Teacher quality is vital, but I’m concerned about increases in high-stakes standardized testing (and imperfect tests) to evaluate teachers, influence compensation, etc. Testing and data mining is going to cost a lot of money. Who will pay? What will be the effect on students?
How will the state develop standardized tests for Art? History? Theater? Health? You know there are no state tests for those right now. How long is that going to take? How much more learning will students lose in order to participate in testing? These are just a few of my concerns.
Then I read Dana Goldstein's story in the Daily Beast about high-stakes testing and something called "Campbell’s Law" — the social-science maxim that holds that the reliability of a decision-making tool is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision being made. That is, the more a test score is worth, the more it’s worth cheating on the test. (The story was about allegations of high erasure rates -- cheating -- on supposedly-improved standardized tests in Washington, D.C.)
So that gives me even more worry about placing all this emphasis on state-developed tests.
Did I mention how pretty much every 9th grader in New Jersey failed the state's first Biology test? So now they're back at the drawing board trying to come up with a better test.
And, finally, Diane Ravitch tweeted today, "Imagine putting fate of students and teachers in hands of the testing agencies" like those described in the book, Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry by Todd Farley, an eye-opening (and frightening) book that I read last year. Another good point, Diane!
What does this mean for Ridgewood? The political pressure in Trenton is forcing a rush to policies for evaluating teacher quality, based on extremely flawed state tests. Eventually, the requirements will hit Ridgewood, we'll be forced to comply (rather than rely on our own education leaders to evaluate our teachers), it will cost a lot of money, it will suck even more time away from our administrators and teachers...like I said, I'm worried.
Showing posts with label ravitch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ravitch. Show all posts
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Maybe what we need are a few more 19th century skills.
Following is a reprint from Diane Ravitch's Common Core blog. I like the reminder of skills we need today, lest we focus too much on 21st century skills. Any thoughts? (Click here to read the original post from 7/6/09)
The Partnership for 19th Century Skills
I for one have heard quite enough about the 21st century skills that are sweeping the nation. Now, for the first time, children will be taught to think critically (never heard a word about that in the 20th century, did you?), to work in groups (I remember getting a grade on that very skill when I was in third grade a century ago), to solve problems (a brand new idea in education), and so on.Let me suggest that it is time to be done with this unnecessary conflict about 21st century skills. Let us agree that we need all those forenamed skills, plus lots others, in addition to a deep understanding of history, literature, the arts, geography, civics, the sciences, and foreign languages.
But allow me also to propose a new entity that will advance a different set of skills and understandings that are just as important as what are now called 21st century skills. I propose a Partnership for 19th Century Skills. This partnership will advocate for such skills, values, and understandings as:
The love of learning
The pursuit of knowledge
The ability to think for oneself (individualism)
The ability to work alone (initiative)
The ability to stand alone against the crowd (courage)
The ability to work persistently at a difficult task until it is finished (industriousness) (self-discipline)
The ability to think through the consequences of one’s actions on others (respect for others)
The ability to consider the consequences of one’s actions on one’s well-being (self-respect)
The recognition of higher ends than self-interest (honor)
The ability to comport oneself appropriately in all situations (dignity)
The recognition that civilized society requires certain kinds of behavior by individuals and groups (good manners) (civility)
The ability to believe in principles larger than one’s own self-interest (idealism)
The willingness to ask questions when puzzled (curiosity)
The readiness to dream about other worlds, other ways of doing things (imagination)
The ability to believe that one can improve one’s life and the lives of others (optimism)
The ability to speak well and write grammatically, using standard English (communication)
I invite readers to submit other 19th century skills that we should cultivate assiduously among the rising generation, on the belief that doing so will lead to happier lives and a better world.
Diane Ravitch
The Partnership for 19th Century Skills
I for one have heard quite enough about the 21st century skills that are sweeping the nation. Now, for the first time, children will be taught to think critically (never heard a word about that in the 20th century, did you?), to work in groups (I remember getting a grade on that very skill when I was in third grade a century ago), to solve problems (a brand new idea in education), and so on.Let me suggest that it is time to be done with this unnecessary conflict about 21st century skills. Let us agree that we need all those forenamed skills, plus lots others, in addition to a deep understanding of history, literature, the arts, geography, civics, the sciences, and foreign languages.
But allow me also to propose a new entity that will advance a different set of skills and understandings that are just as important as what are now called 21st century skills. I propose a Partnership for 19th Century Skills. This partnership will advocate for such skills, values, and understandings as:
The love of learning
The pursuit of knowledge
The ability to think for oneself (individualism)
The ability to work alone (initiative)
The ability to stand alone against the crowd (courage)
The ability to work persistently at a difficult task until it is finished (industriousness) (self-discipline)
The ability to think through the consequences of one’s actions on others (respect for others)
The ability to consider the consequences of one’s actions on one’s well-being (self-respect)
The recognition of higher ends than self-interest (honor)
The ability to comport oneself appropriately in all situations (dignity)
The recognition that civilized society requires certain kinds of behavior by individuals and groups (good manners) (civility)
The ability to believe in principles larger than one’s own self-interest (idealism)
The willingness to ask questions when puzzled (curiosity)
The readiness to dream about other worlds, other ways of doing things (imagination)
The ability to believe that one can improve one’s life and the lives of others (optimism)
The ability to speak well and write grammatically, using standard English (communication)
I invite readers to submit other 19th century skills that we should cultivate assiduously among the rising generation, on the belief that doing so will lead to happier lives and a better world.
Diane Ravitch
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Why it may not be valid to use student test scores to evaluate teachers.
As New Jersey's Governor and Education Commissioner talk about tying teacher performance to compensation, and making some form of "merit pay" part of the reforms outlined in New Jersey's Race To The Top Application, I wanted to share this, from Diane Ravitch’s Bridging Differences blog on Education Week — a reasonable explanation for why it’s not valid to use student test scores in teacher evaluation:
I received an email from Dr. Harry Frank, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who has written textbooks about testing and measurement. Dr. Frank wrote that the first principle for valid assessment is that “no assessment can be used at the same time for both counseling and for administrative decisions (retention, increment, tenure, promotion). … All this does is promote cheating and teaching to the exam. … This principle is so basic that it’s often covered in the very first chapter of introductory texts on workplace performance evaluation.” [The full text of Dr. Frank's email is posted on my Web site, www.dianeravitch.com, in a section called "comments."] I asked Dr. Frank to explain the word “counseling,” and he said that this meant “feedback on performance for purposes of skills development,” what we might think of as the diagnostic use of an assessment. Dr. Frank also added: “Assessments should be a counseling resource, not a source of extrinsic motivation, i.e., rewards and punishments for teachers, administrators, and school districts.”
Put simply, tests and assessments should inform teachers about student progress and their own teaching, i.e., what can be learned from the test results. But it is inappropriate to use the same test results to hand out bonuses and punishments, promotions and tenure.
Click here to read the full post on Education Week.
I received an email from Dr. Harry Frank, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who has written textbooks about testing and measurement. Dr. Frank wrote that the first principle for valid assessment is that “no assessment can be used at the same time for both counseling and for administrative decisions (retention, increment, tenure, promotion). … All this does is promote cheating and teaching to the exam. … This principle is so basic that it’s often covered in the very first chapter of introductory texts on workplace performance evaluation.” [The full text of Dr. Frank's email is posted on my Web site, www.dianeravitch.com, in a section called "comments."] I asked Dr. Frank to explain the word “counseling,” and he said that this meant “feedback on performance for purposes of skills development,” what we might think of as the diagnostic use of an assessment. Dr. Frank also added: “Assessments should be a counseling resource, not a source of extrinsic motivation, i.e., rewards and punishments for teachers, administrators, and school districts.”
Put simply, tests and assessments should inform teachers about student progress and their own teaching, i.e., what can be learned from the test results. But it is inappropriate to use the same test results to hand out bonuses and punishments, promotions and tenure.
Click here to read the full post on Education Week.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Realizing the mistake that was NCLB.
Interview in US News & World Report with Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education under George W. Bush. Ms. Ravitch has gone from a conservative advocate of school choice, vouchers and high-stakes testing to being critical of same. Change of heart? Her book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, is reportedly a strong indictment of No Child Left Behind and other Bush-era policies she helped create.
In the interview, Ms. Ravitch answers the question, What should parents do to ensure that their children are getting the best education? She answers:
There are two different questions. One is what should parents do, and the other is what should policymakers do. If policy makers simply say, "It's every family for itself," we're going back to the early 19th century, before we had public education. Some people had private tutors, and some people sent their kids to religious schools, and some people got together and had little schools that they created. Then at a certain point, there was an awareness that the public had a responsibility to educate the children of the community. If we're doing a bad job of that, we really should develop public policy that looks to improving the quality of those schools and not just close them down and hand them over to private entrepreneurs. Because then we're creating a marketplace, and markets have failures. Markets do not succeed in providing equal opportunity. They succeed in creating winners and losers. We saw that in the [economic collapse] of the fall of 2008, and that could happen to our schools as well.
Interesting and sure to incite protests from pro-school marketplace folks. I have to admit, the winners vs losers point is a good one...because when there are losers they will be children, and that's not acceptable.
In the interview, Ms. Ravitch answers the question, What should parents do to ensure that their children are getting the best education? She answers:
There are two different questions. One is what should parents do, and the other is what should policymakers do. If policy makers simply say, "It's every family for itself," we're going back to the early 19th century, before we had public education. Some people had private tutors, and some people sent their kids to religious schools, and some people got together and had little schools that they created. Then at a certain point, there was an awareness that the public had a responsibility to educate the children of the community. If we're doing a bad job of that, we really should develop public policy that looks to improving the quality of those schools and not just close them down and hand them over to private entrepreneurs. Because then we're creating a marketplace, and markets have failures. Markets do not succeed in providing equal opportunity. They succeed in creating winners and losers. We saw that in the [economic collapse] of the fall of 2008, and that could happen to our schools as well.
Interesting and sure to incite protests from pro-school marketplace folks. I have to admit, the winners vs losers point is a good one...because when there are losers they will be children, and that's not acceptable.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
