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10-27-8 STAR LEDGER ‘Potential education secretaries put schools in spotlight’ "...Education does fall victim to the national press's short attention span in elections, too often involving deep and complex problems that don't make for quick headlines. Add two wars and an economic crisis, and many issues, and their advocates, are fighting to get noticed this year.Last week at Teachers College, at an otherwise crowded forum just two weeks before the election, the one section with a few empty seats was reserved for the media..."
10-26-08 "Test scores plummet as state raises standards"
Changes to New Jersey's elementary and middle school
The Corzine administration pressed widespread revisions to the statewide tests over the summer, which included new exams in grades 5-7 and far higher scores needed to pass.
At the time, officials warned it could be a jolt to schools and parents who would see fewer of their children deemed "proficient."They were right....For 2008, the state is waiting for the federal government to approve a plan that would factor in the new tests and scoring, sparing schools from any sanctions as long as their students are making progress...
STAR LEDGER ‘Potential education secretaries put schools in spotlight’
By John Mooney, October 27, 2008
In national polls, our public schools are continually ranked as a top priority of the average American, one of the last examples of a unifying concern in an otherwise fractured and frenzied society.
Yet the subject has been no more than an afterthought in the presidential election. For all the professed urgency about fixing our schools, the national air time for the topic has been pretty much limited to the last question of the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.
But you wouldn't have known it from the crowd that turned out for a sanctioned campaign face-off last week at Columbia University's Teachers College that was devoted exclusively to the topic of education.
It wasn't the candidates going at it, but the next best thing: two of their top advisers on the subject, either one of whom could possibly be the next U.S. secretary of education.
For McCain, it was Lisa Graham Keegan, a former state superintendent in his home state of Arizona and a spirited voice in the school choice movement. Representing Obama was Linda Darling-Hammond, a respected Stanford University professor and guru of teacher quality.
And while the public may not be paying much attention, the nearly 600 people filling the university hall heard a spirited exchange that gave a good sense of what distinguishes not just the candidates but, maybe equally important, the people who advise them.
McCain has in Keegan a devoted cheerleader who has helped bring big changes to public education in Arizona. Central to that has been the boom in charter schools, now one in every four public schools in the state.
The state superintendent in Arizona is an elected political position, and Keegan's easy way with a big audience was on display. And like much of the conservative wing and increasingly some traditionally liberal voices, her focus was on accountability and providing alternatives to families, be it with charters or even a private education through school vouchers.
Support for vouchers continues to be a frequent refrain of the Republican Party, and Obama's opposition is equally predictable. In the debate, Keegan was quick to use Obama's own upbringing against him.
"It is disingenuous for Sen. Obama to have been the recipient of a scholarship of a private school and lecture people that going to a private school drains money from the public schools," Keegan said.
Darling-Hammond fit more the professorial role, ready with research on the effectiveness of everything from preschool to teacher mentoring. And she was no less loyal to her boss, listing details from Obama's education plank in his platform, ranging from universal preschool to $4,000 tax credits for college costs.
Obama has pressed hard for sizable new investment in education, especially in the poorest cities and towns, to help cure what Darling-Hammond called an "adhocracy" of schools.
"We don't have the capacity to ensure that everyone gets what is really the new civil right, access to a high quality education," she said.
A couple of times, the two were allowed to go back and forth for several minutes, a rare instance of dialogue in a formal debate. The differences were many, but in such a setting, agreements came out, too, including some consensus that the No Child Left Behind Act has its merits but clearly needs fixing.
New Jersey figured prominently when the talk turned to the fundamental question of how much money would be required. Sometimes we forget, but New Jersey public schools are often held up as a national example in education debate by supporters and critics alike.
Keegan would fall under the critic camp, and she pointed to New Jersey and Washington, D.C., as two of the highest-spending school systems that have little to show in overall achievement gains.
"If money were the answer, New Jersey and D.C. ought to be off the charts, and they're not," she said.
Darling-Hammond countered that New Jersey has everything to be proud of, including schools for which the courts have ordered big money for specific programs, resulting in some closing of the achievement gap between rich and poor.
"And they are in the top tier of states in achievement in the country, far above where Arizona is," Darling-Hammond said in one pointed moment.
Yet in the end, education is not an issue that makes many TV ads. The candidates are only partly to blame. McCain spent much of his GOP convention speech on the topic and gave another major speech to the Urban League this summer. Darling-Hammond said Obama has given a dozen speeches devoted to education.
Instead, both surrogates blamed the messenger. "The media in general are not understanding how important education is to the future of this country," Darling-Hammond said.
Education does fall victim to the national press's short attention span in elections, too often involving deep and complex problems that don't make for quick headlines. Add two wars and an economic crisis, and many issues, and their advocates, are fighting to get noticed this year.
Last week at Teachers College, at an otherwise crowded forum just two weeks before the election, the one section with a few empty seats was reserved for the media.
John Mooney covers education for The Star-Ledger.
Test scores plummet as state raises standards
by John Mooney/The Star-Ledger
Sunday October 26, 2008
Changes to New Jersey's elementary and middle school proficiency tests, designed to make them more rigorous, have sent some passing rates plummeting in both city and suburban districts.
The Corzine administration pressed widespread revisions to the statewide tests over the summer, which included new exams in grades 5-7 and far higher scores needed to pass.
At the time, officials warned it could be a jolt to schools and parents who would see fewer of their children deemed "proficient."They were right.
In Newark, for instance, virtually every elementary school is seeing double-digit drops in the percentage of fifth- and sixth-graders passing the language arts sections -- a blow worsened by a district analysis that shows a majority of the schools would have seen gains under the old scoring.
That means nearly 1,000 extra children in each grade suddenly have been deemed not proficient under the new tests, officials said.
In Paterson, it's about 250 extra students per grade, with some schools' passing rates dropping from 50 or 60 percent down into the teens.
And it wasn't just urban districts seeing the impact.
Piscataway is used to more than 90 percent of its children passing the state's tests. The rate on some of the tests dropped below 70 percent.
In the Chathams, schools where virtually all students typically passed, are now faced with some passing percentages in the mid-80s, with special education down to 50 percent.
Districts are finding that special resources devoted to improving basic skills are suddenly insufficient. In the Morris County district, where all students hovering around proficiency or below had received extra help, the changes are hitting the middle school the hardest.
"All of a sudden, we have a lot more than we ever had before, and just two part-time basic skills teachers," said Anne Dudley, assistant superintendent of schools.
"It has led to more professional development for our other teachers and some rethinking of the cut-off," she added, referring to the score change by the state. "We just don't have the staff."
Test scores were not adversely affected across the board, and the full extent of the impact won't be known until the state releases school-by-school scores this winter. But the state this summer estimated language arts passing rates in grades 5-7 could fall as much as 20 percent or more, including barely half of all sixth-graders passing.
Parents often look to the scores to judge the success of a school, but the tests also factor in the way schools are judged under the tough federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The law requires schools hit achievement targets for every category of student; seven straight years of failure can bring severe sanctions. Under the old targets, the state saw nearly 1,000 schools fall short in 2007.
For 2008, the state is waiting for the federal government to approve a plan that would factor in the new tests and scoring, sparing schools from any sanctions as long as their students are making progress.
"Our goal is not to penalize districts," said Barbara Gantwerk, an assistant state education commissioner. "We have worked very hard to come up with a system that would take into account all these issues."
RAISING RIGOR
The state required new tests this year starting in both the younger grades and the high schools. The biggest change is in how the tests are scored, part of a reform package approved by the state Board of Education.
Championed by state Education Commissioner Lucille Davy, the changes effectively raised the passing score needed in both language arts and math for grades 5-7. In some cases, the previous bar was so low students needed just 33 percent of the questions correct to be deemed "proficient."
"This is all part of the department's efforts to raise the rigor in all of the tests, including in high school," said Gantwerk, the assistant state commissioner. "And you need to start this in the early grades if we are going to move ahead."
The new scoring followed nearly a year of planning and feedback, but it came after the tests were already administered. The extent of the impact, then, caught many school officials by surprise.
"When I first saw our scores, I was in shock," said Marbella Barrera, Newark's testing director. "We knew it was a different test and it would be more rigorous, but we didn't know they would be changing the standards."
Two thirds of Newark's fifth-graders passed the language arts test in 2007; two thirds failed in 2008.
Without the change in the scoring, Barrera said, scores would have held steady for that grade, and half of the schools would have actually seen increases.
Some other local leaders were incredulous. In Piscataway, overall achievement rose in many grades and rose significantly in eighth grade, where the test was barely affected by the changes.
But the improvements may be lost among big drops in other grades, and district superintendent Robert Copeland blamed the state for changing the rules midstream.
"To simply say, 'Jump higher,' without providing us anything to help, it doesn't make sense," he said. "To say, 'Jump higher,' after we've already jumped, that really doesn't make any sense."
