The Observation Deck

I think the imposition of NCLB on Lakewood Schools is a red herring.

I'm curious about one thing: what children are being left behind right now by the Lakewood School System, and, why are they being left behind?

In other words, at what rate do Lakewood Schools fail to educate their students?

What are the statistics?

Here is what I found on the ODE site.

http://www.ode.state.oh.us/reportcardfi ... 044198.PDF

The areas not met were:

4th grade math, science and citizenship
6th grade reading, math and science
7th grade math
8th grade math
graduation rate

The graduation rate is 89.9% and the goal is 90%.

I hope I am reading these right, if not please correct me.

I support your point and I believe as O’Bryan stated, that most kids would rather learn. Using a teaching methodology that is a hundred years old is probably going to miss the mark in a lot of cases.

I can completely get behind this. There are a lot of potentially cool teaching methodologies out there but due to a restricted view of how to interpret kid's success (passing proficiency tests) then it begins to restrict how people can teach. You always hear the phrase "teaching to the test" and that has never been more valid. I talk to kids in various school districts and in the month or so leading up to March proficiency tests, the teaching methods change drastically. It becomes practice testing, testing techniques and hitting on the specific topics covered in the test, regardless if it matches up with the curriculum for this year or the general flow of the year.

I wouldn't blame the unions (as is often done) either. Unions just want to preserve jobs and wages. They honestly don't have a care about how teachers do their job, just that they have them. If a teacher uses method A and another B, who cares. As long as they are employed at the end of the year, everyone wins.

The restrictions on teaching methods lies firmly with how results are gathered and the weights of those results. If a teacher's job is (as is more the case) totally based upon Proficiency testing, how do you think they will focus their time? Would you blame them? This is why when I taught, I really only wanted to do Special Education. At the time I taught, most kids I worked with were exempt from testing. I focused instead on what the kids needed to make a go of it after graduation. We worked basic skills but were completely free to develop a classroom structure and methodology that matched both my personality and those of the kids in the room. Some of the most innovative teaching techniques in the US are generally found in special ed whereas many other innovations are put on hold if they don't have immediate impact in a kids ability to take a specific kind of test. We have literally beat teachers and kids senseless with one form of testing and now we reap the results.

It is interesting that boredom is a leading cause of students leaving school early. With a decline of extracurricular activities that could possibly engage such students, is it any wonder?

There's an interesting set of more global questions available to fund a deeper inquiry. Some of them dovetail with Ken Warren's likewise global suggestions about neo-liberal perspectives on education.

But, one important series of questions has to do with what the proficiency tests do not test; what the purpose of all this proficiency is; what the long-range outcomes are for students; and, the complex array of assessments which, were they rigorously done, would have to do with more sophisticated measures of student's cognitive capabilities. The one that comes to mind, and its become somewhat a cliche, has to do with basic critical thinking skills.

I'm personally interested in more qualitative evaluations via fuzzy concepts such as the future orientation/future focus of students, and, also, how students implement formal and concrete operations. These have to do with human development and the provision of a (hopefully) stable platform for solving what soon becomes the basic challenge of obtaining a livelihood.

A good qualitative question to ask teenagers is: 'how do you think the world works?' One can't expect to get an adult answer but it's a mission-critical question.

***

The graduation rate is good. What about the 10% who jump the tracks?

Re: the graduation rate, I believe I read at one time that the graduation rate and drop-out rates were somewhat hard to pin down because they included students who left the district simply as the result of a move. There was no way to filter them out of the mix. Any student who started school and then failed to appear on the 12th grade graduation list was considered a drop-out stat.

As for testing, there is no reliable evidence that these "proficiency" tests actually tell us anything of value.

One of the oldest and most revered test out there, the SAT, is used by colleges to determine if the student could do well at the college level. Its also used to rank students and make life affecting judgments on them.

Well guess what, there is no relation to a student's performance on the SAT and their success in college. It doesn't predict college grades, college graduation, or later ability to land a good job.

So what good is it other than as a screening/exclusion tool?

All tests are used to rank, categorize, and screen. None predicts your child's success.

What's being tested by the test? Who decided what was on the test? What will it tell you? Why does the content and the requirements change as the politics change?

Its all part of a smokescreen; lets look like we're doing something. Let's look like we're getting tough on these kids and their union teachers.

I suggest reading anything by John Taylor Gatto, a former NYC award winning teacher.

I don't think that proficiency testing was ever meant to be a "be-all/end-all" yardstick for a student's ability or performance. It's merely a yardstick of whether a student has grasped some basic concepts. It's important to note that kids are pretty much finished with proficiency testing by their sophomore year in high school. Plenty of time for the more advanced concepts and thinking Mr. Calhoun properly advocates.
Someone the other day, I wish Ii could remember who, pointed out there has ALWAYS been proficiency testing in schools, but it was the individual TEACHER who decided what kids had to be proficient in. THEY made up the tests, and what students had to know what based on their subjective and personalized view. State-determined standards, determined by large groups of educators, make things a bit more, well, standardized.

Is that good or bad? Depends. Some of us who had the brilliant and visionary teacher (in 4th grade?) may find her impact diluted. But testing, while it takes some autonomy from teachers, at least sets a definable bar, so that a kid who gets out of a rich school in Westlake or a cruddy school in Cleveland should at least know the same things.
Passing a proficiency test predicts nothing. Just like SAT scores don't predict college performance, and a college degree doesn't predict a productive or happy life. See them for what they are, useful milestones in a kid's academic career.

So what good is it other than as a screening/exclusion tool?

All tests are used to rank, categorize, and screen. None predicts your child's success.

Please don't think that I posted the schools report card because I am a proponent of testing. We are in the midst of testing currently and I don't see much come out of it. I have no idea what we could use instead. Personalized screening would be ideal, but that would take lots of time and money and therefore I don't see that happening. Until the majority of people decide enough is enough we will continue to teach our children with century old teaching methods and measure their successes based on a standardized test. It doesn't make sense but it is what it is.

My experience:

My daughter (a bright, high-achieving, well-adjusted middle-school age child) is in the midst of testing also.

As a result of the pressure she feels, she has broken down into tears more than once, her generalized grades have fallen, and she firmly rejects my encouragement that "as long as she does her best she has nothing to worry about."

She truly believes that if she doesn't perform well on the test, that she has somehow failed to be a success in the class room. We have always encouraged her to do her best and to be proud of every grade she works for (i.e. a hard earned 'C' or 'B' is more of a success than an easy 'A').

I am besides myself furious that the schools/teachers/administration/society would have her believe that she can be measured by these tests.

JMO -

Peace,
~Charyn

Ms. V.

It's not in a school's interest to intimidate kids before taking a test, so I would urge you to take your concerns up with your daughter's teacher and principal.
My experience over the years has been the opposite. My three have always taken the tests in stride and have worried and fretted much more over the "big game." I wish they cared MORE about the academic tests (two of them are now beyond testing age and have emerged unscathed).
This is always going to be a individual thing, even within famliies. I always puked the entire week before (pre-proficiency) finals, my brother couldn't care less.
At the same time, it IS in the schools interest (not to mention the students') to identify kids who aren't grasping material and to give them extra attention. Good districts are doing that. I presume Lakewood does, too.

I don't think that proficiency testing was ever meant to be a "be-all/end-all" yardstick for a student's ability or performance.

True, but it has become just that, good intentions or otherwise.

Personalized screening would be ideal, but that would take lots of time and money and therefore I don't see that happening.

We had this prior to proficiency testing and still do. It is called teachers grading their students. What happened, right or wrong, is that we as a nation stopped trusting our teachers and schools. But the fact is, there are professionals with the ability to teach and assess each and every student on a very personalized basis but we have elected to pay private companies with little or no interest in the local communities to read and grade the tests that will determine a) whether or not a student can graduate and b) how a school district will be seen in terms of funding and success.

As for "standards" we also had those prior to proficiency tests, at least in terms of curriculum. Some more standardization of milestones would have been better, though. My wife was a child in Findlay, Ohio. As a little girl she was considered "advanced" in the early elementary school grades there. When her family moved to Youngstown and started school there, she was a year behind where they were at and had to do a quick catch up.

I think that can be easily done and some testing can be a part of standardizing milestones and expectations grade to grade. But I don't see the point of putting all the stakes in one test. Even colleges that use the SAT as a starting point also consider a student's extra-curricular activities (in and out of school), accomplishments and some actual written work to determine if a student is qualified for their program (and obviously more expensive or selective schools have even more criteria).

But it all comes back to trust. If schools were able to do their own testing and set more global criteria to assess in students that had more to look at than one test score and whether or not they graduated then we might have better pictures of what is going on. But we don't trust schools. We assume (maybe correctly) that schools will lie and cheat to make their results look better. They are surely doing it with proficiecy testing in some districts where they get as many of the "difficult" kids exemptions as possible.

Maybe the question should be who do we trust more? Politicians in DC or local school teachers and administrators and parents?

Maybe the question should be who do we trust more? Politicians in DC or local school teachers and administrators and parents?

Very perceptive.

It's not in a school's interest to intimidate kids before taking a test

I doubt there is much in the way of actual intimidation. The older kids we used to live above when we first came to Lakewood fit Ms. V's story to a tee. Bright, competetive and successful kids who sometimes fell apart during the month of March. One kid took it in stride but the other had trouble sleeping, eating and so on. He did fine when all was said and done but it wasn't fun or rewarding.

The reality is that these ARE high stakes. They might be intimidated but it probably comes from the fact that so much is done to prepare for it and so much weight and importance is laid on it. Who wouldn't be intimidated? If my job took one month out of the year to test me and took me out of my normal work routine you can bet I would be pretty intimidated, too. This would be even moreso if I could lose my job for this one month test, regardless if my other 11 months were excellent in terms of performance.

While I can contact the school and they can try to be as sensitive as they can be to children taking assessments, we have to realize that our children don't live in a bubble.

My daughter listens to the news when I have it on, and reads the papers she delivers as well as the L/O that sits around the house. Kids are bright, and no matter how well we insulate them, they will understand through any number of means that these tests ARE important. Even if we were to completely prevent them from hearing of them through the media - Phil made a good point in that the simple fact that the teachers take the time to prep for the tests implies their importance.

Do I think she will suffer irreparable harm? Nahhh.... but I think we can do a better job of spending our tax dollars that are earmarked for education. Maybe take all of that time and money and use it to help children with learning disabilities for example....

Just a thought.

Peace,
~Charyn

I think we need to get a tiny bit of the real picture.
What do you think happens to kids who flunk the 3rd grade reading test? Dragged to the dungeon and flogged? Whips, rubber hoses, and flashcards? No, they pass to 4th grade, where the teacher works a litle harder with them on their reading. Or math.
And so it goes, until the Ohio Graduation Tests where kids get THREE WHOLE YEARS to pass 5 tests!!!
My middle one flunked 6th grade math proficiency. She is, by all accounts, still alive (although as a HS junior, she doesn't check in that much anymore. )
I daresay we had higher stakes testing in our youth, when a failing math final bought you summer school or worse.
As to whether testing is the "be-all and end-all", it's important to remember that "by the numbers" Lakewood is the worst school district in the western suburbs. Yet parents believe in it, and taxpayers support it. So evidently SOMEONE looks beyond the numbers, which is as it should be.

Stephen Calhoun wrote:I think the imposition of NCLB on Lakewood Schools is a red herring.

I'm curious about one thing: what children are being left behind right now by the Lakewood School System, and, why are they being left behind?

In other words, at what rate do Lakewood Schools fail to educate their students?

What are the statistics?

No one responded directly to Mr. Calhoun's very direct question,so I'll try.
Lakewood is not making enough progress from year to year in one category, special-ed math.
There are about 6800 students in Lakewood schools, about 15 % fall into the special ed category. That's just about 1,000 students.
Only about 40 percent are math proficient,according to the OH Dept of ed report Ms. Masters linked to.
Lakewood., again according to this report, needed about 53 percent making sufficient progress (not the same as passing the test) That would be 530 students. 400 made suffcient progress. Therefore, 130 would be considered at risk of being "left behind" in math.
Is 130 big or inconsequential? I don't know.