John Thompson is a former Oklahoma historian and inner city teacher who is now an education writer focusing on inner city schools.

When Oklahoma’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver was granted, local news celebrated a new era of “freedom and autonomy,” apparently believing that standardized testing will become less ubiquitous. But the waiver does not mean that educators who are tired of standardizing testing should be smiling, or that we will begin “a whole new way of educating children”. Neither, however, does it mean that a right-wing conspiracy is poised to take over local schools.

Basically, the Obama Administration’s NCLB waivers were designed to relieve pressure to teach to the test for 90 percent of the nation’s schools, while doubling down on ‘bubble-in accountability’ for the most challenging 10 percent, and imposing new standards for evaluating teachers. It may or may not be possible, however, for a poor state like Oklahoma to successfully comply with the federal mandates. Read the rest of this entry »

John Thompson is an Oklahoma City teacher with 18 years of urban high school experience and an education blogger at thisweekineducation.com. He contributes regularly to our blog on education issues.

The Oklahoma City Public Schools has launched a campaign to close the “achievement gap.” To their credit, the school system acknowledges that our gap between Black and White student performance has grown since the federal No Child Left Behind law increased investments for schools serving poor children of color. The problem is that the OKCPS, like most school systems, has focused on instructional reforms, despite the social science and cognitive science explaining why those efforts are doomed without first addressing deeper issues. As was recently explained by Jonathan Zimmerman in the New York Review of Books, if we believe in the social science that was a foundation of the Brown v. Topeka desegregation case, we must admit that NCLB-driven policies are “doomed.” Read the rest of this entry »

John Thompson is an Oklahoma City teacher with 18 years of urban high school experience and an education blogger at thisweekineducation.com. He contributes regularly to our blog on education issues.

In 2000, when serving on the Steering Committee for MAPS for KIDS, I grinned as arch-conservative Leland Gourley demanded a “warranty” that Oklahoma City Public School students would be reading at grade level by 3^rd grade. Little did I know that cognitive and social science research would soon show that Gourley had identified the key to closing the achievement gap.

I recalled Gourley’s prescience recently when the liberal Schott Foundation for Public Education announced that New Jersey has the nation’s highest graduation rate for Black males. In contrast to the national rate of 47 percent, or Oklahoma with a rate of 52 percent, in New Jersey 69 percent of  Black males graduate from high school. The Schott Foundation also reported 4^th grade NAEP Reading test results showing 66 percent of Oklahoma Black males score Below Basic, as do 58 percent of Black Males nationally. In New Jersey, 45 percent of Black males score Below Basic, 40 percent score Basic, and 15 percent score Proficient or Advanced.  Better still, in contrast with the normative trend where Black NAEP scores drop by the 8th grade, there was no fall-off in New Jersey.  This is crucial because social scientists have long used New Jersey as evidence that the best way to help poor children is to invest whatever is necessary so that elementary children read for comprehension. Read the rest of this entry »

The Oklahoma State Board of Education recently adopted higher testing standards for elementary and middle school students. According to the Tulsa World, the higher standards result from recommendations of a committee of educators and business representatives. This effort responded to charges from business and conservative groups (and some left-leaning observers) that we set up test standards so most students would be considered proficient under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

New standards initially will result in  a drop in the proportion of students who meet basic and proficient standards in math and reading. If the theory behind high test standards is correct, students eventually will learn more and score higher on the more difficult tests. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sandy Garrett argues:

There’s no doubt the bar has been significantly raised on what Oklahoma students are expected to know in math and reading in Grades 3-8. However, the Board and I believe this action was necessary to ensure Oklahoma students are competitive nationally and internationally and that our schools continue to move forward.

Higher standards are one education reform that people from across the political spectrum often support. It’s important to remember, though, that higher test standards and better outcomes are not necessarily the same thing. Dana Goldstein recently pointed out the difference in The American Prospect. Her column “Testing Testing” chronicles the growing movement for a national testing standard, cautioning that agreement on test standards can be oversold. Among Goldstein’s concerns is that the national testing movement is partly propelled by companies that make a living selling standardized tests. Another is that high standards can be created and attained through means other than testing.

Read the rest of this entry »