high stakes testing

June 4, 2015June 4, 2015

Community organizations file petition to delay high stakes testing

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

The ACLU of Rhode Island and a coalition of 11 other organizations representing youth, parents, the disability community, and civil rights activists Tuesday filed a formal petition with the state Council on Elementary and Secondary Education to initiate a public rule-making process to bar school districts from using high-stakes testing as a graduation requirement or grading tool before 2020.

After the Rhode Island General Assembly approved a moratorium last year on the use of high-stakes testing until at least 2017, the Council, with support from the Commissioner of Education, proposed to continue the moratorium until 2020 in order to ensure students, parents, and teachers had adequate time to prepare for the new PARCC test. However, in adopting final regulations, the Council reversed itself and instead gave school districts the authority, if they chose, to institute high-stakes testing with the class of 2017. Shortly thereafter, the Commissioner unilaterally advised districts that they could also begin using PARCC scores as a component of students’ grades as early as this coming year. These developments prompted our petition.

Under the Administrative Procedures Act, the Council has 30 days to respond, either by denying the petition or by initiating a rule-making process where the public can testify and the Council can consider whether to accept, modify, or reject the proposal. Accepting the petition would provide the public with its first real opportunity to discuss the Council’s expedited schedule for use of the PARCC.

In the letter accompanying the petition, we pointed out that across the country school districts are encountering problems with the implementation of statewide standardized testing; more parents, teachers, and students are opposing such testing; and the number of states using PARCC had declined from 25 to 13 in just a few years. Waiting until 2020 to use PARCC scores against students was necessary in order to give RIDE and school districts “adequate time to put the instructional and other supports in place to give every student a fair chance to pass the PARCC.”

In addition to the ACLU of RI, the Coalition to Defend Public Education, George Wiley Center, NAACP Providence Branch, National Association of Social Workers/RI Chapter, Parent Support Network of Rhode Island, Parents Across Rhode Island, Providence Student Union, Rhode Island Disability Law Center, Rhode Island Teachers of English Language Learners, Tides Family Services, and Young Voices signed on to the petition.

We emphasized to the Council that it did not need to take a definitive stand on the merits of the petition in order to initiate rule-change proceedings. “Although we hope to ultimately convince you of the merits of this rule change, we trust you agree it is at least worthy of a full public discussion, and of one sooner rather than later,” our letter stated.

Jean Ann Guliano, from Parents Across Rhode Island, said: “Once again, the state has implemented a top down mandate without providing parents a meaningful mechanism to hold districts accountable. Districts are simply not providing students – particularly those living in poverty, or with special needs or limited English proficiency — the supports that RIDE requires districts to provide and that students need to do well on the PARCC. Students should not be the ones held accountable for poor testing preparation. This policy needs to change.”

For more on the ACLU’s efforts to halt high-stakes testing in Rhode Island, visit our issues page here.

May 7, 2015

How to end corporate education reform

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Mark your calendars! An event May 16 will address the shameful state of public education that is due not to bad teachers and low expectations, but to a decades long, relentless regime of standardized curricula and incessant testing in order to measure, rank, and sort children for a new world order amenable to manipulation by corporate interests.

The struggle to wrestle power out of the hands of the billionaire technocrats who have a dystopian vision for public schools is ongoing and gaining steam. Those who are determined to transform and democratize public education for the benefit of our children, our schools, our communities, and our democracy have a herculean task ahead of us.

The maxim attributed to Gandhi comes to mind: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win! True public education advocates are now engaged in fighting against the faux-reformers, those who use their money, power, and influence to make the lives of children and teachers miserable in the name of lifting all boats and preparing all children for their slot in the glorious technocratic future – a future that exacerbates the obscene wealth inequality in the United States of America.

Rhode Island as well as states across the country have been witnessing the awakening of the group of people who have the most personal stake in the outcome of public education—the parents. As parents become informed about the true nature of the education reforms of the Common Core State (sic) [Stealth] Standards and the incessant testing (PARCC here in RI, SBAC in other states), as they see the poor quality of the class work and home assignments that their children come home with, compared to the enriching materials and activities their older children had in the past, they know something is terribly amiss. Opting their children out of the PARCC is the first and best strategy for now to bring attention to the flaws with the Common Core/PARCC agenda, as well as to deny the state and numerous ed tech companies the data that would flow from this test.

Now that Opting Out/Refusing is catching on, thanks to the tremendous work of many education activists doing the research and informing the public, the federal DoE and RIDE are scratching their heads and figuring out vindictive ways to squash this rebellion that after all, upsets their apple cart and stands to lose money for global corporations like Pear$on. Imagine—threatening to lower the rating of a school because more than 5% of the parents determine that the PARCC is counter-productive for their children and Opt them out. These parents should be applauded for engaging in their child’s education and using the means at their disposal to make a strong statement about a policy that is wrong for children, wrong for teachers, and wrong for communities.

The Coalition to Defend Public Education (Providence) and the SouthEast MA/RI Coalition to Save Our Schools will be hosting an education activist summit: Transforming and Democratizing Public Education on May 16 at the Southside Cultural Center, 393 Broad Street in Providence from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (lunch included!) There will be no expert presentations, though the activists in attendance will come with tremendous expertise and drive. This event will begin with a sharing of struggles and successes among parent, teacher, and community activists discussing the following topics:

Testing refusal – empowering curriculum
Parent Organizing/ Communities of Color
Charter schools
Teachers unions
Student organizing
Higher education

The afternoon session will focus on a vision for the future—brainstorming on strategies to transform and democratize our public education system so that it truly provides the well-rounded, well-researched curriculum and inspiring environment that our children so desperately need and deserve, and our democracy depends upon. Come join us and be a part of those bravely standing up to the corporate education juggernaut that reduces and dehumanizes unique human beings to a single digit.

August 6, 2014August 6, 2014

Mancuso remarks draw ire on anti-NECAP groups

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

A high stakes test graduation requirement is outlawed until 2017, but it’s still pitting Board of Education Chairwoman Eva Mancuso against the activists who fought to ban it.

The Providence Journal reports that using the NECAP test as a graduation requirement would have only deprived one student of a diploma, and in that article Mancuso is quoted as saying: “Maybe everybody should trust the professionals rather than running behind our backs and going to the legislature. The system worked just fine.”

In “response” six groups who argued to suspend the NECAP graduation requirement, sent a letter to legislative leaders:

An article in today’s Providence Journal quotes RI Board of Education Chair Eva S Marie Mancuso as citing RIDE! data that only one student benefitted from the “high stakes testing” moratorium bill that passed at the end of the session. In doing so, she suggests that passage of the law was unnecessary (or worse), and that its impact was negligible. Since she expressed interest in informing the General Assembly about the law’s impact from the Board’s perspective, our organizations thought! it worth making you aware of! it from our less defensive posture.

The groups are the RI ACLU, the Providence NAACP, the Providence Student Union, young Voices, RI Teachers of English Language Learners and Parents Across Rhode Island. You can read the letter here. It says the data is inaccurate (the ProJo article says only one student would have been denied a diploma but the ACLU says this document shows that three students in Bristol alone would not have graduated) and that the number of students potentially denied a diploma was but one reason for the moratorium.

“But perhaps its most important impact is in ensuring that, at least for the next three years, teachers won’t have to waste hours and hours of classroom time teaching to an irrelevant test, and students won’t be dragged out of real classwork in order to spend pointless hours cramming for a meaningless standardized test.”

April 27, 2014April 28, 2014

Judge says Board of Education should discuss NECAP policy in public

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

With high school graduation imminently approaching, legislators, mayoral candidates, students, teachers, parents and community organizations have been discussing with frequency the Board of Education’s high stakes testing requirement for seniors. Remarkably, about the only entity that hasn’t publicly discussed the merits of the requirement is the Board itself.

Thanks to a court decision on Friday, that will soon change. But the Board’s refusal for so long to publicly defend their controversial policy – one that has the futures of literally hundreds of students hanging in the balance – demonstrates why it is critical for the General Assembly to step in and halt the NECAP testing requirement.

On three separate occasions in the past nine months, courts have found that the Board violated open government laws in avoiding publicly discussing the NECAP issue. In this most recent ruling, Superior Court Judge Luis Matos ordered the Board to finally come out of hiding.

Specifically, in response to a lawsuit we filed some months ago, the judge has required the Board to publicly discuss and vote on a petition submitted last June that asks the Board to hold a hearing on eliminating high stakes testing.

Last September, in a private meeting – that the judge held was a clear violation of the open meetings law – the Board rejected the petition by a 6-5 vote. Minutes of the secret meeting show that those who voted it down objected to reconsidering the mandate without having fall’s NECAP test results. Well, that excuse no longer exists. We know the results, and we know the harm that the NECAP requirement is wreaking on too many Rhode Island’s seniors, especially students with disabilities, English Language Learners, and those in the inner cities.

The court’s ruling is important for accountability: it is long past due for the Board to have a full and fair airing – in public – about why they think students’ futures should be ruined on the basis of an arbitrary standardized test. But the Board has dawdled long enough. It is difficult to put much faith in an agency that has violated the law three times to avoid the issue.

Whatever the Board ends up doing, let’s hope that legislators will take Friday’s ruling to heart, say “enough is enough,” and pass a bill that, at a minimum, puts a moratorium on high stakes testing. The stakes for hundreds of seniors are too high to wait any longer.

March 3, 2014March 3, 2014

Eva Mancuso stifles debate, wonders why debate went elsewhere

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Susan Lusi, the superintendent of the Providence school department, has come out against the NECAP graduation requirement, and Eva Marie Mancuso, the chair of the Board of Education, has accused her of “grandstanding” by presenting her concerns to the legislature rather than to her board.

Ha ha. This is funny because over the past year, Mancuso has maneuvered the Board and its agenda to shut down any possibility of real discussion of state testing policy. If Susan Lusi has chosen to use a different forum to make her concerns known, Mancuso might be the only person in Rhode Island who wonders why.

As I’ve written in the past, I have completely failed to find a forum in this state even for simply presenting a technical critique of the use of NECAP tests to anyone in authority. What’s remarkable about this is that a technical critique is more than just a statement of opinion. It’s an opinion about how the future will unfold. What I observe is a natural consequence of arithmetic, statistics, and the choices of the test designers. The results are impervious to the attention they get. Whether anyone listens to the critique or not is irrelevant to whether or not its effects will be felt. To date, I have not heard or seen a single response to my critique that did not rely on purposefully misconstruing it, and it has been endorsed by people who know a lot more about testing than I do.

If my critique is correct, then lots of kids will flunk the NECAP test, pretty much no matter what. I don’t have to be heard at a Board of Education meeting for this to come true. If my critique is correct, then RIDE is wasting a lot of money forcing school districts to undermine the test they have spent so much money designing and promoting. I don’t have to be on the radio for this to come true. If my critique is correct, performance on the NECAP test will not be well correlated with performance in college or a job. I don’t have to be called by a reporter for a response to RIDE’s many misstatements for this to come true.

These are serious consequences, with dollar signs attached to them. Not to mention thousands of damaged lives. Unfortunately, they are no longer just future possibilities. At this point, six hundred Providence students, along with over a thousand of their peers around the state, are at risk of not graduating from high school. To some extent their school systems have failed those kids, and to a large extent RIDE has failed them.

Policy makers have a responsibility to consider the consequences of their actions. Simply ignoring the possibility of bad consequences — precisely what has happened — is utterly irresponsible. Eva Marie Mancuso and Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, by doing everything they can to shut down debate over their policy, have demonstrated that they simply do not care about the consequences of their decisions. They claim to care about the students for which they are responsible, but belie those empty claims with their actions.

The rumors I hear are that Mancuso yearns to be appointed to the bench. Just the sort of judge we want: the kind who refuses to hear evidence. Gist wears her career ambitions on her sleeve, and they obviously extend far beyond our little state. Presumably advances in test scores will help her career after her contract here expires, and get her a lucrative book deal about how she turned around a little state. What are the lives and futures of a couple thousand kids when weighed against that kind of success and fame?

It is indeed true that having high school graduates who cannot do math is bad for our state. Is it not also true that having education policy makers who do not care about math is equally bad for our state?

February 26, 2014

National experts testify in support of halting NECAP graduation requirement

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

National education experts are now joining students, parents, education and advocacy groups and the RI ACLU in urging the Department of Education to end its mandate requiring students to pass the NECAP test in order to graduate.

Three national education experts are submitting written testimony to the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee today in support of legislation that would delay or halt the state’s “high stakes testing” requirement for high school seniors.

The experts say, among other things, that high stakes testing requirements increase dropout rates, narrow curriculum, and disproportionately impact minority students and students with disabilities. In fact, according to the latest RIDE statistics, almost 1,600 seniors remain at risk of not getting a diploma because of the testing requirement.

Here are brief excerpts from their written testimony:

Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of Education at Stanford University, director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, and education adviser to Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign:

“The preponderance of research indicates that test-based requirements for graduation do not generally improve achievement, but do increase dropout rates… Studies have raised concerns about reduced graduation rates, especially for African American and Latino students, English language learners, and students with disabilities; reduced incentives for struggling students to stay in school rather than drop out or pursue a GED; increased incentives for schools to encourage low-achieving students to leave school, especially when test scores are part of the state school accountability system, so as to improve the appearance of average school scores; narrowing of the curriculum and neglect of higher order performance skills where limited measures are used; and invalid judgments about student learning from reliance on a single set of test measures, a practice discouraged by professional testing experts.” (Full testimony)

Ron Wolk, founder of Education Week, the newspaper of record in American education:

“Despite hundreds of millions of dollars and countless hours spent on standards and testing over the past 25 years, student achievement has not significantly improved, and the gap that separates needy and minority students from more affluent white students persists. … [A recent RIDE report] reveals that over the past five years, reading and math scores in the 4th, 6th, and 8th grades have increased by about 4 percent—about 0.8 percent a year. Eleventh grade scores in both reading and math increased by an impressive 8 percent over the past five years. Since more than 25 percent of all Rhode Island students score below proficient in reading, however, and about 40 percent score below proficient in math, it could take roughly 25 more years to get all students to proficiency in reading at the current rate of progress, and as many as 40 years to get all students to proficiency in math. Most importantly, it is a serious mistake to equate test scores with learning. Studies have shown that intense test preparation can raise scores, but the ‘learning’ is often transitory and temporary.” (Full testimony)

Lisa Guisbond, policy analyst for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest):

“The ‘model’ exit exam state, Massachusetts, still has persistent, unacceptably large gaps in educational opportunity and achievement… In Massachusetts, disparities in dropout rates persist more than 10 years after the state adopted MCAS high school graduation tests. Latino and African-American students drop out at rates three to four times that of white students, and 11th and 12th graders who have not passed MCAS are more than 13 times more likely to drop out of school than those who have passed . . . Students with disabilities have been hit particularly hard and make up a steadily growing portion of Massachusetts students who don’t graduate because of the MCAS graduation test. Students receiving special education were five times more likely to fail MCAS in 2002-03; by 2011-12, they were 15 times more likely to fail.” (Full testimony)

The RI ACLU is also testifying in support of these bills and will continue to work towards the elimination of standardized test results as a graduation requirement.

February 26, 2014

Common Core, high stakes tests are under attack locally and nationally

As a General Assembly committee considers today a bill that would suspend high stakes test graduation requirements and reevaluate Rhode Island’s commitment to Common Core, there is a debate raging both here and across the nation about whether such accountability measures account for more harm than good.

“The Common Core State Standards were hailed as the next game changer in education,” wrote NEA President Larry Purtill on this blog recently. “Unfortunately, the way it is going, they may ruin the game, not just change it.”

Time was perspectives like Purtill’s were easily dismissed as a special interest. But other special interests in Rhode Island – parents, students, taxpayers and civil libertarians – have also organized to fight these corporate-backed “reforms” to public education.

The ACLU of RI and underfunded urban school districts in Rhode Island have long fought these measures first implemented by George Bush and heavily backed by both corporate and Wall Street interests. But then something new happened here.

The Providence Student Union made national news when they made adults take the test teenagers face as a graduation requirement. And following their inspiration, a parent group from East Greenwich is fighting against these kinds of education “reforms.” That group is led by a former Moderate Party candidate for lt. governor who was an enemy of organized labor as a member of the East Greenwich School Committee.

Opposition to high stakes testing in Rhode Island has brought together the formerly disparate interests of tax-obsessed suburban parents, underfunded inner city students, social justice activists and educators.

“The current misuse of and over reliance on standardized testing in education is nothing short of unethical and immoral,” according to Parents Across Rhode Island’s website. “Standardized tests like the NECAP are simply not able to accurately measure the knowledge and skills of all students, yet they are being used for major decisions such as graduation, promotion and teacher evaluation.”

And it’s not just happening here in Rhode Island. All across the country (please read: “Education Uprising: the Myth Behind Public School Failure“) education activists are preparing to step up the fight from peaceful street theater and strongly worded blog posts to direct action and what might be considered civil disobedience.

A new national coalition known as Testing Resistance and Reform Spring made national news last week.

“The emergence of the alliance represents a maturing of the grassroots testing resistance that has been building for several years locally in states , including Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois,” wrote Washington Post education blogger Valarie Strauss. “Though many supporters of Barack Obama expected him to end the standardized testing obsession of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind when Obama was first elected president, many now say that the Obama administration has gone beyond the excesses of NCLB to inappropriately make high-stakes standardized tests the key measure of achievement by students, teachers, principals and schools.”

According to the group’s website, it supports “a range of public education and mobilizing tactics, including community meetings, boycotts, opt-out campaigns, rallies, petition drives and legislation. TRRS will help activists link up, communicate and learn from one another. This will build a stronger national movement to overhaul assessment policies.”

The new umbrella group has affiliates all across the nation, including Rhode Island. The RI affiliate offers a detailed blueprint for opting out of the NECAP test and graduation requirement for parents and students.

“The RIDE policy does not allow exemptions based on a refusal to test,” according to a pdf on the site. “Therefore no exemption’ will be granted on these terms. Parents/student will have to state that they are REFUSING the test rather than requesting an exemption.”

It says so far, no Rhode Islanders have opted out of the NECAP test. But there was this comment on the site from a student: “Hi, I am an 11th grader in RI and I need to take the NECAP’s to graduate even though I and my parents are HIGHLY against high stakes testing. With the opt out, would I be able to not take the test and still graduate?”

February 14, 2014February 14, 2014

The NECAP math test is wrong

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Recent remarks in the Journal by the Commissioner of Education point a finger away from the NECAP and toward math education in this state, “Gist said that math is the problem, not the NECAP. ‘This is not about testing,’ she said. ‘It’s about math. It’s about reading.” (Jan. 31, 2014).

A statement like this puts everyone on notice. It tells our students they had better try harder; it tells our teachers they need to stay on track and get better results; and it tells our schools they need to raise their test scores. The subtext of the statement is that there is a big crises and just about everyone in the school system is to blame.

And just behind this subtext is the further ominous and obvious subtext that everyone in the schools needs to be held accountable until we get out of this mess.

But what kind of a mess are we in? What if our low math scores are the result of how we measure math instead of how we teach math? If that is the case, there is much less of a crises and the argument for holding everyone to high stakes accountablity–students don’t graduate, teachers get fired, schools get taken over–

has much less traction.

Since a lot rides on the answer to this question—is it the way we teach math or is it the way we measure math?—it’s worthwhile trying to answer it.

One way to go about this is to compare the performance standards set by different tests. A performance standard is sometimes expressed as a grade level, as in, “the proficiency level of the grade 11 NECAP is set at a ninth grade level”. In this case, a student demonstrating proficiency would show us that he or she has mastered the expectations of a student completing ninth grade. That is, the student would get most of the questions with ninth grade content and ninth grade difficulty right, but would get many fewer questions set at higher levels of difficulty or questions covering topics not usually taught until tenth grade or later.

The way this would show up on a test would be in the average score of the students taking the test—a test set at ninth grade proficieny would have a higher average score than a test set at the eleventh grade proficiency level if they are taken by the same group of students. That makes sense–the eleventh grade standard for proficiency is harder than the ninth grade level because students have covered more content and developed stronger skills.

Back to the basic question—is it the way we teach math or the way we measure math? If we look at the way the NECAP measures reading, we can see that in the two states that take the test in grade 11, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, about 80% of students achieve proficiency. If we say 80% achieving proficiency indicates the test is at an eleventh grade level, then we have to wonder about the NAEP results students in these states achieve because less than half achieve proficiency.

We then have to ask ourselves, what performance standard is NECAP using? Whatever it is, it is much lower than the performance standard NAEP uses because a much higher percentage of students pass. In fact. over 80% more students pass NECAP than pass NAEP, so you can think of the NECAP performace standard as almost twice as easy as the NAEP performance standard. The tests are using different performance standards.

$math necap chart$

If you look at math, the results are startlingly different—here the percentages passing NECAP and NAEP as very comparable, meaning both tests use the same performance standard. And if you look at the NAEP reading and math performance standards, they are pretty comparable, with reading a little higher than math.

It looks like NAEP, the national measuring stick, uses about the same performance standard for reading and math while the NECAP does not.

Now, you can argue that NECAP has set the math performance standard right and has used a reading standard that is too easy. Then, of course, we would have a reading and a math problem instead of just a math problem.

But either admitting the math standard is too hard or the reading standard is too easy would mean admitting that something is wrong with the way NECAP standards have been set, something the Department of Education and the Commissioner have steadfastly denied.

I think that, at heart, they have denied such an obvious fact because it is too costly to their policy agenda to admit that anything could be wrong with the tests.

To do so would be to cast doubt on the expertise of the test designers who are the ultimate source of authority in the accountability debate. If test designers are wrong and tests are fallible, then how we measure students, teachers and schools is up for grabs. RIDE loses its top down leverage.

In the same article, Gist said, “Now is not the time to rethink our strategy.”

“Holding students accountable is really important,” she said. “We cannot reduce expectations.” The Chairman of the Board of Education, Eva Mancuso echoed the thought, “We are on the right course.” This sounds like a comment from the bridge of the Titanic.

February 5, 2014February 5, 2014

Nobody knows how to increase 11th grade NECAP math scores

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

The most prominent and persuasive argument for using the 11th grade NECAP math test as a graduation requirement in RI high schools has been the relative success of Massuchusetts’ use of their MCAS exam for that purpose. Last year I prepared a graph showing how Massachusetts student’s math MCAS scores increased over time compared to the NECAP math scores of RI, Vermont and New Hampshire. It is important to note that Vermont and New Hampshire score in the top tier of states by virtually every measure of math achievement.

See where the percentage scoring at least “2” on the MCAS jumps about 20% between years three and four? That’s the graduation requirement kicked in for juniors. The same effect in theory should have kicked in in year six (last year) for the RI NECAP, but there was no corresponding jump.

The 2013 NECAP results, which have been partially released on RIDE’s website, continue the past trend. The number of 11th graders statewide scoring “1” or “substantially below proficient” decreased just 4% to 36%. This is simply not enough progress to show the policy is working. If you dig down to individual districts and charter schools — demographic and other in-district breakdowns are not available — it is even more disappointing (past years’ data from here):

The state’s flagship turnaround at Central Falls High School has the same number of students scoring “1” in 2013, 73%, as in 2008. After all the turmoil, expense, and the reformers’ best effort, no change.
Providence Public Schools has bumped the “1’s” down from 67% in 2008 to 63% in 2013.
Barrington High School has only improved 4% since 2008: 12% to 8% scoring a “1” (compared to 1% in reading both years).
Blackstone Academy, a small (about 40 in the junior class) charter with 85% economically disadvantaged students, has levelled off after some impressive progress with about a third of juniors not meeting the graduation standard.
Paul Cuffee Charter School, a well-regarded new high school in Providence, still has 52% of juniors not scoring above a “1.”
A few districts had noticeably fewer students at “substantially below proficient” compared to 2012: North Providence from 44% to 26%; Pawtucket, 63% to 52%; Westerly, 29% to 17%.
But a other districts saw increases in students not meeting the requirement since last year: Exeter-West Greenwich, +9%; Newport, +4%; South Kingston, +3%.

I should hasten to note that my point here is not to do the typical blame and shame. What seven years of 11th grade NECAP math scores tell me is that nobody has figured out how to increase them, especially among disadvantaged students, to an degree comparable to the MCAS and by enough to make the test an appropriate graduation requirement.

This is not supposed to happen. Two of the fundamental premises of contemporary school reform are that students will rise to the level of expectations, and that incentives drive results. We’ve got the expectations, the incentives could not be clearer or higher stakes to students and all the adult stakeholders and… the results are just not there.

To replicate the MCAS success story, North Providence’s 18 point improvement would have to be the average gain statewide, not an outlier. When your highest flying low-income charter still has a third of its juniors not on track to graduate because of a single test, that’s not normal. If RIDE knows how to increase 11th grade math NECAP scores, why haven’t they told Central Falls? We’ve been paying outside consultants, too, like The Dana Center, who know as much about aligning math curriculum to standards as anyone. Apparently they don’t know the answer either.

Exactly why we — and New Hampshire and Vermont — don’t seem to be able to raise 11th grade NECAP math scores is beside the point. My theory is that 11th grade NECAP math scores reflect “fluid intelligence” more than the MCAS and other standardized tests, and teaching “fluid” skills like analyzing abstract problems and thinking logically in school is difficult and poorly understood.

Or perhaps the difference is simply that the MCAS was a problem designed with its own solution in mind. The test was developed in parallel with a curriculum framework. For schools to raise their MCAS scores, they needed to do a better job of delivering the state curriculum, which was not necessarily easy, but it was straightforward and achievable. There is no equivalent map for increasing NECAP scores.

At this point, the burden of proof should pass to the proponents of the NECAP graduation requirement to lay out an evidence-based strategy for increasing the “pass” rate for NECAP math statewide by 20% that amounts to something other than “stay the course.” We can’t have a third or more of seniors not knowing if they’re going to graduate in February or scrambling for waivers. For this to work, we need Barrington at 99% pass, Westerly and Blackstone Academy at 95%, and Central Falls and Providence need to nearly double the number of students getting over the bar. Maybe it is possible. Tell me how. I don’t see it.

And of course, it is a moot point since RI is moving off the NECAP as soon as possible anyhow. So… seriously, why are we doing this to ourselves?

February 3, 2014

Did the NECAP requirement make a positive difference?

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

What’s likely to happen to the number of students receiving diplomas in Rhode Island at the end of this year?

Even after RIDE’s release of the latest NECAP results, it’s hard to accurately predict the impact of the standardized test requirement for graduation. Historically, we know that over the past four years the percentage has averaged out to slightly less than 92%, with approximately 1,000 seniors dropping out, opting for the GED, or transferring out of state.

But last year 4,159 students failed the NECAP and needed to retake the test to try to get a passing score. Of those students, RIDE reported 1,370 succeeded. Of the remaining 2,789, RIDE reports 154 dropped out. Regardless of these drop-outs, the fall enrollment count for this fall was 10,403, which seems in line with previous fall enrollments. In other words, as RIDE stated, the impact of the testing requirement on grade 11 drop-outs was not much.

If 4,195 students failed last year and 1,370 passed this year, our best guess is that 2,789 students in this class of seniors will not graduate with diplomas. For the sake of simplicity, this number assumes that all students dropping out, moving away from the state, or getting a GED are also students who failed the NECAP on their first try.

This is what that number does to the number and percentage of seniors graduating with diplomas: it decimates them.

[* Estimates based on number of students from the class of 2014 failing NECAP for the second time (2,789)]

Of course, 2,789 is the number before students begin to take the numerous alternative tests available, including the “min-NECAP”, and activate whatever waiver process their districts have in place to compensate for a failing NECAP score.

Hopefully, the 2,789 number will go down. If districts adopt liberal waiver policies, if could go down considerably.

But from this point on, the picture for these 2,789 students looks like a form of mayhem—they will be searching out opportunities to take a variety of tests, only one of which (SAT math) has its cut-score connected to the NECAP by more than air-thin logic. Or they will be trying to get admitted into a “non-open enrollment college”. Or they will be navigating whatever waiver requirements their district has put in place, which requires them to assemble whatever evidence of academic achievement their district has decided to accept.

It’s not a pretty picture for students from here on, and that’s the larger point.

Students who come from organized, well-resourced districts and have organized, well-resourced parents will do best of all and from there on it’s downhill until the devil take the hindmost.

This is as vivid a picture as possible of why the testing policy fails the mission of our education ideal—to educate all children well and to provide an education that will be the entrée to a productive life and career. Our education system has slowly been moving in this direction by including more and more academically vulnerable students into our enrollments–students with learning disabilities, students who do not speak or write English well, students from families with little of no literacy background.

These students pose a challenge to our traditionally structured education system.

They require especially skilled teachers, special lesson plans, more time, smaller classes and, in general, more resources. But, with more adequate and equitable funding, better teacher professional development, and innovative programming, we have slowly been learning how to help these students be more successful in our schools.

The testing requirement threatens to erode this progress. The scenario most likely to emerge in the next few months–as students try to save themselves–will probably be what happened on the Titanic—most of First Class is saved and most of the others go down with the ship. The irony, and it’s bitter, is that all this is being done in the name for what’s good for kids. Anyone who speaks out against it is branded as being against high standards.

This is truly an Orwellian twist, where what is disastrous for many kids is labeled as good for all kids and where condemning some kids is the prerequisite for saving the rest. And we know who those sacrifices will be, our already vulnerable kids. Go get the low hanging fruit.

January 23, 2014

Waiver chaos sparks ACLU to ask Guida to suspend NECAP policy

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Steve Brown, executive director of the RI ACLU, sent word to Patrick Guida, a member of the Board of Education and chairman of the ad hoc committee studying high stakes testing, that confusion over the waiver process proves it’s high time to reconsider the controversial NECAP graduation requirement policy.

[READ THE LETTER HERE]

“It is important for the Committee to realize that, as things currently exist, the waiver process is, in many instances, a completely arbitrary hodgepodge of inconsistent, incomplete, and poorly advertised policies that can only leave students and parents understandably anxious and perplexed,” Brown wrote in his letter.

In a subsequent phone interview, Guida said, “I have great respect for Steve Brown and am taking the letter very seriously” but added that he wanted to discuss the issue with committee members and Chairwoman Eva Mancuso before commenting on the letter. “As a board member I vote in favor of the assessment and still believe we need some form of assessment, but I am also very sensitive to the issues going around.”

The latest issue with the NECAP graduation requirement is the waiver process he state asked cities and town to develop for students who don’t pass the test.

Brown said in his letter: “Approximately two and a half months ago, the ACLU filed an open records request with all school districts to obtain a copy of their waiver policy as well as any documents related to its implementation, including any notice or instructions provided to parents or students about it and any forms that must be completed for a student to apply for a waiver. Such information is, obviously, essential for any meaningful waiver process, and required by RIDE’s guidance and regulations. The results of our request, however, were less than encouraging.”

You can read Brown’s entire letter here .

October 28, 2013

RIDE rep: reasonable people disagree on NECAP policy

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

The state Department of Education has been a strong advocate against public debate about high stakes testing as a graduation requirement, but it hasn’t been silent. Earlier this month Andrea Castaneda, chief of Accelerating School Performance for RIDE, spoke at a forum in Warwick earlier this month.

“I view this as our absolute responsibility,” she said about being a part of the public debate Rhode Island is having largely without RIDE and the Board of Education over high stakes testing and using the NECAP as a graduation requirement. “This is a really important piece of public policy and I think it’s a piece of public policy that well-informed, reasonable, thoughtful people disagree on.”

This is a stark contrast to how Castaneda’s boss, Deborah Gist, has parsed political debate concerning the NECAP test, who has said people should not encourage or participate in political actions related to high stakes testing and authored seemingly simple but patently false op/ed pieces in the Providence Journal.

The parents and educators who organized this forum are planning several more such forums in November. While this one focused on the negative ramifications high stake testing graduation requirements have on students with disabilities, future forums will include the Providence NAACP, church leaders and will focus more broadly on civil liberties. Castaneda, despite saying such public debates are RIDE’s “absolute responsibility” to particpate in, has declined to participate in future forums. Forum organizers say Castaneda wants a say in how future meetings are structured.

Sorry, Andrea … I think RIDE lost the right to dictate the structure of the debate when it decided not to facilitate the public conversation. Watch Castanada address a group who held a forum at Warwick City Hall earlier this week below. See if you think her words are consistent with RIDE’s actions:

October 25, 2013October 25, 2013

A Halloween ode to standardized tests

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Some may scoff.
Others ignore.
But, the ‘Pumpkin’s Curse’
is something I saw.

So, sit back friends,
it’s a scary tale
about what happens
when school kids fail.

This story, macabre,
has goblins and ghouls,
all of whom
prey on our schools.

The Curse of the Pumpkin

There once was a time.
There once was a place,
where teaching kids
became a race.

Where kids were tested
day and night
to see if they
could answer just right.

They raced in the cities.
They raced in the towns.
Each student was rated
either up or down.

In order to determine
who was the best,
folks at the top
had invented a test.

Called it the NECAP
and gave it much weight.
If you didn’t pass it,
you’d graduate late.

Or perhaps worse,
not at all.
This test was given
each and every fall.

Those folks at the top
of a place called RIDE
looked at the testing
with all kinds of pride.

They talked about measures,
standards and failings.
They talked of how
those teachers were derailing

their efforts to test
each laddie and lass.
“How dare they,” one stated,
“have each student pass.”

Now, some of the children
from very rich schools
had little problem
playing RIDE’s rules.

Many tested quite high.
Few tested quite low.
Most were quite sure
of which college they’d go.

It didn’t quite matter
what they had learned.
All anyone cared
was the grade each kid earned.

But, for a number of children
it was hard to write.
They spoke different languages
or their wallets were tight.

And, when considering math,
those with special needs
were hurt worst of all.
Were hurt most indeed.

At a moment when things
where going so slow,
voices from Providence
told which way to go.

Students of Color
Hispanic and White,
all came together
to do something right.

They sang in the evening.
They spoke in the day.
Telling all listeners
testing wasn’t the way.

Then lo and behold,
other strong voices
followed the students
extolling new choices.

Rumblings and bumblings
came from the top.
The boss of all bosses
said, “This has to stop.”

So she sent out henchmen,
set down new rules,
fired some teachers,
closed some old schools.

Then, with all of this done
and much more said,
she brought out new pencils
loaded with lead.

More tests were ordered
rather than less.
Why this was done
‘twas anyone’s guess.

When all seemed lost,
at a point of despair,
an autumn wind
provided something rare.

You see, dear reader,
during this autumn season,
many things happen
despite any reason.

The Mets won a series.
The NECAPs are done.
Bizarre things happen
with the shortening sun.

Yes, a Halloween gift
from a power unseen
turned everyone at RIDE
back into a teen.

And, not only that,
this is what’s best,
they were all forced to take
a standardized test.

When, surprise of surprises,
few of them passed,
each was ordered to
a remedial class.

For so many students
this nightmare is here.
Today’s graduation requirements
are something to fear.

EPILOGUE

Ask no questions,
get no tales,
Gates and his buddies
all did fail.

And let’s not forget
our friend Arne Duncan.
He too fell prey
to the ‘Curse of the Pumpkin.’

The End (or is it?)

October 22, 2013October 22, 2013

ACLU honors PSU as ‘Civil Libertarians of the Year’

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

The Rhode Island ACLU is honoring the Providence Student Union with its “Raymond J. Pettine Civil Libertarian of the Year” award at its annual dinner in November.

The students of PSU have, with professionalism, passion, conviction, and humor, and always with a positive message, brought issues of students’ rights in general, and the dangers of high stakes testing in particular, to the forefront of the public debate,” said Steve Brown, executive director of the RI ACLU. “We are grateful for, and pleased to recognize, those efforts and also recognize the hope they hold for the future of the state.”

The PSU has brought national and local focus to high stakes testing in Rhode Island. The student group has parlayed creative direct actions, like a zombie march and an adult test-taking session, into appearances on national television and prominent op/ed pages. They’ve been lauded by Diane Ravitch and dismissed by Deborah Gist. As a result, they’ve managed to make the NECAP a pressing political issue in Rhode Island, with the General Assembly and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras calling for reconsideration while the Board of Education and RIDE keep hoping the issue will go away.

The adult leaders of the group are Aaron Regunberg and Zack Mazera, two recent Brown grads who decided to take on the education reform movement in Rhode Island by helping to organize students around the issue.

“The award is being given to the student organization for its inventive, passionate and positive efforts to give students a voice in decisions affecting their education, and particularly for the group’s strong advocacy against the state’s new high stakes testing requirement for high school seniors,” according to a press release from the ACLU.

October 15, 2013October 28, 2013

Gist Q&A with herself doesn’t earn passing grade

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

If Deborah Gist’s op/ed in the Providence Journal were a high stakes graduation test, the commissioner of education would be in danger of not graduating.

Gist poses six questions that have been raised about the very highly-charged, statewide debate about using the NECAP test as a graduation requirement. In each, she says the detailed research and dissident opinions offered by opponents of the NECAP and/or high stakes tests in general are all incorrect.

For Rhode Island’s edification. Like a teacher should do for a wayward student, RI Future corrects her Q&A with herself, but as in life and politics (but not in Gist’s rhetoric) there are no absolutes. So we don’t grade, we offer insight.

Question: Is it true that Rhode Island students can fail to graduate on the basis of a single, standardized test?Answer: No. The truth is that, in Rhode Island, we use multiple measures to determine whether students are ready to earn a diploma and to succeed beyond high school. The measures include course completion, performance-based demonstrations of proficiency (such as senior projects), and success on state assessments or on other approved assessments.Reality: In fact, both the above question AND answer are true (except for the part where Gist says the answer to the question is “No”). What Gist has done here is offered a false equivalent. A more true answer is that it is unlikely that a single, standardized test is unlikely to prevent graduation but it can happen – and is more likely to happen to students in poor districts with disinterested parents.
Question: Is it true that students have to pass the NECAP in order to graduate?Answer: No. The truth is that students who score partially proficient or better when they take the NECAP in grade 11 have met this graduation requirement. Those who have not yet met the graduation requirement will have two opportunities to retake the NECAP again in their senior year. If they improve their score, they have met this graduation requirement — regardless of their performance level. RIDE has also approved 10 other assessments, including the PSAT and the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, that students can use to meet this graduation requirement. In addition, waivers are available for students for whom — for any reason — tests of any kind are not a good measure of their abilities.Reality: This answer is true. It’s basically a different way of wording the first question. So, again, for clarity, failing the NECAP test CAN cause a student not to graduate but no student MUST pass the NECAP test in order to graduate.
Question: Is it true that the NECAP assessments are not appropriate for use as a graduation requirement?Answer: No. The truth is that the NECAPs are high-quality assessments that we use for many purposes, including guiding instruction, informing parents about student progress, and as part of the decision-making about placement, services and graduation. The NECAPs require students to provide written responses to questions that show their thinking and reasoning. Designed on the same model as the MCAS assessments used as a graduation requirement in Massachusetts, the NECAP is an appropriate test for use as one component of a diploma system.Reality: It is true that Deborah Gist thinks it is appropriate. It is true that Eva Mancuso said it was appropriate but perhaps not the best test to use. It is true that the company that makes the test has changed its opinion from agreeing with the question by policy to making a public statement for the benefit of Rhode Island that it changed its opinion. And it is also true that Tom Sgouros did amazing research journalism showing why the NECAP is not an effective metric of measuring individual student performance.
Question: Is it true that the NECAP requirement penalizes students who haven’t received an adequate education?Answer: No. The truth is that handing diplomas to students who are not ready for success penalizes students. Although we recognize that schools cannot make up for years of poor, inadequate education with one year of instruction and support, the opportunity to graduate by showing growth ensures that our graduates are at least making progress toward proficiency. This opportunity also ensures that students aren’t penalized for something beyond their control.Reality: Testing on material that has not been adequately taught absolutely, positively does penalize students. Gist does Rhode Island a grave disservice by not answering this question honestly. Instead, she says the converse – giving a student a diploma on material they have not been adequately taught – penalizes students. Again, she is offering readers a false equivalent as both the question and the answer are correct. Proponents of high stakes tests tend to think giving a student a diploma based on material they may not have received an adequate education in is worse than testing a student on information they have not received an adequate education in, and vice versa. But to say that students who are tested on material they have not received an adequate education in are not being punished is simply ignoring a portion of the issue.
Question: Is it true that, because Rhode Island will introduce a new assessment in 2015, we should wait until then to include assessments in the diploma system?Answer: No. The truth is that at present 75 percent of our recent graduates who enter the Community College of Rhode Island must take remedial courses, at their own expense, before they begin to earn credits. We cannot let this continue. We must provide all students with the education they need and deserve — while it is our responsibility and while it is their right.Reality: We don’t need to fail or stress any graduating seniors in order to make sure the few that go to CCRI know what they need to know.
Question: Is it true that the NECAP encourages test preparation and “teaching to the test”?Answer: No. The truth is that schools where students perform well on state assessments do not focus on test preparation. Rather, teachers in these schools provide great instruction that engages students on many levels and teaches key academic skills: solving problems, reasoning well, writing clearly, reading with precision, thinking creatively, grappling with abstract ideas. The NECAP, unlike many typical machine-scored, fill-in-the-bubble tests, also requires students to write out responses to questions — showing what they know and how they think. Test preparation and rote memorization will not improve performance on this kind of high-quality assessment.Reality: I give Gist an incomplete on this answer, because it only speaks to the school districts “where students perform well on state assessments,” according to her own words. How about in the districts where students don’t perform well on state assessments? You know, the high schools where students tend to go to CCRI after graduation – the very same students you were so concerned with in your previous question to yourself…

October 10, 2013October 11, 2013

PSU’s Cauldierre McKay takes to MSNBC

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Classical High School student and Providence Student Union member Cauldierre McKay has gone national. He and other members of Student Unions from around the country appeared on MSNBC’s Education Nation this Sunday.

“Education reform has become a prominent debate across the country, but the students who are impacted by its result are rarely invited to weigh in,” according to the MSNBC blog. “This year, there has been a surge of students determined to disrupt that standard and make their voices heard to advocate for education reform that makes sense based on their own experiences with hot-button issues like high-stakes testing.”

Here’s the post from the Providence Student Union blog.

Here’s a great segment of McKay talking explaining how the PSU parlayed a zombie march, it’s first direct action, into an adult test taking session and national notoriety:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And here’s the first segment of the special:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

October 4, 2013October 4, 2013

The “High 1s”

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

A widespread critique of high-stakes testing – regardless of the test involved – is that it distorts the incentives of educators, from system leaders down to teachers. One particularly well-documented phenomenon is the practice of redirecting (scarce) resources towards those students on the threshold of whatever arbitrary bar has been deemed the cutoff for the test’s high-stakes sanction.

The ability to use data to diagnose and target students’ needs is important. But from a pedagogical or scientific perspective, there is no reason to give threshold students any more focus and assistance than those who scored below them – who may need help even more urgently – or than those who scored a few questions above them but whose skills may be at a very similar level. Certainly, focusing on threshold students does not help establish “high standards” for every child. But given the perverse incentives created by a system of high-stakes testing, in which the outcome that matters is how many students cross a particular cutoff point, it is simply rational resource allocation for administrators and teachers to zero in on those students who are right on the edge of clearing the bar. In the case of the new NECAP graduation requirement, in which the cutoff for a diploma is a line between a score of 1 and 2, we are talking about the students who scored a “high 1.”

On Wednesday night, at a forum focused on the NECAP graduation requirement, a representative of the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) may have inadvertently admitted that encouragement for these practices can be found even at the highest levels of the system.

Andrea Castaneda, Chief for Accelerated School Performance at RIDE, was defending the new testing policy when she spotlighted the remedial math/college credit program RIDE organized at CCRI for 100 at-risk students this summer. The crux of her comments was that this was a great service that RIDE was able to deliver thanks to the urgency created by placing over 4,000 students at risk of not graduating from high school; in other words, “Look, good things are happening because of this policy.”

We have heard this story before. It seems to be one of RIDE’s main talking points in support of the NECAP graduation requirement, and at the Board of Education’s August retreat it constituted Ms. Castaneda’s closing pitch after a long presentation focused on selling the policy to on-the-fence Board members.

From what I have heard, the CCRI program was a good one. Certainly, a class for 100 students is not a real response to a crisis facing thousands, but it definitely seems like a positive program and we should be glad it was offered.

What I had not heard before, however, was who was targeted to participate in these classes. On Wednesday, Ms. Castaneda let this information slip, explaining that RIDE asked local districts to identify, and I quote directly, “high 1s” to join the CCRI program.

High 1s. The threshold kids.

Clearly, the “high 1s” do need extra supports and assistance to fill gaps in their math skills. But then again, so do the “low 1s,” and so, presumably, do the “low 2s.” What is so worrying about this statement from a high-ranking RIDE official is that it calls into question the basic talking point that the NECAP graduation requirement is ensuring all students have the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. It suggests that instead of helping all students cross the bar of proficiency (which would welcome all 1s, if not 2s as well), RIDE targeted their extra training to those falling just an inch short. To learn that these statistical games may be happening in a program administered at the state level is very concerning.

Of course, when I spoke with Ms. Castaneda after the forum she backtracked. What she had really meant, she said, was that RIDE asked districts to identify students on the higher-performing end of the at-risk population. The really low scorers, she explained, probably did not have enough math skills to be able to learn from the remedial math classes offered at CCRI anyway. But she said all that would have taken too long to explain, so she had simply used the shorthand “high 1s.”

Whatever the case may be, we should take this as a reminder that the distorting effects of high-stakes testing continue to crop up. Education should not be about getting students to jump arbitrary hurdles. RIDE is absolutely right when they say we should be working to ensure every student has the supports they need to succeed, starting in pre-kindergarten and continuing until high school and beyond. But if a policy sets an arbitrary bar as an obstacle to graduation at the eleventh hour, RIDE must be ready to deal with the perverse ways this incentivizes educators to game the system. And RIDE should certainly not be engaging in these practices itself. There are already enough games playing themselves out in Rhode Island classrooms every day because of this policy, and not to the benefit of our students.

October 3, 2013October 4, 2013

What’s so great about Massachusetts education reform?

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

With regard to high-stakes testing, Massachusetts is often offered as a barometer of success. But when the Bay State implemented its oft-cited education reform law in 1993, it also invested $2 billion new dollars into its system. And even in spite of the new funds, education activists say the 20-year-old graduation requirement has one of the widest achievement gaps in the nation.

“The evidence we have gathered strongly suggests that two of the three major ‘reforms’ launched in the wake of the 1993 law — high-stakes testing and Commonwealth charter schools — have failed to deliver on their promises,” according Citizens for Public Education, a Mass.-based group that put together this must-read report for anyone interested in the highly-charged political issue of using the NECAP as a graduation requirement. “On the other hand, the third major component of the law, providing an influx of more than $2 billion in state funding for our schools, had a powerfully positive impact on our classrooms.”

While education reformers often note that Mass has the highest test scores in the nation, they don’t often add that the achievement gap is among the worst in the nation.

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, though our average results place us at the top of all states, Massachusetts ranks in the bottom tier of states in progress toward closing the achievement gap for Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. Massachusetts has some of the widest gaps in the nation between White and Hispanic students, a sign that the English immersion policy created by the Unz initiative has failed.
Massachusetts ranks 31st of 49 states for the gap between Black and White student graduation rates (with 1st meaning that the gap is the smallest) and 39th of 47 states for the size of the gap between Hispanic and White student graduation rates. For students with disabilities, Massachusetts’ four-year graduation rate is only 64.9 percent, which ranks the state at 28th out of the 45 states with available data in 2009.2 A significant reason for this low figure is the impact of the MCAS graduation requirement on this subgroup.
National research and surveys of Massachusetts teachers found the focus on preparing students for high-stakes MCAS tests has contributed to a narrowing of school curricula, most severely in districts serving low-income students. Nationally, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) reported in 20073 that time spent on subjects other than math and reading had been cut by nearly a third since 2002, because, as CEP President and CEO Jack Jennings put it, “What gets tested gets taught.”

Rhode Island’s achievement gap continues to get wider, and for Latino students is one of the widest in the nation. Education officials have said addressing the achievement gap is among the state’s highest priorities.

Sam Zurier, a Providence City Councilor and education attorney, said the state’s failure to implement a fair funding formula is one of the reasons using the NECAP test as a graduation requirement targets poor and minority students for failure. Zurier is representing the school districts of Pawtucket and Woonsocket, who say the new education funding formula is unfair to their communities.

“RIDE’s current message is that Massachusetts demonstrates that high stakes testing causes student achievement to improve,” he said. “This has it exactly backwards. You have to invest the resources to improve the system before you impose high stakes testing.”

He continued:

Before instituting the NECAP, Massachusetts approved the Education Reform Act of 1993. The Act included a significant increase of State aid so that it would amount to 48% of the total budget, versus around 35% in RI. (In recent years, the Mass. state share has been reduced to 40%-45%, but they are still reaping the benefits of several decades of higher investments.) The Massachusetts funding formula is superior to RI’s in a number of ways, including funding the entire education program, not just the “market basket” of selected services. The 1993 Act also increased the resources the State Department of Education had to provide technical support to local school districts that needed help.

September 27, 2013

If Board of Ed doesn’t talk NECAP, the people will

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Rhode Island is going to debate using the NECAP test as a graduation requirement with or without RIDE and the Board of Education. Not only are activists hosting a panel with a RIDE staffer on Wednesday, but three state legislators are holding a similar forum on Monday night.

Representatives Maria Cimini, Providence, Frank Ferri, Cranston and Teresa Tanzi, South Kingstown are hosting an event called: “Great Futures for ALL Rhode Island Students: Keeping the Conversation Going”

“Join us for a community discussion of your concerns about using the NECAP as a graduation requirement and how we can work together to build a better future for Rhode Island students,” says a Facebook event. And here’s a flyer:

On Wednesday, an event at Warwick City Hall pits one member of the Department of Education with five people generally opposed to the NECAPs or high stakes testing. It’s great that RIDE is sending someone but their role is actually to facilitate this kind of debate about their policies.

Other than that, this has pretty much been RIDE’s stock response to the NECAP debate:

September 14, 2013September 15, 2013

Wingmen: What’s wrong with the NECAP test?

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Should Rhode Island use the NECAP test as a high school graduation requirement? We know Eva Mancuso and Deborah Gist don’t want to have this debate, but 10 News Conference does.

I argue that using a one high stakes test as a graduation requirement for the entire state is patently unfair after generations of inequity in education experiences. “We’re having a race to the top here in Rhode Island and towns like East Greenwich and Barrington are starting on third base and towns like Central Falls and Pawtucket are starting with two strikes against them.”

Meanwhile, Justin Katz argues that high stakes tests are good because it treats students more like Pavlov’s dogs. No wonder Mancuso and Gist don’t want to have this debate….

News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387