June 01, 2004
Over and out
Well, Devoted Readers, it's finally time for a vacation. Destination: Garden City Beach, South Carolina. My parents have rented a shorefront beachhouse and I don't plan to do any thinking more taxing than figuring out how many shrimp and scallops I want on my "all-you-can-eat" platter. N2P will cease production from today until June 14th or so. I won't be able to check email while I'm gone, but I'll definitely do that first thing when I return, so keep those links and horror stories coming!
I had a friend take "goth portraits" of me over the weekend. Here and here are two of my favorites. The color one is unretouched (though it's slightly fuzzy from being resized). As you can tell by my skin tone, I'm going to be wearing A LOT of sunscreen at the beach. The only thing I want sizzling is my surf-and-turf platter.
(If you're sensing a full-on gluttony theme for my vacation, you're right.)
Until my return, you may find the following links amusing and provocative:
The Infinite Cat Project is an entertaining example of what happens when a computer geek is a cat lover. But don't miss this photo essay of what happens when the Infinite Cat Project goes horribly wrong.
I always suspected that as the Baby Boomers got old, they would do their damndest to make being old "cool." I was right. Up next: Keith Richards advertising liver transplants.
Ever wonder what Far Side cartoons would look like in real life? From Worth1000.com, one of the most addictive time-wasting sites ever.
I'm convinced this article should have an "April 1" datestamp on it. Surely, even French intellectuals are not pretentious enough to tell us all that we should stay in bed more often to avoid the "Anglo Saxon" work ethic.
Jeff Jarvis explains why you should get involved with Spirit of America.
Finally, A phenomenal interview with the last surviving member of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, as translated by blogger Chrenkoff. Final comment by survivor Marek Edelman: "...Those who say that you don't have to fight for freedom, don't understand what fascism is. I do."
HSA critic responds to N2P
Elliot Wolf, the senior quoted in the WaPo article about the Maryland High School Assessments, has requested via email that I post a link to his entire testimony about the HSAs. The WaPo article gave little context to indicate that Elliot was well-informed about the tests, but his testimony, along with articles listed on his website, indicates that he has definitely done some research when it comes to standardized tests.
I thought this part of Wolf's testimony was particular interesting:
Blair is in a unique position, one that demonstrates the effects of the HSA on a wide range of students. On one end, we house the Math, Science and Computer Science Magnet Program – one of the highest regarded public secondary school programs in the country. On the other end, approximately one third of all students at Blair are recent immigrants to the United States, and cannot read, write or speak English fluently [Note: While Wolf's testimony puts this number at approximately 33%, the WaPo article claimed that a much lower percentage of Blair students - 10% - had limited English proficiency].
Our research has shown that the implementation of these tests has had negative effects on students at all points on this continuum. In the Magnet, we have new freshmen coming out of HSA-aligned Algebra I classes who are severely lacking in even the most basic Algebra skills. They are able to pass the HSA with flying colors, yet many are not prepared for the advanced math classes that their predecessors who completed non-HSAaligned algebra courses were.
Thus, his complaint seems to be that students who are taught Algebra under HSA guidelines in fact learn less about Algebra than those who took non-HSA-aligned courses. As I've said many a time, there's nothing wrong with teaching to the test - if it's a good test. But if Wolf's claim is true, the HSA may not be a very good test at all.
May 28, 2004
If an English student plagiarizes a paper and no one realizes it, does it still make a sound?
We all knew this was coming...
A student who admits down-loading material from the internet for his degree plans to sue his university for negligence. Michael Gunn claims his university should have warned him his actions were against the regulations.
The Times Higher Education Supplement reports that he was told on the eve of his final exams that he would get no marks for his course work. The University of Kent at Canterbury says students are warned about plagiarism.
Michael Gunn, a 21-year-old English student, told the Times Higher: "I hold my hands up. I did plagiarise. I never dreamt it was a problem.
"I can see there is evidence I have gone against the rules, but they have taken all my money for three years and pulled me up the day before I finished.
"If they had pulled me up with my first essay at the beginning and warned me of the problems and consequences, it would be fair enough.
"But all my essays were handed back with good marks and no one spotted it."
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this fiasco, because three idiotic concepts are at work here. First is the issue of Gunn not realizing plagiarism was "a problem;" that statement alone should qualify him as too dense for a university degree. Second is the charge made by Gunn that it somehow shouldn't count against him that the university didn't figure out what he was doing right off the bat. Universities are becoming ever-more vigilant against internet plagiarism, but just because the university just now figured out what Gunn was doing doesn't mean his earlier bogus work gets to be "grandfathered" in somehow.
Gunn's departmental handbook states that plagiarism is unacceptable. It doesn't matter whether he realized that or how and when the university caught it. He should still be, as he is, out on his ear.
The third batty idea here is that Gunn thinks he'll be able to find a solicitor to take his case. At least, I hope that's a batty, as opposed to doable, plan.
Best Fark.com comments on the case:
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My favorite story about this. A guy in my high school english class was writing about Ray Bradbury. Well, he used the cliff notes extensively and, of course, didn't credit a damned thing. Well. It never dawned on him that our teacher was so excited about his choice of people to write about because she was an authority on Ray Bradbury. As a matter of fact, in college, she wrote the cliff notes about his stories. Needless to say, that dumbass failed.
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WTF? I've just graduated from a British university and on the top of EVERY assignment I was given was a little note saying "Plagiarism is a serious offence, show your sources in the footnotes". This guy is either a liar or incredibly stupid. I'm betting on the latter.
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I'm a friend with a professor, so I hear a lot of war stories. On the front page of every syllabus are the rules on academic honesty. Last semester was truly an eye-opening event. He actually reads and checks every paper and presentation. If you plagiarize, the work gets an 'F', and the student has to submit a new paper on academic dishonesty (and receive no credit for it). If the student refuses the paper, the student gets an 'F' for the course. I could not believe how many students copied other people's work, cut whole pages from the internet without citation and claimed it was their own, and then would actually complain to the teacher that what *he* was doing would hurt their GPA and that was unfair. One woman even gave the response, I would do ANYTHING to get an A in this course.
He commented, Well, have you thought of doing the work?
Lies, Damn Lies, and the NYT
OOooo, the blogosphere is having a field day over a recent NYT article that depicts blogs as seldom-read, masturbatory diatribes written by pathetic, addicted people who live in bathrobes all day.
What's most amusing to me is that the NYT article itself demonstrates why it has a lot to fear from blogs, and why people are more and more often turning to blogs for hard news:
The number of bloggers has grown quickly, thanks to sites like blogger.com, which makes it easy to set up a blog. Technorati, a blog-tracking service, has counted some 2.5 million blogs.
Of course, most of those millions are abandoned or, at best, maintained infrequently. For many bloggers, the novelty soon wears off and their persistence fades.
Sometimes, too, the realization that no one is reading sets in. A few blogs have thousands of readers, but never have so many people written so much to be read by so few. By Jupiter Research's estimate, only 4 percent of online users read blogs
Indeed, if a blog is likened to a conversation between a writer and readers, bloggers like Mr. Wiggins are having conversations largely with themselves..
Oh, really? Given that the NYT provided no context for the "4%" figure, I'd say they aren't having much of a conversation with their readers, who are apparently supposed to think, "Hmph, four percent. That's a tiny number" and move on. But Bill Quick did the research and crunched the numbers to uncover the real picture:
Here's a few more numbers the fishwrapped fumblers at the Old Gray Hag can contemplate:
World Internet Usage Statistics and Population Stats - Top 10
Total number of internet users: 785,710,022. Four percent of that number: 31,428,400.
Total number of NYT readers: Hard to estimate. Print circulation varies from about 1.16 million daily to 1.8 million on Sunday, website page count 1-2 million per day, total readership somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5 million.
Blogs as a whole are more widely read than the New York Times by a factor of seven plus.
Those who live by the statistics, die by the statistics. The NYT might have hoped that bloggers would feel embarassed by this negative article; instead, it's more grist for the why-blogs-are-better-than-newspaper mill. As A Small Victory put it:
I do have a question for the people over at the paper of record: If blogs are so damn boring and unimportant, why do you keep printing stories about them?
Me, I'm just eagerly anticipating the day when the NYT publishes an article (probably by Michael Winerip) in which the idea that people might actually get information about testing and education reform from blogs is met with derision and disbelief.
May 27, 2004
Well, I guess you could argue her burning hair was disrupting the class...
Can we get a little zero tolerance here, please?
A 13-year-old Denver girl said she was threatened with a knife at her middle school and her hair was set on fire, yet she was the one who was told to stay home for the remainder of the school year while her alleged attacker wasn't suspended or even investigated.
Courtney Glowczewski has a small right arm and leg because of cerebral palsy, a disability that her teachers say has not kept her from working hard in school and being a good student...But her physical appearance has made her a target of taunting and of physical attack, which she said has never been addressed by the administration at Martin Luther King Middle School. Last week, she said the bullying got worse when she said she was threatened and assaulted by a seventh grade boy.
"He pulled out a knife, a silver knife, a pocket knife, and then he said 'What!?' So I was scared and didn't know what to do," said Glowczewski.
As she walked to her seat she smelled smoke and one of her classmates was patting her hard on the back.
"I looked and there was a black spot on the back of my shirt. And then I saw some black hair falling from my hair," said Glowczewski. Her hair was on fire and the other student said that she was trying to help put it out.
Her mother, Sherrie, was called to school when her daughter reported the incident to the assistant principal. Sherrie Glowczewski was outraged when she was told by the administration at Martin Luther King that her daughter didn't need to come back and not to worry about the tests...
7NEWS discovered that while Glowczewski was sent home, her alleged attacker is still in school, even though administrators confirmed he had a knife.
The interim principal is "admitting mistakes." Imagine my surprise.
I'm sensing a pattern here. Have a weapon anywhere on your body, in your locker, or in your car, and you're out of school for good. But actually use the weapon, and the school will just freak out and send the victim home (the better to distance themselves from lawsuits). My, what a great message this sends to miscreants and concerned parents everywhere.
I can already predict the advice half of my readers will give to Ms. Glowczewski: "Homeschool!" And they'd be right.
(Thanks to Devoted Reader and mathematical genius Mike McKeown for the link.)
Update: More than one blogger was outraged by this story; Jim Peacock did something about it.
I sent an email to Mark Stevens, Director of Public Information for Denver Public Schools, and received a response yesterday. Reviewing the post and comments at WizBang shows that it is a form response. Still, it is more than I expected and it appears that the school is now working in good faith to correct the situation.
Teenage filmmaker gets serious
From an article about teenage filmmakers comes this teaser:
Film is a powerful art form, as long as it isn’t too serious. “They aren’t received as well by the audiences as the comedies,” said Amy DeWeese, a Eureka High School senior and president of the school’s media club. The club is coordinating the fourth annual North Coast Student Film Festival Friday, from 7-9 p.m., in the Eureka High auditorium, 1915 J St. The event is open to the public, all ages. The cost is $3.
Mark Myslin made a documentary last year, but he felt it was too serious for the festival, he said.
His film was about the California Standardized Testing And Reporting test. He interviewed administrators, teachers and students. The gist was that governmental intentions for the test and what has actually happened in the schools are often different. He said the content was worthy, because, after all, he and his fellow high-schoolers take those tests.
But, the audience didn’t get out of it what he had hoped.
Eh? What does that mean? I want more information. Certainly Myslin might have had a point. Did the audience not care? Not get it? Or were they just bored to tears by the mere idea of a documentary about standardized testing?
I, on the other hand, want to see his documentary.
When happy meals aren't so happy
Restaraunts are changing their children's meals to reflect a growing concern about childhood obesity:
The traditional kids' menu at casual restaurants - replete for years with burgers, french fries and fried chicken strips - is expanding to include steamed broccoli, black beans and rice, and grilled chicken.
The trend is a clear response to the growing concern about childhood obesity. An estimated 20% to 30% of kids are either overweight or at risk of becoming so.
A few of the biggest casual dining chains already are dishing out the healthier foods. Others plan to roll them out by summer.
However, I'm betting an attitude adjustment will be the biggest change needed to combat obesity amongst young people, as evidenced by the wailing and gnashing of teeth at a Boston high school that has gone crunchy:
When high school student Shirley Gomez heard the news yesterday, she froze, widening her eyes and gaping in disbelief.
If the Boston School Committee adopts the new nutrition policy proposed yesterday, Gomez' midmorning chocolate-chip cookies could be replaced by granola bars. Her gummy bears dumped for raisins. And her syrupy-sweet red fruit juice axed for vitamin-fortified soy milk.
''No way. They can't do that," said Gomez, as she and her friends made their way to the Burger King next door to Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Dorchester. ''If I wanted that kind of food, I could take it from my refrigerator at home. Why do I need to buy it at school?"
How many things are wrong with Gomez's statement? Let's see. First is the assumption that students have some sort of right to sugary treats on school grounds. Next is the fact that she's complaining about this when there's a BK Lounge next door. Finally, the same argument "I could take this from my refrigerator at home" can be used to justify providing healthy snacks as a rescue tactic for kids whose parents' shopping habits are unhealthy.
The approximately 130 vending machines in Boston public schools are stocked with a variety of high-fat fare: potato chips, brownies, cupcakes, and ice cream. Beverages include high-sugar sport drinks, iced tea, and juice.
If a new policy is approved, all those items will be banned in September.
Super-sized snacks and sweets will be replaced by items low in calories, sugar, and fat. Beverages will include water with no additives, low fat or skim milk, and vegetable and fruit drinks with a minimum of 50 percent juice...
So far, some of the system's top consumers have not quite embraced the idea.
''I guess I won't be eating lunch, then," said freshman Tanisha Gray, who usually plunks about $1.50 in change for Doritos and fruit juice during lunch. ''You'd get more money from the vending machines with real snacks."
Sherrel Stokes, 15, and Akeem Brown, 14, said they worry what the move could do for their image. ''Nobody eats bananas or apples for lunch -- nobody," said Stokes, folding her hands across her chest.
''Who's going to walk around school eating an apple?" scoffed Brown.
Guess what, Brown? You are, now, unless you buy your own junk food in the grocery store. You say your parents won't buy it for you? Why, then, is the school obligated to provide it? As for that "image" issue, well, I'd suggest finding a way to be cool that doesn't involve eating tons of overpriced and fattening food during the school day. Any kid who derives their popularity and self-image from Doritos has got a bigger problem than obesity facing them later on.
News from the frontlines of "Poverty Rock"
This sounds like it would be a delicious and satisfying read for any overworked teacher:
One parent accused Joby McGowan of causing a tumor in her second-grader's brain by using a timer in class. Another told the newly arrived West Mercer (Island) Elementary school teacher that, at 6 feet 6 inches, he was "too tall" to teach little kids.
More ordinary e-mailed outrage rained, too, on the lofty head of the transplanted Iowan during his first year among the motivated moms and dads of "Poverty Rock." That's the nickname for "this sceptered isle, this other Eden" east of Seattle, supposedly long on folding green and high on aspirations for its heirs.
"Mr. McGowan" was unpatriotic because he forgot to say the Pledge of Allegiance the first week of school. He scheduled snacks too early or too late. He gave too little homework or the wrong kind. And, in the gold standard of all complaints by edu-consumers, he failed to challenge their children.
These are the sorts of parent snipes most teachers swap only in the sanctity of the faculty lounge. But McGowan put his in a book, "Teaching on Poverty Rock," his slim, sarcastic and self-critical saga of a first year in the district published in March by America House's PublishAmerica arm. This month the book surfaced on Amazon.com for $14.95 a pop.
"Hilarious!" one reader wrote in an online review. "One of the best real-life teacher tales ... of the hell survived from a handful of unrealistic parents."
"Often bitter and humorless," another disagreed, accusing the "rural Iowan" of being unprepared to handle an "affluent, highly educated and demanding population of parents" in a spot that may well boast more CEOs per capita than any community in the country.
Still, after a couple of articles by the Mercer Island Reporter's Mary L. McGrady, supportive parents were alerted that McGowan's job may well be in jeopardy, and many of them turned up at the school wearing black in protest of his ouster.
This after Mercer Island School Superintendent Cyndy Simms went to McGowan's classroom earlier this month to hand-deliver him a "letter of non-renewal."
But all's well that ends well; McGowan has been non-non-renewed and is now teaching second grade. Hopefully, he won't find himself in the position of having to take out a restraining order against a parent this year, like he did last year. If that happens, I hope we all hear about that, too.
Failing to measure if students are failing math
Joanne Jacobs comments on the California algebra flap that I've been following, and also notes that:
By the way, it's impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of 19 math curricula funded by the National Science Foundation, says a report by the National Academies' Mathematical Sciences Education Board. Evaluations of the math programs "fall short of the scientific standards necessary to gauge overall effectiveness." So, NSF is funding math "reforms" without demanding valid studies of what works. By the time useful research is done, a lot of students will be finding algebra unpassable.
But in California, that doesn't matter just yet.
More on the purpose of the NA's MSEB review can be found here, and here's the free "prepublication"with the details. In essence, they've studied the studies of K-12 math programs, and quite a few were discarded due to insufficient rigor. Only about 20% of the total studies reported met their "minimum criteria for consideration of effectiveness," which led them to conclude that, well, nothing could really be concluded, not with any reasonable level of certainty. The problem seems to be that those who aim to research math programs don't seem to understand research all that well.
I found this one example of such particularly galling:
In its review, the committee became concerned about the lack of independence of some of the evaluators conducting the studies; in too many cases, individuals who developed a particular curriculum were also members of the evaluation team thus raising questions about the credibility of the evaluation results...
Emphasis mine. This report concludes with a great set of guidelines for those wishing to assess math programs, but I wonder how many educators will follow them?
May 26, 2004
Pipe down, Grandma
At my nephew's high school graduation a couple of years ago, the speaker politely asked everyone to hold their applause, as much as possible, until the end, so every kid could hear their name read. Instead, there was so much ruckus that the person reading the names had to stop the ceremony a couple of times. Some people in the stands had huge noisemakers and horns and all this really obnoxious stuff, and their behavior pretty much just got tolerated, even as others in the audience got really annoyed.
I'm thinking, though, that there's got to be a happy medium between that and this:
Imagine cops throwing you out of your own child's graduation just for expressing your joy.
It happened Monday night to several families at a local ceremony, and it was all caught on tape.
KCTV5's Liana Joyce reported live on "KCTV5 News at 6 p.m." that there was a dress code and a behavior code that was strictly followed at the Grandview High School graduation.
One family who got kicked out for cheering their son's accomplishments said it was being taken too far.
It all began when 18-year-old Brandon Sample's family clapped and whistled as the Grandview grad walked across the stage. It may have seemed harmless, but it was enough to get them tossed out of the ceremony...
That was when the officer approached, asking the teen's mother, father, aunts, and even his 86-year-old grandmother to leave.
Well, it made for a memorable graduation night, anyway.
Update: This, on the other hand, deserves a bit of applause. But wouldn't it have been better if all the graduates could have done it in sync?
Much ado in Maryland
Maryland is nearing the finishing line in setting a high school exit exam requirement in stone, and the local teachers' union has tossed its hat into the ring in opposition:
The Maryland Teachers' Union is joining other education groups in a last-ditch effort to oppose the state's plan to make passing standardized tests a requirement for graduation.
The union president said there's much more to learning that can't be assessed by a single test, 11 News reported.
Oh, yes, so much more. Because, as we all know, exit exams tend to assess nuclear physics and organic chemistry, rather than (usually 10th-grade-level) basic reading and math skills.
Looking further, though, I'm wondering why they're bothering with this last-ditch effort. The Maryland BOE voted last year to implement the exit exams:
Maryland's Board of Education has approved a plan to require students to pass the state's High School Assessments in order to receive a diploma. The requirement begins with the class of 2009, making Maryland the 19th state to adopt an exit exam...
The new plan calls for high school students to pass tests in algebra, English, government and biology to receive a full diploma. State School Superintendent Nancy Grasmick has proposed providing alternative diplomas to students who pass less than four of the exams or who have disabilities. Some board members said they have concerns about such a tiered system, however; a revised version of the plan will come before them in May.
Some board members who voted in favor of the graduation exam said they were doing so reluctantly. "We've never generated the reality of what will happen when we do this," said JoAnn Bell, the board's vice president. "We are going to lose kids."
Work with me here, Ms. Bell. You're going to "lose" kids who spend four years in high school without mastering basic skills in algebra, English, government and biology. These are kids currently in seventh grade, so it's not like they're not forewarned. All the school can do is teach the classes well, and give the tests. Some kid will fail them. This doesn't mean the tests will have blocked them; it will mean they never learned the material, and thus won't have some necessary skills for success later on.
The Washington Post has more on the "last-ditch" efforts:
Critics worry that schools might place too much importance on the tests and that students who think they cannot pass them might drop out. For the past two years, high school students have been required to take the Maryland High School Assessments, but results have had no effect on their graduation status.
Do these same critics also constantly fret that the existence of grades for high school classes are too "important" and might make kids drop out? We're talking about the same thing here. High school students already have to write papers and cram for tests. Sure, there's grade inflation to prop up the lazy, but to hear these critics complain, an exit exam is the only high-stakes academic situation students will encounter in their four year.
Preliminary results of a study on exit exams in six states, to be released next month, show that "there's nothing in those tests that it would be unreasonable for a high school graduate to know," said Michael Cohen, president of Achieve Inc., a nonprofit group that helps states improve and coordinate testing efforts. Cohen outlined Achieve's study findings at yesterday's Maryland school board meeting.
Under the state's plan, students can fail one or more tests as long as they earn a passing score when the results are added together. They can take the tests several times.
The maximum score on each exam is 800, and students must receive a combined score of 1613 on all four to get a diploma. However, there is a catch: Students will not receive a diploma if they score lower than a minimum target -- yet to be set by the board -- on any of the tests.
So, they can retake many times. They can pass separate exams on separate takes. And they have to score, on average, a little over 400, or 50%, on each exam. To the union member who said, "there's much more to learning that can't be assessed by a single test" - you're right. With standards this low, this test might not be assessing much of anything.
And yet, the hysteria continues:
Elliott Wolf, a Montgomery Blair High School senior, told board members yesterday that the exams could have a devastating effect at his school, where about 10 percent of the students last year spoke limited English. None of them passed the English portion of the 2003 state assessments, according to state records. "These tests are . . . badly implemented, and the students are suffering as a result," he said.
Hm. So we have to take the word of a high school senior that the tests are badly implemented. Why? Because they're given in English? It's not surprising that limited-English proficiency students had trouble with them; it's absurd to say that English tests are "badly implemented" for people who don't know English.
It'll be up to the state, or individual districts, to decide how to deal with recent immigrants who haven't had time to learn English. But everyone who is currently in Maryland's seventh-grade classes has been warned - learn English within the next five years. I don't think that's a "devastating" requirement.
May 25, 2004
Hysteria rampant at the NYT
The New York Times overstates the problem: "Confusion Is Rampant With Change in the SAT's":
A revised College Board exam, incorporating a writing test and more advanced math, will not make its debut until next spring, but confusion about how to deal with the changes is already rampant. Worry is especially intense among this year's 10th graders, the first class that will confront the new test.
Most colleges seem to be leaning toward allowing that transition group, the graduating class of 2006, to submit scores either from the old SAT or the new SAT, and, if an applicant submits both, to consider the highest one. That flexibility creates a unique problem. Should students prepare to take the old SAT next winter, midway through junior year, or should they concentrate on the new format and wait until the spring, or even the fall of senior year?
It's not rocket science, people. Students should first decide where they want to go, then follow that university's guidelines. The test is also a one-day affair - couldn't students take both, just to be sure? Yes, it would be a pain, but it's easy to find out if a school takes the highest of two SAT scores or the average. Schools may also be downweighting the new SAT regardless, until they have some idea of its predictive validity for their populations. If a student does his or her research, they won't be in the dark about what their school of choice requires.
There's no more confusion "rampant" here than there is when any system changes over.
From a privilege to a requirement
High schools in central Texas are requiring students to apply to college in order to receive their diplomas - whether the student plans to attend college or not:
The San Marcos High approach reflects a particularly aggressive attitude in central Texas toward pushing more students into higher education and is part of a national effort to encourage more college participation. Educators in central Texas are not only requiring students to apply to college but also opening up facilities shared by two-year and four-year schools. That way, when students such as Tenorio finish community college, they find a path to a bachelor's degree...
The Austin Area Research Organization produced a study last year that local educators have been using to win political support for their plans. Officials in the Texas capital -- one of the nation's hubs for high-tech companies -- boast about their well-educated workers, 65 percent of whom have taken some college courses, compared with 51 percent statewide.
But the research study said a heavy influx of low-income Hispanic families with few members going to college would cut that figure to 55 percent by 2040...
So a group of educators, including Texas State President Denise M. Trauth and Austin Community College's interim president, Stephen B. Kinslow, began to look for solutions...Sylvester Perez, superintendent of the San Marcos school district, said that when program officials suggested requiring all of his seniors to apply to a college, "we thought it was great. It would be helping the kids through the process."
One principal, whose school is 63% Hispanic, says the program, which involves a lot of outside help from community colleges, is succeeding. One student says it's great that schools are leading them to water and helping them learn to swim, rather than just leaving them to their own devices. Students whose parents ultimately refuse the free financial aid seminars and campus tours are ultimately exempted from the requirement.
Something's not adding up in Utah
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah's sophomore's are struggling with the math component of the exit exam:
Two out of five Utah sophomores will have to retake and pass at least one section of the state's three-pronged high school exit exam to collect their basic diploma two years from now. In almost all of Utah's 40 school districts, students struggled most with the math test, according to statewide results released Monday...
The class of 2006 is the first required to pass all three sections of the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test (UBSCT) to earn a basic diploma. The Legislature mandated the exam in 1999. Three out of five sophomores passed all three sections, while 16 percent passed two sections, 9 percent one section, and 14 percent failed all three sections.
All the failing students have four more opportunities to pass. The results for all 40 districts can be found online. Summer classes and special remediation are in the works. And officials are saying that students just aren't motivated enough:
"There were still some students who looked at the UBSCT testing as something that probably was not going to count, so when they see they're going to be taking it again, hopefully they'll see it's a little more serious," said Garett Muse, principal of Cottonwood High School...
"Anecdotally, what we hear from other states is that there's lots of senior-year repentance, but that's so scary, to wait until your senior year to get serious about the test," said Louise Moulding, the state Office of Education's director of evaluation and assessment.
Standardized tests for parents?
Hey, homeschooling parents, what do you think of this idea?
The end product of this year's [Virginia] General Assembly session is making its way across the desk of Gov. Mark Warner. One bit of legislation that should never have made it through the House of Representatives, much less to the governor's office, has gotten the deep-six via the governor's veto.
House Bill 675, jointly patroned by local legislators Ben Cline and Steve Landes along with eight other Republican delegates, one Democratic senator and three Republican senators, would have abolished the requirement that parents who home-school their children possess at least a bachelor's degree...Warner, in his veto, noted correctly that while public school teachers are being expected to adhere to increasingly strict requirements, especially those imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act, loosening requirements for home-schooled children made no sense, and, in fact, were a retreat.
The governor is right. Home education should be based on standards, too, otherwise the drive to require them in public school is nothing but a sham and a means of dismantling free public education in America...
In his veto, Gov. Warner noted he had submitted a proposed amendment to the bill stating that he would be willing to entertain the notion of home-school teachers without college degrees if they had achieved a composite score on the PRAXIS I or SAT I exams not less than the ones required for beginning teachers licensed by the Board of Education. Warner also said that if a parent had achieved a score above the 50th percentile in English and mathematics on a national standardized norm-referenced test approved by the Department of Education, that would be considered suitable.
May 24, 2004
A real tale of testing woes
This puts our high-stakes tests - and occasional testing errors - in perspective:
An Indian teenager killed herself after receiving a mobile phone text message saying she had failed her school leaving exams, although she had actually passed, a report said today. The 17-year-old girl hanged herself yesterday morning after getting the SMS giving her the wrong information, the Hindustan Times reported...
Results of the school-leaving exams of over 250,000 students began being announced yesterday, with cellphone companies for a small fee offering to provide results via SMS to those students giving their roll numbers.
It was uncertain whether the company was at fault for sending the incorrect message or whether the girl had made a mistake in typing down her roll number, the report said.
Pressure from parents and peers on students to score high marks in the exams is immense and each year dozens across the country kill themselves when they find they have failed.
The Board of Education has finally set up an ecounseling hotline. Overdue, I'd say.
Zombie Butts from Uranus!
Hey, whatever gets 'em reading:
Glenn Murray blushes a hearty shade of red when a cashier at a Chicago deli recognizes him: "Heyyyyyy!" the young man shouts gleefully -- and loudly. "You're the fart-man!"
Murray, an educator-turned-children's author from Canada, is still getting used to the ruckus over two books he co-wrote. They feature "Walter the Farting Dog," a flatulent pooch whose little problem saves the day time and time again.
The content may seem quirky and even off-color to some. But these days, potty humor is big in the world of popular children's literature -- from the "Captain Underpants" series to such best-selling titles as "Zombie Butts from Uranus!"...
"You gotta give kids something they want to read," says Murray, who firmly believes that his smelly but well-meaning protagonist has become an ambassador for literacy...
It would seem that kids agree, since the genre's books regularly appear on children's best-seller lists...Librarians call such stories "book hooks," says Barbara Genco, immediate past president of Association of Library Services to Children.
Scholastic also publishes "Zombie Butts from Uranus!" by Andy Griffiths. It's the sequel to "The Day My Butt Went Psycho," a story about a 12-year-old named Zack whose back side is prone to detaching itself, running away and causing trouble.
Now, who can't identify with that?
(Thanks to Reginleif for the link.)
Redefining "gifted"
The controversies involved in using an IQ test to select kids for gifted and talented programs:
Amir Diego Howard is one of the brightest third-graders at Sierra Vista, an elementary school surrounded by some of Reno’s poorest neighborhoods...Amir easily passed the first two requirements for entry — his teacher’s assessment and scoring in the 96th percentile of a national criteria reference test.
Yet he failed to score at the 133 IQ level on the Kaufman-Brief Intelligence Test — the third and final step in gaining admission. So Amir was barred admission...
Many minority students share Amir’s plight. Testing for G-T placement discriminates against English language learners plus children from bilingual homes or poor households, school officials from poorer schools said.
But if being able to read English at that level is necessary to succeed in the program, why is it discrimination?
“We could waive a test score or lower a test score for these students,” [Jo Garret, Washoe’s G-T curriculum coordinator] said. “The problem I see with this is that if you place an ESL student in a program that is highly English-language based, without any modifications, they will be frustrated and drop out of the program.”
She said the district needs modified testing and to change the program for such students to make it educationally appropriate.
Many states are modifying their G-T entrance requirements to be "non-language" oriented:
The district plans to draw more disadvantaged students into its improved middle school program that debuts next fall by allowing alternative ways of admission.
If a student does not meet the IQ test or CRT requirements, they can get into the middle school G-T program by scoring well on a standardized test of creativity or by showing documentation that they are highly proficient in science, math, geography, art, music or drama. Most middle schools will offer at least two new G-T classes under the new program.
“We are trying to be more inclusive and open it more to the kids who will benefit,” Garrett said. “In this way, we hope to pick up kids from a more diverse background that we have not served in the past”...
Other U.S. districts have gone to non-language tests for the gifted, including those that measure intelligence by determining patterns or comparing geometric shapes. These alternative tests are succeeding in diversifying the G-T population in the Anchorage School District in Alaska, its director said...
Anchorage also lowered its scores for admission on CRT tests from the 96th national percentile to the 90th. Students can also gain admittance to G-T learning by showing special talent or skill with a portfolio.
“We lowered the criteria for the Title I students to qualify,” Vanderploeg said. “We started in October and we have increased the number of minorities students in the program by 15 percent.”
Diversity is at the heart of the matter. And administrators are not ashamed to say that they are lowering standards just to get a more "diverse" G-T crowd in. But no one in the article answers the question - is it beneficial to admit more students with a "non-language" test if language skills are necessary to benefit from the G-T programs? Is this really a method of identifying students who will do well, given the chance, or is it a way for administrators to feel better about not having such a "white" group of gifted students?
The bottom line is, the students admitted under the new standards should be able to do the work and benefit from it. If that turns out to be the case, great. But if that doesn't happen, I hope states that modified their standards will admit it.
Left behind but moving forward
A look at the effects of Florida's new retention policy:
At the close of this first year of mandatory retention, opinions are decidedly mixed. “Where you get the true perspective on anything is to look at the broader pictures, to look at the numbers,” said Larry Tihen, curriculum director for the Lee County School District. “Children have vastly improved after retention.”
Of the 601 third-graders retained, 406 passed FCAT reading the second time around. Of those who failed again, 114 had disabilities or didn’t speak English as a first language. Just 81 “regular education” students failed the test twice.
Tihen said the policy might save students from a lifetime of failure.
“Their self-esteem and their confidence and how they present themselves at school has vastly improved,” Tihen said. “One of the real values of this beyond children just learning to read is having children who feel better about themselves and more successful.”
If anything, more elementary school parents will be getting letters and phone calls from teachers suggesting they hold their children back. Tihen said the district wants to start retaining children at the kindergarten, first- and second-grade levels in the hopes that catching them earlier will yield even more success.
“If we can identify those children early, then on the average they make one to three times the gains than do students if we wait until third grade,” Tihen said.
Parents said they’d been shocked last year at the news their children were being held back. But a year later, their views varied widely based on their child’s experience.
“I think it was great,” said Patricia Kolecki, who has a child at Tropic Isles Elementary School in North Fort Myers.
Her son had about 15 children in his class with a teacher, Heather Evans; a reading specialist, Dacia Webb; and volunteer mentors Evans recruited from her church.
Evans and Webb figured out why Kolecki’s son was having so much trouble reading: He concentrated so hard on the unknown words that he couldn’t absorb the story’s plot, Kolecki said. The teachers taught him how to skip over words and learn them later.
Kolecki urged parents facing retention to get involved.
“I think the child is only to get as much out of it as the parent puts in,” she said. “The teachers can’t do it all. They can’t.”
Not all parents had so positive a view of retention, of course. But it's refreshing to see both pro- and anti- positions in one article.
The Princeton Pinchers
Those Princetonians and their sticky fingers:
Authorities say Princeton University students are increasingly being caught shoplifting from the school store, with 10 Ivy League students arrested since March. Twelve students have been arrested since the installation of new security cameras in the Princeton University Store several months ago, according to a published report.
Not surprising that more have been caught now that new methods exist to catch them. The hand-wringing over why such students would steal has officially begun:
Students have been charged with misdemeanors for stealing items such as razor blades, clothing, sushi and cosmetics from the shop, which is partly a bookstore and a 24-hour convenience store. It is independent of the university...
[Municipal Prosecutor Marc] Citron said the arrests have made him add to his explanations of why people shoplift. He said he used to have two reasons: people stealing to buy drugs and people with psychological problems.
"And No. 3 is the Princeton University student and I am not quite sure what category they fall into," he said. "What troubles me is that some of the students feel that they are so privileged, that they have the privilege (to steal)."
That's certainly one explanation. Perhaps, though, college tuitions have risen so high that even kids who can afford to attend Princeton find themselves short of pocket change?
And will the anti-testing crowd, who insist that high stakes "make" people cheat, come to the defense of the Princeton Pinchers, by insisting that the high cost of cosmetics "makes" these students steal? I'm not holding my breath.
Bring the dance revolution to PE class
A free market sensation that might actually be good for you:
Forget the image of paunchy video gamers holed up in a dark room, surrounded by sticky Twinkie wrappers and empty soda cans. Dance Dance Revolution players burn extra pounds along with their quarters. Weight loss is an unexpected benefit of a game designed for dance music...
The premise of DDR is simple: Players stand on a 3-foot square platform with an arrow on each side of the square_ pointing up, down, left and right. The player faces a video screen that has arrows scrolling upward to the beat of a song chosen by the player. As an arrow reaches the top of the screen, the player steps on the corresponding arrow on the platform.
Sound easy? Throw in combinations of multiple arrows and speed up the pace, and the game is as challenging and vigorous as a high impact aerobics class...
One pediatrician is so convinced of the health benefits that he's planning a six-month study of DDR and weight loss among 12- to 14-year-olds, in an effort to give the game credibility among physicians.
If the study is positive, will we see DDR in high school gyms? It sure as heck beats dodgeball and pullups.
Agonizing in Ohio
The Akron (OH) Beacon Journal is a bastion of obviousness, I tell you. Check out the headline on this article:
New state tests could keep more from diplomas: Newspaper report says difficult questions designed to ensure that more high school students will fail
Wow. Who at the BJ thought this needed to be spelled out for readers? For those readers who have repeatedly flunked such an exam, I suppose.
Beginning next spring, sophomores must pass the new Ohio Graduation Test in five subjects if they're to graduate on time in 2007. The new test requires achievement at two grade levels above current graduation exams, which means thousands could fail, the newspaper said.
Three-quarters of sophomores flunked a sample version last year, and nearly one-third failed this spring after the department shortened the test and lowered the recommended score for passing.
So this new, "tougher" exit exam has already been shortened and the standards have been lowered, and two-thirds of 10th-graders can pass it. Isn't it supposed to be a test for 12th-graders? What's the uproar about, then?
Scoring mistakes will become more common as states rush to meet deadlines, said W. James Popham, professor emeritus at UCLA who ran his own testing company. "But scoring mistakes can be corrected,'' he said. "What worries me more is the harm that will be done to children because of lousy tests.''
As compared to the harm done by lousy teaching?
And testing companies are trying to program computers to score essay questions to save money. A Dayton Daily News reporter composed a deliberately nonsensical essay that one company's program awarded a perfect score and declared "effective writing.''
Finally, a valid point. Automated essay scoring programs that would catch something like this do exist, but I'm sure there are programs that don't catch this method of "gaming" the system. But a good reporter would ask why essay questions are being introduced onto these types of standardized exams, when such questions are so expensive and difficult to score.
It's because of the anti-testing types who insist that multiple-choice items are not "authentic" enough and don't measure "real" learning. Somehow, test developers who respond to those charges end up getting blamed for iffy essay scoring procedures as well. Gee, it's almost like there's no test that would please some of these people. You think?
George Madaus, a senior fellow with the National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy at Boston College, said more attention should be paid to whether achievement tests accurately predict academic success.
When a student fails, it should raise alarms, Madaus said. Instead, "It's just dismissed by saying, 'Oh well, the student can take it again four or five times.''' Popham said he's more concerned that tests that are supposed to measure what a student learned are instead designed so some fail.
"That is wrongheaded and makes no educational sense,'' he said.
This must be a misquote. Madaus is right when he says failures should raise alarms. But surely he doesn't believe that no one should fail these types of tests. Perhaps he means such tests should not be norm-referenced with a standard set to guarantee failers, which would be correct. But the reporter should explain that.
The state adjusts the difficulty of questions so that most students get average scores and a small number get the very highest and very lowest. The idea was to identify struggling students and get them extra help.
Depending on where and how the standard is set, though, this doesn't mean a certain percentage of students are guaranteed to fail each time. It just means most of the questions are of average difficulty; thus, students who perform below average are more likely to fail. There's no way to avoid this other than to (a) put only easy items on the test, which doesn't help identify those who have trouble, or (b) keep the difficulty as is, but set the standard so low that no one fails.
Look, when a state implements an exit exam, some students are going to flunk it, because some students are either unmotivated, unintelligent, or underachievers. States should pay attention to how many flunk and why they do so. But all this hand-wringing because Ohio has created a test in which students who perform below average may flunk is ridiculous. The majority of the 10th-graders passed the exam. Why should we worry about the 12th-graders who don't?
Some students who excel in the classroom don't do well on achievement tests. At Dayton's Meadowdale High School, 18-year-old senior Tynisha Edmondson makes A's in science classes but for four years has failed to pass the science proficiency exam -- despite coming achingly close. In a retest in March, she scored 198, two points shy of passing. If she failed the test she took this month, she can't graduate and might not be able to attend Wright State University in the fall.
"I'm scared,'' Edmondson said.
The article ends with this heart-wrenching anecdote. Tynisha has taken science classes for four years, but the article doesn't mention which types of classes they are. Were they the right classes to be prepared for the science exam? Here's the new guide to the graduation exam - skip to page 11 for the Science stuff. The sample item given is rather inventive. It's certainly not pure recall; it requires students to actually think about the task and synthesize known information.
The items may very well be challenging, and rather than tugging at our heartstrings with anecdotes about poor test-takers, the reporter should be asking why someone who's made straight A's in four years of science is struggling with this material.
Thanks to Daryl for the link.
May 21, 2004
More blunders for NYC
After all the ruckus over the original NYC third-grade reading exams, you'd have expected quality control on the makeup exam to be especially tight.
Oops.
For the second time in as many months, city educators botched the standardized reading exam; this time distributing a test where the questions failed to match the answer key.
The blunder comes on the heels of last week’s discovery that thousands of students in grades three, five, six and seven unknowingly studied for the original English Language Arts exam utilizing last year’s exam. Department of Education officials said a 20-question passage from the 2003 test was repeated this year, providing certain students with an unfair advantage.
Those students, including about 85 third graders from PS 174 in Rego Park, were told they had to either retake the test or accept a grade scored without the 20 questions—an option approximately 650 students accepted.
A total of 2,400 students took the makeup exam last Wednesday, including 1,300 third graders, whose promotions rest upon a passing grade. However, moments into the exam, instructors noticed that questions did not correspond with the answer booklets...
Despite the confusion, administrators continued with the test, instructing students to circle the answers directly on the test booklet...education officials said they do not expect to invalidate the scores.
Harcourt Assessment, which isn't having the best year, quality-wise, is taking responsibility for the errors. The critics are now screaming for the test results to be invalidated and for students to be assessed only on classroom performance. I don't blame the critics for being upset, but classroom grades aren't exactly standardized and unbiased (nor can they be assumed to be error-free), and grades aren't a useful measure for putting every NYC third-grader on the same reading continuum.
I'm just really, really happy that I don't work for either Harcourt or the NY DOE right now.
A biased article about "biased" items
This Times-Record (AR) article is about cultural biases on tests, but no evidence is provided to support the charges:
In remarks in Van Buren last week, President Bush said he is committed to narrowing an “achievement gap” demonstrated in standardized test scores among the nation’s students. To some extent, the gap is the legacy of decades of segregation, some area educators said...
Jim Hattabaugh, Mansfield superintendent, said his experience as a guidance counselor and administrator has shown him that most standardized tests have cultural and racial biases. Minorities tend to perform worse than whites on the test because the tests are authored by whites, he said.
And does he have proof of that? Does he know for a fact that each and every single item writer is white? Does he have any knowledge about the extensive item bias review that all standardized test items undergo? Is he aware that item writers, test developers, and psychometricians come in all sizes, shapes, sexes, and ethnicities? Does he have any evidence whatsoever to prove the causal relationship between the skin color of the item writer and performance of examinees of different colors on the exam?
I doubt it. He's saying this because he knows the reporter will not challenge him to provide proof.
“If you look at how an inner-city student is raised and what they’re exposed to, you ask those questions on a test and they don’t have a clue,” he said.
And why is the only legitimate explanation for that cultural bias? Couldn't it also be because those inner-city schools are not teaching children to read, they're failing to introducing them to concepts outside their narrow environment, they're not expanding their vocabularies, and they're teaching these kids that you have to "be white" to do well on tests?
“There could be some possibility of a cultural bias,” said Lavaca Superintendent Harvie Nichols. “I know, for example, when I look at textbooks, it’s difficult to understand, even with a college degree, what the textbook wants that child to do.”
What the heck does this mean? It could be that it's a bad textbook. It could be that Nichols college degree wasn't too useful. But why should we assume this anecdote proves that textbooks are culturally biased? Textbooks undergo even more review for bias than do test items. If Nichols can't make heads or tails of the textbook, then he should order new ones, instead of insisting that cultural bias must be to blame.
This is an example of shoddy reporting. The claims of cultural bias against tests in general - including the outrageous and inaccurate charge that only white people write test items - go unchallenged by the reporter, as does the unspoken assumption that inner-city students should never be expected to understand material that is not specific to their very narrow sphere of experience.
Brown vs. Board of Education round-up, Part 2
Abigail Thernstrom says the Brown decision isn't a bust:
When we misleadingly label schools in California with few whites "segregated," the implication is that learning is likely to be compromised. Of course it's desirable - where demographically possible - for children to grow up in a multiracial, multiethnic setting. But surely we don't want to suggest that the racial mix in a school inevitably determines the quality of the children's education - that children in schools without "enough" whites are doomed to academic failure. The doomsayers today who moan about Brown's failure would have people believe that the problem with urban schools is that they aren't white enough - that whites are needed if children are to learn...
But demography is not academic destiny, and the emphasis on "segregation" is a distraction from the real issue: quality education for all public school children. Too many black and Latino children are not acquiring the skills and knowledge they need to do well in life.
U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige says educational equality continues to elude us:
I recognize that I was one of the lucky ones in that pre-Brown era. Both of my parents were educators. I worry that many of today's youths don't see education as the path to a better future. As several African-American scholars have noted, many of today's black youths see education as a "white thing."
That notion is painfully evident: Today, only one in six African-Americans can read proficiently upon leaving high school. The achievement gap in reading between blacks and whites is staggering. Nationally, at the fourth-grade level, the gap is 28 percentage points. Other indicators show similar trends: Black students in the K-12 system have almost triple the rate of disciplinary problems (measured by suspensions) as their white peers. Blacks earn college degrees at half the rate of whites.
What a travesty...
Some still believe we can fix our public education system by spending more money. But we already spend more per pupil on K-12 education than any other country except Switzerland. The issue is how the money is being invested. Historically, accountability in our education system has been absent...
With NCLB, the achievement gap is closing. A recent study by the Council of Great City Schools found that the achievement gaps in both reading and math in urban schools between African-Americans and whites, and Hispanics and whites, are narrowing. Now, every state has an accountability plan, parents are newly empowered, and every student will be taught by a highly qualified teacher.
Some have resisted this law. But Brown also met resistance. To those of us who grew up during those times, the chorus sounds familiar. Racial equality cannot exist as long as there is an educational achievement gap. We must make our schools equitable in order to make our society and culture equitable. Brown's legacy should be equality of opportunity. We must achieve this goal for the sake of all our children.
Joanne Jacobs points to Ann Applebaum's WaPo article which suggests that today's schoolchildren are unlikely to understand the importance of the Brown decision, thanks to sanitized textbooks:
...when I learned that my son's school intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that Supreme Court decision this spring, I felt somehow less inspired. The problem was not the principle, but the context: The child in question, who is admittedly very young, has yet to be introduced to the concepts of "Constitution" and "Supreme Court." Maybe they'll get to that eventually, but he hasn't learned much about such matters as the "American Revolution" and "George Washington" either, not to mention "slavery," except what he picked up on the family trip to Mount Vernon...
...Nowadays, history is too often drained of any meaning, left- or right-wing, whatsoever. Partly this is because history, unlike math or science, doesn't lend itself easily to standardized tests....
But testing alone isn't the problem. Recently a group called the American Textbook Council reviewed the standard world history textbooks used between sixth and 12th grades in schools across the country. They found a huge variety of staggering flaws, from phony attempts at relevance, such as comparisons of Odysseus to Indiana Jones, to bad writing and design...
But the worst offense is a tone of cheerful, sanitized neutrality so overwhelming that it actually renders the prose ahistorical. Thus in a section on "Life Behind the Iron Curtain," middle-schoolers are taught both that "Communist governments in Eastern Europe granted their people few freedoms," and that "in some ways, Communist governments did take care of their citizens...
...in a unit on the Industrial Revolution, students are asked how they would react if forced to become child laborers -- "Would you join a union, go to school, or run away?" -- as if there actually were unions, universal education and places for children to run to in early-19th century Britain. Thus in a chapter on Africa, the word "tribe" is carefully avoided...
The issue, then, is not merely the absence of the dead white men: The issue is the absence of both dead white men and slavery, the absence of both the Constitution and the violence that was used to preserve it. To put it differently, the issue is the low expectations we now have of our children, whom we too often judge incapable of hearing the truth.
Oh your cheatin' (Californian) heart
It's Friday - here's your morning coffee, your weekend weather report, and your boilerplate, predictable, nauseating "high-stakes tests make people cheat!" article:
One cheater whispered answers in students' ears as they took the exam. Another photocopied test booklets so students would know vocabulary words in advance. Another erased score sheets marked with the wrong answers and substituted correct ones. None of these violations involving California's standardized tests were committed by devious students: These sneaky offenders were teachers.
Since a statewide testing program began five years ago, more than 200 California teachers have been investigated for allegedly helping students on state exams, and at least 75 of those cases have been proven...
Some educators say teacher cheating comes as no surprise, given increased anxiety surrounding state tests and the federal use of them under the No Child Left Behind law.
Too bad they aren't willing to say the obvious, which is that teachers who respond to increased pressure to educate their students by cheating do not deserve the label of "educator."
"Some people feel that they need to boost test scores by hook or by crook," said Larry Ward of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a watchdog group that has criticized many standardized tests. "The more pressure, the more some people take the unethical option."
Isn't Ward saying here that teachers cannot be trusted to respond to increased standards by behaving ethically? How is that a criticism of the tests?
And as for that "pressure makes people cheat" response, would it stand up in court? Could you argue that the "high pressure" on you to get taxes in by April 15th each year excuses your cheating on them? Didn't think so.
Statewide, most testing "irregularities" are detected by a computer analysis flagging classes with unusually high numbers of erased answers. Investigations can also start with tips from parents, students or staff.
Funny, but there are some people out there who don't use higher stakes as an excuse to condone cheating. Why should we feel sorry for the teachers who do?
California Teachers Assn. President Barbara Kerr said that the union didn't excuse cheating but that she felt bad for teachers who broke rules under what she described as "horrendous" pressure.
Isn't feeling bad for these teachers one step down the slippery slope of excusing their behavior? And is the CTA doing anything to improve the situation, by, say, making sure that teachers who are hired have the moral compass and backbone to stand up to this kind of pressure?
In 2001, the state flagged test results for five Bakersfield classrooms with a lot of erasures. District officials concluded that three teachers had coached students to change answers.
Marvin Jones, director of research and evaluation for the district, said the teachers' explanations [of cheating behavior] included not understanding the rules, "everybody does it" and "I was trying to help the students do what I knew the students can do."
In other words, these are seriously clueless teachers who are falling for fallacies that we expect teenagers to disregard.
The teachers were not fired — partly because "we have unions to deal with," he said. "I hear a lot of people say that the pressure to get high test scores is so high that it drives people to use desperate measures."
So much for the unions "not condoning cheating." And how come no one ever considers the "desperate" measure of modifying the teaching technique so that material is conveyed more effectively? These tests teachers are cheating on do not measure rocket science. Why are they "desperately" trying everything except figuring out a way to convey basic skills?
Update: The Smallest Minority has some choice words for the cheatin' teachers.
