Skip to main content

Ratings and testing Part IV: So what now?

classic equality vs equity image. left side three people of different sizes stand underneath a fruit tree on boxes of the same height. Only the tallest can reach the fruit. In the right hand picture, the boxes are different heights, and the shortest person gets the largest box, so everyone can reach the fruit.
Image source: MPCA photos 

 Honestly, I don't know. Ok, OK, I know a few things....

  1. We need to be truthful about standardized tests. We need to talk often and publicly about their limitations, their built-in discrimination against poor kids, and what they can and can't measure. 
  2. We need to stop using standardized tests as the primary way we measure, and talk about, the quality of teaching and learning in schools. 
  3. We need to get serious about equity. Whether or not a school gets resources should not be left up to haphazard grant-writing, parent contributions, or a "market-driven" funding formula. We need a new way to budget money for schools - one that provides at the very least a baseline budget for every school - but more likely we need to let go of market-driven approaches. Equity doesn't mean that everyone gets the same, it means that everyone gets what they need. Kids are not a product and schools are not a business - as long as there are kids in them, it's not OK for them to fail financially. 
  4. Students with higher needs - i.e. those facing greater "headwinds," should be given the most resources. And we should have accountability and transparency around this. Because school budgets fluctuate with economic ups and downs, we should keep track of who has a librarian, which schools have counselors and music teachers and reading readiness programs.  we could also be transparent about those headwinds so that we can see when higher-needs kids are clustered into a school or set of schools.
  5. We should still make schools accountable to the community for making sure students learn. It's not a bad thing to try to measure academic growth - but absent an understanding of student need and school resources, those measurements become punitive. If schools and/or teachers are doing a great job supporting new immigrants, or kids experiencing homelessness, or kids with disabilities, it should be celebrated, not labeled as a "failing school."
  6. Finally, we need to give parents different ways to understand the schools around them. How can parents learn about the culture and classroom of the schools in our city? Well, there's lots of ways to look at a school culture. As a parent I'd like to know things like:
    • What does discipline look like? Are there a lot of suspensions? Are students taught productive ways to handle frustration and conflict?
    • What does equity look like? Are students from any particular demographic over- or under-represented in important school data points (like suspensions, special education, tracked/AP/gifted classes, etc.)?Do kids learn how to work together across differences?  Is racial literacy taught and diversity valued? 
    • Stability - has the school been able to keep its staff around? Leadership? 
    • What's the vibe in the school? Are the teachers, parents and students excited about the school? 
    • Does classroom instruction include approaches that motivate lots of different kinds of kids? Is my kid going to be excited about going to school? Is he learning about himself as a learner and a human being? Will he start to acquire a "toolkit" of strategies to use when he gets stuck or frustrated? 
None of this fits tidily into a one-number score or level. But it is the information that would help me make decisions about where I want my son to learn. It is also the kind of information that would help many of us white or privileged parents consider a wider range of schools for our children's education. 

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rating and testing Part I: "failing schools"

 I think one of the biggest takeaways from making the BPS timeline is how much test scores matter. Our state test - the MCAS - plays a majority role in a school's ranking (Tier 1, 2, 3, or 4),  or if it is turned over to state receivership (State level 5). It determines if a school is labeled "underperforming," which, given our current budget allocation where money follows students , can mean decreased funding if parents choose to send their students elsewhere (which, of course, can mean decreased resources for the remaining students, which can mean decreased scores, lower ratings, fewer students, etc., etc. etc. until it closes or is put in receivership).  At the very least, it can lead to parents typing away in frustration on social media, "These schools are failing our students!" Some would say they have led to over 70% of BPS schools being moved, closed, reformulated or otherwise disrupted in the past 20 years . I think it's worth it to ask: given all th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rating and Testing Part II: Could it Be Poverty Itself?

This is the second article in a series. See Part I . I think the next question we need to ask ourselves is: is there something about poverty itself that interferes with learning?  There are many pop-psychology explanations of why poor kids do worse in school: poor kids don't do as well as rich kids because their parents are too busy to help them (or not well-educated enough), or that  they don't have access to enrichment activities . These are the more generous ones. Others simply lean on negative stereotypes about low-income families: they don't value education, they are trapped in a culture of poverty, or, my personal favorite, the debunked theory that they simply don't talk to their kids enough (the "word gap theory" [insert eye roll here].  So let's unpack some of these a little. First off, let's just knock off the beating up on families of low-income kids. Yes, parents may be busy but poor and/or marginalized families care just as much, if not mo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rating and testing Part III: So....what about those test scores?

 In the first two posts in this series, we talked about about two factors that might influence student scores: school resources and student family income . Now we're going to tackle a key cornerstone of modern school reform: standardized testing.  If you recall, the theory of the case of school reformers is that standardized tests will provide parents with a way to compare schools, and then make an informed decision about where to send their kids. In this post we're going to look at standardized testing.  A lot of the complaints about standardized testing are about its effects on teaching and learning. Opponents of high-stakes standardized testing will argue that it only measures a limited range of skills, in a way that doesn't necessarily reflect a student's true talents. They may argue that it doesn't measure crucial skills like creativity, problem-solving or leadership, that resources devoted to ELA/math test prep crowd out other subjects like science or social ...
Post a Comment
Read more