Anyone who professes an interest in K-12 education must come to understand that termination of the system of testing known as the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) became the predictable outcome when voters decided to give control of the gubernatorial office and both legislative chambers to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party. My fellow liberal Democrats should take particular note.
In the spring of 2003, I served on the committee that generated new academic standards for language arts at grades 9-12. I worked closely with then-Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke and other committee members who were generating language arts and math standards for all grade levels. Many members of the DFL-controlled Senate opposed the new standards, while the reception in the Republican-controlled House was generally favorable. There was a great exigency to meet No Child Left Behind guidelines for establishing standards that could be objectively assessed, so after adjustments and compromises the two legislative chambers approved the standards.
There was immediate political fallout, though. Senate education committee chair Steve Kelly resented the work of Yecke and her committees in generating the standards. The teachers union, Education Minnesota, opposed the standards and the idea of testing based on them from the very moment of the new system’s inception.
This opposition could be seen, too, in key blocks of an education establishment that is far more unified than most people realize. Key political actors among university education professors, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, and central school system bureaucracies certainly have their own agendas, but they all serve as apologists for a K-12 public education system that fails so many of our students. None of these key figures in the education establishment liked the new standards, and they were full of enmity for Yecke. Kelly took the lead in engineering her dismissal.
Alice Seagren gained the appointment from then-governor Tim Pawlenty to be the new education commissioner.
Under Seagren’s less controversial leadership, the new academic standards and MCAs based on them went into effect. Students in grades 3-8 have taken math and reading MCAs every April since spring 2005.
But teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools, to cite the teacher population that affects most of my students in the New Salem Educational Initiative, widely ignore the standards for social studies and science and they do not competently train students to master the skills necessary to do well on the MCAs. I know this, because I spend seven days a week training the students in my beyond-school-hours program in the skills necessary to record grade level performance in writing, math, and reading. My students regularly report that they have never had to demonstrate the skills necessary on most questions given on the MCA Item Samplers easily accessed on the Minnesota Department of Education website.
Over the years since the inception of the current academic standards, teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools have variously sabotaged student performance because of disdain for the MCAs, or they have revealed pedagogic incompetence in imparting the necessary skills for student mastery. If you look at the Item Samplers, you will find that the items presented make sense for grade levels 3-6. Mathematics items for grades 7-8 would be fine for students trained to begin pre-algebra and algebra in those years, but none of my students at those grade levels has been properly trained in her or his regular classes at anywhere near the level of competence necessary to record grade level performance on those tests. They can meet the challenges upon receiving my explanations, but we have to go over so many concepts in our two hours together per week that we have to work very hard to master all the required skills.
My relationship with my students is permanent. Even when they enter my program performing far below grade level, they sequentially acquire the skills necessary to succeed in high school. During their grade 9 year, we focus on the skills necessary to do well on the GRAD writing test, and in grade 10 we focus on the GRAD reading MCA. Any properly instructed student can pass the writing test. With the weight and ballast that comes with participation in an academically intense program of skill acquisition, my students are ready with the kind of vocabulary and comprehension skills needed to demonstrate grade level performance on the reading MCA at grade 10.
But the education establishment has actively opposed the standards and the MCAs since their inception. Tom Dooher and his Education Minnesota constitute one of the most powerful political forces in the state. Mark Dayton and the DFL will always do anything that Education Minnesota and others in the education establishment pressure them to do. Under Dayton and Cassellius, we have seen waivers, a new system measuring school performance, and a succession of statements meant to undermine the MCAs as the essential measurement of school performance.
This year, teachers had less incentive than ever to train students aggressively for the MCAs. Don’t believe that stuff about too much teaching to the test and students feeling so much pressure that third graders go home crying. Teachers should in fact but do not adequately teach to the test. Students feel very little pressure to do well until they get to high school, when they know that the tests start to affect their ability to graduate.
Go on that Minnesota Department of Education website and read the grade 10 reading MCA Item Sampler that is a perfectly good representation of the reading level that a high school student should have to demonstrate before collecting a diploma. Understand that this year’s writing prompt for the grade 9 writing test called upon students to define courage and how the demonstration of courage affects a person--- and that all students had to do was to organize an cogent essay around that topic. Know that these are tests that students can easily pass with proper training, but that many teachers cannot muster the pedagogic mettle to prepare students properly in the necessary skills.
Meanwhile, their union succeeded in helping to elect mark Dayton and a DFL-controlled legislature. Education Minnesota called in its chips immediately. Dayton and his appointee Cassellius went to work undermining the system by which schools have been under pressure to improve. These political actors will succeed in tearing down a system that was properly pressuring schools for better performance. But students will continue to fail because politics is more a priority for these politicos than is the education of our students.
When the MCAs are terminated, know that they will no longer be required because of political lobbying and educator incompetence, not because the assessments are too difficult for students when those deserving young people are properly trained.
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Mr. Davison challenged people to look at the MCAs. He wrote “At grade 9, students are asked to construct a coherent essay that answers a very simple question.” This is not always the case.
ReplyDeleteI proctored the writing test on Tuesday, April 16. Writing prompt 1 asked students to write about what it meant to be “courageous.” I had 5 students ask me what the word “courageous” meant. I couldn’t tell them, those are the rules. The students who asked me were all students whose first language was not English. They did not know what the word “courageous” meant. Two of the students who asked are in my 9th grade science class. I work with them everyday. They are bright students. They work hard and they do fairly well, although they need help understanding the vocabulary from time to time. I believe they could write a passable essay if they were given a prompt they could fully understand. How were they supposed to write intelligently about something when they could not understand the question? This was on a test that they must pass in order to graduate.
My impression is that the writing test's purpose is to see if a student can communicate in written English. A prompt using words such as "courageous" is first a test in a student's vocabulary, then a test in the student's writing ability. I think the decision to use a world like "courageous" created a writing test which was not very fair/equitable for all students in Minnesota.
This years test was flawed. I believe it will have an adverse impact on many students.
Are you seriously suggesting that someone who is a candidate for a diploma should not have an understanding of the word, "courageous"? There are lamentable vocabulary deficits among students who come both from impoverished families and those who are from immigrant families. I deal with this all the time in the New Salem Educational Initiative. I spend a great deal of time doing what the teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools fail to do, which is aggressively to build student vocabularies and give them the skills that they need fully to comprehend challenging reading material. Anyone who deserves a diploma must be able to write a cogent essay based on prompts that include simple words such as "courageous," and to read material that one would expect of someone who has had eleven years of formal education.
DeleteOn another note, you need to proofread your own writing. The word, "year's," as presented in your next to last sentence calls for an apostrophe, since the usage is possessive.
The purpose of the writing test is to check a student's ability to write coherently. The purpose of the 10 grade reading test is check a student's ability to read and comprehend English. You stated "At grade 9, students are asked to construct a coherent essay that answers a very simple question." Courageous is not a simple word for ELL students to understand. I believe the this year's prompt was poorly written.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago their was a writing prompt which used “integrity.” This too was a difficult word for students to understand but there was an explanation of meaning of the word within the prompt. I think the same thing could have been done with this year's prompt and more effectively and accurately tested students' ability to write.
If students' graduation is dependent on passing a writing test, I believe more care should be taken in writing prompts.
I apologize for the typo with "year's." While we are being nit picky. I think most 9th graders have had 10 years of formal education not 11. Maybe it is 9.5 if you only count kindergarten as half a year.
On a serious note I do think it is important to discuss where we should go with testing. Some tests are more helpful than others. I have serious concerns with the amount of time my daughters in elementary school are taking in test prep and testing. I think they would benefit more spending time doing other things.
Ethan--- I appreciate your interest and will at this point refer you to the 81 total articles on my blog. I have assembled these and other writings for publication in book form, which I intend to be a guide for the overhaul that we need in K-12 education. Among the articles on the blog itself, you'll find views on all manner of K-12 issues, including those that address concerns such as those you have raised in your first and second comments.
DeleteAs a final note, I will tell you, though, that all of the students in the New Salem Educational Initiative come from impoverished and frequently dysfunctional families. My students are all either of African American or various Latino ethnicities. I have a high percentage of English Language Learners (ELL) and all of them would understand the word, "courageous," and much more sophisticated vocabulary than that represented by such a word-- because I make sure that they read challenging material and that they acquire advanced vocabularies. The problem is with teachers who do not fully recognize the linguistic challenges of ELL students and do what is necessary to facilitate verbal skill, advancement in reading comprehension, and vocabulary acquisition. Much of the value of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) is to shine the necessarily harsh and glaring light on the terrible education that our students are getting in the public schools in general and the Minneapolis Public Schools in particular. As one can find many places on my blog, my own dedication is to overhaul central public education systems themselves, rather than to maintain the fantasy that charter schools and voucher-supported private schools are the answer.