A Brief Response to the Youngstown Vindicator Editorial of
Janurary 14, 2000 (Page A-4)
by Randy L. Hoover with assistance from Kathy Farber and Bill Armaline.
Responses to the Vindicator's Editorial The following is a set of paragraph-by-paragraph responses to the Youngstown Vindicator editorial of Jan. 14, 2000 (Page A-3). I would like to especially thank my dear friends Kathy Farber and Bill Armaline of Bowling Green State University for assisting me in putting these responses together. The responses to the editorial are the indented paragraphs. While I hate the term "talking points," I do hope some of you are able to articulate your own professional arguments and public dialogues more clearly and forcefully with the help of these responses. Arm yourselves with knowledge, my friends: The war for justice has begun. (rlh)
"How We See It"
"Proficiency tests for teachers?"
What is the question here? We already have them in Ohio. Perhaps it is time for proficiency tests for editorial writers. Had the writer done any homework at all, this would not be a question. The entire article is ill-prepared and exemplifies sloppy thinking and professional laziness. If I were to grade this editorial as a submission by an undergraduate teacher education student at YSU, it would get no better than an "F" for the simple reason that it consists of accusations and claims that are either not grounded in evidence, are contrary to the evidence, or just not true. What irony, the writer screams for teacher accountability yet clearly does not have to deal with it in his own work."The moaning in Columbus of the Ohio Education Association that proficiency testing should be halted until the state establishes new guidelines to help prepare students for the tests suggests that these professional educators may not be as capable and knowledgeable as they profess. If so many Ohio teachers are unable to teach children to do arithmetic or to understand age-appropriate principles of science or to read and write, then they do not belong in the classroom."
This is NOT what is called for in the OEA resolution. It is simply fictional, a lie that is irresponsible and malicious perpetuated by the editorial writer. It is a violation of any sense of journalistic ethics. The management of the Vindicator should learn to hold its employees accountable for lying to the public. For an exact copy of the OEA resolution, go HERE."As much as demonstrating the proficiency of students, the state tests demonstrate the proficiency of the teachers themselves. One of the beauties of the exams is that performance can be viewed class by class, and teachers whose classes do not measure up can be identified."
The OEA's basis for calling for a moratorium on proficiency testing is grounded in a moral obligation to serve and protect Ohio's public school children and educators from abuse from an academically invalid standardized test. The editorial writer's assumption that the tests are valid is totally fallacious. This assumption has never been questioned by the Vindicator or policymakers of the State of Ohio.
Ironically, it is precisely because Ohio's teaching force IS highly capable and knowledgeable that they are acting before the lives of so many of Ohio's school children are destroyed by the right-wing extremists controlling the Governor's office and Ohio Legislature. You clearly see the arbitrary an overtly anti-teacher ideology of the writer here. Any journalist worth a paycheck should first investigate the claims of those who are educated about the realities of the OPT and not rely on blind ideological bias to attack the messengers simply because the writer does not like the message. (A copy of the OEA resolution may be accessed HERE.)
The additional irony is that all teachers would agree with the claim that if a teacher cannot teach, they should not be in the classroom. No one at any level is or has been arguing against accountability. However, accountability must be a function of the decision latitude held by the teacher. The absolute truth is that the teacher is only one of many variables in determining what and whether a child learns. (For a short essay on teacher accountability, go HERE.)
In addition, not all forms of accountability are equally valid nor is one form more valid than another because a policymaker or editorial writer declares it so. Indeed, we know from experience and life that many students do learn in school. The irony is that the best of them are the ones who read the editorial and were instantly capable of seeing through the sophistry and rhetorical manipulation of the editorial writer.This claim is ludicrous on so many levels, I do not have the time to cover them all. First of all if the child has difficulty reading, all other sections of the test are invalid. My own research shows for 4th grade students, the correlation between their reading test score and the scores on the other sections is 0.99! In other words, the math, citizenship, and science tests are primarily determined by reading ability and not necessarily knowledge of math, science, or citizenship."Too much complaining: Instead of complaining about the state tests, teachers would be better served by working for improved teacher education with higher standards for those who are admitted to colleges of education and those who receive teaching credentials."
Another point is that the deeper a district's poverty, the more transient the students. They move from school to school and district to district often not spending even a single year within the same classroom. To attribute any OPT score to a single teacher is absurd and shows the writers total failure to even consider the realities of schooling. The writer's notion of what tests measure is simplistic as is his conception of why some students perform better than others.
To be brief, the fallacy of the argument and the ignorance of the writer can be seen in thinking of the medical profession. We know well that life expectancy is shorter among those in poverty than those of wealth. Therefore, when the mortality rates of doctors treating inner-city or rural poor are higher than average, would the Vindicator editorialize those doctors as incompetent?I have been a teacher educator for more than 20 years and find the quality of students going into teaching to be remarkably high and improving every year. Certainly teacher education should not be immune from criticism, but to base that criticism on student OPT performance that is academically invalid is nothing short of an irresponsible act of gross stupidity. Once more, if we were to base our assessment of medical education on patient knowledge of healthy living, what would it tell us and would it be a valid?"After all, the proficiency tests did not spring from nowhere to confound unsuspecting teachers. The Ohio legislation authorizing the tests was passed in 1987, and the first tests were given to ninth graders in 1990 - almost a decade ago. The graduating class of 1994 was the first required to pass the tests to receive a diploma."
As for working to improve teacher education, this is being done throughout the nation and the state. Universities, including Arts and Sciences, are working with teachers and administrators to improve teacher education in unprecedented ways. The idea that teachers and teacher educators are complacent is simply false. Again, minimal journalistic effort through a simple call to YSU could have verified this to the writer.
It is also important to note that no one decries the use of standardized tests, only their exclusive use in determining the future of a child. What many of us do criticize is their being used for purposes alien from those for which they were created, e.g.., The fourth grade proficiency test is used as a high stakes admission requirement to fifth grade as opposed to a tool for possibly diagnosing academic problems. Many teachers who criticize the tests hold much higher standards than those who support the tests.On the surface, these tests seemed reasonable to some educators at first. But all quality teachers and other educators very quickly realized that the tests were overwhelmingly biased against kids living in poverty. These quality educators also soon saw how the tests reduce knowledge to factoids that have no meaning for even those who pass the tests. As the state later began to use the Ohio School Report Card to bash local districts, the fact that the secreted test items had become the offical de-facto standards for the state became clear. The problem was OEA and other professional education associations did not give voice to what was quickly becoming evident about the tests."So it's more than a little late now for Michael Billirakis, president of the Ohio Education Association, to be asking the governor and state lawmakers to place a moratorium on the use of proficiency tests to determine if students graduate or move on to a higher grade."This is truly an arrogant and highly illogical statement. It is never too late to stop something that is wrong and very dangerous to the futures of Ohio's children. The writer's comments are tantamount to saying we should not have put warning labels on cigarettes because for years we all believed them to be safe. OPT is not safe, and doing something about it is a moral responsibility that the good teachers of Ohio are willing to act on. The writer is decrying the reality that Ohio's teachers were intelligent enough to keep an open mind about the tests until their effects were more clearly understood and their effects analyzed."What's more, educators served on the committees that determined the learning outcomes the tests are designed to measure and developed the model curriculums for each subject area."There is little wrong with the learning outcomes; many are very worthy and desirable. However, the writer's total ignorance of the concept of test validity begs the question of the relationship between what teachers teach and what OPT measures. The writer also uses a cookie-cutter assumption that all children are exactly the same no matter what living conditions they experience. All I can say here is that intellectually and professionally lazy journalism creates more problems than it solves."Quality measures: Thus we are concerned with Billirakis' contention that the tests have reduced the quality of learning for many students. We rather suspect that the test results indicate a reduction in the quality of teaching by under-prepared teachers or those who are resistant to change."
In another sense, the author does not understand that educators were co-opted as committee members to advise a fait accompli in designing the program. Most educators who have served on such committees will be first to tell you that there was little room for alternative suggestions, and disagreement was unacceptable.Billirakis's contention is real to all quality teachers. The writer slips a bit here when he comments that he suspects the test results indicate a reduction in the quality of teaching. So do we, but not because of under-prepared or resistant teachers; it is because test performance is primarily a function of non-school variables. Those who support OPT fail entirely to understand that student performance on OPT is a function of a range of different variables, not just the teacher."When material describing the sixth grade citizenship test, for example, is provided to teachers, they are told explicitly what their pupils should know."
I have said this before and will say it again: District OPT performance is almost entirely determined by the living conditions of the districts students. When controlling for these external variables, we begin to see that many districts that appear to be doing poorly are actually performing extremely well and far beyond what we would predict. Youngstown City Schools is a good example of this. Controlling for poverty conditions, the district is in the top 10% of all districts in the state.
Also, there is ample evidence (had the writer done any homework) that curriculums have changed, often for the worse because the time dedicated to rote study has displaced what once existed as actual learning activities. I was told directly by one teacher how she was compelled to eliminate a creative writing program in order to create more time for OPT practice sessions.OK, Vindicator... so why do you persist in assuming the OPT is a valid measure? Do your damned homework, lest you fail a 9th grade journalism proficiency test!"We find it hard to believe that a competent elementary school teacher needs lesson plans from the state so that she can make clear to her pupils "the differences between a democracy, a monarchy and a dictatorship, and the types of political activity that typically take place in a democracy."The way tests such as OPT measure understanding of these constructs totally obscures the real-world complexity of them. OPT drives teachers to push for the declaration of summary facts and descriptions of complex and eminently usable concepts, principles, and ideas across all facets of the test. The test forces the teacher to teach and the students to learn pseudo-caricatures of concepts like democracy, monarchy, and dictatorship that greatly impede informed decision making and civic involvement. Indeed it is precisely because of tests such as OPT that students actually end up being mis-educated instead of educated."The teacher resource manual provided by the state states for the math test, as yet another example, 'A fundamental understanding of both two-and three-dimensional geometry is of the utmost importance.' Teachers are told that 'exercises that reflect the mathematical aspects of everyday life encounters would best serve as a means of preparation.'Few, if any, teachers would disagree with these two examples of objectives. However, it is both a leap of logic and a dangerous assumption to believe the idea that proficiency testing facilitates their being learned; it does not."Shouldn't the ability to prepare such exercises be reasonably expected of a teacher?"Yes, and they are in every teacher education program in the state and nation. It is the testing process that subverts and undermines the actual effort of the teachers to focus on the usability and applications of core academic subject material in real life."Professionalism: Other professionals don't demand that the state provide the resources they need to adjust to new expectations or changing requirements in their fields of endeavor. Why is the teaching profession different?"First, many other professions, especially business and industry make resource demands all the time. When the government mandates action such as greater air pollution control accountability, business screams loudly about cost and resources needed to meet the government standards. The entire history of the neo-conservative agenda of the Republican party since Reagan has been based in overt demands for more de-regulation... the elimination of resource-intensive government standards for accountability of business and industry. The most aggressive demand by business and industry for state resources is found in the form of tax abatements, programs which, ironically, take monies directly away from public schools. Every tax abatement means taxpayer subsidy of business."Many graduates of law schools are unable to pass the bar exam and thus are prevented from practicing law. Regardless of the number of courses they have completed in medical school, doctors must still pass state boards before they can treat patients. But we can imagine the howls if graduates of education colleges were required to pass a state licensure examination before being entrusted with the education of the state's children."
Second, many other professions-- law, medicine, and journalism-- do not operate in the context of compulsory attendance laws. Nor are they required to account for the quality of their service to clients other than in very general, non-invasive ways. What the writer is ignorant of is the simple principle that because the state requires and compels children to attend school, the state must be held accountable for providing resources for the efficient and effective schooling it requires of school districts.
The argument given by the writer is foolishly blind. Do not courts, hospitals, sewer districts, airports, and many other institutions receive public assistance to carry out their responsibilities to the citizens of the state?This is absolutely the most stupid, irresponsible, uninformed, and intellectually lazy paragraph of journalism yet seen in this editorial. You fail to meet even the most basic standards for good journalism. . . our teacher education graduates ARE required to pass a state licensure examination before being entrusted with the education of the state's children! Further, their practice is examined numerous times before they are able to acquire full and continuing licensure."While we have no doubt that large numbers of Ohio teachers are fully competent, the stance of their union implies the contrary."There is no such implication. In fact, what is suggested here is a maturing profession trying to gain the autonomy and responsibility to police its own ranks and to do the right thing for Ohio's children and parents. If the writer were to take the time to trace the history of the OEA resolution, he would find what he writes is the real contrary. The OEA resolution was and is a grass-roots movement by some of the most qualified and effective classroom teachers I have ever known. It did not come from the elite of the OEA leadership; it came from the classroom teachers of the Youngstown-Warren area.
Last, the statement smells of the fear the writer has for re-centering classroom teachers (education experts) in the process of empowering students. Why, in heaven's name, would he prefer that wealthy politicians, neo-conservative special interest groups, and self-absorbed Republican extremists determine how our state's children are educated? I wonder how many of them would pass the background checks, the licensure tests, and the rigor required to work with kids of all kinds, day in and day out, for less pay than the vast majority of jobs requiring a bachelor's degree and then a master's degree! (Teachers ages 22-28 earned an average of $7894 less per year than other college-educated adults of the same age in 1998 according to "Education Week" as stated in the Vindicator, 1-15-00, page A4.) How many state politicians could pass even the ninth-grade OPT? Hmmm, let's make a law. . . then listen to who howls!