The Data Driven Aughts

by Tara Seale

I titled this post the Data Driven Aughts, first because educators and students alike have been driven by data accumulated from the NCLB assessments, and second because I wanted to use an Urban Dictionary word because I am hip like that. Aughts refers to the decade between 2000-2010. Even though teachers frequently complain about standardized testing, and I am a proponent that believes much of what we are testing and how we are administering the tests (Please - a paper and pencil?) isn't relevant in the 21st Century, I still pour over the data produced from the NCLB assessments. Maybe it is my competitive nature because I want to know that what I am doing in the classroom is really making a difference, maybe it is because I haven't seen a way to use data to indicate growth through project based learning portfolios, but I currently depend on standardized testing to determine if my student has moved, hopefully in an upwards direction, or unfortunately, maybe he or she has not moved at all.

In a recent blog post by Lisa Nielsen at the Innovative Educator titled 21st Century Educators don't say, "Hand it in." They say, "Publish it!" Lisa spells out why standardized tests are not reliable indicators of what students are capable of achieving. She advocates publishing student work for an authentic audience, and she also provides six ways for an educator to move from a classroom that hands it in to a classroom that publishes it. I highly recommend reading this post, and I completely agree that this is the best environment for students, but I also believe that standardized testing is not going away in this next decade either.

Data is even becoming more flashy. I recently checked out data on the NAEP website to discover that they were using the Google's data in motion gadget as a visual graphic to demonstrate how 4th grade and 8th grade math scores have changed between the years 2003 to 2009. As a literacy teacher, I quickly noticed that only the math scores are using the cool visual motion graphics, and most of the scores move in an upwardly direction. I wonder what direction the literacy scores move?

This is my real worry. There are many articles out there suggesting that students growing up in this Googlized Century cannot maintain focus long enough to read a full length novel or write a lengthy prose, I don't necessarily believe that (read my response to one of these article at Sharing the Solitary Self for a Greater Mind), but I do have some concerns that arose when I read an article about the NAEP data from Detroit.

Ryan Beene wrote an article at Crain's Detroits Business titled Detroit's public schools post worse scores on record in national assessment. At the fourth grade level, only 3 percent tested at the proficient level and at the 8th grade level, 4 percent tested at the proficient level. This is alarming. Even if we should be moving towards project based learning and a publish it instead of turn it in classroom, when less than 5 percent score proficient on a basic skills test (even though they did use a pencil in a texting world), this is alarming. Do I think the scores would have been different if students created a portfolio and took a digital assessment, probably, but there is still obviously some serious issues and deficiencies in this urban area. When I went to the NAEP website to see how the rest of urban America performed on this test, it was better than Detroit, but scores were still very low. The highest 8th grade reading score was
in Charlotte with 29 percent of students scoring proficient.
The blog comments at the bottom of the post in the Ryan Beene article list a variety of reasons why the Detroit scores were so low: lack of parenting, politics, economics, inadequate teaching, inadequate classroom equipment, etc... but what emerged for me as I read the comments is that there are numerous problems without a clear plan to fix it.

If nothing else, the data driven aughts have shown us that something needs to change, but I also see change. The NAEP will have a digital component in literacy by 2011, and we are moving in the direction of adding 21st Century equipment in all schools. I am not sure if this will all be enough, but I hope when I click back onto the NAEP website in 2020, I will be able to see the literacy scores set to motion, but of course, there will be another gadget by then, something even more visually dynamic, something not even invented yet, something that one of our students will create.

GRRRRRading

So, I've tried to stay away from toxic subjects, but grading is one that is a hotly contested topic currently in my district. So...here it goes.

A few weeks ago, our district sent around a flyer about a grading study group that they were putting together to investigate new ways to grade. One of these new ways involves a no zero policy allowing for the lowest grade assignable to be a 50. In the words of Hamlet, "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"

I get perhaps shielding maybe some students occasionally from getting a zero, but to never assign them? I am supposed to give a student who turned in nothing for the quarter a 50? Something seems wrong here.

Now, I am aware of all the blah-blah arguments about grades, but here is a brief list of reasons why this policy is a bad idea:

1. Grades are a measure of student progress. A student who does not understand 50 percent of the material should not be misled into believing that he or she does.

2. NOT because it will inflate grades. There is a great article which I cannot find at the moment (of course) called "The Drama without a Villain." The whole article is dedicated to the myth of grade inflation. It begins with the Committee of Ten, those guys who created Carnegie Units, complaining about, you got it, too many "A"s being awarded. Not going to go deeply into it here, maybe in another post in February, but according to this fine article (which I swear I will find and then post the bibliographic information for at a later date) grade inflation is about as real as Nessie and the Creature from the Blue Lagoon.

3. I've seen too many students in AP English courses who can't write. I am not being over-the-top here. Let me give you an example: "incase" as a word throughout an entire essay. Once would have been a typo; twice, tragic. No less than twelve times did this student, who is actually on of the best I have, write this as one word.

4. I don't spend my precious time tackling mound after mound of papers so that I can give a student who completely ignored the assignment a 50. If I ask for a paper on Jude the Obscure and I get an essay on the merits of certain waterfowl, I should be able to give that student an appropriate grade.

5. Where is the justice in assigning a plagiarized paper a 50?

These reasons and many more have me stewing about this attempt to rewrite policy.

An aside on the policy piece. In Virginia, the COMMONWEALTH where I teach (all caps on purpose), there are only local Boards of Supervisors who control the purse strings. School boards are dependent upon these local boards for their budgets, etc. School boards are not allowed to generate a private revenue stream. Thus, much like the federal government, our Boards of Supervisors have a little bit of control over what is done in the schools. Just thought I would mention that for those from most of the other states who have independent school boards.

So, this attempt to rewrite policy is being driven by assistant superintendents of curriculum, etc. who wish to get a gold star on their resumes, School Board members who have children in the system, and Board of Supervisors members who have school children in the system. There is a trifecta if I ever saw one.

So, I began thinking about what the implication would be for students in the English classroom. Potentially, students could pass English classes while avoiding an entire section of the course. Don't like the essay writing? Skip it and do everything else. Don't like to read? Skip it and write the essays. With the lowest grade being a 50 and the highest F being a 59, there are only 10 percentage points that need to be attained before students get a passing 60.

What do you think?

Can this grading system be used for anything other than turning out a bunch of students who can't read, write, or think?

Has this system been implemented in your district? If so, how is it working out?

Is it a good idea to destroy our own competitiveness as the forces of globalization once again demand that we compete for ideas, resources, and power?

Is it destructive to students to lie to them about where they really fall?

Should Students Fail for "a Little" Plagiarism?

I don’t have a problem enforcing grades in general. Where I struggle is when students complete the most grade-significant assignment, such as the research essay, and then I find plagiarism, copy/paste plagiarism that their Turnitin.com report has found for them. All they needed to do was fix their essay before giving it to me, but many students cry fatigue, or confusion, or time crunch. They don’t dispute the plagiarism; they dispute that plagiarizing in the research essay means they fail the assignment.

Do I fail these students? So many students don’t even turn in the research essay that it feels like a waste to fail the ones who plagiarize, too. “At least I did it!” they tell me. “I’ll fix it!” Grabbing the nearest pen, they slap on quotation marks and some parentheses as I wonder how they know which resource to place within the two half moons. Does accuracy matter to them? I get the sense that they think my insistence that their work be 100% documented is as esoteric and arbitrary as if I required Roman numerals or Latin inscriptions. It feels like absurd bourgeois academic bologna to them. “I only missed a few sources,” they’ll explain. “I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. Look!” they say as they show me the freshly inked page, “All better!”

I’ve spent weeks trying to explain it is a big deal. I have mini-lessons, group work, book passages, and online interactive activities to help them understand the nuances of academic integrity and documentation. We discuss how they have joined the world of academia and must attentively use the words and ideas of others. We even have that snazzy software, Turnitin.com, which highlights the matches found on the Internet for them. All they need to do is check to ensure that those matches are, indeed, documented. Many students tell me candidly, “Oh, I didn’t check my report. I felt good about my essay. I didn’t know about that one part. How ‘bout I fix it for you?” The idea that I wanted them to find the plagiarism, that I’m trying to teach a man to fish here, falls flat. The cold clutch in my stomach predicts that honest documentation is the new spelling: 100% accuracy is an unrealistic goal that no rubric will require.

We are at odds, these students and I. My department and I think that plagiarizing on the research essay means a failing grade, and my students think plagiarizing means losing points. For the past two days, students have argued with me over this issue. No one argues that he or she didn’t plagiarize. My students argue that their lives are too difficult for the kind of attention I required. I’ve been told terrible stories about divorce battles, cancer treatments, and financial woe. Students have begged. They’ve cried. I’ve cried. I feel a little crazy—maybe plagiarizing isn’t such a big deal when it’s not the whole essay? Am I suppressing these students? Isn’t the fact that they tried enough? Must their work meet a standard of honesty, too? (I haven’t really read them yet, so there’s yet to be a question of quality…)

The process sickens me. I lose my perspective (and my desire to teach). Why do they turn this on me? This expectation has been made clear in the syllabus, the directions, my lessons. Why am I such a draconian person for expecting their work to be properly documented when that’s what I have been teaching them how to do and what 75% of their classmates have done? I’ve been teaching thirteen years, and I cry about this almost every semester. Reading the newspaper or watching the news, I’ll see reports about “lowered standards in our public schools,” and I’ll think, “I can’t be a part of that. Reduction of expectations in the public school is akin to systematic oppression of the poor.” Yet when I’m in the middle of this grading plight, when they beg me and explain their lives are too difficult to write with attention and integrity, to please, please, please not fail them, that they’ve never written such a big assignment before and that failing it would crush their spirits, I’m so unsure that my expectations have merit. The world feels topsy-turvy, and my nerves vibrate in my hands and neck as I worry what the right priority should be…

This semester, I’ve decided those students can write another research essay on another topic with completely new sources. I’m letting it be due after the winter holiday, which means I probably won’t be teaching them when it comes due, that I’ll have to do grade change forms in the midst of starting a new term. If they plagiarize again, even “just a little,” they get the “F.” If they do a good job meeting the requirements, including the shocking standard of academic integrity, then they earn no more than a 70 on the assignment. The tears have been wiped away. My concession is satisfactory. Am I a chump or a compassionate educator?

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Educator