http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/opinion/09herbert.html?th&emc=th
High-Stakes Flimflam
By BOB HERBERT
NY Times Op-Ed: October 9, 2007
It's time to rein in the test zealots who have gotten such a stranglehold on
the public schools in the U.S.
Politicians and others have promoted high-stakes testing as a panacea that
would bring accountability to teaching and substantially boost the classroom
performance of students.
"Measuring," said President Bush, in a discussion of his No Child Left
Behind law, "is the gateway to success."
Not only has high-stakes testing largely failed to magically swing open the
gates to successful learning, it is questionable in many cases whether the
tests themselves are anything more than a shell game.
Daniel Koretz, a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, told
me in a recent interview that it's important to ask "whether you can trust
improvements in test scores when you are holding people accountable for the
tests."
The short answer, he said, is no.
If teachers, administrators, politicians and others have a stake in raising
the test scores of students - as opposed to improving student learning,
which is not the same thing - there are all kinds of incentives to raise
those scores by any means necessary.
"We've now had four or five different waves of educational reform," said Dr.
Koretz, "that were based on the idea that if we can just get a good test in
place and beat people up to raise scores, kids will learn more. That's
really what No Child Left Behind is."
The problem is that you can raise scores the hard way by teaching more
effectively and getting the students to work harder, or you can take
shortcuts and start figuring out ways, as Dr. Koretz put it, to "game" the
system.
Guess what's been happening?
"We've had high-stakes testing, really, since the 1970s in some states,"
said Dr. Koretz. "We've had maybe six good studies that ask: 'If the scores
go up, can we believe them? Or are people taking shortcuts?' And all of
those studies found really substantial inflation of test scores.
"In some cases where there were huge increases in test scores, the kids
didn't
actually learn more at all. If you gave them another test, you saw no
improvement."
There is not enough data available to determine how widespread this problem
is. "We know it doesn't always happen," said Dr. Koretz. "But we know it
often does."
He said his big concern is where this might be happening. "There are a lot
of us in the field," he said, "who think that if we ever really looked under
the covers, what we'd find is that the shortcuts are particularly prevalent
in lower-achieving schools, just because the pressure is greater, the
community supports are less and the kids have more difficulties. But we
don't
know."
One aspect of the No Child Left Behind law that doesn't get enough attention
is that while it requires states to make progress toward student proficiency
in reading and math, it leaves it up to the states themselves to define
"proficiency" and to create the tests that determine what constitutes
progress.
That's absurd. With no guiding standard, the states' tests are measurements
without meaning.
A study released last week by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the
Northwest Evaluation Association found that "improvements in passing rates
on state tests can largely be explained by declines in the difficulty of
those tests."
The people in charge of most school districts would rather jump from the
roof of a tall building than allow an unfettered study of their test
practices. But that kind of analysis is exactly what's needed if we're to
get any real sense of how well students are doing.
Five years ago, President Bush and many others who had little understanding
of the best ways to educate children were crowing about the prospects of No
Child Left Behind. They were warned then about the dangers of relying too
much on test scores.
But those warnings didn't matter in an era in which reality was left behind.
"No longer is it acceptable to hide poor performance," said Mr. Bush, as if
those who were genuinely concerned about the flaws in his approach were in
favor of poor performance.
During my interview with Dr. Koretz, he noted that by not rigorously
analyzing the phenomenon of high-stakes testing, "we're creating an illusion
of success that is really nice for everybody in the system except the kids."
That was a few days before the release of the Fordham Institute Study, which
used language strikingly similar to Dr. Koretz's. The study asserted that
the tests used by states to measure student progress under No Child Left
Behind were creating "a false impression of success."
The study was titled, "The Proficiency Illusion."
***
The Workmen's Circle and LA Jews for Peace invite you to a
DEBATE & DISCUSSION THIS THURSDAY on
ONE-STATE vs. TWO-STATES SOLUTIONS for the
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT.
Thursday, Oct. 11, 7 PM
The Workmen's Circle, 1525 S. Robertson Blvd.,
(4 blocks south of Pico), Los Angeles
Phone: 310-552-2007
PROGRAM
1. Asim Altamimi and Richard Herman will recreate the debate held
between Ilan Pappe and Uri Avnery in Tel Aviv on May 8, 2007
2. Jeff Warner will moderate an extended discussion.
ATTEND and be PART of the DISCUSSION.
===
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY. - Rick Chertoff
Subject: Anti-Occupation Demonstration - Friday, Oct. 19 6-8 PM
Join LA Jews for Peace and the
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation at a
National Day of Action Demonstration
Call to action: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/
in front of the Museum of Tolerance
Friday, October 19, 6 to 8 PM
Museum of Tolerance is on Pico at Roxbury
(west of Robertson and east of Century City)
LA Jews for Peace will have a large banner. Bring your own signs.
Information at [EMAIL PROTECTED], call Jeff at 562-694-1637
Pat & Jeff Warner
La Habra Heights, CA 90631
***
Join Majority Leader Karen Bass & the 47th
Assembly District People's Council for the
Iraq War Town Hall
Sunday, October 14, 2007
3:00pm - 5:00pm
Hamilton High School Auditorium
2955 South Robertson
(Two blocks north of 10 Fwy)
Los Angeles, CA 90034
The purpose of this town hall meeting is to discuss what's happening in Iraq
and show how it is affecting our community.
PANELISTS
Congresswoman Diane Watson
Major General Paul Eaton
Charged with rebuilding Iraqi Armed Forces in 2003-04
Portions of the award-winning documentary No End In Sight
by Charles Ferguson will also be shown at the event
Join the People's Council to help collect items for
care packages for the troops in Iraq
Please bring any of the following to the town hall meeting:
Disposable cameras Prepaid phone cards
Travel-size board games Hand and foot warmers
Energy bars Candy
To RSVP or for more information, contact Jenny Wood at (323) 937-4747
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