by on February 21, 2012 Leave a Comment

A Perfect Storm Hits Public Schools

Guest Post by Steven Sellers Lapham

Note: Steven Sellers Lapham and Jack Hassard worked together on this post.

Public schools in America are under attack from many directions, and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) seems bent on delivering a lethal one-two-three punch. This decade will likely witness more neighborhood schools shutting down, crowded classrooms, excellent teachers fired, and children fobbed off to “online learning programs.” Let’s recall that Prince Edward County, Virginia closed its schools 1959-64, creating a “lost generation” of children who were hobbled, as adults, by years of missed education. Today, a school district in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, cash strapped and unable to pay its teachers, is being kept open only by a federal court order.

We now face the prospect of a school closing because the local tax base has withered, the state government is under water, and the federal government has deemed the school to be unworthy of aid due to lackluster scores on high-stakes student tests. ED, which should be the strongest defender of public schools, is making the problem worse.

Punch #1: Punish the Poor.

The slogan “Race to the Top” is social Darwinism at its most ugly: Reward those who are doing well (inevitably, schools in wealthier neighborhoods) and punish those who are struggling (predictably, schools in America’s poorer neighborhoods). A child in Oklahoma, Mississippi, or North Dakota should not have to rely on a state administrator’s clever grant-writing skills in order to receive a good education. Certainly, some grant monies should be available for innovation and experimentation in schools. But to make “success” the guiding star of educational policy is wrong.

Punch #2: Death by Paperwork.

States might avoid the draconian punishments of the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) by applying to ED for a “waiver.” The mad rush is on. To date, eleven states have submitted a “flexibility report.” Georgia’s is 249 pages. California estimates that enacting all of the waiver requirements (unfunded mandates) would cost at least $2 billion and has declined to apply. ED could make the waiver process useful by placing a 1,000-word limit on applications (a bit longer than this essay) and asking only for a brief description of a state’s educational goals. This would free up teachers and administrators to do real work.

Punch #3: Absurd Metrics.

Teacher evaluations will be based on “student growth.” There is, however, no scientific basis for doing this. The practice contradicts a 2011 National Academy of Science report, “Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education.”

Using test scores to measure the efforts of teachers is a pseudoscience akin to phrenology of the 1800s, which purported to measure one’s intelligence according to the shape of one’s skull. It also brings to mind journalists and social scientists of the 1920-60s who misued prison statistics to “prove” that black people are genetically inclined toward criminal behavior.  In his Harvard University Press book, Khalil Gibran Muhammad established how a racial and racist, ‘scientific’ discourse promoted this idea.  Today, we use high-stakes test scores to “prove” that embattled schools are “failures,” and that hard-working professionals aren’t working hard enough.

There are many reasons why student test scores might not mount endlessly upward, such as an influx of non-English speaking immigrants; a rise in divorces; the town’s factory closes; family transience; a rise in home foreclosures; a sad absence of parents, who are serving in Afghanistan; etc. Or maybe the for-profit company that created the test got a little sloppy when it wrote the test questions, skewing the results. These powerful influences cannot be adequately controlled in a statistical analysis on the small scale of a single school district, a single school, and least of all, a single teacher.

Pushing Back

We must ban the use of standardized tests to make high-stakes decisions of any kind. Standardized test scores might be used ethically as a diagnostic tool (“Apply first aid here!”), but never as an excuse for punishment (“Bleed the patient dry!”). As a study by Fairtest has revealed, the system has placed an inhumane burden on teachers and administrators on the ground, resulting in cheating scandals in 32 states and the District of Columbia. Valerie Strauss reports that the “misuse of standardized tests mandated by public officials has created a climate in which increasing numbers of educators feel they have no choice but to cross ethical lines.”

Of course, teachers, like any professional group, should be evaluated and held to high standards. Experienced teachers and administrators in the school itself have personal knowledge of the teacher, students, local community and curriculum. Peer observation and evaluation have been a part of healthy educational settings for centuries. There are rigorous protocols for teacher evaluation provided by professional and subject-discipline associations. Let’s use those.

In New York State, 1,200 principals (and even more teachers) have signed a letter protesting the use of students’ test scores to evaluate their job performance. California, with more public school students than any other state, has jumped ship. So has Pennsylvania, apparently. “The emphasis on testing under the waiver plan is as heavy-handed as it has been under NCLB,” said educational historian Diane Ravitch, who served as assistant secretary of education.

Replacing NCLB with a new law could propel our nation’s educational standing. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s most cherished goal is to return the United States to first place in the percentage of the population who graduate from college. To do that, let’s provide every child who could benefit from daycare with free admission to Head Start, which is the most powerful predictor of success for children born into poverty. Then we can strive to make every school in every neighborhood in America a center of excitement and excellence, not just the chosen few.

Until Congress passes a new federal education law, ED can write its rules and marshal its resources to assist students, teachers, and schools – and stop punishing them. And it can adopt a new slogan to match this new ethic. How about “Raise All Boats!”

Have the Federal Government’s education acts (No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top) created conditions that have led to the “perfect storm” hitting American education?  What do you think?

————————————-

– Steven Sellers Lapham is an editor at a nonprofit educational association. The opinions expressed are his own.

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by on February 16, 2012 3 Comments

Test-Based Reform: Where is the Common Core Leading Us?

Part 1

Posted on Anthony Cody’s Living in Dialogue blog.

In a post last week, I reported that Georgia’s Cobb County School System rejected the superintendent’s proposal to hire 50 Teacher for America teachers for schools located in South Cobb.  Many of the South Cobb schools are underperforming schools.  I suggested that this was a good decision, but also indicated that it was done by default.  The default is, that the proposal never made it to agenda of the board and thus was withdrawn for the time being.  Is this another avoidance tactic?

Today, we expand our thinking to explore the nature of the achievement data that is used to make decisions about student progress and teacher effectiveness.  Our over obsession with test data has led to the narrowing of curriculum, and led to the goal of education to single a outcome—the improvement of test scores.  Period.

In the next post the challenge of teacher education is investigated, and the data is to show that high quality teaching results from teacher preparation programs that are clinically and experientially based.  Recommendations are then made for how alternative teacher education programs (including Teach for America) can be improved.

The Simple Mindedness of Test-Based Reform 

One of the serious issues plaguing education is that so many of us want a simplistic solutions to such a complex and diverse system.  We’ve been convinced that test score is a valid measure of student achievement, so much so that we willing to use the test scores to reward or punish students, teachers and schools.

Does One Size Fits All?

Have we made producing workers as the purpose of schooling? Is schools performance the basic tasks of creating enough workers with “adequate” abilities and the right attitude to become an employee?  (M. Peterson, 2009, http://www.wholeschooling.net/, extracted February 15, 2012).

The approach is, test- and standards-based reform seems to mean that school improvement is only based on a minimum set of core standards.

Achieve, Inc., has already developed the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and Reading/Language Arts, and now in the writing phase of creating the Next Generation of Science Standards.  And right behind the common standards are the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a state consortium led again by Achieve, Inc. to develop the next generation K-12 assessments in English and math.  Does this work? Does one size fitsall?

This model is rooted in the myth that the United States is not competitive in the global market place because our students don’t perform at high enough levels on guess what: achievement tests.  The truth is that the U.S. is very competitive, and has been for decades.  With basing their thinking on test scores, politicians and think tank types have convinced the public that American schools are a failure, and the one kind of reform that will help us “race to the top” is driven by just one fact: we must raise test scores, and they must be raised every year.  Get a grip.

Competitiveness of U.S. Citizens. The United States is economically competitive as reported in the World Economic Forum’s 2010-2011 Global-Competitiveness report, and as reported by Iris Rotberg in her book Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform.  According to the World Economic Forum report, the U.S. is one of only 35 countries in the world that are at the highest stage of development—the innovation-driven economy.

The United States now ranks fifth in the world in global competitiveness.  This ranking has fallen one position, from a higher 4th to a lower 5th in the last year.  At this time, the U.S. economy is the largest in the world.  However, the World Economic Forum researchers have concluded that the U.S. economic competitiveness has weaknesses.  The report reads that the weaknesses include the business communities’ criticism of the public and private institutions, that there is a great lack of trust in politicians, and a lack of a strong relationships between government and business.   And the U.S. debt continues to grow. (World Economic Forum Report, 2011 – 2012. www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GCR_Report_2011-12.pdf, p. 14, extracted February 15, 2012). 

According to the World Economic Forum, student test scores on international tests in reading, mathematics and science were not related to the weakening of the U.S.’s ability to compete. Period.

In Balancing Change and Tradition in Global Education Reform, Iris C. Rotberg, Research Professor of Education Policy at The George Washington University, concluded that continuing to use student test scores is not a valid argument to understand a nation’s competitiveness.  According to Rotberg, a nation’s competitiveness is too complicated, and is impacted by other variables as identified in the World Economic Report.  She puts it this way:

Other variables, such as outsourcing to gain access to lower-wage employees, the climate and incentives for innovation, tax rates, health-care and retirement costs, the extent of government subsidies or partnerships, protectionism, intellectual-property enforcement, natural resources, and exchange rates overwhelm mathematics and science scores in predicting economic competitiveness.

There is ample evidence that student test scores are not a barometer of U.S. economic growth, or depression.  U.S. test scores did not cause or contribute to the Great Recession, any more than they caused the Economic Boom of the 1990s.

For example, I have included a graph below which shows the United States GDP growth rate from 1957 (the year of Sputnik) to 2012.  If you scroll down to Table 2, which shows the NAEP trends in 13 year old math scores, you’ll note that student math scores rose during the last 39 years, while the GDP rose and fell during the same period of time.  What caused the GDP fluctuations?  Student test scores?  I don’t think so.

Table 1. U.S. GDP 1957 – 2012.  Source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth, extracted February 15, 2012.

Rising Test Scores. We’ve been raising test scores ever since the National Assessment of Education Progress  (NAEP) began administering low-stakes tests in 1969 to a nationally representative sample of American students at grades 4, 8, and 12 for main assessments, and ages 9, 13, and 17 for long term assessments. For example, the trend in mathematics scores for 13-year old students has shown an overall increase in scores since 1973, when testing began by NAEP.  The data for 9 year-olds follows the same trend, while the for 17 year olds there is not a significant difference from 1973 – 2008, although it is higher now.   Long term trends in reading slowly rose from 1971 – 2008, in the same manner as mathematics scores.  The same can be said about science scores.

Table 2. Trend in 13 year old math scores 1973 – 20008.  SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), various years, 1973–2008 Long-Term Trend Mathematics Assessments.

Achievement Gaps. The achievement gap that exists between students by race/ethnicity is shown in Table 3 and by family income as shown in Table 4.  The NAEP data shows that compared to 2004, there was no significant change in the average scores of White, Black, or Hispanic students at age 17.  This is significant because this was the period during which the No Child Left Behind Act was implemented.  One of the underlying premises of the act was to decrease the gap among white, Black and Hispanic students.  The data shows that this did not happen.

Family income also has a powerful impact on achievement scores.  As shown in Table 4, there are significant differences the achievement scores on NAEP tests from 203 – 2011 based on family income.  Family income is determined by eligibility for free or reduced lunches.  As shown in the graph, the differences are quite apparent.  Abbott and Joireman have shown that family income level may contribute more to the disparity among students scores than race/ethnicity. Gerald Coles reports on Anthony Cody’s Living in Dialogue blog that the achievement gap between the rich and the poor has grown, especially in the last decade.

It isn’t enough to simply acknowledge the gap that exists among groups by race/ethnicity or family income.  We must go deeper and ask why and how the present form of educational reform, which purported to help solve the problem, has actually contributed to preventing any progress.

Lisa Delpit, Eminent Scholar and Executive Director of the Center for Urban Education and Innovation at Florida International University, and author of Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, and the forthcoming book, Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children, suggests that the “programmed, mechanistic strategies designed to achieve the programmed, mechanistic goal of raising test scores” strips away the humanity that should be the basis for education (Delpit, Other People’s Children, 2005).  The present obsession with standards and test scores has driven us further away from realistic goals that she calls for.  She puts it this way:

Nowhere is the result more glaring than in urban classrooms serving low-income children of color, where low test scores meet programmed, scripted teaching.  The reductionism spawned has created settings in which teachers and students are treated as nonthinking objects to be manipulated and “managed.”

Dr. Delpit explains that she is more concerned now with the development of the character of students than she was years before.  The reductionist goals of the present reform movement are not serving most children in American schools.  She speaks about Hyde Schools as an exemplar of schools that focus on the character of students, not on their test scores.  In her first book, Other People’s Children she quotes the founder of the Hyde Schools, Joe Gauld explaining that the message to students is:

  • that they have an important purpose on this earth and the unique potential to fulfill it.
  • that their true worth is measured not by their social status, intellect, or talents, but by the strength of their character
  • that we admire their attitude and effort, and care less about their actual achievements, because these will come with time if they develop character traits like those emblazoned  on the Hyde School shield: courage, integrity, concern, curiosity, and leadership.

Schools, like the Hyde Schools, base their work and curriculum of a set of goals that are very different than the narrow interpretation of our test- and standards-based school culture.  As Hyde Schools director and founder Joseph A. Gauld explains:

Over the years, making academic proficiency the purpose of American education has shifted the benefits of learning away from students and families, onto schools, colleges, businesses, and the education industry itself.

In her new book, Dr. Delpit reminds us that there is no achievement gap at birth, and is concerned that the conversation about student’s education has become limited and restricted.  She asks:

  • What happened to the societal desire to instill character?
  • To develop creativity?
  • To cultivate courage and kindness?
  • How can we look at a small bundle of profound potential and see only a number describing inadequacy?

Dr. Delpit believes that classrooms can be created that speak to “children’s strengths rather than hammering them with their weakness, and about building connections to cultures and communities.” (Delpit, 2012, p. XXI).

Dr. Coles suggests that family income or wealth can make significant differences in ending the achievement gap.  Work that provides a family with a decent income, work with reasonable hours, health care for all citizens, housing, and college education—these would help children in ways that Dr. Delpit documents so well in her research.

 

Table 3. Trend in NAEP Mathematics Average Scores for 17-year-old students, by race/ethnicity. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), various years, 1973–2008 Long-Term Trend Mathematics Assessments.  Click on the graph to go to the NAEP site where you can explore the data.

Table 4. Average 2003 – 2011 Mathematics Scores for 8th Graders by Family Income as Determined by Eligibility for Free or Reduced Lunches. Click on the graph to go to the NAEP site where you can explore the data.

What do you think about test- and standards-based reform?  Should we continue using high-stakes tests?

 

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by on January 25, 2012 4 Comments

Obama Says: Stop Teaching to the Test; Teach With Creativity and Passion

In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Obama included a section of his speech that focused on education, not only K-12, but he also challenged colleges and universities to be more creative about how they work with students, and as well as the hundreds of thousands of young students who are not yet American citizens, and “live every day with the threat of deportation.”

I want to focus on some of the comments that the President made in his address.  Keep in mind that I believe that President Obama is struggling with how to deal with education because the policies of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) conflict with some of core beliefs that I quoted in a letter to the President that I posted here.  In his book Dreams from My Father, President Obama talked about his desire to become involved with the public schools in Chicago.  Here is the quote and the context of what I believe represents his core beliefs about students and learning:

I want to recall a section in that chapter for my readers that was very powerful, and supports the humanistic paradigm that I am proposing here. You and your colleague & friend Johnnie had decided to visit a high school, and the principal of the school introduced you to one of the school counselors, Mr. Asante Moran. He was, according to the principal, interested in establishing a mentorship program for young men in the school.

In his office, which was decorated with African themes, you discovered that Mr. Moran had visited Kenya 15 years earlier, and he indicated that it had a profound effect on him. In the course of your short meeting with Mr. Moran, he clearly told you that real education was not happening for black children, and then he offered you his view on what “real education” might be. Here is what he said on that Spring day in 1987:

Just think about what a real education for these children would involve. It would start by giving a child an understanding of himself, his world, his culture, his community. That’s the starting point of any educational process. That’s what makes a child hungry to learn—the promise of being part of something, of mastering his environment. But for the black child, everything’s turned upside down. From day one, what’s he learning about? Someone else’s history. Someone else’s culture. Not only that, this culture he’s supposed to learn is the same culture that’s systematically rejected him, denied his humanity (p. 158, Dreams from My Father).

Starting with the child as he or she is, and helping them connect to their environment—this is the core of humanistic teaching.  Most teachers know and try and act on this humanistic philosophy, but for many, it is an upstream battle.

The Department of Education is not a platform that suggests that learning should start with the child.  The cornerstone of the current Department of Education is the Race to the Top program and the new Waiver Program of the No Child Left Behind Act.  In these two programs, education for the child is a two-fold top down endeavor in which (1)  states must adopt a one-size fits-all set of standards (Common Core State Standards) that all children should attain regardless of where students live and (2) students must be subjected to high-stakes tests that will be used to determine their progress and graduation.  And to top it off, all states that want to continue to receive Federal funds through these two programs must use student achievement data to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers.

This approach has resulted in an educational system that is data driven so much so that it is in the best of interests of schools, administrators, and teachers to insist that  teaching to the test is a priority.  Remarkably the ED insists that states must tie student achievement scores to teacher evaluation, even when the prestigious National Academies of Sciences doesn’t think this is a good idea.  What we have seen is abusive behavior toward teachers resulting in psychological assaults, or what has become known as “teacher bashing.”

Did the President Open the Door?

Did President Obama, in his address last night, open the door to to a more creative approach to teaching?

In his address, the President made a few comments about teachers and teaching that might just reveal that he is interested in opening the door questioning some of the basic tenets of the ED.  Here are a few sentences from his address:

At a time when other countries are doubling down on education, tight budgets have forced states to lay off thousands of teachers.  We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000.  A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.  Every person in this chamber can point to a teacher who changed the trajectory of their lives.  Most teachers work tirelessly, with modest pay, sometimes digging into their own pocket for school supplies — just to make a difference.

Teachers matter.  So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal.  Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones.  And in return, grant schools flexibility:  to teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.  That’s a bargain worth making.  (Emphasis mine).

For Obama to say that teachers should teach creativity, and stop teaching to the test is a remarkable statement give how the Department of Education is advocating high-stakes tests based on a common set of standards.  Many researchers would argue that continuing to use high-stakes tests will not result in teachers not teaching to the test.  Until high-stakes tests are banned from being used to make decisions about student learning and teacher performance, we will continue to be immobilized.

Did Obama open the door to altering the fixed and seemingly unchanging policies of NCLB and the Race to the Top?

I don’t know.  But if he would confer with Governor Brown of California, he might hear an alternate view.  California has rejected asking for a waiver on the NCLB act not only for the added billions it will cost, but because the deeper elements of NCLB and Race to the Top contradict some of Brown’s beliefs. He has stated that  principals and teachers know more about education, and that the testing syndrome that we have created not only takes a lot of time to administer (not to mention the cost), but appears to curb teachers creativity and engagement with students.

Diane Ravitch wrote about her recent her travels and speeches in California.  She wonders whether California will start a national revolt against bad ideas.  I do hope that Obama comes in contact with Brown, and California’s progressive superintendent of education.

 

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by on December 28, 2011 3 Comments

2011 Science Education E-Books from the Art of Teaching Science

This blog was begun in 2005 with the publication of the first edition of The Art of Teaching Science.  Six hundred or so posts later, we find ourselves in at the end of 2011.

This year, we published four eBooks based on blog posts made during 2011.  More eBooks will be published in 2012.  The eBooks that were published are free, and available by simply clicking on the links of the titles shown below.  All are in PDF format, except the Enigma of High Stakes Testing, which is in Word.

I have become increasingly concerned about the effects of the corporate reform movement not only on science education, but the whole of our public schools as we know them.  The teaching profession is weathering and eroding in the midst of the detached and impersonal reform efforts primarily being led by a group of corporate billionaires, and their minions.  For profit schools, and the fraudulent assumption that a market based solution to school choice will result in better education, higher test scores, and a robust economy is hogwash.  The high-stakes mania has driven teachers and administrators in schools throughout the country to cheat, and for state departments of education to fall into step with the corporate commanders.  There is little criticism of the present state of reform, and when teachers do raise questions, they are usually ignored, or reminded that they are simply union works looking for more.  None of this is true.

In science education, we are faced with the onset to a New Generation of Science Standards.  Last summer, the National Research Council (NRC) released A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas.  The Framework is being used by Achieve, Inc., to develop the Next Generation of Science Standards for American schools.  It will be published sometime in 2012.  According to the developers, many states have joined the effort to develop the standards, and also working with Achieve is NSTA and AAAS.  There is a Website that you can visit to find out about the Next Generation Standards, but I am suspicious of all of the fanfare being given to announcements about this state and that state “joining” the effort.  Only 41 teachers have been selected to write the standards and it is not clear how this is being done.

The rationale for the new standards is based on the belief that American science education is inferior to science education in many other countries.  Too much attention is given to test scores comparing one country to another, especially when there is little basis for such comparisons.  We have been stuck in the mud with an inferiority complex which does not connect with science in American society.  We are one of the most progressive in innovation and development of new ideas, and scientists in the U.S. publish more papers than their peers from other countries.  How can our schools be so bad as to end up with a result like this?

I’ve written many blog posts on these ideas, and have put them together into four different E-Books that I hope you will download for your use.  The eBooks are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike license, so you are free to use, change, and distribute them in any manner you choose.

Here are links to download the eBooks, and brief descriptions of each.

Why Do We Teach Science?

In the new science education documents that I have referenced above, there is no discussion of the question Why do we teach science?  There is a wealth of information about what to teach, and how to teach.  But little investigation into why we teach science.  In this eBook, based on philosophical work by R. Steven Turner, and Robin Millar, four arguments are used to try and find out why we teach science.  These arguments include: The Economic Argument, The Democratic Argument, The Skills Argument, and The Cultural Argument.

Extreme Earth: The Importance of the Geosciences in Science Teaching.

Extreme Earth raises questions about the nature of science, especially as it relates to climate change and plate tectonics. Global warming has been in thepublic eye for years now, as scientific panels and independent scientific research studies have suggested that the changes in earth’s weather and climate  might, to some degree, be due to human activity, especially fossil fuel extraction and the burning of fuels resulting in a 25 – 30% increase in CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately the science of climate change has become politicized, and resulted in the what some say is a “head in the sand” approach to doing something about the changes going on all around us.

Extreme Earth is also about natural disasters, but because of the spread of human habitats into paths of hurricanes, and along well-known fault zones, millions of people experience horrendous disasters, as we have witnessed in the recent past.

Extreme Earth explores these issues, raises questions for science teachers, and points to ways to involve students in these tumultuous events.

Achieving a New Generation of Common Science Standards.

In this eBook, we will explore the science standard’s movement by presenting posts on these topics:

• The Race to the Top
• Frameworks and Standards
• Using Tests to Assess Performance
• Reform

Questions are raised about why common standards, and misconceptions surrounding the use of international and high-stakes tests continue to be connected with the reform education in the United States.

We will look at the Framework for K-12 Science Education, and discuss the underlying purpose of using common standards in American schools. We will also examine the results of international tests such as PISA and TIMSS and question the interpretation of critics that these results show that the “sky is falling” or that we have on our hands another “Sputnik moment.”

Finally, in a letter to the President, I integrate the President’s personal views of education with the humanistic science paradigm as a way to reform education.

The Enigma of High-Stakes Testing in Science

The content of this eBook is based on the position that high-­stakes testing, which are used to make life-­changing decisions about students, teachers, and schools, should be banned from use in making life-changing decisions affecting students, teachers, or schools.

Research evidence is provided in 21 articles that are presented here,

and organized into five parts. The intent is to provide information that others can use to raise questions about why we continue this practice of bringing such pressure to bear on the entire education system, the collateral effects on science teaching.  As I show in the pages that follow, there is little evidence that continuing to use high-­?stakes testing will improve student achievement, or improve America’s economy.

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by on November 29, 2011 4 Comments

NCLB + RTTT = MOTS (More of the Same)

The equation above can also be expressed as follows:

The No Child Left Behind Act + the Race to the Top Fund = More of the Same

NCLB & Race to the Top

In an edweek.org newsletter there was a No Child Left Behind Alert that I found interesting, and provided the starting point for this post.  The forum discussion (a question is posed, and you can submit a response joining you to the discussion) for the day was:  What’s the most important thing President Obama could do improve standardized testing?  Many assumptions form the basis for this question, but my immediate response is that the President should suspend any further use of standardized tests until there is evidence that high-stakes testing provides a real measure of student learning and school accountability.  Of course, the suspension of high-stakes testing did not happen.

I read many of the replies to the question, and there were thoughtful comments about the misuse of testing, and the call for alternatives.  One responder did agree with me, and recommended that the President put an end of these high stakes testing.

You might ask, isn’t this a little far fetched?  Schooling as we know would collapse.  How would we know if students really did learn the fundamental concepts of science or mathematics, or any other subject in the curriculum?  Most teachers know the answer to this question.  But I won’t deal with that here.

What did happen was that the Department of Education earmarked nearly $4 billion dollars for a program, The Race to the Top Fund.  Eleven States and the District of Columbia were funded after submitting competitive proposals in rounds 1 and 2 last year.  The funds will be used to:

  • Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy;
  • Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction;
  • Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and
  • Turning around our lowest-achieving schools.

So, in this initiative a little more than a 1/5 of the United States will be involved in the Race to the Top.  Unfortunately, the RTTT goals are not terribly different from NCLB,and that means “more of the same.”

Two Federal Mandates

You might ask, wasn’t there evidence from research to make policy decisions such as the wide-spread use of high stakes testing, the implementation of charter schools, the use of vouchers, and other key educational decisions.  Did the NCLB Act and RTTT Fund go forward with clear evidence that their initiatives would be effective.

According to an article by Eric Schaps, (Missing in Action: The Non-Role of Research in Policy and Practice) published in Education Week Research Center, research has not been used to make important policy decisions. In each of these cases, policy makers did not use research to support their decisions.

For example, most schools use high-stakes, test-based accountability systems.  According to Schaps, high stakes testing began in Texas and Kentucky and “morphed into” the No Child Left Behind Act after George Bush became President.  NCLB now dominates the educational landscape of every state, yet, it was largely a politically driven (supported by both sides of the isle, however) policy decision without evidence on which to base this crucial decision which now is the law of the land.  NCLB is up for reauthorization in the Congress.  Most likely it will be reauthorized with some tweaks put forth by the new Congress.  And this is unfortunate.  What is needed a paradigm shift.

In the case of the Race to the Top, the  Board on Testing and Assessment (BOTA) of the National Research Council, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education in which it was stated:

The report strongly supports rigorous evaluations of programs funded by the Race to the Top initiative. The initiative should support research based on data that links student test scores with their teachers, but should not prematurely promote the use of value-added approaches, which evaluate teachers based on gains in their students’ performance, to reward or punish teachers. The report also cautions against using the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal assessment that helps measure overall U.S. progress in education, to evaluate programs funded by the Race to the Top initiative. (Emphasis mine)

The letter did not effect the RTTP program, and indeed, the criteria used to evaluate state proposals made it clear that student test scores should be used as a means to evaluate teachers and schools.

The Race to the Top Fund reinforces the NCLB Act, which also insists on high-stakes tests.  It is true, that the Department of Education is issuing “waivers” to states to modify the rules of NCLB.  But there is little change to the unfortunate continuation of the NCLB Act.

Paradigms For  Change?

Will we see a change in educational reform?  Will the momentum of the high-stakes, common core standards dominate education for the foreseeable future?  Could a paradigm shift emerge from the discontent that is beginning to make itself known?

The kind of change that many argue is needed is one that is grounded in local initiatives, and educational research.  This would result in the experimentation of many approaches to school improvement, especially if relationships between universities and schools are encouraged, and the means for future sustainability achieved.   Oddly, in our democratic society, just the opposite is happening in the sense that there is this drive for a single set of standards in each subject area, and for national assessments of student achievement.

Could a paradigm shift happen?

It is possible, but leaders would have to emerge to lead the way with examples that work in practice.

One example in science teaching is to move from a teacher centered approach to teaching to a student-centered approach.  This paradigm has been with us for many years, first put forth by John Dewey, and later supported by the Progressive Education Movement.   Glen Aikenhead describes this paradigm when he calls for a science education that is evidence-based, and is a science education for everyday life.  In his book, Science Education for Everyday Life, Aikenhead gives a clear overview of the humanistic science paradigm that differs from the paradigm that characterizes school science today.

The humanistic science paradigm gives priority to student-oriented point of view aimed at citizens who can employ science and technology in their everyday lives.  What is powerful about Aikenhead’s proposal is that it is evidence-based.  That is, the various components of this paradigm, the nature of the curriculum, the content of science, teacher pedagogy are based on research studies conducted by researchers around the world.  This clear connection of research to policy change has been missing, not only at the state level, but especially at the federal level, and in particular the NCLB Act and the RTTP Fund.

What are your thoughts on trying to instill new thinking, a paradigm shift in science teaching?

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