What's Wrong With This Picture?

Here's the lead from an education story in today's Washington Post.

Knowing State Tests' 'Cut' Scores
By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 22, 2007; Page B01

Charonda Godette and her mother are staring at a sheaf of black-and-white test reports in their kitchen, frustrated by a blunt indictment repeated over and over: "Fail/Does Not Meet." In her first three years at Potomac Senior High School in Prince William County, the 17-year-old has flunked a slew of Virginia Standards of Learning exams: Earth science. Algebra II. And geometry -- three times.

What also confounds Charonda and Carole Godette is something the reports omit. They do not show the number of correct answers required to pass the exams. (Boldface mine -- Hugh)

There are a number of questions whirling about in my mind after reading this article, including:

1. Should state assessments model what best practices teach us about good assessment? (For example, good assessment includes useful feedback to increase learning and achievement.)

2. Would state education departments be playing such silly games (trying to second-guess teachers with regard to how they will teach the subject matter vis-a-vis the state "assessment") if NCLB was out of the picture?

Folks, if this is the wave of the future, we are in deep yogurt. I'm scratching my head, trying to understand the value of concealing passing scores. Part of me thinks that if the teacher does good job reaching students and teaching the subject, the state tests will take care of themselves. But if we violate the integrity of assessment and try to make kids hit moving targets, aren't we creating yet another distraction to getting the job done?

Yet more reasons, I believe, to abandon federal interference in state education.

If the feds want to do something, let the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith do its work, but contribute funding to states whose economies lag, and thereby level the playing fields.

I don't mind some of my federal tax money going to another state that needs the help, if the feds would strip away the overlaying bureaucracy that currently wastes financial and emotional resources in every state.

Note: I intended to post tonight about what our district is doing to promote racial tolerance. I'm currently waiting for a report from our assistant supe in charge of operations, and curriculum and instruction. I'll post as soon as I get the word. There's a lot going on, including board of ed sessions to increase board member awareness of diversity and racial tolerance needs and challenges.

Artwork: Relativity by M.C. Escher, 1953, lithograph, 27.7 × 29.2 cm

Communication: Always Trying to Get It Right

This morning the superintendent and board of directors hosted a continental breakfast for the folks we call Key Communicators. They are leaders in the community who can pass "the word" around about what's happening in the school district.

The KC guest list included a mayor, a city librarian, both school union leaders, a police commander standing in for the chief, a senior park and rec manager, a minister representing the ministerial association, the head of our county-wide Stand for Children organization, the exec director of our schools foundation (a private fundraising not-for-profit that provides various grants for programs in the district), five out of seven board members, the supe, and the assistant supe for school improvement.

I'm not sure who else was invited, but this was a pretty fair cross-section of folks with access to many more people. They are the ones we rely on to get the information straight and pass it on without having the intelligence corrupted as you might find in a game of "telephone."

Clear and accurate communication is a big goal for all organizations, and school districts are no different. Without our network, it's doubtful we could have passed a bond last year that enables us to build four new elementary schools and a replacement middle school, as well as major additions to two of our four existing middle schools, and major and minor repairs to twenty-eight other elementary schools.

After a meet-and-greet, we sat around a set of tables and the supe coordinated a ten-question survey that was designed to see how the folks in the room (our public board meeting room) felt about issues that were dealt with in the 39th Annual Gallup/Phi Beta Kappa Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools in the USA and NCLB. Not surprisingly, our attitudes were very similar to the poll results, even allowing for the tiny sample our group afforded.

We briefly discussed our points of view and the conversation served to remind me that everyone has something to say about public school education, and we'd darn well better make sure they have good information from which to form opinions, because the public is going to form opinions based on whatever information they've got.

Go ahead. Find out what America thinks of public education and NCLB.