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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > March > 10 > Entry
Maybe school reform isn’t working
Ohio has been through a huge upheaval of its statewide education system over the past 15 years with the high goal better student learning and with a bedrock belief that such improvement can be best demonstrated on tests.
Since 1992, Ohio has implemented statewide content standards, high stakes testing for all kids, ratings for schools and school districts based on those test scores and a huge school choice program.
So is it all working? Well in the course of gathering data for a project I’ve been working on I thought Ohio’s results on national tests during the past 10 to 15 years and its rank compared to other states might raise some concerns.
In that period, Ohio schoolchildren have seen their test scores improve, both on state tests and and national tests, but its standing compared to other states has not changed very much.
Let’s start with the National Assessment of Education Progress, a national test called NAEP for short and also known as the Nation’s Report Card. It’s given to a sample of fourth and eighth grade students nationwide every two years as a means of judging our national standing compared to the decades of data from the past that NAEP has compiled.
States can also participate individually by asking NAEP (at a price) to test a larger sample of its kids to get useable state results. Ohio has recently began participating in this way after several years without state specific scores.
Today, NAEP is the test state leaders like to point to as evidence of Ohio’s big gains in student achievement. And indeed, there’s no arguing that at fourth grade math, our state has made a very significant gain.
In 1992, Ohio ranked 21st in the nation on fourth grade math, but by 2005, Ohio ranked 10th on fourth grade math. That’s a very impressive gain.
The gains elsewhere are more modest. On eighth grade math, Ohio’s ranking was 18th in the U.S. in 1992 and in 2005 it jumped to 16th. Reading gains were even more marginal, going from 19th on fourth grade reading in 1992 to 18th in 2005. Ohio ranked 17th in eighth grade reading in 2005 but the state sample on the same test in 1992 was too small for results to be reported.
Now lets look at the college entrance exams.
In 1996, college bound Ohio seniors’ average score ranked 23rd in the U.S. on the verbal portion of the SAT (536 average score) and 24th on the math portion (535 average score).
In 2006 there were only small changes, again with more improvement in math. The state’s college bound seniors ranked 24th in the U.S. on the verbal portion (535 average score) and 23rd on math (544 average score).
On the ACT, Ohio seniors had a composite score of 21.3 in 1996, which ranked 18th in the U.S. Ohio’s composite ACT score of 21.5 in 2006, ranking 25th among the states.
Given this data it seems that some dramatic improvement has been made in elementary school math. Perhaps this is because the state standards and tests forced elementary schools to pay more attention to math. A frequent knock on public elementary schools is that teachers of young children tend most often to be reading experts who may not place equal emphaisis on math.
It will be interesting to see if those good fourth grade math scores start translating into bigger gains in math at eighth grade and on the college tests as those good scoring younger children grow up.
But overall, given all the state’s efforts at improving student test performance, I wonder if the results are less than might be expected. That’s what I’d like to hear your thoughts on. Do you think these scores should be better than they are?
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Testing
Comments
By wellwhynot
March 11, 2007 6:37 PM | Link to this
Caroline says her students are asking “if that will be on the test?”, my administrator asks the same thing. We have to constantly submit samples of student work to the administration. The question we are asked on work that is not clearly test-driven is: “Is that on the test?” How would I know, I haven’t seen the test!” If the skill is relevant, we should be allowed to teach it without worrying whether it is on the test. We are going to end up with a generation of students who know nothing if it wasn’t on a test.By Oldprof
March 11, 2007 1:58 PM | Link to this
From my perspective, the word “maybe” needs to be deleted from that headline.By Mark
March 11, 2007 11:55 AM | Link to this
I found it interesting that when the corporate director of training for Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar came to town a couple of months ago to promote the opening of Fleming’s at The Greene, she detailed the extensive training servers and other employees receive before the first customer is served. But she added that Fleming’s has done away with paper-and-pencil tests for employees in training, for one simple reason: “We found such tests were not an accurate indicator of success.” Explain to me please why we insist on using poorly designed tests which may not measure what students have truly learned, which reward only those students who are adept at one learning style, and which unfairly pigeonhole some students as failures, as the cornerstone of alleged “school reform?”By wellwhynot
March 10, 2007 11:17 PM | Link to this
Well, I think it is pretty obvious what happened. Yes, primary and elementary teachers had been told for years to concentrate on reading and writing. Then a few years ago, the emphasis changed to math. Many teachers have been concerned that the pendulum will now swing the other way since math scores are up but reading is not. What does that say about teaching and learning? Contrary to what many who are not in the profession think, students are not learning less now than in the past. I have several textbooks that I used as a third grader. When I became a teacher, I dug them out just for fun. I compared them to the second grade books I was teaching from. They taught the same skills. When my brother went to kindergarten,(there wasn’t one when I was 5) he went a half day, learned his colors, started learning the alphabet, ate cookies and milk, had play time and nap time and learned how to get along with other kids. Now, kindergarten is a full day, no nap, lunch instead of milk and cookies, little if any play time and no one gets along. They are expected to be able to read, write and do math when they leave kindergarten. I keep reading that we need to extend the school day and school year. I wonder if we have lost sight of what childhood should be. When I went to school, we had a morning and afternoon recess. Lunch was half an hour long and recess was half an hour. Now, there is no morning or afternoon recess (we barely stop long enough to go to the bathroom) and lunch and recess together are 30 minutes. School is hard work for kids, just as a job is for adults. How many adults follow that schedule? There is a big concern about how American students compare to students of other countries. What isn’t taken into account is that in many countries the only students who finish the equivalent of our high school and go on to college are the “cream of the crop”. The average and less than average often don’t even go to high shcool. If we want to compare students scores, we need to make sure the playing field is level. Maybe we need to consider who we want to educate rather than what we want them to learn. Sixty years ago, many people didn’t graduate from high school. Forty years ago, everyone wasn’t expected to go to college. Now, it seems we expect everyone to be a college graduate.Are our expectations unrealistic? I’m beginning to wonder.By Mary
March 10, 2007 10:45 PM | Link to this
I think all states have been trying to make improvements, but people need to better understand the details. Some high ability students in earlier grades (6th -8th) have higher SAT and ACT scores than the average high school senior scores in the same district - so what does the system do for them. That is why “value added” for individual students and raising the bar for many students are also important - not simply an average of the scores. I think local and state culture have a lot to do with performance on the tests. One part of the culture is the thing you mention about elementary teachers being trained more for reading instruction than math and science - all are important. As a “cerebral type”, I think local and state cultures in Ohio’s districts are generally “anti-intellectual” and that also impacts learning and performance on standardized tests. Another thought is some states generally cater to or harbor more naturally intellectual or academically intelligent people. There is so much that apparently influences intelligence including environment and genetics. DDN just had an interesting article on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and its influence on learning and development. That is just one of many environmental stresses on intellectual development and school performance. Ohioans do not need to score as high as students in many other states to be National Merit scholars, either. I think Massachusetts, Texas and New York are some of the states that outperform us in that area, as well. Ohio is generally considered to be a brain drain for colleges and jobs - more intelligent students and workers supposedly leave the state.By Caroline
March 10, 2007 10:29 PM | Link to this
What we should really ask is if improved test scores mean that the students are learning more. As a teacher, I can tell you that the schools are obsessively teaching the test. My students actually ask me, “Is this on the OAT?” They have been programmed to believe that if it is not on the OAT, it is not important. So, the real questions should be, “Are our students more prepared for work and college?” “Are our students more prepared to compete with the world market?” etc. I think the answer is definitely, “No.” Of course standardized tests are important. They give us an idea of what students know and what the schools are teaching. However, to state that they are everything is ridiculous.By dave
March 10, 2007 3:26 PM | Link to this
We should always remember that there are a number of factors that affect achievement. As the state increases testing requirements local districts by teaching to the test. Students in the state make gains on the state level tests because districts and teachers adjust curriculum, instruction, and interventions to help students perform well on thoses tests. That doesn’t necessarily mean that those testing programs are aligned to material tested on the NAEP or SAT and ACT. It’s also important to keep in mind that a larger percentage of Ohio students take the ACT than the national average, and fewer take the SAT than the national average because colleges in Ohio prefer the ACT. So making comparisons in this area is difficult. Also, when we see large gains as you identify in fourth grade math, the question should be, “why?” To say that it’s because of the testing program is a rather unsatisfying answer, especially since there is obviously no testing program in the first three grades of school. So what’s going on? What’s different about early primary ed? This is great reporting by the way. Not nearly enough people ask the kinds of questions you are asking here. I hope the editors give you some front page real estate when you are done with this.By Rick
March 10, 2007 10:59 AM | Link to this
The comparison of Ohio’s ranking in SAT and ACT tests irrelevant. All states have been making huge efforts to improve education, including high stakes testing. They have made improvements as well. A rising tide floats all boats. Why do we have such testing and efforts to improve education? Becuase of the fraud committed by the education blob, i.e., State Departments of Education, Colleges of Education, School Boards, Teacher unions, etc. They kept telling us everything was ok but when those international tests came out the fraud was revealed.