U.S. DOE tells PA officials: use same standards to grade charter schools

From Kathy Mattheson at the Associated Press, reposted at the Lehigh Valley Express-Times, Pennsylvania:

Pa. told to re-evaluate charter school test scores
Nov. 22, 2012, 2:03 p.m. EST
AP

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Federal education officials have denied Pennsylvania's request to evaluate charter school achievement using more lenient criteria, saying they must be assessed by the same standard as traditional schools.

The rejection means Pennsylvania cannot substitute a less stringent method for measuring "adequate yearly progress," the federal benchmark known as AYP. Critics said the formula artificially inflated charter schools' performance for political reasons.

"I cannot approve this ... because it's not aligned with the statute and regulations," U.S. Assistant Education Secretary Deborah Delisle wrote in a letter released by the state Wednesday.

The issue surfaced in September when Pennsylvania's latest standardized test scores were reported. For the first time — and without approval from federal officials — state Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis treated charter schools as districts, not individual schools.

Schools must hit certain targets at every tested grade level to make AYP. But for a district to meet the benchmark, it needs only to hit targets in one of three grade spans: grades 3-5, 4-6 or 9-12.

Under Pennsylvania law, every charter school is considered its own district. So by using the grade span methodology, about 59 percent of charters made AYP — a figure that supporters touted, comparing it with the 50 percent of traditional schools that hit the target.

Yet only 37 percent of charters would have made AYP under the individual school method. Delisle ordered Pennsylvania to re-evaluate charter schools' AYP status using that standard by the end of the fall semester.

She noted that Pennsylvania can assess charters under the district method but only in addition to the school method.

The state will now assess charters under both standards, according to a Wednesday statement from Pennsylvania Education Department spokesman Tim Eller.

Previously, Eller had argued that the grade span calculation leveled the playing field for charters, which are publicly funded but operate independently of school districts.

And while acknowledging that standard can mask academic problems, Eller has said school districts have taken advantage of the methodology for years. The grade span calculation enabled 61 percent of districts to make AYP in 2011-12, while only 22 percent would have made AYP without it, Eller said.

Opponents say parents are much more interested in the performance of individual schools than districts as a whole.

AYP is a key component of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Schools that fail to make AYP receive additional oversight and, eventually, could end up with new staffs or be shut down.

Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson.

Other reports have these added comments (Sara Satullo at the Lehigh Valley "Express-Times"):

The U.S. Department of Education refuses to sign off on Pennsylvania's unauthorized change to the way it calculates whether charter schools made state testing benchmarks.

and:

Critics of the switch Pennsylvania attempted say that it makes it easier for charter schools to make adequate yearly progress but proponents say as charter schools have grown it makes more sense to treat them like school districts.

For an individual school to make adequate yearly progress , the overall student body must score proficient or above on math and reading tests. And in schools with certain demographics of 40 or more students if one group misses one target the entire school doesn’t make adequate yearly progress. And until this year charter schools were measured the same way.

The federal Department of Education cannot approve Pennsylvania's request to treat brick-and-mortar and cyber charter schools only as "local education agencies" for adequate yearly progress purposes because "Adequate yearly progress determinations would be made for each charter school as an LEA but not as a school," according to a letter provided by the state.

"Moving forward, the department will calculate adequate yearly progress for each school building in every school district and charter school, as well as for each local education agency – traditional public school district and charter school," Eller said.

The federal government is requiring Pennsylvania go back and calculate school-level adequate yearly progress results for charter schools for 2011-12 PSSA data by the end of the first semester of the 2012-13 school year. Any schools identified with problems must implement improvement plans by the start of the second semester of the 2012-13 school year.

Follow @sarasatullo

Pearson's Pineapple Socked Your Kid; Tentacles into Teacher Evaluation

(Scroll to bottom for links to parents' groups against the tests.)
Media roundup on Pearson PLC [wikipedia article link], (Pearson's "Investors" page showing double digits assets growth since 2007 --a global economic slowdown, but a boom in government spending on tests and texts to support test-driven curricula), target of 400 protesting parents this week in mid-town Manhattan: (Here's Lindsey Christ's NY1 story with video yesterday "Schools Boycott Latest Round Of Standardized Testing" on high-stakes and protests over the test mania.)
Pearson mis-used children's author Daniel Pinkwater's story about a talking pineapple in standardized tests in April and it baffled many kids. Only a wide-spread public outcry got the question dumped from counting on students' test results.
When the New York Times is outraged ("When Pineapple Races Hare, Students Lose, Critics of Standardized Tests Say") people listen. Parents Across America noted Leonie Haimson's role in exposing this fiasco. She blogged on a Thursday, by the next day, April 20, 2012, the story snowballed and the New York State Education Department (NYSED) Commissioner had to pull the question. (But what about other baffling, illogical questions? Don't get me started on another standardized test in New York City that same week stumping students by using the phrase "giddy-up". Hello? This is 2012, not the 50s or 60s or 70s. Western --cowboys and "Indians"-- culture references went out decades ago.)

Washington Post columnist Valerie Strauss May 7, 2012 reprinting Diane Ravitch on Pearson's expanding reach:
The closing clincher:

Many years ago, I interviewed a famous [professor] at MIT about the role of standardized tests in education. He said something I never forgot. He said, “Let me write a nation’s tests, and I care not who writes its songs or laws.”

Are we prepared to hand over our children, our teachers, and our definition of knowledge to Pearson?

Ravitch's endorsement of parents' June 7, 2012 rally against Pearson:
"Parents Vs. Goliath":
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-pearsons-expanding-role-in-education/2012/05/07/gIQApr4H8T_blog.html

Ravitch, June 7, 2012, on "Pearsonizing Our Children":
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/06/07/pearsonization/

Valerie Strauss, June 9, 2010, on Montgomery County [Maryland] Public Schools' selling out to Pearson:
"MCPS selling its reputation to Pearson"
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/montgomery-county-public-schoo/mcps-makes-a-bad-deal-with-pea.html
* * *
PEARSON'S REACH INTO TEACHER EVALUATION AND LICENSING:
From Strauss' May 7, 2012 column: Barack Obama / Arne Duncan's U.S. Department of Education, Pearson and testing:

With the U.S. Department of Education now pressing schools to test children in second grade, first grade, kindergarten — and possibly earlier — and with the same agency ["Ed Dept seeks to bring test-based assessment to teacher prep programs," Strauss at Post, April 23, 2012] demanding that schools of education be evaluated by the test scores of the students of their graduates (whew!), the picture grows clear. Pearson will control every aspect of our education system. [Link is to Michael Winerip's May 6, 2012 NY Times column, "Move to Outsource Teacher Licensing Process Draws Protest."]
Now we learn from Michael Winerip in the New York Times that Pearson has made a deal with Stanford University to license teachers, no matter what state they are in.
The deal is this: the school of education is supposed to send Pearson two 10-minute videos of the prospective teacher, plus the response to a written examination. Someone in the Pearson shop–possibly a retired teacher–will evaluate the prospect and decide after a brief review, whether they should get a license to teach.

From Winerip's above linked May 6, 2012 article:

Sixty-seven of the 68 students studying to be teachers at the middle and high school levels at the Amherst campus are protesting a new national licensure procedure being developed by Stanford University with the education company Pearson.
The UMass students say that their professors and the classroom teachers who observe them for six months in real school settings can do a better job judging their skills than a corporation that has never seen them.
They have refused to send Pearson two 10-minute videos of themselves teaching, as well as a 40-page take-home test, requirements of an assessment that will soon be necessary for licensure in several states.

From Madfloridian's Journal, May 2012:
Testmaker company Pearson makes deal with Stanford University to license teachers long distance.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/8398

Pearson's press release touting their teacher evaluation contract with New York State:
"Pearson Named Approved Provider of New York State Teacher Evaluation Rubrics; NYSTCE Framework for the Observation of Effective Teaching Designed to Meet Unique Needs of Local Education Agencies":
http://www.pearsoned.com/pearson-named-approved-provider-of-new-york-state-teacher-evaluation-rubrics/
* * *
Education imperialism too? / Or Education Deform goes international
They are attempting penetrate India with their student testing wares:
"Pearson Brings America’s No.1 School Test to India" --a boosterist blurb at "digitalLearning: Learning Through ICTs":
http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2012/06/pearson-brings-americas-no-1-school-test-to-india/
Pearson's "Investors" page trumpets their move into several of the "BRIC" countries: " . . . a significant expansion into fast-growing developing economies including China, India, Africa and Brazil."
Links to parents' groups:
Change the Stakes
Class Size Matters Fair Test (National Center for Fair & Open Testing) Parents Across America
ParentVoicesNY
Time Out From Testing
United Opt Out National
Related:
Performance Assessment.org