P.S. 8 Wins Blackboard Award

May I just say something? PS 8 received an F grade by the Department of Education this year. Many whom I have spoken with in Brooklyn Heights have tried to convince me that the F stands for Fine. I don’t believe them. An F is an F. Sure the world is unfair and tests are imperfect. But an F? Hello?

Nancy: You’ve fallen for the American obsession with quantification and scorekeeping.

These tests are only meaningful on the macro scale (i.e. to analyze citywide trends over a period of years). On the micro scale, such as 3 or 4 classrooms of PS8 students, comparing results from 3rd grade to 4th, the results are meaningless. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but to change PS8’s F to an A, each student in 4th grade would have needed to get approximately an extra 1/4 of one question correct. Or they shouldn’t have performed as well last year in 3rd grade. And when you look at the test itself you can see how absurd it is that the results hang on such a small margin of correct answers. Have you seen these tests? I’d say about 20% of the questions are flawed. Two examples from my son’s practice test this week. There was a little story to read with various evens happening, say event A event B and event C. The question was, what happened before C? Amongst the choices were both A and B. Both answers were correct! An unlucky student will choose the correct answer A and be marked wrong, because B happened JUST before C. But that word “just” wasn’t included in the question! Example 2: a writer describes vividly and in great detail an extraordinary trip, concluding that “words cannot describe” the event. The question: did the author find this experience hard to describe? The “correct” answer was “yes” because he said so. My son, however chose “no” and I heartily agreed with him. Although the author claimed that words couldn’t describe the trip, he’d just done a very good job at it. Yes, he used a cliché, but when you look at the whole text, and not the single line, it’s obvious he didn’t find it hard to describe.
This is why I despise these test. I believe they actually harm education. Instead of thinking on their own, children are waiting to be offered the answer. Instead of analyzing the text, they are forced to guess what the test writer wants them to say. Those who claim these tests help us later on in life should remember the Katie Courik interview with Palin. She was not given the answers a, b, c or d to choose from, so she was lost. Regardless of Palin’s own abilities or lack thereof, I blame this culture of multiple choice questions which teach kids NOT to think. When confronted with real questions and problems we are never presented with a neat little pile of answers to chose from. How can anybody possibly think these tests are teaching anything of value to our kids? Test prep might improve scores but it hurts learning and it’s a waste of time. As far as I can tell the only purpose is for Bloomberg to have a little piece of paper with numbers on it which he can wave around to get control of the school system.

If Nancy had read my post properly, maybe she would have seen that I was only using the example of PS8 to show the flaws of multiple choice testing. It’s not denial to note that compared to countries around the world the US elementary school system is falling behind. It is fact. The US is the only industrialized country where illiteracy is increasing. The reason I feel so vehemently about this subject (I guess you can use the word “defensive” if you want to be hostile) is that I see it from the outside. I went to a public school in a country where there is no MULTIPLE CHOICE testing. We still had very rigorous exams. Students, teachers and principals were all held accountable. The first multiple choice test I saw was when I sat down to take my SATs. I did very well even though I’d only studied for about 2 hours and I had never been to school in English. Why? I’m not a genius. I just read. All the time. And at school I was taught to think on my own. Test prep improves scores in the short term, but the only way to do any real learning is to read and write. Even the DOE understands this. Their instructions for the Gifted and Talented test very specifically say students should not study for the test. Kids should go over a few sample questions so they are familiar with the format, and that’s it. Problem is, with the stakes so high for the schools, teachers and schools are being forced to work for the short term goal of score improvement at the expense of education.

Yeah, It’s a mistake because it showed that our local school is one of the worst in the city when compared to its peers. Or would you have been happier had it been compared with schools in the very poorest neighborhoods with the highest immigrant population where the parents hardly speak English? Fine, Brooklyn Heights can kick ass when compared to the Barrio. Splendid.

To follow up on Nabeguy’s point – Nancy, please educate yourself on what the “F” represents. Even the DoE calls it a “progress report.” It’s not intended to be an overall qualitative assesment of the school – it’s designed to measure improvement of a group of kids year-to-year against kids in similar schools. We could argue all day whether the test methodology or peer group are accurate/useful, but it’s simply not accurate to say “our local school is one of the worst in the city when compared to its peers.” Even for someone inclined to accept the methodology at face value, the most you could say is “our local school did not improve as much as most of its peers.”