downspiraling opport. after testing

[karen hartke <khartke@FAIRTEST.ORG>]

For those of you watching, Massachusetts state just released it's progress
report on schools across the Commonwealth.  Without belaboring all the many
flaws in this report (math teachers are calling it "phony math" and so
flawed its "embarrasing") it pretty much follows along the same lines as
other "accountability" schemes focused solely on test score results. (For
more on this, check out Mass. web site - www.fairtest.org/arn - or go to the
Boston Globe or Herald for recent stories).

But, what I really wanted to point out is this following description of how
this kind of accountability can play out in general - and exacerbate
inequalities and inequities between school districts based on their capacity
to respond.  I think it hits the nail on the head - and is worth viewing
more broadly.

It comes from our own near and dear Anne Wheelock - the same co-author of
the Mass. based "Alert" on dropouts and MCAS - also on the web.
Karen H.


>>>>>>>>It seems to me that different schools respond to bullying in
different
ways.  Based on what I've been reading, schools with high or even moderate
"capacity" -- those in smaller districts where schools have greater
autonomy, longer school days, more opportunities for professional
decision-making --  may respond to the bullying in some positive ways.
Some seem to be phasing out their low-track classes and expanding the
number of kids who get grade level curriculum, for example.  And in these
schools, the numbers of students who get "failing" on MCAS are relatively
smaller.  This means remedial programs can be more personalized, more
connected to a more challenging curriculum.  Achievement improves as more
kids have better opportunities to learn, do more authentic writing, get a
curriculum that builds on learning based on thinking and social interaction.

But schols with low or limited capacity -- those that are part of a large,
bureaucratic district culture, where teachers have been isolated for years
from opportunities for professional development, where principals have
limited autonomy (not to mention where school libraries, science labs, and
other resources that diversify learning are lacking) -- may respond to the
bullying in a much more bureaucratic way.   When these schools find that
maybe more than half their students have received "failing" on MCAS, a
major response is the grade retention of larger numbers of students.  Then
come the remedial programs -- but compared to those in "high capacity
schools," these are less personalized, more likely to be packaged,
computer-based programs (remember the summer programs portrayed in the
documentaries on Charlestown and Madison Park High Schools), and more
oriented to skills or test-taking.  Rather than getting students involved
in thinking, problem-solving, and other learning that helps students
develop an academic identify, the limited "capacity" in these schools leads
to practices that, in the long run, actually reduce achievement.  Add to
this the picture of high schools where the kids who last retake MCAS over
and over -- with reduced opportunity to take real classes.   Schools in
this situation have to fight hard not to give in to a kind of "undertow" of
remediation, a remediation culture.

The high stakes MCAS-based school ratings can reinforce the labeling of
schools -- without  addressing the "capacity" issue.  Even with the same
label, schools that have the most resources (of all kinds -- social
capital, real resources) can respond more effectively to work on improving
teaching and learning, and they will accomplish more.  Schools with the
fewest resources adopt the thinnest, most remedial practices.  Although
these may seem to "rationally" meet the needs of their students as defined
by their MCAS label, the students and schools will still fall further
behind their counterparts in other districts.  Despite the exceptions to
this pattern that the state and Edgerly point out, an overall pattern of a
growing achievement gap is built into the overall system.

Anne Wheelock
Boston, Massachusetts
wheelock@shore.net





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