My Worry About the Labor Situation in the Seattle Schools....

....is that Maria Goodloe-Johnson will ruin the NWEA MAP test for all us districts that use it well and informatively.

She's trying to force a strike. She's the superintendent. If the largest school district in Washington State is pushed over that ledge, the MAP test will be one of the big reasons why, and that's a damned shame.

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First Day of NWEA Testing

The MAP Assessment from the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) is one that I've been boosting incessantly for a while now. I think that value added models of student growth are the only real way to measure student growth; it's where they start and end that really matters, not necessarily what the finishing line is supposed to be.

So this morning I had both computer labs here in my building buzzing. In one I was set up for the first grade classes, who are very, very easy to test this time of the year: average test time is about 13 minutes, and you even have some knuckleheads (one from my class, natch) who finish in under 5. That's a fun conversation:

"Johnny, there's no way you could be done in that short a time."
"But I am done!"
"You got me. Let me rephrase--there's no way you could have done a good job in that amount of time."
"I tried my hardest!"
"Really? Let's do the math--you spent about 8 seconds per problem. About half of that time is the computer reading the problem to you, sooooooo......"
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
"No. No you may not."

That said, the beauty of the NWEA is instant feedback. It backed up what I was already thinking, that I don't have any exceptionally high kids, that one or two are very, very low, and that the rest are in-between. That's OK with me.

Over in the other lab there were a couple of third grade classes that came through, and they say that their test is quite a bit harder this year after a re-alignment that occured over the summer. It'll be neat to see what they're saying at the end of the year.

This, to me, is what testing should be: quick, functional, and applicable. My next big project will be to lay out all the scores on a graph for each grade level to get ready for my RTI presentation to WERA this coming spring, but I'm rather looking forward to that piece because data matters and giving the teachers an easy way to read the data is critical to the growth we're trying to achieve.

Dino Rossi is running for Governor here in Washington, and a big part of his platform is ditching our state level assessment (the WASL) in favor of something better. I won't be voting for him, but on that point he's absolutely right.

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What the Data Says About the Teachers

There’s a grade level in my school where every teacher is new to the building or the grade after the big shuffle we experienced last spring. Now consider the MAP scores that their kids came out with during the spring testing:

In 2007, 83% of the kids met the goal in math.
In 2008, 71% of the kids met the goal in math.

In 2007, 19% of the kids scored in the gifted range on the test.
In 2008, 4% of the kids scored in the gifted range on the test.

In 2007, 5% of the kids scored more than one grade level below the goal.
In 2008, 18% of the kids scored more than one grade level below the goal.

I knew that the scores in this particular grade were going to tank; the 2007 team had been working together for quite some time, and they really knew their math inside and out. They were super teachers who had a really great system in place; there was no way that the 2008 group could equal what they did.

Data doesn’t care, though. The trouble with data is that sometimes numbers shouldn’t be allowed to speak for themselves, because without context they’re worse than meaningless—they’re just mean.

And this is why we as teachers shouldn’t fear data, but instead we should accept it for what it is and listen to what it tells us.

The history of education can be written in numbers, and that’s never been more true than it is today.

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About Damn Time

From the December 12th Education Week:

All states that meet federal criteria will now be allowed to take part in the US Department of Education’s 2-year-old experiment with growth models, which let states measure individual students’ achievement gains as a way of ensuring accountability under No Child Left Behind.

I like this. The NWEA MAP assessment is a great example of a test that shows you the growth of the kids from the beginning of the year to the end, and getting the results back instantaneously is a powerful, powerful tool for school improvement.

I hope that OSPI considers something like this. There’s also more information to be found about growth models in the December 19th Education Week, here.

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They Test Me, So I Test Them

Last week we had the first round of our NWEA testing, covering reading. There’s 17 kids that I’ve had since the beginning of the year; of them, 12 tested above the 50th %ile, with the other five being in the 49th, 48th, 45th, 36th, and 5th.

Charitably, that means that 70% of my kids met the grade level standard. The part that’s annoying me is the 5 that are below. Both of my special ed kids, for example, fell below. One made great gains, one barely budged. The other three kids who were below the 50 percent line have all made growth, one of them incredible growth, but I still didn’t get them there.

Then there’s the nagging question of just what the test means. The primary version of the NWEA is still in “beta” mode, so to speak, so the percentile rankings they have established are based off of a very small sample. That throws an element of uncertainty into the testing process that I wish wasn’t there; I like to be able to think of their scores as good, not good with an asterisk.

What the NWEA has all over the WASL is the timeliness aspect; I get NWEA results back that same day, where the WASL scores (for 4th grade, at least) won't be available until the kid is in 5th grade. The end result is that it's not a test of the child, it's a test of the program, and program change is the hardest thing to do in education.

In math my kids did OK. Of the 17 kids who have been here all year long 13 of them met the grade level standard, with three of the misses being in the 40-50 percentile range. If I add in the kids who came during the year I have 18 of 22 at grade level, a not-to-shabby 82%. If I decline responsibility for my special ed kids that goes up to 90%, but they’re mine and I’m keeping them, so there.

Overall, I can see a lot of room for improvement in what I do. This year our Title program was in a shambles for most of the year; next year I need to get the small group support to the kids who need it sooner. I’ve found some neat at-home activities on-line that I think could make a real difference; next year I should push the parent contact angle more and see if I can get better growth from the kids I identify early on as needing more help.

Next up is the DRA Reading Assessment, and then the silly season really begins.

How are your kids doing?

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