by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

In a recent post, Mel Riddile highlighted several of the shortcomings associated with the latest method for determining graduation rates mandated by the U.S. Department of Education.  While the goal of this policy is worthy—standardizing the calculations throughout the nation—the resulting process is flawed, unfair and ultimately inaccurate.  The two key problems are an arbitrary time frame and an unrealistic as well as potentially punitive accounting for transfer students. 

Simple does not equal accurate

The ultimate goal of a graduation rate should be to measure a school’s effectiveness in producing successful students.  One of the reasons why the accuracy of this statistic has been so elusive is that it depends on so many variables.   In attempting to simplify the process, the Department of Education has built a method of measurement that will make for easy computations but misleading results.  What this overhaul ignores is that schools with high rates of poverty, mobility and ELL populations will be evaluated on information that does not truly reflect the academic performance occurring in their building. Dr. Riddile explained the problems with this new system from the perspective of a principal.  Here are three stories to illustrate the view from inside the classroom.

Easy come, easy go

In schools with high mobility the percentage of students who spend their entire academic careers at the same location can be surprisingly small.  My former school had an annual mobility rate of about 30% meaning that approximately one of every three students left during a typical year.  But during that time the size of the student body was extremely stable.   With remarkable consistency virtually every individual who moved to a new district or returned to their home country would be offset by someone coming in the opposite direction.  I once taught an introductory ELL course, Individual Math 1, which began the year with 24 students and finished with the same number.  Only one-half of those students were enrolled for the entire course.  This level of movement is not a reflection of the quality of education being provided; rather, it reveals the nature of the student body.  Consequently, under the new Department of Education guidelines while the actual instruction in that classroom may have been excellent, the dropout rate of these ninth-graders bordered on 50%.   Clearly labeling unverified transfer students as dropouts places an unfair burden on such schools.   The alternative, precise tracking of all of these individuals as mandated by this plan, would be far too costly in terms of time and energy. 

A tale of two graduates

Maria was in my Algebra 1 class.  She was smart, hardworking, reliable and the mother of a one-year old son.  Her boyfriend (soon to be her husband) and the baby lived with her family while she completed high school.  During her freshman year she made a detour to give birth but when she returned the next year there was no request for special treatment.  She passed my class and all of her other classes.   After five years at the school marched across the stage at graduation.  When I last heard from her she was an assistant manager at a bank.  While the data may label her as a drop-out, I can promise you she was not.

Michelle, my second example, was a quiet and petite member of my Pre-calculus class.   A refugee from Viet Nam she did not look like a 22-year-old.   But the path to her senior year of high school was very different than most.  What should have been her middle school years were spent either on a boat or in a prisoner of war camp.  When she finally arrived in this country she had the life experiences of an adult and the education of a child.  As a 17-year-old “freshman” she had to overcome language and emotional difficulties few others could even imagine.  Despite these immense challenges she succeeded in a college preparatory curriculum to earn a diploma as she approached her 23^rd birthday.  Though her story was far from traditional it deserved positive recognition by any legitimate measure.

Numbers cannot measure everything

As a mathematician, I would love to be able to state that every human endeavor can be measured quantitatively.  Unfortunately such precision is not always possible.  Even baseball, the most data driven sport on the planet, cannot evaluate simply on numbers. Every pitch, every swing of the bat, every spit is recorded, calculated and documented.  But despite this wealth of statistical data there are players in baseball who need to be seen to be appreciated.  There are no precise metrics to measure breaking up a double play, diving to catch balls, sprinting on every play or simply being unselfish. 

Formulating a simple yet accurate device for determining high school graduation rates is equally difficult.  What many of the educational policy makers may not understand is that the diversity of a student body is not just about ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status.  It also includes both the time required to graduate and the stability of their residency.  This most recent attempt by the Department Education is clearly not the answer. 

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:25 AM | Permalink

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

For years Mel Riddile and I shared the belief that there were a number of factors that could have a significant impact on the success or failure of students on standardized tests.  When scheduling the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) exams we took great care to create a positive test-taking environment.  Now there is research that indicates such concerns were justified. 

A recent study of the results of SAT testing in Indiana has found that each change between daylight savings and standard time adversely affected student performance.  Indiana was chosen because counties in the state could independently choose whether or not to participate in daylight savings.  This option created data from two different groups of students—those who changed their clocks and those who did not. 

The Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics found that students who lived in areas which used daylight savings had scores that were consistently 16 points lower than testers who did not have a time change.  A loss of this magnitude could be critical and should serve as a warning to anyone responsible for planning test schedules.  

Some points to consider

While the SAT is different in many ways from end of course barrier exams, the lessons to be learned from this research are clear.  If a simple one-hour shift can demonstrably cause negative consequences, it is incumbent on school leaders to take great care in creating a plan for large scale testing.  Here are some suggestions that worked at my school.

Keep the testing areas small.   Many schools in our district would place hundreds of students in large testing areas such as the cafeteria or gymnasium.  As a direct result of their size these locations would have high levels of confusion, distractions and poor discipline.  To avoid those complications we designed our testing to place students into classrooms, computer labs, or small common areas.  The rule was that no more than three classes (about 75 students) could be placed at any one site. 

Maintain a testing schedule similar to the regular school day.  Rather than alter the normal sequence of classes we built our plan to work within the framework of the traditional day.  Classes met in the same order as they had all year.  The testing periods on a particular day would be lengthened to provide additional time.  No class whether it was an SOL course or not was eliminated during the entire testing window. More importantly this procedure ensured that students who had a tested course during the second block of the day took their exam in the second block of the day.  Schools that implemented special schemes for testing would often lose all sense of continuity.  Students who took a subject in the afternoon might take the exam in the morning or a morning class might be tested after lunch.  Could such a variation cause lower scores?   Think daylight savings time.

Have teachers proctor their own students.  Another advantage of maintaining the normal class sequence is that it allows teachers to work directly with their classes.  Special schedules will usually preclude this possibility.  There are many good reasons for keeping teachers and students together.   Students feel more comfortable asking questions of someone with whom they have a personal relationship.  Teachers will do whatever is necessary to ensure that their students have the best possible circumstances to test.  And there are far fewer discipline issues when proctors know the individuals in the room. 

Place classes from the same curriculum in a testing site.  The untimed SOL exams took dramatically different amounts of time to complete.  A typical Algebra 1 group would take more than two hours to finish while most Biology 1 students would be done in an hour.  Whether a school’s policy is to let early finishers leave or to require that those who are finished wait for extended periods of time, the academic climate in the testing area will be negatively affected.  Also, the initial verbal directions for tests can vary from one discipline to another thus adding to the confusion.  And finally, teachers from the same department are more likely to be able to work together smoothly.

Create the testing schedule well in advance.  In order to plan effectively teachers and students should be informed of the schedule as early as possible.  Whether an exam is on day one or day seven of an eight day testing window is significant.  Our goal was to always distribute the schedule at a department chair meeting two months in advance of testing and answer questions at a faculty meeting prior to the dates.

Not easy, but critical

A testing program that maximizes performance is especially important for certain groups of students.  Individuals in ELL or those with special needs are continually straddling the line between success and failure on standardized tests.  Every advantage or disadvantage a school provides in the design of its testing program can change the trajectory of these young lives.   Such an approach is often not the most convenient choice for the adults in the building.  A student-oriented scheme requires intricate planning, extensive explanations, multiple revisions and demands full participation by every staff member.  But these concerns are a small and reasonable price to pay for our students. 

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few week’s ago, I ran across a retired teacher, who had built a nationally recognized music program. He and I had worked together, and I had the pleasure of being his administrator and one of his biggest supporters. He was a true showman and I had the distinct pleasure of attending many of his outstanding student performances. Many of his students went on to musical careers because of his outstanding teaching.

I asked him how his successor was doing. He turned to me and said, “I have the feeling that he is driving my car down the highway.” Without hesitation, I replied, “I hope he is. After all, the greatest compliment that he could pay you, his teacher and mentor, was to carry on the legacy of excellence that you built.” He looked at me and smiled. “I never thought about it that way.” I said, “How would you feel if the program that you had worked so hard to build, died a slow death?”

Jay Mathews’ tribute to retiring Wakefield High School Principal, Doris Jackson, is a fitting testimonial to the power of the teacher-student relationship and how that relationship can have a positive impact on a school for a decade. Wakefield High School’s former principal, Marie Djouadi, was a highly respected principal who led Wakefield from a school that was condemned and criticized to the ranks of the highly commended. When her assistant, Doris Jackson, took over in 2002, she had big shoes to fill. I worked in two different schools that bordered Wakefield. So, I had a number of opportunities to talk with Doris, and I can tell you, that she was all business from the get go.

Wakefield High School, located in Arlington, Virginia has the odds stacked against it. It is a high-poverty, urban school with a diverse, highly mobile student population. Approximately half of the students are low-income. The school is 85% minority--47 percent Hispanic, 27 percent black, 15 percent white and 11 percent Asian. In addition, Wakefield has a large number of second language (ELL) students who come from over 60 countries and speak more than forty languages.

Fast-forward eight years and Doris Jackson has not only sustained what Marie had started, but she paid the ultimate compliment to her teacher--she took the school to another, higher level. President Obama delivered a nationally televised speech from Wakefield last year. It is no accident that the President chose Wakefield as the site for his speech. Despite many risk factors including a decaying physical plant, Wakefield has become a beacon of hope for under-resourced schools across the country.

Referring to Doris Jackson as “one of the nation’s most imaginative and resourceful principals,” the article listed some of her many innovations and accomplishments including the following:

• The College Board Inspiration Award for outstanding work in preparing students for college and beyond.
• Top 2% of all high schools in Advanced Placement participation
• 37% pass rate, more than twice the national average, on Advanced Placement exams.
• The only public, non-magnet high school in the Washington metro area to require a senior project
• Met adequate yearly progress
• A strong focus on ninth grade

Great Schools Have Great Leaders

Leaders grow leaders! The test of a great leader is what happens when they are gone. While no change is permanent, at least in Wakefield’s case, the work of Marie Djouadi was carried on and further extended by her successor, Doris Jackson. Hopefully, Doris’ assistant principal, Chris Willmore, will carry on the work and continue the legacy of excellence at Wakefield High School.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)