Achievement gap

An International Achievement Gap

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, assessment

The new PISA scores are here, the new PISA scores are here!  As we all know by now, the latest edition of PISA is now out, and it isn’t the prettiest of pictures.  Much of the day of/day after debate seems to be focused on the performance of China, which entered this year’s countdown at the top of the charts.  While some may want to fault the sample size (of Shanghai) or look for other reasons to discount China’s positioning, there is no getting around the truth.  The students in China who took the test did better than the students in other countries who took the test.  Blame cherrypicking of students, overprepping for the tests, or a host of other excuses, but Chinese test takers still did better than everyone else.

And what about the dear ol’ U.S. of A?  Again, we get to settle for middle of the pack, with an undistinguished placement for all categories.  Be it reading, math, or science, we are consistently average (unless you look at math, where we are now below average).
Thankfully, the US Department of Education did not try to sugar coat this or claim victories for an incredibly modest gain in science.  Instead, EdSec Duncan declared the PISA results a “wake-up call” and a “hard truth” that we are being passed by.
Hopefully, Duncan and company are successful in using such test scores to push for more substantive, results-based school improvement efforts.  But these numbers — and the numbers of recent years previous — paint a very grim picture.  We are caught in an international achievement gap.  Each year, we take great pride in the fact that we have “held our own” or managed to gain a point or two in a given subject.  At the same time, our international counterparts are making significant gains of their own, increasing the space between their students and ours.  China taking the top spot its first year in the competition merely magnifies our mediocrity and this very real achievement gap.
As a nation, we continue to focus on how our students do against students in other states.  We play games with our state standards and the resultant tests (a practice hopefully ending by most with the adoption of common core) to show increasing numbers of proficient students.  But in the process, it doesn’t matter that a 10th grader today is proficient if he can do the work of a 7th grader of 25 years ago.  We just want that proficient label, declaring victory once we can apply it to our schools and our students, standards and actual knowledge be damned.
International benchmarks such as PISA and TIMSS force us to compete on a level, fair, and painfully honest playing field.  We can’t adjust the standards and rubrics to meet our regional needs.  In many ways, these scores are far more accurate indicators of our actual student achievement than anything one sees on a state exam.
And that is why these results are so discouraging.  We are fighting to tread water (despite state numbers showing strong gains for most in recent years) as our competitors are building 21st century speedboats.  As other nations do it better and more effectively, we run a real risk of being left behind, with nothing but excuses and substandard state exams to keep us warm at night.
At the end of the day, this isn’t an issue that China (or Finland or Korea or Singapore or Canada or New Zealand or Estonia or countless others) is doing better than the United States.  The issue is that we are failing our students.  The international achievement gap is not a measure of student failures.  It is a measure of the failures of the U.S. public school system.  Unless we fight for real, systemic change, all we are doing is teaching our students a new stroke by which to tread water.  

Putting Students First

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Michelle Rhee

Today, Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of DC Public Schools, officially unveiled Rhee 2.0.  A cover story for Newsweek (no broom this time) and an Oprah segment was the perfect intro for Students First, a new 501(c)(4) led by Rhee to “to build a national movement to defend the interests of children in public education and pursue transformative reform, so that America has the best education system in the world.”


The new org breaks down its target audiences to Educators, Parents, Students, and “Everyone Else.”  It’s committed to “great teachers,” “great schools,” and “effective use of public dollars.”  

The latest embodiment of the Rhee brand also offers up four core beliefs (apparently her PR people never explained you offer things in series’ of three or five, never four).  The four beliefs:

* Great teachers can make a tremendous difference for students of every background; all children deserve outstanding teachers.

* Attending a great school should be a matter of fact, not luck; every family should be able to choose an excellent school.

* Public dollars belong where they make the biggest difference—on effective instructional programs; we must fight ineffective practices and bureaucracy.

* Parent and family involvement is key to increased student achievement, but the entire community must be engaged in the effort to improve our schools.

Most interesting in all of this, though, is the underlying structure.  Right now, the org is an advocacy group of one — Rhee.  It sets an audacious goal of raising $1 billion to create “a movement to transform public education.”  The goal seems to be to work with states and school districts across the nation on real reform efforts.  But the group seeks to garner its funding through a combination of corporate and philanthropic support, small donors, membership dues, and merchandise sales (someone needs to tell Rhee how successful the retail sales effort worked for the Stand Up effort back in 2005).

There are many unanswered questions here.  In launching such an effort, Rhee clearly has some significant seed money to launch this effort.  You don’t announce such a fundraising drive unless you already have significant commitment to back up the promise.  So Eduflack suspects there has to be tens of millions of dollars already committed to the effort.

So who will join with Rhee, staff wise?  What organizations will Students First officially partner with?  What SEAs and LEAs will be first on the client list?  Besides the $1 billion what are the measures of success?  Where will the group be located?  Will it have local chapters (like the successful DFER?)  What groups will she take on (besides the unions)?  How soon before she goes after federal funding (any subcontracting opps in RttT, i3, TIF, or SIG, anyone)?

Eduflack is always heartened by efforts that try to amplify the voice of parents and students in the school improvement process.  Too often, we exclude these key stakeholders, leaving them to simply accept what those who “know better” decide needs to be done. As a result, we have a self-fulfilling circle of status quo, where little changes and those end users — the families and students — are left to just deal with the fact the more things change, the more they stay the same … at least with student achievement numbers and a persistent achievement gap.

It is a little surprising that Rhee doesn’t want to get into the ESEA reauthorization mix, but it is a good thing.  Even if she threw the full weight of her group into reauth, she would never get the full credit for the changes she could ultimately be responsible for.  So now is the time for an agenda.  How will we measure the success of Students First in six months?  In a year?  What are the key policy issues she will focus on?  And how will they translate those policy issues into real advocacy felt at the state or local level?

As Eduflack has noted many times, PR is easy.  The cover of Newsweek just gets the ball bouncing.  Now comes the hard work for Rhee, and an opportunity to demonstrate she understands the true power of advocacy and meaningful public engagement.  First, help better diagnose the problems in public education in a way that all stakeholder audiences understand.  Then make clear there are real, workable solutions to those problems.  And wrap up by showing that Students First and its network are the holders
of the best, most actionable solutions to those problems.  

Rhee does that, and this new group of hers can launch a national movement.  Without it, we may have yet another in a long range of non-profits with noble goals, respected ambitions, and nothing left to show for it but a depleted checkbook and a lot of unfulfilled buzz.  There is already too much of that in ed reform, we don’t need any more.

  

Are We Still Waiting for Superman?

Eduflack Achievement gap, charter schools, Media, Parents

Back at the start of the fall, the ed reform community was all atwitter about the movie documentary, Waiting for Superman.  Throughout the spring and summer, we had special previews of the movie for reform-minded audiences.  The national release of the movie in September brought effusive articles in national publications on the movie, its message, and the impact it would have on public education throughout the United States.  It seemed everyone was waiting for Superman.

But now that we are a few months from the theatrical release, where exactly are we?  Reviewers on IMdB gave the movie a 7.4 out of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 4.1 out of 5, with 86 percent of those who saw it liking it.  But so far it has taken in just over $6 million in ticket sales, making it the 147th most popular movie of 2010.  And it is 20th on the all-time documentary list, currently earning about one-quarter of what An Inconvenient Truth earned at the box office.  At its widest release, it was showing at 330 movie theaters around the country.
We know it was popular in East Coast anchors (and reform cities) like New York and Washington, DC.  But is the movie having the sort of rhetorical and advocacy impact so many expected just three months ago?
Recent media coverage on Superman focuses on whether it is gaining Oscar buzz, not whether it is impacting our public schools.  The “status quoers” who were aghast when Superman first came out are now trying to direct educator attention to movies such as Race to Nowhere.  And while the movie’s producers continue to try drive advocacy through its website, the biggest recent news seems to be the $15 gift card you can get for your school if you buy the Waiting for Superman book at Border’s Books.
It all begs the question, are we still Waiting for Superman?  Is a movie with so much promise or hype (depending on your perspective) having the sort of impact promised during those advance screenings and the sophisticated social media campaigns to drive folks to the theaters?
Back in September, Eduflack questioned whether Superman could deliver on the promise, and move us from a state of awareness (which Superman does a great job of) to one of action.  It isn’t enough to visit a website or to click on a web box to read how important it is to write elected officials.  Change needs goals.  Change needs specific assignments and tactics.  Change needs tick lists to measure progress.  And change needs clear asks that voices from across the country are asking for in pitch-perfect unison.  That’s the only way you reform a system that is so invested in maintaining the status quo.
Perhaps it was too much for us to expect a movie to do all of that.  But there is still the opportunity for someone to harness the interest in Superman and put it to use in a real, honest-to-goodness, social advocacy campaign.  The problems identified in Superman remain.  They won’t be fixed overnight. 

Are Dropout Factories Closing?

Eduflack Achievement gap, ESEA, High School

Following years of a national policy push toward college- and career-readiness, are we seeing a decline in dropout factories?  According to Building a Grad Nation, a new report released today by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, and America’s Promise Alliance, the answer to that question seems to be yes, with some caveats.

According to Grad Nation, more than a million students are still dropping out of high school each and every year.  And many of those million come from historically disadvantaged groups.  But there does seem to be some movement, including:

* The number of high school dropout factories fell 13 percent between 2002 and 2008
* More than half of states (29, actually) increased their graduation rates
* Tennessee has made the most impressive progress (boosting grad rates 15 percent), with New York offering an impressive 10 percent increase
* The decline in dropout factories is most prevalent in the South

That’s the good news.  What about the not-so-good?
* The graduation rate for Hispanic students is still only 64 percent, and for African-American students it is only 62 percent
* Nearly 80 percent of the dropout factory reductions are happening in suburbs and towns, meaning our urban centers remain magnets for dropout factories
* Our national high school grad rate is essentially still where it was 25 years ago when Nation at Risk was released
* Three states (Arizona, Nevada, and Utah) actually saw significant declines in their grad rates from 2002 to 2008

Yes, the collective authors are trying to put a positive spin on data that shows only modest improvements, at best.  But Grad Nation also offers some insights into what can be done, at least at a building level, to build on the successes of those who have improved and make change at those schools that have been persistently lagging.  It advocates for improved parental engagement (a must that we too often ignore).  It preaches the importance of both data collection and application.  It embraces scientifically based research and the need to do what works.  And it even tips its hat to the importance of making instruction relevant, particularly for students how may leave without the diploma otherwise.

Most realize that if we see an ESEA reauthorization in the coming months, it is going to focus, in large part, on college and career readiness.  As the GI Joe mantra goes, knowing is half the battle.  And Grad Nation goes a long ways in making sure we both know the current state of high school dropout affairs and know the possible paths of remedy available, even for those dreaded dropout factories.

What Are We “Waiting” For?

Eduflack Achievement gap, Media

This is one of those weeks that will just be abuzz with talk of education and school improvement.  The much-anticipated documentary, Waiting for Superman, is finally out in theaters, drawing good reviews and real attention from a wide range of stakeholders.  And yesterday, NBC kicked off its Education Nation effort, as it tries to leverage all of its television properties and sponsorships to provide a week of education-apalooza.

Both of these are interesting events, but they raise even more interesting questions.  Will Waiting for Superman play in Middle America?  Will Superman’s buzz continue after the reviews are done with?  Will NBC continue to focus on education issues after the week-long fest is completed?  And most importantly, what comes next?

Don’t get me wrong, both Superman and Education Nation play important roles in raising public awareness of education reform issues.  The buzz around the movie will undoubtedly draw in more than just the typical Kool-Aid drinkers.  And NBC’s commitment of airtime will be hard to avoid (though not entirely impossible).  But then what?  What happens once these two “events” are completed?  

One of the biggest challenges in education communications is moving from awareness to action.  It is (relatively) easy to share information and disseminate the latest news.  It is far more difficult to take that information sharing and transform it into a sense of urgency that generates specific activities and measureable outcomes.  

Superman’s producers are encouraging viewers to “take action” and “join the debate.”  But once you’ve submitted your contact information or sent a form letter to a policymaker, what comes next?  If we buy the movie’s premise and agree that our public schools are a scourge on this nation, what specifically can we do fix the problem?  It is easy to cast blame, but much harder to move solutions forward.  We need questions to ask teachers, principals, and politicians.  We need specific asks, be they operational or instructional, that we should demand in our schools.  And we the yardsticks to measure progress in our schools.

What comes next is an even more difficult question for NBC.  Right now, Education Nation is focused on the current week.  It’s about the Summit and the Teacher Town Hall and building on yesterday’s Meet the Press segment.  But after

Brookings declared that only 1.4 percent of national news is focused on education, is NBC committed to up its game?  Once the week has wrapped up and the Learning Plaza has been shuttered, will NBC provide an education news story on every NBC Nightly News?  Will we see a weekly segment?  Or will we simply move on to the next “big” idea?

I don’t mean to rain on the edu-parade, but we have seen far too many times efforts that stir up the hornets’ nests and point out the problems and failures of our public schools.  Unfortunately, we don’t get much talk of solutions and work plans coming out of that finger pointing.  As a result, the problems we talk about today are the same problems we talked about a decade ago and we talked about three decades ago. 

Waiting for Superman and Education Nation serve as two potentially valuable levers for school improvement.  The challenge before us is how we take advantage of the opportunity and take some real forward steps as a result of it. Otherwise, it is just another opportunity squandered as student achievement remains stagnant and the achievement gap remains a major concern.
   

If You Don’t Know Where DCPS is Starting …

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, DCPS, High School

By now, most realize that the DC Public Schools has become a central issue to next month’s DC mayoral primary.  Since taking over DCPS in 2007, Mayor Adrian Fenty has put the schools front and center.  After hiring Michelle Rhee as his schools chancellor, Fenty has regularly touted DC test score improvements and other measures to show that the schools have improved over the last two or three years.

So how does it all really measure up?  In this morning’s Washington Post, Bill Turque offers up

a terrific analysis of current benchmarks and measures for DC’s schools.  (And for those who aren’t paying attention, Turque regularly offers up some of the best insights on the continued schools evolution in our nation’s capital.)  Among the highlights are massive achievement gaps across the wards, including a 51-point reading proficiency gap between the poorest ward (Ward 8) and the wealthiest (Ward 3) and similar achievement gaps between black and white students, including a math achievement gap that has now widened to 58 points.

Perhaps most interesting, though, was the detailing of DC high school graduation rates.  We all know that grad rates are now the big dog in accountability.  We’ve shifted from middle school AYP to college and career ready, with the latter being measured by graduation and college-going rates.

According to Turque:

“Graduation rates: Fenty points to data showing that 72 percent of students graduated in 2009, up nearly three points from the previous year. Officials attributed the gains to stronger intervention programs and closer scrutiny of transcripts to make certain students have the credits to finish.

But the Office of the State Superintendent of Education uses what many experts call a flawed method for calculating high school completion. The formula divides the number of graduating seniors by that same number plus those who have dropped out in the previous four years. Analysts say a better way to track graduation rates would be to measure the percentage of ninth-graders who graduate within four years. D.C. officials say they are planning to switch to the more widely accepted “cohort” method. That would probably show a less-rosy picture. Education Week this year estimated the District’s 2007 graduation rate at about 59 percent.”

Eduflack must admit it.  I was floored to read the formula that OSSE uses to determine high school grad rates.  How can one calculate graduation rates by first EXCLUDING the number of students who have dropped out of high school?  Eduflack doesn’t have to be a statistician to know that DC is simply calculating the on-time graduation rate.  Of those students who remain in high school for four years, 72 percent earn their diploma in that time.  It is presumed that others will earn a diploma in five or even six years.  Laudable, indeed, but it is not the graduation rate.

You’ve heard it here before, but I’m going to get back up on my high edu-horse.  Back in 2005, the National Governors Association got every single state to sign onto the Graduation Counts Compact and a common graduation rate formula.  The formula is simple.  Look at the number of ninth graders enrolled in school.  Four years later, look at how many students earned a regular or advanced diploma.  Divide A by B, and you have the graduation rate.  Rinse and repeat.

We always seem shocked by the great disparities in high school grad rates, depending on who is reporting what.  Urban districts like DC tend to paint far rosier pictures than doom-and-gloomers like Jay Greene.  But can anyone really question the need for one, single, common graduation rate formula?  As we try to evaluate school districts and states and determine ROI for our school investments, don’t we need a single measure that let’s us compare apples to apples?

Yes, DC can point to improvement.  Test scores have increased.  Enrollment levels have stopped dropping.  The city is investing in facilities and in improving special education options.  But one can’t adequately address progress if one doesn’t have a clear starting point. 

Earlier this month, Eduflack congratulated Detroit for pulling back the curtain and showing their true schools data, warts and all.  Perhaps it is time for Fenty, Rhee, and DCPS to do the same.  There is a huge difference between a stated 72 percent grad rate and a likely actual 59 percent graduation rate.

Years ago, baseball philosopher Yogi Berra wisely said, if you don’t know where you are going, you might not get there.  That sage advice couldn’t be more true for school improvement.  Equally important is knowing where one is starting.  You can’t get to your destination if you don’t know the true starting point.
   

Straight Talk on Detroit Schools

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, High School

Sometimes, it can be near impossible to get straight talk on education statistics.  Just talk a look at a simple topic like high school graduation rates.  Most urban school systems, those that are homes to many of our dropout factories, will say their official graduation rates are in the 80 – 90 percent range (offering a convoluted formula of who counts, who doesn’t, and such).  Talk to high school critics like Jay Greene, and those same grad rates will be 20 – 25 percent lower.  Same data, different formulas, severely different results.

Over at Fortune magazine, the editors are profiling the “visionaries” of the rebirth of Detroit.  One of the Motor City stars highlighted in the piece is Carol Goss, head of Detroit’s Skillman Foundation.  The profile on Goss and what she is trying to do in the city is interesting.  But what is even more interesting is the sidebar of Detroit education statistics offered with the piece (a sidebar found in August 16 edition of Fortune magazine, but not on the web version.)  
According to Fortune, Detroit Public Schools has:
* 84,600 students enrolled in 2009, compared to 167,000 in 2000
* The 2008-2009 graduation rate for high school seniors was 60 percent
* The new high school graduation rate target for DPS is 90 percent
* Currently, 2 percent of Detroit public high school students are prepared for college-level math
* 11 percent of high school students are prepared for college-level reading
* 35 percent of Detroit’s high school students are accepted to postsecondary institutions
Eduflack does not repost these numbers to embarrass Detroit, its schools, or its teachers.  To the contrary, I offer up these very frank and honest numbers as hopeful inspiration for school improvement across the nation.  The President of the United States has set a national goal of producing the highest number of college graduates per capita by 2020.  The US Department of Education is pledging to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act so that is ensures that each and every child is college and career ready.  And virtually every education reformer has promised to improve graduation rates, while boosting student achievement across the board.
Real change cannot happen if we don’t have solid, reliable baselines to know exactly where we are starting.  These startling numbers of Detroit’s college readiness show all where the city’s schools truly are starting from.  As an honest starting line, it allows Detroit to document real progress.  Instead of using inflated grad rates and soft measures of proficiency, Detroit tried a new approach for K-12 public education.  Brutal honesty.  Shock us with the truth, and we may just trust your progress in the out years.
Eduflack has long been a fan of the improvements Robert Bobb has tried to make in Detroit.  And I’d love to believe Fortune that Goss “has the money and credibility to win people over.”  So let’s remember these numbers when Detroit offers up its progress reports in a year or three (particularly after Michigan has implemented Common Core Standards).  And let’s start the watch to see if other other urban districts are willing to perform a similar statistical strip show, offering up ever blemish.  Only then will we ever be able to truly declare mission accomplished in our communal quest to improve our public schools.
 

Dual Enrollment for All!

Eduflack Achievement gap, AP, High School

When most discuss the merits of dual-enrollment programs in our high schools, thoughts immediately turn to those classic over-achievers who are looking to earn a high school diploma along with two or three years of college before they turn 18.  We talk of how K-12 systems and higher education systems struggle to work together.  And sometimes, we even discuss how we shouldn’t rush our kids and deprive them of a “traditional” high school experience.

Meanwhile the high school dropout rate has remained steady for decades (and Eduflack is one who believes that the dropout rate is, unfortunately, close to one-third.)  Drop-out factories remain prevalent in many of our urban and rural communities.  Too many students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds do not have access to college prep high schools (with AP and IB classes).  Yet we continue to talk about how every student should be college ready when the odds are against at-risk students to even get through high school.

So what is one to do?  A new study from the Blackboard Institute finds that dual enrollment programs could be the great equalizer.  In the report, Columbia University’s Elisabeth Barrett and Rutgers University’s Liesa Stamm found that dual enrollment can benefit all students, not just those on the fast track.  Specifically, the found dual enrollment offers all students benefits such as:

* Enhancing the academic rigor of high school curricula
* Providing students with a broader range of academic and career-oriented courses and electives
* Offering students the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school
* Introducing high school students to college academic expectations and preparing them for college-level study
* Making education more interesting and relevant, to the extent that students can take courses that relate to their interests or career goals
* Facilitating the transition from high school to college
* Improving student prospects during the college admissions process as a result of college credits earned
* Accelerating progression to college degree completion
* Reducing the costs of college education by enabling students to earn college credits while in high school that are generally tuition-free

Of course, these are all arguments we have heard before.  But the study’s authors also point to the significant role that dual enrollment can play in helping at-risk students … if they are provided the right support services.  Such services include academic supports, course re-configurations, college preparatory initiatives, career exploration, and mentoring.

Perhaps most interesting, though, was the discussion of online dual enrollment.  First, the statistics.  According to the report, 70 percent of school districts had one or more students enrolled in a fully online or blended course.  Nearly 70 percent of those enrolled in online learning do so at the high school level.  Nearly two thirds of school districts expect growth in their fully online courses and 61 percent see growth for their blended courses.  

Despite popular opinion, these online courses are not being used to help accelerate those already far ahead.  Yes, they are being used to supplement AP offerings.  But school districts also reported they are using online to assist students who need extra help or credit recovery, to let students who failed a course take it again, to get around scheduling conflicts, and to offer courses not offered at the school.  It becomes particularly important to rural school districts, serving as “a cost-benefit mechanism for small rural school districts to provide students with course choices and in some cases even basic courses that would not otherwise be available to them.”

So why is all this important?  If we are serious about improving high school graduation rates and having those high school diplomas serving as more than just a glorified attendance certificate, we need to do things differently.  When one-third of students fail to earn a high school diploma, our high schools are failing.  When half of those going on to college need remediation, our high schools are failing.  And when too many students — particularly those from historically disadvantaged communities — don’t see the value of staying in school, our high schools are failing.

If we truly intend to make each and every child “college and career ready” after leaving high school, we need radical changes to how we teach in high school.  A rearrangement of the deck chairs simply won’t do.  We need to teach new courses in new ways.  We need to personalize instruction.  We need to emphasize the value.  We need all students to see what they are capable of.  And we need to recognize that different students learn in different ways.

The Blackboard Institute report reminds us a robust dual enrollment program can be key to transforming a high school.  And it highlights that online learning — and online dual enrollment programs — can be a core component to a high-quality, 21st century high school.  Need more?  Such dual enrollment and online programs are beneficial for all students, not just those on the Most Likely to Succeed list.  Dual enrollment for all!
  

 

Testing Throwdown in NYC

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, national standards

When are lower student achievement scores a good thing?  That seems to be the question thrown about up in New York City this past week, where Big Apple officials have been grappling with the reality that city students’ performance on the state’s math and reading proficiency tests fell after a newer (and harder) exam was put into place.

As always, it is most fun to read the evolution of such stories in the New York Post, which first reported on the plunge, and then editotrialized on the issue twice — first on Thursday praising the new “truth-telling” and then again today, condemning the United Federation of Teachers for jumping on the test score drop to “discredit all education standards.”  

It should be no secret that state standards — and the tests that measure those standards — have been a problem for some time.  Since the introduction of NCLB, we’ve witnessed states lowering their standards so that they could continue to demonstrate “adequate yearly progress,” regularly reducing the bar so the number of students hitting proficient increased year after year after year.  In this educational shell game, it meant reducing the standards again and again to keep up.

The NY Post refers to the problem as “junk tests” but the real issue seems to be the standards behind them.  Tests are only as good as what we are expected to measure.  Garbage in, garbage out.  Did anyone really believe that more than three-quarters of NY students were proficient in reading and math?  Of course not.  But New York State’s definition of proficient and a common sense definition of the same are quite different.  How else do you explain such strong proficiency numbers at a time when half of students require remediation?

One can’t fault the NYC DOE for playing the hands it has been dealt.  When taking the old state proficiency exam, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein posted some long-term gains.  Year on year, test scores increased.  That is progress.  Now that they have a new test aligned to new standards, the game starts anew.  These scores serve as the year one baseline.  Next year, we expect to see gains.  And the year after that, more of the same.  Rince and repeat.

But those looking to discredit the improvements in NYC based on this one test are going to be sorely mistaken.  Just take a look at the other measures around us.  On the NAEP exam, the Nation’s Report Card which offers one standard measure for all students across the nation, NYC has seen gains in student achievement (while the rest of New York state has remained flat).  And as Eduflack wrote earlier this year, Chancellor Klein has shown real improvement on high school graduation rates.  So at a time when the teachers’ unions are calling for multiple measures to evaluate teachers, we are seeing that multiple measures support claims of NYC schools improvement.

Ultimately, while this makes for some lovely rhetorical skirmishes in the city that never sleeps, it doesn’t negate a very simple truth.  Over the last decade, NYC schools have come a long way.  But they still have a long way to go.  At no point do I remember hearing Klein declare mission accomplished.  Progress has been made, but there is still much to do, particularly in addressing achievement gap issues in New York.  The new test provides a clearer, stronger view of the challenges before NY educators.  And the pending adoption and implementation of Common Core standards offers a clearer picture of where one has to go.  

Instead of using the latest round of test scores to throw recent reforms out the window, improvements on measures such as NAEP and grad rates should show what is possible, and the growing need to redouble current reform efforts.  If anything, these scores demonstrate that more must be done.  
 

“Much Superior” Virginia?

Eduflack Achievement gap, AYP, NAEP, national standards

For weeks now, we have been hearing about states that have decided they will not pursue Race to the Top, Part II.  Over at Politics K-12 , Michele McNeil has a dozen or so states that either have decided not to apply or are dangerously close to not applying before next Tuesday’s drop-dead date for the final taste of the $4 billion pot.

This shouldn’t be surprising.  More than 40 states put in hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants to prepare their Phase I apps.  Two states, Delaware and Tennessee, won in the early round.  Those remaining states were left with detailed judges’ scores to help guide a redo due June 1.  But some states simply don’t have the stomach for it, offering a host of reasons not to pursue.

Perhaps one of the most interesting reasons for declining was offered yesterday by Eduflack’s home state of Virginia.  According to the Washington Post, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is not entering the Race because of the Common Core Standards.  The chief executive of the Old Dominion claims that Virginia’s current academic standards are “much superior” and he doesn’t see the need of tinkering with 15 years of work to establish the current Standards of Learning.

I understand a state like Massachusetts, which is known for having some of the top performance standards in the nation to be wary of common core, but Virginia, really?  When discussions turn to state standards and the leaders and laggards, one really hears about Virginia’s SOLs being at the top of the class.  

Earlier this month, Eduflack wrote about the dangers of states that have reduced their standards to show performance gains on AYP.  Unfortunately, we see far too many states that tout impressive records of student acheivement on their state exams and measured against their state standards, only to see that performance plummet when compared to a common yardstick like NAEP.

So let’s take another look at the data offered by Gary Phillips, a vice president at American Institutes for Research and the former acting commissioner at NCES.  How does Virginia stack up?  According to the SOLs, 82 percent of fourth graders in Virginia were proficient in math.  But when we look at the NAEP scores, that number drops to the low 40s.  It is even worse for eighth grade math, where the SOLs put proficiency at 79, but NAEP puts it under 40.

Why is this important?  The NAEP is a common measure.  It lets Virginia see where it stacks up compared to other states.  And the numbers there are startling.  In fourth grade, we are in the middle of the pack, far behind states like Massachusetts, South Carolina, Missouri, Washington, Vermont, and New Hampshire.  By eighth grade, Virginia is near the bottom of the pack in such performance, only posting better numbers that seven states.

Is that really “much superior?”  Are we really declaring “mission accomplished” when we are mediocre at fourth grade and drop to the bottom quartile by eighth grade?  The bar we’ve set on academic standards is … at least we are better than Oklahoma?