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Test scores and school accountability

My recent posts on No Child Left Behind have focused largely on its exclusive  use of standardized test scores to hold schools --and teachers-- accountable for the work they do.  Many educational researchers question the suitability of standardized testing to adequately assess the academic progress of students, let alone the so-called "performance" of schools.

A related and equally important issue is the role of the media in parroting the proclamations of school officials about "good" and "not-so-good" schools based on those very test scores.  Although I've written about the media issue before, it has recently become a topic of discussion in my EDDRA (Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency) e-mail group.   Here's part of a particularly pointed comment that showed up a couple of days ago:

"I think the coverage of education is on a par with coverage of the other major issues in our society, which is dreadful, incomplete, and shortsighted."

For example:   

"Testing and test scores:   Most of the stories I see in the national and local press deal with schools meeting (or more likely not meeting) target ... scores on standardized tests.... with no recognition that there is little or no research supporting the use of these tests to determine anything.  Or the stories acknowledge there are doubts and concerns about the usefulness, validity and reliability of the tests but then continue on as if that concern is irrelevant... ."

Conventional wisdom accepts testing as the only legitimate (and efficient) means of measuring school outcomes.  Rob Kremer, the charter school proponent, buys into the testing for accountability model.  How else do we hold schools accountable? he asked in a recent comment.  My response was this: through authentic assessment.  That, of course, requires slighlty more money for schools, especially if we continue to insist on publicly validating --holding "accountable"-- the schools which by all measures --literacy, graduation rates, economic productivity-- have served us well for so many years.

Standardized testing been around for as long as I can remember.  I recall taking "achievement tests" as far back as fourth grade, many, many years ago.  But where did they come from?  Jay Mathews of the Washington Post attempts to answer that question in this article.  I especially appreciated this part:

"Critics say standardized testing has robbed schools of the creative clash of intellects that make Plato's dialogues still absorbing. 'There is a growing technology of testing that permits us now to do in nanoseconds things that we shouldn't be doing at all,' said educational psychologist Gerald W. Bracey, research columnist for the Phi Delta Kappan education journal."

Bracey is the founder of EDDRA and a long-time critic of NCLB.   But he's not the only one.   This website and many of its linked articles --like this one-- should be required reading for any newspaper reporter assigned the education beat. 

Maybe then we would read less often about "underperforming" schools. 

 

NCLB turns poor kids into 'cannon fodder'

No Child Left Behind is full of surprises.  And unintended consequences. 

Yesterday I wrote that the legislation which vowed to "leave no child behind" actually encourages the opposite.  In the frenzy to raise test scores, some schoolkids --the "hopeless" cases-- are intentionally tossed on the educational scrap heap. 

Then there's this from today's Oregonian:  Poor students are much less likely to opt out of NCLB'S provision requiring that high schools provide access to military recruiters. 

That's no more surprising than the recent finding that poor students were much less likely to transfer out of their neighborhood schools.  The kinds of parents that shop around for the "best" schools --meaning the richer and better educated parents-- are probably not eager to have their kids shipped off to Iraq or Afghanistan.

That's why parents of students of the K-8 magnet Winterhaven (where like about 40% of the kids are Talented and Gifted) rose en masse to protest sending their kids off to the week-long Department of Defense Starbase gig at the Portland  Air Base.

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Speaking of Winterhaven and school inequities, the school choice lapdogs at Community and Parents for Public Schools just published some feedback from parents on the tension between magnets/focus options and neighborhood schools.  Here's one from a Winterhaven parent:

"I live in Rose City and I make the drive across town every day to Winterhaven School - a focus option school for math and science and, while I hate the drive and live only 3 blocks from Rose City Park Elementary, I am so glad my kids are receiving what I call 'a private education at a public school'……. Parents are involved and concerned about the school and they volunteer for various activities throughout the year so the same people don't end up doing all the work all the time. We even have a school wide square dance coming up in a couple weeks which I am looking forward to. Why can't all schools be run with the same model?"

Yeah.  Why can't all schools have "school-wide square dances?"

How NCLB intentionally leaves some kids behind

Speaking of inequities (thank you, Lynn Schore), here's why Portland --and Oregon-- should thumb their noses at No Child Left Behind and stop using it as cover --that means you, David Wynde-- for continuing a flawed school transfer policy.

Let me summarize the salient points of Jennifer Booher-Jennings' devastating expose of the fraudulent "data driven" NCLB approach to "improving" public education, which Booher-Jennings refers to derisively as "educational triage."  Bear in mind that school accountability under NCLB  is based entirely on standardized test scores.

Briefly, here's how Booher-Jennings describes "educational triage":

1. Elementary classroom teachers are told to look at the "data" from the latest "benchmark"  scores.
2. Using that data, teachers divide their students into three groups --green, for the kids who will definitely pass the year-end tests, yellow, for kids "on the bubble" who can pass with a little extra help, and red, for those kids who certainly won't pass, the hopeless cases.
3. Then, teachers are encouraged to focus all attention and resources on the yellow group, the kids on the bubble.  Those are the studnets who will give the teachers, and the school, "the biggest return on investment." 

So there you have it.  In order to raise test score passing rates, which is what NCLB is all about, it's best to ignore the top achievers and to forget about the hopeless cases altogether.   In other words, leave them behind!

There is much more to the article.  The pressure to achieve high test scores leads almost inevitably to what Booher-Jennings calls "gaming" the system.   Under NCLB,  that can be done by excluding students from testing,  holding kids back, avoiding teaching subjects not tested, teaching to the test, and outright cheating.  And we know that all of those tricks have been used, especially in Texas. 

But the bottom line is this:

"Ironically, the very students NCLB was designed to target are often those least likely to be counted."

Bush's 'Ownership Society' flourishes in Afghanistan

But only for the rich and the well-connected. 

In case you missed it in yesterday's O, the great disparity of wealth and extreme poverty, so characteristic of American society, is manifesting itself in the 'new' Afghanistan:

"The times have changed. But in Kabul today the question often asked is: How much and for whom?"

The answer to that can be found in the poor Kabul neighborhood of Shirpur, home to Sajjad, an eight-year-old boy with no last name:

"Part of it has been demolished and its inhabitants evicted to make way for a 'new Afghanistan' of palatial homes - scores of four- and five-story mansions boasting gold-painted marble columns and floor-to-ceiling windows flanking grand wooden doors.

"The owners are the successors to the Taliban - movers and shakers who in 2003 used their new power to seize and clear the land. About 250 of Sajjad's neighbors were tossed from their homes."

One of those "movers and shakers" is Northern Alliance Commander, Gul Haider, a man  unapologetic for living in a palatial structure built on the ruins of the dispossessed.  He explains his indifference this way:

" 'We are praying for the poor people to have houses like us,' he said. 'But everything belongs to God. God knows better who should be given property and who shouldn't. God gave us this property and we built our houses. We are praying that God will look more favorably on the poor.' "

Combine Bush's "Faith-based Initiative" with his "ownership society" and you end up with modern day Kabul, where the privileged live well and the poor --probably over 90% of the Afghani population-- suffer.

Keep that in mind the next time you hear Bush defend the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for bringing "freedom" to 50 million people.  And if you get the chance, ask him this: 

Freedom for whom?

 

Paying for health care

Comments on my last post about the "Roadmap" seem mainly concerned with paying for health care, so let's talk about that.

California Democrats have taken the bold step of actually calling for state-funded single payer universal healthcare, not just for children, but for everyone.  The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Sheila Kuehl and approved by the Assembly, "would eliminate private medical insurance plans... ."

I say that's a good thing.  So does the National Coalition on Health Care:

"Experts agree that our health care system is riddled with inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, and inappropriate care, waste and fraud. These problems significantly increase the cost of medical care and health insurance for employers and workers and affect the security of families."

NCHC, a "rigorously" non-partisan group, points out these realities of the current state of American health care:

• Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.
• Since 2000, employment-based health insurance premiums have increased 73 percent, compared to cumulative inflation of 14 percent and cumulative wage growth of 15 percent during the same period.
• Health insurance expenses are the fastest growing cost component for employers. Unless something changes dramatically, health insurance costs will overtake profits by 2008.

Will our newly elected Democratic legislature follow California's lead?  It's unlikely, largely because of the razor thin Democratic majority in the House -- 31 - 29, compared to the overwhelming Democratic numbers in California -- 48 - 30 in the Assembly and 25 - 15 in the Senate.

But the timidity of Oregon Dems may be a bigger factor.  They've adopted the stance of defeated Democratic candidate for California Governor, Phil Angelides, who was wiped out by the moderately Republican "Governator", 56% to 39%.  (Note also that Prop 89, the "Clean Elections" initiative, was swamped by 50 points.)

Here's Angelides' position on state funded health care:

"He supports moving toward universal health care by first covering all  children and then requiring businesses to cover their employees," said Angelides spokesman Nick Pappas."

Sounds a lot like the "Roadmap".

What's missing from the Dem's 'Roadmap'

In a word --money!

What's missing from the Oregon House Democrats' Roadmap for Oregon's Future is the tax revenue to pay for the programs the "Roadmap" proposes.  For example:

• Healthy Kids

  "Democrats will extend health care to every child in Oregon who isn’t otherwise covered by federal or private health plans."   Sounds good, but where's the money coming from?

• Strong Schools

  "Democrats will commit in 2007 to nothing less than a full 175-day school year and smaller class sizes in every district of the state. We will expand access to Head Start and work toward the goal of enrolling all eligible children so they are ready to learn when they enter Kindergarten."   Adequate funding for public K-12 education is THE big issue facing the legislature in the wake of Measure 5.  But without added tax revenue, it's not going to happen, not unless money is taken from public safety or health and welfare.

• Higher Ed and High Tech Investments

  "We will step up investments in our universities and community colleges, bringing more biotechnology and high tech firms to Oregon."   "Stepping up investments" sounds like giving higher education more money.  Again, where's it coming from?

The only mention of taxes in the "Roadmap" is in the part about "cutting government waste" so that you know your tax dollars are "being put to good use".  Well, excuse me, but that's straight out of the Republican playbook.  It's what Ron Saxton ran on.  It leads people to believe that "efficiencies" in running government agencies will provide the revenue necessary to fund healthcare for all children, strengthen our public schools, and increase investment in higher education. 

Until the Democrats now in command of the executive and legislative branches of Oregon state government summon up the gumption to address the tax issue, the Roadmap to Oregon's Future will lead nowhere. 
 

 

Lessons from two other disastrous 'wars'

Lost (perhaps) in the recent election coverage were two news items demonstrating the futility and madness of waging war for ideological reasons.

First was news from Nicaragua.  Remember the Iran-Contra debacle?  Remember how Ronald Reagan called  the U.S. backed anti-Sandinista rebels, a ragtag group of murderous thugs, the equivalent of "our Founding Fathers"?  Well, the target of those "Contras", as they came to be known, and the leader of the Sandinista movement, Daniel Ortega, was just elected --democratically, I might add-- President of Nicaragua! 

How much money and American integrity were squandered in Nicaragua and other Latin American countries trying to stem the rising tide of socialism embraced by the "other" Americans is an open question.  But more to the point, following the decisive electoral defeat of Bush's military adventurism, is this question:  Will Elliott Abrams, of Iran-Contra infamy and one of the architects of the disastrous American Iraq policy, like Donald Rumsfeld, lose his privileged position in the Bush Administration?   

And then there's Vietnam, the most divisive war of the 20th Century, the one that I and many others have likened to the quagmire in Iraq, both costly and needless military incursions into countries which posed no strategic threats to American interests.  The Vietnam War cost us two Presidents, billions of dollars, and 58,000 soldiers.  And to what end?

Vietnam today is a thriving "capitalist" economy.  Had we "won" that war, would it have turned out any differently?  Perhaps, but probably for the worse --think North Korea.

Time will tell whether the Democratic victory this week will change the course of American foreign policy.  Hopefully, our new Congressional leaders will have learned the lessons of Nicaragua and Vietnam.

Not that it matters now, but here's how I voted on state and local ballot measures

For the record, I got them all right --except for Measures 39 and 46.  How the hell 46 failed when 47 passed so easily is beyond me.  Probably because of the wildly erroneous and irresponsible scare tactics of opponents who claimed that First Amendment rights to free speech would be severely abridged if M46 were incorporated into the Oregon Constitution.

One of the more vociferous opponents of Measures 46 and 47 was Blue Oregon blogger and Benton County Democratic Party activist T.A. Barnhart who today said "phht!" to Measure 47 without 46.  It's instructive to note that Benton County dealt M46 its harshest defeat in Oregon --67% NO to 33% YES.

It's also worth noting that Karen Minnis, who spent over a million dollars on her campaign, is eking out a victory over challenger Rob Brading.  She's probably happy that her "voice" wasn't silenced by that silly Constitutional amendment.  According to the most recent tallies, Minnis spent about $130 per vote.  That's where unlimited campaign contributions get us.  And Minnis is the kind of politician that current Oregon campaign finance law benefits.   

I was also on the winning side of all the local issues, the money issues --schools, libraries, Metro Open Spaces.  I was especially gratified by the passage of Metro's initiative, which Willamette Week opposed.  The reason? 

"And hell, we can't OK every property-tax increase."

Sure we can, if they're worthwhile.  But what do you expect from the "newspaper" which endorsed the infamous property tax limitiation back in 1990, Measure 5?

Reason number six of twenty-three (or whatever) to vote against Ron Saxton

Let's see.  Saxton is anti-government, he's anti-tax, he's anti-public employee, he's anti-public education (don't be fooled by his stint on the Portland Public School Board), and he's something of a hypocrite (immigration, maybe school choice.)   That makes five. 

Number six?  He's anti-environment!  Specifically forests, which he says exist only --OK, "primarily"-- to provide revenue to cash-strapped counties.  Those counties, like Tillamook County, wouldn't be so strapped for cash, by the way, were it not for Measure 5, the big kahuna of anti-tax initiatives which has wreaked havoc on schools especially, and local governments. 

The other culprit in the impoverishment of heavily forested counties is the timber industry itself, which has a rich history of "overcut and run", especially on public lands.  They like to blame it on the spotted owl, but the truth is, commercial loggers have never actually practiced anything close to "sustainable" forestry.    If that were true, we'd surely have national forests in the Northwest consisting of more than 10% old growth trees.  The missing 90% fell to the greed and gluttony of Big Timber. 

Big Timber is supporting Ron Saxton.  If he's elected, Saxton would likely replace "four of the seven members of the Board of Forestry", whose terms are expiring, with timber industry cronies.  Then listen to those chainsaws roar.  Timberrrrr!

The problem with Saxton's stance is it undermines the notion of multiple use, which itself is an oxymoron.  You know the old joke --multiple use is using tree stumps for picnic tables.  That's why in the last election I voted for the 50-50 initiative (it failed), dedicating half the Clatsop and Tillamook Forests to logging and half to what would eventually become old growth.  More importantly, it would have protected absolutely the endangered Coho salmon riparian habitat.

I'm convinced that Ron Saxton doesn't understand that.  Nor does he understand that a tree farm or plantation is not an ecosystem.  Only natural forests deserve that designation.  Therefore it makes no sense to talk about "sound management" of forests as if that were enough to protect habitat and the wildlife dependent on it.

Fishing guide Bob Rees has the right take on whether more logging is necessary.  He says the Tillamook Bay salmon "fishery is an economic powerhouse":

"But the waters now often are too warm for the fish, a problem Rees blames on cutting. Aggressive logging can remove shade from streams and take away the logs that might someday slide into rivers to provide refuge for fish, he says.

" 'They're not giving the forest enough of a chance to grow the large wood,' he says."