Researchers at the National Center for Education Statistics have found evidence that “a majority of states may have lowered student-proficiency standards on state tests in recent years.”
Tag Archive for 'proficiency'
According to the Center on Education Policy, 23 states engaged in some form of “backloading” their NCLB proficiency targets–requiring small gains in the first few years of implementation, with more aggressive goals later on. Later on has arrived, notes Thompson Publishing’s Andrew Brownstein.
Some educators rolled the dice and hoped for relief from a new president or, at the very least, a reauthorization that would eliminate some of the law’s more onerous mandates. Others, like Delaware education secretary Valerie Woodruff, merely wanted to give their school districts time to adjust their curriculum and instruction to get in sync with the law. “We knew this might happen, but we were also hoping there’d be some adjustments and a little more reality along the way,” said. “It’s like avoiding going to the dentist. There’s always part of you that hopes the problem will go away.”
Reauthorization is not on the agenda at present, and the new president will have his hands full with the econony and two wars. Comparisons to the financial crisis are inevitable. “Just like over-optimistic homebuyers, states chose to defer payment until later, hoping that some miracle would bail them out before the bill came due,” Brownstein notes.
At a recent meeting at the U.S. Department of Education (ED), Scott Marion, vice president of the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, warned, “The Fannie Mae of NCLB is about to hit.”
Bailout? What bailout?
Students from poor families in the Washington, DC area have made major gains on reading and math tests and are starting to catch up with those from middle-class and affluent backgrounds, a Washington Post analysis shows.
In Montgomery County, for instance, students in poverty have earned better scores on Maryland’s reading test in each of the past five years, slicing in half the 28 percentage-point gulf that separated their pass rate from the county average. They also have made a major dent in the math gap. In Fairfax County, another suburban academic powerhouse, such students have slashed the achievement gaps on Virginia tests.
In the DC proper, reading and math scores have risen since 2006, but fewer that half passed last Spring’s tests. “The results show substantial progress in the Washington area toward the law’s core goal: raising performance of disadvantaged children,” the paper reports. “Although concerns persist about the law’s emphasis on standardized tests, many educators say it has forced schools to concentrate more systematically on each struggling student.”
The Edusphere goes for a We Are The World moment, with full page ads in the New York Times and Washington Post today in support of an initiative called A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. Led by Helen F. Ladd of Duke University, NYU’s Pedro Noguera, and Tom Payzant of Harvard, and with signatories from Diane Ravitch to Richard Rothstein, the ads argue that schools can’t go it alone in closing the achievement gap, and call for:
- Continued school improvement efforts.
- Developmentally appropriate and high-quality early childhood, pre-school and kindergarten care and education.
- Routine pediatric, dental, hearing and vision care for all infants, toddlers and schoolchildren.
- Improving the quality of students’ out-of-school time.
Blogosphere reaction breaks along expected lines. Eduwonk Andy Rotherham takes issue with “the conspicuous soft-pedaling of a focus on results and the explicit rejection that perhaps schools are even a substantial part of the educational problem. At Fordham, Mike Petrilli says “amen” to the homilies but likewise complains “it’s REALLY squishy on school accountability.” Fellow Fordhamite Liam Julian, having none of it, wonders why there’s no call to provide “housing for every family and daisies for all schoolchildren.” Eduwonkette, on the other hand offers “big props” and provides a link for others to sign the statement. Joanne Jacobs plays it down the middle, but wants to see a “privately funded campaign that promotes good parenting: how to help your child develop language and reading skills and how to teach good behavior, for example.”
I’m going to avoid the Blogging 101 temptation to cop an attitude, quip and move on. This is an interesting discussion — it’s the discussion — and I’ll do my small part to encourage a low-temperature, thoughtful discussion, not knee-jerk reactions. The plain truth is, I could argue much of this round or flat, especially the accountability piece, the umbrella which covers everything else.
Improvements shown in the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) writing assessment, the first time eighth- and 12th-graders were tested in the subject since 2002.
The overall percentage of kids rated as “proficient” didn’t change, but both 8th and 12th graders saw upward movement on the percentage scoring at the lower “basic” level. “Large achievement gaps still persist, though,” notes the Christian Science Monitor “between white and minority students, higher-income and low-income students, and, far more than in other subjects, between girls and boys.”
“The overall improvement in 12th grade is the first good news out of high schools, and that’s great,” Ed Trust’s Amy tells the paper. “But our excitement about that is seriously tempered by the lack of national gap closing.”
In 2002, the average score for 12th-graders was 148; it’s up to 153 as of 2007. The percentage of students scoring at the basic level went from 74 percent to 82 percent. “The biggest gains among eighth-graders were also among low performers, with more students reaching the basic level. It’s a trend that has also emerged in NAEP tests on other subjects: the lowest performers are getting better, with little change at the middle or top,” reports the Monitor.
More coverage of the NAEP:
Los Angeles Times
California still lags in student writing skills
Denver Post
Students’ writing skills don’t change
Boston Globe
State’s 8th-graders score well in writing test, despite gender gap
New York Sun
Writing Mastery Eludes Majority In Eighth Grade
Detroit News
Wall Street Journal
Write Stuff Shown by More in Grades 8, 12
The New York Times
The RAND Review gives NCLB a mixed midterm. RAND makes a good case for national standards and curriculum, noting that while every state has complied with the law by testing students in required grades in reading and math, “student ‘proficiency’ on these tests has little common meaning across states.” The reports first recommendation: “Congress should require similar yardsticks for all states.” RAND also says “Congress should look beyond math, reading, and science” to determine proficiency. Hear, hear.
Writing in the New Yorker, Caleb Crain wonders what life will be like if people stop reading. In 1982, 57% of Americans had read a work of creative literature in the previous twelve months. Twenty years later it was down to 47%. Last month, the National Endowment of the Arts report “To Read or Not to Read,” showed correlations between the decline of reading and everything from income disparity and exercise to voting. Meanwhile spending on books is at a 20-year low. “More alarming are indications that Americans are losing not just the will to read but even the ability,” writes Crain, who backs it up with this eyebrow-raising statistic: Only 13% of adults are capable of such tasks as comparing viewpoints in two editorials.
Researchers at Oxford University have determined that there’s no such thing as a “cultural elite,” those who love opera and fine arts but wouldn’t stoop to anything as common as prime-time TV. Most people fall into four categories: univores, who only like popular culture; omnivores, who like everything from opera to soap opera; paucivores, who absorb very little culture; and inactives, who absorb practically none.
The Corvallis (Oregon) Gazette Times in a year-end education roundup replays the plans to redraw school attendance boundaries in the district. Franklin School, which is an Official Core Knowledge visitation site, has no attendance boundary and is open to families by lottery. It also has a long waiting list. Unfortunately, it also has the lowest percentage in the district of low-income students, who would benefit the most from Core Knowledge.
The Washington Post notes that teaching elementary math is tough and will get tougher since U.S. 15-year-olds trail peers from 23 industrialized countries in math. (23 is the number between 22 and 24). Math is too hard? Don’t teach it! A University of Pennsylvania professor says fractions are as “obsolete as Roman numerals” and recommends dropping them from the curriculum in favor of decimals. A five-tenths baked idea if ever I heard one.
In the Blogs… New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum adds her voice to the growing chorus of those complaining about standardized tests in the Big Apple. NYC Public School Parents spanks the DOE for its “condescending” response… . Mamacita at Scheiss Weekly lays on a passionate rant about the need to see every child as an individual. Hard to do, she notes, in classrooms that are bursting at the seams… . Check out the education jargon generator. Learn to throw around smart-sounding eduspeak like delivering meaning-centered assessment! Enhance child-centered critical thinking! Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for pointing this one out.
By Phyliss Boatwright, C-T Staff Writer
… At Bethel Hill Charter School, 93.8 percent of students in grades three through six were at or above grade level in reading and 75.8 percent of BHCS students were proficient at math, well above the state averages in both categories.
BHCS Principal John Betterton said, “If you look across the spectrum, our students are from five to 10 points above state, but at fourth grade, they are 15 points higher. And our reading is generally about 10 points above state,” he said. “I think we’re beginning see the effects of a strong phonics program — and I am not a phonics advocate,” said Betterton, “and also the effects of the Core Knowledge curriculum, which is very rich in classical literature.”
Phonics give kids the skills to figure out how to attack words, Betterton said, so that they can better learn new words and the Core Knowledge curriculum, he added, gives students “a broad knowledge base with which to do the reading.”
Question: We don’t think our daughter, Nadia, is learning very much even though she has good grades. She is in sixth grade and still reads aloud haltingly. Her writing doesn’t seem to have progressed. She can’t name 20 of the 50 states. No one at school seems worried because she’s “above grade level.” This doesn’t add up for me. Should I be worried?
Answer: You’ve put your finger on one of the paradoxes of today’s test-driven school-improvement movement.
In the era of No Child Left Behind, students whose scores show “proficiency” are often left to themselves. These students can sail through elementary testing and arrive in middle and high school with just enough “content knowledge” to pass the tests but not enough to do well in the rigorous courses you might expect them to take.
They haven’t stretched their abilities because there’s little incentive for teachers to require them to.
This is a pervasive problem, says New York City elementary educator Robert Pondiscio.
… Consider what to do at home.
… The series of Core Knowledge books, “What Your Sixth Grader Needs to Know” (Delta, 2007), edited by E.D. Hirsch Jr., are a valuable resource for parents concerned that their kids are simply not learning enough, says Pondiscio.
“Hirsch believes that there is a shared body of knowledge that’s important for everyone in our culturally diverse country to have as a foundation for higher learning.”
This article first appeared in the New York Observer on Oct. 8, 2007. It is reprinted in full, by permission.
Six years ago, in a poor, ill-served neighborhood in the South Bronx, the Carl C. Icahn Charter School opened its doors for the first time. The school, named for its founder and chief funder, is part of a nationwide attempt to create a new kind of public school, freer to innovate and experiment but with a strong sense of mission.
Fifty-nine percent of the school’s 278 students are African-American; 41 percent are Hispanic. Eighty-nine percent are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches, meaning that they come from poor families, many of whom live in high-rise apartment buildings near the school.
The U.S. Department of Education recently discovered that those children and their teachers are working miracles in the South Bronx. Every student — every one of them — met state standards in language arts and mathematics in the 2004-05 school year. In 2005-06, 100 percent of the school’s third and fourth graders — 100 percent! — were judged proficient or better on state math tests.
Those results led the Department of Education to designate the school as one of only seven charter schools nationwide, and the only one in New York City, to receive the agency’s “Closing the Gap” award. The reference is to the stubborn achievement gap between white students and minority students on standardized tests.
At the Icahn school, the so-called achievement gap hasn’t simply been closed. It has been obliterated. No child is being left behind; indeed, the children at this charter school are surging ahead of their peers.
All credit goes to the school’s students, their families, their teachers and principal, and to Mr. Icahn, whose generosity and vision made so much of this success possible. Also deserving of congratulations are the school’s board members, including legendary school innovator Seymour Fliegel, who heads the Center for Educational Innovation and who has been a strong advocate for public school reform.
The charter school is one of many that have sprung up around the city. It is located in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, in an area, the South Bronx, that remains associated with all of the ills that add to the burdens of poverty. And yet, despite the formidable obstacles placed in the way of the school’s students, they are flourishing.
So what, exactly, is going on here?
It starts with leadership. The school’s principal, Jeffrey Litt, is a fixture in the community and a tireless advocate for his students. But he is more than an administrator: He is an educator. The school’s curriculum is based on author E.D. Hirsch’s concept of core knowledge, which identifies content in the humanities and the sciences that every American child ought to know.
Teachers are expected to hold their students to high standards, and are accountable if their students fall behind. Apparently, the students — who are chosen by lottery, except for those who have a sibling in the school — love the challenge. Many of them attend special classes on Saturday mornings to work on the skills they learn during the week.
That hard work is paying off and creating a model of achievement in the South Bronx. The Department of Education’s award is a fitting tribute to the students, faculty, staff and board members of the Carl C. Icahn Charter School.
“The Proficiency Illusion” reveals that the tests that states use to measure academic progress under the No Child Left Behind Act are creating a false impression of success, especially in reading and especially in the early grades.
The report, a collaboration of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Northwest Evaluation Association, contains several major findings:
- States are aiming particularly low when it comes to their expectations for younger children, setting elementary students up to fail as they progress through their academic careers.
- The central flaw in NCLB is that it allows each state to set its own definition of what constitutes “proficiency.”
- By mandating that all students reach “proficiency” by 2014, it tempts states to define proficiency downward.
- Although there has not been a “race to the bottom,” with the majority of states dramatically lowering standards under pressure from NCLB, the report did find a “walk to the middle,” as some states with high standards saw their expectations drop toward the middle of the pack.
- In most states, math tests are consistently more difficult to pass than reading tests.
- Eighth-grade tests are sharply harder to pass in most states than those in earlier grades (even after taking into account obvious differences in subject-matter complexity and children’s academic development).
As a result, students may be performing worse in reading, and worse in elementary school, than is readily apparent by looking at passing rates on state tests.
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