What Else Is New?

Educators shift focus: More drills, less play

And the "school grades" are due out soon. And your property taxes will be cut. And the factory-style schooling continues.

And more kids are lost in the shuffle.

"Educators are trying to create a form to fit every child, and you just can't do that," said Stephen Rushton, a professor and researcher at the University of South Florida. "We have lost the whole child in this testing craze."

Teacher a victim of a failed system

I was savoring every line of this terrific letter in today's St. Pete Times so much that I didn't even glance at the writer's name until I got
to the bottom, when I saw that it's by one of my personal heroines--FCAR director Judy Castillo. For those new to FCAR, in 2003 Judy and her husband sued the state for access to their son's graded FCATs. They didn't prevail, thanks to one of Jeb's appointees (and former staffers) on the appeals court, who reversed a favorable lower court decision, but they brought a lot of sunshine into a very dark corner--and won my undying respect. ~Gloria Pipkin



Teacher a victim of a failed system

The teacher in Pasco County who was fired for FCAT violations is a scapegoat for a failed system. At one time, citizens may have believed the FCAT would improve education. But now, most of us understand that the FCAT is just another divisive tool being used to segregate students. Wealthier communities enjoy higher scores and receive more state funds. Poorer communities suffer lower scores and, therefore, receive less funding. This is institutional racism cloaked in its finest apparel.

I am a high school teacher. During FCAT season, we must attend a brief tutorial on how to administer the test. We receive a book of instruction that none of us is able to completely read. Then, we are forced to sign a paper that stipulates we will not look at the FCAT booklet.

However, we are told that we must proctor the test by moving about the room, making sure all students are on the correct section of the test. How do you do that without glancing at the test? So, teachers are forced into a corner. We are the ones who must pay for the state's unprofessionalism. The state made big mistakes on last year's tests, yet who among them must lose their jobs? Who among them must be responsible to the taxpayers for the cost of a bungled debacle? Who among them will even apologize to the citizens of this state who believed in them? To the schools who depend on them? To the teachers who are sacrificed by them?

Because the state has done such a remarkable job of clouding the real issues in education, including the FCAT sham, it is hard for most people to see what's really at the core of this program. FCAT is not about improving education. It is not about fairness, equality or progress. It is about money and political manipulation. Sacrificing a teacher here or there to maintain rigid control and fear among educators is a small price for them to pay.

I hope the new governor is willing to undress the FCAT and promote a truly progressive education plan - one based on openness, clarity and honesty, and one that doesn't hold teachers hostage in the classrooms, afraid to make the wrong move, afraid to help students, afraid to do their jobs. Let's hope the new governor values what education is about: asking questions and finding answers.

Judy Castillo, Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform, Brooksville

Commissioner Blomberg responds to our letter

Below is the announcement from FCAR president Gloria Pipkin regarding Commissioner Blomberg's response to our open letter.
_________________________________________________

I'm pleased to announce that FCAR will have a representative on the external advisory group that will assist the Department of Education in identifying an independent, external group of testing experts to review the data from 2006 and recommend a procedure for establishing an annual review of the test.

I had a call from the Commissioner's office this morning, letting us know that the advisory group meets in Orlando tomorrow and inviting us to appoint a representative. Dr. Robert Lange, retired UCF professor of educational measurement and FCAR stalwart, will represent FCAR.

Gloria

Open Letter To Gov. Crist, Comm. Blomberg

Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform, Inc.

for further information:
Gloria Pipkin: 850 265-6438
cell: 850 866-9537
or Bob Schaeffer: 239 395-6773

for immediate release, Tuesday, May 28, 2007

ASSESSMENT REFORMERS SEEK "STRICT ACCOUNTABILITY" FOR FCAT; OPEN LETTER TO GOV. CRIST, COMM. BLOMBERG CALLS FOR COMPREHENSIVE, PUBLIC REVIEW OF STATE TESTS IN WAKE OF SCORING ERROR

The Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform (FCAR) today delivered to Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Education Commissioner Jeanine Blomberg a set of recommendations to implement "the administration's pledge of openness and transparency in reviewing the FCAT in the wake of the recent disclosure of the 2006 Grade Three scoring error."

Commissioner Blomberg has indicated that a review will take place but has not provided details about who will conduct the investigation, what topics it will cover, when it will be completed, or whether the results will be made public.

In an open letter, FCAR said, "The powerful impact of the FCAT on our children, our schools, and our communities demands strict accountability to the public" and listed suggestions including:

• hearings around the state to determine the scope of questions Floridians want addressed;

• inclusion of representatives from groups such as FCAR and the Florida League of Women Voters in the FCAT review process;

• input from independent measurement experts as well as teachers, parents and school counselors;

• investigation of all recent FCAT scores, not just the 2006 exam where the state admits an error was made; and

• publication of relevant documents about how the FCAT is designed, constructed and administered, including the exam's technical manual

FCAR is a non-profit, non-partisan, statewide organization with members in 50 of Florida's school districts.

- - - - -
The text of the FCAR letter to Gov. Crist and Commissioner Blomberg follows
- - - - -

FLORIDA COALITION FOR ASSESSMENT REFORM, INC

May 28, 2007

Dear Governor Crist and Commissioner Blomberg:

The Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform (FCAR) applauds the administration's pledge of openness and transparency in reviewing the FCAT in the wake of the recent disclosure of the 2006 Grade Three scoring error. The powerful impact of the FCAT on our children, our schools, and our communities demands strict accountability to the public.

In that spirit, we ask you to consider these comments and suggestions:

• The review process should begin with public hearings around the state, at convenient times and places, to help determine the scope of questions Florida parents, educators, and taxpayers want addressed.

• The audit team should include representatives from FCAR, as well as representatives of the Florida League of Women Voters, which has recently launched a study of the FCAT, and other concerned organizations throughout the state

• The team should seek input from teachers, parents, school counselors, and other child advocates, along with independent psychometricians.

• The investigation should go beyond the 2006 test, thoroughly examining the validity, reliability, and fairness of the FCAT and its uses.

• As part of upholding a pledge of openness and transparency, all critical documents about the FCAT (such as the technical manual) should be made available online and in libraries so that everyone concerned can understand how the test is designed, administered, and graded.

FCAR is a nonprofit organization with members and contacts in more than fifty school districts. We are committed to open, broad-based, constructive assessment that reflects the complexity of learning and respects the diversity of learners.

We look forward to hearing from you as you convene an external advisory group this week, at which time we will be pleased to submit the names of testing experts to review the data from 2006 and recommend a procedure for establishing an annual review of the test.

Sincerely,

Gloria Pipkin, President
for the FCAR Board of Directors

850 265-6438
fcar@fcarweb.org -- www fcarweb.org

Vital Questions

In light of the recent revelations about last year's third grade FCAT scores [see our post from May 27], the questions asked by FCAR vice president Marion Brady are more urgent than ever.

I'm (Mr.) Marion Brady, long-time Florida teacher, administrator, publisher consultant, teacher educator, policy analyst, author of texts and professional books, myriad journal articles, and six years of newspaper columns distributed by KRT. I'm under no contract to anyone, and am offering non-exclusive rights to the following because I think the issues are too important to ignore. I live in Cocoa, and my phone number is 321-636-3448.

___________________

Jim Warford, executive director of the Florida Association of School Administrators, made an important point in his recent column in many of Florida's newspapers. The real FCAT issue isn't about accountability. All educators believe in it. Always have. Always will. It isn't being held accountable that frustrates them, but the FCAT's superficial, simplistic approach to it.

A source of even greater frustration for many is the degree to which the standardized testing fad has shut down dialog on education-related questions of great importance, questions bearing on student performance and societal well-being.

Here are some of those questions:

• The present thrust of education "reform" assumes the familiar curriculum, now locked in place by "standards and accountability," is as appropriate today as it was when it was adopted in 1892. Is it?

• If there are problems with the traditional, same-thing-for-everybody curriculum, don't "raising the bar" and "rigor" make the problems worse?

• Management experts say poor institutional performance almost always indicates unaddressed "system" problems. Poor FCAT scores aren't being blamed on the system but on the people in the system. Are the experts wrong?

• The FCAT is part of a reform movement that assumes market forces can shape schools up. At least one Florida legislator is even considering introducing legislation to pay students for passing scores. Does this mean that learning is unnatural and won't happen unless teachers and kids are threatened or bribed?

• The FCAT is rapidly pushing "frills" out of the curriculum. Has research now established that art, music, physical activity and so on have nothing to do with developing reasoning ability and other desirable educational outcomes?

• On critical, instruction-related questions, local educators and school boards are increasingly being pushed out of the decision-making loop. Does the history of top-down, centralized control suggest this change strategy works?

• Statewide, thousands of kids are being held back because of poor reading and math scores. Is the ability to interpret symbols and fill in ovals on multiple-choice tests the only way kids learn, and therefore sufficient reason to flunk them?

• Education is supposed to teach kids to think for themselves, not just recall what they've been ordered to remember. Are corporately produced, machine-scored tests able to judge the relative quality of complex thought processes? If so, why aren't they already doing that?

• Will manipulating the curriculum to "maintain America's competitive position in world trade" be more likely to ensure America's future well-being than helping kids love learning because it lets them pursue their abilities wherever they lead?

• Frantic to avoid the test-triggered "failing" label, educators use myriad strategies to "game" the system. For example, administrators, knowing ahead of time which kids will and which likely won't pass the FCAT, ignore them and flood the "marginals" with attention. Is it possible to track and counter all such score-distorting strategies?

• If, as Acting Commissioner of Education Jeanine Blomberg says, state officials "...will go back and re-equate and rescale the 2006 third-grade FCAT reading exam..." isn't this an admission of how open the scoring process is to political manipulation?

• The FCAT's defenders insist that it's legitimate because it's tied to the Sunshine State Standards. No one is questioning the quality of those
  "standards"- their lack of an overarching aim, their failure to capitalize on the mutually supportive nature of school subjects, or their emphasis on knowledge rather than on what kids can actually do with what they know. Aren't those problems sufficiently serious to warrant a fresh look at the Standards?
  

Back in the 1980s, before the leaders of business and industry and the politicians hi-jacked education reform, thoughtful educators were beginning to explore ways to move student intellectual performance to a whole new level. The keys were World War II-developed General Systems Theory and research into how the brain organizes information. The FCAT's "mother" - the No Child Left Behind legislation - stopped that effort dead in its tracks.

The new model for education reform is the 19th century classroom of Charles Dickens' "Mr. Gradgrind." Future generations will look back on this era and shake their heads in disbelief at the naivete of the amateurs now writing education policy.

FCAT bombshell

Below is an excerpt from FCAR's email news digest, F-TREND. More information will follow soon.

In the four years we've been publishing F-TREND, we've never seen FCAT news as explosive as what came to light this week. FCAT reading, math, and science scores in all grades in which they're administered were released this week, but they were overshadowed by the Florida Department of Education's admission--a year after the fact--that the 2006 grade 3 reading FCAT scores were artificially inflated because the test was easier than those in previous years.

What did the DOE know, and when did they know it?

When the 2007 scores for grade 3 FCAT were released two weeks ago, the percentage of students scoring at or above levels deemed "proficient" on the reading test dropped from 75% to 69% statewide, with 60 of 67 districts showing declines after six years of steady improvement.

Superintendents and assessment coordinators in many districts began pressing for answers, and one of the first responses from Jeanine Blomberg, acting commissioner of education, was that last year's test might have been easier. Shortly after, former commissioner of education John Winn acknowledged that these concerns had arisen in 2006 when the grade reading scores came in, but, according to Winn, the DOE and Harcourt, the test developer, were unable to detect any significant differences in the tests using traditional methods of statistical equating.

Common Item Equating

How do we know when a grade level test is easier or more difficult than one previously administered? Bob Schaeffer, national education director for Fair Test, resident of Sanibel, and member of FCAR, explained the procedure for equating tests from year to year this way: "The process they appear to have been using is called 'common item equating.' The way it works is that a set of identical questions (often called a 'testlet') is included in the exams for consecutive years. The rationale is that if average performance on these common items increases by a certain percentage, it is likely that student mastery of whatever it is the test measures has also improved by a similar proportion.

Unfortunately, that assumption holds only if the items are embedded in exactly the same place in the test year after year--item order can significantly alter performance." As Bob noted, there have been published reports that the placement of the "testlet" items for the 2006 test varied wasn't the same as the previous test.

Life-altering decisions made on the basis of a single flawed and fallible test

A constant theme running through all of FCAR's advocacy efforts over the last seven years has been that a single test is not a fair and reliable measure of any child's strengths and needs. The latest FCAT debacle only deepens our conviction. Even when there was strong evidence that something was rotten in FCATland, the politicians and bureaucrats kept us in the dark during an election year when the FCAT was a major issue.

Redressing the wrongs of FCAT, assessing the assessors, and supporting constructive assessment

The Florida Coalition for Assessment Reform will shortly propose a plan for digging deep into the flawed FCATs, assessing the assessors, and holding the State accountable to Florida children and families. FCAR's mission statement remains a worthy goal: open, broad-based, constructive assessment that reflects the complexity of learning and respects the diversity of learners.

Gloria Pipkin
John L. Perry
May 26, 2007

Educator Roundtable

John included this link to the Educator Roundtable in his comments. Worth a visit! :)

I'll add it to the links here too.

http://www.educatorroundtable.org/

From the website:

Action

Teachers, parents, scholars, and policy analysts have convened this roundtable in hopes of repealing the CURRENT authorization of the ESEA (No Child Left Behind Act). While we recognize that many individuals signed onto the legislation with the best of intentions, it is our hope that we can help them see the damage NCLB has done. While no one has yet leveled an effective, widespread challenge to the law, we are hopeful. We are hopeful that the thousands of disenfranchised educators, disillusioned parents, overburdened students and hyper-regulated school districts will work together to reclaim our free, public, and locally controlled schools. From there we can explore multiple paths of learning...

continue reading about what we are trying to accomplish

Teachers With "Chutzpah"

Looking for inspiration? Read about some people putting their money where their mouth is -- or, more to the point, not selling out!

A teaching moment

Pinellas County educators recently rejected a state merit pay plan by a huge margin, saying no to millions. Here's what they want state legislators to learn from their vote.

By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published March 20, 2007

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Sherry Brock knows exactly what an extra few thousand dollars could buy.

New wall-to-wall carpeting for her living room. A cushy couch and a matching love seat. Hubcaps to replace the ones someone stole from her '92 Caddy.

Yet when the moment came for her to approve a plan that would bring Pinellas County schoolteachers $6.1-million - as much as $3,100 of it for herself - the district's 2007 Outstanding Educator checked the little box that said "No."

Brock, a math and journalism teacher at Dixie Hollins High in St. Petersburg, wanted the hubcaps. She thought she deserved them. But her years in the classroom have taught her that some things are more important than money.

"I have not been able to see how this can be fair," she said of the merit pay plan state legislators dubbed Special Teachers Are Rewarded, or STAR. "I think it's divisive."

. . .

In a stunning display of chutzpah not seen since the teacher walkout of 1968, Pinellas educators stood together last month, rejecting a legislative mandate they considered demeaning and demoralizing. From one end of the county to the other, their votes reflected years of frustration with the FCAT, years of frustration with politicians.

The final tally: 217 for STAR, 4,517 against.

Districts across the state posted similar results, sending legislators back to come up with a new plan they hope educators will find more palatable.

In Pinellas County, the teachers are still angry.

. . .