In Louisiana, some school districts are giving credit for high test scores to schools the students don’t attend. It’s called “re-routing.” East Baton Rouge, Jefferson and Iberville Parishes, “re-route” the test scores of students from seven magnet schools to the public schools those kids would have otherwise been assigned to.
Jefferson School Board member Judy Colgan, defends the practice, arguing the magnet schools were draining neighborhood schools of their brightest students and lowering their test scores. “I’m not saying magnets shouldn’t have their own set of scores,” she tells the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “They do have their own scores, and they are always at the top of the list. But we felt that because the neighborhood schools were losing those higher achievers to the magnet schools, it was only fair that their scores go back to the home-based schools.”
Huh??!?
Barry Erwin, the head of Council for A Better Louisiana, a Louisiana think tank, blasts the practice, calling it “pure deception” and “a sham.”
“Re-routing” scores in this fashion has a number of bad consequences. First, it allows school districts to create a false and inaccurate impression that some schools are performing better than they are. That’s not transparent and it’s not right. It also hurts the magnet schools because it makes it impossible to track their performance and could prevent them from receiving rewards they might earn from the state’s accountability plan. Perhaps even worse, it artificially raises the scores of some schools that may be in danger of takeover by the state because they are low-performing – and in doing so bypasses the intent of our school accountability system.
It’s hard to view this as anything other than a way to evade accountability, and state education officials are said to be examining the practice. Woody Allen said it best: No matter how cynical you are, you can’t keep up.
On the other end, we find that New York State counts a child’s test scores not for the school where they took the test, but for the school at which they completed the year. At the end of each year, influential principals will get some of their troublemakers transferred to other schools, taking their test scores with them.
As a teacher, therefore, one is held responsible for the test scores of students who never attended your class prior to the test. We’ll never be able to set up a proper system of measuring teachers as long as nonsense like this is allowed to continue.
Comment by Obi-Wandreas — September 30, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
I just checked my online dictionary and found the moral and ethical have been removed so I guess the district’s actions are no problem.
Are the any other private schools, church schools or home schools in the vicinity? If so, perhaps the students at these facilities can also be included in the districts results.
How do the folks who support this face their children when they come home in the evening?
Finally, it is not “pure deception”, it’s flat out lying. To often in this over sensitive society we fail to describe actions as they really are.
Comment by JoeH — September 30, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
I taught for years in NYC, Obi, and I have to confess that nuance had eluded me. It’s bad enough that the NYS tests are typically scheduled in the middle of the year, making measurements of teacher effects virtually meaningless.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 30, 2008 @ 3:19 pm
Yes, rerouting is foolish but it isn’t as bad as the system we once had. We had to “eat” the scores of kids who were referred to the alternative school for disciplinary problem. Which led to a more foolish situation, where the principal refused to suspend disruptive kids to alternative schools because of fear that it would hurt our scores.
But neither is any more foolish than the normative approach where neighborhood schools that lose their top students to magnet schools are held accountable under the same rules as the magnets.
Perhaps the most foolish belief of all, however, is the hope that we can repeal Campbbell’s Law. As long as we have stakes attached to testing, we will ccontinue to lurch from one foolish system after another. As as the accountability systems become more capricious, then the gimmicks will become ever more weird.
Comment by john thompson — September 30, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
Wouldn’t that create an incentive to suspend kids with low scores on trumped up charges, John?
I agree with your larger point, John. If we’ve learned any lesson about accountability it ought to be that the accountability system will become the driver of every school-based decision, from curriculum to disciplinary measures, whether we want it to or not. Hence we have to be very careful in creating accountability systems that encourage the outcomes we seek.
Simple, right?
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 30, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
I shouldn’t have been so colloquial (and probably I shouldn’t try to spell that word without spell check)
When I said that we “ate” their scores, I meant that we would be held accountable for the scores the the students got while attending the alternative school. The principal just assumed that the alternative school would provide less value added. At any rate, we would be held responsibility for the instruction that was given, or not given, by another school. So, she wouldn’t Long Term Suspend students.
The silliness of those speculations is my point though. The principal was so fixated on test scores that she didn’t think clearly. So, we kept even more of our most disruptive students, driving down scores for everyone.
On the other hand, our district’s web site used to have a scattergram which showed that our schools as a whole did a relatively better job of increasing test scores of low income students than the suburbs. That information should have given us the confidence to use our professional judgments to do our best for our students, and not resort to “quick fixes” that we knew would be counter-productive. But, the more impossible the task, the more likely that people will panic, and make bad educational decisions.
So, I think we need accountability, but I’d be relucatant to make accountability a “driver” of any system. Accountability is just one characteristic of good management – no more and no less.
Comment by john thompson — September 30, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
OMG! Also, Robert, didn’t teachers feel any sense of accountability to their students or parents who pay their salary prior to NCLB? The Union tells me there is honor in being a teacher but gaming the system tells me otherwise. We need a clearing house in every school board across the nation 25 years later.
Comment by FeFe — September 30, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
Of course they did! And as a teacher, I surely don’t need a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head to make me feel accountable. That said, I think we all know teachers who show up, phone it in, and don’t put in a single minute more than they are contractually required to. The trick, of course, is knowing how to tell the difference and making accountability part of the culture instead of an external obligation. Simple, I know.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 30, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
And yet, if you take the viewpoint that the schools have a *right*, rather than an obligation, to the students, it all makes sense. And that viewpoint crops up disturbingly often whenever bright students enter the picture.
Comment by Andromeda — October 1, 2008 @ 7:35 am
In other news, the Red Sox reported today that they were re-routing 3 victories from the Dodgers back to Boston.
“Those Dodger wins were generated by Manny Ramirez,” said team president Larry Lucchino. “If Mannywood hadn’t demanded a trade from Boston, those wins would have been ours.”
This development belatedly makes Boston the AL East Division Winner.
Comment by Mike G — October 1, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Oh, Robert. It is simple. Employment At Will.
Andromeda, how interesting! I may steal that.
Special Bulletin: All Senators in Oregon are re-routing their votes for the financial bailout to their defeated opponents. “The electronic voting booths we rigged by our biggest campaign contributors, our staff registered voters while on vacation in Canada, and we meant to vote ‘Present.’ We have been gaming the system all along. Our records are not our own but what our constituents deserve.” The state political committees have commissioned a study via ear mark. Feel free to lodge a complaint with your local think tank
Comment by Anonymous — October 2, 2008 @ 6:48 pm
Thanks, guys. Between the Red Socks and the Senators, I finally laughed at the situation rather than steamed or cried, which is what usually happens when I think about testing and accountability.
Comment by imbrendab — October 4, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
+1 John Thompson.
I think we’re asking the wrong question here. Yes this is totally corrupt, but it’s a corruption within an economic context. It’s like a police chief who is corrupt not because he takes money out of the retirement fund but because he inflates the number of meth related crimes in order to get government funding to fight meth. And when he finally succeeds in defeating meth his staff budget would be cut. So we need to ask if testing is the best road to accountability. And where is this accountability question coming from anyway? What did we do before “accountability” that so poorly that testing seems like a good investment of time and resources?
Comment by javabeanboy — October 5, 2008 @ 11:11 am