High Stakes Testing Worm Turns - We hear, "No-fair!! No-fair"

Hey Folks -

The "Damned Human Race," as Twain called us, is at it on many fronts. One involves the play-pretend notion of high-stakes testing as a "solution" to the "problems" of education.

Essentially, the scheme punishes poor, rural, urban, and ethnic/immigrant-rich schools while freeing wealthy, suburban, mostly white/upper-middle class schools from scrutiny. It is "fixed"; the people have been put into piles labeled "winners" and "losers" and segregated on the basis of economics.

Although the tests give no insights that weren't known before the tests, the scheme serves to beat on the "losers" in a cold-hearted attempt to squeeze a little more profit out of underprivileged, underpaid young people - without having to invest in them.

When a peculiarity in Ohio's system shed a negative light on a few suburban schools (who clearly had "left a child behind," the squeeling and complaining began. Below is the country-club Republican, Columbus, Ohio newspaper's "No-fair!! No-fair!! editorial.

It is followed by my letter of response to them - still unpublished.

- Uke Man

Report-card fix
State rankings shouldn't disregard school districts' overall academic achievement
Friday, August 1, 2008

Another excellent central Ohio school district has fallen victim to the Ohio Department of Education's insistence that overall academic excellence doesn't count if a certain group of students, no matter how few in number, fails to progress.

As he did last year, state Rep. Larry Wolpert, R-Hilliard, is pushing a bill that would address the illogic of the state's approach. It would have the state evaluations make distinctions between a district's overall achievement and its success with designated subgroups of students.



Lawmakers should pass some version of Wolpert's bill.



The Dublin City School District is the latest to be stuck with a mediocre label of "continuous Improvement," essentially a C grade, despite having met every one -- that's 30 out of 30 -- of the state's quality standards.



Like Hilliard, Pickerington and Worthington before it, the Dublin district this year receives the middle ranking automatically because at least two subgroups of students, as designated by the federal No Child Left Behind law, failed to make adequate progress over last year. Those groups include poor students, those with limited English skills, special-education students and those in six racial categories.



Under Ohio's interpretation of the law, it doesn't matter if the subgroup includes only a few students; the struggles of three or four can lower the ranking of a district enrolling thousands of students.

Education Department officials have defended the practice as the essence of what the federal law was supposed to do: force school districts to work harder to address the needs of all students, to leave none behind. And they're right that nothing spurs action faster than the threat of negative consequences for inaction.



But, how meaningful is a ranking system that assigns the same verdict to Dublin City Schools, which met all 30 criteria, as that earned the year before by the Cleveland City Schools, which met four?



The public deserves a realistic picture of a school district's performance as well as its efforts to leave no children behind. Both are important, but the current ranking system emphasizes the second measure at the expense of the first.



Wolpert's bill would allow districts such as Dublin, which need to work harder with certain minority groups, to have a conditional rating. It would say the district is excellent overall but still hasn't achieved the goal of improvement for everyone.



That's a clearer, fairer picture.



* * * * * * *

My response:





To the Editor and whomever it may concern,

There is a lot more to the first sentence of your editorial “Report-card fix” (included below) than you might admit:

“Another excellent central Ohio school district has fallen victim to the Ohio Department of Education's insistence that overall academic excellence doesn't count if a certain group of students, no matter how few in number, fails to progress.”
The argument is that if one doesn’t count “poor students, those with limited English skills, special-education students and those in six racial categories,” then Dublin , Hilliard, Pickerington, and Worthington are excellent schools.

A second argument is that if these eight categories contain “few in number,” the school’s inability (as determined by state tests) to address their needs, i.e. their leaving children behind, is a separate matter from an “overall” rating:

“Wolpert's bill would allow districts such as Dublin, which need to work harder with certain minority groups, to have a conditional rating. It would say the district is excellent overall but still hasn't achieved the goal of improvement for everyone.”
Is this a double standard? The editorial asks:

“how meaningful is a ranking system that assigns the same verdict to Dublin City Schools, which met all 30 criteria, as that earned the year before by the Cleveland City Schools, which met four?”

It seems to me that if wealthy suburban schools are going to be judged as excellent, deficient, etc. by how the students not in one of the eight categories fared on the tests, then Cleveland should be judged by the same standard.

It’s possible that if Cleveland schools were evaluated by your dual method, it could be said, “the district is excellent overall but still hasn't achieved the goal of improvement for everyone.”

Dublin’s 2005 mean household income is estimated* as $96,900.Cleveland’s is $24,105. Dublin ’s population is 31,392*. Cleveland ’s is 444,313*. Which community do you think has more “poor students, those with limited English skills, special-education students and those in six racial categories”? How many of the 30 criteria would Cleveland pass if only students who weren’t poor, in one of six racial categories, English-language limited, or in special education were the only ones counted in determining “excellence”?

The educational community is not responsible for the fact that few households earning $24,105 a year can live in Dublin , nor are they responsible for the fact that fewer immigrants and minorities can afford to live in Dublin than can afford Cleveland . So how reasonable is it to rate Cleveland low and Dublin high simply on the basis of systemic economic segregation?

It is not reasonable. But neither is it surprising. A testing system producing consistent denunciation of the poor and powerless, the neediest, and the most underprivileged is regularly declared by the Dispatch and others to be just what the doctor ordered; but the mildest slight to the upper middle class is attacked as unreasonable quackery.

How sad – and self-serving.

* http://www.city-data.com/



- Uke Man