From Nick of Twilight of the Idols comes the depressing story of one year in the school labeled one of the worst in Florida, Shaw Elementary. Nick has commentary on Part I and Part II on his blog, so go check out what he said. I'll just hit a few highlights - or perhaps "lowlights" is the better word:
... Shaw has the worst test scores in the county. The state gave [the] school an F. Vice president of her class at Jefferson High, National Honor Society, finished college in three years. Now, at 54, [Shaw Principal] Mrs. Pedrero gets her first F.
The principals of Hillsborough's four F schools - the county's first - are summoned to their equivalent of the principal's office: a meeting with superintendent Earl Lennard. At a career low point they get to face the cameras.
Lennard tells the assembled reporters: The state changed its grading formula again. Under last year's formula, Lockhart, Oak Park, Robles and Shaw elementaries all would have made passing grades. Lockhart missed passing by only two points.
Nevertheless, they're still very close to failing altogether. What determined the F that Shaw received?
Their collective FCAT performance was dismal: seven out of 10 not on level in reading and math; nearly half not on level in writing.
Regardless of how the state ranked Shaw, it's obvious they aren't teaching the younger kids how to read and write, and it's sad to think that this school could have passed on last year's grading scheme, or even come close to passing on any grading scheme. Given this, I'd say the negative attention given to Shaw is warranted.
One fifth-grader's story is singled out; she's "embarassed" by her school's performance. I'd say she should be more angry at the fact that her parents may have to sacrifice those hair-salon bills for tutoring lessons and some Hooked On Phonics materials.
Another Shaw teacher is livid that the "A" schools claim "hard work" as the secret to their success. This teacher insists that the kids at Shaw work hard, too. Even if they do, they obviously aren't working productively. And if the socio-economic status of the kids explains everything, why does this article feature a fifth-grader who wears designer clothing?
Most F schools may be poor, but not all poor schools are F schools. It takes more than poor kids to create a poor school.
Deputy superintendent Jim Hamilton asks what the schools need to turn F's into A's. We're shooting for the moon here, he says. Don't worry about cost.
They shoot. They want: More computers.
I'll just insert Nick's rant here: "70% of the kids at this school can't read at grade level, and they want computers?! How are the students going to use these computers if they can't even read? Computers don't teach children; teachers teach children."
Ms. Gettel herds her 20 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders in a wobbly line along the sidewalk. They're headed to a class of first- and second-graders, each carrying a book to read to the younger kids. They call it Buddy Reading.
So, we have kids who may not read well teaching the younger kids. Having a reading buddy isn't a bad idea, but the buddy isn't supposed to be the one teaching reading skills. It should surprise no one that the teacher who supervises "buddy" reading "detests" school grading, ostensibly because it hides "how far behind" the students are before they start school. No, what it does is highlight that a school isn't doing anything to bring disadvantaged children up to speed. So what if some of Ms. Gettel's kids - who are third-, fourth- and fifth-graders, remember - can't sound out three-syllable words? It must be their home life, and only their home life, to blame.
The kids in Ms. Gettel's and other classes have taken practice writing tests twice a month since September. Now the tests come every week and add reading...On today's practice test, some kids get the narrative prompt:...Others get the expository...
The practice tests are a royal pain, but they help, that much is clear. On a 1 to 6 scale, two fourth-graders improved from 2s to 4s and two improved from 1s to 3s. Are they better writers? Or better test-takers? That's for the rest of the world to decide.
Um, no. The tests measure how well they can write. They are practicing writing. They are learning how to write, and then they are taking practice exams on which they are performing better. These are not multiple-choice items, but holistically-graded essays that are now better-structured and more likely to be completed within the time limit, which means that the practice of writing is becoming easier. These students are now better writers than before; otherwise, their test scores would still be miserable.
I'm all for journalistic neutrality, people, but this unwillingness to draw a conclusion about the effect that practicing writing has on one's ability to write, and how that also relates to test scores, is ridiculous.
Today on the sidewalk outside the math lab, a handful of the school's "gifted and talented" students are Egyptians assembling the eighth wonder of the world. An architect - a real one - guides their every move. Ms. Angelo recruited him to design the Styrofoam pyramids, complete with blueprints.
Ms. Angelo certainly has good intentions, but despite taking abuse from her small charges, I hear nothing in her statements about rules, about discipline, about high expectations, or about the punishment/negative reinforcement that must accompany bad behavior. When a student comes from a lousy home situation, it doesn't help for the school to feel sorry for that student, rather than setting strict limits. Ms. Angelo needs to do more than "look beyond" their behavior.
There's an extensive pep rally the day before the FCAT. The kids need to be pumped up, not least (I think) because their teachers seem convinced that the FCAT is culturally-biased, and that these kids are ultimately products of their home lives, and not the school. That's how the teachers come across in this article, anyway.
And what happened on the FCAT? Well, the school did indeed improve, although it's still below the state average (and earned a D this time around). Despite the time spent on pep rallying and ego-massaging, I'd say the practice exams and focus on the basic skills are what created the improvement. Nevertheless, the administrators at Shaw want to avoid a poor school grade by use of a portfolio, just like third-graders can bypass the Reading section of the FCAT with a portfolio.
The article spends a fair amount of time describing the outburst of one parent, who isn't buying the "buddy" system of education:
It's parent-teacher conference night and one parent, Rachel DeLeon, is ready to unload...The red flag went up during the first nine weeks when her fifth-grader, Josh, and her third-grader, Carmen, started bringing home the same work. What was that? She learned they were in the same reading class. Multiage classrooms were one of Mrs. Pedrero's reforms.
When progress reports went home, it looked as though Josh and Carmen were flunking. A note said the teachers would meet with her at parent-teacher conferences ... in a month. A month?
Mrs. DeLeon penned a note on each report and sent them back via her children: "Please call me ASAP. Thank you." Nobody called.
Mrs. DeLeon's outburst was fairly obnoxious, but one can understand her disappointment. She might buy the argument that it's fine for a third-grader to be exposed to fifth-grade work, but I would ask:
(1) If the third-grader can't do her own work well, how will exposure to fifth-grade-level material help that?
(2) How is exposing a fifth-grader boy to his sister's third-grade work supposed to help him?
(3) What's the point of multiage classrooms that involve cooperative work?
And there's more, but I'll let Nick take over from here:
Today's update of the journal drives home the fact that even though 70% of the students aren't reading at grade level, Shaw Elementary has a TV studio so that kids can broadcast the morning announcements. I'm well aware of the fact that almost everyone likes to be on TV, but surely the money that went into this studio could have been better spent...
How, exactly, did the principal manage to report that 73 percent of the students were reading at grade level at mid-year when they obviously weren't? How were the students measured at mid-year? There was nearly a twenty percent difference between the school's numbers and the test's numbers; it seems fairly obvious that something was wrong with the way the school determined which students were reading at grade level...
It seems that Mrs. Pedroro - the principal of the school! - was unaware that the highest score in the math section is a 5; she was simply reading "Column 6" on the spreadsheet. Shouldn't the principal be aware of facts as basic as the grading scale on the FCAT?...Forgive my cynicism, but a principal who can't be bothered to know the grading scale on the high-stakes test that her students are legally required to take sure doesn't seem very responsible to me...
Nick is right to question the Reading vs. Writing scores. Shaw's scores on the Writing section (79% at high level) are far higher than on the Reading section (29% at high level), which doesn't seem possible. If the kids can't read, how can they write? This article mentions that writing scores have increased despite the fact that schools tend to spend more time focusing on math and reading. The passing score is a 3, and 88% of Florida's student made that scores last year. Thus, the writing section can't be too difficult.
This page describes the rubrics of or the holistic scoring of the essays. Here's what earns the middle score of "3":
The writing is generally focused on the topic but may include extraneous or loosely related material. An organizational pattern has been attempted, but the paper may lack a sense of completeness or wholeness. Some support is included, but development is erratic. Word choice is adequate but may be limited, predictable, or occasionally vague. There is little, if any, variation in sentence structure. Knowledge of the conventions of mechanics and usage is usually demonstrated, and commonly used words are usually spelled correctly.
According to the state, at this level a student is "meeting expectations" in writing. Is this what Shaw Elementary considered a high passing score? I bet so. Will a student who writes at this level have thorough comprehension of a reading passage that is at a higher level; i.e., the FCAT Reading passages? I think not.
The really sad part to all of this? According to this article, even some Florida schools who earned A's are shortchanging the majority of their students, because the grades are based on improvement, and not absolute standards of accomplishment:
If FCAT scores were based only on achievement and graded like classroom work - 90 to 100 percent for an A, 80 to 89 percent for a B and so on - there would be 77 A schools instead of 1,229.
- Of Florida's nearly 2,600 public schools, 888 relied more on improving test scores than on high test scores to get their grade.
Emphasis mine. Shaw may not be a good elementary school, but chances are that some of the elementary schools with higher grades aren't doing a better job of educating their students.
Posted by kswygert at August 26, 2003 10:22 AM