Whom do you believe? Me or your own lying eyes? -- Diane Ravitch
Walcott says high school students could have written a more credible report than the I.B.O. He says the report's methodology is faulty and inaccurate. ----WABC
The usual narrative from the city is that student achievement has significantly and steadily improved under Mayor Bloomberg, but the report by the Independent Budget Office has a different story to tell.... According to the I.B.O. report on student achievement of selected students tracked over several years, 62 per cent were found to show no improvement between 3rd and 8th grade, while only 30 per cent improved, and 8 per cent lost ground.... The city often points to narrowing the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and white students, but the I.B.O. report reads: "The findings for this cohort of students indicate little evidence of a narrowing achievement gap." --- WABC
Report Finds Student Performance on State Exams Remains Consistent
------
Here's a report by the NYC Independent Budget Office. It has drawn some public attention and strongly voiced
disparagement from the NYC DOE.
I'm including a link to an article in today's Daily News (p.2) based on the
report.
Keep stirring the pot and DOE will overreact in ways that often come
crashing on City Hall and Tweed. Listen carefully to their words on testing. It's the sound of a house
of cards falling down. ----Fred Smith
-------
How can the DOE say that you can't use the state tests to compare individual students
--------
Fred: how can we trust any trend line derived from the state tests given the test score inflation and overall unreliability of the exams over this period? And aren't proficiency levels even less truatworthy as they are set by the cut scores which are easy to manipulate and were indeed manipulated as we know by NYSED? -- Leonie Haimson
--------
Leonie:
Based on the record, I don't have faith in the tests, the test makers, SED
and the reporting and use of the exam results for students, teachers,
principals and schools. Did I leave anything out?
Let's focus on the floating cut scores, which are set on the basis of
expediency (aka other considerations). Political and budgetary
factors weigh into the decision about where to place the cutoff point. Raw
score distributions are transformed into scale score distributions. Even
when (2006-2009) a scale score of 650 was established as
the point required to reach proficiency--there was nothing constant
about the score needed to demonstrate that a child "meets state learning
standards" because of the factors you cite and the other considerations that
entered the determination about where the passing bar should go.
Then a four-point performance level scale was imposed on top of
that structure, with three cutoff points dividing the raw score
distribution into four parts. As you know, the Level 2 / Level 3 split
separated kids who were proficient from those who were improficient (i.e.,
partially met the learning standards). The Level 1/ Level 2 split delineated
those who were eligible to be held back in New York City, while merely labeling
the Level 1s in the rest of the state as having serious academic
problems. There who reached Level 4 were deemed to meet the standards
with flying colors--but the tests were never long or sensitive enough
to differentiate among kids at the high end.
The 2009 results tie this together. The cut scores were set so
obviously low that record high percentages of students were at or above Level
3. At the same time, the number of Level 1s practically disappeared,
because Level 2 could be reached by guessing--that's how low the L1 / L2 cut
point had been set. Both outcomes were good for politicians who were
running for election or re-election that year. And budget was also spared,
because with so few Level 1s, money for academic intervention services did not
have to be expended.
Chancellor Tisch did her 2009 test results press conference in a stern,
non-celebratory manner--promising more comprehensive, more rigorous, less
predictable tests and higher standards in the future--part of her educational
reform agenda. In short, no more lies. It was also a promise
not to look back and investigate how testing had become so distorted. That
would have exposed the discredited cut scores. Commissioner Richard Mills
retired shortly after the announcement and never addressed reasonable suspicions
that he had been instrumental in setting the indefensible 2009 cut scores.
But in 2010 and 2011 Tisch went with the same publisher (CTB/McGraw-Hill)
that had worked with SED's Office of Assessment to provide the statewide testing
program from 1999 forward. If the 2009 results were so unworthy, why
then did she continue to engage CTB in 2010 and extend the contract
for 2011? This is where Tisch developed her posture of decrying the
tests, scowling and saying testing couldn't continue as it had before--but
immediately nullifying her position by noting she had been reassured by the
publisher that everything was valid and the testing would go on.
And in 2011, Pearson was awarded the contract. The Pineapple King has
a 5-year ($32 million and counting) agreement to develop and bring forth the
program--getting us through the transition period leading to the common core
standards and probably beyond that to the next frontier--computerized individual
testing. This year we paid Pearson to field test items by embedding them
in the operational April test exams and in stand-alone field tests
administered last month. These items will be used on next spring's
operational statewide tests. But for several obvious reasons the field
testing was inadequate--so next year's product will be seriously
compromised.
SED is requiring Pearson to hire an "independent" investigator to look at
the problems it just encountered. What a great way to find out that everything
Pearson did was valid. But parents and the public have caught on to the
way testing has been manipulated and has come to dominate education.
Yes, in this context, score inflation, lack of reliability (especially in
scoring the open-ended items), a shrinking window of transparency,
never-ending political machinations, privatization/corporate ambitions, shielded
by an unrelenting unwillingness to have an independent investigation, make it
clear that distrust is warranted.
The picture is bleak. The hope for change lies mainly with parents,
courageous teachers and principals, but also with an enlightened union and
progressive politicians to create the critical mass needed to take back public
education and restore its central place in a democracy.
Fred
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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.
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