Community Corner
Another Demonstration That Change is Sorely Needed
I found the presentation that included the elementary “Where you focus is where you go” that replaced any discussion of achieving improved learning by all students and the elimination or significant reduction in the “Achievement Gap” by giddy claims of identity group pitting of performance of student groups against each other to be ugly and totally inappropriate. This was made worse by Board, Superintendent, and School disregard and apparent total indifference at the poor performance level at which this pitted competition is taking place. That is simply inexcusable and its correction needs to be a priority and focus of the Superintendent search process.
This presentation was another example of a multi-year stagnant trend of reports of both districtwide assessments and specific program assessments (ex. The December Algebra 1 Presentation) where the following enterprise activities:
Use of assessment results to monitor student progress and identify student interventions
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were cited as district responses to promise future improved results justifying the maintenance of the status quo that by your omission in silence and inaction you have demonstrated your concurrence and approval. If any of those activities were actually being effectively followed and focused on the improvement of learning by all students, supporting the claim of a student-centered district, the district would be experiencing a multi-year upward trend in test results. Sober reality demonstrates that the opposite is true. With the 2013 MEAP results we now have at least (5) years of at best a flatlined trend across the entire spectrum of tests and grade levels. The following statements were included in the memorandum of the 2013 MEAP results:
9th Grade Social Studies scores declined (11) percentage points [5 is significant] over the last (4) years. All scores are showing a downward trend, Farmington has been below the County average for the last (2) years.
8th Grade Mathematics scores declined another (6) percentage points [5 is significant]over the last year with a (11) percent decline, a downward trend, over the last (4) years.
8th Grade Farmington MEAP scores were below County scores last year.
7th Grade Farmington MEAP scores have been declining while the State scores have been increasing.
7th Grade Farmington MEAP scores have been below County scores for the last (3) years.
7th Grade Farmington Mathematics scores have declined over the last (4) years.
6th Grade Farmington Social Studies scores declined over the last year. Farmington is showing a downward trend being below the County average for the last (2) years.
6th & 5th Grade Farmington Reading scores have been stable over the last (4) years while State and County scores have been increasing.
5th Grade Farmington Reading scores have been below the County average for the last (3) years.
5th Grade Farmington Science scores have been stable over the last (4) years.
5th Grade Farmington Mathematics scores declined by (9) percentage points [5 is significant].
5th Grade Farmington Mathematics scores have been below the County average for the last (3) years.
5th Grade Farmington Mathematics scores were below the State average last year.
3rd Grade Farmington Mathematics scores decreased by (7) percentage points [5 is significant].
Similarly, the Board was presented a report on district 7th – 9th Grade Algebra 1 proficiency using a C- Algebra 1 course grade as the benchmark for proficiency. This baseless contrivance enabled the reporting of a 70% proficiency level to support the District program of identity politics driven student support programs and interventions for (2) of (14) State identified and measured student groups. However, we have 2009 – 2012 State reported Farmington Math MEAP results that provide a measure of Proficiency:
Farmington 2009 2010 2011 2012
8th Grade Mathematics 30.2% 28.9% 29.4% 34.5%
7th Grade Mathematics 38.5% 35.9% 37.2% 38.1%
6th Grade Mathematics 38.1% 36.2% 37.1% 40.2%
This data suggests that 60 to 70% of all students are likely not to be proficient in Algebra 1 which would suggest a much broader based need for support and intervention in the classroom to improve learning by all students. Further, national educational research on Algebra 1 proficiency has repeatedly found that “What is clear from the studies reviewed is that elementary school mathematics achievement is positively related to secondary school achievement. Thus, mandating more secondary courses without systemic efforts to change elementary school mathematics experiences and achievement levels is potentially problematic.” Other research as shown that “Having “number system knowledge” in kindergarten or earlier — grasping that a numeral represents a quantity, and understanding the relationships among numbers — was a more important factor in math success by 7th grade than intelligence, race or income.” Yet the Board has accepted the Administration’s flawed process, direction, and focus on race and income without question.
How many years will Board Trustees turn their head and pretend not to see? How many years will students perform poorly on learning assessments before their learning needs will be effectively responded to? How many years will a Best of the Best Enterprise of Learning remain a Pilot before its proven and effective learning process becomes a District Standard replicated across the district? Farmington does not have a teacher problem. Farmington has a management and accountability problem that includes the Board. When you are part of the problem, without proactive School Exec Connect intervention to realign the Board on a research-based proven national level, how will a Superintendent be selected who will provide the required change in direction and focus and turn Farmington Public School’s multi-year decline around?
The presentation on the new (to Farmington) NWEA assessment demonstrated the same deficiencies as the MEAP presentation. Measuring growth is a good approach and focus. However that growth has to be calibrated to a standard. Achieving a test measured improvement in learning is a desired outcome. However, if that full range of improvement remains within a knowledge level of “Not Proficient”, a learning problem persists. In the Board presentation a slide was shown of student groupings into Red, Yellow, and Green categories, but what do the cutoff scores (<201: Red | 202-213: Yellow | > 214: Green) for groups represent? I did not hear any Administration reference or Board Trustee question of a standard. However, NWEA studied and developed a linkage of the MAP Assessment to the MEAP. Why wasn’t it a part of the presentation? Why wasn’t it a Point of Interest to the Board?
According to the April 2012 NWEA study linking to the MEAP, the Fall RIT Cut Scores to the MEAP are:
Not Proficient: <196 Partially Proficient: 196-204 Proficient: 205-220 Advanced 221
NWEA identifies these Cut Scores as indicating a 50% chance of achieving the respective MEAP result. Is a 50% chance of achieving the designated outcome a satisfactory outcome? I don’t think so! Do you?
Using the MAP Score to indicate the probability of achieving a Proficient rating on the MEAP reveals:
201 = 38% Chance, 202 to 213 = 39 to 72% Chance, and 214 = 73% Chance of being Proficient. The presentation identifies categories of Highest Needs, Tier 2 Intervention, and Qualification for Flexible Small Groups. It is unclear to me that these categories correspond directly to the Red, Yellow, & Green groups but it appears plausible. A Slide entitled “Data for Interventions” raises larger concerns. I recognize this is the 1st year, but a Districtwide standard document should be used and as such be labeled and include a legend to identify and prescribe its use. Based on the Red highlights, Interventions for individual students are indicated by the lack of growth from Fall to Winter (and presumably Winter to Spring) testing. However, this would appear to conflict with the previous Slide showing Red. Yellow, and Green groupings and indeed there are incidences where growth has occurred, no intervention is identified, yet both Fall and Winter MAP scores are below the 196 “Not Proficient” cutoff score. According to the NWEA MEAP linkage, this means that in Farmington no intervention is indicated for a student that has a 12% chance of scoring a Proficient on the MEAP. How is this acceptable? And, over time as we move away from the 2012 MEAP linkage, to what Standard of grade level proficiency will MAP scores be calibrated? How was this processed through a Board Review without being addressed? Out of the (23) students whose results are shown, there are (3) students from the Red Group and (4) from the Yellow Group for whom no intervention is identified despite the low likelihood that they would score “Proficient” on the MEAP. Where is the rigor in this process? Where is the calibration to high expectations, high achievement?
Another issue arises from the data though, recognizing the limitations as the RED/Yellow/Green Grouping represents only (52) students or (2) of (29) 5th Grade classrooms and the “Data for Intervention” shows data for (23) students or (1) classroom, it is unclear as to how representative this small window of data may be. However, based on the entries for the 2012 Reading MEAP not (1) student is in the 1 or “Advanced” MEAP category. According to the State’s report for Farmington 5th Grade Reading, 19.5% or 141 students scored in the “Advanced” category. Based on a uniform distribution of students, (4) or (5) of the (23) students should be in the “1” Category. Where are they? Is this a simple artifact of the small sample size or is this an indication that the distribution of “Advanced” MEAP readers is skewed between the (2) Upper elementary schools? If so, is this a “Focus” issue or a Feeder School issue? Are “Green” Grouped students being educationally underserved based on a focus and interventions only on the neediest students instead of achieving higher learning by all students? With the ugly pitting of group performance based on identity politics displayed in the Elementary level presentation and the flagrant focus on only (2) of (14) State identified groups based on contrived benchmarks at the Secondary level that hide the need more much broader and research-based remedies, what is more likely, the same bias is at work at the Upper Elementary level or an accidental artifact of sampling?
How many years will Board Trustees turn their head and pretend not to see? How many years will students’ perform poorly on learning assessments before their learning needs will be effectively responded to? How many years will a Best of the Best Enterprise of Learning remain a Pilot before its proven and effective learning process becomes a District Standard and is replicated throughout the district? Farmington does not have a teacher problem. Farmington has a management and accountability problem that includes the Board. When you are part of the problem, without proactive School Exec Connect intervention to realign the Board on a research-based, proven national level, how will a Superintendent be selected who will provide the required change in direction and focus and turn Farmington Public School’s multi-year decline around?
Your current timeline constraints for the superintendent search are self-imposed and noncritical. Time can be added to engage School Exec Connect to develop a national gap analysis of the Farmington Program, to perform a National Survey of research-based practices that have been successfully implemented that are targeted at those gaps, and to identify candidate criteria critical to the success of the implementation of those programs, and to proactively recruit candidates from districts with performance levels within the 75th percentile of the 4th, 8th, and 12th grade NAEP tests in contrast to Michigan’s 26th percentile performance. Without data, it is only opinion. The data, as reported directly to you, describes a District that has been in multi-year decline. A decline that spans the same timeframe as the desperate and vain effort to prop up an unsustainable budget structure at the expense of the maintenance and capital improvement of district facilities and technology as well as school improvement and staff development, as the data of flatlined trends and declines in student performance when compared to results of an underperforming State and County indicate. How many more years, as Trustees, will you turn your head and pretend not to see. How many years will undereducated children be passed along before their learning needs are met and they achieve the required learning levels that has been entrusted to you to deliver? The time for change is now.