Potential of The Next Generation Science Standards

This article on Education Week examines the potential and promise of the recently released draft of The Next Generation Science Standards.  The author, Arthur H. Camins, is the director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, N.J.  He is optimistic about these standards:

• Advances in the learning sciences embodied in the framework and the NGSS draft leave us optimistic that we have an opportunity to counter the backward-looking pressures generated by increasingly test-focused federal and state policy.
  
• ...the goal is not new parameters for accountability testing, but rather a more compelling values-driven agreement about what knowledge and abilities we want to nurture in young people so that they can make a difference in the world.
  
•  Learning-outcome expectations in current state standards are typically expressed in factual knowledge statements, such as “recognize that ...” Alternatively, for each core idea, the NGSS states: “Students who demonstrate an understanding can ...” and follows with such phrases as “construct explanations of...” “develop models to represent ...” “collect and generate evidence to ...” and “design and evaluate solutions that ...” This clarifies that students should not only know about the natural world, but rather be able to engage in and use the practices of scientists and engineers. We are optimistic that this approach can provide students with intellectual tools to prepare them for careers, citizenship, and personal decision making.
  
• Situating learning in problems that have social and personal meaning for students has the potential to engage students who are all too often disengaged.
  
• I shared in the palpable excitement there among science educators, and I am also encouraged that there is significant overlap with the common-core standards.
  I remain deeply concerned, however, that in schools across the country, teachers and administrators are still viewing these developments through the distorting prism of highly consequential tests. I am worried that these pressures will keep us looking at the station we should have left behind, rather than innovating and imagining what we need to do to make progress in preparing young people to be shapers of a yet-to-be-defined future.
   

I can't help but be optimistic about the standards after his glowing review; however, I take his words with a grain of salt.  Yes.  We should have abandoned high-stakes testing long ago, but it still exists.  How will this culture affect the implementation of such a wonderful idea?  What new assessments will arise from these standards?  What about the money?

My hope is that the goals stated in these standards make it impossible to develop a high-stakes test.  How can we measure a students' ability to create a hypothesis on a bubble test?  We can't.  It is an important skill - the standards say so! - so maybe we should drop the standardized test idea. Are you listening, policy makers?  Powerful people in education?  Drop the standardized test idea for these standards now.  Let's save us all some time and energy (and maybe get a few less grey hairs, too).

Students are not statistics

Students are not statistics

Joy Resmovits reported on a troubling study by the National Counsel for Teacher Quality (NCTQ).  The group analyzed 180 education schools to "see how effectively and coherently they teach prospective teachers the skills associated with using test data to improve student learning".  Only six out of the 180 schools included in the study passed.

While the article alluded to the pervasive culture of standardized testing in schools, it did not question this system of student, teacher, and school assessment.  Why should test data analysis be added to the long list of skills of a successful teacher?  It is a waste of time and resources, especially since most teachers have basic statistical training as part of their certification.  This advanced training focuses on using test data to improve student learning.  Read that again.  Are you kidding me?  A teacher should never have to consider how Billy's reading score in first grade will affect the results of his third grade standardized test. 

The teacher should be focused on helping him choose books with characters that he loves and being more confident reading out loud.  The teacher should be focused on making sure that his unexpected bloody nose doesn't make a mess on Sherita's desk.  The teacher should be so focused on creating a good learning environment that the test scores do not enter her mind.

Teachers only focus on standardized test scores because it affects their income and job security -  not because the scores inform daily teaching practices. Nor are theses tests meant to, ask the test developers.  Somewhere along the line, policy makers decided it was a good idea to make high-stakes decisions based on a single standardized test score.  Instead of realizing the faulty logic and ending the testing culture, they are exaggerating it by requiring teachers to interpret these scores and translate them to student learning.  I say, "Stop this nonsense!"

And it seems like the other 174 schools agree.



Currently chewing on (Food for thought):
Is there nobody in test development speaking out against the testing culture in schools today?

Diane Ravitch: The Death and Life of the Great American School System

Diane Ravitch: The Death and Life of the Great American School System

 Diane Ravitch is an experienced and knowledgeable source of information about the changes in the American school system in the past few decades.  Her alignment with the accountability movement, and her subsequent about-face, marks her opinions as unique within the field of educational policy.

The book does a wonderful job pointing out the perils of NCLB and the current educational goals of this administration, using historical context and citing studies and reforms that are both modern and relevant.  Whether or not she "cherry-picks" to support her arguments is of little consequence.  That these studies and trials exist at all should be enough to cast a shadow of doubt on any reader.

I have a new lens to examine the reform movements after reading this book.  As a psychometrician- and educational psychologist-in-training, I share a lot of her views about high-stakes testing and the dangers of using numbers and formulas to make decisions that affect such a large and heterogeneous group as teachers and students.  But there is a lot that I did not know about the complexities of public education.  I have been made aware of issues with private donations, charter schools, teachers unions, and policy being made by people with little (no!) educational experience or training.

Instead of being a final destination with a wonderful answer that promises to fix what we have started, the book is more like the first 15 seconds of a roller coaster ride - slowly ticking uphill on the track, only to leave you looking down at a precipitous drop.  I am emotional and energetic after reading the book - looking at what has to be a huge change in the American educational system in the next few years.  From my response, I would say that Ms. Ravitch has achieved her goal with this book.

What now?  I am most interested in reading more about our current educational policies, what will happen in 2014, and about charter schools.  What does the near future look like?  More selfishly, what does my future career look like?

Will I be an (unemployed) instigator of teacher and student voice, high standards, and a love of teaching and learning - the reason why I left my hard science background?  Or will I end up working for a testing company, making sure that teachers have a 1% increase on student achievement each year?

The future doesn't look so bright.

High Standards for All

Are national standards needed?  They're not a bad idea.  From a testing and college admissions perspective, it is helpful to have a set of ideas that cross school districts - from California to Massachusetts and everywhere between.  Students can be expected to have access to the same kinds of information in various content areas, and they can be more easily compared.  On an individual level, families need to know that their children's education is comparable to others' across the country.  Even if they move to another school district (hopefully for a job opportunity - but let's not count our chickens), their third grade student should advance to the fourth grade based on the skill and knowledge sets that were acquired at their old school.

Without some form of common standards, a third grade student in Wyoming will be learning things that do not translate into the fourth grade curriculum in Tennessee. Though we have 50 states (and DC) with Constitutional control over their own curriculum, we are one country - one nation, under God, indivisible. Let's make common core standards for every school in the country but let each state, each district, and each teacher decide how best to work these standards into their own classrooms.  Standards and classroom freedom are not mutually exclusive.

What is the problem with standards? 

It's hard to argue against setting high standards for students - in any (all) subject areas.  No parent, teacher, or educational expert would advocate for lowering expectations for children.  So where did the Common Core standards, and other standards movements like this, go wrong?

Currently chewing on (Food for thought):
Is the goal of our education system a homogenous group of young adults with similar content knowledge and skills?  Or do we want differences based on geographic location and income level?