The Desaparecidos in El Paso

Articles like this one about the TAKS cheating scandal in El Paso really sadden me.

It turns out that miracle test-score gains were actually the result of making students "disappear" from testing records: 9th graders were held back before they could take the 10th grade test, 10th graders were skipped ahead to 11th grade, and low-performing students were "counseled out" of showing up to school on testing day:

State education data showed that 381 students were enrolled as freshmen at Bowie in the fall of 2007. The following fall, the sophomore class was 170 students. Dozens of the missing students had “disappeared” through Mr. Garcia’s program, said Eliot Shapleigh, a lawyer and former state senator who began his own investigation into testing misconduct and was credited with bringing the case to light. Mr. Shapleigh said he believed that hundreds of students were affected and that district leaders had failed to do enough to locate and help them.

“Desaparecidos is by far the worst education scandal in the country,” Mr. Shapleigh said. “In Atlanta, the students were helped on tests by teachers. The next day, the students were in class. Here, the students were disappeared right out of the classroom.”

High-stakes standardized testing has shifted our schools' focus away from educating students and towards meeting benchmarks, even if those benchmarks are achieved through juking the stats.

But even if there were no scandal in El Paso--even if all the kids who were supposed to take the test did--the focus on TAKS "results" would have infected their education anyway. Obsession over the test would have narrowed the curriculum to only what's tested, warped teachers' and students' vision of what education is for and what's possible in schools, and made many students who are capable and full of potential feel like failures.

Florida's Race-based Proficiency Standards: bigotry, reality, or something else?

Florida just adopted academic proficiency targets that vary by race, district, and individual school:

The state, for example, wants 90 percent of its Asian students, 88 percent of its white students, 81 percent of its Hispanic students and 74 percent of its black students reading well by 2018.

It also has set goals by race for each district and each public school. So while Orange County's black youngsters aren't expected to do as well as its white students, those enrolled at Hunter's Creek Elementary are expected to do better than those at Windermere Elementary. 

It is sort of disturbing to see different expectations for different groups of students. Some are calling racism, seeing the new standards as an acceptance of lower expectations for minority students. They worry (justifiably) about the message sent to students: because you're (Asian/white/Hispanic/black) our state expects you to achieve at X level.

Others say that if Florida were to actually meet those goals, in spite of the unequal expectations they seem to justify, it would be good enough. For comparison, 71% of elementary students, 64% of middle school students, and 44% of high school students in Florida are reading at or above grade level (source). They say that expecting everyone to reach 100% in six years is foolish, and it is.

Honestly, I think the real problem is that Florida, like other states since the passage of NCLB, uses standardized tests of basic skills as a measuring stick for students at all. Whether you expect minority students to close the "achievement gap" by 2018 entirely, or only in part, you're still putting your faith in standardized tests, which are designed to sort and rank students according to their perceived proficiency levels.

Another problem is that the state can set proficiency goals wherever it wants to. Florida decides what constitutes a passing score on the test, meaning the difference between proficient and not proficient is pretty arbitrary. In fact, just last year, Florida was criticized for arbitrarily lowering the cut score on its writing exams because scores were so bad.

Imagine if Florida were to use a different set of measures to determine the quality of education in their state: things like per-pupil funding, access to early childhood education, access to books and technology, or access to healthcare and nutrition. You'd still see a gap between affluent students and poor students, and between racial groups. But it would be a gap that would place blame for inequalities squarely on the state and on districts, not on students and their teachers.

Blog Reboot

Ok, after being away from it for a year, I think I'm going to give this blog another try.

I think the trick is to write shorter entries more often. I got too bogged down before crafting longer entries like they were full-on articles instead of just cranking out short thought-shots or brief updates or links to articles. The long articles will come when they come.

For now, I want to write a little bit about why my third year of teaching has been so much better than the last two:

1. My kids this year are awesome. Nothing against my students from the last two years; there were some pretty extraordinary kids in those groups. But for some reason, I just seem to get along better with the kids I have this year. I would be surprised if I have to write more than one or two referrals this year, if any.

2. Writing and Reading Workshop are going so incredibly well. I love it, the kids buy into it, everyone is reading and writing every day--I don't want to sound too naive or idealistic about it all, but it's going even better than I anticipated. Future posts will break down some of the new things I'm doing.

3. I have time. I have time to meet with my grade-level team EVERY DAY, and we meet consistently; I have time after school to plan and create things and prepare; and I (somehow) have more free time to read, write, exercise, and spend time with Rachel. Hopefully this stays the same for the rest of the school year.