Test-Prep Triage Documented

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

A CONCENTRATED APPROACH TO EXAMS:

ROCKVILLE SCHOOL'S EFFORTS RAISE QUESTIONS OF TEST-PREP ETHICS
Washington Post -- March 4, 2007
by Daniel de Vise

The principal of Earle B. Wood Middle School in Rockville gathered 
teachers and handed out a list of all the black, Hispanic, 
special-education and limited-English-speaking students who would take 
the Maryland School Assessment, the measure of success or failure under 
the federal No Child Left Behind mandate.

Principal Renee Foose told teachers to cross off the names of students 
who had virtually no chance of passing and those certain to pass. Those 
who remained, children on the cusp between success and failure, would 
receive 45 minutes of intensive test preparation four days a week, until 
further notice.

Under President Bush's education initiative, hundreds of middle-class 
suburban schools like Wood, with a history of solid test scores, are at 
risk of academic failure. They must address nagging achievement gaps 
that cut along racial and socioeconomic lines or face the penalties and 
possible "restructuring" that the federal law prescribes.

The coming weeks will bring a battery of tests -- Virginia's Standards 
of Learning exams, the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System and the 
Maryland School Assessment -- that will determine whether schools and 
students have made "adequate yearly progress" under the law. Maryland's 
testing begins March 12.

Because these "high-stakes" tests exert unprecedented influence on 
public education, principals and teachers are struggling with the ethics 
of test preparation: Is it right to give extra help to some students and 
withhold it from others based on who is likely to pass? Is it acceptable 
to set aside regular instruction for lessons on how to solve 
multiple-choice questions? Is it all right to forsake free-form poetry 
for a steady diet of heavily formatted reading passages?

That is what some teachers say has happened at Wood. Their accounts and 
interviews with Foose offer a glimpse at a kind of test-prep triage that 
analysts think is increasingly common at many schools but is rarely 
discussed in public.

"We're not talking about instruction," said Bonnie Cullison, president 
of the Montgomery County Education Association, who is investigating 
teacher concerns at the school. "We're talking about a narrow set of 
skills that is really about passing a test."

Foose, in telephone and e-mail interviews over several weeks, said that 
a few unsupportive employees were distorting the school's efforts to 
help students with the greatest needs.

"No student here is excluded from any instruction whatsoever," she said.

Foose, a former state trooper who became Wood's principal last fall, 
explained the process:

"Our school improvement goal is 80 percent of all students pass" the 
assessment, she wrote in one e-mail. "We were determining how many 
students we know will pass based on their classroom performance."

All students received extra support, she wrote in another e-mail, "some 
more than others." Children with little English ability or severe 
cognitive disabilities were excluded, she said, because they get 
intensive help through regular studies.

Then, last week, she said that the special lessons had been halted.

Another Montgomery middle school principal, speaking on condition of 
anonymity for fear of her being fired, described the pressures that she 
and others face:

"You have to be smart about what you do," she said. "Because, 
realistically, I don't want to think I could lose my job, but I could 
lose my job if the school doesn't make [adequate yearly progress] for 
too long. Realistically, we could all lose our jobs."

Wood serves a community of single-family homes and apartments typical in 
a dense suburb. Its student population is approximately 44 percent 
white, 23 percent Hispanic, 19 percent black, 12 percent Asian and 1 
percent Native American. One student out of four qualifies for federal 
meal subsidies.

Last spring, 68 percent of Wood students rated at least proficient on 
state tests, surpassing the state average of 65 percent. But the school 
failed to make adequate yearly progress, the federal standard for 
success, because special-education students, those with limited English 
proficiency and those receiving federal meal subsidies fell behind in 
reading scores.

Foose came to Wood to set things right.

A veteran principal, who retired last spring, had allowed discipline to 
lapse, said two Wood employees and Cullison, who has spoken to other 
staffers.

The laxity extended to testing season, one teacher said: When students 
sat for the assessments, "kids who were fully capable of passing, they 
just didn't care."

Parents saw immediate improvement under Foose. Student suspensions fell 
by more than half after she arrived.

"She is very direct. She is very focused. She is very determined," said 
Pauline Lamberg, Wood's PTA president.

The principal's approach to state testing was, by all accounts, focused 
and determined.

Test preparations began in earnest, the staffers said, on the day 
faculty returned from winter break. In separate meetings with the 
English and math teachers, Foose handed out lists of "subgroup" students 
and outlined her plan:

"We were told to cross off the kids who would never pass," one staffer 
said. "We were told to cross off the kids who, if we handed them the 
test tomorrow, they would pass. And then the kids who were left over, 
those were the kids we were supposed to focus on."

The next week, teachers regularly began pulling selected students from 
social studies, science, gym, art and other elective classes to work in 
small groups to prepare for the test. They used test-prep workbooks and 
sample material from the state education department's Web site.

The principal and some employees disagree on how often students were 
removed from classes for test-preparation. Foose said that many teachers 
delivered extra instruction in the classroom.

Employees say that Foose and one of her administrators added to the 
urgency by telling students and parents that those who failed the 
assessments might be held back. The principal said the comments came 
from an assistant principal and were more about students' long-term 
academic prospects.

Foose and her supporters say the remedial lessons ultimately did much good.

"Trust me -- you want students to be able to pass a basic comprehension 
test," Deborah Longo, leader of the eighth-grade instructional team, 
said in an e-mail.

Others, inside and outside the school, said they thought the exercise 
crossed a line.

"They're not teaching the material," Cullison said. "They're teaching 
them how to take a test, which is a huge disservice to these kids."

   
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/03/AR2007030301372_3.html