The Background

I was selected to testify at an Illinois State House hearing on the Basic Skills test on December 14. The Basic Skills test is a test that all potential teachers must take if they want to be certified in the state of Illinois.   Here is some basic information, the cut score on the sub-sections of the Illinois Test of Basic Skills was raised in September of 2010 to require teacher preparation candidates to score 240 or above (out of 300 possible) in all four sub-sections in order to pass.

The Data

As soon as the new cut score was put in place, passing rates dropped from over 80% to around 30%.

In a March 2011 publication, the Coalition for Effective Teaching posted the following data:

The results of the February 2011 administration of the Basic Skills Test have come in.  Nearly 2000 people took the test and less than 600 passed! The low pass rates are even more striking when you look at the racial and ethnic breakdown:

Out of 1,484 White students, only 490 passed all four subtests.

Out of 234 African-American students, only 25 passed.

Out of 212 Hispanic students, only 28 passed.

Out of 66 Asian students, only 16 passed.

My Voice

Analyzing this data, it is clear that the bar is definitely higher to become a teacher in Illinois and the data shows that minorities are passing the test at an abysmal rate on their first attempts.  Here is the conundrum that I faced with analyzing this data and with writing a post about my experience.  As an African-American woman, I would love to see more professionals of color in the profession.  I teach in Chicago Public Schools where the majority of our students are the minority.  I know that for many years there have been talks of reforms to be considered as it relates to standardized testing to remove cultural biases to make assessments equal across all cultural lines.  I know that passing a standardized test does not take into consideration pedagogical knowledge and cannot fully equate to the success of a teacher.  However, I also know that in the state of our education across this nation, we cannot afford to lower the academic rigor required to be a teacher.  It is an oxymoron to require so much from the student but not so much from the teacher.  Does that make sense?  Should test change based on race or ethnicity?  When I was asked to testify about this issue, I really wasn’t prepared for the all out race war that I entered on speaking up for keeping the standards high.

As a mother of a Chicago Public School student, I expect the best teacher, regardless of race, that our district can provide.  I want her to have someone who stands in front of her everyday who is knowledgeable about the content he or she is teaching and is able to answer my daughter’s questions with proficiency and accuracy.  Don’t get me wrong, I will never lie and say that I have known all the answers to every question my students have posed, but I can say that what I didn’t know, I let them know and found the answers for them.  I say that to say that I am not so naïve to think that all teachers must be a walking encyclopedia but we as teachers need to strive to be continuous learners and stay abreast on all aspects of our profession and not being able to grasp basic content knowledge is unacceptable to me.

I was prepared with my speech about keeping the bar high and on the advent of Common Core State Standards being implemented; it is more evident that our students are being challenged to know so much more.   As I finished my testimony, I felt secure with my speech and how I articulated my points.  It was after my speech that the knot began churning in my stomach when state representatives called people who had testified to come back to the microphone and answer questions about remediation plans for candidates.  State representatives declared the test as a case of the haves and have not’s and one representative mentioned how this test was used to keep minorities out of the profession as a means of modern day racism.  I remember one Latino representative who stated that he didn’t believe in lowering the bar because he didn’t feel that just because he was Latino; it should be viewed that he cannot pass the test therefore lower the bar.  I shared his sentiment and wondered why more minorities did not feel this way.  Although the pass rate was higher in the pass, I wonder if the low pass rates now highlight the true value of a teacher.  As pompous as it may sound, I will go on record saying that some people need a wakeup call to see that teaching is not as easy as people think and just maybe this new test will help to professionalize the profession and show the world that not just anyone can join our profession!  We hear how other countries take the best of the best, why shouldn’t we?  When I look at it, my first lens focuses on recruiting talent, but race and politics seems to run the same gait as talent for many other individuals.  I then step away again and think of my 6 year old daughter and what I want for her and talent is the answer wrapped in whatever color of the rainbow that God made her teacher.

I left the testimony more disheartened than ever when I passed an African-American representative on my way out during a break when she said, “Don’t forget where you came from and don’t let them use you.”  As if I needed her to remind me of who I was or where I come from.  I have lived in this skin and with my experiences in this skin for 32 years but my race is not the only thing that makes me who I am. The words from the state representative continue to echo in my ear a month later and have caused me to discuss this issue in depth with other African-American educators and parents.  Most everyone says this is a touchy issue but that’s the problem…no one wants to touch it and in the process, our education system is still not up to par.  I felt like the representative was questioning my allegiance to my race as opposed to separating race from the issue at hand.  I love who I am and what I stand for as an African American, as a teacher and a mother.  Looking at the data, I know things need to change; there is a part of me that believes that people who really want to teach will rise to meet the standard regardless of race.  As I told the representative after her comment, I want the best for my daughter, how can anyone in good conscience say that the bar needs to be lower?

Later this morning, President Obama is expected to make a public push for reauthorization of ESEA in 2011 at Kenmore Middle School in Virginia. Hope Street Group Education Director Alice Johnson Cain and Community Leaders Doug Clark, Lisa Mills, Darcy Moody, Sam Roe and Dina Rock are there.

The White House will be streaming live video of the event. You can also read about expected talking points on Education Week's Politics K-12 blog.

This article from the New York Times (thanks to Tyler Nottberg for the link) is a reminder of why early childhood education can help *parents* with their economic engagement and levels of activity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/economy/24childcare.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Teacher Effectiveness continues to be at the heart of efforts to address the nation's achievement gaps. In DC, the Congress is gearing up to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (also known as NCLB). You can read the administration's blueprint for the law here. Also, CAP's Robin Chait has released a memo discussing ways the appropriations process could impact the teacher effectiveness landscape even if ESEA doesn't get reauthorized this year.

One of the most watched local collective bargaining processes is approaching its conclusion. DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Washington Teachers Union President George Parker have released a tentative contract agreement. The new contract retains teacher tenure and includes a performance pay program funded by private foundations. You can read more about the new contract here.

Tennessee and Delaware, first round winners of Race to the Top funding, promise to be important places to watch with regard to teacher effectiveness. Both have pledged to make significant changes to state teacher evaluation systems. You can read analysis about the other applicants and the process for the second round from The New Teacher Project.

Late last year, (I’m a little behind on articles to read) the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ran an article about teacher preparation and parent engagement. It points out that many education schools do not include coursework on how to interact effectively with parents and families as part of their regular certification program. Studies – and plenty of practitioners – suggest that parent engagement is a key part of improving student achievement, especially for students from economically disadvantaged families. So why hasn’t this become a priority.

On a personal note, I would’ve liked to have training on how to effectively interact and engage parents, especially as a first year teacher in a high poverty school. There were no courses covering this topic for my degree; there was no professional development offered once I started teaching either. Knowing how to reach out to parents actively is not always natural. Sure class newsletters and notes in students’ planners are a good start, but what do you do when you there is no response?

Teachers need training in best practice techniques to reach out to parents and other family members. Unfortunately, for some teachers the natural response is to write off these parents as not really caring about their child’s education, which of course is rarely true. Many parents had negative schooling experiences themselves. Just as teachers don’t know how to reach out effectively them, they (the parents) don’t know how to connect with the teachers.

In Sunday's New York Times, Benedict Carey turns in an especially rosey take on cognitive science and education.

Do I think early grades need better, more algebraic math? YES. Without question. Do I buy the idea that cognitive science is going to suddenly and dramatically improve the curriculum?

Well...

The trouble is that too often limited studies become the basis of gadgets and curricula and dreaded "programs" that have their own sales force. This means what teachers end up being asked to do in the classroom in the name of brain science may not be validated by what actually happened in the lab.

Sophisticated imaging and experiment structures may be new, but I have a feeling this sentence, "the teaching of basic academic skills, until now largely the realm of tradition and guesswork, is giving way to approaches based on cognitive science," could have been written 50 or 75 years ago. Maybe we'll get lucky and Diane Ravitch will tell us. And there are some serious skeletons in the cognitive science closet when it comes to determining what some kids can or can't do. Cheers to the brain science community for landing this on the front page, but color me skeptical.

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One of our most important recommendations for improving teacher evaluation systems is that they be designed to provide meaningful feedback that can be used to streamline and target professional development. We can all agree that scattershot professional development is a waste of time and money. But as districts spend federal money to revamp and improve supports for teachers, how will they be accountable and prove that professional development is working?

The bottom line here, of course, is student achievement. But it could be difficult to untangle the impact of new professional development from other reforms, especially if that change is system-wide. Instead, it seems likely that districts would look for improvements in teachers - both in their self assessment and their evaluations.

That's a problem, because our current evaluation systems have a distribution that's skewed heavily towards the higher ratings categories. In order to differentiate excellent teachers from good teachers from not-so-good teachers, we need to shift the ratings curve so that teachers are distributed among different ratings categories - down the ratings scale, not up. If we ask districts to make this difficult correction at the same time they need ratings to go up to prove new professional development is working, are we setting ourselves up to fail?

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