have nothing of meaning to impart to students. I never said that. Therefore, most of what you continue to say past that is based on a faulty premise.
You infer too much into what I said and make an illogical leap. Without parental involvement, any plan is going to missing a key element. With parental involvement, success is likely despite other barriers. How does that translate to burning down all the schools?
My main argument is that if we wish to improve education, we should look at what actually works (parental involvement).
Dana, You make an excellent point. NCLB was a stinker from day one. It is the reason I left education-a career I loved and was very successful at-and the reason I will never go back. Our schools have become nothing but testing mills and it is sad. Parental envolvement is vital for many reasons. It is, as you pointed out, the number one indicator of a child’s success. It is also the only way we will ever move past the endless standardized testing. Parents need to stand up and use their voices and votes to put an end to it. NCLB has failed. If it were a public school it would not make the grade, funding would be withheld and it would be shut down and reorganized. How’s that for accountability?
You said in your post that In fact, if this one ingredient were present, the rest would not be needed. Parents.
So this is why I made the logical step to you believing we don’t need schools. Because you said “the rest would not be needed”.
So if parental involvement is present, by your logic we don’t need schools.
I don’t particularly want to burn down the schools. If there is no economic use for the school buildings once we shut the schools down I have no preferences about how the buildings are destroyed. The reason why I want to shut down the school system is that if parental involvement is the only important factor for kids’ results is that we could save lots and lots of money and spend it on something useful (if all else fails, it could be spent on buying me lots of good quality European chocolate).
the child is most likely to succeed, even in impoverished conditions, with a lack of teacher quality, lack of district funds, etc.
My main argument is that if we wish to improve education, we should look at what actually works (parental involvement).
In other words, not schools or school districts. So if schools or school districts are not what works, why do you care if the NCLB punishes them?
If mom and dad think education is important and do all they can to support their child’s education, the child is most likely to succeed, even in impoverished conditions, with a lack of teacher quality, lack of district funds, etc.
Perhaps you are not logically implying that all schools should be shut down. Which makes sense. I am puzzled as to how my uncle could have learnt sufficient maths to get a BSc without a school, given my grandparents did not have that knowledge myself.
But you are implying a massive reduction in spending on schools if school quality doesn’t matter. We could shut down the education schools, hire people off the street at minimum wage to teach, not bother with purchasing textbooks, teacher development, careers counsellors, librarians, etc. Some spending on schools to make sure the facilities (eg bathrooms) are minimally decent, but there should still be savings in the billions of dollars.
And again, why are you fussed about schools and school districts being punished for failure to meet the NCLB standards? Since according to your experience it won’t impact on kids’ education, as the important factor is parental education, why care?
parental involvement, not education. Drat.
Tracy W, thank you for your responses. You really need to make fewer presumptions. Read what I have written in context and it is quite clear. All of your leaps of logic from my text are hyperbolic in nature and have nothing to do with anything I have actually said. You can continue to tell me what I believe while discounting any of my answers if you choose, but it will get us nowhere.
The problems with NCLB which I have made in this post (other criticisms have been made elsewhere and I’d be happy to direct you to them, should you be interested in an actual conversation):
1) Encouraging states to lower their standards
in order to not lose funding.
2) Too much federal control of individual school districts. The classroom teacher is best equipped to judge the academic needs of individual students, not the central government, and certainly not a single, high-stakes standardized test.
3) It isn’t working. The slight improvements we have seen are not any greater than the increases we were seeing prior to NCLB.
As for the rest of your rant, are you saying that parents are not needed? Are you saying that their involvement is purely optional in the success of children? I only re-stated what the research has shown. If you have difficulty with that, track down some research into parental involvement in schools, analyze their methodology and take it up with the researchers. When parents are involved, their children succeed despite other obstacles.
If this ONE factor is more telling of a child’s future success in school, why are we ignoring it? Why do many schools continue in an adversarial role with parents rather than trying to draw them into the educational process? Why are you so angry at the suggestion that parents should take more of a role in their children’s education and trying to make it sound like advocating greater parental involvement is akin to wiping out an entire education system?
It is not a logical step from what I said. It is you reading what I have written through your own filter, whatever that may be.
The logical step from what I said is, “Wake up parents. Your children are your responsibility, not President Bush’s. If they are failing in school, sit down at the table with them and go through their work. Cut down on their extra-curricular activities. Talk to their teacher. Read their assignments. Talk to them about what they are doing in school.”
Oh my, and I do believe that is the main point of the quote I took from Buzzle and included in my original post. Nothing about eradicating schools. All about parents taking responsibility for their own children. The two are not identical, and if you truly believe they are then that perhaps is another serious problem in education if there are very many who believe the same.
And just to be absolutely clear (I really don’t see how this could be a point of confusion, but one can never be sure)…What I said and you keep pulling up as evidence for a desire to wipe out the school system:
“In fact, if this one ingredient were present, the rest would not be needed. Parents.”
Let’s put it back in context. What is “the rest?” Go back to the text (that is what my teachers taught me to do when I read something that seemed odd). The rest talked about prior to that statement all has to do with various attributes of NCLB. One might naturally assume that “the rest” is NCLB, not school itself. Nowhere did I attack the public school system.
Oh, but this seems to be a transition as I go directly into a quote. About parents. And how they should be there for there children. I later talk about various barriers to a child’s success in school, but I speak of them only as barriers. The fact is that if parents are highly involved, these barriers are not as great as they are for children whose parents are not involved. It is a fact. Not my personal opinion. If parents are not involved, then we can eradicate all these other barriers and still have children who do not succeed. Why? Because parental involvement is key.
There are various reforms needed to make our schools what they should be and I am very sure we see what is needed very differently. But the one aspect that is needed most is parents who care.
I think we are coming at things from a different viewpoint.
I see the main point of public schools as to provide an education to those kids whose parents or can’t do the job. So when I hear people saying things about how it’s parents who are responsible, I get angry because I think of those kids who, already in a bad way due to their parents, are being shafted by all those people in schools and schools districts who are collecting money to teach them.
As for research, there is research of school reforms that improve kid’s results without parental involvement, or create parental involvement. See http://www.csrq.org/documents/ESCSRQReport-Full_000.pdf and look at the section on Direct Instruction.
If parental involvement is in fact necessary, then the NCLB will hopefully encourage schools to use a programme that increases parental invovlement - as you did at your job at the parental involvement office.
But if all this research is wrong, and parental involvement is both vital and outside the schools’ and schools’ district control, then I am not angry at the thought we could save billions of dollars in education spending. I’m happy.
” Too much federal control of individual school districts. The classroom teacher is best equipped to judge the academic needs of individual students, not the central government, and certainly not a single, high-stakes standardized test.”
Umm, the classroom teacher may be best equipped to judge the academic needs of individual students, but as far as I can tell this is not what standardised tests seek to measure. Standardised tests seek to measure what kids have achieved, not what their educational needs are. They’re testing the output, not providing a construction plan.
And in my experience an outside check is necessary to make sure that schools are in fact teaching their kids useful stuff.
I come from an engineering background. Engineers test things all the time, and very very often find that the thing they’re building failed the test. Judging by kids’ results on literacy and numeracy tests, many schools are failing to teach kids well. If there were no standardised tests, do you really think that all those schools who are failing to teach now would be turning out brilliant students?
Thanks for coming back again, Tracy. We disagree a little on the purpose of education but that really isn’t so pertinent to the discussion. Most children in the public school system are not castaways of the parents. Most have loving parents who care deeply about their children…and many are dismayed that they are continually pushed out of their own children’s education. For those whose parents aren’t involved, they will still benefit greatly from increased efforts to educate and involve parents or caretakers. Of course good teaching and other programs will have some effect on student achievement. And there will always be those children who overcome all odds and are successful no matter how their parents treated them…in many cases it is a wonderful teacher who inspired them beyond their conditions. Wonderful. But it isn’t the norm.
I would agree with you on the testing issue if the test indeed measured output. But they don’t. They measure a child’s ability to take a standardized test.
“Minorities and students with disabilities, in particular, are suffering as a result of traditional assessment practices, which have proven to be inaccurate and inconsistent, yet continue to be used in prediction, decision-making, and inferences about student performance and lifelong success.” (Teresa A. Dais of the University of Illinois, 1993)
The SAT has been show to be a poor predictor of future success in college. A student’s grades alone is a better predictor. The only thing the SAT seems to be able to predict consistently and accurately is the socioeconomic status of the parents.
The idea that the school needs some independent check is alluring, but why do we think that? At one time, the parents were the check. If funding is not tied to the tests, than there is little reason to skew results. In fact, many in education have complained that the obsessive testing has had the direct opposite effect on instruction. I claim that from experience…in pre-K I had to mark on my plan sheets which objectives were tested and make sure I was hitting the “big ones” often. Considerable time was taken in my first grade class with test-prep activities…
According to the 1992 report, “Testing in American Schools” by the Office of Technology Assessment (long before NCLB, “It now appears that the use of these tests misled policymakers and the public about the progress of students, and in many places hindered the implementation of genuine school reforms.” 77% of classroom teachers report thinking the tests are bad and not worth the money and time spent on them while only 3% thought they were good.
For more, I just finished a post on this issue.
“And there will always be those children who overcome all odds and are successful no matter how their parents treated them…in many cases it is a wonderful teacher who inspired them beyond their conditions. Wonderful. But it isn’t the norm. “
It may not be the norm. It should be the norm.
There was a time when it was normal in medicine for people to die of the most trivial bacterial infections. Then penicillin was discovered and developed. So it was identified that these bacterial infections could be treated.
And once sufficient production of pencillin and other antibiotics was brought online, the norm changed. If a doctor now has test results showing that a patient has a dangerous bacterial infection, and does not prescribe an antibiotic (or some other way of treating such infection), then they are now committing medical malpractice.
Now there is research indicating schools can educate kids even if their parents aren’t involved. (And it doesn’t seem to damage kids whose parents are involved). Schools and school districts should be jumping on that evidence with both hands. Otherwise they’re committing educational malpractice.
And, luckily, unlike antibiotics, there is no reason to believe that massive rollout of effective instructional techniques will lead to increasing educational resistance.
As for why schools need an independent test - confirmation bias.
A common finding of psychology is that we are very bad at assessing our own actions. We look for evidence that confirms our own theories and not disconforming evidence. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias for some references. There is no reason to believe that educators are immune to this, which is why an independent check is needed.
“I would agree with you on the testing issue if the test indeed measured output. But they don’t. They measure a child’s ability to take a standardized test.”
So the quality of the test depends on how correlated the test results are with actual ability. This is always a problem with testing anything. Eg how should cars be tested for crashworthiness?
And plus, if standardised tests are out, how else do you assess how well schools have taught anything? Portfolio assessments only assess how well a child can carry out a portfolio assessment, personal references only assess how good a student is at sucking up to the referee.
The SAT I understand is meant to be a measure of a student’s basic aptitude, not what they know and have been taught. Consequently it is not useful for assessing how well schools are doing their job. And if performance at university depends on one’s education as well as native ability it is not surprising that SATs would not be a good predictor of university scores.
For a teacher to give up on a student and sit them in the back of the class, refusing to attempt to educate them based on their parent’s lack of involvement would be akin to your analogy with penicillin. Or lack thereof. However, that isn’t what is happening. I still maintain, however, that the “penicillin” you describe in education is involved parents. That should be looked at first and foremost. And if the “disease” of lack of education persists, we look to other options.
An excellent education should be afforded to each child regardless of any other factors. And best educational practices should be used. I am not saying anything other than that. I am only saying that parental involvement is key…yet the public school system continually puts policies in place to hinder parental involvement at every level, even for those parents who are involved. Some of them get fed up and homeschool.
NCLB falls short in encouraging the development of any sort of program to foster parental involvement, or even recognizing it as a factor.
As far as assessing our own actions, I would agree with you if the students were left to test themselves, but they are not. Now with the pressure of high stakes testing, there is more pressure than ever for the teacher to do whatever s/he can to influence those scores, and some have been caught cheating. I graded a set of assessments in which the teacher had obviously posted an outline of some sort on the board because in a class of twenty some students, 18 had the same cryptic notes copied on their paper. But cheating isn’t always so easy to catch.
Yes, there will always be some discrepancy in testing. That is my point on the whole standardized test thing. There is no way to measure the intelligence or aptitude or even the mastery of a subject by a single means, just as we cannot hope to reach every child with the same method of instruction. A variety of instructional approaches and a variety of measurements is called for. But NCLB is doing exactly the opposite to our classrooms. It is all about “the test.” We teach so that students can pass this one minimum competency test. Since there is only one form of assessment, there is only one form of instruction…direct instruction through delivery of basic facts for regurgitation on a standardized test.
Also, it is rare that over the course of one’s educational career, one receives assessment from only one teacher. There are numerous checks between the grades and numerous opportunities for people with different perspectives and relationships to assess the child. A combination of assessments from daily work, portfolios, teacher obsrvation, parental input, the coach’s observation, and the child’s own thoughts, taken together as a whole, are the best indicator of a student’s abilities.
Not a single, high stakes test which will determine what classes you can take and eventually, if the whole school-to-work program is implemented, what job you can have. There is not any evidence to lead us to believe that these tests measure anything but your socio-economic status and your ability to take standardized tests.
Sorry, I only used the SAT because it is deeply entrenched and the most researched. It is supposed to be an aptitude test, but if it is truly that and not a measure of academic skills, why is the only thing it effectively predicts the socio-economic status of your parents? Either the test is flawed, or the upper crust of our society is intellectually superior to the poor.
It’s funny. Singapore ranks number one in math and science according to international standardized tests. Yet in the real world, America still turns out more people who work in these fields. They test well. We achieve in the real world. Why? Singapore says,
“We both have meritocracies,” Shanmugaratnam said. “Yours is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well—like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority. These are the areas where Singapore must learn from America.”
Overemphasis on these tests leads to the problem Singapore is facing. Do we want to be a meritocracy based on actual achievement, or on potential based on a test? And one that has never shown to have any predictive power over future success at that?
If the goal were truly to just provide a check aganist schools, we could still test every student. And we could look at the scores and say, “ok teacher a says her students have mastered this and this and are struggling in this. ON the whole, her class represents that with a few inconsistencies. Likely those students just don’t take standardized tests well.” Now if teacher b says all her students excel and all clearly fail the tes, then there would be cause for further analysis.
But that isn’t how they are being used. Their purpose is not to be a further check in a system of accountability. It is the meausre of success…pass or fail and your options at future success are forever affected.
I still maintain, however, that the “penicillin” you describe in education is involved parents. That should be looked at first and foremost.
Did you read the link I provided?
An effective education system (Direct Instruction) without requiring parental involvement.
And how is the government meant to create parental involvement anyway? It’s something outside a school’s ability to control - forget about it.
“As far as assessing our own actions, I would agree with you if the students were left to test themselves, but they are not. “
Confidence bias also applies to teachers who are testing the kids who they themselves have taught. Or schools who are testing the kids who they themselves have taught. This is why schools need an independent check of their teaching quality. Schools cannot be trusted to test themselves, just as students cannot be trusted to test themselves.
“Now with the pressure of high stakes testing, there is more pressure than ever for the teacher to do whatever s/he can to influence those scores, and some have been caught cheating. “
You know, I like Americans in many ways. You are wonderful, friendly people. But when I first read Freakenomics work on teacher cheating, I wondered how stupid the people in your education system are. My god - high stakes tests for schools and some teachers would cheat? What will they discover next? Some people are willing to work for money? Get to know your own species, people! (This instruction is aimed at whoever introduced the testing system, not you).
In NZ, the high-stakes tests have been, for as long as I have known, administered by the testing authority (at the school). Students are identified by numbers and put their numbers on the papers, not their names. The papers are sent to different areas of the country for marking.
“Also, it is rare that over the course of one’s educational career, one receives assessment from only one teacher. There are numerous checks between the grades and numerous opportunities for people with different perspectives and relationships to assess the child. A combination of assessments from daily work, portfolios, teacher obsrvation, parental input, the coach’s observation, and the child’s own thoughts, taken together as a whole, are the best indicator of a student’s abilities.”
How do you know? Please cite evidence for your claim.
And how can this information be aggregated and compared across schools to discover what educational techniques are best, and which schools are effective.?
“Not a single, high stakes test which will determine what classes you can take and eventually, if the whole school-to-work program is implemented, what job you can have. “
Exactly who is intending to implement such a programme? Pleae cite references.
And how is this related to the NCLB - which is meant to assess schools’ performance? Under the NCLB I understand that if a school is failing to teach its students, the students have remedies such as transferring to another school or receiving tutoring. So, under the NCLB, if your school is failing you, then you have a second chance to learn to read and write and do maths.
And certainly a kid who can’t read or write or do maths has some pretty heavy restrictions based on what jobs they can eventually take. But they would have those restrictions regardless of whether they were ever tested by standardised tests or not.
” Now if teacher b says all her students excel and all clearly fail the test, then there would be cause for further analysis. “
This plan is only possible if you first apply a standardisd test.
“There is no way to measure the intelligence or aptitude or even the mastery of a subject by a single means”
Well, (a), if we are interested in assessing schools we are only interested in assessing mastery, not intelligence or aptitude since the intelligence or aptitude of a student is not within the school’s ability to control.
(b) if it takes more than one test to measure mastery, then do more than one test.
Tell me, how many kids are there who can read and write excellently, but can’t pass a one-off reading test? Please provide some statistics on the extent of this problem.
“It is all about “the test.” We teach so that students can pass this one minimum competency test. “
The minimum competency tests of the NCLB are in reading, writing and maths. These are the basic purposes of school. What on earth could schools be teaching of more importance to kids in the long-run than reading, writing and arithmetic?
If it takes all the school day to teach every kid how to read and write, then so be it. That’s the school’s basic job. (Personally I think schools would be more effective if they take a bit of time off for lunch, recess, etc, but I’m not a teacher. I may be wrong about this. If the only way schools can teach every kid to read and write is by taking the whole day, then so be it.)
Actually I hope and suspect that schools, once they adopt an effective instructional system (as per my earlier reference), will not need to spend anywhere near the whole school day teaching reading and writing and basic arithmetic. Thus there should be time left over for arts and music and history and science and etc.
But the life possibilities which are open to a student who can do the three R’s are so large compared to the life possibilities open to any kid who can’t do the three R’s but can do anything else a school could reasonably teach. This is what makes me willing to sacrifice arts and music and history and science and etc before the three R’s, if necessary.
1) I’m well aware of what direct instruction is and its benefits. 70% of my instructional time was to be devoted to it, and it accounts for most instruction in most public schools. Except for the high-achieving ones, ironically. The posh Manhattan school that sorts its three year olds limits its use, in favor of more hands-on approaches. It increases test scores, but that does not mean it increases student abilities. Sorry I forgot to mention this, but the link you gave me just says “error page not found.”
2) The government isn’t meant to provide anything. That is the point. But so long as they are, there are numerous recognized programs in a variety of schools, such as the nationally recognized program I worked in, which are successful. These could be supported and encouraged, if I were to desire the central governments influence over education.
3) I don’t think your psychology analysis is as applicable here as you make it out to be. I’ll leave it at that for now, but the main reason there is pressure for the teacher’s to show performance is because we now hold them 100% accountable for student achievement. That hasn’t always been the case. I’m not saying in that that a teacher does not have some measure of accountability or anything of that nature.
4) Your analysis of your standardized testing is not so different than our own. We obviously are in agreement here. Of course the teachers will cheat in high stakes testing. That is the point, not any surprising finding. Whole districts are cheating. Actually, whole states are lowering standards so that their students can pass.
5)Cite evidence for what, exactly. Do you honestly believe that a single high stakes test is a better indicator of student ability than a multitude of assemssment strategies taken together as a whole? That defies logic, but here is some research, nonetheless:
http://www.fairtest.org/NJ%20Standardized%20Testing%20characteristics.pdf
The authors present an analysis of the technical characteristics in light of the high
stakes attached to the test results and discuss the ways educators use those results. The analysis
suggests that the sub-scale levels (content clusters) of the assessments demonstrate undesirably
low levels of reliability, lack content validity, and the results are strongly correlated to
socioeconomic status. District leaders and policy-makers should not use the results of the tests
as the sole evaluation tool for curriculum, instruction, or student achievement at the local level.
Educators, policy-makers, and parents should question the technical characteristics of their
states’ large-scale tests and require that the tests meet at least minimum levels of reliability and
content validity.
6) High stakes testing shapes instruction in unintended (I hope) ways. This is my main problem with it. Here, we (used to) have states that were independent of federal control. Some issued high stakes tests. Others did not. Some states were highly centralized. Others were not. This leads to interesting comparisons.
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0211-125-EPRU.pdf
Amrein and Berliner (2002), for example, examined multiple indicators of academic achievement to determine whether states with high-stakes tests and high school graduation exams posted greater achievement gains than states with no- or low-stakes testing programs. Of the states with high-stakes tests, they found that after such tests were implemented, 67 percent posted decreases in grade 4 math performance, 63 percent posted increases in grade 8 math performance, and 50 percent posted increases in grade 4 reading performance, compared with the nation.
Of the states with high school graduation exams, they found that after those exams were implemented, 67 percent posted decreases in ACT performance, 67 percent posted decreases in SAT performance, and 57 percent posted decreases in AP performance compared with the nation. Academic achievement improved in states with high-stakes tests or high school graduation exams on only one of six academic indicators examined in their study–the grade 8 math National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).12
Of the states with high school graduation exams, they found that after those exams were implemented, 67 percent posted decreases in ACT performance, 67 percent posted decreases in SAT performance, and 57 percent posted decreases in AP performance compared with the nation. Academic achievement improved in states with high-stakes tests or high school graduation exams on only one of six academic indicators examined in their study–the grade 8 math National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).12
6) Who wants such a program? It is based on the exit exam, but it already exists in Germany. But here in the US, Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy seems to advocate it. You can just scroll down to the actual letter.
And it is the goal of school-to-work.
http://www.edaction.org/glossary.htm#SCANS
7) NCLB claims to rate school performance. It however does a poor job at that if you read through the articles I have already cited. It has the allure of perceived validity, but it just isn’t there. Of course a child who cannot read will have limited options in life. That isn’t the argument. The problem with this testing is that it does not test what it intends to test (lacks validity)j and is a poor measure of student achievement. It measures how well they take tests. And as soon as test taking recieves such a high place in society that one cannot advance without that skill, then we will suddenly see that those who fail the test fail at life. That isn’t the case now…there is no demonstrable correlation actually, but the tests are yet to determine as much as they are to determine in future as NCLB takes hold and the implementation is complete.
The ability to move is theoretical. In what I have read so far, the waiting lists are too long so the students usually stay where they are at. And the test is still a poor meausre.
9) Look through the research I have already cited. There is not proof of any real benefit to these tests and only unintended consequences.
This isn’t about what schools should be teaching. You are pulling things into this discussion that were never there. Standardized tests lower the standards of reading by focusing on criterion referenced material. By that I mean that Johnny reads a passage and is asked numerous comprehension questions. He is not asked to reason, apply, compare, contrast, etc., because that does not test well in a multiple choice format.
The tests don’t measure writing, so we will never know, will we? The main problem is that with a minimum competency, high stakes tese, we now have minimum competency classrooms. There is no time left in the day to challenge bright children. In fact, I remember being shown my bubble…how to determine which students were most likely to gain improvement through increased instruction. You focus on those because they deliver the increases in performance the school needs to maintain its ranking. So you just ignore the bright ones because they will pass anyway and the slower ones because they aren’t worth the investment of time necessary to show a measurable increase in student scores.
10) Regarding recess, every research study ever conducted that I am aware of has shown that taking away recess lowers student performance. And yet we continue to do it.
http://education.auburn.edu/news/2005/august/recess.html
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:vVK1V9jnxGgJ:https://www.aera.net/uploadedFiles/Publications/Journals/Educational_Researcher/3401/2672-03_Pellegrini.pdf+recess+and+school+performance&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6&client=firefox-a
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2001/oct01/recess.shtml
http://naecs.crc.uiuc.edu/position/recessplay.html
http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-2/recess.html
11) And you are back on the three R’s which isn’t relavent, really. That is what the tests purport to measure but the evidence is inconclusive as to their effectivenes. And we are not teaching them, we are teaching test taking skills. The whole of the curriculum is beginning to look increasingly like one large test…with the test item on the projector and the class together going through the test items and applying the problem solving skills they have learned. Problem solving skills which are most relavent to test-taking, not real life.
Some more on high stakes testing:
What we do when the state makes an error is a very valid question. We think it doesn’t happen…I mean they’re computer graded, right? And on the non-bubble portions, the scores are checked and verified. Interesting side note, the people grading these tests have college degrees but not necessarily ant teaching experience or degree. If the state can employ them for checking up on certified teachers, why the fuss about homeschoolers and certification? But I difress…The testing companies have made serious errors affecting millions.
from the times
“One error by another big company resulted in nearly 9,000 students in New York City being mistakenly assigned to summer school in 1999. In Kentucky, a mistake in 1997 by a smaller company, Measured Progress of Dover, N.H., denied $2 million in achievement awards to deserving schools. In California, test booklets have been delivered to schools too late for the scheduled test, were left out in the rain or arrived with missing pages.”
Their response? I can’t find the link now, but they said we’re asking too much of them…they’re swamped and cannot keep up and maintain quality.
I do commend them for this though. Testing industry standard (and they should know the most about testing and be the most likely to push for greater testing) says that these tests have too much room for error and inconsistency to base decisions such as grade placement, etc, on them. They should be an independent indicator and nothing more. They don’t like that it has become high-stakes, either.
Some more links:
Errors in Standardized Tests: A Systemic Problem
other opinions
What you say may be true, but how, exactly, do you legislate good parenting, and do you really want to go there?
At any rate, the fact that schools are lowering their standards and fudging their data to keep funds has nothing to do with NCLB, but the amoral and unethical behavior of the administators.
“these tests have too much room for error and inconsistency to base decisions such as grade placement, etc, on them”
That’s a ridiculous statement, given that teachers are biased and their grading is subjective, and the travesty in California this last year demonstrates that teachers have been passing students along who should have failed.
Test scores, and only test scores, should decide placement.
Thanks for commenting, rightwingprof. No, I don’t want to go there. My point is that parental involvement is what drives improvement. I don’t want the federal government involved in any aspect of education, and certainly not in parenting. I would like for parents to stop looking to the government for solutions to their problems and realize how much power they have to improve the education of their own children. The education of our children is not the state’s responsibility. It is ours.
As to the cheating, yes it is the fault of the individual people involved. But there is a lot of pressure and obvioulsy many will opt that route.
NCLB has numerous failures. And for all the money that it has spent and all the systemic changes it has brought about, it boasts little in actual gains (by its own measures). The achievement gap hasn’t lessened any. In fact, the rate of gains that we were seeing prior to its enactment have slowed. And there is evidence from state statistics that, historically speaking, the introduction of high stakes testing has regularly lead to a drop in proficiency.
Hey, thanks again! “testing and only testing should determine placement?” The testing companies themselves disagree with you.
They make one mistake and millions of students are affected. As in the cases cited. Teacher bias may affect some students, but what about testing bias? They have always disproportionately affected the poor and minorities. The poorest whites score better than the richest blacks. Is that because whites are better? White poverty is better than black wealth? Or is there the possibility of cultural bias, which has long been claimed and can be demonstrated in some test items?
I’m sorry that the Direct Instruction link did not work. Try this one: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Eadiep/ft/becker.htm.
And incidentally, the successsful project is Direct Instruction Model - a specific form of teaching - not direct instruction as a generic term of having the teacher up the front telling students information. This is the programme developed by Professor Wesley C. Becker and Siegfried Engelmann.
It is not plain old teaching. From the earlier link I provided “The central element of The Full Immersion Model of DI is the scripted curricular program. The curriculum materials include highly interactive yet fast-paced lessons. Each lesson builds on the previous lessons; therefore, the lessons gradually introduce new skills. The lessons require teachers to adopt specific instructional strategies such as directing choral responses and signaling.”
The link I supplied works fine for me so I am not sure what the problem is - perhaps your browser is not coping the whole link over? I’m going to try a html reference as well,
href=”http://www.csrq.org/documents/ESCSRQReport-Full_000.pdf”>http://www.csrq.org/documents/ESCSRQReport-Full_000.pdf - for the off chance that that works better. If not, try this front page at http://www.csrq.org/CSRQreportselementaryschoolreport.asp
The reason I think parental involvement is not the “pencillin” of education is that parental involvement is not within the school’s control. Nor is it necessary, since Direct Instruction (note capitals) works without requiring parental involvement.
“I don’t think your psychology analysis is as applicable here as you make it out to be. I’ll leave it at that for now, but the main reason there is pressure for the teacher’s to show performance is because we now hold them 100% accountable for student achievement.”
Confidence bias appears in psychological experiments regardless of whether the person being tested is in fact being held accountable. And you wonder whether it is applicable or not to schools - think about the people you know - how many of them are immune from confidence bias? Do all of them rigorously set out to disprove every single one of their favourite theories? Confidence bias is a major problem in the sciences which is why there is so much emphasis on peer review and replicability of research.
As for “http://www.fairtest.org/NJ%20Standardized%20Testing%20characteristics.pdf”, this is about the problems of the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK) - specifically the report finds it’s too short to be reliable as an assessment across all the sub-areas it aims to address. This is not an argument that standardised tests are inherently unreliable.
“http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0211-125-EPRU.pdf” - may be set against http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/GradingtheSystems.pdf - very few states have their standardised tests and accountablility measure sorted out.
And on the other side, having high-stakes test does not appear to reduce performance. This report at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_33.htm looks at schools’ results on high stakes tests with their results on low stakes standardised tests. “The report finds that score levels on high stakes tests closely track score levels on other tests, suggesting that high stakes tests provide reliable information on student performance. … If schools are “teaching to the test,” they are doing so in a way that conveys useful general knowledge as measured by nationally respected low stakes tests.”
Standardised tests are not an idiot-proof scheme that can be plonked down and produce magical improvements in educational results. This is only a count against them in the real world if there is in fact an idiot-proof scheme in education that achieves major improvements in educational results. I don’t know of any.
As for the School-to-Work programme, it seems like a scandously waste of money and effort (high school students at grade 11 picking what job they want to work in? I changed my mind
while I was at university), but there’s no reference to your “single, high stakes test which will determine what classes you can take and eventually, if the whole school-to-work program
is implemented, what job you can have.” Under the scheme kids are still left to chose which job interests them - albeit at a ridiculously young age.
You did not supply a html link to the Marc Tucker letter - is this the one you are referring to? http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/ The one where he says “All students are guaranteed that they will have a fair shot at reaching the standards: that is, that whether they make it or not depends on the effort they are willing to make, and nothing else. School delivery standards are in place to make sure this happens.”
And I can’t see any reference in this letter to a “single, high stakes test which will determine which classes you can take and…which job you can have.” (I don’t think it’s a good proposal, but that’s for other reasons.)
“There is no time left in the day to challenge bright children. In fact, I remember being shown my bubble…how to determine which students were most likely to gain improvement through increased instruction. You focus on those because they deliver the increases in performance the school needs to maintain its ranking. So you just ignore the bright ones because they will pass anyway and the slower ones because they aren’t worth the investment of time necessary to show a measurable increase in student scores.”
This is a values judgment. If schools do not have enough time to be able to educate all kids to the best of each kid’s ability, then do you
(a) give everyone about equal time, and let the slower kids spend their time frustrated, bored, ashamed of not being able to read, and likely to be illiterate for years afterwards, or do you
(b) try to bring every kid up to a
basic standard of reading, maths, writing even at the price of boring and not extending the smarter kids.
My choice, if schools can’t do both, is option (a). And I say this as someone who was good at school and very bored at school - miserable though my childhood was the childhoods of those who hadn’t learnt to read was far worse. And their adulthoods are worse too.
Since standardised tests lead your school into spending masses of effort into educating the marginal student into reading and maths while ignoring the smarter students, we can deduce that whatever the school was doing before standardised tests was not teaching those marginal students how to read and do maths. So from my point of view it is a good thing that you were teaching more kids how to read and do maths. It is a shame that the school was ignoring the slower ones, that’s an argument for bringing schools’ standards forward more so the school has to teach everyone the minimum (ignoring the severely cognitively-disabled).
This of course does depend on my value judgement that if we can’t have both, bringing every kid to basic literacy is more important than educating the smarter kids to a higher standrad while letting the slower ones rot.
“10) Regarding recess, every research study ever conducted that I am aware of has shown that taking away recess lowers student performance.”
Thanks. It’s nice to know that for once my intuition was not wrong. That happens so seldom.
As for testing companies stuffing things up - everyone stuffs things up. It’s far more widespread than cheating. Companies regularly recall products, patients die due to anaesthestic, construction engineers build bridges that fall down. Politicans get their countries into wars (which, regardless of an analysis of any particular war, implies a stuff-up by at least one politician - one on the side that lost). What matters is the quality controls you have in place to catch stuff-ups.
In NZ, when I was going through, exam quality and marking standards were maintained by openness. Each student’s exam booklets were returned to them and the exam questions were released once the exam was sat. Consequently wrong questions generally made the front page of the newspaper (eg the year I sat School C English there were about four multi-choice questions which had no right or wrong answer and this made the front page of the newspaper so the exam authority announced that all answers to those questions would be right).
Students could check their exams for mistakes in the marking and on payment of a fee get them remarked (refunded if the remarking resulted in significant changes). This transparency increased quality.
American psychometricians have told me that releasing exams and answers would drive up costs because questions can’t be re-used to the same extent, but none of them appear to have any effective alternatives as to how to maintain incentives on testing companies to maintain quality.
Incidentally, at least some standardised tests’ results correlate with real life outcomes, in at least some areas. There have been some studies in the army which find a positive correlation between results on reading tests and soldier quality.
Scribner, B.L.S., Smith, D.A., Baldwin, R.H., and Phillips, R.L., Are Smart Tankers Better? AFQT and Military Productivity, Armed Forces and Society, 12, 1986, pp.193-206; See http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/2/193
Horne, D., “The Impact of Soldier Quality on Army Performance,” Armed Forces and Society, 13, 1987, pp. 443-445;, http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/443
Fernandez, J.C. “Soldier Quality and Job Performance in Team Tasks,” Social Science Quarterly, 73, 1992, pp. 253-265. A description of this study is in http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2005/RAND_TR193.pdf
The fact that certain groups score lower than others on tests does not in any way imply bias. That’s simple statistics.
So how about all those California seniors who had been given passing grades, but couldn’t pass an 8th grade proficiency test? You want to pass them on to me, so I can waste my time teaching them what they didn’t learn in high school?
Sorry, I do that all the time, and frankly, I’m sick of it. But you’re perfectly welcome to start doing your jobs, so I don’t have to do them for you. Because that’s what I do, do your jobs for you.
Back to my original point, parental involvement will do more than any other single program, test, etc. to improve student performance, whatever the measure. Standardized tests have the ability to measure some things and not others. It is my impression that professors are having greater problems now than several years ago with students in college who just aren’t prepared. And yet we test more vigorously now than ever before.
I don’t have a problem with testing in a general sense. I don’t have a problem with them as one meausrement out of many. I have a problem with them as the sole measure of accountability and success. There are some things they cannot measure which also are important. Skills important in college which I’m sure you would like to see more of…abstract reasoning, writing, etc.
They are also having unintended consequences, turning our schools into minimum competency classrooms. The standards I personally place on education are far greater than what the test does. I agree whole heartedly that teachers need to have higher expectations for their students, but that does not seem to be resulting from more testing.
The SAT, which I’m sure you are very familiar with, seems only to be able to predict socio-economic status which was the original point before the bunny trail. Grades alone are a better indicator of how successful a student will be in college and adding the SAT to that improves the prediction only negligibly. This has been researched and proved to such a degree that several universities began moving away from it as the sole measurement for college entrance.
I don’t doubt that for the most part the tests may be accurate enough to be able to check teachers most of the time. But I do not like what the high stakes testing is doing to classrooms. And I don’t like the idea that children like my brother who for whatever reason cannot fill in all the bubbles may spend their education in a special education setting due to one measurement of their ability. As a check, fine. As the sole meausre of success, there are too many other problems.
I appreciate your concern for my children, but I think they will be just fine. We’ll get to filling in bubbles some day, but right now, I am happy that my first grader has enough of a grasp of mathematical principles that she figured out multiplication on her own. I am happy that she is reading at a second-third grade level. I am also happy that she is able to apply what she is learning. We have a very structured curriculum which I find far superior to anything in the public schools, and the essay testing and note book work, while a little difficult to standardize, does provide for more of a measure of her actual problem solving skills while giving her ample opportunity to demonstrate her knowledge of basic skills.
Study after study has shown that raising expectations raises student performance. So why are we allowing this testing, which is only part of an attempt to quantify and measure what is going on, actually lower classroom expectations?
We (you) are suffering the effects of the last great educational idea to come out of New Zealand…whole language. And the various philosophies which followed which lead to classrooms without structure, problems with no right answer, children determining their own paces, and teachers never actually teaching. That philosophy needs to go.
Tacy, I’m sorry, but for some reason my original comment did not post. It was regarding the research studies you cited. Thank you for providing the links to them, but unfortunately, the first two are only abstracts, giving me little information and the third brings up a page which says the information is unavailable.
One of the abstracts includes that there was some sort of mental testing as part of several measures to determine performance, something I am not against.
I also don’t know much about these tests. They may well be very targeted to the skills one needs to be successful in the military. I know you have to take a competency test to even get in, so some selection has already occured. Just out of curiousity, I wonder if it would be possible that some who failed these tests and never were able to enter would, with training, prove to be quite competent at whatever their job was to be? I guess we’ll never know. But the military also does not have the responsibility to educate every child…they can screen as they choose within the scope of the law.
As an independent meausre, I can see value to a school district determining that a standardized test might be an efficient means of ensuring some things. I don’t think it should come from the federal level (obviously, from other statements I’ve made). For the most part, kids who do well in school do well on these tests. That isn’t the issue. There may be some correlation, but correlation isn’t the same as a direct relationship. There are numerous children who do not test well and yet go on to succeed quite well in the real world.
Also, I’m not accusing the military of this now, but mental testing has a long history with the American military. It was our military, after all, that conclusively proved the feeble-mindedness of the Jew. Native born white Americans are the most intelligent in the world, followed closely by Northern Europeans (due to their Nordic blood, Brigham hypothesizes) with those from Southern Europe at the bottom. In WWI, we didn’t allow blacks to serve in the military, but I wonder where they would have ended up in this testing?
This is long after the discussion, but I have been reading more about the studies involving Direct Instruction recently, since it is one of the models that Reading First supports. Interestingly, it included heavy parental involvement, with parents receiving training in the program, and activities to support the education occurring in the classroom at home.
So we are back to parental involvement being key. That is not a thing that can be regulated. So long as parents continually shove their children off on the state, education will continue to decline. If they decide to get involved and take responsibility for directing their child’s education, it won’t much matter what the system looks like, learning will improve.