The Chicago school board plans to "shock" some schools into realizing their shortcomings:
The school board has adopted a strict new accountability plan that would place nearly half the city's 600 public schools on academic probation, a move decried by critics as extreme but embraced by officials as necessary to shock the system into higher performance...
The new rules, passed late Wednesday, require elementary schools to have at least 40 percent of students meeting state and national testing norms, up from 25 percent; the standard for high schools increases to 25 percent from 15 percent. Under those rules, 293 of the system's 602 schools face probation, up from 82 now. A school can get off probation by reaching the 40 percent or 25 percent cutoff on tests given in the spring, or showing substantial progress -- 10 percentage points -- on the tests.
Duncan said that over the past 10 years, the number of students scoring in the bottom quartile on standardized tests has been halved, from 48 percent in 1993 to 24 percent now. The problem is that too many students are now stuck in the mid-range...
Critics, of course, say that these increased standards aren't fair because they're accompanied by no extra funding. But recent score increases have happened despite greater fiscal restraint, so it doesn't follow that test scores only rise when more money is pumped into the system:
...Duncan said there is plenty of evidence that the system continues to move away from where it was when Bennett embarrassed the city with an insult that is still raw for many Chicago educators.
That comment ushered in dramatic reforms. And in 1995, the state Legislature gave control of the schools to Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has kept a jealous eye on the schools, preaching fiscal restraint, tough new standards, and accountability.
The impact was immediate and Daley, and his new management team, structured like a corporation, quickly became darlings of the education world. They achieved labor peace, balanced the budget, eliminated millions in waste, and instituted more after-school and preschool programs, while dramatically expanding summer school and ending the practice of advancing students simply because of their age.
And scores have improved, although they also seem to have plateaud. Hence the tighter standards.
I checked out the website of the PURE folks, who were mentioned in the article as being critics of these new tougher standards. They sound like devoted parents who supposedly support tougher standards and true school reform. But they can't get over their testaphobia. This is what they want for accountability measures:
Sound, high quality methods of determining student academic progress which include true multiple measures such as classroom-based assessment, grades, and other student work products created over time, and which use standardized tests as a secondary factor in the overall assessment.
I read this and I think: What happens when standardized test results wildly deviate from class grades, which has been happening all over the country lately? Doesn't this compound the issue of grade inflation? Does PURE know how difficult it is to develop "high quality" student work products that measure longitudinal development? Does PURE know how much more that costs than regular standardized tests, and how much more classroom time is involved? Just how secondary are standardized tests supposed to be?
Another conundrum is that PURE wants "High quality performance standards for teachers beyond administrative certification which support capable teachers and allow effective remediation of poor-performing teachers," but they also want students to suffer no sanction if taught by unqualified teachers. If that's the case, what motive is there to become qualified? And where are the demands to get rid of poor teachers who fail to respond to remediation?
PURE also regurgitates the standard anti-testing lines:
[NCLB flaws are that it is] misusing standardized tests resulting in increased student push-outs and drop-outs, more students denied promotion or graduation status due to test errors, and a narrowing of the curriculum to focus on tested subjects...
1. There is no solid evidence that standardized tests cause higher dropout rates (or push-outs). There is research to suggest that higher dropout rates correlate with exit exam use, but correlation is not causation. States with large numbers of poorly-performing high schools, that most likely have high dropout rates, are probably the states that were most likely to implement early exit exams, in order to identify and support struggling students.
2. While recent test scoring errors have been lavishly described in the media, there is no evidence that tests are routinely miscored.
3. Schools that already teach basic skills in an effective manner won't find themselves narrowing the curriculum. Schools that can't teach third-graders to read English will find themselves with less time to teach art, music, and self-esteem. No one has yet demonstrated that narrowing a school's curriculum to include solid reading and math instruction for all students is damaging to education.
Posted by kswygert at February 27, 2004 09:49 AM