by John Jensen, PhD

The debate over high-stakes testing pits the need for assessing student progress  against the negative effects of doing so. Three recent articles offer a glance into it.

In a guest post for Education Week (“Monty Neill: Building a Successful Test Reform Movement”, May 14, 2013), Monty Neill proposes halting or reducing state-level testing, citing as reasons teaching to the test, cost, school climate, time from teaching, narrowing the curriculum, and increased juvenile incarceration.

In the same issue, Michael Petrilli (“Am I Part of the Cure … or the Disease?”, May 14, 2013)  maintains that not testing but student achievement is the point, but that even small gains in test-verified reading and math enhance life trajectories, and teaching quality is what limits better instruction.  Acknowledging that testing can generate temptations of cheating, a culture of fear, and narrowing of the curriculum, he would retain it nonetheless but suggests a goal of improving mediocre schools even a little, and teaching systematically the skills making the most difference.

Deborah Meier (“Problem vs. Solution: A Response”, Education Week, May 16, 2013) regards the testing issue as a distraction from more fundamental problems such as a public polarized by a growing gap between rich and poor, and that the wealthy steer resources to the schools their own children attend.  She holds that a competitive education marketplace produces outcomes woefully wrong for children, that public education should address problems one at a time in light of the entire spectrum of needs.

So apart from altering the nation’s political makeup, we face two immediate problems–one improving education and the other finding out how well we do it. Both matter. Though a school’s quality may be low, how we test may depress even that.

There are many dogs in the fight about testing.  Picture a  round table discussion of stakeholders. At the table are a parent, teacher, district administrator, state legislator, and federal official. Each asserts, “I need to know X, and here’s why.”  They are arguing over competing priorities when one of them points her thumb over her shoulder.

Seated against a wall is a student.  Everyone falls silent as they realize he heard everything they said.  Someone addresses him.

“So what do you want?”

“I just want to learn something,” he answers quietly.

The stakeholders try to resume their discussion but find no traction. Their urgency evaporates as they realize how superficial are their demands compared to the substance of the student’s need. The student is the elephant in the room. They look at each other and wonder, “How can we even begin to find a way to resolve this?”

By way of answer, consider a different analogy.  Imagine you are on a research team investigating gases rising from the earth in a remote location.  Your helicopter malfunctions and sets you down unexpectedly close to the emissions, and disembarking, your team realizes that it is in danger.  Everyone must rapidly grab something and move away quickly.  Before you are three canisters, one labeled AIR, another WATER, and a third  FOOD.

Which do you seize? Your life may depend on your choice, and you recall the rule of three, that in general humans can live 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.  Knowing that in the toxic air of your  surroundings you could be dead in three minutes, you grab the AIR canister first.  Only after you have air under control do you pick up anything else.  You secure your prime value before even considering a secondary one.

Back in the classroom, we search among the canisters concerned with testing to find the one labeled AIR.  What is the most essential factor, the one we wish to establish with certainty, the one we refuse to sell off for the sake of a lesser value, the one to which we add others only if they do not detract from the first?

Finding an answer everyone can accept is, I believe, a direction that eventually resolves the dispute over testing. We first agree on our criterion value.  I would like to nominate one on the basis of two axioms:

Axiom 1.  Students progress through their own effort.  Instruction works as it enables students to focus attention and apply effort on tasks that generate learning.  The essence of instruction is directing students’ attention and effort.

Axiom 2.  Effort is propelled by motivation.  Aside from the sheer time available for their effort (jeopardized by countless intrusions including test-associated tasks), how students apply themselves arises directly from their interest, enthusiasm, ownership, sense of progress, and so on–signals of their motivational state directly preceding effort. If kids are bored and distracted and you want to teach them something, you either alter their motivation or forget about accomplishing anything.         If in a psychological sense all behavior originates from a state that makes the behavior possible, we settle on students’ inner motivation as the key condition we must enhance.

A common complaint about testing, however, is exactly its effect on motivation.  For teachers to appreciate this better, I would like them to experience an activity I often presented in training workshops in the 1970s.  It goes like this.  I’ll trust your imagination to figure out the lesson involved:

‘“We’re going to start off by giving you a spelling test for college freshmen,” the consultant announces to start off a morning. ”We’ll assign you to activities later based on the scores you get. Please take out a blank sheet of paper.”

People groan but cooperate.  In a serious tone the consultant then reads the words while people write them:

asinine, braggadocio, accommodate, diarrhea, chauffeur, desiccate, impostor, inoculate, hors d’oeuvres, liquefy, mayonnaise, moccasin, obbligato, narcissistically, rococo, benefited, rarefy, resuscitate, sacrilegious, supersede, titillate, and paraphernalia.

“Please exchange papers,”  the consultant says crisply, and then spells each word on the board.  Checkers mark off wrong answers on the paper they have, and hand it back to its owner.

“How many got none wrong?” the consultant asks, writing a zero on the board.  I’ve never seen zero wrong, but if people miss none, their number is jotted beside the zero.  Under it the consultant lists numbers 1-20.

“How many got  (number) wrong?” he or she says, going down the column. Everyone raises their hand at some point to acknowledge their number of mistakes.  Most scores tend to fall around half wrong with some missing as many as 17 of 20.

People laugh, moan, and remember emotionally how it felt to be measured by their mistakes. The exercise concludes with a discussion of its implication for instruction–how discouraged they remembered feeling when they were in school, how they may have refused to try, how they preferred to be graded down than be humiliated by trying and failing, how disheartened they were at being labeled poor at anything, and so on.

If we wish both to teach and assess in a way that enhances motivation, how can we?

Competency-based  instruction offers a clue. You declare it acceptable for students to have different competencies to practice even if they do much work together. You identify a discrete skill or chunk of knowledge you want them to know, tell them exactly the work needed and the signal marking its completion, and check it off when it’s done.  Developed this way, their record shows unbroken success.  Wherever they are on the continuum, they just work steadily at the next step.

This approach frees students from a peculiar psychic burden. If I have five units of knowledge to acquire and accomplish that, my working memory tells me “I got five.” My score matches my effort.  I own the five and take pride in it.

This changes if  I am told, “We expected you to get ten but you only got five.”

Only? My success becomes failure for a reason beyond my control, and my effort is devalued. I feel like a failure solely because someone measures me against a standard that does not serve me personally.

Think about yourself.  Intuitively, do you mark your knowledge by  knowing something or by not-knowing something else?  Surely the former.  Not-knowing measures are inherently antithetical to students’ natural motivation.  While they spontaneously compare themselves to peers, they regard this measure of their not-knowing as fair. They are constituted to emulate standards demonstrated by peers,  but for this they only need objective information.

For schoolwork, a wall chart serves adequately by counting up cumulatively the contents of each one’s growing bank of knowledge. They can use the differences between them if they wish, but no one drives them to feel bad. (And check me if I’m wrong about this, but do not some teachers still believe that imposing bad feelings on students is their bottom-line motivator?  I infer this from observing students who actively fear their teacher.)

Once acknowledging positive motivation as our preferred long-term resource,  we don’t even hint to a student that his effort is of secondary importance. We are clear that if we organize his effort so it’s effective, recognize the effort, and count up its outcome objectively, he is more likely to repeat it. The objective count of  his progress on the specified tasks reveal exactly what he has learned. If his motivation and effort-driven success remain our primary values, we have no need to confine him under someone else’s web of meaning.

In my next article, I will show how to arrange effort for optimal motivation while accounting for its results in a way that fulfills stakeholders’ needs for information.

John Jensen is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of the three-volume Practice Makes Permanent series (Rowman and Littlefield). He will send a proof copy of the volumes to anyone on request: jjensen@gci.net

The post John Jensen: De-fogging High Stakes Testing, Part 1 appeared first on Education News.

The test boycott has drawn national attention since it began in early January. The Chicago Teachers’ Union and many other activists and writers have spoken out in support of Garfield staff. Teachers say that the test is useless and takes up school resources.

Teachers say the tests’ margin of error is greater than the number of points that the average ninth-grader is expected to gain, that the tests cover material they are not expected to teach, that students who are struggling must take the tests more often even though they shouldn’t miss class time, and that giving the MAP tests ties up Garfield’s computer labs for weeks.

Also at stake is the role the MAP’s standardized scores might play in teacher evaluations, a subject that has many states’ teachers up in arms. The faculty at Garfield and some other Seattle-area schools do not want to cooperate in generating scores that might be used to downgrade some of their jobs.

Superintendent Jose Banda has been reluctant to suspend or otherwise discipline the boycotting teachers. As he negotiated with teachers through Monday, he said that he will not punish teachers in ways that might hurt education.

Teachers who refuse to give the test will face some discipline, but Banda told them Monday that they will not be suspended for two weeks without pay, a punishment the district has given in the past to teachers who refused to give state-required exams.

“I don’t know that taking them out of the classroom for 10 days is necessarily going to be beneficial to them or their students,” Banda said.

Banda asked the teachers to comply with the testing for now, and in exchange, the city district would set up a task force to reconsider all testing. In Monday’s meeting, the teachers said no.

This week, they upped the ante by informing parents that even if the school found a way to give the tests, parents could exempt their children from taking these tests with a note of written permission. Although the president of Garfield’s PTSA said he regretted the power struggle, the PTSA organized an information campaign asking parents to support the boycotting teachers by exempting their students. When the school’s principal and staff began to give the MAP test, they found that only some of the students could participate.

On Tuesday, only 97 of the roughly 400 ninth-graders who were supposed to take the MAP reading test did so, said Garfield Principal Ted Howard. The other 300, he said, had their parents’ permission to be excused.

While some parents and many teachers called Banda’s decision to force testing “callous,” Banda said that he believed many teachers did not understand how the MAP test is used. He called the test useful and said that it provides good feedback on what children are learning. He still hopes that a peaceful agreement can be reached.

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Now that tougher standards are going into effect in New York State schools, education officials are bracing themselves for a substantial drop in standardized test scores at the end of this year. According to the New York Post, the biggest drop is expected from students in 3rd through 8th grade who will be taking much more difficult exams in English and math this next year. The annual round of testing kicks off in April.

The new tests are designed to determine how closely New York students have come to meeting new Common Core Standards that will be widely adopted all over the country within the next few years. New York made the commitment to implement CCS-compliant education standards as part of their winning pitch for a $700 million Race to the Top federal grant.

Last month, Kentucky, the first of 46 states to test students on the standards, reported the number of elementary- and middle-school students rated “proficient” or higher fell at least 30 percent.

New York education officials fear similar, if not worse, results.

Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the state Board of Regents, says that voicing these kinds of expectations is a matter of dealing with likely outcomes realistically. Tests will be tougher, and even if students are prepared for them, a drop in grades is all but inevitable.

Some, like board member Betty Rosa, are worried that the drop in scores will be most precipitous in lower-income and minority neighborhoods and among students who are learning English as a second language. Another board member – Kathleen Cashin – said that bringing in new tests in both subjects at the same time might be “too much too soon.”

One sample question asks third-graders to read a translated short story, “The Gray Hare,” by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. The fable includes the words “threshing floor,” “caftans” and “hoarfrost,” though the test booklet may include definitions.

“It’s absurd vocabulary for that age level and likely to throw even the best reader off,” said Jeff Nichols, a Manhattan father of a 9-year-old boy.

“Are we trying to make children feel inadequate?”

The reading comprehension questions will be more complex and will require deeper understanding of the text. Instead of picking out a meaning of a word, or the gist of a passage, students will be asked to identify an overarching theme or pin-point the mood most prominent in the narrative.

Math questions will be similarly “mind-bending.” Simple arithmetic will be replaced with abstract mathematical concepts like solving equations and reverse a series of complex computations. Exponents and scientific notations will figure prominently in the 8th-grade exams.

The post In New York State, Tougher Tests Expected to Lower Grades appeared first on Education News.

It begins with a gnawing feeling in the back of your mind that something has gone awry. Uncertain about what it means, you might frantically begin to check your markings on the Scantron exam answer sheet to make sure they are correct. With minutes to go before time is called you figure out the problem – when you skipped question number three, you failed to leave room for it on the sheet, and now every single one of the following 30 questions are in the wrong spot. Furious erasing and filling in of ovals ensues.

That has been the experience of many students who have taken more than a few multiple-choice exams. But thanks to technology, these kinds of problems could soon be obsolete. More and more states are preparing to move to a system that would allow standardized exams to be administered online using tablets or personal computers.

As many as 19 million students could soon be retiring their #2 pencils as 25 states prepare to launch new testing systems. However, many are not expecting the transition to go smoothly. The problem appears to be a number of unanswered questions about how the new approach to testing will actually work in practice. Will there be enough computer stations for each student, and how will schools handle the possibility of cheating?

And of course, as always, there is the question of money. Has enough of it been set aside to make sure that the transition is smooth and as hiccup-free as possible?

This new computerized test comes on the heels of another significant development in public education: a national learning standard that emphasizes deeper analytical and critical thinking. Nevada is one of 45 states that have adopted the Common Core State Standards, which require a more challenging curriculum as well as a new set of standardized tests by the 2014-15 school year.

Much is being expected of the new standards, including how they will aid schools in preparing their students to enter and succeed in college. With many states adopting Common Core, moving between states in the middle of elementary, middle or high school would no longer mean adopting to a whole different academic program.

But the new Common Core tests introduce another innovation — each one will be tailored to student’s individual skill level.

The new tests are considered to be groundbreaking in that they are “computer adaptive.” Unlike a traditional paper-and-pencil test, an online test can automatically change its questions to better measure what a student knows. The more questions a student answers correctly, the harder the questions get. The more questions a student answers incorrectly, the easier the questions get.

“We haven’t tested students like this before,” Arnold said. “These (tests) are incredibly different from what our students are used to.”

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by Theresa Soares

Ankur Singh is an 18 year old college freshman at The University of Missouri – Columbia who is planning to take off his second semester of school to create a documentary film about standardized testing in America. The film is tentatively titled “Listen,” and focuses on what students themselves have to say about testing culture in the United States.

“But, it’s also so much more than that.” Says Ankur, “It’s about how magnificent our generation is and the amazing incredible things we do every single day that go unrecognized by our education.”

The inspiration for the project comes from his personal story which was featured in Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet for the Washington post this past November. A complete version of the story can be found on the film’s website, and is titled: “Who am I and why should you care about this silly documentary?”

Theresa Soares

Since the publishing of his personal story the film has attracted quite a bit of attention. Singh has plans to interview and film a variety of school districts, student groups, and parent groups from around the country, including Colorado, Texas, Florida, New York, and California.  In a recent interview Singh explained that he is looking to feature a diverse group of voices, “For example, a student who’s been subjected to institutionalized racism perpetuated by the tests and our education system, a student whose true passions and talents are being ignored, a student whose learning style is different, or maybe a student who lives in poverty.” In a recent phone interview, Singh mentioned that his focus for the film isn’t “political, it’s human.”

The filming will take place between January-May 2013, with a projected release date of fall 2013 or winter 2014. He has plans to also submit the film to a variety of different film festivals. There are less than 9 days left for the funding campaign held on Kickstarter. With a goal of just $2,000 the project is a little over a quarter of the way there. Funding generated from the film’s Kickstarter campaign will go towards travel expenses.

For more information about the film, or if you would like to get involved with the project: Email: listenthefilm@gmail.com or call 309-838-4265. For the latest film updates follow the project on Facebook and Twitter.

The official Film Website can be found at: http://listenthefilm.wordpress.com/. To support the film on Kickstarter, please visit: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ankursingh/listen-0

Theresa Soares is a maturing journalist, narrator, storyteller, and dyslexic. She entered her professional career as one of the youngest women ever to be hired by the United States Department of the Navy. After two years at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California, she joined The Harry Singer Foundation in Carmel California where she provides support for philanthropic research and development. Theresa is a student at Mills College in California where she is studying journalism and intermedia arts. Currently, she is covering organic public interest radio reporting in the Oakland Unified School District. Her interests range from dyslexia and neurodiversity advocacy to empowering student and minority voices within education. Follow her on twitter @Theresa_Soares.

The post Listen: 18yr Old Filming Standardized Testing Documentary appeared first on Education News.

by Richard P. Phelps

In the excellent film The Insider, Jeffrey Wigand, an ex-tobacco company executive, faces a dilemma. In return for a severance package and the health insurance coverage it provides his family, he signs confidentiality agreements promising not to reveal the company’s research effort to boost the addictive power of cigarettes. When it appears that he is preparing to speak to journalists anyway, tobacco company-contracted PR hacks assassinate Wigand’s character in the national media, and local thugs threaten his family’s safety. In the end, Wigand strikes the match that blows up tobacco industry deceit on CBS’s Sixty Minutes televised investigative news program.

I was reminded of Wigand’s story recently when a testing industry executive warned me not to reveal the specifics of a secret document currently being written—a document that, in my judgment, will effectively embed the findings of fraudulent, biased research in educational testing into US law. Among the several nasty effects should be an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars on millions of new and worse-than-worthless “audit tests”. The number of tests administered to our elementary-secondary students could double in some areas, but the quality of the results available from all tests will deteriorate.

Though this document will profoundly affect all Americans, whether directly involved in education or not, you cannot see it before it is published in its final, legal form, as a fait accompli in early 2013. I and perhaps a few hundred other testing aficionados read an early draft in 2011 but, legally, we cannot show it to you. We all signed confidentiality agreements.

Education insiders are currently writing in secret what is arguably the single most influential document in US education and psychology. Last updated in 1999, the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing is being revised and, if on schedule, will be presented in its completed form to the public in early 2013. (The testing Standards should not be confused with more common, and far more public, content standards, a.k.a. curriculum).

You are forgiven if you did not know. In the spring of 2011, at a meeting of testing and measurement professionals, a couple of hours were set aside for all the “public comment” that would ever be allowed on drafts of the revision—well over 300 pages of mostly technical jargon. But even that peephole of transparency was advertised only within the incestuous world of testing experts, a.k.a. psychometricians.

I read most of those draft pages and even testified for the maximum allotment of six minutes. But, it hardly matters; in my experience, feedback is routinely ignored in the insular world of educational testing policy. The character and content of the new Standards were determined years ago when the draft writers were selected, and nothing else matters.

The Standards is important because practicing psychometricians adhere to its prescriptions piously. Just as a carpenter or plumber justifies a work expense by citing the housing code, those developing or administering tests justify their actions by citing the Standards. Even more consequentially, the Standards carry the force of law. In most of the world, societies have incorporated “high-stakes” tests into their education programs as a matter of course, as ordinary and expected as streetlights or city parks. In this country, by contrast, where anyone can sue anyone else anytime over anything, tests with consequences tend to attract lawsuits.

American judges may be smart people, but they know little of statistics generally, much less item response theory, differential item functioning, test-retest reliability, or any of the hundreds of other technical topics peculiar to psychometrics. In the most celebrated test-related court cases of the past few decades, judges have consulted the Standards, assuming it to be an objective or, at least consensually accepted, code of professional conduct, like the local housing code.

By 2013, the Standards will be neither objective nor consensual.

Nominally, three professional associations write the Standards—ergo the drafting group is called the “Joint Committee”—the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME).  The subjective bias starts there in Standards governance. Despite the fact that psychologists invented standardized tests and have conducted most of the relevant research over the past century, education groups outnumber the single psychology group two to one, and so can manipulate Standards content to their liking. If education research has been corrupted by its vested interests, as many are convinced, one should expect the Standards to be corrupted to serve education’s vested interests as well.

Sadly for our country, the most expert and trustworthy professional groups are not involved in any aspect of the Standards update. Whereas most APA members are now practitioners—counselors, therapists, and administrators—most psychology researchers have joined the Association for Psychological Science (APS). Included among APS members are the testing and measurement world’s best and brightest. Most are professors working in university psychology departments, as independent in their research as education professors are not. Regardless, they have no seat at the drafting table.

I would argue that industrial-organizational (a.k.a., personnel) psychologists should have a direct role in drafting the Standards, too, given their expertise, the enormous quantity of relevant, quality research they have produced over six decades, and their objectivity. As it stands now, I/O psychologists are but one division—Division 14—within the psychologists’ APA and a single vote in Standards decisions. The APA has 54 divisions.

That “test users” such as governors, mayors, teachers, and the public likewise are unrepresented in the Standards drafting process is evident in the draft language. In a few of the draft chapters, test users are portrayed as ignorant, biased, venal, and untrustworthy. The insinuations are worst in draft chapter 13—the testing policy chapter—which is quite cavalier and insulting.

Ironically, the same industry insider who warned me against revealing the contents of the revised Standards draft has himself publicly asserted its colossal social and legal impact on US society. Yet, he defends both the secrecy and insularity of the current drafting process. Power to draft the Standards as they see fit has been divvied up among the chosen few on the “Joint Committee”, a baker’s dozen of education professors and industry insiders. This is an extraordinarily small number of people to essentially be writing our country’s testing law.

In the case of chapter 13, at most “2-3 persons” craft our country’s testing policy. Not only is this a tiny group in number, these particular persons represent a biased and extreme point of view. Read the revised Standards, though, and theirs is the only point of view you will be allowed to know. As they have for a few decades now, these folks arrogantly declare a cornucopia of contrary opinion and evidence nonexistent.

Some relevant links:  

• The Test Standards
• “Teach to the Test?” The Wilson Quarterly
• The Source of Lake Wobegon

Richard P. Phelps is the author of Standardized Testing Primer (2007) and other books about testing and the founder of the Nonpartisan Education Review. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

The post The (Secret) Document That Drives Standardized Testing appeared first on Education News.

"I think our key strategy to engage students in learning is to have good teachers, those who understand their students, tailor teaching strategies according to their students’ profile, and make lessons interesting." -- Dr. Pak Tee Ng

Singapore is recognized globally as a high performing education system. Singapore students fared very well in the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Out of 65 countries that took part in these tests, Singapore students ranked fifth in reading, second in mathematics and fourth in science. Singapore also had the second highest proportion (12.3%) of students who are top-level performers in all three domains.

How do teachers motivate students in the Singapore school system?  How do they level the playing field between rich and poor students?  How do they handle behavioral problems?   Are they obsessed with testing?

These are some of the questions I received from readers after the last Q and A we did on the Singapore education system in May.  This week we are honored to once again share the views of Dr. Pak Tee Ng on these questions. Dr. Pak Tee Ng is Associate Dean, Leadership Learning, Office of Graduate Studies and Professional Learning, and Head and Associate Professor, Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group, at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Republic of Singapore.

What methods of motivation does the Singapore school system use to keep kids engaged in learning?

Student motivation in learning is a challenge in many education systems, including Singapore’s. We do not have a standardized way or a best practice of addressing this challenge. But I often ask educators to reflect: “How do we expect inspired learners if we do not have inspired teachers?”  I think our key strategy to engage students in learning is to have good teachers, those who understand their students, tailor teaching strategies according to their students’ profile, and make lessons interesting. I also think we need to challenge our mindsets regarding students’ motivation to learn.  Young children start off with a natural curiosity and willingness to learn. But many seem to have lost their motivation after some years of schooling, despite teachers’ motivational efforts.  Why?  Perhaps, we have gotten the wrong end of the stick. The challenge is not to find methods of developing their learning motivation. The challenge is not to extinguish it!  Educators should continuously cultivate and tap children’s innate interest in learning.  A different philosophy suggests different strategies!

"There was recently an increasing awareness of the importance of pre-school education in a child’s development and therefore an effort on the part of the government to improve the quality of pre-schools in Singapore." -- Dr. Pak Tee Ng

How does your education system nurture the theme of innovation? Can you share some examples from schools in Singapore that are already doing this?

In 2004, the Education Ministry launched an initiative called “Innovation and Enterprise” (I&E) to focus educators’ attention on the theme of innovation. However, we do not focus on innovation for the sake of innovation. Instead, it is a reminder to educators to allow our students to try new things and to use their enterprising spirit to undertake projects that can be beneficial to others. It is to encourage students to be intellectually curious about matters beyond textbooks or examinations, have the courage to live with ambiguity and to take calculated risks, and be passionate, persistent and resilient.  Moreover, I&E is a platform for values inculcation, as part of its aim is to help students develop a sense of teamwork and contribution to the community, grounded in a set of timeless values such as integrity, social responsibility and respect for others. In other words, we are developing character traits that will be helpful to our next generation, whether they become scientists, businessmen or public officers.

Each year, the Education Ministry organizes the MOE ExCEL Fest (ExCEL stands for Excellence through Continuous Enterprise & Learning), which is a platform to celebrate and share innovative practices in schools.  During the two-day event, various schools show their students’ innovations to other schools and the public.  Examples of student innovation for the 2012 festival ranged from mathematics games that were designed by pupils of Chua Chu Kang Primary School to complement the teaching and learning efforts by their teachers, to a prototype for an “Ultra Flu Relief Mask” comprising a disposable surgical mask with an inbuilt semi-permeable membrane that secretes a medication such as Vicks, by two students of Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary School.

How do teachers and leaders in your school system handle behavioral issues?

Most behavioral issues (especially persistent ones) are symptoms that have deeper root causes.  Teachers and leaders in our schools handle students with behavioral problems by first trying to understand the deeper problems that these students face. They usually take a problem-solving and counseling approach to work out long-term solutions that can help these students grow in maturity.

In Singapore, the philosophy toward student discipline is that discipline is an educational process to develop students’ values and moral faculties. The aim of discipline is not to punish but to develop self-discipline in them.  But this does not mean that students can escape punishment for wrongdoing. However, educators recognize that meting out a punishment is not equal to solving the problem.

Singapore schools are allowed to cane students if necessary. This applies to boys only.  However, there are strict guidelines to determine the appropriateness of such punishment and clearly defined procedures for meting out the punishment.  It is one of the last courses of action rather than the first line of remedy. The caning may be administered only by the Principal or Vice-Principal, or by a specially designated and trained discipline teacher. Other teachers do not cane students. The parents of the errant student are informed of his misbehavior and punishment.

Prevention is better than cure. Our schools now teach students Social Emotional Learning, comprising 5 core competencies of self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship management, and responsible decision-making, so that they may acquire the skills, knowledge and dispositions to be mature and productive individuals who can manage themselves and relate well with others.

"If a school or school system continues to assess students in a way that is not relevant to the industries, that school or school system will become redundant." -- Dr. Pak Tee Ng

What are your thoughts on what many call an obsession with testing?  If there were less testing, wouldn’t teachers and educators be able to focus on a more holistic education?

The key word here is “obsession”.  Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with a test. With appropriate feedback and follow through, students can learn from a test. However, what many educators are concerned with now is an obsession by various stakeholders (including educators themselves) with testing and the test results. Such tests are not really motivated by learning but come with high stakes and consequences, real or perceived, related to one’s future paths.  The challenge is therefore to gradually increase the number of alternative pathways for students and widen the definition of success.  Testing can then indeed become a tool for learning, and not a driver for obsessive behaviors by stakeholders of education.  This of course is easier said than done.  I think holistic education does not refer to an education without test.  I think holistic education aims to help each person find identity, meaning, and purpose in life. Suitable levels and amount of testing, focused on learning, can play a positive role in it.

How in your view should 21st century students be assessed in a competitive world?

It is quite fashionable nowadays to say that 21^st century students should learn and be assessed in 21^st century skills.  However, beyond this broad statement, there does not seem to be an authoritative answer to what this assessment should look like in practice, taking into consideration contextual differences and the difficulties in accurately assessing certain types of learning.  But I think a model of 21^st century assessment will emerge in due course, not because of what we think it should be from a theoretical perspective, but because of changes driven by the increasing proximity between schools and industries.

I feel that in the future, education will be brought closer to working life and the industries.  The closer interaction between schools and industries will bring about a change in the way that students are assessed. If a school or school system continues to assess students in a way that is not relevant to the industries, that school or school system will become redundant.  On the other hand, if a school or school system assesses students in a way that is closely aligned to industrial needs, the qualifications given out by the school or school system will be sought after by various stakeholders.  Students who can demonstrate competence in such assessments will definitely find themselves needed by the world after they leave school.  Therefore I think 21^st century assessment is not a static picture but an evolving one, as schools and industries come more closely together.

"What has been done in Singapore to make education more equitable is to allow students access to educational pathways based on their merit and to give financial aid to poor but deserving students." -- Dr. Pak Tee Ng

How does your education system level the playing field between children from rich and poor families?

Children from rich families have more resources at their command compared with those from poor families, and the field is never completely level.  However, what has been done in Singapore to make education more equitable is to allow students access to educational pathways based on their merit (not on financial abilities), and to give financial aid or subsidies to poor but deserving students, so that they are not denied access to education because of financial difficulties.

For example, the Ministry of Education provides a Financial Assistance Scheme to needy Singapore citizen students so that all Singaporeans, regardless of their financial background, can benefit from education.  Under this scheme, needy students receive full waiver of school fees and miscellaneous fees, and receive free textbooks and school uniforms.  The government also provides a School Advisory Committees’ Fund to allow more targeted aid to students who need even more assistance.  Interestingly, there was recently an increasing awareness of the importance of pre-school education in a child’s development and therefore an effort on the part of the government to improve the quality of pre-schools in Singapore.  A government committee was immediately set up to examine the issue of removing barriers which prevented children from low-income families from attending pre-school.

Realistically, I think we will never be able to level the playing field completely. But, there are mechanisms to make it possible for a child from a poor family to overcome financial barriers to pursue education according to his or her potential.  Singapore is too small to afford wastage in human resources.

Dr. Pak Tee Ng and C. M. Rubin

Photos courtesy of Dr. Pak Tee Ng.

In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page

C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.

Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld

The post The Global Search for Education: More from Singapore appeared first on Education News.

“The ACT motivates students to perform to their best ability and often results in increased college enrollment, especially for underrepresented students.” – www.ACT.org

We all know that Dyslexia is a learning difference; at least we all should by now. We should also know that we all have learning differences and that really its just history that decided to coin names for the “lucky” ones first. When I found out that my accommodations request for extra time on the ACT was denied, the only thing I could think about was the “big picture.” I am told thinking of the abstract, big picture, broader concept is a characteristic of my right brain learning condition. The big picture in this instance was: How could I be denied the fair opportunity to take such a high stakes test that would ultimately determine my post secondary fate? How could anyone with proof of a legal learning disability or any disability be denied accommodations in the United States? How could such a “test” become so powerful? Who made this test? Where did it come from? “We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.” – Nietzsche

It was my ultimate conclusion that if I was going to apply to any of the colleges or universities which I had previously visited and researched; I would be forced to take the ACT without extra time accommodations for my learning disability. As a result I enlisted a tutor to help me prepare for my most certain defeat. What was already a test that by no means captured the profound capability and potential of the dyslexic brain also now became a test I would only finish half of in the allotted time. I never even had the chance to finish half the test.

“Test scores reflect what students have learned throughout high school and provide colleges and universities with excellent information for recruiting, advising, placement, and retention.– www.ACT.org”

Excellent, Excellent, Excellent information.

The ACT consultant who reviewed my application provided a letter which outlined the reason my accommodations request was denied. When I submitted my request, I didn’t provide enough of a paper trail history of academic struggles with dyslexia (specifically in high school.) I also didn’t have a paper trail which provided I had been a recipient of accommodations throughout high school. This was because my high school didn’t have formal accommodations until my senior year when I was also officially identified with dyslexia. I DID provide records of my official dyslexia identification, and my history of accommodations from kindergarten – 5th grade before I transitioned to an independent 504 plan for middle school. Still though, there was no recent paper trail I could return to ACT.inc for repeal… I was just a ghost “claiming” to be grace with dyslexia.

As the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) includes: A disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities when compared to most people. Major life activities have been defined to include things such as performing manual tasks, caring for one’s self, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating. These are tasks normally performed by “most people” in the general population on a daily basis with little or no difficulty.”

What does it mean to be underrepresented today, in July, 2012?

It doesn’t bother me that I can’t read as quickly or write as quickly as the average person because the average person can’t read as deeply, write as deeply, or think as deeply as I can. That’s part of having a name for your learning difference, that’s part of being dyslexic. How do you prove that to a Scantron machine? How do you prove that to a Scantron Nation? This is where my story meets the current educational revolution “wanting” to take place here in the United States.

American Students are misrepresented in society, the only thing that is valued from us is our ability to comply with one size fits all testing methods. We are reduced, and largely represented only by our test scores and GPA’s. Furthermore we are encouraged to continue on this misguided path by the notion of international competition.”The only thing the name “No Child Left Behind” should ever be used for is the name for a NEW proposition that would allow students to vote on matters of education. What we have now is a system that tramples the student voice and ability to think, create and appreciate things beyond just the number line.“It is absolutely essential that the oppressed participate in the revolutionary process with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as subjects of the transformation” – Paulo Freire. All students are underrepresented and misrepresented by the national infatuation for high stakes and one size fits all standardized testing. Everyone thinks they want a number until they realize they actually are one.

7/14/ 1786: 223 years ago today a group of  the “Oppressed “and “Underrepresented “participated in one of the greatest acts of rebellion ever recorded in history. The turning point of the French revolution was marked by the storming of a jail in Paris called the Bastille. The prisoners found inside the jail perhaps point to a deeper microcosm. High stakes tests are designed for students to take. If students don’t take them, then you simply do not have a test anymore. Surely if there will be risk takers then there will be no more test makers. There we might find atop Scantron Nation: a jail, similar to the one stormed 223 years ago in Paris… Not to our surprise we just might find a few corporate prisoners inside. Just maybe…

I should note that in March 2011 ( 4 months before being identified with dyslexia), I took the SAT without any preparation or accommodations and realized that the ACT was a better fit. In October of 2011 I took the ACT where I received a composite score 19 – the equivalent of a 1350 on the SAT. I sent the lower of the two scores: 19/36 to 10 private colleges and universities in the United States. All of which claim that they look at the whole applicant, so I figured that submitting my lower scores wouldn’t matter if they actually read my other application materials, it might even elevate the significance of my essay, recommendations, and GPA. At the time I didn’t think of it as an act of self protest, “I just woke up and hit submit.”…. sound familiar?

It wasn’t until later that I really started to question the system and saw an opportunity for activism. It’s not just the politicians, lobbyists, and bankers that are misguided, When I realized how savagely obsessed American students are with these scores, statistics, numbers it altered my view. In the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti “It’s no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” I was no longer well adjusted, I was awakened by the vary same traditions of American educational meritocracy that had violated my rights, shaken my morals, and reduced me to a simple number in no way indicative of my right brain ability. After some very simple pondering I began to wonder how there could possibly be enough hours in the day to review every application equally. Just do the math. By the spring of 2012, I had received 3 acceptances, 2 waitlists, and 5 rejections. My college essay can be read on TheYale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity’s Website. Who knows if it is was ever actually read by 7 of those admissions offices.

In 1974, a Frenchmen named Philippe Petit walked back and forth on a tight rope between the twin towers in New York City for a total of 40 minutes. “Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion: to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge – and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope.” – Man on Wire  I don’t consider myself to be a tightrope walker – at least not by Philippe’s standards… but at the same time, I don’t think people like Philippe do what they do just for themselves. “To lead the orchestra, you have to turn your back on the crowd.” – Max Lucado

Theresa Soares is a blogger, writer, and activist interested in dyslexia, creativity, and cerebro-diversity. Theresa entered her professional career as one of the youngest women ever to be hired by the United States Department of the Navy. After two years at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California, she joined The Harry Singer Foundation in Carmel California where she currently leads philanthropic research and development. She is also the founding and current author of the Ghost-Lexia Blog, where she regularly writes on ways in which dyslexic entrepreneurship is challenging the status quo in both education, and work. On July 14th 2012, she released a blog post revealing how she was forced to submit her lowest ACT scores when she applied to college as a result of not receiving accommodations for her learning difference. This post is perhaps her most significant contribution to the anti-high stakes testing movement to date. Theresa is a student at Mills College in Oakland California where she is currently studying sociology, education, and journalism.

The post Theresa Soares: Why I Submit My Lowest ACT Scores on Applications appeared first on Education News.

Scholarship ceremony at Peking University

During the course of a visit to Yale University, I had the pleasure of meeting up with Yale student Lun Pei Ng.

Lun Pei is a 1st year graduate student at Yale School of Public Health, concentrating in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. She graduated from Peking University Health Science Center as a medical student in 2011. Her interests lie in infectious disease control as well as health care management. As a Hong Kong resident, she is passionate about applying her knowledge in medicine and public health to promote health and wellness in Hong Kong and China after graduation.

I invited Lun Pei, with her China/US education perspectives, to contribute to this week’s edition of The Global Search for Education.

What did you find to be the best parts of your Chinese secondary school in your preparation to pursue your life goals?  What would you like to have seen more or less of?

We have a high standard for quantitative subjects like math, physics and chemistry. We go deeply into each question and try to understand the origin of the most important formulas before using it in different settings. These practices help us view problems in a more detailed and logical way, even for those who later pursue a career in arts. Moreover, since we go deeply into these subjects and students have the chance to participate in the Nationwide Olympic Games for Science (which requires knowledge comparable to university level), this overall approach is a good platform for students to see if they really have interest in these areas.

However, I think we could do more to integrate the things we learn into solving practical problems, for instance, using theories in physics and chemistry to explain real life problems and encourage students to think on their own.

Also, I think it would be better if we had fewer requirements of formula memorization, and were allowed to use calculators for complex calculations in tests. In this way, learning would be more efficient and more focus could be put on methods instead of results.

Graduation from Peking University

What are your views about standardized testing in high school? How much reliance should be placed upon it to measure the effectiveness of teachers and the capabilities of students?

Personally I think it’s fair to use a uniform system to test all students in a single subject, especially for a country with as big a population as China. The tests also serve as a guide for teachers to find where their emphasis should be.  Although the result for a single exam may not fully represent your capabilities, the long-term record does help explain the difference in students’ abilities. In terms of measuring the effectiveness of teachers, I think it’s somewhat useful if we look at the trend of the whole class instead of just comparing the mean score of different classes.

I think it is important for universities to set benchmarks for test scores for admission. But once a person passes the benchmark, more emphasis should be put into evaluating a person’s experience, and whether he/she would be a good fit for the field.

Based on your personal experience, how would you compare your first tier Chinese university experience at Peking University with your first tier university education in the US at Yale University?

Since I was studying medicine at Peking University and changed to Public Health at Yale, it’s not a direct comparison with regard to curricula. But based on my personal experience and information from my classmates, I think the courses at Yale are more practical and applicable to real life, and the curriculum content is updated much faster (e.g. new articles on the effectiveness of HPV vaccine were introduced while we were learning the topic). The homework, case studies and projects require a combination of different skills rather than text memorization, designed to give us the chance to apply theories to practice. Also, this provides a good platform for idea sharing and group assignments. I think my abilities in creative and critical thinking have significantly improved at Yale.

The courses are well connected to each other. More resources are given to the individual, e.g. everyone has an advisor to help answer academic questions and guide his career choices. Professors are very accessible and encourage different ideas from students. The program gives you the basic skills you need in your future work and helps you figure out what your real interest is.

Interaction among different schools and majors is highly encouraged; for example, there are joint courses provided to Public Health and Law School students, and you can select courses from different schools. One thing that impressed me a lot is the efficient use of different media tools (like email and facebook) in spreading academic news, and you can get almost all the information you need from the Internet.

However, I think sometimes the atmosphere of classes in the US is too loose and random. Students are encouraged to raise questions but in my opinion this is excessive. Students in China tend to think twice before raising a question. Maybe that’s due to the cultural difference but this actually helped improve the efficiency of a class.

Yale 2012 healthcare conference

What do you think can be done to better address the emotional well-being and intellectual potential of the individual, which appear to be suffering under current secondary school education systems in China?

First of all, I think professional career offices are needed in schools to help students figure out what their real interests are and provide more information on relevant programs in different universities. Students would have strong motivation to study if they realized the things they are learning were useful for their future goals, and maybe the learning process itself would be less stressful. Many high school students in China apply for a program in the university with little information about it.

Also, it’s important to gradually change the admission evaluation system for higher education in China to have a more comprehensive view of an applicant. This would include taking into account achievements in sports, arts and community service in addition to test scores. However, the system should be clearly communicated and documented to avoid being abused by some institutes or individuals. It may also be a good idea to put more weight on the test score of subjects related to the future interests of the applicant instead of just looking at the score as a simple result.

What advantages and disadvantages does a US university degree have compared with a Chinese university degree for a Chinese person?

If you plan to stay in the US, a US university degree would help you better adapt to the environment and culture, and also build up your network of contacts.

If you are planning to pursue your career in China, a degree in a Chinese university will give you a deeper understanding of the country’s political, economic, and other systems and a better network of contacts. Since there are increasing opportunities for Chinese students to study in the US today, if the university in US is not well known in China, people might think that you have chosen to study abroad only because you cannot get into a first tier university in China.

I think that in the first one or two years of university, you will gain knowledge in more areas in the US universities and then you can focus on one or two majors. In China, you will get involved in a specific area at the very beginning. So it may be good for people still searching for their interest to begin their journey in a university with a US like system, but if you already have a clear goal in mind, you may save some time studying in the Chinese universities (for instance, you can save 4-5 years to get a medical degree in China.)

Yale Repertory Theater

From a broader perspective, does your country’s definition of educational excellence take into account the quality of life of individuals and of society?

I think educational excellence has a different definition and emphasis for the different stages of education. Before university, more focus is placed on a student’s ability to get higher scores, which may lower the quality of an individual’s life since he may need to sacrifice his interests in the arts or social work to make room for study. The test result is the main concern in terms of educational excellence.

In higher education, the general perception of successful education is that what you learn will equip you to find a good job or get into a lucrative industry. I feel that the quality of life, which includes the balance between one’s interest and job pay, is a broader concept related to a society’s standard of success and not just educational excellence. In a developing country like China, the scale tilts to the side of payment.

The quality of society, in my opinion, must always be considered in educational excellence. If one can use his knowledge and creativity to better serve the community, help address social problems, and improve public health, this should be viewed as representative of an excellent educational system.

However, China’s definition of educational excellence has changed a lot and more attention is also placed on whether one is enjoying his job rather than just on his productivity. But still there’s a gap in the definition between secondary and higher-level education, which could be a barrier in preparing our future generations to achieve their goals.

Lun Pei Ng and C. M. Rubin

Photos courtesy of Lun Pei Ng

In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page

C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.

Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld

The post The Global Search For Education: A Student’s View appeared first on Education News.

Opposition to standardized testing is drawing surprising adherents as more groups, including some that have previously supported the high-stakes assessment method, are calling for reform and even outright elimination of testing going forward. What Reuters calls “a backlash” could be partly explained as a reaction to the increasing enthusiasm for standardized tests exhibited by both federal and state governments. Hundreds of millions of dollars are going towards design and development of new testing regimes, to be used for children aged 5 and up. The tests themselves play a role not only in assessing student progress, but also in determining teacher effectiveness and in decisions on grade promotion.

A growing number of parents are also rebelling against what they see as valuable instruction time being wasted not only filling out Scantron sheets, but teaching students the mechanics of test-taking. But the biggest issue seems to be that the effort and expense of student stress and lost learning time isn’t translating to real academic gains.

In elementary schools, they protest that a laser focus on the subjects tested, mostly math and reading, crowds out science, social studies and the arts. In high schools, they’re fighting standardized exams that can determine a student’s course grade in subjects from geometry to world history.

“I see frustration and bitterness among parents growing by leaps and bounds,” said Leonie Haimson, a mother who runs Class Size Matters, an advocacy group in New York City that pushes for reduced testing and smaller class sizes. “What parents are saying is, ‘Enough is enough.’”

Some parents are taking a stronger stand than just lodging complaints. A group in northwest Washington took a more concrete step and kept their children out of school on testing days, which resulted in hundreds of children missing their state exams.

In Texas, where such testing regimes have previously been popular, over 500 schools have signed petitions to have the focus on standardized testing reduced. These actions were echoed by several districts in Florida. Parents in New York also protested outside the testing giant Pearsons Plc, which provides tests and exam administration services to schools around the country, and has lately been subject to questions regarding the quality of its product and its business practices.

Advocates of testing respond that a nation that invests $525 billion a year in its public elementary and secondary schools needs to know what it’s getting.

“Parents are measuring and testing their children all their lives, from when they’re born and we start weighing them to see if their growth is on target,” said Doug Kubach, the chief executive officer of Pearson’s testing division. “Assessments play the same role in the education world.”

The post Movement Against Standardized Testing Gaining Strength appeared first on Education News.