Achievement gap

Yes, America, We Are Suffering from Learning Loss

Eduflack Achievement gap, assessment, ELL, equity, ESEA, reform, Students

How do we make up the “lag” for special education students, struggling learners who have experienced years of growing lags that were only being addressed by IEPs and 504s that took years to win? How is the latest lag addressed as school districts suspend many of those IDEA-protected rights because of virtual school, the very rights fought for because of school district failures to address other learning losses?

How do we make up the learning “lag” for English language learners who are now isolated in a plastic bubble in the classroom or in their own kitchens at home? How do we make it up for the 14 percent of k-12 students who do not have internet access at home? Or for those who lack the hardware to join virtual classes? Or even for those who lack the motivation to study in a virtual or hybrid environment when social engagement and interaction is essential to their academic development?

From dear ol’ Eduflack’s latest for Project Forever Free (which has been reposted on New Jersey Left Behind.

The full piece can be found here: https://projectforeverfree.org/call-it-like-it-is-we-are-experiencing-learning-loss/

No, Public Education is Not Equal

Eduflack Achievement gap, BAM, equity, Parents, polls, reform, TrumpED

A recent survey has provided yet another “duh” moment, as the majority of Americans say the know public education is “unequal” in the United States. Yes, we know not all children have access to a high-quality public education. The question we should all be asking is what we can and should do to remedy it.

I explore the topic on the BAM Radio Network.

Give it a listen at https://www.bamradionetwork.com/track/are-we-really-committed-to-equal-education/

No, “Balanced Literacy” Doesn’t Work

Eduflack Achievement gap, early childhood education, reading, reform, SBRR, Teacher Education, teachers

“No, we don’t need to rebalance balanced literacy. Whole language was discredited because it didn’t work. It was a philosophy, an approach, to literacy that lacked a proven curriculum that actually taught kids to read. Rebranding it as balanced literacy may have ensured sales and boosted the number of school districts enrolling their teachers in workshops, but it has similarly done nothing to teach kids to read. Balanced literacy needs to be cast aside, not rebalanced.

“With all we know about research and cognitive science, with all of the data we now hold on effective teaching and learning, with what we know about learning disabilities and English language learning, it borders on educational malpractice if we are focusing classroom instruction on approaches that lack evidence. Too much is at stake – for both our learners and our society – to waste our time and instructional dollars on snake oil and well-intentioned, yet unsuccessful, philosophies or beliefs.”

From Eduflack’s latest for Project Forever Free, Lucy, We Told You So

Don’t Call It a Gap Year

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, BAM, ELL, equity, reform, teachers, TrumpED

In dear ol’ Eduflack’s community, too many parents are willing to write off the 2020-21 school year already, wanting to dub it a gap year and pleading with parents and educators not to expect too much from our learners in such uncertain times.

Writing of the year a few weeks in is essentially educational malpractice. And it reeks of privilege. For every student who is struggling to read, for every ELL student, for every special education learner, a gap year is a lost year … and a year that will never be made up later.

We can’t, and shouldn’t, write off any school year or any school children. I explain why on the latest episode of TrumpEd over at the BAM! Radio Network. Give it a listen here.

When It Comes To History, Let’s Go To The Video Tape

Eduflack Achievement gap, American history, BAM, NAEP, reform, TrumpED

Yes, we need to improve the teaching and learning of history. If we are sincere about it, we not only need to take new approaches, but we need to make sure those approaches -like video – align with student interests and preferences.

On the latest episode of TrumpEd on the BAM! Radio Network, I explore exactly what that means and why it is so important. Give it a listen!

Of Reading Proficiency and Civil Rights

Eduflack Achievement gap, equity, Parents, reading, reform, SBRR, Teacher Education, teachers

“Literacy is an educational right. Every learner needs to be reading at grade level by fourth grade. The science is clear on how to best teach young children to read. Our educators and the teacher education programs that prepare them must adapt and transform to embrace both these obligations and the science on effective instruction.”

From dear ol’ Eduflack’s latest commentary on Project Forever Free, detailing the latest court ruling declaring Detroit students are constitutionally guaranteed a basic education, including literacy.

Give it a read! And give Project Forever Free a follow.

It’s Time for Reading Rights

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, early childhood education, reading, Reading First, reform, SBRR, Students, Teacher Education, teachers

“Producing a strong research study that collects dust on the shelf can hardly win the day. For generations now, we have fought ideological skirmishes over literacy instruction, watching the pendulum swing as classroom educators simply waited it out until the latest “hot” thing lost favor and classrooms returned to what they were previously doing. If we truly want to declare a reading victory and tout our collective instructional successes, we need to commit to some basic truths.”

From Eduflack’s latest for The 74 Million

No, We Don’t Have Equity. But This Could Start the Discussion.

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, BAM, equity, Online Education, reform, TrumpED

We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that the institution of virtual education in response to the coronavirus epidemic means we now have equitable k12 education. But if we are fortunate, it just might force a very real discussion of how we start working toward equity in teaching, learning, and access.

How? We explore the topic on the most recent episode of TrumpEd on the BAM Radio Network. Give it a listen here.

Equity, Access and Online Learning, Oh My!

Do Charter Schools Provide Trump an “In” to Latino Families?

Eduflack Achievement gap, BAM, charter schools, Parents, Presidential campaign, reform, TrumpED

With a little over a year until the presidential election, it’s likely time for President Donald J. Trump to begin to expand on his base of 40 percent, particularly as the 20-some Democratic candidates try to find their path to the White House.

And while Trump has shown little, if any, interest in education issues these past three years, it is possible that the issue of school choice could provide the President the opportunity to have a meaningful discussion with Latino families about educational opportunities and pathways to success.

How so? Give a listen to the latest episode of TrumpEd on the BAM! Radio Network, where we explain the issue in some depth.

Dear ol’ Eduflack is also excited by the redesign and relaunch of the BAM! Radio Network earlier this month, and looks forward to a wealth of new edu-topics and a debates that will be had on TrumpEd over the next 13-plus months as we head into the November 2020 election. Happy listening!

 

 

Injecting Some Moneyball into Student Testing

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, assessment, AYP, eddata, reform

I’ve always been one to find love in both the art and science of a given subject. As a lifelong baseball fan – and a pretty poor baseball player through high school – I quickly embraced Ted Williams’ The Science of Hitting, believing that the charts and graphs explaining strike zones and such would somehow transform me from a doubles hitter into a homerun machine. Sadly, it never did.

I’m also an unabashed fan of the New York Mets, and have been since the early 1980s. For more than three decades, I have endured the highs and lows (mostly lows) of rooting for the Metropolitans and in believing this might just be the year.

Sadly, the 2018 season wasn’t that year for the Mets. But it was such a year for Mets ace Jacob deGrom. Last week, the All-Star received the Cy Young, recognizing the best pitcher in the National League. It was a well-deserved honor, recognizing one of the best seasons a starting pitcher has ever had, including an earned run average of only 1.70, a WHIP of 0.912, and 269 strikeouts in 217 innings pitched. DeGrom secured the first place position on all but one of the ballots cast this year, offering a rare highlight in another tough Mets season.

Leading up to the award, there were some analysts who wondered if deGrom would win the Cy Young, despite those impressive numbers. The major ding against him was that he was pitching for the Mets, and as a result posted only a 10-9 record, getting almost no run support at all all season from his team. DeGrom’s top competition in the NL had 18 wins. The Cy Young winner in the American league posted 21 victories. So when a 10-9 record won the Cy Young, some critics pounced, accusing sabermetrics and “moneyball” taking over the awards. The thinking was that one of the chief attributes of a top starting pitcher is how many wins he has. If you aren’t winning, how can you possibly be the best?

All the discussions about how sabermetrics has ruined baseball – or at least baseball awards – soon had me thinking about education and education testing. For well over a decade, we have insisted that student achievement, and the quality of our schools, is based on a single metric. Student performance on the state test is king. It was the single determinant during the NCLB era, and it remains the same during the PARCC/Smarted Balanced reign.

Sure, some have led Quixotic fights against “high-stakes testing” in general, but we all know that testing isn’t going anywhere. While PARCC may ultimately be replaced by a new state test (as my state of New Jersey is looking to do) or whether the consortium may one day be replaced by the latest and greatest, testing is here to stay. The calls for accountability are so great and the dollars spent on K-12 education so high, that not placing some sort of testing metric on schools, and kids, is fairy tale. Testing is here to stay. The only question we should be asking is whether we are administering and analyzing the right tests.

I’ve long been a believer in education data and the importance of quantifiable research, particularly when it comes to demonstrating excellence or improvement. But I still remember the moment when I realized that data was fallible. While serving on a local school board in Virginia, overseeing one of the top school districts in the nation, we were told that our nationally ranked high school had failed to make AYP. At first I couldn’t understand how this was possible. Then I realized we were the victims of a small N size. The impact of a handful of students in special education and ELL dinged up in the AYP evaluation. The same handful of students in both groups. It didn’t make our high school lesser than it was. It didn’t reduce our desire to address the learning needs of those specific students. But the state test declared we weren’t making adequate progress. The data had failed us.

The same can be said about the use of value-added measures (VAM scores) in evaluating teachers and schools. VAM may indeed remain the best method for evaluating teachers based on student academic performance. But it is a badly flawed method, at best. A method that doesn’t take into account the limitations on the subjects that are assessed on state tests, small class sizes (particularly in rural communities or in subjects like STEM), and the transience of the teaching profession, even in a given school year. Despite these flaws, we still use VAM scores because we just don’t have any better alternatives.

Which gets me back to Jake deGrom and moneyball. Maybe it is time that we look at school and student success through a sabermetric lens. Sure, some years success can be measured based on performance on the PARCC, just like many years the best pitcher in baseball has the most victories that season. But maybe, just maybe, there are other outcomes metrics we can and should be using to determine achievement and progress.

This means more than just injecting the MAP test or other interim assessments into the process. It means finding other quantifiable metrics that can be used to determine student progress. It means identifying the shortcomings of a school – or even a student – and then measuring teaching and learning based on that. It means understanding that outcomes can be measured in multiple ways, through multiple tools, including but not limited to an online adaptive test. And it means applying all we know about cognitive learning to establish evaluative tools that live and breathe and adapt based on everything we know about teaching, learning, and the human brain.

DeGrom won the Cy Young because teams feared him every time his turn in the rotation came up. We knew he had a history-making season because of traditional metrics like strikeouts and innings pitched, but also because of moneyball metrics like “wins above replacement,” or WAR, and “walks and hits per innings pitched,” or WHIP. Had he not won that 10th game the last week of the season, thus giving him a winning record, deGrom would have had no less a stellar season. In fact, a losing record would have indicated his personal successes and impact despite what others around him were able to do.

Maybe it finally is a time a little moneyball thinking works its way into student assessment. Hopefully, this discussion will come before the Mets reach their next World Series.