Check Your School's Scores

You can check your school's ELA and Math scores here. It's a loooong document. NYC schools are listed beginning on page 734. They are listed numerically starting with District 1, and organized by school number after that. Happy searching!

Improve your TDR in Three Easy Steps!

I always try to learn something from even the most trying situations. For example, I recently had a root canal, which I generally find to be rather painful. So this time, as the dentist dug in elbow-deep, I tried a meditation technique. I stared intently at a crack in the ceiling while visualizing soothing waves washing over a serene white beach. It still hurt like a bitch, but at least now I know that meditation is of little value when a large man is shoving pointy metallic instruments into your gums. Next time, I bring whiskey.

Today, as I settled into day two of my five day sentence in ELA grading hell, I focused my mind on learning something from the experience. I don't often focus my mind without something breaking loose, and it did today. I discovered three sure fire ways to make sure your kids ace the exam and boost your TDR scores. Here they are:

1. Make sure your class is NOT graded on day one. Break into the scorer's room, if you have to. You see, all scorers are trained for hours, using model answers that no actual child would write. When the real exams come out, teachers scrutinize each answer with great care, picking everything apart with a critical eye. If the answer did NOT appear on one of the training examples, it gets down graded. By day two, scorers no longer care what the answers are. If they seem vaguely correct, they are awarded points. TRUE FACT: After telling us all day yesterday that a particular answer was unacceptable, the people running the show decided that the answer was acceptable after all. Of course, we could not go back and give credit to all the students who had given the answer yesterday, so only those tests scored today will get the benefit. So, after all your hard work preparing your students with the utmost care, you may end up jobless and homeless, subsisting on nothing but discarded pizza crusts, when your TDR plummets just because it was graded on day one. You've been warned.

2. Next year, make sure that your students know that spelling, grammar, and punctuation do not count on the reading exam--they only count on the writing exam. For example, if the question asks "How did Johnny feel when his sister dropped the anvil on his foot?", a response like "jonee feldded terrybull wen da Anville wuz droppted on hiz fout" gets full credit. This is not a joke.

3. Learn about noise. "Noise" is the new buzzword in ELA scoring. Simply put, it means that scorers should search for the right answer, and if it is anywhere in the response, that makes the entire answer correct, because all the rest is considered "noise". So, using our example of poor Johnny above, if the student answers "Johnny felt good wonderful spiritual proud brave silly selfish foolish ignorant bad", the answer would be correct because the student threw the word "bad" in there, which makes the entire answer correct. All the other choices were noise. What we now call "noise" is what we used to call "wrong". So make sure your students write as many words as possible, as one of them may turn out to be correct.

Imagine if they did this in math. If they asked "What is 2+2?" a student could answer " 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, tuna fish" and be correct because the answer contained a 4.

I hope this helps lessen your test taking anxiety. Next year, when you are teaching test prep and a child in your class stares at a crack in the ceiling, resist the temptation to clock said child across the cranium with a blunt object. Just relax, take a deep breath, and work on those three steps I've told you. Jabbing the child in the gums with something pointy is optional.

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Scoring with Mature Ladies

If you want to score with mature ladies, follow these simple guidelines. Compliments can work wonders. Ask the lady how old she is; when she smilingly obliges, tell her that she looks pretty good for someone her age. No woman can resist such sweet talk. Then say something that makes her feel young, such as, "Hey, I bet you still have a few years to go until retirement!"

Wait. I'm sorry. I thought of the title of this blog post at 10AM and completely forgot what I wanted to write about. I must be getting old myself. What I meant to talk about was scoring the ELA test with mature ladies.

I'm on my annual five day stay in the purgatory of grading ELA exams. Two days this week and three next week. To alleviate some of the mind numbing boredom of training, I started surveying the room. There were a lot of ladies there. That, in and of itself, is unremarkable. Teaching, as a profession, has a high estrogen-to-testosterone level. What was remarkable was the age of the average person in the room.

Now, I confess I did not ask the ages of all the people there, as I wanted to make it home alive, so this is not a scientific study. Still, I would have to say that the age of the average teacher in the room was a bit over forty, and maybe quite a bit over. It wasn't just the women who'd been around the block a few times; I'd be willing to bet that there wasn't a man there who hadn't had a prostate exam in the last year. The only other place you'd ever have seen a group of teachers with that much "experience" was in the now defunct rubber rooms.

Today's teaching force is much younger, on average, than the people in that room. Given the huge turnover in NYC schools, some staffs look more like a sorority than a faculty. It couldn't be mere coincidence that my fellow scorers all had some snow on the roof. So what was the reason?

Could it be that the DOE wanted to have experienced teachers grade these tests? That when push came to shove, they knew that they could rely on senior teachers to get the job done with minimal training and maximum professionalism? I think so.

I hope no one took offense at my juvenile jabs at older folks. It was all in jest. And just for the record, I was not the guy at table nine in the blue shirt, so don't jab me with your knitting needles tomorrow. We have to get through this together.

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Test Scores: Worse than you Think

This week was actually a perfect time to release the new, revised test scores for a number of reasons. School is out, the mayor is back in, the governor is on his way out, and the Unity Crew of the UFT has already agreed to using test scores to evaluate teachers despite the fact that no one knows what the hell they mean, much less how teachers can "add value" to them.

Perhaps more importantly, test scores just could not be pumped up any further. At some point, they had to be readjusted. Now happened to be a good time because of all the above.

Unfortunately, I believe we are wrongly assuming that because the scores have been readjusted, they are now accurate. Nowhere have I seen the formula the state used to draw the cut lines where they did. Nor did the state disclose whether the scores would have gone down even without the change in cut scores. (If anyone knows how to find this information, please let me know.)

If the state willfully dumbed down the tests and changed the cut scores for years and years, as it now appears they did with gusto, what on earth is there to make us think the current scores are truly accurate?

Think of it this way. If the tests last year were easier than ever, resetting the cut scores to where they were four years ago still does not reflect the reality of student reading skills. And one more thing that disturbs me about the current numbers is that no one is discussing what happened on the writing part of the exams.

I scored three different writing tests in three different grades this year. Anyone who was there can verify that teacher-scorers were always told to give students the benefit of the doubt in grading. I first blogged about it here when I described how a single run on sentence could be graded a 3 (the highest score for mechanics). When grading the actual answers we were told to ignore the mechanics completely and give a 4 out of 5 (five being the highest score) to students who simply addressed the question, and a 5 if there was some evidence of "voice". A number of teachers who were deemed to have graded too leniently were publicly called out by the poobahs running the center and were told give higher scores. This was allegedly done in the name of making sure we were all grading students fairly, i.e., that we were all giving them the same inflated grades for the same substandard writing.

So even if we assume that the multiple choice portion of the ELA tests were re-calibrated correctly, which is a rather large assumption, it remains true that the the writing portions of the tests were inflated beyond all reality.

The math teachers I have spoken with told me the same thing happened to them when they were told to give high scores to students on their constructed responses. Teachers were told to give medium to high scores as long as students showed "some evidence" that they understood how to answer the question, regardless of whether they actually got the problem right.

So while it's a good thing that the scores were reset, it's pretty clear to me that they are still too high. And that is a bad thing, because come the 2011 school year we will all be evaluated on our ability to increase those scores.

Test Scores Plummet! (yawn)

So, the state recalibrated the 2010 ELA and math scores to (maybe) where they should have been in the first place, and the scores dropped faster than Octomom's sextuplets. We are basically back to where we were four years ago, erasing all the "gains" that Mayor4Life used to show why NYers needed to give him an unprecedented 3rd term.

The philosophical question of whether something can be erased that never existed in the first place remains a mystery.

The state needed to hire a bunch of Harvard researchers to tell them that the tests and the scoring of those tests have gotten easier over the years. They could have saved a lot of money and time by asking bloggers. I just did a quick search of my own blog, and found quite a few posts about how easy the tests had gotten, like this one, this one, this one, and this one, to name a few. Perhaps I should get a job as a Harvard researcher.

Much ado will be made of this news, but in the end, the whole revelation about test scores will add up to little more than a big yawn. Once the dust settles, Mayor4Life will still be mayor, Klein will still be chancellor, Mulgrew will still be the UFT president, and the Post will still churn out editorials on why teachers are to blame and not the clowns who run the show. You, as a classroom teacher, will still be teaching in an overcrowded classroom, in an overcrowded school, with few supplies and even less respect.

The only real difference for you, dear teacher, is that your job will hinge upon these results come the 2011 school year. Good luck!

Keep on Pushing On

My fellow bloggers and I have been sounding the alarm for years that the NYS math and ELA tests were too damn easy, and have gotten easier every year since Mayor4Life wrested mayoral control from the voters two terms ago. The reason they were getting easier is obvious--it made everyone look good. The problem, of course, is that the "gains" were all phony. The state has almost admitted as much, acknowledging that a score of 3--or proficient--doesn't translate into success on the Regents exams.

So what will the state do? De-emphasize testing and allocate more money to resources to help bring students up to speed? Ditch the unproven curricula used in both math and English for more proven methods? Offer remedial help to those students who scored threes but who teachers clearly identify as struggling?

Surely you jest. All that will happen is that the state is going to make the tests--wait for it---harder.

That's right. If the tests were flawed, we obviously have no choice but to make them harder in the future! That way, students who've been told that they're proficient can now be told that they're barely literate! That's the DOE way.

If you've been pushing for 8 years, as BloomKlein have, on a door that says "Pull", chances are that pushing harder in the same direction will not yield better results. But that's what the state and the city want. Unrelenting testing has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, so they're going to do more of it, and push even harder.

Where will the blame for this disaster fall? Squarely on teachers, naturally. The same data that Mayor4Life took credit for when he was running for (stealing) his third term will now be used to 'prove' that teachers have not been doing their jobs.

It could be worse, of course. Just because the same people who've run the tests for the last 8 years are at it again isn't going to do any harm. I mean, even though the tests will be harder, it's not like these tests are going to be used to evaluate us or anything. Right, Mulgrew?

An Imperfect Three

I am off grading the ELA test for the next three days I am sure glad I came because I have the opportunity to grade the mechanics portion of the test I have learned something new I was told that a paper can still receive a 3 out of 3 points for mechanics as long as there are just a few minor errors another amazing thing I learned is that if a student makes an error over and over again it counts as only one error so say a student makes an unimaginably long run on sentence like this one it should be graded a 3 as long as there are few other errors and the paper is "readable" it's funny because I was always taught that some errors interfere with readability it seems to me that an interminiable sentence really messes up the meaning of an essay but if you use big words like "interminable" or "unimaginably" you still get a 3 because how can a child be expected to get the mechanics right when they are studying big vocabulary words anyway we should consider student ELA essays as if they were first drafts because after all they are first drafts and we shouldn't expect them to be perfect

I, for one, am glad that the state and city have decided to tighten up their standards this year and make the test more difficult of course if you give writing like this the highest score it doesn't really matter what a student writes anyway e e cummings would have loved the NYS ELA exam. Period.

Guessing and Gibberish

Diane Ravitch keeps pounding out the same point about the state tests being dumbed down in order for NY (and other states) to meet the impossible standards of NCLB. Considering that just about everything George Bush did was wrong and stupid, you'd think that NCLB would be revisited. Just sayin'. Anyway, Ravitch thinks that David Steiner, the new state ed. commisioner, will toughen standards. I'm not quite as sanguine. No one wants to be the person in charge when test scores plummet.

As the new school year looms before us, I started thinking of all the crap we have to do to get ready for the quality review and the administration. It reminded me that it will soon be time to do the dreaded DRAs. In case you're not an English teacher (and count yourself lucky if you are not), the DRAs are a means of assessing a student's reading level so they can be placed into those appropriate reading groups that no one actually does (no teacher in their right mind would group all the bottom students together without a suit of armor and ear plugs). Anyway, my point, which I saw somewhere around here a moment ago, is that English teachers one again will have to administer those long, boring assessments to determine reading level.

Here's how the DRAs went for me last year. I administered them to my bottom group in September, and determined that most of them were several years below grade level in reading. When I say several, I mean three or more. I worked hard with them, and a few of them returned the favor by working hard for me. Most repeated the pattern that caused them to be years below grade level in the first place--they did next to nothing. I did the DRAs twice more, with moderate improvement.

Here's the kicker--when the ELA results came back, only TWO of those kids had scored a level 2. The rest of the class were level 3s. That means they were considered to have met state standards in reading and writing proficiency.

I think I'm a pretty good teacher, but I'm not that good. The tests were just plain easy. As it turns out, students can score a level 2 just by guessing on the multiple choice and leaving the written part blank. Like most teachers, I had trained my students never to leave anything blank. They knew to write topic sentences and quote passages of text. As I learned when scoring the ELA, a topic sentence followed by gibberish rated at least a 2 of 5. That's why most of my kids "achieved" threes despite scoring well below level on the DRAs.

In the end, all of this means that the data that Klein and his ilk worship as the holy grail of education is pretty much meaningless. But it's out of my hands, now. Whoever inherits my kids next year will administer the DRA and find that most of the students are still several years behind grade level. That teacher will have a hell of a time convincing those students that they need to work hard. After all, why work hard when guessing and gibberish will earn you a three?

Check your school's scores

You can check the math and ELA scores for your school here. I did it, and was gratified to find that the ELA scores of my current school and grade exceeds my previous school by 67 percentile points. So I'd like to officially thank the sphincter principal and AP who drove me out. I'm in a much better place, with much easier kids to teach, all thanks to their relentless efforts.

My old school's scores tanked since I left. My current school's scores have risen steadily. Apparently, having an unhappy, scared, inexperienced staff isn't the best thing after all. Who'd have thunk it?

No, Not a Pun. It's a Palindrome!

Mayor Mike likes being a question on the Regents exam, so we thought we'd pose a question for him, ELA style:

Consider the following statement:

Changing one word of the current Assembly bill on mayoral control would "resurrect the Soviet Union" and "bring back chaos."

This statement can best be described as:

a. Hyperbole
b. Idiocy
c. Both a and b
d. Euphemism

The correct answer, of course, is c. That slab of idiocy is an example of the hyperbole Mayor Mike used to try to scare people into supporting mayoral control. But at today's press conference, when the mayor was asked to explain his bizarre comment, he said "It's a euphemism." So no perfect 4 on the ELA exam for the mayor. I say we make him attend 37.5 minutes until he gets these kinds of questions right.

In fact, the mayor's statement is about as far from a euphemism as you can get. For the record, a euphemism is the substitution of a mild statement for one that is harsh or troubling. For example, instead of saying mayoral control is dead, you might say that it "sunset". Isn't that nicer?

At least he didn't say it was a pun.

How Low Can You Go?

When the birds begin to sing, it's a sure harbinger of spring. When the leaves cover the ground like an orange blanket, autumn is on its way. And when the DOE gives an ELA test that's so easy that Shemp could get a 4, you know that the mayor is seeking to pad his resume in preparation for a third term.

I've proctored a lot of ELA exams in my day. Usually there's at least an attempt to ask a few tough questions, but not this year. There was basically no need for inferencing whatsoever, as almost every question could be answered by returning to the text. The questions went something like this:

TEXT: Curly was often sad when Moe turned around without looking and clobbered him with a ladder.

QUESTION: How did Curly feel when Moe bonked him with a ladder?
A. Sad
B. With his toes.
C. Scared of heights
D. Pretty

Now, you might think it's a bad thing for tests to be dumbed down to the point where any carbon based life form could pass them. But no. The chatter around my school today focused on how good this would make us all look. With these new teacher report cards, everyone was feeling pretty optimistic about the future.

Me, I guess I'm the glass half-empty guy. The test can't get any easier next year unless they make it a pop-up book. So what happens when all the great grades we'll earn this year evaporate? How will our report cards look then? Are your kids going to make their AYP in 2010?

Of course, many teachers, like some of those I heard gloating about the test, will be long gone by then. Only the veterans know that the DOE will use the inevitable downturn as a way to poke us in the eyeballs, Moe style. Once the mayor gets his third term all bets are off.