Absurdities and Kneecapping

 Dear Absurdists and Kneecappers,

 Did you see this headline: NY Post Comes Out Against School Grades: These grades flunk

It is becoming increasingly clear that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is doing no one any favors -- not the public, and certainly not himself -- by assigning letter-grade report cards to city schools. The jerry-rigged system for determining the grades obscures more than it reveals. Thus, the information the cards impart is worse than misleading -- it's virtually useless. And the charter-school movement -- an unambiguously bright light in the city school system -- is particularly ill-served by the letter grades. 

Unambigously bright light? They must suffer from severe pupil dilation.

Poor babies. They're favorite pet charters didn't do so well on the grading system. It must be flawed. But then again we knew that all along. Of course Michael MulGarten stepped into it with this one:

The teachers union -- which detests both the competition from charters and the use of tests to hold teachers accountable -- hopped on the new grades with both feet.
Traditional schools' edge in grades means "either the strategy Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have touted for so long -- the creation of more charter schools -- isn't working, or that the entire progress-report methodology, which relies almost completely on standardized test scores, is flawed," crowed union boss Michael Mulgrew.

Tweed was quick to point out that the UFT's own charter got a "D" with the comment, "those in glass houses shouldn't cast stones." The UFT charters have suffered one disaster after another with numerous changes in leadership. I actually agree with the Tweedies here. We told the UFT not to get into the charter school game because they would never be able to take a position opposed to charter schools or be able to lead a real fight back for public education if they did. And so they did (get into the game). And so they don't (lead a fight back).

 

Leonie Haimson commented:

Even the NY Post, owned by Murdoch and close buddy of Bloomberg and Klein admits that the school grades are so absurdly unreliable they should be eliminated.

The straw that broke the camel’s back for them this year appears to be the way charter schools got lower scores on average this year.

The jerry-rigged system for determining the grades obscures more than it reveals. Thus, the information the cards impart is worse than misleading -- it's virtually useless.

 Followed by Steve Koss

It's difficult not to guffaw over the absurdist inconsistency in the Post's "new position" on school report cards, what with their having gone from its greatest shills to sudden detractors simply because they disagree with its outcome in respect to the system's assessment of charter schools.

What's even more astonishing is that they either don't see or don't care to see the other astonishing inconsistency in their revised position on the school report cards. If after having spent countless millions of dollars and doubtless reflecting the professional genius of innumerable experts on education, the end result is so inconsistent and unreliable that even the Post's troglodytic conservatives want to throw out this type of reporting at the aggregated school level, what could possibly make any sentient homo sapiens think that INCREASING the granularity of these measurements to the teacher/classroom level will be any better?

Likely without the faintest sense of what they've done, the editors at the Post have kneecapped their own already-indefensible position with regard to value-added analysis and evaluation of teacher performance. After all, if the geniuses at DOE and their wasted millions couldn't do it right for entire schools (where aggregation enables at least some degree of the margin for error to wash itself out), how on earth can it be done for a third-grade teacher with just 25 or 30 children in a classroom?

What could be more better than seeing the Post's editorial troglodytes unknowingly clubbing themselves in the knees without even realizing they're doing it?

Steve Koss

Jane Addams got a D

Dear Colleagues,

Yeah, [Jane] Addams got a D.
But the fix was in, right from the start, for us to "fail."

A closer look at the "report card" reveals:

1. Our "Student Performance" (success in graduating students, in four years) score: B
Honestly, what the hell else matters???


2. Our "Student Progress" score: F

Simplified- We didn't improve enough from the B in "Student Performance."

And in case you haven't noticed- the competency of the students admitted to Addams is not the same as it was just four years ago.

(No longer are students who really want to come to Addams routinely admitted.)


3. The group of 40 so-called "Peer Schools" to which Addams is being compared includes schools that are very different than ours.

Many of the 40 are newer "mini academies" - the replacement schools for schools that were previously closed down.

These schools have much smaller enrollments, and can, to a larger extent, "cherry pick" which students are admitted and which are rejected.

The dirty little secret is that many of these rejected students are sent to… Addams (and Truman)

Remember, the big money (Gates Foundation, Broad Foundation, et. al.) and its lackeys (Klein in NYC, Rhee in DC, et. al.) is on "proving" that "traditional" "big" schools (read: us!!!) don't work.

And - surprise, surprise - this report card does just that.

Hope y'all haven't already spent that $3,000 "bonus money" that we were never gonna get, but were conned into voting for - twice.

Solidarity forever (for the Union makes us strong)

A teacher at Jane Addams HS (the Bronx)

Some in Australia Prepare "Big Welcome" for Joel Klein Visit

To be forewarned is to be forearmed! - Leonie Haimson

And forewarned and forearmed our Aussie friends will be. It looks like the blogging efforts of the NYC Public School Parents blog, Eduwonkette, Ed Notes, NYC Educator, A Voice in the Wilderness, Under Assault, Diane Ravitch and all the other watchdogs of the Joel Klein theory of shock doctrine management of schools have had their words reach into the Land of Oz. One of our correspondents in Canberra, Trevor Cobbald of "Save Our Schools," has been helping prepare the way in giving Klein the reception he deserves when he visits in November.

According to the Australian paper the Age, the Australian teachers union and education advocates are not buying the unreliable NYC school grading system that Joel Klein is pitching to them down under. Don't expect the union to lie down and roll over like the UFT.

The federal president of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, said the Australian Government should not be importing "flawed" approaches from the US, a nation that was consistently outperformed by countries such as Finland which did not publicly rank schools.

Canberra-based public education advocacy group Save Our Schools last week called on Ms Gillard to release the details of her performance reporting plan to ensure it did not reproduce the problems of the New York system, which it said had led to league tables and dissimilar schools being compared with each other.

"Let us have an informed debate while Klein is here and not just a one-sided presentation to bolster Gillard's secret negotiations with state and territory governments," SOS spokesman Trevor Cobbold said. "It seems it is all being decided behind closed doors with the axe of Commonwealth funding held over the heads of state and territory governments to ensure compliance."

Doesn't Klein have a school system to run? I guess it's not that hard a thing to do as he and Michelle Rhee seem to have a hell of a lot of time for politics. But that is what this ed reform thing is all about, mate! Well, guys, throw another shrimp on the barbie for Joel so he doesn't go home hungry.

Full story: http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/a-new-york-state-of-mind-20081012-4yyk.html?page=-1

What grade did your school get?

Professor Celia Oyler at Columbia Teachers College sent this along to various list serves.

What grade did your school get? How valid and reliable are these grades? Given the fact that these grades are being tied to very high stakes outcomes (bonus pay and school closings), it is essential that the public be educated about the construction of the grading formula.

As teachers, we know that students want our grading systems to be fair.
Take the quiz on testing your knowledge on the school grading formula at
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news/article.htm?id=6681
and decide for yourself just how "fair" the system is!

Also, "skoolboy" really breaks it down at:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/eduwonkette/skoolboy/

Randi Weingarten added to 4/23 Grading NYC Schools Panel

Public invited. Details here.
I bet no one says the very idea of grading schools is rediculous and a waste of time and resources.

Test your Knowledge of School Grades in New York City

Version 2 based on more input:

Written by Professor Celia Oyler

Test your Knowledge of School Grades in New York City
Version 2 (12/21/07)
Written by Professor Celia Oyler
(send comments to oyler@tc.edu)

In November, 2007, The New York Department of Education issued a letter grade of A through F to each school in the city. Each grade is based on a very complex set of formulas. Test your knowledge about these new school grades.

1. The school grade is based on three “elements”: school environment, school performance and school progress. At the elementary and middle school level, what percentage of the final grade is derived from achievement test scores?
a. 10%
b. 25%
c. 55%
d. 85%

2. The New York State achievement tests used to calculate progress are designed by psychometricians and are normed in advance on a large group of students to ensure that the items at each grade level are appropriate for that grade level.

TRUE FALSE

3. From a psychometric point-of-view, New York State achievement test scores offer a reasonably adequate tool to measure progress of learners from year-to-year.

TRUE FALSE

4. Under No Child Left Behind, schools are expected to show that children in grades 3 through 8 have—on average—made one year of progress as measured by achievement tests.

TRUE FALSE

5. In the DOE’s formula, the year of progress is calculated using statistical methods that take measurement error into account.

TRUE FALSE

6. The 55% of each school grade (in elementary and middle schools) that the DOE calls “progress” (and is based on the averages of 2 achievement tests scores at each grade level) takes into account the unreliability of the average gains in achievement within each school.

TRUE FALSE

7. To get the highest score of a “4” (1 is lowest) on last year’s English Language Arts test (ELA), in 5th grade, a child can only get one question wrong on the multiple choice section.

TRUE FALSE

8. The scoring of the writing sample of the achievement tests uses a rubric and is conducted by:
a. Department of Education personnel to ensure that all results are reasonably fair
b. Teachers across the city who sometimes know the schools they are grading for
c. Personnel from the New York State Department of Education who are trained to not take into account such factors as the children’s handwriting
d. Temporary workers hired by each school

9. Each school in New York City is subjected to a Quality Review where a trained observer rates the school on many dimensions of curriculum, instruction, and assessment of learning.

TRUE FALSE

10. The results of these Quality Reviews are then factored into the final grades each school receives.

TRUE FALSE

11. A school can receive a “proficient” on its Quality Review and still receive a school grade of “F”.

TRUE FALSE

12. Circle all that are correct: The school grades are based on how well each school:
a. Teaches children to solve problems
b. Uses culturally relevant pedagogy
c. Integrates the arts
d. Provides time for children to exercise
e. Prepares children to make healthy food choices
f. Helps teachers work cross-racially and cross-culturally
g. None of the above

13. The scores that New York City students achieve on the New York State tests show basically the same trends as those that a sample of New York City students achieved on the national achievement test (called the National Assessment of Educational Progress and administered since 1969 to samples of students across the country).

TRUE FALSE

14. There is a strong correlation between the list of schools that New York State has rated as failing and the ones that received a grade of “F” by the New York City Department of Education.

TRUE FALSE

15. Of the 346 schools in New York City that the State of New York has flagged as having the most difficulty (SINI: Schools in Need of Improvement; SURR: Schools Under Reregistration Review), how many received a grade of A?

a. 10
b. 25
c. 40
d. 50

16. The ARIS computer system specifically designed by IBM for the DOE and intended to track student progress on annual and periodic assessments cost approximately
a. Eighty million dollars
b. Eight million dollars
c. Eight hundred thousand dollars
d. Eighty thousand dollars

17. The DOE assigns each school its final grade based on the actual score in relation to all the peer schools so in theory every school could achieve an A, if all students showed a year of progress.

TRUE FALSE

18. A school can receive an “F” even if 98% of its students are rated on grade level in math and 86% are on grade level in language arts, as measured by the New York State tests.

TRUE FALSE

19. After all the large number of calculations are completed—including being compared to the schools in the “peer group”--each school receives a final score. These scores are then converted into a final grade.

TRUE FALSE

20. The final score of one school may be only one hundredth point (0.01) away from another school, but one school can get a higher letter grade than the other.

TRUE FALSE

21. Short Answer (extra credit): Since these school grades are: so expensive to produce; not based on many important aspects of what many educators and parents consider central aspects of schooling; do not take into account multiple measures of student progress and school quality; do not take into account standard statistical measures of error; and are based predominantly (in elementary and middle schools) on state tests not designed to be used to make year-to-year comparisons of student growth, why are these school grades being used by the Bloomberg/Klein administration?

http://www.tc.columbia.edu/news/article.htm?id=6466