FOCUS DC News Wire 8/22/13

 

 

This is what the Washington Post's education reporter Valerie Strauss claims in an article appearing today:

 

"Now public charter schools in Washington D.C. will soon be giving new standardized tests to very young children — aged 3, 4 and 5 — for the purposes of assessing their academic progress and ranking schools according to the results."

 

Wow, that would be horrible for these kids. Just the vision of trying to do this worries me. But is she correct? Not according to the Public Charter School Board. The organization posted a question and answer page about the proposed Early Childhood Performance Management Framework. In answer to the concern that pre-school students will be taking a test like the DC CAS the Board writes:

 

"As background, charter schools have used assessments with their 3- and 4-year old students long before the proposed Early Childhood PMF . . . The Early Childhood PMF does not introduce any new standardized tests for these young students. [Bold in original document.] Rather, it only measures progress for 3- and 4-your olds based on classroom observations, usually twice a year (Fall/Spring). For these types of assessments, teachers will observe a student over a period of a week or two, for example, and check off the items the students can do. Some assessments that charter school have used include several pictures or a few letters or numbers that are placed in front of the student and the student identifies the picture, letter, or number."

 

I've actually taken the time to read the new policy and it appears to corroborate the information provided on the question and answer page. The proposed policy also contains a list of 26 schools that have piloted the Early Childhood PMF along with a reference list on assessing programs for kids in early childhood.

 

To assist the newspaper, perhaps I should move over to the Post?

 

There is a public hearing on the Early Childhood PMF scheduled by the PCSB on August 19th. The public comment period ends at 5 p.m. August 28th.

 

 

DC Mayor Vincent Gray announced record increases in test scores last month, attributing the gains to his education reform policies. But could demographic changes in DC be responsible for the increases? The answer is: we don't know.

 

Mayor Gray and DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson have claimed that the increases validate their education reform policies and show we must "stay the course", a subtle jab at Councilmember David Catania's "reform 2.0" proposals.

 

But is it possible that the test score increases reflect the growth of middle and upper class families in DC, and not increased school quality?

 

What does census data say?

 

DCPS points to the improvements in test scores each year since the 2007 mayoral takeover of DC Public Schools.

 

The median income among families in DC has consistently climbed, from $51,411 in 2005 to $75,603 in 2011, according to the census' annual American Community Survey (ACS). And students from higher-income families tend to do better on standardized tests.

 

Some important caveats should be made. First, we don't know whether this demographic shift is reflected in the public school population. Second, the ACS data that is available only goes through 2011, with 2012 data scheduled to be released in September.

 

DCPS spokesperson Melissa Salmanowitz pointed me to the growth in scores since 2007 for students who receive free or reduced-price lunch, saying these gains had "disproven" the thesis that demographics are behind the overall score gains. Students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch come from families earning under 185% of the poverty line.

 

It's true that scores for those students have gone up. But most or all of that gain happened before many of the reforms Gray and Henderson claim are responsible for the increase took effect. After 2009, the scores for students who receive free and reduced price lunches plateaued.

 

And this spike in scores from 2007 to 2009 wasn't due to cheating. Scores on the federal NAEP test from students receiving free and reduced-price lunch also spiked from 2007 to 2009 and then leveled off or declined in 2011. The NAEP test is allegedly "uncheatable."

 

What does this mean?

 

Does this mean that demographics, and not school quality initiatives like Common Core, charter expansion, teacher assessments and extended school day, are responsible for the increase in test scores? I don't believe we can draw that conclusion.

 

What this means is that we don't know what is causing the test score gains. We can't tell what is causing the increase in test scores because we are using static proficiency measures of test scores that have been roundly criticized.

 

Static measures of growth compare different cohorts of students from year to year. The problem is that when the demographic composition of students in a school changes, test results may go up or down because of that change rather than a change in the quality of instruction.

 

DC Public Schools and Mayor Gray are currently held to a bar that has been set for them by others, namely OSSE and the federal No Child Left Behind law, and not themselves. And they should be congratulated for moving these static test scores in the right direction.

 

What needs changing, as the National Academy of Sciences argues, is the bar itself. We need to start holding schools accountable using metrics of growth, such as how many grade levels a school advances its students each year. Isn't that what matters?

 

Chancellor Henderson's response to the suggestion that increased test scores might be the result of an influx of wealthier students was: "Haters are going to hate." But is it hate to try to follow the data wherever it leads? I don't think so. I thought that's what school reform was all about.

 

 

Just more than one-quarter of students who took the ACT college entrance exam this year scored high enough in math, reading, English and science to be considered ready for college or a career, data released Wednesday showed.

 

That figure masks large gaps between student groups — with 43 percent of Asians, but only 5 percent of African Americans — demonstrating college readiness in all four subjects.

 

The ACT is a competitor of the SAT and is now the most popular college entrance exam in the country, with about 1.8 million graduating seniors taking the test this year. That number accounts for about 54 percent of the nation’s graduating seniors and was an increase from 1.67 million in 2012.

 

Overall performance on the ACT has remained virtually unchanged since 2009, with the average score falling slightly this year, from 21.1 to 20.9 out of a possible 36 points. The stagnation raises questions about how well schools are preparing students for future success.

 

“This report demonstrates that we must be honest about our students’ performance and implement higher standards if we’re serious about improving educational outcomes,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement.

 

Duncan is a supporter of the new Common Core State Standards, rigorous academic benchmarks that have been fully adopted in 45 states and the District to help ensure that students are prepared for life after high school.

 

The increasing number and diversity of test-takers might be one reason for the slight decline in scores this year, as it is not uncommon for average performance to fall as the pool of test-takers grows.

 

Critics of federal education policy said the continued poor showing on the ACT is proof that the nation’s focus on measuring school performance with standardized tests — which has intensified since the No Child Left Behind law was passed in 2002 — has not led to improvements.

 

“The overwhelming evidence that college preparation is not improving — even when measured by test results — shows that politicians’ fixation on high-stakes standardized exams to boost student performance is a failed strategy,” Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing said in a statement.

 

ACT officials said they set “college ready” benchmarks that reflect the minimum scores students need to earn to have a 75 percent chance of earning a C or better in a typical first-year college course.

 

Two-thirds of test-takers met the college-ready standard for English. In math and reading, 44 percent did so. Science performance was worst, with 36 percent of students deemed college-ready. Only 26 percent of students who took the ACT reached the college-ready benchmark in all four subjects.

 

In Maryland, 21 percent of high school seniors took the ACT this year, and participation was somewhat higher in Virginia (26 percent) and the District (38 percent).

 

Students in Virginia and Maryland fared better than the national average, with higher composite scores and a higher proportion of students meeting college-ready benchmarks. More than one-third of students in public and private schools in Virginia and Maryland — and 29 percent of D.C. students — scored high enough to be considered college-ready in all subjects.

 

Students’ scores increased slightly in all three jurisdictions, although the District continued to trail the national average.

 

“Maryland did have some good success here,” said William Reinhard, a spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Education. “What’s difficult to read from the data is who those students are. We don’t have a good breakdown yet but the trend is positive.”

 

Three school districts in the region released ACT scores Wednesday; the others declined to do so. In Prince William County, overall scores were up one-tenth of a point, to 22, above the national average. In Arlington County, scores also rose slightly, to 25.1 , outpacing the national and state averages. In Montgomery County, scores also outpaced the nation and the state, with the average overall score increasing slightly, to 23.5.

 

“It’s good to see that our kids continually do better than the state and the nation,” Superintendent Joshua P. Starr said. “We expect that kind of progress for our kids.”