I've been reading about Washington State House Bill 1410 and Senate Bill 5444 (HB 1410/SB 5444). One legislator has some good points about the positives, but is not specific enough about definitions, especially school failure.
"School Failure" must be carefully defined. If not, there is a risk of punishing those of us who take on the challenge of working with high-risk, high-poverty, highly transient communities as well as students who are learning English. One fair way to track progress would be to look at a cohort of students and their test scores over time, minus students who transfer in. Each cohort can be very different in their strengths and challenges. For this reason it doesn't make sense to compare progress made between different cohorts, as we currently do to monitor Adequate Yearly Progress (A.K.A. AYP).
Furthermore, developmentally some students will need more time to make growth in math and reading and writing. Therefore, with quality teaching we may lay the foundation for a child to make great growth in time. We cannot always demonstrate that growth in a year's worth of testing. Learning to read, especially when you're just learning English is quite complex. Can you imagine learning to read a language you just barely speak!?! Children may be sponges for language at a conversational level, but they need years to gain command over the academic language we use in school.
Another area that worries me about WA HB 1410 and SB 5444 is the definition of teacher accountability and how teacher performance would be rated. When will society be held accountable for all the ills and challenges some of our students and their families face?
FUND QUALITY EDUCATION
IF WE WOULD SPEND MORE ON QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL, THERE WOULD BE LESS CRIME AND JUDICIAL COSTS. We serve all students. Some of those students turn to gangs and other crimes. Help us through funding early education, smaller classes and more enrichment opportunities for at-risk students! It makes sense economically and it's the decent thing to do.
Teacher accountability
There is no question that teacher's must be accountable for their performance. Performance usually means how her student perform. So far so good. How do we measure student performance? By using multiple choice tests! We are forcing teachers to teach the kids how to pass those tests. Why have multiple choice tests replaced teacher evaluation?
When did we stop trusting our teachers? Why?
Are there any out there who think that teacher evaluation is more important than scores on a multiple choice test?
Evaluation
The current model holds the building principal accountable for the staff in the building. They are the ones who currently evaluate teachers. I think this provides a nice check and balance, though it may concentrate too much power in the hands of the principal.
digitaldrz, what are you suggesting is the best method of evaluation of teacher performance? Do you like the idea of peers within a building evaluating, peers from the district or what?
The form of the current WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning)is not strictly a multiple choice test and is what is currently used to judge building, class, and student performance. I'm not defending the WASL, but I think after years it has improved. My major beef is that the test has become such a high stakes event with building funding, and student graduation often relying on the results. I would like it if the test would be used to best inform instruction and evaluate student learning of grade level performance expectations. If the test is to continue to be used to judge performance, I think it would be nice to have the results judged taking into account the diverse demographic and socio-economic conditions of the individual schools and learning cohorts.
I also have some questions about the NCLB legislation(No Child Left Behind). The idea of adequate yearly progress seems odd to me as well, and CCG and I have had conversations about this. We are comparing different cohorts to each other without taking into account the individual demographics of the cohorts either. Also, it seems there should be an accepted level of excellence beyond which we should be requiring buildings to exceed. I'm not saying we shouldn't attempt to have 100% of students at standard, but once you hit a level of 98% or so, should you really be tweaking the system much more in order to attempt to improve? Also, it wouldn't seem fair to financially penalize the building for not making progress if they were to only have 96% of the students pass the next year. Just some thoughts, and I don't claim to be an expert and am open to hearing others opinions on the subject.
Evaluating Teachers
I am not familiar with Wa tests, so I need to tread carefully. I don't know what you mean by "strictly not a multiple choice test", but let that go for now. My first question is who determines the "passing grade" and how. I agree that the NCLB tests have become an end in themselves. Too much stick and not enough carrot.
Are you familiar with the VA SOL, specific learning objectives. http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/curric/index-SOLs.html
I assume that every state has something like them.
My plan would have the teacher evaluate the student as having accomplished an objective or not. This provides both an evaluation and diagnostic and leads easily to a prescription for weaknesses. The teacher is responsible for correctly identifying strengths and weaknesses and to remediate weaknesses, find ways around them, or bringing the problem to the attention of specialists. A bit more problematic would be evaluating a teacher whose class as a whole does not meet objectives.
That's the way we used to do it before "objective tests" gained such prominence.
Here is my take on how that came about.
As more and more students wanted to go to college and competition became more intense the colleges could not depend on grades since different schools have different standards and there were too many people to interview. So the CEEB, later the SAT was initiated to prune the number of applicants. They never really were a good predictor of performance, but it kept the Educational Testing Service in business and made the college application procedure "more objective".
But then it trickled down to HS applications because they wanted students who could pass the SAT. Objective tests then became the basis of NCLB leading to the mess we have now.
In short, "objective tests" were developed to make life easier on the next level of education. I do not think it is the obligation of elementary schools to make the high school selections easier nor the obligation of the high schools to make college selections easier. Let teachers nominate the best students and let them produce projects the student has completed in support of that decision. Does anyone remember Authentic Assessment?
I repeat: why have we stopped trusting our teachers?
WASL
Yes, the WASL is not strictly (or merely) a multiple choice test. It includes short answer responses this year. Last year, it included short and extended responses.
A huge improvement to the AYP system would be to track the progress of a particular cohort of students, as in how they do as 4th graders versus 3rd graders. Currently, AYP goals are comparing how different cohorts do in various grade levels. It would be even better if transfer students didn't count for or against AYP.