Blog – Education Next

Stanford Summer Math Camp Defense Doesn’t Add Up, Either

Tom Loveless — Wed, 24 May 2023 13:13:26 +0000

Stanford University was the site of a summer math camp whose outcomes were studied.

I thank Jack Dieckmann for reading my critique of the proposed California State Math Framework (“California’s New Math Framework Doesn’t Add Up”) and for writing a response (“Stanford Summer Math Camp Researchers Defend Study”). In the article, I point to scores of studies cited by What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guides as examples of high-quality research that the framework ignores. I also mention and two studies of Youcubed-designed math summer camps as examples of flawed, non-causal research that the proposed California State Math Framework embraces.

I focused on outcomes measured by how students performed on four tasks created by the Mathematical Assessment Research Service. Based on MARS data, Youcubed claims that students gained 2.8 years of math learning by attending its first 18-day summer camp in 2015. Dieckmann defends MARS as being “well-respected” and having a “rich legacy,” but he offers no psychometric data to support assessing students with the same four MARS tasks pre- and post-camp and converting gains into years of learning. Test-retest using the same instrument within such a short period of time is rarely good practice. And lacking a comparison or control group prevents the authors from making credible causal inferences from the scores.

Is there evidence that MARS tasks should not be used to measure the camps’ learning gains? Yes, quite a bit. The MARS website includes the following warning: “Note: please bear in mind that these materials are still in draft and unpolished form.” Later that point is reiterated, “Note: please bear in mind that these prototype materials need some further trialing before inclusion in a high-stakes test.” I searched the list of assessments covered in the latest edition of the Buros Center’s Mental Measurements Yearbook, regarded as the encyclopedia of cognitive tests, and could find no entry for MARS. Finally, Evidence for ESSA and What Works Clearinghouse are the two main repositories for high quality program evaluations and studies of education interventions. I searched both sites and found no studies using MARS.

The burden of proof is on any study using four MARS tasks to measure achievement gains to justify choosing that particular instrument for that particular purpose.

Dieckmann is correct that I did not discuss the analysis of change in math grades, even though a comparison group was selected using a matching algorithm. The national camp study compared the change in pre- and post-camp math grades, converted to a 4-point scale, of camp participants and matched non-participants. One reason not to take the “math GPA data” seriously is that grades are missing for more than one-third of camp participants (36%). Moreover, baseline statistics on math grades are not presented for treatment and comparison groups. Equivalence of the two groups’ GPAs before the camps cannot be verified.

Let’s give the benefit of doubt and assume the two groups had similar pre-camp grades. Are post-camp grade differences meaningful? The paper states, “On average, students who attended camp had a math GPA that was 0.16 points higher than similar non-attendees.” In a real-world sense, that’s not very impressive on a four-point scale. We learn in the narrative that special education students made larger gains than non-special education students. Non-special education students’ one-tenth of a GPA point gain is underwhelming.

Moreover, as reported in Table 5, camp dosage, as measured in hours of instruction, is inversely related to math GPA. More instruction is associated with less impact on GPA. When camps are grouped into three levels of instructional hours (low, medium, and high dosage), effects decline from low (0.27) to medium (0.09) to high (0.04) dosage. This is precisely the opposite of the pattern of changes reported for the MARS outcome—and the opposite of what one would expect if increased exposure to the camps boosted math grades.

The proposed California Math Framework relies on Youcubed for its philosophical outlook on K-12 mathematics: encouraging how the subject should be taught, defining its most important curricular topics, providing guidance on how schools should organize students into different coursework, and recommending the best way of measuring the mathematics that students learn. With the research it cites as compelling and the research it ignores as inconsequential, the framework also sets a standard for what it sees as empirical evidence that educators should follow in making the crucial daily decisions that shape teaching and learning.

It’s astonishing that California’s K-12 math policy is poised to take the wrong road on so many important aspects of education.

Tom Loveless, a former 6th-grade teacher and Harvard public policy professor, is an expert on student achievement, education policy, and reform in K–12 schools. He also was a member of the National Math Advisory Panel and U.S. representative to the General Assembly, International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, 2004–2012.

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From Harvard, Hope

James A. Peyser — Wed, 24 May 2023 09:00:01 +0000

Speakers of the Program on Education Policy and Governance’s spring colloquium series. Top row, from left: Marguerite Roza, Parag Pathak, Shaun Dougherty, and Emily Hanford. Bottom row, from left: Parker Baxter, Danielle S. Allen, Robert Pondiscio, and Thomas Kane.

The classic grade school writing assignment for the first week of school is “what I did on my summer vacation.” Although, sadly, I’m no longer in grade school and it’s not yet September, what follows is a variation on the theme: “what I learned last semester at the Kennedy School.”

As an academic visitor attached to the Program on Education Policy and Governance, I had the privilege of organizing this spring’s colloquium series, featuring seven speakers from here at Harvard and around the country, addressing a broad range of timely education topics, from fiscal affairs to career-technical education, from early literacy to civics, and school busing to achievement gaps.

Although there isn’t a single thread tying all of these important presentations and discussions together, there are some common themes that emerge. First among them is that there is reason for hope. Specifically, recent research findings point to the fact that some things—in fact many things—are working and producing positive results and doing so at scale.

At the highest level, Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor Thomas Kane’s time-series analysis of results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicates that overall student achievement has improved during the period of standards-based education reform over the past 30 years. More important, the data show meaningful progress in reducing achievement gaps between higher-income white students and lower-income students of color. Taken together, Kane concludes that education reform may be “the most important social policy success of the last half century,” contrary to the prevailing public narrative of failure.

Similarly, at the district level, Parker Baxter of the University of Colorado shared his research demonstrating analogous student performance trends, correlated with Denver’s “portfolio management” reform initiative. Starting about 15 years ago, the city of Denver embarked on a plan to open up public education to a more diverse set of schools and school operators in a model of co-existence and collaboration involving both autonomous district schools and charter schools, within a unified parental choice enrollment system and a framework of accountability for results.

At the classroom level, two speakers highlighted the success of certain educational programs and practices. Boston College Professor Sean Dougherty reported on positive graduation, employment, and earnings outcomes for students (especially boys) enrolled in career-technical programs in several states, including Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Journalist Emily Hanford of American Public Media summarized the reporting of her “Sold a Story” podcast, which highlighted the efficacy of a “science of reading” approach to early literacy, including daily direct instruction in phonics for young children.

As important as identifying what’s working, colloquium speakers also pointed out what’s not. Emily Hanford focused on “balanced literacy” models of curriculum and pedagogy, which tend to minimize or undermine systematic phonics instruction, relying instead on work-arounds that significantly delay reading proficiency and, in many cases (especially for low-income students, students from households where English is not the first language, and students with dyslexia), severely damage long-term educational success.

A professor of economics at MIT, Parag Pathak, presented the results of his recent study on the effects of school busing in New York City and Boston. According to Pathak’s analysis, compared to neighborhood school assignment, busing has marginally improved racial and ethnic integration, especially for Black students, but has done little or nothing to improve educational outcomes.

Returning the theme of hope, Harvard Professor Danielle Allen shared her work in building a broad-based national coalition around an emerging approach to civics education, called, “The Roadmap for Educating for American Democracy.” Given the ideologically charged controversies swirling in and around America’s schools, finding common ground with regard to civics is a daunting challenge, but Allen and her colleagues have made significant progress in this nonpartisan attempt to provide educators with a practical framework, with aligned tools and resources, for offering students “inquiry-based content.”

Of course, where there’s hope, there’s also harsh reality. Commenter Robert Pondiscio, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, praised Allen’s efforts to strengthen civics education, but cautioned that past attempts to harmonize state standards have been met with resistance from both educators and politicians. He suggested further that at the moment there is not even a consensus on whether our public schools should take seriously their role in preparing young people for American citizenship, let alone agreement on what that preparation should look like.

An even more bracing reality check was provided by Marguerite Roza of Georgetown University, who reported that while the flood of federal Covid dollars into states, cities, and school districts is unprecedented, it is also unsustainable. In fact, it will dry up before the end of next year. Based on extensive data collection regarding recent school spending patterns, Roza projects that many districts will soon be running headlong over a fiscal cliff, as they incorporate their one-time federal dollars into ongoing operating budgets and collective bargaining agreements. Unless prudent steps are taken soon, many districts will be confronted with deep and painful budget cuts, just around the corner.

So, what does it all mean? I think it means that we need to think about educational reform as a journey, rather than a destination. Success is defined by persistent progress, notwithstanding the risks, setbacks, and false starts. The good news is we are making progress, which means we need to value staying the course as much as we do innovation and change. To my mind, that implies reinforcing the foundations of standards-based reform, while identifying and supporting those programs and practices that are reliably producing results where it counts, in the classroom. It also means walking away from what’s not working and making smart fiscal and management decisions to sustain continuous improvement.

James A. Peyser is the former secretary of education for Massachusetts.

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Stanford Summer Math Camp Researchers Defend Study

Jack Dieckmann — Tue, 23 May 2023 20:15:59 +0000

Stanford University was the site of a summer math camp whose outcomes were studied.

To the Editors:

Tom Loveless’s analysis piece on the California Math Framework (California’s New Math Framework Doesn’t Add Up) was thick with criticism of the framework.

The framework was the product of a careful, considered, laborious, and collaborative legislative process, and it has widespread public support. In fact, the signatories on the support petition, from STEM professionals, educators, and 66 organizations, outnumber those in the oppositional petition Loveless cites.

We are in particular concerned over his critique of the study of Youcubed summer camps cited in the framework.

The first Youcubed summer camp was conducted at Stanford in 2015. This first session resulted in achievement gains equivalent to 2.8 years of school. A video of the students participating in that very first camp can be seen here.

As Loveless notes, a later study of camps conducted in 10 districts across the U.S., with an average achievement gain equivalent to 1.6 years of school.

Participating school districts invested countless hours organizing and running their camps, providing students with new ways and new outlooks through which they might engage with mathematics. The camps changed students’ learning and their levels of enthusiasm for mathematics the further they progressed through each camp program. These school districts supplied all of their research data to Youcubed at Stanford, and their efforts, as well as the immeasurable accomplishments of their students, should be lauded, rather than torn to shreds.

The Loveless piece describes the study of these camps as an “in-house” study. The truer description is that Stanford University researchers studied camps conducted by others across the U.S. The statistics produced were vetted by external evaluators, and the resulting journal article was peer reviewed by Frontiers in Education, a scientific journal.

Loveless argues further that there was no control group for the study’s analysis of test-score outcomes. He fails to mention the main result of the study – that the achievement of the students attending the camps was evaluated through analysis of their math GPAs in their following school year, compared to a control group. The result of this was that the students attending Youcubed camps achieving significantly higher math GPAs. This result is based on a quasi-experimental design in which students who attended the camps were statistically matched with students who demonstrated similar levels of prior achievement but did not attend the camps. Comparison groups drew from administrative and demographic student-level data. We matched on various characteristics including socioeconomic status, gender, English-learner status, special education status, and previous math grade point averages. The statisticians performed several sensitivity tests to ensure the robustness of the findings.

The Loveless piece critiques the use of Mathematics Assessment Resource Services (MARS) tasks as pre- and post-tests. These particular tasks were chosen because they are well-respected assessments scored by external evaluators. The Loveless writeup omits the rich legacy of these assessments, and their importance in assessing mathematical understanding.

Non-enrolled students did not take the MARS assessments because the tests were administered in two 40-minute blocks of time and were typically administered on the first day of camp. The students did not work on “similar problems” in camp, and the questions were chosen to measure algebraic understanding. These assessments were used alongside math GPAs as a measure of change, and were included in the statistical model as just one of perhaps many dimensions of mathematical understanding.

The Loveless piece further omits an important finding of the Stanford camp study which showed that, across the 10 Youcubed camps sites, the more hours the students spent in their respective camps, the greater their improvement on assessments.

Lastly, Loveless’s critique of the proposed California Framework’s approach to “automaticity” steps over the fact that the framework plainly highlights numerical understanding as an absolute necessity, positing that students can learn math facts and other number bonds with deeper and more expansive levels of understanding, than through rote memorization.

Loveless closes his Youcubed takedown by saying “if the Youcubed gains are to be believed, all pandemic learning loss can be restored, and additional gains achieved, by two to four weeks of summer school.”

Youcubed does stand by its conclusions. It is probably true that if students were to receive concentrated and focused interventions that targeted mathematical understanding, rather than the same sort of rote memorization that has been taught not just for decades, but for centuries, any loss of mathematics achievement caused by the Covid pandemic could be reversed. Our camps provide just one example of how this can be done.

Youcubed is an open organization that encourages expansive thought and free-flowing collaboration. That same spirit infuses how we teach others to teach — interactively and cooperatively, with an eye always trained on what works, and what will stick with students over the long haul, as they traverse the earliest years of their schooling, and then transition to whatever future path may suit them best.

A response from Tom Loveless to this letter is available at “Stanford Summer Math Camp Defense Doesn’t Add Up, Either.”

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“Stop Wishing Away Evidence of No Progress”

Frederick Hess — Mon, 15 May 2023 09:00:04 +0000

David Steiner, the executive director of the Institute for Education Policy at Johns Hopkins University, has written a new book, A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America’s Schools. I first got to know David two decades ago, when I talked him into writing a chapter that took a hard look at course syllabi in teacher preparation (for the 2004 book A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom?). His reward for a pioneering analysis was to become a pariah in education school circles. But this didn’t stop his career in education: David became the director of arts education at the National Endowment for the Arts, returned to academe as the dean of Hunter College’s school of ed., and then served as New York’s education commissioner. Meanwhile, Kate Walsh, one of my co-editors on that 2004 book, launched the National Council of Teacher Quality, which earned big headlines when it supersized his scrutiny. The publication of his new book seemed like a good chance to talk with David about schooling, wisdom, and the changed educational landscape. Here’s what he had to say.

David M. Steiner

Hess: You’re out with a new book, A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America’s Schools: What prompted you to write it?

Steiner: First, observations: I had too many visits to schools in which elementary-aged children were alive with energy and curiosity, while older students were visibly listless, bored, or acting out. And second, research: understanding how our nation’s academic standards, assessments, and teacher-preparation programs work against rigorous and compelling instruction. For example, the major 5th and 10th grade standards in English/language arts are practically identical: “Determine the meaning of words.” At the core of these standards is the requirement to find the main idea in each text. But after doing so a hundred times a semester, it’s tough to be excited about reading the next book. The architect of our ELA standards has said the skill set of a strong reader is that of a detective. This sounds intriguing: Should we transform a novel or play into a crime scene? But what would it mean to “solve” The Bluest Eye or War and Peace? Can we answer why Hamlet prevaricated by circling the “correct response” in a multiple-choice test? We need to re-evaluate our standards to foster engaging responses from students when they read these books.

Hess: The subtitle is Restoring Wisdom in America’s Schools: What do you mean by “wisdom”?

Steiner: ChatGPT tells us it’s the ability to make sound judgments and exhibit practical knowledge. I say it’s having one’s mind furnished with the riches of our collective culture—the active recall of scientific knowledge, paintings, film, music, poetry, and narratives from fiction and nonfiction—past and present. This makes sound judgments possible, rendering us more thoughtful. We spend more of our life with ourselves than with anyone else. When we have only our minds as interlocutors, what is the quality of that private discourse? The gift of an education in wisdom is that our inner dialogues are worth having, meaning we won’t be a complete bore to ourselves.

Hess: You say that American education lost its way when it turned away from the academic core. Can you say a bit about what you have in mind?

Steiner: Understandably disillusioned by too many failed efforts at education reform, we started by shooting the messenger—deciding that test results don’t matter—and simultaneously became fascinated by shiny new goals: metacognitive thought, positive mindset, 21st-century skills, and creative thinking. The research base supporting our focus on these goals is far weaker than most educators assume. Social and emotional well-being is important: We absolutely need mental health counselors for distressed children and supportive, responsive teaching that is simultaneously exacting and demanding from our teachers. Research on SEL has produced a small number of useful findings, such as the importance of a child making a trusting connection with an adult in the school. But arguing that, after millennia of pedagogy, we have suddenly discovered a new science simply isn’t justified.

Hess: That sounds appealing, but just what does “teaching that is simultaneously exacting and demanding from our teachers” look like in practice?

Steiner: First, it starts with teachers’ deep disciplinary knowledge and love for their subject matter. It’s impossible to teach what one doesn’t know and tough to convey effectively what one finds dull. When teachers are passionate about sharing content, that passion is infectious. Second, we need to help teachers not to teach down to children from marginalized communities. All students will rise to rigorous and passionate teaching if it is offered to them. Finally, as a society, we need to stop telling ourselves that we can replace academic mastery with critical thinking about nothing in particular.

Hess: You write, “If you wanted to design an education system for failure, what we’ve got is pretty close.” What do you mean by that?

Steiner: Three of the major pillars of our education system—how we prepare teachers, what we test, and what they teach—embody industries that exist in their own bubble. Teachers are given a curriculum to teach that they have never or barely seen before. Our ELA tests don’t evaluate what students read and instead reward the affluent for their greater levels of background knowledge. Too many of our teachers are taught to act as DJs, curating individual playlists of materials from Google, thus ensuring that a child’s education is a matter of random luck. As a whole, our system is siloed and incoherent, and then we are surprised when students have trouble learning.

Hess: You also suggest that we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that things are getting better—in terms of GPA and graduation rates. What makes you say that?

Steiner: We have assumed that 20 years of rising high school GPAs and graduation rates, stronger 4th grade reading results, and higher numbers of Americans graduating from college mean that American schooling is doing something fundamentally right. But it isn’t: As 12th grade NAEP results indicate, our high school seniors are doing no better than they did two decades ago. Grade inflation—both in high schools and institutions of higher education—ensures that we now count as success what was once considered failure. Are there extenuating explanations for flat outcomes? Well, from 2002 to 2020, inflation-adjusted per-pupil expenditure rose. While the percentage of children receiving lunch support also rose, child-poverty rates in 2000 and 2020 were the same. Yes, certain states wrongly underfund the education of underprivileged students, and the rising number of English-language learners is educationally challenging, although only 4 percent of NAEP’s 2019 12th grade reading test-takers were ELL students. But on balance, flat results mean what they say. We need to stop wishing away evidence of no progress.

Hess: We’ve talked a lot about the challenges. So, what needs to be done? What are a few of the key steps when it comes to doing better?

Steiner: In pre-K education, we need to learn from what has and hasn’t worked with Head Start and benefit from international experience to create both scale and quality control. Then, we need to shift our teaching and testing from a damaging overemphasis on so-called “skills” to a focus on rich content and conceptual understanding. We should replace the isolation of one teacher in one classroom with team teaching under the guidance of properly compensated master teachers. We need a new school calendar to reduce summer melt. Finally, we should expand the list of subjects that can count for children’s futures: High school students should be able to study such disciplines as the arts, graphic design, statistics, environmental science, and foreign languages and to link success in their studies directly to college entrance and/or future employment.

Hess: If I’m a public official or educational leader and this resonates, how do I get started?

Steiner: First, align the instructional core. You should create knowledge-based standards; insist on high-quality, content-rich instructional materials; provide assessments that test mastery of those materials; attract a diverse teaching core; and provide a full year of clinical preparation to teach those materials under the supervision of well-prepared mentors. Second, attend to the bookends. You should close the early opportunity-to-learn gaps and create opportunities for high school students to study a wider array of subject matter. Finally, stop playing political football with education. Instead of culture wars, transmit what is finest in our multicultural inheritance and educate children to be thoughtful guardians and informed inventors of our collective future.

Frederick Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an executive editor of Education Next.

This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.

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Yes, Petting a Guinea Pig Can Be SEL, if It’s Done Effectively

Stephanie Jones — Thu, 11 May 2023 09:00:37 +0000

“Is Petting a Guinea Pig SEL?,” Rick Hess recently asked in a post about what feels like an ever-growing list of programs and strategies intended to cultivate social and emotional learning in schools. The method he highlights aims to build SEL skills through interaction with pets in the classroom. The question Hess asks is valid, but to address it in earnest, we need to look beyond any specific approach and return to what we know about the science and practice of SEL. We’ve written about this in the past (See “Social-Emotional Learning: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and What We Know” and “An Antidote to the ‘Fever’ of Social and Emotional Learning: Build from Science and Evidence, and Ask the Right Questions.”) Here, we describe the spectrum of SEL approaches and what constitutes high-quality programs, strategies, or practices.

What Is Effective SEL?

Research and our own experience working with schools and teachers indicate that SEL initiatives are most effective when they do the following. These basic components are elements of high-quality instruction in any topic—academic and extracurricular.

Follow the Teach-Model-Practice-Discuss Structure. The most effective SEL efforts target specific skills and combine direct instruction with explicit opportunities for practice and reflection. For example, in our own work, we encourage adults to engage in the following approach to SEL:

Teach: Adults clearly name SEL concepts, vocabulary, and skills and provide children with explicit instruction in developmentally and culturally appropriate ways.
Model: Adults both model and live the skills and attitudes they hope to see in children.
Practice: Adults and settings provide opportunities for and capitalize on real-life openings for children to practice skills (i.e., integrate skill practice into everyday activities and interactions).
Discuss: Adults take the time to talk with children about what happens when a challenge arises, identify skills they can use to address the challenge, and reflect on how the episode went.

Direct instruction in SEL can take many different forms, including role-play, games, books and stories, song and dance, discussions, and yes—even caring for pets! The key is to make the skill being cultivated explicit in one way or another. These experiences might be part of a structured SEL program or occur organically throughout the day. Regardless of the instructional approach, the key is to make explicit, discuss, and reflect on what is being learned during these activities.

Occur within a Supportive Context. We know that learning environments that are safe, secure, enriching, and conducive to developing positive relationships promote SEL skill development and the use of SEL skills. Schools, classrooms, and other learning environments that best support children to learn and use SEL skills include a combination of activities, routines, and procedures that build SEL skills and establish prosocial norms for both children and adults (e.g., calm-down corners and listening sticks for young children, or classroom agreements and goal-setting checklists for older youth). Even the best SEL efforts are unlikely to be successful when implemented in schools or classrooms that feel unsafe or unpredictable.

Extend across Settings. Effective SEL programming should provide continuous, consistent opportunities to build and practice skills across settings, including at home and in the community. Many approaches to SEL focus on one setting, such as a guidance counselor’s office, classroom, or extracurricular activity. However, SEL skills are important for navigating all areas of a school, particularly the unstructured ones such as playgrounds, lunchrooms, hallways, bathrooms, and buses. SEL skills are also needed at home and out in the world. Non-classroom contexts provide vital opportunities for students to apply SEL skills learned in the classroom to real-life situations, helping to solidify those skills into everyday tools and habits.

Support High-Quality Implementation. The success of SEL initiatives relies on more than just putting in place a strong, evidence-based set of strategies or curriculum—research shows that how carefully and consistently they’re implemented plays a critical role in how effective they are. High-quality SEL implementation includes providing sufficient staff support and training (including opportunities for adults to develop their own SEL skills); allotting sufficient time and resources to plan and execute SEL efforts effectively, and ideally in a manner aligned and integrated with other instructional plans; facilitating ownership and buy-in from staff, students, and families; and using data to guide decision-making. SEL activities are often seen as optional or secondary, and are often abridged in ways that limit their effectiveness, or are skipped entirely. Schools have limited time and many competing priorities, but investing in SEL alongside academics ultimately supports improved academic performance, behavior, and attitudes about school.

The SEL Continuum

Based on the features of effective SEL described above, programs claiming to be SEL or SEL-related tend to lie on a continuum from “Not SEL (though sometimes mistaken as SEL)” to “High-quality SEL (effective, evidence-based SEL).”

On the left we highlight approaches that are not SEL, though sometimes claim to be or are misinterpreted as such. Though these approaches are often oriented around classroom or behavior management, they are problematic as they run counter to what research tells us about children’s social and emotional development. Reactive and exclusionary discipline policies, for example, inhibit children’s abilities to build and practice self-regulation skills and jeopardize the relationships between students and teachers.

In the middle, we note those that are taking steps towards implementing evidence-based SEL, but don’t yet have key infrastructure, support, or implementation plans in place.

And finally on the right, we underscore the key features of high-quality SEL implementation, providing guidance to those in the yellow zone hoping to improve SEL efforts in their settings.

So, is petting a guinea pig SEL? Lasting social and emotional development certainly could happen when children have the opportunity to care for a pet in the classroom, but in the absence of stronger evidence about that specific program, we just don’t know. What we do know is that having a guinea pig in the classroom without the elements we’ve described cannot accurately be called SEL. It is also unlikely to be effective. It could even be harmful to children and the field if expectations are set and not achieved. Conducting rigorous studies requires a lot of time, money, and other resources that many smaller organizations—even those with good ideas—don’t have. But what we do know is that if a program meets the components of effective SEL described above and is implemented correctly, it’s more likely to produce positive results.

Stephanie M. Jones is Gerald S. Lesser Professor of Child Development and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an author of Navigating SEL from the Inside Out, Looking Inside & Across Leading SEL Programs: A Practical Resource for Schools and OST Providers (Preschool and Elementary Focus and the Middle and High School Focus). Sophie P. Barnes is a Doctoral Candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Katharine Brush is a Senior Research Manager at the Ecological Approaches to Social and Emotional Learning (EASEL) Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a co-author of the Navigating SEL guides.

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What Is an Education Savings Account, and Why Does It Matter?

Frederick Hess — Thu, 11 May 2023 08:50:12 +0000

Eleven states now have ESA programs on the books.

I occasionally take up reader queries. If you’d like to send one along, just send it to me, care of Caitlyn Aversman, at caitlyn.aversman@aei.org.

Dear Rick,

I’ve been seeing a lot about education savings accounts in the past six months. I understand that several states have passed laws, and Republicans here are talking about them. Maybe I’m behind the times, but I don’t quite get what they are. Is this another name for a school voucher? Is this something totally different? I’ve seen you mention them a few different times and I’m hoping you can shed some light.

Sincerely,

A Little Bit Puzzled

Dear Puzzled,

Fear not, you’re in good company. I’ve encountered savvy reporters who aren’t quite clear on what education savings accounts (ESAs) are. Heck, there are Republican lawmakers who support them yet aren’t real clear on the difference between an ESA and a voucher. So, it’s a timely question. I’ll do my best to help clear things up.

I’ll offer a short, practical answer first. Then, I’ll talk more fully about why ESAs could be really significant and close by acknowledging that their practical significance is very much up in the air.

In theory, ESAs are very different from more familiar forms of school choice like school vouchers or charter schooling, which give parents a mechanism to move their child from one school to another. ESAs, on the other hand, entail states depositing a student’s education funds into a dedicated account. Families are then able to use those dollars to mix-and-match education goods and services from schools and other providers. This works the same way as health savings accounts, with which many readers may be familiar. ESAs seek to shift us from a system of “school” choice to one of “educational” choice, opening the door to a less school-centric system of education and blurring the lines between traditional schooling, home schooling, and online learning. Of course, how the laws get written, how these programs will actually work, and whether families will want to take advantage of this flexibility are open questions.

OK, now the longer answer. While some regard this kind of shift as disconcerting, the truth is that parents routinely make complicated decisions on behalf of their kids. Heck, we take for granted that families will choose child-care providers, pediatricians, dentists, babysitters, and summer programs. Many of these choices involve parents making decisions that are subsidized or covered by public funds. And all of them have big implications for a child’s health, well-being, and upbringing. In other words, there’s nothing remarkable about families making publicly subsidized decisions about how to raise their kids.

In a field like health care, even passionate advocates of universal, publicly funded coverage (like Bernie Sanders) still think people should get to choose their own doctor. And even the most ardent champions of public housing want families to have more freedom to choose where they live. There’s just no debate about whether we should seek to give families more agency when it comes to such high-stakes decisions in health care or housing.

And there’s more. The promise of publicly provided health care is not just that you can choose whether to use hospital A or hospital B; it’s that you can choose individual practitioners. If you like your pediatrician but need a specialist, your doctor will provide a recommendation, but you can choose to go elsewhere. While many patients defer to their doctors, there are all sorts of reasons for wanting the right to mix-and-match. The weird thing is that the cutting edge in education has been a fight about whether it’s OK for families to leave school A for school B. I mean, what’s remarkable is that the proponents of socialized medicine have offered a more robust vision of publicly funded choice than have school choice advocates!

ESAs are, in large part, a response to the limits of school choice. School choice isn’t really a good solution for parents who like their schools but have more specific concerns. And given that the lion’s share of parents say they like their kid’s school, this means that school choice isn’t much help for many students or families. After all, parents can like their school and still want better speech therapy, math instruction, behavioral coaching, tutoring, or whatnot. Telling those families, “You can change schools,” isn’t all that helpful, especially if it means arranging transport to a less convenient school, away from the student’s friends.

The result is that school choice primarily serves those families who view their schools as unsafe, academically inept, or fundamentally misdirected—it doesn’t do much to help make an OK (or good) education better. ESAs can potentially remedy that by allowing those families to swap out a school’s math class or speech therapy for an online option or other alternative. This could be good for students, schools, and parent-school relations—and this kind of mix-and-match dynamic might even encourage parents to be more aware of cost and quality.

The distinction between ESAs and school vouchers (or charter schools) is clear in theory. In practice? Not as much. Eleven states now have ESA programs on the books, and, given that, it’s natural to think that these are, you know, full-blown ESAs. In truth, though, the ESAs created by these laws frequently work a lot like lump-sum voucher programs, with families quite limited in their ability to mix-and-match. Add the fact that these programs frequently require parents to pull their children from public schools to be eligible for the ESA, are subject to a variety of restrictions, depend mightily on execution, and may be available to only a limited number of families, and we’re a long way from the kind of radical evolution that supporters seek and critics fear.

As I’ve so often noted, theory is swell, but practice is what matters. And, when it comes to ESAs, there is a big difference between theory and practice today. Whether ESAs deliver on their potential will ultimately be a function of how laws are written, implemented, and managed, and whether families choose to make use of them.

For good or ill, ESAs may prove to be a very big deal. But we’re not there yet.

Frederick Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an executive editor of Education Next.

This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.

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Red Sox Turn Fenway Park into “Learning Lab” for Boston 6th Graders

Ira Stoll — Fri, 05 May 2023 12:41:03 +0000

Students from the 6th grade at Nathan Hale School complete a “bingo challenge” as part of the Red Sox Hall of Fame stop on their guided tour of the Fenway Park Learning Lab.

A class of 6th graders from the Nathan Hale School in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood listened intently as Linda Henry explained how her husband John Henry’s childhood interest in baseball statistics had inspired a love of math that fueled his career, from a card-counting blackjack system to a statistically based commodities company to, eventually, owning the Red Sox.

Then the students heard the head of MassMutual U.S., Mike Fanning, talk about how he had lived as a kid with his immigrant grandparents, who taught him that “America is a land of opportunity,” and that “the key to unlock opportunity is education and hard work.”

Fanning described how Henry and the ownership group that bought the Red Sox in 2002 used data analytics to help the team win four World Series victories, breaking a dry spell that had dated back to 1918. “Be curious, and be a lifelong learner,” he advised the students.

And then, after a surprise visit from Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers, who earlier this year signed a $331 million, 11-year contract extension with the team, the students went off on the first-ever tour of what the team is calling the Fenway Park Learning Lab.

Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers speaks with a 6th grade student from Nathan Hale School at a kickoff event for Fenway Park Learning Lab.

The Red Sox Foundation and the Mass Mutual Foundation plan to start with 1,000 students this year and ramp up over the next 4 years so that every Boston Public Schools 6th grader visits the ballpark for the educational experience. The district currently enrolls 2,852 6th graders, according to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The six-stop tour has students learning history, geography, math, and science. Student visitors get baseball caps, t-shirts, and a backpack full of other souvenir items like baseball cards, binoculars, a calculator, and a pen. The most important piece of equipment may be a 40-page, seriously substantive workbook, developed with the Boston Public Schools, that students work their way through along the hourlong guided tour.

A baseball stadium turns out to be surprisingly fertile ground for teaching a wide range of subjects. Looking at the Red Sox win-loss record on the manually operated scoreboard on the left field “Green Monster” wall, students are asked to figure out how many games the team has played, and the team’s winning percentage. A stop at the Red Sox Hall of Fame has students reading the text on the historic plaques—and writing a plaque “for someone in your life who inspires you.” The turnips, arugula, scallions, and swiss chard growing in 2,400 milkcrates in the rooftop “Fenway Farms” are an occasion for a brief science lesson about oxygen and carbon dioxide. During a visit to the Fenway press box, students look at maps to locate the home countries and states of Red Sox players. History, and the integration of baseball, comes up when students peer out at the number 42 posted at Fenway in memory of Jackie Robinson. Financial literacy is taught by having students budget a meal based on a Fenway concession menu.

Fenway has been open to guided visits by paying tourists for years. The tour guide for the Hale School students, David Ranen, had more than 40 years of experience as an educator, 39 of them working for the Amherst-Pelham School District in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. He has served as a music teacher and guidance counselor and seemed quite comfortable questioning the students, keeping their attention, and leading the students through the educational activities.

Seven or eight of the students, and Hale school principal Candice Whitmore, raised their hands to indicate it was their first time ever inside Fenway Park. It was a reminder that for the Red Sox, the program might work not only as a way to help its hometown but also as a way to cultivate a new generation of fans.

The executive director of the Red Sox Foundation, Bekah Salwasser, responded to a question from Education Next in a telephone interview in advance of the May 4 event by saying that the foundation would be open to expanding the opportunity beyond Boston Public Schools district. With additional funding and staffing, she said, the program could “ideally spread far and wide,” to also include charter and parochial school students, and perhaps even those outside Boston or Massachusetts, as far away as Maine or Connecticut. “Red Sox nation is everywhere,” she said.

A 2014 Education Next research article found educational benefits of a field trip to an art museum. This program is too new to evaluate, but if the effects of early, inspirational exposure to baseball statistics on Boston public school 6th graders are anything like what they were on John Henry, the impact may be both significant and positive.

Ira Stoll is managing editor of Education Next.

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New York City Public School Spending Soars to $38,000 per Student

Frederick Hess — Thu, 04 May 2023 09:00:17 +0000

A student climbs the steps at Richard R. Green Middle School in the Bronx borough of New York City, February 25, 2021.

I find that when you tell someone a school costs $38,000, they usually picture a ritzy private school with lots of bells and whistles. Well, last month, the Citizens Budget Commission reported that New York City’s public schools will spend $38,000 per student next year. And yet there’s little evidence that parents or teachers think the Big Apple’s schools are delivering that bells-and-whistles education.

So, let’s try something a little different today. Instead of calling for more funds or proposing a series of reforms to tackle teacher pay, staffing, or student mental health, let’s ask how else the New York City school district might spend those funds. Can it get more bang for its buck?

This is the kind of simple exercise I urge in The Great School Rethink, and I’ve found that the results can be revealing. Indeed, I suspect the district could double teacher pay, triple the student-counselor ratio, boost support for parents and teachers, ramp up its tech abilities—and do it all within the confines of its existing budget.

Let’s see if I’ve got a case. Envision a hypothetical 4th grade classroom in a typical New York City school. Let’s ask, if given a clean slate, how we might design it. For convenience, we’ll stick with the familiar and won’t get into things like home schooling or hybrid options.

The average New York City elementary class currently has between 24 and 25 students, but a new law will reduce that to 23 in the fall. So, presume there are 23 students in the class.

Spending $38,000 per student on 23 students yields a sum of $874,000. Let’s set aside 40 percent for district administration, including facilities, maintenance, meals, utilities, transport, testing, compliance, and such. That costs our class $350,000 (and leaves the central administration with roughly $15 billion a year—or more than $15,000 per pupil).

Across the city’s public schools, there is currently 1 counselor for every 325 students. Let’s roughly triple that ratio, to 1 for every 115 students. Counselors in the city’s schools earn a bit under $70,000, on average; let’s give them a 50 percent raise to $105,000, yielding a total tab of $130,000 with benefits. The cost to our 23-student class would be $26,000.

Top-end technology, personal laptops, and appropriate support can run $350 per student, or $8,000. Let’s add an on-site dedicated IT specialist for our K-5 school (which we’ll presume has 690 students). If we figure a $120,000 salary, with benefits bringing the total cost to $150,000, the specialist will cost another $5,000—for a total tech price tag of $13,000.

Pencil in two schoolwide P.E. teachers, a schoolwide music teacher, and a 4th and 5th grade fine arts teacher (shared across six classes). If we pay each teacher $120,000 (note that we’re offering some massive pay bumps) with commensurate benefits, that’s a cost of $150,000 each. Our class’ share of the total cost comes to $40,000.

Add in the cost of a principal, three assistant principals, a school secretary, a security presence, and special education support. Estimate the campus cost at an even $2 million a year, with our class paying its proportionate share. That’s about $67,000.

We’ll create a dedicated 4th grade staffer to coordinate parent outreach, assist parents, and provide back-office/secretarial support to three 4th grade teachers. If pay is $70,000 (yielding a total cost of $90,000, with benefits), that’s $30,000 to each 4th grade classroom.

And then there’s classroom instruction. Let’s double the pay of the classroom teacher, to $160,000, at a cost of $200,000 with benefits. Just to be clear: This means that the average New York City 4th grade teacher would earn that much. And we’ll add an aide who earns $70,000 (a bit more than a starting teacher in the city earns today), at a total cost of $90,000. So classroom staff costs $290,000.

Add it all up, and it comes to $816,000, leaving a bit over $2,500 per student for additional outlays.

Now, I’m the first to acknowledge that this thought experiment has all kinds of limitations. For starters, even if it wished to do so, the district leadership can’t just shrug off existing obligations or contractual constraints. But it’s valuable to see what’s possible: that different choices could allow New York City’s schools to ramp up counseling, enhance technology, bolster arts instruction, give parents and teachers better support, and radically boost teacher pay. Seeing what’s conceivable might give us the confidence to stop settling for what’s customary.

Frederick Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an executive editor of Education Next.

This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.

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Will Dismal New National Test Results in Civics and History Finally Spark Improvements?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. — Wed, 03 May 2023 10:22:04 +0000

Aaargh. Here we go again. The new National Assessment of Educational Progress civics and history results are as deplorable as they were predictable. Whether they’ll also serve as the action-forcer that we need is far from certain. Is this to be a “Sputnik moment” on the civics front or another yawner?

NAEP has been testing U.S. history since 1994, civics since 1998, and the results have always been bleak. At its peak in 2014, the “Nations Report Card” showed a meager 18 percent of eighth graders to be “proficient” in history while 22 percent reached that threshold in civics. Year after year, assessment after assessment, those two key subjects have reaped the lowest scores of anything tested by NAEP.

Declines in both set in after 2014—well before Covid hit—and it was inevitable that post-pandemic scores would be even worse. Now we’re essentially back to the starting line, i.e. around the same levels as when these subjects were first reported by NAEP. And (as we’ve recently seen in reading and math) the declines are worst among low-scoring students, which is to say those who possess the least knowledge and skills in history and civics have experienced the most severe losses.

What’s doubly troubling—but perhaps doubly attention-getting—is that this has happened just as many in the education and policy worlds are striving to launch a renaissance in civics, citizenship and the historical understandings that must undergird them.

Any number of organizations and projects are working at this. (I’ve been engaged with several, including the estimable Educating for American Democracy venture and its “roadmap for excellence in history and civics.”) They’re responding not just to test scores but also—even more so—to the troubled state of the polity, the erosion of good citizenship, the travails of civil society, and loss of faith in the fundamental institutions and processes of our constitutional democracy.

Educating schoolkids in civics and history is in no way the whole solution to these deep-seated problems but it has to be part of any solution—and evidence abounds that we’re doing a lousy job of it. The new NAEP results just underscore the blunt fact that the vast majority of U.S. 8th graders don’t know squat about U.S. history or civics.

But why? I’m seeing five big contributing factors:

First, most states have lousy standards for these core subjects, meaning that their expectations for what K-12 students should learn are low, vague or otherwise lacking. My Fordham colleagues demonstrated this in a voluminous 2021 report that found just five jurisdictions (four states plus DC) with “exemplary” standards in both subjects. It’s true that standards alone don’t teach anybody anything, but it’s also true that if you don’t have a clear destination for your journey you could wander forever and get nowhere.

Second, weak standards are part of a larger “infrastructure” problem in social studies education, admirably documented in a recent RAND study. Although focused on the elementary grades, the failings itemized in that analysis—which include incoherent curricula, lack of teacher support, meager instructional time, ill-prepared teachers, an absence of accountability—apply pretty much across the entire span of K-12 schooling.

Third, curricular materials in this field—with history and civics often submerged in a “social studies” muddle that may be as much about pop-sociology and psychology as essential information and analytic skills—are mostly mediocre, the good ones are little used, and some popular texts are pretty awful. Check out EdReports and the What Works Clearinghouse and you’ll find the curricular cupboards barren for history and civics, this despite the fact that excellent tools exist by which to evaluate such curricula. And the culture wars and political posturings that have recently engulfed curricular deliberations are nowhere livelier than in the realm of social studies, although I’ve also called attention to a latent consensus across much of the land regarding what schools should teach in this realm.

Fourth, many teachers don’t know much about these subjects themselves. Typical certification requirements for social studies teachers include a smattering of “content” courses in any of the half-dozen disciplines that fall under this heading, but persons obtaining such certificates are then deemed qualified to teach any of those subjects. Which is to say a history teacher may have studied very little history and a civics teacher (who may also be the gym teacher) could have majored in anthropology.

Fifth, little time is devoted to history and civics over thirteen years of schooling and few schools or students are held to account for how well these subjects are learned. Though we routinely term them part of the “core curriculum” along with ELA, math and science, we don’t give them nearly as much attention as the other three and we’re far less likely to insist on any evidence of learning beyond, say, a passing grade in high school history and civics. It’s no help that few colleges pay attention to whether their applicants know anything about history or civics and almost none requires its own students to study these subjects. (Stanford is requiring freshman year civics as of next year.)

Is there hope? The bleak NAEP results could serve as a firebell in the night, the alarm we need to catalyze purposeful action, overcome our divisions and quell, at least for a moment, the curricular culture wars.

It’s not beyond imagining. Legislative action can already be glimpsed in many places and innumerable groups are actively promoting civics and history reforms of one kind or another. Advice abounds as to how to strengthen these elements of K-12 schooling.

My own advice is implicit in the five causes of decline that are spelled out above, as each implies its own remedy: Solid standards, robust infrastructure, quality curricula, well-prepared teachers, time-on-task, results-driven accountability. It’s really not rocket science.

But one more thing more is also crucial: we must improve our diagnostics, starting with NAEP itself. Why do we have history and civics results for 8th grade but not for 4th or (especially) 12th? It’s the end of K-12 when we most need solid data on what students have and have not learned. And why do we have only national data, not the state-level results that might drive serious action at the level that matters most? NAEPsters will offer all manner of explanations, starting with budget, but the fact remains that—here as everywhere—the problems likeliest to go unsolved are those that are poorly diagnosed in the first place. What we got from NAEP this week is necessary but in no way sufficient for a thorough diagnosis, the kind that points toward better targeted treatments.

That all this matters to the nation’s future is self-evident. That we will go beyond garment-rending and teeth-gnashing is less so.

Chester E. Finn, Jr., is a distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. He is also a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a former chair of the National Assessment Governing Board.

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Louisiana and Montana Test Out New, Less Time-Consuming Tests

Frederick Hess — Mon, 01 May 2023 09:01:10 +0000

New Meridian is an assessment company that launched in 2016 with the goal of making tests more useful for educators and students. Today, it works with more than 2,500 districts in five states. Given the need for good measures of student progress and better instructional support, especially after devastating pandemic-era declines in learning, I thought it worth taking a closer look at their efforts. Today, I talk with Arthur VanderVeen, the founder and CEO of New Meridian. Before founding New Meridian, he served as the executive director of college readiness at the College Board and as the executive director of assessment (and then chief of innovation) for the New York City Department of Education. Here’s what Arthur had to say.

Arthur VanderVeen

Hess: So, Arthur, what is New Meridian?

VanderVeen: New Meridian is a new kind of assessment-design company. We started in 2016 with a mission to develop the highest-quality assessments—focused on critical thinking, deep engagement with meaningful content, and effective expression. We design assessments for grades 3-8 and high school, covering science, math, and English/language arts/literacy (ELA). We now work with over 2,500 districts in five states, plus the Bureau of Indian Education and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) administering to millions of students each year.

Hess: What brought you to this role?

VanderVeen: I started New Meridian in 2016 to offer technical and operational support to the then-Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) states that were transitioning away from a strict consortium model to a more flexible collaboration. As a consortium, PARCC states had to agree on the same test design and use the same test-delivery vendor, making it difficult to be responsive to local needs; in the new model, New Meridian customized the test designs to individual states’ needs, drawing from a shared bank of high-quality test items to maintain economies of scale. We also made the items available to other states through a licensing model. My desire to support states with this innovative new approach grew from my days as director of assessments for the New York City Department of Education, where I was very familiar with the original conception of the PARCC assessments, and I didn’t want the states to lose the high-quality assessments as they faced political headwinds associated with the consortium. High-quality assessments have a significant impact on classroom instructional practice. If the state assessment measures the things that matter—critical thinking, deep engagement with meaningful texts, mathematical reasoning, and effective communication—teachers will focus on developing these critical skills in the classroom and more students will have access to a quality education. So I launched New Meridian to step in and help shepherd those states toward a more flexible operating model while maintaining the same commitment to high-quality assessment.

Hess: Let’s make this simple. What assessment problem are you all trying to solve?

VanderVeen: We are trying to reduce overall testing time while providing greater value to those who need it most: teachers and students. There’s no question that an effective teacher using a coherent and research-based curriculum is the greatest lever for accelerating student learning. We want to design assessments that reinforce that quality teaching, not disrupt it. That is why we are developing a new system of modular mini-assessments that can be flexibly aligned to a local curriculum to inform instruction while also providing a reliable, comparable measure of students’ mastery of grade-level standards. This approach will create a single system of assessments that gives teachers actionable instructional data, enables district administrators to monitor school performance and direct resources, and meets federal accountability requirements.

Hess: What’s distinctive about your approach?

VanderVeen: We’re taking a classroom-up approach to developing this system. You cannot squeeze instructionally valuable information out of an end-of-year summative assessment—it’s not designed for that. And current interim assessments are designed primarily to measure growth and predict performance on the end-of-year summative. That’s fine for the district administrator, but classroom teachers can’t use that data—it’s not aligned with how concepts are taught or detailed enough to inform the next steps. We’re using new test designs and psychometric models to glean more instructional value out of our short mini-assessments. Students have an opportunity to “level up” and continue to demonstrate their mastery throughout the year. Then, we pull all that data together into a comparable, reliable measure of grade-level mastery, without the redundancy or intrusion of a big end-of-year summative test. This approach will significantly reduce overall testing time and eliminate the lack of coherence between what our local assessments are telling us and what the state test is saying.

Hess: That’s intriguing, but can we get a little more concrete about these new test designs and psychometric models? Just how does this work?

VanderVeen: Our test designs focus on providing information that’s usable for instructional decisions. For every mini-assessment, we ask educators and learning experts, “What information about students’ learning progress on this set of concepts or skills would help you adjust your instruction?” We identify those “attributes” of learning development and write test questions that differentiate which ones students are mastering and which they are not. This may include relevant misconceptions that can block students’ learning progress. We then use sophisticated scoring models that combine information from multiple test questions and testlets to highlight which attributes need further instruction. For example, students typically learn proportional reasoning in middle school through multiple representations, including looking at patterns in data tables, determining the slope of graphs, writing equations, and interpreting verbal descriptions. Our testlets measure students’ learning progressions through these different dimensions of proportional reasoning, while allowing flexibility in how this foundational concept for algebra readiness is taught.

Hess: How do teachers get the classroom feedback? Can you talk a bit about the infrastructure at the local, classroom level?

VanderVeen: We are designing innovative new reports for teachers, students, and administrators that combine the instructionally focused information with ongoing, cumulative progress toward end-of-year standards mastery. Teachers use the diagnostic information to inform instructional decisions while they and their students monitor progress toward their end-of-year learning goals.

Hess: I know you all are currently piloting a few programs. Could you share a bit about those?

VanderVeen: We have partnered with two mission-driven, forward-thinking state education leaders—Superintendents Cade Brumley in Louisiana and Elsie Arntzen in Montana—who are challenging the status quo on behalf of their students. Both leaders are working to make assessments more accessible, more relevant, and more equitable by adopting a through-year model and aligning assessments more closely to the taught curriculum. This is our first pilot year, and it’s been really exciting. We convened teachers from both states together to write test items and we’ve been conducting empathy interviews, focus groups, and surveys to better understand what teachers, students, and families want in next-generation assessments. We’ve had strong philanthropic support to launch these pilots, and both states were also awarded Competitive Grants for State Assessment to fund a multiyear development program.

Hess: What kind of evidence is there regarding the efficacy of your assessments? What are you learning?

VanderVeen: We have a robust research program in place to validate both the instructional utility of our classroom reporting and the technical quality of the summative scores we will report for accountability purposes. It is critical that we do both well to achieve our goal of transforming state assessments. This year, we are piloting the test questions and blueprints and getting feedback on the design and usability of the system. We are analyzing the student test data to validate and refine our scoring models. For example, we are analyzing early student data to determine whether our scoring models can reliably differentiate the dimensions of proportional reasoning I mentioned earlier. As we get more data across larger populations of students, we will continue to refine our scoring models to support the instructional decisions teachers are making. This is a multiyear process, and we are excited to have state partners, technical advisers, researchers, and philanthropic support who are all committed to this journey. It’s critical because teachers and students need better classroom assessments that reinforce the curriculum and replace the end-of-year test, reducing overall testing time. This is our vision, and we are excited to be working with numerous partners who are also committed to this ambitious goal.

Frederick Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an executive editor of Education Next.

This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.

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