Tag Archives: standardized tests

REResearch Shows State School District Report Cards Do Not Measure the Quality of Public Schools | janresseger (wordpress.com)

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 Response to blog post by Jan Resseger

All of the research tells us pretty much the same thing but the article and the summaries of the research make for great reading and challenge us to challenge our assumptions. My point is that all of these studies and commentaries miss the point.

Of course kids in affluent schools score better than schools with more challenging populations of students.

Compare it to a foot race in which some runners get to step up to the starting line while others must start from various distances behind. No one should be at all surprised that a higher percentage of the runners who begin from the starting line get to the finish line faster than the runners who started from behind. These outcomes tell us nothing about how fast these different populations of students can run or learn, how hard they work, or how hard their coaches and teachers work. What it does tell us is the race was neither structured nor organized to ensure equal opportunity.

What it tells us about learning in our classrooms is that the way teachers are asked to teach and students learn should be adapted to the unique needs of students. The existing education process pushes teachers and their students down a path laid out by academic standards, along an arbitrary timeline, in perfect cadence, without respect to outcomes.

While the entire testing process is misguided, the results it produces, also, are utilized for the wrong purposes.  Besides, the results tell us what we know, already.

If we want to do meaningful research we should study the correlation between the grades next to a student’s name in their teacher’s gradebook and how well those students perform on standardized tests.

My hypothesis would be that students who earn A’s and B’s in the classroom will perform well on standardized tests as such exams, misguided though they may be, are an opportunity for students to apply, outside the classroom, the knowledge and skills gained in school.  Students who earn C’s, D’s and F’s, meaning they did not learn well in class, will be similarly unsuccessful on such exams. The same is true for college entrance exams, the ASVAB, and for any instrument used to assess the eligibility and/or qualifications of candidates, applicants, or prospective employees.

Just as the brain cannot learn what it has had no opportunity to learn, students will be unable to utilize  knowledge and skills they had no opportunity to learn or, more accurately, had an insufficient time to learn.  

What the grades in a teacher’s gradebook and results of standardized testing should be used for is to signal us that kids are not learning successfully, prompting us to rethink how we teach them.

Kids who are poor, who are born into families that place little value in education, who are raised in an environment where discrimination is prevalent, who have had limited enrichment opportunities during early childhood, who attend schools where many students struggle, and have a pattern of behavioral issues present special challenges. None of these circumstances means these kids cannot learn. Rather, what they tell us is these students are not learning and they will need more help from teachers and a learning environment that can be adapted to their unique requirements.

Teachers of these children must be able to devote considerably more effort to developing nurturing and supportive relationships, and this takes time. Teachers must be able to assess what these kids know so they can judge where best to commence a student’s academic journey because most of them are starting from behind. They must develop a strategy to address the unique needs and requirements of each of their students. Teachers must provide instruction,  opportunities to practice, they must help students  learn from their mistakes and, sometimes, teachers must go back and do it over again. All these things take time and necessitate giving teachers discretion to deviate if not ignore plotted time frames.

Just because students do not learn the first time does not mean they are incapable of learning, and they must not be pushed ahead before ready. In the existing education process the routine is to accept less than the best students can do by recording C’s, D’s, and F’s in their gradebooks and then push children ahead without the prerequisite knowledge success on future lessons demands. All this methodology does is allow students who are already behind, lag even further. It is only a matter of time until these kids give up and quit trying.

These same patterns can be found in high performing schools because, even in these schools, gradebooks will reveal C’s, D’s, and F’s. Although they are not as numerous in high performing schools, there are students unable to demonstrate proficiency no matter how many opportunities they are given to do so. One would think fewer students would mean teachers would have more time, but it is still insufficient.

The harsh reality in the existing education process, whether utilized in public, charter, or faith-based schools, is that exceptional circumstance are neither accommodated nor tolerated, and each leaves casualties along academic pathways. The harshest reality of all is that the outcomes we get in schools throughout the U.S. are the outcomes the education process is structured to produce no matter how hard teachers work or how dedicated and qualified they may be.

None of this will change until we abandon an obsolete education process and implement an education model designed to give teachers discretion to adapt to the needs of students.

The irony is that the zeal of charter school leaders and advocates, who are working hard to solicit commitments for hundreds of millions of dollars for vouchers and tuition subsidies, has blinded them to reality. These advocates have no idea they are working hard to arrive at the same destination, tomorrow, where public schools find themselves now. Why? Because they all rely on the existing education process.

Today, the leaders and advocates of community public schools are presented with a wonderful opportunity. Please take a step back and look around you. If you do this objectively, what you will come to realize is  that you and your colleagues have been so focused on test scores and everything that is wrong with standardized testing that you have lost sight of the reality that tens of millions of American school children are not learning. Learning is the only thing that really counts but it is not what the existing education process is designed to ensure.

This is a perfect time for the educators and advocates for community public schools to spring into action to transform action in America.

Mel Hawkins

Author of The Hawkins Model©

Time is a Variable in the Education Equation, not a Constant

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In our current education process within which teachers and students must do their important work, time is a constant component in what we might think of as the education equation.  Think of the education equation as you would any other algebraic equation used to illustrate the relationships of the components that work to produce desired outcomes. In the case of public education, we identify our desired outcome as student learning.

Time plays a significant role in the existing education process. We structure our classrooms according to age, which is a function of time. Students progress from Kindergarten or first grade through grade twelve on a year-to-year basis. Time, also, is integral to academic standards. Not only do those standards delineate the things children are expected to learn, we have also set time frames that are coordinated with student grade levels. These suggest where students should be in various skill development and subject areas at pre-determined points in time.

These time components are constants in that neither teachers, administrators, nor public school districts have been given the latitude to alter those time frames. They are part of the framework within which all are expected to work and are utilized to establish the basis on which outcomes are measured; specifically, student achievement . This suggests an underlying assumption that has far-reaching, adverse consequences for our nation’s children. It suggests all children learn and develop according to the same time schedules.

This plays out in the classrooms where students of a certain age are assigned to the same grade level and move from one grade to the next at the end of a calendar school year. Grades designed to measure and report student achievement are recorded by school year, semester, and grade period.

Within classrooms, students are expected to move from lesson to lesson and chapter to chapter as a group. Teachers develop lesson plans with time frames to which classes march in cadence, moving students from lesson to lesson. After allowing time for practice assignments, lesson plans have some time allocated for helping students learn from both their successes and mistakes. Within that framework, teachers do the best they can, responding to students with disparate needs and outcomes, but many  teachers would say it is never enough to meet the needs of every student, particularly those who struggle.

The reality is teachers are given little or no latitude to stop the march of time and make certain every child understands. When it is time, students are given chapter or unit tests and then must move on to next lessons and topics, ready or not.

When standardized tests are given, results are reported in relation to grade levels, as established by academic standards. When individual students are unable to pass these assessments in key subject areas, they are considered below grade level. In other words, they are not doing well when their performance is compared to students of the same grade and age.

This practice reveals significant flaws in our thinking about how students learn. We fail to consider that students start from the different points on an academic preparedness continuum. It also assumes that the appropriate way to gage a student’s progress is by comparing their progress to classmates.

Consider two students who arrive for school at the same time and age. One starts at point “zero” on a theoretical  “academic preparedness continuum,” while the other may have begun ten points ahead on that same preparedness scale.  Let’s assume, one year later, the first student has progressed from point zero to point six, while the second student has progressed from point ten to point fifteen. If the expectation is that students, at that age and grade, should have progressed to point fifteen, the second student is at grade level and the first is not.

Had we taken a closer look at the data, we would see that the first student actually made more progress than their classmate. With this data in hand, which student would we say accomplished the most? Is keeping up with a classmate truly more important than making significant individual progress? Most of us would say it is not, yet this is the way we assess performance.

This is an over-simplification, to be sure, but it is representative of what happens in classrooms across the nation for millions of children. The consequences of such things can be staggering in the life of a child. Consider that the first student, working hard to catch up and making progress, is viewed by the system as behind, based on test scores. In these situations, do any of these students begin to acquire the label of being below average or slow? We say this does not happen, but we all know it does.

We also say that the expectations for such students are never lowered but do we believe that? What happens to the child for whom expectations are lowered? How do they ever get back on track? They same is true at the conclusion of each lesson. How do students fare who are pushed ahead before they fully grasp the subject matter?   

The key to resolving these types of inequalities is to make time an independent variable, rather than a constant; giving teachers and administrators the latitude, first, to see that kids who are behind, for whatever reason, are given more time and attention so they might catch up; and, second, to measure each child’s performance against their own progress rather than on the basis of an arbitrary schedule of expectations or the performance of others.

Time can be an extraordinarily powerful tool  to enable teachers to help kids sustain their progress and be recognized as a “striving learner” rather than as one of the slow kids in the class. Presently, time is an extraordinarily negative force, constraining teachers and impeding student progress. This is just one example of how the education process is structured to function contrary to the best interests of both students and teachers.

The education model I have created was designed to mold the education process, including time, around the needs of teachers and students. The Hawkins Model© is engineered to empower teachers to utilize time as a resource to help students experience, celebrate, and be recognized for their progress; for their success. Consider how an environment is transformed when both students and teachers enjoy success. Confidence grows with each successful step taken. Once a child’s confidence and self-esteem begin to soar, who knows how much they may accomplish, someday. If you are a teacher, imagine what such an atmosphere would mean to you.

NAEP and Other Standardized Tests Have Been Weaponized.

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This a break in my series on positive leadership in order to respond to a recent post on our colleague @StevenSinger3’s outstanding  blog. Gadfly on the Wall.

The reaction of public-school educators to the results of standardized tests, whether state-based or national is very much like the reaction to more lessons and tests in their classrooms on the part of struggling students. When one feels victimized by something, having an aversion to it is a natural thing.

The genesis of high-stakes testing is irrelevant when public school educators feel beaten down by such exams and by the blame that is so often attached. In essence, standardized tests have been weaponized and are used to attack the very existence, not to mention credibility, of public-school teachers and administrators, and the public schools in which they teach. It should not be surprising that these educators go on the defensive at the mere mention of high stakes testing.

This is no different than a student who fails lesson after lesson with such repetition that they feel hopeless. By the time they reach middle school, struggling students have given up on learning. Some of them have given up and stopped trying by the time they reach the middle elementary grades three, four, or five. While the  demographics of these children cover the full spectrum of American society, a disproportionate percentage of them are poor, have skins that are varying shades of brown, or live in households where English is not their mother tongue.

It is no different than a person or a dog that has been beaten by a cane. After a while, they begin to react, viscerally, to the very sight of the cane. Objectively speaking, there is nothing wrong with the cane other than it is being utilized in a manner other than its intended purpose. If the child’s parent or grandparent, or a pet’s owner, picks up the cane and uses it to help themselves walk across the room it is serving its true purpose and is inherently good. The child or pet that has been beaten by that same cane will shy away from it, nevertheless.

The problem in public education is not high stakes testing rather it is that they are being utilized as a weapon to attack public education as a whole, and teachers and their schools, more specifically.

Neither is there anything inherently evil about the results of such exams other than the fact that they are being used for reasons other than their purpose. Because they trigger a negative emotional response, educators have discounted the value of what we can learn from them. It is probably more accurate to say that educators have rejected the value of the results, altogether.

This is unfortunate because those results validate what we learn by examining the gradebooks of public-school teachers. The results confirm what our military services are dealing with when a significant percentage of our nation’s young men and women are unable to score well enough on the ASVAB[1] to qualify for enlistment. They correlate with the experiences of employers who want to hire these young men and women but find them unqualified. The results of all these assessments corroborate the reality that the men and women who populate our prisons were, at one time, our struggling students.

Having been one of those employers I can attest to the frustration when so many candidates for vacant positions lack basic math and reading skills essential to the jobs they would be asked to perform; even entry-level production or warehouse positions. For a brief period, before a change in our ownership, we provided basic math and reading skills instruction for these candidates. Even then, the results were disillusioning. Many struggled and some quit. My interpretation, then, was that they felt traumatized by the classroom.

I saw this while subbing, particularly in middle school classrooms, when students appear to be afraid to try. This triggered recollections from my years as a juvenile probation officer when my probationers seemed afraid when encouraged to talk about school experiences.

I challenge public school teachers to imagine how kids feel when, week after week, lesson after lesson, they  perform poorly on practice assignments and fail both quizzes and chapter tests. Imagine how you would feel if the evaluations from your principals were negative, time after time. After a while, being instructed to “work harder” is as demeaning as it is unhelpful.

I know teachers agonize over these kids and I know they do the best they can in the environment in which they are asked to work. I tell myself that these teachers, whom I have come to respect, must know in their hearts that something is not working; that, somehow, the process is flawed.

High stakes testing has become a pivotal issue for educators on both sides of the debate on the future of public education in America. It is worth looking at the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) testing because the results confirm that what is happening in our schools is not confined to a few unfortunate communities or school districts but occurs nation-wide. What is important about NAEP assessments is the way they define the “Proficient” level of performance.

The vital component of that definition is that it attempts to measure the ability of these youngsters to utilize what they were expected to learn in real life situations. Ultimately, this is the only measure that counts. I have no illusions that the instruments of assessment are perfect. Yes, they are culturally biased; yes, multiple choice questions are limited in their utility even though we have been using them in our classrooms for generations; but, it seems that the results are the same however we measure them. Even the chapter tests that are given in almost all classrooms, routinely, bring us to the same conclusion.

It does not matter what teachers and other educators think their students have learned; and neither do graduation rates matter. Similarly, the piece of paper with which graduates walk away that says they have completed a portion of their formal education is meaningless if they cannot apply useful skills and knowledge in real life.

Whether young people can apply what they were expected to have learned when they go out into the world and strive to make a life for themselves is the essential question and the basis on which the performance of our education process must be measured. And let us make it perfectly clear that it is the efficacy of the education process that all forms of assessment measure, not the effectiveness of public school teachers, public schools, or public education as a whole.

No matter how hard they work, how qualified they may be, nor how dedicated public-school educators may be, they cannot make an obsolete education process give us outcomes it is poorly designed and structured to produce.

My message to public school teachers is that I am not here to blame you. You are my heroes. I have subbed in classrooms that have shown me the challenges you face, daily. I have experienced what it is like to strive to teach in a classroom where the distractions of student behavior make it seem impossible. I have felt the dread of walking into a classroom every day, after having to gird myself for the challenges I was certain to face. I have at least sampled the frustration of professional men and women who are unable to do what they were trained to do; who are unable to experience the satisfaction of helping kids learn and grow—the very reason why they chose to become a teacher in the first place.

Teachers and principals: you are not to blame. I do not question your commitment or professionalism. I do not dispute how hard you work or how valiantly you strive to give your students what they need to learn. The education process that has been at work in our schools for as long as any of us can remember does not work for a significant percentage of our students, and it does not work for teachers. I would assert, also, that it does an injustice to even the students who appear to be performing well because it inhibits their ability to achieve at their full potential.

Both teachers and their students deserve better.

The challenge is, we cannot create better outcomes until we analyze what contributes to the struggles of our students and are willing to let go of the traditional methods and approaches with which we have grown comfortable. For most of you, it is the only way you have ever known.

Our students are not struggling because of bad teachers and bad schools. Neither are they struggling because they are poor, because of the color of their skin, because of the language of their birth, or because they are genetically incapable of learning.

I want to convince you that poverty is as much a consequence of inequality in education as it is a cause of that inequality.

I want you to understand that we will never get better outcomes for your students—our nation’s most valuable assets—until we go back to the drawing board. We will not get better outcomes until:

  • We assess the level of academic preparedness of each student when they arrive at our door for their first day of school.
  • We tailor what we do to meet the unique needs of each student;
  • We create an environment in which they can form enduring relationships with teachers who will provide the constant emotional, physical, and academic support they require;
  • We ensure that every child has at least one teacher with whom he or she can bond, even the kids who are hardest to love,
  • We discontinue the practice of severing relationships between students and a teacher on whom they have come to rely;
  • We stop treating education as a competition in which some kids win, and others lose;
  • We stop pushing kids ahead to “next lessons’ before they are ready—before they have mastered and understand their previous lesson in each subject area;
  • We stop asking students who “get it” to sit by patiently until their classmates catch up;
  • We stop marching to the tune of arbitrary schedules and time frames;
  • We stop measuring the performance of students against the performance of their classmates;
  • we free teachers from the unnecessary distractions that prevent them from giving each child the time and attention they need to feel safe, to feel special, and to learn at their own unique pace;
  • We give teachers the freedom to utilize whatever approaches, methodologies, media, or technology that will help a given student learn;
  • We recognize that our students are not all preparing for the same destinations and aspirations and that no one destination is more important than others;
  • We allow our students to discover the best versions of themselves and chart out their own goals and ambitions;
  • We ensure that every child learns that success is a process of learning from our outcomes and experiences, both successful and unsuccessful, and that it is a process each of them can master;
  • Until together and with enthusiasm, we have celebrated all their successes along the pathway to whatever destiny they have chosen for themselves;
  • They have developed the powerful self-esteem they will need to face the unprecedented challenges in the balance of this 21st Century; and,
  • They have sufficient strength of character and the tools to withstand the slings and arrows of prejudice and discrimination with which so many of them will be subjected.

Answer the following question for your own benefit, not for mine:

“Is the education process in which you are asked to teach structured to provide students with each of these essential components?”

My purpose as an advocate for an education model designed to provide all these things, is to recruit you to rally around a positive idea that can transform public education in America.

I am an advocate for public education in community schools that are accountable to the residents of those communities. I am an advocate for teachers, whom I consider to be unsung heroes who have one of the most important jobs in all of society.  

I encourage you to ask yourself: “What if there is another way to teach our nation’s children?” What if there is a way that gives all children, not just a lucky few, the quality education they deserve while giving teachers the career you dreamt of when you chose the field of education?

What if there is a way to ensure that you will make a difference, every day, without the distractions and complications that have led so many of your colleagues to leave teaching?

Why not sneak a peek at a new education model, The Hawkins Model©; a new way to teach your students? What do you have to lose?

Remember that it is a quality education on which the future of our nation’s children depends, and it is on those same children that the future of our nation depends.

[1] Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the instrument used by the Armed Services to determine eligibility for enlistment.

Commentary on Mike Pence and His Destructive Public Education Policies

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On Saturday, July 16th, Indiana teacher and young adult author, Shane Phipps, posted an article about Mike Pence, the now official running mate for Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. The article was titled “Why Mike Pence Terrifies Me,” and was posted on Shane’s blog, Rambling Fractaled Musings: Welcoming You Inside My Random, Pattern Seeking Mind, and was then shared on Facebook. In the article, Shane shares what the overwhelming majority of Indiana public school teachers believe to be the destructive public education policies of Governor Mike Pence and his predecessor, Mitch Daniels. It is a great read and I will post a link to the blog post at the end of this article. No doubt, Donald Trump will buy into the Pence/Daniels education reform agenda.

The following paragraph, which was taken from the article, is an accurate reflection of the public education policies of both Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels, and seems to reflect the theme of the education reforms that are sweeping the country with their emphasis on privatization and high stakes standardized tests:

“. . .[Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence] implemented a plan that pitted high income schools against low income schools and judged them based on an A to F grading scale. These grades were given on the basis of scores on standardized tests where every school was judged on the same test which required all students to “clear the same bar” regardless of their starting point. This resulted in an (sic) predictable gap in achievement where the affluent school districts “out performed” the high poverty districts. As a result of the Daniels program, the lower performing districts got less funding than the higher performing districts.”

I have taken the liberty of modifying Shane’s paragraph to represent what I believe to be the fundamental flaw in public education in America and in the education reform initiatives. Simply substitute the quoted paragraph, written by Shane Phipps, with the one I added below. It is a flaw that has tragic consequences for our nation’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged students:

Public Education pits high income and middle income students against low income, disadvantaged students and judges them based on an A to F grading scale. These grades are given on the basis of scores on subject matter where every student is graded on the same tests which require all students to “clear the same bar” regardless of their starting point. This has resulted in a predictable gap in achievement where the affluent students out-perform the disadvantaged students. As a result, the lower performing students get less opportunities than higher performing students.

As I have pointed out in my book, Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream: The Challenge for Twenty-First Century America, and countless posts on my blog, Education, Hope, and the American Dream, this is a flaw that can be fixed, easily, by redefining the fundamental purpose of public education and then re-inventing the educational process at work in virtually every public school in America. The same educational process is at work in most private, parochial, and charter schools, as well.

Implementing such a change requires no state or federal legislation and is within the statutory powers of local public school districts. By making the changes that I recommend, we alter the equation that has allowed multiple generations of Americans to be swept into the maelstrom that I call the “cycles of poverty and failure.”

When we alter that equation, we give choices and opportunities to every young adult who completes their education. Today, the default decision for these young people is a life of poverty, hopelessness, and powerlessness. It is a default decision that contributes to what many are calling the “schoolhouse to jailhouse track,” on which many African-Americans find themselves.

What we will ultimately discover is that the poverty that pervades so many urban and rural American communities is the consequence of the problems in public education rather than the cause.

The link for Shane Phipps blog post: https://shanephipps.wordpress.com/category/mike-pence/

The links for my blog posts that provide an overview of my book, Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream and for an outline of an implementation plan for the educational model I propose are:

https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/breaking-down-the-cycles-of-failure-and-poverty/

And,

https://melhawkinsandassociates.com/implementation-outline-for-educational-model-in-which-there-is-only-success-and-no-failure/