Grade retention based on low FCAT reading scores is a failure

Grade retention based on low FCAT reading scores is a failure

28 Sep 2006 As I See It By Robert R. Lange
contribute@osceolanewsgazette.com

A 2002 Florida law mandates that third-grade students with FCAT reading scores at level 1 or below be required to repeat grade three.

However, one- and two-year follow-up achievement data collected by the Florida Department of Education and reported by Greene and Winters of the Manhattan Institute For Policy Research show there was little improvement after retention.

. . .

Recently, those who control the Florida Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush claimed that holding students back would allow slower learning students to catch up with their grade peers. As was predicted by those who have studied the long-term impact of such unfounded beliefs, fairy-tales don’t come true.

The findings in Florida closely agree with the many previous studies of the impact of grade-level retention.

. . .

Most experts have classified the percentile and effect-size comparisons found in the Florida data as trivial or very small – small enough to indicate a failed intervention.

Contrary to widely accepted standard interpretations of data, the report from the Manhattan Institute claimed that the results support the use of grade retention for improving student achievement.

Wise readers will note that the Manhattan Institute’s stated goal is to support the conservative political agenda and to influence public policy in a direction desired by big business and the wealthy. At the same time, this writer has a long reputation as a supporter of liberal child-centered strategies for improving student achievement.

Research data are always meaningless until interpreted. Researchers with different agendas can always see divergent meanings when reviewing data.

. . .

Sure, FCAT test scores have shown some improvement. But measurement experts have noted that average scores on standardized tests such as the FCAT most always increase over time. The gradual increase reflects natural test corruption as teachers become more familiar with non-changing test items and test formats.

In Florida, the higher scores were likely caused by such natural test corruption and by Florida Department of Education tweaking of the test scoring process. Such tweaking was suggested in comments made by Education Commissioner John L. Winn.

Gov. Bush’s A+ plan seems to be designed to ensure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Perhaps, the plan was put together by persons who enjoy kicking those who are down or have fallen behind.

Robert R. Lange is a retired professor of educational research who taught at the University of Central Florida for 25 years and was the former associate dean for research at Colorado State University. Contact him at lange@mail.ucf.edu.

Davis' Education Plank . . . zzzzz . . .

Education plank

September 28, 2006

Highlights of the "Achieve Florida" education plan for public schools unveiled on Wednesday by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis:

Stop giving schools A-F letter grades and replace with "Excellent," "Achieving" and "Needs Improvement."

Stop using students' FCAT grades as the primary method to grade schools and include other indicators, including average class size, parental involvement, school discipline, AP test scores, graduation rates, and school's long-term progress.

Return students' FCAT exams - with questions and graded answers - to parents and teachers.

Provide quick turnaround on FCAT grades, then give students a study guide that parents and teachers can use to strengthen performance in the academic areas where they scored poorly.

. . .

There's more. None of it is all that exciting though. . .

Start your Sunday with a chuckle!

Max Linn in "Attack of the FCAT"

Because it would be wrong. . .

to base everything on one test! And what about art!

Let's hope the teachers association expands their lawsuit to include the children who have to live with this idiocy every day.

Lee teacher, union challenge performance pay increases

Teachers Association of Lee County, Golden Apple winner say teachers were left out of rule-making process for STAR

Staff and wire reports

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Education Association is challenging state guidelines for developing local teacher performance pay plans because they were written without going through required rule-making procedures, officials of the statewide teachers union said Monday.

The union contends the Florida Department of Education has cut teachers out of the guideline-writing process for the new program dubbed Special Teachers are Rewarded, or STAR. The challenge is aimed at invalidating several interpretations of the plan that the department has made.

A Lee County teacher is the lead plaintiff in the petition, filed Monday.

Art teacher Caren Pearson, the Teachers Association of Lee County and the state teachers' union, argue that the Florida Department of Education improperly cut teachers out of the rule-making procedures for the plan.

. . .

Pearson, a Lehigh Acres art teacher who has won the coveted Golden Apple prize and is certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, applied for and received performance pay each year it was offered in Lee County, Mutzenard said. This year, however, she might not get that chance despite being recognized as one of the best in the county.

"Because (the interpretation) is based so heavily on learning gains, basically this thing is based on the FCAT," Mutzenard said, referring to the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. "As an art teacher she doesn't teach subjects tested on the FCAT."

Pay attention to candidate's words

Andrew J. Meyers
Boca Raton

September 16, 2006

Charlie Crist is pleasant and telegenic. And because entrenched special interests will invest millions of dollars to support his campaign, every Floridian who owns a television will get to see the likable Crist time and time again. Floridians must look past Crist's tan and smile, and listen to the words he utters in his own commercials.

In the commercial currently bombarding morning viewers, Crist asks whether Floridians will "continue to prosper." As an attorney, Crist knows that question would not be permitted in a court of law. It is called a compound question, because it assumes a fact not in evidence. By any objective measure, millions of Floridians are not prospering. Crist's question assumes away the problem.

Crist next states, "If we're willing to grade 5- and 6-year-old children, we ought to be willing to grade the schools that are supposed to perform for those children." Crist is an ardent supporter of rewarding schools for good performance on the fill-in-the-bubble Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. As a parent of two public school children, I know most parents and teachers are hugely critical of the FCAT system. Because school budgets are affected by FCAT performance, great attention is paid to short-term memorization and retention, rather than teaching the fundamental lessons necessary to serve as building blocks for long-term academic excellence. Crist does not have children. Grading schools for FCAT performance sounds good in theory. Were Crist personally invested in the public school system, or any school system, he would understand the practical flaws.

Finally, Crist boldly states, "I want to lower your property taxes, and your homeowner's insurance needs to go down." Crist is not a homeowner. If he were, he'd say he wants to lower "our" taxes and insurance costs, not "your."

The costs of home ownership and how to fix our deficient public schools are the biggest issues facing Floridians. Crist thinks Floridians are "prospering" largely because he does not have to live with these problems. That doesn't make Crist a bad person. It does, however, make him a bad choice to lead Florida.

Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel<

Similar to news . . .

Conservative think-tank commends Bush education reforms

Gee, Ya Think??

Is local school performance linked to poverty?
2006-09-11
By Nick Claussen
Athens NEWS Associate Editor

Just because you're poor doesn't mean you can't do well in school, but it sure makes it a lot harder.

A close look at the recent Ohio School Report Cards for Athens County shows that in every district in the county, the students who are economically disadvantaged generally do worse than the students who are not.

The report cards also show that in several of the school districts, the female students overall did better on the proficiency tests than the males (see related story).

Several factors contribute to the discrepancy in test results between students living in poverty and those who don't, but the size of the gap is still surprising.

In the Athens City School District, 31 percent of the students are classified as "economically disadvantaged," in the state report-card rankings. This means that the students are eligible to take part in the free or reduced-price lunch program (meaning their family income levels are at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level), or the students or their parents or guardians are recipients of public assistance.

In the Athens district, test results for the two groups of students are fairly even in the third and fourth grades, but in the fifth and sixth grades the test results show a large difference.

For the sixth-grade math tests, for example, 82.1 percent of the non-economically disadvantaged students passed the test compared to just 50 percent of the economically disadvantaged students. In the seventh grade, 65.8 percent of the non-economically disadvantaged students passed, while 48.1 percent of the economically disadvantaged students passed. Not all of the gaps in these grades are this large, but several are.

In eighth-grade reading, the economically disadvantaged students did better on the test, with 80 percent of these students passing compared to 77.4 percent of the non-economically disadvantaged students.

In the 10th grade, the economically disadvantaged students scored higher in reading again, but in most tests the economically disadvantaged students did worse. On the 10th-grade science test, for example, 72.9 percent of the non-economically disadvantaged students passed, compared to 51.2 percent of the economically disadvantaged students.

The report cards also break down test results for each individual school building. In the Athens district, 28.4 percent of the students at Morrison Elementary School are listed as economically disadvantaged, while 67.3 percent of students at Chauncey Elementary School are listed as such. The two schools were both listed as "Effective" on the state report cards, and both finished at or above the state requirements in most categories. The two schools finished close together in many of the results, with Morrison finishing ahead in five categories and Chauncey in four. Morrison was far ahead in two of the categories -- fifth-grade reading (92.1 percent to 74.1 percent) and sixth-grade math (85.4 percent to 47.8 percent).

. . .

The goal of education should not be to help the students do well on proficiency tests, but to provide the best learning environment possible, Glascock argued. The proficiency tests do not take into account how students learn differently, or how students are proficient in areas other than the basic subjects, she added.

"Does it really matter to us if Picasso passed his 10th-grade assessment test?" Glascock asked.

Good schools give students opportunities to be exposed to cultural programs and activities, Glascock said. She added that this region does have many good schools. Standardized testing can take time away from these other programs and experiences, however, and actually hurt how students learn, she said.

"We have to accept that human beings are very complex beings, and the interaction between human beings are very complex," Glascock said.

The Children's Hunger Alliance states on its Web site that research has shown that children living in poverty also have a harder time learning because of the lack of food in their homes. Children without enough food at home are sick more often, are hospitalized more frequently, and miss more days of school, the Web site states. In addition, children who suffer from poor nutrition during the brain's formative years score lower in vocabulary, reading comprehension, math and general knowledge, according to the Web site. Hungry children are also less likely to interact with other people or explore or learn from their surroundings, the Web site states.

Davis pledges to end use of FCAT as political tool

Davis pledges to end use of FCAT as political tool

By Brian E. Crowley

Palm Beach Post Political Editor

Saturday, September 09, 2006

TAMPA — Jim Davis, the newly minted Democratic nominee for governor, began his general election campaign Friday warning voters that keeping Republicans in power will result in the "continued domination of the insurance lobby" in Tallahassee.

Davis, a Tampa-area congressman, spoke before a crowd of more than 100 in the historic Columbia Restaurant in Tampa's Ybor City neighborhood. He was joined on stage by U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, running for reelection, and Alex Sink, the party nominee for chief financial officer.

. . .

Davis pledged to "end the use of the FCAT as a political weapon against our children, our teachers and our schools."

Crist has said he is willing to tinker with the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test but remains convinced that FCAT is an important tool for measuring student achievement.

. . .

Davis or Crist -- Vote or Sit Down!

The weather and other bad excuses kept many from the polls this week. Now we're down to it. Pick your poison!

September 07, 2006

Crist, Davis come out swinging in race for governor

By JIM SAUNDERS
Tallahassee Bureau Chief

ST. PETERSBURG -- Charlie Crist and Jim Davis couldn't have made the choice any clearer.

Basking in the cheers of hundreds of supporters after winning Tuesday's gubernatorial primaries, Crist and Davis immediately started a debate about Florida's future.

Crist, the Republican nominee, said the state needs to continue with the direction started by Gov. Jeb Bush on issues such as education, or it will go back to what has "failed us in the past."

"I'm an optimist," Crist told a crowd gathered in a St. Petersburg hotel ballroom late Tuesday. "I believe Floridians will make the right choice."

But little more than an hour later, Davis, the Democratic nominee, called for making major changes in Tallahassee as the state grapples with issues such as improving schools and stemming a property-insurance crisis.

"If you're ready to fight for change, I am your candidate for governor," Davis told supporters at a victory party in Tampa.

The back-and-forth about the direction of the state were the opening shots in a gubernatorial race that likely will dominate Florida politics during the next two months.

. . .

One issue that emerged Wednesday as a potentially big difference between the candidates is the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which Bush has made a centerpiece of his efforts to overhaul the public-school system.

Under Bush, the FCAT has become a high-stakes exam used to grade the performances of public schools and to help determine such things as whether students will graduate from high school.

But echoing a complaint of many teachers and parents, Davis said he wants to reduce the emphasis on the FCAT and use it more as a "diagnostic learning tool, a road map" to determine whether children are learning.

Crist, however, said he supports using the FCAT to hold schools accountable, though he acknowledged many people don't like tests.

"Guess what? Life's a test," Crist said. "Every single day we're tested."

. . .

Happy Labor Day??

Well, at least the kids get a break from this madness for a day!

Standardized tests gaining more influence

New and already existing laws give high-stakes FCAT more power over schools

By Deirdre Conner

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Some say it leads to data-driven instruction that boosts student achievement.

Others believe it’s a recipe for creating high school dropouts and burned-out teachers.

Either way, the heavy-handed influence of standardized testing is at an all-time high in Florida schools, and almost every student is feeling the effects.

Because of a spate of new laws and mounting pressure from existing ones, the state’s high-stakes test, known as the FCAT, is more important to schools and students this year than ever before.

The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is driving more than two-thirds of high school freshmen and half of sophomores into remedial classes instead of electives this year.

And it’s causing elementary schools to move back toward the trend of grouping children together by ability level, since they are graded on how well they improve in reading.

And it’s the reason some local schools got hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra funding while others didn’t.

While opinions vary widely, this much is not in doubt: As Gov. Jeb Bush finishes his last year in office, his reform efforts in Florida have been sweeping in their consequences, both intended and unintended. And they are likely to be a big factor in this fall’s election season.

The A-plus plan he championed as a first-term governor grades schools based on student performance and improvement on the annual test in math, reading, writing and, for the first time this spring, science. It also makes the 10th grade FCAT a high school graduation requirement, holds back third graders who fail the reading portion of the test and mandates extra reading classes for all students who perform poorly on the test, which is scored in levels from one to five.

A new law passed this year requires teacher bonuses based on test scores next spring.

“After Jeb Bush’s election and passage of the A-plus plan, the importance of the FCAT got ratcheted up several notches,” said David Figlio, an economics professor in Gainesville at the University of Florida who has studied high-stakes testing and school accountability reform.

Schools have improved dramatically in the dimensions measured on the test, Figlio said. But, he said, there is also “increasing evidence that schools have been narrowing their curriculum as a result of heavy emphasis on the FCAT.” That means history, social science, art, music and other classes wither away.

Mary Maxwell doesn’t need research to tell her that. Her daughter, an honor student at Estero High, is stuck in an intensive reading class at school instead of Spanish II this year because she missed passing the FCAT by 10 points. Instead, the B-average medical academy student will take the elective online so as not to jeopardize her chances for getting into college.

“It’s becoming more and more of a pain,” Maxwell said. “The class is basically FCAT prep.”

Too, Maxwell worries that the test is holding teachers back with added workload or driving them out of the profession altogether.

It’s a legitimate concern, Figlio said.

“For better or for worse, teachers are working longer hours and bringing work home,” he said.

Without better pay or bonuses to make up for that, he said, good teachers could end up leaving schools altogether.

Some of that extra time is undoubtedly devoted to learning how to find and apply test data in the classroom, which is why Lee County schools administrators devoted pre-school workshops to train teachers in how to find and use such information, said Larry Tihen, the district’s curriculum director.

Few teachers learned data analysis in college, but knowing how to do it helps students, Tihen said.

“We know much more about our students than we have in the past,” he said. “Once teachers know what students need, they’re able to provide that instruction.”

Nancy Foley, a math teacher at Estero High whose students had some of the biggest gains of any teacher at the school, is helping other teachers tailor their lessons to what kids don’t know and avoiding repeating concepts they’ve already grasped based on how students did on the FCAT.

“It really makes you start to think, ‘What could I have done differently?’” Foley said.

Foley also has her students do the same analysis on their own FCAT score, because their diploma depends on it. Although she believes it helps, she admits the test pressure is unrelenting.

“It’s on everybody’s mind all the time,” she said. “Their whole life revolves around — gotta pass that test.”

More than any other subject, though, reading is the biggest focus. That’s because so many of the punishments and rewards from the state depend on it, from school grades to third-grade retention. And because only about 30 percent of high school students are considered to be on grade level, which means Level 3 or above.

In elementary schools, Level 1 and 2 scorers on the FCAT reading get 30 minutes of additional reading intervention per day. At middle and high schools, scoring at Level 2 now means students must take one “intensive reading” class each day, while Level 1 mandates a two-period block.

Working them all in has been difficult for administrators and students, and some are left without electives at all.

Still, in politically conservative Lee County, district officials and School Board members have been quicker to embrace the policies handed down from the Republican-controlled Legislature and executive branch than have other counties.

That doesn’t mean FCAT isn’t a four-letter word to many in Southwest Florida and statewide. The mere mention of it can roil some parents and teachers; vocal coalitions and teachers’ unions are determined to repeal the way the test is used.

Some of the heaviest criticism is leveled at the test’s secrecy. Parents get detailed score reports but aren’t allowed to see their child’s graded answer sheets. Last year, for the first time since the FCAT was developed in the late 1990s, the Florida Department of Education scheduled releases of multiple actual tests given in years past.

The FCAT’s grading generated controversy earlier this year when two Democratic state senators sued to get the employment records of the $10 hourly temporary workers hired to grade the free-response portions of the test. They found two-thirds lacked degrees or teaching experience in subjects they were grading, as required by contract. Some of the graders had only non-education job experience, including hair styling, pizza delivery and work as a store clerk.

Maxwell sees the FCAT as a “political ploy” and doesn’t think schools should be graded based on the results. She isn’t the only one whose frustration is growing, and thousands of fed-up parents will factor prominently in this fall’s gubernatorial campaign. The primary election is Tuesday.

Democratic candidates Rod Smith and Jim Davis hope to galvanize parents angry about the pervasive influence the test has on public schools. Both want to eliminate the FCAT’s use in punishing low-performing schools and in holding back students in certain grades.

Those goals are unlikely to become reality any time soon. That’s because of a constitutional amendment limiting the governor’s control over education policy. In 1998, the same year Bush was first elected governor, voters approved an amendment that changed the department of education. The commissioner is now chosen by the Board of Education, whose seats are filled with gubernatorial appointees.

Bush appointees will remain a majority on the board until 2010, leaving current commissioner John Winn secure in his position until the new governor’s last year in office.

Republican candidates for governor Charlie Crist, who became in 2000 the last elected education commissioner, and Tom Gallagher, who preceded him in that job, want to keep the current system they both helped put in place.

Figlio said that system still needs improvement but also is in jeopardy of getting much worse.

“Who knows what will happen next year?” Figlio said. “Democrat or Republican, there may be an incentive to change the school grading system.”

Good changes would come in the form of better teacher pay, he said, while doing away with the accountability program’s reliance on tracking individual students’ improvement instead of just looking at their scores would be a bad idea.

Figlio, whose research has extended nationwide, said simply measuring levels instead of learning gains can lead to disturbing unintended consequences. His research found that in those situations, administrators are more likely to suspend low-achieving students on test days, and that schools on test days “carbo-loaded” students at lunch with higher-calorie meals.

With the federal No Child Left Behind Act, most states are trending toward that model, he said. Florida should not.

- - -

To look at the FCAT and an answer key, plus find scores for individual schools and districts, visit www.fldoe.org.

© 2005 Bonita Daily News and The Banner. Published in Bonita Springs, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.