Archive for the ‘Race to the Top’ Category

Margaret Spellings

Daniel Malloy, the AJC’s reporter in Washington, D.C., sat down with former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings for an interview at an event in Washington today.  Here are her answers to a series of questions on major education issues:

DM: Cheating scandal call testing into question?

Spellings: I think obviously the vast majority of educators and education leaders take assessment seriously and the integrity seriously and don’t cheat. When it does happen it ought to be addressed and attended to vigorously. Obviously, we saw that exact same thing play out in Atlanta and what encourages me when I think about the Atlanta case study, the business community, as you know, was very engaged, got a little sideswiped by the scandal, a little aggrieved by their engagement that was rewarded with this sort of behavior. I think to their credit they’ve stayed engaged and active and continue to be and are moving forward to the benefit of kids. Often we take our …

Continue reading Former U.S. ed secretary on legacy of No Child Left Behind »

One of the foundations of Georgia’s new teacher evaluation system will be classroom observations by administrators, which are supposed to occur twice a year and last 30 minutes each.

There are already doubts about whether these classroom visits will occur given the time constraints on principals or whether they will yield reliable information on teacher effectiveness. (See comment from the leader of the DeKalb teachers group that he is hearing complaints these observations are not happening as required in the pilot program under way.)

Here is new research that will add to the concerns. This is from Indiana University School of Education:

Classroom observation measures don’t necessarily provide a clearer picture of teacher effectiveness than value-added measures based on student test scores, according to a review of the most recent report from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project’s large-scale examination of teacher evaluation methods. The review was led by Cassandra …

Continue reading Do classroom observations of teachers give us reliable info? »

The AJC has published the second installment in its major series on test score disparities nationwide. Today’s stories look at the improbable score patterns in some of the nation’s most highly decorated schools, National Blue Ribbon Schools.

AJC reporters included a winning school that even merited a visit from Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Highland Elementary in Maryland.

“This school, just four or five years ago, wasn’t a Blue Ribbon school,” Duncan said that morning in September 2009, according to video of thew award event. “It had the same type of children, same type of families, same type of community — but dramatically different results.” Now, he said, “this school has more students at the advanced level than any other school like it in the state. It’s absolutely remarkable.”

And remarkably unlikely, according to the AJC analysis. It is essential to verify the achievement at these heralded school as they are held up as role models.

According to …

Continue reading AJC cheating series: National Blue Ribbon Schools that may be red-faced at these revelations »

The release of teacher ratings in New York has led to discussion in the legislature there to limit general public access to the information while still allowing parents to see how their child’s teacher performed.

The debate in New York ought to closely watched here in Georgia where teaching ratings are just around the corner as part of the state’s Race to the Top reforms.

It is still unclear whether those ratings will be released in Georgia. Education policy leaders involved in Race to the Top have said in the past that they will not seek publication of teacher ratings, but the Legislature or governor may disagree.

According to The New York Times: (This is only an excerpt. Try to read full piece.)

With the Legislature preparing to go into session next week, the question of how much privacy teachers are granted could soon be resolved. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Monday that he believed in preserving the public access guaranteed by current law. The city released its …

Continue reading New York lawmakers may reconsider public’s right to see how teachers are rated »

The folks at FairTest have been raising the alarm about excessive testing and its impact on education long before most people.

Here is a response to the AJC investigation into nationwide disparities in test results from Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest: the National Center for Fair & Open Testing

By Robert Schaeffer

Across the U.S., the politically mandated misuse of standardized tests is damaging public schools and the children they serve. The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s investigation of suspicious test scores around the nation is just the latest example. Experts may debate the methodology, but there is no question that cheating on standardized exams is widespread. In just the past three academic years, FairTest has documented confirmed cases of test score manipulation in 33 states plus the District of Columbia.

These scandals are the predictable result of over-reliance on test scores. As the renowned social scientist Donald Campbell concluded more …

Continue reading High-stakes testing cheats children out of a quality education »

Here is a post to start off the month of April from Peter Smagorinsky, distinguished research professor of English education at the University of Georgia. Smagorinsky is the author of several interesting posts to the Get Schooled blog and also contributes pieces to the Washington Post Answer Sheet blog.

Enjoy this new essay on testing:

By Peter Smagorinsky

A recent study concludes that teachers who produce high test scores affect their students’ lives down the road. High income and other rewards, goes the argument, follow from high test scores, and so it behooves schools to produce those scores to ensure affluent futures for their students.

You can’t have test scores without tests, and in Georgia, we test, and then test again, often quite soon. Preparing for and administering multiple-choice tests pretty much dominate instructional time these days, because being graded by teachers trained in a discipline just isn’t good enough evidence of students’ learning.

Our …

Continue reading The billion dollar question for Arne Duncan: Why has testing become the driver in school reform? »

Here is a great essay by Georgia classroom teacher Beth Pittard, who is also a grad student at the University of Georgia College of Education:

By Beth Pittard

While many people around the country complete brackets for basketball, teachers everywhere gear up for their own version of March Madness. To prepare for the Criterion Referenced Competency Test to be taken sometime between April 4- May 6, elementary school teachers will actually have to convince students to forget what they have learned about reading.

The high-stakes testing situation leads, literally, to madness.

Let me explain. Teachers are required to teach the Georgia Performance Standards with fidelity. We are expected to “prove” we are doing this by posting the standard in a “highly visible” place in our classrooms along with an essential question (EQ) for each lesson of each day and for each subject area (forget integrating the curriculum, but that’s another story).

Each standard has a code …

Continue reading Testing season revs up: March madness leads to April angst »

The Tennessean newspaper is reporting that lawmakers there are considering legislation to shield teacher performance scores from parents and the press. The state Department of Education had said earlier that a teacher’s final evaluation score would be made public if sought through an open records request that cleared department attorneys.

The question of releasing teacher ratings has come to the forefront after the information was made public in Los Angeles and New York. Georgia will be faced with this decision eventually as it is now testing a new teacher rating system as part of its Race to the Top grant. If deemed to be open records, as they were in New York, the ratings would have to be made public.

According to the Tennessean:

A new measure is drawing praise from the state’s largest teachers union and disappointment among some observers. In a time of massive education reform, opponents say, parents and the public should get to see how it’s working.

The vote came …

Continue reading Tennessee moves to prevent parents, press from seeing new teacher ratings. Georgia will face this issue, too. »

School financing expert Joe Martin sent out this note about House Bill 824, which deals with a school funding mechanism in Georgia that few people understand.

But equalization grants have great implications for the many Georgia districts that rely on them, and Martin’s note about proposed reductions is worth reading if yours is one of them.

Here is Martin’s note:

The sponsors of the proposed change in Equalization Grants are trying to make the best of a bad situation, and they should be commended for redirecting more of the available funds to the least wealthy systems. Nevertheless, we have to recognize the far-reaching consequences of HB 824 over time unless it is amended.

The General Assembly has not followed its own formula for calculating Equalization Grants in recent years. Instead, it has reduced these grants by whatever percentage was needed to keep the overall total at a certain amount. When compared with the current situation, HB 824 would provide short-term relief …

Continue reading Reduction to equalization grants: Sounds boring but will impact many Georgia school districts »

School and class size are one of those areas in education where the research and common sense can diverge. Parents and  teachers feel at an organic level that fewer students in a class or a school building enable more attention to all students. But the research has been murky at best on the relationship between size and performance.

So, a new study on the positive impact on graduation rates from New York City’s experiment with small high schools is getting a lot of attention, including a gleeful statement this morning from Ed Secretary Arne Duncan:

This new, rigorous study by MDRC of New York City’s ambitious experiment with small public high schools underscores the great potential to replace failing schools for disadvantaged students with schools that instead narrow achievement and attainment gaps. MDRC’s study is important and encouraging on several fronts. It shows that school reform can achieve success at scale, district-wide, and not just in isolated islands …

Continue reading New study out of New York: Smaller high schools graduate more and better prepared students »