Value Added Measurement: Wanted Professional Palm Reader

Want to bet on a horse? Put your trust in a bookie whose job it is to predict winners after studying potential to win based on breeding, training, and standings in recent races. Want to invest in the stockmarket? Put your trust in a stockbroker whose job it is to predict companies that show signs of being a good investment, with potential growth, and a stable financial structure.

Want to know about a child's school achievement. Put your trust in an algorithm, a formula which will predict how much progress the student should make based on a complicated equation of 10 factors, but do not ask how it works. Florida determined that socio-economics would not be included as one of the 10 predicting factors.

StateImpact Florida and the Miami Herald went looking for some explanation on how it will work and they got this answer:

"No lay person, teacher or reporter can understand it. So just trust us."

This formula will be used in Florida as the basis for merit pay this way:

The formula is designed to predict how students will score on the state’s standardized exam—the FCAT. And then it adjusts teachers’ pay depending on how well their students measure up against that predicted score.

Until recently, for $190 Chinese parents signed their children up for "palm-reading tests that could allegedly tell a child's intelligence and professional aptitude." Palm-reading tests have been determined to be pseudoscience and Chinese educational authorities banned the practice.

"Predicting is not an equation."

Related posts:
SB736/HB7019: The trouble with value-added measurement
NUT Report: "We have to do something."
Student Data Collection: Purpose, Costs, Risks?

California: Bringing Parent Opposition and Resistance Out of the Shadows

San Diego parents oppose state mandated assessment and invoke parent rights. They publish their letter to the school and publish their letter.

February 16, 2012
Bill Kowba
Superintendent of Schools
San Diego Unified School District
4100 Normal Street, Room 2219
San Diego, CA 92103

Dear Mr. Kowba,

Please accept this letter as our request to excuse our daughter, Ruby, from participation in standardized achievement testing as is allowed in §60615 of the California Education Code. This request includes the state mandated assessments of the California Standardized Testing and Reporting assessment program (STAR/CAT 6), which will begin for our daughter in the 2012-2013 school year, as well as the San Diego Unified School District Benchmark Exam program.

We believe such testing to be unjust, counter-productive, and harmful to the education and development of our daughter; we do not see any intrinsic value in our six-year old spending time transcribing her answers from a test sheet to a Scantron. Timed, one-chance tests do not show regard to variables in context or circumstance affecting student performance on the days of testing. This is further underscored by the fact that, as a student of the Language Academy, our child is currently forced to take tests in English, a language she isn’t yet learning to read.

In addition, we do not wish to participate in mandated programs that coerce school districts into compliance with punishments that adversely affect the resources, standing, and operations of our locally controlled pubic schools. The state oversteps its bounds and does a disservice to the public when it ignores professionals in local schools, arbitrarily making educational decisions (funding, status, and otherwise) based solely upon these one-chance tests.

As parents, we resent being held hostage to tests—which cannot be cheap to administer—while simultaneously suffering absurd cuts to our school, cuts that continue to decimate our staff and much-needed resources.

We understand that it is an educator’s professional duty to assess the learning of each student in the classroom and we fully support our teachers, our principal and our staff. This request is not intended to restrict professional assessment (formative or summative) by the classroom teacher to which our child is assigned. On the contrary, we believe our talented teacher is our child’s benchmark, and that she has the skills and training to do what standardized tests cannot.

Best regards,.....

Ed Reform Storm Clouds Gathering

South Carolina made news this week in a well-attended State Senate meeting regarding a bill that would reverse the state's 2010 decision to implement the Common Core standards. Senator Mike Fair opposes the implementation stating it takes away local control. An AP report on the proposed bill got national coverage in Education Week and a mention by Neil McCluskey of the Cato Institute in a piece called "War Against the Core". McCluskey wonders if the Palmetto State has a "huge desire to withdraw."

The AP report also got state coverage in the Post and Courier stating that Governor Niki Haley supports the bill "as an extension of her frequent complaints of federal overreaching." S.C. State School Superintendent Mick Zais also does not support the decision made prior to his election; however, he is committed to implementing the decision as required.

The meeting described as full, with standing room only. Testimony favoring the standards came from South Carolina educators who have been preparing for implementation since the 2010 decision. They expressed concerns about a rollback now and based on their experience working with the standards, they find them to be "good standards."

On the other side, testimony was presented from the following prominent conservative think tanks, all opposing the implementation of the Common Core standards:

1) Jim Stergios from the Pioneer Institute
2) Bill Evers from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University
3) Jane Robbins from the American Principles Project

Time ran out before all who wished to give testimony were able to and the meeting will continue February 23.

In an Op-Ed "Rotten to the (Common) Core", Furman University Professor Paul Thomas explains that the Common Core standards require additional testing and increased costs:

"New tests also create hidden and recurring costs despite claims that computer-based testing will save printing and scoring costs of traditional testing. Those hidden costs include both additional funds (such as insuring all schools have the technology to test all students) and most importantly costs in time. Teachers must be trained directly and spend time learning the standards themselves while a tremendous amount of instructional time will be replaced by yet more teaching to the test and, with the new regime of testing, more testing days throughout the entire school year."

Professor Thomas continues by noting that "SC public education is not now and has never been failing due to a lack of quality standards or high-quality tests. Curriculum (standards), instruction, and testing are the elements within the teaching process, but they are not learning. And not one of these elements should be confused for learning."

Professor Thomas believes that learning is "stifled in SC by the inequitable and often deplorable teaching and learning conditions in many schools," which will not be addressed by new standards and computer-based testing.

Stay tuned......

Colorado: Parents Oppose Excessive Testing

In their own voices, parents speak out against excessive testing and test-centric instructional environments, one by one.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sch_-7r3XPQ

Indiana: Bring parent opposition to excessive standardized testing out of the shadows

Yesterday, Grumpy Educators reported on Texas concerns of the testing "perversion."

Today, the highlight is on Indiana and parents who are organizing in opposition to testing.

Parent rights are at the heart of the issue. State Impact reported the story including Indiana Department of Education official Stephanie Sample response this way:

"parents do not have a legal right to opt their children out of testing. State law requires each student be tested, department officials say."

Really? From coast to coast, parents are fed up with classrooms converted into test prep centers instead of centers of learning. Indiana legislators have no answers to their participation in perpetuating this "perversion."

The baby's got the hammer, again

UPDATE: Round 2 - Wise and Stargel bring the same bill back, filed in November 2011. The Parent Involvement and Accountability Bill requires quarterly grading of parents.

The Legislative Analysis reveals:
1) This system will have impact on costs, but those costs are "indeterminate".

2) This bill qualifies as an unfunded mandate. How the schools will pay for all is undefined. The legislative analysis lightly treads on potential costs to counties. Will this mean a tax hike?

3)The "evaluation data" collected will become part of the student's permanent record and protected as confidential using FERPA guidelines.

The blog below was written last year and remains relevant today.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.  Will Rogers

The same can be said for Florida anytime the legislature is in in session. For the last week, Grumpy readers have been hearing about a scheme that has Tallahassee and Obama have teaming up to data mine our children, all in the name of education reform (off course). That would allow them to:

• Analyze information and make recommendations with the goal of aiding a person's decisions and improving quality of life."



• Provide several different reporting capabilities for use by a myriad of stakeholders

From the politicians point of view, the government knows everything it could ever want to know about a entire generation of future voters. Everything from their basic IQ to their hobbies as well as a few things we might not want to discuss here.

It just got better, why stop with the kids, why not collect a little more information about their parents. Representative Kelli Stargel and Senator Stephen Wise want the teachers to grade parents as well. Remember, the school already ha a ton of information about students parents: age, marital status, occupation, social security number, address, phone number and more. A great deal of this information is certain to make it into the child's Microsoft Profile. Why not categorize their parenting skills and add that to the kids profile.

There is another more immediate reason the idea is completely absurd. It won't have any affect at all on the parenting skills of parents who"Flunk", but it will sure as hell piss them off. The school and the school board will hear from every failing parent. You couldn't pay me enough to answer phones either at schools or at the Board of Education for a week after report cards come out.

It may not be Politically Correct to say this, but the majority of the parents you'd expect to get "Flunked" or going to be same ones where police respond the most often to assault and domestic violence calls.It doesn't take much imagination to figure out that the first thing some of those bad parents are going to do is pay a visit to the school. Some of those visits will be ugly.

Grading parents will accomplish nothing of value, it will lead to poor relationships in some cases between entire communities and the schools, and it will strain already shaky relations between the BAD parents and the schools. On a positive note, it will give a moment satisfaction to a few teachers, that satisfaction might end suddenly when they get confronted by a furious parent.

Everyone in every walk of life grades the people they have to deal with regularly. Depending on your personality, the servers at restaurant you frequent might run towards you, or away form you when you come it. The clerk at the local convenience store might mutter something to another clerk before they smile at you. When you might leave your doctors office, the doctor might say something to his nurse about your great sense of humor... or he might say, at least I don't have to them again for a while.

Does anyone think Senator Wise or Representative Stargal would have the courage to tell individual voters exactly what they think of them?On another note Senator Wise seem determined to shove things through as soon as possible. He wants to end public input tomorrow.He knows damned good and well people from from Central and Southern Florida can't just jump in their cars and take a ride to Tallahassee

But you can send emails:

Mike Haridopolos
haridopolos.mike.web@flsenate.gov

Stephen Wise
wise.stephen.web@flsenate.gov

Thad Altman
altman.thad.web@flsenate.gov

Ritch Workman
Ritch@RitchWorkman.com

I listed the ones closest to where I live, you can find yours here

http://www.flsenate.gov/Welcome/index.cfm?CFID=249520818&CFTOKEN=29966225

To view original reader comments on this article see

http://grumpyelder-todayimgrumpyabout.blogspot.com/2011/01/babys-got-hammer-again.html

Data-obsession: Who protects the students?

Public school P.E. programs are incorporating technology to monitor students weight and physical activity habits. According to a recent piece of investigative reporting in the Revered Review, a specific technology from Polar Fitness"is used in more than 10,000 K-12 physical education programs across the United States." The report reviewed the way the technology is being used in a number of states and school districts.

Some of this technology may be beneficial to students and parents may agree with their student's participation. However, little has been published on the cost benefits for parents, community members, or taxpayers to evaluate. In the current data-gathering obsessed environment, the use of this technology has raised concerns regarding:

• Parent consent


• Privacy and security

Use of monitors intrusive

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the New York affiliate of the ACLU, sent The Revered Review the following statement: “The question here is whether these monitoring programs are voluntary or not. It’s one thing for children to participate voluntarily with their parents’ consent. But if they’re being compelled or shamed into participating, then it’s extremely problematic.”

Lieberman continued: “Monitoring children’s vital signs is very intrusive, and even a voluntary program must have clear privacy safeguards, including limits on how long the data can be stored and who has access to it.”

Security and privacy

Emmett McGroarty, the executive director of the Preserve Innocence Initiative of the American Principles Project, said if schools are using the monitors, there should be full disclosure to the parents. If they are used beyond the school day, it could be “highly dangerous” as it could be an “infringement on parental rights.”

Full disclosure by parents, and the ability to “opt in” rather than “opt out” should be allowed, McGroarty said. “I really would urge the taxpayers to get a closer look at what’s going on, and who is funding this.”

The company issued a press release on January 19, in regards to its Polar Activity monitor: “The activity data is stored on the polargofit.com web service. All information is securely stored and the data is available only to authorized users with a password.”

A company press release does not quite cut the mustard. The school districts need to ensure that parents and students have clarity. That is not too much to ask.


Read the full article for more information.