Re: Please purge "Achievement Gap"

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Well, to get closer to level with other kids, some kids are going to 
have to gain.  And, right, the generalizability of Sanders's work 
should be explored.  As to the reception of Sanders's work, it's almost 
like the system isn't interested in the notion that some teachers are 
much more effective than other ones.

Art

----Original Message-----
From: GERALD BRACEY <gbracey1@verizon.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 12:36 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Please purge "Achievement Gap"

As with many people, Art, you are confusing LEVEL of achievement with 
GAINS
in achievement.  Level is highly associated with family and community
factors, gain much less so.  But I think the only people who believe 
those
particular results are Bill Sanders and his colleagues.  In addition, 
the
increases are for off-the-shelf items from the CTBS.  Whoopee.  In 
addition,
the definition of "effectiveness" is circular--effective teachers are 
those
who raise test scores.  So it's hardly surprising that a student with 
such
teachers for three years has his test scores rise.  Finally, Sanders'
identification of effective teachers has never been corroborated by 
other
types of evidence.


JB


----- Original Message -----
From: <aburke5054@aol.com>

To: <arn-l@interversity.org>

Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 2:05 PM

Subject: Re: [arn-l] Please purge "Achievement Gap"



Distilled down, Monty is saying that that there is an achievement gap,

that schools can't do anything about it, and that schools can and must

do something about it   How fun it that?


Still, it is true, as Monty claims, that many studies have found that

"non-school factors overwhelm what schools can do" (#6 below).

However, there is interesting and important research the shows that

schools, more specifically, teachers, can and do have an effect that

overwhelms non-school factors.


W.L. Sanders and J.C. Rivers, Cumulative and Residual Effects of

Teachers on Future Student Academic Achievement, University of

Tennessee Value-Added Research and Assessment Center, 1996.


Kevin Carey explains why it's important ...


"... they found that teacher effectiveness varies tremendously—some are

much more effective than others. Some of the earliest and best analysis

has been done in Tennessee, where researchers found that all else being

equal, students assigned to the most effective teachers for three years

in a row performed 50 percentile points higher—that’s on a 100-point

scale—than comparable students assigned to the least effective teachers

for three years in a row.


So large was the impact of teachers on student learning that it

exceeded any one thing about the students themselves. The authors of

the study concluded that teacher effectiveness is the "the single

biggest factor influencing gains in achievement," an influence bigger

than race, poverty, parent’s education, or any of the other factors

that are often thought to doom children to failure."


Source for Kevin's quote:


http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/5704CBA6-CE12-46D0-A852-D2E2B4638885/0/Spring04.pdf 



p. 4


Art


-----Original Message-----

From: monty@fairtest.org

To: arn-l@interversity.org

Sent: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 11:01 am

Subject: Re: [arn-l] Please purge "Achievement Gap"



In practice, "achievement gap" refers almost entirely to test score

differences. Sometimes there is reference to group differences in

graduation rates or college attendance, but almost all the discourse

actually focuses on group differences in test scores. So what's the

problem?



1) Test scores measure limited slices of what students reasonably ought

to learn (given reasonable significant individual variation based on

interests, aptitudes etc. as to what they should learn). By only

reporting test scores, real learning outcomes are often distorted or

masked. Further, by focusing pretty much entirely on test scores,

scores become the working definition of what it means to be educated.

This justifies the narrowing of curriculum and instruction to focus on

tested subjects, and in the tested subjects for curriculum and

instruction to resemble the tests. Thus, we have the reduction of

schooling, especially for low-income students, to test prep. In sum,

the use of 'achievement gap' in its actual political use contributes

toward thinking about education in terms of test results and thereby

contributes to narrowing and dumbing down education. That said, there

is little doubt that learning outcomes vary greatly across groups, and

that these variances are a serious problem deserving a serious

response.



2) Focusing on achievement gap and thus on outcomes has the effect of

ignoring inputs and processes. Defenders of this approach argue - with

some justification - that too little attention had been paid to

outcomes (independent of how we describe, measure, evaluate outcomes).

They also claimed that attention to outcomes would lead people to then

focus on necessary inputs and processes so as to improve outcomes. One

problem is the very narrow specification of outcomes as test scores.

Another is that in practice attention to inputs and processes has been

seriously inadequate. The other day I was reading a claim by John

Merrow (in a Commentary in this week's ed week) that  schools found to

be 'in need of improvement' will get extra resources. But they don't.

In fact, with transport and supplemental services, the funds available

to most of the kids in a 'failing' school are reduced.



3) When the 'standards' approach gained sway in the 1990s, at least

there was a view that there also needed to be input and delivery

standards. A very weak version of that appeared in Clinton's ed reform

bill, but the Gingrich gang promptly gutted even that when they took

over Congress. Such standards have not existed. The consequence is no

functional standards and no real accountability for providing resources

schools need, while schools are excoriated and attacked when they fail

to accomplish what they have not been given the resources to

accomplish. When teachers and principals, etc., try to meet the

irrational demands of NCLB (and parallel state requirements) by

focusing more intensely on the tests, they are then attacked for

teaching to the test (read Ed Trust on that).



4)Gloria Ladsen-Billings refers to the educational debt owed in

particular by the nation to African Americans. If the debt were paid,

the consequences of unequal and inadequate education could be

addressed. If one does not talk about the educational debt and the

educational input 'gaps' in a serious way, talk about the achievement

gap is mostly illusion or deliberate distortion, because it is the debt

that primarily causes the results.



6) Study after study going back to the Coleman Report has made it clear

that non-school factors overwhelm what schools can do. The most recent

is one by ETS. Mike Winerip summed it up in his column in the NYTimes

(welcome back, Mike, we missed you). Just 4 family factors explains

most of the difference in outcomes. A decade or so ago a study of NAEP

similarly found a handful of factors explained most of the state

differences in NAEP results. So the educational debt is compounded by

the housing debt (recall racial covenants that ensured African

Americans could not move to the suburbas after world war II), the

medical care debt (unequal access to medical care by race and class is

pervasive), the employment debt (by the measure of wages, African

Americans remain about 3/5 of a person, while income inequality grows

rapidly) and on and on. The language of 'achievement gap' essentially

obscures that discussion. We need a language that enables us to talk

honestly about what is going on.



7) We should not hide problems in schools. Some schools suffer from

racism and class bias among those who work in them. Some teachers don't

know or care enough. In this, they are like workers and professionals

in every field (have we all not encountered or know of incompetent or

uncaring doctors or lawyers?) We should pay attention to schools doing

the best they can for all their students what they have. And on that

basis, having accountability expectations - provided they use

indicators that fairly and adequately represent reasonable expectations

for learning given the actual circumstances of schools - also makes

sense. Accountabilty should enable those locally involved to consider

processes as well as outcomes. Then assistance should be provided where

assistance is needed. Greater equalization within school systems is

very important -- inequality in many districts is nearly as bad as

inequality within most states, as well as across states. Etc.



8) So I don't agree with those who at least seem to say that any

conversation about ways to improve schools (e.g., about professional

development or improved assessment) should not occur so long as input

and opportunity inequalities are so powerful. I cannot think of a

responsible teacher who would not try to learn more and do better, and

the same should be true for collectivities of educators (schools). But

resources too matter in these expectations - it takes time to do

assessment well or for teachers to engage in collaborative learning,

and that time should not be expected to be donated free by teachers.

Thus, any 'accountability' expectations must be placed in the larger

contexts of social and educational inequality. We must therefore reject

the fraudulent political discourse  about 'achievement gaps,' and our

concepts, language and proposals for change must likewise address the

issues of opportunity to learn and learn what in a comprehensive and

balanced way.



9) It'll take time to change the discourse. Example: the Joint

Organizational Statement on NCLB (now with 141 education, civil rights,

religious, disability, parent, labor and civic groups signed on) calls

for major changes in federal law. If implemented, the law would be

remarkably different in content and effect. But the Statement also uses

the language of "achievement gaps" and thus accepts some inadequate and

misleading framing of deep issues. To move to the next level of

thinking about changing the approach to school improvement will require

a discussion among the groups supporting the Statement (and among many

others as well). Part of the story is that with the increasing

discrediting of NCLB, the times and options have changed - despite

continuing efforts of NCLB supporters to claim that critics of this

disastrous law want to leave children behind, a claim intended to

silence discussion. Meanwhile, civil rights groups justifiably will not

support changes to the law they read as abandoning at least the nominal

support for equity found in NCLB - unless there is something better.

Those of us seeking education that is progressive and equitable must be

able to propose specific changes to state and federal policies that

will move education in directions we want. That is partly a matter of

language, more importantly a matter of deeper concepts, understandings,

approaches, demands, expectations, and proposed polcies and law. A new

federal law must address the educational and social debts, provide

schools what they need, then ask for reasonable improvements in

processes and outcomes that indicate the education of the whole child

is becoming available to every child.



10) I will leave aside for now the questions of who should do the

'holding accountable' and in what ways. That's a very important

conversation as we have factors from parents to schools to districts to

states to the feds involved.



Monty



Quoting Diane Aoki <dkeikoa@hawaii.rr.com>:



> I understand about the Nation at Risk, but I must have missed the


> conversation about the use of "Achievement Gap" in  the same way. Do

you


> have an article written about that that explains where you are coming

from?


> Diane


>


>


> On 12/8/07 2:55 AM, "Csubstance@aol.com" <Csubstance@aol.com> wrote:


>


> >


> > In a message dated 12/7/07 7:19:19 AM, taunar@plateautel.net writes:


> >


> > << No doubt that achievement gap's gonna close for real this time.


> >


> > There never was an "achievement gap." I wish people here would stop 
using
> > the


> > ruling class's language to describe the impacts of viciously  >>

segregated class


> > society on what happens inside schools.


> >


> > As long as we let Ed Trust and the rest of those pigs and hogs

define the


> > terms we use to discuss these problems, the further we are from real


> > solutions.


> >


> > Can we at least make two New Year's resolutions?


> >


> > 1. We'll never trace anything except THE BIG LIE back to "A Nation

at Risk"


> > and


> >


> > 2. We'll stop using the phrase THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP.


> >


> > Just think of those two usages (the dating of history from "A  >>

Nation at Risk"


> > and the defining of the problem with public education as "overcoming

the


> > 'Achivement Gap') as the equivalent of using words like "Nigger" to

refer to


> > black


> > and brown people or "Cunt" to refer to female people.


> >


> > "A Nation at Risk" and "Achievement Gap" are almost as obscene --
and


> > certainly as dangerous to clear thinking -- as those two terms were 
when
> > they


> > had


> > more power than they do today.


> >


> > If we can do that after all the years of New Age rethink, maybe we

can stop


> > using the Boss's words to divert us from the real problems we have  
to
> > struggle


> > to solve.


> >


> > George N. Schmidt


> > Editor,

Substance<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR>Check


> > out AOL's list of 2007's hottest


> >

products.<BR>(http://money.aol.com/special/hot-products-2007?NCID=aoltop0


00300


> > 00000001)</HTML>


>


>


>








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