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Interversity Quotes"I think it's time to ask the Standardistos: Where's the test for compassion? For honesty? For curiosity? For moral commitment? Until they can answer, let's tell them to shut up." —Susan Ohanian (One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards) Interversity ProjectsEchoes of Orwell:The purpose of this webforum is to promote a lively discussion among students and faculty alike about George Orwell's 1984 and the parallels or echoes found in today's society. |
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: 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
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