High Stakes Testing Resolution

[lilly]

From tonight's BOE agenda:

2. Approval of the High Stakes Testing Resolution

RECOMMENDED MOTION:

“as per the attached, that the Board of Education approve the following High Stakes Testing Resolution:

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Wantagh School District requests that the Commissioner of Education, the
New York State Board of Regents, the Governor, and the New York State Legislature all work together
to suspend the current system of student assessment. Furthermore, we request that the Commissioner
involve all stakeholders in the development of a revised, research based, age-appropriate assessment
program with a well-conceived timeline. We also recommend that the current assessment system not be
tied to teacher evaluation until a proven, research-based assessment system is in place.”

Losing, losing, LOST all respect for Wantagh SD. They do so well rising to a challenge and reflecting the concerns of all citizens, NOT.

[Chris_Wendt]

Apparently the Board does not know or understand the limits of its authority, or its role in the big picture of Education. I especially regret that, if the Board passes this ill-conceived resolution, which will carry zero weight with any of those named within it, the Board (and the Wantagh School District) will have trampled upon rights and expectations of the many in our community who feel and believe contrary to the sense of the resolution, people who pay taxes here, and people who have every legitimate right to expect their own children and the people who teach their own children in our schools should receive the full (perceived) benefits of the assessments and of teacher evaluations tied to those assessments: procedures ensconced in federal and state LAWS enacted by those legislative bodies and elected executives who have the legitimate authority have enacted them.

I happen to personally agree, generally, with the emotional point of the resolution. However, the Board members should put their feelings in a letter and mail copies to whomever they want to hear them, but not as some quasi-official act ("RESOLUTION") of the School District.

I will reserve further comment until I read about the results from tonight's meeting (tomorrow).

Chris Wendt

[rr]

Well can't say that I'm terribly surprised but I am disappointed. They have caved to the vocal minority and have essentially legitimized the opt-out movement here in Wantagh.

I'm sure there will be some cheering tonight from the majority of the crowd although the end result of this 'resolution' will likely have the same impact of the children wearing a red tee shirt on a specific day of the school year.

on and on it goes - I've heard that there will be a few organized CCC-focused meeting coming in January for specific grade groups where I hope they can get a few of our teachers to get up in front of the community to explain how the CC is benefiting the the children and how it is a step in the right direction. I do hope people come to those meetings with an open mind and aren't disruptive to the intention of the meeting.

[rr]

If teacher's can't be held accountable for 20% of their annual assessment to be tied to the testing then what's the real point here? If they have literally no skin in the game, how and why are our children expected to held accountable? I'm still not sure I completely understand the point of the 'resolution' - to me it reads that they no longer agree to something that was previously agreed to.

'Wantagh does not subscribe to the message of failure that is being sent to many of our children'??

That's a mouthful of absolute PC nonsense.

Why do we even have a grading system in place if we don't want to express that a child needs help in certain areas? I guess we just pass it on to to the next guy and the next guy until the kid is grown up and can't compete because we didn't want to hurt their feelings? Obviously I'm somewhat exaggerating but what is going on in the world? I'm not that far removed from this stuff and it really seems that we're breeding a bunch of non-competitors, with no urgency to compete, to want to do and be the best at something...unless you consider sports, well then that's another story.

Congrats you got 100% on your test.
Congrats you got 30% on your test.
We're treating your achievement equally because someone might feel hurt and Wantagh doesn't subscribe to a message of failure and we certainly don't want a whopping 20% of a teachers annual salary tied to test results to try and increase their level of accountability in the entire process. No, we're happy with the old way - just trust that the teachers are doing their best and give them a raise...

I'm sure Chris is familiar with this Russian proverb made popular by President Reagan - 'Trust but Verify'

We can trust that the teachers are upholding their end of the bargain but still we cannot verify.

[Chris_Wendt]

I am keeping my powder dry until I read about tonight's proceedings in the morning. I am at a company function this evening in the city.

I hope the Board members reconsider what they seem to be about to do...to themselves...to the school district...with this ersatz resolution.

Crossing my fingers before the meeting.

Chris Wendt

[lilly]

Chris, oh yes they did. Really, they did it. And there were a few bonus items you missed to boot. Arghh....

[Chris_Wendt]

Following four hours of stunned silence, I wish to have it noted that, although I personally agree with the emotions expressed by what has now become a formal “resolution” of the Wantagh School District, I am disappointed in the board members for promulgating this, for trampling upon the rights of those residents who support the common core and whose own emotions run opposite of the Board members and of my own on this topic. I have no skin in this game, no children in our schools, and therefore I don’t feel that I have any “standing” to do anything about this abuse of the Board’s authority.

I hope this turn of events will not cost the district, our taxpayers, and the members of the board in the future, when the state has discretionary money to disburse, or, if and when Wantagh ever needs relief from some mandate in the form of a waiver or dispensation.

The drums continue to beat against the Common Core, louder, and now closer to home.

Elsewhere, Newsday continues its sensationalized coverage in an article which indicates: “The Common Core curriculum is a misdirected failure that is hurting schoolchildren said a panel of five experts and activists….” Newsday also notes that legislation has been proposed for NY to drop both the Common Core and its participation in Race to the Top funding challenges.

Read the article on Newsday dot com (link).

Sincerely,

Chris Wendt

[Chris_Wendt]

Posted with permission of the author: Michael David Moriarity Sr.

"I made a few phone calls to find out that this is becoming an effort between many school districts. You know Chris that they believe that more districts that object, they might get some action.

I , myself do not believe in common Core, nor do I believe in all the testing that is being conducted where the teacher is teaching for the test, not for life. Ya know when all of us went to schools it was ABC's, math ( addition, subtraction, division and multiplication along with some algebra thrown in. We studied history and civics!

As a former BOE member I think the way they teach today is better than lecture that we used to get. The teachers mix it up and make it interesting to learn.

I also think that districts need to get away from "everyone is a winner". Students today go to college and its there that they face the cold hard truth and I feel that many that come back to their community colleges and the ones that just drop are the collateral damage that our schools are doing to them.

I have to tell you that when I heard about common core and looked into it, I guess I did not look into it deep enough. We need to get back to basics! We also need to investigate how many hours the kids spend in school and maybe consider changing the time school starts and ends. While I sat on the Levittown Board of Ed. it was an exciting time where we brought in many new classes that Levittown never had before including all the AP classes that are now offered, however today's parents question how wise it was because of taxes! Ya can't win sometimes!! OK off my soap box!

I take Mike Moriarity's observations to heart. There is a lot more at stake here than just picking one side or the other and then taking a stand and fighting it out. The tests, teaching to the tests, sharing test results with third parties...those are not really "the stakes" or what is at-stake. Your kids education is at-stake if "we" get this wrong, or, if "we" already have gotten it wrong and don't fix it...right this time.

Chris Wendt does NOT have all the answers!

I am Chris Wendt

[rr]

Seriously, changing school start and end times? In what universe will the unions agree to change the time we start or end school? I assume the goal was meant to increase the time spent in classrooms…I have serious doubts that unions and even parents will buy-in to increasing the length of the school day or school year.

I get the concerns but the old 'teaching to the test' line is getting real old. Our BOE passed a resolution because it was the popular thing to do and it agrees with so many other districts. A few questions about our resolution:

1. If it was a unanimous decision why was the Wantagh BOE so late to the resolution passing game??

2. If it's really "all about the kids" as the BOE president yelled about very unprofessionally, why are so many portions of the resolution about teacher assessments?

We can't have real change without a difficult transition - I'm tired of hearing from certain parents and even the Wantagh teacher union rep at the BOE meeting about big business taking over education. If the BOE had real fears they should have passed the resolution months ago.

I honestly found the resolution a bit strange - in one sentence the resolution praises the CCC as something that will benefit the kids and teachers and raising the standards. But they then say the reliance on a test to measure success against these new standards is unfair…well how else do we understand if the children and teachers are making progress? They YELL about raising the standards for all the kids but they don't subscribe to the message of failure? You can't raise the bar and expect all kids to succeed immediately, they may need additional help to get their, it's not failure…who called the kids failures?

Then to further complicate the issue they bring up 3rd party data collections and ultimately request that the whole thing be suspended until a 'proven, research-based assessment system is in place'. Suspending this thing is basically the same as getting rid of the concept altogether, there's no coming back from suspending this in the court of public opinion.

Although the BOE seems to 'know' otherwise, I feel this resolution completed legitimizes the opt-out movement and most-likely will lead to more parents thinking that opting-out is the right thing to do because the BOE doesn't even believe in this. The BOE has abused their 'power' and the unprofessional conduct demonstrated in that meeting was very telling to me. Someone voices an opinion and gets yelled down and told 'you're wrong' about their opinion?

That was an ugly display of perceived power from a BOE president with a few people in the audience clapping to further the poor behavior…

Anyway, the resolution has been passed and now all the teachers and kids that worked really hard this year get to watch as their efforts are diminished as they watch kids opt-out of the test - great massage for the kids who are working so hard. I work really hard, do my homework, go for extra help and took the test but that other kid just said he was opting out of the test and it was ok…why did I work so hard???

Great life lessons being taught.

[Chris_Wendt]

rr posited:

"I have serious doubts that unions and even parents will buy-in to increasing the length of the school day or school year."

As to the unions, and this has been a perennial gripe of mine for many, many years, what is the quid pro quo for raising teacher salaries every year? If the school board knew what quid pro quo meant, then they could set a bargaining objective or goal that, for example, in order to get a three-percent raise, the quid pro quo is three percent increase in classroom teaching time.

Secondary teachers spend woefully little time actually teaching students in classrooms. About three hours each day for most of them. Even less for some.

It matters little what the curriculum is, or if you are teaching to a test or not. How effective can a $100,000 teacher be in three hours? I guess what I am really asking is not how "effective", but how cost-effective is it for a school district, for a school board to pay a teacher $100,000 to teach for three hours a day, for 180 days each school year?

Chris Wendt

[lilly]

This is the thing about educational law/regs/policies. They attempt to provide a framework or minimum operating guideline around the unwieldy i.e., educating kids. The INTENTION of these laws/regs/policies are GOOD, "for the kids" but they don't always nail it. You can't legislate people and districts into being good parents/students, great teachers or deft district financial administrators but you can legislate things like delinquency laws which put the onus on parents to get their kids to attend school or tax caps to reign in spending, etc. We are a nation that believes in, supports and funds a public school system and have been for some time now.

Execution of these laws/regs/policies doesn't always work well. I have found in the recent past that Wantagh does not always execute these regs in the spirit of their intention, "for the kids". The laws/regs/policies can be used for or against the kids and Wantagh has not always used them FOR the kids. And let's face it, Wantagh has been known to find their way around a reg if they are so inclined e.g., claiming ignorance on scientific calculators and AP/college level textbooks, keeping parent paid LIHSA summer BOCES reimbursements, are the low hanging fruit on that one.

I have heard of and witnessed Wantagh be staunch defenders of NYS ed law to the detriment of kids. Examples of this are IDEA laws which effectively were "wait to fail" before providing remediation and championing whole language instruction when the majority of research said otherwise. Wantagh did not make their own changes then which I believe was within their right or advocate otherwise with NYS Ed "for the kids". Not all laws are bad e.g., RtI was legislated to prevent "wait to fail"and NCLB actually said districts must now use scientifically proven, research-based phonics instruction.

Historically, Wantagh has not exactly been vocal educational advocates either. See Math A/B curriculum, or the perceived dumbing down of Regents exams. What was their opinion on those things? Did they have a vocal dialog with state ed about these or other things? Not to my knowledge.

It is for these reasons I find the testing resolution hypocritical. Why develop (an arguable) "for the kids" backbone now? Could it have something to do with the final sentence of the concluding paragraph?

The crux of education reform lately is elevating academic performance. It's a dicey issue. NY ranks about half way down among the 50 states (and first in spend per pupil?). In international assessments, we seem to do ok in younger grades but our teenagers do not have globally competitive reasoning skills. Too many kids are accepted into college finding out that they are not college ready when they get there with colleges providing record # of remediation classes. Where does Wantagh stand? I'd rather see Wantagh tackle answering those questions, assess whether or not we do have a problem in Wantagh vs. issue an anti-testing resolution. (Note, a Diane Ravitch book claiming there is no "crisis" in U.S. education backed by conspiracy theories is not an acceptable answer.)

[Chris_Wendt]

Apologies for dissecting this, but, I believe you referenced this sentence:

"We also recommend that the current assessment system not be tied to teacher evaluation until a proven, research-based assessment system is in place"

...from the resolution.

APPR and the entire evaluation thing are excessive, for New York state school districts and teachers. What New York has, and only New York has this, is Section 3020a of the Education Law. This is the part of the law that drives-up the cost and drags-out the time required to discipline tenured teachers. The costs are astronomical, and the time frame (speed of justice) is between glacial and eternal.

In Wantagh, for example, there are five or six under-performing teachers, of whom three are capable of being remediated. Their department heads and building principals know who these people are. Their union knows who they are. Almost everyone knows who they are, including themselves.

Instead of APPR, all we need is a serious modification of Section 3020a of the education law, allowing for basic, progressive discipline against under-performing teachers to be initiated by their immediate supervisors and subject to the final determination of disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment, by the Superintendent with the approval of the Board of Education.

This would replace what is essentially a trial before an outsider with no stake in the outcome, with a local hearing; it would replace two to three years of legal proceedings with two to three meetings in the district over the course of two to three months time, and a reduction in the cost of such proceedings from well in excess of two hundred thousand dollars each to a truly negligible cost; it would culminate, initially, in three salvageable teachers being promptly remediated, and two or three ineffective teachers being speedily and efficiently replaced.

No state involvement, no federal involvement, no massive accumulation of test scores precipitated by and dedicate to this purpose: cleansing our faculty of ineffective teachers. Instead, it would be: "We know who your are; shape-up or ship out. Now." You know, as it is done the business world: "Perform or you're fired".

Chris Wendt

[rr]

Since we're talking about the last sentence of that resolution I'd love to hear from the board how we can get a 'proven, research-assessment' if they are against the testing? How do you create a 'proven research-based' system with NO TEST RESULTS, no evidence, nothing?

What is your research based on; how the parents feel their kids are doing in school?

It's a joke!

Chris, your solution appears VERY subjective! Shouldn't our assessments be more fact based, more numbers oriented, more 'real' criteria? The concept might make some sense but there is SO much room for manipulation and relationships/politics could play a major role in this.

I give you credit for thinking outside the box but I think you're thinking slightly outside of reality...

[Chris_Wendt]

Again, apology for parsing the subject matter. In response to rr:

"Chris, your solution appears VERY subjective! Shouldn't our assessments be more fact based, more numbers oriented, more 'real' criteria? The concept might make some sense but there is SO much room for manipulation and relationships/politics could play a major role in this.

I give you credit for thinking outside the box but I think you're thinking slightly outside of reality..."

In no particular order:

• Manipulation, already a proven fact with Assessments:
  • Teachers helping students cheat
    
  • State moving reference points for scores (1,2,3,4)
    
  • State modifying cutoff scores for AIS eligibility to reduce cost implications to districts with low results
  
  
• "Reality"? The example or suggestion provided is taken directly from my personal reality and experience in the business world. No place, outside of the world of (NY) PERB and tenured teachers, do employers have to go to a third party to determine how to discipline their own employees, or to decide whether or not to keep ineffective employees. Even in Union Shops outside of the public education realm, the employer decides the disciplinary action, even if the union contract calls for arbitration, after the fact.
  
  
• I work for a 93-year old, NYSE-traded global corporation with 15 plants or offices in 7 states and 5 countries. Our average seniority in NY is 21 years. We are very productive and profitable. Our people are all very effective. People who do not prove themselves effective do not remain 'our people'. We have individual MBO (S.M.A.R.T.) objectives, data driven, plus divisional and corporate goals, also data driven, which determine a large chunk of our compensation (about a third, for me). Most of this data is related to cost control, profit margin, customer satisfaction, market share, objective failure rates, and the outcomes of specific projects. We do not sit for hours upon hours of tests; we are too busy doing the work at-hand to sit for tests.

A good corollary would be market share in my industry and graduation rate in Wantagh Schools. At the end of the day, the fiscal year, did we gain or hold market share, and were we profitable, doing so? At the end of the day, after each students' 13-year education, did he graduate, get into college; was it the college of his choice?

A more humorous corollary would be those tee shirts. In the public schools, teachers sometimes wear tee shirts and pack the auditorium to protest the Board of Education not forking-over even more money to them in exchange for little more than the passage of time. In my company, we wear tee shirts for things like the Chase Corporate Challenge (run/walk), or the NY City Softball Championship game, or the NY City Volleyball Championship game, or, the NY City Basketball Championship game. A lot of us wear them on Fridays in the warm weather, just because it's cool to belong there.

Funny about "the box". Two people can look at that same box from different perspectives. Each will think the other is outside of it. They can both be correct about one another. Looking at and talking about the box is healthy and good.

Sincerely,

Chris Wendt

[rr]

Chris, if schools were run like business this conversation wouldn't be happening - this whole thing would have been resolved a long time ago. When I said reality, I wasn't talking about the business world - I was talking about the reality of public education.

People are already up in arms, including the Wantagh Union Rep at the last BOE meeting, about big business butting into education. Can you imagine the blowback from actually trying to make schools operate in a more business-like manner?!