One of the greatest challenges in teaching math is helping students make the connection of how the subject applies to the real world. As a case in point, I just finished teaching my students a formula called point-slope. It’s easy to tell the kids to take the formula, plug in the numbers and solve the same way every time. Anyone can do that. However, if I took this approach, I would be depriving my kids of the knowledge of the many intricate ways in which this formula weaves its way into our world. To help my kids make these connections, we completed problems from the disciplines of economics, engineering and sports statistics. Several of my students told me afterward that they were excited to see how this concept would apply beyond the walls of the classroom.
Education policy makers face a similar challenge. They are charged with taking a big concept like teacher evaluation or school funding and breaking it down into its pieces and analyze their impact on districts, classrooms and students to make changes accordingly. Its important to do this because every policy likely has something that can be tweaked or improved. Sometimes the majority of the policy is good and merely requires small adjustments. Sometimes significant pieces may be ineffective and need to be reformed. And sometimes the whole the policy policy may be ineffective and need to be replaced. But regardless of the policy being considered, it will likely impact thousands of lives and millions of dollars of education funding. Therefore, it’s vital that policy makers engage in thoughtful discussion of how the policy connects to the real world to truly do justice to those under their charge.
Into this conversation steps Diane Ravitch. Ms. Ravitch occasionally spotlights Tennessee in her blog. On Monday she did so again with a post regarding what she believes to be the ineffective nature of TVAAS in Tennessee, reposted from Tennessee Education Report. Ms. Ravitch continues her attack on standardized testing. She notes:
As it happens, the state of Tennessee has been using value-added assessment for 20 years, though the stakes have not been as high as they are now…while other states are making gains, Tennessee has remained stagnant or lost ground since 1992 — despite an increasingly heavy use of TVAAS data
She goes on to note how Tennessee has lost ground in almost every category from 1992 to 2011 and claims that no evidence exists suggesting student value added data can accomplish anything of meaning. Because of these two facts, she claims, TVAAS has been proven ineffective and should be eliminated.
As an educator, I do have concerns about some of the ways in which TVAAS is used. I know phenomenal teachers who end up with poor TVAAS scores each year because of poor tests and other subjects who have no test and are not evaluated on their own data. But I’ve also seen TVAAS put to phenomenal use to improve student educational outcomes and student motivation. I’ve seen students more fired up about mastering their TCAP and EOC’s than I could ever believe a child could be about a test. I’ve seen the push of EOC’s motivate students to learn and grown throughout the school year. I’ve seen the joy on students faces when they find out how well they did on their tests at the end of the year. I’ve seen teachers use the data they gain to drive themselves and their kids to higher academic outcomes than anyone ever thought possible. And like it or not, longitudinal data systems like TVAAS are help to identify student growth from year to year, proficiency rates and as such should be a component in evaluating overall teacher effectiveness. Simply put, ending TVAAS would come at the cost of ending all its benefits.
Ms. Ravitch addresses none of this on her blog. Instead, she takes a highly nuanced issue and turns it into a blanket statement of “testing is bad.” True, testing can produce bad results. However, it can also produce positive results like those I’ve noted. Our discussion should then focus on how to take this system and fix the parts that aren’t working to strengthen the system overall. For example, if we use Ms. Ravitch’s own logic coupled with common sense, the fact that Tennessee’s proficiency rates have fallen doesn’t necessarily mean that TVAAS has failed. It simply means that testing the way we’ve done it isn’t working. Instead of simply dismissing the system out of hand, we should be asking ourselves whether the data we collect is good enough and if not how we can improve and better utilize the system.
I take offense at Ms. Ravitch’s deliberate attempt to oversimplify and condemn a highly complex issue without any thoughtful discussion. This isn’t the kind of dialogue we need when debating issues of such critical importance in K-12 education. Lobbing rhetorical firebombs and issuing blanket statements will leave us with at best policies that are simplistic and ineffective and at its worst cause us to jerk awkwardly from one system to another as we continue to dismiss what we consider failed policies without any thoughtful analysis.
We need a real, open conversation about the merits and challenges inherent in testing in Tennessee and elsewhere. Ms. Ravitch and others like her consistently fail to use her considerable clout to help be a productive part of this discussion about how to improve the system we have. Only when policy makers and influences like Ms. Ravitch sit down and consider the good along with the bad will we truly have a constructive dialogue that has any hope of confronting and overcoming the challenges inherent in our education system.
By Jon Alfuth
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Posted on October 23, 2013
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