Test Rejections

A week or two ago, I noticed Radio Free Hamilton's Even More HCS Students Opt Out of Math Tests

Fewer HCS elementary and middle school students took this week's state-mandated math tests than took last week's English language arts (ELA) exams.

An actual majority refused to take the tests here. In the state as a whole, it was only about a sixth, but Tens of Thousands of New York Students Refuse Tests

Pressed for a reaction to the boycott, which is fueled by allegations that Common Core is rigid and age-inappropriate, and that the tests are excessive, Governor Andrew Cuomo chose to split the difference in characteristic style, by minimizing both the importance of the schooling standards to which his state government (like most) has committed, as well as belittling objections to the same.

"My position was, the department of education had not done a good job in introducing the Common Core, and they had rushed it, so we said, for a period of five years, the test scores won’t count," Cuomo told reporters. "So they can opt out if they want to, but on the other hand, if the child takes the test as practice, then the score doesn't count anyway."

"The grades are meaningless to the student," he added, not exactly shoring up the argument for committing time and effort to filling in ovals on a sheet of paper.

Former U.S. senator from New York, and current presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton went a step further last week, referring to education as a "non-family enterprise."

So... Maybe parents and students have no business raising a fuss, in her view.

Ouch. Well, What If They Threw Common Core Tests and Nobody Came?

Maybe Common Core would have received a better reception if it had been imposed on the country in 1946, after years of regimentation and top-down decision-making from the New Deal bureacracy and the war effort. A gray standardized approach might have suited a collectivized era. But it was decades too late.

... as with so many things, one size doesn't fit all.

Common Core Test "Failure"

Edublogger Grant Wiggins writes Failure: the 8th grade NYS Common Core Math Test | Granted, and...

As I have often written here, the Common Core Standards are just common sense – but that the devil is in the details of implementation. And in light of the unfortunate excessive secrecy surrounding the test items and their months-later analysis, educators are in the unfortunate and absurd position of having to guess what the opaque results mean for instruction. It might be amusing if there weren’t personal high stakes of teacher accountability attached to the results.

So, using the sample of released items in the NY tests, I spent some time this weekend looking over the 8th grade math results and items to see what was to be learned – and I came away appalled at what I found.

I'm not sure how far I'd go with this; I basically think that the idea of "high stakes testing" is fundamentally flawed, that it necessarily distorts teaching by forcing an overemphasis on the parts of learning that are amenable to whatever tests you can design. I doubt that his demand for greater transparency and better-written tests would help a lot with my concerns. Still, he's an actual teacher...

Out of Basement Readiness

A note from Yong Zhao at the beginning of this month: Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » College Ready vs. Out-of-Basement Ready: Shifting the Education Paradigm

The Common Core and most education reforms around the world define the outcome of schooling as readiness for college and career readiness. But as recent statistics suggest, college-readiness, even college-graduation-readiness, does not lead to out-basement-readiness. ...
They are the “boomerang kids,” writes a New York Times magazine article last week. These were good students. They were ready for college. They paid for college (many with borrowed money). They completed all college requirements. They did not drop out. And they graduated from college. But they are back in their parents’ basement for there is no career for them, ready or not.
The reason is simpler than many would like to accept: education has been preparing our students for an economy that no longer exists. ...
The “boomerang kids” are not poorly educated, but miseducated. They were prepared to look for jobs, but not to create jobs. They were prepared to solve problems, but not to identify problems or ask questions. ...
the more successful these reform efforts become, the more “boomerang kids” we will have.... ... The Common Core wants your kids to develop career readiness, but ask the question: who is equipped to create the careers they will become ready for?
So my 4th of July suggestion: Stop the Common Core or ready your basement for your college graduates.

Well, it's not entirely an educational problem; regulatory frameworks normally (necessarily?) favor those who already have a seat at the table. so an increasingly regulated economy has less room for the innovation that creates jobs, even if the innovators are prepared to do their part. But I think he's right: it is partly an educational problem, and our reforms are moving in the wrong direction.

Or then again, maybe not.

The Opt-Out Option; Parental Protests Against Over-Testing

Bottom line: NYS wants to use "high-stakes testing" to see how well schools (and teachers) are teaching the material that can be readily tested. This is great, except that it forces schools (and teachers) to concentrate on that material to the exclusion of whatever has to be left off those tests, and sometimes the leftover material is crucial. "Teaching to the test" is inevitable -- and bad. A lot of parents choose to protest by having their children opt out of the evaluative tests.

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Our outgoing Superintendent posts Guidance for the Upcoming State Exams - Dr. Bowers - SuperintendentHamilton CSD

Recently, we have had a number of students ask questions about the school's reaction if a parent or child "refuses" to take the 3rd - 8th grade State Assessments. Attached please find a copy of the letter that was sent home to parents to clarify the district's viewpoint.

The crucial paragraphs:

   As per prior memorandum from the New York State Education Department (NYSED), please be aware that low assessment participation rates could adversely impact a school district's funding or increased state oversight of local school functions.

   Therefore it will be our practice to provide each student with a copy of each examination that students in that grade level are required to complete. Parents that wish for the child to be released from State testing must communicate their "intent of refusal" to HCS, before the exam is given. Upon receipt of the refusal, the district will arrange an alternative activity and the student will read quietly in an alternate location, rather than complete the examination. Their exam will be coded as "not tested." Although the student will not be penalized for the refusal, the school district may experience the effects described above.

It's pretty much what I remember her saying at the BoE meeting I put here but she did say a bit about the opt-out movement being even stronger downstate. Here's a video summary from NYS Allies for Public Education: They disagree with one point in Dr. Bowers' letter: they note that the threat of impact on school funding has not been carried through yet, and they don't believe it will be. A variety of web sites have more information, such as Opt Out CNY

dedicated to informing the Central New York public about the negative negative impact that high-stakes standardized tests are having on children and public education... How to REFUSE NYS Grade 3-8 TESTS

There are forums like the Onondaga Forum to focus on opting children out of state tests, other Common Core issues | syracuse.com As that "other Common Core issues" suggests, it's a national issue; United Opt Out National has a New York section, but there's nothing that special about us.

The Defiant Parents: Opting Out of Testing : The New Yorker

Last spring’s state tests were an entirely different experience, for children and for teachers. Teachers invigilating the exams were shocked by ambiguous test questions, based, as they saw it, on false premises and wrongheaded educational principles. (One B.N.S. teacher, Katherine Sorel, eloquently details her objections on WNYC’s SchoolBook blog.) Others were dismayed to see that children were demoralized by the relentlessness of the testing process, which took seventy minutes a day for six days, with more time allowed for children with learning disabilities.

Basically I see this as a protest against a trend: US education has been increasingly test-directed, which is great from a data-guy's point of view except for the minor fact that the most important parts of education aren't readily testable, so they tend to be squeezed out by teachers and schools who are evaluated on how well their kids do on the standardized parts. If this goes on, we could end up with an education system which generates excellent PISA scores but whose graduates are unable to think for themselves; really good at solving simple word problems but unable to create, unable to innovate, not even particularly good at working together. That's scary. If you're interested in the issue, I'd suggest that you check some of my posts mentioning Yong Zhao who spoke at HCS a while ago, or just watch the (long) videos at NYC Public School Parents: Video: Yong Zhao on how high-stakes testing is damaging our schools

Check out Yong Zhao's terrific (and funny!) presentation on October 12, along with the question and answer session, co-sponsored by Class Size Matters, GEM, Time out From Testing, and Parents Across America.

Prof. Zhao is the nation's most eloquent critic of high-stakes testing and discusses how the current education reform agenda is taking our nation's schools in entirely wrong direction.

Common Core

I wrote a year ago about the Common Core: One More Year; that's the Common Core described as

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an education initiative in the United States that details what K-12 students should know in English language arts and mathematics at the end of each grade. The initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and seeks to establish consistent education standards across the states as well as ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to enter two- or four-year college programs or enter the workforce.

My concern has basically been that well-intentioned centralization tends to have consistent results -- as Larry Cuban (teacher/superintendent/blogger) puts it in giving what I think of as a Common Core context, On Centralization

Teachers have felt pressured to drop student-centered activities such as small group work, discussions, learning centers, and writing portfolios because such activities take away precious classroom time from standards-based curriculum and test preparation.

That was in October; I didn't even realize that in October, our own Superintendent Bowers was testifying that with Common Core prep, We are heading into the storm. Interesting. The terminology she's using is from Tuckman's stages of group development:

The Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing model of group development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, who maintained that these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for the team to grow, to face up to challenges, to tackle problems, to find solutions, to plan work, and to deliver results. This model has become the basis for subsequent models.

Some of the fuss is simply the awkwardness of a big new set of mandates that will take time and lots of money to work out in detail; I doubt their value, I think the money (including the continuing expense of "performing") will be mostly wasted, but I wouldn't put too much stress on articles like Bizarrely complex Common Core math for America's children | The Daily Caller

Still, I do think Diana's phrasing showed prescience, and not just about the fact that we really don't know what we're doing (specifically we don't understand the world that we're educating our kids to live in): the storm has arrived, in more than Tuckman's terms. Common Core Curriculum Now Has Critics on the Left - NYTimes.com

Carol Burris, an acclaimed high school principal on Long Island, calls the Common Core a “disaster.”

“We see kids,” she said, “they don’t want to go to school anymore.”

Leaders of both parties in the New York Legislature want to rethink how the state uses the Common Core.

The statewide teachers’ union withdrew its support for the standards last month until “major course corrections” took place.

Centralized decision making might be great if the center had access to the necessary information. Perhaps someday it will, but I don't think we're there yet -- if we were, we'd probably be trying to develop something entrepreneur-oriented, something far from the Common Core as it now stands. For now, I'd just say that Hayek was right.

Comparing HCS and M-E Academic Performance

November 2, 2013

According to research, mergers work best when the two school districts are very similar (and geographically very close together). Mergers between dissimilar districts lead to tensions and conflict. Although Hamilton and Morrisville-Eaton are good neighbors and similar in some ways, we are also quite different in others. For example property values and voting records. Hamilton's property values are over 40% higher than Morrisville-Eaton's.  Our response to cuts in state spending has also been different: Hamilton has voted to raise our tax rate to retain programs, while Morrisville has not.

In terms of academics, Hamilton consistently outscores Morrisville-Eaton. First, the data, and then a discussion of what we should do about it:

NY State Assessment Test Results, ELA/Math 2013

Tables:

ELA = English Language Arts		Level 1: Students performing at this level are well below proficient in standards for their grade.	Level 2: Students performing at this level are below proficient in standards for their grade.	Level 3: Students performing at this level are proficient in standards for their grade.	Level 4: Students performing at this level excel above the standards for their grade.		Level 3+4: Students who are performing at or above the standards for their grade
Morrisville-Eaton
Group	#Tested	%Level 1	%Level 2	%Level 3	%Level 4	Mean Scale Score	% Passed=L3+L4
Grade 3 ELA	50	52	40	8	0	276	8
Grade 3 Math	51	56.9	25.5	15.7	2	274	17.7
Grade 4 ELA	60	36.7	45	16.7	1.7	290	18.4
Grade 4 Math	60	40	40	16.7	3.3	287	20
Grade 5 ELA	51	45.1	33.3	13.7	7.8	290	21.5
Grade 5 Math	51	54.9	27.5	17.6	0	287	17.6
Grade 6 ELA	54	29.6	48.1	11.1	11.1	296	22.2
Grade 6 Math	56	51.8	33.9	8.9	5.4	277	14.3
Grade 7 ELA	54	29.6	46.3	16.7	7.4	299	24.1
Grade 7 Math	54	44.4	38.9	16.7	0	289	16.7
Grade 8 ELA	53	34	30.2	28.3	7.5	298	35.8
Grade 8 Math	52	32.7	46.2	21.2	0	296	21.2

Hamilton Central School
Group	#Tested	%Level 1	%Level 2	%Level 3	%Level 4	Mean Scale Score	% Passed=L3+L4
Grade 3 ELA	51	27.5	39.2	27.5	5.9	309	33.4
Grade 3 Math	51	25.5	29.4	35.3	9.8	308	45.1
Grade 4 ELA	46	23.9	41.3	28.3	6.5	302	34.8
Grade 4 Math	46	32.6	41.3	17.4	8.7	293	26.1
Grade 5 ELA	37	35.1	40.5	13.5	10.8	300	24.3
Grade 5 Math	37	29.7	37.8	21.6	10.8	303	32.4
Grade 6 ELA	40	15	47.5	12.5	25	311	37.5
Grade 6 Math	40	25	27.5	15	32.5	315	47.5
Grade 7 ELA	31	9.7	19.4	35.5	35.5	329	71
Grade 7 Math	31	16.1	29	38.7	16.1	320	54.8
Grade 8 ELA	41	26.8	26.8	24.4	22	311	46.4
Grade 8 Math	41	29.3	41.5	24.4	4.9	297	29.3

Data source: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/ela-math/2013/2013ELAandMathemaitcsDistrictandBuildingAggregatesMedia.pdf

NOTE: in 2013, the NYS Assessment test was revised to fit the Common Core standards. As a result, statewide scores dropped significantly compared to previous years. The statewide average for passing (Level 3=Level 4) was 31%.

HCS has also outscored on the SAT:

School	Class of:	# of Test Takers	Reading	Math	Writing
HCS	2009	34	519	518	520
M-E	2009	27	468	486	457
HCS	2010	31	512	526	520
M-E	2010	35	501	487	462
HCS	2011	44	522	510	502
M-E	2011	35	499	505	497
HCS	2012	41	549	538	530
M-E	2012	40	469	470	442
HCS	2013	31	533	550	541
M-E	2013	35	470	430	450

Data: HSC School Board report average SAT scores in 2013.)  

One reaction to this information is to conclude that HCS should merge with M-E because this will help M-E students perform as well as HCS students. I have thought a lot about this, and I have concluded that there are some problems with this view.  

First, it is condescending and snooty, assuming that wonderful Hamiltonians would be the savior for those "poor" M-E kids.  

Second, what evidence do we have that a merger would improve academic outcomes for M-E? In order to fix a problem, you need to know that source of that problem and have good reasons to believe that the solution you choose addresses that source. 

According to Diana Bowers, the gap in academic outcomes is due to assessments and reforms conducted at HCS. She says that if you look at the test scores from 10 years ago, HCS was not doing this well. But they ran an assessment to figure out what the problems were, and changed their teaching practices accordingly. M-E hasn't done that, but they plan to do so soon. My impression of Diana's comments is that she expects them to improve just like HCS did, without a merger.
 
We also know the following:

• Research shows that disadvantaged and/or disadvantaged students populations perform better in smaller schools than in larger ones (see Leithwood & Jantzi’s 2007 article, Review of Empirical Evidence About School Size Effects.) High performing students do well in either kind of school.  
• In a merged school district, students from both M-E and Hamilton would be spending more time on the bus. That will not help their academics.
• Mergers are disruptive, and the transition period would be unsettling. That would also be distracting from academics. (If the merger does pass, I would hope that members of both communities would put in our best effort to make it as smooth as possible regardless of how they voted. But some disruption and distraction is just unavoidable.)
• The merger is not likely to yield more resources for academics. A merged district will have just as many buildings to heat and run, plus more bus runs to fuel. A merged district will have to have single tax rate. I can't imagine that Morrisville can easily raise their rate to match Hamilton's, but if we lower our tax rate to match theirs, that's less money for the school. (If the merger fails, both communities will still need to figure out how to address financial shortfalls for their schools. I hope that everyone would pitch in energetically to help with this, regardless of how they voted.)