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Test Students to Improve High School Teaching, Policy Brief Urges

Ohanian Comment: It is always problematic to respond to a journalist's query and know you will be quoted out of context and look somewhat of a fool. So be it. I talked of 'negotiating the curriculum' as introduction to telling the story of Jack, who decided the curriculum he needed was to play Scrabble for six months.

I did NOT say that "The standardized tests used for value-added measurement represent what politicians and corporations want student to learn," as though corporations were a thinking entity. I referred to corporate politicos. and to Standardistos.

So be it. The quote still represents my views and I stand by it. But I mourn that "student weirdness" did not get in there because that is the key point here. But I blame myself, not the reporter. I wrote too much. Let it be a lesson to others: be succinct. Too much context sinks your boat.

Reading our entire exchange will undoubtedly make one sympathetic with the reporter:



Bess Keller wrote:

Ms. Ohanian:

Am writing about a new report from the Alliance for Excellent Ed (on their www.all4ed.org Web site) called "Measuring and Improving the Effectiveness of High School Teachers." It emphasizes testing and value-added appraisal of teacher's ability to raise test scores as the best way to improve teaching.

I am seeking your response to these idea. Have until 5 today.

From: Susan Ohanian:

THEY say,
"All students must learn the advanced skills that are the key to success in college and in the 21st century workplace. Every student should take demanding classes in the core subjects of English, history, science, and math; and no student should ever get a watered-down course of study. Further, students should also be given the opportunity to earn industry certification or some college credit while in high school through programs such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or those offered through a local college or university."

http://www.all4ed.org/what_you_can_do/successful_high_school

This is utter nonsense, the corporate politico view of education that does not take the needs of students into account. I am proud to say I taught in a high school where I could give a disaffected student time and space to study Scrabble for six months. That's all he did. My boss would come in and nod at Jack in the corner, asking, "Jack still playing Scrabble?"

And I'd reply, "Yes, he is still working at it."

It is more critical that high schools have time and space for weird kids than that they pump up the number of AP courses they offer. In Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players, Stefan Fatsis shows the reader that Scrabble at this level is about weirdness, extreme weirdness. It's also about linguistics, psychology, mathematics, memory, competition, doggedness. Scrabble at the national competitive level, and with one out-of-kilter kid in a classroom set up for misfits, is about mastering the rules; it's about failure and it's about hope.

When Standardistas don't allow students and teachers to negotiate curricula together, we lose students. And as a society we cannot turn our backs on students like Jack. If we fail to help them rebuild their lives, the results will be disastrous--for them and for us. The whole notion of 21st Century worker for the Global Economy can be dismissed by a quick glance at job projections at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We have a lot more jobs for
butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers more than [for] mathematicians. Not to mention airline attendants, auto mechanics, chimney sweeps, electricians, firemen, fingerprint technologists, graphic designers, home health aides, insulators, janitors, kitchen remodelers, loggers, machinists, and so on.

Susan Ohanian, whose official evaluation in New York City noted that she had a good heart
New book: When Childhood Collides with NCLB (2008)

Bess Keller wrote:
If you can get a comment for my story out of this, I salute you. . . .

Susan Ohanian wrote:

Ok, I'll put it another way.

The important things a student gets from school are elusive. The so-called value added system does not and cannot measure the things I value as a teacher. Instead of spending their time trying to measure corporate imperatives, teachers need to learn how to accommodate student weirdness.





By Bess Keller

Washington

More effective teaching in high schools will get its biggest boost from a variety of high-quality assessments of student learning, according to a policy brief from a group that advocates for high school students in danger of dropping out or graduating with low skills.

The trove of student-assessment data that has begun to focus the quest for more effective teaching in the elementary and middle grades often doesn’t exist in high schools, the paper says, nor do high schools typically have the schedules and routines that allow teachers to learn from the data and one another. But such challenges must be overcome to significantly improve students’ chances of graduating from high school prepared for further education and for life, says the Washington-based Alliance for Excellent Education, which released the brief at a panel discussion held here March 25.

That’s because teaching, which should be defined primarily by the measurable contributions that teachers make to student learning, is the most important school factor in student success, said alliance policy associate Jeremy Ayers, who presented the paper. It was underwritten by the MetLife Foundation.

While state tests provide one way of measuring student-learning gains, high schools need to turn to other yardsticks, such as end-of-course tests and school-devised assessments, Mr. Ayers said.

Proponents of the “value added” statistical method, which uses test scores, usually over three years, to isolate a teacher’s effect on student learning, say it is the fairest available method for gauging effectiveness, though it is more complicated to carry out at the high school level because of the overlapping contributions of teachers, the paper says.

“With value-added, we have the best ability right now to get the best information on teachers,” Mr. Ayers said, while acknowledging the method’s limitations, some statistical and some related to the availability of high-quality assessments.

Some observers, though, find the reliance on standardized test results wrongheaded.

Susan Ohanian, a senior fellow at the Vermont Society for the Study of Education and a former high school teacher, wrote in an e-mail that "the value-added system does not and cannot measure the things I value as a teacher."

The standardized tests used for value-added measurement represent what politicians and corporations want student to learn, and for teachers to be defined by student results from such tests misses the point of teaching, according to Ms. Ohanian. Teachers must "take the needs of students into account," she wrote. "Students and teachers [need to negotiate] curriculum together." . .
Ed Week objects if I post entire articles. Go
here to read the rest of the article, which includes the NEA's position.

— Bess Keller
Education Week
2008-03-27


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