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Re: [Phys-l] Friendship trumps competance Was: Re:WHYVALUEADDEDTESTING IS A BUST.



Sorry for the length of the email, but it'll be my last on this subject. I try to identify when I think that the list is getting tired of a conversation and take it off-list. So, I'll be happy to continue the discussion with anybody off-list in the future.

"As far as I can see there is no information about free & reduced price lunches"

Economically Disadvantaged: 99%
Maybe this doesn't equate perfectly with FRL (the criteria is not defined), but that's beside the point when all we're doing is using the measure to compare two schools. As long as we're comparing two schools in the same state, the definition of ED will be the same.

"If you are making an argument based on one outlier, then it should be compared with another outlier."

I disagree. To show that poverty is not the cause of poor test scores at high poverty schools, I would compare the poor school to the average of all schools. A school that is far above average in percent poverty and far above average in performance proves that there is not a causal relationship between the two. If poverty was the cause of low performance, then a poor school would have lower performance than ALL affluent schools. If there is one exception to that, then poverty is not the (sole) cause of the difference. I agree that there is a strong correlation between poverty and low performance in most cases, but the existence of outliers proves that it is not a causal relationship. AVID produces a DVD of success stories of their students. There is one story told by a homeless boy who goes back to school and ends up at Georgetown University. Can't get much poorer than homeless. Did this student's economics change? No, his support at school changed.

"The distribution of students by grade is heavily weighted to the younger grades and there seems to be a steady outflow of students because the later grades have far fewer students."

Interesting, but not relevant to this discussion. The hypothesis being tested is that poverty is the cause of poor performance in school. No matter who these kids at Crawford elementary school are, they are poor . . . and they are achieveing. We cannot answer your questions about this pattern with the information that we presently have, but I will ask next time I speak with their science coordinator. And as I stated, it's irrelevant to the question being discussed anyhow. If there is one poor student who is achieving, then the causal relationship is broken. If it is not a causal relationship, then the problem can be fixed without solving the poverty problem.

"One way is to have strategies to combat the poverty, and there are studies that show this has a positive effect on education."

The studies on poverty say that the way to fight poverty is to close the education achievement gap. A circular argument. The economy has crashed in the last two years and there is no pattern of falling test scores nation-wide as a result, another bit of evidence that poverty does not cause low achievement. California's unemployment rate tripled over the last two years, yet all of the measures of achievement increased.

There are 20 Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science tests that every single student in the state must take. 100% of those test scores improved over the last 2 years of economic downfall. If you add up the increase in percent proficiency of the 20 tests, they add up to 142 percentage points. The highest increase was on the 8th grade social studies test where the percent proficient went from 36 to 47.

Explain that, Diane Ravitch!

"There is now a treatment for low working memory, and it can be expanded, so why not use it?"

I'd love to hear more about that. But I'd also like to know what is meant by "low working memory." Are Alzheimers and Dementia forms of low working memory? If so, I would have thought that this announcement would be headline news. But, I don't see what any of this has to do with poverty and low performance. If you're making a case for low working memory and low performance, it would make sense.

"So I can admit that the cited schools are doing something right, but I will not retract the idea that the high stakes testing is overall having negative effects on education."

That's not really what we've been discussing, but I disagree with that too. I'd guess that you've never worked at a highly diverse, highly underperforming school. I taught at one for 10 years and spend my days traveling around the county helping underperforming schools improve. If it were not for high stakes testing, I'd be sitting in an office waiting for the phone to ring while generations of poor students go on learning nothing. I've seen amazing transformations at low-performing schools that never would have happened if they had not been identified as low-performing according to the state test scores. I worked with a school last year that had an average school-wide 2.8% proficiency in mathematics over the last 10 years. In this school of 1,700 tested students, that means that fewer than 50 of them are proficient in math. And absolutely nothing was being done about it. Last year, their district was put on the list of districts in need of improvement so I began working with them in October. Last year, the school was put on the national "5% Persistently Underperforming Schools" in early May. So, I worked with them for about 7.5 months in between these two events. For last year, their math proficiency went up to 11%. They got on the underperforming list because their API had not increased 50 points in 5-years. Last year alone, I helped them increase 40 points. And we did not reduce poverty, we improved collaboration and instruction. 11% proficiency is still not great, but that is 125 more students proficient in math who would not have been proficient if this school had not been identified by state testing as underperforming. The results would have been better, but the district selected the transformation model of improvement where all of the administrators are removed and half of the teachers are transferred. All of this occurred in the middle of testing and was a huge distraction. When these teachers looked at their math data, they literally responded, "That's just how our students are." They would never have made these improvements if they were not forced to do so. This is about the 10th school like this that I have worked with in the last 3 years and they all share very similar stories. My office has gotten schools out of program improvement and taken high-poverty schools' APIs from low 600's to the low 900's (nearly highest in the county) without EVER fixing poverty or changing the economy in the city. We did it by improving instruction, increasing collaboration, improving leadership, and focusing all of the systems at these schools on student achievement.

From the paper cited: "although standardized test scores of students are one piece of information for school leaders to use to make judgments about teacher effectiveness, such scores should be only a part of an overall comprehensive evaluation."

Nobody in the education world has ever said that 100% of a teacher's evaluation should be their students' test scores. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a single person in the education world who would make that argument. I didn't have to read far to realize that the researchers were just proving something that everyone already believes.

I, for one, believe that (at least in California), the standardized tests do a pretty darned good job of measuring what students learn. As such, I have no problem with the idea that these test scores may be used as part of teacher evaluations. But, I do not believe that 100% of the evaluation should be test scores.

I'll leave you with one final question . . . What would you do if your child's school published value-added test results and your child's teacher was identified as very low-performing, worst in the school? If you say "nothing" . . . I don't believe you. If you'd be bothered by it, then deep down inside you truly believe that there is something to this measurement. I would argue that everyone would and should be bothered by it.

Mike


----- Original Message -----
From: "John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>
To: "'Forum for Physics Educators'" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2010 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Friendship trumps competance Was: Re:WHYVALUEADDEDTESTING IS A BUST.



Here's the link to the 99%:
http://www.greatschools.org/cgi-bin/tx/other/3378#students

As far as I can see there is no information about free & reduced price
lunches on this website about Crawford. So the 74% still stands for the
free/reduced lunches. I asked about the 99% free/reduced lunches, but
obviously did not make it clear. Here is a website with the lunch
statistic:
http://www.publicschoolreview.com/school_ov/school_id/78876

There is no doubt the Crawford looks like it is much better than many other
schools with similar demographics, but the difference between it and a high
performing affluent school is still quite high. So the effect of poverty
was not completely overcome. Here I am comparing two schools that have done
things to raise test scores. If you are making an argument based on one
outlier, then it should be compared with another outlier. And of course the
ratings of schools focus only on the test scores, and not on other factors.
This of course makes the high SES schools look good and then they attract
more high SES students. The poor folks can't afford houses near the
"outstanding" schools.

There is one interesting statistic about Crawford that needs some
explanation. The distribution of students by grade is heavily weighted to
the younger grades and there seems to be a steady outflow of students
because the later grades have far fewer students. So what is going on? I
have seen this statistic for several years and it seems to be steady.

There are several hypotheses that one might make. Is the purely demographic
in the sense that you have a bulge in children sort of like a baby boom?
But the fact that it is steady would seem to deny this. Or could it be a
sign of a problem? Are children dropping out of Crawford which could then
inflate the test scores? Is the population upwardly mobile and moving to
better schools? Both of these would change the statistics. What is the
retention rate in Crawford? High retention leads to dropouts. An area with
upward mobility should have parents who are dedicated to helping their
children do better in schools, but an area in despair will not. You can
live in poverty or you can have poverty live within you.

There has been plenty of evidence that schools have managed to inflate their
test scores by a variety of strategies such as holding back students who
might score low. The population decrease at Crawford might be a sign of
exactly this sort of strategy.

Ravitch may not be completely on base, as there are many things that can be
done to improve education for low performing students. But there is no
doubt that poverty is one very important axis in the equation, and the
effects of it are known to the education researchers. The evidence from
Crawford is that they probably have done things that improve the education,
but there may be a drop out side effect?

There are many possible things that can be done to improve education, and
there are even more things that look like they improve education, but in
reality do the opposite.

Unfortunately the people who have a fixed idea claim that it will entirely
do the job. When you look at research based education, there are a number
of things that are done in tandem, and not just one thing is changed. So
how do you fight the effects of poverty? One way is to have strategies to
combat the poverty, and there are studies that show this has a positive
effect on education. Doing away with the long summer break and having more
breaks of shorter duration may be helpful because the paper I referenced
pointed out that high SES students actually gain in reading during the
summer while low ones go down. But this is not THE solution, but just one
that will buy something. Or better yet, pay students in impoverished areas
to stay in school during the summer and have an enrichment program. The
reason for paying students is that impoverished families often need their
children to help them earn money. But of course this means $$$ and the high
SES schools usually have more resources, while the low SES schools have
less.

Anyone who follows this list knows that I advocate different methods of
teaching and of testing, which have been shown to improve thinking, and
science knowledge. This would also be beneficial for low performing schools
as Shayer & Adey have shown. But again, this is not the only change that
needs to be made. Also have a good program for diagnosing problems, and
remediating them. There is now a treatment for low working memory, and it
can be expanded, so why not use it? Feuerstein has a method for diagnosing
cognitive deficits and for treating them. Why isn't that being done? All
of these things require resources beyond the norm, except for Shayer&Adey's
program. All of these require training beyond the usual for teachers, so
why isn't that being done? Incidentally Shayer&Adey showed that schools
using their program moved from below average, to significantly above.
Unfortunately it is designed for middle school ages 10+, and they have not
designed an equivalent for elementary.

One of the previously cited articles was about the Chicago schools as being
the model for the current Ed department, and that may actually be a problem.

So I can admit that the cited schools are doing something right, but I will
not retract the idea that the high stakes testing is overall having negative
effects on education.

Now if you read the article "It's the poverty stupid" carefully, it
certainly does focus on poverty, but Ravitch blasted the billionaires club
for focusing on testing as a way of getting improved teachers. The article
which I reposted from BC showed that the statistics for using the high
stakes testing agree with this assertion. Her negativity about charter
schools is correct, because on the average they do no better, and indeed
private schools on the average do no better according to a metastudy which
factored out the known effect of SES. Most advocates of charter schools
focus on the high performing ones, but fail to compare them with the high
performing regular public schools. The real gist of the article is that the
current climate of blaming the teachers and unions is taking attention away
from poverty. And I see this as a correct assertion. Again the pols and
public have latched onto somebody to blame rather than looking at the
overall problem. Unions are not impeding TX, because here the unions are
ineffective and weak, yet TX has very low overall success with a huge drop
out rate. The teachers in most schools are actually doing the same things.
Notice the article I previous referenced pointed out that the same teachers
perform better in better schools. The effect of this is to drive out the
best teachers, and we will end up with only the average ones.

Here is the link to the paper again:
http://epi.3cdn.net/724cd9a1eb91c40ff0_hwm6iij90.pdf

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

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