Dan McGuire writes:
"2. Lynnell says that urging students to opt out is 'sort of like a doctor
urging his patients to forgo blood pressure tests because he doesn’t want to be
evaluated on their health outcomes.' It's actually a lot like that. It's just
as crazy to evaluate teachers on their students' test scores as it is to
evaluate doctors on their patients' blood pressure levels. Nobody is
suggesting that teachers should not test students, but we can't reliably use
tests of student learning to measure teaching ability. . . ."
In my view, the best argument for "opting out" of the MCA is that it is used to
grade both students and teachers, and has no value as a diagnostic tool.
Standardized tests given once or twice per year are generally not used to
inform teachers exactly what students in their classroom are learning, and what
they are not. Just as doctors use measurements of blood pressure and other
tests to evaluate the condition of their patients, teachers use assessments,
including tests, to evaluate what students know, and can do, and to evaluate
their own effectiveness, to give constructive feedback to students, and to
modify their lesson plans.
The MCA, and many other standardized tests show how good students are at taking
tests. Performance on a reading test tells you something about reading
comprehension. Choosing the right bubble to fill in may require the use of
logic and knowledge of the particular content area being tested. The MCA is
used to grade students as high, medium and low performers, and to determine
whether a student is getting better or worse at taking this test from one year
to the next. A student whose standing on the MCA greatly falls from year to
year suggests a failure to thrive academically.
In the mid-1990s, the Minneapolis Public Schools used the California
Achievement Test, then later switched to other tests to assess overall academic
performance and growth for students. In the late 1990s and early 2000s,
students who qualified for free and reduced price lunches didn't do well on the
tests, with about half of these students getting test scores indicating no more
than one-half year's growth for every year in school. That situation begs the
question, to what extent is this outcome a reflection of conditions of learning
in the schools, and to what degree is it a reflection of factors related to the
impact of poverty on students and families. The Bchool Board can do something
about conditions of learning in the schools.
Standardized tests, however imperfect as a measure of student achievement, are
"outcomes" that can be correlated to "inputs," such as years of teaching
experience, and other school characteristics, that can give you some idea of
the effect of differing school characteristics on student test scores. Studies
of test score data have shown a strong correlation between teacher experience
and test scores, even when adjusting for student characteristics, such as
poverty and race.
The state of Minnesota, in a written response to issues raised in the NAACP
lawsuit, alleging a failure of the state to ensure that Minneapolis School
Students got an adequate education, filed in 1995, the argument was put forward
that the Minneapolis School District is responsible for ensuring equitable
inputs, not equal outcomes. This same argument was advanced in the Statement of
Need and Reasonableness for revisions of Administrative Rules, Chapter 3535,
related to equality of opportunity in education (formerly called rules related
to school desegregation.) The revised rules allowed school districts to
segregate the student population by race, as long as conditions of learning are
not inferior for any racial group. The rules required that "education inputs"
like teacher experience, be monitored. The commissioner of education is
supposed to ask for reports from racially segregated school districts showing
if there are measurable differences in specified inputs, and if inputs were not
"more or less equal," a plan of correction was in order. Reports from
Minneapolis never conformed to reporting requirements, though data on teacher
turnover rates and experience levels that were tracked by the state showed
gross racial disparities in exposure of students to inexperienced teachers and
high teacher turnover.
The existence of gross racial disparities in educational inputs, unless
promptly eliminated, is evidence on its face of intentional, racial
discrimination on a systemic level by a school district. Teacher turnover and
experience, the only factors closely monitored the state were not, by
themselves, to be considered decisive factors in determining whether a school
district is engaged in racial discrimination, although it was recognized that
teacher experience and teacher turnover have a huge impact on instructional
quality.
Standardized testing, with results broken down by race and poverty were
mandated no later than in 1966. A national testing program focused on reading
and math proficiency was started in 1968. Huge racial test score gaps were
noted, and these gaps narrowed during a period from the late 1960s to the
mid-1980s, even with a growing racial income gap in the 1970s and 80s. The test
score gaps began to widen in the 1980s. "No Child Left Behind" reforms have not
reversed that trend. I believe that changes in educational policy caused a
narrowing test score gap from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s, the era of school
desegregation, the equalization of school facilities, and the elimination or
modification of curriculum tracking / ability grouping. K-12 school policies
since the mid-1980s have included increased segregation of students by race and
income, more unequal educational facilities, and the promotion of ability
grouping.
No Child Left Behind represents a continuation of school policies of the 1950s,
and the 1980s and 1990s, not a radical departure. Some new features of No Child
Left Behind were introduced in the 1990s on a limited scale, such as charter
schools and high stakes testing. No Child Left Behind involves the use of
standardized tests as part of a mechanism to shut down public schools and
replace them with charter schools. NCLB calls for elimination of teacher job
protections, e.g. elimination of tenure and seniority rights, and
"streamlining" of due process rights. Enrollment in the Minneapolis Public
Schools declined from about 50,000 students in 1999 to 35,000 students today,
mostly because of increased enrollment of students in charter schools. Job
protections for tenured teachers have been watered-down.
In her Star Tribune Opinion / Editorial piece, Lynnell Michelson writes:
"Granted, poverty plays a huge role and we need to fix it. But there are two
more ways of getting rid of the gap.
"• Option No. 1: We can change our schools to better fit the needs of students
in the 21st century.
"• Option No. 2: We can stop collecting the incriminating data. No evidence. No
gap. No need to change a thing. "
What Lynnell Michelson means by changing our schools to better fit the needs of
students in the 21st century, is to carry out the No Child Left Behind agenda.
The goals of No Child Left Behind are to charter-ize the public school system,
and to de-professionalize and de-unionize public school teachers. This is
happening in almost every county, and is also known as the neo-liberal school
reform agenda. This agenda was first imposed on countries in African and Latin
America by the United States, allied governments, the World Bank, and the
international monetary fund during the 1970s. Radically restructuring one's
education system became a condition for getting loans.
No Child Left Behind is advertised as a "civil rights" agenda. But it is
not an agenda with any provisions to enforce of civil rights laws in the public
schools, or to otherwise require more equitable governance of public schools.
A third option, which Lynnell Mickelsen does not think worthy of consideration
is the type of school reform that I advocate. As a school board candidate, I
have called for bringing teacher turnover rates to low levels in all schools by
retaining more, and firing fewer of the teachers on probationary status, and
providing more support to teachers in high poverty schools where turnover is
not low. In conjunction with bringing teacher turnover rates to low levels, the
district should take steps to eliminate watered-down curriculum tracks. All
teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools should have recall rights if laid
off, and due process rights if fired. With few exceptions, termination of a
teacher for poor performance should not happen without an ongoing evaluation
process designed to help a teacher improve their performance. A stable team of
teachers is essential to building a strong educational program at any school.
Harvest Prep charter school is looked to as a model for educating African
American students in the Minneapolis Public Schools. That school has used a
model of instruction called Direct Instruction, that has highly scripted,
lesson plans and the curriculum is closely aligned to standardized tests. The
evaluation of students and teachers by student test scores places great
pressure on teachers to use the scripted lesson plans, especially teachers with
limited training and experience. There is a longer school day and longer school
year than the public schools, with twice as much time for math and reading
instruction per day: The secret to very high pass rates on math and reading
tests. However, the school's director once admitted that teacher turnover rates
are "insanely" high. And student suspension and expulsion rates are reportedly
higher for Harvest Prep students than for African American students in the
Minneapolis Public Schools. The performance of Harvest Prep students on science
tests have been worse than for African Americans in the Minneapolis Public
Schools. And it has been reported that graduates of Harvest Prep are generally
not very well prepared for College coursework.
The public school system is being reformed to prepare the majority of students
for jobs that don't require a lot of education, and where unions don't exist.
Career teachers with union cards simply will not do. Only a privileged minority
of students are to get an education that really prepares them for college and
careers.
I agree with Dan McGuire, that child (and adult) poverty and systemic racial
discrimination outside of the school system is harmful to children and the
schools that they attend. However there serious problems with the school system
that need to be addressed. I think that the war on drugs and the program of
mass incarceration should be ended. There should be much stronger enforcement
of laws against discrimination on the basis of race in employment, housing,
lending, insurance, etc., including adequately funded programs to detect and
prosecute those engaged in covert, unlawful discrimination. A lot a children
live in poverty, not because their parents don't have full time jobs. Minimum
wages should be increased to match or exceed the highest standards in the
world, i.e., $20 per hour, as in Australia and New Zealand. A $15 minimum wage
would be a good start.
-Doug Mann, Folwell neighborhood