Crunching Test Scores Isn’t Enough to Educate Our Kids
February 26, 2014
Students Julian Lopez, 12th grade, second left; Ben Montalbano, 11th grade, second right; and James Agostino, 12th grade, right; listen during their Advanced Placement (AP) Physics class at Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2014. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) Chancellor Kaya Henderson areurging us to celebrate gains in the district’s standardized test scores and give credit for those gains to the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers.
But as a math teacher in a heavily minority, high-poverty high school, I’m not popping any champagne yet. The five-point overall fourth grade reading gain masks the fact that the improvement among higher-income students was quadruple that of their low-income counterparts, widening what was already a huge gap. I am even more troubled by the tiny two-point gain in reading for low-income fourth graders since 2009, which is dwarfed by a 19-point gain for their more advantaged peers.
I agree with Duncan and Henderson that zip code should not determine a child’s odds of school success. But it’s important to tell the hard, uncomfortable truth that it often does, and I see every day how DCPS policies make it harder, not