Louisiana Standardized Testing 2020-21: Maybe We Grade Your School, Maybe Not. | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Louisiana Standardized Testing 2020-21: Maybe We Grade Your School, Maybe Not. | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Louisiana Standardized Testing 2020-21: Maybe We Grade Your School, Maybe Not.

Standardized testing is set to commence in schools and districts across the state of Louisiana.

What does this mean regarding the now-common misuse of scores for grading teachers and schools and for student placement decisions?

Some answers can be found in two pieces of legislation passed in the Louisiana legislature’s 2020 Special Extraordinary Session (September 28, 2020 to October 23, 2020): Act 53 and Act 47. However, some of those “some answers” are better defined than others.

Below is the heart of Act 53:

Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, for the2020-2021 school year, the board (Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or BESE) shall examine the results from student assessments and school-level test data but shall not use such assessments and data for purposes of evaluating teacher performance or making placement decisions for fourth and eighth grade students.

And lest anyone should miss the “shall not use assessments and data for purposes of evaluating teacher performance,” language is included specific to VAM (so-called “value-added” modeling) (and subsequently repeated in the section pertaining to charter school employees):

Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, for the 2020-2021 school year, value-added data shall not be used to evaluate teacher performance or effectiveness.

As for the grading of schools and districts using test scores from 2020-21, the CONTINUE READING: Louisiana Standardized Testing 2020-21: Maybe We Grade Your School, Maybe Not. | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

NYC Educator: Today in PTA (Pass Them All)

NYC Educator: Today in PTA (Pass Them All)

Today in PTA (Pass Them All)

Yesterday, I got a prescient comment from SC Math Teacher, and I'll repost it here. The first part is a quote from me, but he comes to an inescapable conclusion directly afterward:

“The last I heard, the DOE was holding individual teachers responsible this year for NX students. That means that next semester we could be burdened with not only our regular caseload, but also following up on students who didn't pass.”

This sounds like an incentive — an awful one, but an incentive nonetheless— for teachers to just pass everyone so the DOE can boast about fantastic graduation rates.

It's true. There are two possible interpretations here, and that's one of them. The other is that de Blasio and Carranza have decided to cut down on expenses, via not paying people to examine their "NX" grades. After all, why pay people to work when you can get them to do it for free? This is exactly the sort of thing we'd have expected from Bloomberg.

Currently, in my building, there are all sorts of per session gigs looking after previous NX grades. So teachers looking for extra hours can sift through work these kids may or may not do, make calls to which they may or may not respond, and try to get as many kids as possible pass these courses. I'm happy for the teachers who make CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Today in PTA (Pass Them All)

Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Facing a spike in Fs, winter break isn’t a vacation for many teachers and students

During her winter break, English teacher Keara Williams has hit the phone, making call after call determinedly trying to make contact with her students and their parents.

She needs to reach 28 students, including 11 seniors, who received an “incomplete” grade at the end of the fall semester. She tells them they will fail her class if they don’t complete make-up work to raise their grade to at least a D by the end of January. There is still time to get the work done, do not give up, Williams says. And she lets them know that she is here for them — all winter vacation if that’s what it takes to avoid an F.

She has reached 13 students and left messages and emails with the others. But when she last checked her computer, only one had signed in online to look at the make-up work.

Williams, like so many teachers in the Los Angeles school district, is grappling with wrenching grading decisions amid the hardships of the raging pandemic that has shuttered campuses for nine months. An F grade in a required class would delay or deny a high school diploma, require a make-up class and could ruin a GPA during the college admissions cycle. How do they balance compassion and empathy with the low grade points in their record books? How do they find and engage their lost students before it’s too late? The magnitude of work ahead for both teachers and students feels CONTINUE READING: Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Going Back to School? Now What? | The Merrow Report

Going Back to School? Now What? | The Merrow Report

Going Back to School? Now What?

Because I’ve reached the age and stage where memories blend, fade away, or are exaggerated beyond recognition, I cannot recall whether the insight, “If my students aren’t learning, then I am not teaching,” was uttered by a veteran colleague from my 4-year teaching stint, whether it came from one of the thousands of teachers I interviewed over 41 years of reporting, or whether I read it somewhere.  I know I didn’t come up with it.  But it really doesn’t matter.  What matters is that, even though many other factors–such as health, nutrition, inadequate shelter, and abuse–can and do interfere with learning, good teachers always take it personally when their students aren’t succeeding.

That’s why it’s truly depressing to read that, in some school districts, about half of the students are receiving failing grades.  The reliable Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post is on the story.   

Here are a few site-specific stories you might want to peruse:  Maryland. Iowa City, Iowa.  Tucson, Arizona.  Houston, Texas.  Northern California. 

When the pandemic struck this spring, most school districts shifted to on-line schooling, and grading became ‘pass/fail.’  That approach to grading has been abandoned, even though on-line learning is ubiquitous, because, as Ed Week’s Stephen Sawchuck noted,  

“…as the crisis continued and school began in the fall, most districts reverted to their old CONTINUE READING: Going Back to School? Now What? | The Merrow Report

I'm Not Sure I Want My Students To Succeed | Blue Cereal Education

I'm Not Sure I Want My Students To Succeed | Blue Cereal Education

I'm Not Sure I Want My Students To Succeed

I’m not sure I want my students to succeed.

How’s that for an attention-grabber? Now I'll skillfully jump back and lay the foundation for such an outrageous claim and hope it’s enough to keep you reading until we reach it again further on.

Four-Point Scale or Back Hoe?

The question of how to grade, what to grade, or even IF to grade isn’t exactly new in the world of public education. Sometimes it’s set by building or district policy (although enforcement is problematic at best). Other times it’s at least discussed within departments. By and large, however, it’s something no two teachers seem to do quite the same.

Many of the differences are cosmetic. Categories or total points? Are quizzes worth 10% or are they worth way more points than daily work and the math ends up with pretty much the same results? Other differences are philosophical. Completion or accuracy? Effort or quality? Improvement or achievement?

Things quickly get messy. If I grade entirely on objective standards, the kid who rarely shows up and never participates but has a great memory might pull a solid ‘B’ in my CONTINUE READING: I'm Not Sure I Want My Students To Succeed | Blue Cereal Education

More students got F’s in first term of school year - The Washington Post

More students got F’s in first term of school year - The Washington Post

More students than ever got F’s in first term of 2020-21 school year — but are A-F grades fair in a pandemic?

Students’ grades for the first period of the 2020-21 academic year are being recorded and we are seeing stories from around the country about an unprecedented rise in F’s.

Is anybody surprised?

Millions of kids are living through the most disruptive school year of their lives because of the coronavirus pandemic. They are forced to learn at home online or wear masks in classrooms without the benefit of their usual social, sports and artistic outlets. Anxiety among students is exploding, as is depression and loneliness and trauma, according to health officials and students themselves.

To be sure, many adults are having a hard time staying focused on their work amid the health and political chaos of 2020, so why would anybody expect young people to be any better?

And is it fair to give kids regular A-F grades when nothing has been regular about the way they are living and learning since March, and won’t be for some time?

Last spring, when the coronavirus pandemic began and schools across the United States closed and reverted to remote learning — literally overnight — many districts decided to halt giving A-F grades and institute some form of a pass-fail system.

School and district officials said then that giving A-F grades wouldn’t be fair because of the inadequacy of remote learning at the time and because many students did not have sufficient technology and/or Internet access and/or a quiet, safe place to learn at home and/or no resources to help with their school work. Before the pandemic, millions of children attended poorly funded schools and lived in poverty, but the pandemic exacerbated the inequities.

When the 2020-21 academic year began this fall, A-F grading systems returned even though many students were still learning from home. Now there are news stories from across the country about a CONTINUE READING: More students got F’s in first term of school year - The Washington Post