Fwd: [arn2-strategy] Bush vs Bush on Test-Based "Accountability"

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Robert Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>
> Date: Sun Jun 18, 2006  6:21:09 AM US/Pacific
> To: ARN Main List <arn-l@interversity.org>,  arn2-strategy 
> <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>, FCARForum@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [arn2-strategy] Bush vs Bush on Test-Based "Accountability"
> Reply-To: arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com
>
> COMPETING STANDARDS
> HOW CAN A SCHOOL GET AN A FROM THE STATE, BUT BE DECLARED FAILING BY 
> THE
> FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?
> BECAUSE NEITHER MANDATE IS PERFECT
> St. Petersburg Times -- June 18, 2006
>
> Gov. Jeb Bush finally has called out his brother, President Bush, on a
> federal law that makes Florida schools look worse than they are. But 
> the
> battle over conflicting education reforms is entirely of their own
> making. In their hands, the standardized test has become a blunt
> instrument intended to beat diverse schools into identical shapes, and
> the Bush brothers are pounding away from different angles.
>
> The point Gov. Bush was trying to make Wednesday, upon release of some
> glowing test results, is that the federal No Child Left Behind Act uses
> an unrealistic and impossibly rigid formula to assess schools. Under 
> the
> federal law, a school fails if either the overall student body or any 
> of
> eight identified subgroups of students fails to meet the target on
> reading, math and writing tests. The state, on the other hand, factors
> both the total scores, lowest scores and the overall improvement in 
> scores.
>
> "With no disrespect to anyone in Washington," Gov. Bush told reporters,
> "I believe our system is the most comprehensive system of measuring how
> schools are doing based on student learning, by far."
>
> This might be one of those esoteric bureaucratic disagreements if not
> for the extraordinary stakes involved. This year, 72 percent of Florida
> schools failed the federal standard. More than 500 of them have failed
> four years in a row, which begins to trigger a requirement that the
> schools be closed or restructured or taken over by the state. Already,
> such schools are docked money to pay for private tutors, and students
> are being invited to leave for better schools.
>
> The problem will only get worse. By 2013-14, the federal law requires
> that 100 percent, or every single student in every single school, meet
> grade-level standards in reading, math and writing. Now 57 percent of
> all students and 39 percent of black students meet the reading 
> standard.
>
> The goals are not at issue. Schools in the past have too easily covered
> up the weak academic performance of poor or minority or disabled
> students by disclosing only school-wide test averages. No Child Left
> Behind forces them to focus on groups of students that have been
> neglected. The problem is in using one set of test results to issue
> nationwide, one-size-fits-all edicts about the classroom.
>
> In Florida, for example, 712 of the schools the federal law deems as
> failing this year are in line to receive millions of dollars in bonuses
> from a state system that grades them with an A. How is a principal or a
> classroom teacher expected to reconcile these contradictions?
>
> The governor notes that Florida's grading system looks beyond the
> bottom-line score to consider the improvement each student makes. That
> provision is a strength of the A+ grading system, because it helps to
> measure how well the school and its teachers are performing.
>
> Much like the No Child Left Behind Act, though, the A+ Plan suffers 
> from
> an inflexible and simplistic approach. The state Education Department
> has been so slavish about its grading formula that it has forced the
> closure of some experimental schools formed to work with students who
> were failing badly in traditional schools. How does that serve 
> students?
> The $134-million "recognition" program continues to hand out bonuses to
> schools that accept only academically advanced students, and the two
> highest rated schools this year were for International Baccalaureate 
> and
> gifted students. Is it any wonder they scored well on the test?
>
> Standardized tests are an important tool of accountability, but they
> alone can't determine whether a classroom teacher needs a bonus or
> should be fired. If Gov. Bush is finally fed up with federal mandates
> that misuse the test, he might want to call his brother. Then he should
> ask teachers for their own thoughts about state mandates.
>
>      
> http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/18/Opinion/Competing_standards.shtml
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
> Great things are happening at Yahoo! Groups.  See the new email design.
> http://us.click.yahoo.com/vSQhKB/hOaOAA/HwKMAA/x3XolB/TM
> --------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
>     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arn2-strategy/
>
> <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>     arn2-strategy-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
>     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/