It is not teaching to the test

Interesting exchange during the New America Alliance conference on education opportunities here in Santa Barbara. There was a panel with Steve Barr from Green Dot, Kim Smith from NewSchools Venture Fund that was moderated by Dr. Angela Valenzuela. It was supposed to be a panel on business response to education issues but Dr. Valenzuela wanted to use the opportunity to rail against testing.

She picked the wrong panel.

Kim Smith was outstanding in her response that testing is the reason we know so much about the achievement gap. Without the testing and standards of NCLB we would not be so focused on the issues of education inequality in this country. I have also said the same things she was saying that our tests and standards need to be fixed – not throw out the tests.

Standards are supposed to be what kids need to know to succeed. Tests are supposed to be aligned to the standards. By definition, teaching to the test should then be teaching what kids need to know to succeed.

Then Steve Barr chimed in and said that parents trust him with their kids - something he takes very seriously. He has to be able to show those parents that their kids are academically advancing so he has to test – he owes it to those parents to demonstrate that their trust was not misplaced. It was really a great exchange on how far we come and that it is time to move away from test or not test - and move forward with finding scalable ways to get results.

Now on to my panel with TFA and Linda Darling-Hammond - - ABCTE playin with the big guys.

Teacher testing is necessary

If you have not seen Flypaper over at Fordham – they have a lot of posts on their blog. They had a recent post about a study that will appear soon that says that teacher testing deters good people from becoming teachers. I posted the following response on their blog:

I am very curious as to how they came to this conclusion that the test is the barrier that keeps potentially great teachers from teaching. I can honestly say that after seeing 6,000 people start our program and less than 40% actually complete, that our test is absolutely necessary. This is because many of those potential teachers “whose educational backgrounds qualify them to teach” cannot compose a coherent essay and don’t have the most basic knowledge of their subject matter.

I wholeheartedly agree that a test with a passing rate of 95-99% is a useless waste of time and money. If every university had a minimum standard for graduation that meant that every teacher would have outstanding writing skills and subject matter mastery, we would be the first to push for the elimination of teacher testing. But we are nowhere near those kinds of results. The essays we see from college graduates are nothing short of dismal.

And many of the people going through our program would much rather take a test then sit through countless hours of useless classes.

The McKinseystudy of the best school systems in the world found that selectivity of teachers was a key driver of their success. We have to select the best teachers with tests that truly measure ability to very rigorous standards, like the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence exams, in order to compete in the world market.

It's Limbo Time!

Where are the teacher unions in Massachusetts? As defenders of the profession, they should be outraged by a bill that will lower the standard for getting into the profession. McKinsey tells us from their research that selectivity is how the best performing schools in the world build a world class teaching work force. Massachusetts is going to keep the bar high to get into teaching unless you can't reach the bar.

Massachusettss going to allow people to appeal if they fail their teaching exam. They will be able to meet other criteria to get their certification because too many can’t pass. My favorite quote is from a school board member Christopher R. Anderson who said: "These are people in the anecdotal cases I've seen who we don't want to see pushed out of the profession, and the lack of the appeals process has been a hurdle to retaining them"

Alert the Journal of Anecdotal Evidence – once again, we dramatically change an education system designed for large numbers based on anecdotal evidence.

And in a nod to the education groups who love to compare teaching to lawyers and physicians, Republican lawmakers put forth amendments to let doctors and lawyers practice even if they failed their certification exams. Seems that comparison is only good in certain situations.

We will never develop a world class education system without a world class teaching workforce that we will never have until we build more selectivity into the system. We are stuck in a downward spiral – we can’t get teachers who can pass a test because their education wasn’t that great so we are going to lower the bar and let them in anyway, lowering the education prospects of a new generation of students who wont be able to reach this lower bar to get into teaching – and so on.

Thank you Massachusetts for taking a giant step backwards.