Banda Speaks Out on MAP
MAP Update:
From The Stranger Slog:
"..the boycotting teachers state that the district has failed to respond, point by point, to the list of criticisms levied at the MAP test. Furthermore, teachers say it's unclear if the district’s effort to undermine the boycott will be successful because students seem to hate the tests as much as teachers. "Indications early this morning are that there is wide spread 'opting out' of the test by students," their press release states. "For the first hour, only nine students are in the testing center. Sixty students were signed up to use the library but were displaced. Typically 90 students use the library before school and at lunch. These students are not allow access during testing."
Janet Woodward, Garfield’s librarian, said, “I’m sorry about all the students who are being displaced. It makes me sad.”
Good for those students and their parents.
Also this from the University of Washington chapter of the Association of University Professors:
[W]e support the decision of teachers at Garfield, Ballard, Sealth, the Center School, Orca K-8 and other Seattle Public Schools who have decided to refuse to administer the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP®), a standardized test that has been imposed despite teachers' principled objections on pedagogic grounds. In keeping with our organization's commitment to faculty oversight of academic matters, AAUP-UW contends that teachers should be regarded as educated professionals fully qualified to advise the School District with regards to assessment of students learning. AAUP-UW therefore calls upon the Seattle Public Schools superintendent to work with teachers to develop a more adequate measure of student progress, and opposes punitive measures against Seattle teachers who are boycotting the MAP test.
Bravo to the idea that teachers are "educated professionals."
End of update.
The Superintendent issued this statement which has a few puzzlers in it. My comments in red.
From The Stranger Slog:
"..the boycotting teachers state that the district has failed to respond, point by point, to the list of criticisms levied at the MAP test. Furthermore, teachers say it's unclear if the district’s effort to undermine the boycott will be successful because students seem to hate the tests as much as teachers. "Indications early this morning are that there is wide spread 'opting out' of the test by students," their press release states. "For the first hour, only nine students are in the testing center. Sixty students were signed up to use the library but were displaced. Typically 90 students use the library before school and at lunch. These students are not allow access during testing."
Janet Woodward, Garfield’s librarian, said, “I’m sorry about all the students who are being displaced. It makes me sad.”
Good for those students and their parents.
Also this from the University of Washington chapter of the Association of University Professors:
[W]e support the decision of teachers at Garfield, Ballard, Sealth, the Center School, Orca K-8 and other Seattle Public Schools who have decided to refuse to administer the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP®), a standardized test that has been imposed despite teachers' principled objections on pedagogic grounds. In keeping with our organization's commitment to faculty oversight of academic matters, AAUP-UW contends that teachers should be regarded as educated professionals fully qualified to advise the School District with regards to assessment of students learning. AAUP-UW therefore calls upon the Seattle Public Schools superintendent to work with teachers to develop a more adequate measure of student progress, and opposes punitive measures against Seattle teachers who are boycotting the MAP test.
Bravo to the idea that teachers are "educated professionals."
End of update.
The Superintendent issued this statement which has a few puzzlers in it. My comments in red.
Dear Garfield staff and families:
I want to thank you for sharing your concerns
about MAP assessments. After careful consideration of what is in the
best interest of all of our students across the district, I have asked
schools to proceed with administering the MAP assessment
as scheduled. (I don't know if this means the administrators will give the test or if they are ordering the teachers and seeing what happens. Update: checked with Communications. They hired some subs to give the test but some administrators may be as well.)
I have met with Garfield High School staff on
two separate occasions to listen to their concerns and the important
issues they raise regarding the limitations of the MAP assessment. While
I feel the teachers at Garfield are sincere in their
efforts to postpone the administration of the MAP, I also have a strong
obligation to the students and parents of this school district to
ensure we are measuring student progress in a consistent manner across
all schools. (I was not aware the Superintendent had met with teachers; they have said he didn't. Teachers?)
The MAP assessment is administered to over 6
million students across the nation and in 209 school districts with in
Washington State. Thousands of educators find the MAP data useful in
determining student progress. Using the MAP assessment,
combined with other measures, helps us to identify students who are
achieving at various levels, regardless of the grade, allowing us to
provide additional support or perhaps more challenging curriculum. In
partnership with the City of Seattle, Office of Education,
MAP results are also used to measure the effectiveness of programs we
implement through the Family and Education Levy. (I appreciate that MAP is used across the country. It doesn't make it a good test and I believe if our teachers have serious issues with it, I would go with their opinion.) (I also question how often MAP results bring more attention to any given student.)
The district acted in good faith to address the
concerns raised by the Garfield High School staff and other educators in
Seattle Public Schools. This is why I set into motion a task force
comprised of teachers, principals and community
representatives. The goal of this task force is to engage in
thoughtful, collaborative conversations in an effort to land on a
solution that will benefit our students. The task force will review the
MAP assessment in its present iteration and review the landscape
of a comprehensive system of assessments that will lead us into the
future as we implement the Common Core State Standards. Throughout this
process we will be seeking input from parents and educators via survey
to ensure we hear multiple perspectives. I will
look to this task force to provide recommendations regarding the future
of MAP assessments.
I remain hopeful that we will continue to work
together in support of our students. I look forward to future
conversations with our staff and community about assessments and other
important topics.
End of statement
But one last thing (and I hope to tell the Superintendent this at some point) - we have had MANY taskforces and committees. I would say, just off the top of my head, that most of their work is for naught and the Board and district don't follow most of what is recommended. (This is one reason that while I truly understand and appreciate the hard work of FACMAC, they are learning what others of us know - the district won't always go with what any given committee says.)
Comments
-Wish I was a fly on the wall
- also curious.
HP
I'm sure that MAP does very little to help the majority of kids in the middle, and thus it's likely to feel like a "waste" for most. I really get the urge to scrap it, especially in the higher grades when there are a lot of other assessment tools being used.
But.
If your kid is one of the ones that MAP flags as potentially having an issue, it's a godsend. Honestly, MAP was absolutely critical in our noticing a problem, documenting its existence, and getting my kid the help that was needed. It took a kid who cried all the time about feeling stupid and hating school and transformed them into someone who actually has some academic self-esteem for the first time in a couple years.
So for me, I 100% support -not- getting rid of MAP until there's something else in place, at least at the <4th grade level. It may be a "waste of time" for your typically developing kid, but it's absolutely vital for some of the rest of us.
Despite our prerogative to opt out, my child was subjected to hyping "this was your score last time! Look for your score on the screen this time! It's so NIFTY!"
I would rather she was taught math!
And there may be 6 million students around the nation who are given the MAP® test, but again, that's out of a total of over 50 million public ed students nationwide. (http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372the National Center for Education Statistics)
Which in turn calls into question the whole notion of how "nationally normed" MAP® truly is. It's not a nationwide test in the same way that something like SAT is.
As for MAP marketshare, here in Seattle, as we all now know, NWEA, Inc. put our superintendent on its board just in time for a no-bid contract with SPS, which bought its product. (SPS Leaks offers some background on this cozy arrangement here:
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/122048883)
But apparently there may be another way that MAP® is getting adopted by districts -- through coercion. Apparently, among other demands, the Gates Foundation is mandating that the Hartford School District use MAP® in order to get a $5 million grant from Gates.
(See: OP-ED | Beware of Foundations Bearing Gifts)
Another Gates stipulation apparently states that NWEA, Inc. will provide (student? test scores? private info?) information to Gates Partners?
“In addition, the State of Connecticut is moving to NWEA providing additional information to Gates Partners.”
(Also see: http://jonathanpelto.com/tag/arne-duncan/)
There is an entire discussion that we also should be having about where all this student "data" (and the private information that's attached to it) is going.
It's not enough that it helps a few kids when it's useless to so many others. Could it be kept around simply as a diagnostic tool, like its designed to be in the first place? Sure, why not have it available as an option to parents, if they want it? I'd be fine with that. But that is not what we are dealing with here.
WSDWG
my problem with MAP in the elementary realm (beyond computers crashing, necessitating retakes, postponements, lost computer class time, etc.) is more about how my kids score so inconsistently - do they really have bad days every other time they are tested? is this is along the same lines of the high school MAP argument regarding margin of score error being more than the actual projected gains each time a child tests?
plus teachers seemed untrained in interpreting scores - if we are to trust and use the data. i've noticed big dips in strand scores, for example a very low "phonological awareness" score on a K reading MAP test.. and the teacher was not able to tell me what the term even means, or what sort of questions would be in that category. or in math, what does it mean if my child is very high in "number sense" but much lower in all other math strands? if the teachers aren't trained on interpreting this "great data", that it's really of no value.
I agree completely that its not a great test or a perfect metric and that it has been totally misused by the district in many cases (teacher evaluation, advance learning qualification, etc). I just don't think it's right to get rid of it until another option is in place.
Which I think is what Banda is saying.
I don't want there to be a year without any screening that could help kids who might otherwise be falling through the cracks.
Why not?
We managed without the MAP before, we can do it again.
Think of all the classtime, energy, anxiety and money that will be saved.
Hey! I know the answer to that. "Longitudinal databases." Longitudi-what? Picture a great big database filled with information about every child in the nation, including MAP scores, dental records, race, tardies, you name it. This is available to any local education agency that wants it. Theoretically, they don't get personally identifying information along with it. It follows you from cradle to career. http://www.caldercenter.org/longdata.cfm
What I have been seeing is that MAP holds back the access to additional help that kids need. "Well, this kid is up 3% points on MAP so let's just take another look in six months." Meanwhile, said kiddo keeps slipping through the additional cracks that MAP has provided in the process of acquiring additional help.
I know I asked it on another thread, but anyone have an idea of when the task force members will be announced?
I would, but like I said in my tag, "I should be doing something fun instead."
I ask about the task force because I didn't think it was publicized well and the first meeting is in two days. There's no receipt of application (just an email... no auto reply) and I fear what was mentioned above. Often the work of task forces is ignored and I wonder if that will not be the case this time.
I was also going to mention to jd that before MAP I felt my voice, as a teacher, was heard in a different and more important way by the district in getting kids extra help. Now I feel MAP gives scores all over the board and it's honored more than my professional judgement. I see it hurting kids. Without a test to replace it, would we go back to teacher evaluation - the people who spend 30 hours a week with our kids?
Kate
"There is an entire discussion that we also should be having about where all this student "data" (and the private information that's attached to it) is going."
Absolutely Sue. The Gates Foundation is getting access to info they have no right to have and most people do NOT know it is happening.
Uh, there is another option to MAP - teachers who know their students. If there is a doubt, give them a diagnostic test (also available) but widespread MAP is a waste of time and money.
In our family's case, the teachers thought she was fine. She wasn't disruptive, and was clever enough to fake her way through lots of things. MAP revealed a systematic slide from "somewhat above average" to single digits over the space of 3 years. In other words, she was steadily falling further and further behind what her peers were capable of. Single year, one-off assessments and classroom worksheets wouldn't have picked this up. A normed, consistent test given 2x a year over several years did.
For what it's worth, after my kid started getting help, we asked the teacher if she saw a difference, and she gave a very emphatic "YEEEESSSS". She could only see the impairment after it was mitigated. And she was a great, experienced teacher.
As a teacher, I see this test helping kids very very very rarely. Thanks for the reminder that at times, it does.
Kate
You're absolutely right, especially about wildly unreliable scores looked on as some sort of truth. Reminds me of a conflict between science and religion in a Ken Follett novel :)
As an FYI, the district already maintains a Risk Management document, a spreadsheet that includes a variety of data points (MSP, MAP, grades, absences..etc) and uses those to identify students at risk.
Pros: Triangulation of various data points over time help identify students who might be at risk. This data might then, hopefully, be assessed by a building SIT team (which looks at students in a building, as called for, to determine who might need help) and then the data might come in handy for these discussions.
Cons: It's data - numbers. Increasingly, society seems to be quantifying people. As some of the data is subject to all sorts of variables, it might skew risk assessment. (triangulated, as described above, it might be helpful as trends are spotted.)
Cons: Widespread disemmination of said data - who knows to what purposes it will be put? Anyone hacking the district, right now, could obtain such a document and put it to all sorts of bad uses. If this data is combined with other data, "out there," that spells doom for a humane society as a society built on quantification, categorization, and standardization builds more pretty little boxes to place children in.
Discuss. Risk Management data base: good or bad?
" I also have a strong obligation to the students and parents of this school district to ensure we are measuring student progress in a consistent manner across all schools."
I think that the MSP measures students in at least as consistent manner as the MAP and the MSP tests student knowledge of the Washington Standards.
So what has the district done about the huge performance difference in Math at the 8th grade level at Aki Kurose, when low-income students are compared with any other middle school?
So we know a lot about student progress within the district from MSP results .... and yet what was the response?
More TFA teachers were placed at AKI than elsewhere
Instead of focusing on providing effective interventions to students and treating teachers as professionals --- the focus has been on MAP testing 2 or 3 times a year. So where is the data that the expenditures of time and money on MAP are producing positive results for students.
This MAP tool may be measuring something ..... but is it improving instruction?
=====
The Common Core State Standards may be an equally large boondoggle ... only time will tell.
I like Mr. Banda and wish him well. He did not produce the current mess ... but he needs to deal with it.
The SEA union leadership certainly contributed to the current math mess.
Hierarchy exists for the benefit of hierarchy and in the case of SEA and WEA actions over the last few years very little else.
-- Dan Dempsey
Ann
The SEA union leadership certainly contributed to the current MAP mess.
-- Dan Dempsey
Ann
Dan Dempsey is mostly correct - the SEA union leadership has contributed to the MAP mess. But teachers of Seattle, we do not get a pass, either. I am a teacher in training and have watched this closely over the last 12 to 18 months. Only 25% of the teachers even bothered to vote in the last SEA election...
- Teacher in training and parent of SPS middle schooler
-- 4th grade parent with a math MAP over 250.
This was my biggest criticism of the MAP. I gave it to my 3rd graders in Seattle for several years. I would estimate that *at least* one third of my students every year had scores just like you describe for your child - all over the map (sad grin).
The MAP scores that I saw were not an accurate indicator of progress (reliability), nor of real learning (validity).
absolutely confused
-not a MAP fan
No, the SEA didn't do a darn thing until some bold teachers took the issue into its own hands. Jesse Hagopian at Garfield is part of the SEE movement, I think.
The business interests who pushed MAP for an evaluation mechanism have the egg on their face that they deserve. Looking straight at Alliance for Education and the Tim Burgess crowd and the LEV-ites and Stand-ites here. But the SEA has egg on its own face too. It didn't lead this rejection of MAP. It followed*
*Except for the faction of the SEA which as Social Equity Educators who refuted MAP from the get-go as a testing mechanism and ran its own slate, including brilliant Ballard science teacher Eric Muhs for president, in the last election. Muhs lost. Primarily because only 25 percent of the community bothered to vote.
Teachers need to wake up and realize they have power when they pull it together. And they need some strong SEA leadership. Time to get righteous or get left behind!
SEE FAN!
Then, later, they told the Board "Hey, we met with them." as if to suggest that we were impossible to satisfy.
You are impossible.
_Annie
Sped Staffer
Today was a day they were starting to give (reading)MAP tests, proctored by administrators because the teachers are refusing. Administrators came into LA classes, and very few people went with them because pretty much everyone verbally opted out. This happened until about 3rd period, when something changed-teachers and students don't know exactly what. Students could no longer verbally opt out, they need a parent's written consent. We were told if we verbally refused, we would face the severe consequences of disobeying an administrator, even though we could tell the admin didn't want to give the test either (they are being put under lots of pressure to give it though. I don't think anyone ended up verbally refusing after the rule change was made, so no one knows exactly what those consequences are.
I have LA 6th period,and many people in my class had not yet gotten written consent, even though they didn't want to take the MAP. I wasn't sure if my parent had emailed yet, along with most of the class, so we went down to the computer lab to check the opt out list. If you were not on it, the administrators allowed us to use our cell phones and call our parents to get them to email Ms. Mcbride in the next 5 minutes. Most people were able to get a hold of their parents, so managed not to take it. Those who took it ALL went through as fast as possible, picking random answers. If the test is completed in under 15 minutes, it tells you that your scores are invalid. Since that was the case for everyone, hopefully that is making a point too. About 40 people took it today. I am not sure how many were scheduled to take it, I know it was at least 120.
One of the main reasons the students dislike the MAP test is not only because of the waste of time, but it closes the library. We were told today that the library and all ~4 computer labs will be closed at all times for the rest of February for MAP testing. That means no books, computers, internet, or printing-which many students rely on.
Also, there were Kiro7 TV reporters/cameras there after school interviewing people, and someone put on Facebook the Democracy Now portion about it-but I don't know if that was from today.
NWEA reasons for test invalidation
HP
Thanks to GHS student for your filling us in on the student actions.
-Annie
Jack, what I read in the Times is that it was basically what Charlie said. The district stated its position, didn't offer compromise, didn't ask about a compromise and then they get to say they had a meeting.
Any teachers present for the meeting?
-Annie
-sorry charlie
"In partnership with the city of Seattle, Office of Education, MAP results are also used to measure the effectiveness of programs we implement through the Family and Education Levy."
Here's how the FEL schools plan to measure "effectiveness". There only school that relies solely on MAP is Beacon Hill. Good luck with that. Most use the MSP.
Interestingly, many schools use, as an indicator, the percentage of "ELL students making annual typical growth on MAP". The City Office of Education (which is full of bureacrats and ed reformistas) placed their bets ($212M) on the discredited VAM/typical growth methodology?
Another thing you will notice; there is targeted focus on students of color, Level 1 MSP math and ELL, but not one school proposed specific interventions for students in special education.
We are the forgotten gappers.
Also, something my middle schooler said made a related question come up. She said in the Reading MAP the questions started off as being about things they were studying, then all of a sudden veered off into latin roots and other things they hadn't studied. (so that's the adaptive part.) BUT, does the teacher find out that the questions she may have missed are on LA subjects she hasn't studied yet?
thanks
-sps mom
I did jot down the score she gave me. We were told scores would be available Monday on the Source, so I will verify.
NE Mom of 2 Considering Going Private
As you take the test, it shows the question ID number (not if it is the 3rd question, but what number in their question bank, like 458362) in the corner. The higher the number, the harder the question. I know in middle school everyone in my classes looked at the numbers.
When you finish the test, it shows you your final (composite) score, and below it a list of about six categories and your scores for each one. (for example in the reading MAP, there is a vocabulary category, analysis, comprehension, etc.).
Then, the computer asks you if you would like to print your scores-The librarians always tell you to click no. Pretty much everyone compares scores, at least at the schools where I have been.
The teachers don't know what to teach to because they are not allowed to see the test. They can't even walk around and look over people's shoulders.
I know as I have taken the test it goes to subjects I have no clue about, and just have to guess. A disadvantage of the computer format is that you can't go back to questions, once you've answered you've answered.
-GHS student
HIMSmom