By Neil Mellen
Everyone is willing to admit there is a serious problem. South Carolina parents have heard over and over the about long-term trends of low college entrance test scores, growing racial achievement gaps and sinking graduation rates in local public schools.
Despite the steady stream of bleak reports on public schools, state education officials still insist that South Carolina’s high academic standards provide real accountability to parents.
The Education Oversight Committee (EOC) is an organization charged with acting as South Carolina’s default education “watchdog.” However, late and vaguely-worded school report cards and increasingly watered-down standards have many South Carolinians wondering whether the public education establishment is more focused on eradicating failures, or covering them up. Now, with many jobs in the state’s education bureaucracy being threatened by budget cuts, there is talk of further erosion of the already limited oversight.
The latest in this trend is further evidence that the PASS test, which replaced PACT, is even more toothless than its notoriously unpopular predecessor. The Academic Standards and Assessments Subcommittee of EOC learned the details in mid March:
- * PASS has more multiple-choice sections than PACT, which used writing and critical response
- * PASS will have fewer performance levels, meaning more students will “pass” the test even if performance drops
- * PASS combines reading and writing into a single measure
- * The EOC will set “good enough” standards through “public engagement” and “focus groups” not through national norms or rigorous absolute performance benchmarks
All the test results and report cards in the world are meaningless if parents are powerless to act on them. What person would be content with a dentist that grudgingly alerted them to the need for a root canal, but was unable to do the procedure, and refused to allow another dentist to do the job?
It sounds ludicrous, but parents face a similar situation every year with South Carolina’s public education system. Parents may be able to find out that their child is attending a failing public school, but ultimately they have little or no power to do anything about it.
“Accountability” and “education reform” are just words if parents are unable to use report cards and test results to make choices about where their children attend school. Tax credits and scholarships, as part of a comprehensive school choice plan, will encourage parents to be engaged and involved in their child’s education. Parents of all incomes and backgrounds will finally have real power to act on the information they have about their child’s school. This freedom to choose is the key to an effective, equitable and accountable education system. When this kind of real accountability exists, the only losers are schools that keep failing children.
Neil Mellen is Communications Director for South Carolinians for Responsible Government. He serves on the South Carolina Educational Broadband Service Commission and served on the State’s Taskforce for Computer Adaptive Student Assessment.
(This editorial ran in the Organgeburg Times and Democrat, Hilton Head Island Packet, Beaufort Gazette, Georgetown Times, Marlboro Herald Advocate, Chester News and Reporter, Cherokee Chronicle, Greenville Times Examiner, Summerville Journal-Scene, Darlington News and Press, Kingstree News, Easley Progress, Traveler’s Rest Monitor, and The Lee County Observer).
By Lexvegas May 11, 2009 at 4:08 pm
There is not a single convincing argument against SC switching to a norm-referenced test like Standford or Iowa.
These tests are cheaper, give better data, can be set to state and NCLB standards, and put our test scores alongside of scores from other states.
This is now, and always has been, about DRC, EOC, and the corporate/government “industry” of “oversight” and “assessment.”
By Harold May 12, 2009 at 6:52 am
The EOC is truly a joke. The time has come for it to go.
By Frank Morgan May 12, 2009 at 7:40 am
I thought this column I wrote recently on this topic would add some useful perspective for your readers.
With best regards,
Dr. Frank E. Morgan
Kershaw County School District
Ask anyone who’s ever worked with me or works with me now, and they’ll tell you that I am a stickler for accountability. The core belief that drives my work is that all children can learn at high levels, and that schools need to do whatever it takes to make this happen. If something isn’t working, let’s figure out another way and make the necessary changes. No excuses.
That being said, I’ve been both mystified and frustrated by the testing and report card system in South Carolina. The way it works reminds me an old schoolyard joke from my childhood, “Heads I win, tails you lose.” The system is structured to assure failure. I’d like to think this wasn’t done intentionally, but I’m not ruling it out. Understand, I’m in no way suggesting watered-down standards, but what we have in place now is not the most effective means to help increase student achievement. The good news is that we have the opportunity in the coming months to get it right this time.
With the implementation this year of the new PASS (Palmetto Assessment of State Standards) test, the State Department of Education, the Education Oversight Committee and the State Board of Education will be reviewing and restructuring our state’s overall accountability system. (As an aside, am I the only one who finds it curious that South Carolina needs both a State Board of Education and an Education Oversight Committee? It seems a little unwieldy. Sometimes, too many cooks can spoil the broth.) As a career educator who strongly values accountability, I’d like to make a few suggestions (that I hope are constructive) to be considered:
•Set high, but reasonable achievement goals. The cut scores that are now in place to identify “Below Basic,” “Basic,” and “Proficient,” and “Advanced” achievement are the most stringent in the country. A recent study entitled “The Proficiency Illusion” by the Thomas Fordham Foundation, a conservative education think tank, concluded that of the 18 real schools examined in the study, 17 would be up to standard in Wisconsin, 15 would be in Arizona, but only three schools would be 0proficient as measured by South Carolina’s challenging standards. I don’ t think that South Carolina’s bar should be set low, but let’s set it at a level that with diligence and hard work, students can actually achieve it.
•Set the goals and leave them in place. Under the current structure, the goals move upward each year. Because of this, it is possible, and fairly typical, for a school to have shown very measurable improvement and still get a lower report card rating from one year to the next. A colleague of mine likens this to the old “I Love Lucy” episode where Lucy and Ethel get jobs in a candy factory. Their job is to wrap the candy without missing a piece. While they start out doing quite well, as the conveyor belt speeds up, the standard of not missing a piece becomes impossible to reach. It’s a pretty accurate comparison of what we’re doing in South Carolina.
•Restructure the state report card to recognize schools that are improving. Under that current structure, a school that has made a lot of improvement, but has still not reached the established standard, is given the same report card raring as a school that is making no positive movement. I’m not sure how this serves to motivate anyone.
Why is this so important? First of all, the taxpayers of South Carolina are paying between 25 and 30 million dollars each year to administer and grade the state tests and develop and print the report cards. For this kind of expenditure in these budget times, or anytime for that matter, we should be getting something useful. Many parents have shared with me that the report card is of no benefit to them and does not accurately reflect their school. Teacher and administrators do not see the report card as a data source that promotes improvement. What are we really getting for our money here?
Further, the report card ratings have massive impact on economic development. Based on the Fordham Foundation study I referenced earlier, the schools in Wisconsin look much better than those in South Carolina, even though the hard data in no way supports this assumption. The reality is that businesses make decisions about locating, or not locating in our state based on the flawed data in our state report card. How is this beneficial to our state and its citizens?
Make no mistake, I’m not suggesting that we implement the kind of watered-down system that exists in some states. But what we have now is broken. Let’s fix it and get it right this time.
By Bambbe May 12, 2009 at 7:57 am
Frank,
You are truly a politician, not an “educator.”
You are arguing against rising standards, against absolute performance rankings, and defending a statewide public school monopoly where half of the students fail to graduate on time (as quoted by Education Week).
You ought to be ashamed of your self – stop posting your silly editorials on blogs and start being a steward of my taxes and a real teacher to my kids!
By Republic, The May 12, 2009 at 8:39 am
Bambbe is dead on. Superintendents across the state often forget their role is to implement policy, not to advocate for or against it. That is what pundits, school board members, PTAs, and legislators are for.
By Jimmy R. May 12, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Right on Republic! Educators, like children, should be seen and not heard. Bunch of losers – with their degrees, practical experience and knowledge of that of which they speak. Educational policy should really be determined by message board commentators…or Kelly Payne….preeeeettty.
By Republic, The May 12, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Frank E. Morgan is a politician, not an educator. If you really do want to ask a classroom teacher they will tell you: diagnostic and norm-referenced testing are instructionally useful in ways that PACT/PASS are not.