Friday Open Thread
Two things:
A reporter for the Nathan Hale Sentinel, Ryan Lenea, wrote to me asking for help on an article he is writing about MAP. He is looking for the following info:
I am currently writing about the MAP testing administered in Seattle Public Schools; what it is, why we do it, how much it costs etc. Also, could you please refer me to anyone else you think is knowledgeable on this topic, or who has a strong opinion on it?
I am not a deep-dive on MAP so I asked him if I could ask my readers and he said yes. If you are knowledgeable about MAP (uses, costs, etc), could you drop him a line today? Also, if you have strong feelings, yay or nay, could you do that? He is on a deadline. He's at
A reporter for the Nathan Hale Sentinel, Ryan Lenea, wrote to me asking for help on an article he is writing about MAP. He is looking for the following info:
I am currently writing about the MAP testing administered in Seattle Public Schools; what it is, why we do it, how much it costs etc. Also, could you please refer me to anyone else you think is knowledgeable on this topic, or who has a strong opinion on it?
I am not a deep-dive on MAP so I asked him if I could ask my readers and he said yes. If you are knowledgeable about MAP (uses, costs, etc), could you drop him a line today? Also, if you have strong feelings, yay or nay, could you do that? He is on a deadline. He's at
Comments
I don't like the Seattle Schools content management system. What I do is strip out the "sessionid=[gobbledygook]" from the URL before sharing it.
Also, what's on my mind now is fixing/updating the Seattle Schools page on Wikipedia. Cheryl Chow is still listed as a Board director, and new schools are not listed. I wonder if anyone knows a central admin contact or SPS Web person, or some similarly unemployed but skillful webby-do-it-all like me who can feed me links so I can do some citation-fed edits. Taking on three years of obsolete urls seems daunting.
WV: what arthritic people must be doing these cold days: "bonemone."
This is expected to save money.
Could Seattle save money this way?
So many commentators are questioning what “occupy ‘your city here’ ” really means.
Having guided one child all the way through Seattle public schools and still guiding a second; having been a part of many PTA meetings, auction procurement, coffee and cookie sales, banking day, chaperoning as needed etc.; what ‘occupy’ means to me in light of what is happening across the nation and what is happening on a micro-scale within the School District is this: there are tiny ways I can help my community here at home to guide small changes that ultimately may have a global effect. I teach my children this, and do my best to stay focused, and act, upon this principle. With that in mind, I would like to begin to make a list of proactive items that may be of interest to others. Please add ideas for consideration.
Ideas for Occupying Seattle (School District!)
*Bring a motion to your PTA to move money to in-state Washington bank or credit union. There is a lot of money that goes through PTA Groups here in Washington. Keep the money in our home state. Why not?
*Does your schools PTA funnel monies through the Alliance? Why? Do you know their percentage of administrative costs?
*Bring a motion to your PTA to do something similar to what Schmitz Park and Roxhill
Recently accomplished. Help a school near your own. Since PTA monies are not
pooled to share on a grand scale, take a step to “share a performance”. What a fabulous
idea!
*The next time your school holds a Scholastic book drive and teachers get to make a “wish list”, how about a ‘”wish list” for a neighboring school? It won’t get them everything they need, but speak with their librarian. The offer will create conversation, and perhaps a creative solution.
*Can your high school students donate titles that they loved as a middle-schooler, and deliver to a needy school library? Can your middle-school students donate titles of favorite books of theirs from the elementary level and deliver to a needy school library? Students are encouraged to/need to earn community service hours. Put those community service hours to work!
Why is it that the Alliance is providing the Coordinator and Facilitator for the Board Retreat?
Two and a half years to go
Thank you for your marvelous comment. I've done at least half of what you listed as your own contributions and suggestions for the schools my son has attended, but didn't feel they made much difference, as only a few communicated the worthiness of those activities and efforts. Your list validated my efforts and contributions.
I would like to build on the "in-state bank" idea and promote Rep. Bob Hasegawa's initiative to bring a "state bank" to Washington. Large municipal governments could bank at a state bank as its coffers would provide the scale needs a credit union, even one the size of BECU, could not provide, and so the school districts could bank at a state bank as well.
Cynthia Lair, creator of "Cookus Interruptus" and author of Feeding the Whole Family, mentions in an intro to one recipe that when her child was in second grade, volunteer parents took turns providing soup and bread to a class in a hot lunch program. This idea could work for areas without a Free/Reduced Lunch program.
I'm working to bring an afterschool Scrabble program to my son's school: someone introduced this to Maple Elementary, a Seattle school with a large percentage of children with English as a second language. Surprisingly these students excelled and were some of the higher scoring students. The Scrabble club coordinator also taught spelling and Latin and Greek roots and saw a huge jump in spelling and vocabulary with participating students.
Some of these ideas are outside the scope of the PTSA, and even outside the school, but they are changes that can improve our current situation and outlook.
The Complete Tightwad Gazette, edited by Amy Dacyczyn, has an article (The Complete Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle
Amy Dacyczyn - Villard Books - 1999, pp.864-868) on frugal fundraisers for schools, in addition to auctions. If I could get some PTSA support, I'd initiate or participate in one to build funds for math curriculum waivers.
Maybe I have to learn how to stay focused, or find enthusiastic stakeholders/supporters in my school.
MAP Test taking strategies:
* Gifted students are used to being the first done on regular paper-pencil test; with MAP they are usually last; it’s okay to be last on this, in fact we encourage gifted students to be the last ones finished.
* Gifted students are used to being able to skip a hard problem and go back over the problem later; with MAP this is not possible, however the GT student will still carry this question in their head making it difficult to work on the problem at hand.
* Gifted students are not used to being challenged on tests and when they face hard questions the reaction may be to STOP or be frustrated.
* Students at the high end of MAP testing will NOT have as large of gains on consecutive tests.
FYI
I wouldn't take one test result as Gospel, but I do find that now that I have 4 tests worth of data to consider I know more about where my children stand in those two tested subjects. It would be great to know what the heck the strands mean ...why do they report something they never bother to define?
I can calibrate the results with what the teachers have to say and what I observe in them....I know that both my kids like and are comfortable taking tests so that would positively impact their scores. I've seen them both have a test where they had a score below the previous score, so I get that scores (or kids) bounce around a bit. But I like having the RIT scores and not just the percentile, b/c my kids are both in the 99th percentile in math, but one has RIT scores that put him in the 99th percentile for two grades above where he is, where the other is in the 99th% for his grade only. This gives me information I like to have.
For instance, when he complains that math is boring, I have believe that he's not being challenged, rather than that he is being lazy. Then I can work on getting him challenged. What I got from his "good" teachers in the past? Just the news that he was doing well in math. They weren't giving him differentiated work to challenge him. (Did they even realize his abilities?) Without the MAP, I might not have realized that I needed to work with them to challenge him. It lit a fire under me. My other child was considerably weaker in reading vs. math. So our home work time is focussed on fun reading work, and he is benefiting.
2) The second reason I like standardized testing is that my kids are getting used to taking tests. They are no big deal to them now. That will certainly help them when they get older and need to take the SAT and other tests.
It only takes two hours 3x a year. If you are really worried about losing valuable instruction time just do twice a year, 4 hours total (and from observing classes for the past 5 years, I see lots of wasted instruction time, but that's a different post).
Maybe the MAP isn't the best test to use, but I like having something objective.
Donning Flame-Resistant Vest
Too much of anything is bad. Moderate use of standardized tests makes as much sense as it ever has.
WV is "conan." I've been thinking it's time for a Conan and Red Sonia film festival in my living room. Apparently, the universe agrees.
Many families with younger siblings are now faced with having their children split, as there is a strong chance there is not going to be space to accommodate siblings next year.
Families were guaranteed predictable access to a neighborhood school with the new assignment plan, but this is not occurring for families with split siblings that lived close to the map border.
Is this the student assignment plan that Seattle wants for its school system? Neighborhoods grow and change, and the district feels it can change the boundaries as needed, a few months before open enrollment. The board should show that it supports families by requiring that siblings be given a priority.
.... "the upper rung of competency is innovative".
Why is that?
Does the contract or evaluation instrument define "innovative"?
Would delivering excellent results in a proven manner using practices and materials known to be effective be considered "innovative"?
Look at some of the practices that John Hattie found particularly effective:
a. Project Follow Through's recommendation for Direct Instruction (0.59).
b. Problem Solving teaching (0.61),
c. Mastery Learning (0.58), and
d. Worked Examples (0.57).
Using these would be common sense.... would that make them innovative?
Here is a definition=>
innovative
adjective
(of a product, idea, etc.) featuring new methods; advanced and original :
It seems that methods proven to work internationally on a huge scale to raise student achievement could hardly be considered new. The question is why does the District have this fascination with new instead of providing a quality education through the use of practices and materials known to work?
Who wrote that the "the upper rung of competency is innovative"?
With leadership that produces this kind of nonsense it is little wonder that significant academic progress is hard to produce.
Looks like "Discovery" nonsense applied to teaching practices .... develop something new ... it may not work but it will be innovative.
=========
My evaluation of the evaluation criteria is that the highest rating of "innovative" is "innovative" but hardly logical or reasonable.
I agree that the District report card is cryptic. I heard that they're changing for this year; I hope it's an improvement.
Flames? what flames?
Testing fewer times would increase class time and reduce impacts to the building, though.
Reduce the HUGE bank of tags at the bottom of every page. It's nice to have some tags listed, but it's so long that it dominates new posts or posts with few comments, and many of the tags are uncommon or unhelpful. It makes it hard to scroll to the bottom to find the "Post Comment" link.
My suggestion is to keep the tags, but filter out those with less than 3 or 4 links. I think there should be an option for that.
NB Slacker
I can see how that would be particularly true at JSIS, because the zone was drawn too large *and* immersion is extremely popular. What is your alternative solution at this point?
Sorry to be a downer, but I can tell you that the District and Board is wed to its current student assignment plan and has NO interest (they will tell you that they have no ability) to grandfather siblings who get drawn out. I say this after being involved with this issue (and personally impacted) for the last 3 years. We tried logic, emotional pleas, big data gathering efforts, but all to no avail. When my son started K under the old plan we went to what was our neighborhood school at that time. Then they changed the plan and maps and drew us out. At the time, those of us who were incensed (asking why there was only predicitability for some, pointing out that split siblings weakens family involvement/isn't good for families, etc) tried to get broad activistic involvement from upcoming families, too, because we saw that this same issue would arise every time they redraw the maps. We hoped to establish a precedent for future families. It stinks for those of us who are on or close to the lines (and maybe for our property values, too). We were in the first group of impacted siblings and at that itme, we were a large group. There was no power in being a large group. This year's group was smaller across the district, but there was no power in being a smaller group (the pleas of a smaller group being easier to squeeze in didn't work, either). To add insult to injury, some have suggested that schools got overcrowded because we, the first group of sibs, mostly go into our schools. That's ridiculous as no spaces were created for us. All the district did for us was more actively manage the waitlists over the summer and talk a lot about how much they tried for us. Capacity issues resulted from poor planning not the first year of out of attendance area sibs. If you do get your younger child into JSIS (and on the upside JSIS sibs have gotten in for the past two years), I hope they don't then try to blame your group for the severe capacity issues at your school. Do I sound bitter? Yup. I hope you don't have to join the crowd.
Phinney
And even then, it only was accurate at the level of meeting standards or not, not at the high or low ends.
1. Eliminate testing for K and 1st grade students -- in favor of alternate assessments for reading/reading readiness, etc. If people want to get kids used to using the mouse, etc. for when they start "real" testing (this has been mentioned as a benefit), it seems to me that we could come up with some much less expensive way to give kids much better "mouse practice" than paying to have them MAP tested -- and then wondering whether the scores are valid. If alternate assessments for 2nd graders are available, I might even say -- skip 2nd grade -- here is where someone who sees MAP test scores -- both individual and aggregated across large groups -- would need to chime in.
Skip MAP testing after 8th grade for all students. Starting with 9th grade, kids are taking EOC courses. If teachers want shorter term "assessments" in classes -- they should be developed independently of MAP.
Skip MAP testing for all APP kids, once they have attained a level where further "gains" will be extremely small. My sense is that MAP testing (other than reconfirming over and over again that these kids are doing well academically) may provide very little actual benefit -- once kids reach the top of the scale.
That leaves us with 2nd (or 3rd) through 8th grade. For this group -- as long as we are paying for it -- they ought to test them as frequently as the kids/parents/teachers wish -- and the space/computer availability allows -- because at this point, it is free, correct? We pay once each year for a student -- and then that student has access to the testing as often as they/their teachers want it?
Totally agree for skipping k and 1, app, and kids that are tested via other means, such as EOC exams.
Flame-Resistant Vest
The solution at this point would be for the district to guarantee Kindergarten admission for siblings put out by boundary changes going forward.
I understand that from a planning perspective allowing everyone guaranteed access to the neighborhood school and their siblings' school was a nightmare at the time the NSAP was adopted. Enrollment was so mixed up across the district that no one could say who would end up where.
At this point, however, if you allow a Kindergarten sibling guarantee for families put out by new boundary redraws, the impact is much reduced. It should be something that can be accomodated with proper planning and tight enough boundary redraws -- when you redraw a boundary that puts out families, make it tight enough to guarantee access for sibs.
The NSAP was supposed to provide predictibility and as long as your family can be drawn out of the school bounds at any time, it does not provide predictibility.
It's a bummer to be drawn out of the boundary if you don't already have kids in school, but it's far worse to be drawn out of the boundary and be presented with the option of having to manage split sibs or disrupt your older child's situation.
I really hope this gets fixed.
Agreed.
I think SPS families universally feel that when they change boundaries, younger siblings should be grandfathered in. I know the district and previous school board felt otherwise, but we should still demand what we want from the board.
If they are changing the boundaries two years after establishing them, they need to draw the boundary in such a way that guarantees siblings a spot. If not, this plan is no better than the previous "choice system" for people that lived too far from their neighborhood school. If they can somehow accommodate an unknown number of families that move into an area after open enrollment, they could accommodate the known number of siblings drawn out of the boundary.
Go to the Garfield Website and look up a previous issue of the Garfield Messenger which contains another student-written article about MAP.
open ears
The downfall of this country will be the result of the lack of basic survival skills and common sense.
--for the love of god or God
nop
Many of us predicted that assigning 3 or 4 classes per grade to a school designed for 2 classes per grade would cause problems. Did the district listen? DOH! How on earth did someone start equating "predictable" with "good". If I could predict a tsunami, does that mean the tsunami would be good? Such idiocy.
a great line ....
Now you compound that by bringing someone who was fired under suspicions that she was aware of improprieties and didn't act upon them," ......
"It begs the question: Does Detroit settle for anything?"
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20111208/SCHOOLS/112080382/Top-EAS-staffer-faces-scrutiny-over-ouster#ixzz1g844g9wF
It is not two hours, three times a year for everyone. At some schools it is four scheduled hours per student, three times a year. Some schools did not do the fall test this year, making it two times per year.
It also takes a large amount of teacher, librarian, counselor, and/or administrator time, both during and outside of class.
Getting used to standardized testing: students are also required to take the MSP and other tests. Hopefully the standardized tests students take in the future will be better than MAP; the design and layout are poor.
The proposal to move 5th graders to Boren was (IMHO) a lousy one. The people who showed up to the capacity management meetings agreed. It got a score of 1.5 (halfway between no support and little support), while re-opening Fairmount Park got much higher ratings. If the 5th grade to Boren option goes further, then we should bust out the pitchforks and torches. If it doesn't go further, then it was a win for community engagement changing bad solutions.
And I say this as someone with four kids, two of whom are not yet school aged.
What do students and the District get for their time (and money) invested in the tests?
Do schools provide intervention and supports for those testing below grade level?
Do students get meaningful differentiation if they test far above grade level?
Are results taken into account to evaluate the effectiveness of various curricula?
Can parents and teachers look at their child's results and really know what particular concepts they have and have not mastered?
As far as high scores, NWEA (The RIT Scale) states:
Why do RIT scales vary from subject to subject (e.g. the mathematics RIT scale goes higher than other subject areas)? A ceiling effect exists when an assessment does not have sufficient range to accurately measure students at the highest performance levels. It has nothing to do with the actual numbers attached to the scale and everything to do with the position of students on it. For example, in reading, the RIT scale measures with relative accuracy up to about 245. This represents the 93rd percentile at grade 10, and the 95th percentile at grade 8. If a student scores above we know that student performed high but may not be able to accurately assess how high they performed. Relative to other tests, therefore, there is very little true ceiling effect in this assessment. Even most high performing 10th graders receive a technically accurate measure of their skill.
http://www.nwea.org/support/article/532/rit-scale
I think most parents, particularly ALO/Spectrum/APP, would rather know that their child is in the top 10 percentile for the grade level 2 or 3 years ahead, rather than that they are at the Mean for 5 or 6 years ahead.
In my opinion, these tests seems great for kids in 1st-4th grades, when they are learning skills that are easily tested on a "click" type test, but I wonder how well they test older kids once they are at the point where good answers require more than a multiple choice. I'm not opposed to MAP, but just feel that I would like more information how to interpret the data than just a number and percentile.
NE Map Questioner
You can look up a RIT score and see where it would fall a year or two ahead.
http://www.nwea.org/sites/www.nwea.org/files/resources/NWEA_2011_RIT_Scale_Norms.pdf
NE Map Questioner
We have parents who serve as proctors and help out immensely. They get everything ready to go and monitor during test-taking. My class spends about forty minutes eight times a year: two math tests in one week and two reading tests the next week. They do the same sequence in May It is reasonable if you have trained help.
Teachers get printouts of the actual items tested. We know what it covers from one level to the next. It is a HUGE amount of isolated skills. But I am grateful for it. I do not want to teach every skill in isolation but it is helpful as a checklist. And it is based on the WA state standards and not on curricula used by various school districts. The only issues I've found so far are vocabulary concerns in math; "number model" as opposed to "equation" in math.
Finally, Dan Dempsey, "innovative" was originally labeled "distinguished" in the Danielson work on which this is all based. Do you like that better? I do although I don't really support all the labels. "innovative" is difficult to achieve in a "same-page same-way everyday" atmosphere. Mercer was innovative and they did it their way under the leadership of a strong principal.
Something to be learned?
northender
NWEA released new percentile rankings for the MAP RIT scores this year. It appears that the same RIT score is now about 2-4% points lower in the percentile ranking comparing the previous 2008 chart to the new 2011 chart at the cut off points for Spectrum and APP (87% and 95%). The Spring MAP test results used the 2008 chart, but new tests this year are using the new 2011 chart. So to make the cutoff in the percentile rankings, kids will need to perform better on the test than last year.
kitty
Thanks for the thorough update on MAP and how you use it. I am still looking for a definition of "innovative" or "distinguished" ... Where can I find the actual document referenced?
Thanks again.
The biggest problem we seem to have is looking at the system by which principals are making determinations. Kind of ambiguous to say the least.
I'm no principal basher. I think they have really hard jobs. Not sure they even know what their real focus should be. But they are well-paid in Seattle. They should honor teachers who are working so hard off-the-clock all the time for much less.
northender
Two and a half years to go
Someone has hijacked my tag, and people will be confused.
I posted this comment there:
"Seattle Citizen" (Anonymous 12:30 and 9:55)
Please refrain from using my handle in your posts. I have been Seattle Citizen here for a number of years, and obviously people will think it is me posting. Please copy and paste your posts under a different "name," as I am asking the admins to remove your posts of avoid confusion.
Thanks!
I agree. No one elected the Alliance to have a seat at the table. They should be removed immediately.
--let's find out
Some parents are reporting that past MAP percentile rankings have gone down as shown on the SOURCE. Not quite believing it, I checked my child's scores and they had been adjusted from previously reported scores. The RIT scores were unchanged, but the reported percentiles were 1-2 points lower in some cases (for scores all the way back to Fall 2009-10).
-a parent
Hi sources,
The League of Education Voters, an education lobby group, has built a widget to show you the choices involved in balancing the budget this time around. We'd like you to give it a try and let us know how you did. Typical for the talent over at the Conversation: quick turnaround! They'd like your answer by Monday. Click here to start.
"Somebody oughta have the courage to tell the truth: These people are terrorists."
As a nationalist group, Palestinians are an invention because nationalism, in global history, is a recent invention. All nationalist groups are an invention. The United States of America is an invention, and Americans, as a group, are an invention.
As bad as Gingrich's history is, his view that all Palestinians are terrorists is dangerous. It's bad enough that Republicans are competing with each to embrace torture as national policy; now the front-runner is spewing vile hate-speech.
For our children, this is a teachable moment.
DWE
Gingrich attended Emory University and received his Ph.D. from Tulane University. In the 1970s he taught history and geography at West Georgia College.
Like most all politicians its winning the election that is important ... the facts are irrelevant. The rule of career politicians is to make decisions politically; electability is more important than honesty.
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Rod Paige's Houston Miracle was fabricated BS but he became US Secretary of ED ... and produced No Child Left Behind.
Arne Duncan's great improvements in Chicago were completely fabricated ... Chicago ranks as the worst city in which to attend k-12 school. Arne's charter movement has changed nothing. So now we have the Common Core State Standards movement, which is based on irrational beliefs. .... Race to Nowhere is what we have because none of the proposed remedies were evidence based.
Did the failed Super Committee on cutting the budget consider eliminating the US Dept of Ed?
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It is time for An Intelligent School Voters UNION .... because the NEA, WEA, SEA are fact clueless (as far as acting on the facts) .... ditto most legislators and many school directors. In an international comparison our k-12 schools are not among the best and no significant progress is being made.
Current plans are great for special interests but are woefully inadequate for everyone else.
==========
Newt is clearly not telling the truth .... that hardly makes him an exception among politicians.
--- Just listen to Seattle School Directors explain their votes "for" the New Tech Network contract .. "for" TFA ... "for" the high school math adoption ... "for" school closures ... "for" extending Dr. Goodloe-Johnson contract for an additional third year in July of 2010 ... "for" giving MGJ a bonus .... "for" an MGJ buyout rather than firing with cause. This list is incredible .... the State Auditor's Office reported an enormous number of findings .... and yet little if anything changes academically in Seattle.
Enfield is on her way to greatness .. She has great delivery of that deception stuff. .... Perhaps she can challenge Newt in 2016.
Truth or Dare
Guess you haven't been to Detroit lately.
Until we all start parsing our words to reflect the truth, we will get nowhere. There is no true achievement gap—there is an opportunity gap for children born into families of generational poverty.
Words have real meaning, but our media, aided by politicians, (or is it the other way around? or a chicken–egg thing?) has skewed the true meanings of many words—starting with "Liberal."
Solvay Girl
I went to Urban NAEP to get the NAEP facts ... unfortunately I got this ...
Due to scheduled power maintenance, nces.ed.gov will be unavailable Sunday, December 12th, from 6am to 6pm EST. We greatly appreciate your patience while maintenance to the building power is being performed. We will have this website available again as soon as power is restored.
I will try later today or tomorrow.
Exactly. Market-tested catch phrases do not a cohesive community edcucational system make.
Solvay goes on to write that there "is no true achievement gap—there is an opportunity gap for children born into families of generational poverty."
Right again, but it's worse: The "true achievement gap" as spun ny the marketing catch-phrasers is based ONLY on a confused, shallow, data-poor hodgepodge of various states' "scores" and other miscellaneous "numbers" that change year to year, place to place, student to student...
Yes, there is on obviously identifable Opportunity Gap: Wealth begats eductional opportunity, but it is not measured nor solved by distracting us with powerpointed graphs with graphs, charts, and "27 eight-by-ten color glossies with circles and arrows..."
The Opportunity Gap is NOT an opportunity for greedy and/or in-denial, idealistic politicians and "foundations" rallying around the testing machines to maximize productivity for profit or conscience: The opportunity is quite the opposite, it is people without capital or voice scrabbling as best they can to keep up with every-changing data points of measurement, worth, and value that their children so desperately need to kow-tow to in order to climb out of poverty in an impoverished economy devoid of heart, quality, and empathy.
From Wiki on Newt....
He has written or co-authored 23 books including historical fiction.
----- maybe Newt confused reality in Israel with historical fiction .... just an "honest" mistake.
I hope you don't mind my reposting it here. And thanks to whoever it was that linked the blog. James Boutin is a good writer and topics are interesting and reflective.
northender
I'm not even sure this is true. At least not in the way I think the author intends.
We simply cannot reach every child in a quality way without strong support of and by the parent(s), extended family, peers, etc. Maybe even the extended local communities. The problem is so much bigger than a school district that it's not funny. Education (as well as the general well-being of our kids) must be highly valued from day one of a child's life. Why do so many people think: If only we could get rid of our "bad" teachers, all the kids would be successful! And others say: Oh, if only our legislators would allocate some bigger chunk of the pie to schools, we could fix everything? These kinds of attitudes are small-minded.
This is a deep societal problem, not simply an educational problem.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be working hard to reduce these imbalances. Quite the opposite, it's huge, and something everyone should be striving to fix. But let's be honest, there are no magic bullets for this one, it's a problem that will take decades to solve, even if we can figure out and take the right steps. Concentrating our efforts on small stuff means we're not focusing on bigger things.
I'm not even sure what these bigger things are, but I'd have to think HUGE outreach efforts to parents, parents-to-be, and young people in general would be a big part of it. And community school buildings that provide much more than 6 or 7 hours/day of classroom instruction, starting in elementary. Wraparound services, interventions, all of it. And much does not come via the school districts and education budgets. But above all, the attitudes of those living in poverty need to be changed. There needs to be hope, there needs to be time in the day/evening to learn, there needs to be interest in improving one's situation in general.
I'm ranting, so it's time to stop. It's just frustrating to see so much effort wasted running in circles, year after year, implementing and un-implementing ideas that at best will make a small difference.
"But above all, the attitudes of those living in poverty need to be changed. There needs to be hope, there needs to be time in the day/evening to learn, there needs to be interest in improving one's situation in general...."
WOW.... back to blaming the victim...
DW, really, the biggest lessons children will learn is that you can fail and lie but trample hundreds of souls as you rise back up to the top. Look at Mrs. Goodloe Johnson. She got a job because her friends at the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation hang tight. KC's John Covington left town as quickly as Maria left Seattle but he's a Broadie. The BF's truly are Best Friends. One grad of the BF superintendent's academy is helping another grad by giving Maria a job. (I wonder what their fight song is?)
Detroit Schools are under state control. Not charters, not city control, state control by directive of the governor. Another Broadie named Robert Bobb was supposed to get schools in hand two years ago, close doors, save money, and make them safe for students. He didn't. He crashed and burned but Broad paid half his $400K + salary. I wonder how much Maria will be paid? Bobb's replacement needs to be safe so the DPS is going broke paying for two body guards, but students are still bullied, still unsafe, in DPS schools. Special needs students especially continue to suffer under this state-controlled joke of mismangagment.
Bobb's replacement got a brand new $40K SUV after telling parents to make sacrifices. He's like a Soprano driving around all day with his crew of body guards, taking conference calls with Jeb Bush and Arne Duncan. He's a former VP of Marketing and Sales at General Motors so why didn't he call in a custom Yukon and save some cash for the kids? (Does Maria get town car service?)
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/amidst-layoffs-and-pay-cuts,-dps-buys-emergency-manager-brand-new-$40,000-suv
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/cash-strapped-district-spends-big-money-on-to-protect-emergency-manager-roy-roberts
http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/eli-broad%E2%80%99s-last-hurrah-in-detroit/
(Excellent work by Dora.)
The Broad Watcher
There are several cities that are at the Chicago level or lower. Since the urban NAEP reports both math and reading at grade 4 and grade 8 there is a lot to look at. I found on the math portion on page 16/17 THIS:
For grade 4 ...
free and reduced lunch percentages for 21 cities:
Highest Cleveland at 100%
Fresno 93%
Dallas 92%
NYC 90%
Philly 90%
Baltimore City 88%
Chicago 88%
Detroit 87%
Lowest:
Hillsborough County FL 58%
Charlotte 52%
=====
Seattle is not taking the Urban NAEP and is at 43.3% Low-income
=====
Black students are usually the lowest scoring ethnic subgroup.
Black student percent of population=>
Baltimore City 87%
Detroit 84%
Atlanta 76%
----
Philly 58%
Chicago 41%
NYC 29%
----
Albuquerque lowest at 2%
Austin 8%
Fresno 9%
====
Seattle 19.2%
----------------------------------------
"This is not going to be a duplicate of the horror stories we are all acutely aware of in Detroit Public Schools, at Kansas City Schools and in Seattle schools. This is an opportunity for us to start with a clean slate."
"C'mon Charlie Brown. I promise I won't snatch the football away this time. Honest! You can trust me!"
"Covington said he understands people may have questions, but Michigan taxpayers should have confidence in the EAS. 'She is not the chancellor; I am,' he said. 'There has to be uncompromised accountability,' Covington said.
Ah -- yes -- "Accountability for all!" I remember it so well! So MGJ is now right back in her favorite environment -- accountability! We know it worked great for MGJ last time -- in terms of holding the board accountable for paying her exorbitant salary, and rewarding her for every niggle and tittle she coughed up in the four performance expectations she exceeded, while ignoring the twenty or so that she whiffed on. And I note that the contracts in Michigan are also larded with performance bonus possibilities -- so she seems to be on top of her definition of "accountability" once again. Here is hoping all that "accountability" works out for Detroit's children a whole lot better than it did for Seattle's!
Do we know this for a fact? So many people here post this as if it were an indisutable 1 of the 10 commandments or something. If it really is true maybe we should just punt on public education. Those without opportunities already won't be able to get them from school (so why bother?). Those with plenty of opportunities can really already pay for themselves (so let's save the taxpayer money and let them provide for themselves - it's only fair)
reader
While I personally am of the opinion that yes, some sort of child advocate and support, appart from the school, is absolutely necessary for most students to be successful (excepting the relatively rare students who are capable of managing both their school and non-school time and demeanor), it is probably true that we must count on a certain percentage, currently quite large, that do not have adequate support at home. This lack of support could be that fault of the parent/guardians, or due to situations beyond their control.
Given that, and given what I think is the impossibility of JUST educators (as they are currently employed: classroom teachers teaching curriculum, IAs helping, admins admin...ing, counselors counseling, librarians librarianing...Given the current set-up, school staff can't and maybe shouldn't be expected to provide ALL the supports a child needs if that child is missing some in the non-school milieu.
When I think about this, I think an ideal solution is for the community to step up and provide the extra-curricular support students without strong (or wealthy) parent/guardians need. A community network of support in the form of tutors, arts NPOs, medical-dental, recreational, etc etc.
Schools are for teaching, teaching a relatively narrow band of information. While certainly most educators do what they can outside of this narrow band (counseling, feeding, a myraid other little things to meet need) they simply can't, and shouldn't, be the ONLY adults in a child's life.
This is why the "community school" model is so successful (and they don't have to be charters: There are plenty of extant schools that are supported just fein without some anti-union contract being signed). But they are expensive - some outside assistance can be had through volunteers, but some must be paid for.
If we could organize such an encompassing array of support around kids, many more of them would do well. But it's on the community, in many respects. Schools must, of course, simply teach.
It's impossible to teach some students without outside support. You might be able to force open student's jaws and pour data down their throat; you might wire their eyes wide open and strap them to their seats (it worked so well in Clockwork Orange); but that ain't learnin', that's programming.
We need an ethos of support for children around the city, every citizen partaking by helping, by checking their own behavior, by doing what they can to model warmth and a fertile world for students to grow into.
WV thinks that's JAZZY but I don't see it.
Yes, that would have much better represented what I was trying to say. I was in a hurry and had something else to run off to, so no editing before clicking Publish.
I see the post as asking (legitimately in my opinion) for people to stop running around chasing the nearest quick fix/bandaid/think-tank theory -- and start doing the heavy lifting of actually solving this problem.
Yes, exactly.
Even still, I see no justification for Sahila's response. She read one sentence and apparently missed the next one, and all the rest of the context around it. Whatever.
This is a societal problem, not merely a school district problem, and until we, as a society are ready to attack it in earnest and en masse, I fear that we're going to just continue to run around in circles. We'll be talking about the same issues a decade from now, just as we were a decade ago.
So is 'reader' right? Should we just punt on public education because it's too hard to fix? I certainly hope not. But large, structural changes are very different from quick-fix bandaids. They take a lot more thought, dedication, and time. If you approach a problem of this depth and magnitude thinking that you need to have it fixed within 2 years, you're doomed to fail because you're not even considering changes that are significant enough to make a dent.
Yeah, letting the kids with money buy junk food from machines may shorten the lines for the F&R kids to actually get to the food, THAT may address the achievement gap a bit because the fortunate kids will be all "sugar high" during classes and the relative grading curve would go down.
A word of caution though; if the board finds out they could make money and keep more kids happy (more state money for attending school) by selling cigarettes (for one example) at a small mark-up, we may have to relax the rules about campus smoking too.
Hey, what the heck, its not like theres anything newsworthy really happening at the district. Is there?
You'd never know it as long as the Times has front pages like todays.
He says it all: "It's poverty and punitive funding formulas, stupid." and calls out billionaires inserting their own magic fairy dust ideas as distractions.
Communities and funding - that is real reform.
What Real Education Reform Looks Like
For groceries, we drove weekly outside the city limit affectionately called the DMZ, for fresh food because we were so shocked at the quality of fruits, veggies and general basic food stuff. Better dumpster diving in Seattle. It is no exaggeration when people write how tough it is to get decent, nutritious food if you live in poverty zones. Same for banking.
You stay indoors on Halloween and 4th of July due to fires and bullets (people like to shoot their guns in the air). We found 4 bullet holes outside our windows and we were not victims of drive by shooting. At the time, the scandal that hit Detroit news was some school board members were using school employees and resources to fix up their homes and businesses, but then so were other city employees. My neighbor who taught at the publlic school had to live in the city to work, but sent their kids elsewhere. Schools had buckets to catch water leaking from roofs. People thought we were nuts because we didn't have a gun in the house. My trauma patients were mostly gunshot victims.
So I don't know what to make of this attempt by the state to take over Detroit schools. The city is going broke next April unless some thing is done. The news that they hired MGJ is not encouraging. Detroit will be much tougher for MGJ or the Michelle Rhee clones to gloss over. I like the present mayor and there are serious attempts to rebuild this city, so perhaps with dedicated, gritty Detroiters around to look out for the interest of their city and citizens, they may be able to sniff out the pretenders faster. Detroit is not Seattle or even Baltimore. There is so much need that perhaps despite MGJ and her likes, some good will come out of this.
Seattle mom
SEE Newsletter
Let the best candidate shine in an open search and a selection process for a permanent superintendent.
http://www.change.org/petitions/seattle-school-board-directors-we-urge-you-to-conduct-a-search-for-a-permanent-superintendent
Please consider signing this petition and passing it along to others.
Thanks.
Another email is circulating to urge recipients to write Board members in support of naming Enfield Superintendent.
Stated that the reported percentiles changed in the source. I checked my children's scores, and it is true. Shouldn't the district let parents know about this? What does this mean? We received our MAP scores as part of our report cards, will they send new and revised versions?
--- Why bother with part reports?
Q:The historical data for my child's percentiles rankings recently changed. Many scores, including last year's math and last spring's reading went down by up to three points with no explanation. What is going on here?
A:NWEA actually made a change from there end when they scored all tests. Most students’ scores moved slightly. The district will be releasing new progress reports hopefully before the break to reflect this change.
Q: Ok. So, these changes affected a large pool of student's percentile rankings going back a year or more? Is that correct?
A:Yes- we will be issuing out some sort of communications regarding this.
Mystified that they would post these changes with no communication to parents or principals (I asked ours what was going on first), and wondering how they are going to treat the Spectrum/APP cutoffs for students whose eligibility is changed by these adjustments.
--already frazzled
If Spring MAP scores are being used for AL eligibility, then lowering previously posted numbers by a few percentage points can be a big deal. If the new NWEA norms were released in summer of 2011, then why would past scores be altered?
Thank you to the parent that noticed this and wrote to inquire. I'll be interested to read the district's communication on this.
Reposting for anonymous who forgot to sign
If Spring MAP scores are being used for AL eligibility, then lowering previously posted numbers by a few percentage points can be a big deal. If the new NWEA norms were released in summer of 2011, then why would past scores be altered?
Thank you to the parent that noticed this and wrote to inquire. I'll be interested to read the district's communication on this.
--Reposter
I look at the MAP test results from Kindergarten and first grade, and I have to say I can't make heads or tails of them.
If you look at the individual "strand" scores, there is no coherent pattern.
Half of them are down over the course of two years (as though they made negative progress in the first two years of school), half of them are up over two years with plenty of erratic bouncing aroud.
The high/low range from any particular sub-test is extremely large, and the overall scores are flat over last year, despite the fact that my kid made tremendous progress in both reading and writing last year.
The "strands" don't provide meaningful information to me about what my kid did well on vs what they did poorly on (phonics v. phonological awareness, anyone?)
The MAP provided "lexile score" always seemed at least 3 grade levels too low, and sure enough, the DRA results are in line with my actual experience reading with my child, while the MAP results seem like they might as well have been pulled out of a hat. Not much of surprise that the DRA is more accurate, since it involves actually reading, whereas the MAP involved a grab bag of only tangentially related computer tasks.
From what I've seen of MAP in the last year, I don't think we should bother debating how we can get the most utility out of the system for the least cost.
It looks to me like just a giant Maria Goodloe-Johnson boondoggle.
I don't believe it was ever intended to provide value to parents or teachers, as I can't see how it would from my own experience. I believe, it was simply meant to power the former Sup's performance management system to give her the ed reform cred necessary for her next job.
The school board needs to look at this test with clear eyes and assess whether we can get better value with the money spent elsewhere.
What would you expect from a test with randomly selected questions from around the country that have no relation to what any specific child has learned in any specific classroom?
A response from the district stated that it was not their intention to alter past scores and they will work on making adjustments. Scores from Fall 2011 onward will reflect the new norms.
-a parent
District can't pay the mortgage
Administrators having school employees work on their homes and other propertiies happened here as well.
It was several scandals ago and all kept very quiet but if you look into Sam Buyco, Facilities Director, you will see.
Kept quiet by the John Stanford "Fearless leader/Carnival Barker" era.
Another "national search" gone bad. Yet as humans, our minds gloss over these lessons from the past and some want to take yet another try at it.
The scandal was the fact there was no scandal in schools fallling down, the level of school violence, and ah well... the list can go on and on, but it will just depress me and everyone else this early AM. I have a fondness for this unique American city that just keeps hanging on. Anyway, the Financial Times this week has an analytical series on getting America back to work. FT puts education there among the top 3 to do list and how drastic cuts to education will come back to hurt us. That's telling coming from a business minded press.
Seattle mom
I see some mention of percentile changes, but does anyone know why the RIT scores would have suddenly changed?
- D's mom
A previous post included links to 2008 and 2011 norms - if you know the RIT score, you can look up the percentile in the tables. Fall 2009 through Spring 2011 should follow 2008 norms and Fall 2011 scores and beyond should follow 2011 norms.
I would hesitate relying on the SOURCE for results until the district releases confirmation that the problems have been resolved.
- D's mom
http://www.surveytool.com/training-survey/
Msp town car service