Cutting through BS, CSAP news is grim
Friday, May 2, 2008Written by: Alan Gottlieb
I’ll leave it to others to parse the new CSAP third-grade reading scores released yesterday by the Colorado Department of Education. I worry sometimes, as do many others, about an over-emphasis on test scores.
But there’s one word to describe the trend highlighted by yesterday’s results: flat. And no matter how cheerleaders try to spin it, that’s really bad news. Anyone who takes a clear-eyed look at test scores since the inception of CSAP over a decade ago will notice that the trendline is essentially flat. There are ups and downs from year to year, but there’s no steady, upward progress. Close to a third of our third-graders can’t read at grade level. The numbers are far worse for low-income kids of color.
While the federal government’s Adequate Yearly Progress measure (aimed at getting all kids to proficiency by 2014) is patently absurd and unrealistic, flatlining is unacceptable. It suggests that nothing is working across the board. And anyone who tries to happy-talk you into believing otherwise does not deserve a millisecond of your time.
Up to now, a major problem has been that education leaders as a rule go into a defensive crouch when people point out the truth in stark terms. Back in 2005, When I was at The Piton Foundation, Van Schoales (then at the Colorado Children’s Campaign) and I released a study showing that Denver Public Schools’ CSAP scores had been flat for a decade, despite reams of propaganda trumpeting the district as the “most improved” school district in Colorado for two consecutive years. (As a friend of mine likes to say when people start spouting nonsense, “Bla, bla, f-ing bla.”). The reaction of the district leadership at that time was to pillory us for being so negative. Yeah, sure. Better to lynch the messengers than face up to the truth and try to do something about it.
So, how much longer do we, as a state, accept these circumstances? I get some hope from the coming expansion of early childhood education slots in
As far as I’m concerned, schools like KIPP, West Denver Prep and the Denver School of Science and Technology need to start planning NOW to open several elementary schools. They’ve proved they can work wonders at the secondary level. Imagine what they could do if they didn’t have to play catch-up from the get-go.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:36 am
I’m also astounded to hear so many folks wanting to get rid of CSAP as if CSAP is root of our achievement problems. CSAP does need to change (e.g. results in days or weeks not months) but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater as an earlier post here pointed out. Dropping the test or changing to some other test will only further mask the challenge that low-income students are facing in our schools. If we are serious about closing the gaps and getting most or even all kids ready for life, we will need to continue to measure progress and radically change the way we do schooling.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Unfortunately, if we don’t want to play catch-up from the get-go, we need to face up to the fact that the achievement gap is pretty much fully formed by the time our children get to kindergarten — according to the researchers at Rand: http://rand.org/labor/projects/ca_preschool/
Incidentally, “The income gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans grew to its widest level since the 1920s” http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/12/news/economy/income/index.htm
In Colorado, 37% (152,954) of young children live in families with income below 200% of the federal poverty level. http://www.nccp.org/profiles/CO_profile_8.html
Given what we apparently consider to be acceptable for our state’s children outside of school, maybe we should be happy that the third grade scores are flat, instead of declining.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Does anyone else think that the issue of CSAP and standardized testing is complex? I understand that assessment of student learning is extremely important, yet I’m not exactly sure what specific objectives CSAP is measuring/assessing, and if these skills are the skills students will need as they enter the future workforce as well-educated, thinking, literate adults. I also do not know that a clear picture of student learning can be measured in one test, once a year. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this, and also on ways to radically change the way we do schooling so that students are well prepared as workers and leaders.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Quinque may have a point here. After all, you can’t hold a whole school system responsible for the CSAP scores of a few individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole educational system? And if the whole education system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Quinque - isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society?
The above, of course, is slightly modified dialogue from Animal House. It works as farce and satire. It is not educational policy. Should “we be happy that third-grade scores are flat?” No. There are no circumstances that excuse a lack of standards or progress in American public education.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
My dear SchoolFool.
1. You’ve stumbled on a half-truth: 37% of Colorado children living in families with income below 200% of the federal poverty level should indeed be taken as an indictment of our society. That’s below $41,300 annually for a family of four in 2007.
2. You write, “There are no circumstances that excuse a lack of standards or progress in American public education.” I’m simply adding that there are no circumstances that excuse a lack of standards or progress in other basic aspects of American living conditions.
3. The name is “Quique”
May 4th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Quique,
On numerous issues, you resist calls and ideas for education reform by citing social issues such as poverty and income inequality. Both exist, but neither is an excuse not to push for new ideas and systems. This is a blog on education, yet whenever an idea or discussion is fostered (market-based reforms, whether to retain CSAPs) you point to social issues as an excuse. Should we simply just take the 37% of children 200% below the poverty level and assume they don’t deserve a chance at an quality education? If we can’t change the underlying social causes, why not just let the status quo exist? Many people firmly believe that a culture of low expectations is one of the roots of low achievement. Your posts consistently both excuse and support the notion that children from poor and minority cultures cannot achieve - and it is not fair to expect them too. Birth is not destiny - if anything, access to education is the primary vehicle to transcend many of the social problems in a democratic society.
And, despite making claims such as that “perhaps we should be happy” with 17,000 third-graders across Colorado who cannot read at grade level, you offer nothing as an alternative. Criticism is not policy. You offer a recitation of other ills - no ideas, no suggestions, just the same tired ability to find other excuses. I look forward to your forthcoming post on 5 really good ideas for improving education, or do you need poverty, hunger, homelessness, racism, cancer and the common cold solved before you grace us with a proposal?
On the tired recitation of social ills to excuse ignorance, please: Quit, K?
May 5th, 2008 at 11:19 am
SchoolFool,
I’d like to see some evidence that your approach–simply raising expectations without ensuring that kids have the resources to be successful in school, such as adequate housing free from violence, a nutritious diet, role models, preventive health care, two parents who speak the language of the school and are competent to help with homework, etc., and then punishing schools when poor students without those resources don’t meet the higher expectations–has ever worked.
You write: “On numerous issues, you resist calls and ideas for education reform by citing social issues such as poverty and income inequality. Both exist, but neither is an excuse not to push for new ideas and systems.” In other words, forget all those depressing facts. Schools are the problem!
You seem to think that quality education can trump every other influence on a child’s life. That’s just stupid.
Here’s an experiment: Among Boulder, Cherry Creek, Aurora and Denver, which districts do you think score consistently well on CSAP and which don’t? I’ll bet even you can get this one right. Here are the average number of third-graders scoring proficient or advanced in 2006, 2007 and 2008, from the Rocky article:
Aurora: 46, 46, 47;
Boulder Valley: 85, 84, 85;
Cherry Creek 77, 78, 76;
Denver: 51, 50, 51.
No one is saying we should not provide poor kids with a quality education until we’ve solved all the social problems of the world. The point is that you can’t do one without the other and expect anything to change. Standardized testing has been around for decades, and it has become ubiquitous since NCLB. But scores remain flat in Denver, just like in other cities, because THAT’S WHERE THE POOR KIDS LIVE!
May 5th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I neither forget nor deny the depressing socal facts many kids face. My claim is that we need to improve education by improving schools, instead of endless recitation of social issues and maintaining that 17k 3rd graders who can’t read is ok since they are poor, often minority and face very real disadvantages. These are EXACTLY the kids who most need good schools. The accident of birth should not, and does not, condem a child to a life of ignorance.
I don’t believe, nor did I say, that quality education can trump every other influence. But it is the best path I know to aleviating poverty and other social ills. If you are 18 and can’t read, you are probably going to be poor all your life. If you are 18 and enrolled in a competitive college, the chances are pretty good you won’t be in poverty. Education is the cornerstone of a democratic society. If we claim our kids can’t be educated, democracy fails.
Raising expectations is one of a number of important cultural appraoches, other things to focus on are improved teacher quality, discipline standards, more autonomy and accountibility at the school level - I could go on for some length. I don’t deny that there are other problems that make achievement hard, but my point is you can’t fix everything, so why not start with what you can fix? Why say that since kids are poor, the education system is doing the best that it can?
And yowsa, a correlation between income and test scores! Thanks, Rip Van Winkle. Except scores are not flat across all Denver schools. As Alan has pointed out, DSST, KIPP, WDP and others are getting remarkable results with the same kids you condem to failure. New York City has made progress, Chicago has a wonderful reforms, even smaller districts like Cincy have made real progress. Maybe we should try some of that here? Or are poor kids in Denver different than poor kids in those cities?
And contrary to your conclusion, you absolutely CAN provide poor kids with an eduation without solving all the world’s social problems. Yes, one can do one without the other. KIPP does it every day, in 57 schools in 17 states. Go visit Sunshine Peak and tell Principal Barrett and all those kids they can’t have a good school because the social odds are stacked against them. GO to DSST and ask the kids who will be first-generation college students if they think they got a good education despite being poor and minority.
Or just continue to blame the failures of education on things no school can fix. That’s a safe bet to keep things the same.
May 5th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Jumbo’s response does a great job pointing to some problems with SF’s comment.
In addition, what I keep noticing is what poor reading skills SF appears to possess. She or he suggests that I had advocated getting rid of the CSAP. In fact, I have never done so.
By the way, in saying that “perhaps we should be happy” with the flat third-grade reading scores, the intent was to say, “If we’re not willing to address issues of increasing poverty, we should not expect much better than flat scores.” I’m not so complacent, but I’m also not so foolish as to think that real change will come without … real change.
Let me try, one more time, to make the key point. Schools are important. They are very important. They are far from perfect and should be improved. But study after study has told us that children’s success in school and in life is much more affected by issues of poverty than by a change in what happens to them in school.
Why is that so hard to understand? It doesn’t mean that any particular child born into poverty cannot succeed, and it certainly doesn’t mean that schools and teachers shouldn’t do whatever they can to help each child succeed, no matter what his or her disadvantages may be. But it does mean that each of us, to the extent we really care about the children and not just about bashing schools, should be trying to create a more just society.
Perhaps more to the point, if we are honest about the real world and willing to move beyond the superficial appeal of free market ideologies, then we cannot look with relative disregard at issues of poverty, shrugging our collective shoulders and telling ourselves, “No worries. The market would take care of this if we could just get rid of those bureaucrats running the schools.” Perhaps SF and Uncle Charley will turn out to be correct in your opinion that a more market-based system would help to improve schooling outcomes. Or perhaps it would make things worse. Either way, there is no evidence that I’m aware of showing anywhere near the improvement in schooling outcomes that would be necessary to overcome the disadvantages associated with poverty.
I dearly hope that this time around the message is clear: Schools Important; Poverty More Important; We Need to Address Both.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Oh my, platitudes as wisdom, so before Quique breaks this down to “Extreme Poverty Even More Important Than Regular Poverty,” and we end up sounding even more like the The Onion, let’s try another tack. Alan, if you are so inclined, perhaps a new post entirely.
I’ll suggest three things we can do to improve education in DPS (max of two lines each). Others can agree or disagree (and for ease of use, I’d suggest doing so without explanation), but if one chooses to opine, you have to list your own three ideas. Given fiscal conditions, these should be budget neutral, and they should be possible (no magic wand-waving). If you want to blame (or solve) poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and others, it’s a big Internet and I’m sure somewhere there is a blog for you out there somewhere.
I’ll start with some basics on teaching:
1. Get rid of Teacher direct placements.
2. Open hiring so that a Principal can choose candidates without seniority or current DPS status as a factor.
3. Change Teacher compensation to lower the value of pensions and put the money into increased salaries (especially for the first 5 years).
Agree, disagree, suggest. Gents?
May 5th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
SchoolFoolCzar, in his or her wisdom, has determined that I am no longer welcome here, since I hold the incongruous belief that school reform can be addressed separately from larger issues. So I’m off now to explore this great big Internet thingie I’ve just been made aware of.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Why can’t we all get along, as noted philosopher Rodney King once said. Surely, Quique, you won’t abandon us. And let’s all try a little harder to keep the debate about issues, and refrain from edging toward insults.