Living and dying by test scores: a charter faces probation for weeding out problem students.

[madfloridian]

When a test made by private companies and graded by private companies without regulatory oversight becomes the major way to grade students, teachers, and schools......then it is tempting to cheat to achieve high scores on the test.

Other aspects of learning are forgotten and shoved to the side.

Hat tip to the NYC Educator blog for this news about an Albany charter school facing probation.

The Old Fashioned Way

How do charters get those great scores Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein are always jumping up and down about? Well, they cheat.

I mean, it isn't enough to merely have 100% kids of proactive parents. Sure, that's an edge, as everyone who doesn't give a golly goshdarn winds up at your friendly neighborhood public school (if your neighborhood is backward enough to still have one).

After all, when you live and die by scores, you'd better make sure you have good ones.

The blog links to the Times Union for this news story.

Albany Preparatory is accused of screening potential pupils to weed out those with academic challenges

ALBANY -- An Albany charter school is accused of screening potential students to weed out those with academic challenges and could be put on probation this week as a result.

Three former employees of the Albany Preparatory Charter School claimed an administrator at the school was trying to improve the school's scores on state standardized tests by denying admission or wait-listing learning-disabled students, an investigation has found. Some parents of students who did not perform well on a reading test were counseled that the school was "not a good fit" or would have their applications denied, according to a scathing new report by the State University of New York's Charter Schools Institute.

As a result of an investigation that began almost a year ago, Institute officials made the rare probation recommendation, which means the school would have to meet a set of corrective requirements or risk having its charter revoked. The recommendation will be voted upon by the SUNY board of trustees on Tuesday. SUNY authorizes half the state's charter schools.

"The extent, specificity, and sources of the allegations are unprecedented," the report reads. "And the complainants all linked the alleged behavior to attaining higher scores on the state assessments in light of a pending (charter) renewal decision."

It seems the test makers and test scorers are setting the agendas that all must follow.

The test makers and the test scorers. "Omniscient, no. Omnipotent? Perhaps."

Do not be fooled. The people creating and scoring those tests are not some educational gods in the sky, omniscient and dedicated to your child's education. Omniscient, no. Omnipotent? Perhaps.

They can decide whether or not your child is held back in elementary school or middle school, or whether or not he/she graduates from high school. They can decide which schools receive what funding. My own school risks losing its administrators after this year if it does not bring its grade back up to a C from its current D--despite the fact that we had enough points to earn a C this year, but a caveat in the grading system prevented us from actually being given that C. Our administrators are dedicated, smart, hardworking and caring. I consider myself extremely lucky to work in a school with such good administrators; I understand that it is not necessarily a common occurrence. Yet they could all be involuntarily reassigned--along with many teachers--if the standardized testing industry decides (with the arbitrariness described in Farley's book) that it is so.

There must be oversight of these new schools that are taking the place of public education. They must also be required to take every student just as public schools are required to do.

The handicapped, the disabled, the ones who learn by a different method than most, those who misbehave...all must be included as education transforms from public to private.

I doubt it will happen though.

[yurbud]

1. the first line says it all: it's really just corruption. test companies & shady ''entrepeneurs''

[Richard Steele]

6. Yup. nm

[Liberal_in_LA]

25. Yes! n/t

[waiting for hope]

2. They are doing this in New Orleans too -

as a way to justify Disaster Capitalism in the Charter takeover. Now they have Scott Cowen (Saving Public Schools, Tulane Style - who is a big proponent for Charter Schools) overseeing the testing.

K&R

[madfloridian]

5. Charter advocates are packing school boards now. Very aggressive.

As the rest of us sit back and let the corporatization (is that a real word) of public education happen.

[jody]

3. Georgia found 191 schools had tampered with standardized achievement tests. So what's new?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/education/12georgia.html

[madfloridian]

4. This paragraph from your article is pure BS

"The inquiry flagged any school that had an abnormal number of erasures on answer sheets where the answers were changed from wrong to right, suggesting deliberate interference by teachers, principals or other administrators."

That is ridiculous. I have monitored testing for year, and I have seen erasures by the children who really want to do well and are confused by the choices.

Teachers can NOT interfere during testing. That is absurd. We had aides watching us and monitoring to keep it all honest.

I am sick at the propaganda.

[goclark]

8. I was an Administrator for many years in public schools

in Michigan and CA.

I have also supervised beginning teachers in Public Schools and Charter schools for two major Universities.

I beg to differ with your opinion.

I am not surprised at all by the original post.

In fact, it is the tip of the iceberg.

[madfloridian]

10. Edited.

[conservdem]

21. Did you see more cheating at the public or charter schools?

And, can you tell us a little more about what you saw and/or how it was handled?

[hobbit709]

7. As Gomer Pyle used to say

"Surprise, surprise, surprise!"

This has been going on since all that testing crap started. Even regular schools were doing this and similar to make the test scores look better.

[yurbud]

11. my wife is an elementary school teacher and she said they test EVERY TWO MONTHS

When I was a kid I can only remember doing that once or twice a year.

The only people who would benefit from doing it more are those who sell the tests and those who want to dismantle public education so they can pay lower taxes and have workers who are easier to push around.

[gorfle]

13. The answer is not to ditch testing.

I don't understand the uproar here.

If testing breeds corruption, STAMP OUT THE CORRUPTION. You don't get rid of testing.

[Mopar151]

15. Is the test a valid measure of learning?

It's learning you don't get rid of. Taking tests all the time does not advance the cause of learning.

[gorfle]

26. Taking tests validates that learning has occurred.

I'm not going to get into this debate yet again.

You have to have metrics to measure the success of the learning process.

Every time I have this debate and ask what alternative metrics anti-testing people would prefer, crickets chirp.

Consequently, I have long ago formed the conclusion that anti-testing people are simply afraid of metrics.

[MadHound]

20. Standardized tests are an abysmal way to assess student progress

It has been shown that tests are culturally and racially biased. It has been shown that test anxiety dehabilitates otherwise intelligent, capable students to the point where they blow their test. It has been shown that standardized tests don't adequately assess a broad range of students due to the way those students both learn and show what they learn (I'm not going to go into Gardener's Multiple Intelligences theory here, it would take too long, so google it, educate yourself)

Then there is what testing does to the classroom. We have all heard about teaching to the test, and it happens. It is a natural consequence of this testing madness. When a school's funding is on the line, its very existence, then teachers and administrators are going to teach to that test. This means, in practical terms, that our students are not getting the education they need because too much time is spent on test prep. For instance Social Studies and History is getting left behind in the elementary level because it isn't tested. Thus teachers spend the bulk of their time on teaching reading, writing, math and science while things like History, Art, Music all get left behind. This has atrocious effects on the child's learning as they progress through school.

Furthermore it stifles children's ability to express themselves in different ways. I did my student teaching last semester. The first test that I made up had an easy essay question on it. The kids freaked and did not do well. Why? Because they were used to taking multiple choice, fill in the bubble tests and couldn't handle anything else. I wound up having to do remedial work on how to write an essay and answer an essay question.

Students do need to be assessed, but there need to be different ways of assessment. This can come in the form of portfolios, observation, reports, presentations, etc. Furthermore students do not need to be tested every bloody year, or in some cases twice a year or more. That is insane. If all you're doing is test prep you are not teaching much of anything else.

Back when we had a good education system(when I was a kid) we didn't have all this damn testing. We had a test about once every three or four years, and gee, we learned, a lot. Ever since NCLB instituted this testing madness, our education system has gone down hill quickly. This year we're 37th in the world in overall educational quality. Last year we were 29th. It is apparent that we need to stop this testing madness before it ruins our public education system. Of course judging from what is going on these days in education that seems to be the point, destroy our once fine public education system and replace it with an even crappier private one.

We are going to lose at least one generation of students to this madness, do you want to continue to lose even more?

[conservdem]

22. Do you really believe we are 37th in the world?

And I doubt the ranking that put us at 37 was a real comparison of apples to apples.

I also doubt most of the word tries to teach as many special need students as occurs here.

[gorfle]

27. Research does not bear out your argument.

It has been shown that tests are culturally and racially biased. It has been shown that test anxiety dehabilitates otherwise intelligent, capable students to the point where they blow their test. It has been shown that standardized tests don't adequately assess a broad range of students due to the way those students both learn and show what they learn (I'm not going to go into Gardener's Multiple Intelligences theory here, it would take too long, so google it, educate yourself)

I suggest you read the research of Dr. John Ogbu.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=296486&mesg_id=296721

It seems the largest determinator of scholastic success is parental involvement and expectation.

Then there is what testing does to the classroom. We have all heard about teaching to the test, and it happens. It is a natural consequence of this testing madness. When a school's funding is on the line, its very existence, then teachers and administrators are going to teach to that test.

And as I have said before, I have no problem with teaching to a test. If the test represents the knowledge that we have decided our students need to have, and testing verifies that they have acquired that knowledge, then all is well!

For instance Social Studies and History is getting left behind in the elementary level because it isn't tested.

So test it!

The first test that I made up had an easy essay question on it. The kids freaked and did not do well. Why? Because they were used to taking multiple choice, fill in the bubble tests and couldn't handle anything else. I wound up having to do remedial work on how to write an essay and answer an essay question.

So the tests need to be something other than multiple-choice. No problem.

This can come in the form of portfolios, observation, reports, presentations, etc.

I'm quite open to alternative metrics, so long as they are objective, not subjective. All of the methods you have described will yield different results across schools, because different people will be doing the observing and reporting and consequently yield different results. This makes it difficult to assess and compare the educational process broadly. That is bad. And again, all I have concluded from these debates is that the anti-testing people are, simply, afraid of being measured.

[surrealAmerican]

9. Are charters typically allowed access to students' test scores?

... or was this a test the charter school administered as part of some sort of application process?

Either way, it ought not be allowed.

[LisaM]

12. You are so right that they should not be allowed to turn kids away

Yet that is what they do. And if they take them, and don't like them, they kick them out.

It's insane what's going on - and a lot of people just don't care.

Your comment about the school boards being packed with charter advocates was spot on, as well. For a look at a scary, anti-teachers' group that has tried to pack Washington school boards, take a look at this group: http://www.effwa.org/main/page.php

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Althaia]

16. It is VITAL to educate the students who don't fit well in a 'normal' classroom...

...because they are the creative geniuses who will invent the future.

Temple Grandin's TED2010 talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/temple_grandin_the_world_needs_all_kinds_of_minds.html?awesm=on.ted.com_8A29

[KansDem]

17. Education, meet Health Care; Health Care, meet Education

the school was trying to improve the school's scores on state standardized tests by denying admission or wait-listing learning-disabled students, an investigation has found. Some parents of students who did not perform well on a reading test were counseled that the school was "not a good fit" or would have their applications denied...

How long after "health-care reform" until health-care insurance companies will find some potential policy-holders to be "not a good fit?"

[midnight]

18. Thank you. This testing vs teaching has been a complete distraction, and

failure towards creating better students.

[madfloridian]

19. You are right. And the testing companies set the agenda

and the curriculum.

[liberal_at_heart]

23. I'm so glad my son's public school cares about him

My autistic son's teacher has never shied away from giving him standardized tests. Neither she nor I believe tests are the be all end all but we do like to guage where he is and see where we can encourage him to improve and see where maybe we are pushing him too hard. His teacher does this knowing full well his scores will bring down the school's overall scores, but she and the school care enough about him to let him take the test.

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. We're gearing up for the annual March charter school dump

Our state tests in April so the charters dump all the kids they don't want to test in March. We get them as we are prepping our kids for the big test.

It's great timing. :sarcasm: