Julia Steiny: Rhode Island, Raise Your Rock-Bottom Expectations

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Julia Steiny, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

Julia Steiny argues that RI lawmakers should encourage the state's students to perform better on tests, not enable them to get a meaningless diploma.

Suddenly, in the wake of the state's testing results, the Rhode Island General Assembly has whipped up legislation designed to quash any thought of the state having meaningful diplomas. How like them.

Companion bills— H-5277 and S-117 — would eliminate the unbelievably-modest test requirement for graduating from high school. Last week, the House version was heard by the Health, Education and Welfare Committee. Passions waxed. Abuse of the kids alleged. The mediocrity of the current status quo affirmed. Enabling lauded.

No wonder the state is such a mess.

Mind you the requirement is minimal, a small step up from zero diploma standards, which is what we have now. The class of 2014 and high-school students henceforth need to score at Level 2 or better to qualify for graduation. Level 1 is "substantially below proficient." See last week's column for details about currently available supports and accommodations for non-passers.

Mixed Message

My concern this week is the message these bills are sending to the kids. It is: Well, no, we don't want you to have to work hard and earn, however modestly, a diploma that certifies Something. If you're blowing off your work or cutting school, we'll protect you from consequences. If you're legitimately struggling, we'll protect you from the bother of exercising your right to get all the help you need to meet the standard for real.

The expectations of the Rhode Island public are so low, you can walk on them.

Already in 2008 and then again in 2010, the Board of Regents told the public-education community that students would eventually need to test out of Level 1. Both times public uproar pushed the deadline back in order to give teachers, kids, schools and parents time to get their act together. After the second bruhaha, the requirement was finally established for next year's graduating class.

So this is nothing new. The General Assembly certainly could have taken action before now, but didn't. The message was out there. But when challenge presents itself, the attitude in Rhode Island is: this too will pass.

And lo! It does. The Legislature now jumping in for a last-minute save proves the point. We set goals and then dismantle them. Which is exactly how we get our nation-leading unemployment rate, dismal business climate and expensive, mediocre schools.

The Problem Isn't The Test

So it's sad, but not a huge surprise that the class of 2014 who took the test last fall, as juniors, did not ramp up their game as though urgency were upon them.

True, proficiency in the Math test, the hardest one, improved a healthy 4 percentage points. And the percentage of students in Level 1 dropped from 44 to 40. So there were some gains. But that 40 percent is about 4,000 students. The state can not afford 4,000 drop-outs.

But wait. Annually, about 1,900 students drop out of Rhode Island high schools. To date none of those left because of a test score.

Furthermore, of the students who do graduate from RI high schools, about 20 percent are chronically absent, meaning that they miss a month of school each year, or more. (See: High-school absenteeism and college persistence on the RIDataHUB, page 6.) Twenty percent?! Surely those students could achieve more if they got their sorry butts to school more often.

And students have been quoted recently saying they receive only "A"s and "B"s in their classes, but score at Level 1? Huh? What's wrong with that picture? I was no testing hotshot myself, so I had to learn strategies to improve my scores. If these students are so diligent, with grades like that, surely they too can pick up the test-taking skills that would get them out of Level 1. (Or the kids' school is a total sham.)

Because life is a test. Meeting benchmarks is a life-long requirement, whether it's getting a drivers license or dressing for a job interview. What's the standard and what do I have to do to meet it? Learn that lesson.

A Culture of Enabling

Julia Steiny says more focus needs to be put on the students failing to meet proficiency requirements, not on the tests themselves.

Mind you, the plight of the 4,000 kids is real, and upsetting. I do not minimize the steep challenge of meeting the new bar. They have been done wrong. In several respects. Including that they haven't been held accountable for their performance to date.

You'd think the taxpayers, parents, teachers, indeed the kids themselves would be applauding the higher standards. Pluck and ambition are good things. You'd think folks would be rallying around those kids who haven't yet made it, offering to help in any way.

You'd think they'd be saying: We know you can do it. We have high expectations of you and we want you to have high expectations of yourself. We understand you need support to get there, so we're here to help however we can. We believe in you. We'll both feel marvelous when you succeed! And you will!

These are the encouraging words of all great parents, teachers, politicians and adults in general.

Instead, what we're doing is called "enabling." We are the Ocean of Enabling state. We see struggle and rush in to spare anyone from working harder or learning anything. Our status quo is famously bad. Rock-bottom expectations keep us there.

Dear Legislators: A meaningless diploma serves no one, especially not the kids. How dare you think so little of them. Encourage and help them instead.

Julia Steiny is a freelance columnist whose work also regularly appears at EducationNews.org. She is the founding director of the Youth Restoration Project, a restorative-practices initiative, currently building demonstration projects in Rhode Island. She consults for schools and government initiatives, including regular work for The Providence Plan for whom she analyzes data. For more detail, see juliasteiny.com or contact her at juliasteiny@gmail.com or c/o GoLocalProv, 44 Weybosset Street, Providence, RI 02903.

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Comments:

jon paycheck

7:05am on Thursday, March 07, 2013

its unfortunate but there will be casualties. basically a generation of students that spent 12 years in school and have nothing to show for it.

many were cheated out of a good educationa dn many didnt care about getting a good education.

this is the cost of progress.. so that the enxt generation will all graduate and all get high school degrees and all know something.

ther eshould be make up courses and programs etc for all students that dont pass necap and that is the safety net.

its not perfect but the current system has failed so many people, why not change.

Aaron Regunberg

10:12am on Thursday, March 07, 2013

Julia. First of all, were you at the hearing for H-5277? I did not see you there. So do not insult the students who I know and respect who were there and said, in effect, "We want and need a better education and a learning environment of high expectations. But this is not going to accomplish that." Please, because you happen to disagree with a group of people, do not condescend to and mischaracterize their intentions.

Affirming mediocrity is a very different thing than saying that it is not fair to test to high-stakes standards when so many students have not received the high-quality education they deserve. And even if they had received a high-quality education, a single test score cannot measure this when we know that everyone learns and demonstrates proficiency in different ways (unless you can explain to me how cramming for an arbitrary 5-8 question improvement on an arbitrary math test that was not intended to measure individual achievement will somehow make students more college ready?).

Lastly, if the NECAP is such a good measure of success that its score alone can bring meaning to a diploma, why did you refuse to take the NECAP yourself when invited to by the Providence Student Union?

Harold Stassen

10:55am on Thursday, March 07, 2013

Ms. Steiny is one of the most thoughtful and interesting contributors to GoLocal. I fully agree with her assessment that the NECAP places very modest requirements for students to demonstrate basic proficiency and "achieve" their diploma. In all honesty, it was no surprise that some students would protest because that's what they've been exposed to; a constant mentality of "what we can't do versus what we can do. The state of RI's public education has been an ocean of mediocrity for decades. That RI PARENTS have accepted this situation is one of the real unspoken issues here. Until parents demand better education for their children, things will never improve. What a disservice to our young people and our state.

Russ C

2:32pm on Thursday, March 07, 2013

Ms. Steiny, why should my dyslexic kids be judged by a standardized test score? For instance, how does that score "meaningfully" measure their creativity?

tom brady

10:01pm on Thursday, March 07, 2013

Aaron. Do you happen to know if Deb Gist has taken any portion of the test? Julia and Deb can take the third test that has the difficult questions "culled out" to make it easier to pass but not necessarily less challenging. Can't make it up!

Art West

5:10am on Friday, March 08, 2013

Julia, I like the tough love approach in your article. Well said.

I really pity the kids in today's schools who are going to have to compete in a world where others in the global economy will eat them for lunch.

Charles Marsh

12:39pm on Friday, March 08, 2013

Most kids are starting to realize that they have immediate Internet access to any fact they are being taught in school. Perhaps parents should give more weight to the expectations of exploring information, trying and failing, so they find “a passion” for doing something in life that “fits them”, not the “success benchmarks” of an antiquated educational system.

Rebekah Speck

9:39am on Monday, March 18, 2013

I am a big fan of the regents tests in NYC and state schools and the net effect they have on educational delivery and performance system wide. The regents tests go back to the 1930s and have at times included such necessities as “Comprehensive Vocational Agriculture,” and “Comprehensive Vocational Homemaking.” Earth Science appeared in 1941, and there are optional components of the tests to cover the different languages taught in the public schools as well as other subject choices of individual students. The NECAP never was and still is not a test designed to reflect individual knowledge aggregation. It is not directly reflective of what is taught in schools nor of what students need to know to succeed in 21st Century institutions of higher education and work. It was designed to provide a baseline measure of individual SCHOOL performance, with regard to meeting the basic learning needs of students.

As any teacher in training in RI already knows, the NECAP has been a very accurate predictor of the socio-economic status of students and it has been very helpful in identifying the bigger social gaps that affect student performance such as the net effect of institutionalized racism on urban schools and kids. In short, it is a really good predictor of poverty and neglect, so if we want to measure those things, we should use that test.

If we want to raise our “rock bottom” expectations on our students, let’s start with raising them on ourselves first by creating and applying the real tests that we need to incentivize and reward individual performance. I think “App Creation,” “Portuguese,” “Hip Hop Studies,” and “Information Systems,” are optional tests that I would like to see on our graduation requirements in the near future as they will be obsolete soon enough themselves. (I am quite sure Hip Hop is the Classical music of the future.) Then, let’s create the curricula we need to empower teachers, to embed critical and CREATIVE thinking within the learning processes of students, through which they build a web of knowledge in areas of learning that they feel connected to. Learning is easier when the learner knows how to learn and test taking is less high stakes when students are offered high quality learning in school.

This is not an argument over whether we need higher expectations, we all agree we do, this is an argument on whom we need them. Deborah Gist, the chain of performance starts with you. How are you going to ensure that high quality learning is delivered in our schools and that our tests are going to accurately measure preparation for 21st Century performance? Misapplication of the NECAP does not inspire confidence or impress.

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