NAEP

Closing the Gap?

Eduflack AYP, high-stakes testing, NAEP, NCLB

Has No Child Left Behind worked?  That may be a question best left to sociologists or historians or anthropologists, but it is one we must be asking as congressional committees and presidential education advisors continue to contemplate the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (a reauthorization that is past due, I might add.)

When first passed into law, NCLB was positioned as an effective tool to close the achievement gap.  By “eliminating the soft bigotry of low expectations,” NCLB would penetrate the schools and communities that have long suffered, providing hope, opportunity, and real demonstrations of achievement for kids that have long been written off.
Of course, these past few years, NCLB has been seen far more as a punch line to a bad joke, a walking, talking example of burdensome regulations and over-testing.  It’s almost like we’ve forgotten the intent of the law, and the goal of ensuring that every student — regardless of race, gender, neighborhood, or socioeconomic standing — has the opportunity to achieve academically.
It is forgotten, that is, until the data reminds us otherwise.  For those doubting Thomases, today’s Washington Post offers yet more proof that NCLB is, indeed, working.  The Post’s Maria Glod and Daniel de Vise offer up an analysis that shows it clearly.  And the story lede says it all — “since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind law, students from poor families in the Washington area have made major gains on reading and math tests and are starting to catch up with those from middle-class and affluent backgrounds.”
What does the Post analysis show, other than NCLB works?  The data is quite clear … and quite interesting.  <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/01/AR2008100103096.html
In”>www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/01/AR2008100103096.html
In Maryland, the reading and math achievement gaps have closed, according to results from the Maryland School Assessment.  In Anne Arundel County, the reading performance gap shrunk from 24 to 14, while math moved from 20 down to 14.  In Howard County, the reading gap shrunk from 31 to 17, while the math gap shrunk from 33 to 25.  And in Montgomery County, the reading gap shrunk from 28 to 14 and the math from 26 to 17.
And in Virginia, on its Standards of Learning?  In Fairfax County, the reading gap shrunk from 20 to 11, the math gap from 29 to 16.  In Loudoun County, reading gaps went from 24 to 15, while math went from 20 to 17.  And in Prince William, reading closed from 18 to 9, while the math gap went from 15 to 11.
All data was measured from 2003 to 2007.  And before you ask the question, there doesn’t seem to be good data for DCPS, with Stanford Achievement Tests and the Comprehensive Assessment System showing little results of meaning. 
What does it all tell us?
* In school districts, at least those in the greater Washington area, NCLB has worked.  From 2003 to 2007, we’ve seen real, demonstrable results closing the gap in reading and math achievement
* Despite popular belief, reading scores are improving.  In fact, in most of the counties studied by the Washington Post, reading gaps have narrowed more than math gaps.  In Arlington County, VA, for instance, the reading gap shrank (as NCLB and Reading First intended), but the math gap did not. 
* Good data takes time.  Education researchers have long told me you need at least five years of good data to determine the effectiveness of an education reform.  Imagine that, the Post looked at five years of NCLB era data, and found real improvement.
* The achievement gap is a very real issue, and needs to be a very real focus on any ongoing reform.  If we are truly going to improve the quality of public education in the United States, we need to show meaningful gains for low-income students, for African-American students, and for Hispanic students.  Educational opportunity for all needs to include all, no matter how you disaggregate the data.
Kudos to the Washington Post for its analysis, and for stepping forward (on the front page of the paper, no less) and claiming that NCLB is indeed closing the achievement gap.  But if it is true here in Washington, odds are the same results are found in cities and towns throughout the United States.  Where are the similar studies?  Who is looking at similar achievement data?  Who is talking about what is being done (or has been done) to close the achievement gap in cities like Chicago and Atlanta and Dallas and Phoenix and Los Angeles?  Who is speaking truth, despite an unpopular law with a bad reputation?
If we’re going to continue these positive trends, now is the time to speak up.
 

Will Real Formative Assessment Please Stand Up?

Eduflack AYP, high-stakes testing, NAEP, NCLB

As Eduflack has previously noted, the issues of accountability and assessment have risen to the top of the education reform heap.  Thanks to the Aspen Institute and others, we seem to have consensus — at least with education and business leaders — that accountability should lead the day.  And to get there, we need strong, reliable, replicable assessments that effectively measure the effectiveness of our programs, our schools, and out students.

Earlier this month, Scott Cech did a piece in Education Week reflecting on internal disagreements within the testing industry on the issue of “formative assessments.”  (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/09/17/04formative_ep.h28.html)   The piece is an interesting one, particularly in light of recent focus by major school districts on Response to Intervention, or RTI.  Like issues before it, education companies throughout the nation see RTI as a pending blank check, a major money-making program for those who can sell an answer to the problem.
While Cech’s piece raises some good questions on the issue of assessment and the role of both corporations and teachers in implementing meaningful assessment measures in the classroom, the piece — and the questions it raises — is being used by some to celebrate the end of accountability and is, unfortunately, being used to trumpet the demise of modern-day assessment models.
Because of issues like RTI, we have seen some very strong formative assessment models developed.  Just take a look at the investments made by organizations such as Wireless Generation, and you can see what high-quality, high-value assessment models can look like.  Focusing on pre- and post-assessment tools, educators gain the mechanisms they need to effectively evaluate student progress and determine the additional interventions needed to get every student succeeding.
Like most areas in education reform, there are good assessments and there are bad assessments.  There are research-based assessments, and there are squishy assessments.  There are assessments that work, and those that simply don’t.  The job of a good educator or a good policymaker is to learn the difference, and make sure we are using what works in our own schools and our own classrooms.
Those that celebrate articles like these as the “end of assessments” do so for one of two reasons.  Either they don’t truly understand what formative assessments are or they don’t have the research to prove that their models work.  
Cech is right.  This is an issue that many educators simply do not understand.  Nor is an issue that should be the exclusive playground of vendors or for-profit industry.  If we are going to hold our schools and our policymakers accountable for results in the classroom, we need to ensure that they have effective assessment tools AND understand how to use them appropriately.  We need to empower teachers to measure their students’ progress, and do so in a way that aligns with state and, hopefully, national learning standards.  And we need to simplify the assessment process so the average parent, the average teacher, and the average community member gets it.
Understanding meaningful assessment of student achievement should not require advanced degrees nor should it demand a multi-step, multi-part process that looks more like Swedish furniture assembly instructions than a benchmark of student progress.  There are simple, effective assessments out there.  We just need to redouble our efforts to get them out into the classroom.

“Those Who Do Not Learn from the Past …”

Eduflack Gates Foundation, higher ed, NAEP, PR, STEM

We’ve all heard George Santayana’s famous quote (often attributed to others), that “those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.”  It is a poignant statement on the importance of understanding what has happened in the past, so we can learn and grow from it.

Personally, Eduflack prefers the words of baseball philosopher king Yogi Berra, who eloquently said that if we don’t know where we are going, we will never know if we get there.  Both are applicable to life, and both are certainly applicable to education reform.  In an our current era of “change,” we are all looking to do something different with the schools.  But for those who have been around the block a time or two, they are seeing reforms that are simply retreads of ideas past.  We put a new wrapping on them or give them a new name, but they are the same failed ideas, with no indication that we have learned from their participation in that first rodeo.
What does it all mean?  For the most part, it demonstrates that we have little sense for our current standing or what it has taken to get us there.  We still believe we have the best higher education system in the world, even though our college graduation rate has slipped from first place to 15th in 10 years.  We still believe our K-12 system has no match, even as schools in India and China manage to turn out more and more students to take our jobs.  And we still embrace an educational model that was developed nearly a century ago, a model built on the notion that 1/3 in college, 1/3 high school grad, and 1/3 dropout is acceptable, and the three Rs remain the king.
Put simply, we are getting by on our reputations, not on our current actions.  We often hear carbuyers talk about their desire to buy a Volvo because of its unmatched safety record.  Let’s forget, for a moment, that the safety record in question is now a few decades old and not applicable to the current models.  In education, we sell our superiority based on an outdated model and outdated comparisons, believing that tinkering around the edges today will make us stronger, and that no one can match what we really have to offer, because they couldn’t three decades ago.
Exams like NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA obviously tell us otherwise.  The growing national push for STEM (science-technology-engineering-math) tells us otherwise too.  But how do we really learn from our educational past, in a way that lets us strengthen our educational future?
On Monday, PBS will debut its “Where We Stand: America’s Schools in the 21st Century” program.  Hosted by The NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff, this program was developed to provide “an historic assessment of U.S. Schools in where we stand.”  Premiering at 10 p.m. on Monday, September 15, the program will tell the stories of a number of individuals and communities affected by the current state of public education, focusing on issues such as teaching foreign languages (like Mandarin classes in Ohio), addressing high-poverty, low-performance issues, and using STEM education programs to lift all boats and empower all students.
The program will address the issues in urban, suburban, and rural schools, recognizing our successes and our challenges are not limited to a sliver of our demographic.  More importantly, producers promise a “frank” discusses of public education’s strengths and weaknesses, an adjective that rarely finds its way into media coverage of education and education reform these days.  The show will focus on Ohio, as it is the microcosm of our nation, both politically and educationally.  
Kudos to PBS for taking up such a challenge and producing such a piece (and it isn’t even a John Merrow piece!).  And kudos to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for funding this effort, lending its resources to educating and teaching us, in addition to empowering us to change the classrooms.  Hopefully, “Where We Stand” will provide some important lessons for the reformers, the status quoers, and all those in between to learn from and model as we move forward.
Every GPS out there requires you to enter you start point in order to track your path.  Maybe, just maybe, “Where We Stand” can provide those many educators and policymakers lost out there in the wilderness with a reliable start point on which to plot a new course. 

What is Achievement?

Eduflack AYP, high-stakes testing, Math, NAEP, national standards

In today’s education reform era, student achievement is king.  We want to see our kids succeeding.  We want to see test scores rise.  We want to know we can better compete against foreign nations on things like PISA and TIMSS.  We want assurances our students are getting a top-notch education measure by results, and not by processes.

But what, exactly, is achievement?  Eduflack and a close friend have been debating this very issue this week, and it really has me thinking.  Do we, as a nation, now believe that student achievement is only measured based on state-offered standardized tests?  And if not, what else qualifies as a measurement tool?

When the State of Maryland announced earlier this year that student achievement had dramatically increased in many at-risk schools across the state, Mike Petrilli and the folks over at the Fordham Foundation quickly pounced, correctly noting that reducing a standard so more kids make it does not mean students are achieving.  The same could be said in NYC.  NYCDOE’s recent test score boastings are indeed impressive.  But how does this year’s yardstick measure with the previous years, those years when fewer students hit the mark?

And what about those subjects not measured by the state tests or by national measures like NAEP?  Is there no student achievement in subjects like foreign languages or the arts or, in some cases, social studies?  Clearly, that isn’t the case.

I recognize these are some odd questions coming from me, particularly when I have long argued that we know programs like Reading First work because we have the student performance data to show it.  Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that.  In core subjects like reading and math, we have decades of data that demonstrate student performance.  As long as the measurement tools are the same (as is the formula to calculate achievement) we know effectiveness or not.

I’ve heard myriad of stories of how elementary school music classes have boosted student math ability and how “non-core” classes have had a real impact on student interest and ability in the three Rs.  With the recent push of STEM (science-tech-engineering-math) programs in our K-12s, we often talk about how social studies and other course electives can help strengthen a student’s STEM ability.  Can we quantify such impacts?  How do we claim more than just causal relationships between X course and student achievement?

A relative first for me, I’ll admit, but I don’t have all of the answers here.  I know that student achievement should be our primary focus, and that we must ensure that all students are performing at the necessary levels in all subjects.  I know that national standards are key to delivering on this promise, providing a singular yardstick by which to measure all students in all 50 states.  And I know that such measures in reading/ELA, math, and science are the most important ones to provide us a real benchmark on where our students are … and where they need to go.

But I also recognize there is more to it than just that.  How do we benchmark other subjects, particularly those that are not mandated as part of the state assessment or graduation requirements?  How do we make sure that the year-on-year yardstick doesn’t move from 36 inches to 33, giving us a false reading in a given year?  How, exactly, do we make sure our kids are really learning and achieving?
 

Is NCLB a Red Herring?

Eduflack AYP, NAEP, NCLB, Reading First

For years now, we have heard how No Child Left Behind was at the root of everything that was wrong with our schools.  We’re spending too much time on high-stakes testing.  We’re spending too much money on NCLB requirements.  We’re asking too much of our teachers.  We’re expecting too much from our students.  If only NCLB were tucked back into the drawer, then our schools would improve, all students would be on their way to Nobel Prizes, and achievement gaps would be a thing of the past.  Oh, if only we could go back to the good ole days.

Today’s Washington Times reports on the NCLB study released by the Center for Education Policy.  It is an interesting read.  http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080520/NATION/766555380/1002  Under the header, “Many states leave behind education law,” Amy Fagan reports that more than 20 states have “procrastinated” in meeting NCLB requirements, meaning they likely will not hit the 2014 targets laid out in the law.

Imagine that.  Nearly half of states are not implementing NCLB with the zealousness called for in the law.  According to CEP, states like California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and others aren’t in a position to bring all students to proficiency in reading and math in six years.  Even Washington, DC, which has to answer to the feds, falls into the laggard bucket.

Interestingly, many of the states that join DC on the laggard list are the states that have been most vocal about the high costs and powerful problems caused by NCLB.  We’ve heard the cries from Oregon, for example.  They’re on the list.  We’ve heard from states like Wisconsin that NCLB’s Reading First doesn’t work.  Yes, America’s Dairyland is on the list as well.  Even states who are about to lose their chief state school officers — like Rhode Island and Indiana — are also on the hit list.

It makes Eduflack wonder, is NCLB really to blame?  Are these states having such difficulty implementing the law with fidelity that they have fallen so far behind?  Or have they been slowly addressing the law, hoping a reauthorization or a new president would again change the game?  Are they diligent in doing it right, or are they simply waiting it out?

Like many, I still believe our national goal should be every child proficient in math and reading.  That’s a baseline that should be required in every school, every state across the nation.  How can it not be?  Do we identify now which third-graders don’t have to be proficient?  Do we brand those fourth graders who we figure will drop out, and won’t factor into our high school data?  Of course not.

As long as half the states are failing to keep up with NCLB implementation, we can’t say the law is failing.  NCLB doesn’t work if the states can’t implement it, or if we find the states can’t make it work. The majority of states have been able to implement the law, and will meet the 2014 requirements.  So the first box is checked. 

The second box is the unanswered question.  We are seeing states that are making NCLB work.  We are seeing others with the potential.  We are seeing math scores on the rise.  We have identified what works and what hasn’t with Reading First.

It seems, to this uneducated soul, that 2014 is our moment of truth.  Then, we’ll see how successful the states have been in gaining math and reading proficiency for all.  Until then, we need to stop the blame game and focus on implementing the law with full fidelity.  Maybe, just maybe, NCLB has a few solutions to what ails us educationally.

Kids Are Reading?!?

Eduflack AYP, High School, NAEP, NCLB, Reading First, SBRR

These are definitely reading days.  Don’t believe me?  Check out the front page of today’s Washington Post.  Jay Matthews brings us the latest data from Accelerated Reader, an online reading program from Renaissance Learning.  Looking at its student usage data from more than 63,000 schools nationwide, AR has identified what books today’s students are reading … and how often they are reading them.

The full Matthews story is here — http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/04/ST2008050402168.html?hpid=topnews.  The AR study can be found here — http://www.renlearn.com/whatkidsarereading/ReadingHabits.pdf?sid=ST2008050402168.

The results are both interesting and disturbing.  Some of the top titles are to be expected.  “Green Eggs and Ham” is tops for first graders.  “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” for fourth graders.  “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” was most read for second graders.

All of these are fun, well-written books that can be found in most independent reading collections for those grade levels.  But we’re also seeing a number of “required” reading titles on the list, particularly with the older grades.

“The Outsiders” was tops for seventh and eighth graders.  Eduflack remembers that as required reading in middle school.  And for high schoolers, “To Kill a Mockingbird” was the most-read book.  The Harper Lee classic has long been a mandatory read in ninth or 10th grade classes throughout the country.

Such data is interesting.  The most popular titles today, for the most part, were popular titles when Eduflack was in school decades ago.  What’s disturbing, though, is the amount of reading these students are doing.  We all keep hearing about the Harry Potter effect, and how kids are reading more today than they used to (due, in part, to the tri-wizard champion).  But AR’s data seems to tell a different story.

The average seventh grader is only reading seven books a year.  Take away the required readings like “The Outsiders,” and it is probably safe to say these junior high students are only reading two or three books independently each year.  Even more disturbing are high schoolers.  The average 12th grader is reading four books a year, meaning after books assigned in English class, the only thing seniors are reading is the back of a cereal box.

If we’ve learned anything during the RF era, it is that good reading comes in two parts.  Students need to gain the instructional building blocks identified under the law — phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.  Then they need to practice it.  They need to read in class and outside of it.  They need to continue to develop those skills.  They need to become readers for life.

Reading is like any other skill.  If you want to play golf, you can get instruction on how to tee off, how to chip, and how to putt.  You can learn how to read the greens and choose your clubs.  But if you aren’t out there knocking out a few buckets a week and playing on real courses, you will never be a good golfer (though completing those tasks is no guarantee of success, trust me).  Developing skills requires practice, practice, practice.  And reading skills are no different.

This data also helps us see the need to prioritize independent reading in our schools and homes.  And that is due to the continued importance of statewide assessments.  When it comes to ELA, the assessment is one big independent reading test.  Think about it.  The test may include an excerpt from “Charlotte’s Web,” but it isn’t a test on how much you know about spiders and pigs. Assessments are independent, cold reads.  We test a student’s ability to comprehend what they read. Do they know the vocabulary?  Can they read and process it in the requisite period of time?  Can they reach conclusions based on what they read?

Now, we must see what we can do with this data from AR.  How do we use it to get good books in the hands of good students?  How do we set goals to increase book consumption among students of all ages?  How, exactly, do we build the reading skills of all students?

Lots of questions.  In RF and in successful schools throughout the nation, we can find the answers.  We just need to look.  And we need to know how to read the signs.

A Nation in Transition

Eduflack AYP, HQT, NAEP, NCLB, NGA, Reading First

Virtually everyone in the education community seems to be celebrating the 25th anniversary of “A Nation at Risk.”  For many of us, 25 meant two things.  First, we got to rent a car without special surcharges.  Second, parents and their friends could start asking us the question, “So what are you going to do with your life?”

For more than a decade now, I have heard educated folks — those far more educated than I am — ask the latter, lamenting the future of “A Nation at Risk.”  We throw the term around all of the time, but fail to really delve into its deeper meaning.  I can try to explain it, but Eduwonk said it far better earlier this week — http://www.eduwonk.com/2008/04/timepiece.html.

So after two and a half decades, where are we … really?  We’ve spent a lot of time fighting the status quo, those folks who believed the schools simply needed more time and more money to fix what ailed them.  We went through a magic-bullet stage, where schools adopted anything and everything that vendors claimed could boost student performance or improve learning.  And we’ve spent the last seven years in the era of scientifically based learning, where research and “doing what works” is supposed to trump all.

I’ll be honest, I am not a true believer, and I don’t drive the Kool-Aid.  Eduflack believes in conspiracy theories and things that go bump in the night.  I’m a natural cynic who doesn’t worry if the glass is half full or half empty.  I want to know who took my damned water.  So it is very easy to see flaws and problems in a Nation, 25 years later.

But as I look across the landscape, I’d like to believe — to paraphrase Ronald Reagan — that we are better off now than we were 25 years ago.  Today, we are talking about student achievement and student ability on state standardized tests.  Today, we are putting research-based instructional models into the classrooms that need it most.  Today, we are focusing on high-quality teaching, giving our educators the support, PD, and such they need to succeed in their classroom.  Today, we are talking about a common national graduation rate, allowing us to effectively measure high schools across the city, the state, or the nation. Today, we are focused on outcomes, not just caught up in the inputs and processes of education.  We look for a return on investment, and we measure that return based on student success.

Don’t get me wrong.  We still have a LONG way to go.  “A Nation at Risk,” along with other reports that have come after it, provide us a collaborative blueprint on how to improve our schools, and more importantly, how to improve the quality and the impact of our schools.  We’re seeming select successes in pilots and programs across the country.  We’re seeing Reading First raising the test scores of young readers.  We’re seeing STEM programs engage all students in critical thinking.  We’re seeing teachers take a greater pride in their craft and defend their field with a zealousness not found in decades.

One author has opined that “A Nation at Risk” should be renamed “A Nation in Crisis.”  Based on what I’ve seen in the field, based on what I’ve heard and read from the experts, even this certified cynic has more hope than that.  We may be “A Nation in Transition” now, with the possibility of become “A Nation of Opportunity.”

 

“Reading is So Hot!”

Eduflack AYP, NAEP, NCLB, Reading First, SBRR

A year ago, virtually everyone had left reading instruction improvement for dead.  Massive cuts to Reading First seemed to trump whatever data the states or the U.S. Department of Education were putting out on reading scores.  The appearance of flat NAEP reading scores only added to the sentiment.  And even those optimists looking for NCLB 2.0 to be passed this year haven’t spent much time talking about the RF component of the law.

But over the weekend, The Washington Post put reading instruction clearly back on the reform frontburner.  Saturday brought an op-ed from E.D. Hirsch, Jr., the chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation.  Hirsch’s premise is simple — if we expect schools to meet AYP on reading, we need to provide greater focus and gain greater understanding of comprehension skills.  But more simply, we need a national commitment to building vocabulary and reading comprehension in all students.

Today’s Post has op-eds by Howard Gardner and Susan Jacoby, both discussing our national need to read.  Gardner talks of the end of literacy.  Jacoby of the dumbing of America.  Both embracing a similar theme that reading skills lead to success.

All three, of course, are correct.  Reading skills are the core to student achievement and successful lives.  While critics of Reading First have dubbed the program a “phonics” program, the initiative was always based on an approach that included equal priority to phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.  So what does this renewed attention on reading comprehension and ability tell us?

First, reading skill acquisition is not limited to the reading or English/Language Arts classroom.  Reading skills are also acquired through content areas like science and social studies.  That is why such a focus has been paid to reading at grade level by fourth grade.  Students need those reading skills to achieve in their science, history, and even math classes.

Second, reading instruction is a team sport.  Yes, teachers need to do whatever they can to build reading skills — particularly comprehension — in all students.  Parents and families bear a similar responsibility.  They need to model good reading behavior.  They need to encourage their kids.  And they need to be aware of their kids’ strengths and weaknesses, and do what they can to improve on the latter.

Finally, comprehension is king.  Hirsch is correct.  We can get kid to memorize vocabulary words, but if they don’t understand what they are reading, what good is it?  As we get more sophisticated in our reading assessments, student reading skills are measured on their ability to independently read a text and demonstrate they understand what they read.  Knowing letter sounds and vocabulary words are important components to reading.  Successful reading, though, can only truly be measured through comprehension.

Where does it all leave us?  Reading skills are just as important today as they have ever been.  Such skills are successfully obtained when instruction is focused on all five of the key components to research-based reading.  And we can’t let anyone forget either.  Reading instruction should still rule the reform roost.  Comprehension skills should be the measure of effective instruction.

Unlike Gardner and Jacoby, Eduflack isn’t ready to proclaim the end of literacy or the dumbing of America.  There are too many good educators, too many good researchers, and too many good minds committed to improving reading instruction in the United States.  But if Eduflack is to hold that optimism, we must redouble our efforts to get scientifically based research, proven-effective instruction, relevant professional development, and good ole good books into every classroom. 

If we are to be a nation of readers, we need the skill, the passion, and the texts to prove Gardner and Jacoby wrong.  And we have miles to go in that regard.

Grade the Parents!

Eduflack AYP, Marketing, NAEP, NCLB

There seems to be a little battle brewing in Connecticut over report cards in Manchester School District.  What makes this fight a little different from the norm is that these report cards are intended for parents, not for students.  A member of the school board, Republican Steven Edwards, is calling for report cards for parents, evaluating them on everything from their children’s homework to appropriate dress to breakfast.

The local PTA, along with the school district itself, is opposed to the idea, believing that any issues can just be resolved if parents had more face time with teachers.  When asked what she would think if parent report cards were put in place, the president of the PTA (according to Fox News) said: “I’d be ticked … They’re telling you what to do with your kid.”  (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306003,00.html)

What’s so wrong with that?  Why shouldn’t the schools instruct parents on what they can do to increase the effectiveness of classroom time?  And more importantly, what message are we sending with such strong opposition to looking at the parent’s role in student achievement?

In 2007, we assess virtually everyone.  Students take tests to judge their abilities and competencies.  They are compared to other students in the district, state, nation, and world.  They take multiple assessments each academic year, and we take those numbers seriously.

Likewise, we use that student data and other measures to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers.  In our necessary push for qualified, effective teachers, we regularly judge our teachers.  Fairly or unfairly, our teachers are measured by the performance of their students.  Parents use that report card to help select teachers or schools for their kids, and some school districts use that report card to determine performance bonuses.

And we keep moving up the chain.  We assemble report cards on our schools and school districts, measuring them again other schools and districts.  Each year, we get national report cards on how our states measure up compared to our neighbors, our peers, and such.

Education is all about report cards.  They measure achievement.  They measure progress to date.  They are a constant in the process that we expect, depend on, and use as a tool for improvement.

So it only seems natural that report cards could and should be extended to parents.  We know that parents are just as important an influence, if not more so, on their kids’ academic achievement as teachers.  A parent is a child’s first teacher, and is often one of the last.  And like it or not, children model their behaviors after their parents and do what they say.

In the perfect world, parents and teachers should be working together, and assessed together.  It shouldn’t be an adversarial relationship, nor should it be a once a year meeting for 20 minutes.  Parents should want to be engaged in what is happening in the classroom and should monitor closely.  And the schools should be able to help parents improve the learning time at home, making sure that all students have the support and encouragement they need to maximize their time behind the schoolhouse doors.  Such a dynamic is the quickest, easiest path to opportunity for all students.

Parental influence should lend itself to some sort of accountability.  But the status quo will continue to fight the concept.  And that’s a real shame.  As long as the measurement tool is fair, and not subjective, parents should embrace a report card.  We boast when we coach our child’s sports team.  We proudly display our student’s honor roll bumper sticker.  We should equally embrace a great report card showing we are a key influencer in our kid’s school success.  

We tell our kids grades matter.  We tell them they have to work hard for high marks.  Maybe we need to lead by example, and let them see us working hard for the gold star on the parent’s report card.  Just imagine all those kids who can ride around on their bikes, with bumper stickers declaring, “My Mom is on the Parent’s Honor Roll.”
  

“I Want More NAEP TUDA”

Eduflack AYP, NAEP, NCLB

For those of you looking for more information on NAEP TUDA, particularly those who want to know whether Eduflack’s interpretation is insightful genius or full of it (I’m putting my money on insightful), Associate Commissioner Peggy Carr is going to be taking public questions on the study. 

I’m told questions can be sent to tuda2007questions@ed.gov, and should be submitted until noon Monday.  Answers to all those deep, dark questions should be posted Nov. 20 at 3 p.m. at <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/2007tudachat.asp.

Here’s”>nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/2007tudachat.asp.

Here’s your chance to hear directly from those responsible for the data collection.  Fire those questions away on impact, long-term implications, and lessons learned.