The Great Accountability Hoax

[proud2BlibKansan]

Diane Ravitch keeps me sane. I am so grateful we have her voice. It helps me realize I am not losing my mind or imagining any of this accountability crap.

Link: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2010/06/the_great_accountability_hoax.html

The evidence continues to accumulate that our "accountability" policies are a great fraud and hoax, but our elected officials and policymakers remain completely oblivious to the harm caused by the policies they mandate.

Over the past several years, efforts to "hold teachers accountable" and "hold schools accountable" have produced perverse consequences. Instead of better education, we are getting cheating scandals, teaching to bad tests, a narrowed curriculum, lowered standards, and gaming of the system. Even if it produces higher test scores (of dubious validity), high-stakes accountability does not produce better education.

In their eagerness to show "results," states are dumbing down their standards. The New York state education department dropped cut scores on the state tests from 2006 (the year that annual testing in grades 3-8 was introduced) to 2009. In 2006, a student in 7th grade could achieve "proficiency" by getting 59.6 percent of the points correct on the state math test; by 2009, a student in the same grade needed only 44 percent of the available points. Back in the pre-accountability days, a score of 60 percent would have been a D, not a mark of proficiency, and a score of 44 percent would have been a failing grade. According to a report by The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, the gains registered in the elementary schools of Chicago during Arne Duncan's tenure were almost entirely the result of changes to the scoring of the tests, rather than evidence of any genuine improvement in student learning.

When New York state's education department was criticized for dropping the cut scores on its tests, officials responded by insisting that the department dropped the cut scores because the tests were actually harder than in previous years. This was utter nonsense because the passing rates soared as the cut scores fell, which would not have been the case if the tests were "harder." So, although it never acknowledged its past chicanery, the state education department claimed that the tests would really, really, truly be hard this year and that standards would once again be high.

However, some whistle-blowing teachers tipped off the New York Post that the scoring rubrics for this year's test recommended giving half-credit for wrong answers and even for no answer at all. Here are examples from the 4th-grade scoring guide, as reported in the Post:

"A kid who answers that a 2-foot-long skateboard is 48 inches long gets half-credit for adding 24 and 24 instead of the correct 12 plus 12.

A miscalculation that 28 divided by 14 equals 4 instead of 2 is "partially correct" if the student uses the right method to verify the wrong answer.

Setting up a division problem to find one-fifth of $400, but not solving the problem—and leaving the answer blank—gets half-credit.
A kid who subtracts 57 cents from three quarters for the right change and comes up with 15 cents instead of 18 cents still gets half-credit.

A student who figures the numbers of books in 35 boxes of 10 gets half-credit despite messed-up multiplication that yields the wrong answer, 150 instead of 350."

One hopes that these students never become pharmacists or engineers or enter any other line of work where accuracy matters.

Merit pay has been tried and found ineffective again and again since the 1920s, but repeated failure never discourages its advocates, who are certain that if the incentives were larger, or if some other element was adjusted, it would surely work. We hear that about every failed experiment. If only we had done it differently....

More emphasis on test scores. More money for teachers if the scores go up. More punishment for teachers and schools if the scores don't go up. More cheating. More gaming the system. More concentration on basic skills (they count) and more indifference to the arts, history, science, foreign languages, etc. (they don't count).

Are we in an era of National Stupidity or National Insanity? Or is this what happens when educators imagine they are thinking like corporate executives? If it is the latter, I recommend that they read the writings of W. Edwards Deming, the management guru, who steadfastly opposed merit pay because it destroys collaboration and teamwork, undermines long-range planning, and incentivizes the wrong behavior. If it is the former, well, we will just have to ride out this terrible era and hope that wiser heads someday prevail.

Diane

[Angry Dragon]

1. The dumbing down of American youth

I guess they want the youth to able to compete with third world countries.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. My professional opinion

They can't accomplish what they think the public wants. So they're fudging the tests and the scores to make it look like the kids are making progress.

The sad part is that there is a way to do this that's accurate and fair to the kids. Sigh.

[mzteris]

3. In math - one has ALWAYS received

partial credit for "doing the work" but getting the answer wrong, or for getting the answer right and doing the work incorrectly.

[Dinger]

4. "Accountability" But

not the same standards. It's simple really.

K & R.

[LWolf]

5. It continues to astound me

that Ravitch has become a voice of sanity.

[dkf]

6. So teachers and administrators will cheat unless there is no consequence for bad scores?

Sigh

This all goes back to my main gripe that ethics no longer function properly in American society. We need laws and enforcement to do the right thing on Wall Street, in the oil fields of the Gulf of Mexico, in illegal immigration, and in the classroom too? Geez.