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2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

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Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#191

Post by catawbasam »

omginternets wrote: post #183
ransom1538 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is the most important sentence in the article. It points to a problem in the test itself - California's students didn't just get magically stupider." Yes. Having gone through public education in California the tests were treated as a total joke. They had no weight to your grades and there was zero incentive to do well. Often you wouldn't even get the results. In elementary school it was common for a teacher to…

>It points to a problem in the test itself Please forgive what might be construed as quibbling, but I'm increasingly dismayed by the doxa that poor scores on tests reflect poor testing practices. To be clear, testing practices in the U.S. are crappy, but so is the secondary education system in general (at least, compared to much of Western Europe). More to the point: these results point to a problem either with the t…

Your comment would have been more credible if you had spelled 'Asimov' correctly.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#192

Post by cyphar »

mcny wrote: post #171
cyphar wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boils down to lack of funding and lack of teachers. Lack of new teachers -- as well as absolutely insanely strong unions -- are also some of the reasons why teachers effectively have tenure at schools. In Australia, teachers can be moved around schools (in a given state) as well, which is even more flexible than just tenure at a university.

> It boils down to lack of funding and lack of teachers. Lack of new teachers -- as well as absolutely insanely strong unions -- are also some of the reasons why teachers effectively have tenure at schools. In Australia, teachers can be moved around schools (in a given state) as well, which is even more flexible than just tenure at a university. So basically we have no friends. The unions are not our friends obviousl…

There's nothing insidious about unions protecting workers that are members -- that's explicitly their whole purpose. More fields should adopt strong unions.

The problem is that education reform is an common empty promise in politics. Education is underfunded in most countries, and better funding (and then more education for teachers) would be very helpful.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#193

Post by andlarry »

> But persistently low achievement rates of African-American, Latino, poor, English-learner and disabled students, who together make up a majority of the state’s public-school students, fuel criticism of the educational status quo.

Perhaps repealing the English only teaching requirement via prop 58 last year had something to do with harming English proficiency in underserved populations. Prop 227, which established the English only requirement (parents could opt out) seemed successful.

> "Hispanic test scores on a range of subjects have risen since Proposition 227 became law."

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_227,_the_%22E...

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#194

Post by humanrebar »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #172
csa wrote: post #117

When are we going to come out and admit that our schools are not providing our society with what it needs or wants? For a large chunk of HN, schools served us relatively well. But for a huge chunk of the US, school is just a waste of time. At best, it's free childcare for parents. Preparing everyone to college is overkill (n.b. having a way for everyone who wants to go to college an affordable way to go to a good sch…

We definitely need history and science otherwise people vote for politicians who also don't understand history and science.

Agreed, but it's a bipartisan habit to invoke the word "science" when you're in effect trying to call your opponents stupid. And it's a bipartisan habit to crush your opponents arguments under the weight of "history". As in "standing in the way of progress" or invoking historical bogeymen to end arguments (as opposed to making valid points).

All of the above are fallacious yet effective. Of course, good science and history classes would help explain those fallacies.

Point being, we need to be careful that we're not just indoctrinating people into our particular bad habits.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#195

Post by in_cahoots »

cobookman wrote: post #140
in_cahoots wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my city there are schools that are 80% white / Asian and schools that are 80% Latino / black. There’s almost nothing in between. To go to one of the majority-white / Asian schools you need to live in neighborhoods where the houses are easily 3x the cost of the houses in Latino /black neighborhoods. There are few if any apartments to rent. These schools routinely have fundraisers where parents are asked to donate t…

So it's not the schools fault, but California policies. Thinks like housing, school districting, and sanctuary state. I don't think it's fair to blame the teachers or education curriculum.

I’m not blaming the teachers for having to work with a lack of resources. And yes, you can place the blame upstream with policies, home prices, or something else. My point is merely that you can’t look at county-wide averages and say that children of all races receive the same education, as the OP was doing.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#196

Post by wcarron »

catawbasam wrote: post #191
omginternets wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It points to a problem in the test itself Please forgive what might be construed as quibbling, but I'm increasingly dismayed by the doxa that poor scores on tests reflect poor testing practices. To be clear, testing practices in the U.S. are crappy, but so is the secondary education system in general (at least, compared to much of Western Europe). More to the point: these results point to a problem either with the t…

Your comment would have been more credible if you had spelled 'Asimov' correctly.

That's false. A simple spelling mistake, which everyone makes from time to time, does not invalidate his or her comment.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#197

Post by tptacek »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #185
tptacek wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters very much, because the subtext of saying that school performance is effectively hereditary is that no intervention we can come up with will improve test scores, because the problem is intrinsic to the student. That's false.

School performance is in fact hereditary, possibly because rich people go to fancy schools and their parents can afford to help them with homework and so on. A good intervention might be to improve the schools that poor people go to. But if poor students are just intrinsically more stupid for some biological reason, a good intervention might be to improve the schools that stupid people go to. Since it turns out the b…

If we agree about the needed intervention but for different reasons, our debate isn't going to be very productive. I agree that schools are doing a poor job of serving black and latino students.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#198

Post by humanrebar »

dogruck wrote: post #87
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #67

It’s not too surprising considering the rising inequality in CA. Wealth is the largest predictor of educational attainment. https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/reardon%20whit...

Yes, but wealth is also correlated with aptitude. I'm not saying our system is perfect. Plenty of rich bozos. On the other hand, in a perfect system, to me, it seems that the highest achievers would tend to both: 1. Succeed in school and 2. Acquire wealth.

...and wealth is also correlated with marriage rates. The thread replying to you goes on about socioeconomic indicators, but a lack of parental resources could be influencing both poverty and lack of educational success.

To put it another way, if there are more single parent households this year and educational indicators didn't change, that actually sounds like a success to me.

That's not to disparage single parents. It shouldn't be controversial to say single parents on average have less time, money, and energy to review homework, go on enriching family trips, go to PTA meetings, or fight the school district when they make bad decisions. Single parents deserve a lot of respect for parenting through difficulty, but the difficulty does exist.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#199

Post by kazinator »

kazinator wrote: post #166
swivelmaster wrote: post #7

"California isn’t alone in its stagnating scores and in fact compares favorably with the 12 other states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands, that administered the same tests last spring from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Scores decreased in every state, and California’s decline was about the smallest, retired educational testing specialist Douglas McRae said." This is the most important sentence in the artic…

-> magically get stupider Anyway, it's actually more than magic at work; kids in grades 3-8 and 11 in 2016 are not the same set of people as kids in grades 3-8 and 11 in 2017.

One thing I'm getting at here is that even if we discount things like demographic shifts, there is the factor that the kids are one year older and are getting the harder tests. The new grade 3 kids being tested are last year's grade 2; the 4's are last years 3rd graders and so on. If you don't teach the kids anything all year, push them onto the next grade and then test them at the next level, they will do worse. Based on this idea, a year-over-year performance should be able to detect a real, instantaneous problem.

Re: 2017 California school test scores: Why are they flatlining?

#200

Post by watwut »

gizmo686 wrote: post #115
watwut wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why incentives mess test up? I would try harder on graded test, including preparation.

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. The more you prepare specifically for a test, the harder it is to determine how much of your score is based on your general understanding of what is being tested, and how much is based on you exploiting the test.

If I don't study at all ever, only then is my understanding pure and not contaminated by studying for a test?

If I dont study for the test, then you basically measure how long ago it was when I was revising the material last time (if it was last week I get much better result then if it was month and half ago) and you have even more random in terms of whether my learning coincided with I focused on what would count as "exploitation" of this test or different test. For example, was you focusing on speed during easy exercises or ability to solve hard problems last three weeks? It is pretty much random choice and preparation lets you get back to other mode relatively fast - while without it you get worst results with kids who accidentally did wrong thing and it has nothing to do with understanding of material, just a random chance.

Motivation to actually prepare yourself removes that random.

The exploitation of specific test, especially if you dont understand base material, gets you only so far compared to that.

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