Public School Performance & Testing
CalGal -- Thursday, May 22, 2003 -- 05:08:55 PMWhat can we do to hold public schools accountable?
This thread is tagged: education(All users will see what tags exist for a thread. Please tag carefully!)
We have a thread for public school funding, but I thought I might branch out a bit.
States Cut Test Standards to Avoid Sanctions
Unexpected results of No Child Left Behind: in order to qualify for funding, schools are having to cut their standards because their testing results are so weak. Example:
Security was tight when Texas State Board of Education members were given results last fall from a field trial of a new statewide achievement test. Guards stood outside their locked meeting room, and board members were asked to sign a secrecy pledge, reflecting the sensitivity of the situation.
"The results were grim," said Chase Untermeyer, a member. "Few students did well. Many students got almost no answers right."
Fearing that thousands of students would fail the new test and be held back a grade, and that hundreds of schools could face penalties under the federal No Child Left Behind law, the board voted to reduce the number of questions that students must answer correctly to pass it, to 20 out of 36, from 24, for third-grade reading.
Boy would be thrilled all to pieces if state governments ceased to grandfather in teachers who started teaching 20 years ago and who never had to pass tests like the PRAXIS. He would also be thrilled if school districts insisted on content knowledge among teachers. Right now there is a glut of language arts instructors, of which he is one, but that is in part due to the fact that a lot of LA instructors at his level aren't required to have any particular knowledge about the English language or English literature. The instruction level is correspondingly sucky.
These two items alone would clear out a lot of deadwood. They're things that would have to be implemented on the county level or the state level, though, and they're more of an administration issue. Do you mean what parents can do, or what the public can do, or what the administration can do, or all of the above?
This is in Social Policy, so I meant "we" in the societal sense.
Well, one of the things we as a society need to do is figure out the purpose of public education. Right now, a lot of administrators are determining it on a school-by-school basis, and while some administrators have decided that their school's mission is to educate kids as best they can, other administrators (and it devolves down to the teachers) have decided that public education serves as a means by which they can leverage undereducation and underachievement into boosted self-esteem on their own part: "I am so self-sacrificing that I spend my career with these kids who have no chance." So it's in their best interest to keep the status quo.
There has to be some way to remove those kinds of administrators, or to make it clear that while it may be in their best interest to keep the status quo, it is in society's best interest to move the focus over to actual education.
We had a discussion about the purpose of public education in another thread. But I agree, it's a fundamental point. What are we doing? Is every child supposed to end up in college? Should we safely assume that highschool graduates are unqualified for any management positions?
It is a hugely interesting issue, and alas, everything I have to contribute is on a more micro level. But I will watch this space with interest.
For the record: Boy has had students who have been killing time in middle school until they could get to high school and start metal shop. They're good at metalworking; they like it a lot; it's what they intend to do for a living. Obviously, they will still need math and English and so forth, but they don't plan on getting a four-year college degree.
But they shouldn't be allowed to "kill time". How do you teach kids like this to pay attention in school, to learn that some levels of math, science, and writing skills will help them in life?
And of course, then you get into the racism issue, because it would turn out that many minority kids (black and hispanic) would not be suited for college.
That's the thing about any public policy issue--the performance gap rears its head.
But back to this particular issue: I am amazed that the states are allowed to redefine success so openly.
I meant killing time in the sense that while he was paying attention to school and doing fairly well, he knew that his future lay elsewhere.
And of course, then you get into the racism issue, because it would turn out that many minority kids (black and hispanic) would not be suited for college.
I am convinced that this is the exact reason why so many schools, particularly in districts like Boy's, have largely done away with vocational trades and have defined success as a college-prep course of study.
My experience has been that most people don't want to confront some ugly realities, and therefore real education reform doesn't happen. One past superintendant (we can't seem to keep any one of them for more than three years) had as his platform the simple truth that resources are limited, so we need to focus them where they're most needed. Ergo, spend the most money at the elementary school level and decrease financial allocations as kids age. So, for at least a few years, the high-school-age kids are kind of a lost cause. In reality, they are anyway, because if you can't get it together enough at age 17 to come to school most days and study the minimum amount needed to pass, well, there's not much that can be done to help you. But when the superintendant verbalized this harsh reality, the hue and cry was unbelievable. They pretty much tarred and feathered the guy.
Mostone--yeah, me too.
Betsey--I agree, but the thing that really stuns me is that here was a genuine education reform. Like it or hate it, there was a real goal behind No Child Left Behind. But everyone is gaming the system, so it's all a waste.
At the same time, I think that NCLB's focus on minority improvement was incredibly unrealistic, and many schools that are doing very well were nonetheless penalized because of the performance of maybe 5-10 kids sometimes, not even percent. That's an invitation to game.
No one wants to do or say anything controversial. My city opened a new school this year - a school for pregnant middle schoolers, for crying out loud. Having a child as an unmarried teen girl is pretty much a dead guarantee that you're not going to be successful, but heaven forbid we actually address the problem in a real manner.
But no one wants to fund abortions, or suggest for a moment that this might be a good idea for a teenager.
I've got a friend who is a librarian at an inner-city school where most of the kids are Hispanic. Besides the obvious problems with language & kids who move frequently, she's mentioned the unbelievable amounts their school expends on special needs. There is one small child who can't talk or sit up or communicate in any way, so is in a wheelchair. The district pays an aide $30,000 a year to be with her all day, every day because her parents refuse to allow her to go in the special education room. Presumably they can do this for the next 11 years since she's 5 or 6 & placed in a first grade room. I'm really sorry the child has such severe medical problems but good grief, that's a lot of $$ out of the public purse to spend on a single student. Using the term loosely.
The problem is that some kids will have to be written off. No one wants to be the one to write them off, though.
Boy got into a huge argument with one of his friends when CA voted in the legislation that essentially stopped most bi-lingual education. Friend thought that it was so terrible that the kids who were in high school at that point were going to be written off; Boy pointed out to him that the alternative would be continuing to tacitly writing off generation after generation of kids who would never learn adequate English. And it turned out that the younger kids did indeed learn English much better than anticipated, but yeah, the high school kids were essentially written off. Was it worth it to save many, many, many more kids? I think so. But most people don't want to do those kinds of equations.
Why not instead give tax credits to parents who have kids with special needs?