DOE Calculates Performance Standards...Incorrectly!
by Paul Phillips
[newdemocracyworld.org]
[Editor's note: DOE is the Massachusetts Department of Education]
All right math fans! Year one: 6 kids take a test and 2 get A’s. Year 2: 100
kids take the test and 50 get A’s. What is your % of A’s over two years?
Lessee...add the 33% of year one, the 50% of year two (83) and divide by two?
And the answer is 41.5%...right? Well, that’s how the DOE has done the school
performance ratings, according to Dr. Bill Kendall, chair of the Math department
for Braintree Public Schools.
Actually we have a total of 106 test takers and 52 A’s, for a percentage of
just over 49%.
The DOE got huffy immediately and claimed the sample sizes didn’t vary that
much, so the difference was negligible. Nonetheless, they did it wrong, and it
engenders such confidence in them! Now, if a kid made this same error it could
keep him or her from graduating from high school, or it could get a fourth
grader labeled "failing" before his or her tenth birthday.
"Close enough" is good enough in horseshoes, hand grenades, and the
DOE.
Performance Ratings Raise Havoc
1998 MCAS scores were a baseline. DOE averaged scores for 1999 and 2000
(incorrectly) and compared them to the baseline, based on their own
"Expectations for improvement". The worse you had done initially, the
higher the expectations were. And everyone was expected to improve some. If you
didn’t improve enough, your school was labeled "Failed to meet
expectations".
The upshot? Schools, many in the poorest urban areas, worked like dogs to get
their scores up, but didn’t beat their 6 points (or more!) expectation. They
are labeled "failures." But, the highest scoring schools in the state,
which had more modest improvement expectations...couldn’t meet them either!
This has resulted in some ludicrous results. Brookline High School is a failure.
They have 19 National Merit finalists this year. Their MCAS scores are among the
highest in the state. But they didn’t improve enough...A middle school in Fall
River whose scores rose three points after grueling effort will also be labeled
"failure." Schools everywhere will be labeled failure...and the label
will not mean that the school is a failure. What will that label mean? Well,
according to many of the affected Principals, Superintendents, and teachers, it
means nothing. The "expectations" were based on numbers, not reality.
Meeting them is impossible in many cases, making the label meaningless.
Theoretically, if a school makes its "expectations" every time, it
will eventually have to score above perfect, in order to meet expectations.
Thus, every school, no matter which one, no matter how hard they work, is
eventually doomed to "failure" status.
Why would the DOE want a system in which all schools eventually fail? Some right
away, some later, but everyone fails. Well, after the reports about this came
out (did you see them: "56% of Massachusetts’ schools labeled
failing"), confidence in public schools eroded. It’s much easier to argue
for private schools, for charter schools, for profit-making schools, when you
can say "56% of the state’s schools are failing." They’re saying,
"Sheesh, even Brookline High School is failing!"
If you set standards high enough, you can say, with statistical backing, that
the schools are failing. And we are left trying to explain what happened…
Fortunately, Superintendents in the wealthy, high-performing districts are
squealing…loudly...about how ridiculous this is. And people listen to them,
because they aren’t the usual ones squealing. That’s usually us in the urban
districts. Of course, they haven’t been really good about defending us when we
were attacked as failures all along. But we must help them lead this charge,
because it’s all becoming clear to me now what’s really going on.
What’s Really Going On…
When the Accountability Plan for schools and districts was being
"discussed," it was pointed out that eventually all schools would be
doomed to failure, unless at some point they exceeded perfection. This was
pooh-poohed, and the "rankings" were explained as being
"in-house" only. This means they were for our own diagnostic benefit.
We set goals and see if we can meet them. We were assured it would not be used
by DOE to compare schools and districts.
Educators pointed out that the rankings would be public, that everyone else
would be comparing, and that "in-house" is inapplicable to public
schools. And so it has come to pass that we are proved correct. Boston Magazine
and the Globe instantly ranked schools and systems; and now we see these
"in-house" designations becoming crucial factors in unrelated things
like real estate decisions and property tax valuations. Statistics such as
"56% of Massachusetts schools get ranked as failures" are bandied
about by "knowledgeable" commentators like Howie Carr, John Keller,
and Don Feder. This was not done unknowingly. The DOE is participating in a plan
to make public schools seem to be generally failing. We have already had the inane
charade of the "Teacher Test" results, making it seem (and nationally
reported) that entering teachers are "illiterate" in the state. We can
point out the foolishness of the test all we want. It sounds as if we are
whining when we do so, which they knew in advance.
And we have the MCAS itself, with its statistics ("0% advanced readers in
4th grade! They can’t even teach our best students!"), its failure rates,
its consistent mis-labeling as a "basic skills" test ("these kids
can’t even read their own diplomas!") and its requirement that we teach a
curriculum that constantly changes. Of course, if we point this out, we’re
whining again. And our students, and our own children, are being hurt by this.
Add to this the overt preference for charter schools over public schools among
the BOE members, their affiliations with organizations whose goal is the
adoption of voucher plans, for-profit education, and in certain cases the end of
publicly funded schooling. Put it all together and you can’t help thinking
there is an organized move afoot to de-stabilize public schools, to make them
look weak, ineffective, failing. You and I can understand the idiocy of that
position. We can argue all we want, though they make it sound like whining. They
have rigged the deck so that the statistics show their way.
They have a test that makes kids seem stupid, though they aren’t. They have a
test that makes teachers seem stupid, though they aren’t. And they continue to
say, with legislators nodding, that they "gave" us billions, and
"want results," instead of admitting that they lost a court case which
forced them to add money...and it still hasn’t been enough to make quality
education available to every kid in the Commonwealth.
I’ve never been a real believer in conspiracy theories; and I’m still
willing to believe that these people honestly believe they will make education
"better," even if they are abandoning our poorest and most vulnerable
kids. They are what we used to call "Social Darwinists." And those
poor and vulnerable kids are doomed to second-tier society. As the
"haves" get further and further apart from the "have-nots,"
these people are happier and happier.
Someone once said that "the answer to the problems of democracy is more
democracy." This, of course, requires an educated populace, the goal of the
forefathers and mothers. The whole purpose of education, public education, has
traditionally been to produce an educated citizenry, not workers for
corporations. Education is the force of democracy. A two-tiered schooling
system, for haves and have-nots, is anti-democratic at its core. The tools of
democracy must be employed to work against this anti-democratic, anti-public
school movement. All of the tools: arguing, voting, demonstrating, even Civil
Disobedience if needed.
Thus endeth this sermon….for now.
***
Paul Phillips is the President of the Quincy Education Association.