As School Exit Tests Prove Tough, States Ease Standards

Kentucky is planning exit exams for high schoolers by 2011. The exams would cover Geometry, Algebra I, English I, Biology and US History.

This from the NY Times:

A law adopting statewide high school exams for graduation took effect in Pennsylvania on Saturday, with the goal of ensuring that students leaving high school are prepared for college and the workplace. But critics say the requirement has been so watered down that it is unlikely to have major impact.

The situation in Pennsylvania mirrors what has happened in many of the 26 states that have adopted high school exit exams. As deadlines approached for schools to start making passage of the exams a requirement for graduation, and practice tests indicated that large numbers of students would fail, many states softened standards, delayed the requirement or added alternative paths to a diploma.

People who have studied the exams, which affect two-thirds of the nation’s public school students, say they often fall short of officials’ ambitious goals.

“The real pattern in states has been that the standards are lowered so much that the exams end up not benefiting students who pass them while still hurting the students who fail them,” said John Robert Warren, an expert on exit exams and a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities...

...“Momentum is definitely still moving in favor of states’ adopting these exit exams,” said John F. Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, which publishes annual reports on high school exit exams.

Mr. Jennings added that this momentum was likely to grow next month when the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, which represents state school superintendents, are to release a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for kindergarten through Grade 12. Federal officials have set aside $350 million for states to create tests that correspond to the new national standards, and Mr. Jennings said there was a good chance that states would consider adopting these new tests for their exit exams...

Study Shows Test Scores Up Since NCLB

This from WFPL News:

A study released today finds most state test scores have risen since No Child Left Behind while others have mixed results...

In 2002, No Child Left Behind became law to improve the performance of primary and secondary schools. The Center for Education Policy has analyzed state test scores since then and found most students scored higher in reading and math...

The study only used data collected on Kentucky since 2007, because of broad changes made in the state test. It was insufficient to determine any trends, says Jennings...

In many states, high school student test scores have declined or been stagnant since No Child Left Behind became law in 2002. The study shows scores in Indiana and Kentucky match that trend. However, Jennings warns data from Kentucky was too limited to make any conclusive assessments.

Hat tip to KSBA.

Budget Outlines Funding for Teacher Merit Pay Programs

This from the Washington Post:

President Obama is seeking to add hundreds of millions for teacher merit pay programs, an investment in a reform that has often drawn criticism from teachers unions.

Even as education officials have eliminated 12 programs they say are not proven to benefit students -- a savings of $550 million -- the department is seeking $517 million for performance pay grants, up from $97 million in last year's budget. In addition, the stimulus law included an additional $200 million for such programs.

Throughout his campaign, Obama repeatedly endorsed performance pay plans, so long as they are developed with the blessing of teachers. But the budget provides one of the first glimpses of the administration's commitment to dramatically expand the smattering of merit pay experiments in schools across the country.

"The president is making a strong statement that he wants teaching shaken up," said Jack Jennings, president of the D.C.-based Center on Education Policy. "I presume the unions will not be very happy, but I doubt they will take a strident position in opposition because . . . Obama has said he wants to work with local unions in fashioning these types of programs." ...

Report: Federal Sanction Not Effective

A Call to Restructure Restructuring:

Lessons from the No Child Left Behind Act in Five States

This report synthesizes findings from CEP’s research on how the No Child Left Behind Act’s school restructuring requirements are being implemented in Michigan, California, Maryland, Ohio, and Georgia.

"This report shows that current restructuring policies and practices are flawed," said Jack Jennings, CEP’s president and CEO. "Many restructuring schools have done everything the law requires but they still haven’t raised achievement enough to exit restructuring. It’s time to revamp the sanctions and supports for these struggling schools."

Document reviews and interviews with state officials were conducted in the five states, and case study research was carried out in 19 districts and 42 schools.

Among the report's findings are that

• more schools have entered restructuring and many remain in that status for multiple years;
• the "any other" restructuring option is the most popular option in the states studied; and
• the five states varied greatly in the supports they offered restructuring schools.

Jack Jennings on the new CEP Study

KSN&C recently posted a story on the new report from the Center on Education Policy, "Has Student Achievement Increased Since 2002?"

CEP presents what is at least the fourth study in the past two years to confirm the significant progress being made in Kentucky schools - one of only four states to show moderate-to-large gains in both reading and math.

Richard Innes, a Bluegrass Institute researcher, doubted the credibility of the study.

Last year, a Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center study revealed that Kentucky made across-the-board improvements in its rank among the states; growing from roughly from 43rd to the 34th.

The Bluegrass Institute doubted the credibility of that study, too.

The KLTPRC report mirrored two previous studies done outside of Kentucky. Kentucky was 34th in Education Week's Quality Counts 2007 Achievement Index and was 31st in the Morgan Quinto 2006-2007 Smartest State Index."

I assume BGI didn't think much of those studies either.

When Richard questioned the quality of this study, I contacted Jack Jennings, President of CEP for a comment.

Here's his response:

Mr. Day, you sent a message on Wednesday saying that a commentator had a question about the report we released on Tuesday about student achievement. In
particular, he claimed our report would have credibility problems because Kentucky had a decline in 8th grade reading on NAEP that had not been reflected in the results on the state’s test. I asked the authors of the report to look at this issue and to respond. This is what they say:

First, this is consistent with the CEP report. Table 4-F (in the national summary) shows a moderate-to-large gain on the state assessment but a moderate-to-large
decrease on NAEP for grade 8 reading.

In the state profile, the first bullet says: "From 2002 to 2006, student achievement increased in both reading and math at all grade levels analyzed, according to percentages proficient and effect sizes." This is true for the state assessment, and presumably this is what the e-mail author is referring to.

Kentucky changed its assessment in 2007, so it's possible (although admittedly quite a stretch) that performance dropped in 2007... which showed up on NAEP but we couldn't see on state testing.

The report provides several reasons why NAEP and state tests might differ.

After receiving your e-mail, I got a call from a person from an organization in Kentucky who was asking the same question about our report. I asked him if he had read the report and he said that he had not, and that he was probably the source of your question. I urged him to read the report before he started raising concerns about it.

By the way, the report—Has Student Achievement Increased Since 2002?—and the fifty state profiles, as well as all the test score data from the states is on our web site, CEP-DC.org.

Thanks.

Jack Jennings, President, Center on Education Policy

Now, Innes's suspicions were not irrational. Knowing that there was a decline in 8th grade reading on the NAEP seems inconsistent with the study's conclusions and knowing that the researchers accounted for the NAEP data is important.

But taken as a whole, BGI tends only to report the bad news about public schools...and I suspect he's was looking to discount the good news about Kentucky schools any time he can. It's probably in his job description.

It would seem any study that produces what BGI believes to be "the wrong answer" must necessarily be a bad study. This is a problem whenever one is hired to substantiate their boss's predetermine perception of reality.

House Plan Embraces Subjects Viewed as Neglected

Advocates for broadening the curriculum hope a draft House proposal for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act will give a boost to history, art, music, and other subjects that they believe have been marginalized in many districts under the 5½-year-old federal law.

The draft of changes to Part A of the Title I program, released by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, RCalif., and key colleagues late last month, features potential incentives for states to test students in core subjects other than those now required—mathematics, reading, and, beginning this school year, science.

“It’s a good start … and encouraging that Congressmen Miller and McKeon are showing sensitivity to the criticism that there has been a narrowing of the curriculum” under No Child Left Behind, said Jack Jennings, the president of the Center on Education Policy, and a former aide to House Democrats. “If school districts can include testing in other subjects [in gauging how well their schools are doing], it allows them to pay more attention to those other areas.”

A report released in July by the CEP, a research and advocacy organization based in Washington, found that most districts have significantly increased instructional time in reading and math in the hope of improving student achievement and helping schools meet goals for adequate yearly progress, or AYP, under the federal law. The law requires testing in those two subjects annually in grades 3-8 and once during high school.

As a result of that emphasis, nearly half the nation’s school districts pared down instructional time in other critical subjects by more than two hours each week, according to the report. ("Survey: Subjects Trimmed To Boost Math and Reading," Aug. 1, 2007.)

...The preliminary House Education and Labor Committee plan would allow states to include student scores from state tests in history and other subjects as additional measures of how schools were performing. Those test scores would be given a fraction of the weight of math and reading results in determining AYP. The use of multiple measures would give states more information on school performance, said Mr. Miller, the chairman of the committee, whose ranking Republican is Mr. McKeon....

This from Education Week (subscription).

Officials See Scant Gains From NCLB Rules On Teachers

A 5 ½-year-old federal requirement that calls for staffing most classrooms with “highly qualified” teachers doesn’t appear to be doing much to improve student achievement or make teachers more effective, according to a survey released today by the Center on Education Policy.

“These provisions are being complied with,” said Jack Jennings, the president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based research and advocacy organization. “But there’s a great deal of skepticism about whether they’re going to make any difference.”

Under the teacher-quality provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, states and districts have to staff core academic and fine arts classes with teachers who hold long-term licenses and demonstrate expertise in their subjects by completing coursework, passing state tests, or meeting some other criteria.

To find out whether the law’s teacher-quality mandate has made a difference so far, the center surveyed the officials in charge of implementing it in all 50 states and in a nationally representative sample of 349 districts. The study also gathered feedback from forums and more in-depth case studies in 17 districts.

While administrators in 83 percent of the districts said their school systems fully complied with the law, states appeared to be facing more of a challenge. At the time of the survey—late fall of last year and early winter of this one—only three states could boast that “highly qualified” teachers staffed 100 percent of the classrooms that the law targets, most likely because states have so many more schools than any given district does. Another 14 states said they expected to reach that goal by the end of the 2006-07 school year.

Effect on Achievement

Despite widespread implementation of the law, officials in more than half the states and two-thirds of the districts said the requirements have had little, if any, impact on student achievement.

Likewise, officials in 74 percent of the districts and in 19 of the states said the law had been minimally effective, or not effective at all, at producing better teachers.

The law’s teacher-quality provisions were prompted in part by studies showing that students in poorer schools and districts were often taught by less experienced, less qualified teachers than their counterparts in more affluent schools and districts.

In the area of how well teacher expertise is distributed, the officials gave the mandate a more mixed evaluation: Five states reported that the requirement had led to a more equitable distribution of experienced, well-qualified teachers among schools. Seventeen states said it had been “somewhat” effective in that regard, and another 17 said that teacher distribution had become “minimally” more equitable since passage of the law. The rest either did not know or said they saw no difference in the teaching staffs at schools with high poverty levels.

A key problem with the law from the administrators’ point of view is its narrow focus on content knowledge as an indicator of high-quality teaching, said the CEP’s Mr. Jennings, who is a former longtime education aide to congressional Democrats. The definition fails to account for other factors, such as personal qualities, that also make teachers effective in the classroom, he said.
States and districts are having particular problems, the study also found, in recruiting special education teachers who meet the federal definition—a situation that leads the researchers to conclude that the federal requirements should be more flexible for some teachers.

Samara Yudof, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education, did not dispute the report’s findings yesterday. In an e-mail to Education Week, she said department officials are “working to support states as they aim to meet” the NCLB law’s teacher-quality provisions “and get our best teacher in our highest-need schools.”

The law, a centerpiece of President Bush’s first-term agenda that passed Congress with big, bipartisan majorities in late 2001, is due for reauthorization this year.

This from Education Week (subscription).