I spoke to a group of teachers in Los Angeles the other night, educators in LAUSD, and asked a very simple question: How many people in this room believe the bubble tests give an accurate portrayal of your professionalism? Not a person in the room raised their hand.

And the thing is, if you know teachers, you know that they will, for better or worse, tell it like it is. This is not Congress voting whether or not to give themselves a raise where you’ll get universal agreement because self-interest rules the roost. Teachers, if they believe in something, will say so… even if it hurts the feelings of other teachers in the room.

That’s because, IMHO, the kids, to most educators, are more important than the feelings of their peers.

But when nary a hand gets raised in a room that big and no one is willing to say, “You know what… I don’t love the bubble tests but at least I do think they are 1) well-written 2) on point 3) fair 4) reasonable in their scope and weight and 5) equitable so, while I have my small gripes, by-the-by I do think they reflect a truism about my own craft as a teacher and those that don’t well… I just think they are simply hiding something.”

I don’t know any teacher that believes this point of view. And I know scores who do not.

Are we hiding something? I mean the politicians have painted educators as if we have this dark, deep skeleton in the closet that we will, at all costs, defend from public view. Is that really the case? And then, by putting teachers in this role, they get to put on the cape and swoop in like a superhero to save the day for kids and parents.

ETS isn’t a multi-billion dollar “non-profit” corporation with their money-vaccuming tentacles poised to stretch into every American classroom at a greater pace than ever before; they are a white knight saving taxpayers from the rogues and scoundrels who are milking the government for entitlements and benefits while harming the needs of our kids.

Are teachers hiding something and do the bubble tests excavate our dark, dirty, deeply-closeted secrets?

I ask because year after year we are seeing our schools morph more and more into bubble test test prep factories… and is this not part of the sentiment driving that ship?

So here’s the prez on standardized tests. My question is… well, I’ll wait until after you read it:

ON STANDARDIZED TESTS:

What is true, though, is, is that we have piled on a lot of standardized tests on our kids. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a standardized test being given occasionally just to give a baseline of where kids are at. Malia and Sasha, my two daughters, they just recently took a standardized test. But it wasn’t a high-stakes test. It wasn’t a test where they had to panic. I mean, they didn’t even really know that they were going to take it ahead of time. They didn’t study for it, they just went ahead and took it. And it was a tool to diagnose where they were strong, where they were weak, and what the teachers needed to emphasize.

Too often what we’ve been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools. And so what we’ve said is let’s find a test that everybody agrees makes sense; let’s apply it in a less pressured-packed atmosphere; let’s figure out whether we have to do it every year or whether we can do it maybe every several years; and let’s make sure that that’s not the only way we’re judging whether a school is doing well.

Because there are other criteria: What’s the attendance rate? How are young people performing in terms of basic competency on projects? There are other ways of us measuring whether students are doing well or not.

So what I want to do is — one thing I never want to see happen is schools that are just teaching to the test. Because then you’re not learning about the world; you’re not learning about different cultures, you’re not learning about science, you’re not learning about math. All you’re learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam and the little tricks that you need to do in order to take a test. And that’s not going to make education interesting to you. And young people do well in stuff that they’re interested in. They’re not going to do as well if it’s boring.

So, okay… seems to me he gets it. But then why the heck doesn’t he actually DO something about it. I mean look at Race to the Top. Look at Merit Pay. Look at high stakes exams, look at the incredible amount of teachers and principals who have lost their jobs as a result of standardized test scores and on and on.

I mean he can pick up a phone, not call Congress and blast Libya but he doesn’t have the ability to apply what he seems to know about this educational nightmare so that he can halt its reoccurrence from continuing to replay itself out over the landscape of our nation right now?

Dude… come on.

Showing you understand the problem is awesome. Not doing something when you clearly see their is a problem is lame. Step up, Barack. If only your entire education policy would remediate what you see as problematic in the above three paragraphs, you’d be making a Dewey-esque contribution to our nation’s schools at this point.

Hi, my name is Whit Little and I have hacked Alan’s blog today to talk to you about this most important of seasons.

The season of data.

See, as we all know it’s coming up on testing time and in my role as the DDVP (Data-Driven Vice Principal) I want to make sure that you are properly placing all of your energy into the singularly most important area of a child’s education: their standardized test scores.

• Are your students prepared for the tests?
• Have you pre-tested the test material in order to make sure that your students are test ready?
• Have you generated data which can give an indication as to the data that will ultimately be generated from your students’ test data?
• Have you had the requisite amount of conversations about the importance of these tests to your students? (i.e. Twice a day on M,T,F and and three times per day on Tu, Th as per Ed Code Section 6ZL9TH.90L87M-B)
• Has your faculty engaged in enough meetings about the importance about upcoming tests?
• Have you done your “How to properly administer this test” workshop? (And don’t give me any of that, “But I’ve done this for years, why must I attend the same ol’ meeting yet again?” nonsense. It shows a lack of respect for the tests and of the importance of the data that these tests will generate.)

This time of year is no joke and we hope you understand the gravity of these tests. Please report all suspicious peers who display a cavalier attitude about the importance of these tests – or the data – to me, Whit Little. (You can just leave a comment below.)

And if you think it’s unethical for me to hack into Alan’s blog in order to relay the importance of the upcoming tests, might I remind you that the powers being granted to me, the DDVP, are currently growing in scale and scope to an unprecedented level.

Rightfully so, too. It’s a new era and this is but one of many changes to come in the near future so get over yourselves.

And yes, there will be a test.

As much as I have been on the technological bandwagon of late, as we migrate towards online state testing, I see problems and problems and problems arising. This came to the fore for me during a distraught phone call I got from a really keen educator in Indiana.

Apparently, the high stakes state tests are now online. No pass, no diploma, you know the type. And online testing is wreaking havoc on some of her kids. In no particular order…

–Apparently there is a writing section to the test. This means that students who are hunt-n-peck typers are at a distinct disadvantage. Now standardized test makers always claim that the length of your composition plays little to no role on the evaluation of your composition on tests like these. However, every released sample essay of a “not passing” piece of student work is frequently characterized by its shortness of length (its insufficiency of content, if you will). Conversely, every exemplary piece of written work was frequently characterized by a sense of voluminousness (so to speak). One paragraph essays bomb, 5 paragraph essays soar and the middle ground is the middle ground. They are fence sitters.

As the teacher pointed out to me, this means that typing acumen is now playing a role in whether or not students will earn their high school diploma because if you are an 18 word per minute typer who was an academic fence sitter anyway, the chances of you finishing your work is severely reduced due to time limitations. However, if you are a 90 word-per-minute typing fence sitter, your ability to fly around the keyboard gives you more of an ability to cover more ground and thus puts you in a better position to pass the test.

But the school does not teach typing. They figure kids “ought to know”. Is that fair?

Makes me wonder if this was this ever an issue with hand-written essays? I don’t recall it being so. Sure, some kids might have penned their essays more slowly than others, but I doubt that the words-per-minute rate ever approached a quadruple the time difference.

– She also bemoaned the tech glitch at the start of the online test which cost some of her kids 20 minutes of actual test taking time. And being that the state controlled the start and stop mechanism through the software – rendering the teacher entirely disempowered to remediate the circumstance (side note: they love to disempowere the teacher, don’t they?) some kids got shorted time in a way that was never resolved.

–Beyond that, simple test taking strategies such as underlining key words in the passage, X-ing out wrong answers via process of elimination and writing in the margins have long been advocated as habits often demonstrated by strong test takers.

The online tests offered limited ability to highlight and annotate but the software was entirely unfamiliar to the students so that a technical acumen was needed in order to use a variety of the functions which would have allowed students to incorporate the strategies strong test takers frequently use when taking standardized tests. And for every moment a kid fiddled around with the “How do I annotate this or highlight that or strike through this?” question, it was a moment not being afforded to the student to actually answer the questions. On timed tests, this stuff matters.

Plus, it’s distracting to the test takers. And it’s frustrating. Souring their mood and creating aggravation can’t really be expected to actually enhance test performance, can it? And when a student’s diploma is on the line, is this really a prudent way to assess their worthiness?

It sounded to me as if the software engineers presumed all kids had a facility with navigating the online testing terrain, a facility that could really only be had by actually having had some instruction as to how a student was supposed to navigate the online testing terrain – as well as some practice.

These things literally required practice.

Now online testing is most assuredly going to play a larger part in assessment going forward. And I am sure a lot of the “wrinkles” will get ironed out. (All? No way. But we haven’t ironed out all the wrinkles in bubble testing yet – despite the billions of dollars we spend every year administering them – so it would be unfair to hold online tests up to a standard which doesn’t really exist for the current format.

The problems of online testing are, to turn a phrase, starting to “bubble up”.

Almost to a student, kids have been, in a Pavlovian way, turned off to textbooks. That especially hurts an English teacher’s aim of trying to develop them into readers through the use of textbooks because it’s not just an ELA association they have with them; they come into class with a history of pretty much loathing these things in their other core areas of study as well.

From 6th grade on, kids are pounded with math textbooks that far-too-many teachers use in a drill and kill style… and science textbooks that teachers use in a “Do the unit questions at the end of the chapter” style… and then history textbooks where it’s “remember these 15 dates and names by rote” style… so even if the ELA textbooks were the cat’s meow (and in my opinion, they ain’t) the kids come in with emotional baggage about using textbooks that is almost insurmountable.

And from there it feels like we’re just putting lipstick on a pig by trying to show them just how amazing these tepid, issue-free, sanitized, 12 pound tomes are.

They don’t buy it. And yet, we keep trying to sell it to them. Worst of all, district admins remain deaf to the cries of “these things ain’t working”. Cause if they were really working, maybe our “data” would be better. After all, what’s been the primary educational tool in the classroom for the past two decades?

Textbooks have ben at the center of the curricular wheel in all of the core subject areas and yet, how come few, if any, people point to them as perhaps the problem with our curriculum/low achievement/poor test scores as opposed to viewing them as the solution?

However, here’s a school district that is embracing new ideas. And I gotta say, it makes me feel like the folks out there in Pulaski are doing the sorts of things that I’d like to see embraced by more and more and more of our schools.

And in another case of the bubble tests being the tail that wags the entire educational dog, we see that one of the nation’s largest school districts – Los Angeles Unified – wants to start school earlier next year.

Not add more days of school, mind you. (Of course not. That would cost money and perhaps even add value to a child’s learning life.) Nope… they want to start earlier to “give students more time to prepare for the tests.”

That’s not a direct quote. Here’s the direct quote…

“The Los Angeles Unified School District hails the idea as a step forward academically, arguing that students would be better prepared for exams.”

It’s that blatant.
That direct.
That absurd.

Clearly, good widgets do well on good one-size-fits-all bubble tests and bad widgets do poorly on one-size-fits-all bubble tests so – just as clearly, we need to start concentrating on the bubble tests earlier next year as they are, after all, the entire raison d’etre for public education’s entire existence.

It also goes to show how little the time is valued by our schools after bubble test season is over. (I’ve blogged about this before, about how once testing season passes the entire school shifts into “bide-our-time til summer” mode because clearly, once the bubbles have passed, so has the need to “really teach”.)

Why don’t we just let the bubble test makers decide the school calendar and put this baby to rest once and for all? They could schedule our tests, they could schedule our pre-tests, they can schedule our practice tests, our warm-up tests, and our make-up tests.

And anything that’s left over, will just be a furlough day. After all, if we are not preparing kids for the tests, how in the world can it be said that we are really teaching.

Because if it’s not tested, why would we be teaching it anyway?

This will all save us time, money and energy. Since nothing else but the bubble tests matter, why are we even bothering to pretend that anything other than the bubble tests do matter.

Of course, once we parse the data, we’ll know who to keep, who to fire, which kid to shame and which kid to put on the cover of the school district’s newsletter.

It’s a simple solution really. I have no idea why it’s taken them so long to figure it out.

So here’s an article where the doomsday scenario of teacher cuts is illuminated in big, bold print for all the world to see. We are talking about, by some estimates, 100,000 – 300,000 educators losing their jobs (those are Arne Duncan’s words) in the next few months.

In California, we pink-slipped something like 22,000 teachers. And everyone is befuddled as to an answer to help stave off this nightmare scenario.

I blogged about it last week, but let me suggest it again, this time with some math behind it. Let’s just pink slip the tests instead of the professionals.

In the state of California, for example, bubble tests are everywhere. I mean everywhere. Approximately 5 million students will be taking the CST exam for NCLB over the next month.

How much do we pay for each test? (I don’t know, but I wish someone would answer that for all of us.)

I’ll low-ball my guesstimates just to make the bigger point (i.e. of let’s just pink slip the tests instead of the professionals.)

I’ve heard there are over 6 million kids in California schools. Let’s toss out a million of them and posit that we’re only gonna pay ETS for 5 million tests.

How much does each test cost? According to the College Board website, the SAT costs $45 per test.
The College Board charges $86 per test for the AP exams, according to their site.
Being that the CST is for English, Math, History and Science – and being that I want to give the test makers a fair shake, let’s say they only charge 2/3 of the cost of an SAT for a more complex, longer, more broad in scope CST exam.

By that I mean, I’ll do the math at $30 per kid tested. (If AP are $86 per test, I find it hard to imagine that CST’s for NCLB are a 1/3 of the price for something that requires differentiation at every grade level, but like I said, let’s be fair and try to underestimate the fee they charge our schools for testing.)

So I underestimate the amount of kids taking the test at 5,000,000 and I underestimate the cost per test at $30 and that means that when I say that the number is $150,000,000.00 to test our state’s kids — that’s 150 million dollars — I think I am being conservative.

And we test them year after year after year. To put it in perspective,4 years of high school = 600 million dollars in testing.

So let’s say we actually took that $150 million for next year’s tests and put it on the table and asked ourselves, “Where could we get more bang for our buck?”

And by bang for our buck I mean, where will the money best be spent directly helping the kids of the 2010/2011 school year?

Should we spend $150,000,000 on bubble tests for our students or should we spend $150,000,000 on teachers for the students in the classrooms?

The answer to me, well… it seems self evident.

Testing season is coming up — and if I am ETS (or another test-making company of like ilk) that means, it’s time to pop the bubbly.

Why? Because we are about to become a nation of bubble test takers and that means, cha-ching… cash is gonna be flowing into the coffers of the people who make these tests.

It’s like being a pumpkin salesman during the month of October — business is good.

But here’s a question. As far as I can tell, every corner of the world of education has seen the current budget crisis play a major role in their operations. At my school district, we RIF’d around 20% of the district’s teachers.

Across the state, we’ve reduced services to kids, cut out extra-curricular activities, started charging parents fees to allow their kids to play sports and so on.

But have the test takers reduced their prices for us?
Have the bubble test makers given us a break on cost?
Do we get a volume discount for literally lining up millions of customers annually?

My school is out of copy paper… but the bubble tests still cost the same price?
My school is out of toner cartridges… but the bubble tests still cost the same price?
Major school districts are literally shortening the school year whereby they will be providing less instructional hours to our most needy kids in order to make ends meet… but the bubble tests still cost the same price?

Pop the bubbly if you make bubbles… cause it’s boom time in a land where so many others are going bust.

It’s good work if you can get it, right?

These past few days I have been blogging about this idea of measuring teacher effectiveness. To do this properly, the rule seems to me that the powers-that-be are going to have to use multiple measures.

And when I say multiple, I mean multiple.

First off, test scores. Fine, you want them so bad, I’ll put them on the table. (And this is coming from a guy who is Mr. Anti-Bubble test so this is no small concession on my part – but since I know how much they mean to you, I’ll toss in the first olive branch.)

But you gotta give me a few things in order for me to believe that measuring my effectiveness has been fairly rendered.

I want my peers weigh in on me. That’s right, my peers. They may be scallywags and rascals, but if you create an anonymous system whereby the teachers in my department can give me a score, I think that there will be some merit to be found in their aggravate evaluation.

Let’s say we use a 10 point scale. Is your peer, Mr. Alan an effective teacher? (Please, for the sake of me not having to explicate an entire survey, know that, of course, the peer survey will be more than 1 mere vague question — I am trying to make a point here, so please, cut me some slack.)

And so, back to the question: Please rank Mr. Alan on a scale from 1 to 10 (ten being the highest).

Throw out the top score and throw out the bottom and I think you get a picture. Not a crystal clear picture, but hey, fellow teachers know our peers to some extent and if across the board for 3 years in a row, a person is scoring 2′s and 1′s on the peer evaluation survey, I’d say that it reflects something bigger than a “nobody around here likes me” issue.

Year one is an anomaly. Year 2 is an indication. Three years in a row. That’s smoke… and perhaps there’s fire.

Besides, I will have to trust the professionalism of my colleagues to try and do what’s right. (I mean HOLY JEEZ, we have to start trusting one another!) Besides, the ELA Dept is not Lord of the Flies and railroading someone out of political conspiracy just for the sake of a power grab doesn’t seem very likely to happen to a teacher that colleagues feel is actually doing a good job of, well, teaching.

I know, the cynics will tell me, “Oh, I am SOOOOOOOO wrong!” (Did I mention the trust factor? We’re being trusted with the lives of kids but we can’t trust one another to simply be honest on a simple survey. We really need to get a grip.)

Ultimately, the dude down the hall might be a schmuck, but if he’s a good teacher, I am going to have to be a big enough boy to recognize that if the kids are being well served by him, that should count for something — and I can give him a 7 instead of a 9 because he has a grumpy disposition. Whatever. But if he’s not a 2 I won’t give that to him.

Plus, knowing that he’s gonna have a chance to weigh in on me, well, it certainly tamps down my desire to be contentious… at least with a person who is doing their job.

As far as the opposite conspiracy taking place (“Hey man, you give me a ten and I’ll give you a ten, okay?”) the thing about teachers is, way too many of us are like Atticus Finch and would respond with some kind of comment like, “It’s nothing personal, but my integrity prohibits me from making any such deal as aspects like this could undermine the entire American education system… and that’s a system to which I believe we must contribute honesty.”

Come on, you know you are out there. How many of you would really give a 10 to a teacher who you thought was a three simply so that they would return the favor in kind?

Like I said, Atticus lives.

Multiples measures for measuring teacher effectiveness will continue tomorrow… post is growing too long.