assessment

Did We Learn? Do We Care?

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, assessment, BAM, Biden, equity, reform, Soul

The last year of public school has been an exercise on crisis learning. Yes, it made sense not to administer state tests last spring, as so many learners moved into a virtual setting for the first time. But this spring, our states, districts, schools, and educators need real data to understand the impact of our Covid year.

In the latest episode of Soul of Education on the BAM! Radio Network, dear ol’ Eduflack opines on why it was so important for the Biden Administration to declare testing will resume this spring, virus be damned.

Give it a listen here: https://www.bamradionetwork.com/track/what-did-your-students-learn-this-year-how-do-we-know/

Say Yes to the Test

Eduflack Achievement gap, assessment, high-stakes testing, reform

“If we believe in the strength of the public education system in New Jersey, if we believe in a strong education (including literacy skills) as a key to success in both career and life, and if we believe that a high-quality public education is a civil right, then we must demand every piece of data available so that we can determine how to better support classroom teachers, how to better disperse state aid, and how to provide every learner the education that is promised to them.”

From Eduflack’s latest for NJ Education Report

Investing In Teacher Development

Eduflack assessment, Cardona, PD, Teacher Education, teachers

Does The Flat World and Education provide all of the answers? No, and it shouldn’t. This book provides some important lines of inquiry and thinking that should be front and center as we discuss implementation of new funding streams as we recover from Covid and as we look at new investments that will come in Title I. As Cardona and his team look to completely reinvent Title II (both under ESEA and, likely, the Higher Education Act), Darling-Hammond’s data and conclusions on teacher induction and ongoing teacher support need to be central to the discussion. They may not be adopted whole cloth (and probably shouldn’t) but if they aren’t part of the debate, we are missing a central point to meaningful education improvement. We have ignored or avoided these discussions for too long. But if we are going to emphasize the science, then we should be looking to the data and the real-life case studies that can be pointed to to demonstrate true impact.

From Eduflack’s latest over on Medium, where I explore lessons we can learn today from the book penned by Linda Darling-Hammond more than a decade ago.

Come Back, NAEP, Come Back!

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, assessment, BAM, NAEP, reform

As learning gaps grow and we wonder about those students who are being denied a qualify education (whether because of Covid or other reasons), we should be doing all we can to measure learning and understand where we fall short. That means measuring student progress, no matter how ugly.

We discuss the issue and how eliminating another year of student assessment is the the wrong answer over at BAM Radio Network.

Two Years Without Standardized Testing? Why It Matters

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/

A Potential Crisis for Special Education Families?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, equity, ESEA, Parents, reform

Across the nation, k-12 classroom teachers have been rightfully praised for quickly adapting to the new normal of virtual education. As tens of millions of students were forced to quickly shift to Google classroom and Zoom and other such tools to finish the 2019-20 school year, teachers adjusted to do the best they could in an incredibly tough, and unplanned, situation. 

For many students, it meant a lighter class load. A single school day broken into two. A shorter learning period. Grades were not to be discussed. And states cancelled their spring state assessments.

Three months into the great coronavirus virtual education experiment, we are now confronting a reality where many states may not have their students return to traditional classrooms in the fall. And in some that do, learners will deal with a “hybrid” schedule requiring some days in a physical building and some days online to ensure the needed social distancing that traditional public schools just haven’t been built to address.

All of that is ok, for the majority of students. We adjusted our expectations. In some instances, it was helpful for parents to see how hard it is to actually teach or to keep their kids on task, providing an eye opener into the realities of instruction. It was a temporary inconvenience that will soon pass. 

That is, of course, unless one is a special education family. As millions of families came to trust and praise their schools for adapting to virtual instruction in the age of corona, many special education families couldn’t overcome their distrust for a system that has taken actions over so many years to deny those with special needs the education to which they are entitled. 

If anything, these school closures may likely cast, in the long term, a nasty spotlight on the harsh realities of special education in the United States. They may showcase our collective lack of interest or commitment, as school systems, on the learners who need those systems the most. And they may, ultimately, do more to advance special education services – through likely class action lawsuits – than we have seen since the initial passage of IDEA. 

Might this seem a little harsh? Yes. Might this be unfair to teachers who are honestly doing their best and are exceeding the expectations of mainstream families? Absolutely. But challenging times cannot and should not absolve school districts from their obligations, and they definitely shouldn’t grant them a pass in challenging times for what they refuse to do during the easy times. 

In my highly resourced, overachieving school district, an email to special education parents at the start of quarantine announced that they were suspending all 504 and IEP meetings until traditional school resumed. Such a decision likely violated federal law. And until state directives forced the district to change course more than a month after it issued such an order, it also could have been seen as an act of educational malpractice. 

For those parents who have spent years engaging advocates and lawyers and spending tens of thousands of dollars on both to ensure their public schools are adequately educating their kids, there is little comfort in knowing that all the accommodations they fought for were tossed out the window in the name of BrainPop videos or Kahn Academy lessons. And that certainly is true as the “temporary” response of this spring is now potentially extended into the next academic year. 

What of the student who needs speech therapy, but whose district fought during the IEP process to deny such services virtually, demanding they could only be provided face to face?

What of the special services department that simply sends families a link to some online occupational or speech therapy activities to do at home with their children, never mind that parents are not trained service providers or may not even speak the language that their child needs the therapy in?

What of the family that fought long and hard for an array of needed accommodations, now to be told that they are all on hold until September or beyond, depending on what decisions the state and locality make?

What of the family already struggling to show that their special needs child is not making adequate gains, only to now be told this past year will be written off (just like the three or five years before it) because of unforeseen circumstances?

Any parent who has even sat across the conference table from the school administration for a 504 or IEP meeting knows what is coming next. Over the years, we have watched the number of people around the table grow, and we’ve seen the binders of data around them get larger, as we’ve witnessed the stonewalling, the delays, and the excuses increase. The administrators who become the adversaries of special needs families are trying to wait it out, hoping enough time passes so that the student is no longer in the school, the OCR complaint is no longer ripe, and a new clock starts at a new school, repeating the process all over again. 

In an already adversarial, contentious relationship between special needs families and resistant school districts, covid-19 school closures became the latest armor to protect systems from their legal and educational duties. 

One only needs to look at the IDEA guidance provided from the US Department of Education at the start of this great experiment to see this unfortunate fact. A whole lot of “mays” and no “musts.” School districts that pivoted to virtual learning only needed to ensure access to the same learning platforms, not to the accommodations their legally binding IEPs required.  

Truth be told, those who have never been through the 504 or IEP process would be aghast. We want to believe that all those involved in the learning process have nothing but the best interests of the child at heart. And while that may be true for the individual teachers involved in the process, it is nowhere near the truth for the system itself. Having sat at that table, having had my school district try to tell me – incorrectly –  that their rules trumped state and federal law when it comes to special education, parents like me are all too aware of the lengths districts will go to restrict their obligations. And we are all too wise as to how a time of crisis and pandemic could be used to deny millions of special needs students of the education guaranteed them under the law. 

Online videos and group chats may work for the vast majority of k-12 students for the past few months or even for the next school year. For those learners, they will make up the learning slowdown over the next few academic years to follow. But for those students who are already behind, for those who have fallen further and further back as their families have been required to fight a system hellbent on denying them, what happens to them? A high school diploma for those learners doing seventh or eighth grade-level work is hardly the reward. 

IDEA protections exist today because the parents of special needs students refused to be denied and refused to accept lesser for their kids. Some may enthusiastically see this covid-19 experience as the gateway to virtual education. Instead, at least for special needs families, it may be the match that reignites the special education community, providing the needed spark to empower parents. 

What About Special Education in the Age of Corona?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, equity, ESEA, reform, Students, teachers

As so many rightfully praise classroom teachers for quickly adapting their instruction for a new, virtual environment, advocates need to be sure that such desperate times do not provide school districts the opportunity to shirk their duties when it comes to IDEA and students with learning disabilities.

Big kudos to Emily Richards and USA Today for placing a spotlight on this important issue, and for speaking with dear illl’ Eduflack about his district’s decision to suspend IEP and 504 meetings for an undetermined period (read until next fall).

For students who already receive accommodations and special services to catch up because of the years their families fought to get them the adequate educations they are guaranteed under the law, lack of leadership by the US Department of Education and adversarial relationships with school districts that have denied special needs learners is a potential recipe for disaster.

“I get that this is the first week. But everything we have fought for in my son’s (individualized education plan) now gets put on hold,” Riccards said.

Read the full article here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/03/19/coronavirus-online-school-closing-special-education-teacher-distance-learning/2863503001/

When It Comes To Reading Test Score Failures, Blame the Adults

Eduflack accountability, assessment, BAM, NAEP, reading, reform, SBRR, TrumpED

We should be furious with the state of student literacy performance, as evidenced by the most recent NAEP scores. But we our anger should be directed at those adults who still aren’t prioritizing evidence-based reading instruction.

We explore the topic on the latest episode of TrumpEd on the BAM! Radio Network. Give it a listen.

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.

 

 

NAEP Response: More than Words?

Eduflack 21CS, accountability, Achievement gap, assessment, BAM, DeVos, Math, NAEP, reading, reform, TrumpED

Now that the dust has finally settled on the most-recent dump of NAEP scores, we must admit that the results just aren’t good. For a decade now, student performance on our national reading and math tests have remained stagnant. And that stagnation is only because a few select demographics managed gains that kept everyone afloat.

At a time when we all seem to agree that today’s students need stronger and greater skills to succeed in tomorrow’s world, how can we be satisfied with stagnation? And how we can respond simply with words, with the rhetoric of how our students can and should do better?

Over on the BAM! Radio Network, we explore the topic, reflecting on both how we cannot be satisfied with our students treading water and how we need to take real action to improve teaching and learning in the classroom. Give it a listen. Then show your work.