Obama and Testing / Portfolios /...Something!

[Ed Jones]

This late column by Fordham's Mike Petrelli examines some of the Obama campaign staff's embracing of portfolios as a method of measuring childrens' progress.
No campaign education advisor left behind

While I agree that students should be measured in many different ways; it also seems that schools' and parents expectations from children vary so much that making the ruler even more complex is not likely to lead to any consensus.

Besides, a kid can read or he can't and a kid can do fractions or she can't; and that's all I want my national government to ensure.

[Ed Jones]

Connie, when I walk in to a deli and order "a third pound of lunchmeat", and the clerk is confused because the scale reads in decimal,...that person did not learn fractions. Nor are they prepared to be a "lifetime learner".

How we measure the learnedness of Harvard faculty who cannot grasp this idea,...I do not claim to know.

[Ed Jones]

Connie, what a wonderful way of expressing what we'd like to be able to do, how in a perfect world (which your school may be) we are able to work with kids at their own pace and still see that in the end they get all the things they need to be good citizens and productive, self-sustaining workers and family members.

In such a world we'd have no need of federal intervention in education, the US govt could stick to what the Constitution spells out.

How do we get to this point? How do we get to where the great teachers and the mediocre teachers are all working together in synergy, where teams --not just of 3 or 5 teachers in one building, but networks of teachers each at their best talent.

A nation of schools where teachers are locked in by hundreds of pages of contract rules and regulations; where the state educational associations spend millions upon millions to oppose experimentation; where educational writers just give up and blame the health care system;..this is a nation that needs to break the mold and create a new, innovating cadre of ed professionals.

Connie, I don't believe that the President should have one single thing to say about your kids. Rather, it is your (our) job to raise up citizens worthy of being President.

On the other hand, the kids of DC public schools and New Orleans Recovery District, and Chicago public schools have appealed to us as a nation to deal with a real civil rights problem; a perennial inequity enforced by union bosses and other lovers of the status quo.

[Connie Weber]

Sorry, there's more yet:

What do you mean a kid either can or can't read, or can or can't do fractions? Not so. We're always learning to read--better. And fractions are so specific by context. Do you mean solving a particular arithmetic problem on paper? Or understanding when and how fractions can be used? Can you "do fractions"? How do you know?

This footnote is not about the "right 10 minutes" by the way (referring to what I wrote earlier) but rather, about a lifetime of learning. Making continual progress. Being motivated to learn.

Can that be measured? It must be possible--but how?

[Connie Weber]

Ok, from the gut, without even looking at your reference. (Although I will, after this post.)

It's good if Obama's moving towards portfolio assessment--and multiple forms of assessment beyond the standardized test.

From the trenches (which is exactly the wrong metaphor, but conveys some of the urgency of being a teacher) I'd say that teachers come to realize that

it's all about getting your timing correct

for learning of skills.

I mean, I could choose to work on long division the whole year, (or for a LOT of class time)--building up all the subcomponents, explaining the why's, showing a variety of methods, telling what it's about, showing the steps...

or I could teach it for the right 10 minutes
and we'll be golden.

Can I get it right? That's what mindful teaching is all about. What defines the right ten minutes? Well, the student is ready, and wants to learn it.

And to hit it right, you have to know, personally know, each of your students.

The right 10 minutes is probably different for each learner.

Ok, it may be more or less than 10 minutes, that's not the point, the point is that setting an arbitrary developmental time for a "benchmark" progress--

that's not what it's about.

Think of parenting. Do kids learn how to brush their teeth exactly by a certain age? Or learn toilet-training, tying shoes, remembering to bring their lunch boxes home? No--it's all different.

So I think about people trying to find out who are the good teachers and support them , and also trying to figue out who are the people who really shouldn't be working with young people because they're not promoting real learning

and I think

move away from standardized tests

(As Gardner says, pluralize and individualize the curriculum--and the forms of assessment.)

move towards supporting teachers who are knowing, really knowing their students individually

and teachers who have multiple forms of assessment going all the time.

Support and reward teachers who are emphasizing self-evaluation with students. Support teachers who are helping students with their own goal-setting, as soon as developmentally possible by skill-sets: "How much do you feel you are speaking out in class?" "How involved do you feel in your writing, and what do you think about it?" "What do you feel is most important for you to learn next?"

It takes time and personal involvement to get to the big picture of learning. Please don't define it by rigid little knowledge-bits. ("Student can do 5-digit by 2 digit division by grade 4, second month.)



Away from gut-level teacher stuff to politics:
Obama had it right to go with rewarding teachers who are doing great work, but had the instrument of measurement wrong. Didn't McCain also want some form of pay-for-performance? I don't know--there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between the two platforms on education; education is not a focus. Ah well, it's only the future for us all, and why bother when there's an economic (and environmental) crisis at hand?

Hmmm.

[Ed Jones]

Hey, Laura, Yes, and as we've earlier discussed, its not clear how writing ended up on standardized tests.

There's a follow up to this on the podcast from Fordham, where they discuss just a bit about Europe. England's tests are said to be richer. But then, take a look at the BBC and other school sites in re history, and its easy to see that our UK friends take a rich knowledge of history seriously. If you're learning that kind of stuff, its a lot easier to come up with some kind of standard assessment.

Perhaps a President,--or at least an ed secretary-- could be a voice for using portfolios in come kind of regular way within and between schools to help make sure individual kids don't fall through the cracks, or to assess teachers? It doesn't seem the right way to ensure that James Madison Middle School has 8th graders who can read to grade level, but it does seem like a good tool in the professional teachers' team toolbox.

[Laura Gibbs]

My impression is that portfolios are best used for demonstrating skills BEYOND reading knowledge (which you can test with reading comprehension questions) and beyond fractions (which you can test with computational questions) - portfolios are a great way to measure writing achievement, for example. The blog post you linked to points out that portfolios are expensive and subjective - that is the case with ANY writing assessment, though, and portfolios have many collateral benefits, too, in addition to their use as an assessment tool.