Re: MCLB "Anniversary?" Millions of children left

[PAVURSOL@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/8/2003 5:17:04 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
aburke@vansd.org writes:

> I visited two elementary and two middle
> schools.  All of them have taken special care, by different means, to
> help kids feel part of the school community.  Might carry over no matter
> what the scores are.  Hope so.
> 


And if the scores don't go up at the rate someone far away thinks they 
should, even if your eyes, heart, and data shows good things happening, once 
sanctions and labelling begins, how hard will these schools fight to keep the 
good things and to keep from doing the raise the scores at all costs things?  

Mickey
Why I care about the SOL test pass rates at my school

I recently discovered that at least some of the SOL tests have questions from 
year to year that are almost exactly the same. Different vowel sounds or 
number of cubes to count, but almost exactly the same questions.  I'm making 
a list for the teachers at my school.  I'm hoping they'll use the format of 
those questions to do some test prep over the course of next school year and 
get my school's pass rates up, up, up.  

I'll bet you are wondering why I, the mom who has spearheaded the parent 
revolt against state's over-emphasis on the SOL test results, would think 
that this exercise was worth my time. After all, I do have some letters to 
the editor to write, a letter to the Governor about his seeming acceptance of 
the pass rates as the end-all be-all in his new PASS initiative, and five 
kids to play with.  

Well, you would be right that I don't think pass rates should be used as the 
bottom line to describe how schools are doing. In and of themselves, they 
simply aren't a good enough, thorough enough, or descriptive enough measure 
to tell us much about how our schools are doing.  I know that decades of 
research say that student achievement on standardized tests like SOL tests is 
strongly related to factors that schools have little or no control over like 
parental education, socioeconomic status, and student mobility.  I also know 
that there has been and continues to be an inappropriate focus on improving 
scores without any real increase in learning.  I know that the negative 
effects of high stakes testing far outweigh any positive effects.  And I know 
the tests aren't precise - no test is.  

But right now, the state says "pass or else."  Actually, they say, "70% pass 
or else."  And if you look at the way they calculate the 70%, it is often 
times much lower than 70%. But enough about the state's numbers games; this 
essay is about why I want my school to increase their test passers. 

I want more test passers at my school because I want my kids to stop doing so 
much test prep.  I don't want my kids to practice bubbling in SOL look-alike 
tests multiple times  a week across the school year.  I want the teachers in 
my kids' schools to relax a bit and stop using multiple choice for all their 
tests.  I'd like to see some deeper, richer assessment.  Enough practice on 
coloring in the dots on the tests.  

I want the percentage to go up at my school so that we can get back to some 
of the creative activities we used to do before the SOLs.  I'd like to get to 
that point quickly because some of the parents of younger kids don't know 
what that was like and how much kids really enjoyed going to school. Their 
only experience is test prep and dreading the bus.  

I'd like to increase the pass rate because we're hiring a bunch of new, 
first-year teachers each year.  They don't remember when kids read for fun 
instead of reading for AR points -all in an effort to get SOL scores up.  I'd 
like the experienced teachers to enjoy their teaching before they leave us. 
Their "deer-in-the-headlights" look is hard for me to watch.  

I want to see more test passers because I'm tired of the superstitious 
behavior I am seeing schools engage in to get the score up. The rise in pass 
rates from one year to the next doesn't mean the teachers were phenomenal.  
The fall in pass rates from one year to the next doesn't mean the teachers 
were coasting.  Scores fluctuate from year to year because we test different 
groups of children from year to year. At this point, teachers are so nervous 
about the pass rate that if they thought that spinning around twice before 
entering the school each morning would get the scores up, they would do it. 

I want to see higher pass rates because then I wouldn't have to continue to 
defend the school I have chosen for my kids to people who have no idea what 
the research says about score volatility, the inappropriateness of measuring 
a teacher's effectiveness on her class's pass rate, and how every test has a 
standard error of measurement that the state refuses to recognize.  The 
teachers in my kids' classes are working hard to educate my kids despite the 
state' insistence on controlling their classrooms.  

I want my school to have more kids pass because then we could stop using the 
pacing guides that dictate all kids on the same page at the same time.  
Anyone who thinks that all kids can learn the same amount of stuff in the 
same amount of time hasn't met any kids.

I know that when my school's pass rate rises and accolades fall, when the 
media swoons, when the Governor shakes our hands, that, in reality, all we 
did was get a couple more kids to bubble in a couple more "correct" answers 
using some testing tricks.  I know it.  But when we get a couple more kids to 
bubble in a couple more answers, then perhaps we can begin to really work on 
making sure all kids learn the stuff they need to know and the stuff they 
want to know.  I can't wait.  Neither can the kids.