In light of the recent move toward using student test scores to evaluate teachers, I'd like to comment on an experience I had on Tuesday at a grading site where very hard-working teachers had been pulled out of their classrooms to evaluate the tests our students completed two weeks ago (the eighth grade ELA exam). To be honest, I agree with the idea that students test scores should be part of how teachers are evaluated, but in order for that to be helpful the way we grade these exams needs to be updated, reevaluated and improved.
On Tuesday I was sent out of my school to grade the state ELA exams. When I showed up the woman running the grading site was incredibly confused that I could possibly be there instead of the teacher that had come from our school the day before. To her credit, schools are supposed to send only one teacher for the three days of grading, as the first day is spent training those teachers how to to score the exams on the second two.
After the initial shock wore off, the woman decided to find a job for me that was not grading, as it would have been entirely impossible for me to just read the instruction manual and then grade some exams (although that is what the training consists of). After pointing out that I was the youngest person there by about ten years and therefore must be far more tech-literate than anyone else, she proceeded to hand me a stack of poster papers that had been used the day before to find out what the teachers who were now grading thought the students' "strengths" were on the exam and what their "weaknesses" were. I spent three hours inputting these into a Word document that will now be emailed out to all the schools in any way associated with that grading center, after which the message will promptly be ignored by all of them.
While completing this very important task (infinitely more important than teaching my students about the integration of public school in the 1960's- what I'd actually planned to do Tuesday), I was able to sit back and observe the scoring process. The teachers grading the exams seemed really to be a motley crew. Such a variety of hair styles (spanning at least five style decades) I've not seen in the DOE, to say nothing about the skill and diligence with which they worked. To be serious, from what I can tell they seemed pretty competent and willing to get the job done as quickly, accurately, and efficiently as possible.
What most concerned me was the way these graders were spoken to by those in charge of the site. The woman in charge of the whole shebang kept making announcements like, "We want to be fair. We want to make sure our students get the best chance possible." These were of course given after muffled conversations about how poorly the students seemed to be doing. I couldn't help but give her sideways glances over the top of the laptop. Was she serious? The "chance" she was referring to was supposed to be the instruction the students had already received, not how liberally those grading tests could bend the scoring rubric. Several announcements like this were made, and the administrators of the site had numerous hushed conversations about specific scorers that "needed to be talked to."
Dozens of boxes of scoring guides showed up around midday, apparently intended for a different site. When she called the person in charge of this delivery, she first sounded confused and then was told by the woman on the other end of the line to just give the materials to whatever school she could. Why they showed up to that testing site instead of the right one? No one knows. What happened at the site that was lacking these materials? No one seems to know. Why am I telling you? Mostly because I was the schmuck who had to arrange and rearrange boxes all afternoon in order to fit them all into a very small space in a gymnasium that was hardly full. I'm just glad I could help.
What's the moral of this story? In spite of how hard people work to defend the education system, it does need to flush out some of its workers, revamp the way it does things and start fresh some areas. One thing about this system that I've thought a lot about lately is that it does not have a market to drive change. This is because the central commodities are our children, their brains, and their growth as human beings. I do believe that this is one of the reasons teachers and other in the field are resistant to change. We are the ones who work with these children and we do not want to see policies implemented that forget about their well-being for the sake of efficiency. That said, we do need to make sure middle school teachers aren't sent to random schools in the middle of the Bronx to move boxes all day when they could be helping students to learn material deemed valuable by the greater society (during a time period leading up to a state exam that may eventually be used to judge his competency as a teacher).
Today's Wine: A glass Casa De Campo Cab pumped from the other night.
Showing posts with label testing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label testing. Show all posts
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Crazy State Exams
In New York there are two tests that matter in the eighth grade: ELA and Math. Our students took both of these tests over the course of the past two weeks and I was especially happy with what I saw them do with the ELA exam. Their writing skills far exceed those of last year's eighth graders and I can't help but think that our concerted effort as an eighth grade team to promote those skills was a large part of that. During the exam I was given several reminders of how valuable their successes are, as they are achieved through far more difficult circumstances than their average peer around the state and country.
During one day of testing we had a milieu of interesting distractions. I was proctoring the exams in our multi-purpose room, which is located on the ground floor of the building facing the busy street outside. Directly above that street is a train trestle (only several yards from our third floor windows) on which trains are constantly arriving and departing as part of the NYC subway system. Needless to say they are rather loud- so much in fact that I had to pause no less than seven times while reading a passage that was part of the listening comprehension section of the ELA exam. In addition to the noise of the trains, numerous buses went roaring by, as well as a few vehicles blaring sirens. At one point a "sick" woman passerby was outside of the window screaming at herself about a quarter. I couldn't tell if she was claiming someone had stolen it from her or if some kind of evil demon was a playing a trick on her that day, but it was pretty distracting. My students thought it was pretty funny, at the very least.
Inside of the building we were placed next to a classroom full of "energetic" sixth graders, divided by a movable partition. Because their test was on a slightly different schedule they had breaks while we were testing and vice-versa. This is a the class of sixth graders we have that has a large number of students who came with "mandated self-contained" on their IEPs- a classification that is generally abused to put the kids who have huge behavior problems into small, separate classrooms. Needless to say, sometimes they can be a bit noisy.
Even without all of these distractions I was surprised by how well the students did on these tests. If you'd plopped a group of soft, suburban students down in this environment I doubt they'd test half as well as they would in their regular setting. I know that at that age whenever I saw anything that even looked remotely like the block outside of our school it was incredibly unsettling. Perhaps our students would also be uneasy being plopped down in the middle of the suburbs, but I doubt it would have the same effect.
Another thing that was astounding this year, as it was last year, was the real sense of urgency the students seem to pull out of no where when the state tests come around. They know these two tests are important and that they will not be promoted to the next grade if they cannot pass them. It would be incredible to create this urgency in the majority of our students on a more regular basis, I can't help to think that it will also be incredibly difficult to do this as long as a large number of stakeholders (not just administrators or teachers) demand that students be socially promoted en masse.
What do other folks do to create this sense of urgency on a regular basis? My only half-smoking, cap guns are: reminders of the state test, vague references to high school and explanations of how I personally have used the skills I teach since high school. Hardly what I keep keep kids trucking along on the front line.
Today's Wine: Casa de Campo Cabernet Sauvignon 2007. I feel like my reviews of wine are generally very positive, which perhaps means my pallet is not yet refined enough, but it may also mean that the stores from which I buy wine know their stuff. This one was less than $7 at the Best Cellars at 86th and Lex and it was nice, a bit spicy and not too fruity. It was a solid cab.
During one day of testing we had a milieu of interesting distractions. I was proctoring the exams in our multi-purpose room, which is located on the ground floor of the building facing the busy street outside. Directly above that street is a train trestle (only several yards from our third floor windows) on which trains are constantly arriving and departing as part of the NYC subway system. Needless to say they are rather loud- so much in fact that I had to pause no less than seven times while reading a passage that was part of the listening comprehension section of the ELA exam. In addition to the noise of the trains, numerous buses went roaring by, as well as a few vehicles blaring sirens. At one point a "sick" woman passerby was outside of the window screaming at herself about a quarter. I couldn't tell if she was claiming someone had stolen it from her or if some kind of evil demon was a playing a trick on her that day, but it was pretty distracting. My students thought it was pretty funny, at the very least.
Inside of the building we were placed next to a classroom full of "energetic" sixth graders, divided by a movable partition. Because their test was on a slightly different schedule they had breaks while we were testing and vice-versa. This is a the class of sixth graders we have that has a large number of students who came with "mandated self-contained" on their IEPs- a classification that is generally abused to put the kids who have huge behavior problems into small, separate classrooms. Needless to say, sometimes they can be a bit noisy.
Even without all of these distractions I was surprised by how well the students did on these tests. If you'd plopped a group of soft, suburban students down in this environment I doubt they'd test half as well as they would in their regular setting. I know that at that age whenever I saw anything that even looked remotely like the block outside of our school it was incredibly unsettling. Perhaps our students would also be uneasy being plopped down in the middle of the suburbs, but I doubt it would have the same effect.
Another thing that was astounding this year, as it was last year, was the real sense of urgency the students seem to pull out of no where when the state tests come around. They know these two tests are important and that they will not be promoted to the next grade if they cannot pass them. It would be incredible to create this urgency in the majority of our students on a more regular basis, I can't help to think that it will also be incredibly difficult to do this as long as a large number of stakeholders (not just administrators or teachers) demand that students be socially promoted en masse.
What do other folks do to create this sense of urgency on a regular basis? My only half-smoking, cap guns are: reminders of the state test, vague references to high school and explanations of how I personally have used the skills I teach since high school. Hardly what I keep keep kids trucking along on the front line.
Today's Wine: Casa de Campo Cabernet Sauvignon 2007. I feel like my reviews of wine are generally very positive, which perhaps means my pallet is not yet refined enough, but it may also mean that the stores from which I buy wine know their stuff. This one was less than $7 at the Best Cellars at 86th and Lex and it was nice, a bit spicy and not too fruity. It was a solid cab.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Regents Week Wake Up Call
In January we devote an entire instructional week to Regents Exams- New York's exit exams. There are no classes, instead there are tests to proctor. Students do not come to school unless they are scheduled for a test (and sometimes not even then, of course). It's pretty nice until we start grading the things. After that the gloves came off, a lot of people got ornery, and a lot of students were put to the test. After all is said and done, the testing, grading, passing and failing get to you and the week becomes as rough as any other.
The Schedule
Each teacher is given a schedule of proctoring and grading periods. This is the first thing that raises the level of irritation amongst the staff. Our building only has so many rooms and so many teachers, the combination of which is very difficult to piece together so there are enough staff and enough rooms to go around. In spite of that difficulty and the effort made to maintain equity, many teachers have had numerous free periods, while others have to proctor and grade the entire week straight.
Students are not in classes and therefore are providing fewer opportunities for the teachers to complain, the amount of grading required and the number of tests that one must proctor immediately fill that void. Any slight variance in equity becomes a complaint given to other teachers and administrators. Administrators then might go to more experienced staff to try to shift the work load around a bit, the result of which is more irritation.
For some the proctoring schedule is completely absurd, as it is with our special education department. The teachers we have in that department are scheduled to administer tests for between seven and nine hours straight every day of the week and are only relieved when they text someone a reminder that they are stuck in a room with students and have to go to the bathroom.
The Grading
Each teacher has to grade tests in his or her subject area. That means all of the social studies teachers team up to grade the social studies exit exams, all the math teacher do the same, etc. This is necessary so that teachers do not grade their own students' exams, and also provides the teams an opportunity to come together to talk, bond, ignore one another, etc.
The complaints in this department center on how much grading each person actually does when compared to the number of students they actually have taking the test. I was pretty guilty of this one. I had four of my eighth graders take the eleventh grade exit exam, but I assisted in the grading of well over a hundred exams. That's fine. I wouldn't have nearly as large a problem with that if I wasn't made to give a large test to the rest of my eighth graders and then grade it entirely by myself outside of school hours by the end of the week. My complaints were quieted by the logic that I'm lucky to have the time off from teaching and should be quiet, though that didn't really make me feel a whole lot better.
The fact that we grade the exams in-house baffles me. If these tests are important at all, why in the world would the state expect people who are supposed to be very emotionally engaged in the success of the students grade the very exams that are supposed to be objective measures of their competency?! Teacher's and administrator's jobs depend on those test scores and we're the ones grading them? Because I do not teach high school and my students aren't actually expected to pass these exams, I find myself being most objective and holding the highest standards for students to actually pass the tests, while my colleagues tend to be a bit more lenient when it comes to marking down . Even still, many of the students taking the exam are my students from last year, which means however much I want to be objective about them, I cannot be.
Moving Forward
The first whiff of how difficult my job would be in the Bronx came when I graded the August Regents Exams in the summer of 2008. I came in fresh from college and used to reading high-level student work. I was shocked by the fact that students couldn't do well on the exams, let alone even pass them.
When your job is to get students to learn an important base of knowledge and develop the skills they will need to be successful in life, it's an incredible shot to the gut to find out that all of your hard work results in many students failing a minimum competency test. Your pride is cut down; your self-esteem dissolved. As you calculate the scores a sort of numb feeling grips you as you search for meaning in the fact that few of the students are able to pass what has become one of the largest measures of your performance.
While I'm not yet a seasoned veteran, I can imagine how difficult it is to see students do so poorly year after year. In spite of all our efforts, it may come down to the fact that our current system simply cannot do what we want it to do. With class sizes so large, teachers demoralized (and demonized), and public favor of the public schools waning, all we can do is keep marching and improving what we're doing with students. Maybe it is a losing battle in this system, but that doesn't mean we'll give up the fight. Hopefully someone figures out how to dig us out of this mess while we're still standing.
Today's Wine: Casillero del Diablo Carmenere. My impeccable and flourishing Spanish (I learned the word for "question" the other day) tells me that Diablo means "devil," so of course I had to buy it. This guy was fruity, full-bodied, not too dry and not at all expensive. Great job.
The Schedule
Each teacher is given a schedule of proctoring and grading periods. This is the first thing that raises the level of irritation amongst the staff. Our building only has so many rooms and so many teachers, the combination of which is very difficult to piece together so there are enough staff and enough rooms to go around. In spite of that difficulty and the effort made to maintain equity, many teachers have had numerous free periods, while others have to proctor and grade the entire week straight.
For some the proctoring schedule is completely absurd, as it is with our special education department. The teachers we have in that department are scheduled to administer tests for between seven and nine hours straight every day of the week and are only relieved when they text someone a reminder that they are stuck in a room with students and have to go to the bathroom.
The Grading
Each teacher has to grade tests in his or her subject area. That means all of the social studies teachers team up to grade the social studies exit exams, all the math teacher do the same, etc. This is necessary so that teachers do not grade their own students' exams, and also provides the teams an opportunity to come together to talk, bond, ignore one another, etc.
The complaints in this department center on how much grading each person actually does when compared to the number of students they actually have taking the test. I was pretty guilty of this one. I had four of my eighth graders take the eleventh grade exit exam, but I assisted in the grading of well over a hundred exams. That's fine. I wouldn't have nearly as large a problem with that if I wasn't made to give a large test to the rest of my eighth graders and then grade it entirely by myself outside of school hours by the end of the week. My complaints were quieted by the logic that I'm lucky to have the time off from teaching and should be quiet, though that didn't really make me feel a whole lot better.
Moving Forward
The first whiff of how difficult my job would be in the Bronx came when I graded the August Regents Exams in the summer of 2008. I came in fresh from college and used to reading high-level student work. I was shocked by the fact that students couldn't do well on the exams, let alone even pass them.
When your job is to get students to learn an important base of knowledge and develop the skills they will need to be successful in life, it's an incredible shot to the gut to find out that all of your hard work results in many students failing a minimum competency test. Your pride is cut down; your self-esteem dissolved. As you calculate the scores a sort of numb feeling grips you as you search for meaning in the fact that few of the students are able to pass what has become one of the largest measures of your performance.
While I'm not yet a seasoned veteran, I can imagine how difficult it is to see students do so poorly year after year. In spite of all our efforts, it may come down to the fact that our current system simply cannot do what we want it to do. With class sizes so large, teachers demoralized (and demonized), and public favor of the public schools waning, all we can do is keep marching and improving what we're doing with students. Maybe it is a losing battle in this system, but that doesn't mean we'll give up the fight. Hopefully someone figures out how to dig us out of this mess while we're still standing.
Today's Wine: Casillero del Diablo Carmenere. My impeccable and flourishing Spanish (I learned the word for "question" the other day) tells me that Diablo means "devil," so of course I had to buy it. This guy was fruity, full-bodied, not too dry and not at all expensive. Great job.
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