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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 work
ing 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 areone 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.