GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein’s emphasis on standardized test scores appears to be working: an analysis of state test scores before and after mayoral control reveals “a broad and steady march upward,” the Times’ Elissa Gootman and Robert Gebeloff report.

The rates of New York City students passing standardized English and math tests have risen at a faster pace than statewide passing rates overall, and Queens and Staten Island have gone from among the lowest-scoring counties in the state to among the best, according to the Times’ report.

The story mentions in passing that the results of the 2007 federal National Association of Educational Progress showed no significant progress among New York City’s eighth-grade students during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure. Some experts claim that NAEP scores may be a better measure of overall student performance because it’s more difficult to engage in direct test preparation and thus less vulnerable to score inflation.

But Klein dismissed those concerns, telling the Times that the state tests are a valid measure of learning: (more…)

(via the Heath Department and DOE report)

In a report released today, city health and education researchers conclude that students’ academic performance is linked to their fitness level, but note that there’s no evidence for why that might be.

Issued jointly by the Health Department and Department of Education, the report focuses on public school students in grades K-8 and compares their standardized test scores to the data taken from NYC FitnessGram, a program that tests students’ fitness in gym class.

According to the report, students whose fitness scores rank in the top five percent, score 36 percentage points higher than students whose fitness level is in the bottom five percent.

The report’s authors take care to side step any question of causation. They write: (more…)

President Obama’s Department of Education has vowed to invest federal money in building better tests, but the dollars may be held up until the country can hash out some “common standards.” The new Board of Regents chancellor, Merryl Tisch, is also zeroing in on state tests, but it’s not yet clear exactly how that will happen.

Meanwhile, in England, they’re off and running. Computerized assessments staggered throughout the year will replace written end-of-course exams within the next 15 years, a senior testing official, Simon Lebus, told The Guardian over the weekend:

Exam boards are investing millions of pounds in developing the technology – and, Lebus claimed, it’s not “science fiction”.

He said: “The likelihood is that in the next 10 to 15 years it will change almost out of recognition in that by the end of that period of time you’ll be able to do exams more or less on demand, on screen.

“You can make the learning more valid and the technology can enhance the way people engage in the subject. It’s very expensive, complex stuff to do. But it is achievable. It’s not a vision based on a sort of science-fiction type fantasy.”

This Education Sector report, “Beyond the Bubble,” explains how technology can innovate testing.

Beginning next year, state math and reading tests will be given in May, rather than two months apart in January and March, the state decided earlier this week. But beyond the barest outline of the schedule, details about the change are still unclear.

Details up in the air include when exactly the tests will be given and how results will be tabulated in time for the start of the next school year. “Work is now underway to revise current examination calendars and scoring timelines,” State Education Department deputy commissioner Johanna Duncan-Poitier said in materials released this week.

The schedule change is throwing schools’ plans for next year into question just as teachers are leaving for the summer. Steven Evangelista, the principal of Harlem Link Charter School, said his teachers have already planned their lessons for all of next year, and finding out that the state tests are moving is forcing them to revise the plans.

“At this late date, when we have already mapped out our entire curriculum and assessment calendar for 2009-10, changing the date of high-stakes tests throws a monkey wrench in our plans,” Evangelista said, adding that he wondered whether getting results over the summer would give teachers enough time to use the data to inform their instruction. He said he hadn’t heard about the Regents’ debate before this week.

In the past, some schools have focused more heavily on reading before the state test in January, then shifted their focus to math in the months before the March math test. Some schools also plan different kinds of lessons for after the state tests, when the pressure to prepare students for the exams has lifted.

Even schools that shun explicit test prep, including Evangelista’s, say the schedule change could pose problems for them. (more…)

John Merrow has been collecting advice for President Obama on education. The latest additions are real audio from students, including this Texas high school senior, who says schools should focus on tests that prepare students for college, not standardized state tests:

“It would be a whole lot more useful to students if they would focus on tests like SAT’s and ACT’s, more college-oriented things, rather than an end of year test that’s not used by colleges or even hardly looked at by colleges.”

Malika Evans, an Urban Academy senior here in New York City, wants Obama to end military recruitment in high schools:

“It gets harassing, they keep calling…School is for education and education only, and students should be worried about going to college after going to school.”

At Vanguard High School in Manhattan, two students ask for better environments for gay and lesbian students:

“There is a lot of high schools that don’t approve of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and queers….In school, it should be a safe place, it should be like a second home. Nobody should be put down because of their sexuality.”

Via Flickr

Remember the Beacon teacher Helen Zelon flagged last month, who’s trying to save money by taking his classroom paperless? New York State’s education department is taking a page from his book, sort of.

The state is printing all tests on recycled paper this year, a change that will guarantee hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, spokesman Jonathan Burman said.

Why hasn’t the state used cheaper paper all along? Burman explained that the department’s printing staff (yes, apparently there is an entire “Print Plant staff”) has been testing paper for a while and “only recently” discovered a cheaper recycled paper up to the testing office’s standards:

Where we typically used a 50 lb offset in the past, we can now get the same or better “opacity” (a key standard for Testing to prevent “bleed-through”) and brightness from a fully recycled roll (Note: we print from large rolls of paper weighing 1350 lbs each, not from individual sheets). So, by making this switch, we are saving the state money, getting better quality testing materials, and helping the environment all at the same time.

Exam materials that have color graphics are printed on the same expensive, non-environmental paper, Burman said.

Teachers across the city are leaving their classrooms this week to grade the state reading tests required by the No Child Left Behind law. This is a change from last year, when they were paid extra to grade the tests after school and on weekends. But the new arrangement also carries costs. Meredith Kolodner recently pointed out in the Daily News that schools lose not only the teachers’ time but also the money it costs to pay a substitute.

This could be a matter of “too bad, but move on.” In terrible budget times, the system has no choice but to use school time to grade the exams. Except for one thing: It might be that the time allotted to grade the tests is too long.

Eva Moskowitz, the Harlem charter school operator and former City Council member, says that when her teachers graded 60 children’s practice third-grade English Language Arts tests earlier this year, under exactly the prescribed conditions, the whole procedure took just 43 minutes. Yet grading of the ELA tests in district schools began last week and will go on through the middle of February. Charter schools, whose grading is coordinated by the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, are being asked to send teachers for three-day stints.

“This is a very lickety-split operation,” Moskowitz said. “How you would drag it out over three days, I don’t know.” She said that the actual tasks required are simple. “This is like two sentences and an editing passage. And the rubric is very strict,” she said. “I don’t know why we’re asking teachers to do this, frankly. To me, high school students would suffice. Maybe even good middle school students would suffice.”

Andrew Jacob, a spokesman for the city school system, said there is a simple reason for the time demands: “We have a lot of tests to grade and we have a lot of measures in place to ensure that the tests are being graded accurately.” James Merriman, executive director of the charter center, said the grading process follows strict guidelines meant to ensure credible results.

A postcard Democracy Prep sent out inviting other schools and parents to their Harlem Armory inauguration party.

I’m planning to spend next Tuesday at this event in Harlem, where a bunch of charter schools — more than 30 last I heard — will be gathering to celebrate inauguration day. School leaders at Democracy Prep Charter School in Harlem planned the event after being disappointed in their first plan, to take the whole school to Washington, D.C. The day will include student performances, art projects, and some political work too.

As the postcard Democracy Prep sent out to advertise the day makes clear, the party will also be a chance for charter school supporters to make a political statement in favor of school choice.

Now that the ELA test has been postponed, I’m guessing other schools are making inauguration plans, too. Leave yours in the comments section.

The online testing system's logo.

Here’s an unusual complaint from a Bedford Stuyvesant elementary school, about the city’s online testing system called Acuity. Acuity gives tests to students throughout the year and lets teachers and parents monitor how they do — what subjects the children are doing well in and which they aren’t.

Usually, critics complain that Acuity, which the Department of Education has purchased from the CTB McGraw Hill company, is a waste of money that encourages children to be over-tested.

But the complaint in Bed-Stuy, from Lisa North, a literacy coach at P.S. 3, is that Acuity isn’t available enough. North’s argument is that since the statewide English exam is scheduled for next month, the holiday break should be a natural time for parents to help students prepare for the test, which can determine whether a child is promoted to the next grade. But North says family prep time will be hampered because Acuity is scheduled to shut down over the holidays, from December 28th to January 4th. (more…)

Tests can be made more accessible for English Language Learners and students with special needs, say researchers at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody School of Education.

They’ve created a checklist, the Test Accessibility and Modification Inventory, to help educators and test-designers evaluate whether a test is likely to trip up students who know the content but are struggling readers or are easily distracted.

The inventory penalizes tests with unnecessary diagrams, excessive answer choices, and answer choices that aren’t plausible. Educators might be surprised to learn that three choices are considered optimal for multiple choice questions.

Other sections of the inventory address readability of test questions, spacing and layout on the page, and fairness to students of different ethnicities. There’s also a checklist for assessing computer-based exams.

See EdWeek for an example of a question modified to meet the guidelines.