Sticky Statistics

Sticky Statistics..hard to say and type! But onto my point..

So the Exit Exam has a standard error of measure, hovering around 8 when looking at the lowest passing score (350) and neighboring scores.

So if a student received a 347 they did not pass. If they take it again and get a 350 they do pass as there was growth and that growth met the minimum requirements for passing (the 350 or above score). Okay. But I could not say "student X's score improved from the first to second test by 3 points" because it is below the Standard Error of Measure threshold of 8.

Well then couldn't I argue that student X with a score of 347 did indeed possibly, maybe pass? (And the antithesis, the just-passing student at 350 perhaps did not pass). Couldn't I argue (with the in-arguabiltiy of numbers) to the state or ETS or whoever that student with a score of 347 should receive a passing status? I could fight for all the barely-missed it kids.

See because this is real. One of my students did get a 347 and it's sad. Last year a student got 347. Then 348. Finally, 352. But she didn't need to take it three times in my opinion, as all scores hovered around 350 and statistically were identical. Her original score could have been passing. And given her hard life and diligent effort, heck, she deserved it.

Common Core Standards

For once, a not too lengthy post from me, something never thought possible. Maybe.

Farkbot. My state has adopted the Common Core Standards. I like the idea of national standards in that when you compare states, you have something to compare. However, I am against it as it is Federalism; less state control. And certain supporters (want a list? http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/common-core-endorsing-partners ) are those with something to gain through...


"accountability" (ahem...testing...new tests = more $) being: Achieve, ACT, The College Board (they invented the SAT), Datametrics, Datawise, (Good old) ETS, Intel Assess, Iowa Testing Program, Scantron.

and curriculum; (to re-publish books with new standards it costs $$!) American Reading Company with a board member who was the Sr. V.P. of Mc Graw Hill (major textbooks), Cambium Learning (President and VP both used to be a high-end managers at Houghton Mifflin), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Mc Graw Hill, Pearson, Scholastic/

And the creepies,
Alliance for Excellent Education's President yearns for pseudo-social efficiency with him "ensure that all students graduate from high school prepared for college, careers, and to be contributing members of society."

If we have common core standards, and the textbook and testing companies designed them, did they design them with true learning in mind, or just textbook regurgitation and rote-learning testing in mind?

Testing Kills Learning...The SAT and ETS

As a teacher, I must say test-prep and the focus on standardized tests "kills" learning. The world is not in A,B,C,D format and such learning is not innovative, creative, "high level thinking".
The creator of the original SAT college entrance exam, Carl Bringham, was a eugenicist, arguing that immigration should be limited especially to non-Nordic Europeans because they were supposedly intellectually inferior. He proved this through tests given to prove intelligence in army men; his tests were biased and included many popular culture referenced question which recent immigrants would likely not know, and thus they were deemed inferior. In fact he had a key role in immigration quotas especially ones against the "Mediterraeans" including the Jews, during the1930s. He then had a change of heart, but it was too late; the quotas were in place for quite some time. Oh, and he was the first President of ETS.

While I don't agree with Brigham's racist ideas, he once said something I must agree with; perhaps he had a moment of lucidity as to what the future cold hold once it embraced his exams; "If the unhappy day ever comes when teachers point their students toward these newer examinations, and the present weak and restricted procedures get a grip on education, then we may look for the inevitable distortion of education in terms of tests. And that means that mathematics will continue to be completely departmentalized and broken into disintegrated bits, that the sciences will become highly verbalized and that computation, manipulation and thinking in terms other than verbal will be minimized, that languages will be taught for linguistic skills only without reference to literary values, that English will be taught for reading alone, and that practice and drill in the writing of English will disappear."

Presidential hopeful Ralph Nader attacked ETS in 1979 saying theo nly thing ETS hadn't tried was to "test for admission into heaven" and that the SAT predicted college performance about as well as a pair of dice.

Standardized Testing = Big $ money $

sETS (Educational Testing Service) created and manages the GRE, SAT, and other college-entrance exams. In addition, they create/manage AP (Advanced Placement) exams, CAHSEE (California's exit exam), the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), and the CST/STAR (California Standardized Test) to name but a few. They are not a monopoly but do have quite the market share in educational assessments.

ETS was funded with an initial endowment of $750,000 from the Carnegie Corporation in 1946 by Harvard grad Henry Chauncey. He had pondered upon the SAT, an "obscure mutation" of the IQ test, and tweaked it to focus on math and English. WWII helped bring the SAT to the forefront; a dire need to identify good officers quickly existed and Chauncey was hired to give the SAT to 300,000 people in just one day to help select the officers. Such a feat meant other insititutions (i.e. schools) could do the same thing. Chauncey left Harvard in 1945 to create ETS. He had a pet project that never was implemented due to a fatalistic perspective; a "censu of abilities" to be given twice yearly to all high-schoolers to identify what their future careers and direction of life should be.


So of course with NCLB and Race To The Top, both very test-friendly authorizations, ETS by default has something to gain. Money drives NCLB and RTTT and while the classroom may not see these funds, ETS sure does to the tune of, well, a lot. Different sources cite different amouns but all are quite exhorbitant, $490 million in 1998 (http://www.capitalcentury.com/1947.html) or, $620 million in 2003 (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_52/b3864044.htm) or $1 billion in 2006 (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/03/ets) or $94 million in 2007(http://www.aetr.org/financial/ETS-IRS_Form_990_%282007%29.pdf)
Pretty good for a non-profit, tax-exempt company, right? Their CEO, Kurt Landgraf (google his name + business week for some good info), made just a bit shy of $1 million that year. In 2004, Mr. Landgraf, earned $1.07 million and three vice presidents each earned over half a million. Sixteen ETS Vice Presidents and other corporate officers had total compensation of more than $200,000 with several topping the $300,000/year level. Even Trustees of the ETS Board shared in the largesse: several received more than $30,000 for attending a few meetings.(http://www.urch.com/forums/pharmacy-forum/101229-ets-r-evolution-profit-non-profit.html)

An interesting "google quest" is the lawsuits against ETS. One of interest I found which also shows how much the Dept. of Ed spent for ETS services is at http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:1UxvemjFq8gJ:www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/fy2009/a02i0024.pdf+CDE+contract+with+ETS+cost&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgeTtAOBzm1P7-Go4VY3oRs2UwoqxyPDLoiEKfFWRwQDdnx5tH-gSs_6TSLbVLSngy91Z3shYc3XnkLmdSEu5oIOsYSxEK-0Ec06aX9eVbQg-tu_hlF5VbReVMuNbtzlD7zCrGq&sig=AHIEtbR2YhCL92JiDh7Pdv-98NfxRPVHEg

With such nice profits, ETS will certainly influence the educational "powers that be" to maintain if not increase the amount of standardized testing.

Education Leaders Unmasked: Elwood Cubberley part 1

Ellwood Cubberley (1868-1941) was a superintendent, professor at Stanford and Columbia, an author, editor, educator, “pioneer” in the educational administration field, and a man who saw education as an instrument of social engineering. Wikipedia states, “Some academicians have used Cubberley's methodology as a cautionary tale and termed his approach anachronistic and evangelistic, and some of his administration stances have been attacked as sexist and autocratic.” And I’d have to agree.

Here’s why… in his book, Changing Conceptions of Education in America he wrote, "southern and eastern Europeans have served to dilute tremendously our national stock, and to corrupt our civil life.. . . Everywhere these people tend to settle in groups or settlements, and to set up here their national manners, customs, and observances. Our task is to break up these groups or settlements, to assimilate and amalgamate these people as a part of our American race and to implant in their children. . . the Anglo-Saxon conception of righteousness, law and order, and popular government. . ." Sounds a little racist/ethnocentric to me, as seemed to be the trend of educational “pioneers” of his time.

He saw that there was no “science” behind educational administration and a lack of training so he sought to bring both to the field of education. This seems to echo Prussian education and the progressive want to input “science” (often bogus statistics) into the practice of psychology and education.

As a student he enrolled in a course with professor David Starr Jordan, a prominent eugenicist. Cubberley was so in awe of Starr’s evolution course that he later made it a mandatory course for education students at Stanford.

In 1896, Cubberley was Superintendent of San Diego schools, where he implemented his belief that administration (that being Cubberley) should have autonomy over the school board, and that administration should not be decided by the boar but rather by administration (himself).

In 1899 he was appointed a professorship at Stanford as well as the position of the Head of the Education department. Starr gifted Cubberley a permanent position as long as he could make education respectable, or else it be abolished, of which he must have been successful because in 1917, after many years teaching, he was granted the position of the very first Dean of a new school within Stanford, the school of education.

Between 1899 and 1917, Cubberley took leave of Stanford to attend Teachers College, Columbia University to obtain an MA and PhD in school administration. While at Columbia, he found great interest in the educational tide of the time, that being the “science” behind education. In 1909 he wrote an essay, Changing Conceptions of Education in which it states many things which I will post in my next, quite lengthy, post, along with my editorial rebuttal.

Cubberley sought to shape schools in the “Teutonic” style, believing (as you will read in my next post) in racial superiority of Northern Europeans over other Europeans.

(A quick side note, Cubberley was editor of Houghton Mifflin's Riverside Textbooks in Education. (If you’ve read some of my posts I do have a bias against Houghton Mifflin, I admit to it. So having a racist man, who believed in social engineering, edit textbooks does not surprise me.) Riverside Publishing is all gugn-ho about common core standards, and the ARRA. Oh and Houghton Mifflin/Riverside was publisher of the first Stanford-Binet tests by who other than Lewis Terman, and has published any other standardized tests. Their president, Richard Swartz, was president of ETS, the company publishing most standardized exams. )
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/cubberley-ellwood-patterson#ixzz1Gbu9Dqqq

And read my next post about Changing Conceptions of Education in America